Empowered Relationship Podcast: Your Relationship Resource And Guide: Recent Episodes
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Licensed Psychologist, Relationship Coach & Transformational Coach.
Helping you turn relationship challenges into opportunities and setting you up for relationship success, satisfaction, and intimacy
Shame might be the silent architect behind our biggest relationship struggles—fueling secrecy, driving distance, and making genuine intimacy feel just out of reach. When the fear of rejection or not being enough sneaks in, it often keeps us locked in painful cycles of criticism, defensiveness, and disconnect. But what if the way we react to shame is the very thing sabotaging our deepest connections?
In this episode, the discussion dives into how shame operates beneath the surface of issues like betrayal, addiction, and disconnection, and offers concrete strategies for transforming these patterns. Through personal stories, therapeutic insights, and powerful principles such as courage, context, and compassion, listeners are guided in breaking free from shame’s grip. The conversation also explores practical ways to practice vulnerability, build safety, and foster more authentic connections—both with ourselves and our partners.
Brannon Patrick, LCSW, and Tyler Patrick, LMFT, are brothers and licensed clinicians who help individuals and couples heal after infidelity, addiction, and the trust rupture that follows. With 20+ years each in addiction and trauma work, they bring both depth and straight talk, translating complex psychology into practical next steps people can use immediately. Together, they host The Therapy Brothers, a weekly call-in show where real people work through betrayal, shame, trauma, and addiction in real time, with over 500 episodes and nearly 2 million downloads. Their approach centers on heart work: healing the underlying trauma and shame so couples can rebuild trust with honesty, accountability, empathy, and healthy strength.
Episode Highlights03:25 Overcoming betrayal and rebuilding trust.
07:34 Authenticity vs connection in relationships.
12:17 Shame's hidden impact on self-image.
15:35 Using IFS to overcome shame.
18:39 Choosing love and self-awareness.
21:10 Navigating shame's impact on relationships.
24:13 Navigating vulnerability in relationships.
28:28 Embracing compassion over self-criticism.
31:52 Exploring EFT and emotional connectivity.
34:48 Recovering trust after betrayal.
36:45 The trust equation and lasting love.
41:54 Beginning your healing journey.
Your Checklist of Actions to Take Practice Courage: Begin sharing your personal story and feelings with people you trust, focusing on authenticity and vulnerability. * Build Context: Remind yourself you are not alone in your struggles; seek out others with similar experiences to normalize your feelings and reduce shame. * Cultivate Compassion: Replace self-criticism with curiosity and kindness; when you notice a harsh inner voice, intentionally respond with understanding instead. * Separate Your Parts: Use parts work or Internal Family Systems (IFS) to identify shame-driven and protective parts within yourself, then approach them with gratitude rather than rejection. * Join a Support Group: Find or create safe spaces such as group therapy or support circles where you can practice vulnerability and receive nonjudgmental feedback. * Create Boundaries: Establish healthy internal and external boundaries so you can engage with others' emotions without absorbing attacks or losing your sense of self. * Get Professional Help: Explore modalities such as IFS, EMDR, ART, or DBT to address entrenched patterns and trauma that reinforce shame. * Work on Relationship Recovery*: If healing from betrayal, prioritize establishing safety and consistency, then focus on individual growth alongside nurturing relationship trust and intimacy.
MentionedThe Therapy Brothers (podcast)
Shifting Criticism For Connected Communication (free relationship guide)
Connect with Tyler and Brannon PatrickWebsite: therapybrothers.org
YouTube: youtube.com/@lovestrong | youtube.com/@therapy.brothers
Facebook: facebook.com/love.strong.org | facebook.com/ExpertBrannon
Instagram: instagram.com/therapy.brothers/ | instagram.com/sunrisegoal
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/brannon-patrick/ | linkedin.com/in/tyler-patrick-lmft-24488366/ | linkedin.com/in/chase-jones-b63368128
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Episode Transcript
Tyler and Brannon, thank you for joining us.
Brannon:
Thanks for having us.
Tyler:
Excited to be with you. Yeah.
You both are licensed clinicians, also fellow podcasters, and it sounds like you do a lot to support people navigating betrayal, infidelity, addiction, secrecy, all of those things. And I know we're going to dive a little bit more into how shame might be influencing those dynamics, those choices. Is there a place you want to start? Maybe, if you want to share anything with people who may be just getting to know you, but also as we orient to the topic.
Brannon:
Tyler, you want to start?
Tyler:
Sure. Brannon and I come by this from two different kinds of places, but we landed together in what we do and specialize in what we do with couples who are going through infidelity, betrayal of trust. Usually, there's some kind of addiction or something around that as well. And that comes both from a professional standpoint, in the way that we were trained, but also on my side, from a very personal standpoint. And so a lot of the principles that we teach our clients and a lot of the stuff we're going to talk about today with shame has been hard-earned in the trenches of life as well as in the trenches of school and academia. So everything we talk about here is it's got real life examples behind it.
It's been tested not only in the research and academic world, but also in the lived, real world.
Tyler:
That's right.
I love it. Brannon, do you want to say anything?
Brannon:
Yeah, you bring up, like, the shame piece to things and how it. How it affects the things that we specialize in. Addiction, betrayal, relationship issues. And the real question is how it doesn't. Like, it just is the reason for so much of it. And so we love to talk about it because you start to see it when you start to put words to it and understand what it actually is. So I'm excited to dive into that with you, Jessica.
Me too, so even as you say here, how does it not? Do you both see either unresolved shame or shame as a major component of some of these choices? I mean, sometimes people think of addiction, infidelity, these types of betrayals, as either a temporary escape or trying to manage an unmet need, but also there can be a limited capacity to. “To lean into the relationship with honesty and some of that transparency or the inadequacy that might be happening there with the shame. So, help us with how you see shame playing a role.”
Brannon:
“If you understand how we define shame.”
Yeah, let's start there.
Brannon:
“Yeah. I think underneath all of it is. It's fear of rejection or abandonment.” It's that exile part that's like, don't see me or else you'll reject me, or you won't choose me or love me. And so I don't think every time somebody cheats or falls into temptation or whatever it may be is just shame-driven. But usually after that, it leads to some secrecy. And
“Shame's best friend is secrecy”
And then it starts to deteriorate. Like a sense of self, I'm living in secrecy. If you really knew me, would you love me? I need to hide, and so then, as you have these secrets in a relationship, little things come up, and it's a little pushback of Don't get too close to me. I'll live in defensiveness; I'll overreact to certain things.
Brannon:
And it starts to cause all kinds of relationship problems. And it just kind of- it's like a domino effect from there, just so it also feeds addiction as well. If I feel a ton of shame and I feel awful about myself all the time, I need an escape. And so I go find my escape. And then after that escape, I feel worse about myself. And so it just cycles. It's cycles over and over again.
So it sounds like, as you're describing, it can be a way to cope with some of those inadequacy feelings or shame feelings. And it can also be a preemptive protective strategy, almost. It's like I'm going to create some barriers or blocks to my fear of being rejected or abandoned. It's almost like it's an offensive move. A bit of an offensive move before it even happens, like I'm anticipating. So I'm going to create these barriers.
Tyler:
Yeah, I'd say you could even take that a step further with what you're saying, Jessica. And look at just how relationships form in the first place, especially in the world that we live in now, where we've got two people who are putting on, like, what they think is their best foot forward, but in a lot of ways it's not really authentic. And then they get into a relationship that isn't fully authentic. And then they spend their whole relationship trying not to show each other to one another. And then they wonder why they can't find a connection with each other. And then, of course, that causes problems and strain. And so what we deal with is just something that goes a little bit deeper when the coping turns that way.
And so it's a weird place for us as human beings to live in a spot where we're wired for connection and attachment. We need it, we want it so badly. And now most of us have this thing in the back of our mind that says if people really know me, they won't love me. And so then that coping that we form is. Sometimes it's overperformance, sometimes it's defensiveness, sometimes it's pulling away and isolating. But now we're trying to keep people just close enough that we don't get rejected, but we never actually allow them fully in to see all of us. And that distance in between is where a lot of the friction in relationships really comes from. Come into play.
And then it sounds like it can potentially be. “The disconnection is not like a breeding ground, but it creates a lot of opportunity for other things to start now.” Running interference. And I just want to endorse, from my experience, there's so much in the dating kind of support realm that is talking about how to be sexy or what the things to pay attention to are that can feel a little gamey. But I understand it serves a purpose in some. Some regard when we really enter into a more committed partnership, and the safety and that container that it is sometimes saying the things that we don't want to say or we feel ashamed of. And that actually is, ironically, the thing that cultivates connection and intimacy.
I could say for myself, the times when my husband and I, in the early stages of our relationship, it was like the things that I felt were most unlovable and shameful that I didn't want to say were the things that really broke the tension, or at least the conflict that we were having, and making that a little bit more visible. Showing my belly, if you will. And he could see that softness and then respond. It was so much more direct to connect. But it can often feel really terrifying to take those steps and risks.
Tyler:
Hundred percent, because the vulnerability is truly there. Those are the things that you. When you show your husband those things, he could legitimately hurt you in some of the most sensitive places, right?
Brannon:
Yes, but.
Tyler:
But when he meets you with acceptance and empathy, that is the pathway to deeper connection inside the relationship. And so it's a weird place because
“The risk has to be taken to have the connection”
And then the person on the other side has to offer grace and love and empathy and Acceptance. And then those two things together make a really beautiful bloom of something deeper than we ever had in the first place.
“Totally. It's like reparative for the relationship, but it's also really healing or corrective for the person who's contending with some of those shame feelings. Brannon, you were going to chime in?”
Brannon:
“Yeah, I was just going to say that the hard part with this is that the answer to shame is the opposite action to what the shame is actually telling you to do. So, like, it's exactly what you just described. But it's really hard to do it like in that moment when I'm triggered, and I feel like you either like you see something about me that I believe is unlovable. I don't want to turn around and open up and be vulnerable. And yet that oftentimes is the thing that will definitely help.” And so if I am running away or avoiding or shutting down, or if I turn around and I say, hey, I just have this fear about this thing, and I'm really scared that you're going to reject me. I just opened up a window for connection, just like what you were talking about.
“So I also opened up the window for the annihilation of the relationship.”
Brannon:
“That's why it's called vulnerability. Because you are vulnerable in that moment. And if you can't practice that, then you're always gonna have attachment issues in your relationship. You're always gonna be distant, and so you gotta take those risks. But if your partner's not safe or if you have a lot of trauma underneath, then you're not going to take those risks. And that's where relationships really get stuck.”
So yes, thank you for mentioning that. Because as you were describing this, Brannon, I was thinking, for one, that hasn't experienced a lot of secure functioning in relationships or has felt perhaps the need to hide or conceal or has some idea, almost an identity, like wrapped up in some of these shame-coping, earning over functioning tendencies, that how do you help people take those risks? Like, it's like I almost feel like my whole, like thinking of more IFS internal family systems, like the shame could be so encapsulated with the sense of self that it's like how we can't even look at it as a part. It's just like my sense of self is kind of collapsed in this shame.
Tyler:
A hundred percent. And I think that's one of the biggest challenges that we run into. And that's why, let's say we have a couple come into our office, and there's shame really going on both sides now pretty strongly. And it's like maybe the currency that they're operating from. But they're coming in and saying, we need help with communication skills, or we need to overcome this addiction to something. They don't realize that it all funnels down to that. Like, they're both identifying as not blank enough. Right. And so what we try to help them do is actually create other parts of their life where they get a chance to practice some of these shame resiliency principles that we're going to talk about today, where, just last week, in a women's group, I had a woman do one of the assignments that we give them. And inside of that assignment, she kind of choked, and just, like, you could tell that lump in her throat came up. She's like, And she couldn't talk, and I said, something's catching your throat right now. And she said, I'm so afraid to speak these words out loud. She was talking about her upbringing with some childhood trauma that led to some eating disorder stuff. And she finally spoke the words. You could see that she's, like, shaking and trembling. Her voice is shaking. And then in that moment inside the group, she's afraid of the judgment. She's afraid of being exiled.
And instead, what she received was three other women going, ” Me, too, and a couple of other women going, ” Oh, my gosh, I feel so much closer to you now that I understand you, and I love your story. And now she's having what we call an emotionally corrective experience inside of the very vulnerable place that she's been carrying with her for her whole life. And so we try to help create safe spaces to practice speaking it, adding context to it, being compassionate to it. And then they systematically start moving into other parts and other relationships of their lives, acting with courage, because they start to kind of separate that identity. You're talking about the shame itself.
Yes. To have that attunement, that responsiveness, engagement. But also, if we look at the risk, it's a bit more doable in the sense that, on a scale from 1 to 10, it's people in the group mean something, but not as significant as a partner.
Tyler:
Exactly. Exactly.
“So the stakes are a little lower to practice, to get some of that experience, to then maybe replicate.”
Brannon:
But fast, before we move on? Because you brought up one of my favorite things: parts work. And I just want to identify one of the major, just major, I guess, philosophies of IFS, which is, I think Richard Schwartz discovered something. And what he discovered was that if I feel shame, then
“The pathway to get out of that shame is not through self-rejection”
“So it's not through. It's not that I shouldn't feel shame, or why did I get defensive with my wife? Or why did I do this? Or why am I a failure? Why do I need to change? And what he discovered was that when you separate it into parts, then you differentiate yourself from that part, and then you learn how to have compassion for that part and even gratitude for that part.”
Brannon:
So
“Through compassion and gratitude, you can unburden that part and then practice shame resiliency. Through self-rejection, you just feed more shame.”
And so it's a really cool skill to have. And I think it's really good for relationships where, if I might sound a little crazy, but if I go to my wife and I say, whoa, I just had a protective part come up that wanted to get really sarcastic and nasty because I have that part and you do, and just, and tell you how wrong you are. Like, and you know what? Like, I want to unburden that part. I appreciate that it came up. It's trying to protect me. But what I really want to tell you is this, and be vulnerable in that moment. It was a very different experience because I embodied my part. I was resilient to my shame.
I open up an opportunity for connection.
Thank you so much for laying that out a bit here because, again, as this can be so entrenched, it's hard to understand what is possible. And I love the recognition that maybe there's the part that's a bit of a hard-ass, if you will, that's like Get out of here. Just kind of shaming, like the actual shaming action to the part that is attacking. And it's really difficult to make heads or tails. And if you're able to hold some space and have that compassion, then there's a bit more room to look at how. I mean, there's so much around this. But to have that compassion, to have the, be able to see the vulnerability and to make that a bit more visible in a relationship, it's huge.
But it's like I get a sense that it's almost like the individual work is holding on to self a bit more, holding that, holding, like not abandoning or rejecting self first.
Brannon:
Yes.
So then show like I have something to stand on that I maybe feel wobbly in, but I can at least show. And then there may be a different relational interaction. But if I can't even find my ground, it's very difficult to do that work.
Brannon:
I love the way you just said that. I don't abandon myself. I actually validate and give a lot of compassion to myself, which then makes me a conscious partner who can show up as an adult and be conscious and aware of what's going on within myself. And once I can do that, then I get to decide what I get to create. I can either create love and connection, or I can go create more destruction. But now, because I'm conscious, I can actually choose that, if I'm not, if I don't hold onto self as you said, and I just react, and my parts are just like. They're the ones taking charge; I lose that consciousness. I lose that ability to unburden and I just.
And your partner probably has no idea how to show up for you or help you.
Brannon:
No, they don't.
Tyler:
No clue.
Brannon:
My little boy part is just like that. She's like, what do I do with it? Then her parts come back and like, well, I got this part for that part of yours, you know?
Yeah.
Brannon:
And you just get nowhere.
Where the vulnerability is, it's like, perhaps she can attune to you to do the thing you're talking about in group work, that it's a bit softer to have that connection. Tyler, you were going to say something?
Tyler:
It's great, I was just going to. I was just thinking of personal examples of some of this stuff. And sometimes when I'm in my kind of shameful parts, and maybe my wife comes to me, and she's like, hey, Tyler, we need to talk about something. And I dip into my classic thing, which is to disappear and be like, you're right, you deserve somebody better. Like, I'll never be good enough. And as I'm pulling away, I'm hoping she'll chase me and keep me close, right? And then care for me and for me to not have her parts get hit if she's in her own self or shame resiliency, she can see the dance, and then she can still invite me into this space rather than just play the old reactive part herself.
So instead of like, well, okay, Tyler, I'll come and baby you. And then I'm gonna feel like I never got my needs met. Talk to you. She can say something instead of, like, ” Hey, Tyler, I can see this is hard on you, but what I need from you is to listen to me right now. Are you in a space where you can do that? And if not, let's talk later, and I'll trust that you go get grounded or whatever. Right. If she's grounded and I'm not, she can still change the system. Or if I'm grounded and she's not, I can still change the system. It only takes one of us to be in that sort of shame-resilient place to shift where we typically go.
Oh, my goodness. I was hoping that we would talk about this, because a lot of the times in the relational dynamic, if one has a propensity to go a little bit more to that shame downward spiral or a collapse, the partner typically is a little bit more hypervigilant to that or is trying to manage that in some way or try to track emotional stability or maybe, like you said, won't even fully express or will abandon their need to try to caretake, but that there's a lot of difficulty tolerating the distress for the one that does feel a lot of shame activated, that maybe they don't have the capacity at that moment to hold ground, and there's a different way of doing this.
Brannon:
It's not my job to regulate my wife's emotions. However, I can be a huge asset to help create safety and diffuse the situation so that she can regulate her own. And what Tyler's talking about is actually awesome when it happens because it's like, whoa, I'm like in drama or shame or whatever. And it's like, okay, let's get out of your emotional mind. I'm still in my wise mind here. Like, let's bring this down. I'm available; I got this safety. And it's awesome when that happens. If their drama or shame fires off, you can also become the biggest liability. And you can trip when they're triggered; you can really start hitting that trigger button.
Oh, yeah.
Brannon:
And so, yeah, it's really awesome when you can actually. When both partners can take turns, like, okay, like, when my son says something to my wife and my wife's ready to, like, rip his head off, and it's like, hey, like, let me take this one. And it's okay that you're mad, you know?
Yes. So, yeah, those tender moments where there's a lot of rub or tension, they can turn a corner quickly because even the one that might raise their hand of like, I got something I want to clear with you, they can then feel if the person isn't able to hold ground or it seems like they're preoccupied with their own shame, that it's like, oh, you're selfish. And, like, it can really be a difficult spot that can create more.
Brannon:
You're not there for me. Not there. Like, you're gonna hurt me. You're gonna abandon me. You just got defensive. And then all of a sudden, it can just like, really turn into some pretty bad stuff.
Yeah. Tyler, were you gonna say anything else?
Tyler:
Yeah, no, I was just thinking of, like, just. Exactly. Just another example of this, maybe the flip side of that. My wife comes to me. She's been feeling neglected for a while, but maybe she's already dipped all the way into her hard place. And so the startup is something like, hey, Tyler, it's a miracle that you keep a full caseload because you suck at listening. Right. Like, so she says that, like, she's coming at it from her own protective parts already.
Right, exactly.
Tyler:
That's as vulnerable as she can get. And if I hear just the content of what she's saying, I'm going to let that go straight into my shame. And then I'm going to go either get defensive and fight back, or I'm going to go disappear and do my normal drill. But if I'm in my shame resiliency, I'm going to see what that was, and that was her protective part. And I'm gonna come right back to her with something like, hey, babe, the fact that you just said that to me tells me that you must be feeling blank, neglected, upset. You want my time. I love that. You want my time. Is that what's going on? Like, you wanna talk about that? And I can start to defuse it.
Yes.
Tyler:
And invite more vulnerability just by showing up in my own shame resiliency.
I love that I have called this like a ninja move, or even that I have some training in Aikido backpack. But if there's a bit of an attack, the tendency there is to kind of move away or to kind of fight back or freeze. And if we don't, if we're not really armored or have a weapon, so to speak, then we're going to get hurt. Right. So it's like you're getting off that line of attack, staying empowered, like you're still with her, but then you're getting curious about that attack. Like, tell me more, or this sounds really big for you. Or it sounds like you really need me to listen. Can you tell me more? But the attack is still there. You're just off the line of attack. I don't know if this makes sense.
Tyler:
I love that it makes total sense. And I think, as you said, that's a superpower in relationships.
But it's so incredibly helpful. But it's not easy to do.
Tyler:
It's hard.
Brannon:
“There's a requirement that you have to have to do it, and that you have your own healthy boundaries”
As if my wife says, ” Hey, you dirty rotten scoundrel, and I don't have internal or external boundaries, and I'm like, I guess I am, or how dare you call me that? But if I'm boundaried and I know who I am, I stand on my own two feet, then I can do what? What are you guys talking about? But I have to have those boundaries to do it.
Yes. And even that, there may be another position for me to stand in that I can still be engaged and present, but not absorbing the attack.
Brannon:
Right. I'm not you.
You don't define me. So I can hear your emotion. I can love you, but, like, I'm different from you. I'm healthily differentiated here so that I can actually connect to your intense emotion right now.
Yes. I think I've also described it as, like, almost coming alongside. It's as though there's a projection or like a movie being or something. And, like, let's look at this together. Right? Like, I'm not. As you said, this is not an accurate description.
Brannon:
I'm not taking it personally.
You're not creating me. You're not defining me as we speak. I'm just going to get interested in, like, what you're describing here. Okay. You both have mentioned shame resilience principles. I feel like perhaps we could shift there unless you want to comment before we do that.
Brannon:
Oh, let's do it.
Okay. Where would you like to start?
Brannon:
Tyler, you're the shame resiliency guy, man.
Tyler:
All right. Just go for it. So, we talk about a few things. These are some simple things. And I think Brené Brown has spoken to some of these things as well. But a really simple start would be shame. Resiliency comes with the practice of the three C’s. The first one is what Brené Brown calls “courage.” And what she says courage is the ability to tell the story of who you are with your whole heart. So
“Courage is acting and sharing your story with the right people who know how to hold it.”
And she will also say that not everybody deserves to hear your whole story because they're not going to hold it properly. Right? “So that's the first C: the courage to tell your story of who you are and let people see you.”
The second one is context, which is whatever is the thing that we feel most “compromised” about. Most of us think we're the only ones, right? So people who struggle with, say, infertility, they think they're the only ones. And then they realize that nearly a third of all pregnancies end in miscarriage, right? Or someone we work with a lot might be someone who's addicted to pornography, and they think they're the only ones, and they've never spent money on it. But it's a hundred billion-dollar-a-year industry. And so
“Broadening the scope of what it means to be human and adding that context actually helps insulate us from shame”
because shame is a tunnel that puts us down in a dark cave by ourselves, and then the last C is “compassion”.
And it's learning to approach those places where we typically approach ourselves with criticism and contempt and control, and to learn to step in with curiosity and compassion instead and start to say, wait a second, like this is a DBT principle, but everybody is always doing the best they can, and they need to do better. And if I were to step into myself that way, how is this the best response right now? What is it that I'm actually trying to accomplish? That's a lot different approach that has a lot of wiggle room for growth and compassion and understanding than Hey, you're terrible. I can't believe you keep doing this horrible thing, right?
So if I'm doing context, courage, and compassion, and cycling through that over and over again as a way of exercising, I'm stepping into what's called a wholehearted life, which is where I'm now connected to other people. I'm connected to the truth of who I am a bit more. And I'm realizing that I'm just part of common humanity here. I'm not some person who needs to be hidden in a corner.
And is this something that you advise in the practice to start developing individually and then offering to one's partner as well relationally, or do you see this as a two-pronged.
Tyler:
Yeah, we look at most of the couples that we work with, and we talk about three recoveries happening simultaneously. So there are both partners, their individual recovery, and then there's our recovery. And if both partners will do the work of their own, we can use whatever framework you want, their parts work or their same resiliency work, or if they'll do their work of those, their self work, then they start being able to offer more and more of self to the relationship without needing the relationship. And then that's where there's the safety to be more and more vulnerable with one another. And
“Then trust builds, and that trust leads to more intimacy, and the intimacy leads to that depth of relationship that we all look for”
And so it kind of works simultaneously.
Let's both do our own self-work, trauma work, healing work, and then let's keep, and let's also keep nurturing the relationship.
Brannon:
One of the problems with that is that the pain points usually come out because of the relationship. And so they come in for help, and they want to focus right on that relationship. Like, let's fix this. But the ingredients in the relationship aren't going to create harmony and a healthy relationship. And so, when we come back, we come to them, and we say, hey, like, work on your shame resiliency or do your trauma work, or they're like, but we got in a fight last night. That's all I want to talk about. Like all I want to do is the relationship, work relationship.
And they got to back up and say, ” Hey, how do we create space and time and energy for us to really look at why I pop off or why I avoid or why I like, I need to look at that for a second, and then I'll start showing up different with you. So it's hard sometimes to create that space because the relationship is so prevalent in all of the struggle and it's getting.
Activated so quickly and so frequently.
Brannon:
All the time.
Right. So it makes sense that there would be a need to get support to negotiate that differently. And this seems to map really beautifully with the EFT principles in that when there's an understanding of what's on the inside and trying to get some individual connection with the more vulnerable core parts to then be able to send that over to their partner, it's more distilled. It's a clearer, more vulnerable signal. But to do that, there needs to be an unpacking of understanding that is deeper. The deeper layers, rather than all the story and the production protection and the reactivity that typically people get caught in that cycle. So I appreciate your naming the three components and also just how it's happening simultaneously. I remember, so I'm a fan of David Schnarch‘s work, of the differentiation.
And when I was doing training with the EFT, I was like, they typically aren't friends. I mean, I know David Schnarch has since passed, but just the people who follow that work, but it was like, they absolutely worked together.
You need to have differentiation to kind of hold on, to connect with what's happening internally and to make contact with that, to feel it, to then show it. Like, that's being differentiated in my mind.
Tyler:
So, yes, I think you're right, it's funny. The more I can trust myself to recover if my partner doesn't hold my vulnerability or my bid for connection, the more I can take the risk of keeping her a chance to practice. And so that's why that individual work really matters, because that allows me to offer more of myself more often. After all, I can trust that I can land on my feet again if it doesn't go well.
So I'm wondering what you're describing. The individual works for both partners and the relational dynamics. When there is a betrayal and the shattering and the kind of revealing of that, or however that comes to be, do you see that as something that needs a particular support, or is that what you're talking about now? Go ahead, Brannon.
Brannon:
Oh, I was gonna say, how much time do you have? Like, there's a process to it, and it's step by step. And a couple needs to understand, like, what that process is. So getting educated and really understanding what it looks like is important. And then the first thing I won't go through the whole process here, but the first thing we look at is that when there's been betrayal, we need to make sure that there's safety, because you're not going to go do this vulnerable work unless there's some safety there. So what does it mean for the individuals to be able to have a safe space, to then start to move forward with their own work, and then just to kind of make this quicker?
It's really then a commitment to your own individual recovery, your deeper dive work, your trauma work. And within that, you're doing things like good, healthy boundary work, learning shame resiliency, and other things. And then you
“Really start to practice that healthy reconnection.”
Because the partner who's betrayed and broken trust, hopefully now they're a human being that can be consistent, they can be empathetic, they can be honest, and they've done that over time. And now that they've done that over time, the betrayed partner can now start to take some risks back because I see recovery like you feel different, your energy is different, you're not constantly trying to disconnect. But I'm still terrified to connect to you because you hurt me. And so there needs to be a full support system there to say you can go take those risks, like step into this.
And it's beautiful.
“When a couple starts to rebuild their relationship, they have a completely different relationship now”
And oftentimes it's way better than it ever was. So yes, there's a process, there's a support system, there are tools, but it's a journey. It's a one day at a time journey.
Thank you for speaking to that. A lot of people are in the camp that betrayal and the attention to support are important. Before entering into some of what you're saying about leaning into the relational work that the individual work and I mean, sometimes how people engage with that is very different. Right. So there are a lot of question marks along the way.
Tyler:
Yeah, we use something called the trust equation. Brannon outlines some of it, but in essence, it's both partners.
“Shame, resiliency plus consistency, humility and honesty, and empathy over time, plus the eventual grace and forgiveness of the betrayed partner, is what fully restores trust.”
Now each one of those is its own pathway. Right. So it's pretty intense and a lot of times there's a lot of damage that gets done when you know the person who's done the betraying is looking for quick, fast repair and the other partners languishing behind and doesn't know why, but they feel pressure to forgive or, and when there's room to be a work in progress, the couples that we see do the best is they adopt a work in progress mentality as how they approach the relationship in general.
And now the relationship becomes its own form of an emotional, spiritual pathway of growth rather than the end, all of completing each other. And those couples that do that seem to find more deep and lasting satisfaction in the long run.
Yes, and I can appreciate that this isn't always evident, but also if there's room to be in the discovery. And I mean that in itself is a bit of in my mind, a principle of tolerating the unknown and the discomfort of not having it all figured out. Right. And manage our own anxiety as well as stay present. “Okay, so for the three C’s, do you have a bit of an example? Is there anything that you. It sounds like you guys offer a ton of resources. How does one make this a bit more actionable? I mean, you gave some language on how to contemplate. Is there any other?”
Brannon:
“Go ahead. Tyler. Tyler's our guy. Lead them, lead them right to what we do.”
Tyler:
“Yeah. So we've kind of taken it, and there are a lot of different ways to do this. What we've taken are the principles we're talking about today. We've created something called the Healing Journey, which is a six-part course that includes a series of not just lessons, but a series of challenges, tasks, and assignments for each person to do. And most of them come straight back to these three C’s, practicing these three C’s in different sets and settings. And sometimes they're internal processes, sometimes they're relational processes. Some of them even include bigger things like spiritual processes. And we have them practice and then share with team members what they build, and we help them select their team members. Sometimes we become their team members, and then we help them practice doing and speaking over and over again. And we call it the Healing Journey. And that's the way we do it. But it really comes right back down to those three things: just ways to practice.”
Is this targeted for people who are experiencing the rupture of betrayal? Okay, what about for someone who just recognizes that shame influences their experience and some of their choices, but they're not quite at a rupture?
Brannon:
Well, I'll give you a dirty little secret. So we've been doing this a long time, and we've run a lot of different programs, and a lot of times some of the things that people do for healing from betrayal are actually counterproductive. They feed a fear cycle. They lead to more anxiety and more disconnection. And, and so the, like, the program that we run is specific for betrayal, and sex addiction and those types of things. But the principles of it, I think, are something that everybody should go through. It sounds like Why shouldn't we get conscious? Why shouldn't we? She practiced our shame resiliency and learned how to have compassion for our dad who screwed up a bunch or mom or whatever, like, and then come out on the other end of.
“With a deep knowing of who you are, being able to be powerful and boundaried and healthy with your attachment.”
So yes, everybody could use it, but the principles of it are the principles that work to heal from betrayal as well.
So, which are some of the most intense ruptures?
Brannon:
It is, if not the most. Right.
Yeah. Wonderful! Okay, so you're giving a little bit of an example. Of what you offer. I guess maybe we want to pivot towards how people can get in touch with you, and you have a podcast. What's the name of your podcast?
Brannon:
We're The Therapy Brothers. You can find us at all the podcast places. So we have guests come on a lot of times; it's just me and Tyler breaking down a principle. We've been going for five years. We have 500-something episodes.
Nice.
Brannon:
So there's content forever over there about every topic around what we've talked about today. So, yeah, it's tough.
Tyler:
We actually created, for any of your listeners, we created kind of targeted way for them to see if anything would help them at therapybrothers.org/empoweredrelationship Podcast. That would be the best way to check all of that out. But if it's okay, I would also maybe back up to your last question because I don't feel like I answered it fully, maybe to what you were asking. And so if someone's sitting here listening and saying, ” Okay, I'm not sure I want to go do the healing journey with The Therapy Brothers, where would I start? And where I would suggest starting is some of the places we've already touched. So you can get all of the same things. And they can visit my YouTube channel youtube.com/@lovestrong
If you pursue things like IFS, if you look at some trauma work like EMDR or ART, if you start leaning into, after you get through the ruptured part, some EFT principles in your relationship, you're going to be getting a lot of those same things. You can piece that together in your own way. But that's really what all of this is built on. So EFT, ART, EMDR parts work, DBT, and then a bunch of the same stuff.
Brannon:
All the -T's.
Tyler:
That kind of been brought together. So if you were to look in those realms of those different kinds of therapies, you'd see a lot of the same things.
Excellent. Wonderful. And is that usually the group work, the program, and your podcast? Are those the primary ways for people to work with you both? Okay. Excellent.
Brannon:
Wonderful.
Well, I'll make sure to have all the links on today's show notes. I really enjoyed all that you've shared here today. Thank you for being with me.
Brannon:
Thanks for having us.
Tyler:
Thank you for what you're doing here.
The post ERP 541: Breaking the Shame Cycle: How Couples Create Safety and Connection — An Interview with Brannon and Tyler Patrick appeared first on Jessica Higgins.
Is true healing after infidelity really possible? When trust is shattered by betrayal, the pain often feels insurmountable—turning love and certainty into confusion, grief, and self-doubt. The world seems to shift on its axis, leaving many to quietly question whether relationships can ever fully recover or whether individuals can truly reclaim safety and a sense of self after such a rupture.
In this episode, listeners will discover compassionate guidance for facing the aftermath of intimate betrayal and pathways toward real healing. The conversation explores why facing uncomfortable truths is a necessary starting point, what it means to rebuild safety and internal clarity, and how to find empowerment amidst pressure from others and oneself. Moving through foundational steps and the common phases of recovery, this episode offers both validation and tools for anyone unsure of what comes next—reminding listeners that, with intentional effort, hope and growth are within reach.
Tammy Gustafson, MA, LPC, is a trauma-informed licensed professional counselor, coach, and speaker with over fifteen years of experience. She holds a master’s degree in counseling and is the founder and CEO of Betrayal Healing and LiveFree Counseling. She is the bestselling author of Broken to Brave: Your Courageous Act of Healing After Intimate Betrayal, and she hosts the annual Betrayal Healing Conference, an international gathering of hope and expert guidance.
Episode Highlights03:48 The unique pain of intimate betrayal and the shattering of trust.
06:17 Navigating uncertainty: Deciding whether to stay or leave after betrayal.
10:07 The necessity and process of full disclosure in healing betrayal.
14:34 Childhood roots and the myths around blame in infidelity.
16:37 Ownership and the importance of responsibility.
22:27 Key foundations of repair: Full ownership and avoiding defensiveness.
24:56 Expressing emotions and empowering the betrayed partner.
28:14 Grieving, acceptance, and the importance of safety in the healing process.
31:51 The four phases of betrayal recovery.
35:30 Outcomes after betrayal and the possibility of growth.
37:10 Indicators of healing: Rebuilding trust and recognizing positive change.
40:07 Sustaining recovery: Shifting needs, integrity, and the journey toward growth.
Your Checklist of Actions to Take Allow Time for Clarity: Resist immediate pressure to decide whether to stay or leave; give yourself space to grieve and process before making big decisions. * Seek Full Disclosure: Insist on obtaining the full truth about the betrayal, ideally with the support of a therapist who specializes in betrayal trauma. * Own Your Emotions: Permit yourself to experience and express all feelings—including sadness and anger—throughout the healing process. * Establish Safety: Ask yourself, “What do I need to feel safe?” and establish boundaries or environments that honor those needs. * Expect 100% Ownership from the Betraying Partner: Require the partner who betrayed to take complete responsibility for both their actions and the impact on you. * Look for Consistent Change: Observe for ongoing, consistent behavioral change and empathy from the betraying partner as indicators of healing. * Consider Professional Support: Work with therapists individually and as a couple who are trained in betrayal and trauma to facilitate healthy communication and healing. * Focus on Personal Growth:* Prioritize your own healing, self-care, and post-traumatic growth, regardless of the relationship’s outcome.
MentionedBroken to Brave: Your Courageous Act of Healing After Intimate Betrayal (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
Shifting Criticism For Connected Communication (free relationship guide)
Connect with Tammy GustafsonWebsite: tammygustafson.com
Instagram: instagram.com/tammylgustafson
Facebook: facebook.com/betrayalhealing
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/tammy-gustafson-lpc-4179aaa3/
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Episode Transcript
Tammy, thank you for joining us. I'm really looking forward to our conversation.
Yeah, thanks so much for having me.
Yeah, and you offer a lot to help people navigate the terrain of having rupture or experiencing a significant betrayal and then also giving some scaffolding around how to move from betrayal to more repair.
So let's get a little bit from.
You're around just what people maybe don't expect. I mean, people hear about it all the time: different forms of betrayal within an intimate relationship. But what would you like to say about what is getting activated and how it's so uniquely painful, this rupture and intimate relationship?
Yeah, my focus is really on this intimate betrayal and the sexual betrayal. And there is something so core and so painful about that, and I focus a lot on helping the betrayed partner heal.
And
“The shattering that happens with betrayal is unlike most experiences, and the depth of the pain is unlike most experiences”
And so I think there's something very unique about that. A lot of times, there are months, years, even decades of hidden acting out by the betraying partner. And so from the get-go, a lot of times the person who's been betrayed has lived in a marriage or a relationship that they thought was going one way. They thought they knew the truth and the reality about the partner and about the connection. And then to find out years down the road that their reality was not the true reality of what was going on is very disorienting and very shattering. So it just hits at a core level.
And
“For those who've experienced betrayal, it's like every insecurity that they have ever felt in their life has now come back, and it's on steroids, and they all feel true”
So not only are they dealing with the healing of the interactions with their partner, but there's also this deep internal healing and shattering that happened as well. So it really makes it kind of a twofold, at least, healing process.
Thank you for speaking to that; it can really highlight and really bring to the surface some deeper insecurities or things that have already been there, but also just the disorientation around what one thought was true and how it's almost like the world shifts on its axis and what was no longer is and just how to be with the shattering of all that. I think that's a term that I've heard many people use as well.
Okay.
So as we look at the intimate space and what is getting activated in this rupture, I think a lot of people, as you mentioned, are contending with: Is this salvageable or is this something we can, like, figure out how to come back from? Do you have any things that you help people identify to determine if repair or even healing is viable?
You know, I think the first thing is actually to give it time, because you don't know for quite some time. You don't know. First of all, in the beginning, you probably don't even know the full truth. And so there's a whole process that needs to happen if the relationship has a chance to heal, and that's getting the full truth, what we call a full disclosure. Without that, the relationship does not have a foundation to heal. They may stay together, but
“Healing can't take place when there is no full truth and full shared reality between the two”
So I think that's a big part. But even then, even when, even if somebody now has the full truth, there is still this big process of grieving and kind of going inside yourself and saying, is this something I want to stay?
Do I want to stay? Is he or she who betrayed me, are they doing the work necessary to actually shift this and heal this and give me some sense of safety and security moving forward, or not? So it actually usually takes quite a bit of time. And I think the misunderstanding that probably most people have, and certainly even people who've gone through betrayal, probably have felt initially, is that if he ever cheats on me, I'm done, I'm out. That's a deal breaker. And that is such a valid line. The problem is, when you get there, all of a sudden, life feels a lot more complicated. And maybe now you have kids involved, maybe you now have a year, five years, 40 years with this individual that you've created a life and you're intertwined with.
And so now wrestling through that. And a lot of times for betrayed partners, there's a lot of shame and feeling like they betrayed themselves for staying, when in reality, that is a totally normal part of the process. And so a lot of times what I tell my clients is, give it the time that you need. Like, if you know that you're done and you're out, by all means, like, you have every right. But if you're wrestling through that, maybe just take that constant question off the table of do I stay? Do I go? Do I stay? Do I go? Like, give it a little bit of time so that you can grieve and you can heal, and you can see if your partner is doing the work necessary to heal.
Yeah, I mean, it sounds like there could be some self-imposed or just feeling like, what direction am I going to go in? Sustaining the uncertainty or the unknown can be difficult to tolerate in the midst of all this shattering and trauma. But I'm hearing you recommend giving yourself time. Don't put pressure on yourself to make a decision or to be trying to work towards something maybe you don't even know yet if you're aligned with. Is that right?
Absolutely. But I'm also not in the camp of don't make any decisions for six or 12 months. I'm not in that time. I'm not in that camp either.
Okay.
Because I want her to have her power. And again, I work mainly with betrayed partners, mainly women who have been betrayed. I want her to have her power, and so she gets to learn to trust herself and trust her decisions and trust what she wants and needs, so she gets to make that call. So it's this really gray area. But unfortunately, a lot of that pressure to resolve and to stop this tension, part of it is in her. A lot is coming from the outside. There's a lot. If their partner is not doing good work, there's going to be a lot of pressure of, well, I just, I'm done, I'm not doing it anymore. Why don't you move on? Why can't we just move on and start over? And why can't you get over this?
Or family or friends or people, if they're in a faith community, it's like, okay, well, what are you doing? Yeah, you're going to do like, are you better? Are you going to get out? You've got to get out. He's a scumbag, or you've got to stay in, and you've got to fight at all costs. There's all this pressure one way or the other to resolve this tension. And so for her, I am just writing when listening, who is going through this? She's going, you push all that out, and you get to connect with yourself because
“Nobody else is living your life. Nobody else will deal with the consequences, good or bad, of whatever decision you make.”
Right. So it's really this helping her connect with herself and feel empowered to make the decision that's best for her whenever she's ready to do that.
And it sounds like it's an internal clarity that one can find ground in that empowerment and make a decision. Yeah, it's actually calling to mind some of the dynamics as you're talking about the family, community, friends; perhaps they've been observing things. As you said, there might be signs or things that have been happening along the way. And it's like people don't typically say anything or raise their hands. So if there's an opening, like there's a rupture. Oh, I didn't. I want to weigh in, or I want to let you know, like, or now's your opportunity, get out while you can. Like they try to speak, and I think from a protective and loving interest, but also it can add to that pressure. So, going back momentarily, I don't want to miss what you had said about full disclosure.
I'm also aware that some people might be of the frame. I don't want to hurt my partner, or what they don't know won't hurt them. And it sounds like your sense of shared reality. And perhaps there's a way to do this disclosure that could be a bit safer than I'm imagining. There are different ways of doing this.
Do you want to speak to that? Absolutely, there are a lot of different ways and a lot of different things. And ultimately, what it comes down to is that both parties need the full truth. They need the full reality. Now the one who was betrayed gets to make the call. How much?How many details, all of that. That it's very common for the betraying partner to say, well, I don't want to hurt her. It's too late for that. Like, if you didn't want to hurt her, and I say this with all respect, you didn't want to hurt her, then you wouldn't have done it in the first place. So you know, yeah.
Handled that very differently, whatever was going on.
So now
“The kindest and most loving thing you can do is to give her the full truth.”
And will it hurt? Absolutely, will it cause trauma? Very likely, but the only way for healing to happen within the relationship and for the one who did the betraying is for the full truth to come out. Now she can heal with or without that, but it's a lot harder. It is a lot harder trying to piece together your reality when it's not given to you. So for all parties involved, the full truth does need to come out. The best way is to work with a therapist who specializes in this area. They have to specialize in this. Otherwise, a lot of times, well-meaning therapists, the intensity is too much. They won't push enough for the truth. There are all sorts of things that get wrapped up very well-meaning. But this is a new one. This is a nuanced thing.
Yes, I would endorse that for sure.
Yes. And so finding somebody who can work with the one who did the betraying, ideally, to ride it out. A lot of this stuff happens, starts in childhood, and is present long before the relationship comes to be. And so working.
When you say it starts in childhood, you're talking about maybe the withholding, the lying. Is that what you're referring to or not? What do you mean when you say it's?
That's a great question. I would say the roots and the wounds of acting out and of using sexual acting out as a way to cope with life, those roots usually start in childhood. It usually starts with unmet needs and them feeling like they don't know how to handle life. They don't know how to handle big emotions. And somewhere along the way, they find that sexual acting out, pornography, sexting, whatever you want to, is a way that they can numb out those negative emotions for a time. And then what happens neurologically is that as that pattern is repeated, we're getting neurological pathways in the brain that tie negative emotions with some form of sexual acting out. And over time, that becomes a well-worn path.
“And that is usually over the teenage years and early adulthood; that usually is in place long before the relationship comes to be. So this is one of those messages I'm so passionate about telling betrayed partners: this is not your fault.” A lot of times, there's that immediate message, externally and internally, that says, oh, I wasn't having enough sex with him. If I were more fun, if I had lost the 20 pounds, if my boobs were bigger, if my stomach were flatter, this wouldn't have happened. It actually is not your fault in any of those ways that those are not the things that cause this. And so it's just important to know the history, the neurology behind it, and the patterns that are already there.
So one, so that the one who did the betraying can start to recognize that, take ownership, take responsibility, and heal that. And for the one who did the betraying or the one who was betrayed, to understand this truly was not your fault. This is on your partner.
And I think this is really important. If I may mention, as you talked about, perhaps a practitioner who is not an expert in this arena may start to identify, right? Those unmet needs, maybe even the relational dynamic that was perhaps creating some disconnection for both partners, but the one that the betraying partner, what they chose to do with those unmet needs and the betrayal- that's the focus. So, to not start pivoting to relational dynamics too soon, because then it's not addressing the betrayal. Is that right?
Oh, I so appreciate it. You said that 100% correct.
Yeah. And then if you, for those who don't know the importance of this, full disclosure. Because when you're talking about the pain of it, and you're saying the injury already occurred. Right. So the disclosure is part of it being visible, but it happened. Right. So let's not forget that. But can you speak to the importance or how it's beneficial? One of the things that's coming up for me, if I put myself in the shoes of the betrayed partner and I'm hearing details about the betrayal that would be very difficult and painful to hear. It could also be extremely validating for things that I may have felt a spidey sense around or had some question about, maybe even felt lied to or gaslit around. Right. Like if I had probed or asked questions. And you're nodding.
Absolutely, a hundred percent. And there is also no safety when there is that secrecy. Right. And so, what you're saying is so important because a lot of times there are some who have no idea. Some betrayed partners really have no idea, and their partner really hit everything. And then there are others that you're saying where it's like, okay, like, you kept on going on all these business trips that never felt right. I never felt comfortable with that partner at work that you were so close with. And there often is a lot of gaslighting of like, you're crazy, you're jealous, like, nothing's going on. And so then she starts to doubt herself.
Right.
And then she starts to feel that break with herself of, like, maybe I am crazy. Right. And then her foundation, she can't get that. So that, absolutely, what you're saying is, like, having the truth gives her that footing to go, okay, this is hard, and this is painful, but I'm like, yes, I knew it.
Yes.
And now I can put this together. And now I understand why you were cycling in anger all those times, but now I get it.
Right.
And so that is actually really helpful for her process too.
Yeah, I know you're using the pronouns she and her. I know it was very, like, on point for you. And I do work with a lot of men, and I know that there are a lot of women who are engaging in betrayal. So I just want to say that it can be anyone who's experiencing this.
Okay, can I piggyback on that person?
Yes, please.
Because I'm so glad you do. And I struggle with this all the time because it's my population. But I want to say to the men who are listening, who have been betrayed like, man, first of all, I'm sorry. And it is. There are so few resources that are specific to you that address men as the ones who were betrayed. And that is really an extra lonely place for men to be betrayed. And then to feel like everything they listen to, every book they read, they have to switch the pronoun in their brain. And I know that's hard, and I think the industry is starting to shift in that way, but I just want to validate. That's a really hard place to be. And your pain is just as valid as anybody else's.
Thank you. I appreciate that. Maybe you and I, or I can see if there are some resources to put on the show notes for someone who.
Wants to feel a little bit more.
Specific to the male experience, if that's how they're identifying. Okay, so coming back to perhaps the elements of, or what is foundational for even starting on the path for healing and repair, you're talking about this full disclosure. Is there anything else before we go into? I know you have described four phases of the healing process. Before you walk that through or walk us through that, is there anything else that you want to mention that could be important to consider?
I think there are a couple of foundational pieces for both sides. I think for the one who did the betraying, the full disclosure. And you have to be honest.
“You have to be honest. It is more damaging to do a “full disclosure and find out later it's not.””
So the full truth. But the other thing is this idea of ownership. It is when, if we think about a marriage without betrayal, it's 50. We all know that two to tango. A hundred percent that all makes sense. Were there issues within the relationship? Absolutely. There are issues in every relationship. Right. But the moment somebody chooses not to stay in and work on those, there are a hundred thousand things you can do to work on the issues in the relationship.
And the moment they decide to cross that line of the relationship, agreement, whatever that is for the two of you, that is a hundred percent on that person. And so that is a crucial step for the one who did the betraying: a hundred percent ownership not only of what that person did by crossing the line, but also of the impact that it had on the one that they betrayed. And where I see this as a huge stock point that will make or break the healing is if they only own that and go, it was absolutely on me, and I'm sorry. And your pain is valid, and I understand that.
And I will sit here, and I will hear it, and I will take it in, and they drop those defenses, and they own what they did and what it caused, then so much healing can happen. But for those who don't do that, and the languaging will come out, well, it was- what was your part in this? Or you weren't having enough sex with me after the baby was born, or you're too angry at me, or I need to set boundaries with you now with any of that type of language that starts to come out; it really, it stops the whole healing process. So I think that is a crucial understanding piece. And a lot of the ones who did the betraying will need some help to get there because it's not easy.
That was the thing I was thinking, because in my experience, people don't set out to have affairs. Right. It's not something they're like,
Yes, I feel really good about this. This is what I wanted to do.
And oftentimes these unmet needs, as you referred to, there's something that starts to satiate that need or feel like it starts to feel like a drink of water, that maybe they haven't gotten this need met. But it's the difficulty of coming and standing in that need and asking for the vulnerability of it being direct, having the courage and the bravery to have those difficult conversations, to work through some of those relational challenges to get those needs met. So it's almost like the shame, the hiding, and the indirectness can contribute to stepping outside of the marriage. So then you're saying, okay, part of the foundations of healing and repairs is to really take ownership. But that's like the very thing that they had difficulty doing. Is that right?
Yes. And if the one who's betrayed, if they are sad and angry, which they will be, and when they have huge emotions and when these emotions are rapid cycling, which is a hundred percent normal, that is a wonderful opportunity for them to go back and start to heal. That initial thing of I don't want to deal with negative emotions. So now the person who did the betraying is going to have to learn to go back and to face that and to allow themselves to help their younger parts grow up and mature and heal. So for the betrayed partner, sometimes there's this feeling of, oh, well, I can't let him see my emotions because I don't want him to act out or whatnot. Actually, what you need to do is you need to stand in your own shoes. You need to heal.
You do need to verbalize what's going on. As long as he is safe.
Right.
But you do need to do that, and you are not causing a problem in the healing process. You are actually giving him one, allowing him to grow up that part and to heal that part of him, because he needs to if he's going to be healthy. And two.
Or she.
Or she. Thank you.
Yeah, yeah.
No, I know.
So you're speaking your language. I get it. I'm just.
Yes. Thank you for catching it. I appreciate.
Yeah.
But that's really important. That's a really important process, so.
Which is difficult to express. I mean, if we're going to speak more of the heterosexual pronouns and the female being the betrayed partner, stereotypically, a lot of women have difficulty standing and expressing anger. Not again, I'm speaking. These are older stereotypes. But I do, because there's a lot of, I think, cultural messaging around not being a bitch and like all these things. But I think that's totally so changing. So I acknowledge what I'm saying. It's not fully accurate, but regardless of the person being in a place of experiencing and expressing the pain and the distress and the range of emotions, I do think there are constructive ways of doing it and not watering it down.
But I think this is where getting some facilitation is helpful from somebody who's an expert or trained; it kind of sounds like getting support for the couple dynamic to negotiate this rupture. And are there the bearings for the possibility of healing? But also, perhaps individual support for the betraying partner could be really important.
Yeah, I would agree. And I think for the one who was betrayed, some of the foundational things the person needs. It's important to step into your power. It's important to step into your voice. It's also important to let yourself grieve. The grieving process really is the healing process, and that includes both sadness and anger. And as much as we would love to, like, jump over all that and just go, I choose to accept. I choose acceptance. That, unfortunately, is not how it works. The acceptance piece is a byproduct of all the other deep healing work of acknowledging your emotions, naming them, setting boundaries, and deciding for yourself. Kind of like we talked early on, like, connecting with yourself and going, what do I want and need?
Because maybe I haven't had a voice, or maybe I have, but either way, it's important for you now in this critical place of shattering for you to really be gentle with yourself and to hone in on what you need to heal. And a critical place to focus is this question of, what do I need to feel safe?
“Betrayal in all its various forms, at its core, really shatters safety. And so for you to get your footing, for your brain to be able to switch out of fight or flight mode”
it's this question, this foundational question of what do I need to feel safe? Do I need to not talk about things without a counselor's presence? Or you're like, ” Nope, I need to have my voice. I need to talk about it right now. Do I need the one who?
Your partner- do I need him or her out of the house so that I can regain some sense of safety? Because I never thought this person was capable of this. Like, I don't even know who you are. Right. Or maybe you're like, if my partner's out of the house, I feel less safe because I don't know what they're doing. So there's no one right way, which I think is crucial. There's no one right way. And what's most important is for you to connect with yourself and go, what do I need? What do I need to feel safe right now and then take that next step?
Thank you for saying that, Tammy. It occurs to me, sometimes, even in a heterosexual relationship, sometimes the female can be a bit more expressive and loud per se, in her voice. And maybe there's the nice guy syndrome for the guy. But even in that vocalizing, it still perhaps isn't connected to the underlying need of vulnerability and safety. So regardless of how things manifest, to have that real contact, because sometimes, a lot of times it's fear that's driving some of those critical impulses and maybe even what could look attacking, but to have this genuine contact, making room for these sad, you know, attachment needs and longings and core emotions, which takes time to make contact with if we're not used to doing it, and then making room for there to be process and support.
“Okay, do you want to describe the four stages that you work within your framework?”
“Yeah, absolutely.”
“Does it fit here?”
“Yes. I think it does fit because we've had what we've talked about has been phase one or two. And so these phases are really, again, I'm looking through the lens of the betrayed partner and helping him or her heal and walk through this path.” And it's really kind of outlining, hey, here's what's next. Like, here's what's normal. Because while there's no one right way to heal, there's no one fine line you have to follow. What we do know is that there are patterns to healing.
Yes, yes.
And there's a general direction of, like, this is the direction you want to go, and here are some guideposts along the way. And my gosh, when you're in the middle of this, and you don't know which way is up or down, forward or backwards. So my heart with this was to really help provide some structure, to provide some like, okay, here's where I'm at. Oh my gosh, this is normal. Oh, I don't need to worry about that yet, type of thing. So phase one is when that discovery or disclosure happens, and it's real. That's the initial shattering, and that is the whole kind of focus of that. “Phase one is to get the truth like we've been talking about, with full disclosure.”
“And then phase two, kind of the marker between the two, is either when the betrayed partner has the full truth, or they know that their partner will not give them the full truth. And then that has to become the foundation that they stand on to move forward, which is harder and more painful, but it is possible. And then phase two is this long, messy middle. And this is what we're talking about: finding your voice and setting your boundaries and grieving and asking what you need.” And there's all of this wrestling: is my partner going to do the work to get sober or to stop the affair? Are they going to do the work not just to stop the acting-out behaviors, but also that deeper work that has to happen, rebuild the possibility for there to be safety again?
And so that is a long, painful process. “That phase two in phase three kind of happens organically.” And that's where the direction of the relationship is becoming clear, based on the dynamics and what's happened. So, and there's really three paths that this can take. “One is kind of reconciliation or healing as a couple.” “One is divorce or breaking up, long-term separation.” But there's also this third path that I don't feel we talk enough about, which I think a lot of People end up in. And that's what I call the “roommates.” And that's where the one who did the betraying is not fully doing the work. But the betrayed partner doesn't want to leave. And there are a lot of really valid reasons why.
A lot of times it's kids, or it's finances or that sort of thing, but there becomes this really painful, messy piece of the one who did the betraying is doing just enough to keep the partner in.
“And it's this really unsatisfying place. And this is where I worry about betrayed partners most because I start to see their lights dim. It's like a thousand cuts”
Yes.
Where there isn't safety, there really isn't reconciliation. But having said that, while this is one I'm most concerned about, you can thrive in this when you're staying with your partner who's not doing great work. But it takes a lot of healthy detachment. “So there's kind of a whole process you have to go through to be able to stay and thrive and live your best life.” Live as the best of life as you can. In this scenario, it is possible, but it's difficult. And then phase four is where all betrayed partners come back together. And it kind of stops being the focus, stops being about the relationship or about the partner or ex-partner. And there's this organic kind of moment that happens where clients will walk to my office, and they're like, I need to heal. I need to focus on myself. I need to focus on me and my healing now. And this is where they kind of look around and kind of around the rubble that they have found themselves in by no fault of their own and start to pick up those pieces and go, okay, I want stability again in life. I want financial stability. What are the steps I need to take to do that? I've gained 20 to 50 pounds in this process, and I don't feel good in my own body. So how do I start learning to love myself again? How do I start to move towards health again? Or is there a divorce? Looking for like, okay, maybe I'm ready for a new relationship and. But I want to make sure that I'm in a healthy place.
And so it's those steps and this; it's really, you know, in our psychological terminology, would be the post-traumatic growth. But what I can tell you is that it is absolutely possible to heal both parties. It's not only possible to heal, but it's possible to come out of this a stronger and healthier version of you than you ever have. And so, as we're talking about all the pain and we're talking about all the shattering, all of that is true. And that's not the end of the story. It does not have to be the end of the story. Marriages and relationships can also heal from this. It takes a lot of work, and it takes a lot longer than you ever wanted it to take. But it is possible for marriages to better on the other side of relationships, to better on the other side.
But you have to do the deep work of healing.
Thank you for speaking to that. Because what is possible and you're being.
So clearly.
Involved in this arena, right, this terrain, like you can speak about what's possible and what's available. And it's kind of thinking about the long game. And while we might not know which path we're taking, it sounds like any of the paths have an opportunity for growth, for healing, for evolution, and both individually and relationally that require a lot of work, and that it's worth it that there's chaos. I mean, this, I think you talk about, when you talk about triggers, is what's getting activated; it's a spotlight, not a setback. Right. And so I think that this is in its most intense form, but turning towards the work can have great pay, great dividends.
“Okay, I know we don't have a ton of time, but I want to ask you from your vantage point: can you give people some description around what it can look like that the betraying partner has done enough work, the indications that the betrayed partner can start to feel? I mean, this is an individual decision. I appreciate, but just more generally, that there is trust or there's enough safety to start trusting again. Like, what are some of the things that you would say help? Yeah, indicate.”
“Love that question. So glad you asked it. So the main thing, first of all, is the full truth. Keep coming back to that, right? And stopping the acting-out behavior, whatever it is, that is first and foremost. But that's not the finish line. That's the starting line.”
Right.
And so for health, for safety, for trust to be rebuilt, there has to be a lot going back to that ownership, but also a lot of humility and care for your partner.
“Empathy is the absolute key”
for this empathy of really seeing life from her perspective or his perspective. Whoever was betrayed, right? But getting into their shoes and recognizing, like, oh, it makes sense, like, it makes sense why you are so hurt, it makes sense. And when they're coming at you, either with their sadness or their anger or their needing space from you, being able to again get in their shoes and go, okay, that makes sense. Like, what can I do? How can I not? What can I do to put my healing on you? But going like, hey, I am here. Whatever you need.
And so there is this openness and this kindness that, when that true, deeper work of healing is happening, the betrayed partner feels. Now, they may not verbalize it to you, but they feel it when they go, like, huh. In the past, my partner would have gotten really angry at me when I said this, but now they sat there. Or, huh, in the past, they would have fought me and been, they would have been defensive when I got home late from work; they would have been really defensive. Oh, was this? And now they're calling me ahead of time, and they're saying, hey, I just want you to know, like, I'm on my way, you know? And so it's those moments, and I tell my clients, it's those moments where you go, like, huh. That's different. Like, that feels good.
Betrayal partners notice this. Yes, they notice it, and they notice it in their soul. And so, continuing to do that, trust is rebuilt. First of all, there has to be safety. But the one who did the betraying, first of all, it's their responsibility to rebuild trust.
“Trust is earned, not given after betrayal.”
And so for that, you need to be consistent over a long period of time.
And it pedals with your word.
Yes, absolutely. And when you mess up, you own it. Yeah, that sort of thing. So those are the things that lay the foundation that, slowly but surely, the betrayed partner is going to see and feel. And there's actually this moment, I call it the deer in the headlights moment, where the one who did the betraying has done enough work and has been safe and consistent long enough that betrayed partners will walk into my office, and they're like. Their eyes are big, and they're like, I think it's time for me to lean back in. And it is a terrifying moment because they have. They have had to, like, armor up and protect themselves and their boundaries. But it's like they have seen enough now where they're like, I think it's safe enough.
“It still doesn't feel safe. It still feels risky, but it's safe enough that I can start to, like, turn and open my heart a little bit”
And so that is a really tender place. And I want to honor that for both parties involved. And for the one who did the betraying, you just hold steady. You just keep holding steady with kindness and empathy and understanding and just keep doing what you're doing. And for the betrayed partner, when they are turning back in, just know, like, it's totally normal to feel scared, and you can titrate. You know, you put your toe in the water and see how they do. And then if. If you're like, ” Oh, okay, they did good. That was still good. Okay, then maybe put your foot in the water.
Or if you put your foot in the water and things don't go well, you can be like, okay, stepping back.
We've got more work to do.
We have more work to do. Yep. So it is a very tender process, but it's a very beautiful process when a couple is at the place where they are starting to move towards each other and heal.
Thank you for describing that. And it also just feels like such a direct process to hold space. It asks to suspend a lot of the other things that are also true, but to really hold space, to be present for another, for the one, the injured, betrayed partner. That while it might seem the scariest or the thing that's gonna, what we wanna avoid, it actually could be the most direct, like, direct route toward healing. I'm wondering, just lastly here, do you also feel an indication of healing is when the person who had engaged in betrayal starts to take care of their needs differently? Like that, they will raise their hand and say, I need you. And I know that might be complicated in this dynamic, but they're gonna handle their unmet needs differently. You're nodding.
Absolutely. But let's be clear.
“The unmet needs are not necessarily just within the relationship”
No, not at all. But the seat can. There's a way in which that partner is handling themselves differently.
Totally. And one thing that I think is crucial, and I hadn't mentioned this before, but in the beginning, a lot of times the one who did the betraying starts to work recovery as like, I just, she's blowing up, or he's blowing up. And I want things to calm down. And so I'm going to stop, and I'm going to lean in. But it can't stay there, where the focus is on the fact that there has to be this shift at some point into I want to heal because that is the person I want to be. Yes. Like, I want to be a person who is taking responsibility for my past and my actions. I want to be a person of integrity. I want to be safe for my partner, whether he or she leaves me or not. I want to be a safe person.
And so now the whole focus shifts towards their own integrity, health, and well-being. And that's where, when that's an indication of what you're talking about, of like when they start to heal and deal with their needs more healthily, that's that move towards integrity. And that is a beautiful sign and a beautiful shift.
Thank you, Tammy. I'm so grateful you're holding the hands of people who are negotiating this so very painful process. And especially you've written a book. Tell us about the book you wrote to help people get oriented here.
Yeah. The book is called Broken to Brave: Your Courageous Act of Healing After Intimate Betrayal. And so it's specifically for betrayed partners walking through those four phases. It is mainly focused on pronouns. I do use she, just a heads up. But it's really my goal to give my heart for it is I wanted to reach through those pages and catch betrayed partners in all of the pain and all of the confusion. I want to help them get to their feet. I want to bring clarity, strength, empowerment, guidance, and direction to them so they can get on their feet faster and move through this process more smoothly. There's really nothing smooth about the partnership, about the process, but as smoothly as possible, and get to that place of growth.
And so part of this, as I said, is just providing some of those guideposts along the way and just really going, you can do this, and you have great worth and value, and you get to stand up for yourself and find yourself and empower. So that is kind of my heart and soul. I wrote it as if I were sitting across the table and at a coffee shop having a long conversation with a betrayed partner. That's how I wrote it, as just kind of a companion to come alongside. So that's my heart and soul for the book.
Thank you. I'll put the link to that book on today's show notes: Is there anything you want to mention about how people can connect with you or follow you?
Yeah, probably the best way is my website, tammygustafson.com, and “I just want to say to all those who are listening, if this is your story, whether you were the one who betrayed or did the betraying, like there is healing, like you can heal. There is a good life ahead. But keep going. Do the deep work. Do the healing. You can do it.”
Thank you. I appreciate all that you shared here today.
Well, thanks so much for having me.
The post ERP 540: Healing After Betrayal: Why Truth Comes Before Trust — An Interview with Tammy Gustafson appeared first on Jessica Higgins.
Are you bringing home more than just your briefcase at the end of a long workday? For many, the hidden toll of workplace stress doesn't stay behind at the office—it seeps into our most intimate relationships, silently undermining connection, emotional safety, and even physical closeness. It's a problem so common and subtle that many don’t realize work is affecting their love life until the damage is already done.
In this episode, listeners are invited to uncover the overlooked ways that work stress spills over into the home, affecting both partners’ emotional well-being and the overall health of their relationship. The conversation explores how chronic pressure at work can disrupt intimacy, communication, and even one’s sex drive, while providing practical strategies and ritual ideas to help couples reclaim their connection. Through actionable tips on communication, intentional transitions, and building emotional resilience, this episode offers a roadmap for transforming work-induced disconnect into renewed connection and support.
Dr. Guy Winch is an internationally renowned psychologist and bestselling author who advocates for integrating the science of emotional health into our daily lives. His 3 TED Talks have garnered over 35 million views, and his science-based self-help books have been translated into 30 languages: Emotional First Aid, How to Fix a Broken Heart, and The Squeaky Wheel. His newest book is Mind Over Grind: How to Break Free When Work Hijacks Your Life (Simon & Schuster).
Episode Highlights05:52 How work stress and burnout manifest in relationships.
09:40 The emotional ripple effect: How one partner’s stress impacts the other.
12:13 Negative cycles: Perceptions, attachment, and relational downward spirals.
14:55 Naming stress and practical communication tools.
18:39 Micro-expressions, tone, and the subtle cues we send.
20:32 Regression under stress and the impact on coping skills.
24:22 The power of ritual: Transitioning from work life to home life.
27:59 Engaging the senses: Tools and traditions for mindset shifts.
31:16 Intentionality, agency, and the value of compartmentalization.
33:50 Boundaries around work talk and rekindling couple connection.
38:45 Empathy, understanding bids for connection, and reframing relationship challenges.
Your Checklist of Actions to Take Establish a Daily Transition Ritual: Create a routine that signals the shift from work to home life, such as listening to calming music, changing clothes, or lighting a specific candle to help your brain shift gears. * Name Your Emotional State: Verbally acknowledge your mood or stress level to your partner when you arrive home, reducing uncertainty and fostering understanding. * Communicate Your Needs: Clearly state if you need time to decompress before interacting, setting expectations, and providing your partner with context. * Use Venting and Problem-Solving Time: Divide post-work conversations into venting and solution-focused segments, aiming to wrap up with action steps or reframing to avoid lingering stress. * Compartmentalize Work Worries: Write down concerns and physically or psychologically “put them away,” or schedule “worry time” later, allowing you to be more present at home. * Limit Work Talk Boundaries: Set aside a defined period to talk about your day with your partner, then intentionally shift focus to non-work connection and relaxation. * Foster Quick Emotional Connection: Engage in brief but meaningful actions such as holding hands, reminiscing over old photos, or talking about a shared show to nurture emotional intimacy even when tired. * Practice Mutual Empathy:* Intentionally try to imagine your partner’s day and emotional needs, using empathy as a tool to bridge gaps and prevent misinterpretations caused by stress or depletion.
MentionedMind Over Grind (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
How to Fix a Broken Heart (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
Emotional First Aid (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
The Squeaky Wheel (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
Shifting Criticism For Connected Communication (free relationship guide)
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Facebook: facebook.com/guywinchauthor
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YouTube: youtube.com/@GuyWinch
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If you have a topic you would like to be discussed, please contact us by clicking on the “Ask Dr. Jessica Higgins” button here.
Thank you so much for your interest in improving your relationship.
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Episode Transcript
Doctor Guy Winch, thank you for joining us.
Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to be with you.
Yes. And you are a psychologist, a renowned author, and you've done several TED talks. And we're going to be talking about work stress, even burnout, and how it impacts intimate relationships. So do you want to say anything just to orient us to this topic, and I guess how this became of interest for you?
Sure. It became of interest to me just over the years in my practice. I would literally see people tell me that they are losing their feelings for their partner, for their spouse, and really nothing had changed. And what they're telling me about their spouse is that their spouse continues to be lovely. So. But what was happening to them in their lives? They were going through a big issue at work. They were getting really stressed out or burnt out. And I started to notice the damage that our work lives were doing to our home lives and our relationships specifically, and the collateral damage that the partners were paying. I was sensitized to that years ago. And then when I started doing research for this new book, I started coming across study after study that was showing that, yeah, this is a real thing.
And it's something that I think we're so unaware of or we don't think of as much. So I really wanted to highlight it, and I'm glad we got a chance to talk about it.
Excellent. Wonderful. And just to further define a little bit, when you are talking about work stress and then also possibly burnout, do you see those as different?
Yeah, work stress is just the general grind that we sometimes have, or a lot of us, a lot of the time, have at work. Just the general pressures, the demands of the workplace, the overworking, or the expectation that we're always, you know, the always-on workplace where we get emails at all hours, or just the big projects that keep coming at us. It can be about the looming cuts, the threat of AI, the things that just keep us preoccupied, worried, stressed at work. When that accumulates to a certain degree, we can develop burnout, but that's already when we kind of fell off that cliff. And now we're actually really experiencing a severe kind of reaction.
Just to be clear about what
“Burnout is, you feel very exhausted all of the time in a fundamental way that a good weekend of sleep is not going to fix”
And you feel very cynical about what you do. It's lost its meaning, it's lost its appeal. It's not interesting or engaging. It doesn't feel important anymore. You don't feel you're doing a good job at it anymore. It really makes you numb to everything. You're just trying to get through the day. You're just trying to get through the day all the time, and you just detach from it all. And that can lead to a lot of physical ailments and other things.
Yes. Thank you for acknowledging the significance and severity of burnout and how it accumulates and reaches a certain point where it impacts functioning in a significant way. Okay. All right. “So when we look at intimate relationships and within the relational dynamics, what do you see as how this can manifest in work stress?”
So I just want to say this one thing first.
“It is unreasonable to think that we would be in a workplace in which we are in fight or flight”
in a very stressed environment, sometimes a hostile environment, sometimes a harassing one, sometimes a politically complicated one where everyone's out to get everyone, or a very competitive one where the people who reach sales targets get promoted and those who don't, like. “There are all kinds of environments like that. It's unreasonable to think we would spend 8, 9, 10 hours a day there, get home, and suddenly be able to shed all of that at the door and be there and be happy, go-lucky and be with our families and, like, yay, home. Like, that's not reasonable. It's just not how we function, you know? And so we brought it home.”
We bring it home in those obvious ways where we come in, and we're preoccupied, and we're troubled, and we're irritable, and we're upset and all of that. And as much as we try, and most people do try to kind of shield their family from it and keep it away, when someone around you is very preoccupied, worried, stressed, irritable, whatever, you pick up on it. And it makes it very hard for you.
“You can't be in a good mood if your spouse is sitting in the room in a dark cloud.”
You just can't. And again, most people really do try. So I don't want to make it sound like you're failing your family. It's very difficult. You actually have to be very mindful and very intentional not to let it bleed in those kinds of ways. But it does well.
And I'm kind of hearing you say, even if it's being intentionally managed and there is some way in which to protect or buffer that relational space, it is impacting the nervous system of the person that's in that work environment, and that can't be overridden. Like, I remember, I think a friend sent me. I want to say it was a podcast. I can't remember the guest. She was a physician. I'll try to look for and post it on the show notes. But she was talking about the people who are closest to her, even in the workspace. If I think it was an assistant and they were doing brown bag training, and she was.
This physician was doing a bit of a talk, and she was talking about the impact of cortisol, a stress hormone, and how it can affect, even if the person who isn't the highly stressed one, the people around them physiologically can be impacted. And the joke was that the assistant was like, oh, you're the reason why I have extra weight around my belly. Yeah, the physician was breaking it down around the impact. And I think one thing I'll add here is that I think in the individual kind of Western mindset, we think we live in this kind of our individual body, and we're not always so aware of how, even though very subtle or even the nervous system state, will impact those closest to us. What do you want to say?
Absolutely. And look, some studies show that
“If one member of a couple is severely stressed and pressured at work, the other person, their partner at home, can start to develop symptoms of burnout”
That's how significant that transfer is. And some of it is just as you said, the infectiousness just. And stress is a mood, and tension is a mood. And all of those things, those stress and the people around us in physical proximity, both at work, be it the assistant or whoever, and certainly at home more so, but also in unconscious ways. Some studies show, and I talk about them in the book, that there are studies that show that when we are very stressed out at work, we will unconsciously undermine our partner within the home. We're not even aware that we're doing it.
We might not intend to, but we're not just vicariously spreading the tension and the stress. We are actively undermining them, making their life more difficult within the home. We can do that by withdrawing from tasks and just not living up to our duties at home or just being too tired or by. Here's a silly example of how that happens. You get home, you're really, really tired, you know, and your spouse is there, and they're trying to get dinner ready and do this. And the kids are coming and saying, oh, can I have a cookie? To them. And they're like, no, I don't like cookies; we're having dinner soon. And then they run to you like, oh, can I have a cookie? And you're like. And you're just too checked out, you're too tired, like, yeah, sure, whatever, you know.
And now you just made life more difficult for the other person. Examples like that, and another one that I tend to quote, because this happens to a lot of people, is that when you come home from a very difficult day at work and you're preoccupied with that really annoying thing or upsetting thing or stressful thing that happened in the office and your seven year old runs up to, you know, mommy's home, and you're not in that headspace, it can feel like an intrusion. And you will unconsciously stiffen up, and the kid will feel it, your spouse will feel it, and you're not even aware you're doing it. But it's not surprising. You are. You're in a different headspace. You're still in battleground mode, not in home mode.
So there are all these different ways in which it really affects our relationships with very dramatic outcomes.
Yes. And I will say, often those perceived cues by the loved ones, as you said, either the child or the spouse that's looking for the welcoming embrace and the kind of connection in that will feel that stiffening may perceive it as a form of disconnection, maybe even rejection, or however they might perceive that.
Absolutely.
That then can start to impact the way in which they're responding to each other, creating a loop or some type of negative cycle.
That is absolutely not just true, but very important. And I'm so glad you pointed it out because you and I know, and most people need to understand,
“Relationships are dynamic”
They're systems in which things ricochet back and forth. So in research, the story starts with this happens, then that happens, period. That's what we're looking at. But in real life, it goes beyond those two moves because, yes, they interpret that as a disconnection, distance, rejection. They have a reaction to that, which then causes a reaction from the other person, which bounces back and forth. It tips things into a certain kind of cycle. And so in real life, those things ricochet back and forth a lot. And so it's not just that small moment, it's all the moments that rippled from it that happened thereafter, which can.
Really start to impact the environment of the relationship or shape the sense of the bond. Okay, so the way I'm organizing this in my mind, guys, and from an attachment perspective, when we look at relationships, attachment systems impact the thinking and the expectations. So you're saying whether or not we're conscious of it or unconscious of it, that we may start to perceive our partner differently. I imagine this could be for both partners if we're just imagining in couplehood: one has a little bit more acute stress or chronic stress, given, and the other one maybe not so stressed. But both parties could also be stressed. But what I'm saying is it can impact the perception of how we are experiencing the onslaught of stress during the day.
And then that informs, and that likely will continue to perpetuate in maybe not-so-great ways. I think Terry Real calls it the core negative interpretation or something. Or the Gottman language would say the sentiment override. The negative sentiment overrides these downward spirals. So it's the thinking, it's also the physiology. Like you're saying, do we feel relaxed in one another's state? Are we able to regulate? And also just the muscle and then the emotional. It impacts all things.
Yes, it impacts all things, as you said. And again, like when somebody comes in, and they're kind of, you know, radiating that kind of energy, the other person has to try and understand what's going on. And that distancing is hurtful. And again, it accumulates over time. “There are even studies that show, for example, that when one person is chronically stressed at work, their partner, not just them, but their partner, will lose their sex drive.” Now, that makes a lot of sense, right? Because if you have a partner that's coming home and they're constantly stressed and irritable, so much so that you could roast a marshmallow on them, like, that's not attractive. No one's being like, oh, I want to sleep with that. Like that's going to have an impact. But yeah. And people are not. And again, it's not.
I don't want to put blame anywhere because it's the circumstance. “What I advocate is that if you know that's happening, if you know that it might be, if you know that it's likely to, then you need to; then it is on you to take specific steps to try and mitigate as much as possible.” Because the same research that points to the disconnects also highlights where couples don't have it, why they don't have it, and what the mitigating factors are that you can employ to protect your relationships in that way.
Yes, I really want to focus and turn towards what you're about to share with us. It also seems worth noting, Guy, as you state this, I imagine some people are thinking, yes, right. Like this is understandable, but there's something very powerful in naming it, and just even naming it and bringing awareness to it can help us start to do something about it, which you're going to be recommending and offering some tips here. And I will say, in the relational dynamic, if I'm on the receiving end and I'm seeing my husband in stress and he's not naming it, or there's nothing named in our couple system, I notice my response is to feel a little apprehension, feel a little bit tight, kind of on guard. I'm not as relaxed. But if it's named, like, today has been really hard.
“I just need a little time to decompress. I would love to connect with you, but there's some organization around it. It really helps lessen the intensity and also the uncertainty. Would you like to speak to that?”
“Yes. I think that is absolutely critical, the naming of it. There is a difference between somebody coming home and saying, I've had a day. I'm in such a bad mood. I'm sorry, but I'm really in a bad mood. I need to figure out how to kind of get my head on straight, but please forgive me. Right now, I'm just naming that as opposed to leaving it up to the other person to say, like, you seem irritable. I'm not irritable. Like, you know, there's a big difference.”
“Yes.”
“That's the thing. So, and naming it, first of all, you're letting the other person know that you're in a bad state of mind and you are aware of that.”
“You're owning it, you're acknowledging it.”
It already helps them discount anything that comes from you thereafter. That would be a little sharp, a little overstated, a little something because. Okay, but he did explain. She did tell me, you know, so it starts with, there again, you and I know. I'm just going to emphasize the thing. I'm sure your listeners have heard this a thousand times. It just bears repeating.
“It starts and ends with communication”
That is just a critical thing. You have to communicate. You have to communicate with the other person. Let them know where you're at. I advocate, by the way, if you need, like, can I, you know, something happened, I would love 15 minutes to just talk it through. It will help me put it aside. If I can stroke it through for 15 minutes, for 20 minutes, would that be okay with you?
They might have had a bad day. It might be like, oh, really? Because I'm not. But if possible, that's very useful. Here's something critical within that. That time has to be divided into two parts. The first part is to tell the story, vent, bemoan, you know, like, throw the pity party. Whatever you need to do, it cannot be the end of it there. You will not be able to shed it if that's where you ended there, nor is it good for you. That last part has to be problem-solving action items. What can I do? How do I need to reframe this? It has to be something that gives a little bit of a bow on the incident. So your brain is not thinking like this is a live and open issue. How do you expect me to put this aside?
It's still very bad having some action items, even saying, like, maybe tomorrow I can think about how I might address it with them or something to make it clear that this is not just about the venting. This is about figuring out what to do about it or how to think about it that will allow you to put it aside. If you can ask for that and then do that. And if they can't do it with you, take the 15 minutes to do it yourself. You'll be in a much better place to truly put it aside than if you just try to squelch it.
Yes, thank you for acknowledging that and for. I love that you're giving a continuum of how this can be implemented, that perhaps the one that's not ready to move into action yet, there can still be. Okay, my step is to think about this later tonight or tomorrow, or here are some real validating things that I have an issue with that I want to look at more concretely. Or how do I address something that gives some movement, organization, and progress so that it can be constructive? I think that's so helpful because some people are more apt to like, yes, I want to problem solve, and I want to look at this, but some are not ready to do that. So I love that you're giving some options around that.
“And communication, it's so important, not only just the words, but the signals that we're sending when we look at how we're responding to one another. A lot is being conveyed in these micro facial expressions, the tone of voice, things that we're not even intending to perhaps communicate but are being communicated on an aside. I remember years and years ago, I was in my head a bit, and I was thinking about tasks. It was like lunchtime, and my husband was like, oh, you're being. You're not being very nice. And I was like taken aback because I wasn't in a bad mood. I felt very neutral. But I received it, and I contemplated it. And later I was like asking him, was it that I wasn't being as friendly or warm or nice? And he was like, yes. And I was like, okay.
So even the difference between me being more affectionate and pleasant and being more neutral felt to him like.”
“But his language was actually quite accurate. Right. He wasn't saying you were being unpleasant, he wasn't saying you were being annoying, he just said you weren't being very nice. He was almost saying you're usually very nice, and now you're not very nice.”
That's a great catch. Language was actually I interpreted it as, like, you're being rude. And I'm like, I'm not being rude. So thank you. And then the last thing before we go to steps, I also want to acknowledge that most humans, if not all humans, tend to regress in stress. So if we layer on previous trauma or difficult hardships, I'm thinking of a client who was in a very hostile, very abusive dynamic in his work life that was somewhat family-related, but he was literally getting terrorized and bullied. And unfortunately, Dave was spilling out in the relationship, and he was harshly saying things, and he's done a lot of work, and they've done a lot of work, and they're way beyond that. But we can regress and be doing and saying things that we are not proud of.
And not to excuse it, but to look at how significant this can impact us.
Yeah, I actually want to explain it, and rather than excuse it, here's why that happens. We all have coping mechanisms. The function of our coping mechanisms is like the function of an airbag in a car. But the anticipated collision, it inflates and shields us, cushions us from the impact. That's what our coping mechanisms do. Now that impact can come from external stresses or from internal ones like our own thoughts, emotions, and stresses that we are self-generating. But that's what our coping mechanisms do. When we are tired, when we have been functioning all day because we've been in a very iffy environment, we deflate. That airbag deflates. It doesn't cushion as well. We are not as well defended; we are not as well cushioned.
We then experience everything a little bit more raw, a little bit more hurtful, a little bit more distressing, a little bit more painful. Because our airbags, our coping mechanisms, are not fully deflated, and they can really deflate more and more. And so when somebody's coming home like that, when somebody's in that state of mind, they just don't have that cushioning. Small irritations will really get through to them. And now somebody else looking at the outsiders would be like, really? That's what you overreacted to. But they weren't overreacting in the sense that they thought that was a big offense. They experienced it as very offensive because the usual cushioning that they would have to keep it in perspective that we all walk around with was not functional.
And then perhaps you layer in a negative couple dynamic that is disconnecting, that it can be difficult to tolerate or be able to manage.
And if people want to know what it feels like to have no coping mechanisms, babies. Babies don't. They haven't developed them yet, so everything makes them cry. They just go on crying because they just. They have no coping. When they get a little older, they start to develop a little self-soothing, a little bit more coping. And we develop them as we grow. But when we are extremely tired or extremely stressed, we lose it too. And
“Small little things can make us cry. It's not a sign that we're weak. It's a sign that we are exhausted.”
And depleted, to your point, and not resourced. And the vulnerability. And I would add. And then let's switch to what we can do about it, that we tend to hope, whether or not unconsciously or consciously, that the intimate couple space or the home life is a haven. So we came. We might be bringing all this stuff with us and maybe, like you said, sabotaging. But also, there's this expectation or hope that I'll be met with a warm embrace. It will be soothing, but we're maybe not so explicitly asking for it, or I get this can be very complicated, but I think that layer of hope that we can let our guard down in the home space.
I would hope so. I mean, home should be a sanctuary.
Yeah.
Ideally.
Often isn't, especially when we're bringing all this stuff with us too. Okay, so tell us what. Where would you like to start about how to mitigate some of this territory?
Okay, so there are all kinds of things we can do, but let's start with a basic one. I believe that you should have a ritual that you enact every day that helps you transition from your work life to your home life, that helps you shift your mindset. And why I think it should be a ritual and a daily one is because by doing that, you can train your brain to shift gears A little bit more smoothly and more quickly because you're really shifting your mindset. You really are going from the modern-day battlefield, which happens to be the workplace, into the behind-the-lines, the home front. And those are very different mindsets. Like soldiers leave the battle and come home. It takes them a while to adjust because that's a big shift.
But a transition ritual would be one that you enact every day, and it would include as many of the senses as possible. Start with sound.
“The sound is very evocative. Music is very evocative. So have the playlist or the song that puts you in the mood that you want to be in when you get home. That helps calm you down”
that helps remind you of family, that's the wedding song, whatever. The thing that helps you really shift gears. Music is very evocative for us. So, a certain playlist that you can make of music that helps you shift. Another thing that we are very susceptible to and maybe less aware of than we are is tactile. It's clothing. There is a reason leisure wear is called leisure wear. The fit and the feel of it should make us relaxed.
And we all have different associations with clothing. So if you're coming home, the first thing you should do when you get home after listening to your music is change into clothes that you associate with home, with safety, with relaxation, with casual, with family, with dad, with mom, with whatever the thing is. And that's very evocative. Now some people say to me, I work from home in jeans and a T-shirt. I'm like, terrific. Have a set of jeans and T-shirts that you wear and associate with work. And have a different set of jeans and T-shirts that you associate with home. Your brain will tell the difference. Your brain is not into fashion as much as it is into association. And again, some things make.
For example, in experiments, when people were asked to wear a white lab coat because it was cold in the room and they were given a white lab coat, they became much more accurate at certain tasks because they associated wearing a white lab coat with scientists, who tend to be more accurate. So it literally changed how they approached unconsciously, how they approached us. So clothes use clothing to signal to your brain the mood that you want to be in. We're also sensitive to olfactory things. So this is where you want to use aromatherapy, certain candles, and where you want to open a window. The environment around you. Can you sit in a park for a few minutes? Can you be around plants? Can you be in a place where nature is a soothing thing for most? I live in New York City.
Trust me, nature is a soothing thing. Not a lot of it to benefit from, but anyway. But those kinds of things shift the lighting at home. If you're working from home, make the environment look different. Shut the laptop, put a doily on it, put a plant on it, make it look like a. Not like a work environment. All those things will help you. And one thing to add in there, especially for couples, is family. People watch, have some videos of the good old family trips, family times with you. And you have to be in the video, not when you took it, so that you can see yourself laughing with your family, relaxing with your family. Like, just a minute of a reel will help you. Like it'll put you back, reengage that then, and put you in that mindset. Now it's about the family.
Now it's about my partner. Now you know, whatever the thing is. So those are intentional: this ritual that you need to do at the end of the day, it will help you and shift mindsets, and it will help your brain do it with more ease so that you have a better chance of actually coming home with the right mindset.
Thank you. I know some of this; for some, listening might feel like it doesn't really have that big of an impact. However, what we're talking about is the body, the physiology, the brain. And these are real signals and cues that help assist in this transition. I've actually heard many people who maybe work from home now that used to have a commute, and some of them miss the commute and really transition from the work mode to the home relational mode. And I appreciate just the tactile. There are times when just the analogy of like shedding the day or like even my husband will be like, I feel like you have work all over you, change your clothes. But I'm also thinking of, do you remember Mr. Rogers?
Do you remember? Of course. That's the first thing he did, right? He put on the sweater. Yes.
He had this whole ritual, and it was something. And it wasn't all that different from clothing.
But it was a transitional cause of what it symbolizes. And by the way, just to add to what I said earlier, if you need to have that conversation about it, let me have the conversation either with myself or with my partner so I can put aside the real looming thing from the workday that's troubling me. Do that first, then do the transition after. Once again, if there's something that's weighing on you that you need to talk about, don't do the transition and then dip back into work.
Yeah, I like that. Do one before the other, and we'll just add that we are animals, really. Like, so that's when we give these social animals, and we can give these cues and help the physiology shift and the symbols; we typically will respond, as you said, going out in the fresh air. Like, if I haven't been outside all day, I feel more human being outside in the elements, even if we're in a city, like looking at a tree or feeling the sun on our face or just the breeze and the fresh air. So I thank you for really speaking into this.
And to anyone who thinks, like, I don't know if this is going to really be impactful enough for me, I don't either. That's why you should try. It will be, or it won't be. But you might. Because a lot of this is unconscious impact. You don't know until you try it, though. I don't think it will behoove you to try.
Yes, and I recall in grad school I was taking this elective, and it had to do with creative expression. And she created a transitional space by creating this makeshift kind of doorway that we all walked through. But it was too intentional. I'm so much of this intention, right? That's what we are really focused on and setting our intention around so that we can enter into a different mode. Like you said. Like, sometimes we expect it to happen automatically, but if we intentionally access the parts of us, like you're saying, through looking at a reel, or the things that remind us and help us engage. But to intentionally, like, what is it that I'm wanting to create in my evening, this evening, or the energy of what we're creating as a family or as a couple, it can be really powerful.
But it was amazing. Just walking through this makeshift thing actually helped us enter into more of a creative space because we're all in our heads, we're academically doing all dissertations, and she's helping us enter into this playful space of creativity. So it was remarkable.
And I'm so glad you mentioned intention because it's so important.
“Intentionality is very important”
When you are creating intention, when you are being intentional, you are disengaging the autopilot. You are actually taking control of your coping mechanisms. You're taking control of your operating system psychologically and directing it in the way that you want it to go, rather than just letting it go where it goes. So intentionality is very important, and intention is very Important. But secondly, it's also very empowering because when that works, and you feel like I don't just have to be at the mercy of my mood, of the ripple effects of what happened to me in a passive way in the workplace, I can enact my own sense of agency, and I can be more empowered to shift.
“I don't have to be like the victim in that or the recipient or the passive person in the story. I can be the active person in the story”
But you can't be unless there's an intention behind the actions you take, because that's what signals agency. That's what makes you feel empowered, is that you had an intention and saw it through. So intentionality is very important.
Thank you for speaking more about that. And with what you're describing, it's reminding me that there are folks who will try to write some of their worries down and then put them in a compartment. And I'm wondering, transitioning from work mode to relationship mode, do you ever help people have a visual or a practice that can compartmentalize, like, put it in its bubble or its box? And again, that might be a metaphor or a symbol, but that can help maybe with, okay, I am shifting, and I'm intentionally leaving this here, and I'm now going to a different space. Is that useful in your work?
It's very useful. There are three boxes that you can put things in. You can use the literal box and, like, write things down in a certain journal, then put it in a drawer. Okay, now it's in the drawer. And when it's in the drawer, I don't have to deal with it. When I take out the journal, I'll deal with it. That thing that's troubling me. So I'll write it down, and I'll put it in the literal box of the drawer. That is, there's a psychological one to come as a means to do that, to decide that. I am putting it aside.
Yeah.
And I am not going to deal with this right now. I want to. Again, that's much easier to do when you then have the intentionality to be present in whatever else that you're doing. Psychology abhors a vacuum, and like space, it abhors a vacuum. And therefore, like you, it is not about, like, not thinking about something. It's about thinking about focusing on what you're actually focused on. But here's a third box, which, in the research, is surprisingly effective. That little box in your calendar is very effective for studies; if you put 7:30 tomorrow morning in your calendar. I'm waking up a little early, and I'm spending half an hour worrying about this thing tomorrow. So I don't have to worry about it now. So I can let it go now. If you do that and put it in that little box.
But you have to have the intentionality to do it. If you're just doing it as a brain hack, it doesn't work. It only works if you truly intend to wake up early and take care of it. But when you do, our brain takes calendars. We didn't go with them. Our brain loves them. And so. And so if you put it there and you have the intention, the studies show that you can let worries go much more easily by knowing that. And your brain knows. Okay, you'll get to it. I don't have to keep bombarding you with reminders right now.
Yes, when we are going to attend to it, we're prioritizing it. We begin to trust that it will get addressed and dealt with. And we can choose to do that at the time when we decide.
Yes.
Okay. So one of the things that's rattling. I know we don't have a ton of time here, guy, but one of the things I'm thinking about. For couples who want to know how your day was? Or engage in sharing that this could actually reopen the box. But for partners who want to share in more of that intimacy of knowing each other throughout that day, what do you recommend around how to navigate that?
Territory has boundaries around it.
Okay.
Like, say, like, hey, let's spend half an hour. Let's do it over dinner. Tell me about your day. We'll process things, we'll talk about things, but let's have an end. That still leaves us time to relax or recharge or do or connect in ways that are not about work. We don't want to work. Because look, when you're thinking about work, you know, work. So, like, let's do that so we connect, we know what's going on. But let's leave time to just be us. To just watch your favorite TV show, go for a walk, talk about whatever. Not work. It's actually fine to do. Some couples work together, and they want to debrief at the end of the day. No, do it. No, it's fine. Do it.
“Leave time for other aspects of life. Otherwise, work will just start taking over everything”
Right. And into the theme of taking over everything. The thing I'm also thinking is that some people have lost touch with what is the thing they want to do. I want to connect. But I'm not sure. The relaxation of watching a show could be more of the decompressing that feels restorative, but it doesn't quite hit the mark around connecting. And so people can be a little bit at a loss around. Okay, I'm overstimulated, I'm exhausted. Yet I do want to connect. How do you help people access connections when they may be so overwhelmed and need to decompress, like in the evening? It's hard to fit everything in. Do you. Again, does this come back to intention?
Or what where it's actual practice? I mean, connection is one of them. And look, emotional connection. The connection we talked about. Right. Just to be clear, it's an emotional connection.
Physical, sexual. Yeah.
Emotional. Has to proceed as in the studies about partners who lose their sex drive.
Yeah.
The couples who really mitigated that are those who had a good, strong, and maintained their emotional connection.
“So the emotional connection is the buffer that will help you, and it should precede the physical.”
Yes.
Connection. It's not that difficult. You don't need an hour to connect emotionally. Just truly things like taking a walk together. But holding hands, even if you're not talking about much, can be a way to do it. If you're watching a show together, rather than you being on one laptop, you can be on the other tablet or sit together, and it's not about the show. Then talk about the show for 10 minutes. What you liked shows what you thought about it. Like that's connected. The watching itself is not sufficiently connected. But talking about it and finding the common strands and the common thoughts, that's what connects. So invest that amount of time. You really want a quick fix. And I'm going to use an old term, forgive me.
Photo albums.
Yes.
The physical ones that we used to have. Fine. You can do it online too. You can do the virtual. But like, let's go through those vacation photos and just remind ourselves of how much fun we had. That's it. And laugh together about that kind of thing. If you want a really quick kind of fix to do it, and you're too depleted to start. Let's not have such a deep conversation now because I can't. Fine. Let's just look at something. Let's just watch something. Let's just review something that we know felt connective and so. But again, that is very intentional and mutual in its intentionality. It's a couple who are both, like, we're both tired. We're both this. But let's connect. Let's make sure we feel one another, and we're not just transactional and operational and just getting things done. Done.
Thank you so much. I mean, this is where people can feel a lot of benefit in reminiscing about early times or, like you said, a vacation or special moments. And it can access and engage those emotional states that can open us to more of that connection and the love that's shared. We could go on and on. And I know that you have so much to offer. I want to say I really appreciate it. In your book, you talked about helping a client who had gotten pretty far down the road of seeing her partner in a negative view and feeling like she appreciated who he was, but felt a lot of disconnection. And you helped through the practice of empathy. Do you want to describe that a little bit? And then we can tell people how they can get your book.
That was a young person. That was a Gen Z person. And the thing about the empathy was she kept seeing his bids for connection as neediness because she was so depleted, and she just didn't have. Have it in her. So it felt like it was a request that's not honoring where she's at. Except she didn't explain where she's at. He just wanted to connect with his girlfriend when she came home. And then the dynamics we discussed unfolded. Right? So she rebuffs the efforts, he feels rebuffed, and he gets upset. Now he seems more needy of her. And then over time, the cycle happens. Where he used to be supportive, and now he's just needy. And it was like, no use. Used to be available, and now you're just depleted. That's the real kind of thing.
But we did an empathy exercise in which you really try to imagine, visualize what your partner's day was like, what they went through, what they need, how they're feeling. And you just try to connect with their needs and their feelings just so that their behavior then doesn't seem foreign or doesn't seem unreasonable or inconsiderate. It makes perfect sense in the context of what their day is, what their need is. He was just like, excited to see you. And again, it was a bid. And again, it's like once you start to see that,
“It doesn't shift things immediately, but it starts to shift your mindset; it starts to shift your perspective that you can then work with to reconnect”
Yeah. The vulnerability. And I think, as you said, when one can also access what they need, their deeper layers. Right. It's easy to want to judge or criticize. Oh, they're needy, or they're this. But like, oh, I need time to transition. I'm not ready, and it feels a bit too soon or intrusive even. And I need a little buffer. Like, I'm sure her partner could appreciate that. Transitional need. And then working together around like, oh, you love me, and you want to connect. Like, I appreciate that. Like, they can both be true.
Yeah. When they're communicating about it, they can get through that.
Okay, I love it. All right, so excuse me, for people who want to get to know you a little bit more, what are you offering? Where would you like to direct people?
People can go to my website. It's guywinch.com G-U-Y W-I-N-C-H.com, and they will have links to my books. This is my fourth, and there are three others. My three TED Talks:How to practice emotional first aid(Book: Emotional First Aid);How to practice emotional hygiene;How to fix a broken heart (Book: How to Fix a Broken Heart). Substack newsletter and other kinds of resources. Social media stuff, twitter.com/guywinch; facebook.com/guywinchauthor; instagram.com/guywinch/; linkedin.com/in/guywinch/; youtube.com/@GuyWinch, all of that.
Yes. I'll put the link to your social media as well as your website. And then would you like to name your most recent book?
My most recent book, the one we're touching on today, is called Mind Over Grind: How to Break Free When Work Hijacks Your Life in parentheses, which I'm adding right now, and your relationships, because that's part of your life, and that is available wherever books are sold, wherever you get your books, in Amazon, you should be able to get it. It's an audiobook, ebook, and hardcover.
And I will say, a lot of the personal growth books I find are not as interesting in the sense of story. And I know that you're known for being a great storyteller, and I will just say I found it very engaging, very accessible, and interesting. To continue to read. So for people listening who are like, oh, another book. But I find it quite pleasant and interesting to read. So thank you for all the work you've offered the world. I'll make sure to put the link to your book as well as your website and your social media. And thank you for your time here today.
Thank you so much for having me. It's been a pleasure.
The post ERP 539: When Work Follows You Home: Protecting Connection Before Stress Becomes Disconnection — An Interview with Dr. Guy Winch appeared first on Jessica Higgins.
Is it ever just one big betrayal that ends a relationship—or is it those little, silent compromises and unspoken problems that slowly unravel the love you built? Too often, couples find themselves at a crossroads, wondering when things started to go wrong and why the issues weren’t tackled before it was too late.
In this episode, listeners will hear stories pulled straight from the front lines of relationship dissolution and learn how to recognize the warning signs before they escalate. Through real-life examples and expert insights, the conversation shines a light on why negotiating boundaries, having difficult conversations, and making intentional choices are key to lasting trust and security. Whether you’re hoping to repair a current relationship or avoid missteps in the future, this discussion offers tangible strategies and invaluable perspective to help navigate moments of rupture—and rebuild stronger than before.
Diana Romanov is the founder of Romanov Law, PC, an award-winning family law attorney based in San Francisco, a Certified Family Law Specialist, and the creator of the Divorce Like a Boss YouTube channel. She began her career as a prosecutor in Berlin’s Regional Superior Court before transitioning into family law, where she brings a blend of legal insight, emotional intelligence, and cultural fluency. Her work centers on helping people navigate conflict, rebuild connection, and create relationships with more stability and intention.
Episode Highlights03:15 Red flags and relational power dynamics: Learning from divorce stories.
08:05 Negotiating differences, rupture, and repair in relationships.
11:13 The importance of alignment: Deal breakers, assumptions, and communication.
16:17 Resentment, expressing boundaries, and the dangers of unspoken discontent.
18:53 Building skills for assertiveness and self-expression.
20:28 Consequences of avoidance, agreements, and legal realities in divorce.
25:06 Consistency, trust, and the challenge of repair after betrayal.
27:12 Choice, ambivalence, and taking responsibility for relationship direction.
31:42 Recognizing patterns: Early signs and lessons from relational history.
36:01 Communication tools: Tone, “I” statements, and focusing on desired outcomes.
40:02 Commitment, energy, and the call for authenticity in relationship decisions.
Your Checklist of Actions to Take Give Relationships Enough Time: Avoid rushing into commitment—spend at least three years getting to know someone before making major life decisions together to truly understand compatibility. * Negotiate Core Values Early: Have open conversations about important topics such as money management, exclusivity, and future goals to avoid hidden deal-breakers. * Retain Individual Autonomy: Maintain your career, interests, and a sense of independence within your relationship, rather than becoming overly financially or emotionally dependent on your partner. * Address Issues Promptly: Clear the air by expressing resentments within 24 hours, after calming down if necessary, to prevent long-term accumulation and resentment. * Practice Assertive Communication: Use “I” statements to communicate your feelings and needs without blame or accusation, especially when discussing disagreements. * Visualize Desired Outcomes Before Reacting: Before addressing a conflict, pause and consider what outcome you desire from the conversation, choosing words that help you move toward that goal. * Make Conscious Choices and Set Timelines: If facing a major rupture, commit to working on repair for a set period (e.g., one year), then evaluate whether to stay or leave, rather than remaining in ongoing indecision. * Learn from Past Patterns:* Examine your partner’s and your own relationship histories for repeated behaviors, as these often indicate future patterns.
MentionedGood Together (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
Divorce Like a Boss with Diana Romanovska (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
12 Relationship Principles to Strengthen Your Love (free relationship guide)
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Episode Transcript
Diana, thank you for joining us.
Thanks for having me.
I know you have a unique practice as an award-winning family law attorney, and you have many accolades we can discuss. But as it relates to intimate relationships, you have this vantage point around seeing when relationships are dissolving and what people can be aware of and invest in around stability and trust before it reaches a breaking point.
I actually wrote a book, “How to Save Marriage”.
Oh, I did not know that.
I haven't published it. So nobody knows. Yeah, it's going to come out this late summer of 2026. And I wrote a book about five stories of very intense divorce situations I have been witnessing as a divorce attorney. And what I have seen, in my view, went wrong. And then also from the client's perspective, and also a reflection back to my own defects in relationships, since it's not my first marriage either. And so, to answer your question, the first case that I wrote about was about a ballerina who, at the age of 20, fell in love with someone who was 40 years older, who was showing her the world, and with lavish gifts, coming from the Soviet Union, being in a situation where lavishness was not so common at times. So it was an easy situation.
The red flags that were there that nobody told her, even her parents, are not just the age. Age was not at all; he was married, and she was his affair. And that tells me something about his character that he's not being honest. And sure enough, 10 years later, she found out he had two other children with two other women of similar ages as her own child, whom they conceived together in that relationship.
“So it's not magical, two people falling in love when another person is hurting from that love.”
So that's flag number one. Number two, moving too fast, too soon. When they met each other two months later, he, she was also with a boyfriend who was no longer there. He rented a place for her, and slowly, surely, she allowed him to be financially dependent on him.
And so that creates potential financial abuse. Because when someone gives up a career, a ballerina career, even though it doesn't make a lot of money at the age of 20, if she were consistently spending time and effort into that career, 10 years later, she would not be asking him for alimony. So it's a little double sort of situation because women who are listening are wondering, wait a second. So I cannot rely on my man to take care of our children. And I shouldn't; that's not what I'm saying. It's very subtle. It's more about giving up all the power to someone whom she knew too soon, not enough, who had another woman suffering from that situation, and giving all in without giving a chance to let things unfold.
Giving it three years, not half a year, because in long-distance relationships, it's easy to be a gentleman. But when people live together in the same house, they have to use the bathroom, they have to use the kitchen, and they negotiate life.
Yes.
Get into a pandemic, you know, get into a stressful environment. That's when,
“Under stress and pressure, that's when we see the true faces of some people and whether it's compatible.”
Yeah.
You know we all have some defects, and the question is, do we accept that all? Not just the good part. And so, of course, the age of course the most difficult, nastiest domestic violence restraining order cases involving children, which are the most heartbreaking for me to be involved in, are the ones where they knew each other for two months, fell in love. I feel like people tend to do that, and I have done that myself, so it's not to have a picture of how the puzzle would look. And all this picture needs is a face. And once that face is in, the puzzle is there, and we try to make it fit if it doesn't fit. And seeing the reality for what it is, a challenge.
Especially with people who didn't have a family that was in a healthy environment, where parents were fighting, there was abandonment, or childhood issues. And I'm sure a lot of people have that.
So yes, there are a lot of things that go into what you're describing when we imagine an intimate relationship, and that's typically significant to us in adult life. It's what we're bonding; we're social animals. And then the circumstances around it and all the layers that you're saying might influence someone to enter into certain dynamics. But I imagine in your position you're in a place of wanting people to feel protected, mitigate threats, and set their set themselves up for the best chance for success. And you're seeing themes, and some of the themes that you're mentioning are rushing into a relationship too soon, perhaps ignoring some of the power differentials, not giving up one's sense of autonomy or individuality, and relationships in the hopes that the person will be trustworthy when we haven't maybe had enough time with them to get the data around.
Are they consistently reliable and trustworthy? Now, just to orient you a little bit, people listening to the show, some of whom have had a relationship dissolve, and they want to do better in a relationship. Many people are already in an intimate relationship and are trying to negotiate it more skillfully, and so want to learn. One of the things you had mentioned was the rupture in relationship repair. Rupture repair is typically part of the process. And you talk about what are some of the key things that people do that create stability around rupture, versus start to begin the unraveling of their relationship if they don't know how to deal with rupture. Is that something you want to talk about?
Yes. I notice it in my own marriage, and I see it in my clients' divorce and marriage dynamics. What they complain about once they're divorcing is that when there is a problem, they discuss it. And I always hear this, but he or she doesn't listen and doesn't change.
“So when a rapture happens, when a conflict arises, then the success rate of a relationship will be determined by the ability of both parties to be able to not just compromise but reach a solution that works for both of them”
and follow through and allow them to sort of slip and again go back on track. Let me give you an example. A couple who are getting divorced with a couple of children. He's saying we're living 5x beyond our means. What does that mean?
Whenever I raise the conversation about money, she would start insulting me, and I, as a result, would give in, earn more, and spend. But then he got into an accident and couldn't earn more. But the lifestyle continued to be that high. And so now they're close to their retirement age, having nothing to show for it because, to maintain their lifestyle, they were taking mortgages, loans out of their home to pay for things that are perishable, vacations, food, and lifestyle. So that's just one example of two real cases where they could not reach an agreement. I hate this word budget. It just makes me cringe. But what I'm talking about, getting on the same page about priorities, is our priority, maybe to save 30% and to spend, or are we all in because it's fine?
If they decide we live only once, which is true, and we don't need retirement money, we will work forever and live until we die? Maybe that's paycheck to paycheck is fine, but as soon as there's a discrepancy, as soon as they both don't agree on, not on the same page, that's when the conflict happens. If one party wants to save and the other person wants to live a life being bigger than life, it's fine, but not fine with that person anymore. Maybe it was a top until a certain point, but not anymore. So when I see people don't reach the same level of understanding about different topics, it could be infidelity. They were married for 25 years, and now she wants, I wouldn't say he, but it's not gender; it could be her. She wants someone more exciting and more energetic.
And so things change, and he's not in agreement with that. So another point of agreement, a disagree type of conversation.
Yes, thank you, I appreciate this. Because what I'm hearing you speak to is the importance of negotiating and negotiating with real respect around these key differences. And can we arrive at a strategy or solution that we both are getting some of what we need? “I think a lot of people spend a lot of time in a relationship trying to persuade or convince their partner to agree with them when really there might be just some key differences, and we do need to negotiate in a relationship or deal breakers.”
So, for example, if someone says, I had a client who got divorced after one year of being married, he said to her, I actually don't want to be in a monogamous relationship, an exclusive relationship. I would like to have more people. And so she said, I wish I knew that before we got married. So that was the quickest divorce ever. So, discussing important things, and I'm not saying that it's his fault, maybe she should have asked.
Yeah.
“Yes. And not assumed. So a lot of things are assumed. Important to me. And so here's the list. You treat my dog well. People beneath you are perceived as beneath you. Well, or exclusivity or money management, whatever that topic is. If that's a core deal breaker, that's what'll be discussed before building three children, a home, a family, and a lot of debts together.”
And this hearkens back to your earlier point around giving enough time and space to actually see somebody. They will reveal themselves with enough time and seasons of life to get an experience versus just our imagination and filling in the blank about who we want them to be or hope them to be.
Or
“Some people are so in love that they're willing to pretend that they agree with all these points, and then time actually reveals the true desires, the true nature.”
Which is fine. It's not a point of judgment; it's just the compatibility. I see a lot of people trying to make someone fit into their glove. I would like to say, but it's not really about the glove; they're trying to fit into their narrative, yet it's long-term better not to.
Yeah. And some people are also a bit conflict-avoidant, and they want to please. And so they're not always revealing themselves or even maybe don't even know what they want because they're prioritizing the relationship, and they haven't even connected with it; thus, they can't bring it forward.
Oh, that's another skill I learned. So when someone is resenting another person and doesn't say anything, it's called a clear-the-air activity I did in a class. So not holding to any resentment for more than 24 hours. And so what happens in couples who tend not to do that, they get cancer, worst case, or divorced. But
“The practice of maybe not doing it in the moment when it's emotional, to avoid hurting the other person right away. Take some time or speak to a professional therapist and then come from a place of this is my boundary, this is what hurts me”
And then from that place, it can be a negotiation to see how the other person responds. That would also be another. I don't like it when you're late to dinners every time for the last two weeks. And then if they respond, I don't care.
That's a message.
Yes, and my experience too. Not only if I bring something forward, if I have a need or something has a lot of significance for me, but I can also let my partner see that and try to make some agreements. And there might be things I can do to help myself get more of that thing rather than just completely relying on my partner. But at least it's part of the conversation. Thus, I'm much more able to advocate, take accountability, or make agreements so that I'm getting those needs met.
That's right.
And these are difficult conversations. These are not easy conversations. And you're in a line of work that is all about having hard conversations. And is there anything that you do? I mean, it sounds like the long term is really what you're pointing out. Like, let's not be short-term thinking. Let's look at the long-term implications of not having these conversations. And they're tremendous, especially when there are children involved.
How many times did I say to myself, I would like to lose some weight. I'm talking about many years ago, and I wouldn't be able to start. And so this is the same type of muscle. By starting every day, just a little bit of weight, it's a muscle to say no. I remember my friend Bernie said, ” Well, how about this, Diana? Let's try to say no. Just one time on Sundays, just start a little. And so the Same thing was the workout. I couldn't start to work out. So I would go out and tell myself it's just going to be a walk for five minutes and I'm going to be back, I promise. And so after five minutes, it's 10 minutes after one week. And so now it becomes half an hour, five days a week, and I'm thriving.
I'm excited to start because I feel better afterwards. The same thing with no. The first no feels, oh my gosh.
Don't beat me up.
Don't react, don't do it. And then the second and the third and the hundreds and the thousands, it just becomes second nature. So I think
“Training the muscle of allowing yourself to express yourself is what helped me personally to overcome all these fears”
Yes. It's developing a skill that maybe we have lagged in or that we haven't given enough room for. And it does take practice and discipline to develop, but we will gain the benefits from the skill with enough time. And we can be gentle. Like you're saying, we don't have to overwhelm our system by incorporating this.
The problem with not starting gently. And I have women and men saying, I cannot do this anymore. After 20 years, I am. It's enough. I am not. And I'm like, wait, what about the 20 years that you have done that? And so what happens? It's
“Accumulated repression that becomes the person to become an aggressor, because they have been allowing themselves to unknowingly victimize themselves to be a doormat for everyone else.”
When they then do what surprises me sometimes. Still, I shouldn't be surprised. But when, after 20 years of marriage, he provided everything, the lifestyle, she didn't work with children, no children, it doesn't matter. And then when he comes to my office, or she comes to my office, and then wonders, wait, what do I have to pay spousal support after all these years? I already paid for the lifestyle. Why do I need to pay spousal support? I understand child support, but spousal support, they should be paying me for.
It's not always fair. No.
And so what I respond to them is basically, if you allowed that arrangement, if that arrangement was not okay, you should have consulted a lawyer before you started this arrangement, because you basically raised that monster that you don't like. And I'm not saying in a derogatory way, this is an agreement. People should be educated about what it means. If they're married for 20 years, that means they will pay for the potentially for the rest of their Life in California until they retire, die, or the spouse decides to have a job.
I mean, this is. You're speaking from experience. This is what it looks like. And we don't always have a good insight into what things look like if we're in a situation where we're dissolving the marriage and certain dynamics are established. So even if one is saying, okay, I've had enough, and perhaps they've been swallowing or absorbing that discontent, never really renegotiated, you're saying it's a little problematic that there was not an opportunity to work that out and get, you know, along the way in the 20 years. So then there's the kind of gauntlet. But even then, you don't get to just fully opt out. Perhaps you have the spousal alimony or support.
Yeah. Or dividing everything. 50/50. I had a man telling me once, if you forward me one more email from the other side, I will kill myself. Because what happened is. And I know exactly how he felt. So for 20 years they were married. She didn't. She stopped working right away, started accumulating clothes, and it became a hoarder's home with clothes up to the ceiling, gained 5x of her original weight. And he said, I don't know what to do. And he stayed 20 years, I guess, out of guilt or out of obligation, out of programming from his own childhood. I don't know. But he seemed so unhappy, and he couldn't get out. Somehow, each time I went to a hearing, he was almost fainting out of fear and disappointment, and I don't know what feeling he must have felt. So saddle.
Eventually, they got divorced. But please don't stay too long if it's not working out.
Yes. And I mean, this is heavy. Serious. I mean, I'm hoping he's okay now after the divorce. Yeah.
Someone new is in a good relationship. I saw him at a festival, and he looked happy.
Oh, good. Oh, good. I know. I mean, it's not the end of the story. So I appreciate you giving that you have some insight into his well-being, but this is extremely heavy. But also, you're heeding the warning of, like, we have some choices along the way. And while it might be difficult, these again have a huge impact. Okay. So just to kind of organize a little bit. When I asked about rupture, you were talking about negotiating, having some ability to have both people's needs accounted for. And I know you talk about trust, and this is. I could see how it's related.
That if we are working towards having alignment relationally and personally, that we can feel like, oh, my partner has my back, or they have my interests at hands, even if we're at odds, we'll work it out, like there's some more sense of security and confidence that we can do that. Do you want to speak to that? Is that right?
You know, I heard this saying:
“Trust is built over time.”
And I never understood what it meant until I finally was able to be in a relationship that lasted more than seven years, eight years, nine, without trust being broken. Without! So from personal experience, I can tell that there is no amount of money, no amount of books, no amount of anything that can. Cannot be bought with the consistency of the relationship. For example, if one spouse leaves the home and is confident that the other spouse is not going to do anything, that the other spouse will not approve, and that gives a lot of confidence to both. And once that's broken, maybe you're a better person to answer that, but I don't. It will take a lot of years and work to rebuild that type of trust.
I don't know if it would be possible. For me personally, I can't speak for anyone else, but when people come to me, that's usually what happens. It's not their fear. It's behind the back without an agreement, the dishonesty. And usually, when these people, when I have a spouse, and the other spouse cheated, I always assume that they also hid the money, they also did something else because it shows about them as a person, as a character. If they're not integrity to keep the agreement, whatever the agreement is, if it's an open relationship, that's fine. Then this is not the agreement they break, but could be another one, could be a financial agreement. Whenever someone does that behind a person's back, that's where repair is tougher. That's not my area of expertise because usually when they're in my office, this is beyond repair.
Yes. “You're seeing people at that juncture, and also you're speaking to them. One of the things I'm feeling as you're describing this, Diana, is a felt sense that if I feel inside my nervous system that I can trust my partner, I can feel relaxed, I can let my guard down. And that if something emerges that's difficult for us, that we will turn towards one another, we will try to work it out and renegotiate. That's the other thing about agreement. It's like we can renegotiate if we start to learn, like, oh, Things are shifting for me, and I don't know what this means. Can we talk about it? We can renegotiate.”
Like, it's not like we're trapped, but if we are turning away and doing things unilaterally or in secrecy, and look to your point, things accumulate, and sometimes people try to be okay with things that are not okay, and then it ends up accumulating to a certain point. And they're not ever setting out to have an affair. But it's like, oh, I'm so unhappy. And I haven't addressed it, we haven't resolved it, and then I'm getting attention from this other person. It feels really good. And then it just starts to develop. Like, I don't think most people are setting out to like, oh, I'm going to go out and have an affair.
All that to be said, if someone is not doing the hard thing to turn towards the relationship, say, oh, I'm noticing I got attention from someone, and it felt really good, and it scared me. And you know, let's talk about what this means. Or it's. You're saying there could. That pattern could show up in other spheres of the relationship, financially or otherwise.
“Maybe it's a generalization, but the way a person shows up in one area. Yeah. Most likely, they're showing up in other areas the same way.”
“Okay, so how do people, if they are noticing the rupture and maybe not having the repair or even the micro moments of micro repairs, how do you help people shift the trajectory? Because, like, it's.”
“I mean, I don't.”
“You don't, because you're not advising them. You're at the end, but you are trying to give voice to here's what you want to do and here's what you don't want to do.”
“Only if I hear doubt. So, only if I hear some doubt. So some clients are calling me and say, ” Well, I'm considering divorce. That's the keyword. And I would like to know my rights. And so the way we end the conversation is, I hope you will get a good therapist with your spouse so that you can resolve the issues. Because I haven't been trained to do this therapeutic work. I am trained to dissolve marriages. And so when I notice there is this gray area, I don't push; I set back myself, and I don't. I only interact to support whatever the person needs in the moment.”
Okay. So maybe less about someone who's coming to you professionally, but you have a voice in the world around what not to do, what to do. So, is there anything you want to say about whether repair is difficult?
I think, as happiness is, it's a choice. Happiness doesn't arrive magically into someone's life. It's a choice moment by moment. What makes one person happy, whether it's choosing the right partner, eating right, avoid certain things that make one unhappy. But overall, I believe in choices. So if someone decides that whatever the other person did is so devastating that they don't want to put in the work, it's a choice.
“Not making a choice, letting things slide, not voicing an opinion, and not making a decision is a decision”
How many times have I seen even an extended family where he's living with his wife, who he built an empire, a huge business, but actually loves another woman? And this triangle dynamic is visible to everyone in the family.
Children are witnessing that they're being raised with a dysfunctional understanding of a relationship because the mother is with someone else. When father's not there, father is with someone. It just creates confusion for everyone involved. And so eventually that other person said by you, not making a choice. You make a choice, which is to stay in that relationship until he decides, and they're still together many 40 years later. So I would encourage people who are listening to sit down or not, or walk, but make a choice. So if the rapture happened and you choose to work on it, give it a timeline of all in for one year to work on the repair. And if it doesn't feel right, and if I don't feel it's working out, then I'm leaving after one year or two years or whatever the timeline is.
That gives the nervous system, at least from my perspective, some guidance. Because of the uncertainty, no choice. The ambivalence is messy, eating us up.
It's eating us up. And it is also unclear. And yet we're still deciding. Like, we can perhaps even feel like we're hiding behind indecision, but we're still deciding. I like how practical and honest you're voicing this, that if we really look at all of these things are choice points.
Yes. And it also takes up a lot of energy not deciding. So if I have 24 hours in a day, out of which half I sleep, and then eight hours work, there are four hours of sort of. And those four hours are ambivalence and dragging one down; it's way too much energy.
Most people are fluctuating or ping-ponging, going back and forth. It is a lot of energy.
It could also be manipulating tactics. Oh, I didn't decide. So show me who you are, and you know you need to work harder. But this is a two-way relationship.
Yes. Okay, fabulous. So it sounds like, again, it's a wake-up call. Your voice from the other side, really, if we're speaking to people who are in a relationship around caution and what to be like. There are grave consequences to not having these tough conversations, not having agreements, not negotiating, not bringing needs forth, and not having self-integrity around where one's limits are and making decisions around that.
And agreements, too.
And agreements.
Most importantly, agreements. Because
“The unfaithful person usually comes regretful”
and says, “I did this. And then. And so they, a couple, start to work out, and then six months later, that happens again and again. And so, eventually, that person who is unfaithful also needs to make a decision not to drag the person who is not accepting that dynamic. So it's an honest conversation, and it's so tough to be honest with oneself, too. It's not just to be honest with another person.”
Yes.
Like, I love this person so much, but I, I can live without that.
Yes. I'm sure. I'm guessing that from your experience, you get a lot of hindsight 20. Right. You hear a lot of stories.
That's why I wrote the book. In those moments of sitting with the client, I get those insights. Yes. Sitting.
Yes. Can you speak to, based on that vantage point, any early subtle signs of relationship drifting towards disconnection versus really stabilizing and investing in the strength of the bond? I mean, are you able to have any subtle signs that you would tell people to be mindful of?
Yeah,
“Just look at the history of the person's life before, because usually we're all adults and have had relationships.”
How did the other relationship end? If you're a man who is about to marry a woman or fell in love with a woman who has a child from another marriage, who then she filed a restraining order against the father and now the child is never able to see that father and she moved to a different area and you listen to it and maybe even meet the other father and see maybe it wasn't. What happened is the same thing that happened to that client when they knew each other for only two months: she got pregnant, and then the green card, and then the same DVRO, same two children now from two fathers being cut off. And maybe that's her picker, who is which is broken, picking the same type.
Of men for the family. Right.
The yes. So,
“Looking at the Dynamic. So, usually history repeats itself. If someone cheated or was unfaithful, most likely, if the relationship came with that type of chemistry, that means most likely”
I don't want to generalize because there are exceptions. Most likely, it will repeat itself. If someone leaves a pregnant wife for another woman, that other woman needs to know when she gets pregnant, that's when he leaves. Too much responsibility. It's not about the woman, it's about the character.
Okay, so early signs, like you're saying, it's not always predictive, but there can be a lot gleaned from who this person is. How have they shown up in the past?
And
“Just to be cautious, just cautiously optimistic”
Okay, I know we're winding down here. Any communication practices that you like to emphasize that promote stability versus escalation or dysregulation and disagreements in relationships.
As an attorney, I always advise my clients to run their tone meter by me or even AI if they don't want to pay me to make sure whatever they write can be used against them. Not to use accusatory language, not to use blamey language, and not to involve the children. And I learned that when I was 20. To always use I. Start the sentence with I and then, from there, keep yourself in your lane. So I feel when you say that hurt because instead of you being an asshole. Don't talk to me like that.
Yes, and a lot of people have the inclination. It's so human to want to point to the thing that hurts and say, I feel that you. You know. But I think what you're saying is not so much the I language, but it's the revealing of here's my experience relating or with that interaction, here's what happened to me, or here's where I am at, and more or less trying to make that visible. Even if you know, depending on some vulnerability, but also just the acknowledgment. Go ahead.
Another tip I was thinking of is to
“Visualize what outcome you would like to see in the other person if you want them to apologize.”
How insulting will it get you to that? Right. If I insult the other person, most likely they're going to be defensive and insult me back.
Yes, yes.
“So instead of focusing on the emotion in the moment, focus on the outcome from that conversation”
or from that sentence. I know it's hard, especially when lots of things are at stake at the moment, but it's very effective.
Yes, I would agree. It's giving an opportunity to almost reverse-engineer and really show up for the thing you're trying to create. It's like, we expect our partner to mitigate all these, like verbal accusations, and still stay curious and try to understand what you're needing and then decode that and like get it. It's like it's not very clear. Right. If we're attacking that, we want them to really understand what they're hurting. Like, it does not typically work that way that people are going to respond to what you're saying in your delivery.
Exactly.
You're saying tone. Okay, great. Okay, wonderful. Well, is there anything else that you want to mention that are keys or tips that maybe someone listening can hear from you that could help shift dynamics in their current relationship?
We live once, either all in or out. I don't, I don't. I don't think it's worth spending the energy on. I don't know, maybe it's too much energy.
Yes. Okay. Thank you, Diana. And then I wanted to ask you, in your line of work, I remember interviewing an attorney, and they were promoting. If you're thinking, you're contemplating dissolving your relationship or marriage, getting a divorce, we're looking for a collaborative attorney, like she was saying. I think if it only takes one to get aggressive, like if both people have an attorney or a lawyer. What are your thoughts on that?
It is always better to be kind. It pays out long-term. So much more. Whatever label we put on it, mediation, collaborative divorce, or amicable divorce, kindness goes very far, as the Dalai Lama said. And sometimes the other side is very aggressive. That happens.
Yeah.
I don't promote aggressiveness. I promote persuasiveness because I don't think aggression is effective. It's an emotional state of mind. Not a persuasive, winning type. Judges don't like that. I noticed. I tried.
Okay.
I tried in a mock trial, not in front of the real judge, and it didn't go so well. I dropped that. Don't have ego about it not working out. I've seen other lawyers being aggressive. Didn't work for them either. But clients love that. You know, clients who watch movies and TV, they say to me, Diana, I want you to be aggressive. And I say, no, I'm not going to. I'm going to be persuasive. And if you want someone aggressive, go to Mr. Smith next door, not me.
So it sounds like in the court or with the judge or just even the bigger system, it will be discrediting.
Or somehow shows that someone cannot regulate their emotions. It's like a toddler, 4-year-old, 5-year-old who doesn't get their way and then pounds and behaves aggressively. It's just legal bullying. Nothing else.
Yeah. And if you're talking about. Or we're talking about the bigger system and the integrity and being persuasive, that there's. It's almost like. I don't know if this fits, but it's almost as if I know my integrity and I'm operating and. Not that I'm not open to feedback, but it's. I'm not so reactive. I'm much more grounded. I'm much more centered.
Oh, yes. So when someone decides on the spot, let's say high stake trial decision needs to be made and they don't get their way, something the judge said they don't like. And if they get aggressive, I think I'm actually happy because their state of mind is blurred, their emotions. So it's clouded.
Yeah, yeah.
And I.
They're less resourced. There are fewer.
Yeah, they're less. They look less in control.
Okay. Wonderful. All right. Well, Diana, I'm sure you can point people towards how, if they're interested in learning more. What would you like to share?
Well, I have a YouTube channel called Divorce Like a Boss with Diana. Empowering people with knowledge, not legal advice. I have a book that you can see here, also on Amazon, Divorce Like a Boss, and Good Together, and once you Google it, you will find me everywhere you can schedule a consultation. There are links everywhere, and this is my website, romanovlaw.com. And also my Facebook page www.facebook.com/FamilyLawCalifornia.
Excellent. Now, can you have a consultation with someone who's not in California, or how does that work?
I will not be able to give legal advice outside of California.
Okay. So those in California can hit you up and try to get your counsel, and then, for just education, can visit your YouTube, get your book, and your insight.
Yes.
Excellent. Well, thank you for joining us.
Thank you for having me, and have a good day.
The post ERP 538: The Agreements That Hold Love Together: What a Divorce Attorney Sees Couples Learn Too Late — An Interview with Diana Romanov appeared first on Jessica Higgins.
Ever wonder why certain conflicts keep resurfacing in your relationships, or why you wake from a vivid dream feeling shaken without understanding why? Sometimes, the real roots of our struggles with loved ones aren’t just out in the open—they're buried in the deeper layers of our own subconscious. When we ignore these internal signals, challenges can feel insurmountable, and solutions remain out of reach.
In this episode, listeners will explore how dreams and moments of inner reflection can act as a mirror, revealing hidden emotions and unresolved patterns that shape the way we connect with others. By diving into the interplay between our inner world and our daily lives, practical techniques are shared to help harness the wisdom of dreams and self-inquiry—so relationships can become more creative, connected, and resilient in the face of recurring challenges.
Bonnie Buckner, PhD, is founder and CEO of the International Institute for Dreaming and Imagery®, author of THE SECRET MIND, and Program Lead for George Washington University's One Humanity Leadership Coaching Certification Program, where she uses dreaming and imagery work to develop coaches.
Episode Highlights04:37 How nighttime reflections illuminate daily life and relationships.
08:52 Emotional processing: Recalibrating through dreams.
11:39 Dreams as personal mirrors: Identifying patterns and insights.
14:06 Creativity, imagination, and the value of contemplative states.
16:25 Applying dreamwork principles to relationship challenges.
19:31 Inner conflict, projection, and energetic shifts in relationships.
24:05 Linking inner awareness to relationship dynamics.
28:53 The essentials of effective dream journaling.
30:58 Benefits of detailed dream recall and handwriting practices.
35:11 Shifting relationship patterns through dream awareness.
39:45 Perspective-taking and empathy through dream-inspired creativity.
42:31 Navigating mystery and uncertainty in relationship communication.
48:18 Best practices for couples exploring dreams together.
Your Checklist of Actions to Take Record Your Dreams: Write down your dreams in detail as soon as you wake up, resisting the urge to edit or judge the content. * Reflect Without Editing: Practice non-editing and non-judging by documenting all aspects of your dream, including emotions, images, and phrases, to foster honest self-inquiry. * Identify Emotional Themes: Look for recurring emotions or patterns in your dreams, such as anger or anxiety, which may point to unresolved inner conflicts. * Apply Dream Insights to Waking Life: If you notice yourself using strong language (e.g., “nightmare boss”) in daily life, pause to examine your emotional response and recalibrate internally. * Practice Waking Dream Exercises: Revisit challenging dream scenarios while awake, imagining new responses—like facing a monster instead of running—to shift internal dynamics. * Acknowledge All Facets of Self: Recognize that different dream symbols represent multiple aspects of yourself, helping you better understand your reactions and behaviors. * Share Dreams Mindfully With Partners: When discussing dreams with your partner, speak from your own perspective (e.g., “If it were my dream…”) and avoid interpreting their experience as fact. * Embrace Curiosity and Mystery*: Approach both your dreams and your partner with openness to not knowing, allowing for shared exploration and growth even through uncertainty.
MentionedThe Secret Mind (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
One Humanity Leadership Coaching Certification (*George Washington University) (program)
Jeremy Taylor (dream worker) (article)
DreamSenseMemory – a Gestalt-based dream-work approach embracing all our senses (National Library of Medicine) (article)
Relationship Map To Happy, Lasting Love (free relationship guide)
Connect with Dr. Bonnie BucknerWebsites: bonniebuckner.com | institutefordreamingandimagery.com
Facebook: facebook.com/drbonniebuckner/ | facebook.com/institutefordreamingandimagery
Instagram: instagram.com/bonniebucknerdotcom/ | instagram.com/dreamwithiidi
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/bonniebuckner/ | linkedin.com/company/international-institute-for-dreaming-and-imagery/posts/?feedView=all
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Email: jessica@drjessicahiggins.com
If you have a topic you would like to be discussed, please contact us by clicking on the “Ask Dr. Jessica Higgins” button here.
Thank you so much for your interest in improving your relationship.
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*With Amazon Affiliate Links, I may earn a few cents from Amazon if you purchase the book from this link.
Episode Transcript
Doctor Bonnie Buckner, it's so lovely to have you on the show. Thank you for joining us.
Thank you so much. Thanks for having me.
Yeah, I know that this might be a little bit of a different topic as it relates to intimate space, but when we start to dive in, I think we'll realize how much it's a part of our everyday life, which includes loving and living. And I appreciate you bringing a lot of like neuroscience brain functioning, just helping people understand how we function as humans and how it relates to the sleeping dream state, but also the waking dream state. So before we get started, for people who are just orienting to how you perceive dreams, maybe even the one who doesn't put a lot of emphasis on their own dreams, doesn't really remember or recall their dreams. Where would you like to start? How are they meaningful and significant?
Yeah, I'll start sort of simple, which is that
“We live two kinds of different experiences simultaneously”
One is very outside oriented, which is the things we do. Like right now, I am talking to you, so I'm doing something, but while I'm doing something and my eyes are looking outward, and my attention is focused outward, I'm having some kind of inner response to what's happening. And then you're going to say something back to me, and then I'm going to have a response to that. But what happens is we get so focused on the outer doing that it's hard to keep track of the inner response to that. And very few of us let's speed up because our days are sped up these days.
Very few of us then take those moments in the day to just kind of pause, look inside, reflect, and catch up with ourselves and see what happened.
“So dreaming is us stopping the outer doing and making that long extended sleep time pause so that all of that inner understanding, how I felt about it, the emotions about it, what I know, inner insights, all of these things can come up and I can see it and I can understand it for myself, learn from it, catch up to myself and also integrate it”
I love that, that's a place to start, let's say.
Yes. And it sounds as though you also encourage people to do in waking life, if they can devote time to maybe this contemplative, reflective, self-inquiry, being more present and mindful. Does that overlap with what you're saying?
Absolutely. Because
“Whatever we're dreaming at night, we're living in the day, and whatever we're living in the day, we're dreaming at night”
So people will say to me like I had the worst nightmare last night. I have no idea where it came from. Okay. And maybe 15 minutes later in our session, we're talking about something, and they say to me, I mean, I have a nightmare, boss. Okay. So we do use those kinds of speech. And when we're in that situation, and we're confronting the nightmare boss, we're also having a nightmare. Anger, anxiety, or whatever our feelings are that make us think that the boss is a nightmare. But we have to. We kind of suppress it, we sit on it. We're not giving voice to it in that moment.
So
“Our dreams help us to pay attention to it by over-dramatizing it because we're not allowing ourselves to feel it”
So in the dream, it puts us in some kind of scenario where something barges in, or there's a big tsunami or something, so that it's like, whoa, I really feel that now. Think about it and put the pieces together. So if I start to become conscious of that and I start to pay attention to the phrases I use, the kind of speech I'm using, if I catch myself saying nightmare boss, I can pause right there, see what kind of emotions I'm feeling, and do a little recalibration within myself. And that changes the whole dream, waking and sleeping.
I love that you're mentioning this. “Let me just check out what I'm saying. That if we begin to pay attention to things that are like the dream state might exaggerate. And I think it is a little bit more symbolic and metaphorical. So it's a different language. But if we're paying attention, then the message, it doesn't have to be that loud. Like, it can help us engage and interact with that material just more consciously. Thus, it doesn't have to be so nightmarish.”
“It won't be a nightmare. If I recalibrate myself, I'm going to learn different ways to shift those situations. If I can shift my own inner experience, I'm going to enlarge my perspectives. I'll see ways to handle those situations differently, and I'll have a whole different dream.”
“Yeah, I love that. Thank you, I so appreciate it. I'm relating to this personally, so I'm going to try not to just go into kind of my understanding.” But as for one listening that might not have as much experience with some of what you're describing around the recalibration and the information that comes to us in words during waking life, that we might not be putting a lot of emphasis on, or the dream state. Because I do remember coming across research, and I was like, I could see that being true, that some of what's happening in the dream state is our brain pruning and processing and metabolizing the day's events, which is not that different than what you're saying. But does that. What's your experience, or what's your understanding?
Does it also intersect with what you're saying around certain highlighting or exaggerations for getting more attention to be processed?
Well, there is a lot of research these days that talks about how neurologically, dreams are a way of sort of, let's keep it simple, like turning the volume down on emotions. And we all already know this because what did our grandmother say? Go to sleep. Tomorrow will be a different day. So now science is saying, and here's why. But grandma was right all along. So one of the ways that happens is because in the dream, we are interacting with it. We're interacting with those emotions. We're the ones recalibrating ourselves. We're the ones who are coming through an event because we live through our dreams. There's a monster. We deal with it. We wake up the next day. If we don't deal with it's kind of lingering there. But one of the things that I show people is the waking dream exercise.
So if there's a monster in my dream and I run from it instead of dealing with it the next morning, I can go back into that dream. 30 Seconds, close your eyes, go back in, and instead of running away, turn and face it. Everything is going to shift because it's about an energy I've been running from, and now I'm going to face. And that will totally shift our entire inner landscape.
So interesting. Okay, so I will share one personal example, and I'm sure we could go into exploring, which I don't want to do. I'm just how I am. Tell me if this sounds right to you. I used to have this somewhat recurring dream, which I no longer have because I think I gained understanding around what it was telling me, my projection of it. But I would go. In my dream state, I was. I needed to go to the bathroom, and I was trying to go. And there were these public spaces, and they were never appropriate for going to the bathroom. Either there's no. It's unclean, or there's no privacy, or there's no real facility to help actually allow me to go to the bathroom. So it was always this very uncomfortable sensation.
And my learning or how I related to it was like, Oh, you know, in my profession, I'm meeting with people, and I'm under. Like, I'm engaging with them and their difficulties and helping them process. So it's like I'm holding a lot, but if I haven't done enough to allow myself to process or transition or do something with that, discharge that. And I've never had the dream again. But it had been years since I had that kind of dream of not being able to eliminate. And usually it was number one. But still, regardless, that metaphor of not being able to go.
Yeah, that's super right on. And I even say in the book, if I had a dollar for every time people had a dirty toilet dream, because that's the equivalent that also comes up. People tell me I'm standing in front of a toilet that's so right at the top and is full.
Oh, gosh. Yeah.
Right?
Yeah.
And again, this is a nightmare that is so easily repaired. You go back in. What's the necessity? Flush it. That's it. Flush it.
Yeah.
And we all know that, you know, it eliminates exactly as you said. And when I even just say it to people, they're like, oh, I already feel relief.
Yes.
So, you know,
“Dreams are a mirror to us”
So if you think about it, another easy way that I like to explain it, we don't know what the back of ourselves looks like. Know what the back of our hair looks like. When we go to the hairdresser's, the only way to see that is through multiple mirrors. We can't just hold one mirror behind us. We also need another mirror.
“So in a dream, we have multiple things: objects, we have situations, we have other people, we have animals, beasts, whatever, that are reflecting pieces of ourselves that we can put together to get a fuller view of our totality”
I so love this. Okay, so I have done some graduate work around dreams. Not a lot, but I remember coming off, coming across the gestalt, where you are everything in the dream, which totally maps on what you're saying. And also, just in waking life, what's our association with the things that appear in the dream? So we can be able to connect how we associate certain symbols or characters, and that can help us illuminate further in this more rational state. Okay, again, I could talk and get curious about your dream work. And I know you've written a book called The Secret Mind that really gives such a wealth of knowledge around how to navigate this landscape, how to utilize these principles, and an exercise to really help people. Do you want to say anything about the book before we pivot to the intimate relationship?
You know, just that the book takes people from A to Z, from starting with how you remember your dreams? How do you start a dream practice and then all the way through to more deeply unpacking the dream, so you don't have to have any experience whatsoever to pick it up? It's going to kind of lead you through and give you different practices in each chapter to help you develop a practice for yourself.
And I just want to say, in reading your book, I haven't finished the whole thing, but I felt such normalizing for I remember being in grade school and daydreaming, and I feel like there's such helpfulness to that state of contemplation and just being in this creative pondering, and you really validate how important it is. And yet our school system typically doesn't provide us a lot of space for that or put a lot of value on that. So I think that, and as you point out in your book too, in more leadership roles where or if we're entrepreneurial or various, we really need to be creative. We need to be able to strategize and think outside the box. And there are so many ways in which those thinking that contemplation and creativity are such an asset in our lives.
Not only in leadership, but also in our relationships. If you want to pivot to relationships, we always need creativity because what happens Families have to make decisions. What do we do if someone in the family has to take a new job? What if that new job is in a different city? What happens if couples come to an impasse? We can butt our heads together as we've done for X number of years, or we can employ many of the dreaming tools and creativity to expand our perspectives, to step in each other's shoes, to step away from how it's been before, and imagine new ways of how it can be. There are so many things that those very same skills can help us to become more successful in our relationships.
I couldn't agree more. I often reference, I think it was the Gottman Institute. They've done a lot of research in a couple of romantic, intimate spaces. And I remember hearing something about seven to eight. Every couple has seven to eight irreconcilable differences. Not so much that their relationship is doomed, but that you have very different character differences in partners. And it's. There's no seeming resolution; likely, they will never get resolved. But it's how we get creative and work together and negotiate that is actually really the juice of intimacy, being able to work together to overcome these. Whether or not it's a life event, like you're saying, that we have to negotiate our differences, that we want to learn how to work together and have each other's back, and we're both getting some of what we need. It's a very creative endeavor.
It's not nobody gives us the solutions or the manual.
Listen, I have been using a doctor of Chinese medicine for the last, like, 30 years. And he said to me, nobody has a perfect body. There's always a little something. And that little something is our ability to grow because it becomes a space for us to think about, meditate on, and move beyond. And the same thing was said to me once by a Vedic astrologer. He said, ” You know, there's always something in someone's chart that's off this little part that is going to be just like an oyster. It's that little grain. And how we work it determines what kind of pearl we're going to end up with.” And I see relationships in the same way, and our own personality, if we want to call it that, in the same way. You know, there are certain patterns.
People come to me often because they recognize a pattern. I'm always filling in the blank, dating somebody that can't commit or I can't commit, or whatever it is, that's exactly where we want to go. Because that can be our greatest shift. And that can be ours. Instead of running from it, our greatest canvas for painting and creating ourselves.
Yes. Years ago, in my dissertation on conscious intimate relationships, one of the themes that came out of that was relationship as teacher. So sometimes on this show, I'll mention some of the challenges our curriculum for developing intimacy, and also individually. So I absolutely appreciate what you're saying. Great. Okay. So, for someone who is thinking about the dream state and how that might reflect what's happening relationally, can you say a little bit more about how this might? Our dream state might reveal relational dynamics or even things, as you're saying, that we might be ignoring or not wanting to deal with?
Yeah, absolutely.
“Conflict out there starts with conflict in here”
And so one of the things that my teacher, Dr.Catherine Shainberg, and she taught me is a long lineage of dreaming that goes back to the 13th century. I happened to learn it from her. She talks about seven different kinds of dreams. And four of those dreams, nightmares, one of them is unresolved. There's still something that needs to be done. So what that's speaking to is an imbalance in us, something that's not whole. Whereas the last three great dreams, light, dream of union are resolved. They're whole. Wholeness and peace are the same thing. So in Hebrew, in fact, shalom means peace, and it also means whole. Because if I have two, that's a conflict. It's hot, cold, left, right, he said, she said, or whatever that happens to be, night, day.
So conflict arises in duality. Also, coupling arises in duality. So how am I going to perceive my own inner contradictions? That's my first step. Because all of us have within ourselves many different facets. Like a jewel. I'm one person with a lot of different facets. Those facets show up as these different objects, places, people, and things. In my dream, when we get to a dream, the, you know, last dream of union, I've brought all those in, I've integrated all those. I'm one again, and I'm whole. We don't stay there forever. We move around because life changes. Everything changes. But if I have different pieces inside me and I haven't resolved those, we tend to project them onto the people out in front of us. Whether it's our partner, it's our work team, it doesn't matter. We throw it out there.
So,
“Going inside and dealing with our own inner conflicts, our own inner contradictions first, and knowing what those are is a first step to healing them in others”
Thank you. I want to just see if this fits with what you're describing. One way of saying this is if there are parts of me that are underdeveloped or I have been ignoring or unconscious of, I might attract a partner that exhibits those very traits. And then, like, for example, if I'm attracted to a partner that has a temper, but I suppress my own anger, is that kind of an example of what you're referring to?
Okay, that's a great example, and you know it. Our patterns work in that way as well. And it's kind of like, you know, there's this form. One form like two puzzle pieces, and the. It opens a vacuum for the other form to fit in there. And if I'm thinking the whole time that it's that other person, nothing's going to shift. But here's what's so fascinating. I've seen it for years. When people do dream work and begin to integrate those aspects of themselves without ever having a conversation with their partner, the whole relationship begins to shift. Because patterns have a certain energetic resonance. And if I'm that puzzle piece. And I begin to shift the shape of my puzzle piece. I'm shifting the energetic resonance, and the whole construction has to change.
We can't relate in the same way. So if I'm gonna participate differently, the dance is gonna be different.
Totally.
Okay, so one of the things, and I'm curious what you would say as far as how to work with dreams as it relates to the material of things that we're struggling with, an intimate relationship that we might actually be able to recognize, there's some inner conflict with. So, another example, almost now, not quite two years ago, my husband and I embarked on a renovation project. And it was in a certain timeline, and I was driving hard. He was with me, but he was also like, ” This is too much. And he needed all this to say I was feeling a bit irritated with him around his pacing at one point, and I was like, okay, if I can.
I remember I was kind of in the liminal space before going to sleep, and I was just contemplating, okay, so what is this? If he were doing what I wanted him to do, which is like driving hard, just as hard or harder, what would that allow me to feel? And I was like, ” Oh, I could relax a little more. And I was like, oh, like, I'm not giving myself that relaxation. I'm not. But it's easy to project on him that he's doing something that is impacting me. But that shifted. Like, I was able to recognize I needed to take a few more breaks and incorporate a bit more rest, and that shifted that dynamic. Is that an example of what?
That's awesome.
Example. Okay.
Yeah, absolutely.
So, is there anything else you want to say around? I mean, it sounds like your bigger message could apply to any domain, but if we're looking at intimate space, that what might come up, the material that might come up in dream state or even in a daydream state, if we catch ourself, you know, in thought Train or in a place around just imagination, that if we can actually pay attention to the material or the substance content of that might help us have insight about our intimate relationship. If it's a relationship-related. Yeah.
And again, everything is somehow relationship-related because I bring myself into my relationships. And so whatever that me is, if that me is out of order right now, that's one kind of experience I'm going to bring into those relationships. If I'm balanced right now, that's a different experience. It will absolutely change the whole experience because not only do you know, but we often think about relationships as being stagnant. And what I mean by that is, I show up my way, they show up their way, and either it works or it doesn't. But that's not how it works. It's way more fluid and malleable. How I show up brings out a certain aspect of the other, and how that person shows up brings out a certain aspect of me. It's really like, I referred to us as a jewel of many facets. It's like turning the jewel so a different facet can come forward. So in a way, how I show up, I have to take a little bit of responsibility for that.
I had a client who was angry and didn't realize the extent of her anger. And she was one day in line at the bank, and it was all calm, totally calm. And a guy walked in, and there was a line. And he goes, I just want to ask one quick thing. And she just, like, Whoa, went ballistic on this guy. And the bank manager asked them to walk outside every day. And she came back to me, and she said, ” You know, I finally get it. She said, ” You know, I'm so angry that instead of dealing with it in me, I pick fights.
And then I think, oh, well, that guy shouldn't have tried to cut in line. He actually wasn't cutting in line. He was going to ask, ” Is this the right line? So it became this realization of, like, wow, I'm actively creating events in my life because of something I'm not dealing with in me. So we can see very easily how that whole situation could have had a whole different story had everybody just been calm and let the guy say, ” Is this the line I should be standing in?
Are you willing to say, I know your book goes over so much of how to help someone enter into this work. Is there anything you want to say about what helps someone recognize how they might be participating or how to take a little bit more accountability for that facet, or how they might be?
Yeah, the first thing, I mean, this is so key, is to write down everything from your dream. And that sounds like the world's simplest thing. But I have so many people say to me, ” Yeah, here's my dream. And it's like three sentences. And so then I start to ask them a few clarifying questions, and all of a sudden, paragraphs come out, and I'm like, why didn't you write that down? Oh, I was too embarrassed. Or, oh, no, that didn't seem important. You know, we edit so much, so if we can take our own dream space, which can remain completely private to us, we don't have to show our dreams to someone else. We don't want to. And use that to practice. Non-editing, non-judging, non-criticizing, just put it all out on the page.
“Because we can't change something that we're denying. We have to see it first. So in that way, even just that dreaming practice can help us to see it”
Okay, these are parts of me, but also there's a big Aha moment that comes with people in that way, which is these are parts of me, not the whole. I am not a whole angry person. I have a part of me that is. But look, this dream also has a different part of me that is super healing and super revelatory.
“Yes. And my experience of writing out a dream I have had resonated as I was writing it around what felt meaningful or what felt like a message in it. And I would have probably. Well, I know I would never have gotten that insight or that understanding without the process of writing something down around what that, like, learning was.”
“Yeah, it's really important to write these things down.”
“Do you think it's important to handwrite, or can one be, for the sake of just comfort or time, people who are more comfortable typing? Do you have a preference or recommendation?”
“I do. I strongly advocate writing it down. And there are a lot of reasons why. And one is the editing process. There, there are, you know, on purpose, misspellings, images, drawings, puns, things like that spell check, autocorrect, all these things will get rid of on your phone or an app and you'll miss really important parts of the dream because especially if you like, speak it into your phone and then, you know, later in the day you look at it and you're like, I guess that's what I said, but maybe it wasn't, but it just corrected it, you know, I got it.”
Yeah. The technology and the auto-correcting of editing, plus it pulls.
Us out of our. Yes, the neurological processing system that is of dreaming is the default network. And it pulls us out of that into the executive network. And so it's already. We're losing something there.
I agree. Okay. So for relational dynamics or things that might be occurring in the intimate relational space, that likely, if one's writing, they'll be able to engage with or confront a little bit more through this process.
Paying attention and writing, or even just the first step, is becoming aware of it. It's difficult for us. I go back to the mirror example. We only see a part of ourselves, and that is so human, and it's okay. Like, that's how we're built. And so dreaming helps us to see more of ourselves, to see these different facets. You know, I'll give an example from the book, because following up on the anger thing, this woman dreams that she goes into a stadium and has a flamethrower and just blasts the whole stadium. Yeah. A lot of energy there. And here's the other thing. Unlike what you mentioned, the Gestaltists and Fritz Perls, earlier, one thing about this particular tradition is that it doesn't look at symbols at all. It understands that images are putting form to inner energies.
So when we start to think about these, are energies that big flame throwing is an energy. It's not like this person, like, had a little candle in front of somebody. It's a flamethrower, and it's a whole stadium.
Right.
So that energy can be. It's just energy. It's neutral right now. It's aimed at something we call anger. It could just as easily be aimed at something we call creativity. So when we start to recognize that these are just places that we're putting our energy and moments in time, it becomes a lot easier to transform them. So when I talked about this dream with this person, she was kind of shocked because she heard it as we're. I'm saying it back, you know, blasting the whole stadium. She's like, I'm blasting out my anger on everybody. She said, I had no idea. She said, I'm angry about something, me, inside me. And I thought I was keeping it to myself, but now I see that I'm blasting out at my family. I'm blasting out at work.
And, we also use the word lashing out. But the dream gave the blasting out this heated outburst.
Yeah.
Recognizing that was the game-changer for her because she just had no idea it was so big.
Yes.
Yeah.
Thank you. Okay. So one of the things you also help people with. I forgot what you called it, but it's like a waking dream method to approaching conflict. Is there. How can the dream material be in the dream? Okay.
Yeah.
Okay. So that's not conflict in intimate relationships, but it sounded like you were saying dream. Working with dreams can really help with conflicts in relationships.
Well, it can. I mean, if we think about that last dream.
Yes.
What is going to be the outcome of that realization? I mean, first of all, we can go back into the dream and do a waking dream exercise and do Something different. Redirect that energy of that flame blaster, and that's already going to shift everything. But the other thing is, you know,
“Once I have an awareness of something, now I'm in a place of choice. And once I'm in a place of choice, I become a conscious creator of whatever dynamic I want to make for myself”
And people forget, they think that when you suddenly get together with a whole group of people, things happen, and nobody has any control over it. But we're all capable of being conscious creators of those dynamics and situations.
And so dreaming helps us to wake up to that, our role in that, and we can shift our role in that.
Yes, I'm sure you get this question or encounter this quite a bit, where people might have some fear or apprehension about doing this work because it's like, what's going on, what is that going to ask me to look at, or what might I be like? Like perhaps a lot of times, in an intimate space, people have been attempting to create harmony by means of not bringing something up that, like rocking the boat. So they might just conceal or go along with what their partner wants to minimize conflict, and thus, turning towards being more conscious about what's happening for them can feel really scary.
It can. And that's
“One of the things that is the great blessings of dreams by making it a visual-sensorial experience for us, and it becomes playful”
And I've seen people dramatically transform really intense things by being playful with them. Because there's also something about dreaming that is a sort of, you know, scenario, and these images that feel some kind of a little bit distant from us. I'm not a gorilla, I'm not a flame blaster, so we can set it on the table in front of us and sort of play with it, knowing it's me and it's a part of me, but it's less heavy-handed, you know what I'm saying?
Yes.
If someone were to point a finger at me and say, ” You know, you're a flame blaster, I would lock down and get super defensive. But if I'm feeling it in the dream and I'm doing it, then, you know, even this caused giggles in our conversation because it's like, I mean, I came into the stadium, I blasted it out like, just like you. And I've giggled about it because we've all been there, A.
Yeah.
And B, by putting it in that kind of scenario, it's like, okay, you know, now I can shift it. It's not quite so intense. Somehow.
This reminds me of Art therapy, the modality of whatever, the modality, whether or not it's clay or painting, varies. That the process, therapeutically, of getting whatever's inside, outside, to manipulate it outside can help with perspective. As you're saying, we get to see it differently. We get to kind of walk around and have different angles. Also, we're not so overly identified with it. So when we're so overly identified, it's in us. It's hard to be playful, it's hard to be creative because we're. Our identity is so tightly woven versus, like, oh, it's this playful thing. And like, can I get curious, and can I exactly play with this?
And what about this?
What happens if I do that? Like, very exploratory. And then we can feel the internal, as you were saying at the beginning of this interview, noticing what happens internally when we're adding a therapeutic element. What are we experiencing as we're doing the art? I'm not an art therapist, but this is my understanding.
Yeah, exactly. And you know, I do a lot of. I don't work with couples. I work with individuals. And I also work. We do dream work in a group.
Aha.
And dream work in a group has been just the most beautiful thing to see because very quickly people realize, ” Wow, we're all going through the same thing. And it reminds us of that place of being empathetic to. Sometimes relationship issues arise because we want that person who's standing in front of us to be as we want them to be at that exact moment in time. And we forget that, you know, this is one moment, but maybe in a month it's going to be a different moment, and it's going to shift, or even in a day. You know, we all have times in our lives where, you know, the moon is full, and the moon appears to be gone. You know, we wax and wane, and our own growth waxes and wanes.
And sometimes we see things clearly, like the full moon, and sometimes we kind of are dark ourselves. And when we start to get that, it allows more space too, for the other. And the other thing I find is that people start to give. Have expanded the timeline, you know. Yeah, a lot of people get into arguments because it needs to be decided right now, or else, you know, I can't live with this kind of tension between us. But expand the timeline. Maybe right now is like a new moon. Wait, because the moon is always changing, because we're more moon-oriented than sun-oriented. So, you know, get into that kind of rhythm, which dreaming can help us to do.
Yes, that's what I was going to say. One of the things I appreciated was what you were saying. This contemplative creative state, it can help us with empathy. It can help us with entertaining the perspective of our loved one, our intimate partner, and in conflict, which can be incredibly useful in at least the understanding of feeling heard and seen. “I think often, once there's a grounding of really getting why something matters or what each person needs or feels, we can get more creative about solutions. But most of the time, people argue about what's right or like, the recreating reality of, like, whose narrative is correct. And that is an endless argument that will never be resolved.”
“And so there's no correct.”
“There's no correct.”
“There are just two different subjective experiences. Exactly.”
So I have found over and over and over again that when I can slow down and get into this wonderment that I do not know, and I am kind of bumbling around in the dark trying to understand, like my husband's choices of language, or sometimes what he chooses to do is so vastly different than what I would do. And I legitimately don't get it and don't understand the points of tension. And if I can stay interested and contemplative, I will at some point start to get of like, and it's so deeply healing for me to connect with what was driving or what mattered. And it's also, I think, really helpful for him to feel understood and received. And there we can move. Even if I don't agree or I don't, it's not my thing or whatever.
I feel like there's so much more alignment with at least that fundamental understanding that it's not easy to get to sometimes.
Yeah. And, here's another little tip from Dreamland.
“Dreams are about mystery. So they're showing us parts of ourselves that we're not in connection with that we don't know about. And the more we're open to mystery and allow ourselves to be open to mystery, the more we can allow our partner to be a question mark”
A mystery.
Yeah.
You know, and by the way, because we're a mystery to ourselves, that means at that moment they may be a mystery to themselves. So there is no way to put everything on paper really clearly because maybe they don't know either. We don't know, they don't know. So that doesn't isn't the basis of a relationship. Other things form the basis of our relationship.
And that's what I think the connectivity of really having each other's back, creating that emotional safety that we can in those unknown question mark places that we can still have that level of regard and nurturing the bond even in those uncertain times. Like it's hard to tolerate. Okay, I know we don't have a ton of time with you. How would you like to encourage people who are interested in incorporating this, and perhaps our partner is game to explore any way that couples might be able to work together to explore their dreams? Because I think it's easy to misconceive or get confused or project, and I guess that could be challenging. But any guidelines or supportive because it sounds like you do a lot of the group work and imagine.
One of the really key things when we work as a group that has been a wonderful teacher of boundaries is if it's your dream we're working on, each of the other dreamers becomes a secondary dreamer and says, ” For me, as a secondary dreamer, the dream, I feel we never say you, we never point a finger. We don't even look at the original dreamer while we're working with the dream. And when we finish, we say, I give the dream back to you and it's done. The other person can comment or not. That's so important because another flashpoint in relationships is to ambush with something that happened or was said three months ago or a year ago. You know, that was that dream.
Return the dream, the person can say, and be done, and let each day, each moment be a different dream, a different moment, a different time. So I do have a lot of people who say to me, oh my gosh, my partner and I have totally loved to just kind of lie in bed and tell each other our dreams in the morning. That's fantastic. So first of all, that and keeping, you know, light and fun is wonderful. If you want to work with each other on your dreams, become a secondary dreamer.
“Don't point fingers, don't look at, take it on. Keep a clean boundary. And that's very helpful.”
So, one of the dream classes that I took, I don't know if you know who Jeremy Taylor is. He's since passed, but he had a dream work, and he would invite people similarly if they were going to comment on somebody's dream. They said he would ask us to say if it were my dream. Then you basically own all your projections around if it were my dream or as a secondary dreamer. This is what I'm noticing or experiencing as I try it on myself.
Yeah, okay.
So then it gives a Real, like you're saying, delineation of what is being, like what is projection. And then also that the person, the original dreamer, gets to discern what's useful and helpful, or what they take from that or contemplate. Is that right?
Yeah. And by the way, I have a couple of family members who do this dream work as well. And we use that when we're having just a conversation that has nothing to do with dreams. If they're saying something and I hear something instead of saying, ” Oh, you're blaming, or you're doing this. Never, never. I say, you know, for me, as a secondary dream, something I'm hearing is, or what I'm feeling is, and then that's it. Just say it, and then the other person can pick it up or not.
Yes, I agree.
So helpful.
Yes, I even use the word projection, like my projection on that, or, you know, if it were me, you know, I would try to acknowledge. And I'm sure I'm not perfect at it, but it is nice to stay in one's lane. It's so much easier to receive. Okay, so any other guidelines or tips you want to recommend on how people can start to practice this together, or ways to create more safety? Because sometimes dream content can be activating, as you said, and can feel a little threatening. And so, how tolerate some of those moments? You've given us a lot of indicators already around just holding the mystery and staying with it a little longer. But anything else you want to say about how to create some safety for dream work and couplehood?
Yeah, maybe I would start also just me start with my own dreams and be that, very courageous explorer that's willing to look at me as I show up in my dreams and then to start to think about, okay, I'm showing up in the dream this way, like the example we gave earlier, you know, am I blasting out with my family, too? I'm doing it in the dream. Am I doing it with the family? And start to just be conscious of what I am bringing to this relationship.
Lovely. Wonderful. Was there anything else you wanted to say before we wrap up about dreams? Whether or not it's the waking state or the dream, sleeping dream state, and how it might be useful for one as they're negotiating an intimate relationship.
Yeah. And just remembering that we all have many different facets, and we can allow for a facet when we recognize that there are many others as well. And just holding that space to let our partner be multifaceted, and that some of those Facets include things that are both mysterious to us and to them that they haven't discovered yet either. And being able to just hold a bigger space for each other.
I love that. Thank you. Well, you do so much to support people in using dreams and imagery. How can people connect with you? Obviously, say a little bit more about your book and where people can find it.
Yeah. The book is called The Secret Mind: Unlock the Power of Dreams to Transform Your Life. And you can find it on Amazon, wherever you buy your books. And I teach all of the dream work through the International Institute for Dreaming and Imagery. And so you can Google that we have classes. We have classes for exploring different topics through imagery. We also have dream classes where we just work with dreams, each time something for everybody, and also for people who've never done it before, it doesn't matter. So you can find us there. And you can also access that through my website. Also, bonniebuckner.com. My social media accounts: Instagram, instagram.com/dreamwithiidi; Facebook, facebook.com/institutefordreamingandimagery#, and LinkedIn, linkedin.com/company/international-institute-for-dreaming-and-imagery.
Excellent. I'll make sure to have the links to your book, your website, and the institute on today's show notes. You also help lead a coaching program?
Yeah, so I'm the program lead of the George Washington University's One Humanity Leadership coaching program. So we bring dream work and some imagery into helping coaches to look inside themselves in order to prepare them to help others.
Oh, that's so great. I mean, in any domain, usually when we're creating something, whether or not it's a business or family-like, it's often the case that it is as well. I don't know how to say this exactly, but sometimes the unresolved things of the leaders will be visible in the system.
It always is. I work with Ina Gjikondi at GW. She always says, I am the system, we are the system. And as soon as we really understand that, then we can start to shift the systems we find ourselves in.
Beautiful. Thank you again for joining us today.
Thank you so much for having me.
The post ERP 537: The Relationship Mirror: How Dreams Reveal What We’re Not Seeing — An Interview with Dr. Bonnie Buckner appeared first on Jessica Higgins.
Money can be the silent partner in every relationship—often creating tension, stress, and confusion that can easily escalate into conflict. Beneath the numbers, every dollar spent or saved carries deeper questions about happiness, security, and the life we’re working so hard to build together. How can couples bridge the gap between financial security and true personal fulfillment, especially when their instincts and money habits seem worlds apart?
In this episode, listeners are guided through the core foundations of financial well-being and shown how to transform money conversations from battlegrounds into opportunities for connection. The discussion offers practical strategies for navigating differing money personalities, building trust and transparency, and creating shared goals. Listeners will learn why understanding the “why” behind spending habits matters as much as the “how” of budgeting, and how aligning values can lead to both financial security and genuine happiness in a partnership.
Lori Atwood is the founder and CEO of Fearless Finance and a CFP® professional. Lori created Fearless Finance to make expert, fiduciary, hourly financial planning accessible to everyone with no sales, no minimums, and no judgment. Lori’s been in finance for over 25 years, starting in investment banking, asset management, and private equity before starting Fearless Finance in 2016.
Episode Highlights05:03 Understanding deep-rooted money habits in relationships.
08:58 Merging finances: Transparency, trust, and relationship satisfaction.
11:04 The link between personal happiness and financial well-being.
14:19 Identifying the root causes behind spending and financial stress.
18:28 Exploring life changes: Navigating career shifts and financial decisions.
20:34 Overcoming financial paralysis: Bringing clarity to big decisions.
23:43 The five financial foundations every couple needs.
27:45 Negotiating financial priorities and the complexity of fairness.
30:51 Making deliberate financial choices and the power of data.
34:57 Empathy, non-judgment, and the importance of transparency.
36:53 Personalizing savings goals and uncovering hidden financial motivations.
41:35 Divorce, separation, and preparing for major financial transitions.
45:11 Individual happiness, financial security, and taking informed action.
Your Checklist of Actions to Take Spend Less Than You Earn: Track your monthly income and expenses to ensure you consistently spend less than you bring in. * Set Up an Oopsie Fund: Establish a cash reserve of $3,000–$5,000 in a separate account to cover unexpected expenses like car repairs or emergency travel. * Build an Emergency Fund: Save three to six months’ worth of living expenses in a high-yield savings or money market account to protect against major disruptions like job loss or illness. * Contribute to Retirement: Allocate at least 15% of your pre-tax income to retirement accounts, using employer matches and Roth or traditional IRAs if available. * Manage Consumer Debt: Pay off or create a plan to reduce unsecured debt, such as credit cards and personal loans, before setting other financial goals. * Merge Finances for Transparency: If you’re in a committed partnership, consider merging accounts to enhance trust, transparency, and shared financial management. * Communicate Financial Priorities: Regularly discuss values, priorities, and spending plans with your partner to proactively address differences and prevent misunderstandings. * Seek Fiduciary Financial Advice:* Get unbiased financial guidance from fee-only, fiduciary advisors whose costs are transparent and posted upfront.
MentionedCommon Cents: Bank Account Structure and Couples’ Relationship Dynamics (Journal of Consumer Research) (article)
Shifting Criticism For Connected Communication (free guide)
Connect with Lori AtwoodWebsite: fearlessfinance.com
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Episode Transcript
Lori, thank you for joining us. I'm excited about our conversation.
Thank you for having me.
Yeah. And we are going to be looking at some of the conflicting needs as it relates to financial security and happiness in a relationship, and also just individual happiness and how that can also impact. Okay, where would you like to start about the kind of tensions here? I mean, “one of the questions I had around, when you think about relationship and money and happiness, this, what do most people get wrong? But wherever you want to start.”
“Well, I think we can start there for sure. What do people get wrong? So the first thing I would say is when you're in a partnership, in a relationship, and when I say that, I mean you're in a committed relationship where you're sharing your life and therefore sharing your finances.” So, it's a different story if you're not quite there yet. And that's fabulous, but it's different. So if you are in that position where you are sharing your finances, I like people to remember that no matter what you are sort of trying in therapy or in your own work or whatever to change your money,
“Some of your money habits and approaches are in the DNA, and they won't necessarily change. What I like to think of it as is, how do I put scaffolding around and manage this?”
And so with couples, there could easily be big differences. And some of them are due to background and experiences and possibly trauma, but some of it is just who you are. I'm frugal because my grandmother was frugal, and I'm so much like her, you know, so
“Come to the relationship knowing that you're going to get whatever you get in from that deck of cards, if you will, and respect it. And what we want to do is not change it”
Because what I often see is like, I'll have a saver in the household and a spender. And what happens is the spender and the hoarder become more of who they are, and to try to compensate and bring the household back to regression to the mean. Right?
And what we have is two people further out on the extremes of both of those things as a way to try and compensate instead of working together and be like, Hey, I know you're like X, and I'm like Y, and what can we do? And so in my house, my husband doesn't part with a dollar easily, and he needs to have a certain amount of cash in an account to even sleep at night. And so I respect that we agreed. We discussed it. Okay, let's have that much. He's comfortable, and then he doesn't ask me questions about how I'm investing the rest of it.
Well, one, because I do this for a living, and two, because we've discussed it and we've agreed, and I've done what I need to do to get him comfortable, and now he can get me comfortable by allowing me to invest and take on that risk. So that's the first thing I would say.
Yes. And I just want to make sure I'm tracking correctly. “It sounds like you're saying when couples are speaking or operating differently in their financial way, they can get very polarized. It's almost like you're saying they compensate.”
“But also more extreme.”
“More extreme. And I've also experienced this, my relationship, my husband will be like, well, I have to do it because I'm worried you won't.” Or like that, you.
Yeah.
But I constantly feel like I'm trying to remind him that we're. If we hold both of our values, like I tend to like to purchase things that are a little bit higher quality because I had a friend who was like. And I was like, that's so right. She was saying, well, I'm. I can't afford to buy cheap stuff because you have to replace it all the time.
So I replace it all the time. It's terrible for the environment, but, yeah.
Wrecked. Yes. So philosophically, I tend to err on that side, but he tends to be a bit more conservative about spending. So I try to encourage and remind him that I'm holding his priority of budget and being mindful, about being resourceful. And that basically we can hold both values together. Right. But it seems like it requires a lot of trust. It sounds like in your. What you're sharing about your husband, like, he trusts you, and you have his back around the particular amount that he needs.
“So you trust each other.”
Then you can relax a little.
You can relax a little. It's about. Well, I mean, I'm telling you this. It's about trust and transparency, and
“Your finances are about trust and transparency. The more I can get couples to communicate about their finances and be transparent, the better off you will be”
And there's academic proof of this now. I mean, I just came across. Oh, my goodness. Her last name is Olson, and his last name, I think, is Finkel. The two professors who did this study on people, couples, heterosexual couples who merged their accounts, and those who didn't. And they tested happiness and found that couples who merged accounts were much happier for much longer than those who kept separate accounts. Now, I can tell you why, from a financial standpoint. That's right, that I utterly would have predicted that.
But people don't always believe me, because I always say
“Once you are married, you should merge your accounts because you can see better if all of the income comes into one checking account, and all the expenses are paid”
Not only can you see better what's going on and what's coming out, but you don't have a bunch of little accounts that all have 200 bucks in them, so there's no cash seepage, which is what I call that. But three, if you are not merged, then you have to contribute in some way or fashion. And that means you're being valued based on what you earn. And that's wrong in a marriage.
“You're 50/50 in a marriage, regardless of who earns what.”
And so as a result, if you are, well, I earn a third of what he earns. I'm only going to do the. Not only is that kind of an accounting nightmare, but if something happens to one of your jobs, does that person stop eating and turning on lights? No, of course not. You're one entity, one household, one entity. Boom. It's all shared.
I love how clear you are. Some people might say, ” Oh, there are different people who function differently. And I have seen research, and I've heard people cite findings on couples' satisfaction. It does tend to not only financially, as you're describing, offer the transparency and the opportunity for communication and the more curriculum, if you will, to work together. But I think the symbolism of we are in this together, we are sharing, there are a lot of psychological aspects of it as well.
Okay, so you're really recognizing that if we can learn about each other, we have a greater ability to work together. And then if we have more trust and transparency and do join finances, then we have the opportunity to do that.
Less friction.
Less friction. Okay, so how do you see happiness fitting in here?
Because. Yeah, this is a great question. So the dirty little secret of personal finance, at least in my opinion, having done this for this many years and thousands of households, et cetera, is that
“The most important thing to your finances is your happiness.”
I don't mean the happiness you get when you eat a really yummy cupcake. I mean your long-term contentment. Because if you're unhappy with your relationship, your house, your job, your relationship to your mother, your body, guess what's going to pay your finances? We're either self-medicating, or we're needing a lot of stability and scaffolding, or we're just buying things. After all, we think we deserve it because we're having such a hard time in this other area of life. So get the happiness. Right. If you don't like your job, get rid of it.
And if you want to do less, do something else, you're a big lawyer, and all you wanted to do ever in your life was be a beekeeper. I'm going to try to get you to the place where you can be a beekeeper. Because the other thing that I always say to people is that
“With very few exceptions, it's all fixable. In personal finance, the problem or the challenge is whether you want to take the medicine I'm going to prescribe”
But I'm going to prescribe it.
Yeah. I'm kind of hearing that A.K.A unhappy people spend more money.
Oh my gosh, yes. They spend more money typically in full discretionary areas because what they're trying to do is make themselves feel they're trying to get that little hit of happiness their person gets from a cupcake or whatever. I'm using that as a metaphor that a person gets from a pleasure.
The dopamine, whatever we, whether or not.
It's shopping, a pair of shoes, cupcakes, yet they're trying to get that to counterbalance whatever that other unhappiness is. And you know, you see couples where they're on the brink, and they're not doing very well for whatever the reasons are, and they buy a new car, and suddenly they're okay for a few months, and then that car is no longer all that interesting. And it's the same with stereo. People don't really have stereos anymore, but you know what I mean, larger purchases. And that's not where the issue is. And so
“Your money is utterly agnostic. It doesn't care. It's not the money's fault. It's a tool; it performs a service”
Yeah.
So what you need to do is get yourself in a place where you're content, and you'll see immediately how much less you spend.
Okay. So this conversely would be happy people have a bit more capacity to be intentional and aligned with their spending, and maybe spend less.
Yeah, I think that's true.
Okay, so this is, I mean, we could unpack this for the whole interview. That there's a lot of opportunity. I'm sure this gets, I mean, are you, how do you help people understand what makes them Happy? Is this doing a values exercise, or doing a vision exercise? Like,.
Much of that is over my pay grade.
Yeah.
But when people come to see me, it can become very clear very quickly what's going on. And typically it's either some sort of real problem with the job, or sometimes it's a problem with the spouse or the partner. Other times, there are other things, body image, and other things. Whatever it is, and I can usually hear it, comes out pretty quickly. And so if it's something like, you know, we're at each other's throats because we're living in three rooms and we have four kids, I'm going to say, what can we do? How much would a bigger apartment or a bigger house be? Let's do the math and see if we can get you out of where you're living or do the renovation that you want to do that's going to allow you to have a little, like, breathing room. Right.
And so I'm going to try and do that. And typically, the source of the unhappiness is right on display.
Got it.
If you're watching for it, are you?
Referring out on a lot? I mean, that can be a difficult pill to swallow on the receiving end.
I don't. Yeah. I'll just say a lot of times I'll say, if you're not in counseling, you may want to consider it. And that's so like, if you identify.
Somebody's got a body image thing, you will directly call that out and say, ” It looks like it sounds like.
And I'm wondering if I won't diagnose anything.
No, I'm not diagnosed. But when you assess that, you're saying, I can see really quickly what's driving.
Some of the spending you may want. Yes. So if I see an addiction or something of that nature, I'll say, ” You may want to explore this with a professional.
Yeah.
Because I can see this. I can see this in your finances. You may want to explore this with another professional. So. Yeah, I have said that.
Okay. Because it kind of seems like a yes. Right, well, I'm just asking because you're saying if these are the motivators, they're not going to go away, like the spending plan, the budget, or the different tools. Okay.
And they're not financial problems.
Got it.
They're not.
But these stressors have a huge impact on decision making sense of self. That's right. Okay. And I hate to say it, but it's, you know, living in the modern world, we're both in the United States. There's a lot of messaging and marketing that is appealing to are the things that we want in the way of products and services. So it's very compelling to kind of go down that path that will help in happiness.
It's super compelling. And it is like a dopamine thing with social media, et cetera. And I'm definitely not knowledgeable about that kind of thing. But the fear of missing out and the you only live once. Those narratives, they come up a lot in personal finance. And it can make it hard if one of the partners is more of a saver and the other partner is more of a you only live once. And so there are different tactics we can take to help with those issues. But sometimes that couple will need another professional to help and be fair.
And also, you're really helping people understand this is not something to be changed. They're not going to you to change their partner. Yeah, right, exactly. You said this is often in our DNA. It's how we orient. It's part of our money relationship. Some of that might be that there might be some opportunity for adjustment. But for the most part, there's some pretty.
It's pretty ingrained.
Yes. Okay. “So you mentioned a couple of times around unhappiness or if they're in a job that they hate. When it comes to the relational dynamics, sometimes this can have a huge impact. Like if or in a partner's job that they do not like, but they feel like, oh, this provides health benefits or my income and mortgage, or all the things. Do you want to speak to that scenario?”
“Yeah, I mean that's where I typically. If they're in my office and they're saying, I'm really just, I dislike my job, then we'll run scenarios with that person doing a different job, and what are the sacrifices that have to be made for the whole family, and are you willing to do them? And I can show people the mathematics. The psychology part is above my pay grade. But I can say, if you take this job that generates less in salary, this is how it's going to affect your cash flow. Are you willing to take that? Is it if the whole household or the adults in the household are saying, yeah, let's make that transition because it's going to make you happier. That's great. I mean, often my job is to say, yes, you can do this if you choose to.”
Yes.
It's almost like what?
Yes, you're giving people the possibility when they might be really stuck in fear, and just like, no, I can't. I can't. I can't even. Like, the stakes are too high, so they don't even explore. And you're giving them, well, here's. Let's look at some versions.
Here's what look.
Yeah. And if. Oh, we don't do this. But that's maybe not high ranking on what's most important. And your happiness is, like, you're helping them see how to achieve. That could be incredibly motivating.
I agree. And that's what I want. You know, that's what we do, you know, we're trying to get it. What is the. The real goal? Sometimes the goal is, well, we want to renovate our basement, and that's an easy thing to deal with. Right. But sometimes the goal's deeper, more embedded, and it's like, oh, you know, it would be great to renovate the basement because maybe we could rent it out. And if we rent it out, then I don't have to work as many hours, and I can do this other thing. And now I'm starting to get to know really what's going on for you.
Do you ever find that when you meet with a couple, they're not talking about this because they're afraid, or that it just. It feels too paralyzing?
Yes. And sometimes they, I mean, I can't speak for what the motivations are for people, but sometimes it seems like they don't know where to start. Like they don't know what questions to ask, and they can't. I do this day in and day out, so I know exactly what I'm visualizing, you know, and so they can't, especially if they're not numbers people. They can't visualize what I'm saying. I had a client just a few weeks ago, and, you know, they want to do this renovation, and they just got some bad news about their health, and they're like, ” Can we still do this? And I'm like, yeah, I think you can, and I'm going to show you mathematically how. But they were paralyzed. Because they don't know where to start to figure out if they can. They don't even know if it's the right course question. And so I'm arm's length from the emotions. And so I can come in and say, no, you shouldn't do that, or, yeah, I think you can absolutely do that.
How lovely to have someone in your corner who can help lay out the financial scenarios of what different options would be. I mean, so many people would.
That's right.
I mean, it's not like a quite a crystal ball, but like, there's some information around what that version could look like, what that landscape would be.
It's funny because my daughter, she's now 18, but when she was little, and I was doing this, she's like, people ask me what you do, and I don't really understand what you do. And I said, well, it's like when I brush your hair, and I comb it, and I detangle it. That's what I do for people's finances. I love that she has long hair. She's always had long hair. And that's what I do. That's what I see us as, making it clear, detangling it. Taking the things that don't matter out, keeping the things that do matter in, and showing you in a mirror.
Yeah.
What it looks like.
Yes.
And then you get to make decisions.
Yes. Okay. So when you are working with a couple that perhaps have conflicting. I mean, so in this scenario, we're saying, oh, one partner's unhappy, and they both want to support the partner that's unhappy to be happier. They just don't know how. Other times, you might have a couple who are in conflict about what to prioritize.
Oh, yes.
Okay. Can you talk about that a bit?
It does happen. So the first thing is, you know, I need to make sure that they're set on the five foundational elements, because to me, I don't want you to have any goals unless you're set on that.
Okay.
And so a lot of times I can take it back to that and be like, look, you guys aren't quite set on that, so we don't even need to have this conversation yet. Right. There's no boat to buy until I have my emergency fund, so let's get on it. Right.
Is that one of the five?
Not the boat, but the emergency fund.
That's what I meant exactly.
Yeah. Well, let me. Shall I enumerate?
Yes, please.
Okay. So
“The first and the most important by far is that you spend less than you earn each month, period. Nothing is more important than that because that's the foundation upon which everything else is built”
And you'll find that if you're doing that in a consistent way, a lot of the money stress will go down. “Two” is that you have, depending on the size of your household and where you live, “Three” to $5,000 set aside in an account in cash for oopsies. These are dental things that came up that are not covered, Car repairs, home repairs, an emergency flight to see your mother, that kind of stuff. Then I need an emergency fund. An emergency fund differs from an oopsie fund because an emergency fund is for when there is a total loss of income, which is usually due to three things.
Divorce, disability, or some health-related thing, and job loss. So this is where we turn when it all goes a little crazy. So I need three to six months of your expenses again in a money market or a high-yield savings account somewhere. The “Fourth” is that I need to know that you're taking care of your future self. So I need at least. And these are floors. I'm giving you floors. More is always better.
Yes.
15% Of your pre-tax income is going to a retirement account somewhere. So it can be a combination of things. Maybe your employer does a 4% match, and you do 11% into your 401k. Maybe you have a 4% match, you do 8%, and then you fill your Roth. Any of that, whatever the permutation is, that's fine. But 15% pre taxes allows me to know that we won't be eating cat food in retirement. Yes, exactly. And then the “Fifth” is that you're managing consumer debt. What is consumer debt? It's unsecured debt, not car loans, not student loans, and not mortgages. Although student loans are not really secured. But these are personal loans and obviously credit card debt. That revolves. So either you don't have any, which is fabulous, or if you have it, we have a plan to pay it off.
And what I see all the time is that people rush to pay it off. It's a source of shame; it feels bad. And so they're throwing a bunch of money at it every month, but they don't have these other things taken care of. And so the cycle begins again. So I put you through that first, and if you don't have that, there are no goals.
I love it. You're like, we can't even have this conversation until this is handled. This is the essential, fundamental, elemental requirement before it's like the pre-requisite for any other.
That's great.
I got it.
That's right. And then if they do have those things and they're still like, I had one couple where he was kind of like, the kids can go to public school, it's fine. And she was like a real private school kind of gal. And it was an ongoing source of stress for them. And where I live, that's 50, 60 grand a year per child. That's no joke, right?
No joke. Yes.
And he was like, look at what that's going to do to us for the rest of our finances. And, it's not necessary, blah, blah. And she's saying, I went to private school, and my kids have to go to private school. So those are things where I really can't help. All I can do is show you what it's going to look like in both circumstances, and either you can figure it out together, or you can involve a third professional. That helps.
Got it. Okay, thank you. So that's helping the couple negotiate their priorities, but financially, they're taking care of, you're giving them. Okay, here's this, what this would look like. Here's what that looked like. Okay. Now, do you ever encounter couples who are contending with, like, what feels fair when you're talking about, oh, renting out the basement so one can work less? What if both want to work less? Is it just running that scenario?
Yeah, I do have that experience. That's a tough one. That's a really tough one. The fairness thing is tough. You know, sharing your finances gets rid of a lot of what I said earlier, which is I contribute this, and you contribute that. And if I lose my job or decide to take a job that pays less, which is what we're talking about, then what happens to my contributions, and it ripples through. And so again, the best that I can do here is show people, well, what if both of you reduced your hours or whatever it is, or what if one of you did? And what does that look like? And then again, I can give you the data.
Yeah.
And either turn you over to each other or a third-party professional. That makes sense for you.
Got it. That's super helpful. Again, it seems like, as you were saying, agnostic, like the scenarios, the money is a tool, and I'm showing you this avenue, but you're not putting a lot of judgment on it. But that's part of what gives them more information to work with and hopefully be able to negotiate and collaborate.
Figure out what makes sense and is fair, or whatever the terminology is. To be honest, that doesn't come up that often. And which is great. It doesn't come up that often because usually, I certainly have couples where both are not content with their jobs. I mean, that certainly happens, but usually there's a, oh, well, she's been dealing with this longer, so let's have her do it, and then I'll do. Usually, they've kind of sorted a lot of that stuff out. Typically, when I see that kind of stress, there's a lot of other stress in the couple's relationship, too.
That could be like caring for elderly parents or little kids.
Anything. Yeah, it could be anything. And usually there's kind of this. There's resentment sometimes, where it's like, well, you didn't work for three years, and I was sitting here like a chump working. That gets really complex really quickly. And that is not about money.
Yes. Well, I mean, as you said in DNA, I was thinking about my husband, who is from the Midwest, and I think his part of his experience, whether or not it is genetic or if it's partly learned, that he wants to provide, like there. Or even just. Oh, yeah, some of the masculine.
Right.
Wanting to provide. But also, if it requires sacrifice on his end, even if I'm not asking him to, he's still putting himself in that position. And that can contribute to some of the discontent, but he also wants to do it. So this is kind of more of the internal, where somebody might.
Oh, yeah, yes.
Okay. And so are you. Again, it sounds like one of your approaches is just to help them unpack this. Like, providing is important to you, but also your happiness is important to you.
So I don't even get that as deep as that. Yeah. But what I definitely would say is here's what it would look like. Right. So I have said to people, if you got your wish, what would it be? Well, I'd really like to be a beekeeper. And I'd really like to be whatever the other thing is. And I say, okay, well, let's see what that looks like. And are you willing to make the sacrifices that go along with that lifestyle? And that could be a smaller house. It could be, the kids go to state college and the, whatever it is. But it's.
“I want people to make deliberate decisions. I don't want them to react. I want them to make deliberate decisions in their lives, think it through, discuss it, and then make the decision”
Yeah.
So I try to provide data and evidence.
Oh, my gosh. You're like the avenue to which dreams can come true. And I.
Wow, that's big. Okay, I love that.
But isn't it true? Because these are the vehicle, the tool, sometimes the money. It's not the only thing, but there's a lot that goes into making something happen. And sometimes when we get overwhelmed, and we don't know, we just kind of.
Keep it all ambiguous, freeze sometimes. And we can't make a decision. And so what we do is we try to. We break that log jam, we detangle the hair, if you will. If I could just beat that metaphor to death.
But yeah, I know. I come from more of a psychological perspective, so I appreciate. I'm asking.
Oh, yeah.
But they're very interconnected. Right.
It's all psychological with money. Which is so funny because, you know, I would say 10 of what we do is mathematical, you know, and so much of it is not. So much of it is just saying, you know, reflecting what people are saying. Well, how? How do you feel about, like, if she's doing this and he's doing that? So a lot of it is, you know, when I hire associates to the firm, I'm looking first for empathy because I can teach them all the finances. It's just not that big of a deal. Yeah. I'm looking for somebody who's going to be patient, who's going to be empathetic, who has the emotional IQ required for the job.
Well, and the vibe I'm getting from you here is, Lori, is like, it's a little bit of nonsense. Like, it's just very.
Oh, it's all nonsense with me. Yeah.
Well, I love that because it just, it's a little refreshing. Like, people get caught up, and they're like, oh, what are you gonna think about me? Or like what my expectations are? And it just feels like you're just very real, down to earth, very clinical for me.
It's very clinical for me. And I say this to people all the time. I'm like, “I'm a financial gynecologist. I am not judging you on what you tell me, but you have to tell me; I can't help.”
Yes.
Right. Because sometimes things are hidden, I'm like, I gotta know.
Yeah.
I have to know. And it is. I mean, like, when you go to your doctor, you're not kind of like, oh, my God, is he or she judging me? Do you want to get an answer?
Yeah. Yes, you want the real feedback and the input. Right, right. Okay. And it, you know, with this empathy and compassion or non judgment, that the fact that's there, like, that's so beautiful that you also can have that compassion and empathy, but that you're. Again, keep coming back to nonsense, real.
As clinical as we can make it. Because, like I said earlier, the money itself is clinical. It doesn't feel shame. It doesn't have any feelings. At all, you know, and it's us with all the feelings and the stuff.
Yeah, yes. So we've talked about the relational happiness a bit around how couples can work together. Did you want to say more about that?
No. I mean, I think I've said, you know, to the extent that I'm at all knowledgeable, and from my experience, I think that's normally what I see is that one person is one way and the other person is another way and they don't know how to regress to the means so that everybody has enough savings and everybody can spend the way they want to spend. And so instead they go out to extremes. And so if you can see that and be aware. Right. Because I have people who come to me, and someone will say, ” He's looking at everything I buy, and I know we make enough money for this. And so I'll show that we know how much you're making and it's okay.
And what I like, couples, especially when that's the case, like, I don't personally have that with my husband because both of us are pretty frugal, but I see it all the time. And what I suggest then, and what this is, what I suggest for everyone is that we have a pool of full discretionary money each month, and you need to communicate with the other person in the household about how it's getting spent. Should we go out to dinner? No, I've got to buy boots for the kids because it's snow season. Once you're doing that and making the trade-offs and communicating about what's happening before the money gets spent, you're done. You're bulletproof. Money cannot hurt your relationship in that way.
It sounds like part of what could be helpful relationally is this ability to understand individually what one needs, or also for the family. Like, this is a proactive conversation. Like, I've already identified or earmarked certain funds for the children's boots. Right. Like that's happening, as you said before.
That's right, spent.
But it requires some thoughtfulness, or it requires self-awareness.
Because you just hit on a really interesting point. The point, in my opinion, is that a lot of times somebody will come and be like, ” We have to have this much money in emergency savings. We have to. That's what they say on TV. We have to. And they hide behind, well, isn't saving good? You know, how can you be telling me they hide behind all of that when really what's going on is, hey, we don't have enough saved for my comfort. But we seem to have enough saved for your comfort. And so a lot of times I can say, look, this is how much professionally I'm recommending that you have saved. If you've hit that, any dollar after that is a discussion between you. And so I call people out when they're hiding behind, well, you know, Dave Ramsey says, blah, blah.
And Susie Orman says that. And, you know, I'm like, whoa, whoa, don't use that. What are your needs? And people don't even see it like that. They're like, wait, saving has to be the outcome. How can you, as a financial professional, tell me that I can spend, and saving has to be the right outcome? Not always. It's not always the right outcome.
So you're inviting people to not just adopt a formula that someone else prescribed.
Exactly.
But to really get clear on where I can feel really fulfilled, a life that is in alignment with.
Get me to that happiness.
Happiness. And also feel financially secure enough. I don't feel financially secure at X number to own it and say I don't feel comfortable.
Right. And so the other person may not have even known that because they're so busy having the argument over which Dave Ramsey episode he said that in.
Right.
And that is really irrelevant. Yeah, it's utterly irrelevant. What's really happening is, you know, hey, I hate what I do for a living, and I'd like to retire early. So if you are not saving the maximum in retirement like I am, then you may be hindering that plan.
And that's a whole different thing.
It's a completely different thing. But gotten to it.
Yes. I feel like if I were in that relationship and I heard that, I would be like, oh, well, what? Thank you for telling me. I wish I had known that, like, that changed.
Yeah.
You can have a different conversation.
Conversation now it's a different conversation because, you know, I'm going on the assumption that you both love each other and want to be together and want what's best for each other. Then the conversation is, wait a second. We want to get you to. To retire early. I can help you do the analysis on that. That's easy. And then we can know when you can retire if you save at X, Y, and Z levels. And then we can try to get to a scenario that works.
Excellent. I'm like, who wouldn't want you in their court? Great. Okay, so you just mentioned, I'm assuming that you both love each other, and let's say someone's in a relationship or a marriage where their money is joined. And there's a lot of problematic dynamics. They are at a place where they're considering divorce or separation, but they won't even contemplate it because of the fear of what the divorce financials would look like or the impact on them individually, like, ” Can I do this alone?
Yeah. And divorce is one of the three bankrupters that I said in the beginning, obviously, job loss, health-related stuff, and divorce. It is right to be anxious about that, but it's knowable what you don't want to do is stick your head in the sand. So at that point, and this happens unfortunately a lot in my business, you know, the sort of breathless call from the car with the doors locked and the windows up, can I leave him or her? And I say, I don't know, let's book a time and let's figure it out. Now, how do you do this and do it?
Yes. How do you anticipate? Depending on. This is probably way too specific, but depending on what attorneys are, how litigious it gets, or like, I don't know, like there could be different outcomes. Like, how do you predict?
I just put an assumption in for legal fees that is very dependent on where you live, you know, and people come to me all the time. You, you already know that I'm blunt. Like that's become clear. Right. And people come to me all the time. They're like, well, we're going to use a mediator. We're going to have an amicable divorce. I'm like, you're not? Because I can already see in their assets what they're going to fight over. And I'm like, let's put aside some money for each of you. You should each have your own attorneys, regardless of whether you're doing it amicably. And let's see where we get to. And of course, I've only had one couple that actually went through and actually finished up mediation without having, you know, there's always some rub, it seems.
Now I don't have that big of a randomized trial or anything like that. You have a data set. But I have more than most people. And so the thing there is we have, we're heavily regulated. So if you are in a couple that sees me and this happened just a few months ago, and they've been with me for a very long time, she's like, I'm out. And I'm like, okay, you cannot see me because I'm engaged with the couple. Yes, but you can see one of my associates. And so I don't know what happened, but I know she has booked with her to figure out what would happen in that case.
And if they want to see me, then I just need to make the other person in the couple aware that's happening, and I end the relationship as a couple, and we start a relationship as a single person.
“So it could be anywhere along that journey for the couple. Either the other person doesn't know, or the other person knows but hasn't really thought, hasn't really decided what they're doing, or they're already at the point where they're negotiating a decree”
Yeah, well, just on an aside, I've interviewed, I can't remember who it was, but they were saying, and there's a term out there legally, “I believe, about collaborative mediators or collaborative attorneys. And I appreciate that because what they were saying is if you have an attorney that's like really protecting their client and wanting to do the best to get them, you know, the result that they're looking for, it really only takes one to get aggressive in the system, and then other people get aggressive. So if people have the intention that we're going to collaborate, there's a little bit more.”
“Cheaper. Yes. Oh, my goodness.”
“Yeah, of course.”
“Yeah. A mediated divorce is so much cheaper than, you know, certainly if you end up, God forbid, getting. Having to get in front of a judge on something. Right.”
“I thought you meant a collaborative is cheaper than a regular attorney. But no, you're just saying the process.”
“Yeah, the process. And the process is mind-blowing, but financially, that is.”
Right.
Yeah. But you want to look out for your own rights because a lot of times somebody feels guilty, somebody feels this or that, or somebody's trying to see if they can still somehow make it work, and they're not as protective of their own future self as they should be.
Right, right.
And that's where someone like me, and then obviously whatever attorneys or a set of attorneys can help, because I can say, no, you have to ask for half of his retirement.
Right.
Or I'm worried about you, and you know what I'm saying?
So, yeah, Oh, it's tricky. Well, you're speaking a lot about giving the financial description of what certain options would be. And I'm. We're speaking about the possibility. Do you ever? “It sounds like more of the rarity that you will tell people, no, you can't do this, or no, or because it sounds like it would just be a trade-off, but it's rare.”
“Yes, it's rare. And I've had some couples where they're like, you know, we're ready to dissolve the marriage, and there just aren't enough assets. And that's a hard conversation. There aren't enough assets, especially with children, for two households to be formed. Yeah, that's a really hard conversation.” But again, what I do is I lay it all down at their feet, and I'm like, take this to your. Your therapist will take it to your attorneys, and you're going to have to. I have one couple I'm thinking of as I say this, where, you know, he lives in the basement apartment in the house, and she lives in the upstairs part. Because they really could not separate the household, they were able to find something that worked.
And some people don't get a divorce, but they operate as if they are divorced. Right. I'm not saying that's the.
That is a whole other kettle of fish. Yes.
I just. I happened to. It came to mind because I happen to know someone personally who.
But they've.
I'm grateful they have three children, and they do things as friends as they go to the events. So it's. It is very amicable that they have maintained the asset of their home. And it's. It's.
That is very lucky.
Yeah.
I find that only works until one of them starts dating.
No, they've had. No, it's. They've already. This has been years in the making, so it's.
They should write a book.
I know, right?
Yeah, they should write a book.
I don't quite understand all the nuances of it, but I do know that for the children, they've kept the family home. And what I think is going to be interesting is when the last one graduates. That's the thing.
And then what? Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah, totally.
“Okay. I know we're winding down our time here, so is there anything else you want to say about the individual happiness around how that might fit with the financial security?”
“No. I mean, I want to remind people that if something is bugging you, something that you want to change, it's worth exploring. With someone like me, or whoever it is that helps you figure your finances out, it's worth exploring. Don't say no right at the outset. At least get the right answers and then make a decision that's informed by the data.”
And, or approach your partner and start the conversation from a more informed place.
Yeah.
Yeah. I love it. Wonderful. Well, is there any other tip or practical step you want to mention beyond what you've already shared here?
No, I mean, I think we hit a lot of things today, which was excellent. Yeah, definitely. I just, I really encourage people to get the answers to the questions and try, if you can, to get it from somebody who's fiduciary and somebody whose fees are right there on their website and not, whatever it is, assets under management or selling you products.
“Get someone whom you really can trust to give you the data you need”
Okay, if I'm hearing you, are you saying not commission, not. Yes, okay, got it.
I am saying that.
Okay, thank you. Yes. Okay. How do people get in touch with you if they're interested in learning more?
Yeah, totally. So you can get us on the site @fearlessfinance.com, there's a “Contact Us” section. You can just tool around the site, get to know us. Our prices are right there on all the socials. We're at Fearless Finance, so just, you know, search it up. And you can also get us at hello@fearlessfinance.com if you just want to email. If you put “Higgins” in the Promo Code, I'll give everybody who comes in that way $50 off their first meeting. My socials: Instagram: instagram.com/fearlessfinance; Facebook: facebook.com/fearlessfinance; TikTok: tiktok.com/@fearlessfinance; LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/fearless-finance.
Thank you.
You know it. Absolutely. Absolutely. I appreciate the opportunity to talk.
Yeah, and just one last question here. Are you able to work with anyone in the US, or not?
Oh, yeah. So we can work with anyone in the 50 states or any US citizen who's abroad. Anyone. I mean, I live in the District of Columbia, so I'm not in one of the 50 states. Anyone in the US or abroad. No problem. We charge by the hour only. So you're going to know what you're going to have to pay to get the answers you need. And we're fully fiduciary.
Excellent. Wonderful. I'll make sure to have the links to your website and email on there. Thank you again for everything you've shared here today.
Thank you so much for having me. It was really fun.
The post ERP 536: Beyond the Budget: How Couples Align Money, Happiness, and Meaning — An Interview with Lori Atwood appeared first on Jessica Higgins.
Are you building walls—or are you setting boundaries? It's a question that goes to the heart of why so many relationships end up feeling distant or disconnected. In a world where emotional safety matters more than ever, knowing when you're protecting yourself versus shutting others out can make all the difference. Too often, our automatic defenses keep us from the kind of authentic intimacy and connection we deeply crave.
In this episode, listeners are guided through understanding the difference between healthy boundaries and protective walls, how early experiences shape these survival strategies, and what it takes to become more conscious and intentional in relating. Practical examples and heartfelt stories reveal how increased awareness and compassionate communication can help transform old protective patterns, paving the way for deeper connection and a more resilient love.
Kate King, MA, LPC, ATR-BC, is a licensed professional counselor and board-certified art therapist with nearly twenty years of experience helping individuals heal their inner wounds so they can positively contribute to the evolving collective. Her work incorporates a dynamic synergy of brain and nervous system science, psychological teachings, spiritual practices, and art therapeutic creative expression to provide a unique and effective approach to healing and growth, personally and relationally. King is also a professional artist, podcast host, creative entrepreneur, and multi-award-winning author.
Episode Highlights05:15 Understanding protective walls vs. boundaries.
11:16 Impact of parenting on relationships.
14:44 Understanding nervous system activation in relationships.
17:35 Stages of change and contemplation.
20:55 Navigating change and inner growth.
25:35 Discussing attachment styles in relationships.
28:11 Early communication in a relationship.
32:16 Discussing emotional walls with mom.
35:33 Discussing intimacy and vulnerability.
38:39 Navigating personal relationships and stress.
41:32 Understanding boundaries vs. requests.
43:04 Setting personal boundaries.
51:40 The Radiant Life Project website.
Your Checklist of Actions to Take Reflect on Your Patterns: Take time to observe your own relationship habits, especially when you feel disconnected or defensive, and ask yourself if you are putting up walls or setting boundaries. * Differentiate Boundaries and Walls: Regularly check if your limits are collaborative and flexible (boundaries) or rigid and isolating (walls), making adjustments as needed. * Acknowledge Your Triggers: Identify early life experiences or stressors that might influence your current relational responses, and get curious about old protective strategies that may not serve you anymore. * Communicate Openly: Share your patterns and needs with your partner, even if it feels vulnerable, to foster mutual understanding and support. * Request Instead of Demand: Clearly articulate requests to your partner rather than ultimatums, and express how their behaviors impact you without blaming. * Set Intentional Boundaries: Be explicit about what you need for your emotional safety and communicate how you will care for yourself if those needs aren’t respected, rather than focusing on controlling your partner's actions. * Practice Titration: Take small, manageable risks in sharing more of yourself or softening boundaries as you build trust and safety in the relationship. * Integrate and Process:* After moments of growth or conflict, intentionally reflect and give your mind and body space to integrate new experiences so you can expand your relational capacity.
MentionedMend or Move On (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
The Radiant Life Project (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
ERP 150: What To Do When Stuck In Self Sabotage
Integral Theory by Ken Wilber
Carol Gilligan's Theory of Moral Development
Shifting Criticism For Connected Communication (free guide)
Connect with Kate KingWebsite: theradiantlifeproject.com
Facebook: facebook.com/TheRadiantLifeProject
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TikTok: tiktok.com/@theradiantlifeproject
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Email: jessica@drjessicahiggins.com
If you have a topic you would like to be discussed, please contact us by clicking on the “Ask Dr. Jessica Higgins” button here.
Thank you so much for your interest in improving your relationship.
Also, I would so appreciate your honest rating and review. Please leave a review by clicking here.
Thank you!
*With Amazon Affiliate Links, I may earn a few cents from Amazon if you purchase the book from this link.
Episode Transcript
Kate, thank you for joining us. I'm looking forward to our conversation.
Thank you. I've been looking forward to it too. Thanks for having me on your show.
Yeah, I know we've been chatting a bit, and there are probably many directions we could go. And I think one of the things I was interested in is looking at one of the things you talk about is how creating walls and boundaries can actually be really helpful for a relationship, and that there's a protective strategy to that. “And I want to hear a little bit more about how you might see these walls, whether or not it's physically, emotionally, relationally, energetically, that can actually be beneficial to a relationship rather than just shutting people out, or how people know the difference there.”
“So the way that I basically identify walls is that they are these protective mechanisms that we put in place to essentially create a barrier between ourselves and other people. When the boundaries aren't working right, it's like an indication that these sorts of gentle nudges and these offerings of like, this is where I end, and this is where you begin. This is what I'm willing to tolerate. This is what I'm willing to contribute. That's not being received, or those boundaries are being sort of plowed. And so walls get sort of constructed, oftentimes unconsciously, as sort of a last-ditch protective mechanism. That's like, you're important to me.”
I want to keep this relationship, but I'm either keeping myself in or keeping you out to a much further degree, because the lack of safety here is so evident to my nervous system that we actually need more than just boundaries.
Thank you for spelling that out. When you said it, I was like, of course. But I also think this can get complicated for some. So I want to ask about that in a moment, but I really appreciate just how you're saying this is an escalation of a boundary that basically is limiting the participation, but still maintaining some form of relationship.
Yeah. And sometimes,
“When people get to the place where they do cut off the relationship, it's because the walls are so prominent, and really, that's all that's left in the relationship is just this protective instinct”
And so they can come to the place where they're like, I don't know if this can ever feel emotionally, physically, psychologically safe again. And I don't want to exist within walls. And so I know that, in most cases, we want to preserve our relationships if we can. And I also want to speak to the people who are out there who are like, I don't know, do I have to preserve this? And it's like, well, if you've put yourself within a labyrinth of walls and it's all about protection and it's all about safety, that's prob.
Important to look at, and why do you feel like you have to keep every relationship that is either harming you or emotionally unsafe or psychologically damaging to the extent where you can't be your full, complete self because of these walls? Yeah, I just wanted to speak to that too.
Yes. I mean, to that point, I have a client that I worked with, and his spouse is very adamant about boundaries, but tends not to participate in cooperative, collaborative negotiating. And he feels really stuck and has really gotten to a place over many years of recognizing. I'm looking for more emotional intimacy, responsiveness, engagement, particularly about the things that I'm feeling, thinking, needing, that she was having a hard time really responding to, as kind of this parallel living strategy. And I think there are reasons why she operates that way. But all that to say, he is ending and very sadly, like he's not happy about it, loves her and their family, but also is very much at a crossroads where I, like, cannot be in self-integrity moving forward because I'm not able to get these needs met that I've desperately tried in so many ways.
So I do hear you that sometimes it takes us out of a relationship.
Absolutely. And I think a lot of the time,
“The difference between boundaries and walls can feel really unconscious until you shine a light on it.”
And then people think, oh, I've just been having these boundaries, and they're collaborative, and they're porous. But then you actually take a closer look, and you realize, oh, these aren't boundaries, these are walls. Because they're not actually that collaborative. Right. They're more. They're isolating, they're separating, they're creating maybe ultimatums or extras. And that can be a really powerful moment for people where they get to choose. Do I really need this degree of protection, or is this potentially an indication that I'm moving through old protective strategies that are no longer current? Maybe I've grown to a place where I have better resources. I have better capacity. My tolerance has changed. My safety is different internally.
And I don't think I need these walls that I used to need. So it can be sort of an invitation into the self as well. That can help with the intimacy and the relational bonding because you're no longer projecting old wounds into the current situation.
I am so grateful that you're bringing this up, Kate, because this is one of the things I got excited about is I think I was telling you before we started recording, that people often look at boundaries in the context of people pleasing over accommodating. But we don't always think about boundaries for the people who tend to shut down or wall off. And I want to dig in here a little bit. So, just context from where I'm coming from, an *attachment perspective, relational learning, and early years. Sometimes these walls are actually very adaptive. They're good moves that were necessary. And then fast forward. In an adult romantic relationship, perhaps we are resorting to those because it's more automatic. Whenever we feel any threat, we feel that rattle of some sort.*
The tendency from all the repetition of learning in those early years is to go inward or turn away. We might even call this some of the avoidant tendencies or strategies. And that might be more of the reflex. So you're saying that can be a place to get curious, look at, and question. Can you say a little more about one that might resonate more with that kind of experience?
Yes. So our relationships, when we're really young, our primary relationships are usually with our parents and sometimes other close family members, sometimes maybe neighbors, early teachers, people who really make an impact. And sometimes you don't even remember the impact because it happens so young. But these earliest relationships are. They're like, molding a piece of clay. That's kind of how they create our relational blueprint. And we are learning from these earlier relationships even before we have the capacity to speak or to walk, like we are these sponges. And our brains are really underdeveloped when we're born. Unlike so many other species, we're so dependent that all we have are cues and energetic signals. And it's all about safety and protection, right? It's about survival because we're not born able to protect ourselves.
So, based on cues like eye contact, voice tone, how attentive are you when I cry? How much do you take care of me when I fuss? What words do you use? These things that we don't often think about as adults, right? Sort of reading between the lines, really. Subtle nuances in a relationship. They encode us for the map of our relationships. Safe or not. What are, like, how much do I need relationships? What part do they play in life? And so this is very unconscious, and it's encoded into our nervous system and into the deepest parts of our ancient brain. And we tend to operate unconsciously based on what were taught. And there are no perfect parents. We all kind of get these moments where parents are exhausted, they've been up all night, maybe they're not at their best.
And so this isn't to say that any of us have to be perfect parents or expect to have had perfect parents, but there is a kind of baseline of good enough parenting where it makes an impact that sets you up for healthy and positive relationships moving forward. And part of that is also how your parents model repair and how they come to you when they do kind of fall short or when they make mistakes. And that sets up your expectation for what conflict can feel like in relationships and how safe conflict is. So as we move through life, and suddenly it's not just mom and dad and siblings and teachers, but it's dating and friendships and community and groups. We're still operating off of that blueprint that was encoded into us before we even remember. And so often it's not.
It's not really, like, healthy. It's adaptive in the way that.
“We've adapted to meet the challenges of life”
presented by those relationships. And so maybe we learn things like people pleasing or like fawning, which is sort of like the nervous system aspect of people pleasing, where if you are happy, then I am safe, and I will do whatever it takes to make you happy so that I can feel safe. Right. And that might mean self-abandonment, that might mean, you know, dissociation, so that I can give you what you need. And everyone has different degrees of these adaptive mechanisms. Sometimes it's the opposite.
It's like, well, I need to get really big and scary to get my needs met, so I'm going to default to anger or aggression, or if I merge with you, like in a codependent state, that feels safe for me. Right. So these are just a few examples of ways that we can get so.
Small that I'm not. I try to be invisible, so that I'm not gonna draw attention.
Stay out of your way. Yeah, so these are all examples of what is encoded in our blueprint. And we are operating very unconsciously until we start to do the inner work around knowing ourselves on this level,
“Doing the inner Child work, investigating why we became the way we are, so that we can better understand where all that originated”
And so when we're kind of conscious about these unconscious aspects, then we open the portal to be able to change them and to heal them and to say, like, I'm not a needy baby anymore. Right. I think I get to decide for myself. I get to attune to people. As an adult in your 30s and beyond, your brain is fully developed. You have a lot of capacity that you didn't have as a child.
And so that's when you get to notice, oh, maybe these adaptive mechanisms that probably saved my life back then, they don't really matter anymore because I can take care of myself, I can feed myself, I can choose who I connect with, I can resource for myself. So I can rewire a lot of this blueprint that was wired for me.
Yes. Thank you for unpacking just some of how this all gets developed. “And one thing I would just add, in adult romantic relationships, we're going to get. Our nervous systems are going to get activated more than in any other type of relationship, typically because our nervous system sees our partner as a survival in that bonding.” And so it can be quite confusing for one that's like, Oh, but I'm functioning great, or I don't feel as threatened in all these other relationships. And then there's such activation in the romantic space that it can be quite confronting and confusing. And to your point about that, a lot of this you've said unconsciously many times, right? That a lot of this we may not be aware of in our thinking brain. So it's hard to orient and understand what's getting activated, what that's about.
Yes, absolutely. And you may have a sense because there may be little signs where you're like, ” Why do I always attract the same partner? Right. I just had a session with someone yesterday, and it was all about why she is attracted to emotionally unavailable men. And her mother happened to be visiting because she's moving homes right now. And she, with that question in mind, was sort of attuning to her mother, and she's like, there it is, that's what it is. I have big feelings. And you say, ” Get over it, move on, you're fine. Right. And so she's taken that messaging and that belief system of, I'm too much, I have to tuck myself away into her romantic relationships. And she has now seen it in a pattern so many times that she's like, I think I'm the common denominator.
This is, my son had a teacher who said, ” Is this an issue or an ish me? Right? Like who's. Who is this? And so, I always love that. And I was. So we're in session, and she's like, ” This is an ish me. I have to shine light on this now. Like, I'm getting awareness of this. This is, this is my thing. And, my belief system around working with the nervous system on these is when you become aware that you have a pattern that is your nervous system saying, I'm ready, we can do this layer. It's safe enough that you can see it. And I think it's important that we honor the nervous system when we work through layers.
Because if we go down to something that we have like a sense of, but we're not really comfortable with, we can destabilize ourselves to the extent where it's not really productive. We're just having to piece ourselves back together and do a lot of damage control. But when someone is like, ” Wow, I really see this. I have a lot of awareness. I really understand it. That's my indication of like, yay, we're ready. Now we can dive into this.
Yes, thank you for speaking to that. I. It's my experience that contemplation and even the question around how I am attracting, how I am committing, how I am participating in this? Just that question when one is starting to be, you know, when we look at.
What's the stages of change, right? Like that, there's pre-contemplation, we don't even know that we're contemplating. And then there's contemplation. And that's often before preparation, like I'm going to be doing something. And so I think from an unconscious to conscious, just even that it feels like a bridge of that questioning to kind of start to open up that path. And I guess to your other point, this isn't so exact. I know in research it's very categorized. “But sometimes when we've had layers of trauma, or even when there's immediate stress in life, like our capacity or how we might be, let's say we do a level of work and we have our bearings, and then something really stressful emerges, we might feel something else activate. It feels very old, but it's another layer, or it's another depth to it. Do you want to comment on that?”
“Yeah. This is what I like to call expansion and contraction. So just like a rubber band, you know, like we can expand a rubber band, but we can't expand it forever, or it will snap. So we have to sort of contract it back in, let it regain its shape. But over time, that rubber band will start to be able to stretch further because there's been kind of like, the allowance for it to continue to contract and expand. And that's how we are, too, in our inner work.” So, you know, we start kind of unaware before we've done any work. We're just like, I don't even know what that means, what introspection is, what self-reflection is. And maybe you have, I don't know, like a social studies teacher who's like, ” What's your ancestry? Where do you come from?
Just a really innocent question, and suddenly you're reflecting, and suddenly you're like, oh, there's more than just me. So you've expanded a little bit, and then you kind of forget about it. You move on with your life. You contract back down to kind of where you were, but you never contract to this same tightness of where you were. You're suddenly, there's a little bit more give in your awareness. And so then you're offered the next opportunity. Maybe you're in your first romantic relationship. And you're learning more about, like, oh, this is like, give and take, and how do I be vulnerable in these. These sorts of safe-feeling experiences, I'm not sure how safe they are. So you're expanding again. You're doing something that feels kind of enlightening, maybe a little risky, but you feel okay with it.
And then maybe there's a breakup, and you're like, oh, it was too vulnerable, right? That's a contraction where you're like, all right, but you're not contracting back to that same state again. So in that sense, there's like this continual evolving of expanding a little bit more and more and then contracting and recovering. And I see that when people move through layers, and especially layers they didn't anticipate, because sometimes we kind of know where our work is going. You're working with someone for a long time, or someone's in a marriage where they're like, yeah, this is our thing. We always have the same fight, or we always have the same issue. So it's not going to be surprising when you see another iteration of the same thing. Right. That's very different than having a sudden experience of like, well, we've always had the same issue.
But then you went and did something totally different. And now I need to understand what that means for me. Right. That's a different level of expansion and contraction that can feel more uncomfortable. And so I like to introduce this to people so that they understand that the contraction can be that kind of, like, crunchy, uncomfortable feeling where it feels like you've been, like, slapped, and you're like, what just happened? Right. And you have to sort of go inward and be like, ” Am I okay? What are my resources? How do I meet this? Do I have the skill or the confidence? Do I need to ask for extra help? Right.
That's all the kind of beautiful ingredients of the contraction, so that then, when you're like, I'm ready to emerge from this cave, I'm ready to have the hard conversations and do this work, you feel resourced for your next expansion?
Yes. I couldn't agree with you more about just the developmental process. I mean, you mentioned parenting and children. We were talking about early life, the image of, like, a playground where a child might go off and play, and then they're like, oh, that was a little scary. And then they kind of run back to their parent, and they're like, just get the little cozy hug. And then they're like, okay, I think I'm ready to go out again. So it's this kind of exploring new territory that can grow us. Right. So when you were talking, I was also thinking about the expansion and contraction, this seeing, it kind of comes from Carol Gilligan and *Ken Wilber's, like, stages of consciousness or developmental process of consciousness.***
And they kind of use the symbol of, like, a spiral going upward, and that everything that came before is a part of it, but that we still are going through this process of growth that I think is expansion and contraction. I want to get back to my other question, but I want to comment on one other thing. I also think the unconscious pattern of contraction and expansion shows up when we're experiencing a lot of goodness. We're on a vacation, and we're having more love, more sex, more of all the things that we're just so full of. And then, like, we can sometimes start to feel like, oh, it's that *unconscious sabotage. This is more than I've ever known before. We're experiencing more love, more connection. And somehow our system is uncomfortable with that because it's new territory.*
And so we can start to either get into a fight, have an accident, or get sick. Like, there are ways in which we can bring the energy or the flow down to what is more comfortable, but that can also inhibit our growth. You're nodding.
Yeah. Well, the word I'm thinking of is integration, right? Because every time we have a big growth spurt, it could be a positive feeling growth spurt, or a really challenging one. Right. Like moving through a difficult season with your partner and choosing to still commit and to be in that season together, that's a huge expansion. It doesn't feel great, but you're growing together. Right. And so there's the cognitive understanding of what's going on, and then there's sort of the somatic, visceral body experience of like, I'm nauseous or like, my digestion's off, or my heart beats really fast, I feel anxious. And then there's the experience where those come together, the mind and the body integrate the experience so that it doesn't feel so scary anymore. There's an understanding that extends beyond the cognitive understanding.
And your body is like, all right, we're at a new place.
Yes. And don't you think we can intentionally give room for that? Because you were saying earlier that if we resource, if we intentionally access, like, what will support me, like, in my example of the couple on a vacation, if one is starting to feel a little anxious or a little uncomfortable or a little agitated, that perhaps that could be a subtle cue to turn inwards to do a little bit more of that integration of like, oh, like, this feels really good. And also, it's starting to feel uncomfortable. How can I expand my capacity for more? Or what do I need to integrate and ground to really find soothing, settling, anchoring, whatever words we want to use there. But I think that somatic and giving intention to. We can support this process a little bit if we are aware.
Totally. And I think
“There's a two-part aspect. There's the aspect of self-knowledge, and then there's the aspect of your knowledge of your partner.”
What do you know about them? So it's like, this is where attachment styles come in. So often we'll see someone with an anxious attachment who ends up with someone with an avoidant attachment, right? And it's like, that's a really dire, tough one. And because somebody's leaning in and the other one's pushing away. So if you know this about yourself and you have had kind of a common language with your partner where you can say, ” Hey, like, I'm in that anxious attachment place right now where this feels uncomfortable, and I know that you have these avoidant tendencies, and I feel myself like grasping and I feel you leaning away.
I need it in this moment. Right. And then the other person might be like, okay, what's your need? And can I fill this for you? Or is this something that you need to fill for yourself? Right. So to have this knowledge, to be able to say, this is what's happening with me, and I think this is what's happening with you, and to just over communicate to the point where maybe you don't need to talk about all of that, but just in case it's helpful, like try, and then in that moment, you can say, look, I'm grasping, I'm chasing, I'm feeling scared. Would you just, like, hug me? Or would you just try to approach me with more warmth? And then that person might be like, “ Oh, sure, I can give a hug. Like, I feel a little triggered too.
Like, I want to run away from you, but I can warm up in this moment and see how that feels. And that's the titrating, right? It's like putting your toe in the water and being like, ” Can we do a hug? Okay, like, maybe we're not gonna have sex tonight. Right? But, like, maybe there's a physical aspect that can feel connecting, that can bridge us higher to the point where we can reactivate sexual connection, or we both feel regulated again.
Yes, I couldn't agree more. And I think sometimes that languaging might take a minute for couples to find, but I don't think it needs to be extensive communication. I mean, for some, it could just be simply, I want to work this out. I just need some time. Let's reconvene later tonight or tomorrow, that can be soothing enough to the one who's got a little bit more of that anxious tendency. To tolerate that. Different ways of trying to regulate. I remember for me, there was one time with my husband, and I was feeling some anxiety around wanting to resolve whatever conflict we were in. This was many, many years ago. And I could feel and locate inside myself, and I was aware that I was anxious, but I was like, also like, what would really help me tolerate this?
And I was like, will you just remind me that you want to work this out at some point? And he's like, of course. Like, he was so able to give that to me, and that's all I needed to, like, feel able to tolerate the disconnect. And now, I mean, I don't know, 10 years later, like, I. I know that more implied, like, I don't have to have that explicit reminder, but then I did.
Yes. And there's no shame in asking for that thing that you need. Sometimes it's so simple. Right. Sometimes it's just voicing the I experience. Right. Because in those moments, it's easy to be like, you're pulling away. You always do this. But to really say, I'm scared. I feel like. I feel like I'm losing you. And it's really terrifying, you know? So I liked what you said too, about needing space, and I'll come back. Talked about this tonight. I think the Gottmans talk a lot about this in their work with couples, how it's really important if you do take space to tell the other person when you're coming back.
Yes.
You know, like, I really need to regulate. I'm feeling overstimulated. I'm really upset. I do want to work this out with you. Is tonight okay? Or can be, you know, and then the anxious person might be like, okay, so this isn't just gonna, like, live in this limbo land forever. You're coming back to me, and I know when. So that's just one of those tools that none of us are really taught until we hear the Gottmans' talk or hear this interview. And suddenly you're like, yeah, I can do that. We can decide. And if you come tonight and you're not ready yet, then you still convene and you say, I'm not ready yet. Can we set our next time for tomorrow morning?
Renegotiate? Yeah.
You stay with it. Right. “So that there's always a point in time that you can say, ” This is when we're going to meet again. This is when we're going to try to resolve this.”
“Yes. I love that. Thank you for just. I know that's been said here many times, but I just think it is so helpful because again, as you're saying, if we're in our automatic tendencies, it's easy just to. It's like living in a different paradigm.” Like, of course I'm going to want to step away. I don't want to say anything that's going to be hurtful, or I really want to protect our relationship. And so it's like, that's. That's obvious. But to the other person, it's like you're walking away. What does that mean? Right. Like, so to be able to kind of, as you're saying, bridge, to help tolerate. To be able to find another level in the process together. Okay.
I feel like I want to ask again about the question I was asking earlier for the one who is in a romantic relationship, notices some of those avoidant tendencies that perhaps are unconscious or even has some awareness around. Like, I do contain a lot. I keep a lot of my inner world very close. And this is. I'm aware that it's hard for my partner, but I also need to protect myself. And to your point, there could be legitimate reasons that it's not safe. And so that is a good choice. And there are maybe these lives a little bit more on the spectrum. Maybe there are opportunities to take micro risks or safe risks. What is.
Can you say a little bit more about what that process looks like, maybe going like, let's say somebody approaches an intimate relationship with kind of a walled-off, but then they're like, oh. Because I'm thinking of the reverse. Right. Walls to boundaries. Is that kind of how it works?
It can be. It absolutely can be.
“So those walls are there for a reason. To have that perspective, really understanding the exquisite intelligence of our inner system.”
and the wall that's there may or may not, especially in an early relationship, probably doesn't have anything to do with the partner.
Right.
It comes from somewhere else. And so even if you don't have that healed yet, if you're like, oh, it's mom again, it's gonna, like, when is it ever not gonna be about Mom? Right? I've had a lot of people who are like, ” Ugh, when do I ever like? And it's like, well, it takes as long as it takes. But if you know that this is a wall that's constructed because of mom, then you know that in this relationship, it doesn't necessarily apply. Right. And you may have found some kind of qualities in this relationship that are providing the emotional safety. Safety that mom didn't provide. And that's why you have balls with Mom, right?
And so you might be in that moment of like, ooh, I see that this is an opportunity to not repeat the thing that I repeated there and there and there. Because this person has something different, Right? Like, this person doesn't escalate into anger as soon as I express emotions or shut me down as soon as I cry. Right? Oh, this is different. And sometimes different can be unfamiliar and scary. You could be like, yikes, I don't know what to do when someone says, ” You seem really upset. Tell me more. Or like, I'm here, and I'm not leaving. It sounds great.
But, like, when you live it after having someone who shut you down so much, you're like, isn't this the point where you're supposed to shut me down? I know what to do in that situation, but I don't know what to do now that you're leaning in and providing availability. So I think communication there is really valuable, where you can say to this person, even if it's new. What's great about the climate that we're in right now is that there's so much acceptance of therapy right now in the world.
Yes.
Like everywhere on social media, there's pop psychology. So people are not that afraid of it. And it doesn't have that taboo quality that it had in previous generations, where it was like, something's wrong with you. Right. It's now it's like, you have your dentist, you have your primary physician, and you have your therapist. Like that's kind of how we take care of ourselves. And I love that as a therapist because it creates this safety collectively to be like, hey, this is something I'm aware of. I have this dynamic that was put in place by my mom. I can isolate, and I can wall myself off as a way of protection. I'd like to try something different with you because I feel safe with you. That feels a little scary, but also a little bit like an opening.
Are you willing to do that with me? Right. Like you could say this on the second date. Yeah.
Oh yeah.
And really, this is emotional intelligence coming to the dinner table. And this person might be like, yikes, I don't know. And that's good information. Like, you want to know if somebody's not willing to do the inner work with you. But more than likely, that person's going to be like, dang, this attractiveness. Like, you are so aware and insightful. That's sexy. I like that about you. Right. You're not just unconsciously projecting, you're taking ownership. This accountability, this is mine, and I want to heal it. And to that other person, they're going to be like, I love that about you. Because an accountable person is so attractive. And then asking for co-creation of a new pattern and to collaborate on healing together is really why we end up in intimate relationships in the first place. So why not make it conscious?
Why not be above deck with it?
Yes, I want to dive into that a little more because that's so potent, and I love to have more language around the co-creative process of intimacy and how we get to enter into that with that ownership, that accountability, and how incredibly sexy that can be. And thank you for just acknowledging that, because I think sometimes when we bring it above deck. We think it's going to be when we're still grappling with it can feel like, oh, those. I mean, I'll just say for myself in the past, the times that I wanted or I was recognizing the opportunity to make visible something that was very kind of vulnerable and core primary emotion, kind of attachment need, and bringing it above deck, I was like, this is probably the last thing I want to say. It feels like the most unlovable thing.
And yet that was the thing that really made connection more possible. And from there, myself taking ownership of that need and being self-responsible around how to support myself, but also being accessible to my partner, where if he was able and interested could show up, and we could meet there. Okay, I had a question. Okay.
So I.
It was more of a comment, just going backwards before we go there. The relationship, when you're talking about it in the early stages, one has the. That could be potentially one is aware, oh, I have this tendency, and to make that visible, that could be really beautiful to work with explicitly and set their relationship up with more awareness and how they negotiate consciously. And I guess I'm also thinking that in relationship perhaps when the life events can be really stressful like you said, a season and want to seek comfort in their tendency that there's a compassionate voice that I'm hearing you speak to that we might be able to hold even though we're like, oh, we're in that place again where I'm trying to pursue you or seek you and your distancing.
But can you speak to maybe a stressful season and how we might be able to approach that, knowing these tendencies might be a part of the scenario?
Yes. And you know, I think this can happen in friendships too. Right. This can happen with family. Like so, this is one of those connections that is a connection, and the expectation that the
“Connection should always feel really generative and bright and happy and attractive”
That's what sets so many people up for disappointment because we are evolving constantly. Right. Even if somebody's not actively doing therapeutic work, the world is like it's giving us all of these projections to bounce off of and create meaning and divert ourselves and learn. And so we are constantly changing. And so there needs to be a little bit of give around. I'm willing to hold my seat even if it makes me uncomfortable as I watch you navigate life and understand that I am also navigating life. And like a Venn diagram, we are our own people.
We have this little sweet overlap where we're choosing to have a relationship. But there's a lot that happens in life that isn't really about our relationship, though it may bleed in, right? Because maybe you meet like the stress of the world right now. There's a lot of stress on the social and political levels, right? So like, of course, that's going to bleed into your primary relationship if you're feeling it, especially if your relationship is a really safe place. And that doesn't mean that your partner knows what to do with it. Right? Like those of us who are trained psychotherapists, we have to actually, I don't know about you, but I have to work not to bring that into my family. My 12-year-old likes to roll his eyes, and he's like, ” This is therapeutic. Stop. That's his word. He's just like, stop.
Just, just be my mom, right? And I have to be like, right. I don't need to be in this like part, this therapist part with me. With you in this moment. And that's where the compassion comes in, that's where the giving comes in. Like, you want to be kind of like a stretchy pair of jeans, where it's like, there is a lot of forgiveness here. There is a lot of patience here. And I mean, for me, patience is the hardest thing in the world. I don't have it, and I work on it a lot. And that might be the thing that I communicate, whether it's with my 12-year-old or with my husband, where I'm like, this is me feeling like really impatient. I get it. That's on me, and I'm going to do that work.
And at the same time, this behavior or this aspect that you're bringing into the relationship is very challenging for me to hold. I don't know what you're going to do about that like that. I'm going to let that be yours. The aspect here that's mine is like, I'm going to try to increase my threshold for holding space for this and understanding that this is like a season. And my ask of you is, please let me know if the way I'm showing up is unproductive, hurtful, or not benefiting your process. Right. Because that could be an opportunity for them to be like, I actually need you to lean in here or I kind of need you to not ask me about this for a while or Right. Like, could you lean on your friends right now instead of adding more to my plate? Right. That might be an ask that I wouldn't be aware of unless they communicated it.
Yeah. Thank you. Thank you so much. Well, I know we don't have a ton of time, so I want to spend a little bit more on the conscious creation. You talk about the difference between a request and a boundary, and you've talked about co-creating. Tell us a little bit more about what you're thinking here.
Yes. So I find that there's a lot of misunderstanding about boundaries because of the pop psychology world and how the world, the word, is like thrown around like crazy. So it feels important to just create a distinction between a boundary and a request.
“A boundary is essentially for you; it doesn't really have anything to do with the other person, and it doesn't ask anything of them”
It expresses where your edge is and is communication for them about what you will do when your edge is crossed. So it might sound something like, when you yell at me like this, I'm going to leave the room, or I'm going to say, I love you, but I don't want to do this with you. That's where, that's where my boundary is. It's not saying don't yell at me. That's a request, Right?
A request is when you ask something of someone; it requires something of them. It does communicate a need, but it's asking them to do or not do something. Right? So it might be like, don't yell at me, versus when you yell at me, I'm gonna do this and this. So that feels really important because people are constantly like, well, I set the boundary. I told them what I needed. And it's like, no, you didn't. You made a request. And that's beautiful. But the boundary is also like, when do you pull back or put up your wall? Right? Like, hey, babe, I know you don't like my wall. However, when you come at me with aggression, these walls are pretty automatic. Like, I'm going to put them up for protection. Do with it what you want.
Well, and I think what I'm hearing you say is there can be some preparation work, being able to identify where my edge, my limits are, and how I can show up integrity for that need or that limit that boundary and do it intentionally. So sometimes, like, if somebody's coming at me aggressively, my instinct is to get defensive and want to kind of engage with them. But if I know ahead of time, oh, I'm not doing this, then I can hold a little more ground and say, ” What you're saying is really important to me. I do want to hear you, and I am losing my ability to hear you. When it gets escalated. So I'm gonna pause, and you know, as you said, leave or, and leave the conversation in some form or fashion, and we can try again. Right.
Like I'm, I love you. I'm not rejecting you. I just, I'm not gonna do this. And I'm clear about that. So it's almost like that preparation work is something that I can rest on. Like, I don't feel so anxious, like kind of like, oh, what am I doing? Or what's happening? It's more like I already know, and I have the plan.
I feel like the preparation needs to happen when you're not in an escalated state. Right. Because if you're really activated, you're probably operating either from unconscious patterns or you're just doing the best you can with what you know, in that you're hanging on. Right. Trying not to create damage, trying not to say something that you can't take back. Right. And afterwards, when you calm down or days later when you're having coffee together, you just say, Hey, this experience that we just had, I was really escalated, and I didn't know what I needed then, but I know now a little bit more because I'm regulated. And when you came at me like that, I defaulted into this role. And so I would like to let you know what I'm going to try to do next time.
Next time, I'll meet you with a loving response that says, “I don't want to do this right now.” Right, let's do this when we're calm. And that can be really helpful because you're both regulated. Maybe you're more open, you're more willing to flex with each other and do the dance of relationships. And you're not face-to-face with the thing that was triggering in the moment. But you have hindsight, which gave you wisdom about it.
Yes, and I love the communication about it because it can front load sometimes when people have been together for a period of time, long time, maybe even those patterns and dynamics are so well grooved that it's like you're changing the rules a little bit. Like you always let me yell, like, why are you leaving?
Right.
So that can help around, like I'm going to be doing some things differently, totally.
Because when you grow, you disrupt the relationship's homeostasis. And it might be for the best in the big picture, like
“Your growth is ultimately enhancing things”
But the difference in it is going to be like, whoa, I need to relearn how to relate to you if you're going to show up in different ways, because that might ask different things of me, or I might not be able to get away with the things that I used to be able to bypass. Right. And that's what long relationships teach us. How to pivot.
Yes, yes, yes. And then for interested people, I think most of what you're talking about is where people will. Will likely want to spend more time. But it does seem helpful, given that we're talking about walls, boundaries, and requests. What it can look like when people are consciously aware of their limits, their needs, and they are consciously requesting and negotiating a relationship.
Yeah. Can you say more about what your question is in there?
So, like, if I'm setting a boundary, I'm recognizing I've reached a limit, or I need to do something to take care of myself. So you had said earlier that walls start to emerge when boundaries aren't working. And I feel like sometimes boundaries are really helpful when the requests aren't working.
Right.
So I'm thinking, can we talk a little bit before we transition out here, around what that dynamic looks like when people are in that safe space of being able to request things of one another? And probably an example would be helpful, but I mean, we can all imagine. But does anything come to mind, or do you want me to be? Give you something?
No, I think that's great. Yeah. So basically, the step down from walls to boundaries to requests, that indicates that the intimacy is safe. Right. The more you have to step up toward walls, the more it indicates that, like, ooh, we're not safe, and I'm protecting. So if you feel like you're in a place where you can make requests and they can be received well, it's an indication that you're in a really emotionally open, safe, and secure relationship. And it doesn't mean that you won't have boundaries. I think
“The healthiest relationships do have boundaries”
because if I don't know where your boundaries are, then how am I supposed to respect you? Right. So often it's very great to say, where are your edges around this?
Yes.
How far can I push here before you start to shut down and pull away? Because I don't want to do something here that pushes you away just because I don't know where your edges are. So I say that to say, like, I think
“All relationships should have boundaries”
And they can be expressed in requests. Right. When one is aware that maybe they don't have. But I don't. I think it is much more dynamic. I think we're all kind of learning and responding to one another. And I will say that the way I posed my question is that the requests and that process can seem really productive. But I also, in my experience, it feels sometimes really hard if we have different needs and we're requesting something. Sometimes it seems in opposition, and it's hard to stay in the querying of like, how can we both get some of what we want? Or we both have a request. Like, sometimes that's not easy to get to work.
Well, and sometimes, yeah, sometimes they come together where you're like, I'm going to do this. This isn't working for me. And if you're willing to make a shift or if you're curious about how you can show up differently, that might impact me in a positive way. Here's my request, right? So, like an example might be like when somebody's dating and they're like getting pinged with texts and calls all the time, right? And they're to the point where they're like putting up boundaries and walls. They're just like, it's too much. But the other person doesn't necessarily know that. Or they're grasping. The wall would literally just be like ghosting, not showing up, not responding. And that doesn't give the other person very much information. It just feels.
Rejecting boundaries might be a text back that says, ” Hey, you know, it's really good to hear from you. I love how excited you are about this. This. I. I'm not really. Texting isn't my medium. So I just want you to know, like, if I don't text you back right away, it's because I'm doing my own thing and I'll get back to you when I can.
Or I'm at work from 9 to whenever, and I don't answer my phone. Like, I have my phone on airplane mode almost all day. Like, that's.
Yeah, it's not a rejection of you; it's an edge for me. And then a request could instead be like I get really overstimulated with the constant notifications on my phone. Would you mind not texting me until the day is over, please? Like, I would really appreciate that.
Or don't double text, just give me one, right?
And then they can decide if they're gonna honor your request or not. That's the piece about free will in these relationships. They might be like, I have poor impulse control. I am not in authority right now of myself. I can't, I don't know, I'll do my best versus a person who's like, wow, I wasn't aware of that. Thanks for letting me know. I won't double-text anymore, you know, and so then you're learning about each other. Yeah. And that's important too. Like, even if the information isn't ideal, even if it pushes you away or it, you know, teaches you something you don't love, it's still information, and that's valuable.
In my mind, this is the process of developing intimacy. We have this so-called curriculum of learning how to work together and developing intimacy. And sometimes it's going to feel really tricky, and sometimes it's not going to work, but this is the process of evolving as a couple.
Okay, thank you, Kate, so much that you've shared is so helpful and valuable. And I know people are going to want to learn more about what you're up to. And would you share how people can connect with you?
Yes. So my hub is theradiantlifeproject.com, it's my website. That's where I put conversations like this, events, and all my books. I have a book calledThe Radiant Life Project that's sort of like a masterclass of self-healing and inner work. So if you're kind of diving into your personal work, The Radiant Life Project would be a really good book. My new book is calledMend or Move On. This is a guide to healing or leaving toxic relationships. If you're kind of at that teeter totter, romantically, platonically, or familially. This is kind of for the gamut of relationships. If you're kind of in that place where you're like, this isn't okay, but I don't know what to do about it. Mend or Move On could be a really good support for you.
And you can get these books @theradiantlifeproject.com or Amazon or Barnes and Noble or your local bookstore, wherever you get things. And, yeah, that's kind of where I'm at right now. My social media is Instagram instagram.com/theradiantlifeproject, and also Facebook facebook.com/TheRadiantLifeProject.
Wonderful. I'll make sure to have the link to your website as well as your books on today's show notes. Thank you so much for everything you've shared and just all that you're doing to help people understand these concepts and principles.
Thank you. I really enjoyed our conversation, and it was fun to be on your show.
The post ERP 535: When Walls Replace Boundaries: The Hidden Path Back to Connection – An Interview with Kate King appeared first on Jessica Higgins.
Feeling safe in a relationship isn’t just about talking things through—it’s about what happens deep within our bodies. When emotional wounds strike or betrayals occur, the impact is felt not only in the heart but in the nervous system, shifting how we experience and respond to our partners. Real healing goes beyond surface-level dialogue and requires us to understand how our physiological state shapes our sense of security, trust, and connection.
In this episode, listeners are guided to rethink emotional safety as a whole-body experience. By unpacking the link between the nervous system and relationship repair, the discussion provides science-backed insights and actionable strategies to rebuild trust and connection after relational harm. Whether you’re seeking healing after a rupture or tools for ongoing growth, this episode offers a fresh, embodied perspective on what it takes to create lasting emotional safety.
Dr. Monique Thompson is a trauma-informed therapist, life coach, and best-selling author with over two decades of clinical experience. Her work integrates Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), Brainspotting, Internal Family Systems (IFS), Polyvagal-informed care, and principles of epigenetics to help individuals and couples heal trauma, rebuild trust, and create lasting emotional regulation and resilience.
Episode Highlights03:56 Reflecting on healing through a car wreck metaphor.
09:09 Exploring Jill Bo Taylor's groundbreaking insights.
15:37 Exploring modern infidelity in relationships.
17:57 Exploring complex relationship dynamics and boundaries.
20:25 Addressing hidden relationship issues.
24:38 Exploring the hidden mental health benefits of walking.
28:35 Exploring color connections to mood during walks.
31:51 Reflecting on and expressing gratitude with loved ones.
36:12 Decoding therapy lingo and referral insights.
39:36 Navigating decisions with trauma awareness.
43:34 Navigating healing after childhood trauma.
48:58 Exploring stress and its hidden effects.
50:29 Exploring the concept of emotional hygiene.
53:32 Discovering unexpected insights from partners who cheated.
57:04 Exploring relationship growth resources.
Your Checklist of Actions to Take Pause and Breathe: Take a moment of pause with deep breaths to settle yourself and become present before addressing relationship issues. * Self-Inquiry: Regularly check in with your deeper feelings and truths, beyond your immediate surface reactions, to get clarity on your emotional state. * Take Ownership: If you've contributed to a rupture, take personal responsibility and reflect on the most obvious way you can begin repair, such as ending harmful behaviors. * Prioritize Emotional Check-ins: After a rupture or betrayal, consistently check in emotionally with both yourself and your partner to stay aware of what you both need. * Spend Time in Nature: Set aside at least 11 minutes outside, either walking or sitting, to help lower stress levels and support nervous system regulation. * Engage in Movement: Use mindful walks of 30-45 minutes to process emotions and shift your physiological state toward calm and self-connection. * Invite Supportive Companions: Bring to mind or reach out to someone who has supported you in the past, letting their positive influence help regulate your emotions. * Seek Professional Guidance:* If trauma or recurring ruptures persist, consult a trauma-informed therapist or coach, asking for specific referrals rather than relying on generic online searches.
MentionedInfidelity Recovery Workbook for Couples (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
My stroke of insight (TED) (video)
Helen Fisher (website)
Polyvagal Theory (website)
Gottman Institute (website)
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Depression
12 Relationship Principles to Strengthen Your Love (free guide)
Connect with Dr. Monique ThompsonWebsite: doctormoniquethompson.com
Facebook: facebook.com/MoniqueThompsonLPC
YouTube: youtube.com/@mthompsonlpc
Instagram: instagram.com/drmoniquethompson
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/dr-monique-thompson-dha-lpc-lpc-s-a3066041
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Email: jessica@drjessicahiggins.com
If you have a topic you would like to be discussed, please contact us by clicking on the “Ask Dr. Jessica Higgins” button here.
Thank you so much for your interest in improving your relationship.
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*With Amazon Affiliate Links, I may earn a few cents from Amazon if you purchase the book from this link.
Episode Transcript
Doctor Monique Thompson. I appreciate you joining us today.
Yes. I'm so excited.
Oh, my gosh. And you have such a wealth, and your background and what you do in trauma and all the different modalities that you weave together. And we're going to be looking at helping couples feel more relational, emotional safety in a relationship after there's been an injury, a rupture of some sort, maybe even trauma.
Yes. That's a beautiful garden for us to tend. So I'm looking forward to it.
Yes. Is there anything you want people to know as we orient with you in approaching this topic, as we focus on nervous system repair, but more specifically, emotional safety in the context of a relationship after a rupture? “Is there anything you want to start with?”
“Yes. I would love for everyone to kind of get in mind the metaphor of a car wreck and just kind of keep those symbols in mind. Is the car drivable? What do we do to get it back? Drivable? Are there some little, you know, pings that we just got to get used to? The car is still drivable, but it just might be.”
It won't look the same. And what if this were a classic car that can't really easily be replaced? You know, kind of letting your body sense and feel that metaphor. Maybe there's something like this that has happened to you, and you identify with a symbol of your own as we're talking, and keeping in mind that typically we can find something, some form of transportation, even if it's not what you used to have. So just kind of keeping that sense of hope there, but also connecting with the vulnerability of something precious being, you know, wrecked.
That there's been damage. And to really tune into the degree.
Yes.
I'm imagining for some what might be a totaled vehicle. For some.
Yes.
Is a doable, restorable thing for someone else.
You know, my college car went through floods and everything else, as compared to the beautiful luxury vehicle that I have now that they're not. You know, I was not careful with that car at all. And some of us have a relationship history where we can see that you were not careful with that car at all. And some of the reasons the engine stopped working is there were no oil changes. And then you kind of get to a little bit more mature driver, and you're more thoughtful, you're more careful, and more select, but you still want to be in something safe. And so that is the other word I'd like for people to kind of think about is no matter the vehicle. No Matter the style, how glamorous, or how efficient the car is. It needs to be safe no matter what.
So that's our keyword is safe.
Thank you, Monique. Even when you say the word safe, I feel like you're inviting us to seal.
Yes.
“And I can get a physiological. I can get a sensation when I think about a vehicle that I'm driving. Do I feel safe? And that's not always an intellectual thing.”
“Yes.”
“Or just the car serviced. And it should be safe, but there's a quality to it.”
“Yes. There's attunement, and there's that sense of trusting your gut about my safety. You know, you're in the car and you kind of check it. You know, what is that? What is that feeling? What is that sound? And getting a sense of, do I need to pull over? You know, I need to pull over.” So kind of thinking that through, like when you're in a relationship, noticing, my sense of safety and trusting that it is a message there somehow for you, it may be just, you know, a little warning, like. And it may be that I need to get out of this cross, get out of this vehicle. There, it is not safe, you know,
“So being attuned to yourself is key”
And once noticing, allowing yourself some focus, some quiet to figure out what that is. Where is this coming from?
It's not always your partner. Sometimes you don't feel safe because you are driving too fast. You come into a rolling stop through stop signs, and you need to calm down so you can drive safely and therefore feel safer. And sometimes it's, you know, you're on the icy road, it's not the car, it's not you. It's an icy road.
I so appreciate this metaphor. Yes. There's the weather and even. Okay, so I'm relating to. Okay. Sometimes I'm not fully listening. Like, there's a time not that far off, embarrassingly enough, that I was driving and I was like, oh, wait a second, I feel the car is like, loppy. I was like, I think I have a flat tire. I drove like a block or two, but I still. Like a block or two is a little too long to start to notice. And so there's that. And then I can also recognize there have been times way in the past when I was rear-ended. And anytime I'm stopped, and the traffic behind me is approaching, I'm still looking in my rearview mirror like, yes, gonna stop. Are they gonna?
Pacing.
Yes. So that's not even the car being saved. It's other people on the road.
Exactly, yes. And you're bracing is the next time it happens, we're gonna be ready. Right, but then the car behind you is the same driver. They weren't anywhere near gonna hit you, but you're braced. And that sense right then of not feeling safe, it's old stuff. Yeah, it's old stuff, but it's still present with you. It's still in the car, your hands still gripping the wheel, you know, and then maybe your passenger says, ” Are you okay? Are you okay? And right then, you check in, you say, actually, huh, I'm okay. I'm okay. So even your conversation with yourself can bring you to safety, versus yelling and screaming. You know, these cars, so now you escalate it yourself. Yeah, nothing happened. You escalated yourself. And it lasts longer than it might have otherwise. “I love what we learn about the brain.
For how long are we angry about? 90 Seconds. That's the entire biological process.” Jill Bolte Taylor's research, which she, you know, shares with the world through her TED Talk. And I love her book, My Stroke of Insight, which, like, it's 90 seconds and takes a whole 90 seconds. And then you think about, well, when was that book published? We're in 2026 as we're recording this. I was at the time working with Marines, and that was when the book had already been out for several years. It was before my child was born, who was now 13, you know, so then you think about, well,
“How long have we known some of the things that we know now versus when the public knows about it, and how we function?”
Well, some of what I believe is helpful is to stay in the loop of what we are learning now.
“Humans are always faster than science”
Science can only catch up, observe, and come up with an idea, investigate it, and suggest, well, this is what we think may be happening. But the key is that we have more sophisticated tools now. We can do brain scans, we can see what's happening, and we know now that some of our reactions are just going to happen. And sitting through some of your responses is the power of your humanity. Sanity is saying, I'm gonna pause.
“There's a power of pausing and trusting your deepest truth instead of your most obvious one”
“Your most obvious one is just there, like pause and say, well, this is an obvious truth. What's the deeper truth?”
And your Deepest truth is 10. It tends to be more quieting and bring a sense of calm, a sense of peace, a sense of safety, you know, that obviously will have you that will have you jumping out of the car telling people they're riding your car.
Lots of narrative.
Yes. You're living in the narrative instead of in your deepest truth. It is such a beautiful, calm visit on the lake. Your deepest truth. That narrative truth is like a windy day you can't get to see.
Oh my gosh, all over the place.
All over the place. You're all over the place. Yeah. It's the same water, but the wind is making you feel like. This is not the same water. It can change your sense of. If we're looking at couples, your sense of safety with your partner is fluid. We know that it's fluid. It comes and goes. And sometimes, when we choose to look at this narrative and base safety on it, we miss important cues from within ourselves. You miss the important, deep truth.
And sometimes you may stay in that car that you needed to pull over and check the tire for two or three more blocks. Then you look out, and you see this damage is. Oh my goodness. This is a lot more damage than it needed to have been.
Thank goodness it wasn't. But, yes,
Yes.
Right? I mean, I had my music on. I was thinking about what I was.
Oh, you were having a bottle. Yeah.
Okay. So the way I'm relating to what you're saying, I appreciate. Even as you talked about taking a pause, I noticed we both took a deep breath, and I just appreciate that. Like, that's just responsiveness. And then for me, my deeper truth, when I am having a bit more self-inquiry, it's not always pretty, it's not something I'm always proud of, but it's something that I do feel like, oh, there it is. That's it. That's what I'm reacting to, but I wasn't fully aware. And then relationally, when I take a risk to share that, yes, my experiences, my partner responds and turns towards me.
Yeah.
When I come with the story and all the justification and all the reasoning, my partner's like, I don't know where you're trying to take me. And I'm kind of wanting to check out and not really like, am I in or out? I don't know how to engage with this. So it can be night and day different in how somebody is going to respond.
Right. You're focusing. What you just, you know, you describe yourself as pausing for focusing on this inner sanctuary where, as you mentioned, just because something is your deepest truth does not mean that it's this beautiful shining diamond. It can be a harsh but genuine truth. And sitting with it, inhaling it, and then letting it give you very important information for you. You know, about you. I don't know about you. But when I am in any of those states, you know, the tradition of addiction science. Hungry, angry, lonely, or tired, I. I need to tend to myself, because the self that I am bringing to my relationship is hungry, angry, or tired. And the other person, if they don't happen to be in some calm sense of self. Right. Then, if our angry selves are meeting each other, those protectors are about to die.
Yes, it's about to be a fight to the death. But then sort of like the. You wreck this car, and relationships are precious. So then you still need to get in this car. An hour or two later, you're still married. You're still married. You need to get in this car. And you're like, how we even. We need to get in the car line to go pick this child up. And I don't even want to look at you. Right. You know, I mean, I'm in a regular marriage. I'll be married 24 years next year, 23 years this year; we just celebrated. And when I tell you, being in a regular marriage, I feel it is very. It is like a daily retreat for me. I happen to have a receptive spouse.
And so for one year, for our anniversary, I said, I just need a year of therapy. But we go in there, and we duke it out, you know, just to go in there and act a plain monkey fool for a year. Oh, and we did. I really. I should send the flowers, you know, I just said, because I, you know, I just needed the space. You know, sometimes therapy is just your. Your space, your place to go and get it out. And we did for a year. And then it was literally like the calm after the storm, you know, oh, so beautiful. And the daily cleanup, you know, Ohio only handled it once as one of ours. Like, let's just have this moment be a moment instead of becoming our life. How to get up. Yes. Pattern.
And now the pattern is cleanup. Yeah, you know, clean up, cleanup. So we still, you know, we still have our things, but the cleanup is faster, cleaner.
Yes.
More efficient. And we both now have different daily habits to bring your cleaner self to each other, you know, and genuinely, we looked at, like, well, I. So Occam's razor is one of my principles, even as a therapist. Even as a life coach is what is the most obvious reason? What is the most obvious explanation for this dilemma? And for many of the couples that I work with, especially when there's been trauma, and
“Some of the trauma can come from infidelity in many forms. Financial infidelity, emotional infidelity”
The Internet and social media have opened up ways of cheating that never existed before. Being overly focused on someone, it can be a sense of infraction, the lack of attention to the relationship, because you are building a following online, and the people in your house don't know who you are.
So there are all these kinds of, I call it,
“Time infidelity — where your time is one of the most precious gifts you can give to someone, and it cannot be gotten back”
So it's gone, you know, the birthday party you miss, the special events that you don't even know what's going on, and then, unfortunately, even tender moments, the person who's the caregiver and the other person's not there. The not thereness. So all of those different ways of being with someone or those count to me as infidelity. Well, now in the wake of it, how do you fix that? Well, some of it is you take personal ownership and responsibility for first looking at what's the most obvious thing we could do. What's the most obvious thing we could do? If you're cheating, stop. Seriously, like the most.
“What's the most obvious thing you do? Stop cheating”
Here's the thing. People who are in relationships right now with someone who cheated on them are fully aware that it was seen as an easy thing. It is not an easy thing, but it is the most obvious thing. Obvious and easy. Not always cousins. So then you stop cheating, but the person says, ” Well, I didn't actually have sex with that person, or I wasn't intimate with them in the way that we didn't agree to. Because sometimes people have agreed on certain indiscretions, but the other person went too far, and they said, well, why not do that if we're doing this? So now can we renegotiate? Well, while you're renegotiating, are you continuing to create tears in the relationship?
So even though it can be the most obvious answer, it's not always the easily accomplished task. And even in my marriage, one of them is that we go to bed at the same time together. Like, we will physically be in the bed at the same time. Well, I tend to create best after the house is quiet. I'm a mom. I'm a wife. We have busy lives. And when the house is busy, I can't think. I think I can make myself get administrative things done, but things that require, like my deep, creative self. I just really need the whole house quiet. We move things around so that I have quiet during the day. Okay. And then we both noticed that shift, like going to bed at the same time most nights. Every blue moon, we don't. It shifted things with us.
Turns out he needs physical, like just my arm. We joking was like you just need my arm. I just need your arm. I just need your arm. And then I noticed I'm like, I need it too, because I'm more creative after, you know? And it's just the most beautiful thing to me that what, as it turns out, we both needed was just, I just need your arm, you know? But not having it. Oh, my God.
*Yes. Qualitatively different.*
It's like not changing the oil in the car. It's such a small thing, but if you do not do it, you will have no engine, and there's nothing anybody can do. What happened? You didn't change the oil. It was such a simple thing to do, but not doing it now. Beautiful car, beautiful tires. No damage. Not going to run, right? I'm running. Not going to run. And you blew the engine now. So the small, seemingly unimportant things that are obvious fixers to do in emotionally checking in with each other after infidelity or some other kind of rupture are things where your trust is broken. You'd really want to take a step back and reassess. Well, breathe through what really caused it. Like, how did I? What was really happening? And you weren't listening.
It was that obvious and seemingly simple to fix. Be like, maybe I was enjoying my music. So how do I drive the car and enjoy my music? You know, so not always simply fixed, but in relationships where there's been a rupture, you may know what to do, but how to do it. How to do it, so I'm gonna give a couple of. I would, again, not simple, but things you can do. Perfect things you can do. A couple of them are things you can do whether you're in a professional relationship with a therapist or in a coaching relationship or in any kind of supportive environment. Two of these you can do on your own, no matter what. And then these others. Find somebody with some credentials to work with you. Okay, so first two.
First two, one is, and oddly, while I'm saying this, the sun is coming back out here. It's been raining all day. And as I'm about to say this, the sun is so poetic. Right? But the one is to go for a walk. And to be clear, I see a lot of different client populations, and I do have some. Some whose mobility is a challenge. So I'm going to add that accommodation here. Go for a walk or be outside versus inside. Okay, so sitting fine, but sit outside versus inside. And a prescriptive amount of time is minimally about 11 minutes. About 11 minutes. Okay, so let's say that you can only sit outside if you're sitting outside for about 11 minutes. Here are some of the recipe things you can do. You suffered some kind of rupture.
You're trying to get yourself together. You don't know whether to stay or to leave. You're trying to make big life decisions. So, prescriptively a small challenge in your relationship.
“You don't need a retreat. You just need some time”
Your focusing time is until you feel connected not with your partner, but with yourself, and as we were talking, that
“Unlocks the door to your truest truth”
when you find it, sit with it, and connect for a minimum of about 11 minutes. Minimum. But how come 11? Well, there are some studies about the time in nature, being about 11 minutes for your cortisol levels to naturally decrease on their own. And outside time versus inside time, if I'm trying to kind of gently correct my sleep cycles, about 11 minutes, your brain catches up to daytime.
It's daytime and helps you to kind of be ready for sleep a little bit later, versus being indoors without interruption. So about 11 minutes outside, a little bit of natural reduction of your cortisol levels and a little bit of regulation of your heart rate. So you're outside doing nothing, and nature's positively taking its course. So about 11 minutes, though. About 11 minutes.
Perfect.
All right. Yes, I did just say. Thank you for asking me that. All right. But let's say you can walk. Yeah. You can move. Okay. This movement does not have to be American Heart Association-level cardio. Okay? See, we just need what I call your old lady stroll. And I don't mean any disrespect to the older ladies who can move something. I just mean it just needs to be a stroll. But now I'd like for you to try to hang in there for about 30 minutes, maybe 45 minutes. And allow yourself to just be present. Almost a meditative approach to your thinking, where you acknowledge a thought, set it aside, acknowledge the next thought, and set it aside. Just kind of clearing space for yourself and noticing the questions that are coming up, and just a. Just noticing it.
Not attaching yourself to any one particular thought or question, not any particular emotion, just noticing it and walking it out. You'll notice that you start connecting, you'll start connecting to yourself. And it is almost magical. And I'm not even into magic and Disney or whatever, but it's almost magical. And the truth is, you're doingbilateral stimulation. So BLS is part of the protocols for EMDR, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. But the natural BLS that we all do every day is walking, right? But this kind of walking, you're choosing to approach content, but without a problem-solving agenda. You're just taking a walk. And you can even gently remind yourself, just walking, and just keep moving gently for about 30 minutes or so.
And you'll simply notice that I'm not as provoked, I'm a little bit more curious, my breathing is a little bit more regulated. I can notice these thoughts without being pulled into them. And likely you're in that ventral valve vagal state now. You're in a ventral vagal state. You may even notice that people are saying hi to you now, and you're saying hi back.
Will you tell people briefly about the ventral? I know what you're doing.
Okay? Yes, so, Polyvagal Theory, Dr. Stephen Porges, is where we get this theory about what happens to your body during your daily living, right? So just think about daily living. I don't want you to think stress is necessarily right now or traumatic stress or trauma, just your daily living. So throughout your day. His theory is that we kind of flow between these states. Your ventral vagal state is the state that you're in where you're willing to connect with people. You're curious, you're playful, you kind of, you're enjoying the moment. But sure as the days, minutes, and seconds passing, you're going to flow through a sympathetic state. And in that state, you're experiencing a little stress, but you're still kind of there. You're engaged, but you're noticeably experiencing stress. And then you may flow down to where you feel a little shut down. That's your dorsal vagal state, where you just sometimes you may say, I'm just done. I don't want to be here. I'm ready to go home. You know, your energy's just really depleted, and in that state, you don't want to talk. I talk to people. You don't want people talking to you. People are breathing your air. The water in Hawaii is too blue. You know, it's just there. And in this place, sometimes you might mistake it for depression when really you're just having a moment. Have that moment, notice it lessening as you do some other things, and it kind of flows. So just kind of noticing it is the power you have as a human to notice it going up, going down. I encourage some scientific inquiry of yourself when you're in maybe your states, and kind of keeping a mental note.
There is a song playlist that I keep on my phone that I know will pull me up a little bit, and there's some music that I have kind of gently in the background when I know or anticipate I'm going to have a pretty tough session with someone if I happen to know we need to do some deep trauma work. There's some music that I play that sort of reminds me that everything works out. Things take time. Sometimes it seems dark. Things do. They often work out. There are no guarantees. So it's a balance of thought for me that things both do and don't work out. They take time, and sometimes they don't take time, just the duality. But for some reason, that helps me to kind of keep my heart rate steady. My voice, my 13-year-old calls, my kindergarten teacher voice.
She cried in a teacher's voice. And that slow movement of voice and tone.
The prosody.
Yes, we co-regulate. So when you're in that place. So that's the polyvagal theory of co-regulation and flow, and just kind of noticing when you're in a state of that, you're not going to stay there, you're just, you're going to flow throughout your day. It helps sometimes maybe if you're on this walk to notice what color you seem to notice about that state, what color you notice when you're in a lower state or what color you notice you wearing at the beginning of your walk, in the middle of your walk, towards the end of your walk and just noticing it, not trying to control it or solve for it or labeling any of these states as good or bad. They're just different states, and they are helpful in their own way.
Maybe it's gross to some people, but this is the example I use. It's like going to the bathroom. Yeah. When you gotta go. And there's nothing wrong with you that you gotta go, but you can sometimes predict that you were probably gonna have to go, so if you're lactose intolerant, but you have to have that cheese pizza. I just don't recommend it before you get on the plane. So, in some situations, you're gonna probably bring your mood down a little bit, you know, so noticing. Okay, that kind of brings me down a little bit. I'll just be down there for a little while. And this is again my little 13-year-old. I use her a lot because she hasn't caught on to all my tricks yet. My, my kids are 10 years apart. The 23-year-old knows all of them.
She's quite amused when she watches the 13-year-old. But the 13-year-old has a phrase that she was taught when she was very little. Be sad for a little while and go back to being happy. She knows it by heart. There's nobody better than you, but you're not better than anybody else. But you're my favorite Lili in the whole wide world. And she was about 2 or 3. I would say you're my favorite youngest child. When I was quickly corrected that she's not young. And I said, I don't know who this other child is. Is there a baby around here? I don't know. She said, I'm the firstborn later.
Just to give your listeners an idea of what Dr. Thompson is dealing with at home, y' all think if you're a praying person and you think about me, just think about that. I have a youngest child who says she is not, in fact, the youngest child. She's the firstborn later. But I love it too, I love it. I love the confidence of it. I love that it was inspired when she was two years old. I go with it. But be clear. Sometimes that's what you're doing when you are parenting your younger child.
Yes.
Is giving the new message to an old situation. And when you're on those walks, sometimes that can automatically happen. That
“An old situation needs the uncovering of the truth. And your truest truth tends to be a little bit more healing than the old lie from the same situation.”
Maybe tender and thus giving a little bit more support that doesn't have to be judgmental or shaming.
Yes, especially like a betrayal. Have you ever thought, sometimes, well, I didn't do enough, or I'm Worthless, or I wasn't enough, or this always happens to me, you know? And as you're walking, you may find that it untethers itself a little bit, loosens itself a little bit. You may not be ready yet to fully live in the new thought that comes up, but it may be. It may present itself. So here's a companion you can take with you. This is the second thing that you can do: a companion to take with you. You do not need professional help for this part. When you think about your life, if somebody who you owe a debt of gratitude they were there for you, right? Take them with you.
When you're doing this kind of exercise, good company is someone who was there with you before. It's a true lived experience. You take them with you, think about them, visit them, and you hear what they have to say. What's their comment? And you accept that love and tell them thank you. And if they are still living, call or message them in some way and just say thank you. And you'll notice that you have this sudden flood of clutter. Euphoric feeling. And that is oxytocin. It is the love hormone just coursing through your veins. It has a healing effect on your body. And all you did was make a phone call or a message or something or think about that person to dose yourself. Now that you can do it anytime, that's two different things you can do.
If you're on a walk, bring them with you. If you're sitting outside, bring them with you. But maybe you're not on the walk, you're not outside, stuck indoors, or you're in the car. You bring someone alongside who was there for you before, hear their comment, accept that love, and notice that it lifts you maybe a lot or at least a little bit. Oh, thank you so much to whomever. And notice that it lifts you just a little bit. So there are two ways to cope a little bit with that stress. It helps you to emotionally regulate. Your hippocampus. Loves it, you know, and that's the part of your brain that's helping you to emotionally regulate in the first place, your hippocampus, it loves that, right? So there are two things you can do, whether anybody's there with you. All right?
And here's the other side, like the actual EDMR. I don't recommend anybody perform brain surgery on themselves, right? You want someone with a handy hand and expert attention when you're trying to do certain things. So if anyone's using the actual practice of trauma brainspotting, using the practices of trauma EDMR, anything that is in the trauma family, you want someone who's been trained there to do that with you, or you want someone who's at least a trauma-informed life coach, which is a little bit different than just trying to like accomplish something in life. Sometimes, when what you're trying to do is just get your goals done, and you notice procrastination is winning. A life coach can help you win. Right? Just you trying to win life goals. But sometimes it's a deeper goal.
It's just shy of being a clinical thing. You could use a trauma-informed life coach. People don't always meet the criteria for a diagnosis. You don't need a professional, but you may not know which one you need. Which is where we are over here, on what do I need a professional for? Sometimes, oddly, you need a professional to tell you whether you need a professional or not. So, here's my other tip: if you're looking for someone to work with, this is my workaround. Google tip. Do not Google. Reach out to someone like yourself, Dr. Jessica. Reach out to someone like you or another trusted colleague, a friend who has a great person they're working with. And you ask the professional, ” Do you have a colleague that you'd recommend for something like this?
Or maybe you live in another state, and you're like, I live over here. I don't think there's anybody in Minnesota, and I will say, ” Huh, there's got to be somebody in Minnesota. And so then we can put our thinking caps on and think and say, you know, when you're searching, use these key terms we have with those things. So, a workaround on Google, because Google will send you to a list, and then you're gonna get tired because all these let me see if it's a good fit. You're like, you know, maybe I just shouldn't wear pants. Please don't try on the pants of 10 different therapists. As none of you know, maybe I'm not. Consider a concierge approach to it. I recommend asking a therapist to find a therapist. Ask someone.
And we can minimally, I help. I offer this for free on my site. If you need a referral, I will help you with at least the key terms. So sometimes here's an example of key terms we would know. Yes. That you might not know. EDMR is actually one of them. Polyzagal theory is another, if yes. Who's searching, saying, I'm looking for ifs. They're like, well, ifs. What is that even? Right? And we're internal family systems. And then so what does that even do? And you think, okay, so I could explain all that, or just put that search term. Or sometimes people I really want to meet in person, that can be helpful, but it can also be a barrier. And in certain situations, I recommend getting in versus getting in person.
But sometimes I can hear the situation go, yeah, let's do that. And you know, let's do it in person. Another example, like Filial Therapy. What is that? That's when the parent involves themselves in play therapy. How would you know to look for that? You would not know. So, a person who can hear a tiny bit of your story, you don't need a whole story, that you trust a colleague or someone who's got somebody that they trust, asking them, ” Hey, do you think you can refer me to somebody? And here's what maybe people don't know. We're actually low-key, obligated, so we are supposed to provide appropriate referrals when asked. It's an ethics requirement for us. So I'm like, take advantage of what we're actually required to do, which is ethically provide good referrals to people.
And most ethics boards expect you not to do it yourself, just go to Google and give people random three names. It's supposed to be an appropriate referral. So take advantage of that. That's the other side of what you can do if you need a professional. One, a professional can help you with a professional referral. Two, some of the techniques you do need someone trained in those techniques and if there is a diagnosis, treatment is the only thing that will do you all right, but that you're back to dating a professional, on the other hand, who can't sit outside, walk outside and either way, if you're stuck inside or outside, bring somebody along who has loved on you, think about the love that they gave you, listen to their comment about your situation. Ooh, take a breath and say thank you to them.
Yes.
Okay, here we go.
I love it. Thank you so much. Giving a lot of guidance and support for what people can access, help support more regulation, have more inquiry around their kind of deeper experience, and also when and how to get more support when appropriate. Now coming back to the relational dynamic, there's so much here that I know we're probably not going to get to, but for Folks that are wanting to approach creating more emotional safety, but perhaps are approaching it with some of the. Let's talk, see if we can understand each other, but maybe the nervous system is still activated. Can you speak to what can help support more of this regulation?
A hundred percent. So I like Gottman a lot. Gottman is an excellent statistician by training and trade. His research is exact, it is precise, and it applies across cultures and across couple types. So by that I mean married couples, cohabitating couples, the LGBTQ community, and cisgender communities. It is pretty exact, no matter what. There are four communication errors that he has studied to the bone that are predictors of conflict and divorce. And if those are happening, you're likely headed over the cliff. Right, but fixing those communication errors, just focusing right there on communication, my experience is that it works if we're dealing with what I call “vanilla relationships, where nothing was going on except communication problems. It was thick enough that it was a problem that needed to be addressed, but there's no trauma in the relationship.”
And by trauma, I meant those things about infidelity that I was talking about earlier. Betrayals of trust. When I don't trust you now, I look at Helen Fisher's work, and I say, well,
“What happens when someone betrays a person? Is it just emotional? Is it biological?”
And according to her work, it is a biological event. And therefore, when you try to engage in what would make sense to do when it comes to communication, and, you know, as if one. You don't even have an interest in doing it; you're still taking things the wrong way. They are just looking at, thinking about them, looking at them sends you somewhere. And you just have this instinct to leave or to not try or just you like, I read the guy, but I understand it.
I just don't want to do it, or I don't think that'll help. And you're probably right because we first need to relieve this trauma, this betrayal, this. This restoration of trust actually is a priority. For that, I more so appreciate individual and joint work. So studies are showing that witnessing helps. In other words, you're having a joint session. The other party is witnessing the emotional work of the other person. But before that, you need a therapeutic alliance. And that means that the person working with the couple needs a trusting relationship with both partners and with them both. They are. Everybody needs to trust the helping professional.
Yes.
As a priority. Right. So you need a therapeutic alliance. And what do we know about that? Well, there's been study after study on what different modalities work well. We know some modalities are a little bit better for trauma and betrayal than others. Meaning Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. Great for communication and for non-trauma. When we get over here, we need to let the nervous system get to a place where it can even be.
Reached before there's a foundation for settling and being there.
Yes, being there, that's the key. Oh my goodness. You're not even there. Right. How are we going to communicate when I'm not even here? Right. They're not even there. That is the first thing the person has to be there. So, for emotional regulation post-trauma, we need the settling of the nervous system. There is a readiness of the brain. So we need the prefrontal cortex here versus not here. So we want to be in this part of your brain, the forehead. I don't know people. You want to be up here. Hey, you want to be here. Your thinking brain versus feeling and responding and react well, and reacting versus responding. Because we do want to make some movement to stay or to leave. But that's a big decision.
And before I make that big decision, I really want to soothe and get the nervous system to a place where I can breathe through a conversation. I'm present for the conversation. And that if you're using trauma-informed practices doesn't take forever, but it takes as long as it takes is the way I say it to couples that it takes as long as it takes. And here's an explanation as to why I have people that it doesn't take as long. If there wasn't significant childhood trauma, if there was significant childhood trauma, sometimes it doesn't take as long if that's already been treated. Yeah, right. If it has not been treated, then it takes as long as it takes. But I want to be clear that childhood trauma does not, therefore, mean brokenness, devastation. The person just threw it off.
You could still be responsive and move things along in what would seemingly be a quick fashion, but it also could not. So it definitely is a difference between people who have it and who don't. But if you think about this, it's like routing your map, and you say, well, which way am I going? You're getting to the same destination, but there are a few stops along the way. If there's been childhood trauma, if there's no childhood trauma, I don't need to make stops along the way. So I might get to the same destination a little bit faster. But what if I'm a person who's somewhat attuned to myself? Anyway, I come to this experience somewhat attuned. I'm able to genuinely practice focusing with myself. I have a lot of daily habits. My brain is in fairly good condition.
Then that brain, that nervous system, is a little bit better prepared. So we look at things like how exercise rewires the brain, and studies are showing that when the brain is more prepared, it startles less easily and returns to quiet more quickly. So that's what I mean when I say some people may move faster than others. I do not mean to suggest a character defect. Okay, now, what does that look like in actual practice? Something happens, you say, I don't know if I should go, if they should go, if we should go together. Here's my response to that. Yes, you should go, they should go, you should go together. All of the above. And think of more than one person. So it may be that one person has a therapist, a life coach, and a family doctor. I genuinely mean it.
And a family doctor. The other person has a psychiatrist, a therapist, and a couples therapist. It may look like there are a lot of people involved, and that's okay because they're playing different roles or doing different things. And I'll use the example of the family doctors involved. So let's say that you have some disturbance in your nervous system. Please know that's going to affect your health. And by health, I literally mean your physical health. Your T cell function goes down. Your sleep is disturbed because you're not getting good sleep. Now you wake up. Yeah, exactly. Your blood pressure. Like, why am I taking blood pressure pills? You're driving me crazy. I got to leave this relationship so I can live.
Go to see your primary care physician, get it treated, start therapy, continue, and then once the dust settles, you're across the street from the burning building. Everybody's lungs are clear. There's no smoke inhalation damage. The house is ready for us to go in and see what we can keep, what we cannot keep. Can we restore this house? Do we need? Well, whatever you do, just escape from the burning building and trashing the whole thing before we're able to stabilize and see what's going on. I do not believe that is the right course of action. Human relationships are precious. But I am here to say that I've seen. I don't know how. I mean, 25 years. I don't know how many couples, but the publisher of the workbook made me count. Oh, my gosh. Let's look back at 2020.
And that was like, who does that? Nobody has a little score. I really, I said, okay, let me just do the general math. How many people a week? How many of those are couples? For how many weeks? Well, I'm off for Christmas, did that math in my head. But then I did it like, okay, and times how many years? So at the time I had been practicing for right at I think 17 years or so. And so I worked the math up, but then I'm like, that can't be right. And I thought, well, no, that is right. So with thousands. Well, so to give hope to people, I never know how it's going to work out. But typically, if people clock in, it works out either peacefully apart or peacefully together. If you clock in, the clocking in is back to the.
How long does it take? It takes as long as it takes. Who should come? Everybody. You should do yourself, them, and the relationship. What should you do if there's been betrayal, for sure? And you. Anyone listening? You can Google Helen Fisher; her brain scans are of thousands. Now she did do thousands of couples to look at the brain after heartbreak. What does it look like? And it is an observable event, right? You could Google Daniel Amen's work to look at the before and after. It is an observable event. You can see what is going on, the trauma right there in the brain. You can see it's there before. You can see what it looks like after it is gone. So there is a before and after picture biologically.
And I just want to encourage people that once it's gone, it doesn't mean your relationship is all hunky dory. You have work to do, which takes us back to the communication. Now, there may have been communication errors that pre-existed the trauma.
Likely.
But we don't fix the communication errors as a priority. We fix the trauma. And then you go back and say, now go on a cruise. Go on a cruise, one of those little marriage conference cruises. Now you can have fun with the love languages. And now you can do all that stuff. But before you do all that, you're gonna have to actually do this work on your nervous system, your brain understands that these are observable biological events. Your blood pressure is just an indicator, sometimes of the amount of stress.
And when fixing the stress helps your blood pressure, you say, oh, am I a smart person? Probably. But am I in a relationship? We don't know because you still have the work to do of getting the relationship back out of the bushes. And so there's that whole you know, that metaphor of the car went to the shop, Is it drivable? How will you know? You have to drive it. You have to drive it, you know, and then if it's in real damage, you can't just drive it around your neighborhood and say, ” It's fine, take it for a spin, you know, you have to take it for a spin. So now the relationship is weathered something. Is the relationship safe? You can't know unless you are in it and you make it through, you know, have an argument, see where you land.
I have a pretty hands-off approach, actually, to couples. I want to see whether you can do this? I want you to argue reasonably and recover because that is the key. Not that you avoid arguments. Right, exactly. “What do you repair? Is repairing a priority? And the answer to that is yes, repair is a priority. Do you make avoiding problems a priority? No, you don't do that.”
“This is the cleanup process. This is the hygiene, the relationship hygiene.”
“The hygiene, yes, the emotional hygiene. Regularly, daily, right? And internally, the cleaner I am in my connection with myself and all the different parts of myself.” When I check in with myself, and they're working on a little problem, they're talking to each other. My wiser self is all calm and sitting on the park bench watching everybody play. And you ask me a question, I'm in a soft place, you know, but if internally it's hell on the inside, I'm probably hell on the outside too, you know, so. And blaming my partner, that I'm hell on the inside because of what you did to me, a fraction of that is true. The bigger part of that pie is that I have a response that I could make in this part of this pie.
That this happened to me is not my full truth. There's a piece of the truth, but my full truth is what I choose to do in response to this piece of this pie. And that is where your
“Emotional regulation comes into each individual. And when we contribute that to this relationship, it can sometimes work out; it sometimes does not work out to be together. But peace can be had”
And we made it a decision from a very conscious, grounded, aligned place. I'm feeling like so much of what you're helping people understand is that when there is a rupture, deciding in that moment, likely we don't have the capacity to do that. And that the goal isn't to go into dialogue, to stabilize, to find ground, to have that connection with the physiological under, and that deeper meaning. And then also from there, being able to incrementally have inquiry and process. It gives exploration to understand.
Yes.
And that I'm hearing you really speak to the expectations that it's gonna maybe not look like you want it to look. The pacing, there might be setbacks, there might be progress. But there you will know from this more awake place and this grounded place. And that's where you can rest in some peace or perhaps have an amicable understanding around how we create a new relationship together, how we part peacefully.
Yes.
Okay.
Peacefully partying. Beautiful. Yes, yes.
Well, Monique, I know there is so much more. And you have written a book, the Infidelity Recovery Workbook for Couples, Tools and Exercises to Rebuild Your Relationship, that's helping people guide. And I love that this workbook gives support to both partners. And do you want to say a little bit more for people who might be interested in it?
Yes, I would say whoever the person is who did the betrayal. Immediately upon the book getting published, I started getting emails and messages saying, oh, if I'd only had this book. But it was from the partners who had cheated. And I was stunned that they were right. And I said, I can see that, though. I can see how, in the wake of the discovery, this would have been helpful for you to not cause more damage in how you answer, how you don't answer, and what you do. How you tend to the person and how you tend to yourself, and this sense of shame that you might be carrying that you're trying to work through, but you are dually capacity with trying to make a me it repeatedly for the person who's listening that you did the betrayal.
This would likely help you possibly a little bit more than the person who was betrayed, because you're going to slow down or possibly limit some of the secondary damage that comes from not having the workbook. Okay, now for the person who you are trying to use this because you may want to rebuild. There is a picture on Amazon. This is one of my favorite reviews. A man is sitting with the book wide open, and you can tell he's like this, you know, and the wife is the one who wrote the review. It is so. But she's like, we're doing this every night. So. But I've seen, I've seen with the couples that I work with that the couple doing it together, almost like taking a class, doing it together at a prescribed time, seems to help people. So those.
That's another way to use it is if you're choosing it, we're going to try to use this to work things out. Set it up almost like a class. We're going to do these pages on this night, and we're going to do we're going to talk on this day and compartmentalize it as such. Meaning if it's not class time, set it aside. Live your life when it is class time. Open up the book, do the pages that you've agreed to, and only discuss at the times that you decided to. That has worked.
There's a container for it.
Yes, there's a container for. Yeah. It does not have to be your lived experience day in and day out all day long. On the other hand, some people choose not to use the book. I will speak to some of your faith-based listeners. I do some faith-based work. The book is not, and by nature, I am a nonjudgmental person. So the book reflects my nature of being a non-judgmental resource for people.
Great. Wonderful. Well, I'll put the link for people to access that book in today's Show Notes. And is there anything else you want to invite people to connect with you around or access?
Sure. Follow me on Instagram, Dr. Monique Thompson. Dr. Monique M-O-N-I-Q-U-E Thompson with an H and P S-O-N, and then my website, doctormoniquethompson.com, but all spelled out, and Facebook; www.facebook.com/MoniqueThompsonLPC. Another book is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Depression. I'd love to know if anybody needs the kind of support, just follow. I tend to offer some tips specific to the neuropsych side of recovering from betrayal trauma, and I like the science a lot in session. I love the art of what we do. But for the public, I love to share the science of the whole thing. So follow me for science.
Wonderful. And I'll put your link to your website, as well as where to follow you on social media, and your book on today's Show Notes. Thank you again so much for all that you've shared.
Thank you. Thank you for having me.
The post ERP 534: Why Emotional Safety Isn’t Just a Conversation—It’s a Nervous System Experience – An Interview with Dr. Monique Thompson appeared first on Jessica Higgins.
Do you feel miles apart from your partner—even though you still love each other deeply? Many long-term couples gradually drift into a “roommate” dynamic: life feels stable, the relationship is intact, but something vital is missing. Over time, habits and strategies designed to avoid conflict and maintain harmony can quietly diminish the spark, intimacy, and passion that once brought you together.
In this episode, you'll discover why emotional distance often develops in otherwise loving relationships and what it takes to reconnect. Through fresh insights, relatable examples, and practical guidance, this conversation explores how the pursuit of stability can sometimes come at the expense of closeness. You'll learn why deeper intimacy requires a willingness to tolerate vulnerability, uncertainty, and emotional risk—and how embracing those challenges can strengthen your bond. Whether your relationship feels mildly disconnected or stuck in a long-standing rut, you'll come away with actionable tools and new perspectives to help reignite passion and create a more meaningful connection.
Dr. Bruce Chalmer is a psychologist and couples therapist with over 30 years of experience helping partners navigate the complexities of long-term relationships. Drawing on clinical insight, real-world compassion, and a deep understanding of how intimacy and anxiety intertwine, Dr. Chalmer has guided countless couples through the challenges explored in his books, video courses, and posts. With his wife, Judy Alexander, he is also the co-host of the podcast Couples Therapy in Seven Words and a trusted voice in relationship education.
Episode Highlights04:30 How couples grapple with the competing needs for both stability and intimacy—and why this paradox lies at the heart of lasting relationships.
06:42 What often surprises couples in therapy and how rethinking “conflict” can actually bring unexpected relief and clarity.
11:22 How the pursuit of stability can slowly erode intimacy and why some couples find themselves drifting into “roommate mode” without realizing it.
15:15 Real-life examples of couples who deeply love each other but have quietly slipped into a routine that lacks real connection.
16:11 How fears—both known and hidden—can keep us from bringing up tough topics and leave couples feeling stuck.
22:15 Hidden anxieties that might be holding them back, especially for men.
23:51 What makes couples therapy so intimidating for so many.
27:26 How finding meaning—even in moments of anxiety—can shift your entire experience of relationship struggles.
31:08 How facing relationship challenges together can lead to a new sense of gratitude and growth that endures—even if the outcome isn’t what you expected.
37:55 Practical guidance on taking safe, manageable steps toward greater connection.
39:18 How embracing curiosity, support, and small risks can foster hope, healing, and renewed passion in your relationship.
Your Checklist of Actions to Take Pause and Breathe: Take a moment to ground yourself with deep breaths before entering important conversations to increase presence and reduce anxiety. * Get Curious, Not Panicked: Approach difficult topics with curiosity instead of fear, reminding yourself that discomfort does not signal dysfunction. * Acknowledge and Validate Fears: Recognize your own and your partner’s fears as legitimate rather than dismissing them, creating a safer environment for vulnerability. * Define Desired Change: Together with your partner, clarify what “better” would look like in your relationship, orienting focus toward shared goals. * Risk Small Vulnerabilities: Start by sharing a small, meaningful feeling or need with your partner, even if it feels scary, to practice intimacy in manageable doses. * Reflect on Meaning and Purpose: Remind yourself of the value and meaning of your relationship, which can help bolster courage to tolerate uncertainty and discomfort. * Use Support Systems: Consider seeking guidance from resources like books, video courses, or a trusted couples therapist to experience new ways of connecting. * Celebrate Progress*: After taking interpersonal risks, acknowledge positive outcomes and growth, reinforcing your willingness to keep stretching toward greater intimacy.
MentionedThe Passion Paradox (course)
The Passion Paradox (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
Betrayal and Forgiveness (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
Couples Therapy in Seven Words (podcast)
Principia Amoris (book)
Man's Search for Meaning (book)
Mindset: The New Psychology of Success (book)
Managing Conflict in Relationships: An Interview with Dr. Jessica Higgins (YouTube episode)
ERP 110: How To Manage Two Majorly Conflicting Needs In Relationship
ERP 015: Do You Have A “Unity” Or “Journey” Mindset In Relationship?
ERP 446: Dealing With Betrayal In Relationship & Learning To Forgive
12 Relationship Principles to Strengthen Your Love (free guide)
Connect with Dr. Bruce ChalmerWebsites: brucechalmer.com | couplestherapyinsevenwords.com
Facebook: facebook.com/drbrucechalmer
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/bruce-chalmer-95ab70305/
Instagram: instagram.com/dr_bruce_chalmer
YouTube: youtube.com/brucechalmer
TikTok: tiktok.com/@drbrucechalmer
Podcast: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/couples-therapy-in-seven-words/id1517231158
Connect with Dr. Jessica HigginsFacebook: facebook.com/EmpoweredRelationship
Instagram: instagram.com/drjessicahiggins
Podcast: drjessicahiggins.com/podcasts/
Pinterest: pinterest.com/EmpowerRelation
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Email: jessica@drjessicahiggins.com
If you have a topic you would like to be discussed, please contact us by clicking on the “Ask Dr. Jessica Higgins” button here.
Thank you so much for your interest in improving your relationship.
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Thank you!
*With Amazon Affiliate Links, I may earn a few cents from Amazon if you purchase the book from this link.
Episode Transcript
Doctor Bruce Chalmer, thank you so much for joining us.
Well, I'm delighted to be back here, and we've had several conversations, and I've enjoyed them all. So I'm looking forward to.
Yes, yes. And for people who might have missed your first episode, which you were on the Empowered Relationship podcast, I'll put that on today's Show Notes. And then you're reminding me I was on your show. I'll also put that link to that episode on today's Show Notes as well. And you have a recent book, The Passion Paradox, which we're going to explore a little bit in today's conversation. And I guess, shall I start, or would you like to say something before I get started?
Oh, feel. No, go whatever direction you'd like to go.
Yeah, okay. So let's just get started because I know you could talk a lot about probably what prompted this book, but it sounds like maybe you could say a little bit here. But I imagine just helping couples negotiate what perhaps is presented in long-term intimacy. And that's one of the things you're pointing to, is the paradox that we have different forces that are critical for intimacy but don't quite seem to be in the same direction. There's a paradox there.
Yes, there is. Yeah. And actually, I think I can kind of fold that into a description of where this book came from.
Okay, great.
And, you know, it's funny how this happens because it's the kind of thing like, why didn't I think of this years ago? Well, because I didn't, that's why. But here it is, you know, so I've written various other books as we've talked about before, and pretty much every session I do. Every first session I do with a couple. Pretty structured. My first sessions are pretty structured. And I will ask them my favorite. I will, spoiler alert. I'll give my favorite opening question, which is how will you know if this is helping? That's what I ask folks after the kind of confidentiality discussion and things like that. That's what I ask. And it sort of orients people right away that, oh, we have to figure out, is this helping?
And then, what does better look like? You know, that sort of sends them in that direction. And so we talk about some of that stuff. And I have a few particular questions I make sure to cover. I usually do a family diagram in there as well, just to. That really generates stories. It's really a nice way of understanding what's going on, and then I say, okay, possible non sequitur. I alert people. I say, this may seem like a non sequitur, but I'm just curious, have you seen any of the stuff on my website? Now, why am I asking that? And I say, totally fine if you haven't. But the only relevance there is, I have a way. I like to structure a first session.
And if you're curious about that stuff, you can find lots of information and books I've written and stuff like that, and the podcast I do with my wife, Judy Alexander, all that you can find on the website. So then I proceed to go into, I guess I'd call it a mini lecture. Five, six minutes, something. I don't know how long it takes, but by now I'm pretty much saying the same stuff because I've been saying this for decades. And what's that lecture about? Well, it is about what I have come just recently to call the title of that book,
“The Passion Paradox, it's the phenomenon that both stability and intimacy are crucial needs, and yet they are in conflict”
There's the paradox, and it isn't even. I've recently come to say this. It isn't even about balancing them.
It's about simultaneously dealing with the fact that two things in conflict are both really important. I just love paradoxes. I guess that's why I throw the word paradox in the name of a book I wrote. It's like, I'm a sucker for a good paradox. So what do I mean by that? So I explain this to couples, and we can go into that or not. We'll see where this conversation goes. But I explain that and what almost always happens, and I guess I'm really sensitized to it, so I'm looking for it. It's like a light bulb moment. The couple says, ” Oh, I hadn't thought of it that way. I'll finish up my little lecture with my favorite metaphor about a plant growing and how intimacy is the energy for growth, and it'll crack a sidewalk if it has to.
And so I'll say, does any of that resonate for you? And they will almost always say, ” Oh, yeah, that's totally what's going on, or something like that. And then they will, you know, there will be a moment of relief right there. It doesn't solve other problems, obviously, but it means that they're saying, oh, there's a different way of thinking about this than we thought we were messed up, or we thought I thought he or she was messed up. You know that one, or you know, or crazy, or something like that. Or, you know, fill in your favorite Internet label nowadays, you know, narcissistic or borderline or whatever the favorite nasty label is. And now they're thinking, oh, you mean this can happen with two basically sane, basically decent human beings and basically intelligent human beings? And that can happen. And yeah, by golly, there's no.
You don't have to invoke any pathology. You're not broken. It still sucks, right? You're still in pain. I got that part. But it's a different way of looking at it. So there's the light bulb moment. So what does that have to do with? I'm sorry, go ahead.
Well, I just want to. I appreciate what you're saying because I think it's very validating for, again, what are the natural core elements of cultivating intimacy? That they're not seemingly working together, although they do work together. Right. But they seem like different directions, if you will. And I did a podcast years ago, I'll put it on today's show notes. And it was talking about these two opposing forces. And I referenced a lot of Schnarch's work. I don't know if you've ever come across.
And he gotta credit him. I have to credit him. A lot of those ideas, I'm sure, came out of my reading with Schnarch 20 years ago, 25 years ago by now.
Yeah. Well, I mean, it's incredibly important where I think he uses more of the language of differentiating, being able to hold onto yourself, and then also having that intimacy and that we're really looking at interdependence, right? We're not looking at this the same. So I love this. And it's so important for people to have a sense of. Because I think culturally we get a lot of messaging around being symbiotic, right? We have this romantic notion of the same, like being in lockstep. And while there's a beauty in that, like the synchronized swimming and like just this sense of harmony that we do have individual selves that we're cultivating as well. And that pursuit of our goals, what we need, and our passion, is right.
That's very tied to our vitality, that those things seemingly weave in and out, they're not always this lock and step. And then I don't know what you think, but I imagine some attachment tendencies layer on this as well with the culture. I mean, there are a lot of factors that inform what people think they should be doing, and in the service of a relationship. But if one is a little bit like, ooh, it's tough to approach harder topics because I know that hasn't always gone well. I tend to be more self-reliant. So tell me a little bit more based on what I'm saying. Okay.
Yeah. Well, you're right on the. Yes, those are the very struggles that people are dealing with, those differences. You know, I don't usually get into like, you know, attachment theory per se.
Yeah.
But it's certainly when you talk about overlaying that more and more people are aware of that stuff, and so they'll sometimes use that language. And so I'm, you know, I'm comfortable with that language. It's interesting. Yeah. That phenomenon that you're not always going to be symbiotic, you're not always going to be swimming in a synchronized swimming thing, is great. John Gottman has a diagram in one of his books that I just love. I mean, I'm a nerdy guy myself. You know, I'm a recovering nerd with frequent relapses. And John Gottman can be very nerdy as well. And the one he wrote, I think it's Principia Amoris. It's got a nerdy title, even. That was one of his books, and I just love that book.
It's very mathematical, all that stuff, all my old stuff that I used to do back in the day. And one of the diagrams he has in there is of a couple, and what he's measuring in this diagram is one of his 15-minute conversations about things you disagree about. And what he's measuring in the couple is some. I forgot whether it's a physiological measurement or something of arousal, and not necessarily positive arousal, but you know.
Like how ones get activated.Or something like that. So because he will often have them wear pulse oximeters, and you know, see what's going on physiologically. So he showed a particular couple in a particular conversation, and it was just mapped over time, this measure of how physiologically aroused they were, and they were perfectly synchronized. It was like a beautiful, like I think like skaters in the Olympics, you know, like the ice dancing, you know. And I love the fact that if you look at that, and then you had another couple that showed that they were largely out of sync, and of course, which one was the one that's going to do well and which one isn't the one that's in sync, was screwed. Because the problem was that what was being measured was arousal, and it wasn't. They disagreed. So they were triggering each other.
They were making it worse. “The couples that do well are the ones where somebody can upset their partner, not intentionally, but is willing to risk that and not freak out. And it helped calm their partner down. So it's the ability to be out of sync that is a crucial relationship skill. And that's part of the passion paradox.” Right?
Yes.
Yeah. So that. Go ahead.
Well, I think this is tricky again, culturally or just. “However, we get the messaging around how to do a relationship is to emphasize the stability, especially if there are children, or the home life, and the finances and stability. Stability and the functioning of that. And that's really important. And if we're not approaching these more vulnerable conversations and we're not risking rocking the boat, so to speak, we're perhaps jeopardizing some of the passion.”
Well, yeah. And of course, my thesis, which I don't claim credit for, but, you know, I think Schnarsch would have said something similar. The problem is that lack of intimacy, as I'm defining intimacy, that sense of being able to be alive, being able to risk the anxiety of perhaps displeasing your partner to say something important to you.
Yeah.
“The absence of that itself becomes destabilizing. We don't tolerate it. That's my metaphor about cracking the sidewalk. It's like the couple will crack the sidewalk if intimacy is cut off, metaphorically paving a sidewalk over it in the interest of stability. It won't work because the couple will somehow crack the sidewalk. Now, what does that look like? It sometimes looks like an affair. It sometimes looks like arguing about everything and nothing.” Those are the couples who come in and say, ” We get into an argument when we're saying anything more controversial than please pass the salt. And even then, sometimes when they're trying to figure out why, well, that's often what it is. They're both feeling so repressed, I guess, is a way of saying it, although I'm not sure that's the word I would want to use. But something like that, it just.
They metaphorically, they crack the sidewalk. So all of that stuff is kind of how I structure my first sessions. After that, it's much more freeform. But here's my light bulb moment again. Took decades for me to hit this. But all of a sudden I realized, wait a sec. As I said, I could write a book that has all that stuff in it, so people could read that in conjunction with doing therapy with me or someone else, or without even doing therapy, you can learn from it. And so I wrote a book. And then more recently, we'll touch on this later, I made a video course out of it for the same reason, not everybody's ready for therapy, or even if they are ready for therapy.
Either way, this is the stuff I'm thinking is I always put it in the first session, so why not make it available to people? Yes, that ought to be interesting to people. I hope it is. Anyway. That's why. That's where that book came from.
Well, it can be a paradigm shift, and you're really helping people orient that. What might seem difficult, and things you want to avoid. Those are the very things that cultivate more intimacy. Yes. Yeah. Okay. So when you're really addressing people who have found themselves more or less in a roommate situation, they love each other, they're in a long-term established relationship, perhaps married, and have a family. Family. And they're in this roommate syndrome. Can you give people an example of what this might look like in an everyday moment, how they're choosing stability over intimacy?
Oh, sure. Yeah. And first of all, let me just note, you pretty much paraphrased the subtitle of my book, which is when you feel miles apart and still love each other. Those are the folks I'm really addressing in that, you know, because they're the folks who come in crisis and they can benefit from it, too. That was more about my previous book about betrayal. But these are the folks exactly as you described the roommate situations. You know, what does that look like in practice? I was just talking with a couple earlier this week, actually, where they were describing that, you know, how that happened, because these are, they fit that so well. These are folks. There's no big crisis happening. There hasn't been infidelity. You know, they're not worried about somebody's substance problem or something like that.
And they clearly love each other. There's no doubt, you know, like they're not looking to leave or anything, but over time, stuff. It had a lot to do with not risking instability. They didn't want, they don't want to bring up stuff. And what the woman of this was was a heterosexual couple. The woman of this couple was saying, ” You know, it's interesting, she happens to be the one with a higher libido between the two of them, which is not that unusual at all. And she said, so she, you know, she would wish he would want to have sex more often. But she said, what tends to happen is sex is the first thing to go when there's any amount of stress happening, and it's the last thing to come back when the stress sort of releases.
And that has a lot to do with. It's hard to feel like you want to be that intimate. And of course,
“Sex is just one form of intimacy”
It's hard to feel like that when you don't feel like you can connect because it's too scary when it feels too anxiety-producing to say, ” Wow, we're worried we're going to get into a nasty argument. And again, this is a couple that they don't have horrible fights. What they tend to do is one or the other. I think she said she usually is the one who just sort of shuts down.
Okay.
And he's the one who would rather keep going, but he's not one of those people who's just going to metaphorically pound down the door. Sure. So it just kind of dies for a while. So that's sort of what the roommate situation seems to be about. And it's interesting because there are a couple where, sometimes, roommate situations are. Because something is lurking in the background that's really a deal breaker. You know, something like, turns out one or the other in a heterosexual couple is gay. Hasn't figured that out yet. Or, turns out, oh, my God, you know, we're two good people, but we just aren't compatible sexually or not compatible for other reasons sometimes. A different couple I talked with this week they're struggling about whether they want to have kids.
And one of them has always wanted to have kids, and the other has always been uncertain and is still uncertain. So it's not all the way to full deal-breaker status. But that's always. That lurks in the background of their conversations. And so it makes it hard to risk, you know, something as simple as, hey, would you please pick up your jacket? You know.
Yes. Okay. So thank you for even going a little bit further and identifying some of the fears that might be operating either consciously or unconsciously, that make this too hard to approach.
Are there other ways in which? Because I think just even being in a vulnerable intimate relationship can feel scary to some degree or another. Just to reveal those inside parts that might not feel lovable or feel like they're needy, or something. Can you speak about how that lives in us?
Yeah, I mean, that's kind of the central. I don't know what to call it. Insight or something. The central part of the hypothesis, the chief skill of intimacy, is to tolerate that very anxiety rather than avoid it. And we have. Yeah, we have those. Everybody has them for various reasons. And, it's certainly easy sometimes or worthwhile sometimes to sort of go back over your background and, you know, childhood and what you see with your parents and all that kind of stuff that we often ask folks about, because that often bears on. How did you come to be afraid of what you're afraid of? We're all afraid of something. It's not a bug of evolution. It's a feature, keeps us from crossing the street without looking both ways, that stuff. So we all have our various fears, and they are shaped.
It's another corollary of one of the things I almost always tell couples. And it's usually about. Well, it's right. Right about when I'm about to do the. The talk. It's when I'm doing the talk about stability and intimacy, and I'm talking about stability. And I almost always say to couples, right at that point, I said, well, now that we're old buddies, since I've known you for 17 minutes or however long it's been, I will say, pretty sure. With respect to stability. Pretty sure. I can tell neither one of you is batshit crazy, right? And they smile and, you know, sometimes they will say, well, you haven't seen me at my work.
Is that a joke?
Yeah, they'll make a joke. And I always like to point out I'm not trying to make fun of serious mental health issues, but what I'm noting is they're not psychotic. You know, they're not thinking. The FBI is controlling the signals in their brain. I did experience that once years ago. So it's like that. That's where that example came from. Somebody was pretty sure that's what was happening. Yeah, that is, to use the technical term, batshit crazy. But most folks aren't. And just that is reassuring. So that if you. If you then look at it as well, the reason you're not able to, or not willing, or not inclined to do certain things is you're afraid. And it's normal to be afraid. It's not crazy. It's like, yeah, all of this stuff has a good basis.
I don't know if this is more of a segue, and you can steer me back if you want, but one of my favorite things to talk with folks about is the classic problem, and it's almost always gendered in this way. Not always, but almost always, the classic problem of a woman who wants to do couples therapy. And the man doesn't. That is way more the norm than the exception, at least in my experience.
I've had so many men initiate in their heterosexual relationship to come, but. Well, I'm not too.
But. And again, and this may just be prejudicial on my part, could well be. I'm looking for it, but those guys who are the ones making the appointments, then I find out it's because she insisted that he do it. Why should she have to do all that? You know, that's basically what that story is about. So you may. You may have.
Yeah, I don't know. “I think that there are some general stereotypes that are. I mean, to your point, this would make sense. I don't know what the current research or statistics are, but I remember that, I don't know if it was like 10 years ago, the primary reason for divorce was emotional intimacy, and it was women initiating divorce. So that kind of goes with what you're saying. Hasn't been fully my experience, but I could be the outlier. I don't know.”
“Well, two things. I'm glad to hear that. First of all, yes. And that's why I'm saying, yeah, I'm probably looking for it. So I see it where I wouldn't necessarily have to be there. Do you know what I mean? I'm not seeing any sign of that, like, oh, yeah, it's one of those, you know. So that's what happens with stereotypes. I get that. But whatever it is, that phenomenon is very common that somebody, almost, in my experience, mostly women, are trying to get the guy in their life to try it. And the key, I think, to that, and I have a chapter in the book, actually, all about that, the key to that is to recognize” that for the
“Woman trying to convince the guy to recognize that his fears are legitimate”
That's the difference.
And I tell a story that I got from an actual couple that I work with. I found it very moving where she had been trying, of course, she had succeeded because they were sitting in my office, right. So there they are in therapy. He's there willingly. She's not pointing a gun at him. He's there. And it came up in the conversation after a while, like, how did it happen that you're here? Because they had both said, yeah, he had been reluctant for years. She'd been trying for like five years. And so was. Well, what she said was, I realized, you know, I just got tired of beating my head against the wall. And I kept thinking, he doesn't care enough. Why does he not care enough? That's the. Often.
“That's one of the top 10 reasons that women are always saying, he doesn't care enough, he's arrogant.”
The way they interpret the lack of interest or the resistance.
And of course, the guy plays into that because he'll often say things like, ” Well, you're the unhappy one. You go, yeah, I'm not. If you were. If you weren't so unhappy, I'd be fine. So you go get fixed. You know, basically is the message, which sounds pretty uncaring and certainly unempathic and all that kind of stuff. What happened in this particular case was that she said, wait a minute, I know he's not an uncaring guy.
Right.
And I even am. I'm sure he loves me. He acts as if he loves me. What's the deal here? She finally, instead of being, you know, being dismissive and, you know, insisting he's a bad person, which he knew he wasn't, she actually approached him with genuine curiosity, saying, what are you worried about? And heard that, and he said, ” Oh, my God, she's really asking. And because he never thought about it himself, we guys, again, to use another stereotype, but it's worth it, for what it's worth, we don't want to admit that we're terrified of something. Usually, I think more than women. Well, you could speak to that. Not to mansplain to the woman, but seems to me it's a guy. It's like, no, we don't want to admit, especially to our women,
“We don't want to admit that we're terrified, but we are”
Of course we are. So when he actually opened up, it's like, well, what am I worried about? And then he was able to say some of the things that guys tend to worry about, and I claim, for very good reason, worry that we're going to go to couples therapy and break up. Yes, possibly because the therapist will say to the woman, or imply to the woman, you know, you're married to a jerk here, get rid of them. You'll be a lot happier. Because I've heard stories there. That's exactly what therapists sometimes say. Not all, obviously, but that happens. Or just in general, a therapist won't have a particular. Even if the therapist is male, the therapist will be more oriented to how women think than how men think. And broadly speaking.
And it's a verbal process. Right. Which isn't technically stereotypically the favored mode of communicating, like sitting in a room talking.
Oh, my God, y'all women, you could talk Rings around us. Usually, you know, there are obvious exceptions like those of us in the field, but, you know, out there in the real world, it's like, oh, my God, that's female territory. Yeah. Understandably. It's, you know, I'm in awe of it sometimes, but it's like, oh, my God. It puts us, men, at a disadvantage.
Yes.
That's legitimate fear. And when she is able. And this is what happened with that couple, when she heard, ” Oh, my God, I'm. You know, she was able to say to him, ” You know, I'm worried about those things too, but I'm worried about whether we're going to be okay. And then he can hear it. He'd say, ” Oh, shit, it's scary, but, yeah, we better do it because I don't want to lose you.
Yeah.
And then it becomes an act of love as well. But scary sometimes to do that.
But it requires incredible courage to get support from someone you've never met before and don't know how they're gonna facilitate. It's terrifying sometimes.
Yeah. And
“It's not like going into something where you have no idea what could happen. You know, what could happen because it sometimes does. It's a real risk.”
You don't know, to go to a therapist, you don't know at all. You don't know if they're gonna be any good. And they could go on.
Yes, unfortunately.
Yeah.
Well, it's in any field; you go to an attorney, and they can be wonderful, or they cannot be so helpful. Right. There's any industry. You have a range of competencies. But I do think, even historically, I think the field is changing a lot more people are getting proactive and setting their. This relationship is key to success and engaging in these principles. But I think historically it used to be the beginning of the end. It's like you go to therapy, and then you hear about the divorce. Right.
Yes, exactly.
So I can appreciate the association there.
So that it sort of is one example of the more general theme we're touching on, that it's really scary to enter into these intimate conversations.
Yeah.
And so that. But that's the key. That's what you have to be willing to risk. And so I am always trying to convey to folks that I absolutely respect and appreciate that fear, and I know what it feels like. And the other thing I'm conveying, sort of in the background of all of this, and I'll sometimes be quite explicit about it, and it's something I've written about in all of my books, is that I use the word faith for it. And of course, that could be misleading because it sounds like religious faith. And I don't mean that. I mean much more generally the idea that says, yeah, of course, we're full of uncertainty, but this whole living business is meaningful anyway if we can find the meaning in it. Even when we're suffering. If we can find that, yeah, it's a meaningful struggle.
That's what will get you through it. That's sort of the antidote to just freaking out and panicking entirely.
Thank you. I was going to ask what you support people in being able to increase their ability to tolerate anxiety or discomfort. And it sounds like this is a principle, which is looking at the why, the meaning, or the purpose.
Yeah, it's a mindset rather than.
“It's not an insight, it's a mindset.”
And as a mindset, it's interesting because it's something that, at least to some extent, is available for choice. You can choose it. You know, my go-to author on this is Viktor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning, finding meaning in being in Auschwitz, you know, and pure evil. And there's no rhyme or reason to who lived and who died. Most people died. And the ones who lived, it's not because you can't say, well, the ones who had the right attitude lived. No, that's simply not true. And he recognized that. But even in their death,
“Some people died still alive”
You know what I mean? That died struggling for meaning. The one thing they couldn't do was take away their humanity, even if they killed them.
And that's a pretty extreme example, you know.
But that helps, but it helps tolerate that. There's still an alignment for the meaning or the engagement with the struggle. Right. Because people can surrender, they can just not fight in some capacity. Right. And then coming back to an intimate relationship, I can say when I'm more focused on the outcomes, even the question you were referring to around how would you know that this is working? Or one of the questions I like to ask is if were finishing up, what would it look like? Similar. We're getting at similar things, but kind of paint a picture for me around what you would love? What would the goal be? And that can give guidance, tolerance, or can give orientation when feeling the stress, the activation, and the fear that can feel discombobulating. Yeah, that gives purpose and meaning, like you're saying.
So it's almost just pound for pound, like I want the outcome more than the fear.
Yeah, exactly.
“And even in the knowledge that you don't even know that what you think you want is the outcome, is going to be the outcome”
It's going to be the outcome that you end up even wanting. Do you know what I mean?
Yeah.
That's very fluid.
Correct. It might be better than you could ever imagine. It might be totally different. Yeah, yeah.
Be careful what you ask for, you know, and you just, you simply. That's part of the uncertainty. But, you know, what I'm sort of trying to convey is that. Yeah, that's part of the beauty of life. Again, that's a feature, not a bug. It's like, yeah,
“Uncertainty is part of the picture”
When I talk about faith, that's what I mean. I talk about faith as sort of the opposite of fundamentalism, the opposite of a dogmatic view that says, well, this is how things are. No, faith means recognizing the reality that we don't have a God's-eye view of the universe. We only know what we know, and we can only know what we know when we're knowing it. And there are all kinds of contradictory truths that are popping up that have their place.
And so we're not going to be able to figure everything out perfectly. And that's to accept. That is part of that sense of faith. That's what I'm trying to convey, that I've often thought about that and I've said so occasionally. What's the main thing we as therapists can offer people? There are a lot of ways of answering that question. One of them is simply, well,
“We can embody faith because the way you learn it is a practice”
The way you learn that practice is by being around people who embody it.
Yeah. Partner in believing.
Yeah. And you don't. You know, maybe I'm too precious about this, but it isn't even about believing per se. It's more about just saying, well, it's worth the effort. And that's not an assertion of fact. Do you know what I mean?
No.
“You can cite all sorts of reasons why the world is totally a mess and terrible, and you can cite all sorts of reasons why there's so much beauty in the world”
All of that is true. It's a choice. It's a value judgment choice. You know, I think about mindset. I think about Carol Dweck and the growth mindset and fixed mindset.
Yes, yes.
And I'm certainly implying. Yeah, you sort of have to have a growth mindset here to be able to recognize you're not stuck in even how you feel or even how you think you can learn stuff all the way through. And I would just note what people will often express when they can tolerate the anxiety, what they will often express when they get through to some other side is gratitude. Gratitude for the struggle. They'll say, ” Oh, my God, that was so painful. But look how much better. Look how much we've learned. Even if I split up, you know, look how much we've learned and look how much better off we are now.
“And of course, the couples that stay together, which, hey, my romantic heart likes that one that likes that ending better, you know, they are so often so grateful and never had anybody say, hey, thanks for cheating, you know, appreciate that. You know, never heard that. I absolutely have heard people say, ” Thanks for precipitating that crisis, which clearly we needed. We didn't realize it, but look how much better we are now. All this stuff we didn't realize was happening, and now we can manage that. We're feeling good. So there's gratitude involved there. And I think that's a part and parcel of faith as well.”
“Totally. I appreciate you bringing up the example of even as extreme as an affair or some type of betrayal that can be a catalyst for opening up a lot of the intimacy that you're referring to around the open sharing and the. I mean, obviously done safely, but it's talking about things that had not been talked about or explored. I've had many couples come when they're in the. In the heat of crisis, they're saying, we're ironically closer now with all the conversation, and we're actually having more sex than we have. Like, it's just. It's such an irony that. Like that. And no one would wish for that to be the catalyst.”
Of course, I never say, ” Oh, here's your solution. Have an affair. Never! Bad plan. But yes, absolutely. The one about having more sex is fascinating, isn't it?
Yes.
It'll often be a situation where one or the other was just really reluctant to have sex. And then somebody cheats, and then all of a sudden they're all about it. And this is. I can't prove this, but it just feels like there's something really biological about that. There's something about how we, as primates, that's what we would do, you know, to hang onto our mate or something. But it is really fascinating how that happens.
Yes, yes. And when we come back, tolerating the anxiety, sometimes crises force us to just be more in the moment because we can't control. Like it's. We're. It's beyond our scope. Our kind of world has shifted on its axis. So it's like we're. We're a little humbled by. I don't know what the protocol is for this. And thus we can be a little bit more present in the present, not so in our heads, trying to plan. It's just like, okay, breathe my feet on the ground. Like, sometimes when we're leveled to that. With that degree, we are forced to be more mindful and present. What do you think?
Oh, yeah, absolutely. You know, I was thinking, as you said that about. And I guess I relate to this because it probably applies to me, you know, folks who tend to be. Who've got a lot of language about this and think about it and a lot of theory around it and stuff like that, you know, the likes of therapists often, and then get hit by something like that, and all of a sudden, oh, my God, we're just human beings here and we're struggling and we don't even understand why we're struggling so much. Because I thought I understood all this stuff.
Oh, my gosh.
Yeah. It ain't the cerebral part, and so that. It often has that effect, sort of. It's like a great equalizer.
Oh, my gosh. Yes. It reminds me, I interviewed a woman who related to loss, and she. In college, I don't even know if it was her graduate program, but she was doing some practicum. She was studying grief and how to support people and were like, that have lost a significant other, loved one, and she lost her husband tragically. And she was so well equipped. She was just like. All of my training and experience, like, it was not helpful.
Yeah, it's ironic. And, you could. I suppose we could say the very fact that we spend. You know, I'm thinking of myself. I spend so much time in my. In my head, although I think it's in my heart too.
Yeah.
You know, there's. It's not the same thing as experience. It just isn't, you know, just to get hit by something. I'm just. Funny. I was just remembering a moment. This was many years ago, when my father had died. The. A few months before. And I was in synagogue for the. It's called the Yizkor service, which is done several times a year. It's not just saying Kaddish, which I was doing too, but the Yizkor service. And I just was not prepared. Boom. I was sobbing. I came out of absolutely nowhere. I didn't. Wasn't thinking that. And it was one of those experiences. It's like, okay. I mean, and it didn't throw me for a loop. And everybody around me was very supportive. Of course, because you're in a Yizkor service, that's kind of what happens, you know.
But it was really like, yeah, you can know about this stuff and not know about this stuff. That's not what it's about. It's coming from a whole different place.
Yes. Well, thank you for sharing. Just the humanness of what we're negotiating with a relationship beyond just intimacy, just life and living, and the uncertainty and the risk that's involved with loving, and that there's a lot that we're going to experience that we can't predict and be fully prepared for. And coming back to the passion paradox, for someone listening who recognizes they perhaps have been avoiding some difficult conversations or just struggling. Is there a way in which you like to encourage people in doable ways or safe ways to start to implement more of this? Because ideally, we don't want to have an affair. Right. To start doing the work.
Yeah. Bad plans. Definitely bad plan. I do point that out. Yeah. You know, it's interesting. There's a tendency I could get into and try not to, just, you know, Nike, you know, just do it, or Nancy Reagan, you know, what is it? Just say no or something? Just say yes. You know, I don't. It doesn't work that way. No. What I tend to think of is that what it requires is experience, which is what therapy sessions can be good for. And I never. I. I don't think I ever tell people. Don't talk about this in between sessions. On the contrary, I don't tell people what to do at all. If I can avoid it, I don't go there. But in terms of what we're offering in the session, it's an experience that says, okay, this was scary.
It feels better now. That itself is the sort of thing that when you experience, it's like, oh, now I'm more inclined to take that risk. And that's what it takes, is sort of repeated examples. You know, what it reminds me of, actually, I did a lot of work earlier in my career helping people recover from trauma, trained in EMDR, and also in clinical hypnosis. And I did a lot of that stuff earlier in my career. And it's a similar phenomenon when a couple has been traumatized or the individuals in the couple have been traumatized. It's like, yeah, you want to avoid the triggers. The irony, of course, is that avoiding triggers doesn't help you. I mean, it's understandable. It's like, I see.
It's a human protective strategy. Yes.
It's humane, right?
Yes.
You know, it's the thing about trigger warnings. It's like, well, it's a humane thing to do. It doesn't help anybody. But, I mean, I get it. I don't take a position one way or the other. It's like, I get it. But, you know, if I'm working with somebody who's in that situation, what they need to learn to do is experience being reminded of it and not freak out. That's how your brain learns. And so it's the same thing for a couple to experience. Risking intimacy, risking that sense of honesty in a way that doesn't blow up in your face. Then when you get through that and say, ” Oh, okay, wow, that went. That was still scary, but it was better than I thought. That's what will encourage people to continue. Continue to do it. So, you know, I don't tell people.
We'll just do that. But I will sometimes explain that very thing and explain. That's what we're doing here in the session. That's what we're trying to do. There are scary parts, but your brain can know. Okay, it's safe enough to go there.
Yeah. It's like getting spotted. Right. For carrying something. And as you talk about embodiment, that when one can get the lived experience, there's a felt sense of like, oh, my gosh, I survived. And that's why I. This is a way better outcome than what I used to do, and I want to do more of this. It doesn't take away the anxiety, like the need to tolerate the anxiety. I remember when I first started the podcast and doing the work, this was like 2015. I don't know people. I felt like it was helpful for people to understand, even me, that it's been in psychology all of my college years, and I grew up with I statements and all the things, and personal growth, and have been practicing these principles. I still feel terrified. I still feel scared when I'm.
Because you're not nuts.It's not because you are nuts, because you're not. That's the point. Yeah. That's it. You're feeling terrified in certain circumstances. You're not crazy. Right. Of course you do. And it is fascinating because you have the I statement. Thing. And I love to make fun of I statements. That's one of my making fun of. Because you can show every bit as much contempt from somebody with an I statement as you can with yeast.
Yeah, no, I totally get it.
Yeah, that was the subject of my book. It's not about communication. You know that. It was all about that. It's like, yeah, you're already communicating effectively. The problem is what you're communicating. You're doing it very effectively. You don't need to learn how to be more effective. You need to really wonder why you're so pissed off. You know, why are you so contemptuous? What's going on there? If you were less so, you wouldn't have to worry about how you communicate. That's what you'd be communicating. Because you're already good at that. Unless you're on the spectrum, maybe it's different.
Revealing more of the inside part. Right. Less of just the story or the narrative. Okay, so as we wind down here, any tip or step that you want to invite people to consider beyond what you've said, or maybe reiterating what you've said, for sparking more of this passion and intimacy? Is it this very thing of taking some risks and maybe getting support and being able, or is there anything else you'd like to add?
Well, I mean, sort of building that, first of all, to understand it. I mean, it's not like I'm all about. It has to be cognitive first. But that bodily experience of saying, ” Oh, my God, this is. There's something else here I need to get curious about, which can calm you down right there. So that's kind of a first step. Which is what? You know, things like my books and video courses, which I'm sure I'll be touting in a moment, but that sort of stuff is. And good couples therapy sessions are about that. That's whatever somebody's school of thought is. It's often about that. It's about, yeah, let's look at this. Not panicked. Even though it's painful. And it's painful because you're not crazy, not because you are. You know what I mean? It's like, okay, let's look at this. That calms people down.
And then they are more willing to risk it. So understanding that, yeah, there's your possibility for you, so to really. And again, I think it takes a bodily sense of that. It's like, oh, this can be. There's some hope here. There's something like that. You sort of need that to get going. Which, again, a good therapy session can do for folks, and that can set them on the road to say, okay, well maybe I can risk this. And then you see where it goes.
Yes, wonderful. Well, you've already pointed to your book and the video courses. I know you have many books and lots to offer. What would you like to invite people to connect with if they're interested in learning more?
Yeah, well, I especially, first of all, they can go to my website, which is simply brucechalmer.com if they go there. I just recently redid the whole website, so feel free to give me anybody, feel free to give me feedback on it, love the new website, or oh, it's kind of weird, or whatever. I'm interested in that. But when they go there, they will see, of course, that they can set up sessions with me if they want to. There's that I tell by telehealth. But also, what I've recently done is I have turned that same stuff we're talking about that I wrote about in the book into a video course. And it's a three-part video course, the first part of which is a lot about understanding the whole stability, intimacy thing.
And actually, at the end of the first part, the last part of it's a painfully difficult section of it, the chapter of it, but it's how to know whether to call it quits or not. And so when you come out of that one, it's not like you have a definitive answer necessarily, but you have a good way of thinking about, okay, do I want to work in this relationship or do I have deal breakers here? And it's very much I have a biased approach, which is to say, no, if you're not sure it's a deal breaker, assume it's growing pains and work on it. Doesn't mean you'll end up together. Maybe you'll decide, but don't break up too soon, or you won't learn what you need to learn. So that's part one. Part two, I call learning the skills.
That's where you work on that mindset I've been describing. And I have some very, I think, specific exercises to lead people there. And then part three is where you develop very specific action plans. It's like, how am I going to implement this stuff in my actual relationship? Bunches of different topic videos, many of which won't be relevant, but many of which will. If you're having struggles about whether we should have kids? If you're having struggles about money, if you're having struggles about sex, if you're having struggles about whatever, there are a bunch of specific things you can work on and develop action plans. So that's the video course, I think is I'm claiming it's good for people, whether or not you're in therapy or want to do therapy, because it will help you do better. Therapy will help you. Therapy helps you more. And the YouTube channel youtube.com/brucechalmer.
Certainly with me it will. I know that because it's the way I think with anybody pretty much. And so there's that. And then also some folks would just do it and say, well, maybe we don't need therapy. Maybe this is it. You know, maybe this is enough. So. Yes.
And say the name of your book.
Again, The Passion Paradox, when you feel miles apart and still love each other.
Excellent. I will have the link to your website, which appears to allow access to your video course. I'll also put the link for your book, your most recent book, on today's Show Notes. Thank you so much for all that you've shared here today.
Well, thanks for having me on. I really enjoyed it.
The post ERP 533: How Couples Unintentionally Trade Passion for Stability — An Interview with Dr. Bruce Chalmer appeared first on Jessica Higgins.
Navigating the ups and downs of relationships can feel like learning a new language without a guidebook. When emotions run high, or misunderstandings arise, it’s easy to get stuck in frustration or repeat patterns that don’t serve us—or our partners—well. How do you ask for what you need, stay true to yourself, and keep the connection strong, all at the same time?
In this episode, the discussion explores practical tools rooted in Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) that help you strike a balance between self-respect, relationship wellbeing, and getting your needs met. Listeners will discover how to pause and choose more effective responses in moments of conflict, learn key strategies for emotional regulation, and find new ways to approach differences with acceptance and actionable change. Whether you’re struggling to communicate a small annoyance or facing recurring arguments, this conversation offers concrete skills to foster growth and resilience in any relationship.
Shireen Rizvi is a licensed clinical psychologist, board-certified in Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). Over the past 25 years, Shireen has conducted research and training in DBT. Her new book, Real Skills for Real Life, co-authored with Dr. Jesse Finkelstein, is available now.
Episode Highlights03:35 Introduction to DBT therapy.
07:55 Learning relationship skills gradually.
10:49 Marcia Linehan's therapy development.
16:07 Embracing acceptance and change.
21:30 Balancing objectives and relationships.
25:33 Balancing priorities in relationships.
29:02 Understanding Emotion Regulation in DBT.
31:29 Understanding emotional dysregulation.
35:08 Managing conflict in relationships.
40:28 Using DBT skills for anxiety.
43:36 Book and resources overview.
Your Checklist of Actions to Take Identify Your Objective. Clarify what specific outcome you are hoping to achieve before entering a conversation or making a request. * Consider Relationship Impact: Reflect on how you want the other person to feel about you and your relationship after the interaction. * Prioritize Self-Respect: Decide how you want to feel about yourself based on how you handle a situation, ensuring you act in line with your values. * Pause Before Reacting: When emotions run high, intentionally pause and consider your options before responding or reaching out to your partner. * Practice Acceptance and Change: Acknowledge areas where acceptance is needed and where change is possible, aiming for a balanced approach in ongoing issues. * Prepare Requests Clearly (DEAR MAN Skill): Formulate clear, specific, and assertive requests using tools like the DEAR MAN acronym to increase the likelihood of your needs being met. * Monitor Emotional State: Regularly check in with yourself to assess your emotional regulation, especially before and during difficult interactions. * Reflect on Interpersonal Patterns:* Periodically review your tendencies in conflict (e.g., always prioritizing the relationship or objective) and adjust to create more balance and effectiveness in your interactions.
MentionedReal Skills for Real Life (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
Real Skills for Real Life (*Guilford Press link) (book)
The High-Conflict Couple (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
About Dr. Jesse Finkelstein (TheraHive)
Marsha M. Linehan
Gottman Institute
Shifting Criticism For Connected Communication (Free Guide)
Connect with Dr. Shireen RizviWebsite: shireenrizvi.com
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/shireen-rizvi-1a5544193
Co-author of the book Real Skills for Real Life: https://www.therahive.com/team/jesse-finkelstein
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If you have a topic you would like to be discussed, please contact us by clicking on the “Ask Dr. Jessica Higgins” button here.
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*With Amazon Affiliate Links, I may earn a few cents from Amazon if you purchase the book from this link.
Episode Transcript
Doctor Shireen Rizvi, it's so lovely to have you.
Thank you so much for having me on.
I've actually wanted to have someone on the show who has specialized in DBT as it relates to relationships. And I'm very excited that you're going to be able to share here today. So, for people who are not familiar with DBT, where would you like to start to help people get a sense of the context? I know we can't go super deep, but more high-level.
Sure. So DBT stands for Dialectical Behavior Therapy, and it's a form of therapy that was developed by a woman named Marsha Linehan. It's primarily grounded in cognitive behavioral therapy. So if people are familiar with CBT, they will see a lot of overlap with DBT. The reason that it's a little bit different is that the origin story of DBT was actually to apply, or came out of trying to apply cognitive behavioral therapy, standard cognitive behavioral therapy, to individuals with very serious problems with emotions and emotion regulation. And in particular, it's people who met the criteria for borderline personality disorder and who were also suicidal. A lot of research has shown that DBT is effective for that population. But what I have found so interesting is how much DBT has spread beyond that particular population.
And in particular, I think the reason that it's spread is that it offers really concrete tools that could help anybody in any situation, or most situations, I should say. And so that, I think, has led to DBT becoming much more widely known and widely utilized beyond what it was originally studied for.
Yes. Thank you. And as we are going to be focusing a little bit more on intimate relationships, this is one of the arenas that most people will feel more activated than they would in other venues or other domains of their life. So it can be really helpful in the intimate space when things might get triggered.
For sure. Yeah. It's really interesting that you even mentioned that. I just got back this week. I was asked to present at a conference of IT security specialists on this. I'm going to take it back, but on distress tolerance skills, because they work in really stressful situations, they get blamed for everything. And the organizer said to me, ” You know, I'm not sure if people are going to relate to this. You know, we'll see where the conversation goes. And in my head, I thought, Oh, people are going to relate to this because not only do they have stress at work, but they have stress in their lives, because
“Everybody has stress in their lives and in their relationships”
And sure enough, I stayed and, you know, had like a meet and greet after.
And so many people came up to me and said, ” This will be helpful in parenting. This will be helpful with my wife. This will be helpful with my husband. So I do think relationships, of course, are a prime opportunity to focus on improving how we interact, how we are effective, and how to be more skillful.
Thank you. Yes. I love that, and I so appreciate that you and your co-author, Dr. Jesse Finkelstein, have done such a great job to normalize that everyone, including both of us, like every single human, is confronted with stress in life, and that we have to negotiate emotional regulation and interpersonal skills. And most of us aren't actually taught explicitly. And if we didn't necessarily have the best models, it just can be a difficult thing to implement. I loved the analogy you both referenced. Like, imagine going to a foreign land where you don't know the language. Do you want to say a little more about that?
Yes. I think that we often feel like when we are confronted with a problem or when we have emotions that feel out of control to us, we often think, ” Oh, we should just be able to solve it, get over it. Right. We have a lot of those thoughts. You should just be able to do it. And that doesn't take into account that actually we need to learn how to be. How to problem solve, how to be more skillful with other people. And so the analogy that I use in the book and in teaching people is that learning to be more effective and skillful is like learning another language. And you don't become fluent overnight, and nobody expects you to become fluent overnight. Instead, you have to start by really intentional practice.
And it's only after very intentional practice, often for a long period of time, that you get to the point where you can kind of just do things fluidly.
Right.
“So in terms of relationships, like, if you're somebody who doesn't really know how to validate your partner, because you were never taught how to validate, in how you grew up, you were never taught that you're not just going to become somebody who can be an expert validator of your partner overnight.” You're going to have to practice it. It's not going to always go well, but over time, you are building up that muscle, and you will get more experience, more practice, and it will start to feel more natural to you.
Absolutely. Because this isn't, as you're saying, as we become more competent, it's going to be more automatic. I mean, I don't know that some of these really challenging skills are Automatic, but we have much more access to them if we have been practicing and implementing them. Because I do agree that some people have a lot of insight or understanding, but the practice is where we get to integrate it and actually build the experience of being able to live it.
Yes. And I think it doesn't. It might not be. I mean, sometimes it becomes automatic. But more, it's like you with practice, when faced with a difficult situation, you're much more likely to say, ” Oh, what's something I can do here that will be effective? Right. Based on my prior experience, as opposed to giving in to impulses and urges and old behaviors, you can actually have a pause and say, wait a second, I want to lash out, but what's an alternative? And that, I think, does become more automatic over time.
Agreed. What do I want to lean into here? And feeling the heat of the moment or the tension of the moment? And I love just to reference the name of your book, Real Skills for Real Life. Like, that's what you're kind of mentioning around how we're all faced with this.
Beautiful.
Well, do you want to speak philosophically about just the dialectical? I love how you mentioned even clinicians might not know how to explain that, and how the balance between acceptance and change, or how to hold these disparate pieces together, is such an important role in DBT. Because even as you were saying, as it was developing, people might not be able to leap, reframing, or shifting their thinking. They need to hold their authentic experience along with entertaining new choices. So do you want to speak more about that?
Sure. Yeah. So just to go back to the origin story a little bit, because I think that will lead to discussion about this, is that, as I mentioned, Marsha Linehan, who developed this treatment, first started to apply standard cognitive behavioral therapy, which, especially back in the 80’s when she was experimenting with this, which was really focused on change, and in particular focused on changing the way you think to change, your behaviors and a lot. And so she took that into her sessions. You know,
“We're going to work on changing the way we think”
We're going to work on changing your behaviors. And what she noticed was that although people agreed that change was important, the reaction was, if change were easy, I would have done it already.
You're clearly not getting how hard this is, how difficult my life is, how many barriers there are in my life to change. Right. And so over time, she kept consistently getting this message and was like, well, maybe I need to switch. Maybe I'm doing it wrong. And so she switched over to this, what? What was later described as the other side to say, ” Oh, maybe they're right. Maybe change is too hard for them. Maybe instead, what we need to do is focus on accepting your life exactly as it is.
“Maybe change is too difficult. So maybe we need to focus on accepting your life exactly as it is, accepting you exactly as you are, your strengths and your weaknesses, and everything”
But when she did that, she actually also got a negative response because the general response was, great, you're understanding now where I'm coming from, but why won't you help me to change? Right? It's not enough to just say, you get it, like, I want you to help me get out of, you know, what I might experience as hell. And so that's where she developed, and over time, this idea of a balance between acceptance and change and a synthesis between acceptance and change, and realized that this was compatible with a philosophy, a dialectical philosophy, which holds that the world exists with opposites,
“Everything exists in opposition and in tension; there's no way to avoid that”
And the greater our awareness of the dialectical tension, the greater the likelihood that we could find a synthesis, a meeting point that incorporates both change and acceptance.
Thank you for explaining that. I have found that to be really helpful both in my life and working with clients therapeutically, that both can be true, and just there's a relaxation into, yes, it's hard, and it's hard to hold both. “And that is the truth. Like, that is part of my experience that this is true, and they're oppositional, or they don't seem compatible. And sometimes that can offer relief just by holding it differently in this way.”
“Do you want to speak to that? Well, I think for me, it's almost like an acceptance piece to say, oh, there will always be tension. Right? There is no one thing that everybody universally agrees on. And right now, everybody is saying, like, this is unprecedented, how polarized our society is. But a more reasonable response is actually, we've always been polarized, right? Is just that we're polarized about different things, and that changes over time.” But in the context of relationships, I think this is so important too, because in any relationship, whether it's a romantic partnership, a friendship, a parenting relationship, there will always be points of tension and disagreement or different opinions or different wants. And if we can just accept that as a fact, that in itself might help us reduce our own suffering.
Instead of thinking whenever there's a disagreement, Oh, my God, this is horrible, this must be all wrong. Right?
Absolutely. And I know some of the research that comes out of The Gottman Institute has talked about there are seven irreconcilable differences, at least in every relationship. And I know that sounds like a legal term of irreconcilable, but just these vast differences. Extrovert, introvert. And that these things likely won't change all that much, and that it's okay. And how do we work together is more maybe what's more important.
Yeah. From the Gottmans. You know, what I always take as well is that
“It's not about having arguments. That's the problem. It's how you recover from arguments”
And I think that is relevant in this because if you go into the situation saying, I'm going to avoid all arguments or all disagreements or I'm going to do whatever I can to never fight with anybody, you're actually setting yourself up for a lot of pain. Because that's impossible.
And it's like pushing back or fighting against something really natural. And so it's almost like we stop before we can even start.
Right.
The opportunity to collaborate. Do you have anything you want to share with people listening, how to know? You offer so much in the book, even your co-author, but do you want to offer anything here in this conversation around how to make holding the acceptance and the change more actionable in a conversation? Either how to frame it or language, what that could look like to just be able to speak to. These things are different, and how we hold that in this dialectical way.
Well, I think before I talk about actually doing it in conversation, it's more like doing it in your own head, recognizing that there are different approaches to something. So I don't know. This is a totally minor example, but as with all relationships, sometimes minor examples really cause a lot of pain. I think about my husband, who never pushes in his chair. Okay. And I walk by his chair that's halfway across the room, it seems like. And when I do that, I experience just extreme annoyance. And this happens, like, on a daily basis. Right. It's like. And I have all these thoughts, what's wrong with him? Why can't he push in his chair? And I even go back in my head. This is when I'm being, of course, unskillful.
It's like, why did no one ever teach him how to push in his chair after, you know, all of those things go in my mind. Right. And so, where does acceptance and change come in? Well, I think that this is actually an example of a moment for that, which is, do I want to talk to him and develop a strategy or a plan or a conversation, a reinforcement plan for helping him remember to push his chair in after he uses it, or do I want to focus on accepting that the chair is not going to be pushed in? Or do I want to figure out if there is actually a synthesis there?
Meaning maybe I can ask him and prompt him, and I can also recognize it's not going to happen a hundred percent of the time, and I can accept those moments when it's there, or I just push the chair in myself. Right. Like all of these things, without stewing about it. These are all options. And so if I'm clearer about those options that are available to me, that might or it should influence whether I talk to him about it, or do I let it go? Right. Do I do it myself, or do I have a conversation with him about it? And when I do have a conversation with him about it, how can I do it in a balanced way? Instead of just going in with, you should always do this.
You're a bad person for, you know, leaving your chair out or whatever the equivalent of that would be.
Thank you for that practical example. I was meeting with someone on Wednesday, and they were like, it was about a fork.
It's always something very silly.
Right. I appreciate this. And so with that question of, like, is this something I want to make a plan or a strategy to talk to my partner about, in some ways, it feels implied that there's discerning how important it is or how much this means to me. Is that right?
Yeah. So this is something that we might call, it's labeled in the book as interpersonal priorities, which is when there is a situation in which you want to ask somebody for something or say no to something. “There are actually three different priorities or components to keep in mind.” One is getting your objective, meaning getting what it is that you're asking for. Him pushing in his chair every time he gets up. Right. Would be an objective. The second component or priority is the relationship. How do I want this person to feel about me as a result of this interaction? And usually the baseline response to that is, I want this other person to feel good about me and about our relationship, and that our relationship is. Is good, solid, and strong. And the third component or priority is self-respect.
How do I want to feel about myself as a result of this interaction? And again, normally, what we would answer that question is I want to feel good about myself. I want to feel like I handled this well. The importance of recognizing those three components is one piece of being effective, and then the second piece is to think about how I would rank order those three priorities going into the conversation. Because actually knowing what I prioritize as number one is going to influence how I behave and respond, right? So, in that, again, just referring to that silly example, because now I have it on my mind.
If my objective, getting him to push in the chair, was the most important and I didn't care as much about the relationship or as much about my self-respect, one could imagine that I could throw a tantrum, or I could threaten him, right? I could do all sorts of things to get this objective. If you don't start pushing in your chair, I'm going to leave you, right? That would be to get my objective. But of course, I think most of us would realize that wouldn't be helpful in terms of the long-term relationship and actually going into that situation. And I think why I haven't yet talked to him about this is because I realized that my priority in this particular case is that the relationship is more important to me than the chair being pushed in, right?
Knowing that priority in many circumstances actually leads me more towards that acceptance route, right? To say, ” Oh, the chair's out, okay, let me push it in, right? Versus, again, if my objective were the most important, I would really be going after it.
Thank you so much for giving an example and giving an indication of this skill that's in your book. And as I'm listening to you, it sounds like this being able to prioritize in these three ways helps me understand if it's a preference or if it's something that has much more significance and meaning to me as it relates to the relationship or something I'm needing? Because sometimes it's not just about the chair, right? Sometimes it actually has a deeper meaning. But sometimes, like I can think of the towels, right? I have a preference for the towels being folded in a certain way. But it's just about the towels. Do I notice it? Yes. And is that something I really, to your point, want to broach? But if it doesn't really mean that much, then it might not be worth bringing up, right?
And then it's about, well, okay, it might not be worth bringing up because the relationship is more important, and whatever consequence might come out of having this emotional conversation is not worth it. But then it's well, what do you do? Because if you don't bring it up but you're still stewing about it, that's not helpful. It's not accepting, and it's likely going to bleed out in some other way. So deciding that the relationship is most important does not mean, oh, well, then I just have to suck it up and, you know, deal with it. It's more like, okay, let me respect the fact that the relationship is most important and that, therefore, with intention, I'm deciding I'm not going to raise this issue and I'm going to cope with it in this other way.
I so appreciate that in your book Together, there are flowcharts that people can have a little bit of a reflecting moment or inquiry around. Okay, so, but it's not just like yes or no, like there are lots of options around, do I want to do something different? Is there a way that we can look together? Like, it gives a lot more range for the possibility of how to cope or even have the conversation. So before we go into the conversation and how we might set that up, I also want to say, you, when you, and is it Dr. Finkelstein? That you both encourage people to look at if there's a trend or a pattern around, if you're actively using this interpersonal priority check, kind of, that if you're always putting the relationship first, that might be something to notice.
Do you want to say anything about that?
Yeah, I think it's a good point that, you know, we say we want to rank order the priorities going into any particular situation, and from that we might discover that actually we have a pattern. And for example,
“If we always put objective first above relationship and self-respect, we might find that we get what we want, but we're actually suffering in our relationships, But if we always put the relationship first, we might find that we're never speaking up for something that we want, or that our self-respect becomes eroded over time because we never stand up for something, and that could be a problem as well”
So there's no formula here that says you have to have this percentage, you know, work out in different areas of your life. But I do think it's something to keep in mind.
Am I always prioritizing the relationship over my self-respect? And if so, what's the consequence of that? How does that affect how I feel? And does that harm the relationship, too? Because actually, the more your self-respect plummets, the greater the likelihood that the relationship is going to suffer as well.
Thank you. Well, Shireen, I'm listening to you, and I'm thinking, okay, this was more of an interpersonal skill. And I'm also. I know you have a whole section devoted to emotional regulation, but I'm also seeing that this is helpful with emotional regulation in that it invites a pause. It's not just ignoring our experience and stuffing it, and it's not just reacting and impulsively talking to our partner, perhaps unskillfully, but having some discernment and inquiry and being able to work with it a little bit more typically helps organize and regulate emotions. “Do you see this as even something that helps with emotional regulation?”
I would say that almost any pause and thinking about how to act next is going to help with emotion regulation. So it's interesting because in the package of DBT skills, there are four categories, right? There's “emotion regulation,” as you mentioned, there's “interpersonal effectiveness,” there's “mindfulness skills,” and then the fourth is “distress tolerance skills,” and they're separated. And each of them, each of these four different categories or modules of skills have their own goals associated with it. And there's obviously a lot of overlap between all of them because interpersonal situations are more likely to go well when you're also being mindful and fully present, and you're regulated. Right. And you're tolerating the distress of whatever the crisis is. So I think it's really, we have these separations, but one of the things that we tried to do with the flowcharts, even, was to show, oh, even though you're talking about an interpersonal situation, here's a point where maybe you might go to an emotion regulation skill first.
Great. Well, would you like to speak to that? It feels important. I think a lot of people in the collective kind of conversation are talking about emotional regulation. And can you say a little bit more about when one might pivot towards prioritizing emotional regulation?
Yeah. One of the foundational principles behind DBT treatment is that a lot of the problems we experience are the result of what we refer to as emotion dysregulation. And what we mean by that is that
“When our emotions feel out of control or when our emotions are controlling our behavior and thoughts, and when that happens, even if the emotions make sense or are justified by the situation, if we're feeling out of control with the emotions, that can often lead us to behave in ways that are not helpful”
cause problems for us, and therefore, having a better understanding of our emotional experience. So understanding emotions, understanding what the physiological components of emotions are, and how to discriminate between different emotions, is one part of teaching emotion regulation. Learning to see, oh, maybe that's not anger, maybe that's shame, is actually a really effective strategy.
So we teach that, right, the model of emotions, how to understand your emotional experience. But then we also teach skills for how to change an emotion that you don't want to have and different ways to do that, as well as skills to reduce your vulnerability to that state of being out of control with emotions. So we have different skills for different scenarios with emotions. Recognizing that emotions are often, I mean, first of all, I don't want to pathologize all emotions.
“Emotions are what keep us alive and give us a lot of important information. But it's when we feel out of control with them, when they're too intense, when they're leading us to be ineffective instead of effective.”
That's when we say we want to regulate, we want to learn to do something different with them.
Yes. And those can be strong indicators to perhaps do more of this work and practice. And I wonder if you would agree, but I would think that our systems are getting activated on any given day, and that these skills can still be really helpful even if we're not feeling the level of intensity of what might be dysregulation. But that. Yeah, you're nodding.
Yeah, I agree. And so, I think a lot of people might not relate to the word dysregulation because, in general, they feel they're more controlled than dysregulated. Yeah. So you could think, but you could think about a minor example, you know, more minor examples, like what happens when you're feeling irritable. You might not be at that full-throated anger where you're going to, you know, completely lose it. But what is irritability doing for you, and how is that causing problems? Or maybe you're not so depressed that you can't get out of bed, but you're feeling sad, and that's influencing your behavior and relationship. What's something that you can do with that? So yeah, I think
“Dysregulation is sometimes an off-putting term for people who don't identify as feeling so out of control”
But we all have emotions all the time, and sometimes they don't work very well for us.
Would you equate these skills that you have in the book to help develop emotional intelligence? I would think so.
Yes. I think so too. It's funny, we don't use that term emotional intelligence in the treatment, but I would say it's compatible with that for sure. Because I think as you become more attuned to what it is that you. Feeling, as you become more aware of the different components of an emotion, what things we have control over, what things we don't, even as you become more aware of what emotions do for us, like why they're important and useful, I think that does help you become more emotionally intelligent with yourself, but also with other people in your life.
Totally, because I know some people have a practice of journaling or just pausing to notice what they're feeling. Like, many of us don't even check in. We don't. I mean, there are times when my husband might observe something about me on the outside, and he asks me a question. I'm like, I don't know. Let me take a moment and pause to see if I can identify. But the skills that you're just. What you have in the book feels like a much more directive way to work with having insight and awareness of the emotional. Their emotional internal world. Okay. That's why. That's where that question came from. I'm curious about the theme of emotional regulation.
If a couple or partners are interacting and it's starting to get a little tense or charged, and one partner starts to notice, ooh, this is starting to feel a little too activated or too escalated for me. What do you help people do in those scenarios? I know some people want to take a break, and then others want to push through and talk about it. And sometimes a pause and then having a time to revisit is helpful. But what do you help people with? Negotiating an intimate relationship or a relationship in general? I guess.
Sure. And here I should say that I'm not an expert in couples, and so I don't treat couples. I usually see one side of that. If somebody comes in and says, ” This is the problem, what can I do about that issue? But I would say this would be actually a good opportunity to talk in advance in some ways about how we fight and when we fight, what we can do to have this work better for both of us? Right. So if there's somebody who said. Who feels like, if one part of the couple feels like, when I get to this point, I want to take a break, and the other person feels like, when they get to that point, they have to keep at it, that's going to obviously be a problem.
Not just for the situation at the end, but also the dynamic between the two people and how to work through this going forward. In that scenario, you're the relationship expert, so you tell me if I'm close to what you would do. But one of the things that I would say is, can we have a conversation about this when you're not in an argument? My approach when I get activated is to want to take a break. Your approach when you get activated is to keep going and this. And that usually ends up being bad for both of us.
Yeah.
What can we do differently? Right.
Yes. Well, Shireen, I feel like this really harkens back to the acceptance and the change that, if we can notice, we operate differently. We have a different tendency in these interactions. And how do we support or work together where we can both feel that? Does it work for us? I think that's helpful. And to have that conversation in a more grounded way, I think, is really helpful. And then to be able to reference it and stick to it. I think usually for the one who wants to press on is less comfortable with just dropping it, with just no time to revisit. Like, it just feels like, ooh, it's going to get swept under the rug, or like, we're not going to come back to it. So, having something to say, we want to work on this. Let's have a time where we're going to at least check in about it.
I wonder what you would say about just individually, People might have different capacities for stress tolerance. And do you want to say anything about how that might fit here? Yes. As far as emotional regulation, maybe somebody is feeling stressed, but they're still rather comfortable, but the other person's looking at the signs and they're like, danger. Danger.
Yeah. This also speaks to individual differences. Right. And probably why
“It's so hard to be in a couple because there are so many differences that we're often not even aware of”
which includes this, like the capacity to tolerate distress or how quickly you can move on to something else in your mind, versus whether you're the person who stews and can't fall asleep, you know, and ruminates about this. But other people who can be in the same fight and two minutes later are watching TV, not a care in mind. Right. So I think there's a lot of difference there also. And neither is one better than the other.
So that's the other thing that I think really gets people into trouble: to say, we should all be this way or that way, when in fact, this is the acceptance piece, this is the individual difference piece. We're all the way we are for reasons we might not know. All the reasons. Some of it is biological that we can't fully tap into. Another aspect of it is learning history, how we learned in our childhood and early adulthood, up till now, to respond to things. So the fact that I am somebody who has a hard time distracting and has a hard time falling asleep when something's going on is probably hardwired in me to a certain extent, and somebody then saying to me just get over it or ” Just stop thinking about it is not helpful. Right. It doesn't actually help me.
Even if it's very well intentioned.
Yes, thank you for speaking to that. I think this also brings up the skill around non-judgment and how to in how we apply that to ourselves and also to our partner. Okay, wonderful. I feel like I could do a whole week with you,
I know, let's keep going.
Well. Okay. So, is there anything you want to say as we kind of wind down around one of the things you have what you and your co-author have a couple of skills around how to dialogue around a request or have? And that's probably not going to go fully deep into it, but do you want to mention?
Yeah. So I should also say that DBT skills are very heavy on the acronyms, which, for many people, is kind of like an eye roll. Like, what is this acronym? But you have to remember that the acronyms are mnemonics to help you remember.
That's it.
So there's a well-known skill in DBT that's the interpersonal effectiveness skill. That's called DEAR MAN. And the DEAR MAN skill, so that's seven letters. D-E-A-R M-A-N are skills that are designed to help you get your objective in terms of that priority that we talked about. And it teaches you how to ask for something or how to say no to something in a way that increases the chances the other person will give you what you want. And it is amazing. Jessica, I will just tell you because I never learned this as a kid, and so I learned it when I went to grad school and was learning DBT. And that was a long time ago now.
And to this day, if there's a situation interpersonally that I'm feeling anxious about, I still think in my head D-E-A-R. Like, what am I going to say here? In fact, it just came up last week because we had a snowstorm, and an issue with a neighbor arose. You know, like that's another relationship that often causes, you know, issues. And I had to go talk to the neighbor about something, and I was anxious about it. So I actually worked out a little script in my head as to how I'm going to do it ahead of time. That really helped me feel not only less anxious going into it, but also much clearer about what it was I was asking for. Because so much of the time,
“We want people to read our minds”
Yes, we have a real hard time directly asserting that's what the A in DEAR MAN is to assert what it is you're asking for. Would you mind not parking your car here? Right. Could you move your chair in after you get up? That is the assertion. Instead,
“What we often say is just sort of describes the problem and expects the other person to understand what it is we're looking for.”
And that really gets in the way of us being effective.
Yes. I couldn't agree with you. And I would say intimate relationship partners typically will get stuck on describing the problem because they're not in agreement. So they spend all of their energy and time trying to get a consensus on the problem. When that is likely going back to the acceptance versus change. People being different is probably not even possible.
Yes, exactly. And. And something that we teach when we teach the DEAR MAN skill is to keep it short and sweet. Because if you go on for five minutes about describing the problem, that's describing the problem. You will have lost the person at 10 seconds because now they're in defensive mode, or they're in eye roll mode, or they're whatever. But if you say describe the situation, I've noticed when you get up, you often leave the chair out. That's it. Right. That's described. Not oh, and you also do this, and you do this other thing. And here's the laundry list. List of things that I'm reacting to. You really want to keep it focused.
I love this. And I can already just feel, as we're talking here, how this helps with mindfulness because even the preparation you're getting is really clear and a little bit more present and guiding. What's the objective, what the ask is, or what the conversation goal is? There are so many. This all interweaves so beautifully. Well, I again appreciate all that you've shared. I can tell how much more wealth of knowledge and resources. Where would you like to direct people who are interested in getting your book, your co-author's book, or just getting more experience with practicing these skills?
Yeah. Thank you so much. So our book is called Real Skills for Real Life. And you could have it published by Guilford Press, so you could get it at Guilford Press, guilford.com, or Amazon. You could also go to my website, where I have a lot of resources, and we have a lot of videos that teach the skills as well, including some resources from the book. And that website is shireenrizvi.com, LinkedIn linkedin.com/in/shireen-rizvi- and I'll mention one other thing for your audience that might be of particular interest, is that there is another DBT expert named Alan Frazetti who has developed DBT for couples and developed a lot of work on DBT for couples. He wrote a book, but I can't remember what year it was published. It was a little while ago that's called the High Conflict Couple and DBT Skills.
I don't love that title because the reason I don't love that title is that I actually think what he talks about in the book is DBT skills and validation and all of this that we've been talking about that could be relevant for any couple, not just high conflict ones. And so I hope that title doesn't turn people away if they're interested in that. But that's another resource that I would suggest.
Excellent. I'll make sure to have the link to your book, your website, and also the book you're mentioning, High Conflict Couple. And again, thank you so much for all that you're doing and sharing here with us.
Thank you so much for having me on, Jessica.
The post ERP 532: Acceptance and Change in Love: How Couples Navigate Conflict and Connection – An Interview with Dr. Shireen Rizvi appeared first on Jessica Higgins.
Desire isn’t always as simple as it seems. For many couples, the initial spark of sexual and emotional intimacy can dim over time, replaced by questions, misunderstandings, and the painful sense that something has faded or is “broken.” When mismatched desire enters a relationship, it can quickly become a battleground, leaving one or both partners feeling blamed, rejected, or disconnected—not only from each other but from their own bodies and needs.
In this episode, listeners are invited to look beneath the surface of desire patterns and rethink how intimacy is cultivated over time. The conversation explores why the “problem” of desire is rarely rooted in one partner and how it is shaped instead by cycles of emotional and physical disconnection, unexamined beliefs, and the need for safety and self-awareness in the body. Listeners will discover tools for moving from blame toward curiosity, collaboration, and deep connection, and learn practical ways to rediscover what turns them on—together.
Tarisha Tourok is a trauma-informed sex and relationship therapist and founder of Sexual Empowerment for Women. She helps unlock women's sexual desire and guides them into intimacy that melts their hearts and delights their souls. With 15+ years of experience, Tarisha blends psychotherapy, sacred sexuality, and somatic healing to help women reclaim the power and beauty of their sexuality—so they can live, love, and connect with radiant confidence.
Episode Highlights06:06 Reframing desire differences.
12:14 The complex factors influencing sexual desire.
16:07 Shifting from spontaneous to responsive desire and reconnecting with your body.
19:39 Exploring how to build responsiveness and address past trauma
22:44 How culture, religion, and body image affect desire.
24:26 Generational influences and healing transgenerational trauma.
27:41 Breaking family cycles to create new patterns.
31:46 Building a stronger relationship with your body and sense of desire.
36:55 Emotional resonance, safety, and shared intimacy practices.
44:33 Cultivating intimacy through personal and relational growth.
49:18 Redefining pleasure: Connection over performance & practical resources.
Your Checklist of Actions to Take Adopt a “Team” Mindset: Approach intimacy challenges as a shared experience rather than individual problems, discussing openly how to become partners in exploration. * Create Space for Exploration: Remove blame and give both partners space to explore what turns each person on, without feeling pressure or guilt. * Practice Vulnerability: Softly communicate underlying fears or insecurities instead of defaulting to frustration or blame, helping both partners connect on a deeper level. * Carve Out Time for Intimacy: Intentionally prioritize time together, making room for connection and recognizing the impact of daily busyness on sexual desire. * Reconnect with Your Body: Develop practices—such as breathwork, mindful movement, or sensory experiences—that help you feel and respond from within your body. * Acknowledge and Address Blocks: Identify and compassionately address personal blocks like trauma, self-judgment, or negative societal messaging before focusing on sexual desire. * Share Sexual Blueprints: Take a sexual desire quiz, compare results, and discuss with your partner what environments and practices make you feel most turned on and safe. * Redefine Goals for Intimacy:* Shift away from performance-oriented goals like orgasm, focusing instead on connection, pleasure, and mutual presence in your intimate experiences.
MentionedReclaim Your Sexual Confidence mini-course (free mini-course)
Sexual Desire Quiz (quiz)
12 Relationship Principles to Strengthen Your Love (free guide)
Connect with Tarisha TourokWebsite: sexualempowermentforwomen.com
Facebook: facebook.com/groups/theradiantwomenclub
YouTube: youtube.com/channel/UCvY7loDn-rDRUcUa-z3Lv_A
Instagram: instagram.com/tarishatourok
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Episode Transcript
Tarisha, thank you so much for joining us.
Thank you, Jessica. It was so nice to have you on my podcast, and you felt so easy to talk to talk to you. Yeah, it's a good day.
Yeah. I'll put the link to that conversation in today's show notes. And from what I understand, we are going to be talking about desire and intimate relationships, and sometimes the experience of either mismatched desire, as well as sometimes the experience. Experience that something's fading. Like the erotic kind of spark. Where would you like to start? Around what you want people to know. How you frame the landscape of long-term intimacy as it relates to desire.
Yeah, it's a great question. So what's very interesting, what I found very interesting, and I just wrote a blog about it, is that the most painful bit is when the desire becomes a problem, and it becomes her problem. And that becomes really painful. So the way I frame it, and it's right in the EFT, it's a cycle. So that most important piece, I think, for people to understand that it's a cycle, it's a pattern that we engage in. And I know that, as you know, right.
“There's an emotional cycle, and there's a sexual cycle”
And when it's just one partner, it's really difficult because one partner starts to feel blamed. And the more they feel blamed, the more they feel guilty, or there's something wrong with me. Of course, the desire is not there. Right. Somehow, they start to feel broken.
“And when we feel broken, we disconnect from the body.”
It feels uncomfortable. And that's the quickest way to actually remove all the intimacy. “So the most important piece is that, okay, this is our relationship, and something is happening here. How can we understand it? How can we work together as a team?” And I just had a couple yesterday, which was just so beautiful. Finally, they came to a place like, oh, now we're a team. It's not my problem. It's us doing it together. And yeah, if whatever people take from today's interview, that if they can take this piece, that it's not your problem, it's not my problem. We can work it out together. That's the only way forward.
I love that. And so it sounds like just to kind of reflect what I'm hearing you say in relationship, whether or not it's a heterosexual relationship or same sex, that perhaps the lower desire, what is looking like the lower desired partner, sometimes will feel as though it's their problem. And that if the reframe can be, oh, this is a Couple, we have a way in which we operate together, we dance together, and we can approach this as a we. Is that right?
As a we, yeah. And then things can shift. Yeah, because it is a dance, right?
Yes.
And that's kind of what happens in the emotional cycle. Usually,
“One person pursues, the other person withdraws”
and doesn't want to talk about it. And one person really wants to talk about it. And when partners work against each other, what I find often happens is that the low desire partner doesn't have a chance to actually explore if it becomes my problem. They don't have a chance to explore what actually turns me on. What do I? And quite often, that, you know, especially in long-term relationships, that pattern has been running for a while, and they never had a chance to explore what turns them on.
“And the only way they can start exploring is if there's no pressure, if they don't feel like there's something wrong with me, because if we go into fixing myself, it's a really different attitude than when we start exploring, and we bring curiosity and playfulness.” So yeah, that's the fastest way to actually come out of it is okay, it's no one's problem. How can we bring that curiosity back again? And of course, I get it because for the strong desire partner, what happens is they feel so rejected, so dismissed, and it feels so painful. So
“It's also very important to give space to their pain and to find a way to process it together”
Because of being rejected again and again. And there's a point that then high desire partner just gives up, and they're like, I'm not even asking anymore.
So it's not just for the low desire partner to give space for the like, oh, actually what turns you on, but actually for the strong desire partner, like, yeah, it's been painful. I've tried to reach out to you, and it hasn't worked somehow. Yeah. And it's not because you don't desire me. It's because the low desire partner, maybe they haven't explored, they don't even know what turns them on. “So, taking that kind of personal piece that, like they do that, they avoid sex with me because I'm not attractive enough, they don't love me, they don't desire me, creates more and more pain. But when it's like, well, actually, how can we create this open space to explore what turns me on? Yeah, how can I reach out and not feel rejected?”
And for the low desire partner, how can I? What is that space that I need to create? For myself, where I can maybe sometimes initiate, not all the time, but maybe sometimes, to give that high desire partner that feeling of being wanted, feeling desired. Because I feel like that's what we get like in relationships. Right. Like just when we feel this unwanted, undesired, it's just such a good feeling, you know, it does start to feel special.
Yes, especially if that's really helpful for feeling the arousal or the interest in being sexual. Right. If that's one of the turn-ons, that's really helpful to be made visible in the couple dynamic. And I really appreciate it. Sounds like you're identifying that the place in which we approach one another can have a really big difference in our experience. So for the partner that is perhaps more interested in sex and initiating more, it could be easy with that rejection and that pain to point the finger at the other person.
Like, you killed me so much.
If you would just be more interested.
We would be fine.
And that lead does sound like the implied problem. Right. The person has an issue when there's so much.
Right. If you wouldn't put so much pressure on so much, then we would be fine.
Yes. And then you're saying on the internal in on the inside, there's a bit more vulnerability. And if that can be made more visible, it can create a little more softening, so that it's like, oh, actually I'm feeling afraid you don't find me attractive anymore, or that you don't find our sexual relationship important, or I'm scared or I'm worried or I feel, you know, all the things. And that's a little bit easier to approach or lean in with.
Yes. Well, the pieces I don't know. But what I find the normal human reaction. Right.
“It's way easier for us to be frustrated, to be angry, because it somehow gives us that sense of power”
and because when we feel powerless. Right. What I see what happens with the high desire partner, they feel powerless. I've tried and tried, and somehow they're not responding, and we drop into that powerless place, and it's so difficult for us to face it and actually be vulnerable in that place. And that's why I feel like all the problems happen because, as humans, I don't know why it's so difficult to be human. I don't know if you have an idea about it, but it's so difficult to actually stay with that sense of powerlessness and be able to share vulnerably. And I guess that's where therapists come in. Right.
Because we hold people there, we help them share from that place. But when we're by ourselves, it's just such a difficult place. And if we could only do that, right? Both partners can do that, then there's no problem. But the problem happens because, feeling powerless, rejected, and being able to share that with our partners sometimes feels like it's an impossible task.
Yes. It's like the last thing I want to do.
So that's. I've been like, really thinking, feeling into that. Why is it so difficult to be human and like, really share our vulnerability? Because that's where the love and connection lie. But it's difficult, right?
Well, when we know and have had experiences where we've been responded to, our system can begin to feel the benefit of it. Benefit of the risk. Right. We're willing to take that risk. And when we're uncertain or have had bad things happen or haven't been responded to, it can feel terrifying. Like, I don't know what's going to happen. I'm. We might not make it. And it can feel like a very critical moment. So I think that, to your point, when there can be a little more support and holding, that can help us get an experience to build off of.
Yeah. So I guess for couples and like, for me as well, the biggest piece, I think, here is that
“We need to be able to sit with our fear, face our fear, and open up and be vulnerable”
because that was going to bring that connection back. And of course, if we haven't had those experiences, just so difficult to do it by ourselves.
Yes. And life's moving quickly, and to make room and space to be more in our body, to be more present, to make room for the sexual intimacy that can sometimes just even carving out the time can be difficult. But then to look at what our unique experiences are and what supports our desire, what supports our arousal, there's a nurturing of that. And when we are in the busy pace of life, or perhaps feeling protective because what we're talking about is more about protection and vulnerability. And when we're in the protection, it's easy to kind of overlook the vulnerability. And so we can get into these habits that are protective but don't really offer support for connecting.
Yeah, well, and I find, like, as you speak about the time, right. And like, the way I work with people, I've developed this Sexual Desire Matrix where I talk about contextual factors like microfactors that affect us, and then the core factors or microfactors. And there are four core factors and six microfactors, so it's like it's 10 different factors that affect our sexual desire. So if we expect it to just work somehow.
Yes.
Usually, when we're younger, because of a spontaneous desire, there are more hormonal right effects. That's like, I just feel that sexual desire. It's easy, but then, as we age, the desire becomes more spontaneous, more responsive. And it's not just for women. Right. Because, like, there's like, oh, women have responsive desire. But I know, and I work with a lot of men, with a lot of couples, where for men it's responsive as well. It's like if I don't feel that emotional connection, the older I become, they're like, I don't want to have sex. I actually want to have the emotional connection. So we're both sexes. Yeah.
“Whatever orientation we are, we're both, as we age, we become more responsive rather than spontaneous”
And we need time and space to actually understand. Yeah. What are the factors that affect me? And I can actually want to.
I can talk about a couple of factors, but this kind of. It's a complex system. It's not like I'm on or off. Well, I'm sure you know the Dual Control Model, right? That was developed by Kinsey, where we have accelerators and brakes. Right. The factors that actually bring the desire, the factors that create brakes. And we have different sensitivity to them, and there are different factors that affect those brakes and accelerators. So it's so important to. It's such an important part of our life that it's not just, oh, it's not working. We're not even going to look at it. But when we can become a team, we can actually start looking. Okay. The complexity of factors, what do we actually need to know? What do we need to learn?
And how can we create space for both of us to explore our breaks, our accelerators? What are the factors that are affecting us?
Oh, my goodness. Yes. I mean, I remember someone saying. Don't know if it was Martha Capui, but she was basically describing the level of complexity when you talk about hormones, our physiology, of, like, if we're well rested and have enough nutrients. And, I mean, there are so many variables that impact our openness to being in our body, to being open to exploring sexual intimacy with our significant other. And it was almost as if, like, how each individual's functioning, the point of which we're both interested in wanting sex at the same time, is like the stars aligning. It would be really difficult to expect that to just happen. And so you talked about just developmental and one stage of life and being younger and then being more mature, and the different kinds of how we might shift from spontaneous to more responsive. I'd love for you to talk about what that is for people who don't know the difference, but also like new relationship energy. Right. “Those beginning stages are so fueled by neurochemicals and all the excitement that can be a fire for erotic energy, but doesn't necessarily sustain. And that we might be able to explore this through your matrix, so that we can start to nurture these different parts that maybe we're not even fully aware of.”
“Yeah. So that's a lot you said. So the piece with spontaneous desire is like when adjusting its hormones. Like I just humble myself, and I feel like I just, I feel a bit horny. I want to have sex right now.” Yeah. And the response was more in response to something, someone. But the way I teach it is because it's not just that I'm responding to my partner, and I work a lot with women. And I find that
“We actually need to learn how to respond to nature.”
Like today in the morning, I went for a swim, and I was just on the beach there. And my body, I've trained my body to respond to nature, to beauty, and my body starts to feel more open. So that's. We need to.
“As we age, we actually need to start training our bodies to respond to and open to receive the input. And then it's like, I can receive it and respond to the thing. And that's one of the core factors.” Yeah. When we're disconnected from our bodies, when we don't have that self-intimacy I call it, when I'm not intimate with myself, and we live in our heads, then our bodies can't respond. So we really need to drop into the bodies and start to train our responsiveness. And then we can respond to our partners, you know, to the kiss, to the look. We can respond to nature, but we need to train that in our bodies. It doesn't just happen by itself. And I know everyone is able to do that.
And when we start responding to the world, life becomes so much more pleasurable. And we don't start quite often. Right. If I'm working and I'm on my head, I'm a talking head. I'm like at -100 in connection to my body in that pleasure tank. So when we start learning and like, you know, breathing, I've got this beautiful view. Here I'm just looking at the trees, at the sky, and it's like, and my body responds. And if I train that on a daily basis. Right. It's a practice. Then when I'm with my partner, and he just touches me softly, it's like, oh, my body is ready to respond. Been practicing it?
Yes. So it sounds like you're saying the training. Can you say a little bit more about how one would train their body? Is it the mindfulness practice of being present and observing through sensation, senses, and responding to beauty, to nature, to these types of things? Is that kind of like a muscle, as you're saying, the training, and we build the practice?
Yes. So, I do like three months, I've got a three-month course where we kind of teach.
Okay, got it.
So, it's all of that, and usually it depends on a woman, like what she responds to. But it's breath work, it's really dropping into the body. But the thing is, we can't. And that's another part of my matrix, the sexual desire matrix. Because if we actually had trauma in the past, we don't want to come into the body. We don't want to respond because it doesn't feel like a safe place. So we can't just go right into becoming more responsive. We actually first need to look at the trauma. We need to start to feel safe in the body. Because sometimes, you know, when people work, they go right into sexuality. For me, it's only step four out of my five steps. So there are things we have to take before we drop into sexuality.
And the second step is actually healing the trauma. And not that we can completely, right, heal it, but we can become more aware of it, and we can develop the capacity to come into the body more and more. We can know it, know our triggers. Right. And actually come back. And then we can start training responsiveness because our system doesn't want to respond. Right. If it doesn't feel safe. And then the other piece is the self-judgment. That's another factor of the matrix is like if I'm judging myself all the time, I can't really come into the body. Yeah. Because I'm out here. So first, I really need to find a place where I can come back inside my body. I'm not judging myself constantly. Yeah. And then I can start being responsive.
So, can you see how it is? It's all these levels, and it's kind of, it's really difficult when people say, well, you just need to find your desire. Yeah. But if I'm judging myself, if I'm disconnected from my body, if I don't have a voice. Right. Quite often, people come. It's like I can't, like I've got this. It's like I can't say what I want because it's so scary. I'm supposed to unfind my sexual desire.
Yes, so, yeah. Well, you're really pointing and giving people some scope, it sounds like as to what might be inhibiting some of the feelings. Really responsive just to life and beauty, and for good reason. Whether or not it's trauma or having some stuck place in being able to express, and that there's a process to meet that more compassionately with safety, to give opportunity for a process that gives some healing, and that. That creates more safety in turning inward and feeling in their body.
Yeah, and also, the big part is that it's nice for people to be aware of. It's like those microfactors. Yeah. Actually, the water we're swimming in. And when I work with people what's quite often, and I work with women and couples, so like. And relate to everyone. Right. But my wing, what they tell me, like for example, religion, right. Affects us so much, and it can be the spiritual beliefs, it can be beautiful, right?
“If sex is seen as something beautiful, then it's like I can connect with God through sex”
That's one view. But the other view, what if even touching myself or having sex is something dirty and yucky? So that affects us a lot, and we really need to see that this is not me, but it did affect me, and it keeps on affecting me.
Then the Life stage, as we say. Right. Life stage affects us more than our community, and this kind of. I see a lot of body shaming in our world, and there's a lot over sexualizing, right? Like we sell naked bodies, like half-naked bodies. There's this dichotomy of where it's over sexualized. And at the same time, if you are not the perfect unrealistic shape and size, right? You are not good enough somehow. So we need to understand that it's not just what's inside of me, but actually the water I've been swimming in affects me so deeply. And if I can start seeing it, putting the cow in that water, then it's like, “Oh, it's actually not me. And that's why I find that. And that's why I love group work.
Because I find we can't do it by ourselves. When we, like, we can talk about it with someone. Right. With other people, that shame kind of drops. Like, “Oh, it's not just me.
Right.
It's like. It's just so enlightening for, like, people to see. It's like, oh, it's been the society thing, which affected me so much. It's not just my problem.
Yes, so through the exploration, being able to identify places perhaps where we feel the block, whether or not it's judgment or some messaging or how we view our bodies, view ourselves sexually, and the various, maybe some level of trauma. And then also, when through the exploration, through your guidance, but also through group work, it begins to be held a little bit more compassionately. But also being able to see, oh, this is something. I'm not alone. Or that feeling really validated that other people feel this way as well.
Yeah. And the big part that. I do a big process around it in my group. And I find it so important for people to understand that there are things that have been passed down to us generation to generation. Right. This transgenerational trauma and the attitudes and the views. And it's so important to actually do a Genogram. And I do, as part of my course at Genogram, where people really see these relational and sexual attitudes. Yeah. Then you're like, oh, you know, it's just being passed down to me. And then we can say, it ends with me. I'm not willing to pump it further. And then we start to feel more empowered rather than like, I'm doing this, I'm feeling this way, and somehow I don't know how, it's like, ” Oh, it's not me. And I want it to end with me.
And that's where that real power comes in. And women start to. Because I work with women, right? They start to claim their, like, agency, you know, and then they go like, oh, now I'm curious. What can I create? What do I want to create?
Can you give an example for people listening that may understand the family tree or the genealogy, mapping that, but how would one do that as it relates to sexuality?
So it's about talking, right? Talking to our family, talking to our grandparents, our sisters, our brothers, and our uncles. Yeah, whoever. And just finding out, you know, the attitudes, what was happening. Were there betrayals passed down? Right. Perpetual abuse. Yeah. Were there places where there was just no love? Right. And quite often, right. Our grandparents it was quite different from them. Right. It wasn't just love because somehow they had to stay together to survive. And also, if people have no idea, they don't know who to ask. Actually, really going into yourself and like, if I trust myself, what is the feeling I get that's been passed down to me? And you can look at what's been happening in the world at that time, where your parents were living, where your grandparents were living. What were the normal attitudes back then?
And really kind of, okay, how can I make sense of the kind of sexual relational environment that my grandparents and my parents were living in? And quite often we know a lot. If we start ourselves, we know a lot, and we pick up a lot. And the way I went through that was because I was doing so much work on myself and kind of coming from me, coming from a history of sexual abuse when I was little. And then I was like, I don't want to pass it on to my daughter. Like, when she was, no way I'm going to pass it on to her. And I started to do all this work, and then something would open up, and I would call my mom, and I would say, did that happen? It's like, how did you know?
And then he would tell me, and it's like, so I know that we can, you know, feel into those places inside. And of course, it's nice if people can tell us, but not possible. And also with that. And that's why I see, like, when we just do it by ourselves, it can become too much and overwhelming. So it's not what I want. It depends on people's capacity. But if people just go out now listening to us, it's like, I'm going to find out what happens, then it can be overwhelming. So it's really important to get the support around that, especially if there were difficulties in the past. And what I do with my groups, we go through such a powerful ritual together where we. All of that. And that's when the shifts can happen.
Not just like, it gets me down, but actually, we need to create a space somehow to let go of that through ritual, through sharing with other people in whatever way. It's important.
Yeah, I've never heard of it. I mean, it makes perfect sense that we would want that look on sexuality. And it's often held contextually as such that an individual experiences their sexuality. And it's. It isn't like that. We get a lot of messaging through culture, through family, and then just even through genetics, epigenetics that we're getting passed down.
Well, you know what I found? I found a lot. If a person now had sexual abuse in their history. Most likely, their grandparents had that as well. And then. And I've done, like, when I did my master's. And I wrote papers on how it was passed down. Like, what is the system? That it's not just like somehow it's passed down, but actually, when a parent is sexually abused, then they don't wanna. It's so painful for them if they haven't processed it. They either become really overprotective, where it's become shaming for the child, or don't even wanna talk about it. And it's that sense of shame around sexuality that is right there. And then the child can become sexually abused because they feel that sense of shame. There's something. They can't really talk about it, and they won't even talk to their parents when it happens.
Already feel that sense. That parent was already feeling that sense of shame. So I feel like the best piece we can do for our children is actually to really look at all of that. So then it's not passed down because it keeps on being passed down from generation to generation. I don't know, you know, I don't want to really go.
“The healing, the processing, metabolizing, perhaps the things that oppress, abuse, or injure or have injured our sexual selves, and that it's liberating, if you will.”
“Like Jessica. Sorry. But the truth is, it doesn't have to be sexual abuse. Right. But if we look at our parents or maybe grandparents, most likely it wasn't like celebrating their sexuality. Most likely, there was some shaming around it.”
“For sure.”
“Yes. So doesn't have to be a big thing. But we keep on carrying it because sometimes people like, well, I didn't have any big things happen, but it's still like in that water.” It's their sense of shame. It's not quite right. Because imagine if a child grows up, in a way, it's like, you know, it's beautiful. Your sexuality is celebrated appropriately. Right. You have to be of age, and there are rites of passage, and there is respect around it, these boundaries. I mean, it's gonna be a very different relationship from your desire and sexuality. Yes.
And I think this hearkens back to just being a bit more responsive and thinking of my grandmother, thank goodness. I know some things were not ideal and were problematic and difficult in the family system. However, she. I have visuals of her, like being in the waves and just like, kicking up her, like, rolling around in the waves and, like, giggling and laughing, and she was very embodied and playful, and I think that was something very.
Special.
To be able to have had that passed down. Because some people are not as comfortable in their bodies or feel as, I guess, liberated as we're using that word.
Well, even like, as we talk right now, like, as you talk right now, I can feel it in you. Like, you can feel that it comes through. Yeah. So that's the gift she gave you.
Yes. And, you know, I think for. If we're speaking about women, particularly stereotypically, when mothers, grandmothers, are very contained in their body or have a lot of control, or when you talk about body size or how they might hold, like, worth as far as beauty and body, I think that models so much for the young ones. If you say, like, the best gift we can give our children is to do our. Our work is to clean some of that up. And I think even just on a body image level or just a relationship with the body, that can also be very transmitted.
Yeah. And so, like, body image, like, relates to your body is one of the core aspects of my anxiety. It's crucial.
Because if you're not feeling good and you're feeling shame or not enough in your body, it's going to feel difficult to.
Like, that's what it is. Yeah. But where we kind of. If I'm not happy about my body, if I'm judging myself, I'm not even in the body. I'm outside. And desire, we actually need to be inside to be responsive. We need to be inside. So what I often like when I teach women it's kind of notice where you are. Are you inside the body? Are you outside? And you need to find a way, practices to actually come inside the body. Because until I come back inside myself, I'm not going to feel any desire. I can't respond. It's not possible. It's like that's why it becomes impossible. And then when we're like, something is broken in me. No, it's not. Nothing is broken in you.
“You need to find a way to come back into your body. And maybe things need to be healed before you can do that”
Yes. Or just you have that.
It's kind of. When I work with couples, the same thing happens for men. Right. It's like, it doesn't matter who we are, but if we can't come back into the body, we're not gonna feel desire. And it's not that desire is broken. It's actually, it's unsafe to come back into the body. It's a very different Thing we need to heal so people can see that actually we're trying to fix the desire. But actually, that's not even the problem.
Yes, it's almost like building a relationship with the body to create that safety, to then feel and be embodied, to then access desire.
That's why my step three is actually a relationship with your body. And then we only go into sexuality. Because if I jump over that, how can. I mean, of course, I can feel the desire through, you know, images and imagination, but if I'm not here.
Yeah, it reminds me this was years and years ago, maybe, I don't know, 13 years ago. My husband and I, I don't know why we did this exercise, but we were breathing back to back and were even meditating. And it was for a few minutes. And I wasn't necessarily feeling anything sexual prior, but then just being embodied and being close to him, I was like, oh, I feel aroused. Like, it's just this sense of being in the body and just giving space for that presencing. So I can think of many moments where I think it's just a big step, you know, for anyone who's feeling stress or, as you said, kind of in the head or disembodied, to then just go right to arousal and desire, sexual contact.
When I mean, some people can do it, but sometimes it's too big a step, and so on.
And people start to think it's all impossible, and something has broken me. I lost my desire. No,
“You didn't lose your desire. You lost your connection with yourself and your body”
And another you just mentioned, right, the big pieces. And I call it resonance. Finding the resonance. Yeah. When. And that's just. And when I teach, I do this exercise when you sit back-to-back with a partner, and you breathe, and you feel into each other because one part is you coming into the body, but the other one you actually start to find between each other. And that's where EFT works so well. Because if I feel disconnected, and that's what, like, couples come to me with low sexual desire. And then I say, how's your relationship? I know we're not talking to each other, wagging all the time.
I was like,
“It has nothing to do with desire if we don't have that emotional resonance”
if we don't feel safe with our partner, of course, our bodies shut down because it's not safe. So we need safety, we need adventure, we need both. But when safety and connection are missing, we need to actually have some therapy or find a way to actually emotionally connect to the partner, and then our desire will start to show up. So that's another piece of the matrix where that resonance is so important.
Yes, I can see that. Both from an emotional place, but also allowing the bodies to be present and have that resonance physically.
Yeah. The nervous system relaxes, and then we can start. Right. Feeling into each other, and that's when that responsiveness happens. Just the message, I guess. I'd love to. If your relationship is not in a good place, don't think your desire. And people say that, and I sometimes get confused. Like, how do you even expect yourself to want sex with someone who you feel so distant from? That's just, you know.
Yes, well, you've mentioned your matrix, and it sounds like you have a whole process that you help people engage with to explore these principles, which is there for people listening here today. “Do you want to describe the matrix, or do you have something where people can access that?”
“So it's a big thing, the matrix here. Like I've got a five-hour training on that.”
“Okay.”
“Yeah, so I've got the training that I can. I've also developed a Sexual Desire Quiz. So I can chant. That's a free resource where people can, just as a first step, to understand what I like, because that's, it's so important.” And in the quiz, and then we can link it, people can just answer some questions, and then it's like, oh, this is my time. Right. I've got like if you're an adventurer, right. If you're an. If you're a nurturer. We need different things to find the desire, so people can do the quiz and just see. And then at the back of it, if they want to go deeper, then there's a sexual desire matrix training where they can look at what is actually blocking their desire as well.
Okay.
And that's how I put the dual control model, and I put the sexual desire matrix kind of on top of it. Like I'm. So it's like what stops us and what opens us. And all the factors can be either breaks or, so, really understanding them.
“So it sounds like your big message is to not label when there's a mismatch of desire, or it seems as though an intimate relationship desire and sexual intimacy wane. To not label that as a problem, to look at it as an invitation to explore what the factors are, and can we be interested in what's the break, what's the gas like, what's the turn on, what's the stops, and all the different factors that play a role in us being safe in our body, safe to resonate with our significant other. And that's the. That's the work. That's the invitation.”
“That's the invitation. Yes. But I think desires really are the problem. I mean, that's how it shows up. Yes. It's so much more underneath. And actually, what's underneath is much easier in a way once you understand it. It's much easier to deal with.”
Yes.
I would start to feel more empowered. But actually, yeah, okay, now I know what it is. I can deal with it. But everyone's like, I just have a flawed design. That's the end of it. It's like, what do I do with it? And I was like, how do I bring? Like, I can't. Yeah.
So can you give people? Just for people listening who might want to have access to a step or an example. One thing that might be helpful is could you give some language if people have been stuck in this criticizing or blaming or seeing their sexual intimacy from this problem lens, how might they approach this with their significant other? And can you give that more along the lines of what you're inviting, and maybe some language to support them around what this could sound like?
Yeah. So the first step, I really feel, is really feeling that I want to have that sexual intimacy. It's an important piece, and I can see that it's been missing. And that I want to have it for us, so that we can actually do this together? And I really want to support you. Right. And support us to find that place where together we can create that intimacy that we have never experienced before. And that's the opportunity, really stepping into the opportunity. Because I and I found it again and again after kind of becoming. We become old after 40. We have such potential for this. And I call it heart-melting intimacy. Like,
“Really, intimacy. It melts us, opens us up, feels so deep.”
We never had this opportunity when we were younger. It's only when we become older that we can experience it.
So if you can really, as a listener, step into that place, it's like, okay, there's something I really want to experience with you. Yeah.
So speaking to the desire, how important it is, how much like the longing and the need to kind of like attachment need or the sexual intimacy need. Can you give people a little bit more context to how come that's more available? I think I have a sense of what you mean by the heart-melting intimacy that's more available as one develops.
Because the big piece is intimacy with the self. When I know myself so much better, and I'm not driven by my hormones. And there's so much more depth to me. Like, as we grow, right, I've got more experience, there's so much more depth to me. I can actually open up and open up more and more. And I believe
“The longer we live, the more we can start feeling and running the love energy through our bodies.”
We are more loving, there's more depth to us. And we become more able to kind of. Of opening and stepping into that vulnerability more and more. And I don't know, but when I was 20, it was like there was no way I'd be saying any of this now, right? I was just.
And I used to be a chat accountant, and I was just so, like, you know, in my body. And it was really difficult to actually let people inside myself. And I find the older we become, the more capacity we have to hold our emotions, so we can be more open, we can create more depth. And we start to want to have that soul connection rather than just that physical, and creating kids and running a family together. Especially when kids start growing up, like, what am I doing now with my life? And we start to have these big questions, more existential questions. And if we go from that place, we can create this amazing, deep intimacy with each other that goes beyond physical sex. Right. It's like for me, the experience is like we're making love, physically making love in our bodies.
And it's like the whole body starts to vibrate, and it's just such a beautiful, deep experience. But I know it depends on my capacity to let my partner really see me, like fully in that really deep, vulnerable state with whatever emotions I'm having. Anger, grief, sadness, joy. And we, as we grow older, develop that capacity to feel more, to hold our emotions rather than just push them away, and like. Like, put them in a box.
Yes. Thank you. And as we started talking about a mismatch in the relationship with this exploratory process around what perhaps gets in the way of feeling safe in the body, safe relationally. The judgments, the traumas, various. To be able to explore that and build a relationship with the body, and have more capacity for sexual intimacy and vulnerability. How can you give some examples around what the relationship, the partnership, is where one has a stronger desire, and one's more low desire. What can you paint a picture around that can look like using these principles, or having a different relational cycle or intimacy cycle?
Well, it all comes back to kind of what turns me on. Right. And actually finding out what turns me on and understanding what turns me off and creating circumstances, which is very specific. So I can't really. It's not this thing that fits everyone.
Sure, sure.
But it's really very specific to what it is that you need. And it's gonna look different for everyone. It's like when I talk about this, one of the blueprints is erotic chemist. Right. And it's more about the fact that I need to have that connection to the spirit. I need to have a ritual around it. I need candles and music. But it needs to be through sex. We connect to something bigger than us. Physical reality. And when we can together create that experience where we step into something bigger than us, connecting to something. Yeah. Then the desire appears. Yes. So symbol.
So help me. Maybe I'm getting it that the actual way in which partners are cultivating more safety and more specificity for the desire, like nurturing what a turn on that can get cultivated. So perhaps as a couple, instead of avoiding or not being as interested and one being more interested in pursuing, and the kind of disconnect around that, together they're partnering and allies for desire. That for both people's desire and that really attending to that, then there can be an experience of a more sexual connection.
Yeah. So it depends. Right. Both partners are different. Right. And when we. Okay, this is even if you're a low desired partner, but if you create an experience where you take agencies, like this is what I want. And then the lower desire partner comes in, I want to have that experience. And then we can create an experience for the strong desire partner. Right. Like it doesn't matter what kind of where you're at. But if we create an experience, and you're like, oh, I really want to experience that. So then the person steps in, and they want to be there.
Yes.
You drop out of that dynamic. You know, I'm running away, and I'm pursuing you. You. Because if we create an experience that you really want to have, of course, you're going to be there. Right. You're going to come to the party.
Yes.
Quite often, that's what happens with lower desire partners. It's like, I'm not enjoying the sex we're having.
Yes.
Yeah. And. But also, the other piece is that quite often. And it does happen to women more than they feel like sex. I'm giving it something. I'm already tired, I don't want to do it. And I'm giving it. So. And that's quite often the nurturer blueprint. What if I create sex that actually nurtures me, where I can receive? It's not something I give, but actually, I can receive through that. And then. Oh, if sex is nurturing me, then of course I want to come to the party. I want to be there.
Yes.
Really depends on where we're at, what we need, and if. Then we want to be there. And maybe just one last piece. If I can say yes, please. The biggest, I don't know, stress for people, and that's what I'd love them to take away from the sex, is that
“Orgasm is not the goal”
“If we start to believe orgasm is the goal, it's stressful; it's performance. We need to get somewhere. It's not an experience of being together.”
“Pleasure and connection are the goal of intimacy, of sex.”
And if we can just remove that, then both partners are more willing to actually step in and be there together. Because it's about connection and pleasure.
And that gives, I think, probably more motivation for so much more. That's on the. I was going to say on the table or up for offer around what can be cultivated.
Right.
It's not just the orgasm, but that there's so much opportunity for different experiences of pleasure and connection that are of interest.
Yeah, then and then it's like, well, I do have a desire for connection. Quite often, low desire partners, as they do, want intimacy; they want connection. Absolutely. Or just even that low, strong desire is a bit of the definition of it. Yeah. Makes it more dysfunctional rather than. Actually, it's not what I want here. I don't want it. I don't have a desire for it. Like, you know. Huh? Yes, it makes a lot of sense. I was so hungry, and I walked into a cafe, and it's all like this, sweet, like baked things. And I was like, I don't want that. Even though I was hungry, I didn't want it. I didn't have it.
Yes, it's a completely different mindset around what's happening, what's possible, and how to approach this. Is there anything else you want to speak to that we didn't get to before we transitioned to how people can get in touch with your work?
I just think of becoming a team, become a team. Find a way to become teammates and explore. Most probably, it's not working yet because you haven't had time to explore and go deeper and be curious. And if you are enemies and you fight with each other around it, that's you're not going to go and explore. It's not kind of safe, even. Right. But become teammates and have fun with that.
Yes, wonderful. Well, it sounds like you have a plethora of resources and curriculum. Where would you like to direct people towards that might be interested?
I think the sexual desire quiz I think that's the best. So you find your sexual desire blueprint, and then you can start playing with it, whatever comes. Because when you do the quiz, you're going to see what you need, and with your partner, they can do the quiz, and you can chat with each other and see how we can create an environment where we can explore that. Yeah, I think that'll be the best. And then knowing if you want to go deeper, you can go into actually what stops, what turns me off, and do the five-hour trainings, which is. Yeah. Quite enlightening.
Is that in the group format or the five hours? Is that self-study or?
Stop. It's a self-study.
Yeah.
So they can get it right away. But yeah, start with the Sexual Desire Quiz. So you can really find your blueprint and start creating, and maybe even. Yeah. Start imagining what it would be like if I wanted to have sex. What would that sex look like?
Yes, it's creating a whole new dynamic that is appealing for both. Okay, I'll make sure to have the link to that quiz on today's show notes. Is there anything else you want to point people towards? That's the main.
I think I'll leave that as the main. I've got other things that come to my website. www.sexualempowermentforwomen.com That's mostly for women, if. Yeah, if they want to explore. There are lots of resources there. I've got webinars for couples for women. Yeah. Lots of different things. But I think the quiz would be a good one. radiantwoman.xperiencify.io/tarishatourokbody/mini-course/
Yeah, wonderful, I'll put the link to your website as well as the link to the quiz. Thank you so much for all that you've shared and just what you're supporting people in and cultivating.
Yeah, thank you. And Jessica, it's so nice to share with you. Really, what I enjoyed about you is that you really make sense out of it, and I think that really helps people to. Yes, thank you for making sense of me.
The post ERP 531: When Desire Feels Lost: Why It’s Not the Problem and What Actually Is — An Interview with Tarisha Tourok appeared first on Jessica Higgins.
Are you caught in the race to do more, be more, and achieve more—only to find yourself feeling stuck, disconnected, and unfulfilled? In an age where “hustle culture” pushes us to optimize every moment, a quiet crisis is unfolding: our relentless drive for productivity may actually be undermining our emotional wellness and closest relationships.
In this episode, listeners are invited to take a closer look at how toxic productivity seeps into our personal lives, from romantic partnerships to friendships, and even the way we relate to ourselves. The conversation dissects the difference between healthy ambition and achievement born from unresolved emotions, explores why “performing” and “optimizing” can stifle genuine connection, and offers actionable steps to shift towards presence, self-compassion, and authenticity. Through relatable stories and research-backed insights, this episode helps listeners recognize these patterns and learn how to reclaim time, creativity, and real intimacy in their lives.
Israa Nasir is a psychotherapist and founder of Well.Guide, who has cultivated a dedicated following of over 350,000 across social media for her evidence-based take on mental health and productivity. Israa's debut book, Toxic Productivity: Reclaim Your Time and Emotional Energy in a World That Always Demands More, dives deep into the roots of hustle culture and dismantles the myth that our worth is tied to how much we accomplish. Drawing on therapeutic insights, client stories, and her own experience, Israa helps readers unlearn toxic patterns and adopt a more emotionally sustainable path forward.
Episode Highlights04:07 Defining toxic productivity.
09:23 A personal journey from achievement chasing to emotional awareness.
13:11 How early experiences shape productivity patterns.
16:50 How optimization culture impacts relationships.
22:56 Restoring connection: Returning to presence and somatic awareness.
27:09 Measuring fulfillment: Moving beyond external checklists.
29:45 Barriers to genuine connection.
31:24 How busyness and parenting impact relationships.
34:34 How reevaluating commitments leads to more intentional choices.
37:57 Rediscovering play and creativity fosters connection.
Your Checklist of Actions to Take Conduct a Time and Energy Audit: List out all your commitments from the past three weeks and reflect on which ones made you feel energized versus drained, then evaluate their necessity. * Question Unexamined Obligations: Regularly ask yourself if certain routines, events, or roles (like always hosting or planning) are still serving you or are just a habit. * Remove One Calendar Item Weekly: Apply the “Chanel rule” by intentionally taking one thing off your weekly schedule to create space for presence and restoration. * Reconnect with Body Awareness: Check in with your body throughout the day—notice hunger, sleepiness, or stress cues instead of overriding them for productivity. * Prioritize Genuine Connection Over Outcome: In relationships, focus more on the quality of your shared experiences and less on optimizing them for external validation. * Cultivate Hobbies Without a Goal: Practice a hobby just for the sake of enjoyment and creativity, not for achievement or performance. * Allow for Boredom and Unstructured Time: Create intentional moments for daydreaming, idleness, or simply “being” to spark connection and creativity. * Respond to Emotional Needs, Not Just Tasks*: In your partnerships, notice patterns rather than isolated actions and bring more grace, flexibility, and emotional presence to everyday interactions.
MentionedToxic Productivity: Reclaim Your Time and Emotional Energy in a World That Always Demands More (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
Want to Improve Your Relationship? Start Paying More Attention to Bids (Gottman Institute) (blog)
Shifting Criticism For Connected Communication (free guide)
Connect with Israa NasirWebsite: israanasir.com
Instagram: instagram.com/well.guide
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/israanasir
TikTok:tiktok.com/@well.guide
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Email: jessica@drjessicahiggins.com
If you have a topic you would like to be discussed, please contact us by clicking on the “Ask Dr. Jessica Higgins” button here.
Thank you so much for your interest in improving your relationship.
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*With Amazon Affiliate Links, I may earn a few cents from Amazon if you purchase the book from this link.
Episode Transcript
Israa, thank you for joining us. I'm looking forward to our conversation.
Thanks for having me.
Yeah. And you are doing a lot in the way of speaking. And you wrote a book as an author and also have a background in psychotherapy, trained therapist. And we are going to be talking about the topic of toxic productivity, but more about how it relates to intimate relationships. Well, for people who might have a sense of that term, where would you like to start? As how. Because many people associate, especially in the Western world and us, with productivity being a really admirable thing that they take a lot of pride in. “And how do you see toxic productivity? Like, when does it start to turn a corner for more toxic?”
“Yeah. So, toxic productivity is essentially the frame of mind in which you believe that you have to optimize and pursue achievement at all costs, and usually the cost is your emotional and mental wellness, as well as your physical and relational wellness.” So in the pursuit of outcome and achievement, you are willing to forego these important pieces of your wellness. And oftentimes, you are pursuing this achievement outcome checklist as a way to feel good about yourself, not necessarily because you are innately driven to that achievement. And I think that's the biggest distinction between healthy and toxic productivity.
“When we are in a healthy productivity mindset, the goals we set and the achievements we pursue are inherently aligned with our internal value system.”
“But in the toxic productivity mindset, we're pursuing things because we think we should.” After all,
“We're competing or comparing with other people, or because we want to fit in with the rest of our peer group”
So it's like a need for belonging through achievement. And while you can do that in the short term, right? You can go for that promotion, you can go for that relationship status. If it doesn't come from a place of genuine value alignment, it eventually catches up with you, and it becomes burnout or disillusionment. Feeling disconnected?
Yes. I mean, I've had even guests who are physicians who are. I'm bringing to mind a particular guest, and she accomplished all the things that she wanted to and was feeling very unfulfilled, lack of pleasure, like she had all the things, everything on paper that, you know, a beautiful career, a physician, M.D. And had a husband and children and the whole thing, and just felt very discontent, and she really had to reconnect. And for her, it was a particular focus. So that seems really important to be able to give a couple of indicators. One is the willingness to sacrifice self so much, the wellness, the relationship, and also what the drivers are that it's more of a, I'm not okay if I don't achieve X, Y, and Z.
Exactly. Yeah. And I also think it's, like, important to note that it's less about whether the thing is valuable. Right. A lot of times when I talk about this, people say, well, career is important. Like, why wouldn't we want to pursue a career? Why wouldn't we want to pursue a relationship? So
“It's not about whether these goals are not important. It's, like, really interrogating why you want them”
And I think that's what leads to the discontent. Right. And because that's what, essentially, you get there. You get the goal, and then you don't feel like you actually achieve something because the internal connection is missing. And the way to kind of overcome it is to either find your personal internal connection to the goal. Right. Or adjust the goal itself.
Okay, yeah, I appreciate that. So you spoke about the alignment, and whether or not it's finding maybe an aspect of the goal that is in alignment or an aspect of it, or shifting the goal so that it is more in alignment, so there can be a sense of wholeness or congruency with the pursuit. Okay, wonderful. Are you willing to share? I know in your book, you share about your personal world. Just for people listening, when did you start to notice? Or is there a time in your life where you noticed the productivity feeling toxic as you're laying out some of these terms? Just to make this, like, an example.
Absolutely. Sometimes my friends joke that my book is, like, autobiographical because I struggle with this a lot. Like, in my 20s, I think, sometimes you don't actually ever remove the triggers. You just get better at managing them. So I still have moments where I'm like, I'm not doing enough. But I think, like, the peak pivot time for me was in my early 30s.
“Your 20s are this time of exploration”
You're doing a lot of things, and, like, so I was doing all the things, the check mark things, and it was really like, you were raised to believe. At least I was raised to believe that, once you hit the final check mark, like, that's it. You're gonna feel happy and, like, you're gonna feel content.
You're not gonna feel like you need to continue the endless pursuit. So I had done all the things. I had just moved to New York. I had gotten married. I was like. I have my degrees. I had, like, my job. I was going out and doing all the things, but I literally just couldn't feel like there was, like, an aspect missing. And so I first, because I'm a therapist, I first was like, I wonder if this is depression or whatever. But I screened that out with my doctor. And then I realized that since this is not internal to me, it must be external to me, which is like, my habits. And that's really when I went down the rabbit hole of achievement. Like, it came out through my own journaling. Like, why do I do the things I do?
Like, why do I want the things I want? And my curiosity led me to, like, self-determination theory and achievement theory and all these, like, psychological things. But what was interesting is, like, the literature, the research was sharing that endless productivity, or what we call optimizing our time, is a result of unresolved emotions.
“There are some unresolved emotions that you're holding onto, whether it's shame, guilt, or fear.”
“These are really powerful drivers of human behavior.” And so you are trying to resolve or cope with that discomfort through the distraction of productivity. So that's what I'm reading in the research at this time. This is like in my early 30s era, but when I went to the bookstores for, like, personal development or self-help, they were all talking about surface-level habit building. So it was all behavioral.
It was all about, like, change your behaviors, change your habits, add this, take this away, and then you will feel this sense of connection or balance. But there's this gap, right? And so you could actually. And as a therapist, I know this. And when I was practicing, I worked with a lot of high achievers. Like, “you can build all of the systems, you can build all of the habits, you can habit stack, you can put your multivitamin next to the coffee, and all the things. But if you have unresolved emotions, the moment your resilience goes down, which it will, because we're human, your systems will fall apart, they will break down, and you will go into your usual way of coping, which might be toxic productivity, if that is the thing that you do.”
Thank you for giving some background, personal story, but also some research around what you really came into that was more transformational. I'm assuming that it did have a lasting impact on you when you started to address those deeper emotions.
Yeah, it actually brought awareness to things that I didn't think were, like, important in my life. You know what I mean? Like, sometimes, these things about your past, obviously, I'm in the field, so I'm like super aware of all these things. But I think we all are kind of, we all fall in the same pattern just as human beings. Like no one is above the frameworks. And what I realized is that I actually kind of minimized and dismissed some things in my life as not being important enough in understanding that it actually had an impact on my behavior. So that was like very enlightening.
And that's why I really enjoyed the writing process, because it helped me connect the research to my own experiences and also to my clients' experiences, and then kind of make it so that it feels accessible to people, you know, like I think I read over 300 research papers, but like that stuff is really dry and boring sometimes.
Yeah, they're methodologies and can be a little dense. Yes. And what you're describing, it sounds really important. And for people listening, I'm sure they can relate. We all, as you're saying, as humans, tend to cope or protect. And one of the ways of doing that can be to minimize or avoid or turn towards other things. And so as you're looking at the research, it perhaps gives a little bit more room and space to explore, validate, or even see it being expressed in other people's lives. As you were in a therapist role, would you be willing to give some examples, it doesn't have to be from your life, but what some of these things are that we might not deem important, but actually play a huge role?
So when we think about childhood experiences, we tend to think about only the negative childhood experiences as having a lasting impact. And I think a lot of times people kind of default to the most extreme of circumstances, and then they're like, ok, like, if I had some trauma in my past, and that's why I'm this way, and whatever. Right. But we can have something that's called like
“Adverse events in our life that are not like severe trauma, and they're not necessarily harmful in that like physical way, but can solidify certain frameworks in your mind”
Right. You could even have positive experiences that solidify a certain if-then framework in your mind.
So for me, for example, you know, when I think about my childhood, really pleasant, particularly boring, like nothing extravagant happened that you could pinpoint as an adverse event or whatever. Right. That being said, I grew up with the mental model that, if you do all the right things and you get good grades, then you kind of get to do what you want, and your parents are really happy with you, and you're not the problem child. Right? And so, like, while that was a very positive experience in my childhood, I didn't update it as an adult. And so I continued to believe that my achievements would give me acceptance and belonging and praise and value. And I brought that into my friendships.
I brought that into my romantic relationships, and over time, as you have more experiences as a young adult and an adult in relationships, you inadvertently start to minimize yourself as a way to get achievement, I mean, as acceptance and belonging. Right. And so if the mental model of the good girl is that you do the right things, everybody will love you. That definition of doing the right things starts to include that you should just be okay with everything. Like, you don't need to express your needs, like, be the chill girl. And like, so those things kind of like snowball. And they don't necessarily have to be negative-rooted items, but they become something in psychology that is known as maladaptive. They are not serving the function they were meant to serve earlier.
And it can be really oppressive to the real, full, I mean, authentic experience. And it's limited, right? Because if we're thinking we're earning belonging by way of achievement, then we perhaps don't even necessarily fully trust the belonging because we had to earn it. Okay, so let's talk about intimate relationships and how you see the toxic productivity impacting them. I mean, you're giving some example, but can we be more specific?
Yeah. So, you know, when we think of the word productivity, we think of work, right? We think of working out or in, like anything measurable, and like this, capitalist machinery. Right. But I was like, very intentional about including romantic relationships and friendships in the book itself. There are six case vignettes of like composite clients. And the reason I wanted to do that is this optimizing culture that we're in, that is demanding achievement and outcome from us as self-worth and belonging. Like, that mindset has descended upon our friendships and our relationships.
Relationship goals.
Relationship goals for sure. Right. But also, timeline pressures have kind of felt like more compressed and bigger, and like, so things like relationship status, which I think has plagued people for years and years. Like, if you just look at Bridgerton, right? Like, everyone's like, oh my gosh, you're not married, and you're only 16 years old. That has always been there, but now, like the measuring yardstick is a little bit more intensified because of social media. Right? So
“It's not just about being in the relationship, but it's about what your relationship looks like to other people?”
What did your proposal look like? What does your house look like? What does your Christmas card look like? And, like, every aspect of our relationship is now either trying to be compared to.
Either it's going to be presented in, like, a very curated way, or it's going to be kind of used to measure connection. And so, where a small date night was a connection point before, now it has become, ” How are we optimizing our relationship? Like, are we doing the best date night possible ever? Are we reading all the right books? Are we, like, engaging in the right type of conflict resolution? And there are a lot of right ways to do things now. And I think that's causing some harm in our romantic relationships because it's creating something that I call. This is not a real word, by the way. I just coined it. So you will not find this in the research, but I call this, like, emotional health perfectionism.
I think people have become vaguely literate about therapeutic concepts without the context. And so decontextualized narcissism can be anything. Decontextualized attachment styles can really be anything. And so I think that's kind of what toxic productivity has done for our relationships. It has pushed us to want to optimize it, to make it perfect, to make it comparable to others. And what we've lost is, like, the organic blooming of connection and organically learning about each other. I mean, I've heard of young adults who go on first dates, and they're like, ” What's your attachment style? And it's like, two years ago, nobody knew what that meant. And we still kind of don't know what it means because it's like an evolving concept. But so, yes, I do think we bring it into our relationships in a harmful way.
Absolutely. And it sounds as though when the focus and the value are placed on these external metrics, that actually interferes or blocks the opportunity for this organic blooming of connection, so that even we may judge how our partner shows up for us based on these external measures and miss the beauty of it. “They didn't do X, they didn't do Y, or they didn't have this grand gesture, and therefore they might not really love me, or they don't care, or they're not really, fill in the blank. Is that kind of what I'm hearing?”
“Yeah. And I also think that. So the toxic productivity mindset is very black and white. Right. You either succeed or you fail. You're productive, or you're lazy. Right. It's very binary. And that mindset also comes into the relationships.” Oh, you didn't do this. Then you must be bad. Like, you're either a good partner or you're a bad partner. And it doesn't actually allow for, like the human gray, like the learning and growing with your partner.
“Toxic productivity puts a demand on us to excel all the time”
and see it at work, as with all academics. But then you're demanding that of yourself in relationships, and you're demanding that of your partner in relationships. And no human person can excel all the time. Like, your partner or your friend will have a bad day.
They might like to say something snappy to you or, you know, they might like, not be listening properly. Maybe they pulled out their phone over dinner. I think we have to learn some flexibility and grace, both to ourselves and to our partners and our friends, and really, instead of focusing on patterns and not really, like individual moments and labeling people using the language we've learned on Instagram.
Yes, I so appreciate that point. And I can see how it would create a lot of issues in the dynamic, because if we're creating meaning from one instant or one off, how we react to that, our partner is going to react to that like it's creating a bit of a storm or can be a storm that perhaps we're missing again, the connection. But we're also putting in a bunch of judgment and creating, you know, fear and maybe even shame of like, well, what does this mean? And, you know, I may have been thinking of a client so incredibly bright and successful on so many measures, Beautiful, all the things. And when she's in the dating arena, one of the things that she's contending with is feeling the pressure of choosing well.
Right.
And that she's supposed to have like this understanding of who this human is. And I'm like, first of all, it takes time to really get to know somebody. Yes, they're going to be revealing themselves to you. But with the initial stage and the neurochemicals, there's a lot to sift through and also life to see how they, how do they handle grief, how do they handle upset, disappointment, these types of things. And so when we talk about this organic blooming, and if we're imposing these judgments, it can get quite confusing.
Totally. It can get confusing. It can actually lead us to behave in a way that is not value-aligned to us. You do see a lot of that kind of back-and-forth behavior, and also like the approach you take changes, you know. So in the book I, there's a vignette of a man who is trying to find a partner. And you know, it's like his whole concept of dating is like so strategic because toxic productivity is all about efficiency and optimizing. So he's like planning dates back-to-back. Like, there's like a numbers game that he has because it's a percentage of dates that move from first to second, and you know, and all of those things. But then you know, over time, if you're working with someone like that, even if someone like you has a friend like this.
Right? You might even actually ask them a few questions about what they want in a partner, and they will not be able to go beyond the rote list that everybody just inherits. Oh yeah. Kind, nice, you know, whatever.
Funny.
Funny. But it's like, what is that? What does that mean for you? Like, why do you want a funny partner? Right. And sometimes we actually don't know that till we know it. Like my partner, who does stand-up comedy on the side. And before I met him, I had no concept of whether I wanted a funny guy or not. Like that was just like something I didn't think about. But I would just, you say the thing. Sense of humor.
But after meeting somebody who is very much lifeblood is around like comedy and humor and like understanding how you find the light in the dark, I think it's like. So I have so much more appreciation for why that is important. Right. In day-to-day life and things like that. So I think we just, we don't know it until we know it. You can only know it by experiencing it. I think experiencing something risks loss.
“Toxic productivity doesn't want loss.”
Right. So they want to.
Or uncertainty.
Yeah, it wants to protect you and get you the best possible outcome. And yeah, you can do that when you're mapping out a route on Google Maps. But you can't really do that with love, even platonic love; you cannot do that. You have to go out and date new people as friends to see if they're going to be friends of yours. Right?
Yes, and the settling in, I mean, one of the things I understand about the attachment research, particularly the emotionally focused therapy, the attributes of the acronym of R so A as availability, R responsiveness, and E engagement. And when we are in that mindset of strategic optimizing, I think we're forgetting, or we're missing the felt experience of being open and being available, being responsive. This is Gottman's research on bids for attention, how we respond to one another. So incredibly powerful for connection and really engaging that emotional attunement. I mean, the felt sense of that's kind of the organic blooming of connection that I'm hearing you reference. And thank you for sharing just the example about your partner and the humor.
Like, I am projecting, but what it feels like in my nervous system to laugh or to hold complexities and find the humor, and just like the felt experience of that, I can appreciate not knowing. Oh, I maybe didn't appreciate the value of that. “But again, the living into it and the mystery, like, we won't know these things unless we take a risk.”
“Exactly. Yeah. And, I think it's like, it's interesting because, you mentioned, like, being in the body and the felt experience. I do think that is also something that is like, heavily disregarded in hustle culture, which is like essentially the framework of toxic productivity.” Right. So, in the most plain sense, like in “one of the red flags of toxic productivity, is skipping meals, right? Skipping meals to work, skipping meals to attend events, like whatever it is. But you're kind of like suppressing your body's natural cues of hunger. And that's like, it's common. Yeah, you see it like sleep. A lot of people will like, hold to the last minute when they have to go to the bathroom because your nervous system is so, like, ready for fight or flight.
And so what happens is we kind of divorce ourselves from our body. And in the romantic arena, even the friend arena, you need to know how a person makes you feel at the core cellular level, because that's what will ping you whether this person is like, safe for you, or not, or will ping you to your own stuff that might be coming up that you need to deal with or resolve. Right. And so you do see a lot of discourse right now, particularly about friendship. And like, how do you know if the front is good for you? And like, there are all these TikTok videos about, like, you know, whatever, compatibility, this, that. But it's also really about, like, how you feel with that person.
Like, I made a video about, like, a green flag about people is that, you know, you, feet, you leave feeling good about yourself. And that's like such a difficult concept for people to grapple with because people are gauging others in their lives. Through an external lens, they are like this. We like this; it is our value driver. And the concept of like how you feel about someone is like sometimes not even on the list of how you feel after you hang out with them is something that we don't think about anymore. But we used to. It just kind of disappeared from the discourse at some point.
Yes. And you reference psychology, and this is when psychology, we will call this operationalizing a construct. Like feeling good. Right. Like, what does that mean? How do we put that into terms where we can measure it, or you know, and quantify it? Like that's difficult to do. And this is something people devote their lives to studying happiness, studying love, these types of things. But we know it. You're saying it doesn't have to be an academic thing and a head thing. It can be a body thing.
Yeah, it has to be a body thing as well. Yeah, that's the thing. I think we've kind of like demoted the body completely, especially like in the romantic arena. Like, I'm not against dating apps because I feel like they solved a really big problem for us. And what they also did is they reduced people to metrics totally. Right. And it took away that lived experience, that feel. And so I think the majority of connections on a dating app do not actually result in a meeting, even if you go through the chat. Right. I know there's science out there on this, but anecdotally, I know this from my friends as well. But you'll chat with 10 people, but meet one person. Right. And like that's fine.
But what that does is it reduces your ability to assess how your body reacts to a lot of different kinds of people. So when you don't have that data set, you actually cannot trust your body's like reactions, and so you just disregard them. So one part of healing toxic productivity is the somatic experience, like coming back to your body. And that sounds so woo. Like, we're like in Costa Rica somewhere. But it actually is a very concrete thing that you can do. You can do it at work, in a meeting, or in a call. You could do it on a date without even having to get up and leave. And it really is just like experiencing the sensations in your body.
I'm wondering if we can apply this or give more examples to people who are in longer-term relationships. Because I think about toxic productivity and how that might interfere with the connection. And we look at sexual intimacy really being present and the sense of cultivating the Warmth and the love that requires presence, that requires the body, and especially the sexual intimacy. So oftentimes, if we're in this mode of fixing or optimizing, we may really have difficulty approaching that space because it requires us to be in different ways.
Yeah, I think, like in long-term relationships, as you're like building a life together, there are two things, right? Like, there's like each partner's individual interior world experience, and then there's also like the Venn diagram overlap between the two people. Now, if your interior world experience is just overrun with like dysregulation over commitment, fear, perfectionism, guilt, shame, achievement, orientation, if you're so busy trying to optimize the rest of your life, that Venn diagram overlap between you and your partner will start to thin out. Like the circles are going to move further and further apart as you both are pulled into your own toxic productivity optimizations. Right. And it can look so different for everybody. It can be so self-care oriented. Right. Like we can take this mindset into self-care, health, and wellness.
And if you're so consumed with like counting macros and having time to cold plunge and sauna and like blah blah blah, you're actually limiting your body to feel just free fall feel. You have compartmentalized it so much because you're treating it like a machine now. Like, I am all for health and wellness. I love a sauna. Don't get me wrong, I do a cold plunge when I have to if it's part of the experience and they make you do it, and you know, they're not particularly good for everybody. No, but there are some places where you kind of have to do it because it's part of the package. But it's like it's again, it's not about the thing, it's to the extreme that you're taking it. So that's one way
“Toxic productivity can thin out that connection and intimacy.”
Because you are actually divorcing yourself from sensuality. And what you're doing is you're very much like making your body a machine. And your body cannot will intimacy. You cannot. Nobody likes it; people are like, oh yeah, men can turn it on and off. Like even they, if they are not present and they are not connected, they might be able to go through with it, but it will not be the best experience. Right? Experientially. And so that's one way toxic productivity can send out intimate relationships. Another way can be if you are bringing a competitive and comparison mindset into your relationship. This happens a lot with parents. I mean, it happened with non-parents too, but it happens a lot with parents because children become the arena for optimization.
Yep.
And now if you're a child, if you have two kids and they're both in like six different activities and your schedule is like a complicated matrix with like yarn connections, like, you know, those like old-timey movie detective wall art that they have. Right. And you and your partner are just like passing ships in the night, like swapping keys and cars because someone needs them. An event someone doesn't like, that kind of busyness is not productive, it's just busy. And that is going to move you away from your partner. And so one of the vignettes in the book is about this couple who have like two kids, and they have a very busy life, which honestly I think is. I live in New York, and it's every couple I know. Right. But this is no shame to people who want their kids to succeed.
But I think the biggest question I want people to ask themselves is,
“What do you want your children to learn from you?”
And do you want them to learn that life is meant to be busy and packed and dysregulated and kerfuffled? Or do you want them to learn that they should only do the things that they feel really aligned with and that actually have a true impact on their life? And you know, I didn't grow up in a home where rest was really modeled, and my parents, like, like I said, my unremarkable childhood, which is a good thing. But I didn't really like it. I never saw my mom chilling. My mom is not the kind of woman who goes shopping for vibes. She's not sleeping in on a weekend. She is not lying on the couch.
She was not a lady who watched soaps or shows. Nothing like this lady was always on. Right. And so I became like that. I don't like shopping. I will never binge a show. And if I ever do, I'm like so mean to myself about it. Those are not the good things you want.
Your children need to learn. Yes. And that again harkens back to the felt sense, the present awareness that it doesn't even have to be anything we're necessarily doing, but perhaps just being outside and looking at the sky or being present to what is in the moment. And that quality can give room for connecting, but it can also give room for real wellness in the kind of mindfulness state. Yeah. And thank you for laying out what this can look like. I mean, even with the competitive part. Like, oftentimes partners will be doing checks and balances of like, well, I did all of this. And then, like, it. It kind of gets competitive in that way. Who's doing more? And then the resentment. And then it's like, oh, gosh. Okay.
Well, I know we have limited time here, so if you were saying what I know you talk about more of the emotional sustainability, or what maybe are some compassionate shifts you would recommend. What would you like to help people know about what's possible?
A really easy thing to think about is. It's hard to do. It's easy to think about is think about where your time is actually going. Right? And so I encourage people to do, like, a time energy audit. And what that really means is list out all of your, like, commitments and obligations you've had in the last, like, three weeks. And then just kind of think about, like, well, did I have to do this? Did I have to do it when I did it? How did I feel before and after? And just really, like, analyze how many things you're doing that actually make you feel bad after. And sometimes they're, like, invisible things that we think are, like, good for us. So an example for me is getting my nails done.
Oh, you know, getting your nails done as part of, like, wellness and self-care, whatever. And I realized that I always felt, like, annoyed after I left. I felt annoyed during. Never a pleasant thing for me. It always felt like a chore. I was like, ” Ugh, this is so frustrating. I don't enjoy this. And so when I cut it out of my life, even though my nails are not done, like, I actually feel happier. And so I think, like, it's shifting those mindsets. Like, we believe that certain things have to be done. Like, I used to believe that. Oh, I'm a public speaker. I go on the news, I have to have my nails done, but, like, nobody cares, literally. Right? And so it's like questioning those types of things for yourself.
And they can be as trivial as a manicure, or they can be serious things as well. Like, how many places are you volunteering? How many committees are you a part of at work? Like, to what end? Right? So that's one thing. The second thing I call is the Chanel rule, which is taking one thing off your calendar, which is like, you know, Coco Chanel was like, take one accessory off before you leave the house, because you tend to overdo it. And we all do for sure. So it's like that, but to your Calendar. Commit to taking one thing off week after week to free up some time, and you'll actually see that you have time when you think that you actually don't have time.
Thank you. I appreciate this. It seems like both things get at saying no or being a bit more, as you were saying in the beginning, aligned with values and what is meaningful. So it's being a little bit more discriminant and discerning.
Yeah. Intentional. How many things do we say yes to? Because we've always said it, or we are always the person who hosts the holiday dinner, or we're always the person who makes the itinerary. We're always the friend who makes the reservation. We're always the partner who plans the vacation. Right. The gauge is like this, always, a legacy thing is sometimes your own internal sense of desire for control, but then you're taking too much on. It's making you resentful. And so, like, thinking about, like, what you're bringing to your interactions is also really helpful. And the final thing I'll say is I really think we need to get back to hobbies. I've been talking about this for maybe like a year and a half.
If anyone has ever heard me speak anywhere before, you're like, okay, well, she's still talking about hobbies, but she is still talking about hobbies. It is so impactful in a way that we actually don't realize. Hobbies can be creative. They tap out of a sense of accomplishment and outcome. You know, you don't do hobbies to get better at them. Right. You do hobbies just to do. It's an exercise of presence. And they don't have to be super involved. It could be like a knitting thing that you do at home, or on your commute. Then you just donate those things, and you're not trying to sell them on Instagram or anything like that. That really helps decompress.
And I would imagine a key component of that is the creativity and being able to do something because it is inspiring or it feels good, as you were saying, how you feel. But accessing the creative space, I think, is something that gets lost in the more of the machine of productivity.
Yeah. And, you know, I'll just say one last thing, because I know we're pushing up against time, but, you know,
“The term creativity can be very intimidating for people”
especially people who perhaps, like, are very busy or they have always felt a distance from the arts. Creativity is not just in the arts. Creativity can be done very mindfully. Like, five senses walk in the park. It can be like a color walk in the city. So, something you can do with your children on your own. Your partner, or, like, if you go walk your dog, try to notice seven things on your walk that are the color red, that are the color yellow. Right. Like, that's creativity. Putting an outfit together in the morning, that's creativity. It doesn't always have to be like highbrow Renaissance paintings, like sculpting marble and pottery, or music.
Like, it can be so many things.
Yes.
So I think, like, just remembering that is important.
Yes. And coming back to the intimate space and what you were describing with the Venn diagram, we are giving space for being present, our creativity, our felt sense. Then we have more of that opportunity to relate. Because there's more space for connection.
Yeah, completely, totally. Because it helps you tap into that, like, energy that you then translate into connection. And also, like, I think one of the biggest ways to improve that, like, intimacy, in my opinion, is to let yourself be bored. Let yourself be bored. Let yourself daydream and wander and fantasize and just, like, think and, like, enjoy the moments. That allows you to actually bring that energy into your intimate relationships.
Thank you for saying that. I have said on the show before, there are times where some of the best connecting conversations my husband and I have are when we dim the lights, turn on either a little bit of ambient noise or music, or just have nothing and just chill, and we're just there. And then one of us will bring something up, and then it just evolves into a really beautiful conversation. But it's not planned. It's not like we're being super ultra intentional. It's just kind of being and what unfolds. Great. Wonderful. Well, what would you like to share about how people can connect with you? You've talked about TikTok, and you've talked. Say the name of your book, please.
Yeah, of course. So my book is called Toxic Productivity: Reclaim Your Time and Emotional Energy in a World That Always Demands More. So if this resonated with you, I have a lot of resources on my website. You can get the book through my website, Amazon, or, honestly, your independent booksellers. Just call them. They'll order it. I always like to kind of give local bookshops a shout-out because I love them. Yeah, I think my Instagram and my website would be the two places to connect with. On TikTok and LinkedIn.
With me and for people listening. Do you want to say the name of your website?
Yeah, of course. It's www.israanasir.com
Excellent. And then your social media, I'm imagining they can find it there as well. Okay, I'll make sure to have all of these links on today's show. Thank you so much for all that you've shared with us.
Thanks for having me.
The post ERP 530: When Productivity Becomes a Barrier to Intimacy — An Interview with Israa Nasir appeared first on Jessica Higgins.
Are you stuck in a cycle of giving too much—or never quite feeling your needs are met—in your relationships? So many of us find ourselves trapped in unspoken agreements, repeating old patterns of imbalance, and wondering why our closest connections leave us feeling depleted and resentful. It's all too easy to slip into roles and routines that quietly erode intimacy, joy, and our sense of self.
In this episode, listeners will discover the underlying dynamics of these “relationship contracts” and how they silently shape the balance (or imbalance) in our partnerships and friendships. Through insightful discussion, practical examples, and actionable tools, the conversation explores how to raise awareness of hidden patterns, reclaim personal agency, and foster healthier, more reciprocal connections—all while learning to have empowered conversations that turn resentment into collaboration and lasting growth.
Elizabeth Webb is The Practical Priestess™ and an expert in positive psychology and human behavior. For over two decades, she's helped top leaders, celebrities, and change-makers break free from life's shackles, make empowered choices, and live a life they're excited to wake up to. Elizabeth brings her signature wisdom and wit to her debut book, Made for Magic.
Episode Highlights05:56 Spotting the early signs of relationship imbalance.
07:08 Resentment, overgiving, and the dynamics of reciprocity.
11:08 Lovability, self-worth, and patterns of giving and receiving.
16:11 Changing unhelpful contracts: Willingness, ability, and conscious relating.
21:20 Reflecting on past patterns: Awareness and co-creation.
25:59 Clarifying needs vs. preferences in relationship dynamics.
28:54 Strategies for addressing and rewriting unspoken agreements.
35:05 Understanding the root of complaints.
38:00 A roadmap for empowered communication and requests.
40:32 Building collaboration and navigating negotiation in relationships.
45:16 When to untether: Facing unmet needs and setting boundaries.
Your Checklist of Actions to Take* Reflect on your current or past relationships to notice any recurring patterns where you feel depleted or resentful due to an imbalance in giving and receiving. * Ask yourself if your concern is a fundamental need or simply a preference before addressing it with your partner. * Acknowledge the ways you have participated or co-created the current dynamic before approaching the other person. * Choose a time when both parties are calm and receptive to discuss the issue, beginning by seeking consent for the conversation. * Use neutral language to share your observations and feelings about the dynamic and avoid accusatory statements. * Articulate exactly what you would like to change and how you would like it to look, so your partner understands what you need. * Invite your partner to share their perspective or any adjustments they’d need to fulfill the new agreement, fostering a sense of co-creation. * Observe whether your partner is both willing and able to make the necessary changes; if not, consider what choices and boundaries may be needed for your well-being.
MentionedMade for Magic (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
Alison Armstrong
ERP 056: Secrets To Sex Even When No One Is In The Mood With Alison Armstrong
Shifting Criticism For Connected Communication (free guide)
Connect with Elizabeth WebbWebsite: PositivelyElizabeth.com
Instagram: instagram.com/positivelyelizabeth
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Email: jessica@drjessicahiggins.com
If you have a topic you would like to be discussed, please contact us by clicking on the “Ask Dr. Jessica Higgins” button here.
Thank you so much for your interest in improving your relationship.
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*With Amazon Affiliate Links, I may earn a few cents from Amazon if you purchase the book from this link.
Episode Transcript
Elizabeth, thank you for joining us.
My pleasure to be here. Thank you for having me.
Yes. And I am grateful to have your voice. I know you focus a lot on human behavior and positive psychology, really helping people address many facets of interrelatedness and just how we show up in relationships. And we're going to be focusing specifically on relationship contracts. And where would you like to start, just to give some context around where you're coming from? And also, as we get started here, anything you want to say about how people might be operating with unconscious or unspoken agreements in a relationship?
Sure. So let me ask you a question. Have you ever been in, let's say, a friendship, just to set the context? A friendship where, over time, things just seemed out of balance. Like maybe you always drove to her house, or maybe you always paid the bill, or maybe you were the more accommodating one. Maybe, you know, because you're in the self-development field, you were the strong one, and they were coming to you, coming to you. Have you ever experienced that out-of-balance-ness?
Sure. Yes.
Yeah, me too. And so has everyone, right? Probably in both directions. But we're usually most aware of it when we are the ones who are giving more. And how this happens, you know, this doesn't usually happen overnight. It doesn't usually happen on day one. It usually happens as a repeated pattern over time. And then what we've done is
“We've created an unspoken contract that this is how we do relationships.”
How we do relationships is that Jessica's the strong one, this person's the weaker party, they lean on you, and that's just how it kind of defaults. And of course, there's nuance within that. But I'm talking about what happens most of the time.
And this is just really the process of shining a spotlight or a flashlight lovingly on these areas of relationships that become out of balance, that are no longer in service to us, owning that we co-created it with that person, and then rewriting the contract, you know, like really. “But we can't rewrite a contract if we're just stuck in resentment and we're not really aware of how we got off balance. So there's a name to this, and that's why we're calling it relational contracts.”
Yes, I can absolutely appreciate what you're describing. And a lot of people might call it the relational norms or the scripts that we might not necessarily have explicitly decided on, but take form. And oftentimes, there are a lot of things that inform how we approach relationships unconsciously. And some people are familiar with, like, attachment tendencies or perhaps certain fears that we had. I was working with a client right before this interview, and given her life experience, she's had major loss in her life, and she's afraid people are going to leave. So she does a lot to mitigate and make it comfortable and easy, but she's not feeling the reciprocity that you're describing.
And when you say lost, you mean like people's death, died? Yeah.
Correct. Yeah. So, can you say a little bit more about one? One thing you're saying is that perhaps just even being aware, and sometimes what brings awareness is pain or some discontent. Is this typically the first sign post it? People might begin to look at, oh, there's something here for me to look at.
I would say resentment, that kind of heavy, tight eye roll, the why do I always. That kind of feeling, when that starts to come to the surface. But I would also say when something's feeling depleting, when a relationship's feeling depleting, there's often something that's out of balance. And this is just an opportunity to lean in and go, what's out of balance here? Like, why am I drained here? Why am I leaving this hangout? Or, you know, if you want to. If we want to get into the deeper subject of, like, the romantic relationships, right now that we understand what a relationship contract is, if something is now draining or if you are resentful that in the beginning you weren't, something's gotten. Something's changed, something's shifted in a way or possibly many ways that just aren't in alignment, and to not overwhelm ourselves.
It's just beautiful to like, go, okay, well, what's shifted? Am I over-giving? In what area am I over-giving? Or resentment can sometimes happen. I see this less with my clients, but it can sometimes happen when somebody's over-giving to us, which can also make us resentful.
Yes.
Something's not reciprocal. The energy isn't flowing, and we get to adjust that.
So you're saying on the receiving end, even if we're being given to that, we also might have feelings of resentment. And that, again, do it.
Like, interesting concept and probably less talked about, is if we are over-given to in a way that we feel that we don't deserve, and it's consistent and it's overwhelming to our system, we can actually and frequently start to resent the source of the giving.
Absolutely.
Can you give me an example? Because I hear that you agree with this. What's an example that you've seen of this?
Well, I think it can. Since you're speaking about other relationships, one of the classic forms is when a parent, perhaps as an adult child, is still giving. The child is not necessarily. It's feeling conflicted, right. Like wants the thing. Like I have a client, and she's like looking at this tendency of over-giving, and she's like, they don't even have to ask, they just like hint at it, and I'm already helping, I'm already giving. And then the adult child is the benefactor, but also feels resentment because I didn't ask for it. Like they, I was like, did they ask? And they're, are they doing anything to negotiate or work towards it? And she's like, ” No, it's like done for them.
And so the not being able to develop and earn and actually be able to say the self-efficacy of like I did that. Similarly, an intimate relationship can feel like, oh, you don't trust me, like you're doing at all. It can feel like I don't get to have my contribution really valued in the relationship you're already occupying, or I can't give to you. Like there's, this can take many forms.
I think I can't fully fly, I can't expand my wings. I'm incapable in this relationship because I'm feeling shrunken in the shadow of your over-functioning on my behalf. Which we're calling like love. Right?
Yeah.
So all of this is so interesting, and I don't know if you agree with this. Someone told me a long time ago, and it feels true that
“We all have to battle or get to look at our feelings of not feeling worthy of love”
Right. Like most people, some would say all people feel unworthy of love and that we have to earn, prove, strategize, grab for it, figure out a way to get love or be lovable, or that there might not be enough love to receive because you're unlovable, or what. So these sorts of unconscious dark games that we play of overgiving, overtaking all of it, some of its personality, right. Some people are just naturally more of a giver, and some people are naturally more of a taker.
But the way this can show up in love is like somebody who's an over-giver, they're proving their lovability as if that's a word. I don't know if that's what they're proving, that they're lovable with all of their giving.
And they're probably turning off the person who is the recipient. It can be smothering, it can be overwhelming. It can be super unsexy. Right. Have you ever seen?
Yeah, it tends to. Even for the one that's giving. Fast forward. It can develop where, okay, I'm not enjoying the balance of this. And they might start to feel resentful, or the relationship really just takes form and is an expression of that one person's preferences because they're the ones doing more. So it is more reflective of that person's preferences.
I think this. That's a beautiful point. I never even thought of that, honestly.
Okay.
Yeah. What a beautiful point that the person who's giving they're giving on their terms. So maybe setting more of the tone.
Correct.
Wow.
They're occupying more of the space, for sure.
Oh, I never thought about that. So that really correlates with a point. A beautiful woman named Amy Loftus said to me one time, and this was. I was getting coached on relationships. I was seeing her and was talking about my dating life, and she said,
“Unasked for help is a form of control”
Agreed.
And I was like, what? Unasked for help is a form of control. And she's like, yeah, that helpfulness when somebody didn't ask for your help, that's you inserting yourself. And I was like, what? I didn't see it at first. It was such a shift in the way that I was thinking. But then I really got it. The frame is, I know better. I need a helper. You don't know. You can't figure it out on your own. You need my help, versus like, you got this. Let me know what you decide. You'll find a way.
Yes. What an act of love. Right. To be in this place of spaciousness that offers enough room for someone to contribute or express themselves in the dynamic. So there are both people operating and playing in the dynamic. I think this maps really beautifully on the attachment research. I tend to use a lot of the research and principles. And having said that, just the one that's questioning, you know, am I lovable to your point? Do I have to work really hard? Or perhaps I don't need you to intend not to turn towards because they're like, I got it. I don't need. I'm. It's better bet to just rely on myself, be self-reliant. And that's another.
Is that the Avoidant?
Yeah, it's more of a blocking of like, not so much about blocking, but more of like through learned experiences. It's a better route to rely on myself than to rely on others. Other people have been. Have proven not to be reliable or responsive. And so I just turned towards self-referencing self-reliance. And so I do think it's important to acknowledge that these are learned behaviors.
Right.
Like that, we do the best we can in early life. Usually, this is where we develop them. And then what you're really promoting is, let's look at this. This resentment can be an entry point and an opportunity for transforming some of these dynamics. And a really potent one. Powerful one if we're choosing to use it as such.
I'm a big fan of like, my specialty is not going back to like, the source of the wounding and like where it first occurred. And there's so much value in that. But I'm handling the behavior that we can see.
Yeah, right.
Like, okay, this is out of whack. So let's look at it in the present time and say, how do we get to shift this? “And then with that repeated experience of the new way, often people can fall into a new pattern that is more reciprocal. Some people are unwilling, and some people are unable to change.” That's something that I've encountered. There's a whole section in my book called
“Are They Willing and Able?”
Someone said this to me a long time ago. It was my chiropractor, actually. Her name is Dr. Cori Stern. My chiropractor in New York was talking about her staff, and she'd fired somebody, and this kind of thing.
And she was like, listen, the best advice I can give you on life is surround yourself with people, whether it's in business partners, romantic partners, friends who are willing and able to change, grow, do better. And then she stopped, and she went. And it's two separate things. Willing, right? And then able. So the desire, the drive to change, and then can they execute? Can they actually create the new pattern, and can it stick? “And it's quite painful when you find someone who's just one or the other, because that's quite confusing. Because the willing can look like, yes, I want to. Yes, yes, yes, I want to. Yes, I want to. Don't execute.”
“Right.”
“And some people can execute, but they don't want to.”
Yes.
“So, deeply frustrating. I have really been in a deep relationship with willing but not able. That sucks.”
Yeah.
“Very painful.”
“Yes. Because the love is there. The desire's there. And also for whatever the words are.”
“There, they might even do the work, but the work doesn't stick.”
“Correct? Yes. That is painful. And the disappointment.” And this is one of the things that I get from your work, which is making the implicit explicit, that this is a way to really be conscious, and so-called almost get more data or test it out. Right. That you want to say a little bit more about these contracts. If we're being more conscious, making the implicit more explicit, we get to see and not guess. Right. It's just putting it into action more. And what's the result of that?
Yeah. The beautiful thing about just having this conversation at all is the word contract. It sounds serious, right? It sounds heavy. And these are little. Often, “so many micro choices that we make that we would never think of it as a contract.” That this person is always 10 minutes late, and that you always go to their house. It just. We fall into it. But if we really take a step back and evaluate where the energy is flowing, who is really more of the giver, who is more of the receiver. What about this isn't working for me? Then we get to keep so many important relationships, including romantic relationships, instead of imploding when something's gone too far. So what would be a great thing for I assume that some people listening are single, and some people who are listening are in relationships.
“So, for the people who are single and not yet in a relationship, it would be a wonderful thing to evaluate what your past patterns have been and what your past contracts have looked like, either on your own or with somebody who can mirror and reflect to you.” Like, what are the tendencies here? Is this, is there an over-giving pattern? What was it that really pissed you off? And then see and really evaluate how you co-created that pattern.
Agreed.
So the next time around, and as you look at potential new partners, you can say, ” Okay, not going to repeat that one. Not going to repeat that one. Like I'm going to co-create something different.
It's like how am I participating in this experience and noticing I was very much attracted and a willing contributor, co-creator to that dynamic. Yeah, yeah.
Something from my own life that really just bubbled to the top for me a couple of years ago, as I realized that I was dating men who were very successful in business, who were often volatile and had really dysregulated nervous systems. And what I was, and I would never consciously choose that, but I had to own it, like here we have the pattern. Okay, so I understand why I would go for successful, but why would I co-create this dynamic with a man that I'm the more regulated one, and he gets to regulate off of me, versus we regulate each other, or, you know, they regulate themselves and come to me grounded, like, why would I do that?
And I realized through a lot of deep work that feeling that I was getting that the payoff of me repeating that pattern was that I got to feel like I was not replaceable, like irreplaceable to these guys, because I could ground them. Like, they could get these. The fun, amazing sides with me, but I was also grounding them in a way that other people couldn't. So that was doing something for me in terms of making me feel like I was lovable and valuable. Invaluable. Yeah, irreplaceable. So I really got to undo that. And that's one of those contracts, almost like the one that I mentioned in the beginning, and projecting this onto you that you would be the strong one in some relationships. But, you know, when we're in this industry, sometimes people decide you're the strong one.
We agree to that, and then there's a pattern that becomes an unspoken contract over time.
Absolutely, absolutely. I mean, you're not wrong. I definitely listen and am very empathetic in my role, and I am very caring, and I am curious. And so the dynamic can. If somebody is not aware that I'm not being conscientious, it could be a little skewed.
Right.
That I'm doing more of the listening or supporting. But I feel like most of my relationships, there's conscientiousness around. Okay, I've talked for 20 minutes. It's your turn. Or, you know, like, yeah, you're off.
Like, how are you?
Yes. Or you go first.
Maybe listen.
Yes, yes, yes.
Skill set to hold space, correct?
Yes. Yes.
Everyone has that skill set. Yes.
I'm grateful that I have some deep friends who have the capacity to your point, not only the willingness, but the capacity to. So can you help people when one is noticing or reflecting on a previous pattern of a tendency, whether or not they're in a relationship, single, but just, okay, I'm noticing some discontent or resentment, or I'm pushing. I'm feeling a little withdrawn from this person. I want to kind of protect myself. Something about it feels off. “How do you help people change that so that there's more conscious intention around what they do want to create and participate in?”
Sure. So the first thing that I would just guide people to notice is what we're talking about. I don't want to say light examples because over time they become very heavy. “But let's first just point out that if the relationship contract is that they lie and you accept it, or they cheat and you do, they get to keep coming home, that's not something that's in a different category. That's in the category of like, seek help immediately if you're in something that's like a 911- toxic relational contract.” We're talking about things around communication, things around money, things around time, things around effort, things that aren't just straight-up abuse. Right? So first, let's rule out like 911-
“Abusive behavior, lying, cheating, drugs, anything that puts you in danger. Seek professional help”
We are not talking about that. This is about the different dynamics that we're in.
So I would decide first, is it a need around this, or is it a preference? Because some of these are just like, not that big of a deal. And it's something that we could kind of even let go, right? Like these lighter preferences. It might feel out of balance, but you could really ask yourself and be like, okay, well, is it worth it? And does this person give back to me in other ways? Is this just me getting a little annoyed, and they're just being human, or am I actually not having a need met? Right. So I would just first put it through that lens before we get into the relational dynamic of like, conversations and rewriting the contract.
So evaluate and just see, like, is this just kind of a periphery preference or is there a deep need of mine that's not getting met for reciprocity, effort, meeting me, whatever it is. So once you've decided that it actually is a need, that there's a deep need of yours that's not getting met, and without it, you're either not going to be able to continue the relationship, or you're not going to be able to continue happily to be open. And I would first pause and see how you've been participating in it, because it's a partner dance. This is all a partner dance. So all of this happened on your watch, and it might have been for two months, or it might have been for 20 years. It might be 20 years of you driving to their house and them never coming to you.
Are you always picking up the dinner bill, and they never reciprocate it? So you participated in that because you didn't say, hey, you know what, this time could you. Or, like, I would love it, you know, it would make me feel so special if you would do this. You know you didn't interrupt the pattern in a way that stuck or at all, perhaps. So, just first notice that you participated and you co-created it. And it's not just pointing the finger as they did. They did, they did. So just own that and then decide. I'm assuming that, based on this conversation, we want to rewrite these contracts versus untether and snip the relationships. So let's assume that we're going to rewrite this contract.
So this would look like first ownership, owner, owning your side of it on your own, and then going to this person and saying, ” You know what, I'm aware of this pattern and I own it. That I just, I haven't brought it up and I want to feel however you want to feel with them. I want to feel connected. I want to feel at ease in your presence. I want to feel comfortable, and this one thing is feeling out of balance to me. And then you can share, make sure that they're tracking with you. Is it okay if I share what it is? Yes, sure. What it is. They might be like, well, I never even knew that bothered you, or why didn't you say something sooner? Or a less conscious or less, you know, ideal answer would not look so positive.
It would be like, well, that's just how it is. Or you know, I work really hard, so you have to come to me if you want to see me, or you know, and then based on their response, you can take it from there. But the real meat of it is putting the light of awareness on it, owning your side of the co-creation, deciding to have the conversation proactively, and
“Allowing the space for someone to have their own response without forcing”
Right. You can't force them to want to meet you halfway, or come to you, or pay more or less. Plan a date night. You can't force this upon people, but you can give them the opportunity for the highest outcome.
Yes. And make the need or the longing visible. If it's not visible, like you're saying, somebody would say I had no idea or ” Oh my gosh, why didn't you say something sooner?
Yeah.
Yes.
Or I thought you liked coming to this area of a town because blah, blah, I don't know, I'm happy to come to you. I'd prefer it. Or you just never know.
Yeah. And I'm curious, Elizabeth, for people who, when you were talking a moment earlier about the difference between a need and a preference, and is it like looking at this scenario, and does it have real significant meaning? Sometimes I think it can be tricky because it might be about something trivial, but it represents something very meaningful, or we attach meaning to it. So, for example, I actually, for whatever reason, this popped into my mind. Years and years ago, I was actually a guest on someone else's podcast, and she was sharing for her husband. She would make lunch for him every day, and she would get home, and it's in the fridge, and she's like, I put all this effort to help him eat and, like, feel nourished and, like, what it meant for her.
And it felt like he was just like, dismissing it or not. Didn't care about it, but we had to. We kind of unpacked it a little bit. And she was like, it's not so much about the lunch. It's that I don't feel. I think it had to do with. I don't feel like he's receiving my love or that he really is accepting or caring about me. And it had something that was a lot deeper. And sometimes in a relationship, we can feel some insecure feelings about love and belonging that we might attach to, oh, he's turning on the car air conditioning, and he didn't ask me what my temperature was.
You know what I mean?
It could feel like not a huge deal, but it can trigger. Can you say a little bit more about what? How can one discern between a need and something that is a preference when it might be? Something trivial might hook this deeper needle.
Well, you definitely just introduced a layer of nuance and complication, right? Because these surface-level preferences might add up to a theme, or they could have a deeper emotional hook. So with something like, let's just stay on the topic of the lunch, because the lunch isn't really about the lunch, right? No, the lunch is about feeling that her love is being received. So the conversation about lunch with a conscious partner could actually have the opportunity to have that reveal. But this is tough work. And this is why I recommend working with professionals. But because most of us can't always get there on our own, you.
Know, like, unpack it and understand it.
See that the lunch is not actually about the lunch. Like, she needed you, right? Like, not that we can't do that work on our own, but it's like looking at the preference, right? Like, I wish that my husband had never had a silly example, didn't cut his hair. He knows I like it this way, but he does it that way. That's a silly kind of like a very superficial preference. But it could be about feeling the deeper need, could be that I need someone who considers me. And the trigger. Right. Is like, I'm not being considered.
Yes.
So if you take a look at this superficial preference, and I'm just kind of playing right now, I'm improving with you because the reality is I don't really know the answer beyond working with someone to get underneath that preference and see what's actually driving it. I would say ask yourself, like, maybe put two hands on your heart and say, like, what's this haircut about for me?
Yes.
Or what is this lunch about for me? Like, and
“Ask your little girl or your inner child, your little boy, what's not being met here? And how's it making me feel?”
It's making me feel sad, it's making me feel alone, it's making me feel unloved, and get there by going here.
Yes. I love that these prompting questions, I think precisely help people slow down to try to understand the deeper layers. And here's a question I like to ask. I don't know where I got it, but it's flipping it. So if the complaint is like, I want you to eat the lunch that I made for you. Right. It would be, what does his eating his lunch allow me to feel?
What does it provide?
Yes. Or a personal example that just came to mind. A couple probably a year and a half ago, my husband and I bought our first home, and it happens to have a downstairs one-bedroom rental. And we were hustling to get it renovated so that we could rent it. And we are like jamming. And my husband was like, ” This is overwhelming, this is intense. And I think there was a period, a couple of days, where he just needed to take a little bit of a breather. And I'm still jamming. And I'm like, oh, like I was kind of critical of him. And I was like, what? And I was lying in bed, and I was like, okay, if he were to do X, Y, and Z, which I was critical about, what would that allow me to feel?
And I was like, oh, I'd get to take a break, or I'd get to relax. And some of these things, if you're having the, like you're saying, if I can discern between the need or the preference or what is this? Like, what's the meaning of this? Perhaps some of it we can give to ourselves or have our own back. And this goes back to the co-creating that, oh, I'm not available for doing all the driving, or I'm not available to be doing all the work for this
I need a break too.
I need a break, too. Exactly.
Yeah. But he's permitting himself to take a break, and I'm not. And now I'm angry versus, like, also taking a break. Correct. And did you take that break?
I believe I did. I found some ways to relax. Yes.
Nice.
Yes. Because, I mean, this is something that can really create some wedges, to your point, that can, over time, really impact the quality of the connection. Because we have some things that are interfering that we're not clearing or we're not addressing. Yes. Okay. So when you've given us some really beautiful language around how to potentially address something. I know. With the loved one. I know. You talk about an approach that helps the request or the conversation land more with. With someone. Do you want to say a little bit more about that?
Sure. So I love Alison Armstrong's work. I don't know if you're familiar with.
Yes.
Yes. So she teaches a really beautiful way to make a request. And I call it. So I made some tweaks to it just around the language to simplify, and I call it the empowered conversation cheat sheet. And this is within a romantic relationship. Right. So you would first make sure that the person, your partner, has the time, energy, and space. So you do not spring this on them. Heat of the moment. You don't try to get your needs met in the middle of an argument. It's like, are they fed? Are they well rested? You know, is it a good moment? You can ask them, never, ever say, ” We need to talk. Please, God, don't say that. But this looks like, hey, I would love to check in with you. Is now a good time? Or could tonight be a good time?
And then be willing to receive their yes or no. All of this is like, okay, you have to be able to handle them saying, no, it's not a good time. Yes. Yeah. And just be able to be like, okay, got it. And then move forward instead of shutting down any way or any step along the way.
Or I see that you're busy now. Would you be willing to get back to me around what time would be a good time?
Ooh, love it. Exactly. So then, when you've determined that it's a good time, we're going to start with a neutral tone. Right. This is not a heated moment coming from a grounded place to say, you know, I've noticed a theme here. I've noticed, let's say someone's asking for A date night. So it could be. I'm just gonna use a specific example so that we can. Right. So we've got the right time. It's like, I've noticed that we haven't been having our date nights recently, and I own that. I haven't been putting them on the calendar. I know you haven't been putting them on the calendar. And when we have date nights, it really makes me feel so deeply connected to you. So it's like, what is this? What is the thing? What is it not? What are you not getting that you need?
But not in a way that you're saying blame.
It has meaning and significance. Yeah. Yes.
And saying, I would really love it if we could have. And then the request. I would really love it if we could have a date night twice a month. This wouldn't look like some. And say what it wouldn't look like, and then what it would look like. So this wouldn't look like some big elaborate thing that needs to be planned. We could just go down the street and go to that place we already know. What it would look like is about two hours.
“Putting our phones away and really being present with each other”
Having some kind of experience where I can just focus on you, and you can just focus on me. You know, what do you think? And then really allowing the other person to say, ” No, I can't. Yes, I can.
No, I would need it to be once a month. Or how about every week and really receiving them, and then once you've negotiated, what could work for both of you? Asking them if there's anything they need to deliver on this new agreement, which people don't do, most of these steps. It's actually a bit tedious. Right. Like, if you have a need to really work all of those steps, however, it's effective.
It is effective.
The person is feeling engaged and partnered the entire time. They're not being talked at. They're not being blamed. They're a co-creator. You're asking them to dance with you. Like, oh, I own that I did this. That also means we don't have this thing I need. What can we do together? What would this look like for you? You know, what do you need?
It's really collaborative the whole time instead of blaming. And then the person gets to leave that conversation feeling that you guys made a decision together and not that they were told that they have to do something.
Yeah, the demand or obligation.
Yeah. It feels a bit clunkier, a bit tedious. It's effective.
It is effective, it's worth it. You know, it really sets this up for success because someone who's on the receiving end could feel a bit more, like you said, brought into the fold, the vulnerability of getting to see what really matters, and the tenderness of the person they love. Like, typically that's gonna help us lean in. Or even just saying, like, once we've established time, space, and the like setting, even leading with like, I'm a little nervous. Right. Or this is a feeling that is not quite comfortable. And I want to bring it up because I love you and I care about you and this matters to me, so hang in there with me. Right.
Or if you're closer to you.
Correct.
Yes.
And so, as someone's listening, they might be able to feel a little more grounded. Like, this provides a little bit more of that foundation. So someone can feel safe opening up and being in this collaborative space. And I really appreciate the last question around. What would you? Or excuse me, like what would you need or what would be helpful for you in this?“Because sometimes people will say yes, and they haven't really contemplated, they can't pull it off.”
“Yeah. So you're helping them to the throwback, to the other point about willing and able. You're helping them be more able. Yes. You're helping them execute.” Right. Like you're saying, like, what is it that you might need? They might say, could you please send me a calendar invite? Or could we have a repeating calendar invite? Or could you just. I'm happy to make the time, but I get stressed out always picking the place. Could you pick the place each time? Can we use the budget for this from the other item? You know, it could be financial. Usually it's like money, time.
Yeah.
So, really being a partner.
Yes, and I think this gets at what the person needs that might be interfering with it happening. Right. So if it's not given a little bit of room, we might miss that. That there's some obstacles that we didn't look at that might likely come up. Right. And then we'll have another conversation. So if it gets missed, we'll have another conversation. However, if we can give room for it's not just about the one person, it's the co-creation, as you're saying.
That's right.
Okay, great. I love it. Okay. So you also talk about if, like, well, I guess just really quickly, if one person is not as receptive to the request, and this is like a consistent theme or pattern, do you want? Is this kind of like going into that they're not capable or they don't want to?
Willing or able.
Yeah.
I've noticed that
“When there's a theme of either unwilling or unable, that's very painful”
And then some tough decisions need to be made. Right. About whether you can actually thrive in this dynamic, or whether there needs to be space in this dynamic, or whether you may, over time, need to make the powerful decision to exit and untether from this dynamic. And I believe in untethering so much, mindfully, when it's the right time, that I wrote a whole chapter on it in my book. There's a whole chapter on untethering because it's one of the hardest things to do for many of us, to call it and go, I'm just not going to actually be able to get my needs met in this.
So I would say if there's a theme of not getting your needs met or your person not being receptive to your needs or not being able to execute, you've got some choices to make. You know, life is short, and really being in a dynamic that isn't workable is really painful, and it's a stealer of joy. And I personally would. I'd rather be single than be with somebody who is continuously unwilling or unable to meet my needs. It's just too painful. Right. That would be my choice if I had to choose one of the two.
Yeah.
Any of us has to choose one or the other, but. Yeah.
Well, thank you. And I will make sure that people have your book, how to access your book, because this writing whole chapter, it definitely lends towards having some support, because this is, as you said, extremely painful.
These are big topics, and I love the conversation of love and relationships. I mean, it's just so juicy and nuanced and full of beauty and pain and worthy of all the art that we create about it. And, you know, half of my book, which is Made for Magic, is really about how we operate in relationships because that's one of our main sources of power, or it can really siphon our power.
Yes, agreed. I know we're wrapping up, but do you want to say anything about the nos you give people a script around a soft no that helps keep the connection, or a hard no that really sets a firm boundary? Is there anything that you want to say about that before we wrap up?
Sure. So a soft No might be hard to come by. like, we're in a kind of charged climate at this time. But
“The soft No is really honoring that it's simply a preference that you're responding to”
So, oh, no, thank you, I don't want more, or no thank you, that time doesn't work for me. How about this? And women? I'm not sure if it's so charged for men, but I know that women have a very complicated relationship with the word No. And some of us, it takes us so long to even find our own that when we find it's harsh and it's strong and we can overdo it. And this is just once a woman.
I'd say if you need to overcorrect and find that and be harsh at first, just give yourself some grace. But also know that once you've found your voice and you're able to set boundaries, that the hard no is really for like someone crossing a boundary or a need not being met, or you need something. And the soft no is just the nuance of like, no, thank you.
That is super helpful. Thank you. And I know you write so much more in your book, and will you say the name of your book again?
Oh, absolutely. So I happen to have one. The book is called Made for Magic, and I'm giving a free chapter. Actually, @madeformagicbook.com, you can get the first chapter for free. We will email it to you so you can see, like, is this my cup of tea? Do I vibe with Elizabeth's voice? People usually love it and need the rest of the book, and read it all quite quickly. It's a very fast, helpful, juicy read. I'd be so honored if you read the first chapter and then read the whole book. So yeah, the website is madeformagicbook.com, and it's my honor to be able to share my light with you in that way.
Wonderful. I'll make sure to have the link to that free chapter, that gift. Thank you for sharing on our show notes. And is there anything else you want to say about how people can connect with you or what you're offering?
Oh, sure. So I'm Positively Elizabeth online. So that's Instagram, that's my website, and I share a lot of free resources. I have a Love Beam email that's on my website. I send out articles about human behavior, positive psychology, personal and client stories, and lots of tools. I really believe that this needs to be accessible. And then, if you get a sense of my ways, use my free resources. There are always other things that you can dive more deeply into, and those are on my website. But feel free to just be in a relationship with me in terms of my free offerings at first, and my book.
Excellent.
Very low risk, high reward.
Yeah. All right. I'll make sure to have all of those links on today's show notes. Thank you, Elizabeth.
Thank you.
The post ERP 529: Unspoken Relationship Contracts: Why You Feel Resentful and What to Do About It — An Interview with Elizabeth Webb appeared first on Jessica Higgins.
What if the key to lasting love wasn’t just about finding the right person, but about growing the right partnership? Too often, couples step into long-term relationships without the relational tools, shared vision, or understanding of virtues that make for true unity. Instead of connection, misunderstandings and unresolved conflicts take root—leaving even the most committed couples wondering how to sustain harmony and joy in the face of life’s everyday challenges.
In this episode, listeners are guided through a practical roadmap for cultivating deeper unity within their relationships. Drawing on decades of experience and research, the conversation unpacks how virtues like respect, kindness, and flexibility serve as foundational elements to thriving partnerships. Listeners will hear about the stages of relational growth, learn tangible practices for resolving differences, and discover how to create a shared language and vision that brings them closer—not only to each other, but to a happier, more resilient family life.
Susanne M. Alexander is a relationship and marriage educator and coach with her company, Marriage Transformation. She is certified to offer couples assessments and coaching through Prepare-Enrich® and for individuals with the Character Foundations Assessment™. Susanne has written/co-written over 30 books, including the most recent “Growing Our Unity: 19 Vital Practices for a Thriving Relationship”.
Susanne is co-lead on Accordia Way, a project that assists couples with excellent communication and decision-making skills.
Episode Highlights04:05 The Importance of character and virtues in relationships.
08:27 Developing and sustaining virtues: Tools, assessments, and early influences.
12:16 Virtues Project origins and the concept of unity as a relationship virtue.
15:33 Practicing unity without losing individuality.
17:54 The process of reaching unified decisions in relationships.
20:50 Navigating individualism and control dynamics in partnerships.
23:31 Balancing autonomy, collaboration, and flexibility.
27:49 The impact of unity on family, children, and community.
29:52 The 19 vital practices and applying virtues in everyday life.
35:11 Restoring connection and humor under relationship stress.
38:15 Consultation process: Detaching ego and co-creating solutions.
41:24 Symbolism in relationships and making unity a daily practice.
Your Checklist of Actions to Take* Schedule regular times to discuss important topics as a couple, allowing the conversation to flow naturally rather than treating it like a formal meeting. * Identify and openly share your individual strengths and growth areas in relational virtues such as kindness, patience, and responsibility. * Observe and assess your partner’s demonstration of key virtues in various situations to gauge character compatibility and growth potential. * Work on developing one or two virtues at a time rather than overwhelming yourselves with too many at once; focus on practical application each month. * Prioritize unity during decision-making processes by listening to each partner’s perspective and postponing decisions if mutual agreement isn't reached. * Incorporate rituals or symbols (like a decorative bowl during conversations) to facilitate ego detachment and emphasize shared goals. * Reflect as a couple on the integrity and unity of your relationship before individually committing to new community or family obligations. * Participate in couples’ groups or study circles to learn from and support each other in practicing relational virtues and building unity.
MentionedGrowing Our Unity (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
Marriage Can Be Forever – Preparation Counts! (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
Accordia Way
Relationship Map To Happy, Lasting Love (Free guide)
Connect with Susanne AlexanderWebsite: marriagetransformation.com
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YouTube: youtube.com/user/SusanneMAlexander
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Episode Transcript
Susanne, thank you for joining us.
Thank you for having me. It's so important for us to be talking about healthy relationships and marriages. And I'm just delighted to be with you today.
Same. And I know that you've really put together a piece of work that really helps people negotiate this with really clear guidance. And I know we're going to be diving into that before we get started with your decades of work with couples in different life stages. What helped you identify, like, some of the common struggles that couples were facing? Maybe without even realizing it.
The first thing that we started to notice was that people were not preparing well for things like marriage or things like serious relationships. We don't get it in school, don't get it in university, how to be successful in a relationship. And so we started to notice people struggling. They would get engaged, or they would get married, or they would start to be in a serious relationship, and immediately have difficulties. And so the very first book I wrote was a marriage preparation book, or relationship and marriage preparation book, because we really wanted to see people start well.
Yes. And be well prepared and well equipped. Right. Like some of this is without necessarily investigating or evaluating. It's what we do. And we kind of imagine that it's going to have a flow to it, which it does. But then there are other things that we may not anticipate, and to be skillful for that is helpful.
Yeah, well, and in particular, one of the places I have focused is helping people understand each other's character, as that's a foundational element for how we end up behaving in relationships. And so I help people with observing, can he be kind? Can she be compassionate? Can we be patient with each other? All of those qualities, because they help you a whole lot with parenting, with everything that comes up in a couple's relationship. And so I help people to do that early on and then sustain those behaviors throughout the relationship.
Oh, my goodness. I know we're going to be diving in. And one of the things we're going to be talking about you have a recent book around unity. And also, as you mentioned, the characteristics. Does this relate to virtues? Okay, so for people listening, can you describe a little bit about what you see as virtues, what they are, as well as. As you're identifying in early stages, is someone able to practice these virtues, these character traits, or character development? Yeah. And do you see that as learning, like somebody can develop these, or is this more static?
That's a lot of questions. So let's. We could tease it out just A little bit. My view of virtues is that they affect every word that we say, just about, and every action that we take. So if you think about that in a relationship context, that makes it pretty darn important. And what I look at as a
“Virtue is the quality of the heart and soul”
It's like intrinsic. It's really part of us. We learn it as we're growing up. Our parents are key teachers for those kinds of qualities. They are an example of how to respect each other. How do you deal with each other in an honorable way? And then they're like guiding principles. Exactly.
Yeah.
And then we go to school, our teachers. If you're in a religious community, you often will hear it in those kinds of settings. And it's a lifetime thing. So a lot of the virtues that we develop as human beings are pretty firm by the time we're maybe 20. But it's a lifetime thing. So I see clients at times who are in their 60s, 70s, and 80s. I just had a client who was in her 90s, and she was concerned about whatever it is that happens after she dies. And she wanted to make sure that her virtues were in order, that she had cleaned up her life, that everything was done. And so I watched her in the last weeks of her life develop herself. And so it's up to each of us to pay attention.
And so I ask single people to make sure that they know what their strengths in this area are. And then to be able to skillfully observe a partner's behavior, to see if those virtues are there? Can they be responsible with money? Right. Can they be kind when someone is going through a difficult experience? Because lots of adventures happen in relationships and marriages and life in general. And if we can navigate them and interact with other people in a way that preserves the relationship and is self-respecting, then what a difference that makes to the quality of our relationships and marriages.
No kidding. And you developed an assessment, or you worked with people who developed an assessment for identifying these virtues and character traits?
A little bit of both. Okay. So I have developed my own tools, and all kinds of information about 60 virtues that I have identified are really important in relationships and marriages. And then I collaborated with my co-author on the book Growing Our Unity, and his name is W.Grant Peirce IV. He has developed a validated assessment for 22 virtues. And so we use those 22 from his assessment in the book. And honestly, I say to people, work one or two at a time.
Yeah.
You know, when I say 60 virtues, people's eyes kind of glaze over. And you pick one, you pick two, you work on it for a month, and you improve, and then you pick another one. And virtues are often best in pairs. You know, think about things like
“Truthfulness, which is an absolutely vital foundational element for relationships and marriages”
If you deliver it in a harsh way, then it's really harmful to the relationship. And so you have to pair it with kindness, with compassion, with tact, and wisdom.
Yes.
Right. The timing is important. So
“Wisdom is an important virtue”
So I so appreciate this, Susanne. I'm wondering, did you and Grant come across the Virtues Project in your research? I remember being in a youth program and coming across the school curriculum, and they had 52, and they had done kind of. You're nodding.
I am. Yet. Dan and Linda Popov, who started The Virtues Project along with her brother, were early mentors for both Grant and me in our work. My late husband and I, who'd started this business, a marriage transformation business together, met with the two of them early on in our work and said, ” We really see the value of this for couples. They were primarily doing work with parents and children. And they said to us, ” We don't want to get married, we don't want to do relationships. And they handed over all of the research that they had done to us so that we could draw on it in our early work. I've gone on and developed lots of my own things that are not necessarily connected to The Virtues Project, but they were very much helpers and supporters at the beginning.
Oh, my goodness. I loved their work. And I actually ran a whole camp, a week-long camp for youth, along with The Virtues, and was helping parents try to implement it. And that to your point, if guiding a young one, let's say a kid that's demonstrating bullying behaviors, I remember precisely to not be in this position of blaming or even taking issue with the behavior that something that they're doing, practicing assertiveness, like we can acknowledge the virtue of their being assertive around something that matters to them or their sense of what you know, that how that has value. But also calling up, can you practice respect? Can you practice humility? Can you practice, you know, and I remember there being so.
So that this combination, this calling up, helps a young one and their development, instead of what not to do, to look at what to do. And it calls them in the direction of what to cultivate, which can be very helpful in leadership, both in school and in the family. And then to your point, to have something to focus on, I remember the 52 correlating with 52 weeks in a year. That was helpful for the curriculum. But thank you for sharing just a little bit of the context and my curiosity here.
Well, it helps all of us look at ourselves as noble human beings. Right. And to see the good and the nobility in someone else. And that is a really important thing when you are in an intimate relationship with someone.
No kidding. I'm a little bit geeking out that you developed some of the virtues specifically for couples. This is beautiful. “And so, when you and Grant wrote the book Unity, do you see unity as a virtue? And would you like to talk about how you define that?”
“Yeah. We called it growing our unity, in part because we want people to be using that word. It's really common in our field. And in listening to couples, to hear the word connection. And connection, obviously, is vitally important. What we ask couples to do is think about unity as being deeper. It is a bringing together of your thoughts, your feelings, your perspectives, your heart, your body, your soul, your mind.” It's a holistic concept. If a couple develops unity, then they are empowered to develop unity in the family. And if her family develops unity, then they are empowered to develop unity in their neighborhood, in their community. And if we have lots of communities developing unity, then it affects the unity of the entire planet. Why do we need that die?
Yes. And I would love to hear from you around how this looks in practice, and also for one that's listening, that, like, I know you talk about interdependence, so it's not so much that you give up your individual self. Can you say a little bit about what unity looks like in practice, as well as folks who are like, how does this help? Help still maintain some autonomy here?
Because we do stay as individuals. Yeah. We have our own unique set of talents, abilities, thoughts, and so on. With unity, the design is that there is a blending at a level. So perhaps you might need to decide where we are going to send a child to school?
You want to have both partners share their concerns about each of the schools? What are their feelings about their child and the child's situation, what's best for them? You want them to come to a meeting of the minds where they end up with a unified conclusion. They're not in conflict. They're not fighting with each other. They're. They are blending and letting go of their strong thoughts, blending them and coming up with a unified conclusion, and then carrying it out in unity. What we see often with couples who are struggling with conflict is that they might agree sort of on an outcome, but then one of them undermines the decision. And it then means it's impossible to even know whether it was a good decision because they're not working in unity together.
“If you work in unity together, you very quickly figure out if you're off track or on track.”
And in this example, would you say, if people do their best attempt, it sounds like coming to a unified decision, hopefully, is an expression of both partners that they've worked to have, a way in which both of the needs or perspectives are included. And then from there we act. And then if one partner is acting and they bump up against, ooh, like I thought this was, I was a yes to this, but I'm recognizing this is harder to implement than I thought. There could be a re-evaluation or renegotiation.
Absolutely. They come together and look at it.
Again, the commitment to doing that versus going rogue and sabotaging or undermining.
Backbiting to your best friend about the whole situation. And it's vitally important that they recognize that they are partners and equal partners respecting each other's mind, heart, body, and soul as equal partners. So there's no dominating. One of them cannot say, ” This is the way that we're going to do it. There's no attitude of I'm right, and you're wrong, because that immediately sets up disunity. And
“A couple is honoring and respecting each other's perspectives”
And they might come together and start talking about something and recognize, oh, wait a minute, some facts are missing. We really didn't dive deep enough into this school or that school. And let's pause this and come back to this at another time. And they agree together. Who's going to do the fact-finding?
What I find with this type of discussion in marriage with my husband and myself, it's very much a flow. So it's not like a committee meeting where you have an agenda and that kind of thing. Although a couple can be more formal, we might sit down over a meal, and there's a topic we need to address, and we'll start to examine it, start to think about it, start to check in with each other, how do we feel about this, what might be possible, what might not. And if it's clear that we can't come to unity at that point or come to a unified decision at that point, then we postpone it.
And there's something about sleeping on something or other things happening that then makes it clear, so often we'll just have these discussions over a period of days, and then all of a sudden the answer's clear.
I love that. Thank you for giving this example. “What I'm feeling as you're describing this, Susanne, is that even the act of pausing and we're in process, we don't have the unified decision yet, is prioritizing the unity of the couple.”
Absolutely. Especially if things start to escalate.
Right.
“And we all get triggered. There are times when feelings start to get strong. But if you start to have a clash of feelings, you know, one of you gets angry, and you start to have, you know, an edge of conflict or attack, there's no way that you're going to find a unified decision.” So if you pause and you calm down, you allow all of the physical reactions of your blood pressure going up and so on to calm down, you can think clearly again, and you can come back together and find a better solution.
I'm aware, and I know I already asked a question on this, so we can move on. But I want to just note, and perhaps here, if you have anything to say here in the US, you're in the United States, right? And in Western cultures, there's a very individualistic kind of mindset, typically, that we're not even fully aware of how much it's operating. And this unity may not be as comfortable for some who maybe didn't grow up with two parents in their home, or for whatever the circumstances, or perhaps various reasons why they might have a little bit more of an independent mindset. Do you find this to be a struggle for some to really feel the value and the benefit of prioritizing and developing the virtue of unity?
It is important to look at the context in which we're living. There's a lot of polarization happening in the world around us, and it can be very easy for that to slide into a marriage. My husband and I have an agreement that we don't talk about politics. We don't tell each other who we're voting for. We don't discuss how we're voting because we don't want it to be a point of disunity. And I'm seeing it in some couples where they're disrupting the marriage because of politics. I meet with couples on Zoom all over the world. I have a lot of American clients, but I also meet with people in many other countries who are going through all kinds of things.
What I notice is that couples or individuals, let's talk individuals, are on a continuum of control, let's put it that way, where some people are very strong on I need to be in charge of my life. I'm not willing to have somebody else have any say in my life. So you have this yes, no dynamic going on. Other people have developed the personality of being able to be flexible, where they're okay if somebody else is in charge, or they're okay if they have to take direction from someone else, and so on. And all of us are in different places with this, yes, no continuum.
“What needs to happen then is recognizing how that dynamic works inside ourselves”
So I like to be in charge generally of my work. Therefore, I am an entrepreneur. I have my own office.
I learned a long time ago that it does not work for me to be in an office where I have lots of people trying to manage my life and my work.“In a relationship, we all have to recognize that the virtue of flexibility has to operate to an extent. Otherwise, we are always in disunity.” So if we look at where we are trying to be in control of our partner and therefore causing a problem with our partner, then sitting down and talking about how we make this work? Just went out of focus there for a minute. We meet together and talk about how to make this work. I don't want to dominate you. I don't want you dominating me. How can we come to an agreement on how we're going to manage this particular task? And sometimes it's deferring.
“Sometimes you have a unified decision that whatever bright idea one of you has is going to be what you're going to bend and do and try out and carry it out in unity.” Even the person who has done the deferring. And sometimes you do multiple sessions of talking it through. And one of the things I have learned is sometimes you invite somebody else into the mix. Because if you have two people who want to be in control or in charge, then that can be challenging. But maybe you invite your financial planner in, right, to talk about money. Maybe you invite a set of the parents or family members who the decision is going to affect, and so on. There's a way to do it and maintain the unity.
This seems a bit more complex than I was even imagining. I mean, I'm surprised that I wasn't seeing it that way initially. But thank you so much for giving the example that there might be places where there's an agreement that we are going to operate individually and really have regard, as you said, with kind of the voting. And then there are domains where maybe one is a little bit more skilled or has a stronger attachment to more control, and the other one is a little bit more flexible, and it's okay. And there are not as many strong feelings. So you get. I'm good with you leading on that. Where it might be problematic is if they're deferring to avoid conflict, and they do care. And then. Yeah, that's different.
But then.
Yeah, and then there are areas where we both care deeply, as you said, with the children and what schools they are going to, and various. We will want to take time, and it might be several conversations, so that we can be more unified. And sometimes we need help, as you said.
Yeah. Maybe you can go meet with one of the principals, a teacher, or whoever at one of the schools. Right. And get another perspective from parents who have children at that school.
Okay. So it's not that everything has to be unified. There's some.
Yeah, but the goal is to maintain the integrity of the relationship. Right. “So we know that if there's criticism, if there is contempt, if there is conflict happening that is not being dealt with effectively, that disunity is happening between the couple.” If the relationship or the marriage is a fundamental unit. Right. It's the foundation for the family. The research is detailed. Kids do better when the. The parents are united.
If everyone does better. Right.
Everyone does better.
Maps really beautifully on the attachment research. The EFT understanding and the way that I hear that language is the secure functioning. We feel at home with one another. We have each other's backs. Right. That we can hear each other's deeper needs and show up for that.
Absolutely. And if they use the word unity, then it starts to send that vibration through the household. And what I notice happens is I know a lot of people who are engaged in, say, community service. They're very engaged in their religious organization. They are doing things out in the community. What I ask couples to do is, before they say yes to yet another thing, bring it back into the marriage. If one of us says yes to another commitment, how will this affect the unity between us, the integrity of our family? What could be the negative outcomes? Or does the whole family join together and say, yes, this is a great idea. Go ahead and say yes.
And then that way the family integrity stays in place, and nobody gets resentful about what somebody might be doing that takes them maybe away from the family for a period of time.
Susanne, you're referencing the process, and we're also mentioning virtues. And I'm recalling in your book, you talked about consultation. And I know there's so much here we're not going to be able to do it full justice. But so you have 22 virtues. So for somebody listening, that's like, oh, I really like this idea. I'm trying to get a flavor. Can you give a broader organization of the framework around how somebody could perhaps start to use your work and apply it to their relationship in this kind of systems way you're describing here?
All right, let's give it a try.
Okay.
So what we've done is identify 19 vital practices for a thriving relationship. That's our subtitle. And each of those is something that research and our experience have shown are vital aspects to a successful relationship. For instance, we ask
“Couples create shared values and a vision”
for their relationship. We ask them to demonstrate respect to each other, to communicate well, and to go on dates and do all kinds of things that science is telling us are vital for maintaining a healthy relationship, managing money well, being able to talk about sex, all kinds of things. And then within each of those 19, we ask them to apply the virtues. So, for instance, sharing, laughter, and humor are vital practices. We're calling it a unifier to share laughter and humor.
So if you apply the virtue of respect, then you're not going to be teasing your partner in a way that hits all of their hot buttons and makes them upset. So you're not misusing humor. You would be applying respect so that sharing humor becomes a positive thing. One of our virtues is a positive spirit. Right? So if you have a positive spirit and you are teasing or joking, I will tell a story about my husband as an example. I'm very comfortable in the kitchen. I open up the fridge. I see all kinds of ingredients. I know how they go together. I can put together a meal. My husband opens up the fridge and can't see food. It's like it's invisible. He cannot see that there's food there and what it is that needs to be done with it.
So I found this cartoon of a man standing with an open fridge door. The entire fridge was full of butter. And he's saying to his wife, where's the butter? So that has become one of the teasing jokes in our marriage. He will open up the door and say, I can't see any food here. And I then point out to him what he can cook. But it's things like that that become part of the culture of your marriage, but delivered in a way that nobody gets their feelings hurt.
He's participating, and he's enjoying it, and that's visible. And that makes it a bit more fair game.
And he will initiate it. You know, he'll start joking about it as well. So we've got these 19 practices that if a couple starts to include all of them in their relationship or their marriage over time, they are almost guaranteed to be successful at what they're doing.
And they could perhaps. It doesn't have to be sequential. It could be pick and choose.
They can open up the book at any place they want to. They can look at the table of contents and pick the one that feels pertinent for them at that time. What would be most useful? Absolutely. Anniversary times. I always encourage couples to do a summit, a reflection gathering about the quality of their marriage. What do they want to change in the year ahead?
And you can apply any of the 22 virtues with any of the 19 practices.
Yes. Although we've been kind, we've identified three that particularly apply to each one so that people don't feel overwhelmed.
Nice. Yes. I mean, it's. To have an example, to have a story is super helpful. And to dive in and just start with kind of feels most fitting. Can also. Just experimenting with it and you.
And we've gotten very. We have gotten very practical and very specific. So, for instance, in the humor chapter, the virtue of moderation is there. So then we say, know when to be humorous and when to be serious.
“Balance our life with regular humor. Laugh with each other, not at each other”
So we've tried to be. Tried to be specific about how you would apply that particular virtue.
Thank you.
I love that.
Now, for a couple who's in a lot of stress, and if they're focused on humor and laughter, that can be hard to access. If it's a particularly stressful time. Can you say a little bit more about how this work could support someone to prioritize this a bit more, access it a bit more?
What I see is that it takes time. So often, they'll start meeting with a couple who are in difficulty. There are no smiles, no laughter, and no banter happening between them. And if they start to do small dates with each other, just, you know, go out for coffee, how are you doing? Just have a light conversation and start to do that every week, where they're rebuilding their connection. Then it often happens that there starts to be a little bit of smiling and a little laughter, and I start to see them moving a Little closer to each other. The key is, what can they do that echoes maybe what they did during their early years when they were so in love with each other. What were they doing then? Can they redo it now?
Is it something that they can use to rekindle the connection? What have they not been listening to? If they start to build connection again by sharing what's on their heart, what is it that's concerning them at the moment, and really, truly listening to each other and summarizing it back, their hearts start to reconnect.
“And if their hearts start to reconnect, there's a joyfulness that naturally seems to emerge”
They can start to refine things that are humorous. I often ask couples to tell stories to each other at the end of the day, maybe share something funny that happened in their lives. So they start to rebuild the funny muscles and get used to looking at what's funny in the middle of adversity or in difficulties, so that they see something to laugh at that they might have missed before.
Thank you so much for everything you. I mean, this is not just a one. It's like one focus. There are ways in which this works together. The interconnectedness of these practices, I'm sure, supports the humor. But you're also talking about listening and perhaps attending to one another in this more intimate way. In an intimate way, yes. You and Grant do a beautiful job, and you've given some examples of what questions to help kind of contemplate or even have this idea of consulting. Would you like to say anything about the process, that you both help people dig a little deeper?
And I was really describing consultation earlier when I talked about the couple coming together. One of the things that I encourage couples to do who are having difficulty with coming to a meeting of the minds and feeling like they're moving towards being on the same place, is to actually physically go and get a bowl, preferably one that's attractive, and set it down between them as they're talking, then they can think about sort of a little bit of ego detachment, where what I say goes into the bowl, what my partner says goes into the bowl. What that does is if I stop being attached to my idea, if my partner stops being insistent that something's right, and we both then see this central goal as what we're working towards, there's a mixing that happens.
We start to have ideas or perspectives bump up against each other that look like they're opposite, and then we see a spark of something new in the middle. If we are a spiritual People, we might say a prayer. And that happens. If you're not a spiritual person, you may simply be tuned into the virtue of creativity or inspiration. And that shows up in the middle. What we start to see then is if we detach enough from where we started, then something emerges in the middle that neither of us could have dreamt of. If you're attached to something coming into the discussion and not willing to let go of that, then it derails the entire process.
Thank you so much. I am resonating and have experienced something similar to what you're describing. Without the visual of the bowl, but just my openness to it. I have no idea what the outcome's going to be. I am going to show up, be curious, participate to the best of my ability, and something emerges that I would have never better than I would have ever imagined if I, you know, if I let go of my preconceived agenda. And I love the metaphor of the bull because it's this. I think we are co-creating a relationship, and our relationship has its own dynamic force, almost like its own creation. And so this visual of a bowl, it feels so symbolic of what we're co-creating. And it also feels like what we're both contributing, the ingredients, and then how it's centered.
“It's like the alchemy of what our contributions and others like it start to have their own expression. It's really beautiful.”
It's important, I think, at times to have symbols. Or signals. You know, I remember a comedy skit from years ago where they had agreed. A couple had agreed ahead of time. If one of them started to do something that the other one wasn't happy about, they just tugged on the ear, and you know, then they of course did a skit of a party where the partners were getting a little too obvious with the ear tugging. But I think there are things that help us to remember, like respect. “If we think of the symbol of a bird, and we might have the symbol of a bird in our home or a picture on the wall, if we think about being two wings of that bird and that the bird of our relationship, of our marriage, only flies when we're both strong and when we're both working together, that kind of symbol can be important.”
And the bowl, you know, a circle, makes us think of unity. Right?
Yeah.
Yeah. So when we're struggling with something as a couple, it can be a good discussion to have. How do we signal each other? What is it that would remind us that we don't want to have conflict? What is it that would remind us? Some people have photographs of their families on their desks, for instance. That reminds you of something that you value and something important to you.
“People might have a photo on their phone that is the wallpaper on their phone that they see regularly of somebody that they care very deeply about”
So what is it that we can visually have that reminds us of our values and what's important to us?
Again, I'm coming back to the guiding principles, perhaps. And, you know, people use the language of North Star, these reminders that if we're in a reactive or activated state, to have something to help orient towards. Again, you were describing that if we can be called to a virtue, it's something for us to be working towards that is aligned with our deeper values and what we're ultimately wanting. I think that can help be a steering force.
I call us back to the virtue of respect right now, honey. It doesn't feel like respect is showing up right now for us. What can we do to have that come back into this space between us?
And you said we instead of you.
“Our language is important”
I was talking to a client this morning, actually, because it's their habit to say me and so and instead of the partner's name first and then theirs. And it's so important for us to thoughtfully think of our partner and to be very tuned into what is it that's of service to them. Have them be of service to you. And the language that we use of we and us is so important.
Well, I know we're winding down here. Is there anything you want to say before we talk about how people can get you, and you're in Grant's book?
I'm going to reiterate what I said earlier, that I want you to use the word unity regularly, for that to be very much part of the language. What I'm asking for everyone listening to this podcast is to have the word unity be on the tip of your tongue, that it be part of the everyday language between you and your partner and your children, so that it is part of the whole family culture to be asking, ” Can we do something here to increase our unity? Is there something that is happening to disconnect us, that we can shift and move into being more connected? Part of that is that I'm asking couples to find other couples who are willing to study this content together. I think we need friends who are friends of our relationship.
We need to be learning together to normalize together. And so I offer a discount to people if they are willing to form a group, and if they want books at a discount price. And I have guidelines to help them meet together as a group successfully. They can reach out to me at Susanne, S-U-S-A-N-N-E @marriagetransformation.com, which is also my website, marriagetransformation.com, if they want to simply buy a copy of the book to check it out and start using it. It's available on most online bookstores. They can also get it on my website, which again is @marriagetransformation.com. I'm the only one who sells it as a PDF, but it's available as an ebook and as a paperback from lots of other places. Facebook: www.facebook.com/MarriageTransformation/; Instagram: www.instagram.com/coachsusannealexander/; Youtube: www.youtube.com/user/SusanneMAlexander; LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/marriage-transformation/
Oh, wonderful. I'll make sure to have all of the links on today's show notes, and I was curious if you had people engaging in the work in groups, and it sounds like you're really encouraging that this can be a grassroots type of thing. It doesn't have to be something that's facilitated; people can really say, I want to be in practice and then find other couples that are interested as well. Is that the idea?
It is my perspective that lots of laypeople, so to speak, can do amazing things in support and encouragement of each other. And we're adult learners. We don't always have to have a professional leading a group. I do workshops, and I do work one-on-one with couples. I'm happy to do that, and I want to see more couples who are encouraging and supporting healthy relationships and marriages amongst their friend group and amongst their families.
Excellent. I'm so thrilled to hear that. And that this is accessible in many ways. And it sounds like there's so much more that people can find on your website. Susanne, thank you for all that you and Grant have done, the work you're both doing respectively, and for bringing this work to the world, and for all that you've shared here today.
You're welcome. And thank you, too. It's great to be with you today, Jessica.
The post ERP 528: Love as a Practice: How Virtues Help Couples Stay Connected and Aligned – An Interview with Susanne Alexander appeared first on Jessica Higgins.
Repeating the same old arguments with no satisfying conclusion? It’s a frustrating cycle—misunderstandings compound, resentment simmers, and the sense of connection begins to fade. Many couples find themselves stuck in patterns where efforts to communicate and show love seem to miss the mark, leaving both partners feeling unheard and unfulfilled.
In this episode, listeners will uncover why these recurring disconnects happen and what can be done to break free from them. Through exploring the hidden influence of sensory preferences in communication and love, and sharing actionable techniques for resolving differences, this conversation offers new ways to shift out of gridlock and into genuine connection. From fostering loving curiosity to practical steps for improving empathy and understanding, you’ll find guidance to move past frustrating dead ends and cultivate a more attentive and harmonious relationship.
Julie Nise is a Relationship Trainer and Communication Strategist with a direct, results-driven approach. With over two decades of corporate, entrepreneurial, and clinical experience, she has guided thousands through challenges in communication, trust, and leadership. Her clear, practical strategies have earned national recognition, including appearances on the Dr. Phil Show and commentary on NewsRadio KTRH Houston. Outside her work, she enjoys coastal living, family time, and helping others grow with purpose.
Episode Highlights05:12 How auditory and visual people perceive love differently.
09:25 Predictable steps in both escalating and resolving arguments.
12:36 Finding common ground in preferences.
13:44 The importance of curiosity in communication.
20:17 How rethinking your delivery can transform your relationships.
23:35 Understanding communication challenges.
29:38 How men and women generally express caregiving and love.
33:13 Prioritizing relationships through actions.
36:32 Understanding unhelpful habits origins.
42:57 How acting confident in a new social setting can actually boost your confidence, while staying anxious or reserved tends to leave you feeling the same.
44:47 The Satir model explained.
Your Checklist of Actions to Take Identify your sensory preference: Notice whether you primarily communicate and feel loved through visuals, sounds, or touch to better understand your relational needs. * Observe your partner’s style: Pay close attention to your partner’s actions and language to discern their sensory preference for a more effective connection. * Ask directly for what you need: Clearly articulate your needs and preferences to your partner rather than expecting them to guess. * Use loving curiosity: When facing differences, express curiosity about your partner’s viewpoint by asking, “Can you help me understand why you feel that way?” * Move quickly to solutions: After establishing there is a difference of opinion, skip defending your side and collaboratively brainstorm potential solutions. * Time your communication well: “Read the room” and only attempt important conversations or affectionate gestures when your partner is receptive. * Check how your message lands: Take responsibility for making sure your communication is received as intended by observing your partner’s response and adjusting as needed. * Practice method acting in tough moments:* Even if you’re not “feeling it,” act as if you are loving and confident during important conversations, allowing genuine feelings to follow your behavior.
Mentioned12 Relationship Principles to Strengthen Your Love (free guide)
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Episode Transcript
Julie, thank you for joining us.
Thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure. Nice to meet you finally.
Yeah, likewise. And I know you are a relationship trainer, communication strategist, and you've been working in the field for a very long time, supporting people in having how to improve their relationships a little bit more effectively. So we are talking about the topic. I know we're part of the framing that I had the analogy of an operating system, and you're really talking about the unconscious. How does that show up in an intimate relationship? Where would you like to start?
Well, as I was explaining to you a minute ago off camera, probably 95% of the time, people come in wanting relationship help. They're talking about, we'd like to improve communication, which means a million different things, but there are some really fun things to know about your internal operating system, if you will, or your unconscious mind and your preferences that show up that you're not even aware of until somebody goes, hey, this is what it is. So I thought it might be fun to talk about that.
Yes.
So it turns out that people, most people use one of their three senses, being auditory, visual, or kinesthetic, when they communicate. And it's their preference in how they show and receive love and connection, which is kind of interesting. So if you are, I'm auditory for an example. So, that's the best, of course, I'm just kidding. There's no best. They're all the same. But auditory people are going to be very responsive to tone of voice, volume, word choice, and all that. It's like we have a really, actually, it's a little bit too high-dial-up radar for that. And to us,
“Talking or verbally communicating equals love.”
It's how we want to show love.
“So if we want to show love to somebody, we're going to talk to them, say nice things, or compliment them”
Similarly, when we receive love in the way that we want to receive it has to do with communicating and talking. So, that can get you in a little hot water, too. Because, for example, I mean, I'm really good at this. But sometimes I will say to my husband, who happens to be visual, why are you so annoyed? And he'll look at me and say, I'm not annoyed. And I say, well, you sound like you are. So just because we have this sense about what's going on, you always have to check your awareness at the door because it isn't always accurate. But anyway, that's how an auditory person would like to walk around in the world. A visual person shows love and feels love from someone else when they literally see what they're doing.
So my husband, I mentioned, was visual. So there's a reason why when I give him his dinner, I put it in front of him and go, here you go. Because he can see that. Okay, so whether it's bringing your lover a cup of coffee or, you know, making some dinner plans or straightening up the house, whatever it is, putting the washer from the laundry from the washer into the dryer doesn't matter if they can see it. They're like, oh, that's sweet. And it means love to them. The last one is the kinesthetic folks. Now, obviously, kinesthetic means touch and feel. They're going to feel love and want to express love through literally feeling and touching. Okay, so a great example of a possible conflict would be, let's say, you know, a kinesthetic husband and a visual wife. Just to pick a topic.
So they're sideways. It's her fault. She's got to make it up to him, right? So she's running around straightening the kitchen, putting stuff away, organizing stuff, making it all look great. And he's sitting on the couch, going, ” What are you doing? Just come and sit with me. He wants that connection. So you can get a lot of mismatches that way. Now, there are some tells. Do you play poker?
No.
Okay, well, in poker and card games, there's what we call tells. And that means, like, if you got three aces and you go, that's a tell. Okay. You can see what it's like. So frequently, you can tell which a person is visual, auditory, or kinesthetic because of the way they speak. So, visual people are actually seeing pictures in their heads as they're talking. It's a really unique phenomenon. So they have to talk really fast because it takes a lot of words to describe all the pictures that are going on in their head. Typically, they'll talk fast. Auditory people tend to speak just kind of at a medium pace, medium volume, middle of the road. And kinesthetic people tend to talk very slowly because they're literally feeling viscerally what they're saying.
So you can imagine if you have one partner, this visual, one partner, this kinesthetic, again, you can have a real mismatch just in your sensory preferences.
Yes.
And so as you were educating, and people might be familiar, I mean, it's bringing to mind the five love languages. I'm sure it maps nicely with that. Whether or not someone.
Well, it's a. It's a little bit different because this is based on, literally, your senses.
Yes, that's what I'm saying. Like, I'm not saying that what you're saying isn't like, came after the five. I'm just saying, like, there might be some correlation with Gary Chapman. I mean, I think it's a good categorization. I don't necessarily like to heavily reference it, but when people are listening to our orientation around how we give and receive love, and how he's categorized. So you're talking about the senses, and do you feel like it? It maps, like, for his work. Like, do you feel like some?
Yeah.
Okay.
But I've found that it's, for example, the words of affirmation. You know, everybody likes to hear nice things that are complimented, but it has so much more significance to an auditory person.
Yes.
If I complimented a kinesthetic person, they'd be like, it just. It isn't quite that same thing. But there certainly is some correlation. And the bigger point is to find out what you like and what you need, and find out what your partner needs and likes. Because
“Loving someone is not about how you feel. It's about how you make the other person feel”
Yeah. So you need to find out all you can about what the other person is all about.
“And how do you help people identify that?”
“Well, that's one way. The other way is that we go through a lot of communication techniques. Like, a lot of couples get very hung up on arguments. And there is a very predictable set of steps to have an argument and end up in a train wreck.” In fact, I prick that out, and I hand it to people. I say, okay, I've never met you before, but can you just look at this list and validate that this is what you're going through? And they go, yeah, wow, that's really true. So, yes, there's a predictable set of steps for an argument. There's also a predictable set of steps to resolve an argument.
“And does this correlate with the sensory, the auditory?”
No.
Okay.
“This is just behavior. So in a nutshell, we can make it real simple because I'd love your listeners to have something to leave with. It's concrete. So you're going to have disagreements in a relationship. That's normal. You can't avoid it. You can't put any two people together without differences of opinion.” Right. So what you do with those differences of opinion is Critical to maintaining a connection. Normally, what people do is, I think this, and I think that, okay, great, there's your difference of opinion. But the problem is they start from there, and then they dive deeply into why this is right. Why that's right, why this is better. Why is this better? And then they start getting sideways because they get defensive. And then another thing, and pretty soon you're in a train wreck and disconnecting, not listening, not hearing, not caring what the other person's going through. And the worst of it is, you don't really need all that. What you need is some resolution to the fact that this is different. Right. So what I teach them, which is pretty straightforward, is not rocket science. Once you establish there's a difference of opinion. Great, that's fabulous. Now skip over all that middle stuff entirely. You don't need to go into why it's different and give opinions because you start arguing your case like an attorney, and that's really when things tip over. So skip all of that and go directly to solutions. Given all that, what are the solutions that would work for both people? So they're reasonably okay, and we can call that done. For example, I'd like to paint the living room blue. Well, I'd like to paint the living room green. Great. Okay, never mind why blue is green and blue is better, and green is better. What goes with blue? Never mind all that. What are some solutions that would work?
And it's really funny, Jessica, when I have people actually do that little pop quiz exercise, after I teach them how to do it, they'll literally get a blank look on their face, and most of the time can't come up with but a couple of possible solutions when there's a dozen anyway, that you could come up with off the top of your head. So getting your brain trained to think in terms of solutions, not why you're right, is worth the effort.
Yes, in my experience, this exercise of getting out of the content or perspective helps people start to either have more empathy and understanding for their partner or, with their partner's curiosity, have a deeper understanding of why it matters. So it's not so much the idea or the position, it's why it matters. And if we can start to understand those deeper needs, why blue is a desired color, or green, like how that's significant, how come that matters? And then once we can get into the understanding of the deeper need or the deeper mattering, then generating solutions that support both of that, then that opens up a lot more of, oh, so you want something calming, or you want something that feels like it represents health and vitality?
And could we explore, like, how we could find a color that really supports both of those things, and maybe there's a lot more range there.
Teal is a really good option.
I know, right? Yes.
Well, that's an excellent point about the understanding because really, how in the heck can you come up with a solution that works when you don't even understand the why of what somebody needs or wants? Right. That was kind of the shortcut version to avoid an argument. But the longer version is curiosity is your best tool, be curious, and don't do it backwards. You don't want to go too far into what your opinion is before you know what the other person wants. Besides being just very respectful and non-confrontational, that will actually get you some information that would be useful to make that solution viable. So curiosity is your best bet. I teach them to say things like, I don't think I agree with that, but I'm really curious why you do. Could you help me understand that? I call it loving curiosity.
The tone of voice with which you say it is everything. Of course. But yeah, that's a really good thing instead of just pounding out your opinion.
Yes. And thank you for giving just some language around, even if you can acknowledge the difference, because I think that's where people sometimes get stuck, is they feel as though if they're interested, they're going to be condoning and abandoning their position. So just to give some like, okay, I'm going to put a pin in my position, and I'm going to just entertain and try to.
Let's expand that just a little bit because that's an excellent point. Actually. I could do you. You could tell me that the grass is pink and the sky is purple. I do not have to agree with that to say, ” Wow, you know, it's so interesting you see it that way. I'd love to know why you think so. I don't have to agree with any of it. That's not the point. That's exactly right. So, having that calmness and not going into a defensive mode. Well, no, it's not. Yes, it is. If you get into a. Yes, it is. No, it isn't. You're. You're messed up. Another thing I teach for communication that probably would be really helpful to, as a tidbit to take away is people's perspectives. Okay.
Many people and couples get in just in real life get very off track and very in the Weeds when they start arguing perspective again, you could absolutely a thousand percent believe it's pink grass and purple sky. I don't want to say, ” No, it isn't, because you're going to say, ” Yes, it is, and then you have a yes, it is. No, it isn't. Yes, I did. No, I didn't. And that goes absolutely nowhere. Instead, that's the loving curiosity part. I don't think I agree with that, but I'd really love to know why you do, and then shut up. Yeah, let them tell you, calm down. It doesn't have to be decided in 3.5 seconds. You know, give a little space. Make a little space. A safe space for that dialogue.
Right. So, not just go through the exercise, but to genuinely wonder and contemplate.
“Be genuine curiosity, loving curiosity”
If you're loving about it means you are empathetic and patient and looking out for the other person as well.
And when I've been in that more contemplative and just trying to seek that understanding, I will often have a new understanding that I wouldn't have otherwise, if I hadn't paused.
Okay. So you brought up the difference. The three different types based on the sensory input and how one is processing. And you're talking about common steps where couples get into trouble trying to address a difference. And also some real recommendations around how to do it in a more productive, fruitful way. Can you give us a layering here around how these differences could show up in a difficult conversation? So the auditory, you gave the tone of voice. Really being mindful of the tone of voice. I'm also recognizing posture or perhaps positioning. Do you want to give us just some more? Even the visual?
Sure. So you bring up an excellent point. You know as well as I do that,
“93% or thereabouts of communication is in fact body language”
It's really hard for an auditory person like me to really grasp that. But, you know, it's just a default. There's so much a kinesthetic person has so much value on what he can touch and feel, you know, just the way it is. But yeah, so those can show up in disagreements or difficult subjects. Because, of course, when you feel pressure, we all experience stress of any kind. There's a natural regression. Right. To former ways of being in emotional states.
So if I'm going, if I'm auditory and I'm under stress and pressure, I'm going to back up into what I unconsciously think of as my strong suit, which means I'm going to talk, and when we're under stress, our awareness drops. I tell people all the time, the single best, in my opinion, the single best relationship skill you can ever have is the ability to come outside your head, notice only what's going on in front of you, and respond just to that. Because we get way too much in our heads, you know, but anyway, similarly, a visual person would also be regressing into what they can see. They're going to rely on that strength, that sense that has the strength. So that's naturally going to distort reality and perception.
Yes. So I don't know if you have. If people show up with a stronger tendency, but also have the others. Because I feel like I can recognize inside myself the auditory. And it's just interesting. I know you wanna respond to that.
Well, just that it's interesting as you are describing the protective tendency to pull back. But the verbalizing is often looking at the outside to the other as a pursuit, like talking or even asking questions that come out. And I will say for myself, if I'm in that state, sometimes I'm concluding things and verbalizing them. And my husband's like, I did not say that. Or that is not at all what I mean. And so me reflecting on it is like, I have to really slow down and watch my. The connections that I'm making are incorrect.
Right. That's okay. That's exactly right. So another thing that might be useful for your folks that I teach often, one of the first things I teach, actually in the first part of the programs that I do, the real meaning of your communication is not underline, not what you thought you said or meant to say or intended to say. It is only. The real meaning of your communication is only in the feedback or response you get, which is mind-blowing for a lot of people. So I tell people, never again can you say, ” Well, I didn't mean that. No, can't say that anymore.
If you really wrap your head around that concept, what we're talking about is you have to slow down and spend, you know, a second and a half or more thinking about what's going on, what's going to happen in front of you, who you're talking to, and what message you actually want to convey. So even though I may 100% think I complimented you, like, actually, you have a pretty necklace on. So if I said, ” Gee, that's a really pretty necklace, Jessica. You know, that doesn't sound like a compliment to you, does it?
No. And your body language for people who are just listening is like a little.
Bit of body language. Terrible. Yes. So now the thing is, I may have genuinely really thought I complimented you. Okay. But if you say, ” What's wrong with my necklace? That's not the response I want. So anything short of, oh, thanks, this, you know, it's my friend gave it to me, or it's my birthday present, or whatever, you tell me something about it that shows you are receiving a complaint and you're happy about that. Until I get that, I have not communicated effectively, and that's on me because I'm the speaker.
Okay. So I love that. Yes, go ahead.
Good. I'm glad you do.
Well, I think it's something that people don't maybe do that extra step, because the expression of the sender in the communication is what the sender is feeling responsible for, rather than the actual landing of the sender and the receiving, communicating, and connecting. “And for someone listening like that, maybe isn't so skilled at reading their audience or being able to deliver in a way that might be more digestible. This might feel like a lot of responsibility. Can you say more about?”
“Sure. Well, it is the responsibility of the speaker. Now, it's true sometimes your listener or receiver may not be paying attention, may have something else on their mind, and you send it out, fine, but it still wasn't delivered. You know, you didn't end up with the actual compliment they were happy with.” So still, in all, as the speaker, you have some responsibility for reading the room. And if your partner is not able to receive a compliment in that moment for some reason because they've been out of shape about something else, then, hello, read the room, do it later. But if you're trying to communicate a loving thought or a compliment or something positive, that's an important thing in a relationship. So make sure it lands right.
Way or really make an attempt to put effort into the delivery. I'm hearing, because I do think there probably are scenarios maybe for some listening that, like, I don't know that I could have done it any better. And when we are being mindful and conscientious, and we're doing the best that we can, and we're getting, and we're really evaluating with any feedback that it doesn't seem like they got it, and we're really checking in, there could be something going on, as you said, and maybe not the great time. Not a Good time. There could be other things, right, that even if we come back to it, there's still sensitivity, there's still a fear. And any, they're kind of seeing or hearing through a lens that is maybe distorting things a bit, depending on some past experiences.
And not to blame, but just to say other influences make that challenging.
Well, one of the best things you can do in a relationship, as you well know, is have a lot of awareness of the other person. And that alone solves a lot of those kinds of issues, doesn't it? So, you know, it's something we all have to practice. We don't come out fabulous at it. And even when you're often good at it, sometimes you blow it. But
“The real meaning of your communication really is how it's received”
So whether you have to slow down a little bit, pick a better time, notice what's going on with that person. If somebody just lost their dog, is out loose, and they're frantic about finding it, that's not the time. I want to have just a little chit, chatty conversation, and expect my, expect them to have the ability to take in what I'm saying.
Or, you know, perhaps if there's like a trauma response or something that someone's feeling activation around the sensitivity to, okay, that person is not available, or it's blocking their capacity to hear. And it's unfortunate because, like, I won't. We won't be able to communicate. But then that might take priority.
And that goes along. I'm, of course, I'm using verbal analogies. But that also goes along with. What if you're kinesthetic and you just want to communicate? You can't walk up and give somebody a warm hug when they're frantic about, you know, some other issue that's not gonna work. So, however it goes, you need to read the room. Have some empathy for the person you're talking to and make sure it's gonna be timed well, you know, it's something that they can receive.
Would you like to say anything about? For couples where one is more kinesthetic and the other is more auditory or visual, and the kinesthetic is speaking but not using words well, or communicating and not using words.
Communicating. Right. Oh, and they do communicate. They really do, actually. Interestingly, as a side note, which one you are will be largely evident in the words that you choose. So, for example, a kinesthetic person. If I'm going to say, if I'm going to encourage them about what I'm teaching them. I'll say, okay, first of all, I have to slow down my voice. So for you, Fred, this is going to be really easy to take in because it's going to be very smooth. It won't be rough to understand, and when you take it in, it will feel very grounded, settled, and solid for you. That's why it'll be easy for you to learn. Now, to the visual and auditory people are going, huh? What are you talking about? But to the kinesthetic person, they're going to go, oh, good, that's great.
So you actually use different words and phrases depending on what you are. Visual people often will say things like, oh, I see that. That's clear. Auditory people, I hear you clear as a bell. Yeah, and a kinesthetic person would often say things like, yeah, that feels right. I can take that in. Let me digest that for a minute.
Right, okay. So for the couple where the kinesthetic one.
One or the other.
Yes.
So, like everything else, this is not really different.
“If you want to be successful in a relationship, you have to have a very strong motivation and understanding that it is your job to make the other person feel as loved as you can”
“Loved and understood and accepted.” So whether they're visually oriented or maybe they're blind, whether they love sushi or they can't stand Chinese food, whatever it is, if they like the bed soft and you like it hard, there's a million differences we're going to navigate. These are not hard. They're actually kind of cool because they're predictable.
Especially, there's consistency. Right?
A visual person is always going to respond in a certain way. Auditory and so on and so forth. So it's not like it's difficult, but you have to be mindful of the person that you're with so that you can connect. You connect when you have these interactions that are comfortable, and they make and they feel understood.
Yes. So for someone who's listening, who has a propensity to be very conscientious of their significant other, or maybe even runs the pattern of hypervigilance, or people pleasing, the attentiveness and the reciprocity of attentiveness might not be balanced. And so I'm wondering, how do you encourage people who are a little bit more apt to be caregivers, and their partner is not as skilled at caregiving or attentiveness? How, how do you help someone feel more understood or help their partner become more skillful in taking responsibility for their delivery?
Right? Well, we are actually on very thin ice. When you start talking about caregiving and people pleasing, that makes the little hairs in the back of my neck stand up. But the broad answer to your question is because there's always going to be differences, aren't there? You know, nobody has. Very few people have equal caregiving or attentiveness going on. But I think it's safe to say that it's not that there's a big lack in the difference. It's just a different way of caregiving or a different way of showing love. So men, very generally speaking, tend to show love through what they provide and how they protect, and that sort of thing. Women tend to very generally tend to show it through physical contact and, being sweet and all that kind of stuff.
So I think in the end it balances out if you have the right intention. I think intentions are everything. Now, the subject of people pleasing is a whole different thing. All different.
Okay, so I would love to hear your thoughts on that before we pivot. So for one, that's not feeling heard, and is struggling to feel responded to.
That's very common.
Are you. And they've made a lot of effort to communicate, and it appears that their partner understands. But maybe their partner isn't taking the same care with them.
To respond. Yeah. So you must be very clear about what it is you need to have your needs met. Okay. There should not be guessing. I'm stunned by the number of people who say he should just know. No, he shouldn't. You gotta tell him in detail. So ultimately it's your responsibility to say, you know, this is what I like. This is what I don't care for. This is great. That's not all that kind of stuff. Now, if the partner takes in that information and then ignores it, you've got a different problem. Is that what you were referring to?
I'm speaking more about dynamics. Yes. That if one is doing more of the caregiving around delivery, let's say the partner is not being as careful with their communication or isn't being considerate in all the ways you're describing. And it's not reciprocal.
They're not reciprocal enough.
Enough.
Okay. So in that case, we have probably on the part of the partner who's not reciprocating enough. We have a failure to have empathy and perhaps a failure of commitment to the relationship.
“So if you're in a committed relationship, especially a marriage, your job is to be a good husband or wife”
That's your primary job. And to do that has to be top of mind. I suggest to people who've had kids, it's very much like when your kids were little, itty bitty babies. I'll ask them what your most important job was then? And they'll say, ” Oh, to make sure they're fed. I'm like, the most important job you had then was to make sure they are alive. Okay, that's not the thing that takes up the most time in the day, clearly.
But it is the number one thing that has to be on your mind all the time. In fact, it probably never left your mind for months and months they got older. Similarly, if you are a wife or a husband, it would be really useful if that role, that I'm the partner here, is top of mind. It's not going to be the thing that takes up the most time in the day, but it has to have priority. And the slippery slope of the kind of situation you're talking about, Jessica, is that you can always tell what people value, regardless of what they say, because it's what they will spend time, money, effort, and awareness on.
And if you're not spending time, money, effort, and awareness on something, you do not value it, though it's fine to say, oh yeah, I value being a good wife or I value being a good partner. Well, it's gotta show up in your behaviors, and the result is everything. If your partner feels loved and heard and appreciated, and it's got enough reciprocity to make everybody happy, then you're good. But you can't just say, well, that's how I was raised, or that's what I've always done, or those kinds of things.
Yes, great. And then you wanted to respond to the people pleasing.
Oh, yes. Well, gosh, there are an awful lot of people pleasers, and I, I just. Okay, you, I'm sure you know of Virginia Satir. So I love to use that model for when it's not safe to have leveling conversations where you can be authentic and show up calmly and lovingly, state what the differences are, and then sort of get right to a great solution. Similar to what I described before. When it's not safe to level. “People have four strategies that they deploy unconsciously, things that we all do. Blaming, placating, computing, and distracting.” So the placator is actually the most manipulative of those four. And they usually start off being really nice people anyway. There's this extra little Bit of nice on top. That's fake. It's disingenuous.
And the only reason they're using that level is that they want to take pressure off. They don't want to get into a hassle, they don't want to create a problem or an argument. And so they disingenuously tell people what they want to hear. But the problem is, every single time, a hundred percent, the only place that lands is in resentment, as you well know. So.
Or it comes out sideways, and it's confusing to the receiver.
Always confusing. Well, as the receiver of somebody who's placating you. How in the hell could you know what they're? What they're really all about, what the real deal is?
Then you can feel that it's not congruent, and then it's like, yeah, it's off. Yeah.
And really, they're actively manipulating to avoid the stress of a hassle or problem. But it's awful because being in resentment all the time is really stressful. If you're the kind of person who walks around going, oh, it's okay, I can take your son home from practice. It's no trouble. It's on my way. And then, as you're walking away, you go, she never takes my son home, and I need help. That's where it ends, right? That's where it lands. So you don't want to spend your life in resentment. That means you have to strap your big girl panties on and say, no, I'm sorry, I can't do it this time. I'd love to. Could you ask me another time? This isn't a good time for me. Can we do it later or something?
But no is the word they need to start saying a lot more.
Yes, yes.
Yeah, it's not fun to be a placator, but they've usually done it forever. And we should point out too, all of these things that we're talking about that are, let's say, useless strategies or patterns or unconscious habits, all started for a good reason. At some point, so we don't want to give anybody the impression that they're wrong or bad or anything like that. Most of the time, people's habits that are no longer useful or serving them started for really good reasons a long time ago. And the problem is usually childhood. And the problem is, they just brought those coping strategies or perceptions forward when they're not useful. We all do that, by the way, until you maybe get some training or you get some feedback. Or you go talk to somebody and say, oh, I don't have to do that anymore.
Because, gosh, I'm 45 and I don't have. I'm not in my childhood anymore.
Right, and circumstances that are no longer needed. And as you're saying, it was an adaptive strategy at one point, but it may no longer serve. Now, you mentioned Virginia Satir. For people who don't know her work, do you want to say a little bit about. Sure.
She was a rather brilliant psychotherapist back in the mid-70s. She was also somewhat involved with the folks who started NLP, Neuro Linguistic Programming. Very, very smart, very, extremely empathetic lady. And she did so much work with so many families and so forth that she sort of observed these patterns that I just mentioned and highly advocates for what I love, which is the concept of the leveling conversation. It's quite different than the way people mostly have conversations when there's a difference of opinion. But it really works a lot better. And like anything else, if you want a stellar, excellent relationship, you need to work at getting the skills that make that so, just fall out of the sky and hit you on your head.
And for curious people, do you want to say a little bit more about these leveling conversations?
Sure. So you would start with, I guess, the mood you're in. You know, your mood state of mind determines everything. So you kind of have to take a breath, be willing to slow down, and focus on your outcome. The name of my website is Outcomes Only for a reason. I am a thousand percent believe outcomes are everything.
“Everything you do and everything you say should be directed toward one of your many goals and outcomes in your life”
And if it is not that way, then what you're doing or saying is either irrelevant or it's damaging. I draw a line in the sand with that. So we don't want to be irrelevant or damaging, wasting time. So if everything you do is directed toward that, things will change right away.
So that's the mentality or the mood you wanna go into with leveling conversations, is you have to be focused. There's an outcome here. I'm not just gonna vomit up feelings. That's not the point. And I don't wanna have it tilt into negative. Cause the minute you get into negative stuff, you're gonna go be going a whole different direction. If you have a goal of having a safe, lovely, romantic, connected relationship, then you have to protect that because that's a sacred thing. That's a sacred thing, and you have to protect it by not letting your mood or emotion of the moment screw it all up, which is why. And some people will totally throw up at this. And I understand, but I don't really care what you feel a lot. A lot of the time. I care what you choose to do.
“Feelings ideally should match the outcome that you want to have, not your feelings of the moment”
like taking your emotional temperature. How is this affecting me now? Do I like it? Do I not like it? Am I okay? Am I not okay? You can make yourself nuts with that. Right. So, the mood you're in, you start with a heartfelt, true desire to work out whatever this difference is with your partner in a loving, productive way. So you're. First of all, you're going to be calm. You're not going to be all jacked up. You are going to be loving, like considering the other person's needs, and how they might like this to go. You are going to be focused on the future, like your outcome and patient.
Then you just go through the process of briefly describing what the issues might be and why they are. And like, what would you need? It's not what I think. It's more like, here's what I need. Maybe a little bit of why. So everybody understands. And then again, it's the idea. You dive right into solutions. Not being right is a dangerous, dangerous thing in a relationship.
Agreed. And I guess when you were describing the state that someone's including their emotional state, I'm thinking about people who maybe are like, what if I feel some depression or anxiety or really experiencing a lot of, you mentioned grief or some level of pain. Accessing trauma. And I do think that sometimes we can have a part of us that has the capacity to show up for these relationships, even if we're individually negotiating a lot of big feelings, that there's still a part of us that can show up and that can still be enough to generate or kind of focus on the love and the solution. Tell me what you think.
Sure. Well, it's very true that often what we need to do in our lives, we're not necessarily going to feel like doing. That's normal. The issue, though, is that
“If your relationship is important enough to you and you're taking on that responsibility in an ethical, empathetic, adult way, you simply can't let feelings get in the way of your outcome.”
So there's something to be said for acting as if. All right, method acting is what I teach. If you are, we'll just pick a subject that's not this one, particularly, but if somebody lacked confidence, let's say that's how they legitimately felt. By the way, that isn't necessarily reality; it's just how they feel.
Okay.
And if they walk around in a, let's say, a new social environment feeling, you know, kind of weak and puny and being anxious and not approaching people and staying to themselves, acting anxious, they're going to finish that evening exactly the way they started it. Conversely, if a person was initially anxious or nervous and not feeling confident, but they decided to act methodically as if they were confident, that means everything in their behavior would change. So they walk in, their chest is out, their head is high, they're talking to people, they're meeting people, they're wandering around, interacting. By the end of that night, they will feel genuinely more confident because their feelings will catch up to their behavior. It doesn't work in reverse. So you can't walk into that social gathering and go, I hope I'm going to be confident.
That's not how it works.
Yeah.
So, method acting, this idea of going into the leveling conversation, will work a whole lot better than if you don't.
Yes. Thank you. And I know we're winding down. Is there anything you want to say that you haven't mentioned here? Based on our conversation, as you were.
Talking about the auditory, visual, and kinesthetic, you mentioned that you. You think you might be auditory, but you have some of the other characteristics. That's very true. I neglect. And I'm glad you mentioned that, because I neglected to mention that very often we have a different sensory strategy depending on the situation. So, for example, I am auditory. I shared that. But in a love attraction strategy, I'm very kinesthetic. If I'm in a pity party, my sensory strategy is going to be emotional. Again, kinesthetic, visual, and other. You know, because. So, in other words, it could be different. We usually have one primary, but we can easily flip around. And similarly with the Satir model, you might be essentially a placator or a blamer or whatever, but in a different context, you. We could use all of those.
It's amazing how I can distract because that's not my primary in the Satir model, but it's amazing how I can distract with cleaning out a closet rather than going to the dentist or something. You know, I could find a million things to do if there's something I don't want to do.
Right.
And that's normal.
We all do that for sure. Absolutely. Wonderful. Well, thank you for mentioning that. And where would you like to encourage people to connect with you?
Well, if anybody is interested in the kind of programs or training that I do, they can easily find me @outcomesonly.com There's a little form you can fill out, and we will take it from there. Instagram: www.instagram.com/outcomesonly/; Facebook: www.facebook.com/profile.php
Okay. And what might people find on your website?
Well, they'll find a little bit more about how relationship training is different than therapy. I don't do traditional therapy at all. It's actually radically different. And it'll have a lot of the outcomes and results that people get from their own mouths. So if you want to be encouraged that there is an ability to change and grow and learn, it doesn't have to be hard. It could actually be kind of fun. And that's, I guess, the main message of the website.
Okay, great. So there are tons of testimonials and ways to get support. Wonderful. I'll make sure to have the link to your website on today's show notes. Thank you so much for all that you've shared.
It's my pleasure. It was really fun. I hope you feel like your listeners got some good information.
Yes, I do.
Perfect. All right, well, you have a great rest of the day, and thank you again for the invitation.
Likewise. Thank you, too. Enjoy the rest of your day. Bye.
The post ERP 527: How Unconscious Patterns Shape Communication and Why We Miss Each Other — An Interview with Julie Nise appeared first on Jessica Higgins.
Are you tired of feeling like you have to choose between keeping the peace and being true to yourself in your relationships? Many people mistake silence for harmony, stuffing down their true feelings for fear of conflict, only to wake up one day feeling unheard, unseen, and disconnected. But what if speaking up—being honest about your needs and setting boundaries—was actually the path to deeper connection and intimacy, not the source of division?
In this episode, listeners are invited to rethink what it means to be authentic in close relationships, especially when it comes to sharing hard truths or setting limits. You’ll hear insights on why self-assertion is not about ruining relationships, but about bringing your whole self into them. By exploring practical strategies, emotional tools, and real-life examples, this conversation guides you in overcoming the fear of rocking the boat—so you can communicate courageously and build relationships where both people feel truly known and valued.
Tonya Lester, LCSW, is the author of Push Back: Live, Love, and Work with Others Without Losing Yourself. A Brooklyn-based psychotherapist and writer known for her work with relationships and communication, her essay “Couples Therapist, Heal Thyself” was published in the Modern Love column in The New York Times, and she has been writing the popular Staying Sane Inside Insanity blog for Psychology Today since 2020. She has been featured as an expert in The Guardian, Newsweek, Well+Good, HuffPost, Fatherly, and the Bumble site, The Buzz.
Episode Highlights04:03 The link between speaking up, emotional intimacy, and common gendered roles.
07:18 Navigating differences: collaboration, needs, and the relationship as a system.
12:40 Embracing discomfort and staying present with unresolved issues.
13:53 The importance of vulnerability and framing difficult conversations safely.
17:02 Applying healthy pressure: strengthening or releasing relationships.
19:56 Recognizing the “shock absorber” role and its impact on self and intimacy.
23:10 Identifying “shock magnets”: escalation, withdrawal, and unhealthy conflict cycles.
27:29 Communicating effectively with kindness.
30:38 Defining self-possession and its role in relational health.
32:49 Using internal signals and “weathervane” emotions for personal growth.
38:11 Building emotional maturity: self-compassion, timeouts, and ongoing practice.
40:38 Understanding and managing emotional activation.
42:42 Addressing hidden relationship dynamics and the importance of modeling boundaries.
48:21 Exploring possibilities: challenging feelings of being trapped and opening to choice.
51:41 Putting clarity into practice: actionable tools and lasting relationship change.
Your Checklist of Actions to Take Practice Soft Startups: Begin hard conversations with vulnerability and clarity about your intentions rather than leading with anger or accusation to lower defensiveness in your partner. * Name Your Emotions: Before raising a difficult topic, identify and share your underlying emotions, such as fear, anxiety, or longing, to increase openness. * Set Boundaries with Clarity: Clearly state what is not working for you in the relationship and propose specific changes, avoiding blame or generalizations. * Tolerate Unresolved Issues: Accept that not every problem will have an immediate solution and practice tolerating the discomfort of ongoing, in-process conversations. * Take Breaks When Activated: When conflict escalates, or emotions run high, pause the conversation and use activities like taking a walk or shower to regulate your nervous system before returning. * Use “I” Statements: Use concise, direct language to express your needs and feelings without attacking or criticizing your partner. * Reflect on the System: Regularly assess if both partners are contributing to the emotional work and call out patterns where efforts are imbalanced. * Model Self-Possession:* Take responsibility for your own happiness and choices, setting an example for both yourself and others—including children—about how to live in alignment with your values.
MentionedPush Back: Live, Love, and Work with Others Without Losing Yourself (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
About Tonya Lester (Psychology Today)
Shifting Criticism For Connected Communication (Free guide)
How Being “Difficult” Can Assist Growth & Development In Relationship (ERP 360)
Connect with Tonya LesterWebsite: tonyalester.com
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Episode Transcript
Tonya, thank you for joining us again.
I'm thrilled to be here. Thank you so much for having me, Jessica.
Yes. And I will put your previous episode from years ago on today's show notes for people who might be interested in catching that first conversation with you.
How Being “Difficult” Can Assist Growth & Development In Relationship
And you recently wrote a book, and we're going to be talking about some of those concepts here. But for people getting to know you're a psychotherapist, licensed clinical social worker, you're an author, and a huge contributor and writer on many different platforms. And do you want to say the name of your most recent book?
Yeah, it's called Pushback: Live, Love, and Work with Others Without Losing Yourself.
Yeah. And we're going to be focusing on intimate relationships. Given the nature of this show, and largely, it seems like, I don't know if you would say, but when I was reading the book, it felt like how to have the balance of being connected in a relationship. “Holding on to yourself and also holding onto yourself often incorporates negotiating with others around limits and boundaries. That's not a nose easy formula.”
“No, it's not easy, but one of the main points I wanted to make with the book, and I'm always bringing up, is that when we assert ourselves, and we set limits and we say the hard things, we're actually moving towards emotional intimacy. And I think sometimes we have an idea that conflict cuts it off. But the truth is, if you're not speaking up, then you're not known. And if you're not known, then you do not have emotional intimacy.” And so I really encourage people, especially women, who think of ourselves, of course, as relationship keepers, to look at this as we're trying to actually go deeper,
“We're not trying to throw hand grenades or ruin relationships. We're trying to be brave and bring our full selves to these relationships and hopefully be met with someone who wants to know our full selves”
So that's definitely the goal of the book.
Thank you for just illustrating that. Because I couldn't agree with you more on the front end or short-term focus, it might seem as though, oh, we're keeping things in more stability or harmony to accommodate or appease. I mean, I work with a lot of men who are in this tendency of, please, like the happy wife, happy life. Right. Like, and there are a lot of ways in which it shows up maybe a little differently, but it's similar in its essence to not bring oneself, desire, limits, boundaries to the relationship for fear of creating that disruption or conflict. And yet fast forward, as you're saying, if the relationship can develop, it is not going to be an expression of both people. Thus, extremely limited.
Absolutely. You know the kind of the stereotype of the very shut-down male. Right. Who doesn't share anything about his day, just pops a beer and watches television, kind of opts out of a lot of like a more intense or emotional conversations, is, I think, the sort of male equivalent of the. I call women shock absorbers in my book. Meaning we take the shocks, we take the upset feelings, we smooth over the rough edges, and try to make sure everyone gets along and takes on this very self-sacrificing role. The male equivalent of that might be. I'm just going to shut down and not say the hard things because happy wife, happy life. Which is, it's such a funny saying. Right. It's just like let's have a connected wife happy life, and like an expressed husband happy life. If we can do that in these healthy ways. Right. We're trying to strike and strengthen the bond. Yes. And that's the only way to do it.
Absolutely. And it's easier said than done. And, I know we're kind of talking about it right now, but I would love to get a little bit more specific, and just to also name when we're talking about some of the gender pieces we're speaking stereotypically. I do have men who are occupying a lot of the emotional intelligence space in the relationship, and a lot of their female partners are a little bit more dominant, not wanting to collaborate. And it's extremely frustrating to really deeply long for something that can be co-created, and yet it's so conflictual, or there are so many obstacles to achieving that.
Absolutely. You know what I think of all the time with couples when I'm working with a couple, and they can kind of get on this idea of what we're looking for, which is communication and collaboration. And you know, I love the idea that if you're not happy, I'm not happy. If you're happy, I'm happy. And this idea that I'm going to invest in your happiness and you will invest in mine, and there will be that reciprocity, and not saying your happiness isn't more important than mine, but it isn't less. And I think we vary.
It's so easy to end up in this kind of one down, one opposition and instead of saying like let's put our cards on the table, how do we co create a family life, a relationship, a life together where we're both getting our needs met about, you know, 70 to 80% of the time when I meet a couple and someone says I'm 100% happy, I don't have a single complaint. I think I bet your partner doesn't feel that way. If someone is a hundred percent, then I think someone else is giving up too much. Right. It's like we're two separate people. We're going to have differences; we're going to have different needs. And so what I tell couples to aim for is like, let's aim for like 80% of our needs met in this relationship. And then I think both people can then have 80%.
A hundred percent means to me that someone is shutting down.
Yes. And likely even that 10, 15% or even 20% could be in process or may to your point, never quite be reaching this collaborative win, but that it's okay and that there's some tension and that's still part of the evolution and working together, that we can still find a way to find balance of taking care of ourselves and the relationship. And one other thing too, just as you're talking, it feels as though there's a system, this perspective around the system, like the couple as a system that we're not just looking out for. Number one.
Right.
I know we know that in a relationship. But then we can also run the risk of being so for the other person or thinking that's the way to love, and we lose ourselves. So this dance of both individuals, but also the couple bond, is its own entity. So there's this systems perspective that I think can really help when looking at how we work together and be more collaborative.
Right? That's right. Yeah, I love that. Definitely a systems perspective. And definitely a season of life like this is part of that. Yes. And so when I say 80%, I don't mean you have to sit at a B forever. What I'm talking about more is an example of my own life, which I refer to in the book, is that for years, my husband and I disagreed on where to live, and this was something that came up constantly. What I think is important, and again in the book, I talk about grappling with issues and deal breakers. Right? Deal breakers. We really are untenable. We can't take it.
Grappling issues are hard issues, but we can continue to be in conversation about them even if we're the ones who aren't happy with how it's going.
“We can keep looking at ways to sort of find a path through that obstacle of just wanting different things”
And often eventually. And I say in the book, my husband and I now have two homes, which we're so lucky for. And I understand that's not feasible for everyone, but we spend time in both places. And eventually, when our daughter graduates, it'll be 50. And it was like we finally did it. Like, we argued about this. We've been married 26 years, like, 24 years. And then. And didn't just argue, like, tried to brainstorm and collaborate and look at what is possible here.
And what's possible right now is not possible when our children were little. But this idea is that no one feels shut down. It's like, this isn't working right now. It is still unsettled for me. I want to have this on the dashboard of the things that we talk about to see if new possibilities open up over time. And that, to me, is not being like, well, he won that argument, now it's over forever. Or I won that argument, now it's over forever, instead of being like, yeah, this isn't quite working. This is where we are now. How can we keep these decisions in play and evolve?
Oh, my goodness.Thank you for the example. And really making that relatable in the sense of lived life and couplehood. And Tonya, I mean, can we name maybe some of what this requires? “One of the things I'm thinking is being able to tolerate some of the discomfort of staying in the, it's not quite where we want it to be. And that's uncomfortable as humans to, like, be unresolved or in process, unresolved.”
“And I think because oftentimes we are so activated by conflict that bringing something up that seems like it's not fixable is.” We tend to really avoid those conversations. And I say to people all the time, and this is my own growing edge still, I am still. All this work. I do all this work with couples. I wrote the book, and still I have to push myself to say hard things. I don't like conflict. I like things to be fun and smooth, and everyone getting along. But to say even things like, I'm stressed about money. I don't know what we can do about it, but I just want to talk about it because it's on my mind. And I recognize that you don't have a solution, but can you help me process this? Can this be on the table?
I don't want to be the only one holding this anxiety. I think things like that are so important. And I think very often, if there's not an obvious solution, we're like, why even bring it up? What's the point? But those conversations, when they're stifled, really build a wall between you and your partner. And often all we want from our partner is, I'm with you. This sounds really hard. I know we're stuck now, but I believe in us. And if we can keep chipping away at this, I know we're gonna move into a new season. And that's very authentic. That's not making up a solution.
“That's what builds emotional intimacy: being able to talk about hard things”
Oh, my goodness. I couldn't emphasize that anymore, in that it's not about the solution. It's about the openness and being present with one another in the process. And that is the strengthening of the bond, not having the magic solution 100%.
And I think oftentimes there can be a lot of defensiveness. What do you want me to do?
Right.
You're afraid to bring it up, and then you bring it up, and it's like, what? I don't know what to tell you about this. What do you want me to do? And I just really encourage, you know, can we drop down the defensiveness? Can we rise, you know, on one side, bring up the courage on the other side, and just say, can we talk about this hard thing? And I give a lot of guidance in the book about how to start those conversations, how to have those conversations. If you've really fallen out of practice in your relationship.
Yes. Or perhaps maybe never really had great bearings on what this can look like. And that it's incredibly scary. I appreciate you normalizing, and I will be raising my hand right there with you. If I have something that means a lot to me and feels incredibly valuable or important, and I don't see how it fits in the current situation, it feels like a rattle. It feels like a threat in some way to the balance of things. And I love my husband more than anything, and I don't want there to be an issue. And yet that's the crux of, like, I don't wanna. That's the choice point.
Right.
I don't wanna compromise myself or feel like I'm rocking the boat or perhaps threatening my relationship. And it's difficult.
It's difficult. And, you know, it's an interesting can we set a frame at the beginning of these conversations to make it clear that we're not threatening the relationship? And sometimes if we come in hot, right. And it just sounds like I'm unhappy, you need to fix it. We're going to provoke some defensiveness. Whereas if we come in, I want to have a hard conversation. I understand there's not an easy fix here, but I need to share with you what's going on with me. That tends to bring down the defenses or feel less like, oh my gosh, she's upset, and I have to do something, you know, so I think setting a frame goes a long way to making sure it doesn't look like, yeah, I'm saber rattling or making demands.
For sure, and this is Gottman's talk about a soft startup. Right. Not coming in hot. And I think it can be incredibly disarming to lead with the vulnerability or the just fear or the anxiousness around. This is hard to talk about, and the bravery.
Yeah, 100% well.
And you do a beautiful job in your book to really talk about some of the ways in which we're conditioned and how we might not have had good experiences. And this can impact our confidence level of even being brave because, like we're both saying, we have a good sense of the territory, we can kind of lay out the good practices, and we have experience doing it. We might coach and lead other people to do it, and we still are scared.
Yeah, right. Even despite, you know, having. I mean, my husband and I, obviously, he. It's not like he doesn't know that this is an issue. Right. We have done so much work together on this, and still, I would just, given my kind of natural inclination, I will always choose a nice dinner and a glass of wine and a very, like, sweet interaction over. I have something hard to say, but I've learned over and over again that when you end one of these hard conversations, you. Your partner looks you in the eye and says, I hear you. How you feel matters to me. I'm not sure what to do, but I want you to know I'm with you in this; your heart will crack open. You will feel so close. It will be so affirming.
And another thing I talk about in the book is this idea of putting some pressure on the system with the idea that if we can put pressure on our relationship and the relationship can tolerate this kind of healthy pressure, the relationship will get stronger. And if the relationship cannot tolerate you coming open and vulnerable and sharing who you are and sharing what your needs are. And you know, not all of these conversations are going to be like, kind of okay with no resolution. And sometimes,
“There are certain things that cannot be compromised.”
If you want a child and your partner does not want a child, or vice versa, there is no compromise about that. And sometimes these relationships should collapse so that you can each go and create the life that you are meant to live right there.
Sometimes there is such a thing as giving up too much in a relationship. But let's try, right? Let's put the pressure on the system. Let's not try to talk ourselves out of our feelings, out of our desires, over and over again in order to stay in a relationship that maybe shouldn't last. Right? Not every relationship is supposed to. So let's be brave. Let's talk about the hard things, and then let's make the hard choices.
Yes. On an aside, I actually worked with a couple in this last year where. They were separated for a period of time because she wanted to have a baby, and he did not. And she had a child. Then they ended up there, and that her, and the father of her child became more platonic. They re-engaged, and they've been in a relationship this entire time. So she basically had a child. And then they've somehow been able to negotiate being together still. And her child is soon to graduate in a few years. So it's quite phenomenal that even in that context, people can still negotiate and figure out how to work together even in the most seemingly deal-breaking situation.
Yes, completely.
Well, do you want to say anything about how someone can start to identify if they've been more accommodating, or perhaps you use terminology around the shock absorbing and then the shock magnet? Do you want to talk a little bit about how people can kind of look at maybe what's interfering with or being able to engage in these kinds of honest, vulnerable conversations?
So, shock absorbing is definitely the person who retreats from hard conversations or sharing a difference of opinion or engaging in healthy conflict with this idea that I am the keeper of harmony. I'm the keeper of the relationship, and I really need to. I can suppress any part of myself. This is something I hear from women in particular all the time. I don't mind. Like, my unhappiness is so much easier for me to bear than his unhappiness. Their unhappiness, her unhappiness. I would rather just swallow it. I can't handle his difficult feelings. And these people, they know, I mean, I have never said. It sounds like you're shock absorbing. And had someone be like, I don't know what you're talking about. Everyone knows immediately what I'm talking about. Right. You, you know, you're doing this because you avoid conflict. You don't say hard things.
“You might find yourself often complaining about your partner to other people in ways that they would have no idea what was going on, which is so unfair to do to your partner.”
Some people think he can't handle it. The relationship won't last. I can give myself up, give up my. These parts of myself need to keep harmony and keep this relationship together. And over time, you know, you'll find yourself being flattened. Oftentimes, that comes with a lot of depression because you kind of turn on yourself instead of showing your anger to others.
It's how you wake up. And I've heard this so many times from women, and it breaks my heart every time. Wake up, like midlife, and say, I don't know who I am anymore. I don't know what happened to me. I don't. How did I get here? This isn't what I wanted at all. So that is often. And sometimes there's a lot of passive aggression. Sometimes there's a lot of codependency. Right. I just have to keep everybody else happy, no matter what it costs me. That's the shock absorber.
And that's gonna also affect the intimacy.
Right.
It's hard to have typically good sexual intimacy when all of this is kind of operating underneath, like, it's hard to. Interesting.
Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
Just wanted to comment on it.
Well, you're kind of dead. You know, you're deadening parts of yourself. And we don't get to suppress part of ourselves without suppressing all of ourselves. And so that doesn't lead itself to the, like, sexual connection or desire because we flattened out all of our. The rest of our desires, you know, let alone sexual desires. So 100% no. And so. And then a lot of times you're kind of going through the motions, and then your body shuts down even farther. And it's a. It's a very vicious cycle.
Absolutely.
The shock magnet, I think, is less common. But I did want to call it out, you know, because I am encouraging conflict. In the opening of my book, I say that oftentimes we're told by clergy or other couples therapists or maybe our parents, you have to fight for your marriage, you have to fight for it. But what they're actually asking women to do is to shut up for your marriage, suppress for your marriage, and go along for your marriage. And I'm saying, no, fight for your marriage. I want you to fight for it. And I want there to be conflict. I want you to say the hard things. I want you to lean into what is controversial or upsetting in order to build that emotional intimacy and be known.
What I'm of course not talking about is a kind of scorched earth, you know, name-calling, grenade-throwing approach to. No one gets closer to that. And I think that there are certainly people who, in their bids for closeness, actually really drive people away because they want vulnerability and connection, but they go after it in this kind of ferocious way that causes people to withdraw from them. So, and you know, if that's your issue, because you drive people away, like people maybe say, I'm kind of afraid of you when you're angry, or you have a lot of relationships that have kind of collapsed when you've tried to show anger. And then I think that's a sign that you need to put some boundaries around your own expression. Not in being dishonest, but in adding some vulnerability.
And so people can really hear what you're saying. Right. It's like that thing, if you're screaming at me, I can't hear you because my nervous system is so activated. So, it's like this is the other shock magnet. It's the other side. But truly, a lot of the interventions are the same.
“Learning how to communicate in simple, concise, clear language and be kind, but be clear.”
Yes. And one thing you point out, which I think is very true, is that sometimes the shock absorber will hold, hold, hold, and get to a certain threshold. And then there's, it's like reached a point of this regulation. And then the capacity to be able to say in kind, tactual ways is kind of like out the window.
It's out the window.
So then the shock magnet comes on board, and it's like, to your point, people in response or in receptivity to that are like so distracted by the delivery that they can't understand the message or can't hear it. To your point?
Yeah, I call that say nothing, say nothing, freak out, you know, and my whole, all the women in my family are like, so I'm very familiar with this pattern. And I feel like there is almost worse is that you end up apologizing for the way you said it, and what you said gets lost anyway. And so then you kind of did take the chance. And it's so discouraging, you know, you did feel like you said the thing, but it's, it gets swept away in your apologies around how you said it. And so it's kind of the worst of both worlds. Right? You don't. There's no closeness, there's no deeper understanding. And then you probably feel guilty, and then you go back to the shop, absorbing, and then the whole pressure builds, builds. The same thing happens again.
Oh my gosh. Yeah, it's like the delivery discredits the message, and that's right. It's like bringing it back down to like, what was that like? I didn't get anywhere with that.
I didn't get anywhere.
So, for helping people to develop. Because part of what I understand is that you offer a lot in the book, and I know a lot of people get a lot of value in sessions where I might reflect to them what I'm hearing. And they've just not had language to really say the thing they want to say in a way that feels resonant but also tactful or kind or could be heard. And how do you help people to start getting some anchor into the practices that develop this?
Yeah, so one thing I hear often in sessions, and I'm sure you do too, is this is impossible to say. Or the way they have it, hear it in their head is so outrageous. Right. I use this as an intimate example, but I use an example from the book because in the book I'm talking about all sorts of relationships. A woman I worked with who didn't want her mother-in-law to help to decorate the nursery, and she says, well, how. What am I supposed to say? I hate you, and I do have terrible taste. It's like, no, definitely don't say that. Like, you for sure don't have to say that. We can say things with this example.
I said, ” What if you say, yeah, I've got my own ideas for the nursery, and I hope that you stick to the registry, which is the stuff I picked out. Like, we don't have to throw a bomb to get our point across. And so I really think I advise people all the time in the book. I have scripts because I, you know, this is, I am good at thinking of what to say in sort of a very basic way of what to say and how to say it. But I think we can take a minute in, you know, and we can write it down, and we can say what I would feel if this is what was said to me? Is there a way to make it simpler? Is there a way to make it clearer?
Is there a way to kind of take some of the teeth out of it, whilst still having it be really clear? And some people absolutely over-index on the kindness and end up saying almost nothing. I thought there was such a funny study about the sandwich technique, where we say a good thing, then the hard thing, then a good thing. Very often, people don't hear the hard thing at all; they just skip over it. The sand switch technique, which has been taught for years, is not effective. So I think we do have to say, and it helps to have these kinds of soft starts, I want to talk about something that I think is going to be hard to hear, but I must say, let them brace themselves.
Like, let them take a minute and say, okay, what is she gonna say? And then say, you know, this is really upsetting to me. I don't like how this is going. You know, we decided on this one thing, but it's not working for me anymore, and I want to do something different. Like, like those aren't, that's not attacking, that's not mean, that's not saying you're an idiot. That's not saying you're, you know, repressing me. It's saying this isn't working for me right now, and I want to do something different. Here's what I'm proposing. I want to hear your ideas, but something has to change, right? These are all things that should be in bounds in a loving relationship.
Thank you. I appreciate just kind of helping people have some orientation around what this can look like. And also you talk about being self in self-possession or being self-possessed. And sometimes it's helpful for people who haven't occupied that space fully to get a little bit of a sense of what that looks like or who that person is, so they can start to take steps or emulate or kind of start to move towards that. Can you say a little bit about what being more self possessed as you talk about?
Yeah, I think of self-possession as the sum of its parts. Not just being kind of graceful or dignified, or you know, someone who doesn't lose control, which I think is sometimes how we think about it. I think of it as being like I am in possession of myself, which means I'm responsible for how I behave. I'm responsible for the choices I make. I expect the people in my life to likewise take full responsibility for themselves. I know who I am. I know what my values are, and I take ownership of those things. And if I'm not living according to my values, if I'm not being heard, I can take steps towards change. And that to me is really, I have one life, and I'm responsible for it. And I cannot accept whatever falls off the truck in front of me.
I do not expect poor treatment. And I don't allow others to have me veer away from my values or desires. To disown them or to repress them. And, you know, I think sometimes we can say, ” How did I get here? And then it's like, well, it's because of this person. It's because of this person. And we have to part of being an adult is saying, okay, that may be all true, but starting at this moment, whether I'm 20 or 30 or 40 or 50 or 60 or 70 or 80, I can always choose to do something different. I can lean into my values. I can get curious about who I am. There are books, there are therapists, there are coaches, there are dear friends.
“There are a hundred ways to get curious about yourself and explore if you really are”
If you don't, if you can't answer those questions. And then, you know, it's. I need to learn to speak up. I need to lean into emotional intimacy. I need to be brave. And self-possession to me is taking responsibility for doing that.
Thank you.
No matter what age. Yeah.
Yes. Well, the other thing that occurs to me is not an arrival point that is absolutely. We're continually. At least I'll speak for myself. There's a sense of alignment that I feel in self-integrity. And also, as I grow, I might recognize certain things that I wasn't aware of, or as a mentor of mine, we'll talk about noticing longing and discontent, which are good indicators of things that I am feeling. And you talk about the weather vein emotions.
Yes. And say that.
So that we might get indicators internally, a stir of something feels off, or ooh, that didn't feel good. I probably want to clean that up, or I want to see if I can have some repair with this person.
So, yeah.
That's it.
Yeah, sure. Well, the Weather vein emotions like this, can we look at difficult emotions and emotions we often kind of label as bad or ungenerous? And can we instead see them as rich sources of information about who we are and what we want? So jealousy is a huge one. People always try to disown jealousy or envy instead of being like, no, I don't have to wish they didn't have it, but what is it about them or their life that creates this deep yearning in me. And then can I move toward? Move towards solving that for myself? So
“Jealousy and anger are often signs that we're not keeping boundaries that are important to us”
We're either not setting them at all or we're not honoring them and being really clear about them. That's a big one.
You know, a feeling of depression or sadness, or just this, almost like you feel unhooked from your true purpose or your life. This kind of almost dissociation can sometimes be like, whoa, what do I need to do to kind of shake myself out of that and move towards being the person that. That I expect to do. So the hardest emotions give us the most information. We don't learn that much about ourselves, enjoy, because that means we're aligned. That means we're in alignment. And that's wonderful, and we should seek that out. But it's the hard emotions that kind of point us in the direction we should be going.
So one way of saying that, perhaps, is that these can be really valuable teachers if we absolutely listen.
Yeah, 100%, yeah. Our most valuable teachers.
And is there more you want to say about standing firm in this conviction? Because it seems as though when we are in practice, we are feeling some sense of bravery or just feeling aligned. My experience, as I was talking about this kind of development, I will get tested or something super inconvenient or super complex. And I'm like, I don't know where to find my, like, alignment here. I don't know how to find my balance. Do you want to speak to that?
Yeah. I mean, you're really just talking about being human. Right. And sometimes we're out of alignment because we have changed, or we've entered a new season of life, and what we want and our needs are just different. And sometimes we, it's like our brains haven't caught up with that. And then we're like, whoa, why is this happening again? And I think we do have to look at. It's like we will go in and out of alignment. We will feel closer or farther away. And relationships, it's very realistic to look at a relationship. We will sometimes feel very close, and then we will kind of drift, but we just have to notice it, right? And keep moving towards the other person or towards ourselves. And I think having so much self-compassion.
Another thing I talk about in the book about emotional maturity is whether I can
“Hold compassion for myself and hold compassion for the other person”
Can I say, I'm doing my best, and so are they. Can I hold that even when I'm angry, even when I feel a little bit out of alignment? So I think we have to make a lot of space for ourselves, like we are human beings. Things will change; we will have to. This work is really the work of a lifetime. But the truth is, this is how we stay engaged in our lives. This is, it's not I think many people have this fantasy that adulthood means you've arrived and now you're all set, and then it's just like clear sailing. And of course, every single adult will tell you that's not true at all. It's always a lot of room for growth, always a growing edge, which can kind of feel like you're always climbing a mountain. But it's also what keeps us engaged and interested and hopefully fulfilled over time.
“Yes. And do you have any way that you access or teach people to access more emotional maturity if they're really challenged in a situation where it's hard to have that empathy or that kind of holding perspective?”
“Yeah, there are a couple of things. One is that we sometimes, when we're gonna lose, that is often when we are very activated, and we need to be able to create speed bumps in that activation to take a minute, realign, calm our nervous systems. And so, the clearest, easiest way to do that is to take a time out.” Right. This is why every single therapist will sometimes say you have to take a break. Like, don't let an argument or a fight be a runaway train. We can look at hard conversations, which are usually not one hard conversation. They're usually a hundred hard conversations over time. And that I think can bring relief, to let go of some of that anxiety that this has to be solved right now. Right.
So, can we say I'm feeling really activated? I'm going to go take a shower. In my book, I talk about how we have to change our state often in order to really use the timeout effectively. I'm going to go for a run, and I'm going to go watch something on television. That always makes me laugh. And then can I come back, reconnect with that empathy for myself and the other person, make sure I can kind of clear away that, you know, Terry Real talks about a core negative image. And we all, again, everybody knows what that means, right? We're mad at our partner and then, every stingy characteristic he has, or every thing we haven't liked and have never liked, comes to the forefront, and we forget about why we're together.
And so can I give myself a minute to let go of that core negative image, see him again, see her again as a person, and reconnect with some vulnerability and empathy. But we have to take a time out. Oftentimes,
“Writing down what you're going to say ahead of time is a very useful thing”
Agreeing to table a conversation like with love and then come back to it if it feels like. If you both feel like you're banging your head against a wall, go watch a movie together or something, you know, take a break, and you can come back. If it's a big, if it's a big issue, it will take time. It's like a knot that we're trying to keep kind of tugging away at until it loosens and then eventually clears out.
That's a great analogy. And just the many conversations that it's likely not trying to hit a home run out of the ballpark, like a conversation. And I appreciate the importance of the nervous system. Like we're so aware of, through neuroception, one another's nervous system state, the facial expressions, the tone of voice. So to be able to regulate and calm is really setting more opportunity or setting it up more for this more connective, collaborative conversation. If we can reset and find our bearings and get ourselves a bit calmer.
Yes.
And then I love just the recognition that we may have a narrative that wants to kind of perpetuate. And as you said, it's easy to want to blame, it's easy to want to find fault. It would be so much easier if it were someone else's responsibility. And so you, when you say clear, is there just to kind of let people listening that if one notices, oh, I find myself kind of going to this mindset or this kind of thinking pattern to help find that empathy or that. “Is it just to kind of recall, like, why I love this person, or what helps?”
“Yeah, I mean, if you can do that. One thing, just to go back to the nervous system, is when we're very activated, we're not going to be able to do very much good thinking right until that activation has settled down. And I think we have to be very realistic about that. It's as if there's going to be the activation.” It's that we're going to feel pretty hijacked by our emotions, and then there's going to be like a half-life, if we think of it like almost like if you take a medicine, right? It's like a medicine has a half-life, so it's still in your body. The example I always use is, you know, I'm a New Yorker, if someone yells at you on the subway, you're going to feel upset and activated for like hours, right?
And we can't just shake that off. And so similarly, if we've been upset, if we're upset in an interaction, we have to, like, we have to self-soothe a little bit around that. We have to give that some time and breathing room before our nervous system, you know, so primal, actually calms down. So the nervous system is no joke. We absolutely have to pay attention and override it.
We can't want to.
Yes, we can't. We absolutely cannot. So that's one piece. The other thing is, if we can access why we love that person, although maybe that's not realistic, even if we deeply love that other person in that moment, can we say to ourselves, there must be something I'm not understanding about the perspective? Like, I don't think that this person is an idiot. Like, so is there something here? Can I listen a little harder? Can we say one thing? I say to clients all the time What's true about what he is saying, or ” What's true. Can I access? Okay, well, that part is right. And if I acknowledge this part is right, then even if I disagree, I can see at least where they're coming from.
And if that's reciprocal, if both people are doing that, you are going to get to a resolution much more quickly. And often this is where it's good to bring in a third person. Because as someone whose nervous system is not activated by what's happening between you, oftentimes you can help them. You can help each person kind of see the other's perspective and see things in a clear, less emotional way. And you know, that's like, it's one of the highest and best uses of couples therapy. But also sometimes taking time, asking yourself, ” What am I missing here? You know, if I were going to argue the other person's perspective, even to do this as a journal prompt, what would I say? Right. How can I help shift so? So that I see it how they're seeing it.
What can be hard sometimes is that one person is always doing that work, and the other person is not. And I think we can. That's not too much to ask of our partner. I'm working very hard to see where you're coming from, and I'm not feeling that from you. And that is very frustrating and feels very unfair. Right. You can say that's clear, and oftentimes, and this can be extreme, or it can be subtle. It's like one person is doing all the emotional work in a relationship. One person has spent years in therapy, goes to group, and reads all the books. And that's not fair because oftentimes we're the person with the core issue who is the only one not working on themselves.
And, you know, I've seen situations, I reference this in the book, where the whole family is in therapy except for one person. And it's like, oftentimes everyone else is in therapy to figure out how to deal with. With that one person's behavior. And if. If that's what you know, sometimes you are kind of facilitating, perpetuating this negative. This negative pattern. And I say with you, with your kids, it's like, are you teaching them to be shock absorbers to not rock the boat with this one very difficult person, that if that's what's happening, then you have to look very hard at whether the relationship is salvageable. Right. Because again,
“Reciprocity and collaboration, that's what it takes to have an emotionally mature”
connected relationship and to really.
Be honest about questioning that.
Absolutely. Yes. For sure.
And perhaps make that bit more visible.
Yes. Right. Yeah. Call it out. Absolutely. Make it visible. We can say, I don't. It's not fair that I've been in therapy for years, and you insist on not going, when actually what I talk about in my therapy session is how to improve this relationship. But I can't do it all by myself. Again, that is clear. That's not attacking. That does not mean. It is clear. And yeah, that's it would be a hard thing to say and a hard thing to hear, but necessary.
And also, as you're saying in the questioning, the dynamic, I feel really stuck.
Yeah.
“And I don't know how to, I'm feeling responsible, and I want to do this with you, and I don't know how to do it with you.”
“Yeah. And even though I love you, I can't stay in this dynamic. And so if it doesn't change and I don't see effort on your part to change it, sustained effort, because it is very hard to change these patterns, then I have to leave.” Right. It's like we have to save ourselves in some situations.
“Oftentimes, leaving is the best choice.”
And I write the book in full understanding that you can try all of these things, and it might not work. But what I'm saying is try. Try all the things, but then go. If you're not, if there is no reciprocity, then sometimes you do have to leave. And we only have one life. And, I think about that all the time.
It's like, how do I want, what do I want this life to look like, and what do I want if you have children? We are always either modeling how to act or modeling what to accept all the time. And so that's almost
“Our most important job as a parent is to feel like we are modeling with integrity.”
Yes. I mean, there are so many ripple effects to being in practice. And also, most importantly, that we are in our right place in the universe. Right. We're living our lives, and we are in congruence around the values of being self-possessed. You know, there's a story in your book that struck me, and it's not intimately related, but to this point, I think when we are confined by the shock absorbing or feeling all the efforts to help, and it's not changing to not set a boundary or not call it out, like that would be the no-go zone. Like, we make up stories around what that would mean. And the story that I'm referencing is, I can't remember if it was you or someone else, but it was an environment of a boss that would have these kinds of outcomes.
Oh yes. Huh.
I don't know if you want to share it briefly, but it's like, it's kind of like I could never. There's nothing I can do here.
So perhaps. Yeah, that's right. This is a client's story, and she had a job that she really loved, but an extremely volatile boss, like you know, throwing a stapler against the wall and kicking a garbage can, like really unprofessional. But this boss was very talented and was definitely not going anywhere in the agency. And so my client really feels like, I am trapped, there is nothing to do, either I give up this job that I love. That's going to be so good for my career, but I am being abused. Right. And this was someone who couldn't just shake it off. Her nervous system was constantly activated. She wasn't sleeping on Sunday nights before she had to go back to work.
Everyone who loved her, this isn't in the book, but everyone who loved her was like, ‘Please, please leave this job. It's making you sick. And then she had.
And she loved every aspect of the job.
Everything.
Besides, this interaction was when her boss was in this state.
Yeah, and she was really afraid of her boss and felt very trapped in this position. And then someone, a new person, started at her level, and this new person would just leave. Like she would just excuse herself and leave the office. Like she was not going to sit there while someone was throwing a stapler against the wall. And just having that example of someone, kind of pushing back in this way, which is just like, no, this isn't safe for me. And I'm not going to subject myself or my nervous system, frankly, to this type of behavior. So when she would see the boss getting activated, she would say, okay, I think things, I think we should circle back to this when everyone's feeling calmer, and just go now.
Could there be repercussions to that? Yeah, of course. I mean, that boss could have fired her on the spot, or she wouldn't have gotten good projects, whatever. But that isn't actually what happened, and the coworker was someone who, to me, this is self-possession to say, I will not subject myself to this kind of.
That's an abusive environment. I'm going to leave. And if I get fired for taking care of myself, I trust that I will land on my feet. Like, just believe in your own resilience. And it was amazing because for my client, because she really, even as much as I would try and support her and other people in her life, she just couldn't see a kind of a third way until this beautiful example just landed right in her office. And then, this was a very young person, and I'm sure it's changed the trajectory of her life. Like having that wonderful example.
Yes. And the propensity, how fear can trap us, and that when we can start to get an opening of a different possibility, how profoundly.
Well, just mind expanding, that is. And fear does, it constricts. Right.
“Fear gives us tunnel vision”
That's how it's supposed to work. Right. We're being chased on the savannah. We want to only be looking at our escape route. But in modern times, right in an office, oftentimes it can blind us to potential third possibilities, fourth possibilities. And one thing I say in the book and say often is that we always have choices. We might not like our choices, and that's just part of life and being an adult.
“Sometimes, we have a series of choices that look terrible, but that's not the same as not having choices.”
So when we find ourselves saying, I don't have any choices. I'm trapped, I'm stuck. There's nothing I can do. We need to push back on.
There's some reality testing in our own minds that we need to do. And I have journal prompts for that.
Oh, my gosh, yes.
Yeah.
Just asking a different question can be so helpful to open up new possibilities.
Yeah.
And I do think even the weight of a career or a job, but also the weight of an intimate relationship, and how we feel trapped, and how, like, the stakes are so incredibly high. So I'm so grateful that you distill so clearly these principles and also make it actionable through these exercises and journal prompts. Do you want to say anything more before we point people towards how to get your book and connect with you?
Just that, what I was going for in the book was as much clarity as I could, and I wanted it to be clear, and I wanted it to be simple. I think it's a very fast read. And my greatest hope is that people can take some of these ideas and use them immediately. And so I say at the beginning of the book, and I believe this so strongly. I want this book to change your life and your relationships. And so I'm trying to give you all the tools to say, I can do this piece today, and then maybe build up to some of the harder things. But that's my greatest hope, that people can act on these ideas and make meaningful changes.
Thank you so much for what you've contributed. And I will say, reading the book, it's just such a great invitation and reminder. Like, I don't know that we have as many voices advocating for pushing back, setting limits, and challenging. Like, I think there's so much more collective messaging around whether or not it's historical or whatever the source is. But to be accommodating or be helpful, like, somehow the distribution of voice, I just feel like it's really helpful and encouraging and motivating to kind of have your perspective, so where would you like to invite people to go to connect with you and get your book?
I'm on Instagram, Tonya Lester Psychotherapy. Facebook and LinkedIn, I show up there quite a bit, and the book is Pushback: Live, Love, and Work with Others without Losing Yourself. And it's really everywhere books are sold, so I'd love it if people picked up a copy. I also have a blog on Psychology Today: Staying Sane Inside Insanity. And I try to write every week there, so if people are interested. Excellent.
So I'll make sure to have the link to your book as well as your Psychology Today blog. And thank you again for all that you've shared here today.
Thanks for having me. I really appreciate it, Jessica.
The post ERP 526: Why Speaking up Deepens Love, Even When It Feels like Conflict — An Interview with Tonya Lester appeared first on Jessica Higgins.
Ever found yourself stuck in an argument, desperately clinging to being “right,” only to realize it’s pushing you further from the person you love? So many of us fall into this silent trap—believing that our idea of respect, kindness, or connection is universal, only to watch as those assumptions breed tension, misunderstanding, and emotional distance in our relationships.
In this episode, listeners are invited to challenge these rigid notions of right and wrong that quietly erode intimacy. By exploring the difference between complaints and vulnerable requests, unpacking the dangers of labeling and moral certainty, and learning practical approaches for negotiating needs, the conversation uncovers what it really takes to foster lasting understanding and resilient connection. Get ready to rethink the very foundations of how you communicate and repair with the people who matter most.
Anna Sterk is a senior RLT therapist and a member of the RLI Faculty. Her clinical career has been focused on systems and relationships from the beginning. She began training in Relational Life Therapy in earnest in 2012, became a certified Relational Life Bootcamp Facilitator in 2020, and joined the Faculty of the Relational Life Institute in 2022. This role has allowed her to teach other therapists and coaches while continuing to spread the RLT message of relationality.
Episode Highlights04:01 Exploring subjectivity in relationship concepts.
07:57 The pitfalls of morality, rightness, and labeling in intimacy.
12:27 Vulnerability in requests versus complaints.
14:44 Getting specific: Turning desires into clear requests.
17:51 Curiosity, listening, and creating shared understanding.
22:05 Personal stories: Differing definitions of connection and cherishing.
24:05 Navigating disconnection: The role of pain and realistic expectations.
28:36 The one-up/one-down dynamic and its impact on relationships.
31:11 Cultivating accountability, ownership, and accepting limitations.
34:08 Relational grieving as a pathway to joy and acceptance.
37:42 Moving beyond othering and embracing interconnectedness.
41:36 Developing relationship skills and accessing support resources.
Your Checklist of Actions to Take* Take time to specifically identify what you genuinely want from your partner, rather than settling for broad complaints or vague wishes. * Shift from criticizing to making a clear, vulnerable request, even if it feels risky to do so. * Openly discuss with your partner what concepts like “respect,” “closeness,” or “connection” mean to each of you to uncover differences in expectations. * Actively listen to your partner with curiosity, aiming to understand their unique perspective instead of preparing your rebuttal. * Recognize that pain, misunderstanding, and moments of discord are a normal part of relationships and do not always signal that something is wrong. * Release the urge to insist on having the right answer or moral high ground, allowing for both perspectives to coexist. * Grieve the reality that you may not get everything you want from your partner, and focus on appreciating what you do receive. * Show curiosity toward your partner’s reality and model personal responsibility by expressing your needs without blaming or shaming.
MentionedRelational Life Institute
Therapist/Practitioner Finder
Shifting Criticism For Connected Communication (free guide)
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Episode Transcript
Anna, thank you for joining us today. I'm excited about our time together. We've already had such a great time chatting, and I know that we've had a previous conversation. I really appreciate all that you have to offer. So thank you.
Absolutely. I'm just thrilled to be here with you today, talking, and really honored that you invited me to come speak with you and, by extension, your audience.
Yes. Wonderful. Well, as a starting place, one of the things that we've talked about, and you've really just even started going into a moment ago, around how maybe consciously or unconsciously, we in a relationship are operating on some level. “Maybe ideals that might have some rigidity to them if we haven't examined them. And one of the things that perhaps you prompt is just even looking at that and perhaps even challenging some. Some of those ideals. Would you say a little more here?”
“Absolutely. I'm fond of saying that one of the greatest fallacies, mistruths that we operate with in relationships is that when we say something, the other person pretty much understands that we meant it the way that they heard it. And that leads to so much discord. Because there are many, many concepts. Most concepts that are in a relationship actually have a lot of subjectivity to them.” And so when we get into the idea that there is a certainty or a rightness or rigidity around a concept, like one of the ones that I often hear from my clients, it is something like respect. Right. Like that, people think respect means the same thing, but respect doesn't mean the same thing to everyone. What is respectful communication? What is kind communication? What does it mean to listen, and what does it mean to be accountable?
“All of those things are subjective ideas, but we think of them as objective truths”
And then when our partners or the people we love don't uphold that, what we think of as the standard of the concept, it tends to lead to a lot of discord.
And it sounds like this idea of right and wrong, or even morality, gets layered on top of. Even though we might be operating with totally different associations or meaning-making.
Absolutely. I think that's where a lot of the certainty is driven, the idea that, like any good person would. Any good person would understand what it means to be respectful. Any good person would understand what it means to be kind. And that there's a consistency of meaning around that, and there's just not. I think that it's important to acknowledge that when I'm saying that, sometimes people want to take things that are said and kind of extend them to almost a theatrical degree. Right. Like, within gay marriage, it was like, well, should you be able to marry anything? Right? Like, there's this extension that gets really extreme. And so, I mean, I want to be clear that there is a spectrum, that of kindness, for example, or there's a spectrum of respect.
There's a spectrum of listening there. You can't talk over somebody and say, ” Well, I was listening, right? Like that. We would all agree that there are certain fundamental pieces, but the specifics of how these concepts look or how a relational idea looks is really unique to each person. So I don't know that example is the best, but it's the idea that it is. A lot of the concepts exist on a spectrum. And when I'm saying, you know, that negotiating. When I say to my clients that, like, negotiating respect or listening or connection or love, that there's some negotiation involved, sometimes they want to take that to an extreme, and they're like, so are you saying that I could just blah, blah, and that my partner is going to have to be okay with it? It's like, no, that's defeating the spirit of developing understanding.
But I think people will get into a place of, like, exaggerating or illustrating in more ways because of the emotional threat underneath, or perhaps even just the difficulty of having communication around this. Like, it just. People get a little offended or hurt, you know, that's so activating. And so when I'm hearing you describe, when we get into this morality, I feel like it gets into the intellect, and we're maybe even bypassing some of the more vulnerable feelings. We. One of the other things I was thinking as you were talking about Anna was like, sometimes I'll hear clients say, ” Oh, if you ask anyone, or, like, leveraging, like, I just did a survey. And even if that was true, it still doesn't. Maybe it's not so relevant to that, to this specific relationship.
So it's really irrelevant if we're looking at how the two of you are negotiating. So I think that it's kind of. I mean, this hooks into power, Right? I know you talk about power, and then even with the language that you said, it was like, I felt like, shame or blame. And so it really sets us in a kind of othering model. Yeah. Do you want to say more?
Absolutely. I mean, so you know that I come from a. My foundational work is based on Relational Life Therapy, which is Terry Real's model faculty with the Relational Life Institute. So I teach and train therapists and Coaches in the model as well. That's the model I'm working from. “And one of the concepts that we have in relational life therapy is the idea of a losing strategy.” And one of the losing strategies is being right.
“And there is no room for being right intimacy, in being right.”
One of the things that happens is we tend to pull in sort of, we try to solve problems using the scientific method. So we're like anybody any good person would agree with. You know, I was talking to my uncle Bob the other day, and he said that, you know, respect looks like, blah, blah. So obviously.
And there it's like, there's a rightness to it.
Or, I read this article and the research found.
Oh, my gosh, this is such a thing. But as a side note, one of the things that I love is the amount of sort of psychological awareness and relational awareness that's developed with TikTok culture and Instagram. And, you know, there's a lot of awareness. The arc side of that is that there are complicated concepts that people tend to throw around with each other.
And reduced to a very simple thing that doesn't have context.
Absolutely. And so, clients will come in and be like, well, my partner's a narcissist. And I'm like, is that a clinical diagnosis? Do they carry that label? Or have you decided that they're a narcissist? And if so, why? And is that actually helpful, a helpful label to have put on your partner, or does that reduce them to something that's? Now they're just in the position of, like, having to defeat the concept of being a narcissist versus being able to have a dialogue about what is hard for you in the relationship, which. Totally valid.
And that's a different focus.
Absolutely. But once you've labeled it and narrowed it down, then it's like, well, you have to treat their narcissism well. But what if I didn't clinically diagnose them as a narcissist? What if they're just kind of being jerks in the relationship? Fair enough. Like, to address that, but that certainty about a label for it, and taking really big ideas and reducing them without any politics.
How do you help people shift out of this? Because one of the other things that I get from our RLT with Terry Real is this one-upping one-down. I know that's not his language per se. I know he uses it.
Yes.
It is originating this sense of, again, power over one winner. How do you help people? Because it feels like vulnerability, as you said, if this person has a complaint about their partner and their narcissistic tendencies, usually it's like, well, I want to feel considered, or I want to feel seen, or I want to be responded to. My vulnerable part.
Yeah, absolutely.
“It's vulnerable to ask for what we want, and it's even more vulnerable to receive it”
That's one of the things that we forget about, that there's actually no vulnerability in complaint. There is vulnerability in the request, because regardless of how your partner responds, whether they respond by giving you what you've asked for or some version of it, or trying or not, there is vulnerability in either receiving it or not having your partner be willing to meet you there. So there's vulnerability in requests, and there's vulnerability in receiving what you've asked for. So we tend to bypass that vulnerability and go into rightness about how our partner should be showing up for us. I don't want to have to ask.
They should.
Because they should know, as any good partner should, is one of those ideas that I think is really out there and really actually part of what we're consuming in unrelational ways every day. I saw something a while ago about beige flags. And, your audience may have known more about this than I do, but I was like, holy cow. The last thing we need is beige flags. Because the reality is humans are humaning all the time. We're quirky, we're unique. We all have different perspectives on the world. We all have different backgrounds we're coming from, and it's in that variety that we find interest and connection, and like, it's what drives us.
But when we then get into a moment of conflict, and that vulnerability where we're afraid of being misunderstood or not seen or not held with warmth arises, we push back against that with certainty and rightness about how it should be.
How do you help people access more of this? Either shifting the focus for themselves and their awareness around what their strategy is. And also, it sounds like there's an element of ownership here. Personal responsibility.
Absolutely. There's a big piece of that. It has to do with really getting clear on what the request is. That's what I end up working with people on in lots and lots of ways: what is it that you actually really want? In the model that I work from in RLT, we start with what we call the miracle question. What is it that you want from this? What do you want from therapy or coaching? What do you want from your partner? What is it that you're looking for? How would you know?
And we get really specific about that because ultimately that's what I'm going to come back to with people is, listen, you said that you want this, and I'm reflecting to you that if you want closeness with your partner, for example, which is a pretty broad, again, talk about like a term that would have a lot of subjectivity to it. I want to be close to my partner. What does that mean? What does it mean to be close to your partner, specifically for you? That's part of it, that when I'm working with people, I'm digging down into the specifics of the concept, not staying at that broad level, but asking them to get really granular about what they mean when I say that.
And you're modeling if I can add what it looks like to be curious and kind of understand, rather than assuming I know what you mean by closeness or connection.
You're nailing it. Like, that's exactly it, Jessica. Is that a lot of times couples come to therapy or coaching, and they're looking for skills, again, like a broad term. And in the work that I do in the first part of it, I'm not intervening; I'm not offering explicitly. I'm not going to teach any skills until I think that there's a part of the person I can teach them to, which we call in RLT, the wise adult of the person. And I'm not like, the problem is that there are a lot of times that we can pick up a book, as you said. I've read this article, I've seen this, I've listened to this podcast, and I've seen this interview. And so I now know, like, how to do this thing.
But it's really that scared part of us, or protective part of us, or defensive part of us that is like, okay, I'm rigidly holding onto this idea now again, coming back to this idea of being right. I've got the corner of the market on the truth. Gonna do that.
“Wow, that's a, What did you say? Strategy.”
“A losing strategy.”
“A losing strategy, yeah. That the motivation or the intent is protection. Like, there's a part of it.”
“Absolutely. Okay, yeah. The motivation and intent are always to use any of the losing strategies. People don't think that they're doing something wrong. They think they're trying to be helpful and protective of themselves or even protective of the relationship. And so we go about these things, but really it's. It's just avoidance of pain, and that doesn't work.” So what, people come in, and they're looking for skills, and I don't. I sort of hold a line about that. We. And we do in RLT, we hold a line about that. But the reason why is because I am actually implicitly teaching skills all of the time in how I'm responding to my clients, in how I am listening to them. I'm modeling what it would look like from my perspective and what I hear from my clients about what it means to be a good listener.
And that's a concept that we have as well, which is listening to understand. Not listening to rebut or respond, but listening to understand another person's perspective, which is not what most of us learn to do.
No. And it sounds like you're holding a light around when you're asking the question, what is it that you're looking for? And the specificity of that, and continuing to hold that. And when I ask the question around vulnerability, it sounds like you might at times reflect that back around. I heard you say this, and I'm seeing this. Like, how does this fit? So it's like continuing to hold awareness because sometimes in these dynamics, we get flooded or activated, and we kind of lose sight. Tell me, is that what you mean?
Yeah, absolutely. Because we make sense to ourselves, right? Like that, coming back to where we started, which is these subjective ideas, we make sense to ourselves. We're like. It's obvious, right? You know, and the reality is that what each of us experiences or means, there's a concept that we call cherishing. What does it mean to
“Cherish your partner”
And the reality is, when we say cherish, there are probably ideas that have already popped into your mind. Right. Do you have thoughts about, like, when I say cherish, what? What pops up for you?
So I was listening with you, and I wasn't thinking about my own.
Yeah. It's just really.
But so let me pause. So when I think of cherish, I feel a lot of warmth in my body. I feel a regard, a reverence. I do feel like that care, that respect. I feel like I want to treat it with the utmost care.
Yeah, absolutely. Right. So you have a really clear idea about what cherishing means for you. A story I tell my clients and students is about a time when my partner and I, during the pandemic, we. We're doing a lot of yoga together. You know, we're like, this is like a thing we can do. It's online. We can do this thing. And so we were doing yoga, and I was lying in Shavasana. And I was thinking to myself, you know, I'd really like to connect with my partner tonight. And so we got done with yoga, and were rolling up our mats, and he turned to me, and he kissed me, and he said, thanks for doing yoga with me. And I said, thank you for doing yoga with me. And, you know, a little later on tonight, I'd love to just connect.
And he just stopped, and his jaw dropped open, and he was like, connect. What could be more connecting than yoga? And I'm thinking, like, excuse me, Yoga's not connecting. Yoga is my own practice. Four corners of my yoga mat, man. Like, this is what I'm doing. I'm. I'm doing, like, I'm in my self here. And it was this, aha, light bulb moment about how differently I think of connection and cherishing than he does. Now, we both want and need a connection. We both want and need to be cherished in our relationship. But how that looks is really different between the two of us. I'm thinking, like, we're going to cuddle on the couch, maybe talk about our feelings or whatevs, you know, but we're going to talk. We're going to. It's going to be. There's going to be an exchange.
And for him, he was, like, just being present in this shared physical activity, you know, side by side, is really connecting. So. And he feels really cherished by that. I don't have to agree that it should be cherishing for me, but I can have a lot more respect and appreciation for my partner if I realize that it is for him that, though this is where it becomes important, it does not cancel out what I experience as connection or cherishing. And my ability to advocate for that without saying that his version is good, bad, right, or wrong is. Is the stuff of intimacy. I have an idea that is about me, and that I don't have to give up. And even if it's different than what you think, you don't have to give it up. We can meet each other's preferences.
That's so important. I'm so grateful that you laid that out and just emphasize that last piece because I can appreciate in your story how if somebody is like, what that was like, the best, it could feel for some, like, ooh, right, like, yes, he's not interested in that, or I might collapse on my own or, you know, and obviously people are going to have her buck back and get defensive and like have this back and forth.
Yes.
And for you to just say, well, wow, I can really. I don't know that I fully grasp how much this meant to you, and really attune to that and value that and hold ground and to the self responsibility, to the advocating and clearly requesting to still be in a place that. That you can hold that as well.
Yes. And just to be transparent. It wasn't that fast. No. Like this is the reality of what it means to be in a relationship. That it was. It took me a minute because when he first said what could be more connecting than yoga? It was like somebody had said something to me in a language that I don't speak. I did not have any idea what the hell he was talking about. I was like, what?
Right.
You know, it took me a minute. So that. That's the other part of relationships that I think we can sometimes expect that our partner won't have any kind of glitch in their response to us, or that we're going to be understood right away, or that we should all just kind of like that there shouldn't be any discord or a moment of disconnection. And there is going to be. It's in that moment when he said, ” What could be more connecting than yoga? And I'm like, what are you talking about? I feel connected to myself in yoga. I like that you're in the room with me. But that's not a moment of connection necessarily. I can reframe it that way now. But at the time, in that moment, we're disconnected. And that isn't bad. It's just real.
And a lot of times when couples are coming to see me, it's like they're trying to get away from ever experiencing that moment. And I think that
“One of the ways out of the suffering of a relationship is to accept that there's pain in it”
Yes.
We're not gonna avoid that moment of pain. We spend a lot of time, a lot of part of our lives, a big portion, trying to avoid those moments of pain. And that just creates suffering because we. It's not gonna work. And we tend to move on from a relationship because we're like, whoa. But we have these moments of disconnection. And I'm divorced, so I wanna be really clear. I'm not saying that every relationship should be stayed in. That's not what I'm saying. I just think that we have unrealistic expectations of relationships and of our partners. In a good relationship, we're not going to experience any disconnection or pain. And that's just not how it goes.
And I would wonder too, the idea of right and wrong, that there's a labeling that disconnects as wrong, when really it could be a potential doorway for something new to occur, and a new understanding, and a new learning, and new negotiating.
Absolutely. We can't have a repair without disconnection. Right. Like,
“Resilient relationships are not relationships in which there's no discord or disharmony.”
They've been tested, they've done, they've been tested, they've overcome.
Exactly. Resilience is built by actually having to go through a thing and recover from it. And that's like what happens when you're trying to avoid ever having that discord: you become fragile. Terry Real. My mentor says
“When you walk around on eggshells, at some point you become an egg”
which I just love. Because, like, that's right. When you're. When we're trying to treat something like it's super fragile, then it does actually become that way because it's like we become more and more afraid that anything could upset it. Which is why having. Accepting that pain and discord can happen. It is a normal part of a relationship, and the goal isn't to have it, but the goal is to work through it differently. Really changes how resilient we feel in our relationships.
“The strength and the intimacy have been more earned through working together. That there's a real trust and a felt sense of having one another's back.” That it's not because we've confined things to somehow have these agreements that are restrictive, but more like, we can learn how to be in uncertainty or discord.
Absolutely.
Learn.
Yeah. And the thing is that that's where that defensive part of us will often show up. Because when we're in that moment of discord, when we're in that moment of, like, shakiness, when we're unsure, I mean, how much better does it feel to just claim rightness? Yeah, right. If we can come to a certainty that I'm right. It's really interesting, as somebody who is recovering from primarily being one down, I can be certain that I'm wrong and that feels safer in my body than being like, I have an opinion or a preference, and I don't know if it's going to match yours. I'd rather be sure that I'm doing it wrong than to own that I may have done it in a way that's Right for me, but didn't work very well for you. And that both things are true. That is so much.
I mean, as I say it right now, it feels like, yeah, of course, obviously, that feels so much better. But in the moment, it feels vulnerable, and it feels shaky.
I feel the tenderness. I want to get a little climb. Just thinking about the courage that it takes, and also the visibility to the opportunity of perhaps more intimacy. But what a risk. And that the certainty doesn't always look like rightness around one-upping.
Yeah, absolutely. The certainty is also the certainty of one down. Right. Whether you go one up or one down in a moment of distress, one is not better than the other. And going one up is not always in response to having been one down. Like, we can be socialized to just be like, no, you're right. Right from the world, from our family of origin, from our privilege. And when that happens, it's not being driven by feeling bad and then going one up; it's being driven by being empowered to be one up. And that is not being checked.
Yeah.
So. But it is not necessarily worse or more destructive to a relationship than one down. Because the further you go away from a grounded center, the more self-preoccupation we have, so really far on the one up side. Lots of self-preoccupation. The same thing is true about shame. The further we go into one down, the more self-occupied we are. Which means that when, if I'm like fully in like, man, I sure screwed that up. If my partner says to me, ” It's not that big of a deal, let's just have a nice night together, let's hang out, whatever. Am I going to be able to do that? No, because I'm just really thinking about why I say anything. It never works like, exactly all that stuff like, or I might just sit there like I'm sad, you know, and that's not connecting either.
And that a partner making an effort towards somebody who's in a one-down position and having their efforts, that warmth to be rejected is not any better for the relationship than a partner making overtures towards somebody in a one-up or better than. That's what we mean by one-up. By the way, it's just the idea that you're looking down your nose at another person in judgment of another person, in contempt of another person. When a partner is appealing to a one-up person and saying, ” Hey, I don't want to fight, let's, it's fine. You have an opinion. I can agree to disagree.
I agree.
You know, and the person's like, no, that's destructive to a relationship, but so is it. To reject a partner's attempts to be close when you're in a one-down position.
Thank you. I know we don't have a ton of time, but how do you help people calibrate a bit to find ground or find this more healthy center, even if we get dysregulated or a little glitchy?
Yeah. Wow. Well, I mean, that's huge. That's like a huge.
Question.
But it comes back to. I think part of what we've been talking about is this idea of. You've said accountability a number of times, and I think it's an important word, and it's an important idea. And again, it's an idea that is unique to each person. When I'm thinking of it, what I'm thinking, the concept that I'm coming from is that I do have to take a risk of owning what it is that I want from this relationship, and then celebrating that I get some of it.
Right.
The idea that I'm going to get all of it is just going to create misery, but that I can get some of it most of the time, but maybe not all at the same time.
Right. Right.
I mean, this is so, the reality is. And this can sound a little dark, but I mean it in the best way that grieving, yes, the reality is the gateway to relational joy. When we accept that there's this part of me that wants perfection from. From the other person, who wants to never, ever feel disappointed or hurt or sad or unsure or afraid. I want to never feel those things. Of course not. And sorry, it's going to be a part of it. And if we can not see those moments or experiences as a signpost of being in a bad relationship, but as a signpost of being a human, and that we then have to decide, is this something that I need to look at within myself in terms of?
Realistically, like I say with my partner in my first consciousness response, which is like my first thought, if I don't dig any deeper, I can be like, I wish that my partner wanted to talk about feelings or dreams or whatever as much as I do, when in reality, if he did, he. I'd be partnered with me. And what a pain in the ass that would be. Like, no, thank you there. I benefit from him having different interests and focuses, but what happens is that on a day when I want this thing that is a preference for me. And he's like, not in a spot for that.
“There is a moment of pain, and that's real”
But if I can go past that first consciousness of, like, why isn't he giving me.
Or showing up in the way that he knows I like it when we talk about this kind of thing, why isn't he doing that? If I can, we. We all can. Not just. We all can get really stuck in that sort of negative spin about what that means about the. Our partner, about us, about our expectations, about their capacities. And then if we can say, like, look at the other person and go, boy, I don't get everything, but there's enough here. And I love these things, and I am going to have to grieve that I don't get those things. This is a concept, by the way, in RLT. I want to give credit to Terry because this is the. This is the concept of relational reckoning, that we have to do a bit of that as part of every relationship.
And if we can accept that there's pain in it and that's not a bad thing, then we don't have to defend against it because we can move through it.
Yes. I mean, I'm even thinking about some of our conversations thus far. My own kind of understanding of what you're describing and my personal experience as well, that if I'm stuck on the idea of what a good relationship or how I want my partner to show up for me and I'm not grieving and I'm more kind of trying to get that relationship to look the way that I want it to by whatever means that there's a stuckness to that I'm kind of resisting or not being present. So being with my own grief can allow me to be very present to myself and my own. Like, maybe I need to show up for my dreams and my vision and my emotions, and like, that's. There's more available for me there.
And that also, if I can be really present because the grieving allows me to be in a place more of acceptance, then perhaps it makes room for more celebration around.
Oh, my gosh.
But maybe it even is better than I could have even thought. Because if I'm open and I'm really present, then it can take different forms that I wouldn't have even thought of.
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, when we're stuck in a narrow belief, if it doesn't fall into that, we don't even know that it's happened. Right. To kind of take in all of the possibilities. There's this, both ends of acknowledging I want this and I might not get this, but do I get enough out here? And what's it like for me to actually receive it? That's really vulnerable. That's the really vulnerable part. Because there is both an end of grieving that we wanted this thing, and we're not getting it in this exact way. And I'm not suggesting, by the way, resentfully trying to convince ourselves to be okay with this. That's not it. It's like, can I actually notice what it's like to receive some unexpected things? And that's where there is a lot of. That's the stuff of intimacy.
That's the stuff of connection, which is not specific. Certain rigid, narrow, stuck expectations, but being clear about what is and what isn't okay for me. And then. Which is much broader. And then noticing what falls within that. And instead of like, well, I wanted it like this, but you didn't give it to me like that, so it's all out. I wanted it like this. You're showing up like that, which is slightly bigger. And I'm trying to take that in. Yes.
And can I be curious about what that feels like in my body, how?
I absolutely relationally feel?
And that is somewhat of an unknown territory, perhaps.
Very. I think it's unknown for almost all of us because we do get the message that there is a clear rightness and wrongness. And if you are a good person, you know the right thing. And if you don't. And you used this term earlier. Jessica and I couldn't agree more. Then you're othered. And we see that all over the place right now. It's just being reinforced like crazy in our world. And there's nothing relational about it.
No. And that, in my belief, and I imagine you would feel similar, maybe not use the same language, but the interconnectedness of us all, like we're all related. Like the web of connection.
Yeah.
So there's so much to be said about that. But yeah. Othering is the fallacy. When you talk about just what you started with, around these notions that we're speaking similar languages, but also that we're not connected. Like for the othering is.
Yeah.
Okay.
Well, yeah, that's what drives it.
Yeah.
That's
“What drives the disconnection?”
The more disconnected we feel, the more we are wired for connection. Everything about us is wired for connection. So the more disconnected we feel, the more afraid we feel the more uncertain we feel, the more uncertain and afraid we feel, the more we're looking around for what is dangerous to us and the more we're then going to move into othering and pointing out laws that we perceive ways that other people are doing it wrong, which doesn't bring anybody in, it just creates more disconnection. So, like we've got to reverse the flow, and there we do have tools for that.
Yes. Let's hear about how people can connect with you and the RLT Institute. Yeah, yeah.
As I said, I'm a faculty member with the Relational Life Institute. So I teach and train coaches and therapists to become RLT practitioners. But also, we have offerings for the general public, special topics courses that you can take that are about how you can improve your relationship. A couple of years ago, a colleague of mine and I did a course called the Art of Relational Living, and that is a course that people can purchase through the Relational Life Institute. And it's kind of a self-study course on the basics of relationship skills. In my own work, I don't take clients very often. My practice is pretty small, and I'm often pretty full. But I do offer workshops. So relationship-work.com
This is where you can find out about the relationship workshops that I offer. Instagram: relationalmft.
There's also, you can also go to annasterk.com, and it links to the relationship-work.com, which is another way that people can get more into this model if they're interested in it. To the fundamentals of working with this part of us that doesn't want to be vulnerable, but also can't be connected.
Yes. I'll make sure to have all of those links on today's show notes. And also, I do know that there's a directory too for people who are interested in working within this model. Some of the practitioners that you've trained. Do you want to say more about that?
Yes, absolutely. So you can go to terryreal.com, and there you'll find a therapist finder, and so you or a practitioner finder, because we also teach and train folks who are coaches. So if you're looking for in a specific area region, we have people all over the world at this point who are certified as RLT practitioners. Really exciting. I've recently come back from London, where I was training a group of folks to offer relationship workshops with what we call the Essential Relationship Skills bootcamps. That's what I offer. And we just trained a group of folks who are primarily in the UK and Europe, and even beyond, to offer a bootcamp. So it's growing, it's spreading. And the desire for people to learn the skills of relationships is one of the things that I find really hopeful.
Like, despite what we see, despite the messages that we're told, despite the fear and anger that is rampant, I do believe that most people actually really want connection and love. And that's the intimacy. It's just that it's risky. As you said, it's risky to want those things, and it's risky to put yourself out there. Yes. Because
“There is no intimacy without vulnerability. Vulnerability involves risk. Otherwise, it's not vulnerable”
There's no risk. There's no vulnerability. That's sort of the paradox of it. And I can tell you, like, there is no shortage of people reaching out to relational practitioners, coaches, and therapists and saying, I really want to develop these skills. And for me, that's incredibly hopeful. And I have seen so many individuals, couples, and relationship groups that have taken those risks to grow their skills and are, like, experiencing the joy of it.
And I'm grateful to be able to do this work, and I'm grateful to be able to speak to your audience. So thanks so much for having me on.
I want to thank you. Thank you for what you do in the world and who you're helping train and the lives you're touching and helping spread. Just the pathway and the practice of these fundamentals, these skills that help foster connection and intimacy.
The post ERP 525: Why ‘Right and Wrong’ Thinking Is Hurting Your Relationship—and What to Do Instead — An Interview with Anna Sterk appeared first on Jessica Higgins.
Are you stuck in the painful loop of blame, shame, or resentment after a breakup or conflict? “Forgive and forget” sounds simple, but the reality of moving forward—especially when trust or boundaries have been violated—often feels like an impossible task. The baggage we carry from past relationships can quietly dictate our choices and limit our possibilities for genuine connection and growth.
In this episode, listeners are guided through the often-misunderstood concept of forgiveness, exploring why it is a vital process for both personal growth and deeper intimacy. The conversation delves into actionable steps for self-forgiveness, reframing painful experiences into opportunities for learning, and examining how releasing emotional burdens can pave the way for new, healthier connections. With practical insights for embracing boundaries, processing emotions, and nurturing gratitude, this episode serves as a roadmap for anyone seeking freedom from the past and the courage to open up to authentic relationships.
Dr. Margaret Cochran is a transpersonal psychologist, LCSW, educator, and media personality with over 25 years of clinical experience. She blends ego, transpersonal, and energy psychology to help clients truly heal—not just manage symptoms. Featured on BBC, ABC, FOX, and HuffPost, she's also known on TikTok as “The Relationship Doctor.” She makes mental health accessible, practical, and disruptive enough to inspire real, lasting change.
Episode Highlights03:34 Forgiveness as a foundation for healing and growth in relationships.
07:16 Self-forgiveness and personal accountability after toxic relationships.
10:37 The role of boundaries in building intimacy and navigating change.
15:28 Facing uncertainty and embracing growth in relationship transitions.
16:46 Breaking through limiting beliefs and habituated patterns.
21:59 Taking inspired action toward change and possibility.
23:25 Visualization and quantum jumping: tools for transformation and forgiveness.
29:28 Understanding how the body holds emotion in forgiveness work.
30:50 Rewiring the brain with gratitude and somatic techniques.
34:38 Moving beyond victimhood: Conscious change and self-agency.
38:49 Managing internal resistance and self-sabotage with compassion.
42:32 Celebrating possibility: Cultivating trust and courage.
44:31 Practical forgiveness in everyday relationships and seeking qualified support.
Your Checklist of Actions to Take Begin with Self-Forgiveness: Reflect on your role in past relationships and allow yourself grace for mistakes, focusing on learning rather than blame. * Acknowledge and Process Emotions: Give yourself permission to fully feel and express emotions after a relationship injury or betrayal before moving into reflection. * Embrace the Learning: Ask yourself what lessons you can take from difficult experiences and how you can use them for personal growth. * Practice Gratitude Daily: Each morning and evening, list things you’re grateful for—even small ones—to start shifting your mindset and emotional state. * Set and Maintain Healthy Boundaries: Clarify what you will and will not participate in, and openly communicate agreements and limits in relationships. * Use Visualization Techniques: Imagine or visualize a future version of yourself who has grown, healed, and responded differently—let this guide your present choices. * Pause and Ask Questions in Conflict: Instead of defending yourself, ask your partner open-ended questions to better understand their feelings and experiences. * Challenge Limiting Beliefs:* Notice and question any “shoulds,” “musts,” or impossibility statements (from yourself or others), and remain open to possibilities previously believed unattainable.
MentionedShifting Criticism For Connected Communication (free guide)
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Episode Transcript
Doctor Cochran, thank you for joining us.
Well, thank you for having me.
Yeah, we share some things in common with our, some of our education. We were just chatting, so I love hearing about your research. And today we're going to talk about forgiveness and how it impacts intimate space and relationships. And I can already feel my wheels spinning around. Typically, people live their lives and enter into an intimate relationship with some injuries or having experienced betrayal or something difficult. But sometimes we experience it in relationships. So, where would you like to start for people who are just getting to connect with you here?
Well, I think, talking about forgiveness and intimate relationships, it's key. I mean, it's like one of the fundamental pieces. Whether you are
“Engaged in the relationship long term, you have to have forgiveness.”
You have to do it because stuff's gonna happen. It does, right? If you have left a relationship, forgiveness is key because if you're carrying drama, if you're carrying hatred, if you're carrying all that, ugh, then what you're gonna do is attract another partner who's full of luck. And then you're gonna say, ” Why do these people keep showing up in my life? Well, we're putting out that energy that this is who I am. And we tend to attract friends, coworkers, whatever, people that are like-minded and have like energy. So forgiveness is so powerful and changes the game completely.
Thank you. I wanna dive into this. I also would add, and I imagine you would agree, that sometimes not only will we attract like, but we also will unconsciously choose people to work out unresolved issues.
Oh yeah, absolutely. I love that you said that. I often say to people, when you draw your partner to you've both got the same stuff. You may be expressing it on opposite ends of a continuum. For example, let's say your energy is. You're not so good. Energy is about money. One of you is a spendthrift, one of you is a miser. Same energy, two ends of the continuum. So when those people come together, you either heal together or you make a big pathological soup.
Yeah, well, and I'm sure you've, I haven't studied Orlean a ton, but I do remember one of the things he was saying in long-term intimacy is we start to integrate when we partner with someone different, like an extrovert, introvert. They start to really appreciate and learn the qualities of one another and come more to the middle. And so it's, it sounds like this is an opportunity for healing and growth. If we turn towards it and that.
Oh yeah, absolutely. It's that old phrase, and the two become as one because you stop being so polarized, and you come to the middle, which is a much healthier integrated space.
And it's not. Seems like we're the same person.
Yeah, okay, not at all. So it's definitely, it's definitely individuated. You're definitely your own person, but you stop carrying the energy in the relationship in such dichotomous ways.
Yes, thank you. I love it. Okay, so when you talk about forgiveness being necessary, I appreciate that people's association with forgiveness might be moral or even spiritual, and it tends to feel a little bit nebulous, like how to actually put it into practice. And also, people feel that non-forgiveness might support their dignity, their self-worth, and their boundaries. Help us orient how you see forgiveness in this way.
Okay, well, I got good news, bad news about that. And as you well know, Dr. Higgins, good news and bad news are often the same thing. But in this situation,
“The first person we have to forgive is ourselves.”
Because if we haven't forgiven ourselves, we have no bandwidth to forgive anyone else. So here's how that plays out behaviorally. Frequently, someone will get into a relationship, and it's toxic, and they stay too long, and that sort of thing. And then when they finally get out, it's usually in some traumatic kind of way, and they just start to beat themselves up. What's wrong with me? What was I doing? Why did I stay so long? What does this say about me? He was a monster. Am I a monster?
And from that space, you can't forgive anybody because you haven't been able to say, ” Yep, well, that was a relationship I had. What did I learn? Who did I become? Will I allow that to inspire me or define me? And that's one of the most important questions anyone can ask. Is this relationship going to say, yeah, you're this XYZ person, or is this relationship going to say, this is the person I am becoming, and I'm excited about that? So if I can forgive myself for the learning experience I obviously needed because I was in this relationship, then I begin to see that other person, however toxic they might be, as a teacher to me. And I actually have gratitude to them for what they taught me.
And also just to kind of round this out, I do think, of course, there are examples where perhaps one partner is behaving in more toxic ways, and also, people tend to perpetuate a toxic dynamic. Right. Relationally. And there's some ownership that I'm hearing, whether or not it's saying, ” Oh, how did I participate? Or how did I, how was I, yes to this? For what reason did I show up that was reactive, unregulated, and not very skillful? So you're saying forgiveness in this context is less about focusing on what is wrong and the blame and shame about it, but more about looking at accountability and what the growth and learning are.
Yes, absolutely. And recognizing that it's an important part of life. I mean, life is a series of wonderful things punctuated by a series of icky things followed by a series of wonderful things. And it will always be so. And if you recognize that's just the ebb and flow of life, when those things come that you perceive to be not so good, it doesn't freak you out. It doesn't say, ” Oh my gosh, my life is over, what's wrong with me? It's, oh, this is one of those things. Back to our friend Dr. Jung, he talked about the pearl of great price. He talked about pearl, of course, it is a beautiful thing that is created around an irritant, right? So we open up the shell, and we say, ” Oh, yeah, there it is. Okay, I got it.
I've learned that I was not the person I thought I was, or I learned I need more patience, or I learned I need better boundaries, or I learned I need to improve my self-esteem, or I need to work myself up. But sometimes the most wonderful gifts come wrapped in the worst kind of paper, and we get all distracted by the paper, forget to open the box, and see what's really in the gift.
Do you feel that there's a timing for more acute pain and emotional process, and then where this reflective looking at lessons and maybe some self-ownership becomes more available, or do you feel like at any point, because sometimes people feel I gotta forgive or the pressure, or like maybe even want to bypass the emotional pain? Like, do you feel like, how do you encourage people if they're in real acute pain, versus I don't know if that fits in your model.
No, it makes perfect sense. You've gotta give yourself some grace. It's like me and chocolate. I'm looking at the chocolate, and I'm thinking, yeah, I need a little grace right now. I'm going to have some of that chocolate. But I'm not going to binge on chocolate or eat chocolate forever. I just need to have that experience. So when you end a relationship, especially if it's done in some kind of traumatic way, you need to jump up and down and flush like a toilet and cry and spit and do all that stuff. And then as you improve your self-regulation, you come back to, okay, I got all that gook out. Now let's look at what really happened. Let's lay it out in the light of day so we can really see what I just went through and how I benefit from this.
It's like there's a bit of orientation once we can calibrate and look at, okay, who am I now?
Yes.
And as you look at this forward trajectory of feeling inspired versus held by like, there's like a heavy weight to perhaps a betrayal or trauma or injury that we might carry with us.
Okay.
And this is where, when people I asked initially about boundaries, that when we can transition and orient to the lesson, there can be a tremendous amount of boundaries, a part of that learning and accountability. Is that right?
Oh, absolutely. And boundaries create intimacy. Most people think the opposite. Especially if you've been raised in a more shame-based versus a more love-based kind of family, you know, in a family that's less healthy, the message is no, there are no boundaries. You're responsible for my feelings and my behavior, and you're not entitled to a self. Okay, so there you can't have real intimacy. There's no safe space. There's no place to be yourself. In a healthier relationship, you have boundaries, and you're able to have your own feelings, needs, and position. And from that place and the grace we talked about earlier, you can come together and pretty much work out anything.
I hear this as like an evolving. Like in its language, it might sound very finite, but in its practice, I experience it to be very developmental. Right. That I, I am always learning about myself in relationships, especially as it relates to boundaries. Like, I don't, if I think back way, I don't know that I had as much clarity as I do now. And the subtleties of boundaries, what I'm going to participate in, what I'm not going to participate in, what I actually make explicit and have agreements around, and various. And you're nodding.
Absolutely. Again, it's that question of grace. We're all a work in progress. And
“Who we were yesterday isn't who we are today”
for good or frail. I mean, we get to decide that. But the point is that we are constantly, if we're doing our job, we're constantly learning and growing and changing, and that's really one of the keys to intimate relationships, is sometimes one partner is going in a direction that the other partner isn't. That causes a lot of friction and angst. And sometimes, instead of being able to talk that through, one partner gets mad at the other. Well, don't do that. I don't want you to do that. I want you to stay with the old agreement and be who you were 10 years ago. And so there's a lot of sniping back and forth about that. Now.
If we're doing our work, we recognize, okay, this is a change point. This is a developmental shift.
And so if we're doing our work, then we're gonna be able to negotiate through that. If one partner is absolutely determined to call the dance tune and say, no, it has to be only this way, then the relationship isn't going to last. Either that or you will live. You may live together, but you will do so in misery and without intimacy.
Right. Cause that's so constricted and limited and, like, operating in this very narrow, safe zone that. That's not very supportive for everyone.
Yeah. It's an emotional corset, is what it is. Yeah.
Very well said.
And
“Sometimes other people want to be in control of our laces, and they keep pulling them tighter and tighter”
I'm having trouble breathing just thinking about that. You don't want to be in that kind of situation, and you don't want to do that to your children. And sometimes people inadvertently do the same, because children, no matter what your relationship is to them, are a very intimate kind of relationship. It is where they're learning about boundaries and safety and all that kind of stuff. And that's why when adults fail them in that way, it's such a tremendous betrayal.
Absolutely. So before we go into just kind of what you're pointing to here, you're acknowledging the terrain of intimacy will involve upset, will involve injury, sometimes to some level. And when you talk about grace, both offered to self and offered to others, there's a bit of. Especially when we talk about the other. In this example, you just said, ” Oh, I'm growing and changing. Maybe I want my partner to come with me, or perhaps my partner wants me to stay the same. That there's tolerating some uncertainty or the discomfort of uncertainty that we typically, as humans. I mean, it's a natural tendency to want to control or keep things in a place that we deem good, parentheses that it could perhaps be better. Right. And so if we're holding so tight to a certain idea.
We're not giving room and space for the unknown, the uncertainty, which could be vastly better. And that's difficult and scary often.
Yes. And for some, more so than others.
Yes.
But basically, my sort of joke is that ambiguity is not my friend. If I want to know what's coming next, I want to know how, I want to know when, I want to know why. I want to know where this is going to take me, what's going to happen? And what are the most exciting places you can be in life is to allow yourself to go to a place of unknowing and say, ” Whoa, I wonder what's coming next. What's that better thing that's coming to me? Something good will come of this, especially after something that you perceive to be not that great happens to you. Go to, and what good will come of this? And then hold open and let it come to you.
Because if we're in that course that we alluded to earlier, not only can we not breathe, we can't think, we can't see our posture, we can't move, our posture's messed up. So we're tending to look down like this. And these amazing miracles can come by, and we'll miss the whole thing. And a lot of that corset is, I can't have this. It won't work for me. I can't be safe, I can't be loved. I'm not loving and lovable, I'm not deserving. All those kinds of things make up the laces where bad things will happen.
Like, this is my safety mechanism too.
Just be right here in this little bubble. And what's really awful about that is when something amazing does happen, it's interpreted as an omen for the next disaster. Like this lovely woman I worked with years ago, she was extremely anxious, and she had OCD and some other things. And she was in her 70s, 75, I think. And her granddaughter said, ” If you don't go get some help, I'm not coming over to your house anymore because I can't do it. When she was ducking under microwaves, it took her two hours to mail a letter because she'd be afraid she forgot what she wrote in the letter, and there might be bad words in there. So she put it in, took it out, put it in, like that. So I said to her in one of our initial sessions, so what if you won the lottery?
What if you won $2 million? She said, ” Well, I know if I won $2 million. That would be the last kind thing God did for me before I was damned to the fires of hell forever. And that's how she looked at life. There was no happiness, there was no joy. So when you get in that awful thundercloud of anything good portends something bad, and anything bad is just normal. That's a pretty awful way to live.
And compassionately, I can appreciate that there's perhaps a part of. I'm just imagining, obviously, I've never met this person, but that there's a way in which that narrative is trying to mitigate the pain or the risk. And like, I'm preparing, like, oh, if I open up my heart or if I get, if I believe good things, like the devastation of having something horrible happen, it's too much to bear. And so for people who have less experience with things will work out for good. There's a lesson that I can apply here and be confident that will contribute to goodness. How do you help people? Because it's, I would imagine, both acknowledging pain and trauma, but also giving them an opportunity to practice experiencing and living into some of these new patterns.
Yes, very well said. I often encourage people to do what they think is ridiculous.
Okay.
For example, a woman I was working with in a clinic some years ago, and this woman came in, and she was. Oh, she was in such bad shape. And she said, I just want to die. I don't know what to do. I have two kids. She was working at McDonald's. Her husband had left her and gone to Mexico. And since she had no child support, McDonald's wages are not great, and she was living in this little postage stamp place, and she just felt her life was over. So I said, ” Wow, I mean, that just sounds awful. What would your life look like if you had what you wanted? And she looked at me with death eyes, like, how could you ask me that? Can't you see that this is all I can have?
And so she said, ” Are you trying to make me feel bad? I said, no, not at all. I'm just curious about what your dream would look like. So she told me about this little house with a little pick fence and a place for a dog and da, da. But I can't have that. And I said, well, just. I know I'm crazy, I know. But just on the off chance you could have that, how might you get it? And again, death rays. I mean, I'd be dead now if that were true. And basically went through this series of ridiculous behaviors that she couldn't possibly do or have. And what she ended up doing was first, she started looking around for fixer-uppers for rent. And then her brothers, who were construction, got her rent reduced because her brothers did the fixing up for the landlord. And then the house looked so good that the landlord decided to sell it. And then she was really mad at me because she said, I have my house now, they're taking it away. And so I said, well, if it was going to work out, what would you do? And she said, ” Well, I guess. I guess I'd ask him if he'd hold the paper for me, if he would let me do the loan through him instead of a bank, which he did. And she bought the house. And then we. I asked her, well, what would you do for a living? Because I don't think you're happy at McDonald's, right? She said, no, I've always wanted to be a seamstress, a couturier.
And I said, so if you were going to do that, how would you do it? And she looked at me again, like, well, because she's kind of used to me now doing this. And she said, well, I guess I'd go around some of the bridal shops and do some free stuff and show them what I could do. She now designs costumes for the San Francisco Opera and the San Jose Opera. She does a lot of very high-end couturier work in the area. And she also does a lot of stuff for high-end bridal salons. And she's making probably 10 times what she made at McDonald's. And she has her house. All those things she couldn't have, but she had to be willing to try the ridiculous.
So a lot of it is
“Pushing ourselves past our comfort zone”
kicking and screaming often, but pushing past that place where this won't work for me. I can't have this. This is impossible to. Well, if it were, what would my behavior look like?
Thank you for that story. I so appreciate just what's possible and the re-patterning that can occur, and what's the next step, and really getting the mind to entertain this ridiculous vision, perhaps. It's like all you need to do is have just some part of her be open to the possibility, and what that could then lead to. And if we apply this to forgiveness and also to relationships, how would you make that more like? Not that we need steps, but just actionable around turning towards. Because I'm hearing themes of acceptance, right. Perhaps not needing things to be so rigid and working with what is, looking at some level of ownership around how I participate or what I'm. What, my learning or the learning and growth? So, can you frame this for us, for the forgiveness with intimacy?
Well, in that particular case I just cited, she basically transmuted her despair into anger with me, and she used that anger to go to an unsafe place. She was going to spite me. She was going to show me I was so wrong. And that's what she used to propel her forward. So what we look for when we're in a process.
“Forgiveness is a form of change process”
Okay, what am I going to use for rocket fuel here? What's going to motivate me, inspire me to. To move forward? Maybe it's your kids, maybe it's your dog, maybe it's your health, maybe it's your family. It could be a myriad of things, but you find something that you say, yeah, this is scary and uncomfortable, and I'm not exactly sure. Ambiguity, again, about how this is going to work. But
“Failure is not acceptable”
“Somehow, I'm going to figure out a way to do this. And again, it comes back to the willingness to hold open to all possibilities, even if they seem beyond you or unacceptable or that just can't possibly work.”
And some belief of overcoming hardship.
Absolutely. Absolutely.
And you are like a partner in believing in her. If I can use that language.
No, I love what you said. Sometimes I use a technique called quantum jumping.
Mm.
And what I do is I help people go to a place of deep relaxation, hypnosis, if you will. And I have them go to a place where there are many doors, and their name is on all those doors, and they step out into this universe where they know which door to go to that has the version of them that they need to be to do whatever they're doing. And they go into the room, and it's beautiful. It's just the way they would want it to be. And then the other one steps out, and they observe. “How does she dress, how does she talk, how does she smell, how does she move?
What does she say? What does she think?
Exactly. What would she do with this or that? How would she react? And in the end, ultimately, there is a powerful hug, and she's gone because she's you.” And then you come back with that. And at the beginning of this exercise, I have. Every person walked in a long hallway, like an art gallery, on either side of the walkway are images of their life, some happy, some not. Photographs, charcoals, anything that represents their life. And when they come back down the hall after that experience, pictures don't look quite the same because they're not the same. And the way they hold those memories is not the same.
So this is a visualization. But as you're mapping this out, I'm resonating in lived experience over many years. Have you experienced a betrayal or trauma, as I experienced, not intimately, but in family? And it took many years. And I'm remembering an example or experience where I was with the person, and I just felt a completely different relationship. And I. It was very organic how I. I didn't. I wasn't holding on to, like, resentment or I wasn't wishing ill, but I. I find. I find the relationship dynamic complicated and was very clear about some boundaries and what have you. But I felt very open, but also like it had changed. And so it seems very similar to what you're describing. I'm not being very specific.
No, I think that's a framework for your wonderfulness. It is. We all have that in us, but sometimes we're missing the framework because we need to be able to corral it so we can use that energy going forward. So, in your example, that's really what the experience is like. Again, walking back down that hallway, you may go buy a betrayal picture or some kind of anger picture or something, and suddenly you realize, oh, that person was behaving that way because of this. I see. It wasn't really mine to carry. And then the picture changes.
Yes. And talk to us, because I think for me personally, I could logically and relationally hold that, but somatically, my body wasn't there yet. So, can you talk about the body, maybe the nervous system, the thoughts, the emotions, like how that fits with forgiveness in the process here?
Dr. Higgins, you're my new best friend. Let me just say, because now we're talking about energy psychology, we're talking about the body and how it holds things for us. Again, for good or for ill. Right. It's often our buffer against all the nonsense of the outside world. And it can. We tend to think of it as just. We sort of take it for granted a lot of the time. For many years, Allopathic medicine, which is what we practice here in the West, has really poo-pooed the idea that, you know, oh, acupuncture. Oh, yoga. That's just you. Well, we finally got off our butts and did some research and found out, oh, my goodness, all those traditions really had validity.
So there are techniques that you can use to access those subtle meridians of the body so that you can calm down your nervous system, get your vagal nerve back in. Tone basically runs the body up or down to get our amygdala to behave properly. Those two little almond-shaped things in the back of our brain, very primitive, very powerful. And the trick is that, well, the human brain hasn't evolved in about the last 10,000 years. Let's think about that now. We got 21st-century problems, ancient technology. What could possibly go wrong? So what happens is our amygdala, which is the most primitive part of our brain, is always looking for danger, danger. How do we stay safe? How do we stay alive? But this prefrontal cortex part here in the front, behind our forehead, can't catch up.
So this part back here says, red light, red light. And the prefrontal cortex says, ” Oh, no, it's fine. No, it isn't. Keep panicking. So you. When somebody says to someone anxious or in the midst of trauma, just calm down. That's the worst thing you can possibly. You might get punched because you know the person's thinking, don't you think I would calm down if I could calm down? So these kinds of exercises and techniques slow the process down so the prefrontal cortex can catch up and regain control, which changes all the neurotransmitters in our body.
And one of them, the most powerful technique I know, is taking vitamin G. And G stands for gratitude. And literally, if you do this and you do it faithfully, you can rewire your brain in about 30 days to have a very different outlook, very different perspective. And it's not hard to do.
“You just wake up in the morning and either know before you get out of bed or in the shower or whatever, you just run through a list of what you're grateful for”
I'm so happy and grateful that I have a roof over my head. I'm so happy and grateful that I get to be on Dr. Higgins show today. I'm so happy and grateful that I have my four wonderful dogs, my children, and all those things.
Now, initially, when you're not feeling good, it may be hard to come up with stuff for your list and to feel it. But that's okay. That's just the beginning. “Don't you make your soup with one ingredient, right? It takes time.” So maybe you start with, I'm so happy and grateful I have my purple dinosaur socks, whatever. And then before you go to sleep, as you're going down into sleep, it's a very hypnagogic state, a very state where you're very accessible. And you again, repeat that list of things that you're grateful for. And then. And here's the corker: you begin to be happy and grateful for things that haven't happened yet. Like, let's say you're not the most patient person in the world. Let's pretend. And so you might say, I'm so happy and grateful that I am patient, calm, and accepted.
And here's what'll begin to happen. About 10 days in, you'll start to notice, huh, that used to really bother me. It didn't bother me so much today. Or, oh, you know, I noticed I kind of had fun doing XYZ that I used to just hate to do. And when the bumps and lumps of life come at you're able to say, yep, that happened. And now what am I going to do with it? Versus, oh, my gosh, that happened. And I don't know what to do. And I'm just devastated, and et cetera. And when you get into that mindset of I'm just devastated, and everything's awful, that affects your heart, your blood pressure, your liver, and goodness knows, your GI tract, your gastrointestinal tract, people getting GERD and diarrhea and ulcers and just all kinds of not fun things. And those are all representational of.
You're just wearing me out. There's no. I can't continue to carry this. So changing that energy with your vitamin D, changing your energy with some other techniques, like the emotional freedom technique. A lot of people refer to that as tapping. That's a popular one. Certain kinds of breathing things. Box breathing, 4, 7, 8 breathing. Often accompanied by certain statements.
This is all. I mean, I know there's so much we need.
The whole show up.
Well, yeah, I mean, I'm thinking of the Polyvagal. I've actually had Stephen Porges and Deb Dana on the show, and just helping understand the power of the nervous system. Like, there are a lot of people. I keep seeing apps now for vagal toning or just ways in which we can work with somatically calming the nervous system. It's huge.
It's not just your abs anymore. You gotta tone your vagus too.
And the health benefits of that. And as we kind of bring this back to Forgiveness. And I was commenting on the nervous system, feeling the somatic state with this person. I had done a tremendous amount of work that wasn't specific to that, but I was just a different person than when I didn't want to get into the details. It was way too long a trauma, but then it got noted anyway. It was. But it was different from when I was conscious of this trauma, and I could feel the growth in me. And it sounds like this visualization or the guided imagery. When people are in this very much more like hypnotic.
Available state.
Available state. You're giving a direction, you're helping guide based on what would be meaningful and their dream, and giving them some scaffolding of how to access that. And even with the story that you mentioned with your client working at McDonald's and being the couture, like so, helping with the garments and the. She's not a seamstress, she's an actual, like, designer now.
Yes, she is.
Okay.
Okay. So you've probably seen her work. I mean, she's a man, I'm sure.
Yes. Not that I. I'm not super in touch with all the celebrities, but she had to live into it. So you helped give her scaffolding, helped her have access. She still needed to do the work and live into it. So as you help people orient, the pain is real, especially when it's acute. There's a level of processing that's helpful to just try to metabolize the intensity of whatever that pain is. “Then, when we regulate a bit and orient, this is when it's critical. Time to look at what the learning is? What can I do? What are my boundaries? What's the vision? How do I live into this? With gratitude. Some equanimity, some grace, some acceptance. Am I hearing this?
Oh, yeah. Once again, another brilliant point to you because the rule is, unfortunately, in psychology, there's such a thing as toxic psychology. Yeah, yeah, we won't go into that right now.
And toxic positivity, too.
Yes, but often what happens is people have gone through something difficult, and the first thing they get is, don't think about that. Think about this. But here's the problem. You can't clean the kitchen if you don't see the dirt.” You've got to be willing to lay it out and move into it and say, yes, this is what was true for me. But when we do all the amazing things that we were just talking about, and we retrain the brain, and you're living gratitude, those things, your body relaxes, and you're comfortable. And people will often talk about how she or he likes another self, oh, she had cancer. Oh, he had an autoimmune disease. I don't have that. So you're literally saying, I'm done with that Persona of mine. I've decided that's not what I want to keep in my kitchen.
I thank them for their service. I said goodbye. Not with anger or acrimony of any kind, just. I see that's the tool I was using, the version of myself I was using to get through this. But that's not who I am anymore. And that's what you're describing beautifully. One of the things that sometimes gets people frustrated is the so-called unconscious mind, which is a compilation of systems in the brain, and it basically functions like a thermostat. So there's this sort of homeostatic point, let's call it 68 out of 100. And that's where you're used to hanging out. And you say, I'm done with 68. I'm going up to 95. I'm going to do it this time. And you're all excited, and parts of your brain are lighting up that don't usually light up. And you got dopamine going on. Yeah.
And then about 72 hours in, all of a sudden, this little voice in your head, the one that says, you know, you don't have to do that today, or it's kind of hard, or, you sure you really want to do that? And that's just your unconscious mind saying, “Okay, I need to take you back to where you taught me was safe.” And that's where gratitude and the other processes we've been discussing come in. Because they reprogram our thermostat and give us permission to, yeah, I can do 95, I can do a hundred if I want. I can do whatever it is I want to do, versus, no, this is the only little corridor I'm allowed to travel in.
So we're in a habituated state. I'm so grateful that you're bringing this up. I mean, I know many people, it's like not quite common knowledge, but often referenced around how so many of our thoughts in a given day are like repeat thoughts. We're not really having all that many new thoughts. A large portion of them tend to be negative, and we tend to have a negative bias. And as humans, as you mentioned, are very survival mechanisms as animals to be safe and all that we've brought with us from our evolution, that we. It's almost this consciousness, this agency of deciding versus just going with what has been or doing what our circumstances would say are very valid to feel. But that's just not being a victim, but it is.
We're being stuck.
Stuck, okay?
It's just being stuck. And when you're in your car, and you've got a backseat driver who's saying, ” No, you can't turn left. We always turn right. You can't do that. And if you fight that voice and you start putting all your emotional energy into, oh, wait, leave me alone, don't talk to me anymore. You're going to crash your car. Is that going to work? Or either that or you'll just stop because you don't need more juju left to go. But if you recognize that voice and say, “Oh, there you are, hi, you're here to protect me. I know, but remember, we have a new deal now. And the new deal is I'm going to turn left. Okay, so you turn left one time, you think, yeah, that was pretty good. I turned left.
And then the next day you get in your car, and there's that voice again. Don't you think about turning left? I know I let you do it yesterday, but I'm not going to. So it takes time. And you've got to recognize that unconscious conscious process will come roaring back to try to protect you. So all you have to do is
I know.
Right, it's like with a little one. If you're working with children, their job is to push boundaries. That's how they're wired. That's how they explore the world. So when you say, no, you can't do that right now. This is what we need to do. And they have big temper tantrums and da, da. If you are kind, calm, and accepting, they eventually self-regulate, and then you move on to whatever you're going to do. And that's the same as that voice in your head. If you're kind to her, I know you're here to protect me. I know you're trying to keep me in a good place. But left turns are kind of what we're into right now. But we're going to do that again today. And what begins to happen over time?
That voice gets softer.
Softer and trust starts to trust that you're in the driver's seat. You're going to keep us safe. And I love what you said, Dr. Cochrane, about being able to name so that part feels seen or the child feels seen. Oh, I so know you want to play that game, and you're right in the middle of it. And I appreciate. Yes. And we'll come back, like just being able to acknowledge the validity and the value or the intention and what that need is, and then also be able to direct and lead.
Yeah, I'll sometimes encourage people to give that voice a name, like Frank or Sadie or whatever. Oh, hi, Sadie. Boy, you're loud today. You're really being loud today. But we're still turning left. But then pretty soon, as I said, the voice gets softer and softer. And this new voice, as you wisely say, of trust, comes and says, you know what, we can turn right or left. You can decide based on how you're feeling, what the circumstances are, and where you really want to go today. And wow, vistas open up.
“Everything changes amazingly. And remembering to say to yourself, even when you don't believe it”
” Isn't it amazing? Something fabulous is happening for me today. I don't know what it looks like. I don't know where it is. I don't know how it will show up.
I just know unequivocally that it's there waiting for me. Sometimes I'll talk to folks about how, here's your courage. It's in my hand right here. Come and take it whenever you're ready. But if you're not, I'll just hold it here so you remember it's there and you can access it when the moment comes. And it's basically a representation of you having everything you need. All that good stuff is in there. Again, coming back to cooking, your cupboards are full of good stuff. It's just finding the recipe and recognizing that you can change it and make new things whenever you want to.
I love it. I know we're winding down, and I am aware that for people who are in a relationship, perhaps didn't have something super intense or aren't in a crisis, but there's a subtlety here that's also available. Is there anything you want to say about practicing forgiveness, as you started to say early on, that this is a part of cultivating long-lasting, authentic, alive relationships? Is there anything you want to say about how to access some of the subtleties of this practice?
Well, yeah, two things, actually. One is not to trust consensual reality. And I say that sounds like, oh, that sounds kind of woo and mystical. But what it means is in our consensual reality, we have a lot of stupid things like you can't have your cake and eat it too. Now, who in the world would have cake? I mean, I'm a frosting girl myself, but you
gotta have something to hold up the frosting, right? So of course, you're gonna eat your cake. But it's basically a phrase. You can't have it all. You can't have what you want. It's limiting. So be careful of those people out there with shoulds and musts and supposed to’s, people that you trust.
Often in a relationship, when people get into a tough spot, they'll go to their best friend, or they'll go to their parents, or something for advice, and they don't know beans from apple butter about how to fix the problem they have.
Especially if there's something very taboo, like if there was an affair or something that happened, or divorce is happening, there are some maybe archaic notions that somehow I'm now flawed, or I'm damaged goods. Talking about these statements that we don't want to buy into, that we could somehow start to identify with.
Don't go to a greengrocer. If you have a problem with your car, go to a mechanic. So that's as clear as I can make it. If you have something going on in your intimate relationship, please go to a qualified helper. And the other is fear is a very powerful teacher or horrible master. And you must decide for yourself which is going to be. And one of the. In a relationship, in particular, the last point is to make fewer statements and ask more questions. Listen, listen, listen. So if your partner comes to you and they're all grouchy pants, instead of choosing to defend, don't defend yourself.
“Don't explain yourself. Just say, help me understand more about what's worrying you or what's frightening you right now”
Help me, help me understand more about how I hurt you.
I didn't intend to, but help me understand more about that, and you will see things shift on a dime.
Likely, we'll be able to see things differently in ourselves, and an opportunity for learning. Even the story is not exactly how you would articulate it, but the nugget around what you're saying, what has real meaning, and what's significant.
Well, and let me also give a caveat there.
“If you're in a relationship with a toxic person, it doesn't matter what you do. They're going to do everything they can to humiliate you and control you”
And back to the corset thing again. But if you remember to ask questions and then to listen. A lot of us spend our time when we're conversing formulating our answer instead of really listening to what the other person is saying.
Yes.
And again, it changes the dynamic very quickly. Actually, people are often shocked by how quickly it changes. And that walk down that hallway we talked about earlier, the pictures start to change.
Thank you, Dr. Cochran, for people who are connecting with you or want to hear more about what you have to say or what you're offering. Where would you direct people?
To two places. One is my podcast, The Relationship Doctor, and the other one is just my website drcochran.com
Excellent. I'll make sure to have both of those links on today's show Notes. What might they find on your website?
Information about how, if you decide you want to work with me, if you want to do some coaching or something like that, how to do that, what kinds of things I can do, a little bit about who I am, that kind of stuff.
Excellent. Wonderful. Well, thank you again for joining us here today.
Thank you for having me. So much fun.
The post ERP 524: Rethinking Forgiveness: Letting Go Without Letting It Be Okay – An Interview with Dr. Margaret Cochran appeared first on Jessica Higgins.
Are you living a life that looks great on paper, but feels like something's missing beneath the surface? You’ve climbed the ladder, checked all the boxes, yet relationships and real fulfillment seem just out of reach. The cycle of “almost, but not quite” can leave even the most accomplished individuals wondering why old patterns keep resurfacing and why true connection remains elusive.
In this episode, listeners will explore how subconscious beliefs, habitual thought patterns, and unresolved emotional baggage shape the dynamics of love and connection. Through practical approaches like interrupting negative cycles, clarifying desires and values, and learning to rewire internal narratives, this conversation offers actionable steps to break free from unhelpful relationship patterns and begin creating the kind of intimacy and fulfillment you truly crave.
Riana helps high-achieving women who’ve built a life they’re proud of in their career, family, friendships, and growth, but still feel stuck in the same old love patterns. Through her signature method, she helps them rewire the subconscious beliefs and recode the nervous system responses that have shaped their relationships for decades, so they can finally create extraordinary love that matches the life they’ve built.
Episode Highlights04:01 Finding identity during life transitions.
08:31 Getting exactly what you ordered.
11:54 Rewiring neurology and internal beliefs.
13:01 Exploring therapeutic approaches.
17:24 Breaking negative thought patterns.
22:02 Accessing emotions to change behaviors.
24:39 Creating your vision board.
27:56 Shifting to positive self-talk.
31:44 Clearing out mental clutter.
35:04 Shifting mindset and frequency.
42:27 The power of forgiveness.
46:13 Steps to heal relationships.
Your Checklist of Actions to Take Clarify Your Desires: Take time to specifically identify what you truly want in relationships and life, beyond vague wishes, by listing your non-negotiables and values. * Perform the Away/Toward Exercise: Write out everything you don’t want on one piece of paper (“away”) and all that you do want on another (“toward”) to bring awareness to your focus. * Wear a Rubber Band: For 72 hours, wear a rubber band on your wrist. When you notice negative thoughts, snap them to create an instant pattern interrupt and remind yourself to shift focus. * Redirect Your Thinking: When you catch yourself focused on the “away” list, immediately replace the thought with something from your “toward” list or its positive opposite. * Cultivate Genuine Gratitude: If struggling to generate positive feelings, ground yourself in something you are authentically grateful for in the present moment. * Serve Others: If feeling stuck, perform a small act of kindness to shift your emotional state and break negative patterns. * Incrementally Improve Your Emotional State: Don’t force a leap from low emotions to joy—focus instead on moving up one or two levels on the emotional scale at a time. * Release the Old Story:* Set boundaries around retelling painful past stories to others; instead, focus conversations on new goals and dreams to reinforce a forward-looking identity.
MentionedExtraordinary Love Index™ (Free Diagnostic Quiz)
Brilliance Brunch (Events Page)
Relationship Map To Happy, Lasting Love (free guide)
Connect with Riana MaliaWebsite: rianamalia.com
Facebook: facebook.com/RianaMalia
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Podcast: podcast.rianamalia.com
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If you have a topic you would like to be discussed, please contact us by clicking on the “Ask Dr. Jessica Higgins” button here.
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Episode Transcript
Rhiana, it's lovely to have you. Thank you for joining us.
Thank you for having me. So happy to be here.
Yes. And we were chatting just a moment here, and it sounds like one of the things that you do is really help people overcome places where they're running into obstacles or blocks in cultivating more fulfilling love. And oftentimes, when people are really experiencing maybe a lot of success, high achieving, or might find some challenges relationally, how did you start to recognize there was a piece missing for people?
And it really, after, I mean, initially created this work for me in all transparency and then now after working with, you know, hundreds and hundreds of people and being able to see that there is a pattern with high achieving, high functioning, high capacity people that oftentimes part of our identity is we're so used to fixing and doing and performing and achieving. And a lot of times when we're feeling some dissonance, or you know, things aren't feeling super connected, especially maybe around relationships, it's a great time to look at what kind of identity and what you're attached to. And so oftentimes it's an identity that you know was 10 years ago or when you started your career, had your kids, or whatever it is. And there's a disconnect.
But the other piece of that's so fascinating is we go through life, we're doing all these things, we have full, rich lives, and then all of a sudden there's some kind of a transition. Maybe it's empty nesting, maybe it's a career change, maybe it's a dorse, whatever it is. And all of a sudden you go, oh. And the question is, well, okay, who are you now outside of the noise and the mom, the wife, the husband, the dad, the CEO, the business owner, like,
“Who are you now? And between now and death, what do you want?”
So many people can't answer that question because they've been doing, they've been putting everybody else's needs first, or they've been so focused on achieving, and relationships and extraordinary love are not the same process as your next C-level position or when you're negotiating a contract. And sometimes it's really hard to separate those things. And then there's this confusion because you've built this amazing life. What is it about this one thing, and why does everybody else seem to figure it out, and what is it about me that I keep ending up in these same relationships over and over, or these same circumstances? So it is fascinating, and it's across the board. Men, women, young, old, it doesn't matter. Yes. A lot of it comes down to what's running the show subconsciously and unconsciously.
Thank you for acknowledging the personal reference around how this was really meaningful for you and your work. But also, just in your experience, helping people recognize the tendency to achieve or accomplish the driver of that might not be as aligned with what is true. And when you said, where I want to be, is that, is there a visionary process, too, that you're wanting people to tap into? Who am I now? The identity piece. But also who they are. If there is a disconnect, who they want to be or what.
Yeah. So when we start. So my methodology is clear to create a method, but the basis of it is, you know, whether we've known each other forever or 10 minutes. I want you to live your very best life. Right. Whatever version that is. But you can't go from childhood trauma, past pain, divorce, failed business, what? All the things. All those limiting beliefs and limiting decisions that, you know, were too much, we're not enough, and whatever. To just live your very best life. We have to clear before we can create. Right.
“We have to clear the story to create a life”
People who say they want a different story. I say, quit telling the old one. Right. That's the first step. But we also have to clear those cycles to create the confidence, to be able to trust that we even know.
Is this really a red flag? Am I being ridiculous? I don't know. Thought I knew. Look how that turned out. And we have to clear those patterns, right? Those underlying the wiring of those patterns to create the partnerships. Because otherwise we don't get the loving, fulfilled partnerships romantically, personally, professionally. We just get more of the same, which is typically more of what we don't want. And really having to clear the loss to create the love. Even if you for me, like, you know, when my first marriage ended, it was definitely not a relationship I wanted to be in. And it got very volatile in that whole process, but I still grieved for what I thought, what I wanted for my family. Right. You have to really be able to, like, give yourself that as well.
Like,
“Just because you were in a horrible relationship doesn't mean that you have to actually grieve for what you set out to do”
Nobody sets out to get ready to get divorced. So to answer your question, before we can clear anything, though, we have to get crystal clear. And this is like the basis of all the magic and the transformation, and where the neuroscience meets the vision. And there are so many people talking about who you are now and what you want, kind of think they know, but when it comes down to it, there's no specificity. And so they end up kind of getting what they want in life. It's fine, they're not in crisis, but it's not really what they want.
So I talk about it like we're going to dinner together, and we pop into a restaurant, and we sit down, and the server comes by and says, ” What can I get you guys? And we're like, yeah, we're thirsty. We're going to start with a salad, some protein, and a great veggie. Amazing. So they bring us an iced tea, a pork chop, some roasted potatoes, and a Caesar salad. And we got exactly what we ordered, 100%. But what we wanted was a lovely glass of pinot and a ribeye, and some roasted asparagus and arugula salad with goat cheese and fresh figs. So the difference is in the specificity and really knowing. And so a process of really diving deep into, like, let's do a values elicitation, let's look at those non-negotiables, let's look at the desires, and we create your menu.
And for so many people, the desire piece is the hardest. Because then, like, I don't know, I've never had that. Okay, so let's talk about how to really tap into those things. No thinking, oh, I'm too old. It's too late for me. Well, like, no filters. But when we do that, you actually have something concrete. I call it the clarity codex. That you can know in a matter of like 60 seconds if anyone gets to actually even potentially be part of your world romantically, friends, or business partners. Because if the values don't line up or there's anything on that non-negotiable list that's present or not present, depending on the context, it's a clean no. And when we can make clean yes and clean no decisions, then we're not stuck in the middle, which is the double, which is the maybe, which is the not knowing. And that's where all the friction and the drama and the decision fatigue come. And then we get so wrapped up in that we're like, I don't know, we either decide out of fear or we don't make one at all. And so then we're kind of paralyzed, and nothing changes. And then there's more evidence that it's not going to happen for us, or it's something we're doing or not doing.
Yes. Thank you. “And just running what has been habitual. Which is more of what? More of the same.”
“Yeah.”
I really appreciate just the catchiness, but also the potency of clear and create. And I know that you're, I imagine, and I would love to hear from you if Riana, if this fits for your work. But I'm seeing this on a continuum that maybe it is a shifting of a relationship in the way of divorce or ending a partnership of some sort or perhaps further on the continuum, it's getting really clear on the values, the non negotiables and starting to show up and relate differently in a current partnership that then can develop something new that hadn't been able to be birthed. “So the clarity internally doesn't always mean wiping the slate clean, so to speak.”
“Or tell me the beautiful thing about this work. And I mean the framework never changes, but it doesn't really matter if we're having a conversation because you've been divorced and you want this extraordinary love that you've never had or you're in a relationship, but it's just something is missing and you guys are not connecting and you deeply want that or you're like, I don't know, I know there's more meant for me in my life. Maybe it's not love-related at all.” It doesn't matter. This work affects every part of you in your world. So it doesn't really matter. It's not like it's just about relationships or just about business or just about any of it. It really is about the rewiring of neurology and the internal piece.
But absolutely, it's again, it's not about a dating thing, or it's not even about the other person. This is about rewiring your neurology and your internal operating system so that you get to actually show up in a career and relate to and function as the person that you really are, not the one that's been running with stuff that you decided between zero and seven. Right. At five years old, you decided something, and consciously or not, it's still running the show. And every one of those decisions has beliefs and values attached to them, which get anchored in which then become the blueprint of our life. And then we go, what the hell? Like, let's just keep happening. I've done so much work, why does this keep happening? But a lot of that is that they're.
If we're going to blow out stuff that's Dysfunctional and not work for us. We have to replace it. That's why people are like, I've been in therapy for years, and I've done all this work, and I'm doing so well. And then this thing happens, and I just revert right back to the old stuff. Well, because the unconscious mind can't fill in the blank, it will always go back to what it knows.
Well, that's particularly like talk therapy, but there's a lot of somatic and really looking at some of these deeper attachments or the family systems work. So I do think therapeutic modalities have evolved. But when it's just the insight, I think that can be limiting, especially when we're experiencing so much of the visceral, like you said, unconscious. And it sounds as though, as you're talking, that it. I mean, because when you're saying people have evidence, so to speak. And sometimes people might approach their current relationship around, I already know what it is, and it can't give me what I really want. But perhaps if I approach that, as you're saying, from this different place, that relationship can evolve or be different because we are different, or anything for that matter. “As you're saying, this can apply to any domain of life.”
“Yes. So, you know, when we talk about the unconscious and the conscious and all the things, and we talk, if we look at just the basics of how many thoughts we think every day, it's like 70, 80, 90,000 thoughts a day. Crazy. And 90% of those thoughts are recycled.” So they're the same thoughts that we thought yesterday, last week, last month, probably last year, definitely in the middle of the night. And a lot of times, though, that's the key here, that most of those thoughts are negative. And I get a lot of pushback. My clients are brilliant, amazing people. And they're like, I am so rock solid on mindset. Like, I'm so clear. I don't ever want to be in this situation again. I don't ever want to be in a relationship where I'm not valued. I have ever wanted to be in a relationship where I feel like a crazy person because I can't really trust them. And, you know, all the things.
“The problem is we're thinking about the things we don't want, and the unconscious mind can't hear the qualifying don't”
It just knows. It's just like that's the address we're throwing in the nav system when we get in the car, and it's going to take us there over and over again. Because the unconscious mind will never, ever make you a liar. So when we're. All that stuff that we're declaring and saying that we don't want, it's like, okay. Or when we say, you know, everyone I meet is blah, blah. This always happens to me. Okay, got it. I need to make sure that I don't make you a liar. So the piece around that is. It's simple, but it's so easy to fix because it's really about flipping the focus. And actually, there's something that I do in my work, and I love to teach. It is. I call it the Magnet for Miracles exercise. And that is one of my core values. So love, generosity, impact, and the belief in what's possible. And being a magnet for miracles. And it's really, like, in 72 hours, you can play with this process and actually change your neurology. And that's the piece where it doesn't matter what we're talking about. Right. Relationship anything. Where your reality, what you see, what you experience, and what starts to show up actually physically changes.
Okay. So, for people listening, I know it's a whole thing that you teach, and it's hard to give justice to that.
Here, but there are a couple of minutes if you. Okay. Like, a fabulous version. Yes. Everybody can go and, like, do this and then come back and tell me and tell Jessica, like, what shifted for you? Because. And I will also tell you before. And I preface this. And then they're like, it shifted my entire life. So an open mind now requires a lot of technical things you need. So you are going to take two pieces of paper. On one, you're going to write the word away, and on the other, you're going to write the word toward. Okay. And you are going to imagine that those are walls. So we're in a room. We have a wall to our left, to the right, in front of us, and behind us. And I want you to imagine. And if you're really visual, I'm pretty visual. Like, I would close my eyes and be like, okay, where's my away wall? Your away wall is everything you don't want for me, it would be over here to my left. And then your tord wall is everything you want. Fairy dust, magic wand, goals, wishes, dreams, all of it. So my toward wall for me is to my right. So on those two pieces of paper, I want you to actually write those lists. And if you need 10 pieces of paper, go for it, but really write all the things you don't want. Ever more of again, whatever, in every area of life, or if you want to just focus this one on relationships, fine. Whatever you want to do. It works either way.
And then on the tour wall, everything you want, I want you to take pictures of these lists and either pop them into your notes app and pin them on top, or put them in an album so you can access them at any time. And I want you to put on your rubber band, and you're going to wear this rubber band for the next 72 hours. Okay? Now, when you start this process, as you go along, and you find yourself, and I'll say the first day, you probably won't notice it very much because you're just so used to it. This is our brains are just wired like this, right? This is how we live and how we operate and how we process. But you might notice it.
You might get kind of like, feel it in your body, like, if you've been kind of spiraling about something or going down the what if from, like, all the bad things that could happen, and the complaining and the blaming and the justifying, and then maybe a little feeling sorry for yourself. So when you recognize it, either in the moment or just because you have, like, some anxiety or you have a pit in your stomach, I want you to snap the rubber band hard enough that it stings. I want you to recall to the best of your ability what it was you were thinking about last. Promise you it'll be something on that away wall list. And then I want you to replace the thought. And there are a few ways to do that.
One, simply look at something on the wall list or the thing you were thinking about. Flip it. What's the exact opposite of that? And just, like, sit with it for 30, 60 seconds as it is, right? Because
“The brain doesn't know the difference between something that has happened and something that we visualize with emotion”
Because it only takes 17 seconds to hold a thought with that amount of emotion to either create new neural pathways or reinforce the ones that we're using. And then you can also think about something you're really grateful for, but not in, like, the Pollyanna way. Not like, I'm so grateful for my life, like, right now, for real, like, legit grateful. So I don't know about your house, but up here, it has been raining, flooding, and crazy.
And so for me right now, I am so freaking grateful that the sun is shining. I feel like I'm alive again. It was horrible. And if you're still feeling it, I want you to ask yourself, ” Who can I serve in this moment? And it does not need to be a big thing. It could be a text to a friend. It could be, you know, your neighbor's plant blew over. Pick it up for the like, whatever it is, get it out of your head now. But if you're being. If you're really paying attention. Oh, interesting. You're gonna start seeing some themes. And the point of this is not to give you some lobotomy that you're not gonna have these thoughts or have these feelings or these emotions anymore. It's to get you out of it as fast as possible. And that's what changes everything.
The pattern interrupt and the flipping. The focus of the frequency of what we're thinking about, even just from taking that tiny little step, is what I don't want to. I'm so excited that I'm whatever. Have this incredible relationship that just feels like home, whatever it is. I don't want to be in another relationship where I feel alone. Okay, but that's what you're going to get, versus I'm so excited for this relationship that I just feel so loved and cared for. So it's those little things, but it's what will actually change your reality. She's a senior in college, and her friends will call her now and be like, ” What's that parking spot thing you do? It's because they're just. Is always.
And it started because when I started looking at this work, the simplicity, but the power of it was because there was a couple of people in my life who are a little big to me, right? Everything's always wrong. There's never a parking spot, especially when it's raining. And I was like, this is a fun experiment. So everywhere Maddie goes, or I go, there's always a parking spot. Because Julia's. No, because that's what's like stuff did, and that we always get parking spots. So her friends, it's so cute. They're like, ” What is the thing you do? And she's like, it's not really a thing I do.
But anyway, it's just an example of in the physical world in a very simplistic way of physical things that actually start changing, and the things you see and notice and show up for you will change relationships with people that you're meeting in opportunities and experiences. Doesn't matter what it is; it will shift.
Thank you for breaking that down as an example that people can engage with and really experiment with. You're saying, ” Don't believe me? Just try it, right?
Like you're saying, but don't do it if you're going to be like, oh, I'm. You know, do it when you are promised to yourself that you're going to play full out for three days. Don't start it and then be like, oh, this isn't a good time. Great, then don't do it. Tip right now. Right. Do it when you're like all in. Now, you don't have to stop your life. In fact, don't stop your life. You just have to make that promise to yourself for 72 hours. You're all in.
And I'm hearing you, Riana, really say it's not just replacing the thoughts and letting that be. It's really getting into the emotional, physiological state, as you're saying, if we can really imagine and find ourselves in that. Which is easier said than done for some who are counteracting a lot of lived experience where maybe they don't have anchor or something to reference that they can easily access or find, but really working to give some room and space for that pattern interrupt, but to access the state of what one is wanting both emotionally and giving some room for the physiology of it. That then, I mean, in my understanding, they all work together. That we can enter into the behaviors, changing our behavior, sometimes that changes our thinking or our physiological state.
Or we can change our physiological state, and like it impacts the whole thinking, all of it together. But this is real. You're engaging the physiology and the somatic with the rubber band, giving a sensation. It's a. Like a trigger or something to pair. And then doing the mental work, but also hoping to cultivate some of that emotional. And if you're saying that one is struggling to access the emotion, just tap into genuine gratitude. Is that right?
Yeah. And doing something for some, I mean, it all raises the frequency. Right. And two things. I'm going to write one thing down so I don't forget the two things that you said that were really important. It is hard if you've had a lot of really hard stuff and not a lot of the good stuff. So I want to speak to that for a second. And here's why it's very common for people to say, I don't know because I don't know, because I have not had that experience. So I want you to play with it if this is you, and you're like, ” That feels really hard for me. We've all either seen a vision board or know what it is, right? Cause you can vision board and affirm all you want, but if you don't rewire the internal stuff, it doesn't matter.
And then again, that becomes more evidence that nothing doesn't happen for you. But pretend you're going to make a vision board. And you know, even if you have to take pieces of paper or post-it notes or whatever, or however you work, take a piece of paper and like put little circles. I don't care. Imagine you're creating a vision board. Okay. And what would you put on it? And it doesn't have to be anything you've ever had. Right. It's oftentimes. Vision boards aren't things that we have experienced; they're things we would like to experience. I also want you to pay attention to any shows you're watching, movies that you're watching, or things you see out in the world.
And if something like that hits you in that spot where you're like, ” Oh, I wish someone would do that for me, like that goes on your vision board. And once you've done that little exercise, and again, don't make this a big deal. You guys, like, take a piece of scratch paper, but just play with me here. I want you to then imagine, however you would like. You're going to see that little picture, and then we're going to make it a movie. And it doesn't matter if you've ever had any of these wonderful experiences or if it seems almost emotional for you to imagine them, because you haven't. But this will actually start creating the neurology for your brain to go, oh, that's where we're going back to the na.
You know, I have no sense of direction, so I use this example a lot because I have to use my NAS system or my maps app everywhere. But it's like we put the thing in, and then we follow the directions. That's what happens in our unconscious mind. And back to your point around physiology. And what happens is every single thought has a reaction. It has a biological reaction. Right. We see that in lie detector tests. We see it in things where, you know, we're thinking about something and our hands will get clammy or our heart starts to race. This is so powerful because I don't know if you have ever heard. Have you ever heard that Dr. Emoto, from the 90s, did?
Yes. The water. Yes.
Okay, so he would like to speak things like, ” Let's play soft jazz. Let's play like Metallica and this water. High-speed
Water molecules.
Yes. And you can see, like these beautiful, like snowflake-looking things when they talked about Mother Teresa, and then this like glob about like Hitler. And it's so incredibly important because our bodies are 70% water. So when we are talking to ourselves, to each other, we're actually changing the molecular structure of our body. And guess what? The Earth is 70% water. So when people say, well, it doesn't matter, you know, all I'm doing is hurting myself. But imagine if you flip that, like speaking not only to yourself but to others in that kind and loving way. It actually changes with your DNA. So it's not just like this theoretical, like that sounds nice. It's like legit science.
And to look at it from that standpoint, if you just, even just if you take anything away from it, think about your body being 70% water. That everything you think and say, especially about yourself, is keeping your DNA. If you're a parent, I want you to think about what that would feel like. As for me, I always think about everything. Like, what would I say to Maddie if she came to me and said, ” This is what, you know. “And so, like for our children, we would want them to speak kindly and lovingly to themselves because we want that for them. Right. So it's like, take that and give it to yourself. Give that same kind of desire, comfort, and love, and wanting to protect them. Give that to you in just that simple way. I mean, like, it changes your biology.”
Yes. I mean, I love that intervention. It often comes, or I don't know where you got it, but I remember coming across that in the more cognitive behavioral psychology. If one is having a focus on the negative and they imagine, well, what would a dear. What would you say to a dear friend who was in this same situation? What would you remind them of that they might be overlooking or forgetting? And can you offer that to yourself? Right. Like these are ways to access, perhaps getting into that new pattern that you're wanting to develop those new neural pathways, a new experience around, and giving some scaffolding to that when we haven't had those lived experiences.
Absolutely.
You know, on the note of interconnectedness. So my mother has studied different ways indigenous wisdom. And one of the things she was referencing and still sometimes does is, I don't know if it's 13 grandmothers or the 12 grandmothers. Like the wisdom of the native. It was like an organization that was. Brought these 13 grandmothers together. I'll try to find it. So I'll put it on after I notice.
But love that.
But they were talking about one of the things for healing collectively is blessing the water. And so the invitation was like, if you go swimming in a natural, whether a river, a pond, a lake, or an ocean, like bless the water, or like just being aware. And so there's an intentionality that I'm feeling in the way you're describing around how we do actually have way more power and agency to help heal both self and others in what we're transmitting. Is that right?
Yes. And oh my gosh, I want to go find the 13 grandmothers. I love that so much. Like that's magical. Like getting like just that, even though when you said it, I could see it like going into the ocean and just like blessing the Lord.
Oh my gosh. My friend and I, so this was 2022. We were celebrating our 40-year friendiversary. We've never done that before. But her mother super generously supported us taking a trip to Maui. And we were in these waterfall river areas. And I was like, remembered my mother, and I was like, oh, like bless the water. And it was just to be in nature and be in that connectivity and really recognizing, you know, when we think about the nature cycles, like it is, there's a flow and a generative, like how it's all. And you're interconnected.
So I love that you said that. And I love that you said Maui. I was born in Maui.
Oh my gosh, that sounds so magical. Well, happy early birthday. That sounds just quite a bit of a treat, and just to come back to your homeland. Yeah, wonderful. Well, and I could say other things, how I'm relating to what you're saying. I guess I will say one other thing. The parking.
My friend. Same friend. But now, when my husband and I do it, we talk about parking angels. Okay. Ask the parking angels. So it's like. But it's another way of engaging in a sweet way, like, oh, the parking angels are helping us find a good spot. And it's amazing how well it works. Sometimes.
The same thing, one thing that we did. We're not. We were Catholic. But a very cute way. Like when Maddie was teaching her friends, it's like, Hail Mary, full of grace, thank you for the parking place. You know, in advance. And it's the same thing as with the angels, but it's just. It's the intentionality, it's the assumptive. Yes, yes. The expectation for, you know, miracles and blessings and ease and flow and good things and good people.
Yes. Which hearkens back to what you're saying about the imprint of our physiological, our brain.
Now we have room. It's like when our pantries are so full of crap. Like I took all my stuff out, and I put it in the kitchen, and I threw away like the expired pasta and the half-open boxes of crackers and like all this stuff, and I cleaned it, and I put it back, and it made me feel like Christmas because 49 perimenopause little ADD. Like I love organization. I don't pile around me, and I just want to shut the door and not deal with it. But. And I put it all back, and it was just like so incredible. But it's the same with our processing. You have to get rid of the expired identity way of thinking, way of processing.
How you show out, how you judge, how you perceive, so that now you get to actually put the good stuff in because your pantry's full of crap and you go buy a beautiful bottle of something, and you put it on the shelf, it's going to fall on the ground and break. There's no room for it. Right. Our closets are full of clothes that we're going to wear someday that we know it's wear. There's no room for anything new. Yes.
And for people listening, is there anything you want to say a little bit more specifically about that release? Because some people are, as you said, with the habitual thinking or the repetitive unconscious beliefs and thought patterning that's kind of on repeat and that we can have some re-patterning and have intentionality around how we're creating something different that we're able to release, which feels important, that might be different than experiencing something new that then hooks a feeling that does maybe need to be processed so that we're not just bypassing. “Can you talk about the difference between releasing, how you might give somebody an indication, like what being able to let go of those heavy marbles, and then also how that is different than bypassing?”
“Great question. And if I, because I get excited about this and I get wordy, and if I don't answer your question, just like rein me back in. Sometimes I end up in another universe.”
Me too.
So I love the thing about bypassing because people will say, oh, so you just, you know, you just want me to be positive all the time. No, that's not what I want. So I think the best way to talk about this particular part of your question is to talk about frequency and emotion and what that looks like. And I don't have you. Do you use the emotional guidance scale in your work at all?
“I'm not sure exactly what you're referencing.”
So it's like it. “It shows like an upward spiral of emotions and downward. It's usually like a colored thing. It looks like this. The very top high-frequency emotions are like joy and gratitude.”
Yeah.
“The lowest ones are like victims. I can't remember. Oh, actually, I have to, I think, anyway, when we talk about. Oh yeah. The lowest fear, grief, depression, despair, and powerlessness. The highest ones are joy, knowledge, empowerment, freedom, love, and appreciation.” So like 1 and 22. So let's say that you are in it, right? And you are down in this like a depressed state. You kind of feel hopeless. And, when we talk about choosing a better feeling thought, I don't want you to even think that, number one, it's possible or that it's healthy to go from 22 to 10, right? And skip over jealousy and hatred and revenge and anger and discouragement and blame and worry and all these things. Right. I'm looking at this thing. That's why I keep looking down. But you don't want to skip over anything.
You can safely and like without being a sociopath, go from like fear up to levels of rage. You can do that, but you can't go from that to contentment. So if we're. If we're really looking at. When I'm asking people to choose a better feeling thought, I actually will have them look at this and name it, and then understand cognitively, intentionally, what would be a better feeling thought by one that I could actually focus on right now, and then buy another one. And then buy another one. And the reason this is so important is that it's like
“We don't get what we want. We get who we are”
The universe doesn't direct us ever. It just reflects us. So when there's stuff, and there's that's going on that we are not happy about, where are we focusing our thoughts, our energy, our behavior?
How are we speaking to ourselves? But it's the best way. I love to explain that this is music. So what is your favorite kind of music, Jessica, or one of your favorites?
Oh my goodness, it changes. I'm super into conscious music right now that has a really good beat and rhythm, like almost R and B with like heart-conscious lyrics.
What should we call it? Conscious R and B? Just give me a name.
Sure.
Sure thing to call it. Okay, and then what is a genre of music that you really can't stand?
I've never really been a fan of like super heavy metal, but okay.
So whoever, when you're listening to this, I want you to pick your own favorite music and music you can't stand, okay? And I want you to think about everything that you want for life, for your relationships, your health, your wealth, your business. All of it lives on Sirius XM111, which is conscious R and B all day long. Beautiful, amazing, like everything you want in your life is there. And sometimes we think if we're really looking at it, really consciously. I hang out in these higher vibe frequencies a lot, but unconsciously, we're often hanging around in those really low frequencies.
And when things aren't going well, when we're in that space, when we're in the yuck, when everything, nothing keeps happening, and nothing goes our way, you're stuck on the Metallica station, and it is just blaring, and you can't turn it off, and you can't turn it down. And the question is, can you hear conscious R and B on the Metallica station? Not a chance in hell, right? So if you want this, how do you get there? You have to change the channel, which is frequency, which is our thoughts. Because we don't get what we want. We get who we are. And it's like, it's as simple and complex as that. It is how we do it. And it's not about bypassing and pretending it's raising the frequency even by one level of emotion. Does that even answer the question that you asked?
Yes, and I am. There is a part of me that I ran a teen program, and there was a teen who was doing well. We were doing a talent show, and he was playing guitar, and I was like, ” Wow, Metallica, like, that's super talented. But I just, I haven't ever really, like, connected and appreciated. So for people listening who are like. But I love Metallica, like, I get it. Okay, so my other part of that question, thank you so much for just speaking to the incremental steps. What's doable, what's accessible, that we can't actually take these big leaps. It's too much for the system to really access and then for the piece around process, or even letting go. Sometimes things do need to be metabolized or processed to then be able to change the channel. Can you speak to that? Like, releasing.
Is it just the, like, habituated automatic pattern that we keep kind of spinning in, or are there things that you, like, help people process it? Need to process?
Yeah. So first, I would say, you know, and like, don't come to me if you haven't done any therapy or anything. Or, like, this work, like, you need to do that work.
“You need to process. You need to have that ability to talk through with somebody who can, you know, reflect to you to talk through it”
to do, if you need to do your inner child work, if you know, whatever it is, like, do that work because you need that. The problem with staying in it is that you're staying in the story. You tell the same stupid story over and over. And anytime somebody asks you about your divorce, you are in it. And you are right, and you are like, you can feel it, and you get mad, and you tell the same word and the same part of the story every time. It's yours. That's your identity. You are so attached to that freaking story. And that is where you get stuck in that victim archetype. Right? And there's no power in that. There's no freedom. And there sure as hell is no, like, moving forward. Yeah. So the piece about releasing, it's kind of like sometimes I like to remind people that if you could have figured all this out on your own, you would have your brilliance.
“You cannot solve a problem with the same mind that created it”
This is not the thing you can out-think or learn another thing, or take a course, or read a book. You've got to tap into that other 90% to the unconscious mind, that's where the magic happens.
And it doesn't take months and years, and it doesn't require. In fact, I don't even let you talk about the story. It's irrelevant. So we can actually do that work very quickly in a way that does not require. Traumatize you and reinstall the neurology and the trauma and the feelings, and then, you know, depending on what it is, like alchemical forgiveness. And I hate the word trigger, but sometimes I don't know what another word for it is. But, like activities, the word forgiveness activates people, right? And I often share that. When I moved to California to take over a family business for my dad, who had been in and out of my life and was not trustworthy. And I went against everything I knew to be right.
But I moved my mom, my daughter, two horses, and three cats across the country because I really wanted it to be true. And I got here, and I made a promise to Maddie. She was nine. That I was only gonna disrupt her life once. I moved around a lot as a little girl. It's hard to feel just like a child. So a few months in, I was in the studio, and I heard some people come in, and like, eight or nine men with guns pointed at me came in and put me in handcuffs. And I found myself in the middle of this DEA investigation.
Wow.
And I tell that because on the flip side of all the stuff, right, I fully forgave my father, but that doesn't mean he gets a seat at the table. He doesn't get access to me. I haven't talked to him in 10 years. But I was so consumed by heartbreak. Like, who does this? Not only to me, but, like, to Maddie? And also just ragefully angry. And then I had to make a decision. I could take us back to Minnesota to our friends and family, or I could keep my promise to her, which, ultimately, for me was the most important, right? Because I'm so hypersensitive to generations of lack of integrity, of keeping promises and breaking promises, and the forgiveness piece of understanding that it's not about them, it doesn't make it okay, doesn't justify it, doesn't let them off the hook.
I don't care if they're alive, if they're dead, if they live next door, if they live across the globe. That alchemical forgiveness, it gives you the ability to, first of all, say, okay, that thing that you did is not going to control my thoughts and my feelings, and then, therefore, my behavior and my life. And it's also the difference of being in the story. And when we're in it, that's where the drama is. And that all of the stuff and the, you know, like theatrics and the trauma of it all. And you. Every time you talk about it, you get emotional. Like, I can talk to you about that story because I'm not in it. I'm on it. And it takes that stuff that we go through in that moment. “And as long as we let it define who we are. And instead of that, now it gets to refine who we are, and it becomes part of who we are.” But it's not our story. It's not our identity. That's not like I tell people a lot of times, if it's a divorce situation and, you know, their friends call and I said, look, they're. They love you in their mind. They're checking on you. They might even want to say, ” Oh, my gosh, I can't believe. Blah, blah. And I said, I really invite you very quickly to cut that off and say, look, I know you love me. And you're checking on me. But here's the thing. I don't want to talk about it anymore. I want to talk about that. I want to go learn how to speak Italian and go to Italy. I want to talk about.
I'm going to learn how to play pickleball. I'm going to fall in love, whatever it is. And
“When you meet somebody new in your life, don't freaking tell them the old story. It's irrelevant”
right? Don't keep adding that back in. Don't let that be what defines you. Let it refine, you let it go. Let that shit go. It's like drinking poison every day, and they die. And what does it do? It just tears us apart. So I don't know if that answered your question.
It does. It does. And I think that it sounds like there's an acute phase where it is important to feel the feelings and let them have their process, but then it shifts into, what are we perpetuating, right? How are we choosing to be in a relationship with that experience? And how that then defines or changes or doesn't. Right. What we choose in that. Well, I know we're winding down and were talking about an intimate relationship, but also very much an individual. Is there anything you want to say around how this applies to the intimate space and couplehood who are in a relationship and not ending a relationship, but, like, cultivating.
So I love that question. Kind of think about it, like, when we look at, you know, a relationship, and maybe we start off a relationship, and we're like, all right, we're. I'm a C, and you're a C. And we're gonna make this beautiful, like, circle, right? And be soulmates. And here's what happens. We meet somebody in a coffee shop. And we're like, oh, I like you. And we have more coffee, and we have more dates, and all of a sudden it's like, you're the most amazing person I've ever met. And I'm like, you're the most amazing person I've ever met. I love you. Okay, let's be together. And we all have baggage, so we bring our baggage, and we come together with this person, and we're so excited, and we're so in love, and we're so happy.
And that person looks at us and says, ” Gosh, Jessica, that baggage looks heavy. How about you let me carry that for you for just a little while? You're like, okay. And we give that to them, and for a little while, it feels amazing. It's like they're carrying all of our crap, and we feel lighter and freer. And then all of a sudden, months or years go by, and you look at this person, and you're like, I don't know who you are. You're not who I married. You're not who I fell in love with. Because they're projecting back onto us all of our unresolved crap. And if we had the ability as humans to go, oh, I see that. Let me take it back. If it were that simple, we wouldn't have a 60 or whatever percent divorce rate.
Now there's the ability to go from wound mates, which at this point probably are back to soulmates. But here's what it requires, number one. Like owning your shit, being willing and wanting to actually do that. Because here's what happens. One person typically is the instigator who says, I don't want to live like this anymore, or I'm going to do some work because whatever I'm responsible for in this situation, like, I want to figure it out and change it. And they'll start doing that work. The other person is either going to go, ” Oh, man, he or she's doing that work. I guess I'd better do it too. Now you have that soulmate ability to reconnect. Or they could say, I don't want to do that.
And then they just try to bring you back down into the negative and the complaining and the miserableness. And then either you do that, and
“You stay stuck in a miserable life, or you leave?”
So, regardless of. Even if you're listening to this and you want so desperately to heal or change or better your relationship, and you know in your heart right now, today that your partner would have nothing to do with it, I promise you, if you did this work, it's going to change them. They won't have any choice in the matter because you're going to show up differently energetically. How you feel about yourself, your confidence, your clarity. And it's like the most magical thing, like, forget about them. Come do some of this work, just as an experiment, and watch what happens.
So even “if you feel hopeless, understand that there's still an opportunity to heal that and come back to that, if that's what you both want.” And not by going to couples therapy and bitching and complaining and keeping score like, this is internal stuff. But again, it happens in such a way that it shifts so quickly. People are often surprised. And I've had people say that their spouses or like friends, like girlfriends of friends, like this. I had a client in New York and her friends, who did a little mini intervention because every Friday night they would have a happy hour, and she would come and she'd complain that she was in a divorce situation. I've heard, you know, that's all of a sudden she wasn't. And they said they asked her if she was doing drugs.
They're like, well, you're much nicer, you're a lot more fun to be around. And you haven't come to happy hour and complained about Michael in like three weeks. And you were talking about fun things that you're looking forward to, and she didn't even realize it. But the, and it just, it changed her dynamic in her, you know, and her friend, because they were kind of over it, quite frankly. They were a little sick of it. So it just, it. You can. You can actually change any relationship that you're in, regardless of the other person.
Yeah. Wonderful. Thank you. Thank you for responding to that.
Yeah.
So, Riana, you have many things that you give and offer. Where would you like to encourage people to connect with you if they're interested in learning more?
Yeah. So my website, rianamalia.com, or any of the socials, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn, YouTube @rianamalia. But before we close, I would love to give all of your beautiful listeners the gift. So I have a diagnostic assessment called the Extraordinary Love Index™. We lovingly call her E.L.I.™, and the E.L.I.™ answers the question, what is standing between you and extraordinary love? Whether that's romantic love or self-love, it doesn't matter. So this is a 40-question assessment. And so I just invite you to, you know, give yourself a good like 10-ish minutes. You can just answer it thoughtfully because it looks at nine key areas. Attachment and impact, communication and trauma, nervous system, and all the things.
But then I'm going to send you a 28-page personalized report that shows you, based on your answers in all of those different areas, what you might be experiencing in your life, in your relationships, what might be showing up, what's the cost of staying there, not doing anything about it? And what's something you could literally do right now on your own to start moving yourself towards closer, you know who and where and what you want to be, and it's amazing. I look at all the results that come through, every single one, and it's just incredible. So it's going to give you insight into you in a way you've never had it, no matter what. So I think everyone in the world should take the alley.
It's just incredible, powerful insight I've had people share with me that, you know, connected dots that they hadn't been able to connect in years of therapy. So there's my invitation. Go take the E.L.I.™.
Wonderful. Well, I'll make sure to put that link, as well as your social and your website, on today's show. Notes. Thank you for all that you've shared with us today.
Thank you for having me.
The post ERP 523: The Subconscious Patterns That Keep Us Stuck in Love — And How to Break the Cycle – An Interview with Riana Malia appeared first on Jessica Higgins.
Money isn’t just about numbers; it’s the silent language shaping intimacy, trust, and fairness in our closest relationships. Beneath the surface of budgets and bank accounts often lies a tangled web of beliefs, emotions, and unspoken histories that can spark misunderstanding, resentment, or even distance between partners. The challenge? Finding a way to transform financial conversations from battlegrounds into bridges of deeper connection.
In this episode, listeners will discover how to unpack personal money stories, identify invisible patterns, and create a foundation for fairness that goes far beyond splitting expenses down the middle. Practical examples and candid advice converge to help couples open up vulnerable, constructive conversations, nurture curiosity about one another, and build flexible habits for lasting financial teamwork. Whether you’re just beginning the dialogue or looking to deepen your connection, this episode offers tools and insights to help you turn financial friction into opportunities for growth, understanding, and shared abundance.
Douglas Boneparth is the founder of Bone Fide Wealth in New York City. He sits on the CNBC and Investopedia advisory councils and has been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Barron's, and more.
Heather Boneparth spent more than a decade as a lawyer in the insurance industry before joining the firm as the director of business and legal affairs. They co-write a weekly couples and money newsletter called The Joint Account.
Episode Highlights04:28 Defining fairness in relationships.
09:23 The importance of curiosity in relationships.
11:38 Talking openly about money.
14:54 Opening up about money struggles.
20:05 Interview process revealed insights.
23:23 Avoiding miscommunication in relationships.
25:57 Quarterly money dates for couples.
27:42 Building consistency with money.
31:19 Collaborative goal-setting and self-growth.
34:32 Balancing personal and shared goals.
38:02 Expecting the unexpected in life.
42:33 Where to find more resources.
Your Checklist of Actions to Take Schedule Quarterly Money Dates: Set aside time four times a year to discuss finances and personal goals as a couple, creating consistent opportunities for communication and connection. * Begin With Wins: Start each money date by acknowledging positive progress and successes, which fosters a supportive atmosphere for more difficult conversations. * Include Personal Goals: During conversations, explicitly ask and share individual goals for the next few years to ensure each partner’s aspirations are recognized and supported. * Use Conversation Starters: Utilize provided questions at the end of each book section to initiate deeper discussions about financial behaviors, values, and histories. * Practice Curiosity: Maintain a mindset of curiosity about your partner’s experiences and stories, continually learning and deepening understanding throughout your relationship. * Acknowledge the Challenge: Embrace the discomfort of exploring your financial histories and patterns, understanding that growth requires facing difficult topics. * Adapt Your Approach: Identify and adjust to each partner’s preferred communication and learning style for financial topics—for example, using visuals instead of numbers if that helps. * Allow Time for Change*: Give yourselves space between meetings to try new financial behaviors and see if they work before making more decisions or adjustments.
MentionedThe Joint Account (Newsletter)
Money Together (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
Shifting Criticism For Connected Communication (free guide)
Connect with Heather and Douglas BoneparthWebsite: domoneytogether.com | bonefidewealth.com
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Episode Transcript
Douglas and Heather, it's a pleasure to have you both.
Heather BoneparthWe're so happy to be here. Thanks for having us, Jessica.
Yes, and I was just commenting that I've had people who are helping people in the financial world who are experts, and not all of them are specifically focused on couples. I know you do a lot to help couples, and one of the topics you were presenting as an option for us to discuss is fairness as it relates to finances and intimacy. Is there a place that you want to start? Even intimacy, talking about finances, is often very tender, multi-layered, and can be tricky to navigate.
Douglas BoneparthThe first thing I would say is when we're talking about money and individuals and couples, this is a topic that's much deeper than dollars and cents. Right? This is an exploration into who you are as a person, who you are as a couple. So I just want to acknowledge that this work is not easy. This is hard work. And I think going into it with that expectation is mandatory. I don't want anyone to feel like, oh my God, I have to go there. You do. You have to go there.
“You really need to know yourself first”
and kind of unpack. A lot of things that you have been conditioned to believe, or how you behave around money, all come from stuff that begins early on in your life.
Douglas Boneparth
So let's not get ourselves into thinking about what we're getting ourselves into. But if you're willing to go on that journey and do this kind of work, the rewards and the results are almost unlimited, and they really do allow you to have a more fair relationship, a more loving relationship. And that's obviously something we all want for ourselves.
Heather Boneparth
“Fair can be such a subjective word”
right? It can be a lot of different things. And so when we talk about fairness in the context of money and relationships, it also means a lot of different things. But deep down, it is about honesty with yourself first, because you've got to know what it is you are looking for before you can go ahead and ask for that from your partner. Not just ask, but go on a quest for you both to find it. Whatever that subjective level of contentment is that feels fair to the two of you is something that you're going to have to do some self-discovery for. Our definition of fairness in the context of our book is this notion of making room and
“Making more room in your life for one another”
And I don't just mean more room in terms of time you spend together, and like quality time. I mean more room for what you each want, more room for your quirks, more room for your full personality, more room for the baggage that you're bringing to the relationship, More room for it all. So that when you're bringing your full self, your full needs, your full wants, your full money, identity, and personality to the table, then at least we both really know what we're working with, and we could define what we want that to look like together moving forward. “So this idea of fairness, like it's not this tit for tat. 50/50” Even, I do these three things, and you do those. This is a very subjective personal pursuit for two people to go on together. And it never ends.
It's work that is constantly moving forward.
As we're evolving and life evolves, it's going to be dynamic. It's not a rigid protocol or formula that you plug in, and it's going to be constant. So I'm kind of getting two feelings as you're both describing here how the work is difficult. I remember in an ethics class, I think I had a professor that if there's a moral dilemma or some type of decision that needs to be made and there's a lot of complexity to it was the analogy, and maybe you've heard this, of bringing it to a well lit room with the most respected people being able to have it be visible. And that's a lot of the coup work is stuff that maybe is happening on the inside that we do or we think we do a pretty good job of armoring or protecting or like concealing.
And I think we do that with money. Some of it we're not really all that out in the open. It's a very personal, private, and sometimes not even fully conscious thing that you're saying. If we're willing to explore who we are, what things mean to us, it's not that we're trying to fit like a system here for you to plug into. It's really understanding things that maybe you haven't looked at and what fairness means to you, and that “I love that in your book, what I got, if I'm hearing you now, it sounds like it's less about the ratio 50/50. It's more about understanding and how you both work together. That is the cultivation of what feels fair, that's uniquely personal to the couple.”
Heather BoneparthAbsolutely.
Douglas Boneparth
You got it.
Heather Boneparth
Absolutely. You hit the nail on the head. And I haven't heard that about the well-lit room. And I love that because that's just so incredibly true.” I think we had spoken with someone early one of our source experts for the book who had said, I think we all know a lot of facts about our partners, but do we really know the stories and do we really know emotionally what your partner has carried away from those stories of their childhood, of their lived experiences, of their culture, their socioeconomic upbringing? What has that brought to their present-day beliefs and behaviors around money? A lot of us don't know that.
Douglas BoneparthBe able to take it to the next step and ask yourself, ” Is that serving us well? Is this behavior or is it helping or harming us? Yeah. And if it's not helping, that's the call to action, to change the behavior or find the pathway you need to go down to get to the better results that you want for yourselves. And again, this is not easy. The reflection that you need to have to even, you know, figure that out. And then to be brave enough to say, okay, I'm gonna make a change.
Heather BoneparthI'll speak for myself that the process of writing this book and the process of interviewing amazing psychologists, therapists, and financial therapists opened up a lot of doors about my past and my present-day money behaviors. Things that I knew, but I hadn't really connected the dots on until he did more of the work. That's what's crazy, right? That's the point, that sometimes you don't even know how deep it really runs until you open the door to explore those uncomfortable moments past and present.
Douglas Boneparth
One bit of advice that we give here is to be curious, right?
“To have this desire to learn and be curious about your partner”
We've been together for a very long time, over 20 years, married for over 10, and I cherish moments in which I learned something. Just when you think that's enough time to think about every facet of your partner, and then your curiosity will fetch you a new story that uncovers a rock that hasn't been turned over. That could be the difference between having an amazing year, having a greater perspective around your partner, and connecting a lot more deeply with someone. Just when you think you couldn't connect anymore, here you go. Or, hey, this is why perhaps a certain behavior exists or why someone feels the way that they feel.
Oh my gosh, I so echo that sentiment. Similarly, my husband and I have been together for 20 years and not married the whole time. But when I learn something, I'm like, oh, like, I do have that mindset that I'm open, and I know that there are still so many things that I'm discovering, but it keeps things a little bit fresher. Right. When we're really more open. So if we can slow down really quickly, if you both would just say the name of your book as we're referring to it. And. And then also, do you have an example for people listening around how this understanding, unpacking our money stories, our experience, how that relates to how we might be operating in real time with money, just to anchor that in as a practical example. And if you say the name of the book, we also say a little bit about it.
You're referring to stories. So part of that piece, if you want.
Heather BoneparthAbsolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Our book is called Money Together: How to find fairness in your relationship and become an unstoppable financial team. And when we sat down and were approached about writing a book about couples and money, we knew we wanted to do something different, something that was not a how to guy. Here are the eight steps you need to take to manage money with your spouses. Here's the way you need to set up your bank accounts. Here's the way you need to budget. It's been done. “And we felt like what was missing was the conversations and the communication tools, and finding ways to help partners see each other better around money, and around not only money, but around money. Adjacent topics that impact your money, like time, like contribution and caregiving, like risk, like goals.”
These are all part of a money conversation, but they're so often left out of conversations about. Typical conversations about money that people have been taught are usually about budgeting, saving, paying off debt, things like that. And so when we sat down to do this, we wanted to do something differently. We wanted to help people open the door to deeper conversations, to help partners get on the same page, and then be in a position to have better technical conversations, too. So, what we did was two and a half years ago, we started interviewing as many couples as we possibly could. And couples from all walks of life, people from all different ages and socioeconomic backgrounds and cultural backgrounds, people from different countries. We really tried to hear as many unique viewpoints as we could.
And it was eye-opening. And incredibly important to us was not only that we reflected their stories well in the way that we tied them together with the lesson. So the thing is that we wanted not only to tie these real-world stories into the lessons that we would like for readers to gain from this book, but we also wanted people to see themselves in these slivers of these stories. It was important for us not just to show three or four couples throughout the book, but dozens of couples in different scenarios, in very intimate, personal, real scenarios that people find themselves in. And I don't just mean technical, like a couple that's in debt or a couple that wants to buy a home. I mean scenarios where there are two partners who have been doing something one way.
This is one of my favorite examples from the book. A couple who had been doing something one way for five, six, seven years. And they started with the best of intentions, and there was nothing wrong on paper with the way that they decided to approach something financially. But over time, it began to make less and less sense, and resentment started to build and build until one drunken night in Tokyo, they got in a huge fight over a croissant.
That was the story I was hearing.
Heather Boneparth
Yes, and it's crazy, but it's so relatable because it's not the croissant. Every couple has something that is that one thing that was the last straw because something's been brewing in the background for so long.
For me, it was a sock on the steps that had been left for one day too long, and I had had enough. It's not about the sock. It's about everything leading up to the sock. And so these are the stories that I think just people reading this, we wanted people to say, ” Oh, my God, that's me. Hold on, I'm going to put the page down and call my spouse and say, ” Hey, you need to read this one thing, because this is us. This hat's on us.
Douglas BoneparthThe way we create that moment is by finding yourself in a story, finding a behavior, finding a chapter, a sentence, a word that says, ” That's me, and I'm not the only one. And now I can share this, or now I have the words in which to share with someone to get that point of view across.
Heather BoneparthAnd it was incredibly important for us to air ourselves out first. This is really hard work for anyone to even be willing to sit down and do with their partner.
Douglas BoneparthAnd
“You lead by example”
Heather Boneparth
You lead by example. And we wanted to do that. And I think Doug and I both, but me in particular, like, I have a complicated history with money. I have a complicated family history. And I felt that it was important for me to show the way that my past played out in my young adult life and in our relationship as we grew into adults and started a family and became parents together. It was incredibly important for me to show that it doesn't matter that he's a financial expert and he's been at this for a gazillion years. It doesn't matter, like, even we weren't getting it right. But if we can't talk about money, then what's everyone else doing? Exactly.
Yeah. It's very normalizing and also gives examples of what the process of doing this work looks like, especially when we've lived in complex dynamics or scenarios that have pain or trauma. So thank you for that because we don't always get to see what's behind the door. And it's a huge gift to compile and bring that together.
Heather BoneparthThank you.
Douglas BoneparthAnd so you're a pleasure, Jessica.
Yeah. Well, so you were talking about a story, and then I asked about an example that people might be able to feel a little bit more specific about. Can you give an example of what learning about oneself means, and how that impacts whether or not it's the croissant story or whether or not it's something else here or there?
Douglas BoneparthYeah. We saw this for folks who had housing insecurity or food insecurity. And you can go the other end of the spectrum, who came from immense privilege. Right. So you can pick either end of the spectrum.
Heather BoneparthWe heard an incredible story from someone who experienced homelessness, abuse, and food insecurity as a child into young adulthood, but also was incredibly successful and driven, and someone who really made it his life's objective to take care of the people that he loves. And so, just an incredibly multi-hyphenated person as he grew into adulthood. But the way that first came out in his young adult life was when he got his first paycheck and got that apartment. He had stuffed his fridge full of.
Douglas BoneparthFood that would expire, couldn't get through all of it. He had 24 pairs of jeans. In the car. You could see the overcompensation for what the experience was.
Heather BoneparthHe had actually gone into credit card debt. Despite the fact of growing up with housing, food, and financial insecurity, to surround himself with the physical things that he thought would make him feel safe. I think that is an incredible example. I mean, eventually, he got into investing and became someone who was really involved in their finances and sorted that out. But the thing that he continued to carry on was this idea that I think he maybe had a little bit of that. Never enough. It was a little bit of that. What will be enough to not only not stop working permanently, but just to take a break and to look around and say I deserve and my family deserves my ability to pause and revel in what we've done and to take.
Douglas Boneparth
A beat and to say patience were particularly hard for this individual. They created the feeling, yes, of never enough. But I can't stop because you're running away from what you had experienced before, and you never want to go back there. So you just keep running. And could really see that juxtaposition here pretty clearly. We try to paint that picture for you. Throughout that particular story, we had spoken.
Heather BoneparthWith folks and financial therapists who had given us numerous examples from clients in their own practices, where you have someone who grew up in a traumatic, insecure household, environment, or community. And these are people who grew into adulthood and never saved for retirement, never considered it, never thought about it, because they really, honestly did not picture a world that they could grow old in. Could you imagine that? But that's real. Some people do not think about the future, do not think about long-term goals, because they were never allowed in their lives to feel secure enough to think about their future. Absolutely. That is ingrained. That is incredibly hard.
It's a part of their nervous system, it's part of their pattern that's even very automatic or unconscious, and a lack.
Heather BoneparthOf trust in financial systems, as well, to say, hey, you were not able to participate in these things, but now you could. And they're like, well, why would I? Yeah, that's incredibly hard to unwind.
So in these interviews, where people in a position of having worked through some of these difficulties or having gleaned the insight, many of them have some resolution. If I'm thinking about this story around the gentleman who grew up and not enoughness, and go ahead, Douglas.
Douglas Boneparth
That particular individual was very self-aware of their circumstances. However, there were plenty of interviews where folks got into and were not therapists. Right. But got into a little bit of a therapy session as they were uncovering things through the very questions they were asking them. And what was so great about that is it served as a real-time proof of concept of what we were working on, where if you were asking the right questions, we were curious about them, becoming curious about each other, and ultimately being curious about each other, we knew we were on the right track. So there were plenty of folks who were open to the idea, and thank goodness they were, because they received the benefit from getting to explore that while we took in answers for the body of work we were working on.
And then there were folks that clearly and unfortunately needed to address some things that were going on with themselves or in their relationship, good behaviors, but unfortunately, some behaviors that weren't so great. And a lot of times it came out through the things that were not being said.
Heather BoneparthMy God.
Douglas BoneparthYeah, poke your lines.
Yeah, it came out not because they were saying something that was necessarily bad or nefarious. It was what was not being said. And we would pick up on that. They're like, hey, they're not talking about this very glaring thing that's showing up here that clearly is an impediment or a barrier to them connecting further. So we saw it all, and it really depends on who we're talking to, what story, and what angle we really wanted to have that discussion around.
Heather BoneparthThat was a difficult seat to sit in.
I bet, because you're not in a position where you're doing the work with them yet, like.
Heather BoneparthOr not doing the work with them in that sense. And also, this book is written in the first person. It's not written as a we; it's written as an I and as the storyteller and the story receiver to receive a story. There's the story that I think some folks wanted to tell us, and then the story that we received. So I think that's very hard. And I'm sure that's something you experience probably in your line of work. But I think that is so emblematic of this topic in general. We have money. Think about the story people want others to see of themselves around money.
Which is exactly the point I think I'm hearing you both make, that if we're not doing the inquiry to understand our experiences, what's contributed to shaping how we feel and relate to money, we're going to likely think a certain thing. But that maybe isn't the full story.
Heather BoneparthRight?
Douglas BoneparthA hundred percent.
Heather BoneparthRight. Forget about what other people think of you and what the world thinks of you. What about just your partner and not having those conversations with them, and the way that you're trying to hold yourself out to them, and our choices have.
Such a huge, powerful impact on our lives. Right.
Douglas BoneparthYou hit the nail on the head there. Right. So you people are making, let's say, the people and friends. People who dick. People.
Heather BoneparthPeople.
Douglas Boneparth
People.
Heather BoneparthAll of us, too.
Douglas Boneparth
Yeah, they're making their assumptions based on you. Now. Their assumptions technically should not.
“Thoughts and opinions should technically not matter”
Right? But we ourselves are people, and we do care, unfortunately, about what other people think.
Heather Boneparth
Chapter about that, about the power of expectation.
Douglas Boneparth
You should probably be tuning in to a lot of what other people think. Oh, but what about your partner? Like you probably should not, Right? And if you're in a situation where you're both assuming things about each other and trying to navigate a life together, whether that's your money, your kids, the risks you take, and the decisions you have to make to move forward in life, that is where you run afoul or have a high degree of possibility of running afoul.
“It's where the miscommunication happens. It's where trust breaks down”
It's where disappointment and resentment can breed. And nothing of what I said, there is something you want in your relationship. Right. So it's so easy to say, yeah, you gotta communicate more. Yes, of course.
But I think when you look at the other side of it, you're seeing, okay, I understand why it's so important that we get the story, that we remain curious about one another, that we get to the root of the issue, because we don't want those things. And we got work. We got stuff we need to do. We don't want to stand still.
Yes. Okay, so I have a question about. For people listening. Is there something? I know your book and your work offer. You have so many things you offer to help people. Is there anything that you want to direct people towards as an exercise or an invitation to contemplate their own experience with money, to deepen that understanding? Because from what I remember, the gentleman who was running, and not enough, he was asking his partner, please help me from myself. Like, they had an explicit arrangement where they balanced, and he was able to take those vacations and drop in, or the crystal. I love that story. The intention was to be 50 to really be fair. But that mechanism was so unsupportive for their bond of really having each other's back, or that feeling of we're in it together.
“Just to give people the example of, like, what it looks like when they start implementing awareness. But how do you help people begin to start building this awareness?”
Heather Boneparth
I'll say two things. There's a reason that at the end of each section of our five sections in our book, and at the end of each section, we have 10 questions or around 10 questions that help couples uncover and to begin to have these conversations.
Douglas BoneparthYeah, we got the words for you.
Heather BoneparthWe've got some conversation starters. And nobody's saying you should sit down and pretend that you're opal.
Douglas BoneparthStart griddling your partner.
Heather BoneparthDone at once. They're literally conversation starters. And you can do them in whatever environment and pace makes sense for you.
Douglas BoneparthSee where they take you?
Heather BoneparthThe thing that we really recommend couples do is we recommend you sit down for a money date four times a year, quarterly, and you can incorporate one or two of these questions into your money date, and the money date from our perspective.” And we don't need to get fully into the technicality because it does involve obviously talking about your numbers. That's a piece of it which we can put aside just for the purpose of this conversation. But we also include in our money conversations things that are going right in your life, patting each other on the back for all the good work in progress that you are doing, “framing this in a positive way so that you can constructively work through,” and then talking about maybe the things that you guys both should be working on a little bit better.
And the other thing that we include in those conversations is an inquiry about time and about whether both of you feel supported and have enough time to do the things that you individually want and need to do.” Which I think goes into again, this bigger question about money and the deeper conversations and saying, like, what are my personal goals? What am I trying to accomplish in 2026? What are the things that I feel like I'm unsatisfied with in my own personal life? That opens up the door to that piece of the conversation. And by doing it as part of this big four-time-a-year meeting, where you also have your numbers handy and available, you don't have to kick the can down the road and say later, ” We'll talk about it later.
Well, no, we can actually address. Are there constructive things we can be doing in our financial lives to get back to this concept, make room for the thing that you want to be doing that you're not getting to do? Other things we can do. So we do this four times a year, and we suggest couples do it four times a year as well.
Douglas BoneparthAnd I want, thank you, folks, to understand that you're playing a long game here, right? You're not going to read this book, you're not going to have one money date, let alone two, or maybe even three, and walk away, you know, having mastered any of this. You don't go to the gym one time and say you're in the best shape of your life. You don't see a therapist one time and say, I've been cured, I've been healed, right? This is something that you have to put in the reps on.
“You have to be consistent, you have to be disciplined.”
Anything under self-care follows these rules. And your money is absolutely no different from any of this. So, counting by fours here, right? One year, you got four cracks at it. Three years down the road, you're at 12, right?
At that point, you can say, ” Hey, we've put in this work. We know how these meetings go. We know the cadence. We know what's easy to talk about, what's difficult to talk about. Heather gave a lot of great tips.
“Start with the win, start with the goals, not necessarily the numbers or what you did wrong”
You start to figure out how to conduct these meetings. And all of a sudden, you have a practice. And once you get to that point, that's where really great things happen. That is the subtitle. Becoming an unstoppable financial team now creates that kind of teamwork that will get you the results that you're looking for to navigate your financial life, if not just your life together.
Yes. And if I'm understanding the sentiment of the curious, like, attitude, and also some preparatory work to have some of those questions, to have a better understanding going into those meetings, and being able to continue to be in a relationship with what is this telling? Or what am I learning about myself? What am I experiencing as it relates to these dynamics?
Heather BoneparthThey get better every time. You will get more organized over time by giving yourself the space. It's so important to us. When we landed on quarterly, this is not the same as sitting down. Some people say weekly, some people say monthly. We want you to have the time between these meetings to see if what you talked about is working. We want there to be space because we're talking about what's working in terms of our feelings and how we feel about it, and the kind of work you'd be doing relationally. But we're also talking about financially. And we know that when we're talking about things that require financial changes or behavioral financial changes in your life, you gotta give it some time to see if it works. You're not gonna know in a week. Well, I stopped spending money on coffee, and everything's different.
It's been four days. You haven't even faced like one. Like one ounce of adversity or something that could shake up your plans. You have to give it a little bit of space and these things. Time to breathe and to settle in. And so it's important to us. And the work gets better and more streamlined and more efficient over time. We started this years ago, and the way that it looks now is a million times better. I mean, like when we first started, we'd end up either screaming at each other or we wouldn't talk about money for six months.
Douglas BoneparthFrustration, frustration.
Heather BoneparthA lot of talking over one another, a lot of tears from me.
Douglas Boneparth
Yeah, it took a lot of willingness. Again, developing a practice is not easy. Keep going back to the gym analogy. You work out hard one time, you're going to be super sore, and a lot of people are going to be like, I don't want to experience that level of discomfort again. And that's why this is hard. Right. You have to get comfortable with being uncomfortable before this practice is going to take shape and form. That's why I started the whole conversation here today with that, hey, buyer beware. But it's definitely worth it. Right? Because when you put in the practice, or you go to the gym four days a week, six months, you probably are in the best shape of your life.
Heather Boneparth
Yes.
Yes. Well, it's interesting when I think about your work, and I was preparing for our interview, I was thinking, there's a piece. And I think they're interconnected. And as you're speaking, it seems like they're. These quarterly meetings involve two parts, but I'm sure each part has many aspects. But one part is just the unpacking and self-understanding, and also understanding your partner and their experience as it relates to their life and money, and all the things. And then the second part is how we actually work together, developing these goals, having these conversations. So, can we talk a little bit more about doing it together?
Because I think people try to adopt a certain thing, and it sounds like you're really encouraging people to develop based on what they learn and know about themselves and others, and then arrive at something that's going to be evolving.
Douglas BoneparthYeah. So I'll use a story from the book or an interview that we had with a couple, two partners that were extraordinarily willing to do the work. That wasn't the issue at all. They both wanted to get further or dive more deeply into their financial life. He was a financial professional. She was willing to go along. He would start with the numbers, start with spreadsheets and budgets, and net worth tables, and the things that you do have to review. And it wasn't clicking; it just could not get forward. And what had happened here is he said, hey, let's try something different. Finally, I got fed up with like, we gotta try something different. Brings out a whiteboard and starts to draw pictures of what he is trying to explain through tables and things like that. And it clicked, and it clicked.
And the lesson here is that you need to be able to meet your partner where they're at, figure out how it is they operate, and like to learn back to that curiosity component. Right. I know with Heather, starting with the numbers is not going to be as effective as starting with the goals and the things that we want to achieve. I know I will be more effective, or we will be more effective. Talking about, inevitably, numbers. We have to do it, but how do we have an on-ramp into successfully getting there? Right? So this is such a big part of fairness and a big part of teamwork is knowing how the other person learns, how it is that they receive information, being curious about what they're interested in. They're in the golden age of financial information, right?
I can name you a dozen podcasts, newsletters, TV programs, you name it, that likely will cater to your interests or the way you like to learn, or the person you want to hear it from. That is an amazing gateway drug into diving more deeply into. And I'll be the first to own this. It's a pretty boring topic, personal finance. But what's not boring is what you've got going on in your life. Hopefully, you don't find your partner boring, right? Hopefully, you find them to be quite interesting. And then now you have the way to connect more deeply with them, particularly around personal finance. So I love that story because such a big part is meeting your partner where they're at.
Thank you. Heather, do you want to comment?
Heather BoneparthThe one thing I'll say too is that I don't want to gender this, but I know, especially I can speak from my own experience as a mother, as a professional, as someone trying to juggle way too many things at once. “It is really, really easy to get lost in your marriage, in your relationship, in your children, in a lot of different things. And so when we talk about goals and how to, like, really identify not only shared goals, but, like, put shared goals aside for a second, what are your goals? And those get so easily lost.” It sounds so cliché to come back to this idea of yours, mine, and ours. But it really is so critical in this work that the goals are not just those of this homogenous unit.
And we are sure to ask ourselves as part of this process, and one of the other financial wealth managers whom we interviewed for this book asks the question beautifully. She says over the next three years, what would need to happen in your life, personally, professionally, and financially, for you to be happy with the progress you've made in your life? That is an individual question. That's not a coupled question. You each should answer separately and answer it in front of your partner. And together we talk about that as part of the conversation, so that your partner may hear the words out of your mouth and realize what conditions may need to change in your life as a couple for those things to be achieved for you.
So when we talk about the technical, we could talk about the technical all day, but that's what I keep coming back to, is this idea of not losing your individual goals to the collective of the couple.
Yes. And I know some of what you both focus on, which I'm hearing you point to here, is how you're connecting through different ways of having different values, different processing, different. Like, there are so many differences that couples have that it's less trying to have the strategy or the result that's the win. The win is that we are connecting, we're on the same page, we're getting it, we're aligning, we're attuning, and then from there we can move. And I'm hearing you speak to Heather just how if we're not looking at this in a more holistic or multidimensional way, we're going to lose where contributing value in these maybe invisible work or ways in which we're contributing that maybe don't have specific dollars in this concrete, very precise way. And then also like where we feel most fulfilled and most happy.
“Like that is part of the conversation of abundance and wealth and how we're working together.”
Heather Boneparth
Absolutely. And I think something that was just so important, one of the most important messages from all of this, because. Right. Like, if you focus and you obsess as a couple or as an individual over one strategy.” Right. We lay out this one strategy. We've got our eight-step process. Here are the things you have to do. Guess what's going to happen. Life's going to happen to you. And it's going to throw that strategy upon Ted. The math doesn't always add up. And that's coming from a financial professional saying that in our lives, we've made decisions before where the math hasn't made sense. It's not the decision that another financial planner would have told us to make on paper, but we made the decision because it was meeting the needs of our family and of me or of him at that time.
And that's why all this other stuff, which might sound a little wishy washy, I'm not giving you an eight-step budgeting tip, how to work together and combine your finances. But at the end of the day, none of us knows what tomorrow is going to bring. That's why we end the book on the section about risk and expecting the unexpected. Because you're better off spending your time conditioning your relationship to be in a better situation, to accept and be nimble to change. Yes. You are marrying yourself to one way of doing things and having that be the only way you can envision yourselves moving forward. I would rather see people come away from this book, from our thoughts, from our lessons, saying I'm ready to accept whatever happens next. Then I've got the three-step process together.
Douglas BoneparthYeah. And again, things like
“Knowing your numbers”
Right. Things like knowing each other. If you're trying to be a durable, malleable, dynamic person, and you want to be those things because the most dynamic thing you're dealing with is life itself.
This is how you're able to take the change that comes your way. It will. When things turn upside down. It will. That's the only guarantee I've got for you is that things are going to change up on you. How can you deal with the expectations that you set for each other and yourselves when things inevitably change? And we're probably sick of hearing this at this point about the difficulty of this. That's why it's hard. And you hear this all the time.
“If it were easy, everyone would be doing it”
You'd be out of a job, I'd be out of a job. And it's utopia, and we live in a world that's the furthest thing from that. So again, it's creating that cost-benefit analysis here with the cost being. Okay.
This is going to be a difficult thing to get started with, by the way. It gets so much easier the more reps you put in. Right.
Well, and I'm also thinking how much.
Douglas BoneparthMore rewarding when that's the deal, the trade-off. Right.
And when life presents a challenge, we can be more nimble because we are in touch with each other, with ourselves, around what matters, instead of oh, delay, sacrifice, and when X happens, then I will do the work, and then life happens, and we're not equipped because we're like running on a deficit.
Douglas BoneparthLet's go all the way with that thinking real quick. Okay, let's go all the way there. It's not only were we able to find our way through it or out of it, but we are also able to find the opportunity.
Yeah, yeah.
Douglas BoneparthThat is, I think the multitude of.
Heather BoneparthLayers here, it doesn't have to just be scary, it can be filled with possibility.
Thank you for saying that. Yes.
Douglas BoneparthAnd I'm a financial guy, it's in crisis, it's in the meltdowns, it's in the volatility. Like, let's get to a financial will, extrapolate out to life. It's in those moments that the people who've managed to keep calm in those environments, because they know each other and their behaviors and all of that, they're like, look at that deal. Look at that opportunity. I'm going to put my chips there while everyone's running for the exit.
It's aligned because they've done the work, or we've done the work, and we have our bearings around how to calibrate to our north star the things that matter most. It's uncomfortable and uncertain and scary. But we have that to guide us.
Heather BoneparthAnd would you really want a world with something unexpected happening in it? Would you really want?
Douglas BoneparthWould you be a little boring? I could go on for days. That's where the opportunities are. Whether you look at 2008 or whatever and stuff like that.
Heather BoneparthLet's nod and say we did.
Douglas BoneparthHeather wants to take ye olde, you know, walking stick and pull me out of the hollow here.
Heather BoneparthTalk about 2008. That's not.
Well, I can just feel that both of you could probably do a whole week-long, like you both have so much to give and offer. So for people who are recognizing there's a depth here and just gifts that you have to share. Where can people get in touch with you both?
Douglas Boneparth
Where are they going to find you?
Heather BoneparthYou can go. You do it.
Douglas BoneparthSo if you're interested in learning more about the book, you can go to www.domoneytogether.com. If you want to learn more about the wealth management firm we're running here, it's bonefidewealth.com on social media. Oh, wait, we have a newsletter that we publish pretty much every week around love and money, and that's going to be @readthejointaccount.com. Check out the joint account, subscribe. And then lastly, for social media, you can find us on all platforms. She's @averagejoelle, and I'm @dougboneparth. Or you could just Google our names and go anywhere you need to go here.
I'll make sure to have all of the links on today's show notes. Heather, were you going to say anything? It seemed like you were gonna cover it.
Heather BoneparthHe gave the whole thing.
Douglas BoneparthShe was going to stop me and be like you forgot the newsletter.
Heather BoneparthDon't forget the newsletter, it is the most fun of all.
Well, thank you both. It's been a treat to spend this time with you, and thank you for what you're doing.
Heather BoneparthThanks for having us.
The post ERP 522: Fair Isn’t 50/50: How Couples Build a Financial Partnership That Works – An Interview with Heather and Douglas Boneparth appeared first on Jessica Higgins.
Resentment is the silent killer of connection—creeping in beneath the surface, quietly eroding the intimacy and trust between partners. Too often, the frustration we feel in our relationships stems not just from our partner’s actions, but from deeper unmet needs and patterns we haven’t paused to examine. When left unaddressed, this silent disconnect can blossom into the so-called “roommate syndrome,” where couples drift apart, stuck in cycles of survival mode, logistical interactions, and emotional isolation.
In this episode, listeners are invited to explore how resentment actually reveals more about personal boundaries, self-care, and unmet needs than we may realize. Through practical examples and honest conversation, you’ll learn how to transform defensiveness, blame, and silent frustration into curiosity, accountability, and genuine reconnection. Discover why emotional distance develops over time, how to identify its earliest signs, and actionable steps—from gratitude practices to clearer communication—that can help rekindle connection and reset relationship dynamics, even in the midst of midlife transitions and complex challenges.
Katie Rössler is a relationship strategist, licensed therapist, and creator of the REBUILD method, a transformational relationship alignment program for high-achieving, international couples. She’s the author of two books, host of the Relationship Reset podcast, and has spoken on stages around the world. With over 15 years of experience, Katie guides couples from silent resentment to deep reconnection and supports women in perimenopause as they evolve into the powerful, grounded leaders they’re becoming.
Episode Highlights04:41 The impact of differences and cultural dynamics on relationship resentment.
07:40 How unmet needs and self-reflection fuel resentment.
13:00 Moving from victimhood to agency in relationship roles.
15:45 The importance of receiving gratitude and connection.
19:56 Overcoming barriers to receiving affection and connection.
23:01 Breaking the roommate cycle: Practical steps to reignite emotional and erotic connection.
40:02 Learning new relationship skills: Navigating change and discomfort.
42:39 Midlife transitions: How hormonal and developmental shifts affect relationships.
44:27 Moving through midlife challenges together: Ownership, education, and growth.
Your Checklist of Actions to Take* Get curious about resentment—ask yourself what’s underneath your feelings and why they’re showing up. * Practice expressing gratitude and intentionally receiving it from your partner, rather than deflecting or minimizing the gesture. * Separate “project mode” from “connection mode” by scheduling regular couple’s check-ins focused on emotional connection, not logistics. * Communicate your needs and boundaries clearly, even if it feels uncomfortable, to foster mutual respect and support. * Invite your partner into your interests and joys—share what excites you and make space for curiosity about each other’s experiences. * Normalize messy or vulnerable moments by slowing down, breathing, and allowing space for emotion, rather than rushing to fix things. * During challenging life phases (like midlife or perimenopause), educate and support each other by learning together and having open dialogue. * Establish annual visioning sessions as a couple to create shared goals that prioritize your relationship alongside everyday tasks.
MentionedRelationship Reset Podcast
Couple’s Visioning Workbook
Shifting Criticism For Connected Communication (free guide)
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Episode Transcript
Katie, thank you so much for joining us.
Thank you, Jessica, for having me.
Yes, I know that we've had a little bit of time to get to know each other. I was on your podcast, and I can put a link to your podcast. I know you're a licensed therapist, and you also have programs, and you also do speaking engagements. And today, we're going to be focusing on resentment and also how this can look like an arc of a relationship, and some of the things that people might be encountering. But before we get started, where would you like to begin? Around when did you start to really focus on supporting people in this area? And you talk about silent resentment building into connection.
Yeah. So, I live in Munich, Germany. I'm from the United States. And when I moved here, I thought I wouldn't be able to work here based on my license, but I was able to work in the world of couples work. So I call myself a relationship strategist because most of the couples who come to me are high-achieving, bicultural, and they're trying to navigate the shifts that they've gone through in life. Whether it be the move, the international move, infertility challenges, or just raising kids, or having aging parents. Some aging parents are in different countries. All of these pieces that they're now having to juggle, realizing they didn't really have the foundation in their relationship to be prepared for that change and that shift.
So it naturally came to me that these challenges and the resentment and just the things that come naturally because of midlife that we start to face, just started showing up in my world. And funny enough, of course, my husband and I are in our early 40s. We're a bicultural couple. We're high achievers, and we're both business owners. So it was like, of course, that's who I'm going to attract. Because, naturally, that's what I feel the most comfortable talking about, teaching communication skills, we might feel successful at communication at work. Definitely doesn't translate to home. And just that discouragement we can feel, like, I'm so successful at every other area of my life, but this. What do we do about that? So that's how that came about; they started some sort of coming to me as I'm sort of speaking up more honestly about my own experiences.
Yes. Thank you for sharing that. And one of the ways that I'm hearing you describe this and what I know to be true about any relationship is that we have differences, and how we negotiate those differences really can help us feel more bonded, that we can ally and collaborate on some of these lasting differences. And when we look at some of the things that you're naming are quite extraordinary in the sense of how many differences can be involved in straddling two different cultures or various ways of meaning making that are very cultural. And then, just various things that we're going to get into today. Do you find that to be true, that some of these differences can pose challenges? And when we're not, as you're saying, having the foundation of how to work through that, then resentment can build.
Yeah, definitely. And I think there's also kind of a beautiful smokescreen about marrying someone from a different culture. Right. An accent, especially. It's just this, like, ooh! But as soon as that, like, this is just our normal kind of wears off, then some of those major differences come to the forefront. Because it's one thing if you're from the same country, and heck, you can be from the same country and feel like you're in different cultures depending on where you live. But there's this sense of, at least, speaking the same language. We identify with and understand the norms, but the longer we're together with somebody in a bicultural relationship, some of their norms and values start to show up that didn't show up in the beginning, or if you move to their home country or vice versa. Right.
Then there's a shift in the dynamic and in the personality that we would have seen beforehand. We heard the accent, and maybe the skin color, whatever it might be, that's like, oh, this person feels so different from what I'm used to. And now I'm seeing there are some big differences between us. And especially if you move to a country in which maybe there's racism or cultural bias, and your partner's suffering through that and struggling through that, but you don't really understand it because you don't really see it or you don't actually believe that's what they're going through. Right. That clash can happen often, too.
Absolutely. Thank you for naming some of this. Initially, we might notice it in those early stages of a relationship. The allure and how we might project on all the amazing things, which are also true. But when we get into living and establishing, some of the differences can feel like they have a different quality to them. It has a bit more of a rub. And this does, in my opinion, ask us to grow. This is where we have the opportunity to learn how to work together using these communication skills. And if we don't, if we're withdrawing or avoiding or we're blaming, is this part of the components of resentment? Or how do you see resentment starting to show up when these differences are more visible?
Yeah, for me, what I notice is
“Resentment shows up when our partner permits themselves to do something we really wish they could be doing.”
So it isn't so much, though there is resentment around, like the things they didn't do. It often is; they were able to hold better boundaries than I, and I was constantly taking care of everyone, or they were able to say no to their parents or whatever it might be. Right. And I don't feel like I can do that. When I work with a couple, and there's clear resentment, I often talk to the person about what it is that they feel. And they might be like, well, I don't feel respected in my relationship. And I go, okay, so talk me through how you show yourself respect.
And they might look at me weirdly at first, like, what do you mean? Like, why are you talking about me? You're the ones not doing it. I'm like, hear me out. And I'll say, do you go to bed at a reasonable time or do you stay up late, like, is it like me time? Is it like staying up till midnight, 1 am binge-watching something? Do you find that you skip meals? Are you really good at making sure, like, you're nourishing your body? Do you say yes to everyone, or are you making sure, like, hey, I gotta say no? I've got to put a boundary. I need to take care of myself. And usually I get a lot of like, no, no.
And I was like, okay, so I totally understand that you want your partner to show you respect or speak to you with respect, whatever it might be. But often what we're missing from ourselves, we see, just expanded even more, magnified even more by what our partner's doing. See you. You're not doing this. You're not showing me this. And I go, but why are you holding your partner to standards you don't hold yourself to? To you? Yes, of course, they should be respectful. But it's so much easier for me to stand firm and say, “Husband, I deserve respect,” if I'm showing myself that, versus feeling like the victim. You're the villain who can't show me these things.
So that's a big piece to it, too, the side of permitting themselves to do what they want to do, sit on the couch and not clean the dishes and do the laundry, whatever. But also that it's a reflection of areas where we feel like we're actually lacking towards ourselves. And those two separate areas are where resentment tends to build. And if we can't look in the mirror and say, “Is my partner permitting themselves to speak whatever's on their mind?” And I feel like I have to manage everything I say. Right. Or whatever it might be, or am I pointing out things that they're not doing, and I'm resenting them for stuff that I wasn't doing for myself, or I wasn't speaking up and saying, I need this.
I see this often with fertility challenges for couples 10 years later, right? Fifteen years later, 20 years later, you weren't there for me. All of these different things that will come up because of this resentment that's still there. These things were happening to me. You weren't there. And that's such a challenging space to sit in. Because it's valid. How they feel is valid. That resentment is truly there. They felt alone. However, I've worked with couples where the partner was fully there.
I'm here.
What do you need? And it was almost like, leave me alone, back away. There was still resentment. Because it's a very isolating experience. Infertility. And we could replace many different topics with infertility. But there are things where the resentment is there because there really is. No, there's nothing that could have changed. There's nothing that could have been better. It's an isolating experience. We were upset and hurt. We were grieving. Our partner was grieving in their own way. Because again, opposites attract. They're going to grieve in a very different way than us. They're going to go through life in a very different way. Maybe they went straight to work. Well, I got to make sure we got the income for the fertility treatments. I had to make sure, whatever it might be. Right. And we resent them. They weren't there anymore.
And they're thinking, I'm the guardian of our family. I'm going to take care of us. So there's this piece where it's often also us not honoring both sides of the story, and actually even taking the time to ask. But it's the same way. It's not that they're not always asking us to. So it's having a couple sit down and go tell your side of the story, and being able to really listen.
Yes. And it sounds like you're inviting people to listen more deeply. What's underneath the initial complaint or issue? And that if we look at the experience around that, likely our partners are activating something that is significant for us to look at how we're participating in that. And that can be quite illuminating. I love that. That's super important. I mean, one of the examples that I'm feeling is we're recent homeowners, and it's been a year and a half in. And there's this. A lot of aesthetic projects that are D.I.Y. It's not structural, thank goodness. And we have a downstairs area where we've been fortunate to rent it out. And when we first moved in, we hustled pretty hard to make that what we wanted it to be. Renovated it. So it was super nice.
And I was very engaged in a lot of the kind of planning and coordinating of the different contractors and the design and all the things. I'm very active. And I do remember feeling a tinge at points of, like, resentment. And I was. I remember lying in bed next to him. I don't actually. Funny enough, Katie, I don't remember if I was actually having a verbal conversation with him or if I was just reflecting. I don't even think that it really matters, in that I was asking myself the question, if he were to do the things that I'm having issues with, what would that allow me to feel? And it was a way to access. He's taking time to relax, and I want to relax. To your point, like, am I getting the rest? Am I getting? And I'm grateful I'm pretty good about my self-care. But there were layers here that I wasn't feeling that I could take the liberty, or I was feeling this overwhelming responsibility. So I really appreciate you inviting people to go deeper. What's. How am I relating to this? How am I participating in this? Because the other thing that I feel is that once we are more conscious of that, we have a little bit more agency.
Yes, totally.
As I can now do something about that, versus my partner, is the issue. And I have to get them to do something.
Yeah, You
“Stop being the victim of the situation”
If you and your partner were like business partners in taking care of this home. Right. There would be clear roles. You take care of this because if you were always doing the same things, stepping on each other's toes, it's not an efficient use of time or resources. Right. So it's sometimes projects that we work on in our home or have outside of our home, we often group them in with the relationship dynamic, but they're different. They're very different. And many of us grew up in homes or had generational homes where the woman had her space, and the man had his space. Right. Very traditional. The man was at work, the woman was at home.
Or she was at work and expected to do everything at home. Because these dynamics that were in more of both of us doing stuff, we are still shedding the layers of what was accepted in our generation. And we don't know how to, like, okay, now that we're both actively working and we both need to take care of a home, how do we even do that? What does that? Now we're like renovating and taking it. Like, how do we go about that? Because it isn't about the relationship, we will group their love for us with whether they remember to take out the trash. Let's not care about me or respect or love me.
Yes.
And it's like if this were a business issue, you know, hey, you keep turning in the presentation late. It's a systems issue. It's. It's a personnel issue. It's a sit-down, and let's talk. It isn't about you must not love me or respect me enough to have this in on time. We group it all together, and it's very murky waters when we do that, because everything can really hurt then for sure.
And this is the lens through which we view. I mean, this is such an important point that you're bringing up, in my opinion, because we're existing together in this domain of domestic life, and it very much has a lot of logistics like a business, and yet we don't necessarily operationalize it or get super explicit about how we're going to devise the labor duties. And that's when we are in the intimate space, we primarily bond for that sense of you are, you're my person, and that sense of secure functioning. And so that layered on, we're going to perceive our partner and their way of showing up through that, our nervous system is just going to register it that way unless we're really explicit.
So coming back to the explicit, it feels like, though, there's a bit of accountability or ownership that you're inviting people into and a level of engagement. Because the other thing I was feeling when you were talking about some of the examples was that if we're in a place of resentment, as you were describing, we may be blocking our partner or having some barriers to receiving what our partner's actually offering or giving. Do you want to speak to that? Does that feel true?
Definitely. When I have someone sitting in my office who is very resentful of their partner, and I have them do a
“Gratitude practice together”
these individuals are the first to be like, they get received the gratitude, and they're like, it wasn't a big deal, of course, I was going to do that, right? They deflect, or if I say, “What is it you heard your partner say in that gratitude?” They'll start with, “Well, they said they're really appreciative that I'm blah, blah…” and then they get passive-aggressive, and then they, like, turn it back around. They're not able to receive the goodness of connection. It's uncomfortable. Then, because it doesn't fit the script of I resent you have hurt me, whatever it might be, you've permitted yourself that I didn't give myself.
You are treating me in a way that it's a reflection of what I'm not doing, whatever it might be, but we have been hurt. And so when it comes to our partner going, like, hey, I'm going to come more than halfway to you. We often push them away and keep that dynamic, and then blame them for not trying to. And I always say, how many times do you put your hand in a beehive before you realize it hurts? You get stung.
Yes.
So of course your partner's gonna stop at some point, and of course you're gonna still feel abandoned. But the question is, like, who's gotta give first? And that's why it's a task that I always give the couples at the end of a couple session, which is like, share your gratitude and receive it. Because
“If we don't practice receiving that goodness and that connection, it won't feel safe in any area of our romantic relationship”
And it's essential. Yes.
And if we're moving fast or blocking it, then we can spend all this energy attempting to solicit or recruit. And yet we don't have the satiating experience. How do you help people receive?
So one of the things is when they immediately respond that way. Right. Deflect, like, of course I was gonna do that. I say, hold on a second. When you receive a gift, and you open it up, do you just throw it on the ground and stomp on it? And they're like, no, of course not. And I'm like, okay, I want you to imagine that your partner just handed you a gift. What are you gonna do with it? And they're like, oh, you know, they don't. They don't see it that way. And so it's about training their brain to understand what it is that's being given to them. It's like a cool glass of water. If you're thirsty for it, are you gonna just pour it out in front of you? No, you're gonna drink it. So that's the first piece, making it really clear the dynamic they're doing, because half the time, they don't know they're in that habit cycle. Oh, how many times do I do this in general? Is it just with my partner, or am I uncomfortable receiving gratitude from anyone? Oh, it was no big thing, of course. You know, like, thank you. Thank you for being grateful and saying this. I really appreciate you recognizing me. That's receiving a gift, not. I don't. Ooh! I'm uncomfortable with this. I'm in the spotlight, whatever it might be. Right. So, it's a good dynamic, then, to step outside and go, is it just in my partnership, I can't receive this goodness? Or is it in all relationships? And then that's about retraining your nervous system to accept connection without anyone. If it's just in your relationship, it is.
It's practicing this gratitude. Hear it reflect what you heard and stop and sit with that, and just smile or whatever it means to be, and take those deep breaths. Because it's like, let me allow my brain to receive this without thinking of the next thing it's going to defensively say or what it is. What is my gut response? It's getting out of autopilot and stepping into that. Intentional. Who do I want to be in this relationship? Who do I want to be in my ideal relationship? And how do I step into her or him or them and. And go, I am. And this version of me doesn't deflect from these things. I'm gonna sit with this. As uncomfortable as it is, I'm gonna sit with this, and I'm gonna share my gratitude for my partner.
So that's the first step, which is like
“Making them aware, so they can start breaking that habit”
and then also kind of doing a bigger scope. Wait, is this normal? Not just with your partner, and, oh, that's a bigger picture topic. That definitely has some childhood stuff there we need to explore, or if it's just your partner, okay, then let's sit with being the version of us we want to be in our ideal relationship. How are they going to show up? Going, okay, how do they receive gratitude? And starting to do that because we don't receive a gift and smash it on the ground. We don't take that glass of water so thirsty and so like and pour it on the ground either. So when you receive a connection, and whether it's a bid for connection or actual gratitude here, you don't push it away.
That's just training your partner not to do it anymore.
Yes. And it sounds like really making yourself available, and that there's a slowing down and perhaps even a somatic piece here of breathing and feeling that might feel, as you said, uncomfortable or vulnerable. Because if this is something that we deeply long for, the experience of feeling received like that can be very tender.
Right. And you may see this as well. You'll hear the complaint: “My partner never touches me anymore.” “My partner and I are, you know, we haven't had sex in months, years.” I've worked with couples for years. And then I go, okay, well, I'm going to start to invite this into the space where they're just going to, like, put their hand on your shoulder or come and kiss you while you're washing the dishes or whatever. And often when that happens, they push it away. They're like, “Stop, what are you doing?” And I'm like, “Oh, hold on.” What is this about? Because you're complaining, but when they give it to you, then you're saying, not this way, not at this time. Like, I'm sorry, but even I, as a therapist, I'm like, I can't. I won't be able to follow all the rules. So it is exactly what you said, being open. And if it's in a space where you're not comfortable going, I'm so like, I love that you're taking this moment to connect with me. Do you mind waiting till the kids are in bed? Or do you mind us? Let me come down. I've had a really stressful day, or I want to take a shower because I've been working out or whatever, and go. And then we can. We can hold hands or play football. “The end of the table at dinner, or like, you can shift it from rejection to, hey, right now, I can tell I'm not going to receive it as well as you would love for me to. This connection. So how?”
“Or as much as I want to.”
“Right, Exactly. As much as I've been complaining in our therapy sessions that I want. Yeah. A couple I worked with years ago, I remember saying, you know, she's like, he never touches me.” And I was like, okay, so this week I want you to, like, just grab her hand. No, no, I. I have dry skin on my hands. Okay. This week I want you to, like, if she massages her feet when you're sitting. No, no, I don't like my feet to be touched. Okay, so this week I want you to know, it's like I went through her hair. Oh, I've got grays. I need to dye it. I'm like, okay, where would you like to be touched? And she's like, actually, not really. And I'm like, never mind then. So tell me what it is you do want.
Because you just said, he doesn't touch me. And then you gave me all the reasons why he shouldn't and can't. And I'm confused, too. And I'm left going, okay, so what is it you actually want? “Because often what we say we want,”
“We aren't open to.”
“We're putting all the defensive walls up. And there's a variety of reasons. As we get older, our bodies change. Some things are different. Pleasure feels different. So maybe we're confused too.”
Yes.
Yes. Those of us in perimenopause are like, one day I love this, and the next day don't come near me. I can't stand any of you. You all smell, and I can't. You're loud. Right? Like, I can't deal with how you breathe. That's so confusing for our partners, too, for sure.
And what I'm hearing, yes, I'm hearing you really speak about sending clearer cues so that this can be a connection point. Because, as you said earlier, we were talking about the lens through which we view these interactions around care. Do they love me? Am I enough? And even in this client example, it sounds like just self-criticism. My gray, my dry hands, you know, like it's just naughty. Like so. So to slow that down and really have wonder to make some of these connection points possible, and also to send those clear signals that give. Really setting it up for receptivity feels so important. And the other thing, as I'm hearing you describe this, is just when we do settle in and what we can. Even if it's not the whole thing, we can absorb even if it's just part of it.
Right. I'm sure you see this, that the emotion starts to bubble.
Yeah.
It's quite beautiful to see somebody start to feel and the emotion. And that's that vulnerability, that connection point. That's where we feel most close to our person.
Yes, definitely. And I think it's surprising to them to feel it.
Yes.
And our partner doesn't know what to do because they haven't seen that side in so long. They're like, “Did I do something wrong? I'm sorry.” They immediately want to fix and invite them to sit with the tears, to just hold space for the vulnerability in that moment rather than try to box it back up, is so important and it's so hard for all of us right now. When we see somebody appear, it may be that they're hurting or they're releasing and healing. Some stuff is uncomfortable to sit with, totally. But it's essential to the connection piece. Thank you for not trying to fix me. Thank you for not trying to wipe away my tears and allowing them to just flow.
This is the piece where we can step up as partners, just to be present for what our partners are going through, even if we don't fully understand it.
This is so critical. I don't think that, as you talk about serving a lot of high-functioning people, as I also do, this is contrary to the mode of operating. Often, we have ways in which we're achieving and are driven, and responsibilities that are all really beautiful. And at the same time, don't give us as much practice with this slowing down and really being in the unknown and the uncertainty, but to let this real, beautiful connection to self and other emerge.
Definitely.
Okay, this is critical. Is there anything else that you want to say, or would you like to just pivot around? I feel like we're going to fluctuate a little bit between what can show up and also how to work with it. Is there anything else you want to say about how to work with resentment, or even just resentment?
Yeah. I think
“One of the things that we can do in working with resentment is instead of using it as a wall, get curious.”
Yes. Just get really curious. Why am I resentful? What's playing out here that I don't like? Again, how is this a mirror to the things that I'm upset about within myself, or not managing within myself? Resentment. Our emotions are indicators for us, and we use them that way. Get curious. And get curious about your partners, too. If they come at you with resentment now, I wouldn't get curious and be like, “Are you looking in the mirror?” That's not what we're talking about. But just being like, what is deeper? What do you feel like is maybe the deeper issue around this? And they might say the word permission. Like, you have permission. And it's like, yeah.
Would you like to join me on the couch and just sit here? We'll know who's going to do the stuff I said. Well, you could say, like, let's set an alarm for 10 minutes and let's just sit on the couch together for that time, and then I'll come and help you. Right. Like, this invites them into what you've permitted yourself to, so that they feel like, I'm going to be bitter for years about this. But it is about saying it out loud, bringing it out in the open, and asking those curious questions.
I love that. So important and, like, accessible. And oftentimes we feel lost in that. Right. That's something we're not in the habit of doing. One of the things that you talk about is helping people identify some of the earliest signs of emotional, erotic kind of dissatisfaction as they might be experiencing* roommate syndrome*. And can you talk a little bit about some of the patterns that contribute to that drifting and how you help people start to work with steps to address that?
Yeah. So I like to call it the emotional divorce. It's that roommate syndrome, I guess we'll call it. And really, what it's about is there's a phase that we all hit in our relationship where it's more about survival mode. And that's a performance. Like, that's business talk, right? Who needs to get what done and when are we going to do it, and how are we doing it? And if one of you, let's say one of you, is in a state of health issues, grief, loss, whatever it might be, and not functioning as well, and then your partner has to then take on 200% right, or 150% of the workload, they're going to be in their lane getting stuff done, right? Project mode. It's this performance sort of mindset, and we start talking that way.
And it is essential for a period of time in survival mode. But again, it becomes a habit cycle. This is how we are. This is how we relate. We go on a date night, and we're still just talking about where we're going to go on vacation. Are you going to book the hotel rooms where, you know, like, let's talk about the kids. Let's talk not about the relationship, because we don't remember how to do that anymore. And I always say it's the difference between love talk and get-it-done talk, very, very separate things. So what I often invite couples to do is, like I said before, see those two worlds as separate so that we can better understand what is going on within me that survival mode has stuck around. Am I stuck in survival mode?
Do I still feel like we're there? Maybe we are, right? And inviting again, that curiosity to sit down and say, are we keeping ourselves in survival mode so we don't have to connect? Are we keeping things really complex so we don't have to connect? I have an episode of my podcast where I talk about, Are you really too busy, or are you making sure you're busy so you don't have to spend time together? We have to look in the mirror on that one, right? We have to sit down and have that discussion about what's going on. As successful high achievers, we love performance mode. It feeds all of the endorphins. Like, yeah, I feel like doing this. Like, we're getting stuff done.
And I often hear the couples who feel like roommates and have that emotional divorce say, but we're great at getting projects done.
We're a great team.
Exactly right. I'm like, good, you're successful in other areas of your life. I can see why. But the language of love is exactly what you said. It's softer, it's quieter, it's connection, it's less doing, more sitting and receiving, it's more relaxed. That doesn't hit any dopamine receptors. Well, I mean, it can later on, but like not when we're just sitting and holding hands. Oxytocin is relaxed trust. It's like the chill-out kind of thing. And this is the piece where, for high achievers, it is uncomfortable. And often we get partnered with the person we choose through high-activity traveling, wine tasting here and there, and doing events and business networking. Exactly, we're like, and we're so like. But that doesn't sustain a relationship.
No, no.
You need the downtime. You need it. We all need it. And it's
“Learning love in a different way”
“Because love in the beginning, even maybe the first five years, was probably high intensity, and now it's like, oh, the mundane part of life.” How do we sit with that? So, asking couples to start weekly. I call it a couple's check-in, like a weekly come together, and how are you? Same as you do with a friend, but intentionally do it together. Because if it's not about project mode, we don't know what to talk about. Someone's going to say something that's going to offend the other person, and there's going to be a blow-up, and then we're going to go in separate rooms, maybe sleep in separate beds even.
Because the more that you're in that roommate mode, the more that you're on two different train tracks, which again, in survival mode, who's got what project? That's your lane. Stick in it. Keep it like we'll get stuff done faster and more efficiently this way. But when do we come back together on the same train track? And I'm sure you've seen this too, that's what will happen when we're on those separate train tracks, then even our personal growth. Right. Starts to be separate too. Well, I'm doing the work, and I'm learning this. I'm doing this hobby, and I'm developing this, and it's never coming back together to share it, not to do the same thing. They don't need to, like you picked up sailing, and now they need to do it too. No, but share is communication. It's come and watch me come.
Here's what I was excited about. Here's what I felt proud of this was new.
And that's just like receiving that touch when you don't like, God, you're talking about it again. Seriously, I have to hear this for the 10th time this week. Yeah, you do, because that's the connection. That's important to your partner, that lights them up. Be there and present because you're gonna want the same thing back.
Yes. It's not so much the content, it's the look for, how it matters to the person.
Yes. So this emotional divide that can happen, this sort of emotional divorce, that it feels like you start to bring that back together by going, okay, are you still in survival mode? Are you as busy as you believe you are? Because apparently you've got time for many other things. Right? And how do we start to prioritize ourselves and date again, relearn each other? You'll hear people say, “You're not who I married.” And I go, I'm so glad. “I'd be worried if they were, because I hope I'm different from what I was at 28. Like, you know, at 41. I hope I've learned enough, and I've adjusted and grown as a person, totally. What they're saying is, I don't like who you've become.”
“Don't like the connection that we share. Like, I can't.”
“Yeah. Like, I don't get you anymore, or the stuff we used to do together, I don't enjoy anymore. But you enjoy it.” Whatever, right? Like, that's the divide. And so when we can say something more along those lines of, like, I don't think I understand you anymore like I used to. Okay, then let's start to get to know each other better, understand why I love those things. My husband's so silly. So I decided on my 40th birthday that I wanted to learn the drum set. I played the flute growing up. I did ballet. I played basketball. I was very active. And then you become a parent. Everybody else's lives are active, but you are active because of them. I was like, I want to do something. For me, it's like, I want to learn the drum set.
But I waited a year because I know myself and I love lots of things. So I want to make sure I still want to do it. It's a bit like a tattoo, right? Like, let's really make sure I still want this. And I said, okay, this year I'm going to do it. And at first, I noticed my husband was a little like, really, like, midlife crisis. I'm like, what? I could get tattoos and piercings and do all sorts of stuff, but what? I'm going to learn the drum set. Thank you. Later on, you'll thank me. But I was like, okay. And I kept going, no, I'm gonna share. And so every week I'd be like, here's how my lesson was. Here's what I was doing. Even when he.
And if he'd kind of roll his eyes, I'd be like, “No, because I could go do this separately and not invite you in.”
And now I'm getting my dopamine hits elsewhere and not sharing them with you. That's kind of not such a great recipe.
Yes. So, because I understood this dynamic that can happen, I stayed consistent. Nope, I'm going to share about it. I will not feel shame about doing this. He can call it whatever he wants, but I'm doing it and I love it. And I'm quite good at it, actually. So I was like, I'm going to show you videos. I'm going to. And all of a sudden, I think it clicked for him. Oh, look how excited she is. Look how she wants to connect with me. Look, she's not saying you need to go find your own thing, but that she wants to invite me into this to share that joy, and that shift happened in him. And now it's fun to tell me he'll text me, “Hey, rockstar.” And I'm like, “Oh, that's so sweet,” like, super cute connection point now.
Yes.
I'm staying consistent and going, you don't have to like that. I want to sail, or whatever your hobby is now that you want to do. But I'm going to share it with you because it's important to me that you're aware of what I enjoy and what brings me joy right now.
Yeah, I love that. Thank you for giving a real-life example. And then, Katie, when you were talking about this, parallel tracks that can serve a purpose for a period of time. However, additionally, with the developmental stages of relationship, we can't sustain a connection by not nurturing it. So you use the word sustainability, and that if we're habituated to being more highly productive just in all areas of our life, we are not in the habit of dropping in, having that connection, and thus also being connected to our loved one, spouse, or partner. So I was like, “Oh, people kind of need a reminder here.” So you're giving some real actionable recommendations around having a check-in in dating, sharing. I'm sure you have many more.
But this gives that experience of maybe what we're not in the habit of doing, but is such vital fuel for emotional connection. Erotic connection.
Yes. And exactly what you said. It's like,
“Just because we're not in the habit of doing it doesn't mean it's wrong”
or we shouldn't. And I'll have my clients clasp their hands to see which thumb is usually first. And then I'll go, now switch it. And how uncomfortable does that feel? But is there anything different? I mean, like, it's just fingers in a different order, but it's still doing the same thing. Same if we just crossed our arms, right? We switch, it's just uncomfortable in the beginning because it's a new habit. And until it becomes your norm, it's going to feel that way. Nothing's wrong, though. Our systems are so regulated. If something feels different or odd or off, it's wrong. And it's like, Or is it we're learning new neural pathways, or like, we're really starting to build a new interstate in our brain? Like, no, we're going to start driving this way instead of this old path that the road's beat up. We don't want to be on that anymore. So getting your nervous system comfortable with the change and the new habits, even if it feels mechanic or robotic, hey, okay. If you're more of a thinker and your partner's a feeling, you're like, I'm gonna try to speak your language. I'm gonna try to. You know, I always say it's like French and Chinese. I'm gonna start to learn Chinese so that you can better understand what I'm saying. Right? Like, it's gonna feel uncomfortable.
Totally.
And then it starts to flow, and you're like, even though French is my mother tongue, I'm gonna. I can say some things in Chinese. And you seem to really soak it up. Right? We just have to learn to speak our partner's language. That doesn't mean we change for our partners. Oh, it gets on my nerves when people say, “I changed for you.” And I'm like, “Or did you?” Are you learning a skill set on how to interact with them? Now? If you feel like you've changed in all areas of your life, yeah, that's a problem. But if it's a skill set, you're learning to better communicate, a love language, an arguing language, whatever it might be, right? That's
“A skill set that helps deepen the relationship because you didn't get into a relationship with yourself.”
“So stop talking to your partner like you. You need to receive it and start, like, if they're more of a thinker, you don't lead with, well, how do you feel about that? You lead with, well, tell me what your thoughts are on it. What, you know, what do you see practically working out in this way? Like, you speak their language, and then you can slip in.” Oh, that sounds aggravating. There you go. You've shared, like, you're teaching them your language. So this is. It's. It's this fun dance between couples. If we'd start to realize that this is actually the normal work of being in a healthy relationship. Is that work? Yes, it's just work. Right? It's a quote, people, like, say, hard work, but I'm like, if you want a promotion for a job or a new position in your company, you're not complaining so much about, like, you're like, end goal. Well, the end goal is a happy, healthy relationship. That's like building a legacy for others to watch.
Yes.
So do it. Like, be all in. It makes sense to be all in.
Yes. And the word I'm, you know, you've already spoken about it, we've talked about the uncomfortability, and that often is associated with work because it's uncomfortable. And as much as we would love to just live in this symbiotic kind of place, the kind of place of cohesion, there's an interplay of the differences as we started talking about on the onset, and how we also find a place to bridge and find each other in connection. And it's this dynamic nature. Just as we are as individuals, right? We're learning and growing, and it's an expansion and a contraction. Like, they're both relevant and necessary. Well, I know we're winding down, and also I wanted to invite the layer of the midlife. And this is, as you've already spoken about a few times, that there's perhaps an added level of complexity.
“Could even be a midlife crisis, or it could be a natural developmental transition or process. And do you want to speak about how this can add a layer of difficulty to what a couple negotiates?”
“Yeah, definitely. Because, you know, as a woman is going through the very natural and normal phase of perimenopause, a lot of people are like, it's a fad.” And I'm like, just because it's all over Instagram doesn't mean it's a fad. It's educational material over the normal natural phase we all go through. Unless there are situations. Obviously, some people go through medical menopause, right? Yeah. So there are things that we have to be aware of that are just normal. But for a couple to go through this phase of life because you go through it together, one of you knows, one of you is experiencing the changes, but you go through it together. Because men have their own shifts in midlife, too. They have things that change.
There's just, you know, you're not going to see that on TikTok or Instagram as loud and clear, but their changes are then interacting with our changes. So having a conversation, starting to educate each other. Come to the doctor's appointments together. Right. Learn together. For a relationship reset, I interviewed a gynecologist, and I was like, let's talk about this phase of life. And she said, the men who will come in will leave the biggest advocates for all women and their partners. Like, man, you need to go with your wife to this doctor because you're going to get so educated and you're going to have a better understanding of what's happening. Because every cell in her body is changing. Every cell. So no wonder there's achiness and sweating and eyesight changes and all of these things and mood swings.
How can we, as a couple, navigate this evolution together and not drive each other apart? Or one stays hidden in their room because they're afraid the other is going to blow up at any moment? And how can the person who's going through that change, that metamorphosis, better understand, ooh, I'm about to blow up. I gotta go. Let me remove myself. Because many who are going through perimenopause, their children, if you've got children, are in that pre-puberty phase, so they're going through their own thing. And I just remember working with a dad one time, and his kids were already out of the house and such, and he said, I remember stocking up on chocolate bars and I could just tell there was this time. And I was like, all three of them, including my wife, they were just.
And I just bring the chocolate bar, and I get the big knife, and I put it on the cutting board and chop it into three. And here you go. And just sit there and listen to whatever they needed to say. And I was like, there you go. Like you found your way of helping in a sense, like being a part of the journey, without going like, I'm gonna go hang out in the garage and shut the door and lock it. Could have done that, right? So it's about us educating, taking ownership of what we can do. And then it's just a messy process. Like, there's gonna be days where like, oh, that came out wrong. I am sorry. Let me take ownership. Even if it's 24 hours later.
“It's essential that we have open communication.”
This is the beauty of those couples checking in weekly. How do you perceive I'm navigating this phase? What are some ways that you could support me better? I could support you. Right. That having just an open dialogue on it and naming it as something sort of funny. There's like the perimenopause side of us, even though every cell in us is changing, but there's like the raging side and the weepy side and sweaty or whatever. Like, give them all names and make it sort of the, like, oh, you know, raging Regina's here time. Right. You know, and like, yeah. Just so that you both can't laugh through it, but also that you identify. It's not me. There's a hormonal shift, and it is creating a feeling like when we're hangry. Right.
I just need some food and a little time for my body to soak it up, so then I can come off of that if we could just normalize this more, subtract it from the person we are, as just a phase we're going through. This helps, and I think it helps couples when they don't feel so like, what is this? A lot of women don't realize you can be starting perimenopause. It's like a 10-year cycle. So it's like totally 35, 38. Mine started and I look back, I'm like, man, I wish I had known at 38 that's what was going on. Because that was the shift. That's when I started. Should I stay or should I go? I don't know if I'm really happy. What is this life we've created?
Like, all these questions, and it's an invitation to upgrade within your own life.
Yes.
Not to blow it up and move on. Right. It's no, let's tear that down and do the 2.0 of our relationship.
Yes.
You know, we're completely going through a metamorphosis. Let's do the, you know, 3.0, 4.0 of ourselves.
Yes.
It is an Invitation if we're able to look at the celebration of what's happening to us and to our relationship, rather than again, that victim mindset. What's happening to me? Why is this occurring? You know, I can't stand my partner. Of course, how he breathes bothers me. Like, go educate yourself and do it together so that it doesn't feel like I have to teach him. I'm sending you five reels a day. Like, no, just go to a doctor and learn together. Yes.
Well, as you said, the couple is going through the process together. And so the education and the thoughts and the support, and how just the exchanges and the climate of the home, and also the partner is having an experience too, that can be held in these check-ins or how we're doing life together. Like it's important. You're sharing so much here. Do you want to finish? Were you going to say something else?
I was just going to say it's very interesting to watch couples reflect on the phase of life that they're going through with midlife. Right. But then to reflect on when they were teenagers or preteens and their moms were going through this, and the crap they gave their mom during that time, going like, oh my gosh. Yes, that's why she was like that. Right. Like, I met my mother-in-law in this phase of life. Now I'm like, oh my gosh, now it all makes sense. I internalized and thought it was me. But like, no, you're just completely shifting and changing.
Yeah.
And, mellowing in different ways. Right.
“It is a beautiful way for us to also reflect on all the women in our lives and how we've watched them go through this journey without even knowing it.”
So thank you for that voice, I appreciate it so much. And Katie, for people who are listening to you, resonating with you, and want to connect with you more, where would you like to direct people?
Yeah, I think it's one of the best places on Instagram. Katie.Rossler. The podcast is Relationship Reset. Usually, episodes are about 15 minutes long with practical tools. What do we do about this? How can we make steps today? So come and listen, and then I'd love to share with your listeners. I have a couple of visioning workbooks. How do we sit down and really create the vision? Who do I want to be in my ideal self in my ideal relationship? But how do we do that together? So I have that as well. And I find that workbook every year in the new year and mid-year, couples love to do it together. To say, okay, it's not just about finally cleaning out the garage, but, like, what do we want to do for us as a couple? What's our goal this year?
www.linkedin.com/in/katierossler/
Yeah, I love that. So I'll make sure to have your links on today's show, notes for Instagram, your website, and your visioning workbook. Thank you so much. And you also have a podcast, and I'll make sure to put that. Put that on the show. Remind me what the name of the podcast is.
Relationship Reset.
Yeah.
Excellent.
Great. Well, thank you, Katie. I am so grateful for all that you've shared.
Thank you, Jessica. I've really enjoyed our conversation today.
The post ERP 521: Resentment as a Mirror and What It Reveals About You and Your Relationship – An Interview With Katie Rössler appeared first on Jessica Higgins.
Have you ever wondered why you keep finding yourself in the same relationship patterns, no matter how hard you try to change? It’s almost as if, despite our best intentions and awareness, we’re drawn to the familiar—even if it’s painful. The fear of uncertainty trumps the discomfort of what we know, leaving many stuck in cycles of repeated conflict, unmet needs, and unclear intentions.
In this episode, listeners are guided through the origins of these repeating patterns, from early attachment experiences to later life trauma, and how they shape the template for adult relationships. The conversation explores the power of both individual and relational healing, offering practical strategies to update old habits, develop emotional intelligence, and communicate needs in ways that foster clarity and connection. If you’re ready to step out of old cycles and into more intentional, empowered relationships, this episode breaks down the tools and insights you need to begin that journey.
Dr. Molly is a licensed clinical psychologist based in Los Angeles with 16 years of experience in psychotherapy, research, and teaching at both undergraduate and graduate levels. She specializes in couples therapy and reproductive mental health, with a particular passion for supporting high-achieving women, non-traditional couples, LGBTQ+ individuals, BIPOC, and Veterans. Dr. Burrets also serves as an Adjunct Professor in the Marriage and Family Therapy Department at USC and has been featured as a relationship expert in TIME, Vogue, CBS, HuffPost, and more.
Episode Highlights05:47 Why we repeat relationship patterns and the power of the familiar.
09:18 How early childhood attachment and trauma shape our relationships.
11:49 The dual paths of healing: Individual and relational growth.
16:35 Practicing healthy responses to triggers in relationships.
18:16 Developing self-regulation skills and navigating relationship conflict.
21:34 The value of vulnerability and facing uncomfortable outcomes.
26:50 Communicating intentions and building trust when trying new behaviors.
30:14 Navigating needs, fears, and the importance of reasonableness in relationships.
33:34 Finding and expressing your voice: Moving from silence or aggression to assertiveness.
35:42 The role of resentment and envy in recognizing your needs.
39:50 Balancing individual responsibility with relational needs and self-care.
44:00 The importance of emotional intelligence and practicing self-connection.
Your Checklist of Actions to Take* Reflect on recurring relationship patterns and notice any familiar dynamics, rather than judging or shaming yourself for them. * Acknowledge how your early-life experiences and attachments shape your current relationship behaviors—awareness is the first step toward change. * If you notice unmet needs or frustration, pause and bring curiosity to your reactions instead of defaulting to blame or criticism. * Practice pausing when triggered; take a deep breath, notice sensations in your body, and consider a more thoughtful response. * Communicate vulnerably and clearly with your partner, directly sharing your feelings and needs rather than masking them with anger or withdrawal. * Invite support—let loved ones or professionals know you’re working on new habits and ask for feedback or guidance as you practice. * Cultivate self-care rituals (like morning journaling or meditation) that help you regulate your emotions and connect with yourself. * Remind yourself that you don’t have to be “fully healed” to be in a relationship; embrace growth as a continual, relational process.
MentionedShifting Criticism For Connected Communication (free guide)
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Thank you so much for your interest in improving your relationship.
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Episode Transcript
Dr. Molly, thank you for joining us.
Thanks for having me.
Yeah, it sounds like you do so much to support people, educate people in the way of relationship, healthy relating. And one of the topics that you help people understand is the tendency towards attracting similar, maybe unhealthy, relational patterns. And before we get started on that particular topic, where would you like to start with people? People who are just getting to know you? How did relationship and emotional intelligence become of interest to you?
Yeah. Well, I'm a clinical psychologist, and my practice is in LA. I'm a professor at the University of Southern California. And many clinical psychologists specialize in treating individuals. And it's kind of unusual and not the typical traditional path for a clinical psychologist to specialize in treating couples, which is like a big part of my caseload. And I like to say that the way that I got interested in this was that I come from a very big, very loving, and very chaotic family. And, academics have always been my strong suit. And so I think I used academics as a kind of way to understand the world and the family that I was living in and relating to.
I kind of took my strength and applied it to the things that were more confusing or more difficult for me, and that's how I sort of became interested in relationships. And when I started graduate school almost 20 years ago, I already knew that I wanted to specialize in couples. So that's really what I've been doing ever since I started working with couples, before I ever even saw an individual in therapy. So huge passion of mine, and I've had a lot of tumultuous relationships myself throughout my life. That has also informed my interest. And I'm in a really healthy and loving marriage with someone whom I've been with for 17 years, now married for 10. But it was sort of a long road to get there.
And I like to say that a lot of the lessons that I learned in love, I learned the hard way. I think people have this idea that couples therapists always have perfect relationships, and I think that the opposite is true. I think that we're drawn to this work because many of us struggle. And the work is about evolving ourselves and sort of growing ourselves up while we're also helping other people to do the same thing.
Thank you for sharing. As a clinical psychologist, I also operate a lot as a relational coach. My dissertation was actually on couples' dynamics and some of the different relational models, and very much interested in how people practice something that cultivates a healthier partnership. When I didn't get a lot of that input myself, even though I had a master's in psychology. And so my own relational struggles were like, how come we don't know this? I know the field is grown with all the podcasts in various ways that we get information, but it's so important and just to be in a voice in the industry to help offer that guidance, not only from an academic perspective, but also just a real human lived experience and having walked the path. So thank you for sharing that.
Great.
Well, where would you like to start as far as the tendency for folks who might be attracted to similar unhealthy relational dynamics? Where would you like to start on that topic?
Well, I'd like to start by telling people that you're just like everybody else. I really want to validate that, if you have had many relationships that start the same way, have similar struggles, end the same way, despite your efforts to choose differently, and you're finding that you're coming up against the same problems, then you're just like most people. I think that there is a lot of sort of inner critic that comes into all of this, and we shame ourselves about the mistakes that we make, especially when we seem to make them repeatedly, the sort of shame on you aspect of it.
And I just really want to start by telling people, like, I see you, and you are not alone in trying to navigate a difficult situation where you keep having the same outcome despite your best efforts to change things. Right. And the reason why this happens is that
“We are really attuned to the familiar, and the familiar is very comforting to us”
Even when the familiar is painful, we often will choose something that is familiar to us, even if it's painful, because our fear of uncertainty trumps our fear of the known painful thing. Right? And when we go into relationships, as I'm sure you know, Dr. Jessica, like a lot of times, we are trying to solve a problem that is very old and started with our early primary caregivers. So for some people, that's a mother, for some people, that's a father.
And oftentimes, a template is formed about what relationships should look like, what relationships do look like, what love feels like, and that template is formed. Now, that template is often very flawed, right? And so when we grow up, when we go out into the world seeking a relationship, we're not coming to the experience with a blank slate, to the experience with a template of what is familiar. And even though we sometimes consciously try to choose something that is different than what we knew growing up, oftentimes we find ourselves in a situation that feels very familiar. And I think what happens unconsciously is that we're trying to recreate this old, painful relationship and ultimately have a different outcome this time around.
And usually, what ends up happening, not always, but often, what ends up happening is that we end up having the same outcome this time around. We get in this. Psychologists call it repetition compulsion. We get into this obsession with trying to have a different outcome, but bringing the same template to our new relationship and experiencing some of the same old familiar pain over and over again.
I can hear people saying, I've done so much work. How come I'm still in the same place? So I can appreciate just what you're describing around how compelling. And also, it's so much a part of the way that we're functioning in this template. And you're saying even with conscious intention, we can still find ourselves in similar dynamics. That's right, yeah. Because a lot of these templates, as you said, were developed from a very early age in a particular environment, and we haven't had the experience of updating that or revising it.
That's right. That's right. And the neural pathways that are formed between the ages of 0 and 5 are very foundational. I mean, our brain grows and changes more in those five years than it does in the total sum of the rest of our lives. So, from the ages of 6 to however old you live to be, whether it's 80 or 90 or 100, your brain is going to develop and grow more from the period of 0 to 5 than it will the rest of your life. So that's something called a critical window. There's a “critical window of brain development where we learn the lessons of love and attachment and connection to other people.” That is so foundational. And so I tell people that not to sort of make them feel helpless, like, oh, gosh, I'll never get out of this.
But I really want to empower people to feel like, no, there's a very good reason you're struggling. And it's because your brain grew and developed a lot in that time, and really formed these habits that they're very difficult to unlearn. And there are ways to unlearn it, but it takes really intentional work. And so again, I come back to, if you are someone who's struggling in relationships and having the same experience over and over, it's not your fault. You know, you're in very good company. And it's because of the life experiences that you have and what you have learned along the way.
Yes, I'm hearing you emphasize how powerful this operates in us. And Yes. I mean, as you're saying that it's not doomed. Right. That we're not totally fixed in this state. And at the same time, to have that updating or earn a more secure attachment or the neuroplasticity of having a different experience, this takes a lot of time and repetition to develop. If you look at it, as you're saying on a scale, the amount of neuropathways that get developed in that critical window versus the rest of your life, I mean, that's a lot to counteract. And at the same time, it is possible.
That's right. Yes. I'm living proof.
I am too.
Yes.
Yes. And so, you know, so we're talking about attachment in that early imprint, that template that you're talking about relationally. And then, as we grow, some people encounter layers of trauma or difficulty. Can you speak a little bit about how that might also interact with the attachment system?
Yeah. So sometimes when we experience trauma, it confirms the fears that we already have, which makes them even more deeply embedded. And that's not to say that trauma is always a negative experience. And actually, let me clarify, “it's not that trauma is always going to have a critical negative outcome on your life. There is this very important concept of post-traumatic growth that I want people to be aware of.” Like, you absolutely can go through very traumatic things and become a stronger, wiser, more resilient person as a result.
“Trauma does not always have to be a negative defining feature of your life, but it can have a deleterious impact”
especially when you already have fears, uncertainties, and difficulties that have formed in your life, and then your trauma can confirm them.
So you sort of double down on the things that are painful for you. And so it's an additional layer to have to work through. Even the people who are in the best of situations and are resilient and have strong, loving, supportive families, and they experience trauma, even all of that sort of safe foundation can be upended. So it really completely and totally makes sense to me that trauma can really throw you for a loop. Trauma can really incite all of your deepest fears.And also, it does not have to be a negative defining feature of your life. Just as if you had a difficult childhood from 0 to 5, it does not doom you to a life of problematic relationships.
Going through trauma does not doom you to a life of difficulty, but it does mean that you're going to require extra care and intentional support.
Yes, because oftentimes I look at trauma on a continuum. And that tends to be an overwhelming experience. And having difficulty being able to process or metabolize that, and having the intention. Intentionality and skilled support can assist in the ability to process, metabolize, and to integrate. So would you be willing to share a little bit more around some of the keys because you're talking about change is possible, but also if. I mean, one of the things that I think most people have encountered, but I think it's a useful thing to remember, is that insight alone often doesn't translate towards change. And a lot of us consume a lot of information and have a lot of insight. And yet the nervous system, the somatic, the attachment system, doesn't equate to change.
“So, can you give some keys here around for people to work with, a bit of when they're looking at creating some change or looking at their lives and saying, I need to make a change, and what are some steps for them?”
“Yeah, I see really healing, because that's really what we're talking about is healing. I really see it happening in two distinct but related buckets. One kind of healing is the healing that you do on your own, individually, or perhaps with a therapist.” Right. An adjunct who's supporting you through it, individual work. Another type of healing is what you do in a relationship. And one could even argue, actually, that healing with a therapist is a relationship and that. So you're healing relationally. Right. But I think people are mistaken when they think that, like, I have to be a totally healed version of myself in order to be in a healthy relationship. I really like to steer people away from that idea.
While I really support people doing individual work, especially if they're single and even while in a relationship, doing individual work for healing is super important and very helpful. I think that relationships provide a really fertile ground for deep healing that, honestly, sometimes can only be found in a relationship with another person. We humans, are such a collectivist creature, you know what I mean? We need other people to survive. And, you know, hyper independence is a coping strategy that a lot of people develop when they have experienced trauma and when they have learned that you can't rely on other people, I have to do it all myself. Right? But by nature, we are a collectivist species, and we rely on others for real survival.
So a relationship, whether it's with a friend, a romantic partner, or a parent, can be a model and opportunities for us to use the other person, kind of like a mirror. We can see ourselves. And this is, in fact, what happens in relationships when you're in a relationship. That is when you will have the most opportunities. Yes. Triggered. And to experience pain and then to see if you're able to show up to it in a different way. Are you going to do the same old things that you typically do? Blame, criticize, shut down, withdraw, lash out, get enraged, go drinking? You know, all these things that we do to cope with negative emotions. Are you going to do those things, or are you going to pause, notice what is happening in your body, and make a different, healthier choice?
Okay, I'm going to express how I feel in a non-blaming, non-critical way. I'm going to say something like, you know, the fact that you have chosen to move far away really makes me feel abandoned. And I feel like it's a mixed message. You're telling me that you want to move forward in our relationship, but now, at this critical juncture, you've chosen to move an hour away. And I'm feeling like really abandoned. I'm struggling with the mixed message that's giving me. What can you tell me about this choice? You know, thinking in particular of someone I know who's going through this. So it's an easy example to come up with. And what that does is that it starts a more intimate, open conversation about, okay, I have these concerns financially.
This is what's going on with my parents who I need to take care of. This is my plan for this period of time. And here's how I see us moving forward. Here's how I see us integrating our lives. It
“Opens the door for someone to give you more of a window into their experience”
to reassure you, and to plan together collaboratively. Consider the alternative, which is, for example, well, he moved an hour away, so he's obviously not that into me. I'm going to be passive-aggressive for several weeks and just say nasty things and let the conflict between us brew. He won't really know why I'm angry, and then I'll just create enough fights that it's going to blow up, and we're going to break up anyway, so I don't really have to deal with this. Right. That's another strategy. Right.
But that doesn't get you the outcome that you're looking for in order to show up to this, these painful experiences in a new way. We have to be attuned to what's going on with our nervous system. We have to pause, and we have to make a different choice. Now then, that brings me back to the individual bucket, which is, how do you learn to do those things right? And I'm so glad that Gen Z is growing up in a different world than you and I did, you know, because people have so much more access now to psychoeducation about how to regulate your nervous system, about how to identify maladaptive beliefs, about how to meditate, about how to do breathing exercises to regulate your body. You know, there are so many strategies out there, and those don't even include hiring a professional to help you.
When you open up that door, you add on all kinds of healing practices like somatic therapy, EDMR, massage, typical talk therapy, and CBT. The list goes on and on.
Right.
You know, I'm not going to be able to tell everyone here all the potential healing modalities, but I encourage you to get really curious about them. See
“If something sort of strikes your fancy or sparks curiosity in you, try it”
You know, what do you have to lose? The worst that will happen is that it won't work for you. And then you can try something else. When you can bring those individual skills to the opportune moment, to a relationship that has the mirror up, and you can show up in a different way, that's when you really create a different life for yourself.
Yes. You're speaking to such an important practice. Sorry. And when I'm hearing you describe relationships in general, so oftentimes intimate relationships, that's when we're going to get activated the most. It's going to have the most charge. It's what often feels like higher stakes, and so the threat system. And that we have these coping strategies. So when we haven't necessarily slowed down to look at how it is that I am engaging in an interaction where I am triggered, or I am behaving in certain ways because so many people will say, I didn't mean to say that, or you know, have regrettable words or regrettable actions.
And so when they're in a calmer state, being able to look at those tendencies of those protective strategies, like you said, blaming or criticizing, and that if we have the ability to orient a bit, to pause and to look at the vulnerability that's underneath, you're saying we have a powerful opportunity to check out some of our interpretations or a perception about what's happening or, you know, I think it's, I don't know if it's Terry Real, but talks about the story that I'm telling myself or there's a way in which we can acknowledge here's the world that I'm living in right now and can you help me? I'm having a hard time. And what can be created from that dialogue is incredibly illuminating and gives an opportunity for connection and more intimacy.
And this is often made possible, to your point, by having a bit more practice in some of these self-disciplines to regulate the nervous system to recognize. Okay, here's my previous tendency or strategy, and I know what comes from that. I've been around the block enough to know what that results in, and I want to try something new. But as you said, it can be terrifying. So to have the support of teachers, guides, books, therapists, coaches, and various others to help hold ground for some of this, we get to have practice. “I think we can practice with many people, as you said, with a therapist. Like that's experience that lives in us, and we have a felt experience, and we can access our resource, which, when it is maybe a little bit more charged with someone who's more intimately partnered with.”
“Absolutely. Yep. You're speaking my language.”
“And that, I mean, I imagine you would agree that when we have a different experience that will give us updated information, it's not gonna like throw everything out in the past, but we start to like trust a new path.”
“Yeah, Step by step. Right. And I also want to remind people, like, you're not always going to get the outcome that you want. Yes.”
“Can I just say it's not? If people think that the outcome is. It didn't work.”
“Right.”
“Can you say more?”
“Yeah. So let me take this example, this hypothetical example. You know, if you go to your partner and you bring up your concerns and say you're feeling abandoned and you have moved an hour away and you know that feels like a mixed message compared to telling me that you're, you really love me and you're really into this relationship, that might set the opportunity for a conversation that you guys are on different pages in terms of long term commitment.” Right. I really do love you. I'm having a great time. I'm not thinking about us combining our lives. Like, I just, I'm having a great time, and I want to keep seeing you, but I'm not in a place in my life where I'm trying to like get married and change everything. Right.
So if somebody has that experience and then they decide, well, this didn't work for me, I was vulnerable, and I didn't get the outcome that I wanted, I'm never going to do that again. Right. I really, I ask you to take a step back and think about how pain is an integral part of the human experience.
“Pain and loss are unavoidable”
But what you get from that conversation is clarity. Because you could spend the next two years of your life mysteriously trying to figure out why the actions and words don't line up and thinking something different is going to happen and waiting for a proposal or whatever it is you're doing, and then find out in two years, once you've been in distress and you're there going, why aren't you marrying me? Why aren't we engaged yet? You could do that.
But this conversation gives you.
Yes.
Pain right now, but saves you from the suffering of uncertainty and not knowing and moving forward without clear intentionality, right? Yes. So this isn't always going to feel good.
No.
But it is always going to be for you.
Yes. Because it's great information and in the service of a larger goal. “If the goal is to be partnered and in a more meaningful, significant way, like a marriage, having that information allows you to make a choice to be that much more intentional about that goal.”
That's right.
Yes. That's right.
“And if you're in a relationship with someone who doesn't want the same thing as you, it prevents you from getting what you really want.”
Yes. You're occupied already with something else, fulfilled,
And you're not feeling lonely.
Yes.
Ultimately will feel unfulfilled.
Yes. And then for people who are in a relationship that has a particular dance and dynamic in existence, and they're trying to practice something new. Can you speak a little bit about that? That perhaps they're approaching a conflict with more of this vulnerability, checking out, perhaps fear.
Yeah.
And it maybe doesn't go great. Do you want to speak to that a little bit? Yeah.
I always tell people, give your partner a totally transparent heads up that you're trying to change and you're trying to do something different.
Yes.
And you could come right to the table, and you could say, I know we've never had a conversation like this before. Typically, I would. I know that I would just come to you and I would be passive-aggressive, or maybe I would just be critical and blame you. But I'm going to try to do something different here. And it's really scary for me. So here I am, I'm taking a deep breath, and I'm just going to say it this way when you move away. So I really encourage people to just give their partner a heads up that something is going to change, and you're going to try something new. Because when you do that, it does two things. One is that it helps people to be less sort of blindsided. Like, who is this person?
I'm dealing with what's going on here, you know, where it is. Where is my wife? And you know, what have you done with her? Right. But the other thing it does is when you tell someone that you're doing something scary with the right people, it just automatically puts them in the role as your ally. And I know the listeners are going to feel this, like when someone tells you, I'm really nervous to say this, but you automatically show up as a more empathic version of yourself. It reduces defensiveness because that person is telling you they're being vulnerable. And it's just human nature to want to meet them where they are, you know? Now, if you're in a relationship with someone who uses that opportunity and weaponizes it against you, that's also really important information, very disappointing information.
And
“It will be hard for you to mutually experience evolution and growth in that relationship if someone is not able to honor your vulnerability.”
Now, it's a different thing if someone makes a mistake, right? If they don't quite meet the mark, they don't quite show up how you needed them to. It's like, okay, you can try that again, you know. But there's a difference between sort of missing the mark and making a mistake or needing another shot at it, and weaponizing your vulnerability against you. And I think people will know what I mean by that, especially if they've been in a relationship with someone who does that kind of thing. But if you're around the right people, when you make yourself vulnerable, and you prepare them for it, people want to meet you where you are.
Absolutely. I agree and think it's incredibly disarming. And I would say in earlier stages in a relationship or where there's not a real disconnect or pattern that's painful, that hasn't been developed, I think it's much easier to access that. And if it's several years in, I've had where sessions. I'm sure you've had something similar where one gets vulnerable, and the other is like, this is great, but I don't trust it. This doesn't happen outside of the session. And so it's like part of them wants to really receive it, but then they're also a little like, this is so different. I don't know how this.
I don't know what to do with this. And I definitely don't trust it.
Yeah. So typically, this takes some time to establish a new pattern, really get some practice with it. But there's, to your point, it's not just totally weaponized. There's like, oh, this feels really great. And like, I don't know how to receive this, or I don't know how to trust this. Yeah, Okay. Well, one of the things that you also help people with is finding their voice and being able to bring up a need or raise their hand about something. And in this example, right. The person I'm imagining wants to feel more presence, more connection, and wants to develop a deeper level of relationship.
And it doesn't have to be this example, but how do you help people who might be negotiating fears of being too much, or this is going to rock the boat, and I'm going to push somebody away, or the fears that might come up around raising a need or having a voice around something challenging?
Well, for the most part, if you are going to be too much for someone and they are not able to meet your needs or let there be space for their needs, your needs, that's very important information to have because I can promise you that there are people out there that you will not be too much for, that will be open to meeting your needs. Now do a quick check-in. Are these needs reasonable? Right. And that can be a difficult question to answer
“If you are someone who grew up in a situation where you were constantly silenced, where you were told you don't matter, where you were treated as if you don't matter”
You're kind of your barometer is off, and it's like you can really convince yourself, like, oh, this is too much. I shouldn't ask for this.
So it can be a hard question to ask and to answer. Ask people that you love and that know you, and test it out with people. Hey, you know, I have been thinking that, you know, I'm really feeling like we're spending too much, and I'm concerned for us financially. I'm thinking about asking Jane if we can cut expenses here or there, but I don't. I don't know. She makes so much more money than me. Do I have a right to even have a say about this? Right. Get perspectives from different people. Hopefully, good friends will say to you're in a partnership. This is a marriage. Like, both people matter. Even if one person makes more than the other, you both should be contributing. And at the very least, you need to be talking about it.
If there are financial concerns and you're worried, a collaborative discussion is right. Hopefully, you're going to have people who can see it clearly. But, it really would not be unusual if you were raised in an environment where something else was modeled for you to say, I don't make the money. I'm not the one who should be making these decisions. I just need to forget about it. I'm sure that they've got it all figured out and everything's going to be fine. I don't want to rock the boat. I'm not going to raise it right. So it's about trying to arrive at an experience where you're fairly confident that your need is reasonable and then sitting with the right relationship that will allow me to have and express needs. Now, that does not mean your needs will always be met. Okay.
So I'm not going to sit here and tell people that in the right relationship, your partner will meet your needs. That's not real life. No, no. You want to be in a relationship where more or less the things that you value the most and the things that you need the most, those needs are met.
“But you are never going to find the perfect person who meets every single one of your needs”
And I hope that this is very freeing to people because it also frees you from the expectation that you should be able to meet somebody else's needs.
Totally.
Goodness knows, I can't do that for anyone. Right. So we have to be reasonable with ourselves about what's enough. And I am not proposing that anybody settle for less than they truly need. But I'm asking you to evaluate for yourself what's most important to me. Am I getting what's most important to me in this relationship? And can I live with the ways that my needs are not met?
Dr. Molly, I really appreciate what you're saying. Just as some are organizing this a bit for people. And also I don't know if you would agree, the practice of querying is this reasonable, I think can provide a bit of opportunity to stand in it a little bit more as an individual of like, yes, I can actually speak into this or I can own this a little bit more, or I can just acknowledge it and speak from it like that in of itself. Regardless of what the partner might respond with, the practice of saying this is important. I do want to have clarity. I do want to be on the same page or feel a little bit more in the know about our financial security, path, or plan. And that can for. For the individual to speak, that can actually have a huge, powerful effect.
Yeah. And I think it's. It's hard when we're learning how to advocate for ourselves and when we're learning how to express ourselves. I think we can vacillate between two extremes. One extreme being I don't speak up for myself. I push it down. I just don't rock the boat. I don't say anything. And then that can really sort of swing to the other side, which is, you're spending too much money. Look at our bank account. I bust my ass to make money, and you just go out and spend whatever you want. Right. When we don't have healthy boundaries. Right. We can vacillate from one extreme to the next. And by the way, both of those have about an equally dismal likelihood of getting your needs met.
Totally.
You know, nobody is going to come to that rageful conversation and say you're right. Now that you've called me on it, I do realize I'm spending. It's like, no, that's just not the way it happens. Right.
And nobody's going to kind of play hide and seek with you and like, really try to. I mean, there might be some signals that people might try to kind of query, but for the most part, people don't. If they don't know.
That's right. They can't read your mind.
Yes, well, and the other thing that I appreciate about what you're describing is that, did I forget it? I'm going to forget it.
This is where a nice, good edit comes in.
I know, I was like, oh, yeah, this is important. I'll remember. Well, as you're talking about this vacillating, sometimes we. If we're in a place of not speaking up, the relationship can start to form towards the other person's preferences, and then resentment, as you said, could start to come up. Or we feel the building of the unmet needs, and we kind of get to this threshold of like, we're protesting. And it's difficult, as you said, for the partner to really decode that or understand what that actually means. The other thing I was going to say is when I'll speak for myself. When I am clear and can validate that my need makes sense, and it's reasonable, and I can speak it. I also have a bit more opportunity around how I might be able to show up for that need myself.
If my partner is usually open to being collaborative, but I don't want him to feel totally responsible. But there might be things that I can get curious about, like how am I participating in the thing that I'm not enjoying? Is there. Are there things I can do to help with that? You're nodding.
Oh, yeah. Because I know this. I know this so well from my experience. It's like my life changed dramatically when I realized I always. I always thought that resentment was about anger.
“Until I really realized that resentment is actually about envy.”
Resentment is about somebody else having something that you want, and then, of course, you feel angry at them for having it. Right. But we skip the envy part. And envy is such an important experience because it points us in the direction of where to go to meet our needs, you know? Yes. I just remember negotiating the division of labor around having two little kids with my husband and feeling so resentful that he had this just sense of ease and, like, he could go to the. Take a shower anytime he wanted. He didn't have to ask permission to go take a shower. He could schedule nights out with his friends, like, no problem, you know? And I just remember feeling so resentful, like, I don't have any time to myself. I have to schedule a shower.
I can't go out with my friends, you know? And then it was like sitting in that resentment, focusing on just anger at him got me absolutely nowhere.
Yes.
Realizing that my resentment was about what I wanted for myself was like clicking the ruby heels three times. It's like, oh, my God, you had it in you all along. I don't have to ask permission to take a shower. I'm not in that kind of marriage. This was self-imposed. I could just say, hey, I'm going to take a shower. I could make time to go out with my girlfriends. This was self-imposed. I was just putting these standards on myself and telling myself these stories that weren't true or about my role and what was needed from me and what would happen if I stepped away. So, like, “learning that resentment was about anger was about envy just allowed me.” It just pointed the arrow in the direction of what I actually wanted for my life.
And I could let go of the anger at him for not giving me the thing that I really needed. And that was, like, transformative to our.
Marriage, I bet, because not so much your case, but it. I could feel myself or someone else, in your case, that might easily want to criticize, you're not doing enough, or, you know, the things that he's not doing or she's not doing. And even if the person were to do the things, it still wouldn't necessarily give them what they need. Right. So, to really, like, okay, if I'm harping on the other person, what would that allow me to feel? Is it that I'm feeling more relaxed, or can I take a shower, or can I go see friends? Like, that's a much more direct path to getting what one needs. And I so appreciate you sharing.
Well, and it's exactly what you said, what can I do for myself to meet this need? Because we have to let go. At least I know I did. I had to let go of this idea that somebody was coming to save me and that somebody was going to be my husband. He was going to save me from the difficulty of life if only he would do this and this and this. And he wasn't doing it. And so I was resentful. But when I realized that, like, no one's coming to save me, only me, it can only be me, what it did was it freed me up to actually get my needs met. And then I could have a relationship with my husband where, instead of being resentful and angry toward him about what he wasn't doing for me, those needs were really fulfilled.
And it freed me up to just kind of want him and need him so much, but just like, want him. And it's, you know, it's not that he doesn't show up for me or doesn't do anything. It's just that because I was in such a place of neglecting myself, I was blaming him for it. And when I took care of myself, it freed me to be able to see him as the incredible partner that he is, but not someone who's responsible for my well-being. Right.
That's a huge distinction. “I think sometimes in a relationship we can get confused that, like, they're the only source to get that need met because we're in a relationship, it's a relational need.”So we almost think that's the only source. And you're really giving a clear example of that. No, we have. And you started with, we have the individual work, and we have the relational work, and they're both important, and they support each other. But this dependency or reliance or responsibility, like, it doesn't have to be that way. I think secure, you know, a lot of the psychoeducation around secure attachment and *EFT, I think it got a little bit of a bad rap for like, oh, it means your partner's gonna respond to you and do all the things you want them to do. But it's not that. No, it's kind of what you're describing.*
It's beautiful. Okay, well, I know we're winding down, and you do a lot also, just one last question or topic here. What you might want to say about emotional intelligence and how that fits into what you're describing. Because the healthy, relating, and you're talking about the individual work, and this is something you focus on. How would you? Is there anything you want to say about emotional intelligence, how this fits in?
Just want to say that I wish so much that, like math, like science, like reading, there was a class that we took from the time that we were kindergarteners all the way through undergrad that focused on life's most important skill, which is emotion regulation and emotional intelligence. I don't know about you, but I am not often calculating the area of a parallelogram or the volume of a cylinder. But every day of my life, I am attending to my feelings and other people's feelings. My kids, my husband's, my clients, my barista, you know, and nobody taught me how to do that. I had to teach myself. And I just really wish that we had a more streamlined approach. I, I wish you didn't have to pay $250 a session to go to a therapist. I wish that this were part of our educational system.
People blame parents. Well, you're supposed to learn that from your parents. Well, who taught your parents precisely? You know what I mean? My parents didn't learn this. How are they going to teach it to me? You know, and we've got to start somewhere. And I just really, that would be my hope, is that there was. There would be a way that
“We could systemically change our culture through education”
to support people in this way. And I think we need it more than ever, 100%.
I mean, as we look at leaders in businesses and systems and families, it is pervasive in this more systemic way. Is there one thing that you would encourage listeners to take a step toward more emotional intelligence? That's a big question, I realize.
Well, you know what a big thing that I've been doing lately, I don't think it's the number one thing, but it just, it comes to me because I've been really into it lately. I decided that I was going to make a change in my life and go to bed earlier and wake up earlier, before my kids wake up. This was really hard for me because I'm not a morning person and I always experience nighttime. That's my downtime, right? And I didn't want to give it up by going to bed earlier. But what I started realizing was that, oh, but wait, by the time it's nine o'clock and my day's over and everyone's in bed and lunches are packed. All I have left for myself is scrolling through reality TV, and all those are.
Although those are really enjoyable to me, very enjoyable, they're not life-giving. And so I switched things up, and I started waking up early so that my me time is the first thing of the day. And I think I love the metaphor of it. I love that I come first. That first hour of the day is mine, and nothing's going to get in the way of it, you know, or very little. Like something very strange would have to happen to encroach upon that hour because everybody else in the house is sleeping, businesses are closed, you know, and I wake up early, and I have an hour to myself. Now, what do you do with that hour? For me, I've been really into journaling, and I just get all of my feelings down on paper.
All of the things that I'm thinking about, I have a place to release them all. But you can exercise, you can meditate, you can just drink your coffee in silence. I just think it is so important, especially for women who have so much on our plates, we are carrying so much that we prioritize the care of ourselves and think about what we are doing to take care of ourselves. Is it really life-giving, or are you just getting by? For me, I was just getting by for a long time and things really shifted for me when I changed this practice.
Thank you for sharing that, so powerful. I feel like there's so much to be said about that. One of the things I do in the morning is go to yoga. But there was a phase where I wasn't going to yoga, and I had gone to a class, and it had been many, however many weeks, and I got on the mat, and I was like, oh, hi. Like I was greeting myself for like I hadn't actually connected in a while, and that was a different phase in my life. But I was. It's so important to have this connection with oneself; however, that's enriching. So thank you. Well, Dr. Molly, what would you like to say about people who want to get in touch with you, what you're offering, and how? Yeah. Your work in the world.
Yeah. I'm a clinical psychologist. I see people who are residents of the state of California. My website is drmollyburrets.com. I'm sure that'll be in the show notes. But it can be hard to find me that way because I have a lot of demand for my practice. So my teachings are available. I do a lot of work on Instagram. The handle is Dr. Molly Burrets, and I'm especially excited for people to follow me there because then they will find out about the launch of my podcast, which I'm currently recording, is in development, and is going to come out really soon. So if you follow me there, you'll get all the announcements.
Yay. That's exciting. And are you privy to say the name of your podcast yet?
Yeah, yeah. It's trademarked and everything. The name of the fraud. The podcast is called Kissing Frogs, and it's about failed relationships and what we have learned from them.
Beautiful. As a friend of mine would say, mining the gold of those relationships. It's priceless.
Yeah. Every episode, I have a different guest. Come on. A guest of influence. Someone you'll probably be interested in hearing their story and talking with them about a failed relationship in their life, and how their life is different because of it.
Juicy. Wonderful. I'll make sure to have the link to your website and those in California. It sounds like you have a very full schedule, but for those who want to reach out to you or follow your teachings and your upcoming podcast launch on Instagram, I'll make sure to have the links on today's show. Notes.
Thank you. This was a really nice conversation. Very soul-giving though. So thank you.
Likewise. Thank you so much for sharing your time with us.
The post ERP 520: Why We Keep Repeating the Same Relationship Patterns and How to Change Them — An Interview With Dr. Molly Burrets appeared first on Jessica Higgins.
Love alone isn’t always enough to keep everyone under one roof feeling connected and secure. Despite the dream of harmony and the promise of new beginnings, many families find themselves struggling with uncertainty, misaligned expectations, and recurring conflicts that love simply can’t resolve. Is it possible to create a sense of “home” where everyone feels seen, heard, and supported—without sacrificing your relationship or your own well-being?
In this episode, listeners will discover why building a thriving blended family isn’t just about love—it’s about creating alignment through clear roles, structure, and intentional communication. The conversation explores the real-life challenges that stepfamilies and modern families face, including competing parenting philosophies, the presence of ex-partners, and loyalty struggles with children. Listeners will learn actionable strategies such as the Pause, Align, and Present method for unified parenting, tips for connecting before correcting, and ways to foster trust and emotional safety while honoring everyone’s unique needs. Get ready to transform overwhelm into clarity, and confusion into a cooperative partnership—one step at a time.
April is a licensed marriage and family therapist, stepfamily expert, and founder of Couples Thrive. She specializes in helping modern couples, especially those in blended families, create emotional safety, reduce conflict, and parent as a united team. She is trained in Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), one of the most research-backed approaches for couples, and her work has been featured in national outlets like Psychology Today and the Gottman Institute.
Episode Highlights06:09 Unique challenges blended families face as they merge different histories and systems.
09:56 Building alignment through clear structure and defined expectations.
12:24 Navigating family differences with the 60-30-10 rule.
14:19 Smoothing family life with weekly check-ins and defined roles.
19:09 Setting realistic expectations and practicing patience in blended families.
23:22 Overcoming common challenges through preparation and planning.
25:22 Unifying parenting decisions with the Pause, Align, and Present method.
28:13 Modeling teamwork and authentic connection during disagreements.
31:34 Building mutual respect through the power of pausing.
35:58 Balancing parental authority while empowering children’s voices.
39:36 Building trust as a stepparent by navigating loyalty binds.
43:19 Fostering respectful communication with clear boundaries and rules.
46:40 Helping blended families thrive with expert tools and support.
Your Check List of Actions to Take* Start a shared journal or Notes app with your partner to track moments of alignment and areas of struggle throughout the week. * Set aside time for a weekly alignment conversation where you review your journal and discuss patterns and sticky points together. * Establish clear roles and expectations in your family system, considering each person's strengths and the needs of the children. * Practice the “Pause, Align, and Present” method in moments of disagreement: pause the discussion, align privately, and then present a unified decision to the family. * Use a 60-30-10 rule—aim for 60% compromise, navigate 30% gray areas, and allow 10% flexibility for the sake of peace. * Involve children appropriately by hearing their voices and feelings, but maintain parental authority when making decisions. * For stepparents, focus on connection before correction—build rapport and trust first before stepping into disciplinary roles. * Regularly review your family values, using “we language” and modeling respectful communication, especially during challenging transitions or conflicts.
MentionedStepfamilies: Love, Marriage, and Parenting in the First Decade (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
ERP 313: How To Become A Successful Blended Family — An Interview With Ron Deal
ERP 256: The Mistakes People Make When Blending Families And What To Do Instead – An Interview With Tracy Poizner
Shifting Criticism For Connected Communication (free guide)
Connect with April EldemireWebsite: couples-thrive.com
Facebook: facebook.com/AprilEldemire
YouTube: youtube.com/@couplesthrive
Instagram: instagram.com/couplesthrive
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/april-eldemire-lmft-8a8b3059
TikTok: tiktok.com/@couples_thrive
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Episode Transcript
All right. April, thank you for joining us. I'm excited about our conversation.
Me too. Thank you so much for having me.
Yes. And I know we share a similar love of the EFT model and having that be a part of the reference of how we work with people. And you focus on couples and also blended families. Do you want to say a little bit more about what got you into focusing on this particular area?
I would love to. This is my passion and my bread and butter. It's something that I feel is my mission. 13 years in private practice. I'm a marriage and family therapist. I'm EFT trained, and I've been working with step families and blended families' dynamics for many years, as well as traditional couples. And I also have a personal story. I was a former stepmom, and unfortunately, my marriage did not work out. But I learned so much from not only my personal experience, but also working with blended family couples in my practice that it's really my mission to help families, especially blended family couples, realize that it's not a love problem, it's an alignment problem. So they're not broken down or, you know, not compatible or worthy of having their family feel secure. “They just need more structure and a system to get them.”
“And is that what you mean by alignment, is structure and system?”
“That's exactly what I mean. Yes. I always like to say it's not a love problem, it's a lack of alignment.” And what that means is having clear roles, clear leadership, and clear expectations around how you're going to have your family system work.
That's incredibly important. I know that often people who are negotiating a relationship, entering into a more lifelong partnership like marriage, and have children or have had a previous marriage, are very hopeful. Right. And want to do things differently. And of course, we would want that for anyone. And you're also saying, even as hopeful and as optimistic as you are, that the love and the connection and what your intentions are, that there's a bit more scaffolding that will help support the process.
That's a beautiful way to say it. It's a bit more scaffolding.
***“So love will get you in the door, but alignment keeps you in the house.”***
Yeah. And so love, you know, isn't enough. We've heard that phrase before, but there's something true to that. And it's also about compatibility. And you create that as you work through and as you get to know and as you connect with not only your partner, but your new family system. So it does go a little bit further than that. And I think that's where couples really get stuck. They think love will be enough and it will get them through, and they don't have the other things in place to. That they've been able to establish to really set the foundation.
And arguably, this is necessary or helpful for any couple. And also what we counteract in some of the more media messages, it's like picking the right partners, the, like, bigger focus. Right. Oh, I picked wrong. Or, you know, that there was, I picked better this time, or something like that. But, I would say, and I imagine you would agree, that this scaffolding is helpful for any couple.
It absolutely is.
*******“You need a structure and a system in place to make things work.”*********
I mean, this is sort of an aside, but it's very pertinent. And I'm sort of in puppy world right now because I just got one, but I didn't just get a puppy, and I love the puppy right when I saw it. But love grows, and so does the system and the structure that I needed. So I had the dog trainer before the puppy came. I had the crate and the playpen and all of these areas that I needed to have that structure in place to have a really happy, harmonious relationship with the puppy. And so it's sort of similar. Although I don't want to minimize or diminish how important a family system is.
But it's similar in the same sense, in that you don't just expect that love is going to get you through. You have to prepare and plan and be really clear and intentional about how you structure things moving forward.
Oh, my goodness. Thank you for acknowledging the love that exists and also just how we are supported by that structure.
“So with the scaffolding, that seems important. Just regardless. But then, when we add the layer of complexity with blended families, this is particularly important.”
“It is. It's so important. Blended families have a unique and more complex dynamic to work through. You're coming in with different family histories, different parenting philosophies.” You know, you have a whole different playbook that you're coming in with, and then you're expected to merge the two. And so it doesn't happen like a skillet meal. It's like the crockpot situation.
*******“It takes time to grow, to nurture, to establish”*********
And that's where blended families are really beautiful. But they can also be really complicated at the same time. And so just to kind of normalize that for the families out there who feel like they're struggling or not getting it right, you're not broken down. You're just missing a structure. And what I help, coach, and teach my couples work through all the time.
Thank you. It's reminded me that years ago, I interviewed. And I'll put the interview in today's show notes, because I can't remember. Excuse me. I can't remember the gentleman's name, but he, with the families that he worked with that were negotiating blended families, would do the family tree, and he would show them. Even if, say, in the first marriage, someone passed away, and there's a widow, like all of those, or just divorce, whatever, the separation, like, that person is still existing in the dynamic. And that's just because you're physically under one roof, and the other parents are in a different location. He was really inviting. Like, this layer of complexity exists. Like, it doesn't just because it's not physically there. It is there.
I love that. It's like honoring all of the systems at play. Even if there's no physical presence, it still plays a part and a really strong one when you're in a family dynamic, trying to just make it work. So I love that dynamic. I love the different family tree and all of the different systems at play. I'm just kind of putting it out there. Helps clarify and just brings some understanding to what we're working with.
Yes. He was like, the visual. Like, people are just, like, astounded when they actually look at all the complexity of what is actually playing a part. So it is validating, I think.
Yeah.
Great. Well, April, I know that you're referencing the structure and the systems. Where would you like to start here? Around what you help people create in this way.
I love that I help people create more alignment. And so, typically when you're fighting about say bedtime or screens at the table or how much time you're gonna give each night to all of the different homework and school-related tasks and cooking and all of those things, it can get really muddled really quickly because
*****“High stress moments and a lack of clear expectations, clear roles, and clear leadership from partners get the system to break down.”*****
And then what happens is kids start to feel and see the cracks in the surface of the two parents, the two authority figures who really don't have that shared leadership system in place. The kids can feel it too. And so now everybody's feeding into emotional uncertainty and insecurity. What I would like couples to really practice is that those fights are about something bigger.
And it's usually pointing you in a direction where you might feel off, you might feel misaligned, or you might feel disconnected. And instead of winging it and just reacting in survival mode, as a blended family, I like to have couples prepare as much in advance as they possibly can and get very clear around what their family value system is, and then parenting from there. So it's the kind of bottom structure and foundation, and then moving upwards out of that. And that just involves clearer communication and an understanding of whose lane I am in and who, which lane is late, and how I can function the best in that lane?
And when you say alignment for people listening, how do you define that? How do you describe what that means in this context?
I think it's about feeling like we're in this together. That's what alignment feels like. So if I could give it a feeling, it's like, I got you. I know we're on the same team. We don't have to agree, but we do have to feel aligned, and we have to have a plan. So I like to kind of do with couples like a 60, 30, 10 rule. So 60% of the time, you want to find some compromise and common ground. And then the 30% of the time you're navigating the gray areas and then the 10% of the time you're letting go and allowing peace, you might say, I'm going to let that one slide or I'm going to give in or adjust on this for the sake of peace and for the sake of what our blended family needs to work.
And so that 60, 30, 10 rule is a good baseline of where couples need to be to feel like they're aligned. And in the areas where they need to navigate a little bit of the gray to understand, they might need to dig a little bit deeper; they might have to have better, bigger conversations around what their family system will look like, so that they can really thrive in all areas that they can. So I love that kind of rule because it tells couples like, we don't always have to agree, but we can find alignment the majority of the time.
******“Alignment is that we have a plan, we're on the same team, we're not against each other, and we're going to make it work no matter what.”******
And it sounds like there's clarity there. So with the 60%, we have a pretty good sense of where we're at, that it's not this winging-it type of thing.
That's right. It's clarity. That's a beautiful word. I love that it's clearly defined. And so it takes the guessing game out of knee-jerk parenting reactions or knee-jerk parenting decisions. And it puts you in the majority of the time, a structure, a system at play, and some clarity around how we're going to approach all of these different things that come up day to day.
And for somebody listening, that might be negotiating this or recognizing, I don't know what my percentages are. How would you help someone begin to do this work? Like how to give themselves percentages or how to develop that 60%.
I love this. So we have our phones, and we use them all the time. And I always like to coach couples to start a shared journal entry in the Notes app and start tracking it. So just take a week. And this is non-judgmental. It's not to evoke discord or disagreement, buts comes from a place of curiosity and information. And what you're gathering is what areas this week did we feel really aligned with, and what areas did we struggle with? And let's write those things down. So you're starting to figure out where those stuck places are throughout your week, and then you're having an alignment conversation once a week, even for 15 minutes. It doesn't have to be that long where you're opening the journal, and you're saying, oh, this is where we felt really good.
This is where you made that decision that I backed you up on, and here's that sticking point, and you'll start to see patterns, and you'll start to see what those sticking points, those sticky places, truly mean. And to go deeper with those, it might be in those moments there was a feeling of disconnect, or not feeling seen or appreciated, or not feeling heard in the moment. It could speak to maybe an underlying parenting issue around feeling guilt around how you're parenting one of the kids, or, you know, just having more information that maybe the other parent doesn't know about. And so you want to get clear about what those sticky parts really mean. It's not usually about the surface. When we can reveal what's underneath the surface, it becomes clearer that we have something to work with.
And so that's why those weekly conversations are really helpful. And just tracking it is a good baseline to start.
Yes. And would you think that having some prep work even before that would be helpful? I mean, I get that just starting wherever you are, like this, is a good way to gather more information. Part of that question around prep work is if we've identified our top values, what decision-making approach we want to use to make decisions, and what our roles are. It reminds me of, I don't remember. I think it might have been a different interview, but she was really recommending that even if the stepparent wants to come in and be an added parent, the children might not, depending on their ages, be so receptive. It's like, who do the children want you to be? And then, as a couple, who do you, what does each person want that person, the step-parent, to be, and that role?
Like, it's not just an exact, like, oh, I'm going to come in and be stepfather stepmother.
That's right. It's that's really helpful and so important to identify. So you're looking at the uniqueness of your blended family system, which involves so many different things that you can do in advance. It's understanding where the two of you shine, where you thrive, and where you don't, I? And vice versa. And that might be, hey, you're going to handle the homework situation because you're better under high stress. And I'm going to deal with the pickups and the drop-offs, and what ages are the kids, and what emotional needs do they have first and foremost. So you're looking at all those different areas. I mean, this is planning and preparation at its core, you know, kind of Mentals 101.
And that's getting to know the personalities in the home, the ages of everyone, and also where you shine and where the other one may or may not do as well. And focusing on the. Your lane, my lane kind of situations. And I think as you create that structure, you start to understand a little bit more about the needs of your family, the needs that the kids have, and the needs that you have collectively as a couple. So you can do that from the preliminary stages. Okay. We love each other. We know we want this to work. Now, what are we working with? By the way? This also includes the X factor, the presence of the X person in your lives. There could be a strong presence of one partner's ex in your life. There could not be a stronger presence.
And maybe
*******“The step-parent is taking more of an active role in being a primary parent figure.”*******
So it's also understanding those other systems at play, too.
Yes. And as I was describing an example, the family in my mind was that a step-parent is coming in and joining the existing children and the primary parent. But then there are cases where people are joining children together. Right. And helping. I mean, it's so. So many layers. Yes.
So many layers.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's really hard because you want the kids to get along, and then you want, obviously, your connection to last, and then you want the system to get along cohesively. So you want to make sure you're seeing and just observing initially and remembering that this is a work in progress. It's not all going to come together right away. And I think some of what step-parents also get wrong, albeit with really good intentions, is that they want to feel like a real family fast and very soon, and they lose the ability to connect and to create emotional safety in the home for everyone involved because they want quick results, and they want it all to come together. That's a beautiful place to come from and a beautiful want and desire. But it doesn't happen that way.
Typically for blended families, it's low and slow, and it takes time for everyone to adjust. And for step families, a wonderful sort of nugget or takeaway that I would love to give is connect before you Correct. Instead of coming in right away and establishing yourself as the authority figure, maybe you and your partner have determined that the bio parent will handle all discipline for a period of time. And the step-parent is just focusing on how to connect with this child, how do I empathize with them, how do I build that relationship so that they trust me, and then I can be the authority figure in their lives. Then I can take more of an active role, whether it's with discipline or, you know, just engagement of other things. And so connection is always the first.
Place to start, I resonate with that fullheartedly. That's how we typically can lead, through connection, right? It's this sense of I see you, I understand you. We have this rapport, as you're saying, and then there's more trust to be able to follow a lead and the care and consideration around that. April, I remember hearing that the average is like, it takes like seven years for blended families to feel like home. You're nodding.
Yes, I've read it. It's actually a book called Step Families by James Bray, I think the author is, and he says in the book, which I kind of mentioned earlier, but I actually took it from the book that I read, that Nuclear Families is like a scale skillet meal. You throw everything together, and you get this wonderful thing in like 30 minutes. Right? But in blended families, it takes around seven years to feel like a family. And it's like a crockpot. You throw everything in, you turn it on low, and hours later, you get this beautiful meal. It's the same thing for blended families. So that average is actually very accurate and research-based. It takes around that long to build trust, to establish that connection, and to feel like a real sense of belonging for a blended family.
So if you think about that, you're in the long game, blended family couples. And that's okay. That's okay. You'll get there.
And that's a beautiful message. I believe that the expectations are calibrated so there's more room and space to go slow and low, as you're saying, to connect before correcting. Like, there's a lot more room versus like, oh my gosh, everybody is watching what's going to happen. We need to dial this in and put a pretty bow on it. And like just anybody under pressure feels stressed, and we are not typically that attuned, and we're going to miss.
That's right. That's so true. So,
***“Take the pressure off what the expectations are because you'll soon realize that what you expect or think it will go like looks very different.”***
So you've got to feel a bit flexible and you know, adjust a little bit those expectations along the way too. And it is a process, but it's a beautiful one. It's complex, but it's beautiful at the same time. There's no doubt about it that a blended family is hard work, but it's worth the hard work if you put the time in.
You know, earlier you were talking about looking at the 60%, perhaps using a note to kind of observe process throughout the week where both people are participating and what worked well, where do we feel sticky points and really running through some of these phases in life where we're, you know, doing the morning routine, the evening routine, the dinners, the things that typically require more parenting if children are in school. But some people homeschool. But it reminds me, I have a friend who's in a pretty large coaching company, she and her family, and they will do these live events and it's, and they call it TikTok, where they rehearse moment by moment, minute by minute, like what's happening? And they're really trying to dial that in. And it's almost as if, I mean, it's not something we imagine applying towards domestic life. But you're suggesting there's actual value in looking at the rhythm and the pacing and our, what we're focused on, what we're prioritizing, how we're, what our roles are, who's leading.
Yes, yes. I love that it's preparing as much as you can and knowing that it's not all going to be perfectly put together, even with all of the preparation in place. So, yes, you want to start with as much preparation as possible. Okay, what happened last week? And then what can we anticipate for this week? And how can we plan around the things that we're anticipating? The TikTok thing that you were talking about. Right. That's your friend. And then the other thing is if there's something that happens in the moment that you haven't planned or prepared for, here's what I want couples to do. This could be universal for any couple, but “in particular blended family couples, to do something that I like to call the pause, align, and present method.”
And so if there's, let's say, your stepchild forgets their homework again, and one parent wants to ground them and the other parent says, they've had a hard week, let's give them more leniency. And this is happening right in front of the child. And you don't know what to do because you haven't planned for this. So you just want to pause, take a beat, and either say in front of the child and to each other, let's talk about this after dinner. We'll get back to you. Or it could even be a look that says, we don't agree, but we're going to. And we're going to find a plan, and we're on the same team. And then you are going to align privately. So have that conversation, and that's where you talk about what needs to happen here and how you can back each other up.
And then once you align, you come back to the child, and you present as a united front what the decision is. And so the child is seeing that my parents aren't in agreement right here. But what they aren't taking in the message of is that if I wait long enough, that parent is going to side with me, and I can look through the cracks, and I can, you know, work through the cracks of their foundation. What they are seeing is that my parents disagree, which is normal for human beings to have. And yet they're also a team. They are the two authority figures in my life, and they're going to give me a consistent message. And so you don't have to have it all figured out all the time.
But with that kind of method, you're teaching your partnership, but also the family dynamics and the kids that you can align, and even if you don't, you can still support each other and back each other up. And it feels like a cohesive unit. And the kids get consistency, and they get a structure, and that builds trust for them.
Absolutely. And it models, as you're saying, what it looks like, live in real time. When people don't agree, that's okay; we're not trying to avoid it or just bypass it. We're acknowledging it, we're naming it, and we're organizing, and we're going to be addressing it, and we've got it. It's not a threat, like being able to see differences, that doesn't threaten the bond. Like what Great modeling.
That's wonderful. Yes, yes. Because
*****“We mess up, and we're not perfect human beings”*******
And so it's even great in the moment to just be authentic and say, oh, wow, you feel this way. Well, I was actually coming from this approach. Hey, kiddo. This is really interesting that we're not agreeing here, but we're going to figure it out and get back to you. That's just being authentic and honest, and I love that. Right. You don't have to be perfect; you just have to be intentional.
I so appreciate what you're saying because it gives room for both parents to see, from their perspective, the value of, like, oh, I feel sensitive to the challenging week the child has had. Right. That's a caring, that quality of caring for the emotional well-being. And then the other parent, that's like, I want our child to have structure, to have consistency, responsibility, and follow through, like both are valuable. And sometimes when we don't have this system or this process to engage with, people sometimes resort to one has to be right. And there's tension there, and it's like, well, who's gonna win? Or, it's not like people are consciously thinking one-upping, but we're so primed to be there's one winner, and you're really saying no, we can actually work together to arrive at something that supports both, or we talk it through, and we'll figure out the best approach.
That's right. And with a breakdown in connection, because there's no alignment, then what that does look like is a good cop, bad cop scenario. Even if that's not, as you said, conscious or intentional, that's sort of what happens. So you want to avoid that with the right system and the right structure in place.
Absolutely. Because, as you said, the child's just learning how to get what they want, negotiating the current system. And they're like, okay, I got a little bit more opening over here. Let me work that. And again, that sounds so manipulative. But as children and as humans, we want what we want, and we're going to work with what is.
And yeah, well, we like to negotiate, kids and adults alike. Okay. We're trying to negotiate for our needs and our wants. And so, yeah, it's not intentionally manipulative, but it does play out that way. If you allow that kind of system to take shape and then these are at odds with each other, the kid figures out who they can go to for what. The parents are off their team approach. Right. So now they're fighting against each other, and then everything starts to break down. “And that's why blended families fail.” And that's how mine did. It wasn't a love problem. It was ‘we’ don't have a plan on how to do this, and we're just winging it. And we never agree in the moment because it's usually about something deeper or bigger.
And if we could have had maybe those more intimate conversations or deeper conversations on our own behind closed doors, and really understood what this was all about. There's more curiosity in that. There's more openness, there's more flexibility, there's more understanding. Gets you in that area of being able to find compromise.
“And April, do you find that if parents are exercising what you just acknowledged, as we say, the acro, the words that you use for that?”
“Pause, align, and present method?”
Yeah, the pause, align, and present. Do you find that when parents are exercising this process, it actually sets them up, that they're like setting the tone that we are for each other, we are acknowledging the difference, and we're going to talk about it. So it almost supports their communication behind closed doors.
It does. It's a mutual respect. Right away, when you can pause and not make a decision, not one person, it also takes. It eliminates undermining each other in front of the kids. It eliminates overriding what the other person may want to do, feel, or say. And so it establishes a sense of mutual respect for the fact that we might not agree, but we're going to. You know, that's the message in this method. Right. Pausing and not making a decision or not, you know, having. Not disciplining in the moment from one person is that we're going to figure this out together. And what that does is create better communication, and it makes you feel more aligned. Right. So if we're talking about alignment, this is the piece where you feel aligned.
We might not agree, but we're going to find a plan, and we're going to back each other up. And that's the most important message to give partners, especially in blended families.
Yes. What I also love about this is the pause. Because sometimes when things are moving quickly, we feel that we have to come to a decision in that moment, or the pressure is on. So sometimes we're reacting when we actually haven't had as much time to really think it through. So I like the pause for that respect, but I also like the pause for the couple that they might actually feel a little bit of charge, like, ooh, we're not on the same, you know, and while they might present in that aligned way, they might feel an internal rattle. So when they are pausing, they're going to have a little bit more opportunity to calibrate, think about, okay, we have a difference of opinion here. How do we approach this with more gentleness and curiosity? And I think having time supports that.
It does. I mean, if you think about it just from a physiological standpoint.
Yes.
This is about your nervous system in the moment, wanting to do something. And pausing allows you to co-regulate your reg. You are regulating yourself, and then you are regulating you and your partner together, who are co-regulated, and then you're regulating everybody else, the kids who are in the mix. And so all of that energy is being, you know, translated outward into everybody else. And it is, it's about regulating your nervous system and allowing that time and space to not have an in-the-moment response, which 9 times out of 10, we, in hindsight, may have done differently or said differently or wished differently. Right. I can attest to that in my own life all the time. If I had just paused and maybe taken some time with that, I might have had a different approach.
Yes. And we actually often have way more time than we think we do.
It's true.
Yeah.
So, yes, permitting parents alike not to have to make every decision in the moment, you can take time. You can take time with it.
And then my sense is with the 10%, when you have the 60% alignment and then the live kind of gray area that you are using this process, how much trust and alignment as you're saying that the couple has, the 10% is rather easy because it's like, okay, we've got this whole 90%, like this isn't something. But when we have. We don't have a lot. We grasp at everything.
That's right. Yes. That resonates so much. When you don't have a lot of that alignment or connection, then you go into more protection, usually protecting what you want and what's more important to you. So it becomes so much bigger than it needs to be. And so that's why. Yeah. That if you can have those other things kind of nailed down or in check, the 10% is so much easier to give up. There's more flexibility in the 10%.
Great. I love this. And for someone who's listening that might like to involve the children, get their input, it sounds like your model allows for that. Because if the child is requesting something, raising their hand, they're going to perhaps say why they want what they want. So they're being heard, but the decision is just being discussed amongst the parents. And as far as like roles, as I had mentioned earlier, around whom. “Who the perhaps, step-parent like they want. How do you include the children in some of the structure and system?”
“That's a good question. It depends on the age of the child. Right. So if they're age-appropriate, to be able to have a discussion. Right. This is still coming from age-level stuff.” You might want to give them a voice, you know. Why do you think you can get a pass on this one? This time you've forgotten your homework two other times in the past month or whatever it is. And so you can give them a voice, you can allow them to speak about how they feel about a situation. But ultimately, you're the authority figures, and that's the message that you're giving them. You're allowed to have a voice. We will hear you out because every voice maybe matters in our family.
And that could be one of your family rules or your family values that you're doing in the planning stages of blending your family. Right.
****“We want to make sure everyone has a voice, so you're giving that child a voice.”****
But ultimately, you're still saying, well, we appreciate your feedback. We're going to discuss this and get back to you on our decision. And so it's still coming from the two parents. Right. And that's a really important distinction.
**“You're not allowing the kid to decide with you. You're allowing their voice to be heard, and then you're making the ultimate decision.”****
I absolutely agree. And for the transitional space, perhaps there's been a bit more conflict in the divorce process and then the blending and the child, that's like, I don't want a step-parent. I don't want to be parented, or I don't want to. And they're really. Whether or not they're super vocal. But there's some expression around not wanting the step-parent to be in the role of a parent. How do you?
That's such a great question. I love that you asked that. Because I think step-parents have an invisible role that they're constantly asked to function in. It's the double bind situation. You know, I'm expected to invest and care and adjust to my stepchild, and I'm also told that I'm not their mom and dad. And so this creates hypervigilance, uncertainty, and resentment, or at least it can. You might get that there are quite a lot of families who struggle with that when they're blending. And what I'll say is that's interesting. That's an interesting loyalty bind. And all that means is, first of all, not to take it personally. This is the child trying to figure out how they stay loyal to their biological parent and still find room and space for another parent in their lives.
And that takes their own adjustment, their own emotional adjustment process. And that's the part of connecting that's really important and not making it personal. It's not a rejection of you. There's confusion around where you fit in their lives. And eventually, as we're talking about low and slow, you're connecting with that child, and you are giving room and space for their feelings while also not taking it personally. It creates trust in them, and they can start to establish, oh, this. This person doesn't want to replace my biological parent, but they can hold space and have a really nice part of it. Have a nice relationship or have a nice part in my life, too. And so it might look different, but. And the child's adjusting to that, and so are you. So. And it's. It's an adjustment for both the step-parent and the stepchild.
Yes.
Tricky one. And it can be messy, and it takes time, but it can absolutely be something really beautiful.
Yes. Because I'm thinking how much this is. I was going to say initiatory, but that's not. I mean, yes, it is, but it's also a curriculum because it's the fast track for. How can you hold my upset feelings? Right. Sometimes in early stages of relating, we don't always show the inside, more vulnerable, upset parts. And as we build trust and we can reveal that, be more vulnerable and these more complex dynamics, that's more visible, like you said, there's some loyalty perhaps that's going on to the other parent, and for the step parent to be present and hold space, that it's okay that our relationship is not conditional. Like you don't need to be nice to meet. Well, yes, there are some boundaries, of course, around how we talk to each other and that.
But you don't have to, like, love me and embrace me and welcome me, and like, that's not necessary for me to have regard for you and care for you and be there for you. That's right, yes. So it can look different. And I love what you're saying. It's. It can also be just about redefining what the expectation is or what that might look like. And it doesn't have to be love right away. In fact, it won't. It won't. That's sort of like the expectation. Right. Is that my stepchild's not going to love me right away, but. And they will never love me, maybe like their biological parent. I mean, unless there's other extenuating circumstances. But for the most part, there can be love that's developed.
“You can have love for each other in a very different way”
and it still can hold respect, it can still hold trust, and it can still hold something really solid and deep, but that is something that takes time and is something that needs to be nurtured over time.
Yes. And then going back to the parents and the united front, that hearing the. The voice of the child that's not ready or still adjusting or dealing with the loyalty, how that all works, that there's some respect for their boundaries, that they get to have some choice in. But also as parents, like how we are the authority of the family and having that responsibility and those boundaries, we can learn how to work with that. So it's not like, oh, the child has all the say, but they do have some say around how they feel, right?
Absolutely. Feelings are okay. Disrespect is not right. So that. That is a clear boundary. That might be one of those things that you're discussing. As you know, you're the partners coming into a blended family. These are what our family values hold. And one of the rules of your blended family might be, no matter what, we always have mutual respect. And you're modeling that too. You get more aligned. If the child's having deep, big feelings around blending families, they're also seeing that the two parents are aligned and there's harmony and there's peace between them, which creates harmony and peace for the child. So their nervous systems are settled when two parents are aligned and not at war.
Yes.
So that's really important. But, yes, there's always room for feelings, and there's always room for discussion, but it has to come from a respectful place always. And if it doesn't, you know, that's one of those conversations that you need to pause, align, and present with. Take a hold steady, love. Take a breath. Discuss it behind closed doors. You know, how do you want to handle this? It should probably come from the bio-parent. Your step. Your child was disrespectful to me about their feelings. I want to honor their feelings, but I don't like how that was said. It was really mean, hurtful, whatever that is. And the bio parent needs to handle that exchange. And so you're getting back up. The step parents getting back up.
Because also, step parents sometimes feel like they don't have a voice or they're doing, doing, and they're, you know, they. They. They sort of feel unseen. And so it gives them a place of understanding for the partners, like, okay, you're supporting me on this. And then they're the. The bio parent is presenting that to the child. Hey, we don't talk like that in this house. I love this, too, by the way. We language. I think a lot of times it's your kid or my house, my rules, and making sure that you're presenting to the kids, but also that you're talking in a unified language, too. Like, hey, buddy, we don't. We don't talk like that in this house. We always have respect for each other.
You're more than welcome to express yourself. We want to hear your feelings, but you need to show respect first. And so taking accountability for the child for that. And it's in front of the step-parent, so the child feels, oh, my parents are disciplining me. And it's also. They're together, they're aligned on this. It's coming from a place of love. And so you're establishing what you need, and you're also setting the tone for how that will look and how that will go. That's really important.
Absolutely. It's a fine line. Right. Giving room and space for the child to have their experience and their feelings, and also how to communicate. Respectfully communicate that. And I think just ultimately, that's good learning and emotional development, period. And I guess I would imagine you would also agree that the child has permission to feel what they're feeling, but also maybe even what they. What they want to engage in physically, like hugs or kisses, or those types of things that they can perhaps pace that.
Yes, of course.
Yeah.
Physical touch, connection, affection. Those are always welcome, always should be. You know, one of the things that you establish a connection with and that the.
Child gets to say yes or no right in the beginning, like, if there's some level of, like, you know, again, with this really beautiful intention of, like, we love each other and big, happy family. And sometimes it does take some adjusting. So that attunement of really watching what a child might be ready for, again, is age-appropriate. But also, like, there are subtleties here that really have. I mean, your big principles are huge guiding lights here.
Yes, yes, that's true. It's. It's helping the child also navigate safety, physical, and emotional safety, too, and making sure that you're not pushing too hard, you're not going full speed ahead. So it might be taking a little bit of a backseat. It might be breadcrumbs of connection at first before you can, you know, come in with the full hug or the full.
Can I touch your toe on the couch?
Like, just.
Yeah, yeah.
Okay. Well.
And I acknowledge there's a lot of support that you offer the step-parent because of what you've alluded to here, around just this bind. “Is there anything more that you want to say about that? I know we're winding down, but.”
“I guess I just want to say that again. I've made it really my mission to help blended families get the tools that I didn't have, so that their blended family can really work.” And I've been working for years and years, and then personal experience, too, to create something that I believe holds so much value. And who I've also heard from a lot of blended family couples that I've worked with, if they implement some of the things that we've talked about today, they tell me that they go from overwhelm, stressed out, no peace at home to so much more harmony and alignment and connection and clarity that their home feels happy instead of, you know, chaotic. And so I think that what I would want to say to blended family couples is, again,
**“You are not broken. You just don't have the right system and the right clarity in place to get through.”****
So love will be that spark, but the flame is alignment, the flame and holding that flame long term is about the two of you making sure that you've got clear expectations, clear roles, and a clear understanding of how this will look for your blended family.
And the practice, I mean, it really sounds like this is a practice. And the feeling you're using the word home as like physical, but I'm also like, what you're providing people, it sounds like it helps them cultivate the sense of home with one another.
Right? That's exactly right. Home is a feeling, right? It's where the heart is, and you want your heart, this blended family that you've committed to making. And it takes work, and it is an intentional process. It doesn't just come together. So do the work and, you know, your love shall last. Beautiful.
And April, for people who are resonating with what you're sharing or wanting to get more information about what you offer, where would you like to direct people towards?
I would love it if people could go to my website and check it out. It's couples-thrive.com. I'm on all social media. Instagram is @couples-thrive, and what might.
Do people find your website?
A lot of information about the services that I offer, and also the blended family alignment blueprint course that I've created specifically for blended families. It's a course designed to help couples go from chaos to connection, from, you know, from feeling like they're not at peace to more peace in their blended family home, and covering a lot of the topics that we did today.
Beautiful. And so also, in addition to your course, do you. It sounds like you have other services that people can find and look at what you have to offer there.
There are so many things, so many freebies, so many things that they can find to just have a more harmonious relationship overall.
Excellent. Well, I'll make sure to put the link to your website and social media on today's show. Notes, thank you so much for all that you've shared.
Thank you so much for having me. This was so fun. I loved it. Thank you.
The post ERP 519: From Love to Leadership: Creating Alignment in Family Life – An Interview With April Eldemire appeared first on Jessica Higgins.
Ever notice how the smallest trigger in your relationship—a tone of voice, a lingering look, or a forgotten chore—can suddenly feel like a five-alarm fire? The truth is, most couples aren’t fighting about the dishes or the laundry; they’re struggling against the undercurrents of stress, anxiety, and unspoken needs that simmer just beneath the surface. When these emotions erupt, it’s not just about the task at hand but the deep human urge to be seen, valued, and connected. Left unchecked, these survival-driven stress responses can turn moments of misunderstanding into cycles of blame, defensiveness, or painful silence.
In this episode, you’ll discover a refreshing reframe of stress in intimate relationships—not as a signal to run or shut down, but as an invitation to meaningful connection and growth. Learn how to recognize your triggers, transform heightened emotions into curiosity and constructive action, and tap into the power of vulnerability—even in the heat of conflict. Through practical strategies, thought-provoking questions, and powerful mindset shifts, this conversation is packed with insights to help you break free from old reaction patterns, deepen trust, and turn even your toughest moments into a pathway for a stronger partnership.
Dr. Rebecca Heiss is a Stress Physiologist and full-time keynote speaker residing in Greenville, South Carolina, who has worked with household names like VISA, P&G, SHRM, Bloomberg, and Northwestern Mutual. Dr. Heiss hails from a small town in upstate NY! She grew up playing basketball and football in the backyard with her sister and neighborhood kids. Basketball stuck with her, and she continues to enjoy playing with friends today while promoting her co-founded non-profit, Gamechanger Basketball.
Episode Highlights03:40 Discover how personal loss led to a life-changing approach to handling stress.
08:42 Learn why our brains react so strongly in relationships—and how to respond differently.
11:37 Find out how curiosity can replace fear and build a deeper connection during stress.
14:41 Get simple, real-life tools for managing conflict and assessing vulnerability.
19:01 Uncover powerful questions that can turn arguments into understanding.
20:51 Explore a three-step process for navigating stress as a team and how to use this method to resolve everyday relationship challenges.
26:25 Discover why embracing—not avoiding—stress leads to more meaning and growth.
39:40 Quick, physical techniques anyone can use to release tension.
40:58 How community, service, and the right resources can transform your stress.
Your Checklist of Actions to Take Pause and Breathe: When feeling stressed or triggered, take a moment to pause with a deep inhale and exhale to help settle your nervous system. * Invite the Tiger In: Instead of avoiding stress, consciously sit with the discomfort for three minutes to allow yourself to fully experience and acknowledge it. * Get Curious: Ask yourself, “What is this stress here to help me do?” to start shifting out of a blame mindset and into a place of productive inquiry. * Connect with Others: Reflect on “Who do I need to connect with?”—be it your partner, a friend, or even a part of yourself—to seek support and reduce isolation. * Use Physical Outlet: If you’re more nonverbal, move your body (e.g., fast feet, punching a pillow, yelling—in a safe space) to help release stress energy. * Name Your Feelings: Verbally recognize and share your emotional state with your partner, such as “I’m feeling defensive,” to foster vulnerability and mutual understanding. * Set a Break Word: Agree on a lighthearted code word as a couple to pause heated discussions, allowing each person to process and return with more clarity. * Direct Your Energy Constructively*: After working through the initial stress, focus on what you need—whether it’s an apology, to be heard, or a behavior change—and express this clearly to your partner.
MentionedInstinct (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
Springboard (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
Man's Search for Meaning (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
Shifting Criticism For Connected Communication (free guide)
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Episode Transcript
Dr. Rebecca, thank you for joining us today.
Thank you so much for having me on. I'm really looking forward to it.
Yeah. And you are a stress psychologist. And I don't know if many people know what that is. Can you briefly give some context to your background?
Yeah, sure. Actually, I'm a stress physiologist, so. Yeah, that got very.
Okay.
Okay.
I've never heard of stress psychology.
Yeah. Okay. This happens a lot. I get introduced all the time as a stress psychologist, which is not far off. Yes, physiologists. So I studied the hormones that affect our behavior and ultimately, you know, why we react the way we do under stress and pressure? And then I help people sort of transform that stress energy and use it differently. So that's what I do.
Great. Thank you. And then how did you become interested in this particular, like, aspect?
I'm a pretty stressed-out person. I think very often people who have high stress or high anxiety end up going into the field that I'm in because we really want to resolve it for ourselves. And you know, I was in school, I was studying and understanding behavior as a result, and I just kept going to school because it felt like it was so exciting to me to be able to understand my own behavior better, and then ultimately to be able to help others. Was this incredible gift, bringing it out of the lab? Right. And into the real world to apply these actions?
Yes. Well, I love that you share about your personal experience, and also having played sports competitively. There are different elements around where we find. Find ourselves or where we are. The spaces that we're in might add levels of pressure, add levels of stress, and allow us to perform in this more optimal zone. And that's something that.
Yeah, well, yeah. And I'll say if you don't know the longer version of the story that you just heard. There was a moment when I was in academia, and unfortunately, my sister-in-law, who was like a sister to me, was diagnosed with terminal cancer. And it's one of those moments, right, that pulls the. And everybody has these moments in their life, right? Whether it's a divorce or a terminal diagnosis, or there are stressful events that are going to happen. And in that moment, I took a look at my own life, and
***“I realized that almost every decision I'd made out of fear, as I played it safe. And to honor my own mortality, I decided in that moment to stop playing safe.”***
So I quit my job, sold my house, and divorced my husband that month. I'm not recommending this. It was a really stressful move, but it really helped me and forced me into that space where I was really
*******“Practicing what I preached.”*********
So, if I'm understanding you, it sounds like you were recognizing that making fear-based choices results in stress.
Well, yeah, I mean, I think a longer-term stress, it's more like a slow boil. Right. And I've been sitting in that simmering space for a long time, and I decided to turn up the heat and, really, you know, I made a really stressful move, three of them in fact. But ultimately, it was something that gave me the relief that I needed, and I was able to utilize that stress differently.
Aha. Okay. Thank you for clarifying. And so it sounds like you were noticing things of discontent that perhaps you were avoiding.
Okay, there it is. Yeah, that's our natural move. And it's what we're told to do so frequently. When advised on how to manage stress, it's often, well, go get a massage or self-care or go do yoga. Look, all of those things are great, don't get me wrong, but they're not going to relieve your stress. Right. We're running away from these tigers. We're running away from the stressful things that we're going to have to deal with, and they don't go away. So whether it's a difficult conversation or something. Something else.
Yes. And so people who are listening to that. What, what might you say about patterns that they might recognize that are in the neighborhood of what you're describing?
Yeah, I mean, I think very frequently, and it's a natural pattern of avoidance, procrastination, avoiding difficult conversations, running away, sometimes fighting. Right. It's the fight, flight, freeze response that is
*****“So natural to engage in under stress because it's what our brain tells us to do. Our brain goes immediately into survival mode.”*****
Yes.
And the problem, of course, is that in this modern environment,
******“Most of our stressors are not actual life and death, but our brain still treats them as such.”********
And so we end up in avoidance or procrastinating or running away or picking a fight because it's natural for our brain to do that. Unfortunately, it's not necessarily the most healthy.
Choice, and perhaps it's not addressing the deeper patterns or underlying feelings. So nothing really, actually, gets resolved.
Yeah, I mean, one of the things that I tell people is to invite the tiger in for tea. So, “I call these external stressors tigers because that's the way our brain treats them. Like a life and death animal that's coming to kill us kind of situation.”
Yes.
And my ask of people is, wait, wait, it's not a tiger. Right. In the next three minutes, you're not going to be dead if you sit with it. So invite the tiger in for tea and sit with it for three minutes. Feel it. Right. Acknowledge it, understand it. Allow your body to go to that physiological state where it's going to be heightened, and then remember like you're still alive. So this isn't something that's actually going to kill you. Despite all the warning bells going off.
In our brains, as humans, we're looking. Well, we're fueled by the activation of the nervous system, which is what you're describing, and our survival mechanisms at play. And I will say an intimate relationship, it could just literally be a tone of voice, it could be a snarky look, and we can feel the activation beginning. And usually this happens in nanoseconds. And I agree that our nervous system registers the bonding and intimate relationship as survival. So when that feels threatened, we get into that hijacked tiger place.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
And so what you're saying is if you can tolerate some of that, and you're not even saying calm, get back into regulation. You're actually, you're staying. Go ahead.
Yeah, please don't try to calm down. It's like the worst advice people give themselves. Okay, I have to calm down here. Okay, first of all, you can't do it physiologically. You cannot just calm down. Right. If you tell your adrenal glands, please don't release adrenaline right now, they don't listen. Yeah, yeah. So,
******“It's kind of cruel for us to be telling ourselves to calm down because then we feel like failures”******
and then we stress out even more because we're not regulating, and oh, how can everybody else do this? And I can.
I see red. What's wrong with me? I didn't say things.
Yeah, exactly. Release yourself from that, and then, to your point, sit in it, sit in it. Notice the trigger. And one of the cool things about the stress response that I don't think gets talked about enough is the release of oxytocin.So the bonding hormone, the connection hormone, that's a major stress hormone. So when you're having that cortisol, that first flux influx, the second hormone, like right behind, is oxytocin. So that is the. I think it's a hormone of courage asking you to reach out and connect, asking you to ask for help and to receive help. And in these intimate relationships, it behooves us to remember, actually, under stress, more than anything, I don't need to isolate. I need to connect.
And so when I invite the tiger in for tea, or I ask people to invite the tiger in for tea, there's. “There are two questions I ask them to ask themselves.” First of all, I want you to ask, what is this stress here to help me do? Because it's there to help. It truly is. This isn't a bug in our system. It's a feature. It is trying to help you to perform. It's trying to help you do something. And then the second question is, who do I need to connect with in order to accomplish this?
Right?
So do I need to connect with my inner child? Do I need to connect with my sister? Do I need to connect with my partner? Where do I need to have this connection so that I feel safe enough and good enough to move through the stress, not avoid it?
I'm so appreciating this. And I did not know that oxytocin was one of the hormones that was released in this fight or flight or freeze or fawn state. So that's so fascinating. My mind's hypothesizing so many things because we, as a species, are wired for human connection. So it makes sense that's part of the. The cocktail.
Yeah.
Because we need to be. But so often, to your point, when we feel a level of activation, well, I would say some have a more of a tendency to reach, others have a more of a tendency to kind of shut down. And you're really inviting some inquiry here around. Can we identify what it is that is seeking attention? Can you repeat that first question again?
Yeah, the first question is what is the stress response here to help me do? Yes, what is it here to help me do? Because the heart rate is pumping blood and oxygen to our brain to think better. It's pumping blood to our muscles so we can move. What is it that we have to do? What is it helping us to do in that moment?
Yes. And then the second around, who do I need to connect with? Whether or not it's a part of myself or someone that I want to have a relationship with? Okay, so this is so helpful. I love the first question because so often the human tendency is to go into pointing to the thing that hurts or blaming the thing that we're triggered by. If this circumstance were different or if you wouldn't do this, then I would feel we would feel fine. And is that enough? Do you find that question being enough to slow that tendency of blaming or criticizing?
You know, it's a good start. And what I tell people is it's really important to recognize curiosity and fear can't coexist in the brain. So the more curious we can get. I mean, this is one of the coolest things I think the feature of the brain, right? Because for 200,000 plus years nobody ever had a tiger, like an actual tiger charging them, and was like I wonder how fast it's coming or like how many stripes it's got. Right? So, when we can get curious rather than blame and point fingers, look externally for solutions, and we just stay in this mode of asking questions to ourselves, to our partner. I think that is the go-to, to really stay out of that fear, out of that's that classic stress response that's going to lead down a path that's not necessarily helpful.
So, having those two questions in your pocket, like, okay, here's where to start, is going to be helpful.
Okay, so as I experience, I've heard this before, and the way I'm interpreting helps me if this is true in the science of what you know. I, in practice, if I'm feeling threatened by something with my husband, and I know enough, and I can calibrate enough to be curious, I ask questions. I'm still scared, I still feel the fear, but I'm opening up like that prefrontal cortex, like the one that can get more information, and then it starts to. I start to ease into more of that curiosity and the fear lessons. But, I don't feel that it, like, goes away.
Okay, you're nailing it. And this is so important. I'm so glad you brought this up. Yeah. I get asked all the time, well, I want to get rid of my stress. I want to get rid of. I want to be outside of it. Like, no, you don't. No, you don't. And in fact, that anxiety, that fear, that. That stress, it never goes away.
And.
And the reason for that is that what you're doing is important and it matters. Yes. Nobody gets stressed out over their shoe coming untied. So
********“Stress is a barometer for how much you care about how important something is.”**********
And so staying in that state and transferring some of that energy to being curious, opening up that prefrontal cortex, as you mentioned, this is what I call the transfer stage. This is where we're recognizing the energy. We're acknowledging it. We're not trying to get rid of it. We're just transferring some of it to excitement, curiosity, even. Even anger. Now, anger is directed at your partner. No, anger directed at a problem. Yeah. That's exciting. Right? Because
***“When you direct anger in a meaningful, productive way, it can be a very powerful emotion.”***
I agree. I often talk about it being fuel. It's an activation. And this is giving us perhaps the momentum to do the thing we're afraid of. Right.
There it is.
Yeah. And, okay, so I want to go back just really quick, so we don't move, or move too far away, because it feels like an important thing to flesh out a little bit. So when you're saying, don't try to avoid that activation state. So you're saying there's a bit of calibration, but you're staying with the energy. I'm not hearing, like, oh, run if you're feeling like you want to run or fight if you want to fight. Like, you're not saying, like, fully embody the activation without any guidance. Like, tell. Can you say? Because sometimes people do feel like they want to hit, throw, whatever, and it's.
That's authentic. Yeah.
Right. Like, can you help?
Yeah. Yes. This is great. So three minutes of screaming terror is what I talk about. Like that, when we have our stress response, it is really built for three minutes of screaming terror through a savannah,through a jungle, getting chased by a wild tiger bear, or, you know, something. Something that's going to eat and kill and eat us.
Yeah.
So I ask people to. For three minutes. Like, I keep something I call a disaster diary. And I will cognitively spit out onto the page.
Yeah, yeah.
All of the disaster, all of the, like, here's my anger, here's my frustration, and. And I will clench my one fist, and I will write with the other furiously. But I'll set a timer for three minutes. And when that three-minute ding, I release my fist, I read through. I force myself to be cognitive. This is the, like, name entertainment kind of thing, right? I'm literally naming all of my fe. All of my anxieties. I'm forcing them onto the page, which, when we write, we have to use our frontal cortex. So I'm starting to engage a little bit. And all of that energy, it's not. I'm not trying to push it aside.
I'm not trying to push it away. I'm putting it onto something that I can then begin to use. So again, the activation is going to happen.
You're directing in constructive ways.
That's it.
Okay, that's it. So you're not trying to bypass or not feel what you're feeling. You're trying to stay in the energy and give it a voice, give it a way to exist, but in a constructive way.
Exactly. Okay. Exactly.
“What does this look like in a relationship?” Like, I have my own ideas, but I would love to hear from you because it doesn't look like, oh, okay, I need a little bit of a break. I'm gonna go do my process or talk to us a little bit about how this looks live in action.
Sure. “And this is going to look different for every couple. This is really important. Some people are so good at this. They can feel it. They feel that elevation. You're like, oh, we're going to take a break. Sometimes you get to the point where, like, oh, gosh, voices are raised.” I'm hearing the tone differently, or I can't hear it in myself. I'll be honest. I am a stress physiologist. I preach this. And when I get heightened, I can't hear my tone shift. I've actually recorded a conversation before with a partner and gone back and listened to it, and I'm like, I'm horrified because I just. I. I feel like I'm being so kind and talking like this, and, like, please tell me.
Nope.
So I highly recommend, you know, having some kind of word or something silly and easy to just go, you know what, zebra? I don't know. I just saw the zebra thing behind the zebra. This is a zebra moment. Let's step back. Let's spend three minutes just, like, going into it for ourselves. So all the energy isn't pointed at the partner.
I.
And anybody can call it.
Right.
It can be an alert at any time. So if my partner calls it, okay, I didn't even think I was heightened. And I can't come back with that important because so often I'm like, what zebra? What are you talking about? I'm not heightened at all.
Right?
So just. Just take that time. And. And three minutes really is a nice reset. It allows you to get into it, feel it all, and then return. And my ask is, whenever you return, whenever you come back, start with a question.
Right?
Start with a question. Yeah.
And I wonder if, as someone who is in practice with this, they'll be able to access it. So I'm reminded of, like, so I've been doing this, but I would usually do it for 20 minutes because I had so many things to say. Not so much anymore, but I used to. And it was fueled by a lot of anxiety or threat, or just a description of how my partner offended or crossed the line in some way. So all the justifications. But I would spend that time. But then I would typically get to a golden nugget around, okay, here's my vulnerability, or here's my deeper worry. And then I remember having had a few years of doing that, and then we were in the car together, and it's a heated conversation, and just the slowing down and just pausing and breathing.
I didn't really have a pain, a piece of paper to access. I didn't, but I just was quiet with it. Sometimes we speed up when we're in an escalated place, right? So fighting and then even the mental kind of just going through it mentally. And then I recognized I was afraid he didn't want to resolve it because sometimes he has a little bit more of a shutdown tendency. I have a little bit more of a pursuer tendency. And so I just needed to know that, like, he wanted to work on it. That was all that I needed. And I was like. But it was so vulnerable to say it, Rebecca. I was like, it's terrifying.
Yeah, of course it's. What. Because. Because what if he says no?
Right.
You know, and that is. That is our deep fear. I think there's a lot of value in. For me, one of the questions that I love,
****“One of the curiosities that I love is asking, what is it that you need me to hear that you think I'm missing?”****
Because, you know, we'll spiral, we'll do this, like, a chase thing where it's like, you're not getting it. This is what.
Yeah.
So what is it that I'm missing? What am I missing here? Because you love the person. You, at some level, are in this relationship for a reason.
Right.
You love the person; they presumably love you. I am missing. What am I not seeing? What am I not hearing? And how do we resolve this? Like, what is the thing that shuts the thing down? Right. Is it. Do you need an apology? Do you just need to be heard? Do you need what is that thing that you know, and you're working toward that goal together?
Oh, I so appreciate that question. It gets at an opportunity of accessing more of that vulnerability, I would think, because so often people hope in partnership that they tell the story and then expect their partner to decode what it is that they're needing or what the fear is. That's right. Like, I give you all the information. Can't you see?
This is so obvious. Yeah.
But then the person's like, I would not describe it that way. Let me tell you how I would describe it. And then they're caught up in the narrative. So this is helpful to direct attention to.
Yeah. And I also, sometimes, you know, one of the things that I've learned in partnerships is sometimes I just need you to hear how I feel. That's it. You are not allowed to respond for the day. Tomorrow you can come back and tell me how you feel.
Yeah.
And I'm not allowed to respond for the day. And then we can put it to bed. But that way it's not a back and forth. Right. Because that's just going to continue to spiral. And our nervous systems never feel safe.
Yes. And there's a holding there. That I think sometimes when we don't hold with that deepened understanding of just contemplating what your partner said, we might not absorb to the degree or have even the empathy to like, oh, if it was me, is it like this, or just really getting the nuances?
And I think the learning. I don't know if this hearkens back to your overall process, and I would love to get to your stressborn life, but that's the energy that's getting activated, how much it means to us that's. So there's a reason. Right. You said that. Something's alerting us. We want to look at the message and what it has to teach us. And in a relationship, there's an opportunity for perhaps deepening the dynamic in a way that is. Works better, or like, what's the learning here?
“So we're not just having an outburst and then, like, quelling it and then, like, revisiting and having a similar one. These perpetual things, like, we can actually learn.”
“Yeah. Grow. Otherwise, what's the point?” Yeah. What's the point? Why do you even bring it up? Yeah, it's huge. I love that. Yeah, it's huge. I call that my trajectory stage. So there's. I mean, you wanted to get into the formula. There are three stages. We've kind of gone through the first two.
Right.
The first one is that it's not a tiger. If it's not a tiger, I can invite it in for tea. I can acknowledge it. I can feel it, because it's not actually going to kill me. The second is the transfer stage. So we’re feeling all the energy. We're going to transfer it into adventure. We're going to transfer it into curiosity. We're going to transfer it into productive anger. We're going to use that heightened emotion for something else. And then the third is trajectory. So, where am I pointing this? Where does this land? Right. And frequently, what people do in this moment is inaction. They sit back, and they're like, nope, because I've learned in previous relationships, or I have a story in my head of learned helplessness. And so nothing's going to change as a result. I won't bother.
I'm just going to sit back and accept it. And that builds, obviously, massive amounts of resentment and more fear because you can't be authentic in your relationship. So the trajectory is the learning. Like, where do we point this together so that we both understand we come to a new level of learning, and we can level up and not have this happen again. Because when it spirals, we both understand each other better.
Thank you. Have an example for people to really connect with or anchor with.
I'm going to try to think about this in a relationship situation. So, well, let's just do. I'll just walk through it. I don't have an example. We'll see how this goes. So
*****“One of the major conflicts in relationships is that somebody feels underappreciated.”*******
Okay. So I go to my partner, and I say, you know, I've been taking out the trash all the time. I do all the laundry. I do all of the dishes. I would just like some acknowledgement. All right? Immediately, my partner is probably going to be triggered.
Right.
More than likely, they feel like there are fingers pointing at them, and they have this stress response. So invite the tiger in. I'm not. I'm not a tiger. I'm not going to kill you. Right. This is just a venting of information. We're going to invite that in. We're going to get curious. Rebecca, how would it feel or what would it look like for you to be acknowledged in this?
Right.
What is it that you need here? Do you need me to pick up the slack? Do you need to feel like I'm seeing the things that you do? What is the goal? So I've transferred the energy now to, or the partner has transferred the energy now to curiosity, and we're pointing it towards a trajectory. And the point there in that trajectory is, are we trying to get to a solution? Like, do you need something to change? I need to take an action. Or do you need to feel acknowledged, or do you just need to be heard? What is that? Because now I'm taken aback, and I'm like, wait, I was heightened because I was feeling really angry about this, and now I'm like, wait, what do I want? Do I want to vent? Do I want you to pick up the slack?
The curiosity has to go both ways because I don't think very often we. We pick fights knowing what we want as a result, right? So, like, I know I pick fights all the time. Like, wait, do I want an apology or do I want you to do something? It's important. It's really important to understand that. So hopefully that's a. That's a useful example.
It is. Thank you. So, in the one that was listening or being addressed with the complaint or the concern, and you were saying that the partner might have some level of activation. So they're holding the energy, and they're inviting curiosity to ask the question. So it's a bit of tolerating the heightened state, but inviting curiosity to then transfer channel?
Yeah, it's feeling it. Right. It's acknowledging it.
And.
And even that partner saying and expressing vulnerability. Rebecca, you know, this is really triggering for me. I feel really heightened right now because I feel like you're pointing at me. And I need to understand what I can do about this. Right? Like, it's
*“We must acknowledge the feelings”*
because again, I can easily come back, be like, well, that's not what I meant. I'm not. This isn't about you.
I took out the dress yesterday.
Yeah, yeah, right. This is easily isolated or easily escalated. So, you know, allowing the other partner to have those feelings and express those feelings.
Yes.
And sitting in that as well and going, okay, it's okay to continue to get heightened. This is okay. And this is probably going to happen. So the trying to control the stress response is not our. Is not our job. It's going to happen. You're going to get emoted. The idea is where do you go together.
Point that energy and not perhaps losing yourself thinking that there's like trying to suppress it and fight it, but then it kind of overwhelms the system, and then we're kind of lost in it. I'm kind of hearing and help me if this feels right, but we can acknowledge. I really love just the metacognition of like or meta conversation around. Here's what's happening for me, or here's what I'm noticing. Right. And it's like, you matter so much to me. I'm afraid I did something to upset you, or I feel a little bit like an alarm here. So let me help organize, or can I ask you a coupleof questions to kind of seek more understanding, or I'm feeling defensive. Can we just slow down so I can, you know, understand here?
So I think there are lots of ways to do this, and it is tricky. It's. It happens so fast.
Yeah. But Jessica, to your point, like, the second I hear you saying I'm feeling a little X right now, like, immediately. First of all, it takes incredible vulnerability to say that. And. But immediately, it knocks me out. My horse a little bit, and I'm like, oh, yeah, you're an emotion. You're an emotional creature, too. Okay. Okay. We're in this together, and it puts us kind of back on the same side.
It's disarming.
It is disarming. Yeah, it is.
So, for the one that I don't know if you find this, but I imagine either in partnership, one or both people, more of this avoidant tendency. It's almost like you're inviting a reframe on stress and what gets activated. And so I guess if you want to speak to. If the reframe feels right for you. Any thoughts about that? And then secondly, for let's say the dynamic where one is more comfortable addressing and using what is brought up as information and trying to learn from it, and the other one isn't. And they're more avoidant, and it's even though the conversations and they. In a more regulated state, they're like, yes, that sounds really lovely. And yet I just continue. Yes, yes.
Yeah. This is a really, this is a tricky pattern. And I'll be really honest with you, this is not my area of expertise. My area of expertise is understanding the stress response and avoidant behaviors. They're really challenging. They're really challenging. But here's what I'll say to it. It's natural, and it's normal, right? You're running away from the stress response. It's natural, and it's normal. And the reframe piece, I think, is so important because to me, again, the most purposeful and meaningful lives are full of stress. So this was a 2013 study, right, looking at what brings life meaning and purpose. And the number one correlate was past stressful events, current state of stress, even future worry and anxiety.
And so when we reframe all of these conflicts,
“All of these challenges are actually meaningful”
This is important, what that means is that rather than seeing this as a problem and then, particularly for avoidance, you're running away from the very thing that is bringing meaning and purpose to your life. If you can pause there for a second and say, wait a second, I am actually running away. I am avoiding the thing that's bringing meaning and purpose to my life. That's a moment to go, okay, maybe there's a little shift that I can make where I can begin to run at that roar, or just take a step toward the roar. You don't have to run at it, just take a step toward it.
Because again, stress isn't going away, and the more we can move through it, the better life will be.
Yes, we're in, we're advocating for what matters. We're in co-creation of the really meaningful things.
That's it.
So I mean, conversely, going back to your origin story that we can be avoiding, and then things I don't know.
That is exactly. Oh, no, it's okay. Yeah, lay it on.
But from people who notice that because the stress doesn't go away, or the injury or the pain doesn't go away, so we avoid it, we might get that short-term relief. But what you're really describing is we're in service of the long-term gain, and that if we have this accumulation, short-term relief, avoid, avoid. We're participating in a life that isn't what we want.
You're complicit in your own stress. And that it's so hard to hear. It's such a hard thing to say to people. It's such a hard thing to receive. But when I think of it this way, it's sometimes helpful. I've asked people to think about a project or an accomplishment that they're most proud of. Okay, so go ahead and do that then. I want you to go back in time to when you were in the middle of that project. What was your stress level on a scale of 0 to 100? And I guess I'm guessing you can guess the data on it. Right.
Most people are stressed out of their minds when they're doing their most meaningful, purposeful work.
And so
“The idea of avoiding stress, of avoiding conflict, of avoiding these difficult conversations, is literally running away from the thing that you'll look back on and go”
Wow, I'm so proud of that. I'm so proud that we did that we were able to move through that together. It's pretty powerful to reconcile with that and go, oh yeah, I don't want to run away from that.
No kidding. I'm also aware. Rebecca, I don't know if you feel like this is important or relevant to the stress curve. I remember, in my pre-doc internship, I worked at San Jose State University, and I was trying to help students understand the stress curve because I think in modern life we'll get the somewhat message that if we drive harder, we push harder, that we are going to just. There's like this endless reserve of energy, but we often run up against a drop off in where. So, do you want to describe that if it feels right?
Yeah, sure.
I think at an optimal. If we're too stressed. Right. Like that can compromise our system if we're not stressed and not. No.
Okay, so I'm gonna. Yeah, I'm gonna push back on this.
Yeah, so.
So what you're describing is the Yerkes-Dodson curve. Right. Which is what it looks for listeners. It looks like an upside-down you. All right, so if you have no stress in your life, you're, I don't know, you're a trust fund baby. Everything's made like you don't have a lot of stress. You also don't have a lot of performance. So your performance is very low. As you're aware, maybe a deadline's coming up. And you're like, oh gosh, I have been procrastinating. Your performance increases to a point, and then, according to the Yerkes-Dodson curve, you start to crash, right? It's too much stress, and you can't do it. And you've pulled an all-nighter, and it's just your performance crashes. So that's been the traditional model of stress for decades. And I actually pushed back on this a little bit. And here's why: Olympic athletes break world records when the pressure and the stress are at their peak, right? So they actually can perform really at their very best under tremendous pressure and stress. So what does that mean? What that means is that so much of stress is what we create here.
“Humans are so weird that we're the only species on the planet that creates our stress with our thoughts.”
So yes, there are all kinds of external factors that you can't control. You know, those are major stressors, and they're going to affect your performance. But at the end of the day, a lot of our performance and a lot of our stress is created by our internal thinking. And you know, the example I give is like lions in the wild, they go out, they hunt, they fail 80% of the time.
Can you imagine failing 80% of the time in conversations that you're having with a loved one, or you know, you're just not communicating well, you'd be walking around all day just like, I suck. I can't. I'm like, I'm a horrible human being. I don't know. Lions, when they fail, they take a nap, right? There's no, there's no internal dialogue that is like creating more stress. So one of the things that I think we can do as humans is just recognize our internal tigers and check our stories because that's often the thing that is pushing us over that hump into this decline of performance. So, I'll say one more thing here because I think this is really fascinating. This is another 2013 study looking at 30,000 Americans over eight years.
And they looked at people who had very high levels of stress and asked them, do you believe that stress is bad for your health? And people who had very high levels of stress, who believed that their stress was bad for them, died at a 43% higher mortality rate. Wow, that's huge, right? And that's kind of fitting based on that original Yerkes-Dodson curve. Like you're starting to crash.
The most interesting thing about this study was that the same people who had very high levels of stress but believed that stress wasn't bad for them had the lowest mortality rates of the entire study, lower than people who had very little stress in their lives.
What that means is over the course of eight years, 182,000 people died prematurely, not because of too much stress, but because of the belief that stress was bad for them. That's wild, right?
I know. My brain is like, I'm contemplating all the things that you're saying, and it makes perfect sense. I can just see for myself that when I'm in this place where I'm having the internal stress, whatever thoughts I'm having, versus when I'm not. I don't even have time to be in my head around the fears or the worries, and I'm just, you know, I'm just performing. Let's just use that language, and I'm just riding that wave, so to speak. I don't know that I feel as stressed, so I get that. That makes perfect sense. There are probably other questions I have around long-term, but of course, I still feel like you.
Your point is really valid, and it debunks some of the stress, which is how we relate to stress, which is the bigger component that you're trying to bring our attention to.
Absolutely.
Okay.
Absolutely. And you're right to question that. Right. Like, if you are living in a violent. I am not here to say, oh, good for you. Like, that's great stress, use it. No, absolutely not. Absolutely not. Let me be very clear about that. But mindset is incredibly important for. For healthy relationships to. To continue to be healthy.
Yes, Agreed. I know we could keep talking about this. I mean, I'm thinking even about Man's Search for Meaning and how, like, just Viktor Frankl.
Absolutely.
In this, and how much that impacted his experience. So, I mean, really horrific circumstance.
I mean, this is. This is fascinating stuff, though, because we. We talk all the time about PTSD.
Yes.
And rightly so. It affects about 8% of Americans, or I should say, 8% of Americans are diagnosed with it. I personally, I think everybody experiences ptsd. I really do. I think going through life is traumatic. But the cool thing is that nobody talks about post-traumatic growth. And 50% of people without going through any kind of protocol experience these post-traumatic growth symptoms, which, you know, you're going through something difficult. Whether it's a difficult conversation with a loved one. Whether you're having a. I mean, miscarriages, there's a million things that happen in relationships that are traumatic, truly traumatic, but they often lead to deeper connection and more sense of purpose and a greater connection to the community. So, yeah, again, it just kind of proves the point of, like, avoiding stress isn't the goal.
It's going through it in the community and finding that purpose behind it.
Yes, and the opportunity to metabolize very overwhelming things. Right. When you're saying, not push away, that we're able to process, and how we do that, and the learning that comes from that. So thank you so much. I know we're winding down here. I mean, to that point, just one quick note. “Do you feel like, as people get into this practice of asking the question of, like, what is in it for me to learn? Or again, that first question.”
“Yeah, what is? What is this stress here? To help me do.
“Help me to do. Yes. And I'm hearing that as, yeah, so help me to do that.” Perhaps it is like I've got too much on my plate today. Right. Or that we can recognize. I just need to breathe a little bit more. Or I'm like, too tight around this, or this is something that has a lot of meaning, and I want to actually address this and create change here.
I don't think there's any wrong response to that question.
Okay.
Yep. I don't think there's any wrong response to that question.
Okay, fabulous. Okay, so the last two questions. One is for someone who's a little more nonverbal. Do you have any others? Other tips for that three-minute kind of tool, around, writing all the things down. If somebody, I don't know, I'm wondering, that's my first question.
Yeah, yeah, sure. So, I mean, that's just what I do. That's what works for me. If you have three minutes. And so I'll say, and it's a safe space. Yes, 100%. Scream, like, yell, punch things, pillows. Don't hurt yourself, don't hurt other people, but get activated. So again,
“In that moment, our cortisol is going through the roof to help activate us. So it's literally preparing you to fight or to flee”
So if you want to do fast feet in place, run as fast as you can. That's a really great opportunity to use that energy.
And then after three minutes, if you're still alive, which you will be, your brain goes, oh, I must have outrun the tiger. You know, oh, the threat is over.
And so we start to, like, the cortisol starts to come down at that point, and oxytocin starts to come in. And so this is a great opportunity to do whatever feels important in that moment. Again, for me, it's writing it out, but for others, it may just be like squeezing or moving. Body movement is really great in that moment.
Yes. And somatically, we. To the point about trauma, we hold trauma or overwhelming situations in the body. So, utilizing it as a force or as a way to move, we could potentially have a new felt sense that gives us insight or access to a new understanding.
So absolutely.
Okay, great. Wonderful. And then I was going to ask about any type of habit or step that you want to encourage people to be more in the practice of turning towards and holding space for this. And we've talked a little bit, maybe more about the first question, and maybe you could offer something around the reach or the oxytocin. Who do I need to connect with?
Yeah, actually, I'll cite another study because I'm a super nerd. So there's a study. It was done, I think, in 2023. And they looked at 90 different workplace interventions, things that we think are going to help our stress response, and all 90 of them failed. Like, nothing made it better. Some of it made it worse. Wow. The exception of one thing, and I'm talking like massage, coaching, like all the things that we do, there was one exception. And I love this so much, the exception to the rule, there was community service. So service to others was the one thing that actually helped to mitigate our own stress response. When we reach out and serve other people, we actually are serving ourselves. And so in partnerships, too.
I think this is really powerful when you see the other person as part of somebody that you serve. And again, I'm not saying avoid yourself or like don't. Don't give yourself what you need, but if you can frame it as my stress response is here and it's. It's pointing to this person is important to me to point to this person. And I need to find, figure out how I can serve this person in this moment. If you both are in that mindset, you got this right. About really helps flip that switch. Yeah.
Oh, that's powerful. Oh, thank you so much.
You're so welcome.
Yeah. Rebecca, I know you help and support people in various domains. Do you want to say a little bit more about your work broadly? Sure.
Yeah. Mainly right now, I'm a keynote speaker, so I get to travel the world and talk to companies, associations, and individuals, and it's such a blessing. I mean, how lucky do I get to be able to, you know, this is my main gig. I also have a book and a master class. So my masterclass is really about anxiety, and I built it specifically mainly for millennials and Gen Z, who are really struggling right now. So anybody can take it. I'm not trying to eliminate anybody in that in those generations. But yeah, it's a pretty powerful way to help, I guess, help see stress a little bit differently.
Excellent. And so for you, so for someone listening that perhaps has a company and is really appreciating what you're speaking about, do you offer a talk and then something to help them implement? Yeah, yeah.
So yeah, I do keynotes, I do workshops. I've got my book, I've got a whole, actually, 150-page workbook that accompanies it. Look, we can go into this for days, weeks. Yes. Yeah. What you need is what we can deliver. So we've got a lot of customized access to resources, and I greatly appreciate you asking that question.
Wonderful. And we want to say the name of your book. Sure.
My latest book is called Springboard: Transform Stress to Work for You, and my previous book is called Instinct. So yeah, really excited if you all want to buy those and reach out. I always love to hear feedback, questions, ideas, and comments. I will respond to you. It might take me a minute, but I will get back to you.
Nice. And is there a website you want to mention?
Yeah, my website is just my name, so it's rebeccaheiss.com. You can find all of my resources, speaking, books, masterclasses, and everything there.
Excellent. Well, thank you again. I've really enjoyed all that you've shared here today. Thank you.
Thank you, Dr. Jessica. This has been a pleasure.
The post ERP 518: When Stress Hijacks Connection: How Couples Can Use Stress to Grow Closer — An Interview with Dr. Rebecca Heiss appeared first on Jessica Higgins.
There’s a silent struggle that many couples face—issues of pain, discomfort, or disconnection in intimate life that go unspoken and unattended. For so long, pelvic floor challenges have been seen as private burdens to bear alone, surrounded by stigma or confusion about where to turn for help. But what if we viewed these not as individual problems, but as shared matters that impact the whole relationship? Could a better understanding and open conversation actually transform your intimacy and emotional connection?
In this episode, you’ll discover how pelvic floor health influences pleasure, pain, and intimacy—and why these challenges are best faced together, not solo. Drawing from expert insights and practical guidance, you’ll learn how increased awareness and communication can bridge the gap between partners, foster support and compassion, and empower you with tools for healing. Whether you’re struggling silently or simply want to deepen trust and connection, this conversation offers actionable steps and hope for anyone ready to turn hidden struggle into shared strength.
Since 2007, Dr. Sara Reardon has been caring for people’s pelvic floors as a board-certified pelvic floor physical therapist. She is the Founder of The V-Hive, an online pelvic floor workout platform for pregnancy, postpartum, menopause, painful sex, and pelvic floor strengthening. As The Vagina Whisperer on Instagram and TikTok, she has hundreds of thousands of followers. She is the author of FLOORED: A Woman’s Guide to Pelvic Floor Health at Every Age and Stage.
Episode Highlights03:53 Understanding pelvic floor anatomy and its impact on intimacy.
07:50 Breaking stigma and introducing pelvic health conversations.
09:37 The role of partners and destigmatizing pelvic floor challenges.
14:47 Exploring pelvic floor dysfunction: Causes and effects on relationships.
18:56 Pelvic floor health and sexual pleasure.
21:16 Exploring arousal: Physical and emotional components.
23:13 Daily habits and exercises for intimate health.
28:26 Tools, devices, and progression in pelvic floor therapy.
36:35 Debunking myths: Arousal, climax, and individual differences.
Your Checklist of Actions to Take* Learn about your pelvic floor anatomy to understand how it affects day-to-day functions and intimacy. * Openly discuss pelvic health and intimacy challenges with your partner to reduce shame and foster teamwork. * Attend pelvic floor therapy sessions together when possible for shared education and support. * Practice mindful urination and bowel movements—sit fully, breathe, and avoid straining or “power peeing.” * Incorporate pelvic-friendly exercises such as yoga poses (e.g., child's pose, pigeon, happy baby) to encourage muscle relaxation. * Explore self-stimulation privately to discover which types of touch and stimulation are most pleasurable or comfortable. * Consider using vaginal trainers or dilators, starting small and gradually increasing size, and involving your partner for support and collaboration. * Normalize communication around sexual pleasure, pain, and individual needs, recognizing that every body and relationship is unique.
MentionedFloored (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
V-Hive (*Google Play link) (app)
Online Workouts (free workout)
Come as You Are (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
Squatty Potty (e-commerce website)
Vaginal Dilators (e-commerce website)
12 Relationship Principles to Strengthen Your Love (free guide)
Connect with Dr. Sara ReardonWebsites:thevagwhisperer.com
Facebook:facebook.com/thevagwhisperer
YouTube:youtube.com/channel/UC2MllrS6zD974pxBFbVUHdA
Instagram:instagram.com/the.vagina.whisperer
LinkedIn:linkedin.com/in/sara-reardon-pt-dpt-wcs-4a6b1025
TikTok:tiktok.com/@thevagwhisperer
Connect with Dr. Jessica Higgins
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If you have a topic you would like to be discussed, please contact us by clicking on the “Ask Dr. Jessica Higgins” button here.
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*With Amazon Affiliate Links, I may earn a few cents from Amazon if you purchase the book from this link.
Episode Transcript
Sara, thank you for joining us.
Thanks for having me, Jessica.
I'm really looking forward to it as a board-certified pelvic floor physical therapist, and you have just recently written a book called The Floored, and you're going to be talking a little bit more about that with us here today in the context of an intimate relationship. But also, it sounds like you're known as the vagina whisperer on social media, is that right?
That is very accurate. I am known as the vagina whisperer on Instagram and TikTok, and just share a lot of pelvic health tips about everything from sexuality and intimacy, but also just general pelvic health when it comes to bowel health, menstrual health, reproductive health, just really anything from the ribs to the knees.
Yes. Excellent. Given that you're explaining how the different ways in which our pelvic floor impacts our living and our relationship, do you want to give a brief just orientation around anatomy, or just like the pelvic floor, and then also how this matters towards sexual intimacy?
Absolutely. So I made pelvic floor physical therapists, and as physical therapists, we work with muscles, tissues, and nerves in the body. And I specialize in treating the muscles, tissues, and nerves in the pelvic region of the body. At the very bottom of your pelvic bones, kind of ring of skeletal bones we may be used to seeing in our doctor's offices or even our Halloween jammies. At the bottom of that ring of bones is a basket of muscles that gets like a floor. So literally the floor of your pelvis. And those muscles support in the female body, the uterus, the ovaries, the bowels, which hold stool, the bladder, which holds urine, and then male bodies, the bladder and bowels, but the prostate instead of a uterus or ovaries. So this muscle acts like a support, a hammock of support for these organs.
But it also has the openings in the female body for urine to exit the body through the urethra, the anal opening for bowel movements, and then the vaginal opening for vaginal intercourse, menstruation, and vaginal birth. In the male body, they have two openings through the penis for, you know, ejaculation and urine, and then the anal opening. So this muscle surrounds the vaginal opening. In a female body, if this muscle is tight, tense, or overactive, it's. It can limit comfort or even the ability to have sexual activity vaginally. There are also a lot of estrogen receptors and glands in the vulva and the vagina, within the pelvic floor muscles, that help with lubrication and discharge. And the outer layer of these pelvic floor muscles is the ones that contract and relax during an orgasm.
And so when we're thinking about it,
**“We need muscles to contract and relax and coordinate with different movements and functions. The health of these muscles is really essential for pleasurable intimacy in all genders.”**
Thank you for describing that. I appreciate that. When I was reading your book, I was like, oh, I'm not peeing. Right. And I don't poop.
Right. And all of these things.
And also, I think people who have been, I don't know, but I feel like there's a lot of information about pelvic floor health. But like when you sneeze or when you're lifting. And I, you know, I do a lot of yoga.
So they talk about the Mula Bandhas, which I think are kind of in the same region. So I get that. But there's this kind of holding. And I think you talk about it too, it's like we go to the dentist or. But we're not necessarily attending to our pelvic floor health, or we really don't have a lot of awareness around how to be mindful.
Exactly. And I think most folks don't even know that they have a group of pelvic floor muscles. And we, you know, just talked about how integral these muscles are to daily function. And, you know, I think that
*****“When we don't talk about something, when we start experiencing issues, it could be pain”*****
it could be leakage, it could be discomfort, or changes in sensation. We don't know what's happening, and we certainly don't know who to go to for help. And I think that's where pelvic floor therapists, and hopefully my book Floored and other resources, can really start to just help folks better understand this part of their body. Create a kind of shared language on how to approach issues, and then know that help is available, rather than suffering silently. Which I think has really been the case for so many decades.
Because we haven't been talking about pelvic floor health, especially in relation to intimacy.
Yes. I mean, it makes sense if we even look at the early years. You mentioned menstruating. If we're talking about the female body, sometimes we might get a reproductive sexual health class in school, but then, depending on the parents, there might be some guidance or conversation, but it's not necessarily extensive or talking about pelvic floor health, typically I don't think I was ever talked to about it. And when you talk about the intimate space and how conversation and communication or awareness. How do you help people start to begin to have those conversations, or where to start?
I mean, I think what we're doing now is really instrumental. I think being able to have these conversations openly with different audiences is step one. Because again, folks listening are going to say, I didn't even know I had a pelvic floor. I didn't know this could be contributing to challenges with intimacy. And so I think that's step one. And I also think educating ourselves, you know, I have two children, and I'm thinking, how do I teach them about their pelvic floors if I don't understand my own, or what function that plays in my body, or how it plays a role in their bodies? And so I think we're able to start educating the next generation because we know better and can learn. And it's interesting because I have two kids right now. One's in lower school, one's in middle school.
And there's like a little bit of health class depending on where you live and what school you go to. There may not even be sexual health education, but there's certainly not pelvic health. Pelvic floor education. You know, we must start again teaching them things about, like, how to pee properly, how to poop properly, what a menstrual cycle is, and how to use menstrual hygiene products? How should sex feel? Is it supposed to be painful? Do you orgasm with every sexual experience? I mean, we're not setting any norms for folks. And so you can just go online and kind of find out a bunch of stuff, which may not all be true, but
*****“If we give people a normal for their bodies, they can understand when something's not functioning properly and then get help.”*****
Yes. Well, there are two things I want to respond to, one of which is that there's often stigma associated. And then also when we look at. In a heterosexual relationship, a man might feel hesitant to approach this topic because he doesn't have a female body. And it seems as though more pelvic floor concerns might affect women more. I don't know. Help me if that's right or wrong.
So one of the reasons that female bodies are more affected with pelvic floor issues is because we. Three things happen. One, many female bodies go through pregnancy. So pregnancy itself changes our pelvic floor muscles, those muscles that muscle supporting a growing fetus inside the uterus. They're stretching, they're being weakened. You also go through birth, which can mean a vaginal birth, which can stretch and lengthen these muscles, often resulting in a tear or a major abdominal surgery for cesarean section. So pregnancy and birth are, you know, big risk factors for pelvic floor issues popping up. We also go through menopause, and menopause is another huge transition in the female lifespan where our hormones change, our pelvic floor muscle strength decreases, we have less vaginal lubrication, and we have less, you know, arousal. We have weaker pelvic floor muscles.
And so those two things happen only in a female body. And then also, I think that when it comes to gender roles, I think that when I think about the way that we're educated on our bodies right now, it's like, okay, young girls, you guys go learn about periods, and you're in this class, and then young boys, like, you guys are over here, and we're going to talk about, like, erections and wet dreams, right? And so I think, really,
****“We should all be learning about everyone's body.”****
I mean, my kids should know what a menstrual cycle is and that there are muscles at the vaginal opening and what periods are, what pregnancy does to a body, just like a female should understand the male body and, like, what happens there as well.
So I think that's part of kind of getting rid of some of this shame. Like, if we just think about, well, this is how the body works. Just like how I can bend my elbow and my biceps contract. It's the same thing for a pelvic floor muscle. You can do a certain contraction, and those muscles get tighter. I think if we just boil it down to physiology and anatomy, it takes some of the shame and stigma out of it, at least in my lens, because it's like the secrecy and the lack of conversation that I think can lend to a lot of shame.
Absolutely. And then the female body, maybe a person is having some challenges and feeling shame about it, and typically feels alone or might consult a physician or friends, and some of it is deemed as normal. As you've pointed out, a lot of people negotiate this or then progress, and then it's. There are some really significant treatments that people engage in. Do you want to say anything about that?
Yes. You know, I think a couple of things that when providers don't ask specifically about issues like discomfort with intercourse, urinary leakage, painful bowel movements, any of these things, patients are less likely to tell them. So a lot of the providers, if you're treating, again, all genders, we're talking about anything in the intimacy space, I think it's really important that we ask these questions because
*****“It takes a lot of courage to bring it up when you're not asked.”*****
And even once you bring it up, you are often met with being gaslit or saying it's normal or that we just need to relax. Now. There is a kind of psychosocial component to pelvic floor muscle tension, which can often contribute to painful intercourse or challenges with orgasm. But it's not all that. It's kind of like saying, oh, I have back pain.
And we're like, it's all in your head. You're like, now it's because I move this way or I clench this way, where I work out this way. There are a lot of factors that go into it. And relaxing isn't just going to get rid of your back pain. It's the same thing for your pelvic floor muscles. I think oftentimes when we, because we'll have partners come into our pelvic floor therapy session, so that we can educate them on what's going on, it's like, let me be the messenger. They can bring me their questions. And it's a space that includes the partner who can often feel helpless, like, I don't know how to help. And it also takes all of the onus on the individual experiencing the discomfort. It's like
******“We often feel that if we're in pain, we just have to deal with it or it's our problem to solve, when it's really a relationship challenge, not an individual challenge.”******
So we'll bring partners in, explain to them the anatomy, how it's literally a muscle spasm or muscle weakness or muscle changes, and also different things they can do to support their partner. And I think that can really bridge the gap between, like, oh, I have this problem, and I have to do all these things to fix it. Being like, hey, we're in a team, and we're doing this together. And it adds another layer of intimacy to a relationship that wasn't previously there.
Oh, my goodness. I so appreciate that perspective. And then just the framework, because as you said, someone who's contending with some of the challenges is then feeling likely some level of shame or stigma around it and trying to educate themselves, and then feeling like the onus is on them to then bring their partner along. Like, it's tricky. So to have someone, a partner, be involved in taking some real ownership of the dynamic of what is presenting, that there's real support there.
I mean, if you think about it, like, if I had a knee injury and I had to go get surgery. Like my husband would drive me to the appointments, he'd take care of me afterwards. He would make my meals, get my walker, and do my stretches. I mean, he would do all of those things often because it's a very visible injury. Right. It clearly affects my function, yet we don't view the pelvic floor in the same way. But it is a very real issue that can affect our day-to-day function. We just don't see it, we just.
Don't talk about it.
So I think when we think about it, well, how do we address other medical issues? Like, this is just another medical issue, why would we feel like we need to go through this one alone and in isolation, where we wouldn't tackle anything else that way?
It makes so much sense.
It was really interesting because when I was on my floor book tour this past summer, I was in Dallas, which is where I used to live and work, and at this really wonderful bookstore. And afterwards, a couple came up to me, and they had asked a couple of questions in the Q and A, but it was the gentleman, it was a male-female couple. And it was the gentleman who said, well, what do we do about this? We've tried this, and this isn't quite working. Do you have anything else, or do you know anybody in the Dallas area? And he was asking the questions, and it was he and his partner together. And he's like, you know, we've done this. And I was like, this is amazing. I mean, this should be the standard for how we approach an issue.
A pelvic health, muscle dysfunction would it affects intimacy or any issue. But it was really lovely to see the support that a partner can offer. And he was like, I told her that you were coming town and so we marked the calendar, and we're here. And it was like she was the one really. And I just thought
**“It was a really beautiful example of what it can look like and the support that woman felt, how she was held by her partner, and how it was a real partnership in the progress, versus, you know, her kind of navigating it alone.”**
Thank you for sharing that story. I love it. And do you feel that when you say an injury, you're saying dysfunction, do you feel like sometimes maybe there are injuries or just atrophy, or is it just a matter of depend?
So I think when it comes to muscle, there are a couple of different ways that we approach it as therapists. So muscles can have a range of issues. But the three biggest ones are the muscles weak when it comes to sexual health. That can mean changes in sensation, like they don't feel as much sensation with penis in vagina intercourse or with using a toy or anything like that. It could mean changes in orgasms. It could mean weaker orgasms, the inability to orgasm, or even leakage with orgasm. The other issue is that it could be tension. So when someone has pelvic floor muscle tension, that is more often what I see when it comes to sexual health challenges. And it's typically painful with the initial insertion of something into the vaginal opening. With deeper insertion or in certain positions, it could cause pain afterwards.
There's like a deep ache or pain afterwards. It could be pain with orgasms or, again, the inability
to orgasm. And then the third issue is coordination. There's no pain, but you can't orgasm or something like that. So I think that more often, I see tension when it comes to sexual health challenges. I kind of describe it like, I get a lot of tension in my neck and shoulders, and I need to get massages and acupuncture and do my stretches. And if I don't do that, then I get really bad migraines and headaches. It's the same thing when it comes to the pelvic floor muscles. If there's tension, it can lead to pain sensitivity, irritation, and a kind of an avoidance. Because who wants to do something painful, right?
I don't want to put my hand on a burner when I know it's going to burn me. And so there can be a kind of psychosocial component that plays into this muscular component that could be present.
Thank you for laying that out. I remember reading, and I was like, the confusion between relaxing or tensing or holding, and sometimes in our bodily function, whether or not it's going number two or if it's urinating or even sexual intercourse, that there's sometimes different ways in which we can relax in different ways that we have tension, and. Or muscle contraction. So it seems like you really offer a lot to help people recognize that. “Okay, so as far as an intimate relationship, I mean, really, this does affect the couple, right? Or it will. Do you want to talk a little bit more about how that affects a couple?”
“Absolutely, I think so. In my experience working with. I work with all genders. I would say the majority of my clients are women, female bodies. And so, typically, I'll have someone come in, and they'll say, like, I have pain with sex. This can be. Since they started having vaginal intercourse, it can be something that happened.” They'd been sexually active for years, and then something happened, maybe a marker in time where they started having pain with sex after that, and that could be giving birth. And now they have changes in lubrication. They have scar tissue at the vaginal opening or from a C-section. They've experienced trauma. And it does not have to be just sexual trauma. It could be physical trauma, emotional trauma, any sort of trauma that can kind of manifest in our tissues and muscles in our body.
And so those are kind of the more common things that I see, which is pain with injury or deeper, and then pain after a time period or like an event marker. And so when this happens, I mean, you can't most often, unfortunately, I feel people just push through it, and they're like, I'll just deal with the pain. But I always say, like, no amount of pain with sex is normal. It is a purely pleasurable event. Like, sometimes if we can just get to neutral, that's their goal. But there should be pleasure associated with it. And so if there's pain associated with it, obviously, it's not something that you want to do with a partner. You may avoid being in relationships because of it. You may not be able to grow your family because you're not able to have sexual activity or be inseminated.
So I think that there are a lot of ways that this does really affect partnership outside of just like, oh, this hurts. Yes.
Thank you. And do you want to speak a little bit more about the pleasure? Because you're saying.
Yeah.
That the pelvic floor has a big impact on one's arousal and one's sense of pleasure.
Absolutely. And so, you know, arousal doesn't have to be just with foreplay. I mean, it's. You know, I always tell my husband, I'm like, if you really want to, like, arouse me, like, make my cup of coffee in the morning, just the.
Way I like it.
So I think that there's a cycle of kind of physical pleasure that we experience. And it's typically arousal that can happen even before we're touched, you know, and then it kind of leads up to eventually, like, sexual activity in some fashion. And then the climax would be when we typically would say, oh, I've had an orgasm. And then there's this kind of, like, euphoric period afterwards. That model has shifted because you don't always have to orgasm. I think that I always kind of joke, and I think I mentioned this in the book, that this model was likely created by a male body that may be their climax point, but in a female, and in female bodies, we don't have to have that as the top point. And so that can occur sometimes with sexual activity or not.
It's something I actually tell people because they think that they have to orgasm every time they have sex. And that's not the case. But there is when we and I also talk a bit about the book, and there's a great book on this called Come if you are by Emily Nagoski, which I love that book because it talks about
*****“Different things that put your foot on the gas and different things that put your foot on the brake.”*******
And so for me, it's like if I'm stressed, if I'm working too much, if I'm bloated and about to have my period, you know, if I'm disconnected from my partner, those are things that put my foot on the brake, but things that put my foot on the gas or exercise, rest, and connection. But you can't just take your foot off the brake.
You also have to put your foot on the gas. So it's this kind of little bit of a see thought as to you have to do the things that kind of create arousal and intimacy, but also try to decrease the things that can put the brake on. So I think that's again, it kind of goes into. It's not just a physical experience, it's very much a kind of a emotional experience as well.
Absolutely. And do you want to say thank you for acknowledging that? Because I think many people in modern life are contending with the demands that feel stressful, whether or not it's parenting, work, or finances, or what have you. And then also making room and space for relaxation, for the self care, just to be present in one's body and breathing. Right. Intentionally, like that allow for more sensation to occur. Do you want to say anything about specifically the pelvic floor and when, as it relates to pleasure or so?
Absolutely. So when we go through this experience of arousal, blood is going to our pelvic floor muscles. It is kind of engaging our pelvic floor muscles. We have blood going to the clitoris. In a male body, it would be the penis. And so you've got blood going into these areas. And this is again before you may even have been touched. And so that blood flow, it also produces lubrication in the area of the female body. And so that is going to help with lubrication now. But one thing I will say is that if you don't feel adequately lubricated, folks will think, oh, I must not be aroused. And that's not the case. That lubrication is very hormonally dependent as well. It's also hydration dependent. It's menstrual cycle dependent.
So there are a lot of things that, like, if you don't feel quote, unquote, wet enough, it doesn't necessarily mean you're not aroused. It could just be a certain time of the month, or that you are dehydrated, or that you are in a lower estrogen state at that time. But the pelvic floor muscles start to kind of engorge with blood. And then if you do reach this climax, your pelvic floor muscles contract and relax in a wave-like fashion. And that actually is what an orgasm is. It's these muscular contractions of the pelvic floor muscles. So that's kind of. If you tune in, you can feel that kind of wave of contraction.
Now, if you have pelvic floor tension, you may not be able to get blood flow to those muscles in the same way that leads up to an orgasm, or if you may have had pelvic floor weakness, those, you know, again, those muscles might not get to that kind of contracted state to lead to an orgasm. So there are different things. The, the health of these muscles contributes to the ability to have vaginal intercourse, but also to reach a climactic experience.
Thank you. Okay, so coming back to just communication or even certain exercises or attention to. I mean, one of the terms you use, I love, is pelvic floor ally, which I think is just really sweet, right? That's there. I mean, that sounds like more for the female body, but just like the awareness around the pelvic floor and that we're being in a place of health around the pubic floor. Like, I love that. So, for people listening, are there things that you would recommend that people could do? As far as you've mentioned, communication, exercises, or things that support the health and wellness here?
Well, to your point, I think there are everyday things that most of us don't tie to, like, oh, why do I need to poop properly to have good sex? Right. And I think it's just understanding kind of what the best practices are. So when it comes to peeing, I have many people tell me, like when I go to the bathroom, Sara, I feel like you're always with me. I'm like, great, well then I'm doing my job. But when you go to urinate, I tell People like, sit down, don't hover, don't push. Just sit, chill, breathe, and let your bladder empty. So to avoid pushing when you pee and then kind of trying not push the pee, that's important for peeing. No power peeing. That's right. That helps just to minimize weakening the muscles.
Again, when you are having bowel movements, I'm a big fan of this thing called a squatty potty, which is a little stool you put under your feet. And don't delay the urge to poop. When you do go, put your feet on the stool, lean forward, and exhale and bear down. Getting into that squatting position for a bomb movement relaxes your pelvic floor muscles, so you don't have to strain. And then when it comes to sexual activity, I'm also a big fan of like, self-stimulation. I think it's kind of like we're going to go ask you to perform in a theater in front of all of these people. But, like, you've never even practiced in front of a mirror before. So there's this thing of, like, when you communicate with a partner and say, like, hey, this is actually what feels good.
Like, lateral stimulation feels better than vaginal stimulation. How do you know that if you've never tried it? So I'm a big fan of like, telling people to be on your own, quiet your nervous system. You don't want, like, Game of Thrones or Bright Lights or kids' fingers under the doors, right? Like, you set an environment that is soothing to your nervous system. And then I want you to explore, like, what feels good when you touch here. Is it painful if you kind of put your finger in the vagina? Is it enjoyable when you stimulate the clitoris?
***“You have to kind of know what feels good so that when you're communicating with a partner”***
You're able to let them know, versus kind of like, you know, they don't know how to please you or help you feel good either.
But relaxation of the pelvic floor muscles is key. So certain things that I encourage folks to do are a lot of yoga poses like child's pose and Happy Baby, and a deep squat and a pigeon pose, and things that kind of release the hips and the pelvis, and that just allows those pelvic floor muscles to let go and soften. Similar to, like, if we just do, like, neck and shoulder rolls and we have tight muscles, we want to do something that's going to soften those muscles before we try to do something or insert something inside of them.
Thank You. So you're saying it's a comprehensive, holistic approach here, that it's not just when one wants to be sexually intimate, but how one is eliminating that is actually really supportive for pelvic floor health. And then how we're doing, maybe mind body exercises, and also giving some opportunity for releasing, because of the stress. I mean, I've been in yoga, and they're talking about how much we store in our hips and doing like a pigeon pose, like breathing, and like, oh, perhaps there's emotional tension that we've kept. And so having some practices to help support relaxation. So, yeah, absolutely.
I think when it comes to the tension piece, if they're muscles that do carry tension, then addressing that is key. And I say this, not like, oh, you just need to breathe and do yoga, and that will take away your pain. But I think it's like peeling layers of an onion. That's the way that we treat someone in pelvic floor, we can go in and use a device or a tool or our fingers to soften those muscles inside the vagina to relax the pelvic floor muscles to massage the opening. But if you're walking around and you are upregulated and clenched all day and on Zoom meetings and tightening your butthole in traffic and at the desk, I could do vaginal massage all day.
But if that's the other 23 hours of your day, then what I do once a week isn't going to be the right thing. So it's a little bit of how can I give you the tools to help yourself at home, outside of just within the clinic? There are also these different devices. One's called vaginal trainers, and they look like tampons of different sizes. And we help folks get comfortable with inserting those into the vaginal opening and then transition to a side that's closest to their partner or their device or toy if they insert something into the vagina. And then there are these other little wands. They look like a little S, but it acts like a little trigger point massager for inside the vaginal opening or anal opening to release tightness or tenderness of the pelvic floor muscles internally.
So lots that you can do at home, lots that you can do in therapy. And it feels kind of like, oh, this sounds like a lot. And I'm like, it's, it's not really. It's like as simple as, like putting a foam roller on the ground and just massaging your butt. It's no different.
Yes. Thank you. Now, you mentioned the size of one's if they're in a heterosexual relationship, and if the female body is trying to use those. Or is it a dilator?
Vaginal trainers. Dilators. Are vaginal trainers.
Okay. To more or less the size of their partner. Have you had women tell you, oh, my partner's too big, or, anatomy-wise, like, it's not a good fit. Like, I'm curious what your thoughts are there.
Absolutely. I mean, I think that you get all responses of like, we don't need the big one, or like, oh, wow, that's really intimidating. Or like, oh, this one. My partner's bigger than this. So the good news is there's a variety of sizes, and sometimes it's not even a partner. Sometimes it's like they want to do something more functional, like the gynecologic exam, using tampons or an insert, or even just having a finger inserted. So it's a. It's a spectrum of things that they may want to explore. But there's a variety of sizes. So it can start with something as small as my pinky finger, and then they get larger in diameter and longer in length. And there is. I think there are two kinds of particularly larger sizes that I've never had anybody say, like, my partner is bigger than the xl. Like, there's an XL, and that's big. I'm like, okay. But I also tell them, like, you don't even have to go all the way up to the size of your partner. It's kind of like when you train for a marathon, you only need to run like 20 miles because on that day you'll get to 26. Right. It's the same thing. So. But going from using a vaginal dilator or trainer and then progressing to, I'm going to have sex with my partner, There's a big gap there. So what I advise him is to let's practice using these dilators in a solo experience.
And then you can actually bring your partner in, and then you can have your partner lie next to you as you do it. Then you can have your partner insert it as you do it. Or, you know, you can use it right before intercourse. You can use it in the morning. I mean, so there are ways to kind of bring the partner in that I think, again, helps it become like, oh, we are addressing this, versus, this is my problem to deal with. And that is a really lovely way to bridge. Like, how do I put this? You know, oh, I can fit this dilator into my vagina versus, like, I want to be intimate with my partner. I think that some of those steps can really help you across the bridge to get to where your goals are.
Great, thank you. So it's not a situation of being anatomically incompatible. I mean, like, if a female body is kind of designed to give birth, you would think that the matter would be more of what you're describing.
I mean, I'm sure there are instances where there is a person with a penis who, if they're well-endowed, there are definitely cases where it's too large and can be uncomfortable. But I would say there are dilators that are quite large. My favorite company is called Intimate Rose, and they make dilatators of different sizes and different colors, which are not very medical looking, and they're soft and silicone, but they make an extra large one. I personally haven't had a patient who says this is not big enough, but I could definitely see where there's someone who can be too large. But typically, if you can help bridge that gap, it's hopefully helpful to minimize discomfort or eliminate it is the goal.
So, last question. As it relates to the intimate connecting, I've often had many experts and know this to be often the case that the male-bodied person is more quick to arousal. And you know, I think backed by some of the messaging we get in social media or even movies, that the speed of foreplay is expedited in movies, and then a male body may be aroused and ready much faster than a female body. Do you want to speak to that more specifically about how to support? I mean, because you're talking about relaxing and.
Yeah, I mean, I think these are very individual. You know, I think that it can be something where it's hard to draw generalizations, like men go quicker and women don't. I think every individual has their own kind of level of arousal that they need to get to a certain point of climax. It is something that I think practice makes better. You know, I think this is why I'm a huge fan of self-stimulation too. Because I'm like, if you know what feels good, you can kind of go right to it, you know, versus kind of leaving it up to someone to fumble around, you know. And so I think that's really important.
But I would say, I mean, it does feel from personal experiences and just working with all genders and in the sexual space for a long time that it's interesting that I think that it does seem like men can climax quicker than female bodies. The anatomy is not that different. But I also think that it seems a little bit like, hey, this is the one thing that we have to do, and this works for guys. But I think that it's a little more. It's different when it comes to a female body. There are different parts, right? And so I think it's kind of understanding what is comfortable for that person. And again, different things put our foot on the gas and different things that put our foot on the brake.
And it's not just a physical act for many of us, you know? And so I think that there's just more layers of. In the components of intimacy. And then to get to the climax that. I mean, I can only speak for myself because I'm a female body, so. But I also tell people that, you know, they don't realize that I'll have patients come in. They're like, I just can't have vaginal intercourse like I want to have. That's when my partner is inside of me, and I'm like, oh, that's kind of in the movies. Like, the research shows that 90% of people have orgasms with clitoral stimulation only. And they're like, really? I'm like, yes, because that's actually your sex organ. The clitoris is anatomically similar to the penis, and it has over 10,000 nerve endings.
So I'm like, go for the moneymaker. Right? But it's one of those things that I think that we don't realize is purely a sexual pleasure organization, and that it's totally normal to only have orgasms with clitoral stimulation. That's actually the majority of people, and I think it almost takes the pressure off of them. Like, oh, I'm not inadequate, or something's not wrong with me or my part. I'm like, this isn't because my partner's not pleasing me. I'm like, it's just the way that the body works. And. But again, we're never told this.
**“So then we carry around this weight of our body, not working the way it should, when actually it's working perfectly.”****
Yeah. Thank you. I so agree with you about what you were describing about each individual. And when you talk about climax, would you also say that, similar to the time one might need to feel ready, like intercourse, like that foreplay?
Yeah. I mean, I think that's totally variable. You know, I think that some folks, it's. You know, even within my group of mom friends, it's like, there's somebody who has sex every morning after her kids go to school. And some who are like, oh, it's like once a month, you know. And so, again, there's such a wide spectrum, but we don't talk about these things really openly, so we don't know what other folks are doing. But I'm in an office where for 20 years, I've asked every single client, like, what's your frequency of intercourse? Are you sexually active with men, women, or both, you know, trans? And if you're not, then what are the reasons for that? Is it pain? Is it trauma? Is it physical? Is it disinterested? So, you hear that there is a spectrum.
And it's just, some are like, I'm over it. Or some are like, I'm ready, but I don't have a partner. Or, you know, there's just the whole spectrum. Some are like, I used to be attracted to this gender, now I'm attracted to this gender. So, all that to say, there is no standard. It is a very wide spectrum, and people can float on different sides of that spectrum at all times.
Great, I love that. Thank you so much. I've had a lot of experts who are in the sexual space, either sexual therapists or in the space, and they usually talk about how a female body needs more time to be warmed, to be ready for sex. But again, probably a stereotype. And you're really recommending that each person really be attuned to their. Their body and what their, where their pleasure is.
Okay, great.
Well, as we wind down here, is there anything you want to speak to that I haven't asked you or leave people with?
Well, one, thank you for having me on. I mean, I really love being able to have these conversations, and I'm really open and candid way. And again, I'm a medical provider, so I come at it from a very kind of physical lens, but I also understand how complex and challenging some of these things may be. And I just want folks to feel like they're not broken. They just spasm. You know, sometimes it's as simple as that. And so I think when we can explain it in a very physical way, it's really kind of disarming for people. But thank you for having me on. And as you mentioned, I am on social media as the vagina whisperer. So if you're on Instagram orTikTok, you can look me up there.
And I appreciate you bringing up my book, Floored: A Guide to Women's Pelvic Floor Health at Every Age and Stage, which, again, I wrote for. No matter where in life you are, you can hopefully learn something about your body. And I also just released my app called The V-Hive app, which has a ton of pelvic floor training for, you know, bladder health issues, sexual pain, tension, and weakness. All of the things, really, so that if you are not ready to see someone in person or can't access this is a great home resource for you.
Excellent. I'm sure there you may even be helping people with how to do some strengthening. We know we didn't really talk about it, but absolutely. Excellent. Great. Well, I will have all the links on today's show notes. You also have a website and you.
Yeah.
Something about what people might find there.
Yeah, my website's thevagwhisperer.com, and I have a ton of blog posts, and they're kind of sectioned out by topic like pelvic pain or sexual pain, perimenopause and menopause, pregnancy, postpartum bladder health, and bowel health. It actually says peeing and pooping, so super easy to understand. And you'll find more about my app there. Then we also do a virtual consultation. If somebody has questions and the app or the book isn't quite, you know, going to the depth that they need, then we do have therapists provide virtual consults for them. For more support.
Excellent. Thank you so much. It's been an honor, and I appreciate all that you've shared here today.
Thanks for having me.
The post ERP 517: Pleasure, Pain, and Partnership: Navigating Pelvic Floor Health Together – An Interview with Dr. Sara Reardon appeared first on Jessica Higgins.
Why do so many relationships, despite the best intentions, end up stuck in cycles of hurt, disappointment, or disconnection? We search for “the one,” hope for a soulmate to fulfill us, and cling to romantic ideals—even as we find ourselves repeating old patterns and feeling powerless when things get tough. The real challenge, it seems, isn’t just finding love, but learning how to nurture it consciously and responsibly. What if the secret isn’t about changing others, but transforming how we relate, both to ourselves and to our loved ones?
In this episode, discover how to break free from the unconscious habits that sabotage intimacy, shift out of victim mindsets, and reclaim your personal power within relationships. Learn why conscious love is an ongoing practice—not just a feeling—and explore actionable principles for moving past reactivity into mature, collaborative connection. Through insights on emotional intelligence, responsibility, healing past wounds, and embracing vulnerability, you’ll gain tools to create deeper, more authentic bonds and turn your relationship into a dynamic space for growth.
Christian de la Huerta is a spiritual teacher, personal transformation coach, and award-winning author with over 30 years of experience. He has spoken at TEDx and led transformational retreats around the world. His books include Coming Out Spiritually and Awakening the Soul of Power. His latest book, Conscious Love: Transforming Our Relationship to Relationships, offers practical tools for healing and deeper connection.
Episode Highlights06:16 Identifying and overcoming subconscious obstacles to love.
09:41 Approaching relationships as paths for personal growth.
11:18 Choosing a conscious relationship through self-awareness and intention.
13:54 Differentiating emotional intensity from real intimacy and love.
19:04 Balancing self-agency and interdependence in relationships.
20:24 Letting go of the victim mindset and embracing responsibility and power.
23:33 Understanding personal power versus ego power in relationship dynamics.
29:00 Tools for cultivating deep connection.
32:26 Assessing relationship health through growth and transformation.
34:36 Integrating somatic practices and breathwork for healing.
38:06 Expanding relationship consciousness and integrating transformative experiences.
Your Checklist of Actions to Take Take Responsibility: Own your choices and responses in relationships rather than blaming others or past experiences. * Practice Self-Awareness: Regularly pause to check in with your feelings and triggers, asking yourself what’s really going on beneath the surface. * Move Beyond the Honeymoon Phase: Recognize that love is not just a feeling—commit to the act of loving even when the initial intensity fades. * Stop Searching for “The One”: Shift your mindset from finding someone to fulfill you to consciously practicing love principles in your relationships. * Heal Old Wounds: Reflect on parental or past relationships to notice patterns you might be unconsciously repeating and seek ways to address them. * Use Conflict as Growth: When triggered, resist the urge to react immediately; instead, get curious about the underlying source and use the moment for personal evolution. * Communicate Your Needs: Express your preferences and boundaries clearly while also listening and compromising for mutual benefit. * Integrate Mindfulness Practices:* Develop habits like meditation or breath work to build present-moment awareness and emotional regulation in your daily life and relationships.
MentionedConscious Love: Transforming Our Relationship to Relationships (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
Committed: A Love Story (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
The power of breath: Christian de la Huerta at TEDxCoMo (YouTube link) (video)
Ken Wilber (website)
A Course in Miracles (*Amazon link) (book)
12 Relationship Principles to Strengthen Your Love (free guide)
Connect with Christian de la HuertaWebsites:soulfulpower.com
Facebook:facebook.com/christian.delahuerta.1
Instagram:instagram.com/christiandlh
LinkedIn:linkedin.com/in/christiandelahuerta
YouTube:youtube.com/channel/UC4hOzeGdhkTcRxOHkV9tfbQ
Connect with Dr. Jessica Higgins
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Email: jessica@drjessicahiggins.com
If you have a topic you would like to be discussed, please contact us by clicking on the “Ask Dr. Jessica Higgins” button here.
Thank you so much for your interest in improving your relationship.
Also, I would so appreciate your honest rating and review. Please leave a review by clicking here.
Thank you!
*With Amazon Affiliate Links, I may earn a few cents from Amazon if you purchase the book from this link.
Episode Transcript
Christian, it's lovely to have you on the show. Thank you for joining us.
Hey, Jessica, I'm so happy to be on the show with you. Thanks for having me.
Yeah. And a topic that I very much love. And look, talking about conscious intimacy, conscious love. And one of the things you talk about is how many people confuse love and feel a bit of misunderstanding around what love is. And this is part of what prompted you to write the book Conscious Love, is that right?
Yeah, that's completely aw on target. I've been doing personal transformation work, coaching retreats, and workshops for probably approaching 35 years now. And hands down, what I find is that people who struggle with, and you know, people who are successful in life have great jobs, executives, et cetera, are successful in other areas of life. What they mostly struggle with is relationships. And so I thought that would be a service for people, including myself, because why is it that we struggle with relationships, is that we haven't been taught, you know, how to hold them. We're just basically just thrown into the deep end of the pool. Part of what I did in that book is talk about transforming a relationship into relationships so that we approach them in a different way. Approach them more intentionally, consciously.
Part of what I did in that book is identify 10 areas where we tend to get snagged in relationships. And the one you're pointing to is one of them. Right. We get confused about what love is, and we confuse that feeling of love, especially in that honeymoon phase when we're in love, and the other person can do no wrong. We confuse that with the actual act of loving. Because, as many of us know,
**“Love is not so much a feeling but an act.”****
Yeah.
And so, yeah, once we begin to approach relationships like that and not expecting them to fulfill us, to make us happy, then they actually have a chance of working.
Thank you. And I know this is very much informed by our experiences in life and family upbringing, and also culturally. That, especially here, where I'm recording, here in the U.S., there's this notion around. So much of the emphasis is on finding a partner that's a good match or finding the one. And really, what you're reminding people. And I think we know this on an essence, but I think there are some ways in which we romanticize or get caught in some hope that finding the right person will make it easy. And you're saying there's a developmental stage of the honeymoon, the first stage of a relationship that is primed by all the “neurochemicals”. And usually, we're going to have a fantasy and fill in the blank. And once that settles, we start to recognize the differences.
“And if we're still approaching relationships in the sense of trying to find the wine versus being in practice of love principles,” we're going to confront a lot of difficulty because we're looking to the other to source. Yeah, okay, exactly.
And there isn't anybody out there who's going to make us happy. And it's not their job to. “If we're approaching the relationship with that hope, with that expectation, you are going to make me happy, like, yikes, that's a lot of weight, a lot of responsibility to put on somebody else and to put on the relationship.” So if that's how we're approaching it, you know, like, no wonder, like, it doesn't surprise me that more than 50% of marriages end up in divorce. What surprises me is that 90% don't, because again, we haven't been taught how to approach them. “And we haven't been taught about what love is. We haven't been taught about our emotions. We've been conditioned to suppress our emotions, especially men.
Yes.
And so the odds are actually against the relationship working. And to the point that you were making so beautifully, there's a quote from the Course in Miracles that says that,
*****“It's not our job to look for love, but to look within ourselves for the obstacles to love.”*****
So how are we blocking love? How are we keeping love at bay? How are we sabotaging our relationships sometimes before they get going? By attracting people who are not available, people who are not a match. They live on the other side of the country or the world, or they're just not there, or they're with somebody else. So subconsciously, we're sabotaging them before we even get started with them.
So that's what like in my relationships, work, and retreats, whether it's coaching or group work, that's where we focus on, like, what are those subconscious obstacles to love that have us sometimes doing this? I come here. Not too close, but don't get too close. And that's when relationships actually have a chance to work.
Yes. Which you're really helping people reframe. That relationship has the opportunity or the capacity to help us evolve, develop, or awaken. And also, if we're unconsciously or subconsciously choosing partners because it feels familiar, we're projecting. We have old wounds. And do you want to talk a little bit more about the difference between unconscious and conscious relationships?
Sure. Okay, sure. I mean, and you give examples of that, right? Where we're trying to fulfill something that we perceive as missing or lacking in us through the relationship. Right. So that we're hoping the relationship is going to heal us, or complete us, or make us happy. And again, it's not going to happen. It's not going to happen. There's a friend of mine who's also an author who writes about. Forget the title of the book right now, but he says that
*****“It's really important to heal our relationship with our parents so that we can stop dating them.”*****
Oh my gosh.
I know, I know.
Yes.
But how true is that? I mean, how many? If we start paying attention to the details and the behaviors, we recreate our relationship with either our parents or people.
In our past, or perpetuate the pattern nonetheless.
Exactly right. Sometimes it feels like it's the same old boring relationship. The same old boring movie, only with a different co-lead, same arguments, same crap coming up at some point. It would really be helpful to figure out that there's one common denominator, every one of those arguments in every one of those relationships, and it's right here. So why do we get stuck in these patterns of behaviors and relationship patterns that aren't good for us?
Yes. And would you say a little more about a conscious relationship?
Yeah. So to me, a conscious relationship is when we approach it, and this is paraphrasing Ram Dass, the spiritual teacher. He says that
****“We can have relationships consciously or unconsciously.”****
Unconsciously means that we're approaching it like you and I were talking about earlier, because we're hoping that it's going to make us happy. And that's not going to happen. Right. So those are not going to work. If we approach them consciously, meaning that we know, we take responsibility for, we own that it's our job to make ourselves happy.
Then there are “three levels in which you can do those conscious relationships.”
Level One, the other partner doesn't want to play at that level, but there's enough about it that it works. You know, maybe you co-parent well together, you travel great together, you have fun, interesting conversations. Sex is great. There's enough of it that works, that we say, okay, well, there's enough of it that's good. It works for me, even though it's not the end-all be-all, which no relationship is ever going to fuel every single one of our needs. And so we said, all right, then I'm going to reclaim all the time and energy and resources that I would otherwise be spending looking for the One, and I'm going to focus that on my own growth and transformation, which I think is ultimately what we're here for, like our personal evolution, fulfilling our unique human potential.
Number Two is the juicy one that's for its relationship as a laboratory for growth. And I always tell my, you know, the people that I coach or my retreat participants, if you want to shine a light on those blind spots that are back here in the back of our heads that we're never going to see in ourselves, because that's the definition of a blind spot. Get in relationship.
Because we're so good about finding each other's buttons and pressing them. So to do a relationship consciously means that both partners are in agreement that we're using that container, that form of the relationship, to speed up our own process of growth, transformation, and evolution. So when they say something painful or hurtful and we feel that ouch, rather than instinctively or reactively, you know, finding one of their buttons and pressing it, we feel the out, and we take a breath, and we go, oof. All right, that one hurt. What's really going on? Right.
And we search under the surface because that initial hurt is only covering up for something that has been unhealed in our past. So that's why a relationship can be a really great way to speed up our growth, because we can't press our own buttons. But if we do that, feel the ouch and then begin to do the work of, okay, what is that? What's really going on? What's underneath the anger? Anger is a superficial defense mechanism. What's underneath it? What am I really feeling? What are the patterns? When have I felt this way before? Oh, I see the pattern. I did it in that relationship and the one before. What's the source of it? How far back can I trace it? What else in my life causes this kind of feeling? Then it's like, amazing.
Like, no relationship can go bad because as long as we're growing, then it's a successful relationship.
Yes. Thank you for laying that out, and I appreciate you just highlighting what it looks like in practice, what being able to utilize what gets activated in the dynamic for an opportunity to get curious, to identify ways in which we maybe haven't known that we've had tenderness or a wound. Like, I haven't been really paying attention to areas of insecurity or otherwise, but that allows us to grow and to have development. And even the paradigm. There's a way in which you're inviting a paradigm shift. When I think of unconscious, it's like, oh, I do what I do, or I do what's the norm, or what other people do. And being conscious, there's a bit of evaluation.
There's a bit of choosing intentionally and then being in practice to continue to stay awake, so to speak, and be looking at what is happening and how it's happening. And can I have an understanding of that?
Exactly. And I love the way you framed it and the way you highlighted the word choice. It is about choosing. Choosing how we want to be and what kind of relationships we want to have, rather than doing it the way our parents did and the way their parents did before them and all this stuff that's been conditioned and passed down from culture and society and generation after generation and connected to traditional gender roles and the definition of marriage and all the stuff which hasn't even been examined. Yeah, it's like “most people don't even realize that marriage for romantic reasons wasn't even a thing until like the late 1800s.”
“Yes. I don't know if you caught this years ago, but Elizabeth Gilbert wrote a book about marriage, and I thought it was going to be like her novels. And it was actually very much multidisciplinary and multicultural, look at why people get married.” And it is interesting for interested people, coming back to conscious relationship and conscious love. My experience is that this isn't just a binary thing. As we're talking about being choosing or being awake or examining, we will fluctuate and have blind spots, and then it's just a further opportunity. I mean, look, I don't know if you would agree, but I think the brain tends to automate and to conserve energy. So that does give a pull towards taking things for granted or just conserving energy and not having a beginner's mind.
So how do you help people recognize ways in which they might be falling asleep or being a little bit. Or is it just the triggers that you're talking about that help people recognize, oh, here's an opportunity?
Yeah, I mean, I think it's a beautiful question. I think it's both.
Yeah.
Like, definitely the triggers, like rather than just doing that, automatic triggers, like take a pause, ask the hard questions, why am I feeling this? How did I get into this situation yet again? Because I promise you, we've been there before, and so the details might be different, but it's the same crap, the same underlying cause, the same drivers of behavior. Whether it's self-doubt or whatever. It is just what we learn from our parents. Conditioning.
Yes.
And it would be a great practice to go through the day consciously.
Yeah.
Which I think, you know, is one of the gifts of having some kind of meditation practice or mindfulness practice, even if it's five, ten minutes, three times a week, that begins to develop that ability to look at ourselves, which is what we need, right? To observe ourselves rather than get stuck in the drama of our lives.
Yes. Speaking of drama, and you mentioned this earlier, many people equate love with intensity or chemistry. And how do you help people recognize the difference between that emotional intensity and real intimacy in the way you're described?
Yeah, beautiful question. And it's easy to confuse them. And I'm not putting that phase of being in love down. It's one of the best parts of the human experience. But in some ways, I think that it's a biological trick of nature to ensure the survival of the species. Because in that honeymoon phase, whether it's three months or six months or nine, if you haven't moved in together yet. That person, like the veils of ego, identity, of separate identity. This is Christian. That's Jessica. They fall during the first honeymoon phase. We see everything through rose colored glasses, and we feel at one with. And then those ego separations, the veils dissolve, and then we come back into separation, and then they can do nothing. Right. And that's when we go off looking for love. Like, where did the love go? And misunderstanding.
That is not love. That initial phase, as great as it feels, is not love. And that's one of the ways Scott Speck really serves us. He defines love in this way.
*****“It's when we place ourselves beyond our comfort zones. We abandon the safety of our little bubble for the sake of the spiritual growth of another being.”*******
And so it helps us understand why we can't always go by the feeling to define love. Because it's. Think about disciplining a child. Saying no to a child is not fun. It doesn't feel good. But it's an act of love. It's for their own good that we're keeping them from running into a busy street or from not eating an entire thing of ice cream. So if we're not gonna go with a feeling, how do we define love? Because.
And we know that every relationship is gonna have ups and it's gonna have downs. So if we can't go by the ups and downs, what is love then? And that's what he defines as the act of loving.
That's beautiful. Thank you. And for people who are listening, might you be able to share an example of what that could look like in practice?
Yeah. I mean, today you want to go for sushi, and I don't really feel like having sushi. I want to go Chinese. But because, you know, we love each other, it's like, all right, let's work this out. Let's do sushi today. Next week we'll do Chinese. Right. So we go beyond our own selfish preferences and desires for the sake of the other person. With the caveat, right, that we're assuming that we're not talking about becoming doormats. Because you can also go to the other extreme. Exactly. When we put ourselves down, and it's all about pleasing the other person. And that's not healthy. That's not a healthy relationship. It's gotta be including ourselves in this generosity of loving other people.
Yes, agreed. Because over time, if we're not participating, the relationship likely won't be a reflection of both people. If we're talking about a monogamous relationship, it's going to really reflect one person's preferences, and that's difficult. And I'm a big fan of the interdependence that we want to rely on each other. We want to be able to help, support, and be of service. And also this self-agency. I know you talk about this, the gift of responsibility, when people feel victimized by circumstances, that we do have a lot of power to make choices and be in service of our needs as well. And this collaboration that you're saying could be. We have a way that we. It can be a win for both of us. And how do we accomplish that?
Yeah, exactly. Jugular there. Talking about not allowing ourselves to be stuck in that victim consciousness, in that victim mindset. Poor me. Woe is me. And that's a radical truth. Like, I think, you know, I mean, I know that 30, almost 35 years of doing this work, that is what people struggle with the most. Right. Because. But the thing is,
******“If we want to be free, if we want to step into our own power fully, we've got to take responsibility for all of it.”******
And of course, human beings do horrible things to each other. It's not denying that, especially since horrible things happen to kids that they had nothing to do with. That's not what I'm talking about. But the thing is that if we want to step into our power and free ourselves, we got to tear up that victim card.
Because the truth is that no matter what happened in the past and no matter what happens going forward, we always have a choice about how we show up in response. And from that simple way of looking at it, that pops us out of victim mode. And there's a lot of payoff for staying on victim consciousness. You know, blaming mom for doing this or dad for not being there. But if we're gonna be holding somebody or something responsible for our state of being, we just gave our power away.
Yes. Thank you. And relationally, can you give people again an example of a scenario where one might be complaining or criticizing about the dynamic or the circumstances, feeling a bit of a victim? Maybe they wouldn't think that, but there's some sense of, I don't have the power here. I don't have control over this. It's happening to me. And how people can find a footing in where they do have power, because, I mean, part of this could be a blind spot of like, oh, I didn't even recognize that I have more power or some agency here.
Yeah. And so that's the theme of my earlier book, “Awakening the Soul of Power.” Like, how do we step into power, personal power, in a way that's not about hierarchy, control, fear, force, domination, manipulation? How do we do it in a different way that doesn't require that we push anybody down, press our knee to their neck in order for us to feel powerful? So, power with rather than power over.
Yes.
And the thing is that most of us have an ambivalent relationship to power. Part of us wants it, part of us is afraid of it. And no wonder. How many times in our lives have we witnessed abuses of power both in our personal lives and in the world?
Right.
And then on top of that, we've been conditioned to believe that power is a bad thing. With quotes like “power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” But what they didn't tell us was that Lord Acton, who spoke those words, was speaking specifically about political power, not the personal power that you and I are talking about.
And it's not a power over to your point.
Exactly. I can be in my power and honor you. And your power, like your power, doesn't take away from mine. Yes, but we misunderstood that. So we've been led to believe that power is zero-sum. So that if you're in your power, that's going to take away from mine. It's like, wait a minute. No, who said that? I know who I am. I know that no matter what happens in my life, I'll know how to show up. And I think most of us do know that. Because of all that conditioning and because we've been conditioned to be afraid of the emotions, we end up saying yes when inside it's not okay. Inside, it's a no. How many times have we done that?
How many times have we overridden our true desires, our preferences, our goals, our dreams, to maintain pseudo peace in a relationship, to not rock the boat too much? How many times have we settled for crumbs of pseudo-love? And so part of what I did in that book is begin to look at, like, different kinds of power. And, you know, comparing or contrasting worldly power or ego power with spiritual power, internal power, that is humble, like, whereas one, the worldly power is arrogant and it has to puff itself up and seem really big to scare people away and make sure that nobody threatens it.
**“Spiritual power is like knowing who it is and what it is and is not threatened by other people without even needing to know the details of the circumstances.”****
Like, no matter what happens, I know that I'm going to be fine. And I know that I'll be able to rise to the occasion no matter what. And that's something that nobody can give to us, and nobody can take it away. We're the only ones who give away that intrinsic power. And to me, that's the tragic part. So that's the important part, to realize the difference between those two.
Absolutely. There's a maturing that can happen in this process. Okay. So, when you might have had a client or somebody you're working with that has a complaint or a concern, and you're recognizing they're feeling very disempowered, do you have an example of how you've helped them recognize their power and how that perhaps might have changed their experience back to.
What were we talking about earlier about owning responsibility and choice?
Yeah.
I mean, because I know that relationships and situations can be incredibly complex and complicated. But the bottom line,
***“The truth is that nobody is keeping us there at gunpoint. And we always have a choice.”***
We always have choices.
Yeah.
And it's tough. Sometimes it is easier to feel trapped and victimized and disempowered because it keeps us in that safe comfort zone. Even if that comfort zone is at best comfortable, at worst miserable. And that's part of what the function of the ego mind, that part of us that we all have, part of its job is to maintain the status quo, even if that status quo is at best comfortable and at worst miserable. So that's. When I do all my retreats, I always teach that understanding how the mind works.
Do you wanna say a little bit more about that for people listening?
Yeah. And I mean, there's a lot of maybe confusion or simplification about that word ego. You know, for those of us who know, we think arrogance, inflated sense of self, that person has too much ego, kind of thing. And it is that, but it is so much more than that. And maybe if we took Psych 101, we might think of Freud's model of personality, the id, the ego, the superego. And that's not what we're talking about here. The word ego means I in Latin. So it's. It's that sense of self, that sense of separate personality that makes us different. You can say that in some way it is ultimately an illusion because we're all interconnected in ways that we don't even understand. And it's a helpful illusion. And it's also the source of all our suffering.
Ken Wilber, who lives in Boulder, where I know you used to live, talks about how humanity hasn't always had that sense of Self, sense of separate personality. Ken Wilber talks about this, too, how humanity, because at some point, we didn't have a sense of self. He says we're like one with creation, like the rest of the species on this planet. And when that sense of ego evolved, that sense of self evolved a separate identity. It's when around the planet that was mythologized as the expulsion from the garden was mythologized because we were no longer connected. So it's both an incredible leap in evolution to have a sense of self. And that's why it's also the source of all our suffering. Because now we can have, you know, we can feel lonely, we can have abandonment, we can have a sense of our own mortality.
We feel separate, we feel alone. So helpful illusion and the source of all our suffering.
And so you were saying how the brain works, how the mind works, and you're speaking about the ego here. And it occurs to me as we talk about relationship as a path of transformation, there's an interesting connection between being able to be responsible for self and that separateness, but also not latching on to relationship or partner for this false sense of security, togetherness, or belonging. And yet when we are really present and practicing some more of these, I would love to start pivoting towards maybe some of the practices. But when we're really present and in this more aware state, even if it challenges our comfort zone, there is a sense of connectivity that comes from that.
I totally agree. Like before, I knew, practices like meditation or breath work, you know, practices to help quiet the mind, to help have an experience of ourselves beyond this limited little carbon-based spaceship right here. The only time my mind would quiet was making love because it was becoming one with somebody else in those incredible moments. But it's just a taste of it, right? That's why I think it can be addictive for so many people. Because we're really longing not only for the pleasure of it, but for that sense of quietness inside of our minds, that sense of just becoming completely one with another human being. And that's great. I mean, that's wonderful.
And it also really helps to learn other practices, other techniques to get to those states of being on your own, like learning how to quiet your mind, learning to break free from the prison of the mind. And that's another huge conversation that we could spend a lot of time talking about.
Yes. So when we're confronted with a challenge, and we're willing to take risks to go beyond our comfort zones in the service of more conscious love, we don't always know what's gonna happen in that interaction or in the dynamic. And if we can bring more presence, we potentially have an opportunity to, as you said earlier, be in service of our partner's growth or their spiritual growth. And also, we're able to hold ourselves in time and space as well.
Yeah, beautifully said.
And the right dynamic, and it's challenging our notions or expectations or our hopes even, and that we get to suspend that a bit and look at the possibility. Because even as you mentioned, sexual intimacy, some people, as you said, seek it for pleasure or to feel more connected. And there are lots of reasons why people enter into that space. And one thing you commented on in your book is the capacity to bring more breath and more sacredness to the honoring. And there's a bit of unknown and mystery around what two individuals are going to come with in that given time and space. But breath and meeting it with certain qualities, with the respect and acceptance of our differences, like, it's an interesting play around the differentiation.
The separateness and the honor can also create a very beautiful space of being with one another that is very connected. I don't know if I'm saying that right, but tell me what you're thinking.
Yeah, I think you're saying it beautifully. And yeah, that's, to me, what a level two relationship is. It's like, right? Like I'm over here doing my work, like all my personal work, whether it's coaching, therapy, retreats, breath work, whatever. Like, my commitment is to grow as much as I can and to fulfill that unique human potential. Then the other partner is there on the other side, and they're doing their own work, like they're healing, evolving, learning. And so when we both agree to use the container, the form of the relationship, as a way to support that process, both in ourselves individually and together, that's when relationships are magic. And they can't go wrong. Whether it lasts six months or a lifetime, if that's how we're approaching the relationship.
***“As long as growth is happening, then there's no such thing as a failed relationship”***
it's not a thing. And there's no rule as it has to be for the rest of our lives together. You know, somebody made that up along the way. And so my measurement then is like, how do you know? Like, how do you know when to stay? Because you can't always go by the ups and the downs, right? Because every relationship is going to have ups and downs, and it's in the downs where we tend to bail. And I'm certainly not saying to stay in a relationship that's sucking the life force out of you, or much less, you know, or worse, just because we're going through a down may not be necessarily a signal that it's time to leave.
And so if we're not going to go by that, how do we know? For me, it's what I ask myself is, is growth happening in both partners? Is growth happening? And as long as growth is happening, I'm willing to navigate the challenging phases. If it's stagnant and we're just rehashing the same old boring arguments, and the projection is happening unconsciously, and we're making each other wrong and arguing about superficial stuff, then it might be time to.
Bail or give a little room, for I'd like to work and grow. Can we start to approach things differently, and then do we get it? Do we have a different experience together? And if not, then that's definitely a problem with hope.
Go get some help.
Yes.
It's hard to do this work on our own when we're in a relationship because we lose that sense of perspective. We're in it. It's nice to have a credible mirror that can see, you know, that has a little distance so that they can see the forest and the trees.
Yes. Because life's moving so fast and these things get triggered or activated so quickly, and oftentimes people don't slow down enough, and they're like ping ponging, and it's multiple layers of activation, and it's hard to discern what is what. So. So for people listening, would you like to give any description of what more conscious loving practices what that entails, what that looks like? I know we've mentioned some of it, but would you like to say more?
Yeah. Owning that we always have a choice and that it's our responsibility and that nobody can make us do anything that we don't wanna do and that no matter what happened,
***“We're not enslaved to our pasts.”***
And which is, by the way, one of the reasons I facilitate breathwork experiences and weave it into my coaching and my retreats is because I've yet to come across anything that heals past trauma as quickly and as effectively. With all due respect to psychotherapy, my dad was a psychiatrist. My degree is in psychology. I come out of that tradition with all due respect. Part of the reason that it sometimes falls short or often falls short is that we're talking about things up here at the head level when the trauma has been somatized and lives on the body.
So that's what I love about the practice, like breath work that bypasses the mind, goes to the source of the trauma in the body, and clears that stuff.
I do know that there's just the kind of mention of the somatic therapies that are accessing and looking at the felt experience in terms of trauma and attachment injuries. And so I know the field has come a long way as far as how to work with trauma. And I do also very much endorse. I mean, you have a beautiful TED Talk.I'll make sure to put that link on today's show. Notes on how so many of us have learned to hold our breath in times of tension or in the effort to suppress emotion. And that breath is such a direct access to our physiological and emotional experience that it can be such a catalyst for us to start to work with. I mean, talk about indicators or what allows us to start using what's emerging for opportunity.
And we have a lot of material when we can start breathing and noticing.
Yeah, exactly. And breathwork is another huge conversation. Right. It's a big umbrella term to go back to the ego conversation. If you put a baseball in the center of the stadium, that's the ego. Who we are is actually the stadium. We've allowed this tiny, tiny part of us to think that it is all of us and make really important, consequential choices from its very small, limited, and always fear-based perspective. So part of the benefits of birth work is that people often have a glimpse of their stadium nature, the altered state of consciousness. I can't tell you how often people will say, I got through the same place using breath work that I did on a sacred plant medicine journey like ayahuasca or psilocybin or whatever it is that people do.
Yeah.
So it can. It pops us out of that limited baseball mentality or consciousness and gives us a taste of a very expanded nature.
Yes. And you mentioned Ken Wilber. One of the things I appreciate about his integral theory and the developmental, like the different stages of development that he lays out, and also just acknowledging when we have an ecstatic or peak experience that can be very transformative and expansive. And also as we live into it, how we integrate it, how we practice it. And as we're talking about relationships, the opportunity to bring that into relationships and interactions. Do you want to tie that in?
Yeah, exactly. Well, and tied in also to what we're talking about before, because, you know, I hear from people that are experimenting with psychedelics, and it's not always managed responsibly, like they say, you know, it's all about set and setting who you do it with, in what situation, what's the intention, what is the environment like? Make sure that the person feels safe and is taken care of. And with what intention? It's not just to have a great time, but to learn more about ourselves, to look at some of those, learn about some of those blind spots, to feel what it's like to be outside of that little prison of the baseball. Really important is to have integration afterwards.
People come to me for coaching, for breathwork, who did some kind of, you know, expanded practice like that, and there was no re-entry conversation. So they have a hard time coming back into their jobs and their lives, and it takes work. So it's not something to be done lightly. That's the intent, the meaning of the word intention. To do it with intention. Like, why are you doing it, not so much recreationally? It's, it's an intense, intense thing. And people sometimes have a hard time integrating afterwards. And so that's where I find that understanding what the ego mind is like, really getting it's so helpful because they've had this huge expansion, and then they come back into that, you know, limited mind, and they don't know what to do with it. They don't know what or where those experiences are.
But if you have the understanding of the flow of life, which is expansion, contraction, expansion, contraction, then it's easier to navigate and to integrate.
Yes, and there's a, the expansion that you're referring to, and how that fits in everyday life, the integration, and how somebody evolves in this process. So I went to a school where there were a lot of people studying. It was more of a transpersonal psychology in the Bay Area. And I was looking at it from more of a transpersonal and holistic perspective. But people were looking at these more static states. And I remember having a professor, I think he was talking about plant-based psilocybin or various forms of a journey. And he was saying oftentimes it's like the analogy of taking a helicopter to the top of the mountain. And so you're shown the top of the mountain, but then you also want to know how to climb the mountain, or like that, you're going to be able to access that.
And I do think, as you're talking about the baseball field analogy and the ego, that when we have an experience of that expansion, I think we can start to tolerate more of the unknown. It's not, I mean, it's still perhaps scary and will challenge the ego. But also, we have more room. And I think that room is a practice of conscious love. And a conscious relationship is being able to be present and not cling or grasp or control, but just to stay a little bit more.
Exactly.
Open. Okay.
And that's the beauty of understanding the ego. Because the part of us that is so defensive, that takes everything personally,
“The part of us that is a control freak, that is trying to control every part of our lives and everybody else's lives around us, that's the Ego.”
That's not our true essence. That's just the little ego trying to survive. And so when we understand the ego, then we can say, okay, I get that urge, but I have a choice in this. I don't have to do that.
Yes. And I'm sure you would agree. I know we're winding down. My experience of this is that when I'm able to have some capacity to open and not cling and just be entering into that field of unknown, it's often way better than I could have ever controlled or even prescribed.
Like, if we look at life, there's nothing really controllable about it, right? Life is all unpredictable. It's volcanoes and supernovas and, you know, a universe so vast that we cannot even begin to grasp. I think that's part of our egos try to control that little micro world around us because everything else seems overwhelming and out of control and too huge. But that's part of the human experience. So to realize that we're all of that and we're also this tiny one of 8 billion little ants on this little pebble hurtling through space at 17,000 miles per hour while revolving upon itself, just a speck of sand in the universe.
Yes. Well, Christian, I know in your book you offer a lot of structure for people to have some principles to work with that give assistance. And you've also talked about developing more emotional intelligence and maturity, how to process emotion. I know you talk about that in your book as well. Tell us the name of your book and where people can find it.
Thank you. Thanks so much. The book is calledConscious Love: Transforming Our Relationship to Relationships. And the previous book that we mentioned is called Awakening the Soul of Power. They're both on Amazon, and they're also. If they want to email me with any questions, my website is soulfulpower.com.
I'll make sure to have the links to both of your books and your website, and it sounds like you have workshops and coaching and things that you lead.
So I love the retreats and highly recommend them. And the benefit of this year-long coaching program is that stretch out the teachings over the course of the year so that they're learning, they're embodying the teachings, and putting them into practice in real time in their real lives, and that makes it more sustainable, I've discovered.
Excellent. Well, make sure to put the link to your website and your books on Today's Show. Thank you so much for joining us and all that you've offered here.
The post ERP 516: Conscious Love: From Reactivity to Responsibility in Intimate Relationships — An Interview with Christian de la Huerta appeared first on Jessica Higgins.
Are you constantly racing against the clock, feeling like life’s demands are pulling you in every direction—and yet, your own needs, goals, and relationships are slipping through the cracks? Burnout, overwhelm, and the tricky balance of work, family, and personal fulfillment are challenges that leave many people wondering: Does time own me, or can I truly shape how I live within it?
In this episode, the conversation delves deep into how our relationship with time can be transformed from a relentless source of stress into a foundation for personal wholeness and relational strength. You’ll hear practical strategies for recognizing the real drivers behind burnout, prioritizing what lights you up, integrating wellness into busy schedules, and collaboratively setting goals within families or partnerships. Whether you’re looking to manage your calendar more efficiently or searching for greater meaning and connection in your everyday moments, this episode offers insight, tools, and a paradigm shift to help you bend time to work for you—instead of against you.
Michelle Niemeyer is a speaker, coach, and former attorney who teaches professionals how to bend time so they can stay sharp, productive, and profitable – without burning out. After finding her way to burnout and back in her own high-performing legal career, Michelle created The Art of Bending Time, a framework that helps people connect the dots across work, life, and purpose to magnetize success and reclaim their joy. She helps businesses retain top talent, boost development, and keep their people energized and engaged – all while making the magic
Episode Highlights05:53 Understanding and recognizing burnout.
09:43 Integrating wholeness over compartmentalization.
11:08 Discovering personal sparks and daily joys.
15:19 Prioritizing wellness for personal effectiveness.
18:17 Setting priorities and learning to delegate.
22:55 Eliminating time wasters: Internal and external distractions.
26:51 Applying SWORD analysis to family goals.
30:17 Aligning goals with genuine desire.
36:13 Shifting responsibilities according to strengths and passions.
Your Check List of Actions to Take Identify Your Spirit Sparks: Take a few moments each day to notice and savor the small things that light you up, like a warm cup of coffee or a moment outdoors. * Prioritize Quality Sleep: Make your bedroom a phone-free zone to reduce interruptions, improve rest, and start your day more refreshed. * Hydrate and Eat Well: Focus on drinking enough water and eating a variety of whole, colorful foods to support your physical and mental health. * Integrate Movement: Find simple ways to move your body regularly, whether it's a walk outside or standing to stretch throughout the day. * Assess and Address Time Drains: Notice what tasks or habits waste your time (like procrastination or environmental distractions), and create systems or boundaries to minimize them. * Practice Whole-Person Living: Show up authentically in all areas of your life, sharing aspects of yourself at work and at home to foster real connection. * Clarify Priorities as a Family or Couple: Have honest conversations about what truly matters, so your time and energy align with your shared goals and values. * Use the SWORD Analysis for Big Decisions:* Evaluate Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Risks, and Desire before pursuing major goals together, ensuring everyone’s buy-in and avoiding unnecessary drains.
MentionedLink for free community access to the SWORD tool
The Art of Bending Time (program link)
12 Relationship Principles to Strengthen Your Love (free guide)
Connect with Michelle NiemeyerWebsite:michelleniemeyer.com
Facebook:facebook.com/groups/theartofbendingtime
LinkedIn:linkedin.com/in/michelle-melin-niemeyer
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Episode Transcript
Michelle, thank you so much for joining us.
I'm happy to be here.
Yes, I am looking forward to our conversation. I know many people, myself included, wrestle with the sense of time, and you have a lot to say about how we relate to time, how to spend it, and how to organize ourselves as it relates to all the demands. And before we dive into our topic, you've been really clear about your story and would love for you to share a little bit more about how this became a focus for you. I know you were an attorney, a lawyer, and you shifted into burnout prevention and really helping people look at their relationship with time 2 optimize their success and their fulfillment in life. Where would you like to begin? Here.
Okay. I found myself about 10 years ago with an autoimmune diagnosis that really was the big trigger. I had a moment, and I say a moment. Years of burnout where I had really just been. I was a solo practitioner attorney. I had left a big firm environment. So I'd left an environment where I learned to work in a very detail-oriented, very professional way. And I went into my own practice, and I did that with, you know, you don't have the same level of support. Right. With technology, there's a lot more you can do. And I was in an area of law where I really could practice without a lot of support. I had times where I had a paralegal and times where I didn't. But in the long run, I found myself in a position where the workload was controllable.
The pressure came, adding on volunteer work that was intended initially as a way to market, but turned into a way to escape my relationship. To be honest, I was in a really emotionally abusive marriage. And when I started my practice, I was spending four days a week after work, going to meetings. I was on boards. I was on. I ended up being an elected member of the village council where I live. I was doing volunteer work that literally was like a second full-time job. And I'd get home at 8 o'clock, 9 o'clock, 10 o'clock at night, and wake up and start the next day. And then I was making a point of taking Fridays or Mondays off so that we could have three-day weekends on our boat.
And I would give my ex-husband focused time during those times. But it was just all a lot. So I got out of the burnout rut, in part, frankly, a year-long relationship podcast. But seriously, by leaving a really bad relationship, which went through therapy, and the whole thing. And sadly,
*“When people aren't willing to get help, it doesn't work out well when they need it.”*
So ultimately, I left. And I ended up working to fill the gaps.
Oh my goodness.
And then I started to feel very hit a point where I got very resentful about this. I felt like my career as a lawyer had taken away a lot of things. I was giving my time to my clients. I was giving my time to my community. I had given my time to Mag's husband. And I felt like an empty shell of a person, that it just. When you get burned out, you kind of become dead inside, and you stop seeing the good parts of life. You literally can't see it. So I put together a program to help lawyers. This was back in like 2019. And I presented that at some ABA functions, and it's being sold as a continuing education program out of a place in New York.
Then I decided I really wanted to reach a bigger audience because it's not just lawyers who have these problems.
Yes.
And I thought about who I was when I was the person who didn't know yet that these problems were brewing. And what I realized was that I thought I had a time management problem. Early on, I had gotten into this point where I felt like I was spinning my Wheels. I'd go to work, and I just wasn't getting things done, and I couldn't figure out why. And I was self-employed, so I wasn't going to get fired for it. But the fact was that my productivity was way off, and it probably was because of the burnout, not because of any productivity issue. That was real. I mean, it's real, but it's not about time management a hundred percent. But the first thing I did when I thought I had a problem was buy a time management course.
So I realized like, okay, that person I was when I didn't know what the problem was, somebody who thought I had a time management problem. So I created a program that's about time, but it's really about maximizing our life to make it the best time we can have, the most productive, the happiest, the most connected, the most joyful. And I looked at all the ways that all the things I did got me to this place. And that's what the “Art of Bending Time” does. It kind of pulls all that stuff together and creates a way that, instead of time being like a ruler that's a flat one-dimensional linear measurement, you're making it more like a balloon around a ruler, where you can make it bigger, and you can get more connection.
You can reach wider into your community, for instance, and build a team and make things happen in a better way through those synergies.
Well, thank you so much for sharing so much about how this emerged for you. And it sounded like there were some really important indicators and significant domains of your life that were not working or feeling greatly problematic in certain ways. And you were getting warning signals and some changes. And even still, it resulted in you really making some significant changes and continuing to really optimize or fine-tune that in a way. And then it sounds like you're pivoting into this concept or framework that you developed, the art of ending time.
So.
And in a bigger context, it's really helping people have a sense of wholeness inside themselves that they don't feel that time is imposed on them, that they can be in time and space from more of this, well, health and wellness. Is that right?
I couldn't have said it better myself. One of the things that I really like to say to people is that we are whole people living whole lives. And
*****“One of the things that I get very frustrated with is this concept of work-life balance because it forces us to chop our lives into little boxes.”*****
And when we put our parts of our lives into little boxes. We're literally hiding parts of ourselves from the people we love, hiding our relationships outside of work from the people we work with. So nobody gets to see our whole selves, and we don't get to use those parts of ourselves that sometimes are really awesome and that make us happy and have joy.
That's super important. I mean, just even the framework there that we have to be our professional selves, or we're in this work mode, and then we don't access parts of ourselves. And then conversely, in our private world or more intimate spaces, we don't access maybe some of our professional skill sets. And really there the whole time.
And I mean, one thing that I saw a lot of when I was still involved and engaged in lawyer community stuff was that spouses were not treated well at professional events. So a couple of times, I went with my ex-husband, who was a chef, to a lawyer event that I attended almost every year in Arizona. And after he went twice, he was like, I'm not going to do this again. I don't want to go. And I, he loved the trip to Arizona. I was like, so why? Why don't you want to go? And he's like, I go to these cocktail parties, and when these people look at me, and the first thing they say is, are you a lawyer too?
And then some of them, literally, I saw them do it after he mentioned it to me, they would literally physically turn their body away from him, like to shut him out of the conversation because they didn't know what to say to him, and they had no, they didn't want to talk about anything but law. They'd gotten so wrapped up in that they couldn't think beyond that. And part of what I do with the art of bending time, and this is where we get into stuff related to relationships, is help people to understand that what we're doing professionally can be enhanced by having connections outside of your office, outside of your field, so to speak.
And that's a paradigm shift. So I have a question, Michelle. As you're laying out the professional lawyer life and how you were operating, success-driven, you also had a relationship that you allocated. Even though the dynamics weren't healthy per se, you still allocated a significant amount of time investing in that relationship, that marriage. So for someone listening, it sounds as though with your shifting your focus and your paradigm, the way you oriented shifted to one who's looking at it from a place of quantifying, it sounds like you added a lot to your so-called schedule in that you now were exercising, and you were eating more clean, which sounds stereotypically isn't convenient eating.
Thus, it makes a little bit more like whole foods or cooking, or like these things are time-intensive, and then you know, these synergistic kind of relationship connections that you're recommending and the meditation and the well-being, I'm all for it. Like I'm talking to someone who very much is. This is part of their core values. And also for someone listening, that's like, okay, relationship to time, who feels this sense of pressure and the competing needs, whether or not they're just their occupation, their profession, their relationship, or their children and family and domestic life. “I just cannot keep adding on.”
“Right. Can you help with the art of?”
“Bending time, and how you were describing, if we bring our whole self, then it's a different dynamic. Please help us understand that.”
“Absolutely.” Let me start with one of the first things I do with people, which is help them identify what I call the spirit sparks that light them up. And that is not getting a new outfit or going to a fancy dinner or a safari in Africa. That is smelling the coffee in the morning, going for a walk, and feeling the breeze on your skin or the sunshine on your face, or seeing, you know, a squirrel run up a tree, or playing with your kid and having that beautiful moment between you. And everybody has these things that light them up. Everybody's different. So one thing I encourage everybody to do is find that.
*****“Find those sparks that light you up.”*****
Find what kinds of things you might be super physical and just moving your body gets you kind of out of a rut and makes you feel better. So everybody has things that help them that way, that make them feel good, that give them that sense of life that it needs. I treat this like fuel. You want to like strive to get microdoses of these things and do it proactively. Once you figure out what they are, so that you're having them in your personal life, you're having them at work, you're having them throughout your day, and they kind of help you stay up, they help you stay happier, they help you stay a little more on task, a little more motivated, and more whole.
I'm imagining it's nourishing the wholeness as you're describing this. I love your articulation and also the pacing of this, how it's integrated. And this is seemingly so on point with what you're just saying.
So that's like the first, most Important primary concept.
Okay.
The second one is making sure that you are
****“Physically and mentally sufficiently healthy to get into and maintain a flow state.”******
So that means getting sleep, getting uninterrupted sleep without your phone in your bedroom, pinging text messages in your brain, half on, trying to listen to it. It means drinking enough water, being hydrated. The impact of hydration is huge. People don't realize how massive it is. Just drinking enough water can make a difference for people. And making sure they have the right electrolyte level, eating, I'm going to say reasonably healthy. I tell people, eat the rainbow, make sure you're getting enough fruits and vegetables, and you're eating different colors of things, and you're eating real food. Then there are, you know, you want to exercise. And when I say exercise, I mean move your body.
Walk a decent amount or get up and move yourself around every hour or so while you're at your office, or take a walking meeting once in a while, if that's possible. Lift some weights. You know, we want strength, flexibility, and some cardio. But you know, at a minimum, move your body, and you want to be able to stay in a reasonably low stress mode because stress, as we know, spikes cortisol, spikes insulin. Like you end up with metabolic issues tied to stress. You can have chronic inflammation, you can have all kinds of things tied to stress. So you want to do these
things that help de-stress you and keep you focused. And you know, they help you stay on task. They help you say if you're in a flow state, you get things done better, faster.
“And I say better, you're going to be more accurate if you're in a flow state than you are if you're distracted.”
It almost sounds like that's the side effect, like that you're really thinking about it.
How much time do people waste fixing the mistake they made because they were scattered and they were in a hurry? Yeah. How much time do they waste because they can't find their keys because they're distractible, and they're brain foggy because they're not healthy? Literally, they're not healthy. And that's why those things are happening.
Would you say that the recommendations that you're offering, again, some of which people are familiar with, the priority is on wellness, and that time, it will be what will get done? Like it sometimes, the old school model. I remember in undergrad, speaking of different programs, I remember feeling like I almost had this pressure and this worry of like, oh, I don't have enough time for all these papers and exams. And I just. It was kind of like this priority of these grades matter more than anything. And I caught myself. And I remember shifting my narrative to, I have all the time that I need. It wasn't what I actually believed.
But it was kind of the same amount of time. Right. But it's all yours. It's your attitude.
And I also was just prioritizing, like, I am living this. I need to show up for it. And, like, it just feels more like I get to breathe versus this constriction of like. Like, panic and worry that it's like, I'm not gonna finish or be able to accomplish the goal.
Yeah.
If you're inviting people to shift their priority to their wholeness and wellness, then time is a space they're living in. But it's not. Time is more important, and productivity is more important.
So a lot of what this is about is prioritizing. Okay. When you have those, you know what lights you up, you know what matters to you know what your values are. You have a sense of, my family comes first or my career comes first, or I care about helping my community with X, Y, or Z, or, you know, right now, taking care of my mom is the most important thing that I can be doing because I don't know how long I'll have her in my life anymore.
****“Whatever that priority is for you, want to look at those priorities and put the things. All that stuff goes through a filter.”****
Right. And there are things that, you know, we can do.
One of the things, as I said,
******“Being able to be just capable of being focused is one thing that helps you get more done more effectively in the time that you spend doing the thing.”******
“But you also need to think about which things you're putting your time into.
Absolutely. So you're not usually talking to the person that's like, oh, I'll sleep when I'm dead. That kind of thing.
That may be how they are now, because they're like. But somebody. They're like, something's wrong. I feel burned out. I'm not happy, or I've gone through this big change.
Or, you know, they're more primed for change because they're recognizing.
They realize they're killing themselves. They don't really know what to do about it. And there are a lot of people like that.” Yeah. And, you know, who are, like, trapped. They feel like, I'm trapped. I don't know what to do. I mean, that's classic burnout, somebody who's, you know, they're an entrepreneur, or they're an executive, and they've worked up to a certain level. But classic for executives, they haven't learned how to truly delegate. They micromanage everything. They feel personally responsible for everything, which is, obviously, you are responsible, but part of building a great team is developing a team that you can count on.
And I had a wonderful mentor when I was working in D.C. in my first law job, and he said to me one day, he said, michelle, when I'm in a meeting with the lawyers I've hired in my law firm, I'm the dumbest guy in the room, and I want it that way.
Nice.
And that was his attitude. He's like, I'm the dumbest guy in the room, and I want to be the dumbest guy in the room. I want Supreme Court clerks in my firm. I don't want people like me.
And also, if you're paying someone to do it, you want them to educate.
You or date you. Well, but I mean, he hired really bright, really competent people who he knew would shine, and then he allowed them to. He gave them the support they needed. And he said, go forth and. And be great. And he didn't say, oh, no, you can't do it that way because I do it this way. He recognized that they could grow into themselves and be great, and not necessarily do it exactly like he does.
Yeah, I love it.
And, you know, so that's important. And that's important in whatever dynamic you're in. It could be in your family. It could be with your kids.
Oh, my gosh. Yes.
Right.
When couples are arguing about the correct way to load the dishwasher, fold the towels, or these types of things. That. And.
And why? Right. If the dishes come out of the dishwasher clean and somebody puts them away, who cares how they were put in the dishwasher?
Right. And you have your. Whoever. It's like the cooperation and the collaboration are the goal, and that's more important to feel like there are shared contributions. So, Michelle, I know that you have so much to offer here as far as the bending time framework. I also know you have the “SWORD analysis.” How would you? We don't have a ton of time, so how would you like to focus? Do you want to finish talking more about the art of bending time, or would you like to describe some of the sword?
It's part of the same thing.
Great.
So I've described to you the basics, which is what I call a busyness detox. And there are two, like hardcore time management parts of that, which I didn't talk about with you, but I'll just give you the context.
Okay.
Those are my, I call them time-suck ninja skills. One has to do with your internalized time sucks. That's things like what do you do to self-soothe if something's hard, if something's boring, if something's you don't want to do, you don't want to have the hard conversation, or you don't want to do your accounting because you hate doing accounting. And I can procrastinate to the end of this end, like forever, if I don't feel like getting into my accounting. Right. But how many people like you procrastinate for so long that the project takes longer because you forgot about what the stuff was or where the paperwork was? Right.
Because if you let it go too long, you have to recreate your expense reports or whatever that thing is, that if you did it then and you were focused on it in a really easy way, it wouldn't get hard. You made it hard because you avoided it.
*“So learn to identify those things and then create habits around”*
building them into your schedule so they get done. And then the other is what I call external time sucks, which are environmental things. And that can involve the people around you. It can involve, for instance, if you have a boss who comes in on Friday and drops a project on your desk at 4 o'clock every week, and is like, oh, I need this on Monday. And you find yourself like tearing your hair out trying to meet your family's obligations.
How do you politically handle that nicely and work with that person to support their need to know what their workflow is in a way that you don't end up in that situation on Friday?
Yes.
How do you, for instance, what if there's noise that distracts you, or there's light that distracts you? Or clutter for some people, like just having a cluttered workspace, can cause them to be less efficient. And that can go into your home as well. You know, you don't have a lot of time. You feel it makes you feel crazy that you've got garbage all over your house. You've got kids dropping a path. They drop their stuff wherever they walk. The shoes are in one place. When I was a kid, my mom we lived in Minnesota. And my mom finally came up with a way to solve the shoe problem, which was that she put a box on the far side of our unheated garage.
And if our shoes were on the floor, they got put in the box, and we'd get up in the morning, and mom, where'd my shoes go? Over there, we learned fast. Yes, I'll say that frozen shoes in Minnesota are no joke. But anyway, you learn to find ways to work with the people around you and find ways to work with the environment around you to get what you need. If you have glaring sunlight in your eyes, find or get blinds or reorient your desk. It's amazing the kinds of things that I learn from people interrupting their ability to get their work done. Sometimes it's a home office, and the kids come home from school. Sometimes, it can be various things, but
***“Whatever that is, there's usually some way you can solve it. And that's very personal.”***
Diverse people's lives.
And if partners and couples can identify this, and sometimes it takes a bit of reflection to recognize what's getting in the way, what's interfering, and then to be able to communicate and perhaps negotiate together to support each person's different ways in which help them be in that state of flow.
Okay, so now we get to this word analysis and this, where this works really well. And I wanted to get you through those parts, because this all comes together really nicely.
Great.
When you do a SWORD analysis, it is an analysis of what I call a big, hairy goal. One of those one to three to five or ten-year big goals that you have. And, as a couple, you want to have goals like that. So you're working together towards some things, and you feel like you're both participating in something important in your lives as a family. You want to have that with children involved. So the children feel like they're part of it.
Nice.
And you want to have them as a in your team, at work, as an individual. This can be used in all those contexts.
Got it.
So you take the goal, and the first thing you look at is the S, which is for “strengths.” The strengths are what you already have. So let's say that you have a goal as a family to buy a vacation home at a place that you all love. You love going to. Let's say you love to hike in the mountains and you want to have a vacation home. Hiking in the mountains and spending time there for weekends, summers, and whatever. And so, you know, your strengths are at this point, let's say you've taken several vacations to the area. You love the area you know, and what things you like to do there. You have a sense of what the region is like and where you might want to go.
Maybe you've met a real estate agent, and you have somebody to help you, and you've, you're getting your information together, and you know what that is. You know what the cost is going to be, that kind of thing. If you don't know that's part of your, at this point, part of your weaknesses.
Right.
So that's the beginning, just having the information. You need to be realistic about it. Because for a lot of people, they. If you just have the vision in your head of a house in the desert, it's nothing unless you have reality, right?
Yes.
So you want to know what those things are. Then you want to. The next step is what it is. What I look at are “weaknesses.” That's the gap. That's things like how much money do you have to save to have the down payment? Maybe you do need to do research and find out more information. Start actually looking at property, start, you know, making relationships in places or trying places. Maybe you want to go and rent an Airbnb several different weekends, try different locations, and see what they're like so that you have more knowledge. Then you get “opportunities” like this. Well, what are the opportunities of owning this place? It's, you know, to some extent, it may be an income investment. You might be able to rent it out.
It may be that you just really need a place to decompress and to have fun together. And this is the place where your kids actually talk to you, and you have fun, and you do activities. Right. And you, maybe you ride, you know, ride horses or go hiking or whatever it is you do. What are the “risks?” There can be big risks to this kind of thing.
Yes.
This house, which is a second property, may mean that you're spending a bunch of time maintaining it, or it costs enough more that you have to give up things to have it. And there are things that you care about, and if you have it, you feel like you have to spend your time there, which means you're not going to take vacations to other places that you've wanted to see. So you go through this whole analysis, and if this is like a family goal and your kids are older than toddlers, include them. Because when you include them, you might hear things from them that you're not thinking of yourself. Like, well, mom, if I have to spend every weekend at this house, how am I going to go to my friend's Birthday parties?
Right.
And now they feel like you don't care about them because you're picking the house over them, having relationships with their friends, or whatever that might be; you want everybody's buy-in.
Yes, yes.
And you know, I mean, not for everything, but certainly if this is a family-oriented goal, you want to make sure it's a family-oriented positive and not a family-oriented negative. Oh, we weren't really taking into account what their needs were. And now they're resentful and angry every time we leave on Friday. Right, so you know what happens when I have people go through this analysis. The next thing I do after we've done those four is we go to the D, which is for “desire”. And I say 0 to 10, how much do you want it? And I wait, and sometimes I get, oh, I don't know, a 6 or a 7 or I get a 10 or I get, you know, very rarely do I get lower than a five. And I think that's.
Frankly, people are embarrassed to come to me with their big goal and then tell me that they don't want it at all, as if it's that bad.
Right.
But like if it's in a 6 or 5 to 7 range, if it's not an 8 or higher, I suggest people look at that really carefully before they consider it their big wife goal.
Right.
And we go a little deeper into why this is your goal? And a lot of times it's not because they care that much about it. It's because maybe their parents had a vacation home, so they think they should, or all the people they work with have a vacation home because that's part of like the expected, you know, path. You have the fancy house and the fancy car, and the next thing is the vacation home or the yacht or whatever. And so they're kind of like keeping up with the Joneses more than they're doing something that matters to them personally. And they're spending a whole lot of time, money, and effort in the process. No kidding. Those things that don't matter. It's shocking how much happier your life gets.
Right. And how much easier it is to contend with things that didn't get addressed when you address the things that matter most.
Exactly.
And I appreciate it. Thank you for laying this out briefly. I know you could talk extensively about this sort of analysis, and I can appreciate that. Even if the answer is below 4, like how much desire someone has. That's a very useful exercise. It prevents making huge investments of time, energy, and money into something that doesn't really matter, and how much of a drain that is.
Think about how much of a burden it would put on your family if you and your spouse, in a really well-meaning effort, go through all the lengths it takes to buy a vacation home somewhere, and then your kids don't want to go with you and make it hell every time you want to go.
Right.
Think about that. I mean, that's the fantasy of like a place that you've chosen because you think it's going to make a great family experience. And then you find out that, you know, Johnny is afraid of snakes and Mary hates being outside, and neither of them is interested in going there because they don't want to do that on their weekends.
Exactly. Then, as you mentioned, like if one has had a family tradition and the nostalgia, like the fantasy of what it would be like to own the home, and that actually living into it without doing this sword analysis, the actual lived, real experience is way different than their nostalgia around it.
There are lots of ways you can have that experience without going to that length. You could be renting a place once in a while and see how you like it, you know, and compromising that way versus going diving off the deep end, so to speak. So a lot of people, that's one example. But there are so many, I mean, people getting graduate degrees they don't really need because their parents expected it of them. So many people do that. They're in a very successful situation. It's not needed by them anymore. It's taking time away from their family, and it's costing them money. They don't even like it, but they feel like they have to get the piece of paper because it's expected.
Or a couple who are uncertain or have ambivalence about becoming parents, that this could be something to really unpack and explore. And this gives a lot of guidance. Thank you so much. I know we're winding down here. What would you like to help people have, maybe one takeaway or something that you want to mention before we pivot to how people can get in touch with you?
I would say
***“The most important thing people can do ever, ever is get that clarity,”***
Really, at your core, what lights you up? And as part of a couple, you know about each other and help each other get that.
Yeah, it was beautiful.
Yeah.
And this is where it's a life well lived. Because if we're living in accordance with what really matters in our health and our well-being again, the other things can fall away. They're not pressing on us and feeling like we're not meeting up or measuring up when really we are living in alignment and that awareness.
Exactly. And sometimes we can shuffle what our responsibilities are around the house, and that kind of thing, based on those things that light us up. And that can
***“Take something that feels like a burden to one person, and it's not so bad for the other one.”***
Yeah. My sister loves gardening. I hate gardening. My sister spends tons of time at her house gardening, and it's her escape and her joy, and she absolutely loves it. And I mean, I'm never gonna be married to my sister, but if I were married to my sister and I was the one who had to do the garden, I would go crazy.
Right.
You know what I mean? So there are different things like that. Like, if you're looking at how to split up the stuff in the household, there are things that one person might absolutely love to do, and it may not be gender normative.
Right.
And so, you know, we want to look at that too, because maybe when my ex and I, we owned a boat, we owned a 40-foot boat here in Miami. And when I left him, I moved to the boat, and I lived on it for eight years, and I kind of got into the mechanical stuff. I own the loss. I love that I didn't do a lot of hands-on. Like I wanted to sort of, but not really. But I mean, I removed my water heater completely and reinstalled the replacement one. The only part I didn't do was put a fixed pipe on, which I didn't have the tools for.
That's awesome.
And that's not like girly stuff. Right. But I liked it. I felt like I was accomplishing something. It was like this big challenge, and it was fun. And I never would have thought that, but it also fed. And this goes into the whole life thing. During that timeframe, I became very successful in the realm of insurance coverage law for people with yacht claims. And the reason that I was sought after for that was that I had an understanding of boats and those mechanical things.
Yes.
And if I'd never sort of fed that side of me, I never would have had that business opportunity.
Totally. I love that example. It's wonderful. Well, Michelle, for people who want to learn more about your framework, where would you like to send people or invite them to connect with you?
Okay. If they're in the United States and if they're not driving their car right now. Since this is a podcast, I always hesitate with the podcast. It's true. I have a text messaging service where you can send the word clarity to 33777. And that will get you to sign up for a free community page, https://www.michelleniemeyer.com/offers/dmNrobgd/checkout. And in that community page, I have downloadable things like a guided meditation and journaling prompts to help you find the sparks that light you up. And I also have a form there for the “SWORD analysis” that people can download and use that form just to give them some guidance as they.
Excellent.
I believe I gave you my website connection, https://www.michelleniemeyer.com, that kind of thing. You know, just put those in the show notes, and then they can find me. https://www.linkedin.com/in/michelle-melin-niemeyer/
Excellent. Well, I'll make sure to have the phone number for people who are driving and want to refer back to the show notes so it's easily accessible. And thank you, Michelle, for all that you've shared here today.
Well, thank you, Jessica. It's been a pleasure.
The post ERP 515: How Couples Can Rethink Time to Reduce Burnout and Strengthen Connection — An Interview with Michelle Niemeyer appeared first on Jessica Higgins.
Ever wondered why, despite our best intentions, we keep falling into the same relationship traps? Or how two people can feel worlds apart even when they desperately want things to work? The subtle dance of self-worth, mutual respect, and compatibility often determines whether love thrives or fizzles out. Too often, we end up settling for relationships that slowly chip away at our confidence, hoping for change while ignoring the mismatch in values, traits, and emotional needs.
In this episode, listeners are guided through a groundbreaking and practical approach for understanding the science behind love and relationship fulfillment. The conversation explores how to identify personal values and trait preferences, assess compatibility, break destructive patterns, and recognize the significance of self-worth in sustaining a healthy partnership. With fresh, research-backed insights, the episode offers actionable steps and honest reflections to help anyone desiring deeper connection, clarity, and empowerment in their romantic life.
Zoey Charif spent two decades decoding patterns of human attraction, pulling from her background in criminology, data analytics, and a drive to challenge everything we’ve been taught about love.
Born in Afghanistan, raised in Vancouver, and now based in Orange County, California, Zoey brings a rare blend of emotional depth, analytical precision, and lived experience to her work. Her framework is coachable and designed to help people transform their relationships.
Episode Highlights04:43 Explaining the Love Formula: Scoring self and partner alignment.
08:41 When perceived value differs: Anxious and avoidant relationship patterns.
10:05 Attachment styles, emotional investment, and patterns of effort.
14:12 Personality dichotomies: Are we attracted to similar or opposite traits?
18:34 Distinguishing between values and traits in attraction.
21:14 Recognizing and interrupting destructive relationship patterns.
26:15 Impact of inconsistency: How decreasing value affects relationship satisfaction.
29:34 Core values: Dependability and reliability as key to relationship stability.
30:27 Using the Love Formula to rebuild connection and alignment in marriage.
33:47 Maintaining mutual admiration and fulfillment in long-term love.
36:58 The crucial role of self-worth and normalizing singlehood.
Your Check List of Actions to Take Reflect on Your Self-Worth: Honestly assess your own values and self-worth before seeking or deepening a relationship. * Identify Core Values: Clearly write down the values that matter most to you in life and relationships. * Rate Yourself: Give yourself a score on how well you feel you embody your own values and standards. * Evaluate Your Partner: Honestly assess your partner against your values, noting alignment and gaps. * Notice Trait Preferences: Identify the traits you’re consistently attracted to, even if they might not serve you in the long term. * Watch for Destructive Patterns: Examine your previous relationship patterns for recurring traits or behaviors that led to dissatisfaction. * Communicate Openly: Share your value and trait scores with your partner as a tool for honest, non-defensive discussions about your relationship. * Prioritize Self-Awareness:* Regularly check in with yourself to ensure your choices align with your values and that you’re not compromising your well-being for the relationship.
MentionedEmotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) (*Psychology Today) (link)
The Gottman Method
12 Relationship Principles to Strengthen Your Love (free guide)
Love Can, In Fact, Be Calculated (Hardcover) by Zoey Charif (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
Connect with Zoey CharifWebsites:lovecaninfactbecalculated.com
Instagram:instagram.com/zoeycharif
TikTok:tiktok.com/@zoeycharif?_t=8ruz0ZyCH9i&_r=1
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Episode Transcript
Zoe, thank you for joining us. I'm really excited about our conversation.
Thank you so much for having me. I'm very excited to be here.
Yeah. Just as we've been chatting, I can appreciate just how much you devote to your work and your passion and your enthusiasm, and I was even reflecting on your desire to make a difference. So thank you for what you're doing, and I know you've developed something called the love formula. Before we get into how to describe that, how you apply it, would you be willing to share a little bit more about how this became for you?
Sure. So about 20 years ago, when I was studying criminology, I had a laser focus on human behavior and human intentions. Around that time, I was in a long-term relationship, and I was cheated on. So that laser focus of criminality just instantly shifted to preserving my heart and trying to understand why I was cheated on, trying to understand why I was not lovable or loved right at that time. And then I just went down this rabbit hole, and I came across something online, and that's what started the whole framework of the love formula 20 years ago. And I kept that theory in my back pocket for the last 20 years. And about six years ago, I'm like, it's valid. So I pushed myself to write about it. I developed the chapters, I developed the framework.
Eventually, I confirmed through data analytics that, in fact, I can calculate love. In fact, we can calculate self-worth. In fact, using these calculations, you can improve a relationship not just with your partner, but with yourself. In fact, I confirmed that it starts with you. So I confirmed that the cliche
**“You can't love someone else unless you love yourself”****
is validated with numbers, with stats, and with data. So that's how it all started. And this is where I've landed 20 years later.
Yes, and the culmination. And I appreciate just the space that you gave me to develop. Right. Sometimes we might feel the resonance and want to develop it, but also just being able to back that up with further data, and just for people listening, when you talk about numbers and research, would you like to just briefly speak to how you accumulated that?
So the foundation of the framework comes down to you can't love someone who's not a match. It won't work. The brain is not programmed in that way. The brain is programmed to seek a strong mate. If within your mind, whatever definition you have of strength, whether it's education or it's physical or whatever it may be, however you define it in your mind. If the person in front of you, the person that you've connected within your definition and your framework, does not fit those standards, your emotions will not follow; your neurochemicals will shut down when you're with them. Your hormones, be it oxytocin or whatever gets you going, right? And those healthy neurochemicals, serotonin, dopamine, they will not activate if your brain has defined them to be less than you.
So the whole foundation of the framework is that
*****“You can't love someone who's not a match.”*****
The question becomes, how do you measure a match? Well, it comes down to values and traits. You first measure yourself based on your own values, and you give yourself a score on how well you feel. You meet your own values, and you meet your own standards. Next, you give your partner a partner values score. So you rate them against your values. It doesn't matter what their values are. They might have a completely different set. What matters is, do they fit your standards? So now you have two scores. You have the self-score, which is a numerical assessment of your self-worth, your standards, and your self-love, which is the key to everything.
And I'll dive into this later because this is hands down the most important part. And next, you have the partner value score, which is essentially evaluating if you respect them.
****“Your brain is not programmed to love someone you do not respect. Your brain is programmed to love someone you think is strong.”****
That's how we evolve as humans. Then there's a second part of the formula, which is the traits. So values are not the only thing we're looking for here. We're not just looking at whether you respect the person. We're looking at whether you're attracted to them. So you give them a partner traits score to that effect. You don't rate yourself on traits because opposites do attract, but you do rate them. And then you average out the partner value score.
The partner trait score, if that total number is a match for you, is perfect. But the analytics show that the perfect match is when the partner is 4% above you. And it's interesting, I did not expect that. But the interpretation of this is that you admire them and you feel lucky to be with them. Hence why, when there's a breakdown of the relationship, if you guys fight, whatever it may be, you're more likely to put your best foot forward because you feel lucky to have them, and you don't want to lose them.
So, for people listening, and my understanding of your formula is that two people could rate their partner differently. So both partners optimally, and I guess in your formula, both people would rate their partner that 4% favorable, and that would be more optimal than you appreciate their values and their traits, and the match on values and their traits.
Exactly.
Before we move into attachment dynamics, I want to note that attachment patterns are adaptive strategies shaped by early experience, not character flaws. As you'll hear, we're exploring how certain dynamics feel in a relationship and how to discern whether a relationship is secure and mutual.
Let me pitch to you a scenario. What if you view your partner as, let's say, 5% above you? That means that you admire them, and you feel very lucky to be with them. If they, for whatever reason, in their minds have decided that you don't quite meet their standards, whether those standards are fair or unfair, it's. The humans are nuanced. Everyone will have their own framework, their own checkboxes. But if they think that you're, let's say, 10% under them, what's going to happen is you may become a self-sacrificer in that relationship. You may become infatuated, you may put in more effort than them. And I don't know if this sounds familiar, but if you learn about the avoidant anxious dynamic, that's what it resembles.
It resembles someone who is afraid to lose the other person and just gets anxious, not knowing whether they're back. And then the avoidant is a person who's. They avoid the relationship, they avoid the dynamic. In my opinion, we've labeled the anxious avoidant dynamic to situations where,
***“When someone loves you a lot, they're not going to lose you; they're not going to want to lose you.”***
That's how I've, in my years of experience, that's what I've noticed. Someone who truly cares about you will not put you back on the market.
“Okay, so I don't fully disagree with you. And I also think that there are variables.”So, where I would agree with you is this sense of someone who is not as invested or doesn't value the relationship, or their significant other is more primed to not turn towards right, and how these relationship dynamics manifest. And also, I, having done my dissertation and really having done a lot of work with the EFT and the attachment research, I do know from very early on that people have certain strategies in the way that they protect themselves. So where I will say is that it could look similar and that the origins. But I think where there could be a real indication is whether someone is interested in repair, whether someone is making the effort. So even though their first tendency is to be a little bit more contained.
Well, I'll just use myself here as an example. So my husband does have a little bit more of that contained, that more protective, which could be labeled as avoidant tendencies. And when I took risks early on in our relationship, he did turn towards me; he did really respond. And he does show effort; he does invest. And I know he values me. So I want to say yes. And the attachment research, I think, has a lot of value. And what you're really presenting is it kind of reminds me of he's just not that into you. Yeah, like let's not make a bunch of excuses and reasons, like if someone is not valuing, that's going to be demonstrated. And let's be real about that.
“Yeah, and I really appreciate that you said that because I agree with you. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle.” The truth is, we all have learned to love in a certain way. I guess where I'm coming from is I see so many myths online about the runner chaser, for example, and people justifying being treated not so well and being undervalued. And then thinking it's okay that I'm a self-sacrificer, you know, there's a meaning behind this, and this is just their attachment style. That's what scares me. There's so much information online that can validate their thoughts that no, this person is into you. And from the research that I've seen, from the analytics, that doesn't seem to be the case. I'll give you an example. So for the couples who are currently together, the partner's score was 4% above theirs. Okay.
The group below them, the Partner score was -5%. They were in an on-and-off relationship. So if you look at anxious avoidance styles, and of course, you're the expert here, this is just from my general understanding, so please correct me if I'm wrong. The anxious avoidant, if it's not checked, if there's not enough education behind it or knowledge behind it, can very easily fall into the trap of an on-and-off. And from the interpretation here, it's that one person put in effort, they felt like the other person was not putting in effort. And in that case, the values score dropped. So the number one value that we saw across the board was dependability and reliability as an avoidant.
If you're gonna bail when things are not right from the analytics, from what I'm seeing and the interpretation, it's that they start to lose value in the eyes of the person doing the calculations. So it actually turns into you are not good enough for me, you're an avoidant. It turns into, eventually, you're not my rock. And I can't be in a relationship where you're not a rock. So, you know, chicken or the egg type of scenario, but at some point, they're not a match.
I'm so glad you're saying this because I do think that this is important to acknowledge that someone's perception, or, in EFT language, they might say view of others, or even in the Gottman language, they might say the sentiment, the positive sentiment override, or the negative sentiment override. And when we look at the importance of secure functioning, that is the consistency, the reliability, and the availability. Is someone engaged, are they responsive, and are they available? So what you're looking at, I think, absolutely correlates with the research on attachment and all the other research that I don't know if you're incorporating or if you're looking at a certain aspect of your primary research and how you've interpreted that, but absolutely right. If someone's not responding or showing up, that's not a secure functioning relationship, and that's hard to sustain.
And when we look at attachment, it's very difficult for those. And I don't know how long your relationships were as far as in and out, but typically, it's hard to sustain the avoidant anxious dynamic.
Exactly, I think we're mostly saying the same thing, just different angles. And different terminology. But yeah, I mean, I agree with you though, that if there is education behind it and knowledge and you can read between the lines, especially with an avoidant who's scared and you can read between the lines, oh, this is a protective mechanism or a defense mechanism. Then that can certainly make you stronger if you gently communicate it, and hopefully, they'll be open to communicating with you back. That key, though, the knowledge there, though, if it's not there, then it's just going to break down. And once again, the analytics showed that it becomes a mismatch at some point.
Yeah. Well, to be able to access vulnerability, to be able to access the connection. If there's no ability to repair, then there are no other things that support that more secure functioning. And this reminds me, your formula reminds me back in undergrad, I believe, when we look at the old school ways in which people partnered, it was people who were of similar attractiveness or of similar SEO status, or there was a similarity of compatibility of how people were ranking value around maybe more traits. I mean, that was more retroactive research. Just how people are partnering. But it seems to go along with what you're describing here.
Yeah, thank you for saying that. I compare the values. And in the formula, I essentially give room for flexibility on what you're attracted to because opposites can attract. But the analytics actually showed that people tend to be more attracted to who they are than to what they are, their essence. Here's how I know this. I developed personality type dichotomies. Okay. There is one in particular, which is the diversified versus the alike. Diversity is the opposites attract. Right. The issue is I want someone who's me, traits-wise. So there are the healthy alike and the extreme alike. So healthy alike is just a little bit leaning towards alike, but not overly. And then the extreme opposite is I want that person to be exactly like me. The healthy, diversified person is the one who's open to nuance and differences in personality, in essence.
And then there's the extremely diversified, which is, I just want the exact opposite of me. And whatever the relationships that were currently together were healthy alikes and extreme alikes. Not the Diversifieds. And I did not put that in my analytics because I labeled it extreme. So I didn't want to give the impression that it's not right or that there was something wrong with it. But no, the analytics show that the more the person is you, traits-wise, the more you're likely to be with them. In fact, I had a situation where I went, I became diversified, and it broke down. Oh, look at this. We're so different. How fun. And it didn't work well.
Again, I so appreciate just what you're bringing in. And I'm aware of, as I mentioned, the Gottmans, they talk about every relationship has some differences that pose a challenge in my language curriculum for working on how to work together. So that's the one that's on time, the one that's a little more spontaneous, or the one that's the saver, the spender, the extrovert, the introvert. So I know you speak about these things, so I think some of that will exist. And I think in David Schnarz's world, it was that this could provide some erotic tension, right? There's, you don't always want to have the same. But to your point, you're saying there's a likeness that really does support. There's a lot that is offered when people are aligned on values. And then would you give some examples?
Because people might associate values and traits, but how are you looking at you? Would you give some examples of what those are?
*****“So values are essentially lifestyle choices, and it's what determines respect.”*******
What you respect in other people and what you respect in yourself. Risk traits, those are characteristics that you're inherently drawn to. They can be physical traits. They can be humor or intelligence. These are the things that you can not. You can't necessarily change. So just to give an example, Jessica, if I told you a joke, can you help whether you find that funny or not, can you really help it? It's hard, right? It's very automatic. It's very instinctual. That's what traits are. Traits are not necessarily decisions where it's like, I choose to be attracted to that person. And sadly, this is why some of us fall into destructive relationship patterns. It's because if, for example, you grew up in a dysfunctional home, that becomes your wiring. It's something that you are inherently drawn to.
It's what's familiar to you, right? Doesn't mean that's what you want. It just means that's what you're doing. Mind and body, for whatever reason, have decided this is Familiar. This is a comfort zone. Yes. Right. So with traits, one thing I say is you can be drawn to destructive traits. That does not necessarily mean it needs to be the end-all, be-all. You can stop yourself in your tracks and stop that pattern, right? You might be drawn to it because, again, can you really help what you find funny to the same extent, can you help what makes you horny? Can you, though, right? Can you help what turns you on? Can you help your body know what it wants before your brain can say, no, no, we don't want that. No, no, we're trying to stop this shitty ass pattern.
Okay, but with that, this is why you have a brain. We are non-animals, right? We are humans. We make decisions, right? Maybe our free will. Sometimes it's difficult at times to tap into that because our bodies have their own formula and mechanisms for what they want. But you can stop yourself and say, no, I don't want this. So, going back to the traits, sometimes the traits conflict with the values. If your value is dependability and reliability, which again, we saw that as number one across age groups, across all relationship types. But what if one of your trait preferences is emotional unavailability, not because you're choosing it, but because you've seen yourself falling into a pattern of being attracted to that? Well, there's a huge conflict there.
“Yes, talk to us about that because I was aware, and that seems a really important thing to bring light to.” And I appreciate, just as humans, that we have conscious choice and that you're inviting people to recognize there are different pools or tendencies inside of us and that we can really be more discerning about what we're aligning with. So, for one that recognizes, oh, to the point of emotional unavailability, I wouldn't consciously say that I want that trait or I value that trait. Yet if I look at my patterns, I keep choosing in. So, with someone emotionally unavailable, how do you help people work with.
“So self-awareness is obviously the first step.” By doing the formula, when you're listing out your values and your trait preferences, the goal is not to put numbers that you think you want to have, or values you think you want to have, or you have to be honest with yourself if you have trait preferences. And the best way to determine the trait preferences is to watch your pattern. What do you keep falling into? So if you start to determine that you have trait preferences that are destructive, the next time you meet someone, it's oh, that person falls exactly within the trait preference that I have. But from experience, this trait preference is not sustainable. I will not be in a happy long-term relationship if I find someone with this trait.
That's where the human brain and our emotional intelligence kick in, and where free will kicks in. But they have that thing, though, they have that edge that I'm constantly getting in trouble with, catch yourself. You don't have to go for a second, third, or seventh date. You can say, for now, I choose not to do that to myself, and I choose to make better decisions for myself.
*****“So self-awareness is very important.”*****
I will also say, though very quickly, if it's okay to tap back into the anxious avoidant. Yeah, an avoidant will be emotionally unavailable. And the thing is with dynamics and the way the brain is programmed, I.
Think it's a really powerful reinforcement. When we look at intermittent reinforcement, that's the most powerful reinforcement. So we look at casinos, or you don't know when you're going to get a positive response, or you're not going to get responsiveness. That's, that's the most compelling dynamic. I might have made a face because, from a research perspective, we categorize,e but I think humans typically live a little bit more on a continuum. So I think people who have avoidant tendencies, I wouldn't say they're not like binary, not emotionally vulnerable or available. I feel there's a range of people's availability, and the way they've interpreted that is I'm broken, shame I'm not enough. So what often lives in their internal state is I'm afraid to turn towards because I think I'm going to make, I'm going to mess it up, or I'm going to hurt the person.
So again, I think there can be layers here. But I do agree with you. If the pattern dynamic is always the superiority, a superiority, or the power differentials, you have age differences, you have money differences, you have different ways in which people feel a sense of power. And when that continues to be prevalent, I would agree with you absolutely. The person who's a little bit more anxiously primed is trying to understand, trying to check for stability, trying to feel safe. And the way they interpret is typically like ooh, they don't care, or they're not into this, or they might leave, and then the hypervigilance of over-functioning or trying to make it work. So I do think there's a real validity to what you're describing. I'm just adding.
Yeah, and I really appreciate that. I love that you're bringing the academic understanding, perspective, and insight. I guess when I say avoidant, what I mean to say is that their behaviors are matching and very similar to those of emotionally unavailable people. And regardless, the way I understand it, whether you're an avoidant and truly not functioning properly, when it comes down to demonstrating love and communication, whether you're truly an avoidant or emotionally unavailable, if you're connecting with that person, something in your subconscious will ping, I'm not good enough. Regardless of what their intention is, regardless of the reason, interpretation of the interpretation, their dysfunction, whether they think they're better or not better, they're, regardless of that,
*“What's happening in your brain is what's most important.”*
And if your brain is saying, oh shoot, they are better than me, they're bigger than me, I need.
To perform better, I need to be perfect.
Yes, exactly. That's where the issue arises right now. Again, I've come across an avoidant where there was a protective little conversation that happened, and I could read between the lines, I saw between the lines thing, and I'm very glad that I did. But I was able to communicate in a way that he snapped out of his avoidant tendencies. Right. But with that said, there's no way, if I didn't have this knowledge, that I would have known whether he's emotionally unavailable or avoidant. Yeah. And if I hadn't caught myself, my brain would have said, I'm scared, I'm out, I'm anxious, I'm, oh shoot, what the fuck just happened? Right. So I was lucky that I had that knowledge. But all to say, it's that signal. It's that signal, and it's your subconscious that you have to be solid with and strong with.
And that's
***“The discernment of knowing what your values are, your trait preferences.”***
And if you happen to have trait preferences where you attract, call it avoidant, call it emotionally unavailable, however it's affecting you is what you need to pay attention to. And that's what I would suggest, spiral into a new relationship like that.
Yeah, well, and I can appreciate that this and lived experience are confusing because sometimes the data points aren't always like they might show signs of availability, or then they might not be available. And to your point about having consistency and reliability, that can get painful. And just to clarify, when you said earlier, let's say in this dynamic, the one that's a little bit more anxious is working hard to keep things stable or engaged, over functioning, and then at some point they start to devalue because that partner's not showing up and then something switches and then they're now maybe initiating distancing or breaking up or withdrawal because of what you're describing, that they are now valuing less the way that person's showing up.
Exactly. Because what we're seeing is that the number one value across the board is dependability and reliability. People want a rock.
Yes.
So eventually, if the avoidant or however we're. We want to frame that, if they're lacking consistency, they're not able to validate their partner, they're not able to communicate well for whatever reason, at some point, the other person will say, it's not good enough for me, it's not sustainable. So when the partner score is under less than 5%, just 5%, these people tended to be in an on-and-off relationship. It still wasn't stable. And then below that was when the partner's score was minus 10%. That would be a mutual breakup. The interpretation there is that one person gets lazy, then the other person stops putting in effort. Then there may be fears of, why would I invest in this if it's so unstable? And then it's a mutual breakup. It's like, this isn't going anywhere. So maybe at some point it started positively.
I sincerely believe that at some point, all these couples who were together and then eventually broke up saw something special in them. Scores fluctuate, especially in long-term relationships and marriages. When you meet someone, you're like, oh my God, right? And you might give them a high score, and you might feel very lucky. And then over time, you start to see layers of the person and how they treat disagreements. Or maybe you start to see their misalignments. And if you've been with them for long enough, you might say to yourself, well, why would I leave? We have an attachment now. We're attached. Our friends know about us. We have a routine. That's attachment. But then over time, especially in marriage, and I understand it, especially if there's a kid, there are kids and Morgan involved. Like, I totally get it, but sometimes it just falls into misalignment.
But one more thing is that this tool and this framework can get you back into alignment. It's a tool for communication. What are the values? How do you score yourself? How do you score your partner? Work on that. Forget about the fights, forget about all the things that have happened between you guys. Just list out your values. Tell your partner how you rate yourself. Tell your partner how you rate them. Be soft. Got a tool to bully.
Yes, I want to talk about that. I would love to hear more about that. I also want to just, if I'm hearing you in long-term relationship marriages, that perhaps people don't break up, but the misalignment is creating a lot of dissatisfaction or disconnection. So it might not be an actual breakup at times; it might just be a disconnection and not feeling okay.
Yeah, I'll give you a perfect example, actually. My husband. So a year into our marriage, we were completely misaligned. We were not seeing eye to eye, and we were not doing great. And I'm literally a relationship expert, so why am I not using this framework in my own relationship? I always hesitated doing that because I didn't want to feel, ooh, I know everything. But we got to a point where it's, if this does not get addressed, we're both unhappy right now. So
we did it together. And I gave him a lesser score in dependability and reliability compared to when we met, when we were engaged, all of that. He gave me a lower score for communication stuff. I was a little sharp. I was a little. My communication was not patient. I lost patience. So neither of us went into why.
Kevin didn't say, hey, I stopped being dependable because of X, Y, and Z. I didn't tell him that my communication style sucked because of X, Y, and Z. Instead, we just said, here's where you are, here's where I would like you to be. Can we work on that together? And we did. And he became more of a rock in the relationship. What I wanted as a husband to receive, right. And I was softer with him. I became softer and kinder and more gentle, which is what he needs to feel respected. So little by little, we started building our respect and our scores. Right.
And I will say also when you're in a marriage, because when we did the formula together, I think it was our six-month mark, he was above me, slightly above me, and I had a strong score in his mind as well. When we did it again one year into our relationship, I'm like, oh, this is not a man who's attracted to me right now or who feels I'm matching his values. And that scared me a little bit because I'm like, I want my husband to enjoy me. And this is what he needs, just a gentler communication style, which is not unfair. And I think that he had that same stark realization as well, because as a husband, he wanted to feel like a man. But when he started to realize, hey, the scores are dropping here.
And again, we didn't go into why we just went into, let me fix it so I could show up as that spouse that I want to be. So it came down to pride as well. It's like, no, I'm not going to be that wife. I want to be better and the same with him.
Well, it's really, it sounds like zoning in and getting very clear about what matters and having a tool that helps show that more vulnerably or make that more visible. And also the reality check, right, that sometimes when there are interactions that go the way we want them to or feel challenging, then we just might think, oh, we just need to resolve those things. When actually it's whittling away at our attraction, our love, our respect. That's notable. So to have a real, honest conversation. And that is a wake-up call.
It really is. And the best wake-up call is that the couples who are together see their partner as 4% above them.
**“So all to say, don't get lazy. If you care about your relationship,”**
if you want, you care, not just your relationship, if you care about yourself, if you want to be happy, yeah. If you want to feel fulfilled, if you want to gain that attraction back, if you want to feel attractive and desired, who wouldn't want that? Who wouldn't want to be admired?
And values, typically, they change a bit, but they often are very connected to what matters most. So I think, yeah, absolutely, pay attention to that. Okay, so I know we don't have a ton of time, and you had mentioned the importance of self-love or self-worth. Would can we talk about that a little bit? And maybe you're mentioning it here, like our happiness, our well-being, to not compromise, to really be in touch with. But tell us more here.
Okay, so this is literally the most important part of the framework. And I didn't realize that this would become the biggest revelation of the framework. Okay, so let's let me back up a tiny bit. The average self-score for women is 76%. The average self-score for men is 73%. So that's essentially the baseline. The couples who were currently together had a strong self-score. They had a higher self-score than the average, or just about. Okay, what that means is that the ones who were broken up either in an on-and-off in a mutual breakup, or they were broken up with, had a lower self-score. In other words, you need to have strong self-worth to be in a sustainable relationship. There was one group above the current group with an even stronger self-score.
And the reason I want to talk about this is that I want to normalize being single; these people did the breaking up. They chose not to settle. And they're 78% soft score average. They're notably higher than the average self-score. All to say, if you're in a relationship and you're unhappy and you're afraid of what family will say, what friends will say, what community will say, what social media will say, if you happen to break up, and oh my God, the world will fall down, and who am I going to be?
I'm never gonna find anyone else.
Never gonna find it. Actually, the analytics show that you will be more fulfilled than all the other groups.
If you don't find someone.
Even if you don't, which is. I loved seeing that, especially with women. We put so much pressure on ourselves in our 30s. Oh, get married, have a kid, have a mortgage, have the wedding so the parents can be happy, so that you can fit in with your social media friends. We need to let that go, and we need to normalize it. Normalize being single. And the analytics are showing that you're in a better position. Putting that aside, though, for the couples who are currently together, you still need a strong self-score. You did. So what that means is if you're harping on someone, whether it's a breakup or someone that you wish that you could have, it's got nothing to do with them. Work on yourself. Work on yourself. Your confidence will radiate, and you will glow.
And if this person doesn't want you'll say, I don't care, I'm gonna move on and find my other. And so literally that soft score, I did not realize that
**“This whole framework would validate that you don't need anyone to be happy. But if you do want someone, you have to be happy within yourself.”**
Because if you have a lower-than-average self-score, you won't make it.
And you're likely to put up with a bunch of stuff that is perhaps destructive and harmful to your well-being. You're gonna have a low standard.
That's exactly it. If you have a low self-score, let's call it a 70%. That means that you will accept someone in your life who's also a 70%. Okay, a 70% is not someone who, by definition, through the data that you respect.
And these are not huge differences in percentages.
They're not; we're talking 1 to 2%. So for women, 76% is the average self-score. For men, it was 73%. But then the on and off relationships, I think it was down to 72, then to 71, then to, I think 70 was the lowest, and the 70 was when they were broken up. But even then, the partner score, by the way, was -25%. All in all, think about how badly that partner was treating them.
Right.
That wasn't that score. How bad did it get?
Yes, yes. Well, and this is.
And then you were broken up with after all that you were broken.
Right.
Get out. Right.
I think the percentage difference is if I don't. I'm curious what you would say because you've been immersed in this, but my first blink on it is that someone could think they have a relatively high self-esteem or self-worth because they're, oh, I'm successful in this area, and yet they're still saying yes to really unhealthy dynamics that it maybe isn't that far. Just those percentage differences are huge.
So what happens if you're killing it in life? You respect yourself so much, you give yourself a 90%, okay, but you grew up a certain way, and now your familiarity and your comfort zone is, let's say, emotional unavailability. Although those are the values that you seek and work on so hard, your trait preferences may conflict. Now, what happens if you are more emotional than practical? You are more traits-focused, traits-leaning than values-leaning when you determine what you want in a relationship and your decision-making. Right. So the people who are currently together tend to fall in the healthy emotional zone, which means their traits are leaning. The ones who are traits-focused, which means all the way traits only, not enough of the values, when determining who's a good partner, do not sustain the relationship.
Okay, if you are not either close to the middle or slightly towards practical, slightly towards emotional, and either all the way in the extreme, you're not going to sustain it. And you're still, regardless of how hard you work on yourself, how hard you work on your peace of mind, your success, your social network, your strength, your image, your health consciousness, doesn't matter if you're more trait-focused, and even if one of those traits is destructive, boom, you've fallen into a bad pattern.
So what does someone do? As we're winding down, you're leaving on a cliffhanger.
Self-awareness. Write it out, write it out. Ask yourself, why am I so good to myself, and yet I can't find a partner who's good to me? Write it out. It's probably not in the values; it's probably in the traits. There's something in the traits there. Either that or you think you need to be a hero to self-validate, and if that's the case, snap out of it. And I say that love because I used to be there. So everything that I say is always out of love because I've been there. But I kicked my own butt to get myself out. So, I think that's why I come off a little.
You're being very directive, and you're being clear, and you have a lot of evidence to support the dangers of being in misconception or fantasy, and really calling out and giving people a real skillful tool to work with that can assist them to align.
Yeah.
How can people get in touch with you, and what are you up to?
Okay, so you can find my website, lovecaninfactbecalculated.com, otherwise I'm on social media, Instagram and TikTok, Zoey Charif. And if you want to pick up the book, it's on Amazon and Barnes and Noble, and will you say the.
Name of the book one more time?
Sure. It's called “Love Can, In Fact, Be Calculated.”
Excellent. Well, thank you so much.
I really appreciate you.
Yes, I enjoyed this very much.
Thank you.
The post ERP 514: Measuring What Matters: How Awareness and Alignment Create Enduring Love – An Interview with Zoey Charif appeared first on Jessica Higgins.
Ever felt like no matter how much you prepare for an important conversation with your partner, you still end up missing each other entirely? In the heat of tough conversations, even the best intentions can get lost as tension rises and defenses go up. It's all too easy for moments of misunderstanding to snowball, leaving both people feeling disconnected and unsure how to find their way back to each other.
In this episode, you’ll discover a radically simple approach to transforming those tense moments into opportunities for true connection. Looking through the lens of openness, which the conversation calls the “aperture effect,” you’ll learn why slowing down, becoming mindful, and attuning to each other's emotional states can help you break free from unhelpful patterns. Explore practical techniques to foster emotional safety, collaboration, and presence so you can turn even challenging interactions into pathways for deeper understanding and closeness.
Kathryn Ford, M.D., is a psychiatrist, couples therapist, and author. Her work is a unique integration of mindfulness, psychotherapy, and neuroscience. After receiving her M.D. degree from Brown School of Medicine, Dr. Ford completed a residency in psychiatry at Stanford University School of Medicine. Her meditation practice and studies developed her understanding of the power of mindfulness for building deeper, more resilient relationships. She has taught at Stanford Continuing Studies, Stanford Medical School, and Santa Clara University, and publishes regularly online in Psychology Today.
Episode Highlights04:02 The Aperture Effect—an exploration at the intersection of psychiatry, mindfulness, and neuroscience.
09:40 What happens when openness shuts down in conversation?
11:26 The brain’s role in relationship dynamics and mindful self-awareness.
15:23 Recognizing and responding to real-time emotional signals.
17:14 How our openness fluctuates moment to moment: Practical awareness skills.
21:08 Why slowing down changes everything: Strategies for connection over resolution.
26:06 Openness on a continuum: Tracking your state in challenging conversations.
29:16 Regrouping when things get rocky: Navigating pauses and timeouts.
33:53 Moving between vulnerability and defensiveness.
38:13 Vulnerability as the pathway to connection.
42:18 The power of naming your emotional state.
43:30 Learning and practicing aperture awareness and mindfulness.
Your Checklist of Actions to Take* Practice mindful pausing: When you notice tension or confusion in conversations with your partner, pause for a deep breath to ground yourself and slow the interaction. * Regularly check in with yourself during discussions. Ask, “Am I open or closed right now?” and observe your body for cues like warmth (open) or tension (closed). * Use the “Two Sentences” exercise by limiting your speaking turns to one or two sentences and then pausing, giving both you and your partner time to process before responding. * Be explicit about your emotional state, for example, saying, “I’m feeling a bit vulnerable discussing this,” to invite empathy and understanding. * When things get heated, intentionally slow down the dialogue. Avoid rapid-fire responses and give space for reflection. * Call a timeout if needed: If either partner rates their openness as a 4 or lower (on a 1-10 scale), suggest a short break to allow both people to regroup and prevent escalation. * Reassure and regroup: Offer reassurance like, “I didn’t mean to sound harsh,” and check if both partners feel ready to continue before moving forward. * Acknowledge the need for ongoing conversations: Accept that not every topic needs a final resolution. Focus on maintaining connection, trust, and openness even when issues remain unresolved.
MentionedThe Aperture Effect (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
Polyvagal Theory (website)
Gottman Institute (website)
Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) (*Psychology Today) (link)
ERP 340: The Essential Skill Of Tracking Openness in Relationship — An Interview With Dr. Kathryn Ford
12 Relationship Principles to Strengthen Your Love (free guide)
Connect with Kathryn Ford, M.D.Websites:kathrynfordmd.com
Facebook:facebook.com/KathrynFordMD
Instagram:instagram.com/KathrynFordMD
LinkedIn:linkedin.com/in/kathryn-ford-m-d-1a675b2b
Substack:substack.com/@kathrynfordmd
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*With Amazon Affiliate Links, I may earn a few cents from Amazon if you purchase the book from this link.
Episode Transcript
Thank you for joining us. It's such a treat to have you back.
It's great to see you again, Jessica.
Yes, and I am sharing how much I love your book; this was a topic you shared with us a couple of years ago. The episode on today's show notes the link to that and your new book, The Aperture Effect,we're going to be talking a little bit more about as this really is such a huge component to how couples are interacting, and it's so much a part of the experience,e and yet we're not always focused on it. So, where would you start for people's understanding? How was it for you to write this book, and anything you want to say personally here before we dive in?
I wrote this book because I was very excited to share what I was discovering. I'm a psychiatrist, and different strands of my understanding, in addition to psychiatry, were starting to come together with my couples work. And I felt like I was finding a new path into helping couples connect better, more quickly, with less pain and without losing their way. And, you know, there's the pleasure of discovery that I think we all inherently have in life. And also, I think we all have the pleasure of sharing what we've discovered. And that's why I wrote the book. When my publisher asked me, why did you write this book? I said, so people can read it and share with them what I found, what I was saying about the three strands coming together. I'm trained as a psychiatrist, which means that I'm thoroughly steeped in psychology, psychiatry, and psychotherapy.
And also, I went to Stanford for my residency training in psychiatry, because I was at Stanford, and I was in California. Because I was in California, wonderful teachers of yoga, meditation, and all the arts of mindfulness surrounded me. And I quickly got very excited about that. I started spending a lot of time on mats and cushions, and that became a major influence in how I experienced doing my work with couples. The third strand had to do with neuroscience. About the time I was coming out of residency, there was this big uptick in neuroscience, and we started understanding way more about how our brains work than we knew before. And I got very excited about it. I also started to realize that the understanding that was offering us would be very valuable to my couples. In terms of understanding.
There are certain things that go on that. That's how your brain is wired. So knowing that helps. You don't have to feel quite like such a doofus when you go down a certain blind pathway. And also, neuroscience helps us understand how you can work with that with mindfulness, so that you don't have to go down the blind pathway so many times. So it all started coming together.
I love it. It's such a gift for you to bring these disciplines together, and just where you are in your field, and the expertise you can offer us here. So I'm grateful to have this interview with you. So let's. For people who may have missed that previous episode, would you talk a bit about what the aperture effect is?
The aperture effect is very much worth understanding and defining. The aperture effect means the following.
“Aperture is the word I came to use for openness.”
What I started to realize early, as I started to work with my couples, I started to ask myself, what was it I was focusing my attention on that was helping me chart a path to helping them? And what I started to realize is it's all about their openness. And. And that's very different from me focusing my mind on what their attachment style is, what their communication style is. Yes, those things are important. They're kind of like roadmaps. But when you're driving the car, you don't look at the roadmap. You look at the road ahead of you and eyes on the road, I came to realize, was paying attention to openness. So I started working with couples along those lines.
And the aperture effect means that
****“What we all want when we're talking to each other, when we're relating, we want connection, we want to be understood, we want to be heard, we want to be cared about. All of that happens or doesn't happen based on our openness to each other.”****
And so that's the key element in a certain way. Once you know that, it's kind of obvious, like, well, duh. But it's kind of like we look right past it. And I found that my couples were doing what I had been doing before, understanding that, if they started to get in trouble in a conversation, they would start to go up in their mind searching for, well, what's our love language? And what does the latest psychology say about this?
Which totally took them away from being mindfully present in the moment and understanding that we're having trouble right now because I just said something that made you close down. And that's what the aperture effect is. If you want to have the best time in your connection with each other for the least trouble, go for paying attention to your openness to each other.
I love this. I love this focus. And it is interrelated. I appreciate you mentioning attachment tendencies and styles, or perhaps even conflict styles, as these things are what we resort to when we notice a threat, when we notice something closing in. That's where it gets particularly problematic in my mind, that we have different strategies. So, if one is speeding up and trying to engage or pursue, as we might say, or one is slowing down and containing, it's like, “Oh, it's not safe to say anything.” These are ways that we manage the closure or the threat. When we perceive something that might be challenging. And even as you're bringing in neuroscience here, we cannot override the perception of a threat. And our loved one in adulthood is very much connected to our sense of safety in the world.
And so I love this because so many people will say, I have all this information and I feel very informed, and yet when I come to an interaction, it all somewhat goes out of the window. I just don't have access to it. And this is precisely what you want people to focus on. Because if we start closing and then we resort to these strategies, we're already missing the moment and missing what's happening. If I'm understanding what you're saying, yes.
I would use the word strategy slightly. What I would say is that the starting place is to pay attention to openness and find out about it. And then come the strategies. So the basic thing is, when we're relating with each other, often there's a moment, especially in a difficult conversation or a conversation that just went from easy to hard, right? There's that “oh” moment. There's that moment you go, whoops, things are not going very well. That's our amygdala, our safety center, telling us, oh, you know, run away or hide or whatever. That's an automatic signal that goes through. That signal passing through the amygdala is pinging us. That's the fast track. According to Kahneman, the same signal of the same input will eventually go through our cortex and cause some more complex processing.
Like, okay, what do I do now? What's the strategy? To wait for that slow process to happen, which is what's important. That's what you call mindfulness. That's what
****“Mindfulness is, in one really simple way, of understanding it. It's learning the ability to respond to that “oh” signal by taking a deep breath, pausing for a moment, and considering.”******
Okay, what's happening right now? And what I'm suggesting is, the first question should be, what's happening right now? Am I open or not? Is the person I'm talking to open or not? And you go from there. And the strategies. Yes, then come into play, knowing what to do. I'll tell you one of my favorite moments in therapy. Because it was so telling and so typical. I'm sitting with a couple, working with them, and she wants to tell them something very important to her.
And as she starts to tell him, she starts to shut down a bit. And as he starts to close, she starts talking faster. And as she speaks faster, he closes a little more. And as she speaks faster and louder, now he closes a little more. And as he closes more, she speaks faster and louder. And now she's repeating herself. And now he's completely closed. At that point, I stopped them, and I said to her, what's happening right now? And she said, well, he's completely close to me. And I said, so if you knew that, why did you keep talking? “Can you guess what she said?”
“Because he's not listening.”
“No. She said, I didn't know what else to do.”
“I didn't know what else to do. Yes, I remember reading that in your book.”
“And that was the aha moment for me, because this was early in my understanding of the importance and the centrality of aperture and openness.” But I thought my job was to teach people to sense openness. Now, that's not completely untrue, but in fact, what I had missed is that our brain is processing really well all the time openness, because we are wired for that, because we are such social beings that the state of mind of the other human being and how they're feeling about us is given top priority in that safety center. And so we're constantly monitoring and accurately sensing open or closed in ourselves and in each other. So I didn't need to tell her the signal was there. I needed to teach her what to do so that she would pay attention to it.
Because she wasn't paying attention. And therefore her amygdala was running the show. She was hitting the gas exactly. She should have been hitting the brakes. Right. Because her amygdala was going full force, like, run away. So she ran away with the conversation. Whereas as soon as I stopped and asked her, she didn't even hesitate. She said, oh, he's close. She knew the information. She just wasn't accessing it and using it. At that point, I realized, yeah, that's the deal, I need to help people know what to do in response to that, oh, no signal, so that they will be able to pay attention to it more. And that's when I started doing it. Yes.
And this is what I get so excited about, having you here on the show describing this. And to be clear, what you're really emphasizing is the conscious awareness of openness, like we're registering it. And I think when I was saying strategies, I meant. I didn't say it, but. But more of the habituated unconscious strategies, like running away, fighting, or fleeing. And we will be responding, but if we're not consciously reacting, we are not necessarily focusing on the thing that could actually access more of this connection and safety and further slower processing for the sophistication of, like, really assessing more accurately what's happening. Okay, great. So I feel like that matches well. Okay, great. So, for people, I just want to emphasize that we are picking up on these cues of openness or closedness from our significant other.
Our partner's sensing it in us. Sowee already has that information; we're not always paying attention to it, and we don't always know what to do with it.
Yes, exactly. That's exactly right. And that's why I say this is bringing mindfulness to your couples' work with each other. Because aperture awareness is a mindfulness scale. It's an in-the-moment thing. When I talk about openness, I'm not talking about whether you are an open person as some general character trait or something? That's not what I'm talking about. What I'm emphasizing and pointing to is that our openness to each other is changing every moment in the moment. And if you're trying to figure out if your partner's open based on some general assessment of who they are as a person, that's. That's not actually helpful to you at all. Because their
****“Openness is going to change moment to moment, largely in response to your openness and vice versa.”******
We're very resonant with each other in this way.
So when people say, how do I get my partner to be open to me? I say the strongest trigger you have for getting your partner to be open is your own openness. So the real question is, how do you get yourself to be open so that your partner can open up? You know, our closeness is a natural guardedness. We feel unsafe. So the best way to get your partner to open up is to make them feel safe. And the best way to make them feel safe is to be very open with them. And open doesn't necessarily mean that kind of openness where you share everything right away, you put everything on the table. And it also doesn't refer to whether you're talking or silent. It refers to the openness of the heart. It means being open with someone.
And when people say, well, I don't know exactly what that is, or I can't, I don't know if I can feel my openness. Sometimes I say one of the ways to reverse engineer that and to kind of work your way back to knowing what this is, think about all those qualities that at your best you want to offer in a conversation, like generosity, patience, good listening, kindness, curiosity. All of those are things that if you're open, you can do that, and if you're closed, you can't. So if you want to know at any given moment, am I open right now or not, just ask yourself, am I capable of those kinds of things? If not, then probably you've closed down without maybe even knowing it. And now you need to figure out what to do about that. Yes.
I don't know if you would like this question, but when I was, I would say, in my late 20s, experiencing relationship challenges and conflict, I was. I don't remember where I came across it, but I would ask myself the question, am I wanting to resolve this right now, or am I wanting to be right, or having, like, pleading my case or whatever? And surprisingly, a lot of the times I'm like, ooh, I actually am in a place of, like, trying to be right. So it was really a great question for me to be reflecting on in real time. I wonder if you would also feel that it would be helpful. A lot of times, people get body signals, and I kind of get this sense when you talk about openness that, like, oh, I can let my guard down. I can feel relaxed.
I feel less armored.
That's the other reverse engineering trick that I teach people, which is that a lot of people feel, well, we all feel everything in our body. But for a lot of people, asking themselves what they're feeling in their body is the direct pathway. So open feels like warm, soft, fluid. Closed feels hard, cold, stiff. So if you're not sure if you're open or closed, just check in with your body. Is it nice and warm and soft, or is it kind of tight and closed and hard? And that's another way to get there. What I find is that once people can kind of do these translations, then it becomes more and more natural and even automatic that they know, oh, yeah, that's that open feeling. That's that closed feeling.
And, our brain is constantly processing all kinds of things out of our awareness, and the only time we become aware of them is when we have some specific reason to do so. So that
***“Signal has been there all along, but if you haven't been paying attention to it, you kind of have to find where it is.”***
Once you do, then it's there for you kind of all the time. A bit like riding a bicycle. Like, once you learn, you don't have to think about it. And definitely you. You can't really get to that feeling of openness by analyzing something it's not about. Should I be open now, or am I closed because of what? Throw out the because. Just go straight for open or closed. And that's what we're looking for.
Well, I appreciate that you distilled this to such a great extent. What could sound simple, but I appreciate how difficult it can be when things have gotten more escalated, or there are high stakes, or it feels really threatening and challenging. I want to talk about it a bit. But just as a side. This seems to map really well with the polyvagal research and also Gottman's research around spuds for connection and the warmth, and then the polyvagal, the tone of voice,e and the prosody or the micro facial expressions. And that's not something that we're gonna fake or try to put on. Yes, we can attempt to kind of steer in that direction, but it's real. Like you're saying, the mindfulness of accessing. Am I receptive? Do I really want to have a connection here?
And as I was describing, and you're saying, the emphasis on open or closed. And we talked a bit about strategy. One of the things that struck me in our earlier interview together, you were describing an exercise where you were asking the partners to really say one or two, like, sentences. And you talk about it in your book. You have lots of exercises. And I loved how you were really able to help people shift away from the order, emphasizing the importance of resolution, or needing to get out all of the explanation. We're so compelled by this. It's so seductive to think, oh, if they understood everything, then they'd understand. And we can have openness and connection. So it's like we're holding really tight to this idea that we need this understanding to be more open.
So talk to us a little bit about how you help people reorient here, away from de-emphasizing the need for resolution. I mean, you say so much about this.
Yeah. Part of what you're talking about is a need for resolution, even in the short parts of a conversation. And also, we're talking about the difference when we're talking to each other. That's why I emphasize slowing down when we're talking to each other. We're usually talking at a pace where we can't even process the content. How many times have you listened to somebody you think? I think I got about half of what they were trying to say, especially if they're speaking very quickly. Yeah.
*****“So the main technique for making conversations go well is, at the first sign of trouble, start pushing the brake a little bit, just like you would if you were driving and the road starts to get slippery. You don't hit the gas, you hit the brake, and you slow things down.”*****
And the exercise you're referring to is where I ask people instead of saying five paragraphs often, many couples have a. If they think they're sharing the conversation, or what they're really doing is sequential monologues. And that actually isn't a very good conversation. Because if you've ever listened to somebody talk to you for three paragraphs in a row, by the time they get to the end of the third one, you have no idea what they were talking about when they started. In two sentences, you do a few things. First of all, it requires you to think about, okay, if I only have two sentences, what right now do I most want to say? And then it requires you to not respond to that urge to say it again or say it a different way, or add more details, or whatever, just leave it there.
And I ask them to pause before the next person speaks. That's about the same length as two sentences. That's a really long pause. So the pace of that conversation is sort of like one person speaks and then there's a pause, and then the other person speaks, and there's a pause. And it's very different. Usually, when I first ask a couple to do this, their first reaction is that they get very frustrated. And if I send them home with the exercise, they'll tell me that they didn't do it because they started and they got so frustrated they wouldn't complete it. However, if I'm supervising them and they complete this exercise, meaning they use that rhythm throughout, let's say a 20-minute conversation, very quickly, what starts to happen is instead of getting tense and frustrated, they start to relax.
Now they start to relax because they do have time to process their feelings. They do have time to pay attention to openness, which they didn't have time to do before. And so they can kind of keep up with what's going on, and they can kind of modulate. Like if the last person, their partner said, made it clear that their partner was starting to get agitated after the pause, then they may want to say, you know, that maybe didn't sound quite right. Let me try it another way. So you can adjust, which is what you're looking for with this aperture awareness. So the most important thing is slowing down so that you can get this kind of awareness. And I think I may have wandered away from your initial question, but are we in the ballpoint part?
Yes, yes, yes. “I was asking about the compelling drive.”
“Oh, the approach.”
Yes.
“So there's that compelling drive to say everything as if. And you said it very nicely, as if the understanding is what's going to cause the connection.”
**“Understanding is important, but it's actually not the main thing about connecting. The main thing is, do I feel like you want to collaborate with me? Do I feel like you trust me enough to entertain my idea, which is different from yours? Do I trust you enough to tell you an idea I know you may not like? All of that is what's really building or pulling apart our connection.”****
The other aspect of resolution has to do with this mindset. People get very frustrated. Like, we've talked about this 10 times, especially when people come in to see me, and we hang up, same thing they've been talking about.
And one of them inevitably says, oh, we've already talked about this. This goes nowhere. Gottman's research shows that about, I think, 60% or more of the conversations that couples have with each other are on the same three topics. In other words, all relationships have these topics that it's not like you don't resolve. And some things aren't even resolvable. Like, suppose you have a major cultural difference within your couple, and one of you is one religion, and one is the other. It's not likely that you're going to resolve that. As in you're going to agree that you're going to. One of you is going to change. You might, but that's actually not necessary. What you're going for is that with each conversation, the conversation itself and the connection during the conversation get better and better.
And you do a better job of not alienating each other. And instead of building trust and understanding and openness, that's what the goal is, as opposed to getting rid of the topic so that you no longer have to talk about it. You will be on this topic. So stop trying to get rid of it and start trying to relax, to actually enjoy it, and trust that the two of you can talk about something that may have major differences embedded in it. That's not the end of the world. And it takes a while to figure that out. It does.
It really does. And I love that you're saying it's not necessary to have a solution or an outcome that feels like a resolution. That, in fact the journey and the process of collaborating, the experience of feeling like we're gonna support each other, we're gonna show up for each other. And while we might even arrive at something that feels like a win in a moment in time, that might change. We might need to have another conversation about what differences or growth emerge, and how we can still work together so that we can engage in this process that cultivates this more presence. And I really get the sense. And you already spoke to how reactive we tend to get as humans in these high-stakes conversations, that the slowing down is helping our nervous system.
It's a real assist to be able to feel, process, absorb, and use more of that prefrontal cortex to actually get the sophistication. There are so many times my husband's speed of processing or even verbalizing is different from mine. And without this particular focus, it was a different thing, just trying to slow down a bit more. And I would contemplate, and I would ask questions that were so helpful, but I would never have asked them had I not slowed down, guaranteed.
Yes.
And so we're able to utilize more of our faculties, as you said, the trust that we get to build, and also the contemplation of this collaboration. Right. And the understanding that is happening in the process. I think in your book, ok you talk about being able to even feel what I just said.
Right.
Like how actually aligned is that, or, you know, when I have to only have limited words, or how congruent and aligned is what I'm saying, and having the space and the silence after that to absorb it.
Yes.
And then to kind of fine-tune it if need be. So great. So talk to us a little bit. Because when you say open or close, some people might be thinking binary. And you do a really beautiful job of even just laying out. This can be on a continuum, and that can be a helpful thing for people to be cognizant of.
Yeah, good. Thank you. It's absolutely not binary. We're talking about something that is a complete continuum. Aperture, in a certain way, refers to the same thing we mean when we say somebody got defensive. The defense is closed. Right. But what I found was that the word defensive for me feels very solid. It feels like a wall. It feels like something static that's just there. And you either live with it or you blast through it. Right. Terrible.
Terrible.
And negative. It also sounds very negative.
Yes, yes.
So aperture instead. The reason for that word is that
***“An aperture is something that is constantly changing and changeable.”***
It's always moving. It closes a little bit. And it opens a little bit. And closes a little bit. And opens a little bit. So when I work with my couples, I have them put their report about how open or not they are on a 1 to 10 scale, with 1 being very closed, 10 being wide open. And they get used to the idea. Because some people, if I ask them, so how open are you now? They say, well, I'm open or not open. That's not really the story. What I want is, are you five or you're six? And so I tell them, think of it as a one to 10. Ten is wide open, one is very closed.
And five, which is right in the middle, that's kind of the good to go. Point 5 is the point at which, above 5, you are capable of good listening, patience, and curiosity. And. And below five, you're starting to close down enough that you actually are not listening well anymore. You're not talking very well anymore. Things are starting to go south, as they say. So, yes, it is absolutely a grayscale, and it's changing every moment. And just because you were open in one moment, like, three seconds later, you might be completely closed because your partner just made that funny look on their face that you hate. Right? Boom, you're closed. Right. But that doesn't mean you're closed forever. It means, oh, wow, I hated that. So then you might say, hold on a second, timeout.
I just need a minute to recover because you made that funny face. And I know you don't know what I'm talking about, but it really triggers me. So let me have a moment to recover. And now say again what you were going to say. That's what you can do with aperture awareness. You notice that you close down, and instead of just barreling past it like running a stop sign, you ask for a quick timeout to kind of regroup. And sometimes one of you needs to regroup, and often both of you, because of this aperture resonance; if one of you is closing down, the other one is not far behind.
So, this is anything four or lower. You would really recommend a pause or a regroup. Now, do you recommend a certain time? Some people have a hard time, even, you know, with the pace of life and work and all the demands, that this can feel like a risk of pushing it under the rug, so to speak.
Right. So the way I just think of that is, as apertures fall below a five, let's say you're headed towards a four. You are a four. At that point, you probably still have the ability, especially as you've learned some skills, you still have the ability to kind of catch yourself and regroup quickly. So you ask for a timeout, which means that you switch from the content of the storyline of what you were talking to each other about. You switch to what I call the process, which is looking at how you're talking to each other and how you're feeling, how's it going? And so time out. I just feel like I got really upset with what you just said. How are you doing? And the other person says, yeah, well, I'm really mad at you about what you said before that.
And at that point, you talk a little bit and see if there's something we could adjust quickly that would allow us to try again? Often when people. Not everybody, but often when people are in the middle of a difficult conversation, they don't want to just stop in the middle of it. They kind of want to keep going. So you try to regroup. Like, you might say, yeah, just please don't raise your voice like that, because that really upsets me. And the other person might say, well, you started talking. You threw my mother into the mix. And you know that every time you use my mother as an example, I get really upset with you, so could you just not do that? And then the other person might say, fine, okay.
And also, maybe we should limit the conversation to just talking about this vacation as opposed to talking about the whole year's vacations. Right? So that's the other adjustment. Just so you know, that you could limit the content is a good way to. Maybe the conversation has gotten too large. You need to bring it back to focus on what you really need to talk about in this conversation. So you make these small adjustments. Then you check in, okay, are you good to go again? Meaning, are you a five or better? If you're not, then you keep talking about, well, is there something else? What else do we need to do? Often, reassurances are needed at that point.
Often, if you have to call a timeout, what you need to do is some kind of reassurance, like, gee, I'm sorry, I didn't even know that I'd started to talk louder. Sometimes that's just automatic for me. Let me see what I can do. And I really don't want to put you off that way. And that wasn't my intention. Or I realized that what I said was kind of aggressive. It left me before I knew it. I'm not trying to overpower you here. Let me try again. So you reassure the other person about your good intentions, about your caring for them, about your desire for the conversation to go well. And then you go back in once you're back to a five, at least, and you see, can. With these adjustments, are you able to get it back on track?
And if so, you proceed, I want to say something about what if you can't proceed? And then I also want to say something about tens. So remind me, I have two things here. Suppose you can't get it back. Suppose you have a timeout at a four, you go back in, now you fall to a four, maybe you're down to a three. At a certain point,t you may decide, we just can't do it. Right now, it's good to just call a complete timeout. Gottman's research shows that for flooding, which I love that word, I don't ever remember whether I used it before I met Gottman.
Right, right.
But it's a great word. Yeah. And flooding,g I think of flooding on the one to 10 scale is like a one or a zero. That's when you're completely closed. And that means your blood system has now been. You've been stimulated for long enough that now you're pumped full of cortisone, adrenaline, all of those things that you're geared up for a fight. The deal about that state is that you can't instantly change it just because you want to. As long as those chemicals are in your bloodstream, it is a chemical reaction, and they have to be cleared. And that process takes about 20 minutes. So once you get down in the 1, 2 range of aperture, or if you feel like you can't get back to a five, then it's good to take at least a 20-minute timeout.
The way to take that, usually, there's going to be one of you that wants to take a timeout and the other one that doesn't. The way to do that is, suppose I feel like you've completely shut down, and therefore, I want a timeout. I don't say we have to stop because you shut down. Yeah, that's not going to be very good. Right? That's not. That's going to make things worse. Instead, if you're the person to notice, hey, this is getting off track. We need a 20-minute timeout. You simply say that, like, I would like to take 20 minutes to regroup, and then you agree to come back to it. Or you say, this isn't going very well, l and we need a break. But also, it's getting really late. Let's try this again tomorrow night.
So when you take a break, be sure to signal that you're going to reschedule, either with a specific time or simply say, I will finish the conversation with you. We'll figure out how to do that soon, but not right now. And over time. Some couples are bad at this. Over time, they can get better. They can learn to trust that. If you drop a conversation now, that doesn't mean you've dropped it forever. And for some couples, they need to learn that because they have gotten into the habit of not returning to difficult conversations. And once you learn that you will and can do that, it's a lot easier than modulating in this way.
Yes. Thank you. Did you get it? Was that the second?
I didn't say my second thing. My second thing is this. Just. Just highlight. This idea is kind of on the other end of the spectrum, especially in a challenging conversation, which many conversations between couples are. You're not trying to have everybody be at a 10 the whole time, because if you're at a 10 the whole time, if you're wide open and it's a tricky conversation, you're not putting everything on the table. You're not really having the conversation. What the 10 all the time says is you're playing it way too safe. And if you play it way too safe, you may feel more comfortable, but you're not going to have the conversations you need to have. And over time, that will harm your relationship.
So you're going to need to take enough risks that you are going to fall from a 10 to an 8, maybe even a 7, maybe even a 5. What you're looking for in a hard conversation is apertures that vary between 5 and 1,0 and usually kind of around 6, 7, 8. The range is really great. So you're keeping an eye on when things are falling. Maybe you need to adjust. Maybe you need to slow down as apertures pick up. You can maybe pick up the pace a little bit, or you could take another risk. So you're trying to get the hang of the right amount of risk-taking so that you're in that sweet spot, so that you can discover things, but without too much pain and injury. Mm.
And so important, because if we go too much into being closed or feeling unsafe, then we're not gonna be able to access connection because the protective mechanisms are so very strong, and that if we're a 10, then we're likely not taking very many risks around what really matters to us. And typically, when we have things that feel super significant, it's very vulnerable because we don't know if it's gonna be received well. And I wonder what you would say. But this also seems to tie in with people who have had previous relational wounds or injuries or even traumas, or they have certain ways in which they've learned to negotiate that. So it's almost like the very desire that's in them. They may feel closed before interacting with their partner.
So it's not always a ping pong that's creating a sense of closeness, but sometimes just the very nature of the topic feels so vulnerable that we might approach a topic with our loved one with a level of hesitancy or fear.
Yes. And of course, if you offer that right up front, the conversation gets off to a better start. Yeah. In other words,
**“Don't expect yourself to somehow not be who you are, to somehow be a hero, so that you could just barrel past all these difficult moments.”****
And lots of conversations need to start with, you know, this is going to be a tricky conversation for me. And it might be because of your past with your parents, it might be because of your past with your partner, or it might be because it was a bad day for you. So it often helps to start by saying, I want to try this conversation. I just want you to know it might be extra tricky. Let's start very slowly, and let's just keep track,k so you can give both of you a heads up.
This could be difficult.
**“Let's pay attention and help each other.”**
So incredibly important. And that in and of itself feels more revealing and a bit more vulnerable, and probably helps cultivate some openness that we're able to gauge because sometimes we miss. I don't know, I imagine. But I think we misread cues. Right. I keep sharing because I just feel like it's such a distilled thing. It was about a year and a half ago. My husband and I were at the dinner table, and I was sharing something. It wasn't incredibly profound, like it didn't mean all that much, but it was something I was sharing and wanted him to hear. And he was looking at it in a different direction. And I was like, I was reading it as closed. I was reading it. Not that I was using that framing at the time.
Right.
And I was interpreting it as, oh, he doesn't care. But I had enough resources to say, okay, that might be just a story I'm telling myself.
Right.
And so I vocalized it, this concern of like, oh, I'm worried you're not that interested. And he's like, well, I have a cold, I don't want to breathe on you. And I was like, oh, here I go.
Right.
Like that was like, that makes sense. And it was super helpful. So this makes it a bit more explicit or even where our numbers are, like, I didn't sleep that well, or I'm super hungry. But this is important. So I feel like I'm about a six or an A seven. That just builds awareness.
Yes. And of course, what that is, another way of saying what we're talking about is you're making your vulnerability available. Very often, people get upset because they are feeling vulnerable, and their partner is not responding in a caring, considerate way to the vulnerability that they're feeling. What they don't realize is they're not showing the vulnerability, they're hiding it, they're being defensive about it. And that's the thing about our automatic reading of things with our amygdala processing. Our amygdala reads the defense as closed and threatening.
Yes.
And therefore, the other person is more likely to go into a closed and threatening state. Right. And so when,
“If you want your partner to respond to your vulnerability, you have to make that vulnerability available.”
And so starting a conversation instead of saying, well hurry up because dinner's almost ready, which is the defense, and the partner's gonna get all huffy in response. Instead, you say, you know, dinner's almost ready, but let's just take a minute. And I just want you to know that because I'm thinking about dinner on the stove, it might not be the right time for me. I'm also a little tired.
So you kind offer up the various things that you're vulnerable, even if they're mundane things like I'm a little tired, but especially if they're important things like I'm feeling really vulnerable in this conversation because I think that you're gonna tell me we can't ever go to my parents house again because of what happened last Friday and that I'm just really upset about that. That is a vulnerable offering as opposed to don't you dare say we can't go back to my parents' house. Right. That's the defense. And that it's not going to get a caring, sympathetic response. Yes.
And this is mapping beautifully on the left, emotionally focused therapy work,k and really helping people access the deeper core feelings or attachment longings, making that more visible. So we're not getting into these really disconnected cycles. Wonderful. Well, just to kind of close the loop as far as the continuum 5 and above. Approaching a topic that may feel sensitive or just noticing. Because I love your book, you have a transcript of almost a couple's conversation, and it's like, as you said, it happens in just milliseconds that somebody said something, and then the other person said something, and then it gets close. So then you associate numbers. So it's not like 10, 1,0 and then all of a sudden it's like a five, it's like it's varying depending on whether we can slow down.
So, are you really recommending that people speak in these couple of sentences, back and forth as a practice, or is it just an experiment to see what it feels like? But I would imagine you would say slow it down.
First of all, I recommend that they do that experiment or that exercise several times so that they get the hang of it and get comfortable with it. Because if they do, that does two things. One, it sensitizes them to the pace of the conversation, no matter what the pace is. And secondly, it builds a little easier. If things get difficult, they know how to slow it down. They may actually literally say, hold on, let's do that two-sentence thing, which is great. Or they may do that in a more informal way. Like, they may. Like, if I start talking a little more slowly, it's more likely that you will. Right. And it's like I have a sister who talks a mile a minute.
And several years ago, I realized that if I just talked a little slower, we would both slow down. And so there you go. So, yes, I recommend that people do the exercise explicitly to learn about it, to become more sensitive to it, and then to be aware that at times they can remind themselves, just slow it down, and that will work. So, yeah, as you said, there are a lot of exercises in the book, and all of them are things that have two purposes. There are things that, if you do them in a conversation, will actually help just in and of themselves. And the second purpose, or maybe the first purpose, really, is that these are things that are going to enable you to be more aware of what's going on.
And as far as I'm concerned,
“Awareness is the most important thing, and everything comes from there.”
No kidding. And the focus of this openness and closed aperture is such a great analogy of the camera and the aperture. Is that how you came up with it?
Well, maybe subliminally, because I take a lot of pictures. I wasn't thinking of the camera aperture. So, yes, it's like a camera aperture, but really, biologically, our bodies have all kinds of apertures. The camera aperture is modeled after the aperture in our eyes. Yes. Turns out that physiology, the living world, has all kinds of open and closed mechanisms to regulate things. There's even in cells, there's this little tiny thing called the chloride channel. And what is a little tiny aperture, a molecular aperture in the cell wall that regulates cell salinity? If you can imagine, this is at the microscopic level. So the way life regulates itself is with apertures. And this is pointing to a particular aperture, which is our social, emotional aperture to each other.
Beautiful. And just to follow up on that, even our breath, the inhale, the exhale, or the expanding and the contracting that closes isn't inherently bad. It's an indication of perhaps feeling some level of threat or unsafe.
Absolutely.
And that, in a few bonding sessions, we want to prioritize more safety. But do you want to speak to that?
We need to feel safe with each other, and we have a natural mechanism. In fact, I would say one of the ways to be not so adroit and even safe in relationships is to be wide open, no matter what. It's actually very sane, sound, and wise to kind of figure out how safe you are with a certain person and to be appropriately open. So we want to have this variable ability to make ourselves available or not. It's just that we don't want to miss out on a connection that's available by being more closed than we need to be. And what I'm talking about is how to become very wise about that. Yes, thank you.
And when we talk about long-term intimacy, when things really matter, that's where we have a lot of capacity and possibilities to be more revealing or make that more visible and direct versus the protective ways in which we attempt to hide or conceal. This is fabulous. Well, I love again, just coming back to how we are tracking this and have this awareness or the observation of openness and closeness. We're not always consciously focusing on it, and we also don't always know what to do with it. So I love this. Is there anything you want to say about perhaps micro moves or ways in which just attending to the aperture effect that's happening, both individually, for both partners? If we're talking about a monogamous relationship, and also just the closeness, I guess.
What I would like to emphasize is that this is totally learnable. And in fact, it's not even that hard. It takes some practice. And that goes for mindfulness and aperture awareness, which is kind of a subset of mindfulness. You don't have to spend a million hours on a cushion to develop mindfulness. In fact, you could develop it very quickly in one quick five-minute practice, and then you develop more of it with another five-minute practice. So the things that I'm talking about are not things that are very far away from you. They simply require knowing how these things work and knowing how your system works so that you can start to just remind yourself in a moment of having that feeling in a conversation, just remind yourself, okay, take a minute. You don't have to rush.
You don't have to answer right away. You don't even have to know what you feel right away. You just have to know you need a minute. And we don't ask often enough for each other to give us a minute to process. Somehow, we think we should instantly know exactly what. So I would say these things are totally learnable. And the trick to learning mindfulness is to be open to going into a place where you don't know. Not knowing is very uncomfortable for us. And I think
“The main reason people avoid mindfulness, and we do avoid it, is because we're biased towards wanting to know.”
And to truly be mindful, we're talking about entertaining a state where, actually, you're open enough and without any prejudgment of what's going to happen, that you can perceive what's happening freshly.
And that requires being somewhat comfortable with being in some uncertainty and some not knowing which way, of course, is the state from which you learn things. Right. That's what I would say.
Oh, thanks so much for giving us this. Katherine, what would you say about where people can get their book? Will you say the book's title again?
Sure. The book is called The Aperture Effect, and the subtitle is A Radically Simple Approach to finding joy and connection in your relationship. But all you need to remember is it's called The Aperture Effect. And the best place probably to find several different links to it and some more information about it would be on my website. So, kathrynfordmd.com, and at that website, you'll find all kinds of things, including some links for getting the book.
Excellent. And what else might they find?
What else they may find is my blog. They will find links to all kinds of media things I like. They will soon find a link to this interview, and they'll probably find a link to the one that I did with you a few years ago, also. So they'll find all kinds of videos of me and short sequences of me giving talks, et cetera. So there'll be some extra materials there. Pretty soon, they'll start to find some guided meditations. Lovely Our Soul, which will go up probably within a couple of weeks. So, various other resources like that, and contact information for me.
I love it. Wonderful. Thank you so much for all that you've shared, this beautiful piece of work, and what you're doing in the world. I'll make sure to have all those links on Today's Show Notes.
Thank you. Jessica. It's wonderful to talk to you again.
Likewise.
The post ERP 513: Why Openness Matters More than Resolution in Couple Communication — An Interview with Kathryn Ford, M.D. appeared first on Jessica Higgins.
What if playing it safe is actually keeping you from the life and relationships you truly want? Too often, fear convinces us to stay small, avoid discomfort, and stick to familiar routines, especially when it comes to our most important connections. The result? Missed opportunities for deep intimacy, vibrant trust, and authentic connection. It's a paradox: the very quest for comfort may be the greatest risk of all.
In this episode, listeners are invited to challenge the idea that comfort equals happiness. Through inspiring stories and practical tools, the conversation explores how embracing courage, even in small, everyday ways, can lead to deeper, more meaningful relationships. Discover why facing fears (rather than running from them) is essential for personal growth and intimacy, and how a simple courage practice can transform both self-perception and connection with loved ones. Whether it’s starting an uncomfortable conversation or supporting each other through life’s uncertainties, this episode offers actionable steps to help anyone move from fear to flourishing in their relationships.
Scott Simon is a thought leader, TEDx speaker, bestselling author, and founder of the Scare Your Soul movement, helping people transform their lives through small daily acts of courage. He’s worked with the UN, Nestlé, Ritz Carlton, Logitech, and the Cleveland Clinic to build braver teams and more connected cultures. When he’s not leading keynotes or designing transformative retreats, you’ll find Scott chasing live music, journaling in strange airports, or hunting down the world's best hole-in-the-wall restaurants.
Episode Highlights04:24 Overcoming the tendency to shrink back and building momentum through bravery and courage.
09:20 How embracing discomfort leads to growth and creativity.
16:16 How small actions outside your comfort zone can build courage and lead to transformative outcomes.
20:08 Challenging relationship norms for deeper bonds.
28:47 Unlocking authenticity through vulnerability in relationships.
32:10 Aligning courageous choices with core values in relationships.
35:30 Personal examples of standing in your truth.
39:56 Practicing self-awareness and micro acts of courage for relational growth.
Your Checklist of Actions to Take* Start a daily courage practice: Each day, do one small thing that scares you or takes you out of your comfort zone, just as the guest recommends. * Pause and check in with yourself: Before difficult conversations, take a moment to breathe deeply and center yourself, allowing self-awareness to guide your next steps. * Reflect on your core values: Use your values as a filter when deciding which courageous actions to take in your relationships. * Initiate honest conversations: If you're holding back something important, practice being the one to “go first” and share vulnerably, even if it feels risky. * Name your feelings in real-time: During tough moments, state what you’re experiencing physically or emotionally (e.g., “My heart is racing right now”), to foster connection and authenticity. * Seek support for brave actions: Engage a partner or friend to do something courageous together, which can increase commitment and make the experience richer. * Replace silence with authentic sharing: Consider what keeping quiet is truly serving, and choose to communicate openly instead of bottling things up. * Practice small acts of kindness: Try courage-building social acts, like initiating a friendly conversation or buying someone a coffee, to strengthen your confidence and connectedness.
MentionedScare Your Soul (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
David Schnarch (*Wikipedia link)
Conscious Loving (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
12 Relationship Principles to Strengthen Your Love (free guide)
Connect with Scott SimonWebsites:scottsimon.us |scareyoursoul.com
Instagram:instagram.com/scareyoursoul
Substack:scareyoursoul.substack.com
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Episode Transcript
Scott, thank you for joining us.
Jessica. It is so good to be with you.
Likewise. And I'm so appreciative of the work that you do and how you deliver it. I was just giving you compliments about your English background and just your ability to share stories and really help this be very accessible, but also enjoyable to read and engage with. One of the things you're really passionate about is helping people have moments of courage and chase their fears. What would you like to start with around how this became a focus? And I know we're going to be applying this to intimate relationships, but let's just get connected with you here.
Sure. And again, so great being with you. I love your work and am just very excited to talk to you about what I think is –
*******“Honestly, the key to a flourishing life and to flourishing relationships. And that is courage. Because without courage, we can't have vulnerability, intimacy, and growth. We end up getting stuck in our comfort zones and in our patterns and sometimes in loneliness and isolation.”*******
And you and I know that relationships are the key to a happy life. So if the key to a happy life is relationships, and courage is the key to that, it is really, I think, the most important practice that we can have in life. A courageous practice.
Yes.
And for me, it began with half of my life being the opposite of courageous. I grew up very shy. I was bullied for many years and lived a life of shame for those who are bullied. You know what it feels like. It's not something you want to share or talk about. And so I led this incredibly scared and small life for many years until an epiphany on an airplane overseas changed everything for me. And that really shifted my entire focus from focusing inward on what I couldn't do to chasing my fears like they were beacons of possibility.
Well, thank you for sharing just the origin story here, and also how you've been so passionate about helping people access this, and what can open for people, and the possibilities, before we turn towards a relationship. I'm curious, just even as you're sharing here, this constriction, or even as you said in your book about your superpower of wanting to hide. Right. This sense of pulling back and that constriction when some people listen may have resonance with times in their life where they have had moments of bravery or courage, and then the tendency to shrink back. And as you talk, it sounds as though this just kept building in momentum. Did you ever have times of constriction, of wanting to shrink back, or kind of that homeostasis of, like, the gravitational pull towards what was?
Jessica, I think you have just articulated the human condition. We all. Whenever we make steps towards growth, there is this inevitable want to pull back because what's on the other side of that is unknown. We don't know what is on the other side of that. And our bodies and our brains. You're more of an expert than anybody about this. But our bodies and our brains are telling us to go back into comfort. This is a scary place. We don't know what's going to happen. We don't know what the ramifications are.
Even if it's not our healthier, more optimal state. Right.
In fact, oftentimes, and I would argue that it isn't that I use the phrase sometimes, and it can be a little jarring, that comfort is a liar.
I love that.
And when,
****“We allow that whisper into our ear of it's going to be. It just remains where you are. It's going to be okay. This is where we need to be. This is what society tells us we should do. We don't want to rock the boat. We don't want to open up that uncomfortable conversation. We enter this zone, this kind of. We don't think it's a downward spiral, but it really is.”******
And I was very lucky when I was asked to go overseas for a year to teach English. I had no idea who I was going to be living with. I didn't speak the language of the country I was going to. I didn't even know how to teach English. Yes, you're very kind. I was an English major in college, but I did not know how to teach it.
And there are moments in our lives, Jessica. And I know all of your listeners have had them where everything is screaming say no. And for some reason, you say yes, and you step off the proverbial cliff.
Yes.
And I was really lucky because when I got on that flight, this is gonna sound very unlucky, but I think that oftentimes the things that we think are the unluckiest or the most tragic end up being the greatest gifts in our lives. I had a panic attack on that flight because I thought, I can't do this. I don't have the skills. I'd never had a really significant intimate relationship. I was shy. Everything was like, don't do this. Just don't do it. And I had this panic attack, and I was sweating, and my heart was racing, and I had a little mead spiral notebook in my backpack. Do you remember those?
Yes.
Right. Like, yes, I'll picture like a Mead spiral notebook. I don't know if they're around anymore, but I had one, and I pulled it out of my backpack, thankfully, and I set it on the tray table in front of me. And what came out of my pen were eight words. And I don't know where they came from. I don't remember ever learning this or even hearing, I swear. But I wrote,
***“Do one thing every day that scares you.”***
And Jessica, what that became for me was a courage practice. Because when I landed in this foreign environment and moved in with this wonderful family that hosted me and became almost like surrogate barons, every single day, I did something new. It was to say hello to a stranger, go to the post office, or get on a bus.
Just like the things that society doesn't tell us are courageous, but they are. They are stepping stones that are necessary for a courageous life. Just like if you want a meditation practice, you have to sit on your cushion or on your floor and enter that moment. So for a full year, I did one thing every day that scared me. And like any great practice, it worked that muscle. And by the end of that year, I was a completely different person.
Thank you for sharing that. First of all, I appreciate just your recognition that some of our most uncomfortable, even painful, tragic circumstances, something really beautiful can emerge if we're willing to turn towards that. And whatever was moving through you to pull out that notebook, something you felt probably somewhat comfortable with, but allowing a space to have creativity or access to something, then outside of what you were presently experiencing with that panic, and what you were able to follow. And I also love the challenge to give focus, commitment, and discipline. And that I think can counteract some of the normal habitual tendencies to constrict or to keep us safe in this proverbial way, of that it's an illusion, as you talk about this comfort as a lie.
And so it allowed you to stay, I'm sure, the course probably many times that you were like, I don't know, maybe all the reasons and excuses are all why you maybe didn't want to do it. But still, to be in this foreign place and all the things that you were asked to learn, I mean, it just seemed necessary also. So it was quite the incubator.
It sounds like it was. And that is such a great word to use. And I would ask your listeners in a way to think about their own lives as an incubator. And so much I deal with fear and courage every single day, I experience it myself as a human. We're all humans, and we deal with the same issues. And I also deal with it as somebody lucky enough to work with this “courage movement”, where I'm talking to people all the time about the fears that stop them from being their best, most flourishing selves. And you know,
**“The truth is so much of that fear that holds us back in relationships and in work and in our lives is imagined. It hasn't happened. Most likely it will not happen.”**
If it does happen, it may end up being the greatest outcome that you could have ever imagined, even though you are trying to achieve something else. And I'll give a very relevant example. I was married for five years, had two wonderful children, and lived in a house with a white picket fence. I mean, I can't be in beautiful Shaker Heights, Ohio, this idyllic place. And our relationship did not work. My ex-wife, Laura, and I got divorced, and I was thrust into a life of being a single co-parent, only being able to see my kids 50% of the time, which was heart-wrenching, and everything about it seemed tragic and sad, and I never thought that I would recover.
And it's funny what time and perspective do because to me that ended up being literally one of the greatest gifts of my entire life. My ex-wife and I entered a thriving functional co-parenting relationship where our kids were our North Star. And I use that phrase very intentionally. Yes, every decision that was made by the two of us, our goal was to view what was best for the kids as our North Star.
I love it.
And it also allowed me to lead a spiritual journey of my own to bring yoga into my life, which was the greatest physical and spiritual practice, probably that I've ever found for me personally. And it also led me to meet a wonderful professor at Harvard who was teaching positive psychology. And I found this whole field of people who study happy people. So when I look back on it, and I think, Jessica, we all can and should do this, is to not just accept life as this series of events that happen, but to look at those moments in our lives where we thought this is the end. This is the worst bump that I've encountered. Those usually are the most defining moments of our lives and oftentimes can provide us with wisdom and passion that we would have never achieved otherwise.
No kidding. Thank you for sharing. “And also just on some societal, whatever terms or whatever imagined sense of expectations that we have that wouldn't necessarily be something that we would say, oh, we would wish to happen or want to happen.” Right. And yet what transpired for you was quite transformative in so many ways. And really, as you're describing, in my opinion, we don't know what's going to happen. And so, entering into these dialogues or confronting things that feel scary and true and the unknown around, are we going to cultivate a new relationship? Like, what's going to happen here? We don't know. And what asks of us and the relational skills to negotiate that? And also, just all the work that you do to help people access courage. It's not that the fear isn't there.
I appreciate your acknowledgment, just as I am very much committed to the practice, but this isn't alleviating. You're. You feel fear. I feel fear. I mean, not that I don't think I. Nobody thinks. I don't.
But yes, I think you have hit on. I think maybe it is
***“One of the biggest fallacies and one of the greatest keys to open this lock. And that is not about becoming fearless.”***
A courageous practice, which I'm happy to talk to you about, people hear those words, and they wonder, what is a courageous practice? But it's not about becoming fearless like a yoga practice or a meditation practice. It's not like you get a certificate and it's done. Okay, you're a yogi or a yogini, now you're done. It is actually a lifelong practice. You can always go a level deeper. You can always reach for another complexity that you haven't encountered before.
And your body is going to be different every day.
Yes, exactly. So when you get on your mat on a Thursday, it is going to be different than a Friday, a Saturday, or a Sunday. And so I really view courage practice very much the same way that on certain days you're going to feel great, like you can conquer the world. And you go in, and you ask for that raise. You have that hard conversation with your partner that you know is going to be additive to your relationship. And some days it's just going to feel like the biggest courageous step you can take is getting out of bed in the morning.
Yes.
And to honor that, and I really do believe that when we start pushing comfort zones in small ways, not big leaps, quitting jobs or leaving relationships or moving out of the country, what we think of as these.
*****“When we think of courageous people, we think of people who have done these things that have shifted society or business or have written that book that changed everybody's mind, or literally, like quit their life and move to another country, or like Gandhi or Martin Luther King Jr. Changed the way that the world operates. And of course those people are courageous, but so are you and so am I, and so is everybody listening.”*******
And if we just allowed ourselves the grace to not have to do these big, huge acts, but actually
“Choose to just do small things every single day.”
I promise you, those things build momentum. They build self-efficacy, like a sense of agency in us. And with everyone, we start to see what's on the other side of uncertainty. And sometimes those things are unexpected, and sometimes they are beautiful, and sometimes they are powerful. And I'll just give you a quick example that's completely actionable for everybody listening and is scary. Okay? It's scary. I'm gonna say, when I started Scare Your Soul, which is our “courage movement,” I began offering challenges to people because people were desperate for practical ways that they could become more courageous in their lives. And I think it was the first practice.
If it wasn't the first, it was among the first, and it was the next time you're getting a cup of coffee at a coffee shop, look at the person behind you, ask them if you could buy them a cup of coffee, and then have a conversation with them as you are both waiting for your coffees. Okay? That's it.
I love it.
I have done it around 250 times, and it has become famous within our community. And here's the funny thing, Jessica, apropos to what you said before, it's never easy. Even after 250 cups of coffee that I have bought every single time, it's a question mark. What is this person going to say? What's the interaction going to be like? Are they empty? Am I going to feel rejected? This is so relevant to relationships. Literally. What is this going to do to my self-conception? Is there going to be a scene? Is it going to be embarrassing? All of these projected questions that we all live our lives with every single day. And this is an act that, for me, allows me to confront that as a human. 99% of the time, there is a wonderful positive outcome.
Yes, every once in a while, you get an itchy person who you know is either having a bad day or it's not their cup of tea, no pun intended, and they decline, or they ignore you, or something like that. But really, that's not the point. The point is
**“That's when we take steps into uncomfortability, whether it's in a coffee shop or with a partner, and do the right thing, do the thing that is based in courage, and in service and in love.”**
That's the kind of life I want to lead, and I think everybody does.
*“And when we do these things in small ways, it really builds that muscle and we start to see ourselves, not just as people doing courageous acts, but as courageous people just leading our lives.”*
Absolutely. I love the smile when you share what this means to you. And as you mentioned, positive psychology and happiness research, I feel that this also dovetails really beautifully into that work, and that it's acts of kindness or acts of service, and it's also interacting. There's a social component to it, and I think it's really adding a ripple effect and making a difference in someone's life or even in a small, short way that doesn't ask a whole lot. So as we look at intimate relationships, one of the things, as you were talking and even sharing your own story and people's preconceived notions around what it means to be a good partner, or what are the vows, what are the commitments? And that might challenge, as you say, the status quo or the comfort zones of just this confinement.
And it's not to say, oh, if we're really giving room and space, that any of those vows or commitments would be challenged. It's just this kind of, again, this lie that we have to live in these confines of a box of some sort. And when you are working with people and the examples around how they're negotiating more intimate courage acts or in their romantic relationship, is there anything you want to say about how people might approach the relational space with a lot of this heaviness of what? I'm sorry, the question's getting bigger and bigger, but I'm aware that people's attachment tendencies around how they expect other people to respond to them, how they relate, you know, just a sense of holding back, that is part of how they organize in the world. So that isn't even just the relationship; it's just how they function.
But there are a lot of layers here around what interactions have happened in the past that somehow it was. Didn't go well. And so it's almost this information around, like, let's not go there. Let's not do that again. So. And this is high stakes. That's why I think it's really important for Aeriths to be a little bit more specific about the romantic space. Because when we talk about the nervous system, we see our intimate partner as survival. So you said something about micro, like, I imagine that fits here. So talk to the bigger picture, and then let's see if we can make this a little bit more practical.
Yeah. And I want to honor everything that you just said. It is so true. And Right. Like
**“To lead a courageous life does not mean leading an easy and carefree and wrapped up in bubble wrap life. It doesn't.”****
And I think we've all had experiences with loved ones and significant others where an interaction where we wanted the right thing to happen or the expected thing to happen didn't, and it caused trauma or disconnection or even just feeling that it didn't go well. I think that is absolutely part and parcel of this work. I think that where I get interested, as both a person who wants to have strong, intimate relationships in my own life and in helping others, is identifying where the fear exists that is holding us back from doing what we believe is in the service of the relationship.
And I'm not a psychologist, and although I have a certificate in positive psychology, I would not even call myself a positive psychologist. But I coached divorcing men for a very long time. They began to come to me because they saw my amazing ex-wife and co-parent, Laura, and me sitting together at every ballet recital, every basketball game. They would see us laughing, connecting, and sharing. And then they would see her leave with her husband, who's an amazing guy. And so men would start calling me and asking me to have coffee. And it wasn't about the kind of coffee I was talking about earlier, where you're buying coffee for a stranger. This was, I need help. And we would sit in my living room, just the two of us, many men over the years.
And I began to see that it was fear that was stopping them from doing what they, in their gut, in their intuition knew was right for that relationship, but they were too afraid to do it. And we began talking about, first of all, what silence was doing for them or against them in that moment, what silence was serving? And I would allow that question to drop. And real wisdom arose from that question. And most oftentimes, it was silence that was not serving. And even if there was a previous interaction that was rough and rocky and bumpy and left people feeling raw, that authenticity and truth and allowing ourselves to step vulnerable towards someone as opposed to away from them is a good thing.
I don't know instances where, I mean, I don't speak in absolutes typically, but I don't see that resulting in anything negative that even if it's hard to hear, but even just smaller scale that typically it's gonna be the thing that actually helps Bring connection, even if it's difficult to hear or even if it's just like I didn't know that or being able tolerate. Thank you for speaking to this. This is so important. So please continue. Sorry.
Yeah. No, no, no. I'm so glad you're adding context to this. A phrase that I would often use with the men who would come to meet with me. And it's very simple, it's two words. And I'll be curious to hear if you disagree with it, but I would always use the phrase go first. And I think when you lead a go-first life.
Yeah.
You are, first of all, being courageous, bold, and brave because we all know how it feels when we say to ourselves, I know there's that conversation that is hiding under that rug, and I just hope they bring it up first, and we can avoid it until that happens. And I see this, of course, a lot in the workspace where things are happening, people are avoiding the tough conversation. I've worked with CEOs who were afraid to tell their boards bad news, understandably. But when you adopt a go-first life, you are the tip of that spear, and you begin to say, we both know that we have to have this conversation, and you begin it.
And I don't know the statistics around what happens after that, but I think the vast majority of people are so thrilled and relieved and proud of themselves that they actually had that conversation, and they opened it up first.
Absolutely. I mean it's making what you're talking about, the self efficacy, the agency, the authenticity and being in alignment in my working with couples, when someone can access a deeper fear that's vulnerable, doesn't feel pretty or sexy or anything or the thing that I'm afraid is going to be too upsetting for my partner to hear what have you, or just that it's going to get things off track. Usually, people feel so relieved, they feel lighter, they feel more whole. And then to the concept of going first, like it's setting a tone. And one of the things that I feel is particularly important is staying more on track.
There's an efficiency level to it, and that we're not going to take all these off-track routes that might lead to more pain and more armoring up and decisions or inefficiencies that don't result in the thing that we're wanting to cultivate. But there's also something that I think happens in the interaction when somebody's reading the nervous system of the other and cues of closed, it's really hard to be open. Right. So it's just. It has this ripple effect. So if one is gonna go first, there's a setting the tone, it's the leadership that you're describing. And it's also inviting the openness that typically, the other person will sense whether or not they're too afraid to follow. I mean, we can't do anything about that. But I do believe that this is really powerful and that we can always start.
Even if your partner initiated and had a harsh startup, so to speak, we can still access. And this vulnerability, I mean, this is Brene Brown‘s work. I mean, so much EFT like all of this, and even the professor, Harvardprofessor that you were speaking about in your book, and this question of like, how are you really? And three minutes to answer that, or the way in which we can drop into more revealing. It's connected. The research says over and over again how connected it is.
Absolutely. And it's holistic because when we start acting more bravely in our work lives, it integrates into our personal lives and vice versa. We're the same human. We arrive at work as the same person who leaves and goes home and interacts with our kids, our significant others, or our parents as a caregiver. It is integrated. And I'd like to add just one layer if I could. And that is what happens when people start pursuing a courageous practice and doing it together.
Let's hear.
Because I think there is so much of my work and the work of scare your soul, which is this kind of very organic global courage movement where people are doing brave things and giving feedback to the community, and we're all in it just to support each other, taking brave actions in our lives. That's it. There's no intended outcome other than can we all lead the best, most honest, most authentic, most giving lives possible. And when you do it in the context of others, the effect is. So it's like a multiplier effect and acts on what we can do alone.
Yes.
And so when you have a significant other who is of a mindset where they're willing to start this process together, they're. They're willing to be bolder every single day in small ways. You end up engaging in experiences, in conversations, building memories together that are so rich. And I'm not going to say again that this is easy, that it's this linear path. It isn't, but my girlfriend and I were just in the Grand Canyon the other day, and she said to me, there is a mule ride that takes you from the top of Bright Angel Canyon all the way down four and a half miles and back up. And oftentimes the mule is right on the edge of this trail where there are all these loose stones. And I have a fear of heights that holds most humans.
Now, here's the interesting part about this. She asked me if I would like to do it, and I said yes. I said yes, partially because I have a courage practice, and I do one thing every day that scares me, and this was going to be my thing of the day. But as we got closer and we started to read more about it, and in the materials, it said, by the way, if you have a fear of heights and this may not be comfortable for you, there's an easy way to cancel. No questions asked, we'll give your money back. And so she looked at me, and she said, do you want to cancel? Like, it's totally fine. And I looked at her, and I thought to myself, you know what? We're doing this together. There's no way I'm canceling.
If I were doing it alone, I would give you a 50% chance that I would cancel that, but because someone was doing it with me, and she knew what I was going through, and she was there for me as we did. And we knew that this was going to build muscle and memory. And you know what? I did it, Gary. Hell, yes. It really was. But by the time we got down to halfway, I was loving it, and my trust level was so much stronger. And by the time I got to the top, Jessica. We looked down at the Grand Canyon, and I had a different relationship with the Grand Canyon than I had before I started. Yeah, it looked just as beautiful, and it looked.
The colors were just as vibrant, but it was like I was part of the Grand Canyon. I wasn't just looking at it. That's life.
Yes.
When we engage, when we do the scary thing, and when we do it with people who love us or support us, it is so much richer, and our chances for launching ourselves off the cliff are proverbially so much greater. And then we get to share those memories with that other deeply held person. “Oh, my gosh. What a way to lead life.”
Absolutely. And you had an experience you weren't observing, you were experiencing, and it was now a part of you. And yes, in couplehood, a lot of the research really endorses what. How much more resilient, how much stronger we are when we're in partnership. So this support that you're referring to. And also, we can inspire each other, hold each other accountable, and, you know, really stretch these stretch goals. So I know we're winding down here. I have two questions I want to ask. One is for people listening; I can just feel a little bit of a rattle. And I know that so much of what you're speaking to has an element of service, has an element of kindness.
One of the things I've understood about people who hold back from saying, as you were talking about coaching men contemplating divorce or going through a divorce, is this sense of self-interest. I mean, sure, there is self-interest and self-focus that does benefit the greater good, but do you have quality checks that you help people evaluate? Is this something that is going to be good? Yeah. So talk to us a little bit about that because a lot of this is fear, and a lot of it is our mechanisms to keep us in habitual states. But talk to us a little bit about how that encourages one to take these brave, courageous acts.
To me, values are the foundation of it all. And I think if you were to ask me to come up with one kind of filter, one quality check, as you said, for the kind of brave actions that I attempt to take every day, whether they're in a relationship or not, but certainly within a relationship. I have a section in my book, and if people want to find a list of values or define the values that are most important for them, there are many ways to find that. But I always go back to what my core values are as a person, what drives me, what informs me, where are my foundational stones? And if I'm operating from those values, I think I'm on track. And I think this is so important to reiterate. This is hard work. It really is.
I in no way am saying that if you go out and buy a hundred cups of coffee, you're going to have a great relationship with your partner. This is hard work. But I think if we all look at the relationships that mean the most to us in life, those 2 am phone calls that you make when you're stuck at the airport, or the first phone call that you make when you enter a breakup or something tragic is happening, those are not relationships that are founded in comfort.
**“Those are relationships that are founded in honesty and love and authenticity. And you don't always say the easy and comfortable thing. And it's not always nice and sweet and pleasant. It is real.”**
“It's real. Courage is rooted in. I mean, the word comes from the heart.”
Yeah.
“The word courage isn't about doing these things outside of us. It is doing what our heart tells us is the right thing for us.”
Our loved ones and the world. And if we can ground ourselves in what our values are and then use those values as the compass and not allow those fears, those imagined toxic fears, to stop us, we are going to lead lives that are full of passion and authenticity and audaciousness. And I don't know about you, but that's the path I want. I want the path down the Grand Canyon. We can all stand at the top looking in and marveling. You could look at a photo on the inside. You don't even have to go. You could look at a photo in five seconds, and it's going to be gorgeous. I don't want that life.
I want the life on the mule clomping down about to look over the edge. That's the life I want. I want love and service and kindness and passion, and I don't know any better way of achieving it than doing the brave thing every single day.
Yeah, thank you, Scott. I appreciate that. A quick example for people listening from my own life, that this isn't about saying what you observe about the other person. This isn't about giving someone feedback or here's my assessment about. It's this very core need or desire or dream that you speak about. It's not about what you think about other people. This is a very intimate thing. And this was like 2005, 2006, different people referenced some of what you're talking about. And I had been reading some of David Schnarch's work. So he's all about “differentiation and learning how to hold onto yourself and speaking, tolerating discomfort.” And then I was also reading* Gay and Katie Hendricks's work, “Conscious Intimate Relationship”, and they're talking about, say have a sweaty 10-minute conversation*.
And I was dating my now husband, and I had a feeling that it was super socially awkward, to be honest. Initially, he was like offering this invite, and I told him I had other plans, and he kind of retracted it in a joke, and I was like, is he playing with me? Like what's going on? So I actually shared what that felt like, and that was like we're just like not never hadn't even been on an actual date yet. And that was super uncomfortable. Socially awkward. But I felt like I held to something I was experiencing and helping him know me more. But the more vulnerable was fast forward many months, I felt like I was more into him than he was with me.
And I just his expressional or his expression and his verbal cues and all the things I just Couldn't read him as well. Nonetheless, I really stayed with that, and I shared that with him, and I, oh my God, I can still feel it inside me how terrifying it was to share. But I felt the importance of not getting into this game of like who's calling who, or you know, overthinking things. I just wanted to own and also be in the service of. I want something deep and real, and if he's just wanting to play, great, but that's not what I'm about. So to be able to speak that, it did feel like stepping off the cliff.
And gratefully, he responded in a way that really helped us know each other more, but it provided access to a deeper connection, versus us kind of playing and dancing around each other, but more. I also didn't abandon myself as I stood in what, to your values point, I had the value of a long-term partnership. And so that was not easy work.
I'm so glad you brought up that example. I think that is so real and true, and we all go through it every single day. The complexity of our relationships, both intimate and work, and friendships are fraught. And your ability to stand in an embodied way in yourself and have that conversation before you even went on your first date is, first of all, gave him the awareness of what he was dealing with. I feel like he does immediately. And guess what? He didn't run from it. Yeah. And I think it is so indicative of that example that this was a relationship where he was ready to go there with you, were going to be brave, bold, authentic, live in your values, say what was really happening, he took it in, was able to respond, the relationship was able to progress. Yeah.
I would say if he acted differently, responded differently, that's probably not the right guy for you.
No, it would have been great information.
Great information. Right. So I know that's really hard. But I think when we step boldly and have that go first mentality, and we put ourselves at the edge of that proverbial cliff and say,
“The thing that might risk feeling rejection, might risk feeling sadness or regret, all of those things that we armor up against, that's where the gold is.”
It really is. That's where the gold is. And so if people can just kind of remember how they navigate those most trusted relationships in their lives, where there's no filter, you just, you say it because it's hard and because it's love. If we're able to approach all of our relationships like that, whether it's the person in the coffee shop behind you or the person you're coming home to at night, you start to really lead a courageous, honest, loving life.
That's what it's all about.
Yes, yes. Well, my other question, I'm just gonna point people to your book for, but I will speak briefly in that when we. As you were saying, it doesn't have to be these big leaps. It can be these small increments in conversation, sometimes things are moving quickly. Some people don't even know what they're feeling. So just even saying I notice my body feels tight right now, or I'm noticing my heart is racing, or I feel a little scared, I don't want to say something that might get us off track, like that is a courageous small action. So many micro moves help support this practice. And anything you want to say before we then pivot to how people can get in touch with you and what you're offering in your book?
Absolutely. I think that,
“You have nailed the first micro step. And that is a sense of self-awareness. You could call it mindfulness, you can call it presence.”
It is first being aware of our own bodies, our own reactions, our own thoughts. This is where box breathing is the biggest savior I've ever come across. And I can't tell you how many times I box breathed on my way down the Grand Canyon.
Knowing and being able to say, okay, my heart is racing. Okay, check. Yes, I'm feeling flush. My stomach feels like there's a load of butterflies in them. I'm going to just breathe. At this moment, I don't have to act. I'm in control of my choices and my actions. I don't have to do anything I don't want to do. That's self-control, that self-efficacy at its greatest. Right? Nobody ever feels like courage is about leaping off a cliff without paying attention or caring. It is about doing things that are rooted in who we are, growth, connection, and love. And when we are rooted in those things, which to me all begin with the self. I mean, we all know this, right? Self-love has to come first before love for others.
In fact, I always felt that,
Relationships don't fail because there's a lack of love. It fails when there's a fear of bringing your authentic self to that relationship.
Well said. And you know, even if we don't know, we can say I'm feeling flooded, or I'm just that my brain is feeling foggy. This is super important. I want to take some time, and then we'll regroup. I mean, maybe the box breathing does offer a bit of space and capacity there. Great. Well, Scott, how would you like to encourage people if they're resonating or want to get engaged with your movement? Tell us about your book again. You've mentioned it a few times.
So the best way for people to get a hold of me is at Scott Simon, Us that has everything, all of my workshops, blog posts. I have a weekly newsletter that goes out for free. We've done 750 of them. Each one has a courage challenge. You can go back to prior challenges. So if you really want to launch yourself into this work, there are great practical ways to do that. And then the Scare Your Soul “courage movement” is at @scareyoursoul.com; it's all free. It's all about people pushing their comfort zones. There are free challenges there. There are handbooks, there are videos. I encourage anybody to visit, take a look, and reach out to me if you have questions. My book was an incredible blessing.
A publisher in New York found my website and asked me to write a book about courage, which was an incredibly amazing experience. It's called “Scare Your Soul”. You can find it anywhere. It's on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and a lot of independent bookstores around the country. So I'd love for people to access that and reach out to me anytime. This is my passion in this world. So if there's any way that I can be helpful, I love to do that.
I'll make sure to have the links on today's show notes, and I am sure people will be interested in the workshops and what they can find on your website, as well as your book and the movement. And it sounds like, is it's national, international?
There are no boundaries to this. And we have people literally around the world who are active participants.
The post ERP 512: The Courage Practice: How Facing Fear Deepens Intimacy and Connection — An Interview with Scott Simon appeared first on Jessica Higgins.
Have you ever wondered why, in the moments you crave connection the most, you suddenly find yourself pulling back or feeling unworthy of love? It’s a confusing cycle—wanting deep intimacy yet stumbling over old shame and protective patterns that keep you at arm’s length from those who matter most. The echoes of our early relationships can linger, quietly shaping the way we trust, open up, and even interpret simple gestures of kindness. Left unspoken and unexplored, these internal beliefs can create barriers to the very closeness we long for.
In this episode, listeners are invited to take a compassionate look at how shame and childhood experiences impact our sense of self and our present-day relationships. Through real-life examples and insights from trauma and nervous system work, you’ll discover why you might struggle with receiving care, how protective behaviors like people-pleasing or withdrawal develop, and, most importantly, how healing and repair are possible within intimate partnerships. The conversation offers practical tools for recognizing these patterns, slowing down your reactions, and using curiosity and acceptance to gently shift toward deeper connection—with yourself and with others.
Dr. Arielle Schwartz is a licensed psychologist and a leading voice in the healing of trauma. She is an internationally sought-after teacher and award-winning author of eight books, including The Post-Traumatic Growth Guidebook, Therapeutic Yoga for Trauma, and Applied Polyvagal Theory in Yoga. As the founder of the Center for Resilience Informed Therapy, she offers a mind-body approach to therapy for trauma and informational mental health and wellness updates through her writing, public speaking, social media presence, and blog. She believes that the journey of trauma recovery is an awakening of the spiritual heart.
Episode Highlights06:17 Uncovering attachment wounds and realizing childhood patterns in adulthood.
08:41 How shame and unworthiness show up in everyday relationship gestures.
10:59 The deep impact of relational trauma on trust and receiving love.
13:44 Cycles of childhood rejection and their lasting influence in relationships.
17:04 Understanding neuroception: Faulty safety cues and couple dynamics.
23:04 Common protective behaviors that mask shame and hinder true connection.
26:02 How longing to be authentically seen often leads to frustration and anger.
27:46 Facing shame: The role of curiosity, acceptance, and turning toward pain.
34:33 How slowing down and identifying underlying feelings in moments of reactivity allows for more vulnerable communication and understanding between partners.
37:03 Accessing and soothing shame through parts work and somatic awareness.
41:04 The power of presence: Attending to shame somatically and non-judgmentally.
42:57 Supporting partners in their activation: Invitations, patience, and repair.
Your Check List of Actions to Take* Start noticing moments when you feel unworthy or defensive in relationships, and pause to reflect on what’s being activated inside you. * Practice slowing down your reactions, even if just for a few seconds, to bring curiosity rather than judgment to your responses. * When you notice shame or discomfort, try labeling it as just one part of yourself—remind yourself it doesn’t define your entire being. * Invite more acceptance for uncomfortable feelings by turning toward them with compassion instead of pushing them away. * If you’re in a reactive moment with a loved one, communicate with phrases like, “Can I run something by you?” or “The story I'm telling myself is…” to clarify your experience. * Focus on building body awareness—notice where you feel tension, contraction, or the urge to hide, and gently stay present with it. * When you notice a protective behavior like people-pleasing or withdrawing, ask yourself what underlying need or emotion might be driving it. * In heated moments with your partner, offer supportive choices like, “How can I best support you right now?” instead of jumping into problem-solving or fixing.
MentionedThe Polyvagal Theory Workbook for Trauma (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
The Complex PTSD Workbook (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
The Post-Traumatic Growth Guidebook (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
The Post-Traumatic Growth Deck (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
Therapeutic Yoga for Trauma Recovery (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
Brene Brown (website)
Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) (*Psychology Today) (link)
Polyvagal Theory (website)
12 Relationship Principles to Strengthen Your Love (free guide)
Connect with Dr. Arielle SchwartzWebsites:drarielleschwartz.com |resilienceinformedtherapy.com
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Episode Transcript
Let's start with today's episode. Arielle, thanks so much for joining us.
Thank you, Jessica. It's lovely to be here. Yeah.
I feel very privileged to have you on the show and your voice, and you've done so much to contribute to the field. And as we were just talking, my interest in focusing on your health and how people can tend to shame. And I would love to hear a little more about it. And then also as we look at the couple space and what gets activated in a relationship. So, for people who are just getting to know you. I know, I read your bio, and as it relates to this topic or anything you want to. What would you like to share with people getting to know you?
Yeah, I'll share a little bit about my background. I've been a psychologist and have been working with Trauma and Complex PTSD, primarily focused on individuals who experienced Developmental Trauma in childhood due to repeated or ongoing dynamics. So the topic of shame is very central to all of that.
Yes. And for people who are still not fully sure what Developmental Trauma or Complex PTSD is, often that's in the context of a relationship or even early childhood experiences. Would you like to say a little more?
Yeah. I think when we are growing up in experiences where we don't feel understood, we don't have a deep core sense of belonging. There may be ongoing unrest or disruptions in those core relationships with our caregivers or our parents, those that are supposed to be sources of trust and safety and relational consistency and reliability. And so
*******“What happens when we don't have that is that it really begins to kind of tear at the core fabric of our sense of trusting in the world, but maybe more so trusting ourselves.”*******
Right. Like, it's very hard, especially in childhood, to reckon with the experience of these others that I'm supposed to be able to rely on. Maybe they're not safe, or maybe they're not trustworthy. And that's a difficult concept. But the feeling inside is something feels bad, or something feels wrong, something feels off.
Maybe that's me, maybe I'm the bad one. And sometimes that's easier to work with than to confront the reality that they're the ones who are not behaving appropriately.
When we need to survive. We're depending on them totally.
Right. Like, that would be too frightening. And then on top of it, if I have no control over what they're doing or who they are, but if it's me, I have some control over that. So if I just fix myself, if I make myself a good child, if I make myself better, then maybe I'll finally be loved or get the safety that I need.
Absolutely. And Ariel, it's my experience that this likely occurs, the level of severity, if you will, on a continuum. And there may be many people who don't even know that they have this operating in them. I know we're going to talk about that a little bit more. And sometimes some of these disruptions or ruptures of trust and belonging or safety in the kind of attachment language, like secure base or secure functioning, that occurs even pre-verbal. So we sometimes don't even have real cognitive memory. We just might have a body, which you do so much to help people. So, do you want to comment on that before we kind of steer more towards the shame here?
Yeah, I think there's a lot of layers in what you just named. First of all, like, maybe I don't know that this is part of my history, because, as one of my clients likes to say, it was just the water I was swimming in. I didn't know that other children were having different experiences. And so this is what I had to make my reality, and I had to make my reality a good enough reality.
And it wasn't until coming into adulthood and starting to get into relationships and starting to feel some of those missing pieces that then brought him into therapy and started to look more deeply at what is the working kind of operating system that I've got going on here, and how is that related to my history, which is, you know, again, seemed normal enough, and yet there were some very significant missing pieces. And so, you know,
****“The beautiful thing is that no matter where we are in our lives, we get to attend to those missing pieces, and we can heal, and we can work with our attachment deficits, and we can fill in some of the gaps, but it takes time, and it takes commitment.”******
But the other part that you named is that it can often begin so young, so early. Right.
If we think about whether there were other stresses or other siblings in the home or stresses in the parent's relationships or differential approaches to parenting that put strain on the relationship, all of those layers that are being felt and experienced by us even before we have words, that begins in utero, certainly in the first few years of life, before we are developing more of our explicit memory functions where we have narrative and words for it. So we have to know how to work with that felt sense in the body.
Yes. And this might tie into a question that I have. As people hear the word shame, they might associate that with this sense of, I feel broken, not enough, or just feel that something's wrong, as you mentioned, and also as you're talking, it sounds as though paying attention to ways in which we function or operate, there might be some deficits that could be a shame. I mean, some people think of it as a big thing that is all-encompassing. And sometimes people who are really highly functioning still have a lot of these aspects or deficits that they've learned to deal with.
I think one of the biggest patterns that I see has to do with worthiness or a lack of a sense of worthiness, and the ways that can play out in a relationship. And of course, we'll talk more about that as we go. But, you know, one example being that, you know, these individuals tell me, get in this relationship and they get married, and that every day his wife would come and would bring him morning coffee, and that there was some part of him that just felt like, why is she doing that for me? And does that mean she thinks there's something wrong with me? Like, it would start to spin into this kind of deep sense of, I don't understand why someone would treat me so kindly.
And it was all of a sudden, in the face of actually receiving kindness, receiving generosity, that he realized that it touched off something like, I don't trust this and that. That became the access point. Even though it seems so simple on the surface, you know, how lovely that you care enough about me to make my favorite cup of coffee and bring it to me. And that, you know, for many of us, we might just receive the coffee, but for this individual, it felt threatening. At a deep core sense.
I'm so appreciative of you naming how this can show up, not just a difficult interaction, but in a gesture of kindness that we might feel. The cues of question or interrupt or tension I'm even sensing for people, or even myself at times, that I can feel we're going to talk about. I'm sure, because you do a lot to help people recognize how they've adapted, that we might have protector parts. So we might be like, “Oh, thank you for the coffee.” Now I have to think about something I'm going to do for you. Right. Instead of just like this, receiving, or is it okay for me to receive? Like, I feel like. Yeah, it could offer a little bit of a rattle there.
“Do I deserve this? Or if you're bringing the coffee, you know, what are you wanting from me now?” So, like, all those subtle layers that can pop in that.
So those are signals that you're saying here that could indicate there's some level at which we've learned to function where shame might be at play.
Yeah. You know, one of the ways that I like to think about this, too, is
****“That ideally, in our attachment, we experience the other person as a source of safety, a source of kindness, of love, of generosity, of compassion. And due to that, it feels safe to open myself to receiving you and your warm smile and your voice and all that. And so we have this almost this draw towards each other in the cues of safety.”******
But when we've experienced relational trauma, the cues that we might experience of invitations to get close can actually start to feel unsafe on the inside. Because maybe closeness also offered opportunities for confusion or mistreatment or surprise. Like, I'm inviting you to be close, but then I reject you.
Or that the same person who's a source of warmth and connection and kindness is also sometimes untrustworthy. And as a result, we fast forward into our adult relationships. We have someone who's offering us all these cues of safety and connection. But inside, there's actually a part that wants to withdraw or recoil from those genuine bids for connection. And as you named before, that can be a protector in us, like this is how I coped for so long, as a way to survive the relational inconsistencies or the relational lack of safety that I experienced.
And again, if we're turning towards or slowing down to notice what's coming up, that what we might use language here to say is related to shame. Another feeling I'm having or thought that I'm having as you're describing this, is experiences that have interrupted the connection that I've interpreted or that I've based on circumstances.
Yeah. And I think one of the biggest sources of that is if you imagine a two-year-old for a moment, right? And like a two-year-old running towards open arms, kind of just like body first, just going towards the other, like hi. Right. And instead of being scooped up and super met with that excitement, we get told we're too much, we get rebuffed, we get a shock at the fact that we're not picked up at that moment. I'll give another example again, a kind of true story, working with an individual who brought home their artwork from school, only to find it crumpled up later in the trash can. Right. Like these moments. And they're both examples of where shame shows up in the rejection of that genuine, open-hearted. I want to show you the art I made in school.
I want to come for the big hug. I want to give you my gift. And the gift gets rejected, right? Like, we can feel the impact of that. And it's generally not a one-and-done thing. It's like the accumulation of these experiences of my light or my gifts or my desire for contact gets rejected by the other repeatedly, and it starts to kind of wire in. Maybe it's not so safe to show up with the big open heart, or maybe it's not safe, so safe to be me or bring my gifts into connection.
Oh my gosh, yes. Thank you for illustrating that. And this is likely, in my experience, a major contributor to the ways in which we approach relationships. It's this desire for this open, armed body's first feeling of being received and connection. And also the lived experiences of rejection and the fear, and how terrifying and painful and traumatic, and how we've learned to cope or protect, that they're both interacting in an individual in a relationship. It's like these two gas on, but break off.
That's right. And then there's this way in which relationally we kind of ping off of each other. Right. Like I'm going to show up with my big heart. Ooh. But the other person's not so sure. And then they're not so sure that makes me feel rejected, and then I go into withdrawal. Then they feel rejected, and then we get caught in the cycle, and I smile, but it's not funny. It's so tender. It's so painful. When we're in those wash cycles, those, you know, spin cycles with each other.
Oh, my goodness, it's awful. This is where people are again, that real desire to feel contact and not reach the person you love, or to have signals of rejection, which likely aren't signals of rejection. They're often the other person's protective, which is to smile. I think when we can see these ways that we're missing each other, we're speaking different languages, we're interpreting based on lenses that we don't actually know if that's true for the other person. So we can kind of get really spun out here in ways that make a lot of sense, but also not that it's unnecessary, but we can get quite stuck.
Yes. I'm going to add a little bit of the lens of the nervous system in this conversation. In the applied polyvagal theory model that I work with, we have Dr. Stephen Porges. This word is neuroception.
**“And neuroception refers to how our nervous system is detecting cues of safety, cues of danger, cues of threat in each other all the time. And, you know, non-consciously assessing those cues through eye contact and facial expression and voice tone and body language and all of these different environmental factors.”**
And sometimes we have accurate neuroception. We're basically picking up on accurate cues of threats, and we're essentially, you know, we can really trust our internal felt sense. That person doesn't feel safe with me, and there are some legitimate reasons why.
But sometimes, and especially when we have a history of developmental trauma, we might experience what we call faulty neuroception or a mismatch between how I'm perceiving potential cues of threat or non-safety, and that it's based on my historical experience, and that for that individual, they actually are approaching with ample cues of safety and connection. But neuroceptively, historically, I don't trust that. And so my body is basically turning on the alarm systems, even though there's no flame, no fire. But I'm going in. I'm not so sure I can open myself or be accessible and available to this other person. And so defenses come in. And then my defenses can ping the other person's neuroception. They're giving off cues of threat. I need to attend to protecting myself in those cues of threat.
And now we have a mutual threat system that's pinging on each other.
Thank you for bringing neuroception and polyvagal science. And this happens in nanoseconds, right? The quickness of detecting threats. And that's as humans, we're wired to have that quick processing. And it isn't necessarily slowing down to get that information or checking the meaning, making out, or interpreting. Because sometimes even there could be ambiguous cues or cues based on culture that mean something to one but don't mean to the other. So there's a lot of layers here. I appreciate this.
A lot of layers. And it's again where couples therapy or having a third party bearing witness and inviting that, slowing down, and even inviting that, asking. And we can build those skills for ourselves without that third-party witness. For example, can I just run something by you? This is how I interpreted this moment, and I just want to see if that's really how you're feeling. Or my favorite phrase that I learned from Brené Brown, when she says the story in my head is right. Like this is a story I'm telling. I'm not so sure it's true anymore. But let me run it by you.
Yes, it's doing a lot to slow that pinging back and forth, that threat detection, and the closing and the layers of ways in which we protect. So, so helpful. Well, it feels helpful too. On the topic of shame, and I imagine you can speak to this pretty quickly, what you're describing in this survival way, of which we've learned, is the shame associated with that, or how we experience that is different than what you might say, values-based shame. Would you briefly discuss the difference there?
You know, I'd love to hear your perspective on values-based shame, and we can talk more about that. I think for me, the kind of internalized shame as we've been speaking about this, or the experiences of historically derived shame, is something that gets so layered into our overall sense of self. Again, sometimes we don't even know that we're carrying it, but that it's a deeply internalized feeling, either, as you named before. There's something wrong with me, there's something wrong. If people really knew who I was, they probably wouldn't want to be close to me or love me. And I have to work really hard to hide that deep internal felt sense that there's something wrong in here or that there's this deep unworthiness that I'm carrying around inside. And I'd love to hear your perspective on the value of space shame.
Well, I know there's been some work. I don't know, as you mentioned, Brene Brown, people who have really made arguments that shame is helpful for culture, that from a values or moral ethical as humans, there are certain ways in which shame is a functional emotion or experience, that it keeps us in that ethos. But that's it. Yeah, okay, so this is. That's very different from what we're talking about.
That's very different. And I mean, yes and no. Like, I think that when we're talking about the feeling of shame and it's an accurate mirror for, like, I don't feel good about what I did. And sometimes we locate that as guilt versus shame. But either way, I don't feel good about myself at this moment because I need to make amends. I need to repair it. I have to take responsibility for what I did. And if we can't stay with shame long enough to garner that feedback for ourselves,
***“If we quickly defend and we quickly deflect, that too would impact our experiences of ourselves or our relationships or our work in the world because we're not able to take healthy accountability.”***
And I hear that's really what you're talking about.
I also like to think of it as a gift of regret. Can we regret long enough to really make a change?
Oh, my goodness. I want to dive into how to tend to shame in a moment. And just one quick question. As we were talking about protective mechanisms that may indicate if we're not aware of these deficits or ways in which we might protect ourselves, would you be willing to give some examples of what that looks like? And you mentioned that hiding feeling. And I was also aware, as I mentioned earlier, for myself, this tendency to either please people or be perfect, or like, I'm just not worthy as I am, that I have to work really hard. So would you be willing to share just how these protective parts work with shame?
Yeah. So if deep inside I feel like there's something wrong or that there's something that I don't want the world to see, then typically, basically what I do is I'll put on some kind of mask or layer or behavioral, you know, accommodation. That is a way that I will show the world what I think the world needs of me, to also simultaneously mask or protect what I don't want the people around me to see, because it might risk me feeling rejected or unloved yet again. And I don't feel like I can handle that any, you know, I've already had enough of that perhaps. And so I think it can lead to a few things. One is that, as you named, people pleasing, sometimes we refer to that as fawning behavior or appeasement.
But basically,
****“I will be who you need me to be in hopes that maybe then you'll actually care for me or love me. But the problem with that is that you actually don't even know me at that point because I've hidden the authentic me so far away by, you know, shape-shifting myself into who you need me to be.”****
And besides, it's exhausting to engage with that all the time in the world.
“And sometimes we're so good at it that we lose touch with who we really are, and we just go from one attending role to another attending role or pleasing role for others without actually taking the time to be with who I really am.”
And then I would say that the other big pattern that we might see is more of a kind of fight-or-flight energy.
Either I'm just going to quickly go into defensiveness to avoid you seeing my own vulnerability that's underneath that. And sometimes that's deflecting responsibility. Maybe it's making you feel like you are the vulnerable one, so I don't have to be the vulnerable one. Or it's like flight energy, like I'm just going to be quick to retreat and get out of here before I would be vulnerable. As we can imagine, all of these ultimately can interfere with the depth of intimacy that relationships have available when we're ready for that. Yes.
And thank you for giving examples around how we might be able to recognize this. Just having specifics so people can identify. And also, as you were talking about, the people pleasing or any of the real tendencies when we are operating in that, we likely don't get to trust when the connection is there. Like if I had to work really hard to have that positive reflection or openness come back to me, do I have a felt sense that because of just who I am, or is it because of what I did? Right. Or if the flight or the fighting, is it because I fought hard enough, or is it because I got out at the right time, and then I timed it by coming back like that? We don't actually get to be in this exchange of real embodied presences of vulnerability that you're describing.
Yeah. Sometimes it can even show up, like when the other person is actually really, you know, like, let's say we're people pleasing, then someone comes in and is kind to us or is genuinely expressing interest in us, then we feel angry at them because they actually got duped. Like, they didn't persist in wanting to really know who they were. They took us at face value; they took the mask. And it becomes a kind of funny cycle because it's a young part that maybe had to mask up to get love. Maybe I had to have people, please, or take care of mom, or take care of dad, to get my needs met.
And the young part actually wants our caregivers, our primary others, our parents, to see through the mask, actually, like, get underneath it and be like, “oh, honey,” like, “I actually really see that you're scared or you're sad right now and you don't have to take care of me.” And so, you know, fast forward into adulthood. Right. If we are basically masking or pleasing and someone buys it, that young child that's still angry that they didn't take the time to actually really get to know us, that child part comes out and will push away well-meaning others who get kind of confused. I thought you were this. And now you're pushing me away when I've actually drawn toward you. So, as we can start to sense, it takes time to tease all of this apart.
Thank you. For another example of how this manifests and can look. So, tending to shame, where would you like to start? Around a different approach here.
Yeah. I think one of my very favorite perspectives on shame is this particular phrase that I'm going to offer here, which locates shame as the unextinguished longing for connection. And it's a powerful phrase.
**“Deep inside of this very uncomfortable emotion is actually the part of us that has intelligence and wisdom and light, that is longing to be in connection.”****
And so the shame itself becomes an access point to something very core and very beautiful that lives inside of every one of us. And that's where I think, you know, if we also go back into some of Brene Brown's research on shame, we can also look at that shame, which is so closely linked to vulnerability, ultimately can become an access point to the positive emotions of joy, connection, happiness, and satisfaction that I think we ultimately are longing for.
So rather than making shame something that we want to get rid of in ourselves or something that we then make bad because we feel bad. Right. Like it becomes its own cycle, what we want to do is learn how to turn toward shame and the felt sense of it. The beliefs that are carried about ourselves inside of it, the behaviors that give it are so automatic, connected to it, and to slow it all down.
Oh my goodness, I'm very grateful. And for people listening, I imagine this is extremely encouraging, and that I find people have resistance to going towards pain and the fear that it's going to just consume or I'm now gonna wallow, or I'm gonna get stuck there. That's gonna be all my experience. And you're really inviting an understanding that there's a real, attached longing that's really beautiful. It mirrors and maps beautifully on the EFT/ Emotionally Focused Therapy work, and just really holds a lot of reverence for that deep core attachment need or primary emotion and the understanding there, I mean, that is so reparative as you're describing. So you're saying that phrase or that outlook, really. What might that do if somebody holds that in mind and slows down?
Yeah. You know, one thing when you link it over to EFT/Emotionally Focused Therapy, and to that work, one thing that I think often and refer to as the antidote to shame is deep and profound acceptance. And that, like, even acceptance of the discomfort, even acceptance of the urge to withdraw or the urge to push someone away. Right. Can I be, and I'll layer another word that I use so much in my work, which is curiosity. You know, can we go toward those tendencies or those habits that are linked to shame with enough curiosity? And very often when we're sped up and when we're in reactivity, we have lost curiosity. Right. We've lost the ability to be mindful of what it is that I'm doing and how I slow this down and generate a much deeper round of what this is actually holding.
Where does this come from? How is this feeling familiar? And as soon as I bring in curiosity and that slowing down around the discomfort and everything around it begins to shift my relationship to it. I'm no longer othering myself. And we actually allow other people to enter through this window of curiosity. They're willing to be closer to us because we are no longer emitting those cues of threat out there. Whether that's pushing you away or whether that's my withdrawal. Both of those are going to be confusing in a relationship. But it starts here. I mean, there are so many ways. And it starts, I think, often therapeutically, when we are in the presence of another person who's letting us borrow their non-judgment, their curiosity, and their acceptance and unconditional positive regard. Right.
Like we get to sit in the presence of someone else who's not judging us. And that can often illuminate how we're judging ourselves sometimes without even realizing it.
And the capacity to stay a little longer.
Yeah. And even just seconds, microseconds longer can make a difference.
Yes. And as you're speaking about these qualities, it's understandable, the acceptance and the reverence for what is there. And as you gesture for people who are listening, when our protective tendencies are at play, it is kind of this, no, no. Whether or not it's not to myself, or like, do something different, however we know our experience, but also no to others, like, don't go, no, let's not do this. And so even the gesturing of pushing away, so having that space of curiosity to wonder and be within the interest of understanding and accepting, and to you, as you're saying, just even, however small, that there's more room, we're not pushing.
Yeah, it's very true. And I have a few personal examples that I feel a little drawn to share. One is slightly embarrassing, but it's a good example. Right. So. And it goes back many years. So I was new in a relationship with the man who's now my husband of 25 years, and we were not married yet. So, you know, we're going to roll back some 26, 27 years into our relationship. And my husband was a bike racer. And you put him on a bicycle, and that's kind of his association. He is off.
Right.
And were early in our relationship. I live in Boulder, Colorado. We have these wonderful bike paths, and you can go down the bike path by the creek. And we had decided we were going to go on a bike ride together. And I'm thinking of a cruiser ride, like chilling on the bike path. And we're still getting to know each other. And, you know, he has this very kind of Pavlovian association with getting on his bike. The bell rings and off he goes, you know, and so we get on our bikes together, and the next thing I know, he's way off ahead of me. And I felt totally abandoned, but rather than staying with the discomfort in me of that abandonment, what came right on the heels of abandonment feelings was anger.
And by the time I caught up to him, poor guy, I was cursing him out, and “what the fuck?” And “why would you leave me?” And he's like, whoa, like, what happened to my girlfriend? And I couldn't even calm myself down to even get in touch with what had happened to me, and explain it to him. That happens once, while we decide to go on another bike ride, it repeats itself. And finally, he's like, “I don't think biking is a good thing for us.” And which, you know, again, maybe it isn't. But it wasn't until I did some deeper work with myself. And gratefully, I was in school to be a therapist and was in therapy, and I got to go underneath the anger, into the feeling of abandonment, and get clear about what that was.
And at that point, I could go back to him and say, here's what was going on for me. It touched a really young part of me. And “actually, you didn't abandon me. You just rode your bike at your own pace. And if we're going to successfully bike together, would you be willing to know that you going that far ahead of me touches off something very tender inside of me?”
So I can articulate that in a way he could hear. And because I was no longer cursing and yelling and blaming and shaming him for his behavior, he totally could hear that. And he was, “Oh, thank you for telling me. I get that. Right.” And sometimes he remembered, and sometimes he didn't. Right. Like, we biked together.
Now again, 27 years later, we've biked together many times, and sometimes he goes ahead, and I can take care of that young part of me and know he's not abandoning me. Sometimes he slows down, and we cruise together. And that's really fun. And so it's this delicate dance of also articulating that, hey, it would be really kind, and I would love it if you would help me take care of my inner child. And sometimes our partners are up for that, and sometimes they're not. And even on the times when he's not, it's ultimately my job to take care of my inner child and to unhook him as the kind of parental stand-in.
Yes, yes. I so appreciate your willingness to share personal example as it relates in relationship, what can get activated and how normal and quickly we might react and want to point the finger to the thing that hurts and when there isn't a capacity to wonder and slow down, that we can speak very differently, that allows our partner to hear and increases the likelihood of responding. Right. That was much more visible, like, that makes sense. Like, “I get that, and I want to help if I can. And sometimes I will, and sometimes I might not have the capacity and the visibility and the contact with self to recognize the need and to show up. Oh, thank you.” It's so distilled and helpful to have some scaffolding around what this can look like, albeit at times, it might not feel very skillful at first.
And to validate. I lived in Boulder for five years, and there is a climate of people who go physically hard, whether or not it's ultra marathons or cycling over huge mountains, and these extreme skiers and rock climbers. So there is something to be said, and I can appreciate the like, “we're wanting to do this couple thing together.”
Totally. And he's like, you know, he shows up, and we're living together at the time, this was early on, and he shows up like in full-on bike gear, and I'm wearing my jeans and tennis shoes. And I was like, “Wait a second, what are we doing here? We had different associations with what it meant to go on a bike ride.”
Very, very.
Yes.
Okay, wonderful. Well, with this example you've mentioned, slowing down and curiosity, is there anything else that you want to encourage people? Maybe even you do a lot somatically to be with the body that perhaps somebody might be able to take a step in?
Yeah. So in the initial anger that showed up, right. Like, if I were to kind of take you into my therapeutic journey of that story. Right. I had to work with the anger of that. We might call that a protector. Right. Like that protector energy of anger. And who was I really angry at? Was I really angry at my boyfriend? Yes, but. Right. Like there was something underneath it. And so I could get in touch with, and I'm going to use parts of the language here as well as somatics, but I had to get in touch with a young part of me, and that core wound of abandonment. And that really was not about my boyfriend, right? Or now my husband. It was a much deeper, older wound.
And so I think that when we start to identify shame as actually being held by a part of us, it allows us to see that I am not the totality of my shame. Shame is a part of me. And as I build my capacity to be here and now and present and today self, I can turn towards the part of me that holds shame and the stories that are intertwined with that and the narratives and the felt sense of the body that's held inside of that part. But it doesn't have to define all of who I am. And I think it becomes a little bit less threatening when we turn towards shame as a part, rather than that's just me. Shame wants to convince you it's all of you sometimes, but it's not all of you.
Thank you. The parts work and the “ifs” I highly recommend. And how powerful it is for someone. Just one follow-up question. For someone who might be in a moment of overwhelming shame, would they slow down? Would you recommend slowing down to just get some regulation or soothing, and to see if anything else opens up? Are there other parts that don't feel the shame, or how does somebody start to, if they're overly identified with the shame, start to see it as a part?
Yeah. So I think that there are a few pieces in relation to that question. One is that as I build curiosity, the first kind of like leading edge of that story was the anger part, but the anger was covering up something else that actually had more to do with fear and more to do with vulnerability and more to do with shame. And maybe a core feeling of, if he was leaving, what does that say about me? Maybe I'm not lovable. If he's leaving, you know, there's something wrong with me. And so I had to get down to what we would then call more the exile that sits underneath that and to build the capacity to be with that. And whenever there is a part that's carrying that wound, there's usually some unmet need there.
**“The unmet need for support, for nourishment, for nurturance, for protection, for being seen, for being dignified in some way respected. So we can go in, and we can attend to that part that's feeling so deeply vulnerable.”****
And then let's talk about somatics for a moment with this, too, because I think that sometimes parts work can get very conceptual, and it feels like we get kind of lost in the realm of the visualized repair, which is beautiful. That's a beautiful part of it. But there's also about letting that fully integrate. And when we're in the immediacy of shame, there's very often an accompanying felt sense in the body. Sometimes with shame, that is contraction or heaviness or an urge to get smaller, an urge to hide. Right. There's some way in which to be visible in shame.
Actually feels more threatening because once again, I don't necessarily trust that the person who will see me is going to love me or accept me. I'm having a hard time loving and accepting myself. Right. Let alone letting somebody else do that for me. So we can go toward that heaviness or that urge to hide or get something small. I remember one time I was driving my car, I was in the car by myself, and that feeling of shame came over me so strongly, and I could feel the urge to want to run from it, like, as far away from that feeling as quickly as possible, because it was so uncomfortable. And instead, I somehow had the wherewithal or the presence of mind in that moment to say, “What happens if I just turn toward it? What happens?”
And literally within seconds, that uncomfortable feeling that I thought would totally take over if I actually turned toward it. When you didn't reject me by not rejecting me, I felt okay. And it was such an amazing moment of realizing it doesn't actually take that long for something to shift when we deeply love and accept ourselves as we are, you know, it's profound.
It is profound. I'm deeply touched.
Thank you. I see that in your eyes. It's so touching for me to bear witness to how it is. How does it touch you, too? Yeah. Thank you.
You're welcome. And it is profound. I can feel it in my own body. Whether or not it's times where I've had my own experience of doing my best to turn towards and whether or not it's like, oh, that makes sense, or just like, oh, hello, or like, you know, things that I felt too terrified to wonder or turn towards, or moments where I'm supporting someone else and some version of this. And it's so healing.
It's so healing. And I love the tears that are present for you because, you know, like, as we turn towards, what begins to emerge in us in those healing moments, our bodies are so wise. We call it sequencing in somatic psychology. But basically, like, one part of shame that was stuck in that contraction begins to move through, and it sequences out of us, and it comes to the surface with a new possibility. I mean, how beautiful is that?
So, so beautiful.
Yeah.
I'm deeply inspired by this work and touched by it, and I do sometimes cry with my clients. It's the assistance to be able to feel repair, to feel integration, to feel the opportunity or possibility that you're describing. And I know we have used so much time here. What do you want to say? Would it be brief enough to say if one is noticing their significant other caught in some reactivity or activation? What one might do to support, not further escalating it.
Right? Right. Like, I think sometimes we need to work within the language of invitation and choice because if we try to assume that we know what our partner needs in that moment, it can actually make things worse if we go into fixing mode. Right. Like
*“We have good intentions when we're trying to fix, but it actually inadvertently communicates to the other that they're broken.”*
So we can just go in with this loving intention and say, “How can I be most supportive for you right now? Is there anything that you need from me? Even if it's just me being here with you at this moment, that would just help you feel that I'm right here and that I love you.”
It's sometimes that simple. Right. Like we don't have to be afraid of the other. And if it's a really hot moment, like, right.
Like my bike moment, and I'm screaming and cursing. Right.
**“Like we might need to say, let's just take a few breaths and cool down for a moment.”****
I'm right here. I know something upset you. I don't even know what it was yet, but I'm willing to hear.
Yeah. And the willingness to even convey that warmth, and also that we haven't resolved it. Like, we don't have our footing yet, and that's okay. And sometimes we might need it. I mean, for me, sometimes it's days, sometimes it's months, sometimes, depending on the thing, it's maybe even a year plus to really get to like this role, like what you're describing. So, thank you, thank you. Well, for people listening who are resonating with you, and you do so much in the world to support people, where would you like to direct people to learn more?
Honestly, the best thing to do is, you know, get to know my work through either signing up for my newsletter@drarielleschwartz. I have two websites, resilienceinformedtherapy.com, and I run plenty of programs, some of which are on Zoom, some of which are. I have an upcoming, you know, seven-month immersion that is with the SHIFT Network. And I also run in-person retreats at Omega Instituteand at Blue Spirit in Costa Rica, and in beautiful places in South Africa. In May, we do trauma recoveries for laypeople. This is for anyone who's looking for nervous system support and trauma recovery. And that one combines with safari, which is pretty amazing. We actually get to watch animals in the wild in their defense states and how it mirrors ourselves.
One brief example of it from the last time I did the retreat. There we had this moment where some stuff was coming up for the group, and it was a little bit intense. And just at that moment, the matriarchy of the elephants comes through, and we watch them and the baby elephants, and the whole group's nervous system gets regulated by the elephants. Like you can't make this stuff up. It's extraordinary. So there are some beautiful offerings that I have out there, and all of which will be coming up in 2026, some of which start this fall. But yeah, so keep an eye out. Sign up for the newsletter at drarielleschwartz.com, the easiest.
Okay, I will put the link on today's Shownotes and your other website, and perhaps a link to a couple of these workshops. And again, so much more can be found on your websites. I know. So thank you so much for all that you've shared here.
The post ERP 511: From Protection to Connection: Healing Shame and Building Secure Connection — An Interview with Dr. Arielle Schwartz appeared first on Jessica Higgins.
Ever notice that it’s not the everyday conversations or simple disagreements that shape the quality of a relationship—it’s those high-stakes moments, the tough talks that feel risky and uncomfortable, that truly define the connection. Far too often, we skirt around what really needs to be said, trading short-term relief for long-term regret. Whether it’s at work or at home, these avoided discussions can lead to resentment, disconnection, and a sense of self-abandonment.
In this episode, listeners will dive deep into understanding why we tend to avoid these “last 8%” conversations, what emotional forces are at play, and how learning emotional intelligence can transform conflict into an opportunity for growth. Through practical insights and relatable stories, the discussion explores how you can recognize your own patterns under pressure, build self-awareness, and learn strategies to approach difficult dialogues with clarity, empathy, and courage. If you're ready to break out of avoidance and start showing up authentically—for yourself and your relationships—this episode offers a roadmap to addressing the hard stuff and reclaiming connection.
Bill Benjamin is a Partner at the Institute for Health & Human Potential. He has degrees in Mathematics and Computer Science and 30 years of business experience. Bill explains how you can build a high-performance Last 8% Culture by leveraging the science of emotional intelligence. His clients include NASA, Marriott, Intel, the Mayo Clinic, the U.S. Marines, and Surgeons.
Episode Highlights05:07 The importance and science behind emotional intelligence in relationships and business.
07:24 The origin of the “Last 8%” concept and its impact on difficult conversations.
10:03 Fight, flight, and the roles we play: Avoiders, mess-makers, and emotional triggers in relationships.
14:39 Navigating emotional intelligence at work versus at home.
18:16 The costs of avoidance.
21:06 Recognizing your role and contribution in conflict.
28:36 Understanding others’ intentions in pressure situations.
29:15 Practical strategies for handling relational conflict.
35:12 Addressing shame and trauma in relationship pressure points.
36:15 Taking action: Sensitive communication and resources for emotional intelligence development.
Your Checklist of Actions to Take Start with Self-Awareness: Regularly check in with your body and mind for early signs of emotional activation, like tense muscles or scattered thoughts. * Pause Before Reacting: If you notice emotional triggers, pause and take several deep breaths to regain mental clarity and composure. * Name Your Patterns: Reflect on whether you tend to avoid difficult conversations or “make a mess” by confronting too strongly. * Get Curious About Others: In moments of tension, intentionally seek to understand the other person's perspective—what’s driving their reaction or behavior? * Build Empathy Bridges: Imagine stepping over to the “other side of the bridge,” as suggested, to genuinely validate the other person's feelings before expressing your own. * Return To The Conversation: If you need a break during a heated moment, communicate that you’ll revisit the topic, rather than letting it drop indefinitely. * Express Your Emotional Needs: Practice communicating your own needs and boundaries directly, knowing it's essential for building mutual respect and trust. * Seek Support When Needed:* If shame, trauma, or persistent avoidance is hindering healthy interactions, reach out to a therapist, mentor, or supportive resource for guidance and perspective.
MentionedPerforming Under Pressure: The Science of Doing Your Best When It Matters Most (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
The Secret to Building a High-Performing Team (Harvard Business Review article)
12 Relationship Principles to Strengthen Your Love (free guide)
Connect with Bill BenjaminWebsites:ihhp.com
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YouTube:youtube.com/channel/UC0UYI0Vuy99P8Hdj-r3hr4w
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LinkedIn:linkedin.com/in/bill-benjamin-12b671
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If you have a topic you would like to be discussed, please contact us by clicking on the “Ask Dr. Jessica Higgins” button here.
Thank you so much for your interest in improving your relationship.
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*With Amazon Affiliate Links, I may earn a few cents from Amazon if you purchase the book from this link.
Episode Transcript
Bill, thank you for joining us. I'm excited about our conversation.
I am thrilled to be here.
Yes. And you have really identified and coined this last 8% and how it is such a game-changer. And I know a lot of your work applies to the professional space business, and also, you've said very clearly, and just even in our chatting here, it might even apply more to the intimate space. And we're going to be applying this to the couple dynamic. But before we do that, for people getting to know you, I'm sure there's a whole signature talk around this, but can you give people a little bit of how this developed, how this became important for you?
Yeah, I mean, so by the way, for me, it actually applies more in my personal life than it does in business.
There's definitely an application because it's around the difficult stuff. And a lot of the stuff that we deal with is more difficult in our personal lives.
You know, my origin story of this work is
******“I have degrees in mathematics and computer science, and I worked at a computer software company for 14 years, and I got promoted. Like, what do you do with a high performer? You promote them.******
But I actually wasn't a very good manager. I struggled to lead effectively, to create a great culture, all that. It actually was a time in my life when I was struggling personally.
I was having a lot of anxiety, a lot of stress. That's actually a quote I heard back then that's always stuck with me. And the quote is, I've had a lot of great moments in my life. I just wish I'd been there for more of them. So, in wanting to do something about this situation, I recognized that it wasn't going to be getting smarter because I was kind of an IQ kind of technical skill guy. I got exposed to this whole area of emotional intelligence, this thing we now call “The Last 8%,” and it really helped me. So some of the stuff I'm about to share was stuff that I got exposed to as a client, and it really helped me. And so that's the origin of how I got into this work.
Thank you for sharing personally. And then also, it's so common. I'm imagining many people are resonating with the strategy of developing oneself, performing at high levels, and thinking that that will get us to some place where things will really come together. And sometimes there's an inner game here that is asking for more development. And secondly, I just so appreciate the field of business and consulting, and my academic understanding, it's industrial organizational psychology, which offers consultation to the business world, and how emotional intelligence has become and is so useful for. I mean, the numbers, as you probably can speak to more than I can about how that is contributing to performance, maybe even ROI, like this has a big impact on this emotional intelligence.
I mean, that's what convinced me because with degrees in mathematics and computer science, I thought, oh, that stuff's all soft and squishy. But I actually learned that there's research and brain science behind it that can actually drive outcomes, not only in business, but I know, you know, John Gottman'swork. I mean, the number one factor in having a successful relationship of any sort is how you handle conflict, how you deal with challenging emotions. And so, yeah, there's clear data on the outcomes both in business and personally. And interestingly, you know, our business, kind of our mission, is to help businesses create cultures that are high performing, high care, high accountability. That’s our external mission,
***“Our internal mission is to alleviate suffering because everybody suffers. And there's a certain degree of suffering. If you have depression or if you have mental health issues, there's help.”***
But for a lot of people who aren't to that degree, like I was suffering. And so this work really helps at both levels. Yes, it helps drive business outcomes and profit and all that, but more importantly, it drives. It alleviates suffering. And that's what I love about this work.
Thank you, I appreciate that. And I'm just struck by the very basics. I'm sure you would agree that we're not machines, right? We're human. And that so much of even interacting in the business sector is a relationship as well. And so we can't somehow bypass that.
Yeah, absolutely. And so you were asking me about kind of the origin of “The Last 8%.” So for many years, we did work around the area of emotional intelligence, and there's a connection between the two. But the concept of The Last 8% came from my business partner, our founder, Dr. JP Pawliw-Fry. He was coaching a couple of executives at a large company who weren't getting along, like that ever happens. And he coached them to have a conversation with each other about the impact they were having on each other. So by the way, this could be two people in therapy, right? Being coached to have a conversation with each other. So the analogy is perfect. So they went, and they had the conversation, and came back from the conversation. They're in the individual coaching sessions, and he asks, well, how did it go?
And they were like, oh, went fine.
Well, he knows better. So he pushed and said, yeah, but did you say everything we said you were going to say?
And they both said, effectively, well, actually, I got 85, 90, 95% of the way there. I got to the hard stuff.
And the other person started reacting, and I held back. “Aha.” I didn't really step in and say that last 5 or 10%, the part that really needed to be said, and that is such a common experience that people have that we took that idea and we did a study on 34,000 people and determine on average it's 7.56%, which we rounded up to 8, 8% that people feel they leave unsaid in a difficult conversation. Now as we workshop this, people said, well, it's actually not only difficult conversations, also the tough decisions in a business, you know, taking a risk, trying a new product, getting on a new project, interpersonally saying no to somebody, giving somebody feedback, you know, so all these last 8% decisions, there's the easy ones where everyone's getting along and everyone's happy, but then there's when there's tension, when there's stress, when there's conflict, high stakes. Last 8%. The high stakes. Those are the high-stakes conversations. And so we coined the phrase “The Last 8%.”
Thank you for just defining that. I want to comment on one thing, and then I would love to hear how you see the couple that's showing up in that couple space, and what type of conversations you might have. I mean, we can all conjure up the difficult conversations, but just curious what you would say. Just a comment here in this origin story. I think it's really human for us to be tracking the receptivity or the openness of the other person. So when we're getting signals of the person seemingly disengaging or shutting down, I think there's wisdom in recognizing, oh, there's tension here. And this is perhaps where the emotional intelligence comes in. But yes, not to completely like abort or you know, just like not continue, but there's maybe a more skillful way to continue because we don't really know what to do.
Yeah, I mean, our emotional center is our fear center. Right? As you know, the amygdala is our fear-processing center. And so yes,
**“When that other person starts to react, we start fearing that they're going to get upset at us, they're going to feel bad, they're not going to like me, they're going to criticize me back, they're going to get them. So that's all our emotional fear center stuff that causes us to step back.”**
Now, interestingly, in our research, there are two predictable default behaviors that people have in The Last 8% moments. 68% of people whose normal behavior is to avoid. So if you're listening and you're like, “yeah, gosh, I'm kind of an avoider,” that's okay, that's normal. But what about the other 32%? Well, I fall into that category. Sometimes I'm in that devo conversation. The other person starts reacting; instead of stepping back, I step in, but I'm coming on too strong, and now I'm making a mess of it. So we talk about people either being avoiders or messers.
We're in the couple space. People might have heard either the distancer and the pursuer, the one who is. Yes, absolutely.
Or in the Gottman work, the stonewaller or the criticizer or the defender or the, you know, so. Absolutely. Yeah. And it all comes from our, that fight or flight, you know, emotional mechanism in our brain. We've just given it some slightly different language around avoiding or making a mess. The other reason, by the way, that these last 8% moments are so important in business and in personal relationships is the cortisol effect. And the cortisol effect is that when there's tension, pressure, uncertainty, conflict, cortisol gets released, which does a number of things. But one of the things it does is it causes memories to sear in. So
**“People remember what you're doing in that difficult moment. They don't remember what you're doing in the another 92% of moments when everything was great. That's why you can do something right nine times out of ten. But that one time you mess it up. That's what they remember. Right. So those are key moments in relationships and in business.”**
Yes. And when you spoke, whatever the high stakes are, and as we're applying this towards intimate space, when something means something so significant, or it's a core need or attachment need, then it means a lot more. I mean, I'm stating something that sounds very obvious, but to your point about our nervous system registering that in a highly threatening way, when it means more, it's going to be much more significant and likely trigger more.
And by the way, if you add in the stored trauma many of us bring into our relationships, totally, sometimes we're not even reacting to that person. We're reacting to something that happened 10 or 50 years ago. And that's the cortisol effect that stores something that happened to us when we were 5 years old. At 55, it's still stored in our emotional memory like it happened yesterday. And so we can react right away. And so that's another thing that makes those personal relationships even more triggering, is all the history we bring to them.
Oh my goodness, yes. To add that with this history, we likely have protective tendencies to avoid those painful feelings of disapproval, rejection, and guilt as charged. Same, same. Get it right. And this is a preemptive attempt to avoid this very painful sphere. And even avoiding. And yet you're also saying, so let's look at couplehood. What are some of the conversations that you see couples typically avoiding? This qualifies as The Last 8%.
I mean, in some ways, it's what you're talking about. It's anything that could potentially lead to feelings of rejection Feelings of not being valued, feelings of getting criticized, feelings of hurting the other person, feelings of not being liked. Like, we're all driven by these core emotional needs to feel respected, to feel valued. So it's anything. I mean, obviously, there are specifics, like, you know, conversations around money or someone's behavior or drinking or. I mean, it's different for every couple.
It is.
But it comes down to. And I know you know there's some sort of emotional need that's not getting met, that's being triggered. That's what actually happens, because we're not facing physical threats anymore. There's not tigers jumping out at us.
We're facing, but it feels like it.
It does. And our brain reacts the same as if it's a tiger. Yes. But it's actually social and emotional threats. Another big one, because, you know, we do work around culture. Another big one is the need to belong. People want to feel they're part of.
The tribe, and so the relationship, feels secure, that we are good. Are you not going to leave or abandon me?
Not going to leave. You're not going to abandon me. You're not going to criticize me. You're not going to disrespect me. All of those things, when you get to their core, are what are triggering now. The surface stuff, it's a bit like, to me, it's a bit like computer software. The arguments over money and who's staying out too late, and all these other things. That's the software. What we're talking about is the operating system. The operating system of emotional needs not being met, the operating system of, you know, psychological trauma, stored trauma, all that.
And so that's what I love about our work, is we're not doing therapy with people, right? That's deeper work. But we are introducing them to some of these concepts to gain some insight beyond just, oh, I probably shouldn't get mad at people, right? I shouldn't yell, or I shouldn't avoid. It's, well, why am I doing that? What are some emotional needs that aren't being met? And how can I? Because, you know, for us, with that, avoid or make a mess.
**“Our goal is to find that middle ground where we push through the discomfort and the anxiety to avoid. You push through that, but you do it skillfully.”**
Right? It's finding that middle ground. Not perfect, obviously, but to be more skillful. And so that. That's a big part of this. This work teaches people in business and in their personal lives.
Well, Bill, I have seen, and I don't know if you would agree, that sometimes for folks, the business domain, while it's incredibly important, ties to identity, ties to so many things, it might feel less charged than the intimate space, and therefore, there's a little bit more regulation to practice. I've had clients who are doing emotional intelligence work in their business, and they're like, oh, this is what you were talking about. Or oh, I see how this is like mapping on some of the things that we've been asking for, we've been trying to get to. And it makes it a bit more accessible in that there's practice ground in the business, and then being able to have some footing and orientation to then be able to address some of the couple space. I don't know if you've seen that, but I have.
Oh, all the time. I was actually coaching. I was actually coaching a CEO of a 12,000-person company.
He's like,
“God, I'm in the midst of the board firing stuff at me, people arguing. I can stay calm, but when I go home, my wife yells at me to take out the garbage. Again, I react and get defensive.”
He's like he was having trouble understanding why he could be in such high pressure situation at work and stay calm, but not at home over something simple. Because of what you and I talked about, those relationships are deeper, they're more important. We also, we get more grace at home. Right. Like I can yell at my teenage daughter to stop yelling. I can't yell at an employee.
Right, right, right. Accountability, right? Yes.
Right. So there's also more of a. Because likebehavior is driven both by our internal capabilities and attitudes, but it's also driven by the environment. So when we do a lot of culture work, we look at it. You have to look at both. Well, the environment at home is. The environment requires a lot of work, so you can't behave in certain ways, or you lose your job. Well, at home, I mean, of course, ultimately you could get divorced, or there could be an outcome, but typically that's a much longer process and a consequence that people aren't necessarily thinking of when they're avoiding saying something.
Yes. And I have found also to add to the culture piece, there's typically, not always, but often clearly defined roles for people in the professional sphere, business sphere, and typically not always, but in the intimate space, people are striving for mutuality, reciprocity, and equity. So while power differentials exist, the intention is to have both people feeling considered often so that sometimes someone is in a CEO role and they're able to hold ground, and they have the authority to make some calls and decisions, and then they come home, and they're like, oh, I can't just make the calls. Right.
By the way, that was the coaching for him.
*****“He was so used to having that authority, being in that power position, essentially being able to tell people what to do. Whereas, yeah, in a relationship, it's meant to be more equal. So that was part of his work was to have a more equal, the equal power deal with the equal power distribution that, he wasn't dealing with 10 hours a day at work.”*******
*No, it's a little obvious, but it might be helpful for us to just spend a couple of minutes here talking about the cost of not having these conversations in intimate spaces and otherwise. And then I would love to turn towards emotional intelligence. But is it worth acknowledging how critical these conversations are and what can happen when we are in the habit and culture of avoiding?*
Yeah, and I think there are two costs. There's the cost to the business or relationship. Both of the personal costs. Because in some ways, when you're avoiding, you're trading that short-term anxiety and discomfort for long-term regret. Because when you're not speaking your truth, when you're not saying you're holding on to stuff, you know, you're not saying what you need to say. And so, like, you know, some of the stories I have about times I didn't speak up are 25 years ago, and I still regret it. You know, that's the stuff to remember. And so yeah, there's a personal cost, and then if you hold onto it, it doesn't get spoken, then it becomes toxic. And I know, you know, in your role as a therapist, you know, that then starts to infiltrate into a relationship and can become, you know, it can become.
People don't show up, right? Like they tend to build wedges of like withdrawing, withholding, and then resentment. Resentment because the person keeps doing it.
Same thing even though you're not really speaking up, but they keep doing it, you know, so.
Yeah, right. And in what you're talking about with regret, I would imagine and believe that there's even self-abandonment as you're talking about not having these conversations, that while I might be gaining some short-term relief, in the long term. Yeah, I'm not showing up for myself.
I mean, I think we're saying the same thing is shame. And that is, as you know, a driver of behavior and emotion, and mental health. Shame. Shame can be. So yeah, when we're not stepping in from a business perspective, when people aren't challenging the status quo, we're not taking risks to try new things. When they're not holding people accountable. Right. All that, all that unspoken stuff that 60 people who aren't. There's a huge cost to the business, but it's actually a higher cost in personal relations just because of what we're talking about. Because resentments build up, toxicity builds up. So yeah, you have to find that outlet.
**“The relationship is a reflection of what people are deciding. And when we're avoiding, we're not deciding, and therefore it's neglecting the things that likely are so important.”**
If we're not communicating our needs, if we're not setting boundaries, like in personal relationships, some of the stuff we're avoiding actually goes right to our self-esteem.
Go right to it. So then you've got that hit on your self-esteem because you're not setting boundaries, you're not, your needs aren't being met, and you're not happy with the relationship because it's not what you want.
Exactly. But sometimes the other person doesn't realize why. Because you're not communicating. Right. Like, yeah, absolutely. Now I'm kind of in a relationship where it's the opposite. We're both making messes.
Yeah.
So you know, but that also has its challenges. And then when you, by the way, have two avoiders or two make a messers, and then in between, so the key and anything, and this may take us to the emotional intelligence discussion, which is self-awareness.
Yes, yes.
*“Self-awareness and a willingness to look at your own contribution, to look at yourself first. Yes, you have to hold the other person accountable. Yes, you have to set boundaries, but you have to start with yourself. And it's so powerful.”*
Right. When we recognize our behavior, our impact, and own that and try to work on and acknowledge and value the other person, how soothing that is for them and enabling for them to say, oh well, you know, I mean I'm struggling with this too, and I know I have a contribution. So yeah, that self-awareness of your own behavior and your own impact is critical, and that is the foundation of emotional intelligence.
Yes. I would love for us to dive in here because this is so, so important. And oftentimes, people, when we talk about self-awareness, perhaps some people are thinking,
“Oh, I need to dig in a little bit and spend some time and understand.”
But what's also true in my experience is that sometimes these things initially are not even on the radar. Like, we're not ignoring or seemingly ignoring cues. We're just not conscious. We're not even aware of it, absolutely aware of it. So we're in this pattern of, in these protective strategies, people pleasing, perfectionism, all the things. And so I want to talk about self-awareness, and then you said something out of the gate that I just think is so, so important, which is when we get cues about the other person shutting down or not being receptive. So tracking the other person's openness, that's also awareness.
Yes.
Okay.
The awareness. So you know, the awareness of others. So, the emotional intelligence model is self-awareness, then self-regulation, then you know, interpersonal relationships, and empathy. Because it's very hard to be empathetic, to really notice how another person is feeling if you're triggered. Because we become self-protective. So the first thing in our work is, number one, be aware of your Last 8% moments because they're where the most, the most damage can happen, but it's also where the most positive outcomes can happen. Where, you know, the most breakthroughs can happen is in those last eight. So number one, be aware of, “hey, I think I'm heading into a last 8% moment, or something's coming at me.”
So number one is just awareness, but then awareness of how you're reacting. “Gosh, I think I'm starting to avoid, I think I'm starting to make a mess, I'm starting to interrupt, or I'm not saying something.”
And so that whole awareness of your behavior and even, even your attitude, even, you know, because by the way, you can avoid and still give people looks.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That is triggering to them. So avoidance just doesn't mean silently sitting there quietly and happily. A lot of times, it's you give them a look, you know, the Gottman work about the rolled eyes, how damaging that is, you know,
“So it's being aware that you are triggered so that then you can do something to manage yourself, that you are either moving toward your void or make a mess.”
Okay. So, as people are perhaps thinking about being aware of this edge of the 8%, it sounds like you're saying pay attention to your internal state reactivity or activation. So the nervous system, so that might be a tight stomach, it might feel like the heart is racing. Can you give some other signals that might, people might pay attention to?
Yeah, we actually say your body is your early warning system. Some people feel heat. My business partner JP feels heat in his forehead. I'm. I coached a woman who, whenever she was in a meeting with a difficult person, would get red in the neck area. You can imagine what her clothing strategy was for those meetings. Scars and turtlenecks are wearable. Self-awareness. She just needed to learn the self management so she wouldn't get red. But it was a good start. So, yes, you'll notice my hands shake a little bit. So if I'm in a meeting and I feel my. I notice my hands shaking a little bit, that's a signal to me that, “hey, you know what? My emotional system has started to kick up. I'm not going to be at my best. And so I need to do something.” We'll talk about the. What you can do, but right now, the awareness, the other thing that people can notice. So there's your body, then there's your thinking. You become more polarized. We can move to yes, no, right, or wrong. I mean, if you ever walked into that meeting and there's no way we're doing this, you walk out. We're doing it because you want to please people. You don't want to upset people you don't want to like. So, just sometimes our thinking can become very scattered. I can't think clearly right now because you are triggered. And in fact, when you get triggered, you actually lose some working memory. You actually can't think as clearly. So that's a second way to become aware that you're starting to get triggered. And then the final one we talk about is your behavior. So if I start interrupting people in a meeting, I mean, ask me in a calm moment, should I interrupt people? Is that a good relationship behavior or leadership behavior? No, of course not. But get me a little triggered, you know, and I start to. So sometimes you can. Or hey, I'm not saying anything. I'm not speaking up. My relationship person is coming at me, and I'm just shutting down. So you can notice from your behavior as well.
Got it. So, noticing the body cues and then the thinking that perhaps we might get hyper fixated on a strategy or an idea, or we get fuzzy, and it just feels like it's.
We amplify the negative. No, you do CBT. So you know all about, you know, kind of the negative thinking.
Yes.
So yeah, there are a lot of different ways we can notice in our thinking that we're triggered emotionally.
Yes. And then the behavior noticing. Okay. And then as people build awareness, what is likely true is that there's going to be A learning curve. And also, as one starts to learn, they have more information and can further work with that. Oh, I tend to interrupt, or I tend to shut down. I'm paying attention, so I know that's one of my cues behaviorally.
Yes, I feel it happening. So that's the self-awareness piece.
Okay, great. And then, as far as these high-pressure situations, part of what you're recommending is not avoid. And then, as I mentioned earlier, people sometimes don't know what to do. So if they feel that pressure or that activation shutting down or like calming the situation, let's not say anything we don't mean. Like, that's not actually a bad thing. And then, if we don't ever come back to it, it can have real costs long term. So talk to people about what you're recommending people to do.
Yeah, I mean, we wrote a book calledPerforming Under Pressure, right? Back in 2015, it still applies just as much today as it did 10 years ago. My, my business partner, JP Pawliw-Fry, is one of the lead authors. And there are 22 pressure solutions in the middle section. And I don't love all 22, but there are six or seven that are my go-to. One of them is just so obvious. It's the breathing. But chemically, the intake of a large amount of oxygen interacts with the cortisol and the adrenaline of the amygdala. The emotional system releases. And so there's actually a chemical reason to. It gets you some of your working memory back. You become less critical, judgmental, and reactive. So number one is breathing. Number two, you mentioned the pause. Not as an avoidance strategy, but to do something so that you can re-engage more skillfully. That can be as simple as drinking a glass of water. It can also be, hey, let's take a 10-minute break and come back to this.
Excuse me, I need to go to the restroom. I'll be right back.
Anything, Anything. Stand up, stretch. So any kind of pause, I think, you know, works as you get some of your cognitive functioning back. The empathy piece is what is their intention? Because we tend to react to someone's impact, not their intention. So most people don't have a negative intention. They're just, they're reacting for their own reasons. One quote I really love is that people don't think about things for us. They do things for their own reasons or react like we're doing something to them.
**So can we disconnect, take a deep breath, and think, gosh, you know, where are they coming from? Why are they? Because we react like they're doing this to hurt us, they're doing this to criticize, you know, but they're actually reacting to something. And can you connect with that, get?****
Curious and not perhaps buckle up or fight the strategy? I think people often lead with a strategy that doesn't always reveal what their need is or what their interest is. And getting really curious, I think it is such. It's almost like I call it an aikido move. But people who aren't familiar, maybe a matrix move of being able to get off that kind of, not absorbing whatever that initial strategy or attack might sound, but in a kind of getting past that, letting it move by you, and then staying curious to stay with the person to get out, and then that potentially talks to us. I get my own ideas.
Well, one of the metaphors we use, and it's actually the reason I have the background I have, is called getting to the other side of the bridge. But any relationship, let's say there's no bridge there, and you're on your side, and they're way over there on their side. Most people, when they step in to deal with stuff, they start from their side of the bridge, their needs, their trigger there. Well, think about whether you could go over to the other side. Literally go over there, literally. Look from there, let go of all your stuff, which is, yeah, the self-regulation. Go over there and look at it from their perspective, and build the bridge backwards. We try to build the bridge from our side, build the bridge from the way of the other. Right there, right there. Build the bridge from that side backwards. Looking at it from their perspective, one of the reasons that this is so hard to do is that we think that means we have to be wrong. We think that means we have to give in. We confuse sympathy and empathy. So going over to this side of the bridge doesn't mean they're right, that you're agreeing with them. You're simply seeing it from their perspective. Validating, not agreeing, validating. But don't get stuck on that side of the bridge. Because some people get stuck on that side of the bridge, and sympathy comes back to your side of the bridge, but you'll be more likely to build it because you started from their side. So that's one of the empathy models that we have, which is building a bridge from there.
I love that. I love that. And if I'm trying on how I experience these principles, that if I'm going to the other shore and building a bridge, I haven't lost what's important to me. So I might have more creative ideas around how to build the bridge that reaches. Also, my point of interest, which I'm not going to build a bridge to.
A different shore relationship. I might think I'm the one who was hurt, I'm the victim, and you were hurt. Yes. But can you see it from their perspective to think, well, maybe they were coming from a place of hurt?
Totally.
Like, why would they have done what they did? That's the intention. Did they mean to hurt me? Was it on purpose? I mean, I know some relationships get to the point where it's toxic, and that does happen, but I'm not talking about those relationships. I'm talking about most relationships where the other person is love, there is care, there is respect, but they're triggered, they're on their side of the bridge. So. Yes, can you get over the other side of the bridge and then see even though you have your hurt on your side, you're not letting go of that? You're giving that up. You're just starting to see it from the other person's side first.
Yes. Because if people get stuck in the injustice and try to correct that, it's taking an exit ramp around what's important and spending a lot of time when it might not actually result in resolution, in my experience. I have a quick story. People who have listened to the show may have heard this before, but this was probably about a year plus. Sadly, tragically, my sister-in-law lost her significant other. He passed away. He had some health issues. So it wasn't totally unexpected, but it was, it wasn't known, obviously young. And so we're at the breakfast table, and it was like the day after, and I was sharing with my husband that I had sent a text to his sister and was expressing my heartfelt condolences, and he kind of got upset with me. And I was so like initially, like defensive in the sense of like, I didn't do anything wrong. Like, “what's the problem?”
Natural. Yeah.
Reaction for whatever reason. I mean, it was obviously a very tender situation, and it wasn't my sister. So I may have taken a deep breath. I don't even remember what I did, but I did.
Probably did.
Yes. And I did try to just stay hovering in that moment. And it is hard to pause because we feel like we need to keep talking. And so I think I'm fighting tigers.
The brain thinks it's fighting tigers. It thinks it needs to react right away. Yes. Yeah.
So I'm eating my breakfast or drinking my decaf or whatever it was. And then I'm pondering. I'm like, what in the world? Like, we're fine. We're not in a fight, or he's not mad at me for other reasons. So I'm like, what are the possibilities? I'm trying to get curious. And I'm like, oh, is he protective? Like, he's done a lot of grief work, and I just wondered out loud. And he's like, yes, I'm feeling protective that she's getting overwhelmed. And I was like, oh, like, I don't like the way you jumped on down my throat.
Right.
And I can so appreciate how tender and protective you are of her. And I can lean in on that. I can build a bridge around that.
That is such a great intention impact story. Because you were impacted.
Yes.
His intention was not to impact. He intended to protect his sister.
Yes.
Also, a great empathy story. And by the way, this whole idea of getting to the other side of the bridge, I mean, that's all empathy is. You know, I have degrees in math. Math and computer science. I thought it was all icky and squishy. But it's not. It's just. Can you get out of your own frame of reference and go to this without letting go of your stuff? Go to this side of the bridge for a while. But thank you. That's a really great story.
I would have preferred him to say, oh, that's really sweet. And I also feel really protective. And we're not always that skillful. And I have my own stories where I'm not skillful.
So I'm sure you had a lot of empathy for what he was going through and why he reacted. He did. And I think that's such a great example of. People don't do things to us. They do things for themselves.
Yes.
We connect with what they're doing for themselves.
*“And it's hard when you're in a relationship that's gotten toxic, that's gotten resentments, and it's gotten. But start with yourself.”*
We often think, oh, it's. The other person has to change. That's the other big thing in. And I know you do this in therapy and in coaching, which is focused on yourself. Because at the end of the day, you really can only control your behavior and how you show up. Start there. I mean, eventually you may need to set boundaries, express your needs, all of that. That's important. But start with yourself.
I love that. Thank you, Bill. I know we're winding down here, and I also want to ask about shame and these high-pressure situations. When you talk about people who have had previous life experiences where they've had some level of relational trauma or have felt levels of shame, this often can get activated in these high pressures. So what would you want to help people consider around shame in these types of dynamics?
I mean, if you feel like that could be something that is activating you, as you said, that's coming from some history. I'd say get therapy, like get a therapist. I mean, because a lot of times that's deep. It certainly was for me. Mine comes from my childhood, and I've had to do some, some deep work on that. So I mean, yeah, I mean, maybe start with a business coach, but if it needs, if it feels deeper, that's where therapy comes in. That's the incredible value of therapy. Because I had a whole bunch of shame and stuff I didn't know I had until I started working with a therapist and uncovering all this stuff and realizing. So yeah, I mean, I'd recommend a therapist if that's something someone feels they're struggling with.
Okay, thank you. And then how about for the person that is attempting to address 8% conversation and notices signals of shame, whether or not it's something they're saying, like, oh, it's never good enough or something like that. What would you?
I would almost say the same thing. Find a mentor, find a coach, find somebody to bounce things off of. Find somebody. Because it's so hard to do this stuff ourselves. I mean, certainly, you know, gosh, go to our website, look it up all the way. There are videos and all kinds of stuff. You can, lots of self-learners. I love that. We have a Harvard Business Review article on all of this. So there's, you know, there's lots of content you can go find that's from us and others.
“When you lack self-awareness, it's hard to address it if you're not aware.”
And so having a mirror, having somebody bounce off you, having somebody who maybe will push back a little bit and say, you know, Bill, what you just told me, that doesn't sound right. I mean, are you sure about like so, and it can be a formal coach, or it can just be a best friend, or a spouse, or partner, if this is a business problem. So yeah,
“I'm just a big believer in getting help when it gets deep. It's really hard to do by yourself.”
Oh my gosh. And when we add culture and language and meaning-making. Right. Like, there's a lot and then power differentials. Right. The sensitivity here and how we might approach it. Is there anything you want to say about how to be more sensitive, so that it might activate shame in another, or if there are power differentials, that these are not reasons not do it. But how again peopleare learning how to do this in a way that can be with some regulation and brain online, and also the sensitivity to what might be high stakes, like what might not be a high stakes conversation for one person could be a high stakes conversation for another.
Absolutely happens. That happens all the time. You don't even realize it. So I mean, I think if I were to leave with a couple of pieces of advice. One is to start with yourself.
“Start with what you can be doing better, what you can own, what your contribution's been to take a deep breath, and then when you actually go to engage in the conversation, start on the other side of the bridge trying to understand their perspective.”
That was difficult because of what happened yesterday. I want to understand more about what was going on for you. I understand maybe what you were feeling, what you were thinking, starting on this side of the bridge.
I love that. And that can hit the mark of being sensitive to all these different layers because we don't have to be a master linguist and culturally proficient in all different cultures. Like, we can really seek to understand their side and learn and build bridges from there. I love that. Okay, great. Thank you, Bill. And for people who are interested in what your company is up to, where would you like to invite people to go?
Yeah, there are two places. One is our website, which is ihhp.com. I know it's a bit of a mouthful. It's the Institute for Health and Human Potential. So ihhp.com and then I'm pretty active on LinkedIn. I share the latest research, I share the latest ideas, and the latest posts from others. So Bill Benjamin on LinkedIn. Feel free to reach out. I love hearing from folks, questions, and challenges. I'm very active in this work.
Excellent. I will make sure to have the link to your LinkedIn as well as the website. And just for people listening, is there anything you would instruct on, like where would be a good place to start on the website? What people?
I think our resources section has a lot of we have assessments, we have, you know, videos, we have case studies, we have a lot of, you know, different resources, white papers, etc. If that's where they want to start. By the way, from a business perspective, if somebody's thinking of this more for their business. Our Harvard Business Review article, called the Secret of High performing teams is really, really good around this whole concept of The Last 8% and how it drives culture. So I know we're focused a little bit more on the personal relationships, but for anybody who is in a business and wants to apply this, that Harvard Business Review article is a great article. It's really well done.
Great. I will put the link on today's Show Notes. I know you've really done a good job of referencing the business, as this is the bulk of your work, and also just how relevant it is, and how it translates and applies to the intimate space. Thank you so much for being here with us.
It was great to be here. I think we could do this for another couple hof ours, but we probably lost everyone, so this was really enjoyable. Thank you, Jessica, for having me.
The post ERP 510: The Last 8%: How to Have the Conversations That Matter Most in Your Relationship — An Interview with Bill Benjamin appeared first on Jessica Higgins.
Are you chasing every gold star, climbing every ladder, and nailing every “right” mark—only to find yourself missing out on real fulfillment and meaningful connection? The relentless pursuit of achievement can sometimes leave us feeling lonely, disconnected from ourselves, and trapped in relationships that don’t truly nourish our hearts. When ambition runs amok, the cost may be far greater than just burnout or missed vacation days—it can lead to self-abandonment and relationships that feel more like a cage than a home.
In this episode, you’ll discover how overachievement and perfectionism can sabotage our capacity for genuine connection—and what it takes to turn things around. Through honest storytelling and practical insight, the conversation explores the hidden costs of self-abandonment and the steps toward reclaiming self-worth, authenticity, and aligned love. Whether you’re feeling the grind of burnout or yearning for more realness in your relationships, you’ll gain tools for slowing down, getting honest with yourself, and opening up to relationships that feel like home.
Coach Keren Eldad is an Executive Coach, Speaker, podcast host and the Author of the new book: GILDED – Breaking Free from the Cage of Ambition, Perfectionism and the Relentless Pursuit of More.
Episode Highlights06:18 The roots of self-abandonment: Overachievement and relationship choices.
09:12 Societal pressure and the pursuit of external validation in partner selection.
10:27 Personal story: From self-betrayal to reconstructing identity and worth.
16:07 Building healthy love: The learning curve toward self-connection in relationships.
20:39 Embracing uncertainty: Letting go of control and playing to win in relationships.
26:56 Yellow flags in relationships: Burnout, overfunctioning, and sexless marriages.
31:29 Radical honesty and initiating difficult conversations.
35:51 Centering yourself before addressing relationship issues.
39:54 Tools, coaching, and the path to authentic relationships.
Your Check List of Actions to Take* Pause and self-reflect: Practice taking a mindful pause before reacting in relationships to better understand your true feelings and needs. * Identify your patterns: Bring awareness to tendencies like overachieving or people-pleasing that may be impacting your connections. * Prioritize self-worth: Work on recognizing and affirming your own worth, rather than relying on external validation or achievement. * Start small conversations: When something feels off in your relationship, gently broach the subject with curiosity rather than jumping into confrontation. * Read for growth: Incorporate reading transformational books by thought leaders to cultivate self-awareness. * Seek support: Consider working with a coach or therapist to dig deeper into your personal growth and relationship patterns. * Practice radical honesty: Begin being radically honest with yourself about what you want and how you feel, as self-abandonment only perpetuates dissatisfaction. * Accept uncertainty: Learn to embrace the unknown in relationships, allowing space for vulnerability and authentic connection rather than controlling outcomes.
MentionedGilded: Breaking Free from the Cage of Ambition, Perfectionism, and the Relentless Pursuit of More (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
The Way of Integrity: Finding the Path to Your True Self *Amazon link (book)
Dare to Lead (*Amazon link) (book)
Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough (*Amazon link) (book)
The Work of Byron Katie (website)
Brene Brown (website)
Eckhart Tolle (website)
Ram Dass (website)
Louise Hay (website)
ERP 494: Designing Love That Lasts: 6 Principles for Lasting Connection — An Interview with Dr. Sara Nasserzadeh
ERP 174: How to Experience More Love in Your Relationship with Byron Katie
12 Relationship Principles to Strengthen Your Love (free guide)
Connect with Keren EldedWebsites: KerenEldad.com
Facebook: facebook.com/LiveWithEnthusiasm?_rdc=1&_rdr#
YouTube: youtube.com/channel/UCgGViwGVn_yrHkq3PQ9R_-Q
Instagram: instagram.com/coachkeren/?hl=en
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/keren-eldad
Podcast: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/coached-with-coach-keren/id1467079024
Connect with Dr. Jessica Higgins
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Email: jessica@drjessicahiggins.com
If you have a topic you would like to be discussed, please contact us by clicking on the “Ask Dr. Jessica Higgins” button here.
Thank you so much for your interest in improving your relationship.
Also, I would so appreciate your honest rating and review. Please leave a review by clicking here.
Thank you!
*With Amazon Affiliate Links, I may earn a few cents from Amazon if you purchase the book from this link.
Episode Transcript
Keren, thank you for joining us.
Jessica, it's so nice to be here with you.
Yes, I am really interested in all the things you're going to share with us today. I know you focus a lot on working with people who are overachievers, maybe dealing with burnout, or really struggling to feel the level of authenticity. And then specifically as we look at relationships, real intimate connections, and feeling joy. Where would you like to start about how this is important to you? Like, how did you become focused on it? I know you share a lot in your book. You're welcome to name your book here, too, if you'd like.
Yeah, well, I came by my work and my book gilded very honestly by knowing on my own flesh what it's like to be an overachiever who hits the right marks, quote unquote, again and again, only to miss entirely our target, which is a happy life that feels good. From the inside, and today it's my mission to help other people.
******“Take this gloss nonsense away and create something real.”********
I do have an agenda, and I told you this unapologetically when we connected at the beginning of this conversation as we're about to record. And that is, I'd love any excuse to talk about relationships.
Because while overachievers pay a very high price in their careers, they too pay a very high price in their health when they chase the wrong targets and let their ambition run amok, the biggest by far price that we pay and that I paid personally was in selecting the wrong partner and ending up in horrific and I'm not using hyperbole marriages, which I believe is a fate worse than death in many cases. So it's my joy to have a chance to really talk about how that happens and about why that happens, and then also about the antithesis, as you might be able to see if you're watching the YouTube. I am remarried. And while this sounds a little overcompensating, I think this is the best marriage ever in the whole world. I totally stand by it. And I think everybody deserves this.
Like, once you have something like this and you understand the mechanics of what built this, you want everyone to know. So it's a real joy to have the chance to talk about this from this exact angle. Jessica, thanks.
Yes, and I love that you have such conviction. I can feel it here as you describe. And also just your expertise, as you really coach people, and you've been helping people understand these principles in a really distilled way. But you've lived it, and you know it viscerally. And I would add, I also work with a lot of very high functioning probably identify with the overachiever label. And some of them do imagine there's a continuum of how their relationships are impacted. And one person comes to mind, he and his wife have a really beautiful marriage, but it compromised his health. It's compromised, like what he's had to do professionally. And also, there are ways in which perhaps it restricted his ability to be available for the intimate connection and relationship because of perhaps the expenditures of trying to reach these targets that you're describing.
Or perhaps other people just aren't as embodied, they're not as connected to themselves. Thus, they're not able to perhaps be in a relationship to experience the joy and intimacy, sexual connection, all of these things. So where would you like to start? Because this is, let me say, really quickly, would you agree that it's not only choosing the wrong partner?
But also that, of course, there's something that happens before choosing the wrong partner.
****“Choosing the wrong partner is the symptom, it's not the disease. It's sort of like I say to people, the addiction is not the problem. There is a nice morass of garbage that came first, and that eventually forced, quote, unquote, the choice.”******
Now I want to talk about both parts equally because essentially they're both the same. One is the desire to compromise from a place that is over-functioning. All overachievers really are just intensely focused. That's what I mean by overachiever. So you can be a perfectionist, you can be a true overachiever. A person who's achieved above and beyond, and so forth. You can be an exceptional tulip grower or a hyper-focused mom.
Either way, the intensity of focus, the natural obsessiveness, is truly what segregates this category from any other. So when the target is off, and you feel that you need to compromise your relationship, or the real issue is the embodiment is off, we somehow have self-loathing. They're all the same, and they're all a question of not understanding our worth. And when we don't understand our worth, we make very poor choices. We make low-grade choices versus high-grade choices. As a result, we end up in relationships that are, and I really love by the way, your last episode that was promoted with Dr. Sara, “ Name a relationship that is not reciprocal. Relationships do not have to be equal, but they do have to be reciprocal.” And I completely agree with that.
When they are not reciprocal, it's because something's off with you. It's something that you're not able to receive for yourself because you don't believe subconsciously that you deserve to believe it. And so what you're going to do is overcompensate in one of two ways. By over-accommodating another or by over-straining yourself. This is incorrect English, but really trying way too hard to accumulate the wrong external factors or validators to make you feel better about yourself and in a relationship. I think it's just one of the most obvious places where we see this because the trade-off is pretty obvious. In other words, you can say I have a really nice marriage, but we're not having sex. Let me tell you something, that's not a good marriage. It's not when sex is working. I agree with everyone who says this is 5% of the relationship.
It's true. It's not a factor. But when it's not working, it is the elephant in the room. And it's very similar to when we're feeling aggressively towards ourselves, and we tend to start to affect the relationship as just an uncomfortable relationship. It's only not intimate; it's also not free. And we therefore start to box ourselves into it. The solution is to really get clear on your worth so that you can stop lying. And in that sense, I'm a pretty absolutist in my terms.
Yes, I hear that. And as you're describing these tendencies of one is to seek these marks externally, that is, you know, almost being distracted or preoccupied by this intense focus. And you're also talking about. And you use the word, and many people are familiar with it. Pleasing, over accommodating, and perhaps, these are both strategies that if I can reach these marks A or B, if I can please my partner just so, then the implied hope or agreement is that I will get my needs met. I will feel worthy by reaching these marks, feel worthy, or I will feel my partner's love and reciprocity for all that I've given. And unfortunately, it doesn't always work that way.
Way or society will value me, and my work will be valued by me. Because sometimes we're not even looking for the validation from the partner. Here's where I think it's going to be very useful for the listener if I make this concrete by talking about my own story. And I hope you resonate, even though it's a little bit of an extreme story, I think, just based on the thousands of stories I've heard over the last decade in practice. But I still hope that you understand the patterns of self-betrayal and then what they manifest into. When I was 31 years old, I read a garbage book about marrying people because you have to get married and because it's an emergency, and you should take it as an emergency, by Lori Gottlieb. I've since understood that was not her intention, but “Whatevs.”
I was 30 years old. I was too young to understand that she wasn't saying that. And so I started to have these panic attacks about being elderly and unmarried, like the super sad women that I saw on Sex and the City, which were also a glaring cultural example of me as a failure. Or at least that's how I was reading it. Now, because I'm an overachiever, I'm primed to see the world this way. I can be winning, or I can be losing. And I've been literally rewarded all my life for getting A grades for hitting the right university, for getting into the right jobs, et cetera. So I start to see the entire world in these Machiavellian terms, and I start to see marriage this way as well.
As a result,
**“I start dating with the intention to get married rather than to get married because you're supposed to love somebody.”**
And it's really a wonderful thing that can actually enhance your life. And as a result of this very low self-worth and priming towards a societal acceptance versus my own understanding of myself and my own ability to express my true needs, I end up in exactly what you're describing, which is if I'm just nice enough and sweet enough, someone is going to ask me to marry them. And I pulled it off several times, by the way. I ended up marrying one such gentleman. And I don't mind telling you that relationship was for those who are old enough to remember, a little bit like Sleeping with the Enemy, the movie with Julia Roberts. It was not only abusive, but it was also terrifying.
I was afraid for my physical well-being. There were threats made against my cats, which I think is the worst thing that you can do to me. It's much scarier than you threatening to hurt me. And I just felt isolated and alone and depleted. And no matter what I did to be lovely and keep the peace, it was just getting worse and worse and worse. Until one day, finally, the straw broke the camel's back. We were robbed. There was a huge storm. It revealed the fact that he was also lying about finances, etc. Etc. And this is when I finally go, all right, we gotta end this. And I did. I found the courage. I went through the disaster that is divorce. Anyone who's ever been through it knows that this brings a lot. Reinvention, restart, financial ruin, et cetera.
So I went through that willingly, and I came out the other side. But here's the main thing that I started to understand. What needed to end was not me in that moment. It was the story that I had been buying this Faustian Bargain that you need to sell your soul, essentially, you need to contort yourself. You need to behave as if you don't really want to behave. You need to not ask for what you truly want, because that's the only way to find this level of safety and to look good on Instagram next to a partner. And from then on, I really knew that.
*“I needed to reconstruct my identity from within to care more about who I truly am and not what I appear to be to attract and to live with someone who can really see me.”*
Any real relationship worth its salt is just that: it's a relationship that feels like home.
Thank you for sharing, and for being through the awfulness of the consequences of living through this in very extreme ways here. And that it got so confronting that it forced. Sounds like the situation for you to look at, reconstructing, reorienting, and thank goodness.
I completely agree. I want to say to everybody out there that I got lucky. I got lucky. I ended up suicidal in the shower and with really extreme situations. And those will really shake you out of it. I am delighted to hear. When the client who's been in a really weird marriage finds out, I don't know, that there's unethical behavior or cheating or something really radical like that, because they're doing you a favor. You have to wake up. Usually, you have to wake up. The much more insidious cases are the cases in which life continues to reward you. And here it's the same with any other ambition gone wrong. If you're rewarded by success all the time and more money, you don't notice that your life is a complete sellout for a really long time.
You don't contend with the aimlessness and the gnawing feelings of isolation because you.
Get those dopamine hits.
The dopamine hits. Exactly. So I hope that everybody out there, if you're in a relationship where you're like, I don't know, I feel like this can work. It's okay. I mean, I realize I feel very strongly about someone else. The reason this is happening is that you need to confront the truth, which is that you don't belong there.
Well, I appreciate your clarity. And I also imagine there might be some relationships, and I don't know if you would agree that as people really start to own what's true for them, be more connected with them, their needs or desires, perhaps there could be in some relationships a renegotiation or a shift in the dynamic that perhaps that relationship can be something different. That is essentially a new relationship. So maybe it isn't the old relationship.
This I completely understand. And I want to say that two of my role models in marriage are Sharon Osbourne and Ozzy Osbourne. I personally could never make the decision she made. And what that means is you understand what your tolerance level is, and you understand what works for you. And only you understand whether the terms of the marriage are right for you. I, for example, work with people who are interested in polyamory. This is not my jam. But if that's your jam and you have an agreement in your relationship and you understand each other and you can work it on by all means, as long as the love is real and that there is no betrayal of the self in these terms. Absolutely. Have at it.
That last piece I would underscore no self-abandoning, not lying to yourself. And some of this takes a process, and if you're willing to share it, sounds like you've cultivated a very different experience in relationship and really feel quite enamored with your relationship, your marriage. And can you talk to us about how you like the learning curve of this? Because, as you said, when we've been so accustomed to reaching the marks and getting certain accolades, like that feels good, and we can feel privileged and certain status, and to perhaps do something different could be terrifying in its own right.
Yeah, that's right. The story of how I came together with love that actually feels like home begins as usual, below the surface. As I mentioned, exiting that marriage. I took about 10 years of my life to really do the inner work so that I didn't reproduce another situation like that. In fact, it wasn't like a fear of anything. Like, I didn't relive trauma, but I just knew that something was off and if I didn't fix myself, in other words, internally come to terms with who I am and be cool with it, I was never going to release that need for the approval that is contained in marriage or, I don't know, the social blessing of being a person who has a husband.
And so when I find myself back out there after doing the inner work, and by the way, after launching with enthusiasm, coaching, I'm already teaching people. I met Ryan from a place that really didn't care so much if he liked me and cared much more if I liked him, which is a very different, extraordinary experience in dating. And I remember thinking, not only did I hope I liked him, but I also hoped that if he did like me, in most cases.
**“In dating, especially with women, they're judging your weight and your looks. This is societal conditioning. Whatever. I really didn't want that anymore. I wanted somebody who really listened and who found profundity in my soul and in my particular interests.”****
Ryan barely spoke that entire date. I've since learned that he doesn't talk, period.
And he only did so to interrupt me a couple of times and to correct my citations. And I thought, this guy is phenomenal. He's so well read, he's so thoughtful. He's only interjecting when he really wants to say something. And wants to clarify a point. And it was from that moment on that I understood we had just a different connection here. We had a very different story as a result of that self-worth being intact. Being in a relationship with someone who is already truly connecting to the truth of you and cares a lot less about whether you're having a good hair day or a bad hair day or you're up or you're down, you start to move into a relationship that's really reciprocal, because I was also able to see him for what he is.
Not demand of him to meet me at my level in any scenario, but just understand what he is and read him as he is. And that's been really liberating.
Oh my goodness. It sounds as though, Karen, you were rock solid in your connection with yourself, that you were not going to waver or abandon yourself, and that you were open to experiencing what was in this meeting, in this interaction, and this connection. Is that right?
I think I was in Lt. Dan level because I didn't care so much what happened. I just cared about having some fun and seeing what it is. And when you really care about just getting to know somebody and having a great time and this working out, then it's pronounced when it doesn't, and you're not holding on tightly to anything.
Well, I appreciate you sharing, and I imagine, as you said, the amount of work you're describing, 10 years of being in practice and growth, and sometimes people are trying to implement these principles as they're learning. I will say in my early years, luckily, I think that there can be something really beautiful in getting to know someone as they are building a friendship and just taking the pressure off of whatever we're trying to achieve in the sense of long term relationship or what have you. And when I was in that place and in practice, I was very aware of my anxiety or my tendency and was catching myself live, real time, and speaking into fear and vulnerability and showing up for myself that I wasn't going to abandon myself.
And it was sometimes really hard and did feel scary because I think one of the things when people are really accustomed to reaching certain marks, there's a sense of false control with that, if I can do X, if I can do Y, then here's the outcome, here's the result, and very trying to be strategic about it. So when we're in the unknown and in that place. My husband similarly is not overly expressive. He's quite grounded and contained and wasn't always really visible. I wasn't getting clear cues that he was into me as much as I was into him. And so I had to be with the grief that he may not be into me as much as I meant to.
So this happens to me as well. And I really appreciate that you're expressing this because we can talk about the fact that the overachieving tendencies die hard, and that's the need to control or the need to drive the agenda, which will pop up. I'm a recovering perfectionist. That means that I will, for the rest of my life, sometimes have the impulse to jump in from anxiety, from fear. That only started to happen when I really started to like Ryan. When I started to like Ryan. Unfortunately, I'm compromised, right? And that means I really want Ryan to like me, too. I've been blessed with a husband who's so unexpressive that, for those who are watching on YouTube, this is what he looks like when he is ecstatic. His face doesn't move. Complete poker face.
And so he also wasn't as reciprocal in terms of I call, I talk, I text, et cetera. He just cannot forget about you for several days at a time. And I thought the same thing you did. But then I really stepped into my practice. My practice is not just blind faith. It is an honoring of Byron Katie's. The work of my own, the pause principle, which I talk about in Gilded. I literally start thinking, am I freaking out for any good reason? Is this the truth? What are the other possibilities? What else might be going on here? Is there a possibility that this freak show might actually like me, but in a very weird Midwestern way?
Oh, my husband's from Minnesota.
This is where they learn to not show love to huge love to the Midwest. And so I really started to do that work. And I ultimately latched on through this to my ultimate faith.
***“My ultimate faith is in myself. I am worthy, and I am good, and I am a catch. And if he sees it, that's great. And if he doesn't see it, George Clooney will. Right?”***
Like this. Or something better, right? Sometimes we get into the fantasy or the hope, and we get very attached and think, oh, what if? What if it doesn't work out? What does that mean? And so what you're saying, just for people listening who aren't familiar with Byron Katie, or don't know your pause method, it sounds like you're suspending interpretation, suspending judgment, because we don't have all the information, and that our brains are story maker, meaning making machines, and that we are automatically going to create a story. And sometimes we're on a thought train that has no real basis in what's true for the other person or what's happening. Would you like to say a little bit more?
When you're agenda-driven, you basically steamroll the other person. You don't even notice you're steamrolling the other person. Instead of honoring where the other person is. Tools like the work. Byron Katie has a mindfulness exercise that consists of just four questions that literally begin with just one question. And that is true? You have to start investigating your thoughts as stories. Does he not really care about me, a true story? You have no evidence for this. If you really looked at it and you were in a court of law, it would be super hard for you to prove he doesn't care about me. You could say poker face. But you know what? Jessica and I both have husbands with poker faces. And look, they tend to like us. Number two, is it possible he will never show up again?
I mean, what do you know? Can you see the future? And also, is he the right person for you? Have you even considered that angle? And so there are so many other ways to investigate our thoughts. That starts to release the agenda or the control, which is always going to limit our possibilities and calm us down enough to start getting a totality of possibilities. And anyone who truly knows their worth starts playing that winning game. The biggest irony of working with overachievers is that I have come to believe that they play a very small defensive game. Instead of learning to play at a really high level, I'm going to find my way to winning the game.
Can we unpack that for a minute? Because I think there's a fallacy that if we're doing what society praises or really upholds in high esteem, that's the ultimate, that's the winning game. And that you're saying it grossly limits us, that if we can be in the unknown, suspend, have this pause, that there are so many more possibilities that support an ultimate winning game.
I think that my favorite part of my book, if I may be narcissistic for a second, is a chapter called “You're Not Playing to Win, You're Playing Not to Lose.” I got the concept many years ago. I was a political science major from game theory, and then I was reinforced in this point, and I must reference Jessica for all your listeners, the greatest movie of the last 10 years, which of course is Crazy Rich Asians. Crazy Rich Asians opens with a game scene and closes with a game scene opens with a poker scene and ends with a mahjong scene. It is a game theory movie, and the entire movie is about game theory. In the first sequence, you see Rachel Chu just defeating this guy because she knows he's playing with his psychology.
And she knows that by tripping him up by appearing very confident at the poker table, he, even though he has a good hand, will fold at the end of the movie. And I'm not ruining this for anybody because everyone has flown in the last couple of years and seen the movie several times. At the end of the movie, she's playing mahjong against her nemesis, the mother-in-law, and she is about to win. But she throws the game. Why? She's demonstrating that throwing the game is the real move that aligns with her worth. She knows that if she wins here by societal standards, she tells her, if I win by societal standards, I will marry this rich guy. We do have children. I will always know that I've separated him from his family and that you're sitting like a bad chip on my shoulder.
That is not winning. And this is the Faustian bargain, the deal with the devil that I talk about in Gilded. So many of us, I don't know, we take jobs as consultants, we get paid a fortune, and we end up ripping out 20 years of our lives with really bad hips and a tremendously difficult existence that's probably mind-numbingly boring too. For what? For $2 million a year? I hate to break it to you, but there are other ways to get there. And it's the same thing with the compromise in relationships.
**“If you were truly playing to win, you would understand that the high-minded version is the one that allows you to just go into the uncertainty and accept what the universe will give to you because it cannot miss you.”****
Yes. And if I'm hearing you too. For people who want to orchestrate or help facilitate that, you may get some version of what you set out to do, but you're not going to have the experience we're looking at relationship of slowing things down enough to see how someone shows up, really seeing them. To your point from an earlier marriage, right. That there was a trying to achieve the goal of getting married, versus who this person is. How do they show up, and how do they respond to me? How do they lean in? How do they care for me or show up for me when I'm vulnerable or when I have a need? Like those are things that emerge from the unknown, and we don't know how somebody's gonna be. Is that right?
Yeah, it's true. We have. I mean, whenever somebody announces, and this has happened a couple of times in coaching, that they're getting married after three months, I always go, all right, see you guys in a year. We unfortunately do not get to know each other instantly. And the sex haze is real.
**“If you really value yourself and know your worth, you will take your time. You will take your time because nothing else will do.”****
It's the same with a business. You will not shortcut your way. You will delight in the process of the expansion and of doing it right. In that sense, my aim is to teach people that the only goal worth having is not money. It's not status, it's not closing the deal. It's mastery, it's excellence.
If you are not aimed at excellence, you are going to naturally become a perfectionist, which is a shortcut, a short circuit, a mindset that's going to trip itself up again and again. And that's what I'm thinking.
Well, you even mentioned the narcissistic tendency playfully. Do you feel that there can be a little bit of an inflated ego that we can control, too? Because in some ways, if we have success and we reach all these and we get all these accolades, there's almost this belief that, or even in the west, in these more independently focused cultures, that there's this sense of, like, “I have all this power, which we do have a tremendous amount of agency,but it also can be overinflated.” What do you think?
I think it's autonomy versus authentic power. Autonomy is the desire to control your own destiny. It's phony baloney. They're usually posturing or filled with bravado. I see this all the time in coaching because I coach a specific archetype, and they're like, I can and I will. And I'm like, I feel like you're saying that with a little too much anger. So I don't know about you, but I do not buy it. And it's very annoying to them, which triggers them further, where I'm like, this is a deck of cards. Like, I could just blow this away in the wind. In the case of a person who's truly authentic in their power, they're pretty relaxed. They know what they don't know. They understand that life will ultimately win, whether you like it or not.
And they are just, therefore not holding this posture, this phony baloney stance of, I can get it together, and I should keep it together. It doesn't make any sense. You have surrendered the real stance of power.
The humility of knowing that there is uncertainty, and I will be flexible, and I will work with what I have. And you know, the humility to understand I do have.
Yeah, it's true. And this is true of your relationship, this is true of your career, this is true of your health.
“You have to understand that nothing really matters other than if right now it's working great. Good for you. Enjoy it. That's it.”
I'd love to pivot. If you can talk a little bit about people who are in a relationship. Either one partner is this overachiever, maybe experiencing some level of burnout, or the cost of this overachieving tendency, and what this can look like when we start to become more aware in a relationship. For either partner who is with the other or the one who is acknowledging. I think I have this, and I want to start switching things around in the sexless marriage. Right. Like, talk to us a little about when people are already in a relationship with existing patterns and are interested in shifting them.
Effy. The first thing I would see them as is yellow flags. I don't enjoy the term red flag because it makes people think that they're in danger. You're not, but they are yellow flags, which means an invitation to inquire further. In general, if one partner is literally leaning into burnout, they are overextending themselves, they are overfunctioning. Over-functioning is something that I personally see as an addiction. I believe that workaholism is a form of addiction. I know the APA does not identify it as such, but it's a form of numbing. That means that they're dealing with shame, they're dealing with worth issues, they're dealing with fear. And that is something that, if it's not addressed, it's definitely experienced in the relationship as a form of codependency.
In other words, they're either mean towards you or over-reliant upon you for propping them up. And either way, the real problem is that they're beating the crap out of themselves, and they're not dealing with their own issues properly, or not dealing probably with traumas that are residual from childhood. Now, in general, I also want to say workaholism sometimes comes with other super fun side effects like alcoholism and substance addiction, abuse, and additional forms of numbing. Because workaholism is inherently a cover-up. It's usually a fear that if I ever let go, I will completely fall by the wayside. Which means you have some issues with “fraudulent”. So, first thing I would say is this is a yellow flag, and I'd like to inquire what's going on.
I would just start to lean into the emotions rather than brush them under the rug, and just go, they are what they are. Some people work a lot, I work a lot, Ruth Bader Gistworked a lot. But our husbands know that there's nothing unhealthy about this. We just happen to be very passionate; we can turn it off anytime. We're happy, we're self-caring, we're functioning, we never miss anything. You know what I mean? It's not like I forgot what day it is or anything like that. But you understand what the difference is between patterns that are difficult and patterns that are not difficult. The second case, if you're not having sex here, I become a little bit more gung-ho and say something is wrong.
Either you've become isolated from yourselves for a very long time, because something has happened in the relationship where you've taken each other for granted for too long. And there I refer you to Mating in Captivity by Esther Perel. But to this podcast to really start to understand, like what's happened here. Because most couples are, it's true, there's a power dynamic, they're fighting over, there's a care dynamic. Something died, and it died a long time ago. What is happening? Where is the source of the animosity towards the other? And again, here I say there might be some lying going on, someone's having sex, just letting you know, and where are they having sex, and where are they getting this intimacy need fulfilled? Particularly if it's been years. Sex is like eating; you're going to eat.
Well, some people self-pleasure, some people go to porn, some people have affairs. Like, you know, there's a range here, and sometimes there are life things, stressors that interfere, whether or not it's menopause or somebody died, or there's some tragedy. You know, these things do impact, and also the other dynamics that are at play that you're referencing.
Well, what I mean by this is they're redirecting something, and that is sufficiently commanding their attention to take them away from the relationship. And as far as I'm concerned, that means they're not in the relationship. So you got a compromise here. And so again, the yellow flags should just turn you on to the truth.
**“The only thing is we have to face the truth. We have to reach a point of radical honesty either about what's going on or about what might be going on. And that will lead to a series of very difficult conversations. But without having those difficult conversations, without rocking the boat, you will not get to the truth, and you'll just stay in purgatory.”****
Again, personally, I could not stay there.
Yes. And for people who are listening, that might get what you're describing and feel some inspiration or motivation around it, but also find the way you're speaking about it might sound really easy. And also, could you give somebody a tip or a recommendation on how to set it up, whether or not for themselves to feel some inner stability before having this conversation, what it might sound like to broach this conversation? I know there are many examples, but also just for someone listening, that might feel easy to you, but for them, they're not.
Like, it's not easy. For me, it's clear. It's simply clear. Because I understand that my diverging from the truth is just me perpetuating a lie. And that is something with which my consciousness cannot live. It becomes too burdensome. I've lived with lying for too long in my life. In the case of so clear is not easy. In order to make this simpler, not easier, but simpler, I like to start with a phrase, make no sudden moves. Once you understand that you are in the vicinity of a yellow flag. This doesn't mean take a torch to your life, and we write it down. It doesn't mean that. It literally means be gentle with yourself, start listening to your feelings, start reading, have baby conversations, start leaning into this a little bit more.
If you actually go all in, what'll happen is the other side will naturally dig their heels in, and you'll have a real, full-blown conflict. This, particularly when there are small children involved, when there are legalities involved, it's a big fire. I wouldn't dance directly into it. I would just begin to clarify for myself what I am feeling and hope that I am met with some reciprocity that can deepen over time. No sudden moves.
And unfortunately, the way it works sometimes, I don't know if you would agree, but some people, as you described earlier, the straw that breaks the camel's back, some people get to this threshold of I've had enough, I'm done, I can't do this anymore. And then they do want to blow things up, and you're really recommending that typically isn't going to give a lot of opportunity to see what is possible. That if you can make smaller steps and really turn towards what you're experiencing and then make some small steps that feel doable, that could be something to be curious about.
I practice what I preach here, and I've heard incredible stories, like finding out about cheating because one partner got three STDs. Finding out about cheating because the hookers were texting the phone. And in those sentences, like, I'm, maybe you can hear I have an accent. I'm Israeli. Like, my natural impulse would be kill everything around me. Not to be a stereotype. I like to make light of difficult situations. But I've learned that this is really not the right way. The first thing we must do is turn inward. First, calm down and not calm yourself down. Just find centering. Find a place within your heart that cannot be heard. Find some modicum of objectivity. Find something about yourself that you are not contending with. In other words, own your side of the streets too.
And as you do, broach the subject, which is so much different from I'm leaving you, I'm taking everything, and I'm going to destroy everything around us, which unfortunately leads nowhere good.
No. And one doesn't have the experience of doing what you're describing because it's almost like deny, numb, suppress. And then it reaches this critical point, and then we blow things up. So we actually haven't had that experience as you're describing.
Yeah, I would probably do what Brene Brown says to do. I've done this only in a work capacity, but I believe that the principle is in her book, Dare to Lead. Build the container. You have to prepare yourself, and then from there be much calmer. I wouldn't say strategic, just calmer moves. Calmer moves. When you're calmer, you prepare. And when you prepare, you can take the shifts that will come with conflict better.
Okay, so this goes for, I mean, the way I framed it in partnership. If one person's an overachiever and the other isn't, either party can do what you're describing.
Yeah, “it takes two to tango.” There is something about you that has also intensity. We've chosen each other. So one dynamic is enabling, and the other dynamic is overtaking. That's my point. My point is that there are two people in every relationship. And while I don't know, even in the case like my relationship, I wasn't abusive, I didn't do anything wrong, I didn't do anything illegal. But I did choose him. And I did choose him from a place of really low self-worth. I also didn't accept somebody treating me like that for a couple of years. I knew that this was horrific. And until I owned that, I myself put myself in this relationship. I also didn't have the power to take myself out of this relationship. This is what I mean by “clean up your side of the street.”
Yes. And this is tremendous work because as I listen to what you're describing and contemplate my understanding, and when I see couples shifting into more authenticity, self-connection, and then being more vulnerable with their partner, it's all right there. Like things can shift so quickly. Not so much that it's like, oh, a 180 and a game changer. And it can. And that's when we don't test it. Because you were saying earlier about we typically, if I'm saying we from people who are overachievers and identify with that, perhaps might have this fear that if I don't do those things, who am I? Am I going to be lovable? Am I attractive enough? Am I worthy? And when we can rest in this place of what you're describing and have a connection, that something else emerges. As we were saying earlier, that new possibilities, new experiences.
Can you say a little bit more here?
Well,
**“As soon as you start to have this menu of opportunities, then you just really reach a place in which you understand that any choice is good as long as you're willing to live with the consequences.”****
Since Ozzy Osbourne died a couple of months ago, I've really enjoyed rewatching some of the episodes of The Osbournes, which I thought was just a hilarious show. And I recognize in that couple that they were simply making a choice. They were choosing each other. This was an imperfect choice, as all choices are, but this is a choice that they made and that they were going to go to bat with. And they were ready to live their life and with all of the consequences.
She knew who he was, she understood what he was and what he did, and she made that choice over and over again because for her, this somehow did work. In other words, there is no bad choice as long as you start to understand that I have possibilities here. And this is what I'm really interested in living with. And that's pretty much it.
Thank you. Well, I know we're winding down here. Do you have a practice to help someone who wants to experiment with knowing who they are, connecting with what matters, and kind of slowing down? You gave us an example of the pause, which is suspending that tendency to interpret or create meaning about something in an interaction. What steps or any tips would you recommend here for people who want to just start to practice this self-connection?
I think aside from coaching and therapy, which I believe are absolute musts in this life, I don't know where I would be without them. The other thing, the other practice that is a game changer, is reading. You can read on Audible, I'm fine with that. But read the books that will profoundly give you the tools and the frameworks that will allow you to examine yourself properly, not others. By the way,
“I'm not a big fan of love languages and trying to analyze them and trying to project onto them, there's nothing you can do about them. They have free will. They are going to be exactly what they are.”
Ryan is never going to become an affectionate person.
However, what I can understand is who I am and what I care about and what really matters to me, and bring my A game as a result to any relationship. And my A game is my most forgiving and my most compassionate self, which will usually make for a better partnership. In these cases, I really recommend not only engaging with magnificent podcasts like Jessica's but also reading the work of Brene Brown, the work of Eckhart Tolle, the work of Ram Dass, and the work of Louise Hay. Truly, there are so many masters in this realm that will get you clearer on your worth and on who you are and on what you desire. And once you understand that, like once you know that, there's never any going back, which is a good thing.
So when we are working with a coach or a therapist or reading, we are starting to contemplate and getting new input, a new perspective.
Yeah, we're being confronted constantly with the tube. You're just being confronted by the way. I remember one book in particular, Martha Beck's The Way of Integrity, that pissed me off so much I slammed it shut. When that happens. This is. You have to look at this. Something is up. This is exactly what I mean by reading. And that's also why I like coaching so much. Coaching is. It's not confrontational, but our job is to stand clear and to basically be a friendly trial lawyer who's there to show you that most of what you're saying lovingly is nonsense. And that's exactly what the books do for you. We want a confrontation with these ideas. Not a fun, easy read.
Wonderful. Well, speaking of books, would you like to share your most recent book?
Thank you. Gilded has been out this year and is doing tremendously well. It's called Breaking Free from the Cage of Perfectionism, Ambition, and the Relentless Pursuit of More. And I hope that it helps people take themselves out of their self-inflicted cage lives and into something much more authentic.
Yeah. Which really is what you've spoken about here, how we restrict ourselves with these tendencies and what is really available and possible, and the freedom and the beauty of that, and all that can.
Come and people can love is what you're saying. It makes me think that, like, the way I think about relationships is instead of a vehicle for entrapping us and for confining us, which is one of the things that really annoy me when people talk about marriage in those terms.
“Relationships are the ultimate vehicle to making you free. And that's what I want to teach people to do, is use these relationships for freedom, not for incarceration.”
I couldn't agree with you more when you talked about just some of how we may really agree that an intimate relationship can be an opportunity for growth. That which gets presented, what we might feel confronted with, might be areas that are underdeveloped in ourselves or areas that we may have some tenderness and maybe metabolized previous injury or trauma. And there are just so many opportunities for really growing. And it's not easy work. And I know that you support people in many different domains. Health, business, and relationships. Do you want to speak a little bit more about people who might be interested in coaching?
Of course, I primarily deal with leadership coaching, so the mindset of founders and the creation of businesses that hopefully scale. But I have learned, Jessica, from the very beginning of my practice, that if love ain't working, ain't nothing working. In other words, how you feel is how you lead. We will eventually be talking about relationships, because if that's not functioning, it's a symptom that there's just a lot more disintegration happening. It's like finding a tiny kink in an airplane. Even if it's just one screw loose, the plane is in severe danger. And so that's really what I help you do. The first is get really clear on what's blocking you. And the second is after we remove that, to start to create something on solid ground.
And how do people get in touch with you?
There's www.kereneldad.com. My name is spelled two E's, so I like to say I'm not a Karen. @coachkeren on Instagram. Because, you know, I'm super cool and I'm always on the socials, and my podcastCoach with Coach Keren. I hope we have Dr. Jessica Higgins very soon, live from Austin, Texas.
I love it. Wonderful. Well, I'll make sure to have the links to your social media, your website, and the book. Thank you so much, Karen. I appreciate all that you've shared.
Thank you. My pleasure.
The post ERP 509: When Ambition Costs Connection: How Overachievers Can Find Healthy, Aligned Love — An Interview with Keren Eldad appeared first on Jessica Higgins.
In a world that often glorifies rugged individualism, finding real connection and mutual growth with others can feel elusive, especially when it comes to our closest relationships. The secret ingredient might just be what so many overlook: genuine collaboration—both at home and beyond. What if the key to thriving wasn’t “doing it all yourself,” but learning how to truly work together?
In this episode, you’ll discover how building circles of collaboration can transform your personal relationships, family dynamics, and even your broader social and professional connections. Through real-life stories and practical strategies, you’ll learn why trust, curiosity, and deep listening are so essential for building fulfilling partnerships. You’ll also hear how taking intentional steps—like active listening, sharing vulnerability, and nurturing supportive communities—can help you experience more connection, resilience, and joy in every area of your life.
Leslie Grossman is a trailblazer in leadership, and professional and career development for women. She is an accomplished executive coach, keynote speaker, researcher, serial entrepreneur and co-founder of the Women’s Leadership Exchange, the first national conference program for women based on collaborative leadership. She is faculty director of Executive Women’s Leadership at The George Washington University – Center for Excellence in Public Leadership. Leslie’s latest book, “Circles of Collaboration”, reveals the time-tested method of harnessing one’s success and fulfillment on the principles of collaboration, trust, generosity and communication.
Episode Highlights06:27 Navigating leadership roles and collaboration in relationships.
08:21 Intentionality in creating circles of collaboration.
10:33 The power of deep listening and curiosity in partnership.
14:38 Building meaningful connections through intentional questions.
17:40 Vulnerability, trust, and support systems in relationships.
20:27 Generosity, active listening, and expanding your circles.
25:28 Collaborative exchanges and asking for support.
28:24 Negotiating imperfect collaboration and relationship expectations.
31:06 Bringing up important issues: Timing and communication.
34:17 The impact of collaborative relationships and taking action.
Your Check List of Actions to Take* Divide and conquer roles: In partnerships, clearly designate leaders for different areas, but always ensure communication and final decisions respect collaboration and listening. * Practice deep listening: Be intentional about giving your full attention to your partner or colleague; don’t interrupt or assume you know what they’ll say. * Ask curious questions: Show genuine interest by asking open-ended questions about feelings, experiences, and perspectives to foster connection. * Build multiple circles of collaboration: Develop relationships beyond your intimate partnership—think family, friends, work, and community circles—to enrich your support network. * Be intentional with connection: Choose to initiate deeper conversations with those you care about, rather than keeping interactions at a surface level. * Cultivate generosity: Offer your time and listening ear generously; seek ways to support others, such as facilitating introductions or sharing helpful resources. * Keep track of important issues: If topics arise that feel uncomfortable to discuss, jot them down and revisit them when the timing is better; don’t let them slip away. * Let go of perfection: Accept that not all relationships or collaborations will be perfectly reciprocal; allow space for difference and focus energy on relationships that foster growth and mutual support.
MentionedCircles of Collaboration (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
ERP 301: How an Entrepreneur Couple Can Negotiate Love and Business Successfully — An Interview with Dr. Ellyn Bader
12 Relationship Principles to Strengthen Your Love (free guide)
Connect with Leslie GrossmanWebsite:Lesliegrossmanvision.com
YouTube:youtube.com/channel/UCqjD0Y4L0XVjzixocEsO8kw
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LinkedIn:linkedin.com/in/lesliegrossmanleadership
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If you have a topic you would like to be discussed, please contact us by clicking on the “Ask Dr. Jessica Higgins” button here.
Thank you so much for your interest in improving your relationship.
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*With Amazon Affiliate Links, I may earn a few cents from Amazon if you purchase the book from this link.
Episode Transcript
Leslie, thank you for joining us.
Thank you for inviting me. I am so excited about our conversation.
Me too. And so circle of collaboration, something you develop, and you have a co-founder or co-author?
I have a co-author, yes. Christine.
Yes. And I know the principles of this are so aligned with just the relationship. And as we focus here on the Empowered Relationship Podcast, on the intimate space. But this can be applied to any relationship. Where would you like to start, around how this became of interest, and how you developed this?
I always knew the last 25 years at least, that great things happen when we work together and we listen to each other, and we collaborate together and create marketing space. But then for the last 15 years, I've been an executive coach and very focused on leadership development and teams. And so, collaboration, the most effective teams are collaborative teams. And I also noticed with my own and my friends, husbands and wives, all the collaborators, that when they collaborated, they had the best relationships. So collaboration was a keyword for me for a long time.
But as I've been in the area of career development, I realized that if we have circles of collaboration around us, different groups, whether it's maybe it's your nonprofit group, maybe it's your team at work, maybe it's your girlfriends, maybe it's your family, those are all circles where the most effective and happiest people are those that are collaborating. So that's kind of how the whole thing developed is to start looking at it not as individuals, but as circles. But the core of it is your collaboration at home. Right. With your partner. And so when you learn how to do that, well, you take it to all your other circles as well.
Absolutely.
That's how it evolved. And Christine and I have been talking about it. It's kind of been a core of my work, but she started applying it in her own life. And then she's the one who said we really have to write a book about this and bring it to everybody. So we work together to write the book about it. And I teach it in all the courses that I do, and asking people to apply it to their relationships. And our core relationship is most likely, and we hope it is our partner.
Absolutely. So we're in a relationship. How we do relationships is important. And there's a difference here between. You're contrasting collaboration versus maybe other forms of relating.
Yes. I mean, you know, where there's a relationship where somebody's in charge. Right. And the boss. I don't know. That's your area, Jessica. So I'm not going to go there. Except to know that in personal relationships, there are reasons why some work very well and some don't work as well. And I in my own life,
*****“My husband and I have been together a very long time. I don't even want to tell you how many years, but it's a long time. And we learned over time how to collaborate. And I realized that I learned it from watching my parents.”*****
Really? Yes.
Wow.
We saw how they listened to each other and didn't tell each other what to do all the time, but really listened and came up with solutions together. Wow.
I'm so glad you had that modeling. And also congratulations on the continual development in your marriage and how long you've been together. And it's just such a fruit of your efforts, I'm sure, just what you've both invested. And this is important. So when we look at someone being in the lead, there are ways in which a leader can be in service of the good of all of everyone involved, which many of us would deem as typically more positive. And then there's leadership, which is we're doing this more of the domineering, I guess. And that can happen in a relationship. And I wonder what you would think about that. Are there hybrids around? Maybe some.
If we look at an intimate relationship where someone might be a bit more in the lead in certain domains, but be in service, there's collaboration that happens to support that, or because sometimes it takes a lot of effort.
Right.
I interviewed someone, her name is Ellen Bader, she's out of Menlo Park, California. And she was talking about entrepreneurial couples, as do you have an entrepreneurial background here? And she was saying 50/50 decisions are more effort, like it just takes more energy to be 50. But sometimes it can be helpful for one to have a little bit more agency. But obviously in the service of what both. If we're talking about a couple, what both people need and want.
Yes, absolutely. When it comes to entrepreneurial relationships. And I actually have. Have coached quite a few partners, and they're not always married, by the way. They might just be partners in the business. Right. And one of the things that I always coach them on is divide and conquer. You are the leader in this area, listen to each other, and take it in. But when it comes to the final action, whoever is the leader gets the say after you've listened carefully to each other. And I believe that the same thing happens with couples, whether it's not a business, but that sometimes someone is a leader in every area. And it's a good idea in some cases. Right. But still
**“You need to listen to your partner.”**
Yes. And find out where they're coming from so that it's not.
I'm going to do this no matter what you think I'm going to. Let's hear, let's hear how we both feel about it. And then I'll take the lead. Unless you want to take the lead in this.
Well, Leslie, this is so important because as I'm listening, I'm thinking, well, yes, because if one person's preferences and interests are dominating, then the relationship is more of an expression of the one, not both. And for the relationship to be life-giving and sustainable. Right. We want to have that be in service of all parties. So you said something a moment ago when we were starting to talk about collaboration, and I know in your book, you and Christine talk about how some people do this circle of collaboration intuitively or have some sense of it, but it sounds like you both are really recommending being intentional.
Yes.
Can you say more about how that's important, and then for people just to orient a little bit more, would you be willing to define how you see, you gave a frame. Would you. Is there a way you want to define circles of collaboration, like what they are?
Yes. I mean, let's just talk about your couple. That's one circle. Right. “Your family is a Circle.” And that's probably because it's a family, the two dominant members are the parents, and also there are the brothers and sisters, and other people. But within your own little domain, it's the two of you.
**“The key with the collaboration piece between two people, I think are a couple of key things. One is really listening. And for some reason, with most people, listening does not come naturally.”**
Have you observed that too?
Well, what's interesting, and this might fit with what you're describing, is that as humans, we tend to automate. And so if we know someone or have been around someone, we almost by default are like, I know them, or I get them. And so you shortchange the process of like really deeply listening.
Maybe. I agree, that's. I think you're absolutely right. You think you know what they're going to say, right? So we interrupt them. We don't even often let them have their say because we're already thinking about how we're going to defend ourselves in our heads rather than listen to what our partner has to say. Listen, I even find myself doing it now. Here I am. This is a concept, this is, I've been, I teach people how to do this, particularly business people. And I catch myself, and I think that's the whole thing. We have to kind of catch ourselves, catch ourselves to say,
Am I giving the person the chance to say how they feel?
Am I truly listening to them?
Am I being curious about why they feel this way?
Curiosity, I think, is another really important part of this, not only asking them,
How do you feel about that?
Why do you feel that way?
What's happened to you that makes you feel that way?
Bringing curiosity to any relationship, be it a personal relationship, a business relationship, anything, makes it more powerful and allows you to be able to collaborate fully because you get to hear the whole story. Why is this person feeling this way? And for us to jump in and have a solution without hearing them out is just, well, I want to just say it's wrong, make anybody wrong, but we're not bringing value to that person, not coming up with something that we both can be happy with, or at least satisfied with.
Absolutely. I mean, I'm thinking, as you said, teams, and also I want to stay focused on an intimate relationship. But it's almost relationship stopping when we don't listen. And we already know we're almost self-referencing and just prioritizing our voice. Conversely, listening, getting interested, drawing out more of the perspective, how this matters, and why it's important is an actual relationship. That's like living, participating in a relationship. I don't know if you would agree. And then my second thought is the diversity that comes from having differences of perspective that tends to strengthen. We look at all systems, nature, and various aspects. They're stronger when there's more diversity. And similarly in couplehood, we don't want to marry or be partnered with ourselves. Like, that's not super interesting, right?
Yeah.
How complimentary. Or there could be strengths in having more perspectives. I'm curious what you would say.
Yeah, I think that. That I hadn't really thought about it that way, to tell you the truth. But agree with you. It makes a more interesting relationship and more value. A better family, a better couple. And say, you know, I didn't understand why you wanted to do that, but now that you tell me that, oh, I get it now, I see why you want to take that kind of action. And I'm not 100% comfortable with it yet, but I could, you know, let's talk about it some more. And I think that is true in any kind of relationship, be it a personal relationship with someone you're in a couple with, in a business, or anywhere you go. I think certain principles make every relationship stronger and build trust. And I think trust is the other. It's like three words that I always think of.
*”It is trust, it is listening, and it is curiosity. If those three things are part of a relationship, then we've got a really great relationship.”***
No kidding. And one way I'm hearing what you're describing, Leslie, is that if we are learning from our partner, that essentially it might, or just in any context, it offers an opportunity for us to grow, that maybe there are parts of us that are underdeveloped or we just don't have strength in. And that if we're willing to get outside or contemplate even someone's voice, that might open up or grow. That would. If the person or the initiative, if you will.
We tend to be advice givers. We want to tell people what to do. We have good advice. Sure. But maybe the person just wants to be heard. Yes.
Well, you have some key points. I want to dive in a little bit more. I don't want to move away too far. First, though, of the intentionality. Is there a way to be more intentional about creating a circle of collaboration?
Absolutely.
Would you be willing to say more?
Yeah, I absolutely would. Let's look at our different circles. The family circle, we've got, the girlfriend circle we've got, maybe the office circle we've got, religious, spiritual circle. And a lot of times, those relationships can be very surface relationships. So what we can do is ask people who mean a lot to us for deeper conversations and really get to know them in a deeper way. That is, I think, what we need to do to create a world around us that gives us fulfillment; all our relationships are really saying, tell me about your work. What are you doing? What are you making a difference? Tell me, what do you love about it? You know, just really asking more questions.
I love what you're saying. I'm giggling because I met with a client yesterday. Well, she was one of my many, but she was talking about a first date, and it was going relatively well. And it was like, tell me something you've been proud of or something that you're working on. And I was like, I love that. I mean, it's a way to prompt.
Exactly. I think if we could do that with many of our relationships, we would make them much more fulfilling. And not everybody will participate in that, by the way. No, because they're going, what? I don't really want to go there. But that's how you find out who's truly in your circle of collab. Yeah. That's because those are the people who want to have a deeper relationship, that they're. Wow. You want to know about that, and then it allows you.
*“When you ask them a question, and they share, you can find common ground in a way that maybe you never knew you had.”*
Wow.
Well. And this fits with the trust, I'm sure. So I listen a lot for my work and supporting people, and I'm genuinely interested. And I love people, so I love hearing. And I don't mind talking either. In social relationships, people sense that I'm listening more than maybe the average person, so they'll sometimes share. And then there are times where people will ask me really poignant questions because they've been listening. It feels so good to have somebody remember or pick something of significance and be prompted to learn more. And so if I'm hearing you correctly, Leslie, you're saying, pay attention and with intentionality, that if there are people that you're gonna field the ball, like playing catch. Right. You're actually having this exchange that deepens. Then you can maybe perhaps choose to spend more time or cultivate those relationships, investing in them.
Exactly. I'll give you an example of one that happened to me.
Yeah.
She's been a friend of mine for 25 years. Okay. We were both business owners. We were in an organization for women business owners. Together, which is all about helping each other in business and that sort of thing. But in a conversation with her, she was asking me questions. We were having a nice conversation. It was pretty superficial. But she said, “Leslie, you look like you're not having the things are not so good day today. What's on your mind? I said, well, you know, I'm having challenges with my son. She had a son, whom I didn't know. So she said, tell me about it. You know, I've been through things with my son, too.”
We ended up having this conversation where I told her very heartfelt things that were going on, and she was able to then give me insights about her experience with her son, which I could apply in my case. And she was absolutely right because I took her insights. It was not her saying, do this, do that. She said, here's what I did and how it made a difference. I took what I heard and applied it. Let me just say, many years later, both our sons are doing great, but our relationship took a deep dive. And we have been helping each other in business ever since that day.
Wow.
The trust was built. And it started with her noticing that I was not looking like I was having a good day, and me being willing to be vulnerable.
Absolutely. Thank you for sharing that story. And it just illuminates these choice moments that we could lean in or lean out, and what's possible. Like these moments that can have such a profound impact, and that there's support for you. Sometimes, people, family difficulties, or even, especially with intimate relationships, feel so private or even feel some shame or uncertainty. And it's like, I don't know if anyone else is going through this. So it can feel like we're walking around with this and feel alone. And yet a lot of these things are very universal. And people have been through. And to feel, again, not the recommendation of here's what you should do, but some sharing of like, you're not alone. There's something that I found helpful. And if there's some resonance there after that conversation, you were better off for having taken that risk.
Absolutely. And if I could also add, because even my husband and I were dealing with it, but he didn't really know what to do either. And that happens with couples. Right.
***“We have problems, and we don't know how to solve them together, or one person has an opinion, the other has another. That's why we have these circles. If we can have trusted circles of people around us, then we have other places to go to share. We live in a world where we can't just be the two of us.”***
Agreed.
You know, we need support around us in our personal lives as well as our professional lives. And the more we open up to that, I think the better, the happier, and more fulfilled we can all be. And that does not take away from our one-to-one relationship at all.
No, I absolutely agree with you. And the thing that I'm thinking here is absolutely that we need community. We need relationships in various forms and the health and strength of those relationships. I'm reminded, like just the classic. In different traditions, often there's some recognition of the community supporting the couple. And that is a component of the bigger systems. And as you said, the thought that I was thinking here was that it's bidirectional that when the couple system is functioning and having this collaboration, it can benefit others, the children, the extended family, the friends, the community. I mean, we can be in the world and be uplifted and be of service more when our strength and our primary bond are operating well. And then other circles are benefited, and conversely, when we're maybe not feeling so strong, the circles can. External.
I don't know if I'm thinking externally, but I am thinking of a primary circle. But those other circles can benefit the couple bond.
Yes. It goes in multiple directions.
Right, got it.
Yeah, for sure. And I think that another place in terms of intentionality, if someone feels that they don't have that support, think about what you care about and what matters to you that you're not involved in. Is there an organization that helps children or fights a disease or whatever that you're concerned about? Reach out, become part of another. Create another opportunity for you to be part of another circle. And I think for us to be. Sometimes we're too dependent on our family or our one-to-one relationship, and think we could get everything from that person, but we can't. And to have that kind of expectation is unfair to that person. And that's why I think these circles of collaboration are also so important.
Because we can be fulfilled by many different things, and we can contribute to others as well as they can contribute to us. And by doing that, we can be more satisfied with our one-to-one private relationship.
I absolutely agree. There seems to be a generative nature to the circles of collaboration. You've spoken about trust, and you gave a personal story around how this potentially can be developed. Right. If we take a risk and somebody responds or somebody sees us, and we have that exchange, we can deepen the trust. And you also talk about generosity. Would you be willing to share a little bit more with people listening around on how to develop more trust and generosity?
Well, I think it's fairly simple but complicated for people to actually execute. But it's got simple principles, and it really just starts with reaching out to people. And I think that in this age that we're in right now, where everybody's used to everything so fast. Right. Cell phone, I mean, you're texting, you're this. And I tell my clients as well as, you know, reach out to one person every week, somebody that you haven't talked to, but you always cared about, and start to ask them about themselves, hear about their life, and then be listening, truly listen to how you could maybe support them in some way. That's generosity. I think listening is generosity. You know, I mean, often people feel nobody listens to me. I think a lot of people feel that way.
I agree.
They feel alone, and they are uncomfortable sharing. I mean, I got lucky, right? That day that I shared. But that's because somebody actually asked me the question. And so I think that we have to be curious about people and say, how are things in your family? How are the kids? How is your job? I mean, not all at one time, and say I really want to hear. I really want. I mean, let them know you want to hear.
That's number one in feeling generous: listening to people.
Yeah. In a world that nobody. Everybody's in a hurry. And then being able to ask the question, is there a way I could support you? Do you need to meet someone? They're looking for a job. What are you looking for? Tell me more about that.
Maybe there's someone I know that I could connect you with. You know, what other things are you interested in asking questions about? Those are all signs of generosity, I think. So those are not the typical things that you would think of. Right. When you say being generous. But it is giving of your time, giving of your listening, giving of your willingness to make a connection. Some people hold onto things and don't want them. Well, I don't want to introduce them to that because that's my friend.
Right.
No, let's not feel that way. They might have a great connection, and that's not going to leave you out. So we have to. Those are all the different kinds of generosity that I think of and that I try to share with people and encourage them to do.
You know, it's interesting, you were saying simple, and it feels so human. And yet
*“Our modern-day living is often so demanding that we lose touch with these very elemental human connections.”*
And I'm in a new location. We're just a year into where we're currently living, and it's a smaller community, less than a hundred thousand. I think it's like maybe 60,000. And it's going to take some intentionality. I play beach volleyball, I go to yoga, and I'm meeting people. And the level of connection that I thrive in, it might take some real intentionality around, as you said, thinking about what matters to me and choosing to engage in those things or invest in those things. So thank you for just the reminder.
That's so basic, but also, like, we can lose touch with it because we're feeling the demands of life or feel out of touch with this. I mean, there are a lot of articles about how to meet friends as an adult. Like, it's, you know, it's not as curated for us. It tends to take. But to have this as some framework. And the other thing that I'm thinking here, Leslie, as you talk about the generosity, even when you were saying, Oh, how can I help? I could feel that people get a little tight around. Like, I'm already strapped for time. Like if I make these calls or listen takes time.
But then, perhaps, and I'm curious what you would say, there might be an investment of time, and perhaps one could put some parameters, like, I have half an hour, I have 40 minutes, or an hour that I can give to this call or want to invest, but that it doesn't stop there. That perhaps might come back.
Right.
Like, there's this exchange. It's not just, oh, I'm giving, and then that's the end of the story, as if it is generative. Then can you say more?
Yeah, well, that's the collaboration part. Right. Okay. Like, you know, it's okay. I'm giving, and I'm getting to know this person, but then I'm also identifying some things we have in common. And I'm saying, wow, you are involved in this. I would love to get more involved in that. Or I'd like to learn more about that. Or that's an area where I'd like to meet people. Could you maybe? Could I come along with you when you go do that? Because sometimes we have to prompt people to be more generous. But that's okay. We ask. And that's another thing that we feel uncomfortable asking for ourselves. Right.
But, being little by little, just seeing that if you're connected and you have that commonality asking, we have to get a little uncomfortable, get comfortable with being a little uncomfortable until we see it as it's okay.
Some people have scripts, social scripts. Right. As you said, keep things a bit more on the surface. And sometimes things are transactional. Right. I do this for you. You do this where you have a carpool. We have an agreement that can work. And then there's this collaboration with intentionality. Do you ever have, like, encourage people to say, we have an agreement to meet? I think you had talked about even that for certain circles, there's a frequency, there's an attention to the nurturing of the circle. But my question, the backdrop of my question is like, for people listening, some people will say, well, I have certain friends, and some are more givers, some are a little bit more takers.
And I don't know that I want to really enter into a circle of collaboration with someone that haven't experienced them to be very willing to give back, or even somebody listening that they tend to operate more collaboratively, and their partner doesn't always participate. Would you say a little bit about how to negotiate this?
Well, life is not perfect.
Life is not perfect.
But. Not everybody's going to be part of that circle of collaboration. They can still be your friend. Yeah. They can still be your partner, you know, and it's okay. But my feeling is, don't be without having a circle of collaboration. But not everybody's going to be that.
“I have a group of girlfriends, and I can tell you I love them all, but they're not all collaborators. And it's okay when we go out, we have a good time, we laugh, but only maybe two or three of them are collaborators with me, and that's okay. But don't live life without collaborators.”
So it's almost made possible when you have the circles of collaboration to engage in these other relationships that maybe aren't collaborative, that you could still feel buoyant, you could still feel available for that. And even one who is not experiencing collaboration in their intimate relationship, if they have other circles that they feel supported by, perhaps they can still make attempts and participate, even if their partner's not reciprocating or responding. And you're saying it's okay.
Yeah, I think it is Okay.
I love that. Do you think it's still helpful to take? Make attempts, like, especially with an intimate partner?
Sure.
Okay.
Yeah. Let me tell you, all these years, my husband has not collaborative on everything.
Right.
But some things he is, and that's fine. In some ways, it's Okay. I don't really want him to be part of that anyway. It's okay. Yeah. Gonna be my thing, you know, and it's okay. So I think, you know, we gotta give up perfection, right? Yeah. We honor ourselves particularly. Yes. Which is a big thing when I'm working with women. I have them all give up something. What are you going to give up this week that you feel has to be so perfect? Could be something about yourself that you're. Maybe it's at work. One woman said to me, I didn't pick up anything in the house all week. I just let everything lie there. The kids, they complained to me. I said, no, you want it picked up? Go ahead, pick it up. She did nothing for a week.
She said it was one of the best weeks of my life. I love it. No collaboration, but it's okay. And she said, well, we're going to do it after that week, she says, if you like it that way, we're going to do it together.
I love it. There's some teaching and learning there around.
Yeah.
Shifting the dynamic.
Yeah.
Great. Well, thank you. Because I do think that different systems require different skill sets. And if we have this orientation towards collaboration, how to show up for that and the health and benefits of that, and also, there might be certain circumstances where we can be more proactive, work with the system of maybe hierarchy in a way that's more collaborative. I think there might be a way to do that. But I love that. Thank you for speaking to that. Okay. I know we don't have a ton of time, so let me ask you. You and Christine talk about the importance of being heard, and you've talked a lot about listening. Is there anything you want to say about this topic and the importance of it in communication?
What I would say about that is a lot of times we have things that we want to say, but we just pass over, and we just say, no, I'm not going to bring it up. No, I'm not going to bring it up. I think,
“Whether we're women or men, maybe it's not always the right time to bring it up, but we should keep a little list of the issues and things that are important to us.”
Not lose it.
Not lose it, exactly. Not lose it. Because sometimes we'll let it. We don't bring it up, and then it's six months later, and it's rearing its ugly head again. And we need to keep that list and not bring it all up at the same time, but look for the opportunities or create the opportunities. To sit down and talk about those things and whether it's going for a walk together and just saying, you know, which is, I think, a great way.
I do too. You're not sitting in a room and, like, facing each other. You're, like, together and you're out in nature or even somewhere with trees, like ideally.
Exactly, exactly. That's when I have the best conversations with my husband.
Same.
There are no distractions. Except for the beauty of nature. Right?
Yeah.
Otherwise, there are always distractions. So I think that's when you say, okay, this is one issue that I really been wanting to talk about. And we don't make the other person wrong. We talk about. Well. And you know how to do that. You're the goddess on this. I know. On how to bring out these conversations. I was a psych major, but I did not get my PhD in psychology, so I know just enough to be dangerous.
No, no, this is important. You're setting the stage. I mean, if I'm tying this back and thanking you just for acknowledging my efforts in training. But when we bring this back to being heard and being in service of that, you're saying, don't just brush stuff under the rug. Hold it and timing. And can you bring it up in a way that is not alarming or attacking or this harsh startup, as the Gottmans would talk about. Can we have the other thing about walking is we're engaging our system in more regulation through breathing and moving, that we're not sitting in a more constricted posture, like were supporting regulation. And then bringing it up, and one topic. Right. Setting it up. And then that potentially increases the likelihood that we could be heard.
Exactly. In fact, I can recall, and this was just a few weeks ago, when my husband and I were taking a walk. I said to him, I can't remember what the issue is anymore. But I started to say I really wanted to talk to you about this. And he said, that's exactly what I wanted to talk to you about.
Great.
But he would never have brought it.
Yes.
So, by me bringing it up, a lot of times we have the same issue.
Yeah.
And I think, at least in my case, my husband is less likely to bring it up than I am. He'll just bite his tongue. But then it doesn't get resolved.
No. And you're modeling, as you even talked about having the benefit of parents that modeled this, that there's a bit more trust perhaps in the process. And this is your work.
Right.
You've done so much to support people and really practice this and flex these muscles of collaboration. So I imagine there's a deep-felt trust that you have in the process. Is that right?
That's true. Yeah, absolutely. Wonderful.
Well, I know I had a few more questions, but is there anything else you want to say before we wrap up?
Well, we covered an awful lot, and thank you for, you know, really a great conversation. I mean, I think this whole idea of having circles of collaboration around you, not depending just on a small circle, family circle, is really important. And using that, the tools that I've actually developed to use professionally, but they certainly apply very much personally.
Yes.
So I really just urge people to really think about it, consider it, try it out, and just
“Build trusted relationships, because that's where the collaboration is.”
I mean, I probably would have used trusted circles, but trust is used a lot out there in the world, and trust is a very important part of it. But I like the collaboration because it means two people are working together.
I do, too.
Happiness, a solution, address a problem, whatever. And so I urge everybody to just look at their own life and say, where could my life use a little more collaboration and trust?
No kidding. And I do love the word collaboration because, as you said, it allows for this working together that trust could. But it maybe doesn't have to be that we're doing anything other than trusting each other, like the collaboration as we are engaged. And that's something that, as you are talking about your work and how it applies to business and various domains of life. But being able to work together, to negotiate a challenge.
Right.
We didn't really dive into that today, but that is something that collaboration can really assist with, negotiating conflict or a difficulty shifting from the me mindset to the we mindset. Like, there's a lot of layers here. Well, I so appreciate your time. And how do people get your book and what you're teaching, and connect to you?
Oh, well, thank you very much for asking. So the book Circles of Collaboration is available through all the usual places that you get your books. And also I do a. I have a worksheet that I use with my groups and with my clients, and it is how to get your start looking at your circles of collaboration. So if anyone would like that, they could email me. I'd be happy to email them that worksheet for them to begin to look at their circles of collaboration and start developing them more strongly. And they can reach me at l
lesliegrossmanleadership.com, so I'm happy to send it to anyone who would like it.
Oh, thank you. That's generosity right there. Thank you. And you have a website, it sounds like?
Yes, it's called Leslie Grossman Vision. Com. I also talk a lot about vision, but not today.
I can see how it fits. It's beautiful. And what might they find on that website?
Well, there's a lot of information about what I call, like, the seven tenets of leadership, which are the things that we all need to strive for, not just being a leader of a group, but being a leader of our own life. And that's really what I mean. I am a leadership coach, but I really believe that
“Before we can lead others, we need to lead ourselves.”
Oh, yes. Wonderful. Well, I'll make sure to put the link to your website in some of the places to get your book, as well as your email, for people who want to email you to get this worksheet. And again, I am so grateful for your time here today.
Oh, well, thank you so much, Jessica. This was really a great conversation, and I love a great conversation.
Me too.
The post ERP 508: The Power of Collaboration: Building Trust and Connection in Love and Life — An Interview with Leslie Grossman appeared first on Jessica Higgins.
Why do the smallest disagreements with loved ones sometimes feel like the fiercest battles? Conflict in relationships often spirals into unproductive cycles of attack and defense, leaving us stuck, misunderstood, and further apart from the connection we crave. We rush to defend, strategize, and fix—yet rarely pause long enough to truly understand what matters beneath the surface.
In this episode, listeners are invited to explore powerful strategies for breaking the cycle of reactivity and shifting attention toward curiosity, clarity, and genuine understanding. Through personal stories, actionable principles, and practical guidance, the conversation uncovers how paying attention to our underlying needs, emotions, interests, and habitual responses can foster a more constructive, compassionate, and collaborative approach to navigating conflict. By learning to differentiate between strategies and the needs they serve, listeners gain the tools to create meaningful change, deepen intimacy, and transform even the stickiest conflicts into opportunities for growth.
Dana Caspersen is a conflict engagement specialist, best-selling author, TEDx speaker, and award-winning performing artist. She works with individuals, organizations, and communities worldwide as a trainer, coach, consultant, and dialogue designer. Drawing on the knowledge and insight gained from her experience as a mediator and conflict analyst and her 40-year career as a performing arts innovator, Dana empowers people and organizations to navigate complex and challenging situations. Conflict Is an Opportunity is her newest book.
Episode Highlights04:22 How our bodies react and impact communication.
09:25 Moving from attack-defense to understanding in conflict.
13:22 The impact of unmet needs in relationship conflict.
14:22 Distinguishing needs, emotions, interests, and strategies.
18:16 Creating a supportive relationship culture for navigating conflict.
23:15 The importance of internal clarification before addressing issues.
24:50 Practicing curiosity and validation during difficult interactions.
28:35 Managing communication triggers and acknowledging emotions.
33:32 Intentional connection and embodied curiosity in conflict resolution.
36:07 Safety, attachment, and speaking from interests instead of vulnerabilities.
38:06 Conscious decision-making and the role of requests in conflict.
42:46 Applying conflict skills across all relationships and areas of life.
Your Checklist of Actions to Take* Before addressing conflict, take a moment to breathe, relax, and bring your attention inward so you can respond rather than react. * Pay attention to your body’s stress signals—like a tight neck or jaw—and consciously shift to a more open, relaxed posture to support curiosity and connection. * Redirect your attention away from attack and defense; instead, get genuinely curious about what your partner is feeling and what matters to them. * Start conversations by acknowledging your partner’s feelings and concerns to disarm defensiveness and open up constructive dialogue. * Recognize that requests or strategies (like asking your partner to be home by 8) often mask deeper needs (such as intimacy or security), and talk about those underlying needs instead. * Approach your partner with open-ended requests rather than demands, creating space for true dialogue and collaboration. * Use your emotions as a clue to uncover your real needs and interests, then express those clearly and kindly to your partner. * Expect that conflict will arise and discuss with your partner how you’ll address it—having a shared mindset helps you get back on track when things get heated.
MentionedConflict Is an Opportunity (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
Changing the Conversation: The 17 Principles of Conflict Resolution (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
Conflict is a place of possibility (TEDx Talks) (YouTube link) (video)
Your Body Language May Shape Who You Are (TED) (YouTube link) (video)
Gottman Institute
Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) (*Psychology Today) (link)
12 Relationship Principles to Strengthen Your Love (free guide)
Connect with Dana CaspersenWebsite:danacaspersen.com
Facebook:facebook.com/DanaCaspersen
Instagram:instagram.com/dcaspersen
LinkedIn:linkedin.com/in/dana-caspersen
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If you have a topic you would like to be discussed, please contact us by clicking on the “Ask Dr. Jessica Higgins” button here.
Thank you so much for your interest in improving your relationship.
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*With Amazon Affiliate Links, I may earn a few cents from Amazon if you purchase the book from this link.
Episode Transcript
Dana, thanks for joining us today.
Oh, such a pleasure to be here. Thank you for having me. Yes.
And as I was just letting people know about your background through your bio, and you've had 40 years in the performing arts space, how did you transition to supporting people in conflict management?
I started because in my own life, there were so many conflicts, and I was really suffering from them, and I was really realizing that I just didn't know how to deal with them. And a friend of mine dragged me to a workshop on conflict, and during the workshop, I had this light bulb moment, like I don't think I've ever had before, where I suddenly recognized it doesn't have to be this way, it can be different. So I started studying just on my own to try to get a better sense of what I was doing and what I might do. And then I saw how,
******When you change your mindset and your approach, things unfold so differently.********
And it was such a relief and it was so exciting that I then studied further, went and got a degree, got a master's in conflict studies and mediation, and started getting really interesting and thinking about how does this kind of mindset not a formula, not a cookie cutter way of doing it, but how do we really develop skill on a broad scale in the world so that we don't end up in constant wars and we don't end up with divisive conflicts that simmer for generations sometimes, and in relationships and in communities. And when I first started working in conflict, I really kept my two fields of work apart. Where I was a performing artist in dance and theater, and I thought, okay, I'm not going to water one of them down, either of them down.
But as I went along, I started to recognize that they're actually very similar in many ways. When we get into a conflict, we can feel like it's stuck, and we're down. And a dancer's job is to come back every day and not repeat the same thing, but reconnect to ideas. And I started to recognize that the nature of that practice is the same as in conflict.
**We're reconnecting to ideas every day already. The question is, which idea are we reconnecting to? And how is that impacting the way we see what's around us and the way we think about what's possible?**
So for me, in both fields, it's about what's possible that we haven't noticed yet.
Maybe this is an opportunity for what is being surfaced that needs to be surfaced, or would be really useful if we could surface it, that we're afraid to? What if we can find a way to do it constructively? So the fields eventually diverged, and they came back together.
I love this. And one of the things that I find so helpful is when different disciplines arrive at similar principles, and it feels so validating. And one of the ways that I'm experiencing how you're describing this, and I've never been a professional dancer, I do enjoy movement, and there's a real connection. You're saying connection to the idea and also the experience that it's embodied. And I often feel that in conflict, while we might not intend to be embodied, it kind of goes through the nervous system, and might take over that we feel extremely embodied because of all that's activated. But we didn't necessarily intend to be so embodied and have it be so visceral. I'm curious what your thoughts are.
Yeah, absolutely. So I work a lot with the body, and not in a decorative way. Not like, let's act out conflict or something like that, but rather to notice that we are always. Our bodies are always registering everything. And we can notice. We can start to notice. What are our habits when we suddenly get stressed? Do we, like, tighten up our face and pull down our neck and stress out our stomach and that. We can also let the body help us by doing things like, “Okay, I want to, first of all, really notice what I do. Okay, I'll get right down there. Cramp, right?”
Yeah.
I'm going to feel that and notice it. What's that habit? It's not what I am, it's just what I've done. And that can shift. And then it can also practice thinking, okay, when I feel, like, really connected and great and curious and open, how might I physically feel? My shoulders might open. I might really feel the ground. I might feel my face open, I might breathe. And then we can notice. Okay, that's what that feels like physically. And our body can. We can consciously move between those so that our body can help us. When we find ourselves freaking out and falling into patterns that don't work for us. We can say, “Okay, there's that pattern. I'm not gonna yell at myself for that”. But I can also say, “What if I shift physically into a different state?” So that can
help us shift mentally into a different state, because
*Our internal mental states have a kind of physicality to them as well. And the more we recognize that and the more we consciously choose and practice that, the more we can access it when we're really stressed out again.*
I'm thinking of how the disciplines can meet each other in what you're describing. Because of the interconnection, I don't know. I'm not necessarily. I don't follow Tony Robbins. I remember my brother was into him for a while, and there was something that he was saying, like, “look up”. Just your posture, like, looking up and trying to still have that depressed thought or something. And it was like, just an interesting noticing of the body. And I know. I don't know if it was Amy Cuddy. She did a TED talk about, like, some of the postures, our neurochemicals, and our hormones.
I have done somatic psychology and some movement psychology, but it was an improv acting class, like in grade school, and it was like these exercises of moving around the room like different animals or different elements like fire or water. And it was so fascinating how it changes the state. And I think this is really important. And then, if we come back to the conflict, if I can pivot here, one of the things you help people focus on is their attention. And sometimes, if we don't have some scaffolding, you're talking about skills and principles that we have difficulty orienting. Right. So you're using the body as a tool, perhaps, of like, “ooh, if I have a habitual pattern of like, clenching my jaw, this is for me. My neck gets tight, my jaw gets tight, and I breathe. I don't breathe into my nose”. So those are things I try to notice. And yeah, it's very automatic. And that can help offer more space. And so there's attention there. But as it relates to conflict, talk to us a little bit more about some opening here that you're talking about when you can focus your attention on these principles.
Yeah. So I think about attention as a primary action. So I tend to think of conflict in terms of action because that's where we can really access what we're doing and figure out what we want to do, maybe instead. And so before we do anything, we pay attention to something. And what we pay attention to shapes. Our whole view of the situation has to do with what we assume about the other person. So oftentimes in a conflict, people will get immediately focused on the attack that they think they heard, or the need to tell the other person what's wrong with them, or the need to defend themselves if the attention is at the level of attack and defense, which it very frequently is. And then it gets kind of circular back and forth. No, but you said this. You always.
And then when we're stuck in that kind of attack, defense circle, then we really get stuck on the strategy level of what we think should happen. And our focus is on strategy. Well, obviously, we need to do this, or you need to do this, or I need to do this, and then the other person comes back with their strategy. And we are at this level of strategy, attack, and defense. And many times, we don't really know what matters to each other. And we start to have this false assumption that finding that out would be a kind of weakness, as if we step back from our strategies, that's a kind of weakness. And I think that's a place where we all get stuck.
And if we can really start to develop a mindset of curiosity, so that our attention goes first to our sense of curiosity. What's going on here? It sounds like you're thinking this would be really important, what we should do. What's most important to you? We can ask each other, or I have a sense that I'm missing something. “What do you think I might be missing? What matters to you here? And then I can let you know what matters to me”. And so stepping back from that attack and defense, stepping down from the level of strategy, intimate relationships, developing the culture between each other, where when something's going on, you can acknowledge it. You can be like, “Woo. Okay, we're. We got kind of up there with her.
I want to take a step back and make sure I understand what's up with you, what you're thinking, what you're really caring about here. Is this it?” And guessing. And then they can say, “No, it's this. Oh, okay. So is it more this? Yes. Okay. “And what's the most important thing to do?” And then here. Okay. And here's what really matters to me”. And so you bring the things together between you as opposed to a volleying back and forth of who's wrong or right.
Oh, my goodness. I'm like, have we been like? I felt kindred, like a connection with you, when I was reading your book. I'm like, these are all the things that I feel are so relevant and true, and honestly, from a psychological perspective, especially as we look at intimate relationships and the specific therapeutic model of emotionally focused therapy. Emotionally focused. The focus and there's so much attention to what the attachment needs and what's the core emotion that's getting hooked. And that's a lot of the work of a facilitator or therapist or coach, and is helping, they call it protective strategies, is to defend and attack and get into the deep layers of what matters. And that's where it is typically more vulnerable. But that's where the connection lies. And we can really show, and we can respond to each other.
And that's where we feel that collaboration. And your ability to distill this is so helpful. And from the frame that I'm mentioning, I've seen the defendant attack largely as a protection, like it's a survival. But I'm curious what you think. I mean, even myself, right? So much training, so much experience, so much personal practice, and I can still feel the like, hook of like, if my partner's giving me these critical eyes and has a tone, and then I have my, like, “he's my person”, so I feel a little threat in that. But tell me, what makes you think this is just such a pervasive, like, compelling place to go?
Yeah, I think the underlying needs are so important to us that they just flare up if we feel endangered. And I really think we don't have many cultural training families in our schools and our workplaces, where we recognize the importance of that level, of what really matters, and that's actually this. Sometimes people fear that it's a place of scary vulnerability, and it's actually a place of great possibility and a kind of fantastic sense of relief. If you come to, rather than arguing about whether we need a new car or not, then you recognize, you take it down to the level of like, one person might need more autonomy, the other person might need more safety in relationship to money and things like that, then we can have a conversation. Okay, what would it look like?
Rather than “well, we need a new car”. “Well, we can't have a new car”. “Oh my God, like, take the bus, whatever”. If we take it down to the level of like, “you know what? I'm finding that I really need to have more autonomy in terms of I need to have transport that's going to be sustainable and reliable”. The other person might say, “Yeah, and I just really want to make sure that we have an economic plan that's going to, in the next five years, we're going to be okay. So let's look at what it'd look like to have reliable transportation and a five-year economic plan that feels safe to us”. I think a lot of times we get stuck on strategy, arguing we should get a car, we shouldn't get a car, or we get stuck on the emotion without letting the emotion do its work. And then we're like, I'm furious, you know, sad. And then for me, the work of emotion is to help us understand what matters. If we can say, I'm so furious because what really matters to me is that I'm able to contribute in a way that feels meaningful to me, or whatever the need is under it. And so I think the reason that we flare up is that we're not used to having the pathway from what matters to the expression of what matters. So we just kind of blindly blow up because it becomes so pressurized.
If I can say, attached to the strategy, that seems to support it.
Yes.
And the individual's perspective. And it becomes very narrow, especially when we look at the threat system. Right. We're already. If we're in a fight, flight, or freeze, the tunnel vision. I mean, that's one of the things that happens, is we get hyper, but then our pattern or thinking, the strategy, becomes so fixated. And if I'm understanding you, if we can slow down, get curious, and wonder about what matters. And as you said, the role of emotion is to help us have a bit more path of accessing. One of the things I love to ask people, Dana, when they're very emotional about what they want, but I'm not hearing the need yet. Sometimes I will ask, if you got the thing you're asking for, what would that allow you to feel?
Yeah.
And sometimes it gives me a sense of the need, but sometimes it gives me a little bit more access to that pathway to the need, the emotion. And so in this example, I want to feel like I can go somewhere with some sense of autonomy or independence, and I can feel like I say yes to engagements, or I can be out in the world in a productive way, and I have a vehicle that supports that mobility. Like, I think one's partner would be like, I would want that for you.
Right, Right. Let's figure that out. Yes.
Or conversely, the partner that's like, “Oh, I'm a little freaked out. I don't feel like our safety net is really, you know, the three-month, six-month kind of support our crisis fund is there yet. Like, I feel like that just feels risky, and I want to feel more secure”. And, you know, the description around that need, likely the partner would respond, like, “of course”. Like, that makes sense too.
Right? Yeah. I think we conflate, you know, we stick together strategy and needs, and interests. And they, as you say, really feel the same. And when I'm working with people, I do a lot of training and work with people who want to think differently about conflict. One of the main things is to really build the ability to differentiate between a strategy and a need. And oftentimes, and that's how I also got started in this, is this initial workshop that I mentioned, my friend dragged me to. The guy said, “Okay, somebody give me an example of a need”. And it had happened to be that the night before, my husband and I had been working way too much. And so we were like, “all right, one night a week, let's get home by 8”. And we were supposed to be home by 8 the night before. My husband didn't get home because he got stuck in a meeting. And I was angry. And so I was like, “Okay, I need my husband to come home one night a week before 8”. And the guy was like, “That's not a need”. I was like, “Yes, it is. I need him to come home”. And in that moment when he's like, “No, that's not a need”. And when we worked through to get down to the level of like, “okay, why does that matter to you? What is it that, like, you say, well, how would you feel? And also, what would it help with?”
Yeah,
And it would help with having time for intimacy, having time to be together. And then I went home, and I was like, you know what?“I really want more time for intimacy”. We were both like, yeah, because of course, as you say, if we speak from what matters to us and not what we think is wrong with the other person or what we should do, then we're putting it between us. What might it look like if we found a time we could be together? That also, you know, works with all the responsibilities that we have, for example, in that situation with my husband and me. And so getting, especially intimate relationships, getting into a culture like, between you over time. So, for example, with my husband and me, it's changed so much that sometimes now when a conflict will come up, they'll actually be like, “Oh, it's a conflict, all right. So what's going on? So we can analyze it. Oh, my gosh, it's not scary anymore”. It just becomes a place where we're like,
“Oh, what's happening? Let's figure out what's happening. We are not wasting our lives on things we don't need to waste them on.
Oh, my goodness. People spend hours, months, and years.
Yeah.
I mean, if I understood your personal example, back when you were describing this workshop, getting home at 8 was a strategy.
Absolutely. Yeah.
And if that doesn't support your husband's needs, then it's kind of a stop. Right. Like, it's like, how are we? How do we have freedom here to get creative?
Right.
It's just this one strategy that can feel very limiting.
Yeah.
And then if the goodwill that you're describing in the climate, there's enough practice and experience that, oh, this. There's something here. Let's work this.
Yeah.
And let's see what matters so we can support each other like that. A talk about attention. Yeah, that's a very different focus, right?
Yeah, absolutely. And you know, as you say, even with your close partner, when something happens, you might flare up. So obviously, you know, something really matters to you here that maybe I'm not getting yet. What is it? What are you thinking about?
Yeah.
So you shift your attention, and our attention is in our control. The more we become conscious of it, the more we can pull ourselves back from a habit and say, “Oh, there's that habit. Okay, I'm not going to act that habit out right now. I'm going to stop that for a second and then literally have a plan”. And that's what I find helpful.
**The more you become conscious of your habits, the more you can have a plan for what to do when conflict arises, because it will arise.****
My first book is called Changing the Conversation: The 17 Principles of Conflict Resolution. I think the last principle, “17”, is to
***Expect conflict and have a plan for dealing with it. And there's always anti-principle. And the anti principle is to have no plan for dealing with conflict. And that's what we typically do. We just hope it doesn't happen.***
Exactly.
And then we have no plan for dealing with it, either for ourselves or with our partner. And the more we can have. And this doesn't mean you have to have some sort of formula. Now at 7 o'clock, we're going to sit down and talk about conflict. Rather, you have a common mindset around when stuff happens, when stuff comes up, you know that it's okay to bring it up. And you know that if you get off the rails, you can get back on the rails. And you can do that in a way that is based on curiosity and love and really expressing. Also, not tiptoeing around what matters to you, but really expressing it and really being willing to hear what matters to the other person.
Absolutely. And I hear that these are skills that, when we practice them, become more accessible, and that they're not an exact formula that has to be super formal or rigid. It's. It can apply to any. We can take it anywhere with us. And I love your invitation that it doesn't have to be all or nothing. There could be a part of us that is feeling the reactivity or the defensiveness. And then there's another part that, okay, there's likely something else here that I don't quite understand or get. And I get interested in that. I kind of get curious about that. And can I start wondering, and can that start to shift the dynamic and the Conversation? And I will say personally, when I do this, and we start to access what really matters, it is a complete game-changer.
Yeah, absolutely.
It's like we went from conflict that felt sticky and like, “ooh, this is like, we're not on the same page. This does not. We're not like, allied here” to, “oh, my gosh, we have an opportunity”. And like, “this is a win, and this can feel good for both of us”.
Yeah. And part of that also is how we bring a thing up. So let's talk about housework. So maybe one person might say, like, “Oh, my God, are you such a slob? I'm so sick of cleaning up after you”. And the other person then would get defensive and, you know, “have all kinds of reasons, whatever it is”. And that raising the topic in that way is raising a topic about what's wrong with the other person, but raising the topic in a way that doesn't contain attack and puts it between you. And to say something like, “Hey, I want to talk about how we share household tasks. This. It's not feel right. It's not good for me now. Could we have a conversation?” Then you've put it between you, and then there's something you're talking about together, and it's not starting with what's wrong with the other person.
And you said a moment ago, and this likely fits with what you're describing here with the start, and this correlates. I don't know if you. I keep mentioning, like, couples research, but the Gottman Institute has done a tremendous amount of research, and they talk about a gentle startup that, when we start with the harsh startup like that, typically sets the stage well. And if we can have a gentler start, then that tends to be more invitational. And it possibly fits with something you were just describing. Which is the more clear we can be internally about the drive or the motivation? Like, if I have strong feelings, like, what is that about? That we take an internal. Just inventory or check around what? How come this matters? Like, sometimes we don't know. Do you think it's helpful to have a little bit more?
Oh, a hundred percent. A hundred percent. And to really take a step back and say, all right, like, I'm freaking out about this. What is it that I really care about? And if you find yourself still having it be about something about the other person, that's still not it. “What about me? What do I need? What is this in relation to?” Because then it's an invitation to the other person to help make your life better. And like you say, sometimes you can't name it, especially when we don't have a habit of naming needs or naming interests. Then it might even be helpful to say, like, “hey, I'm kind of really freaking out, and I'm not exactly sure why”. Even so, I need to just, like, take a little break or something so you can name it without dumping it on the other person. And then sometimes that can also help you talk through with them and figure out what's going on.
Absolutely. Like, there's been times where I can feel myself getting defensive, and I'm like, I'm losing my ability to be focused on how we can be constructive less. This hasn't happened recently, but years and years ago, just to recognize my capacity was starting to shift to, just more of that defensive hold, or even in response. Like, my husband and I have both done this with each other. I really want to hear what you're saying, and I'm distracted because I keep hearing you describe me, and I am noticing some defensiveness. But I also love to hear more about you. Like, can you share more about what this means to you? It's like a redirect. It's an invitation to, can we focus more on how this matters? And sometimes that can be helpful if it's done, like you said, in a more gentle way. Do you find that?
Yeah, I find sometimes people can respond badly if they feel like they're being therapized or analyzed. And so I find the simplest expression is the best. Just like, you know, “what matters to you here”.
Yeah.
Because if we start getting into “don't tell me this way and don't talk about it this way”, then that's what they're primarily hearing, in my experience.
Yes.
And sometimes the practice of. It's not easy, but the practice of not hearing attacks. So again, that's the first principle in my first book is don't hear attacks. And then the anti-principle is to hear, attack, and ignore all other information. So developing the capacity to hear what's coming at you and then kind of like, guess at what might be behind it, and then ask them, Is this what's mattering to you here? No or yes. Okay. Hear the information. And it's tempting for sure to start trying to control how other people are expressing things, but it's a dead end. And it often creates more escalation. So I really find just getting into that “curious mindset” and saying, “I want to make sure I understand. What's most important to you here? Is it this?” And then there can be a side conversation about expression at another time. Maybe sometimes it's helpful to be like, hey, when we get into problems, I have a really hard time reacting when I hear you talking, as you said about me. When you're trying to express something about yourself, I'm not sure what to do at that moment. So what do you find is happening for you when having that conversation? So you can have a conversation about communication culture, but sometimes, if you mix them up, people start freaking out.
Yes.
Yes.
I love that distinction. Cause that's what I was feeling as you were describing is if I'm in a more like I was talking about, there's a part of me that might feel defensive, but I have the capacity to be curious. And I can follow that thread of like, “ooh, tell me more”.Like, “how is this important? Or is it this?” Or, you know, “just he is really in service of understanding”. And there are times when I lose the capacity. And then I might say, as you're saying, “Oh, like, I'm noticing I'm starting to feel defensive”. But you said not to mix it. That's helpful.
Well, not mixing up your opinion about their communication strategies.
Yes. Yes.
With what matters to you.
Yes.
Or your desire to understand what matters to them.
Well, this is where it gets tricky. Right. Because, as you said, like, “oh, I'm hearing you talk about me”, which is both experiencing but also talking about the other.
Yeah. So that's what I mean is separating those two. So you don't try to have that conversation while you're trying to find out what matters to both of you.
Yes.
And that you have those kinds of conversations at a time when you're low-stress.
Yeah. So when you were saying, just so I understand, if it starts to get a little bit more challenging and you want to have, like, a meta conversation, and you said, what's happening for you? Will you give us an example of that?
Again, let's return to the example of housework.
So if someone's coming at you and saying, “Oh, my God, you're such a slob, and you need to start cleaning up. I'm. I'm so sick of dealing with you and making me responsible for you.”
That you say, rather than coming back and on the level of strategy, because they're coming at you on strategy, “you should do this and this.”
Rather than coming back, like,
“No, I'm trying to do that because I'm doing this other thing or whatever it is you get to start. I'm dealing with all the bills, and how come I'm always? And I just got home”.
And so then you're going back and forth, and if you have the wherewithal and the practice to start to say, like,
“Okay, it sounds like you're really pissed off about how things have been running in terms of how we deal with the dishes and stuff like that. Right.
So you're acknowledging.
**And acknowledgement is one of the most powerful things, and it's one of the things we want to skip right over because we feel like they should know.****
But acknowledging, like, yeah, it sounds like you're.
“This isn't really. It is not working for you the way things are going with the dishes”.
Right.
Yes. I'm so sick of it. Okay, so here's what I'm experiencing around it. So that you first acknowledge what they are saying, and then, for one thing, that tends to disarm the attack mode.
Yes. Yes.
And that might not be the moment to say, and I'm really tired of you telling me what to do. So then you're just getting. Then you're just starting a second conflict.
Yes.
In that moment, to say,
“Okay, so let's have a conversation about how we're dealing overall with the household stuff, because I feel like we don't have clarity around who's doing what when”.
“Yeah. So I feel like this keeps happening, that we start, like, getting into stress about it. So how about if we, like, sit down after dinner and, like, make a clearer plan for how we're gonna deal with it.”
And then there can be a conversation also, maybe later, when your nervous systems are down about when we started talking about the dishes, and you came at me telling me I was a slob. That felt really terrible. And it didn't help me understand what was going on. So in that moment, when we feel like that, I know it happens to me too. I'm curious what it would be like if we got used to it. With each other, to be looking at instead of saying things about what people are to say, really what you care about, what you're looking for, so that you start to have that conversation around what works for you and what doesn't work for you. I have a hard time. For example, sometimes people will say, “If you yell at me, I have a hard time hearing.”
Yes.
So when we're having a conversation, would it work for you? For us to, like, if you're really worked up and all you can do is yell, we'd take a five-minute break or something. What would work for you at that moment?
Yes.
So that you're starting to ask each other,
“What do we each need at that moment? What works for us, what doesn't? And again, make a plan.”
I love it. And so as I was hearing you, it's possible that. Help me if this sounds right, if I'm in a situation where I feel defensive, and my partner's coming at me, and I lead with just trying to hear him right. That disarms, and perhaps that could get us some footing and start shifting towards. What you're really laying out here is focusing on what matters. However, if I'm feeling too charged, I could say, “Oh, do the validation and then just acknowledge. Okay, I need a second. Right. I really want to have this productive conversation. And maybe I didn't sleep well, or I'm hungry, or what, you know, the kids are screaming, or what other things are. Can we talk in like 20 minutes? That'll give me time to breathe. Yeah. Okay, great. I love it”.
So one thing is to differentiate between real curiosity and a real acknowledgement, and a kind of writing one, which tends to piss people off more. Like, I hear that you're angry, like that kind of thing.
Oh, that sounds so patronizing.
It does. And that's the problem with formulaic things. So eye language, as they say, is certainly helpful, but anything can be a weapon.
Totally.
So you can weaponize eye language. And so in that moment of acknowledgment, really, like a real acknowledgement, like, okay, it seems like you're really pissed off about this, and this is just not working for you. The way the dishes are being handled. Right. And not telling people what they think, but asking them, yes, such an important thing.
And at the end there. Did I get that right? Is that right?
Yeah, because otherwise you're like, okay, so you're angry. You're like, of course I'm angry. That's what I'm telling you. Yes. But if you say, “All right, ” it sounds like this whole situation's not working for you, and you're feeling really frustrated with it. Right.
Does this come back, Dana, to the embodied that if one is distancing and maybe even having, like, attempting to reflect, I feel inside myself a distancing. Like, I don't really want to be a part of that, but I'll acknowledge it. But it feels so. I mean, some people could be potentially judgmental or whatever. But, it doesn't feel like in my body that I'm actually that open. The aperture of openness versus, as you're like, the language might not even be so clear. I might fumble around. But my intention and my openness are like, “Oh, okay, so you're talking about the dishes. This sounds really important. But you also seem to have strong feelings about this. Like, there's just an interest. Am I getting this?”
Like, yeah.
Do you feel like this is a body thing, too?
Yeah, absolutely. Everything flows from intent. And the intent has. Has a physical, visceral quality to it. Willingness to connect. Jean Paul Lederach is a wonderful peacemaker. He talks about four things that help when there's a divided situation. And one of them is to be able to understand ourselves as being in relationship with our enemies and to be willing to be in relationship with our enemies and to know that we are and that intent that even with our loved ones we can like separate, back out and divide and get into that practice of like, all right, I had that little impulse there to like really jump back, put that wall down. But I'm going to not do that, and I'm going to connect consciously, not in a martyr way, but in a way like you just demonstrated there. And it doesn't matter if your language is wrong. It's not about the right language, but it's about the person who can immediately tell if you have some real curiosity and interest in hearing what's up for them.
Yeah.
And then they'll connect with you on that level.
This may or may not suit your job. I'm thinking about attachment needs and people's attachment systems. So for one who grew up in an environment where it was better to turn away, where there wasn't safety in relationships, and it was better to self-resource or be independent. That there can often feel like,
“Ooh, right. That's a huge risk and feels super scary to be open about what is important to me, or that I'm afraid of not being good enough or disappointing you.”
So it's kind of one camp, and then the other camp, from an attachment needs perspective, is like, “Oh, I don't know if you're going to still be here.” Like,” I'm afraid of abandonment”, or “Are we still okay?”
Do you see that getting hooked and the conflicts that you help people try to get there? Or does that come out when you start looking at needs, like you said?
Yeah. So I think the first thing in a conflict is to decide whether or not it's worth it and appropriate to get into it. Okay. And there might be a situation, like you say, that's not safe, and then it's not good to get into it. And at the same time, there may be a history that leads you to believe it's not safe when it would be safe. And so one thing that can be really helpful for people is to notice that we don't always have to talk about needs. It's not always appropriate, and it's not always helpful, but we can almost always talk about interests. So in the car example, the person might have needed autonomy, but on the interest level, they're looking for reliable transportation. And so that kind of area is very productive because it speaks from the level of needs, but it's not getting into too vulnerable a place if it's not appropriate. So you can almost always talk about interests if you've taken all the attack and defense out of it and described, for example, what it might look like if we've got some reliable transportation. Or let's talk about how we divide household tasks in a way that feels good for both of us. And the other thing is that we're not going to solve all our psychological problems together, but we can still do good work wherever we are in our journey. And so the more that we build up habits that allow us to direct either to that level of interest or the level of need if it makes sense, and we develop the ability to speak about what matters in a way that doesn't contain attack or defense, the more work we can do together and the more we can get through conflict, even if we haven't figured out our attachment problems and everything else, because we're all. Sometimes we're 18, sometimes we're 65, and we have different things going on, but we can still notice where attention is going. And if the way we have our attention focused is not helping, we can get curious about that. Like, “Oh, what am I paying attention to? What's it doing when I do that? What's the other person paying attention to?”
What might it look like to reframe what we're talking about in a way that's between us, instead of being, again, this kind of volleying back and forth.
Absolutely. I so appreciate your describing the structure as helpful and that we can slice it thinner, so to speak, to make it feel a little bit safer or a doable risk. To talk about interests. I want to hear a little bit more about how people can access that. And also, you're saying there's a depth here that being involved or could also not have to be fully processed or a part of the dynamic. But this framework and the principles are an incredibly supportive guide.
Yeah, we don't have to do everything at once, but we can steadily notice that we're already practicing. That's the thing, that we're already shaping our mindset every day with what we pay attention to and what we choose to do. And we can, you know, gently, internally, notice what we're doing, decide consciously what we want to practice more. So the book that I just released, Conflict Is an Opportunity: Twenty Fundamental Decisions for Navigating Difficult Times. I framed it in terms of these 20 decisions. And these are decisions that we're always making in conflict, but we're often not making them consciously. And that, in terms of what you're asking around and how we can get more in the habit of orienting our attention toward interests, those kinds of decisions, which are framed also in terms of questions, can be a way that you can.
It's the kind of book that you can open anywhere and just look at the list and be like, “Which one makes sense? Okay, I'm going to go there and just have a way of kind of shifting your attention and shifting your focus”. So, for example, what is my request in chapter three? And these are short chapters. And the reason a request is important is that a lot of times what we do is either just dump our emotion and our strategy on the other person, or we don't tell them what matters, and we just tell them that we're pissed off, or we make a demand. And the difference between demand and inquiry is huge. A demand, if you make it, the other person has two options. They can defy you, or they can comply, which is submissive. Right. And so I have the power. I'm like, this is the thing. You either defy me or you comply. But a request is like an information-gathering tool. And so even just the process for yourself of trying to define what your request might be can help you get connected to. Okay, what do I really want to see? What would that help with? So then you're doing the process we talked about before for yourself. Okay, this is what I would request. What would that help with? And that can help you go like, “Oh, right, because I'm looking for reliable transportation. When I was teaching, I used to start with needs, but it was so hard”.
Yes.
Because I mean, I know for myself. When I first started studying, I spent a year walking around silently, going, “What's my need?” Because we're not used to it. And now I usually start with emotion when we're analyzing things because we're like, that's available to us. We understand our emotions. Then we could say, “Okay, what is that emotion connected to? What is it speaking about? And the level of need?” So then you work backwards, or if you work from the request, then you can say, “Well, this is what I'd really like to see. Okay, why? What will that help with?” And that can help you get interested, and that can help you understand what your concerns are. So you can bring a topic up and say, “Hey, I want to talk about how we're dividing household tasks”. I feel like it feels kind of imbalanced to me, and I'm finding myself feeling resentment, and I don't want to be like that. So I'm wondering if we can sit down, make a request, sit down, and talk about, you know, what a plan would look like that would work for both of us.
I love that the emotions help access the needs. And it sounds like maybe a request is one way to start accessing more of the interest that then gives. So when you were talking about your husband and wanting to get home by eight, you were saying that was the strategy. What would the interest be?
The interest was having a sustainable schedule that allowed us time to spend together that wasn't under strain and under stress, that was like a need for intimacy. And this was a strategy that we'd both planned, but it didn't, you know, it wasn't really functional. But then I really became attached to it. I connected what I thought were the same thing, my need, and the strategy. And there were other, you know, other needs at play about safety and making sure that things are functioning long term economically, and kinds of things. So we had a very different conversation.
Well, this is, I'm like signaling because this is what it often looks like in my experience in practice is that we might be able to have this win conversation and develop a joint strategy that perhaps we have to fine tune it, that I get new information or like, oh, I didn't recognize that part, or this is conflicting with another need that I have and I didn't anticipate that. And can we talk some more about it? So this is so powerful. So just to clarify, you talk about four fundamental elements to conflict, and you've talked about the need, the emotion, the interest, and the strategy. And the strategy is typically where we lead, and with perhaps strong emotion, without necessarily recognizing what the interests and the needs are.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Wonderful.
And the good thing is that it gets easier and easier the more you focus your attention in that direction until it starts to just be automatic.
Well, thanks for saying that, because that was my last question. Was it like, in your experience, as you see the people that engage with your work, do you see the trajectory of this and the learning curve around how they're able to develop a new kind of system?
Yes, absolutely. And what I see is that at first it feels awkward, and people are like,
“Oh, my God, it would take me a year and a half to have a conversation by the time I figure out what my needs are”.
And then eventually the differentiation between strategy and needs gets cleared up, and then that just feels kind of much more obvious. And then it's a huge sense of relief because you're able to access, like, this level of curiosity about what's mattering. And what I find is people say it changes their conversation with their kids, with their partner, and it changes their conversation with themselves around what's going on. They don't kind of like, get obsessed about stuck in emotion or stuck in an idea about what somebody else should be doing, but they can more easily name what they care about, also recognizing which decisions are yours to make and which are somebody else's so that you are not stuck in what somebody else should be doing, but you're really taking responsibility for yourself. “Okay, here's my need. What are my decisions to make in relation to that? Have I made them consciously? What can I do consciously at this point?”
Two comments really quickly. One is just how this can be so supportive in any domain that we're all in a relationship. Everything's a relationship. So whether or not it's in a professional space, like, even the conversation might fit more with the language of professionals. Like language, we might not get so deep and personal, but we're still able to access it. Oh, yeah, it's incredibly powerful, like, helping people move rather than getting stuck. And I can say so much more about this, but I wanted to comment on it. You mentioned your table of contents and of your book, and I was reading it, and I was like, “Oh, my gosh”. Like, just even the questions, like, I'm unaware that sometimes when we ask a different question, we'll get a different response, and it'll start to open something else up. Even your table of contents was so helpful.
So tell people how people can get your book or get connected to what you're offering.
Yeah, so my book is the music book called Conflict is an Opportunity. Twenty Fundamental Decisions for Navigating Difficult Times. And you can buy that wherever you buy your books. My first book that I mentioned is called Changing the 17 Principles of Conflict Resolution. And both work very well together. The first is kind of this principle-based thing that you can connect to and be like, okay, right. And the second book is okay. And as you're trying to do that, what can help you gain more clarity around what you're doing? And it's not about getting the right method, but really about having clarity internally about what you're doing, what you might do, what you want to do. I have a website, it's danacasperson.com, and you can see there I have different offerings, different courses, and I have a TED Talk you can check out. Conflict is a Place of Possibility. It's called. And yeah, I'm really grateful to have the chance to talk to you and your listeners.
Oh my goodness. Thank you for your time. It's been such a pleasure. And I can greatly appreciate the wealth of your experience and training and what you bring. And I'll put the link for your TED Talk on your website, and for people who are interested in maybe taking a workshop or a course with you, and also the links to your two books.
Okay, great. Thank you so much. It's been such a pleasure.
The post ERP 507: The Power of Attention: How to Access What Really Matters in Moments of Conflict — An Interview with Dana Caspersen appeared first on Jessica Higgins.
Ever feel like your to-do list is running your life and you barely have any energy left for what matters most—like connecting with loved ones or just enjoying the moment? In our fast-paced world, we often believe productivity comes from pushing ourselves harder, burning the candle at both ends, and tackling more tasks. But what if the key to a happier, healthier life starts before you even get to your goals and conversations—right in the foundation of your daily rhythms and body awareness?
In this episode, you’ll discover why tuning into your body’s core needs is the missing link for emotional safety, deeper relationships, and true productivity. The conversation unveils science-backed strategies and ancient wisdom to help you manage your energy, regulate your nervous system, and build habits that become second nature. You’ll also explore personalized approaches to self-care—so you can stop the cycle of burnout and perfectionism, cultivate more resilience, and create space for meaningful connections every day.
Hadlee Garrison, MPH, is a holistic Health Counselor, behavior change expert, podcaster, and speaker. She’s the creator of the Happy Healthy Habits coaching program, where she helps women optimize their energy levels, regulate their nervous systems, and heal their relationship with their bodies and themselves. With degrees in Biopsychology and Health Education from the University of Michigan, as well as training in Ayurveda, Hadlee blends evidence-based science with holistic modalities to help her clients thrive.
Episode Highlights04:43 Struggling with body image, emotional eating, and disconnection in early life.
08:40 Discovering Ayurveda and mind-body practices for emotional safety.
12:32 The link between nervous system capacity and relationship conflict.
13:52 Building foundational health habits: Circadian rhythms, sleep, and energy management.
19:27 Prioritizing a consistent bedtime for optimal health.
20:35 How personal health habits impact relationship dynamics.
26:22 Energy archetypes: Understanding personal stress patterns.
34:49 Taking small steps and automating self-care habits.
41:39 Oil massage and physical self-love practices for nervous system regulation.
44:13 Resources for discovering your energy archetype and connecting with Hadlee.
Your Checklist of Actions to Take Prioritize consistent sleep: Go to bed at the same time every night to support healthy circadian rhythms and overall well-being. * Establish a simple morning routine: Create morning habits that energize you—this doesn’t mean a lengthy ritual, but something that helps you feel awake and grounded. * Identify your energy drains and boosters: Pay attention to which tasks or activities drain your energy and which ones replenish it, adjusting your schedule accordingly. * Automate foundational habits: Focus on making your basic self-care and wellness routines so automatic that they require little mental energy to maintain. * Start small with new habits: If you’re building a new habit, begin with manageable baby steps to ensure consistency and avoid burnout or overwhelm. * Incorporate nervous system regulation: After foundational habits are in place, introduce practices like breathwork or somatic exercises, but only as needed—not all day, every day. * Ask for support from your partner: Communicate with your partner about what helps you regulate—this might be a gentle touch, a walk together, or another soothing gesture during conflict. * Customize your self-care*: Recognize your personal energy archetype and tailor your wellness strategies—whether you need more grounding, invigoration, or soothing—based on your unique tendencies.
MentionedEnergy Archetype Quiz (link) (quiz)
12 Relationship Principles to Strengthen Your Love (free guide)
Connect with Hadlee GarrisonWebsites:happyhealthyhadlee.com
YouTube:youtube.com/@happyhealthyhadlee
Instagram:instagram.com/happyhealthyhadlee
TikTok:tiktok.com/@happyhealthyhadlee
Podcast:open.spotify.com/show/0LxN092Z5rbC7Hg6OsACcJ |podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/holistic-inner-balance-natural-mental-health-podcast/id1506869161
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Episode Transcript
Hadlee, thanks for joining us.
Thank you for having me. I'm so excited for this conversation.
Me too. And we've already met when I was on the show that you co-host, and we've been looking forward to this interview for a while. We're going to be talking about the physical sense of emotional individual safety, how that correlates with creating relational safety, how this relates to energy management, and how we can build habits both for an individual but also in the relational context that supports the safety and energy management. So I'm looking forward to this. You want people to know you? Is there anything about how these particular topics became of interest?
Oh, yeah. So when I was coming of age, growing up, I grew up in a family that was very into personal development, that was very into health and wellness. But I had a really tough relationship with food and my body, and I felt like I couldn't even follow through on any of the health things. I had a lot of knowledge about what you were “supposed to do for your health.” And my friends would come to me for advice on what they should do for their health and all that kind of thing.
You were a proficient coach. But when.
Yeah, yeah, not necessarily doing it myself. And there was a lot of perfectionism, all or nothing for me, a lot. I wanted to be the best at whatever I did. And from when I was 10, I didn't like my body. I didn't like how my body looked. I was also emotionally eating. When I was 10, looking back now, I was such a sensitive kid. But even my family of origin, like the label of sensitivity, actually went to my sister, and I was looked at as not that sensitive. And so there was a lot. There was a lot there. And I was actually very effective in getting rid of or just suppressing my emotions with eating, with turning to food.
So I was really disconnected from my body, my emotions, all the things, because I would turn to food and different things to numb out. I read a lot as a kid, and my parents would be like, Hadlee,
*****“You have to spend time with us. You can't just escape into a book and like, only read. So there were various numbing things I did. I've heard before, people say the good girl's drug is food.”*****
And so there was a lot tied up in my health, how I looked, all of that kind of thing. And by the time I was in college, I was really struggling with this stuff because there's not a lot of structure in college. There are classes at different times.
I went to the University of Michigan, and the motto there is kind of “work hard, play hard, no rest involved.” It was “work hard, play hard, and have fun.” And there wasn't much to care about. And by the time I was there, I was like,
“Okay, I know all of this stuff. Why am I not doing it? And I would try, I would be on the wagon and then fall completely off the wagon, and on and off.”
And it was exhausting. It was so exhausting. And so I decided to actually go. I was studying biopsychology, cognition, and neuroscience as an undergrad. And I decided to go to college, grad school for public health, and specifically to study behavior change science, health behavior, and health education. Because I was like, I want to figure this out again.
I know what I should be doing for my health, but I'm not doing it. And I started talking to people, and they were like, yeah, same. Like, I don't know why I'm not doing the things that I know I need to be doing for myself. And so I was like, okay, I'm gonna get to the bottom of this. And that's why I went to school for that, specifically, and learned all about
“Why we do what we do, why we don't do the things that we know are good for us, why we do the things that we know aren't good for us,”
all of those things. And came out with a degree in that and started helping people with not just what to do for your health, because we get enough of that, right?
If you're on Instagram, if you're on social media, or even like podcasts, you probably learn about the “what to do.” But my passion has actually helped you do it.
So with that degree, were you able to apply it to being able to integrate the learning and support your system?
Totally, yeah. So that paired with the coaching certifications that I've gotten. So I've gotten several coaching certifications as well. I was able to integrate the coaching part of things and then the behavior change science, which was a little bit more academic and less applied. So I kind of brought both of those things into my work, the coaching and the behavior change science.
I'm super interested in how you're going to support us because I love having evidence-based, just understanding, and how to make it actionable practices. And when you're sharing a little bit more about your experience, one of the ways I'm interpreting it is in your family system. It wasn't quite visible to your sensitivity. So perhaps the support or the validation was going to your sister. And then you were seemingly coping well right from the outside.
Yet internally there was still a lot of ways in which as you said, you were kind of tamping down or even suppressing and so really coming to a place around, I really want to support my system to not be maybe needing to cope in these ways or just the kind of what's interfering the blocks that interfere with the things that I'm really wanting and also how I'm really experiencing life. So was there an emotional component?
Oh yes.
Okay, great.
Absolutely. And I realized I was introduced to Ayurveda in college. Actually, my mom introduced me to Ayurveda. She's wonderful. She just didn't know I was going through all this stuff. And I found that there was a huge emotional component, but I wasn't able to access the emotional component until I was tuned into my body. And so that's where I love to bring in the somatic stuff, as far as I love to bring in, like the ancient wisdom of Ayurveda and different ancient traditions that are similar around the world, which is so cool. And then I also love to bring in the very Western modern science, evidence-based stuff, and pair those things together because I always look at it as both.
**“The modern science and the ancient wisdom are saying the same thing, like then we've got truth there.”****
So let's focus on those things that they're both saying are true. And I find that when we focus on those things, that's when we kind of unlock the safety, the nervous system, regulation, and the feelings of safety in ourselves and in relation.
Oh my goodness. Okay, I want to dive. Before I ask my first question, I want to just reflect. I'm sure this fits that a lot of times, as you mentioned, maybe perfectionism or the intellect that we approach our lives through this intellectual frame, which I think has value. So I don't want to take away the goals or strategies or visioning, and also, we can somehow be convinced that we can override. I think a lot of people feel that they should be able to “will themselves to override their nervous system, not get triggered or activated.” And yet always. I never say always and ever, but always, “the nervous system will be in the driver's seat. We're just wired up, we're humans, we're animals. Our system. Survival.”
Yes, yes. Oh my gosh, I'm so passionate about this because my parents were really into the personal development mindset. And like, “only you can control your emotions.” They're very into like Tony Robbins, and that was the time, we weren't talking as much about somatic work and nervous system regulation and all of that kind of thing at that time. It was all very mental and a mindset approach. And I love learning about like metaphysical stuff and like manifestation, and I think that stuff is interesting, but I get frustrated because I'm like, “if you don't have some of these basic habits and wellness things down, you can do all the mindset work you want, but your nervous system will not catch up to that.”
You have to start with the body, like you really do. And then you can have fun with all the mindset work and do all that stuff, which I love. But we have to really go into the body and the physiology and the habits that can support us there. The structure that can support us in our physiology can be the thing that opens us up to be able to live the mindset and work all the time. Because otherwise we're going to be having to do mindset work all day, every day. Well, they're related, right?
They're interconnected, and we can't just ignore the body. And I'm hearing your strong emphasis on just the importance. So, as we pivot here, looking at the nervous system and that being a huge contributor, as we look at relationships, being a bit more available for connection or even negotiating conflicts more skillfully, can you talk to us a little bit about the importance of regulating and tuning into the body and the nervous system?
Totally. Well, I think your listeners, when they think about when they've had the most conflict in their relationships, you can kind of think about, “okay, where were you? How were you feeling before that happened?” Were you at the brink of just kind of at the edge of feeling fried with your nervous system feeling just like everything feels hard and stressful, and so likely that's usually the case. Not always. Not always. Like, sometimes it's something that just triggers something from way back, and that will just move that conflict forward. But a lot of times when we're in conflict, it's because we're kind of at the edge of our capacity. So
**“My goal for my clients is to create more capacity, bandwidth, energy, so that they can have the kinds of relationships that they want to have, that they can pursue their passions and their purpose in life, and just have a more day-to-day experience of life that they enjoy essentially.”****
And so I start with the body and our habits, and I find that there's a lot of amazing nervous system work out there, that there are practices that we can do somatic things, like body-based things, which I do with my clients. But I actually like to start even before all of that. I like to start with circadian rhythm habits, just getting the habits of the nature of your body down first. And then all the other nervous system regulation stuff comes a lot easier.
You don't have to be doing nervous system practices all day, every day. Again, like mindset work.
It's like, “Do I need to be doing breath work all day long?” Right.
And when we have some of these basic health habits down first, it's like it opens us up, and it makes us have resilience and adaptability. And I call it emotional agility more than just resilience. Because sometimes people think of resilience as just having kind of like armor up. And that's not what I want. I actually want the armor like down, but having a strong enough core to be able to flow with. So the agility piece, flow with the emotions that you have and work with them skillfully to be able to have the kind of relationships that you want to have.
I love this. Let's break this down. If you're open to giving us some examples. When you say circadianrhythms, I'm thinking of sleep and so talk to us. Can you give us some more examples around how somebody can be tracking their system, both from a nervous system, but overall, these fundamental pieces that you're referring to? Cause I mean, just before you answer this, I'm aware that many of us are focused on our agenda or our to-do list or our goals or our tasks as a parent or a professional. And it does take a bit of shifting attention inward and paying attention. So talk to us here.
Okay. I have so many things. So yes, so you bring up the to-do list. And I find that just reminds me of a lot of times people ask me about time management. They're like, I need better time management. And I'm like,
You actually don't need better time management; you need better energy management. Because not all tasks require the same amount of energy.
Some things that we have on our to-do list actually give us more energy. And so if we can get clearer on what things we are doing throughout our day that drain our energy, what things actually give us more energy. So not all things on the to-do list are created equal as far as energy. But not all rest is created equal.
So things that you consider resting, those actually might drain you more, depending on the person. Like, for some people, at a certain point in time, sitting and watching Netflix for two hours is actually going to give you more energy. Like, it's going to replenish your energy, and for some people, it's going to drain your energy more. And so, it depends on the context and stuff too. But I really like to start with how we work with our energy levels, and kind of think of it as we can kind of think of it more as a game, so that it's not so serious. Sometimes we think of health and wellness and all of those kinds of things. Like, we have to take this very seriously, and we have to prioritize it and all that kind of thing.
And then the other thing that you were saying in there is you were talking about how we have to go internal, we have to kind of turn the focus internal and be more essentially intentional. Right. About our life, and just even noticing.
Right. Like, I think so many of us have this, like, I'm a machine attitude when I'm not like everyone else. Maybe I need a customized plan.
Yes, totally. And so I have, I'll talk about this at the end, but I have this framework of energy archetypes, and we all have different types essentially. And so everyone's going to need something different at different points in time, and all of that kind of thing. And so that's what I help my clients with, is like, how do we actually do this for you? But I want to also mention, like, with these habits, sometimes we think of being on autopilot in our life as being a bad thing. And I do want to say that with these habits, my goal is actually to get them on autopilot for you. So
**“Autopilot doesn't have to be a bad thing. Autopilot can be amazing if it's the right habits.”****
Totally.
Things that actually set you up for a regulated nervous system, and like all of that kind of thing. And we can still tweak those habits based on what we're experiencing at some point in our lives. And everything but getting these circadian rhythm habits, which I'll go into with more specific examples there. But getting those things automated is my goal for my clients. Because I've had clients who actually, one of my very first clients, she was like,
“I think about health and what I should be doing for my health so much, and she's like, I think about my body and food and all the things so much that if I were to put all of that mental energy that I think about that stuff into. If I were to put that into curing cancer, I could have cured cancer by now.”
So, again, I don't. My goal is for people to think about their health as little as possible so that they can free up their mental energy and capacity and bandwidth for their relationships and for their juicy life, essentially. So, all of that to say, the circadian rhythm habits that I'm talking about, people have probably heard of circadian rhythms, and they probably think about sleep mostly. Right. But there's a lot that goes into our circadian rhythms. Essentially, your circadian rhythm is the nature of your body as it relates to the sun. So the sun comes up every morning, goes down every night, and those times actually change throughout the year.
So a lot of the work that I do with my clients is seasonality, too, and shifting habits around. Just tweaking them a little bit based on the season, once we have them automated. So obviously, sleep is a big thing here, and we do a lot of sleep hygiene things. So one thing I'll say is that getting to bed at or around the same time every night is one of the most important things that you can do for your health overall. And I would say. So getting to bed at the same time every night, not necessarily getting to bed as early as possible, though I do like to have my clients get to bed at a reasonable hour, because our body starts to detox and do all the things it needs to do by around 10 pm if we're asleep by then.
But some people have later sleep times, and that's perfectly fine too. There are different chronotypes and that kind of thing. But getting to bed at the same time every night, rather than being like, “okay, tonight I'm gonna get to bed early,” and then the next night, “I'm gonna get to bed two hours later,” and then the next night, “I'm gonna try to get to bed early again.” That's not what we want. So bedtime is really important. And then what we do in the morning is also very important for our circadian rhythms. And now I'm not telling you that you need to have a four-hour morning routine or anything like that, but I work a lot on what we need to do to make it so that you feel awake in the morning.
Now we start the night before because sometimes people are like, “Oh, I'll just wake up earlier, and then I'll get to bed earlier tomorrow night.” That's not how sleep works. Like, if we're trying to get to bed earlier, we need to just tweak it like 15-minute increments at a time. That's how sleep works. But then we go into how we make it so that our morning routine gives us the kind of energy that we want to have. And our morning routine can make it so that we also fall asleep more easily at night based on our circadian rhythms. So there's a lot there. And then also exercising throughout the day is very important for our circadian rhythms. So we do those very basic habits before we even go into nervous system regulation, emotional agility, and even nutrition. Right?
We focus on all that stuff before that. And I find that once my clients get the first four habits down, their life changes exponentially. Even if they were pretty good about it before, it's wild. So that's where we start.
I appreciate that it's so fundamental to our well-being. And I think oftentimes we get creative or play around, right? Oh, I'll sleep when I'm dead. Or you know, these types of things.
Yes, that work hard, play hard mentality. Yeah, totally.
And I can appreciate the propensity for that, especially in more Western culture, and just maximizing, optimizing, and what can you fit in a day? And people who even feel some level of anxiety, or like I have a client, I work with a couple, and she's a physician, and she just has a pattern. If I don't work hard, I can't actually relax at night. Like, I can't actually feel like it's like this guilt or something, like “I haven't done enough.” And that's a productivity marker that I appreciate is important. And also, it's not perhaps ironic. And she's a physician, right? And that this is turning towards. I like to use that analogy. I'm sure you've heard of this great rock, right?
Prioritizing the really important things in our life and our system that, as you're saying, gives structure to our rhythms, our energy that supports our regulation, that supports our agility, that supports just our energy and also our capacity for our relationship or being in the world in a way that we want to make a difference.
Totally. I always say that.
***“Structure creates freedom. So too much structure can obviously be like a jail cell.”***
But having structure with your habits specifically creates more creativity, more capacity, more bandwidth. This client that you're referring to, if you start with the rest now, we can also rest. So I wanna make that very clear. Like, we can overrest, and that can be draining. So that's a thing. We'll put that aside for now. The paradox is that the more you take care of yourself and you do these basic circadian rhythm habits and taking care of yourself, the more productive you actually are. And so a lot of times we think we can kind of convince our minds, can kind of convince us of anything. Right. We're like, “I just need to push through. I need to do more, do more.” If you had the rest and you had the kind of habits down that you needed, and they were automated so you didn't have to think about them a ton, you would have more capacity, and you would be able to move quicker. And your brain, your executive functioning, is actually improved. And you can do much more in less time. And they've actually done studies. There's research on when you don't get enough sleep. Everyone who didn't get enough sleep in these studies thought that they were not impaired at all, which is terrifying. Especially “driving”. That's really scary. But people literally thought they were not impaired at all. And the research shows that indeed, once they went through different, like, exercises and stuff, they were impaired for sure.
Their executive functioning was impaired by not getting enough sleep. And so truly, truly, we have to prioritize these things if we want to be, like, optimizers, you've got to do this stuff, this is the key.
Yes. Which might go against some of the initial training. Right. Like, I'm very much supportive of the medical profession. And I also have friends and clients who are physicians, and just what they go through and what's required as far as sleep deprivation. It's just quite astounding that it doesn't seem so counterproductive for one's health and well-being.
So, as it relates, would you be?
Want to share a bit about how this can start to impact relational dynamics?
Totally. Yes. So you can look back again at conflict and think about, “all right, when I wasn't getting enough sleep, was I grumpier? Was I more irritable? Was I more triggerable? Right?” The answer is typically “YES”, if you have a decent amount of self-awareness, right? Which your listeners do, right? Because they listen to you. So you can kind of see this for yourself, where, when we're not taking care of ourselves as individuals, it's going to leak out into all areas of our lives, and especially in relationships, because that's where we get the most triggered, right? Is in relationships.
**“I can't think of any other area of life where we would be more triggered than in relationships.”****
Even if it's work, it's usually a work relationship, like, dynamic.
And so, my clients, I often find that once they start to do the work that I do with them, they find that they are much more resilient. They're able to kind of take that bird's-eye view. So we always talk about when in terms of emotions and communication, and that kind of thing, we want to take more of that bird's eye view, look at ourselves and what's going on with our own dynamic of our emotions, how they're being triggered, and all of that kind of thing. And then also looking at our partner or whoever we're relating to. But if we don't have the health stuff down, we don't have as much capacity to be able to take that. We're more myopic. Like, we have that tunnel vision of like, “I'm right, I'm right, I'm right.” There's no broader view that I can take here.
When we just don't have as much bandwidth and capacity. That's just where our tendency is going to go. Now we want to do both because we also, that there are going to be times in our life where we don't have as much capacity. Right. And so we want to do the work of being able to relate with our partner even when we don't have capacity. But the more we can build that capacity, the better, right? The more we're going to be able to create a foundation of safety with our partners. Yes.
I mean, when you're talking about feeling triggered or even tunnel vision, I'm hearing more of the fight, flight, or freeze reaction in the nervous system. And also, what we know about that typically is that so many of our faculties are not available to us because all of the energy and blood is going towards either extremities to run or fight, or just even shut down. Like, we are not actually operating. A lot of things are offline. Right. We're in a very limited way of functioning.
Totally. And it's interesting, the energy archetypes that I talk about, your tendency when you're triggered typically relates to your energy archetypes. So if you have more of the leisure enthusiast archetype, which tends toward more resting, but that rest can actually be more draining, your tendency might be more to shut down in the face of conflict and just kind of like “head in the sand ostrich,” like just avoid. If you have more of the tendency toward the burnt-out goal getter, that's another one of the archetypes. You've got more fire in your type, and you might tend toward more of the fight, the irritability, the grumpiness, the like, “I just want to attack here.” Right. And if you have more of the whirlwind, that is more of the tendency of being anxious. I need to figure this out now.
Need to figure it out, need to figure it out. Anyone can go into any of those archetypes, but typically, we have one that is the most prominent for us. And so I utilize Ayurveda and the Doshas and help to balance some of those things. So if you have more of that fire in your constitution, there are things that we can do in terms of practices and even like foods that we're eating that can help to balance your fire and like calm down that fire so that you aren't as irritable, grumpy, frustrated, wanting to control everything.
If that's your tendency, would you give or use some examples of how to work with at least? I know you've said you have five, but the three that you've listed.
Oh yeah. So I. So there's three. There are three energy archetypes. They're influenced by five elements in the Ayurvedic tradition.
Okay, got it.
Yes. So the fire, I'll just call it the fire archetype. That one. If we want to balance that out, we gotta think of cooling, soothing. And because the fire archetype is more like controlling and wanting to have that type, everything needs to be a certain way, a kind of attitude, which we also want to bring into play. So those are the three things the fire one tends to take themselves very seriously. And I say this, that's my archetype. And I have to laugh a lot.
“My work is to not take myself so seriously, especially when it pertains to my relationships. When I take myself too seriously, it's like that is a recipe for disaster in my relationships.”
And so what we want to do is soothing, cooling, and playing. And so play, obviously, has to do with bringing more fun into your life. But the soothing and cooling can be practiced. It can be like just getting in the water, like splashing cold water on your face. Especially during the summer when it's hot. And literally, tempers are also up when it's hot out. There are also foods we can eat that help cool us. Like cucumber, watermelon, things that you think of as more summer foods or tropical foods like coconut are really cooling. Those kinds of things can be helpful too for cooling us down, which is awesome. So that's an example of that fire archetype. Yeah.
Do you have a question? And is there anything that a significant other might be able to support when you say soothing? Because I mean, just when somebody's in a fight, it's so easy to get defensive or want to, like, yes, match it. And what you're really suggesting is bringing some cooling energy to the dynamic.
Can you ask such a good question? Yes. And I have an answer for this because I have to do this with my husband. We both have the fire archetype as our most prominent one. I have asked him to put a hand on my heart. So just come to me, put a hand on my heart. And well, he has asked me to ask him in those circumstances, is your heart open for me? I'm like, it's gotta be body-based for me. Like, it's gotta be somatic. So, like, put your hand on my heart. Cause I can twist. If you ask me something mental, I will twist it. And I'll be like, yeah, my heart's open. But is your heart, you know, just like mine. It's gotta be body-based for me.
So I've asked him to do that, and it works like a charm every time he comes.
More honest answers from the body.
Exactly, exactly. It immediately makes me think, “Oh, I'm out of my mind. I'm into my body, I'm in my heart.” And that's the most. That's the antidote to the fire for sure. It's just like, okay, getting in the heart because the fire is in the mind. Right? Like wanting to control things, and that's all in the mind. And so when we can get into the heart. That can be really effective, and so it can be different for everyone again. Like my husband and I do something different for each other, and that's another thing, is that we don't think that it has to look the same for you and your partner.
**“Ask each other what you actually need in terms of that conflict, and what is it that actually would work for you to bring yourself into the state of being that you want to be in those circumstances.”**
And even to observe.
Right. I've noticed that when my husband and I take a stroll around the neighborhood, it is so supportive of his system. And I. We've been together almost 20 years, and I have just become even that much more crystallized without us talking. Because some people have a hard time articulating, sometimes noticing. But he has been able to tell me that, just like a gentle kind of touch on the arm and or back, just saying it's gonna all be okay or something like that, a very soothing comment. So I do think it's important to prompt and just have the opportunity to learn more about what would feel good.
Yes, yes, exactly.
Do you wanna name the other two just for people?
Yeah, for sure. So then there's the leisure enthusiast who, we love these people; they're like the teddy bear. They're the kind of person who, if you're struggling, you want a hug from them. They're amazing. They're super caring. And their like shadow side, the tendency is to over rest or rest in ways that don't actually serve them, that don't actually like to bring their energy up. And we can all do that. But this person has more of that tendency. That's my secondary tendency. So I feel like I tend to do the burnout thing and then fall into this, where it's like now I can never move again, and I'm on the couch, and I'm never moving again. Right. And there's like an overfullness here. There's a tendency for overindulging in eating, with different numbing practices.
Like I was talking about at the beginning of this call, even reading can be numbing. We think of reading as good, but everything can be good, and everything can also be unhelpful. So what we want to think of here is like invigorating. So what things are actually going to make me feel more invigorated here? And lightness, we really want to bring lightness here. Because there's a heaviness, there's a density with this type. And so if you're resonating with this type, bringing in lightness, bringing in like an invigoration of things, and then spontaneity can also be helpful here. So we're talking about how structure is really helpful. This type. We still want to bring some spontaneity. So. So if you're doing the same thing every single day, we do want to bring in some different things.
And surprise yourself, surprise your partner if they are more into this, like, okay, we're going to go do this right now. And they might have some resistance to it, but then they might be like, thank you so much for helping me with this. Yes, I do that. As I said, this is my secondary tendency. And my husband's secondary tendency is the whirlwind one that we'll get to. And so when he can drag me out of this and get me to go do something fun together, that is great for me.
Nice. I love that. I love that.
Yeah.
And self-activation is hard when one's in this kind of state. So, is there any small move that one can do individually?
Yeah, totally. I would go with something very small. Because we want to honor where we are, too. We want to meet ourselves where we are. And not a lot of times, people who I work with who have this tendency are like, okay, I need to do high intensity interval training workouts so that I can figure. And I'm like, no, then you're going to fall back into this hard. Like you're not gonna do that and then go, you know, that would be the energy management. Yeah, that's all. And then you're gonna fall back into nothing. So let's just do a little teeny tiny step. Like, I literally had a client who had such low energy. She would wake up in the morning, work as much as she could. She would work from bed. She literally had no energy.
It was, it was super sad. And she had all these, like, she's a wonderful person, and she had all these big dreams and goals and passions and stuff, but she just had no energy. And she was like, okay, I'm learning about Ayurveda, and Ayurveda says that I need to do more of the invigorating practices and stuff. And I'm like, “Well, hang on, hang on here.” Because when you do that, you are kind of perpetuating this cycle of all or nothing. And so she was in her bed as much as she could be. We started. I was like, all I want you to do is get up out of bed in the morning, not go do a high-intensity workout, go sit somewhere else, and meditate. That's all.
Just get out of bed, and you can sit somewhere. You could even lie on the ground, whatever. But let's start there. And so we really, really do want to meet ourselves where we are in that and take those baby, baby steps. That's what creates automation, too.
**“Getting these habits on autopilot, we have to start small. When we try to overhaul our whole lives, that's when things get wonky.”**
And that's what I was trying to do for like 10 years of my life, is overhaul everything. Oh, it's the new year. Oh, well, I'm gonna wait till Monday, and then I'll start, and I'll overhaul everything. Once that happens, I'll start. But when we can just start really small. So take stock. You know, when people who are listening right now take stock. Where are you right now in this? Maybe you're not so depleted that you're like in bed all day, but are you working out? Like, some days? Maybe you can just return it. I'm gonna move my body every day for five minutes or one minute. Really, like super small. And we can build on that.
Thank you. It's so important. And when you were talking earlier about building in and automating, I was reflecting on some of my very consistent self-care habits. And it's almost as if Hadlee carries me sometimes.
Yes.
And I'm just like, okay, I'm doing the thing. But it's like, it doesn't take a lot of activation energy because I've already got the groove, and I'm just kind of following the groove.
Yes.
I mean, sometimes I'm excited, and I want to do it, and other times I'm just like, oh, okay, I'm just doing it, and it's happening. But it's like part of my normal rhythm.
Totally. Yes. So I have been talking to my clients recently because they're like, I have so many people tell me, you know, if they've lost weight or if they start seeming happier to people that they're friends with or that they're in a relationship with. They're like, they keep telling me that they're so proud of me and that it must have taken so much willpower and motivation. And they're like, it hasn't, though. They're like, No, I was using willpower and motivation before I started working with Hadlee. And now the paradox is that, like I'm not now, but it's actually effective now.
Yes, yes.
I love what you said about where it's carrying you. And that's my goal, is that the net expenditure of energy with these habits that I work on with my clients is that you actually get more energy from them. So maybe you're expending a tiny bit of energy, and that drains your energy levels a little bit, but the net effect is that it's actually increasing your energy because the energy that you're putting in is so low, because it's automated. Just there.
Yes, yes. I'm not saying I have my whole life dialed in, but I have a few things. Okay. So I don't want to lose. For people who are super curious about the third one.
Yes, totally. So this is our depleted whirlwind. And so for those of us who have more in the elements that it carries in Ayurveda are the elements like wind and air, and space. So this is the kind of person that is going, going all the time, that really wants to make things happen and might get really distracted, really easily. Might be like “ping-ponging” all over the place essentially. And if they have a really depleted phase, they might kind of crash. And their tendency to crash is more like a hollow, empty kind of feeling. Whereas the leisure enthusiasts, there's like an over-fullness there, like feeling heavy and dense. The depleted whirlwind is more of a weak feeling, a hollow feeling. Like I gave it away. Exactly, yes, you've given it everything away, and there's nothing left, essentially.
So, what we want to do with that, what we want to think about there, is like building, nourishing, and structuring. Structure creates freedom. Again, these are the people who have this tendency are more like our creative types too. They have more of that, like that spontaneity, that creativity, that ability to see things that other people might not, like see patterns and different things that other people might not be able to see. And so these amazing things about this person, and they can get depleted really, really easily because they don't have as much of that, like that structure in place, and yeah, that grounding. And even their physiology tends to be a lighter physiology and stuff too. And so what we want is to do the things that can really ground us.
So, whereas the leisure enthusiast might need someone to be like, let's do something spontaneous, this type needs to do less spontaneous things.
And so if you have a partner who's more this way, you can support them in being like, “Oh, let's create some structure in our schedule.” Like, maybe we go to bed at the same time every night and just start with that. I find this type also sometimes has insomnia issues. And so going to bed at the same time every night is not their tendency. Like they tend to be everywhere. But when we can make it at the same time every night, that really helps with insomnia. There are other things that we can do for that, too, which I work on with my clients. But really bringing in, okay, grounding. How can we even do the hand on the heart for this type, too, could be really helpful.
Or hand on the shoulders and push down so that you feel really like, “Oh, okay, yes, I'm here, I'm not.”
In the present time, present space.
I'm in my body, I'm on the ground. Here we are. Lying on the ground can also be great for this type.
Or like feet, right foot contact, or just.
Oh yeah, massaging the feet. If you want to support your partner this way, you can massage their feet. Actually, I have my clients massage their own feet before bed. If they're having insomnia, either falling asleep or if they tend to. It's really interesting. This has been like a no-fail thing for my clients. If they wake up in the middle of the night, if that's like their tendency, it's wild. That's not my tendency. So I haven't actually experienced this. But if they massage their feet before bed with oil, do an oil massage before bed. And that's one of the habits that I coach my clients into for nervous system regulation.
Massaging their feet before bed with oil and then, like, maybe putting socks on or whatever so that the oil doesn't get all over the bed, that is like the number one thing that makes it so that they don't wake up in the middle of the night for whatever reason, it's super effective.
I love that.
Yeah. And speaking of which, the self-massage with oil, big believer in that for all of the types, but especially for this type to really ground down your nervous system. In Ayurveda, the word for oil, the Sanskrit word for oil, which is the language of Ayurveda, you can kind of think of it as like how Latin was like the language for the original language in Greek and Latin culture and stuff. The Sanskrit word for oil is sneha. It is also the word for love. And I know, so sweet.
“If we rub oil on our bodies, we're adorning our bodies in love. And so that's been the greatest practice for self-love that I have found for my clients.”
If they have really critical ways of talking to themselves or whatever. That practice is a game-changer.
Beautiful. And as we look at relational context too, just even being able to, if there's a part of the body for our partner, like how would it be a beautiful way to express love if we're in that place of being able to offer more of that. Hadlee, you've offered so much here. I'm so grateful for how actionable, how really you're trying to give people structure and habits that can be integrated into their lives so that it can support every domain, and particularly, I know we focused on relationships here, but how would you like to encourage people to get to know your work better? What would you like to do?
Yes, absolutely. I mostly hang out on Instagram. That's my preferred social media. So DM me on there for sure. I love chatting with people. Like, relationships are kind of my favorite thing. I love building community, so DM me on there. I also offer free discovery sessions for people if you want to take it further and work with me. And so I can give you the link for that. And then my energy archetype quiz, if you're like, okay, I gotta figure out which type I am so that I can really take this to the next level. I have a quiz that I can give you to put in the show notes as well if you'd like. It's also in the bio on my Instagram. But then, once you take that quiz, I also have like a full library for each type.
So all these resources are specific to each type. So you can go binge those resources as well.
Oh my gosh. I will make sure to have the links to all that you've mentioned, your social media on Instagram, and the discovery call and the quiz for learning your energy archetype. And is this also on your website?
Yes, yeah, my website is happyhealthyhadlee.com, so you can access all that there as well.
I love it. Well, thank you again. It's been such a pleasure to have this conversation with you.
Thank you for having me. It's always so fun to talk to you.
Wonderful.
The post ERP 506: Regulate Your Body, Transform Your Bond: The Habit Science Behind Healthy Love — An Interview with Hadlee Garrison appeared first on Jessica Higgins.
When was the last time you felt a sinking feeling just thinking about money? For many, money is far more than just numbers in a bank account—it's tangled up with our emotions, childhood experiences, and even our closest relationships. All too often, conversations around money get swept under the rug, leaving us to battle our financial stress and shame alone. But what if unraveling these hidden money wounds is the key to building stronger connections—with ourselves and with others?
In this episode, listeners are invited to reimagine their relationship with money and begin addressing the emotional baggage attached to it. Through relatable stories and practical examples, this conversation explores how early money memories shape our beliefs and behaviors, and impact how we communicate with partners, friends, and even our kids. You'll learn actionable steps to identify your own “money story,” bridge differences in financial perspectives, and move from feelings of shame or avoidance to a place of security and mutual understanding. If you’re ready to make money a tool for connection rather than conflict, this episode offers a roadmap for transforming anxiety into empowerment.
Shari Rash is a nationally recognized financial advisor, money mindset expert, and the host of Everyone's Talkin' Money—named a Top 4 money podcast by The New York Times, with over 24 million downloads.
Shari breaks down complex financial topics into real-life conversations that empower women to own their worth and build lasting wealth. She’s been named a 2024 Best Wealth Manager and Advisor Under 40 by InvestmentNews.
Episode Highlights04:40 How sharing money struggles brings us closer.
07:59 Understanding money personalities in romantic relationships.
10:08 Unpacking money conflicts: Addressing deeper needs in couples.
13:58 Creating compromises and shared financial goals in partnership.
17:20 Exploring childhood money memories and their lasting impact.
22:36 Real couple example: Money stories shaping habits and choices.
24:51 Turning financial difficulties into relationship growth.
26:57 The healing power of monthly money conversations.
31:28 Moving from money shame to practical, empowered choices.
38:26 Making spending intentional and aligning with values.
41:47 Reflection questions to deepen your money relationships.
Your Checklist of Actions to Take* Reflect on your earliest money memory to uncover potential beliefs and wounds about finances. * Initiate regular, open conversations about money with your partner or friends without sharing private details. * Identify your and your partner’s “money personality” (saver, spender, hoarder, YOLO) to better understand differences in financial habits. * Practice vulnerability by sharing concerns or challenges related to money to strengthen intimacy and support. * Set a realistic number that feels comfortable for your checking account and use it as your “zero” baseline. * Build an emergency fund by calculating three to six months of expenses and agreeing on the right amount for your household. * Align spending habits with your core values and make intentional choices that reflect what matters most to you. * Create structured, positive money check-ins with your partner, starting each meeting with wins or appreciations to foster connection.
Mentioned12 Relationship Principles to Strengthen Your Love (free guide)
Connect with Shari RashWebsites: everyonestalkinmoneypodcast.com | gwawealth.com
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Episode Transcript
Sheri, thank you for joining us. I'm excited about a conversation today.
Thank you for having me. So am I. Yes.
We are going to be collaborating, and I am grateful. Your previous host of the Everybody's Talking Money podcast was on the show not that long ago. I'll put the link in today's show notes. And we're going to be talking about wounds behind our wallets as far as it relates to money and relationships, and what we're experiencing. Where would you like to start? How do you support people, and what do you want people to know here?
Yeah. I think the biggest thing is that everyone has junk when it comes to money. Everyone has a feeling around it. So you are not alone. But so often, because we're trained or taught that talking about money is taboo, we don't talk about it, and we just operate in a vacuum. And then our thoughts just get bigger and deeper, and our wounds get bigger, and it just becomes this whole thing. So you're not alone. Talking about money is so important. And I talk about money all day, every day. And I think that we think talking about money somehow means we're sharing our salary info. How much is in our bank accounts and our 401(k)’s? And that's not it at all. I have money conversations all day, every day, as I said, and that info is never released. So we can talk about money without giving personal details away. And I think that I sometimes miss a lot.
And do you want to give a short example of how we can talk about money without disclosing very private financial information?
Oh, my gosh. So, I mean, it's as simple as going out to dinner with your friends and going, Who else is so annoyed by how much groceries cost? I mean, this is crazy. You know, no one's going to go. I actually think they're very fairly priced, and I think it's fine. Everyone's going to commiserate there. Or, at the time we're recording this, it's back-to-school time. Like, spending $60, $70 for all of these school supplies that then get returned to you barely used, or do we have to buy the backpacks, the water bottles, the new lunchboxes every single year? Just all of that. So, just talking about all of that or finding someone else's perspective on it is a way to talk about money without even saying anything personal about yourself.
And what do you think that does for communities, friendships, relationships? As we talk about intimate relationships here, how is that helpful?
Oh, it's super helpful. It can only help you deepen a relationship, in my opinion, especially if you do become a little bit vulnerable. Like, I spent a lot of time on the show, talking about maybe ways to save money or ways to bring up money with friends without putting so much on the table, but just putting enough. Like, for example,
****The FOMO is real, right? We want to hang out with our friends, but how often do you say yes to dinner at a restaurant or say yes to brunch?****
And it's like, I don't really feel like spending $75 on brunch or, like, I don't really like this restaurant, but I want to be with my friends. Well, you're probably not alone. There's probably someone else in the friend group who is also going out that feels the same way.
So just by saying, like, hey, guys, how about we do a potluck brunch? Like, everyone bring a French toast, casserole, and whatever over to my house, and let's just hang out here and, like, let's save a couple bucks. It's very rare. Would you go? No. I really wanted to go out to brunch, and this is what I, you know, everyone just wants to be together. And by saying, like, hey, I'm just trying to save a couple bucks right now. Can we do this here? Or here's an alternative. It still achieves what everyone wants, which is to be together and have fun together. And you don't have the $75 bill at the end. And you could probably even hang out longer and be more comfortable than a server trying to, you know, turn the tables over.
So I think just by doing things like that or saying like “Man, my daughter wants a new backpack for school, but I really don't feel like buying her a new backpack”. This one's perfectly fine. Or like, “it's kind of annoying how these kids just expect us to buy stuff all the time and say that kind of stuff to a friend”. You're not going to be alone. I guarantee it. You are not going to be alone. Then they're going to share something. And that relationship's only going to get deeper because now you're sharing things that you definitely don't share with other people, because
*No one talks about money with other people. But you're only going to get closer as a result of it because you're becoming more vulnerable or showing sides of you that no one sees.*
Absolutely. Thank you for giving some examples. And I particularly like the brunch example in that it's presenting another option. It's giving a solution that also supports the needs that everybody else has. Likely, if that's the purpose, it is for us to connect and get together, and also just give some time and space to express challenges. Right. There are ways in which we all feel challenged and especially in parenthood and back-to-school time, and the demands of that and just the transition. So to be able to make a bit more visible that not everything's just perfect and great.
Right.
That we can show, as you said, some more vulnerability here that allows for more support to be given. I believe that if everything's great, we're kind of putting up a little bit of a barrier that, like, I need nothing, everything's great, and I'm dialed in, which I appreciate people want to strive for. And also, you know, this is where I think Brenea Browndid such beautiful work around. Vulnerability is like, that's where we feel love. And connection isn't when it's all great and convenient and beautiful. It's when things are more challenging that we feel that responsiveness and more connection.
It's like the equivalent, you know, the first time when you have a friend, and you're becoming close. And you go over their house for the first time when it's messy, or they come over your house for the first time when it's messy, and like, you're nervous, and it's like, oh, my gosh, my house is a mess, but I did not have time to clean it. What are they gonna think? And no one cares. You know, they just slide over the arts and crafts that are on the counter so they can put their drink down and like, who cares, right? No one cares. But then afterwards, you feel that much closer. Cause it's like, wow, they just saw the real me. They saw how I really live, and not me cleaning for five hours before I have a party or something like that.
And that's what, you know, talking a little bit about money, that's what that is. That's showing “your messy house”. But again, you're not showing everything. You know, we're not saying, here's my bank account. Or it's just, hey, here's just a little insight into my life. And they're going to give a little insight into theirs, and you're going to be that much closer afterwards, right?
And that's how we deepen intimacy, for sure. And, speaking of intimacy, any examples you have here around romantic, adult relationships, intimate relationships, around talking about money, and how that's helpful, probably could be the whole episode, right?
That could be many episodes. What I will say is that everyone has a different money personality. And, put on some very basic ones, and you can Google it. I kind of have my own names for them. But Spender, Saver. No one says this anymore, but the YOLO, You Only Live Once, so it's like they justify, “you can't take it with you” kind of thing. A Money Hoarder. So someone who just keeps on collecting money, and they can't ever have enough of it. Spender, Saver. So someone who does both, they save and spend. And it's kind of erratic that way or unpredictable. And it's very rare that two Savers get married or are in a relationship together. It's usually the Spender and the Saver who are the ones in the relationship together.
Or even worse, a Hoarder and a YOLO are partners. So when it comes to your relationship, you have to understand how your partner thinks about money. And often what they're saying isn't necessarily what they mean. Like, you spend so much money, it may just be, I'm insecure because I don't feel like we have enough saved. But they're saying, instead, you spend so much money, it's really getting too deep into what money was like when they grew up? Did they feel less than? Did they hear their parents argue about money? Were they told they can't afford things? Or conversely, was money never brought up, or did they never want for anything? They had everything given to them or handed to them? Whatever it is, you need to understand that, because that's what shapes your and your partner's relationship with money and your money personality.
So by understanding that first and often, we never understand that. We only fight about money or get insulted and get upset because they're throwing accusations or whatever, or we never have enough with all of that.
But if you can take a minute to understand that, like, how does my partner think about money, and what's their money personality, and what's my money personality? And really being honest, that can help save a lot of arguments, or that can build a really big bridge to understanding just by doing that.
I agree that this turns the attention less to the complaint, but more to the underlying need. And that typically, if we aren't aware of the thing that we're needing or really feeling, maybe insecure around, then we can point to all the reasons and not really address the deeper need. And so if partners can start talking about those deeper needs, right. If you weren't spending all the money, what would that allow me to feel? I feel more secure, or I feel more at ease and relaxed, and that we have enough in our emergency savings fund or whatever the things are. And what does it mean to be like, if you're, you never spend any money, and like, what would it mean if you have your partner spend some money, what would that allow you to feel? Right.
These usually, as you said, connect with deeper needs or deeper longings. And to start talking about that's a much more productive conversation because, as you said, we can get into this criticism defensiveness loop, which usually is off track, and we're not even talking about what matters anyway.
Yeah, exactly. By understanding that, like, oh, you're not mad at me because I'm spending a lot of money, you feel insecure, which, we also kind of have to know our audience, but it's like, are you feeling insecure because you don't feel like we have enough saved? Is that the problem? So, how much do you feel like we need to have saved? But then it's also, we also have to look at what's realistic because there are what I call money hoarders, who can never have enough money saved. Once they say, Well, I need $10,000 in the savings account, and everything will be fine. And then you hit the 10,000, and it's like, well, no, really, I wanted 15,000. That'll make me feel a lot better. Then you get to the 15. So there is a risk of that, too.
So you have to be aware that this is the extreme, the money hoarding. But you could also create a compromise of saving for a goal. Like, “Okay, you know, math is telling us, dear, that we have plenty of money in our emergency fund. You know, and we can Google this, like, emergency fund, three to six months of expenses. So it could be three months, four months, five months, six months. If you're talking to someone who's more conservative and likes to have more savings, then, okay, what's six months? Calculate that number. So six times your monthly expenses, that's your emergency fund. Well, math is telling us, like, we have enough for an emergency. Like, something really bad would have to happen. Like, both of us losing our jobs at the same time, to have to use this money. There are so many things.
Because even if we have an emergency, it's not going to use up all of it, likely, right? So we have enough saved in our emergency fund. Do you feel better if, like, we're planning a trip in six months, shall we start a travel savings account? And we start saving for the travel? So then we're prepared, and we can have a whole lot more fun than the cash is there when we come home, versus scrambling to pay the credit card bill. Would that feel better?” And kind of creating strategies that way that appease both parties, because both parties need to end up happy at the end. They need to feel like they gave up something, but they also need to feel like they're happy at the end, and they got some of what they asked for. So, coming up with a plan together.
Because when we don't talk about money, we just end up in a vacuum, and we're just in our own thoughts. And we think we're right because there's no one challenging us. There's no one bringing a different perspective. So we think we're right. So the one that wants to save, they think they're right because they're like, we need to save money. We need to do this, we need to do that. They spend so much money, all of this, but there's no one challenging it. So you just think you're right and right and right. And then conversely, with the spender, it's like, “Well, you know, we needed this, we needed that, we needed this”. And all they want to do is save money, and that's no fun, and life is for living and all of that stuff.
*So now if you understand where the other person is coming from, one, you can learn from them, but then come up with a plan that satisfies both of you.***
I'm so for the win. And it's not, to your point, easy to arrive. Sometimes we'll have to have multiple conversations. I mean, there are legitimately some topics that it took my husband and me maybe a year plus to actually get to a place of real understanding in the service of both of our needs around a little bit bigger topics. So one of the things that you do a lot to help people around is hidden money wounds and how this affects our belief system, and how it shows up. And I imagine in couplehood that we may be confronted with our partner holding up a mirror or presenting something to us that maybe we haven't looked at. As you said, perhaps we don't even know our money story, or really have taken inventory and how we operate and why we operate.
Do you want to talk a little bit about how these hidden wounds show up and how to identify them and start working with them?
Yes. So the quickest way to identify your wounds, everyone has them, if you have them, what is your first money memory? What's the first thing you can think of when I ask that question? And it doesn't necessarily have to be the first one, but it's like whatever memory comes to mind first. And that is going to tell you a lot about your relationship with money. If it was, you know, “I just remember my parents arguing about money, or my mom putting things on layaway, and I remember having to go to the store to pay the layaway, and it was so embarrassing. Or being told we can't afford that”. If it's that'll indicate, like, where you stand with money and could likely come from a negative place. Or like, “rich people are bad”.
I remember my parents saying, like, “they make money, they're rich, they're no good”*. Or comments that then make you feel bad now for making money and doing well for yourself. So it's whatever those first memories are that'll help point you in the direction of what your wound is.*
And you really get to sit in that for a second and reflect on it, because that has been playing in your head your whole life. Every time you have, you're dealing with money, which we do every day, multiple times a day, likely every time you deal with money, that thought is kind of circulating in the back of your head, and it's creating your relationship with money. So if it's, “you know, I heard my parents arguing about money, then that is your wound”.
So it's “okay, well, money is not a good thing in a relationship”. Or “I felt like we never had enough. I grew up never having enough, so that's my wound. So I'm never gonna have enough, or if I have enough, it's still not enough”. Money's not a healthy thing to talk about in a relationship because it only creates arguments. You have to look at the starting point, like, where did it all start? Then you really just have to sit in and think and go, okay, how is that affecting me now going forward?
So it's identifying a memory that comes up quickly and seeing if that memory is showing up in the current day and how that perhaps informs beliefs consciously or unconsciously, but also behaviors. And so if we can look at it and recognize that it likely has an aspect that shapes our relationship wound, perhaps oftentimes some of our most pivotal moments have pain around them. And if we call a memory that is early and has charge to it to some extent, then likely this is something we've had an imprint around or have a wound around, and that it's showing up.
Yes, exactly.
When I think back to early memories around money, what stands out is a feeling of money. When I wanted something, I remember sensing stress from my mother, even when she perhaps didn't say anything outright. And I think I absorbed this feeling that talking about money is stressful, or this sense that something's not okay. And it sounds like you're describing how these early money memories help shape our dynamic around money, and particularly in relationships. How do you help partners, couples start uncovering these hidden money stories?
So when I work with my clients as a financial advisor, I can identify their spending, their money personality pretty quickly through the conversations. And initially, it's like, why are you here? You know, you don't just wake up on a Tuesday and go, I need a financial advisor. Like, things have to happen over time. And then maybe you had “the straw that broke the camel's back” to then go, we need help, right? What we're doing isn't working. So some of the initial questions when I'm working with my clients are like, “What brought you here? What's going on?” And that's when they just tell everything. That's like, well, let me tell you. And that's where through who's dominating the conversation. How is the story going? What happened in the story to make them reach out?
I can figure out pretty quickly where they stand with money. So I'm just working with a couple recently, and he's the Saver, she's the Spender. And you know, he's just getting frustrated that there are just no savings. And her whole thing is like, “I could die tomorrow”. And “life is for living and is also expensive. Kids are expensive. And I feel guilty. I feel guilty that everyone else is going on vacation and we're not. So I never want my kids to be home like on a spring break”. And it's like, okay, so did you not ever go on vacation? Like, was that not something you had growing up? And how did that make you feel? And not wanting to repeat that with her children. So just from that little bit right there, and then she's like,
“He's still wearing stuff from high school, he still has clothes from high school. So he's not comfortable saving a dollar cause he didn't grow up with much”.
So it's like, “yeah, my shirt is still good. Twenty years later, it still works. And I feel weird buying stuff for myself because there are so many other things that feel selfish, and my money could go elsewhere”.
So it's just like in that short five-minute introduction conversation, I already got to learn a lot about them. So then it's like, okay, well, how can we create plans that appease both of you? So, you know, traveling and giving her kids experiences is a priority. Okay. And he's all for that, but he also likes saving.
So it's like, okay, let's first work on getting your emergency fund to where it needs to be. Because that is a necessity. Right? We need to. Because if something bad were to happen, we can't have you take on debt. So that's first and foremost. So how do we address that? Who knows if the children would really give them a hard time for not going away on spring break? This may be her own self-imposed guilt and all of that junk, right? So it's like,
“I don't even know if. You don't have to address it. As a family, we went on our first spring break as a family. I have four kids this year, and every other spring break, it's like we did staycations, we found things where we lived, we had fun, they played with their friends, they got to sleep in, and it was great”.
So like, “Are you creating this whole thing yourself in your head? So, okay, even if you say we're not gonna go on a trip this year, let's think of like three fun things we can do for a day trip or whatever”.
Why aren't we going? Why?
Well, you know, we just think it's important as a family that we save money. And it's just as important as a family that we have money for emergencies as it is that we go on spring break. Like, that's just as if not even more important.
So you can have these conversations with your kids, and you do have to be careful with the things that you say to your kids. And I can talk about that in a few minutes.
So right there it's like,
“Okay, is your own junk getting in the way of creating these scenarios in your head, and then, in turn, is it impacting your money?
**So what I said is like, first and foremost, an emergency fund, we have to create that. Like, that is personal finance 101.**
So, okay, everyone's on board with that because that makes complete sense. Then the next step is, well, traveling is a priority for you. Let's create a travel fund. Once the emergency fund gets to a good spot, and we all can agree on a number, because there are all different numbers. It can be. We all agree on a number.
The next thing is, let's create a travel fund. So then, when you do go on vacation, you're going to have an even better time because you know you have the cash to cover it when all the credit card bills come in from the vacation. So it's appeasing the Spender because she still wants to go on vacation, but it's also appeasing the Saver because now he knows there's cash and we're not going to go on the vacation till we have the money to cover it, or we're going to create a plan to have the money cover it.
Thank you for saying this. And I would imagine and just from my perspective, around the couple dynamic, that being able to be supportive for both people's needs or being able to hold space to look at. Where is this coming from? Is this a wound? Is this a limiting belief? Or how do we support each other to get to these wins? That's where partners feel the trust, they feel the respect, they feel the alliance, and the intimacy of working together. I have a client who comes to mind, and they're going through a divorce. I haven't met with her, and it was largely by his report, her seemingly going rogue and not upholding their financial agreements, spending a lot, and him feeling the children, a kind of sabotage type of thing.
And it was very difficult to feel together or to feel this respect and trust. So I think it can be quite challenging both financially, as you said. Maybe people who you see are coming in and they've reached a point of difficulty and are needing support, and also relationally, the wounds that can get created, the disconnection, or the ruptures that can happen. I feel like in life we will be presented with challenges, whether or not it's children or whatever the goals are that stretch us, that then we perhaps encounter new parts of ourselves, and that there's a great opportunity to work together. And I'm grateful that my husband and I have been having money meetings every month. And for me, it's been really healing to have these really positive, safe conversations around money.
And I am very much in service of supporting the goals, and you know, what we've been working for. And we have the spreadsheet that shows us all our progress, which feels really good and feels really aligned, so that we can both feel the space to advocate for what we need. So I think relationally it can be a real opportunity for being closer. What do you see?
I agree. And going back to your client and his soon-to-be ex-wife, you know, if you talk to her, she may feel like, well, he was restricting me. He was not understanding, maybe the needs of our household. So I'm buying things. You know, when Amazon boxes show up, a lot of times there's not fun stuff in there. There's laundry detergent, there's dish soap, there's toilet paper. But you only see the Amazon box, right? And if you don't say, “Hey, what's in that box? or “open it up yourself ”, you're in the vacuum of what's in there. “ What are they spending money on now? ” So she may have felt restricted, which could have triggered something from her childhood where she was told she couldn't afford things or they couldn't do things. You never know.
So it's like she was spending, and this was not our agreement. And they're both not. And what I say to all my couples is, you're both not wrong. Like you're both right, but you need to understand that you both are right in different ways. And we need to find the happy medium between the two. So I think having that communication, like talking about, I have four children, and I bought all the back-to-school stuff, and I just put it in a room that doesn't get used too often, and I just had all the stuff in there. And it was bag after bag after bag of stuff in there. And my husband walked past it, walked past it for a couple of weeks because I was like, I'm being proactive. I'm getting this stuff early.
I'm not waiting until the last minute. So he kept walking past it for a couple of weeks, and like I have two six-year-olds. So yes, there was Play-Doh and crayons in there, and it looked like fun stuff. And finally, he worked himself up into a tizzy because he's like, “What is all of this stuff?” And I'm like, “That's back-to-school stuff”. Like, he's like, “it looks like Christmas in there”. And I'm like, “That's back-to-school stuff, chill out”. Because we've never talked about it. I've always just done it. I've always just bought it, and you know, that was it. And then sent it to school with the kids. He's never really seen it before, and now that he's seen it and so then I screenshotted and texted him:
“These are all the lists. This is what it looks like. It's not a couple of pencils and a couple of notebooks. This is what we have to buy. And right there it's like where if like the first day he saw it, like, what is that? It's the school supplies. Oh, okay.”
But when you keep it in your head and like you think like, “Oh, the spending”*, it creates a bigger issue. So it's like having those regular money check-ins, I think it's so important, and I think it's fantastic that you and your husband do that.*
Thank you. And it's been really helpful because one of the things that he learned that I needed was that it starts with an acknowledgement or appreciation or a win. Like there's some sandwiching of positive things which I really needed to get to my point, around having tension around money that doesn't necessarily need to be that we can be aligned, work towards mutual goals, and have positivity around it. So it's been such a game-changer to have the structure we both feel comfortable with, and that invites something that we're both needing.
Yeah. Like,
“Thank you for always having toilet paper. I never have to think about where my toilet paper is coming from. Thank you for always having it there ready for me to. You know, it's important because it is an Amazon box, but it has the Amazon box for the stuff the household is using, and I'm the one thinking about it. And you don't have to.”
So, yeah, that's. I think it's so important. Yes.
And what we can appreciate. And I totally get the thing around seeing the box and judgment that might come, and it's like. No, it's really. It's just, you know, something I would buy at the store. It just is. They don't have it. And we live in an area where it's difficult to get. But. Okay, so when you talk about shame, how do you help people negotiate confronting some of their own shame, and then also how this might look like in an intimate relationship? I know. I'm kind of diving in here a bit.
Yeah. So again, where is the shame coming from? A lot of people have shame around money because they have it right now. They have a good job, they make good money, and they've accumulated and they've done well. And there's shame attached to that. Like, “I don't deserve this”, or “I become who I was taught are the bad guys”.
**I became wealthy, and there's shame attached to that. So, like, understanding what your shame is and why you have it? And again, it comes from that money personality or that first money memory that you have. Or when I say money, what do you think of? Like, that's another big question. When I say the word money, what comes to mind right away?**
And if it's a negative word, that tells us a lot about what we're carrying.
So removing shame or just feeling bad about money is essential. Like, it has to happen. Because my goal is never to have people love money. I never want my clients to love money. I would love it if they love money, but that's never my goal. My goal is just like, let's just get neutral, because money is neutral. Money is just an object. We put our own emotions on it. We put our own stuff on it. So if I can at least understand where you're coming from, put plans in place that fit you. Like, let's work through some of this junk and get you to neutral territory. That's a win for me. Because now you're using money every single day. So if you have a negative feeling about something you use every day, it's terrible.
So let's get rid of that, and let's just view money for what it is. It's a way to achieve things. It's a way to do things. That's how you put food on your table. You have to spend money this way. You do anything you have to spend money. So just looking at money as a neutral object, and it's a tool, and it is what it is. When you open up your checking account, and you see a number, it's not good or bad. You put your own feelings on it. That's not enough. Mathematically, we may be able to figure out, yeah, that isn't enough. And let's put a plan in place to increase it. But the number is the number, your situation and your feelings, and your beliefs are what attach the emotion to the numbers that you see.
And that's what we need to remove because it is just math. And we can figure out math, or we can figure out how to increase the amount of money in your checking account by making slight changes. We can help with all of this. But what we really need to do is remove the junk. It's a lot more productive if we remove the junk from it first.
No kidding. It sounds like deep work. And how do you help people start to look at where they're feeling bad or feeling shame, and to help process some of it so that it can be more neutralized?
Yeah. So when I'm working with my clients, we're starting at the very basics, like, how do you feel when you open up your banking app? Or when was the last time you opened up your banking app? That's also a popular question. So, okay, let's do that. We're going to do that right now. If you haven't opened up your banking app in a while, let's open it up and let's look at it. So that one thing that we do and just doing that, it's like, okay, the roof didn't fall off. Like, lightning didn't crash. Like, it's okay. We got through that. Okay, well, that's gonna become a regular practice. Like, you need to look at this stuff. Cause the longer it goes without you looking at it, that's actually way worse for you.
Which goes with the talking. Right. That we're in connection, so we're not avoiding hiding, head in the sand type of thing. Got it.
When you open up your banking app, and you see your checking account, there's a number that feels good, and there's a number that doesn't feel good. I'll say, I know a million dollars feels good, but that's not realistic. What's a realistic number? That's when you open up your banking app, like, that feels good, you don't get that pit in your stomach, and everyone's answer is different, and there's no right or wrong answer. Some people say, 500 bucks. Like, I don't need a lot of money in my checking account. 500 bucks feels good because I know I'm getting paid. Again, like, that's good. Other people say, I want $10,000 in my checking account. There's no right or wrong answer. There are some numbers I like mathematically better than others, but I'm not. I don't get into that. I just want them to come up with a number. And you can usually very quickly, like, there is a number that feels better than another one. You know that generally. So we work from there. Okay, let's put a plan into place to make sure you always have that number in your checking account. That's your zero. So if someone says, “That's $1,000, I want to have $1,000”. Now $1,000 equals zero. So if you have $1, if you have $1,001, you're operating as if you have $1. And like, let's just start practicing that. So then, that now eliminates one big issue of no longer getting the pit in the stomach when you open up your app. Now we can open it up because we put in the plans in place to make sure I always have a thousand dollars in my checking account.
So, like, that's level one unlocked. You know.
Now we can get through that and not contend as much with the bad feelings or the shame because you're getting yourself to this neutral place.
Yeah, it's a neutral place based on emotions. Right? Cause it still feels good. But now we're neutral because we're good. Like, we're okay, good check done. I feel good. Let's move on. Like, we got that taken care of. And then, you know, we talk about emergency funds. And like I said earlier like, that's Personal Finance 101. You have to have an emergency fund. So I look at my clients' expenses, what they're spending, and we're not even talking about where their money is going right now. Like, I don't care about that. I'm just looking at how much they're spending. So money in and money out. And I look at their money out. And even if there's room for improvement, we're not even talking about that. So I say you spend X amount of dollars a month. Math.
**Personal finance, again, the rule of thumb is three to six months of expenses in an emergency fund.**
And if you were to Google, what is an emergency fund? That's where you're going to find three to six months. Right, three to six months. So what do people do? They think of three months, and they think of six months. But there are also four and five months in there, too, that you could do. And that number may be a lot, may sound a lot better. So, three months is this much. Four months is this much. Five months is this much. Six months, is that what number sounds good to you? And they pick. And then one may say, well, that six-month number sounded better. And the other partner may say, Well, I like the four months. Great, let's do five months. Done.
And because everyone's satisfied, because they're kind of getting what they want. Right. And then we can move on, check the box. Done. We don't have to worry about that again. So then once we do that, it's like, okay, well, now let's look at money in and money out. Where's your money going? And does your money match your values? Do your expenses match your values? So what's most important to you? And you know the process is longer than this. I really like summarizing it. So what matters to you? And I know some of this already, but I want them to say it like, tell me your perfect day, your perfect week, whatever it is, and that'll tell me what they value. So if it's travel, they value travel, charity, spending time, you know, creating experiences with their kids, whatever it is.
Well, your money is not telling me that. If I look at your money, it looks like you value Starbucks and Chick-fil-A, and you know, not knowing anything, that's where your money's going. That's what you're investing in. That's the value you're investing in. So then it's like, okay, well, where can we make some changes? And again, I'm not telling them, even still, I'm not telling them that they spend too much. I'm not telling them any. It's just. Does this line up?
It's like the intentionality. It's sometimes I think convenience can, in the moment, be a short-term term easy pull. And also, if we really look at it with a lot of intentionality around, what are we investing in and our values that can make those decisions a little bit more aligned? Even if the convenient thing would have been to do whatever we would have done in the past, but would have chosen the longer-term investment in the value. Does that sound right?
Yeah, because you then exactly, you have the intentionality behind spending your money versus then, like say the next day, the drive-through lanes, you know, calling your name. Yes.
I don't have time for lunch. I need to do this quickly.
Yeah, that's right.
**Well, this doesn't align with what I want. This doesn't align with what I value. This doesn't align with our goals. But I'm really hungry and I'm pulling in. At least you thought about it, right?**
You made a decision. Yes. And that's okay. Cause you thought about it versus just zoop. I'm just zooping in, and I'll do it now.
Disembodied out-of-body experience.
Yeah.
Well, what I love about this is that this is potentially connecting with your earlier point around feeling shame and feeling bad, that even if we're aware and we're like, okay, this is the choice that I can, I have to make and I can recognize I don't feel awesome about it, but perhaps in preparation to feel better, I can decide for whatever the value is, that is the investment that is going to contribute to me helping myself feel better. Right. Is that right?
Yeah. I mean, now we're becoming strategic with our money.
Yes, yes.
We're having. We have a plan. We're thinking about it. Even if you end up doing the same things, well, then maybe your values aren't travel. Maybe it is convenient.
Yes. Yes.
Yeah, right. I mean, maybe if you are now thinking about everything, and we look month by month that there's not much difference. Maybe our values aren't exactly what you thought they were, and that's fine.
Totally.
But now you're thinking about it.
You're thinking about it, and you don't have to feel so bad about it. It's like, you know, all the demands, like this is what I need, or this feels like the best option. And this helps me do X, Y, and Z. And therefore, that's the investment, and it's looking honestly at it, and the disconnect starts to become more aligned, and there's a little bit more accountability and ownership in that.
Exactly. Yes.
Well, I could tell we could keep going. I know we're winding down our time. Is there anything you want to say that you haven't said before? We talk about how people can connect with you and what you're offering. No,
I think just asking yourself again, what's your first money memory? And what do you think of when I say the word money? That's going to really point you in the direction of where you stand with money and what your relationship is. And then ask the same of your spouse or partner.
Ask the same of your friends. We started off talking about friendships. Say this to your friends. You're going to learn a whole lot about them. Way more probably than like just, you know, talking about the day or the week that you had. You're going to learn so much about them, and you're really going to share. So it's only going to deepen your relationships just by asking these couple of questions. I love it.
And I so appreciate Sheri today that you've been giving such practical examples, and also very strategic. Okay, check. Let's move on. Right. That there's a real attention to the deeper layers, and also that we can progressively support the progress, and how people can get in touch with you, and if they want to learn more about what you offer.
Yep. So my financial advisory firm is called GWA Wealth. So you can go to my website, gwawealth.com, or come listen to the podcast Everyone's Talking Money. We put out three episodes a week, and there are a lot of conversations about this. So it's the emotional side of money, but then some practical tips that you can implement. So we have brought on experts every week to talk about all of this stuff. And it's just a great resource for if you're curious about money, you want to have a better relationship with it. Again, it's called Everyone's Talking Money.
Excellent. I'll make sure to put the links in today's shownotes. Thank you so much for joining us and all that you've shared here today.
Thank you. My pleasure.
The post ERP 505: Money Wounds in Love: Healing the Hidden Stories Behind Your Spending and Saving — An Interview with Shari Rash appeared first on Jessica Higgins.
Navigating the complexities of family dynamics can sometimes feel like walking a tightrope—especially when relationships between parents and adult children become strained or even break down completely. Family estrangement is an increasingly common challenge that can leave everyone involved feeling isolated, misunderstood, and in deep pain. When communication falters and generational differences collide, how do we find a path toward empathy, healing, and growth?
In this episode, listeners are invited into a heartfelt exploration of adult child-parent estrangement, its underlying causes, and the impact it has on both individuals and entire families. The conversation offers practical insights on healing old wounds, understanding the spiritual and psychological dynamics at play, and tools for fostering compassion—even when distance or conflict seems insurmountable. With stories, expert reflections, and actionable guidance, this discussion aims to support anyone facing the difficult terrain of family disconnection, offering hope and concrete steps toward greater understanding and unity.
Dr. Rachel Glik is a licensed professional counselor with 30+ years as a couples, individual, and family therapist in private practice. Since 2014, she has been a regular feature on the Fox 2 AM show in St. Louis as a relationship and mental health expert. Rachel appeared on NBC News Daily at the launch of her book, A Soulful Marriage: Healing Your Relationship with Responsibility, Growth, Priority, and Purpose. She is a writer for The Wall Street Journal, CNBC Make It, Psychology Today, and MindBodyGreen. Rachel teaches and gives seminars for organizations such as The Kabbalah Centre and Young Presidents Organization (YPO). She lives in St. Louis with her husband and large extended family.
Episode Highlights03:40 Exploring why parent–child estrangement is becoming more common.
09:04 Considering how distance can sometimes support healing and growth.
12:35 The power of early repair before patterns set in.
15:03 Understanding the emotional complexity of parenting adult children.
16:31 Shifting into a new parental role as boundaries and autonomy evolve.
21:35 Recognizing the grief and self-validation needed as relationships change.
24:26 Reflecting on how to hold compassionate space for an adult child’s experience.
26:09 Learning to move beyond defensiveness and listen with openness.
29:38 Embracing generational differences with curiosity rather than fear.
32:56 Navigating how estrangement affects couples and their parenting alignment.
37:56 Prioritizing self-compassion in the midst of relational hardship.
40:43 Practicing accountability and authentic repair within the family and partnership.
Your Checklist of Actions to Take* Take a moment to ground yourself with a deep breath before engaging in challenging family conversations to increase presence and calm. * When tension arises, reflect honestly on how your actions may contribute, and express accountability to foster trust and safety. * Aim to respond with supportive, non-judgmental language, empowering your adult child to make their own decisions. * Listen deeply to your child’s experiences and feelings, holding space for their emotions without jumping into explanations or defense. * Find the balance between support and over-giving, maintain your wellbeing, and be mindful of your energy. * Ask permission before sharing concerns or advice, acknowledging you’re entering your adult child’s “lane.” * Recognize the pain and complexity of estrangement, and give yourself grace throughout the healing process. * Reach out for therapy, coaching, or resources to receive guidance in navigating family estrangement and building new communication strategies.
MentionedA Soulful Marriage (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
It Didn't Start with You: How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are and How to End the Cycle (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
Family Constellations (*Wikipedia link)
Passionate Marriage (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
Kabbalah (*Wikipedia link)
ERP 473: How to Experience More Embodied Pleasure Sexually – An Interview with Susan Taylor
12 Relationship Principles to Strengthen Your Love (free guide)
Connect with Dr. Rachel GlikWebsites: drrachelglik.com
Facebook: facebook.com/p/Dr-Rachel-Glik-EdD-LPC-100027702446361
Instagram: instagram.com/drrachelglik
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/dr-rachel-glik-edd-lpc-a7047ab
Pinterest: pinterest.com/drrachelglik
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Email: jessica@drjessicahiggins.com
If you have a topic you would like to be discussed, please contact us by clicking on the “Ask Dr. Jessica Higgins” button here.
Thank you so much for your interest in improving your relationship.
Also, I would so appreciate your honest rating and review. Please leave a review by clicking here.
Thank you!
*With Amazon Affiliate Links, I may earn a few cents from Amazon if you purchase the book from this link.
Episode Transcript
Rachel, thank you for joining us. It's such a treat to have you back. And I will make sure to put the link to our previous conversation and episode on today's shownotes, and yeah, welcome.
Thank you so much. It's so good to see you again and to talk some more.
Yes, likewise. And we're going to be focusing on a very specific topic that I think more and more people are negotiating, and that's parent, child, Adult child estrangement. And particularly as we look at relationships, how maybe parents and couples bond, marriage, relationship, or negotiating this scenario, and perhaps might approach it differently. But before we even dive into the details, let's just get a scope, and like you said, you wrote an article that got a lot of attention, or talk to us a little bit about how you started addressing this.
Yes. So adult parental estrangement, adult child, and tension with parents and estrangement with them have been something that I've noticed growing in the past 20 years. I'd say, in terms of my own practice. And so I have been writing blogs about it on my own website, talking on Fox 2 about it. And then recently, I wrote an article in the Wall Street Journal about it. And then just the outpouring of parents who are in so much pain over this has become a new specialty for me.
Talk to us about how you see this happening, or that this is more common, and it's becoming more of an issue.
Yes, there are, you know, some upsides and some downsides about that. The upside is that the younger generations are becoming more conscious, more intentional in their relationships. They're going to therapy more. They're starting to individuate in a different kind of way, where they're seeing, like, because our culture and our family was like this, or if this didn't feel good inside, it doesn't mean I have to accept it, you know, or it doesn't mean I just have to go along and not say anything. And so that's the good news is that you know, there's more cycle breaking and affecting change, and hopefully to help the whole lineage, you know, heal.
But the downside is that in the process, there are
a girl feeling down as lectured by her father
****“Many adult children who are not able to hold space for human imperfection, for how they can honor what they need and still maintain some sort of mercy, or how it's impacting the parent, and some sense of losing appreciation for the gift of life that they gave.”****
And I don't see that for any adult child who feels like it's unhealthy for them to be in that relationship. It's not coming from a lack of compassion for me. I just see it as just a very painful experience. So anything that I can do to help bring harmony and help close the gap, I just feel very called to.
Does that sound like you're holding both perspectives? And that as you're seeing the positive aspects of an Adult child who's really being conscientious and intentional about how they're negotiating relationship, how they're participating and perhaps as you said, even breaking some cycles that are either dysfunctional or have real difficulties to them and that maybe don't even feel healthy and that too do that differently is really a positive thing. And to create more healing in the lineage, as you said, and then also that the compassion or maybe even some level of acceptance or even regard for the given life. I mean, I can hear maybe some people are like the old kind of saying of, ‘I brought you into this world,’ and they like having that level of respect. But it's so coming from that top down, one-upping. And it's not very collaborative or that relational.
Right, right. It can sound very obligatory, like, so I owe you to stay in a very unhealthy situation because you brought me into this world. As it may sound, but it's all about consciousness and how you frame it. So this idea that how to balance and understand without it feeling like dogmatic or autocratic, or uncollaborative, to have more appreciation for the life our parents gave us. I find spirituality really helps with that. That it's really more like the soul's journey and also family constellation therapy, if you've ever heard of it. I love that. And it's like, you know, the parents always came first. Like, there is this order and balance to energy flow. And spirituality has helped me with that to see that it's really about how energy flows. It's cause and effect.
Like we are a vessel, you know, and the light of the Creator or the source of life is the source. And so similarly, on some level,
A lady feeling estranged from her mother.
**“We receive our energy through our parents. So if there's a cutoff with a parent, it's not because you owe them something. It's because you cut something off for yourself.****
It's a different obligation. It's an obligation to your soul and to trust that there's something that you're here to learn and to grow and to heal for yourself and your whole soul, root family. Zooming out with a little bigger picture. Yes.
Well, and I would love for you to talk a little bit. I have done the family constellation work, and it is. It was so powerful when I did it. I was actually being trained. It was a somatic psychology course in my PhD program, and I did a whole piece, and it was quite profound. And then it reminds me of Mark Wallin's. It didn't begin with you. I don't know if you've read.
Yeah, that's the main one that I have. That I refer to. Yeah.
And the epigenetics of how trauma can be passed down. And also from a spiritual perspective. Do you see just the kind of energy as you're describing? I don't know if I have your language exactly right. And how that comes from the parents, and that there's also a unique individual spirituality. How do you see those?
I get this from, you know, thousands of years old wisdom, the Wisdom of Kabbalah, which might overlap with other spiritualities as well. But that's where I get my reservoir of wisdom that resonates with my soul. But in that wisdom, we have, like an individual, what's called tikkun, which is a correction. We came to overcome something. We came to reveal light that we haven't revealed yet. We haven't completely revealed the totality of our light or our soul or our gifts, our value. And we also have things that we may need to put into balance from previous lifetimes. And according to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,
The family is having fun together.
**“The soul chooses the parents that are just right for their journey.”****
And so that can be really hard to swallow, you know, or some people can be like.
For many, it's just like life-altering, with how they look at everything that's happened in their life. And it still doesn't mean that you accept hurtful behavior. And you don't, you know, like just an, oh, everything's just gonna go on as it is. Still wanna affect change and take care of yourself and keep evolving and transforming. But it can change the perspective. And then there's also a collective. The whole family could have something to work through together. And sometimes that means, like, needing to have distance. You know, like, often I find that it's a developmental stage that I hope in some, like, it's just too hard for them to keep healing themselves in the context of being connected with their parents. And then it's just part of a process of getting stronger within oneself to then be ready to.
To be able to differentiate enough and to feel detached enough that you can then have. See your parents as separate individuals who probably had their own trauma or had their own lack of education or lack of attunement that they needed. And then you can come back with some compassion and, you know, maybe a new chapter that has different rules and boundaries.
Precisely. It reminds me of Dr. David Schnarch's work on The Passionate Marriage and Intimacy and Desire. And he talked about how often it's too much to ask to hold on to oneself in such proximity that we do need to leave. And I think he was saying, like, leaving the house. And then perhaps at some point when we feel a little stronger and we feel a little bit more able to hold on to ourselves, we can go to the other side of the house or then the other room. And then eventually we can maybe be in the same room. But this kind of iterative process, as you said, developmentally, is actually part of the growth, and sometimes it's too big a risk.
It's too much work to try to do it in such proximity when so much is getting activated in the relational cycles. I also want to comment that I strongly believe that when one person heals, it actually helps all of us heal within the family system.
Yes. So that can be a beautiful part of the work for the adult child to be either verbal and, you know, expressed, or even inside oneself. This is me still holding you in my heart and appreciating all that you've been through and all that you have given me. But I want to work on our wholeness with some space. There are so many individual scenarios that no one's estrangement story is the same. But there are other factors also that are contributing to this. But I think that what I shared is what feels like the most prominent one. But I find that there are themes for both. I tend to work more with the parents. It just seems to be how that has unfolded that where the creator must want me to be.
But I enjoy working with the adult child, too. And sometimes I do that in tandem. But even though each story is unique, I am learning more and more about what some of these themes are.
Mm. Well, I'd love to hear about those themes. And I also just want to ask. As we're talking, it seems as though perhaps there's a lot of range in how this can look if we're talking about potential strained or estranged relationships. But there are perhaps attempts that can be made that maybe the parents aren't catching or recognizing. And then it might feel like it's a 180, but there have been so many attempts. So that there are ways in which. Or perhaps one just doesn't have the skill. Right. That's just like I need to kind of come in hot and do a 180 just because I can't do anything else, or I don't know how to do anything else. And while that might not be the approach that's going to offer more of this collaboration, it might be one of the steps towards healing, as you said.
It won't be that hopefully the “end-all all be-all”, but it is part of the process.
Yes, absolutely. And so this is where I try to always help. Same with when I help couples, or in my book, also on marriage. I really try to help as much as possible at any stage of where you are, where there's some sort of friction, strain, rupture, whatever, which is normal and part of life. To seize the opportunity to kind of cope ahead, to get tools to navigate what you're going through so that you can elevate, you can get closer and heal more, versus, you know, waiting till it's really far down the road. But even if it is far down the road and your parent-child isn't speaking to you, there's still so much you can do, but these different stages.
Like just this morning, I had a session with a woman whom I've been meeting with for marriage, and now we're talking about them as a couple with the estrangement that's going on. And then in the meantime, I'm spending more time with her meeting individually because she's at a point where it could go either way right now. She's had a couple of incidences where she was putting pressure on her son who was struggling with some mental health issues as trouble functioning as a 22 year old, you know, and so anything of what she overlays with her own expectation or what she thinks it should look like in his life and his relationships is just making him pull away and not speaking to her for periods of time. So I'm like, this is the perfect time for you to actually make amends for those interactions.
a couple comforting each other
**“Even though he was doing things that weren't okay on some level, that is just not the priority right now. You need to make sure that you're a sanctuary for him.”****
So then we're working on how she can own what it is that she's been doing and how she's really looking at herself. Adult children love that when they see parents who are, you know, I'm really. Thank you for making some changes. As painful as they are, they're giving me a chance to look at what I need to change.
This is something that I have to deal with in all my relationships, not just with you, like start to catch it where he can see that, okay, she's safe because she can see what I'm saying, struggling with here and he doesn't have the tools or the skills or the emotional capacity to really walk her through what she needs to do for him. He's just overwhelmed and overloaded. Can't even put one foot in front of the other in his life. So he just runs, he just flees. And that is a theme.
That is a theme I find with some adult children who are, get easily dysregulated, who have maybe had learning disabilities or some sort of genetic conditions that make it harder for them to handle things in life, and they still feel like that child, you know, whatever that's one component is how do you navigate it?
Oh my goodness, I'm so compassionate to the strife of this. And as you're describing about the adult child perhaps feeling so ill equipped to negotiate the dysregulation or the life skills or what challenges present in life and wanting to be differentiated but feeling perhaps unresourced to do so and just the overwhelm around all that and that fleeing could feel like a real viable option and then also just compassion to the parents here as you're talking about here is the one parent.
And imagine this might be a theme that a parent might want to support the independence or the adulting of an adult child and perhaps wants to start to set some limits and boundaries or as you said may have expectations around when that's going to happen or how that happens and if there's other things like that appear as in problems of whether or not it's substance use like some mental health and ways people are dealing and coping with mental health issues or hardships. And so, try to parent an adult child in these very firm ways, but also how to make room for a new dynamic. Like, there's so much here that makes this really challenging, and I think none.
I'm a parent of adult children, and so a lot of my lessons through my own stories along the way are learning from my clients what not to do most of the time. But it is parenting.
a girl left out of the conversation
**“Relating with adult children is much more difficult, can be much more painful, requires much more nuance and finesse than I ever thought and most people ever think.”****
And you're planting seeds like I just spoke yesterday about this topic of empty nesting and how we're kind of always empty nesting and the minute they're born we're already preparing, you know, just little things with growing more independent and those are times of we're planting seeds on how that goes and we're just not really trained in and this nuance of how to communicate and how to keep mostly like the self awareness it takes to make sure that we are not overlaying our expectation on them. So, like with this story of this woman I was meeting with today, the parts of how they're helping him with his mental health and the boundaries around, you know, supporting him financially and what that requires, and like a contract of sorts or behavioral plan that's separate. They're not having problems with that.
It's when the woman was overlaying her expectations of what he should do in personal relationships with her or with a sibling or with whom she.
He's dating or judgment.
Exactly. And that's where she absolutely interfered in a way that did not support him. And that we as parents have to spend a lot of emotional energy to be very patient and detached from their choices, and let them learn their lessons on their own and deal with our own fears within ourselves, not putting them on them to try to change or control them. It is an instinct to feel like you don't even think it through. You're just like, that can't be like that. You can't, you know what's gonna happen if you know. And I lived that where, like, I felt like it was important to express some things that I was concerned about with my kids. But so much of it that didn't go well was when I was coming from fear, not dealing with my own emotions, and not really letting go.
I mean, what I say to my clients is, you've basically raised them. You know, you're done. Yes, there is still parenting that happens. I'm not saying that we don't, but mostly it's really just, you know, offering that what they need most is that we believe in them and that we want to inspire them to and empower them to ask their own questions of what they think will be helpful for them. You know, like I call them neutral affirming statements. We have to be so much more neutral than we realize; it's turning the corner to more of how we would ideally relate to anyone.
As you talk about these general relational skills, and you offer a lot in your book and that we're turning the corner. I remember I've done a lot of parent coaching in the past, and I remember saying that very thing of like, she's been raised right. You've imprinted and raised her. And I can appreciate the impulse to say, I gotta do something like this. You know, they need my help. And. And that's where perhaps encroaching on their space, when I do think there can be a lot, as you talk about the listening, the compassion, the understanding. And then if they solicit exactly.
Right.
Or just to be affirming and what is. What's the impulse, and what are they after, and how does that make sense, and just to have that understanding and that depth, and then to be able to offer if it's invited.
Yeah, exactly. And you know, and like I said earlier, it's not all or nothing. Like, if you do find that something you're concerned about, like I know there were certain things that I wouldn't be able to have lived well inside myself, I didn't at least have a conversation about. And so that has to be done very carefully, very respectfully, with a lot of, you know, affirming clauses like no matter what you decide, I'm all in and I support whatever, you know, like let's say if you have a concern about something you see and who they're dating or to be so careful. Because that's another theme of estrangements. It's. Is the partner not feeling like they're accepted or supported, or was there some tension there in the beginning?
Like I just knew from my sessions with clients, that I need to be very careful when they bring somebody into their lives and make sure they feel welcome. And if you do have a concern, you have to be very careful how you share it, and you know, kind of put it back on them. Like, you know, these are the things that I've learned are important, but you have your own individual path. But I just feel as your parent that I wanted to at least share from our experience what we have found helpful for long-term success and love, and growth. And that's where I wanted to just, you know, kind of consider these ideas.
And I wonder if you would agree to, if I can chime in that there's an awareness that I am coming into your lane a little bit, and like I'm recognizing I need to be mindful and sensitive and maybe even ask for permission. Like, I have some thoughts. I want to be able to say it once, and if it's helpful, and maybe how I communicate, and just hear some things I've wondered about. What do you think? What have you noticed? But there's an appreciation that like I'm coming over into your space and I'm aware that I'm doing it, and are you okay with that? Or maybe let me know when you are ready. What do you think?
I love it. I think that all points to a similar almost respect and tentativeness of still putting it back on them to that we believe in them to make the best choice for them but that we're sharing something for them and the asking of permission is also very respectful and they'll be much more receptive, but most of us in the world, like without being therapists, or without learning, even as therapists, I still made so many mistakes that I've learned along the way and have to work very hard to be intentional and to pause and think it through. But I just want to normalize that. We often say we're not really good at apologizing. We're not really good at communicating. We are so much more naturally inclined to try to control and versus really offer.
You know, it's totally trainable. What I watch happen in these dynamics between adult children and their parents is not in every situation. Everyone is on that whole continuum that you mentioned, from how cut off they are and what they're really needing in their life varies. But the ones who are really trying to reconcile. It's remarkable how, just like with a couple, how much they could have missed an opportunity for harmony and for breakthroughs, really, if they weren't really investing in learning how to communicate differently and to be self-reflective and self-aware.
Rachel, I don't think. I imagine you would agree. I don't. In my experience, this doesn't have to be super sophisticated. Yes. Practice helps. We get more comfortable. We're able to access a lot more language. But just noticing, Oh! I notice I'm having a lot of fear, and I want to react, like having that be somewhat visible.
Yeah.
And I'm not sure what to say or do right now.
Yes. But what has to first come is a consciousness shift, which is that it's not my job anymore to manage or control or keep my expectations overlaid onto what their life's gonna be like. And that is, I find like it's a grieving process. And that's where it's so liberating. Once you do, let go. Like I found when my second child, when the second one got married was our son. And that was a little another stage of empty nesting. Like it's not just going off to college. Like I realized, like I felt this instinctive like involuntary relief. Like it is not on me anyway. This is them. And then I could just be more witness to their life choices. And of course, it's very painful if I'm concerned about something or if they're struggling, or it still revisits some of the things that are hard that they've picked certain things in their life path. It's not what I would have wanted for them. But they're such good kids, and they're doing so many things that are true to them. And so I just focus on that and let go. Which brings me to something that I just want to acknowledge is the pain for the parent. I wanted to validate that, and that you can have a hard time getting out of bed, especially the moms.
Oh my gosh. I was telling you before we got started that I have a couple that's negotiating with an estranged adult child, where the adult child has set boundaries, and there are a lot of things and layers and aspects that are making it very complicated. But she's like on Instagram, there's a site called Mother Wound or something, and it's. It's so heart-wrenching. And I think in those, what that is discussing is like this, really, maybe toxic behavior that the adult child has been experiencing. And so she's like, questioning herself, and like, she's like the mom that did all the things. And so just like, was I abusive or like, you know, just really wondering. And it's devastating for both of them. And also, when you talk about the pain and the dynamics, do you want to speak about potentially when two parents are involved and they're in a couple, like a marriage or a relationship, parenting an adult child? My feeling is often like they might have places where they're on the same page, but they tend to operate a little differently. And do you want to talk about how this can add another?
Yes, I want to just put that in a little. Put a little box on my paper. I want to get to that in just a second. Because you said something just now that like opened up some gates, and that is that I find that with a lot of parents, when they don't know what they've done, they feel like they've been such good parents, and many of them really are. It's very complex to try to parse it out, to sort out what's them, what's me. And I find that it's not even in balance at the beginning. It's really more of the “on us”. And the ownership is typically on the parent. And I liken that to the fact that we are their source. And so let's hold space.
I felt like it was a gift to give my children that each, in their own time, in their twenties, came to me one more than the other, with grievances they had of, like, things I don't even remember saying or things that I did or didn't do. And one of the most painful things is that parenting is like, felt like my life mission, you know, like. So I just remember the pain. But I had it thankfully enough, like enough exposure and enough whatever I was given that I just knew, like, I'm just so glad you're telling me. And that must have been really hard. So those are the kind of things where we want to first make sure we create a space. Even though I had my whole other explanations and there was time for that later.
One of them has children of her own. She's seeing some other, she sort of comes to it herself. Like, actually, I don't think that leaving me at camp was the worst thing. Actually. It was probably good for me. I don't know, whatever it was. But at the same time, to appreciate that there's, even if it's not fair, and even though there's still likely something that you're going to learn about yourself that is causing them to pull away, and that you just didn't understand or know before. And so, even without meeting with the adult child, I just started doing investigative work together. Like, what have you heard? What have their siblings said? Where have you gotten any data? Tell me the interactions that led to them. Da, da, da.
Or tell me anything they've ever said to you, or what their childhood was like? Like, you can start putting together the pieces for that particular child. How you were with them wasn't perhaps what they needed at times. And so, it's not all or nothing. It doesn't mean discounting any of the good things. But there's an interface between you and your adult child, that soul and your soul. That means that then maybe,
a boy feeling left out by his mother
***“What worked with the other kids just didn't work as well for this one.”***
They're maybe hypersensitive too, and
***“A lot of adult children take advice as criticism.”***
Yes, yes. And I appreciate you pausing here because I've heard adult children talk about, oh, I can never go to my parent. After all, they'll just go into this guilt of like, “I'm such a bad parent,” and like this shame spiral. So it's like that now becomes a focus. And as you're describing, if there's enough ability to just hold for a minute, to hold space, that it's such an opportunity for an adult child to be seen and an opportunity for a little bit more understanding. And while the facts and whatever is being described might be different than what the parent would have recollected, or that isn't even the thing. It's like they had an experience, and they want that to be seen and heard and held and responded to. Like, that is where we have repair.
Exactly. And we're just not trained in this. But you can get training in this. Like, I just was fortunate enough to be exposed and whatever that, like, it could have gone. So the inclination was to do what most people do, which is to defend. Or what about all the other things? Or center my own feelings versus hers or his. So I think the key to holding that, like, space to just listen and move away from the logic and move toward the emotion. And what a gift you give that the most important person to hold that space would be your parents. It would mean the most to you. Like you said, the data. We just get so caught up. The ego gets so caught up in. Hold on, this one truth isn't being factored in, or that it's okay.
How I'm being characterized. I'm a bad mom, or I'm a bad dad. Like that, that isn't the thing it's more of. And can I listen? And is there something, a grain of truth or something that I can. How does this make sense? Like, the story may make no sense to me, but is there a part of this that I can get? I think I was sharing the couple that I work with, and I believe that the adult child likely is on the spectrum of a few different things, and perhaps his perception, again, might feel grossly different, and also his wanting to feel seen, or maybe having felt so different. Right? And how that was, like, how there was space for that and honor for that. And I think they did a beautiful job in the way that they knew how. But perhaps there's a calling, right?
As we're being invited into something like this, it offers a new understanding that we can operate differently. I mean, that's calling us up to another cycle that could be even more.
Healthy for everyone, and that, not really having judgment as part of it. Like, why would you have known how to? How do you respond to somebody who's potentially on the spectrum? Or like, it's we're not. Like, everyone isn't like having their doctorate and parent education, but if you're open to growing and open to learning and trust that it's happening for you and not to you, then you can really, let yourself lean into it. Like, welcome it, accept it. Even while you're aching and you're sobbing, you just still lean into this idea that it's a friendly universe or something here that's trying to be revealed that will help me grow, help my whole lineage navigate something.
And yeah, you've said something so beautiful here. It's happening for you, not to you. And for let's say the adult child. Cause I have another client coming to mind, her mother, speaking about control and right and wrong, lives in a very, at least how my client describes. I've never met Mom, but there are so many examples. And even though she just went on a trip, Dad confided in her about these challenges. And it's visible to the family. But. And even though I was curious, I was like, has there ever been a time when she's thought about maybe exploring this? And she's like, well, she's mentioned once or twice, but it feels like it's too big. And so in the sense of like, for a parent to look at. And if they've, I mean, as humans, we construct ways to cope and live in the world. And if we're of a certain age, we know that works, and we know there might be some ways in which it doesn't work. But, like, this is what we know to be exploring something different can feel incredibly terrifying.
Yeah, exactly. Absolutely. And, remarkably, any of us can actually navigate these because we're all still evolving. And our levels of, like, what we've experienced in our lineage and in our own life experience and our neurologies and what. There are so many factors that can make us more or less equipped to handle them. The sophistication, especially as the younger generation is like, kind of asking for more psychological sophistication and like more nuance of how we actually wanna be talked to and how we wanna be given space and be supported. And it's just not like you just go along because that's the way your parents did it. That's good. But it is also creating a lot of rippling effects. So I just admire anyone who's able to.
There's usually something you can discover if you're the parent, that is likely something that you can glean that even if it feels too like a disproportionate response from the child, you don't know what it's like to be them. You don't know what it's like. But you can still learn something that you can take toward repair. But I would recommend getting help to do it when I'm present at these interactions. There's so much training I do in a sense or coaching and even right in the minute of like, okay, let's see if you can say that a little differently, otherwise it would just spin off, just like with couples, like, it can just go from zero to a million in a second. And so, let yourself all be in training on some level.
Yes.
I think it supports.
There's some coaching on all levels just to be able to have this, stay focused on the opportunity for understanding.
So with couples, it can bring to the surface issues or fractures or differences that they're sharing in their relationship, and how they are. Parenting is one. In my book Soulful Marriage, I have a friendship wheel, like the eight friendships of a relationship, and one of them is parenting. And it's one of the facets that either could really be an asset to your relationship, a deepening and a joy, and it could also be a huge problem in your relationship. So this certainly awakens the parenting aspect of your relationship that can overlap with some of the others. So the key is that sometimes it means each parent deals with their relationship with the adult child separately. Sometimes.
Okay.
I find that to be the case, that it's a different story for each parent. And while they must stay unified and seek help to get guidance so that you're on the same page as much as possible, you still might have your own individual relationship with them and serve a different role in their life that you can perhaps take different tracks on how to help repair.
Yes. When you were speaking about themes, I think we've touched on some themes. We didn't specifically lay it out, but one of the themes I'm thinking about is how a couple may have different parenting tendencies. One tends to be a little bit more wanting to have boundaries, and the other one tends to want to be much more relational. And they could kind of judge each other. One is too strict, one is too permissive. Right. This type of thing. And this can show up even in adult child relationships.
Yes.There are so many facets that they could differ on, anywhere from financial to how to support them, or not support them. But what they can both learn to do, though, is to listen better. And there could be variation in the willingness of that, and the appreciation for how important that is. But that's something that, regardless of what you decide to do, and the other facets of the dynamic is that what helps to repair is for the adult child to feel like, I'm starting to acknowledge the things, and I want to learn more about how I wasn't there for you or things that I'm doing today that might not be. And I promise I'll listen better this time. And that sometimes can melt a little bit of the ice.
But it's still sometimes like to know that it's being facilitated sometimes, and that so it's not just them with the parents.
Do you find that sometimes if a parent is approaching the relationship from a different tendency, that they might be in service of a different need, where, like the couple that I'm thinking of, he's wanting to create more health in the system? They've been very accommodating. Maybe even they would say codependent or like enabling throughout. I mean, just loving and giving, and there's just no end to the way in which they love and show up. And so calling a boundary around, we're not going to do this and not have reciprocity of some sort, right? For you to treat us and really negative, hurtful, and harmful ways. So there's health in that, how he wants to do it.
There could be lots of possibilities where, for mom, she's in this place of like, I want to have a connection and for there to be love and that real bond. So you could see perhaps that both strengths and challenges could be done in ways that are maybe not optimal.
Right. And they're in different places with it. And often it's hard at this stage to start setting those boundaries. Like, those are seeds that have been planted into bitter fruit. If you've been over-giving their entire life, that's really not a service to the child and is a nuance of how you do that in a balanced way with love and boundaries, and empathy. And you know, you can start to work on that as an adult and already estranged, but you often don't have the leverage to do that, I find. So sometimes step one is first for them to feel heard because it's just practical. They're typically not going to be interested unless you can't change that whole system. But you can't go back in time at this moment and start planting those seeds.
But then, after, perhaps you come with curiosity, you come with like giving them the most generous interpretation. There must be something we're doing, and we would like to know. And then from there, you can evolve more into perhaps we talk about how the chapter will look going forward, that's mutually respectful. But sometimes it's quantum though, where if a parent is so over giving and has no personal boundaries and they neglect themselves so much, then sometimes we just focus on that for a long time and trust that in a quantum way that as you stop giving away your energy so much and you start nourishing your own and honoring yourself, then just trust that process and you'll get more clarity as you detach. Because
a boy looking sad at his mother
**“It's also a heavy weight for an adult child, energetically or consciously, to have somebody, like, center their life so much around your wellbeing and your connection.”****
So it's tricky when you're reaching that stage of how you handle making a change from your end as a parent with somebody who's cutting off ties.
When you say quantum, I'm hearing that as there are almost other ways in which the dynamic shift gets transmitted.
Right.
That if I'm focusing on my wellbeing and holding some of my energy for myself, that on some level, that's felt.
Yes, okay, absolutely. It's like two things that aren't in the same location affect each other. That's quantum. Like, I love that. Like, how two atoms can be in two separate places, and once they've had a connection, they can be far away and they're still influencing each other. So sometimes that's all we can do when there's a really severe estrangement, or sometimes the parent isn't ready that they've realized they have overgiven their whole lives, and they said they need some time because they don't want to enter back into a toxic situation.
Yeah, well, I know there's so much here. Is there anything that you want to mention that could give people a little bit more direction, you've talked about, really, if there's an opportunity to listen, to focus on what can be learned, and being open to that possibility of growth, that it might come in a really hard package.
But it is. Yes. The first thing I would say is just to be really compassionate with yourself because it is known to be one of the most devastating, unthinkable kinds of ruptures or fears that we have. And then what I always recommend, which is also in the first pillar in my book, in a soulful marriage, is your relationship with yourself. So the first step is really to work on getting grounded. And there's typically a lot of ruminating that goes on, just a lot of dysregulation. And so really focusing on getting yourself, you know, centered, grounded, loved, healed. You know, like working on that and valuing yourself and your takeaway. Like what might be some of my lessons here is part of that focus.
And that doesn't have to negate all the good.
Exactly. And maybe that self-worth may be a thing that you put too much into. We all typically do, like, how we are as parents for our worth or anything we do, anything achievement we have. We think that's who we are. And that's just not true. So it can be a real opportunity to unconditionally regard yourself with value and love and worth and to lean into that, whatever it is that you think that seems like a theme in your life in other ways, that maybe this is putting a spotlight on it or intensifying that. I do recommend reaching out for help for this because it's just really tricky. And then to begin learning what it is that perhaps you could learn about your own growth, and what might be pushing them, the way being as open as possible to that. And then, if you would like to work on repairing, start learning how to make an apology. That is really more about accountability and about growth.
*“Not just I'm sorry, but I get it. Okay, I think this is maybe what made you feel this way. Or if I don't understand it, I really want to learn, and to a point. And then also to know that you have your limits and your life is rich and full in other ways.”*
To really feed that, like, ownership around this is what I can really hear and understand and resonate. And I'm willing to participate in showing up differently around.
Yeah, exactly.
And I can feel the value of that inside myself. And then, as you said, depending on the level of understanding, there might be limits. Is there anything you want to say about what would be helpful for couples? Because I could also appreciate in darker moments what's getting brought up could be almost weaponized between the couple. Right. That it's actually highlighting something that, like, I have another client that really struggles with his wife, and his daughter's now struggling with. The wife and the daughter in their interaction might give her father eyes of like, “No, you're not wrong”.
And it's this that opens up so many scenarios. Sometimes I've seen where partners who are really one are like, typically the men who have their limits with this, like, just more common. I'm not saying it's always the case. There are definitely exceptions. But I've seen where the spouse is like, I'm done. I'm not putting any more energy into this. We have our lives. Let's go traveling. We've got other children. Like, enough already, you know, and she can't let it go. Having tried to negotiate how to separate individuals in their relationship with this child and what they want to work on versus the priority that needs to be in a marriage, or because it's. He's at his limit.
So I think it's really always about trying to see where this is showing you where you can work on growth in your relationship, more letting go of expectations, where you can become more unconditionally loving, where it's showing you areas that you need to work on to prioritize your relationship. I think you should not collect your relationship because this is taking over that pillar. Three of the four pillars in my book are priorities. You need to make sure you're nourishing this relationship, and you have boundaries around this in your life, as hard as it is.
At the same time, see if you can find a way, if you're not on the same page with this, to meet with somebody who can be your neutral third party that you both trust, that it's not the marriage making the decision or each of you with each other, that you've trusted an expert that's going to guide you. And you just have to accept and lean into as best as you can what they're suggesting. So it takes the power struggle out of my way versus your way, totally.
And if I can hearken back to something you said around the opportunity, that if perhaps the adult child is identifying something that actually might be happening in the couple bond, that they have a beautiful opportunity to do work around, that could be the quantum to. Or support for that quantum change as well. Okay, great.
But that has to be done carefully because, like you said, it could be weaponized like you. We're going to want to point out the other. This is what you do with me, too. But that's why a professional can help you navigate, not point fingers. In fact, the best way would be for each to look inside themselves, I wonder, and create a safe space where you're patient with your partner and not try to keep it separate, but where you each look at. Okay, I wonder how this is a familiar message I'm getting about my growth. That's the ideal. And not everybody's emotionally intelligent or as excited about growth or ready for growth as others, but that would be what to shoot for is to
**“Try to be compassionate with your partner because they're going through it too. And try to separate. Like if you're having that issue with your partner, deal with it separately from how it's happening there as best as you can.”**
Yes. Well, speaking of interest and growth, you've mentioned your book a few times, and I know we're transitioning here. If for people who want to start incorporating some of what you're talking about here, what would you like to direct people towards?
So, well, I think I can reach it. Like my life's work so far. It's a book that's about helping you heal and get closer in your relationship, and especially closer with yourself, your true self.
Rachel, will you read it for people listening to the podcast?
Oh, sure. That's right. I'm showing you a picture of it. It's called A Soulful Marriage: Healing Your Relationship with Responsibility, Growth, Priority, and Purpose. And I'm finding that there are people, parents, who I'm working with to help with their relationship with their adult children, that on their own, they're finding it. And there's a lot of tremendous overlap of the journey of what you can do to help with your relationship with your adult child that you can also find in there as well.
Is there anything else you want to mention? I'll make sure to put the link to the book on today's shownotes.
Whoever is experiencing this, I just want you to know my heart is open. And, you deserve to be cared about through this and that, to believe in your capacity to use this to reveal, turn something bitter into something sweet.
And do you have a website for people who want to, like, find you?
Yes. And that's where you can find where to purchase my book. I have a book tab, so Dr. Rachel Glick, which is drrachelglik.com, and I'm on Instagram and Facebook, and I think LinkedIn as well. But, you know, on my website, you can find ways to learn more about things I've written. I have a media tab with other articles that I've written. Other podcasts are going to be on there shortly, too. But this is one of my favorites.
Yay. Wonderful.
For sure. Yes.
Well, thank you so much for all that you've shared. I can just appreciate how much you really assist people and guide people in these very important principles that are very holistic and supportive. So thank you.
Thank you so much for this opportunity. I'm just so glad to know you, Jessica.
Likewise. Likewise.
The post ERP 504: Loving Through Estrangement: How Couples Can Heal, Support & Stay Connected — An Interview with Dr. Rachel Glik appeared first on Jessica Higgins.
Many of us move through life repeating the same painful relationship patterns—feeling unsafe, unseen, or disconnected, even when we’re trying our hardest to “do everything right.” Invisible wounds from early experiences quietly shape the ways we love, cope, and relate as adults. Instead of recognizing these patterns as natural adaptations, we often blame ourselves inwardly, not realizing that our attachment styles and protective behaviors are rooted in the body and nervous system as much as in the mind. Real healing isn’t about forcing change or consuming endless self-help advice—it’s about reshaping your internal sense of safety on a deeply felt, embodied level.
In this episode, we explore how secure, nourishing relationships begin with understanding the implicit memories, sensations, and patterns that live inside us. Learn how to meet old wounds with compassion, honor the protective parts that once kept you safe, and gently build new internal anchors of stability and trust. Using tools like the Wheel of Attachment and the practice of “finding your anchors,” this episode offers both a clear roadmap and grounded encouragement for anyone ready to move beyond survival mode and experience connection that feels authentic, spacious, and truly supportive.
Jessica Baum is a licensed psychotherapist, certified addiction specialist, and Imago couples therapist with advanced training in EMDR, CBT, DBT, and experiential therapy. She founded the Relationship Institute of Palm Beach and leads a global coaching company supporting clients worldwide. Passionate about trauma, attachment, and interpersonal neurobiology, Jessica helps individuals and couples heal and reconnect. Her bestselling book, “Anxiously Attached,” has made her a respected voice in nurturing secure and fulfilling relationships.
Episode Highlights05:55 How early experiences shape our sense of safety.
07:48 Implicit memories and relationship patterns.
11:09 The importance of somatic (body-based) memory.
13:14 Reconnecting with the body for healing.
18:42 Understanding and honoring protective behaviors.
21:40 Building trust in healthier relationship dynamics.
25:00 The essential role of anchors in healing.
26:06 Why healing requires relationships, not willpower.
31:43 Finding and cultivating emotional anchors.
35:05 The Wheel of Attachment: A nuanced approach.
37:45 Earning security through supportive experiences.
40:31 Moving toward fulfillment: Real connection and support.
Your Checklist of Actions to Take* Slow down and take mindful pauses to help connect with your body and increase present-moment awareness. * Notice physical sensations during interactions, especially in moments of emotional intensity, to access implicit memories and attachment wounds. * Practice developing interoception—your ability to sense internal bodily states—to better understand your emotional responses in relationships. * Identify and honor your protective patterns (“protectors”) rather than judging them; acknowledge they were there to support you. * Seek out safe “anchors” or individuals who can offer emotional co-regulation and support your healing process. * Use the “Wheel of Attachment” framework to explore how your early relational dynamics show up in current relationships. * If you lack supportive anchors, resource on memories of secure figures (e.g., a teacher, grandparent) or pursue professional support. * Engage in relationships and healing spaces where vulnerability, witnessing, and somatic attunement are encouraged, facilitating earned secure attachment over time.
MentionedSafe: An Attachment-Informed Guide to Building More Secure Relationships (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
Anxiously Attached: Becoming More Secure in Life and Love (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
SAFE (Interview and freebies link)
Nurturing the Heart (Dr. Bonnie Badenoch’s website)
Conscious Relationship Group (Facebook group) (link)
Relationship Institute of Palm Beach
ERP 342: How Love Transforms Our Nervous System — An Interview With Jessica Baum
ERP 276: Understanding The Need For Both Self-Regulation And Co-Regulation In Relationship – An interview With Deb Dana
ERP 261: How To Strengthen Your Relationship From A Polyvagal Perspective – An Interview with Dr. Stephen Porges
ERP 423: How To Transcend Trauma (And The Effects Of Experience In Relationship) — An Interview With Dr. Frank Anderson
12 Relationship Principles to Strengthen Your Love (free guide)
Connect with Jessica BaumWebsites:beselffull.com
Facebook:facebook.com/consciousrelationshipgroup
YouTube: youtube.com/@jessicabaumlmhc
Instagram:instagram.com/jessicabaumlmhc
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jessica-baum-lmhc-cap-038a1538
Connect with Dr. Jessica Higgins
Facebook: facebook.com/EmpoweredRelationship
Instagram: instagram.com/drjessicahiggins
Podcast: drjessicahiggins.com/podcasts/
Pinterest: pinterest.com/EmpowerRelation
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/drjessicahiggins
Twitter: @DrJessHiggins
Website: drjessicahiggins.com
Email: jessica@drjessicahiggins.com
If you have a topic you would like to be discussed, please contact us by clicking on the “Ask Dr. Jessica Higgins” button here.
Thank you so much for your interest in improving your relationship.
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Thank you!
*With Amazon Affiliate Links, I may earn a few cents from Amazon if you purchase the book from this link.
Episode Transcript
Jessica, thank you for joining us. I'm really excited to have you on the show again.
I'm so happy to be back. Thank you for having me. Yeah.
And as a licensed psychotherapist and running the Relationship Institute in Palm Beach, this is your second book that you've written, and you focus a lot on helping people understand the integration of neurobiology using polyvagal and attachment theory, as well as some of your other and, being trauma-informed and somatics. And do you want to name your most recent book here?
Yeah. Safe: An Attachment Informed Guide to Building More Secure Relationships is the one that just got released.
I love it. And again, I will put the link to your other episode, to your other book, and all of that on today's show notes as well. So, Jessica, what do you want to share a little bit about how this book became important and what prompted you to do this piece of work here?
Sure. Yeah. I mean, so I wrote Anxiously Attached: Becoming More Secure in Life and Love, and it's done phenomenally. It continues to sell. My own healing continued after that book, and I dived deeper into interpersonal neurobiology. And a lot of people were telling me they have more than one attachment style, which is true. And a lot of people were coming to me with all these questions. And through my own somatic healing and just everything that I was learning, I wanted to give people a deeper dive into attachment, a more nuanced dive. I talk about the wheel of attachment. That's one of the freebies. But to help people really understand attachment theory instead of just, you know, anxiously attached is amazing, and it has healing qualities.
But I would say this goes like five levels deeper in terms of the inner work and the somatic work that you get with the book. And it really explores all the attachment patterns. And you look at a wheel, so you're starting to look at it more holistically about how you move on that wheel. So it was just the evolution from the first book.
I love that. And it sounds like you were responding to what your clients were sharing with you, what people were asking about, and just your own understanding. I've been talking about the attachment experience being on a continuum, so I'm so grateful that you've distilled some of this in a holistic view. Did you do research around this, too, or was it just compiling based on what you've gathered through all your work?
Actually, the wheel is from my mentor, Bonnie Badenoch, and I credit her. She helped me a lot, and she wrote Heart of Trauma. I don't know if you're familiar with that book, but she's just brilliant. Since Anxiously Attached, I've been studying under her for a long time, and she introduced me to the wheel. And the wheel, when you really understand the wheel, and I don't know if we should go into it because it's detailed, but you start to understand attachment less from a left shifted hemisphere way and more from a way of like, oh, my God, this is so nuanced and layered, and you can move on the wheel and all that kind of stuff.
Okay, well, I would love to ask more about that. And for people listening, some of whom I know are very familiar with some of the background and context of the attachment system, how we develop it early in early life develop it, but also for people who haven't really heard very much. I know you do a beautiful job of helping people understand how this relates to A sense of safety. Since we're going to focus on safety and relationships, how early experiences inform our experience in adult romantic relationships.
Yeah, I mean, so a lot of safe we start talking about what we are like in the womb and early development, and we're this right hemisphere creature which, you know, and we're reaching and we don't have fully developed nervous systems yet. Like we are living more in sympathetic, and we don't have rest and digest fully formed. And so we're really one energetic unit with our primary caregiver. And so if our primary caregiver was struggling themselves with their own implicit world or their own wounding, or like the hustle culture or life, or relationship struggles,
Family of a husband and wife with a kid
*****“If our parents were struggling and not attuning emotionally to us enough, we don't internalize the felt sense of safety inside.”*******
And so the internalization of the felt sense of safety is essentially the basis of secure attachment. So many of us, myself included, my mom was pretty anxious, my dad was pretty unavailable. So I internalized that kind of connection early on. And as you grow up, you know, you might have some abandonment wounds or you might struggle in a relationship, or you just might not feel as safe in the world. And a lot of this, I guess, felt sense of lack of safety comes from our earliest experiences. And you know, safe talks about it a lot because I get a lot from clients like, well, my parents were there and they loved me. But if they weren't emotionally present, which many of our parents weren't, we still feel an abandonment, we still feel a disconnect.
And it's not until you start doing the work and getting attuned and being in co-regulation and getting what you maybe didn't receive when you were younger that you start to realize that you actually didn't receive what you needed when you were younger. But we can reinternalize people and earn security later on. So, safe talks a lot about doing the inner work and reinternalizing people to build some more inner security.
Yeah, thank you so much, and for just giving a little bit more description here for people to orient. And as you talk about felt sense and also the reality that some people may be functioning in the world and appear to have many domains of their life working well, but also still see some gaps in this healthy, relating, and intimate relationship. As you say, they might look back in their early life and think, Oh, all of my needs I was cared for, was stable, and yet there's still this lack of attunement or misattunement. Do people come to you with curiosity around here's what my result, I continue to attract a certain type of partner or keep participating in healthy dynamics.
Or do you see people who are just really internally not feeling settled in themselves, not feeling able to really relax or receive because there's a body component to this? Do you want to speak to the felt sense body, and then also how people recognize when there's an opportunity for like, inner work here?
Yeah, I feel like both are true. Like, I think it's hard because those are two big questions and they're both very relevant. I think that often what happens to us, for myself included, is when we're young, we experience a lot of things that get stored implicitly in our body. And sometimes we're not even conscious or in. I tend to think we are more conscious than we think, but we're not connecting to it in the way that we're making sense of it. And so often when we meet people, even if in the beginning it doesn't appear that way, but they resonate with something that's familiar to us, we will move towards them. And if it's unhealed, dynamics and patterns and way of relating and familiar, we might think, oh, this is the one. Right? Like, this feels so much in resonance with me.
This feels familiar.
A woman lost looking at the camera
*“Intensity can get mistaken for love, and familiarity can get mistaken for love. And we tend to recreate our familiar patterns. So we might start to think, this person is the answer, and they show up so wonderfully. And then years, months, years down the road, we're like reliving our childhood wounds. We're alone again.”*
We're feeling like we're not enough. We're reliving everything all over again in our relationships. This happens to so many people. And then the other thing that can happen is that we can be in a relationship with someone, and it can be going okay. And then something can happen that can reawaken old implicit memory as well. So it's not always that we're attracted. Sometimes, like maybe we have more of a secure base, and there's some disorganization and all that. It's hidden.
And you get cancer or a life event or stress gets thrown at you, and then your relationship with me changes. And now it's awakening more disorganization or a lack of safety that's familiar to me. So it can come up in certain dynamics. And we can also very much be gravitated towards people who feel familiar to us.
Thank you. I want to unpack some of what you're describing. So, for people who aren't familiar with implicit memory. This is what we may feel like we have cognitive memory or brain knowledge about. Can you talk to people about how this plays a part in the attachment system?
Yeah, I mean, and I would say that safe focuses so much on implicit memory, and like, it's such a hard thing to really grasp. But when we're born, we're not born with explicit memory. So, like the type of memory that we all think is memory, like, oh, you know, like a movie in our brain, that's what we think of as memory. That's not how we store memory. When we are like zero to four, we're storing sensation. So all of our earliest attachment experiences are stored as sensations in our bodies. And we are taking in implicit information so much more.
Like every second, like you and me, Jess, are taking in implicit, like what we are eye contact, our body language, our energy, everything implicitly is coming through these streams in our body versus explicitly that we're both on a screen and we're talking to each other. We're doing this podcast. So we're storing so much more implicit information through sensation and experiencing so much more. And that information and that memory so much more drives our choices, our behaviors, and what we choose in life. So a lot of the book is getting conscious of that because that is usually what's driving most of our choices.
Thank you. It's so powerful. And I appreciate that you even mentioned in utero that this impact on the environment and the experience in pre-relationship, like in the womb. And then also, just as one gets born in the relationship, there's so much that's happening. And you're describing how this is developing our brains, our nervous systems, our attachment system. It's quite profound. And so to the question around awareness, how would somebody begin to look at their sensations as it relates to a relationship? And also, we may want to talk. This is a follow-up on how we might not be in contact, whether or not it's our protective coping strategies. But where do you start with people around awareness?
Yeah, I mean, I talk about it in chapter five, like I was a pretty bad workaholic for a while, and I use Iian McGillicryst's work, but I talk about the hemispheres of the brain and that I was hiding out in my left hemisphere. I'm pretty disconnected from my body. And the research says that about 75% of Western culture is living like this, where we're just go, go, go. And we are not connected with our body, and we need to live like this to survive. If we don't have the capacity to be with, and we don't have the support to be with what's going on inside. In the book, I talk about developing interoception, which is usually a missing link.
Family planning with their kid
“If our parents didn't attune to us and kind of go there with us inside our body, we don't know how to even process the sensational experience or connect with.”
So first we have to slow down. I had to slow down. Most people have to slow down, shift out of the left a little bit, and get more in touch with the body. And that can be a process. I mean, a lot of people meet, like numbness or dissociation or a wall, for a while. So I talk about finding anchors, but learning how to develop interoception is spelled out for you. And it's so important that we learn this capacity. It's a missing developmental link, and it's how we get in touch with our attachment wounds.
So, so powerful. So you're directing people to the book to have a little bit more guidance around that. Is there anything you want to say about how somebody could begin to develop? And just a small, firm,
I would. Say, like, if you're fighting with your husband or your wife or your boss and you feel like something in your stomach or something in your heart, if you have these sensational experiences that are really big in your body, we also know that there's a memory attached. We usually know, okay, this pattern. Or for me, I use this example in the book. Like, whenever my partner would, like, turn their back towards me, it woke up all my abandonment. I could feel it in my body. It hurts so deeply. And so when we're having these interactions with the people that we're close with, and they wake up, a lot of sensational experiences, like your heart hurts or tightness in your chest, blockage in your throat, your stomach feels queasy. We know that we're now getting in touch with the implicit world. Great.
And that. That if one's trying to look for an actual memory in the traditional sense, like explicitly the way that we think that perhaps that is gathering a lot of information and it is extremely valuable.
Yeah, a hundred percent. Like, I'll be with a client and she'll be like, I don't remember. And I'll be like, what does your heart feel? Or what does your body feel right now? And she'll be like, I just had this tightness in my chest. And I'll be like, can you for a second trust the science that is the memory. And so I have to do that over and over. But once I do that enough with a client. They start to build a relationship with the sensations going on. They start to kind of relate to themselves differently, and they start to see the gravity of what these sensations are speaking to us and how we have to hold and heal them.
Yes. And the compassion around how it perhaps even makes sense. I mean, this is probably weaving in some of the left brain, but in the context of the family system, like how it makes sense that would have been the experience.
Yeah. I mean, so the left brain is needed. Right. And I provide so much science in this book because my anxious self needed the neuroscience to understand the healing process to help anchor me through the healing process. And I actually think it's really important that we do understand this. It's not just like inner child woo. It's like that's opening sensations memory. What really happens? What does holding space really mean? What does that mean between nervous systems? Like, if you keep showing up, will you heal? You know, people want to; they want the left-brain information to just ground them in. Because it can be challenging.
Oh my gosh. And it can feel potentially like approaching an abyss and stepping off a cliff, and what's going to happen. And like I am. I've had so many clients, I'm like, I'm not going to be just like a unfunctional pool on the, a puddle on the floor. It just feels like it takes away. But to have that context. But it also doesn't alleviate, I will say from my own experience, it doesn't alleviate the fear of confronting and going there, and what feels very perhaps unknown in the way of being attentive to it in this very conscious way. But it's been to your point, it's with us, and we know on some level that it's operating. But to be attentive to it.
Yeah. And I think like, you know, as much as I can explain the science, everyone's unique inherent wisdom, and I think that's really important. If you're listening and you're in your healing journey, or you want to start your healing journey in the context of safe relationships, when we could talk about what that means from nervous system to nervous system in the context of safety, your own inherent memory system and wisdom will help unfold in the way that it needs to unfold. And that trust is really hard. We sometimes need anchors and professionals to say no, you are actually right in it.
And it's okay because the unfolding is kind of like there's a little bit of uncertainty there, but
wholesome meet up
“There's so much wisdom in our bodies, and through studying interpersonal neurobiology, there's so much in us that wants to heal, that wants to go towards healing. So we just need the right people in the right places and the right type of support to be able to do that.”
Absolutely. Because, as you've already mentioned, perhaps our tendencies might be to seek the familiar, seek intensity, or ways in which we protect ourselves, or feel like we have to over function to earn love or this way of distancing to feel safe that makes sense in the context of learning and also perhaps interfere with developing more of the safe, secure functioning. So, can we talk about that before we talk about developing safer relating when you are helping someone who is recognizing ways in which they overfunction or certain patterns that they do that they might label as problematic, or I need help with this? How do you help people hold their that in this, in the context, in the healing process?
Yeah, I mean, and I talk about this in chapter three, but I call them your protectors. And a lot of people want to hate their protectors, like if it's, you know, an eating disorder or like a non-glamorous one. You know, mine was workaholism, which is totally glamorized in our culture. But we have so many protectors. And in the book, I talk about turning towards them because we've needed them. So a good example is if we can't process what's going on inside, we will develop obsessive behavior of some kind to try to cope with what we've not been able to cope with. And so instead of hating that behavior, we actually have to turn towards it and say, You are protecting me from something, and you're actually welcomed here. And so welcoming our protectors is actually a vital part of healing.
And like you have to. I know it's hard because people are like, I don't want to welcome that part of me or I don't like that behavior. But it's like that behavior is trying, it's probably not doing a great job, and sometimes making you miserable, but it's trying to protect you from your original wounds. And so it can stop working so hard when we can start to be with them.
Yes, that's so essential. I know IFS – Internal Family Systems does a lot to support people, and I appreciate just the compassion that you're offering to many people, myself included. When there are parts that are operating that I find extremely challenging, I want to push them away, just like, oh, okay, don't want to do that anymore. But to recognize it sounds like you're saying there's a real value and purpose and way in which they're serving. And that if we can be intentional about showing up for the felt sense and what's living in us from that implicit place and that early understanding of relationship, then they don't have to. They're like, you got it. You can take it.
Yeah. I mean, you know, like an alcoholic or an addiction, you know, if we didn't have the capacity to process and feel at the time, we're going to turn towards things that can help us cope with life. And it's gonna make sense when we go back into your childhood. If you didn't have people to process, if you didn't know if that was the only way to regulate your nervous system. But when we can be with the original pain more, and you and I can develop the capacity to hold it, and you can get what you didn't get, then you won't need to use quite so much. You know, I'm not saying on a bad day you're not gonna reach out for this, and I'm not saying that this happens overnight. I'm saying we need these protectors for good reason.
Like, I needed workaholism for years of my life. I had no idea what I hadn't faced. And workaholism was like the perfect distraction. I was miserable, but I was surviving. I was in survival mode. And I just said to myself one day, like, I want to get out of survival mode. I understood the science of slowing down and being with what was going on inside of me. And I got out of survival mode, you know, and I got out of workaholism. And I have much more space in my life for a meaningful connection. And I have much more meaning and depth. But I. I couldn't have done that without slowing down and doing the work with the right resources.
Yes. And for people listening, I imagine the invitation here is to perhaps acknowledge how the attachment systems got developed, honoring the protective parts and the tendencies, and also for the healing journey, exploring from this grounded felt sense, self attunement, a new way of operating. So it's almost like letting the old age age a bit, maybe lessening its being in the driver's seat and giving more space. But this can be difficult to trust. Right. So this is where you slow. Well, and even people's how fast sometimes they might be experiencing the world or encountering a new potential partner. So how do you help people trust when somebody is perhaps feeling a sense of excitement or this level of intensity with a new person?
But perhaps they know and they're right, or there is a part of them that recognizes there are some big warning signs here, but they don't trust that the other way or the new way is going to be successful. Because they haven't had the experience.
Yeah, I mean, usually they start having the experience with me or anchor. I talk about finding your anchors in the book. So once you start to get people who are in a vengeful state more often and can hold you and co-regulate with you, and anchor your nervous system starts to register that as love and starts to register that as like real emotional showing up. That doesn't happen overnight. There's a lot I could talk about, dipping into vulnerability and being really present. And I remember my therapist being one of the first people to really be present with me, and how hard that was for me for a period of time. Like, I didn't want to show up for therapy.
But after a while, my nervous system started to recognize that people showing up in this capacity, willing to hold me, not fix me, not tell me what to do to stay with me, that this is love. And my nervous system had to register that over and over. And I have not just therapists, but anchors, I call them anchors, people in your life who have this capacity. And I talk about finding your anchors and the importance of that because you know that early wounding can't be healed without adult anchoring. But it's reorienting to understanding that being slowed down and being present and being connected in that way is what my nervous system didn't get.
So I need to start to receive that more and more to start to register that this is my new norm, or this is what I need from people, versus going towards my familiar, which is usually intensity and emotionally unavailable. And so actually, the reorienting was very hard because we have a strong pull, yes, the other, and the other can be like an escape. So once we start to kind of slow down and get really anxious, anchoring, it's hard because we have to be present with what we've been avoiding, and we have to show up. But after a while, our system starts to register that kind of holding. And then after a while, we start to expect that and then become more secure. So we're like literally reorienting to a new familiar. But it takes time, you know, and it happens really slowly.
I hope that the listeners aren't listening and like, this isn't like that far out there. I know you're shaking your head cause you're a trauma therapist and you and I speak the same language. But it's like in the experience of someone who has the safety that you need, eventually your nervous system starts to recognize that as what you need, and you start to gravitate towards more people who can have that capacity and more people who are emotionally available. It's like a reorienting, too.
Absolutely. This is the reorienting, the rewiring, the learning that is occurring to give scaffolding to this earned, secure functioning. So you've mentioned anchorings a few times, and I know Deb Dana talks about it, but you have your own way of helping people understand this internal, external. What would you like to share here? To help people?
Yeah, it's like very different than Deb Dana's work. I know she wrote a book, Anchored, and that's about the nervous system. And she has a whole process. This is more about, like, I would say Bonnie Bananach's work, but like, coming from the lens that we. We can't build inner security without anchoring first. So we weren't insecure babies because we didn't have the adult anchoring. We couldn't. We didn't get the co-regulation to develop the self-regulation. So there's a big theory here, which is that we need safe people, safe nervous systems to anchor us. So the paradox is that we become more secure with more dependency on the right people. And that's how we internalize. Through mirror neurons and resonance circuits, we internalize new people, thank God, throughout our lives. We didn't have safe people as kids.
We get to pick people now, and we get to be anchored by them. And I show in the book, like, their nervous system is still gonna be shifting through different nervous system states, and ours will be dipping into the implicit world and coming up. And they're holding us, and they're literally anchoring us. You know, why we move through this stuff. And so that's what we needed as children. We needed our adults to anchor us through our emotional process. Most of us never got that. I talk about intergenerational trauma. I never blame our parents. I even talk about healing those parts. But
a mother hugging her daughter
“If we didn't get that as a kid, we need that as an adult. We need to fill in that anchoring experience. So it's very much the anchor is outside of us, being internalized, so we can become more secure in that way.”
Yes. And it's hard to reference, it's hard to internalize if we haven't had the relationship to support that. And for people who just have the audio, Jessica was holding one hand, very consistent. You were saying maybe there's some slight fluctuation, but in a very supportive role. And that consistency that the one that's still learning and accessing these implicit memories, these fault sciences, and then being able to co-regulate or have some place of relationship that feels stable, reliable, consistent, that we can start to feel more safety in that, and also in turn start to feel our own regulation and then have more internal reference to security.
I'm a big believer that co-regulation, the ability to self-regulate, is due to really wonderful co-regulation. Yeah. So, for your listeners, those of you listening who are like, I need that drink or I get so disappointed, regulated, I need to have this perfect nervous system, and I'm watching all that. No, we need more co-regulation. You need to depend on dependable people. You need people to help regulate you. And when you get enough of that, you develop your own capacity for self-regulation. That self-regulation is really born out of really healthy co-regulation.
I'm so glad you are a voice for this because so often, as you mentioned, the Western world and the emphasis on being functioning and optimizing and efficient, there's this almost illusion that we can willpower ourselves into it because people sometimes have a lot of intellectual insight and understanding, but it doesn't always translate to the lived experience. So it's this sense of like, people want to willpower their nervous system, and the nervous system's going to win every time.
Yeah. I mean, you can extend your exhales. There are things you can do to try and help yourself, but the reason why you're so dysregulated and have a hard time regulating is because you didn't get enough holding and proper co-regulation. So give yourself a break. I know, like, it's healthy to reach out to a friend if you're upset, if that friend can hold space for you, and be there for you're gonna get back into connection. I mean, and sometimes you can't do it alone, sometimes you can't get yourself back to baseline alone. And that's okay. Like that's part of the healing process after a while, when you're around enough co-regulating people, you do the science shows you internal and you internalize that co-regulation.
So you actually do develop self-regulation, and it's really born of co-regulation, and I'm a firm believer in that.
So am I. I'm so grateful because this isn't, I mean, people can listen and read until we get into a relationship and have these co-regulating experiences and these, this holding. It's hard to have a real significant change because the nervous system isn't experiencing anything different.
And like the last thing I want, and I talk about this, is I was a young girl and I wrote Anxiously attached for that 19-year-old. I talk about it in my first book who was in the hospital for panic attacks. I read every single self-help book. I mean, I just cleaned out my bookshelf behind me for those of you who are watching. But I've read every single self-help book under the sun, thinking that I wrote two books, thinking that I could figure it out, right? Like, I can figure this out. And the truth is like
a mother hugging his some during the play
**“We don't heal the type of things that we're talking about unless we're in healing relationships. Like we cannot heal alone.”**
And so this idea that like you can be independent and badass and read a self-help book, and like I'm an author of two, and I try to be with you as the author in the book, but the truth is you can't heal these things alone. You must heal. What was wounded in the relationship needs to be healed in the relationship. And I don't want people spinning their wheels like I did for years. And the books helped, they soothed me, they gave me like face of codependency. It was like Oh my God, I finally found a word to describe how messed up I am. And I, you know, and that's why I wrote Anxiously Attached for anybody who like thinks they're codependent, let's like dive deeper, and the information is so important.
But like I talk about this a lot in safe, and like even my publishers are like Really? We have to put this in there. And I'm like, you guys, I keep having to drive people to find their anchors to do this work because it's one thing to have the information, and then you have to actually move the trauma out of the body. And you need adult anchoring or human or nervous system anchoring in order to heal. So it's an important message, and I think people might be like Oh, I don't wanna do this. If I need that, I get that.
But like if I don't give you that message and I'm like here's a self-help book and go heal yourself, I'm just hurting you and not giving you the full picture of like what your nervous system and what your body really needs to move through this and get to that earned security.
So appreciate that the authenticity and the real standing firm in the path towards this healing and more secure functioning. It doesn't just come from insight. And so for one that's listening, as you just mentioned, cleaning out your bookshelf, if they look at their lives and have a hard time identifying safe adults to have this regulating experience with, I mean, that can be confronting.
I ask most of my clients, I'm like Who are your anchors? I have none. I think that's if you're listening, like, that's the majority of where people start. It's so sad. Like, it's so sad. And yet I encourage my clients to go through their Rolodex. I think sometimes there is an anchoring person that we are not thinking about. They might not be feeling, making us feel better, or fixing us, but they can have the patience or talk about how to go out and find people if you can. Not everyone can do this. I talk about co-anchoring. So, like, finding someone you can do the work with and you guys can co-anchor. As long as there's not too much dysregulation going on, you can do that. And yeah, like you have to process some of this stuff with another witness.
That's how the science shows that it moves.
Okay, so not all is lost if you can't identify its starting point somewhere. And that is No.
And I, you know, I am your anchor as the author in the book. It's more. But like I started out, you know, so looking for that. And I think, like in my experience, I talk about my grandmother being an anchor who's no longer alive. Like we have inner anchors and we have outer anchors. And for someone who's listening, you might be able to resource an inner anchor. So it might not be someone in your life right now, but you might have had an experience, a friend's mom, a coach, a teacher who was, you know, secure that we can start to resource and then look for more of that.
Yes, build on that. Excellent. I know we don't have a ton of time, and you mentioned the Wheel of Attachment. Would you like to briefly describe that? Because people who have been in the conversation and accessing relationship material are aware of attachment styles, and yet you're really helping us see this in a bigger way.
And you should get a link to the freebie, which is beyond the labels, which is the wheel of attachment, and a 40-minute talk with me and Bonnie Bonino, and what it feels like to go from insecurity to security in your body. So that's really special because she's really special to me. But I'm going to attempt to describe the wheel in this way. So. But if you download the freebies, you will get a PDF of this immediately. So it's like a circle square. At the bottom is security. On top is disorganized. On the right is anxious. On the left is avoidant. So I talk about, in one household, you can have many different experiences, but let's say you had a mom who was secure and sometimes anxious.
So you're going to slide on the bottom of the circle and up to the right at times, and you're going to maybe slide in between. Here, let's say your mom was anxious and then, like kind of got violent or really aggressive. You're going to keep going up the wheel, and you're going to hit disorganization. So with one parent, you can have, you know, that. So on the other side, again, the base is security. And let's say your dad was avoidant most of the time, so very little security. And you're in avoidance. And then he was neglectful and completely detached. Right. You're going to slide up more, and you're going to hit disorganization. So it's turning up the volume on each side, either the avoidance or the anxious side, that gets us to the top, where disorganization is.
Now, in the book I talk about, you know, with your sister, you can have one relationship. With your mother, you're going to have all these embedded patterns and all these experiences in one household. And so you really kind of work on your wheel, and then you take that wheel and you place it over your current relationships to see if any of that is repeating in your life. So what early embedded dynamics did you experience early in life that now are showing up in your current world to try to kind of get readers to start to identify that, oh my God, when my husband does this behavior, it's bringing up the avoidance I felt with my dad, or making these bigger connections. Because once we make those bigger connections, then when your husband's doing that, it's not just about him.
We can start with the implicit information. So, understanding the wheel makes sense when you're really looking at disorganization and how we get disorganized. And for those of you listening, you might have heard that as fearful avoidant, because that's like the layman. But the scientific world is disorganized, which is the most terrifying state, where we don't have anywhere to land. So, as we get either more anxious, turn to violence or anger, or just extreme intensity, or more neglect turns to turn back, or you know, just someone not there, as you move up that, as your primary caregivers do more of those behaviors, we move into disorganization. So on the wheel, you can kind of say, you know, with my mom, I remember her being really sweet at times, and then other times she was totally checked out.
So then we're moving up to some avoidance. So you can start to kind of play with this wheel and put it overlay it with the relationships in your book. And I kind of walk you through that in the book, and really understand attachment more than these labels and more than patterns. But, like, this is how we move on.
It's so dynamic. And that's where I think people can get confused. So to give more range to the lived experience that it's not so categorical. Yeah.
And you can have an avoidant, you know, an experience with an avoidant husband and anxious friend, like, and you can go back and be like, my dad was this way, and my mom, like, it starts to make sense of how nuanced and complex and layered you really are.
Yes. Thank you so much. And as you said, if we bring awareness, we have an opportunity to slow down and start to do some of this anchoring work, or be able to. Do you want to say a little bit more about how one earns more safer, secure functioning?
Yeah. I mean, for me and for most,
holding hands together
“Sometimes you have to dive a little into the implicit world, but allowing another human being to hold space for you to witness your internal experience develops interoception.”
like we said, and making these connections around, like, oh, my God, this is. This is really how it felt in my body when I was little. And getting in touch with the embodied experience of our childhood is what most of us are disconnected from. So I think this is gonna wake you up, you know, and get you in touch. But that's how we integrate. That's how we hold and integrate. And by the way, all of this might sound like, oh, my God, but, like, there's so much freedom and expansion and, I don't know, an ability to be so much more myself now and connect more freely.
And I have so many wonderful attachments, rather than being hyper-focused on trying to get my needs met from an unavailable partner. I have all these beautiful attachments, and it's been a journey, but it is so worth it. I always say I have like so much inner space. I have so much more appreciation and gratitude, and all these wonderful things that happen when we dive in and we do this work. So it's not all bad. The outcome is really wonderful. And healing really does have its benefits. But healing means feeling and relating, all of these things.
Absolutely. And as you said at the outset, this is a deeper dive, and you're accessing a depth and an opportunity to access things that we typically haven't turned towards or haven't had the safety to turn towards. And so there's a real depth here that you're inviting.
Yeah. And for me, it was a real coming to terms with my humanness. You know, I keep going back to Stephen Porges' words like “Connection is a Biological Imperative”. Like, we are so tender, we are so vulnerable, we so much need each other, and doing the work made me really realize that, you know, and how much we don't live enough in connection or in community. And many of us are very isolated. So it's very true if you're feeling that way. It is, it's really real. Like, we're pretty isolated. We're not living in enough connection and community and having enough of this holding happening for us, as little ones as well as adults.
Absolutely. And I would just say I think our modern culture is giving these proxies, or like a kind of what could feel like fake connections through social media, or like. And not to say that I have an issue with any of those modalities, but it can be an easy low-hanging fruit or reach of a tendency for connection. But it doesn't offer what you're describing in the way of real relationship role connection. And I think this can be difficult to start practicing. And also, the rewards and what they offer are tremendous.
Yeah. And I think that, you know, we all want fulfilling relationships, and I think developing this inner security and developing these anchors like you do deepens, and you start to have really fulfilling relationships. In my experience, I've been pretty successful in my life. And don't get me wrong, I like nice things. I really like
old age, having fun together
**“Relationships are what make my life worth living. It's those connections. And it took me a long time because I was a workaholic and kind of successful. But like, the quality of our life really comes down to the quality of our relationships.”**
And I'm like a firm believer in that now. So, yeah, for whatever that's worth, I think the work is so worth it.
Lovely. Jessica, you've mentioned the freebie, and people can get the Wheel of Attachment and also the interview. And will you say the name of your book again?
Yeah, it's Safe: An Attachment-Informed Guide to Building More Secure Relationships. And yeah, the freebie. Also, check your spam. But, like, you should get. Jessica will get the link, and she'll link it. And there's a video of me and my mentor, Benny Matanac, who wrote Heart of Trauma, if you guys want to dive deep into even more. But she's like the person who teaches us therapists, so she's like my mentor, but she teaches us. So, like, it's a really sweet conversation, and it's really deep about what it feels like in your body to move from insecurity to security. And so I just wanted to give the world a taste of her because I've been able to experience her, and I want other people to experience her as well.
So you'll get the wheel, you'll get her, and you'll get the book, because this is coming out in November, so it all works?
Yes. Excellent. Do you want to mention anything else, like your institute or anything else that you're offering, or is this really what you want to direct people towards?
I have a conscious relationship coaching group that's international, and then I have a private practice in Palm Beach, and I'm on Instagram at @jessicabaumlmhc. I've been saying this on every podcast, so I don't even know if I'm going to be able to do it. But, like, if you read the book, please reach out to me. Let me know. I try really hard to personally connect to every single person who reaches out to me, and the book touches them one way or another. Like, it is important to me as someone who has worked for years on this stuff, but that you feel comfortable enough to reach out to me and tell me what's going on for you and how it resonated with you. So I really encourage that.
Beautiful. I'll make sure to have all the links on today's show. Notes. Jessica, thank you for joining us.
Thank you, Jessica, for having me.
The post 503: How to Feel Safe in Love: Healing Attachment Wounds and Building Secure Relationships — An Interview with Jessica Baum appeared first on Jessica Higgins.
Are you letting anxiety and the need to play it safe hold you hostage in your relationships and personal growth? Too often, fear of rejection, failure, or the unknown becomes the invisible fence shaping our actions. Perfectionism, procrastination, overthinking, and the constant urge to avoid discomfort can shrink our lives, leaving us disconnected from our true selves and the people we care about most.
In this episode, we explore how fear influences perfectionism, anxiety, and avoidance in our relationships and daily lives. Discover compassionate approaches to working with anxiety—learning why fighting it doesn’t work, and how, instead, our willingness to acknowledge, understand, and even befriend discomfort can become a gateway to deeper connection and greater freedom. Through practical tools and real-world strategies like “uncertainty workouts,” values-based action, and self-compassion, this episode aims to help you navigate the messy, beautiful process of showing up more authentically for yourself and those you care about.
Dr. Patricia Zurita Ona is on a mission to help people break free from ineffective, play-it-safe patterns so they can begin living rich, purposeful, and meaningful lives. A trained psychologist, she is the author of seven books and co-author of two more. Her expertise has led her to present workshops at both national and international conferences. She also runs a boutique therapy and coaching practice that specializes in the application of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) for anxiety. Passionate about her work, she delights in creating personalized resources for every client she serves.
Episode Highlights06:03 The interconnectedness of anxiety and its impact on life.
09:07 The importance of accepting anxiety instead of fighting it.
10:02 Using values to guide responses and reduce anxiety control.
13:50 The need to tolerate discomfort in relationships.
18:53 Navigating fear of commitment and embracing uncertainty.
22:49 Building tolerance for ambiguity and uncertainty.
24:32 How avoiding uncomfortable emotions can increase suffering and relate to trauma and emotional regulation.
29:52 Values-based exposure and compassionate approaches to fear.
33:41 Developing micro skills for managing difficult conversations.
35:41 Integrating self-compassion and Wise Moves for anxiety management.
38:01 Practical resources, parenting insights, and closing reflections.
Your Checklist of Actions to Take* Take a moment to pause with a deep inhale and exhale, noticing sensations in your body before engaging in difficult conversations or when feeling anxious. * Instead of fighting anxiety, recognize it as a protective part of your humanity and make room for it. * When anxiety arises, ask yourself what truly matters to you in that moment to guide your response. * Embrace uncomfortable feelings in relationships without avoidance, viewing them as essential for growth and authenticity. * Intentionally expose yourself to uncertainty in small, manageable ways (like trying a new restaurant or activity) to build tolerance. * When fear surfaces, actively choose actions that align with your core values—even if they feel difficult. * Treat yourself with gentleness during moments of avoidance, procrastination, or anxiety, recognizing your effort and courage. * When facing a fearful situation, pause and check in with your body and thoughts, then proceed with intentionality rather than rushing through.
MentionedThe ACT Workbook for Teens with OCD (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
Living Beyond OCD Using Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
Escaping the Emotional Roller Coaster (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
Parenting a Troubled Teen (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for Borderline Personality Disorder (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
Acceptance and Commitment Skills for Perfectionism and High-Achieving Behaviors (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
The ACT Workbook for the Anxious Procrastinator (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
Dr. Z’s Online Classes (link)
ERP 461: How to Increase Psychological Flexibility for Healthy Relationships — An Interview with Dr. Steven Hayes
ERP 238: How To Find Your Emotional Balance In a Relationship
12 Relationship Principles to Strengthen Your Love (free relationship guide) (pdf)
Connect with Patricia Zurita OnaWebsites: thisisdoctorz.com | eastbaybehaviortherapycenter.com
Facebook: facebook.com/EastBayBehaviorTherapyCenter | facebook.com/Dr-Z-102029237841421
X: twitter.com/DrZ_behaviorist
YouTube: linkedin.com/in/patricia-e-zurita-ona-psy-d-949b5a15
Instagram: instagram.com/dr.z.passionatebehaviorist
Connect with Dr. Jessica Higgins
Facebook: facebook.com/EmpoweredRelationship
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Website: drjessicahiggins.com
Email: jessica@drjessicahiggins.com
If you have a topic you would like to be discussed, please contact us by clicking on the “Ask Dr. Jessica Higgins” button here.
Thank you so much for your interest in improving your relationship.
Also, I would so appreciate your honest rating and review. Please leave a review by clicking here.
Thank you!
*With Amazon Affiliate Links, I may earn a few cents from Amazon if you purchase the book from this link.
Episode Transcript
Patricia, thank you for joining us. I'm excited about our conversation.
Thank you so much for having me. And I'm super excited to chat with you.
Yes, I know you have done so much to support people who are negotiating different experiences as it relates to overthinking or indecision, procrastination, perfectionism, and dealing with anxiety and how that might manifest. And can you say a little bit about how this became a focus for you?
That's such a great question. Thank you so much for asking. The truth is that I travel in this life with my own anxieties. I don't think of myself as an anxious child or as an anxious teenager, but I was more in the midst of a dictatorship in my country, in Bolivia. So I understand very early how a group of people can be shaped by fear. I didn't witness violence firsthand. However, there were so many regulations about what was a law and what wasn't a law in a public setting. So that was my first experience seeing how fear shapes people's behaviors. And later on, I think, I don't recall now the exact age. Maybe I was 19 or 20 years old. I had my first panic attack when I was driving on the freeway. And my panic attack may have been maybe 45 seconds, one minute.
For me, it felt like an eternity. Of course, in that moment when I had shortness of breath, I was hyperventilating. So that was a very specific experience with anxiety. And over the years, I see as I move in life, my anxieties also shift and they shape and they have a different color. Right. I have been afraid of failing many times. I had been afraid of saying the wrong thing at the wrong time to the wrong person. So I think it's on the one hand my experience dealing with anxiety and also in my personal life, of course, I have seen friends and clients in which anxiety can completely narrow their life and shape them to become someone they are not. And. And they stop living authentic lives.
So I think all that has translated into being passionate about helping people get honest back from any type of anxiety.
Oh, I so appreciate how you are seeing the interconnectedness. I definitely understand anxiety. And when we talk about even phobias, people tend to restrict their functioning in the world or where they go in an effort not to confront the fear. Right. If I'm afraid of snakes, I don't go on a hike, or if I don't, you know, whatever the fears are, I feel scared on a bridge, and I don't cross bridges, or, you know, it starts to then become really restricting. And then when we fast forward, this could even be agoraphobia, where I don't even leave the house, and those types of things. And as you look at perfectionism, indecision, procrastination, this constellation of tendencies, it sounds like you're seeing that as a cluster of things that relate to anxiety. Is that right?
I think you got it right. It sounds a little bit like a cliche what I say, but it's not.
A guy kissing her girlfriend on the forehead while they roam in the city
***“I really believe that our anxieties, fears and worries don't travel in isolation, but in connection as we move in life. Whether you are in a relationship, whether you are thinking about being in a relationship, whether you're thinking about your career, whether your friends, you are thinking of your hobbies, fears are going to show up.”***
And our fears, you know, can sometimes be present in many settings, in many situations. So one of the things that happens with fear is exactly what you were saying. That narrows our behavioral repertoire. We stop doing less, and we start avoiding a lot. And because of that, I think we all played shaking life. There is no human being who doesn't play it safe. Right.
We do all types of things to manage our fears, worries, and anxieties in the moment. The challenge is when we play it safe. Too much, too quick, and too often. So I think I am a big proponent of that. And you have seen this with your clients. And I see the same thing that when a person walks into our office, for the most part, they are dealing with multiple types of anxiety. It's not just one fear that coexistent with our fears. This constellation you're referring to, I think it's very palpable and very tangible in our own lives and in our clients' lives.
I so appreciate, Patricia, how you are acknowledging and validating how normal and human it is. This is. I mean, we are wired up to protect ourselves, right? When we look at the nervous system and how our fight and freeze fond responses kick in, that is an effort to protect ourselves and also store information about what has felt painful. And so we are trying to mitigate those fears with our tracking system. And that sets us up to not only have a negative bias, and that we are seeing things in what could happen in an effort to protect ourselves. And as you're saying, if I'm understanding, if we go too far to the continuum of protection or playing it safe, we lose touch with our own vitality. What matters to us, our sense of purpose and authenticity.
Exactly. If I can pick it up a little bit many times when we're dealing with anxiety in any setting, we perceive that our anxiety is the enemy, that we have to have a battle against anxiety, that we have to get rid of that we have to replace it. And the reality is that, as you are describing, our anxiety is there to protect us. Our anxiety is part of our common humanity. It just happens that our mind tells us all types of things. Watch out for this. What is happening? Could you make a fool of yourself in this moment? Right? Like, what if there is an earthquake in a week? So
couple watching each other in distress
**“It can actually feel quite harmful and disrespectful to feel projected upon or I know you better than “The mind comes with this strong function of taking care of ourselves. So when anxiety kicks in, the worst thing that we can do is to fight back.”you know yourself.”****
Right? To resist that.
I think this idea of actually leaning in, making room for it, noticing it when it shows, is what is going to help us to have a different relationship with anxiety. A relationship in which we don't have to see it as our enemy, but we acknowledge that our mind went into this protective mode. And what we want to do is notice that, experience that, sense that, and then ask ourselves, what is important to me in this moment? What are my values? What really matters right now, as my heart is beating really fast, right. So I think that those acknowledging that, yes, our minds take us into this protective way and that anxiety is not the enemy, and that we have the freedom to choose how to respond to our anxieties, make a huge difference in our lives.
Absolutely. And if I'm understanding in my own experience with this, it is that when I can come into contact with what really matters to me or what I'm feeling on a deeper level, those are almost the keys to work with that really assist me in liberation. And not that the fear or the anxiety goes away, but the struggle. Because when, as you say, and when we make anxiety wrong or bad, it's almost like the anxiety is the issue and we're broken, or we have issues, or we have some problem and. And then we're trying not to feel anxious, but when we're really scared. How do you not feel anxious when you're scared? And if you're scared and you acknowledge you're scared, then it's like, oh, how do I support myself in being scared?
That's right. That's right. It's a very different conversation, a different relationship. Right. And as you were saying, I always like to talk about how, again, I know in my own life, I would write, I should write the resume of my fears, basically, actually, the rest of me, a deal of my fears. But one of the things that has happened to me, for example, over the last 18 years, I have been giving different types of workshops. Nationally, internationally, small audiences, 50 people, large audiences. And I can honestly say that the first five minutes when I am there, starting to present, of course, my heart is going to be fast. My mind tells me, Oh my gosh, you're going to make a fool of yourself. What? You know, people don't like your material. And
A romantic couple smiling while looking into each other's eyes with love
“I have learned over the years to let those thoughts be, to let my heart beat fast, to let my hands get sweaty a little bit. And it's in that acceptance that sounds very simplistic, that we do liberate ourselves, to do what matters.”
Right. I think to myself, that question in this moment is, Patricia, what is really important for you right now? I need these two to present to disseminate acceptance and commitment skills for anxiety. When I get in contact with a value that matters, my heart still beats fast, but I am intentionally choosing what to pay attention to. I'm intentionally choosing how to show up to what is in front of me. So thinking life. Many times when anxiety kicks in, as it does every day, we are awake from the moment we open our eyes to the moment we fall asleep.
There are many moments of fear. We do need to ask ourselves, what matters in this moment? Well, it's really important to me, right? Yes.
I think it's such a good orientation or ability to navigate, to keep the North Star, if you will, of direction in alignment with what really matters. Because again, if we're driven by fears or playing it safe, then we're likely going to be playing whack-a-mole. Right. And it's a lot of energy when we may not actually be investing in what is truly most meaningful.
Yeah, you're right. If I can add a little bit, Jessica, I think it is too. When we don't know how to manage anxiety, we invest a lot of mental resources in replacing our anxiety, judging the anxiety, and judging ourselves. What's wrong with me? I shouldn't be feeling this way. We do all types of things to play it safe. Right. If you are afraid of making a fool of yourself in a social setting, you may always make sure that you have your cell phone with you, or you may carry your glass of scotch with you. Right. Just to make it more manageable. But at some point, all of that is going to backfire against us because fundamentally, I think life is very different when we can fully be ourselves, when our behaviors are not dictated by anxiety and fear. Right.
So I think the problem is not the anxiety, it's how we respond to it as an internal experience. Yes.
And I wonder what you would say, because as we're talking, I'm aware of a concept that I think is just so important, especially as we look at intimate relating, and that is tolerating discomfort. And I think it applies to what you're saying across the board. And when we're negotiating an intimate relationship with the attachment need of feeling loved and safe, and also feeling the ability to be ourselves and we're good enough and free, like those things sometimes feel conflicting, but those. Those needs are so primal. And when we are attempting to play it safe and maybe not rock the boat or bring up a different opinion that may not be popular, or that you might know your partner is not going to like that.
Tolerating some difficult conversations or the discomfort, self-soothing to manage the anxieties, not to make them bad, but that is such a key to development.
Yeah, I think, you know, as you are talking, I was nodding my head because one of the things I have encountered professionally is that it is a form of perfectionism. It's called an interpersonal perfectionist. And it's a little bit what you are describing. Right.
The woman is rejecting his husband
*“When we have highest standards about the partners we want to be, the friends we want to be, and any variation in that, if I am disappointing people, if the person in front of me gets upset, if I rock the boat with my boss or with my friends, makes it really hard for me to have a healthy and authentic connection with another human being.”*
Right. So I think when any person is dealing with this fear of rocking about, as we're calling or disappointing others.
Or not belonging, not feeling accepted, or.
Yeah, that's right. They're afraid of being rejected. Right. They're afraid of being abandoned. Many times, I think it is important to acknowledge that there are certainly values in how we want to show up in that relationship, and they're also values in how we want to relate to ourselves. And sometimes these interpersonal values look like they're in conflict with our personal values. Right. But they are not. It's more about the behaviors. Right. I think sometimes you may have to choose to rock the boat in the service of being honest, in the service of speaking your truth. Right.
Which is what you were saying about the long term. Right.
Versus short. Yes, that's right. So in the long term, I choose to be authentic in the service of creating depth and disconnection. Right. And other times, of course, we're going to choose to sharpen that relationship unless things go. But I think what we want to avoid is developing a pattern of repetitive responses in which I am overly focused on always being this supportive friend who says yes to everything or being the partner whom I never disagree with. Or I just never create conflict. I'm not the one starting the conflict. Right. Because of all of that, really, I think, it creates a lot of resentment towards ourselves.
Yes, yes. And fast forward. It's hard to feel that the relationship is going to be a reflection of, like, if we're talking about this person, it's hard to feel like this relationship is going to represent what matters to you because you haven't necessarily brought it forth.
I agree. Agree. It's like sometimes if you engage in those behaviors driven by these fears of disappointing others or rocking the boat, it is like you're building a castle in the sky made of glass. It's going to break at any point. Right. It's a matter of time. And also the other thing that happens is that every human being we are wired to experience meaning and connection, authentic ways. At some point in our lives, we know we're not getting that. We know we're not feeling that. Right. Exactly.
Like fast forward, we may look at the castle that we built and not like it, and not want to have anything to do with it. Because it's like, that's not me. That's not what I want.
That's right. That's right. So. But I feel
Couples discussing their problems
**“Our fears in relationships, this fear of disappointing others, this feeling of rejecting others, make us many times to really avoid conflict, to avoid accepting ourselves, to avoid saying no. And you see that across relationships.”****
Romantic relationships, friendships, relationships with our relatives, you name it, right?
Absolutely.
And I think the other fear that I see that shows up in relationships, Jessica, is this fear of commitment, this fear of fully committing myself to see how this relationship could grow, to see how this relationship could move in a different direction. I think in the information era, many times that's one of the biggest struggles. Right. I am willing to commit to the person in front of us, not knowing how things are going to be. You have to tolerate uncertainty for that commitment, right? Yes.
I'm curious that you would encourage somebody to navigate that, because one of the things that I find myself encouraging is What can you say yes to? What parts can you commit to, and are there still question marks, and can you be in the discovery process and the unknown, and say, I am interested in exploring or I'm committed to having this type of relationship. I don't know if it's with you yet. And then maybe you're talking about, is there a point where I have enough data, but I'm still scared to make the decision? And maybe I witnessed divorce in my family, or maybe I just. There's no way to know. That's part of the mystery.
That's right. That's right.
How do you encourage people to work with just that fear of commitment?
Those are beautiful tips. Right. I will just add to what you're saying because of my focus on anxiety. Right. I think there are different ways to manage our intolerance for uncertainty. And sometimes I like to talk with my clients about uncertainty workouts. What, intentionally putting ourselves into trying new things? It doesn't have to be like jumping off the cliff or climbing the Himalaya. It's not about that. It's about trying new things. It's about going to a restaurant that you have never, and ordering a dish that you usually wouldn't. Because intolerance of uncertainty creates rules about what you should do, what you cannot do. Right. So you can try by breaking those rules.
You can sometimes flip a coin and decide which side is going to go for a hike, for example, or to watch a movie that you usually will say, I won't watch this movie. Right. So the uncertainty workout is really an invitation for all of us to try something with openness. Not with judgmental eyes, not when the mind tells us it's going to be terribly, awfully bad, but really with openness. Let's see how it is. Right. And to really get attuned to that. I think one skill I like to practice with my clients we coming up with, you know, different exercises to practice uncertainty workouts. I think the other skill that I like to teach my clients it's really acknowledging that in life, no one is going to have 100% certainty of anything. And that requires humility. That's not just talking, right?
It's just really accepting with humility that we are human beings.
beautiful-loving-and-happy-couple-tender-romantic
**“We are not super beings. We are human beings with limitations. And one of the limitations is that, well, they're not going to have 100% certainty about anything.”****
Right? That's just part of being alive again. And then I invite my clients to look at the workability of their actions. When you are chasing for certainty, you're trying to answer every single question you have, right? Sometimes people in relationships have a checklist: Does this person do this or that, blah, blah. But that checklist, actually, is another form of avoidance. Because at the end, with uncertainty, there are going to be many questions that they don't have an answer to. You won't know because we're trying to understand something like what I had not with experience, right?
Yes.
So I think the other aspect is really, when uncertainty comes, can you make room for it? How does it show up in your body? Is it ecstatic? Is it moving? What is it pushing you to do? What is this uncertainty pushing you to demand? Is it asking you for reassurance? Is it asking you to do more? Is it asking you to text more, to call more, to ask more? Right. And really looking, is that consistent with how I want to be in this moment? Is that consistent with my values? So I think there is a lot to say about making room for uncertainty as an emotion. Acknowledging that we live in a world in which nothing has 100% certainty. Practicing uncertainty workouts intentionally. Intentionally, right. To get into the habit of having new experiences with an open mind with a beginner's mind.
So those will be some of the things and skills I talk to my clients about.
It's so important because as we're talking about this, I mean, I'm even thinking of. I don't know if you ever studied any of David Schnarch's work around differentiation, but he talks about this, as I think, about intimate relationships that most of us don't do the actual growing up and maturing because of this difficulty tolerating discomfort, like we're in service of avoiding. So these uncertainty workouts just seem so helpful to build some muscles around tolerating the unknown, the uncertainty. And it ironically, I think, builds some self-efficacy that we don't have to have everything controlled around us. We can begin to trust how, like, we're capable of handling something unknown. I mean, that's one of the things fundamentally about anxiety.
Right.
We don't. We're not anxious about things we're confident about, or that are like if we have a skill of tying our shoes, we're not worried about tying our shoes. Right. And it's a future event. But if we're anticipating a future event that we don't feel confident in, then we're likely to feel anxious about that. So to be in the practice of tolerating the ambiguity or the uncertainty, I think, gives a little bit more felt experience that, yes, this is anxiety-provoking, or I don't know, or maybe my heart is beating as you were talking about public speaking, but that I will be okay.
Right?
Because if the belief that you're helping people challenges that I need to have everything accounted for me to feel safe, when that actually isn't possible, there's no way we can account for every Single variable in life. It seemed like you wanted to say something.
Yes, that's right. I just want to add, you know, I am not familiar with this researcher, but one of the psychological principles within acceptance and commitment therapy is called experiential avoidance. And basically, it's referring to what you are describing. Right. This response to our thoughts, feelings, sensations, that really is characterized by avoiding, minimizing, ignoring, and dismissing, is all because we cannot make room for them. Right. We start, you know,
couple arguing with each other, the woman is on the run
*“Experiencing anxiety or grief or depression or sadness is already painful. That's really uncomfortable. When your heart is beating fast, it's very uncomfortable. But if on top of that you start avoiding things, you're avoiding the feeling that you're experiencing under your skin, and you're also avoiding the situations in the world that trigger that feeling. So experiential avoidance at the end is adding more suffering.”*
Because then I'm not dealing just with this first layer of pain, my heart beating fast, or the loneliness, or the feeling down. I'm also dealing with the consequences of my avoidance. Right. So there is something really powerful that I think many psychotherapy models have addressed in some way. Right. As you were saying about inability tolerate discomfort enough. We talk about experiential avoidance, which leads us to a struggle. Which is so true. It's so true for a lot of our suffering in life.
Yes. And this could potentially be true for people negotiating past traumas or relational trauma. And I even wonder about some neurodivergent experiences. Does this fit? Because if the world or even family or relationship is operating neurotypically, it's hard to see that there's a space for you, and then these feelings of discomfort. But how does it fit? Or how am I. How is my way of processing or experiencing okay or good? And the disconnect there, or when we haven't had trust or safety, relationally, it can be incredibly activating. Do you want to talk about trauma or neurodivergence as it relates to what we're describing?
Yeah, yeah. I think I can chime in specifically about trauma. Right. Trauma, perhaps. And all types of trauma, interpersonal trauma, because of natural disaster, trauma because of aggression. I think it's one of those experience that shapes our world and who we are in so many ways. And it led us to have a sometimes chronic pattern of avoidance. Makes it hard for our nervous system to get regulated many times. And I think one of the things that we try to do within acceptance and commitment therapy, act. It's really helpful, our clients and ourselves to develop what we call more psychological flexibility. Right. And if a person has been exposed to a single form of trauma or multiple events, those are in trauma, whether that's the small P or the big T, as we will be talking about.
That doesn't mean that they cannot let's kids relate to those experiences in a more compassionate way, in a more effective way. But to your point, I think many times the things that we go through in life reinforce these avoidance patterns and increase our intolerance and difficulties to see it with discomfort, whether that's physiological discomfort, psychological discomfort. Right. So my goodness, these days we do have evidence-based and compassionate skills to teach people how to relate to that. Right. There is so much to say about that. But I agree with you. I think some experiences really reinforce the avoidance pattern all the way.
Well, thank you for speaking to how this can manifest and how an act practitioner or psychologist like yourself might approach. And it sounds very congruent with what's already been shared and even with the workouts of the uncertainty. Is that what they're called, Uncertainty workouts?
I call them uncertainty workouts. Yes.
Yeah, I love it that they can be scaled where it's doable. It doesn't have to be, as you said, jumping off a cliff or a huge risk. It could be something that feels even micro workout that gives an opportunity with that compassion, as you said, the curiosity, the not judging or blaming, but with that compassion. I would love for you to say a little bit more about that. But typically, these tendencies of either perfectionism or some of these ways in which we relate are, as you said, protective. So they likely served a good purpose at some point. Maybe we're even adaptive. Right.
If we look at certain environments and then, as we look at expanding our capacity, living in more authenticity and having more meaningful interactions, or not feeling so restricted, living more freely to build these muscles with these workouts and have more range, more flexibility that this could be a really great resource to be in practice of.
Yeah, yeah. I was nodding my head as you were talking because in the context of anxieties, whether that's a person with a specific phobia or the fear of making mistakes, or fears of performance anxiety, productivity anxiety, or trauma-based experiences. One of the things that we do in our work is help clients to develop what we call values-based exposure manuals. And exposure is for the audience that is not familiar. It's an evidence-based treatment that helps us to approach our fears more systematically. And how we do. Exposure has evolved over the last 30 years. So, within the app, basically, the goal is to link every exposure exercise we do to our values. But the way that we approach it is also very different. Right.
I think, you know, if I am afraid of talking to my spouse, for example, right. I may just exercise, and they just go and talk to your spouse, right? And saying what you think, and you may have maybe a script if you want. Right. And say, like, you may use the istm. Is this a situation I think I need, and I feel this. Right. That's one way of doing it. But the thing within agba, what's more interesting is first looking at how you're relating to the experience of thinking, talking to your husband. Right. Like, if I'm with you, I would say, okay, so let's visualize that you are there talking to your husband about wanting to see the taxes for this year. I know your husband has told you, Don't worry about it, everything is fine.
But you genuinely want to know what our financial situation is. So I would like to see, you know, how we have the papers, you know, filing taxes. So imagine that for a moment, as you're holding onto that image, what's showing up in your body, and you notice the sensation. What is your mind telling you? Right. What happens if you go along with the thought? What's the value for you right now? So we will do a lot of checking how the person relates to these internal experiences, how they are relating to thoughts, feelings, sensations, and how they are relating to the person in front of them through the outside world. Right. So all this is in the service, not of experiencing more or less anxiety. Right. But in the service of making room for what shows up on the inside as you're taking a behavioral step.
So that conversation is very different, right?
Yes.
When you're doing that with less exposure, it's not something that you check off from a list or you say, I did it. I talked to my husband. Right. My morning. Interesting. In that intentionality you're putting in that experience, how did I show up? Right. How did I show up to myself as the noise was coming up, as I had body noise and fake notes? How did I show up when I was looking at that person, and I saw maybe my husband frowning a little bit or opening his eyes? What happened to me? Right. So it's a very. It's a very, I think, compassionate conversation, still helping people to approach their fears, but in a more intentional way without rushing through it.
I love that.
Right.
Women hugging tightly to her partner tightly
**“Our fears make us know everything really fast. Done and done. The reality and science has shown this to develop this new relationship with your fears requires that you slow down, requires that we pause and make room for that.”**
Because in that experience is that when we liberate ourselves again to choose how to respond to the outside world of ourselves, the rushing through a power telling you done and done, we're like, okay, Julia, that's just it. But it's not necessarily going to be long-lasting. Right. Because I still run. You're still avoiding. Right? You're still avoiding.
Yes, you can white knuckle it, and you did it. But does that give you a different pattern or a nervous system? Felt embodied experience. And I love this because even people listening intellectually might say, Oh yeah, easy enough to have the difficult conversation that I want to have, but in reality, not so easy. And so to be able to do some real unpacking and understanding of what gets activated and the sensations and the thinking, and to give some real space to that gives a different experience, as you're saying, and also gives us more to be in practice and working with. And we could even slice that thinner. Right. And have some baby steps that could be further in alignment with the values, and what that can feel like if it's again, making it a little bit more doable.
That's right. And you can go into this other microscale, we call it diffusion, in which you're noticing and naming those stats. Right. Here comes Judge. Judge Patricia. Right. You know, you know that's one of the names I give to these stats sometimes, right? I have cranky Patricia and Judge Patricia. But we know that when we're going to have conversations that matter to us, of course, our minds are going to tell us all types of things. So, noticing the naming of those thoughts, another microskill to practice. Right. All in the service of helping the relationship to win. Right. And helping ourselves to have a different relationship with anxiety. So I think all that makes a huge difference in the quality of our.
Lives and what we can engage with.
Right.
Again, the empowerment of living in alignment with what matters most and taking action on things that maybe we're scared to do that we can feel more confident. So before we just. I know we're. Our time is winding down. Would you like to say anything about what it looks like or an example of compassion?
Yeah, that looks. It might work in different ways. Right. And I'm sure you are already working with your clients and these skills. For example, with procrastination, which is often misunderstood, people think that it's a matter of willpower, that it's a personality trait, or that someone is not very action-oriented. But there are many psychological processes leading a person to procrastinate. Right? So one of the things I have found with procrastination, and that's what I wrote my book about, it really helps people first to map the psychological process. What they are avoiding, what is the role they are holding onto, what is the self? Doubtful thoughts they are having, what is the emotion they're having a difficult time accepting, what is the value they are disconnecting from? And then from that.
I invite them to visualize their compassionate self, to visualize and criticize themselves and notice when these two different selves are getting activated.
Nice.
And then from that. I like to talk about compassionate accountability, acknowledging that when our mind comes up with all types of reasons, you have extra time, you can do this last minute, you don't need to do it now. Right. We have the capacity to acknowledge that and to choose. Right? To choose how to respond to that. So that's one way the work on specific fears. If a person is dealing with specific fears, including fear of abandonment, a fear of rejection, I like to talk about WISE MOVE. WISE MOVE is an acronym. Basically, the W stands for Watching your mind. What's your mind telling you? What's showing up in your mind? Is it an image? Is it a thought?
Right. Can you invite those experiences? Right. We know when we are wrestling and resisting internally, right? So the Invite is like really practicing this attitude of acceptance. That S stands for Stay with experience. Are you staying with those thoughts? Are you staying with a sensation? Is there any part that you're trying to get rid of them, replace them, telling yourself everything is going to be okay? The E* stands for making a choice either towards your values or away from your values. No one can make that choice for us. Right. Such an individual choice. The aim of the wise move. The M stands for Making a choice.* Right. Fundamentally, we're more invested in teaching our clients the capacity to choose to be the owners of their decisions, is relates to this experience. The O means Observe what shows up once you make a choice.
When you decide how to relate to this internal experience, what happens? And then the V, it's more like Validating that. How can you appreciate the hard work? It may feel something simplistic about choosing in the midst of having a panic attack, in the midst of worrying thoughts, in the midst of having, you know, this fear of abandonment, it's a big thing, it's a bold move, it's courageous, right? Yes, very courageous. So appreciating that and appreciating what we don't mean that we're letting ourselves off the hook. It just means that we're just treating ourselves with gentleness as a choice because it helps us to self-regulate again. Self-compassion helps us with self-regulation again. Yes. Then, finally, the Escape** from the wise moves. It's really about staying pressed with life.
I think there is so much happening in life in front of us. Right. So I like to talk about the wise moves as micro skills. Right. To see how we can respond to anxiety. The funny thing is that sometimes in my work, when I introduce this to my clients, they come back and they say I got a wise, very wise. The mood. You know, I haven't gone there yet. So I think that would be another. It's a practice in which you're actively blending facing your fears and adding compassion in the moment. So that's another way.
**I love it, and I just appreciate how explicit the values are woven into this. The choosing and the commitment around what we're going to take action with, and also supporting our system. Right. That it's not just a white knuckling it or bypassing our fears. It's really helping look at what this is indicating, what I am experiencing, and really helping with the guidance. Because I think truly, you know, I worked with adolescents for. In the beginning of my career and I. I was a wilderness therapist for a summer at one of the therapeutic kind of wilderness programs.
And it was very interesting to me that in this particular group of young girls, the adolescent girls whose parents were extremely well-intended, but many of them didn't ever really experience a boundary, never really washed a dish like the almost didn't want their child to have to deal with a no. Or deal with difficult feelings. I'm not at all suggesting it was like parents' fault, so please hear that. But there was something important around the process of learning how to deal with difficult emotions of like I don't want to do this, or I'm uncomfortable with this, or I'm scared about this, and having a process of how to deal with that. I think, as you just described, it gives some scaffolding to life will be challenging, it will be scary.
And let's look at how we deal with that and how we support you, or how we support us to find our integrity and take action that feels within our ability that we can contribute towards again a choice that we feel good about.**
Yeah, yeah. I appreciate what you're sharing. Because here is a beautiful emotion. Parenting love, right? Yes. I really want to protect my kid, but I think sometimes in the service of love, we play it safe. Right? Sometimes in the service of love, we play it safe. Right. That's what we see. It's like
happy family resting each other in the couch
*“When you are protecting your kid with good intentions, with so much love from anything, that could disappoint them, could make things hard for them.”*
Right?
Yes.
And I think sometimes that's another. Another situation that we can check. Is this loving behavior expanding my kid's life, or is this contracting it? Right. Is this loving behavior expanding me, helping me to be the parent I want to be, or taking me farther away? But there we go. That's something that we do with love. We can become overprotective. So pumpkins.
Absolutely.
I can play it safe. Yes.
Yes. Thank you so much for everything you're sharing. I just know you have so much to offer. The books that you've written, the center that you direct and lead, and it sounds like you speak and give workshops. So, for people who are resonating with or finding how helpful your suggestions and messages helpful, what would you like to direct people towards?
That's a good question. I'm puffing to think these days in the information era, we have so many social media accounts. Right. But I think my website, www.thisisdrz.com, is perhaps the easiest way when people can get a sense of what I am working on. My books and newsletter, I think that will be one main source.
Great. Okay. Is there anything else you want to direct people towards? You have your website, you have social media.
Yes. Well, for people who are interested, I have this new upcoming book on procrastination.
Nice.
I think procrastination is really a struggle for many people dealing with depression, emotional regulation. It shows some. Definitely. In relationships. Right. Relationship, one partner is the go-getter and the other partner struggles getting things done. So. So this book is. It's a workbook for people to really tap into what leads them to avoid getting things done. And I think he has a lot of skills. So that's one thing I would recommend, People. It's available right now for pre-order on Amazon. And I personally can't wait to hold the book in my hands.
Oh my goodness.
Yes. Well.
And I'll make sure to put a few of your other books on today's show notes, along with your website and your social media. Thank you so much for being here.
Thank you so much for having me. It has been a treat, and please see that. I really appreciate all the work you're doing and have listened to episodes from your podcast, and you're really, I think, sharing incredible resources for people to have authentic relationships with themselves and with others. So, my appreciation for what you are doing.
Oh, thank you.
The post ERP 502: Beyond Fear and Control: Building Emotional Flexibility in Relationships – An Interview With Dr. Patricia Zurita Ona appeared first on Jessica Higgins.
Feeling unseen and misunderstood in your closest relationship can be one of the loneliest experiences, even when surrounded by family and friends. It's not uncommon for couples to fall into patterns of projection, reactivity, and defensiveness, leaving genuine intimacy and deep connection feeling just out of reach. How do we move from these cycles of blame and distance towards the kind of secure, transformative partnership that brings true accompaniment, dignity, and joy?
In this episode, you are invited to slow down and explore new pathways to presence and connection. Through practical tools, guided reflection, and insights rooted in transformative couples therapy, you’ll discover ways to move beyond automatic reactivity and habitual defense, and instead cultivate curiosity, somatic awareness, and genuine intimacy. Whether you’re looking to strengthen trust, improve communication, or rekindle the spark in a long-term bond, this conversation offers powerful guidance for anyone seeking more clarity, care, and lasting growth in their relationships.
Since 2008, Dr. David Mars has been the developer of Transformative Couples Therapy® (TCT). He leads seminars and training programs internationally on TCT. Affective neuroscience and attachment research are central to this experiential, somatically attuned, and positivity-based method. Currently, Dr. Mars is also the leader of a three-year project to quantify the results of TCT in preparation to offer published research on outcomes of the method. He is the Director of the Transformative Couples Therapy® Institute.
Episode Highlights03:39 The impact of curiosity and projections in long-term relationships.
08:32 How attachment styles form early in life and opportunities for change.
10:05 The importance of somatic awareness, attunement, and slowing down in relationships.
15:42 Gender, stress, and the emotional costs of disconnection.
17:48 Strategies for setting boundaries and cultivating safe communication.
23:14 Transformation and growth through the I-Thou relationship.
24:43 Daily practices and the seven channels of experience in couples therapy.
29:49 Awareness of energetic imprints and somatic patterns from early life.
31:15 Navigating and embracing partner differences in relationships.
34:43 The role of journaling, self-regulation, and reverence in relational health.
40:57 Somatic-based modalities, resources, and generativity in relationships.
Your Checklist of Actions to Take* Begin your conversations or sessions with your partner by sharing something you appreciate about each other to set a positive tone. * Take a deep inhale and exhale together to ground yourselves and invite presence before important discussions. * Communicate your feelings and needs using “I” statements to promote vulnerability and reduce defensiveness. * Speak directly to your partner, not just about them or through a third party, to foster a genuine connection. * Notice and share your body sensations (like a tight chest or warm hands) during emotional exchanges to heighten self-awareness and attunement. * Approach your partner with genuine curiosity and try to witness their experience, rather than making assumptions or projecting your own perspective. * If either partner feels overwhelmed or unresourced, honor the need to pause and agree on a time to revisit the conversation. * Tune into the seven channels—sensation, emotion, energy, movement, auditory, visual, and imaginal—to enrich both your self-awareness and your communication with your partner.
MentionedMartin Buber (Britannica link) (biography)
I-Thou (*Britannica link)
The I-Thou Relationship and Unconditional Positive Regard (*Psychology Today)
Carl Rogers (*Wikipedia link) (article)
The 1957 Martin Buber-Carl Rogers Dialogue, as Dialogue (*Sage Journals) (study)
Beatrice Beebe (*Wikipedia link) (article)
John Bowlby (Wikipedia link) (article)
John Beebe (Wikipedia link) (article)
12 Relationship Principles to Strengthen Your Love (free relationship guide) (pdf)
Connect with David MarsWebsites: tctinstitute.org
Facebook: facebook.com/p/Center-for-Transformative-Therapy-100087943999843
Instagram: instagram.com/transformativecouplestherapy/
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/transformative-couples-therapy
Connect with Dr. Jessica Higgins
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Podcast: drjessicahiggins.com/podcasts/
Pinterest: pinterest.com/EmpowerRelation
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Twitter: @DrJessHiggins
Website: drjessicahiggins.com
Email: jessica@drjessicahiggins.com
If you have a topic you would like it to be discussed, please contact us by clicking on the “Ask Dr. Jessica Higgins” button here.
Thank you so much for your interest in improving your relationship.
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Thank you!
*With Amazon Affiliate Links, I may earn a few cents from Amazon if you purchase the book from this link.
Episode Transcript
David, thank you for joining us.
Oh, you're welcome. I'm very glad to be here.
Yes, I know we are privileged to have your time and all that you do and all that you've created. And I know we're going to be talking about a specific topic today and then also learning a little bit more about your work in the world. As we talk about the I-thou Relationship and practicing presence. I'm curious, for people just getting to know you, where would you like to start, around how this became of interest? And I know that could probably be many episodes to cover your background and your story, but what would you like people to know about how this fits with your work?
Yeah, well, thank you for the question. You know, the “I Thou Relationship” is to be quite profound. A part of it is that I've been married. Come July, I'll be married 40 years.
Congratulations.
I'm the same person in the sense that we're both evolving. We're both going through molting periods of our lives, of course, different seasons of our Lives, different challenges. I find that the “I-Thou“ perspective is so helpful to stay alive, to stay present, to be ongoing curious about her internal world. And even though we've been together for so many years, 42 years in all,
Happy young multiracial friends having fun hanging out in the city
***“If I remain curious about her, then she remains curious about me.”***
We don't need to project and projections, of course, one of the areas that people can get lost in and begin to get into blame or a feeling of being devalued, not understood. And the seeing and being seen, knowing and being known are so profoundly important for human dignity and for the sense of being valued, the sense of feeling accompanied.
And all of these, I think in couples, are so important because it's very possible to be very lonely in a one-to-one relationship, even with children, even with, you know, family, friends, or whatever. But the primary bond issue to me is so important for lifelong transformative opportunities.
Absolutely. And in connection, we are wired up, I believe, our nervous systems, our emotional attuning to feel the difference of someone maybe having an assumption, a projection, an agenda, or just thinking they know and that is palpable versus the coming to that interaction from a place of wondering, interest, curiosity, aim to be in this place of witness, being seen as you're describing that. Would you agree?
Oh, totally. It's so true. And I think that instinct to perceive being dismissed, perceive being minimized and shut out from being known by our own word, by our own hand, so to speak, to feel that we have a chance to be known by our partner is so essential to a sense of accompaniment and presence. But also,
couple watching each other in distress
**“It can actually feel quite harmful and disrespectful to feel projected upon or I know you better than you know yourself.”****
That is a devaluing position some people can get stuck in.
Yes. And when you're describing the history that you and your wife have together. My husband and I are 19 years old, not married 19, but together 19. And he still will give me feedback that if I'm reflectively listening in an attempt to genuinely understand, but my perception is different than his experience, he will tell me that, depending on the circumstances, it could be as far as like, oh, you're twisting my words, to I didn't say that. Or that's not. And so it's really clear feedback. And I think couples are negotiating this. And one thing that seems really important is that it's difficult to slow this down because I think our protective strategies are so quick to intervene, or when we feel threatened. And how do you help people access the I-thou approach?
I like the question for me, in couples therapy, every session starts with gratitude. So, I do a meditation that I lead from that's invented. It's. It's fresh every time. It's improvisational, about three minutes long. And it's based on the last sessions, commitments that the couples made to each other. And speaking of, what do you want with your partner?
man hugging and supporting young, sad woman
**“Many people have grown to be needless and wantless to not know one's own needs, to not express one's own needs. But it'd be resentful if they don't get their needs met. And then how do we then untangle that?”****
So one way is to have couples talk directly to each other. So every session, I'm asking the couple to speak to each other, not me. Some sparks for conversation, for deepening conversation as a couple. But I do want you to talk to each other, not me.
And in the process of speaking to each other, see each other, hear each other, sense each other, and speak in somatically rich language. So I could say, okay, so what's that like to hear that George is really appreciating how attentive you've been, how calm you've been. And the partner says, That's nice. I said, What kind of nice? You tell, please tell George how kind of nice that is for you. And to be told if it touches my heart or I feel seen, or I feel known, or I feel grateful that you are remembering me. And that is so much deeper than that feels nice. When a couple gets that kind of a lively, embodied response back and forth at home between sessions, it allows them to keep on growing their neural networks, to become more fluent and the dimensions of being human.
It's all of us on this planet who have been raised by humans who were imperfect beings in certain ways and had strengths and weaknesses. And what we know from Beatrice Baby's work, for example, is that by age four months already, it's possible to know the baby's attachment style, being just ambivalent or resistant or being avoidant or being securely attached or being disorganized attached at 16 weeks of age. And this, to me, is revolutionary, because what it tells me is that before we can remember consciously, we've already formed, already been formed for the environment, the mother, infant, relationship. And our equipment package for life is really set in place. And how do we change that? Because there's research that indicates that by age 27, about 70% of people will still be where they were at a year of age developmentally.
I don't mean that. I mean developmentally, I mean in their attachment style. Yes, pattern, but not in stone. Yes. If we're with a partner who is more securely attached than ourselves, lucky us, because we really do grow with that person. Another change factor that can really make a difference, going beyond the original insecure pattern or the level of security, is to keep growing through couples therapy. For example, particularly a somatically rich couples therapy where the early baby experience of being seen by the moment, hearing and being heard by the mom, not words but cries or laughter or a whimper or even a need to be given some space that the adult mind is still recrafting what was formed at 16 weeks of age.
Yes, like the baby brain, a tremendous amount of learning opportunity and neuroplasticity. And I love for people who are just listening to the podcast here, when I'm observing your gesturing and just this exchange, this back and forth, and how alive this dynamic and that we are, that responsiveness, that attunement is so important. And as you're describing in a therapeutic setting, not only the tone that you're setting through the meditation and focus of gratitude, but the invitation to pay attention and slow down to the somatic or the body sensation, but to be in the experience of turning towards one another, looking at each other's microfacial expressions. I mean, not that they're fully aware of all those details, but they lived and the real imprint of responding to that real and being in a bit more clarity around what matters and deepening in the vulnerability of that the invitation to be really present to what I notice and how it matters to me?
It's lovely. I really appreciate your language in this, and I feel, on the personal side, my wife and I are both therapists. She focuses more on individuals; I focus more on couples. We're both faculty. I'm a director of my own institute, the TCT Institute or Transformative Couples Therapy Institute. She is with the AEDP Institute. And we both have our pressures, we both have our demands to edit video, to teach, to be online, to travel and to do all that means we need to really work on our integrity of our relationship communication, the arrivals and the leavings and all the other elements that can lead to competitiveness or misunderstanding or one up, one down dynamics, which are so uncomfortable and to keep on being humble enough to notice. Am I really using I statements?
Am I really authentically being vulnerable in my communication enough to say not just that's nice, but this is how I'm touched by you, or this is how I'm feeling, actually a little irritated, and it's my irritation? You didn't do it to me, but I'm having it. Can speak of it skillfully, and she can hear me. Then
Couples working in the medical industry striking a pose
**“We have a kind of a repair process going on or deeper understanding level that equips us in our clinical practice going and be integris and keep on being a citizen of the world as part of bringing peace.”****
Absolutely. I mean, it's one of the ways, I imagine, I will say for my own practice with my husband that I have many practices that allow me to be in my own integrity, but relationally, that's of high value. And to be in that practice together allows me to exist differently when I'm in that flow or in contact. Because there's a lot of research around when we're disconnected or feeling that aloneness or feeling the conflict, and again, that disconnection has a great impact on us as social animals.
Yes, it's so true. And especially about being female. I don't know if you know this, but you may know it circumstantially or by research; I'm not sure, but women are far more likely to become impaired in their autonomic nervous system and to get stress-related illnesses than men are. It's very sad to me, very sad that there's a certain vulnerability being female that is no doubt partly genetic but also partly due to the sensitization process of being a mother, perhaps having a female nervous system, and actually being more endowed with developmental characteristics that mature earlier than the male counterpart. The male counterpart. I, having come from a family with four brothers, felt sorry for my mom. She's got all these 10 energies running around. She never complained. She really enjoyed us.
But the wear and tear of a male psyche or five male psyches, and six, including my father. Oh my gosh, that's a lot to bear for one nervous system and to be human and to be stressed, particularly in the area of loneliness, feeling misunderstood, feeling a lack of adequate justice and fairness and balance. I feel my sadness as I'm speaking because it is so common in the world, and the possibility of developing lupus or developing some issue to do with a thyroid or some issue to do with chronic fatigue or chronic pain is so heightened by being female perspective as well.
Yeah, I mean, the thing that's coming up, I would agree. And also just evolutionarily, how often, whether or not this is partly supported by our environment, and also the genetic component of being a bit more tribal or networked, even in adolescence. I think there's research around that there's so much learning and shaping around prioritizing the relational connections in friend networks that they will actually suppress any of the conflicts because they're prioritizing those bonds. And so if we look at the priority of those bonds and how that is so connected to our sense of livelihood or well-being, these relational ruptures or disconnections can have a huge impact, especially in a. As you talk about the fast-paced modern living where we are. High demands, high distractions don't give us as many opportunities for this depth of connecting.
And I noticed when you were speaking aboutif you're really not being heard and kind of having your hands over your heart, to be able to be selectively receptive is so precious.
Young couple in love outdoors
*”If a partner is in a grouchy, irritable, reactive mode, and one can that take it all in, can hear it, can see it, can understand it, but not be penetrated by it. This is a great talent, a very important talent because it's so important to experience that we have some kind of shock absorber element for ourselves, to be not shocked by our partners.”*
And if our partner is in a mood to be able to say, wait, I don't want to go further talking about this now.
I'm feeling agitation building in me, feeling some fatigue happening in me maybe, but I don't want to talk about it in the place I'm in right now, I don't feel resourced enough. Let's talk later. Let's definitely talk about this topic, but later. And I do want to make time with you to talk. If I can't do it, then I'm going to do it another time. But let's negotiate how to complete this conversation.
Okay, so to that point, I'm interested in whether we're genderizing this a little bit and just the kind of evolutionary, cultural influences. I've often heard more of the male experience being a bit more physical, being physically a little bit more aware of surroundings, and being bonded together. And that perhaps there can be a little bit more conflict that's tolerated, and then just kind of we trust we're okay, and we can squash it and let it go. Is this the same care provided?
Do you feel like, I mean, I think what you're talking about is a level of awareness around perhaps a system, whether or not it's gender or not, but just as one system that's sensitive to those relational cues, even if they can say, in my mind, I know you're upset and it's okay, but to care like, oh, I don't know That I have extra charge around this that I need to kind of really express. I want to be a little bit more resourced as I do this. Thoughts?
What I want to say is that the ability to say not now is a freedom that can really calm the nervous system immensely. I had 22 years in my practice, my clinical practice in my office of using really sensitive biofeedback equipment and the biopynthic equipment measured heart rate, breathing rate, type and depth, neurosis of arousal based on sweat glands, changes in muscle tension, heart rate, variability related to breathing, and that rsa, the respiratory sinus arrhythmia, which is healthy when it's co varying with the heart, can be very disrupted by a feeling of unsafety. It's compressed, and there isn't that relaxation response in every out breath. My heart isn't getting too slow after every out breath that we end up becoming more compromised. How do I become free? I can be free by setting some limits.
Sometimes I need to take care of myself. But also to say,
beautiful-loving-and-happy-couple-tender-romantic
*“If we're going to have this conversation, I want you to speak about yourself, not about me. That is huge. Please use a high statements and please meme what you're saying because I want to understand you talking about your own experience of being with me, but not who I am.”*
Yes, because I'm likely to feel a little defensive. Even if I really am trying to understand you, it's really hard for me to maneuver against what feels like criticism or attack. Okay, this is so valuable and I'm just wanting to say for myself and listeners that I work with a lot of male clients individually around relational concerns and there is such a longing to have this connection and this way of relating with the integrity and the intentionality that you're describing and that perhaps their partner is expressing a lot of reactivity isn't necessarily practicing the things you're describing. Now, how do you help people? I know I already asked this question, but if they're in patterns of reactivity or not having this intentional safe space where they're taking responsibility using I statements. Is there anything you want to encourage around how to set this up?
What I mean is, because you gave us a bit about gratitude and centering and meditation, and I guess one other thing to add, I know this is a lot, but the I-Thou. Is there a spiritual component to the “thou”?
Well, it depends on how far you take it. Buber's intention in his 50 years and largely in Israel, writing as a kind of philosopher, religious philosopher, he deeply influenced humanistic psychology and existential psychology. Carl Rogers, among others. Yalom the I-thou perspective is profound because the alternative is I-it is instrumental. You do this, I do that. You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours, but it has no quality of depth. And that sense of reaching into oneself to know the other and to make space for the other to exist as they truly are. But even to be a partner that leaves room for the partner to discover himself or herself. How do I know myself? It's through knowing another. And the neural network experiences evolve our minds through interaction with another human, particularly a lifelong partner.
And some people believe that it's not possible to have a partner, a lifelong partner, same sex or heterosexual, who is a friend who shares the mortgage, even a best friend who has a sexual life with as a partner. And is it possible to do this with one person? It's not possible. It's too much. But to me it's totally possible. But it is really a reach to build that and maintain that. It's like tending a garden. There's always something that needs watering or pruning or some way that. There's a kind of necessity to keep weeds and pests from invading the garden. Those are habits from past generations even or from circumstances that become very limiting about how much I can relax to be present in myself. So my sense is that intentionality is so hugely important.
I want you to want to know me and…
couple talking to each other happily
**“I want you to want to know me because I want to know you. And let's grow together because we can. And if we get off track, let's come back to the I statements. Just be aware. Speaking of ourselves.”****
Yes, David, I'm getting a sense as you're describing that what you're encouraging is expansive versus what we're a bit more habituated to. And there is some of the, I would say, just human tendency of automating for conserving energy that can work against this, but that can be contracted or reduced. And even as you said in the beginning with your wife, that there's been evolution in both of you individually, and then also in your relationship, I will raise my hand. And that's been my experience too. And that possibly even in this I thou I may learn or contact parts of myself that I wasn't fully aware of or living into if I'm being presenced in this very attentive way that I might not access either on my own or without that I thou connection.
That's so true, and part of what I love about the long-term relationship perspective is that there are seasons of our lives that are difficult, there are those that are activating, and there are even alienating each other. And to have repair around them is so healing and so powerfully moving us into other dimensions of transformation. And what else are we on the planet for if not to grow and transform and be our greatest selves? We can be our greatest meaning, most coherent, most connected, most aware, and most able to bring peace. And particularly if we have children in our lives, see us being relationally integrous and naming our feelings, speaking who we are, and for the children to know. Mom likes Dad likes.
You know, in sex same sex marriages as well that there's a liking of each other and a loving of each other that's essentially respectful. And the children thrive in this with very low anxiety because this is the dream of life. And the reality when people are really consciously attending to each other with respect. The “I” statements are part of that respect.
Thank you. Do you find that if one is intending to relate from this, I-thou, that it would offer more capacity or call them into more skillfulness?
I do, I do. And natural spontaneous growth of neural networks that have not been grown before. And what I find so compelling is that the possibility, even if a couple is not in psychotherapy, even though not in couples therapy, to meditation, for example, to meditate together. My wife and I, whenever we can, meditate in the morning together, even as briefly as 10 minutes. And I find that energetic bonding, even though we're not interacting during that meditation, is a wonderful way to start the day. It is a secure base beginning in each of us. And then we're going on to our days, each of us in a way that's fortified with consciousness and a sense of being humble, a sense of being present. And that longing for the well-being of others is really part of the meditation experience for me and for many people.
And the longing for the other to be fully who they are can be so much nutritive to ourselves. It's like enlightened self-interest.
Yes. And it sounds like a real acknowledgment. And not only is it the shared partnership, but also the real space for the expression of one another.
Yeah.
It is so rich and deep and dynamic.
Yeah. An exciting way to live to me. Well, to add. One of the dimensions of transformative couples therapy is the seven channels of experience. Some couples therapies focus on emotion. That's the holy grail. Want to get to emotion. And in truth, from my point of view, we are not just emotional beings. We have sensation capacities. We have movement, awareness, and Capacities. We have auditory capacities. We have the capacity to be energetically aware of our environment. We have the capacity to be imaginal and to have very rich internal imaginal dreams, like waking dreaming. A way to conceive of what we want in life together. So sensation, emotion, energy, movement, auditory, visual, and imaginal. Seven channels. And if we grow these, we will naturally become more profoundly able to know ourselves vertically, to know our partners horizontally. In other words, from me to you in this space.
But if I know myself and what my experience is, I can speak of it with authority. I don't mean domination authority, but I know what I'm talking about. This is how I feel in my gut or in my belly or in my heart. And I want you to know me. If I only know how to track emotion, I'm a little handicapped because maybe I'm not. That's not what I'm responding to. It's the energetic vibing I'm getting totally.
And I think that when people are expressing themselves, some people speak in metaphor, like it reminds me of this. Or, you know, I think we naturally are living into these different channels. So I appreciate you laying this out. The more coherent or the clearer we can be in our contact or developing awareness in these seven different channels that we have a knowing of self, and also can express or send a clear signal to another. Is that right?
Oh, yes.
Okay.
Well, what I particularly appreciate is that all of us have been crimped in certain ways by our life experiences. Crimped, meaning a reduction of awareness. For example, in many therapists that I train, half of my work is training therapists and developing training programs with therapists. We're a couple's therapist. The other half is seeing couples. In my direct practice, and even among psychotherapists, many of them have not really known the energetic channel. They've been so focused on emotion. But the truth is, the more the energetic channel opens in us as awareness, we can actually convey it. And so I'm in sessions, and often I'll get some sort of awe state experience. I'm having awe, having tingles in my body, and energetic flowering of movement of energy, chills, essentially goosebumps. And I say, is anybody else having this?
Usually, one or the other or both will have that experience even though we're online, which is, to me, quite miraculous. It is normal and replicable. And yet if I don't ask the question, is anybody having this energetic experience? The question never gets answered because it's not something that's at the top of mind.
What's your energy level? As we're describing that there could be something shared or connected around that, it allows for development if we're able to express and connect, and have resonance around. In my PhD program, I actually did my first. I don't think very many people know this. I was setting out to study energy psychology, and I got deterred big time from all of my professors and mentors, because it was too difficult to measure, it was too difficult to quantify, and thus did not continue that path. And I'm grateful. I mean, couples is such a love of mine, and it's something that perhaps we don't have as much support to have language around or access around.
The paradox is that it can be thought to be too woo correct that too energy. And yet, without energy right now, I would be on the floor dead.
Portrait of a loving, mature couple outdoors. Husband hugs his wife from behind.
*“Without energy, our bodies do not function at all and our lives do not continue at all.”*
And to be aware of, for example, one of the pieces I just love is this piece from Beatrice Beebe in research with infant-mother relationship, that when the mother overlooms over the baby and looming into the baby's space, not taking cues to back off, they can get frantic and need this energetic space. This is a baby who's never read a book, obviously, at 4 months of age, about energy. But they need that space to feel like they've got space enough to breathe and be present and be comfortable.
And a securely attached mother will notice the baby averting his or her eyes or looking downward or pulling back, and just give room. Not pull back, also, but just being there, present, but not leaning over the crib, so to speak, in the baby's face. All that is such an imprint. For example, people who are more in a pattern of avoidant attachment often had a combination of rejection experiences, not being met in those first 16 weeks of life and beyond, but also being loomed over and being the pleaser of me. Like you, please me.
Yeah. Intruded on or yes, and intruded upon.
That partner later in life as an adult. In the saying, I hear exactly what you're saying with a hand up, like back off. I hear you, but I don't want this much energy directed to me now that you're up in my grill. I've heard before, like wow, that's a real cue that that imprint about energy, maybe being too much, is what a gift for the partner to know if I do back off and give some room, speak more slowly, with less intensity, with less emotionality perhaps, and just be less dramatic. But say this is what I'm trying to say, I just want you to hear me. And that humbleness of giving space can give the partners more tending toward avoidant attachment room to actually breathe, take in, respond, be collaborative, and suddenly they can be at peace. So there could have been a real missile response.
Yes, yes. I mean, this has been something I've, you know, in the early phases of my relationship with my husband, negotiated. I use more words than he does. I am quicker in my pacing and am expressive and all the things. And so it could be easy without the information around what's on the insider to have that understanding of, oh, I am feeling overwhelmed, or this feels like a lot, and I'm wanting to respond. And yet the kind of hand gesture, you're getting to not interpret that as I don't care, not interested, don't want to do this. Those things that I typically did at the time. And yet if we're in service of connecting, ultimately I do want him to engage and to be sharing space that he's giving preference and weighing in around what supports his nervous system.
I do care about that. I do wanna show up for that. And then we can get into more of this collaborative state. It was a bumpy road in the beginning.
It was for us too. It's a lot to navigate and particularly because
Happy couple having fun with the flowers and greens
**“What we know about couples, they tend to attract somebody outside their own tribe, like Romeo and Juliet. And that attracting someone who's different from us psychobiologically, culturally, can be very challenging then to understand the person and say, why did I pick this person? They're so different from me.”****
And yet in the alchemical process of it, if I can learn to tolerate my partner's differences, which still goes on today after 42 years of living together and being partners, that if I can tolerate our differences and even enjoy them and savor them, now that's a real talent.
Like, okay, it's not for us to be matching, it's us to be understanding and making a kind of a tongue and groove, you might say, relationship that's flexible, not locked in, but is we actually fit together. Yeah.
Oftentimes, if we're in this fast-paced life and we notice feelings of hurt feelings and we want to repair that, but we haven't slowed down to have an inquiry around what does this bring up for me? What am I feeling? And the seven channels of like, what am I noticing in my body? What do I feel energetically? These types of things that we might be in a more reactive state and try to approach or resolve that from the reactivity. And yet we could potentially offer so much more if we slow down and kind of find ourselves in those seven channels.
There's a receptive space there that's provided if I'm prepared to interact and if I've actually consciously regulated myself. I think many people did not grow up with the perspective that I'm responsible for regulating my nervous system. I'm responsible for knowing myself and making room for you to know yourself in my presence. That's pretty high level. In fact, boys at kindergarten are well known in research to be looking for who's the top of the heap, who's the leader, who's the most important, who's the strongest, who has the most influence, while the girls are trying to get social connectivity, as you mentioned earlier. And that difference can be challenging to make room for.
And in a life of heterosexual relating in that way of saying, well, I really do want to be communal with you, I do want to not dominate you, because that's not going to be good for either of us. And to feel like we can share power and share space is really good for the world and good for our children.
And that has to be sometimes named perhaps that there is such a top or one-upping, one-downing that even if we're not intending to be competitive, that it can sometimes feel like we're fighting to get our way or our perspective to be heard or to be influenced. Like, that we're having influence over another when maybe both are true. Right? But we sometimes are so habituated or culturalized to think that there's only one. Right. And we might be primed for this more competitive stance. So I have two things that I'm thinking and I know we'll transition here. One is in the early stages. I actually would want my husband to be present while I process out loud. I am a little bit more of an extrovert, and he's more of an introvert.
And I recognize somehow that, like, oh, okay, this is so much more productive if I can journal, and I don't need to do this anymore. But I did then, and really get all the layers and perhaps touch on some of these seven channels and give him a little bit more of the distilled. And he was so much more able to hear me and respond, rather than like going with me and all the different turns and corners. So it seems not that because I think even journaling can help regulate too, that I have found my ground a bit.
Positive young colleagues, managers sitting at the table and laughing, looking at the laptop. Teamwork concept. Selective focus. Modern successful people
**“No matter what our gender, if we're willing to write down our process and journal, it is not for reading to somebody else, but for our own self knowledge.”****
What a gift to ourselves and our partner, and our children. Yeah. And our community. To have that self-knowledge doesn't require the other one to be with us. And all the little twists and turns of our processing. How generous to do that.
No kidding. And perhaps that we can notice, oh, I'm feeling competitive right now, or I'm feeling like I really want to be right. That can be noticed and maybe even stated, and then we can revisit when we're in a place of being collaborative, and maybe we don't in a moment, and to kind of have the commitment that we're. I mean, there's a reverence, David, as you're describing this way of relating. There's a real reverence and caretaking for this relational space that we have such agency around.
And I so agree with you. Well, I love your enthusiasm about it because of the experience, I think we have. I think you're about halfway to the 40-year point.
No, I'm 50.
I don't know. What I mean is 20 years together, is that correct?
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
20 years together, am I right?
Not quite, but 19. Yes.
Yeah. The journey of it to me is so exciting because not only is it preparing me for someday passing on and hopefully passing away peacefully, but also for having grandchildren, hopefully. And being able to feel like the generativity of life is following on our highest intentions. That we can see our children interacting with each other and interacting with others or with their partners, because it gives us a sense of wow, what a joy to watch the next layer of life unfolding in front of us.
It's so beautiful. Yes. Well, I want to give a little room here for you to share, and maybe you have been. But given that you developed and founded tct, you've mentioned a little bit. What would you like people to know about your modality? And just. I mean, I love the somatic and just what you're describing about having the information physiologically. There are so many aspects to. To what you're doing.
Yeah. What I would love to invite people to do, and just came to me in our conversation, Jessica, is to go to the transformativecouplestherapy.com website and look at the videos on there. Look at the, you know, look at the education material about the work and about how to be. I love this one in particular. Getting older and getting better. To keep on growing ourselves toward retirement into retirement and to keep on feeling that our lives are not over when our children leave home, but that we are actually in a whole different growth spurt of life. And to recognize that's so powerful, particularly if we can maintain our relationship lovingly. The other thing is if you are a psychotherapist listening in or a couples therapist website, TCTinstitute.org, that you'll be able to see training programs and so on that are going on, and some of the effects of neuroscience spelled out there as papers and as podcasts on that website. Two websites could be visited. And the quality of being able to just learn what you want to learn is really exciting to me. Just to say I have a right to learn, I want to learn. And here's where I'm drawn. Sometimes it might go another way otherwise because the websites are quite developed and to feel like you've got that sense of resource.
Yes. And this is where there's such an opportunity. And if, as you've so beautifully described the possibility, then you've done so much to lay the pathway and offer guidance that this doesn't have to be a mystery.
I'm with you. I was just meeting earlier today with a group called a process group that I lead, and we were talking about the expression of the loving mother. I had a very loving mother, Molly. She passed away four months ago at 98. That Molly is such a loving being, still today in my heart. And this is really the conveyance of what I want to bring into the world is that loving energy that is so persistently durable right through her last day, her last hour of your loving nature feeling. This is really part of the gift I want to bring into the world that love, respect. My father of my father, of course, who's also passed on.
But the dimension of the divine feminine is a loving, almost angelic presence of generosity so profound to have known and to want to be in the body, memory, and presence of.
Yes. When you were describing your work in session, I felt as though you were connecting with that energy, if you will, to offer the container and the real intention that people can reference or model after or utilize, so that it means a bit of training wheels. Right. That we get that support to know that it's possible to get some experience looking at one another through that focused integrity and intention, that then can live into it outside a session.
That's so true. Yeah. I mean, life is for living in the way that I have a hummingbird, two hummingbirds that come to the feeder outside here. And I'm so often aware of them and so grateful that I'm not a hummingbird. Their patterns are remarkably patterned, repetitive to me. That's my projection, I suppose. But
Two couples facing each other nose-to-nose
*“I'm so glad that I can grow, that I can evolve and I can choose to evolve because I want to evolve or the willing partner wants to also evolve. We have a wonderful combination then, to evolve together.”*
No kidding. And the last thing I'll say here is that it feels, as you said, at any point in time that we can want this or be called or give room for this as a priority of growth, of having this loving relationship, and that we are wired up for it. Yes, we honor that you're offering a tremendous amount of guidance and support, and we can also access it. Okay, thanks so much.
I'm so enjoying you, so appreciating your reflections and your presence, and so glad to be in the world with you. Jessica.
Oh, thank you, David, and deeply honored for all that you're doing and the gift you've given the world and training others, and helping people again access your modality and everything you've shared here today. Thank you.
Thanks so much.
The post ERP 501: From Projection to Presence: The Art of Seeing and Being Seen — An Interview With Dr. David Mars appeared first on Jessica Higgins.
This episode marks an incredible milestone—the 500th episode of the Empowered Relationship Podcast. To celebrate, Dr. Jessica Higgins and her husband, Reid Peterson, sit down for a heartfelt and revealing conversation about what it really takes to cultivate a truly empowered partnership.
If you’ve ever wondered why, despite your best intentions, emotional honesty and vulnerability can feel so risky—or why differences and conflict so often create distance instead of closeness—you’re not alone. The path to authentic connection is filled with challenges that test even the strongest relationships.
In this special episode, Jessica and Reid open up about the principles and practices that have helped them build a foundation of trust, love, and growth throughout their years together. They share personal stories, practical strategies, and honest reflections on navigating tough conversations, supporting each other’s emotional needs, and finding clarity in uncertain times.
Whether you’re learning to handle conflict, embrace vulnerability, or co-create a meaningful vision for your life together, you’ll discover insights and tools to transform relationship challenges into opportunities for deeper connection and lasting love.
Episode Highlights04:58 Building safety and trust through honesty in partnership.
09:15 Jessica shares how vulnerability early in dating deepened their intimacy.
11:47 How honest conversations help reduce shame and strengthen connection.
14:11 How different personalities shape communication in relationships.
19:52 Strategies to navigate conflict with calm and empathy.
35:51 Building clarity, connection, and purpose through joint visioning.
44:08 Strengthening relationships through further exploration and resources.
Your Checklist of Actions to Take* Practice speaking honestly about your core feelings, emotions, and needs—even when it feels risky or uncomfortable. * Pause during moments of tension to take a few deep breaths, center yourself, and check in with what you’re feeling before responding. * When conflict arises, communicate the need for space calmly and agree on a time to revisit the discussion to avoid sweeping issues under the rug. * Seek reassurance or a quick check-in from your partner during periods of disconnection to help reduce anxiety and foster trust. * Cultivate attuned listening—focus on truly understanding what your partner is expressing beyond the words, and ask clarifying questions when needed. * Name whether you’re seeking comfort or solutions in conversations, so your partner knows how best to support you. * Regularly engage in shared visioning exercises together to clarify mutual values and dreams, and support each other in the process—even when values differ. * Download and use the “12 Relationship Principles to Strengthen Your Love” guide to gain clarity and practical strategies for your relationship.
Mentioned12 Relationship Principles to Strengthen Your Love (free relationship guide) (pdf)
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Episode Transcript
Today I'm joined with Reid Peterson, and we're going to be sharing an intimate conversation as we reflect on a couple of these relationship skills, things that we do our best to practice, some of which we've struggled with, **and some of which we've felt some growth and development in. And Reid, if I can share a little bit about you for people who are listening. You have an undergrad in education. You were also a massage therapist in Minneapolis, Minnesota. You have a master's degree in psychology. You also have grief certification and grief companioning.
You're an entrepreneur, and you are also in the field of leadership training and development, and the private sector. Is there anything you want to add to that?**
I think I'm a good husband.
Very much true. I again just want to reiterate.
Add that to the resume.
Yes. Great husband. Let's improve that. On that note, you are traveling right now. You're in Florida, Naples, Florida, and you have a busy work week. And I asked you just a couple of days ago if you would be willing to do this with me, and you said yes. And you're showing up here. So that's a total demonstration. So thank you.
Well, you're most welcome, and I'm honored. I want to celebrate with you. 500 podcast episodes are incredible. And everyone is listening. These are all original episodes. So Congratulations to you, Dr. Jessica.
Call me Jessica. Yes, thank you. Well, let's dive in. I know you don't have a ton of time, given that you're three hours ahead of me, and I kind of pitched a couple of the categories that we could dive into.
So what I'm picking about is honesty. When Jessica and I got married, some of our vows included kind of like
Happy young multiracial friends having fun hanging out in the city
***“Three core principles, and they were honesty, trust, and love. And they helped almost express a narrative or some development and evolution of our own relationship.”***
But what we agreed upon at that time, and here we are, 13 plus years later of marriage at the time of this recording, is that honesty still is so crucial and yet foundational in the success of our relationship, our bond, our marriage, our whole partnership. Everything involved in us is fundamentally built on honesty and has led.
Which builds trust.
Yeah. And led to the development of trust and deepened our love for each other. So I just feel called to that. That's where we start.
Yes. Well, to just add on to what you're saying, just as a principle, my understanding of honesty is speaking the underlying core feelings, emotions, and needs. And oftentimes that's not easy to get at. As I was reflecting on that category before we started our interview. So there's an episode I'll reference. She's a conflict resolution expert, and she wrote a book, and she was talking about how people typically lead with strategy or what they want or what their ideas are. And she gave me some feedback in the interview. I don't think I've told you this, but if we're getting into someone else's space and talking about them, which I talk about a lot.
But even giving feedback around how someone's communicating, which I do to you, I try to manage that.
But she was saying if we can just really purely state what our need is or our interest is, that helps cultivate or facilitate this more honest, vulnerable dialogue.
Indeed. Yeah. I was hoping you would say vulnerable, because that's, I think, from my own personal experience, I think that,
beautiful couple hugging outside in the rain
“A lot of honesty requires a lot of difficult moments.”
And in those difficult moments, I can speak only for myself. As far as, like, what I feel somatically, where it's like, there's some kind of resistance there. And for me, it's kind of like a tightening. Tightening of my chest, my shoulders, my neck, and I guess, the upper portion of my torso. And now that I think about it, Jess, that actually probably makes me hold my breath a little bit more. But there's a release in that. And when I am honest, and it opens up a vulnerability, and it opens up truthfully, at times, it's uncomfortable.
But also, there is an experience of relief in it, too, because, well, you're still there. You know, if I've said something that I haven't fully felt the most comfortable sharing, and I see that you're responding to it well, then, you know what. What an amazing thing to be able to have that experience. And then the other thing is that it just feels. Well, you use the word a lot in our conversations. It creates a strong sense of safety.
Absolutely. Yes. I have a couple of stories that come to mind where, for me,
cropped shot of a bearded man hugging and supporting a young, sad woman
“It feels like a huge risk to share something that often feels vulnerable, unlovable, or even shameful.”
And, yeah, I will agree with you that when I've taken those risks, I can't think of a time when you've turned away. Thank goodness. And also, just as you talk about the safety that gets built in, that is tremendous. I will also say, individually, I also feel that I'm having my own back. So it's this sense of I'm taking a risk to not hide or conceal. I'm showing up with what's true for me. So I have a couple of examples. Do you have any story that comes to mind that you want to share?
No. Let's start with yours, please.
Okay. Well, I have one that was. I've referenced it on the show many times. I don't know if you recall. It was early in our dating, this was probably 2006, and we teased that initially I had a difficult time reading your external cues, and I felt some level of insecurity around you were as interested in a more serious relationship. And I was into you, and I was contending with that. It took me a little while to approach you and reveal this, but at the time, I was deeply committed. I had a pretty intense relationship that dissolved in a lot of conflict, and spent like a year and a half single, and was practicing a lot of these principles, as Gay Hendricks and Katie Hendricks would call like a Sweaty 10-minute conversation.
And I was recognizing, I'm scared you're not as into me as I am into you. And the grief of the possibility of that, yes, that was anticipatory, but also that was a potential risk. And I remember, I don't exactly remember the situation, but I remember telling you, and it's not what we typically hear in the dating recommendations around how to be sexy or how to be compelling or be alluring or mysterious. And I really laid it out there. And you viscerally, I don't remember what you said, but you leaned in and you really responded. And it was both really healing for me to show that. But it was also, I think, a step in our intimacy.
You rolled the dice.
I did.
And we're thought to be even a gambling woman.
I'm not, you know, I. Sorry. On a side note, I didn't anticipate crying, but of course I should have. But stay with me.
Of course. Yeah, always. We'll always stay with you. I think that ties into three key concepts. Stick with me as we talk about this with honesty, that's how
I'm here for you every day and in every way.
“Honesty, it's almost like an antidote for shame.”
Because when I think of moments where I've wanted to say something that I felt was true or strong, and in my case had wondered if it was going to hurt you, that's where, like the withholding of it or something like that, has created some shame for me. But with your experience, Jess, when you said the things that were risky and were vulnerable to you, they're such gifts for me because what they are is basically heart openings. You know, I can go into all the conditioning details that prevent me from being, you know, in a vulnerable space more often.
So if you meet me with softness and we've communicated as far as how to approach each other with softness and share I statements with our vulnerabilities, it's a natural tendency for my heart to want to respond as opposed to my head. My head's trying to protect me, being defensive, trying to be right. And my heart just wants to love. And so it's a great invitation is what it is when you share those vulnerable, honest moments.
Thank you. One other thing I'll mention is my tendency to verbalize and articulate, and tell stories. I think that can sometimes delude the real, I think core. And it really only is a couple of sentences that's needed. I actually have another example that was just not even a month ago, when we were in Banff. It was after our hiking trip had concluded, and we were having a leisurely morning and an opportunity for more closeness and intimacy. And I was really recognizing inside myself just some holding and some insecurity. And I remember speaking to you, like, I think there's a part of me that feels like I have to earn love or something. And you allowed me to cry and just held me. And it was. I don't know that you even really needed to say a whole lie. I think just your comfort.
And I think perhaps I was looking for some reassurance. I think I might have prompted. Well, if it's true for you, can you tell me something about my worthiness or something? And you were really responsive. And I don't even think we needed to have a big conversation about it. I think it was really healing just to have that holding and being seen. And again, for me to just acknowledge that and make that conscious. Like, so often I feel like these layers of protection I'm not even aware of, or we're not typically, as humans, very aware of. And so our protective strategies are usually running the show.
Yeah, that was a very special moment and it was very healing for me, too, to what felt like sit with probably were embracing each other. So there's a lot of physical holding, and you were expressing insecurity at that time. And I knew
can start to work to attune to
Young couple in love outdoors
**“I wanted to be authentic, but at the same time, I wasn't sure if it was what the moment called for exactly.”****
So it was even a little bit vulnerable for me to sit in that space together. And it ended up. I agree. It ended up feeling extremely healing, extremely powerful. And, you know, I recognize that it took a lot of courage for you to share that. At that moment, you felt a lot of insecurity. And so I remember thinking in my head, Jess, when you shared that, I thought, she's really trusting me here.
And I need to show up for that. Yeah, yeah, that was a special moment. And that was after six or seven days straight of hiking, like more than six and a half, seven miles a day. Maybe we're both physically exhausted.
Well, I think that was part of my hesitation is that we were having this amazing trip, and I was like, Ugh, I'm feeling these feelings. It can feel like, oh, I'm bringing the energy down, and I'm grateful I was able to take that risk. And I think our history and, you know, trusting you to be a safe space helped. And also it's still scary, so.
Yeah, still very scary.
Yeah, I guess for people listening, often, again, we want to be persuasive and articulate, typically, or demonstrate that some people are more verbal than others. And, you know, we have this difference in our dynamic. Some people might show it and communicate more nonverbally about discontent or unhappiness. And it's really hard for the partner to decode that and really get to that underlying, real core, beautiful vulnerability. And so the more that we can assist in making that visible, it's helpful, but it's also probably the hardest work.It is. Yeah. Well, for me, I don't have a specific story about honesty, but I feel like almost every time, it's probably 99.9% where I tend to be less verbal than Jessica, and words of affirmation are a strong love language of hers, whereas for me, it's not. And so I'm an internalizer kind of by personality. Also, maybe a little bit of conditioning, you know, that's up for debate, but that's a whole other podcast. And so when there are these times that I do feel like I need to say something and then be honest, like, it's always for me, truthfully, I don't feel as much risk in the experience. You're extremely skilled in relationships, so I'm very lucky as your partner in that regard.
But also, I know and I believe and I trust you know, 150% that you have our relationship, our bond, in your best interest. And so that's why it doesn't feel as risky for me. But still, there's always an element of, well, I guess it is risk, where
beautiful-loving-and-happy-couple-tender-romantic
**“I might feel shame if I share something that for me feels very truthful, very honest, and at least projecting and that it will likely hurt you or something like that. Those are hard moments for me as your partner.”****
And, you know, it's been a growth process for me to say, like, probably every time conclude like, no, this is worth it for us. This, you know, I think of the term, short-term pain, long-term gain.
Yeah.
You know, that kind of cliche term, but it's true. It. It really is true. Where I'm like, hey, if I don't say this, like, something's gonna be off in our connection, you know, things could stack up or layer, cause even bigger problems. But if I do be honest and I do share, I recognize it ends up being more of a healing process for myself and for us. And that's what comes up for me when I think of honesty as a skill or a principle in a relationship.
Yeah. Thank you. And I will say, just for the personality differences, I think that poses a challenge. Sometimes, if I'm in my head or I'm wanting to communicate my perspective, I might not be as tuned in or as attuned to what you're trying to express. And I think that can be challenging and has been challenging. Okay, well, let's move on to another one again. Well, I said oftentimes when there's a difference, it can feel like a conflict, or we might have different ideas around what should be done or different strategies around how we might approach a particular situation. And when those differences emerge, we're not on the same page. So it doesn't feel easy. That can feel like a conflict. And when things matter, typically people will feel attached to that.
They'll start to feel maybe even threatened or feel tight as you described, feeling a little bit more defensive or armored up. And especially when there isn't the ability to really slow down and hear one another, or as we've been just sharing, speaking about the deeper need. Sometimes we lead with strategy, we lead with our ideas, and then we spend a lot of time discussing or debating, or even arguing about what's the right thing to do. And then when we look at de-escalation or escalation, sometimes things get to a certain point where it feels like we've turned a corner and nothing productive is going to happen. And what happens then? And typically, we want to catch that before it reaches that threshold, when it does reach that threshold, and the interest is no longer to resolve it.
Rear view of a young couple looking out from the beach, Constantine Bay, Cornwall, UK
“If people are feeling like I'm wanting to be right or I'm finding myself distancing and shutting down or flooding, feeling flooded. Oftentimes it's the best recommendation to calm the nervous system.”
Spend at least 20 minutes taking a break. And then for the one that tech typically wants to resolve, or the one that wants to move on or keep processing, having some point in time that there's an Agreement of we're going to revisit or just check in around. Are we available to revisit this? That typically helps for the one who might feel worried that we're just going to sweep this under the rug and we're not going to address it. That can be difficult.
I think it's so easy to want to do that, forget about it, or whatever. You know, I can say that in our relationship, I sometimes do that. It's a simpler solution. I've had a long day of work. I don't have the energy, I'm hungry, grumpy, all of the above. But, gosh, I mean, you articulated it really well. I'm trying to think of, like, a specific example I think you've shared with listeners of your empowering relationship. Podcasts that were more, at the time of this recording were more relevant to homeowners. So a lot of, you know, some levels have been conflict, and some levels it's been almost conflict, but, you know, an insider secret to listening is that both Jessica and Reid are headstrong. And so when. When we talk about, like, what we want to do with our house to make it more our space, right?
It's a bit of a remodel project, fortunately, not structurally as much, but. But there's a lot to do for the house as well. As every new owner encounters that. So we get ideas and then we share ideas, and one of us may be really excited about our ideas, and the other doesn't receive it so well. And then we have a little bit, truthfully, we have a little bit different perspective about, like, how to finance some of these projects and stuff like that. So there are moments of tension and there are moments of conflict, and I guess we have argued a few times, and it hasn't been the most pleasing. One thing I really want to thank you for, Jess, is that you say yes if I share with you. I need to go cool off. Right.
You know, I reckon I get to a moment where I feel pretty angry or very impatient, and I'm like, yes, I want to resolve this, but at the same time, I don't think I can just talk it through right now to resolve it and heal and grow from the experience. So I may need a couple of hours, or I may need a day. And I really want to honor you for respecting that because I believe that in our dynamic, our partnership has helped tremendously. It's helped on so many different levels. So, you know, if you want a more specific example, I can provide one, but I feel like that's great.
**Illustration, and I want to just underscore when you said, I want to resolve this, that means everything to me. Where I think in early in our relationship, I was like, even though we were very committed or even married, like sometimes when it looked like on the outside that you were distancing, but internally you were taking the time you needed to get clear or ground or what was important for you. But I didn't know that in my projections, my fears, my insecurities of are we okay? Does he still want to resolve this? Like, I didn't know. I remember when we were going to visit Jennifer and Jorge and their family when they lived in Simi Valley. And I don't even remember what our tension or heated issue was. And I remember asking you, Can you just remind me, or tell me that you want to resolve this?
And you softened and you were like, Of course I do, but I had no idea. And it meant everything for me to be able to tolerate the discomfort of not resolving it and not repairing it and trusting, and obviously being. I mean, we've been together almost 20 years now. And so I feel very much in service of what, as you said, the long-term gain is when you are more open or are clearer and can share with me. I'd much rather have that than my need to press on and you white knuckle it to somehow give me something to work with. Just don't think that's been all that productive for us.**
True. Yeah. So I got a question about this skill. The question centers around, like we've grown in this skill we've developed, and so now there is more trust. Well, at least on my end, you're quick, you're ready to resolve at any time we have a conflict. I feel like I've learned that about you, and sometimes I need a little bit more time. So I feel like you trust that to be a reality. Right. It's not just a wish or something you're hopeful about. It's something that you know will happen, at least in our dynamics. So the question centers around, like, well, it's two questions. Okay, is it, since you're such a relationship expert, is it fair to assume that's okay, like for people to trust that, you know, somebody on one end, if they need some time, they'll circle back.
**That's a great question. I would say this in a lot of ways could be described by the attachment research, that when we have earned through time, through experiences, the lived, felt, embodied practice of turning towards one another and having that repair, that helps build trust. So for me, having abandonment issues in my past, that probably contributed to a lot of this underlying fear I needed to earn. I wasn't quite confident right from the beginning. I was telling you I was worried you weren't in. And so through our interactions and your leaning in, my leaning in, repairing us, processing, getting to more collaboration, and hopefully showing up for one another, that's helped me build the trust. And I want that so much more than my preferred style.
So generally, what I advise, that it's like a good strategy to just**
Portrait of a loving mature couple outdoors. Husband hugs his wife from behind.
*“Support your partner, to take the time that they need.”***
Yes, but the caveat would be if there's positive productive engagement afterwards, like there's effort, but if the person's just turning away and not ever coming back or not ever responding, then I would be cautious about investing a lot of energy. When someone's not willing to participate in collaboration or resolution, does that answer? Was that what you're asking?
Yeah, that hits it. And then the second question is that knowing if someone needed more time, we'll use you and me, for example. You know, there's been a conflict, the high tension, high stress, and you're ready to resolve and I'm not. And I will respond when I'm ready, maybe more time than what you're comfortable with. And so the question around that is like, what would you recommend for someone in your situation to help you feel, well, secure, to help you feel safe and trusting in those in that gap of time? Because I'm willing to bet that people listening experience this. Like, you know, they're not saying it's fully one or the other, but a lot of people might be in similar positions.
**Right. It's a great question. I think that there are several levers to this. I feel like there would be an assessment of, like, the health of the dynamic in general, the relationship in general, that would be worth acknowledging also. Is the person, like, the health of that person, the health of like, are there addiction issues? Are there affairs? Are there other things that are happening that contribute to more of a toxic dynamic? And I wouldn't recommend someone just hanging out, waiting, when there are these other variables at play. If all of those assessment questions or litmus questions are like, yes, it's worth it. I do think that there's an opportunity for growth, and I like to use myself. And I will say I don't know that this would be my overall recommendation in general.
But let me just describe for you the times in which you've wanted more time than I've been comfortable with. There are times when I've needed to just seek reassurance, like a check in with you around, you still want to resolve this, like just making, not making sure it's not. I mean, it sounds like the attempt to make sure, but there's some reassurance that I'm seeking. If you can give me some reassurance that gives me something to work with, that helps me tolerate that gap. And then also it's a great opportunity for me to focus on my own stability, my own needs, and my own differentiation, like the ability to hold onto myself, self, soothe, tolerate that discomfort, focus on my self-care. And that's been really helpful. And then also the need for connection doesn't go away.
So I think that just checking in with you, like you still want to resolve this or you still are invested in us or you know, those type of questions helps me. And it's hard to be patient. The last thing I'll say is having a commitment that serves as a container when things are not the way that you would want them to go, or it feels like you're hitting a really big bump in the road. It's hard to stay right. It's hard to stay in that place. And so having that commitment, being in service of the longer term, it does offer some guidance, and I think some container to weather that heat and that difficulty because there's so much uncertainty. Like, we're talking positively about these things. We've. I mean, we're also talking about challenges that we don't know, and that's hard to tolerate.**
I mean, you could probably speak to this from a grief perspective, but I would say those are some of the components, like making sure it's a healthy dynamic, and then, you know, still maintaining some contact to have some stability, and then doing the individual work to stabilize.
Yeah, it's definitely not easy. I guess mindfulness comes to mind as far as the practice or a skill to implement.
Will you say more about that?
Well, I think it's too easy to be on autopilot and go towards coping mechanisms that are a little bit more conditioned. You know, they've provided safety in the past, but in these moments, they most likely are not going to provide as much safety.
So the mindfulness piece means being able to, I don't know, turn that volume up on that self-awareness so that you're like, okay, this is what's going on. And take a step outside of what's happening inside of me, reactively perceive how I'm reacting. I don't know if I'm getting too meta here.
No, you've been a great influence in having a voice for that. Because I have a tendency to want to figure things out. And being in the unknown and being with the present experience, you've really done a lot to bring awareness to that, right?
Yeah. So a lot of, you know, the one-word answer is now. Okay, what's happening now? All right. This is asking for self again. What's happening now? Yeah, I think anxiety can really take over in some of those uncertain moments. Yeah. High stakes.
High stakes. Yeah.
**All right. So attuned listening and empathy. Oftentimes, when we are in an exchange, we're hearing, and often when we are moving quickly, the partner that's speaking is typically describing the situation, and the partner that's listening often will experience or describe it very differently. And that in and of itself can get people off track. And this is where kind of the criticism or defensiveness can show up, that sometimes we might lead with a complaint, we might lead with the issue in hopes that our partner will be able to decode that and understand what our need is. So when we can do our best. I often have referred to this as a ninja move, where we can.
And also aikido, where if somebody, our partner, is talking, that if we can get really interested in what is underneath the description, even if perhaps I would take issue with it or describe it differently, or I think I've even said to you at times, I would not have used those words or have not describe it in that way. And also to stay with you to try to understand, well, what does this mean to you? What does this matter? What's the significance? Typically, I can feel empathy for the ladder. Time and time I get defensive and want to describe how I see it differently. So to be able to have that attuned listening and the person that's feeling attuned to it's typically one of the biggest gifts we can give someone, is that really feeling seen and heard deeply.
And typically, that takes time to allow the understanding and the opening to access deep understanding.**
A lot was said there. Let's unpack it. All right. Do you have any stories? I have one.
Well, a lot of times, because we're in. We have such an intimate connection.
Happy couple having fun with a shopping cart at the parking garage, Husband pushing his carefree wife inside the shopping trolley. The couple is having fun with a supermarket cart. Family economy concept
“A lot of times I've had to just remind myself that whatever it may be, the narrative unfolding at the time doesn't have to be always us. Sometimes it can be me, a Reid narrative, and sometimes it can be a Jessica narrative. And I feel like that's been like a secret success strategy”
At least for me and in our relationship, because of that. The moment I tell myself, in the cases that it's not a read narrative or a us narrative, when I remind myself that, then I'm like, I'm so much more available. I'm so much more available as a listener, as a supporter, one to empathize.
You know, I also, in my day job, you know, I think of solutions all the time and stuff like that, and it's so easy to have that mindset. So when we talk and, you know, there is again, a moment where I'm like, oh, okay, it's not really about trying to solve a problem. It's. It's about being a loving, supportive listener, partner. You know, it's like, what a relief. What a gift. What a joy. And also, it helps, really helps me feel a lot more human.
No kidding. I remember there was a period of time where you were really wanting to implement the question for either one of us, for it to be named, Are you wanting comfort or are you wanting solutions? And there were many times where you asked me, and I was like, I don't even know what I want. I need to ask myself at the moment. And I was able to take a moment of pause and reflect on that, and it was really helpful. The other piece, I'll add, is seeking to understand that if we can really get curious and seek to understand, when you've asked me questions, is it like this or does it sound like that. Is that right? Or maybe I'm feeling this as you're describing. It's been so helpful, especially in times when I hadn't even named it myself.
And I don't know that we always are able to do that in partnership, but that's really beautiful to feel your partner reflect and help you access something deeper, and really feel that being named, it's really important.
Yeah, it's fun. Honestly, I find it fun. Like when those moments when I'm like, okay, let's not make it about me, and. And let's. Let's really be a caring and supportive partner. It's when I'm like, I'm. No, I'm. I'm not just a good husband. I'm a great husband.
You're my great husband. Yes. Yes.
Right? Yeah. It feels good.
For the sake of time, I'm interested in maybe moving on to one more. Would you have time for one more? I know I'm skipping over a story, but I feel like it might be helpful. Would you rather do vision and shared meaning or playfulness and novelty? And again, there's a lot of description around these that I'm not mentioning here, but as themes.
Well, you tell me, what do your listeners want more?
You have such an intuitive sense. I think both are very important at this time.
I think I could probably show up more to some of the visioning than I can. The playfulness and its. To be 150% honest, I just, it was a long day and I'm. I do feel tired, and so it is. Reed Reid has a difficult time being playful. When he's tired, he usually gets grumpy. So. So the vision is my choice.
Okay, we'll wind this down here. I appreciate you just naming real time where you're at and where your capacity is. This really helps me support and attune to you. All right, so visioning and shared meaning. Oftentimes in life, and really I would say not oftentimes, we all have a life we're living, and there are certain things, values that mean something to us. There's a dream that we have, there's having purpose. And in relationships, sometimes again, that can pose a challenge or feel like a conflict if we haven't necessarily been explicit. Or how can we co-create a dream together? Sometimes there's a process that needs to occur to arrive at that. And there's so much to be said around that.
But this can help orient people, decision-making, how to invest time, money, and energy, and help cultivate and create a life that is really authentic and meaningful. So, would you like any story that comes to mind or anything you want to add here?
You may have shared this before in previous episodes, but we had a pretty close to a two-year journey of being in various places throughout the United States and were exploring new areas to live in, remaining open to the possibility. And why I'm sharing this, as far as an example or a story of visioning, is that throughout this journey were setting our criteria. So you kind of had what was logistical and practical in what I'm going to call the present moment. But we also held onto a vision of what would. The way I perceive it and the way I articulated it is that we were naming things that we wanted to exist well down the road, as you know, in addition to the now. It's like now and forever been forever being as. As long as we're gonna live.
You know, I don't think I ever gave you enough credit for that because I felt like you led that process. You Know, we would sometimes it was like working through a journal written by someone else or pieces of a journal.
Positive young colleagues managers sitting at the table and laughing, looking at the laptop. Teamwork concept. Selective focus. Modern successful people
“Truthfully, Jessica gets inspired by some of the people she interviews on her podcast. So concepts and strategies and exercises and activities come from them and we would implement those into some of our visioning”
and you know, credit to her childhood best family friend and her family for being such a strong influence on Jessica for holding a vision and doing visioning exercises. And so, you know, we did them occasionally. It's not like we're doing them all the time. But in this two-year journey, we would do these exercises, and it would help us see the bigger picture.
They would help us like at times, I don't know if it's true for you, but I, at times I felt a little stuck. If we did visioning, it's like, oh, this would help us get unstuck, this would free us up a little bit, be us, help us be a little bit more mobile, a little bit more free form or well, playful. And then, and then that brought us to, you know, where we are now.
And like the beautiful thing, depending on how you look at it about visioning, is that it's always something you can add more to and you know, it's always something that can be, well, we live a journey or we take a journey in our life and this visioning can come along with us throughout the journey and help us like keep inspiration and help us stay joyful and, and well, some for some people it even helps them create a focus too. So I am getting a little philosophical. I'll digress there.
No, I love everything you're saying and I. The thing that's coming up for me is when we have values that we keep fresh in our mind, then the vision and the creativity and the inspiration and the excitement that comes from how that can be expressed in any version that those things can be really aligned. And I think that's one of the things. To be more specific, all of our conversations we had a spreadsheet of what were ranking as priority. Is it beach life? Is it being by hot springs? Is it being in a naturally or a more conscious health and wellness community? Is it a smaller college town? Is it being by a large body of water? Is it living in a more temperate, warmer climate? There's a lot of things were evaluating and also visioning around. What's the expression of that?
What would we love? How does that look? And sometimes we had different things and how we could support one another. So it's not always a seamless in couplehood or partnership, being lock and step or however you say that sometimes our partner might have a vision that feels really different, and then to understand what that core value is, or also how we might be able to have mutual benefit, or how it could be a win for both people. And again, I'll come back to the uncertainty. Sometimes it's not clear, we can feel stuck, and also just coming back to that mindfulness, and also where we feel excited or feel joy. Touche thank you again that so much for carving out time in your evening. I know it's late there and it sounds like it's been a busy day.
Yeah, thank you so much. It's been a joy.
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Ever feel like you know all the “right” things to do in a relationship, but when the moment comes, your body is flooded with stress, your voice tightens, or you just shut down? Many of us long for deep connection and trust, but when life gets real, our nervous system can hijack our best intentions. The invisible forces of old wounds, protective patterns, and the lightning-fast reactions of our bodies can make true safety in love feel just out of reach.
In this episode, you’ll discover practical ways to bridge the gap between knowing and feeling safe and connected with your partner. Drawing on insights from attachment and polyvagal theory, somatic psychology, and real-world relationship experiences, the conversation sheds light on what “embodied safety” truly means—and why it’s the foundation for intimacy, trust, and even passion. Listeners will come away with tools to notice their body’s cues, co-regulate with a partner, and develop relational intelligence that supports lasting, resilient love—even when challenges arise.
Aubrey Aust is a writer and master’s candidate at NYU studying relational psychology and philosophy. Her work explores how emotional safety, embodiment, and relational intelligence shape intimacy and trust. Drawing from attachment theory, polyvagal theory, and somatic psychology, Aubrey helps individuals and couples understand how to build safety in relationships through both the mind and the body. She is passionate about making complex psychological insights practical, soulful, and deeply human.
Episode Highlights08:38 How our bodies subconsciously sense safety or danger in relationships.
10:32 The importance of nonverbal cues and body sensations in emotional communication.
16:50 Identifying and changing self-protective behaviors that block intimacy.
19:10 Accessing vulnerability for co-regulation.
21:54 How consistency shapes true relational growth.
26:32 Navigating the tension between meeting others’ needs and self-care in daily life.
28:08 How curiosity about intense emotions can help heal shame and estrangement.
32:04 How understanding core needs brings freedom and new options in relationships.
35:17 Rewiring your reactions: How noticing your nervous system transforms relationships.
38:39 How small shifts in attention can instantly calm your nervous system.
41:30 Unlocking the power to heal and evolve through relationship challenges.
Your Checklist of Actions to Take* Take conscious pauses to slow down and deepen your breath, helping you regulate stress and become more present in relationships. * Practice tuning into your bodily sensations during interactions—notice tension, breath patterns, or relaxation—to better understand your felt sense of safety. * Build somatic awareness by gently observing your physical reactions when you feel unsafe or activated, such as tightness, speeding up, or shutting down. * Create check-in rituals with your partner to attune to each other’s nervous system cues, like noticing changes in body language, tone, or energy. * Normalize and expect moments of rupture or conflict, and view them as opportunities to build relational trust through repair and open communication. * Get curious about your protective patterns (such as people-pleasing, avoidance, or hyper-independence) and consider when they may no longer serve intimacy. * Use subtle self-regulation techniques in social situations, like grounding your feet, gently pressing your fingers together, or scanning the room to calm your nervous system. * When you feel dysregulated in a conversation, ask clarifying questions or take a brief pause to gather yourself instead of reacting from a place of activation.
MentionedIt Didn't Start with You: How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are and How to End the Cycle (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
Social Baseline Theory (National Library of Medicine article)
Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) (Psychology Today)
Polyvagal Theory (Polyvagal Institute)
ERP 261: How To Strengthen Your Relationship From A Polyvagal Perspective – An Interview with Dr. Stephen Porges
ERP 276: Understanding The Need For Both Self-Regulation And Co-Regulation In Relationship – An interview With Deb Dana
Evolve in Love (program)
Evolve In Love Discovery Session with Dr. Jessica Higgins (Acuity booking link)
Connect with Aubrey Aust****Websites: aubreyaust.com
YouTube: youtube.com/channel/UCozW2k08GkMQbjs1vyN_Fkw
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News Letter: aubreyaust.com/newsletter
Connect with Dr. Jessica Higgins
Facebook: facebook.com/EmpoweredRelationship
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Email: jessica@drjessicahiggins.com
If you have a topic you would like to be discussed, please contact us by clicking on the “Ask Dr. Jessica Higgins” button here.
Thank you so much for your interest in improving your relationship.
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Thank you!
*With Amazon Affiliate Links, I may earn a few cents from Amazon if you purchase the book from this link.
Episode Transcript
Aubrey, thank you for joining us.
Thank you so much for having me. It's such a pleasure to be here.
Yes, and were just chatting and I'm impressed with just how willing you are to be in the space and talk about these very important topics as it relates to polyvagal theory, somatics, intimate relationship, attachment theory, and I know you're studying and doing your thesis and we're going to be talking a little bit more about relational safety and how that supports a feeling of more secure functioning intimate relationship before we do that and get started, where would you like to start as far as helping people to get to know you, how this became a focus?
Yeah, happy to give a little background on myself. So I'm an educator, I'm a speaker, and as you said, I'm currently completing my master's degree in relational psychology and philosophy at NYU. So my primary areas of focus are relational intelligence and embodied safety. And so the work that I'm doing it's really at this intersection of theory and lived experience. My academic path actually began in political theory because I was fascinated by these systems of power and desire on a structural level and how that impacted us. But over time, my attention started to turn inward, and I started to ask, How do these same dynamics that we're seeing on this macro scale play out in our most intimate relationships?
And how are we navigating connection, rupture, trust, care, and seeing how those played out in my personal life, and I wanted to gain the psychological background as to why. So it really comes from an interest in my own life. I feel as though I've experienced moments of profound love and also moments of misattunement or disconnection that left really deep imprints on me. And so I realized that we can know something intellectually, like why we get activated. We can know all the points of secure attachment. Right. But it's very different from actually feeling safe in real time with another person. And so that's what really brought me into this work. I wanted to
**“Understand not just how we love, but how we're growing in connection and how that manifests physically.**
Absolutely. So this is absolutely in alignment with all of the things that I think are so relevant. I remember. So I did my dissertation on conscious intimate relationships, and it was a qualitative study looking at themes of people who were practicing more mindfulness and awareness and bringing more of this emotional intelligence, relational intelligence, to the intimate space. And still, while I included the attachment research, obviously, this was so many years ago, almost 20 years ago, I feel like the attachment research wasn't as part of the conversation as it is now, and also the polyvagal and how it shows up in the nervous system. And even though I was studying somatic psychology, I still feel like there's this integration in these bodies of knowledge.
And all this to say, when I was working with clients, it wasn't until I started incorporating their attachment research that I'm like, this is what's juicing it, the nervousness. Because I have a client who's like, I have been in men's groups. I have been doing individual therapy and coaching with you. And, like, he's been doing the work, and when he gets activated, he does a lot of masking, for sure. So he lets his intellect ride. But the real time, as you're saying, what is felt in his body, he almost is not attuning to in himself, so he can't put it into practice. And just one other point to your description around how this became of interest. It's so funny, even in my.
So I had a separate master's and a separate PhD program, but my master's was in systems and family therapy. And I'm like, why don't our politicians, like, have a family therapist there to help negotiate? Because it's quite profound how these dynamics, these relational dynamics, and what's fueling it, how important that is. And when we don't pay attention, it's very difficult to resolve very complex issues. Or when the stakes are really high.
Oh, it's all intertwined and coming from what are seemingly wildly different worlds. And seeing it from this outsider perspective, my mind is blown every day that I'm like,
“Why are politicians not sitting down and meditating before they go in and make these decisions? Because we could all benefit from some nervous system regulation, let's be honest.”
Yes. Every single person. And I remember Deb Dana being on the show, and she's the, like, interpreter of Stephen Porges and all the work that she does to contribute, and she's like, in any given day, I am dysregulated, like, many times in one day. And so this kind of notion that we're supposed to always be regulated doesn't exist.
Doesn't exist.
Yes.
Yeah.
Okay, great. Well, on the topic of relational safety and what you're describing here, and how this may be different than emotional closeness, they're not totally unrelated, but also, how do you like to distinguish this?
Yeah, I'm huge on embodied safety. And what does that actually look like? What does that actually feel like? And so, as you said, we think about closeness. Of course, there's that emotional component to it or an intellectual component to it. Does this person get me? Do we understand each other? Do we communicate well? All fundamental pillars. Right. But truthfully, relational safety begins in the body. And so I'm really curious about that origin point. What does that mean? And how do we build that? And so it's that internal, often unconscious sense of, I can breathe around you. I feel safe here. I feel comfortable in this connection. And this is where polyvagal theory becomes so helpful because, you know, Stephen Poor just teaches us that our nervous system, we are constantly scanning for those cues of safety or those cues of danger.
And the process is called neuroception. We're picking up on things like tone of voice, facial expression, breathing patterns, and even the timing of responses before we have even had time to think about it. So we might not have even logically parsed out what this means, but we can feel it in our bodies, in every single conversation. And so even if someone says the right things, your body might still feel uneasy in a moment. And the opposite can be true too. So someone's presence or a grounded gaze or a gentle voice might be soothing, even if it's a difficult conversation. So, of course that emotional intimacy matters, but these subtle embodied cues that are telling our nervous system if it's safe to be here, is it safe to soften? Can I be vulnerable?
And that embodied feeling is the foundation of everything, trust, intimacy, even eroticism in our erotic relationships.
Yes. And this does take Aubrey, in my understanding, an individual connection to mind, body, that if we're operating, as you mentioned a lot through the intellect, or we are driving hard or grinding or hustling, as you were saying before we started talking, it has the propensity to pull us out of the present felt experience, embodied state. Would you agree?
Yeah, absolutely. And its social baseline theory teaches us that
“We regulate based on the people surrounding us. We are social creatures. And so it's about recognizing those relational ecosystems we're creating and figuring out how we want to build that co-regulation in our lives.”
Yes. And in addition to what you're describing around neuroception, one of the things that I loved in studying Susan Johnson's work and the research of EFT is that so much of our information, as you describe how social we are, is being transmitted through emotionality, which is often expressed in these physical nonverbal ways. That's why we say a lot of communication up in the upper 80s is nonverbal. And I so appreciate what you're describing and to wonder with you. This is for people listening because part of what this invites us to do is to. I think it's a difficult thing to pay attention to oneself and the shared space that's being co-created in real time. And so the more that we are in practice of recognizing, okay, where's my breath? Am I breathing up in my chest?
Or do my muscles feel tense, or do I feel relaxed, or do I feel at ease, like I could just kick off my shoes and let my guard down right, like these types of things really are important indicators. So not only is that a lot to pay attention to and slow down and really have some understanding and inquiry about. What I find people are challenged with is their relational imprints. So when we partner, it can be very confusing if something feels familiar. And while their system may be activated, if it replicates or mirrors something familiar, they might feel a connection to it. Although it may not be optimal.
Safe relational space 100%. And like you said, it's so difficult to one, operate with that level of self-awareness and two, bring that into a partnership. Right? We have 50 million things we are doing in a given day. I don't have the time or mental space to constantly be checking in and thinking, Oh, is my body tense right now? How am I feeling in myself? How am I feeling with this person? But suddenly, you know, those cues build up over time, and oftentimes we become aware of it when a line or a boundary has already been crossed. And that's where that resentment starts to build. So how do we tap into this without completely exhausting ourselves in the process? It does start with self-awareness.
At the end of the day, you can't co-regulate with someone else unless you know what's happening in your own body. So just start to get curious. You do not have to have the absolute checklist of every single thing that's going on with you. Even the pros. I don't even know who I'm referencing with this, but no one is that self-aware or attuned, right? That's like going to the gym and trying to deadlift 300 pounds on your first day. Just start to notice what happens when I start to feel cues of unsafety creeping in. Do I get tight in my chest? Is my voice speeding up? Do I go quiet? Because our bodies are constantly offering these signals, but we're not taught to listen to them. That's not something that is taught in the day-to-day, right?
Sure, I feel happy, I feel sad. We don't even have the full emotion or
“Most of us are not fortunate enough to get that education or the full emotional vocabulary to even begin to express what's coming up within us”
So building that somatic awareness is foundational. Step one. And then from there, couples can start to work to attune to each other. And that can be creating a ritual for checking in. That can be learning each other's nervous system cues, which, as you start to spend time with someone, you can start to pick up on how someone responds to certain things, how their Body looks around you, and what their body does in certain situations. And then, when you can start to ask what helps you feel safe when you're overwhelmed. And then start to engage those practices.
Like maybe it's something as simple as eye gazing or grounding touch or even just mindfully breathing together. And that can be so incredibly powerful. It's not an ultimate quick fix, but it's a tool that allows you to stay connected in those moments. Especially when things get bumpy. Because things will inevitably get bumpy. Right. Even within ourselves, no one is regulated 100% of the time. That's not how we function as humans. And so we need to first normalize rupture, knowing that's part of our individual day-to-day, our relational day-to-day conflict isn't the enemy. And how to stay with each other through that discomfort. Because that's where the real relational trust is built.
Absolutely. I'm so glad you said trust because I was just on various layers, feeling the importance of earning this trust or repairing the trust. As you talk about rupture, I think even trusting the body, so we may get. I'm recognizing there are many people, and I believe myself, I can raise my hand here too, that I have received certain body cues and sensations, and I overrode them. And it was later that I was like, I knew. I just didn't choose to listen, or I didn't want to listen. And really trusting that the body. And this is one of the things that I love about somatic psychology. It bypasses the intellect, the tendency to rationalize, minimize whatever stories we create that can take us on all different journeys away from what is very core. And so really trusting that relationship.
And I think that can get built over time. And then a second layer here is when people haven't, as you talk about coregulation and what opportunities we have, if people haven't had a trusting environment where coregulation was offered in early life, perhaps they don't feel safe to coregulate.
Exactly.
Do you want to talk about that for sure?
Yeah. Protective patterning is something that so many of us have inherited. Right. Myself very much included. That's how I got into this work. Because so many of us have learned to stay safe in ways that might no longer serve us. And this can show up as a lot of things. It can be hyper independence, it can be over functioning, it can be shutting down, avoiding conflict, or constant people pleasing. Hi, I'm guilty of it right here. Right. This is a pattern I'm trying to break. And these patterns, they were adaptive at one Point in time, they probably worked. They might have worked very well for you up until a certain point when you realize, wait a second, this isn't helping me. And as this builds up, it can get in the way of authentic intimacy.
But because they're so familiar, they can be so hard to recognize. And so it's protective patterning in combination with the fear of vulnerability, which is so real and so incredibly valid. Because building that relational safety means showing your vulnerabilities. It means naming your needs, it means admitting when you're scared and letting someone see those kinds of messy or uncertain parts that societally a lot of us are taught to hide. And that level of exposure can feel terrifying, especially if you've been hurt before in a relationship, then you know that can lead to misattunement.
“Even in the most loving relationships. We're gonna miss each other sometimes. We're not mind readers. But ultimately, this obstacle, it's rarely a lack of love within couples. It's the inability to trust love and that connection.”
And so this work that we are helping people do is helping that process of rebuilding and learning how to break down that protective patterning to get into a practice of love that serves both others and ourselves.
Thank you for naming how these protective, maybe even coping mechanisms, maybe some people would have that language help us function, and they have been adaptive and served us well, and we honor them. And also recognizing there's more opportunity to have a different experience. And that part of that path is acknowledging, oh, I am protesting. I'm getting into wanting to re-litigate what happened in hopes that my partner will be able to decode that and understand what my deeper need is or my fear is. And I know when I have done this work you mentioned terrifying, I mean, I can remember feeling like I am literally going to jump off a cliff. Like the sensation. I don't know if there's a net to catch me. I am interested enough to take the risk.
But I'm saying the very thing I don't want to say to the vulnerability. Like the thing that feels unlovable, the thing that feels unattractive, and those times that I was able to feel my significant other respond to me because of that clear vulnerability and signal. And when we talk about co-regulation, I'm wondering what you would say here because as we talk about how to co-regulate, when we haven't had consistent trusting experiences around that, perhaps what we're describing or you're sharing here around recognizing the coping tendency, the vulnerability that lies underneath, it's not until we access that. That perhaps our physical sensation can then become a little bit more on board to tell us what would be helpful, what we would need?
And to be listening around, would you hold me, or would you just sit side by side with me, or can you tell me a little bit around? How do we start to access the coregulation when the path has not been safe or trustworthy?
Absolutely. I think first, something that I want to point out is that if someone feels this way, you are not alone.
Yeah.
This is the experience that so many people have because we have built up a certain way in which we have found it is, quote unquote, safe to relate to others. That often involves a minimization of our own needs, of our bodily sensations, of what we internally know to be our capital “T” Truth, is how I frame it, but has been repressed by either societal scripts or how we've been expected to show up. So first recognizing that, yes, this experience, when you're first kind of awakening to it, can feel incredibly isolating. And I want to hold a lot of space and compassion for that and let people know. It is okay to feel that. And also that by getting curious about that and exploring this, you are on the step.
You are taking the steps to take back your own control and agency in this situation. And it's not an easy journey. Right. But it is so worth it because it's working on building relational intelligence. And it's something that we all need to do. Because this ain't in the school curriculum. No, it's really not. And so when it feels unsafe to explore those things, it's gaining the relational intelligence within ourselves and in our connections, learning that this is something we build. This is self-awareness, this is nervous system regulation attunement at a pace that feels slow and steady. Something that works with your nervous system, wherever you are. You do not have to launch into giving up your deepest, darkest secrets straight off the bat. Move at a pace that feels comfortable to you.
And it's putting in this work and just showing up consistently every day that leads us to the path of coregulation. And trust me, there is no graduating from this program. This is life. I feel like, especially, you know, in the self-help or personal development spaces, you so often see these gurus and incredible leaders in the field, and not to diminish their teachings or findings or anything by any means, but there's no like championship. You don't get a prize. This is a lifelong quest that we are all o,n and learning so much about ourselves in the process. And so it's that willingness just to show up if you are there, if you are listening to this podcast, you're doing the work.
Yeah.
And it's taking those baby steps. And first of all, congratulate yourself on that, because that's something that deserves recognition and praise.
Thank you, Aubrey. And I'm just appreciating a little bit of a meta comment here. Your tone of voice and your pacing. Even when we hopped on the call, it was a little rushed to get to our appointment time made it, but was a little rushed. And your slow, soothing pace. It's. I can feel my response when you're talking in a very soothing, calming voice. So I. I mean, I think you're demonstrating some of what you're describing here. It can be really helpful. I mean, think about it. If we've ever been in a situation and things are escalating in an interaction with someone, and someone intentionally slows down, and perhaps I think the word in polyvagal is prosody.
So this is more melodic, there's a bit of warmth, and some people would even say sing-song. It doesn't quite have to be that, but there's something in that tone and what's being expressed that somehow that. I mean, according to Gottman's language, that could even be a bid right there. Right. That's like I am intentionally trying to focus on: we love each other, we wanna understand each other, and I care about you. And there's a physical conveying of that, I think can start to transmit a different signal.
Yeah. And thank you for saying all of that. And I feel the same way. The conversation, you instantly helped me feel so at ease. And it's because we are giving each other the signals that we are safe in this conversation. So thank you for creating the space.
Yes, thank you. And you're welcome. And as you talk about just normalizing this and how the curiosity is such a key component, one of the things that strikes me in modern living, that I'll speak for myself, I have to override my cues if I'm tired and I didn't sleep well. My husband just had a. A deviated septum nose repair surgery and anesthesia, and he's still about a week and a half out, but still sleep has still been disrupted. I don't feel professionally comfortable canceling my meetings for a week. Right. I mean, I could, but that's not necessarily what integrity for me. So I think modern living, sometimes we are overriding cues, and to be conscious about that, and making choices about that, and how to say it's not like, oh, getting sleep never matters. It's like, oh, when I can, how do I rest? How do I make a point to get to bed early? These types of things. But just to note that in modern life, I think we often are making choices to override some of the body's needs, and I don't know a way around it currently, as far as functioning in modern life. And yet this is something that we're up against. And do you want to comment on that?
Yeah, 100%. Because it's, you know, especially in Western culture. You and I are both based in the U.S., correct? Hustle culture is central, and we often don't take enough time to slow down and listen to our bodies. But outside of the flaws of American capitalism, it's oftentimes life, period gets in the way.
“In relationships, sometimes we do have to put our own needs on pause to take care of others. If that's a consistent, repeated pattern, that's something we need to look into, maybe make some changes.”
Right. But it's also about that give and take in a relationship.
Yes.
And holding that complexity because it's not up there. Relationships are rarely black and white, let's be honest. It's making space for all of the nuance and the life that comes up in our day-to-day and balancing our own personal needs with the realities of being in a relationship. And what does that mean? And I loved what you said about doing so consciously because sometimes there will be times where we're saying, oh, I need to kind of suppress this need to conk out on the couch and take a three-hour nap. Right. Gotta get stuff done. We need to take care of someone. I need to show up in this way and realize, okay, maybe I can take some time for some self-care later tonight.
How am I going to get my needs met by whom, when? And being intentional about that when we can, while still holding a container for the flexibilities that come in the day-to-day.
Yes. Thank you. And I love that you acknowledge that life is not static and that while we may feel the sense of quote, unquote, balance, I say that because balance is such a, like, proverbial thing. Like, I don't think that it's an achievable state. To your point about getting to this arrival point, that we're going to be tested, we're going to have challenges, we're going to have ways in which we are accessing other layers inside ourselves, and things get activated, and we're under-resourced. And so we may regress and feel some things that we felt like we already had a kind of orientation around. So that's just part of the reality. And I love that you're normalizing. The other thing I want to comment on here is the. When we talk about curiosity and I would love to hear your point on this.
As I mentioned, I judged the vulnerability as shameful or unlovable. And when you talk about being interested in the body sensation or the emotional experience, I think it is a really common thing to have labels for it, especially when we've gotten feedback. So even yesterday in session, I have this lovely couple, and they are such amazing humans and have parented, I think, in really optimal ways. And one of their children is, I don't think, has ever been really officially tested or diagnosed, but I think is in the neurodivergent spectrum, and they're in a place of estrangement. And the dad was talking about him. His whole life has been hateful. I mean, he's coming from a place of frustration because his adult child has done some things that have felt really hurtful.
And I was like, could we possibly?
Just hold that there is a way in which he was experiencing his reality and didn't have a way to either process orient. And the intensity level looked like hate, but it could have been just an intensity. And last thing I'll say here is it didn't. Like it didn't start with you or. Do you remember Wallen's book about the intergenerational trauma?
Yes.
And he talks about the very. I mean, he's got some very severe examples of people who are demonstrating intense psychological experiences and symptoms. And what I loved about it is like the invitation to get curious. And actually, while we may label that as ugly or something, underneath it's like, wow, this does make sense. And it is really important, like material to work with for healing and repair. Do you want to comment on that?
Yes, I love that. I really encourage people and couples to sit with those. I'm using my air quotes again, quote unquote, ugly emotions. Yeah, the stuff we don't want to face. And yes, it's important to sit with our feelings, feel the feelings. Right. But aside from that, what is coming up from that in terms of needs, desires, and what's underlying there? Because that's a cue for clarity. Especially when I've been studying a lot about resentment and what people think of when they think they're entitled to something in A relationship, and the difference between expectations and entitlement. And so when you have an expectation, I want this, so I should have it. Well, if you expect a relationship, does that automatically make it entitlement? Because I want something, the other person should give it to me. When they can't, resentment builds.
And so that resentment doesn't feel good. Right. We don't like sitting with that. We want to push it away. But what is that telling us about our deeper needs, our desires, what's in alignment in the relationship, what's not? And that can be such a good cue to tap into the deeper desire. And most often it's wanting closeness, it's wanting connection, and something is coming up that's getting in the way of that. And so, sitting with the ugly stuff, it's not fun. I'm not gonna lie to you. It is such great data. Once we learn to wade through that and see what the underlying need there is or what's really revealing about how we're experiencing this situation, and what we can learn from it?
Mm, I love that. I so agree with you that the interest of how, like, if I got the thing that I wanted, what would that allow me to feel? Getting a deeper understanding of what the core need or attachment is? Longing. I mean, in my experience, it's so liberating because if I have to work so hard to persuade or plead my case or build the evidence to support my argument or whatever it is to negotiate, that just feels so much more liberating to get in touch with real, clear need. And really, when I've done that, it's not even so hinged on the other person. I'm like, oh, okay. Like, this is a need, and I would love to have an agreement with you if you're interested in showing up. And also, there are things I can do to give myself what I need.
Get going.
Tell me.
I'm laughing because I recently got so in deep. This was me at fault in a discussion with a partner on how I was so in my head about something, and this, this situation, I'm like, I don't. I don't see the way out of it. I feel so blocked. Yada, yada. And went on this, like hour hour-long walk, and by the end it came to me, wait a second. I'm really just desiring closeness with you. Can we spend some more quality time together? What would that look like? And realizing I could have just shortened that entire thing to about three sentences. Don't get me wrong, that was an important emotional journey for me to go through.
But it's so funny even seeing this in myself because I. I can so easily counsel someone else through it or speak to it at a theoretical level, and then, in practice, still see these things come up. It's the human experience. Right. It's how we are living it every day and recognizing those underlying needs. And it does require tapping into ourselves first.
Well, and I think this is what we're up against. And I feel like there are a lot of people who can relate to what you described. I can. And that it's not fully conscious that as we're talking about nervous dysregulation or activation, our nervous system in nanoseconds is feeling and responding to threats.
Yes.
And to the point about protection and the need for protection, for safety, and also the point about vulnerability. We're not as humans walking around. That's not how we're wired.
No.
We're not walking around with our bellies exposed. And here's my vulnerable part. And let me clearly indicate and have that fully accessible. We actually have to work. And I would love your thoughts on this, since this is something you're actively studying around how the nervous system, I feel like, is often the main driver when things are off track or there's tension, and that we can't bypass that.
Yes. And it's there for a reason. Yes. It's there to protect us. And so it's that fine line of recognizing patterns, things that have been ingrained, seeing if those are serving us, and then basing our reactions on that. That's not simple work to unwire patterns that might have been there for years and years. Yes. And so those cues, when things come up somatically, listen to them ask, get curious about what your body is telling you in those situations. And it starts with that conscious awareness of how I am coming into this space? What is my underlying need here? When we feel the ugly stuff coming up, and then acting from that point of awareness to be able to navigate conversations with greater clarity. Like the personal example I just gave. I was dysregulated going into that conversation. I had a day.
I was bringing all of my personal drama into that and projecting that onto someone else.
“As we move through life, we are not going to take the time to regulate for every conversation. We all have moments where we lose that grounded center. And those moments are great refreshers where we're able to wake ourselves up from that and say, how can I come back?”
What am I really craving here? And so, realizing to recognize those cues, asking questions, what they're trying to get us to notice, and then moving from that point of awareness is the key to proceeding forward.
Yes. Well, I want to comment on just the wiring also, that our brain tends to automate.
Yes.
So, as much as we would love to just coast in our relationships, how lovely that would be. Right. And that's not. We're human beings, and we're all having our experiences. And that includes the threat response and, as you said, the rupture repair process and relationship. And also, can you give people an example? Because you're really instructing what is useful. And also, I'm aware socially, this can feel really awkward to slow down and say, Can you. Can you give me a second? Or I'm. I'm not. Like, one thing I do is I'll just notice and I'll speak about what I'm doing. So it's kind of that meta. Like I talked about earlier, meta thought, or oh, I noticed that my voice is rising. Or I noticed I feel really tight in my body.
I want to slow down and just have a second to kind of tune in. But that's not typically how we talk. So, can you give people other examples? There are times by just more options.
I love this question because there is no societal space in most of our conversations to say, One moment please, I need to regulate. We love that.
I need to close my eyes and tune in.
Not gonna work when you're giving a presentation in front of 500 people. Right. Start small. There are lots of tiny physical cues you can do that no one has any idea that you're doing. Even just pressing your fingers together, ground your feet into the floor, and feel your body. That's something you can do on the micro level. No one else has any idea that you're doing. The second thing you can do is situate yourself in the room. See if you can just do a slow scan left to right with your eyes, ground yourself in the space. And then if you are in a conversation or someone says something that just throws you off your tracks, you can feel yourself start to get dysregulated. This is kind of a power-dynamic thing that I like to do. Turn the attention back onto them.
When you don't have the space, or you feel like they don't. You don't have the safety to say, hang on, this is, you know, I'm feeling not great in my body right now. I need a minute to regulate, take a breath, and just say very calmly, What do you mean by that? Or ask them a question about the question that turns the spotlight off of you. Don't assume any ill intent on their part, but just bring the spotlight back to them for a second because that gives you a moment to check in with yourself, calm yourself down internally, and maybe gives you more context around something that you might be spiraling about that doesn't even exist.
Getting more information.
Exactly. Knowledge is power.
“Building up that security within yourself, within your environment and what you know can be natural things to help you do that nervous system calming work that does not require you to take the mindful moments that we would love to have, but often are not afforded in everyday conversation. “
No kidding. And you mentioned it, but I want to also emphasize it. Just the power of the breath. Right. It doesn't have to be something socially super visible.
Right?
Right. Just noticing the breath and doing one's best to deepen the exhale and seeing if there's a little bit more expansion posture again. Okay. I love all these suggestions. Well, I know we're winding down, and we haven't. I know we're talking about relational intelligence, but I would love for you, if you want to weave this in around how this connects and how this helps build relational intelligence and supports long-term intimacy.
100%. Relational intelligence is a practice; I feel like everything we're talking about here circles back to a lifelong practice. So these skills, no matter where you are in your life journey, when you are working on them, they will serve you for the rest of your life. It's an investment in yourself and all of your relationships, family, partnership, coworkers, and anything.
“We are relational creatures, right? Relational intelligence helps build those relationships. So when we are navigating connection, when we're navigating conflict and closeness, building relational intelligence allows us to do so in a way that honors both ourselves and the other.”
And as we've said throughout this conversation, it's not something we're born with. It's not something that we're taught in school; it's something that we build.
And so these components of self-awareness, nervous system, regulation of attunement, these allow us the ability to repair rupture without collapsing into shame or into blame. And when we hit those lows so normal, that is what we have been taught to do. That's how we've been taught to feel or internalize this. When we experience the rupture that naturally we will all experience it relationally. And so this practice can I stay connected with myself while staying connected to the other and holding that complexity. And it's something that we do over and over again. And the practice is in showing up. And it's a skill set that is hopeful because no one is just naturally good at this. It's something we can all learn and develop.
And so then this allows relationships to become not just places of comfort, but are fantastic, but also places of growth. And that's so exciting and invigorating. And when we can create those conditions, both internally and relationally, we are all able to show up as fuller, more honest versions of ourselves.
Yes. Thank you. I so agree. And would also just. I'm imagining you would agree that, as we are in the practice of this, we are afforded an experience that is embodied, that we get to reference, that hopefully will feel motivating and encouraging. Yes, please. More of that, please. Even if it took a journey to arrive there or cultivate it. And some people do have, I think, optimal environments where they're being modeled real relational intelligence. And also, many of us didn't have it modeled in our society. We weren't taught in school. Absolutely. To your point. And also, they're maybe may be moments where a teacher responded to us or a coach showed up for us or a friend responded like that, we can call up and reference and resource that builds to this relational understanding and our kind of attachment system.
And the more I mean this is what I'm so grateful that the research teaches us that we are always adding and updating our experiences. Like this is the neuroplasticity of relationships. Right. That we get to continue to update what we know and be in real advocacy and agency around it. Yeah.
Absolutely.
Wonderful.
Well, how do people get in touch with you? I love how articulate. And you describe these principles so well. What would you like to encourage for people who want to get to know you and your work more?
Absolutely. Yeah. If you'd like to stay in touch, you can follow my work at Aubreyaust.com. I'm currently working on one and with couples. If you want to do more nervous system healing work or talk about how to explore safety within your personal or intimate relationships. And then also you can find me on Instagram at Aubrey__aust.
Great. Well, thank you so much for your time here today with us.
Thank you, Jessica. This was such a pleasure.
The post ERP 499: Regulate to Relate: Building Embodied Safety in Love — An Interview with Aubrey Aust appeared first on Jessica Higgins.
Why is it that talking about desire and intimacy with your partner can feel more intimidating than any other conversation in a relationship, even when you’ve shared years—or decades—together? So many couples silently struggle with mismatched libido, lost spark, or simply the discomfort of broaching sensitive topics about sex and pleasure. When left unspoken, these issues have the power to erode connection and joy in long-term relationships. If you’ve ever wondered why desire seems to fade, or why candid discussions about passion feel off-limits, you’re not alone.
In this episode, listeners are invited to explore how couples can move beyond just talking about desire and actually grow it together. Through stories, scientific insights, and actionable strategies, the conversation unpacks the barriers to open communication about sexuality—from shame and defensiveness to the physical and emotional roots of low libido. Along the way, listeners will learn how to build safety, cultivate presence, and consciously turn toward intimacy, laying the foundation for a relationship that’s vibrant, resilient, and full of authentic connection. Whether you’re seeking new energy with your partner or looking for tools to nurture your own sexual self-awareness, this episode is packed with practical guidance to help you rediscover your spark—together.
Dr. Diane Mueller, ND, DAOM, is a board-certified sexologist with dual doctorates in Naturopathic as well as Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine. She is the founder of the sex education center: MyLibidoDoc.com and hosts ‘The Libido Lounge' podcast, where she helps monogamous couples create more passion, desire, hotter sex, and better communication.
Episode Highlights06:23 Dr. Diane Mueller’s journey from healing vulvar pain to embracing sexual wellness.
07:48 Navigating relationship styles and lessons learned from open relationships in the pursuit of lasting passion.
10:34 The importance of open sexual communication and overcoming shame in relationships.
16:27 Building a foundation of safety and how positive feedback strengthens sexual communication.
25:24 Presence and pleasure, and the mindfulness connection for enhancing sexual experience.
30:13 Embracing emotions in sexuality, including the role of anger and emotional expression in intimacy.
36:12 Identifying dissociation and cultivating presence to deepen sexual experience.
37:47 Harnessing sex for healing by using altered states and partner practices for growth.
41:36 Personal growth and relationship success with reflections on healing, compatibility, and lasting love.
Your Checklist of Actions to Take* Start open and honest conversations about sex and desire with your partner to reduce shame and taboo. * Give specific, positive feedback after intimacy to build safety and connection. * Clearly discuss and define your relationship agreements and boundaries together. * Practice being present during intimate moments through mindful breathing or grounding exercises. * Try a sensual touch practice, like giving each other foot massages, while focusing on sensation and awareness. * Reflect on any personal beliefs or shame around sexuality and seek ways to address or release them. * Take time to identify your own turn-ons and communicate these clearly to your partner. * Use physical intimacy as an opportunity to process emotions, such as through movement, sound, or affirmations.
MentionedSex for One: The Joy of Selfloving (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
Revive Your Love Life: 5 Easy Steps for Mind-Blowing Orgasms and Romance (link) (Free ebook)
The Libido Quiz (quiz)
YourUnique Sex Language (quiz)
Libido Lounge (podcast)
ERP 489: Flow State and Sexual Connection: A New Dimension of Intimacy — An Interview with Emily Jamea
ERP 362: Understanding & Increasing Sexual Desire — An Interview with Dr. Lori Brotto
Evolve in Love (program)
Evolve In Love Discovery Session with Dr. Jessica Higgins (Acuity booking link)
Connect with Dr. Diane MuellerWebsites: mylibidodoc.com
Facebook: facebook.com/groups/1678228482662878
YouTube: youtube.com/channel/UCfWNwoCl4f4WMHpagB2KQsw
Instagram: instagram.com/mylibidodoc
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If you have a topic you would like it to be discussed, please contact us by clicking on the “Ask Dr. Jessica Higgins” button here.
Thank you so much for your interest in improving your relationship.
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Thank you!
*With Amazon Affiliate Links, I may earn a few cents from Amazon if you purchase the book from this link.
Episode Transcript
Dr. Diane, thank you for joining us.
Thank you, Dr. Jessica. I'm happy to be here.
Yes, and I know you do so much to support people in recognizing the vitality of their libido as it relates to relationships. And before we dive into our topic around desire, pleasure, libido, how did you become so focused on this? I know you have a background in naturopathic medicine, so where would you like to start?
Yeah, really, my passion for this is two-part. I actually became interested in the topic in my early 20s, but it was only just under five years ago that I really decided to make a career out of it, adding this to the various offerings I provide in the business world. So yeah, I can talk about this from two different angles. The first angle is in my early 20s, when I started developing some vulvar pain, and doctors could not figure out what it was. And this was before I was medically trained. I was actually my undergrad in finance. So I really didn't know anything about health back then. So when the conventional doctors were like, Well, tests are normal, we don't know, I really had no idea what to do.
And I was living with a roommate at the time who handed me a book that was a little shocking to me because I grew up where I had a lot of shame in my upbringing due to various reasons around masturbation, around self-pleasure. And so the book that my roommate handed me at this time, when I was complaining of my vulvar pain, was Sex for One by Betty Dodson. Which is all about self-pleasure, right? It's sex for one. And so when she first handed me this book, it was like, oh God, like I didn't even know what to do. First of all, I think I was very embarrassed. But I took the book and I went quietly to my room later that day, started reading, and the vulvar pain kicked in because it was worse at night.
And in her book, she talks about how she was explaining that
A beautiful smiling young woman having fun with raised arms and enjoying the city rivershore on a beautiful summer day.
**“When people were self pleasuring, pain was going away.”****
So it was like, it felt like this was speaking directly to me, which was probably why my roommate gave it to me. And so one very brave night, I decided to self-pleasure for the first time, and nothing happened. I did not burst into flames like I might have thought. And the pain went away. And I was like, this is interesting, came back the next night, tried it again, pain went away. This went on for a few nights, and eventually the pain was just gone altogether. So it really started reconstructing my beliefs. And I'm still, you know, a very spiritual person.
But it really started, you know, making me ask different questions, such as if I, you know, if God is good, if spirit is good, whatever we want to call this energy is good, then how would I have this body part that can actually heal me, and it's bad. It started just making me actually look at some of the shame I had around sex. So that was kind of my first, like just like an aha moment, and you know, and fast forward a couple of decades, I studied sex and sexuality, and you know, different techniques, tantra et cetera over the years. But then the real thing that got me interested in providing what I do for the world was when my marriage started failing. And when my marriage started failing, we had decided to try an open relationship.
And I would say it was successful from a standpoint of like all the conversations you have to navigate, the complexity of that. We never fought, like there was never any anger. Right. So we were able to have these complicated conversations, I would say, healthily. But ultimately, what I learned in that is that relationship style is not for me. I am very monogamous. I love monogamy. And you know, it ended up being one of the things that actually split my ex-husband and me up because he discovered the opposite. And so went our separate ways. But one of the things that really inspired me is like, okay, there's so much novelty and hotness and passion in that style of relationship.
So it became like a mission of mine then to look at the science and look at research and look at, you know, sex training to say how can we take passion and the science of what's happening in the chemicals of the brain around passion and how can we actually apply that to a long-term relationship that tends to lose that? And so that's been my passion for the past five years, is really studying that and bringing that not only into my own relationship, but into, you know, the relationships and the heart of long-term couples.
Thank you so much for giving context and just some of your personal sharing, as well as how this has been informed by your training, education, and also weaving back to personal experience that has really asked you to do a deeper dive in a way that you're really able to help so many people who are confronted with similar dynamics.
Yeah, it's true. It's so common, right? Like, there's one survey that shows about 70% of people want to talk to their doctor about sex and don't. So you know, to me, surveys like that show that this is actually a pretty big conundrum that people are having around, like, you know, either wanting to want it right. Either you know, like knowing there's no desire, but actually wanting to bring that into that relationship. It's not working. It's boring. They can orgasm, but I can't. They want it all the time, and I don't. And I think these are really common questions that come up that clearly in surveys, people are dying to have some place to talk about. And we're still, it's still like so taboo, unfortunately.
So that's really a lot of the work is like bringing this to light, to say, this is a part of life, this is part of humanity, this is part of love. Right.
A romantic couple smiling while looking into each other's eyes with love
***“This is part of a relationship that keeps a relationship strong. And let's take the covers off and really start talking about it.”*****
Oh, my goodness, yes. And it's interesting. I was just meeting with another clinician before our interview here, and she was talking about some study that I. I think it was related more to non heteronormative people, but just across the board. When a therapist or a coach isn't asking about sex, it's hard to even bring it up if you want support with that. So even just in the very intimate space of addressing relational challenges, if it's not being prompted or talked about, it can still feel as if people are shy or have shame or uncertainty; it's hard to approach.
Yeah, I think we're, you know, as humans, we are always reading the room, right? Like, is this appropriate? I think we have this tendency as humans, which is generally a positive thing, to like, not want to say something that's going to offend the other person or make the other person feel uncomfortable. And that's generally a good thing. But when it comes to our, you know, our professional relationships around, our clinical relationships, our therapists, our doctors, unfortunately we don't have the framework yet to say, hey, there isn't enough of movement of clinicians to actually ask those questions to make it comfortable for people to even know that's a possibility around, like, oh, we can talk about this too.
And I know in some of the continuing education I've done in sex therapy, et cetera, a lot of the continuing education there is like, if you're gonna be a relationship therapist, and I'm not a therapist, I'm a doctor, but if you're going to be a relationship therapist, like, you can't do this and not talk about sex. And a lot of relationship therapists are doing it and not talking about sex.
Yeah, I mean, I know my training is, you want to make sure to ask, at least in the first one or two sessions, even if they're like, yeah, you know, just to really, like, give room and space and normalize. And I so appreciate what you're saying about just different relationship structures and the necessity of one in a monogamous relationship. Well, first of all, the neurochemicals, as you're saying, the new, what I hear people saying, new relationship energy. Right. That first nine to 18 months, all heavily fueled by those neurochemicals. And just all the novelty there, but that often there's a level of discussion to negotiate that I think couples who have been in a relationship or are so-called, maybe even resting in the assumed monogamy.
Like, I think there are so many different ranges and continuums and flavors of how people can structure even in. Within monogamy or non-monogamy, but the non-monogamy, just to speak specifically, people cannot have these conversations because they're resting in some assumed frame when that is likely not the case. What would you say?
I mean, I think we get into these relationships and oftentimes we have assumed agreements, and these agreements are largely dictated by our upbringing, our value systems, our things we're ashamed about, societal implications. And oftentimes, people even get married or get into committed relationships without even talking about some of their agreements. So whether we're talking about monogamy or non-monogamy, you're right. There is like very many flavors of how this is. Like, you know, in my relationship, I'm still able to have deep and meaningful friendships with men, you know, just friendship. But if I want to go and have dinner with a male friend of mine, I'm allowed to do that. My male friends know my boyfriend, and they have become friends too. But that's our agreement. In some monogamous relationships, that's not okay.
So I think in the grand spectrum of things, one of the most important things is we're actually talking about this and preferably like early on. But if not, that's okay. You know, it's. Even when surveys showed that all the couples that the survey interviewed who are happy with their sex and intimate life, 92% of them talked about sex. 92% of the happy couples. Right. So that's so amazing because to me, it's like that just shows so much around, like,
A young couple in love on the beach. A young man and a woman in love on vacation
**“We need to talk about this, we need to talk about what we like, we need to talk about what we don't.”**
And we need to. Whether it's in an open relationship or a closed relationship, we need to talk about, like, what are the rules around how we're interacting with other people?
What is allowed, what is not allowed, what needs to be shared, and what does not need to be shared. You know, it's like if my partner meets a woman at the coffee shop and they flirt for a few minutes, I have no problem with that. But I also don't want to know that.
Okay.
You know, that's just like he can have that moment, that is fine. Build up that energy, you know, don't get her number. But you know, bring that energy home to me, and I have no problem with that. But I also don't need that in my head. That's our agreement. And so that's really like those types of details. It's like really important to talk about. And I think we don't.
Well, yes, agreed. And also, I would add when we're feeling pleasure individually, as you talked about, just knowing self and self, the body of self, that it's amazing how these conversations are vulnerable and difficult to broach even within the context of a long-term monogamous relationship. And you've known this person, you trust them, and like all the maybe ways that you're securely functioning, and still, some of this uncharted territory.
I think the reason for that, and then you probably have seen studies like this in your work, where it's like in any time there's like conflict in a relationship, there are three threats: a threat to one individual, the other, and the group space. And what's interesting about the common, the conversations around sexual. Out of those three threats, there's one threat that is substantially higher, and it's a threat to the individual. So, meaning if I'm going to have a conversation with my partner about sex, I'm going to tend to protect myself at all costs, and he's going to protect himself at all costs. So we tend to be extra defensive, extra protective of ourselves when we're talking about sex.
And you know, we could theorize that it's like evolution around us all want to pass on our genetic seed, and there's a subconscious reason for that. I think we can theorize on that. But the regardless, the most important thing is that we need to approach these conversations with understanding that there is going to be a natural tendency for everybody to be on the defensive. And it's a different muscle. Right. So even if we're really skilled in these conversations in other ways, it is a different muscle. So one of the things that I really work with couples on starting to have these conversations, is first to really only focus on the specifics and the positives and be extremely specific.
So meaning like the next day after making out, after having an intense hug, after having sex, whatever it is, the next day, being very specific and being like, oh wow, the way you touched my thigh, like oh honey. And just really build up the specifics of that, of what you love, and start to spend more time talking about sex, but only talking initially about Oh, that thing you did that. Oh God, that is awesome. Give me more. And one of two things is going to happen. First of all, you're probably going to start getting more of that and less of the things you don't like naturally because they're going to focus more on what you love. ,
But secondly, it's starting to build that foundation of safety and working that muscle so that when we get to like the level two of this, you know, skill building technique of talking about sex when we're in level two, then we can start bringing in, oh, okay, now we're going to talk about the things that we don't like and we of course have ways to do that, but it's going to work a lot better because you've already laid this foundation and already going to go into this conversation with like, wow, she said a hundred things she loves about like how I make love. Like, okay, my ego is now really high. So there's this one thing I need to tweak. Oh yeah, I want to do that because I am like, look at me, I'm sex God. Or, you know, whatever.
Well, I appreciate that. And we are humans, and as you said, just the safety of these conversations and that our nervous systems are engaged, and when it is, the stakes are so high, and it feels threatening, and we're getting negative feedback, as much as we wanna feel mature and emotionally regulated, that there will likely be a rattle to that. So part of the elixir or just even the joy of being able to have some of these conversations is really establishing some goodwill, or even, as people might say, love in the bank. That's a resource that we're genuinely acknowledging.
Exactly. And that's what it is. It's like building up. I know the, like the Gottmans, you know, the relationship coaches there, they talk about this like a bidding system around, like, oh, how many times can you like bid for your partner's attention? And the times you need to kind of turn towards them, and you know, get that positive feedback, or be like, oh, I missed the bid. I'm like so in my head with all the things, and I can't remember the ratio. I think it might be five to one. I can't remember what their ratio is. But the point here is very similar. Around, like,
A close-up side view of a smiling multiracial couple touching noses outdoors.
*“The more that we're turning towards our partner in these kind of conversations and giving them positive feedback, we're really filling up that bank.”*
like, you know, in the terms you use so that we do have to bring something up that we want to get rid of, which, you know, when it comes to being in the bedroom and filling and fulfilling and say, eliminating things that talk about like the orgasm gap where one partner can orgasm so much more quickly and easier and a lot another lover is left waiting. You know, we need to talk about how we can merge and bring that gap closer to neutral. And so we have to talk about things like Oh yeah, when you do that, honey, it like actually turns me off. We need to get to a point where we can say that.
But we do like the bank you're talking about. When we get that bank so full, when we turn towards our partner so much, then we wind up, like say depleting the bank in such a less impactful way because our bucket's so full.
And the resilience is there, right? The resource and we have strengthened the associations around connecting in the sexual intimate space. You know, it's so interesting, when you were talking about this first step, I actually thought you were going to talk about more of the individual self relationship with body pleasure. And maybe it's from your story, but also, like, even when we talk about humans, it's easy to assume, and we're talking about gender in this binary way. So that's how people experience their sexuality, their gender, and how they identify. And also we have humans that, whether or not neurotypical, neurodivergent, like I know people who identify as being a little bit more highly sensitive, right.
That if they're running through the world and modern day living and so overstimulated that coming to the sexual space it's more stimulating and it's like actually no, I need to calm my nervous system, I need to really downregulate, to even then be open. And there are so many ways in which people may be out of touch with self. But even to go with your first point, that if we're going to give feedback to be able to reflect on what did feel good, can I be specific? Can I actually hone in and identify to give that positive feedback? You want to comment on any of that?Yeah, I mean, when you're talking about this, I mean, there are so many different root causes of low desire, of low drive, of some level of say imbalance. I don't really like the word sexual dysfunction because I don't really think it's dysfunction from that standpoint. I just think it's a bad word. But you know, in balance, when things aren't working, totally correct. And I usually put this into three pillars. So one pillar is like a physical reason. So this is the cardiovascular system, our blood flow to our genitals, our Hormones, our neurological system, like are we sending the signals correctly? Is there numbness? Is there pelvic pain? Anything that kind of falls in the physical realm, and then there's the personal realm. And that's like
Portrait of a mature and young woman
**“What are our beliefs around sex? Do we have shame? How well do we know our own body? Do we even know our body well enough to turn ourselves on?”**
to be able to tell our partner what our turn-ons are? And then the third is the interpersonal. So this is how we are relating to the other person. What is more than play? So you know, so far in our conversation, a lot of what we've talked about is more like how we are talking or coming together and talking and communicating about this. But some of what you're talking about from more of the pleasure side, I would put that into more of the personal root causes. And those are definitely a very important part of the pillar system that we have to address.
So you know, one of the things I say there is that in the personal side of things that pleasure is in many ways a mindfulness-based activity, right? The capacity to experience pleasure is directly related to the capacity to be present. And even you know what happens to so many humans, and oftentimes, stereotypically, I see this more in women, but it can happen to any human, is that when we are in bed and when we are intimate that the mind all of a sudden wanders. And there's that fleeting thought of like crap, I forgot to put the laundry in the dryer, or oh, I did not do this with the kids, or oh, I forgot to pick this up at the grocery store, right? The monkey chatter.
And just like with meditation, like the meditation practice is like, oh, the mind wanders, recognize it being like, okay, I'm returning to my breath, I'm returning to my stillness, whatever it is, you know, the same thing is true with pleasure. Pleasure is not, is another thing that's like not a destination in many ways. It's like a continuum and a commitment to say, Hey, this is part of my self-care practice. This is part of how I'm dropping the things of the day, and I'm attuning to my body, I'm attuning to the peace of the moment. And that's really one of the reasons why I say that
romantic couple, beautiful woman seducing a man in white clothes, and sitting ina private pavilion
“Pleasure is not just about desire but something that we require.”
Because it's this amazing mindfulness practice of being like, I'm fully just going to be here and enjoy what all of these sensations that my body gets to experience as a human and that is going to involve not only being prag, you know, present, but also doing practices to work on any sort of shame, any sort of belief system that we had getting in the way of. Of us actually being present.
Oh, my goodness. I so appreciate how you're just organizing this and also distilling this in the personal column or pillar, and the direct correlation with pleasure and presence and what's occurring to me, you know, as you're describing, a very common experience of multitasking or having so many things on the list. I. I know one guest who was talking about desire and arousal, and I think she actually wrote a book. Yeah, it's Emily Jamia.
Oh, yeah. Anatomy of Desire. Yes.
And talking about flow state with sex and her research around that. And I loved it. And she was saying my recommendation for one of her kind of whose themes were to do one task at a time, similar to what you're talking about. And I know we mentioned Lori Barano's work, and when I'm thinking about even the emotional, because I think these pillars are likely interconnected, to talk about them to help give awareness, it's beneficial to look at them in distinct ways. So my thought was for the emotionals, if what's getting in the way of being present could be the physical, could be the relational dynamics, and even personally, if one is feeling a tremendous amount of stress.
Or I know I was talking to this clinician, she was saying men's low desire has gotten less attention and sometimes that's related to perhaps not having as much range emotionally, feeling angry or the unprocessed emotion or shame, as you said, and not having a lot of resolution, like, if one gets present, hello, all of that is there. And how do we feel sexual when we perhaps are still working through a whole heck of a lot. But I wonder what if you would agree or tell me how you see.
Yeah, I think one of the problems we're in with some of the, like, the new age, you know, spiritual movement, and there's a lot of benefit from that movement. But one of the problems, I think, is that there's oftentimes this belief that we need to constantly be finding neutrality. So, yeah, I was deeply part of a meditative community for a long time that served me well. But one of the reasons I left this community is exactly this, that it was like the teachings were that, okay, well, if you're too angry or too sad or too happy or anything like that, any of that was like, not good. And you had to quickly bring yourself to, like, be as even as possible throughout life. And the moment you're angry, go into meditation so you can be even.
If you're too joyful, go into meditation to be even. And I actually don't think that's right. Wow. I just set off fireworks. Okay, good. Perfect timing. I don't know how I did that.
I've never seen these. I don't know why they're showing up. I don't know if they're on your end, but this is great. You, like, did a thumbs up earlier and then like fireworks.
I wish I could repeat that, but that was really great timing. So we'll just gonna go with that to really feed the point I'm making. But, you know, with that, I think there are problems there, right? Because of all of these things, it's like, yeah, it's like a great practice to, you know, work on how we can process anger and like, you know, not project on other people. And of course we want to, you know, work on those kinds of things. But I do think these emotions really have a purpose. And I think sometimes, you know, the masculine energy has unfortunately been looked at as the enemy versus, like, this energy that is, like, really powerful. And so how do we allow that powerful intensity to have a place, but a safe place?
And so I really think too, that the bedroom can be a great way to play with these energies. Right. And this isn't to say that, okay, we're gonna take this aggression out into our partnership in an unhealthy way. By no means am I saying that. In fact, I'm saying quite the opposite. But like, I've taken, for example, part of my own cultivation is I've taken these dance classes, these sensual dance classes that I took seven or eight years ago. And what these dance classes were were these classes where we'd go in, you know, usually scantily dressed, females only, and we pick songs, and these songs, like, you could go in and have this day where you're just like feeling like pissed at the world. And then you're gonna dance and you're gonna do some sort of dance, which is usually this sexy dance.
But you're so in your body, and so you're dancing and you're moving out the anger. And it was so interesting because you're in these kinds of classes, you would be like the center of attention for a little while, and then you'd witness other women, and you'd be there, and then we would, you know, share afterwards. Such a healing experience to like, witness, and be with these women. For years, and be like, oh, wow, that is this woman processing anger or that is this woman excited about life? And you could see that process through the body, right?
Yeah.
So we can take that same thing in healthy ways into our sex life around, like, okay, well, again, with safety and parameters and respect and all the things, permission. But how can we actually move our body to process the energy when we're feeling all these things versus just saying that's bad? I'm going to ignore it. And I think that's one amazing way that sex and sexuality, especially when practiced and created in this way with a partner, can just be so multidimensional healing.
Oh, I love what you're saying, and I would love to have people have. If you're willing to give an example of that. I guess. One example that comes to my mind you mentioned tantra. I haven't done deep study, but I remember there being an exercise where it's like you have some pillows and then you're kind of exerting on the pillow individually, but shared and this kind of no energy of just like releasing stress through like where you're just able to really recognize what you don't want, don't like, and be physically embodied around it.
But before I ask your kind of example around how people might access this, it just occurs to me that so often, and you mentioned just men's development, I know a lot of anger management is actually coming into contact with the things that have felt injury or bringing attention to like where you felt slighted or maybe where you were suppressing anger and the accumulation of that. And that's where these outbursts. So it sounds like you're really inviting with ownership, with consciousness, with presence, that there can be welcome, and how to be with what is. And then in the shared space. I mean, this is something I would love to hear more from you around. But that can have a place for sure.
Yeah. I mean, some of it is like the capacity to be present. Right. Because at any time we're working with these sorts of things, the moment we start to dissociate is when we are almost pushing our edge more than we can, our nervous system can handle. So if we've been angry for a long time, right? And it's like examples like you're talking about, where it's like anger stacked on anger, where it's like, you know, where sometimes it's like hard to say where the root is of that. You know, say the original sensitizing or the original event. And so the ability to heal from any of these things, anger, sadness, any of it, in part, is related to our nervous system's capacity to stay present to it.
Young woman with black curly hair looking over the shoulder of her man with a big, strong back
“Anytime there is this thing that's too much for us to bear, we tend to fight, freeze.”
You know, fight, flight, or freeze. Right. And all of these are dissociative nervous system, or all of these are nervous system responses that are not healthy. And so the way we determine, okay, how. What am I ready for, what is safe for my body to do, in many ways is related to can I stay present? So if we're starting to say, okay, I want to process this anger, one of the things to do is say, start to feel sensations in our body, right? Like, where is this anger living? What does it feel like? Like, we can make sounds, we can do movements. How does it want to respond? But we need to do it from the state.
One of the key things that I've seen is that we need to do it from a state of staying present. So if I start going deeper in my body, around, like, where does it. Where does it live? And then all of a sudden, I'm thinking about my third-grade teacher for a weird reason. And that's, you know, it's one thing if that's connected to the event, but if it's not, that's a sign that I'm dissociating, and that's a sign that I'm not staying present to it. So, in some of the work, sound is a big thing in Tantra. You know, sound is. It can be a big thing in sex. Sound can be a big thing in energy.
Yeah.
But the biggest thing I really encourage people to do is, like, there is breath, sound, movement, which are three of the top ways to really start moving through this energy. And pick whatever one, you know, start with whatever one or a combination that you resonate with the most. So if you all, you know, love movement practices, you know, I would encourage you to, like, okay, if you're angry, start putting on a song that's like your anger song. And tune into not so much in your head, but right. But into the sensation in your body. Like, what part of, like, go deep and like, where does this Aang, where do I feel it is in my heart? Is it in my gut? And just put all of your consciousness from there and see how that part of your body wants to move. Right. And move from it.
And then invite yourself to go deeper around. Like, okay, is there a deeper part of this? And see if you can feel even more sensation. And as you're feeling more and more sensation. Just make sure you're in tune with that sensation and not checking out. If you are a singer or you love sound and you, like, you know, if you're more of a vocal person. What type of sound does this want to make? Does it need to hit a pillow? Does it need to jump at the same time as making a sound? Those sorts of things?
Yes. Thank you so much for giving an example and a path to help process or be with. Maybe in some cases metabolize, in other cases just be embodied and have the flesh flow of the emotional process. And combined with the. How I'm hearing you describe, I think, you know, the fight, flight, or freeze, likely in life. We're responding and gonna be activated in life multiple times a day. And that's it. If we're in the more optimal, as maybe some people in the polyvagal world would say, window of tolerance. Right. That we're looking for this window of tolerance so that we're regulated enough to be more present. That's where we have, they would say, like, a ventral state. Like, we can be creative, be intimate, be related.
When we're in the fight or flight, our other systems are on board, and we're not at that capacity. Exactly. And also, just as most of us, if we put trauma on a continuum, we have had overwhelming experiences. And my understanding about EMDR is that it's accessing the left and the right hemisphere to have a calming effect so that we can tolerate enough to reprocess some overwhelming things. So when you're talking about dissociating, I think this is actually more common. Again, if we put it on a spectrum that if we really are tuning in, when are we checking out? When are we in memory land? When are we? I mean, there's a lot of nuance to this.
Yeah. And I think that's. I mean, this same thing applies to sex. Right. A lot of times, when people are, you know, for men, finding that they go soft, say, in the middle of intercourse, or for women, when it's, you know, difficulty orgasming, and they don't really feel a lot of pleasure. Of course, there are many reasons, and usually it's a combination of reasons why that's happening. But oftentimes when that's happening, it's very common that there's an element of us dissociating. So just like you're saying around, like, paying attention to when this is happening? Like, oh, like when somebody's breast is being touched, maybe that's when you're dissociating. So going in, being like, you know, what is there in your spare time? Being like, okay, well, let me put on some music. Let me put myself into a calm state.
Maybe put your hands on your breasts and start to just explore and say, What is underneath here? Like,
Side view of a man and an ethnic woman in black swimwear lying on a sandy beach near a waving sea and embracing each other
“What is this part of my body telling me? How do I bring more safety to this part of my body so I don't have to dissociate?
Wow.
So it's almost as if using the shared partner sexual space as a source of information, we can get cues, indicators, and we have an opportunity to explore that further. Yeah.
And to take it. That's like step one. And to take it even further than that. And I'm going to give you a little bit more of an advanced skill here, which is where we can use sex for healing. Because we know, right? That is when our body, when our brain is in these hydraulic heightened state, we are highly suggestible. That's why amazing experts like Tony Robbins and Dr. Joe Dispenza, you know, are one of the reasons for creating these types of, like, amazing workshops where people are having these incredibly heightened states. Certain drugs, ayahuasca, and these, you know, medicine plant medicines like that are used for similar reasons, like put people in these highly altered states where we're more suggestible. Well, meditation's the same way. Sex and orgasm can be the same way. When we're present, it can create this highly altered state.
So a more advanced skill for people is again, like, once foundation is there and we've talked about sex and we're working with our partner and all these different things, a really fun exercise, and I love doing this with my partner is if, like, something is, like, coming up for me where it's like, oh, my gosh, I can't get this out of my head. I will come up with almost like a mantra, like something around. Like, I need this to program into my consciousness as my new normal, my new set point. So I will share this with my boyfriend. And then as I get into these heightened states, kind of train him around, like, hey, you know, this is when I want you to start whispering this in my ear, right. So we're in that altered state.
And then we can use sex for helping to help reprogram whatever we need to do to help heal from those things. So not only is it a pleasure, and it's like all those other things, but it's like deeply healing. And then it's like working together with your partner to heal, which is just from A standpoint of intimacy and closeness standpoint. Right.
“That level of connection that comes from that sort of intimacy is really, it's just the next level.
Thank you. And for people listening who are looking for maybe what that looks like, an example of that would be if somebody is really recognizing, oh, I recognize, I defer to people a lot, and I'm really trying to receive and acknowledge my worth or even just the affirmation of like I'm worthy, then having a partner affirm that. Is that kind of what you're just suggesting? Okay.
I mean example is like no matter, like I'm 15 years into my practice and like no matter how deep I get into my work, I still have imposter syndrome come up sometimes, around like oh my goodness, who am I to teach this? And all these like things that can come up around, like my own value. Right?
Totally.
And so if I'm going through a period where I'm like having any sort of self doubt around like oh my goodness, like am I offering something to the world that's an example of like, okay, Mike is my partner's name and I'll just say like Mike, you know, I just want you to read affirm that I am powerful and I am changing the world and that sort of thing.
That, that's beautiful.
Yeah, it's really fun.
Oh, I love that. Well, I know we're winding down. I wanted to circle back just to clarify. Clarify when you were describing that being present doesn't have to be an individual thing, that this could be a shared thing. Do you want to give somebody an example or people an example around if this is not their norm or not a comfort zone? How to access more presence together that might be more embodied or make room for different ranges of emotion or experiences, but. Anything you want to mention?
Yeah, I mean, a simple thing from a co-presence practice is either a very non sexual touch practice or a breath work practice. So fun, tantric breathwork practice is doing like a breathing practice where it's like, okay, the one person breathes and the energy comes up the back over the crown. So you're breathing in together and then it goes out, you're out together, and you're going down the front side, so you're crossing, creating what we call the microcosmic orbit. So it's up the back with the inhale down the front. And so you're just kind of tracing an imaginary line on the exhale down the front of your body, and tracing an imaginary line with the inhale up the back of your body. So you create this orbit. And so you can do that with a partner.
You can put your hands on each other's hearts. You know, another thing that I really encourage people to do is just start a sensual practice. And so a sensual touch practice. And it could start with just like a foot massage, and you're really practicing going back and forth. So if I'm massaging my partner's feet, as I'm massaging them, my work is to pay attention to how my hands feel. Like, first, all my mind is like, how does it feel in my hands to feel his feet? So I'm more focused on my hands, and then I change my focus to how his feet feel against my hands? So we can change that awareness. And all we're doing, and then he's doing the same. He's focused more on his feet initially and then more on my hands.
And so what we're doing, in addition to getting a great foot massage along the way, is we're actually practicing that art of being completely in touch with the sensations, but then also with using our mind to change our orientation to be like, oh, we can focus more predominantly on any part of our body at any given time with our awareness. So we're practicing that awareness cue to be like, oh, what does it feel like when I actually change my awareness this way? Which is allowing us. It's a good skill to be in the present, and that's a very simple partner thing that you can do.
Thank you. Yeah, I can see how helpful that is. In lower risk, perhaps.
Low stakes.
Yeah, low stakes. To just be able to start building some practice here. I love it. Well, I wanted to go back last question. As you shared your story with us. I don't know if you call him your ex-husband, but yeah, ex-husband. Knowing what you know now, I mean, I get when people want different things. There's some incompatibility there. Do you feel like this is? I mean, I imagine you're doing this to help save people from maybe unnecessary ruptures or divorces, but do you feel like, I guess, less about your ex, but just. Do you feel like this would have made a difference for you and previous relationships, some of what you're offering others, and what to cultivate here personally?
Like, with my ex, like, there was just. So we're going such different directions in our lives, so it made so much more sense to be like we're. And it was. I mean, honestly, we had value differences that I should have recognized earlier on. It's like we're going different directions, and you know, we fall in love, and I just kind of ignored some of those signs. So I don't think it would have made a difference with him. But I do think it is one of the most profound things as far as why I'm having success in my current relationship, which is, you know, five years in. So we're still new. Ish. But, you know, it's still. We're way past the honeymoon phase. Yes. You know, and to have. And you know, I'm helping him raise his three kids, so I'm in a stepmom role.
So we've had all these new, like, experiences that could be really challenging, and we just keep going deeper and more committed to passion and the hotness and all the things. So I do feel like from my personal relationship now, it's making a huge difference. Yeah.
And I'm imagining you would say that this is helping people access new territory in themselves and others, which helps open possibilities for relationships.
Exactly, exactly. The idea is like helping people feel more connected to themselves, more capable of a more profound way of love, and really
Portrait Of a Loving Couple Outdoors In the Garden Or the Countryside
“Grow together, grow old together in a way where there's still an element of that, like almost flood fun, flirty, teenage kind of vibe in there somewhere.”
Really fun.
Yes. Well, for people who want to work with you, learn from you, and connect with you, what would you invite them to?
So definitely go check out my book. So when we're filming this, it is out for pre-order. By the time this episode gets dropped, it'll be right around the time it is actually ready for launch. But whether you buy it for pre-order or right after it's launched, I am giving away a ton of free bonuses as a thank you for being an early purchaser of my book. So right now it's almost up to 300 worth of free bonuses for everybody. So it's called Want to want it. So you can find it at wanttowantit.com, so that's amazing. You can also go check out my yes, no, maybe checklist.
My yes, no, maybe checklist as a way that you can take this kind of quiz with your partner to talk about, like, oh, what sort of novel types of things could you actually bring in that would be interesting for both of you to bring passion back into your life. So you can find that at my site, sexdoc.com, so it's two links for you to want it and my sex doc.
Wonderful. And I know you have so many more links as far as social media, and you have, I think, a group like a master class group, my libido club. Yep, your libido club and all the goodies. So I'll make sure to have all those links on today's Show Notes. Thank you so much for being with us and sharing all that you did.
Oh, thank you, Jessica. It was really wonderful to be here with you.
The post ERP 498: Turn Toward, Turn On: How Couples Grow Desire (Not Just Talk About It) — An Interview with Dr. Diane Mueller appeared first on Jessica Higgins.
Have you ever faced a family crisis only to realize that financial instability adds an overwhelming weight to an already heavy moment? Or maybe you’ve felt isolated as the “first” in your family to reach new professional heights, only to discover no one handed you a playbook for building true generational wealth. Financial challenges don’t just shake our wallets—they can ripple through our relationships, legacies, and even our sense of security and belonging.
In this episode, listeners are invited to think beyond individual wealth and step into a bold new perspective: managing your family like a thriving enterprise. You’ll discover why taking the role of “Family CEO” is not only possible but essential if you want to break cycles of financial insecurity and create a blueprint for lasting abundance. Through candid conversation and practical examples, this episode explores how intentional leadership, open communication, and collaborative vision-setting can empower you and those you love to build a family legacy that lasts.
LaVaisha Davis is a wealth manager and advisor at Ell Wess Advisors, a firm offering family office solutions to founders, executives, and investors. She specializes in wealth-building, legacy planning, and asset protection—empowering clients to build financial independence and generational wealth. With a no-nonsense yet engaging style, she breaks down complex strategies like becoming your own bank. Her mission: to show people their family is their first enterprise—and should be managed like a business to build lasting wealth.
Episode Highlights05:42 Lavisha Davis recalls how family tragedy became a turning point for financial awareness.
08:53 How pain and loss inspired leadership and deeper financial responsibility.
12:03 What it means to be the family CEO: Mindset and misconceptions.
14:49 The challenges and opportunities of being the first financial trailblazer.
17:24 Crafting a shared family vision and values around wealth.
20:57 Running the family like a corporation: Structure, roles, and the family bank.
29:42 Understanding the risks and the need for transparency.
31:33 The cost of poor planning including inheritance, probate, and lost wealth.
37:13 Turning family strengths and structure into lasting wealth.
42:30 How to get started: Practical support and CEO training resources.
Your Check List of Actions to Take* Clarify your wealth vision by choosing whether to focus on personal financial security or building generational wealth. * Adopt the Family CEO mindset and lead your household with intentional financial goals and strategies. * Establish a family bank to manage shared resources as if you were running a business account. * Have open money conversations to build trust, clarify roles, and reinforce shared commitments. * Identify and leverage family strengths by assigning financial roles that align with each person’s skills. * Provide financial education for yourself and your family to make informed decisions and prepare future generations. * Create a governance system with clear values, rules, and processes for collective decision-making. * Take consistent action by turning plans into progress through small but steady financial steps.
MentionedIncome to Wealth Masterclass (webinar registration link)
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Episode Transcript
LaVaisha, thank you for joining us. I'm excited about our conversation and happy to have you here.
I'm happy to be here. Jessica. Thank you for having me.
Yes, yes. And you do so much to support people in the financial space and looking at family and couples and how to think beyond just the individual wealth building mindset. And I love that approach. And one of the topics we're going to talk about is the family CEO mindset. And before we get started in that, talk to us a little bit about how this area or your field became of interest to you.
Well, I sure will share that. First, I want to share with everyone. I'm currently the lead wealth advisor at LWITS Advisors. It's a firm that I also am a founder of that provides that wealth management service. But it was there through detour. I actually was striving to go to medical school when I was in college, but my husband had a. He kind of got bit by the entrepreneur bug and getting bit by the entrepreneur bug in college, when you're a broke college student, you know, I've never quite grasped that. But it was his choice and in support of that, kind of embarked on that journey with him. So through entrepreneurship, we found quite a few challenges.
And keep in mind, this was a time before it was trendy, you know, before there was resources and direct support that you could just reach out and get. We're talking 2009, 2010. So it was quite of a bumpy journey. But we had, we realized that what was the most bumps was the financial aspect, really not knowing just how to manage finances. As a new business owner, it reflected everywhere. We just couldn't manage cash flow properly, you know, how to manage growth, how to scale, how to do those things, how to even read financial statements, how to separate our business and personal finances. It was all a blur. So in order to get some clarity there, I kind of just dived deep into that aspect of the business, like, okay, we have to learn the money side. Fast forward that.
In an effort to learn that for ourselves. Tragedy struck my family and I lost my brother, who was a victim of violence at the time, and my mother's only son. Now that moment was just like a eye opener because it was a direct reflection of where my family stood in probably the biggest tragedy that can occur, which is death. We didn't have the resources to bury my brother properly and not just individually, but even collectively. We couldn't even collaboratively put the things together necessary to give him A proper homegoing. And then he had a. His daughter was 10 years old at the time. My niece, she still needed financial support. And it just was, again, an eye opener that let me know that, okay, we're not only individual financial strengths. We collaboratively and as a group, we could not support one another.
And it just was like, okay, we have to make some changes. And those
Young depressed woman attending mental health counseling at community center.
*“Changes aren't going to happen by accident. They're only going to happen with intent.“*
So I intentionally pursued licenses and financial education that could represent my family on a bigger scale. Like, now we're talking about how to set everybody up financially and from there just kind of grew within the financial service industry and started to do the same for other families.
Wow. Well, first of all, I am sorry for the loss. I know it's been several years, but I know it's never. That absence is always with us. And I appreciate your willingness to share that openly and I imagine still tender to some respect. And also, just when you're speaking about what you and your husband now. Husband, it sounded like you were referring to him.
Yes.
Okay. I mean, I'm just struck by the ambition and what you both were able to cultivate. I mean, first of all, like, he had a vision. It sounds like he sold you on some level, like, and you were really resonating with it. Also, looking back, like, how that actually made logistical sense, being that, you know, he was in college or maybe you're both in college and, like, how you were able to test the model. Right. And recognizing the areas of maybe weakness or growth that was needed and really addressing that head on. Like, I just appreciate your ability to assess that or as a couple, assess that.
And then also being really confronted with this huge tragedy and how that was also asking for how we continue to have this level of strength financially and as a family, just seeing, again, where there was weakness in showing up the way we want to show up for our family. And even when there's something really horrific that happens, that how we can handle it. Like, it's not just like it's been tested. It sounds like.
Absolutely. And it's one of those, like, unfortunately for me and for probably many listeners, is it usually takes tragedy to trigger change.
Oh, my gosh, yes. Fear is the biggest motivator.
It is when that fear makes itself present. Like I said, losing a family member is probably one of the biggest devastations that family can go through. And depending on what they're in on, how deep that devastation can go, it can create debt, as we said. And that did happen in order to cover the expenses that comes with losing someone. I don't think people understand or if you do from experience, the expenses that come with that have to be paid up front. There is no delay or there is no payment plan. There isn't anything like that. So that now debt has been added to the already financial stress. And then when you couple that with like my mother's situation, not only did she lose a child and didn't have the financial resources at that time, her retirement was non existent. And that was.
That all came to the forefront after this moment. Like, okay, so we don't have anything that we can pull from that means that you don't have anything for your future in place anyway. And it was just all of those light bulbs just going off at once. Like, no, we have to do something to change this.
Yes. Like all those signals like alarm. I want to correct myself. Pain is the biggest motivator. Right. Like I said, fear, but. But I was like, wait a second, it's pain. Cause it's like, yeah, we all have fear, but. And sometimes it can be more pronounced. But when we feel that level of pain. And so this was super confronting. And you sounds like we're in a place of willingness to take some leadership and be honest and look at, I mean, sometimes being awake, it's like the whole ignorance is bliss. Like sometimes tragedy forces us to it, but being willing to look at it head on, that's not easy to do.
Leadership is the key word that you mentioned. There is what goes right into the family CEO mindset because it's typically just the person deciding to not leave the outcome of their family's lifestyle, retirement, or financial stability to change. You're kind of taking the horn by the reins. Like you're kind of taking the horn by the reins and deciding that I am going to be intentional in the guidance that I provide and how far you want to go with that family CEO mindset is what I think we're going to get into today. Because mindset is one, action is another, and there's so many things in between.
Yes. I love that we're vibing off each other. So I think it's take the horse by the reins and the bull by the horns. Regardless, we got the point. Thank you.
We, we're in this together. They're coming. They're coming.
Yes, yes. Okay, let's pivot towards the CEO mindset. I would love to hear a little bit about how you see that sounds like leadership's a really big component of that and One of the things I'm hearing you, in family dynamics or in life, we tend to do what we know and sometimes there's intergenerational relationships we have with money or relationship stories we have with money. So in leadership we have an opportunity to be intentional. You use that word already and maybe look at, okay, this is how we've done things up until now. How do we really want to do things? But tell me, how do you see the CEO mindset?
You just described it in that last statement. This is how we've been doing things thus far, but now we are going to do things differently. Oftentimes I think the misconception about financial stability, and I use that interchangeably with will because well has a variety of definitions, that's, you know, what it means to you. And financial stability, whether we can self sustain can fall into one of those definitions. But I'll use those terms interchangeably. But most people can see financial stability as a result of luck, intelligence or fate. Like if they don't have one of those three things that they cannot create this family wealth, when in actuality it isn't any of those things that produces it.
It's the leadership, the intention behind the leadership, the vision and the clarity, the strategy, the structure, the system that is what creates the opportunity for families to break some of those, like you said, those intergenerational relationships with money and give kind of a blueprint, a reference point or a benchmark
Family are sitting at a desk with a paper receipt and calculating expenses, managing budget.
*”This is how we deal with money. And it doesn't have to be a secret conversation, it's an open conversation because that's how wealth has been established over time, is by dealing with giving this blueprint, this system and this structure that everyone that's with us now and coming behind us can follow.*
And the family CEO just decides to step into that leadership role and be intentional about filling any other necessary roles to bring wealth or make their wealth a reality. That's exactly it.
Now of course, like you said, there's going to be nuances in between there, education and experience. You're going to have to gain. But the first thing is declaring yourself as your family CEO.
I'm so struck by what I could call or project as courage. But I'm like, the feeling I'm getting is like, you're not afraid. Like I mentioned the word fear earlier and as you just named so succinctly, what can be involved in this approach? It sounds values based. Like sometimes people associate money with this very practical, like kind of mechanical thing that doesn't necessarily, I don't Feel me in it, right? Like what?
As highest value.
Or you have people that want to feel freedom or people who want to feel secure, like you have different opposing needs and values. But how you just laid this out feels like a lot, but also feels really clear and aligned.
It does feel like a lot.
But you're not. I mean, you're saying this is doable, this isn't something to shy away from. This is. And even if you need to bridge the gap and get some education and get some support, this is doable.
Absolutely. That's exactly it. And recognizing that if you need that support, it can be found, you don't have to suffer in silence. That's a common struggle. Especially if you are the first in your family to have certain achievements, whether that is, maybe you're the first entrepreneur, maybe you're the first person to earn over six figures, maybe you're the first person to go to college and have a career, whatever that is. If you are a first timer, it can have a very isolated feeling. And it, like I said, makes you struggle in silence to make you think, oh, I'm the first person in my family to do all these things.
So they already have expectations that I know this stuff, that I know what it takes, that I am already educated in that area, when there might be some areas that you don't know much about when it comes time to building wealth for your family. And that is. Okay. That's the part that I think is also hard for people to take on that family CEO role because they feel like they need to know it all right out the gate. And that is. That's not the case at all. Wow.
I mean, for one, that's a first timer. Sometimes we don't know what we don't know. So as we have a vision, take some leadership, sometimes it requires learning. And also I can appreciate if I don't know, help me if this is part of what you're mentioning here, that if we don't have elders or generational wealth that can put people in this place of have or have nots. Right. I do think that mentoring and that being exposed to what is possible, whether or not it's in business, entrepreneurship, education, like, I do think that is real and significant. I do think there's ways that we can curate that when we don't actually have it in our family. And also you're saying this is still possible.
Yes. I agree with everything you just said. Absolutely.
So can you give us an example you named. I mean, you did it so beautifully. I can't Remember exactly how to reflect it back in precision. And maybe you want to do it again around what all you recommend that's a part of this system as far as being a CEO. The values, the vision, the strategy and how to implement it. Can you give us an example, just for people who are getting their mind around how it might be different than what we might just habitually do? I mean, you said sometimes we might ignore or not really that connected to our money. But how does this look like in full? Like, can you give us an example when one is in the CEO mindset? Yes.
You know, in fact, I, I always encourage people to ask themselves this one question, like, hey, do I just want to build financial security for myself? You know, am I where I have sufficient retirement, I won't be a burden on my loved ones? The lifestyle I want to live, I'm able to financially support that. Is that what's important to me? Or am I seeking to build financial security not only for myself, but for the next generation to continue with? Do I want to leave them resources they can build upon? Those are two different paths. And once you answer that question, then it's clear whether you need to take on that CEO role or not. Because discipline can produce sufficient retirement. You know, as long as you are saving.
I know these are some basics, although they're basic, there are still some hardship to obtain them, but there are some basic ways of saving and compounding and being consistent that can help you set yourself up individually. But now if you are concerned about the people you haven't seen yet, like grandchildren or your children, and the resources that you give them, and having a sound set of financial values, if that's important to you, then the CEO is the mindset or the role that we need to take on. Now, once you decide that once we get into the system, if you're a CEO, that means you're a CEO of a corporation. And you now have to not just see your family as the people that you love, but now you have to see your family for the corporation that it is.
And understand now it's time to structure and manage my family like a business, like how a business would, because we have some of the same characteristics. Corporations have revenue. Families have revenue. Our income, our bonuses, tax refunds, these are all sources of revenue. Corporations have expenses. Families have expenses. Corporations have shareholders. Families have shareholders. Those people that you live with are those people that you love. And when you start to see it that way now you start to think of, how can I grow this like a business? How can I Protect it like a business. I'm in charge, I'm the CEO. I have to create the vision, the mission, the goals, what we're trying to achieve. So it's a mindset shift that has to happen first. And then you start to put the system in place.
And the very first step, I always encourage someone that deciding to become the family CEO is starting the family bank that needs time. So the sooner you say, hey, I'm going to be the CEO and you start the family bank and then you start pursuing education, experience, now you're filling certain roles in your family corporation, like your advisors. Now you're building it out. And you build it out slowly over time while you're building your family bank. So when it's time for this corporation to go to the next level or AKA transfer to the next generation, it has a system that you just hand over. And the next generation gets to just add their flair because flair happens. As we can see. Children have their own paths that they're able to take that can contribute to the family wealth or the family corporation.
They have their own ways, but they need the resources and the system to do it. So that's like the first mindset choose are we building generational wealth? Once we do that, now we have to change our perspective. We see our family like a business. And just like when you go start that LLC or that business, you start the bank account, you go start your family bank, 1, 2 and 3, and we build from there.
That's so helpful, thank you. And I have a follow up question, but first I want to just acknowledge the interconnectedness. Like even if one is in pursuit of more of the individual mindset or even maybe someone isn't partnered, doesn't have children, right? Like that just circumstantially makes sense. And, and also there is a way in which we are still interconnected, even if we don't have this sense of so called traditional family structure and that to potentially contemplate how to build wealth from this more collective, as you said way, because we are interconnected. And when one is partnered or does have children or has family, right. A niece, even a people don't have children, there's maybe other people that they really deem as the family network.
That connection, that interconnectedness and the wealth and the strength in that's a, like you said, it's a paradigm shift. And there's so much value in that.
You know, when we say family, whether it is blood relation or just direct affinity, you get to define what that family construct is to you, because you know who you have love for, who you care about. And that can come in different forms. It may be your best friend that you've had for 20, 30 years, or it may even be the organization you've been serving and giving time to. Because you, if you are an individual who's single and don't have children or not partnered, you may have more time to make a impact through your charitable outreach. And they can still be a form of who you are building wealth for, because again,
father and little son holding hands in summer sun light. father hand lead his child in nature outdoor, trust, protecting, care, parenting family concept. road to life. fathers day
**”You are going to have some achievements in your lifetime that you can pass forward. ”**
And there's legacy in that.
There's legacy in that. So if you choose to leave it to the church that you've been a member of, if you choose to transfer it to your alma mater, if you choose to transfer it, your nieces, your nephews, your God, children, whatever, it still has to have instruction and a system behind it so they know what to do with it. That's how wealth is typically lost by that second generation. I believe over 70% of it is lost. And not just because of, like, dad investments and things like that. It's really because of lack of leadership and instruction. They didn't know what to do with it, so they just had fun. That same instruction can be given to someone outside of a family.
And your legacy could still live on if that is your answer to that question of individual financial security or some form of generational will.
And also, I'm wondering, when you first started talking, I was like, oh, can you have several CEOs, like, people who just approach this from this place? But then as you were talking, it sounded like, no, it might be helpful to have one CEO that everybody is in cooperation with. But I can appreciate. Well, I think if you have two parents in this kind of traditional structure that we often think of, then the partners can choose or self identify. And then the other person is like, yes, you are better served and I very much welcome you to take that role. And then the children are in a position where they are going to obviously follow what the parents are giving structure to. But if it's a bigger constellation, I imagine that does need some consent. Or talk to me about, like, how you're viewing this.
Cause if everybody's cooperating for a family bank or there's one person that's the CEO, is there? Are you suggesting people make that explicit and have visibility and people are. Because if there's shared bonuses and it's all like, it does make sense that there's someone in leadership, but Then you want to have people that are okay with that.
Yes, visibility and buy in is necessary.
Got it.
That's what I think I mentioned briefly about secrecy is we tend to want to withhold and keep information to ourselves. But
Senior family, children and reading book for learning, teaching and bible knowledge, spiritual deve.
*In order for us to build generational wealth across multiple generations, there has to be this open line of communication of a set of instructions or a set of values that everyone knows and follows.***
Like it does have to be a buy in for that. What I usually share in this notion reminds me of the advice we used to receive about the right hand shouldn't know what the left hand is doing. It's this form of secrecy. Like you keep they everyone should know everything. And I understand where that comes from. But then it questions if your goal is multi generational wealth, you're usually looking for to give them a boost. Hey, here is capital.
So here is a boost for your generation to go, you know, and add more value to that. So I relate that to when I was coming up and there was a store near my house. But we could never get the biggest bang for our buck at our store. Like, you know, we mainly had like 2 or $3, like $2 tops. Like that was a lot of money at times. But when we would go to that store, we couldn't get as much. But someone had told us, hey, there's another store across the field that has penny candy. In order to get there, it had this big tall iron gate across the whole field in order to get there, like the opening was all the way down on the other side of the field.
It was effort.
Yeah. Like it was like, oh, but the penny candy was over there. And just like anybody that's building generational wealth, there's going to be obstacles that you have to overcome. So what we did to overcome it is we would go get the neighborhood big brothers where we would call it like, hey, walk with us to go to the other store. And when we got to the gates, like, hey, can you boost us up with his gate so we don't have to walk to the other end to get to it. And the way he would give us a boost, he would take his fingers and he would lock em and we would step into his hand and he would boost us over the gate. So I think of that with that advice of the right hand shouldn't know what the left hand is doing.
But if it doesn't, how can it ever lock fingers? Totally. To give it the boost, open communication is absolutely necessary to instruct the next generation on what to do to avoid wealth that you work so hard to build of being lost. So I said that to say these are meetings, conversations, plans, ideas, that is discussed openly. Everyone has their, you know, you can build out your own governance system when you reach that level of your education, when you know that you have to do that. But everybody has a little bit of say, so they all should be involved. In order to grow a company, don't you have to build a team? It's the same thing. And the team has to be bought into the vision and the goal. So I just want people to have that same perspective for their families.
I appreciate that. Thank you for sharing a little bit more. Because even as you're describing this, with these meetings and everyone feeling bought in and their values are included, that does build trust, right? Because I was thinking like, ooh, like if people don't have trust, like, that's hard. And yet through practice and part of leadership, when I think it works really well, is the person in the role of leadership is serving. It's for the good of all. It's not just for the self good and say intention that you're saying, like the collective. And so that's demonstrated and with the visibility, there can be a real trust in that's earned. And also what you're speaking to, if I'm hearing you correctly, is we can be stronger together.
We can give each other the support and the assist that then helps us achieve more goals, overcome obstacles. It's not a win lose. There can be a win in it or that people feel a level of trust in that as it's being demonstrated.
Yes, there is a level of trust that is built with this because, you know, trust is directly correlated with the structure. When you feel like there is, it's almost like that trust fall. Like, you know, when there is structure there. When you're building this for the first time, or even having these conversations for the first time, you want to introduce it with some structure so people can feel confident in it. You know, when you can't see it's like, what are we talking about here? So the trust is a reflection of what structure you present. Because without structure, it's. Everything you're doing is like water, you know, it's just kind of spilling through cracks. Nobody can see it. It's like, what are we doing here? When I say structure, like that family bank, that's something tangible. Oh, I get that. I can see that.
I understand that. And then you tell everybody how it's going to benefit them. Now they feel involved that's another trust. You didn't forget about me. Okay. You know, so the development of trust happens over time, but it comes with that structure. That's what I would definitely encourage.
Well, and the other thing I was thinking too is that this speaks to the teaching. Right. That you had talked about that people can learn through, perhaps they don't maybe even know that they're learning, but having exposure to this process, the structure and having that experience allows them to learn and be able to then be elevated in that and then be able to implement it or take it, like you said, a new flare. So I think that's essential because I'm sure you see this all the time. But I've had so many clients who with their parents, their end of life phase, they're like, I didn't even know they had that or I didn't even know that this was happening. And it's just like that's not passed down because it was invisible or it's this, as you said, so separate all.
The time, those surprises. It's one end of the spectrum, death without financial setup like life insurance or you know, different ways to support that type of devastation. On the other end, you could have a lot of things. And now someone who didn't even know you had a valuable estate has to step in and figure out what to do. They had all these things. I didn't even know they had all these things. So now you have an ill equipped CEO. What corporation you know will bring in a inexperienced CEO to take over? Right, yes. Like it doesn't make sense. And when you see yourself as a business, like because a business can has a longer lifespan than you, like we have expiration dates. A business doesn't have to have an expiration date.
That's why you want to start to see it that way, so you can see the longevity and you start to realize, oh, somebody's going to have to take over this seat. And I don't coming in here messing everything up. So training and development and education becomes now the priority. Don't want this. I don't want to be taken by supply. That's like too risky.
Yes. Gosh. It brings up a personal story. So it's my husband's friend and she recently lost her father and then not that long, maybe six months, lost her mother anyway, went into probate and then her mother like she, the amount of not being prepared A for this, B, her personal investment to try to negotiate and navigate this landscape because I don't think perhaps set up for easy Transfer. And then her mother, like had a property with her brother that she didn't know about. And then now talk about trust or distrust. And then he's not wanting to be as cooperative as she would have hoped. And it just seems like unnecessarily stressful and burdensome. Like this has been so overwhelming. I have a client who's actually going through his own kind of estate process with his father.
But it's just, I feel like there's such wisdom in what you're describing and helping people understand what's available and a different mindset around this. Because again, we affect each other, we are interconnected. And to think that it is individual I think is actually not true.
It's not true at all. And that is an experience we come across quite often of a dump on the lap. I inherit in a business. I don't even know how it operates, how it makes money, who's in charge, what does what, who goes where. Like it just fell on my lap. And now you are at risk of losing 50% of that value through the estate or the probate process. So now we've lost significant value just because we didn't set it up to transfer over properly. That's 50% of it, potentially. And now I have to manage what's left. And because learning curves can be expensive, learning how to navigate, like you said, though the complexities of it, now the value is going down even more. Just I have to learn along the way.
Like lost time. Because we don't know how to step in.
Yeah, that's where that second generation depletion comes from. It wasn't depleted because we spent it all intentionally. We had probate. We didn't know what were doing. We didn't know how to invest it. All we knew was to pay our bills with it. We didn't have a system. It was just a domino effect. And that's why those clients that is experiencing this hands on, that you just spoke of, their children may not get to know what work their grandparents actually put in and what value they created. They may not even get the chance to. To know that it's preserving. Exactly. In preservation.
Yes, yes, yes. Okay. So I write, I'm looking at that time. Oh my gosh, Bri, I could ask you so many questions. I wanted to ask, as you shared openly about recognizing when your brother passed and your mother's financial scenario or situation around retirement, was she open to you helping or like getting involved? Because I'm thinking people can be in their individual mindset, you have Any input or recommendations around how to approach this. If people are hesitant or feel so private like that can feel a little scary. And then also maybe for the one that recognizes the adult child, that recognizes, oh, my parent who's aging to have some conversations or maybe it would be helpful to really look at this as a family. And I'm overwhelmed by that. Like, you seemed very willing to engage and felt like you had enough to.
Sounds like you were already educating yourself and already investing in this world. And then you were recognizing just how tremendous this was. But said yes, you leaned in where some people might want to lean out. Like, no, I'll just let that be what it is and I'll deal with it whenever or it's not my thing or I maybe they're resistant and that's a good reason to not press. Can you speak to either of those?
I'm going to answer both of those. I'm going to answer what my mother's answer was. But I also want to speak to those who tend to lean back, that there's still a process in place. That's why LS Advisors was created because I understand that can be a very challenging role to take on for the first time out of nowhere. Like, you know, especially in the midst of tragedy if that happened amongst a devastating moment. So it can be outsourced. That CEO role can be outsourced, but in conjunction and in partnership, like now you have like a co CEO, like, hey, I am not fully equipped and I already have my own way of making money. I work full time or I'm a mother and father, parent and sibling.
I already have full time activity that prevents me from giving the energy I need to become the CEO and hold. So I need to outsource that. That is a possibility. So keeping that in mind. But my mother's answer. No, she did not. It was a no at first. And that's why I tried to explain structure. Let me tell you why her answer was no at first. As I hinted to we had already been entrepreneurs for quite a few years when my brother passed away and we too weren't in the position to help. That would scare someone off.
Portrait of a mature and young woman
**“How can you help me when we're all in the same position?”**
She didn't want to be a burden.
Yeah, she was just like. Exactly. She saw it more of a burden. And the buy in didn't happen immediately for my mother or any other members of my family. It had to be the structure. They had to see it like, oh, okay. Now that I see the fruits of Your labor of entrepreneurship before we had the real traction, you know, it was Mac and cheese cups, filet mignon, Mac and cheese cups, filet mignon. Like that's the roller coaster ride. So when they witnessed that, it's kind of scary. So we had to go and create the structure that they could buy into. And by that I mean like an entity that they could participate in, like that they could have visibility to.
So it was no at first until we created that structure, gave them that visibility, show them how they work, show them how they could fit in, gave everyone their particular roles based on their strengths. And then it was like, okay, now I will. So it wasn't an immediate buy in, even from my own mother, even in her experience. So it has to have some level of consistency from the person who was going to declare themselves as the CEO. It's not going to be easy. It's like a startup. It's like a startup, you know, like people aren't always going to see the vision and you have very little resources to be able to bring it to life. That's why I always encourage think of your family like a business.
If it doesn't have any traction yet, that mean you're in the startup phase and treat it just like that.
Got it. One other question, it's even just, God, I'm so steeped in the western culture. Even as you were talking, I was like, oh, okay, how did that work? So I was thinking CEO, like an interim CEO for your mother. But I'm like, no, you were including your family with your family, like you and your husband and your mother and whomever. So was your husband okay? Like, is there different buckets or is it all one bucket? Like, was your husband okay with bringing her mother? And like it is all connected however you define it or not define it. But I'm just curious in practice, like how does that work with a spa?
I don't know.
Do you know what I'm asking?
That is a great question. And it ignited an entirely different topic. Like the conversation of values between your potential partner is so important as early as possible. So we had already had a shared value system that later I coined, but that our family is our God given team to build wealth. That's the first enterprise we're entrusted with. These are the first resources and assets we are expected to be good stewards of and take care of. So because we already had that shared value, it was a no brainer as we started to build out the structure. There was no convincing in that part. So even in Your pursuit in your dating journey. You guys have to have that value conversation as early as possible to make sure that's not going to come up later.
But there was no pushback or anything from my husband, not just my family. It's my husband's family as well, but his is smaller than mine, so we got more people. But what it is in practice is about strengths. I can't express that enough because I think when we talk about this concept, people think, I'm the CEO of an operating business. I'm going to go start a business and everybody has to work for me. It's not what it is. It's really just about finding everyone's strength that's going to help the business grow in value. You are just in the business of growing in value. That's it. It's not about a product or a service. It's about assets, investments, growing them, be able to provide stability and income for people. That's a different type of business model, but it's about the strength.
You want to know what my mother's strength was? Because she didn't have a retirement plan and we had to figure it out. We weren't going to be able to just create one and get it funded and enough to the point where she could retire in the reasonable amount of time. My mother has been a caregiver for over 30 years, probably over 40 at this point. And I am a mother of four children myself. I come from four. I'm the youngest of four, but I have four children myself. And as any other mom out there knows, when you start to pursue your goals, you have this little mommy guilt on the inside. You know, my kids still need certain nurturing, and I need to make sure I'm available for that.
But when you're in the building phases of it, you know, it's like, I'm going to miss something. These things are going to happen. So my children were still going to need care. I was still going to have to pay for that. And my mother's been a caregiver for over 30 years. You know what, Mom? I'll just pay you the money I was already paying. This is how you fit into the family system. Now we know that our children are going to get proper care. We know they're going to get the legacy is going to stay alive. We know that the wisdom is going to be passed down because they're sharing time with you all the time. And that's where she fits.
We didn't try to put her in something that she didn't know how to do or that she had to learn all over or that she couldn't understand. Providing care was like the back of her hand. In practice, evaluating your family for where they fit. They don't all have to work in the same business. We just have to be in the business of working together.
I love that. What's so empowering as you said, like the strengths based and just when people can feel that they're a of part of something and they can contribute and it can have multiplying benefits like it can compound. It just seems so empowering and so motivating and inspiring. So I love that. I still have questions around like do people like the shares, the stakeholders? That's something that I mean we get to.
Yeah, yeah, I would love that. That has to be a part two. There's an invitation that has to come back. I love it. I love it. There is a governance setup that goes with it. You are absolutely right. I hope we have the opportunity to have a conversation about that part.
I love it. Wonderful. Well, would you be willing to share how people can get connected to what you're doing, what you're offering and how to learn more?
Absolutely. So I would first encourage everyone to utilize my social media handles which for simplicity is just my name. So it's just Vasya Davis on every platform, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, LinkedIn and they all have a link in the bio that can support wherever you are in the journey if you're ready to start your own family wealth system. My family bank, I want to step into the role of the CEO and I'm ready to become trained in that area. We do family CEO training. We also can aid in assistance starting the family bank and building your family wealth system out from there. So when you utilize those social media handles and click those links, you can click wherever you are on your journey. And so I encourage it. The best thing you can do is take action.
The way to get information from your head to your heart is through your hands. So making sure we take that action can be the decision that change the trajectory of your family for sure.
And you also mentioned Affirm. Is there a website you want to also mention?
Yes. So lwestadvisors.com that is the firmness that provides the actual wealth management, that co CEO role that we discuss and this is a door that we can open for our next conversation if we are fortunate to have that. Now we're talking about setting up your family office and the family office is the wealth management of that system that you created. Because it's going to grow. And
Male and female rock climbers with the lead that secures the partner
”As growth happens, complexities happen.
Now we have to manage taxes. Now we have to manage investments. Now we have to manage asset protection. Now we have to manage that wealth transfer so it doesn't get easier. I want to share that disclaimer. So the family office is a wealth management structure that supports that, and that's what we do at LF Advisors.
Wonderful. I'll make sure to have the link on today's show notes as well as your social media handles. Thank you. LaVaisha. It's been so lovely to spend time with you.
Jessica. It has been absolutely amazing. Thank you again.
The post ERP 497: Become the Family CEO: Build a ‘Family Bank’ and Lasting Wealth — An Interview with Lavaisha Davis appeared first on Jessica Higgins.
Ever felt like you’re stuck in old relationship patterns, no matter how hard you try to break free? Or perhaps you find yourself repeating the same old arguments, feeling misunderstood, or cycling through self-doubt and disconnection from your partner. The truth is, long-term intimacy often brings hidden challenges to the surface, and many of us wrestle with how to unravel deeply ingrained habits that hold us back from experiencing truly authentic, safe, and thriving partnerships.
In this episode, listeners discover how making tiny, targeted external shifts—rather than endlessly searching for answers within—can pave the way for new relational experiences and stronger partnerships. By exploring actionable strategies rooted in intuition, personal development, and a unique system for understanding your “ego centers,” you’ll learn how even the smallest changes can disrupt well-worn habits, unlock growth, and attract more authentic, secure connections in your life. Whether struggling with undervaluing yourself, longing for healthier dynamics, or navigating the challenge of healing old wounds in love, this conversation offers fresh perspectives and practical tools to help you build the partnership you truly want.
New York Times best-selling author and intuitive Laura Day has spent nearly four decades helping individuals, organizations, and companies harness and develop their innate intuitive abilities to create profound change. Newsweek magazine calls her “The $10,000-a-Month Psychic,” adding “When business people need a crystal ball, they turn to consultant Laura Day, the ‘intuitionist.’” The Independent dubbed her “The Psychic of Wall Street.” Laura’s work has helped demystify intuition and bring it into the mainstream for everyday folk and A-Listers. In her workshops and presentations, she demonstrates the practical, verifiable, and sometimes astonishing uses of intuition in the fields of business, science, medicine, and personal growth.
Episode Highlights04:49 How Laura Day’s trauma shaped her path as an intuitive.
08:11 Bringing structure and credibility to intuitive and psychic work.
11:57 Discovering the “Prism” and redefining the role of ego.
14:25 How small external shifts can disrupt ingrained patterns.
19:19 How our bodies and patterns shape reality.
21:02 What your heartbeat says about your relationships.
25:35 How self-talk influences the energy you bring to relationships.
29:10 How new habits around value impact every area of life.
31:12 Simple practices to reinforce self-worth and openness.
34:01 Setting goals and finding a community to support relational growth.
Your Check List of Actions to Take Write down three meaningful goals that give your life and relationships purpose. * Pick one small, new habit to try today—something simple that disrupts old patterns. * When you catch self-criticism, replace it with a gentle affirmation (e.g., “I forgive myself for being imperfect”*). * Practice responding to opportunities and compliments with openness and gratitude to change how you engage with the world. * Pause to notice what emotion you’re giving off before you act or speak. * Invite new experiences, people, or communities into your life that challenge your habits or expand your perspective, rather than only looking inward. * Do one thing outside your comfort zone or in a new environment. * Join or engage with a community that encourages your growth.
MentionedThe Prism: Seven Steps to Heal Your Past and Transform Your Future (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
Practical Intuition: How to Harness the Power of Your Instinct and Make It Work for You (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
Practical Intuition in Love: Let Your Intuition Guide You to the Love of Your Life (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
Evolve in Love – Next level – Book Your Discovery Call
Shifting Criticism For Connected Communication
Connect with Laura DayWebsites:lauraday.com
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Episode Transcript
Laura, thank you for joining us. I'm excited about our conversation.
Thank you for having me.
It's a pleasure to meet you and I appreciate just your ability to distill concepts that perhaps people have a sense of or have gotten some glimmers from different sources. And I think you have something really beautiful you put together in your recent book called the Prism. And where would you like to start with the concept or people who are just getting to know you here at orientation?
Well, I want to give a tiny bit of bio and then go into why I wrote the Prism because it really defines what the prism is. I'm an intuitive, which is a nice word for psychic. I am not a mystic in the sense that everything I do through exercise and proof. I went to a school called Stuyvesant for high school in New York which is all math and science nerds. And that is the end of the spectrum I'm on. So even though a lot of the things that I do can be perceived as mystical for people who haven't researched the science and the proofs behind them, I really only use evidence based practices, which means you do this and this happens. I started in my early 20s.
I had been severely traumatized and I have some bio in the book because I one of the my big messages is it really doesn't matter where you start. You, it's where you end up. Most successful women I have ever known was hit by a car on her first day of middle school and was a quadriplegic on event. Also a Harvard graduate, also a full professor at Stony Brook in public policy. So it is what you decide, which doesn't mean it's easy. I am from a family of suicides. I'm pretty much the sole living relative of my own. That's my generation. I have a brother, a sister suicided, a mother and uncle. So I am neurodiverse, which is a term now that most people didn't use.
And I got into intuitive work, psychic work, by being a test subject back in the early 80s when there was a lot of research going on about what are the extended capacities of the Human mind, probably funded by our military, which is, how can we use them for a defense? And et cetera. I did it on the condition of anonymity because I'm from three generations of scientists. And of course, you know, I was a young, attractive person who could run the mazes and do all these things that they didn't know were possible. And so they asked me for fundraising and televised one of the experiments.
Ooh.
Against my, you know, against their agreement with me.
Wow. Without your consent.
I had an instant following. And what I chose to do was, again, work with drug research, science, business, really, things that had a structure, because the organically intuitive brain is the organically add brain. And without a structure, I was just fragmented. So the structure of business, the structure of research, the structure of medicine, really appealed to me. And the more esoteric things, although I experienced them because I come from a family where mental illness is so prevalent, suicide is so prevalent, it really didn't interest me to be outside of the norm. My real interest was how do we take these extra sensory, these intuitive or psychic abilities and prove them in the norm, make them part of the norm, and. And how can they enhance our life? Early on, I thought, gee, great, you're all talking to dead people.
I can't return my phone calls back when we didn't have messaging. Great, you're doing past lives, but I'm having a hell of a time dealing with this one. Most of my books are about really what I do organically, which is novel for other people, which is being able to extend our human perceptions. Our five senses in space and time. Tell the future, Be in someone else's reality. Little corporate spying, be a fly on the wall in a boardroom. My interest after a while became, as we do as we get older, less about myself and, oh, this is who I am, and more about how do I make me function and others function in the world. And therein, I discovered developmental psychology, and I discovered the ego, the I, the thing that I was missing. Because Although I was incredibly good at telling the future or knowing what someone else was thinking, I was not good at mindfully dealing with the world around me.
**“What I did realize that what made me survive was that I was given this structure, what I call the prism of ego. Even though it wasn't a part of me, I was given almost a prosthetic exoskeleton to function for me until my damage was healed enough to be aware of it.”****
So the prism is about the ego, the I, and the ego is Much maligned. You know, anything that starts with I, I love, I give, I believe, I value, I am, I heal, I defend. Those are ego statements. And everyone mystifies spirituality. But if you actually subscribe to spirituality is a blob. It is one energy. It is omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent.
It doesn't change the part of spirit making the change. Its expression is the I is all that we do every day. So I'm always writing five books at once. I wrote Hostage Negotiation for Lovers using old FB BI techniques because I figure who knows your soft spots and triggers more than your partner or someone who you're involved. Then I thought, this is a good 2,500 word article. It shouldn't be a book. And there are a bunch of others. Right after the suicide of my brother, I was looking through my computer and this popped up among other books. But what caught me was this quote, and I thought it was an Einstein quote about time and space only being an illusion that he wrote actually just before he died at one of his dear friend and fellow physicist's funeral.
And I thought, where have I seen that before? And I saw it on my brother's memorial card. His ex wife had chosen it. And I thought, you know, I'm not superstitious, but my experience is we live in a synchronous universe, a synchronous world. And I thought, let me follow this. And if it doesn't lead down a rabbit hole, let me see where it leads me. Well, where it led me was really to solidifying my eye. And thank God, because a year later, my sister, who was also my dearest friend, committed. So it emerged for me at a time before we have an eye. We do have survival techniques that we default to, but they're not really a part of us. They're pieces, they don't come together in an eye.
You don't really have an eye that is functional in any way, even damaged, until you're age 6 or 7. And you also don't have an intellect to say, oh, I subscribe to this, or I don't. So the prism was given to me. It is the reason I survived and thrived. But it didn't emerge as something that I could put words to until my intuition knew that a devastating crisis was coming and I was going to need it. So instead of doing what I usually do, which is come up with a system, teach it for a year or two and publish it. And most of my systems are about intuition. How do you become More psychic? How do you become more intuitive? How do you use these? Not mindful, but, you know, bring your mindfulness 10 years in the future.
How do you use these in your life or business? This I took 10 years to try out on thousands of students because I wanted to really have it perfect for myself as well as for others. And it really takes your ego and says, this is how it could have developed. You don't even have to know that if this is missing. Try this thing. Make a tiny change. And what it does is that tiny change creates something different in the world. So you encounter a different reality, and you change that way. And one of the things I believe, and it sounds very unspiritual, not believe, is you subscribe to something without evidence. My experience is that getting exactly what you want is one of the most healing things in life.
And I get a lot of flack for saying this, including my best girlfriend, who I've known for 40 years. But the answer is not inside of you. Your patterns are inside of you. Without a catalyst, you have no way out. Now, that catalyst can be community, can be therapy, can be intuition, can be the prism. But you looking inside isn't going to do it. So the prism gives you tiny things. If this is, you know, each chapter is. If this is a problem, try this and try the one that you laugh at. And I want to give you. I'll give you an example of it. Try the little change you laugh at, because what resonates with you've mastered already. It's not going to make a change. Try the thing you go, really? Oh, my God. Who is this person? Psychic, huh?
You know, try that one, because that one will make a change. You know, you can't think outside of your box. You are the box. Think outside of the box. Really? I am the box. I can't. You can, though. You can be my catalyst. That in a nutshell.
Yeah. Well, I want to hear a little bit more for people listening to describe how you would even define the prism. Like, you're giving us a sense of how it operates. And one of the things that I'm experiencing as you're describing this is a sense of congruence that as we, you know, I'm not sure if you're familiar with the psychological approach or theory of internal family systems. And they're not the only ones that do parts work. There's psychosynthesis. There's other modalities that look at how we move through life and we learn through our environment, our relationships. What's okay. What's not okay? Like mirroring back to us. And so we cope or survive. We learn to cut off certain parts of ourselves or adopt certain strategies.
And sometimes in adulthood, we can feel this fragmentation or we have different parts of ourselves that are in conflict. So part of the healing work is learning about those parts. What do they need? What do they want? And bringing them into conversation and being able to integrate them a little bit more. So there is this sense of more integration. And then as you're talking about relating to others and this. Whether or not it's work, relationship. One of the things that came through in my dissertation research looking at relationship was the framework or the. The theme of relationship. Being a mirror or a teacher, that we get feedback and that we're getting that response that lets us have information that we're also responding to. And how we respond to that is really useful information. So I don't know if this fits with what you're describing.
Opposite direction. And that direction is also helpful. Yes, the opposite direction. Because I. Coherence is important. You know, being and family systems is definitely a part of that. Understanding can be useful. Isn't always. We understand. You know, I understood smoking kills. I still smoked for 20 years. Two packs of debt. This is really. How do you work with the mechanics of life? So it's not finding that balance. Disrupting the balance. Yeah. Finding out at a new level. So it's a different orientation now. I love all of those. I love family systems. I love the mediumship where everyone plays a role and you get an. I mean, I love all of that.
Oh, right. The psychodrama and the sculpting. Family sculpting. So can I just clarify? Cause I think I was weaving two concepts together. And I hear you that it's a different angle. Looking at the parts work. When I'm asking the question about resonance or coherence with the external, that we're getting mirrored back or we're getting feedback, that's basically an opportunity for us to see more clearly where we're at. Is that fit?
No, because of where I'm at. I mean, yes and no.
Okay.
Once again,
Close Up Portrait Showing Eyes Of Mature Mother With Teenage Daughter Face To Face
*“We're two parts of the same hall. I'm not about the seeing. I'm about the changing. Because I think changing makes you see.”*
I didn't see that a partner could be trustworthy until I made a PRISMA change that may smack up with a trustworthy partner, which, by the way, was difficult because my manipulative parts, my dysfunctional parts, were not comfortable at all. You know, I'm like, what do you mean? You have a job, you love your family and don't have any deep seated rage like, ew, who are you? Why would I even be attracted to you? You're so white bred.
Or this is just so uncomfortable. I'm not even sure what's happening, right?
But encountering it. And I remember the day my husband said to me, I'm not going to stalk you. If you tell me to go away, I will, but otherwise I'm going to be right here. And he was as good as his word. And at the time, my goal was, I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine. He just didn't fit the archaic habitual description of my beloved. Now I'm a psycho. I wake up every morning and I sniff him before I get out of bed. So, you know, he is now my archetype for a partner, for deliciousness, for joy, for pleasure, for security, for, you know, when it, when I'm upset, he opens his arms and he says, here's some oxy. He is a real Colorado cowboy. He's not undefined. He's everything I used to make fun of in a man.
I mean, he carries the bag whether it injures him or not, even though I am pretty damn strong. So there is the material in the book to this is where you may, how you may have been damaged, but really I find that encountering a new experience and making a choice whether or not to engage, that changes you. And it doesn't, you know, they work really well together.
In psychology, we describe the process of earning a secure attachment from choosing a partner that shows up consistently, is available, responsive and engaged. And this ultimately creates more safety and a willingness to operate in relational dynamics with secure functioning. And when we can do that together, we earn the trust in our system. Our attachment system begins to feel more secure. I would love for people to get a sense of your prism and how your model to kind of support people, because I really, when you were sharing in your book about the chakra system and I haven't, I mean, I've been practicing yoga for so many years and I have a sense of what the chakras represent.
I've done some energy psychology work, but your description around energy and how it shine through these ego parts of ourselves that, as you just said, match the meridian or the endocrine system. Can you talk a little bit more about that for people?
So we're mechanical. I mean, that doesn't mean we're also not spiritual, but we have mechanics that work a certain way. You know, you eat a certain way or see a certain amount of light, or are neurologically traumatized in different ways or at different stages of development. And. And it creates the framework that you think of as yourself. And that framework also creates even what you see as available in life as well as what responds to you. There's ancient system called the. With the chakras, where it really does correspond to the endocrine system. And for example, you know, the part of the endocrine system that is there for survival is actually the part of the ego that is concerned with drive. So, again
Diverse People Hands Hold Money Bill
*“ The important thing is to realize that you are constantly changing. Who you were a minute ago is not who you are now”*
Although your patterns keep you in a very defined field. Like, even our dynamic, what we just did was so perfect because you are in your paradigm, I'm in my paradigm. And when we challenge each other, something opens up, even if consciously it doesn't. And those challenges, they're very specific to the mechanical beings that we are. And we are. We're these superb animals and these superb machines that create ourselves. You know, we regenerate an entire body. I forget every five or seven years, we recreate ourselves, but we also create our lives around us. And even if you don't, you can't subscribe to the idea that we literally project. We take that energy and we refract it out.
You certainly can subscribe to the fact that if you've never seen a door, you're not likely to open it. So because we are structures living within structures. And we're all interconnected. And that every single science now has unified field theory, which means when you sneeze, someone across the world is blowing their nose because of your sneeze. And, you know, and you're cleaning up because they have a tissue. So we are so interconnected. When we make a tiny shift, everything shifts. Understanding is wonderful because the understanding allows us to more consciously interact with others. And I love things like hypnosis because 95% of what goes on is run by the unconscious. Why it's so important to do something different.
The reality is, even if you give new tools, you're going to interpret them in an old way and digest them in an old way. Unless something impacts the way that you were formed, literally from conception to age 7. And each part of you actually corresponds to what you have created in the world. So, for example, the heart, which is really important in a relationship, not because it's the seed of love. But because your heart beats a hundred thousand times a day and emits the strongest electrical charge in your body and it emits it out from your body. Yes, the heart, the intuitive gift, the spiritual gift of that is telepathy. People think telepathy is in your head and sending thoughts. It's not. It is in the charge you send out with every heartbeat. Now we think in a relationship love is this.
And we know what love was, by how we were loved and how we were loved before we could discern. Love is this. And that is what you are emitting and that is what's coming back to you. The problem is there's a lot of baggage in all that information, in every heartbeat. And again, you don't have to understand the baggage, but you need to dialogue with it. The example I always use is when I lived with someone for a long time who would not take orders from a woman. A real misogynist. He claimed he was a misanthrope, but I think he was a misogynist. And I used to, you know, because we have very active telepathy in my family, I used to say, bring home milk. You know, this is before cell phones.
Well, I finally learned that what I needed to do is have the experience of really smelling coffee, opening the refrigerator, no milk, and then he'd bring home milk. So for example, you feel like your partner comes home and your partner's not interested in your day, their back is up. But you got home a little earlier and have been storming around about how the toilet seat is up. And even though, and he didn't do this, and he didn't do that, and why are you. And then you come in and you're, hi sweetheart. And you wonder why this person doesn't.
Receive that so openly.
Yes, we are transmitting what we experience, not what we say. And we're so used to pretending that we're transmitting what we say, that we don't realize that there is a whole world that goes on. So one of the things that I ask my students to do when they have relationship issues is first of all the negative self talk. You know, you are transmitting that and you will find opportunistic people or nobody at all with that. Now that doesn't mean, you know, listen, I have self loathing times as much as the next person. But it doesn't mean that you don't.
It means that you take those as opportunities to practice love or to be with someone who loves you and say, wow, I'm really down on myself about that and to allow them to be a catalyst for you to make a shift and to do that repeatedly. Because we think if we make one little change and we do it once, that should be enough. It's not. You need to do it over and over again. You're doing your habit over and over again. So if you try, I mean, listen, my husband frustrates me as much as anyone. And then I remember, this is my person who loves me, who cares about my happiness, who asks me if I like the shirt he's wearing in the morning, which I still think, after 14 years, is the most darling thing I have ever experienced. This is my person.
And then that becomes more important than all of those other little things that I won't catalog on air. And then he responds to me with even more largesse because how I'm. Every one of those hundred thousand heartbeats is expecting that.
Yeah. So as I'm listening, you're giving us an example of the heart as one part of the bigger prism system. Is that right?
hispanic woman showing love with hands in heart shape expressing healthy and marriage symbol near window and green plant at home.
”The heart is not love only, the heart is the value. It is when we are born, we learn because we are loved unconditionally, not because we're cute or we don't have to do anything or be anything. Ideally, we didn't save the marriage. We don't make a family. We are loved because we are.”
That's the ideal experience. And then from that experience, because you don't have an I yet, you mirror that outward, you refract that outward, and you try to be of value. And from that comes the dignity of just being and being rewarded by the world for your being. That's really the heart. And that's what it represents. So if you're not being paid at work adequately, if you're not being valued monetarily, that is a fourth ego center, a hard issue.
And it's really interesting about taking it apart this way is that when you deal with those issues in one area, you deal with them in all areas. So if you are in your marriage, you deal with it at work, you deal with it on the subway, where, frankly, at my age, someone should give me a seat if I have bags, you deal with it everywhere because we are a system. And that's what's so profound about those tiny changes.
Absolutely. And so let me see if I'm hearing you right, that with this heart center, if one is noticing that their life is not what they're wanting, that they can make some changes and really work with the heart center, and you gave a few examples.
So, for example, if it's about safety, that's the base of your spine. That's the first ego center. And that's a whole different thing to change and a whole different paradigm that is about structure, discipline, routine. So it really depends what it is that's not working in your life, what it is you're not achieving. And moment to moment, what you learn to do with the prism is say, oh, so we're working now on the fifth ego center as a group. It is the voice. You know, if you don't have full mastery of your voice, then you can't mature into conversation. And an issue of leadership is when no one's following you in what you want to do, whether it's raising money for a business or buying your book or listening to your podcast or moving to.
You know, my husband and I, we both travel to different places. How do we go in conversation because we want to be together, but he has a job in LA and I have a job somewhere. You know, how do we stay in conversation? So it really depends on whether each ego center corresponds to a part of your life.
Yes.
Which part isn't working? This would be a value drive. You know, if you're not manifesting what you want, then it's a third ego center issue. It's what pushes the air up. It's your diaphragm. It really is your ability to direct, the full strength of your power and all those things. The bad news is they're all locked and loaded by age 7. The good news is you're then your own adult. And we see even young children making real changes because they are in. And that's why school is so important. That's why good communities are so important, is because we then are offered choices, we bump up against choices and we make those choices every day.
Yes. And this is probably, and maybe you might have something to say in regards to this, but the resilience research or looking at how people have had positive input from others, sometimes it just takes one person to show that consistent care and support that has such a profound impact. And then the other research that I'm thinking of as you're describing, the heart and a potential practice to work with being around someone who is really in a place of expression of the love and value, whether or not it's receiving their care, whether or not it's being around them and observing them. It sounds like there's some practice there and having that love exchange.
And then it sounds like also questioning the inner self talk or the habitual beliefs or thoughts around feeling, like you said, being hard oneself or the negative self talk and really looking at or even how you're thinking about your partner and really giving some opportunity to practice differently. And it also reminds me of the research that comes from the left, the attachment research, that we can earn a secure attachment. So when we have experiences that perhaps counteract our previous known experience around relationships that may have had trauma or difficulty, that when we can have real consistent exchange and care, we actually earn a more secure functioning. So I imagine that might fit a little bit with what you're describing that we can have.
We're changing all the time, like you said, and we're having new experiences that can basically give new structure to our life. And you're giving a real system around how to do that. So I'm curious what you would say about that. And then also can you give people some real tool around how to work with the heart center? You gave it to me. I thought they were examples, but maybe you have more specifics.
Well, so each center is the heart center. You really only want to work with that center. You know, if something's working for you, leave it alone. But if you are having trouble really attracting an acknowledgment of your value in any area of your life, you know, whether it's attracting a partner or having your partner respond in an appropriate way, making changes, that is an issue of value. And really the way the PRISM works is. And of course I give all of them you should have developed this way. This is where there's evidence of injury, et cetera. But what I really want people to do is to go to the fourth center and try something new. I actually recently had an experience of doing this because of my add, I forget everything I write and then I go back and use it.
You're like, this is so good.
So I have daily assertions because of affirmations I don't like. Because if you don't try something out and don't get validation that it's working, your subconscious calls and it does. So, for example,
Woman Pierced Nose Ring Bare Chest Arts Calm Peaceful
*”I forgive myself for loving myself imperfectly. So every time you get annoyed with yourself, say, oh, wait a sec, it's a mistake, it's okay, the way you do to a child who spilled milk. Why can't we do that for ourselves?”*
If you practice that consistently, you'll notice that those fourth ego center things like getting a raise or having people want to be your friend, or having people want to be your lover, having your lover say, oh, Wait, you know, I could do the dishes too. Some of those. That those things begin to happen and then your subconscious is interested.
Now when your subconscious is interested, that's when you go and do all those things I think that you were talking about before, which is, you know, can we understand this? Where does this come from? But that's because there's a change in your life already. So you try something on and you practice it. I had a friend of mine call me and we were working as a group on the fourth eGoCenter and said, I booked you a national show. I've also booked you a first class ticket. I've also booked you hair and makeup and your room is ready. I'm in New York, he's in la and it's tomorrow. And I'm like, I can't do that, it's tomorrow. And he was like, back up. No, the response is, oh, wow, and thank you. And I thought, oh, yeah, the response should be, oh, wow, and thank you.
And so I went and I took everything as oh, wow and thank you. Like, you know that something was a little late. Oh, wow. I have time to, like, do some stuff in the car that I was prepped twice for the show, gave me all my sound bites. When I got home exhausted, my husband just wanted to connect. Instead of saying, oh, my God, I have to sleep, I was like, oh, wow, yeah, let's do that. Thank you. Instead of rushing past the beautiful bowl of pastries in the morning, I said, oh, wow, yeah, let me stop and have one. Thank you. And it really is. And I booked three more national shows that week just because I had changed that telepathic dynamic that was really going, no, I can't, I can't to. Oh, wow. And thank you.
And it is uncanny how well that works. And then I did exactly what you were talking about before, which is I took it into my therapy and I said, wow, why didn't I make this shift before? Where did I learn that? Because I want to be conscious not to trip over it again.
Yeah. Thank you. Well, I know we're winding down. What would you like to encourage? Encouragement? You mentioned you have a group, you have ways in which you show up on social media. Where would you like to invite people to connect with you?
First of all, I want to ask people to pick three goals and write them down. Have goals, structure, everything that comes at you with purpose. And we do know from research that purpose is the number one indicator of longevity, especially people my age. Purpose, not smoking, not exercise, purpose, so have those goals. I go on Instagram Live every morning, lipstick and pajamas. And we do intuitive work together. We do healing work together. We become catalysts for one another and we always work one element of the prism. Also, laraday.com, sign up for the newsletter. I post a lot of free workshops and I do a lot of collaborations. My life right now is all about collaborations and we had such a good dynamic. So that's where you can find me. And the prism was developed by people practicing it.
I really am interested in your feedback.
I will make sure to have all of the links to what you've mentioned on the Show Notes. Thank you so much Laura. I really appreciate it.
Thank you for having me.
The post ERP 496: From Old Patterns to Strong Partnership—Using Tiny External Shifts — An Interview with Laura Day appeared first on Jessica Higgins.
About this episode
Money may not buy happiness, but the tension between enjoying life today and securing a stable future can leave many couples feeling stuck, anxious, or even at odds with each other. Are you and your partner finding it difficult to strike a balance between living for the moment and building a financially secure tomorrow? Navigating finances together can bring up deep-seated fears, old money stories, and conflicting priorities—making it a journey that’s as emotional as it is practical.
In this episode, you’ll discover how couples can open up the conversation about money in a way that’s thoughtful, honest, and constructive. Through real-life examples and expert strategies, you’ll learn how to identify and communicate your financial values, create a flexible plan that adapts to life’s twists and turns, and build habits that support both today’s joy and tomorrow’s security. Whether you’re saving every penny out of fear or struggling to rein in your spending, this conversation offers actionable tools to help you play the right “money game” together—and come out stronger as a couple.
Eric Roberge, CFP, is the CEO and lead advisor at Beyond Your Hammock, a financial planning firm based in Boston that serves professional couples in their 30s and 40s with young families. His business partner and wife, Kali Roberge, serves as COO of BYH. Eric & Kali understand the challenges of financial planning around families and children because, as parents of a three-year-old, they’re in the trenches and well-versed in what it takes to build a financial plan that serves every member of the family. Eric and Kali live with their daughter and two cats in Cambridge, Mass.
Episode Highlights
04:12 How Eric & Kali built a marriage and business partnership.
08:54 The struggles of balancing love, work, and parenthood with the same partner.
11:22 How to start honest money conversations with your partner.
13:08 What money arguments reveal about communication styles.
18:11 How childhood shapes our money mindset.
21:18 Redefining “enough” and moving beyond scarcity.
24:38 Simple saving targets without guilt or judgment.
26:02 Planning with flexibility so life’s surprises don’t derail you.
29:56 Why your financial map should keep evolving.
33:51 Systems over stress: Using money rules and systems to create freedom, not restriction.
36:37 Defining the money game you want to play.
40:33 How to nurture your plan, find the right guides, and stay the course.
Your Check List of Actions to Take
- Take a moment to pause, breathe, and check in with your body and emotions before starting any money conversation with your partner.
- Together, review your current finances—assets, liabilities, cash flow—without judgment, to see where you stand right now.
- Have open conversations about what matters most to each of you, both in daily life and in the future, to uncover shared values and goals.
- Reflect on and share your individual “money scripts” or early financial beliefs, and notice how these influence your current behaviors and stressors.
- Clearly specify what “enough” looks like for your family, so you have a concrete target for saving and spending.
- Create simple guidelines (like saving 25% of your income) to automate good habits and reduce emotional spending decisions.
- Revisit your financial plan regularly to adjust for life changes, ensuring your approach evolves with your circumstances and goals.
- Intentionally set times to have financial discussions as a couple, even when life gets busy, so things don’t build up or get avoided.
Mentioned
Money for Life with Eric Roberge, CFP (Apple Podcast) (podcast)
One page financial plan (link)
Evolve in Love – Next level – Book Your Discovery Call
Shifting Criticism For Connected Communication
Connect with Kali & Eric Roberge
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Episode Transcript
Kali and Eric, thank you for joining us. I'm excited about our conversation thanks for having us here.
We're excited as well.
Yeah, wonderful. Well, I know we're going to be focusing on the topic of helping people navigate the balance of enjoying their lives as it relates to financial kind of health and also setting themselves up for success and how to have practical strategies around that and couplehood. And before we get diving in, what would you like to share for people who are just getting to know you both here?
Well, we are married, if that wasn't clear, and we are in business together. And so a lot of our conversations that we have about our life as it pertains to us and our daughter, who is three and a half, comes into the conversations we have with our clients about money. So it's. It's very much a sharing of experience and also education when we have these conversations and we're in the Boston area and hopefully they want to end.
Yeah. I think one thing that excites me about the work that we do is that we are often very much our client, like, we're same age, same life stage.
“It's really exciting to get to work with people and see how the advice plays out in real life, both for them and for us. It's nice that we can share, like, hey, we just went through this. Here's what we did. And it's a much more personal and relatable level. It makes for a better relationship with our clients”.
And then, yeah, I think that it presents challenges that we're married and that we're. We work together, but it also provides a little bit more depth to our personal relationship, too, which is really exciting to kind of explore that.
Absolutely. I appreciate you speaking to that. I think when we're in the work ourselves and being able to really speak to the experiences or resonance that people typically can feel, that if we're not living into it's harder to access. So I appreciate that. Now, were you in business together before you had your little one, your girl?
Yes.
Yes. Well, we often joke that the business is the first baby we didn't know that we had until we had an actual baby. And they were like, well, this is.
A lot to juggle.
So, yes, we. We did work together before she was born.
Jessica Higgins
Oh, my gosh. These arenas as we're talking. I'm just aware. I don't know if you would agree, but I feel like intimate relating can activate a lot of curriculum for growing, as I might say on the show. And I think business entrepreneurship also can really show us our areas of weakness or underdevelopment or things that we maybe haven't really looked at or didn't realize. And then parenting is another one. I just feel like these are three really growthful and also ask so much of us domains.
Yeah, I think there's. I just picturing like this huge echo chamber that encompasses all of those things, and that is our life. Right. And in a sense, like on the. On the negative field, there's no escape. Right. But that's like half joking because it's really great to be able to have that mirror in front of you and learn from everything and see how it rebounds off of that wall, back to this wall. Because we are in business, because we have the daughter, because we're together a lot.
You know, it's a hide from things that need work. Like, it's. It's very much in your base. I mean, you need to address it. I mean that in a good way. Like, I think it's. You do have kind of an escape route when you don't have all those things right there tied together so you can might delay working on things that you might want to, you know, develop. And here it's like you just have to go at it.
That's such a great point that you're interfacing with each other in these arenas that it's not as though you leave for work and are like, oh, I get a break. Or conversely, I mean, this also maybe speaks to. I mean. Cause. Yes, sorry, just finish that thought. That we have outlets and that when you're working so closely together, it does require a different level of intentionality and housekeeping or hygiene. If you look at the kind of conflicts that might emerge and will emerge, that how you're negotiating that and the care around it, I mean, it's. I feel like when we avoid, it just cumulates. Right. And that's why I use the word hygiene. It can. If we're not attending to it can have buildup. And then the other thought that I have is pretty probably pacing.
And this might fit to some of what you recommend with your clients and people that you work with around. It's a balancing act. Sometimes. Sometimes we have to show up and we're not in a place that we can resolve the conflict or can actually do the deeper kind of work around it. And we somehow. Whether or not it's compartmentalizing or putting a pin in it and knowing when to prioritize. And pacing, like, that's a nuance dance.
Yeah, definitely. And something that were very bad at the beginning. And it's taken many Years to continually try to work on and iterate. And I think that's really it. It's an iterative process because we'll have a blow up where it's like, this is not working. We didn't put a pin in it when we should have. So we come back and say, all right, let's try this next time. So we might try it. And like, that didn't work either. Like, try to tweak this. Yes, I think it's definitely a constant work in progress. We're still working on it, but much better now than I think it was. Definitely learned through experience, largely to how to deal with that.
Yeah, I think the. The great news is that we got to try it out before anybody was watching, meaning we didn't have a daughter in the house. So it was just the two of us and, you know, let loose, however that argument happens or whatever. But then also in the business, we didn't have employees. It was just the two of us initially. And now we have the daughter and we have employees. So there is less ability to screw up in public because you're never in private anymore.
Yeah. So you have the training ground, the learning curve that you get to experiment and iterate and also as you develop and really get your bearings and can actually have an impact on others in a way that is showing you're an example. I mean, I do feel like when we're living into these principles, people are impacted by them both positively and also not so positively, depending. And I also. Last thing I know, I want to get into your work specifically by. As we're just kind of addressing all the complexities that can exist when a couple is in business together, parenting and just also negotiating intimacy really mindfully.
When we're talking about pacing, it seems as though that if we have the capacity to put a pin in it and know we're going to come back to it tonight or tomorrow, and we know how to access different parts of ourselves. I feel like that's helping develop resource or resilience, that there's this other part of us that we know we function really well and we have either it's a partnership, friendship, trust that we can access that even though we're still in process with some other aspects. And I don't know if you've found that to be true, but I think that can be really helpful to feel the positivity while still in process.
Yep. I was just thinking the. It's hard for me to. Even if I put it on the shelf sometimes I almost forget it's on the shelf and I just move on. And it's accidentally under the rug.
Right.
Because everything else is so busy, we don't have time to deal with that thing. Let's just move on. Pick up, you know, as if it didn't happen, and go. Which sometimes is okay, but other times it really is like a landmine that's somewhere in the room and someone's going to step on it at some point and it hasn't been resolved.
Correct. And it doesn't typically go away. It'll raise its hand at some point and then like, oh, hello, I forgot to deal with you. Okay, great. Do you want to say anything, Kali, here before we move on?
No, I think that's. It's a fine line between that because I think sometimes it is helpful to have to set it aside because sometimes that's actually the answer. It's just like everybody just needs to drop this. It's not that big of a deal. And locking horns over it and not letting go is only making the situation worse. But like I said, where do you find the line between letting it go and. No, it's just festering now. Like, I wish I had a clear. Like, in hindsight it's very obvious which one it was. But going forward into it, I think that's still something I work on is trying to figure out what is. Is this a let it go thing or is this a no, really gotta resolve it, just not right. The second thing.
Oh my gosh. And I so raised my hand with you around the attunement to the process, both individually and then relationally, like, having been with my husband all these years, I can read his cues. Even if I don't like it. I'm like, oh, okay, so I know where we're going now. He might not have a lot of capacity to resolve where I typically will want to resolve more anyway, so. But if the goal is really to have resolution, to have regulation and approaching with real positive, constructive outcomes, then I am willing to postpone. Or. And then sometimes I can tell, like, okay, this actually needs us to kind of dig in a little or lean in. And then what the situation asks of us.
Last thing I'll say, my husband is in a position of leadership and he came across and it's not a new thing, but it's just a question that was really sticking out to him. It's like, what does this situation ask of me or require of me? Sometimes it's a different angle to think about less of, like, what Do I want. But also, like when you have these, your child who you care deeply about, or your business, it's like sometimes those interests, if we can be aware, can help us orient a bit.
Yeah, definitely. I like that a lot. I kind of steal that from him. So please thank him.
Well, it wasn't. He didn't. I will ask him if I can where he got it from and I'll put it on the show. Notes to just give credit.
Okay.
So as you support people and building success both in present time and then also for future in their financial health or aspect of their lives, when specifically working with a couple, where do you start? If you're willing to share? Like, sometimes couples haven't even really talked that much or. Yeah, where. Where do you start? Eric, you were about to say.
Yeah, I mean, I think it's. It's not always obvious how good or bad at communication, generally couples are when you start to speak with them. And even if they are good in certain places, maybe they're the same or different in their financial life. And so it's really an exploratory conversation to start. And we know that if we start to have a conversation about your financial foundation, which is essentially popping the hood of your financial life and saying, how are things running right now, technically? What does your balance sheet look like? What does your cash flow look like without any judgment on it? Just like, what's going on today if nothing else changed, like, how's it going? And then starting to go into conversations about what are you actually trying to do with your life? What do you want from the next five years?
*”What do you want from the next 30 years? How do you look at your career? What is family life to you? And that starts to bring out some values and some goals, maybe financial goals. And along the way, when you're asking those questions, you are very much starting to understand the interactions or lack”***
thereof,and how people communicate and where the sticking points are for certain topics as we go through the conversation.
Great, thank you. It sounds like a bit of an assessment and just a check in that doesn't have to be super intimidating, but that it's just, hey, how are you? Let's look at how things are. And then also from that, how they relate to one another, how they relate to what they're sharing with you. And also the information that you're gleaning gives a lot. Is that right?
Yes. Yeah. I mean, sometimes you show up to a zoom meeting. A lot of our conversations are on zoom, and there's an unspoken something going on, you know, like, just like we said, like, there could have been an argument right before the call and you just don't know. But I'm like, something's there and you know, you don't have touch on it, but, you know, just asking maybe, like, how's everything going? Is there anything on your mind right now? Are you feeling okay about this conversation? Is something stressing you out but not saying, like, you look stressed, but like, saying, is there anything stressful going on right now that we should know about so that we can actually get ahead of that in the conversation instead of running right into it without knowing?
Money is really emotional for people too. Like, so I think it's interesting. Eric's good at what he does and communicating with people. And I often joke with him. It's like you're more of a financial therapist for people sometimes than financial planner, just because it brings out these things that couples maybe haven't talked about before. And I think that's part of the value of having that third party in the room. Because, yes, we're talking about the money and el literal. Here are your assets, here are your liabilities, here are the goals. And let's reverse engineer them, which is, oh, you can crunch that through a formula on a spreadsheet, but we don't really live in the spreadsheet. So we have to be able to map those numbers onto real life.
And that requires iterative conversations and getting how you feel about it out on the table and understanding what's important to you, like Eric said, the core values. And I think that's why we start there, of just knowing, like, what is it that makes you tick and what is it that you're trying to get to that is really important to you, not just long term either, but in your day to day life. Like, what do you want that to look like?
Oh, my gosh. There's so much in what you're both describing. And I appreciate just the ability to be present and aware of what's happening with people as they show up. And even if the argument that might have happened prior is unrelated and just to even name it, there's something in neuropsychology, I'm sure you've heard, a lot of people have heard this idea of name it to tame it. So even if it's unrelated, it doesn't have anything to do with the financial aspect of life. But just to say, yeah, we had a little bit of some tension and that just can create some safety, can help some organization as people approach Things that are tender or maybe bring up.
Certain emotions and you never know what it's going to be. You never know what the topic's going to be that they reveal if they say something. But it's exciting that they say something because they're getting it out there. And then we can either go at it or. Got it. Thank you. And we'll just move on by.
Right, right, right. Oh, my goodness. And I don't even know that maybe people are fully aware of how they're feeling about their financial. Because it is such a private thing. We're not necessarily like walking around with our vest that has all our information and we're like have the identity around it. I mean, sure, actually, as I say that we have certain signals that show maybe that we're have a bit more means than others, but our identity around it and how we're actually feeling about money. And to be witnessed. To your point, a third party. I remember years and years I was still in grad school and my husband and I met with a financial planner and I knew I felt crunchy about student loans, but I kind of had my.
The approach of like the ostrich with the head in the sand type of like regretfully listen to some of this. Some of the mentorship for people that were like, don't worry about it's just something you pay and like good debt. And anyway, I won't get into that. But I actually, when the financial advisor was talking, we just put it all out. I like started crying. I didn't feel like I was gonna have that much shame or emotion about it. But being witnessed, really fully looking at it was like, oh, hello. And it was a lot to confront. So I do think it is tender and you don't know what's going to come up and be able to hold that space and have skill to hold that space is I think really important, especially in relationship.
Because I'm sure you have found, and I would love to hear your voice on this around different, perhaps money stories, ways in which they approach spending and saving or how comfortable they are with risk or what they need to feel comfortable, which relates to feeling secure. Like, do you see these things show up? And I think a lot of times partners aren't on the same place always.
Yeah, definitely. I think everyone has, like you said, money stories.
Diverse People Hands Hold Money Bill
**”Everyone's got money scripts. You have all these experiences that shape what you believe about money.”****
I mean, this stuff gets laid down when you're three to seven years old and it becomes very subconscious. It's not like you sit and think like here is my story about money. You don't trot that out. It's just kind of ingrained in you. I mean we have it too. So I think we can speak to our personal experience. But you can also change that over time. So that's what I was thinking about on my end of when we first met. I think we are similar and it worked out, it helped us at the beginning and that we're both like on a saver kind of side. Like we prefer to save money. We're not like super spendy people.
We're still not. But I was extreme about it was very much a fear based scarcity, like I am not going to be okay kind of thinking which I feel like probably drove you nuts at the beginning because you're like this doesn't make any logical sense. The math is not behind you on this. Like what I was catastrophizing all these things that could go wrong. So yeah, I think that was the challenge that we had to overcome was Irrationally afraid of running out of money, of never being able to work and earn money again. So I wanted to save huge amounts of my income to the point where it was impacting our life today because I was like, no, I have to squirrel all this away. But now we don't have anything left over to just live our lives in a reasonable way. So I.
Having our daughter changed. I don't know what it was about that changed it other than maybe making me more present and more in the moment. But that was something that shifted just for me in the last couple years of I need to try to stop gripping this so much and trying to control it so much because the future is unknowable. And you know, focusing on today is not necessarily a bad thing. It's about finding kind of the balance between the two. I don't know if you want to add on.
Well, if I can just comment right before because this is something that I feel like maybe you both have a brilliance in. Because what I was hearing, Eric, you speak to earlier and I feel like it's partly in your questions that you had given to me as potential talking points that to be creative, what would you love to have this sense of what gives you joy in your experience both presently and five years, ten years with the future holds and that's sometimes difficult to generate when we are in uncertainty or are in fear or old maybe even unconscious habitual money stories. So I just wanted to comment on that and I don't know if that resonates, but. Eric, would you like to respond?
Yeah, I was just thinking of. This is where it's much more of an art than a science in part of the conversation, because it isn't about a spreadsheet. It's about emotions, it's about feelings, it's about beliefs about money and identifying them and then building a plan around them or changing them as necessary so that you're not just going extremely, to Kali's point of let's save everything, do nothing now with our lives, and hope that we can use it down the road. But in reality, you'll never do that because you're always going to feel that you can't use it. So you can have this big pile of money and still never use it. So there's that or the other extreme of I can't spend any money or I can't save any money right now, I have to spend it.
“Life is only guaranteed for today, and if I don't use it now, I won't use it tomorrow because who knows what's going to happen? Right?”
And those two extremes are not a healthy way to go about balancing your financial planning with your actual life.
Yeah. And would you agree that in this discussion that it's a balance to be able to hold, that there's something that might emerge when we can support the parts that are afraid and also support the parts that want to be creative and can actually. Maybe that's something people haven't really given themselves space to, which is to really envision or what do I want this to look like? If I got to craft this or engineer this? Like, what would the design be? Is that part of what you both are offering?
To me that I just thought of the financial planning software that we use. Right. So we actually model out the. All right, if you're saving at the rate you're saving today and we just go straightforward into the future, how much money do you have and how much money do you need? And is there a huge discrepancy between the two? And if there is, and you don't actually need to save as much as you're saving right now, and you back that off, what does that look like for today? How does that allow you to expand your lifestyle and start to enjoy yourself right now and not say, oh, I'll do it when I'm 60, and I think that's where there's a very much a balance. But we can look at the picture and the projections of the money because the calculation doesn't Lie.
The assumptions are guesses because it's about the future, but the calculations don't lie. That's why I love math. And then we can overlay that with your life and say, wow, maybe there's some freedom here. Maybe I can loosen up a little bit. And if I could loosen up, what would I do? How would I change my life right now to make it better for me? And that's where it's an amazing conversation when I can start to realize that.
Yes, Kali, do you want to respond?
Sure, yeah. As you're talking, Eric, with those two extremes, I think the kind of strategies or tools that we use for someone who is on or my end, where I was of feeling afraid is defining like, well, what is enough in the first place? What is enough money for what you want to do? Because that was part of my problem, is that I didn't have anything to find. It was just, I'm afraid of the future. It was really like, that was the overarching thought. But when I actually had to sit down and be like, well, what is it that I want to do? And what is required to do that? Putting some more concrete numbers in place helped me realize, like, okay, that's actually attainable. I don't have to go to these extremes and defer a living for some distance.
Someday that may or may not happen. And to Eric's point, is unlikely to happen because of the habit that I'm building now of over saving. Because that is. That's a track you're laying down in your head of like, this is what I do with money. This is what I do with money. So even when someday, again, whenever that is or whatever that is comes, it's not like you flip the switch and you can suddenly change this habit that you've been building now for decades. So that's helpful. On the. If you're saving too much side, understanding what enough is, you kind of get grounded. And then on the overspending side, which I do think is more common, we see people. I think a lot of it is digging into the well. What's important to you and why is it important?
Because you start seeing a bigger picture beyond just the surface level. Like maybe, like
**”Status is a value that somebody can have that as a value, but it's probably not as high up for someone as family or community.”s that.”**
So when you can start laying out, well, this is what's most important, and then aligning your money with that and just looking at, you know, what is it that you're spending your money on, now, does it align or not? No judgment, but just does it align? And if it doesn't, do you want to make a change? I think that's helpful. And then also put getting some groundedness in on the overspending side, too. I think what we do is we offer kind of a guideline. So saving 25% of your income is a very common piece of advice that we give to clients.
And again, it doesn't come with any judgment. It doesn't come with anything about saying your current spending is wrong. It's just save that percentage of your income first and then do whatever you want with what's left over.
Yes. So, so helpful. And what a beautiful compliment to really look at how the numbers, the calculations, the speculation based on what we know and what that projects and that data or those numbers, and also the significance. Right. Because when you were talking, Eric, I was like, is that enough for people? Will they be like, okay, now I can start spending and kind of doing my thing? Like, I. I'm wondering if it's sometimes for some, it maybe be that simple that they just needed to look at it and really have an honest recognition around what's happening. Where for others, they might say, if they're living in this place of fear and it's not clearly defined or grounded in a what is enough that might not be enough to be like, okay, now I can live a little, right?
Like, it just might to have a sense of what is enough and then conversely, what is of highest value or significance. And sometimes when people are overspending, they feel on the front end that they're prioritizing things that matter, but maybe the consequence is actually negatively impacting them that's affecting the things they really want as well. So it seems like a really nice compliment. Do, do you introduce these together or is it just, again, seeing where they're at and what they need?
I think it's more of a flowing conversation. I don't have, like, a specific organized process touch on these things at the exact right time. It's more about sensing the conversation, where it's going. And as Kali was saying, it just like you can't just flip a switch and change from being a super saver to a super spender. Like, it's going to take some time. I've said certain things to clients for years now, and they finally get it. For example, a client couple, that's really great savers. They have been saving 30% of their gross income for like, seven years. And initially it was, let's save a little Bit more than we think. Because I have these student loans and they may or may not be forgiven through the process of the public student loan forgiveness program.
And if they're not, I want to have the money available to pay them off and not get stuck with all this debt. Well, they luckily got them forgiven and moved forward and continued to save at the same rate still, because why not? Because they were still feeling like they could spend freely and they had extra money, so save it. And now we're getting to a point where we're having a conversation about, all right, moving to a different place. And maybe the house is more expensive than the one we have now and maybe just our lifestyle is just more expensive and we're going to have to, in order to do that and afford that, we have to back off our savings. And they're like, can we do that? I'm like, do you remember we're over saving so that never. We have to stop. We can.
And I would. I. The image I use is hand gliding, right? You stack up the money, you get to the top of the mountain and then if you have to stop saving for a while, you just hand glide through those years and then pick it up on the other side. And so they have the room to actually stop saving totally for two or three years to get themselves together and then rebuild. And they aren't freely saying, like, yes, let's do that, because again, you gotta learn that, you gotta practice. But they can do it because they were intentional to begin with about the whole thing. So you have to remind them about why we do the things that we do.
Well, again, this speaks to perhaps the five years, seven years, 10 years down the road and what things afford. I think sometimes it's harder to think what it's gonna look like and the long term, like being in service of more of the long term and to be able to help them build the habits and then also recognize how things can work for them. If they've been in a certain place where they've been able to spend, I mean, hang gliding. That just sounds like what a beautiful opportunity for them to get in touch with what they would love or what feels high priority and have the support and the means to be able to do that. That seems like what a gift.
Yeah. And we've experienced that in our own lives too. Like when our daughter was born and were a little unprepared on the business side, we just did not anticipate how much of hit on my.
Like, I don't. This sounds so silly to Say like looking back, I'm like, how did you not think a baby was going to like change things? But it really impacted my role in the business and it impacted like our personal expenses. Like we save less now than we did before, but we did the same thing like were trying to over save. So it did give us a little bit of room to come down without throwing off our long term plan and some breathing room to figure out. Like, okay, we just got, you know, rocked over here, like let's figure things out. And I think that were able to do that. And that's what the beauty of having some financial flexibility can give you is just like you can take a breather.
And that's why we have the rules of thumb that we do is not to chastise anyone about saving or spending. It's just to set you up with financial flexibility so that you can have some freedom and choice down the road for whatever happens or doesn't happen.
I love the. I was thinking of the word flexibility as well, that sometimes when I think of financial planning it's like, okay, it's this or it's that. And it's just you're kind of in that zone and you kind of keep. But I mean it is something that I think probably in this world you would want to be reevaluating and looking and compare, not comparing but matching that or grounding that with what matters, what's of high priority, what's enough, what do we want? And that is, I'm sure, always evolving and have the flexibility to do that. Sounds really wise.
Yeah, I think planning, like financial planning is a bit of a misnomer because it's more like let's build out a panel of levers that you can push up or pull down depending on what's going on in your life, depending on what's important to you, depending on what you are willing to trade off and what you're not. And you have this whole little control panel here and you adjust it however you'd like. You have the power to do that and we're giving you kind of the strategies of how to do it. But also I think Eric is really good at pointing out to people like, you can do this. Here are the potential consequences of that decision. Are you good with that? And sometimes people say, oh no, nevermind. And other times people are like, you know, yeah, I'm willing to make that trade off.
And you're really good, Eric, at really making them confront that.
Yeah, I think it's important. Two things. One, on that note the for people to acknowledge that there is a trade off happening is super important for me before moving forward to advise them on the decision that you're trying to make. Because if we're just pretending that there isn't a trade off and like, yeah, we'll just do this thing and we'll figure it out. No, there's actually a choice you're making right now before you do the thing that there is no turning back here or if you do this, you cannot do that as well, which is often the case. You can. A lot of our clients can afford anything, but they can't afford everything. And so if you're fine with the trade off and you admittedly say so out loud to me, I'm good to move forward. But if you don't.
Yeah, I never feel comfortable giving them the advice that they want to hear because they haven't acknowledged that they can't do this other thing that they also said was important, you know, last year.
Right. Let's have an explicit conversation and real consent and understanding around what this entails. And I don't again know that we're always, or not everyone's always in the habit of being really conscientious around what things mean and having advice or support from someone who knows the territory, knows the landscape, can advise around this is I can tell you what this looks like or what this will mean because sometimes we're anticipating or guessing. So one of the things that it seems really true is that money's a tool. And I know we could kind of go off on a tangent around that and you also to a tool to be able to support. Tell me how you view a tool because I have lots of ideas but I would love to hear a little more about that.
Actually as I'm saying how money is a tool.
Yeah. That's something you had prompted as potentially a topic. And I know you also talk about strategy and I would love to talk about strategies as well, so. But how do you both view money as a tool?
Look, I just think about what Kali was just saying about the control panel. Right. That is very much the tool panel of saying like what are all the tools that are available to me based on my financial circumstances and regulations and everything else that's out in the financial world and then which ones make sense for me to focus on and then which of those should I be pulling or pushing the lever on? So tool being like if you build in buffer room around a plan, which means that there's, there is financial flexibility because life is never so specific and linear that you can actually nail that before it happens. You want to be flexible. If you can build that into the system, then you're already using it as a tool because you can flex or pull back as necessary.
You can spend more or save more as circumstances require. For example, like someone might own a house and they are saying, you know what? I want to leave and go somewhere else. I don't know exactly how long I want to stay in this next place. So maybe I shouldn't buy a house, maybe I should rent a house instead and maybe I should rent out the place that I'm leaving at the same time. So now I own my current house, I'm going to rent it out and I'm going to rent another place. And there's a month of overlap where now I'm paying rent on a new place. I actually didn't get a renter in my old place and it's going to cost me X amount of dollars to double pay this place.
Couple managing the debt
**”If you don't have financial flexibility built into your cash flow or have enough saved in the bank to do that thing, you can't do it without going into debt.”****
And so for someone who can do that, it's not ideal, but they have the flexibility to make a move to a better place for their family and do it in a maybe a unconventional way because they can afford it like that. That to me is using money as a tool to live the life they want to live versus being restricted by your finances and feeling stuck like, well, I'll just deal with it.
Yeah.
Thank you. Thank you for speaking to that. And I love how clear you are. I usually don't use such exact language of like, you can't do that. And I think if someone's responding to that, then maybe that does spawn cure creativity to think of other ways that maybe do afford it. But it's again, doing it with real clarity rather than how did it all work out? Right. And not having a plan.
Yeah. And when I say you can't do that, it's more like you can't do that without going into debt. That you shouldn't go into.
No, I think it's needed. These structure, the structure, the boundaries, the clarity is what I think is often really helpful. How do we get in touch with our values, what matters, what we want and possibility, like these things also matter too. It's a both and. But sometimes we're not as clear around the no's and the yeses. And I just love your voice around that okay, great. Do you guys want to share or. Kali, do you want to say anything about money as a tool or do you feel like we're covering it here?
I think we covered it mostly. I think the one thing I would add is that it's a good reminder again, because like we talked about,
*”Money is so emotional. Like that phrase of money as a tool is kind of a way to step back and make sure that you're not letting your emotions make the decisions.”*
It's a good reminder that having a rules based system, whether it's with your like day to day money management or whether it's like investing, having a rules based system that allows you to step back away from your reactions and your emotions is a good way to go because it is such an emotional thing. And we can also often be led astray by just doing what our feelings are like, prompting us to do. Especially when it's something. I think this happens a lot when people are overspending.
Like that's almost always an emotional sort of problem. And a lot of the times it's a way to try to exert control over our lives, even though it sounds kind of backward because it's actually taking control away. You're giving up that financial flexibility if you're letting the money go versus investing it to grow for the future. But it's just, it's a way that in the moment we can feel in control. Like I made that decision, I did that I can do those things. So remembering that money is a tool to build whatever it is that you want is to me a good mental shortcut to just get back to all those things of like having a system, having a unemotional strategy to guide you along the way.
I love it. And it sounds as though, based on what we've already talked about, that the plan is in service of what we would love or what matters to us and is of high value and priority. So it's not like someone else is just imposing this formula and I have to follow these rules. It's in service of what I truly want and have looked at really clearly. So in a momentary, I want to say compulsion or impulse to buy something or some feeling that we can check in of, we have a guide for this. We have some real clarity around what I'm in service of and it's more of the long term or typically what's going to matter more. Great.
What game are you playing is really the one that we constantly are asking ourselves and our clients, because not everybody is playing the same Game. In fact, everybody's playing a different game, and the game is your life. And what you want for your life is going to be different than the next person. Even if your demographics or your financial circumstances are similar, you might have different goals, and therefore you're going to use your money as a tool differently or use a different tool than your neighbor is, and that's okay. But we've. Because we've defined it, we've built the arena within which we're going to play, and we're playing the game that we want to play.
What kind of responses do you get? I'm curious, like, do people answer or give names to their game?
I think I. It's more of a general question. And they look like. Then I explain what I mean.
Yes, yes.
They look at me with, like, a deer in headlights first. Then I say no, really, like, what do we want? What are we trying to do here? And then that we kind of drill down into the specifics.
Yeah, Well, I mean, it occurs to me that if we're unconscious to the game that we're playing and we get awake and we really look at it and reevaluate it and then get it in alignment, that actually having some awareness of, like, a short name that might even be plain, playful or silly might actually be a little reminder of, like, okay, this is what I'm doing. And there can be some playfulness around it. I was just curious if you actually got, like, really had people talk through that. What were you gonna say? Kali? Sorry.
No, I. I was thinking when you were saying, like, that's actually a good idea to force people, like, all right, name this name. Name your game. Because you're absolutely right. Like, it's. It's just. You don't wanna end up, you know, climbing this ladder to realize that's not the place you wanted to go. Like, that wasn't the wall you're trying to get to the top of. So I think having the name. Yeah, that'd be a catchy, good little mental hook for people.
Well, especially if it resonates, right. If it's got a. A little bit of a. An anchor to it that they can just have a real clearer. It represents a lot. Okay, great. Any strategies you want to kind of share with us before we start winding down here? I know you've given us a couple, but just. Anything else here?
Yeah, I mean, nothing. No specific, like, you know, hidden strategy that's going to change your life forever. It's more about
**”The fact that financial planning isn't a one time event. It is an ongoing process and the plan itself is a breathing organism that will evolve with your life as things change, as your values change, as your goals change, as your perspective changes over time. And so it should never be set in stone and it has to be tended to just like any other living, breathing organism.**
And tending to it is just being intentional about having conversations, making the space to have conversations together as a couple if you're married or with a significant other, but also with your objective third party advisor if you have one as well, to hold that space.
And you know it's planned out so that when life is really busy, you don't end up going three years without checking in. You know that in six months you're having that conversation. So you can maybe, hey, here's some things to put on the agenda so we don't forget advisor. And we put them on the agenda and then we have that conversation when it's ready.
And what good care to take care of. Like it's being in contact and being connected to these things. It just feels like I feel just such a sense of care. And I know you talk about wealth, but just. Yeah, the word that's really coming up is that I'm really taking good care of this part of my world that really supports so many aspects. So. Okay, wonderful. Well, I know there's lots of ways to approach this. And for people that are really resonating with the two of you and what you're speaking about here, what would you like to share as far as how people can get in touch with what you offer, what you have to share?
I think the best place to go is our website. So our firm is beyond your hammock. We're based in Boston, but we work with people all over the country. And beyond your hammock.com is the One Stop Shop for all you need about, like more about us, what we do, we have a blog, we have a podcast. So if working directly with us isn't for you, there's so much content that you can get into. If this kind of conversation and these topics resonate with you and kind of the approach and philosophy sounds good, there's lots that you can dig into, you know, on your own, through the blog, through the podcast. And then if you are interested, we do offer one page financial plans for folks. They can request that again on our website BeyondYourHamback.com, easiest place to go for all the above. Okay.
So the one page they would request that is like a. Is something that is visible on your website?
Yeah, there's a little blue button at the top right that says work with us and it explains the whole process of what that looks like, what they would get. And then a button to schedule, to request, to schedule. Great.
So you work with people all over, based out of Boston. It sounds like there's opportunities for people to find that online. You also have articles and blogs and lots of content to engage with. It sounds like you have a podcast and people can access more there. Wonderful. Anything else do you want to share before we sign off here?
I mean, there's so much out there's so much noise and it's really overwhelming for a lot of people, especially if you're not in the business. Even with a business degree or a financial degree or if you're a cpa, you still don't need to. You don't necessarily know about personal finance. So if you're not in those fields and you don't know about personal finance, that is so natural. So I think it's more about just educating yourself and understanding who to listen to and why they are worth listening to. Is it experience, Is it knowledge on specifically about your situation? Because there's an advisor out there for everybody. Whether you're a certain age or a certain wealth level or a certain demographic or where you live in a certain place or want a certain thing, they're out there. And so don't think that they're not.
Just go out there in search of education. And then if you find someone that you're comfortable with, you should work with them. And if you don't find that person, you should not work with a financial advisor because someone says that you should.
Well, thank you for being specific. And it makes me realize you both have a specific population that you work with. Do you want to describe a little bit more about that? Because I know that many people listening might want to understand a little bit more about your particular niche.
Yeah, I mean, so mid career professional couples, so both working dual income, typically have a child or will have a child soon. So growing families. And because they're in that middle ground, there's many years to go before retirement, probably at least 10. And there's a lot of things to do today because you have this growing family and there's a very delicate balance between the two. And if you layer in good income, I mean our clients typically make 500,000 to a million dollars income combined because they work in tech or biotech or healthcare or something like that, there's a lot of power there.
And we want to make sure that the people that we work with understand that and they want to do better for themselves and they want to engage with someone that can help them be intentional with their money because they are coachable and they appreciate outsourcing the things that they are not good at because there are many things that they are and they want to focus in on those things. Great.
Wonderful. Well, thank you. I appreciate it. I'll make sure to have the link to your website on today's show notes and it's been a pleasure to meet with you both and have you on the show.
Yeah, thank you so much for inviting us out. This was a fun conversation. I appreciate it.
Yeah, really great questions. Very natural conversation. So thank you.
The post ERP 495: Play the Right Money Game Together: How Couples Balance Today’s Joy with Tomorrow’s Security – An Interview With Kali & Eric Roberge appeared first on Jessica Higgins.
About this episode
What if everything you know about love is a myth—built on luck, chance, and hope? The truth is, many of us walk into relationships with big dreams of “happily ever after,” only to find that real connection can feel overwhelming, elusive, or even impossible to sustain. We use words like “respect,” “trust,” and “compassion,” but rarely stop to define what they truly mean for ourselves and our partners. Without a roadmap, couples often end up lost in confusion, miscommunication, and heartbreak.
In this episode, you’ll discover a fresh, research-backed framework for designing love that actually lasts. You’ll learn about the six key ingredients necessary for truly thriving relationships and uncover why love can’t survive on feelings alone. By diving into practical strategies, real-world examples, and self-reflection tools, this conversation offers a powerful guide to recognizing what really matters in your connection and how to nurture it, every single day.
Dr. Sara Nasserzadeh, Ph.D., is a renowned author, speaker, and thought leader in relationship dynamics. With experience in 41 countries, she has advised hundreds of couples, governments, UN agencies, and corporations. Her book, Love by Design: 6 Ingredients to Build a Lifetime of Love, explores six key principles for thriving relationships. Dr. Nasserzadeh’s work has been featured in leading media outlets, including NPR, The New York Times, BBC, CNN, and more.
Episode Highlights
05:45 Dr. Sara’s unique approach to relationship dynamics and global work.
09:43 Unpacking the emergent love research model and its origins.
10:58 Grounded theory research: Analyzing couples and identifying relationship patterns.
15:52 Defining core relationship concepts and the search for universal ingredients.
19:19 Emergent model findings: Moving beyond “love comes first”.
21:01 Three phases of research and development of a relationship assessment tool.
24:42 The six key ingredients for lasting love.
29:11 The power of loving behaviors and nonverbal communication in relationships.
32:20 Cultural and physical factors that influence emotional connection.
34:32 The importance of everyday gestures and their impact on intimacy.
38:07 Small actions and social etiquette: Nurturing connection in daily life.
44:49 Understanding your “love blueprint” and core sensitivities.
45:56 Knowing yourself: Quirks, pet peeves, and vulnerabilities in relationships.
49:24 Dr. Sara’s resources, final thoughts, and where to connect.
Your Check List of Actions to Take
- Begin and end each day with a simple greeting or acknowledgment to your partner, as maintaining these small moments of connection is non-negotiable for nurturing intimacy.
- Reflect individually on your “love blueprint” – your values, quirks, sensitivities, and pet peeves – then share these openly with your partner to foster mutual understanding.
- Strive for reciprocity (not equality) across key relationship ingredients like compassion, respect, and trust by tuning into what matters most to your partner and responding accordingly.
- Go beyond acts of care and add warmth, tenderness, and intention to your gestures—such as a gentle touch or genuine compliment to create emotional resonance.
- Have an explicit conversation about what respect looks like to each partner, ensuring that expressions of respect truly land as intended.
- Use periodic structured check-ins (weekly, monthly, annually) to discuss what’s working, what needs attention, and explore any cracks before they widen.
- If nonverbal cues like facial expressions are limited, use verbal scales or other creative methods to communicate emotional states and needs.
- When addressing conflict or unmet needs, focus on naming the underlying ingredients (such as lack of compassion or shared vision) to target efforts more effectively and avoid miscommunication.
Mentioned
Love by Design: 6 Ingredients to Build a Lifetime of Love (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
Relationship Map To Happy, Lasting Love
Connect with *********Dr. Sara Nasserzadeh*********
Websites: sara-nasserzadeh.com
Facebook: facebook.com/Dr.SaraNasserzadeh
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Episode Transcript
Dr. Sara, it's lovely to have you. Thank you for joining us.
Thank you so much for having me. So you're calling me Dr. Sara. Is it okay if I call you Dr. Jessica?
Yes.
Lovely, thank you.
I'm always thrilled. I know I mentioned this to you before we got started here, that it's one of my favorite things to interview practitioners and psychologists who have done research and contributed to the field. And have both the practical as far as how they're practicing in the world, but also their contribution that's informed by research. It's a privilege to just have you share what you've created as far as your model, and we're going to be talking about that.
But before we do, is there anything you want people to know about you, what feels important to share? Just where you're coming from here, or even how this became of interest. How did you start really focusing on love and this interest?
Well, thank you. For the longest while, I was thinking how to make sense of what I do. Because I work with relationships at macro and micro level, and to make it a little bit more accessible, I say I help people relate to one another in a healthy way, from bedrooms to boardrooms. So that's how I introduce myself usually, and it took me years to come up with that idea. Because it is what it is. So I do psychosexual therapy and work with people in their intimate spaces, because that's the most vulnerable place. That's where we are usually most authentic or not, and we have the masks on. To find people somewhere in between is pretty rare. Then all the way to couplehood to parenthood, to the way that we show up for our friends, and then all the way to the work that I do with the United Nations and companies, just to help them see their customers, do the community surveillance, or access negotiations for access, or this sort of thing. So at the core of everything I do is to help people relate to one another in a healthy way, so that they have that sense of fulfillment and thriving at the end of the day.
That's beautiful. I know some people will reference that not everything is relationship, and you're giving some range here around how you work and how you support people in these different domains. I think leadership, especially in the entrepreneurial space, where what someone's creating is very much a reflection of them and their work. So to have the support to look at areas where perhaps are underdeveloped or weaknesses or areas that just perhaps have not been explored or processed. So I love it. I'm grateful. So you did some research. Can you say a little bit more about the Emergent Love Model?
Sure. So the research is basically three pieces of research. One was the thinking styles, how we think. So for example, a lot of couples who come to us, I'm pretty sure you are familiar with it very, very intimately too. One person says: Oh my God, just get to the point. Then the other person says: But I need to process. So those go back to the thinking style of the person, external processes, or they think to talk or they talk to things. So these sort of things that create discrepancy in a couple's relationship, or anybody for that matter. So that's one, the thinking style. That piece of research I haven't done. Dr. Pejman Azarmina did it, which he was actually the co-researcher for this one as well.
So I got that data, and then I went back 10 years retrospectively and I looked at the account and the notes that I took for the sessions with 312 couples that I personally worked with. The criteria for it for me was that they had to be my own clients, not associates' clients, and then they had to work with me for at least a year, so I have a very good understanding as the patterns are shaping. Then, when I came up with all of this data, plowed through them, then I came up with the patterns. In research, as you know, we call it grand theory. The way that we work with it is like a grand theory, meaning that we have a lot of data and then we plow through it, we come up with the patterns, and then from there we will take it forward.
So I didn't have a hypothesis. I had hope. I wanted to see why relationships thrive. Because I got to work with these couples from the moment that, unfortunately, usually couples come to us ready to kill each other and they're falling apart. They are really in the moment of really low. Then hopefully, if this is done right, whichever direction they choose to go after, at least they have really strong and solid and determined steps in their path forward, whatever path they choose to go to. So I wanted to see whether, first of all, what we call a coupledom, two people coming together, usually heterosexual, usually certain topology that we have in mind. Do we have any other ways that people relate to one another and call their coupledom, a coupledom? So that was one. We actually ended up with eight configurations, which is another thing maybe we can talk about. So that's one.
Then the other one was, I realized that there are certain words that I keep getting, like compassion, empathy, trust, respect. But then these are all words, and as a person who works globally and across languages, I'm like: Ah, maybe I can say, Dr. Jessica, I love you, and you say, Dr. Sara, I love you too. Do we mean the same thing? Do we show up the same way? I respect you, I respect you. Do we mean the same thing? These are huge concepts that we deal with in every interaction that we have. So that was one piece that came out of it. The other piece that came out of it was, I figured that love, the way that we define it, it's first of all something that happens to us. Something that we get if we are lucky. Something that, if we are lucky enough to model after the people that raised us, all of that.
Luck doesn't do much for me in my life. Because if you look at the trajectory of my life, yes, apart from the part that I'm alive, that I made it out of a war zone alive and doing what I do. So that part of it, I don't even call it luck with the spiritual belief I have. I think I was blessed that I made it this far. But what if somebody is not blessed in the love department? We can't do anything as experts? That doesn't sit well. So that was another hope, that with all of these words and definitions that we have, how can we make people actually measure. Am I really respected in this relationship? Am I imagining? All of that gaslighting and just imagination, disillusionments. So that was one. Then out of that research also came that it's not that love is there, and the rest will follow.
“There are certain things that need to be there for love to even have the chance to emerge. So that is flipping love on its head. Love doesn't come first, and the rest will follow. The rest will come that are necessities, and love will have a chance to emerge.”
So spark and love come together in a conducive context, to give us beautiful cozy fire. For as long as we decide to give it everything that is needed, then it'll give back its beautiful, warm, cozy, all of that good stuff. If it's not, for a second we take one of the elements away, the fire dies. Then we end up with this conversation that I love you, but I'm not in love with you. So that disillusionment, heartbreak.
“I truly came to believe out of this research that we've done, that true love needs to give your heart a break, not a heartbreak. And this is not just a slogan.”
You know because you work in this field. So that was one, the emergent love piece of it. But that was qualitative. Then I took all of that, because so far, it's the subjective opinion of a person who works with couples and the researcher in it. I got it, and I wanted more. I wanted to see if we can scale it up. So if I talk to this couple, how much of it is related only to this couple? How much of it we can actually scale and generalize, as we do as researchers? You know, my PhD is in social psychology, so I'm always interested in those interactions that we have in interpersonal and intrapersonal, and then see if we can scale it to the society.
How it applies to other populations, other cultures, or just how representative it is. I mean, this is where it becomes more universal, or we can really look at how this is playing a part. It's being able to test the research further, to your point.
Exactly. Is there more validity to it? Is there reliability to it? So then I teamed up at this phase with Dr. Pejman Azarmina, and then we put together 159 couples, the US representative. That mattered to me because, convenience sampling, usually for me as the therapist, I'm the social psychologist, it doesn't really cut it for me. Because convenient sampling, majority of the research that you read, without knowing the sample size, if you really dig deep, it's with college students. I love college students. But on the other side of it, they are just at the beginning of shaping a long-term relationship, just by pure age. So that piece of it didn't sit well. So I needed a representative sample. So meaning that the average education in America, we needed a sample. The race, the sexual orientation, relational orientation, I needed them in my research.
So with these 159 couples, we also had them separately studied in more than 340 individuals. Again, I wanted to see how this works. Let's say for example, in a coupledom, this person says I respect you, and the other person says I respect you too. But that is the expressive part of it, so the expression of it. But do you feel respected? That's a different story. So I wanted those pieces between the expressed and the reception. So out of that research came the six ingredients that need to be there for love to even have any chance to emerge. So these were the three pieces of research.
Out of that final research also came an inventory, which is a validated test for couples that they can just go and take. The way it works is that it doesn't show you if you are the brink of a divorce or a breaking apart. But it'll show you the strong, the medium strong, and the cracks in the relationship. So it shows you all, so that you actually put your effort where it matters. Because I'm sure you see couples and individuals as well, dating or in coupledom. It's not that they're lazy, it's not that they don't put the effort. They do, God knows they do. But they put it in the wrong place. Because if the trajectory of the relationship is not going to change, make all the efforts that you want. But if you don't put it in the right place, then it's not going to go anywhere. So that was one of the reasons that I wanted to show people that: Hey, you want more respect, here's how you do it. Then leave more room for people for their own ownership, their own interpretation of it, so that it's not like a prescriptive thing. That you do this, and then it's not causal. We are complicated. We're humans.
Well, and then it's not coming from an outside source. That if your person, really their top item or most important longing is to feel respected and it looks a certain way, they're looking for a specific way that that respect is expressed or how they want to receive that. If that's not known, their partner could be putting in all this effort, and that to them is feeling respectful, but it's not actually hitting the mark for their person because it's meaning something totally different. Well, I'm appreciating just how extensive and how comprehensive you've really supported the continual research, and really the validity and the reliability of it. Are you getting it funded? To your point, a lot of research happens within a university or an organization. So are you willing to share?
No, self-funded. But we have to obviously apply for the ethics and making sure that everything is done properly, so self-funded.
Oh my gosh, congratulations.
Thank you so much. I just want to own my voice. Also, when it comes to love, it's such a concept that it's sacred. For some people—Simon May is a philosopher in love in England, and he talks about this—that if we really try to talk about love, it's as if you took the sacredness out of it. But a lot of clients that we see, I'm pretty sure you see them too, they arrive at our offices so disillusioned. It hurts my heart to see their heartache. So we need to be able to do more, we should do more than just holding space for people. We should really do more. We are the experts. We see people day in, day out.
To be able to make this specific so people can resonate and feel like: Yes, that's what I've been trying to say! Or their partner is like: Oh my goodness, now I understand, I didn't know what you meant. So to have support that's also, as you said, researched-based here. So if I understand, part of the Emergent Model is that these ingredients, if they're being attended to, and couples are responding to one another, so that what matters to them is getting met, then the effect of that is that they're going to be experiencing the warmth, the love, the connection. And that when there are the disconnections, that that can also have the reverse effect. So that there's a little bit more proactiveness, that people can feel a bit more empowered when things get off track. It's like, okay, well let me look. I have a little bit more resource to identify perhaps where are the areas where we're missing each other, and will that support our love connection. Versus we're passively, as you said, expecting that it's going to happen to us. Am I hearing that right?
Yes, absolutely. I'll give you an example. One time I had a couple that came to me. The husband was unfaithful multiple times and still going on, and then his wife got hurt over and over and over again. When they came to me and we were just discussing this, this came to light. I said, I find that very disrespectful, because you are in a monogamous matrimonial situation. You signed the marital contract and said, we are going to be monogamous. You had a conversation about it, and you're still doing this. I find it disrespectful. The lady in the mix, the wife said, I find it lack of compassion. Because you see I keep hurting, and you still do it. Where's the compassion? The gentleman in the situation, the husband said: Well, I see that as lack of shared vision. Who said we are monogamous? Although they had the conversation. I'm sitting there, and I actually shouted out in the session. I said, do you see? We are three people, the issue is in the middle, and we each see it so differently. Like Rumi's description of the elephant.
We really look at the issues that we have from our own angle, perceptions, and the perception of the mind, cognitive distortions that we have, all of that. It's really interesting to me. That's what we need to really break through. So that, to your point, when we are talking about something, are we even talking about the same thing? Or another example, how many clients I have come and say, I feel disrespected by my partner. I just look at them and say, are you respectable? They look at me saying, what do you mean, lady? Of course I am. I'm like, how many times you walked all over yourself? How many times you actually think that your boundaries were loving and firm, instead of passive-aggressive? So how many times did you know there are breakages of each of these ingredients. That people think they have a very good understanding, but do we?
I so appreciate just your challenge here, and that it seems as though this is a quality check, based on research, based on the field's understanding. That we're walking around with these constructs. In psychology, we would call them constructs. They're hard to identify. We don't have a lot of behavioral terms, or we try to have behavioral terms to really be descriptive and define them so we're talking about the same thing. But it's these things that are difficult to have description around, like love. It's a sense, it's not like a physical book that I can describe the measurements of it and various things. So it feels like you're giving people an opportunity to reflect on, have some real resource, and these ingredients, to check and quality check. Like, I say this and what does this mean to me? But also, here's what some research would say, and how does that fit with how I am showing up?
Yeah, absolutely. For example, when I was writing the book, there are six ingredients. Probably it's time also for me to name them, I just keep saying six things.
Let's do that, I was thinking the same thing. You have kind of, but let's be clear.
So one of them is attraction.
“Everything needs to be reciprocal. Not equal, but reciprocal. Attraction, compassion, trust, shared vision, loving behavior, and respect.”
So when I was writing the book, and also, I included the chapter, From Sexual Chemistry to Harmony, because physical connection matters a lot, and all of these six ingredients show up in that physical connection that people have. The other thing is the conflict, and the conflict management style. In our research, we find that there are three models of conflict, the way that people show up in their conflict. Then in the last chapter, I give people check-in and checkups. So for example, the daily check-ins, and then the weekly, the monthly, the annual. So again, the roadmap, it is just my biased brain that I want to know where I put my effort, and a proven way to show you that if I do this, I get something at the end. So those are the ingredients.
But when I was writing it, each of them went to one chapter, and then I had one chapter, Loving Behaviors. As I was having conversation with my lovely editor, she said: Sara, this is really interesting because the whole book is called Love by Design. So it's about love. But you are putting a whole chapter about loving behavior. I said, yes. Because yes, although I'm talking about compassion, respect, and trust, but being loving towards somebody has qualities that nothing else has. For example, going out of your way, giving benefit of the doubt. Being tender in touch, in word, in your look, in your presence, in your energy around them, in the compliments that you give to the person.
“There are qualities to being loving. The exclusivity of it, even if you are in relationship with a zillion people. But this exclusivity between two people matters. The celebration of what the person is proud of and what holds as close identity to them.”
So there are certain qualities that goes even into the act of loving. For one person, it's: Oh, you bring me coffee every morning. That's for me, maybe an act of loving. But for the other person, it might be something else. I'm not talking about languages of love, I'm talking about the qualities. You can bring that coffee, but there is no tenderness, there's no going out of your way for me, there's no having my back. That is not a loving act. That's caring, that's beautiful and generous. But there are qualities that came out of our research that makes a relationship loving.
I so appreciate you underscoring that. The way in which we relate and how that's expressed, the love and the care, whether or not it's tone of voice or intentionality, the undivided attention, how we are attending to the other in that loving care. I've shared this on the show before, but I remember this was several years ago.
My husband and I, I think it was around lunchtime, he happened to be working from home that day, and I work from home often working virtually. We had an exchange, and he was seemingly put off, and I was queried. I was like, what's going on? He's like, you're not being very nice. I was so surprised. I just felt very neutral. I felt very just task-oriented, and I was reflecting on it. I felt slightly defensive in the moment, because I'm like, I'm not being mean, I'm not being rude. But then later, I questioned, and I was like, is it that I am being a little bit more task-oriented, thus you're not feeling my love? Like, I'm talking about dinner or what our plans were, and I was attending to him. But I wasn't doing it with warmth. I wasn't doing it with emotional care. And he wasn't enjoying it. This is perhaps the thing that we're very much, I don't know if you found this in your research, but just in the polyvagal language around the neuroception, we're constantly feeling those around us, our most closest members. Our nervous system, we're picking up on all those cues—body language, the micro facial expressions, tone of voice, prosody of voice. So that's very quickly noticeable.
So true. You mentioned micro-expressions. Before we start the recording, we talked about, we will go where the conversation goes. So this is one of those moments, stop me if you feel like it's not as relevant. But I feel like, nowadays with all of this Botox that is out there, and there is research that is coming out between infants and mothers, that infants of the mothers who use too much of it, they don't have those micro-expressions. They're not actually very good in reading the facial cues anymore. The first time that this came up for me was, we are reading each other all the time constantly. Am I safe? Are you angry? What is happening? Are you smiling? I use that for my frown line, so no judgment for people who do. No judgment. But when you do it too much, I just want people to be aware.
Because I had clients, I remember the first interaction that I had. I had a couple that the guy in the relationship—this was a heterosexual couple later on in life, like in their 60s—wouldn't take her seriously. There was an issue, and she wanted to have him understand that this is really not appropriate. But he kept doing it, something that he was doing. She kept saying, why don't you take me seriously? I'm really angry at you. But with this face, no affect. This is 18 years ago, maybe 19 years ago, Botox was not a thing. I didn't certainly know about it. Maybe I was younger, I don't know. I didn't know about it. Then as I'm looking at her, I'm like, what am I diagnosing her with? She has no affect. What is happening?
Then it occurred to me. So in one of the individual sessions, because some people don't like to disclose to the other person, I asked her. I said, did you do anything here? This is not moving. So you're sitting there saying, I'm bursting with anger, I'm so angry! Like, within the normal range, facial expression would be, you see some lines, some coming of the face together, something. But you just sit there and say, I'm so angry. I don't know if I would take you seriously. So I came up with this idea, which is actually in the book now, but I said: Look, when you want to really make a point about whatever, why don't we use a scale? So you can just say: Hey, on a scale of 1 to 10, this is really bothering me 10 out of 10. Can you please stop? So we need to get creative with whatever we do. We can't just operate from the place that we've been, while we're minusing this piece.
Exactly, I'm so glad you brought that in. I have been really curious. I've noticed in session, clients that have not had a lot of affect, and it occurred to me later. I was like, oh okay. That's probably a part of this, just the Botox and just how that might interfere with the actual communication. Because what people say is, 80% plus of communication is nonverbal, and that a lot of our connection is we're picking up information as it relates to emotion. That's how we're experiencing relationship and information about others, is the emotion, and we get that through these cues, like you're saying. So to have other tools to be able to describe. I still think there's something missing, but I also know we've got to work with what we have. So to be able to offer more there.
I think still, even when we look at cultural differences, people negotiating bicultural, if they come from different cultures, I think some of this is also important to be able to be specific about what it means and why it matters. I think that creates a lot more intentionality. It's sometimes a little bit more effort to unpack that all. And if we're really talking about meeting the mark, if we're putting in effort, that we're really binding each other and hitting the mark, that's worth it. That's the end goal for most of us, or the longing, or long-term goal, is to be able to have a connection that we're nurturing, and to experience that love.
Absolutely, it's really worth it. Beyond the neurophysiology, beyond the impact on our health and longevity, on a daily basis. That's why I say, creating world peace, one relationship at a time. This is not just an aspiration for me, I've seen it done, that when you feel that you have your person, however you define them within these eight configurations that we found, for example. Some people get married, some people don't. Some people decide to have an agreement to build a house together, and now they're a couple, but they have nothing else shared. So there are so many different ways.
“When you have that person that you call your person, that sense of deep sense of belonging, that I matter to another human being. Be it your child, your husband, your friend, whatever you call it. You walk taller in the world. Your cortisol level is lower. You are kinder. You are more generous. Multitude of research shows that.”
So we can't really ignore it. I was listening to one of your podcasts recently. I forget the name of your guest, but she was talking about how she started working with children, and then she noticed that if you really want to help children, you need to help the relational spaces around them. That's how she transformed her work into working with adults.
Yes, it's so true. I mean, yes, we could go on and on about how it affects our health and our nervous system, our sense of resilience and ability to be in the world, feel more resourced. It is extensive, the benefit of having connection that feels safe, supportive, and secure. Often, this can show up as intimate relationship, but it can show up in many other forms that you're giving lots of range for. So coming back to your model, with the key ingredients, would you say that some mean more to others? Or is it during particular phases in life, like it might change depending on life circumstances? Or are you seeing this as they're all equally important and that we want to be attending to all of them?
I really appreciate the question. Really, really appreciate the question. So to answer your first question, all six of them, they have to be present, non-negotiable. However, the reason I call them ingredients is because, one day you would like more compassion, one season of life. You just had a baby, you just lost a job, you just lost a parent, whatever that is happening. One day you need one season of life, or one day you need more compassion, you need maybe more respect, more loving. So with the ingredients, as long as they are giving you the end product, which is that cozy fire, emergent love, then that's fine. You're good. But putting one above the other is not going to help. In some relationships, for example, when you see a lot of power discrepancy, you will see that people do all sorts of crazy things under the name of: Oh, be more compassionate. Or for example, they say, you need to respect me. But then by respect, it means abide by everything I say, obey me. So these are the things that we need to be careful about, how we describe them, and also how we bring them into the different seasons of especially long-term relationships.
So it sounds like, with your check-in and checkups, that this can be something that is really explicit, and that people can be in touch with and checking in with themselves around and checking in with the other, how are we doing with this? Is that right?
Yes. The only thing that I would say, yes absolutely, we need to have a check-in. So for example, the minimum is, I'm actually stunned by the number of people that don't even say hello to each other when they wake up in the morning. That's rude, to begin with. Then, second: Oh, I'm just not a morning person. I don't care, say hello. I was just angry at him and then I went to bed, I'm not saying anything. You can still say it. Say it in an angry voice, but say it. Goodnight, going to bed. There are certain things that are non-negotiable in human relationships. Like in business school, the first thing that they teach you is how to say hello. Well, nowadays after pandemic, there are so many different ways to do this thingy and also across cultures. And then how to say goodbye.
So even with every touch, there is a beginning, middle, and end. So a lot of people come to me and they say: Oh, I've lost my sexual desire for my partner. Okay, let's talk about the way that you interact with each other. Then I realize that maybe they're holding hands. As simple as this. They're holding hand down the street, and then one of them feels hot or sweaty or wants to scratch their nose, whatever. They just let go. Squeeze. Just a little squeeze. I'm going to let go now. So there are certain things that we can do in a subtle manner, which make huge difference. Another thing that I find is, so many people talk too much about their relationships and they forget to be in it. That's another issue we have.
Say more, if you will. These examples are so helpful. Because concepts people can resonate with. But when you put it into action and how important and what it represents, and I love that you're not ambiguous. I tend to live in the gray and I give a lot of room for possibilities, and you're very decisive, and I love it. Like, this is non-negotiable. Just the impact of it, to really be clear around how we're nurturing the relationship, and that there's some real respect here.
Right. But I have to say something about that, Dr. Jessica. What actually draws me to your work was that. Because I felt like this is not a person who feels like, relationships, this is a certain way to do it. So I just want to highlight that, that I love that about you. Because you really have a lot of respect for people's way of being and owning it, and delegating people to come up with it, with gentle instructions. On the other side of it, I agree with you, there are certain things that we can be more lenient about or give people that gray area. Because we live in gray area, there's no black or white. But when it comes to the heartbreaks that I've seen my clients and people experience, because now I have solid evidence, I just have to be very straightforward, put my foot down and say: Hey, this is something that I want you to consider and consider seriously. Because there is a better way. So that's where it's coming from.
Well, and it's important, and what people do with it will be what they do with it. But to have the recommendation, coming from a place of very being informed or an expert, that they can take that with a level of merit. Also, not everyone's been exposed to the consideration that you're describing. People can get into this automatic way of being and think that it's okay or that it doesn't really matter. Just this gentle squeeze, to be truthful, I don't do that. I'm like, that would be lovely to incorporate that. If I'm hot and we're holding hands, I'll let go. But I'm like: Oh, I want to do that. I want to squeeze and let him know. Because these things matter. These subtleties, cumulatively, really have a lot of potency.
Conversely, I remember when we first started dating, and I had some people that were talking to me and he wasn't sure if he should leave. Like, people were approaching me and I was having a conversation, but I grabbed his hand. I wanted him to know I'm still with you, and I'm going to just finish this conversation. He remarked later how much that meant to him. So it's like, these things have a lot of power.
Yes, just the little things. A lot of my couples get into fight when they go to parties, for example, or they have a social gathering. So I came up with this idea of the social etiquette for a couple. So how to check with each other? Like, if you are in a conversation, just turn around slightly, ever so slightly, and then put your hand behind the other person. Or include them: Hey, there's room for you here too, I'm not just shutting the door. Just subtle. You know, here’s why that matters.
“We can talk about intimacy and sex and communication and whatever, all we want. But if our bodies don't perceive each other as safe, as inclusive, as the actual body that makes me feel good, my body is going to walk away gradually.”
Then they end up in our offices, the couples end up in our offices, feeling like: Well, I don't know why, but I'm not as attracted anymore, I don't desire my partner anymore. I've seen that with parents too. Oh, it's just a teenager thing, they shut me out. No, I'm so sorry, you lost the connection long before they became a teenager. So it's a very interesting space to be in. We talk about everything. But what are we talking about, what is the content?
Yes. I'm reminded, just this week I had, I used to work with them as a couple, and the wife reached out to me. They just had a little one. She has known this about her husband, he loves her beyond loving her. He is super devoted and very intelligent. And this very thing, when they're at a social gathering, he's probably a little bit more extroverted. To your earlier point, the differences in personality. Probably gets a lot of energy from being with other people and talking. She's more introverted and wanting that stability. Nonetheless, just having had a baby, she was hoping that he would be more considerate, was her language. And when she went out, there was a fire pit, and several of the other men offered their spot to her and he didn't. I mean, they're very small things. But this is huge impact. There's several examples that she has, but that was one of them. Or giving a compliment. She's like, I feel like I did a really good job being pregnant, being healthy, and I don't think I ever remember one compliment. Obviously these things mean different things, everybody's got a different preference and feels loved in different ways. But it's incredibly important.
Yeah, I agree with you. On that note, I want for people to pay attention, for your beautiful listeners or whoever that's exposed to our content today. I want people to really learn deeply about their love blueprint. All of us have a blueprint, meaning the impressions that we are carrying. Who was loving? What was love? What was the word used? Again, coming from different cultural exposures myself, it always amazes me. The word love, being in love, differences across languages. What do people actually mean by those? What are the nuances? So when we were growing up, and also the literature that we were exposed to might be different than the country that we live in now. For example, mwah. Like, me included. Or for example, the person that we chose to share this loving sphere with, loving space with.
So what does that love mean? The whole analogies that I use throughout the book, that's why I say by design. So the blueprint is something that engineers come up with and then make sure, that's the blueprint. It doesn't mean that it comes to fruition for sure. But that is going to inform the process, for sure. So that piece of it, I want people to know their love blueprint. How did it change over time, over different relationships that they experienced? One of my clients the other day was telling me, I was hardened by the lack of trust that my partner had for me in the previous relationship. So you are going to carry that crust with you, that hardened piece of you, into the next relationship. You need to know that. So one other thing that I tell people that they need to definitely know about themselves is their quirks, pet peeves, and sensitivities. These are the things that you need to think about deeply and share annually with one another.
I love the language around that. It makes it so accessible. Because it's not like, our wounds or our traumas. I mean, that might be a part of the mix. But it's quirks, pet peeves, and sensitivities. It's just this recognition. Do you want to say a little bit more about an example or what that might look like?
Sure. Quirk is, for example, I'm a mummer. I hum all the time. So that's my quirk. So if you ask somebody close to me and say, what is Sara's quirk? Sara is always humming her favorite songs. That's really cute, especially at the beginning of a relationship. Over a period of time, that might become a pet peeve for somebody around me. It could be a roommate, it could be a friend, my husband, my child. So pet peeves are the ones that send a tickle down your spine. It's not only towards your partner. It could be somebody's chewing with their mouth open. Really, I invite people to think about their five senses and the energy around them, and what is it that tickles them in the wrong way? That's a pet peeve.
Then, quirks are usually cute. Usually we are not aware of them. So one of the exercises I give to my clients is to go out and ask people, do you know of any of my quirks? They are amazed, because they come back, and this is the most difficult part for them to identify about themselves. So quirks, pet peeves, and then moving forward from it, the sensitivities.
Sensitivities are a little bit of a bruise, a chip on the shoulder, something that we carry from before. Maybe for example, respect is not a big deal for you, but maybe it is for me. Maybe injustice is not a big deal for you, but it is for me. So when you know all of those about you in a space of a relationship, then you don't question the person or yourself or your sanity. Like, oh, the average person shouldn't be bothered by it. Yeah, but you have a bruise that has been poked. You need to know that by yourself. So when people ask me, especially people who are dating and also in long-term relationships, what is the work that we need to do before the relationship or to go to the next stage of our relationship, make it more thriving? This is the groundwork that I want people to do to get to know themselves.
It's so helpful to be able to approach our new relationships in saying: Here's what I know about myself, or here's a tendency something I'm working on, but also to make it visible. Typically then the partner in response could be feeling a little bit more of that compassion. Also, empathy and desire to help. Rather than getting into, you shouldn't do that, or this right or wrong about it. It just is part of what I've experienced and have some tenderness around.
Exactly.
Oh, we could keep going and going. I feel so grateful for your wealth of knowledge and how you've made this so practical. Share a little bit, tell us the name of your book again.
Oh, it's Love by Design: Six Ingredients to Build A Lifetime of Love.
Excellent. I'll put the link on today's show notes. Is there anything else you want to direct people towards, a website or any other resources, social media, ways you want to invite people to connect with you?
Sure. I usually say I'm all over the place, but it depends where they would like to find their information. So I am on Instagram under DrSaraNasserzadeh, so there I am more engaged and involved. I do everything on my own. I mean, the engagement, everything is mwah, so you don't get like an assistant helping you. I have people helping me beautify it, but the whole control is with me. Because over a period of years, I learned that people share personal narratives or comments or DMs, and I wanted to be there, just the reciprocity of that trust that they have. Then, I have one bimonthly newsletter that's called The Common Ground by Dr. Sara, on Substack. That is the one that I pick a topic. I go from literacy to fluency on one specific topic. Then yeah, my website also is Sara-Nasserzadeh.com.
Wonderful. I'll put the link to your book, your Instagram, your Substack, and your website on today's show. Thank you so much for being with us and sharing all that you've shared.
Thank you kindly for your warm hospitality and this enjoyable conversation. Thank you.
The post ERP 494: Designing Love That Lasts: 6 Principles for Lasting Connection — An Interview with Dr. Sara Nasserzadeh appeared first on Jessica Higgins.
About this episode
What happened to our sex life? It’s a question that so many couples and individuals ask themselves in silence, often with a mix of confusion, frustration, and vulnerability. Desire seems to disappear overnight. Intimacy becomes awkward or routine. Shame and self-doubt creep in, making it all the harder to talk about what’s really going on—let alone figure out how to reconnect. The problem isn't just about mismatched libido or busy schedules. It's about navigating the invisible scripts, societal expectations, stress, and even past wounds that shape our most intimate experiences.
In this episode, we dive deep into understanding the roots of sexual disconnection and desire discrepancies–from personal identity and past experiences to relational habits and cultural messaging. Through empathetic discussion and expert insights, the conversation invites listeners to explore both individual and relational factors that impact their sex lives, offering practical strategies for reclaiming intimacy, self-awareness, and genuine pleasure. Whether you’re looking to rekindle passion, start new conversations, or simply better understand your own needs, this episode delivers compassionate tools and supportive perspectives to help you navigate the complex terrain of modern sexual relationships.
Dr. Kate Balestrieri is the author of What Happened to My Sex Life? and a licensed psychologist and certified sex therapist focused on helping people heal from trauma and addiction, improve relationships, and have better sex lives. She is the founder of Modern Intimacy, a counseling practice that operates in Los Angeles, Miami, and Chicago, and a passionate advocate for mental health, relational and sexual health, and wellness.
Episode Highlights
03:08 Kate’s personal and clinical journey exploring lost desire.
08:46 How identity and culture influence sexual expression.
11:32 Confronting fear and questioning sexual norms.
15:12 Creating safety to discuss and explore new desires.
18:39 Building safety and self-awareness around intimacy.
20:56 Unpacking shame, fantasies, and compulsive sexual behavior.
26:17 Understanding that fluctuating desire is normal.
29:04 The impact of stress and lifestyle on libido.
31:22 Prioritizing self-care and space for intimacy.
35:04 Practicing rolling consent and daily connection.
37:51 Rethinking gender roles in intimacy.
40:03 Addressing resentment and rebuilding honesty.
44:04 Healing, self-compassion, and claiming pleasure.
Your Check List of Actions to Take
- Take a moment of pause regularly to connect with your breath and tune into your body, which helps build presence and emotional awareness.
- Spend time exploring your own sexual identity, beliefs, and permission structures—ask yourself, “Who am I?” when it comes to desire and pleasure.
- Consider what factors (personal, relational, or societal) might be influencing your current relationship to sex. Journal about what feels alive, shut down, or confusing.
- Practice sharing your needs, wants, and concerns with your partner(s) using curious, non-judgmental language—invite them to do the same.
- Identify small, safe ways to take new risks in your sexual or emotional intimacy, “stretching” a bit outside your comfort zone.
- Schedule regular self-care or solo “me time” to recharge and reconnect with your own body and pleasure, even if it’s just 15 minutes a day.
- Intentionally set aside time for intimacy with your partner. Focus on connection, touch, or shared pleasure rather than a specific sexual outcome.
- Notice any resentment, unspoken needs, or emotional blocks, and gently begin to address these. Consider support from a therapist if these feel difficult to tackle alone.
Mentioned
What Happened to My Sex Life?: A Sex Therapist’s Guide to Reclaiming Lost Desire, Connection, and Pleasure (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
Get Naked with Dr. Kate (*Apple Podcast) (podcast)
Relationship Map To Happy, Lasting Love
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Episode Transcript
Dr. Kate, thank you for joining us.
Thanks so much for inviting me.
I am looking forward to our conversation. I feel like you have so much to offer with your background and training and personal experience, which I know you'll be sharing a little bit about, just what prompted you to really be focusing on this specific area. But where would you like to start, just for people who are getting to know you?
Well, I think maybe the Cliffs Notes. I'm a licensed psychologist, a certified sex therapist, certified sex addiction therapist, and I own a therapy practice called Modern Intimacy with providers across the country.
Wonderful. So with your topic today around What Happened to My Sex Life, I know this is a title of your recent book, and just really looking and addressing the questions that people may be asking themselves in private when they notice that they are not feeling the same sexually in their sexual intimacy, whether or not it's just their individual experience, and/or how they're relating to others. How did this become of interest to really focus on this specifically?
Yeah, so I am a sex therapist, and talking about desire discrepancies and people's lost connection with their desire is an everyday conversation for me. So I definitely, through research and certainly clinical practice, observe many themes that separate people from their desire. But therapists are not immune to the human condition, and I found myself asking the question: what happened to my sex life? When it became clear to me that it had become really deprioritized, and that was really curious and it was a big shift for me. So it started the process of compiling, of course some personal exploration in my own world, but really a more intentional understanding of what those themes are that maybe are more prevalent, but less talked about. So my book is a conversation that people might be having with themselves about trying to understand the intrinsic factors, the relational factors that can be creating some distance between themselves and desire.
Yes, thank you for speaking to that. I so agree. Just that I have had so many people ask me about my own experiences as it relates to any type of challenges. I'm like, I get scared, I get freaked out, or my stomach sickens and knots. I just trust the process because I have more research or understanding about the landscape of some of these things. But it doesn't make me insulated from these challenges. I also really appreciate, Kate, that in your book, just even the context of what you're really inviting people to consider, just even how they identify as far as sexuality, and just really giving room and space for a continuum, getting out of the binary heteronormative frame. I mean, I very much am in support of men's development, women's development, and the healthy acknowledging of both of these, and also just some of the cultural messaging that exists. It's really interesting to spend time to reflect on all the different layers and variables that impact our access to our sexual selves.
I appreciate you saying that. I think probably one of the most important but least sexy chapters in my book is the chapter, Who Am I, where I talk a lot about identity and the intersectionality of the identities that we maintain, and how they can influence our relationship with sexuality, our relationship with desire. Because so much of it is about permission. If I belong to this group, and this group is saying that I have to show up in this way, then can I be sexual in a way that maybe competes with that identity's requirements, or the things that are important to me about that identity? This is a very unconscious process that most of us have not taken the time to really deconstruct and understand about ourselves. But it is a fundamentally important permission-giving place to start when people are maybe feeling like shame is one of the bigger impediments to their desire.
Absolutely, thank you. Even if one is aware and has done some level of inquiry, it still perhaps can show up and operate and be running interference. Because real desire, I think you speak about this, is real connection to what feels real and true, and having space to own that and be embodied in it. I will just say, I know this affects a lot of people, that whether or not it's what is seen in a movie that could be very classic archetypes as far as sexual relating, or people watching porn, or whatever they're accessing to get visuals or information around what sexual intimacy can be. I mean, we're social animals, so this understanding and learning or curiosity in what are other people doing, I think that's just a natural part of development. And that can also be put on us. Like, when you talk about the patriarchal structure, and I think you reference some of the history around the masculine feminine, if we're going to look at a heterosexual relationship, heteronormative. I see this show up even now in my sessions with couples, where the female partner will say: Oh, it's just kind of like, got to do the duty. I'm just like, ah. So it's really profound how much this shows up in what roles that we adopt or scripts. I mean, it's complicated.
It is, and it's mostly unconscious.
“The thing that can be really hard for some folks is that we have these ideas about how the world is, and right or wrong, when we grow up thinking that something is the way it is, that becomes our framework for what is safe or normal or expected. So really challenging those ideas can create a lot of existential fear and a lot of relational fear and societal fear.”
Because the systems of power that exist that maintain these different systems, naming patriarchy of course, people do experience social consequences sometimes when they challenge those things. There are a lot of positives that come with it too, and it is not all good or all bad, as nothing really is. But it can be scary for people to really start to peel back the questions of why do I think this way? Do I really need this to feel safe? Is it okay for me to think about my sexuality or my gender or other elements of my identity in a way that maybe aren't so prescribed? Again, the liberation and the fear that come with that play a big role in how we shape our sexual Yes and our No.
Thank you for speaking to the fear that's often associated with challenging some of these scripts or things that we've adopted along the way, that may have been unconscious up until a certain point, or even the relational. That it can challenge, will I still be lovable if I say no or I ask for something that sounds really arousing? That is unknown, uncharted territory, especially if we have no previous experience to draw from.
Yeah, it can be really scary, and that fear can shut a lot of people down.
So I know we'll probably get into that, because you really give some structure to helping people be able to find themselves. Not that it's just one contributing factor, and I know this is partly how your book is structured, is the first part is really looking at what might be operating in me or what might be happening individually. Second, relationally, and then what do we do about it? But my question just popped up around fear, around how to negotiate taking safe risks. So taking a risk, but doing it in a safe way that we don't get totally paralyzed? I would love to hear more about that, but do you want to save that?
Yeah, whenever. We can talk about it now or later, it's up to you.
Well, I would love to hear any thoughts, just bigger picture. Just how you might approach somebody who feels the fear, but also is wanting to get outside of things that maybe keep them in these set ways.
Well, I think there's a few variables to consider. One, people do have real ecological concerns. If I ask for this thing and it isn't acceptable in my partnership and the partnership doesn't survive this, what happens to me? So I think people have to do a bit of an assessment, a bit of an inventory: what kind of risks are they willing to take, what kinds of rewards are worth those risks? I can't answer that for anyone individually. That has to be a process that they explore on their own. Because what might feel really safe and tolerable for one person might feel completely intolerable for another. So there really isn't a cookie-cutter way to answer that question. But in my book, I outline a process of thinking about what is safe enough. Because in order to grow, in order to expand, in order to feel, we have to be willing to tolerate a little bit of discomfort. Because there is a stretching process, a growing process, a learning process.
Sometimes when you're asking for what you want or need, whether it's sexual or otherwise, there's a little bit of ambiguity when you're negotiating that with yourself or with a partner about, are we going to get to a place where we're all okay with this and where it makes sense and where we can fit this new dimension into a partnership that may feel otherwise wonderful, or maybe full of tension in some places? So there's negotiation that happens. I find that when partners are able to be transparent and give each other the benefit of the doubt, and to ask questions about what about this new thing that you want to explore, what does that do for you and how does that serve our relationship? That can be a really beautiful starting point in a shared curiosity that might create less defensiveness and might create more understanding of why this new kink, for example, could actually be beneficial for your partnership, even if it's not your partner's total jam.
Maybe they're like: Oh, I get that it does this for you and it helps you feel alive in these ways, and that actually nurtures our partnership. Because you might show up with more energy or more autonomy or more this or more that, and that actually is beneficial. So I want that for you and I want that for us. If people are really afraid to ask the question of what do you get to learn about yourself if we explore this or that, they really lose out on a lot of opportunity for deeper connection.
I'm grateful you're modeling or just giving an example to some curious language and just having a starting place that can feel very open. Just let's wonder, here's what I notice, and what are possibilities. I very much appreciate you helping people access, what would that allow me to feel? That could be more visible to the other, in that, perhaps as you said, it wouldn't be that particular idea or position or style is necessarily my preference, and hearing what it means to you or what it allows you to feel. That I have interest in, and maybe there's a way that I can participate that feels really genuine and exciting for me. These conversations, again, it's uncharted territory, we don't know where it's going to go. But to be able to hold some room and give some opportunity for development and growth, it's quite special, and I'm also aware that it requires something. Even though you're saying a starting point, I'm imagining it requires some of the individual inquiry and really acknowledging self, and then also looking at relationally. Like, do we even have the ability to have these conversations? Do we even need to start smaller to just build some repetition around how we can confront topics that feel sensitive?
Well, this can be really tricky, especially if one or both partners maybe doesn't have a lot of emotional regulation skills. We can quickly get flooded, and that can make conversations that are charged dangerous to have, emotionally and sometimes otherwise. But it is really important to think about like, how do you introduce something in a way that brings a win-win to your dynamic? Sometimes that win-win isn't always clear, and it isn't always a linear path. But it doesn't mean that it isn't mutually beneficial in some way if you are in partnership. Now, if you're an unpartnered person and you're exploring things, that's a whole different negotiation with yourself and with different partners that you might have.
So I think the thing to maybe remember is that we do get to experience self-development in whatever way is important to us. For many people, sex is the vehicle for that. Because sex becomes a bit of play, it becomes a metaphor, and it gives us access to parts of ourselves that we don't necessarily get to experience in other parts of our lives. So when a lot of folks are coming in and they feel shame around wanting to try something new, I immediately remind them that your fantasies don't define your worthiness as a human. Your fantasies are a path to feel something. So let's figure out what you want to feel, and then maybe see how you feel about that.
Well, thank you for acknowledging that. I'm hearing something pop for me that sounds a little bit like playing devil's advocate. I'm not, I very much understand where you're at and subscribe wholeheartedly. I just hear the voice around, well, if somebody's coming in with shame or they notice some compulsive or addictive tendencies, I guess that does fit. I guess it takes some unpacking, like what part is really congruent with who they are and what they want, and also, are they using it as a coping strategy? Talk to me a little bit about how this fits.
Yeah, so I'm glad you're bringing this up. Because this is a really, I think, gray area, murky area for folks, especially if they are experiencing what they describe as compulsivity or out of control sexual fantasies or behavior. Sometimes people feel shame around the frequency with which they are engaging in the sexualized thoughts or behavior, and sometimes they feel shame around what it is they're fantasizing about or what it is they're doing. So it is important to get a deeper understanding of where that shame lives and the function that it serves for that person.
But I think it's really important that we don't attach any pathology to the kind of sex that people like. Understanding, of course, that it is consensual behavior. But outside of that, really, when most folks are experiencing shame or compulsivity, it's because they're having a hard time stopping and they want to, or they think the amount of sex that they're having is not okay. So sometimes there might be real ecological consequences in their lives. But sometimes people have a lot of shame that they're sexual at all, or they have a sex life with themselves, maybe separate from the sex life with their partner. So really, we're not talking about compulsivity. We're talking about folks who maybe don't have clear fidelity agreements, or maybe they have differences in what they want their fidelity agreements to be, and there is an unwillingness to adhere to those fidelity agreements, or a lack of honesty in setting them up in the first place. And somebody is having a sexual relationship with themselves or with porn or with other people that doesn't align with the things they've agreed to. So there's a lot of nuance here that needs to be very carefully untangled.
Yes, and I hear the caution of putting any label on somebody's experience or how they're operating. Tell me if I'm hearing you right, and this is what I'm associating, that if the question can be asked around, what would you love if we took the shame off and you really looked at what you would love or what feels wonderful to you? That's a great thing to give some room for, because that could then perhaps look at ways in which they're cutting off certain parts of themselves, or they feel as though I have to keep this hidden or it's not acceptable. Or how they're owning really in their own space with whoever they want to share with, and then also themselves. That seems like a big component to what you're describing.
Yeah, a lot of folks are trying to fit themselves like square pegs into round holes. So coming back to my chapter on Who Am I, we have all been exposed to primarily a heteronormative and mono-normative culture. And what that means is that most folks have grown up believing that monogamy is the healthy and predetermined path for people. But what we understand about human behavior is that pre-patriarchy, that was actually not the case.
“There is quite a diverse spectrum of people who appreciate more monogamy and that they feel safe and alive in that context, and people who appreciate a multi-partner life situation. There are all kinds of vicissitudes in between, and that diversity is actually the human norm.”
So what we have is a lot of folks who have been subjected to compulsory monogamy. They've entered into monogamous relationships because that has been the prescribed trajectory for them, what they believe to be “normal and true” for healthy relationships. In fact, maybe their actual nature is non-monogamous. So the square peg round hole, that's going to be a really difficult situation for someone, for partners in a dynamic like that. So here's an opportunity to say what actually is my truth, and can we create agreements that sustain us and our needs together, if you're partnered?
That's with, not assumption, but the hope that maybe somebody has a little bit more clarity. But to your earlier point, some of this can be unconscious. So to even look at, what am I finding myself gravitating towards, or where do I get excited, or if I'm shutting down certain parts of myself or making it not okay or having a lot of shame about it? This is super helpful.
So in your first part of your book, you're referencing who am I as a big question, and you spend time on it and you've talked about it here today. You also talk about am I broken, or just is something wrong with me? That being a very common question, and I can tell you how many people have asked me. The level of their sexual frequency, is that normal? Just feeling like they're questioning, and these internal wonderings around how am I existing and how is that? Do you want to speak to that here?
Yeah, absolutely. I think probably the most common question that I get as a sex therapist is some iteration of: am I normal, or am I broken, or am I wrong, or am I bad? Something along that line, and it comes up in so many ways. It comes up when people are curious about the fantasies that they have. Am I normal? Do other people like this? Is this okay to like? Am I in trouble?
“We have so much sex negativity in our world that people get very afraid sometimes of the things that they fantasize about, because they think it means something about them that it may not mean at all.”
So there's that component. But as it relates to desire, a lot of time when people have very natural ebbs and flows in their desire, they'll ask the question of, am I broken? Because there's maybe a desire discrepancy between themselves and their partner. Sometimes the higher desire partner has this fear of like: Oh no, am I too much? Do I want too much? Am I wrong? Am I flawed? Am I bad? Sometimes the lower desire feels that way. Am I broken because I don't want to have sex as much and it's not a big priority for me right now? So it's a big fear.
The thing that I really hope people listening might take away, is that desire does ebb and flow. For some people, sure it might remain more constant, but if yours feels more variable, that's okay. Over the course of our lifespan, there may be periods of time where you feel less interested and less motivated, or more interested and more motivated, and it's normal. Now, I hate the word normal, but to use it in this context. It's normal to have variation. Because look, we don't get hungry at the same time every day, at the same time as our partner. We're not thirsty. We don't like to do the same things all the time that our partner wants to do. So why would we expect that we get horny or want to have sex at the same time and the same frequency as another human being? We don't.
You add hormones into that, it's a miracle that people sync up at the same time with what's their internal arousal or desire.
Exactly, and you add things in like taking care of children and being the primary or the default parent, feeling touched out, or taking care of family members who are aging or maybe sick and need extra support, work demands. Our lives are constantly moving targets and they're dynamic in their domains. So our sex life will be too.
Do you find that the modern pace of life and the demands, some of which you just listed, make self-care or embodiment difficult, and thus sexual health is a part of that?
Absolutely. I think we are living through a time where we are more stressed, more digital, less well-resourced probably than ever before. The economy plays a big role in how well people can be in their body, how proactively they can be in their body, how much access to different things that might give them more rest, more pleasure. There's just so many different variables that are playing a role right now in how we do or do not relate to desire and arousal. I think the last statistic that I read on this was that about 70% of folks respond to an elevated amount of stress with decreased desire, and about 30% of folks respond to elevated stress with increased desire. So there isn't a right or wrong way. But for many folks, that increased allostatic load is a real inhibitor for desire, and for other people, it's the way they diffuse it. So there's a bifurcation in how people respond to that. But certainly, we are living busier and less resourced, less embodied lives, probably than ever before.
Yeah, thank you for acknowledging just what that can be, and then also how we might respond, which hearkens back to the diversity of how we experience things as humans. Now, when we talk about relationship, knowing that there are ebbs and flows, and then the various life events or stress that might interfere with feeling embodied or present with desire and arousal, hence affecting sexual interest. Do you recommend people make room and space and prioritize? Because I'd imagine it's a nuanced thing as well, like we've talked about, that: Oh, I'm trying to show up and be something that I'm not. But also, if I'm in a default mode and I'm in this habituated way of letting my life and the demands, and I'm not necessarily having the level of intention that maybe I want. How do you hold that?
It's a really good question.
“This is probably one of the most common places where people struggle. They want to want to be sexual, but getting there is sometimes really tricky. Because you're exhausted, or it feels like an obligation, a task, a thing, one more thing I have to want to do.”
And where do I pull that want when I'm already doing so many other things? So I think the question to really be curious about is, how big of a want is that want to want to be sexual again? Then you get to decide how much prioritization you apply to that. But for folks who do want to want it, I think scheduling time for a few things is really important. There's some back and forth about scheduling sex. I don't know that I love the idea of scheduling sex, because then it starts to feel like an obligation or something that if you don't do now, you've not done something and your to-do list gets longer.
So for folks who maybe are a bit more neurodivergent, that can start to really intersect with their demand avoidance, and it can be a huge impediment. Also, where there is maybe some sexual entitlement in a dynamic, I never would want to encourage someone to capitulate to sexual entitlement or coercion. Because that sends a very strong message to the body, and it feels like a giant no, even though you're creating a situation where you're saying yes. So it really creates more tension, and it can widen the chasm of desire discrepancy in a relationship. So I would say don't force yourself if your body is giving you a no.
But what I do love the idea of is two things. Scheduling time for you to just have your own space and self time and care. That can take any form you want. If you want to sit and stare at the wall for two hours because that's all you have energy for, do that. I love that for you. Make it easy. If you're like, I want to train for a marathon in my me time, do that then. Whatever is your thing, whatever allows you to feel like you and like you're back in your body, you're back in yourself, you're actually alive again in your own skin. That is really huge. Because we do have a lot of demands on our time, we do have a lot of expectations. For people who parent, oof those demands multiply fast and very quickly. Your body is not your own, your time is not your own, and you really do need some runway to find yourself again, and then people start to feel desire in their body. You have to actually be before you can be anything else.
You share the be. If I'm trying to share and I have no being, then it's difficult to share from that place of disconnect. I love that recommendation.
Yeah. So for people who are partnered, I often ask them, how are you setting yourselves up so that you're actually carving out time for each of you to have your own lane, your own ability to just let it all go and come back to yourself? Then, maybe scheduling time to create intimacy. Now that can mean anything. Emotional intimacy, non-sexual, physical intimacy, intellectual intimacy, maybe sexual intimacy. But I love the idea of putting that intentional time on the calendar and then letting it be what it's going to be.
Yes. I'm reminded, years ago, I interviewed Martha Kauppi and she talks about this. Do you know her?
Yeah, I know of her.
Yeah. She was talking about approaching the shared space with the intention to luxuriate, and that there's a rolling consent. We're not coming with prescribed, like this is what's going to happen. Even this yes or no, like I have to decide if I want to have intercourse or not at the start, that is unknown perhaps. Maybe my body is more in this responsive place and I don't know yet, and that I'm really allowing permission that at any point just continuing to say: Well, what feels good now, or what am I yes to? That each person, if we're talking about two people in a partnered relationship, that they're responsible for their own orgasm. This pressure to please, and I know this exists even when we know we don't want to approach it. But just really having that intention to luxuriate and have a lot of permission, that it's not decided yet what's going to happen.
Yeah, I love that. Creating opportunities where desire can build. I think when you've been with someone for a long time, sometimes you take for granted what you know about them, and it's a little bit more difficult to be intentional around cultivating desire. You live together maybe, you're around each other a lot. You do all the day-to-day things that are pretty unsexy. But really thinking like, well, what turns my partner on, what turns me on? How do we create time and space where those things can start to build, so desire feels more organic? I think a lot of folks land together and they're like: Well, now what, isn't it supposed to magically happen? No, we actually have to show up with some energy that builds that. When couples can create erotic moments throughout their day-to-day life and hold some of that tension and that energy together, then it does become more organic, more easily when you do have the time dedicated.
Absolutely. Oh gosh, just showing up, laying there, and then now what? I'm even aware that sometimes in heterosexual monogamous relationships, perhaps the male partner might feel like, or the female partner might feel like: I've been running masculine energy all day and I'm wanting you to take the lead. And they're both like: Well, you go, you lead. Because they're both exhausted. So coming to the table with a sense of connection and being of what feels good, then there's perhaps a little more to play with, and maybe one has more energy. Do you have any comment around the polarity of masculine feminine and how this shows up?
I don't use that language. That language for me is pretty dangerously patriarchal. I think folks can get stuck in an idea between energetic intention, and what are the gender roles and what's acceptable for me or not acceptable for me. So I tend to stay away from it, but I know people use it a lot. So my invitation is to maybe think about what do these polarities represent for you? If you were using the language of masculine or feminine as shorthand, do you know what you're actually saying, what you're actually calling in? Because different folks will define that differently. And what I hear a lot in partnership is, I want you to take the lead because I've been busy all day, and I don't have the capacity or the mental load to curate an erotic start. That doesn't really matter about gender. People can show up with that sort of energetic exhaustion or availability.
So maybe today, partners have more of a solidified: I like to initiate, I love when you initiate. Cool, so we know who's going to take charge most of the time. But even in those scenarios, sometimes the person who's the default initiator maybe isn't feeling it, and might really value somebody else showing up and being like: Hey, hey, hey. I tend to stay away from that language, but I think the intention is really important, to talk through. Like, what does being masculine mean? Does that mean being dominant? Okay, what does that mean, how does that show up? What are the behaviors that evidence that, and what's exciting erotically about that for one or both person, or more than two if there are more than two in the context?
Yeah, I appreciate you just even saying it can be a tricky territory to be using that language, because of what we associate. I very much believe every human has both energies, but also, for each person to define: Well, what are you, what is it that you're seeking? I love just going a little further there, because so many assumptions can be made about what that means.
So many. It does get really over-coupled with gender identity and power structures in the world, so it can be a bit of an impediment. For example, I talk with a lot of men who really, really love anal play, and they're so afraid to bring it forward to their partner who, in this context, is a woman. Because they don't want her to think that he is not heterosexual. They have a lot of fear around that. We talk a lot about what does it mean to be masculine, but also to be a human who has an anus? Because all humans have anuses. They all have lots of pleasure nerve endings and lots of pleasure and sensation potential. So can you separate that from your gender identity and your sexual orientation, and just explore anatomy and physical sensation and what is that like? So again, I don't use that shorthand for some of those reasons.
Super helpful, thank you. Well, I am acknowledging, just speaking about the relational space, that when people are a little bit more embodied or have connected with themselves, approach that shared space, more might be felt. I think you do a great job, I know we don't have a ton of time, but recognizing some of the relational dynamics. Like: Ooh, I'm actually a little bothered by you, or actually I have this little bit of a bone to pick with you. Maybe I wasn't even aware of it because I was so occupied on all the daily life, but when I really am present with you, I recognize I have some things to clear, or dynamics that I find challenging. So that can also come up or be part of what's interacting here.
For sure.
“Lots of folks are committed to dishonest harmony, and it makes the day-to-day life easier. But what it also does is it disconnects us from our authenticity, and it disconnects us from an intimate emotional connection that for many people, in long-term partnership at least, needs to exist for there to be some sexual veracity and spark.”
So it is maybe safer, but we unfortunately can't just numb away the hard things. When we numb away, we are numbing away the good things too. So those relationships can feel very flat after time. As I said before, in order to feel good, we have to be willing to tolerate some risk. So getting real about: You know what, I have been really resentful with you for a long time, and I need to own that. But also, can we talk about it and can we change some of this dynamic? It's sometimes necessary to get unstuck where there is a drop in desire.
Thank you for speaking to that. I just feel like it's so important, and I'm also aware. Again, I keep asking questions, but this might be my second to last or last. But this is perhaps where people might also notice the trauma, just how they're experiencing sensation or what's coming up for them that may not fit with present time circumstances or interaction, which might be related to a way in which someone is not acknowledging what's real. Like you said, I love that phrase, just the dishonest harmony. It captures it so well.
That's not my phrase, by the way. I don't know who coined it, but I learned it on TikTok and it so perfectly encapsulates conflict avoidance.
Doesn't it? It's so prevalent, to varying degrees. But what would you like to say? I know you wrote a lot about this in your book and you offer just so, so much support. But just here right now, for someone listening that might be negotiating this.
Well, I think we really want to be mindful that even a commitment to that dishonest harmony or conflict avoidance can be rooted in trauma. It might've been the thing that allowed you to survive really hard circumstances. So stay really compassionate with the parts of you that are taking care of you in the best way that they know how, while also making space for some new strategies that might actually affect a more long-term sustainable outcome for you. We have the gift of healing, and unfortunately, that requires a little bit of rolling up the sleeves and doing some of the hard work. We're ready for that when we're ready for it and not a moment sooner. So when you feel ready to lean into that growth edge in a way that you feel resourced to do it, then that's a good time to start, and let's honor the parts of you that weren't ready up until that moment. So it's never too late, and it's important that you really gauge when you feel like you have the spoons to do it.
Yeah, this is all really good information. Just less blame and shame, recognizing: Oh, perhaps I am dishonest. I mean, it's a nice phrase, but to then say I'm being dishonest, which there's truth to it, but the compassion. Just noticing it's hard for me to bring these parts, and thus there's ways in which I'm not connecting, and what is that about? Is that something I'm wanting to explore or do some work around?
Yeah, sometimes it might be helpful to think about it as a self-abandonment. Sometimes self-abandonment is the only form of self-preservation that someone's been taught in life. So the word dishonest does carry some charge, but that inauthenticity has been protective.
Absolutely, yes. Well, Dr. Kate, is there anything you wanna say here before we wrap up or add to?
Just that we all have a right to pleasure, not necessarily pleasure with another person. We all have a right to pleasure and to create a relationship with sexual and non-sexual pleasure that feels empowering and enlivening and right sized for us.
“To the extent that this is something that you're negotiating within yourself, just know you get to set those parameters. You get to open up space for what feels interesting and say no to the things that don't. You get to define your relationship with sex.”
Thank you. Tell us about your book that you offer so much guidance and support to do some of this work.
Yeah, thank you. It's called What Happened To My Sex Life: A Sex Therapist's Guide to Reclaiming Lost Desire, Connection, and Pleasure. It's available everywhere you get your books, and you can also find it along with other resources on my website, ModernIntimacy.com.
Yes. Do you want to say anything else about Modern Intimacy? It sounds like you have clinicians and practitioners that serve people all over the states.
Yeah, we do. Thank you. My team is really exemplary, and we are licensed across 15 states, and we also have a few coaches who work with people internationally. We can offer services in English, Spanish, and Farsi. Everyone on my team is, in some way, shape, or form, on the path to becoming a sex therapist, um, many already are. We all really practice from a place of inclusivity and understanding people's whole selves and their gestalt. But it's a really fun team, and I feel really grateful to work with everyone on it.
Wonderful. Well, I'll make sure to have the link to your website as well as to the book. I know you mentioned, as people connect with you, that you might have other opportunities to engage in curriculum or courses. I so appreciate all that you're doing and offering people in this landscape.
Well, thank you. Thank you so much for holding space for this conversation today. It's been really lovely.
The post ERP 493: What Happened to Our Sex Life? Understanding What’s Going On with Me—and Us—in the Bedroom — An Interview with Dr. Kate Balestrieri appeared first on Jessica Higgins.
About this episode
Are you stuck in the cycle of trying to control everything in your relationship, only to find yourself drifting further away from the connection and harmony you truly crave? Sometimes, the harder we try to make things “right,” the more we lose sight of what makes love resilient, joyful, and honest. The truth is, love isn’t about micromanaging or enforcing your idea of perfection—it’s about learning to ride life’s unpredictable waves with trust, acceptance, and a willingness to let go.
In this episode, listeners are invited to explore how letting go of control and embracing the natural flow of love can transform the way they relate to their partners. Through personal stories, reflective questions, and practical guidance, this conversation offers insight into why acceptance and trust are essential for deepening intimacy and resilience in your relationship. You’ll discover tools to break free from the criticism-defensiveness loop, foster genuine communication, and understand how even small shifts in mindset can create lasting change in your love life.
Daniel A. Miller is a best-selling author who explores how acceptance, letting go of control, and trust can transform relationships and personal well-being. His newest book, The Way of the Wave: Nature’s Model for Navigating Life’s Currents, offers practical guidance for embracing life’s unpredictability with greater ease, resilience, and inner peace. Daniel’s work draws on decades of experience, blending personal stories, research, and wisdom to help others live more empowered, connected lives.
Episode Highlights
04:49 Lessons in listening and humility from Daniel’s early controlling behaviors.
06:51 How nature and acceptance transformed Daniel’s approach to relationships.
13:25 Letting go of control: The key to real intimacy and gratitude.
19:44 How Daniel learned quick repair to break cycles of withdrawal.
21:12 Attunement and emotional safety as the root of true intimacy.
26:08 Life’s crises exposed control’s dangers and the power of acceptance.
31:12 Trading fear for acceptance unlocked deeper possibilities for Daniel.
37:22 Humility and vulnerability as foundations for lasting
41:29 How acceptance and engagement create richer, more intimate relationships.
45:19 Letting go enables trust, imperfection, and true flow in life.
Your Check List of Actions to Take
- Embrace your partner as they truly are. Release the urge to judge or change them.
- If you notice yourself trying to control outcomes, pause and choose to trust the natural flow of your relationship.
- When you feel triggered, ask yourself: What am I really feeling or fearing underneath this reaction?
- Welcome quiet moments or “lulls” in your relationship—they provide opportunities for insight and deeper connection.
- Recognize when you’re expecting too much from your partner. Communicate your needs and remember that some things are yours to fulfill.
- In moments of conflict, lead with humility—own your part, apologize if needed, and invite honest conversation.
- Offer your full, undistracted attention to your partner. Listen to understand, not just to reply.
- If you find yourself pulling away, intentionally come back to repair and reopen communication as soon as you can.
Mentioned
The Way of the Wave: Nature's Model for Navigating Life's Currents (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
The Gifts of Acceptance: Embracing People And Things as They Are (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
Losing Control, Finding Serenity: How the Need to Control Hurts Us And How to Let It Go (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
Shifting Criticism For Connected Communication
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Episode Transcript
Danny, thank you for joining us.
My pleasure, for sure. Thank you.
Yes. Well, we're going to be talking about flow—the flow of love, how flow relates to love and relationship. Tell us, if you will, for people who are getting to know you, how this became of interest. How did you begin to focus on this?
Love and beyond. In parenting, and in all areas of my life. But in love, I guess I focused because I've been married three times. I made mistakes, certainly when I was younger in the first marriage. So in writing the book, and even before writing the book, I try to take stock of what parts of me, what aspects of me contributed to, I won't use the word breakdown of marriage, whatever you want to call it, the separation. It was very apparent to me, even then, that I was a major controller—in business, and in my personal life and personal affairs. For big controllers, first of all, they're not humble. I may have been soft-spoken, but I wasn't necessarily humble. What happened as a result, I was too often telling my wife what she should do, what's best for her, pressuring her to do things that maybe she didn't want to do, not listening enough.
It's almost an embarrassingly funny story. But there was one point that she stopped responding, and I thought for sure that her ears needed to be checked and her hearing was off. So I insisted that she go see a hearing doctor. I remember when he called in with the results, I said okay. He said, I'll never forget: Her hearing is fine, I just don't think she wants to listen to you. That was so true.
From that experience, and others, of course, and over time, I learned many things about having a connected, bonded, intimate relationship. I am so blessed to have that for over 30 years with my current wife, Sikita. I even wrote a poem for our wedding, it's called First Love. It was the last love and first love, and it just shared how we came together, and what was important, and what worked for us, and bringing our past experiences to the new one, so to speak. It has just gotten continually better. I can get into the specifics, but it's really error, mistakes, trial, recognition, working on changing those patterns that didn't serve me well. In all aspects of my life, but certainly in my love relationships, with parenting of my children, in my work. Some of the same issues, when I write about in The Wave, as a metaphor for our life challenges, so many of the things that obstruct the flow—control is the big one, judging, expecting, not being humble enough, not being truthful—those same things impact the love flow. So what I write about, it feels universal to whatever part of life or arena in life we're dealing with.
Okay. So for people listening, you're mentioning your book. You want to say the title?
Sure, it's called The Way of the Wave: Nature's Model for Navigating Life's Currents. Now, there's a little backstory to that, if you'd like to hear it. During COVID, I think a lot of us were going through files, we had all kinds of time. So I was taking old files from the garage and moving it to a shed. I came across 15 typewritten chapters of a book that I was unable to publish, but wrote in 1988. It was called The Wave. It contained a lot of what's in the present book, but I was never able to carry it to fruition. Because two things, I wasn't able to articulate the concept well enough, and now looking back in hindsight, I hadn't had the life experiences, especially with the relationships, that I now have, so to speak.
So when I saw it, I said: Well, maybe I could write it again, see what happens. So I said, let me start just with an introduction. Because writing books, it's not my livelihood. It's my passion, my love. So I take my time. So writing books is a five to seven-year process. Anyways, I didn't know if I wanted to engage in another five to seven years. But as I started writing, I knew, in a short order, that yes, that's what I want to do, and that's what I've done.
Well, Danny, what seems really beautiful is that you resonated with something you were observing in nature that helped you perhaps articulate as a metaphor, speaking of universal, that we can all relate to. Most people have a sense of what a wave is, or hopefully many have experienced what it's like to be at the shore experiencing waves. This is something that I think is really helpful in being descriptive, and also perhaps as you're speaking about your life experience, that when you were able to feel the alchemy of what you were learning inside yourself, that that made more available the ability to speak to this so coherently around the way of the wave.
Yes. A couple of the key things, especially for people who haven't body surfed. I used to when I was younger, but even if you haven't, one thing becomes very apparent.
“The waves are in control, not us. We aren't. If we think we are, and we try to, that's when we harm ourselves and others. So the best thing we can do is try to align with the wave, and that's where acceptance comes in.”
So it's a matter of finding ways to let go of control and accept what is. In relationships, it's accepting our loved one or our partner as they are. So I write a lot about that. There's certainly challenges, but when you're not, my view is, you're saying they're not good enough, or something about them is not good enough when you're not accepting them. There's a lot that goes into what I mean, the definition of acceptance. It doesn't mean we have to condone or excuse or anything like that. We can disagree. But it's important to accept this underlying reality, whether it's the relationship or some life issue we're dealing with, is to come to terms that this is the way it is, this is real. If I'm able to accept that, it opens up choices that I have or maybe new paths that I could pursue, consistent with that reality.
Going back about nature, I spend a lot of time in nature. I have the most beautiful olive tree about 50 feet from here, and it's the first thing I go out to and honor in the morning. My morning prayer is the serenity prayer, and I say it before my beautiful olive tree. I get up early, and just being out in the quietness of nature, the solitude of nature, it brings me great comfort.
“I think about, with all that's going on today, how important it is to find some kind of internal silence or internal calm. Nature is such a wonderful way that we could still do that.”
Even if it's walking around the block or whatever, or certainly hiking, there's so many different things. But just being out. So to me, it is a model, a way to live. I don't think there's judgment or control in nature, it doesn't have expectations, and there's a mystery to it. There's an unknowingness and a mystery to it, but somehow, I feel connected with it.
Maybe you would agree, that the flow or allowing space for things to emerge or reveal themselves, or for us to participate with what's happening from this acceptance place that might challenge our preconceived notions, is a natural state.
It is a natural state.
So we're resonating with nature because it is a natural state, which also could speak to, a moment ago you were speaking about, on the receiving end of commentary, maybe your previous wife or wives felt not good enough with the evaluation or the critiquing. And for the one that's offering it up, they may not even have the intention to convey you're not enough. It could just be better. I think, often in life, we learn these control tactics to protect ourselves or to try to feel some sense of safety in circumstances that don't feel safe. So we learn these patterns, while our intention not isn't always necessarily to hurt someone or put them down. But tell me if you would find that.
Yeah, I'd like to share on that. You said two very important things, to me. That is, allowing that space. To me, I refer to it as being willing to tread waters, or to welcome what I call the lulls that we have in life, where there's that space, and we don't necessarily know what to do with that space. It can be uncomfortable as well. That's why I call it both a wave obstructer and enhancer, because it can be a very positive thing.
But getting back to the control part, first of all, I want to say I have excellent relationships with my ex-wife. We are one big blended family, and I accept them fully as they are. So much of the credit is due to my present wife, I want to acknowledge that, that she's all embracing. It's just wonderful. Anyways, back to what you're talking about, the control. I agree. I don't know that we're intentionally trying to make them feel bad or less than. For me, it's usually fear-based. Something I'm anxious about, something I'm fearful about, something I'm concerned about, that comes out in these ways about: You should try it this way, you should do it this way, or that's not a good way. There's some part of that. The same thing with expectations.
“When we expect too much of our loved ones, we lose intimacy. We lose connection with them. So I've gotten really into examining the expectations, as well as judgment.”
The bottom line, for me anyways, is when I'm expecting too much of my loved one, or if I am, two things. The focus is on them instead of me, where can I do the best good? Then behind the expectation, I believe there is some need that we're looking for another person to fulfill. I've learned that my basic needs, only I can fulfill. So even if they do all these things that I maybe expect of them, that's not going to fulfill my need, is what I've learned. So that's why I talk about the importance of moderating our expectations of others. I don't like to have people expect things of me, for sure.
I can use my present relationship with my wife, because it's so strong and solid and bonded, is we are very different. We have certain interests and ethics and values that are common, but we are so different. She's an extrovert. I'm more of an introvert. She does things differently than I do. We don't judge each other and we accept each other, even certain annoyances. We have these annoyances, but we accept that that's just part of it, and really appreciate and are grateful for all the wonderful things that we have together. That's so important. Again, that comes into, I believe, acceptance in the other.
Absolutely, and I think you said something really important. When we can bring the attention back to what is it that I'm needing, or is there a fear that I'm having. We're not always conscious of this, that it's often a little bit more of this inquiry practice to understand: Okay, how come I am having some charge here? Because sure, I imagine you would agree, that in relationship, we often do have agreements, which is perhaps different than expectations. But that we're coming to that from a place of regard, respect, and allowing. It's not this control or forcing. Those can always be renegotiated if something changes, they're alive and dynamic. But that's different than this quality of: I need you to do this or that, or my state of being is threatened when you do this or that, thus, I need you to do that. That is very much the other person not wanting that responsibility and feeling like that's not mine to do, but also disempowering for the person, because we don't have that power.
Yeah, definitely. Disempowering, and to me, it creates resentment and divisiveness.
Absolutely, thank you for saying that. Because when you're talking about your wife and the practice of really appreciating and having grace around even small annoyances, that when I think we're doing the emotional hygiene and we're not feeling that our needs are not met, or resentments that haven't been cleared or processed or repaired, then these things accumulate.
I used to be that way. I have a poem in the book called Default Mode, and that was, for me, withdrawing. So if we would get into an argument, this is in the past, I would withdraw. I would physically and emotionally withdraw. I would be stuck in that withdrawal, meaning it was extremely uncomfortable, and I didn't know how to get out of it. That's why I actually ended up writing a poem, a very short poem, about how to get out of it, because it is so uncomfortable. And what I've gotten much, much better at, it's not that I don't withdraw, it's less frequent and it's really short, but blasted. Because I know that it's harmful, not only to me to, but to my partner. So I have to find ways to come out of it.
Fortunately, we're both very forgiving of one another. For us, it's acknowledging what maybe we did wrong or not right, and having a conversation about it. It used to be: Right now, if it happens, I may go for an evening, but the next morning, I want to talk about it. I want to come back, and she really wants to welcome me back. It's a practice. Like all of these things, it's a practice. So denying, withdrawing, avoiding, those types of things are harmful, obviously, to a close relationship. There's another one that really works well for me, and it took me a while to learn it, is to ask myself the question: what was my part in it? So often, when we get into an argument or dispute, the feeling is: I didn't do anything wrong, it's what they did.
What I've learned, that's not the truth. That I've always had a little role in it. I'll tell you another cute story. When our daughter was 12, uh, we would take her to soccer matches in Pasadena, and my wife usually drove. She would invariably miss the turnoff, the correct turn, and would get a little lost. Some of the times I would say, watch out for the right turnoff. So this one time, I decided I'm not going to say anything. So I didn't say anything, but didn't want to distract her, and she takes the wrong turn-off. She gets upset at me. I said, what are you talking about? I didn't say anything. She says, I could feel it. I could feel the smoke coming from your mind and your brain. It was like fumes. It was so heavy. When I examined that later, I was really anxious. I had anxiety and I had discomfort, and I was worried. I was thinking: Oh God, she's probably going to take the wrong term. All those things, she picked up on. So that was my part in it, I had to own up to that.
Yes, I love that. Well, I do believe, this is where I think it gets tricky in intimate relationship. I think as humans, I think they call it neuroception in the polyvagal language, around we're picking up on the nervous system of others around us, especially our closest people. And then, how much of communication is nonverbal—the posturing, the facial expression. I think we feel one another in intimate relating.
Along those lines, in a more positive way, in a way, with us, it has gotten progressively more. I will be thinking about something, and within 20 seconds, she's going to raise it or say it, and vice versa. It could be just different subjects, different topics, things I'm thinking about. She raises that subject. It's like, wow! I don't know if that's that neural thing you're talking about, or being around each other for so long and knowing each other so well.
Well, one of the things that I'm hearing is, there's a safety in the dynamic with your significant other, that you can be more yourselves. You talk about the flow of love, and when we can feel that safety, that acceptance, we're more able to show up more fully. When you talk about withdrawing, oftentimes when we're feeling some discontent or something hurt or didn't go well, it's a protective strategy to withdraw. So when there is the repair and the coming back and how much you both have practiced that, then it does allow for more of this expressiveness and the ability to be, and therefore, we're sinking more, I think, or we're feeling more of that synergy. That would be my thought, I don't have the science around it.
Yeah, I think so. I don't think there's anything we can't talk about or don't talk about. That's what I refer to in the book as trusting the currents, is that trusting that I will be okay, trusting that we will be okay. Things may not be as I maybe would've liked, necessarily, or hoped for. But things will be okay. That's that trust, and the trust that can develop with two people is so valuable.
The other night, I had gone through a period that my mother, believe it or not, who lived 101 years old, she died a couple months ago. I've had two of my closest friends die. I didn't realize how much I was holding in. As we were lying in bed, just talking, somehow something came up. I think I was saying, I would like to be lighter. As soon as I said that, I started crying. I hadn't cried in probably two years, and she was so right there for me, listening. That's the other thing, Jessica, I want to share how important it is, just true listening, attentive listening. Really healing for the other person. With my children, I've learned that so much, is just to listen. I don't have to offer advice. I don't have to try to solve their problem. But just being there. And she was so there for me.
The attunement. She really felt you, and she was attuned to you and present to you. How healing, holding that space, it's such a precious gift.
I felt so safe.
Yeah, and the wellness around that, that how we can feel more whole or feel more regulated and supported and resilient to just have that support. I'm really grateful, thank you for sharing that. This potentially, you might help here around just your perspective, that as you talk about the trusting and how you both have developed this over time, and conversely, the habit or the tendency to be controlling. Because I don't know about you, but I feel like sometimes that control tendency is hard to turn off because it's so heavily reinforced in modern society, where it's like, thinking and being able to get to the best solution, or problem-solving, or different industries that support this. So it's almost like that gets reinforced, getting an A, or thinking through and what is best. That's very different than the listening and the allowing and accepting. So you talk about mindset. How did you shift from the mindset of that control? You talked about recognizing that there's the fear underlying. Do you want to say more about the mindset of how to shift out of that?
I do distinguish between, I want to say procedural control, which is more in medicine or business, you having established procedures for efficiency and things, versus emotional control. So the emotional control is what I feel is very harmful. I went through this period of five years where I had about five very traumatic events and situations that literally brought me to my knees. I had someone try to set fire to our home beneath our son's bedroom. Almost bankruptcy. I was in real estate, one of my buildings burned down. It was just one thing after another, and with each one, I would control more. I felt the need that I had to be on top of it. I had to persist. I had to be vigilant. Until finally, I missed doctor's appointments for lesion on my nose. It was supposed to be a 20-minute procedure. It ended up three hours and five major operations after that. That's why I get into this whole thing of self-neglect and self-care is very, very important. But on the control, first of all, I recognized that my controlling ways brought me to that point. That's when I started writing this first book. It wasn't a book. It was a self-help journal. I actually called it the Secret of my Survival. Because somehow, I got through all this, and now I wanted go back and see how I did, and what slowed it down and what deterred that. That's how I started writing. I was writing about fear and anger and resentment, certainly control. So I knew that control was harmful for me.
How did you know that? Can I ask you, how did you know that?
Because of the results of it. When I was controlling with my children or telling them what to do, I was met with resistance or them turning me off. So one of the ways that you can tell is the way people react to you. You can look at the signs. So you know just even by the way they physically look, or certainly what they say, that they don't like you. So then I can ask, am I being controlling here? Most often, I was. Not always, but most often. So the other thing that's similar is, I'm trying to be aware if I have any dis-ease or discomfort in what I'm doing. That could be in the business world, is when I'm trying to do something too controlling on a business matter, when I get this resistance or uncomfortableness, then I have to look back and say, am I controlling? Then, it's to look at, which ways am I controlling?
“For me, acceptance is the best antidote for control, I like to say. When we accept people or things, there's no need to control them. So they're really connected and tied together. When we're controlling, we're not accepting of them.”
It's almost a hypervigilance, I don't know if you feel this way, that if we are using this mindset of control, whether or not consciously or unconsciously, it's almost like I have to engage or bad things will happen, or I have to do X, Y, and Z. So it's very much like, I need to be on pins and needles to make sure things go okay. That's the very opposite of trusting that it'll be okay. If that's how I believe, then I feel like I have to control.
Right, I trust the current. Then, the other thing about control and giving up control and letting go of control is what I call future events already ruined. FEAR: Future Events Already Ruined. So often, controllers, even non-controlling me, my speculations are almost always negative. So what I'm aware of is: Uh-oh, I'm going there, there is not here now. I want to come back here. If there's something I need to deal with that's maybe generating some concern, then let me deal with it right here based on what's here, not what may be there, or that it may fear being there. So that's another way. So basically, what I'm saying is recognizing when you're fearful or afraid, and what's behind that? Well, fear is the catalyst for control, for my mind.
Thank you, that's well said. As I'm hearing you direct people back to the moment, that's where we have our power. When we look at fear, anxiety, worry, it's often anticipating a future event, not feeling confident around how we're going to be able to handle it, and also trying to mitigate threats. So as you invite people back, you've talked about acceptance a few times here. Now, easier said than done sometimes. So when one is confronted with something they don't like, but also, how do you help people accept things that are uncomfortable, they maybe don't prefer or want or find challenging? How do you help people accept those things? You had mentioned bringing people back instead of thinking about future events, and bringing people back to the moment that that's where they have opportunity. Then you talk about acceptance as part of the anecdote. How do you help people accept? Because you also acknowledged it might not be what I wanted, it might not be what I prefer, and I find it challenging. How do you help people?
In my book, The Gifts of Acceptance, I talk about practicing acceptance. It's a practice. It is not something you just say, I'm going to accept. It's not that. It is being aware of it and trying to work on it, and then there's a couple other things that go into that, is not to take things so personally. We oftentimes take things very personally that may not be the case. We might imagine that what someone says or did, we take it personally that they're doing it to us, and they may not be. That may just be about them. It's about them, not me. So if I can do that, especially if I'll have a thing, like say with my wife, where she gets emotional or whatever it is that I feel like is coming off on me a little bit or unloading on me. I can immediately, first of all, be upset initially. But if I take the time and look at it, she's going through this, whatever that this is, and this is how it's coming out. Like you say, she's not intentionally trying to do me ill or blame. That's where she is. So I can then try to detach and remove myself a little bit. It's not easy, but I can lessen it. I can reduce that, and then I can accept her and what's going on.
When I talk about acceptance, when I define acceptance, as I mentioned before, it's not condoning or excusing. It's accepting this underlying reality of the person or thing, and it's fine. But I put a limit on it. If it's harming me or people that I love or concern about, then that's where I start setting some limits. I don't have to accept that or to take that, or I can do things to protect. But most of the time, it's not that type of harm. It's more seeing these people as they are. I've done this in business. I used to get really tangled up in business matters when someone would breach a lease or do this or do that or complain about something. I was in the real estate business. I would take it so personally.
I had a situation where one of our tenants, during COVID, kept using COVID as an excuse for not paying rent and for living there, and this and that. I got very upset, etc. But then what I realized, he's not trying to harm me. He's elderly. He's not in good health. He doesn't want to be out on the street. So he's just looking out for his own interests. Once I was able to see that, I could back off. So those are the types of things that lead towards being more accepting. But as I said, it is a practice. But the gifts of that practice are: connectedness, intimacy, bonds. I like to say, when you accept what is, you can discover what might be. It could be going on new paths, new directions. I have stories in the book that my life, I would've never predicted how my life is today, if I look back 30 or 40 years ago. It's a journey that, hard or easy, it is one that I'm glad I took, and I really believe it's because of that journey that I am where I am now.
Yeah. This perhaps is conversely to the approach of needing to force or control, that sometimes we will experience hardship or that life will present the dis-ease or the difficult traumatic things. When, if we're in a place of accepting, then we're relating to what is, versus trying to force what isn't. It's really important. I don't know if you feel this way, but it just seems like you're giving us some tips here around how to not take it personally. Perhaps entertain the perspective of the other, maybe even feeling some level of empathy or consideration, that it can offer a little bit more room than our current vantage point based on our egocentric frame.
One of the things that I sometimes do, I'll ask questions around, I don't have a specific one at the top of my head right now. But I'll ask questions around, well, what if this is just true? Sometimes I think, in relationship, we might feel like the person is doing it to us. Like, what if this was just true for them or this was real for them, and what if I could just accept it? What would that mean? Because sometimes, you're right, underneath it is a fear or a concern of what would that mean? But if I just look at that, well, there perhaps is a new opportunity there, a new possibility that's unexplored.
Right, and so often it is, and it can come out in amazing ways. We often hear stories of people, terrible hardships, and how it changed the direction of their life, and how eventually they found some positivity in that.
This goes to the humility that you were talking about.
Humility, yes. I give the example, if you're surfing or body boarding, whatever it is, if you're not humble, if you're not respectful of the waves, you're going to get hurt. Humility, that's the other thing actually in the relationships is. I'll share, with my present wife, she does things very differently than me. The way I would do something is not the way she would. At first, I questioned it, but I didn't express it or say it. Because she's pretty stable and she does pretty well on her own, she's pretty independent. So like, who am I to say? But what I've learned, interestingly enough, being humble is me not being self-righteous, not feeling you know it all, or that you're omniscient. All those things, to me, you have to get rid of, if you want to be humble.
What I learned is, I'll give you an example, is that when we're going to do a vacation, I'll want to plan it out and check all the hotels, or whatever it is. I'll want to think about it for a couple days. With her, she'll pick up the phone and do it, just like that. That's not the way I would do it. But I got to thinking and I said, you know what? It really works well for her, and maybe I should try some of that. So that's really interesting too. Because all the ways that we're used to doing things, maybe there's more efficient and lighter ways of doing them.
We might be surprised at what can get created from a different approach, and maybe even pleasantly surprised. Even at times, it might be better than we would've ever thought. Danny, you said something earlier that speaks to humility, I believe, is this willingness to come back with your wife. Apologize, look at how you both maybe contributed, or be open to the vulnerability of seeing one's part. To me, that speaks to the humility to take the emotional risk, to be open, to not withdraw, and to feel like we're caught in our story. Because we can be right, or we can be in our own safe mindset or construct of our thinking. But that takes us out of relationships. So being in relationship in this humility of openness is sometimes a risk, feels vulnerable.
It's overcoming our ego, for me. I think for men, it's really an ego-based thing, is this whole thing about admitting that I was wrong. So what you're saying is, the challenge of owning up to that. You've got to own up to it. It's not easy. That's why it would take me days, in the past, before I could own up to it. Now it doesn't, because I think I am more humble and I see other points of views. As I say, I always ask myself, as I mentioned before, what part may I have had in this relationship dysfunction, or whatever you want to call it? Every time, there's at least something. Maybe small, but there was some part, and I need to accept and own up to that. Because that brings me back from my withdrawal, and it's so important. That lonely inner sanctum that I can go into or that we can go into, it's a very lonely place. So I do my best just not to stay in there for any length of time, and I don't go in there nearly as much. I can still go. I mean, things can happen. I can get very upset, emotional, etc. But I feel I've learned the tools now so much better, how to deal with those things.
Absolutely. Well, I appreciate you sharing and just giving an example, an expression to how this can look in the developmental process of this. I do agree that this is a practice. You spoke about the serenity prayer earlier, and we're talking about humility. And what I understand about flow, it's not complete surrender in that I don't participate or I don't engage, like passive. It's being engaged, but in an attuned present way that offers room and space for things to be dynamic, not forcing or trying to control. So is it a balance for you as well?
It is a balance. And what I say is, it's not a passive state. It can be active. It doesn't have to be passive. It's not like a total surrender. What I find, if we're not sure, like in the serenity prayer, the last line is: the wisdom to know the difference. A lot of times, I don't know that wisdom, maybe from past experience. So if I don't know, I can try, especially with control or not accepting. If I'm not sure, maybe I'll do something. Maybe I'll persist or be more involved. That's when I look for the signs, I call it the to and fro of the wave. If I'm getting this resistance or discomfort, then I know I'm sort of into that arena that I'm too controlling or not accepting. Of course, the courage to change the things I can, that's a difficult one, the second line. Actually, for my own self, I now say courage and willingness to change the things that I can. Because sometimes I feel I'm unwilling or not willing enough.
Yes. I was thinking the same thing, Danny. I was thinking, could I let go, or what would happen if I didn't get my way or how I am envisioning this? Like, what would that mean? Sometimes that's just a good thing to reflect on, because sometimes it is about control. Other times it does illuminate, well, this part seems important, and maybe there's a way to let go of my idea. But just say, here's an aspect of this that feels important, can we include that? Get out of the power struggle of what sometimes can happen in relationships when two people are trying to control.
No, there's definitely that give and take, and they say ebb and flow, and advancing and knowing when to retract a little bit maybe, back off.
And the other person, especially if it's a person, is feeling good, they're feeling desired, they're feeling maybe important or acknowledged. I think acceptance does those things. With my children, I've learned to be that way. I know when I'm not accepting, I don't like that. I don't feel about that right. I might resist that. So there are gray areas, for lack of a better word, and that's what I take, is take a little swim, paddle a little bit, and see what happens.
Well, you might find this humorous. I haven't thought about this in years. I believe this was 2006. My husband and I, I think we were at Folsom Lake, which is grass valley towards more Sacramento. We were going wakeboarding. He used to wakeboard, and we were with some of his friends. I had never been wakeboarding. I had done snowboarding, and I had water skied when I was young. All that to say, I was more familiar with snowboarding. I got on the board, I was being towed, and I got scared of how fast we were going. Because I'd never done it before. My body was trying to control the speed by carving. So in snowboarding, you use an edge to slow down, and I was doing that, and I was face planting. Like, literally, I just would face plant water in my eye sockets. It was so painful. This happened three times until I realized: Oh, I'm trying to control the speed of the boat, and I can't. I'm slowing down and the boat is pulling me, so I was face planting. I was like: Oh, I can just say, please, go a little slower, with a thumbs-down. But talk about control. I was trying to control without even realizing, it was just kind of a somatic response.
Yeah, sure. I'm an avid tennis player. I played seniors tournaments, and I was very mental and controlling in my tennis game when I was in matches. Overthinking, trying too many things, just upset at myself, etc. When I was writing the book, when I started during COVID, my tennis got better. In a way, I actually had a couple of tennis podcasts, which is great, with really established tennis players, and they really connected with it. One of the things that I learned on the court is, when I make a mistake or an error, I'll actually say to myself, and I do say it: Danny, I forgive you. It works. It just takes my mindset out of that mistake and brings me to: Okay, now let's play this point.
“What I like to say is, I now trust that my body and my mind will work things out by themselves, without all my involvement. It does, it can be that way. Especially, I can think, trying a new sport or an activity, there's definitely concern and fear and anxiety, which can physically even constrict us and not be as relaxed. It applies everywhere.”
Oh, thank you. I love that story, and I can appreciate the value and how it might sound silly, but actually on a deeper level, open up to this acceptance and flow. If I'm getting too constricted and all in my head, or upset about the move I just made, when really, the next point is happening or the next rally is happening.
Okay, wonderful. Well, I know you've already mentioned the name of your book. Would you want to say the name of the book again and where people can find it?
The Way of the Wave: Nature's Model for Navigating Life's Currents. As I've mentioned before, I narrated the audiobook, which is the first time I've done that. I'm very pleased how that turned out. So the audiobook can be purchased on any audio retailer, Audible or any of them. I have the print and the eBook, Amazon, iTunes, Barnes and Noble. Then at my website, for those who are interested, it's DanielAMiller.com. I have some writings on the wave. I have some of my art, some of which I was painting, trying to be on the wave while painting, and some of my poems. I have about 150 short articles on acceptance, control, and now the wave, and related subjects, like we've been talking about, judging, expecting things like that. And on the Serenity Prayer, I have a few.
Absolutely. You mentioned your other book too, The Gifts of Acceptance.
Yeah, The Gifts of Acceptance: Embracing People and Things as they Are. And the first book, Losing Control and Finding Serenity: How Control Harms Us and How to Let It Go. Maybe I'll send that to you. Written by an extraordinary controller, at the time.
Well, I mean, this speaks to the practice. Even as you've mentioned the Serenity Prayer, just so many people resonate. Typically, to have reminders, to have inspiration or encouragement to be in the practice, I think it's all so very supportive. So thank you for all that you're offering, and I'll make sure to have all the links to your books, to your website, Audible, all those things on today's website. Thank you.
Jessica, I really enjoyed talking with you. It was great. I loved your questions, and I sort of felt we were on the wave a little bit.
Nice, me too.
The post ERP 492: Riding the Wave Together: Finding Ease, Resilience and Connection in Love — An Interview with Daniel Miller appeared first on Jessica Higgins.
About this episode
Grief can strike when we least expect it, turning our world upside down and reshaping the very foundation of our relationships. When couples encounter loss—whether through miscarriage, infertility, or unexpected life changes—the path to healing can feel lonely, uncharted, and overwhelming. Even the closest partnerships can struggle to find the words, understanding, or comfort needed to move forward together. How do we navigate personal pain while remaining present for each other? Can couples truly heal side by side, even when their experiences of grief are so different?
In this episode, listeners are invited into a heartfelt conversation exploring the realities of grief and healing within intimate relationships. Through personal storytelling and expert insight, the discussion dives deep into the complexity of navigating loss as a couple—highlighting the differences in individual grief experiences, the power of mutual support, and the importance of holding both sorrow and hope. Practical wisdom and lived experiences shed light on how couples can create space for each other’s emotions, foster resilience, and slowly rebuild a sense of connection and possibility. Whether you have faced loss yourself or support someone who has, this episode offers guidance and reassurance that, together, healing is possible.
Madeleine Garner is a New York-based writer. Her play, I Ragazzi, cowritten with her father, Broadway writer David Goldsmith, was published in 2023 by the Dramatists Play Service and is now available for licensing. She is the Head of Creative Services Operations, Americas at Sotheby’s Auction House, and she received her B.A. in Art History and Italian Studies from Wheaton College in Massachusetts. She resides in Queens with her husband, daughter, and cat. Recently, published “Your Baby Will Find You: A Story About Grief, Loss, and Healing.”
Episode Highlights
05:17 Madeleine recounts the shock and heartbreak of her miscarriage, revealing the profound emotional and physical challenges she faced in its aftermath.
09:52 The clinical steps following miscarriage, unhelpful care, and the early stages of coming to terms with profound grief.
12:01 From shared struggles to connection—turning grief into creativity.
23:16 The value of surrendering to the unpredictable process of grief, healing, and hope.
29:16 Madeleine reflects on “Your Baby” as a symbol of destiny, fulfillment, or creativity for anyone navigating loss or uncertainty.
31:10 The balance between striving and surrendering.
36:10 Grieving as a couple: Different paces, shared support.
40:02 How returning to one another after rupture and repair builds a secure partnership and deepens intimacy after loss.
43:58 Resources and ways to connect with Madeleine.
Your Check List of Actions to Take
- Create space for both partners’ grief by acknowledging everyone processes loss differently.
- Communicate openly about your feelings, fears, and experiences to build understanding.
- Offer practical support by taking on responsibilities or small tasks to ease your partner’s burden.
- Practice attunement by checking in with each other regularly and noticing signs of emotional distance or tension.
- Set boundaries when needed and be honest about your emotional capacity, trusting you can revisit when ready.
- Seek tools for expression, such as writing or creative outlets, to process and share your emotions.
- Honor both the joy and the grief, allowing them to coexist without guilt or pressure to “move on.”
- Reach out for professional or community support, like counseling or support groups, to help navigate the journey together.
Mentioned
Your Baby Will Find You: A Story About Grief, Loss, and Healing (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
This is Me and Only Me (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
The Missing Piece (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
ERP 453: How To Navigate Grief In Long Term Relationship – An Interview With Christina Rasmussen
Relationship Map To Happy, Lasting Love
Connect with ********Madeleine Garner************
Websites: maddydaragarner.com
Instagram: instagram.com/maddydaragarner
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Episode Transcript
Maddy, thank you for joining us. I'm really looking forward to our conversation.
Me too, Jessica. I'm really looking forward to it.
Yeah. Just in our brief interacting here, I can just appreciate how much life you bring to the work you do in the world, and also, our topic perhaps has more tenderness to it. So I know we're enjoying relating in the joy of just being able to do this together, and also, it's a tender topic, speaking about grief and miscarriage. Where would you like to start around, maybe for people getting to know you—where you're coming from, how this became of interest?
Yes. Well, I have always loved children's books, so that is sort of a thread that I can follow throughout my entire life—from being a child, being read to every night, through being a young adult, collecting children's books, and then starting to write my own. Just always being so interested in how adults speak to children through literature, and how I felt so seen and so understood and so held by my favorite books, as a child, and then even more as I got older. It feels like such a through-line and such a connection to just my whole history.
So when in 2022, I had this experience where my husband and I got married the year before, we were ready. I had wanted to be a mom my whole life. It was one of those things where I knew I was going to be a mom. I wanted to not only be a mom, I wanted to be pregnant. I have had this feeling since just very early, and it was just like I had waited my whole life. I just waited my whole life to have these things, to have the person in my life that I really wanted to do this with, and to be in a home and to have everything. I was all ready.
So we get pregnant, and then I spent four weeks pregnant. I found out at four weeks, I got to be pregnant knowingly for four weeks. I go in for that first appointment, and I happen to go to a place in a hospital here in New York where it's like a whole corridor of many, many rooms and everyone's getting an ultrasound at the same time.
So you're walking through this hallway, and there's just heartbeats emanating from all the rooms. Just the symphony of heartbeats amplified. I mean, they're just so loud, and they're coming through, and it's so amazing. Then you get in the room and they turn on the lights, and it's just this nightmare scenario where you're in that chair. It's already so vulnerable. They start by doing the ultrasound just on my stomach. They have to go to do the transvaginal ultrasound after that. It's just like searching. The ultrasound tech can't tell you anything, they have to wait for the doctor.
I mean, there's this minutia of this experience that just is now ingrained in me. It's just such a funny thing. It's just such a weird thing. Getting an ultrasound in general is crazy, and then to have it just not go right. You're sitting there, you're lying there, your partner's there. The ultrasound tech starts asking you these questions. Are you sure about your dates? Are you sure about the first day of your last period? And you just start to think they shouldn't be asking that, this shouldn't be happening. It just changed everything.
The four weeks that I had been pregnant, you planned your life. It was happening. It was happening, we were having a baby. Our whole lives were different. Everything was changing.
Was your husband with you at the appointment?
Yes.
So you both probably were picking up on the vibe that it typically maybe is not supposed to go this way.
Exactly, and we didn't know what to do. I mean, we'd never been in this.
“You're doing this huge thing, and there is no preparation for it, there's no training. Because everyone's experience is going to also just be so different. You step onto this road with such faith that it's just going to happen, and when you are pushed off the road, it's just shocking that this is happening to you.”
I think it happens to so many more people than we even know, just in different ways and at different stages, and everyone handles this differently. But that was the moment.
So then of course, the doctor comes in. Very unhelpful. Male doctor, didn't know what to say to me, couldn't look me in the face. Then the minutia of, then you have to go get blood tests to really track the HCG and make sure it's really not doubling every 48 hours, and then you have to wait a week. So wait a week and go back again, and do it again, and do the whole ultrasound again. Only once you do it a second time, will they allow you to schedule the DNC. Because my body was holding on real tight to this unviable pregnancy where there was no heartbeat, the baby had stopped growing at six weeks, and I had to then go through the whole DNC process, which is also just traumatic.
So it was about a month of just finding out, going back, getting the DNC, physically recovering, staying away from work, couldn't work. I mean, just emotionally destroyed, calling my boss weeping. We were not close at the time. We're close now, but it wasn't like that then, and I just didn't know. I mean, I was just like an open wound, literally and emotionally, just a full open wound. I knew in the moment that it was going to be my life before, and my life after, that experience, early on, early-ish.
So that was December of 2022, early December. Then, I think it was January, or maybe it was a little bit later, where I just wrote it down, and it came out in this way. This is you. This is you and your baby. When it was just you, you thought about the future a lot. Because it was just like, the concept of time and how your before and your after, the things that are different, the way that you've imagined your life. The fantasies you've gone on and then gone: Wait, wait, wait, I'm getting too far out, let's go back. Where are we? Let's ground ourselves. It just came out like that, this whole story.
My boss at the time was this incredible data visualization designer, Giorgia Lupi. We had gotten close by me being forced to let her into my life in that moment, and it opened up this channel between us. She was going through some very, very severe long COVID, like lifestyle annihilation. Like, her life was over. She was horizontal at home a lot, and was dealing with a lot of that anger at your own body. I was going through anger at my body of: what was it doing to me, why wasn't it protecting me, why wasn't it supporting me and doing what it was “supposed” to do? So we really connected. I asked her, would you do the visuals for this book? She read my story and cried, and looked at me and was like, of course.
She is maybe 10 years older than me. Doesn't have kids, doesn't really want kids. So it was not about the kid thing, it wasn't about wanting to be pregnant. It was the grief around things you cannot control. Then we make this beautiful thing. I'm so proud of this book, Your Baby Will Find You. I'm so proud of it. It's this beautiful object. It's like a thing I want to hold, and it's a hug in words and visuals. It's this beautiful thing. It came out this week, and so I'm celebrating it in all these different ways. Honestly, it feels very strange to be like, I'm celebrating the outcome of this truly horrendous experience. But it's then like, I have to hold two truths. I have to hold the grief and the joy at the same time, which then of course is what the book is about. So I was like, read your own book.
“The whole point is, the grief doesn't go away. It gets almost smaller or less noticeable. It doesn't ping the nerve every day in the same way.”
But I'll say, this week when I've been talking about the book a lot, it's been pinging the nerve more. Because it's on my mind more. So the grief feels bigger this week, but still so paired with the joy of, this beautiful thing is out in the world, and I'm so proud of it, and I hope it will help so many people. It's helped me and it's helped Georgia, and I've just been getting the most amazing feedback. So I'm hopeful that it really will do what I set out for it to do. Then on top of that, I have a daughter. I got pregnant again six months later, and she's now 14 months old. I wouldn't want it any other way. She was always my baby who was going to find me, always. I just didn't know, couldn't know, had to wait. That's where we are.
Well, thank you for sharing. It sounds as though, if I'm hearing you, Maddy, that there's something that came to you or from you, in this experience that was quite devastating, that allowed you some way to be with it. Not that it didn't change the pain and the grief and the devastation, but gave you perhaps hope, as you're referring to. Or this north star around, this doesn't have to be the whole story. It's deeply painful and devastating, and also, there's something maybe else happening here too. Is that right?
Yes, absolutely.
Okay. So do you want to say a little bit more about Your Baby Will Find You, like what that meant to you? I know you're hoping people will be able to be benefited and maybe read the book and experience what you've put together with Giorgia Lupi. But would you like to say a little bit more about what that means to you?
Absolutely. This is my first book that's a story that came so much from who I am and from me, and it's autobiographical. Giorgia and I did another book together that came out a year ago, which I still did the story and she did the visuals, but it's much more in her wheelhouse. It's about teaching children about data without ever saying that word, which is wonderful. But this is really like my baby. So I at least have two. I have the book and my actual baby, and I hope that it will be a tool. So it was a tool for me. I had to write the story. It came compulsively out of me, and I couldn't stop it.
So I needed to get it out, get it on paper, talk about it. I also think it became a tool for conversation, and when people would ask me: Oh, what do you do? I'd be like: Well, I write children's books, but I'm writing one that's for adults. It's a children's book for adults about my miscarriage, about pregnancy loss. And there's always that moment of terror. Then I would go, but it's great. So I could talk about it because the story gives a vocabulary and a way in to this topic, where I think it's scary for people to sit there with you and hold that. But it's been a great tool for me and my husband to really process the whole experience, which we didn't do exactly together. It was like, he was on his grief journey, and I was on mine. But I think the book helped me, which helped him, and the book itself helped him. I mean, he reads it and feels his feelings about it.
It was so clear, dads should read it too, and couples should read it. It's not just for moms or the human who had the loss happen in their body. It's for a couple to read and open that conversation together. It's for people like Giorgia who don't have kids, but are dealing with different types of grief. So it has been an incredible gift for me to write. It's been a gift for me to see how this gift I'm giving is helping. It's just been an incredible experience altogether. It's making me very nervous for my next book. Because I don't know what it is yet, and there's a lot of pressure that I'm putting on myself. Because I feel like this went really well, and I don't know, fingers crossed for the future, but for right now, this is just a dream come true, in every sense of the word.
I love it. Well, the creativity, and as you are in this phase of celebrating the release and all of the feedback you're getting and just talking here with us now. And also, it's unknown, what creativity and what's going to come and just to be right here. I can appreciate it's uncertain, and also, this feels really good. It can probably feel like it's hard to top this. Like, what's going to compare to this?
But I assume that will pass.
Yeah, that's part of the development. You'll grow, and this will always be super special to you. The beautiful thing, if I'm hearing you correctly, Maddy, is that you did what you set out to do. It is what you had hoped it to be, and that it resonates and it's a reflection of your intention and your process and the sentiment of what was so profoundly supportive for you in this deeply devastating experience.
Yes, absolutely. Very true.
I mean, that's the art form in itself even for yourself to be like, yes! I feel good about this.
Well, to add to the oeuvre of books, hopefully, that do this, that really do make people feel less alone. I think this isn't necessarily going to make a child feel less alone, but it will make a person feel less alone if they have to talk to a child about it, or if they have to talk to anyone or be with themselves with it. It will hopefully make them feel less alone.
Yeah, for sure. That's part of the beauty of expressing one's story, and also the courage and taking the risk to share it. The hope is that it will offer support, that someone could feel less alone, feel themselves in this collective, and also maybe some hope that maybe we're at different junctures. You also mentioned two things, that the fertility journey can look very, very different for couples.
Yes, you just never know. You look at any family, and you never know what they went through to get those kids. You just never know, and you can't assume anything. I used to, and sometimes I still catch myself doing it. Then I go, hang on a second, you don't know. Like, I'll meet someone, I'll have an assumption. They'll tell me it took this number of years, I went through IVF, but then actually I got pregnant naturally, then I did the surrogacy. It's a winding, winding road. It's incredible what we go through for our beautiful babies.
No kidding. I have a couple that comes to mind. They wanted to get pregnant and had tried, and had great difficulty. Went through IVF, got pregnant, miscarriage. I mean, the amount of miscarriage, it's just heart-wrenching.
I know, absolutely devastating.
Then they were fostering, and then fostering is difficult because you're not adopting, and that was heart-wrenching. Then, thank goodness they have a child, they were able to get pregnant. But I don't know that everybody can endure the level of this.
Well, that's the thing. You look at yourself like, could I endure that? I don't know. But when this happened to me, I was like, I will do everything. I will do whatever it takes. You become single-minded. I don't know, you then endure so much more than you thought you could. This was already more than I thought I could handle, and I did it because I had to. There was no Plan B, literally. There's just no other way, I was going to do it. I was scared. I mean, my whole pregnancy, I was scared. I didn't spend one day not terrified, because you just learn that nothing is guaranteed.
Even now I'm thinking, I want to have another baby eventually. But you start on the journey and go, I don't know what's going to happen, can't know. Could get pregnant, could have another miscarriage, could have multiple miscarriages. You just don't know, but it's just the desire to have another baby is stronger than the fear of what could happen. That's all you get.
Is that part of the relationship of Your Baby Will Find You? Because I can appreciate some people will be like, well, maybe I might not get pregnant, even with all the efforts. That is a potential possibility.
So the end of the book is not: It will happen for sure, everyone gets pregnant eventually. It's not that. Because when people would say that to me and they would say: Well, at least you know you can get pregnant. It was not helpful. It did not give me the solace that maybe they thought it was giving me. So I realized that the actual “end” of the story is, we don't know what's going to happen. But what we do know is that we have built this beautiful life. All I knew was, I had married the right person, I had established a beautiful home. I had a cat. I had done these things that I wanted. I did have a beautiful life, and I didn't want to discount that. I had this beautiful life to live.
“I had this grief to learn to live with and to allow it to become friends with my joy, and have them walk alongside together. That's the goal. Whatever comes next, we don't know.”
That's universal. I don't know one person that doesn't have to face holding very disparate grief and joy, and how those fit or how they can exist together, two very different expressions.
So I was hoping, that's the goal. I do want the book to have this sort of universal ending. Because we don't know what will happen. I'm the luckiest person ever that I did get to get pregnant again and have this baby. But if that hadn't happened, I would have to be happy. I'd have to find joy somehow. I want to live. I want to be happy in my life regardless of what happens to me. So that was one of the last things that changed in the book. I had worked with a grief counselor on an earlier draft, Dr. Dan Wolfson, this wonderful local grief counselor. I reached out to him and I shared with him the book, because I didn't want the book to do any harm to anyone. So I shared it with him, and so he gave me some really helpful notes, and almost sort of inadvertent counseling. So part of those conversations were I tried to percolate, the ending, maybe we need to rethink. So it got locked in there at the end, and I'm really happy with where we landed and where the book is now. This open-ended: we don't know, and we'll see.
Yeah. I don't know if you would agree, but it seems as though your commitment and conviction to wanting to be a mother, it was so incredibly strong. I don't know if you would've been open to other forms of having a child in your life.
I would've gone through all of them. I would've figured it out. I think I always knew I wanted to be a mom. I didn't know how it was going to happen. I was going to figure it out though.
Yeah. Well, so that right there is something to be really, I think, acknowledging of. That again, there's probably a continuum of people who are that committed, or some that are pretty ambivalent, and the grief still can be a part of anyone's journey and how that all fits. I do think the commitment has a part of like, this is high priority. This is one of my highest values, and I really want to experience this. There may be many forms of being able to experience this, but I really want to prioritize this.
Yes, absolutely. My husband says to me, because I was like, were you scared when you met me and I told you that I really want to be a mom? He was like, I knew the moment that I met you that you wanted to be a mom. If anyone who would meet you and not know that wasn't looking, couldn't see. It was so apparently obvious.
You didn't even have to say it.
No, I didn't even have to say it, he knew. It's like, so many people go through this experience and have the miscarriage, and it's still devastating. Maybe it wasn't ever that big of a priority to begin with, but they'll have to still contend with the grief. So I'm so glad that the book can speak to those people too, and not the people necessarily who're like me and are like, this is my purpose in life kind of thing.
Yeah. Well, I want to pivot towards grief and how to navigate that in relationship, and I just also want to ask the question. It might be stretching the sentiment of Your Baby Will Find You. But is it even possible that people might experience baby in a different way? That it might not be a physical human infant, but there could be other versions.
Yes, absolutely. That's so true. It's sort of like your destiny will find you. I'm not a religious person, but I guess it does get a little bit woo-woo spiritual. Because it just feels like, we only have control over so much, and this is the experience that truly taught me that. I had been trying to learn the lesson many times, but this one really got it through. Almost like being a children's book author and writing these books was a thing that found me too. That was destined to me, I felt. Because I've been writing books for so long, and it was always a thing and I always pursued it. It did come to me.
“Even though I do feel like it's about creativity, and your creative pursuits are out there and they maybe do find you, although you do also have to find them. You must participate, I guess.”
You must participate in both types of creative output, baby or book or whatever it may be. I think, for the human baby element, it felt like I had this image in my mind of just my baby literally existing in space. I was like, my baby is existing in space and will come to me, and I don't have to go find them. I don't have to run. I don't have to strain. I don't have to know, because you can't really. You cannot know that. You cannot know what that's going to be like and who's going to come to you. So that gave me peace in a time when nothing gave me peace. So even though the end of the book is not the words Your Baby Will Find You, that's not the final phrase, it still felt like an apt title for this feeling. I hope that it would also give peace to people too, to just feel like: I can slow down, I can stay calm, I can be still. I don't have to race after this all the time, the manic feeling that I felt a lot.
Well, I think it is such an important message, particularly in this day and time when we're inundated with information, and how to uplevel and develop ourselves, and all the things that we can do to optimize. We can fall into this illusion that we are in control, or that we have more power. I think what you're speaking to is this commitment, this intention, but also not forcing and being in a place of, I don't know if you would quite say surrender, but allowing and participating. But also not making it happen on your terms, which can run the other side. There's just two sides of the spectrums here.
Yes. I would think a lot about this one moment in The Missing Piece by Shell Silverstein, which is one of my favorite books. I think you look at it, and you can tell I'm inspired by it. I love it so much. There's this moment where the piece finds all these different missing pieces, and they're all not right in different ways. But there's one piece that they don't hold tight enough to, and so they lose them. Then there's one piece that they hold so tight that it breaks. I think about that all the time. Because I'm the type of person where I'll hold on so tight, and I'll be like, this is the way I can get it and keep it. But I'll break it, and I have. I've done that in relationships and with friendships. I mean, I've held on too tight. I've been too intense and I've been too needy, and I just haven't been comfortable sitting with myself in those moments. I think about that just all the time.
“You can't be too loose, but you can't grasp onto it for dear life. Because you won't get what you want. You won't keep what you have.”
I don't know, I thought about it a lot when I was writing the book, and also when this experience was happening. It's just such a good life lesson, I think.
Totally. I'm also thinking as a parent, what a beautiful thing to just really have experiential learning around. I mean, that took you to a deep place, but that you can find that. I think it's a practice. It's not something we typically arrive and forever have. It's something we continually find the adjustment in.
Well, I know we're talking a lot here, so I'd love to pivot towards relationship. So you spoke about, and I think it's absolutely so entirely validating, that everybody's grief experience and journey will look very, very different, especially in an intimate partnership. Where would you like to start around just what felt important through what you experienced, to comment around how to navigate maybe the exact same experience, but perhaps very differently?
Yes. It was very interesting to learn and see in real-time how my husband changed his shape to accommodate me, and what that looked like was, he became caretaker. Taking care of me, his emotions can come later, compartmentalizing me and my physical wellbeing. Like, this did not happen to him, it happened to me. But it's his baby, he was there. So he was just trying so hard to support, buying me all my soups, and watching my shows with me, and talking when I wanted to talk and not talking when I didn't want to talk. I went through just such an intense, full-throttle grief at the start. It was very interesting because my grief started to change size and recede a little bit, and then it's like he could feel that, and then his grief became much bigger. It was like, you're now about to go through the real deal.
But it was great because then I had the bandwidth to support him, and I had already learned a little bit, and then I was able to support him. So we just were never on this exact same page, which sounds bad, but it wasn't. Because we were on complimentary pages, naturally, where the ebb and flow of our grief rollercoasters were just matching like a little puzzle.
It really came to a head when we were like, okay. My cycle returned after quite a long time, which was very frustrating. But we had to be patient, we had to wait. We had to do these things, and it allowed us eight weeks of time to go through varying levels. I mean, anger, denial, all of it. We would fight, then we would not fight, and we would cry together then. I would cry and he would hold me, and vice versa and. Every sort of level, and then we had to really be back on the same page again for trying to conceive. Then that was its own journey, because that didn't go perfectly either and didn't happen immediately. Months and months had to go by, and we had to reach a level of pain and frustration where then we were like, we have to stop. That was devastating. But then of course, right when we stopped, we got pregnant, without thinking about it. Which is like, what are you going to do? You can't get there unless you really get there, which is unfortunate, because really getting there is painful.
But yes, that was an incredible experience. I mean, trying to conceive another baby while you're processing the grief of your first baby. Also, he's really on deck for conception, and that's a lot of pressure. I was like, get it together, and I was not empathetic. I mean, there were so many just layers of ever-changing dynamics. But we've been together for almost eight years and we've grown, significantly changed, gone through so many things together. I think we are not the same as we were when we met, but we cannot go more than, I don't know, a few hours, knowing there's something between us—knowing there's some texture, some tension, some rifts. We just cannot move on. We can't do anything else. It's helped us immensely as we've tried to, and I think done a good job, at navigating just how many changes we had to go through between November and May. So November when we found out we were miscarrying, and May when we got pregnant again.
So I think a miscarriage and the loss and the isolation you feel can so easily split two people up and keep them apart, and I feel really lucky that this 100% brought us even closer together as such necessary supports for each other. It set us on a really good path to being parents together, and also navigating pregnancy, which was its own incredible rollercoaster of him becoming my caretaker and my chef and the cleaner of the house and the caretaker of the cat and everything. I could not do any of that. We wouldn't have even known how to navigate that if we hadn't come through the miscarriage first.
Well, thank you for sharing. There's so much here, and I know it probably is difficult to tease out every layer. But something that strikes me just as, again, more universal themes, and maybe you can help me if this fits. That the way in which you and your husband intend, or the care of your connection, that there's a real desire to support and show up and help. That might look different in different phases and seasons.
Secondly, that there's space that you offer one another to have your experience, that it doesn't need to be same-same, and that there's an ability to allow some room. Then thirdly, that there's some attunement here, that you're noticing each other. If you notice the tension or something in between that's interfering and it's hard to do anything else, yet there's a great capacity to offer that space. So it sounds as though if we can attune to one another and we have a sense of where one another are, and we can hold empathy or regard for that. We don't need to force each other to be at a space, but just to have some of that attunement so we know where each other are and we know how to be together in a way that we can have that understanding. Am I hearing you, does this fit?
Yes, absolutely. I agree that there is a little bit of contradiction in that. There is a difference, I think, between him having a grief experience that doesn't feel the same to me as that little problematic rift. That I can tell that we are fine, but he's not fine, and that's okay. In those moments, I would look within and be like, can I handle it? I was like, I can do it, I can be there for him. There were some difficult times in pregnancy where I would look inside and say, I don't have it. That was hard. That was like a different layer where I'd be like, I actually can't, I'm so sorry. I would tell him that.
You would tell him, which is a really clear signal. It's less about I don't love you and I don't want to show up. It's more around, I don't have the capacity.
Yeah, that was hard.
“I think it also just teaches us that everything is temporary. Pregnancy really, one week to the next, everything's different. You just can't latch onto any of it.”
It was good to be like, I know that I don't have it right now for you, can't. But I'm not scared because I know, in five to seven days, I'll be a different person, and we'll be moved on and you'll be okay, and we'll all have survived, and it'll be fine.
Well, in psychology, we might call that more secure functioning, that there's a real trust that you will be there for each other, that you will find each other, even when maybe you are out of sync or you're on different pages and whatever experience, that you will come back together. This is, I think, offering the space to develop and grow, but also the trust that we will nurture our bond and we will find each other. It might look different or the dance might be different. But what beautiful sensation around, we will get through this, and we will grow together.
Yeah. We did, I think, do it enough times, that then we became confident that we could keep doing it. This grief experience, into the trying to conceive experience, into the pregnancy experience, was sort of a crash course in over and over again coming back and coming back, and being there and figuring it out. That's why I wouldn't change a thing.
Maddy, this is backed by research, that if one didn't grow up with feeling that consistency relationally in their early childhood, that being in a relationship where we experience this coming back—the rupture-repair, rupture-repair, the repair, the repair, the repair—we get to develop this trust and this earned feeling that we will get through it, we will grow together, we will find each other. That is so stabilizing, even in the most difficult experiences. This is how we feel resilient and resourced when we find that connection or we feel bonded with another, that we can do hard things. I mean, this isn't grief, this is just life sometimes.
That's true. Well, now you also have learned something about both of our childhoods.
Well, I didn't put that on you. I was saying, just in general.
I think it resonates very deeply, and that's very true. I think part of what makes us a good match is that thing that sustains us and gives us all those good feelings and all that trust, and it is coming out of that childhood trauma and things like that, normal things.
I was thinking you probably had a really relatively stable, and you both experienced how you trusted and could reach to one another. I did not have the optimal secure upbringing, but I've definitely been with my husband, we've been at the rupture-repair, rupture-repair. I do feel so, so grateful for that lived experience. Not everybody has that. I think it's really hard when we don't, and that's why it's encouraging that the research really shows we can develop this when we choose someone that's willing to participate in practice with us for safe functioning.
Yes, that's really beautiful.
Well, Maddy, thank you so much. Tell people where people can get your book.
Yes. So you can find Your Baby Will Find You: A Story of Loss, Grief, and Healing anywhere. Amazon, Barnes and Noble, all over. It's everywhere. It's out. Then, I'm on Instagram at @MaddyDaraGarner, and that's also my website. That's it, that's where I am. That's all the things.
Awesome. On your website, is it your publications?
Yeah, this book, my previous book with Giorgia, which is called This Is Me and Only Me, which is in English and Italian. It will hold anything that happens in the future.
Nice, I love it. Wonderful! Are you doing readings anywhere? I'm sure maybe locally.
Oh my gosh, not at the moment. I hope so. If we do, yes, all of that stuff will be on Instagram and on the website. Giorgia and I did do one reading once at Rizzoli, the Italian bookshop in Manhattan, which was so wonderful. So you never know what might happen, we might just take the book on the road.
There you go! Well, follow if you're wanting to be connected and informed. I will put all the links on today's show notes. Maddy, thank you so much for sharing, and just what you're giving to the world and the distillation of all of this.
Thank you so much, Jessica. This was really, really wonderful.
The post ERP 491: Grief and Healing: Navigating Loss Together as a Couple — An Interview with Madeleine Garner appeared first on Jessica Higgins.
About this episode
Are you and your partner living your best shared life, or just navigating the daily grind side-by-side?
Many couples get caught up in routines, letting old patterns and outside pressures shape their relationships by default. The possibility of building something inspired by both partners’ deepest dreams and values can feel elusive, especially when life’s challenges, stresses, or feelings of being stuck appear insurmountable.
In this episode, listeners are guided through a transformative approach to co-creating a shared future with their significant other. The conversation explores the concept and practice of dream building as a couple, providing actionable steps to create a clear, compelling vision together. You'll discover how to honor and support each other’s aspirations (even if they differ), learn practical tools to sidestep habitual negativity, and understand the science behind emotional connection and growth. Whether your relationship feels stagnant or you’re looking to deepen your intimacy, this episode offers a roadmap for moving from conflict and limitation to collaboration, curiosity, and mutual empowerment.
Mary Morrissey is the founder of the Brave Thinking Institute, the world's premier provider of transformational training and coaching. Through life-changing books, events and programs, Mary has helped millions of people tap into the power within them to achieve new levels of success and experience a deeper sense of meaning and purpose.
Episode Highlights
07:57 How having a shared vision as a couple can deepen your connection and help you navigate even the toughest challenges together.
10:20 Why moving from simply imagining your dreams to clearly blueprinting them is essential for bringing your vision to life.
16:28 The importance of getting specific with your dreams and honoring both partners’ aspirations.
25:46 Practicing daily gratitude and shifting your mindset to bridge the gap between where you are and where you want to be.
28:56 Setting intentions for your day and visualizing the outcomes you want.
33:12 Simple three-phase process of blueprinting, bridging, and building your dreams.
38:26 How to overcome perceived limitations.
42:36 What to do when your partner is not on board.
44:48 Transform moments of tension and discover additional resources to keep growing together.
Your Check List of Actions to Take
- Take a deep breath together before important conversations to foster presence.
- Individually write a detailed vision for your ideal future in health, relationships, vocation, and time/money freedom.
- Share these visions openly without editing or judging each other.
- Give space for each partner’s unique dreams, even if they’re different or seem unlikely.
- Actively imagine how you would feel if your dream life was already true.
- Practice daily gratitude for your partner and relationship.
- Commit to one small action each day that moves you toward your shared dreams.
- Tell your partner three things you appreciate about them each day, expecting nothing in return.
Mentioned
Brave Thinking (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
Building The Vision of Your Dreams Meditation (free guided meditation)(link)
Shifting Criticism For Connected Communication
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Episode Transcript
Mary, thank you for joining us. It is a deep privilege and honor to be sharing this time with you and to share you with my audience. Many people, who have been listening to the show for a long time, have heard me mention you, as you've been such an influence in my life. So thank you for saying yes and being here.
I'm thrilled to be here, Jessica. It's my privilege.
Yes, and we're going to be looking at how to dream-build and vision with a significant other. This is something you have brought to the world and have such gift and genius around. I know that you have a story, and this could be the whole talk to talk about how this became your life's work. But for people who maybe just are getting to know you here, what would you like to share around dream-building and how this became of importance for you?
It became of importance to me because I was diagnosed with a fatal kidney disease and told that, at the most, I might have six months to live. The science that was available in 1967 when this occurred, there were no transplants, no dialysis. Then a woman who understood dream-building came to my hospital bed and suggested that in this infinite, we know it now through science, there's every possibility that could ever be, ever has been. It exists in this energy, and the one that we most get coherent with is the one that's going to be ours. So when you're in a coupling and one of you has a dream that isn't shared by the other, or the other one has a dream and you're not sharing that, the ability to bring those into coherence has not only the ability to bring greater dreams than you've ever imagined into your lives, but a deepening of the love that brought you together in the first place, and the whole new levels of that that are always available to us if we're just willing to go deeper.
So I followed the process she gave me. This is before we knew mind-body science, in Harvard, UCLA, Stanford, none of the major teaching hospitals. They're all over the United States now and the world. The idea that the emotional side of our nature has everything to do with the physical side of our nature. Why, often, do we have stomach pain? Because we're in emotional pain. So I didn't know that I was in deep emotional pain at the time. The story is longer, but the net result was, I was in emotional pain and there was a lot of self-loathing going on in me. Toxic thinking, toxic body. So how then we change our results so we have a closer relationship? This is empowered relationships, what we're doing in this podcast.
So these are some empowerment tools for creating a life of a shared vision. Not exactly the same. Each of you are individuals. But that there's enough shared vision for a life you would love living, that's more expansive and with growing goals, over the course of your marriage or your connection. There's some tools for that, and there's some science behind it. Because almost everyone has dreams. Very few people understand the art and science of building dreams. My work in the world, since I was able to build the dream of greater health, and then I began to study decades of other people's work regarding this and put it together in a coherent system that works. I'm seeing it work with thousands and thousands of people all over the world, changing their results and creating the vision of a much closer marriage or connection relationship, with untold depths to be discovered and brought forth. The gift of that kind of love is that love changes everything about us. So that's my work.
Well, thank you for speaking specifically to partnership, intimate relating, and the love and the connection and what can come from applying dream-building principles to this partnership, and the possibilities. You're also giving some insight to how this can be applied in different domains of living. So physical health. I mean, I know that it can be applied to any domain of life. You're speaking about really serious hardships or conditions that might feel impossible, that still, the science and all that you've been able to bring into a system works, and you've seen it over and over and over again. So I'm hearing that for people listening, that even if you feel this overwhelm, stuckness, or bind in your condition or circumstance, that this can be a path to develop a different outcome that is more in alignment with a dream or a vision. So for people listening who might not know, we're speaking about dream-building, we're speaking about vision, and you have a whole way in which you look at what dream-building is. Do you want to help people understand that?
So as I mentioned, very few people understand dream-building. So dreaming just keeps us in, we use our imagination. We imagine: Oh, wouldn't it be great if we could do a European trip together, or we could take our kids to wherever it is in the world, Disneyland? Or whatever your vision of these longings that come, what would I love, and the discontents that we feel, of feeling hemmed in or not able to do the things we want. So I call those holy signals from the soul. That longing and that discontent is really life speaking to us, that there's more life seeking to happen by means of us. Most of us look to our conditions for permission to have a life that we would love, for a family, for whatever it is in your expression.
So dream-building has an art and a science to it. We bring those two things together, and as Henry David Thoreau said, you pass an invisible boundary, and all sorts of things begin to happen. Because the lack of difficulty was not in the world. It is in us. Then our way of interacting with all possibility generates the result we have. So how do we get to something that we would really love? So number one, you have to dream it up. No dream comes true if you don't dream it up. But not just a casual, like: I would just love to have more money at the end of the month. I'd love for us to have more money at the end of the month.
When we're working with physics, the art is in the definite specific vision, where you can imaginally step in and you literally can see it. We're on the plane, we're going to Disneyland with our kids. There's plenty of money in the bank for all the things we wanted to do while we're there. We're staying in a very nice place. So you're casting a vision of a segment of your life that just brings you alive, that's just like, I would love that! It doesn't matter what that is. It matters that you get a crystal clear picture of it. There's something called the law of specificity. You know it to be true with building a dream house. You've got to get a really clear blueprint. It can't be casual. You don't go to the builder and say, build me a bigger house than I have, one that I like. The best builder in the world can't build that. But if you say, I want a four-bedroom or a three-bedroom, I want it on a cliff, I want it near the ocean, I want it downtown in a high-rise, whatever you would love.
To get specific about that is number one. You have to blueprint that dream, so that you imagine it with crystal clear clarity, definiteness, and measurability. Meaning, you wouldn't say, since I love to travel, in my dream, I'm traveling all over the world. Well, you're not going to travel all over the world. None of us have enough time in one lifetime to go all over the world. But we could go to some of the places in the world, and you could travel 24/7 and not go to all the places in the world. So we went to Paris.
One time in a DreamBuilder event I was doing, a woman came out of the crowd. She thought she couldn't dream because she had a lot of stories. So we just began to work with unpacking. She said, I can't dream, you don't understand. I brought her to the stage. She wanted to tell me everything that had happened in her life, why she'd been hurt and couldn't dream. I said, all that's true. But in this moment, if you keep breathing three more years, you're going to have a life. Not maybe, absolutely. If you still were having life, would you want good health in that life? Well, yes, I would want good health, and I want my husband to have good health too. I said, and where might you live? Do you want to continue to live where you're living now? No, we've dreamed of it, but we can probably never do it. But our dream was to live in New Mexico. I've always loved those adobe houses. If I could live anywhere, I'd live in New Mexico, and I'd have an adobe house, the kind that was built before 1940 with the arch doorways. That'd be what I'd love to live in.
Then I said, so if you could travel anywhere, where would you love to travel? She said, Wyoming, I have always wanted to go to Wyoming. And Mary, me, I'm thinking somebody would want to go to Paris or go to the Taj Mahal, or dreams that I have about traveling. But they're not my dreams, they're her dreams, what brings her alive. I said, and what would you do in Wyoming? Then she got very tearful, and she said, I would go there, and there's a place I could go and volunteer for two weeks, where you are given the ability to love animals back to life who have been used in medical experimentations. That was her dream. So then I just simply helped her see that it wasn't that she couldn't dream, she just hadn't had the support to take what she actually would love and shape it into a vision. But that's the first part of dream-building, blueprinting.
Then the other is what we call bridging, it's phase two, which means that then we practice being a match for the dream we have, not then, but now. You can't actually get to your dream. You have to come from your dream. Let me explain that in a way that's easy to understand. So let's imagine you and your spouse dream something, and you know that this dream you have, you don't have the money for it, maybe your jobs don't give you the time to do it, whatever the constraints are as to why you don't already have that result.
“A dream, by definition, is the desire for a form of our life to shift and change into a pattern, called the trip or whatever it is that's in your vision. That's a form of life that has taken shape, and you loved it into existence.”
Well, how do you do that, if you don't have the money and you don't have this and that? You get your attention off circumstances and situations. We're not denying them, but we're denying the power they have over the spirit indwelling you. That there is a power breathing you. You can't even breathe your own breath one time or make your heart beat one time on your own power. Spirit of life is given unto every one of us, and it is willing to give us as much of itself (life) as we're willing to allow.
“Go to the ocean with a thimble, it's going to give you a thimble. Go to the ocean with a bucket, it'll give you a bucket. Eventually you learn to get in it and let it lift you up. There's an ocean of abundance that we're actually in, but we cut it down to a portion that we can accept, based on patterns of thinking that we've been given.”
This is a new kind of thinking, where you're thinking and living from a vision. So with a partner, the first step is to create a vision that has lots of different varieties to it that answers what you would each love. To make welcome when your partner says something where you're going: Hmm, I don't know about that, I don't know if we can do that. There's just no editing. The beginning of visioning is that there's no editing between you. You each individually write, if you could imagine your life three years from now, what components would you love to have in it, where are you? There's four to address. One is our health. The other is relationships, to describe ideal relationships: ours, kids, parents, friends, whatever it is that you would shape as an image into a life. This is the relationship part of your life, the health part of your life, fully life-giving to you.
So you want to know, give your partner some space, as they're writing their own vision, to begin to unearth really what they would love. We're in a world where we spend so much of our time dealing with what's coming at us, that to take some time and really inquire and listen about what's seeking to come from us. Just the very act of doing the visioning together will bring you closer if you're not editing your partner's ideas. So just every idea is welcome here as you begin this process. It's four domains. Health, relationships.
Then, vocation. It doesn't mean your earning income. Vocare is what you do with your time and talent. For some of us, we do earn an income doing what we love doing with our time and talent. We have professions, or we take jobs. But in your vision, what are you doing with your time and talent that really brings you alive? You let that vision be a north star. So to hear what your partner's vocational dreams are, and your vocational dreams.
The last quadrant. So you have health, relationships, vocation. Time and money (freedom). So time and money (freedom) shows up in our bank account and in our calendar. So we would love to do something, but there's no room in our calendar. Or we would love to do something, and there's not the money to do it with. But we don't let that keep us from having the dream. So in this dream, if you did have time freedom, if you did have money freedom, and you do this just so that you can know what you would love. Because once you know what you would love, and there's some simple steps you take, without changing the circumstances that you're facing right now, it's an amazing thing how you begin to—and there's a science for this—attract to you, circumstances, situations, and conditions that help you begin to establish new patterns that produce a different life.
Your results are only produced one of two ways. Either by design, so you have a blueprint for it, or default, and you keep thinking the same thinking. Yeah, I would love that, but we don't have that. We keep thinking the same thoughts and we keep having the same results. You know that's true because you go to holiday dinners with perhaps a larger family you're related to, and you only see them once a year. You ask Uncle George, how are you doing? And he gives you the same story he had last year. He's living by default. Then you look at your own life and say, am I living by default? But in a partnership, you can support each other. Just do an experiment. Just make it an experiment that let's imagine a life that we absolutely love together in four areas, and you each write your own, and then share them with each other. You're going to see a lot of intersections. But remember, the key to this is no editing. So your partner isn't diminished or shut down. Even if part of you is going, how the hell are we ever going to do that? We're not doing that.
Right. It just sounds so critical to give support, as you said, with the attendant or the participant that came up to you and was really describing all the reasons why this is so difficult.
I've got to finish that story. A few years later, I'm doing the same seminar. We've got a thousand people there, and we're in Los Angeles. On one of the breaks, this little woman who I had forgotten, I talk to so many people in person, when she walked up, I said, you look familiar to me. She said, well, do you know who I am? I said, well, I don't know your name, but I can remember we must have had a talk sometime. She goes, I'm the woman who couldn't dream. I said, oh yes. Well, how are you doing? She says, we live in New Mexico, we live in an adobe house with my beautiful arch door, and I'm going to show you a picture of it. And guess where I just came back from? Wyoming, I've had a great two weeks. And just the life emanating from this woman. Captured a vision, believing there was no way for her to have it. But once she had the vision and she began to do that practice of endeavoring to live the life she imagined, each day a little bit, all sorts of things began to shift for her. Which is of course what Thoreau says and others.
So it's worthy of an experiment with our own lives, because this is our only one and true life in this constellation that we know of. So to experience all of what life can give us that we would allow in our lives, is a beautiful way to begin to practice as a coupling, coming closer together, knowing that that love that brought us together has no limit. Love can be experienced, and how we can be more in love and more connected, honoring each other, celebrating each other, in ways that actually grow us and the relationship at the same time.
It seems like such a special, and I'm almost like sacred and having reverence for this ability to support one another, and also just individually to give room for this life, the creative development and growth within us as you're speaking. That it needs energy, it needs attention, it needs to have space to be responded to or lived from, as you said. Yet, the habitual tendencies and the patterns, whether or not it's our thinking or our conditions, that tend to become what people focus on. So like you said, that's true, or we're not negating that that is a part of your experience. And what is also true is giving room and space for life that's in you, emerging in you. Not only is that also true, but there's something bigger that you're speaking to, the evolution, the growth, the possibility, and that we get to partner with that as an individual person having a dream and being able to work that.
But then to be able to be in partnership, where we can have reverence for one another's dream, and almost how sacred that is, that life, and not to edit or poo-poo it, if you will. To really give room for possibility, even if it might feel threatening on the front-end. Like, I don't understand how that would happen or fit. But just to be in the place of wonder and curiosity. Am I hearing that right?
Yeah.
So the experiment, you're encouraging people to do this experiment. You also talked about even when your conditions or your circumstances don't seem to be a match. Do you want to speak to the bridging, you said the second step?
Bridging is the physics. It's the science of it. So when you dream up a dream, there's a vibrational match to that dream. So you step into it imaginally and you test, does it give me life? Would I love this life? If not, if there's a part of it that goes: Well, I would love that too. Make the dream. There's no too big a dream. The important thing is that you want to build, in your mind and on paper, a dream that you would love. That it answers the question, what would I love? We have been trained, from the time we were little kids, to ask: what can I do, what does my money say I can do, what do you think I can do? We look outside of ourselves, to circumstances, situations, conditions—meaning permission or agreement from others, what others think we can do—as the frame from which we live our little life. When all the while, we are more than all of that.
So bridging then is, once this is the life I would love. When I step inside that imaginally, I feel like this. When I'm in this life, I feel like that. So you're going to be in this life as this other life can come into existence. So we bless the life we're in, we live in gratitude. Gratitude is the frequency that's harmonious with abundance. Most people have knee-jerk gratitude. Meaning, if you do something nice for me, say something nice to me, surprise support of some kind comes in, I respond with gratitude. Now that's different than generating gratitude. You generate gratitude for being alive. You generate gratitude for the opportunities that are here. It's a practice. But what that does is it puts you in a higher vibration. So your dream, by definition, is a higher vibration than the struggle life.
So struggle life has a lot of density to it. So when we dream a dream, we feel free. It's airy at first. But we want to put the construction of enough. In physics, it's called mass, where you think from this enough. You're taking little baby steps of things you could do with what you have from where you are. So visioning, vibration, and action tie together.
“The first creation of the thoughts we think are our feelings, and our nervous system picks up the frequency of our thoughts. So there's a communication between the right and left hemisphere, and that moves through the corpus callosum and sends a signal up and down the spine and the nerves, and the whole systems of the body vibrate with it.”
If I say, Jessica, I'm feeling anxious, Jessica is going to ask me: Well, let's talk about what's going on, what you're thinking. Well, I'm thinking about the anxiety of this. I'm thinking anxiety-producing thoughts, my body tells me I'm feeling anxious. So you don't have to wait for your body to tell you, you actually choose the vibration. But if I'm thinking that regardless of whether I believe it or not, other people have achieved extraordinary things with what seemed like very little means. So why would I not want to do experiment with my own potential, with the potential we all have?
So bridging is very much like we all use technology, our cellphones, our television. When I pick up the remote control for my television and if I turn it on, maybe what my husband was watching or what I've been watching, that same channel is the first one that comes up. So the pictures on that channel are exactly a match to the vibration of the broadcast. So the broadcast, if it's CNN, I can count on it that I'm going to have problems, difficulty, fear-inducing suggestions. So adrenaline, cortisol, all these things are going to happen in my body if I'm always tuned to drama, difficulty, what bad things could happen. We turn the TV off, but it's a challenge to turn us off from the drama channel when we have a habit of thinking from what's wrong, what's missing, how long is it going to take, what's wrong with us.
So we start first with the dream, and then we begin to practice. If this all worked out, how would I feel? You just completely eliminate the how it's going to work out. If you get stuck in the how, you will never build your dreams. If you knew how to do it, you'd already have it. So there's a thinking that's at a higher level and a different frequency than the one I've been on.
So this works with just having a better day. So you imagine, when you wake up in the morning, first thing I'm going to do is be grateful that I'm given another day of life. I got to wake up today, not everybody did on this planet. Many people this morning just didn't wake up. But I got to wake up, this is my day. To start that day in gratitude. Then imagine, it's the end of the day, as you're moving through the first phase of your day. If I'm fortunate enough to breathe all these hours of the day, which is highly likely, I will have created a day. What day do I want to create? How do I want to feel as I'm getting ready for bed? You make that a vision for this day, that I want to be saying nicer things to my spouse today. I want to be a better spouse today. I want to be a greater parent today, or a more influential difference-making person at the work I'm doing.
But what would matter to you that when you got done with this day? You would say, for me, I would say: Well done, Mary. I'm not asking for perfection, but I'm asking for progress. So I've got a vision for my day, and then I practice coming from that vision. Measured at the end of the day, I can see some ons, I was really on there, and offs a little bit. So next time, if I had it to do over again, I would do this. You're actually changing the frequency just right then in your imagination, and you're much more likely then tomorrow to live from the vision you have up for the next day.
So it's a way to make it simple. And you're also speaking, you and your husband, just now and then—you and your spouse, you and your wife, you and whoever your partner is. Always, there's a partnership between you and the power breathing you. That you have a vision for what really matters to you, and each day is like a block in the building of that. That if I make this block solid, where I'm doing everything I can do today, and I'm not asking for perfection of myself, but I'm leaning into progress, you're going to see that because your vibration is changing, that attracts to you all kinds of things you can't make happen.
You're having different thoughts. As you said, the emotional nervous system experience and whole system, that you're going to think different thoughts if you're in a different state emotionally, or connecting with the vision or the dream that's different than perhaps your habitual or what you've been experiencing up until then, you're going to think differently. I mean, this is true, I'm sure people can relate, if they're at an engagement, some function, and they're meeting with people maybe that they met for the first time, that are doing things in the industry of interest. Like, let's say I have an interest, you mentioned animals, of opening up an animal sanctuary, and then I meet somebody that knows somebody. I'm going to hear different thoughts and get different ideas by having that conversation, that I wouldn't have ever maybe had, had I not had that experience or been in that topic of conversation. I think something can happen similarly when we're connecting with the vision and the emotional experience of living into that. That we're going to have different thoughts, we're going to think different things, and we're going to have different conversations with people, and they're going to give us different feedback. It's a whole constellation.
It's all kinds of things, and we make this simple in a coupling. So remember, dream-building has three phases: blueprinting, bridging, and building. So the building phase are the actions we take. So the blueprinting is the design, what would I love? The bridging is, rather than me wanting to get to that, who can I be today that's a match for that? In what way today can I be a match for my vision, coming from that, while I'm doing ordinary things? Then the question of building means, what action can I take today to move me in the direction of my dream, even if it's a baby step? This is really important.
“Baby steps will take you all the way to Mount Everest, but you've got to keep taking them. So if I just do a few days of that and then I back off, there's not enough momentum, or in physics it's called mass, of energy around your vision.”
But if you just do something every day and you ask yourself, this is building, one of the ways to take what seems like no opportunities and turn them into opportunities. Because the way we've been trained to think, we say: Well, there's no opportunity, I don't have the money. So it's just, today, I want to be closer to my spouse. I want to have a deeper richer connection. I want more romance back in it. I would love fun again, whatever the vision is for your relationship. Life is happening, we've got patterns, and things are going on. Yet, probably we both want that, and we've got all the reasons why we're not having that. So ask yourself this question. This is something you do every day, and then take a five-minute power move on something you can do, which is, what can I do today with what I have from where I am that could help bring that about?
So we're not as close as we used to be, what can I do? Well, he's busy. Your mind is going to want to pick up all the reasons you can't. Refuse to let yourself off the hook until you get some ideas on what can I do, with what I have, from where I am, to make that move. Not waiting for them to make a move, but me make the move. An idea like, you know what I could do? For the next 30 days, I could every day tell my spouse three things that I really appreciate about them and not expect anything in return. Now that's going to grow me because I'm going to want to hear stuff back. But if I make this into a complete give, I receive feeling good because I did it.
So for the next 30 days, with the right heart and spirit, I'm going to look for and pay attention to, and then speak to three different things in that day that I really appreciate about my spouse. Then just notice what that did in the next 30 days. Don't measure it along the way, just wait for 30. But do it for 30 days. So when you're asking, what can I do with what I have from where I am, you want to write down every idea. Here again, you do not edit. An idea comes, you're like: Well, I'm not going to do that. But regardless, write all the ideas that light you up and the ones that are like: Eh, I don't want to do that. Write them down anyway.
“It's like pumping water out of a well. You pump some water because you want to have crystal clear water to drink. But the first water that comes out of that pipe is brackish, it's been sitting in there for a while. Same thing with our thoughts. We've had a lot of repetition of our thoughts. So to get new thoughts, new ideas, we write down every idea that comes our way, and we keep asking.”
Until you've got about 10 different ideas of what you could do with what you have from where you are. One time, I wanted to create a new program. It was the DreamBuilder program, only I wanted to produce a digital version of it and have an auditory version of the whole system of transformation. It was about $50,000, in an era, 20 years ago, where I'd gone through some things in my life and I didn't have $50,000 to just direct over there to that endeavor. So I thought, well, we could get the deposit for this and get it going for $10,000. I didn't have $10,000. So I just asked the same thing. I just said, so what could I do with what I have from where I am? What could I do to generate the first $10,000? One of the ideas that came was, you could get some extra money if you worked three nights a week at Burger King. I knew when that idea came, I was not going to work three nights a week at Burger King. But I wrote it down anyway. I had learned to just write it down.
Because once you get enough vacuum past your own thinking, ideas come to you from the crystal clean water. It's the same thing with water. You have to get enough suction, and then this crystal clear water rises up and clarity comes. Ideas you have never thought of about something you actually could do, even if it looks like a baby step that moves you in the direction of your dream. Take that, and over this time now, you're building more mass, more relationship with your vision. If you will just do this, do an experiment with your life. Life's happening anyway. Notice, if in fact you do this, I promise you, because this works every single time when we work it. These are invisible laws, just like gravity, magnetism. This is all happening, meanwhile we're having our lives. Your life matters to you. It's very, very important.
Mary, I am appreciating how you are high-level distilling this for people listening, that this is enough to work with, and that you are offering the coherence of how this works. I also want to say, for people listening, you have tremendous amount of curriculum and opportunities to deepen the understanding. I mean, people might have some objections around, how do I know if it's just my ego wanting something? You have so many ways in which you support people to check out, does this vision match, and what is it? I mean, you have several questions that support people tuning into, is this a vision that I can really feel integrity around? So for people listening, just letting them know there's so much curriculum to support what you're describing high-level.
Lots of it is free. Lots of it is free online, YouTube channel, and then of course our website. We have a lot of free things that can help.
Yes. Just as we're winding down, you mentioned just here right now, perhaps a key to this, which is if perhaps you and your significant other are not quite on the same page, if your vision seem at odds, or perhaps one isn't interested in experimenting with the practice of dream-building, that one could still be in what you're describing all the steps, even if your partner is not or is afraid to or isn't interested in. Do you want to speak to that a little bit more? You just did.
No, but specifically. This is a question that I receive all the time. Well, my partner has zero interest in this. So the question is, do you believe your partner loves you? The answer usually is yes. Because if they don't believe they're loved, that's another whole conversation. But yes, I do. It's just that they can't see what I see. So let your life be the message. Don't try to get them to do what you're doing. Do your visioning that includes them. Do your who I'm going to be, so that we can be closer. Whether they share your vision for the relationship or what you're going to be as a family, you have your own vision of that and you can bring influence into the family, not by trying to get them to agree with the way you're doing it in your life.
Let me go back. When I first came into this, I had healed from that kidney disease, and the doctors were baffled and saying, there's no science for this! We don't know how your one kidney that was left after we removed the other—that the surgeon said, I saw it, it was pockmarked, it was shriveled—how that kidney is functioning five months later as a fully functioning kidney. I have no idea how that's occurring. Do what you've been doing, I guess. But I don't know if this is going to last, and if it does last a while, I don't know how long. Well, that's been almost what's been 55 years now. Because I moved to a new frequency, and kidney disease did not exist on that frequency. The way I moved from CNN to the nature channel or the romance channel, that CNN is not on the same channel as that. It didn't exist there.
So as I began to want everybody, when this happened for me, and then I'm studying how this occurs, and the art and science of this in the writings, and I'm getting that out of the university, I wanted everybody I knew to have it, and I became like a beating drum. Try this, it gives you more life. Even my parents said: God, Mary, it sounds like you got religion or something. I realized, pushing it on people, it's a fault. It's an understanding. Einstein said, match the frequency of the reality you want, and it must be yours. Must, because you're on that frequency. Match the frequency of the reality you want, and it must be yours. This is not philosophy, he said. This is physics. I was trying to pass it on.
Finally, I realized within two or three months of this, and I'm getting pushback: Oh, this is not the way to give it. The way to give it is for me to do it for myself and let my life show it, and some will get interested and some won't. That's exactly what happened. I had dear friends, who are still friends, but they just never got interested in how things occur, and how you can have things you want to occur really occur. So in a relationship, which is our focus today, what a precious thing to be in a relationship. The opportunity for the growth and the experience of being trained by love itself, when love actually becomes our teacher. When we learn to install a habit, I believe it's very important in relationships, which is, whenever there's a bit of a temptation in us to pull back or criticize or judge, is to just ask ourselves the question: so what would love do here? Anytime you ask that question—again, we're talking about asking empowering questions for ideas—what would love do here, you will always get an idea.
Now, the challenge of causing ourselves to act on it then is how love grows us. So part of me wants to be mad about this and punish about this or slam doors and not speak up about this, all of which are toxic expressions of thwarted love. So what would love do here, we cause ourselves to take that step. The depth and the power of two people who love each other, connecting in this arena, there's a power in that, that they call holy matrimony, whether you're legally married or not. Because anybody can get married signing papers, but holy matrimony is another whole thing. Again, it's not a legal issue, it's a connecting issue.
“In holy matrimony, it's moment by moment, day by day, month and into the years, where we have moments, and we infuse those moments with love, and that love begins to create a fabric. That kind of love creates a fabric that wraps itself around the two of us, and that fabric of connectedness is stronger than death itself.”
Wow! Thank you, Mary. It's so beautiful. I will just comment before we wrap up here, that what you're describing, what would love do here, for people who are maybe associating love and the sense of just giving, you're speaking about, and one can actually define this in their own dream of what that love looks like, but it can be this healthy, we both are honoring our authenticity in a way. So it doesn't have to be like: Oh, I just give to you and I defer my own wellbeing or my own happiness. You're talking about something different, and thank you for just giving possibility to all of this. Well, for people who are listening and want to get connected to what you teach, what you offer, where would you like to direct people towards?
I would like to direct you to, I guess, our website first, which is Brave Thinking Institute. So you can go to bti.com, and if you also go to bti.com/empowered relationship, we have a gift for you that helps you vision. It's the technology of how to really vision a life you would truly love. You and your partner can do this together or separately, or you just do it yourself.
I just want to say to those of you that are here right now listening, there's a reason that Dr. Jessica's podcast is so successful, is because she brings week after week after week, people to you, where even when you get one idea or more than one idea every time you do this, you're on a new plane of discovery of the beauty and the wonder that this life has to give you. So I want to thank you, Jessica. All the tools, the strategies, the techniques. But the love with which you train people and couples helping them have lives they truly love, and then the kind of people you bring to this podcast, to also bring talent, time, and energy to support them. It's a beautiful, beautiful work, and I'm privileged today to be part of it.
Yes, thank you. Can you just tell people briefly what is on BTI? Because you do live events, you do workshops, you do so many things to support people to have access. Do you want to just briefly describe, you said free resources?
I have a YouTube channel, Mary Morrissey. You can find it there. If you come to the website, Brave Thinking Institute, kind of the getting started program is called the DreamBuilder. It's an online program. It's video-based. That's something to explore. We do DreamBuilder Live, three-day training in this, three times a year. One in-person in January, in Los Angeles. We just completed last weekend, and then there'll be another one in the fall. So you could get on the mailing list, and we'll let you know the things that are happening that are free. Then of course, there's other things where you can get involved.
It's such a special gift, to be a part of your teachings, a part of the work and the whole team you have that supports people. My husband, Reid, and I have been to your trainings, and it's really cute to hear the different things that he'll say, particularly what you've mentioned in today's episode. Doing what I can with what I have and where I am, it's such a good way to have language together to be able to support one another in bringing forth what our dreams are. So again, thank you so much for everything you've offered and all that you give to the world, Mary. It's a privilege.
You too, Jessica. Thank you so much!
The post ERP 490: Co-Creating Your Future: A Guide to Dreambuilding Together as a Couple — An Interview with Mary Morrissey appeared first on Jessica Higgins.
About this episode
Passion and intimacy are at the heart of every thriving relationship—yet even the healthiest couples can find these sparks fading over time, or wonder if their desires are truly “normal.” For so many couples, sexual connection can become routine, tangled up in old beliefs, busy schedules, and silent worries about whether you’re truly satisfied or doing it right. The search for authentic sexual fulfillment often brings up more questions than answers, leaving many people longing for deeper, more meaningful connection but uncertain about how to find it.
In this episode, you’ll discover a fresh perspective on intimacy, focusing on how to move beyond comparison, shame, and routine to create a vibrant, personalized sexual connection. Guided by expert insights and the latest research, you’ll learn practical strategies for accessing flow state during intimacy, embracing your unique sexuality, and rekindling sensuality throughout all stages of your relationship. From breaking free of social norms to simple rituals for everyday connection, this conversation is packed with actionable steps and empowering ideas designed to help you cultivate lasting passion and deeper joy with your partner.
Dr. Emily Jamea is an award-winning sex and relationship therapist and the USA Today best-selling author of Anatomy of Desire: Five Secrets to Create Connection and Cultivate Passion. Emily speaks nationally and internationally to a diverse range of audiences. Her expertise has been featured in Oprah Magazine, CNN, USA Today, NBC, and more. Dr. Jamea is an award-winning columnist for Healthy Women. She hosts the Love and Libido podcast and writes for Psychology Today.
Episode Highlights
06:09 How Emily Jamia’s unique upbringing in a sex-positive home within a conservative town sparked her early interest in sexuality.
10:41 Defining “Normal” in sexuality.
14:07 The emotional and psychological dimensions of sex.
20:38 Building sensuality through everyday moments.
23:14 The science and benefits of affectionate touch.
27:02 Going beyond just resolving disconnects to proactively cultivating passionate connections.
28:01 The role of flow state in sexual satisfaction.
34:05 The five keys to deep sexual connection.
36:18 Simple practices for returning to presence and embodiment.
40:33 How small changes and novelty spark lasting desire.
Your Check List of Actions to Take
- Pause and breathe. Take a moment to ground yourself before discussing relationship issues.
- Remember, building secure relationships is ongoing work—not a one-time achievement.
- Focus on actions like mutual respect, repair after conflict, and “we over me” decisions.
- Avoid labeling attachment styles. Use attachment theory for understanding, not as a tool for blaming or limiting yourself or your partner.
- Be gentle with yourself about your relationship struggles—growth takes time.
- Ask curious questions. When tensions arise, explore what you or your partner are experiencing, rather than making assumptions.
- Slow down during conflict. Give yourself and your partner time to process—this increases the chances for empathy and understanding.
- Hold space for both compassion and clear boundaries when addressing hurtful behavior.
Mentioned
Transcendent Sex
Anatomy of Desire: Five Secrets to Create Connection and Cultivate Passion (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
ERP 362: Understanding & Increasing Sexual Desire — An Interview with Dr. Lori Brotto
Shifting Criticism For Connected Communication
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Episode Transcript
Emily, thank you for joining us. I'm looking forward to our conversation.
Thank you so much for having me. I'm thrilled to be here.
Yes. So you are a fellow podcaster. What's the name of your podcast?
It is called Love and Libido. So I talk about all things sex and relationships.
Lovely. One of the things that I get very excited about, as it relates to doing interviews as a host, is talking with people who have not only a level of training and development in their career, but have the experiential career experience, and then have also done research. It's just a really beautiful blend. So I'm looking forward to sharing you with my audience.
Before we get started, what got you focused on this particular area of focus, as it relates to desire and relationship sexual intimacy? Where would you like to start as far as how this became a focus?
Oh my gosh. It's like, how far back do you want to go? So I grew up in a small conservative town in southeast Tennessee. But my family unit, we were from Texas. My dad was an OB/GYN. So in our home, sex was not taboo. As I entered into adolescence, however, it quickly became apparent that it was something a lot of my peers held a lot of shame and insecurity about. This is kind of when the internet was just beginning to be a thing, but it wasn't like today where they could Google everything. So they started coming to me with questions, I think because they saw that I'm perfectly comfortable talking about it. So I think I was giving sex advice long before I was ever qualified to do so.
But fast forward, we moved back to Texas. I eventually ended up at the University of Texas. I was studying psychology. Took a human sexuality elective, not even realizing that that could be a specialty within psychology, and just found it fascinating. Because it was through that first class that I really understood how much you can learn about a person's psyche by asking questions about their sexuality, and understanding how they understand and express themselves in a sexual way. So I think by the time I graduated, I had taken every sexology class that the university offered. It was really from that point on that I hit the ground running and made it my focus.
Lovely. I mean, in my experience in two different graduate programs, they are elective, it's not like you can do your PhD just in that particular area, unless you do a dissertation. Did you do your dissertation on it?
Well, I went back for a PhD later. So after my undergrad, I went to grad school, and it was an MFT program. But even the marriage and family therapy program didn't require a sexuality class. Of course I took the one that they had, but it was still an elective. But by that point, I had started going to sexology conferences and really doing a lot of self-study. Then I opened up shop in Houston, and at that time, I was one of 3 certified sex therapists in a city of 4 million people. Keep in mind, I am in Texas. It is more conservative, it's very international. So I worked with tons of people who came from very conservative cultures or rigid religions that really struggled to understand and embrace their sexuality in a meaningful way. Then I just reached a point where I found a sexology program that I could do, and it was through that program that I eventually got the PhD in sexology and did my dissertation, which set the foundation for my later research and eventually my book.
Excellent, we're going to be talking a little bit more about that today. One of the things that I got, and I don't know if you would resonate with how I'm reflecting this back, but that you are not offering prescriptive advice for people that's very just uniform or universal. There might be universal principles, but really helping people come into contact with their unique expression, what really matters to them, as far as their sexuality, desire, arousal. Is that right?
Yes, if there was a cookbook for sexual desire issues. It's just so nuanced. The issues around desire and satisfaction are still, by and large, the most complex yet common issue that sex and relationship therapists treat. So they are complex. My role really, I see myself as a guide in helping people really discover their unique sexuality. I think I say this like three times in the book.
“Your sexuality and your individuality cannot be pulled apart, they are one and the same. Your sexuality is like a fingerprint. It is going to be different in some way, shape, or form than anybody else's.”
So I just really try to help people and empower people to feel good about, whatever that is for them.
I love that, it's very welcoming. Even in one of your comments in your book, and I resonate, that often people are comparing themselves. But it's such a private thing typically, unless one is a little bit more public. But it's hard to really gauge. So people do do some level of social comparison, it's just how we are as humans, and the idea of “normal.” But I think that does lend, I don't know if you would agree, but if somebody is questioning that is what we're doing normal, there might be some layer of discontent or yearning or longing, hence the question. Maybe they wouldn't be asking that question if they were really fully satisfied.
I think there's just a lack of information out there. As it relates to other areas of psychological wellbeing, we can generally say: this is the scope of normal. But with sexuality, I'm not going to go so far as to say anything goes. I think, obviously at a baseline, you have to have mutual consent and mutual pleasure. If that's not there, then we're looking at something probably more abnormal. But in terms of the average person who's questioning whether their sexuality is normal, a lot of times they're asking that question because they just don't know what the neighbors are doing, and I think because there is such a broad range of what we consider normal and healthy. So I'm always just trying to help them discover what's normal and healthy for them.
Yeah. This perhaps hearkens back to some of what you already mentioned, which is the culture, the environment, the paradigms, whether or not it's religious or otherwise that they grew up in, that sometimes relate to sex and has a layer of shame or some level of taboo, or there can be a lot of things layered in with this. So that question of normal could also relate to some of those early messaging.
So true. There are so many layers, so many intersections, as you said, between culture and religion and family and their relationship. All of those factors are going to make your sexuality unique in some way. So it's just not a simple answer or a simple question.
This is why you, I think, are saying that a role in guiding people to understand their unique experience is so critical to have that front and center, that it's not you're trying to emulate something else that maybe you've seen. Look, if you resonated with something that, that could be telling, and using that as information rather than adopting it as this is me.
Exactly. If that's not complex enough, it's like, what's normal in one season in life may look different 10-20 years down the line. So it's a very dynamic, evolving part of us, I think, which for me is what makes it really fun and interesting to work with.
Oh my goodness, and you said something earlier about the sexual expression or sexual self being so revealing to one's psyche. One thing that piques my interest, and I believe to be true, is sexual intimacy often is an embodied. It uses the somatic, the body. The body typically, in my mind, is a little bit more direct to what our experience is, rather than the intellect, where we can rationalize, contextualize, and we have all the framing that we can control or think we're controlling it a little bit more. Can you talk to us a little bit about what you see as the sexual expression or sexuality as such direct or so revealing for one's psyche? Can you give us an example? Can you say a little more about that?
Yeah. I think because when it comes to sexuality, there's obviously a physical embodied component to it most of the time. Although, there may be people who are having great phone sex and there is no connection with another person's body. So that right there just goes to show you, it's not simple. But I really love for people to see sex beyond a juxtaposition of body parts. Of course embodiment is an important part of it, and I write a lot about that in the book. But also, as an opportunity for really deep and meaningful relational connection and self-expression. I think as it relates to our psyche, we, especially as adults, go through life behind a mask in most cases, where we have one adopted persona with our family, with our romantic partner, with our boss, at work, with our friends.
“We have these different parts of ourselves, and depending on the environment or the person that we're with, a lot of times we're revealing only a very small part of ourselves. However, when it comes to sexuality, especially shared with another person, I think we have an opportunity to take the mask off and really play with and explore different sides of our psyche that may otherwise lie dormant.”
I think when we go into it with the right mindset, like in the curiosity chapter of the book, I talk a little bit about doing new things. But what I prefer is for people to lead with a feeling. So rather than asking what new thing do you want to try, start with the question like, how do I want to feel today? Then once you've got that guiding you, a lot of cool things might follow. So novelty is so much more than trying the new toy that comes out on the market. That can be fun, but it's much broader than that.
Oh my goodness, there's so much depth to what you just offered. If the lead or the thing that we're following is this real internal interest or desire of what would I love, that's less being, again, put on me, but more coming from me, that I get to connect with and maybe play with or follow, and it develops. Is that what you would say the difference between body parts is? Does that relate to body parts and embodiment, for somebody listening that said they're different? Do you want to say more about that?
There's always overlap, so it might help if I back up a little bit. As I was doing the research that set the foundation for this book, I was specifically interested in whether or not people could get into a state of flow during great sex. We can talk a little bit more about that. But as part of my research project, I had really long conversations with people about what specifically they did to get into a flow state, so that I could tell the rest of the world and understand what the secret sauce was. It was through those conversations that these five themes emerged.
So the five secrets in the book are: sensuality, curiosity, adaptability, vulnerability, and attunement. Sensuality, as one might guess, is very much about the embodied aspect of sexuality. Curiosity, however, I would say is more about opening the mind. Adaptability, to me, is about courage. If one thing is to open the mind, another thing is to have the courage to implement change, as life inevitably throws you hurdles and you have to make adaptations to the sex you're having as you navigate that. I think vulnerability is about the heart, that's the emotional component of sex. Attunement is, I would say, the spirit. Not in a religious type of way, but it's sort of the gestalt of the other four components. It's where everything comes together, and “the sum is greater than the parts” feeling that I think so many people want to have during sex.
“I'm always trying to get people away from thinking of sex as just rooted solely in the body, because it's so much more than that, the human sexual experiences anyway.”
No kidding. It reminds me for some reason, I don't know, but I was meeting with a couple yesterday in morning, it was my first session of the day. He is, I think, Silicon Valley startup tech kind of world. She's heading up a little bit more of the domestic. But just the lives that they're living are so, so, so full, for them to even get time together is tricky. So I was prompting them. Because one of her things was, if his schedule is changing and she's not feeling like he's as available, sometimes it starts to trigger the feeling of like: Oh, am I important, or is he in care? That type of thing. So I was querying, could there be a little bit of a touchpoint to look at the week around, here's what the week looks like. Just so she's not just hanging out waiting and like, I don't know, and then contending with her feelings and all the things.
All that to say, they started getting into their schedule, and I was like: Well, let's just pause for a second. Can you tell me if you can soften your gaze, or if you feel comfortable closing your eyes and just tuning in? Like, what would you love, what would feel good, one thing around how to connect? I don't know where she got the term, I'm sure she was reading a book, but she talks about body bonding, maybe you know where it comes from. But I was like, I love that. Because it doesn't necessarily mean we're having sex. It means sex even in the broader definition, but it could just mean we are body bonding. So regardless, immediately, it was less of her head, how do we figure this out? It was more of what came from this more connected place in her that was like: Oh, I want to walk around the lake together. He was like, yes. Then there it was. I was like, that feels like a little bit more trying to access, I don't know if you would say embodiment or pleasure or just tuning into what would feel good. Does that fit with sensuality as you talk about embodiment?
For sure, it fits in a couple of different segments of the book. I think I would say it also fits into adaptability. Because what I try to do is move people away from this idea of sex as having a beginning, middle, and an end. I had one couple I was working with, or I think it was one of my research participants actually, who said we see sex as this constant energetic charge between us, that we can turn the heat up or down. I was just on another podcast this morning with a sexologist and she was saying, it's like that cold start. If there's just no physical contact at other times throughout the week, it's a cold start. I was like, yes, precisely. So I do, in the sensuality chapter, have a whole section on relational sensuality and touch that's not always sexual, but is so important in keeping those pleasure pathways primed. Because especially if you want to have really great sex and you have been living like two ships passing in the night the whole week, forget it.
You know, it's like trying to run a marathon when you've only walked around the block a couple of times. It's just too big of a leap. So yes, I love that term body bonding. I think carving out little daily rituals, whether it's literally an extra 30 seconds of snuggling together before you roll over and go to sleep. Or instead of sitting on opposite ends of the sofa to watch your evening program, putting a foot on a lap. Or sharing a cup of coffee, that's a sensual shared experience, or a glass of wine or whatever it may be. To maintain a sensual connection in some way, I think, will help bridge the gap between the craziness of life and sexual intimacy.
Emily, I don't know if you would agree, but it seems to me that if there's a nurturing the sensuality, that there's a bit of fuel or fire that is being nurtured. Because I will say, I love my husband, I find him attractive, I want to be intimate with him sexually in all the ways. And there are times where I feel like if I'm approaching and I'm a yes, but my body is not primed, I almost feel like: Oh, it's a little bit of like having to get myself over this. It's almost like my body is, not necessarily resisting, but it doesn't feel like it's coming from this internal place.
I think with the mental thought like: Oh, he looks good, I would like to. Yeah, precisely. There was a really interesting research looking at prescribed physical touch on desire and satisfaction. Perhaps no surprise, once couples started just affectionately touching each other more, their desire went up and their satisfaction went up. What I found to be so interesting in one of these studies, they found this to be true even for people who didn't value touch. So the client that's like, I'm just not a touchy feely person, or it's not my love language, or maybe the more avoidantly attached person who's just not as comfortable with touch in that way. They found that even for those people, there was a huge positive benefit. So we've got to keep that going.
“It's so interesting, the skin knows the difference between a gloved hand and an actual hand. The chemicals that are released within us when we get skin-to-skin contact are different, and so much more beneficial. So we need that.”
We need that. I think that's somehow lost in our goals and life, that somehow we think sex is supposed to just sustain or the intimacy, and the passion is supposed to just self-sustain. This physiological contact and all the things that can happen there is so important.
Well, Emily, one of the things that I got from just your work, is that your offerings, and what you researched and then wrote a book about, is helping people understand not just how to handle the challenges or get back into some form of connection. It's actually how to be in this very satisfying, fulfilling, and you talk about flow, state. So that's a beautiful thing to talk about. Not just how to get over the hurdles of how we've gotten disconnected, but to talk about what this landscape can look like.
Oh yes. I had reached a point in my career where I could help people mitigate differences in desire or improve satisfaction. But I noticed, when couples came back for the accountability session that I'd always have a couple of months after termination just to check in on things, that they would say: Yes, we're better, but it's still not as intense as it was in the honeymoon phase. I'd be like: Eh, honeymoon phase doesn't last, that's neurochemicals. Or they'd say: Well, we want it to feel like it seems to feel in the movies. I'm like: Eh, Hollywood, fake. I'd cite the good enough sex model, which that's the word, is the good enough sex model. That most of the time, sex is going to be good enough, to set your expectations.
But I started paying closer attention to the specific language that they were using, words like effortless. I want to feel lost in the moment, I just want the world around me to disappear. I was like: Oh, that's flow state language, of course that's what people want to feel during sex. I was familiar with flow state science, I had read Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's book, I think back in grad school. But for people listening who don't know what that is, it's the state of mind we enter when we are so fully engaged in an activity that we experience time speeding up or slowing down. We feel a sense of unity or merger with the thing we're doing, like a surfer who's at one with the wave. I'm like: Okay, well yeah, this makes sense, but I've never heard about flow as it relates to sex.
So I turned to academic literature, and there was nothing. I was like, how can this be? The closest thing I could find was Peggy Klein Platt's work on optimal sex. So she was one of the first people to really move beyond just looking at sexual dysfunction and satisfaction, and the people who really have figured out how to sustain optimal amazing sex, what are they doing? But she wasn't looking at flow specifically. So I did a research study and got really great quantitative data, finding specifically that people who scored high on those sexual satisfaction questionnaires were experiencing flow. But what was more exciting to me is that we found that flow was a predictor of great sex. So it was like, I can teach people about flow and see if that helps boost their satisfaction. And it did, and I was getting really great results.
Because I think a lot of people can identify something in their life that has put them in that state, whether it's painting or golfing, or your friend who's addicted to the runner's high, a surgeon. We know from flow state science that it's not just an individual phenomenon. Flow can happen in groups. Look at a sports team moving as one unit on the field or the court, or a group of musicians who jams out playing music that isn't planned. I'm like, there's something to be said for figuring this out with your partner. So that's really what set the foundation for the book.
That's wonderful. Can you tell me, is there an assessment or are there assessments for flow that you were able to then administer?
So I tried to create a flow state assessment for sex specifically, and it's just been hung up in the peer review process. I'm not affiliated with a big academic institution, I'm a solo gal just trying to do some research to make sure I stay evidence-based. I need someone to take over and just keep the ball rolling.
Well, you're the person to do it, it sounds like.
I mean, I'll say this. to answer your question, yes. I don't have any official evidence. It's not gone through peer review at this point. But I have the questionnaire, I put it together, and I think it's pretty good.
Nice. But what about just a flow state questionnaire?
Yes.
Okay, so you were able to do that. That's how you did your research. I love that, yay! That's so fantastic.
So I had people complete, there's different sexual satisfaction questionnaires out there. The new sexual satisfaction, it's called the NSSS, and there's a short version, that tends to measure sex satisfaction on the higher echelon compared to some of the others. So I used that, and I used a flow state questionnaire that is reliable and all the good stuff.
Oh, I love it. Because my dissertation was qualitative and there wasn't any preexisting real research. I had to pull from other qualitative studies, and I did a meta-analysis of those 10 studies. But it's kind of trying to develop the field, because there weren't those tools. So I love that that was available for you, and I love that you're moving it forward. I'm curious on an aside, so I do know that there's transcendent sex, and there's some of the slow sex that might utilize some of the tantric, not necessarily, but just more of the principles that you're describing. Do you see any overlap? I love that you're making this more accessible, that it doesn't have to have a lineage or even a spiritual component. But do you see any overlap?
Oh, for sure. I read up on tantra, there were a couple studies out there that looked at transcendent.
Like, Jenny Wade or something.
I'm not familiar with her work, but one on altered states of consciousness. So overlap, for sure. But to me, flow is so accessible. It doesn't feel too East or West. We know from flow state science that we are hardwired, like anyone can experience flow. They've even studied flow in some animals. So it's accessible. It's in there. After I did the quantitative part of the study, I called up the people who had the highest scores and had really long conversations with them in these phenomenological interviews to get the qualitative piece. Because I'm like, that's where the stories are going to come out. That's what's going to really help bring this to life so that I can tell the rest of the world. It was through those conversations that I felt like these five themes emerged: sensuality, curiosity, adaptability, vulnerability and attunement.
As I took a step back and looked at those qualities, I was like, we are born with this stuff. We are born sensual. We are born curious. Four-year-olds ask an average of 400 questions a day. I have one right now, and that is a fact. We are born with the ability to adapt. We are born vulnerable, with the ability to attach. And to attune, we've got mirror neurons in the brain. So what I tell people is, this is not a matter of becoming someone you're not. The way I see this is that life happens, we are influenced by culture or negative experiences or so on and so forth that disconnect us from these qualities. But it's really just a matter of reconnecting with qualities that are already there.
I'm so glad you said that. Because it feels like it resonates, it feels very innate, it feels very true. Yet some of those concepts, sometimes when they're reflecting back to us things that we know and resonate with, it's like: Yeah, of course. But also, we can forget and we can get in our own way, or there's things that maybe have been injuries or things that have constricted our ability to access these things. So it sounds like you're really offering a remembering, and also what this can look like to bring into adulthood. I mean, just as we're wired and maybe have lost it along the way, or we've cut off certain parts of ourselves to be adults in the world. But it's so great.
The five, I know we can't even begin to scratch the surface here. But is there one that you find that people benefit most from or that you feel is really challenging for people? It depends on the person, I'm sure, but generally.
It depends not just on the person but on the underlying issue. So what I tell people is, if you're a couple with young kids and you're working, and you are like two ships passing in the night, and you need to Marie Kondo your sex life, read the sensuality chapter. So many women especially, almost every day, are like: I can't quiet my mind to even connect at all with the physical sensation. So that's what the sensuality chapter is all about. If you're the couple for whom sex has become a bit routine or monotonous or too predictable, then I would say read the curiosity chapter. Because that's all about opening up the mind, but not always in the way you think.
If you feel like you're struggling to get your sex life back on track after a life adjustment or hurdle—having a new baby, or the hip is arthritic now and you can't rely on the position you used to, or the penis isn't as reliable as it used to be, or you're taking care of an aging parent. Or whatever it is that's putting a damper on your sex life, then the adaptability chapter is all about how to navigate that. If you feel like you're struggling due to an emotional disconnect in the relationship, then the vulnerability chapter is for you. Attunement, like I said, it's the gestalt of the other four. It's like where everything comes together. Although, I wouldn't say to read that without having at least looked at a couple of the other chapters, just because I do draw from them a bit. So I wanted this book to be something that could stay on people's bookshelves as a resource, depending on what they need at any given point in their life.
Absolutely. Well, from the ones that you've mentioned, is there any perhaps step that you would encourage? Perhaps let's do, if you will, the sensuality. Just because that feels like such a common thing to be in modern living. So busy and engaged in all the tasks, and then to come back to the body. Any invitation or recommendation there?
Go back to single-tasking as much as possible. When I was working on developing the sensuality chapter and just kept thinking about how frequently I was hearing this complaint about this inability to quiet the mind, I called one of the first sex therapy supervisors I had. Because she had retired from seeing clients, and this would've been in 2009. So we had smartphones, but we weren't in such an app-driven world as we are today, where we could listen to a podcast while on the treadmill and checking emails. I mean, that's a lot. I asked her if she remembered her clients complaining about that, and she thought about it. She took a few days to get back to me and she said, I really don't.
“A simple thing to do is, when you're sitting down to have lunch, just have lunch. When you're out for a walk, just feel the sun on your face. Doing one thing at a time. Because you cannot expect to go from split attention all day long, to single focus of sex. It's just too big of a transition.”
Or if you had a chaotic crazy day, as sometimes it's just so inevitable, to work in a little transition to move into the erotic space. Sometimes that's sitting down and taking literally 30 seconds to do some deep diaphragmatic breathing, or prolonging the time you and your partner just spend in bed touching each other before really cranking up the heat, to quiet the nervous system down a little bit so that it can then get excited again in a different but single-focused way. So it's that kind of stuff that I talk about in the sensuality chapter. I think mindfulness is a great first step that'll help you have better sex, but embodiment is really what's going to take it to the next level.
They work so beautifully together, when we can be really present and aware. It's reminding me of Lori Brotto's work on mindfulness. Then also to see, it makes space and room to notice, using the five senses and what am I aware of? If I'm in a busy day, it is hard to switch over just to even be present to what would feel good. I don't know, sometimes I'll get on my yoga mat and I'm like: Oh hello, I haven't been paying attention to my body all that much. So gratefully, I try to, and I have practices. But it's easy to get pulled into all the things and get task-mastering even if I'm not multitasking, but just the multitasking. So that's such a great recommendation, thank you.
I'll tell people to think about what's more physically gratifying in your body, like having checked everything off your to-do list or that perfect day at the beach? What feels better in your body to remember? I think sometimes it's shifting that perspective and adjusting our priorities a little bit, we need that reminder.
And we're alive. So even just the sensation of what would feel good, it's like, what is generative? It's not so much the result and what's the better result? I'm agreeing with you, and I'm also like, it's dynamic. It'll give good feedback and we get to work with that.
Yeah. We are human beings, not human doings.
Exactly. Well, do we have time for one more, either the curiosity or the adaptability that you mentioned?
Oh gosh, so the curiosity chapter is a fun one. I talk about these five secrets in the book, but flow actually has eight core components. You don't have to have all eight at the same time, usually two or three will do and be enough to get you there. But one of the most predictable ways to get into flow is by striking the right balance between challenge and skills.
“When the challenge of what we're doing is too far above our skillset, we get anxious or scared. If the challenge of what we're doing is too far below our skillset, we get bored, which is where a lot of people end up in the bedroom. Then they try to spice things up, but they jump way too far, too fast, and end up scared and anxious, and they shut back down again.”
What we know from flow state science is that the challenge of what you're doing only needs to be 4% greater than your skills, to hit that sweet spot. So I think this takes a lot of pressure off people. Because we do know from the research that novelty is a key predictor of long-term satisfaction. You're doing the same thing your whole life, probably not going to be very sexually satisfied. But I think when we look at it through a flow state lens, it's about taking something that's familiar, but maybe making it more psychologically or emotionally interesting. So take, like, the missionary position. Instead of just that belly-to-belly breathing in the ear lazy missionary that so many women zoom out.
So I was talking about this with a couple, and I wish the story had made it into the book, but it had already been edited at that point. But they came back and I had explained all this, and he's like, so what I did is I took her hands and I pinned them up over her head, and that really got her attention. I was like, I bet it did. Because it was something she was familiar with. It was still missionary, but it got really a lot more intense, but not by really changing things up that much. Or by asking your partner to really hold eye contact, that's going to crank up the emotional piece in a really cool way, and invite your partner in versus just looking past each other. So there's so much we can explore. Like we were talking about earlier, leading with the feeling as opposed to the behavior when it comes to exploring novelty. So there's a lot of good juicy nuggets in the curiosity chapter that I think help people feel like doing the new thing is not as scary and threatening, and still very accessible.
Wonderful. Well, I'm so grateful that you continue to offer information for people and ways to access, and the book you've written. So tell us a little bit more about your book. I know we've been talking about it, but what's the name and what's the title?
So it is Anatomy of Desire: Five Secrets to Create Connection and Cultivate Passion. It's currently available everywhere books are sold. The paperback is coming out later this year, but it's available in all other formats. If you visit my website, which is EmilyJamea.com, and click the Anatomy of Desire tab, I have hundreds of dollars’ worth of free resources you can get with qualified book purchases. You just fill out a form and then you get them all delivered to your inbox, including the masterclass, and the workbook that has exercises in it that didn't make the cut into the book, and the 30-day intimacy challenge, and all kinds of fun stuff. So be sure to check that out.
That's wonderful. Your website, will you say your website?
Yes, it is EmilyJamea.com.
Excellent, I'll make sure to have the link on today's show notes. Also, are there any other things you want to mention, like are you doing social?
Gosh, yes. I'm on all the social media channels at Dr. Emily Jamea. I've got my podcast, which you were so nice to mention, it's called Love and Libido. I'm accessible, so if someone's listening and has a question, just send me a DM and we can chat.
Excellent. Thank you so much for being here today.
Thank you so much. The pleasure was all mine.
The post ERP 489: Flow State and Sexual Connection: A New Dimension of Intimacy — An Interview with Emily Jamea appeared first on Jessica Higgins.
About this episode
Is achieving a secure attachment really the ultimate marker of relationship success or could this mindset be doing more harm than good? In the quest for intimacy and connection, many of us fall into the trap of labeling ourselves and our partners, clinging to the idea that “secure” is the only way to be. But what happens when relationships don’t fit neatly into these categories, or when past experiences have shaped us in ways that make security seem out of reach? The pressure to be “securely attached” can sometimes backfire, leading to shame, blame, and a sense of hopelessness.
In this episode, you’ll discover why secure attachment doesn’t have to be the ultimate destination, and why striving for secure functioning—those daily choices and mindful practices that build safety and trust—can be a far more compassionate and realistic goal. Drawing on insights from trauma work, attachment research, and couples therapy, this conversation unpacks the pitfalls of categorizing relationships as “good” or “bad,” explores the nuances of healing within partnership, and offers actionable ways to build resilience, understanding, and growth—no matter where you are on the attachment spectrum.
Hanna Basel is a seasoned couples therapist and certified sex therapist. With expertise in attachment, trauma, and emotionally focused therapy (EFT), she helps people untangle their most complicated relationship patterns. As a former addictions counselor, Hanna brings both clinical expertise and lived experience to her work. She has been featured on CNN, Kare 11, MSN, and numerous podcasts where she talked about her ultimate and simple goal: to help people build relationships that help us heal and thrive.
Episode Highlights
04:23 Hannah’s path to couples therapy: From personal struggles to professional passion.
12:25 Understanding secure attachment and relationship dynamics.
15:26 Embracing relationship growth as a lifelong practice.
19:03 Debunking the myth that you must heal yourself before getting into a relationship.
22:00 Balancing guidance and judgment.
25:37 Neuroplasticity: How relationships shape and reshape attachment.
27:59 Understanding trauma’s role in relationship dynamics.
33:38 Compassion with boundaries.
34:59 Balancing love and constructive criticism.
39:07 Pacing, timing, and emotional safety in relationship repair.
42:10 Understanding pain and betrayal.
46:36 Slowing down for better attunement.
47:57 Breaking the cycle.
Your Check List of Actions to Take
- Pause and breathe. Take a moment to ground yourself before discussing relationship issues.
- Remember, building secure relationships is ongoing work—not a one-time achievement.
- Focus on actions like mutual respect, repair after conflict, and “we over me” decisions.
- Avoid labeling attachment styles. Use attachment theory for understanding, not as a tool for blaming or limiting yourself or your partner.
- Be gentle with yourself about your relationship struggles—growth takes time.
- Ask curious questions. When tensions arise, explore what you or your partner are experiencing, rather than making assumptions.
- Slow down during conflict. Give yourself and your partner time to process—this increases the chances for empathy and understanding.
- Hold space for both compassion and clear boundaries when addressing hurtful behavior.
Mentioned
Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find–and Keep–Love (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
Shifting Criticism For Connected Communication
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Episode Transcript
Hanna, thank you so much for joining us.
Yeah, happy to be here.
Yeah, I'm looking forward to our conversation. Before we get started, we're going to be talking a little bit about secure functioning, secure relationship, attachment style, and helping people understand, maybe not in so absolute terms or binary terms. So I'm really excited to get your voice here. Before we dive into our topic, is there anything you want people to know about how you started working with couples, how this is important to you?
Sure. I think one thing I like to say is that I come to this work from struggling with relationships, and that's really what brought me into it, not knowing how to figure it out. So I'm someone that if I have something that I'm struggling with, I want to learn and I want to figure it out. So from there, being in the trenches of relationships. I stumbled upon it, actually. I was focused more on addiction and trauma, and then I started to move into sex therapy. With sex therapy, I started to work with couples, and I just loved it. I love working with couples. I think it's such a privilege and an honor for people to let us into these spaces that are so intimate and vulnerable and scary. So I just am so appreciative of getting to do this work.
Yeah. Well, thank you for just sharing a little bit about your own learning and journey, and then also professionally how this has developed for you. I think so many of the things you've named, as it relates to addiction and trauma and sex therapy, it's all so interconnected for people often. So I appreciate your compassion as you just approach the work, and the humility around like, I've had my own struggles. Me too, and that prompted a lot of my interest in. Always been interested in relationship, but I felt like I was pretty well equipped, given my PhD. I was so ill-equipped, so it was hugely confronting. But that was a lifetime ago. The person I was interviewing right before this, we were talking about the analogy of the yoga and just how much a lot of this is such a practice. Even if we have awareness, we have orientation, we trust the process, it's still a practice.
Absolutely, it is a practice. We know that, which I think is helpful. But oftentimes, couples don't know that, or people that aren't in this line of work, they don't think that it should be a practice, because it's not really introduced to us in that way.
Exactly. I'm not sure how she was feeling about it. But I kept emphasizing that because I think so many people think: Oh, if I get the insight, if I have the understanding or I do emotional processing around it, then I can be free of it or liberated. That's not always how it works.
I wish it was. I think we all wish it was.
I know. We lived a life, we experience things in a way, and likely have tendencies that we'll continue to work with.
Absolutely, in ourselves and with our couples. I completely relate. It is ongoing work, and it's so much easier if you embrace it than if you fight it or battle it or pathologize it.
Yes, okay. So speaking of embracing versus even pathologizing, one of the topics, you sent so many, and we were just chatting and I was like, which one do we focus on? The one that stood out to me was really looking at how people are viewing secure attachment, and perhaps helping people understand how they can be supported by maybe wanting to develop more secure functioning, versus necessarily needing to arrive at some securely functioned place. But tell me, I don't know, that was what I was getting from your topic, that if people think that they should be always aiming to be in a securely attached relationship or be securely attached. Where would you like to start?
Yeah, I think that you introduced that really well. There is this ideal of being in a secure relationship, and then period. I think, like you said, just a few minutes ago, a secure functioning relationship is a practice. Even people with secure relationship styles can have chaos in their relationship and can have insecure functioning relationships. So I think that a secure attachment style is something that is internal. Secure functioning is something that happens between us, our partner and us.
“I think that it's so much more realistic and hopeful to aim for a secure functioning relationship and what that means, and how to get back to secure functioning when you get off of it. Because we all will. We're going to be thrown off of it, with stress and life and speed and all of that.”
Yes, thank you. Would you be willing to elaborate, for people who are familiar with the terms, and also as you're describing the attachment tendency or style, how that's internal, and how securely functioning habits or ways of relating, that's more external? Would you be willing to share more?
Sure. So in terms of your attachment style, a secure attachment style is kind of your blueprint. It's been shaped by early experiences. It can also be shaped by further experiences. But most of us, our attachment styles are at least set when we're in childhood, and they might change throughout life. But it's our internal landscape in terms of what we expect, how we see ourselves, how we see others, whether we believe love is safe and intimacy is safe or not, all based on our experiences. A secure functioning relationship, for me, that's less about how you're wired based on experiences, and it's more about the choices you make, even if they're hard and even if you don't do it perfectly. So some examples for me, for a secure functioning relationship, would be like, trying to protect each other's dignity during a fight, prioritizing the relationship when things get hard, making decisions that benefit the We and not just the Me, and repairing ruptures instead of just letting them go. So all of these are choices and practices that we do, and that aren't easy, especially if you don't have a secure attachment style, but they're also doable. You can still work to do it by understanding one another over time, and by working with your attachment style in the relationship.
I really appreciate the focus of this, in that it helps give people much more, I feel like options to work with, versus how attachment style can feel. I think, for research purposes, it serves its purpose to categorize. But also the way we actually relate to it, it can feel very decisive or even labeling. Maybe even weaponizing for some that maybe aren't intending to, but could be like, you're insecure or you're secure. Like, this tendency to kind of categorize. So is there anything you want to say about that?
I just agree. I think that, unintentionally, we do weaponize it. We diagnose our partners and their attachment style, I see that a lot. Oh, my partner's avoidant, we need to work on his avoidance. Or my partner is anxious and it's because of their trauma, and we need to fix that. So it's focusing on these styles as being problematic, when they don't need to be problematic. That if we can understand them with more compassion and make sense of them, we can work with them. We have to learn what each partner needs to feel more safe, how maybe their natural inclination in relationships would be to shut down. How do we help them move from that? It's not going to go from shutting down to not shutting down. But it's how can we take tolerable steps in line with their attachment style, to build their capacity to tolerate something else.
So it almost sounds as though it's perhaps inviting people to get away from good and bad, or right and wrong.
Yeah. Since I practice Emotionally Focused Therapy, I'm always trying to get away from that. Because not only is it not helpful, but it's often not true. It's often not about good and bad or right and wrong, and it really doesn't have a place in most of the conversations. Even though we think it does, and I understand that people really think that it has to do with right or wrong. But it often doesn't.
I think this is part of it potentially, I wonder what you would think, when people are accessing more information, being more informed, or perhaps getting information in bits, whether or not it's a reel or this, and it's like it lands. So I love that there's an exposure and an understanding, and also, people feel comforted by the binary or the right and the wrong. Then that seems like: Oh, now I can make that more actionable. But it can actually have a real negative effect also.
Yeah, I see that. I agree that there's both really great value to it, and I love that people have more access to this information and more ways to talk about it. And I also agree that it can oftentimes get people stuck in the tunnel vision of: Oh my gosh, that describes my partner to a T, this must be the problem. So now I know what the problem is, and maybe the problem is, my partner's a sex addict. So now we need to fix his sex addiction, and then our relationship can be okay. Then if we think about the dynamic of that, a partner going to their partner and saying: You're a sex addict, we need to fix you. That doesn't usually create a really healthy, safe environment for a couple to work towards changing whatever their patterns are.
Yeah. Even for one that is relating to or perceiving themselves, that perhaps I can't get into relationship because I have these insecure tendencies I need to work on myself. Do you want to speak to that also?
Yeah, I think that that that is very true. That can create a lot of shame, and it can create a lot of stuckness in terms of how we see ourselves. Because yes, how we see ourselves is just as important as how we see our partners. Because it teaches us what to expect and what we deserve, and risks that we can take or not take in our relationship. I think that people often come in and they are pathologizing themselves, again, unintentionally, and what we really all need is more self-compassion.
Yeah. Again, coming back to what you're inviting people to consider with the information about being securely attached or having a secure attachment style, that there isn't necessarily maybe an arrival. That there's a real, I guess, practice. I mean, this is weaving in nicely, that if we're in practice of the more securely functioning behaviors, that that can be a guide. Versus, do I have this style or do I have that style?
Yeah, I love how you said that. I don't think there is an arrival. Again, I think it's human to want there to be an arrival. But from my experience in my work from other therapists that I talk to, from all the reading, there isn't an arrival.
“The relationships that last, it's, it's not a point that they've arrived at and stopped. It's that they learned to work together, and it's progressive, and they change together. Even if they don't change at the same speed in the same ways, they change directionally. That is a practice, and it requires ongoing conversations.”
No kidding. That's assuming maybe life circumstances are relatively the same. But then if we add the complexities of living life, that can pose challenges, where people under stress will often feel more challenged, maybe regress a little bit, or even feel less resourced and perhaps utilize old tendencies. It just seems like you're inviting an approach of less diagnostic, and more being interested in understanding or having curiosity around what it means or what one is experiencing or the other is experiencing.
Yeah. I think that that is my approach in general, is that people often do come in with these labels of one another. I want to understand what that means for them, for each individual, for the relationship. Even if someone comes in and says, I have a really anxious attachment style, that doesn't mean the same thing for everyone. So what does that mean for you, and how do we make sense of that? How do we tell your story in a way that helps your partner have more compassion for how and why you show up the way that you do, and vice versa? Because that's so much more helpful, is really understanding the whole story, the narrative, and your style.
“I'm an attachment style junkie, I still want to read everything. But I don't want it to box us in, and I want us to use it in order to have more compassion for one another, not in order to box us in and put periods at the end of sentences.”
Yes. If I could take that one step further, as far as the person that's interested in getting more information, that while it might feel so resonant or illuminating that these things maybe are operating, that perhaps to turn the attention back on self even around: Well, how is this helpful for me, or what's the relief that I'm feeling? Maybe I feel hopeless or helpless in certain scenarios where I don't know what's going on or disoriented. So to have some language or structure to this feels so supportive, and to do the thing you're saying is like, can we learn more? That's perhaps a starting place.
Yeah, it is. It is a great starting point. Then how can we take it and apply it and self-reflect, and use it to understand ourselves in a more concrete and vulnerable way.
Yeah. I'm even thinking about even the idea of there being a goal of having a secure attachment style or to be in a secure relationship, it has to check certain boxes. It sounds like perhaps what you're really recommending is an entirely different approach that is much more fluid and complex, but also offers a lot of humanity and compassion. But tell me if I'm hearing you.
No, you're getting it completely right. That is where I'm coming from, and what I have found works better for me and for the people that I work with, is that there is more fluidity. That if we try and reach those checkboxes, where I no longer need to check out and I know how to stay emotionally present all the time, that's wonderful. These are great goals. But it also can create a lot of hopelessness when you can't do that, when your relationship doesn't meet those checkboxes. Not everyone's relationship needs to look the same. People can figure out what works for them. That might be having two people with a super anxious attachment style and trauma history. I think I work so much with trauma that I'm very sensitive to how a trauma shapes people, and how we need to have different expectations when people have suffered really egregious trauma that has shaped them. They're probably not going to have what looks like a secure attachment style. That doesn't mean they can't have a secure functioning relationship.
Yeah, I want to dig into this a little bit. I also want to name, I'm thinking of the book Attached. Do you remember that book? I've had clients reference that, and I'm like, well. Because I think it can be so helpful and offer such guidance, and also, people can use it in a way that is more categorical and judgy. But also, we want to be informed and we want to understand. But then we're living with real people who potentially have trauma. So how do you ask people to hold information? Is it just what we're talking about?
If we're talking like this, versus if we're in session with a couple and I have a couple come in and they've read this book, and they're like: This is who I am, and this is who my partner is. I'm probably not going to challenge that. I'm just going to use that as information, and I want to know what they identify with, and then we want to expand on that. So I think that that is a good starting point. Like you said, there's nothing wrong with coming in at that place. And can we expand on it? The story is greater than just that book with the attachment styles and the descriptions.
Yes. I think I was even thinking about the person that's dating that hasn't partnered yet, and that is negotiating perhaps even grief around like: I love this person, and yet I have all this information, maybe they don't meet the description or the criteria of somebody who has a secure attachment style. You're saying there's a lot more here that is workable. I would love to hear more, but do you want to say?
Yeah. I would say, can you have a conversation with this person about what you're noticing? If you're dating and you're noticing, this person doesn't have a secure attachment style, or what seems like it according to the book. First of all, I would say, are you reflecting on your attachment style right now, as much as you are on theirs? If not, then that's curious. But the other thing is, then I would have a conversation and invite them into it and say: Hey, I've been reading this about attachment styles. This is what I'm really looking for right now, I'm hoping for. What are you hoping for? Is this important to you too? I would also ask someone to say, what are their growing edges? What do you struggle with in relationship when you get close to someone? Are they aware of it? Can they acknowledge it? And do they want to work on it? Because that's way more important.
I would so agree. Because that's where relationship exists, in my opinion, is where we get to be in this place of together and supporting one another, ideally. But just how we're relating, how we're negotiating.
Yeah, exactly. It speaks to that myth that you have to heal yourself before you can be in a relationship. So it speaks to that myth that you have to have resolved all of your trauma and your issues before you can love someone. What you just said is exactly right.
“Healing doesn't happen before a relationship, it happens inside of it. That's where we learn and grow, and that's where we become more honest with ourselves and more accountable and more willing, because the mirror gets held up. Hopefully in loving ways, not in pathologizing ways.”
Yes. This is what you've been speaking to already, is our experiences. I believe in neuroplasticity, and this is what the research shows even about attachment style, that while those formative early, early years have such an imprint, as you said. Also, we're still learning current day and we'll continue to learn. So if we can bring attention to that and how it's not static, that it doesn't just happen to us, that we are participating in our attachment experiences. That could be one way of saying it.
Yeah, absolutely. We are. It's not static, and we do have some agency. That's part of why couples’ therapy is so powerful. My belief, and like you said, the research shows that we're creating new neural pathways, where we're actually working with the brain and the limbic system in order to be able to change how we may naturally respond over time. Because we're trying to create new experiences for people.
Yes. This is where that focus and the goal of secure functioning versus attachment style can be such a north star. Because that's where we earn and experience more of that secure relationship that impacts our understanding of relationship, which affects our attachment style.
Yes, absolutely.
Absolutely. Well, talk to us a little bit about trauma, given your background, and as you're talking about how more of these insecure attachment tendencies likely relate to some level of relational misattunement, rupture, or even trauma.
So talk more about trauma in terms of?
Well, people that are recognizing or working with insecure attachment tendencies, and trauma might play a part, how to hold that, how to be with that?
So in terms of working with how to hold that and be with that, I think a huge part of this goes back to this sense of self-compassion and being able to hold ourselves with a sense of: This is what happened, it's not our fault. And these are the impacts, this is how it shaped me. I think a lot of times, what I'm working with is how to identify trauma, that it's there and it's an explanation, and that that too isn't an endpoint. But it is an explanation that needs to be understood and needs to be brought into the conversation, and then how do we work with that?
So an example would be that, oftentimes, people with trauma have a hard time with closeness. Closeness can be scary, especially if it's been relational trauma. So if they get close to someone, maybe that's when they get triggered, is when the vulnerability is triggered. So how do we have compassion and understanding that through the trauma lens, that it makes good sense that they would get scared? Of course they do. And when they get scared, they might start to poke their partner in order to try and get them to get away, or whatever they might do. And how do we also acknowledge what they're doing and work on it? Because most people with trauma that are showing up that way, that are hurting their relationship, don't want to be showing up that way. It's not a choice. That's such a huge piece. It's reactive. It's almost like we become more animal-like in those moments when we're fight, flight, freeze, or fawn.
So one way of saying this, I know in the EFT language, we might call it a protective strategy. The behavior is perhaps a manifestation of that trauma, that what's visible is in part trying to help the wounded part or the part that's been traumatized.
Yeah, absolutely. I think all behavior is a response to what's happening inside of us. So we have to slow down and figure out what's happening inside of us. I think this is where people can get a little bit, I don't know, racy.
“There's this sense that oftentimes trauma is used as a blank check or a scapegoat. I think that there's a difference between really understanding the impact of trauma and that it does explain it, versus that it explains it and takes away accountability. Because it doesn't. We can still have trauma and accountability.”
Most people that I know that have trauma aren't trying to use trauma. They're not trying to use it as a way out. They actually really want to work on it and they want help working on it.
It's often that, to your point, with the nervous system, feels like a hijack. That it's almost like it becomes its own thing where it's really hard to feel regulated or in control.
Yeah, exactly. I mean, for really, really good reason.
Yes. So what you're describing, that's a whole level of work, just to even be able to recognize what's underneath these reactions or these behaviors or these tendencies. In relationship, if someone's partnered and they're able to have this understanding of like: Ah, this is what's going on.
Yeah, it's so relieving to understand that this story is bigger than you. If you are partnered with someone with trauma, it can feel like the dynamic is about you, and it's really, really helpful when you can put the pieces together and see the story. You're a part of it, but it's much bigger than you, and it usually started before you, unless the trauma happened with you.
Yes, maybe we want to talk about that a little bit. But just to hold that for one moment. So can we go back to the ownership? Because sometimes people struggle with feeling the compassion, but also their own levels of protection around like: But it wasn't okay, or what you said or what you did wasn't okay. But also, there's a part of me that can get where this came from and has empathy for that. So how do you help people negotiate that?
Yes, that's such a great conversation to have. Because there's this saying out there, hurt people hurt people. Again, we can't just go around saying that and say it as if: Okay, no big deal, just let it keep happening. It's hurt people hurt people, and we need to do something about it. We need to be the ones to slow it down and to do our part to not create more hurt in the world. Especially if we've been hurt, why would we want to put that out into the world?
So the way that I do that, if I'm thinking about working with a couple in session, and I have one partner that's really maybe traumatized and lashes out in the relationship, and the other partner is really hurt. Can they hold both? Because both are important. Can we hold the compassion, the understanding? And can we also hold that it's not okay? It's not okay for their partner to slam a door in their face and to call them names. Having compassion and understanding for how it developed isn't saying that that's okay and it doesn't matter if it continues. So we can help people say: I understand where this came from and I have so much empathy for your pain, and I really need you to commit to working on not doing this anymore, to work on telling me you need a break first. Again, it's finding those small tolerable steps to be able to move in a different direction.
I am so grateful for how you're describing this, because it often is difficult to hold both and to be in that place. The language is super helpful to have examples, and I think people can likely feel that if they're in a place of like: Ah, you did it again or you did this. It can feel a little bit of that blame, and again, likely from a protest of like: This hurts, I don't want this to happen, and I need you to see it. But how it's delivered, the empathy part is lost. It takes that tone of criticism or complaint or correction of some sort. And what you're describing, talk about securely functioning relationship, to be able to hold the love and the empathy, and also a address a behavior or an interaction that we want to look at and do differently. We even think about this with parenting, of helping children, wanting them to feel loved and seen and held, but also called into: Okay, let's learn how to do this, don't bite your sister or whatever it is.
Yes. I have a 3-year-old and 4-year-old, so I totally relate to what you're saying. We understand they don't have the skills. That's the same with someone with trauma and doesn't have those skills. No one helped them with them, they weren't modeled. If people had the skills, they would use them.
Yeah, and this is where I think the continuum is often really helpful. Because if you're looking at, in a relationship, one has experienced levels of trauma that are significant, the priority can often feel like: Oh, that needs a lot of care. But then perhaps the other has pain and maybe lesser degrees of trauma. Does that now not get space? So the deferring, when really, we can just hold the pain and the injuries that we both carry. Some are more significant and horrific and absolutely require that slowing down and that real awareness and treading lightly, and I think the continuum is helpful. Because it's not trumping the other necessarily either, would you say?
Right, and this is much easier said and done in a relationship where there hasn't been trauma in the relationship. Then it's easier to hold both, it's easier to slow down, it's easier to go back and forth between the pain, especially if the pain has happened externally. But if that pain has happened internally, that sometimes requires different strategies.
Yes, so let's talk about that. Well, before we pivot to that, it's the same thing, but we're just talking about the wounding and the triggering inside the relationship. Is there anything you want to help people to further feel it inside themselves, how to hold both? The compassion and empathy, and also, I want to set a limit or I want to work on doing this more skillfully with you, if you're willing?
Well, I would say getting in touch with different parts of ourselves. Because we generally have those parts within us, we're just not in touch with them. When I feel hurt, I'm not in touch with my empathy. I have to actively get in touch with my empathy. I have to remember, this is my husband. How do I give him the benefit of the doubt? What do I know about him to be true outside of this moment where I think he's being a real big jerk? So we have to choose to access those parts and to hold them. Because otherwise, our body will pivot to the part that is more defensive and protective.
Which is a natural tendency.
Absolutely.
Yes, thank you. So we have to work a bit to get in touch with what might not feel so loud.
Yes. It has to be intentional. It does require work. It's not our default setting, because survival adaptation. It's not helpful to access empathy if we're being chased by a tiger.
No. This is one of the things, I'm sure you would be able to help describe this too in the EFT work, is helping when let's say a partner has shared something vulnerable, and the partner listening might have a moment of oh, and then they move right into their own protection or their own distrust, or we would call it maybe a block. To slow that down and help them be able to identify both. Like, what happened right before you were telling me that? I felt so emotionally empathetic. Can that also have space, and then also how this is true? So it does take either a support person, or it does take just these questions that we would prompt ourselves to remember what's not so viscerally present or what we might be overlooking, given our nervous system's responsiveness or activation.
Okay, great. So talk to us a little bit about when there has been injury or trauma inside the relationship.
Well, I think that that often is more challenging, because the person who hurt you is also the person that you need help from. Whereas, it's easier to probably hold both when the pain comes from outside. I think oftentimes we have to wait a little bit to ask someone to hold both at first, if they've been hurt by their partner in an egregious way, where there's been a betrayal of some sort. So for me, that just comes down to pacing and timing, in the same way we all want to have with our partner. In the same way we want to have when we're being honest about something, we want to think about when is the right time? Is this the right pace? Is my partner having a really stressful week? Or did my partner have a great night's sleep and they seem like they're feeling really well, and there seems to be a time? It's the same thing we do as a therapist, is we need to pace it and time it and be attuned to when a person is going to have the capacity to have empathy for why their partner may have coped in the way they did.
So we have a greater opportunity of having connection and repair and understanding. We're wanting to set it up so that we are increasing the chances that we can actually have this way of relating.
Yeah, and I also think it's responding to someone's pain. It's so misattuned to respond to someone's pain that's at a level 10, to say: I understand you're at a level 10, but can you also access some empathy right now? That's not humanly possible. Now, if you're at a level 2 of pain, you might also be able to hold empathy. But we have to be able to ask someone to do something they can actually do.
Yes. Well, you're describing something that's really important, I think, in negotiating hardships, that oftentimes both people are feeling pain, as you talk about pacing, and how we're able to hold more than maybe our just immediate reaction. I'm even thinking about an affair, where the person who's had the affair so-called happen to them, and they're wanting to know why and they're seeking, but really, they're hurting and they're alarmed and they're maybe totally shattered in their sense of what was, and feeling this level of betrayal. So they might be asking questions of wanting to know why to have understanding, and if that person felt comfortable enough with their partner to say why, they can't actually respond to how that makes sense. Not that it makes sense to have an affair, but if there's compassion around like: Oh, you were hurting. Again, I'm not excusing, this is the ownership. But that there is something that was happening for them and choices that they made, again, that bring understanding too, that that can't be held in that moment.
Yes, exactly. It really can't be. I think we can all think about this. If we're hurt by someone, and then that person is saying: But you know, this is what was happening for me. That's going to just set us up more. Because we're not being responded to in that moment. The defensiveness is getting a priority, versus our pain getting a priority. The pain needs priority. The wound needs to be tended to first.
It can be confusing. Because even the one that's hurting, probably in that scenario, both people are hurting. But the one that's felt betrayed might be sending the signal of, tell me more, tell me about this. When really, they're not in a position to really hear. They want to hear, but they're totally rattled.
Yeah, and that's where I have couples talk to me versus one another. If couples are really escalated or there's that kind of scenario, I want them to talk to me, so then I can decide if it's a good idea to ask your partner that question or not. Because we don't know what's a good idea in those moments when we are hijacked. So no fault of anyone for asking those questions, I get those. I would be asking those questions too in those moments. It's just a form of panic.
So helping people orient when there's been injury inside the relationship and how to build more repair, and perhaps both people are really in a lot of distress and feeling a lot of pain. You talk about timing, being resourced, pacing. Anything you want to say here to help? I mean, obviously there's professionals like yourself and myself that help people negotiate this. But just maybe smaller injuries that maybe they're not necessarily needing or wanting to seek professional help. How do you support people in negotiating the pacing of this?
That's a great question. I talk about how do we create safety in the relationship? So I'll reflect oftentimes, if the pace is going fast, how does that feel to their bodies? How does that feel to one another? For most of us, if the pace is going fast, that means our emotions are going fast too, and not in a vulnerable way. That means that our anger, our protection, it's all coming up. In order to access our more vulnerable emotions, which is what we need to bond with one another, and to really understand what is compelling each of our behaviors, we have to go slow. I will actively slow that down. I mean, my couples are probably so sick of me saying, can we just slow that down for a second? Or if there's one thing you should practice this week, it's just to slow it down. I'm sure they want some sort of other thing to practice at this point. I can't state that enough, the importance of going slow in order to access ourselves. I can't access myself if I'm going fast.
Totally. I think that there's a bit more ability to attune when we do slow down, that does one partner have a little bit more room? Let's say I was in the midst of sharing, and it seems like you're having a big response, I feel quite able to hold and maybe turn towards you. If you're in a place where it's interfering with your ability to go in the direction we were going, then I might be able to slow down and say: Okay, well I can pause, it seems like maybe you have some feelings here. Or if he were to say, if I'm thinking of my husband here: I really want to hear where you were going and what you're saying, it means a lot to me, and I'm just noticing I'm having such a big response, I'm not even able to stay with you, I can't even hear you right now, I just need a second. Then there's some choice that we have.
Yes, we have more choice when we can slow down. Beautiful way of putting that. I love it.
It's not an exact formula.
No, it's not an exact formula. If it were, then everybody would've figured it out and written a bestselling book, and we wouldn't need all the other books out there. The reason there's so many books and podcasts is because it's not a formula and we're all trying to understand it better. But it's not cut and paste.
One thing that you're just saying, I think along with slowing it down, I talk about two things with couples. One is the creating safety, and the other is meaning-making. It's very hard to be curious about our meaning-making if we're going quickly.
“One thing is we want to be able to assess what's happening in our bodies. The other thing is we want to assess what's the story in our head, and is it true? Most of the times I reflect, it's not even a communication issue, it is a meaning-making issue.”
Totally, I love that. That's such a good distinction. Because I run into this all the time. My brain works very fast. Even if I'm in the practice of reflecting back, did I get that right, my husband's like, what are you hearing? Because I'm making meaning, I'm interpreting, and he's just like, that is not at all what I'm saying! Then I'm just like: Okay, all right, tell me more. So it's like I will notoriously, if I'm feeling any type of threat, perceive it in a way, and my brain is working super hard to understand. But I'm creating meaning, and it is perhaps not what's true for him.
Yeah, because you're human, and that's what we do. I had a great example of this yesterday with a couple, where one of the partners saw an Instagram reel and it made them think of their partner, and they thought: Oh, this will be a great conversation starter. It was about ADHD, and they were curious if their partner related to any of it. They sent it to their partner. So for them it was like: Oh, this will be a great conversation starter, I really want to have more of a shared understanding. Their partner took it as: Wow, my partner sees me as broken, and that the reason that they are sending it to them is because they want them to admit that they have a problem. So then we can imagine how the conversation went. This partner got defensive, of course, because they misunderstood the intention, and we can all understand outside why they would get defensive. Yet, the first partner that sent the Instagram reel felt really hurt and rejected, because they were really coming from a good place. So I think that's a great example of a meaning-making issue that we all do very quickly. We fill in those blanks. I think that oftentimes when we're saying we have communication issues, it's not communication issues. It's safety, and it's meaning-making.
Hanna, I love that prompt of like, what's the story that I'm telling myself, what's the meaning that I'm creating about this, or what am I making this mean? Because that could be a pattern interrupt that could potentially reset, and maybe a couple wouldn't even have to go down whatever road of an argument or the disconnection there, and we can clarify and we have an opportunity to say what was true.
Okay, wonderful. Well, it sounds like you have so much to share. For people who are enjoying what you're saying and want to get more connected with you, what would you encourage people to connect with?
Yeah. So I'm on Instagram, TherapyWithHannaB, and so I post little tidbits here and there. I also have a website where I blog, which is HZBTherapy.com. I'd say those are probably the two main places that people can find more information about me.
Wonderful! So with your blog and your Instagram, it sounds like people can access some of what you have to share. Then on your website, what might people find, if they're interested?
Well, I just created a course, The Cycle Stops Here. So it's all about breaking cycles in your relationship and communication. So that's one thing that they'll see. But other than that, besides my blog and that, they'll just have access if they have questions, if they want to get in touch, if they want more resources. I have a newsletter that I come out with too, which is kind of my musings, something that stuck with me from the month, something that I'm learning in a new way. Most of what I'm sharing on Instagram are things that stick out with me as profound or thought-provoking or something that I haven't put words to yet, that all of a sudden, I heard someone else put words to and then I want to share it. So I'm just all about sharing these things that I find fascinating and interesting.
Wonderful! Are you taking new clients if people are living in the Portland, Oregon area?
Yeah, I'm not taking regular new clients, but I do intensives. So I do four-hour intensives with couples, and you don't have to live in Oregon actually to do an intensive. So that's what I have more openings for right now, otherwise I'm pretty full.
Excellent. Well, thank you so much for everything you've shared here today. I've really enjoyed all that you've offered us here.
It was such a great opportunity. So thank you.
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Are you struggling to foster a deeper emotional connection with your partner? Relationship intimacy can be one of the most challenging yet rewarding aspects of a partnership. Many couples find themselves at a crossroads, wondering how to balance the demands of everyday life with the need for emotional and physical closeness. The pressure to maintain intimacy often leaves partners feeling disconnected and frustrated, particularly when unmet needs and unspoken expectations come into play. But what if there was a way to bridge this gap and intentionally build a relationship filled with clarity, connection, and mutual satisfaction?
In this episode, we delve into practical strategies for enhancing vulnerability and emotional intimacy within your relationship. We’ll explore how learning to meet each other’s needs can transform your partnership, offering insights into overcoming common challenges such as gender stereotypes and differing intimacy styles. By embracing a holistic approach to intimacy, you can cultivate deeper connections and foster a more fulfilling, proactive relationship. Whether you’re looking to redefine intimacy beyond just sex or seeking ways to communicate more effectively, this episode provides valuable guidance to help you intentionally design a thriving relationship.
Pulling from their experiences personally in their 13+ years of marriage and professionally as a licensed counselor and certified coach, Angela and James Mitchell developed Love Intentionally to help couples design, implement, and sustain a conscious relationship rooted in depth and intimacy. Angela has been in the counseling field for over 20 years, working with abuse survivors, children, families, and couples. James is a transformational coach and lifelong entrepreneur, having helped hundreds of clients to live their best lives.
In this episode
08:56 Sharing the journey of opening up emotionally and strengthening connection.
12:12 The balance of emotional and physical intimacy to overcome gender stereotypes.
16:29 How a personal retreat evolved into DIY marriage retreats for intentional connection.
18:38 Exploring the importance of flexibility and openness in various forms of intimacy.
21:03 Understanding the holistic approach to intimacy, focusing on both emotional and physical closeness.
25:30 Introducing a key communication strategy called the “story in my head” technique for clearer dialogue.
27:34 The concept of creating a relationship North Star for maintaining a strategic partnership mindset.
31:39 Redefining intimacy beyond sex by exploring diverse intimacy styles.
34:08 The benefits of intentional planning by combining counseling principles with strategic life planning.
38:46 Addressing the challenges of balancing life’s priorities while maintaining relationship focus.
43:57 Programs and methods for deepening intimacy.
Your Check List of Actions to Take
- Start by openly sharing your feelings and fears with your partner to build deeper emotional intimacy.
- Clearly communicate your actions and intentions to your partner to reduce misunderstandings and increase connection.
- Develop a “relationship North Star” by outlining shared goals and dreams, ensuring you both move towards common objectives.
- Plan and conduct an annual retreat to focus on repairing and nurturing your relationship, utilizing tools like strategic planning to strengthen your bond.
- Schedule dedicated time each week for intentional intimacy, engaging in activities that foster closeness and understanding.
- Take the “Intentional Intimacy style quiz” to understand your and your partner’s intimacy needs, and work on meeting these needs without judgment.
- Implement weekly and quarterly check-ins to discuss and adjust relationship goals, ensuring continuous alignment and growth.
- Use the phrase “the story in my head is…” to express your perceptions during conflicts, promoting empathetic and clear communication.
Mentioned
ERP 211: How to Get Rid of Shame to Increase Pleasure in the Bedroom – An Interview with Ian Ferguson
ERP 089: How to Use Love Languages to Strengthen Connection
ERP 090: How To Use Love Languages To Strengthen Connection – Part Two
ERP 303: How To Create Safe Conversations — An Interview With Drs. Harville Hendrix & Helen LaKelly Hunt
ERP 323: One Of The Most Important Relationship Skills – Being Relational — An Interview With Terry Real
Evolve in Love (*Dr. Jessica Higgins program) (link)
Connect with *Angela and James Mitchell*****
Websites: loveintentionally.com
Facebook: facebook.com/loveintentionally.co
Instagram: instagram.com/loveintentionally.co
Connect with Dr. Jessica Higgins
Facebook: facebook.com/EmpoweredRelationship
Instagram: instagram.com/drjessicahiggins
Podcast: drjessicahiggins.com/podcasts/
Pinterest: pinterest.com/EmpowerRelation
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/drjessicahiggins
Twitter: @DrJessHiggins
Website: drjessicahiggins.com
Email: jessica@drjessicahiggins.com
About this episode
Angela and James, it’s so wonderful to have you both. I’m looking forward to our conversation. This is very much a part of what I very much value, as we talk about intimate relating, and that is being intentional.
Before we get into our topic, would you both like to share a little bit about what got you into focusing and helping others in this way?
Yeah. Well, excited to be here. Thanks for having us. So I’ve been a counselor for a long time, 20 years, which makes me sound older than I think I am in my head. So I’ve been in that world for a long time. Then, I think a lot of it, for me, was realizing, through personal experience, that marriage, turns out, takes some work and some intention. So through our own process of being coupled and in a long-term committed relationship, we had to learn all these tools to make it thrive and make it successful. Some of those lessons were painful, and some of them were easier than others. Really, once we learned the tools ourselves, wanting to then share that with other couples, what worked for us.
Yeah, I used to just call it sex, not intimacy. Just didn’t really understand that there was some nuance and some variations to that. So sex or sexual intimacy was the biggest pain, and also the biggest pleasure that was caused in my life. So I spent a lot of time, a lot of energy, a lot of effort, really working to create the balance where it was definitely more of a connective, intimate, pleasurable experience. It took a lot of work over the years, and unwinding of my own patterns, as well as working on our communication, and ultimately, working on intimacy. That’s the part that makes everything else we do in our life absolutely worth it.
I love that. I couldn’t agree more. Angela, were you going to add to that?
Like, looking at it holistically. So we joke that James only knew one type of intimacy.
It’s not a joke.
Joke’s on him, he married a counselor though.
I know, that’s what I was like, well! Sometimes I want to laugh that it’s a little bit like, this was maybe a previous life of your mindset. And also, it’s real and I don’t want to laugh at it, if it was something that you experienced. So I sometimes hesitate to laugh if it’s a little deprecating.
There’s no gravity to the situation.
Not at all. So we learned a lot of things together.
Yeah. I think, to speak about intentionality or consciousness, whether or not it’s conscious or unconscious, I do believe sometimes the partners we choose help us develop in areas that are either undeveloped or not given attention, or have wounding and healing around. I mean, I will raise my hand that that has been my experience, that I have chosen a partner, or have chosen previous partners, and had various learnings and opportunities in those dynamics. It’s quite uncanny how we will, I think Harville Hendrix and Helen Hunt call it this picker. We have an unconscious picker. I think it’s often what can happen in intimate relating.
Yeah, Terry Real says we marry our unfinished business. I love this line because it is all too true. I think, in some ways, that can be painful and frustrating and ugh. And at the same time, I also think it’s beautiful. It’s one of the things I love about working with couples, is I feel like we can do all this personal growth and development work and feel really great. Then your partner does that thing and it triggers you, and ugh, you’re right back in it. So, while that’s hard and painful, it is also the beauty in being in relationships.
“Most of our wounds are relational, and so then in relationship is also, I believe, where we get to heal them.”
Absolutely, yes. I don’t think I shared this with you, my dissertation topic was conscious intimate relationship. It was a meta-analysis looking at nine other studies and what the common themes were around conscious intimate relationship. At the time, I don’t think it was widely used. One of the themes that came out of that was relationship as a teacher. That what gets brought up or can be curriculum, I would say, for developing, but just the mirror even. That our partner can be a teacher or a mirror, and we might not get confronted with that same information or understanding or insight without being in relationships. So I couldn’t agree more.
I searched the web to corroborate this. One of the practitioners I work with said that the Dalai Lama stated that you can’t be enlightened unless you’re in a relationship. Whether that’s true or not, whether they said that or not, still, I’d like to think it’s true.
Yes, absolutely. That’s a beautiful quote. Thank you. Well, tell me, how did this distill for you with the focus of intentionality? Was there something that really stood out around the real focus of intention?
Yeah, so I would say we started being intentional from the onset of our relationship. I had never married before, but in a previous relationship, had a child. So I knew doing this again, I really wanted to get it right this time. Plus, I had a 4-year-old when we met, and so I really wanted to make sure I was getting it right for him as well. Then, James at that time was in the world of entrepreneurs, and he was doing business planning every year and being really strategic with his business. So when we were engaged, well, two things happened. One was we had a premarital counseling fail. So I, counselor/therapist for years, believe in it. It’s amazing. So I’m like, we’re getting married, let’s go to premarital counseling, and we’re going to talk about all the important stuff—how we’re going to raise kids together, because I already have one, we want more, how we’re going to do our finances, how we’re going to live together, who’s going to clean the toilets. Like, really important stuff, we’re going to figure it all out in premarital counseling. Bless her, I think she was very sweet, but I think used to working with couples in crisis. So she was really focused on how we fight, and we were really diving into all that. And what happened was we actually started fighting more.
We didn’t fight. We were happily engaged, super stoked to be married, on a tear, just good vibe. Then this lady is like, let’s talk about all the bad stuff. We’re like, we don’t have that yet, we’ll get to that when we need to. But Angela does her homework.
So ironically, we started fighting more. Then there was a day where we were in a session. Honestly, it was unlike me, uncharacteristically. But I felt like she was kind of going after James, and I was being defensive of him. It created this weird dynamic, and I just ended up leaving.
Oh okay. You’re like, I’m done, thank you very much.
I’m done. We were out in the parking lot, and I’m crying, and he’s consoling me. He’s like, I don’t think this is working. So we decided, we’re like: Well, really what we’re trying to do here is just be intentional and proactive. So maybe we don’t need this type of session. But we just need to get away for the weekend and focus on all these things we want to talk about. So he brought his entrepreneur strategic planning side of things. He had been doing that a lot with his business, so that was the second thing going on, and realizing that it was really helping him achieve his goals business-wise. So then there was this idea: Well, isn’t the rest of our life worth that amount of focus and effort as his business? So we took his entrepreneurial skills and my counseling skills, and we went away for the weekend, and we made a list of topics, and we talked about all of them and set goals and got on the same page. It was so lovely that we just decided to do it every year, and we called it our annual marriage retreat. Then friends started asking about it because they were seeing that we were hitting all these goals, and we started sharing with friends. Like, sure, you can use our template. It was a little Word document at the time.
It’s kind of interesting. Moving from doing it for ourselves and to turning it into a business, I guess wasn’t the most intentional thing that we’ve done. It was more of a heart-centered, like, this is what people are asking for, and when we did it, it was so alive for our own relationship. Then watching our best friends and the people we care about starting to grow. It became very clear to us that this was where our heart was.
Yeah. So we saw just what it was doing for our own life and relationship, what it was doing for our friends. So then we just kind of spread this thing. Well, we have good stuff here, we want to share it and help other people be intentional. Realizing that a lot of what was out there for couples was more about—and I think this is changing, I hope it’s changing—but more about solving problems once they already exist, instead of trying to get ahead of it and be intentional and proactive from the beginning. To help, A: prevent some of those problems, and B: when natural problems arise, because they will in life, making sure we have the tools to face them together in a healthy way.
The other thing we saw was that most of the pre-marriage programs were typically rooted in a religious institution. While that is a part of our life, it was not the center. We didn’t want to put that first. You do you boo, whatever you feel, whatever you believe, we support that. That’s where our retreat comes in, is that there is a place for that. However big that wants to be in your relationship, you can make it. Or if it doesn’t exist, you don’t have to. So we created a structure that works for just about anybody without that structure.
Yeah. So we started being more intentional, just in this broader aspect of all areas of our life. Then what we started realizing was, we’d be hitting all these goals financially and career-wise and health-wise and all this stuff. And we were just busy, and we had little kids. We have three kids now. So when our kids were young and we’re building careers and all this stuff, that it was really easy to take our eye off of our intimate connection. So we might be hitting goals in nine out of these 10 areas, but our intimacy was the area that oftentimes got neglected.
It was the one area out of the 10, that was just a struggle.
So we really started putting intention—there’s that word again—into that, and learning the tools to how do we maintain.
A resilient, intentional connection and intimacy.
Well, this is really powerful. I love just hearing a little bit about your story and just your experience, and how this organically became something of an act of love or service to be able to help and make a difference. As it was working in your lives and people were recognizing that and wanting it, to be able to follow that I think is so beautiful. Also, you’re right. I think with the demands of life, and then just human tendencies tend to be a little bit more reactive. To really set things up and be in this intentional, proactive approach. I remember, I think it was early, I had a brick and mortar business. I was living in Boulder, Colorado at the time, and working with couples. I would ask them questions rooting around, if they had been together for a period of time, when did they talk about X, Y, and Z, when a difference was really apparent.
They’re like, well, we never have. So oftentimes, yes, life has hardship, and there are conflicts and triggers, and also, how often perhaps we’re trying to build the plane when we’re flying so to speak, or we’re not really in a position to have as much resource to look at how we might approach things. Because it’s like, so much is live and happening, and the stress is on and the tension’s high. So it’s difficult to really have that opportunity to slow down, to be a little bit calmer, really use our creativity and our wonderment to look at: what do we want, what would we love? It’s really a visionary approach to be like, what’s our vision? Then all the things that go on and the science around having focus, and you’re talking about meeting goals. If we’re not intentional, then we can easily fill up everything else or our life with other things that maybe don’t matter as much.
100%.
Absolutely. That vision, we call the relationship north star. Like, where are we taking this thing, what is the direction? It’s going to have some zigs and zags along the path. That’s just part of life, and that’s the fun part of life. But we just want to make sure that we’re moving towards that direction. Then once we get there, we love each other still, maybe even better, deeper, more juicy than ever before.
Yeah.
“What we’ve realized along the way is that actually, that dreaming together and creating our vision and our relationship north star and talking about it is a form of intimacy. We call it creation intimacy. Like, the act of creating something together, something bigger than yourself.”
This life that we live and these kids that we have are dreams that we see come to fruition. That there’s the intimacy in that, in that dreaming together and visioning together.
And then making it happen. I used to think sexual intimacy was my favorite, and I’m pretty sure creation intimacy is right up there these days.
Yeah, not so separate either. Our vitality is so closely linked to our creativity and sexuality, and there’s a lot of interconnectedness. I think it’s really beautiful too, that you have an awareness around, in those earlier years of parenting young ones and life demands and businesses. I think that is one of the special things about being in a practice of vision and staying connected to the vision, is looking at where we might be out of sync or out of alignment. Not out of alignment as far as integrity, but perhaps out of alignment as far as focus around what the intention is. Especially with these really important things that sometimes won’t be urgent, but end up being really like, if they don’t get nurtured, they will be hugely detrimental.
Yeah. I’m the more Type A one in our relationship. I’m organized and I’m a task master, and I can just check things off a to-do list, and it feels so good. I get that dopamine hit every time. It was easy for me when we have kids and work and careers and all these things, for all these things right in front of me that feel really urgent to consume my time.
I literally used to have to write my name on her to-do list if I wanted any attention or to be done. That was legit.
Like, sex with your husband.
Yes, it’s on my to-do list.
Yes. So that is our first tactile tip for anybody listening to this that’s too busy and in the to-do list phase, just write your partner’s name on your to-do list. I like to call him your ride or die. So write your ride or die’s name down on that paper every now and again.
Yeah, so he would do that, and that would usually be my reminder of: Oops, I’ve not really been focusing here or giving attention there. Then I read, I’m a nerd. I love to study all things, especially relationships. I was looking into divorce statistics, and most of the population in the US, divorce is on the decline. The exception is…
Any guesses?
You might know.
Any guesses what the one increasing population is?
I don’t.
Empty nesters. So people, really, once you hit 45 and over, it starts to go up. But 55 is where it’s doubled in the last couple decades.
That ah feeling, that a lot of people are like: Oh, no shit, that feels probably pretty accurate. That’s where this work comes in. Because if you focus on building life, and being intentional about the strategic planning on where you’re living and in our careers, and who’s getting the kids to football practice or whatever, sports ball practice or art thing. If that becomes a focus for so long, and this connection gets a little frayed, all of a sudden, it becomes easier to pour attention into what’s easy, which is like, let’s just do this. Let’s just take care of these kids. Then you hit that point, and that’s why this intentional intimacy is so important.
Yeah. Because otherwise, once kids move out, all of a sudden, you look at each other and you’re like: who are you, who am I? I might have lost myself in all this as well. So many couples at that point decide, we don’t really know each other or we’re not on the same page anymore. We haven’t grown together, we’ve grown apart. So we don’t want to be one of those statistics, and we hope we can help other people as well.
Yes. I missed what you said, James.
I said, we don’t want to be one of those statistics nor the people in our community.
Yes, okay. So you talk about intimacy styles. How does this fit in the intentional? It sounds like, if I’m understanding, what the two of you really are assisting people is being able to do these retreats. Is it something they would do in their own lives? Is this something that you also offer? I imagine you’ll talk to us a little bit more towards the end of the show. But is this something that you offer as a program?
Yes, it used to be that. I mean, with our small kids, we really put a huge amount of attention and intention into being present with them. We had them on purpose. So in-person retreats mean we’re away from our family for a weekend. So we just do a couple of those a year. As a result, to make this more accessible, we turned it into a DIY take-home boxed kit, and we also have a digital retreat as well. So it’s the same thing. You can either do it. If you like physical paper, copy, books, you’ve got that. If you just want to do it online, you’ve got that. If you want to pair them up, you’ve got that.
So our intentionality, we see it as two-pronged, and we see them going together. There’s that strategic life planning, the dreaming, the visioning, the setting goals, north star, that they’re helping you create this dream life with your partner. And then the connection and intimacy. Because you can have this beautiful, perfect life, but if you’re not connected and you’re unhappy as a couple, it’s not going to feel so great. So the two-prong.
So we have the retreats, and then also, for the connection piece and the intimacy styles, I think there’s huge value in people having or couples having common language. That’s where things like love languages or erotic blueprints or those kind of things can be really helpful. Because it gives us, I think, a greater understanding of not only ourselves, but also our ride or die, as James calls it, our partner, and in language that’s non-judgmental. So it’s less about, you’re not providing enough of this for me, or I’m not getting that. It’s like: Oh, well here’s your intimacy style, here’s mine. How can we both get needs met? So we find that value in the common language really important. I feel like it helps people be seen and understood, and see and understand their partner better. So how we look at intimacy styles is that everyone has different buckets. The ones we focus on are: there’s emotional intimacy, there’s intellectual intimacy, there’s experiential intimacy, there’s physical intimacy, like touch and affection, there’s sexual intimacy, there’s creation intimacy, and spiritual intimacy. I was like, we focus on seven. So there’s these different types, and all of them can be valuable.
Yeah, one is not better than the other. Let’s just be clear on that. It’s just that this is the one that fills my bucket, and we each have different size buckets for that.
So having the language, what has helped us and a lot of the couples we worked with, is understanding that my emotional intimacy bucket is larger than James. So in our relationship, he might feel like his emotional intimacy bucket is full. It’s great, it’s at a 10. I’m over here going: Well, mine’s at a 5. That’s not because we’re in different relationships. It’s because my bucket is bigger. It’s not because he’s doing anything wrong. He’s perfectly satisfied with the amount of emotional intimacy we have. But my bucket is bigger. Vice versa for us with sexual, his bucket is bigger than mine. So we really look at how do we check in with each other about that using this language. Just like: here’s how full this bucket is, or here’s the types of intimacy I’m feeling like I’m craving a little more of right now to stay on the same page. Then we have lots of tools I love, like actual tangible tools. How do we do that? How do we make sure both partner’s needs are getting met? How do we have systems for communicating about it that can be proactive and preventative as well, rather than just waiting till one partner’s frustrated and then it explodes in the kitchen one night?
Yes, thank you for laying that out. James, do you want to add anything? I have questions, but I want to see.
Angela mentioned our systems that we have for communication. I do view an intentional relationship as it’s easy as a recipe. For us, it’s our once-a-year getaway to do that. Annual retreat, big picture planning. The medium tier is, we do a quarterly check-in on all of those big goals, what are we doing? Then there’s the weekly check-in connect. On the weekly check-in connect, it’s like: what are we doing this week, what are we eating this week, where have the kids got to be this week, and then what are we doing to connect this week, and where are you at in your cycle. We always schedule an intentional intimacy session once a week. Things can happen outside of that, but that’s going to be the one time that we do that.
While we’re having that discussion—for us, typically on a Sunday—then this is where the intimacy languages come up. For me, checking in, it used to always be like: Yeah, I could use a little more of that sexual intimacy bucket filled. Over time, I realized that I’m not always wanting that bucket filled. I want some intimacy, and physical intimacy, you can literally scratch my back a lot more sometimes, than what I thought I really wanted, just to feel that connection, that closeness, that beautiful thing that just we get to share.
Thank you for that. I’m grateful you mentioned that there’s a scaffolding of this that gives support throughout the year. That it’s not like: Oh, we do this visioning, and then it’s something we wrote down and then we don’t attend to throughout the year. So I love that there’s a system around how to do that. I also really appreciate just the specificity of the way that you’ve offered these different styles of the seven different intimacies. Because I think it does really offer range, rather than like: Oh, intimacy is just sex, or intimacy is emotion or sex. There’s many ways that we can be in intimate connecting that allow for that connection to really foster and really create that bonding. I also love the non-judgment that is infused in this. Because I think when we feel a discontent or a lack, that that is typically hard to initiate a conversation.
Sometimes it sounds really binary. It’s not enough. Or ooh, what does that mean? Rather than like: Oh, it’s a five, how do we get it to six, or what would make it a seven? It gives it a lot more flexibility around opportunities for improving, and also just like it’s not all or nothing. I think also too, just recognizing we have different needs and sizes of buckets. So to your point, it really creates less about blame or shame or judgment, and it really creates an opportunity for curiosity. Because as you said, and not even just with intimacy, so many things are different in partnership, whether or not you have extrovert/introvert, the spender/the saver. I’s just to have this sense of awareness. It’s not so much that we’re good or bad, right or wrong. It’s just what it means to us, and having that understanding can really help us show up for each other, be more intentional and proactive. Because we’ve got our heads up around it. We’re not just confronting the difference and then being threatened, and then that’s where our protective tendencies show up, and that can get us into trouble.
“How great is it that one of God or the universe’s little jokes is that opposites attract? Come on, what a treat! But that does provide more range to a relationship.”
So there are times in life that I’ve been like, I wish she was more like me, like her or previous partners. It’s really with gratitude that we get more range, more experience, more awareness and expression in the world.
To what you were saying before, Jessica, we love scales of 1 to 10. Like, this is where I’m at. Because it does feel like it takes some of the judgment off of it. James has a great analogy that involves pie. He would say…
Remember how I said sexual intimacy was one of the biggest challenges in our relationship, back in the day?
So he would say he wanted more.
I want some more sex, honey.
And what I would hear is, the sex I’m providing is not enough, i.e. I’m not enough. That was how I coded what he was saying of: I want more. I heard it as I was not enough. So one day when we were having one of these discussions, he explained, he said: Well, it’s like if you gave. He loves pie, grew up eating lots of pie, all the holidays. So he’s like, if you gave me a piece of pie, one piece of pie is enough, I might want more pie.
Definitely want another.
I want a second piece of pie. But it doesn’t mean that one pie isn’t enough. I was like, oh, that helps. So if any of my not-enoughers out there needed to hear that, it’s just more pie.
Yes, thank you for acknowledging that. Because I think it’s so, so true, what gets triggered. I do believe a lot of the attachment systems that are at play are relevant. When we feel a threat or insecurity arise, the meaning we create around it likely has some tie to feeling enough or secure. So thank you for sharing that personal example, it really helps put into perspective like what this can look like.
Also, our craving for intimacy sometimes, if we’re not taking time to have awareness around the ways in which we feel close, it could be channeled into one form that we’ve been able to articulate or know, like sex. But perhaps it’s like, I want to have my back scratched, or I want to feel close skin-on-skin, and maybe sex is a part of it. But that just the connectivity and feeling relaxed together. I think having, again, more of that specificity can give people more options to reach and talk about.
With less pressure too. Because you say sex, everybody has got their own story with it, they’ve got their own traumas with it. So when it’s, I just want to connect, even if it’s that physical intimacy. Sometimes whenever I want sex and that’s not available in the moment, what we’ve done though is just make sure that physical intimacy is available.
Or some other type.
Or some other type, yeah. So we’ll just get naked and cuddle, or something to that effect. Just keep clothes on and cuddle. It can just really continue to create the depth that we’re wanting, and also give me an opportunity to realize that there are other ways to connect. As a pretty typical male in this process of our marriage, that was a huge thing for me was getting some permission to have my intimacy buckets filled without this expectation or sort of the pressure of what sex can mean for me or for anybody else.
Yeah. So something we’ve committed to as a couple is, if one of us is asking the other for intimacy or connection, we look at how can I provide it? So if I am not available for sex, whatever reason, I’m tired, I don’t feel good, and I’m on my period, whatever it might be. I’m not available for that, but he’s wanting some connection and intimacy, then I get to go: Okay, what am I available for? So it’s not a no to everything. It’s like, I’m not available for that type, but here is what I’m available for. Do you want to lay on the couch and watch a movie and cuddle? Do you want to exchange massages? Let’s do a date and just go do something fun. Let’s go play pup putt or have some experiential intimacy, whatever it might be.
Yes. I really am grateful you’re both identifying that we’re a yes to each other, we’re a yes to our connection and fostering our intimate nurturing of our bond, and there could be many ways. While my partner is asking or requesting a certain form, and that in the moment feels like a no, that there’s other ways that are like: how can I show up, how can I engage in intimate connecting? I think there’s so much we don’t know. As the partner that’s maybe pursuing sex, it might not be about the orgasm or the physical erotic experience. It might be more about the vulnerability of being together and connecting and sharing, that that is extremely satiating. Or the one that’s like, I’m really kind of a no right now. Actually, when there is connecting and opening and feeling like the bonding, like: Oh, I actually feel more interested, and I am more open to exploring how we can be sexual. Maybe I don’t want intercourse, but maybe there’s other things I’m open to. So asking that question I think is so helpful to give option. Because if we’re in that mindset of yes or no, that doesn’t give a lot of room. But if we’re like, what can I do, I think that helps the body and the mind work on where is there a possibility.
And we found too that these buckets, these intimacy styles, are kind of magical, in that if you fill one, it tends to raise the others a little bit too. So if we go out and do something new and fun and experiential together, it can also build emotional intimacy, and it can also make you more available for the physical and sexual intimacy. So again, just the importance of looking at it holistically, I think.
What comes through in this is the idea of a pattern. Anybody that’s listening to this, that’s been in a relationship for longer than let’s say a year, has established some pretty solid patterns in how they initiate intimacy, how they respond to initiations of intimacy, how it goes. The late great comedian Robin Williams said: I don’t really care about gay marriage, because after 20 years, it’s all same sex.
Yeah, that’s so funny.
So this can create new patterns of how intimacy gets shared. Angela, she’s got some great quotes, and one of my favorites is: it takes two to create a pattern, and it only takes one to change it.
“If you can start showing up in this new way with this new language, even if your partner is not super receptive to it at first, you can be a part or be the catalyst to changing the pattern for new ways of intimacy, new ways of connecting.”
This is to your earlier point. When people are out as system of really investing in prioritizing their bond, it can feel like we lose each other, we lose ourselves. I think of it like a muscle or like a practice, and we can really start to build quite proficient language here if we are engaged in practicing, and there’s a whole level. I mean, I don’t think it’s restrictive, I think it’s generative. It continues to offer more rather than less. And when we’re out of practice, out of system, I think we sometimes feel a little lost around how to reach to each other, how do we feel connected? It’s just so much out of practice.
Yeah. When we work with clients in our two-on-two coaching, we assign homework every week. One, because I think some of the most important work that is going to happen is going to be outside of our hour session with them. You can probably relate as a therapist. The homework is someone else helping them break the seal or the crunchiness, if they haven’t been experiencing intimacy or that level of closeness or vulnerability together. So we have them practice, we’ll say: Okay, here’s your exercise for the week, this is what you’re supposed to do. Grab three objects around the house and have a sensual experience, or whatever it might be. It’s just to, like you said, get those muscles flexing again. Then what we see is, there’s usually this moment where it clicks, and all of a sudden, they are feeling comfortable in their own bodies again, feeling comfortable with each other, the intimacy on all the different levels starts to build. But they just need the tools and the practice to get back in the flow of it.
Yeah. I’m almost getting the picture of like, you’re offering some frame or some structure that can feel safe practicing ground, and then they can start to feel their own efficacy or own capability of like: Ooh, I can play outside the lines a little bit. Or there’s just a little bit more that they’re able to integrate and internalize.
I want to say, it seems as though you’re also recognizing that in partnership, it’s unlikely, given what we’ve talked about already, that we’re going to have the same size buckets and be matched. So what we make that mean. I mentioned attachment style. So when we don’t feel satiated or we are feeling a longing in a particular area of intimacy, what we make that mean is, often when we’re not really looking at this: Oh, they don’t care, I’m not enough, they’re not really with me. Or fear of abandonment. There’s all kinds of reasons or things that come up for people around what they make that mean. So I love that you’re giving space here for people to explore that it is going to be different. Let’s look at it, it doesn’t have to be threatening and there’s a lot of opportunity for growth.
Yeah. One of my favorite phrases we use a lot is, the story in my head is.
“When we’re communicating, it’s that acknowledgement that you did this thing and here is the story I created around it, which could be true, could be what you intended. But more than likely, it is very much viewed through my lens and my own wounds and my own personality and all of those things, and my attachment style.”
So if I can own that here’s this thing happening and this is the story I’ve created around it, I’m much more easily able to express that to him and have him receive it, to not get so defensive. He’s like: Oh, that’s what you were thinking, here’s what I meant. Then you can correct.
Totally, yeah. I would add that when we don’t do something, making that more visible around what it means, that gives a little bit more opportunity for reassurance or just clarity. Then I would also say, on face value, if emotionally sharing isn’t a strong need, it’s not even that it has to be a strong need. It’s what it means to the other person. Like, how can I show up? Really knowing what it means. Like, I’m going to feel or I want to feel closer to you, I want to feel more intimate, more bonded, or what it means. That that’s typically more inspiring and more motivating, rather than like: Oh, we’re going to do the thing I don’t have a strong preference for. It’s like, what’s on the other side of it for our relationship or our partner?
Yeah, and what you might find is, once you try it, you actually like it. James didn’t love being vulnerable. I don’t know if he still does, but he now sees the value in it.
There’s some great rocket fuel to that.
Do you want to say more?
Yeah. For me, feeling vulnerable was like: Oh, I can’t, whatever. I mean, I’m just going to assume that most people listening to this have ever met a man that didn’t think it was okay to be vulnerable or was never really taught how. So we’re just going to make that blanket solid assumption. That lack of openness was really constricting the emotional intimacy that I was willing and able to receive and to give. So we just hit this moment where I cracked the vulnerability, and I’m just a puddle for like, thank you counselor. I was a puddle for weeks, and also the first time in my life I wasn’t really craving or desiring sex, just wasn’t desiring. There I am vulnerable, and I’m just kind of down-energy, and this is, turns out, the most attractive I’ve ever been to Angela. This was the most she’s ever wanted to, we’ll just use the phrase, jump my bones. I’m like, not having it, no. So when I could really harness that opening and be okay with that and not let it be just so hard for myself, and the tension that it brought up, then it allowed us to connect. Then now that we’re connected, everything else became more possible.
Thank you for sharing that. I’m touched that you said yes, that there was enough safety in your bond, or whatever the circumstances and whatever risk you took emotionally to open up to that. It’s really touching. We sometimes don’t say yes.
The first yes led to the opportunity to say the next yes, and then the next one and then the next one. So it’s interesting how it’s become more of a way of life than just a thing that happens. That was a surprise.
Yeah, it’s somehow now a part of the range of where you might exist or be, and it’s not so restricted that that’s a no-go zone.
Oh absolutely, and being open. I used to, for example, not really share exactly how I felt with Angela to protect her feelings. This is really how I feel, but I’m not going to tell her exactly. Because I can handle it, and I don’t know if she can handle it. Kind of in that old storyline pattern. Being more vulnerable and open about even that thing has created more closeness. So at the end, that’s what I want. I want to be able to receive love the way that I want, and give it the way that I want and have it be received. This is how we get there.
Yeah, thank you. Angela, do you want to say anything about adding your perspective here?
Well, I think it was somewhat, not to totally gender stereotype, but typical, where I needed the emotional connection and safety to be more available for physical and sexual intimacy, and he was seeking connection through it. That was how he connected, was through sexual.
My emotional intimacy came from it.
So we were just missing each other. We were just missing each other, wanting the same thing ultimately, which was connection and intimacy. But because we were wanting and needing different ways of getting there, we were missing each other. So I think really, us both learning how to show up for each other in that way ended up allowing us to get our own needs met as well. Learning to be vulnerable with me, then all of a sudden, like he said, I found him super attractive. I was like: Oh, that’s so sweet.
I see you, I feel you. I want you.
Exactly. At a time when he’s like: I’m just an emotional mess here, I can’t have sex right now. Then vice versa too. I had to remember that he likes physical touch. He always says, I’m like a puppy. So if we would be in the car, and I’d be like: Oh yeah, put my hand on his leg, or rub the back of his neck, those kind of things. When I did that, and I was giving him that physical affection he was craving, then it also created a more loving, safe space for him to open up and feel safe. To be more vulnerable, which was giving me the emotional intimacy I wanted.
“When we just intentionally put effort into meeting each other in each other’s styles, then the wonderful reward of it is, we actually got our own needs met as well.”
Absolutely. Then also, perhaps we develop and grow aspects of ourselves. We learn from the other, develop more strength in areas that we’re maybe, again, underdeveloped or just didn’t utilize as much. So I’m grateful that you both have been able to share so personally, and such an example. Also what’s on the other side, again, in the practice of developing this. It’s really a positive cycle. It’s generative in the sense that as you both are contributing, likely we want to continue to give and reciprocate and nurture. I think it is really encouraging for the system of the couple. I’m grateful that you have workshopped this so much that people can, it sounds like it’s more or less, not plug and play. It’s not without their intentionality and effort and energy. But so much of the terrain has been laid out. Is that how I’m understanding? Do you want to say more about the DIY?
Well, our process has been developed from our cycle of rupture, repair, and back to love. Without not being an option in this choice to live an intentional, deeply connected, intimate life together, that’s the basis of the experience that we show up with. Thank you for asking about our DIY course. Go ahead.
Yeah. So I was going to say, that’s our annual, that’s our bread and butter to our relationship. Then recently, we’ve developed an intentional intimacy course. So it’s just an online, five-week, go at your own pace. That’s really come from all this work we have done, personally and with clients, around intimacy. Realizing, for us, that because intimacy can carry such big feelings and even wounds for people, it is sometimes a hard topic to address on your own. Our own personal story of going to our DIY retreat every year, our own one, and we’d be rocking at nine out of 10 areas, and then the one area that was a struggle was sex and intimacy. Year after year, realizing that, and then finally going: You know what, I think we need help. So we hired a counselor.
She would cry, and I would get frustrated, and we’d be like, it wouldn’t work.
But we were doing so well in all the other areas.
Everywhere else.
So we’d just go back to focusing on those. But eventually, we were like, we need help, we are clearly not figuring this out on our own. So for anyone else out there who this is a struggle for them, I think my encouragement would be to, if you can, seek some outside help with it. Because it is a topic that can be hard to navigate on your own. Like I said, it can carry a lot of triggers and wounds for people.
It really matters who says it in this department of relationships too. So when we get to say things that you might’ve been trying to say for years, it can land in a new way.
Yeah, so we got a therapist, we did an online course with some coaches around the topic. Ended up going on to get ourselves trained in being intimacy coaches. So we’ve developed this five-week course with that intention. Especially, it’s lower resourced items. So for people that maybe going to ongoing therapy is hard financially or you just want to try to do a self-guided thing on your own, that was our intention is how can we make this work accessible where people can learn these tools and try them out, that are just struggling to get there on their own. Because we get that. Because like I said, it can be a touchy topic for a lot of couples.
I’ll make sure to put the link on today’s show notes. What is it called?
It’s called Intentional Intimacy.
Intentional Intimacy Course, based on what we’re talking about here today, I think is one of the best things. If I had one please-do from this podcast, we have an Intentional Intimacy Style Quiz. So if you’re curious what style really resonates with you, that would be the one thing I would love for you to do. It’s free. Then from that, if it really resonates with you and you like what we’re talking about, check out that Intentional Intimacy Course. For couples that are really wanting to create that relationship north star, get some momentum in the direction of where they’re building their life, the three-night DIY Retreat would be where we would start. We have one for newlyweds, and then we have one for entrepreneurial couples. It’s typically just who gets attracted to this style of work, but entrepreneurial couples would work for any couple.
Great! So these are also programs that can be purchased online?
Correct.
They’re on our website.
Great. And what’s your website? I’ll make sure, again, to put this on today’s show for people who listen.
www.LoveIntentionally.com
Awesome, wonderful! Well, thank you so much. It’s been great to chat with you. I can tell just how much you’ve really lived into this and are being able to offer such guidance and clarity and support in this developing the north star and the intentionality.
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
Thank you so much for having us, Jessica. It was a great time. You’ve got a beautiful podcast, and can’t wait to hear this on there. It’ll be great and it’ll be fun.
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The post ERP 457: How To Intentional Design Your Relationship – An Interview With Angela and James Mitchell appeared first on Jessica Higgins.
Have you ever felt like the internal turmoil you’re battling is invisible to the rest of the world? Like no one truly understands the gravity of what you’re experiencing because you appear calm and composed on the outside? The struggle to manage anxiety while maintaining healthy relationships is a complex and often misunderstood journey. The challenge lies not only in dealing with the anxiety itself but also in finding ways to communicate your needs to those around you effectively.
In this episode, we delve deep into the real-life experiences of someone who has navigated the tumultuous waters of anxiety for over seven years. It covers practical tools and resources for managing anxiety, the crucial distinction between everyday stress and anxiety disorders, and the importance of clear and compassionate communication in relationships. This discussion offers a plethora of actionable advice and relatable insights to help listeners better understand and manage their anxiety while nurturing their relationships.
Dr. Jeanne Retief is the founder of FIGGI Beauty Skincare and The Anxious Calm E-Learning platform for those seeking to peacefully coexist with their anxiety. After her panic disorder diagnosis, she left behind her career in international human rights to find balance in her new normal.
In this episode
05:29 Jeanne Retief’s seven-year journey and finding balance.
08:05 The importance of hope and living in the present.
10:51 Introduction to figgy beauty and anxious calm resources.
14:31 Differentiating everyday stress from anxiety disorders.
19:37 Using code words for emotional communication.
22:52 The hidden turmoil of anxiety.
25:01 The reality of panic attacks.
27:32 Anxiety and its misrecognition.
32:18 Struggling with stigmatization and seeking help.
34:45 Relational dynamics and open communication.
38:30 Supporting each other during anxiety.
43:28 Explaining anxiety to children.
45:26 Discovering and embracing high sensitivity.
Your Check List of Actions to Take
- Establish a simple code word system with your partner to communicate the severity of your mental state, such as “stressed,” “anxiety,” or “panic.”
- Hold a judgment-free weekly meeting with your partner to discuss ways they can support you during anxious moments, similar to life planning.
- 54321 Technique: Practice the 54321 grounding technique by identifying five things you see, four things you feel, three things you hear, two things you smell, and one thing you taste to manage pre-panic attack anxiety.
- Foster open and honest conversations with your partner about your anxiety, sharing triggers and coping strategies to create a supportive environment.
- Use relatable analogies to explain your anxiety to your children, such as comparing it to monsters in the closet, to help them understand and not be frightened.
- Work towards accepting your anxiety as part of your life and focus on being your best self in the present moment rather than seeking to return to “normal.”
- Understand and embrace your sensitivity (if applicable) using resources like Dr. Elaine Aron’s work on Highly Sensitive Persons (HSP) to leverage your strengths.
- Build and maintain a supportive network by clearly communicating your needs and triggers to loved ones, ensuring they understand how to provide the best support for you.
Mentioned
Evolve in Love (*Dr. Jessica Higgins program) (link)
The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You (Amazon affiliate link*) (book)
Connect with **Jeanne Retief**
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About this Episode
Jeanne, thank you so much for joining us. I’m excited about our conversation.
Oh, I’m super excited to be here, and about what we’re going to be talking about, I think it’s such a great time of year to do it.
Oh my gosh, you’re so right! Typically, for listeners, and just for yourself, I usually have several episodes backed up, so this might not be released for a couple of months. But I’m actually thinking maybe I should bump this up to support people negotiating the holiday season. Because it is such a stressful time of year for people, despite the intention of really focusing on connection.
Well, just before we get started in our topic of looking at anxiety disorder as it might show up in relationship, where one partner might have a diagnosis or really be experiencing a lot of symptoms, and how that might impact relationship, and just how we can support people here. What got you interested in supporting people in this topic and this focus?
Well, I mean, the easy answer would be my own diagnosis with panic disorder. But I’ve been in this field, I think all my life. Because it didn’t crystallize until my diagnosis, but I’ve always had real trouble with anxiety and super-sensitivity that led from my trauma as a child and a young adult, the way I grew up, the environment that I was in. That actually led me to a career in international human rights law, with a focus on international criminal law and the laws of war. So I dealt a lot with human rights and women’s rights, and a lot of anxiety goes into that. Like, how do you manage? That’s not even talking about stress or anxiety on a level where you have everything to work with. You don’t have running water. You don’t have food. Your five-year-old child is the head of the household. So I’ve always dealt with this in some way or the other. Then when I got diagnosed was what I think propelled me towards changing direction and ending up here.
Well, thank you for just acknowledging your journey in larger scope. I’m really grateful to be talking to you. Because it sounds like you’re mentioning a lot of things that people experience, and it might be confusing that if one grew up in a very tumultuous or even environment where traumas occurred or it was chaotic, that that is a certain amount of stress, and we learn to cope and our systems have to adapt. But that also means our nervous system isn’t necessarily in a safe, secure, regulated environment. So we learn to operate with a level of anxiety. So you’re talking about trauma, you’re talking about stress, and you’re talking about anxiety. Do you want to help people, as they listen, how these might overlap, how they’re different, how to really look at them and how these interact?
So look, I’m not a doctor, but it’s my body, it’s my mind, it’s my loved ones that went through it. So I understand how it’s been explained to me and how I’ve been experiencing it. I would say the differences between it is really what made the key deciding factor for me to go towards a path of acceptance of my diagnosis. Because I go back to my trauma a lot, and I have a lot of generational trauma in my family, a lot of undiagnosed mental illnesses. That’s why I didn’t want to get diagnosed, because I didn’t want to be like them. I thought it’s like a done deal because it’s genetic. So if they were wired this way, I will for sure be wired this way. Then it was actually explained to me that if you have panic disorder, it’s not necessarily genetic, it’s mostly brought on by complex post-traumatic stress disorder. That happens when you are in a prolonged situation of being exposed to trauma, usually by somebody in a very close and trusted relationship to you.
So for me, it was my grandfather. In other types of ways, it was my parents. It was all these people that were supposed to be your champion and your hero, close family members. So that’s what led to my panic disorder diagnosis, which is panic attacks, but it’s a lot more than that. So it’s different. But I think it all contributes to the end destination. It looks different for all of us, we’re not all the same. But that’s how I understand it, and that’s how I understand the difference. But I’m still learning new things about my diagnosis every single day. But I hope that answers your question.
Yes, thank you. It does. I have a follow-up with that, if you’re willing. You talked about just seasonal stress or what we might go through seasons of life, with a particular maybe career or family or parenting. There’s a lot of things in life externally and circumstantially that will provide levels of stress. How do you see stress interacting with the panic or the complex PTSD?
I mean, it is difficult. I’ve had to go on a very long journey towards learning my triggers and how I deal with those triggers. Because I have the post-traumatic stress element, there are triggers that I cannot prepare for. So sometimes, somebody will touch me a certain way and it would trigger me. I wouldn’t even know that that was the trigger, but it would just take me back to this place of trauma. I have to deal with my triggers, I have to understand my triggers. But what’s also, I think, necessary to very clearly state, is that even if you don’t have an anxiety disorder, you’re still going to have the normal levels of stress every day. It’s normal. It’s a normal human emotion. We live in a very stressful world. You’re going to have financial stress. You’re going to have career stress. You’re going to have family stress. Then it’s going to go away and you’re going to sort it out, and it’s going to level out again. Or you may need a period where you need a little bit of extra help. That doesn’t necessarily mean you have an anxiety disorder.
It’s so frustrating, because if you really do have an anxiety disorder, it opens you up to so many other types of abuse. Because people start to see you as just another one that’s overly stressed, and it’s not the same thing. So that’s why I always try to tell people to please just be conscious of that and how you use that word. For example, my husband and I have trigger words or code words. Like, when I say I’m stressed, it means I had a normal day of stress—I had stressful things that happened to me, the situation was cleared up, and now I’m no longer stressed. But if I say I have anxiety, it means my actual anxiety disorder is acting up and I’m struggling to cope with the symptoms of that, and how that’s manifesting in my life and how that is preventing me from accurately dealing with normal stress. And when I say panic, it means, panic attack is here, all hangs on deck, we’ve got to abandon all the soft ways of dealing with this and we need to go into our SOS kind of thing.
Well, Jeanne, even as I’m watching you and your nonverbals, for people who are just listening to the audio version, I want to just reflect back, it just seems really notable that you’re describing stress as something almost like, it’s in my day, it’s external. So I’m seeing your hands just outwardly. Then when you talk about my anxiety, your gesture came more inward. When I think about clients and couples that I’ve worked with, when one has anxiety and they’re describing, it feels like this deep level of overwhelm and I’m hurting or I’m not okay. It’s like this internal being, and my essence is struggling. You’re kind of pointing inwards around like, the essence, the internal me is not okay. Does that resonate?
Oh yeah, for sure. That’s definitely how it feels. It’s so difficult to explain it to somebody who doesn’t know what it feels like. But I would say that’s a pretty accurate description of the storm that’s raging inside.
Well, and then to go a little bit even more here, when you talk about the level of panic and the reaching or over-extending to this threshold, it’s like, not only is my outer world stressful, likely, but also my inner world is not okay. Then I reach this level of just untetheredness. It’s like, there is no ground, and it can feel further amplified.
Yeah, that’s very true. I think there’s a difference in how I see, like I said, my code words, when I’m in anxiety and when I’m in panic. Anxiety definitely is that internal turmoil. And what has become dangerous for me is that, many times, when I do talks like this or in public, people will tell me it’s impossible for you to have anxiety. You’re so calm, you’re so centered. But it’s just because I’ve learned to hide it so well, which is actually really bad. Because everything is going on inside of me, but I don’t project it to the outside because I don’t want people to know, and that makes your crash so much more severe. Then when you’re going into panic, it obviously also makes it worse.
The way that I usually explain it to people, when you have panic, we all have a certain relationship with death. We all fear it, or question it, or wonder about it, or are curious. None of us really know, but we do have, all of us, even if it’s just a little bit, that tiny bit of fear in us about what that would mean. So when you have panic and those panic attacks, one of the things is that you honestly and truly feel and know within yourself, this is your last moment on earth. You are dying. You’re seeing your life flash in front of your eyes. So imagine being confronted with death so many times and so often, how traumatic that must be. That’s the only way I’ve found that I can truly describe what it feels like to go through that, so people can also understand what comes after. It’s not just a panic attack. Can you imagine what your body and your mind must have gone through to think that and feel that? And then it happening sometimes three times a day, four times a day. It’s very debilitating.
Right, I’m feeling a sense of exhaustion and just depletion, and having the experience of confronting that with such level of intensity. It really paints a picture, thank you. How is it talking about it? I can even feel inside myself, I feel my own anxiety or just empathizing with that experience. Like, how is it to talk about it?
“That’s the weird thing about panic. When you’re in your calmer moments, it’s even hard for you to understand how you could possibly feel that or think that or know that with such certainty. It’s almost as if it’s an out of body experience for you as well.”
So now that I’m calm and I’m talking about it, I can more reasonably explain this to you. I can, yes, feel that it’s not a nice feeling to have, it’s not nice to talk about it. But I talk about it so often, so it’s been such a cathartic experience for me. But this entire picture you see here looks completely different. When I’m in the throes of panic attack, then all of this goes away.
Yeah. Well, and I appreciate that you’re speaking to what’s visible and what’s on the inside, that those might be different. You’ve done so much in your journey to be congruent, that when you are in a calmer state, likely it is a reflection of what you’re feeling internally. I will say, just on perhaps where someone is feeling a lot of anxiety internally, that they look calm on the outside. This is where some people don’t even know they have anxiety or might even have an anxiety disorder because they are so maybe Type A, or the user anxiety to be productive or control things, and that is a mechanism to manage. What would you say?
Yeah, I for sure think that it can be. Again, I would just be careful to say that. Just because you have a certain personality type doesn’t necessarily mean you have an anxiety disorder. But it is for sure that it can be your way of coping with not wanting to feel those uncomfortable emotions, or the scary reality that you may have an anxiety disorder and you are struggling and you really do need help. That was the worst thing for me. I didn’t want to admit that I had an issue, I didn’t want to be like my other family members. I in no way wanted to have therapy for it, because I felt, at that point, I had enough therapy in my life. I didn’t want to take medication for it. It was really one of my things that I struggled with the most. If that’s where you’re at, then yeah, it’s way easier to tell yourself: No, there’s nothing wrong. I just like being organized. I just like controlling things. This makes me feel safe, this makes me feel secure. I can see how that can make your world seem a little less chaotic.
Yes. Well, and I appreciate what you’re saying, that this is not totally causal or indicative of having an anxiety disorder, and it looks different on different people, or people have different experiences. So I appreciate that.
Now before we pivot to relational dynamics, you mentioned sensitivity. I know you’ve done a lot to support people who identify or are highly sensitive people. I’ll put a link if people are interested in learning more. If you can say a little bit, that would be helpful for people who don’t. But how does this fit in what we’re talking about with the constellation of anxiety, trauma, and stress?
Well, I really didn’t know something like sensitivity or sensitive person existed until I was in my early thirties and I read the book from Dr. Elaine Aaron, and a lot in my life made sense. Of course there were many other dynamics at play for the reasons that these messages were being given to me, as I was growing up and in my formative stages. But some of the messages that I heard a lot were like, you are so sensitive, why are you always crying? Why do you always take things so personally? None of these comments were ever just a question. It was more of an accusation. Like, what is wrong with you? Why are you so broken? Why are you so wrong? I really internalized that, and I just took it as me being really badly put together, and everybody else around me is normal.
I had obviously this underlying anxiety thing I was dealing with, and as part of that, I get really upset with too many sensory overloads, which is also very intense for a sensitive person. So I’m trying to deal with this narrative of: I’m wrong, I’m the problem. But it really upset me if there are so many lights and noises and sounds. But I can’t tell people it upsets me, because I’m the one that’s weird. And when I finally realized that there is actually something like a highly sensitive person, and how much that can play into anxiety, it really explained a lot of my life to me.
That’s so powerful. One of the things, I remember reading her book many, many years ago, similarly, was just how many people internalize the experience of the sensitivity as something different and wrong and not okay, and that they are attempting to be like people. Just for people listening, my understanding is that sensitivity is a trait that we all have, and we can put it on a continuum. Typically, in Western culture—I’m the US, you’re in Portugal—that sensitivity isn’t necessarily something that people seek to achieve. It’s not highly valued. So it occurs in 1/5 or 20% of people.
She really does a lot to help people recognize it’s not a pathology, there’s nothing wrong. This is something that’s like having blue or brown eyes, it’s like a part of your system. That it comes with gifts, it comes with strengths. It also comes with certain considerations, and you want to learn how to care for that. But you’re going to be absorbing more, you’re going to be taking in more information, you’re going to be having a richer sense of the dimensions of life and the nuances. That’s such a gift. And also, if you expect to operate like other people who are not absorbing that much, then that’s going to be a difficult equation. Because they’re not being impacted. They don’t need the time to process, they don’t need the time to integrate. So when you’re attempting to run like other people and their systems, it’s just a burnout. It’s just not going to work.
Yeah. For me, the key thing there was, I used to do a lot of work in my old life in building high-performing teams and putting together people with different talents and all of that. With my anxiety diagnosis and understanding sensitivity, it actually gave me, after I came down from the trauma of it all, a really great toolkit. Because I could start recognizing that maybe I just have these hidden gifts that other people don’t see because they don’t view it as normal. But what that gave me a great entry point to is recognizing how amazing other people are at certain things that I am not. Instead of worrying about the fact that I am so wrong and I am so broken, or arguing my point to somebody else, I could just lean into the things that make them beautiful and ask them to do these things and step away, and shine in the things where I naturally shine at. That did a lot in terms of helping me manage my anxiety, managing this narrative that I’m wrong or that I’m overly sensitive, or it’s not a characteristic that you normally seek in especially the career world. That changed a lot for me.
Oh my gosh, I so appreciate you speaking into that. Because there is a diversity amongst everyone, so when we can hold that in a leadership role. Even talking about extroversion, introversion. There’s people that have different gifts to offer and operate differently. When we can really attune to that, I think it can really be a strength for the whole team.
Yeah, for sure.
Wonderful! So what would you like people to consider as we look at the dynamics of relationship when an anxiety disorder is a part of the mix?
Before I say anything, let me just preface it with, I honestly and completely understand that everybody does not have a brilliant support network. I am very lucky, I have very great support system in my husband. But I also understand that our dynamics look different. Maybe your support structure is your mom or your sister or your friend, whatever that may look like. So I just want to put that out there.
The second most important thing for me to say is, and I say this with empathy and love as somebody that’s been through it, we sometimes forget, as those of us suffering from an anxiety disorder, what responsibilities we have. Because our minds are so overwhelmed with just literally trying to survive and putting one foot in front of the other, it doesn’t many times even occur to us that we have responsibilities within the sphere. Because we are already doing so much trying to just survive. But if we do not communicate with our partners and our loved ones, it is very possible that we are not going to feel supported. Because they also don’t know what’s going on.
“In terms of relationships, it’s so important to understand what your responsibilities are towards your loved ones, to put them in a position where they can be the best type of support structure to you that you need. A lot of that is work that you need to do.”
So for example, I was very lucky my husband came with me to some of my therapy sessions to learn the more technicalities of what an anxiety disorder is, what does it look like, what should he know about it? But I had to learn my triggers. He cannot learn that for me. I had to go through those things. He can support me through it. He can see that I’m struggling and ask me if he can help me. But I need to do that work. Then once I’ve done that work, it’s on me to communicate with him and say: Look, I don’t have all the answers. I also don’t understand what’s happening to my body when this happens. But I’ve realized that if I’m in a mall with a lot of people and a lot of lights and a lot of overwhelm, it really upsets me. Can you help me? Now he understands: Okay, this is the situation we probably should be weary of. I should be a little bit more alert. I can help her through this situation. Or practicing SOS techniques. When you’re in a panic attack, what works for you to bring you to a point where you can at least just start, hopefully, the calm-down.
You cannot be angry at a loved one coming towards you in a panic attack and telling you, just calm down, which is the last thing you want to hear, if you haven’t had that conversation with them in calmer times to say: Look, I also don’t know what’s goin to help me. But if you say this, it really makes it a lot worse. I’ve read about this 5-4-1 technique. This is how it works. Do you think you can help me and talk me through it the next time this happens? We have that responsibility to communicate these things to our loved ones.
I think what makes it really hard is when we don’t know, so we don’t say anything, because we don’t know what the solution is. But in that is the solution. Because even that, you have to say: Look, I know this is happening, and I don’t know. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what’s going to make it better. But I know it’s going to happen. So can you help me find ways that we can try to make this better? But if we don’t have that acknowledgement of what we need to do from our side, it’s hard for our loved ones to support us in the right way.
Absolutely. I want to ask you about the 5-4-3-2-1 technique, just for people who might be curious. I just also want to speak to what you’re describing around the communication or having the open channel. So much can be misperceived if there is a not knowing. So if Partner A is seeing Partner B seemingly not feeling so great, whether or not it’s the nonverbals or what have you, Partner A can think: Oh, I wonder if they’re mad at me. They could go in all types of routes. They have no idea that it might be anxiety. Or they might say: Oh, you’re okay, I’ve got to grind through this too. Or it’s just a tough time, let’s just keep pushing, like their own strategy of getting through difficult times. It’s a lot of projection, because where Partner A, best intentions, is doing what they know, doing what’s worked, or based on their own lens. And Partner B who’s feeling the anxiety, if they’re experiencing something on a deep level and that’s not visible, it’s really hard for that partner to respond to the difficulty or the real deep upset.
Yeah, especially if they want to help, if they want to fix it.
“Many times, the actions that you would equate to help and fixing it are the things that would make it worse in that moment. But they cannot possibly know that if you do not communicate that to them.”
And also, the key in that is when you communicate it to them. I mean, it’s not the best time to do it when you’re in the throes of a panic attack, shouting back, like, don’t say that to me! There has to be this point that you agree to. Let’s sit down on Sunday when we’re calm, let’s talk it through. Let’s see that if this happens again, what can we do so that we are prepared? I always equate it to life planning. We sit down with our partners and we talk about the most horrific things, if you think about that. What happens when you’re not here anymore? Who do the kids go to? What do I do with our finances? Do you have a will? We talk about that. But we don’t talk about things like this. It’s just, if you look at it that way, it’s so skewed.
Yeah, and this perhaps hearkens back to what you were saying earlier. You were talking about it was a journey to even become accepting or open to having a diagnosis. When you’re talking about, perhaps we could have a sit down on Sunday and talk about in a calm state, if you’re experiencing anxiety, are there things that we can try, or is there a way that I might be able to help or support? If someone isn’t in a place of acceptance of experiencing anxiety or having an anxiety disorder, they might find that conversation difficult. Because: Oh, I’m the one that needs attention in our dynamic, or I’ve got an issue. I don’t want to burden you, and/or I don’t want it to be the focus on me, like I’m the one that’s got a problem. That can be hard. So how do you help people reframe or approach that differently?
For me, it would be that if that were the issue, it already shows me that there are some very crucial core issues in their core communication. So taking away, feeling like you’re being blamed or it’s your fault or something. I think this worked well for my husband and I, because since the day we got married, we had this rule. On Sundays, Sunday afternoons, we sit down, we talk about the week. It’s a judgment-free zone. You’re not allowed to judge or to point fingers. You just say, what went well for you this week, what do you think can be improved? It’s not a personal attack on you. So if he were to say something like that to me, it would feel like: Oh, he is noticing things about my life, he cares enough to see something is wrong. Maybe if he also thinks this could be it, it may be worth investigating. Because I have a partner in this now, I don’t have to feel alone and like something is wrong with me. He is also open to helping me. But if you don’t have that foundation, then you already go into it kind of limping almost.
So I think then you need to backtrack a little bit and go, so where do we start this from a good point of view? How do we lay that good foundation, and then how do we take it further from there? I understand that in the moment that may not be a great solution, because usually when your anxiety is crisis mode. But at the same time, you also cannot fix a crisis with a crisis.
Yes. Part of what I’m hearing you is, there’s something really beautiful about perhaps just naming: we don’t know, and we’re going to be together in the not knowing, and we’re going to take steps to explore, and we’re going to be curious and we’re going to really give space. Or, to your point, I’m going to be here, and as you begin to understand your triggers more or get a little bit more interested in what happens and being able to understand, so I can help you. There’s just more room and support for that journey of not knowing, to getting towards more understanding of what could be helpful.
Yeah, for sure. I think if you go into this knowing, if you set it for yourself, like a personal goal for yourself before you go into a conversation like this, that nothing that’s being said here is being said to offend me or to hurt me or to make another problem, we’re here to solve a problem. I feel like it already takes you out of the mental space where you’re going to feel judged, like is your issue. And in my personal experience, whoever is on the other part of the conversation, it opens up that safety net for them too, to be more vulnerable and to be more open to what you may be experiencing from them. So it’s all about your mindset, how you go into it, how you set up that safe space and what you use it for.
So important to have the focus and the intention around what are we in service of. We’re trying to understand how we can better work to support or solve something that feels challenging or give some solution for. Like, if we’re off-track, we can say: Oh, I’m starting to feel like or I’m not feeling like we’re trying to get to a place of solution here, and we can redirect. Then also, what you’re saying is the safety of non-judgement zone of just really being curious and offering opportunity to be vulnerable. Those are so critical components.
But it’s the hardest components.
“None of us like being vulnerable, for some reason, especially not with the people we love the most. Which is weird if you think about it, but it is unfortunately the truth of the world we live in.”
Yeah. Well, do you want to just, because I mentioned it, the 5-4-3-2-1, do you want to just briefly?
So for me, there are many techniques that I use. But the 5-4-3-2-1, I will again preface with, this does not help for me at all during a panic attack. When I’m in a panic attack, then it’s all hands on deck and we’re just getting through it. When I am literally pre-panic attack, I need help with this. It doesn’t help if I try and do it myself. I need somebody to coach me through it, which is that conversation I had with my husband before: how can you help me when we’re in crisis mode, can you try this? He literally sits in front of me and he shows me his hand, and he coaches me to breathe in for the count of one, stop, breathe out and trace my finger, breathe in, stop, breathe out, trace my finger down. Once I’ve been able to do that, he will do it again. But then he will do it slower and he will start asking me questions like, do you see the lines on my hand? Can you describe something unique about my thumb?
So it completely takes my mind off what is going on, because I’m so focused on the tiny details he’s drawing my mind back to. But again, I need him to be able to coach me through that. Because I’m so much in my own mind, if I’m trying to do it for myself, it’s just a jumble and a mess. But if somebody’s coaching me through it, and I’m maybe losing track somewhere and he can say: Okay, that’s all right, let’s just start from the beginning. It really, really helps.
Wow, thank you for explaining that. I know you’re going to share with us just the plethora and the comprehensive array of what you put together. What else would you want us to know as we talk about the dynamics of relationship? Is there anything else that you feel like will be helpful?
Yeah. I think a key part of that is if you’re in a relationship where you have kids, that was a very hard one for me to broach. Because my initial take on that was, I’m just going to hide it from her so she would never have to know about this, which made it a lot worse. Because of course, I never ever tried to have a panic attack in front of her, but it has happened. Then my panic attack, it’s so much worse, because now I know she has seen me and I just realized the amount of anxiety that was causing her. Because she had so many questions about it and thoughts about it, and she was starting to have issues sleeping because there was so much uncertainty around what’s wrong with mommy. So again, going back to the good foundations of communication you have with your partner, during which times you can then also discuss how are we going to deal with this in terms of our kids? What are we going to say? How are we going to explain it? What is our action plan going to be when she’s been a part of it? So that we’re all on the same page as to how we deal with that.
Then, just be as honest as is appropriate for their age. Because kids know so much more and pick up so much more than we think. So for me, for example, my daughter went through this phase where she was scared of the monster in the closet, and then it became silly to be scared of the monster in the closet because it doesn’t really exist. So I just used that analogy and I told her that when this happens to mommy, my mind thinks that there is a monster in the closet. She would laugh and say, but there is no such thing. Then I explained to her: Yes, but my mind doesn’t know that. My mind thinks it’s real, and then I don’t know what to do to get out of that. That seemed to be a very relatable way of explaining that to her, and it seemed to work for us.
Thank you for sharing that, and it’s so true. This is what they talk about in neuroscience and neuropsychology around naming to tame. When we can name a difficult emotion, we’re able to reduce the intensity of it. In relationship, it also allows for a little bit more safety often. That I’m feeling something, and from a neuroception, I’m picking up on something is off. But I don’t know and nobody is talking about it, and I don’t know what to do with that. Versus something is off, and mommy is telling me and naming it. She’s got it. It still feels a little wobbly maybe. But she’s got it. She’s going to help explain it and guide and organize, and we have a way of dealing with it. That’s a very different experience to go through as a loved one in relationship, when somebody is acknowledging it, naming it, and there’s some organization around how to deal with it, rather than it being this unnamed thing.
Yeah, and whatever story they make up in their mind to explain that to themselves, it makes that story even bigger or worse if they have this free reign of wondering what is happening, as opposed to just understanding as much as they can in that moment what is happening.
Yeah, wonderful. Well, and the questions that your team sent, and perhaps maybe you sent, you had mentioned there was a mistake you had made, or your biggest mistake in regards to this, and you also had talked about ways to really find hope. Would you like to speak to either one or both?
Yeah, honestly, I can’t remember the mistake because I’ve made so many. So there are some that pop out at me. But I think one was definitely not speaking to my daughter about it when I should have. The second was being in this self-help phase. This is where the perfectionist comes out when you also have anxiety maybe. It’s like: Okay, I can fix this. I’m just going to read all the books. I’m going to do all the meditation. I’m going to fix this. Because this person was where I am now, they have the golden ticket cure to never have a panic attack again, they’re gonna show me exactly what to do.
Then I would have a relapse, and I would be devastated. I would be so filled with shame, and now you’re also going through everything from the come down from the panic attack. So the migraine, the depression, the fatigue, plus the guilt. Plus, the wondering: what did you do wrong again, and how did you misinterpret all of these guidelines that you could follow? It just made my recovery process so much worse. That’s a big part of what I advocate for is, we are all different. No one can stand on a stage and tell you that whatever has worked for them is going to be your miracle cure, because you don’t know, and that’s okay. You just need to find whatever lucky packet works for you and stick with it.
“Nobody can tell you how to make it better, unfortunately. That’s the beauty and the pain of it both, because you don’t know. But once you find your golden recipe, it works for you.”
One thing that got me through that was actually, the last time when I came down from that after this whole self-help thing, and my husband actually spoke to me and he said to me: You know what, when this happens again, all we’re going to do is we’re going to say it was just a bad day. Nothing more or else to it, it was just a bad day. You went from having a bad day every day, to a bad day once a month, to a bad day once every three months. There’s nothing to investigate, there’s nothing to it. It was just a bad day. That helped me a lot. That made the shift for me.
So I would just say, be careful of that. Because we tend to always seek the answers somewhere else, especially when you’re so traumatized and when you’re so unwilling to accept your diagnosis and you’re so hurt and you’re struggling so much, you’re just looking for solutions to be normal again. And whatever it is, whatever they tell you that you can do, you’re going to try it, and for me, it ended up making me so much worse. Because I didn’t have the ability to go into it objectively. My way of going into it was: I don’t just need to do it, I need to do it perfectly. I need to do it right. I need to follow all the rules step-by-step. I think if you’re wired like me, that may also be how you approach it.
I’ve definitely heard the sentiment of just: I want to be fixed. I feel damaged and I just want to fix it and be better, and then I’m available to live my life. That could be a real damaging recipe, I think, if we feel like we’re not okay and the guilt and all the things. Just as I’m hearing you describe bigger picture, the thing I’m feeling is that perhaps don’t go it alone. Help your loved ones be able to connect with you on some level, depending. Then the second is, part of the journey is really showing up for self and really being able to help the internal part that’s not okay and the things that work, and that attunement to inner self. Like, how beautiful to come on the other side of that feeling a little bit more coherent, a little bit more internally intact, balanced.
I will say that since diagnosis, I’ve been on this journey for seven years, and I’m always learning, I’m always growing. I literally just had a relapse about a month ago. It was a pretty bad one, and it took me a while to come back from that. But it was just a bad day, and I’m doing everything I can do to get back into a healthy space, and that’s okay. If you are wired like me, and if this is the life that you’ve been blessed with and the hidden gifts that you’ve received, it comes with challenges, and those are never going to go away. Just like life, we are never going to have just smooth sailing. So if we can just be in a space where we can, even if it’s in an uncomfortable agreement with it, be in some kind of an agreement with it, it makes the journey a little easier.
I know, I’m feeling that. That we’re stronger when we have the support, as you said, and the bonds. And also, we have ourselves. It might be hard, but there’s some contact with self. This is beautiful, thank you. So as far as hope, are you speaking to it or is there more you want to say? Because this is all really encouraging.
Oh, thank you. I think that’s about it. Because we all found hope in our own ways, whatever that may look like.
“I think the key is just not to focus on being fixed or being normal. Again, just focus on being the best you in that moment. That may not look the same from last month to now or yesterday to tomorrow, and that’s okay.”
Thank you, Jeanne. Well, tell us about what you have to offer. There’s just such a wealth of support you give.
Thank you. So one of my biggest external symptoms of anxiety, and there are many, is sensitive skin. Because it affects your hormones, it affects your nerve ending. So we created the FIGGI Beauty line, which looks after the external symptoms of anxiety, married with the Anxious Calm, which is an online course offering that looks at the internal things that you suffer with in terms of anxiety. The Anxious Calm is really for a patient by a patient. Like, what do you do after you leave the therapist’s office? Therapy is so necessary. It’s been so helpful on my journey, and I don’t think you can go at this journey without it. But you are still the one waking up at 2:00 AM alone wondering why you’re having night terrors and everybody in the whole world around you is soundly asleep. You are the one that freaks out in the mall. So what do you do in those moments? How do you help yourself? How do you just get into a space where you are in a comfortable, solid recovery phase, knowing that this is part of your wiring and mishaps are going to happen? How do you just navigate that? I can’t remember now, but I think we almost have a year’s worth of courses on there, and I wrote all of them myself based on my own experiences. I present all of them, and I’m very, very involved in the community.
Wow, wonderful! So these are really exercises, resources, tips, recommendations, tools people can work with to make it actionable, to experiment with, as you were describing in our talk here, and to work with.
Yeah. For me, I felt like there was this higher level of trying to help me. Things like, you should meditate, you have to try to eat a more balanced diet. But on the practical level, it’s like: I cannot sit still and meditate, this is causing me so much more stress at this moment. So how did I work around that? What kind of meditations did I teach myself to do actively while I’m moving around, while I’m awake, while I’m aware? Just all of these hacks, I guess, I found to help me work around not being able to do it, and then eventually getting to a space where I could do it.
Lovely. Where can people find your skincare line and also these courses?
You can just go to FIGGIBeauty.com and everything is on there. It links you to the Anxious Calm, it links you to the skincare, the community, everything.
Lovely, wonderful! I’ll make sure to have those links on today’s show notes. Thank you so much for being with us and sharing so openly.
Thank you so much for having me. I’m so, so blessed to be able to be here.
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The post ERP 456: How to Navigate Relationship – When a Partner Has Anxiety – An Interview with Jeanne Retief appeared first on Jessica Higgins.
Have you ever found yourself in the heat of an argument, only to later regret words spoken in anger? Or perhaps you have felt a simmering resentment beneath the surface, unable to express it constructively.
Anger can be like a storm, sudden and tumultuous. It’s a potent emotion that, when mismanaged, can wreak havoc on even the most loving relationships. Anger is often seen as the villain, but beneath it lies a complex tapestry of emotions that, when understood, can lead to healthier and more fulfilling relationships.
In this episode, we delve into strategies for managing anger and improving communication in relationships. You’ll learn how to identify the warning signs of anger, take constructive time-outs, and engage in active listening to better understand your partner’s perspective. Additionally, we explore the underlying emotions that often fuel anger and discuss how awareness and empathy can help break the cycle of conflict. By understanding and addressing these deeper feelings, you can foster a more harmonious and supportive relationship.
Alastair Duhs is an anger management expert. Over the last 30 years, he has taught over 15,000 men and women how to control their anger. He is the founder of The Complete Anger Management System, a transformative coaching program that helps people control their anger in as little as 30 days. Alastair is the host of the Anger Secrets podcast, where he shares insights and strategies for effective anger management.
In this episode
07:43 Understanding the root of anger in relationships.
11:39 Developing effective communication strategies.
13:44 Gender differences in expressing emotions.
16:55 Exploring different forms of abuse.
22:35 The impact of emotional immaturity and resentment.
27:43 Recognizing and addressing avoidance in conflicts.
33:34 Short-term strategies for managing anger.
38:51 Long-term strategies for managing anger.
40:18 The role of stress management in healthy relationships.
42:59 Seeking help and the challenges involved.
46:54 Witnessing change through group therapy sessions.
Your Check List of Actions to Take
- Pay attention to early indicators of anger, such as a raised voice or a fast heartbeat, and take action to manage these before they escalate.
- Engage fully with your partner by asking clarifying questions and reflecting back what you hear to ensure you understand their perspective.
- If an argument becomes unproductive, agree to take a brief break to cool down and revisit the conversation with a clearer mindset.
- Communicate feelings of hurt, disappointment, or betrayal to address the root causes of anger, rather than just the superficial symptoms.
- Incorporate basic stress-relief practices like deep breathing or progressive muscle relaxation to help manage emotional responses.
- Work on understanding your partner’s experiences and feelings by putting yourself in their shoes and acknowledging their emotions.
- Regularly check in with your partner to discuss any lingering feelings, preventing small issues from growing into significant resentment.
- If anger management continues to be challenging, consider joining an anger management program or seeking counseling to get guided support.
Mentioned
Breaking The Anger Cycle (free training) (link)
ERP 018: How to Deal With Feelings of Anger in Relationship
ERP 450: How to Develop a Healthy Relationship with the Emotion of Anger — An Interview with Bronwyn Schweigerdt
The 31-Day Kindness Challenge (free guide) (pdf)
Connect with *Alastair Duhs*
Websites: angersecrets.com
Podcast: angersecrets.com/podcast
Connect with Dr. Jessica Higgins
Facebook: facebook.com/EmpoweredRelationship
Instagram: instagram.com/drjessicahiggins
Podcast: drjessicahiggins.com/podcasts/
Pinterest: pinterest.com/EmpowerRelation
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/drjessicahiggins
Twitter: @DrJessHiggins
Website: drjessicahiggins.com
Email: jessica@drjessicahiggins.com
About this Episode
Alistair, thank you for joining us. I’m really excited to have a conversation with you.
Great! I’m very excited as well.
Yeah. There’s been a few episodes where we’ve covered the topic of anger, and I would love to hear more about where you’re coming from here. I do think this is something that’s a particular focus of yours, so it’s not just a subset, it’s something that you really devote a lot of attention to.
Before we get started in the topic, what would you like people to know about you, where you’re coming from, and also how you got interested in this topic, if you’re willing to share?
Yeah, absolutely. It’s a great question. So my name is Alistair Duhs. I’ve been an anger management and relationship counselor for about 30 years. So I feel like I’ve been doing this most of my life, if I’m honest. The way I got started was, I was about 21 or 22 years old, just graduated from university. I did a degree in quantum physics at the time, so I was doing a lot of maths and physics. I just felt like I wanted to know more about people. I wanted to interact more with people rather than numbers and formulas and things like that. So basically, I decided to train to be a counselor, which is what I did part-time. As part of that counseling training, I started running anger management groups for men and just found that these groups were amazing, that they had a really powerful impact on the men in the groups, that these men were making huge changes in their lives. So gradually, I just continued the counseling training, ran more and more men’s groups. I guess anger management became my focus quite quickly after that.
Wonderful! Did you use curriculum that was given to you?
Yeah, this was in the old days, like early 1990s I think it was. But there was a set curriculum, so there was quite a long, I think, a 26-week program at that stage. So the guys in these groups would come into these programs and we’d deliver the curriculum. I guess over time, after running these groups many, many, many times, I feel like I had a good feeling for what worked for these men and what didn’t work. So gradually, over time, I’ve developed my own approach based on that. But we were definitely using a set program back then.
Yes, and with experience and really having the opportunity to see what’s really creating change, to be able to amend it and actually customize it and formulate your own curriculum, and it evolves. I think we’re always growing and evolving. To that point, do you see women as well, in working with anger?
Yeah, absolutely. So I also work a lot with couples. Often, in couples, both people have some anger issues, maybe different for each person. But for me, the basic anger management tools are reasonably the same for both men and women. So the tools are pretty simple, the concepts behind them are pretty understandable, but they work for both genders.
All right, I want to dive into this topic. I can feel my curiosity already budding. Tell us, when you think about anger issues, how would you even define that? Because some people would really say any anger is uncomfortable. I mean, I am sure family has a component around culture, around how someone was raised, and then also so many components around how somebody relates their relationship with anger. I see anger as a human emotion, often a secondary emotion, that there’s often something underneath that. Then also, how we deal with it can be constructive or destructive. Yet, it can be often really a rattling experience to be confronted with one’s own anger or witnessing it in the other. So tell us, when you see anger issues, how do you define that?
Yeah, there’s a lot in that statement, and understanding basic terms is actually really important. I guess, with people I work with, it’s really important to have some understanding of what anger is. As you’ve said, I just define it as a human emotion. It’s an emotion like happiness or sadness or fear or shame or powerlessness or any other feeling.
“Pretty much everyone experiences feelings of anger, especially in relationships. It’s how we respond to anger that makes the difference. It’s important to distinguish anger, which is a feeling, from the action people take when they’re angry.”
I guess problematic actions, especially in relationships, may end up in abusive violence to some degree. So distinguishing between the feeling and the action is really important when it comes to anger management issues.
Yes. So when you do draw this distinction or help people have a distinction, because I often think of this on a continuum, how would you help people make that distinction?
I have a test that I’ve used for many, many years. It’s not always an exact test, but it gives people an idea, I think. So if I’m talking about abuse with people, it’s important to understand there’s a range of types of abuse, especially in relationships. Often, I’ll talk about verbal abuse, emotional abuse, psychological abuse, sexual abuse, or physical abuse. So I might talk about these different types of abuse to people. But that doesn’t really say if an action is abusive or not. In a relationship, for instance, if you’re getting into an argument, you might be raising your voice, you might be using certain language that you might use when you’re getting angry, or you might be taking certain actions. It’s important to have some understanding if those actions are abusive or not. The test I use is very simple. I basically ask people three questions.
For me, an action is likely to be abusive if it hurts someone else, physically or emotionally. If it leads to hurt in your partner, emotional or physical hurt, it’s likely to be abusive. If it causes them fear, same thing. If you’re acting in a way that scares your partner. So if by raising your voice, you’re scaring or intimidating your partner or using particular body language, it’s likely to be abusive. Or if it serves to control your partner. If he or she is afraid to do what he or she would usually do in those circumstances, it’s probably abuse. With clients, I’ll go through that in some detail.
“If it hurts someone, causes them fear, or controls someone, in my opinion, an action is likely to be abusive.”
Well, thank you for just spelling that out really clearly. I can recognize that different people might experience fear or hurt respective to their own system, that what might feel scary or hurtful to one might not be to another. Do you find that this varies? Tell me more.
Yes, that’s where it becomes interesting I guess. Because I might act in a certain way in one relationship, or I might act in that same way at work, and no one might feel scared or hurt by it. I might swear, for instance. I might swear at work, not that I do, but I might be in a work environment where swearing is common. I might come home and swear too, and my partner or children may be completely unaffected by it, or they might be scared or hurt by it. For me, it’s not the action that determines if something is abusive or not, it’s the effect on other people. This is where it’s really important to have discussions in relationships about how do my actions affect my partner or potentially my children. So yeah, abuse is a very gray area, but for me, it is determined a lot by the impact on the other person. Not by what I do, but how it affects other people.
I can feel the importance of this. So often, partners might be in a defensive state, and if you’re talking about the safety of the relating and the bond, it’s really about how we’re caring for each other and the climate of that relationship. It’s not about right or wrong. We could survey a million people and try to get evidence to defend why what we’re doing is okay, when really, there’s variation here.
Absolutely. Also, people’s histories make a big difference. If my partner has been raised in a home where there’s been a lot of anger or violence, he or she, or she, in my case, she may not be particularly impacted by me raising my voice because she has experienced this a lot, or she may be extremely impacted by it for the same reason. So it’s the same message I’m giving people.
“Don’t look at your actions to determine if they’re abusive or not, but look at the impact on your partner. That’s kind of a mind shift for some people anyway.”
Thank you. Alistair, it occurs to me that often the association with anger is the external expression of anger, but there’s also the ways in which it’s more internalized or how it might be passive-aggressive anger. Do you want to speak about that? Because I remember interviewing someone, for different reasons, but he was using the term emotional immaturity interchangeably with emotional abuse. That basically, when someone is denying or dismissing or deflecting or just distancing, that can be a form of abuse. That’s not necessarily the outwardly, like slamming or yelling or throwing things, but it can be a lack of engagement or a neglect that can also feel abusive, and people can be a little stymie and angry in that way too.
I guess the example that comes to my mind is, if I’m using silent treatments in my relationship, for instance, or if I’m deliberately disconnecting from my partner because I know that she will feel bad about that and maybe try to repair the relationship, or maybe that it’ll cause her even more worry or fear because she might not know how I might react after that. Again, that’s emotional abuse for me. So if I’m just being quiet and there’s no impact on my partner or she’s not scared or controlled by it, I think that’s kind of fine. But a lot of people will use those more subtle emotional abuse of tactics to get an outcome they want. So it falls into the realm of trying to control your partner.
Yeah. I will say, there’s a large amount of people that are not even conscious of this. They’re more avoiding conflict and don’t know how to feel confident engaging. So thus it’s not even intending to control or hurt, but it’s just like: Ah, I don’t know what to do, so thus I don’t engage. How do you see resentment in the continuum of anger? Because I often see resentment can be very related to maybe unresolved anger. But tell me what you think.
I guess, for me, resentment sounds like it’s a longer term emotion. So it’s something which is building up over time. I guess it’s after an argument that resentment might start to come out. If there is that background level of resentment, it’s really important to be aware of that. So that if you are getting into an argument later on, you don’t just explode partially because of that resentment. I guess that’s what I’d think about resentment. You need to be aware of anything to change it. Being aware of that resentment is important.
Yeah. Well, related to my comment that I mentioned around maybe even avoiding conflict on the outside could look avoidant or neglectful, but really, it’s out of fear. One of the things I’ve really appreciated about anger management is the recognition of honoring emotion. That perhaps it’s the tendency to ignore one’s feelings, and then this idea of accumulation and it reaches a certain threshold and then there’s an outburst. But talk to us a little bit about what people typically conceive about anger management, and do you think what I just stated is a part of anger management? Help us from your management.
I guess what it made me think about was, if we’re talking about anger management in relationships, we’re usually talking about arguments. So the anger often comes out in arguments. So a couple will be arguing ,one or both people are likely to be getting more and more angry, and then there might be an event at the end of that. So some sort of verbal outburst, or sometimes physical action. That’s of course extremely problematic. Behind that anger, a bit like you’ve mentioned, there will be the other feelings, like resentment or hurt or disappointment from previous times in the relationship.
So what I say to a lot of clients, and I think this helps, is that anger never helps, and what I mean by that is excessive anger. Acting out of anger, at least in relationships, pretty much never gets a good outcome. You might get what you want short-term, if you’re in the argument by having an outburst and walking out. But it’s not a good long-term strategy. While anger is an emotion, and people are allowed to feel angry, I would encourage people, you have to be aware of that anger to change it, like I’ve said before. But there will be other feelings, like you’ve mentioned, underneath that anger too. So learning to communicate those other feelings is actually much more effective, I think, to create a better relationship. Being aware that anger is a feeling, but it’s not often helpful, I think that again is helpful for many people to think about.
Do you have an example? I mean, I can think of many, but this might be helpful to give people a context.
I’ll think of almost an opposite example, which I think makes the same point. I was seeing a man a couple of days ago, and I’ve seen him a few times, and he’s a very insightful, compassionate man. He’s very attuned to his partner most of the time. But he has had an anger issue. He has struggled with expressing his anger for quite some time. He’s got a lot of things going on in his life, including a lot of chronic pain, which doesn’t help him deal with anger much. But he said to me that he was getting into this argument with his wife, and he just started to think, and this is really simple, but he became a bit more aware of his anger and he just started to think this is going sideways. That was his words he used, which is the same as: this isn’t going to help. By recognizing the argument wasn’t heading in a useful direction, he actually stopped saying what he was saying. I think he took a short timeout, which is a pretty common strategy, and then he came back, and his wife and him had this much more deeper conversation about what was going on for them both. It didn’t escalate, and he ended up with a much more understanding of her perspective on the issue, and also why it was important to her. So that’s extremely simple.
“Just to recognize that you are getting angry, to think this isn’t leading in a good direction, and to change that direction. Sounds simple, but it has really powerful effects, on couples especially.”
Very powerful. When I’m listening to you, I’m also recognizing that based on whether or not it’s family, previous experiences, some people have a very difficult time approaching a concern in a more calm, regulated manner. It’s almost as if I’m going to do my very best to preserve, not rock the boat, but then it gets so big or it gets so compelling that I can’t not express the anger. But then it’s like, when things are a little calmer, it’s almost terrifying to approach. Do you find that? Because it seems as though many people struggle to feel safe bringing up an issue, even if there has been a lot of conflict.
Yeah. I guess my main thought, and again, I don’t know how this sounds really, but communication in relationships is vital. To have a healthy process and practice of being able to communicate deeper issues effectively is really important to have a successful long-term relationship. But like you’ve mentioned, it’s not easy. If stuff is building up, it’s not easy to talk about this with your partner, particularly if there has been a history of arguments in your relationship. What I do with that, and I don’t what you’d do with that, I’d be interested as well. But I think it’s really important to have a regular practice of communication. I don’t think it’s possible to talk about the complex deep issues unless you’re talking about things regularly with your partner. So to practice the communication skills, things like active listening, the more you practice, the better couples get at it. If couples are quite connected, if they’re talking about small issues regularly, they’re much more likely to be able to talk about the big issues. But you need to be able to talk about the small stuff before you talk about the big stuff.
Absolutely, it gives people the experience to work with. It’s hard to go, on a scale from 1 to 10, a 9, when there’s no experience that it’s going to go well or that it’s okay to bring something up. Now, in your years and years of working with people through anger management programs, was this part of the curriculum, is bringing up or raising a concern and advocating?
Yeah, absolutely. Because I think a lot of people think in similar ways to what you’ve just described. They sort of think, well, how do I communicate about stuff if I can’t get angry? But you can’t communicate about things effectively if you are getting angry. Managing the anger in the relationship is vital. So having those anger management skills, which are not too difficult to learn, but also those communication skills, is absolutely vital. So you can’t just sit on your issues forever, you have to be able to talk about them.
Did you find that your participants were willing to take that emotional risk?
I guess there’s a mix of answers to that. I mean, I’ve worked more with men than women, and I think men struggle more than women in terms of articulating emotions, and also being compassionate to the other person and empathetic. Part of a good conversation is trying to understand where your partner is coming from. If you just want to get your point of view across, it’s not going to lead to a very good conversation. Because if your partner has a different point of view, then you’ve got a problem. For me, the first step in communication is learning to listen well. Teaching men and women I work with some really simple but effective listening skills, such as asking questions. I’ve definitely worked with men, and I don’t know why it’s men more than women, but men who really struggle to ask any questions to their partners. I’m not sure whether it’s a skill deficit or just a lack of curiosity. But once these men start to learn to ask questions like, how did that make you feel, what happened next, some really basic active listening questions, it can really change the conversation. So yeah, all those communication skills are important.
I have a deep regard for men’s development, and I actually work with quite a few men. I have probably equal in my practice, beyond working with just couples. I remember coming across some neuropsychology that really stated: men and women have the same capacity for empathy, it’s just the verbalizing that’s the difference. It makes sense evolutionarily and then culturally. I think there’s a lot of studies that will show parents perhaps still talk to their daughters a little bit more about emotions than, if we’re going to make this binary gender, men, or boys and girls, or men and women. But I think often there’s just a little more playing time, a little bit more experience, and then the bonding. Physicality is usually a lot more of the bonding, stereotypically, with men. With women, it’s a lot more of interacting and relational skills.
So I’m really touched that the men that you’ve worked with really are willing to engage and are able to see. It’s like an addendum to their current way of being or skillset. Often, it feels as though when their partner is presenting them with a concern, it’s like: Oh, they want my help, and I want to fix her, I want to offer a solution. Or they’re not paying attention to the way I feel, or I just feel slighted. Like, well, what about me? I’m human, I have feelings too. But it’s maybe not as visible, thus how do I raise my hand that I feel vulnerable or I have insecurities too? It can be a challenge to negotiate all of this, for sure.
Yeah, it’s part of the relationship dance. If relationships were easy, neither of us would probably have jobs. Practicing these skills is really important. Especially men, I think we generally aren’t socialized to pay attention to our feelings as much as women are. Often, we’re told to be tough and be strong and harden up and all that kind of stuff. Fully agree with you that men do have these feelings. The feelings are there, but in terms of accessing them and also being, like I said before, empathic towards our partner, that’s crucial. To understand that if our partner raises an issue, it’s not necessarily a criticism of us, it’s more reflection of how she’s feeling. To better engage on that level is important.
Oh my gosh, I don’t know if you’ve had this experience, there’s been times in session where I am asking them to slow down. It’s like, can you tell me what you see in your partner? It’s very much there, perhaps it’s like stating the obvious. Like, I see you’re hurting, and I care. It’s like, often, I need to say that, or that’s useful to say? I’m like, yes, precisely. To slow down and just make a little bit more explicit what is going on, if you’re my person. I care you’re that hurting, I hurt that you hurt, and I want to help. But that’s not always verbalized, even though it’s there.
Yeah, absolutely. It’s an exercise I’ve been doing in the anger management groups I run for a long, long time. It’s really interesting, because there’s this idea that men don’t have feelings, or if they have feelings, it’s anger. But there’s an exercise, we do a bit of preamble to this. But basically, we asked men in the groups to think of a time they felt powerless or afraid. It can be a difficult memory for them to access, so we put some safety boundaries around the exercise. But then we asked them to describe how they felt in that situation, apart from powerless and afraid. We always get a huge range of feelings. So men describe feeling small, they describe feeling embarrassed, ashamed, powerless, angry, depressed, a whole range of feelings. So it really tells me that the feelings are there, but it’s just that gap between the head and the heart to some degree. Helping men access the other feelings apart from anger.
Or that it’s even cared about or that there’s value in it. I think probably, historically, it hasn’t been highly emphasized or nurtured.
Yeah, absolutely.
Well, I know you distill and have, as you might say, three secrets to anger management. What would you like us to know here, as far as where you’re offering?
Maybe should I just run through the secrets quickly? So again, I think these are fairly simple and straightforward, but I’m hoping they’re useful. For me, I always say the first secret is that anger doesn’t help. So we’ve talked about that a bit. Particularly in relationships, getting angry, expressing anger is not a great relationship strategy, and most people seem to understand that.
The second secret is that, for me, the key to anger management is awareness. I mentioned this briefly, but you can’t change anything you’re not aware of. So if you’re in an argument and you’re starting to get heated, you’re starting to feel frustrated or tense or annoyed or stressed or potentially angry, and of course you might be arguing with your partner at the same time, you can’t change how you are responding unless you are aware that you are feeling angry. So there’s some pretty simple tools to help people get that awareness, and like anything else, it takes practice to use these tools. But if you are able to recognize you’re getting angry, the sooner you recognize that, the easier it is to make different choices about how you’re responding. For me, secret two is awareness.
Secret three is that just you create your anger. A lot of people think that other people make them angry, so it might be something their partner says, or if they’re on the roads, it might be how another driver is driving, for instance. They will think that it’s actually that person’s actions that are making them angry.
“In reality, at least in my belief system, it’s our thoughts that make us angry. So it’s how we think about situations. It’s how we think about why our partner said what she did, or why this driver did what he or she did. It’s our thoughts that make us angry.”
So therefore, if you can change your thoughts in these situations.
Maybe just a really quick example. But if my partner is upset at me, and maybe she’s criticizing me for something that I haven’t done, if I think she’s being unreasonable and unfair, I might get angry in response. But if I think she’s feeling hurt or upset, or maybe there’s some truth in what she’s saying, I’m likely to respond in a much more calm way. It’s not my partner’s actions that are making me angry, it’s my thinking about her actions.
Thank you. I mean, the first point is really helpful. I’m sure you’ve come across this, where in a disagreement, that there can be the temperature check around, am I trying to be right here or righteous or something like that? Or am I actually looking towards a deeper understanding? I remember, and sometimes still, I may have to ask myself that question. Less now than when I was younger. It was so useful, because so often, I was like: Oh, I am wanting to be right, or I am feeling this charge, whatever the charge is, and the righteousness around it. I mean, so closely, just the anger and the need to be right. Would you agree?
100%, I’d agree. I think it’s very hard to argue without trying to be right. Not only that, when you’re arguing, you’re trying to prove you’re right. It’s one thing to think you’re right, it’s another thing to try to prove you’re right. But that’s how arguments go, that both people are trying to prove they’re right. Usually things escalate when that is going on. So I guess my main question to people is, is that useful? Is that trying to be right useful or not? Most of the times not. So what would be a more useful approach? I think it’s exactly what you’ve said, it’s to try to understand your partner. De-escalate the situation. You might take a short break, or maybe you won’t. But try to de-escalate the situation, and then maybe come back and talk about really what’s going on for you both. I think that’s always more useful.
I mean, really what we’re also up against is the nervous system and that reaction, the sympathetic nervous system response of fight or flight. So often, to your second point, we might be reacting and angry and not even know why, and that often doesn’t lead to anything productive, to your first point.
Yeah, absolutely. So awareness of that is how it starts. So awareness of if we’re getting into that fight-flight response, or we’re getting adrenalized, or we’re trying to prove ourselves too much, just awareness of that happening. Then obviously, you need to change it, but that takes a bit of time and practice. Fundamentally, you may also need to look at what’s going on underneath the surface for yourself? Like, how important is being right to you, why is that important? Maybe you’ve grown up in a house where you’ve had to argue your point of view all the time, or something like that. And what are other ways to respond? So thinking about all those questions. But like anything else, changing habits or changing patterns does take time and practice, but it is worth the energy. So it will lead to a much better relationship than one with anger and arguments and stuff like that.
And a discipline. It’s almost a commitment to: I’m going to relate to my anger differently, I’m going to have some discipline and not just react. While it might feel like a relief valve in the moment to let out the hot air, so to speak, but to your point about it not being productive. I will say, on the receiving end, if I see anger demonstrated visibly clearly and intensely, I will feel the rattle of that, and if it’s not named or if it’s not owned, I’m likely going to be in question around: what did I do, what’s happening? Trying to get my bearings, and it doesn’t feel very grounded or safe or regulated.
Yeah, and that’s where the walking eggshells concept comes from. So over time, if that happens regularly, or even sporadically in a relationship, the person on the receiving end of that anger will become extremely self-conscious and scared and not really knowing what’s going on. The same with children. Children who witness or are exposed to this level of anger, it really affects them too.
“A huge motivation for a lot of people to change is when they start to notice their children are being affected, they don’t want maybe the cycle they’ve been exposed to, to continue on to the children.”
I guess if someone has an anger issue, for me, the message is that it is absolutely worth seeking help. Also, I don’t think it’s as hard as people think to change. So reaching out is often the hardest step.
For someone who’s listening, that perhaps their partner does engage in a lot of display of anger and isn’t willing to acknowledge their anger and/or get support. I mean, a client comes to mind, and the child was saying: Daddy has got big feelings. Like, he’s able to identify, and he’s trying to do his best, but he’s still not in a place where he is seeking help. Then if we compound this with any type of substance abuse or substance use of alcohol or various, it makes that even more complicated. So what would one do if they’re up against a partner that’s not maybe building that awareness or that practice?
Yeah, that’s a super hard question, I think. Because I think a lot of people are in that situation. Again, I don’t know how this sounds, but in my experience, maybe men are a bit more reluctant to get help than women are. Men see it as a sign of weakness or something like that. But if your partner has an issue with anger, or particularly abuse, I guess that’s what we’re talking about, it is important to get some help with that. I mean, you can’t change other people, you can just change yourself.
I guess my first suggestion would be to reach out to someone who has some skill in helping people in these areas. Maybe a local counselor, a local maybe domestic violence agency. Because it’s not straightforward to leave a relationship, as I’m sure you know, where there is abuse, and it’s not easy to make other people change. So if a person’s partner isn’t wanting help, there’s not much you can do. So I think just getting advice is probably the first step. I mean, you can maybe have conversations. But if your partner is not reacting well to it, there’s limited options. But get help and support.
Yeah. In your work, were you ever facilitating groups where members were court-mandated in the states, particularly California, if the police are called on any domestic dispute, even if no one wants to press charges? I have to check the current law, but I remember that it was mandated that somebody was going to be required.
Yeah, that happens a lot. I guess, in the groups I’ve been running for a long time, about half the people are in that categories. Some of those people, even though they’re mandated, understand they have an issue, and it almost comes back to understanding that anger doesn’t work. They may feel somewhat justified in responding with anger, but they know the effects of that anger and they’re open to change. For the people who absolutely aren’t, probably the most powerful thing is to be in a group environment. Because in that group environment, you will get other men who are saying actually: I didn’t think I had an issue, but now that I’m making these changes, my relationship is improving. It’s really hard to listen to that and not be influenced by it. Sometimes hearing other people change is a good way to motivate change in that first person.
Thank you for saying that. I think that’s incredibly important and powerful to be in a group environment, especially when we talk about such a social evolutionary component, and to see a modeling of very healthy, strong men or men that are doing their work and interpersonally growing, that there’s safety in that.
Yeah, I’ve got one quick story on that if it’s useful. It really stuck in my mind. It was a long time ago, but it was a man who was mandated to do a 20-week group, and I was running the group, and he came into the group and he said: I’ve been told to be here. I don’t want to be here. I’m not going to say anything, I’m just going to listen. But I really don’t want to be here. We had the group session, and a lot of guys shared about the changes they were making and how things were improving for them. At the end of that first session, he said: Oh, maybe I should be here. He engaged well after that. I mean, also, it’s important not to feel judged. So we didn’t judge him, we didn’t say anything negative. But he could see the benefit of addressing his anger issues. It was pretty obvious.
Wow, that’s a quick 180. I thought you were going to say several sessions later.
No, it was one session. Sometimes the most resistant people make the fastest changes, actually, by the way, too.
Yeah. So you’re still running these groups?
I do.
I applaud you and acknowledge that, that oftentimes, as someone evolves in their career and you have a private practice and you teach on these concepts and be able to support people, that you’re still very much in the work of holding the space for people in a group setting.
It’s really powerful work.
Wonderful. Well, I want to come back to the third secret around thoughts. I recently interviewed someone, and she was speaking about anger as it’s usually an expression of having the experience of been betrayed. I thought it was interesting, and I could really see where she was coming from. Also, it kind of hits up that idea that there’s an underneath threat or pain or trigger. But she was directly tying it to anger and betrayal. So when you talk about thoughts, I absolutely agree with you that our perception is such a huge influencer of what we’re going to be experiencing. I don’t know that that’s really that disputable. You’re also saying there’s legitimate feelings if there’s been an injury or a betrayal, that we would feel. Can you talk a little bit about how those two fit of the thinking?
Oh, the thinking and the anger, or the betrayal and the anger?
Well, a real experience of injury and hurt, and maybe even harm or trauma, and then also the thinking and how that also plays into anger?
Yeah, I’m trying to just think of a relationship context. So I guess, in the arguments in the couples I see, I would say perhaps the arguments are more about being right. They may both have a perspective on a situation, it may be a recent event that’s happened, and they have different perspectives, so they’re arguing about it. I guess always underneath the surface, in those situations, is a history of feelings that have been building up generally, and betrayal might be one of those feelings. They also might be hurt or let down, or there’s a history to that argument. So I would definitely encourage and agree that it’s useful to look at that history. So not just talk about that event, but talk about the feelings underneath the surface that are leading to that response. I think betrayal is part of it, but I think there’s other reasons people feel angry as well.
Yeah. I think I got her definition of betrayal, but maybe it’s just a bit broader than I typically use. So when it comes to guiding people in the discipline of controlling their anger, I love your second point, or even just the first, because it feels like a little bit of like, we’re not going to do this. Second is, let’s build some awareness and slow down. Like, what’s really happening here, and can we identify? I mean, that’s also the neuroscience: when we name an emotion, we can tame it and reduce the intensity of it, and then really work with our narrative around it or storytelling or what we make it mean. There might be an injury and a hurt, but what we make it mean can be maybe more problematic. So how do you help people control? You talked earlier about taking a pause, coming back in a calmer place. Is there anything else you do to help people work with their anger and control their anger?
Yeah, I would break it into a short-term approach to long-term approach, which is similar to what we’ve talked about. But in the short-term, you have to recognize you’re getting angry. So I’ll go through a number of common warning signs with people around getting angry. So really simple things like raising your voice, heart beating faster, body language changing, feeling hot, tone of voice changing. It’s different for different people, and having negative thoughts. So being aware of those warning signs is important. I also use a scale just to calibrate it a little bit. So a scale from 1 to 10 of how tense or stressed someone’s getting. If they’re getting too tense or stressed, they’ll become angry. So recognizing the level of anger before you get too high on that scale, de-escalating yourself by taking some sort of timeout, or changing the self-talk that’s going on in your head. Instead of thinking negative thoughts about your partner, thinking: I need to take a few deep breaths, I need to just think about this, I need to think about the consequences if I keep going. That’s sort of the short-term approach.
The long-term approach is more about changing those thoughts and beliefs that are leading to the anger. If someone criticizes me and I have a tendency to take it personally, changing those thoughts, like thinking: Well, actually maybe it’s not about me, maybe it’s about my partner and how she’s feeling, or maybe I don’t need to take this personally. Changing those thoughts takes a bit of time, but longer term, that’d be more effective. I may have a belief that I need to have the last word in arguments, which will lead to a lot of arguments. So changing that thought of belief will lead to a better outcome. So it’s sort of a short-term approach and a long-term approach.
Thank you. For couples that are contending with a tremendous amount of stress, and it’s almost as if it’s compounded so, so much that maybe every attempt starts to go sideways, do you have any recommendations? Is it really just being in this practice, even if it means doing it over and over and over and over and over and over and over again until there’s a little bit of space? Or what would you recommend?
Yeah, high levels of stress are problematic. So I think it’s hard to have constructive conversations when you’re feeling extremely stressed. So learning some basic techniques to reduce that stress, whatever they may be. But deep breathing, mindfulness, mindfulness exercises, changing how you think about situations. But I think we are able to manage stress to some degree with some practice. But also, again, build the small connections first. So don’t try the most difficult conversation in your life when you’re feeling quite disconnected from your partner. So build that connection, start with easy conversations, manage your own stress as much as possible, and get professional help. If both people are that stressed, maybe some counseling or coaching would probably be the most effective strategy.
Wonderful. Well, is there anything you want to say before we transition to how people can get in touch with your work more? Is there anything else you want to comment that we didn’t get to?
No, I appreciate all the questions. I think for me, again, I don’t know, I say this to a lot of people, but I see quite a lot of couples argue often in front of me, and I often think this is really pointless. From the outside, it’s really obvious. Learning the skills to reduce these arguments is vital. If anger is an issue, especially if it leads to abuse or violence, it’s absolutely vital for it to be addressed, and in my opinion, it doesn’t take as long as people think. So it’s a good problem not to ignore. It’s a good problem to address.
Yes. Wonderful. Well, in your work in helping people address anger, what would you like to direct people towards how they can get in touch with you and what you’re offering?
Well, I have a website, it’s AngerSecrets.com. So there’s a range of free resources on that website. So people can download quizzes, they can go through a free training, and they can also book a call with me if they want to discuss their situation with me personally. I also have a podcast which is called Anger Secrets. So if they want to get a few more tips and advice around how to control anger, they can just listen to my podcast. So those are the two main ways to get ahold of me.
Wonderful. You work with people internationally?
I do. I do a lot of online counseling and courses and stuff like that.
Lovely. I’ll make sure to have the link to your website, as well as your podcast. May I ask, are you leading groups virtually?
Yeah. I run a coaching program that I call the Complete Anger Management System, which is an online course, and part of that is a group coaching program. So it’s an online group coaching program, so people can access that if they want to.
Wonderful, great! I will put all of the links on today’s show notes. Thank you so much for everything you’re sharing and the work you’re doing in the world, and supporting people in this way.
Oh, thank you for talking with me.
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The post ERP 455: 3 Secrets To Anger Management — An Interview With Alastair Duhs appeared first on Jessica Higgins.
Are you truly being yourself, or are you performing roles shaped by survival mechanisms and societal expectations? This thought-provoking question invites us to pause and reflect on our authenticity, encouraging a journey toward discovering our true selves and aligning our actions with our intrinsic purpose, not just external achievements.
In this episode, we explore the journey to discovering one’s authentic self and aligning actions with that inner truth. We delve into the difference between traditional relationships, which may be rooted in outdated values, and spiritual relationships that encourage personal growth and genuine emotional expression. By emphasizing self-talk, introspection, and breaking free from past experiences, this conversation aims to guide listeners toward more fulfilled, purposeful living and deep, meaningful connections.
As a life and relationship coach since 1995, Dr. Ray Doktor has empowered over 6,000 clients to break through limiting beliefs and overcome life’s challenges, significantly enhancing their confidence, self-trust, and happiness. Holding a doctorate in clinical psychology, a master’s in counseling psychology, and a bachelor’s in human behavior, Dr. Ray combines his extensive expertise with advanced techniques like hypnotherapy, EMDR, NLP, and ancient practices such as qigong and meditation to offer a holistic approach to mental well-being.
In this episode
08:27 Discovering authenticity: Aligning actions with true self.
12:15 The impact of survival mechanisms on personal and relational satisfaction.
18:16 Embracing spiritual relationships for sustainable personal growth.
21:01 Healing childhood patterns to enhance relationship dynamics.
23:28 Defining and nurturing a spiritual partnership.
27:47 Balancing masculine and feminine energies within relationships.
31:37 Overcoming gender role limitations in modern relationships.
34:31 Integrating spiritual beliefs into everyday life and relationships.
37:57 The importance of trust and vulnerability in fostering emotional intimacy.
41:23 Techniques for developing deeper connection and self-awareness.
44:19 Moving beyond traditional norms to achieve relational fulfillment.
47:59 Understanding one’s needs and expectations in a relationship.
50:45 Authentic relating games: Tools for self-discovery and emotional growth.
Your Check List of Actions to Take
- Take regular moments to pause and reflect on whether your actions align with your true self or if you’re playing roles influenced by survival mechanisms and cultural expectations.
- Be aware of and address people-pleasing tendencies formed in childhood, understanding they can lead to passive-aggressive behaviors and insincere interactions.
- Practice authentic communication by healing past emotional entanglements, fostering confidence and sincerity in your interactions.
- Shift focus from traditional relationship models to spiritual partnerships that prioritize authenticity, emotional expression, and personal growth.
- Regularly gather feedback from trusted friends to gain insights into your hidden beliefs and areas for personal development.
- Incorporate spiritual beliefs into your daily life to create a harmonious balance between personal growth and relational satisfaction.
- Maintain passion and vitality in relationships by ensuring time for adult play, self-care, and nurturing your individual interests.
- Practice intentional acts of kindness to enhance relational satisfaction and personal well-being, acknowledging the benefits extend to both the giver and receiver.
Mentioned
All It Takes Is One (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
The Seat of the Soul (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
ERP 277: How to Cultivate More ‘Authentic Relating’ in Relationship – An Interview with Sara Ness
The 31-Day Kindness Challenge (free guide) (pdf)
Connect with Dr. Ray Doktor****
Websites: raydoktor.com
Facebook: facebook.com/raydoktor
YouTube: youtube.com/raydoktor
Instagram: instagram.com/drraydoktorcoaching
TikTok: tiktok.com/@raydoktor
Connect with Dr. Jessica Higgins
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Email: jessica@drjessicahiggins.com
About this Episode
Ray, thank you for joining us today.
Thank you very much. I’m excited to be on your podcast.
Yes. I know we’re going to be looking at long-lasting relationships, especially as it relates to holding the spiritual aspect of how that potentially can be a resource, for people that are looking at intimate connecting through a spiritual perspective. Where would you like to start as far as where you’re coming from and what you want people to know about you and how this became a focus, whether or not it’s just helping people in relationship in general, or this specific topic?
So I have been labeled a relationship coach. However, when I work with individuals or couples, it’s always the relationship with ourselves, no matter what is presented to me as the problem. So a person might come to me and they’re looking to fix their marriage, or they’re looking to start dating again. That we’re going to go deeper to understand if there are blocks in the way of achieving those goals. So originally, when I started working with clients, it was probably deeper stuff like PTSD, abuse, and everything else. But in time, I recognized the importance of how a person talks to him or herself. That kind of embarked on this journey of really being interested in working with people to be able to have new connection to themselves.
In fact, when I think about spirituality, I would rather say functional spirituality. Because it’s one thing to say I am a Christian, or I follow this path. But how do you integrate it in your life? And when you approach relationships, are you coming from your heart? Is it holistic? How it does it serve you and others, and how can you contribute to your community? So for me, relationships are deep in my heart. Because if a person is happy, in a relationship or not, if their self-talk is positive, then we’re going to have a more vibrant, happy planet. So for me, I help individuals, I help couples in different stages, to understand themselves and to achieve the goals that they want. I have worked with, believe it or not, over 6,000 clients. I’ve done a lot of sessions. It’s fun for me still, particularly when I hear back like: Oh my God, things are changing. Not much changed out there, but how I feel about myself. Now I’m perceiving my relationships better. Now I’m communicating better with my husband. Now I feel more attractive. That always makes you feel good.
Wonderful. Well, I love that you’re still so, so passionate. As you’re talking, I’m like, I’ve never counted the amount of session hours. That would be interesting for me to do. But just for you to still feel so enlivened and enriched by supporting people in both really knowing who they are, and really giving some support to really looking at what gets in the way of their vitality and their wellbeing, more relationally, psychologically. And then also, what you’re supporting in the way of functional spirituality. It’s interesting, I haven’t really articulated this, so I might fumble through it. But my husband and I are in the middle of a remodel. We had a friend recommend a friend from, I think it was college, longstanding friend, a friend of hers. And he is a contractor, so he was doing flooring and cabinetry.
He is a Seventh Day Adventist. I think his father was a minister. He’s very, very religious and spiritual. But he did seem to have a little bit more universal openness to having dialogue about other philosophies. All this to say, at dinner, we were feeding him and he was staying, and he was talking about the devil in this contrast. It was interesting, my husband and I were talking the next day, he was like: Oh, I really wonder what that was and where he was going with that. One of the things that we were talking about is, I don’t necessarily on this podcast talk about my spiritual perspective, but that when people don’t know who they are or they feel lost in who their essence is, whatever path one follows, that there’s a level of darkness there. I think it also fits with the psychology. You talked about traumas or what might interfere with one’s ability to feel themselves, that interferes. So we were talking about how that could be a version of so-called “the devil.”
So I don’t know if I’m hearing you correctly, that that’s something that you’re skilled at doing, is really helping people look at the things that are interfering with their being.
Well, so if a person is struggling with addiction, or that they’re not doing well financially, or that they just seem to create problems wherever they are. If they were to always focus on their sadness or anger, and not see the results being applied outside of them, then in time, they’re going to burn out or it’s not going to crystallize in their psyche. As an example, if I were to see a personal trainer and I was extremely out of shape, and I could do very little, but I would be happy just to see myself lose 5 pounds, then 10 pounds. So what would make me feel even more excited is that I’m actually able to walk further. I want to see the result. So when I work with individuals as far as developing a better relationship with themselves, it’s really important for them to see those results also with others.
So we can support clients with medication, we can support them with therapy, we can support them with all these things so they have a better sense of self. But for me, it’s all about putting it into action and with that feedback. When we teach the client how to receive feedback in a positive way, such as see the contrast and learn and grow from that, they just keep getting better and better. So when I work with people and try to incorporate what I teach them, it’s not really about my philosophy. It’s whether or not it worked for you. Like, tell me what happened. So all of us, eventually, not all of us, but I would say majority of us get into relationships, and we don’t even know why.
As an example, if a couple comes in and they’re arguing, one of the things I might do, just say they’re bickering, they’re not able to really be in the heart and talk about what’s important. I put them in a container where they put their backs up against each other, and I have them close their eyes and drop into their breath. And I say, I want you to imagine that there’s a bomb, that was the launch, and it’s going to be here in 10 minutes. What would you really want to say to your partner? Typically, it’s: I’m sorry, I love you, please forgive me. Things like that. You’ll see them start to cry often, and it just softens them. It relaxes the nervous system to get to what’s most important. Then from there, we can have a conversation. It’s not the past stories. Because we can’t fix the past. We have to be in a present moment and create from where we are now.
So when I work with people, now that I have these people in a softer space, I might ask, why do you want to be in a relationship? The typical responses are: for companionship, someone to grow old with, someone to have fun with, for sex. For me, yes, those are things I desire also. But they’re really, for me, basic. Those are all basic human needs. We can have a connection with a friend, but we might not have sex with that person. But if a person is surrounded by a lot of loving people, they feel connected and they have a healthy sexuality, they masturbate. They might not have an intimate relationship with someone else, but they’re just really healthy and contained. They can thrive.
So in order for a person to thrive, particularly people who are listening to this who are not in a relationship, are seeking one, and they feel loneliness, it’s this.
“If you can feel comfortable with yourself and you like to date yourself, you are going to be more attractive than the other person out there who doesn’t like to date him or herself.”
It’s more like, most people are very outcome-driven, versus how does this relationship serve my soul? How does it serve my purpose? How does it serve my existence? When we solidify that within ourselves, then whether the relationship goes up and down, we don’t get so desperate. We don’t become codependent. We’re able to recognize that there’s this change, and we’ve got to co-create with our partner, we need to have a conversation. It may last, it may not, or it just might expand. But we have a strong sense of self, and most people don’t have that. They’re just repeating what they witness. They’re just repeating what they’ve been taught. They’re just repeating what they’ve seen in the movies. So when we start developing a more personal relationship with ourselves, which I would say is spiritual relationship with ourselves, then we’re more purposeful in our actions and in our relationships.
Well, so Ray, I’m curious, as you’re describing helping people have results and having things be actionable and that they get to experiment and test out, so that it’s reinforcing. Whatever efforts or whatever you might be encouraging them to do that might be different than their normal tendencies, that is going to be reinforcing. Then there’s also something you’re saying about the ability to know self, to be able to have that inner awareness and attunement that, as you’re saying, we don’t always focus on. We’re so outwardly-focused. So how do you help people go from the result they’re seeking towards this more purpose and passion-driven life or orientation?
I’ll give you a visceral example. I used to facilitate authentic relating games in Los Angeles. Have you participated before?
I’ve interviewed one of the founders, and I understand. I’ve done things similar, but I have not done that actual protocol.
So this would be an experience where people would come to a workshop, and there would be probably a specific topic or outcome. But we would ask questions such as, a great question that I ask when I meet people, if I think I’m gonna be in a relationship with them, whether it’s a intimate relationship or a business relationship, are these three questions. Number one is, what are you like when you’re in your shit? How do I know when you’re in your shit, and how do I support you when you are in your shit? Because it’s really easy, I feel, to love people and like people. But we all have challenges. And we don’t want, when we become those, say, darker versions or our ego, to lean our relationship or break up with our partner, or be the teenage version of ourselves that says something and just completely self-sabotage us. So we want to be really present. So those are some of the questions that I want to know.
But in this container that I was talking about, there’s a moment when a person asks a question such as, if I were to put all your exes in the same room, what would they say are your greatest strengths and your weaknesses? It’s a really powerful question. Because hopefully, the person you’re going to ask these questions with has done some introspection, has done some self-discovery, and they’re able to respond and not take themselves so seriously. Because I have my shadows. My shadow is still impatience, so there’s that. But there’s a moment, and you’ll see often, where the person who is about to respond will take a pause, and they move, and they talk a certain way, and I’ll stop them. I will stop them, and I will say, it’s a surprise move.
I say, look at the person you’re becoming right now, who is that? Are you pretending to do something? Are you wanting this person to like you? Are you acting? Are you performing? Who is that? Just in that pause, they catch their personality, they catch their ego. I say, why are you acting? What would it be like to be authentic? Feel into that. So just in that little experience, there’s this pause through the breath awareness. They notice the personality, which might be formed through survival mechanisms and culture and other things. But then there’s this pause of recognizing: Oh, maybe this isn’t who I am. Then it’s a journey of discovering who am I authentically. Who’s my authentic self? When we get to understanding what our authentic self is, not what we’ve been programmed to be, or what we witness through our culture or parents, then everything you do starts aligning to that. Then that becomes your purpose: to remain as authentic as you can. And to recognize, whether it’s at work or with your partner or anything you’re doing, to show up as best as you can, take personal responsibility, and learn from each challenge.
For me, I don’t believe people show up and their purpose is just to be a famous singer, or their purpose is to be a famous coach. I believe that a purpose is really more connected to your existence, why I am here. Most people, I feel, who are lost, don’t know why. So they cling to relationships, they become codependent, or they jump from job to job trying to find themselves. But they don’t know that, it’s just somehow they’re never satisfied. So until we know who we really are, we might never feel satisfied. We don’t think it’s the right man or the right woman. But what it is, is that there’s this inner disconnect within ourselves. Because we’re still performing, we’re still acting, we’re still in survival mode. We don’t know who we really are.
“If we are having experiences with not knowing who we really are, those experiences are not satisfying.”
Right. This hearkens back to what you were saying about addiction or certain ways that we perhaps numb or manage how we learn to cope in different parts of ourselves. So, to my question, it sounds like you’re saying part of what you make actionable or you give people a challenge around is giving them room and space to access what is authentic, which is, in its very essence, giving them an experience of what is more authentic. That’s going to be directly tied to what they’re meant to do, or their passion or purpose. Is that right?
Well, you probably have experienced a lot of people-pleasers, correct? So people-pleasing is a tendency to make other people happy, or make other people’s happiness your business. But if you were to find out why they do that, often what might come up is that I’m afraid I won’t be liked. Then if things go wrong, I’m afraid they’ll be my fault. They’ll go back to their childhood and say, my mom was never happy, and so I just became a cheerleader to cheer her up. My dad was very mean towards her and so forth. But that people-pleasing behavior is just a way for that person to survive in that home. It was a way to maybe not be blamed or yelled at. It was also to create maybe a little bit of peace.
But what if you’re out there and that’s not who you really are, and you’re doing this? Well, other people are going to feel like it’s kind of awkward. It’s like, stop, enough! Or there’s an agenda. It doesn’t feel sincere. Oftentimes, people-pleasers, if there’s not reciprocation, they get bothered. You see some passive aggressive tendencies come out of them. So that’s an example. So a lot of times when people are dating, and they get triggered, what’s coming out of them when they’re triggered? That’s a good sign that whatever that is, that’s what needs to be healed. That part of yourself might be entangled in your personality, and if you were to heal that, you could become more relaxed. On the spot, you can communicate from a place of confidence by even saying, I just don’t know. You could be in front of a crowd, and there’s a lot of cameras on you and it’s on a big screen, and your armpits are sweating, and you can see that big spot. You might say, I guess I’m really excited, and everyone laughs and cheers you on.
“All of us have insecurities. And when we can become the hero of that experience, we’re more relatable, actually.”
Yes, and it makes visible, the vulnerability, and the real sincerity and the authenticity, which is connecting, which does cultivate this more deeper intimacy, instead of the tendency to protect or hide or cover up or even be unconscious to. So I can see one of the questions that your team had sent was, what’s the difference between a traditional relationship versus a more spiritual one? And I can see exactly how this fits with that question. Before I speak into it, because I have my own words, I would love to hear your words on this.
Well, yes, I’m glad you are drawing that connection. Because a traditional marriage might be based off of values that are not yours anymore. A traditional marriage might be based in gender roles in which you’re more fluid. So how does that work for you? Traditional might be where you don’t talk about the negative things and you just try to focus on the positive. After all, we have a home, the bills are paid, what is there to complain about? The list goes on. I feel that is the foundation to hold the container for the relationship to experience more emotions and authenticity. But I hear this more often with women than men, and in fact I’m working with a couple right now, where he’s a hard worker, but he’s not really present with her.
He’s really good with the kids, but he doesn’t look at her in a sexual passionate way. He’s disconnected, and she is doing the work. She has grown to where she’s not that attracted to him anymore, and we’re working on this. But it’s not like there was anything fundamentally wrong with him. She just wants more.
The typical, I like to say 1950s man, might say: what now, woman? You’ve got everything! I think the feminine or women, they yearn for growth and expansion. If you have your partner figured out every day, I think you’re going to get bored. I think if there’s no arguing sometimes, then maybe one person doesn’t belong there. The only way that we grow is by different ideas and so forth. So spiritual relationship encompasses that space to be authentic, to show emotions, to grow spiritually. Sure, you might have a great sex life. But hey, let’s try maybe tantra and blindfolding each other, or whatever. Like, it’s just more expanded, doesn’t mean it’s better. But I would say, typically, it becomes more sustainable.
Because as a modern relationship coach, we’re not where we were before. Even myself, I want to experience so much more. I’m a parent. But I’m not a typical parent who, say, has allowed myself to get out of shape. I want to drive a van, nothing wrong with a van. I still have a lot of fire in me. So my partner, she’s close to my age also, we’re very active. We notice that when we’re around other couples, a lot of them lack self-care. The couples just say: Ah, when you have children, this is just what happens. Really? No, there’s a choice.
So for me, a spiritual or a more sustainable relationship, particularly in modern times, is one where we have to figure out as parents, what is our adult play? I still have this childlike energy in me. I’m still fiery. How can we still be passionate, romantic, and also be great parents? So for me, that is what excites me in my relationships. And when I work with clients, that is always the language and direction we go as well. Because typically, that is maybe what is missing. There’s nothing wrong with a person, they’re just not educated about it. They don’t know.
Yeah. This is precisely what my dissertation was on. It was a meta-analysis, which is a study of other studies. It was qualitative, and it was looking at the concept of conscious intimate relating. That is being very conscious and growth-oriented in romantic relationship, which we typically don’t have a lot of modeling around what that looks like. To your point, many people, whether or not it’s something they intentionally decided, or whether or not it was seen through media or modeling growing up, that if you love someone, you give to them. Or the conflict avoiding, or the cutting off certain parts. Like, I don’t know how this fits in the relationship. So there’s this doling or restricting that starts to happen, that we aren’t expanding. We are more in this safe zone, not rocking the boat, so to speak. Yet, there’s so much experience to be had, and dynamic, evolving intimacy and passion and individual vitality, that I think when we cut that off, we’re really cutting off a lot of the passion. This, I think, also fits to your point about the erotic passion sexual piece too. That if we are in routine or if we’re in the script of normalcy, it’s really hard to feel.
Oh my God, it’s a psychological prison, yes. You mentioned that you had a lot of men on. Are they single? Are they in relationships? What do they say about dating and women and their frustrations? I was curious about that, because that could be fun. Because I might be able to incorporate something that could be applicable to that. I was just curious.
Yes. Well, I’m so glad you asked that. Because I do feel there are many men that I work with, and also listeners who have described, it seems as though the gender roles are reversed. That they are seeking more emotional intimacy, and perhaps their significant other is not interested in going there. Or perhaps is more dominant in their perspective or opinions and doesn’t want to field the ball, so to speak. They don’t want to collaborate. They just want to have it their way, and so it feels like the conversation gets shut down. Really, gender aside, I think this real longing for expansion is really universal. I think sometimes we get caught into or bought into the idea around what is a loving partner, or what is a way that I can serve and show up? I think when this isn’t really consciously evaluated, we can get into this role, which isn’t very alive.
Yeah, absolutely. I saw this happening 20 years ago. I actually used to coach women, and I had a women’s group and I was a man leading that. So times have changed. I used to also lead men’s groups, and I danced in helping them understand masculine and feminine communication. But it’s not tied to a gender role, it’s more tied the energy of that, coming from Chinese medicine. So the feminine is a little more receptive and nurturing. So what men are saying is that I’m missing that. That is what I’m attracted to. If they’ve been taught most their life that women would like for you to be strong, be in integrity, and you have good work ethics, and it’s not working. I can imagine not being received, it can be frustrating.
However, I also know this. That is, we are going through a major shift in our collective consciousness. Such that there are some women who are very angry towards patriarchy and the masculine, there are so many women who’ve been sexually perpetrated. So right now, it’s a space and a time for women to be vocal about this without being killed by speaking up, or more negative things coming towards them. I forgot, all I know is her name is Dr. Kelley, and she was on this interview. I wish I knew her last name. But she talked about where she saw herself as a feminist, and that she was really rebellious. Then when she softened into her body, she noticed herself yearning for the masculine, and she got married. She saw that she was still in the immature feminine or whatever, like blaming men, versus embodying her own masculinity or her own healthy boundaries, and therefore, so she can attract and create a good relationship. So there are women, I imagine such as yourself too, Jessica, I don’t know you that well, where you understand that. You understand that dynamic and where that energy is coming from, and the longing that these men have.
But I think just more and more what men could do, particularly if they’re single right now, is just recognize that if a woman that you’re interested is not open, then you could do these things. One is, is there a part of me that’s closed also? Like, one foot in, one foot out? I’m so hurt about my divorce. Because I believe in law of attraction. That’s why they might show up. Or two, are you a trustable man? Because if she senses that you’re not, then she’ll still be guarded. When I led that women’s group, the reason why I brought this up, majority of those women were CEOs, entrepreneurs, women who did really well, and most of them were physically attractive. Even though they would show up sometimes in a workshop like I’m strong or whatever else, they would definitely drop into their feminine essence in that workshop. I would see those women show up in my office, and they would completely just let go. Because even though I wasn’t dating them, I was a strong masculine character that they felt safe with, where they could just surrender. So it’s important.
They’re not in relationship with you, so the triggers and the stakes are different.
Yeah. So that helps them understand like, I know what I need. I need to trust that I can also walk out if the man is not trustable, but also recognize what maybe a healthy, strong man might look like. So that’s a way to look at it as well. Or three is just, it might not be a fit. It might not be a fit, so don’t wait on a person’s potentiality. It’s like, a lot of people are still very closed off and guarded. But my best friends are primarily women, very strong women. My girlfriend is a coach, and she has been a coach for 20 years, and very strong also. But we have a beautiful dance. People would consider me a very strong masculine man, but her and I definitely work well together. My best friend Amy is also a strong woman. She’s the mother of my son. So I flow in that, because I know who they are and you know who I am.
I’m friends with a lot of women. I have to say, a lot of women out there are just still vetting men. They want to see that trust. When you show up to that woman, what’s more attractive, I would say, what I’ve heard from most of my strong women, is a man who’s offering value. He’s not trying to get something from her, get sex, or even get her number, or try to get her approval or talk about his accomplishments. It’s more like, how can I serve you right now to my best ability, even if I never meet you again?
Yeah. I think that’s a person of increase, period. However we put that into the gender energy, that is very attractive. When we talk about shifting in a collective consciousness, that there’s value for both energies. Historically, perhaps they have not been seen as valuable in an equitable way. Rather than a man or a woman, just the energies. So when we look at the dance of relating in people who drive more or live more, and relate in the world with one energy more than another, what’s the flow of that? So again, when we have awareness around that and consciousness around that, I think there’s so much more capacity to play with this.
Yeah, we call them power struggles. My girlfriend had a mother who took care of most things, and her dad was reckless with the money. So she witnessed her mother move into what you might call the masculine role. So you can imagine she took on those traits, and so she’s a single mother as well. When she’s at my house, I primarily do everything because I like to. There’s moments she’s in the kitchen where I’m like: You know you can relax, right? So we laugh about it, and we see how sometimes we don’t bump heads. But it’s almost like dancing, and one of us steps on the other person’s foot. So she does not want to lead with her survival instincts.
Yes, that’s key. That it’s like, where’s their desire? Is their real desire to serve and to be a person of increase, rather than it’s because I have to?
Yes, because that builds up resentment. Even with me, I had to learn how to be a better receiver. So my father would be considered very masculine. He was in the Marines for 30 years. He cooked, he cleaned. He raised two boys in the fifties as a single father. He was a different breed. He really cared for his children. So I watched that.
So in some ways, the converse, he had to potentially occupy more of the feminine traits in the concert with the masculine that lived in him.
Yes. His dad died when he was two years old, and his mother died when he was 15. He was raised by strong women. My grandmother was one of the first female deputies in the Bronx. So again, I have a lineage of strong women. I mean, they were part of the women’s suffrage movement. My aunt was friends with Eleanor Roosevelt. So imagine, a man from the great generation who would typically be really masculine, maybe cut off from his emotions, being raised by women. He was sensitive. He communicated. Very balanced.
Yes. And for him, what a model you had.
Yes, I have seen him cry many times. Oh my God, he’s a beautiful man. It’s not about, we’re not choosing what is better. It’s more like, how do we work and flow together?
Yeah, and how do we integrate the different energies even in ourselves? So I know our time is limited, and you had mentioned the difference between the traditional and the spiritual. For one that is interested in more expansion and going into uncharted territory, which we can speak to all the positives here. I will also say, it can be terrifying and scary to not know what’s going to come from the rattle or the rocking the boat, so to speak. And there’s something you’re speaking into around what can get cultivated and co-created in this approach. What if one’s partner, as you mentioned, is like: Ah, not this, or what do you mean? Or on paper, everything’s good. What do you encourage for people that are contending? You gave a heterosexual, the woman being more interested in having a spiritual relationship that’s expanded. But again, I think it could be either, or any which way. What do you do when one partner is not fully onboard with us?
Well, it starts in the beginning. What I mean by that is, if you know yourself, and you’re authentic. I’ll give you an example. I went on one date with a woman in San Diego, and I lived in Santa Monica, and I’m a single parent. So geographically, she wasn’t attractive, even though we had one kiss. But I said that. At the end of the date, I said, I think you’re great. But I go, I’m not sure if I can do this. She said, I understand that. We just became friends. I didn’t want to keep driving her and have sex, when I know that it just wasn’t aligned with my life. We could have worked it out or whatever.
“I will say things that I think a lot of guys wouldn’t, because they’re still trying to get something. But there’s no blocks in any of my relationships by being honest. Because there’s always people out there who want your honest truth. It’s so much easier.”
So there’s that. But now, if a person is listening to this podcast, you have to set the container for this to happen, like a spiritual partnership. And what that could look like is, I notice this also. People need to know that there’s maybe not something wrong, and they often need to be appreciated by something they’re bringing to the relationship first. So we have to have a conversation so the person doesn’t get defensive or feel like something is broken. So for example, you might say, have you ever thought about going to do this tantric class? It’s clothed. You look each other in the eyes. You feed each other chocolate. It sounds really goofy. But would you like to do this? It could be fun. I’ll pay for it. There, it’s like, there’s no expectations just but to go. A couple might go there and recognize it’s hard for them to look each other in the eyes, because they have past stories that are unhealed, or they’re just really uncomfortable going deep. That can move to another conversation.
There’s a lot of support out there including, I can’t believe I’m promoting his book, but Gary Zukav, who wrote The Seat of the Soul. He lives in Ashton also. I’ve had dinner with him a couple times. His book is called Spiritual Partnership, and it really breaks down an authentic relationship, one that can help a relationship grow. There’s an example he uses where a person loses his job. His buddy says: Oh, I’ll meet you at the bar. They start having drinks, and he says, I already have a headhunter set up for you. Versus the other person who wants to grow with his friend. Hey, meet me at a restaurant. There’s no alcohol. He sits in front of his friend and says: Bob, I love you. And we speak in I statements. And I care about you, but it hurts me to see you go from job to job. Do you think that any of this has to do with you? Just curious. So that’s leaning in, rather than having drinks with your buddy.
So people listening to this might cringe.
“Remember, if you are in a relationship with someone you love, wouldn’t you agree, if you help them open up more, relax more, be happier, then it’s going to add to the relationship?”
So you might think, well, I don’t want to break up. I don’t want this to create a problem. The next question to ask yourself is this, how often do you walk on eggshells? How often do you feel that stress anyway? More often, I hear couples say: Oh my God, I carry this fear of conflict every day, versus that one conversation that might be uncomfortable for that one moment. They’ve been sitting with this in his or her body. Then you’re not even being present or honest with your partner.
Or to your earlier point, it will come out passive aggressively. So the thing that wants to get spoken is ending up being a real vicious attack sometimes. I loved what you said about container, you’ve said it a couple times. Even with your example of a dear friend, there’s a container of that friendship, potentially the history or the care or the regard. In a long-term relationship, if it’s a partnership or a marriage or even a committed relationship, that there’s an agreement, there’s the bond that provides that container. Then the other thing that I’m hearing you speak about is the real ability to lead with love, just a real staying on one side or staying in one’s lane, and offering or even asking for permission. Like, I have these feelings and I want to know if you’d be open to me sharing. Or it relates to some things I’ve observed, I’m curious if you’re open to any input or what it’s like on my side, given what I witness. These are sweaty 10-minute conversations, and yet, even if we try to hide it, to your point, we’re not hiding it.
It’s like, trust me, I’m fine. I’m fine with it. Everything’s okay. One of the exercises I have people do. By the way, my book called All It Takes is One has a lot of these sentence stems that I’m talking about, where it helps people understand their hidden beliefs and how to ask the right questions. But first, take personal responsibility of why am I bothered by this anyway, what does this say about myself? If you’re single or you notice that there’s a pattern of a behavior, you’ve had other ex-girlfriends or boyfriends tell you this, and you just don’t want to present this to your partner, a safer way to do this is this. You reach out to three to five friends, hopefully it’s mixed gender, and it’s this. You prepare the container. Hi, I’m working with a coach, or I’m trying to do self-development.
I just want to ask you some questions, just give me your honest opinion. I won’t say anything, until maybe the following day, and that’s it, and I won’t get defensive. So that person agrees, and the questions are this. What do you see working really well in my life? What do you see not working well in my life? If you were me, what would you do differently? Then number four, is there anything I’ve done to hurt you or that is still unresolved for you? That’s it. Because the last one is the gift. It’s like where you can say, I’m sorry. More often, you’ll hear friends all say the same thing. It’s pretty accurate.
The three people that you solicited will say something very similar.
Yes, and then there’s the feedback. It’s like, that’s enough to work with. So I think, to me, it’s safer, because you’re not dating these people.
Absolutely. You said, ideally, that if one is committed to this way of being, that it makes establishing a relationship easier, where this is a value: of growth, of purpose, of authenticity. Then we can build from there. Sometimes people are already in a relationship and they start implementing and growing, and when the other isn’t, it can pose a conflict. I’ve seen when one person grows, sometimes the other will come along at some point. It just isn’t going to be lock in step or step in lock, however you say that.
If a person feels good about him or herself, again, I mentioned this in the beginning when we were sharing about our purpose, it’s not as frightening. It’s like, I don’t ever have an idea that I’ll be alone. Because if I didn’t have an intimate partner, then I know that I would have community, because that’s just who I am. So I’m content, with myself and also with my partner. I would only be unhappy with myself if I’m not speaking my truths. I’d feel it in my heart. So I have to do that.
You mentioned about some people start to change with a partner, and some people don’t. But the way that usually looks like, for me, when I work with one person in a relationship, is that person, if they start seeing changes, the other person might throw some of those tactics to bring them down. The commonest might be: Oh, you just think you’re better than me, or you’re on your high horse. Because that partner who’s seeing me for coaching is no longer sad or is becoming happier, while the other person is still drinking at a bar. Or it’s that, that partner is going: Oh my God, I’m liking this new version of yourself, give me the number of your therapists. Number three, it’s that the person who’s getting better recognizes that this person they’re with is no longer a match. Or maybe never was, it was a trauma response relationship.
“No matter what, a person going to a therapist or a coach and working on him/herself will be the healthier, happier person in the relationship.”
Yeah, I agree. Wonderful. Well, I know we’re winding down. Is there anything else you want to speak about that we haven’t touched on, that you feel like is important for our conversation?
Well, I didn’t come on this call to plug my book. But I wanted to bring it up because it actually leads right to this conversation. That is, my book is called, All It Takes is One: Drop Your One BIG Hidden Belief and Master Your Life. It’s kind of like a book and workbook, and it’s really simple. So a lot of what we were discussing here talks about this. It has questions where you start figuring out who you are, why are you doing these things? I ask people about their culture, their spirituality, past traumas, and there are sentence stems for you to do your own process and to arrive to knowing more of who you are. I believe that most of us have one to two hidden beliefs that are impacting all areas of our lives. So I would highly recommend maybe people taking a peek at that, maybe I’ll share those in the show notes. But you’ll discover those hidden beliefs in intimate relationships. That’s the mirror.
Yes, it is. It absolutely is. Say the name of the book one more time.
It is All It Takes is One: Drop Your One BIG Hidden Belief and Master Your Life. It’s with Chicken Soup for Soul people.
Awesome, wonderful! I’ll have the link to that book on today’s show notes. Is there anything else you want to mention about what you have to offer, where people can find you?
My website is RayDoktor.com. I always have freebies there. I think I have a relationship masterclass there. We are rebranding my website, because my book just came out in April. But I always have stuff there too, and all my links work. It’s really easy to find me. I also have a lot of videos on YouTube. But I would visit my website first.
Awesome. I love that you’re like, all my links work.
Well, you know, it’s like we’re always changing things. I saw the website with my designer two days ago and I’m seeing it be built up, and we’ve shot the video for it also. I had to do a photoshoot last month. But I’m like, everything should be still working.
Good, that’s key. Wonderful. Well, thank you so much for spending time with us today and everything you’ve shared, and just your deep commitment to this journey and this path and how you support others.
Thank you very much. Have an amazing day!
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Navigating the tumultuous seas of grief and maintaining long-term relationships is no small feat. Whether it’s dealing with the loss of a loved one, experiencing the invisible wounds of unacknowledged grief, or simply trying to find a balance between independence and partnership, many find themselves overwhelmed. How does one transition from anger to trust, from isolation to intimacy, while respecting the complexities of their emotions and relational dynamics?
In this episode, we’ll explore practical strategies and heartfelt insights to help you navigate these challenging waters. Discover how personal spirituality, a scientific mindset, and philosophical wisdom can intertwine to provide guidance and support on your journey. Learn about the life reentry process, understand the concept of invisible losses, and gain valuable advice on shifting perspectives to unlock the potential for fulfilling relationships and personal growth. Through real-life experiences of overcoming profound grief and the transformative power of vulnerability, this episode offers a beacon for those seeking a path from survival to thriving in their emotional and relational lives.
Christina Rasmussen is an acclaimed grief educator and bestselling author of Second Firsts (Hay House, 2013), Where Did You Go? (Harper One, 2018), and Invisible Loss (Sounds True, 2024). In 2010, four years after her spouse passed away from Stage 4 colon cancer, she created the Life Reentry process. Christina holds a master’s degree in guidance and counseling (University of Durham). She is finishing her master of fine arts degree in painting and drawing (Academy of Art).
In this episode
9:49 Christina’s journey from the corporate world to grief author.
14:33 The role of intuition and the universe’s support.
19:23 Navigating new relationships after loss.
27:05 How people often remain in survival mode after trauma, not recognizing the potential for a fulfilling life beyond their past hardships.
28:20 Identifying and addressing invisible losses.
37:51 The complexities of balancing financial independence and trust in new relationships.
43:42 Long-term relationship dynamics continuous growth and understanding within marriage.
48:59 The concept of invisible loss: Unseen griefs and their impact on life progress.
50:33 Hope and transformation through life reentry: Shifting perspectives and embracing future possibilities.
Your Check List of Actions to Take
- Make a conscious effort to recognize small, often invalidated losses in your life using tools such as a journal to note these experiences.
- Trust your inner voice or intuition when making significant life changes, even when facing uncertainty or challenges.
- Engage with a therapist or counselor to navigate grief more effectively, especially when using resources like Christina’s life reentry map.
- Gradually allow yourself to be vulnerable in new relationships by communicating openly and taking small steps towards trust.
- Actively work on changing your perspectives on past events and future possibilities through reflection and mindfulness practices.
- Find or create support networks with people who have experienced similar losses to share experiences and provide mutual support.
- Approach financial discussions with your partner as a form of negotiation and sharing, recognizing that money can symbolize deeper aspects of value and trust.
- Accept that personal growth and understanding within a relationship are ongoing processes and commit to learning more about yourself and your partner over time.
Mentioned
Invisible Loss (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
Second Firsts (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
Where Did You Go? (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
Life Reentry (website)
The 31-Day Kindness Challenge (free guide) (pdf)
Connect with Christina Rasmussen****
Websites: christinarasmussen.com
Facebook: facebook.com/Secondfirsts
X: x.com/Secondfirsts
Instagram: instagram.com/christinarasmussen7
Connect with Dr. Jessica Higgins
Facebook: facebook.com/EmpoweredRelationship
Instagram: instagram.com/drjessicahiggins
Podcast: drjessicahiggins.com/podcasts/
Pinterest: pinterest.com/EmpowerRelation
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/drjessicahiggins
Twitter: @DrJessHiggins
Website: drjessicahiggins.com
Email: jessica@drjessicahiggins.com
About this Episode
Christina, thank you for joining us today.
So good to be here, Jessica. I can already tell this is going to be a great conversation. I love the energy and just the way I feel right now, and I’m looking forward to talking about anything that comes up that feels right for us today.
Well, thank you for just saying that. As we were just briefly chatting, your commitment to authenticity and real presence, and just allowing what is to emerge. I’m grateful for that focus, because as you know, we can all get attached to whatever goal we’re perceiving. So wonderful.
Well, also for our focus for today’s conversation, you are supporting so many people in navigating loss and grief. Before we pivot to the topic of how people might negotiate or navigate grief. I want to say healing, but I also know sometimes that even healing has a goal in mind, and sometimes the journey of grief looks very different for different people. But before we turn towards grief in relationship and what to consider there, what would you like people to know about you and your perspective, where you’re coming from?
I want to start by saying, I grew up in a small town in Greece. So my first language, I guess I don’t know if Greek is still my first language, since I spent more years. I lived in the UK for 10 years and did all of my graduate work and my undergraduate there as well, and then the rest U.S. But I’ve spent the first 18 years of my life in Greece. My parents live there, my sister lives there. So when I started writing books and writing for people about grief and what I call life re-entry, I never expected any of this. It was very unexpected.
So I grew up in Greece, and then I moved to the UK. I wanted to study grief. I was actually very fascinated by it before the loss of my first husband. I had no idea my life was going to change. As I share often, when I did my thesis, I chose the stages of bereavement. Because I wanted to figure out how to help people overcome losing the love of their lives. I’m sure you feel the same, we love people so much, we couldn’t imagine losing them. I couldn’t imagine losing someone, and all I could think about is how people get through something so devastating. So that’s the way the journey started. Just, I would say two or three years later, my, at the time, 31-year-old husband was diagnosed with stage four colon cancer.
This was two, three years after your thesis?
After my graduating, we moved to Houston, Texas. Our first daughter was born in Houston. Then we moved to the Bay Area, San Jose. We were living just in the borders of San Jose in Santa Clara, and my second daughter was born in a hospital in Santa Clara. Then we moved. Literally, I would say exactly three years after graduating, we moved to the U.S. We moved to Boston, and within two months, he was diagnosed with stage four. That was so catastrophic. It felt like my body couldn’t handle it. I started thinking, even during the diagnosis, that anything I knew, I studied, I researched, I learned about grief, went out the window. Because it was so much more catastrophic than I imagined. By then, when we were living in Houston, I would facilitate support groups for spouses who lost their loved ones, before any of this happened. Then, I also volunteered in hospice to sit with the dying, so their families could go home and shower, as part of the service of volunteering. I had no idea that it would’ve been so painful.
I remember when the diagnosis happened, he lived for about three and a half years with stage four. I was grateful. We were grateful. The girls went from nine months old and two-and-a-half-year-old to four and six years old, and they have memories of him. But I remember, the principal of the elementary school of my kids, she said to me at the time, before he passed. She said: I know it’s hard now, but it will be harder when he passes. I said to her at the time, how could it be harder? We’ve spent over three years waiting for this to happen, and it’s been just devastating. She said, it’s worse. And she was right, it was much worse. It was unthinkable, and also, I really felt like an alien on Planet Earth. Like, I couldn’t process it, I couldn’t understand it. Of course, I was a single parent then, and I was like, I can’t believe this is happening. So that’s how it all started. That was the beginning of this journey.
Wow. Well, thank you for sharing, and I can appreciate just what you’re capturing here. I’m so struck by, first of all, my empathy of the impact and how catastrophic, how foreign it felt to exist in that loss and that grieving. Words probably aren’t sufficient. Just the disorientation of how to function as a single parent, and all the layers. I know we’re going to get into the negotiating of this. I’m also so fascinated that you were already studying and working with the end-of-life phase and had all the principles in mind of what the journey of grieving looks like.
Jessica, I was angry at the universe, God, whoever is up there doing whatever contract I had. Obviously, now I understand it looking back, that this was destined in every way. I couldn’t have predicted, foreseen, understood anything that happened after he passed. I remember thinking, like, I was angry. I was mad at the world. I was angry at him. Talk about relationships, this is not something I actually share very often, ever maybe. Maybe I haven’t shared it before. But since this is a relationship podcast, I want to say that dealing with stage four cancer in the relationship, in a young relationship or young marriage, with two little, very, very tiny kids, was so hard in many ways. He was obviously struggling with his own mortality, and he was processing it differently. We were so different as well.
Because there’s anticipatory grief. So you were both grieving, even though he was still living.
Yes, exactly. We were grieving in different ways. We were learning what to let go in different ways. I remember, one day, this was probably year two of the diagnosis. I remember I was emptying the dishwasher or something, and the kids were playing. He was in pain a lot of the time. I remember looking out the window and I remember thinking, I wish it was me instead of him, and then I just felt like running away. Just literally running. I remember reading a fiction book many years ago about this woman, it was called Ladder of Years. It’s a very well-known book, a British book. This woman just left her house, not because of tragedy. I don’t even remember the details, but I remember she just opened the door and left.
I mean, he was the love of my life. I would never leave. But when you are in a relationship and you’re going through something so tragic, so difficult, it’s such an inhuman experience happening in a human body and mind and brain. We were so imperfect and so young and so lost. But we did it, and we got through it. You forget any problems in the relationship afterwards. It’s been so many years now, you forget. You just remember the courage we both had and how we navigated. We had therapists, and we went to support groups, and we did all of that, thank goodness. For anyone who’s listening, please, seek help when things are hard. There’s a lot of terrain to navigate in a relationship. However happy and in love you are with your spouse, these things are hard. Many things are hard. We’ll talk about invisible losses too. But we were dealing with a lot at the time.
It doesn’t sound like you had perhaps a lot of community yet, or maybe you did, but family. Just moving internationally, there’s loss there. Even though it’s not death loss, it’s still loss.
Yes. We had a lot of good friends. When you have young children, the good thing is that you have all these mothers. We were going the playground together. I had to get out of the house. Whether I was driving him to chemotherapy with the babies in the car, whether he was throwing up in a bucket driving back, I had to go to a play date. Like, there’s all these things, it’s built-in, and thank goodness for that. Because like you said, you’re right, our families were overseas. His family lives in Denmark, and my family lives in Greece. I use present tense because they’re still living far away. Actually, my girls are flying to Denmark tomorrow to see their grandparents. Now they don’t need me to take them, they’re older. But they would visit. The parents would visit, of course. But you’re all by yourself.
In many ways, even when there’s people around, when you’re going through something like this, it’s such a lonely experience. Sometimes the more people around, the more lonely it is. Especially, we were so young, none of my amazing friends. They were crying for me, and I couldn’t cry at the time. It was so hard. They were distraught for me, but they couldn’t possibly understand what was happening to me. It’s impossible. You can have the best friend. People say, what do you say to someone in grief? I’m like, you’ll never get it right buddy. I know there’s all these books about it.
What to say when someone’s grieving?
There’s all these books about: This is what to say, this is not what to say. You know what, there shouldn’t even be a rulebook about that. I’ve never said this before. But there was never going to be anything right during that time.
There’s nothing to make it better or comforting.
You’re losing your mind. I was feeling crazy, insane. I was definitely finding wrongs with everything. Anything anyone said or did, it was wrong. Because nothing was right. It was like, I was still living in the old life, but that life was gone. So I was in a ghost town, and how I discovered the waiting room. Like, I’m a very visual person, I see everything. So when I look out there, I see a tree. But I see everything in my mind.
“There’s never going to be a right thing to say to someone who’s just in a lot of tragedy. So don’t look for it. Just be prepared that it’s going to be wrong and it comes from the right place. As long as it comes from the right place and you love and care for this person, then it’s going to be right, however wrong it is.”
However wrong it is, exactly. Well, I want to pause. There’s so many directions and so much you have to offer here. Just for people listening, and maybe you can help me if this resonates. As I’m hearing you describe these early years of marriage, and also the diagnosis and just the chemotherapy, and all the intensity of anticipatory grief. As you’re saying, it’s like, I’m living this life, but it’s so different than what it was. It sounds like, with the courage you mentioned a moment ago, there was still desire to find each other, to find connection. I’m just feeling so empathetic to it. Because a lot of my work, when I work with partners in relationship, helping them work with the blocks that interfere their connecting, their vulnerability, their real seeing each other. Sometimes there is trauma and tragedy and things that they’re negotiating, and sometimes it’s previous loss and trauma in their life that they have their protective ways of dealing with.
People are negotiating obstacles of how to find connection and intimacy, and sometimes it’s tremendous. We could put a lot of words on it, but there’s an obstacle and a block. You both had a tremendous block, and you’re even saying there’s moments where I could feel many parts of me wanting to flee, and you stayed, because you’re describing the love of your life. I mean, what a contrast to hold! The immense devastation and catastrophe, and also the choice of turning towards.
Yes, and I’m so glad you are saying this. Because I’ve been remarried for many years now, and we’ll talk about blending family as well. We could have three conversations, Jessica. Because there’s so much, what I call invisible loss, in blending a family and coming together. But you’re always apart in some way because you didn’t start out together, and different parenting models. Oh my gosh, there’s so many things, so many things, so many things.
There’s such a duality in our relationships. Often, the instinct to run away is married with the instinct of love. As long as we have that marriage, then I think we’ll find a way. I don’t know if that makes any sense.
Well, we’re contending with enormous amounts of pain. You’re describing unfathomable amounts of pain, both in the few years before his death, and then afterwards. It’s just unfathomable, and contending with that pain, how to still search or how to still reach for connection?
Yeah. I’m a person that even though I’m an introvert, I actually process verbally and want to talk about things. And he was an introvert, in a different way. He was also highly intelligent. Like, he was a genius, he was number one. That’s why I always say, the wrong parent was going, because he was the smarter of the two. So he was intellectualizing things in a different way. But we were navigating this in such a different way. I would be crying, and his processing was in his own a lot of time. He was quiet. But of course, looking back, the thing is, as you know, with the amazing work that you do, there’s no voice that’s going to come down and say: Guys, listen, this is exactly it, you’re doing it. There’s no other way to do this. You’re going to go through it this way, and you’re going to go through it that way. Of course, we had to take care of the kids, and he was working full-time.
It’s like you’re speaking different grief languages almost.
He was working full-time. And because we moved from the UK, we’re still waiting for that green card to come through, for me to be able to make a living, to use my skill.
Wow, and the fear.
Oh my God, yes. It came through six months before he died. I mean, we were going to go back to the UK if he had passed. Because we were there with his job, while waiting for the green card to come through. If he had passed before that happened, the work visa that brings his spouse here would no longer be working with the company, who were great. But anyway, there’s so many things that were destiny also. Everyone who’s listening to this, I want to say.
“We want to be in control of our lives and our relationships. But sometimes, trusting in the way things are supposed to be is so freeing.”
I wish someone had come to me and said, just trust this. Just trust. It’s going to be okay. Of course it’s not okay, but it’s also going to be okay. It’s interesting, and you are different afterwards. You’re someone else, and when you go into new relationships, you are someone else. You don’t know who you are when you’re starting a new relationship after something like this. The world has a lot to say about it as well.
Wow. So you’re speaking about trusting, even in this immense pain. That it’s not okay, so how do I trust? Yet, well, I think of surrender when I think of the opposite of control in these terms. Also, just the impact of someone passing, or loved one or spouse or love of our life passing, and knowing we will be different. Or maybe we don’t even know that we’re going to be different. But you’re speaking into the experience of many people, and yourself mostly here, that we are different.
We’re so different. In my work, what I always used to say, and I’ve said a thousand times, when we go through a divorce, for example, it is like a death in a different way. I say that the person is alive for everyone else, but dead for us in many ways.
Yeah, that’s really well said.
It’s a catastrophic loss in such a different way, and I’ve seen so many people in my work experiencing, different type, but insanity. I use the word insanity in a very nonclinical way. I’m using it more like a metaphor. You feel like the world is not yours anymore. Everything’s spinning. You don’t even know yourself anymore. You’ve lost your compass. There are no words to understand, whether it’s a death, a divorce, a breakup. There’s so many things.
I actually think the human experience is a really hard one. People say life is hard, but I don’t think that’s enough to prepare us for the many things. I’m not saying everyone’s going to go through tragedy really young. I’ve also lost a child before that tragedy happened. It was just so many things were happening. I was being funny with God and the universe and saying, why are you giving me so much homework? It was like, what is this, don’t I know? As the years went by, I went and worked in the corporate world so I can have health insurance for my kids after he passed. I went and did another postgraduate degree, thinking that I was never going to go back and have a practice or do anything that has to do with grief. You can understand. I’m like, I can’t even help myself, how am I going to go help someone else? But I did say, and I’ve said this a thousand times too, I said: If I ever feel good again, alive again, I will go back and get everyone else. About four years in, after I resigned from my corporate job, I started writing and started doing this. Not even thinking or imagining what would’ve happened. The work that took place, the clinical trials of the work, the thousands of people that have been helped by this.
I have to tell you, Jessica, there’s been a lot of reflecting. I have said this many times, and I believe I’m going to stay to this, this is my last book on grief, and maybe my last book ever. As I’m reflecting and I’m thinking back on this, I couldn’t have possibly understood or imagined this journey that had already been chosen. I’m a spiritual person, but I’m also a scientist. I philosophize. I don’t believe in a traditional God. But there was something at play here, because I don’t believe I’m capable of doing all of this on my own, all of the things that I’ve done. I could not have. I had some kind of help, because I couldn’t have done this on my own. It was impossible.
Yeah. I wonder with you, I know we want to focus on relationship, and there might be some important things you can help people to have a little bit more guidance or orientation around negotiating grief. And also, as you mentioned, spirituality and God, as you were really angry, as you described, initially. Also, as you are with us here, and then looking back, I wish somebody would’ve just told me to trust.
So much of what you’re describing and really recognizing of what was moving through you, or how the destiny or the downloads or what’s coming through you. Just even feeling as though you’re looking at this being your last work in this regard. I guess I’m curious, how do you feel that, and then more the question was, is there anything you want to share around how it worked in you? To go from such anger and disorientation, to more trust and more real believing, if I can say? That there is something moving through you, that you are allowing and co-creating, if I might say?
That’s a good question, Jessica. You’re really good at this. You’re tapping into it all. It’s almost like you’ve read my mind throughout the years. Because when it started, and I say when it started because it’s almost like I stepped into a different world when I resigned from my job and said yes to this. It was like, the universe started rolling out the red carpet.
The assistance you might have gotten. Just things were like, wow, okay!
There’s so many things that happened in the beginning to show me that. My first book deal, Second Firsts was my first book, happened within one year. The book came out in 2013. I resigned from my job in 2010. But I had my first book deal in 2011.
That doesn’t happen.
I had no connections and networks. I started with zero. Like, zero people, not knowing anything. There was nothing. I remember that happening, and I remember my agent at the time saying to me: Christina, sit down, I have something to tell you. I sat down, and I will never forget that moment, because I had to sit down because it was so unexpected. The way that other people can relate to something like this is that when you step into that trust, whatever that voice inside of you, whether it’s to stay in a relationship, whether it’s to leave the relationship, you can actually test this out.
“If you are stepping in the right direction, the universe will come to meet you there. I believe in that. I’m convinced at this point. I’m convinced that even though there’s a lot of things that are hard, and I’m getting goosebumps saying this, there’s some things that are meant to be easy.”
I’m not saying, this journey was very hard, doing this work.
No. I mean, I’m imagining, quitting your job, you had to do that afraid.
So afraid. So afraid.
And when we look at it long-term, if I’m hearing you, what you’re saying is, when we are tuning into the inner voice, the nudge, that there is the flow or the support, that it’s not the struggle that we might feel otherwise when we resist a longing or a dream or something that’s ours to do.
Yeah, and also choosing a new partner in life. There’s my husband Eric, who also lost his wife. That’s how we met. He sat next to me, and I would tell this to people. I would say, in the years after, if I’m ever going to meet anyone else, I would say they’ll just have to come and sit next to me. Laughing at it, thinking this is how it’s going to have to be. There’s no other way I’m going anywhere. I believe in people going out and seeking new partnerships, so I have nothing against that. But in my bereaved state of being, I was definitely resisting that and saying they would have to come and sit next to me. And he did. He came and sat next to me in the group, the support group. That’s where we met.
I’m struck. I don’t know if this fits, but I’m struck by even what you were talking about, I think a metaphor and visual. But for me, just the relational metaphor of coming and sitting next to me.
Yes, he did, and he’s been sitting next to me in sickness and in health, and in all the things that we had to endure. I have two girls, and he has two girls, same age, and we had to blend two families even before we got married. Meaning, we dated alone, and then at some point, you have a play date together and all that. And as I entered that relationship, I was very cold. He still talks about it sometimes, remember how it was? Like, we would have a date and I would sit on the couch, and I would sit all the way to the end of the couch. I would say to him, talk about being direct and transparent. I would say, I need us to just be talking, not holding hands at this point. I need time. That would happen for months. I’d just need time to get physically closer or be more intimate. It took me such a long time. I called it the frozen state. I was so frozen in many ways. So to be vulnerable.
Actually, I don’t think I’ve ever shared this publicly before. It takes a lot to say yes to a new relationship, new marriage, new joy, and new love. Whether the relationship ended in divorce or death or however it is, or you are in a break or separation short-term, I think it’s very hard to give yourself to someone else, to say yes to living again, to say yes to life.
“It’s actually easier to stay in the waiting room, to stay in that place in between the life you had to leave behind because of what happened, and the life that you can have.”
Millions of people. When I made that discovery early on in my work, I’m like: Oh my God, everyone is in survival mode, and they’re stuck. They think this is their life. They think this is the way it’s supposed to be, and it’s not. It’s not that way. I didn’t know that early on. I wasn’t understanding this in the beginning of the journey. But it was a very conscious decision to de-freeze, to say: Hey, you can hug me, we can hold hands, then we can get engaged and we can buy a house together. It took me two years in the marriage to say yes to having a joint account. As you know, financials, in a new relationship, in a new marriage, is very hard. It’s a hard topic.
It is a hard topic. It represents money as a symbol, the value we associate with it and the meaning we make around it, and how we share that. I’m so struck, Christina! Tell me if this fits for you. That yes, you’re speaking about taking a risk for love, yourself, to live in uncharted territory. It isn’t what it was. Perhaps you’re normalizing that it’s a human tendency to protect and be in that state of in-between, or maybe this is what you call the waiting room or the survival mode. What I’m struck by is, it doesn’t sound as though, I’m sure it felt like a push.
But it doesn’t sound like, to me as a listener, that you jumped off the deep-end and just flew. You were holding support and presencing for yourself to see, where am I? Maybe there’s all parts of me that are like a no and no and no, and a block and protection. But there’s a part that you could say yes to, and following that, and the courage and the bravery and the risk-taking, emotionally, physically, all the things. It takes to be willing to take that risk. Am I hearing you that it was a both and of like, how to take care of yourself and listen and be really attuned, and also find space and room to reach and be taking those risks?
Yes. In that time, I was in a place where I was taking care of my kids financially, independently. I worked really hard for that. I had a job I did not like, but great prospect for the future. My second postgraduate degree was in human resource management, and I went to Northeastern University. I actually started doing this the year before he passed, we made a decision. Imagine the type of conversations you have to have. I said, I will need to have health insurance for the kids, I want to be working full-time as soon as I can. I went to work, I looked for a job, after he died, too quickly. I shouldn’t have done that. There are so many regrets. I was in survival mode of course, and I should have taken a different direction. But anyway, I did it. I was very proud.
For the children, right?
Yes, for the children. I believed in no babysitters. There was one babysitter that would come every Thursday, so I could go to the bookshop and just breathe. I love the bookshops. Just go, even a walk in the grocery aisle, just to be without children for one evening. That was the only help I had. I believed in raising my own kids. I believed in working full-time. I believed in doing it all. So I spent four years doing that.
When you are entering a new relationship, and you’re falling in love again slowly and very carefully, you’re holding on to your independence. You’re holding on to everything. He wanted to give me everything, and he has always been like that. Like, you don’t have to work, you don’t have to do this. I’m like: Oh yes, I do. You don’t understand, I do. For me, after we were married for a couple of years, that was the first time I started letting go of some of the financial, navigating around that and trusting slowly again, which is such a big decision. Stepping out of that waiting room and into the new life.
For anyone who’s listening, even when you make the right decision in your relationship, whether to stay, to go, to nurture, there’s always going to be difficult times in that relationship. Even if it’s the right relationship, the right partnership, the right person, there’s going to be many things that are going to go wrong. I’m laughing, maybe it’s a coping mechanism. But I always said, what, this too? Along the way. Like, what is happening? I didn’t really get along with his children. To share, very mindfully, that portion of a relationship, that is right. But you are in a relationship with not just that one person, you’re also in a relationship with so many other people. It’s complicated, and you want to make it a fairytale somewhere along the way. I want to have a fairytale somewhere. So there’s fairytale in moments, but it’s not all of it, and we have to allow for that to be true as well. I don’t know, I’ve never said before.
Oh, my goodness. Well, again, I’m just really recognizing your willingness to go into the unknown and to face obstacles, and what can get created by this willingness. It’s not just that it’s easy and it’s pretty, and it’s all the convenient, super sexy, yummy things.
Here I am, re-entering my life, not in the waiting room. The expectation of perfection is actually going to put you in survival mode, and I didn’t have all this knowledge then either. Being in that choice that is the right choice, but it will never be perfect. I don’t know.
It feels perfect now, but not because it’s perfect, but because of, oh my God, the lessons we’ve learned, the work we’ve done in our relationship, how we grew together as people. When one was growing this way and the other one was growing that way, we had to find a way to come back to each other, and that was not easy. There are so many things that take place in a relationship, even with people who have gone through tragedy. We both have gone through it. His first wife was the same. She was same age, young. She collapsed in the shower. It was very tragic, unexpected, sudden experience. So he had gone through it, so we both came in.
“Even though many relationships start with two people who’ve gone through trauma, invisible loss, traditional loss, even if it’s not tragedy the way that I experienced it, people call it baggage. But I think it’s not. It’s not baggage. It’s like, we come in with pre-written thoughts about each other, and it takes years to rewrite those.”
We are still learning about each other, and we’ve been married for 14 years. We’re learning, and we learned so much this last year, I can tell you that. My God! I said to myself, how come I didn’t know this about him? Maybe you see this in your clients, like: Oh my gosh, how come I didn’t see this, you know? You’re someone who is very intuitive, I can tell. You’re paying attention. But sometimes in our own relationship, I couldn’t see a lot of things, good and bad. I couldn’t see so many things. Now I’m looking in a different way and I’m like, how come I didn’t see this, and how didn’t I know that he was struggling with this? How did I miss this? It’s not about looking at our own flaws, but I guess we are responsible. I’m responsible for also not seeing something in him and not knowing this. How didn’t I know? I believed in myself that I know so much, that I’m so informed and all that. I know people’s pains and struggles. I’ve helped thousands of people overcome so many difficult things in their lives. Yet, I missed something in my own life, Jessica?
Oh my gosh, I am sharing your sentiment all the way. And I will say, in my experience, that it’s both the things that are unconscious in me, that I am still growing and learning and the journey of that. That also fits in the dynamic with my husband, as he’s also in his individual journey of understanding and growing in himself. But also, our relational pattern. So my experience of unknowing, or how did I not know this or new things, it’s both in how I perceive and observe him. But it’s also what I do in my capacity and how I grow myself.
So it is quite profound to look and say, what is on the other side of being willing to do this growth work? Also, I will say, I’m in a moment right now where I feel challenged. Even though I’ve gone through several iterations and I trust the process, it doesn’t make it any easier. It doesn’t make it fun. I think the human tendency is to want to seek the pleasure, want to seek the good, want to seek the fantasy. So when we talk about it being hard or the difficulty, what I’m feeling and what you’re describing is that, it is, for me, a willingness to lean into what is being evoked for the interest of growth. It doesn’t feel good often. It feels horrible.
Jessica, thank you for sharing that. I think when people are listening to people like us who are professionals, that we’ve struggled in our own journeys, I hope it validates them. To acknowledge that you could know everything and anything, and you could be educated, and you could have professional experience that gives you all these aha insights. But it does not protect you from the challenge of your own relationship.
Here’s the one thing I’ve got to say. Again, this is definitely the first time I’m sharing this, what I’m about to say, and I’m blown away by a lesson I learned last year. If we were having this conversation a year ago, I wouldn’t have this insight. If someone is listening who is struggling in the relationship, and they have thoughts as to: It will never work, or this is not going to work out, it’s impossible for so many reasons because of this and that and the other thing. And you are sure about that, and you just don’t know, do you love the person, and it’s not working. I’ll tell you this, and I was blown away by this. Things can improve dramatically and stay improved, and your relationship can take a very bright and unexpected direction that could put you in a place even better than you’ve ever been with your spouse. I wouldn’t be saying this, and this is certainly the first time I’ve said this. I have to say that what a lesson this has been for me. Because I have a lot of certainty, I’m a very black and white person. I’m like, yeah, no. I know.
You’re clear on many things.
Very clear on many things. I’m like, I don’t think so. If that’s what you do, my God, I was wrong about a lot of things, about what is possible in a relationship, and very happily wrong at this point. Because all the stuff that we did to make this work was worth it, and I can’t tell you how happy we are now. We’ve been through, like I said, tragedies in our life. We’ve raised four children together, blended families, moved different locations, moved homes, moved jobs, both of us working full-time the whole time, and a lot of other things. Love is not enough, but if there is no love, then this type of change is not possible at all. Sometimes this kind of change is not possible even with love. But there are times when it is possible. It is very possible, and wow!
I’m so touched by what you’re sharing.
I want to say one last thing. There are so many couples that actually get divorced and separate because they did not know, Jessica, that this was possible. Because they couldn’t have known. I know I didn’t know what was possible.
I wonder, as you’re describing, the way I’m hearing this is, a choice to not put a bandaid on what feels unworkable. To stand in what feels unworkable and allow for something new to happen there by holding, and not cutting that off or compartmentalizing it or making it not okay.
You have to learn different ways to communicate. You have to stick to your own boundaries. But also be open to listening to the other side. I guess I’ll say this, we all come in with so many invisible losses. The reason why I say invisible losses, not just invisible to others, but to ourselves. So we come in with hidden grief that comes from different relationships, different times in our lives, things that happened. We’ve been rejected, abandoned in so many ways, and we come in survival mode in this relationship. And certainly, we came in, in this marriage, after two very tragic experiences. And we were happy and we have had deep connection.
“Everyone living this life, we all go through so much. If we think our relationship is going to be intact, I think we’re wrong. It’s going to blow up. It’s going to look unsolvable, as if it’s destroyed, as if you’ve made a mistake. You have regrets. Then, all of a sudden, it can be completely rebuilt.”
It’s unbelievable aha moments. Anyone who’s listening, please consider that. Talk to your spouse about that possibility. The possibility of what if this can feel very different going forward?
It can be a catalyst.
Yes, it can be better than anything that we’ve experienced before.
Yes. Well, thank you for your passion and your willingness to be an example here. You’ve mentioned invisible loss a few times as a concept, and I think we get a sense that it’s not visible, maybe to us or our person. And you just recently wrote a book. Would you be willing to share more about your book?
Yes. I spent 14 years helping people walk out of what I coined the waiting room. The place we go to, I guess, pause, reflect, recover, heal. Then unfortunately, because we are in that survival mode, without knowing, we stay there. We stay there longer than we really need to, and we start making our life in that place. In between the life we had to leave behind for whatever reason, and the life that we can build and have. That happens in relationships as well, that we go in survival mode. We go in the waiting room in a relationship as well. So I created this process called Life Reentry. Two clinical trial studies just finished, that were funded. A group of scientists did this. Amazing work. We are waiting for the papers to be published.
Now, I say this because this was definitely even more completely unexpected than even the books I’ve written. So many things have happened. So this work came in as doing work for tragedy and traditional grief, or grief that we understand. Then discovering that most people actually stay stuck, not because of the tragedy, but because of something that has no label, something that is beyond the losses. Even the losses that we talk about, small traumas and big, it wasn’t even like that. I started seeing patterns, and I’m sure you’ve seen the same thing in people, that they didn’t even know they were feeling. They didn’t know something impacted them. I call them moments of impact. They had these moments of impact, and because of those moments of impact in their life, they went into survival mode, not knowing that they did that. Then they stayed in that survival mode, beyond recovery, beyond healing. We see that in everyone. Everyone has a survivor self. We are all surviving. We can’t get rid of it, by the way.
So I wrote this book. This is book three. I’ve written three different books. This book is about non-traditional losses, or losses that have no label that we experience in our life, and how to track them down, understand them, and everyone’s invisible loss is very different, and then find a way out of that waiting room that you didn’t even know you experienced. I mean, I just exited a waiting room in my relationship this last year, that I had no idea I was in. None, zero. I’ve seen this so many times in people. In the classes I used to teach, we’ve had siblings come in, we’ve had mother and son come in. The moment we start acknowledging those invisible losses and the other person can see what they went through and really understand it, things start to shift and change in the conversations. And the way that we see our partner, our child, our sister, brother, whoever that is, best friend.
So I wrote this book about invisible loss. It has the map of the whole life reentry. At the back, there’s a whole guide for people to bring into. Lots of therapists are using it with their clients. Lots of people are taking in, sharing with their friends. It is written for the solo, for the person wanting to go through this journey by themselves. But I do believe it’s always best to have it with a professional as well, who can help you really track those invisible losses. Because unless we do that part, that step, exiting the waiting room won’t happen towards the right direction, and it won’t happen long enough. You’ll be coming back, because you’re surviving your life in ways that you don’t know, you don’t understand, and surviving your relationships in the way that you don’t know.
I want to add this. When people are reading this book, you’re going to go in thinking of your losses in a specific way. You’re going to think: Oh, I know what it is. No, that’s the thing about this. It’s like, we don’t know, and we think we know. So be open to the things that people consider to be small, the things that you experienced that nobody would validate normally. I want you to think about those. There’s a lot of homework in the book. There’s no shortcut, I haven’t found it. If someone has a shortcut, I’ll take that, than going through this whole book.
We wouldn’t be the same person, though.
No. Take your time with it, do the homework, and be good to yourself while you’re doing that work. Because it has to feel rewarding. Otherwise, it won’t work. The work started from my love of brain science. I did a whole year of a neuroscience coaching program, and I remember learning so much. This is 2009. This is a long time ago. That started me down that path when I was looking for what I needed to do for my own clients in 2010, knowing that the things I already had in my toolbox were not enough. I created this whole process.
I just want to say this final thing. This book, for me, everything is in it. The reason why I’m no longer doing classes is because I want people to just take this book and trust that they can do this in their own groups, with themselves, with the people in their life. Like, I’m not needed. It’s nice to have, I’m not saying it isn’t. But I am not needed there for this to take place going forward.
Wow. I am so appreciative of all the distillation of what you are describing that’s in this book, both from the research perspective and the protocol development and how everything is so comprehensive, and to have assistance and guidance. You’re saying the gentleness and the support and the container to do the work, but to be able to have the guidance to go to places that are invisible. That’s hard to do. So you’re really giving that protocol, that map, and then having the map towards reentry. I’m just like, everybody needs this book!
I’m about to kind of say yes to a different chapter in my own life, and living the book or living the work. Say yes to myself in the way that is important. So I hope when someone gets to the end of this book, their life will certainly feel different on the inside, even more than the outside. That makes all the difference in how we see ourselves and the life around us. Shifting that perspective of what was in the past, what happened to us in the past, and what is possible in the future, can change anything and everything.
Well, thank you for what you’ve shared and what you’ve given and offered in the book. I’ll make sure to have the link on today’s show notes.
Thank you. Thank you for having me. This was an awesome conversation. I trust every conversation to be what it needs to be, and I feel like this was definitely exactly as it needed to be for both of us, and for everyone who’s listening as well. So thank you for having me.
It’s a pleasure.
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The post ERP 453: How To Navigate Grief In Long Term Relationship – An Interview With Christina Rasmussen appeared first on Jessica Higgins.
As the winter season unfolds and the holidays bring their usual whirlwind of activity, it’s easy to lose sight of what truly matters. Amid the gift shopping, party planning, and packed schedules, the essence of connection and kindness often gets overshadowed. Yet, this time of year offers a unique opportunity to refocus on the deeper values that make life meaningful.
In 2017, a 5-part series titled “How Kindness Can Strengthen Your Love” introduced a new take on the traditional Advent calendar, encouraging readers to practice one small act of kindness each day in December. This season, the focus returns to kindness—not just as a gift to others, but as a transformative practice for self-compassion and relationship growth.
Research shows that the key to lasting, fulfilling relationships isn’t extravagant gestures—it’s simple acts of kindness and generosity. Studies reveal that kindness, along with emotional stability, is the most important predictor of satisfaction and stability in relationships. What’s more, giving kindness often benefits the giver even more than the receiver.
In this episode, we dive into the power of kindness and how it creates a ripple effect, spreading positivity and inspiring goodwill. We’ll explore how kindness strengthens relationships, nurtures emotional well-being, and can be cultivated like a muscle to improve our connections and our lives. Join us as we reflect on how kindness can be the greatest gift we give this holiday season—and beyond.
In this episode
06:31 Making a habit of spreading good vibes.
08:08 How kindness benefits both the giver and the receiver significantly.
14:51 Understanding emotional awareness in relationships.
19:26 The impact of gentleness and compassion in communication.
21:26 Navigating intimate dynamics with increased mindfulness.
27:21 How kindness transforms perspectives and priorities.
32:56 The science behind kindness and personal Well-being.
38:41 Kindness as a path to sustainable happiness.
41:40 Strategies for integrating kindness into daily life.
Your Check List of Actions to Take
- Download the “31 Days of Practicing Kindness Challenge” and follow along with the challenge.
- Begin each day by selecting one of the kindness practices from the PDF and commit to completing it.
- Each evening, share your day’s “highs and lows” with your partner or family to boost positive neurochemicals and foster connection.
- Dedicate undivided attention to your partner during conversations, by putting away distractions like phones and making eye contact, ensuring they feel heard and valued.
- Add positivity to each interaction by genuinely praising and acknowledging your partner’s efforts and achievements.
- Recognize when your partner needs time alone and respect their personal space to nurture their well-being.
- Take interest and support your partner’s hobbies and goals to show you value their individual growth and happiness.
- Regularly affirm your partner’s worth with kind and supportive words, reinforcing their value in your life.
Mentioned
ERP 125: How Kindness Can Strengthen Your Love
- A Meditation on Lovingkindness by Jack Kornfield (article)
- Guided Meditation – “Loving Kindness” by Tara Brach (audio)
- Loving Kindness Meditation, by Great Good In Action (article & audio)
ERP 128: How Kindness Can Strengthen Your Love – Part Two
ERP 129: How Kindness Can Strengthen Your Love – Part Three
ERP 130: How Kindness Can Strengthen Your Love – Part Four
ERP 131: How Kindness Can Strengthen Your Love – Part Five
The 31-Day Kindness Challenge (free guide) (pdf)
Connect with Dr. Jessica Higgins
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Website: drjessicahiggins.com
Email: jessica@drjessicahiggins.com
About this Episode
As we turn towards the topic of kindness, this is kindness for ourselves and kindness in the way that we interact with another. I’m going to talk a little bit more about that here.
Here in the States, it’s approaching the winter and holiday season, and this can be an opportunity to put focus on aspects of life that really matter. Often, I think, in our heart of hearts, we want to connect with the people that are near and dear, whether or not it’s family, chosen family, friendships, bonds and relationships that really matter. Or perhaps even wanting to volunteer, or being in the spirit of showing up and being in a present connected space. Yet, with the hustle and bustle of this season, we can often easily get stressed and distracted or even overwhelmed.
So one of the things I would love to encourage all of us, and I am very inspired to do this myself, and I’ll share a little bit more about that. But it reminded me, in 2017, I published a five-part series with a topic of How Kindness Can Strengthen Your Love. My intention at that time was to give an alternative to what we might know as the advent calendar, which is a special calendar that counts the days to Christmas. So starting with the month of December, December 1st, and then it’s a 25-day calendar, and Christmas being the 25th day. Now, not everyone celebrates Christmas, and I do think, as we close in on 2024, that we can be in this space and practice of kindness. And I, in 2017, created this opportunity.
Well, the five-part series gave examples of different things that could be done to build the muscle of kindness, to be flexing those muscles as a practice and getting a rep for that. The focus was on relationship, and it was like a PDF. One side had all the different 25 opportunities and the examples that I had given in the five-part series, and then the other was blank. So viably, you could fill in the ones you did do, or perhaps even getting creative and adding your own.
Well, this season, I felt inspired to revamp this, put my attention on kindness myself, and also encourage you all to join me if you’re interested. That the focus, yes, to be on relationship and the primary bond and adding the intention of kindness, to offer that generosity, to offer that compassion, that peace, that goodwill, and also just to be in the space of kindness. So this could be for, as I mentioned as we were just doing our centering exercise, for the self. It could also be for others in the world. Or as I just said, relationship.
It’s an interesting experience for me, in that, oftentimes, if I’m very focused on what needs to get done, I may not feel that I have the capacity or the time and space to be in the practice of developing kindness. Yet, ironically, when I do practice or put my attention on kindness, it’s almost as if my other goals and priorities fall into place, or at least will be made more possible by the practice. It’s this almost elixir or something that basically offers more opportunity for me to be in flow.
Two other points of benefit of practicing kindness, that are research-based, are: one from the Gottman Institute. The key to lasting relationships comes down to kindness and generosity. And to quote the Gottmans, kindness along with emotional stability is the most important predictor of satisfaction and stability in a marriage. The second benefit that I want to emphasize, is that while we may think that we are giving to others when we’re in the practice of kindness or acts of kindness, the research shows us that the person giving the gesture or the act or the word of kindness benefits more than the receiver. It’s almost as if it’s generative, and that when we participate as the giver, we benefit greatly.
I do think, as we’re talking about kindness, it can be easily dismissed as a soft skill that perhaps doesn’t have measurable results, and I think it is hard to estimate the impact of kindness. Yet, I do think we could, perhaps if we paused, reflect on a time personally, or where we’ve heard someone we care about share a story of how kindness made a difference in their life. Whether or not it was a smile, or a warm welcoming interaction that made a profound difference, giving a sense of goodness, connection, or even hope in the world. Or when we’re talking about relationship, if there’s been a time where your significant other has been unexpectedly kind or generous, what that promotes. Again, I do believe it has this ripple effect that it’s really hard to perhaps emphasize the importance of.
But in this winter season, as we approach the end of the year here, I want to acknowledge that kindness contributes to a positive cycle of goodwill and generosity. Again, the person receiving a kind word, act, or gesture will likely feel more inspired and motivated to reciprocate, participate, or pay it even forward. As positive emotions increase, so do relationship satisfaction and fulfillment. As we engage with the practice of kindness, it strengthens our ability. It’s like a muscle that gets built with exercise.
“Kindness is a trait that can grow with practice, and we can fall out of practice. Sometimes even, I would say, the most securely functioning relationships can lose touch with the kind thoughts, words, and actions.”
One of the things that inspired me to revisit this and do a 31-day challenge was, I’ve been in process of a new website, honestly since 2022. Some of you may know, I had a very unfortunate circumstance, where my husband and I were living in a highly toxic mold environment and it was affecting our health. We chose to get rid of everything that was porous, which ended up being probably 90% of our belongings. All that to say, we had a couple year journey, and we landed finally and bought a home, our first home, in San Luis Obispo, California, which is 90 minutes north of Santa Barbara where we were living. This is all between, if you’re familiar with California, it’s between San Francisco and LA about halfway.
I did new branding last year, and I am crossing my fingers, hoping to release. Hopefully by the time this airs, the new website is already live. One of the things, with many, many other things that were required for the website, I wanted to do my best to categorize all the episodes. So we’re at over 450 here. So when one goes to the website, not that I think very many people utilize this or will utilize it. But then, instead of scrolling through all of the episodes, that one could choose on a particular topic and have a bit more organization in the episodes. Well, all that to say, I did this by hand. I had tried to get some support through a plugin or even OpenAI.
I don’t really use OpenAI or AI very much at all, and I thought this could be a good way. It’s something that I’ve already done all the work around, and could I get support to categorize? Well, ended up being that I did it all by hand, which was great, I revisited all the episodes. And one of the things that I want to say, that there were several guests that talked about the importance of having positive interactions and positive associations with one’s partner. This is critical, I could go on and on about this. But even from a nervous system, neurological, brain physiological functioning, that when we associate our significant other with positivity, that’s going to be more encouraging us to come close, to feel more desire. Versus feeling aversion, and even if your tendency is to turn towards and really wanna be responsive, you might have to feel some obstacles internally if you’re feeling off-put or feeling as though the interactions have become negatively laden. That can make it really difficult to naturally be open and want to have connection. It seems like an obvious.
Personally, I can say, as I just stated, the end of 2022 and the crisis that my husband and I were in, and then the uprootedness and the dislocation and the journey of the last essentially two years, and then purchasing the home was extremely stressful. I could go on and on about the different layers that activated more stress for us. But it has been challenging, and I can see inside myself and inside my husband, ways in which we’re responding that are triggers. And it can feel like our interactions are now heavy with that stress, with those triggers. I’m really grateful that we’ve landed, and now we can really focus on rebuilding in many ways. So in support of that, I wanted to bring to you the challenge of 31 days of practicing kindness.
Now, I do not think that this has to be anything effortful or change your lifestyle or how you’re going to allocate time. This is intended for you to be able to access easily. If you’re interested in going deeper, of course you can visit the five-part series and listen to those episodes, and I’m going to share a little bit more and revisit a couple here. This is, again, intended to be light. It’s intended to support you, elevate you, add resource to this December, the end of 2024. And also hopefully add positivity to your interactions with your loved ones, and hopefully, most notably, your significant other, if you are in relationship. The PDF is a simple one-page, I think it’s attractive, and it gives you an opportunity to either print it out or have it on your device so that you can reference. It essentially lists the 25 original practices of kindness, and then I’m going to offer you the additional six. There’s a white box so that you can check off the ones that you do do. Now, they don’t have to be done in the particular sequence that I have them listed. But this could be a way to gamify, for you to just notice, put your attention and your focus on kindness.
It might be that you are practicing kindness frequently and perhaps just don’t maybe notice it, because it’s such a habit and a part of your life. That would be wonderful. If by chance you have been focusing on other things and it’s something you do care about, but perhaps have fallen out of being explicit about, this can give, again, a little bit more opportunity to bring this more into center focus. Again, I will put the link to downloading the 31-Day Kindness Challenge on today’s show notes, which can be found on the website DrJessicaHiggins.com, and you’ll see the 31-Day Kindness Challenge.
I am going to be doing this challenge. It’ll be interesting what my experience will be. Will I stay with it? Will it be easy? Or are there things that I’m already doing and it’s just a no-brainer, or does it challenge me? Or do I have to work hard at some more than the others? I imagine there will be a little bit of everything here. Yet, this is something I very much want to prioritize.
I won’t list every 31 kindness action here that I’ve listed. Again, I want to encourage you to check out those other episodes. You could also get the transcript or just look at the show notes, you don’t have to go through. Actually, you know what I’ll do? On today’s show notes, I will pull the show notes or the summary of all the 25 and put them on today’s show notes. It’ll be long, but at least that will be a quick short note reference tool. If you want to go deeper, of course I’ll have the links to all of those episodes. Then today, I’m going to revisit five that were original, and then I’m going to offer you six more.
The first one I wanted to share is my favorite, and it’s number two, which is: be a person of increase. This is pretty general, but it’s an attitude. It’s a vibe, if you will. It’s bringing good to an exchange, an interaction, or a situation. So if there’s a way to add positivity, to generate a sense of goodwill, it’s finding a way to bring that value, to bring that increase. So when you’re thinking perhaps about your significant other, what could support them, the interaction, or what could help be improved? Perhaps it’s offering affirmation, encouragement. It’s sending a thoughtful supportive text, knowing that they might have something that they’re going through, a challenge. Thinking about you. You’ve got this. Or I can’t wait to hear how it went. Keep up the good work. Those type of things. Or just even letting your partner know you’re thinking about them, or if there’s a way to contribute or help, or perhaps even doing something out of the ordinary. That’s a way to bring, again, positivity. Now, many of the other ones that are discussed can likely go under this broader category. But again, it’s the mindset. It’s approaching an interaction from this place of looking for: how can I be a person of increase, how can I offer improvement and goodness here?
The second one that I wanted to share, which is actually number one, it’s powerful, extremely powerful. Every time I’ve done it, I have been appalled and astounded by my experience, and yet I do not do it very often at all. It’s doing a loving kindness meditation. On the show notes, you’ll find an excerpt from Meta Meditation by Meta Institute, and it’s talking about how to do a loving kindness meditation and giving you instructions. Then I actually list, in short, what it is. There may be a few different ways of doing it. However, in its essence, it’s focusing on others, focusing on even maybe somebody you have a difficult time with, and then focusing on self. The essence of it is: May I be happy, may I be well, may I be safe, may I be peaceful and at ease. Then also: May you be happy, may you be well, may you be safe, may you be peaceful and at ease.
Again, as you say these phrases and really connect with the intention and the heartfelt meaning, you may feel those loving kindness sensations arise. So this can be a very strong practice as you repeat these words. I also will list resources that give you the guided meditation that would be facilitated. So you’ll have both the instructions and the write-out, if you want to self-lead. If you want, you can reference, I put Jack Kornfield, Tara Brach, and also another loving kindness meditation by Greater Good in Action, which is an article and an audio.
The third original kindness recommendation, out of that five series, is something that my husband and I try to do on a frequent basis. I would even say, in some ways, it’s become a bit of a ritual. It was really cute. Last holiday season, we visited my husband’s brother and sister-in-law, and they have three boys, three children. And his mother or their mothers were there too. As a family, we were all together, and he was teaching his nephews the experience of celebrating wins, and one of the other things that we do is to do high and low. Like, what’s a high and a low for the day? Now, the celebrating wins is an aspect of this. Sometimes when we do highs, it’s celebrating a win or something that went well.
“When we experience a sense of success, whether or not it’s small or big, any accomplishment or something positive, we get a release of dopamine, which is associated with the feel-good hormone neurochemical. And we’ll also get a release of testosterone, which can help us feel a little more confident, quick witted, and courageous.”
These neurochemicals can also support the oxytocin, especially when we’re sharing it with our loved ones. So how couples or people in relationship support each other when things go well is really notable. I’m not going to go into great depth. Again, if you want to hear more about this, you can visit the previous podcast episode. Also, in today’s show notes, I’ll put the summary which references the psychological study that goes over four ways that partners respond to each other’s good news. The title is: Will you be there for me when things go right? So this is a sense of like, do we respond positively, or are we passive about it? Or are we even destructive about it? Essentially, when we can celebrate in the good and in the win, it can be incredibly bonding. I also referenced an article titled Why You and Your Partner Need To Celebrate Each Other, this is by Linda and Charlie Bloom. An active constructive response, I would also say active positive response, shows generosity of spirit, eagerness to hear more about the good news. Celebrating triumphs in life, from small seemingly trivial ones, to those that are more significant, strengthens the bond between two people.
The fourth that I want to share with you here today is actually number nine, and it is: treat your partner with manners. Now, I don’t find myself or identify with being super buttoned up or formal. Yet, I think this is incredibly helpful, surprisingly helpful.
“In partnership, especially when there’s a longevity to the relationship, that we can assume a lot. This is just natural, that we want to automate and we don’t want to put a lot of energy. This is just from an evolutionary standpoint, that we want to automate as much as possible. Yet, we do not want to automate our relationship.”
So when we can continue to consider someone’s preferences, like if you want to turn on the light and they’re already in the room, perhaps asking, would it be okay if I turn on the light? Or perhaps you’re wanting to share in a hug, and it is maybe unclear if your partner is open to affection at that time. Saying, can we hug? Or I’d love to give you a hug, would that be something you’re open to? This is something we can fall out of practice, and yet we’re two people in relationship that are having a unique experience, that I think is really important to continue to treat with that civility, that respect.
I will say, there’s a fine line here. I don’t think we want to be in a place where we can’t be at ease or we can’t relax. I am very much a fan of being comfortable, and really giving time and space and room for leisure and restoration, which means I might not have my hair done or I might be in sweats. My husband often is very casual and comfortable in his attire as well. We do a lot of outdoor activities and are very physical on the weekends. So often, I don’t wear makeup on the weekends. Or if I’m on vacation, sometimes I’ll put makeup on if we go out to dinner. But there might be other times where I go to work and I’m like: Oh, I haven’t put makeup on in a while. So I do think there is something to be said about being in that place of comfort and being in a natural state. Yet, again, where are we being mindful and considerate? Do we bring the best to others, or are we also bringing that conscientiousness to our relationship? Again, not to run the risk of feeling too formal or on our tippy toes, or having to watch our P’s and Q’s, so to speak. But that we have that care and we’re offering that to our partner, which can be a real act of kindness.
The fifth kindness gesture or action that I wanted to revisit from the original five-part series, which I find harder to do at times, and that is number 16: accept your partner’s perspective. Now, this is easy enough to do when perhaps they have something to contribute that you maybe didn’t think about or hadn’t really considered, and they’re offering perspective and it’s an opportunity to learn. But when it potentially conflicts with something that you’re wanting or needing, or perhaps their experience is very different and they’re perceiving you in an unfavorable or negative way, it can be really, really difficult to stay open.
I have heard so many people, and at times, myself for sure, feel that even listening or accepting my partner’s perspective means that I am endorsing or condoning or agreeing with them. I can find in my relationship with my husband, if he’s describing his experience, now sometimes he does it where he appears or sounds to me as though he’s describing the facts, not his experience, then I want to rebuttal, or I would say even sometimes argue with him, that that isn’t my experience. He can really feel that I’m not hearing him, I’m not understanding or really validating or respecting his experience and his perspective. Because it conflicts, or I feel as though he’s seeing me in a negative light or negating what’s true for me. So this is where it can get off-track pretty easily. Maybe even couples will start getting into this place of talking louder because they don’t feel heard, or wanting to talk longer so that they can explain more, and then people just feel more and more unheard. That’s where it can even escalate to an argument.
I would say, several weeks ago, my husband and I had an interaction. So one of the stressors was, when we purchased the house that we’re in, it has a downstairs one-bedroom unit that wasn’t really rentable as a standalone. So we invested to make it a standalone rental, which required a financial investment. We did a lot of projects ourselves, and it was extremely stressful. From the mental load of all the things that needed to get done and strategizing it, and we’re trying to do it in a pretty quick timeline, and our approaches were different. I won’t go into too much detail here. But all this to say that we were experiencing some conflict along the way, but we didn’t really have the time to process it. So fast-forward, it’s rented, we’ve had time. Anyway, he was sharing with me that he had feelings. He had, in his opinion, attempted to share them with me prior, and had felt that I wasn’t really hearing him.
So this particular occasion, I don’t know if I understood in that moment that he was hurting or had some feelings he was trying to describe. Somehow I got the memo, and it was like after dinner hanging out on the couch and he was sharing, and I could tell it meant a lot that I would just listen. I will say, I didn’t love how he described a lot of it. However, I stayed with him, and I was really trying to listen and contemplate and empathize and put myself in his shoes, and really not get caught up on his description and really try to stay with what he was wanting to communicate. I feel that I was able to do that, and I was like, that sucks. Just really empathizing. He was like, I think this is the first time you’ve really heard me about this.
I was like: Ugh, I feel so bad. Again, there was a lot of moving parts. But it was such an important experience for him to feel that I was hearing him and could understand.
“It’s not just hearing, it’s really understanding and staying with it to get it on a deeper level and to accept it. To not try to rationalize it, justify or defend it.”
That can really, I want to say, move mountains. But it’s this sense of bringing connection in a real disconnected place. It’s offering repair, it’s offering an opportunity to feel more together in something that’s been difficult. It didn’t change the facts, but it also created a bridge for us to start to find each other in these places that we had fallen out of connection.
The last six that I’m offering you here, I actually was using AI, and I was just curious what AI would say about kindness. There was a couple that I was like, I haven’t even done episodes on this, and I totally didn’t add it in the first series. So I wanted to bring that to you here. Again, I look forward, if you’re going to join me in this practice, I would love to hear what your experience is, and maybe I’ll think of a fun way that we can all stay to connected. But if you’re on my email list, I’ll definitely start there.
So number 26: speak kindly and affirm their worth. So this is using encouraging and kind words often, and reminding them of their strengths and affirming how much they mean to you. When we think about love languages, this is words of affirmation.
Now, I’m certain that I included this in the original 25. I just don’t think I gave it its own specific, it was in a broader topic. But I did think it was worth naming. Number 27: practice patience and understanding. So perhaps when your partner is doing something that’s different or conflicts with your style, offering a little more grace, a little more patience. Or perhaps when misunderstandings arise, being patient to take time to understand what they’re experiencing can really bring this kindness and care and peace to the interaction.
Number 28: give space when needed. Now, actually speaking of love languages, this is an episode, I think I had called it the Sixth Love Language, and did a podcast episode on giving space and offering that to your significant other. Or maybe it was even silence, I’ll make sure to put that link on today as a show notes as well. Now this is something that my husband very much values, and it’s not something that I do naturally, but have learned to offer him because it’s something that he really benefits from. He’s more of an introvert, so he appreciates that time to be with himself, reflect, and have his internal time and space not engaging with others. So that can be just giving space. It means stepping back, not engaging, maybe not pursuing, just honoring someone’s personal space, and perhaps not even taking it personally when they want alone time or personal space. That can be a real gift to offer.
Number 29: encourage their passions and goals. Supporting a partner’s endeavors, dreams, goals can be a way to show support, to show kindness. Honoring their individuality, honoring their individual pursuits, and giving them encouraging words, and helping them feel that their interests are valued. It’s a way to support their livelihood, and that can be a very kind gesture.
Number 30: validate their feelings. Now, again, this is something that I know was included. Again, I wasn’t super specific about it, so I did think it was worth having it be its own focus. Again, even when you don’t fully understand or agree, just acknowledging the validity of like: Oh, I can see how you’d feel that way, or that makes sense. Whereas I mentioned, oh, that sounds really hard, just to even say that, taking that pause.
I was on someone else’s podcast yesterday, and I was remarking, we were talking about some gender differences, and I do think I can speak in more of the masculine energy or the feminine energy. But we were talking about communication and I said, there’s so often times where if I’m working with a heteronormative couple, the guy is wanting to go to fix-it mode. I do think there are a lot of women that go to fix-it mode, myself included. So when a partner is expressing discontent or feelings, that it’s easy to want to help solution or solve that concern. Yet, what often is more powerful is just feeling this validation.
I remember there’s so many times in sessions where I ask the partner that might be going into solution mode, I’m like, can you slow down a little bit with me? Can you tell me what happened right before you went to offering that solution? I have yet to experience something different than: Oh, I see that they’re hurting, I feel their pain, I care, and I want to help. I’m like, would you be willing to say that? But it’s like, I have to state the obvious, or that’s what’s helpful? Yes, it is. So I want to encourage all of us to slow down.
“When our partner is raising their hand or bringing something to us with tenderness, to really take that time to be like: I hear you, I feel you, I see you. Just validate how it makes sense or how you could see that that would be difficult.”
I mean, it’s crazy. Nothing is necessarily different. But just feeling that connection and feeling seen, that safe place to land, is so connecting.
31: listen with full attention. Again, this is an episode that I’ve done on listening. I think there’s one or maybe even two that I did on the art of listening or the power or the gift of listening. And then, I know in one of the other kindness topics, I had addressed this. But again, I wanted to give it full focus to just the power of listening with that full attentiveness. So active listening. There’s times where I’m listening to someone and I’m really with them, and then other times where I’m listening but I’m also thinking about something else or I’m multitasking. Sometimes I’ll say: Oh, I was doing my best to listen, I just didn’t catch all of it. I really try to give that active listening that demonstrates that undivided attention and that care and that respect, I think it’s such an important thing. Especially in today’s society, when we have so many things vying for attention: our phones, our to-do lists, or various things that we may need to be focusing on. But to give a person, our loved one, this undivided quality time, focused attention, and this real deep listening, their thoughts, their feelings, and maintaining that eye contact and showing that genuine interest. It can be such a gift, such, such a gift. I think we can all reflect on it. Those are the real connecting times.
I so appreciate you listening and staying with me as we go over various ways to engage in the practice of kindness.
“More than anything, just encouraging the kindness in thought, the kindness in words, and the kindness in actions. If that’s what it comes down to, just remembering those three simple aspects of kindness, that can really be an opportunity to participate in the generative space of goodwill and kindness. It can be such a positive endeavor.”
If you’re interested in joining me in the 31-Day Kindness Challenge, I want to encourage you to, again, download the PDF and start practicing with me. We’ll be starting December 1st. Again, if you want to be on my email list, I will be sharing and engaging more there. You could be on my email list by simply downloading the 31-Day Kindness Challenge PDF that can be found on today’s show notes, again, at DrJessicaHiggins.com.
Thank you so much for spending your valuable time with us here on The Empowered Relationship Podcast. I am deeply privileged to be supporting these conversations and to be sharing this time with you. Until next time, I hope you take great care.
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The post ERP 452: Relationship Practice — A 31-Day Kindness Challenge appeared first on Jessica Higgins.
Emotional wounds from early relationships often cast long shadows over our adult lives, manifesting in unexpected ways. Whether it’s feeling an inexplicable sense of burnout not tied to work, struggling with co-dependency, or recognizing recurring patterns of avoidance and anxiety in relationships, these issues are all too familiar but profoundly challenging. However, the road to healing and understanding these ingrained patterns doesn’t have to be walked alone.
In this episode, we delve deep into how early family dynamics and childhood experiences shape our emotional and physical well-being as adults. You’ll learn how unaddressed attachment issues can trigger stress responses and lead to health problems, the importance of setting boundaries, and the power of emotional attunement in fostering healthier relationships. Additionally, through real-life stories and professional insights, you’ll discover strategies to overcome these deep-rooted challenges, nurture personal growth, and ultimately, build more resilient and fulfilling relationships.
Jen and Karden are seasoned mind-body practitioners who have experienced chronic pain and fatigue. Jen is an expert in the field of treating psychophysiological disorders and Karden specializes in somatic trauma therapies. Together, they co-founded the esteemed healing collective SOMIA where they have helped thousands of individuals regulate their nervous systems and heal.
In this episode
6:54 Exploring the impact of relational dynamics on healing and nervous system regulation.
18:54 Navigating attachment styles and emotional triggers in collaborative healing.
34:43 Embracing accountability: How self-awareness and validation promote relational healing.
43:02 The importance of setting healthy boundaries within oneself as a means of emotional regulation, particularly in the context of parenting.
49:53 How awareness with others impacts relationships and friendships.
52:49 How subtle childhood experiences can shape adult triggers and unmet needs in relationships.
58:15 The Secret Language of the Body.
Your Check List of Actions to Take
- Document your emotional triggers and reactions to develop a clearer understanding of how early life experiences impact current relationships.
- Clearly define and assert your personal limits to protect your emotional well-being and maintain balance in relationships.
- Hold periodic meetings with your partner or collaborator to discuss relationship dynamics and address any arising issues.
- Incorporate somatic exercises and mindfulness practices to regulate your nervous system and manage stress effectively.
- Own your behavior and its impact on your relationships, and actively work towards making reparations when necessary.
- Engage in therapy or coaching to address chronic emotional and attachment issues, leveraging expertise to facilitate deeper healing.
- Actively listen and respond to your partner’s emotions, working towards understanding and meeting subtle needs.
- Implement both compassionate support (yin) and protective, assertive boundaries (yang) to create a safe and emotionally nurturing environment.
Mentioned
The Secret Language of the Body: Regulate Your Nervous System, Heal Your Body, Free Your Mind ***(Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
Relationship Map To Happy, Lasting Love
Connect with Jennifer Mann and Karden Rabin
Websites: somiainternational.com
Instagram: instagram.com/iamjenmann | instagram.com/kardenrabin
Connect with Dr. Jessica Higgins
Facebook: facebook.com/EmpoweredRelationship
Instagram: instagram.com/drjessicahiggins
Podcast: drjessicahiggins.com/podcasts/
Pinterest: pinterest.com/EmpowerRelation
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/drjessicahiggins
Twitter: @DrJessHiggins
Website: drjessicahiggins.com
Email: jessica@drjessicahiggins.com
About this Episode
Jen and Karden, thank you so much for being here! I love speaking to people that have such a rich background and experience and training in the world of somatics. What would you like to let people know who are just getting to know you here and where you’re coming from, as we approach our conversation?
Thank you for welcoming us, Jessica. It’s really great to be here, and Jen and I were both looking forward to this one. Because we don’t get the opportunity too often, in our work, to speak directly to how relational dynamics impact the nervous system, and really how they are everything. So we’re just excited to be here, to be able to bring all that out.
Yeah, so excited. Thank you so much for having us. As Karden said also, not only in our work, but also in our personal life, I think healing relational dynamics and some of those childhood wounds that we brought into our adult life, were some of the key aspects of healing our life and our health and our overall resilience. So we’re very excited to have this conversation with you.
Thank you. Even just our quick chat before we started recording here, both of you speaking to how you try to really be in a practice of how you relate to one another. Just for listeners, you are not in an intimate relationship. You both have your respective spouses, and you’re in partnership in this work. But yet you bring a lot of that attunement and awareness around what’s happening in your nervous system, as well as the patterns relationally. I appreciate that just many people who are working together, that are a dyad, often are in relationships. So it’s nice to have an expression of doing the work outside of intimacy.
By the way, they are in relationship. I don’t believe we really can interact with anyone other than maybe a stranger or someone who’s really perfunctory in our life, like the barista we see daily, without those relational dynamics coming online. It deepens over time too, because they get more and more enmeshed into your life. It’s a two-sided thing. When you can pretend that there aren’t relational dynamics going on—when you can pretend that you’re not bringing your wounds, your attachment styles, your expectations into the relationship—then everything can seem explained by business, or explained by practicalities, or kept really kind of sterile. But when you really look at it, especially when there’s impasses, those impasses are rarely mostly business, or mostly practical, or logistical. Those impasses are because something relational has happened.
Well, I agree with you, absolutely. I imagine, as you were speaking about just everything is relationship, and then when we add the layer of intimacy, sexuality, and that bonding of a secure attachment figure, that it typically increases the risk. Or the nervous system associates a spouse as a survival, just how we are wired. And what you’re speaking to is, any type of relating where we get activated and our system gets (so-called) triggered, that likely, there are things getting evoked that are relational.
I just want to say that I’m super miffed at my own nervous system for mapping my mother onto most of my intimate female relationships. Like, if it would stop doing that, that’d be really great. That would be really nice. But it just keeps doing it.
Sorry. As we’re having this conversation, it’s funny, it’s like Karden and I have had a lot of interviews lately, because we wrote a book and it’s part of sharing our work in the world. But this one in particular is so timely, and Karden and I will expand on that. But I’m just so excited to talk about all of this work. Sometimes, the work that you have with your spouse improves or helps you heal other relationships. But in this particular case, the work that I’ve had to do with Karden, because of our wounds and how we show up in relationships and in this world, has helped massively increase compassion and love and understanding and everything with my husband. So it’s been a super powerful experience.
Just earlier today, Karden and I had a meeting, just like our regular—Tuesday or Thursday—Thursday catch-up. Just reflecting on how far we’ve come and how our relationship has helped, although it was very painful at times, how it’s helped our nervous systems not only build emotional capacity and resilience, but also grow. And be not just the survival self in the driver’s seat, the inner child in the driver’s seat, but also the observer, the higher self at times, when possible. More and more so over time.
Well, I don’t know, help me if this is true, it sounds as though, Karden, you were saying that there’s a deepening when we say yes and we have an agreement to looking at ourselves and our patterns, and also bringing that awareness and that understanding and showing up in relationship. In a lot of ways, it’s a teacher, what gets activated is curriculum. And it sounds like what a gift, that you’re speaking to, Jen, that you can really appreciate the work that you both have done and the commitment and the interest to do the work in your business partnership, that’s actually translated and really had such a positive impact on your intimate relationship.
It’s interesting, as we’re talking, I think I had said a moment ago, coming from the lens of intimate relationship being one of the greatest teachers. But I also think business and venture, because it’s our creative. Like, we’re generating from ourselves, and then when we do that with another, to your point, Karden, how can it not? How can our wounding, how can our attachment styles, how can our tendencies not show up?
Creativity has sexuality to it. It does.
Yes, agreed. It is, synonymously.
Exactly, it’s a period. Creativity has sexuality to it. So that’s another thing that adds to the bonding, if you’re in a creative and really productive business relationship, because those energies and dynamics mirror each other.
So I’m actually going to take the gloves off here and speak a little bit more specifically to what Jen and I are talking about, kind of from the top-down. But I’ll back up and say that, in our work, when people are having lots of dysregulation in their life, when they’re having physical illness, when they’re having chronic pain, when they’re having all of these physiological symptoms, especially after basically the medical system has ruled out X, Y, and Z. We know that we’re dealing with nervous system dysregulation based in stress, trauma, and attachment injuries.
So in our work, this is what Jen and I share all the time.
“When you can stop pathologizing what’s going on inside your physiology, your diseases, and look at them as messages, they become a very painful but extraordinarily powerful pathway to healing and becoming a whole new you.”
I want to say, that’s been our bread and butter. That’s what we do. But what’s gone on for Jen and I, in the last year, is that if you can look at physiological illness as messages from the body that are sending a really clarion horn to heal, then you can also look at, if you will, pathology in relationship, breakdown in relationship, pain and conflict in relationship, in the exact same way. Holy shit, there’s some massive not rightness going on here! I can do the normal thing, which is to overthink, analyze, and blame, and externalize, which I did a shit ton of at Jen, FYI. And/or, it’s kind of like an and, because it doesn’t happen all at once. And I can use this awful relational rupture and pain that’s going on in the same way as I used it to recover from chronic illness, from my internal pain, to now heal some really, really, really important relational neurophysiology, relational dynamics, and find a whole nother level of expansion.
That’s largely what Jen and I have had this experience of. Last year, we got invited by Harper Collins to write our book. It was like, oh my God, amazing! But as you probably know, Jessica, the greatest bounties and gifts and opportunities come with the greatest, often, amount of crisis and need and stress and overwork. So Jen and I were in this crucible. Oh, I forgot to mention, we had a 100-day deadline. We wrote our book in a 100 days.
Oh my gosh!
Well, that was with the extension, right? Because originally it was less.
Yeah, the original was like 90.
Yeah, and we were like, we need another few days, please.
So we had this really, really, really intimate, close, highly stressful time of working. She actually came out here to the Berkshires to do this writing intensive, while also, by the way, doing a ton of stuff for our business as well, to align with the book. So it was mad, it was crazy. And then, what happened was, after this intense experience of creativity, connection, and output, Jen went back to Bali. Okay, no problem. Except, my biggest attachment wounds have everything to do with catastrophic levels of abandonment, neglect, and not existing. All of a sudden, out of nowhere, those flared up like a dragon. And I’m going to pause for a second. But that’s like, it came out of nowhere. But you can see how it assembled, and then it was this opportunity—a painful opportunity—where this wound got evoked through this accidental dynamic.
One other thing, because we were talking about how this helps us in our actual relationships with our spouses. Likely, this wound that I’ve been working through, could not have been facilitated with my wife because of the proximity of our bond. My wife doesn’t go to Bali and leave me. So that’s just a little walkthrough of what we’ve been doing, but also, how it maps on to this internal nervous system healing work.
Thank you for sharing. As you’re describing, and you mentioned a moment ago, Jen, of this being timely. Can you give us a sense of where are we in your process, if I might ask?
We’re still in business together.
And you’re in Greece, so you’re not in Bali. So it didn’t just happen. But you are recognizing, and I would love to hear more, and I also want to hear from you, Jen. Because you’re saying really, Karden, that if we’re willing to turn towards, that what gets profoundly activated can be a signal, a signpost, a trailhead. It got ignited in you in a very profound way. Just the contrast of that deep intensive connection, creativity, bonding around this goal of writing this book and everything that that required. Really giving to the book all the things that you are really wanting to deliver, and then to have your person leave, and what got triggered. Jen, I would love to weave your thought and your experience here.
This is so fun. I say fun because it’s really nice to talk about it. Karden and I are working on this, but to talk about it like this is very refreshing. So I have a disorganized attachment style, and most of the time, I tend to lean towards the avoidant. I’m very much like, the less I am engaged with my emotions, the safer I feel. Because my mom was very up and down, very strong emotions, a lot of rage, a lot of expression. And then my dad left when I was young. So there’s the abandonment, and then there’s the volatility. So depending on who I’m with and how the other person is, my body, my brain, my nervous system adapts, and I’m aware of that. So I can be in that moment and be like: Wow, right now I’m feeling a little bit anxious, or right now, I really don’t wanna feel my emotions. My body wants me to feel safe, and it’s trying to detach me from this experience.
So with Karden, what happened, with his expression of more leaning towards the anxious attachment, what happened there for me is, it ignited that opposition of extreme avoidant. Like: Wow, this is too much for me, this is really pulling me down, dragging me down. It was sort of a remembrance, in my body, of the emotional ups and downs, and anger and rage, like how my mother was. So for me to be in those moments, and for Karden to be in those moments, in our own, was really hard.
So for context, Jessica, Karden and I are in this work for our own professional reasons, but also personal reasons. In 2019, I got diagnosed with multiple chronic illnesses—chronic fatigue syndrome, pots, coincidentally at the same time, COVID. But it was sort of all amalgamated. It was all the same presentation, just various medical opinions coming up at the same time. And what triggered it, there was study. I went back to school as an adult to be a physiotherapist, and I was working before and after school. High pressures, recovering perfectionist, high-achiever, people-pleaser, just the whole thing. Then on top of that, with the pandemic arising, although my mother lives in Italy, the relationship with my mother and I became very, very aggravated. So my mother is a codependent attachment with me. So she is dependent on me, but I am sort of avoidant with her.
So during COVID, because she’s alone—she doesn’t have a partner, sort of romantically speaking—and her only daughter lived in another country. And I left quite young, because I was a ballet dancer. She has a lot of wounds about me not being there. So with COVID, when all of a sudden she’s isolated, and the fear of what might happen in the world, who knows. And my mother is in Italy, and in Italy, they had soldiers on the street. Outside her house, there was a literal tank. So she was like: Oh my God, what is going on, we’re into war? She felt very profoundly unsafe in her body. So her survival mechanism was codependency times 5 billion, calling me like 10 times a day. For me, at the beginning, my response was like, avoidance, ignoring.
But then, she’s my mom, and I’ve done a lot of work at this point, and I’m going to start answering the calls. So that, on top of everything else, speaking of how physical symptoms can be related and are truly rooted in these chronic experiences that are born in our childhood. My body was like, no more. No more, this is too much. This is like the culmination of what you’ve been trying to get away from your whole life, and now it’s at the tippy top. So that’s when my body was like, I became completely bed bound. I had no energy. I couldn’t get out of bed for over a year.
“It’s just such a fascinating coupling when you see how the experience of your attachment —the experience of your childhood and how you relate to your primary caregivers—shows up in your body as an adult.”
And how some of us deal with avoidance or coping mechanisms that are more or less helpful, and then how that shows up in the body as physical symptoms that some of us might think are just how we are. Like: Oh, I get headaches sometimes, or my digestion is a little funny sometimes, or I get back pain when I’m stressed. Then everything sort of adds up. So I just wanted to add that layer, because it’s very relevant to this conversation specifically, personally to Karden and I. So this last year sort of reignited that flame. Although the codependency wasn’t there, and Karden is not my mom and I’m not Karden’s mom.
But I exhibited, for sure, when Jen originally went. So to just also back up, like I told, neglect was my thing. My mother was addicted to opioids her whole life. So she was on 12 opioids a day, minimum. She was on Xanax. She smoked three packs of cigarettes a day. She did not get out of bed before noon. And then she was either asleep or working, or with my stepdad—they owned a business together—or it was what we’d call the Samantha Raven Show. So I was basically disenfranchised the entire time. And also, she was just away all the time. Because if she wasn’t asleep and inaccessible because she was asleep on drugs, she was at work.
Or she was awake and in an altered state, still.
Correct, which I never even tracked. Because when you grow up in an addicted household, you don’t realize that there’s anything wrong with that. Unfortunately, Samantha Raven is not going to get the benefit of your listeners hearing what was good about her. But essentially, simply, through really no fault of Jen’s own. But when she basically withdrew, when she left, whoa, this really important entity in my life just withdrew. So that was one enough of like a map-on to be like: Ooh, this is triggering. And then, Jen had been through one of the most difficult years of her entire life—new baby, there was a family tragedy, there was crazy amounts of travel, there was the intensity of this. So Jen kind of went into a bit of a dip, if you will. She needed some time to recover. And although that was all valid, my attachment wounds were like: Oh, here’s another sick woman that can’t take care of me, and is also unreachable and non-responsive. So in that moment, I became extraordinarily anxiously attached. So I’m sure, I just want to honor this, that in that moment, I was probably exhibiting a lot of the dysregulated behaviors that were very uncomfortable for Jen. I just wanted to float that here.
Well, and just to give you a lot of credit, even if you delivered, in very diplomatic or more conscious language, the attunement and what you share together. I’ll just speak for myself. My husband and I, we started our relationship in 2006. I grew up with I statements. I had an undergrad in psych, I had a master’s in psych, and now I was in a PhD. So I feel very equipped to language. So I was languaging in what I felt like was a very fair, understandable way. But my nervous system was so charged. So the attunement and what you share, even if you weren’t presenting in this loud, maybe more escalated way, as maybe you’re describing your mother, Jen, she likely was still picking up on the cues through neuroception.
I just want to comment, if I can just pause here with you both. Because what you’re sharing, just for people listening, you’re sharing with us some of the backdrop, the context of this. But what I’m also hearing, and I would love to hear from you both if this resonates, that based on your training with the nervous system, the body, even psychology, what you can observe. I tell people all the time, just because I teach and I practice these things, my nervous system, I get freaked out, I get frozen, I get terrified. It’s just, I believe in the process a little bit more so I’m willing to lean in, because I trust what is on the other side of taking those huge risks. But it doesn’t absolve me from going through the process.
So what I’m getting from you both is that you maybe unconsciously didn’t know you were entering into this level of initiation of what has happened for you both. But the awareness that you’ve brought to what got activated, I’m very interested in how you resolved this or how you negotiated this. But just your willingness to share all that’s here, it’s immense. I just want people to know that it’s a huge gift, what you’re sharing. I don’t know if this resonates, but it feels like you’re modeling what it can look like, even in the most intense, painful, gut-wrenching. You’re leveling us, what this can look like.
Thank you, Jessica.
All I’m going to say, because I know Karden has something to say, is that it was like that. Karden was like, why are you burnt out again?
“I was like, I could be lying in bed and not working, and I would be burnt out. It’s because of the emotions that I’m going through, and the physical experience of what I’m dealing with, that I’m burning out again.”
So this work is very powerful, and I’m proud of us. But I know Karden had something on the tip of his tongue.
Jessica, I just want to say, thank you for presencing that for Jen and I, and for the listeners. What I want to add, before actually really just passing it back to Jen, is I’m going to use I statements here. Because this impacted the hell out of Jen, but I’m just going to speak here like, I got my ass handed to me for seven months. This was inside the humility and shame of being one of the best in the world at this work, Jessica. I just want to presence that for everyone who’s listening, who doesn’t feel like they’re being successful or feels like this is hard. It’s so hard! Jen knows this, and actually most of my close people know. I was fully witnessing my tailspin and the perpetration that I was enacting on Jen. And despite all my skills, for quite a while, I was drowning. So it was really, really, really, really bad. I’m very actually grateful for, like you said, trusting, leading into the process long enough. But also really grateful that Jen stayed around long enough, so that it could get to where it is now.
The trust and the commitment to hold some ground, even if it’s not what you’re wanting and needing for that reassurance.
The endurance!
Yes. So I wanted to comment, and Jen, I want to come to you after that. It’s possible what you’re boasting, and this is one of your large messages, is it’s not just intellect, it’s not just knowing. So even being one of the best teachers in the somatic, you’re getting your ass handed to you, you’re noticing it, and still, it is one of the hardest things. Knowing it doesn’t alleviate the pain or the difficulty of going through it. Just for you, Jen, too, what you said and I picked up, and help me if this feels like it resonates. With all that you know, and your mother calling, calling, calling, calling, calling, and the crisis of that, making a decision to override the self-care or what you had learned to take care of yourself with your mother and the dynamics. Not to say you wouldn’t have done it again, but the cost of that.
That sometimes, we will give or do the thing that doesn’t feel great, to love and show up in relationship. But we might be getting all the body’s cues that are like warning signs. Like, no, no, don’t do that. There’s a different way to do it, but don’t do this. Yet, for the love of your mother, you did. But the cost of that. I’m surprised by just how powerful the brain is and the mind, to think we can override our body. Whether or not we have enough skill that’s going to alleviate the difficulty of being in these relational dynamics, or that we’re smart enough to know, or we have the body awareness that we can negotiate if we are compromising our system. That no, our body and our system is really, to your point, giving very intelligent signals, and how to befriend it really.
Yeah. I think one of the biggest things, Karden, I don’t think I’ve told you this actually. But on the one hand, I was really hurt and just upset and shocked at how Karden was showing up, that he’s explained why. The inner child and the adult self, it’s not explainable sometimes, and that’s just the awareness that now you’re showing up as your hurt self and the inner child, and there’s a totally different awareness then. There’s not just one self, one part, one person. There’s all these different colors and variations.
But one thing that I really appreciate about Karden, and I think myself, and I think that’s why we’re both still here, and I’m such a strong advocate for this, is taking responsibility. I know that you can’t take responsibility without awareness, because what responsibility can you take if you’re not aware of the patterns that you’re unconsciously repeating? But if you can say, I am angry at you, I am being this way, or I am behaving, feeling, thinking in this way, and I’m aware of it. That validation gives you so much repair and trust and hope that: Okay, this person understands that they’re not their best self, either myself or Karden. That is huge.
“When you’re having a disruptive or interruptional sort of communication, when one of the people admits to what the other person is feeling hurt about, that’s repair in itself.”
Although it keeps repeating itself and then the cycle continues—Karden and I will share more, I’m sure—now there’s just that much more capacity. I feel validated, and I can understand in this moment that you know what you’re doing and what’s happening.
On the flip side, sort of the same thing. Karden will speak for himself, I don’t want to speak for him. But my experience of like, when I feel a pattern that is so hurtful, so triggering, to the point of physical symptoms, which I’m familiar with because of my history with that connection, something very special happens when the other person takes responsibility of their patterns and validates what you’re feeling. You’re like: Oh okay, then I guess we can work with this. I think that’s one thing that I never had with my mom. There’s been so much growth and repair and so much. But we’re different. So I will never expect the other person to change for me. But because of the level of awareness when that can happen, it’s so powerful. Very special.
Yeah. Like, with your mother, even with all the growth, the limitation of not being able to own and create safety to help organize, like: I’m yelling because I’m really upset, and it’s not you. Or whatever the language is, but just the ability to name and start to organize, that you felt that with Karden.
Organize is like the perfect word. It just maps on, that’s exactly the word! That’s it.
Typically, for some, I can speak for myself, if somebody is owning it, it’s not just flying around and then I’m like: Did I do something? Is it me? Am I supposed to pick this up? But if they own it, I’m like: Okay, it’s intense, but I can tolerate because they’ve got it, and I can start to feel safer. Karden?
All right, I’m going to grab the mic here in a few ways, for a moment. It goes around to ownership. So this is my narrative of what happened, and I’ve shared this with Jen a little bit. So Jen went into her, more or less entirely reasonable dip, where she accidentally basically became Samantha for a while. Then, that experience for me was so scary, so hurtful, and not just relationally, but it’s also the scaffold of my life. Like, we have a business together, now I can’t rely on you. There were so many things that got piled on top, and it lasted a while. Then what happened is, Jen came back online. She came back online, and she got herself back, and then she was also back in communication. She was back into fulfilling a lot of the requests I had made about maintaining some kind of contact and regularity despite the gap. And it did nothing to shift me.
So this is a big part. Even though Jen essentially started to do all the things that I had asked her to do, my relationship to her did not shift. I was still incredibly angry, and still basically making her feel that anger and trapping her in this. Like, now she’s getting trapped. Now it’s like, I’m trying to do what he asked, and it’s doing nothing. This guy is just enraged. Sorry, I’m kind of speaking for Jen. But over here, maybe what I’m saying to the listeners, male or female, is that someone can start performing the way you’ve wanted. But when they’ve got trapped by your inner child or by your attachment wounds, they can’t get you to forgive. They can’t get you to let go. They can’t get your wound to subside by themselves.
So it took five or six months. I was actually talking to a very, very good friend of mine about this dynamic that was going on, that I couldn’t control, and I said to him. I’m like, she’s not doing anything wrong anymore. Not that you were, Jen, but just stick with me. She’s not doing anything wrong anymore, and still, this deep, deep anger is there. Again, I knew why, I had been inside of it. But still, like I said, it was owning me. My friend Ryan was like: You’ve got to stop, Karden. And I said to him: I know, but I can’t. Then I paused, and this voice came up from inside, and I looked him right in the eye. And what came out of me was, I will never forgive a woman who was supposed to love me that hurt me. That was the statement that came up. It was like, holy shit! Moby Dick style. I will sink this ship and kill everything. That’s the amount of hurt and pain in this boy from Samantha. That’s how much is there. I joke that I’ve touched my inner mass shooter. I get a sense of where that level of awfulness can come from. Once that came out of my mouth, I was like, oh!
Then something else showed up, and I really want to speak to this from the masculine pole of relationship right now, guys. Gender aside, masculine pole of relationship. I still had love and empathy for that voice that came up. But I was like, I have to restrain you actively. I have to actively restrain you.
The model I give to this is like, I have two daughters, a 6-year-old and a 3-year-old. My older one, when she’s frustrated, will sometimes hit her younger sister. Or vice versa, but let’s dig with the older one. And like a good attachment parent, the first thing I’ll do is, come over. I’ll try to regulate, soothe. I’ll say like, why don’t we punch this pillow instead? But you go through that cycle three or four times, and then she hits her sister again. At this point, what’s needed is what I call force or boundary without malice. That looks like holding Leia’s wrist for a moment and being like: Leia, I know you’re feeling so many feelings right now, but you cannot hurt her. I’ll hold her wrist. She won’t like it. There’s no anger in me. There’s just this firmness that says, I’m helping you restrain yourself because you can’t restrain yourself, and this is an important thing for me to help you with.
I turned that on this piece of myself. I’m like, whoa! This loathing, this hurt, you’re not Moby Dicking us. You’re not allowed to hurt this person anymore. You’re not allowed to burn the house down. It was this internal experience of boundary against my own part. This is what it took to turn this understanding of seeing what I’m doing to Jen, taking responsibility for it. But the actual stopping of the cycle took that. It’s something I’m still developing. But I wanted to just say, it had to come from me, and it took a strength of will to almost internally parent in a forceful, boundary way.
Yeah, thank you for speaking into that. Because I think when people are listening, when the rubber meets the road, and there is so much activation and righteousness.
Oh exactly, so much righteousness. That’s the thing. It’s like, in one minute, I would validate what Jen was feeling, and then a minute or a day later, it’d be like, fuck her! You know what I mean? But that is the voice of the wound. That is always the voice of the wound, unrestrained.
Well, I appreciate how you’re describing the parenting. I have a follow-up question. This is obviously part-projection, because I’m listening and as I’m hearing, so please help me. That you were able to recognize the strength of that voice, and you had insight and awareness around where it got developed. Likely as a young one, or at some point in life, really for protection, saying: This will not happen again! Hell or high water, this will not happen again, that I will let someone into the most inner places in me, and have them leave or have them abandon. So the protection around that, even though she re-engaged the distrust or the bond that felt severed. So for you to recognize the impulse and the protection there, to not make it wrong or bad, but to say this is no longer an option. And a follow-up question is, were you also able to, metaphorically as we talk about reparenting, hold the hand of that young one?
Your question is so, so important, Jessica. Because actually, rewind, I had been spending seven months doing what I call yin repair, yin parenting, or what we can call the maternal or the feminine pole of inner child healing. By the way, I’m going to say it again, I’m very good at it. We’d have these kind of kumbaya moments of like: Oh, I do feel loved, I see how she hasn’t done that. It would happen. But it wouldn’t last. So this is super important, guys.
“The reason why we have mother and father, masculine and feminine, why we have embrace as well as force, is that the actual experience of safety and containment is a blend of beautiful validated attachment, as well as No. No constitutes a critical component of safety, including attachment.”
So basically, my child had rebuffed seven months. Or it accepted it was important, so let me not say rebuffed. Seven months of yin work had been so beautiful, but it hadn’t resulted in me not hurting Jen. Then it finally stopped when I was like: I love you and I feel for your pain, but I am going to stop you from hurting. That’s the no, that was the boundary. So I really want to say that for all your listeners. It’s not just this matter of discipline or will, or stop that mean part. I was able to stop that mean part, with that boundary, largely because of the amount of loving yin work that had already taken place. But the loving yin work was insufficient in and of itself.
Oh my goodness, I feel like we need like two or three episodes with the two of you. So the strength of the boundary, you’re saying, to recognize previous tendencies or the protective strategy, to really have some strength to say no. I imagine, I don’t know, but the younger part of you, that injury or the wounding trauma there still needs protection, but maybe there’s a different way.
No, he’s relieved now. He feels really relieved. It’s kind of like, thank you for protecting me from myself. That’s all I’m going to say. Thank you for protecting me from myself. He knows I’m here to take care of him.
That’s it, the trust that you were able to do that work. I don’t want to speak on top of it, because there’s so much here we’re not getting to, and I recognize that.
Yeah. I also feel like, I’m sorry, Jen has been sitting patiently on the sidelines here. I don’t know how she’s interpreting all of this.
No, I think that it’s important, that’s the experience for the listener. I think the biggest awareness is sort of like, when you’re with a partner, whether it’s romantic or you’re triggered by them at work, or they’re a friend and they’re doing this thing and you’re profoundly angry and upset or like, I wanna cut them out of my life. I had a friend recently that when we moved to Bali, there were so many like-minded families from all over the world. I was like: Wow, this is so many new people. I’m 32, which is a lovely age to make new friends, and my husband and I are now parents. But it was like, wow. There’s 27 families, our age, our background, our same interests. How do we manage this?
I became friends with someone quite soon, and it was lovely. And then, I think, different dynamics about myself, that I was a working mom, and I had my own business, and successful, and somehow also balanced, and just happy with my husband. I don’t know, it was really triggering, and she decided to cut me just point blank. It was like, I just don’t think I can be friends with you anymore. I’ve never had anyone say that to me in my life. That was a big lesson for me to start with, and moving to a new place and having someone. I had lots of other friends too, but this one. One of my wounds is like, I’m not enough, low self-worth, because of my father side leaving, and my inner child feeling like I had to prove myself as a human being to be loved by him. So my natural people-pleasing tendency, anxious side of this disorganized attachment is like, what have I done? I’m just showing up as myself, being so catering to all of your needs, and you cut me out. What have I done? So that was like sort of a lesson.
So what I want to say for all the listeners is that, Karden was sharing earlier, the experience of Samantha Raven, of his mom, and her experience that was so difficult for Karden, and I’m sure the opioids and just her life. I wasn’t on opioids, and I wasn’t like that with Karden for years. It was just a month or so that there was this rupture, where I was like, I need space. Like, I need space now, this is too much for me.
So people might think: Well, no, that has nothing to do with my mom, or that has nothing to do with my dad, or that has nothing to do with my childhood. But actually, it’s the small things that map on in such a subtle way, that our brain is like, boom!
So with my friend, just being vague about the experience here on this interview now, I think some of my ways of just being balanced and having other friends and having a business and being a mom, were sort of triggering, because of their needs, and maybe their primary caregiver and their experience, which was shared in small amounts. It was this whole other experience. Maybe it’s not this specific case, but maybe there’s abuse or alcohol or drugs. Then maybe in the present relationship, there’s no abuse or alcohol or drugs or violence. But there’s just a subtle movement of: Oh, my need is not quite being met. Then all of a sudden, it’s just super glued to that attachment, and then your trigger is just so loud and it’s just so strong. And it comes out, in a way, as Karden said, to keep him safe, and us all, however we show up.
So for anyone listening, because we often get in our work, like: But I had the best childhood, I don’t know what you’re talking about. My people-pleasing or my anxiety started when I was 37. I’m like: Okay, that’s interesting, I’d love to hear more. Then when you go into the body, it’s like, no. Actually, what’s showing up now is really a mirror, in subtle ways, of certain needs that are not being perfectly met, in a way that they needed to be met when you were a child and your prefrontal cortex wasn’t fully developed. And your nervous system was like, shall I lean in or shall I not lean in? Do I mirror this behavior or do I not? Is someone standing up for me right now? I am confused. When we don’t have that adult to help us navigate emotions, just in general. I’m not even talking about trauma. I’m just talking about emotions. It can be really hard.
Yeah, emotional attunement. To your point, it doesn’t have to be something that was, as we might say, big T. But the real relating and how one is responding to needs, and this learning in relationship. I know in research, it’s very categorized, this style or that style. I think it’s much more fluid, and as you said, we can have different attachment styles with different parents, if we’re having two parents in life growing up. So, Jen, I know you’re trying to speak to some of the bigger topics as we’re winding down here. Also, is it easy to talk about, when Karden was experiencing all this, were you in a place of more solidness or were you pretty regulated?
No. In those moments, I felt like a victim. I’ve already told Karden this, but I had Googled. When Dr. Google comes out, like, I wonder what Google is going to tell me that I don’t already know. Now there’s ChatGPT as well. Tell me ChatGPT, what’s going on here? Like, is this emotional abuse, what’s going on? Am I a victim of something? But to hold the space for what Karden and I experienced, and for people listening, if you are in a situation where you feel that or you think, it’s usually coming from a place where the person is hurt and it’s coming out as a defense mechanism. Myself in my own patterns, and Karden in his, and whoever in their own, we have labels or ways to explain things. And psychology, which is I know your field, and medicine, because it helps. Let’s go down this route, let’s help solve the issue. But it’s just kind of more complex than that.
Thank you, yes! Because that’s what I was hearing you just speak to a moment ago, just the layers and the dimensions. It’s quite a lot, like in a big constellation that can feel really complex. So it’s not as though it’s just linear, or this one thing and it’s like an equation. You spoke about resilience, and there’s many factors around what helps us feel more stable and grounded and regulated. I can just appreciate that we could go, I would love more interviews and learn more about you. But I am sure people listening want to know more as well. Where would you direct people towards, as far as your work, your course, your book?
I guess what I’ll say is, our book is called The Secret Language of the Body: How to Regulate Your Nervous System, Heal Your Body, and Free Your Mind. Just reflecting on everything we’ve talked about today. Because of the work we do, I was fully present to the embodied pain and hurt and anger and confusion that was underlying these relational dynamics. But like everyone else listening, I would go into my head and I would spend hours up there talking about how this is Jen’s fault, and looking at what she is doing and what she isn’t doing and how it impacts. I could have spent the entire time in thought land, which is what everyone does, because almost everyone is disembodied.
And what would’ve eventually happened, by the way, if that’s all I did, is I would’ve perfected my argument that it’s all Jen’s fault. Because it is, by the way, Jen. Obviously. And then, like Jen’s friend, if you can’t heal your own wound, you have to pull the dagger out that you think is causing it, which in this case, Jen’s friend fired her because she can’t handle her own wound. So she had to pull out the thing that she thought was causing it. Which, by the way, was stimulating it, but it’s not causing it. So even that ability at the end where I finally saw that statement: I will never forgive a woman that was supposed to love me, that hurt me. But I could feel the anger and the loathing and the viciousness behind it. It wasn’t just intellectual. I mean, it was Gollum level. Then it was also that somatic resource of my own strength, the somatic resource of my own resilience, the somatic resource of where I had been able to restrain behavior that hurt people before in the past, that allowed me, and Jen actually will say this, to shift rather quickly.
So what we’re out in the world to teach is to put people into that embodied conversation, which is often called unconscious so that people think they need hypno for it, and I’m fine with hypno.
“Really, the unconscious is just stuff you have not been trained to attend to. It’s amazing what becomes possible when you learn that.”
So that’s what The Secret Language of the Body teaches you. It teaches you how to regulate your nervous system, but by speaking that non-verbal, embodied language.
Then to learn more, we’re all over Instagram. That’s our home. Our business is Somia International, @SomiaInternational. Jen is @IAmJenMann, and I am @KardenRabin. And we’re always giving out the goods on there.
And spell the name of your business, so people know.
SomiaInternational.com, which somia is a play on soma: the body. Then also, we didn’t touch on it much. Jen spoke to it a bit. But what we specialize in, more than anything, is help people healing the chronic illnesses and symptoms. We talked all about relational behavior here. But the chronic illness and symptoms that derive from these things, that’s what our online course and program leads people through. It’s called The Heal Program.
Wonderful. Jen, any comment here?
I was going to say, and the next episode is going to be all about how all of this has mapped onto our spouses, and how that helped map on additional layers in our romantic and sexual relationships. At least in my experience, it’s been profoundly eye-opening. When I’m in another room, I tell Karden, my husband is a day trader, and he has a circle. Since my work, he’s been really interested in especially neuro-linguistic programming and how language really affects thinking and feeling and emotions. I’ll hear him from another room, and he’s asking these guys who are trading. They’re interested in making money, and they’re like, tell us the strategy. And I’ll hear it from the other room and he’s like: You know, when you feel an emotion that is related to stress. And I’m like, yes! Karden, I don’t know if I told you, but he’s been doing some perceptual positioning from the course that he did, which is like a form of brain retraining, with these guys—men and women, but mainly men—that he mentors in trading. I think it’s so cool.
That awareness, and Karden will speak for himself, but that awareness in our romantic relationship has so helped our awareness match a little bit more. Because I was a little bit advantaged, because I had more traumas, more crazy stuff happen in my life. And my husband had a bit more of a balanced experience. So he was like, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I was like, but you’re angry right now. So that kind of relational, how Karden and my experience is. So for anyone listening, your relationships—friends, business, family, romantic—it really can map onto your original attachment styles and wounds and how you deal with stress. It’s so fascinating and so amazing when you can tune into that awareness, and how much can change in your life and those of others around you.
Well, I want to just acknowledge what you’re describing, and you both have said that relationship is so much. There’s this interconnectedness, and that when we heal, we have a healing impact on a bigger collective, I believe, we heal all. Also, as we do healing work in one relationship, that it elevates and it helps us evolve, I think, in our consciousness all around, as a collective.
Jessica, energetically and practically. If Jen and I did not heal this, then our work in the world might wither.
Yes, okay. Well, stay tuned! I’ll make sure to have all the links you mentioned on today’s show notes. I just hope and trust that people who are resonating really just turn to your guidance, in navigating all that gets activated in the system, and what cues or signals the body is sending, and how to utilize so much of this as an opportunity for growth and healing.
Thank you, Jessica.
Thank you, Jessica.
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The post ERP 451: How Our Early Relationship Injuries Can Get Mapped Onto Our Most Significant Adult Relationships (Using a Somatic Approach) — An Interview with Jennifer Mann and Karden Rabin appeared first on Jessica Higgins.
We’ve all been there—feeling misunderstood, hurt, or betrayed by those closest to us, which can lead to bottled-up resentment or explosive outbursts. But what if anger wasn’t just a destructive force, but a powerful signal pointing us toward deeper healing and understanding? Let’s dive into how embracing and channeling our anger can transform our relationships and emotional well-being.
In this episode, we explore how viewing emotional experiences as a spectrum can unlock the door to more genuine vulnerability and meaningful connections. Techniques from the attachment EFT framework will guide you in expressing your deepest feelings in constructive ways. We’ll also delve into understanding anger as both a primary and secondary emotion, uncovering its roots in betrayal and rejection, and offering practical exercises to help you process and validate your emotions. By the end, you’ll have tangible tools and insights to nurture healthier, more empathetic relationships, while fostering continuous personal growth.
Bronwyn Schweigerdt is a licensed psychotherapist, podcaster, and anger expert. She has a master’s in counseling and another master’s in nutrition.
In this episode
07:14 Understanding the spectrum of emotional experiences and their impact on relationships.
10:31 Understanding anger: Primary vs. secondary emotions.
12:49 The importance of recognizing and constructively expressing anger before it builds up to an outburst.
16:08 How to discern safe individuals from unsafe ones based on their response to feedback or emotional vulnerability.
21:48 How past betrayals and childhood experiences influence adult emotional responses.
30:42 Exploring the connections between anger, betrayal, and healing in adult relationships.
42:41 Distinguishing personal triggers from external behaviors.
45:04 Strategies for supporting a partner who is expressing anger but may not be using it as an opportunity for self-awareness or growth.
48:45 Exploring self-discovery: Insights from the podcast Angry at the Right Things.
Your Check List of Actions to Take
- Reflect on your emotions daily, especially anger, without judgment.
- Use attachment EFT techniques to share your vulnerabilities with a trusted person.
- Always acknowledge others’ feelings to show empathy and support.
- Protect your emotional health by setting clear boundaries in your relationships.
- Address specific triggers and underlying emotions when expressing anger.
- Recognize and explore personal triggers for opportunities to heal.
- Reflect on emotional responses to understand underlying reasons like rejection or betrayal.
- Apply exercises to become your own attachment figure and address childhood issues.
Mentioned
Shifting Criticism For Connected Communication
Connect with Bronwyn Schweigerdt
Websites: angryattherightthings.podbean.com
Connect with Dr. Jessica Higgins
Facebook: facebook.com/EmpoweredRelationship
Instagram: instagram.com/drjessicahiggins
Podcast: drjessicahiggins.com/podcasts/
Pinterest: pinterest.com/EmpowerRelation
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/drjessicahiggins
Twitter: @DrJessHiggins
Website: drjessicahiggins.com
Email: jessica@drjessicahiggins.com
About this Episode
Bronwyn, thank you so much for joining us today. I am excited about our conversation.
You’re welcome, Jessica. I am too.
Excellent. We’re going to be talking about anger as it shows up in relationship, and I know there’s many dimensions to this. Before we get into our topic, is there anything you want to share about where you’re coming from, and anything you want listeners to know about you?
Yeah, so I’m a licensed psychotherapist. My expertise is on anger, and that is due to my own journey. Not only my own anger, but as a therapist, my own therapeutic journey. I didn’t go looking to become a therapist, this is a second career for me. I have a first master’s degree in nutrition, and I was very happy to work in that field. But I fell into a very severe depression myself and desperately needed a therapist, and desperately couldn’t find a good one and tried multiple. This is back when it was mostly in-person, maybe 15 years ago or so. Every time, I would be sitting in the client’s seat and I would think to myself: You know, Bronwyn, you’re barely functioning right now, but I still think you would make a better therapist to you than this person.
So part of my journey out of that depressive episode, and I did have another one after that that was also very severe, but part of my healing process was going back to school and becoming a therapist and getting those 3,000 hours. But in retrospect, that depressive episode and the subsequent one, that were very severe, were actually symptoms. I see depression as a symptom of suppressed anger, or what we can call disassociated anger, with my clients that I see now. They’ll say: Yeah, I kind of started feeling depressed Saturday, I don’t know what’s going on. I’ll say, well, who betrayed you on Saturday? Oh well, yeah, my husband. Okay, well let’s talk about that, because it sounds like you’ve got some anger that you’re not associating with.
“The thing with feelings, including anger, is that they’re called e-motions, because they’re there to move us. That’s why the word motion, like evoke motion.”
So what our anger wants to do is move us forward with assertiveness usually, or boundaries, or accountability. Not to become a monster and just rage, because we all think of that when we think of an angry person. So when we dissociate from that, they stagnate in our body. Our anger stagnates in our body, and we feel depressed, or a lot of people just feel anxious or a combination of the two. Some people have panic attacks. I like to call them anger attacks, because they’re dissociated anger causing the panic. So that’s where I come from in my expertise.
Oh my goodness, thank you so much for just sharing a little bit about your personal journey and what prompted your second career. If I’m hearing you, Bronwyn, it sounds as though you’re really holding anger in this way that is a signpost, or it’s a real positive indicator to create a lot of health and wellness for that experience. I think, not to genderize, but I often feel like, stereotypically, women struggle to acknowledge or come into contact with anger, and that it is internalized or not felt. So if I’m understanding you, you’re really trying to invite more space for anger. Is that right? Am I hearing you?
Yeah, it’s really healing our relationship with our anger. Because we all have anger. So I hate the term angry person, because I’m like: Well, that’s like saying a breathing person. He’s a breathing person. Like, okay, good to know. We all have anger, of course we do. We’re all human. It’s about our relationship with our anger. And to heal our relationship with anger, like you’re insinuating, the first step is to say: admitting having anger doesn’t make me a monster. It doesn’t make me shameful. It’s just anger, and it is like a barometer for myself of like, something is wrong. I like to say it’s like a light on the dashboard of our emotional car saying: Check under the hood, something’s off, and it needs repair. So if we can start to change how we see anger.
Anger doesn’t equal blowing up and being violent, or verbally violent. It doesn’t need to at all. In fact, the people who blow up usually are the people who are suppressing, suppressing, suppressing, until they get to the place where they’re blowing up. So if we can just feel the anger in our body say: Ooh, I feel right here in my chest, I’m feeling angry. And do that attunement, self-attunement or self-validation, and say: You know what, you are entitled to feel that. It doesn’t mean you’re a bad person. It doesn’t mean this other person is an all-bad person. It just means something right now between us is off, and needs to be restored or repaired in some way.
Okay, I just want to go back a moment, as you were describing that what you’re really after is to support our relationship with anger. I’m so grateful. Because even as I framed the gender piece, I just think for any human that has learned anger is not okay to be expressed, that it could be internalized. Help me, that you were saying anger for some isn’t the first visible emotion or the first visible or conscious felt sense. It could be depression. It could be panic or anxiety. Is that right?
Absolutely. So my style of therapy is attachment, and I really see that we learn very early, in childhood, our relationship to our anger. And many of us have learned to disassociate from our anger because we learned that. During the terrible twos, when we start to differentiate, which is an actual phase of differentiation that kids should be able to go through, we learned that we get the silent treatment. To a little child, that is a type of abandonment. They cannot tolerate that, and they will do anything to shut. They will learn: anger equals abandonment. Even mom just not talking, or a change of voice that sounds less loving, more clinical, or less face contact, less eye contact. That child will learn right away. That’s an imprint that creates a template that says: anger equals abandonment. We can’t afford that. We’re dependent on this attachment figure. So let’s suppress the anger, and be little codependent pleasers for mom.
I mean, I’m laughing because of the languaging. But it’s absolutely a part of the shaping and our real lived experience around what we get a sense of, or how we’re responded to or not responded to. So I have a couple other orienting questions. One of which is, for the individual that perhaps doesn’t acknowledge the anger, ignores it, but then it accumulates, and then it reaches a certain threshold and then you have an outburst or a rage. You’ve been super crystal clear, we can be constructive, and we can be destructive. So you’re really being clear that having an outburst and being destructive, allowing anger to be destructive, isn’t what we’re looking at here or what we’re promoting. Is that right?
Yeah. So a healthy relationship with our anger means that we perceive it in real-time, we know it’s valid, and we learn to move it in a way that produces health. So for example, and I talked about this on my podcast, a few months ago, my husband and I were going out of town just for one night. So we decided, before we left, the Saturday morning, let’s clean the whole house before we go. That way, when we come back Sunday night, we can just kick it, we can come back late, whatever. So it’s like, I’m very productive. It’s the morning, I want to get going. He’s like: Yeah, that sounds good. And I look over, and he’s still on his computer reading the newspaper. So I just say to him: Steve, I’m starting to feel resentful, because you’re still on your computer and you said you’d do this. He goes: Oh, okay. So he shut his computer, and he gets up.
If I didn’t do that, if I was not true to myself and my feelings in real-time, what I would’ve done is just said: You are not really angry, Bronwyn, you’re not really resentful. You’re fine, whatever. Then 10 minutes later, I might have blown up because he’d still be on the computer. That’s not fair to him, and it’s not fair to me. It’s just unfair all around. It’s a lose-lose. So if I can learn to be a grownup and use my words in real-time and say: I’m starting to feel resentful. That’s exactly where I was. I was starting to feel resentful. So if I can learn to do that and be a safe person, then he can learn to not have to read between the lines. That’s not fair to him either to expect him. If I started cleaning loudly, that’s not fair to him to read between the lines.
Or have to endure an attack later, or the stymie, if you’re on your trip now and have real issue.
Right. So it’s a win-win when we can learn to use our words and not see anger as shameful or bad, but be honest in that moment. Now, my husband is a safe person. There are plenty of people who are not safe to say, I’m starting to feel resentment towards you right now, especially like a boss. Okay, we can’t say that. But what do we do with an unsafe person? That’s a different ballgame, I don’t know if you want me to talk more about that.
Yeah, why not? I have a few more questions, but I’m going to hold them and listen and respond.
Okay. So actually, you can determine who’s safe and who’s not from their response. That’s one way to know forever and never forget. So an unsafe person is someone you’d say, I’ll give you an example, like my father. You know, dad, when you say that, it’s really hurtful. Then he does like a DARVO. Are you familiar with DARVO? It stands for Deny, Attack, and Reverse Victim & Offender. So a very common Hollywood trope would be, for a DARVO, he’d say: Well, I guess I’m just a horrible father. Now he’s the victim, and I’m the offender suddenly. See how he did that. If it succeeds, that’s an example of an unsafe person, because now they’ve become the victim. You were the original victim by trying to say: That’s hurtful when you say that. But now they’re the victim, and if they succeed in their DARVO attempt, now you’re consoling or reassuring them, and they have successfully deflected and derailed the conversation away from what you were originally bringing up, which is that you were hurt. So that’s a sign of an unsafe person, is how they respond.
So a safe person will say, for example, I’ll give you an example of how I’ll respond when my daughter who’s 20 will tell me something she sees in me. It’s not fun to hear, I’m not going to lie. But I’ll say: You know, Edie, that’s hard to hear, but I see where you’re coming from. As much as I want to deny it right now, I know that you are experiencing that from me, so I’m going to think more about it and really reflect. Or I’ll just apologize now, because I do see it.
“We don’t have to be perfect to be safe people. We just have to be human, and be willing to be a human and admit we’re not little robots. We make mistakes, all humans do.”
We all fail each other. We all do. But if someone’s not a safe person, they’re not willing to be a human. They’re going to defend, attack, and then reverse victim and offender status usually.
Yeah. Well, I’m appreciating your description of just us and our humanity, and that we’re imperfect and we will hurt each other unintentionally. Then when you’re talking about a consistent pattern of behavior, that to express vulnerability with that person likely isn’t going to result to something constructive or creating more safety, and that it’s probably wiser to recognize the limitation there and not pursue. Still set limits, but not try to engage in some type of understanding to really have repair or have real attunement there.
Because I tend to think of these things in more of a spectrum, not all or nothing, even if someone is a safe person. Because I can even feel like I do a lot around helping individuals express a little bit, from the attachment EFT framework of the deeper vulnerable thing. Like, I feel hurt, or I feel scared, or these type of things. Typically, that softens, and it’s easier for the person on the receiving end to respond to.
But I appreciate your language too. Because I tend to steer away from claiming that was hurtful, because I could see somebody arguing with whether or not that statement was hurtful. But what you’re really saying on the underneath is: I’m hurt, and I’m showing you, and this matters to me. Even as you respond to your daughter: It’s hard to hear, I don’t quite see it, let me reflect on it. You’re really reframing it as: You’re having an experience that I validate, but I can’t quite respond to yet, or I can and I will. That there’s just a real recognition of that experience. Is that right?
Yes. Because in doing so, let’s say all I’m doing in the moment is saying: Edie, I hear how your experience of me is, and I want to think about that more. So what that is really saying, big picture, is: You matter to me, and your feelings matter. Even if I am not relating to your feelings, they still matter, because you matter. That, at the end of the day, is what we all need to do for each other, how we can all show up for each other. Maybe I do ponder it, and maybe I’m like, I still don’t see it. But you know what, Edie, you matter. Even if I don’t get it, I’m not going to say those things again, because I see how much it impacts you.
Yes, or even getting curious around: I’ve really reflected on this, and I’m still not quite sure I get it. Can I be curious? Would you be willing to share more? I’d like to see if I can understand more.
Sure. Because all of that says: You matter. So help me understand, I want to know you better. That all is what love entails.
“You can tell someone you love them till you’re blue in the face. But if you don’t want to actually know them or understand them, if they don’t actually matter to you, that’s not love.”
Right, and the relationship around not only how we’re being in relationship with our own anger, but in relationship, how we hold space and how we respond to others and their emotional world.
Can I go back a minute?
Yeah.
Okay. So as you were talking about anger and how it presents itself, I hold both camps or schools of thought around anger being a secondary emotion, and also anger being a primary emotion. I know that anger can be incredibly motivating to bring awareness to: a boundary is being crossed, or there’s an injustice or violation and we want to take action. I also know it can be a protective emotion when we feel hurt, scared, or sad or something. Would you be willing to speak to that at all?
Yeah, I do tend to see it as a secondary emotion. Because what I think is, mostly under the anger is betrayal. I mean the anger that impacts us the most, the anger that we disassociate from the most. We don’t disassociate from the anger from the guy who cuts us off in the freeway. We feel the anger, because we’ve got nothing to lose with that relationship. But the people who are closest to us. The guy who cuts us off in the freeway isn’t betraying us, we don’t have expectations of him to live up to in our lives. We don’t know him, he’s a stranger. But the people closest to us, only they can betray us, because we have so much expectation on them to meet us where we’re at.
So I’ll go back to my depressive episode. So the first one that landed me as a therapist ultimately, we moved about an hour and a half away from where we live now. I didn’t know anyone, and my husband just started working. I didn’t have a job, actually I left my job, and my daughter was just school age at the time. So I was by myself all day, alone in this apartment, living somewhere that just felt like the dark side of the moon. Even though it was 90 miles away, it felt like a different planet to me. It was very lonely.
So one night, shortly after we moved, we had put our daughter down to sleep. It was just me and my husband, Steve. We were staying on the couch. I don’t remember, this is, again, 15 years ago. I don’t remember if I said, I think I did say something. But I remember feeling very vulnerable and looking at him, like I really wanted him to empathize for how lonely I felt. I don’t remember if he said anything back, but I do remember the look on his face. He showed no empathy towards me.
Now we’ve talked about this since, and I do know the place he was coming from was how he was raised. Like, you just buck up, and he was really believing the old school belief that if I show her empathy, it’s going to make her feel worse somehow, it’s going to make her cry and feel sorry for herself, and things are just going to escalate. So if I withhold empathy, she’s just going to power through it, and we can keep this thing on track. That is literally where he was coming from. He was not coming from a place of wanting to just withhold empathy from me, just for the sake of doing so. But in that moment when I needed him so much, I was so alone, and he was my attachment figure, it triggered Little Bronwyn whose mom withheld empathy from her and had the same look on her face throughout my life. It triggered me so much. That’s when I went from just being lonely to the pit of depression.
During that time of depression, I actually was vomiting at random times, it was involuntary. Then also, I couldn’t stop eating. I don’t know how those two things happened to overlap, but they did. I couldn’t stop eating, and I gained like 30 pounds in two months. It was crazy. I got plantar fasciitis because I gained so much weight so fast. It just became this hell nightmare for me. Looking back now, because my inner child was so triggered with the look on his face being an echo of what I had seen on my mom’s face as my original attachment figure, I realized the reason for me feeling like I had a hole in my gut and not being able to stop eating day and night is because I did feel hollow inside. Because that’s how I felt with my mom, hollow, like I’ve got nobody. That’s why I couldn’t stop eating. Then I also felt disgust, and disgust makes us vomit. So those two triggered feelings from my own childhood showed up in my adult life.
Looking back, it makes complete sense. I see it with a lot of my clients, they all feel the same way. So what I needed to do, and what I do now with my clients is, I lead them in an integration exercise with their inner child. I just call that integration exercise. We need to be that attachment figure for ourselves. Really, Steve is a great husband, he still has a hard time showing empathy and attuning to me because he’s still working on that. But I know he wants to, I know his heart is to get better at that. But I need to be that for me. That way, when other people can’t show up for me when I’m vulnerable and when I’m in a place like that, I can do that for myself consistently, and I don’t feel hollow in my gut anymore. That way, whatever a friend or a spouse can give me is a bonus.
If I’m hearing you, Bronwyn, this was not all conscious as it was happening.
No, not at all.
I’m also saddened to hear that some of your experiences in the therapeutic space perhaps didn’t assist in being able to bring awareness to this.
No, that felt like another betrayal actually, because I’m seeking out a professional to be that mirror. Because a good therapist is a mirror, and they will give you a true reflection of yourself and help you connect the dots. I couldn’t find that either. So it felt even more hollow.
Wow, where did you get your bearings? This is quite profound what it activated in you on a very deep level, and also just the current attachment. I’m with you on the attachment system, that in adulthood, we see our romantic committed partner, and the nervous system responds with survival, but also echoes or mimics the system we learned early on. You had both being activated at the same time without even orientation around what was going on. If you’re willing to share, how did you find your bearings?
No, I mean, it was chaotic for a while. I would vomit involuntarily when I walked down the street. It was so humiliating. People would just stare at me. I’d do it when I drove my car on the freeway. I’m telling you, it was like a hellish night mare for a few months. When I decided to go back to school, to another graduate program and get a master’s in counseling psychology, I felt like I had a purpose, and I really needed that. I kind of had a community, and I really liked a lot of my fellow students and professors. So that gave me like a nest, if you will, and a sense of purpose and meaning. So that was very therapeutic for me, actually.
So, Bronwyn, if I’m hearing you, you were feeling these symptoms as you enrolled in the program, and then you felt some holding in the program. Then through your training and development, were able to apply some of these principles to your own process?
You know, they give you the basic theories, and you can kind of choose which theory. But some of them did apply, like I would say the inner child theory. But I didn’t go deep then, it kind of was just a holding place for me. It wasn’t until I went through my second depressive episode.
Yeah, you were able to get stabilized. But perhaps the deeper work to look at this in a deeper way or deeper layers, it sounds like that really happened in the second episode.
Yeah, in retrospect, everything in retrospect. Humans, we learn in retrospect, and that’s okay. Then having my own clients and seeing their own journeys. But yeah, that depression really is, just like anxiety, it’s disassociated anger from betrayal. So I would say, underneath the anger is betrayal or feelings of abandonment, which I don’t really see as different, or rejection.
Yes, I’m getting that from you. I’ve never heard this frame before so clearly, around the betrayal or the severing, or the perception of break of that bondedness or that attachment secure function. That whether or not one is feeling abandoned, or not feeling good enough, or feeling inadequate or alone, essentially you’re distilling them to the betrayal or the experience of betrayal.
Betrayal, or rejection, which is a type of betrayal. But I’ll tell you right now, I am writing my next podcast notes. Even in today, I have a hard time when it’s silent with other people present. So I’m fine with silence on my own. Well, I’m not fine, but I can do it. But in the presence of other people, it feels like rejection to me, and I’m starting to realize where that’s all coming from. Again, early childhood. I think all of our triggers are really rooted in some kind of rejection, which is the same. Again, it’s overlapping with betrayal or abandonment. Those are all different facets of the same diamond, really. So just learning about ourselves, knowing our triggers, and then integrating with our inner children to heal that, and to heal our relationship with us.
If I might ask, did you feel more supported in your second experience with depression?
No.
Wow, what a journey for you to negotiate this and to really find! I mean, it seems like you really have a system that allowed you to really have clarity around what was getting brought up and activated, and to work with it differently to reparent, to really help show up for yourself in this way to have some attachment healing. Is that right?
Yeah. Again, the second one was very, very severe. Not as symptomatic physically, but it went on for a long time. I really felt like I lost myself for a while. But when I came out of that, it was like I started seeing everything. Like, oh! I was depressed because, it started with a supervisor, where I was an intern, wanting me to have my first client be a couple. So I’m like: I can’t do that, this is going to be my first client ever. He is like: Yeah, you’re going to do that. And what I should have done, instead of disassociating from my anger, which I didn’t feel entitled to feel angry and say: Well, you know what, Dave, if you want me to do that, then this is not the right placement for me, because I’m not going to do that, because I don’t feel comfortable with that.
But I didn’t do that. I wasn’t assertive. With him, even though he wasn’t that much older than me, I was trying to win his approval, and I was projecting my daddy issues onto him and trying to make him think I’m amazing. So I didn’t allow myself to be served and say: You know what, maybe this isn’t a good fit for me then. If I had done that, I would not have fallen into the depressive episode that I did, because it just spiraled. Because I did see the couple, and I did a horrible job. I knew I was doing a horrible job, because I didn’t know what I was doing, and I didn’t feel entitled to it.
And you didn’t want to do it, and you didn’t feel comfortable doing it.
“When we betray ourselves, that’s when we really get sick.”
So I betrayed myself. When we don’t allow ourselves to be moved by the anger into a healthy, productive way by saying: You know what, I’m going to have a boundary, this isn’t going to work. Then we betray ourselves. So I betrayed myself by staying at that placement, and then I betray myself by seeing this couple, doing a horrible job. I was just in a spiral of self-betrayal, and that just takes you down, down, down.
Wow, I appreciate you just articulating how damaging this can be and what it can activate. Because as I was talking about, stereotypically, female internalizing anger, disassociating from anger. I also know, stereotypically, and I know this isn’t true and I don’t want to genderize it specifically, because I think people all across the board can experience this. But for the one that is a little more, stereotypically, I’ve had guests on the show talk about the men’s experience of the narrow window of masculine permission for emotion is angry or horny. And often, like you said, what’s underneath the anger is a lot more, whether or not it’s a betrayal or hurt or sad or grieving or something.
So what I’m hearing you describe, in the way that you’re helping us here today, is that there’s so much to be learned about anger and what is happening underneath, and the betrayal or whatever the experience is, that that is the focus. If one is used to being angry and maybe not getting in touch with what’s underneath, or not necessarily relating to their anger, they’re just blowing off steam in different ways. Is that right?
Yeah, that is really a sign of health when we can go under the anger and say, I’m actually angry. So for example, I’ll give you another example. So when my daughter was still living at home, because I have a hard time with the silence, and I don’t know if you can relate to this, but I know other people can. I will find myself, just by default, asking people a lot of questions. I realized this, that’s actually a way for me to feel more comfortable so I don’t have to endure the silence that feels like rejection to me, because of my own early childhood. So I started asking her all these questions one day over lunch period. She didn’t want to answer them. So then, we got in a fight. Anyway, when I calmed down, I came upstairs, and later I was reflecting back, why did I get so angry about her not answering my questions? I started connecting all these dots. Oh my God, I’m really triggered by silence. That was actually the day that I realized I’m triggered by silence.
“What I always teach my clients is, our triggers belong to us. They don’t belong to the person who activates them. They’re our responsibility.”
So I was like, that’s my trigger. That’s not Edie’s problem. That’s a me problem, and I need to learn to be okay with silence in her presence. If she wants to be silent, that’s not a her problem. That’s a me problem that I am activated by that silence, and I need to be responsible for that. I told her that, and I wrote her a letter and I said: I’m so sorry, that’s a me problem. I’m alone responsible for my trigger, and I’m sorry I’ve put that on you. That was actually part of healing our own relationship, was me admitting that issue and being more reflective and owning that.
Wow, I’m really moved, as you describe your ability and your choice to pause, to really have inquiry around what’s getting activated, and what that can show and teach and what’s there. It sounds like this has been a huge part of your process and also healing, and also your way that you help others in their healing. Am I hearing that right?
Yeah. So I’m writing notes for my next podcast, like I said, and a lot of therapists unfortunately just teach you to manage triggers. But to me, triggers are, like Freud said, dreams are the road to the unconscious or whatever. Triggers are the roadmap to our early childhood, our inner child experiences. I tell my clients, let’s see triggers as an opportunity to heal our relationship with our inner child. So for me, it’s like Little Bronwyn is telling me when it’s silent with other people around. She’s saying: This was really hurtful to me really early on, and I’m trying to communicate that to you. I want you, Adult Bronwyn, to hear me and hear my experience, and to validate it and to understand, so we can heal.
Yes, that you’re able to use these triggers as entry points to be able to do this healing work, to do the opportunity. To look at these experiences where we have felt injury, we have felt trauma or wound, and to be able to show up for those parts that are sending signals. If we can turn towards that, there’s such an opportunity to show up for those parts in really powerful ways.
Yeah. Because that’s when I can say: Okay, Little Bronwyn, when your mom was silent in your presence all the time, it did feel like rejection. And guess what, it actually was. And you know what, Little Bronwyn? I need you to know, that was not a you problem. That was a her problem, and you can feel angry at that. So when you’re around other people and it’s silent, sometimes it’s rejection, sometimes they’re just silent. But if it is rejection, you can know that it’s a them problem too.
Yeah. I wonder through this, if there’s an ability or an aspect of holding the hand of the young one. Like, I’ve got you, I hear you, I see you. This wasn’t responded to, or this wasn’t attended to in the past. So that ability to validate, as you said, and really have it be seen and important, and then also supporting to get the need met.
Yeah, exactly. So once we can start to be that attachment figure for ourselves, self-attune and validate those feelings. But also, with our adult knowledge, that wasn’t a you problem, and that was wrong, and we can feel anger now. You’re not shameful. You’re not unlovable. You’re not unwanted. That was a Mom problem. She didn’t see you as lovable and wanted. But that’s on her. And you know what, Little Bronwyn? I want you, and I love you, and I approve of you.
Yes, and I’ve got you, I’m with you. I have two questions. I’m looking at our time and I’m like, wow, time is flying by. I wanted to ask you two things. One is, you talked about learning to have a relationship with your anger in a constructive way. Are we talking about it or is there anything else? Because it sounds like you’re encouraging the anger to be seen and be held, and you’re also asking: Can we go deeper than that? Can we look at where is there a betrayal? Is there anything you wanted to speak to that we haven’t spoken about or you haven’t mentioned, as it relates to constructively, having a better, healthier relationship with anger?
Yeah. So sometimes, our partner is going to do things that are objectively infuriating. Sometimes we’re going to have our own triggers, that we’re reading between the lines. So when it’s silent, I read between the lines that I am not feeling loved in that moment. So that’s a me problem. Sometimes, Steve is really being, objectively, a douchebag. How do you know? Well, the goal is to live in reality. So the goal is to be able to heal our relationship with ourselves and our anger. We’re never going to get it perfect. But to come more and more to a place of like: Oh actually, no, this is me, and maybe this is a me and you combo right now, and maybe this is all you. Just to live in that human place where we’re living in reality, in the present, and we’re healing our relationship with our inner child, so we can live in reality in the present and not bring the past into the present, unaware.
Yeah, thank you for speaking into that. My experience with this is that when I’m super charged, super reactive, that’s a pretty good indication that I’m rattled, something is coming up for me, and I’m feeling a trigger and it has significance for me personally. It’s a me problem. Then there are other times that I’m like: Hmm, I do not like that, and I don’t have to deal with it. I’m just going to walk away, and that’s kind of a you problem. So it feels qualitatively very, very different. Not to say that when I’m assigning that as a you problem, I don’t have a part in that. But the rattle and the activation is very different.
Yeah, that’s a good point. I agree with that.
Okay. My other question has to do with, on the receiving end, being in relationship and witnessing, or what looks like, on the outside, anger in the significant other. They don’t appear to be using it as an opportunity, or to bring more awareness or consciousness to that anger and what’s getting triggered there. What would you suggest and help people or support people with negotiating that?
Yeah. So if you think your partner is being triggered, in other words?
Like, your partner is angry, and they don’t appear to be using it in a constructive way, to understand what’s going on for them, and you’re contending with their anger.
Yeah. So I would start with: You know, Jessica, I hear how angry you are right now. And you know what, I get it. What I said, I can see how you took it the wrong way or whatever. I can see that. So I’d start with just validating, I’d name the feeling. I’m hearing that you’re frustrated with me. I validate it, and that usually calms the brain. It calms the limbic brain. Let’s say you’re my partner, so I’m talking to you. Then let’s say you’re like: Yeah, I am really angry. I say: Okay, tell me more, tell me what makes you the most angry about what I just said or did. Help me understand. Maybe you’re like, well. Then it comes down to, I’m looking for some kind of rejection or betrayal. That’s what I’m always looking for.
So if I can hear you out now and I know what I’m looking for. Oh well, you thought I was flirting with that guy or whatever, I could see how. So now I can name that, and I can say: Well, yeah, I can see how that guy was really attractive, and I could see how that would be hard for you to see me being really friendly with him. So we just validate it, and then that gives the partner some self-awareness. Maybe he’s able to talk about: Yeah, I do feel kind of threatened when there’s guys that actually look just like me, like I did 20 years ago, and you’re talking to them or whatever. So there’s more insight there, and there’s more of a conversation.
Okay, great. So you could be a support to really have curiosity around what’s underneath the anger, the betrayal specifically, with some attention and focus.
Rejection and betrayal.
Yeah, rejection and betrayal. So, so helpful. I can recognize inside myself, that the rattle of my reaction, I grew up with some pretty big volatile expressions of anger. So my system doesn’t always feel safe, and I’ve worked a lot on that, and to just have a frame around that. I do, but I haven’t had this specific one around rejection and betrayal. I’ve just been like: Oh, you’re having feelings, you’re having big feelings. Can I learn about that? If I’m in a regulated enough place, I can be curious about what my partner is feeling. But having that specific focus of rejection and betrayal, that seems really helpful.
It’s a helpful lens to have.
Yes. So is there anything else that you wanted to talk about? I know you mentioned shame, that’s something you speak a lot about. That could probably be a whole other episode.
Yeah, but I do talk a lot about that in my podcast.
Okay, excellent. Well, talk a little bit about your podcast, and where people can find what you’re speaking about and teaching.
Yeah, so I have 21 episodes now, they’re all about an hour. They’re me and my co-host, Katie, who is my best friend. She’s not a therapist, so she kind of represents the listener more, and she is on the codependent spectrum, which most of the listeners are. Most people who seek out therapy are on the codependent spectrum. So a lot of my clients will be like, I love Katie. They’ll tell me that. I do too. But anyway, we just talk about these things, like I said, shame, triggers, anger. Borderline personality disorder, there’s lots of that, and that’s really important. DARVO, like what we brought up before. So go deep into all that, unpack it. So the podcast is just for anyone who wants to hear more about these things. Really, the goal is to help people who are not going to be my client, to learn these principles that they can do for themselves. So I lead Katie in the integration exercise. A lot of these exercises, I’ll lead her on, so the listener can do it for themselves. That’s the goal.
Aha, there’s an experiential piece.
Yeah, there is a lot of that. The goal is maybe to bypass therapy altogether if we don’t feel like we’re getting our needs met in therapy, which unfortunately, a lot of people don’t. So I think that is absolutely possible. It’s called Angry at the Right Things, that’s the name of my podcast. It’s found wherever you subscribe to your podcasts.
Angry at the Right Things, I really love that. I also imagine that it could be even helpful for therapists listening, or people in the helping profession, to be able to listen, to be able to recognize.
Yeah. So I have one client, she’s an intern therapist, and she’s like: I’m doing the integration exercises with my clients, I just want you to know, and they’re going great. I’m like, that’s awesome! I don’t want to trademark it, I want everyone to do it for themselves. If you’re in the healing arts at all, in the therapeutic world, use the integration exercises. That’s what I do for me even now, and they really work, they’re really powerful.
That’s wonderful. So you have your podcast. Is there anything else you want to direct people towards? It sounds like you work with clients, if people are in California.
Yeah. I mean, I mainly just take insurance. I do have some private pay, so they can seek me out as well.
Okay, anything else you want to comment on that you want people to know about?
“Life is too short to betray yourselves. Just learn to be true to yourself. That’s not a selfish act. Actually, when we learn to flourish, then we make the world a more flourishing place.”
Wonderful! Thank you so much for everything you’ve shared with us here today.
You’re welcome. Thank you, Jessica.
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The post ERP 450: How to Develop a Healthy Relationship with the Emotion of Anger — An Interview with Bronwyn Schweigerdt appeared first on Jessica Higgins.
Ever feel like there’s a gap between your potential and your reality? Perhaps you sense there’s more to your interactions than simply going through the motions, more depth to be uncovered in your personal and professional relationships. Imagine what could be possible if you harnessed the power of resilience and brilliance—attributes that allow you to not just survive but to truly thrive in every interaction. What if you could tap into your innate creativity, intelligence, and confidence while navigating challenges with grit and perseverance? The potential for growth and transformation in your life could be limitless.
In this episode, we explore how honing relational skills can radically improve your business, life, and relationships. Discover how a blend of perseverance, creativity, and confidence can unlock new levels of personal success and organizational progress. We’ll dive into the science behind emotional alignment and the critical role it plays in leadership and effectiveness. Hear compelling personal stories about mending strained relationships through emotional support and consistency. Learn practical strategies for building stronger connections and fostering environments where everyone can shine. Tune in for insights that can help you unleash your true potential and transform your interactions with others.
Simon T. Bailey is a leading expert on the topic of Brilliance. His groundbreaking research, State of Working America Report – Thriving in Resilience and Brilliance, solidifies his insights in his 11th book, Resilience@Work. Bailey left an indelible mark on 2,400-plus organizations in 54 countries and has made a remarkable impact on 120,000 professionals who’ve experienced his courses in LinkedIn Learning. He was also recognized in Success magazine’s Top 25 and leadersHum Top 200 Power List.
In this episode
07:43 What defines resilience for working Americans?
10:43 How congruence and alignment enhance leadership influence and effectiveness.
15:10 How do unresolved issues affect future relationships?
18:41 How does conscious awareness serve others?
20:48 Nurturing relationships through mindful connection.
25:48 The importance of sharing personal stories in the healing process
29:50 Learning to manage mental health through meditation, exercise, diet, and sleep (MEDS); using apps for meditation and journaling.
33:29 How prayer can shift attention from personal desires to serving others.
Your Check List of Actions to Take
- Shift to an inclusive leadership style by listening and showing emotional care to build trust.
- Regularly ensure your thoughts, feelings, and actions are aligned for better personal effectiveness.
- Implement daily self-care routines like meditation, exercise, a balanced diet, and sufficient sleep.
- Engage in therapy to address emotional traumas and improve relationships.
- Communicate with kindness and active listening to strengthen relationships.
- Provide emotional guidance and support to children instead of material gifts.
- Incorporate meditation, prayer, and journaling into your daily routine.
- Focus on serving others without expectations to enhance personal growth and mental health.
Mentioned
Resilience @ work: How to Coach Yourself Into a Thriving Future (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
Shift Your Brilliance: Harness the Power of You, Inc. (Brilliant Living) (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
Resilience is a Superpower (website) (book)
Shifting Criticism For Connected Communication
Connect with Simon T. Bailey
Websites: brilliantu.co | simontbailey.com
Facebook: facebook.com/BrilliantSimonT
X: twitter.com/SimonTBailey
YouTube: youtube.com/c/SimonTBaileyIntl
Instagram: instagram.com/simontbailey
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/simontbailey
TikTok: tiktok.com/@simon.t.bailey
Connect with Dr. Jessica Higgins
Facebook: facebook.com/EmpoweredRelationship
Instagram: instagram.com/drjessicahiggins
Podcast: drjessicahiggins.com/podcasts/
Pinterest: pinterest.com/EmpowerRelation
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/drjessicahiggins
Twitter: @DrJessHiggins
Website: drjessicahiggins.com
Email: jessica@drjessicahiggins.com
About this Episode
Simon, thank you for joining us today.
Jessica, thank you for having me. So good to be with you.
Likewise. Just in our brief chatting before getting started here, I can tell you have so much to offer, both in personal experience and also your research, also all your work in the corporate world. So I really appreciate having your voice here, as we look at topics as it relates to relationship. But also, you’ve done so much to support the topic of resilience and helping people have more awareness around that.
So before we dive in, for people who maybe don’t know you, what would you like to share around how these topics are important to you? We could probably spend the whole episode on that. But what would you like people to know about where you’re coming from?
So, Jessica, here’s what I’ve discovered.
“In business and life, it’s like surfing in the ocean. You get knocked off of your surfboard because of uncertainty, the economy, you name it. It’s your resilience that allows you to get back on the surfboard, and it’s your brilliance that allows you to catch the next wave, so you can ignite your potential.”
So that’s how I think about this whole conversation.
Wow, okay! For people who maybe might have a different definition, how would you break those terms of resilience and brilliance? Because I’m getting a vibe that the brilliance is a unique expression of an individual and their unique gifts, and the resilience is what it takes to tolerate the upsets in life and the difficulties and the challenges. But help me where you’re coming from.
So we partner with a third-party company, The Center for Generational Kinetics, and we ask working Americans, how do you define resilience? Working Americans told us that they define resilience as perseverance, problem-solving, and grit. Then we turned around and we asked them, how do you define brilliance? We gave them 17 choices and qualities to really identify brilliance. And working Americans came back and ranked intelligence, creativity, and confidence, as the top things as they describe brilliance. So when I looked at that, I said to our team, wait a minute, wait a minute. When a person is in an environment where they are celebrated rather than tolerated, they unlock their confidence, their intelligence, to move the organization forward. But then when things go sideways, they tap into that perseverance and that grit, and they solve problems because of how they’re wired.
Both are so important. I have known from the neuroscience that when our systems are more regulated, and I think through practice of resilience, we can be more resourced and have more awareness around how to support our systems to be more regulated, that we can tap into the creative part of ourselves, so the part of our brain that has more capacity for creativity. So it sounds like, through your research and surveying, that you recognize people are really resonating and defining these, and you’re responding to how people define them for themselves.
Yes. The other interesting thing, based on what you just mentioned, Dr. Rick Snyder, who was a scholar at the University of Kansas for years, did research around hope theory. He began to teach this whole thing around willpower and waypower. When you think about that, it’s when a person, in the spirit of resilience, begins to say: Wait a minute, I’ve been here before, I can do this! I have creativity. It’s because when you have a will, you will find a way. That creates hope to look through the windshield of where you’re going, instead of the rearview mirror of where you’ve been.
Oh, I feel my heart just responding to what you’re saying. Because when we’re in times where we don’t believe, or we don’t have hope, or we haven’t had experiences of overcoming, it can be really difficult to see through the windshield. We don’t actually have that vantage point of it’s possible.
And when you don’t see, you don’t feel. And when you don’t feel, you don’t know. So your energy is scattered, and you’re not operating in what many would call that emotional congruence. So in that emotional congruence, as Harold Kushner in his book talks about, that’s when everything that you think and you say and you feel is in alignment, and you find that way forward, to be resilient wherever you are.
Wow. Just even knowing how much you are supporting people in the corporate world, and how this relates to leadership. That even though we might say the right thing, even have a good decision that is being implemented, if those aren’t lined up in that congruence, it can feel wobbly and more like tuning forks as humans. So to feel that real clear congruence and alignment, I think that’s compelling for people to have a felt sense. I don’t know, I’m speaking a little bit more, not as concrete measurables. But do you find this to be true, that when someone is more congruent and aligned, that that impacts their ability to influence and lead?
Totally. One of my failures, when I first got promoted into a leadership role at Disney is, Jessica, I was a boss with an agenda, instead of a leader with a vision. So when people showed up in my space, I basically ran an adult daycare center, I had all the answers, and you had to come to papa in order to know how to think. So I had a lot of Ego (edging greatness out), instead of Eco (emotionally caring often). When a leader emotionally cares about a human being, you move from me to we. It’s not about you forcing onto that person how to think. It’s inviting them into a conversation, to hear their brilliance, to hear their resilience, to hear what’s important to them. It’s in that place and space, it’s in the silence, where leaders begin to understand, Jessica, the same letters that spell the word listen, also spell the word silent.
“When I’m silent in the moment, I’m emotionally connecting by listening at that deeper level, and releasing the need to be right, by becoming open to what wants to emerge. That’s where the surprise is.”
So it’s that moving from Ego to Eco (emotionally caring often).
So even as you’re describing this from Ego to Eco, there’s so many times where I can feel inside myself, a tremendous amount of resistance when I don’t feel considered or cared about when one is leading, and I just naturally will question, and I want to understand. I don’t have as much trust. So when someone is in a place of leadership and I can feel their care, they are inclusive, they are drawing out, and they are trying to be in service of others, in service of the whole, the good. I’m like, you have it, you go! I don’t have any resistance. I feel like you’ve got it, and I don’t push back. So it’s interesting. Thank you for sharing that.
My pleasure.
I can sense that you also were interested in talking about how you wrote a book as it relates to more heteronormative, heterosexual couples, where there’s the masculine and the feminine, male and female. But also, I know I was saying, sometimes these traits, if we’re talking about a heterosexual couple, might actually be exhibited more in the woman, depending on who’s running more masculine energy and feminine energy. But even as you’re talking, does this fit here with what you’re talking about, Eco? Because I kind of get the sense of Ego is sometimes that more dominant, one-upping, needing to be in a superior position, where the Eco is a little more wraparound and the systems look. Tell me, if you will.
Yeah, totally. So I am remarried. I was married for 25 years, went through a divorce, got remarried. One of the failures in my first marriage, Jessica, is I was emotionally clueless, totally out to lunch, not dialed in at all. I mean, literally everything just went over my head, until I went to therapy. And no guy wants to sit with a therapist named Anita that has been practicing therapy for 40 years. So she was in my business, and the first thing she said was, whatever you don’t deal with will eventually deal with you. There are some things that happened with you and your mother. She said, there’s a lot of research out about fathers and daughters, there’s emerging research out about mothers and sons. And you have been mama to death, so you need to talk to your mother. Because you’re going to carry this emotional deficit into your next relationship. And what I recognized is, there was a hole in my soul, where I was looking for validation, affirmation, confirmation from mom, and it didn’t come. So I filled that hole with a lot of ego and different activities, and pushing and suppressing what was really going on. Jessica, I pick up the phone, I call my mom, and my mom says: I’ve been waiting to have this conversation for 35 years. It became the dam that broke in our relationship, and there was a healing that took place, and mom and I are good. And in my new marriage, Jody, I married an alpha female.
First marriage or second marriage?
Second marriage. So my second marriage with Jody, she’s an alpha female. I’m an alpha male. But what we have learned in just four years of both coming from divorced relationships, blended family, is how do we intentionally choose to be kind to each other by emotionally regulating whatever is going on in the moment, slowing down to the speed of that moment, and still recognizing that this is a human being and we really want this to work. And it takes a lot of work! It takes a lot of work. But it’s that intention where it’s that pause: 3, 2, 1. So, dear. It takes a little edge off of whatever is going to be said. But I’ve had to learn that. So Anita, my therapist, has helped give me some tools of listening, slowing down to the moment, saying: Jessica, here’s what I heard you say. Is this what you meant? Did I miss it? Can you repeat?
Yes. A word that you said a moment ago that just echoes is, the choice or choosing. I get a sense, and maybe I’m just imagining this, with you and your wife, and both being alpha, that you have the capacity to win. Both of you have a lot of skillset, a lot of experience, and a lot of ability to probably argue or win, whatever that debate is. And to really consciously choose, even though you have all the ability to do that, to be in service of and choosing the care, choosing to really nurture the bond, which is a whole different goal. Am I hearing you?
You hit the nail on the head, that’s it! Consciously choosing. One of the things, Jody has a master’s in psychology, and sometimes I’ll tease her and say: I am not your client. I am not on the sofa, don’t go there.
I’m not available for the feedback right now, thank you very much.
Of course we’ll just bust out laughing. But the reality is, to your point, it’s consciously being aware of another. Not to fix, not to be right. But to be in service, to your point.
“When you’re in service, you begin to understand that love is not what it says, it’s what it does. It’s how it shows up.”
So we have a little sign, Jody has got this little sign, that the little things really matter. So good morning, good evening, a text during the day, holding the door when she comes into a room. Chivalry is not dead, and she’s not less of a woman. But I am honoring her presence by saying good morning. Something that we do, and we’ve done this since we got married, is we pray every day. We just take a minute, and we pray for us, we pray for our children. So when something goes south, and it may go south during the day, we at least have an anchor or a launching pad where we come back and say: Okay, did we pray in the morning?
Yes. The real ability to have that ground, as you’re describing, that anchor, it does so, so much. I’m not going to name it for you, but I just can appreciate, when life presents the challenges, that we have access to strength, to faith, to courage, and there’s a holding and the remembrance and a real practice. At least how I feel.
No, you’re spot on. To your point, it’s also the power of consistency. I heard John Maxwell say something one day, he said: consistency compounds over time. So it’s that consistent effort to be conscious, to be caring, to be kind, consistently over time.
No kidding. I think that that can be minimized as like the fluffy, not very significant, and yet you’re speaking around the cumulative effect and how potent and how powerful. It’s a felt experience. It’s a real nurturing of the relating and the bond. I mean, it’s sometimes this invisible thing, the relationship, and yet, to really care for it and care for one another.
So I want to go back a moment. Because you were talking about, I don’t know if you still work with her, but Anita, and just what you had learned and the slowing down and the really listening and taking the edge off, and perhaps some of what you learned in your ability to turn towards what I’m sure at the time was very tragic in a lot of ways, with your previous wife and divorce. I just find that to be incredible, myself included, that if I don’t slow down, we’re all human. I grew up with iMessages. I have all the degrees and master’s, and I do this for a living, and I’m in it. Still, the human tendency to want to react is so, so strong. So if I don’t slow down, sometimes I don’t even have any clue around why I’m reacting. So if I can get into that inquiry for myself and my husband, but I can’t access that unless I slow down.
It’s so interesting you say what you just said, because I just went to see Anita last week. I hadn’t been to her in a few years, and I went to see her because Madison, our youngest. So we have three daughters, one son, blended family, and Madison is from my previous marriage. She just graduated from college. Madison and I have had a challenge over the years as father-daughter. Part of what led to my divorce, Madison wanted to talk to me a number of years ago, she came into my home office, and Jessica, I was emotionally unavailable. She said: Daddy, I see you’re busy, I’ll just come back later. I said, okay. And it hit me on the plane that I missed a moment to connect with her. So when I came back out of town, I said: Madison, you wanted to talk to me? She said: Daddy, it’s okay. I said: No, it’s not okay. Because if I don’t change my behavior, you’re going to marry a joker just like me. And her mother said to me, you give everybody the best of you. But you give us the rest of you, and I don’t want the leftovers anymore. So that was kind of the catalyst that led to the divorce.
But fast-forwarding, what led me back to Anita is, Madison, Jody, and Daniel, my son, we had went to church. Great time at church. We’re leaving church, and we go and sit down for Sunday brunch at a restaurant. And Madison asked Jody a question, and it was on like popcorn from there. Like, it just blew up, and it was really ugly. I found myself tapping into an anger to her and Jody, so much so, we had to leave the restaurant. I did say that we had just left church right before. But we had to leave the restaurant, because it was bad. It was really, really bad. And we’re in the car, and we are verbally assaulting each other. It was back and forth.
Fast-forwarding, Madison’s mother was out of town, and I called her and I’m like: I don’t know what happened with our daughter. So we had to call a timeout, literally, adults, and we had to meet the next day to just unpack what happened. So literally, for two hours, Madison began to unpack how she was really feeling. And what I realized, as her father, I thought I was throwing money at it. But Dennis Waitley, one of my mentors said: one of the failures is sometimes you give kids loot and things, instead of roots and wings. It hit me that I had given Madison private school, she studied in Italy for a semester abroad. But I was not hearing her heart, and she had suppressed a lot, and it came out. It was like the bottle had been shaken, and it came out.
So literally, I had to go to Anita, just like: I need some coping tools, because I showed up in an unhealthy way for my daughter. Then Jody and Madison met, they talked for three hours, and they began to unpack things. And can I tell you, we are on the other side. But how we got there, therapy taught us to use all of your words and listen and invite conversation, and don’t just get stuck in your biased way, it’s got to be this way, and then take it out of context. So, anyway.
Oh my goodness, I’m so, so, so grateful for what you’re sharing in the personal story here. I’m very touched. I feel so much repair. I mean, that’s part of what we talk a lot about. Even the most so-called “successful” couples have disagreements, arguments, fights. It’s how they get back into repair that’s actually the thing that brings healing and reconciliation. When we’re talking about all of us experiencing intergenerational lineage of pain, wounding, family injuries, traumas, it is so powerful to have these moments to catch it. Even if we can’t calibrate and fully dial it in, in the moment, to give it the focus, give it the attention, give it the care. And what you’re speaking about is, what’s on the surface level is one thing, and if we can hold space and really be present to what is also on the inside and what gets unpacked. How significant and life-changing, if I’m hearing you, that is!
Yes. So Madison called me yesterday and she started a new job. She’s a new college graduate, started a job. And she said at the end of the call: Dad, I just want to let you know, I love you so much. And I said: I love you. When we said it, it wasn’t phoned in. It was coming from that deep place of father and daughter trying to figure our way. We’re flawed, perfectly imperfect. But we are better than we were two weeks ago.
Yes, we could just end the show there! Wow, what an example. And what you’re helping not only provide, in the relationship, for the depth and the intimacy in father-daughter, and just the bonding and the safety I’m hearing. And also, the modeling, as you were talking about, and have been teaching people around developing emotional intelligence, awareness, building emotional resilience, and putting these into practice. I mean, if I’m hearing you, given the circumstances, and I’m so glad there was repair with your mother, but it sounds like she was also aware, whatever the circumstances. She was limited in her ability to attune to you and hold that space for you. So it sounds like things are much improved in your relationship with her.
It’s like reverse parenting. Mom is 84, and what I realized is, I needed to become the parent in the moment for her, to open her up to talk. Once she saw that it was safe, and I would say: Mom, this is amazing, tell me more. I would invite her into storytelling. So she began to unpack the relationship that she had with her parents, what she didn’t receive or have. So I began to understand and really honor my mom. I think, Jessica, net-net, it became healing presence for both of us. Just that healing in the moment.
Yeah. Speaking of parenting, for the parts of you that didn’t maybe get what you needed, did you have to almost reparent yourself to give yourself what you needed? Or was Anita a part of the help to hold that benevolent space? Are you open to sharing?
That is such a great question. I have never had this question before! But I can speak to it. So what Anita did, from a therapy standpoint, she gave me the coping tools. But then what I recognized, and this is going to sound like an overused phrase, I had to do my work beyond Anita.
Yeah. I mean, you’re living your life, that’s where it happens.
So I had to learn how to take my MEDS. MEDS is: meditate, exercise, diet, and sleep. Because it’s all tied together. So what I started doing is, I started getting up. There were apps out there, Headspace, Calm, I don’t have any affiliation with them. But I had to start meditating, number one. Number two, I had to start journaling, beginning to write down. So I have an app called Day One Journal, that I downloaded and paid for, and I’m writing in the journal. But I’m a little old school. I also write in journals, because it’s therapeutic for me, I’ve discovered that. But then what I realized is, my diet was jacked up, so I had to change that. Especially when I went to my doctor and my doctor said my A1C was like 13.1, where it really needed to be 6 or less. So I had to get the diet right. Then I had to start exercising. So I started walking, and I learned to swim. Who wants to swim after 50, right? But I learned to swim. Then, I was only getting three to four hours of sleep. And as you know, according to the research from the book, Why Sleep, when we have proper sleep, it’s like emotional first aid for the brain. So I went from three to four hours, Jessica, to getting like six hours, solid.
And when I began to put that all together, it was like a puzzle piece. It was like the pieces emotionally falling into place. It’s like when you put an old school key into a lock, and all of the tumblers start tumbling in place. It clicked! I was like, wait a minute. So Anita has helped me mentally, but I have to consistently carve out the first 15 minutes of the day to just work on me. What am I going to eat today? Am I exercising? And what I realized is, it has transformed my life. I’m not the same guy.
I don’t know how anyone could be, with those changes, and really being able to attend. You talked earlier about consistency. It’s not just, I ate clean or I ate a particular way that nourishes my body, and I’m good. It’s a continual practice, and it’s the nurturing, as you were responding to re-parenting, on all these domains helping the full system. That I believe fits with resilience, that we have way more capacity. That also fits with emotional intelligence and building more emotional capacity, that we have more bandwidth, we have more accessibility for creating more safety. We have more of that grounding through faith and prayer, that we can slow down. We do have the ability to take a pause to regulate, to then be in curiosity and hold, and have that witnessing healing presence you spoke about.
Totally. The other thing, and I would be remiss if I didn’t say this, probably the glue that holds it all together for me is prayer. I started praying, not just with Jodi, just with myself in the morning. Just praying to God and saying: God, I don’t know what’s going to jump off today. Can you just help or something? Because I’m a hot mess at times. Can you just help me hold it together? That consistency of prayer in the morning just emotionally regulates me, and I get through the day. For me, that’s been such a strong anchor.
No kidding! Does this, in your opinion, fit with the Ego versus Eco?
Absolutely. What I’ve realized, for me, when I pray, I am taking the focus off of what I want and need, and beginning to understand who can I serve today. Not for what I will get, but for who I will become in the process. So what I’ve discovered is, you are truly blessed when you choose to help another with no strings attached. When I have intentionally kind of set that focus for the day, who can I serve today, how can I help today, and it’s not about me, I feel so much better.
“The research from Emory University says, when you help another person, the reward centers in our brain begin to light up almost as if we have been on the receiving end of the person we’ve just helped. They call it The Helper’s High.”
For me, it simply started when I focused on God and said: God, how do I become living presence in this broken world? When I come from that ethos, emotionally caring for others, it just happens. I can’t even explain it. It’s like second nature, because our world needs kindness and love, and individuals that will show up without an agenda to say, how do I just make the world a little bit better for you?
Thank you so much for speaking to that. I don’t know, I wonder what you would say. I will add, when I am in prayer. I actually did a spiritual guidance program, which, being and sitting with others in a therapeutic space, whether or not it’s coaching or even therapy, or spiritual guidance if it’s framed in that way, which I don’t do. But the idea was to hold higher power almost as a third. If it’s me and another individual or a couple, just that there’s a holding space, a higher power, just honoring that. Also, I would say, I don’t lead with a lot of this. But as we’re meeting in America, most Americans, and even the world, have some belief in higher power.
So I’ll just bring this back personally, that when I remember, and I try to be diligent, but I’m not always a 100%. But when I am doing my form of prayer, it’s not super steeped in a religion, but it’s spiritual, and I am holding and praying. That I feel I don’t have to source it, it doesn’t have to come from me. That I can be in service, as you’re using that word, and I can be in a place of trust that it’s not because of me or my efforts, it’s something larger that I am participating in. That, for me, gets me out of ego, gets me out of the hustle and burnout, kind of like: I’m having to use all my life force energy. That I can be witnessed and be in process and participating with. I don’t know, what do you think about that?
So what you’re really articulating, and this is something I heard years ago. I was privileged to share the stage with the late great Dr. Stephen Covey, and he said something that I had never heard before. He said, we’re not human beings having a spiritual experience, we’re spirit beings having a human experience. So what you just articulated, Jessica, is that as a spirit being who slows down to the speed of the moment, and in that silence and in that place, you are connecting with the divine, whatever that looks like and means to you. But you know it, your spirit knows it!
Here’s another way to think about it. You remember growing up and they used to say, sticks and stones may break my bones, but names and words will never hurt us. Actually, words do impact us, as we know. Because words carry energy. What is energy? Energy is that spirit.
“When a word is said, you can feel it in your spirit. You know! So you are practicing being in the divine. Words come to you that you would’ve never articulated before. Your lexicon begins to expand just in your own way, and it’s coming from your spirit.”
Thank you. I’m like, preach! I feel very touched, and even I feel like you’re an example. Not only it seems like you have many words that symbolize or are acronyms that are helpful for remembering. But the way in which you’re speaking and delivering, I do feel the congruence, and I feel myself responding. So thank you for that.
Well, I know we’re winding down, and we’ve talked so, so much. Is there anything you want to speak about or describe or give, that would be helpful, before we wrap up?
The one thing I would encourage everyone listening to us today, to encapsulate this entire conversation.
“Find one person and hug them with your words, whatever that looks like. Text, video, phone call. Use your words and hug them with your words.”
Thank you. It’s wrapping up so much of what we talked about. It’s beautiful.
Well, Simon, how do people get in touch with all that you’re doing and teaching and leading? What would you like people to know and what do you want to direct people towards?
SimonTBailey.com is where they can find me and get connected.
Okay. And what might they find on your website?
Well, certainly we’ve got a number of resources there. I’ve got books there, and if they put my name into the podcast prompt, they’ll hear some of the past podcasts that I’ve done and how we hug people with our words. So they can get all our books. Of course, obviously Amazon, you put in my name, all of my books will come up on Amazon. Or if they like to listen, they can go to Audible and put in my name, Simon T. Bailey. T for Terrific. Just kidding. It was right there, Jessica!
I love it. Do you want to name a couple of your books?
Yeah. Resilience at Work: How to Coach Yourself into a Thriving Future. Then, Ignite the Power of Women in Your Life, wait for it, A Guide for Men.
Awesome, wonderful! Well, if I remember correctly, you also have courses, and you have so much to offer to help people who want to develop more of these practices. Thank you for what you’re doing in the world and for sharing your time and energy with us today. I can really feel where you’re coming from, and it’s a blessing.
Thank you so much for having me.
Sign off
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The post EPR 449: How Being More Relational Can Bring More Success In Business, Life & Relationship – An Interview With Simon T. Bailey appeared first on Jessica Higgins.
Navigating emotional turbulence in relationships often feels like weathering a storm without an umbrella. When emotions swell and reach a boiling point, they can cloud our judgment, leading to misunderstandings and disconnection with loved ones. But what if anger and emotional flooding could serve as gateways to deeper understanding and genuine connection rather than barriers?
In this episode, we delve into the roots and triggers of emotional flooding, offering essential tools and insights to help you manage overwhelming emotions. By exploring concepts like Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) and Internal Family Systems (IFS), we aim to help you identify the vulnerabilities beneath anger and develop healthy ways to process your emotions. Practical strategies for emotional regulation, curiosity, and effective communication are shared to foster healthier relational dynamics and navigate the complexities of intimacy and personal triggers.
Whether you’re dealing with stressors from past experiences or facing present-day challenges in your relationships, this episode provides valuable guidance on building a more resilient and emotionally attuned partnership.
Gayane Aramyan, a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in Los Angeles, specializes in perinatal therapy, guiding women and couples through pregnancy, postpartum, and parenthood. She has additional training in Anger Management, EFT for Couples, Grief Processing, ACT, and IFS. Featured in Women’s Health, CNBC, Forbes, The Los Angeles Times, and HuffPost, she empowers clients through life transitions and the challenges of parenthood.
In this episode
06:59 How Gayene Aramayan began her journey to helping couples understand each other’s evolving selves.
09:05 What is emotional flooding and how does it manifest in relationships?
14:51 How suppressing emotions in childhood lead to struggles with managing feelings in adulthood?
20:59 Strategies to help recognize emotional triggers and core feelings beyond anger.
25:31 How can couples handle strong emotions constructively?
30:51 How is our inner child impacting marriage?
38:57 Identifying and dissecting couples’ emotional interaction cycles.
44:04 How does writing transform your thought process?
47:06 Awareness and preparation for perinatal depression and anxiety.
48:29 The importance of identifying your emotional hotspots?
Your Check List of Actions to Take
- Take time to recognize personal triggers and physical symptoms of emotional flooding, such as a racing heart or feeling hot.
- Use mindfulness techniques like deep breathing, grounding exercises, and embodied presence to calm your nervous system.
- Write down your thoughts and emotions to engage your logical brain and gain deeper self-awareness.
- Agree on a strategy with your partner to temporarily withdraw and self-regulate during emotional flooding, making it clear the discussion will resume later.
- Cultivate curiosity and communication in your relationship by asking open-ended questions to understand emotions without personalizing behaviors.
- Work to constructively address these vulnerabilities by identifying the deeper emotions or unmet needs beneath anger.
- Use EFT to guide couples through recognizing and breaking negative interaction cycles.
- Prioritize Self-Care and Knowledge Pre-childbirth: For expecting parents, focus on mental health preparation and self-care tools to support emotional well-being during pregnancy and postpartum.
Mentioned
What is Internal Family Systems? (*IFS Institute website) (link)
What is EFT? (*ICEEFT website) (link)
ERP 423: How to Transcend Trauma (And the Effects Experience in Relationship) — An Interview with Dr. Frank Anderson
Identify The Cycle (free pdf document)
Shifting Criticism For Connected Communication
Connect with Gayane Aramyan
Websites: therapywithgayane.com
Instagram: instagram.com/therapywithgayane
Connect with Dr. Jessica Higgins
Facebook: facebook.com/EmpoweredRelationship
Instagram: instagram.com/drjessicahiggins
Podcast: drjessicahiggins.com/podcasts/
Pinterest: pinterest.com/EmpowerRelation
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/drjessicahiggins
Twitter: @DrJessHiggins
Website: drjessicahiggins.com
Email: jessica@drjessicahiggins.com
About this Episode
Gayane, thank you for being with us today.
Thank you so much for having me.
Yeah, I appreciate this topic. I think it’s something many couples are experiencing, individuals are experiencing, around emotional flooding, and how that might be showing up in their dynamic.
Before we pivot to that topic, I also know you do a lot in other ways, and would love for you to share a little bit about yourself, and also how this became a topic of interest for you.
Sure. So I specialized in perinatal mental health and couples therapy. I have an almost 4-year-old boy that, when I had him during the pandemic, I was just so clueless on what motherhood and postpartum was all about. Even though I was a therapist, there was very little that we learned about this phase that is just so life-changing. Before that, I was really enjoying working with women in all parts of life, and I’ve always been passionate about couples therapy. I’ve been with my husband for about 15 years now. So although we’ve only been together, it’s been different versions of ourselves with each part of life. So it’s kind of like one marriage, but 10 different people in one marriage. It sounds strange, but that’s kind of the concept I really resonate with. It’s because we’re just different versions of ourselves.
I think that really fueled my passion for helping couples, is because even though I know my husband and I’ve known him for 15 years, each stage of our life brings on a new set of issues that we’re like: Okay, how do we navigate this? I sometimes share with my couples and I’ll even say: Listen, this is a topic that I’ve had in my household. Even though I know the tools and I know how to break free from them when I’m emotionally charged up, none of it exists. So this is why it’s very close to heart, close to home. I really want to help couples understand each other better. Because I feel like sometimes, as a couples therapist, as I sit on this couch over here, I’m like: Hold on, are you hearing what I’m hearing? Because you’re seeing the same thing, but you’re not understanding each other, so let’s break the barrier. So that’s where my passion comes from.
I love it, and I really appreciate the humanity that I’m hearing you describe and that you raise your hand. I raise my hand with you, that when I feel challenged or activated in my nervous system, I feel all the things that trigger me in the experience of flooding at times, or the activation reaction. It’s difficult. It’s difficult to negotiate. Yes, I trust the process and I’ve committed to it, because I’ve worked it. Like you said, I have tools around how to break free, so to speak. Yet, it still is painful. It still is scary. It’s still hard.
Absolutely, yeah.
Well, so some people might be familiar with the term flooding. Do you feel like emotional flooding is different than flooding? Or where would you like to start about just defining emotional flooding for people?
So I think of emotional flooding, if you think of the metaphor, really just being in this place where all the feelings internally, it’s just like you can’t breathe, and maybe you’re sensing physical sensations. Really, it happens when you’re triggered. I really like to explain what happens in the brain when we are emotionally triggered. It’s that the emotional part of the brain turns on, and the logical part of the brain turns off. If there are things that you haven’t processed, this is where the emotional flooding happens. We get triggered, and then all these emotions that we haven’t dealt with come to surface, and our logic is turned off. We just don’t know how to act. We say things we might regret. We might do things we might regret. So part of understanding emotional flooding means knowing what your triggers are, which a lot of people actually don’t know. They have no clue. Because oftentimes, when we are emotionally triggered, we think it’s our partner, it’s their fault. The finger is always pointing the other way instead of looking in the mirror.
So that’s how I like to frame emotional flooding. Usually, it’s whenever something hasn’t been processed. And I like to think of triggers like open wounds. We all have different triggers. So what might trigger Partner A might not trigger Partner B, and that’s just because of the lens they’re viewing the situation with. That has factors of how they were raised, what beliefs they’ve been taught at home, what their teacher said in fifth grade, how their relationship was before this. So, so many different factors influence how we view the same situation from different perspectives.
Yes, and the layers here of lived experience from all these different aspects and domains. Even there’s research that supports the epigenetics, that there’s things that we get from generations, that live in us and affect our response and our nervous system. So it’s a lot that we can interpret the same circumstance very differently. It’s almost as if, to your point, you’re in a mediating role because it’s as if people are speaking different languages, and it’s quite foreign to be able to see that your partner is having a completely different experience.
Absolutely.
When we talk about emotional flooding, I’m also hearing what you’re describing about the brain science and what people might associate with the fight or flight or freeze. Is that something? Because you’re right, I don’t think most people are aware, unless they’ve done a level of self-study or have engaged in some type of personal growth or therapeutic support, that they will see or feel their heart racing, or feel their kicking into that reaction, whether or not it’s wanting to back away or the shutdown, or whether or not it’s amping up. Do you feel that flooding is all-encompassing anytime that trigger is happening? Or do you feel like it’s a certain point that, as you’re describing the analogy of flooding, like we have a hard time breathing, or I’ve had clients describe seeing red or just this tunnel vision. Do you feel like flooding is its own thing in the activation process, or is it all-encompassing?
I do think it is a certain point. Because if you have worked through the triggers, I like to think of the open wound metaphor, and if it’s something you’ve processed, it’s a scar. So you might notice it, you know it’s there. You might even get sad about it and feel it, but it’s not the same. Think of a paper cut, and every time something touches it and you get this reaction, that means it’s not processed.
“I think emotional flooding really happens when the trigger has not been processed enough. So then the body is literally telling you, I can’t handle this information. This is too much. Please process it!”
Yes, I love that analogy of the open wound. It’s a really good distinction for people to recognize. I’ve even heard people reference, I’m not sure I love the word hysteria, but they’re referencing, when it seems like a bigger reaction, that there’s likely history. I think hysteria with history, it’s catchy. But it’s what you’re saying, that there’s unprocessed, and that could be a signpost that perhaps there’s some things going on and the body is communicating.
Yes. I always start with, when we’re trying to figure out, I have training in anger management and I used to run anger management groups, and I was a facilitator for about five or eight years. It was so interesting—not to generalize, but that this is what the reality was—most of the people in the group were men, and some were court-mandated, so they did not want to be there. And by the third or fourth session, I would crack them open and I would get to them, and they would say: Wow, if only I knew this is what I felt, instead of immediately going to the aggression, I wouldn’t have left my life. I wouldn’t have done the thing I did. I wouldn’t have done this or that. So, so many things would come to surface that they were just so unaware of. Try working with someone who does not want to be there, it just adds so much more layers of like: Okay, let’s figure this out.
I think, again, not to generalize, but most men, but really, I think most of us were raised with the language of: Don’t cry, get up, get through it, get over it, move on, move forward, don’t feel what you feel. I think that’s exactly why now we have adults who are being emotionally flooded, and they don’t have the tools to know what to do with it. And now that I have a 4-year-old, listen, I don’t get it right all the time. I would say most of the time I don’t get it right. But there are moments where I say: It’s okay, I get it. You worked so hard.
There’s these Magna-Tiles that my son built, I don’t know if you’ve heard of them. But I think it’s such a cool metaphor of life. Because he built them, and then it falls apart and he gets so upset. Now he says things like, I worked so hard on trying to build that. So I take that as such an opportunity. Because I’m not really emotionally invested in that moment, it’s his thing he’s going through. So I’m better able to show up and say: Wow, you worked so hard on that. I believe you, I get it. It’s so upsetting. Moments like that make me feel so empowered of like, maybe this generation will be a little different. Because no one did that for us. They did the best they could, absolutely no blame. And God knows what our kids are going to say about us in 30 years.
But just that, and I see that all the time with all my clients, we have adults now who just don’t know what they feel. They’re not aware of it. They have no clue that the anger they feel is actually a projection of something else going on deeper inside. So the first step of all of this is to identify what your triggers are. Because most of us don’t even know that.
Yeah, no kidding. I appreciate that you’re saying, collectively, there is change. Like, you as a parent and what you’re really trying to support in emotional attunement and helping organize and identify, helping your son really feel seen and also supported in his emotional process and how to work through that. That there’s real language and relationship around that. And that we haven’t all had that, and that was not the norm that we look at in generations before.
You’re really bringing a correlation here, that when we compartmentalize or we don’t have the range in our human emotional experience, we cut off. We say it’s not okay, it’s not acceptable. Or even society, family, community tells us it’s not okay to be afraid, it’s not okay to be feeling shame, or these difficult emotions. That it all gets channeled into anger, as that’s the form of expression. And/or what you’re saying is, it accumulates. That when we don’t have things that we’ve really given space to process, especially when we talk about any type of trauma or emotional injuries, that they layer and they accumulate. And that can be, the metaphor is, the straw that broke the camel’s back. Is that right? Especially for the people, helping them recognize, perhaps there were 10 other things that you were feeling that correlated with this outburst or this rage.
Yes, absolutely. Usually, what’s going on deep down inside is something vulnerable, like feeling alone, feeling sad. Almost those childlike feelings that nobody validated, they’re now coming up in this adult. The reason why anger is so easy and it’s like the go-to for people, it’s because that’s what the brain was designed to do. It’s to react, to protect, to hunt, to keep us safe, to do all those things that the modern-day brain doesn’t need to do.
“Part of this work is really rewiring how the brain understands an event that happens that triggers you. We don’t need to fight anymore. We don’t need to freeze anymore. We don’t need to run away from it anymore. It’s about responding rather than reacting.”
It’s almost as if, if we give time and space and can identify there’s something going on here, might I be able to give this some space to explore and understand the deeper layer? That we’re having an ability to either reprocess or metabolize it, when we maybe didn’t have it before. Is that right?
Yes, absolutely. I think a helpful tip is also, as you’re working through, to not get emotionally flooded, is understanding your triggers, identifying what you actually feel deep down. If it was anger, okay, that’s valid. Absolutely. But what’s underneath the anger? What’s a need that wasn’t met maybe? Because usually that’s what’s happening if we’re getting emotionally flooded, there’s also some of that unmet needs. The other part of this is, how do we communicate that? That’s another tool we don’t have.
Oh my goodness, I know! I so agree with you. Well, I appreciate, I can sense too, and your language maybe is here or not, but the training in the Emotional Focused Therapy (EFT). Also, I’m a big fan of the Internal Family Systems (IFS). I had Frank Anderson on the show not too long ago, and I was geeking out because he does such a great job teaching.
All that to say, what is your opinion, when you’re helping guide people, to notice the trigger, identify the trigger, and start to begin to identify some of those core emotions or primary attachment needs? Oftentimes, that anger is really what’s visible and what they’re most aware of. There are schools of thought, I think even Susan Johnson labels anger as a primary emotion, and I know anger can be an alert to when we feel an injustice or a violation. And also, it’s deemed as a secondary emotion by a lot of people. I do appreciate the vulnerability that lies underneath the anger, and I’m often querying that as well—both in myself and my own personal life and process, as well as my clients. So what would you say here, just for people listening? It sounds as if you want them to see the anger, notice the anger, and also see if there’s more.
Yes, there is, definitely. I’m so glad you brought that up, because there is a difference of schools of thought on that, for sure. Working with anger management clients, I just saw a result of like, there is something there underneath anger.
“The anger is like a shield, it protects. But when you peel back the layers, whatever metaphor you want to use on that, there’s something usually there, like an unmet need or something else they’re trying to say.”
Especially when it comes to couples, when I do this kind of processing with couples, like: Okay, I get it, you were really triggered by that, you were really upset. What was happening underneath? What are you really trying to say? Almost always, it’s: Well, I’ve been really missing my partner, or I felt really disconnected and this is just the only way I know how to get his attention. So it’s almost always, I don’t want to say always. I’ve definitely had some clients try to argue that with: Well, no, I’m just angry. I’m like: Okay, you’re just angry. So sometimes yes, of course it can be just anger. But I have often seen that when you really sit with that anger, it’s almost like data. It’s trying to tell you something. You’re angry because of something else.
Yes, I agree. Sometimes it takes a little settling in and giving some space around the anger. So even if it’s like, we had an agreement and you didn’t follow through, I am angry and frustrated that I want be able to rely on you, I want to be able to trust you. Then deep underneath that is like, do you care about me, or are you with me? To your point, often we can distill it down to these very fundamental things. For me, it’s often like, are we still connected? Or fear of abandonment, are we still good? Or am I okay? Am I good enough? Am I loved? That type of thing.
Okay. So as we’re talking and you’re helping people, and you’re speaking about the couple dynamic, there’s a process that you’re describing, which is: begin to notice the trigger, be able to identify the emotion and what’s happening underneath, which is all super key. I think having support to be able to do that is very, very helpful, to have space held, to be able to just query that. And you’re saying we could do that individually and in couplehood. I just want to reference the story you had shared about with your son and his frustration. You were saying: I wasn’t emotionally invested, so it was easier to hold space for him and see him and just be with him. I think, I don’t know if you would agree, but I think that also is true in intimate relationship, in a marriage or a couple, where we could perhaps notice our partner is having strong feelings, and perhaps it’s not directed at us.
But we always think it is.
Well, we do think it is. But there are occasions where they’ve had a hard day, and they’re like: Oh, I can do this, I can hold space. But it gets really entangled when it does feel personal, which I would say the majority of the time is. But to just distinguish, like: Oh, I can hold space if you’re upset with your mother or your boss or your employees, or whatever it is. Would you agree?
Absolutely, I’m so glad you mentioned that. I often relate the things I do with my child, with the parent and child relationship in couples. Because I think our own inner children are just showing up in our marriage, we’re trying to recreate familiar patterns. All of that is so present. So, often with the parent and child dynamic, it also becomes very personal many times. And if you step back and look at it, it’s the silliest. Because it’s a 4-year-old. He doesn’t have an agenda against you. He’s not doing things on purpose. His prefrontal cortex is not developed. Logically, we know that. But when you’re in it, and it’s morning and you’re trying to get out the door, and they’re just stalling their way out the door. You’re like, you are doing this on purpose, you have something! So we take it so personally.
Now in adult relationships, same concept happens. We take those little comments, we take that glare, we take that action, as something personal. And most of the time, actually when you take a step back and you look at it, it’s not personal. Maybe it’s a trigger from the past. Maybe it’s something about past family dynamic being recreated in marriage. Maybe it’s a hard day at work. Your partner comes home and they’re upset, and you immediately go: What did I do, why are you mad? You’re not happy to see me. Why didn’t you say hi to me? So it becomes so personal.
Instead, if we were to approach that with curiosity and would say: How was your day? I notice you seem a little off, what’s happening? Just that distinction, I think, would save a lot of relationships from going into the cycle of personalizing everything that happens. Listen, I’m human, it happens to me too. But I think the more aware of it you become, and the more you practice that kind of cognitive reprocessing of what’s happening and pausing, you’re able to get to a place where not every single time you’re going to say, that’s against me.
It’s so quick and habitual. If we can suspend a little bit of that automatic tendency, there’s a lot more here to gain, and a lot more opportunity for connection.
Absolutely, yes.
It reminds me, I was sharing on an interview not so long ago, it was probably several months ago though. It was in the winter, and my husband had a cold or some type of under the weather. We were at the dining room table and I was sharing something with him, and he was turned away. Like, I was talking to him, and he was turned away. I’m like, is he not interested? Of course, my thoughts away were like: Is he upset with me? Is he not enjoying what I’m talking about? And it’s continuing for many, many, many minutes, and I queried it. I had the judgements and the perceptions. But then I queried it, and he was like: Oh, I just don’t want to breathe on you. So really, he was being thoughtful of me and considerate, but I also was perceiving it as all the questions around the negative.
“The brain loves a narrative. It creates a narrative before you even have the data or the information to support that narrative.”
Like, partner comes in upset face, the brain is like typing up or writing up a whole narrative of why they’re upset, before you even have a chance to say: Hey, what’s going on? The brain says, be upset with him, be mad.
The protection: armor up and defend and be ready, or take issue with the mood and the attitude that’s coming in. So help us here, if we can tie this back with emotional flooding. You help a lot with helping people identify when it’s happening, how it manifests, and we’re talking about these exchanges where we can perceive and interpret a lot of negative cues or negative meaning. You’re saying if we can have awareness around the triggers, identify the emotion, the underlying need or feeling. Can you help us with what this is? Is it just simply pausing and suspending that narrative and that judgment? How do people recognize emotional flooding?
I think after you identify the physical symptoms that happen—maybe it’s your heart racing, maybe you feel hot, maybe you get red. Once you know the physical symptoms, it’s easier to identify: Okay, my body is going into that place. I often help couples create some sort of an exit strategy. But it’s talked about beforehand, so both people know what’s happening. The person who gets emotionally flooded, the second they notice those physical symptoms, can say: Hey, I am getting really triggered, I’m feeling my body go to that place. I’m going to take a walk for five minutes, and I’m going to come back, and let’s discuss this further. So the person is exiting to regulate themselves, they’re gathering their thoughts together, hopefully turning some of that logical part of the brain on, and they’re giving a time in which they’ll come back. So letting the other person know, I’m not just abandoning you and running away from this, I will get back to you.
Five minutes actually, I don’t know why I said five minutes, that’s very little. I think most of us need a lot more time than that. But be reasonable. It could look like a night to sleep on it and get up in the morning and feel maybe a little bit different. But I would say a night is the most it should take. It shouldn’t take three days to do this. Because if you really sit with the information and the data that your body is giving you, often what happens is you realize some of that information of: Oh, this isn’t about my partner at all, this is because I’m stressed about money. Or this is because what my partner did actually reminded me of what I felt like as a kid. So suddenly you realize there’s nothing they can do, and this is all of your stuff showing up.
Oh my goodness. There’s two things that you’re saying that I find to be very helpful, which is to have this almost agreement or discussion ahead of time so that there’s a real understanding. It’s almost as if, whatever that language is that’s communicated in the moment around: I am feeling triggered, I’m going to do the thing we talked about doing. It’s almost as if, if we’re using the language that you’ve been describing around flooding and what that represents, it’s almost as if I’ve lost my bearings. Or something is interfering here that I recognize is taking me out of connection with you, and I am feeling the interference or the distraction of that, and I would like to calibrate so that I can connect with you and actually be more present. I mean, that’s kind of what we’re saying.
Yeah, absolutely. Look, some of the physical stuff that happens, again, relating it to children, but I don’t know when this hitting starts, of kids doing this with their hands, maybe one-and-a-half, where they test you to see what they can do with their hands. I remember the first time my son almost smacked me on my face, I was like: Whoa, where is this coming from? Even now, as much as I’m trying to teach him about how to emotionally regulate, his innate (in him internally) reaction is, when he’s frustrated, if I’m too close to him, he might push me away. It’s like a physical thing. I’ve always found that so fascinating because he’s never seen that, especially before he started school. It’s not like he’s seeing other kids do that. It’s something internally that, as you said, genetically with our DNA, it’s been passed down. So we have to retrain our kids. And imagine, we’re already way too deep into this ourselves, we have to retrain our brain to not do that when we get triggered.
Yeah, so we almost really need more collective support around how to navigate this, and that we can benefit from a lot more systems in place to support this. Look, I would say even adults, when we’re stressed and things are really tense, or resources are scarce or something, we all have the propensity to be aggressive and competitive. So really, this lives in us. It is these tendencies.
So the other thing I wanted to comment about, as far as the exit strategy, that what you’re describing isn’t an invitation to ruminate or to go into a downward spiral. You’re saying, as you said a little bit ago, if we can have a little bit of meta-cognition, thinking about our thinking, or have some other part—this is maybe where the IFS comes in, Internal Family System—a wiser part, a more grounded part.
The self.
Yeah, the self, or the prefrontal cortex, the logical thinking. That can we look at this? Can we query: Okay, so what might be happening here? I had a strong reaction, and not to get stuck into the narrative and dig deeper into the narrative.
Don’t text your friend that’s going to say: Oh yeah, you should be mad. Because that’s not helpful.
Right, what a jerk.
“It’s not that we don’t get to voice our opinions if something is truly bothering us. But it’s kind of dissecting what happens, and noticing what’s mine and what is something my partner can actually do to help me through this.”
Do you find that there’s a learning curve to this? Because as we just said, we maybe didn’t grow up with this structure, this support, it’s not maybe modeled in friendships or family. Yeah. That if we’re trying to implement a new way of showing up for this flooding or the triggers, both with ourselves and our immediate family and our children, what does this look like as far as getting on the path of learning here? I know sometimes it’s like one step forward, two step forward, one step back, those type of things. But do you find that people have to get a couple of repetitions and feel some relief and a different experience, to then feel a little bit more motivated to practice this? Tell me how you see this with your clients.
It’s like learning a new road you’ve never taken to go home. It’s going to take time. Not using a map, not using Waze, being just lost. Trusting maybe an instinct, maybe a map you’ve seen once and not having it in front of you. That’s what it feels like. But eventually, you’re going to find this new road to home and learn that. So I think a lot of it is learned behavior, so we have to unlearn it. I always say, have some grace for yourself. It’s been decades that you’ve known to take this one road or one path, and now you’re unlearning all of that and now learning this completely new road.
I love that analogy. Not only are we coming home, but we are unfamiliar. It is totally new territory, and what that feels like in the body, rather than being able to do it automatically without even thinking. Like, I got home and I wasn’t even aware that I was driving, hopefully we’re not doing that too much.
Yeah, but a lot of that happens, disassociating because it’s so habitual. So doing something new takes practice, and you’re going to mess up. I always say, I think this generation of thinkers has it really difficult. Because we were raised one way, but now we’re trying to change us and our children. So we’re in a very difficult spot to be in.
Totally. Part of my question around culture, with making room to process and making space for a different way of being with emotions or the emotional flooding, is that perhaps we can speak into it in couplehood or in family. But this is tricky territory, because it could also look like weaponizing or blaming, like: Oh, you’re flooded, you need to do something. Kind of that blame. So what does this look like in practice as you help people develop more pattern or dynamic for this?
Well, the framework I use for couples, Emotionally Focused Therapy, it’s that there’s this infinity loop. There is no one person, one identified patient per se. There is two people who are creating this loop. So when I act this way, then you act this way, then I say this, and then you do this. It’s really a loop, and part of the work we do is identifying that negative cycle they’re stuck in. What happens when I get emotionally flooded? Oh, you shut down. And when you shut down, what do you feel, and then what do you do? I mean, it’s just so fascinating to dissect the cycle and have them become aware of it. Then the next session they’ll come in and they’ll say, we noticed we were going into the cycle, so we put a brake and we thought about it for a few minutes, and we came back and we tried to handle it differently. That’s where the real beauty happens, for sure.
Okay. So in some ways, using the EFT principles, you’re saying with that roadmap, and as we’re referencing, I’ll make sure that’s on today’s show notes for people to reference. When you’re helping people identify their tendencies, likely that is the signpost. So I get critical, or I get intellectual and I want to ask questions, and I get very attorney-like. Or I start to get quiet, I start to back away, I start to shut down. So these are perhaps ways in which someone can recognize: Oh, I might be feeling things that I wasn’t aware of because I’m doing these things that are my tendencies, or my system knows. Then as we look at the couple dynamic, like: Oh, my moves, what I tend to do, are in service of me feeling more protection, but also sometimes a protest. I’m seeking something, like you said, I have an underlying need, and it speaks a different language and lands with my partner in a different way.
So being able to unpack that, so the couple together can identify. So to answer your response to my question, as a couple, we can look at: Oh, we’re doing the thing, or we’re in that cycle. So it’s not like: Oh, you’re flooded, you should take an exit. It’s more of like: Oh, we’re off-track here, I think we’re doing what we tend to do that gets us into disconnection. Is that right?
Yes, you nailed it.
Yeah, it’s huge. Perhaps, one of the things I think you help people do is be able to see this coming down the road. It’s not just like: Oh, we’ve reached a threshold and now we can call it. There’s signs of this early, or there’s different stages at which someone can call this. Can you say a little bit more about that, as far as being off-track or in that emotionally flooded (state)? They might be able to see signs of emotional flooding starting to happen, maybe before it reaches that boiling point or that point of like: Ah okay, we’re doing the thing, it’s alive and well, and it’s right here.
Yes. I think curiosity, again, instead of personalizing. It’s about getting curious and asking your partner: I noticed that maybe you have been more shut down, or I’m noticing that you’ve been a little more disconnected, or I’m noticing that you’re on edge a little bit. What’s going on? Instead of what usually happens, partner gets emotionally flooded, then the other partner gets shutdown or withdraws, and then they create this cycle. So I think just catching that and getting curious about it is a good step.
Yes. I think the way we’re describing this is that the invitation or the opportunity is that one partner or an individual can be curious about their own state. Ooh, I notice I’m a little tight, or I notice I’m getting defensive, or I notice I’m feeling frustrated. There can be wonderment about what might be going on individually. Then also, if you recognize your partner on the outside looks frustrated or looks upset—to your point, they come home and they look unhappy—that we can be curious about that. We can have perceptions and meaning-making about it, but it’s likely going to be wrong, to your point.
Okay. As one can start to notice and identify, one of the things you’re saying is curiosity. And also, you described the exit plan or the exit strategy, if that’s being able to implement with a lot of care and kindness so that it gives the opportunity to come back with a fresh start. One of the things you mentioned is emotional regulation and being able to utilize some of that. Would you like to say some of your best tips or recommendations around that?
“I think that distraction could seem like it’s helpful, but it’s probably not. I really like the idea of just sitting with the anger, getting curious about that part that’s showing up. Asking that part of you what it’s seeking, what it’s afraid of. Those are really good questions.”
To take it further and deeper, I would really encourage clients to write down some of this, whether it’s in your phone you’re typing up, if that’s more successful, or a notebook you get to write in. When you write something or when you type it up, and your brain has the opportunity to see it, it has a different way of processing that information than all of it being up here in your mind. That’s another trick to get that logical part of the brain to start as well. So to turn the logical part of the brain on, writing does that. So I think that’s a really great tip.
Of course, breathing and becoming really grounded, that’s a helpful tip. If you’re outside, noticing the trees around you, the sounds, the sensations, anything to get you from your mind into just the present moment. Then to take that further, then turning that logical part of the brain on by writing or really sitting with the information and getting curious.
I love all of those recommendations. I can feel inside myself, just being able to stay with it, to not bypass it. That there’s really important information, that there’s a reason that I’m feeling so activated. And if I can connect with the deeper core, that that’s going to give me some real ability to support that vulnerable part to get those needs met. So it doesn’t have to be such an opened wound. I can actually start some healing process with that curiosity, it’s so helpful.
Then, I also agree with the mindfulness and being embodied and breathing, just how that really gives a lot of signal to the nervous system, to be able to calm, to be more present, to feel more resourced. And then, I have found so much value, whether or not it’s handwriting or typing, that not only am I getting my story out, which feels helpful, but it helps me get to some deeper places that I don’t know that I would get to if I hadn’t done it. Then the other thing I’ll just comment on is, when we were speaking earlier about meta-cognition or having another part being able to see, there’s a little bit more perspective or witness-taking. So it’s almost like I’m getting it out of me, which is therapeutic, and then I can also see it from a different angle, which can be also very supportive and helpful. So thank you for those tips.
I know we’re winding down, and you had mentioned that you do a lot of the perinatal therapy. Can you say a little bit more about what that is for people who are pregnant and are interested in just getting more support?
Yeah, of course. I think postpartum depression is something that a lot of people hear about, but it really doesn’t just pertain to postpartum, meaning the period of after-birth. But it can happen when a mom is expecting and in her pregnancy, it can happen early on, in the middle of pregnancy, end of pregnancy. Feelings can show up, and not just feelings of depression, but also anxiety. So usually, I get the call six weeks postpartum. If they go to their OB-GYN and they get to share how they’re feeling, usually I get the call then.
But my passion is to get this conversation started before birth, because I think there’s just so much there that until we learn about it, we might not know. Doesn’t mean that we’re going to have a successful postpartum, that’s not guaranteed. But just having the tools and the information beforehand, knowing how your partner can show up for you, knowing what your self-care needs are, knowing how to ask for help. I mean, there’s just so much that I’m really passionate about teaching expecting parents to know. So then once they’re in it, they can hopefully remember some of this and implement it. And they’re not scrambling to find a therapist, they can just reach out and say: Hey, I really need help. The thing we talked about, it’s happening.
Yeah, no kidding. And what a beautiful time to go inward a little bit more and look at the areas, if there is recognition of: I tend to get a little bit more sensitive about this, or I have a hotspot about that. And to query, have that space held, that curiosity, to really understand more deeply those deeper places. So that there’s an opportunity to reprocess and perhaps metabolize that. But also, how to be with that in a different way, that they’re now able to parent from a different place. Rather than, as you said, instead of reacting, being able to respond. So if I can know that this is a place inside me, I can hold that and be with that differently, and see it if it comes up when I’m parenting or I’m relating to my spouse or my significant other. That is going to be qualitatively different.
Yeah. The IFS work, I really love, when I work with moms—not just new moms, but moms in general. Because when you’re parenting, a lot of your own inner child stuff comes up. It really does. So it’s kind of like healing that inner child, so then you can parent differently.
Lovely. Well, I so appreciate just how real you are, and also how informed you are and how much training you have and experience to be able to guide people through these very difficult places to more healing and health. How do you suggest people reach out to you if they want to get more support with you?
Sure. So I see clients from my office in Sherman Oaks, California, as well as virtually across California. You can find me on my website, TherapyWithGayane.com, and my Instagram, @TherapyWithGayane. I actually have a resource right now that I just came out with, a workbook. It’s something very short, something you can do, take the time to fill it out yourself. But it’s for expecting moms, preparing for the postpartum period. Like I said, I’m just really passionate about starting that conversation early on.
Wonderful! Well, I will definitely be referring that. I’ll make sure to put that link. Is there a link?
Yeah.
Okay, I’ll put that on today’s show notes, and your Instagram, as well as your website, for people who are wanting to work with you. Thank you for your ability to share so much with us here today.
Thank you so much for having me.
Sign off
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The post ERP 448: How To Address Emotional Flooding In Relationship – An Interview With Gayane Aramyan appeared first on Jessica Higgins.
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Anxiety can seep into our lives like an uninvited guest, disrupting our relationships, altering our moods, and even impacting our physical health. The struggle to recognize and address the roots of this pervasive issue often leaves us feeling overwhelmed and helpless. What if we could reframe our understanding of anxiety, seeing it not as a […]
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Are you feeling the strain in your long-term relationships, whether it’s with a partner or a friend? As time passes, staying engaged and committed can become a challenge, especially amid the demands of daily life, aging, or the shadow of global disruptions like the COVID-19 pandemic. Maintaining vibrant, nurturing connections can sometimes feel like an […]
The post ERP 443: The Art Of Staying Engaged & Recommitting Over & Over Again As We Age — An Interview With Maddy Dychtwald appeared first on Jessica Higgins.
Are you feeling the strain in your long-term relationships, whether it’s with a partner or a friend? As time passes, staying engaged and committed can become a challenge, especially amid the demands of daily life, aging, or the shadow of global disruptions like the COVID-19 pandemic. Maintaining vibrant, nurturing connections can sometimes feel like an uphill battle, leaving many wondering how to inject new life and meaning into these cherished bonds. As we grow older, the importance of these relationships only intensifies, impacting our health, happiness, and overall lifespan. So, how do we keep the flame alive and foster relational longevity amid life’s inevitable changes?
In this episode, we explore innovative and meaningful practices designed to rekindle and sustain the depth of our relationships. From the ritual of vow renewal to annual relationship debriefs you’ll discover inspiring ways to continually recommit to your loved ones. Insights from experts discuss the social and health benefits of these rituals, and how they can fortify not just marriages, but friendships and broader social networks. Whether you’re looking to enhance your romantic life or invigorate your friendships, this conversation offers practical tools and evidence-based strategies to help you create an enduring and life-affirming connection. Dive in to learn how celebrating milestones, maintaining personal interests, and fostering intentional social ties can significantly elevate the quality of your relationships and your life.Maddy Dychtwald is an internationally acclaimed author, public speaker, and thought leader on longevity, aging, the new retirement, and the ascent of women. She co-founded Age Wave, the world’s leader in understanding and addressing the far-reaching impacts of our aging population, and has led numerous acclaimed studies on women and money. Her recently published book, “Ageless Aging: A Woman’s Guide to Increasing Healthspan, Brainspan, and Lifespan” was a USA Today bestseller and a Publishers Weekly bestseller.
In this episode
6:05 Maddy Dychtwald’s four decades of passion in aging, longevity, and retirement.
10:08 The power of mindset and social connections for a healthier, longer life.
26:55 How couples keep their relationship vibrant through regular communication and annual vow renewals.
38:51 Navigating aging in relationships: Balancing different attitudes towards health and longevity.
Your Check List of Actions to Take
- Schedule a yearly vow renewal ceremony with your partner to recommit and reflect on your relationship, ensuring it is close to your anniversary date to reinforce the tradition.
- Conduct an honest and open relationship debrief each year, discussing what went well, and what needs improvement, and setting mutual goals.
- Celebrate significant friendships and long-term relationships by planning meaningful trips or special events to honor these connections.
- Adopt a holistic approach to health by incorporating balanced nutrition, regular exercise, sufficient sleep, and mindfulness practices into your daily routine.
- Improve your sleep quality and align with natural circadian rhythms by getting exposure to morning sunlight each day.
- Develop and maintain intentional social connections, differentiating between close relationships and casual interactions, both of which contribute to overall well-being.
- Stay engaged with learning and current events, and foster intergenerational interactions to enhance cognitive function and emotional well-being.
- Cultivate a positive attitude towards aging, which can help increase your health span and lifespan, and alleviate physical ailments.
Mentioned
Ageless Aging: A Woman’s Guide to Increasing Healthspan, Brainspan, and Lifespan (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
ERP 110: How to Manage Two Majorly Conflicting Needs in Relationship
Relationship Map To Happy, Lasting Love
Connect with Maddy Dychtwald
Websites: maddydychtwald.com
Facebook: facebook.com/maddy.dychtwald
X: twitter.com/Maddy_Dychtwald
Instagram: instagram.com/maddydychtwald
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/maddydychtwald
TikTok: tiktok.com/@maddy_dychtwald?lang=fil-PH
Connect with Dr. Jessica Higgins
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Twitter: @DrJessHiggins
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Email: jessica@drjessicahiggins.com
About Today’s Show
Maddy, thank you for being with us today.
Oh, thanks for having me. It’s such a pleasure to join you.
Likewise! I think you’ll have a unique perspective to offer, in that I don’t do a lot to cover aging and longevity. But this is a topic that affects every human, whether or not we’re talking about it or not, and also how it impacts intimate relationship. Or conversely, how intimate connection and the health of those connections affect aging and longevity.
So I’m interested, before we dive into our topic, if you can share a little bit about you, what got you interested in it? I think you’ve been doing this work for a very long time. So what would you like people to know about where you’re coming from here?
Yeah, well, thanks for asking that. I’ve been on this beat of aging, longevity, retirement for close to 40 years. So you do the math. I have grown up with my company Age Wave. I am now 74 years old, so there’s that. But Age Wave is a think tank, and we’re very zeroed in on these subjects of aging, longevity, and retirement. We’ve worked with close to half the Fortune 500. What we do is a lot of research, digging into the subject with people of all ages—Americans, even globally—and we try to make sense of the social side, as well as the more hard science side of this whole dynamic. Because as you mentioned, Jess, in the very beginning.
“Aging is something that affects us all. It begins in the womb and goes all the way till the day we die. So it’s a lifelong process, and we’re all focused in on it, whether we want to be or not.”
That’s such an interesting perspective! I think there’s the arc of developing and growing, we’ll use that language in the early years and to a certain point, and then this whole concept of when we’re at midlife. Obviously it’s changing based on our lifespan, and obviously that’s if we’re fortunate enough to live the entire predicted lifespan of what we’re capable of. But there’s this arc. It’s interesting that you frame it as just a continual aging. In other words, that’s part of growing, but also dying.
That’s true. Rather than focus on the dying aspect, which we can do, it’s part of the lifespan. But I personally believe, and from all the people that I’ve spoken to. I mean, let me back up a minute. One of the great advantages at Age Wave is we interview all the top scientists, researchers, academicians, social scientists like yourself, and physicians, on these subjects. So we get a really interesting perspective on it. So let’s start there. We have not only dug deep into this subject, but we understand what are the things that really matter to people, and I think that that is really key.
It almost sounds as though you define aging differently. I think I just spoke into something that maybe people unconsciously or consciously associate with aging is dying. Like: Oh, I’m aging and I’m getting closer to death. So it sounds like you’re seeing aging as something different.
Okay, yes, I do. First of all, there’s three different kinds of aging. There’s the chronological aging, which is what most of us focus on, the number of birthdays that we’ve had. I already came out and said I’m 74, I’ve had a lot of birthdays. Then there’s the physical aging, which we’re all going through. I mean, it’s the aches and pains that may come with getting older, which many people start to say: Oh geez, we’re getting closer to that death place. Maybe it’s the chronic diseases, like heart disease, or something horrible like a stroke. So these are the physical manifestations that, by the way, we have some control over, but we can talk about that later. That’s good news, we do have some control.
Then there’s the other side of it that you kind of alluded to in your last question, and that is the emotional, psychological side of aging. That is something that actually can get better as we get older. I mean, we can—in fact, we have the capacity anyway—to not just have experiences, but turn those experiences into a kind of wisdom. We also have seen, from studies that we’ve done at Age Wave, that especially women, our resilience actually gets stronger as we get older, and that’s a really good thing. Now that doesn’t mean you should avoid the subject of death, but recognize that it’s part of life. Just because you’re experiencing some of the physical decline doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re going to be dying soon, and that’s actually good news, bad news.
Well, the good news is that particularly women, we’ve won that longevity lottery. We live on average six years longer than men, and average life expectancy has gone all the way up. For women, we live, on average, to age 81. So that’s great news, right? But this death thing that hangs over us, well, it’s kind of stronger for women. Because although women live longer than men, we tend to get sicker than men, particularly in those last years of life. We have this cascade of bad stuff, physical decline that can happen to us. Even when you correct for the fact that we have longer lives, we still spend more years in a decline of health than men, and the average is about 14 years. That can make you feel like: Jesus, I wish I would die. I mean, I’m laughing, but it’s not funny.
But there is some good news, and that is, the most recent science tells us that it doesn’t have to be that way, that we have a lot of agency over our own health and well-being. In fact, up to 80% of our health and well-being is within our control, having to do with our lifestyle and our environment. So that’s good news. That doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to die later, although it could mean that. But it means that you’re going to increase the number of healthy years or your health span, and that’s good news.
Yes, the quality of living is everything. Health is everything when we look at vitality and just living in general. If I’m hearing you, Maddy, you’re describing a few things. One of which is, if we start to feel some ailments or some health indicators that are not optimal, that that can be an indicator for us to maybe make some changes that would allow us to feel more healthy, both from a lifestyle, sleep, food, exercise. But also, perhaps intimate connection, or even absolutely family, friends. I mean, I love the research that’s coming out about the importance of connection, whether or not it’s social. It’s huge, I would love for you to speak about that.
The other thing I’m really hearing you speak to is a mindset. That if we start perpetuating this narrative of like: Oh, I’m getting old. So I just turned 50 this year, and my husband is a couple years younger. He grew up in the Midwest, and he’s a little more prone to deferring to that kind of aging or midlife or something like that, where I am aware of it, but I also am aware of my language. So I had shared with you, we’re in the Central Coast California. We were living in Santa Barbara for about eight years, and played a lot of beach volleyball. The beautiful thing about that is, there were people playing in their 20s or teens, all the way up. There was someone in their 70s playing, and I would play with women sometimes in their 60s. I feel that when one is still connected to their joy, and I’m sure you can speak on all the things that help create more vitality. But that looks very different than, stereotypically, someone in the Midwest who is thinking about: Oh, I’m old and I can’t do this, or I can’t walk here. Is it mindset, and is it also some of the lifestyle choices and relationship being a part of that?
Yes and yes. Let me dive into it, because you’re talking about two super important things. One is mindset. And what I love about mindset is it’s not only in your control, it’s free, and you can do it with a flick of a switch. So isn’t that great news? There was some seminal studies done on this whole idea of mindset. They were done by Dr. Becca Levy from Yale, and she did some longitudinal, which only means long-term, studies in the Midwest, and found that those people who had a positive attitude towards their own aging had a great bonus come their way. They had an additional 7.5 years of life, so an increase in lifespan. There have been work done to add on to this research telling us that, okay, that’s great. But what about your health? Well, it seems like those aches and pains of arthritis and muscle aches and joint pain, and even chronic diseases like diabetes, can actually be helped by having a more positive attitude towards your own aging. So that’s great news, right?
Yes, Maddy, I’m hoping maybe you can help me put some links. Because I remember coming across an interview where a physician, when she was talking about some studies that had been done, when people even contemplate or reminisce about earlier years, it so-called activates more of the youth, or even so-called a youth gene, when you listen to music.
I know, there’s studies on that. I’m not 100% sure. I know those people, and they’ve created environments that reminisce towards when you were young. I personally think that’s great. But at the same time, I think, well, isn’t it great to be part of what’s going on in the world today? I mean, to stay adjacent to all the good things that are going on, to interact with young people, for instance. From talking about social connections, which we know, first of all, that loneliness, and this has become pretty standard operating procedure, people know about this.
“Loneliness is the equivalent of smoking 15 cigarettes a day. Now that’s crazy! It’s similar to excessive alcohol consumption, and it’s similar to never exercising. So we know it has tremendous health span implications, and that’s really important to keep in mind.”
So social connections really matter, and it’s becoming part of the narrative. There was an article today in The New York Times talking about doing longevity, it’s really boring. What is it about? It’s about, well, eating right, exercise, sleeping right, and social connections. So social connections is starting to be included in that: Of course, yes, you need to be doing these things in order to not just live longer, but live better.
It cannot be emphasized enough, and I’m grateful, to your point, that it’s getting the recognition of these major pillars that contribute to our health and well-being. I realize we could talk extensively, probably do a whole masterclass series on mindset and relationships. Well, let’s pivot towards romantic, intimate relationship. Can you share a little bit more about how you see the connection with aging and longevity?
“We know that married people, particularly married men, tend to do better in this whole health span and lifespan game, if you will, than those who are single. So solo-agers, they have some work to do in order to really live not just longer, but live better.”
They need to try harder, work harder, do things maybe that are outside of their comfort zone, to stay connected to people. I’ll give you an example. One of the women that I interviewed, who happens to also be an expert on aging, her name is Helen Dennis. She’s also a reporter. She’s in her 80s, and her husband died several years back. She actually had a boyfriend after that, and felt like they were not on the same page. She wanted to work, he wanted to rest and relax. So she broke up with him. But she found herself doing things alone. So she went to the theater one day by herself, found herself sitting next to a woman, apparently also by herself, and she struck up a conversation with her, which, by the way, was outside of her comfort zone. She didn’t like doing that kind of stuff. But they started talking, and they realized that they both love theater, and they decided that they would become theater buddies. That was the beginning of their relationship. Friendship—this was not a love relationship. That just shows there’s ways you can compensate.
Because, let’s face it, women live longer than men. My brother-in-law, who lives down in southern Florida, which we know is like retirement haven, he was telling me that he was at an event the other day, and there were like 80 women and three men. I mean, that’s pretty typical. So creating community with other women becomes more of a necessity, if you’re a solo-ager in particular.
Yes, and as you said, there’s ways to cultivate bonding and shared activities and connection on multiple levels that might be able to, as you said, offer amendment or compliment or even compensate, depending on the circumstances. Not every partner wants to do. As you said, even in maybe a married couple’s relationship, one wants to be more active and out in the world, and the other one wants to be more home. So even for someone who is partnered, they may want to have a theater buddy.
Yeah, exactly. I mean, there are things that you can do. I know that I’m married for more than 40 years, it’s crazy when I think about it, and we don’t do everything together. Like tonight, I’m going out to dinner with a girlfriend, and I love being able to do that. You have different conversations when you’re one-on-one or with a group of women, than you do when you’re with your spouse/partner, if you have a spouse/partner. I would also add that if you do have a spouse/partner, and it’s a long-term relationship, you’re going to have to do things to keep that relationship fresh and ongoing. That’s just a reality.
I want to dive into that. I want to ask one quick question before we pivot. I remember the Blue Zones, I don’t know if you’ve worked with them.
Sure, I know Dan.
Okay, great. So it was his book about happiness, and he was like, it’s common sense, health and happiness. But he looked at the 3 P’s of: Purpose, Pride, and Pleasure. One of them was in Costa Rica, with the pleasure, and I think they were quoting or citing eight hours of socializing a day, that that was really contributing towards health, longevity, and well-being. Do you see in the West, particularly as we’re speaking in the United States, it’s a little trickier to get that communal contact, or it just has to be that much more intentional? I’m just curious what your vantage point is on this.
So I think putting a time frame on it makes us all feel stressful. I think that stress, we know that if you have chronic stress, that raises cortisol levels and manifests as inflammation, which can become disease. So that may be counterproductive.
So putting any prescriptive number, do you mean?
Yeah, it’s like, is that going to make you feel good? We’re talking about joy here. Let’s try to feel good about our joy and our social connections.
Yes. Do you think, in the West, people have to be a little bit more intentional about it?
I definitely do. I mean, COVID had a huge impact on us in terms of social connections, particularly, by the way, young people. So let’s not forget that young people, many of whom were either COVID babies or COVID teens, they struggle with, how do you make real social connections? Real social connections are different than Zoom connections. So it’s great, Jessica, that we’re having this Zoom conversation, and I feel like I’m getting to know you, which is great, and hopefully you feel the same. Maybe we’ll have another conversation as a result of that. But being able to hug someone or touch them or just make eye contact, totally different experience.
So here’s what I learned from the research I did for Ageless Aging. That is, yes, social connections in-person, incredibly important. But there are two different kinds. One is those close in, those relationships that really matter to you—your spouse/partner, if you have one, your best friend, your group of friends and family that are very close in. By the way, a study that we did at Age Wave very recently told us that the number one way people felt a sense of purpose was spending time with family and friends. So it really does matter. But it doesn’t have to be like eight hours a day, it doesn’t have to be 30,000 people. It can be three or four people that you really relate to and relate to well. But then there’s those little further out—maybe it’s acquaintances, maybe it’s even people that you have very loose ties with. Like, for instance, when you go to Starbucks or wherever you go, if you get coffee in the morning, making eye contact, and maybe even learning the name of the barista, having a little bit of: Hey, how you doing? So those interactions, believe it or not, actually count, and can help make your life better. So there’s the loose ties and the closer in ties, both of which are really important.
Thank you for spelling that out. Well, let’s pivot towards the intimate and really nurturing the quality of that relating in spouse partnership. What would you like to say here?
Well, I think that not everyone has a spouse/partner, and those of us who do, not all of those relationships are happy ones. But the ones that do work, generally have a few commonalities. One of them is that they have respect for each other’s time together and time apart. So you don’t have to be connected at the hip all the time, particularly as you live a longer life. So that’s an important thing to keep in mind. Second, you need to recognize that it’s work. Relationships take work, and to think that they don’t is crazy. A lot of people just assume: Oh, we’re just going to go along. It’s not going to work. So I think there’s a variety of different techniques that psychologists like yourself suggest.
One of them is something that my husband and I actually take part in, and we did this actually pretty just by instinct. When we got married, we both recognized that we lead very busy, active, sometimes crazy lifestyles, and that there are times that we’re apart. So we agreed on two things. One, when we’re apart, we’re going to talk on the phone or via Zoom all the time. We honestly probably do it too often. My kids make fun of us because we talk two or three or sometimes four times a day, even when we’re in the same town. So we like to stay connected, I think it’s a good thing.
Second, and I think that this has really been a lifesaver for our relationship, is that we have a ritual that we do every single year on our anniversary or around our anniversary, and that is that we renew our wedding vows. When we got married, we had so much fun that we said, almost as a silly thing: Hey, let’s do this every year, and let’s pick a different place and get the vows done by a different kind of entity every year. So that’s what we decided we were going to do, and we have, every single year. But there’s a few things about it that have been really interesting. One is that we do try to go to a different place, and sometimes, especially during COVID and after COVID, it’s been pretty local. Second, we’ve involved some of our family and friends. We’ve got married by our kids, by our best friends, by someone we work with. So it’s been interesting to see what they bring to the whole idea of marriage and what it means, especially over a long-term relationship.
Third, one of the things that we really emphasize is, not only do we renew our wedding vows, but we also spend some time kind of talking about our relationship. Like, what went right, what went wrong, what we’d like to have be different for the next year. Sometimes it’s been: Oh wow, everything is so great. Then other times it’s been: Well, we have some work to do. Frankly, if we didn’t have those moments to really debrief, if you will, then I don’t think our relationship would have been as successful as it really is.
It’s important to have those touch points and be able to, as you said, debrief. Because if we’re not asking those questions, perhaps we’re not going to glean the information. It’s real learning that we can implement and be intentional about moving forward. Then I love just the intention to stay connected, and there’s a rhythm and a pace which the two of you enjoy, and you’ve really found that together, which is really sweet, regardless of distance. Then I love the creativity with the vow renewal. I have a few more questions, if you’re willing to share.
Oh yeah, for sure. I’ve got to tell you one thing, and I don’t know if he would love me sharing this. But one year, we had a lot going on. We got married on Thanksgiving, which we did it very intentionally because it represented giving thanks for our relationship. But one year, because of our lives and our work commitments and such, we couldn’t renew our vows until, like, say, January. I would say, putting it off that long had a very negative effect. So we don’t do that anymore, we really recognize the importance of having this ritual be close to our anniversary.
That’s beautiful. When is your anniversary, if you don’t mind me asking?
We got married on Thanksgiving Day, originally. So rather than thinking about it as that was November 24th, which it was, we think about it as Thanksgiving Day, which is different every year.
That’s beautiful. It sounds like you have a lot of creativity in how you give room and space for the vow renewal. Is that right?
Oh yeah, we do. We’ve done some crazy things.
When you solicit someone to support in officiating or leading, if you will, do you give them full rein, or do you give them any points of which you want to focus on?
No, we give them full rein, and you would be shocked at the various ways that people interpret the wedding vows.
Okay, so it’s more to renew, if I’m understanding, your love and your commitment and your devotion to one another, rather than specific things you’re going to be implementing throughout that next year.
Yeah, we keep that personal between the two of us.
That makes sense. Do you ever have friends or family protest around or have resistance around like: Ah, again? Or do they just know, and they think it’s sweet and they’re super joyful about it?
I’m sure a lot of people roll their eyes, but they don’t roll their eyes in front of us. In fact, I think that the more we do it, the more people say: “Yeah, you know what? That’s a lot, every single year. But it seems to be working.” And we’ve had a lot of friends, whether they be close in or a little bit further apart from us, that have instituted a similar kind of ritual in their lives—maybe every five years, or every 10 years, or maybe just once or twice again. But that have said: Yeah, let’s renew our wedding vows, let’s let the world know that this relationship really matters. That’s part of what we’re doing.
I was curious about that. I can feel how, conversely, it would be inspiring or evoke interest in others, that that’s a really good model, to be really prioritizing the renewal or the vow or the commitment and love, and the celebration of that and the intention around that.
Yeah, think that there’s another thing to think about with this. That is, again, not everyone is married, especially in long-term relationships, or living a long life. It doesn’t always happen. But even celebrating a friendship. If you’ve been friends with someone for many years, and you feel like you want to create a ritual around that, maybe that’s something that you ought to do.
Funny you mention that. In 2022, my best friend, we’ve been friends for a very long time, she was saying we’re going to be celebrating 40 years. So we did a trip to Maui. Her mother was very generous and donated, really sponsored, mostly the whole thing. So it’s like such a blessing and a privilege to have had that experience. But it was a 40-year friend-iversary, is was what we were calling it.
Yeah, that’s great. That’s the kind of examples that I think we need to provide to other women, and men, by the way. I mean, men ought to give it a try as well, because these things go deeper. Studies show us that they may seem superficial, like: Oh, we’re just doing something for fun. But they have deeper meaning that actually impact our epigenetics, or that’s what turns the good genes on and turns the bad genes off. It’s kind of crazy, but it’s true.
Well, it makes a lot of sense. Because while we might feel and believe things internally, what we are expressing or living into, as far as what we’re creating with others in the experience, could just be a lot of business, a lot of being productive or purposeful, whether or not it’s domestic, family, work, whatever the domains are. That to your point, it takes work, but it also takes investment and nurturing, and how do we continue to water and amend the soil and nourish and give the nutrients for growth? Part of what you’re describing is to have these times where we really do that. It is so life-giving. It helps boost all the positive, as you’re talking about, neurochemicals, the epigenetics of expressing, the DNA and ways that are more the positive, and how that is a positive cycle. It’s generative. It helps build more, to your point, when we didn’t do it, whether or not it was also the busy time and the stress of that perhaps. But that you noticed that there was an impact.
Oh yeah, absolutely noticed. I will tell you this, that I think that doing these kinds of rituals feeds into this whole idea of your positive attitude towards life and towards your own aging.
“If you can’t celebrate those moments in life that really have meaning to you, you’re missing out an opportunity to increase your health span, and I would also add, your brain span and your lifespan. That’s really important. Especially for us women, we are twice as likely to suffer from cognitive decline or Alzheimer’s disease, as men. Creating positive messages can really help make a difference.”
Yes. I know we’re winding down soon here, Maddy. Thank you for just acknowledging, I didn’t mean to pivot so quickly. I feel what you’re saying and how important to really experience and live the life of these positive, celebrating these moments and what’s most important. Because, as you said, it’s a missed opportunity, and we don’t get to really fully experience that.
So as we look at aging and longevity, I realize that perhaps when we talk about mindset and even other lifestyle choices, married or partnered, may not be in the same practices, and that might pose conflict. As I mentioned, my husband might be identifying with aging more, and I’m like, no! I’m just being playful; we don’t really have a lot of conflict. But this can actually be more pronounced in some relationships where one is taking a real active, healthy attitude and making healthy choices, where the other one maybe does have certain health ailments and maybe is feeling more of not a positive mindset. What might you say around people who are experiencing this very differently, and how that affects intimate relationship, and what you might say about that?
Yeah, it’s complicated.
“I think that if you have those around you who are communicating negative narratives of aging, you can try to counterbalance that with the more positive. You can also go so far as to pull out the science.”
Show that person: Okay, what you’re doing actually is having a negative impact on how long you’re going to live and how well you’re going to live, on your health span and your lifespan, and this is within your control. I mean, they may not realize those things. So pull out the science, I’ve got it in Ageless Aging. These things really matter. They make a difference.
As you pointed out, some people in parts of the country, for instance, or people who haven’t had the kind of health and lifestyle education that makes them believe in these things, they need proof. They need to know that, yes, there are things that you can do, things are in your control, and that there are a lot of different levers you can pull. Because it’s not just about one thing, like diet or exercise. It’s also this holistic bouquet of ingredients. That includes sleep. I mean, maybe that’s a place for people to start. If you, for instance, wake up in the morning, and instead of just getting out of bed and getting going, you take 10 minutes to take in the sun rising. Suddenly, you start to recognize that: Wow, my circadian rhythms, they’re being rebalanced, and I’m sleeping better at night. That happened to me, by the way. Sleep is not my superpower. But it has gotten so much better since I do wake up in the morning and spend that first 10 minutes looking at the sun and taking in the day. It makes a huge difference, and who would have thought something so simple could really impact my life? So they need to see the science. They need to know that: Sorry, you’re wrong, you’re doing the wrong things, and here’s something that you can do to make it better.
Okay, I’m laughing because I know relational dynamics are a part of this.
Yeah, it’s a little complicated, I get it.
Yeah. Because, look, as you’re talking, I’m realizing this can take many forms, where, on one end, it’s just this counterbalance and people are perhaps encountering new territory, and they’re learning how to relate to experiencing more aging symptoms. Just that dialog in and of itself, partners will get on the same page. Or maybe one is taking a little bit more leadership in this proactive healthy stance, and the other is educating or providing information. Or just even modeling, and the other is like: Hmm, that sure seems to be working for them, and taking note, and then eventually they’re incorporating it in their own way. Or more challenge would be if one is just not onboard and not interested in the other is, and that might be like: Look, I’m concerned! They still have choice, and then that’s a painful experience, and then maybe getting a little bit more support around how to negotiate living.
That’s more your territory than mine. However, I would add that when someone is struggling with their own aging, whether it’s the physical or the emotional symptoms, those of us who are more onboard with you have agency over your health, and here’s some things you could do, we need to show empathy also. We need to really empathize with what our partner or our friends are going through. I think by adding in that ingredient of empathy, it can make the “you need to make changes” message a little bit easier to take.
Yeah, it’s both. It’s recognizing this isn’t an easy territory, and there’s a lot of feelings around it, and all this is also true.
That’s right. So it’s complicated, you’re the psychologist here.
Well, you spend a lot of time in this area. You actually said you speak to a lot of people, and I don’t think always everybody is on the same page.
No, there’s no doubt that that’s true. That’s part of life, and negotiating that requires a skill set as well.
Well, wonderful. You’ve mentioned your book. Tell us a little bit about the title and what people might find by reading.
Yeah, this book is really focused on women. It’s called Ageless Aging: A Woman’s Guide to Increasing Healthspan, Brainspan, and Lifespan. I think it struck a chord for a couple reasons. It has become a national bestseller, which is really exciting. But when I was thinking about writing this book, I noticed, there’s a lot of books on longevity, but there’s none or very few that I saw that were focused specifically on women, and I wanted to change that. Because we both know, women and men are not the same. So I wanted to make that a priority.
Second, what I noticed, and you’ve kind of alluded to this along the way today, and that is that there’s a lot of books on sleep or exercise or nutrition.
“From talking to the scientists and researchers and academicians that I’ve spoken to, what I really got to see is that it’s not just about one thing. These things do not exist, like sleep, in silos without any interaction with the other ingredients. It’s a holistic bouquet, if you will, of different ingredients, which is so powerful.”
I mean, the idea that when you eat and what you eat can actually impact your sleep, and then if you sleep well. By the way, sleep is when we take out the trash, get rid of the toxins in our bodies. So if you’re sleeping well, you’re going to have more energy and vitality for exercise, and so on. And for social interactions. So these things work together, and there’s a lot of levers we can pull to live better longer, and that’s what we want to do.
All these elements or ingredients, as you said, work together, so that it’s supportive. We can hit more of these marks to support our longevity and health.
Yeah, and to recognize it’s more in our control than we ever thought possible, and that’s great news!
Yes. Well, for people who are wanting to get your book, is there a place that you would direct them? I’ll make sure to have the link. I’m sure Amazon and every other place to get a book.
Sure, it’s available wherever books are sold. But also, if you go to my website at MaddyDychtwald.com, I’m offering some free giveaways. If you were to order the book through Amazon or Barnes and Noble or whatever, there’s some great resources that can help you, especially when it comes to brain health and financial well-being. People don’t always talk about finances being part of this holistic recipe to live better longer. But in fact, it definitely is, and it’s kind of a shortcut. So feel free to go to my website. Jessica, I’m sure you’ll put it up on your show notes.
I absolutely will. Is there anything else you want to direct people towards on your website or point out? I mean, the book sounds like a real distillation of this comprehensive, holistic offering of research.
Yeah, there’s a lot of tips and tricks, some of which, or many of which don’t cost a penny, and are not that hard to put into place. So I would urge everyone, because we’re all getting older, to try to not just live longer, but live better.
Wonderful. Well, thank you for joining us today. It’s been a pleasure to have you.
Thank you, Jessica. I’ve enjoyed it too.
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Is your relationship running on autopilot, devoid of the meaningful conversations that foster growth and intimacy? Relationships often suffer when we avoid crucial conversations that could foster deeper connections and understanding. The problem is not the lack of desire but rather the missing know-how to navigate these uncharted waters effectively. Imagine a world where curiosity, vulnerability, and intentionality are the cornerstones of your relationship, transforming mundane interactions into meaningful, intimate moments.
In this episode, we dive deep into the often-overlooked conversations that can create positive change in relationships. Learn about practical exercises designed to enhance intimacy, tools to build curiosity and engagement, and the importance of creating rituals within daily routines. From mindfulness exercises to reframing thoughts and leveraging curiosity, this discussion illuminates the pathway to a more connected and fulfilling relationship. The goal is to provide you with actionable insights and strategies that can immediately impact how you relate to your partner, helping to turn those awkward silences into moments of genuine connection.
Zach Brittle is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor, Certified Gottman Therapist, and Certified Relational Life Therapist. He is also the author of The Relationship Alphabet and the Marriage Therapy Journal.
Laura Heck is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, Certified Gottman Therapist, and Sex Therapist in private practice working exclusively with couples to manage conflict and deepen intimacy and pleasure.
Zach and Laura are the co-hosts of the podcast Marriage Therapy Radio where they bring wit and wisdom while tackling the most common complaints every relationship experiences.
In this episode
6:15 How this dynamic duo brings humor and expertise to relationship advice.
12:04 How actively engaging in the process leads to real relationship growth.
21:02 How curiosity can transform relationships and deepen connection.
26:47 Exercises for cultivating vulnerability and emotional intimacy in relationships.
32:38 Building lasting connection through rituals and intentional practices in relationships.
45:37 Aligning values with intentional practices for a more fulfilling relationship.
Your Check List of Actions to Take
- Take time to journal or meditate on how societal gender norms have shaped your behaviors and expectations in relationships.
- Identify activities or practices that reconnect you with both your feminine and masculine energies.
- Spend time in nature, establishing rituals like grounding exercises or mindful walks to rediscover innate wisdom and balance.
- Explore Jungian principles or depth psychology concepts to deepen your understanding of the soul’s role in relationships.
- Develop skills to hold space for your partner’s emotions, acknowledging their fears and pain points without attempting to fix them immediately.
- Set up a daily or weekly routine that includes both productivity-oriented (masculine) and relaxation/nurturing (feminine) activities.
- Make conscious choices about your relational behaviors, aiming for authentic interactions rather than defaulting to gender-conditioned responses.
Mentioned
Reconnect: A Marriage Counseling Workbook (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
Atomic Habits (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
Smart Couples Finish Rich (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
ERP 420: The Importance of “Turning Towards” in Relationship — An Interview with Laura Heck
ERP 396: How to Recognize Unhelpful & Misguided Relationship Advice — An Interview with Zach Brittle
ERP 216: What to Know about Loneliness and Relationship
ERP 110: How To Manage Two Majorly Conflicting Needs In Relationship
Shifting Criticism For Connected Communication
Connect with Zach Brittle & Laura Heck
Websites: marriagetherapyradio.com
Facebook: facebook.com/marriagetherapyradio
X: twitter.com/forbetter_us
Instagram: instagram.com/marriagetherapyradio
Podcast: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/marriage-therapy-radio/id1295458667
Connect with Dr. Jessica Higgins
Facebook: facebook.com/EmpoweredRelationship
Instagram: instagram.com/drjessicahiggins
Podcast: drjessicahiggins.com/podcasts/
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Twitter: @DrJessHiggins
Website: drjessicahiggins.com
Email: jessica@drjessicahiggins.com
About Today’s Show
Laura and Zach, thank you for being here. It’s always fun to chat with you. You both have been on the show individually, and here we are together as a group having a joint conversation. I know you just published and are publishing a book upcoming, super excited to talk about that.
Just would love to check in with you both around anything you want people to know, maybe about you, where you’re coming from, or in this particular moment, just as we’re going to be talking about communication and the relational skill-building workbook that you both just did.
Well, maybe we should mention, we’ve been on individually, and now we’re on together. We’re business partners. We’re not life partners. I mean, we’ve been together for a long time.
We’re married, but not to each other. That’s what we like to say.
Exactly. So we have our podcast together, and we are colleagues, and I think that we’re good puzzle pieces that fit together professionally. So I just want to put that out there.
Yes, it’s helpful. Because people might assume, and it’s common when two people are working together.
We are friends and colleagues. We’ve been friends, I don’t know what, 10 to 12 years. We’ve been doing our podcast, which is called Marriage Therapy Radio together for seven years.
Almost eight.
It’s almost seven.
Yeah, that’s almost seven. I like to teach Laura math every now and again.
That’s right. One of us does the books; the other does not.
Part of our jam, too, is that we’re very comfortable and familiar. We step on each other. We finish each other’s sandwiches. We like to insult each other from time to time. We’re like brother and sister, sometimes we try to figure out which one of us is the older one. Because again, we’re good puzzle pieces, and we tend to shine at different moments.
I think we figured out in the last three years, though, that Zach is definitely the older one, chronologically and emotionally. Well, you’ve done a lot of growing up in the last five years. You’ve surpassed me, and now I’m stalling out.
Well, when you turn 40, that’s over the hill now. So it’s all downhill from here. I love turning 40 and 50.
Well, I think it’s refreshing that not only are you both willing to be so open and transparent in your relating, and also just that you both complement each other. One of the things we were just chatting about before starting the recording is that you bring different skill sets, and that they’re both so valuable and so, so helpful.
I want to turn to that in a moment. Just on a quick side, my husband and I were watching the Olympics, and we were deep into the beach volleyball, because that’s something that we play, the sport. And the announcers, my husband was like, that’s just factually incorrect! I know that the other person knows it. But he’s like, it’s so strange, I think they’re trained not to correct each other or not to say anything. So I think it’s really great that you both can just be in the dialogue of challenging and teaching each other and growing together.
Well, it’s easy with us.
Yeah, we’ve built up a lot of, I don’t want to call it scar tissue, but sort of resilience. Like, we don’t take a lot of things personally. I mean, we are different—we have different points of view, we have different skills, and we do, we shine at different times. So I think we’ve carried each other from time to time a lot over the years. It’s just like, every time I want to get offended, I just sort of breathe through that a little bit, and I just kind of don’t.
He does get offended, though. He does, I will get the text messages.
No doubt, and I’ll get snarky every once in a while. But it’s the same thing, that ultimately, we trust the friendship, we trust the mission. I don’t think we even have a stated mission. But we trust the relationship, so we just don’t freak out about stuff too often.
I think we have a mission. I mean, we say this on the podcast that we are interested in entertaining people and giving them factual information, research-based, having really great conversations that make people go like: Oh, that’s interesting, never thought about it that way! In a way that’s very approachable. Because picking up a clinical book at a Barnes and Noble is probably not going to be super approachable for one out of two people in a partnership. One person might be that die-hard that’s got their highlighter out, and they’re sending text messages to their girlfriend of amazing quotes and whatever it might be. The other person, however we can get the information in their ears, that’s what we’re interested in. So hopefully it’s relatable, hopefully it’s information that’s also entertaining, and sometime along the way, you learn something.
Absolutely. I mean, you’re saying a lot of the relationship self-help books, probably 50% of people are just going to have a hard time getting engaged with it. So you’re trying to increase, or decrease, depending on how we say that, but increase the likelihood that it’s going to be approachable, and that it’s going to be a little bit more relatable, so that it’s easier to engage.
I have a little chip on my shoulder about some of this.
“I’ll tell people all the time that I don’t think self-help books work. I don’t think podcasts work. I don’t think therapy works. I don’t think 12-step groups work. I think couples work. People work, or they don’t work. Part of the work is finding the thing that helps you do the work.”
For some people, that’s going to be a podcast or therapy or this book that we just wrote. It’s not going to work. But couples who lean into it and take it on together, they’ll benefit from it. They’ll yield results toward the thing that they want, which, in this particular case, is more skill and connection around conversation. I think you’ve got to find the thing that helps you work and do the work. That’s kind of my bias about it.
Oh, you’re both just such a beautiful example of what you’re describing in your mission! Even as I’m reflecting on the interviews, Zach, one of the things that I very much appreciated is just your willingness to challenge framing, and how people think, how they verbalize, just even this idea. Just even in that reframe, the change agent isn’t the book or the podcast or the therapy, it’s the people. I just feel like that’s so important and powerful, and really does bring focus to where the actual change is.
Well, we totally understand this in other places. Like, does cross fit work, does yoga work, does orange theory work, does training for a triathlon work? No, none of that works, unless you’re in it and you lean into it. I got all kinds of memberships to gyms that I never went to, it didn’t work.
Exactly. Then, Laura, you’re just speaking into the research and the practices and the evidence-based resources that we can implement. You’re being a master teacher for the Gottman Institute, and all the things that you bring in your perspective and your interview is so appreciated, just all the wisdom and ability to scaffold this for people to have it look actionable. Like, you told stories and you helped people look at, what does this actually look like when we live into it? And we do the work.
Yeah, exactly. I mean, it’s one thing to read a book and theoretically think: Oh, it’s a really lovely concept, and a reframe is interesting. So you were just saying reframe, this is the part of our complementary relationship is, Zach can tell an amazing story, and he can help take a complex subject or idea of a reframe. Then I look at that and I go, but how do you actually do that, how do you practice it?
So here’s one thing that I did with a client this week. You were just talking about reframe, and I was like, let’s play this game. So I want both of you to think about something that your partner did in the last week that really frustrated you. I mean, got under your skin, frustrated you, pissed you off, whatever you’re holding a little tension around. I want you to imagine what that is. Do you guys have it?
Yes, I didn’t even need to close my eyes.
It was right there. Now I want you to just think about two qualities about them that showed up in the process of whatever it was that they were doing that was frustrating you, that are really admirable and lovely and wonderful. This is something that I had to actively do this week. This is a common theme in my life with my husband golfing way, way too much, in my opinion. So he hosted a group of 12 men in Bend Oregon, which is this lovely resort community, and he was gone for five days, and I didn’t see him. So that meant that I was 100% parent. I was on, and I didn’t have the support that I normally do. So I could have dug myself so deep in resentment, frustration, irritation, all of that.
So I took a pause and I was like, but what is it about my husband in this moment, these qualities that are showing up that I am not even aware of, that I’m not paying any attention to? It turns out he’s this amazing, gracious, incredibly generous host for all of these men. As I began to think about that, I was like: Wow, you know what? I get my husband’s companionship 365 days a year, and these 12 men are starving for connection and starving for that intimate conversation. So it just helped me, in that moment, to reframe how important it is that these men, who a lot of people don’t know this, but White middle-aged men are the ones that are really, really vulnerable to suicide and to loneliness and disconnection. So I was like, wow, how cool that my husband is hosting this week for these men to come and just be in each other’s space. It completely shifted the way that I experienced that moment.
So that’s where I’m like, okay, in theory, a reframe is really cool. But what do you actually do? So that’s just a small exercise that I used in the last week to reframe my frustration and irritability. Yes, I’ll still have a conversation with my husband and say: I didn’t love that, here’s what I would have loved instead. But it changed the way in which I interacted with him and the way in which my thought process was. So just an example of how our worlds collide and how we complement each other in our professional relationship.
Yes, I’ll play. Even as you were starting to say, I was describing my husband and I, this is in the backdrop of two years—you both have known me as we’ve met throughout the last couple years—of us traveling, trying to find home. We’ve relocated, bought a house, and we’re in a renovation. So one of my husband and I’s difference and constant challenge, as we approach something, is I tend to be very engaged in the the effort and the details. My desire is like, what’s the best outcome? What would I love, and what is that going to take? And I’m willing to put forward the effort. My husband is often looking at what’s the best viable option, and looking at how to be efficient, how to be streamlined and conserving energy, where that’s not even a factor in how I’m approaching something.
So I was laying in bed a few nights ago, and I was feeling some criticism around, why isn’t he more engaged, why isn’t he taking initiative? Like, these contractors need certain information, and there’s all this mental load of all the details that go into all the things that need to get done. I was like: Okay, I’m being kind of judgy. If he were to be doing the thing that I wanted, what would that allow me to feel? That’s one of the questions I asked that helped me with the reframe. I was like, oh! I could relax more. I was like, okay, that’s really, really helpful for me.
To take it a step further, as you’re inviting real appreciation in our partnership, I tend to have way too much stuff on my list to do. And when we partner and we’re working together, I’ve learned so much from him around doing less—the ability to just prioritize sleep, to be able to do less and be in a little bit more flow. He can sometimes run in the spectrum, or the continuum, of being a little bit more wanting things to just happen. I’m more proactive and taking initiative. I think if you have a Venn diagram, that middle space is, they say flow. It’s not total surrender, and it’s not total activation. So I think that’s where we operate best. But to just really appreciate his quality and what he’s brought and what it continues to teach me, and really how he holds such a solid, grounded container that I can relax. Do I want him to activate more sometimes? Yes, and what that means for me. To your point, we could have conversation in that there’s more around how we work together, but to hold more than just the criticism and the judgment.
If I were doing therapy on you right now, I would invite a certain kind of curiosity about something you said a little bit at the top of your thing, which is, if he were doing the thing I wanted to do, what would that allow me to feel? That’s your question. So the place I’d get curious is, well, could you allow yourself to feel that thing even if he doesn’t do the thing that you want to do?
Precisely, and that was part of what I was recognizing, is like: Oh, I need to do some self-care. That’s a good indicator, for sure. But I didn’t speak to that. You’re right, absolutely.
I do this with Laura a lot, like, where I’m like: Oh, she drives me crazy. Then I go, okay, so what am I going to do about that? I could get upset and I could get snarky, and I do from time to time. Or I could get interested and curious, where I could just sort of go: Oh, that’s actually not the deal, she’s not good at that, and so I need to be good. I do the same thing with my wife, where she drives me crazy and I’m like: Okay, I can either attribute that to her being a codependent, needy, Enneagram two. Or I can be like: Oh no, she’s actually really good at that, I have something to learn here. I wonder how I can step up, and maybe I don’t need her to change at all in order for me to choose to step up. That’s been the empowering part for me.
That comes, honestly, from building and growing this muscle of curiosity, wherein one of the things I talk about with clients with regard to curiosity is, yes, it’s definitely asking questions. How did your day go, or how’s it going at the gym, or how did your conversation with your mom go? It’s definitely that. But it’s also making space for them to surprise you. I’m willing to be surprised by my partner, versus certain about them. Because when I’m certain about them, I put them in a hole and I and now I have to operate around that hole. But if I’m letting them surprise me, I go: Huh, I wonder what else is going on here? So many more possibilities open up, I guess is the point.
Oh my goodness, yes. Speaking about my husband and his more grounded presence, he’s much more somatic than I am. I can get into my head. Zach, there are times where he might talk a little slower.
Than you?
I know, I was just thinking that!
You’re the gentlest person I know, you’re the most thoughtful when talking.
Yeah, you’re like very zen.
Well, I’m happy to hear that. That’s not what it feels like sometimes.
Oh no, what you’re projecting is a zen quality. I was just thinking, we’re going to come on, and it’s like two toddlers that talk over each other, and there’s nothing zen about Zach and myself. So this gentleman, we need to meet him now.
Oh my gosh, yes! It has to be an intentional thing that I’m focused on. Because if I’m asking him questions, or if I’m anticipating what he’s going to say, and then I try to chime in, which I do do—which he doesn’t love, but I do do. But when I can slow down and just wonder, even if there’s silence, and even if he’s not talking, sometimes a question will emerge in me that I would have never thought about or asked had I been trying to think and know or anticipate. It’s more of this body empathy wondering, and if I can wonder and then what evolves from there. Or even just when I hold space and just stay curious and stay present. I don’t even know that it needs to be words, I think curiosity can still be in a presencing. That something will come from that, that would have never come, and it’s sometimes the most beautiful. I am always touched when I can access those moments with him, because it’s just quite special. I think the curiosity is just accessing so much unknown territory, that when we’re decided or know or certain about, it just doesn’t give space for.
Yeah. I was working with clients, and I give them all sorts of exercises. I’m all about giving couples tools. Do this, try this, whatever it might be. Rather than just having a conversation during therapy, I want them to have experiences outside of therapy that can prolong that momentum. The pushback was: Laura, we already know everything about each other, we literally have been together for the last 25 years. I was sitting there, and I just watched the look on the female space. It’s kind of like, what is it that curiosity is doing for the relationship, for the human being, for the person? I truly think that when we are curious, or we say, I don’t know everything there is to know about you, or we say, I want to know more about you. It sends the message of, you are interesting to me! I adore you. I think you’re fascinating. You’re totally intoxicating and intriguing, and I want to know more. That’s what curiosity really is sending the message of.
“I think that’s ultimately what we all want, is we really want to feel seen and known and understood. And when we go to certainty of I already know everything there is about you, what a smack in the face! That must feel absolutely awful.”
Like, you’re not interesting to me. I already know how this conversation is going to go. I know what you’re going to order at the restaurant. I know exactly what you’re going to do after we get into the car and your order of operations. But we’re really hoping to infuse in relationships that new wonder and that curiosity that comes from it.
Yeah, that comment. I can appreciate the familiarity and the history, and also the place in which the door gets shut on opportunity. So I’m curious, do you have what you would encourage listeners? Even as they’re hearing us talk about curiosity and what can come from this, what might you encourage as an exercise or something to workshop?
Oh, that’s interesting. Well, we have so many to choose from, I don’t even know how many exercises ended up in the book. Do you remember, Zach, is it like 45?
Yeah, just the structure of the book is this introduction around curiosity and how to have conversations and how to set those up for success, how to posture, how to set context. Then there’s maybe 45 topics that run through, the easiest way to say it is, chronologically how the relationship unfolds. But in each one, there’s a reflection, and then an exercise itself, and then a series of questions that you just can sit in and linger on. And what I love about it is, it’s a good-looking book. You can flip it open, and you don’t have to read in order, you just pick a page that you like. So if you’re interested in talking about your parenting philosophy, if you’re interested in talking about your plans for retirement, if you’re interested in just reflecting and reminiscing on your first dates and how you got here, there’s all kinds of ways that you can lean into that.
I’ll give Laura credit, I’m not an exercise guy. People come in and they want homework. I’m like, I don’t know, homework doesn’t work. But this is what I’ll say. Are you going to do the homework? I’ll give you homework, but are you going to do it? But just the creativity that that she brings to the table in terms of setting people up for success there. You used the word somatic a little bit earlier, I think Laura does a great job of putting people inside their bodies. So even if it’s like, touch your knees together, or make eye contact for a prolonged period of time. So those are the ones that I always find most risky, but also most helpful.
Oh my gosh, risky is such a good way to put it, very vulnerable. So this is definitely in the book, for sure. Because what we do in our practice, what I do in my practice, I’ve just built these exercises into the book as well. But when partners are having conversations with each other, they’re more vulnerable. Just asking each other questions that go beyond shop talk.
I had this couple this week, and they said, we’ve been going through some of these open-ended questions that you’ve given us, Laura. It’s kind of incredible, we haven’t had conversations that weren’t need-based. Like, let’s talk about the kids, let’s talk about the car, let’s talk about grocery shopping. They said we haven’t had those conversations in a really long time. I said, cool, I want to see what that looks like. So I proposed a couple of open-ended questions. They sat not looking at each other, their bodies completely turned away. I was like: Ooh, let’s do something difficult, let’s be vulnerable with our bodies. The vulnerability that comes from actually turning your body postures toward one another. It’s really interesting, because it just takes someone encouraging both people to do the same thing. It’s like, who’s going to jump first, who’s going to turn their body, who’s going to raise their gaze, look me in the eye?
Once I have couples do that together, you can see that there’s such a yearning that’s met. It’s like, they want that eye contact. But it’s just unless a book is going to say, now turn your bodies toward each other, hold one another’s gaze for 30 seconds. It’s very difficult, because one person doesn’t want to take that first step. But when they do it together, there’s a level of safety. So watching this couple have a conversation, but raising the ante when it came to the vulnerability of eye contact and physically moving their bodies closer toward one another, and talking about something that wasn’t shop talk, I bet they had sex that night. I bet we really just opened up that intimacy.
Absolutely! It is a bit of a change of gear, change of focus, from the logistics or the practicality or the business of life, and it is a bit more protective. And when we do take those emotional risks to turn to each other and show the emotion, that’s how we build intimacy and connection, is through this real visible cues of emotion, and being able to send those signals very clearly. So in this place of curiosity and sharing, and to be seen, to be held, both in context, and also body language and somatically. It’s quite connecting. It just reminds me, it was a session with a couple, and they’ve been together for 18 years, and two children and all the things that keep them busy. We had done this looking at each other’s eyes for just, I think I set the timer for two minutes.
Even 10 seconds is a long time.
There was no talking, but afterwards debriefing. He was like, it took me back to our wedding day, just seeing you and seeing your eyes and just that connection. I was just like, wow! I mean, not everybody is going to feel that in just two minutes. But it can, for some, just access a really good space that’s hard to turn towards. Because I think, to your point, when we’re a little armored up, it’s hard to reach if the other person is not available. It feels like rejection; they’re not responding to the bed. It just can feel like: Oh, I’d rather not do that.
Okay, so you mentioned armored up, which is kind of cool. Because one of the things that we’ve done is, you sort of progressively move through these topics chronologically, where early on in our relationship, what are some of the fundamental friction points that couples might experience, or conversations that they need to have, or tasks that they need to accomplish?
“It’s not just about jumping straight into the vulnerability soup. But it’s about moving them progressively through, like, how can you soften yourself and remove some of those barriers and those armors, when you’re armored up? It can happen through conversation.”
But we move them through like: Okay, so now we’re going to start you off with a simple exercise, and then we’re going to move you through some deeper conversation, and then we’re going to create a lasting ritual for you to take this momentum into your daily life. It is a process. You can’t just jump straight into eye-gazing. It’s scary.
No kidding! The ritual, Zach, I’m wondering if you want to speak to that. Because there’s a bit of, to your point, being able to access this that can feel doable. If it’s too much, it can feel like ah! As we progress in the progression, people can have a really beautiful experience, but then it lives in its one moment, and to make it a ritual is really bringing it into living.
Yeah. I don’t want to keep harping on this point, but this idea that couples work. I mean, I always say, nothing changes if nothing changes, and people live their lives in space and time. So I’ll go through and I’ll be like: Hey, you want things to change? I’ve done this hundreds of times with couples. I’ll go tell me about your day, tell me about Wednesday. They’ll be like, what do you mean? I go, just talk to me about Wednesday. I’m like, do you wake up in the same bed? They’re like, yeah, or sometimes it’s no. I’ll say, do you wake up at the same time? No. Well, who gets up first? I’ll literally have them walk me through their entire day. Like, when do they leave for work, who does what? How do they pick up the kids? Do they have dinner around the table? What happens at the table? What happens after dinner? Do you go to bed at the same time? No, okay, but whatever. I go, so this thing that you want to change, when will that happen, when will you do that? Will you get up at the same time? I mean, even if you don’t go to bed at the same time, will you go to the bed at the same time? Pull out your little reconnect workbook that Zach and Laura told you to buy, ask a couple questions.
“Nothing changes if nothing changes, and it has to change in space and time—the space that you live in, the house that you live in, and the time that you have access to.”
Because people go, I don’t know if therapy is working. I’m like, this is one hour out of 168 in a week, that you have to figure out how to use. So when people want to experience change, let’s say they want to go and they want to buy a book, I’m like, you have to decide that you’re going to do it on Thursdays at six, and that you protect that time, or that you’re going to do it before you go to bed. I know very few couples who go to bed at the same time, because one of them is a night owl or whatever. I’m like, again, you can go to the bed at the same time, and you can carve out 10 minutes that ends with you tucking her in and kissing her on the forehead, ask her a couple questions, and then go play your video games, or do your job, or watch your show.
“So the ritual, again, the thing about rituals is, you have to build them in a way that if you miss them, you miss them.”
Meaning, like: Oh, we didn’t do that. So what is regular enough? Is it once a week? Is it once a day? I don’t prescribe, not until I understand people’s lives, how their time works out. But I’m not going to tell people to do it once a day or once a week, or whatever. You have to do it in a way that feels like change to you. So you could do it in the car. You’d be like: Oh, every day we drive to soccer practice and we sit there for an hour on our phones. I’m like, why don’t you sit there for an hour with your little Zach and Laura book?
Yeah, just pick one moment to intervene. The thing with agreeing to a ritual is, I always need some kind of a trigger, something that is going to make you go: Oh, that’s right, this is what we’re supposed to do. It could be brushing your teeth. Like, when you brush your teeth, you’re going to give your partner a little smack on the butt, or just initiate physical touch. Or when you go to soccer practice, this is when we walk around the soccer field and we talk about what’s going on with our families? It’s like, what are the things that are going to remind you that you’re intervening to do something different?
The book has all sorts of ways to give you ideas of different rituals that you can do. One ritual that was really lovely, I started meeting with a couple, they had a previous therapist, and I said, what was it about your previous therapist that you remember that worked for you? They said, we met with him for three years, and to be perfectly honest, I don’t think we really remember much. I was like, man, that’s a bummer! But they said, but there’s this one thing that we learned from him, and we do it every day, and it’s been a game-changer. I was like: Oh, that’s cool, that’s a ritual.
It was the only thing over three years of therapy that stuck. And what they do is they put on a song, and they do what’s called swaying, and they just put their bodies together, and they wrap their arms around each other. It’s not a dance, but the whole point is to sync their breathing and to feel the connection. They’re literally going heart to heart, hip to hip, shoulder to shoulder, and they’re just allowing their bodies to connect. So when the song is over, they’re done. But what they eventually end up doing is just swaying together. They said, that’s been the biggest game-changer, and it’s something that we do every single day, and that’s the only thing that I can tell you has been lasting change in three years of therapy. I was like, cool! So there’s something about the rituals that we can grab on to. Why are you smiling, Zach?
Well, different strokes for different folks. I always have people who want to come do deep trauma work and understand their family of origin and work on their patterns and themes. Maybe you just hold on to each other and sway in your kitchen, so you’re all fixed.
Yeah. I was just thinking when you said you have a couple come in and you’re like, tell me about your Wednesday, and they tell you from beginning to end their Wednesday. And you’re like: Okay, well, that’s all the time we have today. Thanks for coming.
I was thinking the same thing. Like, that could take a while.
It takes a while. But you know what, when’s the last time you actually thought about your day? Like, you really went through and you thought about: why do I do what I do, what does it mean, what does it represent? I mean, we say all the time, people want to tell you what their priorities are, and they go: Oh, my priorities are, I don’t know, feeding the homeless. I go, tell me about your day, show me your calendar. If feeding the homeless isn’t on there, you can’t claim it as a priority. I mean, again, not talking about the day itself. But you talked about two minutes, people having eye contact for two minutes. I haven’t done anything on purpose for two minutes that was just for me, just for my relationship. It’s like, people don’t think about their time, they just are moving through their time. I gotta do this and that.
Jessica’s husband, he’s very intentional. He slows down, he can think about his day.
Yeah, I’m going to get off this call, I’m going straight to the car dealership, and then I’m going straight to the dentist. How much better would it be if I sat and said: Hey, let me think about those cool things that I learned from Jessica and from Laura this morning? I need to reflect on that, write some of that down and see if I can take some of that to Rebecca. I mean, all of that would take me two minutes. I don’t know, it takes a while, and I don’t mind. But people are like, huh!
In fact, even just some of your languaging here today, there’s been a few things, I’m like: Oh, wow! I mean, you say it and it has a little bit of a pause, but I’m like, I could just marinate it on that for a minute. Like, it’s not a ritual unless you miss it. The quality of that being something we do every day, and it’s a game-changer. We sway, we hold each other, we are connected in our bodies and we’re seeking.
Yeah, and the level of curiosity. I mean, let’s take these swaying people, if they miss it on a Thursday, so on Thursday, they just don’t do it, they miss it. They miss it. But now they go, well, what’s going on? Now they have a piece of data to go, what’s going on? Is somebody sick? Do they have COVID? Is somebody angry? Did Alexa not know how to play the music that day? What is the factor? This is where curiosity comes in is to go, this marker I’ve put in my life to help me understand that I’m moving my life forward in the way that I want, it’s been removed. What do I need to learn about that? Because it doesn’t always mean something. It could just be you’re out of town. Oh, we missed it today, because you were in Georgia at a conference. That doesn’t mean your relationships in trouble, but it does help you mark time and make meaning. So I think if people don’t have those in their lives, they’re just moving through time.
That’s the thing I’m getting to Zach, because as you’re talking about, nothing changes. I forgot how you said it.
Nothing changes if nothing changes.
Yes, that it’s so important to just pause on that. That we can be in the habits and the repetition, and by human nature, we tend to automize and default to conserve energies, so there’s that tendency. Yet, if we’re not bringing awareness and being intentional. This is something, I think you’re also inviting, Laura. It reminds me of the book Atomic Habits, and how as you talked about having something that’s a reminder, or something that brings awareness, stacking. Also just the cues of like: Oh yeah, I was going to do that thing, or I’m going to smack you on the butt. And also that you can’t say you want to do service work if that’s who you are. I think in that book, he was talking about, I forgot the name. Do you remember the name?
Was it James Clear?
Yes, and he’s talking about, are you the type of person you’re becoming? I think when we’re talking about relationship and really cultivating more intimacy, more knowing, more connection, that takes a level of engagement of: I am being the person that does this. That might require me to change my habits or be more intentional about certain ways that I move through time and space in life.
What would an engaged spouse do here?
If that was the title, if that was what you wanted to embody. Because we have this level, the very first pages of the book are talking about your intentions. What is your purpose? What is your intentions? Kind of setting the tone and the accountability piece.
“These rituals are really important. It’s like, you’re establishing accountability with each other. It’s a pact. It’s like, we do this thing together because we’re moving forward to create a relationship we both agreed is going to be satisfying.”
But I remember, I read a book, and it was something about like, you are an Iron Man. I’m doing this whole training situation. It’s like, are you the type of person that just is a weekend warrior that goes out and trains, or are you an Iron Man? If you embody that, what does that mean? It means that when you’re out for happy hour with your girlfriends, you order a non-alcoholic beverage because you’re an Iron Man, and you have to get up early in the morning, you have to go run. So all of the choices that you make are embodied in that vision of what you’re trying to create.
That’s the first part of the book, is like, what is it that you’re wanting to be? Do you want to be an engaged spouse that is pursuing your relationship with desire, intensity, all of these things? That’s kind of what I’m curious about for people, is like, are you married, or are you something more? I always tell people when I introduce my husband, I say: This is my lover, or this is my boyfriend. I just am trying to send the message to them that I’m engaged with him in a different way. I am not in simply a contract that I signed 15 years ago, but I am pursuing my husband daily in a different way, and that means that I am his lover. I love introducing, because people just cock their head sideways and they’re like: Huh, we’re going to find you later and talk to you, you’re interesting. What’s all that?
I introduce Rebecca as my ex-girlfriend. She hates it.
Oh, I love it! Zach, this points to something you were saying around having purpose too, and when you talk about the intention and the vision, I can feel inside myself when I’m in alignment with what matters most to me. Because I think they say, I think it’s David Rico or Bach, I can’t remember, he wrote this book, Smart Couples Finish Rich. I read it years ago. But he’s got this chapter two that he’s talking about values. In all his workshops, he’s like, people will rattle off all the things they want to do, this trip, or I want to acquire this. Then when I ask them about their top five values, it’s kind of like crickets, that people aren’t always super aware of their most meaningful values. He’s like, people typically don’t change their values over the course of their life that much, and they’re usually very convicted around them. So when we look at relationship and this being a top value, I can feel inside myself, when I’m living into with purpose and intention and participating in caring for my person, and loving him and doing my best to show up for the quality of that relationship, I can feel fulfilled that I am in service of a value that means a tremendous amount to me.
Well said!
I mean, again, I do values exercises with my couples too, where I march them through and I can make them choose. Because we all have values. I’ll be like, what are yours? They’re like, well, maybe they’re unexamined. But the thing about when I do this exercise with couples, I make them go through a list of about maybe 60 values, and they only get to keep four. But 56 of them aren’t bad. When they’ve gotten rid of 56 values, those aren’t bad things. They’re just not the things that you can focus on. So you get down to three or four, and now we go: Okay, cool. I love that those are your values. Back it up. Prove it. Next time you come in here, you’re going to be able to defend these values to me?
I had a couple do this exercise one time, and they were in the process of moving. They moved into a house that had four columns on the front, and when they got down to their four values, they painted the four values on the front of their house. They immediately became accountable to everyone who walked up into their house. So maybe one of them was gratitude, and they’re like, what is this all about, why do you have gratitude on the front? They’re like, that’s one of our four values. They go, how do you do that? Oh, well, every night we sit down and we make a list of things that we’re grateful for that happen to the day, or we have some expression. I’m like: Okay, now you got it. I don’t know that we put something like that in the book.
We did.
Oh, good. So that’s in the book. If you want to check it out, you can buy it now at Amazon.com. It’s available wherever books are sold.
Well, I’m feeling really how lucky we all are that the two of you have partnered to bring your gifts and talents to provide such guidance and support to make this actionable. But also, not just in a formulaic way, that there’s this curiosity, this different way of thinking that accesses new learning, new ways of connecting, and all that you’re both speaking to. That you bring so much in your work, that it just has so much substance along with all the research, and the efficacy that you bring, both of you.
Yeah, so you were mentioning your book. Is there anything you want to say before we pivot towards the book and a little bit more about how people can engage with you both?
Yeah, I don’t know. Again, I think you said it. I mean, when we say it, this is how we say it, both for Marriage Therapy Radio and the book, which is called Reconnect. We have two goals. Goal number one is that people will engage and go: Huh, I’ve never thought about it like that before. We want their brain to do something that their brain has not done. The second one is, we want them to have practical, applicable ways to move the needle in their relationship. So if we’re getting that done, then we feel good. Maybe that is our mission statement. But that’s kind of what wakes us up in the morning, and we’re glad to be able to have partnered in this way, in this project. Again, I got to do the things that I love, which is craft clever reflections, and Laura got to do the things that she loves, which is build exercises for engagement. I think in the end, we ended up with a really cool product or project for people to take on, if they’re trying to move the needle in their relationship.
Yeah. I just think about it as like, do anything different. When you said play out your Wednesday, just do anything different. Have a different experience. Rather than talking to your partner side by side, look them in the eye. Put your hand on their chest and feel them breathing in and out. Have a conversation about death that you have never had with your partner before. I mean, we dive into so many rich topics that couples have either danced around or they’ve never engaged, or they learned a long time ago that wasn’t a topic that we talk about because it doesn’t go well. So we don’t just throw them in the deep end. We teach them how to regulate, how to have these vulnerable conversations in a safe way. But it really is about just shaking things up, and experience your partner in a way that moves you from certainty to curiosity. That’s kind of the goal.
Yes, amazing! I think even with all the love and commitment and devotion and effort, that so much of these conversations don’t happen, or so many of these topics don’t get addressed. And the support that you’re offering, that it’s not just: Oh, figure it out! That you’re offering support around how to regulate the nervous system, and to have safe container and ground to be able to engage and think differently and do differently. Wonderful!
So do you want to say the name of the book and the name of your podcast again? I’ll make sure to put the links on today’s show.
Yeah, it’s available for pre-sale, so you can find the book. It will be officially launched on September 10th. The book is called Reconnect: A Marriage Counseling Workbook. It’s guided conversations and exercises for a long-lasting relationship. So you can pre-order it now on Amazon, which is great, because you’ll get a copy as soon as it’s released. Our podcast, if you’re interested in hearing, it’s a weekly episode. It’s called Marriage Therapy Radio, we have over 350 episodes. I mean, we have a lot to take. So if you’re just looking to binge it, you can go back to number one from 2017 and follow our lives as they have evolved, which has been quite a journey for the two of us.
2017 was almost seven years ago.
We caught that part. Thanks, Zach.
We started in October of 2017. We’re creeping up. It’s crazy to me!
It is, it’s a lot to look back on. I think I started in the beginning of 2015, and it’s just like, wow! It’s such a journey. So the other thing that occurs to me about your book is, there often are therapists listening to the show. So this could even be a good assist, either to refer to clients or even just as a supportive tool.
One thing that’s been really cool is, we did send it out to a bunch of therapists in advance, and they got to look at it. They’re kind, they’re our friends. But we got a lot of really positive feedback about how they will use it in their practices as homework, as things that they assign to couples. We got one guy in particular who’s like, I already bought 10 of them because I’m going to hand them out to whatever. I mean, he doesn’t have them in hand. But it is cool to have colleagues and peers appreciating the book on its own merits, which maybe they would tell us if they didn’t like it. But it seems like it’s gotten a really good feedback from not just couples, but also from professionals. So thanks for bringing that point up.
Yeah, the enthusiasm, and that this is something we can all benefit from. Just even as I was reflecting, Zach, even one simple reframe or question, we can marinate on that. One question that prompts a different action or different way of relating can be a game-changer. Like, three years, and one simple thing that was a game-changer that stuck.
Well, I’ll make sure again to have all the links on today’s show. Thank you so much for joining us, and for joining me in this conversation.
Well, thanks for having us. It was fun to be back all together. Really appreciate it.
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Have you ever wondered why certain patterns seem to repeat in your relationships, leaving you feeling unfulfilled or misunderstood? Many of us carry the hidden scars of unmet childhood needs into our adult partnerships, often without realizing it. These unresolved emotional wounds can create barriers to giving and receiving love, often manifesting as conflicts and struggles in intimacy. Understanding and healing these deep-seated issues is crucial for building healthier, more fulfilling relationships.
In this episode, we delve into the profound impact of childhood experiences on adult behavior and relationships. We’ll explore how understanding and internalizing these early life influences can help recognize and address the missing emotional elements from one’s upbringing. The discussion sheds light on the importance of processing past traumas, engaging in healing conversations, and employing therapeutic techniques like role-playing and letter-writing to reconcile unresolved feelings. By emphasizing the intertwined nature of individual and relational growth, this episode offers practical strategies to help listeners navigate the complexities of maintaining a strong sense of self while fostering fulfilling, intimate relationships.
Talia Bombola, The Confidence & Assertiveness Specialist, is a Certified Psychodynamic, Licensed Psychotherapist, and Relationship Mentor for Women. Her work centers around helping anxious women feel secure by increasing self-worth, confidence, and assertiveness & rewiring beliefs about themselves, men, and relationships. She helps you heal the “not enoughness” that is blocking you from living a life overflowing with satisfaction and self-worth.
In this episode
7:06 Talia’s journey from personal development to professional practice.
11:20 The dangers of tying self-worth to external achievements and goals.
14:45 Understanding the importance of developmental stages in shaping a person’s sense of identity and self-worth.
18:56 The role of psychodynamic therapy and reparenting in healing childhood wounds.
29:03 Exploring the benefits of reconnecting with parents to address unresolved childhood experiences.
41:38 The importance of maintaining one’s individuality and sense of self within relationships, particularly when faced with disapproval or differing opinions from loved ones.
46:57 Balancing closeness and autonomy: Navigating conflict and personal growth in relationships.
Your Check List of Actions to Take
- Take time to journal or meditate on how societal gender norms have shaped your behaviors and expectations in relationships.
- Identify activities or practices that reconnect you with both your feminine and masculine energies.
- Spend time in nature, establishing rituals like grounding exercises or mindful walks to rediscover innate wisdom and balance.
- Explore Jungian principles or depth psychology concepts to deepen your understanding of the soul’s role in relationships.
- Develop skills to hold space for your partner’s emotions, acknowledging their fears and pain points without attempting to fix them immediately.
- Set up a daily or weekly routine that includes both productivity-oriented (masculine) and relaxation/nurturing (feminine) activities.
- Make conscious choices about your relational behaviors, aiming for authentic interactions rather than defaulting to gender-conditioned responses.
Mentioned
Rewire Your Relationships (online program)
Triangular Theory of Love
True self and false self (*Wikipedia link) (article)
Eriksons Stages of Psychosocial Development (*National Library of Medicine link) (book)
Relationship Map To Happy, Lasting Love
Connect with Talia Bombola
Websites: taliabombola.com
Facebook: facebook.com/taliabombola
Instagram: instagram.com/taliabombola
TikTok: tiktok.com/@taliabombola
Podcast: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/heal-through-humor/id1657508931
Connect with Dr. Jessica Higgins
Facebook: facebook.com/EmpoweredRelationship
Instagram: instagram.com/drjessicahiggins
Podcast: drjessicahiggins.com/podcasts/
Pinterest: pinterest.com/EmpowerRelation
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/drjessicahiggins
Twitter: @DrJessHiggins
Website: drjessicahiggins.com
Email: jessica@drjessicahiggins.com
About Today’s Show
Talia, thank you for joining us today.
Thank you for having me. I’m excited to be here.
Yeah, I can appreciate just all that you’re in and your life, just really continuing to support people with your work and all the wonderful things you’re doing. We’re going to be talking about personal goals and people continuing to achieve personal aspirations, and also staying in relationship, showing up for a relationship.
For people who are just getting to know you, what would you like to say about where you’re coming from with your perspective, who you are, and how this became of interest?
Great questions. Great multi-bullet-point questions. So this field of self-development, self-help, therapy and coaching, came of interest to me when I was in middle school, I want to say. So a long time ago, a very long time ago, when I had no wrinkles and my skin was perfect, and I didn’t have a baby at the time. I fell in love with self-development at that point, because it was like the only hour or two a week I felt heard, validated, listened to, and accepted. That foundation transcended to continuing therapy into adulthood, and then realizing I could do that as a career. Like, wait, I can do this for other people? Other people can feel the way I do, and I can be in the chair? That’s so cool. So then that started my entire career.
The specialization of confidence and assertiveness overall, I think, came from my own personal life. But it also stemmed from what I knew was so much of value at the core, which is the individual self, and we’ll always be an individual self, whether or not we’re in a relationship. It is of the utmost importance to remain that individual self, especially when we’re in a relationship. Otherwise it can look like, I’m sure you’ve heard, codependency, counter-dependency, where it feels like our own identity is eclipsed by the fact that we now have a partner or that we’re chasing the next echelon of relationship. Or we’re dating, when are you going to get engaged? We’re engaged, when are you getting married, when are you going to have kids? Can we just be happy with the current level that we’re at, and how do I balance who I am in relation to what role I have in whatever type of relationship we’re in?
So it was both a personal and a professional interest. I think, obviously, to talk about it today, being able to maintain those individual goals is how people can maintain a healthy relationship. That’s a lot of the times, the couples I work with, where one of the struggles is, aside from the normal topics that people have conflict over. Part of the conflict, I think, since my background is in psychoanalysis and psychodynamic therapy, so how does your childhood impact your adulthood and the way you view the world? So many people are like: “This happened to me, I turned out fine. That’s not what we’re here for.” I’m like, so does it just remind you of your mom when she said that? They’re like, yes! Then they look at me, and they’re like: You were right, how did you know? I’m like, I did tell you at the beginning that childhood is part of this, so you knew eventually we were going to weave our way to it.
“If we weren’t taught how to be an individual, and if we weren’t properly supported to individuate in our adolescence and early adulthood, that does flare up in our adult relationship.”
I know, long-winded answer. But all of that to say, not only is that of personal and professional interest to me, I think that’s crucial for us to be able to talk about that, because of how much individuation (being supported) when we’re growing up does have a positive impact on our adult relationships.
No kidding! Well, thank you for giving us a little glimpse into your personal life and how this has had meaning for you in your development, both individually, and likely relationally. Also, just where you’re coming from and your perspective, and the real significance of our early learning and how it informs. A lot of what I reference is the attachment research and the early imprint around the system that gets created from those relational models, and the system that lives in us. I appreciate what you’re saying also, that so often there’s this almost achievement-oriented perspective when it comes to relationship. But I also wonder if you think that this occurs even in individuals, like: Oh, I gotta get this job or this goal. That that can actually take a turn, that it takes us out of sense of self and more externalizing these certain goals, that I’ll be happy when.
Yes, it’s contingent upon. I see that quite a bit, and I do think that when we take a look at, I call it like doing-based worth versus being-based worth. So if you are achievement-oriented, the if when—I will be happy if this happens or when this happens—the amount of time you’re spending, not in your present life, but also not in your current self, attuned to what’s happening in your body; how are you feeling, maybe what are you trying to avoid feeling? If you’re so tied to success being how you base your worth, a lot of what you’ll also see is external validation being the goal. Or external achievements or awards or success measures that are outside of how you feel, being the goal.
I’ve often talked to people, and I’ve worked with people who are, based on what you see from the outside, very high up in their company, or they have a very prestigious role in whatever they’re doing. Not all of them, but some of them feel empty, they don’t feel fulfilled. They have accolades. They have awards. They have a whole wall behind them with however many times they’ve gone to give a speech or what have you. That doesn’t replace—it can add to, but it will not replace—that core sense of self and that core sense of self-worth. That’s where I caution people to not only rely on those external successes and validation, separate from relationship. That individual goal, if it’s: I’ll be happy when I make whatever amount of money, I’ll be happy when I have whatever title, whether that’s professionally or personally. I’ll be happy when, like you were saying, leads you to this carrot at the end of the stick. You’re constantly chasing and constantly striving, and at what point will you know it’s enough?
That translates, for the clients that I work with, into at what point will you feel like you’re enough? Because it’s often the external. This will be enough means I am enough.
“I try to flip the script and say, how would you approach your life if you believe—not that you do genuinely yet—that you are worthy enough, as you are right now, without doing or being anything other than who you are?”
That’s something that my clients often sit with for quite some time, before we can actually make headway. Some of them pick it up really quickly, usually the coaching ones, because they’re driven to get it done. But the ones in therapy, we can spend a lot more time being able to process and talk about that, and especially delve into childhood and where they may have learned that lesson that your worth is contingent upon your accolades, your success, basically everything external to who you are as a person.
As you’re talking about the relational work, as well as perhaps, in psychological terms, we might say differentiation. You’re talking about this developmental stage and young adulthood, or even adolescence that begins, that this is all part of the nuance. Because as I’m hearing you, I’m hearing me, there’s a bit of the balance that it’s both and. That we don’t just pursue individual dreams and goals and not be in relationship, and we’re not only doing relationship and sacrificing our sense of self, or even just abandoning sense of self to get those accolades that perhaps aren’t very resonant on a deeper level. Can you speak, for people listening, about maybe the developmental stage that you’re referring to? I have thoughts and ideas, but I would love to hear from you. Do you think that this is a nuanced balance, that it’s a both and?
I do think it’s a both and. When we’re referencing the developmental stages, when I teach this to my students, I go all the way back to infancy, which the first lesson, virtu-ideally, that we learn, based on Erickson stages, is trust or mistrust. So if my caregiver is attuned to me, if they met my needs more often than not, and if I felt safe and comfortable with them, I didn’t feel alarm or a reproach, then I would be able to trust them. If I feel what I just mentioned that I don’t want to feel, I end up starting out, by very base psyche, with mistrust. So if you imagine each developmental stage, and I think because it was created long ago, we do need to update that. Because lifespan is longer, the word teenager didn’t even arrive in the dictionary, I think until either 1913 or 1941. I can never remember those dates, because one is attached to another thing. But it’s a fairly new term that we have emerging adulthood, failure to launch. So there are benefits to updating those stages.
But when we’re looking at those early childhood markers, I do think those still ring true. Those ages have not changed, even though some milestones have. You want to look at, did I have a base sense of trust versus mistrust? Then from there, did I feel a sense of initiative, or did I feel a sense of guilt. Did I feel autonomy, or did I feel shame and doubt? So when you’re looking at the levels that you come up to, or that you are growing into, you want to have that sense of trust, you want to have that sense of initiative, you want to have that sense of autonomy and those foundations.
Then, when you’re fast-forwarding to what you’re talking about, those other developmental stages with differentiation and individuation, we typically see that in adolescents. Now we also know from research, adolescence lasts much longer than we previously thought, and the data can show that the prefrontal cortex can take up to 35 to develop in some people. So yippie for parenting, because it’s longer than a lot of us thought. It’s not just from 18 to 24, wrap it up in a neat little bow, and here’s your middle adulthood. That’s not the case anymore. When we’re in adolescence, the goal is, do I have a sense of identity, or do I have role confusion?
So many of the couples and individuals that I work with, who are struggling with their personal identity or goals, or relational goals, in some way, for most of them—again, because they’re coming into therapy, so it’s already a bias, not everyone—they are struggling because in some point of their adolescence. So we’ll round it from, I don’t know, 13 to 20 something at this point. They did not feel like they had a sense of identity, or their identity was based on what we spoke about just a moment ago, doing-based worth; their schools, their accolades, their scholarships, what awards they won. I like to mention: all awards are made-up. It’s all just that somebody decided one day to be like, here’s an award, and we made it on a plaque. It’s all made-up. It’s all a societal construct. So good on you for striving for it if that helps keep you motivated to stay the course. But what’s going to happen when you reach that goal, or on the converse, what’s going to happen if you don’t reach that goal? Would you still do all that you’re doing? Would you still strive for all that you’re striving for if you didn’t have an award or whatever you’re working for at the end of it?
We have to look at the functions of behavior. So usually, people do things for one of four reasons: it feels good, they get escape or avoid something, they get attention or connection from it, or they get something tangible. When we’re doing something because we’re motivated by something tangible, and that doesn’t come to fruition, what’s the story we tell ourselves about not achieving that goal? That also relates to that identity versus role confusion and that amount of self-worth that you were able to establish in that adolescent period, that you can take with you the rest of your life. Otherwise, you end up with great show, but what we like to call Arrested Development, where some part of your psyche freezes at the age that you are still working through that milestone.
I’m so glad you brought up that hurt. Because as I’m listening, and you’re starting from infancy and the different developmental milestones or stages, for one that didn’t learn trust, didn’t learn initiative, didn’t learn autonomy, or learned shame, learned guilt, learned mistrust. How do you help people? Is this the psychodynamic work that you’re referring to of helping them? Do you want to speak briefly about this?
Yeah. So when we’re looking at psychodynamic work, as a therapist, the role that the therapist plays, we’re not blank slate. It’s one way of analysis, but it’s not the most common way. When we’re looking at relational psychoanalysis, that’s my preference and my specialty, it takes the client coming into the room and being able to trust the therapist that they will be not like an expert one-upping. But I’m on your playing field. I know a lot about this topic. You’re the expert on your life. Let’s meet in the middle, and let me help you piece together how your sub and unconscious, and your childhood messaging that you received before age about seven or eight, when subconscious is the most prime to learn, which so many people are, like, they’re just a kid. I’m like: Oh, that’s the worst advice you could ever give! Honestly, everything should be focused on infancy and childhood, and then from adolescence and beyond, we can be a little bit more lax, like, lay off the gas pedal then. Don’t just start it at adolescence. Because some of it, it’s like the path has been laid, and at this point, it’s up to that individual, usually when they reach adulthood, to go back to therapy or go to therapy and realize: Oh, this is my job. Even though I was taught these beliefs, it’s my job to unlearn them.
“A lot of life is really about unlearning. It’s not necessarily about learning, it’s unlearning what wasn’t productive.”
So with psychodynamic work, the therapist helps the client make connections to what current-day struggles they have, that may be tied to lessons they learned from childhood, what was modeled or not, by their parents’ marriage, divorce or separation. What are the stories and beliefs that they have about themselves that are so tucked back here that they don’t think to look at it, until it starts causing a problem in their life? Through psychodynamic work, we can often unveil where the genesis of that thread is. We can’t go back in time. As far as I know, no one has developed that technology, especially in therapy. We can, through story, go back and reparent our inner child. What did you need to hear at that point that may have been beneficial? If they have a family, how do you want to do it differently?
Because the subconscious mind can’t process no or don’t, it’s like, when you tell a kid don’t do that, they end up doing it. We’re like, why did you do that? Because their brain just goes, do it. They just hear that. You have to focus on what you want instead. That’s a lot of at least what I include in psychodynamic work. I know what you’re not happy about. I know what you want changed. How are we going to go about a different path that doesn’t involve simply countering what you’re wanting? Well, I’m just not going to do this. Okay, but what are you going to replace it with? So it creates that flexibility of their mind to go: Oh, I actually have a say in this now. I have a say in rewiring my subconscious beliefs to change my relationships, and to change my relationship, the most important one is with myself. That’s the basis for every other relationship you’ll have, so it’s a mirror. If I don’t love myself, if I don’t have self-worth, I’m going to pick partners who mirror that back to me. But most people who don’t have certain level of self-development only stay in the mindset of blaming the other. So it’s their fault. Well, no guy loves me, no girl this. Why are you picking them?
I’m more tough love than most therapists, I think. I’ll get in there, and I’m like, well, do you know that you’re the common denominator of every relationship? That’s not blaming them. It’s not saying that they are the ultimate cause of whatever has happened to them. But at a certain point, if you find yourself staying where you aren’t loved or what causes you to not love yourself, what are you getting from that? Where did you learn that? Where did that pattern stem from? Does it at all remind you of childhood relationships with your parents, or any caregiver, a teacher? Maybe you got bullied growing up. We call it repetition compulsion. What are you trying to master by recreating the same experience in adulthood? That’s a lot of the work that I do with my clients.
Yes, I’m so glad you said that last piece. Because it does really put it into a frame of yes, there is some responsibility that I’m attracted to this dynamic. I am choosing, perhaps even unconsciously, this relational pattern, and I am participating in it. And also, that there’s a reason, which you just spoke about, is that we are in effort or in search of trying to have a different outcome. But with the unconsciousness, we’re likely going to repeat the drama.
So you’re really helping, and I really appreciate that you’re giving voice to the reparenting. That if due to certain circumstances, or our parents didn’t have the capacity, or caregivers didn’t have the capacity to offer the optimal or more good enough parenting and environment that provides this sense of trust, this sense of initiative and autonomy. That we can, perhaps based on what’s being presented in real-time adult life, but how that connects with those similar feelings and beliefs and experiences, that we can say: Okay, how do I show up for that part of myself? Or what did I need that I didn’t get? Or how do I help give guidance and support to offer that trust? Do I need more consistency? Do I need more predictability? Do I need more emotional regulation? Do I need more feeling like I can reach and you’ll respond? These type of things.
Yes. I think for many clients who didn’t experience what Winnicott says, which most people hear this and they’re like: I’m sorry, it’s how low? 30%. If your parents match about 30%, to use Gottman terms, bids for connection. But really, if your parents attuned to you 30% of the time, that it was enough. I would like to see newer data honestly, but that was enough to have a secure base. I would be curious what the new data would show. I also would imagine there’s some sort of blend between actual statistics and self-report, and there’s a bias obviously, just with research in general. Because it’s like, whoever was incentivized or selected to participate already had, again, an incentive to do it. So when you’re looking at that holding capacity and the attunement level to create a secure attachment is about 30% of the time, then what was happening the other amounts of time, and did the child perceive? Because for me, I always focus on the child’s perception. Even if I’m sitting with an adult who once was a child, like former child, it’s the perception.
So you can have more expansive conversations, and I recommend my clients who have a healthy enough relationship with their parents where it wouldn’t cause abuse or harm, to try to have these conversations. We’re not talking about high level psychological terms. It’s more about can I learn from you? Hey, my childhood was great in all these ways. I’m curious about this piece. I’m working on it in therapy, if you want to be vulnerable. I’m working on it in therapy. I’m not judging you. I’m not shaming you. Because sometimes we go to our parents, and we don’t realize the way that we are wording it and the way it’s landing, we’re only responsible for how we say it, but how it’s landing is the parent sees themselves. Because a lot of the times, they haven’t done the work, it was stigmatized, and they didn’t have access also are factors. They hear themselves as a bad object. And what we know from object relation in psychoanalysis, if I can’t tolerate holding both being a good and bad object, I will split in myself, and I will entirely identify as what I think and perceive you’re accusing me of. This is where we hear the classic trope: I guess I failed as a parent, nothing I ever did was good enough! After all I’ve done for you. I put a roof over your head, I’ve met your minimum basic care needs. Why are you coming back at me with this? Because we also know emotional neglect is equally as traumatizing in many cases as having abuse or other kinds of neglect. It matters because it does imprint on us in our psyche of how we view the world and how love is supposed to or not supposed to be.
So when you take a look at the most reparative work that you can do with your inner parenting, the next step that I recommend is, take that out loud, if it’s safe of course. It might be uncomfortable, but we’re talking about true safety aside. If it’s actually safe, you’re not going to be subject to abuse, go to your parents and try to heal up in the generations. Because that will also help you to heal out in the next generations, that you’re not subconsciously carrying around hurt and resentment and anger that belongs in your parental child relationship, that ends up getting spilled out in your adult romantic relationships. It comes out sideways, because we have no we feel like we have nowhere else to go. And our romantic relationships are the closest—intimately, not sexually, but closeness-wise in intimacy—to our primary relationship with our parents. So if you look at it like that, of course they’re going to trigger you.
People wonder: Well, I didn’t marry my mom or dad! Yes, you did. Unless you’ve done intensive Imago work upon yourself and you know how to undo your subconscious and redo it on your own, which hats off to you if you figured it out, you will end up marrying what feels familiar to you, even if it’s not healthy, because it’s familiar.
“The familiarity trumps a lot of other traits that you would think that you would want, because we don’t really like to take risks as human beings, because evolutionarily, we could die. So in order to survive and stay alive, we’re like, I will pick the familiar hell that I’m used to, rather than the unfamiliar heaven that could be..”
Totally. As you’re saying, the nervous system recognizes that parent-child, that bond and survival, as well as the romantic adult relationship, that our nervous system sees that as survival. So when those threats occur in those bonds, it’s going to be activating to our system.
Okay, so for people listening, I’m fully with you. You’re saying, if there’s possibility and capacity in the relationship, if parents are still alive, or one parent is still alive, that perhaps we can heal up, and if the parent is able to engage in that. Like, I’m curious, when I was crying or if I hurt myself, can you talk to me a little bit about what happened? Can you give some examples around healing up conversations, if that’s a possibility?
So one of the first examples that I give, it’s kind of a Trojan horse question. It feels neutral, but really, it gets to the core. It’s talking to your parents about what their return to work was like, if they were working parents. Again, for most of us, previous generations, they had to be working parents, at least one of them. Then with stay-at-home parents, that’s still working work obviously, it’s working in the home versus out of the home. Just having a discussion of what was my early childhood like, not too personally obviously, depending on your relationship with your parents. I can ask more invasive questions, I think at this point, because they’ve been trained, because they know that’s the level I’m on.
But for the standard person who isn’t a therapist and wants to have these conversations with their parents, asking them, when I was little, how soon did you go back to work? Who watched me when you were at work, if you did? What was some of the most frustrating parts about having a new kid? These are questions that you’ve got to take the temperature of, and that’s why I recommend starting with that.
The Trojan horse part of it is, because of the attunement and attachment, if your parent went back to work at six to eight weeks after you were born, if you were at daycare full-time, or you were with others who may not be as attuned as a family member. So we’re talking like, the furthest one out is a daycare where you don’t really know the person, then there’s family or the tribe or the village caring for the child, which they see the person frequently even into adulthood. That’s the most optimum for attachment, if one or both parents can’t be at home those first three years, those are the most crucial. To being able to ask, healing up, what was that like?
If, again, they mention we went back to work super quickly, or you cried every time that we dropped you off, but we just told you to stiffen up your upper lip, and eventually you stopped. That’s just behavior extinction, that’s not actually the child processing the sadness. That’s why bedtime is also difficult. So you can ask about, what was the toughest time? Did I sleep normally? How did you handle it? Because some parents are like: Oh, we had to drive you all the way around, or we put the car seat on the driver. Like, you can even hear in how they self-reflect, if they’re able to, were they attuned or not, was the effort there?
That’s where adult you who didn’t have, as a child, the critical thinking that you do as an adult, this is where your own reparenting, with that healing up conversation with your parents, you can then piece together: Oh, they did try. They literally tried the best that they could with what they have at the time, and though it will never undo what I perceived or actually experienced as lack of attunement, I get it now. I can have a bit more empathy, or a bit more radical acceptance even, which is when you have to accept something even though you don’t like it or you have very strong feelings about it, because that’s distress tolerance at its finest. I have to accept this, otherwise I will continue to be plagued by it for the rest of my life and be robbed of potential opportunities with romantic partners. That’s usually not the path most people want to take.
So asking those kinds of questions generally. Like, what was it like when you were frustrated? Or how did you handle if I couldn’t calm down? Who else was around when I was growing up? Did you have a best friend or an auntie or an uncle that would help? Asking those kinds of questions can be very illuminating, and it can also help you to piece together. Again, adult you having a conversation with your parents about little you, who still is inside of you in the room, and being able to be having a more cohesive and integrated sense of self. Because you have the answers that you’re searching for in all of these other adult relationships, in the striving and the achievement.
They might tell you, and this happened to me, that: Oh yeah, when you were seven, we remember. And I remember this because I unfortunately have a photographic memory, that I would always get my spelling work and all my homework done before I arrived back at home. Because we had a carpool where I got picked up, we went to get a snack, and then we picked up my brother, so it was like 40 minutes about, and then the drive home. I would always get my homework done in that amount of time. But I remember, the person who would drive us home, they were in our neighborhood, we swapped like a carpool. They would always praise me for how good of a student I was and how smart I was, because look how good she is for getting all of this done. Of course, little me striving on external validation was like: Oh, I’ll do it again, just to impress this person. Ultimately benefited me, because I was a good student. I already liked being a good student.
But it’s those little comments that parents, especially if you don’t have that psycho education, may not think mean much. But could really mean the world, and have been internalized at such a young age, it becomes part of that person’s core beliefs about themselves, about the world, or about others. So that’s where schema therapy can come in. Like, how can we restructure those beliefs to benefit you now as an adult?
Yes, and I’m so glad that you mentioned the internalizing, and also building awareness. That if there’s recognition of like: Oh, they were thinking about me, or I was born right at this moment in grief. Oh, it makes so much sense. It wasn’t me, I wasn’t a problem. It was the circumstances, and I can see how I’ve lived that out, and I didn’t know. Now that I know, I can recognize and understand, and also show up that that might have been missing. Or I didn’t get those certain things, so I can now see, based on circumstances, why I didn’t get it right. Not that I’m flawed or unlovable.
That’s a good way. It wasn’t about me. It was the struggle of my parent trying to be an adult, while also raising a child, while reparenting themselves, but not having the word for it. Essentially, what that looked like was being triggered, sometimes of a very high level, with your child crying, it can be infuriating at times. If you just look at it on the surface, it’s because it’s noise, it’s chaotic. It’s pulling you away from the autonomy that you strive for so many years to have, that you get rid of, when you have a kid, and it goes back to asking your parents for permission to go out again, because they have to watch the baby, or asking someone for permission. That you feel triggered also because it takes you back, whether you know it or not—obviously, usually not, because it’s your subconscious—no one met my needs as a baby when I cried. Maybe they were there 20% of the time. Maybe they were there 80% of the time. The ones who had higher levels of attunement don’t struggle as much, typically, with attuning to their own child, because they internalize what that felt like.
“If you’ve felt it before, it’s easier to give it. It’s a struggle for many people to give what they were never given, and not taught how to give also.”
So that’s where I think the healing up conversations can be very beneficial for the parent also, to take with them, if they are still alive, for the rest of their life. Even if you had a strenuous relationship for many years, oftentimes, those healing up conversations can give you maybe a solid three to five years, where if they pass on and they’re no longer with us, there’s not that felt sense of hurt and resentment and anger and vitriol that you’re holding on to for the rest of your life, that you never got to address with your parent. I recommend, if they’re still around, even if it’s uncomfortable, try, make an attempt towards this. Because what if it works out? What if it doesn’t? You’re in the exact same spot, and you’re like: Okay, I knew this about them, further confirmed. Then you can have radical acceptance.
But what if you tried and it does work out, and you have a better relationship with them? Most people are uncomfortable with what could be different. You mean I could have a healthy relationship? But then I wouldn’t have something to blame all my problems on. So sometimes people block themselves from healing because they get stuck in their own dysfunction, and they know it. It’s familiar. They’d rather not change it, because it also gives them a position to not have to take responsibility for their own healing.
And it can be terrifying, as you mentioned, the unknown. I would add, I know we’re getting a little psychological here, and I love it, that even if a parent has passed, there’s even the empty chair technique or Gestalt. For people who don’t know, do you want to describe what that is?
Yeah, so you don’t have to do it in therapy. It can get very intense. So if you have a therapist, I recommend doing it with somebody who’s trained. If you were trying to “microdose” this on your own and do it yourself, like DIY empty chair. The concept is that you speak as if the person were in the room with you, whether they’re alive or not, and what do you really want to say to them without a filter? Usually, clients start with the surface level. Then we get really into it, and they’re like: Well, I didn’t realize I was holding all that inside. You could do this out loud, that narrative. You could also do this in a letter, and that’s where I recommend grief counseling.
There’s a specific style of grief counseling where it takes you through understanding myths about grief and loss. Loss is not only for when someone has died, it’s for when you didn’t get the relationship you wanted. You got a job, there could be grief of having to leave an old job. It’s whether you have a gain or a loss, grief is involved. It takes you through a specific narrative that then you can write a letter to this person, you go over the highs and lows of the timeline of your life with them, and you can write a letter to them.
You can either forgive, which is to give as you gave before, so you don’t have as much of those angry feelings. Or what I like to teach, is acknowledgement and release. I acknowledge that all of these things happened, and I release it from having power over me anymore. I release it from causing me to get blocked from what I really want in my life. Then the way that you interact, both with yourself and this person that you’ve done that grief work around, is so much more neutral, and you have a much more enjoyable and positive experience in your life. Because you’ve addressed all of that stuff that can either come out in the empty chair technique, or when you’re doing narrative therapy or journaling, you have relief. You are not holding on.
Anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die, I think is somewhat of a phrase. That’s very true if you’re holding on to those beliefs that block you from achieving your personal goals and achieving your relational goals. It’s something that you have to compartmentalize, but ideally tend to, eventually. Otherwise, it’s just like an emotional trash compactor, and we all know those things get jammed up from time to time. Then you call us, we’re the mechanic essentially, if you’re the trash compactor. We’re doing a metaphor. Then we help you get unstuck, and we help you to not be as apprehensive or feel like you have no power in achieving your goals. So I’m a lot about empowerment and taking responsibility, and how can you change it even if you can’t change others? How can you meet your goals, and how can you have the relationship you desire?
Part of what we’re speaking about here, that you’re really helping give example to, is the ability to process and metabolize my own experiences, integrate, and be more organized about some of these things that could have been traumatic or really overwhelming or difficult. So as we build awareness, we have insight, we have understanding, we have a different felt experience around it.
I would add, with empty chair, I don’t know if you’ve ever done this, but it’s also part of the exercise, or can be, where if one is speaking to the empty chair of the lost loved one or the one that’s not available—in this case, we’re talking about a parent—that we might actually go back and forth and have a dialog. So I’ll say something, and then give a self a minute. Then I’ll actually go sit in the position of the person, and I will just feel what comes up. It might be a response that I was like, oh! It’s not from the head. It just feels organically, naturally, the right thing. Then it can be a back and forth exchange. That could be a version of this healing up that you’re referring to, and also gaining insight and awareness around: Oh okay, it doesn’t change the circumstance, but the way that I’ve internalized it, the way that I might have a constellation around it, or my tendency around it, my system around it. Then I’m a little bit better equipped to now give the amending things that help me. Because it’s not all this unresolved, unconscious, I don’t even know why I’m choosing into these things, and it’s familiar, and I’m looking for a resolve, but yet I’m not really quite aware. So I can be much more intentional.
Okay, so I know we’re talking about individual growth, and also, how it is in relationship often. One of the things you wanted to talk about, towards the end of our interview here, was just the ability to hold on to self, one’s own pursuits. We were talking about the stage of differentiation, how to hold on to self in the midst of loved ones who maybe disagree or don’t approve, and how to tolerate that discomfort. Would you like to say a little bit about how this is important, what it looks like?
So when we’re taking a look at maintaining our sense of self and our sense of individuality, relationship notwithstanding, or relationship status notwithstanding, the reason why what we just went on the journey of is so important is that’s all part of your intrapsychic structure. That’s all part of who you are and who you will be, regardless of your partnership status.
“When we are not as skilled, I will say it that way, in knowing self and maintaining a sense of self, it can become blurry. It can become muddied. It’s like watercolor, where the boundaries are very diffuse, versus if you’re coloring between the lines. We want somewhere in the middle.”
We want you to feel as though you’re coloring in the lines. But there may not be a visible line, you just kind of know when to stop. You’re like: This is where I am, and this is where you begin. But I know where that is differentiated.
So for other people who, again, do not have as many skills in knowing who they are and being able to vocalize who they are to others, they might find themselves struggling either to find or keep a relationship. It’s not necessarily the partner’s fault. It’s not necessarily because you have a picking problem. It’s sometimes all of those things in combination. Well, I can’t get my wants and needs met. It’s a classic one that I hear. I can’t get my wants and needs met in this relationship or any of the other ones. No one I ever date is good enough for me. I’m not good enough for anybody else. What if the person abandons me? What if the person engulfs me? A lot of those patterns that you see relationally, and this could be romantically, this could be in jobs, this could be with friends and family, collegially, like platonic relationships. If I don’t have a strong sense of myself, I also probably don’t have the skills to vocalize what I want and need, because knowing what I want and need is part of knowing myself. Who am I? What do I want and what do I need? How then can I ask for that from my relationships, without the fear of abandonment, without the fear of engulfment, and with the knowledge and the empowerment that if this relationship can’t meet those wants and needs, I have a strong enough sense of self to not be in it. Or to try to modify it, and if that doesn’t work, to not be in it any longer, and go find somebody who can meet my wants and needs.
For so long, this could be a whole other discussion, so I will keep it brief. But for so long, we weren’t teaching people how to know and learn their wants and needs or vocalize them out loud. We’ve transcended that, I think we’ve made a lot of progress in that in society. There are still a lot of people, generationally, who struggle with that, understandably; they weren’t given the education of how to do that. So when I work with clients on identifying that, you can look at it from a surface level, like, you need food. So start with those. Ask somebody: Hey, I’m going to go grab whatever for lunch, do you want to join me? That also meets the need for social connection. That’s a safer need to start with, rather than like: I need emotional validation, I need support, I need reassurance.
When you can flex the muscle of asking for what you want and need, a glass of water is very neutral, and that feels comfortable and not like you’re going to crawl out of your skin, then you can start to ask for the deeper wants and needs, and you can ask for them sooner rather than later in the relationship. So many people fall in love with the fantasy in the beginning of a relationship, and the more space you have to fantasize, the more room you have to get hurt, because that person isn’t real. You’re not in a relationship with the real person in front of you. You’re in a relationship with who you think they could be, with their potential, with your own projective identification of them, if they choose to take it or not. That is also so crucial to talk about, because your individual sense of self is going to become questioned in the relationship if you’re with somebody who has a strong sense of self. You know that when you meet the person and they’re like, whoa, they really know themselves! It could be off putting for somebody who doesn’t have a strong sense of self yet, and we’re able to learn that. It’s something that we can learn, if we choose to.
Yes. Just to the importance of this, over time, if one partner is really clearly defined and very comfortable being assertive and strong, or even occupying or being a little bit more dominant, and the other isn’t, the trajectory of that could be the relationship starts to really represent the stronger partner. It can be very unfulfilling on many levels. So for people recognizing that they could gain some skill to be more defined, to be able to negotiate relationship with this sense of self, you’re giving some examples that could be very concrete and easily identifiable. Like, I’m hungry, I’m tired, I need to go to sleep.
It’s interesting, and you might have come across this, or if not, you might appreciate it. I remember coming across, I don’t think it was published, but it was shared with me. If you imagine a figure eight or the infinity sign, I think it came out of some dissertation research looking at somatic psychology, but it related to Couplehood. I think what the person was really trying to identify was the point of conflict in that middle. If you imagine, one side represents closeness, intimacy, and the other side represents individuation, autonomy, separateness. That most conflict occurs when we’re initiating closeness and intimacy, or we’re initiating separateness. The likelihood, if we’re talking about a monogamous relationship, of two people to be synced up and want the same amount, at the same time, the same frequency, of intimacy and autonomy. Because we need both, that’s what we’re talking about is balance. To initiate, that I want some alone time, or I’m going to go for a walk by myself, or whatever it is, or to initiate open arms and reach. I’m not sure if you would agree with that.
I do agree with it. I think it mirrors, at least from what I’ve studied, the cycle of EFT. That also has the infinity symbol, where it’s the point of conflict, but on the top of it is anger, defensiveness, what have you, to protect you against underneath. But they slice it in this way on the figure eight, in both hamburger and hot dog style. But underneath is all of the more vulnerable, maybe the shame. I’m not saying negative in a negative sense, but the unfulfilled parts of the virtues we were talking about. This is where mistrust, where shame and doubt, where guilt, all of those emotions can live underneath those surface level reactions. That when we’re trying to meet our own needs and the needs of the relationship, that can mirror or look similar to, in a relationship, I’m trying to meet the needs of separateness and closeness.
To your point, maybe couples who have been highly attuned for a long period of time can time it more congruently. But that’s the struggle, that we have limerence for about 18 to 24 months, where we think the world revolves around them and they’re phenomenal and they can do no wrong. Then you start to see them as a real self, where the veil is lifted. You’re like: Oh my God, you always chew that way, you’re so annoying! Like, ew, you clip your toenails? What is going on here? Then you enter into the power struggle, which is not only trying to get back what you had in limerence, it’s also trying to assert dominance. And who’s going to have what, and how much of it are we going to have, and who’s going to decide it? Not every couple survives the power struggle. The ones who do enter that committed, companionate, compassionate. If we’re looking at Sternberg’s triangular theory of love, they have all the aspects. They have the passion, the intimacy, and the commitment. That takes time, that takes compromise, that takes negotiation. For the individuals and couples that I work with, it comes full circle. Because it’s like, you have a strong sense of self to survive and function healthily in a relationship.
The couples who make it through to what most everybody is striving for and what media says is the ultimate best, you have to understand that what you want as a self will not always happen. So you have to have that sense of self to eventually not give up the sense of self, but learn when is the right time for you to lean in and get more of your needs met, and when is the right time to lean out and maybe have your partner get more of their needs met? It’s not a 50-50, perfectly. It’s more about, how do I compromise without compromising myself, and how do I make sacrifices without sacrificing myself, to have a mutually beneficial relationship? That’s the work that takes many years, and ideally, it is worth the wait. Because you are learning about yourself, you’re learning about your partner, and you’re tending to, like we talked about for the first part of the interview, all of those relational childhood unmet needs that are your job, no matter who you’re with, to tend to. You just happen to be with this partner. It’s still always your responsibility. Your childhood is your responsibility to go heal in adulthood. If your partner is game to help you in couples’ therapy, all the better. But don’t pin it on them, because it’s not about them, it’s about you. They just happen to be a mirror of what’s healed and unhealed.
Yes. I was listening to you as you were talking about developmental stages, and one of the frameworks that I like to reference is the five developmental stages of emotional intimacy. The last stage is the more synergistic stage, and that when we’re in that stage of real secure functioning, we can be out in the world, and it’s much more generative. We’re able to give, and the relationship nourishes and supports. It does support our individual pursuits, or maybe the couple is working together on some venture, or something to be helpful in the world in some way. So it is all related, and they do help each other when it’s functioning in this place of health that we work towards.
You have so much to share! I love that you have a photographic memory. I’m like, oh my goodness, how helpful!
I wish I could put it into a flash drive and get some of that out.
Oh, so great! Well, how do people get connected to you and what you’re offering? Tell us a little more.
So personally, am most active on Instagram. So I’ll actually message back, and I do Q&A’s about once a week, and that’s where people can learn more about the couple of podcasts that I have. I try to take reels, the best clips, and post it. So people get a sample of it, even if they don’t want to listen to the whole episode. Then I teach a class about a lot of what we talked about today. It’s called Rewire Your Relationships. So again, Trojan horse. It talks about, you can have a secure attachment, you can have all of these things. Then once they get inside, I’m like, we’re going to start with you. They’re like, I thought this was… I’m like, it is, just wait. Buckle up until the last week of class, because that’s when it really comes, like we talked, full circle. So that’s available at the link in my bio on Instagram. Again, it’s called Rewire Your Relationships. Then I use, I think it’s called Metricool, somebody told me about it. It posts to all the other platforms. So Pinterest, YouTube. I don’t think I’m on LinkedIn, I prefer to be linked out. But Facebook, yeah, I think all of those ones are covered. So you can find me almost anywhere by just Googling my name.
Wonderful! I will make sure to have all of these links on today’s show notes. Thank you so much for joining me today. It’s been such a great conversation, and I can tell how much you have to offer. I imagine many people will be benefiting from your teachings.
I hope so. If you liked this episode, let us know. I’m always curious to hear when people have these aha moments to be like: Oh, I never thought of it. I love learning. I love when people learn from what I’ve learned. I think that’s the coolest part of the job.
Super cool.
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Does the way society has dictated gender roles affect the dynamics in your relationship? Many of us are conditioned from a young age to adhere to certain gender roles, often seeking validation and traits from our partners that we feel we lack within ourselves. This deep-rooted socialization can result in an unhealthy dynamic, impacting the harmony and health of our relationships. How can we reclaim and integrate these vital energies within ourselves to create stronger, more authentic connections?
In this episode, we explore how traditional gender conditioning influences our expectations and behaviors in relationships. Through a deeply insightful discussion, this episode offers practical strategies for recognizing and integrating both masculine and feminine energies in everyday life. Reflecting on personal experiences, societal dynamics, and spiritual perspectives, this episode provides tools to foster emotional maturity, authenticity, and harmony in your relationships. Join us to understand the importance of inner balance and discover how to step into a more empowered version of yourself.
Dené Logan, AMFT, is a marriage and family therapist, spiritual teacher, and author of Sovereign Love: A Guide to Healing Relationships by Reclaiming the Masculine and Feminine Within. She is cohost of the weekly podcast Cheaper Than Therapy, which gives listeners a behind-the-scenes look at coaching sessions with actual clients, interviews with thought leaders in the field of mental health and wellness, and a bird’s-eye view into two therapists hashing out their current life struggles and perspectives on various hot topics. She lives in Los Angeles.
In this episode
6:35 Deńe Logan’s journey: From being a spiritual seeker and yoga teacher to becoming a therapist who specializes in couples work.
13:05 Redefining relational success and embracing the spiritual journey in relationships.
23:26 Balancing masculine and feminine energies in modern society.
46:51 Healing relationships through inner child connection and energy awareness.
Your Check List of Actions to Take
- Take time to journal or meditate on how societal gender norms have shaped your behaviors and expectations in relationships.
- Identify activities or practices that reconnect you with both your feminine and masculine energies.
- Spend time in nature, establishing rituals like grounding exercises or mindful walks to rediscover innate wisdom and balance.
- Develop skills to hold space for your partner’s emotions, acknowledging their fears and pain points without attempting to fix them immediately.
- Set up a daily or weekly routine that includes both productivity-oriented (masculine) and relaxation/nurturing (feminine) activities.
- Make conscious choices about your relational behaviors, aiming for authentic interactions rather than defaulting to gender-conditioned responses.
Mentioned
Sovereign Love: A Guide to Healing Relationships by Reclaiming the Masculine and Feminine Within (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of “A Course in Miracles” (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
Shifting Criticism For Connected Communication
Connect with Dené Logan
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Podcast: denelogan.com/podcast
Connect with Dr. Jessica Higgins
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Twitter: @DrJessHiggins
Website: drjessicahiggins.com
Email: jessica@drjessicahiggins.com
About Today’s Show
Dené, thank you for being with us today. I’m excited about our conversation.
Gosh, thank you so much for having me, Jessica. I’m thrilled to get to sit down with you.
Yes. Just even our brief chatting before our start here, just really recognizing how you’re being of service and really helping people understand concepts that help elevate and help their development in the human experience. We’re going to be talking about the masculine and feminine and how that fits in relationship.
For people who maybe aren’t acquainted with you, where would you like to start, as far as people knowing where you’re coming from and a little bit about you?
So I’m a marriage and family therapist, and I’m located in LA. I work primarily with couples. It’s interesting. Before we started recording, we were talking a little bit about my experience of moving to LA and being a spiritual seeker. I think I’ve always been fascinated by, certainly, how our human minds work and what drives our behavioral patterns. But I’ve always, for whatever reason, been really drawn to the understanding of the larger existential questions of, like: what are we doing here, what happens when we leave these bodies? I think from an age where it was like all of my friends were in their early 20s, maybe partying, and I was doing that too. But I always was really drawn to Oprah’s Soul series, and I feel like she would have all of these spiritual teachers on that would be talking about the experience of life in a way that just resonated so deeply and made me feel like something was being connected, like these puzzle pieces were being put together for me. I’ve always just had such a love for that spiritual-seeking. I was a yoga teacher for many years here in LA, and I feel like what’s interesting about yoga, I don’t know if you do.
I practice, and it’s very much a part of me. When I don’t, I’m like, I need to do my yoga. It’s so part of just my self-care and even my mental health. I’m just in a different state when I can be breathing and integrating and then being in that embodied practice. So yes, I’m very much a fan and practicer.
Yeah, so you get it, and you’ll understand. So often, I think the somatic experience brings a lot of things to the surface that have been dormant. So often, we’ll have a lot of emotions that come to the surface after really juicy practice, and people would feel really emotional and want to talk to me about what was coming up a lot of times after yoga. I’d be like: Oh, I don’t know, I’m not actually super equipped for the level of what you’re talking about here. But I was very curious, and felt like I would like to be. I feel like there were a few yoga teachers that I practiced with that did work around spiritual psychology and understanding some of the Eastern practices through the lens of the psyche, and I was fascinated by that.
So I went back to grad school and became a therapist. But what ended up being a little bit different about, I guess, the way that I practice therapy, is I was really drawn to couples’ work. I don’t know if you’ve experienced this, Jessica, but both therapists, from my perspective, either really like working with couples, or they’re like: No, I don’t want to work with couples, keep the couples away from me. Or at least that was certainly my experience of my practicum, and a lot of my colleagues that I would talk to would share a similar sentiment. But I loved working with couples. Right from the start, I was like: Oh, this is fascinating. I felt like I could sort of translate for each person what I was seeing, that maybe their partner was struggling to resonate with, in a way that just felt like: Oh, we can bring a little bit of harmony, this is possible. But the clinical lens of psychology, from my perspective, wasn’t really talking about this work of partnering with another person through the lens of our soul.
I think that so much about the way that I understand psychology and the work that I do is through a little bit more of a spiritual lens, depth psychology. I’m saying depth, and people are always like, are you saying death psychology? But depth psychology, which is really rooted in a lot of Jungian principles, really talks about psychology through the lens of the soul, and these through lines throughout different points of history and culture and archetypes and myth, and all of these ways of understanding the larger context of what this human experience is. I kind of thought to myself, well, nobody is really talking about couples work through that lens, from my perspective. Like, what is it to walk beside another soul and share our lives in a conscious way. I know, in my relationship, that wasn’t something that I was certainly conditioned to think about, in terms of like, what is holding this other soul as sacred, and what they came here in terms of their dharma and their life path? Thinking about love and relationships through that lens.
So I found that working with couples in that way really gave me a particular way of experiencing what couples work was and could be, and it really started to shift things a little bit for the couples that I was working with, in a way that I felt really inspired by. So that’s kind of the long story of how I got to do the work I’m doing, I guess.
It’s so helpful, and I very much resonate with what you’re describing. I am curious, I have a few different people that are in my mind as you’re talking. It’s very much a part of my work, although I’m not very explicit about it. But what I will say in the beginning of every podcast, in my intro and outro, I’m talking about the journey of intimacy, and how often what gets ignited or gets presented or emerges in the dynamic is an opportunity for growth, and that the vehicle of intimacy can be a real spiritual teacher. I say a teacher, but in the sense of what you’re describing in this soulful way. I appreciate you’re referencing the depth psychology. I have a friend who’s actually in the program at Pacifica University, and I’m sure you could do a whole podcast and miniseries on depth psychology.
And what I appreciate, and I think you also bring into your work, is this collective consciousness. So when you’re talking about archetypes, I think a lot of people will be familiar with the hero’s journey and the struggle and what we gain. I had a client yesterday, and she was just saying, I want to be open to the magic of the journey. She was talking about a couple of weeks of just intense difficulty, where the human circumstances of it were very challenging, and also, how she was being with herself in a way that allowed for more of that presencing to do the deeper work. Really, so often, she’s like: I’m so that ambitious one, over-functioning, trying to get to whatever goal externally, and whatever other arrival point might be. She’s like, I just don’t want to lose the magic of the journey. So it was really beautiful hearing her say that. At any rate, my dissertation was unconscious intimate relationship. I remember when you were talking, and even as we’re going to pivot towards masculine and feminine, I don’t know if you’re a fan of John Welwood’s work.
Oh my gosh, yes!
His work is so poetic, and he really talks about this dynamic of being witnessed in a way to your significant other in this soulful way. So anyway, I referenced a few other people in the writing. Because, just last thing I’ll say here is, I had a real difficult relationship experience that brought me into a deep level of grief and my own transformation, that then prompted me to look at relating and intimacy differently. It was like: Okay, so I’m a master’s, I’m an undergrad, I grew up as we were talking in very progressive New Thought principles, and I felt very ill-equipped to be really negotiating relationship in this very conscious and awake way. Not to say that that’s a binary thing, all or nothing, but just even the frame of it. So I do think it’s really important to have voice around, and I’m really grateful to be sharing this conversation with you and for the work you’re doing, and being so clear about the focus in this spiritual lens in relationship.
Well, thank you for that, Jessica. It’s interesting, I joke a lot of times that I was a yoga teacher for over 10 years that never said the word God in class. I was really conscious of attempting not to activate people, understanding that so many of us have pain points around organized religion and ways that it’s felt like it’s been weaponized along our journey and things like that. Also, that we can just have complex relationships with all of those things, and I think there’s something in what you were saying about your client that I’ve come to understand about the way that our Western society has really removed the ethereal and the magic from our experience, and that that’s a normalized thing. That even when we’re in these dark periods, that we are being initiated into the next phase and iteration of self, and that it’s like there’s magic even in that, in the mud that creates the Lotus.
“I think if we talk about it in terms of relationships, they are often the most potent catalyst into our ways of being, because we’re just so devastated and broken open and willing. It feels like a rock bottom of sorts, a lot of times, when we are in that space of heartbreak. I believe that’s by design, that we experience it that way.”
But I think we don’t really have a container for that, because nobody normalizes these initiatory periods. I certainly feel like the last, well, five years especially, have been quickening or expediting that process of me being just like: No, this is really what I feel like, I need to name that what I do is bringing the soul work into this experience of relationships. But I’m saying all that to say, I might not have held it that way five years ago when working with clients.
Yes, and just the respect and the sensitivity that I’m hearing you reference around how someone might experience their relationship to higher power God, and the dynamic of that, that there’s a real regard. And as you talk about soulfulness, that really allows for the person to feel inside themselves, their higher self, or however they might define it. But just even an ability to bring acknowledgement. Is that what I’m hearing?
I love that. I think so often, I will say, to me, the differentiation between religion and spirituality, because people ask sometimes. I think, to me, all of the religions, and I’m by no means a religious scholar, but they are all just these beautiful expressions of the human desire to understand what we’re doing here. I think religion, to me, is like, this is the answer as it’s laid out by some external authority. Whereas, to me, spirituality is like, you are meant to find your own answers, you’re meant to formulate your truth for yourself. Maybe here’s some tools to help you formulate that, but that your truth is your own. So I often say, I have no ability, nor, frankly, any interest in you what your truth should be. But here’s some tools that have been supportive of me along my journey that might help you define that for yourself.
Yeah, and be in contact with, and perhaps give space for the internal intelligence and connection with. And to have, again, the acknowledgement, so that there can be a development perhaps, if one is interested and willing. And to see their relationship as what is being evoked as spiritual curriculum.
Yes, absolutely.
I remember when you were talking, Marianne Williamson wrote a book, she wrote many books, but one was, I think, Return to Love. You’ve read it?
Yeah.
I read it when I was in this relationship I was describing that brought me to a very intense place, and she was describing something very similar about the soul work and how confronting and also what we might face. I think maybe she was even referencing going through the fire. Anyway, I’ll reference, there was an excerpt in there that related to my experience. It was essentially like, I don’t know if you remember this, I won’t go into great detail because I want to talk about what we’re going to talk about. But it was essentially like, she was using the analogy of the train, and we have a ticket.
You might be able to describe it better. But my felt remembering of it is like, we’re going to go on this journey together, and we’re going to be in this very beautiful. I think she even referenced, we’re these two angels or something, and we’re taking this train to this beautiful place. And they’re basically saying, I’m not going, whatever version that is. You might plead. Or maybe the angel was crying and weeping, like, why are they saying no? Just this whole thing, and yet, people have choice. Even though there’s an opportunity and an invitation, that we can choose to not participate, and that can be incredibly confronting. That was confronting for me at the time. And also, to spiritually say: Okay, they have choice, and I respect and honor. And also, the devastation and the grief and the loss around the no, and the why around that. Anyway, I don’t think I’m describing it well, I won’t particularly go too deep into that. But there’s a lot of people writing beautiful things.
No, I think you described it beautifully, and I think I remember what you’re referencing. But I think there’s an idea that we’re raised with, and a lot of the way that I work with couples is sort of challenging this idea that we are conditioned to believe in, that relational success, or a relationship is successful I guess, when it is based on longevity. That when something ends prematurely, or that the season that I hoped this relationship would extend through, is not the case, and that that means I failed or it wasn’t real. I don’t believe that to be true. I have had very brief collisions with another person that I have been forever changed by. You can’t tell me that that wasn’t a part of my divine assignment and our divine assignment.
“I really believe we have these soul contracts with other people, that they come into our lives for a season, a reason, maybe a lifetime, but not always.”
But I think if we look at the Buddhist aspect or way of holding, bringing it into our relationship is, if we hold whatever the sacred thing or this dynamic between us like water in our hands. Instead of attempting to grasp and hold on to it, we just hold it as this sacred thing that I get to bear witness to and be with for as long as it’s aligned. It just brings a different energetic, I find, to our relationships than when we’re really trying to grasp and hold on and control, certainly from a space of our understandable human fears. But I think some of our work is to really challenge that and be in the inquiry within ourselves. Like, what else could be true, other than if this person isn’t continuing on the train with me, that that means it was any less beautiful, this time that we spent together?
Even as we’re talking, I think I’ll just say for myself, even a sense of what might look, on the outside, with my significant other, like resistance, or not wanting to participate in something that I’m super excited about or passionate about. It could be something very small, just like an idea about where we might go for a trip or something. And to be in a place of unacceptance or attachment, like you’re describing, and this balance, which might pivot us into the masculine and feminine. I do appreciate the energies of leadership and drive and creating and having goals that is maybe associated with more of the masculine, and then more of the allowing and the surrendering and the presencing and the receiving of what we might associate with the feminine traits and energies.
The same client I was talking to, I don’t know if you’ve ever come across Ken Wilber’s work, he does Integral theory. It’s this developmental framework for consciousness. His late wife was talking about this terminology of passionate equanimity, which she’s like, I love a lot of the Buddhist principles of non-attachment, and just so much of suffering is related to attachment. But she’s like, I also want to be passionate and engaged, and I feel like I want to honor that. So she was talking about, can we do passionate equanimity? I feel this is what you’re describing, like holding with presence. It’s not: Oh, I’m going to do me, and I don’t really care. I’m unattached, or I really could care one way or another. Not that that’s a Buddhist framework. But I think in more modern, as you’re talking about Western framework, having an ability to have both. Tell me where you’re at and where you come from here. Because I don’t spend a ton of time talking about masculine and feminine, yet it is so within each person and in the relationship. So please, I would love to hear.
Well, I love what you’re saying. Let me just start, I think, for those who aren’t familiar with masculine and feminine energetics, by naming that while I will talk about masculine and feminine in ways that we often refer to in the context of gender, these energetics aren’t gendered. They are alive within all of us, certainly beyond Jungian psychology, and the history of all of our wisdom traditions have spoken about these energetics in their own way, whether they’re speaking about the energetics of sun/moon, Yin and Yang, dominance/submissive, we could go on and on. There’s so many different ways to name these polarities that exist within all of us. Carl Jung spoke of them as the Anima and the Animus, and the Anima was sort of the feminine aspects of a man, and the Animus was the masculine aspects of a woman. We have since come to understand that they’re just a lot more nuanced than that, and that’s just a really simplistic way of describing these energetics. But the truth remains that these energetics are alive within all of us.
From my perspective, we have been living in what I would think of as a really wounded or distorted version of a masculine-focused society for oh so long, since the dawn of patriarchy, and really not held with reverence or really had a clear idea of what healthy feminine energetics are within ourselves. So what it does is it certainly leads to a society that is out of balance. We’ve put the focus on these wounded masculine characteristics, like hyper-productivity and competition and control. And really, when we think of the feminine, we think of distorted or wounded feminine energetics, like clinging and fear and anxiety, and needing to hold on to things and grasp. All of those are sort of the wounded variations of the feminine. Whereas, I don’t feel like we have actually a lot of models of what healthy masculine or feminine energetics look like.
And what you were just describing about this thing of wanting to feel the passion, which is the feminine, the aliveness, the sensuality, the life force, the Rajas as we like to call it sometimes. I would say, the desire to feel like, but I also want to be in action, I also want to do something. I don’t want to just be in this passive space. That’s really us not holding on to the idea of control. Because I think, a lot of times where we feel like if I am in my feminine space, or if I’m in the trusting and the allowing life to unfold, then that means that I’m not really living, I’m just sort of passive. I would say the opposite. It’s like, allowing yourself to fully live without an attachment to the outcome, believing and really trusting that no matter what, you’re going to be held. So I feel like the more that I work to integrate these energetics within myself, the more that I am living. But I’m sort of in that space of yes to all of the healthy masculine action within me, and I have confidence in who I am, and that’s the healthy masculine within me, that I can do this because I’m going to go for it. But that has to be rooted in this healthy feminine sense of: because I am source, embodied in a human being, and I’m always connected to a life force of wisdom that will hold me through whatever the outcome is.
I think if we circle back to what we were saying about heartbreak, I think when we feel these moments that really hurt, the natural human response and the ego response, understandably, is to not want to feel that again. That felt awful, right? So we then defend against pain at all costs. But I think our work is really to see it in the larger hero’s journey, as you were speaking about. Like, that dark period was the dragon I had to slay to understand the thing I was meant to understand during that period of time. So none of it was wasted, none of it was anything other than what I was meant to go through during that time, and I was alchemized by that. I was really forever changed through that experience. So ultimately, hopefully, at some point we become grateful for those experiences. But to me, that is the understanding of how we’re in this interplay of these energetics between the doing and the being, and the trusting and really moving into that space of mission and inspired action, and back and forth forever.
Thank you. I’m just recognizing, my brain is just calculating as I’m listening, and what I’m hearing as you’re talking about the imbalance of more of the Western modern way, that there could be a way to give more attention to the feminine without so much maybe fear of the masculine being non-existent. I’ll just personalize this. So if I know how to get things done by being proactive, having lists, being goal-oriented, I can even feel this as I’m speaking. Even as you were talking, I can feel the disembodiment of being very much in my head and grinding, and what that requires of me, perhaps to override, as far as: Oh, I haven’t been outside today, or I haven’t really slowed down to really check in around how is my breath and how is my body?
I mean, I’m very committed to my self-care, but there’s nuance to this, as you’re describing. Versus—and this might not be what you’re saying, but I would love your feedback—that when I can have my focus and my intentions that might be goal-oriented, but the way in which I’m existing, that it’s not a tightness and a constriction around: Oh, if I don’t grind, it’s not going to happen. It’s more of just: Oh, I’m going to be in relationship. Actually, speaking with spirituality, when I’m in this place, I feel like I’m making more room for divine sparks or new ideas to come that are better than ever I could have come up with, that I’m feeling more co-creative with life happening around me. So that’s my sense of how you’re describing it.
But I guess my bigger question was, for people that haven’t spent a lot of time contemplating these things, have been breathing and living in more of this imbalance, where’s the place that maybe you would help people start to recognize and maybe make room for more balanced masculine and feminine. Then I did a personal share with that.
I love that. It’s interesting, because I was really feeling as you were saying that, Jessica. I think that so much of that is that, I would say all of us, but certainly as women, as a survival strategy and an attempt to really keep ourselves safe, we are in this space of constant productivity. What I realized about myself a few years ago, is that a lot of times, as a distraction, as a way of defending against the things that I was just afraid of confronting, or really ways that I was afraid of stepping into the next version of myself or more powerful version of myself, out of fear that I would be exiled or turned away from. Or that people wouldn’t love me, or the rejection wounds that surround that. And what I realized was, I’m a Capricorn, I can keep myself busy constantly, and I will. And a lot of times, there are things that weren’t from the space of the inspired action of what my soul was really, really hungry for, but that I was afraid to do or step into. That’s just a very different energetic. I feel like I don’t even have to go into the specifics of that, because I feel like every client I’ve ever worked with, they know what that thing is. You know what you’re hungry for, that a little bit scares you. Like, when you think about stepping into that Capital-S Self, as I like to call it, in that way, it’s a little bit scary for you.
It’s a little bit that thing of feeling like, we all have these two needs. That thing for, like: we need to belong, we need to feel like we are part of the community and we are accepted and loved and have these attachments. But then we also need authenticity, and we also need the feminine aliveness and Eros and life force that comes when we’re in that space that’s outside of our comfort zone, and we’re challenged with doing something that scares us a little bit. So the attempt to balance those is that, a lot of times, I’m challenging myself to look at where the productivity is coming from. This is circling back to what you were saying about Marianne Williamson’s book, Return to Love. Am I being driven by that space of fear that I’m not enough, fear that I will be judged? Or is it really coming from the space of love? Is it coming from what gives me that authentic sense of aliveness and excitement, and I’m doing this, and even if I fail, I tried? That energetic, it’s a very different feeling, and most of us don’t live the majority of our lives in that space of the feminine, because we’ve really been conditioned to defend against that.
Oh my gosh, I’m thinking I’m going to have to contact you and get a session with you. I just recognize what lives in me, even as you’re talking, I think it has a lot to do with being in a place of service and really honoring. So much of that programming, I think, in more of the traditional sense, like: I’m not an academic. I have a PhD, but I don’t identify with a lot of those characteristics. Yet, what it took for me to actually go through and get that goal, it’s a lot. It is fear in the sense of, I want to do right by or want to deliver in the best way possible. But this is so much of my programming. It almost feels, even as I say it, like: Ooh, I’ve been not honoring the feminine, like I can’t trust it as much. I even feel emotional talking about it, just how sad is that that I feel that there’s more value in the masculine than I do in the feminine, at least professionally? So I can appreciate just the impact of programming and just how I am internalizing that. This has been on my radar for many, many years. So I just recognize how powerful it is.
Oh, just feeling a wave of that throughout my entire being. I think it’s because what you’re talking about is so much bigger than the two of us. It’s like, what I have found, this generational pain point that has been passed down through all of us. I was about to say through women, but then I corrected myself. Because I think we’re living through a moment in time where we’re really in this space of reckoning with where we have outsourced our safety and our security. That as long as I follow a structure that an external authority has laid out or said it’s the letters behind your name that will keep you safe, or even in relationships, the way that you do this that will keep you safe and you won’t be left. One, the way that that keeps us from fully living, and I would say, being of service in the way that we are uniquely qualified with our particular brand of practicing.
“When we’re in that space of contraction that comes when we’re doing things based on what we’re afraid of, that has consequences. It’s the energetic of what we’re pushing down that keeps trying to find its way to the surface. It’s the shadow elements of who we are.”
So we can try to relegate our shadow to the basement, but it’ll be like: You will integrate me, you will see me! So I think we’re being confronted with that collectively, I guess is what I’m saying.
I appreciate you holding space for what’s the emotion and just giving a little bit of room for that, just even the gender piece. I have a lot of men that I work with that really struggle with these aspects of their own presencing and developing more emotional maturity and emotional intelligence, and how that lives in concert or in connection with the traditional masculine achievement, and how to operate at a high level. A lot of attorneys, CEOs, I have people doing really important work in the world, and the confines of what that looks like, and how that actually lives with more of the feminine. I can feel the difficulty and the pain of many people challenged with how this fits, how it is more imbalanced.
I have something that is being birthed right now around, as a woman, how to hold space for what I am witnessing coming to the surface for our brothers and for the masculine collective. I think, as we are transitioning collectively to what I believe is a new era, that some of these patriarchal structures and ways of being are really dying. And we’re seeing what happens when an elephant that has been the way of being, is crashing to the ground. So there’s a lot of friction right now, there’s a lot of unrest, and it can feel really destabilizing to all of us. All of the things that we are witnessing in the world, that I would say have always been there, but are really being brought to the surface in a way that our consciousness can no longer ignore them. We have to see these things so we can’t unsee them, and we can really decide, as a human race, who we want to be.
But with that, I feel like there’s a lot of pain for our brothers, that I believe it is really important for us to hold space for. All of us have been raised with these patriarchal narratives and socialized to be interacting with one another in a very specific way. I was having a conversation with a girlfriend yesterday, and I was saying, it’s so fascinating. This is something I’m still really working to wrap my head around, so I’m talking to you about it in real-time as it’s alive. But so many of our brothers, regardless of how much I see them doing so much work and really attempting to do what you’re saying, like tap into their tender bits and understanding themselves more, still, I watch them be activated to the point of almost like reactionary activation around the idea that women don’t need men anymore.
Now, anyone who’s listening here, stay with me here. Because the large truth is, for so much of history, women’s survival has been dependent on being in relationship with a man in a nuclear family structure. That has been what was constructed by patriarchy to keep women in a very specific framework. It was done, a lot of times, through harm or fear, things like burning women alive so that they would be terrified of not being chosen. Those are a part of our lineage that we’ve never really had a reckoning with. And when you think about it, women couldn’t even have their own bank accounts until 1974. This is the truth of what it has been for men and women interacting and trying to be in relationship with one another.
So all of those things, if we don’t really have a reckoning around them, there’s this unspoken war of the sexes that I see has been playing out forever. Now this is the first moment in history, I believe, when women are making just as much money, and do have the ability, in many ways, to take care of themselves.
“The larger truth that we’re all being confronted with is, if I don’t need you, what does it look like to want you? To me, that’s such a beautiful invitation to come into the space of an integrated self.”
It becomes, for our brothers, if the template isn’t like: I protect, provide, and procreate, because that’s all I am meant to do, and that is all that I am meant to be. Then what does it look like to really embrace these feminine aspects of myself, and really be in my own aliveness and my own play and life force and ability to receive? It’s just, to me, so exciting. Because it’s like, if we don’t need one another, but we get to choose to be with one another because we really want to, and that’s like a conscious decision that we’re making in relationship every single day, how beautiful!
It’s absolutely new territory that can get created, and how both the relationship perhaps can be supportive for the individual development, and also the relational development and the terrain of that, that we’re not perpetuating these very restrictive ways. Just to also acknowledge, I know we’re very focused here on gender and the patriarchal one-up, one-down, and there’s so many ways of othering that we’re not talking about. But I just want to appreciate that we’re staying focused here. That there is a lot to, as you’re describing, to really name, just our lineage and the intergenerational, even the epigenetics. That this is impacting our DNA in a way that our ancestors, and just the dynamics around relationship have and roles, as we’re talking about even potentially gender roles, or even just how to honor the masculine and feminine. It’s quite profound in the fabric of our being. So to not acknowledge and not name, we perhaps want to look at this elevated, more developed way. And also, there’s something, as you’re saying, in acknowledging the shadow and the impact, which can be part of the healing.
Absolutely, you just reminded me of something that I think it’s so important to say. Because so often, we’ve been conditioned to think of patriarchy as the masculine collective or as men, and it’s not. I’m talking about systems of dominance. Because ultimately, men are some of the most profoundly impacted, in negative ways, by patriarchy, from my perspective. The requirement of stoicism, and what feminist scholar Bell Hooks calls the natural traumatization of little boys, by teaching them so young to shut down their humanity. When I talk about patriarchy, I am, in no way, attempting to ostracize or other my brothers. I am saying, I believe that a more integrated way of being is not a matriarchal culture. This is the integration of these beautiful aspects of self for all of us, so that all of us get to be the fullest embodiment of who we are.
Yes, thank you for just speaking into that dominance model, that that’s what we’re talking about here. So for people listening and just recognizing there is a way in which to support more balance in their being for the masculine and feminine energies, there’s a whole learning terrain here that’s individualized and also has a collective arc to the journey. What would you recommend as just beginning steps, or some steps, for people to work with, that could give them something to either contemplate or consider, or even just feel inside their day, of how to make this actionable I guess?
I love that. I think that there’s a point that comes when I think that all of us start by just the recognition that we’ve been so disconnected from the feminine elements of who we are. I think you were speaking to that so beautifully a little while ago. That there’s a tremendous amount of grief that comes to the surface when we realize I’ve been conditioned to reject an aspect of myself for a lifetime. So I often say, we have to go back for that little kiddo, and we have to just hold them by the hand with so much deep reverence. Like, of course you did, and you were not wrong for doing that. How could you possibly have done anything different? This is everything you were taught to do and be in what was true about life. So of course you did. And you don’t have to anymore. I think for me, what that looked like was going back for the little girl inside of me and just rediscovering, like, what did you love before you were taught what you were supposed to be loving, or what you’re supposed to be doing?
For me, Jessica, it was literally me as a 40-plus-year-old woman, dancing around in my bedroom to Les Miserable at the top of my lungs, like I was at a musical theater stage. Just pretending and recapturing that childcare sense of wonder a little bit, and not feeling like: Oh, Oh, there’s a list of 40 things that I should be doing, and I’m wasting time. Just allowing myself to be like aa kid again, and tapping into what it was to love some of the things that I used to love. Then, just all of these different rituals that I think we can start to incorporate into our life. It’s like, choose your own adventure, what feels true for you. For me, with clients, a lot of times, I’m like, that can be making it a practice, as you were saying, to carve out some time in your day to take your shoes off and go walk around in the grass barefoot, and just be with Mother Earth, and allow yourself to remember. There’s so much healing that just comes from reconnecting and plugging into that innate wisdom within us, that comes back as we get back into nature. It’s fascinating to me always. Like, whatever’s happening, it’s like, walk around outside and then come text me. I promise you’ll feel different. You just will.
But all kinds of different ways of tapping into what a spiritual practice or connecting to the source of ourselves can be. And from that space, once we’ve sort of defined what is the things that are the breadcrumbs of my bliss, what do I want to do with that? How do I want to create a ripple in the world of just permission-giving? I think that the more that we allow ourselves to shine in our essence, the more that we give permission to everyone around us to do the same. Then in terms of our relationships, and certainly our romantic relationships, but I think in all of our relationships, this is true, the more that we take responsibility for our own energy and really being in the inquiry around what’s coming up for me, the more that we’re able to be the witness of the other, without all of these expectations that just really start to erode our connections over time.
Just really, in the same way that we’re holding space compassionately for that little kiddo inside of ourselves, I love to make it a practice of like, how do I do that for my partner? I’m sure you’ve experienced this a little bit, but I can look at you and I can see: Oh, that’s what Jessica looked like as little girl. I feel like it’s kind of my superpower. But I can just see, like, I can see the face of what you used to look like. But we can sharpen that within ourselves, and we can do it for our partner. Sometimes thinking like, this person also has fear, this person also has a lifetime of pain points that they’re negotiating. A lot of times we’ve made our partner like, they should be this omnipresent, all-knowing, kind of parental figure in our lives, who knows how to meet us in all the ways we want to be met. Of course they don’t, of course they can’t, because same human. They’re doing the best they can as well. But I think the more that we really hold space for ourselves and our inner kiddo, the more that we have the capacity to do that for the other people in our lives.
Thank you. Just to echo what you said earlier, that when we can turn towards our inner being and the essence, we know. There’s an inner knowing. So just to be making some space or giving attention to that, to follow those breadcrumbs of bliss. I love that. Also, just to add my experience and what I see to be very true in relationship, is that when one has the capacity to be in this more connected place, that we’re like tuning forks, that the co-regulation that can happen. Not to say that one is going to be relying on the other to do that. But it is really quite interesting, when one is able to be connected and grounded and regulated and softened and open, what can come from there. Versus other energies of control, or needs to look a certain way, or the agenda, or whatever the things we might be doing—with good intention, but maybe from a place of protection or fear, as you were describing.
I love that, I’m going to steal that from you. Because I think, as you speak about it as us like tuning forks, that’s like taking responsibility for the energy that I’m bringing into this interaction. But to your point, we are energetic beings, and so we are impacted by one another’s energy. And when I shift my energy, inevitably, that shifts the energy that you feel around me. It’s not within the space of attempting to control the other person.
“It’s just understanding that as I see the light in you, and I really focus on what’s beautiful in you, inevitably you’re going to start to feel that energetic within yourself. It’s just how we’re wired.”
But in the book, I get a lot into how we sort of identify where we are energetically, and how we can take responsibility for shifting that, and then what plays out in our relationships from there.
Tell us about your book.
Well, thank you. I feel like I started working with couples based on what I was. It’s so funny, Jessica, when I was in grad school, I really was not super into this. I don’t know, we talked about masculine and feminine energetics, but it was over my head, or I wasn’t paying attention. I don’t remember. But then, as I started working with couples, I was like: Oh my gosh, all of this is about the ways that we’re socialized to behave, as far as gender, and the way that we’re attempting to. It’s like, what we’re doing is like a little bit competing for energy, like what you were just saying about the tuning forks, and that we are energetic beings.
“We’ve really been conditioned to believe I need someone else to comply with who I need them to be, or the story I’m telling myself about what they’re not being. Until they do that, I can’t be okay in my skin, or I can’t have peace. It’s not true”
But it’s very much what has been the baseline understanding of our relational interactions. So if we believe, and this is a larger conversation around the way that we’re socialized around gender, but basically, if we’re speaking heteronormatively, there’s just a real way that men are really conditioned to not be allowed to be in the experience of their feminine. So they’re outsourcing that from the women in their lives, and they’re looking for this woman to be the source of nurturance and the source of life force for them and all of these things. And we as women are looking to get confidence from a man, like seeing me and validating me and all of these things that are outsourcing our masculine.
So it’s like, if I do these things for myself, then I just get to be really present with you. But we have to do the work of really understanding where we are energetically, and what the story is I’m telling myself and where that came from? So that’s a lot of what I get into. As I started working with couples this way, back to what you asked, they were like, is there a book, where can we read more about this? I was like, there’s not, because I’m kind of making it up as I go. But I will write one. So I ended up writing a book based on what I felt like I was seeing.
Wonderful! I know that there are books about more the sexual space and the erotic polarity of masculine feminine. Michaela Boehm was on the show a while ago, and I really love her work. Yet, you’re talking about something more, perhaps holistic. What’s the name of your book?
It’s called Sovereign Love: A Guide to Healing Relationships by Reclaiming the Masculine and Feminine Within.
Wonderful, excellent! I’ll make sure to have the link to your book on today’s show notes. Is there anything else you want to direct people towards, or how people can get in touch with what you’re teaching or offering?
Well, my website is DeneLogan.com. I’m pretty active on Instagram. Not so much on TikTok, I feel like that’s not for me, but I’m on there. It’s @Dene.Logan on all the socials. But thank you so much. This was so much fun, and I really enjoyed getting to meet you.
You’re welcome. I’ll make sure to have your Instagram and your website on today’s show notes. It’s been a real gift. Thank you for what you’re doing, and thank you for holding space for me. I recognize there’s no excuse here, but there’s been two years of dislocation, and we’re two weeks out from landing the plane. I mean, we had a toxic mold, and we’ve been searching, potentially to relocate. So there’s an enormous amount of stress, so I recognize that is in me. But everything I said and shared emotionally is very true. I’m just imagining it might be a little more alive given my tenderness at this very moment. But I appreciate you just being with me and really just acknowledging the aspects of what we’re describing and how important they are. Thank you again.
Thank you. I mean, I really appreciate you, Jessica. I think it’s so beautiful, and I think there’s so much about the way you were speaking to what was evoked in our conversation, that I know I am feeling as you speak to it and I know I’m not alone in that feeling. I think the more that we just offer ourselves grace to be in the biggest, messiest middle, like I get to be human again, that’s what we’re modeling for everyone. So thank you for that.
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Relationships are complex and often fraught with misunderstandings, conflicts, and a sense of disconnection. The journey to nurturing deep, meaningful connections can feel overwhelming, especially when traditional advice falls short. How can we cultivate intimacy and trust in our relationships? What if the answer lies not just in psychology but also in the intriguing world of quantum physics? Imagine approaching your relationships with the same awe, curiosity, and flexibility physicists use to understand the universe.
In this episode, we dive into the fascinating interplay between quantum physics and relational skills, offering fresh perspectives that challenge conventional thinking. The discussion explores the delicate art of deep listening, the transformative power of acceptance, and the importance of vulnerability. Learn about the stages of cultivating intimacy and the skills needed at each phase. We also touch on the importance of humility, adaptability, and approaching conflicts with a soft startup rather than with a harsh startup. By integrating these principles, you’ll discover new ways to strengthen your connections and pave the path to more fulfilling and resilient relationships.
Dr. McMillan is a clinical community psychologist who has 40+ years of experience providing people with tools and insights they can use in their personal relationships, communities, and society at large to heal divisions and find ways to work together. He developed and authored the Sense of Community Theory, the most influential research on the psychological sense of community. Dr. McMillan is also the author of several highly-rated books, including Create Your Own Love Story.
In this episode
6:41 Defining the social glue: Understanding sense of community theory.
9:22 The four elements of a sense of community and their parallel in relationships.
16:35 How principles from quantum physics can inform relationship dynamics.
26:47 How observation influences reality in relationships.
35:52 The transformative power of emotions: From fear and anger to healing and growth.
Your Check List of Actions to Take
- Create a safe space for your partner to share openly by actively listening without interrupting or judging.
- Approach conflicts and discussions with a confessional attitude, allowing yourself to be open and honest about your feelings.
- When addressing conflicts, begin the conversation gently and lovingly to foster a more receptive and constructive dialogue.
- When experiencing or witnessing anger, try to identify and express underlying sadness to open up problem-solving pathways.
- Maintain a mindset of gratitude and curiosity toward your partner, which can help in understanding and appreciating your differences.
- Establish shared rituals that acknowledge and honor emotions within the relationship, promoting connection and understanding.
- Embrace change and remain open to new experiences and perspectives, reflecting the ever-changing nature of reality and relationships.
Mentioned
Create Your Own Love Story: The Art of Lasting Relationships (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
Relationship Map To Happy, Lasting Love
Connect with Dr. David McMillan
Website: drdavidmcmillan.com
Connect with Dr. Jessica Higgins
Facebook: facebook.com/EmpoweredRelationship
Instagram: instagram.com/drjessicahiggins
Podcast: drjessicahiggins.com/podcasts/
Pinterest: pinterest.com/EmpowerRelation
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/drjessicahiggins
Twitter: @DrJessHiggins
Website: drjessicahiggins.com
Email: jessica@drjessicahiggins.com
About Today’s Show
David, thank you for joining us today.
Glad to be here.
Yeah. As I was just telling people a little bit about you in the intro, and you were just saying your claim to fame is what you’ve contributed in the field of research around Sense of Community theory. I’m curious if you’re willing to share a little bit about what that is, for people who don’t know.
Well, it’s a feeling, it’s a spirit, it’s a way of imagining yourself connected to the world. You either have it or you don’t. It’s a little bit amorphous. My challenge, when I began thinking about this, was: Seymour Sarason, a famous psychologist, said, it’s like love. You can’t define it, but you know what it is, and everybody knows and experiences it. I said: Oh, I’ll define it. So I decided I would, and I did. So I have. It’s the same as love, the social glue, the things that connects people. There are certain things that you need to have there, for it to be a robust connection. They’re the same whatever you call it, love or Sense of Community.
I lived in a small town. In my small town, within two blocks, there were 30 cousins and aunts and uncles. It was a great place to grow up. So I tried to describe what that was, what those elements were. I found four major elements, and they were replicated in the literature. Each element had six little sub-elements to it. I wrote an article. It’s been referenced over maybe 10-15,000 times. It’s something. That article has really done well. It’s read 50,000 times a year by people interested in the idea. I’m real proud of that.
Wonderful. Is this a research journal article, or is this an article online?
It’s in the Journal of Community Psychology. It’s an academic journal. I’m very well-known in circles of 100 people. 100 academics really know my theory.
Well, it’s a pleasure to hear you speak on it. For one listening that wants to read it, do they need to go to their public library? How would one be able to read this?
Oh, they can just go to my website. It’s on my website.
Okay, I’ll make sure to find that link, so it’s on today’s show notes for people to easily access. Do you want to name? I know there’s the sub-topics or categories under each four. Do you want to name the four, would that be helpful?
Yeah, I can name the four elements, sure. Membership is the first idea, which really is spirit or the sense of belonging. That’s the first element. Then the second element has to do with power or influence. Whereas the first element has to do with spirituality of an ephemeral thing, the second is really the religion, basically, in the culture, in your community. The second element is the government—how power is allocated. Always, there’s a way that power is allocated. The third has to do with what I call reinforcement or integration of needs, which is another word for social trades. Everybody is trading in relationships, and that’s the economy. Every relationship, every community has an economy. Then the fourth has to do with art. I call it shared connection in time and space. It’s really the history, the story of a community, how it’s told and how it’s symbolized, and what its traditions are and rituals. Every couple, every relationship, has those too, and how the story is told is very important.
Thank you. You were saying this could be applied to love as well, the four elements. It sounds as though I could do my best guess at it, but I would love to have you if you want to translate that for us.
Well, you know you have to belong to say that there’s love there. You have to feel like there’s a seat at the table, that you’re welcome. The boundaries need to be in place to say this is where you belong. There needs to be a place for secrets and privacy and intimacy to grow and incubate. That’s what the boundaries are for.
Then the second element I would call trust, which is about how influence is shared or not—whether or not the energy flows easily, or whether fear is involved and you clutch up and then there’s no flow of energy anymore. Trust is essential to the building of the wealth of emotional capital that you have between each other. The more you trust, the bigger it is, and the more you cannot trust, the smaller it is. So that’s the government or the power. Then you have to trade. I mean, it’s a business.
“Relationships are a business. You have to have something of value to give to somebody. You have a line, I got a pole, now we got something. Two things now become three, because you are willing to give things that you have in there, and then you build things together.”
That’s the real exciting part, the part I like best.
The fourth one is the story. It’s the story. Every relationship has a story, and how you tell the story says a lot about the health and quality of a relationship. So if you tell a humiliating story about your partner, it’s not going to be so good, and it’s not going to go well, and it’s going to be hard for that relationship to last. But if you honor, tell a story that honors your relationship and honors each other, and you build symbols and collect things that say: This is who we are, and this represents us, that becomes really special.
Great, wow! There’s just so much in what you’re saying. I imagine we could focus the whole episode on this, I bet we could. Well, it’s interesting, I just interviewed a person, and she’s in London, and she was talking about how often in fear, we constrict. When you’re talking about the number two for love, that when we do want to control or have things a particular way, that we can really restrict the flow of abundance, or flow of energy, or the wealth that can get generated through what can be expressed if we’re in more of, she would use the word acceptance or allowing space. But I can see how that’s really symbolic of, as you’re describing any power, that if it’s really controlling or authoritarian or dogmatic, that doesn’t usually allow people to be creative or generate new ideas and flourish. So I can see how.
Well, that’s why economies in democracy do well, because there’s freedom and we have a system that we trust, or we once had a system we trust. So the more we have trust in our nation, in our society, the more wealth we build. The more fear we have, the more we have a depression, which shuts down. Think about how wealth expanded. What is a dollar bill? It’s a piece of paper. Really, it’s about trust. We believe something about this piece of paper, and it’s in our belief and our trust that you’re going to believe that too that makes that piece of paper valuable. But it’s really just a piece of paper.
Yes, and it sounds like there’s perhaps overlap of these four elements. Because as you’re speaking of trust, what I also was hearing you speak to is the third element, that if we’re in a place of what can I contribute, do I allow my partner’s perspective, or what they have to offer to be influenced by them in the exchange and the interaction. That there’s a good will or there’s a regard, that there’s trust that gets built from that.
Yeah, that’s right! When you give somebody something and they value it, and you begin to be able to depend on it, that reinforces that second element. And the trust reinforces the economic, the third element. So they’re all related. The story you tell builds more trust and creates a stronger boundary and a bond.
Nice, wonderful. Well, one of the topics we had for today’s conversation is looking at what quantum physics has to do with relationship. I’m so curious what you are thinking here, or what you have to say.
Well, Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson came together around the notion that there are natural laws in the universe. For them, one of those laws was homeostasis, and they built family therapy around that idea of homeostasis and balance and stuff. Well, family therapy lost its cache or excitement. It was once the big thing in the field, but now it’s not so much, because that law just wasn’t working completely. But I think they were right. I think there are some natural laws that we can find in science that apply to humans.
So I came up with 10 or 12, adding to homeostasis, and with that, that then gives you, as a therapist, the right to have something to offer a client, other than just an ear. You can take these natural laws. So two of them come from quantum physics. One is the law of relativity, which tells us that it depends on your perspective. So if you want to be in a relationship and you want to be right, well I don’t think that’s going to work. So you need to bring humility to a relationship, and tolerance and openness. Then there’s the law of probabilities, which is, nothing is ever true all the time—every rule has an exception. So once more, that reinforces humility, which says certainty is not possible. If you want certainty, you can’t be human. It can’t be in life. It doesn’t happen, we can’t know. Nobody can tell the future.
“We always have to be willing to dance with fate, and to dance with our partner with fate, and to let us learn from each other and from what’s happening around us, and adapting all the time.”
There’s what’s called the cybernetic feedback loop, which really means that all living creatures have the ability to take lemons and make lemonade. We’re all looking for what can we do with reality now? So that openness is part of the natural existence of the universe. It’s just a natural law. If we want to be with somebody to partner with them, and build something together beyond ourselves, we have to respect the other person, and not take ourselves so seriously and not be right, and avoid certainty, and be sure that you don’t think you know. Because when you think you know, that’s the end. What do you want anybody else for? You don’t need anybody, you know. So humility is essential, and that comes out of those two quantum physics laws.
Thank you. One of the things that I’m really getting from what you’re describing is that if we can approach life and relationship with this humility and with a sense of possibility, then we are more open and in a creative place. Versus it has to be a particular way, and that we’ve already decided that we’re right, or it’s certain. You’re saying that isn’t true in the realm of all possibilities, and we’re going to really set us up for not being in the flow of living and evolving. We’re going to be just really working super hard to keep things in a static place, which is going against the laws of nature, if I’m hearing you.
The universe is expanding. I’m sorry, it’s not going to be the way it was just a minute ago. It’s always going to be changing, and we’ve got to always be dancing with reality that is, not what we want. Another quantum physics law is the law of approach, which is, if you’re splitting an atom and you come at the atom straight down, perpendicular 90 degrees, it’s going to have a different blast than if you come at it at any other angle. So if you come at it at a more gradual angle, it’s going to have a different effect. So the outcome has everything to do with the approach. So the form, the way you speak, your tone of voice, your ability to bring your openness and your willingness to listen to them, all of that is part of your approach. How a person feels welcome is all part of your approach. That matters, and that’s a law of quantum physics. You can see it at the Super Collider where they split atoms.
Yes, and that echoes some of the research that comes out of the Gottman Institute’s research around soft startup versus harsh startup, and that when we can approach someone when there’s conflict or we have a challenge or an issue, that startup is very important for how constructive that conversation will be.
Yeah, I use the term confessional communication. So what that is, is when you approach somebody that you would really like to change, like, I’d really like my wife to not be late. I really would like that. That would be really important, because if you’re trained to be a therapist, all we’ve got to do is be on time. That’s it, show up on time. That’s all you’ve got to do. But that’s really important. So that’s become important to me, but it’s not so much to her. She sort of likes Carl, and she’d be happy with a late entrance. That works for her. So this is a conflict.
So if I approach her and say: Damn it, you’re late, and you’re wrong and I’m right! I’ve tried that approach, by the way, and it didn’t work, and nothing happened any differently. So I could try a different approach, which is a confessional approach, which is, I look at this problem and I see I have a part of this problem. It’s my impatience, it’s my rigidity, it’s my demand that I have what I want when I want it. That’s just my intolerance, that’s me. So I come to her and confess: Marietta, this is my fault, my problem, not a problem for you, you’re fine with this. I get it that it’s me being uptight about this. But I am uptight about this. So when we go someplace and we’re late, I’m driving too fast. You’re mad at me for driving too fast. I’m mad at you for being late. We get there, and the whole evening is spoiled. So it really would help if you could help me out here. Because I know it’s my fault, I know it’s my problem. But I can’t seem to shake it, and I need some help. Well, she’s likely to be a little more sympathetic to that, understanding that I’m nuts and me claiming I’m nuts, and she’d be right, I am nuts. Maybe she’ll help me out with that and be compassionate. That’s going to work a whole lot better than if I demand I’m right and she’s wrong
Yes, and it allows her to see why it matters to you, why there’s tenderness or fear or vulnerability around it, and that’s what she cares about. She doesn’t really care about whose strategy or whose approach is right. That can get people into endless debates that don’t result in anything.
If I lead with my vulnerability instead of my righteousness, that might work better.
No kidding! Well, David, as we were talking and approaching the conversation around quantum physics and what that has to do with relationship, I remember this was probably 2004, I had been exposed to something quantum physics related. I cannot recall what it was. I can tell you what the essence of it was, and I’m sure you’re familiar. But something had to do with the study or the experiment about it being observed.
That’s the law of relativity. The question is, is it a wave? Is energy a wave, or is it a particle? If you set up the experiment to see if you can find a wave, you’ll find a wave. If you set up the experiment to look for a particle, you’ll find a particle. It depends on how you set up the experiment, the position from which you observe. So if you observe this from this point of view, you’re going to see one thing than if you observe it from another point of view. So everything is relative, that’s how the law of relativity came.
Okay, thank you for explaining that. I think I had thought at that moment, or when I was coming across what I was hearing or seeing, that just the act of it being observed changed. But it sounds like the place of which it’s observed, or how the experiment was set up, changes.
There is an idea. This is the cat in the box idea, and there is a whole big theory about this, that observation changes reality. The science behind this is not tight, so there’s a lot of controversy about this. I’m an ecological psychologist, as addition to a clinical psychologist and a community psychologist. As an ecological psychologist, sometimes you follow people around and see what they’re doing in their day, to see how their life settings interact with their behavior. So there was this argument about this very thing, that when you set yourself up to observe somebody, that changes their behavior. Well, ecological psychologists observe that that’s true for about 30 minutes. But after you become part of the scene, sitting there with your camera, or with your notepad, or whatever it is you got, becomes part of the scene and you disappear, and it doesn’t seem that you’re making much of an impact, and that it appears that they’re maintaining what they are, because you’ve become the wall. So that debate is still ongoing.
Well, as I was thinking about preparing for this interview, and I was just knowing reference of what I was just saying, I was like: Oh, that’s interesting. As we’re talking, the law of relativity makes a lot of sense relationally, that if we are approaching a listening stance with an idea or a frame on it, that we’re going to hear and be looking for, or how we’re listening might be different, or how we might hear it might be different. Versus if we have a different perspective, and we’re listening from that other perspective where we have a total curious, open-minded, like: I have no idea what you’re going to say, and I’m just listening, and I’m going to be super receptive. I could see how that will impact the exchange for the person speaking.
What you’re describing now is called confirmation bias. You bring an idea to the table looking for it, you’re going to find data among all the things you’re seeing that confirm what you already thought. That’s an aspect of the law of relativity. But in the law of relativity, in the physics version, the objective data that falls as data on a screen and creates data points and numbers, those prove that there’s a particle there, when that’s what you set up the experiment to look for. It does prove that. It really does, there’s no question about it that data shows that’s a particle. It’s not in the person, it’s shows up on the screen in the data, and you count the numbers, and it shows up, it becomes a wave. So what is matter, what is energy? Is it a particle? Or is it wave? Or is it both and? Really, it’s both and. It’s always both, and it can be. It gives you so many different ways to go with something, which is the point of queer theory, which is that anytime you’re stuck in a binary and either/or, you are confined. When really, identity and range of being is so much more complex than that, and we don’t have to be confined by just two categories. It’s both and.
Well, I would love if you can help people or help me translate to what this looks like in an interaction of law of relativity, or just some of this quantum physics in relational exchange. Because the other thing I remember coming across, this was so long ago, but it was someone who, I think she was an author, and she was describing, if I imagine a dyad, I have two people talking—one is the speaker, and one is the listener. That if the listener is listening deeply, isn’t listening to speak, is just listening and holding that presence, the person that’s speaking perhaps will go way deeper, say things they hadn’t intended to say, and there will be this space of sharing that wouldn’t have been shared if that person wasn’t holding that space and listening so openly and deeply, that likely that wouldn’t have occurred. I don’t know if that made sense.
Well, you’re describing the stance of a therapist, as you know well. That’s what you bring to the table, is you bring an empty space that they fill up, and you don’t mess with it. You let them fill you up, and you learn from what they teach you, what they mean to say and what they’re feeling, and then you give it back to them. When they hear their own words and their own emotions coming back to them, it’s such a gift to us, whoever does that for us, whoever listens with that kind of curiosity and capacity to tell us we’re not crazy. Oh, we’re not crazy! Wow, because I think I am. I’ve always thought I was, and I’m not sure really. So I hear this person telling me that I’m making sense, and that they’re helping me make sense of myself, that’s such a gift. That’s such a great gift.
Yes, that’s rare, and it’s hard for anybody to do that. Because we all have our own agendas and they get in the way, and confirmation bias exists, and to listen to somebody without that bias and without an agenda, and just to be curious and open and still, and then give them back themselves in beautiful metaphors, which say, I think I get it. Is this what it is? Is this what it’s like for you? Is this picture I’m drawing was you talking? Does this make sense? They go: Oh my God, it makes so much sense, I hadn’t thought of that. You took their words and you gave them a little bit of a spin, and now they’re going to take your words and that spin, and then they’re going to go deeper. Then they’re going to discover a layer that they didn’t know existed before, because you gave them this little spin that acted like the drill, that opened them up a little more and a little more and a little more. It’s magical.
Yes, and I agree here. Just the acceptance that that provides, you mentioned acceptance earlier, not trying to change, or that there’s many dimensions or complexities to one’s experience, and to feel that being held and being reflected back and acknowledged. It’s quite special and quite healing at times.
Oh, it is very healing.
Okay. Is there anything else you wanted to say about quantum physics and what we might learn, and how we might be able to keep that in mind as we approach our interactions in intimate relationship?
The main point of quantum physics is humility, is not being certain and remaining curious always. Curiosity is such a wonderful, wonderful asset for relationships. Knowing is killing. When you know, things are dead.
“When you’re curious and wonder and keep the question alive, and don’t put a period at the end of the sentence, keep the question mark there, then there’s always room for somebody else to have something to say. The period ends the conversation, and quantum physics is about keeping the question mark there.”
Wow, that seems so potent, how you just described. Being certain is killing and ending, and curiosity is life-giving and allows for more to occur.
Thank you, yeah.
Yeah, I feel like I could just marinate on that for a little bit. So thank you for that. That’s really beautiful. Now, I know the other thing you possibly wanted to talk about with us here today is the emotion. I don’t know if it’s emotion rituals, and how anger. I can recognize that, as we’re saying, when one might feel fear, the tendency to want to control or to have things organized, maybe even certain. The unknown can be scary at times, because there’s a whole range of possibilities. I mean, my loved one, it’s possible—like, knock on wood, like nothing tragic would happen to him—but it’s not guaranteed that I will be alive tomorrow or he’ll be alive tomorrow. That’s scary to think about.
That’s true.
“Fear is essential to the notion of gratitude. If you were confident and certain, then why be grateful? Because somebody gave you something you didn’t even want, because you didn’t need it, because you’re not concerned about it.”
But because you are concerned that your mate will be alive tomorrow, the fact when you see him, oh, I’m so grateful. He’s here. He’s here, we’re together, oh yes! That piece, our vulnerable emotions, which we reject so much, are really are our most valuable emotions. Fear is one that I never tolerated in myself. Sadness is weak, and I never let that happen either. So I wrote a book about emotion rituals, that’s the title of the book. I wrote it because my wife, who was a retired judge, she was a judge at the time, and she was trying to find a batterer program that worked. Because most batterer program didn’t, and they still don’t. They’re pretty bad programs.
There’s this guy named Steven Stosny who had a one that worked, and it was fantastic. It was in DC. It was based on this one little idea, and that is that lectures, ideas do not change behavior or stop anger. That only thing that stops anger is another emotion. So when you have anger neuro-hormones racing through your body, the only thing that’s going to stop those neuro-hormones is the neuro-hormones of another emotion coming in and diluting those neuro-hormones. The emotion that dilutes anger best is sadness. So you can’t be sad and angry at the same time.
So Stosny created this really neat little ritual in which you go below the anger, and always below the anger is hurt, sadness, threat and fear, always that’s there, tears. Anger just covers that up and gives you certainty and control, and right and wrong, and binary thinking, either/or, friend/enemy. That’s what anger does. That closes the brain to the mammalian brain, which is as big as your fist. It’s the size of a dog’s brain. Sadness opens the whole brain. So you’ve got your neocortex. Two-thirds more of the brain is present when you’re sad, and it takes away your energy. You don’t have much vitality, but your brain works. So when you go below the anger to sadness, the anger disappears, and you now can think, and you’re now not stupid, and you’re now not a five-year-old, and you can solve problems, and that works. Well, that’s such a cool idea.
So I took all the nine emotions that I count, and I showed what its resolve is. So each emotion has a different resolve. So shame, which is one of our best emotions, because without shame, we don’t get better, without shame we don’t love anybody. Love only means something if it means that when we hurt somebody we love, we feel bad about it. So shame is the essence of honor, that’s what resolves shame, is the pride or the joy that comes when I have the courage to step up and say that was my fault. When I can do that and like myself, that makes shame into wisdom and learning and growth and transforms us. How cool is that?
So every emotion has a problem, an asset and a liability, and we can get stuck in any of these emotions. Depression, for example, we can get stuck in depression, or sadness.
“Depression is simply the absence of desire, absence of want. We’re afraid to want because we can’t have what we want, and because we can’t have what we want, we just won’t let ourselves want. So we’re sad, we’re stuck.”
The way out of depression is to find an emotion that has energy. There are two emotions that have energy. One is want or desire. If you just give your brain a little bit of the want chemical, it can be ice cream. Okay, I want ice cream. So then you begin to imagine that you can have ice cream. Then you go: Oh, I can’t have ice cream because it will make me fat, I won’t do that. So then you figure out a way that you can have the taste of ice cream and listen to your fear and have a plan so that you don’t get too much ice cream. So you turn want on.
Then the second thing you turn on is anger. Now, anger is a very dangerous emotion, I don’t recommend taking it seriously. But think of somebody that you really, really, really, really don’t like, and if you were in a cartoon, you would like to beat them up like a Dick Tracy cartoon, pluck their eyes out and do whatever it is. You go in that rage moment where you are playing, and you feel that energy coming, and then you put that want together with that temporary anger, and it becomes determination. Boom, you go out and you get what you want!
I’ll show you.
Then you’re out of depression. Every emotional knot has an outlet like that.
Thank you so much. When you began speaking, there are some people that really struggle, and for good reason, with this idea of replacing. If you had said gratitude for anger, I’m like, that’s a big reach for many. It also runs the risk of bypassing, because there’s a legitimate injustice or violation, or like you said, some type of injury. So to bypass that and just go to gratitude, that’s not actually necessarily helping.
Or to go from anger to shame, that just is a circle. Because shame is so toxic, you’ll just come back to blaming somebody and be angry again, to protect yourself from the toxicity of shame. So shame doesn’t work either.
When you spoke about the hurt or the sadness that accesses the deeper layer, and I agree with you, anger is a secondary emotion often. So for people to really look at and really be with that, that that might feel a hard thing to confront because of what might be there emotionally, and also what that asks of the brain, just energy-wise. And it’s going to be so much more informative around what someone’s experience is, or where the hurt is and what they need. I think that can be way more empowering to move forward a little bit more constructively, whether or not it’s setting a limit or boundary, or how do I take care of myself, or what is it that I need? I also love, too, that you described anger can be fuel to really get us into action that can motivate us. That’s how we’re using it.
You really understood that. That’s exactly right, you said that well.
Because it’s not so much to be destructive, but it’s to recognize this matters. You said righteousness earlier, but there’s a righteousness in occupying space or being in a place of discernment and willing to put energy towards that. So there’s a little bit of a fight, but in a good way, channeling it in a good way for something that someone wants.
One of the emotions is disgust. I really don’t like disgust, it’s my least favorite. But it’s the only place you’re going to find morality. We should be disgusted at rape. We should be disgusted at cheating and lying and stealing. Those are appropriate places to be disgusted. That’s right, that’s where it needs to be.
“We don’t need to think that we’re above somebody else. Because we are just like them, we’re capable of all those things. So instead of being disgusted with the person, we need to be disgusted with the behavior.”
Thank you. So recognizing that we have the capacity, especially under certain circumstances, like stress, we tend to be aggressive and competitive and all the things. That we have all these tendencies within us as being human, and to really look at the behavior, and also calling into morality around the value and the character.
When you were talking about getting out of depression and turning anger into fuel and it becoming determination and some sort of righteousness, that little bit of disgust, anger at this thing, fighting this feeling right to do that, I don’t like righteousness, but it does give you energy. It does give you energy and some confidence, it does do that.
Well, there’s a clarity when we’ve really looked at and not just adopted a certain way of being, but we’ve really done a deeper dive around the behavior or the virtue of what we’re wanting to embody. That we have that for good reason, then I think there’s a little bit more clarity and congruency. I think righteousness has this tone of better than, as you were describing, and I don’t love that either. So it’s more of this clarity and this discernment and this conviction, maybe we will use conviction. Like, I will stand for this even when it’s not convenient or it’s hard. Or when this is happening, as you talked about ecological and the environment, that I will take action, I will say this isn’t okay or something.
I love all of this, this all really resonates. Even the shame.
You’re saying it back to me so well, I feel heard.
Good, well, I genuinely am resonating. The honor that when we’re feeling: Ah, that was a miss! Or feeling bad. As you’re talking about human and belonging, that’s critical to care for our people, our family, our community, and to really tap into the honor. Like, I want to honor you. When we can tap into that honor, then there’s a little bit of—talk about the question mark—how do I honor, how do I repair, how is there restitution or reconciliation? That is the honor that can offer repair.
And you honored me by listening to me and telling me back what I’m saying. I feel honored by that exactly. This is good therapy, thank you.
Well, wonderful. I know we’re winding down here, and you have your books. What would you like to encourage people who want to learn more from you? It sounds like you have your website or your article. I’ll make sure to have the link to that. What do you want to encourage people to read or access?
Those laws I’m talking about, the natural laws, I’m writing a book about the natural laws. I’m going to use the rubric of alchemy as how I think we should approach people. Not as experts and not as somebody above anybody, but just another person who’s messing with the various parts of life and trying to figure things out. Using these natural laws to see how they apply to my life and your life and everybody’s life is not me being the expert on you. I don’t like that role. I’d rather be the alchemist who’s just like, if you need a wizard, I’ll be a wizard. I’ll make lead into gold, and we’ll laugh, pretending that it really is gold. But the job, for somebody who is trying to be a resource to another person who’s in pain, is to transfer that pain, that feces into fertilizer, to make pain into wisdom, and tragedy into sagacity. That’s what you want to help people with.
Yes, it’s transformative. It’s a transformation. It’s so interesting. I was going to use the word alchemy earlier, when we were talking about that deep listening, and we were talking about how special. I wanted to say it’s like alchemy, but it’s a science term that I was like, I don’t know if that’s actually accurate. So I’m glad.
It’s a miracle. Alchemists should be meta communicators. People who help people label and understand themselves, and then rise above themselves to see themselves and go: Oh, that’s me! Then they have a perspective they didn’t have before. That’s alchemy. All of a sudden, they’re different. Wow, that’s exciting!
And the Emotion Rituals allow people some guidance in this alchemy, wonderful. So you’re writing that book, and you want people to stay tuned for that. How do people connect with you? How do people look for your work? Is that just being on your website? Do you have an email?
It’s on my website now. I’m thinking about building a bot with all these ideas in the bot. But that’s a ways away, that’s down the road.
Maybe, maybe not. I don’t know. That’s interesting. Thank you. Thank you for all that you’ve shared with us. I can feel myself energized by all your teaching here. So thank you.
Thank you. Well, glad to do it.
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Navigating the complex terrain of romantic relationships can often feel like walking through a maze with no clear exit in sight. Fear, disguised as stress or anger, can become an invisible barrier that hampers our ability to foster intimate connections and develop relational skills. But what if we understood our deepest fears, attachment styles, and the ways we can reclaim our emotional maturity and personal empowerment within our relationships? Imagine transforming stress and conflict into opportunities for deeper connection and understanding.
In this episode, we delve deeply into the complexities of attachment styles and their impact on relationships. Discover how different attachment styles manifest fear and the importance of recognizing these patterns in both yourself and your partner. We discuss practical strategies for managing negative thoughts, the role of nonverbal communication, and the power of physical touch in creating a secure bond. Furthermore, understand how emotional regulation, personal empowerment, and vulnerability can transform relationship dynamics.
Charisse Cooke, an attachment-based psychotherapist and author, brings over twenty years of experience in relationship dynamics. With 7000+ clinical hours, including roles in three clinical facilities and private practice in London, she specializes in understanding relationship patterns. Rooted in adult attachment theory, her compassionate approach aims to transform relational dynamics. Through online courses and social media, Charisse educates on fostering secure, authentic connections, empowering individuals to mend relationships, and building emotional resilience.
In this episode
6:00 From fascination to practice: Charisse Cooke’s journey in understanding relationships.
8:55 The power of embracing acceptance and curiosity in relationships rather than immediately viewing unexpected situations as problems.
11:55 Balancing active participation and surrender in relationships.
16:08 Navigating fear and control in committed relationships.
22:03 Strategies for avoidant attachments and building secure bonds.
35:48 Cultivating emotional resilience: Balancing immediate and long-term regulation strategies.
Your Check List of Actions to Take
- Ensure you fully listen to your partner’s perspective without interrupting and reflect back on what you hear to show understanding.
- Take the responsibility to start important conversations, especially if you notice an issue, rather than waiting for your partner to bring it up.
- Express your thoughts and feelings using “I” statements to minimize blame and emphasize personal responsibility in conflicts.
- Create a visual representation of your relationship’s highs and lows using a quadrant model to enhance awareness and understanding of your emotional states.
- Regularly review and discuss previous decisions with your partner to ensure both perspectives are still aligned and to make necessary adjustments.
- Agree on a higher intention or common goal for your relationship to guide decision-making and maintain focus during conflicts.
- Share the responsibility of being the visionary in the relationship by taking turns in decision-making and planning.
- Make a conscious effort to speak with love and listen with compassion, even during disagreements, to foster a supportive and nurturing environment.
Mentioned
10 New Behaviours That Will Transform Your Relationship in Under 10 Weeks (course link)
ERP 410: What Are the Signs of Emotional Immaturity in Relationship?
Shifting Criticism For Connected Communication
Connect with Charisse Cooke
Websites: charissecooke.com
X: twitter.com/CharisseCooke3
YouTube: youtube.com/channel/UCsTpiVcJCs65GYnITSkSAbQ?
Instagram: instagram.com/charissecooke
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/charisse-cooke-08157845
Connect with Dr. Jessica Higgins
Facebook: facebook.com/EmpoweredRelationship
Instagram: instagram.com/drjessicahiggins
Podcast: drjessicahiggins.com/podcasts/
Pinterest: pinterest.com/EmpowerRelation
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/drjessicahiggins
Twitter: @DrJessHiggins
Website: drjessicahiggins.com
Email: jessica@drjessicahiggins.com
About Today’s Show
Charisse, thank you for joining us. It’s really a pleasure to have you.
It’s such a joy to be here with you, because I know that we have lots in common and a lot of shared ideas. So it’s going to be great to be talking and breaking some stuff down.
Yes. One of our shared similarities is our love of the attachment framework, and I know you’re going to be speaking from that. But before we dive into our topic, I know we had just discussed focusing on emotional regulation and emotional resilience. I think people would be very interested in your perspective and just how to access some of this.
What would you like people to know about you and where you’re coming from, how you got interested in supporting people in this way?
Well, I think I want people to know that I believe that relationships are a mystery to all of us. They’re very, very challenging, and they’re also really fascinating. If we can shift away from the worry and the crisis of relationships, they can actually be these incredibly fascinating things to learn about ourselves and our partners and the people that we care about. I guess that’s where I always come from, because I’ve always been fascinated by people. In my undergraduate degree, I studied both psychology and English literature. I feel like both really actually sang beautifully together, because it was all about characters and people and why people do what they do, and noticing human behaviors. I guess, for me, I am a little bit old school in that I believe that our work is a bit of an art. There is a lot of science, but there’s also an art to it—there’s an art to love, and there’s an art to relationships. So my hope is to really inspire people to be very creative in their love lives, and to try to develop the artfulness in how they relate.
Thank you for just speaking into why it’s such a big focus and orientation for you. Because I do agree, when we can get into our logical mind and really try to approach this strategically and have good outcomes, not that any of that is problematic, and we can lose sight. We can kind of treat it as a problem, something to be solved. Or even look at it through a static view, when really it’s quite dynamic—you have two individuals that are evolving and growing, you have the relational dance and dynamic that’s not static either. So to approach it from this real wonderment, if I hear, and this art that allows for the mystery to be revealed and continually revealed. Am I hearing you?
Yes, absolutely. Inviting exploration and curiosity and passion, and it’s all kind of okay, it’s a great permission-giver, I think, if we’re creating something versus trying to fix something. As you say, that’s a really big shift I think we need to make in our relationships.
“I believe in slow love—a very slow way of learning to love one another and taking our time with it. As opposed to our world today, which is very rushed and immediate and quick, and actually there’s so much missed there. So I love the slow art of it.”
I want to ask a question about that, and I just also want to underscore what you said about just this permission-giving. Because if, perhaps, my partner says or does something that I wasn’t necessarily looking for, wanting, or expecting, that can feel quite confronting and challenging at times. If I make it a problem in my mind, and the questions or the focus is: why did he say that, or why is this happening to me, or this is bad, or this is wrong. So what you’re really saying is giving permission and really being curious, and the orientation of that perhaps invites something entirely different. Like: Oh, that’s interesting, I wasn’t expecting that. Let me wonder about this for a second, what might be going on here that I wasn’t anticipating, or what might be involved in this.
I reference my relationship with my husband, and there are times where—I was talking to a client just weeks ago—that we’ve known each other and been in intimate relationship for 18 years, as partners. There’s still things that I’m like: Oh, I get it on a deeper level! I’ve known layers, but to have a deeper understanding. It’s just so helpful to give room. Because I don’t think if I was asking or being curious, I would even be able to access that new understanding.
Yes. I think, dare I say it, that as women, we can be very keen on making our relationships a certain way and wanting certain things. We can absolutely get lost in problem-solving, or controlling, or wanting things very specifically. I recognize that in my own self, in my own relationship, which is a similar length of time as you. I remember, years ago, an amazing mentor of mine, and this became a bit of a catchphrase for me, which was: let your partner be who they are. It just spoke of a level of acceptance that was so at odds with even my career and my work of: Okay, let’s work this out, let’s figure this out. It’s like, yes, we are doing that. But acceptance is an act of love. Acceptance is part of love. That was such a great intervention for me, in a way, because it really showed me that I could learn a lot about acceptance. Of course, there’s that great paradox, isn’t there, that the more we accept, the more change is welcomed in. Things just naturally, organically develop from that loving place of acceptance, rather than that unaccepting place of anger or frustrations. Yes, I totally relate to what you’re describing.
Well, I can feel myself wanting to even respond to that. I imagine we could have a whole episode on just acceptance. One thing I will say, this was almost a year ago, my mother had sent me some infographic. This is actually a little bit of a difference my husband and I have. Ironically, it’s a little bit gender stereotypically different. I think we have aspects of ourselves that are more masculine and feminine. I think every person has masculine and feminine traits. Anyway, in this particular quality, my husband, when it comes to approaching things, likes to feel the flow, likes to feel some surrender and see what emerges, where I very much want to workshop and be active and proactive and take initiation, and I feel like there’s so much value in that. Really, either on its own can have a shadow. She sent this, it was almost like a Venn diagram of the overlap. Really, flow state is when we can allow for surrender or acceptance, and also have active participation. We can’t just sit back and let life come to us, obviously. It doesn’t work like that. And we can’t force or push only either. So it is quite a balance, and I think that’s the art, too, that perhaps you were referring to.
That’s brilliant.
Yeah, I wanted to ask about the slow love. Do you want to say anything about what you were referring to, for people who might not know what you mean?
“Something I say is: great relationships take time. It takes time to get to know someone, and it takes time to get to know ourselves within this relationship. Because every relationship is going to evoke something different in us, and hold the mirror up. And who are we as a couple within the relationship or partnership, whatever that might mean.”
I think that’s been one of my very important life lessons. I think once we’ve got to that point where we’ve made the decision: this is my person, and I commit to this person. It doesn’t have to be in marriage. But once we’ve got through that awful “should I/shan’t I” phase, if we have chosen someone and we love them, I feel that’s when the real work begins, in a way. Because the work of love needs to kind of start, and things that are very out of fashion now, like acceptance and grace and curiosity and care. Admiration of one another is something else I always encourage. Because we are so quick to find fault, and we’re very fearful. I talk about this in my book now, that we spend more time being in fear than we do being in love.
There’s so much fear in our relationships now, that this isn’t right, this need is not getting met, this happened, they said that, they didn’t do that. It’s all coming from this very fearful place of lack and deprivation, which so many of us come from. So it’s so incredibly understandable. However, it makes it very difficult for love to really grow under that level of hyper-focus and criticalness and constraints, and actually, often some really quite rigid expectations and rules and regulations. I mean, boundaries are a must in relationships in limits, but we can also lose our way with that a little bit and become incredibly unloving. So I really just encourage people, if you’ve made the decision to love this person, let’s just relax and begin this process of learning to love each other. That’s where a lot of emotional regulation and resilience has to come in to help us to allow ourselves to go slowly.
Yes. It reminds me of one of the terms that I used in my dissertation, and the way I was framing it is almost relationship as a container, when we do really commit, that it offers this containment that we’re not pivoting away. I mean, look, there are people who are married, and so legally are in a deep commitment, but maybe emotionally are still not fully in; they’ve somehow got their exit or their door is open for the exit. So emotionally, on all the levels here, when we can really enter into that commitment with another, that that’s where the work begins. Then our tendencies will emerge, which for some, it might be, this is how I know how to feel safe. What you’re saying is understandable, makes perfect sense, it sometimes might even relate to previous injury or trauma. And that to control the relationship or another isn’t going to be life-giving. What would you say?
Yeah, absolutely. Because it is an interesting thing. If we were to get what we wanted, which is to be in control and for someone to do what we wanted. It’s an interesting thing to question, what is it that we want? Because often we’re doing things that are in direct conflict with what we want, which is just to have a relaxed, easy time. That’s what I think most of us want. But the behaviors that we do that come from our own trauma, come from our own wounding, I think this is the level of self-awareness we all have to strive for.
“Actually, the way we automatically do things, the way we are inclined to do things, are more likely to take us away from love and make love very difficult, than actually welcome love in, in a way that maybe isn’t fully recognizable to us.”
It’s a horrific tragedy, I’m sure you see this in your work, that often, our behavior isn’t actually always in our best interest, even though we are so believing that it is.
Or well-intended. Our intentions are really for the highest, and we are not necessarily fully in touch with the result or what gets transpired when we approach things in a certain way. I was with a girlfriend, and we were having a little bit of a getaway, and I overheard some women talking in the locker room area. They were talking about spontaneity and magic that might happen. One was saying, I want to feel more magic, I want to feel more like unexpected goodness type of thing. I think that type of thing comes when we do surrender, or we do soften and we do allow. When I think about what I want, I want my partner to be happy and to be a full expression of who he is, and I want us to continue to be in the mystery of our relating. That does not come from control, at all. But I can also feel the tenderness here, emotionally, that that can be scary to your point. That there’s fear here, or I might feel rattled or vulnerable, or they might even call it approaching a terror barrier of the unknown. So how do you talk to us here about fear, and how you help people manage this?
Well, I think we need to understand, what do we do when we’re frightened? Because often, we don’t always realize that we’re frightened. We can feel stressed quite easily, or we can feel angry. It’s a very quick, easy, go-to emotion: anger. Exploring that, we can realize: Oh actually, I’m scared of something. I’m scared of being let down, or I’m scared I’ve made the wrong choice, or I’m scared you’re not going to love me enough, or I’m scared you’re going to take over my life, and that is going to be too much for me. There is a lot that we need to understand is within us in terms of fear.
I always encourage my clients to know their fears and to know themselves well enough to know their fears. Because they masquerade, I think, as very justifiable and really reasonable reasons why. We have this when girlfriends chat together, or guys get together, or just when friends get together. You hear each side of the story, and it sounds really reasonable and plausible, doesn’t it? Then you listen to the other side, it’s like: Oh wow, that’s really plausible too. You realize that we’re obviously all coming from our own perspective. So I think recognizing, if we look at it through the attachment lens, how we show fear when we’re maybe feeling a bit anxiously attached, and how we’re showing fear when we’re avoidantly attached, looks very, very different.
I think maybe for those of us, when we’re in an anxious process, we can maybe get a bit more in touch with the fear and be like: I am scared, and I’m scared of this, or this has happened before. But what’s, I think, quite intriguing, is when we’re in our avoidance process, fear is really hidden behind quite a lot of defense, which keeps us safe. So when we’re feeling a bit unimpressed, or actually a bit put off, or not really interested, or needing space, or whatever, it’s very difficult for us to know that underneath that is actually some fear. There’s fear there, and that is directly impacting my behavior, it’s directly impacting how I think, and obviously it’s going to be impacting how we relate and the relationships that we can have.
Well, a follow-up question there is, what would you encourage, or how do you work with someone who is in that avoidant process to even identify the fear?
Well, I think ort of the ‘in’ is realizing that what they’re craving, and what we all kind of crave, which is so relational, is safety. When I’m in my avoidant process and I want time on my own, or everyone in the world is an idiot, and all these things and beliefs are happening.
Not to be trusted.
Yeah, don’t tell anyone anything, and don’t let them in. There is a need for me to find safety, and I know myself well enough to know that I do just need a little bit of time. But I also do something really, really important, which is, I don’t believe everything. I think I can recognize my well-worn road, avoidant road, or my anxious road, or my dismissive-avoidant road, whatever road I’m on. I can really recognize the narrative for me around that, and when I recognize that, I really bring compassion for myself, and I really try to calm myself down mentally. Because it’s much more of a mental process than an emotional process at times, I think, when we’re avoidant, when we’re anxious.
When I’m anxious, it’s much more of an emotional-physical response. When I’m in my avoidant, I also recognize that this is very in my head, it’s very in my thinking. I kind of cut myself off a little bit. I’m in my thoughts, and my thoughts are very negative. So I know, okay, be careful. You’re thinking these thoughts. You know these thoughts. Just take the edge off. Don’t make them quite so extreme, just bring them back. And you know, you need time, you need space. Then I will go out, and then I really want to connect with people again.
This is a part of emotional regulation that a lot of people don’t appreciate, and certainly, people, when we’re in our avoidant process, don’t appreciate. Because the emotional shutting down that is part of avoidance, is our coping strategy in those moments. When actually, we need to emotionally regulate better so we can bring our emotions back online, and then we’re better able to actually meet our needs. Because we probably want to be taken into account, or want to be heard in some way, or felt disrespected, or whatever it might be. As long as we’re cut off from that, we can’t ever really address it.
Well, I recognize, as you’re describing this process, that it can be negatively reinforce self-perpetuating, I’ll say, that there’s almost this downward spiral if we aren’t in a position to recognize: Oh hello, protective part. Just wanting me to feel safe, but also has quite a edge too, the voice, and distancing. That if we’re not able to recognize that protection or that need for safety, then we can feel really justified to the thinking, and then remove ourselves and somewhat isolate. Then in that negative thinking process, it can feel quite lonely, and there can be a lot of pain associated with that. So I think, as you’re saying, the entry point, if we can recognize that need for safety and the protective part that wants to push away danger, that if there is a place of safety that we can access.
Now I imagine, and I wonder what you would say, that it’s not going to be this open arms, hold me. That it’s going to be able to connect on a super intimate level. It might just be like, can we be in the same room, or can we sit next together, can we take a walk. Help me, my sense is, a lot of times in the avoidant process, it needs to be a little bit of a slower easing into connection. What would you say?
That’s an interesting one, isn’t it? Because it is individual, and I think it all depends on the extremes. Because if we are deeply concerned, or we feel backed into a corner, or all these sort of phrases that as avoidants we will use, the more extreme our reaction, the more extreme what our needs in that moment will be and what our need for safety will look like.
But something that I have noticed when I’m working, particularly when I’m working with couples, and one identifies quite strongly with being anxiously attached and the other being avoidantly attached, even though I think we can be very fluid with it all. But when we’re in that dance and when things are happening, I think there’s something interesting that does keep coming up, which is, both parties don’t want to feel abandoned. But how they will feel abandoned is going to be very, very, very different. So something that I really encourage, often when we are avoidant, it’s the exhausting, emotional messiness, I call it, that’s just too much for us in those moments. But physical touch feels really important. This is when we’re angrily holding one another’s hands on the sofa, or in the car, and we’re just going to hold hands without any kind of conversation or anything like that. But there is this point of: we are connected.
So I agree with you. I think doing things like going for a walk or going for a drive is really, really useful. But I also think a conversation, when we’re not triggered, around what do you need in those moments, and what don’t you need, can feel really loving. Because we can then say, look, I just don’t need you to be talking. I know it’s important and what you have to say matters. But please, I just need half an hour, and then we can come at this again. But then I don’t want you angry in the next room, because then it’s going to take me longer. We can have some difficult conversations. Because what comes out of those conversations that I see in my sessions is quite surprising. I will encourage as a challenge. I’ll say, can you just go to your bedroom, get into bed and hold each other? You don’t do anything. You don’t say anything. But you get into bed and you hold each other. That can feel really uncomfortable, because we want certain things in that moment. But that kind of real animal connection will regulate both people, and for me, that’s a beautiful move into intimacy.
I love that. I do think, just to feel into what you’re describing, with lower stimulus, like maybe lights turned down and the comfort of a bed. Not necessarily, it could be side by side, or it could be to whatever level of that touch that feels comfortable, or that real embrace. I don’t know, some people that are maybe more of the anxious might want to have make-up sex or be super active. I do think there’s something you’re describing of just being together, just this physiological, non-verbal posture of: we’re present, and we’re with each other. That can convey such security and solid foundation, despite whatever is not yet resolved.
That’s it. Because we can there can be a lot of words, so many words and speaking. Of course, that’s an amazing way of connecting, and it’s an amazing way of sharing.
“There are also things that the body communicates, that all the words in the world cannot. We really do not give that enough platform in our lives, and certainly not in our relationships.”
That’s why I do encourage it, because I do think it is challenging, when we’re feeling anxious, and we do just want to talk to talk, and arrive at something that we think is going to make us feel better, and maybe it will. But what the body really needs is something very young in us often, that actually just requires a soothing, that the body can do so much more effectively than our anxious brains, kind of agitating away. I want to go straight to the nervous system, straight to the primate, and be like: Okay, I am here, and this is us, and we may not agree. I don’t know, it just bypasses a lot of the noise that I think comes with our wounding and our worries and our insecurities. So I really encourage that, because it’s challenging for us, because that’s real closeness. It requires, actually, quite a bit of vulnerability to just be with one another and hold each other, and remember that you are in each other’s lives, and hold two hearts together, etc.
Yes. I think the thing I’m feeling for some that might be like: Argh, I don’t know that I could do that! It sometimes feels as though they have to stick to the upset to demonstrate I’m not okay with that. When we can say I’m not okay with that, and I still love you, or we’re still in a process. We don’t agree, as you just said, and we love each other. Can we just be? Then what can happen from there, that’s where we can feel the art and the acceptance and the creativity, that something might emerge out of that state that we would have never been able to feel or even access had we not just softened into this regulation place.
I love that. That goes back to what we were saying earlier as well about being slow. Because there’s something sad about many of us, myself included, where we go straight to crisis. We’re straight into: This is a big, big problem that needs to be resolved! As opposed to, welcome to life in relationships, this is going to happen endlessly. The kind of keeping ourselves out of crisis is great. I love what you’ve just said about how it may not be resolved, it may not be talked through, and that’s okay. Because there’s going to be a long conversation that you have with your partner over your lifetime or over the next week or over the next month, where you can come back to all of this and share and explore, and laugh or be angry, or whatever is necessary. It’s often in that moment when we are so dysregulated that I really encourage us. What do we say in psychotherapy?
“The more we want to say something, the more we need to practice restraint. The more we don’t want to say something, the more we need to practice courage and express it.”
So it’s in these moments when we just have so much to say and whatever, that’s when we’re dysregulated, and unfortunately, that’s not going to be constructive. Going slowly means in the moment, but it also means over time, looking at all the problems in your relationship, which will be long lasting and inspire many, hopefully, beautiful conversations that will take time.
I’ll say for myself, in that anxious process, when I’ve done several iterations of what you’re describing, I now trust that we will have time to talk, we will circle back, what I have to say is important. The quality of safety in the environment, or just that presence and acceptance of each other in the conflict, the bonding there, I feel like that provides me a trust. It provides us a trust that there’s a love and a foundation that we can prioritize in the midst of the conflict.
But what you’ve just described is secure attachment. When we are anxious, when we’re avoidant, and that’s okay, because that’s how we are in times of stress. The more we can bring the wisdom and the trust of when we are not in stress, when we are feeling secure with our loves. That’s the impact that love can have on us, is that, yes, this terrible thing has happened, and I trust this person, and I am secure in how this person feels about me, cares about me, respects me. So whilst this example might not fit with that, the bigger picture is that they do, and I trust that, and I feel that, and my body knows that. That’s what we’re all aspiring to feel like. I mean, it’s such a relief to let go of that constant hyper-vigilance of waiting to be disappointed, waiting to be let down, waiting to be annoyed by this person. As opposed to just saying, it’s okay, you’ve chosen a good one, and you are loved. That security is something that is so precious.
Yes, what a gift to be able to offer that good will and grace, as you said, to one’s person! Then also to feel it on the receiving end, that you’re not just suspect immediately. Right?
That’s right.
So you’re giving a lot of voice to holding hands, being in physical contact, also our physical posture, our demeanor towards one another, and just recognizing what kind of stance we’re holding physiologically. Can we access: I love this person, we’re in conflict, we are working it out, or we’ll work it out. Can we generate that goodwill and that acceptance? So there’s a lot here. Physically, it could be eye contact, softening of the eyes, softening of the voice. Is there anything else you want to say? Because this might be hard for someone who is really activated, but it also has a positive effect when we can breathe a little more deeply, we can soften the eyes. Again, it’s interesting. Not only is it for the environment of the relationship, also supportive to our partner, but it also helps us change our physiological state. Is that right?
Absolutely. Because I think the emotional regulation can encompass so much. It can be very physical stuff—breathing, visualization, calming ourselves. I think that’s one of the most important tools for us to learn is, how do I soothe myself in difficult moments? Because in time, and again, this is a slow art of relationships, I believe we can teach one another to come in and help to soothe us, to co-regulate with us. But that is almost like an end point, and we want that at the starting point of: I need some all-powerful person to come in and soothe me and calm me and make everything okay. That’s our responsibility, as much as we possibly can, is to try to care for ourselves in such a way that we can show up for our relationships, as adults as we can be, and as loving as we can be, so we can create what we want. That’s why it’s such a big thing.
So much of therapy work is about emotionally maturing ourselves and looking after ourselves to now be in relationship in a more mature way, and also allowing our relationships to heal us, which I believe they 100% have the capacity to do.
“Healing and rescuing is not the same thing. I think when we need to be rescued, we’ve abdicated responsibility for ourselves. We’re really coming from a place where we’re disempowered, and that’s not great. That’s going to create an imbalanced relationship, an addictive relationship, all sorts of things can come from that.”
It’s a beautiful act of our own love, again, more love, to empower ourselves as much as we can in our relationship. So we can arrive in our relationships with things that I really think are important, like dignity and composure and an ability to listen. These things are the work of adult relationships, and that’s a starting point. Then we have a real chance of healing. But we’re not going to be rescued, and we’re not going to rescue. But we can really support and be there. That is a really exciting, and actually, a much more deeply challenging thing to do, and will create the most solid relationship. It’ll create a beautiful, beautiful partnership.
Thank you for really speaking to the nuance between what you’re describing in this sense of rescuing versus healing, and when one is taking responsibility and taking that ownership, the power of relating in that secure functioning and how healing that is. The arc of, or not even the arc, but just the learning of being able to be in this practice, I think it provides the muscle-building, if you will, of emotional resilience. You’re talking about emotional maturity. I can recognize in my earlier phases—and sometimes, if I’m still really triggered, I might resort to this—I would pen to paper, just like, I need to get it all out and just get to that place. Then once I can feel some organization or understand what’s deeper, sometimes I’ll go for a walk and need to get out that discharge. Sometimes, just even slowing down my voice, or now I might turn towards meditation or yoga. There’s various things that I know can help that little break, maybe 10- or 15-minute break, just to get a little calmer so I can find my ground.
Is there anything you want to speak to, just far as how to start recognizing? Because I think people have more ways that they regulate that they just don’t know that they do. I remember reading a book, and it was describing what we might call as maybe not super adaptive behaviors. But procrastination is regulation, there’s certain ways in which even maybe overeating is regulation. Even though these might have some side effects, for sure, that he is recognizing these are ways that we’re trying to regulate. So is there anything you want to say just to help people get some understanding?
I think there’s definitely something to be said about short-term emotional regulation skills that are a little bit more like in the emergency, SOS, let’s do something straight away. Then there’s also maintenance emotional regulation. The SOS is like, we are dysregulated, we’re triggered, we’re in dangerous territory here. This is when we’re going to argue, we’re going to have high conflict, we’re going to cause problems, we’re going to make things worse, we’re going to say things we regret, we’re going to behave in ways that we’re going to regret later or feel cringe about. So this is really when we have to recognize: Oh okay, I’ve lost my way a little bit. Emergency, emergency! Let’s do something to calm ourselves down. Then the other ones are obviously like, what can I do every day to just help me have a regulated nervous system that can withstand the inevitable ups and downs of life and relationships, that’s not so easily triggerable and ready to go at any moment? So these two things are really important.
As you say, the SOS ones can be very like, distract yourself, do something, listen to a song. One of my colleagues says, masturbate. There are all sorts of things. Do something creative. Go for a run. Write out all your evil, angry thoughts on a piece of paper. Get it all out. Go punch a pillow. Have something to eat. Have a nap, if you can. All these things are really good in the moment, and we should have five or six that we know just work for us. It could be calling, something I do is I call my best friend. I say, I just need to rant. She’s like, okay, give it to me. Then I just go for it, and there’s no consequence to that. But whatever it is, we should have things in our back pocket that we know that we can use, that can slowly calm us down and where something else can come in.
Then the other one is already an important practice. This is more the sort of emotional maturing, and actually it’s setting in. We’re kind of embedding this now, where this is how we roll most of the time, and it’s really exciting. We’ve got to maintain that somehow. Because some of us, many people I work with, live from energy drink to energy drink, from coffee to coffee, busy, partying, working hard, playing hard, not sleeping very well, eating poorly, having fights with everyone at work, and then going home and having fights with everyone at home. It’s like, okay, we really need to look at this. Everything in your life is really ready to go, ready to rumble at any moment. So what can we bring in to have a nervous system that’s really supported and held. So I think having all these things. That would be more your meditation and walking, visualizing, imagining your ideal self, knowing your cognitions, really challenging your thoughts, and CBT can come in about negative thinking. I think these two things together can actually change the trajectory of our lives and relationships enormously.
No kidding! Build resilience, also even change our neuroplasticity. It can change so, so much. Well, this is beautiful. Thank you so much. I love just hearing your articulation and how you’re weaving all this together and helping people organize. How do people get in touch with what you’re teaching and what you’re offering?
Thank you. Well, I spend a lot of time posting teachings on Instagram. Every day, I’m encouraging people, challenging people, with reminders about what it is that we need to be doing in our relationships. I’ve also got a website with loads of free teachings on, that’s CharisseCooke.com. My Instagram is @CharisseCooke. I’ve also just released a book called The Attachment Solution, which is all about the solution for us to be looking at where we’re coming from in terms of our attachments, and really practical ways of becoming more secure and relating, that really comes from a place of love rather than fear. I’m just online, and you can find me online.
Wonderful! I’ll make sure to have the link to your Instagram channel, so people can access all of your reminders and encouragements. As well as your website, so people can find your free teachings, and also find your book. I’ll put the book link too. Then, are you offering courses or groups or anything on your website?
Yes, I am. Thank you. I’ve got a beautiful online course for people who really want to go in. I called it 10 New Behaviors. It’s behaviors that every relationship needs to really be strong and solid and to thrive. So you can do it over 10 weeks or 10 days or whatever. But I have that, it’s a more in-depth course. I’m also going to be starting some group therapy online courses, where I will work with 20 to 30 people and do a mini lecture, and then people can come in and join, and we can work together more in-person in that way. Not in-person, because it’s online, but directly. I will be part of the process.
Nice, wonderful! I’ll make sure to have all of that on today’s show notes. Thank you, Charisse, it’s been a really wonderful time talking with you here today.
Thank you, Dr. Jessica. I’ve really enjoyed it. Thank you.
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Do you find it difficult to negotiate differing perspectives without sacrificing your own identity or creating deeper rifts? How do we balance our own needs with those of our partner? How do we stay connected even when conflict arises? Relationships can be a delicate balancing act, where the yearning for closeness and the need for autonomy often collide, leaving couples in a state of disconnection and frustration.
In this episode, we delve into this very dilemma, exploring the concept of becoming “relationship visionaries,” emphasizing the importance of prioritizing the relationship’s higher intention over individual desires. Through compelling stories, visual models, and actionable advice, you’ll learn how to take turns, communicate effectively, and make decisions that foster intimacy and connection. By embodying these principles, you can navigate conflicts with greater understanding and kindness, ensuring a resilient and deeply satisfying partnership.
Join us as we uncover the essence of successful relationships and offer tools to elevate your love life to new heights.
Jessica Myers-Adams is a licensed clinical social worker and certified relationship coach and is an author and speaker whose words resonate with authenticity. Her widely acclaimed book, “What To Do When You Do Give a F*ck,” has been hailed for its unabashed counsel on breathing life back into waning relationships. Through her coaching initiative, Couples Speak, Jessica has facilitated countless couples in healing fractured ties and revamping the love connection.
In this episode
8:29 The common struggle of balancing the desire for intimacy with the need for personal boundaries.
12:17 Mastering effective listening and embracing relationship vision.
24:21 Steps to negotiation, validation, and intimacy in relationships.
37:10 Cultivating curiosity and flexibility in relationship decision-making.
44:33 Explore resources and programs to enhance your relationship skills.
Your Check List of Actions to Take
- Ensure you fully listen to your partner’s perspective without interrupting and reflect back on what you hear to show understanding.
- Take the responsibility to start important conversations, especially if you notice an issue, rather than waiting for your partner to bring it up.
- Express your thoughts and feelings using “I” statements to minimize blame and emphasize personal responsibility in conflicts.
- Create a visual representation of your relationship’s highs and lows using a quadrant model to enhance awareness and understanding of your emotional states.
- Regularly review and discuss previous decisions with your partner to ensure both perspectives are still aligned and to make necessary adjustments.
- Agree on a higher intention or common goal for your relationship to guide decision-making and maintain focus during conflicts.
- Share the responsibility of being the visionary in the relationship by taking turns in decision-making and planning.
- Make a conscious effort to speak with love and listen with compassion, even during disagreements, to foster a supportive and nurturing environment.
Mentioned
What to Do When You Do Give a FCK (Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
Shifting Criticism For Connected Communication
Connect with Jessica Myers-Adams
Websites: couplesspeak.com
Facebook: facebook.com/profile.php?id=100084765327582
Instagram: instagram.com/jessicarelationshipvisionary
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jessica-myers-adams-865136134
Connect with Dr. Jessica Higgins
Facebook: facebook.com/EmpoweredRelationship
Instagram: instagram.com/drjessicahiggins
Podcast: drjessicahiggins.com/podcasts/
Pinterest: pinterest.com/EmpowerRelation
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/drjessicahiggins
Twitter: @DrJessHiggins
Website: drjessicahiggins.com
Email: jessica@drjessicahiggins.com
About Today’s Show
Jessica, thank you for joining us.
Hey, it’s a pleasure. Jessica, I love two relationship experts talking—talking about how we help people, and getting into this stuff.
Yes. I appreciate, just even as we were talking before recording here, how this is something you came into and also have really walked and been through the fire, and that you are willing to share some of your own experiences. I do my best to be transparent and really acknowledge just my own journey, and still in the practice and still in the development of my own relational skills and cultivating relationship intimacy with my significant other. So I love when, yes, there’s someone that’s doing the work professionally, but also is very willing to be open and honest about just their own journey. So I appreciate that, thank you.
Absolutely, I think we have to be transparent. I think the people that we work with, we may be further along on the path, but we’ve experienced the same things; we feel the same things. So I think being vulnerable and transparent, not seeking anything from them of course, but telling them: Hey, I’ve been there. I have, as I was telling you earlier, peeled out of the driveway. I’ve yelled. I’ve grown something. I have done those things.
Yes, and just the humanity of it. I will say and join you in this, that the insecurities that I might feel or the terror that I might feel in taking an emotional risk that’s new, or showing something that feels unlovable, all of the things. I just can acknowledge that it’s some of the more profound work that I’ve done, and how it really does lead to the thing that I’m in service of, which I think we’re going to be talking about today, which you regard as the North Star. Just having that vision and focus as people are orienting in relationship.
But before we focus on that topic, what would you like people to know about you and where you’re coming from here?
Yeah, thanks so much. Again, I think just to emphasize, I’ve been there. I’ve been in that relationship pit where you know you want to be with this person, and yet you can’t seem to figure out the communication. You can’t get them to see what you’re seeing, and you certainly can’t see what they’re seeing. That’s the most painful and lonely place, because it’s your best friend, and you can’t connect with them. So I really understand that, and I also now understand that there’s a really clear roadmap. In fact, there’s only two things that you have to do in order to be in a connected and loving relationship, I think. But it’s very challenging.
Here’s what I would like to say to people, I guess is my experience, is that anytime we want to grow and change into something or improve ourselves, there’s going to be another part of us that resists. So I think a lot of my work, personally and then professionally, is helping people with that inner battle. There’s the part that aspires to be loving and kind, and then there’s the Yes-But part. The part that says: You’ve hurt me, I’m digging in my heels. I’m going to be stubborn and I’m going to be uncooperative. So I think the real battle is the one within us.
Yes. Jessica, it seems like we have similar values, and just what we’re up against in relationship in general. That it’s very human to have both the pull, to feel close and intimate and bonded, as well as the pull of autonomy and separateness and individual pursuits. Sometimes that come closer and pull away is a tension point in relationship. So one of the things I’m hearing you describe is that while it might, in a conflict moment, feel like I want you to see me and love me, but I also feel very protective and want to have some walls and guards up. That that can feel like different motivations, like I want to be close, but I also want to feel protected. Also, sometimes we have just some conflict and play in relationship, around being close versus separate.
Absolutely, I love that. If we could only express exactly what you said to our partner in those moments. It takes so much awareness of ourselves, though, to be able to put into words what you just said there. Sometimes I think, I imagine that your clients may look to you to translate that for them to their partner. Because if we could all just say the things you said: Hey, I’m really wanting to be close to you, and I’m also really wanting to be… To say it in a way that is loving and kind. This idea of, I call it love consciousness, and that is the only thing that I think we need to have in order to be in these successful relationships.
Because it’s twofold, I said there’s only two things you need to be able to do. I think it’s, one: express yourself in a way that you love yourself. Meaning you’re not critical or blaming, you’re not finger-pointing. You’re talking about yourself, and you’re respectful, because that’s how you want to be. Then the second part is that you have a love-conscious way of hearing the other person. You can hold on to “you love them,” and you don’t have to like what they’re saying and it can be different. When you say something, it doesn’t mean I agree with it, or that I’m condoning it. It just means I’m allowing, because I care. So those two things: self-expression with love, and listening with love.
I love the allowing. That is something I think many people get confronted with, that if I give allowance, I am somehow endorsing or agreeing.
I was sitting with a couple last week, and there’s a tool we use, the effective listener. The wife was listening, and the husband stepped out of the office just for a minute. She said: Jessica, I’m having such a hard time listening. I said, that’s okay, remember what we read right before. There was this little thing we read, and it said: Just because I listen doesn’t mean I accept what they’re saying is true. Just because I listen doesn’t mean I condone it. It was these five things. She said: Okay, let me try again. He stepped back in, and we were able to just continue to practice that. It’s a practice.
Oh my goodness, yes! Just echoing what you were describing around these tension points around wanting to feel heard and seen or expressed or be matter in the dynamic, and also the tension point between feeling wanting to be close and connected, but also feeling really protective. I feel sometimes when someone is listening and they’re adamantly opposed to the description, it’s almost like they’re in court and they’re like, I don’t know if it’s the bailiff or the court reporter, like, strike that from the record! Like, I have to correct it as it’s being described, it’s somehow that threatening or that difficult. So I think that’s such a really important practice, as you’re describing, to give more room and space. That it can exist, and different people’s perspectives can also exist, that it doesn’t necessarily mean one is right or wrong.
It’s kind of like maybe if we eat the same food, you and I have the same meal, and you think that it’s terrible and I think that it’s amazing. We really need to be reminded of that, that that’s the same exact thing in our relationship. That what I just said to my spouse felt nice and loving, and what they heard was very spicy. They can’t even eat that, it’s so horrible. We’re looking at each other like: Whoa, it’s delicious. No, you are awful. You just said that in such a mean way, and you were yelling at me. Well, I really don’t think I was yelling, Jessica.
Yeah. So just to reiterate, you’re saying the biggest success principle in your mind is just bringing awareness and bringing consciousness to relationship.
I love the word principle.
“I think the principle that I would say, one, is this allowing of differences would be the biggest principle to the big picture, is that we’re different.”
Then there’s these smaller pieces of it. Like, can I describe what I like? Can I describe what I think and feel? Can I do that without it being about the other person? That actually is sometimes challenging.
I like to give examples, if this is helpful. I had a guy in my office last week, and I kept his note for the whole week. Because he was going to talk to his wife, and this is going to be inflammatory for some, but his wife was unfaithful, and they’re working on it. It’s an old affair, too. He was going to talk about how he has experienced some things, that was his goal. I said: Okay, can you start off with telling her what you want to talk about? He said, I’m going to talk about how you did this to me. And we stopped. He knows one of the principles, a smaller one, is to talk about himself. He said, I don’t know how to do that. I said, well, let’s think about it. I really encouraged him to think, I didn’t give him the answer. I wish I had it in front of me, because I need the paper from last week. It said something like, I want to tell you about how I’m trying to make something okay within me that I struggle with. That’s probably not exactly it, but I said I probably could hold on to that for weeks and show other clients. B and C were talking, and this is what happened and he said that, and that was such a good stretch for him to think about what it was for him. Then his wife could potentially hear better.
I think one of the small principles is when we’re saying what we think, what we feel, and what we believe, not only are we using I statements. I’m sure that everybody talks about that, I feel, and then if you actually give a feeling, that’s good. But I think it goes even deeper. You laugh because people say, I feel like you don’t understand me. No, that’s not a feeling.
Sorry, you were in midstream there.
No, we were on the same page. So can we talk about what we like, what we think, what we feel and believe? Can we do that with love? I think one of the things I’m really trying to embody is, we can really be loving and not like it, we can be loving and have strong boundaries. So I could say to my partner, and my partner is more avoidant than ever, so I would never get this, by the way. But if somebody was like me and getting riled up, I could say to me: Jessica, I love you, and I can’t talk while we’re in this kind of state. So I’m going to walk away. But if you want to talk, and we can do it calm, I’ll be here. So having a boundary that’s loving, but also says what I’m thinking and feeling.
Absolutely, that is not easy to strike for many. I also have a client who has really struggled in this, in his relationship and his marriage, and also has an avoidant significant other. The significant other is a firm believer that we’re not friends when we’re in conflict, like you are not my ally. He’s like, I need to feel that there’s some good will, even if we’re having a disagreement. That’s just something that hasn’t been her experience at all. So it is tricky sometimes to really have that reassurance or have that acknowledgement of the connection, even in the midst of conflict, and that’s not easy to do. But for the one that, I will say, has more anxious tendencies. My significant other definitely has more avoidant tendencies, and we really worked on it, but I know that to have some sense.
Oh gosh, Jessica, this was years and years ago. I remember being in a conflict, and my felt sense was like, I have no idea if we’re going to resolve this, if he wants to resolve this. I mean, it was a little irrational, because I know how committed we are. But in the felt sense of it, I just didn’t have orientation that we want to work on this, even though we may not be able to forge ahead and continue to work on this in the moment. Because sometimes he would get a little quiet and shut down, and I was like, can you just remind me that you want to resolve this? That’s all I needed to hear. He was like, of course, and I was like, okay. It could just settle.
Even if it’s years ago and you’ve done more work, that’s so great to have the vulnerability almost, to ask for what you’re looking for. It’s still okay that he can have a little bit of a boundary or need time to resolve things. But you’re able to say: Hey, can I get something from you? I love that.
To help me tolerate the difficulty of being in this messiness or the separation or disconnection, for however long. Just being able to tolerate that was really helpful to just know that we were going to come back to it. I know this is a common recommendation, that if you’re going to take a pause, to say: Okay, we’ll revisit this, we will have a point in time. Or it’s already decided, we’ll come back in an hour.
I think that’s really hard for a lot of couples to get to. I know I can speak for myself, that was very hard to get to, because it never feels like it’s coming back. Often it’s the person who wants to get away from the conflict that’s going to initiate the unspoken timeout, and then the other person who is worked up and wanting to resolve, it feels like it’s not going to end. So there is even a challenge if your partner would have not been able to give that to you, or would have even been in that place to say that. So that’s really challenging.
Well, there were years before that it looked very different. So I will say, many, many iterations.
Okay, so we’re talking about awareness and consciousness and kindness in the midst of conflict, and how to also be in a place of talking and sharing. Or even just acknowledging for self, what is it that I’m thinking here, where’s my mind going, what are the stories I’m telling, what is it that I’m feeling? What’s the felt sense—body, sensations, emotions? What are my, is it beliefs you were saying?
Thoughts, feelings, beliefs, desires, all of those things. I think to bring it back to the focus, and I love that word too because it brings us back, you said the North Star in the beginning.
“I like to help people become what I call relationship visionaries. A relationship visionary is a person who is committed to making the relationship itself more important, making that the purpose.”
So it is actually eliminating, temporarily, what I want, what I desire, feel, think, believe, and what my partner thinks, feels and believes, first to make a decision about that.
One of my mentors, he interviewed a NASCAR racing driver. This guy was unstoppable. He shared this in a talk years ago, and it stuck in my mind. He said to this professional NASCAR driver, how are you so successful? He said, well, there’s one tip that I have. He said, when you’re in the midst of all of these cars diverging, trying to get to the lead, people wreck. He said, the reason I don’t wreck my car is because I have a focal point. I’m looking out ahead, and when I look out ahead, my hands will automatically take the car where it needs to go. He eliminates, and then there’s the people that would crash behind him. I love that image. So a relationship visionary is looking ahead.
So if you think, we hear, typically, business visionaries. They’re a person who, there’s a current crisis, and they’re thinking: Okay, how do we solve this crisis? They’re creative in their approach, so they’re not getting bogged down into what’s already not working. They know what doesn’t work, and they’re trying new things. To progress in our relationship, as we were talking about both of our experiences in our relationships, we’re trying to get to that next better version. So we’re looking ahead with our steering wheel, and we’re trying to take it to the next level. So a relationship visionary is really focused on the importance of the relationship, that is the primary. So then it means we decide from there that we’re going to take turns to listen to each other.
One of the things that I like to even practice, and it’s very challenging for me, is to take turns to say, what do you think about that? So it would be, Jessica, what do you think about this situation? As I’m listening, I’m not telling you my thoughts on it. I’m not saying: Yes, that’s good, that’s bad. I’m just like, tell me more. So you say this and this and that. Then I ask, is there anything else you want to tell me? Can I now tell you what I think and feel about that topic? We’ve taken turns, and maybe that’s step two, then.
So step one is we’ve decided it’s going to be what’s best for us both. Step two is each taking turns, and then we can start to negotiate. So maybe mine is a 9.9, and yours is a 9.9 out of 10. Well, we’re really in a log jam then, because what are we going to do? We’ll get back to let’s ask more questions. If you don’t get that thing, what would happen for you, what would it be like? You tell me, and then I tell you. Now we have 9.91 and 9.90, and we can choose. Here’s the even cool thing about that, I think there’s beauty in this, is when you are explicit about those things, when you talk them out.
“If I’m going to make the sacrifice because my partner’s desire is higher, by explicitly talking about it, I am, in a sense, being validated that it’s a loss for me. It’s not just I’m giving it up and there’s no recognition, but there’s recognition of what each of us is getting. There’s so much intimacy in that, there’s so much connection.”
Even if it’s sadness for me, and my partner would be okay with me being sad. Now I’m not going to stomp around. I’ve made the decision; I’ve chosen to do that. So it’s different.
So it sounds as though this is really actionable, that when you’re referencing the relationship or the North Star, this isn’t just a global. Or maybe it’s both. It’s the global, but then when there’s a decision to be made, where there perhaps is differences of opinion, that that’s revisited. That, as you mentioned in the analogy of a business crisis, that we have a thing that’s a bit of a difference or a conflict here. Step one is, okay, we are in service of us and our goal here, and to really name. That is what you’re saying, to be very explicit when there’s a challenge.
I love that. I think of it as step one is in place. We could revisit, I think, as a reminder. I love that, I’ve not really thought about that. But the foundation, that when you’re building something, I guess you should check the foundation before you put another level on. So maybe we do need to revisit, like, is the foundation proper?
Yes, I think it’s great. I have a dear friend, if I can just say, and she’s a genius at this, that whenever there’s something we’re planning together, she’s like: Okay, let’s talk about what we would love, and we really want to support each other, to have a good time. Really, to reinforce and to reiterate and just to put the focus on. If it’s a vacation that’s getting planned, or whatever the decision is, if it’s the messiness of the kitchen, we both want to have an environment where we feel supported and feel what the intention is, and that supports us both. Is that helpful?
Yeah, I love revisiting that for each individual thing. I think this really could be that you do step one, two, and three every time. I love that. But I think of it more as a process. Like for another part of my life, if there’s a place where I made a decision to do something, once I’ve made that decision, then I take action. So I think of step one as already a decision made. But I love going back and just checking out the foundation of that, like: Hey partner, we’re going to talk about this. Especially if I’m going to lead.
Here’s one thing that I think is really important to help with people trying to improve their relationship, is sometimes you do have to be the leader. If you’re the person who wants something different, then it’s your problem. It’s your problem to solve. I might even say, besides being a relationship visionary, I did a recording on this recently and have a YouTube video, and I was sharing these three, three major focuses of a relationship. I said at the middle of it though, it should’ve been the number one tip. So here’s my number one tip for your episode here, because I think, in fact, this is even maybe more important than the relationship visionary.
I love that you have the 9.99 and this is 1.1. You have such nuances, and it’s really helpful. Thank you, sorry.
No, I want to build it up, because I want people to really pay attention that this is the most important thing, I think for me in my life.
“Instead of being a victim for whatever happens to me, taking responsibility. I’m going to even give it a little bit more definition. It’s owning the problem, no matter what happens.”
I can give lots of examples. I have one from yesterday, as a matter of fact. But owning the problem means, to give a simple example, if I’m very particular about where the mustard needs to go on the refrigerator door—I’m not, but if I were—that’s my problem, and I need to own that. Instead of telling my partner they didn’t do it correctly, or your kitchen example, what I would say is, I have a problem with having to have the mustard in this certain place. I’m not saying it’s a wrong problem, it’s just my problem. People have great problems, like I have a problem of needing things to be organized before I can do work. Sums up, that’s great. It’s their problem, not mine. I’m much more busy with other things.
So going back to the number one thing that I want to come across is that whatever the issue is, if you can figure out what it is for you that’s the problem. So I may have a problem, and have had a problem with intimacy in my relationship, my spouse is fine with the level of intimacy and feels like everything’s okay. So then I’m having a problem with intimacy, and then I have to own it and figure out what is it that I can do about it? Sometimes, unfortunately, there’s nothing.
“That’s the wisdom of the Serenity Prayer maybe. The Serenity Prayer is saying, bring me the serenity to accept what I can’t change. Everything else, let’s try. Let’s get visionary on this, and let’s figure out what to do.”
Is that making sense?
It makes a lot of sense. One of the things I’m thinking, as you’re describing this, is that with the North Star, and perhaps the intention is that both of our experiences really matter, and that we want to make welcome when either one of us is having a concern or a problem. So it’s revisited, it’s known, it’s agreed upon. And even still, it might be, for one, difficult to raise their hand and say: Hey, I have a thing. The vulnerability and the ownership that that requires that you’re speaking to so, so clearly. Because it seems as though, and often, tendency for people is to survey, build the evidence, all the reasons and rational explanations of why they feel the way they feel and why it’s important, almost in the effort to persuade or convince their person that this is legitimate. That’s a lot of effort, and what gets caught up in that is sometimes the criticism defensiveness loop, or it really can take people on an exit ramp and really go back and forth around the reality of: Well, no, that’s not right, I did take out the trash, or I did put the mustard back, or whatever the things are. When really, it’s like, I have a thing. To your point earlier, when we can own that and be in a much more place of reveal around what I’m thinking, feeling, and believing about this, it’s much more compelling for the person to respond on the receiving end to be interested to turn towards. Is that right?
Yeah, I think here’s what else I’m thinking about. Because there’s a careful line that we have to just be aware of. We can step over lines and we can do anything we want, there’s always consequences, good and bad. I think what to be really mindful of is, if I have a problem, so I said there’s only two things we have to do really effectively. One is to know myself and to know I have a problem, to figure out what’s making me uncomfortable. I’m uncomfortable because I like a lot more conversation than my spouse does. Maybe that’s an example, it’s one we hear a lot. So I have the problem of needing more conversation, or wanting it I should say, because I don’t like the word need so much. But then the other piece to be really mindful of is the second part, the curiosity of what my partner is experiencing.
So I’ll try to explain it, even though I don’t have a whiteboard in front of me. If you think of a y-axis, there would be the other person, and then if you draw an x-axis, it would be me or self. These two axis, and I’m going to fill in four quadrants. So you may have to close your eyes to think about this. But on the bottom line, there’s the self. So maybe it goes from a zero to 10 scale. How well do I know what I think, feel, or believe, or any of those things? On the bottom-right-hand side, there’s this box of feeling forgotten. That’s like the mustard on the door shelf. I’m very clear about that, and I feel forgotten when my partner doesn’t do it. The problem is, if I’m in that bottom quadrant, that means I have a very low level of other awareness. Like, what does my partner think, feel, believe, value about the same problem? In the box on the top-left. So if you, again, close your eyes and imagine these four boxes, the one on the top-left is the person who is only aware of making everybody else happy, and they sacrifice themselves sometimes. That person can lose themselves. So they may put mustard in the door, and they don’t want to. It’s so challenging and hard for them to do, maybe that’s an extreme. I want it to be extreme I guess, so it makes the point. And I’ll just give a voice to the bottom-left-hand, which would just be, I’m not in check with myself or the other person. It’s sort of a disconnect.
This maybe is the thing that listeners could want a copy of, I’ll give a reference to this that maybe I’ll put on my site. The place we’re looking for in the top-right-hand corner would be that both of those two very, very important things are met. One, I know what I think, and I also know what my partner thinks, and we’ve solved it. The box on that top-right-hand side is intimacy, connection, and resolving of things. So why I had to draw that out all in your mind is because if we state we have a problem, I said I wrote about this in my book, so we talked about this earlier that I try to be transparent. I would go on these vacations that were wonderful with my spouse, but we would be driving for hours, and I would be getting upset because why aren’t we having conversation? I have a problem with needing conversation, my spouse is happily listening to music and fine. So what I had to eventually understand about that other axis is, my spouse isn’t thinking anything, doesn’t have anything to say. I’m the one who has the problem. So the way we resolve that eventually was I own the problem, and then I say: Hey, can we talk? Then my spouse says, what do you want to talk about? How about that, how upsetting is that for a person like me? Very. Well, it’s my problem, so I have to think of the conversation topic too. So I think that it’s not balance even, it’s just having both things be present.
Well, this is really helpful. I am sure people would appreciate the visual, so I’ll make sure to link that. As you’re laying this out, that there are ways to uncover with the curiosity or even the questions. As you were describing of step one, having this North Star, this vision, and then being able to understand that we might have a different experience around this, or it might mean different things to us, or we might have different attachments to the thing we’re voting for. Sometimes we get stuck there. So if we can really look at, okay, that’s not going to necessarily give us a good decision-making avenue here. So if we can slow down, maybe I don’t even know why it means so much to me. If I were to get what I wanted, what that would mean to me. Or if I didn’t get it, what it would mean, and vice versa. Understanding that maybe I’m assuming, just because you’re seemingly happy with the music on and not talking. But maybe you do have things you want to talk about that you haven’t broached. So it’s kind of understanding so we can really get into that place of knowing other, knowing self, vice versa, and hopefully having that dialog that you were describing, of both the kindness to be able to speak from a real ownership and vulnerable place, and also to be really allowing the other to have the space and to be taking turns there. Is that right?
Yeah, I think that you’re explaining it really well. One thing that I think, for me, that was and can be dangerous for people is like, now I have this roadmap. Well, if you have ever gone on a road trip, sometimes there’s a bridge that’s out, sometimes there is a detour. So what I need to keep in mind often is, I can get into: Well, this is how it should be. I have clients, and I’ve had people come back and say, they’re not doing it right. They are doing it right. Maybe it is the person who’s saying and they’re not doing it right who isn’t getting it. There’s a detour, meaning we have to check in with the axis that says other, like what is going on. That doesn’t always mean talking about it. Because if you have a partner who doesn’t want to talk, sometimes we have to respect that. Like, I’m not hungry right now, it’s the same thing. We don’t get upset when our partner doesn’t want to eat, unless it’s like they haven’t eaten and they’re going to die.
Well, yeah. I’m just feeling here that some of my real helpful learning moments have been in relationship where I would have done something entirely different, and depending on the dynamic, I slowed down enough or we were in conflict enough that I couldn’t get the thing I was wanting, whatever it was. That I had an opportunity to really contemplate, get curious, understand what’s the value of the way that my significant other is approaching this. I was like: Oh, I would have never done it like that, or I would have never gotten to that place, had I not had someone pushing back or holding space for their approach. There’s so much learning. I think the thing I’m feeling here too is that we’re not in relationship to be with ourselves, that would be kind of same-same. So as we were speaking about the two people and their individual selves, the diversity there, that it typically is a healthier system when both people can be expressed, and there can be an opportunity to have the welcoming safety to be able to tolerate those differences, to then be able to unpack. I think people shortchange this, they want to get to the relief of the decision and compromise or give over or whatever it is to get to that result, when there’s so much to be learned in the process.
Yes, I’m not a person who’s goes to the church and says amen. But I would say, amen to that.
“There’s this desire to get to the end. But it’s just like they say about the journey. If you can enjoy the journey, really, can you enjoy the curiosity that you have, or that your partner could have?”
We could probably do a different show about how do we get our partner to be curious about us? Because that is something that that I’m very familiar with. How do you get your partner to ask questions? I mean, I could give a quick one, but I think that the journey is of learning more about each other keeps it from being stale. What do you think about this today?
Yes. Well, I know we have just a few more minutes here. Would you like to say more about how people can get clear on their North Star, or how to be in service of their vision as a couple? I can recognize there’s so many values that people might have. How do you make this more concrete for people?
Yeah, well, I would say, because I’ve heard you talk, I think, about the mission statement. I actually would say that this visionary concept isn’t necessarily about a specific issue, this is more of a decision that in your relationship, that your purpose is making the relationship the highest of value. That I’m going to do my best to make sure that my priority isn’t me or isn’t my partner. Because I’ve been in both ways. I’ve been like, my partner needs space and then. But then I’m not there, I’m not getting what I’m looking for. So the real first decision is, do you want to create a North Star, a focal point that is about that? Because then everything else can be decided from that, and then we can go through those steps. I love it, I’m going to add this to it. Jessica, this is brilliant. I’m going to go back and check the foundation and say to my spouse: Hey, remember, or at least I’m going to because I can only control myself, I’m going to make sure that in this conversation I do my best, and maybe I can even model it. I’m going to do my best to make sure I listen to you and hear what you have to say. Hey, after you’re done, is it okay, would you be willing to listen? Here’s the other piece, maybe ask me questions. Can you ask me one or two questions when we’re done? That’s one way to get curiosity from a spouse, to give them that request. So again, the first step, the goal of being a visionary. The second is to take turns. The third then is to make that negotiation or decision.
Yes, which the decision is in service of that higher intention.
Yes. I may not get what I set out to get, that might be tough.
Yes. Well, I realize I wanted people to know a little bit about you, and we just dove right in. Is there anything you want to say about you and how you got so passionate about helping people in relationship?
Yeah, well, they say that your mess becomes your message. So I think that’s the piece, and we talked before this interview about it. I wrote the book, [What to Do When You Do Give a F*ck]. Because I gave too many fucks about the wrong thing, and not the foundation, the visionary. So when I made the decision to become a relationship visionary, my relationship started to change. So in a nutshell, that’s my story. I’m really obsessed with figuring out, well, maybe how do we enjoy the journey is probably where I aspire to be, but where I really want to get to is the pinnacle. So I have to be mindful. So I think the takeaway is, do you want to become a relationship visionary? I’m on a mission to create a bunch of relationship visionaries.
Beautiful! Well, how do people get in touch with what you’re sharing and teaching and offering?
So I see a limited number of couples in-person and virtually, and then I have a larger program for individuals who want to improve their relationship and learn the principles we’re talking about. That’s Couples Speak. I’ll put that freebie of the quadrants on there, so they can pop on and get that at Couples Speak. My book is available there. If you get the book, you can get some freebies and stuff. But I have free resources, and they can probably find me there, link to social media and all of those things.
Excellent. So Couples Speak, and there you can find the quadrant that you were just referring to, also a link to that website on today’s show notes, and you’re saying social media is there. Then, how to engage in a program if people want to develop more of these relationship skills. Is that right?
Yeah, Couples Speak has the links to social media and all of those things, of course we can give them those handles.
Yes, I’ll make sure to put that on the show notes today.
Like I said, I’m obsessed with figuring out how to improve relationships and how to encourage this idea of relationship visionaries. So I have a lot of free resources too, and they can get those at various places. But the website is probably a good place to start.
Wonderful! Well, I’ll make sure to put all that on today’s show notes. Thank you so much for everything you’ve shared and the wealth of knowledge. I like how you’re really making this in a form that people can practice, like it’s a step process, or it’s a quadrant, or it’s a measurement. I think being able to quantify really helps people orient a little bit.
Well, thank you for helping me to realize that maybe we need to revisit that decision when we’re going through that process, I love that. I think one of the things people really do get from you, and I love it, is the embodiment. There’s a lot to the intellect. Great, you can understand these. But the way to change is to put it into your feet and put it into your body. I love that you talk about that, that the way through is going through it, actually doing it. So we could talk about all these great things, but you have to put them into practice and put them into your feet.
Yes, wonderful.
Thank you so much!
Yeah, it’s been an honor and a privilege. Thank you.
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Do you find yourself repeatedly falling into patterns of insecurity, sabotaging your relationships and sense of self-worth? Many of us are haunted by memories from the past that influence our current thoughts, emotions, and sensations—creating a cycle of negativity that feels impossible to break. But there is a way out. Through compassionate self-awareness and targeted self-compassion, you can learn to transform these self-defeating cycles into empowering pathways for growth.
In this episode, we delve into practical strategies to help you transform your relationship with yourself and others. We’ll explore the powerful STEAM model—sensations, thoughts, emotions, actions, and mentalizing—as a guide to building self-awareness and self-compassion. By reflecting on past patterns and practicing compassionate self-awareness, you’ll learn how to separate recurring thoughts and feelings, fostering growth and self-acceptance.
Additionally, we’ll uncover insights into attachment styles and how they shape your perceptions and interactions, providing you with the tools to improve your sense of worthiness and lovability. Tune in to discover methods for cultivating emotional resilience, empathy, and connection, paving the way for healthier relationships and a more grounded sense of self.
Dr. Leslie Becker-Phelps is dedicated to helping people understand themselves and what they need to do to become emotionally and psychologically healthy. She is in private practice, hosts a YouTube channel, and is a prolific writer. She has authored The Insecure in Love Workbook, Insecure in Love, and Bouncing Back from Rejection. She also writes the Authentically You blog and the Making Change blog on Psychology Today.
In this episode
6:29 Leslie’s passion for helping people and how her career has evolved.
9:37 Understanding attachment theory and its impact on well-being.
13:54 How early experiences influence adult relationships and attachment styles.
22:00 The importance of understanding one’s attachment styles and the concept of self-awareness in fostering healthier relationships.
30:55 Differentiating between thoughts and emotions to gain greater self-awareness and break the cycle of insecurity.
34:24 Using steam to break the cycle of insecurity and self-sabotage.
46:49 A comprehensive resource for relationship growth.
Your Check List of Actions to Take
- Begin by tuning into your body’s physical sensations when you feel triggered or distressed, as a way to ground yourself and gain awareness.
- When experiencing strong emotions, take a moment to pause and reflect on the associated thoughts and feelings, allowing you to observe rather than react impulsively.
- Write down recurring thoughts and emotions to track patterns over time, aiding in your understanding of personal triggers and responses.
- Engage in self-compassion exercises, such as speaking kindly to yourself in moments of distress, to build a more supportive internal dialogue.
- Approach distressing feelings with curiosity rather than judgment to better understand the underlying causes and learn from them.
- Apply the STEAM (sensations, thoughts, emotions, actions, mentalizing) model to deconstruct and analyze your experiences, leading to more informed responses.
- Practice mentalizing by considering where your or others’ actions come from, fostering empathy and improving relational dynamics..
Mentioned
The Insecure in Love Workbook (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
Insecure in Love (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
Bouncing Back from Rejection (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
ERP 423: How to Transcend Trauma (And the Effects Experience in Relationship) — An Interview with Dr. Frank Anderson
ERP 261: How to Strengthen Your Relationship from a Polyvagal Perspective – An Interview with Dr. Stephen Porges
Relationship Map To Happy, Lasting Love
Connect with Dr. Leslie Becker-Phelps
Websites: drbecker-phelps.com
Facebook: facebook.com/DrLeslieBP
YouTube: youtube.com/c/LeslieBeckerPhelpsPhD
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/leslie-becker-phelps-ph-d-7221b155
Connect with Dr. Jessica Higgins
Facebook: facebook.com/EmpoweredRelationship
Instagram: instagram.com/drjessicahiggins
Podcast: drjessicahiggins.com/podcasts/
Pinterest: pinterest.com/EmpowerRelation
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/drjessicahiggins
Twitter: @DrJessHiggins
Website: drjessicahiggins.com
Email: jessica@drjessicahiggins.com
About Today’s Show
Leslie, thank you for joining us. It’s really exciting to have you on the show and just to be able to support people and all that you’re offering to the world around this very important topic.
Thank you so much for having me. I’m really excited to be chatting with you today.
Yes. I will say, with the topic of breaking the cycle of insecurity and self-sabotage, I know many, many listeners feel challenged in this area. And you’re going to really help us give some not only tools to work with in the sense of how to understand some of the mechanisms, but just some real relational understanding. So I love what you’re going to be sharing with us.
Before we pivot towards that topic, is there anything you want people to know about you and where you’re coming from here?
I’m just coming from a place of: I love what I do. I love trying to help people. I’ll tell you how I got on track with what I wrote about, and really most of the work that I do now. There was a point at which I was director of a women’s trauma program. I’ve also worked in Indian Reservation, as well as just some other experiences. But what I found myself interested in was, for a while I was interested in positive psychology, which I think is great. But I kept gravitating towards, what do you do when people are really struggling and there’s always helpful tools, and the tools don’t seem to help? Like, when they’re stuck, what’s going on and how can you help them? That’s what got me on the path of looking at people’s attachment, which we’ll be talking about, the biology that underlies people’s struggles, and then that gives us direction for how to help people. So my writing, my YouTube, my therapy, it’s all about how to help people get a sense of well-being. That’s what hopefully we’ll be talking about, and that’s really what motivates me, drives me with this.
I love that, thank you. I do feel, and I don’t know if this is also something that you’re speaking to here, the interconnectedness with the physiology. Really a big fan of polyvagal theory, and just how that trauma and the experience—we had Frank Anderson on the show not too long ago, with the Internal Family Systems—and just how any overwhelming experience can be a part of our emotional and physiological, just has such a big impact. So if we can give room and space to help look at that, metabolize that, but also have other ways around how to be in the world, that can assist us in different ways here.
Sure, and actually, just to give a word towards trauma, trauma is like a big thing. It’s almost like a buzzword these days.
“What I have learned in my experience is that you don’t have to have a history of trauma for the things that we’ve learned from trauma to be helpful.”
There are some differences I would do in therapy, that I would recommend if you have a trauma history and you really have that level of sensitivity and difficulty. But a lot of the same stuff applies, because it’s the same biology that’s driving us and where our struggles are. I just don’t want that to get lost, because I feel like these days sometimes that does get lost, and what is trauma and all of that. If you have struggles in relationship, if you have struggles with anxiety, these things can be helpful.
There we go, I love it. We perhaps don’t even need to define it. I mean, it’s helpful for some. But perhaps we don’t even need to get caught up around, am I experiencing trauma or am I not? That these things are going to have benefits regardless.
Right, I do find some people get caught up in if they have trauma or they don’t have trauma. If it’s helpful, that’s the marker, that’s the thing.
No kidding! Okay, wonderful. As we move forward, and much of your work is attachment theory informed, attachment style informed, what would you want to say here? I know you really talk about the importance of connection on health and well-being. Where would you like to start here?
Boy, that’s a big question! For me, what I have come to at this point in my career, my understanding is that the sense of well-being, of feeling good, of happiness, all those positives, to me, at its base is about connection. That’s it. It comes down to connection. Obviously, there’s a lot more details than that. But it’s connection, and that’s what we need to talk about, and that’s the whole attachment system that we have. So biologically, we are wired, we’re designed with a way to survive in the world. And how do we survive? When you’re an infant and you can’t take care of yourself, you’ll look to your caregiver. So there’s this thing that we have where we’re connected to other people, and that gives a sense of safety; physically being safe, but also emotional safety. There’s all kinds of things that grow out from that, in terms of feeling safe in ourselves, positively about ourselves, and hopefully positively about our relationships. So it’s about connection that helps us feel good, have a sense of meaning in life and purpose and positivity. I can, if you’d like, speak a little bit more about the attachment system, if that would be helpful.
If you would like. I know many people have talked about the system and the whole working model, but everybody’s vantage point is a little different. So if you would like, if it would support what you want to share, absolutely.
Well, one of the ways that I think about the attachment system that we have. So again, you’re born into the world, and we are wired. Infants, they’ll look into a mother’s face, so already they’re looking for connection. We would call that connection or that relationship, attachment. So for those people not familiar with attachment theory, it’s a way of talking about that connection, that relationship. Through that, one way of looking at attachment is we develop a way of understanding ourselves, and we would call that our model of self. And also a way of understanding others, and we would call that our model of others. So if you have a caregiver—a mother, a grandparent, whoever it is that’s taking care of that infant—if they’re responding when the infant or the young child, or even older child, is distressed, and they give a sense of like: Oh, I understand your distress. If they give a sense of feeling it, not getting distressed with the child, but having a calming response, whether the child is crying or laughing or whatever. There’s this response that says: I’m here for you, I care about you, I love you. That gives the child a sense of: I’m good, I have value, I am lovable, I am worthy. The model of self is arranged from I feel worthy, all the way to I feel unworthy, or I feel lovable, all the way to I feel unlovable. So that’s the model of self.
In that relationship, again, it’s the parent or the caregiver who is responding. So then you have the model of other that’s developed, which is, is that person emotionally available to me? That ranges, the model of other, from they’re emotionally available, all the way over to they’re emotionally unavailable. That could mean that they’re not there. It could mean they respond with hostility. It could be that they’re not competent in how they respond, so they’re not able to help the child. So those two things, that runs through all of my work, looking at your model of self, how you feel about yourself, and your model of other and significant others, and so how you feel in relationship as far as the availability of the other people. So hopefully that gives people a sense of attachment theory and what that has to say about how we connect in the world, back to the word of connection.
Thank you, just giving some structure to what you’re describing, to support our conversation here. As you talk about young years in one’s life, would you be willing to say a little bit more about how someone might be able to look at their experience of model of self and model of others in adulthood, or even in a romantic relationship. Just some examples there. I mean, it’s probably easy to kind of translate that of feeling lovable, feeling worthy, or how consistent and responsive someone is being or unresponsive they’re being. But if you will, that could just be helpful.
Happy to do it. So all of this experience of self and others is set in childhood, but it’s not set in stone. Different experiences could have an effect as we go through life. But it’s a definite foundation. So you carry that into adulthood. If you want to think about when you are in a relationship, you have a partner, if you from younger years had the experience of not being valued, not feeling loved—whatever your parents did, you didn’t feel particularly valued or loved—then you’re going to really doubt yourself. You’ll feel uncomfortable. You may feel like you have to work hard in order for the other person to stay in relationship with you. You may feel kind of needy. Like, you’re upset, then you feel like you need attention. Because you don’t feel lovable, and we all have the need to feel loved, so you’re always seeking that. You may find yourself jealous if your partner is talking to someone else. You might be jealous for the attention. Oh my gosh, they’re going to leave me. So now it’s like: I’m not okay, and they’re going to leave me. So you might shrink up and pull back. You might lash out in jealousy. There’s all kinds of ways you can show it.
But there’s an example of the model of self, the feeling of not feeling lovable, that there’s something wrong with you. Sometimes people feel like they’re just flawed or they’re inadequate. Different people have different ways of defining it. But if you’re listening, you know you’ll have your way that’ll click, and then you’ll have your own words that would explain that feeling. Then that obviously influences your reaction to others, especially if you expect that other people, say, will be mean to you or will abandon you, or whatever your script is.
Would you say lovable and worthy are, not interchangeable, but similar?
Yeah, I’m trying to put words to an experience. That’s why I kind of give different words. Because some people, you’ll say lovable, and they’ll say: I’m lovable, but I don’t feel worthy. See, for each person, you have to be like, this is the realm we’re dealing with, and then you can figure out what variation feels like what are the words that describe it more accurately for yourself. I do want to say, sometimes people miss that there’s a difference between feeling loved and feeling lovable. So in a particular relationship, you may think you feel loved because the person is being caring towards you, they’re doing things. But in the end, you feel like what they’re loving is the fact that you’re really nice to them. You’re not feeling that you’re really a lovable person. You feel like there’s something wrong with you, that you have to act in particular ways to get the love you want. If that’s your experience, then I would describe that as feeling not lovable, and I think that’s an important thing to know if that’s your experience.
Thank you. As we’re looking at connection in this larger fabric of relating, and then the model of self and the model of other, it sounds as though one could feel or experience being lovable, and perhaps uncertain or distrusting of the other’s availability. Or vice versa, that they have a trust. Is that possible that they would have a trust that someone’s going to be responsive and available, but also not feel worthy or lovable?
Absolutely. So I always find this almost easier if I could show a picture of it, because I have a diagram of the four quadrants. There’s four different basic attachment styles. But for someone who feels, and actually a lot of the people who go to self-help who might be listening now may have what we call a preoccupied attachment style. And what that is, is you struggle with feeling like there’s something wrong with you, essentially wrong with you, or you have a deficit, or you’re not lovable, you’re not worthy. You have that. But you actually think that other people are available, they could be there. But here’s the rub: they would be there for somebody who was lovable. But since you’re not lovable, there’s something wrong with you, you can’t trust they’re going to be there for you. So then you start thinking all about, what can I do? I’m going to be nice, or maybe I have to earn a lot of money, or I have to do these things to get them to love me. You become preoccupied with getting that love, getting that acceptance from others. So we would call that a preoccupied attachment style.
If we flip it and you say that I feel like I’m very worthy, I’m capable, I’m good, in that solid sense of good, but I don’t trust other people to be there for me. They’re going to be hostile to me, or they’ll just be inept. I can’t trust them. I’m going to dismiss what they have to say, what they have to offer. Now you still may have a need for connection, so you may want relationship. But on an emotional level, you dismiss them. The tricky part of this is that you’re actually also dismissing of yourself, if that’s your style. Because yes, you feel good about yourself, but the way you feel good about yourself is by ignoring any distress that you feel. You’ve learned to just not pay attention to it, ignore it, submerge those feelings. So you’re dismissing to yourself, you’re dismissing to others. And guess what we call that attachment style, the dismissing attachment style. Those are the two main ones. When people have insecure attachment, you’re going to see that more often.
And for people who are securely attached, these are people that feel like: I am lovable, I am worthy, I am capable. And you know what else? If I’m struggling, I can also turn to other people. Their model of others is, they’re going to be there for me, they’re going to support me. So during times of struggle, they can turn to themselves and they can turn to others, we call that a secure attachment style.
The one I left out is the people who, sadly, really struggle a lot more. If you are someone who feels like you don’t feel good about yourself, and you feel like other people aren’t there, then what do you do? If you’re going through a hard time, how do you find strength, where do you turn? You go to turn to yourself, but you feel bad about yourself. You turn to others, they’re not going to be there. So you kind of get lost in this chaotic, disorganized, stressful state. And we would call that a disorganized attachment style, or anxious-avoidant attachment style. And that’s really hard. That’s a really hard place to be.
Having said all that, I feel that it’s really important to know that it’s not like there’s only four different ways of being. Those are categories, and you’ll remember, this is all based on your model of self, which is a whole range, your model of others, which is a whole range. So every single one of us, we may generally fall into a category, but we can be in a lot of different places in that category. And to make it even more complicated, you can be different in different relationships or in different aspects of your life. So it’s a lot to get your brain around. If you’re not familiar with attachment theory, you might need to hear it a few times to put it together, and then get a sense of where you are.
I so appreciate you naming the reality of how this is expressed, that for research purposes, we need to categorize and really have a sense of these different domains. Yet, as you’re saying, there’s a lot of variance, there’s a lot of unique ways in which you might experience it. So it’s perhaps, in life, more complex. So I appreciate you acknowledging that.
As far as for someone who’s listening, I think to me, it’s more helpful to think: Oh, where am I on the range of feeling lovable to not lovable, and where am I on the range of feeling or believing or experiencing others as emotionally available or not emotionally available? Because if you can know where you are in those places, then that tells you what you want to work on. That gives you a direction, as opposed to just like a name of a style, which is just less direction in and of itself.
Does this relate to a lot of what you really want to encourage people to look at, as far as self-awareness and compassion? Because this is something you really emphasize.
I do emphasize it. So what it is, is if you are feeling negatively towards yourself, that’s going to undermine also how you relate to others. So the very first thing, if you struggle with a lot of anxiety or negativity towards yourself, the first thing you want to do is you want to get a sense of what’s going on for me.
“Just like in any area of life, to solve a problem, first you have to get to know the problem. So this means we have to become self-aware. You’ve got to look inside of yourself and get to know you.”
That’s not so easy. Because if you’re struggling, there’s pain in there. And we often don’t want to sit with pain, we keep wanting to hop out of it. Sometimes that hopping we experience as anxiety, or we want to shut down around it, if we want to. But we will shut down around it.
So an important step is, become self-aware. And when you become really self-aware, and if you can sit with that awareness, then you can have empathy for yourself. Remember, I talked about connection, that connection is so important. That includes connecting to yourself. So if you can relate to yourself in a way where you can know what’s going on and you can be accepting of it and caring towards it, have some empathy, then you’re going to hopefully develop a desire to make it better. This is the self-compassion. So I call that compassionate self-awareness. You can’t just start with self-compassion very often. Because if you feel negatively towards yourself, you could be like: Oh, be nice to myself. But you’re not going to buy it. But when we develop self awareness and we have empathy, then you move towards self-compassion, and then you’re more supportive to yourself, more caring towards yourself. And now we start building that strength, moving that model of self towards feeling more lovable, more good, more okay. Then you can also develop awareness of others and help your relationships be stronger. I do focus on that.
But self-awareness is a really big topic. What does that mean to be self-aware? The field of psychology, as you know, has a lot of different ways of looking at that. If you want to look at different therapies, there’s all kinds of ways people approach it. So I’ve tried to pull it all together, and I talk about five basic domains of self-awareness that you can walk yourself through and look at. So I use the acronym STEAM. You want to gain steam.
S is for sensations: what sensations are you having? Very often we live from the neck up, we don’t even know what’s happening in our body. So if you can know that your stomach is clenched or your heart is beating fast, or whatever your experience is. So what are my sensations? T is for thoughts: what are my thoughts? So we have thoughts all the time. But we don’t always grab them to know them, we’re just having them. So what are my thoughts, and what are my thoughts about my thoughts? So if I’m thinking that I am not worthy, and now I’m thinking that I’m such a jerk for thinking I’m not worthy, because why would I think that? Like, you could have all kinds of thoughts. So sensations, thoughts. Then E is for emotions: what am I feeling? I am feeling afraid of being abandoned. And what am I feeling about what I’m feeling? I am feeling really angry with myself for being afraid of being abandoned by someone who’s being so nice to me. You can get a lot of layers there. So that’s emotions. A is for actions: what are your actions? So in your relationship, perhaps your partner goes out to spend time with friends, and your actions are to text them every three seconds to say, what are they doing? Because you’re afraid they’re going to leave you. What are your actions? What are your reactions? There’s a lot to explore there, but they kind of make sense.
The M is a difficult one, and that’s called mentalizing. It is a very jargony word, and I apologize for that. But I didn’t come up with the word, I’m just using it. Mentalizing is if you can understand where someone’s actions are coming from. So if you understand their thoughts, their feelings, their fears, their fantasies, what their experience is. If you get that, then you can have empathy, then you can have compassion. Then if you’re in a relationship, you can have forgiveness. But you can mentalize yourself, as well as others. So that’s an important piece.
So we pull together STEAM. You may notice that if you can really connect with all those aspects of yourself, if you could be aware of all of that, what you’re doing is you’re connecting with you. We’re back to connection—connection within yourself, and then connection in relationship with others too. That was a mouthful. Questions? That makes sense?
Yes, it makes a lot of sense. Leslie, even the last M, as I’m imagining what you’re describing in all of them. But the mentalizing, I can get how we might say: Oh, can you put yourself in their perspective or in their shoes, and try to get a sense of what they might be experiencing on all these levels? Then how we might apply that to self. I’m relating it to a time where perhaps I did something without a tremendous amount of awareness, and it was an interaction, and I was like: Oh, what might have I been feeling there, what was I needing there, knowing what I know about myself? Like, let me pause and see if I can unpack that a little bit. Then I’m like: Oh, that makes more sense! Is that what you’re describing?
Exactly, that’s perfect, better than I said it. So for people listening, if you were just to write on a piece of paper, S.T.E.A.M: Sensations, Thoughts, Emotions, Actions, Mentalizing. If you hit this place where something doesn’t feel right, you’re struggling in some way, but you don’t know what’s going on fully, you can start with any of those domains that you’re aware of. You’re like: Oh, let me look at how I was acting. You write that under Actions, and then you can look at that. You may then be able to be like: Oh, wait, so if I was acting that way, well, maybe I was feeling angry or afraid. Oh yeah, you know what I am. You can just start to lay out all the different levels. I will say, if you’re really stuck, a great place to begin is with sensations. Connect with your body. Because your body is telling you something, there’s signs of something. So if you connect with your body and you’re like, I don’t know what I’m feeling, but I can sense in my body, my stomach is tight, I’m having trouble breathing because my chest is tight. When you start being aware of that a lot of times, then you say, what emotions may relate to this, it becomes clearer. It’s amazing how that can work, how helpful that can be.
No kidding! Just any point here we can access and start to get curious and unpack. Typically, it’s been my experience, if I’m feeling overwhelmed or I’m having an experience where I’m having a lot of emotion and I just want to understand more, I might be drawing blanks. But if I just pull at one of these and start to get a little curious, it starts to trickle out. It’s like needing a warm-up, and it starts all flowing.
Absolutely. You used a great word, an important word, curious. You get curious.
“Curiosity is our friend. If you can allow your anxieties to settle a bit and allow yourself to be engaged in a curious way, then that can carry you really far.”
To remind us, the T was for thoughts or thinking?
Yeah, absolutely.
That’s usually a place I would start, is the stories I’m making up or the thoughts that I’m having. Does it allow for the excavation or the unpacking of that, so it’s not all swimming around internally, and then being able to look at it a little bit with more objectivity or with a little more perspective?
I think yes. I would say, a lot of times we get caught in our thoughts. When I talk with people, sometimes I say, what are you feeling? They’ll tell me, I’m feeling like I know they’re going to leave me. That’s not a feeling, that’s a thought. So we want to make sure that when you’re reflecting, that yes, it’s great to have thoughts. But if you’re not really having any emotions, and if you’re not sure what the emotions are, just go on the internet, look up emotions list, you’ll get plenty of lists. You’ll find them. You need to become more aware of what your emotions are. You need the emotions and you need the thoughts. You need all the levels of this. So yes, excavate the thoughts, that’s wonderful. But if you’re just in the thoughts, you may end up caught in a pattern that you don’t get out of. Because you’re not allowing yourself to be open to all the levels of awareness.
They’re interconnected, right? Because even as you say I’m afraid of being abandoned, I feel a tremendous amount of fear, and that is an emotion, fear of being abandoned. But also the thought about it, or the story or the perception of it.
Right, when you can start to know your emotions and your thoughts and how they interact—this is part of that mentalizing process—then it helps you to deconstruct some things. I’ve taken out of a particular kind of therapy, this phrase of: Just because it feels true doesn’t mean it is true. So you can start to separate out: Oh, intellectually, I can see my partner has been supportive and caring and has shown me no indication that they’re going to abandon me. And it feels like I know they’re going to abandon me, that feels true.
“If you can separate out that just because it feels true doesn’t mean it is true, that’s not going to make you not feel it anymore. But you know what, it’s going to feel less true. So that’s a great step forward.”
But that means you have to be aware of, what are your thoughts, what are your emotions, and then kind of the combination, what are your emotional thoughts? When you start to separate these things out, it could be very, very helpful.
No kidding. Now, where would you put memory? Because some people have memories or reminders of a time when that might get triggered, if you will, or activated in a scenario. Would that be more of the sensation and thought? There’s overlap. They’re connected, like we were just saying.
Yeah, it could be any of them. So you may have thoughts that come to you, and you don’t realize that those are memories. Sometimes, when you’re working with somebody, when I’m doing therapy, they’ll be saying things, and then we realize what they’re saying is actually a repeat, echoes from the past of them growing up. So those are thoughts. Then when you explore it, you realize there are some emotions tied to it. Sometimes I work with people, and it starts as a sensation. They don’t know what’s going on, but they know that their body all of a sudden gets tight, where they feel a shutting down. That’s a sensation. So that’s where we start, and that’s really based in some memory. So the memories have all aspects of the scene, the self-awareness.
Thank you, Leslie. I’m wondering, as we’re describing or you’re helping us with all this as a frame, how would you encourage somebody to work with this, to break the cycle of insecurity or self-sabotage? Help us with the progression of this, or what this could look like.
So great question. In a sense, we’ve already talked about it. So I think a very helpful thing to do might be to just write, like I said, the word STEAM out on a piece of paper. And you know what each initial is for: Sensations, Thoughts, Emotions, Actions, Mentalizing. Think about a situation where you’re struggling, and lay out each of those domains, and that can help you. That’s kind of a deep-dive, that takes time. You’re not doing this in five minutes, and you’re not doing it in a single session. It’s a long range. If you kept doing that as maybe a regular journaling thing, that’s going to help you.
But you can start more simply by just being aware of, are there certain thoughts or certain feelings that recur? If you can make note of the patterns that you’re seeing, then you can at least flag: Oh, this is a pattern, and you can start separating that out from this is something that’s actually happening. Or you can start to reflect on it, or try to make a change. So you start to mentalize. Really, that’s what I’m talking about. How can you help yourself? You learn to mentalize, get to know what’s going on for you. So that you can empathize, you can have compassion for your struggles, and then you can be supportive of yourself. And then mentalizing others, if you can get to know what’s going on for them. Step back, try to kind of compartmentalize your stuff for a little bit, really open up to their experience where you can see it through their eyes. And when you connect with them, then you can have empathy for them, and hopefully some compassion and forgiveness. In close relationships, we always need forgiveness, because you allow yourself to be vulnerable and might hurt each other, not meaning to. Those are ways that you can move yourself towards feeling a greater sense of wellness and well-being, and feeling more self-accepting and having self-compassion, and then also offering all of that to your partner so then your relationship gets stronger. So those are some broad ways. I mean, there are certain things you could do before you meet someone. Think about what is it I want in a partner to at least know what you’re looking for.
I imagine, if one is doing the STEAM, the acronym, and in practice with this, I’m associating this with almost a pattern interrupt and an opportunity for corrective experience or repair. That perhaps in early experiences, as we’re talking about the attachment model, that we got a little bit of an imprint or a learning or a shaping around that. In adulthood, we typically run that system until we perhaps do an upgrade. I mean, that sounds so hierarchical, I don’t mean it like that. But what you were saying before, perhaps having an opportunity if we’re perpetuating a way of being. As you said earlier, perhaps what we think is true, that maybe isn’t true. That if we slow this down and do the practice of the STEAM, that perhaps we’re going to give more space to have self-compassion, have awareness around what might be being perpetuated unnecessarily, or what might be interfering, or the repetitive tendencies to give opportunity for new choice, new response. Am I hearing that right?
You’re absolutely hearing that. So one of the first steps is to know that there’s something that’s off, to know that there’s something you have to even think about and reflect about, to know that there’s a pattern that needs to be changed. So you’re absolutely right. If you can know that, which is part of what we’re talking about, then you can choose to pause and say: Well, wait a second, what’s going on? Then it becomes in that pause where you can shift or change.
One part that can be very difficult is, our brains are wired to problem-solve. So it’s always going to be looking, remember it’s back to attachment, it’s about survival; we’re looking for the threat. So you keep looking for threats. So on one level, that could be helpful if you know to slow down to look for threats. On another level, if all you see are all the problems, you actually don’t get better, because you just get deeper into the problems. So that’s where, if you can slow it down, like you were saying, and have a place where you can see what’s going on, and choose to make different choices, not just keep playing out the patterns. And you develop the awareness, you develop the compassion.
“Now, compassion is going to take a little more effort. Because that’s not problem-solving, that’s actually doing the caring part of that attachment system, you’re trying to connect with that. But to come back to that and to choose to come into a positive space often does take effort.”
So yes, as you’re saying, you can pause, you can see what’s going on, and you can start to make choices to make a difference. And you want to bring the positivity, the caring with you, and that takes some nurture.
Yes, it’s almost as if it’s the re-parenting perhaps, or re-caregiving the caregiving that wasn’t for whatever circumstances in our early experience, that we can begin to foster that. Sometimes it’s hard to begin to access the empathy or self-compassion. Is that right?
Absolutely, that’s exactly what I was saying.
I know we’re winding down soon here. But for people who maybe have a difficult time accessing self-compassion, where would you invite someone to begin? Because my sense is, as we get a footing or a toehold, that we can be in more practice and strengthen that experience. But for someone who’s having difficulty even accessing, what might you recommend?
So I would come back to what I had mentioned earlier, something called compassionate self-awareness. That’s what you want to develop, compassionate self-awareness. Now you’ll notice that compassion is an adjective, it’s describing self-awareness. So the thing you want is you want self-awareness, and you want to do it from a compassionate perspective. So we’ve talked about STEAM; STEAM is a way of developing the self-awareness. Then you can use that to help move you towards the self-compassion, and also the compassion for others.
“So the self-awareness, in and of itself, is not our goal. Because it’s not all about you. I mean, it’s about you, but it’s not ‘all’ about you. It’s about you connecting with what’s outside of you too, into the relationships.”
So we want other awareness too, we want to build that in. But we’re starting with the self-awareness, because that’s our foundation, that’s our beginning. So you want to develop compassionate self-awareness. A way to do that is through developing STEAM, we’ve talked about that. And you want to, with the word that you used, engage with curiosity. And also, it calls for bravery, it calls for courage to be able to stay with some of these distressing feelings or difficulties that you face, to keep coming back with the curiosity, with the caring, with the wanting to make things better. It’s not so easy.
Not so easy. So perhaps as one is doing STEAM and in the practice of that being curious, if the inner critic starts to come in or the harsh judge, that you’re really inviting people to have a positive stance, an unconditional regard towards self. Is that right?
It’s great if they can do that. A lot of times you can’t. Some of the people who are listening will be like: Yeah, that sounds nice, but how do I do that? So yes, if you can do that, start there absolutely. But if you are more aligned with the critic, then I would start with the self-awareness. The self-awareness leads to the compassion. So if you become more aware, and this is a whole nother episode of podcast, we’re looking at talking about the self-criticism, then you might become aware that not only is that critic in your head, but the victim is in your head too. So now you can become aware of the critic and the victim, and now you can see that dynamic, and you can have different reactions to that. And what that can do is lead you towards feeling some compassion for yourself, and maybe having a desire to respond differently to the critic. You might also be like: Well, where did that come from? This is part of self-awareness. What’s going on that I keep beating myself up? Oh wow, that’s a repeat of what I heard when I was a kid or whatever. So then you can bring compassion. But you can also maybe start to feel some of the things you couldn’t feel as a child. Like, wow, maybe I was really angry, but there’s no way I could have shown that to my parents, that wouldn’t have been okay. Maybe it’s okay now. Now we’re going deeper and deeper, way farther than what somebody can do very easily. But there are these different levels.
So my point, I guess, is if you follow the self-awareness, then you choose to see from either a caring perspective, if you could do it. If you can’t do that, try to step out of it, and as objective as you can get. Like, well maybe, how would I feel toward somebody else in that situation? Then you start separating out that emotional thinking from the more objective thinking. Those are all different paths to get you to the compassion.
Okay, got it. I, for some reason, was hearing you say that one could do the STEAM practice from a negative stance. But you’re saying the STEAM practice is going to give you maybe a little bit more of that neutrality that can allow some perspective-taking, that will hopefully give you more room to access this self-compassion. Is that right?
That is part of what it does. You see, it’s very complicated. It absolutely does that. But it also allows you to step into the experience. It allows you to be in the experience and reflect on the experience, to do both. So if you’re just reflecting on the experience without being in it, without feeling it, you’re going to get stuck. Because you’re not really having your experience, and you’re not feeling really valued for who you are, for being. So if you just step back, that’s part of it. But if you just step into it and you don’t have perspective, you’re going to get swept up in the old patterns. So you have to allow for your experience and step back. Believe it or not, self-awareness can help you to do that. So when you’re labeling your emotions, you’re like: Oh, I feel sad, I feel angry, I feel betrayed, I feel whatever, you’re labeling them. But part of the emotion piece of this is also to allow yourself to feel those feelings, not just to label them, but to feel them. That’s what we’re working towards, is both. It does get complicated.
That’s a big difference, and I’m so glad you’re highlighting it. Because it’s not just to have the observation of self, it’s really giving permission to really be. You were saying that in the beginning, that it’s we tend to pop out or don’t want to come into contact with some of this, and it is really key for us to develop self-awareness and self-compassion, and in the bigger goal of connecting with self and connecting with others.
I didn’t say this, and I should have. The whole mentalizing thing, when you mentalize, it sounds like it’s a cognitive thing, a thinking thing. It’s not. I mean, it is, and… So to really get where someone is coming from, you need to do it from your head and your heart. So you need to hold in your mind and in your heart what’s happening in you, if you’re mentalizing yourself, or in mind and heart, what’s happening in the other. Otherwise, that’s not full mentalizing, and you will get stuck.
Yeah, wonderful. Well, I’m grateful that you have a workbook that allows people to get the support and the guidance to really unpack and workshop this. So Leslie, can you tell us a little bit about this workbook?
Absolutely. So this workbook, The Insecure in Love Workbook, is actually based on the original book, which is Insecure in Love. So that was my original book. Then in between them, there was a book, Bouncing Back from Rejection. During Bouncing Back from Rejection was when I developed STEAM. STEAM is not in Insecure in Love. So what you get with the workbook is the information and the ideas about attachment and insecurity and romantic relationships. Although, just keep in mind it also applies to all other relationships too, even though we’re talking about romantic ones. So it includes that. But it also is structured with STEAM, so that there are exercises. So the book is broken down in explaining and helping you work through attachment and what your attachment style might be, preparing yourself to work on this. I have a chapter, I think it’s Preparing to Heal, or something like that. So there’s some things you can do to help yourself get ready for this. Then a chapter for each of the domains of awareness in STEAM. So it gives you exercises to explore each of those. Then it pulls it together at the end. Then also talks a little bit about in relationships, what are you looking for and how can you help yourself there? It brings it all together.
And I personally really like talking with people, so I have a YouTube channel. And in the book, I have references to different videos that fit with what’s in the book. Even if you don’t have the book, if you go to my YouTube channel, I have a playlist, The Insecure in Love Workbook playlist, as well as other playlists and videos. They’re all like three-minute videos, so they’re brief things, but they can help you too. So that’s it. That’s the package, along with my blogs. I blog a couple of things, so there’s a lot there. If people are interested, this is my real self-promotion piece. If people are interested, they can go to my website, which is DrBecker-Phelps.com.
Wonderful. And what might they find on your website?
Oh, they find all kinds of stuff. So I’ve got access to all the different things I just said, like there’ll be references to the videos and the blogs. I have my Authentically You blog there. There’s worksheets there, there’s downloads from the different books.
So, so much.
When I show what I’m doing or I share with people, they’re like, you just keep producing content. I’m like, yeah, I have a lot of years of content. Because I want to share with people, this stuff. It’s accessible, things people can do to help themselves and to feel better. And why shouldn’t they be able to do that? So if you’re interested, it’s all there, it’s a lot of free stuff. You can sign up for my newsletter, so I send that out with each of the different videos and articles and all that too.
Wonderful! Well, I will make sure to have a link for your book, as well as your YouTube, your website, and just all the generosity that you’ve shared through all the content. I really appreciate what you’ve shared here with us today. Thank you so, so much.
Thank you. And thank you for being such a good interviewer, I appreciate it.
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Are you feeling stuck or unfulfilled in your life or relationship? Do you find yourself trapped in a cycle of boredom and longing for something more? It’s a common struggle that many of us face, but the good news is that change and growth are possible. The key lies in embracing the unknown, staying curious, and seeking new experiences to reignite the spark both within yourself and with your partner.
In this episode, we delve into the transformative power of curiosity and exploration, especially during life’s unexpected challenges. From taking up new hobbies like tennis and dance to reframing our perspective on life’s curveballs, our conversation offers practical insights to help you shift your state of being and rediscover a sense of joy and fulfillment. By reassessing happiness and goals, adopting a growth mindset, and nurturing intimacy and communication, we explore how to navigate the complexities of life and love, ultimately fostering a deeper connection within and with those around us.
Monica Berg is the author of Rethink Love, Fear is Not an Option, and The Gift of Being Different children’s book, as well as the co-host of the popular Spiritually Hungry podcast. She’s been called “The Marie Kondo of the Soul,” showing us how tidying up our inner mess can help us find the joy we’ve been seeking.
In this episode
00:04 Exploring the topic of boredom in relationships, especially in long-term ones where routines and habits often develop.
02:51 Overcoming boredom in relationships: Embracing creativity and growth.
09:14 The need for curiosity and engagement in exploring new interests to overcome feelings of boredom and routine.
24:10 Transforming fear and rigidity into opportunity and joy.
27:26 The importance of acknowledging and processing negative emotions rather than bypassing them.
Your Check List of Actions to Take
- Explore new hobbies: Try activities like tennis, dance, or biking to add fun and novelty to your relationship.
- Continuously seek new experiences to combat boredom and keep your relationship lively.
- Reassess your goals and happiness at different life stages for ongoing fulfillment.
- Adopt a growth mindset and view challenges and the unknown as opportunities for growth.
- Acknowledge and explore negative emotions rather than bypassing them.
- Regularly reflect on your emotions and experiences to understand yourself and your relationship better.
- Avoid people-pleasing and maintain your integrity to foster personal and relational growth.
- Incorporate small new routines and experiences to keep daily life and relationships exciting.
Mentioned
The Gift of Being Different (On Being) (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
Fear Is Not An Option (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
Rethink Love: 3 Steps to Being the One, Attracting the One, and Becoming One (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
Maybe You Should Talk To Someone: A Therapist, HER Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence (*Amazon affiliate link) (book)
ERP 305: The Surprising & Powerful Benefits of Learning to Tolerate Discomfort — An Interview with Dr. Anna Lembke
Connect with Monica Berg
Websites: rethinklife.today | spirituallyhungrypodcast.com
Facebook: facebook.com/monicaberg74 | facebook.com/SpirituallyHungryPodcast
YouTube: youtube.com/channel/UCe3q8OFWS2o9zy_PZsBDUtw
Instagram: instagram.com/monicarberg74 | instagram.com/spirituallyhungry
Podcast: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/spiritually-hungry/id1517646639
Connect with Dr. Jessica Higgins
Facebook: facebook.com/EmpoweredRelationship
Instagram: instagram.com/drjessicahiggins
Podcast: drjessicahiggins.com/podcasts/
Pinterest: pinterest.com/EmpowerRelation
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/drjessicahiggins
Twitter: @DrJessHiggins
Website: drjessicahiggins.com
Email: jessica@drjessicahiggins.com
About Today’s Show
Monica, thank you for being with us today.
Thanks for having me.
Yes, and I am interested in hearing all that you have to share on this topic of boredom. I don’t think I’ve really ever done an episode on it, and yet it does occur, especially in long-lasting relationship where habits and routines tend to take form. Especially, as humans, we like to automate to be more efficient. But then, we don’t want to automate our relationship.
Just for people who are getting to know you here, who maybe don’t know you, what would you like to share, and also how this topic became of interest for you?
Well, I’m really passionate about helping people navigate relationships, and really rethink them. I have a book called Rethink Love, and I’ve done a lot of research—worked with thousands of couples, been to over 500 weddings, officiated some of them with my husband. I think that there are a lot of tips and tools and things that can be reframed and understood in a different way, so people can have the relationship that they ideally want. To break through the illusions of the fairy tales and to shatter all of the things that we think a relationship will bring us, and to really understand what a healthy relationship is and how to cultivate it. So that really inspires me.
Because when I was working with people, I found that there are two main things that kept coming up as a theme. It didn’t matter how old they were, if they were men or women, what culture, none of it mattered. It was fear—fear of the unknown, so I wrote a book about fear also—and relationships. So relationships can either be the thing that light us up and make us the happiest, and at one point they do. Then eventually, if you’re not paying attention, or you aren’t actively working on it, or you don’t have the information you need to navigate successfully, then they’re the thing that causes you the most pain.
So I just thought, well, this doesn’t have to be so hard, and if I can help anybody get to that easier and quicker, then I’m super excited to do that. So I found different ways to do it. I can talk about relationships in any category. But I found that often people get bored. They feel like they’ve either outgrown the partner or they chose the wrong partner, or that the grass is greener on the other side. Especially with social media today, especially with all the options, all the choices, quick fixes, fast changes, you kind of want that excitement.
“We think boredom is a sign we’re with the wrong person, when in fact, boredom is a sign that you yourself are probably in a rut, and you need to figure out what that is. The relationship might be the thing that’s the most glaring and showing you that, but chances are it’s other aspects and areas of your life.”
So yeah, I’m super excited to talk about this and anything else you want to.
Well, I’m grateful that you’re coming from a vantage point where this has been a focus of yours around relationship, and then more specifically around boredom, that it is a theme. I think it does relate to perhaps our expectations or our even imagined sense of things. I think this does relate to fairytales or myths or things that we have notions about around relationship and what it asks of us. If we expect happy relationship to just operate on its own, that we’re kind of experiencing it not passively, but maybe that it’s got a life of its own, and really, it does ask a lot of us. So I think in some ways, you’re saying boredom is perhaps an opportunity to look at self. I wish I remembered, I don’t know if it was in a college class or a workshop, that somebody had to equated boredom, and I feel like it had something to do with creativity. But it’s almost like untapped creativity, or it’s actually an indicator. It kind of feels similar to what you’re describing, that perhaps there’s a lot here that one isn’t really giving attention to around themselves. Is that right?
Absolutely. I have four children, and when they were much younger, I remember for a while, “I’m bored” started to be around the house. I said, this is a bad word in our house, so you are not allowed to use this word. In fact, if you’re bored, I’m not going to help you find something to do. There’s dirt outside, there’s sand, you go figure it out. I don’t care, dig something, find a worm. I am not going to help you with this. Because I just thought wow, it’s such a limited expectation of: serve me, provide for me, entertain me. I recognized that with children and with my children, and then they never used the word again. In fact, nobody ever, ever uses the word.
I think it’s the same in relationships. When we say we’re bored, we really are looking at lack in the relationship. I rely heavily on Kabbalistic teachings, and Kabbalists have known this for a long time.
“Boredom is really a sign that you’re in the comfort zone. And comfort is not a great thing. People want to be comfortable, we enjoy it. But it’s really also another indication of: you are settling, you are stuck.”
And when you challenge yourself—and I’ll give you some tools of how to get out of the state of boredom—then it’s like an ejection seat into an elevated consciousness, it’s an ejection seat into having new experiences in life that are more joyful and fulfilling. There’s a real purpose in not allowing yourself to be in that space with any emotion, especially the negative ones, like boredom, sadness, anger. Those are all telling something that you need to pay attention to. They’re there to wake you up and say: Oh, why am I feeling like this? Something needs to shift, and I need to course-correct.
Yes, it’s almost as if boredom is a side effect of this seeking comfort on a perpetual or frequent basis. It is a human tendency, so I think we’re all wired to seek that comfort. Yet, if we’re not pairing that with the growth, or tolerating some of the discomfort. I don’t know if you ever read Dopamine Nation, it’s a neuropsychologist, I had her on the show years ago, I’ll make sure to put the link on today’s episode show notes. But she was really talking about this even addictive cycle of seeking the dopamine hit, and really, it asks our system to counteract that. So it actually on a longer-term has a negative impact when we seek those pleasure hits. This, I think, is similar with boredom, if we’re always looking for that entertainment, and that more happening to me.
Provide for me, entertain me.
Then we’re not actually building and tolerating some of the discomfort that actually longer term gives us the things that we want—the bigger expansion, the positive feel.
Absolutely. So I would suggest the first thing, if anybody finds themselves in this state that we’re talking about, no shame, no guilt. It’s okay to be in a rut, we all get there. But I would really encourage you to look at your day, your weeks, your months, and ask yourself, when was the last time I went out of my comfort zone where I did something to see a new experience, or I was curious about trying something new? Even a different restaurant or a new food, or different kinds of tastes that you’re not used to. Anything that just gets you out of the routine and the humdrum. And of course, with relationships, see how you can do that. Not just romantic relationships, any relationship that matters to you, like with your children. Make it a thing where every Tuesday, you discover something new, you try something new. My youngest child and I, we saw something on Instagram last night where you put toothpaste over a raw egg that’s still in the shell, and then you cover it for 24 hours. Then the next day, when you peel it, you soak it in water, it’s like gummy. I’m like, this can’t be real, and it might not be. But my point is, it’s that kind of thing. That’s the energy you want to inject into each day. So like, we’re looking forward to doing that when she gets home from school today.
I think especially in relationships, my husband and I, when our second child was born, he was born with down syndrome, and we found out a few hours after he was born. After the shock and the anxiety and all of the emotions that come with that—and this is related, but it’s another theme—but we needed to have some laughter and lightness in the relationship. It was such a heavy time. I thought it would be fun to learn new things together. We took tennis lessons. We took dance lessons. We laughed so much. We made fun of each other. We went for bike rides. We ended up exhausting ourselves because we did something new every single day for a month. But it was fun, and it was different, and again, it got us out of a state. So boredom is a state, you want to find ways to change your state. There’s many, many ways to do that, you just have to be open to it. Again, the first one is being curious and looking and seeking for new experiences.
I wonder, do you think it’s implied? I mean, what you’re describing, there’s a sense of agency and empowerment that you’re fostering, both for yourself and your marriage, and also with your children, to have a sense of what would I find interesting, or what would I find curious, and to be in the engagement of exploring and discovering. Do you find some people struggle with even feeling that agency internally?
I think if you’ve been in this state for a very long time, and we’re calling it boredom, but it’s really, I think, bigger than that, where you’ve kind of just settled, wherever you find yourself in life, at whatever age. Let’s say for instance, a person has gone through a lot of the stages that one would expect to go through. Again, I think a lot of focus is really on the first 40 years of one’s life. People don’t really talk about what’s after, which I think is a big problem, because there’s so much to look forward to at every single stage of your life. It doesn’t end in your 40s or 50s. People think, oh, midlife and then it’s going downhill. I absolutely don’t agree. But I think the energy and the focus in which people talk about their lives or pursue their lives is really about: I went to school, I went to university. If you did that, you found, hopefully, your dream job, where you’re going to live. Maybe you have a home, you bought a home. You have a family, children, etc. Then it’s kind of like, okay, I’m going to wake up and do the same thing over again, because I’ve attained all these things that I wanted. Now what? Then you find yourself not very fulfilled, but you think this is just how life is supposed to be.
I am suggesting, and it’s never too late, but that you have to stop and say: am I happy, what am I looking forward to, what is the emphasis or the goal of my day? It’s not just about the things you’re going to do. It’s more about being. It’s more about the state you want to live in. It’s more about cultivating joy and happiness. That’s only through exploration. By nature, we are seekers, so that should never stop. But unfortunately, for most people it does. So I think that it’s something that you can grow. I think that if it’s been dormant for a very long time, you don’t feel like it, so you’re just going to go through the same thing. You actually don’t even think that you have the energy to do it, or that it would be fun, or you have the desire anymore, and you start to tell yourself a whole story. Just change the narrative.
I love that. There’s a couple of thoughts that I’m having. One of which is just that this creativity, and how to access it, you’re saying even play. As you had this life circumstance with your second child and just what that entailed, and how to pivot towards meeting your child in the condition and just being open. There’s all the emotions that might be, but also to have some of that levity and the play, and just what you were able to also pair with that. Because that’s also true, and the living, and you’re describing a sense of essence and vitality in life that is nurtured through discovery, through exploration and curiosity and play. Is that right?
Yeah, everything’s a choice. I could have chosen in that moment that there wouldn’t be much joy in our lives, that our relationship would be all about responsibility. I could have reacted to the fear of not knowing, at that time, how to raise a child with a disability. I could have. There were so many other narratives. I chose one that was growth mindset oriented, and I understood that part of growth mindset is you need to change how you view things, especially the things that are most challenging. I understood that you need to create different experiences outside the only thing that you see in front of you. That’s the quote you said at the beginning about the removal of boredom. You are a co-creator in life, you are the creator of your life, and there is a lot of power in that, there is a lot of joy in that, there’s a sense of accomplishment. We are meant to live our lives like that every single day.
It’s so empowering. I’m just feeling, even in subtle reframes of a situation, or the questions we might ask or the inner narrative around: Ah, why did this happened? It reminds me of the book of, I don’t know if you’ve read, Lori Gottlieb’s, Maybe You Should Talk to Someone, and there’s this chapter around: I’m in Holland, I wasn’t supposed to be in Holland. Just for people who don’t know, it’s just like, what we are aiming for in the life circumstances might end up being vastly different. Like, I was going to Italy, and we’re in Holland, and how we relate to that. You’re saying there’s so much space here, that if we can get into the mindset of: what can I learn here, what is the growth, what is the ability to be with this in a different way that maybe I haven’t seen that I want to cultivate? I have that agency. Again, to your earlier point about sometimes we get into this prescriptive way of being around the milestones of living. But that is perhaps happening to me, versus how am I doing this, and there is so much power in a simple way of reframing the situation or asking the question.
“One of our biggest hindrances is that we believe we know how things should be, and when they don’t turn out that way, we are crushed, and then we can stay there for however long we choose to. Most people don’t even think that they can change that mindset.”
So if you know, for instance, that your child is supposed to be born typical, and then that doesn’t happen, if I stayed in: Oh my God, this thing I knew was supposed to happen didn’t happen, now I need to be miserable and upset for the rest of my life, or however you want to fill in the blanks. That’s one way to be. But the truth is, we never know. We never know anything. You can wake up in the morning and decide: I’m going to go in the morning and have a cup of coffee, and then after that, I’m going to walk to the gym, and then after that, you have your whole thing. Then you wake up, and your husband or whoever had the last bit of coffee, and there’s none left in the house. Then you’re going to walk outside, but instead it starts raining. So you try to take a taxi, if you live in New York City like me. Then because it’s raining, all New Yorkers are taking taxis. So now you’re 15 minutes late to your workout class. Now, if you’re invested in “things have to be exactly as I want them to be,” you will be miserable every day of your life. I’m suggesting this surrender to “I don’t know anything.” I have goals. I have desires. There’s so much I think I know, why don’t we take this invitation to find things that we don’t know. Be curious, explore, discover, not only places and people, but new things about yourself and how you can elevate your consciousness and change the way you view things.
Earlier this week, a client was stating a story, I don’t know if it was some type of parable of some sort. I think it had to do with race horsing, I actually don’t remember even the client’s circumstances. But it was essentially, the wise man was saying, this horse won the race, and he was like: I don’t know, it could be good or it could be bad. I don’t know if it’s good or bad. Then this progression of life events, that the horse was actually stolen, and then all these different things that happened. Just that perhaps we get into this routine of judging things good or bad, which keep us in a particular place, versus being into the unknown, being into the question, and being in the co-creative space around: Okay, not what I was imagining or not what I was expecting, or this is a pivot, and there’s still a lot of life and choice here.
Yeah, it reminds me of that fable called Maybe. It’s about a father and a son, same thing. The neighbors are witnessing all these things happen to this man, and his response is always maybe. One sounds horrible. One sounds great. One’s really positive. Maybe. It’s that idea of just we don’t know, and in the end, all the things that seem negative actually saved him and his son. But yeah, absolutely.
Another one, I think that’s really important, which used to surprise me and doesn’t anymore. But even people that I meet with that I counseled, who are in their 60s or 70s, they still don’t know what they like; they don’t really have hobbies, they haven’t cultivated them. So they don’t know what they’re passionate about. I’m saying it’s never too late. So another way to get out of that feeling of boredom and routine is: have your own passions, have your own goals, have your hobbies. If you are in a relationship, then that’s only going to make the relationship even more pleasurable, and maybe do the things that your partner is doing. Find those things and share them together after you’ve found what really lights you up and feeds you.
I imagine, for one that might be listening that feels like they’re drawing a complete blank to that question, that there’s some breadcrumbs to follow. That life perhaps moves towards us, or that these openings can occur if we take steps towards exploring, to your earlier point, or being in a playful attitude. That we might learn something or experience something that gives us a new vantage point. I think the analogy of hiking on a mountain, there’s no way we can see what the view looks like halfway up. Then once we’re halfway up, we see that there’s just a new vantage point. Would you agree?
I do. I think often it’s hard to even imagine a mountain if you never go out of the place that you’re in. So for instance, let’s say you live in the city, and to go to nature, you’d have to drive an hour. Then you’re like: Oh, I don’t really have time for that. We make all kinds of excuses. Or if we’re in relationship, again, that the partner expect something, and you show up every day and you’re there to provide, or whatever the rules that you’ve decided are. Then the idea of actually creating change or doing something different can be very scary, and also, you might get a lot of pushback.
“What I know for sure is that relationships are the healthiest when each person has a whole life independent of each other, and then you come back, and then there’s a stronger togetherness. Because you are full, and you have experiences to talk about that you went off on your own in the day and had, that you were curious about, and then you come back and you share those things.”
I think it’s so important. My husband and I have been married for 27 years, and we’re always sharing the things we’ve discovered about ourselves. So that process of learning and discovering, again, your passions, your goals, your hobbies, and they should change and they should grow, and maybe they stay the same. But there still has to be movement in them. Try even something a different time of the day, just shake things up. Again, I think this one specifically, we make a lot of excuses of why we can’t, and they are just excuses.
Well, it just seems like a real honor of the life force energy, if you will. That there’s life happening in every person, and then what we get to create an interaction or in a relationship, that we’re bringing that energy towards, and we get to experience that in the connection. Rather than like, I’m in this routine, I’m going through the motions, and I’m showing up, but I don’t necessarily have a lot to say or offer. Also, I would imagine that it gives a curiosity like: Oh, what’s my partner going to say now, or what’s new with them now? It helps reinforce that they’re new and different every day, and there’s something emerging, that they’re not the person they were 20 years ago.
That’s the point, you just hit the nail on the head. There’s no such thing as stable relationships. There can be healthy ones, not stable. Why? Because nothing is stable. We are changing every single day in every moment. We change through every interaction, every experience, both positive and negative. The only freewill you have really is to choose in which way you change. Is it something that will affect you in a positive way, even if it’s something that was negative? What is your response to it? Or are you going to let it close your heart and block you? So I think it’s so silly, and I hear this a lot with different people, is that this is not the person I married. Well, duh, there’s no way it’s going to be the person you married. Because we’re always changing, and we’re meant to. The only way a couple can ensure that they’ll like the person that their partner becomes, or the partner will like who they become, is that they have a commitment to changing and growing together.
By the way, that’s another way to make sure you’re never bored, because you’re always changing. It’s fun and different. As you change and you learn these things about yourself, share it with your partner, invite them in on that journey. It’s one of the key things to a healthy relationship. I mean, even the silliest things. I remember one day, I said to my husband, I was like, there’s something you don’t know about me. When I have a sugar craving, I eat the kids’ gummy vitamins. Because you get a vitamin, and it is sugar, it’s like a candy. Just silly. But it’s novel, it’s sweet. It creates connection. But the idea of change is super, super important. Just a cautionary tale for people who are single, or even if you’re in a relationship and you don’t understand why your partner might want different things than they wanted before, this is normal. You should expect this, and you should encourage it actually.
Yes. I think when we’re making room for that, then it’s helping continue to reinforce and cultivate that. I think we can inspire each other. That if a family member is doing something fun and new, and that can feel both admirable, but also like: Ooh, I’m going to learn some of that, or I’m interested in that, or I never thought about that, but it gets me curious. I think it’s really beautiful.
I think it’s a vocabulary that should be in the house. I think children should understand that early on. I think that it helps manage expectations, both from yourself and from the relationship. I mean, my necklace even says change. I’m all about change. I wasn’t like that, I hated change. I was like: Oh, I don’t want it, I like my routine. I’m a Virgo, I like organization. I like all of that. But it’s a recipe for unhappiness. Flexibility is really what makes you happy. Being malleable makes you happy. Yes, you have to be sure and certain about what you believe and who you want to become. But everything else needs to be able to shift and change.
I’m so glad you spoke to that. Because that was in my mind, that maybe certain personalities, or perhaps people who have felt a little bit more on the end of the continuum, a little bit more of the spontaneous, and maybe even felt irresponsible at certain points in their life, maybe they have some caution around being too amicable. Or they are like, I’ve developed so much strength and discipline and structure. You mentioned fear earlier. I think it’s fair to say, I think most humans have some level of fear of the unknown. How do you help people counteract this concern? Because the way I’m feeling you discuss it, it’s like there’s so much range, we don’t need to abandon responsibility or structure. So talk to us a little bit.
Yeah, right. I’m still very structured and very responsible. But I’ve learned to not be rigid, and I’ve learned to lean into things that happen outside of what I didn’t expect or want, and then see the opportunity in it. I see this a lot with relationships, too. People are so stuck on the idea of what the marriage should look like, or what they thought it would look like, or who they thought their husband would be in the marriage, or who they thought they would be. And because reality is not aligned with that fairytale that they had, they simply can’t be happy with where they’re at, because they want to be somewhere else. So that’s where change comes in. It’s about really looking at what is happening, so we have no control over that, and then choosing a different response.
So I’ll give you a basic example. A few years ago, my husband and I were going to a friend’s birthday party, and it was like a destination birthday to Mexico. So she wanted to bring her friends on the same flight. We got to the airport just a tad bit late, the person in front of us got on the flight, and they’re like, that was the last person you guys can’t get on this flight. I’m like, literally we’re a minute late. So I could be upset, we could have thought about it, we could have blamed each other who made us late, we’re going to miss the first event. None of that. Instead, we’re like, when’s your next flight? They’re like, it’s two hours from now or three hours from now. I turn to my husband and I was like: You know what, we haven’t had a long time in a really long time, let’s make this a date. Airports are pretty fun these days, we can go have a drink, we can walk around, we will get a shoulder massage.
It’s that mindset of this thing didn’t happen that we expected, and now there’s something else. Let’s see what else is available. So in my book, fear is not an option, which is why I named it that. Fear is no longer an option, you’re going to ask yourself, what is an option? That’s the kind of change I’m talking about.
“It’s not about letting go of boundaries. It’s not about not being sure about things or having hard No sometimes. But it’s also living in gray. It’s being able to change your vantage point, and then change your feelings around that. That’s really powerful.”
It’s very hard to do. But once you start doing it, and you practice it, it becomes part of you, and your days are so much happier. I mean, I’m telling you from experience.
Yes, I can feel it. I also want to ask, this is different than what one might say bypassing or even spiritual bypassing, which is just going to the opportunity or the positive without actually acknowledging perhaps pain or grief or difficulty. Can you speak to that?
I don’t agree with that, and I think it’s really important to acknowledge what you’re feeling. Feel all the things. Again, those negative emotions are there for a very important reason. They’re there to get your attention, but also tell you what you’re not comfortable with. So if you’re upset at somebody, or let’s even say somebody came to you and they have all kinds of opinions about you. Most people, what they would do is, they’d close in, they’d get defensive. I don’t like you. Even if they don’t say it out loud, that’s kind of the feeling. What I would suggest in that moment is that you pause, you wait even three days before you say anything, and then you see what’s stuck in that moment. You ask yourself for those three days: why did this bother me, was there any truth to it, what don’t I believe in, is there anything I want to adopt from it?
So this process is how you cultivate an amazing relationship with self. You’re giving yourself that emotional feedback. You’re able to separate the person, the message, what you want to take away from it, what you want to throw away, and then if you want to change or not. But again, that requires work. But I think it’s such an important thing to do, because then you’re not affected. This is the only way to ensure that you’re not affected by anything that comes at you. You always have a choice. But you also have to believe in yourself. If you don’t love yourself, then anything anybody says to you is going to throw you off course, I understand that. But this is the process of learning to love yourself.
That was my next question. I’m going to pause and hold that really quick just to respond to what you’re saying. I really appreciate that. Because I’ve used the analogy of stubbing a toe, like it hurts. I want to be like: Ouch, that hurts! There’s a physical experience around that. Yet, if I let it have its process, maybe I learn: Okay, I need to not be moving so fast and be in my head, or whatever it is for me to recognize how I can maybe move differently. But it doesn’t mean that didn’t hurt. I pretend it didn’t hurt and I restrict the experience around it. It’s how to partner with, can I let this have its process, acknowledge it, notice it, and also have some of these query/inquiry questions that allow me to have this learning that support my further development?
Exactly. You’re not going to get upset at the wall because you stubbed your toe, that’s the other thing. So don’t make it about the person that told you or judge them. We do that very often, like: Oh, I don’t like this person, or I’m going to write them off, how dare they! That’s just an ego response. What I’m suggesting is to be curious in every area of your life. When you start to live that way and you start to, again, decide: Yes, I heard this thing, I want to change that. Or I heard this thing, I don’t agree with that. You start to have this amazing relationship with yourself, and then you’re not afraid to have any conversation. I will go to people at this point, and I’m like: Wow, I felt an energy, that sounded like something you want to talk about, or something you want to say to me. Because again, I know that I can process it in that way, so I don’t mind hearing some of the things. It’s never pleasant to hear anything negative. But I’m able to now pause and take a different view from a higher vantage point and say: Okay, was this really about me? Or could it be about them, what else is going on in their lives? Again, what do I want to change, what sounds true and authentic, and what doesn’t? So all of those are tools for change and for growth and for movement. You’re never going to be in a rut if you live in that reality.
As you’re describing this, it feels as though there’s a real, to your point, self-love. Another way that it might be said is, I’m not going to abandon myself, or I’m not going to be being okay with things not okay. Like, I’m really with myself, and the integrity and the alignment of self in a way that is honoring that supports that process. Earlier I was thinking, there’s a little bit of trust here. Trusting that it will be okay, that I can pivot in the unknown and I will be okay. Some people don’t have that felt sense that it will be okay.
You’re right, because I think there’s a disconnection between their essence, their soul, and something greater. And when you don’t feel like the universe, or however you want to phrase it, will take care of you, then of course you’re going to feel like you need to protect and to guard. It’s a very different way of living. A lot of what I’m sharing, yes, there is a spiritual nature to it, of course. I think that is the point of change. I think we’re supposed to leave the world more elevated and different than we came into it. I think this is how you do it. Then when you start to live like that, then you actually feel taken care of, because everything makes sense. Everything that happens to you happens through you, if you use it for growth, if you use the hardships, if you use the hard words. If you use the difficult experiences and you really say: Okay, well, what’s the silver lining here, what am I supposed to learn? Then you are changed for the better, and then you feel, of course, very taken care of. It’s not something that’s a bad thing, it becomes the thing that was the necessary thing almost
No kidding. A lot of these things are, one might say, curriculum for our growth and developing. As you were using the language, I also love the idea of co-creating, that we have a participation in this, that when we can turn towards the feeling state or the circumstance, and both give space to what is emerging, maybe even the reaction, and have some inquiry to get to those deeper layers that give us some of that growth, curriculum and learning. And also, some support and that care, self-care and self-love around how to move forward. Is that right?
Absolutely, and I’m going to give you another word that I don’t think people would expect to appreciate in a relationship. But you want opposition, and that sounds tragic. Like, well, I don’t want to be opposed, I want to be accepted. But opposition is actually a very good thing that ensures you won’t actually have boredom in the relationship. So in my book, Rethink Love, I write about a couple, and his name is Ethan. He would come home from work every day, and his wife would be waiting for him at the door with his Highland parked neat. Take his briefcase, take his jacket, his kids were all bathed and they were doing their homework, dinner was ready for whenever he was ready to eat. His bath was drawn, she’d washed his back while he spoke about his day. By the way, most of all the men that read this chapter are like: I love Ethan, can I meet him? I’m like, no, this is not the point. By the way, though, after they read the rest of the chapter, they realize this is not really what they want.
The problem with this setup, I’ll tell you that what happened with this couple. He ended up leaving her because he was so unfulfilled and he was so bored. He wanted somebody who would challenge him, the way that he thought, and would bring different ideas and would have interesting conversations and would oppose different things he did and different points of view. Because there’s growth in that, that’s a really powerful energy. But he felt so guilty because he had set this up. He chose this way, he made it this way, because it’s comfortable and it’s nice. It felt good at first, and then he got really bored. I see this a lot too. People, they’re attracted to somebody who is hardworking, a go-getter, smart, ambitious. Then when they get married, they’re like: I want you to stay home and cook, and I want dinner to be ready when I got there. You’re attracted to something else, so why are you dictating this other thing? You’re going to see how that somehow is going to come together, and you’re not going to be very happy, and neither will your partner. So opposition is necessary.
Yes. I mean, the end of the day, I don’t think we want to get our way with everything or be in relationship with ourselves. We want to have the experience of someone else adding dimension. It typically also even relates to sexual intimacy and the kind of erotic tension, if you will, that there’s some polarity and ability to feel some different or tension. I know there’s a lot written about that. But I love that you’re weaving this in as it relates to boredom. Because sometimes we do get into the people-pleasing tendency, in that: Oh, that’s the loving thing to do is to say yes, or to concede or acquiesce or give over. The result of that maybe doesn’t help us grow or evolve us or add energy to the dynamic.
1,000%. I love that you brought up intimacy. I always say that sex is love in motion; how you are outside of the bedroom is how you will be inside. If you’re stingy outside, you’re going to be stingy inside the bedroom. You can make the list, it mirrors that. Talk about curiosity and having new experiences, you should be able to talk about what you enjoy and things that you might want to do. I think that you can tell. Sometimes couples are like, we haven’t had sex in a year. I’m like, well, what happened a year ago, what happened a year before that? Don’t just accept that that’s just a normal. Again, part of life, we’re older, we’ve had the same partner for so many years.
“I think we accept a lot of untruths when it comes to relationships. Again, that’s why I keep saying rethink it, and don’t accept things just because somebody is telling you that that’s how it’s supposed to be.”
Lovely, I can see how this all interrelates. Even just in the bedroom, categorizing something as bad. Like: Oh well, that happened, let’s not assign judgment to it, and let’s be curious and open and what’s going on under. I’d just say even the playfulness and all the things you’ve already described. So you’ve mentioned your book Rethink Love a couple times. Is there anything else you want to say about the book and how people might find it?
So yeah, I have a few books. But since this is related, just Rethink Love. You can find it on Amazon. You can find it on my website, RethinkLife.today. I’ve just launched a Relationship Masterclass, so to speak. It’s six different acts, and you can find that at SpirituallyHungry.life. Super excited about that. It talks about some of the things that we touched upon, but it really unpacks it, like red flags and bartering couples. It’s very interactive. It’s super fun, and I’m very excited. You can follow me on Instagram or anywhere on social media, @MonicaRBerg74.
Wonderful, so I’ll make sure to have your social media handles, as well as the link to the masterclass, as well as your books. Will you say the website again?
SpirituallyHungry.life.
On that website, they can find the masterclass and other offerings as well?
Yes.
Okay, excellent. Well, thank you so much, Monica, for all that you’ve shared and just what you’re doing, and really appreciated having you today.
Thank you. Thank you for having me.
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Deception in relationships is a common issue that can strain trust and intimacy, leaving partners feeling confused and disconnected. Whether it’s through subtle nonverbal cues or drastic changes in communication style, lies—both big and small—can significantly impact the fabric of any relationship. Identifying lies and understanding their underlying causes are crucial steps to fostering a more honest and open partnership. How do you address this deeply ingrained issue? It all starts with awareness and communication.
In this episode, we delve into the nuances of recognizing deception, from interpreting nonverbal cues such as tone of voice and fidgeting to understanding the reasons behind why people lie. We’ll explore strategies for responding to dishonesty in a non-accusatory way and the importance of self-reflection and open dialogue. By examining case studies, behavioral tips, and psychological insights, listeners will better navigate the complexities of honesty in relationships, paving the way for deeper intimacy and trust.
Andrea Beach is a highly acclaimed life and business coach and a leading authority on human behavior. She combines the best techniques from NLP and relational psychology with her “self-made success” strategies as a business leader and entrepreneur to deliver incredible results for both companies and individuals alike. Beach has created dozens of successful programs for relationship transformation.
In this episode
6:58 Andrea’s journey: From serial entrepreneurship to balanced life harmony.
12:05 Unveiling the complexity of lies: From business tactics to intimate relationships.
19:34 Navigating expectations and honesty in relationships.
35:01 Recognizing deception: Signs and strategies for authentic communication.
42:56 Strategies for constructive communication.
Your Check List of Actions to Take
- Reflect on your own behaviors and motivations for lying; recognize patterns to understand underlying issues better.
- Establish regular check-ins using frameworks like BFP (business, family, personal) to discuss well-being and concerns openly.
- When suspecting deception, express curiosity rather than accusation to foster a safe environment for honesty.
- Give your partner space to speak without interruption and listen with the intention to understand, not just to respond.
- Use soft, indirect questions to address suspicions and open up tougher conversations without direct confrontation.
- Regularly revisit and discuss mutual expectations to ensure they are aligned and adaptable to change.
- Adapt to your partner’s communication style using techniques like matching tones and question inflections to make conversations smoother.
- Consider taking classes or seeking personalized help from experts to enhance your skills in spotting deception and improving relational dynamics.
Mentioned
ERP 433: The Power Of Radical Honest On Connection — An Interview with Dr. Brad Blanton
Relationship Map To Happy, Lasting Love
Shifting Criticism For Connected Communication
Connect with Andrea Beach
Websites: andreabeach.me
Facebook: facebook.com/TheAndreaBeach
YouTube: youtube.com/@The_Andrea_Beach
Instagram: instagram.com/the_andrea_beach
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/andrea-beach
TikTok: tiktok.com/@the_andrea_beach
Connect with Dr. Jessica Higgins
Facebook: facebook.com/EmpoweredRelationship
Instagram: instagram.com/drjessicahiggins
Podcast: drjessicahiggins.com/podcasts/
Pinterest: pinterest.com/EmpowerRelation
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/drjessicahiggins
Twitter: @DrJessHiggins
Website: drjessicahiggins.com
Email: jessica@drjessicahiggins.com
About Today’s Show
Andrea, thank you for being here and joining us today.
It’s my pleasure. Thanks for having me.
Yeah, I know we were just chatting, and I was like, let’s push record! Because you were on a roll sharing some of your background, and I would love for people to get a sense of just your expertise and where you’re coming from, and your perspective. It sounds like a beautiful blend between entrepreneurship, business, as well as the personal development and psychology and human behavior. We’re going to be focusing on lies and how that fits in relationship, and just what you want people to know around that. I guess I would love to just allow you to share a little bit about you and help people get to know you here.
Sure. Well, thanks again, for having me. It’s probably important to note that I’ve been a serial entrepreneur, but I sure didn’t have it all figured out in the early days. I made way more mistakes than I made good decisions. But as I mentioned, I’ve owned over 21 companies. I would say about half of those were miserable failures or learning experiences. There was some mediocre ones in there, and then a few big wins. But once you’ve learned how to do something consistently, like, one time anybody can get lucky. But three times or more, you know what you’re doing.
But what I found was that I was so head down focused on growing my career, my businesses, what I had on that side of life, financial freedom, all the things, that I neglected myself; I neglected my health. I didn’t neglect my relationship, especially with my children. But I wasn’t always my best at it. Because I felt like it was this term work-life balance, which I actually totally disagree with. I think it’s more about work harmony or life harmony. I’ve built my life, such that my work is a passion, and therefore it’s part of it. Just like my children and everyone else in my life that I love is a passion and part of it. So there is not this teeter-totter, one or the other, and that was a framework that I had to shatter in my head.
I’m a hypnotherapist and trained in NLP. I geek out over what makes people tick and all the human behavior things. But what I found out is that when you have couples, for example, that are trying to improve intimacy in the relationship, or somebody who might be single and seeking that love of their life, if they’re super successful in business, they tend to have maybe some bad habits—and that was me—that I had to reframe and unlearn in order to have that healthy, balanced relationship structure in my life. But I’ve also learned that when couples work together, a lot of small businesses work with their spouse or their brother-in-law or whatever, there’s a different dynamic. I would come in to work with couples on love life breakthrough, and they would say, we’re just working 80 hours a week and we’re stressed out and we don’t have the money. So I realized I actually needed to solve those problems first.
So that’s why we created freedom in business. It was to get you from what I call one side of the river to the other. Because you’re on this side, where you’re stressed out, your relationship is suffering, you don’t have enough time for self-care. You’re not doing the things that you know you need to do, because you’re so hair on fire trying to deal with your business problems. If we can figure out a way to get the stepping stones across the river, to where everything is technicolor, and you actually have more bandwidth, and the business is running without you. So now you can focus on your marriage, you can focus on your health, you can focus on that relationship with maybe your older children. The emptiness thing is real in how it affects relationships. So I was wrong, is I guess the short answer. I thought I needed to start off on the relationship side, but then I realized I really needed to back it up and help small business owners—not everybody owns a business, but small business owners—get to that level of freedom, and then they could open up and work on their relationships. So that was the background I was sharing.
Thank you, and I’m sure there’s people listening that are resonating. I will say, even for myself and my industry, as a psychologist and relationship coach, there is an aspect, given that I have my own business. But I had very little to no training in business and just all the different things that are required, and it can feel very overwhelming, and just how to negotiate that with a level of buoyancy that gives this technicolor. I think it takes some experience and scaffolding, as you’re talking about having these stepping stones. So I love that you’re able to really have that wraparound perspective. Because I think we do tend to compartmentalize and really keep one aspect or domain, like work. Oh, it’s all work, and then we don’t really necessarily think about the relating. I will agree, and I’ve worked with many high C-level executives. Naturally, they’re attempting to bring all their amazing skill set to the relationship, and it’s a totally different dynamic, both the couple dynamic versus business and what hierarchy might exist in that world, as well as the skill sets. We typically don’t need so much of the intellect or the analyzing; we need more of the cultivating that emotional empathy. How did you start to give some focus to lies and what emerged there?
Well, it was two-fold in the business world. When I started out, it was high technology. We started in the mobile technology space and custom software in 2004, so this was before iPhone. What I found is, in that very cutthroat, highly aggressive world, people would lie to gain positioning or get ahead or take advantage of a small business they were looking to acquire or whatever. And because of my behavioral background, which till then I had always treated as a hobby. That was my passion, and then I have my work or my career. I actually didn’t blend the two, until this started to resonate with me that wait a minute, they’re lying. They’re just boldface lying, I can tell because I know from my training. But I was going: Hey, nobody else can see this. So I saw the value on that side for business. But then as I was working more with couples and doing some of the relationship stuff, there are plenty of times when lies come between couples that love each other very, very much, and actually both have intentionality around building and fostering intimacy and a great relationship. So then you scratch it out and go: Well, then why are they lying, what’s going on? So the fascination was on both sides, both the business and career side, as well as your personal relationships. Why people that are closest to you and say they love and trust you, why would they lie to you?
Such an intriguing topic. I realize not everybody defines lies similarly. Some people will look at hiding or omitting, especially when there’s agreements. If we’re doing due diligence, and it’s a business thing, and it is full disclosure, omitting is obviously not fair game. But in relationship, we have also other agreements. But what’s your stance on lying and how you perhaps define it?
The question I get asked a lot about this is white lies, or what’s the difference between a white lie and a black lie? Well, at the very fundamental level, a black lie is meant to deceive the other person. Usually, for that person, the person that’s lying, it’s for their own personal gain, even at the cost or expense of the person that they’re lying to. A white lie is almost the exact opposite. We’re actually lying to please the other person, sometimes at our own expense, which always comes back and bites you. But it’s also, in a lot of ways, to foster the relationship or stabilize or try to grow the relationship with the person that you’re lying to. So it’s almost exactly the opposite of a black lie.
But both are lies, and I would argue that you might get the little wins. When your wife says, do I look good in this dress, or do I still look as beautiful today as I did 30 years ago? And the guy is like, warning, warning! I better lie because I know I’m going to be in trouble. He’s trying to foster intimacy with his wife and make her feel good. But I would argue that over time, it will erode trust, and that there’s a way to have those kinds of communications where you can accomplish the same goal; you still make your wife feel beautiful and loved and wanted and all those things, without just lying. So that’s the skill that people, I think, need to foster and develop if they really want to use white lies for intimacy. Because doing it the wrong way has the same effect as a black lie.
Okay, first of all, I’m like, can we come up with other terms? I don’t know what the history of the white and the black is. But this political justice, multicultural person in me is like: Oh, that sounds so racist! I know you’re not intending, and it’s language we all use. I’m just like, what if it’s other language? We’ll have to kind of brainstorm that.
But when you’re looking at the intent, that when the short-term is to cultivate intimacy and connection and harmony in that interaction, there’s a long-term effect. I so agree with you that it requires a pulling back, and it almost adds a wedge, if you will, to the exchange. Perhaps it’s not necessary, where you’re saying, maybe there’s other ways in which we can convey how the person we find attractive or our person that we love and really adore, and just the beauty and the development of that beauty. Versus, like: Oh, you’re exactly the same as you were when you were 20. I guess I’m wondering what your perspective is. So just to back up, do you feel like lies encompass all of it, the dishonesty?
Yes, a lie is a lie, absolutely.
So omitting is a lie too?
Yeah, an unknown omission. Now, you could then get into a deeper discussion about, well, did they know it subconsciously or were they consciously omitting it? There’s a lot of gray area there. But I think for integrity’s sake, a lie is a lie. If you know you’re lying, whether it’s for good or bad intentions, it is a lie. The truth is, we all lie. We’ve learned this from childhood, sadly. Your parents come running in and say, did you spill that all over the floor? Your first reaction is to say: No, it wasn’t me.
“People lie for two main reasons. They lie to avoid getting in trouble, which is ingrained in us from childhood. And the more sophisticated, nuanced reason we lie is, because we’re trying to uphold a certain image in other people’s minds.”
Whether it’s actually true, and we could argue what true means or not, if it’s realistic, or if it’s a persona that we want others to believe about us. Maybe we’re aspiring to be that, therefore we lie. That fake it till you make it, that’s a lie. But you can also say, well, that’s law of attraction. We’re trying to be positive and imagine ourselves in that space. Yes, and that’s all wonderful. By the way, I agree with all of that. But there’s a difference in portending like you are, versus pretending to be the way you want to be. If someone flat out asks you and you lie, you’re still lying. So there’s a little gray area, but that’s the two main reasons, and that comes from childhood.
Oh, I’m so grateful you’re mentioning childhood and one’s environment, because I think that actually is really important. But before I ask that, I want to just say, it seems as though, as far as languaging, it could be a dishonest lie or a pleasing lie, that could be the white lie.
Yeah, deceptive or complimentary lie. We could come up with better terms, I’m sure.
No, I mean, I’m not trying to attack the language.
Yeah, I know. It is older language, that’s right.
Okay, so I’m grateful that you mentioned just the environment, I wanted to come back to that. Because I actually have had clients that have been together for 30 years, raised their children, they are very happy together. I’m thinking of one client in particular, and she was like: Oh yeah, my mother, her family growing up, we would bury the body in the background and never speak of it again. It’s just this cultural, family thing, where I really prefer to not talk about things. Or I do want you to lie to me and tell me I look good when I ask you or solicit. Do you think it takes a little bit of intentionality to say, here’s how we’re going to be, and here’s the value and the benefit of that. Because it’s almost like short-term versus long-term. If we’re going to lie, that might feel good in the moment. But what that’s actually, as you were saying, contributing to long-term. Do you think it’s helpful for people to name this, that let’s try to have an environment where we use other language? What do you think?
I think we’re really talking about expectations. The expectations that we bring to the relationship based on not only our upbringing and the frameworks that our parents, grandparents, and our cultural society used. If we’re even going to go global, it’s very different from one country or one community to another, on how things were framed out for us in that regard. There are some cultures that are incredibly blunt; there’s no filter, and they will tell you exactly how they feel. Then in another culture, that’s unbelievably rude. So it’s more than just the family you grew up with, which is obviously hugely impactful. It’s also where you grew up, what generation you grew up in. It’s all those things, that’s programming. Then it’s life experience.
Now you have two beautiful souls who are just trying to figure out life and be the best versions of themselves, and they come together with a set of expectations. Good, bad. Right, wrong. I don’t even think those words belong in this conversation. I think it’s more: Here was my family dynamic, right or wrong, that’s what I’m used to. We all scream at each other and then sit down to dinner like nothing happened. They invariably will marry the person who gave everybody the silent treatment, and like you said, bury the body and never talk about it again. I don’t know why, but I think it’s part of putting us together for our spiritual growth and journey that we marry our opposite on things like that. But I do think it’s amazingly impactful when you’re dating, and even before you decide to get married and settle down, that you have those conversations about expectations on what it is that you’re looking for, what the communication style is, what your fighting style is.
“We work with people all the time on their fighting style. People are like, fighting style? How about we just learn not to fight? Well, that’s ridiculous, you’re going to argue, you’re going to disagree. So actually talking about what your expectation is.”
Again, you’ll have one person or one partner that wants to hash it all out and drag that to the ground and beat it to death. And you have someone else who says: I need to pull away and go think for a little bit, I need to process. I don’t know why those people always end up getting married, but they do. So there’s this dynamic for learning how to fight and learning how to communicate, and I think this is part of that discussion.
But it’s not just at the beginning. It’s not just when you’re deciding to get married, where somebody says: Oh, please lie to me, because I need the reassurance and my insecurities can’t handle the truth or whatever. That’s vulnerable, just even admitting that. That should be like a dang note to the other partner, that I need to do more to make them feel comfortable in their own skin. That’s a whole nother part of it. But then let’s say you’ve been married now for 10 years or 20 years, maybe now you’re going through a transition where you have children, or now your children are leaving the house. You need to check in again, like: Hey, you know we’ve had those discussions before about, do we lie to each other, do we lie by omission to make each other feel better? Like, are we still on that same page, or how are we feeling about some of the stuff? So it’s not a one-and-done, I think it’s an ongoing evolutionary conversation?
Absolutely, I’m grateful you said that. Because it’s both recognizing what are the expectations that we’re coming into relationship based on what we’ve lived and what we’ve known. Also bringing some awareness around, we may operate very differently, and how do we want to have an agreement? Perhaps those agreements are not set in stone, that they’re going to evolve, and how are we doing with this? I mean, I’ll just say, I have a huge value of honesty and transparency. Just what you’re saying around how to be honest, it’s not an easy thing to be asked a question, and want to affirm my husband, if he’s asking about his looks or something, and how to affirm him if he’s seeking affirmation, without lying. If he’s like, does this look good, or how about that? I might say, well, and how to say that to acknowledge his concern, but without just flat out lying. That’s not an easy thing.
Well, there is a framework for that. So for anybody listening that’s like, well, how do I do it without busting his bubble or hurting her feelings or whatever? I think of it like an Oreo cookie, which I happen to love Oreo cookies. But anyway, so you’ve got that beginning, middle, and end. So the beginning is you affirm them with a compliment. Maybe to your husband, you would say: You know I think you’re the most handsome man on the planet, I can never get enough you. Don’t know that that outfit makes you look as good as you actually look. It might actually not make you look as handsome or as sophisticated as I think you want to look for this event you’re going to. But if you wear it, I’m sure you’ll still be the best looking guy in the place. So you are kind of sandwiching in, I don’t want to say criticism, but that truth, in between some very affirmative compliments. So that they realize you are attracted to them, you just don’t like that shirt.
Yes, and I do think this is probably harder to unwind if people have a pattern of doing the white lying to one another. As you’re talking, it’s reminding me of the very early days when my husband and I were dating. This is probably like 2006, and I think maybe even a couple years after that. So we were in grad school, and my husband was using clippers. He would do the whole buzz clip, and it would be like at the setting of two or something, I think. His brother came to visit and he was like, do you like his hair? He wasn’t even in the room, and I was like, I think he can do better. It was just honest. But it wasn’t like, I don’t like your hair. It was like, I do find him very attractive, and I think he could actually have a haircut that actually is more flattering to him. Actually, my husband heard about that, and he teased me about it for years.
Then when you actually say: Oh my gosh, you look so handsome! Then he goes, okay, that’s true.
Yeah. So he grew up in the Midwest, I think white lying is very appropriate and expected and commonplace. I remember, we were going out, this was around the same timeframe. I had these white pants, or maybe it was a different pair of pants. But I was asking him, what do you think? He’s like, do you want to know the honest answer? Because with guys, that’s a whole classic joke, the setup of do I look fat? So they’re like, danger, danger! So I gave him full permission to be honest, and I would much rather hear the honest. So gratefully, you’re giving us some template here. If we can really be truthful about our affirmation, or what we really can acknowledge that’s positive, and then be able to frame the feedback, if it’s being solicited.
That’s being solicited. But you’re exactly right, what happens when somebody hasn’t directly asked you? There is this level of sophistication and intimacy, where in order to build that intimacy, you’re not going to lie. Instead, you may come forward, without any solicitation, and say: Sweetheart, I’ve been feeling this way. I mean, I know you didn’t ask what’s going on or my feelings, but I just feel like I need to share this with you. Lately, I’ve been feeling a little insecure or whatever.
“As opposed to your husband or your partner coming to you and saying something, and then you having that on the spot ‘deer in headlights,’ and your natural reaction is to cover, to white lie or whatever it is. If you can get really comfortable actually being the person that goes and talks to them about your feelings, this is a whole new level of vulnerability and intimacy.”
But that’s very different than when somebody asks you a question, do you lie or not? Practicing your level of intimacy by getting in front of it and pre-empting it by just vocalizing how you feel. Then you can even say, do I have your permission to be completely vulnerable? Because I really don’t want to hurt your feelings, and I’m scared that if I’m just completely, totally honest, that I might offend you. Now you’ve asked their permission to be open and accepting, and that’s a beautiful thing. So then you say what you say, and now they can’t get upset because they promised you it was okay. So that’s a little bit more sophisticated level. But I encourage anybody that’s gotten into this bad habit of white lying to their spouse to try that.
Yes, it’s almost the willingness to speak that uncomfortable truth, or what feels even shameful or unlovable or super vulnerable. When you’re talking about the unsolicited and taking that emotional risk or that relational risk, it sounds like it’s on the part of the person who’s sharing. Versus, like: Oh, I have some feedback for you. I know you’re not asking me, but let me tell you something constructive. That typically tends to be unwelcomed, unless somebody is really wanting feedback. I mean, there are times where it might be like: Hey, honey, I’ve noticed I have some thoughts, is that something you’re wanting to hear or interested in hearing about that? There’s still an agreement around, do you want to hear this?
I think that’s so important, what you’re describing, to help create a climate. Because it’s so aspirational to say, we’re going to be honest and open and transparent. Yet, when there’s some discontent, so many people struggle with: Well, I don’t want to bring it up when things are going really well, because I don’t want to dampen the mood. And I don’t want to bring it up when things aren’t going well, because things are already hard, we don’t want to add another thing. So people struggle. Yet, what you’re saying is, if we can really come to the table when things are a little more neutral or even positive, that sharing, there’s a real trust and regard that builds more trust when we can share unsolicited, something that might be hard to speak about.
Yeah, but the discipline to do that and find that sweet spot between: I don’t want to mess up things when they’re great. Versus: Uh-oh, we’re struggling, so I really don’t want to bring it up. That sweet spot in the middle tends to be neutral. People say, now I’m in neutral, now I’ve got to go focus on my career, or I’m going to focus on what’s going on with my dad. They don’t really think about it. So there’s a practice that I use in my relationship, and that I’ve worked with hundreds of couples on. It’s called BFP. It stands for Business, Family, Personal. Once a week, preferably at the same time, like when you’re on your way to church or your Saturday morning coffee on the back patio. Whenever you guys normally have a rhythm of spending time together, where you’re not freaked out and stressed out about work or whatever. Take that moment and super quick, Business, Family, Personal (BFP). Like, what are your numbers, 1 to 10? How are you feeling about your business, if you own a business? Or your career, what’s going on with your job? Anything in that world. Somebody could say, I’m about a 5. Then family, and you can define family any way you want. We define family as not just us and the kids, we also define it as extended family. Sometimes it’ll extend to our really good friends who we consider family as well. Then personal is like, my health, my weight, my goals, my bucket list, my aspirations, whatever.
So let’s say, BFP—Business: 5, Family: 9, Personal: 4. You’re like, whoa, what’s going on? Well, business is a 5 because of that deal I’m waiting on. Oh yeah, that’s right. So now you’re checking in on that part of their world? Family is a 9, why isn’t it a 10? That’s my favorite question: what would make it a 10 or why isn’t it a 10? People are reticent to give a 1 or a 10, they just don’t like that. Because they feel like there’s always something you can improve. But if you ask them, they go: No, I’m totally happy. Okay, so it’s really a 10 in their mind. But if it’s 9, it’s like: No, I’m totally happy, except I’m a little bit worried about our oldest son or whatever. Then personal, if they’re coming in at a 4, you’re like: Whoa, how can I help you, how can I support you? I just need the discipline to get up and go to the gym every day, and I just can’t get my butt out of bed. So now that spouse can be more supportive.
The reason this BFP works is because now you’re not waiting for that sweet spot to open up for those conversations. Because let’s face it, most people just aren’t going to do it. So how do you do it in a way to where this is just like brushing our teeth, it’s just something we do. We go put gas in the car, we do our BFP. Call it whatever you want, that’s just what we call it. But that’s a way to go round-robin around somebody’s high-level of their life, and check in in a way that feels very non-threatening.
Yes, it’s systematized, there’s accountability if you’re pairing it with something that is going to be done on a frequent basis, and to give that check-in and give room for reflection. Really understanding, what am I enjoying, what am I not enjoying, and kind of have those touch points. That opens the conversation that perhaps, to your point, and I have found this to be very true, that when one grew up in a family where things weren’t talked about, that when there’s a little bit of a space or a structure that gives welcoming. Sure, the partner that’s a little bit more inquisitive can ask questions to get curious to help that partner share. Not that it’s their responsibility, but could make it feel a little more inviting. But if if there’s something that’s already built-in, I think that does perhaps give a little more opportunity for one that might struggle to just find that space to raise their hand and say: Hey, I got a thing, when everything in their family told them that was not a good thing to do.
So I’ll give one other relational tip, and this is just behavioral. So if you have a very loquacious, let’s say, wife, who wants to just talk and talk and talk and ask and ask and ask, and her husband is the one-word answer guy. Business, Family, Personal: 5, 7, 10. Okay, why did you say that? That’s good. If you have that person, and it goes both ways, but in this relationship, it’s the man who’s that way.
There’s a little hypnosis trick or a little communication trick. So when you say what’s going on with work, what’s going on with business? Eh, same old, same old. If you say, same old, same old? And you say it with a question inflection at the end, in a genuine tone of curiosity, and you tilt your head, and you just sit and wait. It might be uncomfortable for a second or two. But then he’s going to go: Well, you know, Tom is still doing this, and Joe is still doing that, and I still don’t have enough time in my day to do that. If you really want to peel back those layers of the onion, you could say: You don’t have time to do that, what does that mean for your day? Is that stressful to you? Oh yeah, it’s stressful, because whatever. So the thing you do is, it’s called mirroring. You just simply repeat the last thing they said as a question mark, and then be quiet. They will feel that tension, that pressure to explain. That’s how you get people that aren’t necessarily going to really open up, to open up.
Yes, thank you for just that suggestion that gives some example and strategy to how to approach these places that we might just fall very quickly into habit. I remember coming across something, and this may fit in the heterosexual example you’re bringing up here. That stereotypically, grossly stereotyping, men are more physically ready. They tend to be socialized to play more sports or bond through activity and physicality, where with women, there’s a little bit more experience in verbalizing. So there is a lot there, but just to have a little bit more room. I remember the analogy of emptying the cup or cycling, and the person’s experience, giving a little bit more room and space to circle around and start emptying or coming up. So I think what you’re giving is a really great suggestion to give support for that. Because I have a lot of questions, so I definitely ask. But I have found if I really subtly get into my body and just feel and give space and room and short questions, my husband will say things that I don’t think he really was thinking about talking about. So it can be really special.
Well, you just nailed it about giving space and giving room. Because this works beautifully by itself. But when you do it with a real intentionality to just listen, to truly listen, and to give so much space. That’s why Saturday morning coffee or something like that, or if you know you have a 35-minute drive, that’s a great time. Another psychological hack, which I’m sure you know is, walking side-by-side or driving side-by-side, people are eyes forward. They will open up, it’s like a confessional booth or whatever. So if they’re not looking right at you, they’re a lot more open to things. So if it’s on a drive somewhere, and you’ve got the time, instead of being like: Okay, BFP, you’re a 9 and 7. Okay, great. Next, what do you want to have for lunch? No, just live in it for a minute.
If your partner isn’t the one that opens up, and you hear what they have to say, and then you just sit for a minute, huh! And then you’re quiet. They may keep talking. Or you repeat it, like I said, you mirror what they said and then unpack more. Then you just live in it for a minute, and give that space and room. So kudos to you for not only doing that, but leading the way for others to do that. But I would say it’s more rare in our fast-paced ADHD society.
“People are so anxious to get to what the next thing is they want to say, they’re not only not really listening, but they don’t make that other person feel like there’s this gap or open space to fill.”
Oh, it’s priceless. Just how quickly our phones are right by us and intruding. So to really have that space where somebody is attending, not just short little bursts, but real quality, I think it’s very special. When somebody holds space for me, and I feel that receiving with my husband or someone else, it’s like: Ah, thank you! I don’t think we’re in the habit of doing that.
Okay, Andrea, I realize we’re talking a lot about openness and transparency, and we’re here to talk about lies. So tell us a little bit about what you want to support people, as far as recognizing. Because people have an internal radar sometimes of like, whether or not it’s micro-facial expressions or tone. Help us with what’s happening there, what are you helping people recognize as far as lies? Then what to do with that, if it seems like it’s coming up in relationship?
So there are some interesting ways to identify if somebody is lying. I want to set the table first by saying, one of these as a standalone is not the definitive silver bullet that someone is lying. But it’s a cluster of these behaviors that will confirm when someone is lying. So I’ll give some examples. Blink rate. So the average person blinks 16 times per minute. But the problem is, if they’re blinking fast, they’re typically in their head, thinking about what it is that they want to say next. If they’re completely fascinated and totally locked in, they’re trying to learn something or they’re being very open for you, they will blink less, because they’re actually trying to take in all the information. It’s a subtle one. But if somebody is blinking a lot, maybe they have allergies, maybe their eyes are just bothering them. So you can’t be like: Oh, he was blinking fast, so he lied. That’s not true, or it couldn’t necessarily be true just on one thing.
Another one, as you mentioned, these micro-facial expressions. People should trust their gut a lot more, especially when it’s someone you know. You look at your child or you look at your co-worker or your spouse, and you’re like: Yeah, that was off. I don’t know what about that was weird or off, but something was going on there. Trust that, that’s another one. Tone is another one. If somebody gets high pitched and they start talking quickly because they’re being very defensive, careful. Fidgeting is another one. Somebody in that situation should be pretty calm and cool, and they’re tapping their foot or they’re doing something with their hands, or they’re fidgeting unnecessarily. That alone, maybe they have to use the bathroom, or maybe they’re anxious about something that they have to do when they leave you. But if you say, in the context of what this conversation is and where we are, you should not be that nervous, or you should not be fidgeting.
Then there are a few telltales. So we use this if we’re doing things like, I don’t know, hostage negotiation, or you’re doing something like high stakes business dealings. These have to do with averting your eyes, not looking at the person, that’s obvious. But also, people will cover their mouth. So you see this a lot in politics. They are literally trying to hold in the information. Another thing you’ll see is sucking in the lips, it either happens one way or the other. Like, somebody will ask them a question, and they’ll suck in their lips. Like, I’ve got to make sure not to say the wrong thing here. That’s one. Or they’ll say something and then they’ll suck in their lips. That is a really good indicator that somebody is outwardly trying to deceive. That’s really interesting when you have the sucking in the lips or things like that, because that’s something people don’t normally do. So it’s an easy one to watch for.
Then there’s some more sophisticated ones. There’s physiology that shows that when people are lying and purposefully lying, their nose, their fingertips, and their ears will start to itch. The reason why is because you go into fight or flight, so all the blood rushes to your vital organs, which gives that tingling sensation in your extremities. So if you see people are doing like this or whatever, messing with their ears, it’s probably because they’re deceiving. But that’s a little bit more nuanced.
Sure. I’ve heard clients talk about an experience or an interaction with their significant other that’s uncharacteristic, to your point, around what you know about somebody. So if one typically offers a lot of information in detail, and then they’re really short-answered, or vice versa.
Yeah, that’s a major one, especially in relationships. Because if you ask somebody: Hey, did you take the last cookie? And they’re like, no, and they walk out of the room, they’re probably telling the truth. But if they go, take the last cookie, I can’t believe you’re accusing me of that! I’m the one that made the cookies. If I wanted a cookie, I’d make a cookie. I can’t believe you’re accusing me. I’m not even hungry, what are you talking about? Whoa, whoa, something’s going on! That’s a little odd. It’s way too much information, and it might be too detailed, to your point.
“It’s that over-explaining to watch out for, especially if they’re aggressive. If they get aggressive or angry back at you, they’re probably lying.”
Okay. So what if one is suspect or is getting the cues that their person is lying, what do you recommend?
It depends on how heated it is in that moment, and back to your conversation we had earlier. Things are really great, so I don’t want to blow it. Or things aren’t great, so I don’t want to actually make it worse. Depends on where you are on that spectrum when you catch your partner in a lie. But I would recommend one of two things. If you’re in a pretty neutral or decent situation, and they lie to you, and you’re like: Dude, I know you’re lying. Like, if you know, there’s one thing that works really well. It might take a little practice or discipline, but you just look at your partner dead in the eye, not with an accusatory look, you just look him dead in the eye. You tilt your head to the side like a Cocker Spaniel, and you just look at them, like, really? But it’s more like, I’m curious that you just lied to me. You’re saying that all through your facial expression, not a single word. It might take a moment to practice that one, but it’s super effective. Because then they’ll be like, well, it’s just because, and then they’ll sometimes spill it.
If things are a little more contentious, I say don’t do it in the moment. I’d say take note of it, walk away, then think to yourself. This requires a little work on your part to say, why in the world would my spouse just lie to me about that? Maybe it’s because this. Maybe it’s because that. Oh, I bet I know why, it’s because last time we talked about that, I freaked out. So it requires a little self-reflection and maybe a little vulnerability on our part, to be honest about why would my partner lie to me about a cookie; that doesn’t make any sense.
It could be something like: Oh, did you find so and so’s wife attractive? First of all, don’t ask those questions, but whatever. Did you find so and so’s wife attractive? He’s like, are you kidding me? I think she’s butt ugly. I can’t believe you even asked. Oh whoa, that means he probably found her attractive. But the reason why he’s responding that way, and you leave and think, why did he just react that way? Oh, it’s because every time, he gets in trouble. That’s on me.
So if you have that discipline to do that self-reflection as to why your partner might have lied to you about it, and maybe you’ve come up with it could be this or it could be that, I’m not even really sure. When it’s a better situation, maybe you’re driving down the road somewhere and you say, do I make you feel this way? I want you to be honest with me, babe. Is there a time when I’ve done this, and then you feel trapped? I’m just trying to figure it out. Then if he’s like, what, what are you talking about? Then maybe that wasn’t it, and you go to your second suspect reason of why you think. You just start asking the questions, because it is an opportunity to foster better intimacy and communication. Because there is a reason they lied to you. Maybe it’s to avoid getting in trouble. Maybe it’s because they are trying to uphold that image of who they want you to think they are.
They do that often with how many drinks they’ve had. How long they stayed at work versus stopping somewhere else. The number one is shopping habits, men and women; they are not always honest about what they spend their money on with shopping habits. Then it’s sex. How many orgasms? Did you even have an orgasm? What are your fantasies? They’re not going to tell you their fantasies if they think it’s going to burst that image of you that you really want them to have of you. So sometimes not in the moment, but having those conversations indirectly, about the reasons you suspect they probably lied to you, may unearth those underlying things. Then if you have a good enough relationship, you can say: Well, the reason why I was asking is because I feel like you were lying the other day about this, and I figured the only reason you would lie to me is because of something I’ve done to you that would make you lie. I’m so sorry if I made you feel that way. Then let them be like, oh no, and it’ll come out.
Well, this harkens back to something I was thinking about when we first started talking in the beginning of the episode, and you were saying, if we’re caring a lot about how people perceive us, and how to say that maybe differently, that there could be an acknowledgment. I have a friend, she’s super keen on her words, and does believe a little more into what we’re speaking has an impact and maybe some of the law of attraction stuff. But she will say: Up until now, I have been this way, and I’m really intending, or what I’m really working on is… And how that fits with what I’m hearing you say is, when we come back to relationship, up until now, I’m not sure if I’ve really been sending welcoming cues or been safe for you to be fully open about who you might be attracted to and might have been harsh or reactive.
That’s an NLP trick that your friend uses. NLP, which is Neuro Linguistic Programming, is obviously a version of hypnosis, it’s highly effective. And what’s great about it is, it not only helps you take responsibility for your own actions and behaviors, but it also puts a marker in time to your partner that says: Up till now, maybe this was the way it was, but that doesn’t mean it has to be going forward. It’s a beautiful technique.
Great, so we could do that if we notice we’re doing the people-pleasing, or we’re wanting to perhaps even self-promote in a way that’s not true or is a lie. That we could say: Well, up until now it’s been this way, and I’m really working on… Then relationally, we can say: Okay, up until now we’ve maybe operated in this way, or we’ve had this dynamic where I’ve been a little reactive, and I can appreciate that it doesn’t feel very safe for you to reveal what’s true for you around feeling attracted to someone else. Can we work on that? Can we create a different environment around that?
Yeah, can we start over?
Yes. Then I’m also aware, I know we’re winding down here, there might be other times where it’s progressed to a level, and maybe the lies are more frequent or more severe, as far as affairs, betrayals, these types of things. Do you want to say anything about that?
Yeah, they do compound. It’s just like anything else, any other behavior that we’ve all heard about, from shoplifting, which then eventually can lead to more egregious behavior too. You mentioned cheating, and what do you count as a cheating checkmark? Some people say, I walked through the store and I found that woman attractive, was I cheating? Well, did you speak to her in a flirtatious way, was that cheating? Well, if I wasn’t physical, was that cheating? So everybody, first of all, has to define that for themselves. It’s their own moral compass, and it’s also their agreement with their spouse on what they both consider cheating.
“I do think that when you start off with white lies, and then they become a little bit bigger or a little bit hairier, or more deceitful or deceptive or self-preserving, you are just creating a chasm.”
It’s not that you can’t come back from it, because you absolutely can. I’ve seen really white chasms where you thought there’s no chance, after all that they’ve both done to each other, and they are able to heal and forgive and come back. So it’s possible. But it makes it much more difficult, and it requires both parties to be very honest and take responsibility for their own behavior, and also then communicate that in a way that’s not accusatory or critical. That it’s more about: when you do that I feel, or that makes me, or this comes up for me, or whatever. As opposed to: you, you, you. There’s ways to reframe every question, every accusation, every label that you put on somebody.
So for somebody that is right now currently in a relationship, very comfortable with the little white lies, I would say you have to go first. Your partner wasn’t listening to this podcast. So you have to go first, you have to be the one that gets a little bit raw and vulnerable. When you use those phrases, like: Hey, babe, I want to tell you something, but I’m kind of scared. I’m kind of nervous about what your reaction is going to be, because I don’t want you to be upset with me. Your partner is going to be like: No, you’re fine, what? They’ve now given you forgiveness and permission to start setting that table. When you inoculate against that bad reaction up front, and they’ve now granted you permission, you’ve made a few inches of progress into that vulnerability. You lead the way, they’ll start reciprocating.
Yes. Andrea, I would imagine you would agree that we start also building some muscle around being able to step into this space that feels uncertain and uncomfortable, and what’s on the other side of that. That’s what we’re in service of.
You can practice on low stakes settings. You’re at the coffee shop, and you run into somebody or you talk to somebody behind the counter. It’s a low stakes interaction. For whatever reason, something comes up and you think: Oh, I should lie. For example, if somebody says, how are you today, are you having a great day? And you’re not, you feel terrible or you’re upset about something, whatever. You could say, today is not my best day, I’m feeling a little raw, I’m feeling a little vulnerable. I’m trying to be in a great mood, but I haven’t gotten there yet. But I appreciate your smile. They’re like, what? Nobody ever actually answers me. If you go: I’m great! I’m living the dream, baby. No, you’re not. You’re lying, and you’re making it a practice to lie. So you can build that muscle in low stakes environments, and then it gives you more confidence with your spouse.
Thank you. I love all the examples, and it really touches on I think people’s concern that they’re going to be like a Debbie Downer. Yet, there’s a way to still keep it positive and be real, and we can play with this and we can build more repertoire. So how would you like to encourage people that want to learn more? What would you invite people to connect with you?
Yeah, so we have several classes. I actually have an entire masterclass on how to spot a liar, which is a lot of fun. Then usually, people go from that to advanced negotiation tactics. Because they realize now that I know people are lying, what do I do about it? So those two are really fun. Those are on LifeUnleashed.online. If you want to give people on the podcast a discount, I’d be happy to give you 30% off. So it’s just Andrea30, and it’ll give you 30% off whatever you put in as a promo code. But also, I would start watching for some of these clues. Like, look at videos on your social feeds, people that you interact with. Start building the muscle of noticing, and then figuring out some of the ways that we’ve talked about here today that you can start practicing on. So that’s probably the best way. Then, anybody that wants to reach out that wants more personalized help, I’m happy to do that as well.
How would people find you and what you’re offering more personally. Is that on your website?
You can go to AndreaBeach.me, and there’s a little form you can fill out, and it actually goes to me. You can go to LifeUnleashed.online, and you can request information of it specifically about that. Then I’m very active on all my social feeds. So if you want to go, it’s @The_Andrea_Beach. If people want to go find me there, just DM me. It’s going to be me, I’ll be the one responding.
Oh, wonderful. I’ll make sure to have the links to your social, your website, as well as the masterclasses, on today’s show notes. Thank you so much for being with us and all that you’ve shared.
Thank you for having me. It was really fun.
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Have you ever felt that intimacy in your relationship brings both comfort and discomfort? Why do we feel pressured to conform or seek space when getting too close to someone?
In this episode, we delve into ...
Setting limits and boundaries with others is a fundamental aspect of healthy interpersonal dynamics. Yet, many people struggle with asserting themselves due to ingrained patterns from childhood or societal expectations that prioritize giving over self-care. ...
Imagine being deeply in love, but constantly feeling the weight of judgment from society merely because of an age difference. Age gap relationships often face challenges beyond the typical trials of love, grappling with stereotypes, ...
At the core of many relationship struggles lie deeply ingrained wounds from our past, shaping how we perceive ourselves and interact with others. These wounds, often formed in childhood, can manifest as insecurities, fears, and maladaptive coping mechanisms in adult relationships.
As an example, individuals with deep-seated abandonment wounds struggle to trust or embrace intimacy, resulting in clinginess or avoidance behaviors. Similarly, those with worthiness wounds may constantly seek validation or struggle to assert their needs confidently. These patterns sow seeds of conflict, communication breakdowns, and emotional distance, impeding intimacy and connection.
In this episode, we delve into how understanding and addressing these core wounds can transform relationship dynamics. By exploring the origins of these wounds and their manifestations in adult relationships, we uncover actionable strategies for healing and growth. Through this insightful conversation, listeners gain valuable tools to navigate their own core wounds and foster healthier, more fulfilling connections.
Thais Gibson is a counselor and co-founder of The Personal Development School, with a Ph.D., and over 13 certifications in modalities, such as CBT, NLP, somatic experiencing, internal family systems, and shadow work. She is an expert in attachment theory and her research is extending the frontier of psychology with her modern Gibson Integrated Attachment Theory, and she is the author of Learning Love: Build the Best Relationships of Your Life Using Integrated Attachment.
In this episode
6:53 Tyese Gibson’s journey through adversity and addiction to transformation.
12:12 The importance of addressing deeper emotional layers and primary attachment needs to achieve lasting change.
22:32 Reprogramming the subconscious for better relationships.
27:03 Thais explains her integrative approach to attachment therapy, which combines multiple modalities.
41:36 The power of inner work in relationship dynamics.
Your Check List of Actions to Take
- Identify and understand the core emotional wounds that impact your behavior and relational dynamics.
- Develop self-soothing and emotional regulation strategies to manage your emotional responses effectively.
- Enhance communication skills by expressing needs clearly and respectfully to your partner.
- Define and maintain boundaries that safeguard your emotional well-being.
- Consistently practice new behaviors and thought patterns to create lasting neural pathways.
- Learn how different attachment styles influence your reactions and work on becoming securely attached.
- Regularly engage in deep self-reflection to uncover and address underlying emotional triggers and vulnerabilities.
- Utilize hypnotherapy to access and reprogram subconscious patterns and core wounds.
Mentioned
Learning Love: Learning Love: Build the Best Relationships of Your Life Using Integrated Attachment Theory (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
Relationship Map To Happy, Lasting Love
Connect with Thais Gibson
Website: university.personaldevelopmentschool.com
Facebook: facebook.com/ThePersonalDevelopmentSchool
YouTube: youtube.com/channel/UCHQ4lSaKRap5HyrpitrTOhQ/videos
Instagram: instagram.com/thepersonaldevelopmentschool
Podcast: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/personal-development-school/id1478580185
TikTok: tiktok.com/@thaisgibson?_t=8n6kvwtOLP0&_r=1
Connect with Dr. Jessica Higgins
Facebook: facebook.com/EmpoweredRelationship
Instagram: instagram.com/drjessicahiggins
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Pinterest: pinterest.com/EmpowerRelation
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Twitter: @DrJessHiggins
Website: drjessicahiggins.com
Email: jessica@drjessicahiggins.com
About Today’s Show
Thais, thank you for joining us. It’s a pleasure to have you.
Thank you so much for having me, I’m excited to be here with you.
Yeah. We’re going to be looking at a topic that is possibly familiar to listeners, as this is something that’s very near and dear to my heart, and the attachment theory. You have a different way of really looking at it through the integrated attachment theory. So we’re going to talk about that and how to incorporate that for healthier relationships.
For people who are just getting to know you, what would you like to share with people around where you’re coming from around this topic, and maybe even what got you interested in doing this work and helping people in this way?
Let’s make a very long story fairly short. I, first of all, definitely grew up in a childhood where there was a lot of chaos. So a lot of big arguments, walking on eggshells, never know when there’s going to be a big chaotic moment at home. I definitely was parentified quite young. For anybody who doesn’t know what that means, essentially there’s different types of parentification, but I was emotionally parentified. Sort of playing the emotional caretaker role in my family: for my younger sister, for my mother, and also for my father. So after a big argument, I would go check on one, they would maybe sometimes cry or be emotional, go check on the other, go check on my sister. There was a lot of growing up young and growing up quickly. I think part of that, of course, is stressful, but part of it also made me really interested in human behavior and human dynamics, from a very young age. I cherished the depth of the human experience. So I was always really interested in everything to do with people psychology.
But honestly, the really big change for me took place when I had knee surgery. I went on to play soccer in university and got a soccer scholarship. But in my Scouting year, I had knee surgery, and pretty much immediately got addicted to opiates. I didn’t realize the depth of how bad that was, went through pretty much a six-year or a six-and-a-half-year stint of almost daily opioid use and really, really struggling. Somewhere towards year four-and-a-half, I had somebody in a psych class say to me: Yeah, your conscious mind can outwell or overpower your subconscious mind. For anybody who’s ever had the experience of trying desperately to stop doing something that you actually cannot let go of, to me that was this breakthrough moment of understanding: Oh, so my conscious mind is the one saying “I’m going to get clean. I’m going to get sober. I’m going to go to my A meeting, done A meeting.” And my subconscious and unconscious mind obviously have ulterior motives.
So I got really interested in unpacking what that was. My first big certification I did while I was still in school was actually in hypnotherapy, and trying to understand the mechanisms of how we are affected at a deeper subconscious level. Also, a lot of what I was learning at the time in school was very conscious-based. It was like: Oh, let’s talk about insight, let’s gain awareness into things. That’s amazing. But your subconscious and unconscious mind collectively are responsible for 95–97% of our beliefs, our thoughts, our emotions, and our actions, and your conscious mind is 3–5%. So we can gain conscious insight.
“If we don’t really apply things in a way that speaks in the language of the subconscious mind and actually rewires the subconscious mind, we can become really limited in our ability to create true and lasting transformation.”
So for me, learning that was really a way out of this tormenting cycle of addiction that I was in. This is definitely not me recommending this. But for me as a person, although I very much think that there’s tremendous power in rehab, I tried an inpatient program, I tried an outpatient program, I wasn’t getting the results I needed. I also wasn’t investing the way that I needed, to set the record straight there. But looking back, it was like: Oh, well, if I was in a position where I could understand this earlier, it would have helped me so much. Really understanding what was going on for me at a personal level, what wounds I was carrying, what were the issues that were causing me to need to numb something emotionally. By unpacking that and working through that, that was ultimately what got me into a space of my sobriety journey, and also a space where I had my appendix out a couple of years ago and had to have painkillers. I took them for a day and they sat in my cupboard somewhere, I don’t even know where they ended up. It wasn’t something where it’s a fight or a struggle, it’s something that does not affect me as a person. So I think that when we can really dig into the roots of things, we can see deeper transformation.
Thank you—like you said, there’s a much longer story to this—and to try to give some summary, but some real insight into what were some of the pivotal things for you, both in this struggle, and also in the learning. It sounds like it has a lot to do with really getting in touch with the deeper layers, the deeper core emotions, primary attachment needs, and where there has been maybe injury or parts that were not in the forefront or aware of, in IFS language, the exile part or the shadow work. So part of what you’re really describing is, while you might have been in these programs, and I’m sure there was some value, your level of engagement or investment was perhaps blocked or limited by what you were actually able to access inside yourself. So with a deeper dive of that inner experience of those deeper layers, then that’s when you were able to re-pattern and you were able to really have more integration and really evolve and transform some of these patterns. Is that what I’m hearing?
Absolutely. I think something that was interesting to me is I never, from the beginning, loved the dynamics of hypnotherapy. I always found it somewhat strange when I started seeing clients at first, that you come in and you help somebody go through this process, and you take them through, and they don’t really have much control over what’s happening. They do in a sense, because somebody has to be willing to be open to be hypnotized and things like that. But they walk away being like: “That helps so much, and I have no idea what happened or how to replicate that.”
So to me, it was like, well, once you understand the mechanics of how our subconscious mind really gets programmed, we can leverage the understanding of that and teach people how to recondition or reprogram these aspects of self, whether it’s our core wounds. Because there’s a lot of really powerful information, like cognitive behavioral therapy goes into core wounds and questioning our thoughts. But to me, a lot of that was reactive. Like, once I’m triggered, I do that work, and it helps me equilibrate or self-soothe. But how do we stop those things from coming back to begin with? Well, we can actually recondition those core wounds that we’re carrying.
So I really got interested in leveraging out principles of hypnosis for reconditioning a lot of these aspects of self that are things that plague us, and they show up in our internal dialogue. They show up in these different parts of ourselves that try to protect us, and often come from first having these core wounds and imprints to begin with. So we can really pluck them out like a weed at its root, to recondition.
So a lot of my own journey, as I was learning and going to school, and I got really obsessed with psychology and the mind, taking all these different certifications and getting all these different points of view on how to move through things. My first few years of my journey was just for me, I didn’t even think about a career or a play. It was like, I want to learn so I can make sure I never have to suffer like that again.
So really digging in, there were a few core things I focused on. One was reprogramming core wounds, so very much these core ideas we have. Things like: I’m disrespected, I’m unlovable, I’ll always be abandoned, I’ll be betrayed, I’m unworthy. We all have these big core wounds that we carry, particularly insecure attachment styles. By reprogramming those things, it really shifts our internal dialogue. Because if we have this big core wound, just for simplicity’s sake, that I’m not good enough, well, these belief patterns create patterns of thought. So throughout the day, we’ll start to think things like: “I’m not interesting enough. I’m not funny enough. I’m not this or that enough.” All the thought patterns that would spring off of that belief, I’m not good enough. Then that affects how we feel, because how do we feel when we’re thinking those thoughts, and then that affects our neurochemistry. Antonio Damasio, a neuroscientist, proved back in 2008, that all of the decisions we make are based on our emotional state.
“If we’re not in control of our beliefs, we’re not in control of our thoughts, emotions, or really, actions that are stemming as coping mechanisms to deal with that belief.”
Like, maybe we feel afraid of abandonment, so we cling. Or maybe we feel afraid of betrayal, so we push away. But all of these things have roots in these core wounds.
So for my own journey, a lot of core wound reprogramming was extremely powerful. Then there were some other things that I really dug into; learning my needs, learning to meet them myself and the mechanism for self-soothing, learning emotional regulation, communication and boundaries. So those were some big focus areas, and that ultimately ended up being things that I focused on with clients. Then when I revisited attachment styles later on, I realized: Oh wow, all of these core features that we can actually recondition at the subconscious level of mind, they actually fit really neatly into these attachment style categories.
So if you’re an anxiously attached person, you’re going to have specific core wounds, like abandonment, exclusion, being disliked, rejected, alone. And you’re going to have specific needs for certainty, reassurance, things that are different from a dismissive, avoidant, or a fearful avoidant, or a securely attached person. And you’re going to have specific patterns of how you try to emotionally regulate, like through activating strategies. And you’re going to have different patterns of how you tend to communicate, and a different relationship to boundaries. Each attachment style I circled back to later on had very unique patterning for how they go about all these different features that I was first focused on just healing within myself. So I was able to then replicate a lot of these things back out in client practice.
Yeah. I will say, having done my dissertation on conscious intimate relationship, it was a meta-analysis, and studying about all these various different ways to support healthy relating. I included the attachment research in my dissertation. But in my work clinically and professionally, it wasn’t till I was really working with the attachment system, because it is such a working model and lives with us. I think the research and the theory is cradle to grave, it’s always a part of us. As you were saying, both the thinking, the feeling, the somatic physiological state, and also how we perceive relationally, it’s so much informing the dynamic and the relational dynamic and the moves we make. So I just appreciate what you’re describing and the power, both in yourself, and also what you’ve been able to merge and integrate with the work of the hypnosis. Also just how that really correlates so closely, and you can see the map of change and how that fits with these categories of attachment style, and the assistance.
It sounds like it’s another way to help people, and I have a question around this. But it sounds like it’s a way to really help people access these core places to have some scaffolding and some orientation, to be able to create change in their life as it relates to these different levels, but from primarily the origin. Because if we’re not in touch with the origins of these core places, then we can do a lot of work, a lot of strategy, and a lot of preparation and plan. But as you said, that will easily get overridden if we’re not addressing the underneath core origin parts. Is that right?
100%, that’s so beautifully said. We can have all of the insight, I’ll share just one example for listeners that there’s these major factors. You were talking about the core wounds, the needs, the emotional regulation and nervous system regulation, the boundaries, the communication patterns, and really the behaviors. So we have these core parts. But if you look at the boundaries, for example, you can see an anxious attachment style, and they may say: “Oh my goodness, I realize, my conscious mind realizes I’ve been boundaryless my whole life, and that that’s creating resentment in relationships. I’m feeling unseen and unheard, because I never share my truth with people through my yeses and noes, authentically, through my boundaries.” They can have all this insight and these breakthroughs in their aha moments. But if they have a core wound that says: “If I set a boundary, I’m going to get abandoned.” They can understand what the boundary is in real-time. They can know: “Here we are again, and my coworker is about to violate my boundaries. I know what to say, and I’ve planned what to say.” But at the end of the day, we’re making most of these decisions from an emotionally charged place because of pre-existing subconscious wounds.
So we can have all of the insight. But unless we re-pattern or reprogram the core wound or belief that I will be abandoned if I set a boundary, or somebody is going to think I’m a bad person if I set a boundary, the “I am bad” core wound, then we’ll probably see that person repeat that behavior no matter how much insight they have. There’s other workarounds. We can do exposure work around things, things of that nature. But a lot of those things engage the subconscious mind in the process, through repetition and emotion.
So to your point, what you were saying was just, we can have all of this intention and all of these motives. But unless we’re really targeting the root of where these things happen, we can easily feel very stuck on these push-pulls of like, I know that are but why do I keep repeating this pattern? That’s where we can really target more of that aspect.
Yeah. Well, and part of what we’re describing is things in bigger themes, and I know each individual has their own experience. I have personally experienced in having my own traumas to work through, my own personal journey, that being able to do this work and being able to slow it down and hold those emotional places, it’s difficult to do the work, and also how transformative it is. I think there are places to access the deeper layers. There’s windows or trailheads, if you will.
I think what you’re describing is, if there’s a real direct, efficient way of working with the core wounding or piece here, then it puts into place, and it has a little bit more of the scaffolding or the efficiency to look at how to have this be expressed, or how to support these different layers, when there is that working with the origin. So maybe in some ways, I’m saying it’s possible to do it by having awareness, it could feel like a longer route or a harder route. I wonder if that’s what you’re saying. Because I don’t think it’s impossible, I do see a lot of people creating really great change when they put awareness and they access parts of themselves and they hold it differently, and then they take steps and there’s iteration of that. I do see progress. But I also really appreciate that we are very savvy, our protective parts are very strong, and so it can feel like a push-pull sometimes. Or like you said, sometimes the protective parts win and we don’t make any progress. What would you say here?
Yeah, I love that, and it’s a beautiful question to really clarify. So if we look at how programming happens, like if you look at things from a neuroplasticity point of view, we are not fixed forever. So that’s the first of rule, and you see this in how attachment styles are developed. We can have somebody be fully securely attached, go through a bad divorce at eight years old, and maybe they become anxiously attached after that if one parent is out of the picture a lot more. So we get rewired all the time. But the basic factors that are creating rewiring are: repetition, emotion, and imagery. Repetition and emotion fires and wires, and imagery is really a very big part of the language of the subconscious mind.
So to your point, there’s absolutely trailheads. A lot of people are going about subconscious reprogramming without realizing it. So let’s say somebody sets the intention, I’m going to get better with boundaries, and let’s say they have the emotional awareness in that moment, especially if they have a very regulated nervous system and they’re doing that work. Well, how do you get your nervous system regulated? Usually, it’s a daily habit of meditation, and the repetition and emotion of a new daily habit is having a reprogramming effect.
So if we get our nervous system regulated, now we have more conscious space between being able to observe and witness our own subconscious autopilot reactions that we would naturally feedback into that conscious awareness space. Around just calling again, if we’re anxiously attached. Or lashing out and pushing somebody away with our harsh words, if we’re fearful avoidant. Or stonewalling and icing out, if we’re dismissive avoidant. Those things would naturally do. If we have the awareness and we have the regulated nervous system, we do have this extra entry point, this space around just preventing that automatic compulsive subconscious reaction.
Like, I didn’t say things I didn’t intend.
Yeah, exactly. So we have this space around it, and that space around it is what you said. It is the trailhead, it is that open window into getting in there and doing something different. And when we do something different, it creates a different emotional response. If we repetitively have the trailheads, and we repetitively show up to enter into them, we are actually leveraging principles of reprogramming, which are: the repetition, emotion, and obviously, there’s the images of actually what’s happening in front of us. So if we do react differently, like let’s say we choose to be vulnerable rather than to be angry, and we say vulnerably what’s hurting us, and then it feels good after, we’re like: “Wow, that actually felt really good, that made me feel way better. Oh, I feel the relief!” That’s a lot of the emotion, which makes our subconscious mind very impressionable, and we get very much imprinted. If I keep practicing vulnerability, and I keep having that conscious awareness of my subconscious patterns, we are, in essence, reprogramming through basically a form of exposure work, where we’re doing something different incrementally over time.
“People can absolutely have these acute transformative experiences through awareness first, as long as they follow up the awareness with actual action. And what can make it the most efficient is that we can at least be mindful that the action has to be as repetitive as possible, to really pattern in these new sets of neural pathways.”
So that we have totally new outcomes, and it becomes the new part of ourselves. Rather than something we have to always make sure we enter the trailheads for.
Having reminders, and the post-it notes, and the books and the podcast and all the information, that is helpful to a point. But until we get into this experiential, because in my sense, it’s the lived and felt experience. Especially when we talk about relationship, having the relational dynamic shift and having that lived experience is so changing. It can be reparative or corrective. Even the research is helping us understand, we can have an earned secure attachment; we can develop more secure functioning and relating. So thank you for speaking to that, I really appreciate what you’re speaking to.
Yeah, it’s beautiful. It’s just a beautiful topic of discussion. I’m so glad you brought that up, for sure.
So if we go back to what you’re describing, the integrated attachment work that you’re doing, it sounds like it’s incorporating the hypnotherapy. Is that part of it?
Yes. So basically, it’s incorporating a bunch of different things. So essentially, there’s six major branches that can be reverse-engineered, of what makes somebody securely attached versus insecurely attached. So the first thing is, we know, securely attached individuals have less attachment trauma, whether it’s small t trauma or big T trauma, and they have less core wounds as a result.
“So how our core wounds really develop is, we have an experience we can’t properly emotionally process, so we feel like we need to protect ourselves from it, and we do this by giving it meaning.”
We’re wired to work this way at a subconscious level. Because if you were to walk into a forest tomorrow and see a bear and run away from the bear, and then you have to walk through that same route of the forest the next day. You walk back through the forest next day, and you don’t remember the beautiful tree next to the bear and what the flowers looked like. You remember the bear’s teeth. So we’re actually wired to hang on to negative things and be more easily imprinted by them, and how that ends up working is we give something meaning. So critical parents, I must not be good enough. Parents who are unavailable, I must not be worthy of love, or something’s wrong with me that I can’t get my emotional needs met. So we give unprocessed information meaning, and then we tend to store that meaning as a part of our identity. So we truly believe we are these things. It’s not we experienced these things. No, I am the one that’s not good enough or unlovable, or I am the one who will always be abandoned. So because securely attached individuals have less of this, because they have less of this actual trauma, they have less core wounds.
So the first big part, and we can actually talk about tools for how to reprogram really efficiently, basically leveraging from principles of hypnotherapy at that point. But the first piece actually comes more so from cognitive behavioral therapy, understanding our core wounds and where they come from and how they impact us. But then we apply principles of hypnotherapy and reconditioning, so that it’s not just CBT mind work, but we’re actually getting into the depths of the subconscious mind. Because there’s not one person who wakes up and says: “I’m going to consciously choose to tell myself I’m not good enough all day.” They’re subconscious problems, they have to be dealt with at the subconscious level. Again, to your point, they can be dealt with in other ways. But there’s a very efficient way of cutting right through. So reprogramming core wounds.
Can I chime in really quickly? I want to hear the second and all the things you have to say. It just sounds as though, especially when we look at the early development, developmentally, children are going to internalize, especially when their environment or their caregivers can’t respond to them, as you’re speaking to these relational either small t’s or big T’s. But that the identity and what gets developed through the repetition of that early life’s upbringing, that’s a lot of moments a lot of time. But the ego and the development, the brain at that stage, it’s going to be very forming to who they are in this multifaceted way, especially as we’re talking about attachment in the working model. So is that right?
Absolutely. I think to second that as well and support what you said even further, it’s like, when we’re children, we’re producing mostly alpha and beta brainwaves. But we don’t have a lot of beta brainwaves by comparison just yet. If you look at what is necessary for somebody to be in a state of hypnosis, they need to be producing a lot of alpha brainwaves. So children, really up until the age of eight, are in a hyper suggestible state. They’re almost in a light state of trance or hypnosis, and part of it is why we get imprinted so quickly. It impacts our ability to learn and take in information, just really sponge everything up. But it also makes us highly impressionable. So we have a lot of challenges during that experience. Yes, we can rewire things at any time later on. But there’s going to be that extra foundation that’s built as children, because we’re so impressionable, suggestible, and because children do exactly what you said, which is personalize everything. So there’s that huge element of it.
So the core wound part is a huge part of healing. When we can recondition these core wounds, we can actually really move the needle on not taking things so personally, not jumping to conclusions. If we have an abandonment wound, we always assume somebody is going to abandon us in a way. If we have a betrayal wound, we jump to like: Oh my gosh, they’re being disloyal in some way! The mind goes crazy, or head spins. If we have a defective core wound as a dismissive avoidant, we feel like: Oh my gosh, they’re really shaming me, when maybe they’re just asking for a need to be met. So we really personalize things around these core wounds. Honestly, I like to think of our core wounds, the most respect, because there’s nobody who asked for these. They’re kind of like our relationship baggage. They’re the things that we got hurt with before, and we’re carrying into the next and next and next relationships. So reprogramming that goes a very long way.
The second part is our needs. So securely attached individuals, if you look at how they’re formed in childhood, a lot of the research determines that we have a lot of approach-oriented behaviors from caregivers. So we have a lot of that when a child cries or expresses emotion, the caregiver comes, and they are present, they attempt to soothe. Basically, you’re giving this child the modeling and programming that my emotions are safe to express, it’s safe to rely on and trust other people, and my needs are worthy of being met. So this child grows up with a greater sense of self-confidence, a greater awareness of needs, and honestly, a greater sense of healthy entitlement that: Hey, I should be able to express my needs to a partner. If you look at all three insecurely attached styles, they do not have that kind of programming. They have variations of that in different ways. But they definitely don’t have a lot of security around: “It’s safe to express my needs, I’m worthy of my needs being met, and I can rely on other people.” So they don’t really do a lot of expressing their needs.
Anxious preoccupieds are very big people-pleasers. They meet everybody else’s needs; they get afraid to express their own or else they think they’ll be a burden in some form or be abandoned. Fearful avoidants often don’t feel worthy of having their needs met. They tend to over-give and under-receive, and even sabotage receiving at times. Dismissive avoidants tend to feel like, I don’t have needs from anyone else. Because all of their modeling was basically demonstrating the opposite.
So part of our next stage of really reconditioning from insecure to securely attached is, we have to learn our own needs. Now, really interestingly enough, and I’m sure you’ve maybe seen some of this in your experiences, but I’d love to hear.
“Interestingly enough, until we learn to meet our own needs, we’ll often still reject them from other people. It’s because we have this subconscious comfort zone of familiarity.”
Our subconscious says, well, what’s familiar is safe, and that’s where we’re more likely to survive. So we’ll actually tend to reject. Consciously, we can say, I want somebody to be more encouraging or compliment me more often. But then when somebody comes along and does that, if our comfort zone in the relationship to self, if all of our internal dialogue is self-critical, or the vast majority of it, and we’re in a position where we’re not really ever validating ourselves, somebody comes along and validates us. At first, we feel good. But it’s almost like there’s a hole in our bucket. It feels good, oh my gosh! Then we’re like, did they mean it? Are they always going to feel this way? So we reject, we deny, or we push it away accidentally. Because it’s not familiar to us, and our subconscious, which is really running the show, will reject it.
So part of healing our needs is we have to learn to build a relationship to our needs ourselves, get good at making sure we’re meeting those needs too so we don’t have a hole in our bucket, and then that prepares us and primes us to actually be able to then go communicate and receive these needs from others. Have you seen that in your work as well?
Well, I’m really grateful that you’re speaking to this. Because I think often people get a little confused, and I don’t know if this is shifting. But it seems as though there have been two camps. There’s people who might reference Sue Johnson’s work, the EFT, and a lot of that messaging is creating secure functioning in the relationship bond. I think it gets grossly misperceived. I just interviewed, I don’t know if you know, Frank Anderson, he works a lot with Dick Schwartz and the Internal Family Systems. But he’s like, you don’t want to farm out your relationship work or your personal work or your individual work to your partner. You’re not looking to depend on them, or they’re the ones that are now responsible. So I think oftentimes, people are hearing some of this languaging of, we need to create secure functioning, we need to create security emotionally in our relationship and how you’re responding to me. But they are focused on their partner, rather than getting some stability in their own place.
I love the work of, I don’t know if you remember, he’s now since passed, but David Schnarch and his differentiation work in relationship. Anyway, so much of what he’s describing is helping gain maturity, tolerating some discomfort, and learning how to self-validate, self-soothe. So what you’re describing, I think, is a distinction that I think is confusing for a lot of people, because it’s a both. I think what you’re describing is, if we can have some place of being connected to the core wound and the needs, then we can be in greater contact. Then we have an ability and a choice to show more vulnerably to our significant other, but from a place of connection and a place of making contact.
So it’s both. But I think sometimes people get confused about like: Oh, I gotta love myself before I can have relationship, it’s an inner game thing, which I think there’s truth to. But it’s like, we live in relationship, and that is also very much true. So I think people somehow criticize the people that are emphasizing and sometimes might judge the other, but they’re both incredibly important.
So the model, as we go through these six pillars that I was saying, I use an acronym CNE-BCB. So it’s like, our core wounds, our needs, and then our emotional regulation. That’s actually about relationship to self. I reprogram my core wounds. I learn what my needs are and how to meet them. Then I’m able to emotionally regulate, aka self-soothe, and then do some nervous system work in there to regulate. Once I’ve done that, I am now primed. To be very specific, I don’t mean that you have to do this work only first and you can’t be in a relationship at the same time. But you want to put a little more emphasis on that side first, because then my subconscious is willing to receive.
Then the next three pillars, after I reprogram my core wounds, learn to meet my needs, and do some nervous system work. For anybody who’s like, what does that mean? Nervous system being like, we do meditation or breath work or a daily habit or practice, to get more into parasympathetic and spend more time there. Rather than sympathetic, which is our fight and flight mode, or even freeze and fawn mode. So we get more into a regulated space, and we feel safer being connected to ourselves in our body.
So now we have all these pillars built in relationship to self. Now, if you look at what interdependency is, it’s not codependency. It’s not: “I’m going to farm out my needs, and you’re going to find out your needs. And we’re never going to have a relationship to self, we’re just going to only exclusively rely on each other.” But what’s also not good is counter-dependency, which is I constantly make sure nobody really relies on me, and I don’t really rely on anybody else nor do I feel safe to. Those are the polarities that will bring us into dysfunction. Interdependency requires a healthy relationship to both sides.
So we do that self-relationship work first of CNE, and then what BCB is: it’s our boundaries, our communication, and our behaviors. It’s through really making sure that we learn to have healthy boundaries with others that we can communicate our needs to others in healthy ways, and that we can communicate effectively. Because communicating well doesn’t mean: “Hey, this is my need, you better meet it!” It means that there’s some points, we could even talk about it, but how to communicate effectively to get heard. And that then I work on changing my coping behaviors around others. So instead of deactivating or activating, I actually know how to just express my needs in a more direct way, so I don’t have to rely on these coping mechanisms or behaviors that may have strong downsides.
So as we go through that first part, we then actually practice using tools to recondition our relationship to our boundaries, our relationship to how we communicate, and that will shift our behaviors. When you look at interdependency, the way I like to simplify it or think of it as is, I’m a master of both. This is the goal. I’m a master of being able to meet my own needs and work through my own triggers or recondition them, so that I can self-soothe, I can emotionally regulate. And I feel just as competent at going to somebody in my life, that I love and that I trust and that I can rely on, and going to them for soothing and saying: “Hey, I need ABC today, because this is how I’m feeling.” So when we have mastery of both sides, that’s where we really get into secure connection. Because somebody won’t be available 24/7, and if they’re not available for some reason, because they’re going through a hard time, that’s okay. I can withstand that, because I can lean on myself, or I can go communicate to other people in my life. Because I’m embodied in that, I can bring my expression of needs anywhere, and I build healthy trusting relationships. At the same time, it feels nice to rely on people, it feels healthy, and it’s a beautiful thing to have that kind of interdependent connections. So really, we’re looking at both sides, and that’s the framework that really targets the full spectrum of it.
Yeah, I love that you’re able to speak to this and really give some acronym to make this easily identifiable and actionable. Because it is a whole system, and they do work really well together. They’re always working together, I guess is what I’ll say, and how we can be in a place of skillfulness and mindfulness, and potentially mastery at some level, then that’s where we can get into this more secure relating, both with ourselves and another. It’s incredibly powerful.
I wonder if you want to say anything. Because the other thing that I’m aware of as we’re talking, if I go back to the question around how we are able to be in touch with our needs and our way of regulating our nervous system. I was trying to remember the sequence of what you were sharing. That that’s the inner work, and then how it relates to relationship. Because in my experience, I’ve been unconsciously relating and all these things are running amok, and likely people’s strategies dance with another person strategy. So it’s almost like there’s a dynamic where both people are not super-conscious, but they’re taking action. But it’s not necessarily from these deeper places, so it’s a lot of unconscious messiness.
Then I also have experienced where I’ve had more consciousness and intention, and I wasn’t nearly in a place of mastery, but I was aware enough to be in practice, and committed enough that relationship was activating. So to your point, we don’t have to have this all figured out before we are in relationship. The relationship material can be curriculum, we can use it as an opportunity to do the work you’re describing, that then helps do some of this corrective repair, both again, in how we are with ourselves, and also how we relate to another.
Because I have found if people have a level of history together, sometimes their dance, like I just met with a couple this morning, and we’re just entering into the work. He was describing his patterns, and she was describing her patterns, and we’re talking about how it feels really good and how we can sabotage or not receive. So there’s certain parts that she’s basically left years ago, parts of herself that are more vulnerable, and she’s the overfunctioner, the over-doer, and she’s left it way back and lost touch with it. He’s been busy trying to help with her over-functioning. Like, if we can just get these things done, then you’ll be more available, you’ll be more relaxed. So it’s almost like a couple dynamics, sometimes they’re at odds. But sometimes their patterns are, one is trying to serve the other’s strategy that they’re projecting as like, this is what needs to happen for us to be in a place of connection. So the other one has bought in, and now they’re in a bind, because they’re working really hard, but it’s never enough.
I know there’s lots of strategies in how couples attract each other. But all this to say, I think when people’s patterns are running, that it can be really difficult to know which way is up and which way is down, and how to orient. Like you said, it’s operating much of how we’re functioning, both in thinking and behaving and relating. So it’s quite powerful.
I love everything you just said, and I totally agree. I like to use the CNE-BCB framework for this in a sense. So each person, when they become more aware of their core wounds and learn what their needs are, there generally tends to actually be specific needs of each style. So you’ll see generally, for anybody who’s not as familiar, anxiously attached individuals tend to trend towards needing validation, reassurance, certainty to be a priority, to feel special, wanted. Those are big AT needs.
Our dismissive avoidants tend to want a lot of, yes, freedom and autonomy, but they actually tend to really need support, empathy, harmony. They want small acknowledgments and appreciations, that’s very reassuring for them. Because they tend to feel like a fish out of water with doing relationship exchanges. So when somebody does acknowledge what they’re doing or how they’re showing up, they feel this deep sense of this validation and need being met. So they tend to want a lot of those things, and acceptance is probably their biggest need.
Then our fearful avoidants or disorganized style, they tend to be very much in a space of needing depth, growth in the relationship. They tend to need novelty and exploration, they tend to need actually a sense of safety and trust. That’s part of how they’re going to become secure with finding relationships like that, but also building that in relationship to self.
So each one has different needs, give or take, that are bigger priorities. And when we can reprogram our core wounds, and we can know our needs, we get more emotionally regulated. And when we do some nervous system regulation, that does really, really well. But then we also have the pertinent information to take to our partners to say, this is the wound. Because I feel not good enough, I overwork. Or because I feel unlovable, I over-give and under-receive. So we can start seeing, as we’re doing that work on those core wounds, which can really build into those root causes, and we’re doing reconditioning work on them, we can also share this information with our partner. That gives us the boundaries and the communication piece. We can share: “This is what I need when I’m feeling like this, or these are my needs when I’m in those vulnerable spaces.” That gets us actually openly practicing vulnerability, because we’re sharing the core wounds and the needs.
So now our partner has greater insight. To your point, which is such a beautiful point, the partner is like, let’s restructure your schedule, and then you’ll be not overdoing it. It’s like, we’re trying to solve the surface level things, but they’re actually much deeper challenges that we’re facing.
“By going into those core wounds at the root and the needs at the root, we can actually get into a more vulnerable space, get in touch with the underlying reasons we are doing those things. Then we get our partners in relationships talking about the right things that can actually move the needle.”
Yes, because what I’m feeling as you’re describing both, and just this example, it’s insatiable. We think it’s going to solve, but it’s insatiable. To the greater point, couples might have a lot of love, they might have a lot of areas where things are going well. But then there’s this great limitation in these ways that they’re coping, and their protective strategies are functioning to a certain extent. But what you’re describing in the interdependence, and the more vulnerable, the deeper connection, and the ability to have more mastery, both with self and other, that’s the elevation. That’s the place that we get to live more freely, be in greater contact, have greater intimacy and trust and security. So that’s what we’re talking about, right?
Exactly. It’s so funny, I always think of this example. I always share this example, I’ve been doing this for 10 years probably. But I had this couple, and they were one of my first couples I have ever worked with. I started off just working with individuals one-on-one. They came into my office and they were sitting down. She was like, her hands were shaking, because she was so mad that her husband leaves the laundry on the floor. I was like, her hands are shaking. I remember being like, oh my goodness, really noticing this. As she got really angry, you could just see him cower and become kind of childlike, and you saw him just get very hurt by her anger. It sounds like she was like an abusive person when I say this, she wasn’t. She was like a very, overall, good partner. They had an overall good relationship. But you could just tell, in this particular case, they were both so triggered.
So I’m sitting there and I’m watching this, and I’m going like, there’s no way that he’s this sad, and she’s this mad about clothing on a floor. There’s no way! So I asked her, which is a tool to pull up core wounds. I said, well, what do you make it mean when the clothes are on the floor? She’s like, I’m disrespected, and all of the hard work I’m putting into the relationship is going completely unseen and unnoticed. Then I asked him, and what do you make it mean when she gets angry? Because that was his trigger, when she gets mad. He’s like, well, I’m doing my best. I’m working endless hours and trying to be the provider in the family, I’m doing so much, and I almost feel unloved and like she doesn’t care about my side and how I am showing up.
So you have these two people, exactly to your point. They’re trying to say, let’s move the clothes off the floor! They’re talking about the clothes on the floor, this practical surface thing. For some people, it’s the dishes or the gas tank or the text message or whatever. But it’s actually about those underlying core wounds that are activated. It’s that I feel disrespected, and she had these big disrespect wounds from her father. He feels unloved, and he had these big unloved wounds from both his mother and father. So they’re trying to solve for feeling disrespected and unloved by talking about clothes on the floor, it’s futile. It reminds me so much of what you said in that example. He’s like, let’s reorganize your schedule, and then we can have time for the relationship. It’s like, yeah, but there’s a reason that’s much deeper than that. It’s not reorganizing her schedule, and we have to get to those parts. That’s the vulnerability that we need in ourselves, but that also deepens that connection and awareness in the relationship.
Thank you so much for everything you’re describing, and giving people just some organization around all of this that can feel so immense when dealing with all the experience internally, and then relationally, and how things get off-track. How can people get in touch with what you’re providing and offering and teaching?
Yeah, thank you. I just want to say, I really enjoyed our conversation.
Oh, me too!
Yeah. So I am at Personal Development School – Thais Gibson on YouTube, and I put almost daily content out there. Then, PersonalDevelopmentSchool.com, we have a free attachment style quiz. Then I actually do cohorts of running integrated attachment theory programs, so people can actually become certified in this whole model. So that’s all at PersonalDevelopmentSchool.com if you want to learn more.
Wonderful! Then for people that are wanting to implement some of this, do you have a directory? Or how do people engage with the work if they go to Personal Development School?
There’s a membership. So people can come in, they can join as a member. I’ve actually written a lot. I’ve written 65 courses over the past five and a half years or six years. They came from pre-existing work for seven years before that, so it’s not as crazy as it sounds. But I have over 65 courses, and we actually have a whole bunch of counselors, coaches, facilitators that are in there, including myself. We have a daily webinar event to ask questions. So as you’re doing your coursework, you’ve got extra support. And we have daily peer support groups. So we have smaller groups where you can actually practice your communication tools, or practice your boundary communication, all these different things to really implement and have that practicum part of doing this work and seeing that repetitive transformation to engage the subconscious mind.
Yes, that’s really where I think we have the greatest learning is through experience. So it’s nice that you have that feature, and then additionally, all the coaching that you offer in the program. That can be found on your website as well?
Yes, it’s there.
Awesome. I’ll make sure to have the link, and to your social media and YouTube. Thank you again for being here.
Thank you so much for having me. It was so nice to speak with you.
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Ever wondered why your relationship feels like a never-ending cycle of conflict and distance? In this episode, we delve into the common dynamics experienced by 80% of distressed couples, with a particular focus on the anxious and avoidant attachment styles.
This episode provides actionable guidance to regulate emotions, establish safety, and overcome attachment injuries. Discover a five-stage process for fostering intimacy, promoting personal and relational development. Learn practical strategies to address core emotions, halt escalating conflicts, and pave the way for secure, fulfilling connections. Whether you’re dealing with an anxious-avoidant dynamic or looking to deepen your understanding of attachment, this episode provides valuable tools and insights to transform your relationship.
Jennifer Nurick (Jen) specialises in healing anxious attachment, attachment injuries and childhood trauma. She is a licensed Clinical Psychotherapist, Couple Therapist, Energetic Healer, and author of “Heal Your Anxious Attachment”. She is the founder and voice of Psychotherapy Central. She has been working in the healing space for over 20 years, combining Eastern energetic practices and Western psychotherapy. She offers transformational courses to help individuals and couples heal trauma and build secure long-term relationships.
In this episode
09:32 Jennifer Nurick shares her journey of discovery and expertise in the realm of attachment dynamics.
18:10 The complexities of relational wounds and the quest for secure attachment.
25:01 Therapy as a haven for confronting and processing emotional injuries.
32:48 The unburdening process in internal family systems therapy.
38:09 Navigating attachment dynamics in distressed relationships.
51:33 Healing anxious and avoidant attachment styles in relationships.
Your Check List of Actions to Take
- Practice acknowledging and naming your emotions to regulate and create safety in your intimate relationship.
- Use deep breaths to ground yourself and settle your nervous system regularly.
- Learn about anxious and avoidant attachment styles to better understand and address relational dynamics.
- Consider starting with EFT to explore and heal relationship patterns.
- Build an internal model of a secure attachment figure, drawing from spiritual or real-life sources of comfort and support.
- Work on healing internal wounds by focusing on the inner child and releasing pain through the IFS therapy model.
- Engage in reparenting exercises to nurture and heal your inner child.
- Utilize therapy to experience reparative relational interactions and handle past trauma and anxiety effectively.
Mentioned
Psychotherapy Online Course Catalog
Heal Your Anxious Attachment: Release Past Trauma, Cultivate Secure Relationships, and Nurture a Deeper Sense of Self (*Amazon affiliate link) (book)
ERP 423: How to Transcend Trauma (And the Effects Experience in Relationship) — An Interview with Dr. Frank Anderson
Relationship Map To Happy, Lasting Love
Connect with Jennifer Nurick
Websites: psychotherapycentral.health
Facebook: facebook.com/psychotherapy.central
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About Today’s Show
Jennifer, it’s such a pleasure to have you. Thank you for joining us.
Thank you for having me on. Jessica. Great to be here.
Yes. I very much appreciate when people can speak to the attachment system, what’s happening for individuals as they’re in relationship, and also the dynamic and what’s happening relationally that people maybe aren’t always aware of. I know attachment has gotten a lot more visibility in the last 10 to 15 years, and just the new science around that. You have a lot to offer in this regard.
Just before we get diving in here, I want to just hear from you, what you would like people to know about you around what got you interested in supporting people in relationship, for maybe people who aren’t familiar with you.
What really drew me into the whole anxious-avoidant dynamic was being in a relationship where we have that dynamic. So my beautiful husband has more avoidant tendencies, and I always frame that as that’s kind of his coping strategy. That’s what his nervous system does. When he sees fear or relational upset or danger, his nervous system kind of signals: Danger, danger! And his way is to shut down and to withdraw. The thinking is: I don’t want to cause any more issues, so I’m moving back. My nervous system is more on the anxious end of the spectrum, so when I feel him do that, and it might not even be a big thing. It could be we’re in the middle of a conversation and I see him look at his phone, and then my mind will go to: Is he not paying attention? Does he not want to listen to me? Is he not interested in me, and earlier on, in the relationship? Then I might work harder to maintain connection, so I’m trying to move closer. So it was really that dynamic that got me curious around the whole anxious and avoidant dynamic, particularly that dynamic.
Were you already a clinician and a psychotherapist? Was this something you already had established in your psychological training?
That’s a great question. I’d done a lot of training as an energetic and spiritual healer, and I still practice in that space. Then I had done a lot of psychotherapy training. Then I already had a Master’s in Applied Psychotherapy and Counseling. And we had no training at all around attachment. I remember somebody doing some research in their final project. But no, we were not taught it at all. So I went down a rabbit hole, and I’ve got quite a big Instagram presence. So as I was really learning about it, I was posting a lot about: “These are the things that I’m learning, and this is how I’m seeing it show up for me, and this is how other people are talking about it. How is it showing up for you?” This was about three or four years ago, and I found that a lot of people were very interested in the topic. So they came on this learning journey with me. Then I had a lot of people seeing me who were turning up saying: “Jennifer, I have anxious attachment, or I’m avoidant. I resonate with those things that you’re talking about. Is there a book that I can read?”
So then at the time, I started to look for books: Okay, what is there? So some were very academic and dense, and you basically needed to have an academic background to decipher them. Then others would have a lot about what is the attachment issue. So there’d be nine or ten chapters on what is the attachment issue, and then one very thin chapter at the end about how to work with it. So I felt like, well, I’ve been working with it, and I’ve worked with it really successfully, so there are ways. So I thought, I’ll write a book and maybe it’ll be helpful. That was the journey, really.
As I’m hearing you describe what you were noticing with your husband and the dynamic between the two of you, were you intuitively just practicing better ways of relating and trying to find connection with him, despite the different coping strategies or moves that you would both have? Or were you researching and studying, and then applying your learning? How did that work for you, if you don’t mind me asking?
It was a bit of both. So I’ve been working with transactional analysis, which is the inner child re-parenting and inner parent model, since my mid-20s. So I’ve done, in my life, a lot of parts work. I’m a trained IFS therapist now, which takes that parts model up to the next level. So I already had a lot of training in how do I help those more anxious parts of me look towards me instead of look towards my partner for validation and reassurance and safety? So I already had that piece and I had been using that. This is actually how I’ve separated the book out. The first part is about internal secure attachment, and because I’m also a somatic therapist, so using somatic, using parts work, and also the spiritual element that I bring into that, finding belonging in the family system with family of origin. Then the second part of the book is about rolling that out relationally, so practical things. I reference Sue Johnson’s work, because like I said before, I’m trained in EFT couples therapy. So really using some of Sue Johnson’s amazing work, a little bit of Gottman work as well, around how do we then work with that relationally. So for me, it was my journey with half inside job and half outside.
I love hearing you reference this. Because so often, people associate the work, as it relates to attachment and particularly Emotionally Focused Therapy, to be very focused on the safety of the bond and secure functioning, which can appear to be the interpersonal dynamic, the relational skills. But how that fits with maybe some of the inner work? It can sound on the outside as if, it’s just your partner and you and how you’re crafting your bond. But I so appreciate what you’re describing. Because when I remember learning about the EFT model, I was like: Oh, that’s where it is. Because there’s a bit of distilling and understanding the deeper layers in the connecting with the primary emotion, the attachment needs, the attachment longings, which are often not conscious, below the surface of awareness. And when we can come into greater contact with that and just have some ownership of that, there’s a little bit of stability in occupying that space, which is differentiating, which is this ability to do the inner work.
So it’s both and. I think that it gets confusing for people. I just interviewed, speaking of IFS, Internal Family Systems’ Frank Anderson. He was talking about how we farm out our relational needs or our concerns, or how to work with those triggers. And we want our partner to do the work. But really, he’s like, the U-turn. So you’re really speaking to this so clearly that there’s a real individual piece, and then how we then relate. That’s a game-changer when we can have a little more connection. Is that right?
Absolutely, you described it actually so beautifully. I want to add in a little bit of context around it being so natural for our more wounded younger part to reach out. Because when we were reaching out for co-regulation, our secure attachment people were external, depending on how secure, how stable, how present they were. It doesn’t matter.
“The younger part reaches out for the adult who we are hoping is able to be attuned and present and loving and give guidance and protection, and all that yummy stuff. But the reality is, for about 50% of the population, sometimes that person was able to be there, and sometimes, for different reasons, not. That’s how we get the insecure styles that form.”
So I just want to give context that it’s natural for those younger parts to reach out. And part of that healing that can absolutely be done, and IFS is a fantastic model to do it through, is helping those younger parts look towards what Richard Schwartz calls self-energy; the loving, kind, compassionate. In the transaction analysis model, it’s the loving parent. But it’s the part of self that I like to say, if you see a wounded puppy, I saw one in India recently and one of its legs had become dislocated, the first thing you want to do is slip towards the puppy. “Is it okay, are you okay? Let me take you to a vet, let’s find you some help.” Picking it up in a towel. It’s that part of self that steps forward when somebody is hurting, it’s very tender and warm. So as more parts inside the system meet that tender, warm self-energy, the safer the system starts to feel, and the parts start to look towards us instead of towards our partner. Is that helpful?
Yes, it’s powerful. As you’re describing, it’s been my experience, in my own anxious tendencies, when I’ve been able to do my inner work, my spiritual practice, or even this higher self, or a resource that felt spiritual. It could be a place of reference and resource to offer that attunement, that responsiveness, in this inner child or re-parenting work. I remember Sue Johnson. I did an externship, this was years ago, I think 2000. She was talking about how the spiritual practice could be a way of secure functioning when there’s not a secure person to be relating to, that we can turn towards spirituality. It sounds like the energetic and spiritual part is a big part. Can you speak about this? Because I actually don’t have a lot of experience in training and being able to articulate this.
So it’s building an internal model of a secure attachment figure. So it could absolutely be Mother Mary, or the Goddess Durga, or Kuan Yin, or just whatever you reference as the Divine or God, or my own soul energy, or collective consciousness, or the sun. I guess whatever people would resonate with. But it could also be, and I’ve had a lot of clients find this quite helpful, somebody in their life. Maybe they spent a lot of time at someone else’s house, and that person had just the most amazing mother. Or they had an auntie who they just wished: Oh, I wish that that Auntie could have been my mother. I did a whole piece of work in my mid-20s, where I worked with Mary Poppins as my internal mother, because she had just something about her. For me, she had that kind of: let’s get going, let’s get this done. Quite caring, but quite protective, and good guidance, and a bit magical and a bit naughty and dancing on the ceiling. So there was a while where I used her. I used that character as an internal model, where, combined with my own mother, it actually made quite a nice, complete figure. So it can be done in a lot of different ways. But having that internal reference point can be very helpful, and part of the healing process and something that I talk a bit about in the book.
Thank you for giving some language to that. Because I have found that, and you mentioned this, when one has experienced circumstances, and even many clients I’ve worked with struggle with identifying injury or pain as it relates to the attachment dynamics or what they learned in their upbringing. I mean, even coming from a place of privilege, where they had all their needs met; clothing, food, shelter, friends, maybe even external family was around. They had a lot of things that they were afforded. Yet, the emotional attunement and responsiveness and ability to feel comforted and held during any type of emotional experience was vacant or was non-existent, and it’s sometimes tricky.
Having said that, I think sometimes these injuries are on a continuum; some are more severe in the way of abuse or neglect, and then others are more relational in the sense of not being responded to or attuned to. Then what my question is, is for someone who doesn’t have a real reference place, that they have either known a lot of pain, trauma abuse, don’t know how to access even a thread, it’s just so terrifying. Where does one begin here?
Yeah, that’s such a great question. One of the best places to begin is in therapy. Because, as you know, what can happen in therapy is you’re held in a way that you weren’t held back then. And what you can experience then is what we call a missing experience, and you can have that relationally. What tends to happen is as that experience is built up in therapy, those reparative experiences actually can be deeply emotional.
To have somebody listen to you and reflect back to you the depth of your pain, and feel like the person has gone down there with you and not said: “Come on, that’s enough now, or well, I’m just going to leave you alone.” Maybe your parents felt uncomfortable with your pain, maybe they couldn’t sit there with you in it. It can be deeply emotional and touching to have somebody sit with you in there, and have a different experience relating to self. We learn from experiences like that: “Oh, another human can sit with me in the depth of that pain, and I’m not alone in here. Somebody can hold my hand, metaphorically. For the first time ever, I’ve gone deeper down in my pain than ever before, because I felt safer because I was with somebody, and I’ve survived.”
And the part that’s holding that deep pain has also learned: “Oh, I’m not as terrifying for the rest of the system as I thought I was.” And the rest of the system learns: “Oh, she cut that pain and held it in the presence of the therapist, and we’re all okay. Okay, we haven’t gone out drinking, and we haven’t gone out doing some of the things that we might do that we need to do to numb the pain in the past. We’ve actually sat with it with our co-regulator, the therapist, and we’ve all come alive.”
Actually afterwards, we feel relieved, because my sense of self has changed, my sense of capacity has changed, and what’s actually changed as well is, the window of tolerance has just widened. So my capacity to surf my own ups and downs, which we’re all going to have, because we’re human, we’re going to surf that nervous system. We’re going to go into hyper-arousal, and we’re going to surf it. My sense of safety and self has just increased.
So when there’s a lot of trauma sitting in the system, absolutely the best way to work with it, I feel, is to work with a therapist at the beginning to get some of the foundational pieces in place. And what happens then, you’ve probably seen this is your own practice, is we see it rolling out into relationships, where I find clients will come back and say, with no prompting, no homework, nothing: “I had the most amazing conversation with my mother about my childhood, and we both just sat and cried, and we have never spoken about my childhood. Because we want to maintain the relationship, it’s been a no-go zone for both of us. We’ve both just kept this stalemate silence. And for the first time, we both just sat and cried and held each other’s hand.” How was it afterwards? It was amazing. I feel so much more authentic in that relationship now. I feel so much closer to her, and her to me. It shifts the whole relationship. Then that starts happening in intimate relationships, not only with mom, but with partner and with sister. It’s so very powerful, and that’s what I love about this space. It’s why I’ve been in this space since I was 25.
No kidding! Thank you for giving some scope to this and context, and responding to the question. It’s bringing to mind a client that I’ve worked with for a while, and his ability to talk about a very traumatic experience in immigrating. His parents were so overwhelmed, and the story was just impossible, the circumstances. This is years and years and years ago. Yet, what he described is just so much overwhelm, and the way he dealt with that is just doing his best to help be the pleaser, and really over-perform, over-function, being the oldest son. But nonetheless, the overwhelm, and the lack of grounding, the lack of pacing, the dislocation, the lack of feeling connection, all of it was quite immense.
So to your point, when there can be the ability to have some scaffolding almost, to sit with, be with this overwhelm, this pain or injury, it’s almost like new development, new neural pathways, new system. Once we have a little bit of that framework, we can start to apply it, reference it. I guess this is what I was hearing you say is, in the individual work, we can nurture that and continue to build more repetition in our work. When we notice an activation, we notice fear, we noticed anxiety, that we can turn towards ourselves and start to give that support that now we’ve have new learning around.
Yeah, absolutely. And we get to know the fear and the anxiety in a whole different way. When we get to know the anxiety, often anxiety is an inner alarm bell going off and saying: Warning, warning, warning! It’s warning us about something. And when we turn towards it, often when we speak to it, it will say things like: “I’m trying to protect you. I was really trying to keep you safe when you were four, and five, and six, and seven, and eight, and I’m still trying to do the same thing. I’m really trying to keep you safe. That thing that just happened there, that looks to me like an unsafe thing.” Remembering what might have been unsafe to a four-year-old, when we were four, is not necessarily unsafe when we’re 40. But that part only has the lens of that four-year-old. It’s kind of its job that it’s been tasked with, is taking care of the four-year-old, so that’s all it can see. It can also be quite a shock when we ask the anxious part, how old do you think I am? Often, the anxious part will say: Oh, you’re eight. Then there can be a bit of updating. Okay, let me update you a little bit. Then often the anxious part will go: Oh okay, you’re 40, you’re here, and things are really different, okay. Even with that, often the anxious part will start to settle down a bit.
Then how IFS works is, then it’s about going to the four-year-old who’s holding that original wounding, bringing the four-year-old forward, helping the four-year-old to heal and resolve and release. There’s a beautiful energy piece in IFS as well, which I really appreciate. It’s lovely for me, the combination between that inner child work and energy work. They call it unburdening. With my energy background, it’s kind of like, that looks like energy works for me. There’s a lovely energetic piece.
Do you want to say a little bit about that? I know many people might not know what you’re referring to. I know this could probably be a whole podcast in and of itself. But as people are listening.
So part of the healing process at the end, and we call it the exile, but when that part holding the pain has really been witnessed in a different way.
“Often the pain is unwitnessed. Because the adults have been going through so much, because of different factors, often the child has felt quite alone with the pain. And pain will often get processed through if it can be held with some supportive other.”
So when that’s been missing, for whatever reason, they’re holding that pain. And we have this process where me as an adult can sit with the pain of the four-year-old, being held by the other as the therapist. It’s like a softening of that neural network, it softens out. It’s a softening of that part, a holding and a witnessing. Then eventually, we’ll move through a few other pieces.
But then at the end of this unburdening, where we go to a place, and we usually let the child choose, some kind of sacred place. It could be a beach, it could be a forest, it could be with the ancestors. Then we choose an energy source to release into. It’s always interesting what different parts will choose, and they’ll release into an element. But first, we’ll feel the sensation in the body. So maybe the child described terror. It might be like: Okay, where’s that terror sitting in the body, like chest? Let’s release that into the source. Maybe it’s the river, so they’d be breathing in and releasing it into the river. It’s very interesting to watch, because I’ll just often sit back and let people do that in their own time. When that piece is sifted, I’ll often see them go and shift in their seats. Then we know, okay. Then there’s also this feeling of being abandoned and being left. Where’s that sitting in the body? The gut. Yeah, let’s go there, so then releasing it. So that’s the unburdening process, which in my experience, and for my clients as well, it’s very energetic. It’s the releasing of the energy of the leftover debris by the time we’ve kind of gone through the process and got to that point.
Absolutely, thank you. Thank you for just giving some description to that. It makes a lot of sense to me, in that, a young one, as you said, the circumstances don’t provide the attunement. That the child is feeling this very intense pain or difficult emotion, and doesn’t know what to do with it. They’re overwhelmed, they don’t have the capacity to know how to navigate it, and so they’re just doing their best to hold on or cope. That gets a little bit, not frozen, but it gets stuck, because there’s not a way to metabolize it or process it or the guidance around it. Then children with their developmental brains, they’re egocentric, so they have a story about it. Then it just further develops from there. So it’s almost like going back and helping reprocess, being able to let go of that holding and unburdening, and just how powerful this healing is.
When you were referencing the spiritual piece, is that also something, if perhaps a therapist isn’t available, or they’ve got a little bit of understanding of this healing being witnessed and having that space held, that they can use the spiritual piece to help with this co-regulation?
The spiritual piece, in Internal Family Systems, comes right at the end of the process. That’s the last thing that you do. IFS is absolutely something that can be learned. The IFS Institute is in the process of redoing how they’re rolling out their courses. So they’re going to have some courses that are specifically for therapists, and then my understanding is they’re going to have some that are for the layman, because they really want this technique to roll out. A great place to start is No Bad Parts, Richard Schwartz’s book, he has some lovely meditations in there which you can just record just onto a recording device and play it back to yourself. They’re beautiful meditations, it will give you a lovely introduction, especially into the protective system.
So what I’m talking about is, you’ve already gone through the protective system, and you’ve gone down and you’re with exile. If you have a system that has a lot of protection around it, it can take a while to get through that and move down into the exiles. For my system, it was quite easy. Because I’ve got all that transaction analysis background, I’ve been doing that kind of work for 20 years, so it was easier. But for many systems, there’ll be quite a bit of work with the protective system first. If you can’t, seeing an IFS therapist is the best way to go. Then there’s lots of different energetic practices that could be good to see an energetic and spiritual healer, a highly recommended one, if you look around your area or online. It would help with some other pieces.
Thank you, okay. As we look at relationship and more of these attachment tendencies, and as you described in your dynamic with your husband, can you talk to us a little bit? So one of the things you talk about is: 80% of distressed couples typically have this dynamic where one partner is a little more on the attachment, or the anxious attachment side, and then the other is more on the avoidant side. That’s a high percentage of distressed couples that are falling into that dynamic. Help us a little bit. I know some people might be familiar with that, it almost fits into the classic distance or pursuer. And how that fits when one has a better understanding of their attachment needs and what’s happening on the inside, having referenced some of this individual work. Can you talk to us a little bit about how this would look different in relationship?
So let’s imagine I’m married, I’ve got two kids. We’ve gone away for the weekend. We’re both working a lot. We’ve gone away for the weekend with this agreement. We’re not going to work, and we’re going to really spend time with each other and with the kids. I’m so looking forward to it, and so is my husband. We’ve arrived on Friday night, it’s Saturday night now. We’ve spent the whole day together, it’s been awesome. Then we’re watching a movie together, it’s lovely, and I realize that my husband is not there. Then I think, well, where are they? So then I go upstairs to the bedroom, and he’s on his computer answering work emails.
One response is: “We’ve had this agreement that we weren’t going to work all weekend, and here you are hiding in the bedroom, and you’re answering work emails. This is not the agreement. You’re always doing this. This is what always happens, you’re just not able to separate.” So I come in loud, and the Gottmans talk about this as a harsh start-up. I come in loud, I come in escalated, and my partner’s response to that is defensiveness. Because I’m coming with a really big anything, so his natural response is going to be to defend. “Whoa, okay. I saw I had an email from my boss’s boss’s boss, how I cannot respond to my boss’s boss’s boss? I really need to, it’s really important. It’s literally only been 10 minutes; we’ve been together all day.” So defend, defend, defend. So what’s happened, if you think about it in terms of relational distance, is he’s moved back. He’s taken a step back, because my heat is so hot. He’s stepped back, and my attachment system senses that. So what my attachment system is used to doing is getting louder and escalating even more. I get hotter, he withdraws even more, I get hotter. So my behavior is not getting me, relationally, what I want.
Another option is, I come up to the bedroom, and I see that he’s on his laptop. There is a part of me that comes in that wants to protest, why are you doing this? I hold that, and this is where parts work is super helpful. There’s a part of me that would like to go in and start doubting him, one way or another. What’s underneath that? So I’m going to drop down into what’s called the core emotion. What’s underneath that anger? I feel really sad, and I feel left with the kids again. I’m doing it all week, and I feel like I’m left again. It’s really that kind of abandonment feeling that I remember feeling, and it’s right in the middle of the heart. Then I think, what’s my attachment need? What do I really need here? I want to feel connected to him. It feels like an ocean between me and him sitting on the bed, when he’s on his computer. I go in and I say: “Oh love, I’m guessing that there’s something really important that’s happening at work that you need to respond to. I feel this deep sadness that I’ve spoken to you about before and this pain of abandonment right in my heart, and I really want us to be connected.” That allows him to give a really different response. So then he might say: “Oh, sweetheart, come here! Let me put my arm around you while I answer the email, it really will be five minutes. But you can read it with me, and maybe you can help me answer it.” “Yeah okay, that’d be nice. Let me cuddle out while you do it.”
Profound difference. I love that you’re saying the relational distance, when one is getting hot and approaching with that harsh start-up, when the other one is trying to defend and protect, but is moving away, turning away. And when one can reveal and show these deeper core feelings, it’s a lot of vulnerability to do that, to take that emotional risk. Yet, what it results to, it usually allows someone to want to respond turn towards and comfort. and however small but having some reference, like you’re saying, you know, told you about or this part of me that I know that I’ve shared before I’m at the end, this part is coming up again. It’s quite different, the result.
Yeah, and you don’t have to share as much as I did. I was doing a whole really safe relationship, where you have experience where there’ll be a reaching back, so I was sharing the full version. But a lighter version could just be: “I’m assuming that there’s something super important, and it makes me feel a bit sad. But I don’t want to get angry, I really want to move toward you. So could I just sit and hold your hand?” Of course you can, sweetheart, come sit and hold my hand.” So it could be a much lighter version.
There’s different ways that that cycle can be broken. I talk in the book about that when the pursuer shifts the way that they’re behaving, their behavior, by dipping into the core emotions. I also talk about a way where it can be different for the withdrawer. So lots of different ways that it can play out relationally.
“In relationship, we’re always looking at the core emotions and the attachment bond. Because often, those protest behaviors, the escalation, the getting hot, will be coming in out of the unmet attachment need.”
So then we’re having a real conversation. It’s not about have you packed or unpacked the dishwasher. I think we’ve all been in those arguments, where we’re arguing about the dishwasher, but it feels like we’re really not. It feels like we’re arguing about something completely different. That’s where it can be really helpful to dig down to find out what am I making it mean? Because often, I’ve made not unpacking the dishwasher mean: “I do everything, and I’m not cared about and valued in this family system.” When we write those words down and look at them, in 90% of the cases, you will look at those words and be like, that’s exactly how I felt in my family of origin, and that’s a trigger for me, that’s my go-to. Or that was exactly my mom’s experience, and I’m having exactly the same cycle, that’s exactly what I’m feeling.
As you mentioned, that we’re very primed to look for things that seem similar to a previous injury, in a way to protect. So we’re likely going to perceive and interpret through that lens of familiarity, and yet, it could be quite different for the other person. I love that you also give some support to the more avoidant person that might have these avoidant tendencies. Do you want to speak about what that could look like, as far as approaching relationship differently with having a little bit more self-contact with some of these deeper longings or needs?
I work actually with a lot of people with more avoidant systems in my practice, and they are systems that I actually love to work with. There’s something very precious, I find, about the need for the blocking and numbing part. They’re often within avoidance of this very big blocking numbing part, where even withdrawers will often say things like: “When she escalates, when she gets hot, I can’t even think straight.” They can be people who have very high-profile jobs and are very capable mentally, so it can be quite frightening when suddenly my partner looks angry; their face looks angry, their behavior is looking angry, arms are waving around a lot. I register that as danger, and it could be a panicking part. But often, it might be a panicking part for a moment, and then this blocking part will come over, and that part might be very rational. “Well, that’s not logical what you’re saying, that doesn’t make any sense what you’re saying.” It could go very logical. So it can be very protective, actually protective logical parts, that whoosh partner away. And it can be very strong numbing, or even scrambling. “I can’t really hear anymore, nothing is making sense.”
“It’s really getting to know those different parts internally, and building up enough safety in the system, where we can dip into it. Maybe there was a moment of panic, and then the numbing came over. So we’ll really slow down those moments.”
Okay, so did she just gesticulate it? Then there was that panic, where was the panic? Really get curious about that. So in therapy, relationally, we hold space for those very little quick sensations, as well as really getting to know that thing is a really big blocking, we’ll call it the blocking part maybe. Maybe that’s what the name of that one is, and we’ll get to know that really well, what its job is, and really acknowledge how helpful it was. Because often in childhood, it was so adaptive and so helpful. But now in this marriage, it’s a problem. And whenever my wife feels that blocking part come, she just kind of goes, what’s even the point of talking to you? Our relationship is about the end, so I need to work with that part.
I’ve seen people do amazing, amazing work, and also do really deep childhood healing around the exile, so that the blocking part doesn’t have to work so hard. Then the whole system starts to settle, and then the capacity to sit when there’s gesticulation and the emotion from intimate partner starts to arise. This certainly isn’t an overnight thing. Then slowly, there can be a reaching forward in that moment, instead of withdrawing. They might feel the withdrawal come, the blocking, but to be able to put it aside and hold the blocking part’s hand metaphorically, while reaching forward for the partner, which then relationally is a totally different experience.
“It’s a different healing process for the avoidant system and the anxious system. I would probably say that everyone’s unique and slightly different. But in general, we’re working with building capacity for the intense emotions, and helping the protective system feel safe enough to experience more and more.”
It can be big, and often with those clients, at the end, we’ll go through all the named emotions at the end. I’ll say, so in this session, you felt, and we’ll go through all the feelings. Often there’ll be a feeling of finally bringing it online and affirming that and holding them safely relationally. Because often, they’ve never been held safely relationally, so having that new experience is huge.
Absolutely, helping organize, helping orient, helping feel that ground, and also having that support to regulate. Then perhaps with enough work, to be able to take a risk to show or reveal. You give some language and example for maybe the person that has more of the anxious tendencies, as one is a little bit more developed or has done some work. Would you like to give an example around what the more avoidant language or example would look like, in an interaction where they’re noticing the block, but also recognizing they can feel the panic? So the protector part and the panic, and also doing something different, having a new move. Would you like to speak into what an example of that would be?
So it might be feeling the blocking part come, and often re-language it a bit like: “Oh hello, old friend. I know why you’re here, you’re here to keep me safe. But remembering, old friend, that I’m 40 or whatever, and that this is my partner, Jill. It’s not mom, it’s not dad, it’s not whoever. It’s Jill. Jill is looking really angry, and I know under the anger, she’s feeling bad probably, because that’s often her core feeling. So rather than address the anger, I’m listing towards the sad part, and it’s safe.” It’s difficult during the moment, especially if the partner is escalated. But it might just be a moment of actually asking for a pause. It might be: “I want to respond, but I just need to work out my own system for a second. Just asking for a pause. So do that, let that part stand aside, just being aware of any other parts that might need their hand holding.
Then it can be a stepping into the other person’s world. Like, what do I imagine is happening for them? She’s expressing a lot of anger right now about the dishwasher. I’m imagining that underneath that is that sadness around feeling that she has to do everything, so that’s the part that I’ll speak to. “Is this what’s happening for you? Correct me if I’m wrong? Are you feeling that sadness around feeling overwhelmed that you’re having to do it all?” That can often very much break the cycle. Because the partner is likely to say: “Yes, that’s actually exactly what’s going on. That’s really insightful. I wasn’t even aware of that. Yes, exactly.” “I’m so sorry I didn’t do it when I said I would do it. You’re right. Can we do it together now? Or would you like me to do it while you’re doing that other thing?” Yes, that’d be great. It’s a different interaction.
Wow, thank you so much for giving some real fleshing out and being able to help distinguish between some of these elements that are alive in a moment where it can be so charged and intense, and giving some, again, scaffolding to all of this.
Well, I know we’re winding down our time. Is there anything else you want to say about helping break the cycle? It sounds like in your book, you’ve really provided so much to give people direction and invitation and tools to negotiate this differently, so that they can have a different experience. Is there anything else you want to say before we talk about your book and what other resources you have to offer?
“The research is really clear that we can work with the insecure attachment styles, with all of them. So it’s not a set in stone thing, it’s a spectrum, and you can absolutely move towards a more secure attachment.”
It can be a beautiful thing to work with in your relationship as well. In my own relationship, it brought more understanding and deeper intimacy into the relationship. I know “conscious relationship” is thrown around quite a bit. But it can bring a lot more consciousness into the relationship, and it can be a place of healing old stuff. Often we know when we’re reacting from wounds, and it can be a place where those wounds can have a reparative different experience, like in therapy. It’s like practicing roller skating. In therapy, we get to practice safely, where we’re wearing all our protective kit. And when we’re in front of our partner, we often feel so naked, so vulnerable. It’s a big risk when we do it with our partner, so that’s a great place to practice. But Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy (EFT) by Sue Johnson is something that I practice. I see couples in my practice, as well as doing the trauma work. It can be a great place to start as a couple. But just know that healing is absolutely possible.
Yes, thank you for just speaking to the research and just the therapeutic models that assist in this. Yes, it’s been my experience. In the moment, even in my position of helping support other couples, or just the research I’ve done or the training and been practicing psychological principles for quite some time. And when I’m in it myself, and whatever terror barrier I’m bumping up against, it’s like the very thing I don’t want to say or feels just so scary to do. Yet, it’s the thing that typically can create a new experience that offers an opportunity with safety. Obviously, there’s elements that help that feel safer and more likely to have a positive outcome. But still, the risk that it takes, it’s hard to do, and we’re talking about it. It’s just a deep regard it sounds like that we both have, for the bravery and the courage to enter into this work.
What would you like to share? You have a book, so tell us the name of your book.
Yeah, the book is called Heal Your Anxious Attachment. I thought let’s just make it do what it says on the can. It’s really written for the layman. It’s not for therapists, so it’s not kind of highfalutin. It does reference research. But I really wanted it to be accessible for everyone. The practices in there, it’s not kind of a read overnight and everything is going to change. There’s practices that are offered, and there’ll be some practices that resonate more and some less. The offering is, take what resonates, leave what doesn’t. It comes with 20 downloadable practices, so you can put them on your phone and you can do them over and over again. I’ve got a whole chapter on when your anxiety is triggered in the relationship, with a step-by-step process, which people find super helpful. There’s a whole chapter on co-regulation and self-regulation and getting really curious about what our own systems like for regulation. There’s a whole chapter on re-parenting, meeting being a child, more in the transaction analysis model. There’s a whole piece of somatic, learning to kind of make contact with parts, healing parts in the body and learning to dialogue with them. Don’t know if you know Eugene Gendlin’s Focusing work, it’s based on that. He was the first one to come up with the word “the felt sense.”
I use that all the time. I think I know his name, but I don’t know his work really.
Well, those steps are in the book, I think it’s Chapter Three, to really help to make a reconnection with the body and senses in the body in a different way, which for me, was an important part of connecting with my self-energy. So the book is, I think, very helpful to work with the anxious attachment style. Something just to keep by your bed, keep doing the practices, and being really gentle with yourself. Really gentle, because we have anchored this path for a reason. The invitation is being kind and being curious.
Absolutely. Well, thank you so much for offering what you’ve offered to help give such a comprehensive support, both on how to regulate when that activation occurs, but also just how to do some of this deeper work. It just sounds very comprehensive and resourceful. I know you have a website and you have other things that you offer there. What’s your website?
Our website is PsychotherapyCentral.health. You’ll find I’ve got some short courses around re-parenting and inner child work. I have a more extensive course, Relationship Cycle Breaker, which really addresses some of those cycles. I’m going to have a course around healing anxious attachment, which has been recorded, the video is being edited. So that’ll probably be released in the next month or so. Then I have a practice of a few therapists who work with me, who work with Internal Family Systems and with EFT, and I help clients one-on-one as well. So if you wanted to work with me, you can jump on that website and book in.
Lovely! Well, I’ll make sure to have the link to your website, also to your book. Again, thank you so much for sharing all that you’ve shared with us today.
Thank you so much for having me, and for your insightful questions. Really beautiful questions, I can hear how much wisdom and knowledge you have around all of those topics. So thank you.
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Fostering genuine connections can feel daunting in a world filled with distractions and surface-level interactions. Many individuals struggle to find the right way to communicate, leading to misunderstandings and emotional distance in relationships.
In this episode, we explore the art of refining communication through strategic question construction. While you can’t control the answers you receive, you can shape them by framing your questions thoughtfully.
Discover practical insights and strategies to cultivate meaningful dialogue and forge authentic bonds with others. Join us on a journey to harness the potential of curiosity and intentionality in your conversations, paving the way for richer, more fulfilling relationships.
Topaz Adizes is an Emmy award-winning writer, director, and experienced design architect. He is an Edmund Hillary fellow and Sundance/Skoll Stories of Change fellow. His works have been selected to Cannes, Sundance, IDFA, and SXSW, featured in New Yorker magazine, Vanity Fair, and the NewYork Times; and have garnered an Emmy for new approaches to documentary and Two World Press photo awards for immersive storytelling and interactive documentary. He is the founder and executive director of the experience design studio The Skin Deep. Topaz studied philosophy at UC Berkeley and Oxford University.
In this episode
05:51 Topaz’s journey from filmmaking to experience design.
10:36 Harnessing the power of intimate questions for better relationships.
14:06 How the quality and nature of questions significantly influence our experiences and outcomes.
17:56 Five key traits of effective questions.
32:28 Cultivating authentic connections through curious inquiry.
38:20 The importance of creating space for meaningful connection.
Your Check List of Actions to Take
- Start conversations without preconceived agendas, fostering genuine curiosity.
- Prioritize building trust and intimacy by holding space for vulnerability and exploration.
- Share personal stories and experiences to foster deeper connections and understanding.
- Embrace discomfort as a pathway to growth and deeper relational bonds.
- Practice active listening and undivided attention to cultivate intimacy and responsiveness.
- Encourage vulnerability and courage in discussions to address grief and navigate challenges together.
- Utilize resources like online platforms and books to access tools for enhancing relational skills.
- Measure success in relationships by the depth of engagement and trust established over time.
Mentioned
12 Questions for Love (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
{The And} (videos)
The Skin Deep – Creating The Space To Explore (card decks & shop) Enter in “DRJESSICA” for 15% off (*Affiliate link)
Relationship Map To Happy, Lasting Love
Connect with Topaz Adizes
Websites: shop.theskindeep.com | topazadizes.com
Facebook: facebook.com/TheSkinDeep
X: twitter.com/the_skindeep?lang=en
YouTube: youtube.com/c/theskindeep/videos
Instagram: instagram.com/the_skindeep
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/theskindeep
TikTok: tiktok.com/@theskindeep?lang=en
Pinterest: pinterest.com/theskindeep
Podcast: topazadizes.com/podcast
Connect with Dr. Jessica Higgins
Facebook: facebook.com/EmpoweredRelationship
Instagram: instagram.com/drjessicahiggins
Podcast: drjessicahiggins.com/podcasts/
Pinterest: pinterest.com/EmpowerRelation
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/drjessicahiggins
Twitter: @DrJessHiggins
Website: drjessicahiggins.com
Email: jessica@drjessicahiggins.com
About Today’s Show
Topaz, it is wonderful to be here with you, and welcome you to the show.
Yeah, Dr. Jessica, it’s exciting. Do you go by Dr. Jessica or just Jessica?
Jessica is perfect.
Okay, thanks for having me on.
Yeah. This topic is so important, as I was preparing for our interview and just recognizing how this is such a big contributor to the interpersonal dynamic is how we relate, through querying and question and curiosity. You’ve done so much to support just building awareness and giving example and story to how questions can heighten intimacy. I’d love for you to talk a little bit about what got you interested in that, where you’re coming from here, for people who maybe don’t know you.
I guess the reason I’m on your podcast and on many others is because of the work my team and I have done for the last 10 years. My team at The Skin Deep, winning experience design studio, for the last 10 years—we’re now in our 11th year—we’ve been holding the space for a project that we call {The And}. It won an Emmy, went viral, and has a lot of great, wonderful things that happened to it. The most wonderful thing that’s happened is that we’ve really created a space for people to have incredible conversations.
The book that’s out now, 12 Questions For Love, what’s that about? That’s basically a distillation of what I’ve learned from holding the space and doing {The And} for the last 10 years with 1,200 conversations. {The And} speaks about the space between. {The And} is about how to illuminate the threads of our connection. Because the relationship is not you, or I, us, or them. It’s you and I. It’s us and them. It’s the “and” that connects us, it’s the space between.
So how do we do that? Well, we break two people in a room. They’re facing each other. There’s a low table between them where we put questions, and one at a time, they take a question and they ask each other these questions. We film it with three cameras. One is a wide-shot, so you see them in profile, and the other two are close-ups. So you see their faces at the same time in close-up. We’re always sharing either a bi-panel or a triptych. So you’re always seeing the speaker and the listener at the same time. We’ve been doing that for 10 years, we’re now in our 11th year, and we’ve learned a lot. So everything I was speaking about comes from my experience holding that space.
What prompted this project, if you’re open to sharing?
Oh yeah, absolutely. I’m open to sharing everything. I think I was, for many years, a filmmaker, a film director. I made a lot of different kinds of films, mostly critical. Not really commercially Hollywood successful films, more critical films. I went to festivals and I had small niche audiences.
One day I was looking around, and someone wanted me to make a documentary film about why good-looking people get ahead. He was actually out of Boulder, or used to live. I said, okay. As a filmmaker, if someone has money and they want to make something, you’re like: Great, wonderful! Let me take those funds and actually apply it to something that’s really interesting. So he came back to us and said: Look, what’s really interesting, what’s really happening is that the emotional experience of being human is shifting in lieu of digital technology. This was in 2013.
“We are changing the way we’re relating to each other. The technologies are enabling different ways of relating, of identifying, of exploration.”
I mean, you and I are having this conversation now, and we’re in two different places. I’ve been doing this podcast, you’ve been doing a podcast, we can relate and find other people. It’s not so much physically proximate based, it’s not dependent on where you physically are. It might be dependent on where you emotionally are at, what your interests are, what your passions are, what you’re exploring.
Anyhow, things are shifting, so how is the emotional experience of being alive shifting? I said, that’s what’s interesting. So let’s create an experience design studio, and let’s explore that question. One of the projects that we launched was {The And}, which is our most famous, most popular flagship experience, which is huge learning for me.
But that’s where it came up, that we are in a tidal wave of change because of technology and WhatsApp. To ask if social media is good or bad, which is an old question, it’s just an irrelevant question. The question to ask is, what are we doing about it? What conscientiously am I doing in the relationships in my life, and the relation with myself, to shape my own future? To help facilitate my children’s future, my community’s future, my friends and my family’s future? Because future generations are going to be behaving differently. What can we do as small increments now to bring more conscientiousness to future relationships? I’m talking about that, as an organization, that’s what we ask ourselves at The Skin Deep. That’s what has been our endeavor for the last 10 or 11 years.
Well, again, I had mentioned to you before we started recording that I had actually come across {The And} and the videos and the documentary that you all were featuring and producing, and I was so moved and touched. I was sharing it with people I was working with and giving example to. This is, as you’re talking about, a broader scope in the collective consciousness around a tidal wave of change. And being able to feature, showcase, and really give example to the power of these type of intimate questions that foster connection, is critical. It’s so human. Yet, if we’re in the modern pace of life, we can lose touch with. So it seems as though you’re really putting us front and center helping people really engage and be mindful and intentional about how to do that. Is that my understanding?
In preparation for this podcast, I listened to your other podcasts, and a similarity I found in all the conversations is our ability to communicate. Whatever the issue is, how are we communicating? So my question is, where do we learn how to communicate? Where do we learn how to have deeper conversations that explore our relationship, that explore our connection? We learn that in our families, by modeling in our families, or maybe in our friend groups. I’ve been fortunate enough for the last 10 years to hold a space of all kinds of relationships: old grandparents with their grandchildren, best friends, lovers, ex-lovers, polyamorous couples, or not even couples, groups. But intimate conversation, and I’ve seen what works. In some sense, I’ve had my own course, and that’s what I’m trying to share here.
It ultimately comes down to two things, in my opinion. One is the space, that you create the space. For example, what I love about your podcast is that before, as the audience comes, you always ground them in the space; you ask them to breathe, you slow down. You are creating a space to connect with yourself, and then taking what you’re listening and reflecting your own life and seeing how it applies. But you are setting the space by asking them to breathe, and you do that in all your episodes that I have listened to. I think you are creating a space by doing that.
The second key thing is to ask well-constructed questions. I was listening to one of your podcasts when you had the two doctors, de Bruin and Lisa Palmer-Olsen. They talked about how in their sessions with the family, they mentioned how we’ll bring the family together and then we’ll just ask one question, and then we’ll see where it goes. That one question is fundamental. How do you construct good questions? For the last 10 years, I can tell you now, how to construct good questions in the context of relationships. I can also talk about how to make good questions to ask yourself when you’re stymied, when you’re challenged. On a profound level—you hear this a lot, Esther Perel says it and a lot of other people—the quality of your life is dependent on the quality of relationships. Well, then how do you have good relationships? One way is the conversations you have. Well, then how do you have good conversations? You create the space of inquiry to ask really well-constructed questions. You do that, you have better conversations. Better conversations, better relationships. Better relationships, better quality of life.
Oh, my goodness. It’s reminding me of an interview that I did with a phenomenologist that worked at a university, and she was studying about language and how it steers our behavior, it steers our experience. I often find myself identifying. I can’t remember how I’ve phrased it or how maybe I’ve heard other people phrase it. But the solutions or the information that we get is so relevant to the quality of the question, so much of what we’re asking dictates what we’re experiencing. You’re really focusing on relationship, thank you, and this is critical.
So talk to us a little bit about construction. Because some people have the intention to be intimate, but get caught up in these predetermined scripts. Talk to us here.
Yeah, so much here. So let’s first just ground in what you said, which was, I just realized: a race is shaped by the course that it’s run on. If you’re in a lap pool, it’s one thing. If you’re in a car and it’s going through curves, there’s curves, you’ve got to slow down. The race is shaped by the course it’s run on. In very much the same way, an answer is shaped by the question that is asked. If you ask a binary question, yes/no answer, you’re going to get a yes/no. Do you love me? Yes, or no? That’s what you’re gonna get. If you say why do you love me, how do you love me, what is my love for you like? That question is not allowing for yes/no. It’s not asking for yes/no. It’s asking for more nuance. If you ask, why do we fight so much, you will get a list of why you fight so much. Your brain is built to protect you, therefore it will serve, and it will give you every answer it wants.
You’re saying what is the problem, and your brain will give you lots of reasons why there’s a problem.
Exactly, so you’re shaping a litany of lists. Is that going to really give you a sense of empowerment and agency in action? What if you ask, what is our biggest conflict right now, and what is it teaching us? Why do I feel that we have many conflicts, what’s the lesson in that? You’re shaping a different answer. But we are asking ourselves questions all the time. You wake up in the morning and you go: Oh shit, I have to do that! Okay, well, that thought came because you had a thought of a question. It was a question that said, what do I have to do today? The answer was, I’ve got to do that. If you instead say, even if I have a packed day of conflict and tension, what’s the hidden lesson here?
So we are always asking ourselves questions all the time. Don’t focus on the answer, focus on the question, then you get a different answer, a different possibility. I just wanted to ground that, because that’s a fundamental thing that I’ve seen and I’ve witnessed. I bring that in my own life, but I see that in the conversations.
Thank you. One is so restrictive, and one is so reaching and giving possibility. Even as you described this, Topaz, my body sensation, and how I feel when I focus on just problems versus what’s the learning, what is here for us to look at. I mean, it’s just qualitatively entirely different.
It’s a paradigm shift. The response you get is shaped by the question you ask.
“You cannot control the answer you get. But what you can do is control the question you ask, and that will shape the answers that comes back. Another way of saying that is that the questions you ask will shape the possibilities that are presented to you, and therefore, the reality of what you can create.”
But there’s five things we’ve seen, in the context of a relationship. You’re asking your partner, your brother, your best friend, your father, anybody that you’re intimate with, not just romantic, that you’re in relationship with, even your co-worker. There’s five traits that you can add to the question to really improve it. You don’t have to do all five. But if you add these things, it will make it a better question.
So the first we touched on was, don’t make it a binary question. That’ll just end right there. Yes or no? Open-ended, how, why. The second one, and we talked about that too, is to shape the question such that it’s empowering. I mean, why do you want to ask something that’s going to lead you to feel disempowered or upset even more? Like, how do we shape this as an empowering conversation? So I sense a great deal of conflict with you, why do you think I feel that way? Now you’re putting them in your shoes. That’s another part of the quality of a good question. I guess what I’m saying is, see if you can shape the question so that it’s going to have a constructive end, so that then we can explore and that it doesn’t send us towards the mud. Not that the mud is a bad place, but I just can’t think of a good word to use.
It’s the only place. It’s like you said, we are pre-dispositioned to be a little bit more negatively biased in this survival tendency to mitigate problems, so we focus on negative. But we’re looking and not giving credit to what is also true.
So how can you shape the question, so it leads you to an empowering? Third one is really important, and this one people often miss. You want to ask a question that acknowledges the relationship with the person you’re speaking to, I call it a connective question. What I mean by that is, if I asked you Jessica, what scares you the most? And your best friend says Jessica, what scares you the most? And the barista where you get your coffee says: Hey, Jessica, what scares you the most? You’re going to answer the question the same. It’s the same. Snakes scare me the most, I’m just frightened of snakes. So me on the podcast, and your partner, your best friend, and the barista stranger asks you, you’re going to answer the same. The question does not acknowledge the relationship, the conversation you’re in. If I say, Jessica, what do you think scares us the most? Now you’ll answer that question a little differently when I ask it than when your best friend asks it and the barista asks it. Because you have to think about the relationship, who’s the other person? So ask questions that acknowledge the connection. We don’t do that.
One of the 36 questions we talked about early on, before we started recording, because you referred to that. If you look at that, very few of those questions actually acknowledge the person asking. What do you think about love? Well, you can go on five dates, get asked that question, you answer the same thing. You go on five date and the question goes, how do you think we think about love differently or the same? You will answer that question differently, because you’re with five different people. So ask questions that acknowledge the connection.
That’s so key. I just think it’s really important because particularly in cultures that are a little bit more independently focused, it’s so self-referential. So to really be attentive and aware, it is a paradigm and it opens up so much more space. To even be given credit and language, as you’re mentioning, offers so much more information. When we’re intending to be relating and more intimate, that’s really fundamental.
Well, let’s even talk about the point you mentioned, that everything is so self-referential, and that we’re in a society now where it’s somewhat narcissistic. I mean, our social medias, in my opinion, breeze a type of narcissism, even in the technology of how it is presented, because you’re filming yourself. It’s a selfie, it’s about yourself. If you ask a question that acknowledges your connection, the person asking the question, who’s now going to be listening to the answer, is way more invested. Because if I go, what does love mean to you, you’re going drift off. It’s like, now I’m listening to a monologue, and they practiced this. It’s not about us, it’s about them.
“Frankly, if you’re not going to listen to something that’s about you, then you want to at least listen to something that you’re involved in. So let’s talk about us. Because at least I’m part of that, and it’s more interesting. So in this culture where we are always worrying about ourselves, it’s a more inviting conversation to have when it involves both of you.”
To your earlier point, we don’t live in a vacuum; we are existing in relationship. So to ignore that is perhaps, again, neglecting a lot of layers here.
An opportunity. There are so many nutrients, there are so many minerals, there’s so much energy to be found in your intimate relationships. The irony is that those are the ones we take for granted, because they’re so close, and we think we know everyone around us. Because we’re built to survive, so you go into comfort mode, whatever is comfort. Therefore, Jessica is always like this, Topaz is always doing this. I’m not going to ask them this question because I know the answer. We always have this pattern conversation. Our relationship is this pattern. When we go on date night, we automate, because that makes it comfortable and that makes it safe. So it’s much easier, which also means less pay-off.
So first, let’s make a distinction between safety and discomfort, or safety and comfort. Safety and comfort are not the same. You can be safe and totally uncomfortable, great. Because on the flip side of discomfort is growth and learning. So you’re the loving partner, you have mutual trust and respect. You both have the same intention. You know they’re not there to hurt you. Let’s lean into discomfort. There’s a little bit of tension, there’s a conflict, or let’s do this thing that we haven’t done before and explore. It’s okay, it’s good, because we’re going to learn and grow. It’s there that we’re going to reap the nutrients and the minerals that I’m talking about in a relationship. It’s like when you have that big fight that came up, however it comes up, but then you have a make-up after, and you feel recharged. Make-up sex, or make-up dinner, or whatever it is, you have that make-up moment and you get fueled with energy. Even though it was an hour ago, so bad, and it was so uncomfortable. But what is that energy? That’s because we’ve just pulled on the heartstrings of our connection, and it has given us energy back now, because we know our relationship is that much stronger. We know we’re that much resilient.
Yes, we’ve tested the boundaries, we’ve expanded. Even individually, perhaps there’s places, I’ll just own it myself that if I am feeling conflict with my significant other, and I’m feeling fear, and maybe I become aware of it, and then I approach my husband with something that’s scary or hard to say, then what can come through that difficult conversation is new terrain. Or I’m able to live more like, we’ve worked through it, and now there’s learning, and now I know how to take care of myself or whatever the thing is. And I also know how we can support each other, and we’ve basically expanded our capacity to function together in a way that hopefully offers healing and connection and more trust, and all the things that come from working together.
I think a key part of that was, when you want to go to your significant other and have a conversation, you have to create the space. If you come to them and you tell them out of the blue, why do you love me, or you ask them, why do you love me? Your significant other is not wondering why they love you, they’re wondering why are you asking the question. What is the context? Where is this coming from? Or the flipside is if you come home, and you tell your significant, I love you so much because of this, this, and this. They’re not really receiving it, because they’re wondering, where’s this coming from, where’s the context? We have to build context first, so that it gives us the freedom, the permission, to give and to receive.
Oftentimes, in relationships, we wait until we can’t eat the pain, so we have to have the talk; we’ve got to talk. Nobody likes hearing in relationship, the words “we’ve got to talk” from their partner or significant other or best friend or anyone. Because they’re like: Oh shit, we’re going to have to step into that. So how do you create the space? You say: Hey, I want to have a conversation with you, and it’s going to be a game. Or we’re going to do 12 questions each for love. Or we’re going to play this experiment, and we’re going to make up random questions.
“This is why road trips are great places to have conversations, because in some sense, it’s a space. We’re in the car, and if you don’t listen to the radio or a podcast, and you’re just there, there’s nowhere to go. There’s very little distractions. And all of a sudden, you can have these epic conversations, because the space has been created.”
I want to give people some example here. So just to recap, I know you have a couple more, and we’ll get to those. So open-ended, help me.
Oh, so make your questions open-ended, not binary. Two is make them constructive, we want them to be constructive. Third is we want to make them acknowledge the person asking the question. Now fourth one, I know we went around, but the fourth one would be, make it an interesting question that connects two disparate ideas that we don’t often ask. How does our conflict make us better? We don’t often think conflict makes us better. Another good question I like, or similar is, how does our effort to make money, what does it cost us? What is our mutual dream costing us? Or what are we losing from the pursuit of our mutual dream? What are we gaining from the things we’re not doing? Asking questions that connect two different things that we don’t usually connect. Then your mind, again, which is built to protect you, therefore, it’s a servant dog that just chases any stick you throw. The stick is the question, and it just will find the answer. So you’re asking a question that you haven’t asked before, or you haven’t spent much time asking, because it’s two different ideas you don’t usually put together. Then you find new connections, new relationships, new ideas. What are we gaining by the things we’re not doing together? What are we losing from the things we are? What’s the one truth we hate telling ourselves? What’s the one lie we love telling ourselves?
The flip side of that is asking a question that puts you or the other person in someone else’s shoes. Jessica, what do you think is the hardest thing being your friend? So now to answer that question, you’ve got to go and think about your friends and put yourself in their shoes, looking at you and seeing how it feels for them. It creates more empathy, sympathy.
Is that the fifth one?
No, so the fourth one is just connect things that are not usually together, which is either two different ideas or putting yourself in other people’s shoes.
Okay, I can feel people’s brain kind of go, ooh!
I know, this is where I have to get much better at.
No, no, this is great. No, not the summary, more out of the putting disparate things together, the and. Because I loved what you were inviting, and I think it’s a little bit more common in the couple’s space around people who are helping people navigate relationship. Like, what is the curriculum of this disagreement teaching us are? How can we learn, and what can we learn from this? That’s something people have heard probably before. But what you’re describing here is if we’re promoting, oh our vision, what’s the cost of that vision? Or just giving some space for what is the expense of the thing that we’re excited about, and really, that feels positive? Then also, to your point, about just being able to put yourself in other people’s shoes. These are different mental exercises that give more scope to the conversation and the question.
One of my favorites is more for the individual. What’s your favorite memory from your worst relationship? It’s like, ooh, really?
Yes, just even the question!
Yes, you go there and wait one second, pause for thought.
“That’s exactly the idea, is create questions that create pause for thought. Because then your mind has to connect two different ideas that it hasn’t before, and that’s where a lot of learning can occur.”
The last one is simply, don’t bring agendas to the question. In a lot of our relationships, we ask questions. I mean, we’ve all been in a situation where someone asked you a question, and you could feel they already know the answer. You’re in a chess game, where they’re asking you a question that set you up for a response, and you don’t want to answer it. You’re not wondering about the question; you’re wondering about the chess match. I have a lawyer friend, and in their industry, they have a statement they say, don’t ask a question you don’t know the answer to. But what’s the point of that? Then you’re not really in conversation, there’s something else going on, and whoever you’re talking to can feel that? So what kind of invitation are you inviting them to if you have an agenda? If you have an agenda, there’s a different kind of conversation to have. But I’m talking about having cathartic conversation that will illuminate and explore your relationship, that maybe goes into discomfort or not. But either way, it’s a place of exploration and deepening. Those are the five aspects that make a good question. You can add all of them, some of them, but that’ll help deepen the questions.
There’s so much depth to this. It’s almost as if my experience of engaging in this type of question and intimate relating is, I have no idea what’s going to come from it. Like, when you’re saying having an agenda, that if I ask a very pointed question and I have an issue, through neuroception—this ability to perceive each other’s facial expressions, their nonverbals, their tone of voice—we’re pretty skilled at recognizing that this isn’t just a neutral zone, there’s an issue to be had and there’s a pointed question, when someone has that agenda. But when we can be really curious and not have an agenda and be very open, I almost feel like when you’re talking about these disparate and bringing them together and asking the question, or from different perspectives, I almost feel like the new neural pathways are getting created, as you’re describing.
Also, you were speaking to context, and I wonder if context fits with that fifth of not having an agenda. That when it’s not clear, let’s say there has been static about a certain topic in the past and somebody is trying to approach it. Let’s say it’s about finances or something, and let’s say the person asking the question has an intention to be neutral. But the person on the receiving end is like: Oh, I know this one. How do you create context? One of the things you’re saying, I know sometimes this can be very disarming, is to give a little bit of reveal around, well, here’s where this question is coming from, or here’s what’s behind the question. Can you give some examples around context here?
Here’s an example. Look, sometimes you have a question and you go, why’d you hurt me? You’re hurt, and you’re upset, and you really want to sort it out. So you’re coming at them with a question with an agenda of like, I’m hurt and I want to know why you hurt me, and I want to put you against the wall and get an answer, and I really want an apology. That kind of energy, that kind of emotion. So how do you create a question from that emotional state, if you will, a state where you can make it without an agenda, and you tap into your curiosity. Here’s a person you’re in some type of relationship with, they did something that hurt you, or that you feel hurt by. Take a pause and find the curiosity in you, which could be rooted in the pain. I’m hurt by that, so I’m curious. Sure, you can be curious about why it hurt you, that’s another question you can think about. But tap into the curiosity in you of why they did that.
So when somebody says, why do you hurt me so much? You should go, let me find the curiosity. So I really want to know why you’re hurt. Because I thought we had a great relationship, or I thought we’re in love, or I thought that we’re building a mutual respect, and I want to be curious. I’ve done this before. Because I’m a heated individual, I feel a lot of emotions; I’m passionate, I’m very intense. So take a pause, and go, where’s your curiosity here? Even put it into the language of the question? I’m really curious here, why I feel so hurt by that action and why you did that? Maybe it’s not so much in the words as it is in terms of the tone that you say it in. But tapping into your own curiosity as to why that happened, because that’s different than a pointed finger.
“You cannot get someone to step out of a corner. If they’re in the corner, they’ve got their hands up, they’re protecting. You have to offer a question that’s in the middle of the living room, that’s in the middle of the space that they can step into. But not push them against the wall.”
Yeah. So another example, potentially, I don’t know if you would feel like this fits, is: “I noticed I’m feeling a lot of hurt about this circumstance, and I’m making up a story about it, and I know I don’t really want to do that. I also realize you have an experience. Can you help me with what was happening for you or what was going on for you when we engaged in that interaction? Or why you chose X, Y, and Z?” Just to have some element of suspending that judgment, to be in curiosity that gives space and room for someone to show up.
Here’s an example of a question that you could ask that in. I’m feeling really hurt, and I’d like to ask you, why do you think I’m feeling really hurt about it? That puts them in your shoes, and that makes it about you versus about why they did it, so they’re not on defense. Then they have to be like, well, you’re overreacting. So I’m overreacting, but I feel this. Let me see what you could then ask, to continue asking another question.
Well, then why do you think I feel this way? I feel disappointed about what you did; why do you think I do? Why do you think I feel disappointed? I’m saying, obviously the tone, you could take those same words and do it in a really aggressive way, so that it does push them. But I guess it’s trying to tap into the curiosity and shape the question that invites them into the space versus pushing them against the wall. Because you’re not going to explore something more when they’re pushed against the wall, and the only way to really do that is to tap into your curiosity as to why it’s going on.
No kidding, thank you! Is there more you want to say about context? Because I think you were saying if somebody is surprised, or they’re in midstream cooking dinner and they’re not necessarily really prepared, how do you set the stage for this?
So here’s where I’m going to give a cheap plug for my stuff. So we have these card games. We have 12 editions of the card games, for all kinds of different relationships, feeling to them using their cell phone to play by yourself. We’re friends. This is such a great way to create the space. Because: Hey Jessica, I’ve got a game here, let’s play a game. It’s a game. Let’s ask each other questions, and there’s really well constructed questions here. That’s as easy as it can be.
A game is something that you want to play. But it has boundaries, because any game you play has rules. In our case, the rule is, you have to ask every question, but you don’t have to answer anything you don’t want; you can pass on advance. What’s key is that we ask the question. Because even if we don’t articulate to each other what the answer is, believe me, you’re thinking about the answer, and I’m thinking about the answer. I’m thinking about what I would say. I’m thinking about what you’d say. Even if we say we’ll talk about it later, it’s still happening in our heads; the brain is already working. And what’s most fundamental, even if the conversation isn’t articulated, or if it is and we don’t have to get to an answer, nothing is about getting to the answer. But we’re in this space together, and we are building the resilience and the trust that comes from sitting in discomfort together, or sitting in exploration together, by asking the question. We’re there together.
I know you have a lot of couples’ therapy work, which can be very helpful, especially in untangling things and guiding people. But what is beneficial here is that the two people in relationships are creating the space and holding the space, versus when you’re going to a therapist and they’re holding the space and they’re guiding. This is a different kind of practice. It’s not exclusive, it’s for different functions. I myself have gone to a couples’ therapist and find it super helpful. But it’s for different things. The exercise here is, can we be together and hold a space in exploration and conversation together? Just us. That is actually more important than any answer you get out of the conversation. It’s the ability to hold space and sit through it and explore it together.
Yes, this undivided attention. I mean, this is what we’re typically wanting, is to feel responded to in relationship, to feel seen, to feel some understanding, to feel able to understand and see. This is the intimacy practice in holding this space. To your point, when people can hold this and be in this, it’s probably, I would say, self-fulfilling. It’s rewarding, and people want to work with it. They want more of it. They want to build on it. Is that your experience?
1,000%. Let’s take my dad for an example. My dad is an incredible soul. Oh my God, he’s 86 now, and that guy has lived a life and he’s such a deep soul. He’s super-intelligent and well-versed and read. When I first did {The And}, he’s like: “I don’t get it, Topaz. I don’t get it.” Then we had a live show. He came. He was like, I don’t get it. I still don’t get it. I’m like, really? He’s like, yeah I don’t get it. Then finally, I brought him to have a conversation in {The And}, in the space, and he actually goes: “Oh my God, I get it now. This is amazing, because I would never have had a conversation with you if it wasn’t for those questions in the space.”
Even for me who’s been doing this, a year ago, it’s up on YouTube, it’s a conversation I had with one of my good friends, Justin. I’ve known him for about 16 or 17 years. Now I’ve been through hours, I don’t know how many hours of watching conversations, being in the space directing it. I did two that are online with my father. I went and did one with Justin, who’s my friend. And I was blown away by the experience. The conversation was so deep, we laughed and we cried, and it was real, and it was there. We’ve even had conversations like that before, but there was something. Because there were new questions. I didn’t write the questions, at the time someone on our team wrote those questions. So every question was a surprise for us, for me. I was taken on the journey, and it was amazing. Even I who’s been there watching it, I was surprised and move. It comes down to the space and the quality of the questions.
And the willingness to show up in the unknown, and what can be created out of that.
Exactly, that’s what I mean by the nutrients. They’re all around us. They’re right there, we just have to access them. There might be a little bit of discomfort to accessing them, but there’s that bigger payoff. If you look at relationships, how many times do we go to a restaurant where you see a couple or a family, and they’re scrolling on their iPhones? All the time. Now what’s happening there, in my opinion, is that they’re all getting small, quick dopamine hits for every new piece of information, whether it’s a scroll through Instagram or a WhatsApp message or email, whatever it is. It’s the small nuggets of dopamine hits, because you get a new piece of information. It’s short-term. So what I’m suggesting is if you put that aside, and you invest it by asking slightly better questions, create a space for inquiry to explore that, the dopamine hit you’re going to get is going to be much bigger, exponentially bigger than the 10 or 30 small ones you got. It’s just going to come after 10 minutes. It’s going to come after 15 or 20 minutes, and it’s going to last that much longer. That’s my offering. That’s my suggestion.
Yes, the homeostasis when we get these little hits, it actually has a negative impact. We feel like it’s a little bit addictive, and we can feel crappy and crummy because it’s like trying to compensate. But yet, when we can tolerate the discomfort, then the payoff and the dopamine hit, it’s so rewarding. Thank you for sharing your personal story, both with your father and with your best friend. With my husband, I think we both attempt to ask each other new questions and opening questions. But I will say, to your point, not knowing the question, and having questions that are crafted in ways that are to your structure that maybe our brains aren’t in the habit of doing, it’s such a support tool.
I know we’re winding down in our time here. I’m just curious, do you want to speak about any of the success that you’ve seen in the couples that you’ve worked with?
A sign of success, for me, would be two things. Because we’re not clinical therapists, and we’re not doing clinical research. We’re holding the space, and we’re seeing who appears, and the response we get online and what emails and messages we get from those participants after. That’s the information. So the two sides of success for me are that this project has 1,200 participants or pairs, so over 1,200. We have the breadth of relationships, all kinds, and we also have depth. We have depth because people come back year after year after year. Ben & Sidra has been on eight times. They came on two weeks before they gave birth to their first daughter, Nyla. And last year, they were on and Nyla is nine years old, and she’s having the conversation with her mom. We’ve been there for that time. They call us and say: Hey, it feels like it’s time for a catch up.
Andrew & Keisha been with us also for a decade. Not only that, but you saw us in 2015. This is almost eight or nine years ago. We have pairs that are currently in the relationship they are, informed by what they saw online, and they tell us that. They say: “I didn’t know a relationship was possible like that. Then I looked for one, and now I have it, and now I practice it. We play {The And}. Once a week, we have our catch-up on Sunday.” So those are signs of success for me. Because the people participating find it really helpful, and they come in and they want to do a check-in, and they’re engaged. Not to mention all the commentaries we get.
The other big sign for me of success was Laura & Brad. They’re our longest conversation we posted earlier this year, and that, for me was very moving. Because they trusted our team, they trusted our platform to come and share their story. Their story was that 11 months prior to the conversation they had on {The And}, their 18-year-old son, they don’t know why or how, but he died at college in the shower. He just died, and they don’t know why. No drugs, no heart attack, he just passed away. Healthy guy. 11 months later, they’re in our space, and they are courageously sharing their story that they’re still very much in grief. They trusted us because of our body of work. That, to me, is a huge sign of success. It’s a huge honor that we carry, that they trusted us to share their story. I invite people to watch that, it’s very powerful.
They told me. They said: “Topaz, we couldn’t get out of bed, but somehow we got the healing edition.” Brad has been a marine for 14 years. He says he’s facing the scariest thing of his life, having conversations with the wife that created vulnerability, that required courage, and they told us that these decks helped. Then that’s why they came on and did {The And}. To me, that’s a huge sign of success, or of being of utility in people’s lives. That’s what I got.
Thank you. Thank you so much. How do people access the card deck and your work if they want to watch videos or what you’re up to?
So TheSkinDeep.com has all of our products and experiences on it. Then YouTube and all the social media channels will be The Skin Deep. Just search The Skin Deep and you’ll find us.
I’ll make sure to have those links on today’s show notes.
Then the book, obviously the book is available everywhere and anywhere.
Tell us about the book.
Look, the book is everything we’ve talked about. It’s a distillation of what we’ve learned, I put it down. On a prescriptive level, have a conversation with these 12 questions, and it’ll forever change your relationship without doubt. More macro-picture, more fundamentally, it teaches you how to create the space, how to have well-constructed questions, and really create the space for exploration and deepening. It’s a guide to intimate conversations and deeper relationships. That’s what’s in the book. I’m so proud to finally get that out there.
Yes, and say the title for people who are listening.
12 Questions for Love.
Wonderful! This is assisting people, guiding people to develop relational skills, to develop relational connection with others. So thank you so much for what you’re doing, you and your team, and being here on the show. It’s been an honor.
Thank you so much, Jessica. I appreciate it. Thanks for the platform.
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Navigating end-of-life conversations can be emotionally challenging and riddled with uncertainties. Many individuals and families struggle to broach topics surrounding preferences for care, leaving them ill-prepared for crucial decisions during times of crisis.
In this episode, we embark on a journey to explore practical strategies and insights aimed at facilitating these delicate discussions with compassion and clarity. By providing actionable guidance and fostering a deeper understanding of end-of-life care, this episode equips listeners with the tools needed to approach these conversations thoughtfully, empowering them to honor personal values and preferences with confidence.
Dr. Bob and Elizabeth Uslander co-founded Empowered Endings, a unique palliative and end-of-life care model addressing the physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual needs of patients and families. Bob Uslander, MD, received his Medical Degree from the UCLA Geffen School of Medicine and practiced medicine in Emergency, Palliative, and end-of-life care for over 30 years.
Elizabeth Uslander, MSW MTS, received her BA cum laude from Georgetown University and earned her Master’s degrees at USC and Wesley Theological Seminary.
In this episode
03:49 Bob’s transition from emergency medicine to palliative care and the founding of Empowered Endings with Elizabeth.
09:12 Elizabeth’s journey in spiritual care and social work shaping palliative and end of life care focus.
11:47 Integrating end-of-life doulas in comprehensive care planning and support.
18:48 The importance of having proactive, intentional discussions about end-of-life preferences within couples.
32:54 The role of spiritual practices and emotional connection in navigating end-of-life conversations within relationships.
38:29 Cultivating readiness and practical tools for end-of-life conversations.
Your Check List of Actions to Take
- Start end-of-life planning conversations early on to ensure clarity and alignment with personal values and desires.
- Utilize tools and frameworks to improve communication within relationships and support difficult discussions.
- Seek external support or an advocate to bridge communication gaps when necessary in relationships.
- Create detailed end-of-life plans, including wishes, concerns, and desires to provide clarity to loved ones.
- Explore and understand your own relationship dynamics before engaging in shared relationship discussions.
- Respect individual choices and meet people where they are in regards to end-of-life conversations.
- Provide wraparound support for patients and families to address uncertainties and ensure safety in relationships.
- Offer holistic end-of-life care through collaboration with doulas and healthcare professionals to support patients and families in their journey.
Mentioned
Relationship Map To Happy, Lasting Love
Connect with Dr. Bob and Elizabeth Uslander
Websites: empoweredendings.com
Facebook: facebook.com/empowerendings
YouTube: youtube.com/@Empowered-Endings
Instagram: instagram.com/empowered_endings_
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/empowered-endings
Connect with Dr. Jessica Higgins
Facebook: facebook.com/EmpoweredRelationship
Instagram: instagram.com/drjessicahiggins
Podcast: drjessicahiggins.com/podcasts/
Pinterest: pinterest.com/EmpowerRelation
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/drjessicahiggins
Twitter: @DrJessHiggins
Website: drjessicahiggins.com
Email: jessica@drjessicahiggins.com
About Today’s Show
Bob and Elizabeth, thank you for being here with us.
Thank you for having us.
Thank you.
Yes, this is an important topic that I know doesn’t probably get enough attention in the way of the end-of-life phase, and you both have a way in which you support partners and couples in approaching this topic. Before we get started into that focus for today, would you be willing to share, with people who maybe don’t know you, a little bit about yourselves, what got you interested in this focus or this area?
Sure. Do you want to start?
Sure. I’m Bob, of course. I started out as an emergency physician, I started my career in emergency medicine. I chose that field for a number of reasons, primarily because I felt like being an ER doctor would allow me to really be what I thought of as the true comprehensive Doctor, who could deal with anything that came up at any moment, practicing in the emergency rooms. But also, if I was out in a movie and somebody collapsed, I would know what to do and I’d be able to just support.
I had a long and pretty successful, I thought, career, as an emergency physician. But after a while, one of the things that started really just troubling me was the way that people were being cared for as they were older, and when they had complex illnesses. I felt like the system just wasn’t being very sensitive, that we were barreling ahead and trying to save people who really would never want to be saved; they would never want to have all the resuscitation and hospital admissions and be brought into the medical conveyor belt.
I ended up helping a good friend of mine go through the end-of-life journey about 10 years into my practice, and it really opened my eyes to a different way. I saw hospice care for the first time, and realized that there was a different way that people could approach the end-of-life experience. That planted a seed in me, and then about 10 to 15 years later, I was looking for a transition. I was ready to transition out of emergency medicine, and I just fell into palliative care and hospice. I say I fell into it, but really, I was called to it. I had sort of a clear epiphany that it was my calling, that was where I was meant to be.
One thing led to another, and about 10 years ago, I was hired to help develop a palliative care program and work in the Hospice Arena in San Diego. So I started going to people’s homes and helping them navigate their complex and challenging illnesses, and supporting them as they were dying. I became aware of so many gaps in the system that were causing people to suffer unnecessarily and needlessly. Both of my parents went through their end-of-life journeys, and I helped support them. Just understanding what it was on the other side, to be a family member, through that journey.
I got inspired to start my own practice in 2016, and a short while later, I met Elizabeth and she joined the practice. Then together, we really transformed it and created what is now Empowered Endings, which is a collective of several entities that all share the vision of supporting people in having the best possible end-of-life journey, and empowering them and supporting their loved ones. We’ll share more about that.
But that’s my story. I couldn’t imagine being in a better place. I couldn’t imagine doing anything that was more meaningful and fulfilling. I couldn’t imagine doing it with somebody who I had more respect, compassion, and who inspires me more. What about you?
Yeah, Elizabeth, I would love to hear from you. I just also want to say, Bob, as you’re describing, it sounds like you and your company and your business is offering an alternative to what they may have been exposed to in more allopathic medicine. Also, how you’ve come through it, it’s been very comprehensive, and your vantage point. Then also, Elizabeth, you bring such value here too. So would you be willing to share a little bit more here too?
Of course. My journey is a little bit more of a long-winding road, not so much a direct shot into medicine. So my journey started actually with a personal journey. At a really young age, I was exposed to and had the opportunity to explore a wide variety of spiritual practices, which really shaped my life and my work and my passion. I had my first Hindu guru when I was four years old, my first Lakota Sioux shaman when I was 12. I studied Buddhism in Sri Lanka when I was 16 on a fellowship, and just on and on and on from there. But I didn’t realize that I was going to go into spiritual care or social work. I was always really interested in social services, and that was the focus of my work. But through a series of life events, I was redirected. I ended up going to seminary, and not going into serving the church for a variety of reasons. So then I went looking for how I could be really of service to people one-on-one, and went into social work. In the intersection of spiritual care and social work, is how I ended up in palliative and end-of-life care.
Everything that I went through in my life—a major health crisis, the loss of my daughter’s father, subsequent loss of many friends and family—helped me to really understand what it is to be in those valleys of shadows of death, of deep loss, and of feeling isolated and confused and scared and disconnected. Really not knowing where to turn, or who to talk to, or how to move through those things, in a way that was healthy or safe.
That shaped my focus in this space on family members in particular. So supporting patients and navigating their journey and transition, especially with my interest in spiritual care transitions and practices. Because the end-of-life transition is certainly one that focuses on the veil, and different kinds of things that can happen. And what we now understand as spiritual, which I think is probably just immeasurable, scientific things that we haven’t figured out how to understand yet. But the focus on partnering with the families and supporting them and supporting their loved ones, and partnering with the providers, like my husband, in supporting the whole system, and partnering with all of the people who are part of that system. It was really shaped by my personal experience as much as my professional experience.
Wow, I’m just impressed about what all you’ve brought together. As you’re describing, Elizabeth, both the understanding of the spiritual context, and then also the system’s perspective of social work, and the interconnectedness of relating and families, and also just this very profound time in one’s life and the end-of-life. Also, just again, the medicine and the providers and the care that’s offered and how that’s treated. It sounds like it’s just quite special what you both are offering.
Before we dive into this topic, I’m just curious, are you assisting people in a greater way? Or is this more localized? You’re in San Diego, California. Is this something other people in other regions can access?
The direct care that we deliver is predominantly in Southern California; LA, Orange County, the Palm Desert areas. But I am able to care for, and we do provide care for people throughout California in some capacity. We’re building an educational institute and programs that will be able to support people in various ways throughout the country, and then, hopefully globally.
So it’s almost as if you have a model that others could replicate, and/or you consult and that helps provide this path for people who maybe don’t have it as an option.
Exactly. So we have a medical practice in San Diego that’s been operational for seven or eight years, and we have been recognizing the transformative experiences that patients and families have had. So we actually started systematizing the practice, so that we could identify how other people could create these same transformative experiences. So that is something that’s going to be possible for people to do. Doctors and doulas throughout the country could recreate the model that we have. We also have the institute which offers programming, but also a resource library and an online community. So people of all places and interests—like-minded professionals, community members who are interested, care planners, providers—anyone who really wants to connect and explore these topics will be able to come together and do that together, with different topics and resources and experts who can help guide them and connect with them and share their experience too.
Well, you mentioned doula, and I know a lot of people know doulas as it relates to supporting a birthing, a person being born. Then there’s also death doulas, which are helping people transition. It’s sounding as if with this comprehensive wraparound systems, multiple providers, like people have birth plans, I’m wondering if there’s even a way in which someone wants to. It might not be so clearly done, but that there’s an intentionality to it. Am I hearing that?
Absolutely, an important part of our model is to offer planning for people. Not just the planning that a doctor might do in the 15 minutes that they’re allotted when the patient comes to the office. But to really sit and explore, with the patient and their loved ones, only if the patient is open to engaging them at that point, and just exploring the things that are most important to them; what they value, what they’re afraid of, what they’re excited about.
Then help create a plan that gets documented clearly and in great detail, and also communicated to their loved ones, so that we can open up a conversation that allows people to question some of the things that have been identified in that plan. So that as things unfold, it doesn’t come as a surprise that mom might want to go through medical aid and dying if she has a terminal condition and she’s struggling. Or that she might want to stop eating and drinking and allow herself to die naturally if she reaches certain thresholds. So those are the valuable conversations. It also looks at what kinds of rituals they might want around the time of death, what kind of celebration they might want, how they would want their remains to be disposed of, and all those things. So the doulas, we work very closely and we’re engaging in training doulas and helping build partnerships between doctors and doulas, which is something that’s really exciting and novel, I think.
Yeah, one of the unique things about the practice is actually that, to our knowledge, it’s the only medical practice that partners with doulas. It’s the only space in the field of medicine where doulas are really legitimized and have an opportunity to do what they do. Right now, like you said, the birthing movement is a bit of a model, where it used to be a doctor and a pregnant mother in a hospital, and that was it, and it was a very medical experience. Well, long before that, it was not a medical experience. So the birthing movement was to really bring back the holistic and what’s possible, and to help people understand that they can choose what it is that they want that experience to be, and create different spaces, like holistic birthing centers, and having midwives and doulas be the primary planners and providers through that.
Similarly, there’s a giant movement of people who want to provide that kind of holistic, attentive companionship and guidance, through the end-of-life journey, who are really passionate about being present with patients and families. Some hospice nurses who have been working in the field for decades, who have become disillusioned with the way that hospice is about now more the bottom line and the documentation and the billing, instead of about being with the people who are in this journey. Those people are really passionate, and they don’t really have anywhere to practice. They can be hospice volunteers, or they can have private businesses. But there isn’t really a referral mechanism, and there isn’t really a way to partner with healthcare professionals. So that’s part of what we are trying to change. We really want to help integrate doulas into end-of-life care, because they bring such extraordinary value, and in particular, the companionship and the presencing—like you said, a system of people who are going through this journey—is so important.
Absolutely. Well, I want to back up. I know the show is geared towards people in relationship who are navigating partnership and long-term intimacy. As we’re talking about end-of-life stage, there are many people that have the awareness that it’s coming, whether or not it’s through some diagnoses or illness or indicators that alert them too, or just their age and sense of things that that phase is approaching or is coming. There are other people where this doesn’t happen, it’s more sudden or accidental or unexpected and tragic. One of the things that it sounds like you both do is to help people, or just even through this educational piece, to give honor to end-of-life. Also in couplehood, to have these conversations, where typically, like you’re saying, maybe the first time someone is talking about it is with their doctor, when really, we could be having these types of conversations in couplehood much earlier. Can you say a little bit more about just the conversations and how couples might be able to approach this or discuss this?
Well, I think it’s really important, first of all, for people to explore. I think one of the things that’s really important is to understand our own relationship with who we are and what we want, and how that might look. Sometimes those are things that we process in couplehood. Sometimes those are things that it’s important to self-reflect before we bring to the relationship. I think one thing that’s really interesting is that a lot of people might have different ideas; a spouse might want to do something some way, and their loved one might want to do something a different way. So I think that’s one of the main reasons that it’s really important to talk about these things. If we’ve lived together for a long time, we may assume that we know and understand what our loved one wants, and we may be surprised. We may be surprised at what thresholds they have in terms of treatment care and options. We may be surprised at what options they may want to engage. It can be, I think, really challenging to make those decisions on someone’s behalf in a crisis moment if we haven’t explored them in advance.
“I think the most important thing is actually being able to understand what it is that we want, and communicate openly with our partners about that. So that they don’t get caught by surprise, and aren’t stuck in a position of having to choose something that maybe feels misaligned for them, because they haven’t come to totally accept or understand it before they have to do that one.”
One of the services that we provide for people is support through medical aid and dying, which is legal in California and in 10 states now. When we meet with people who have been diagnosed with a terminal condition, and their life is coming to an end, and they choose to explore this option. When often, we meet with people whose families are very aware and ready for this, because they’ve been having these conversations for a long time.
You can see a big difference between families that have and families that haven’t.
Totally. It’s like, they’re not happy that they’re losing their loved one, the spouse or the children. But it doesn’t come as a surprise, because they’ve been talking about it. They’ve said: “If I ever get to a point where I need to be on pain medication, to the point where I’m not able to communicate. Or I lose my ability to do X, Y or Z. I’m just going to check out.” There’s different ways. But when that’s a conversation that’s been present, it’s a different experience. Than, when somebody just springs it on their family and says: I just heard about this thing and this option, and everyone now is having to figure out how to accept that.
I met with a family yesterday, a gentleman who’s gotten bass liver disease and is really struggling. They’ve been told that it’s possible that he could get a liver transplant, but it wouldn’t be able to happen for a few months, and he’s been hospitalized several times. You could tell that he’s just done with all that he’s suffering, one complication after another. His wife of 35 years and his daughter are wanting to support him, but there’s a part of them that’s also wanting him to push forward and do everything possible to get more time. One of the things that I often hear is that the patient says: “I’ve done so much, I’ve lived my life, there’s nothing else left for me to live for.” I hear him say that, and I understand what he means. But I also look at his family, and I can feel what it would be like to have somebody say I have nothing left to live for, and wanting to say: what about me, what about us? Aren’t we enough to want to live for?
It could take them off track. That when the focus is around the way in which somebody has the capacity and the functioning to engage, that can impact the quality of connection. So it’s not so much that you’re not worth living for, but how I’m able to engage in function greatly impacts my ability to experience that interconnectedness. Thus, it informs the lens. But that’s not at all spelled out, just even that first language.
So that’s exactly the thing, I think in terms of these conversations, is sometimes people say things that are understood a certain way, but actually what they mean is something very different. That’s one of my favorite things in terms of providing support to families in these journeys, is when I hear these stories or when I’m in these spaces with these families, I hear the words that this person is saying. But I know that he’s not saying, my wife and daughter are not worth living for.
So if that’s what they’re hearing, then it’s really valuable and important to have someone there who can catch that and actually mitigate the impact of it. That on the off-chance that that is what they’re thinking, being able to, in the same way that you are, reflect back. I can understand that this feels like an amount of suffering that you don’t feel like you should have to live with, and exploring maybe what are the things that bring quality of life. So that that can evoke the articulation of his love for his family, and evoke the articulation of the things that he has enjoyed and the legacy that he feels like he has, and all of the wonderful things that are also there. But that’s not the focus, because of the pain and suffering that he’s experiencing.
Well, it sounds like you’re assisting and allowing that connection and nurturing that bond through these very tough conversations, so that it doesn’t become an injury and that it plays a disconnection, that then creates a layer of separation through this very profound time.
Then more complex, grief and guilt and regret. So when I’m with this family, I note these things. Sometimes I’ll dive into it, and other times I will send in Elizabeth. So now, I met with his family yesterday, and today a couple of our doulas are going to be reaching out to go and deeply explore these.
You might have to earmark it, as you’re maybe doing some of the medical health. Not that you’re not able to go there, but that if you’re staying focused on some of the more physical and medical, then you can say, here’s some places to revisit.
I can go there, but I can’t do it at the same depth at the same level as people who are trained grief counselors and spiritual counselors. So I recognize I have my role and my place, and I will not do more damage, but I rely on my team.
Well, and it takes away from your expertise to be able to offer what you’re doing. If you go a different route, then maybe you’re not able to provide what you would provide as a physician.
It’s fascinating, because it happens the other way as well. I often hear patients say, because they’re struggling, they’re needing more care and more attention: “I’m ready to go, I don’t want to be a burden to my family anymore.” That’s a different area of potential conflict and challenge, because we don’t want the families to feel like the reason the person is choosing not to continue living or to accept certain treatments or go a certain route, is to not be a burden to their loved ones.
Or not having these conversations. I’ve heard so many stories where they are worried about being a burden, and then they don’t even initiate a conversation, or it’s a little too late and their loved ones are in this position of like: “Had I known, and we could have worked together or there could have been something.” Not to say that it would maybe have changed the result, but that the quality, and you’re giving me the eyes that maybe it would.
I think that’s one of the things that’s so valuable about having this wraparound support, is that those opportunities are not lost.
“No one has ever died before. There are people who may have near-death experiences, that’s a fair point. But the vast majority of people have never died before, and for the vast majority of people, every death and every loss is different. So you can’t really be informed in advance about what it’s going to be like, even if you’ve been through it before.”
So not knowing is really one of the key issues that families, and particular patients as well, experience the uncertainty, not knowing what to say, not knowing whether to say this or that, not knowing how much to share, not knowing how exactly where those lines are, how it might impact your loved ones. Having that wraparound support, from people who’ve been through this with hundreds and hundreds of families, really helps to create the space and gently—very, very gently, in a very nourishing way—draw out those things that are common experiences. Draw out those things that might be evident to us but just under the surface for them, and help to create a sense of safety in exploring these really touching, and sometimes really painful, things that people are living with or thinking about or wondering about or dealing with.
I think that’s one of the most important things that’s really missing in the medical healthcare approach to this, is the safety. The ability to connect deeply with your doctor and have that really intimate and trauma preventative doctor-patient relationship. The ability to connect deeply throughout the journey, so that when you have questions in the middle of the night, you actually can reach someone who knows you and knows your family and knows what your goals are. So the uncertainty is lifted, and the sense of security is created. It’s extraordinary, the healing that really happens just through that connection. It’s not necessarily about curing a disease in a lot of cases anymore, because a lot of these people are living with a terminal illness. But there’s still so much healing that can happen, and much of it is around that relationship with themselves and the relationships with their loved ones.
Absolutely, thank you. So as we’re talking, I’m curious, as you’re recommending people to have these conversations, at what point? I mean, how young would you recommend, and to what extent? I know there’s a depth that you’re offering that’s obvious when one is approaching the end-of-life. But if one doesn’t foresee it coming, these are still good conversations, but perhaps won’t be as deep. But what would you say about when and how much to cover?
It’s never too soon. I think one of the things that’s really valuable about starting young is you start to explore these ideas. Of course things change over time.
“If you start having these conversations in your 30s, even younger if you want, but in your 30s or 40s, by the time you’re experiencing your end-of-life journey, you’ve processed through things; you’ve learned more about yourself, you’ve learned more about your relationships and how you want to live, which is what really informs how you want to die.”
So I would say it’s never too soon.
I agree. Certainly when people are reaching, they’re entering into their 50s or 60s, it becomes a bit more timely. If you’re diagnosed with a particular condition, even if it’s not a terminal condition, if you have a heart attack, or if you’re diagnosed with a neurologic condition, certainly at that time, having a deeper conversation exploration with your family, for sure, and ideally with a healthcare professional who can guide you through this exploration. But even in your 20s and 30s, people get in car accidents and things happen. There’s no downside to it, and it really can prevent it. To me, I see it as a gift to your loved ones, as a gift to your family, to give them the information that they might need in the case of an unexpected, tragic situation.
Well, and also as you’re both holding the relationship, the love, and if one feels connected and has a spiritual practice, that there’s a frame. That even in a tragic crisis event, there’s still this frame or context to hold with the person that’s died or passed. That could be some support, even amidst the tragedy.
For sure. So my daughter’s father died in a car accident when she was nine. Having moved through the grief, that was years ago, and certainly not being on the other side of it, because it stays with you forever. But she’s now 19, and I’m 41, and we talk about it. We talk about what happens if something happens to me or to her. We talk about it less in terms of what care options we would want, though we talk about those things too. But we talk about our relationship, and we talk about what it means, and we talk about how we might feel and what would be important. That’s the same thing with my mom, who I won’t say her age, because she really never tells, but who is closer to her understanding of her sense of mortality, and talking about that with her as well. Knowing and understanding that some of her treatment thresholds have to do with just wanting to say goodbye, and wanting to make sure that there’s an opportunity to be connected one last time with her loved ones before letting go.
“I think the conversations, as you’re describing, they’re not just about understanding what should happen. They’re also about understanding how to integrate the experience, and how to deal with that emotional impact and what to do with it, and helping our loved ones get a sense of how the evolution of relationship could happen, before it needs to.”
Yeah, I know we could go down this road, and I know we don’t have time for it. But in my experience, and some of the people that I’ve interviewed who really work in the grief space, there’s such a connection between grief and love. So to be able to support this end-of-life, in whatever form that takes, can be a real honoring of that love and relationship. I’m touched by that.
I also recognize, you’ve mentioned, just to pivot back to supporting people and having these conversations. If a couple are in disagreement, or perhaps there’s fear that prevents people from even wanting to have these conversations, what are some recommendations that might assist people? I mean, the way we’re talking about it is like, we’re just all in support of each other, and it’s just got a natural flow. Sometimes it doesn’t work like that. Sometimes there’s little blocks or interferences that sometimes make this difficult.
I think the first thing I’ll say, and I’ll let you speak a little bit more to that, is just how important it is to meet people where they are, and to let them have the choice that they deserve in whatever it is that they are experiencing or choose to experience. So some people who don’t want to talk about it have the right to not talk about it. As wonderful as it would be for their loved ones, or for whatever it is that we’re exploring to have that opportunity to discuss it, everybody gets to choose their path, and meeting them where they are, is really important. Exploring if there is a way to talk about it, if there’s a way that we can help them. But if they choose not to, I think it’s also really important to respect that some people are not open to, ready for, or able to communicate about those things.
I agree 100%. I haven’t come across many situations where with time and additional conversation, we’re not able to get to a place of alignment. Each dynamic, each relationship will have its own facets and challenges and gifts. There may be times when because of religious beliefs, or because of some other previous life experience, there is an unwillingness or a fear in exploring certain things or being supportive of certain things.
“When you get to the point where you really can’t bridge that, one of the things that we’ll often recommend is, for the person to find another person, somebody else who can be their agent, their proper attorney, who will be able to honor them in the face of things unfolding where the person can’t communicate or make their own decisions, and they need somebody to step in and be their voice and make those decisions.”
Because sometimes a spouse can’t do it, and that doesn’t mean that the person shouldn’t have the support that they want. So we can find a friend or a child or somebody else, and allow the spouse to sort of bow out of that role. It doesn’t happen often, it’s pretty unusual in our experience.
Yeah, it sounds like there’s a recognition of readiness. Maybe even just before launching into the conversation, there could be this query of: “I want to discuss this. Are you open or do you feel ready to have this conversation?” At least that just starts planting the seed, and then with enough time and space and consideration, that perhaps there could be an evolution around approaching in a gentle paced way, and people can share and explore. I really like, Elizabeth, your recommendation of just trying to get clear individually, so that there’s something to reveal or show and some ownership of that. Then in the couple dynamic, perhaps there’s a way in which they evolve, how they can support each other. You’re saying if that doesn’t end up getting to a place that feels workable, then there are other supports to give one what they’re needing, even despite their partner not being available to participate.
Yeah. I mean, your work is in transformational relationships. So you know I think, and probably have explored in a great number of podcasts, about what are those tools that help people communicate, like the language of the eye. There are tons of different frameworks and options that you can use to really more effectively meet each other where you are. I feel that’s part of why starting as early as you can, is so helpful. As you said, the evolution over time, the pacing when it’s gentle, so it doesn’t feel abrupt or assaultive if you have different perspectives. It’s really just to give and create that space, so that you can gently, in nourishing, nurturing ways, move through those things that are more challenging or painful.
One of the services that we’re very excited about that we’re building into our model, we’ve been doing this already, but we’re looking to expand it and do it in a richer, more robust way, is doing this planning with individuals and families. We’re developing a platform that we can go through with them, and create this very detailed and meaningful digital document. So they’ll go through this exploration with one of us or one of our doulas, to explore their wishes, their concerns, and get everything documented well. If they desire, we will also have a follow-up conversation with their family system, so that these things can be explained and explored. They can create a video that expresses their wishes and desires, even more detailed, it gets uploaded. Then they get a card with a QR code on it, so that anywhere they are, if that QR code is scanned, it will provide those documents and access to that video. So that if they end up in a hospital in some area while they’re traveling, whoever wants and needs access to this really well-thought-out, really well-documented plan, has access to it. That’s something that we can do for people anywhere, so we’re very excited about that.
“Those conversations can sometimes be the spark for some other really deep, meaningful deepening of the relationships, and appreciation for things that were not known before or were not explored before.”
Yeah. Even in this share around how people can start to engage with your work and what you’re both working on, it’s almost like the way I’m imagining is, I’ve heard people have the ICE contact in their phone, and maybe even in the note section, or even under their actual, depending on what type of phone. I have an iPhone, so I have my own contact. But there’s a note, and you could have the QR code there, how practical that is. Then also, just what it provides in this interconnected relational way, it’s really powerful.
Well, I know you have another appointment to get to, I want to honor that. Tell people a little bit more around how they can connect with your Empowered Endings business and what you want to share here.
Sounds great. So our website is EmpoweredEndings.com. It’s a robust repository of information resources. It’s actually building, being added to on a regular basis, as we develop more of the content for our Institute and the resources. But there’s information about the medical practice and the services that we provide. There’s information about the institute and the community that we’re preparing to open up and launch and support; a community of healthcare providers who are interested in engaging with others who share their passion and their belief that end-of-life care needs to be done better. We need to be able to give people what they need, not just what’s covered. So we’re building a community. Then we have the foundation, the Empowered Endings Foundation, which is providing free resources and support for people.
Is that a different website?
It’s on the same website.
So you can get everything; our history, our team, the medical group, every service that we offer, the institute. Some of it is already built out, like we have a webinar that’s coming up in April that talks about end-of-life options and models of care. The resource library, which we’re actually also building out. The online community, which we’re about to launch. Speaking opportunities, so being able to connect with different members of our team and how we educate in the community. We provide a lot of free education in the community, which we really love to do, building connections and exploring. Then the foundation is also on the website, and healthcare partnerships as well. So not just teaching, but really working together and finding ways to connect more with people who are in this field and wanting to make changes.
Wonderful, I’ll make sure to have those links on today’s show notes. It’s been such an honor and a privilege to meet with you both. Thank you for what you’re doing.
Thank you so much for having us. This was a real nice connection, thank you.
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Ever wondered how happy couples navigate irreconcilable differences and still thrive? Arguments in relationships are both inevitable and impactful. While they often stir up feelings of frustration, anger, and sadness, they also hold the potential for profound growth and understanding between partners. When managed with care and intention, conflicts can uncover deep-seated issues, foster better communication, and ultimately strengthen the bond.
In this episode, we explore how conflicts can become opportunities for growth and deeper connection. By focusing on emotional regulation, curiosity, and taking responsibility, couples can navigate differences with more understanding and empathy. Learn practical strategies for creating a safe environment and fostering open communication, transforming challenges into stepping stones for a stronger, more empowered relationship. Gain valuable insights and actionable tips to help you and your partner grow together through the ups and downs.
Linda Bloom, L.C.S.W. is a psychotherapist and marriage counselor who teaches relationship workshops throughout the world. She and her husband, Charlie Bloom are co-authors of the widely acclaimed book, 101 Things I Wish I Knew When I Got Married, Simple Lessons to Make Love Last, and Secrets of Great Marriages: Real Truths from Real Couples About Lasting Love, An End to Arguing: 101 Valuable Lessons for All Relationships and more.
In this episode
4:20 Cultivating a thirst for growth: Linda Bloom’s path to a harmonious relationship with her husband after a rocky beginning.
12:51 Balancing differences: How mutual respect and curiosity foster harmonious relationships.
19:02 Mastering the art of handling differences: A key to achieving optimal relational well-being for couples.
27:24 Strategies for managing heated conversations and building stronger connections in relationships.
37:46 Navigating conflicts through emotional regulation and sincere communication.
44:56 How emotional maturity and practical resources can strengthen your relationship.
Your Check List of Actions to Take
- Seek Professional Support: Consider consulting therapists, workshop leaders, or spiritual teachers to help navigate and resolve differences within your relationship.
- Understand Love Languages: Identify and cater to your partner’s love language—whether it be touch, words of affirmation, acts of service, or quality time—to foster deeper emotional connections.
- Practice Mindfulness: Tune into your body to recognize signs of tension and ground yourself before engaging in difficult conversations.
- Create a Safe Environment: Establish a foundation of safety and security that allows for vulnerability, honesty, and open communication.
- Embrace Emotional Regulation: Take breaks during heated discussions to calm down and engage your prefrontal cortex, avoiding reactive responses.
- Apologize Sincerely: Offer genuine apologies and take steps to make amends, demonstrating care and commitment to your partner.
- Engage in Deep Listening: Practice slow, meditative communication to fully understand your partner’s perspective, improving mutual respect and intimacy.
- Commit to Ongoing Learning: Continuously develop relationship skills such as negotiation, conflict management, and emotional regulation to enhance your relationship’s strength and resilience.
Mentioned
101 Things I Wish I Knew When I Got Married: Simple Lessons to Make Love Last (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
Secrets of Great Marriages: Real Truth from Real Couples about Lasting Love (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
An End to Arguing: 101 Valuable Lessons for All Relationships (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
The Gottman Institute
Connect with Linda Bloom****
Websites: bloomwork.com
Facebook: facebook.com/lindaandcharliebloom
X (twitter): twitter.com/bloomwork
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Instagram: instagram.com/linda_charlie_bloom
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/lindacbloom
Tumblr: tumblr.com/linda-charlie-bloom-blog
Connect with Dr. Jessica Higgins
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Podcast: drjessicahiggins.com/podcasts/
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LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/drjessicahiggins
Twitter: @DrJessHiggins
Website: drjessicahiggins.com
Email: jessica@drjessicahiggins.com
About Today’s Show
Linda, thank you for joining us.
I’m delighted to be here with you today.
Yes, me too. I remember you were a guest previously. So for people who missed that episode, I’ll make sure to put that link on today’s episode show notes. Today, I know you were interested in talking with us about the concept of ending an argument—or just ending arguing, period—in a relationship.
Before we get started on our topic, is there anything you want to share about where you’re coming from as it relates to intimacy, for people who don’t know you or maybe missed that other episode? Just as far as you guiding couples and individuals negotiating long-term intimacy, what’s your orientation? What’s your focus on how you typically are helping in this way?
Well, my husband and I, last year, had our 50th wedding anniversary. We had a fabulous celebration. People flew in from the east coast, and we had a recommitment ceremony. It was really quite wonderful. It was a celebration of how far we’ve come. We have learned so much over the years, and we enjoy a really beautiful relationship now that’s characterized by a lot: of harmony, and cooperation, and co-creativity.
But this has not always been the case for a relationship. When we started out, we were really pretty raw and young and green, and didn’t have good models in our family of origin. But we got good help. He had some therapists, workshop leaders, and spiritual teachers, and friends, who really helped us to learn the skills that we needed. A signature strength of both my husband and myself is that we’re hungry learners; we’re committed learners. We did learn a lot. So since we’re in the field, and it’s our specialty to pass along all that we’ve learned about how to have an empowered relationship, a great relationship, it’s really quite wonderful to be able to pass on what we’ve learned.
I’m a recovered hothead, and my husband is a recovered hothead. I really was never ever in danger of dying on the vine from boredom. But there was a time when we thought it may burn to death and just be overly crisp. We had some irreconcilable differences, some really basic value differences, when our children were really small. My husband worked a lot then, and I was not happy about it. Because we had made an agreement that we were going to have a partnership where we raise the children together, and that we were going to mutually support each other’s careers. But because his career was so demanding for some period of time, I had to put my career on hold. And I’m really a career woman and I was not a happy camper to have to do that.
So that’s when we were motivated, when we were in the fire. That’s when we were motivated to learn how to handle differences well. Most of the couples who come to us have a lot of trouble with that. So it has empowered us to empower them about how to do it really gracefully.
Well, just as you’re describing some of these early beginnings that really helped you connect with the idea and all the framework and the principles and the deep work to use intimacy in relationship as an opportunity for growth. Both of you being in a growth mindset was really helpful. You also really sought support for leaders and guides and therapists and coaches and friends and people that can offer some perspective. So being willing to take input and get support was really helpful.
Also, just recognizing your agreement. It sounded like, while you had the agreement and intention to work together and share the domestic load, the parenting load, to some degree, when it came to live practice, it was happening differently. I think that happens for a lot of people, whether or not they don’t explicitly get clear on their agreements, or they find themselves perpetuating things unconsciously, and then recognize as they’re living it that it’s not working or that it’s leading to this conflict. Sometimes we can only anticipate so much, and when we’re in it, we can recognize the differences that seem insurmountable at times. This was one of the things you’re saying, that was the big alert and thing that helped you turn attention towards your relationship and how you were doing. Is that right?
That’s exactly right. It was comforting to find out that the happiest couples have plenty of differences, and they sometimes have some differences that are irreconcilable. But if you have many parts of your relationship that work for you, it offsets the part that doesn’t. Like, you can have five things that are really wonderful; you can have a great sexual relationship, you can both be devoted to your children, you can mutually support each other’s careers, you can have spiritual practice in common, you can have your values. Any kind of values: being active politically, spiritual practice. But the strengths will offset the parts where you do not agree, where you have different styles of being in the world. Some people process information differently. Some people really are very mental and cerebral about the way they process information, and some people are so heart-centered in their feelings.
“It was so comforting to me to find that you can have differences, you just need to make a big space. The spaciousness, the respect for the differences, and learning from the differences, is so essential.”
My husband is quite introverted. He needs a lot of time alone. When he’s stressed, he needs to go inside. He’s very introspective; he needs to go behind a closed door, maybe go off on retreat alone. I used to take that so personally and feel rejected or feel sorry for myself. Too bad, he doesn’t want me very much. Because I’m so extremely extroverted, I’ve got a list of 20 people that I call and reach out to if I’m troubled by something, if I’m confused, if I’m challenged. I need to talk about it. Because I figure out what I want to do, how I’m feeling about it, and what my options are, while I’m talking. And he has stretched into my world, God bless him, he listens to me, and I feel so given to because it’s a need that I have. But I have my support network in place, because my need as an extrovert to talk things through and process things through extroverted style is too much for just one person. So I have to spread it around.
Yes, that makes a lot of sense. I don’t know if you’ve ever come across this. But the Gottman Institute, I believe it’s been quoted that every relationship has at least seven to eight irreconcilable differences. When I came across that, I know I’ve referenced that many times on this show. But I just find it really helpful for people to consider that you have individuals who have completely different personalities, who come from different backgrounds, perhaps even different cultures, and there’s going to be differences. I remember culturally, both of my husband and I are American, but he’s from the Midwest and I’m from the Pacific Northwest. I would go for holiday, and we would have an appointed time that we were going to go somewhere. And they’re all in the front room, living room, by the door, ready to go, 15 or 20 minutes early, just sitting there. I’m like, what are they all doing, why are they sitting? I still have 15 minutes of things that I wanted to do. It didn’t even occur to me. So anyway, just on time, more spontaneous one and the planner, so there’s all these differences, the spender and the saver. So what you’re recognizing here is that there are differences.
I love that you’re referencing, in a long-term relationship, when there is enough of that counteracting, and I would even wonder too, that secure functioning, where the bond and the love and the respect and the goodwill and that ability to really see each other is maintained or is established or is nurtured, then there is a little bit more capacity to tolerate some of those differences. Or to have the space that you’re talking about, to really recognize and maybe not take things as personally, or learn how to work with one another on those differences.
Just lastly, as you’re talking about the arc of being together for 50 years, I am sure you’ve come across Jung. I think Carl Jung was talking about how we learn from one another, that we begin to integrate and learn from the strengths of our partner, maybe parts that are underdeveloped. So my husband is also more of an introvert—we haven’t been together for 50 years, but almost 20—and to recognize the value that comes from that contemplation, that introspection, that downtime, when I have a little bit more of a temperament to be out in the world and be extroverted. I feel like I’ve learned from him or vice versa. So I wonder if you see that as well.
Absolutely, we have learned so much from each other. He has taught me that there is a big difference between being alone and being lonely. I had those mixed up years ago. I really value alone time now, peaceful alone time, and that I can journal, that I can meditate, that I can contemplate, and I don’t have to fear it. It’s very important. I like to think, and I think if he was here, he would tell you, that he’s learned a lot about connecting, but really connecting in an open, vulnerable, a feeling way. To be able to speak about it when he’s sad, or afraid, or feels hurt, or lonely. The male conditioning, we’re well into the 21st century, but the men are still getting some version of big boys don’t cry, and it’s hard on relationships.
One of the things that we teach, we almost always teach together. We usually teach together, so people can get the male and the female point of view, and the introvert and the extrovert point of view, and they can get Mr. spontaneity and Ms. form and structure and planning. To see that you can be very different. But if you bring curiosity and wonder, you can learn from each other, and it enhances your relationship.
You mentioned John and Julie Gottman. I know them, I’ve read all of their books, I’ve taken their classes, and I have a very high regard for their books and their research. They are very clear that they see the couples when they first fall in love, and then they see them decades later, they did not homogenize; they’ve got the same differences that they came with, decades later. But the really wise ones, the empowered couples, the ones that brought curiosity and that kind of wisdom of wanting to learn from each other, have been so enhanced by it. They’re the ones who made the big space and really respect the differences well. So they don’t fight so much. They have their differences, they may be strong, they may even have impassioned and intense interchanges. But they know where that line is, where it turns into an argument, where it’s not just a debate and a fruitful exchange. That very crucial moment, when you want to coerce the other person to do something different; thinking about it differently, having a different attitude or a different behavior. That’s when you get into trouble.
“When people start to feel like they’re being made bad and wrong, they get reactive, and then they want to fight back. It’s human nature to want to do that. So to have that interchange, but to be so mindful in the way that you do it, that you come to an understanding. Not necessarily agreement, but an understanding of each other’s point of view, that’s highly respectful.”
Now, Linda, as you’re describing, do you feel that having this secure functioning, if you will, of having this curiosity, this regard, this respect, is critical to shifting out of arguing and more of this exchange that’s fruitful?
I do think it’s critical. I think it’s one of the reasons that couples don’t reach the highest levels of well-being that a relationship can reach. They can be close, they can enjoy each other, they can have comfort and security. But for those of us who have the ambition to be an empowered co-creative couple, you have to have mastery in the dealing with differences as part of your relationship. Of course, that’s not the only requirement for entrance into the highest levels that relationship can be. But it is one of the really critical parts that we must have mastery in that area. If people understood the enormous benefits, the bonanza payoffs that come with it, they would want to learn these skills. How to speak the truth of our experience without the blame and judgment in it, to speak from our heart, to speak about our feelings and our needs, to be willing to be courageous enough to be vulnerable and to open up, and to be a committed listener. This is all speaking from our experience, not from our mind, which is full of opinions and is often critical, coming from a very deep place in ourselves.
We were mentioning some of the people who have been profound teachers, and I mentioned the Gottmans. But Sylvia Boorstein is also a really important teacher for me. She’s a Buddhist teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area. She gave me the title of Talking Meditation. I had something that I was doing already, but I didn’t have a name for it. It’s slowing down the rate of the interchange of our talking, speaking, and listening in a very slow meditative way. So that we take in what someone is sending to us, and really be with it and feel into it, before we shoot back our message. And when two people are doing that, you can drop down to a deep level of communication. Even these subjects that are hot and fiery, and we’ve got sore spots about them, maybe distrust, feeling threatened. It’s usually money, sex, power of decision-making, rearing the children, household tasks, and the in-laws. Those are the top issues that couples get into these fights about.
“If you can slow down, and you use those difficult, challenging subjects, to really deeply listen to each other, and why this gets inflamed, and why it’s scary, and why we get defensive, and why we want to run away, and why we want to say I don’t want to talk about it, and why we raise our voice and interrupt. There’s so much gold in there. Those breakdowns, they’re just growth waiting to happen.”
Thank you. Yes, yes, yes. If I’m understanding and resonating with what you’re describing, that these conflicts can be initiation, or even sometimes might call it curriculum, for our developing as a couple and individually. So as an individual in relationship, the growth that can occur when we’re entering into that, working together to resolve the conflict, being in the talking meditation. That that’s going to grow ourselves individually, and then as a couple, we’re growing together. That that initiation or that initiative, that can be the source of developing, engaging in that curriculum, if you will.
And what we typically do, whether or not we haven’t been modeled the good structure, we’ve had trauma, that we will avoid or will come in blazing, like you’re talking about. It’s too threatening, we have to kind of really persuade or influence or all these strategies to make the other wrong. That this is our systems getting hijacked, or we’re feeling compelled to engage in certain ways, that typically either perpetuate the drama, or perhaps keep the no go-zone and the restriction. And that we can’t further the dynamic because we’re saying: No, we’re not going to go there. Am I hearing you?
You’re exactly right. People get to that really tender place, and they’re afraid; they tense up. They may not be naming it as fear, they want to quit. The only part of the brain that’s working when you’re really emotionally overwrought is the primitive brain, the reptilian brain. It only knows fight, flight, or freeze. When people learn how to regulate their emotions and calm themselves down, sometimes they need to take a few breaths. Sometimes they need longer than just a few breaths, they need to take longer break; half hour, an hour, a few hours, not days or weeks. But when they learn to regulate their emotions, then they don’t just have the reptilian brain operating. They have the neocortex working for them. That’s the most evolved part of the brain. That’s the part that sees lots of options. That’s where the curiosity and wonder comes in, the patience, the committed listening. About why is this topic so inflamed for you? What did I trigger in you? Why is this topic so inflamed for me? What got triggered for me? That’s the real important conversation. Sometimes people quit too early, before they dig down deep enough to understand.
“I love this phrase that’s commonplace in the therapeutic community. If it’s hysterical, its historical. If you’re really amped up emotionally, and you’re just wild out of your mind, that you’re feeling so threatened and you’re enraged, it’s probably something very old. And a relationship is great for bringing that up to the surface where you can deal with it.”
But if you bring that spirit of curiosity, it’s what is it from my past? Did people intrude on your boundaries? Were you ignored? Were you abandoned? Were you trivialized? Were you treated with less value? Were you compared to your sibling? Were you threatened? There are so many sore spots that we bring. Our parents did the best they could; they really wanted to get us off on a good start. But sometimes they wounded us and they failed us, and we brought this all into our adult relationships. That’s a great opportunity, another friggin growth opportunity (AFGO). Work it some more about why do we keep coming back to this? Because there’s a level of understanding that we have not gained yet, about why this place is sore.
So it sounds like just one of the initial tips or tools that I’m hearing you encourage, is that if there’s a heat or a charge or an escalation in the interaction, that could there be the wondering as to what is triggering this, what is fueling this, can we pause and slow down, take a few breaths, maybe even a few more breaths and moments, to get that ground? It’s almost that ground to be able to move from to have a different experience. Because if we keep approaching the interaction from that escalated, reactionary place, then we’re going to likely do what we’ve always done and kind of get the result we’ve always gotten, which is either further conflict or disconnection. So how do you help people recognize those moments? Is it just further identifying the places that are charged, and when it happens, just inviting a little bit more of that pause to get that prefrontal cortex onboard, to then perhaps get that solid ground to then start practice. Or what’s the initial step here?
That’s right, the initial step is the agreement. That you make an agreement that when we get to those places and we start getting overheated, we’re making a commitment, like a holy vow: that we’re going to investigate what in the world is going on here that we keep coming back to this place? We want to understand what gets triggered here. Now, this is predicated on taking a very high level of responsibility to meet that commitment. Because it’s so obvious what the other person is doing and not doing and saying and not saying that’s triggering us, and we can feel like a victim of the other person. But if we start to not think in terms of victims and perpetrators, and think in terms of co-conspirators.
Yes, that’s what I was wondering of like, how to see your partner as an ally here.
That’s right, that we both have a part to play. Now it’s not so neat. It’s not even-steven that it’s 50-50. Sometimes it’s 60-40, it’s 70-30, 80-20, it could be 90-10. But we both have complicity when there’s some kind of a breakdown, and when we get so inflamed and we’re so triggered that we’re not thinking straight, and we say and do things that are unskillful. We make an agreement, steadfast, firm agreement, we’re going to stay engaged in a dialogue, no matter what it takes, no matter how courageous and vulnerable we need to be, no matter how patient and persistent we need to be, no matter how creative, if we need to get help. Because we keep hitting the same blind alley, that we’ll ask for professional help, or clergy, or a friend. Some people have a wise relative; they can go to grandma, granddaddy, or an aunt or uncle or parent. Some people have family of choice, that they’re not literally related to them, but they want somebody who’s really wise. It doesn’t always have to be a paid professional person. But to be willing to go outside the system, if you keep coming up against the same difficult place. To get another point of view.
We live in a culture that doesn’t really honor intimate relating. It’s a very materialistic culture, and success is defined with money and status and power and not the depth of your intimate relationships. It breaks my heart that most of the people who get divorced haven’t even gone for one counseling session, what a shame! Because sometimes, if you can be willing to allow your difficulties to be seen—and everybody is challenged more or less—and not pretend that you’ve got it all together, you can get a different point of view, which could help you to break the impasse. That can make all the difference.
I think we need to train our friends about how to support us. That we don’t go complaining to them and they say: Oh, my husband does the same thing. No, help me see how I get in my own way. Am I contributing to this difficulty that we keep cycling through this over and over and over again? Because sometimes, our friends, if we give them an engraved invitation to confront us, they can help us see what’s not so obvious to us about us, and they can get us out of that victim mentality.
“Once you get out of feeling victimized by the other person, and you locate the power within yourself, that’s where our real power is, to make changes. The way we dance with our partner, they have to dance differently with us. We’re not doing the same old steps anymore.”
Exactly. And with this firm, steadfast agreement, I wonder if it’s a learning curve to know when they’re in the more primal amygdala part of their brain and that reactive part? Or if they’re in that very prefrontal ability to be creative and see emotion and be grounded and regulated enough? I know it’s not either/or. How do you help people? Because if they’re saying: Yes, I’m going to stay with this, no matter how long it takes. But they’re triggered and activated, likely that’s not going to be fruitful, to your point. How do you help people discern when they’re in that place, or when they’re not in that place?
It’s the mindfulness practice of tuning in. When you tune in to your body, and you feel your chest is tight, you feel your jaw is clenched, you’re tensed and you’re tight, and you hear grumbling in your mind, doing it again, you start to notice: I am not in a place of empowerment right now. I’m losing energy, I’m losing influence. I’m losing power. I need to take care of myself. I need to use auto-suggestion. I need to say the words that will help me to realize that I’m going to get through this. We’ve had difficulties before, and we got through it. There are people available who can help me, I don’t have to hold the world up by myself. To settle ourselves down. It’s a felt sense, but you need to tune into your body. Then you start to know when you’re more at ease and when you’re open, or when you’re defended and you’re ready to battle them. To keep putting the emphasis on the accent on opening, and revealing rather than concealing, and expressing rather than repressing, and opening up rather than closing. That is the key.
If people feel that it’s too dangerous to do that, they need to report out to their partner what it is that would help them to feel safer and more secure so they can open up. That’s a very powerful contract that a couple can make with each other, that they both feel respected at that level, that they want to both contribute to creating the foundation of safety and security, so that they can both be open and honest and vulnerable with each other. Because that’s the kind of exchange where both people can tune into what their needs are and tell the truth about them, which is, we have to stick our needs out there and tell the truth. That doesn’t guarantee that they’re going to be met, but it increases the chances that they might be met. It’s quite a powerful contract, when we have a contract with our partner that: “I will be vulnerable with you and tell you what my most important needs are. I will be forgiving for the times that you can’t meet them or you won’t meet them for whatever reason. But I want to meet your needs whenever I can, and I hope that you love me and care about me and respect me enough that you want to meet mine too. I want us to both feel safe, to be able to reveal what our needs are, and to negotiate for them.”
Okay. So to the question around discernment around when we’re able to engage in a new interaction, the fruitful, the talking meditation, and the way that you’re describing here, that the awareness of the body. You mentioned the fight, flight, or freeze. Just noticing the bodily cues, if the heart is racing or if the jaw is clenched, like you’re describing, or if we feel really disconnected and shut down, those are good indicators around our capacity or our ability.
You’re talking about these agreements, and really being clear in the intention and what we’re in service of. Can you give some examples of that? I mean, one simple one, oftentimes, couples, to this point about being escalated or dysregulated, and then getting back into resolving something instead of sweeping it under the rug. Perhaps taking a 15-minute walk or doing something to take those breaths or get regulated, and then revisit. But oftentimes, it’s this classic: one person wants to walk away, the other one wants to stay in and flush it out. Typically, if there is a period of break, the one that feels more primed for abandonment knows that we will get through. Let’s make an appointment to come back, or we’re going to revisit this. So that that can be very reassuring.
Also, how we do it. There’s a process you’re saying, of real commitment and ownership for each individual to be in this place of more reveal, more awareness, and more offering from this place of like: “Here’s what’s going on for me, here’s where I’m going, and I’m going to share that with you.” Typically, when we’re in a softer place, we want to lean in and we want to help. That’s that loving exchange and helping one another. Can you give some examples around what this looks like in practice, just for people who are listening?
Yes, thank you for asking. The mighty tool of intention is so powerful, that when you do a little preliminary work yourself, before you rush into the exchange. That you’re very polite, is this a good time to talk, rather than just blurting the topic out. That’s respectful, and it invites cooperation. If they say yes, then you announce your intention. I used to call this introductory remarks years ago, and I sometimes still refer to it as introductory remarks. It sounds something like: “I have something laying heavy on my heart, I really want to talk to you about it. I am not here to criticize you. I just want you to know that I love you so much, and I don’t want anything laying between us. I want the channel open and clear, and it’s because I want the greatest possible relationship that I’m bringing this up.” So I sandwich it at the beginning with something very positive and sincere, and then I talk about the thing that’s bothering me. Then I end with the sandwich on the other side about: “Thank you for listening. It means so much to me that you were willing to hear me and what’s bothering me.” So I can’t say enough about how mighty intention is. It has to be sincere, no BS. It has to be sincere for it to work, because the person will feel it if you’re buttering them up, or there’s any manipulation in it. So the intention, the invitation.
One of the things that’s in our book, An End to Arguing, we have this chapter called: The most underutilized tool in the toolbox. The most underutilized tool in the toolbox is the timeout, and having the agreement in place before you get into the topic is important. If anybody gets overheated, they get to have a timeout. Shorter is better, and always within agreement to come back to the topic. Don’t let it go underground. That’s an agreement that’s very supportive of having a productive interchange.
One of the things that I’m always talking to my couples about that I work with, is how extraordinarily important it is to be a champion of repair. We need to make a sincere, thorough apology when we screw up. If you messed up, fess up. It’s embarrassing. But if you do make a misstep, take responsibility for it. If you feel that you are in need of forgiveness, ask. “Are you willing to forgive me? I realized I had a cutting tone on my voice. I’d like to do that over. Could I begin again and do it over?”
And making amends. “I realize I’ve been working so much. I’ve been so preoccupied with the kids. I’ve been so preoccupied with my new job. I feel I’ve neglected you. I’m so sorry, I hope you’ll forgive me. I don’t want you to think that this is an empty apology. I’m going to make it up to you and make amends. So I want to sweep you off your feet and take you away from it all, and let’s go to the beach this weekend.” To realize there’s so much power in taking that level of responsibility and showing our care in very tangible ways, the ways they want to be loved.
I’m very, very appreciative of Gary Chapman’s book, The Five Love Languages, because he really nails it. Even if that’s the most popular relationship book, Gary Chapman’s book, because it’s a little jewel. He talks about some people, I’m touch-aholic, I got the maximum amount of points you can get for touch. For some people, it’s words of affirmation, and some people it’s acts of service, and for others, it’s how they spend their quality time. I got no points for gifts. Neither one of us got any points for gifts. But some people, that’s important to them. And we must know our love language, and be willing to remind our partner that it may be very different than their love language. Because we tend to give the way we like to receive, but their language may be different. So my husband is not as touch-aholic as I am. But God bless him, he stretches into my world and cuddles me and caresses me a lot. But he is much more appreciative of acts of service, and he likes words of affirmation too. But everybody is different. This goes so, so far, heading off trouble at the pass. When people feel loved, they’re not so irritable. Maybe the chronic issue is flaring up again, but you have more goodwill about it because you feel like you’re getting lots of love.
Well, thank you for giving some language and some example. As you’re describing this, it feels that there’s both an attention to the bond and the quality of loving and bringing attention to that. I do think as humans, we have this propensity to be more negative-focused, especially when there’s challenges. That’s just survival mechanism in us, to be more tracking for challenges to mitigate. So to really bring into focus the attention for how much this person matters, and the intention around caring and showing up and the quality of the bond. And also, as you’re describing, there just seems like such a high level of emotional maturity to be able to both recognize, be aware of the nervous system state, to be able to take that pause, to do the U-turn, to look at self and ask those questions, and then to be able to take ownership. In all of your language, I’m hearing just this real recognition to be able to offer this vulnerability, this ownership, this transparency, so that the partner can see it’s not a blame. It’s not the sandwich of like: Here’s what’s good, and then here’s my attack, and then here’s my positive affirmation or appreciation. There’s a real ownership in what you’re allowing the other to see, and that just seems like a process for people to develop that. Do you want to speak to that?
I’m so glad that you’re asking about that. Because sometimes people are conflict-phobic, and they won’t say what’s hurting them because they’re afraid it’s going to come across as an attack. So they harbor it, and they hold it in. It doesn’t do anything except fester. When people realize that they can speak the truth without the blame and judgment, it opens up a whole new world to them. That underneath the irritability and the anger, even the rage, there’s always fear or hurt.
If they make a commitment to each other that they want to keep the relationship safe and secure, to build the trust, because they’re both committed to growing a great relationship, then there’s room to get vulnerable, and speak about the fear that’s underneath the irritability and the anger and the resentment. To speak about the loneliness, and the hurt, that’s under there. That’s a totally different conversation. That’s a healing, learning conversation. It takes people out of the right and wrong and the good and bad and the black and white thinking. And when you’re not in right and wrong—nobody is the perpetrator and nobody is a victim, nobody is right and the other person is wrong—it takes you out of conflict mode, and then you’re companions on the path, you’re pilgrims on the path. You’re both committed to the same thing. You’re learning together, how to negotiate for your needs, and how to more deeply understand each other. That’s what lifts you into the thrives.
Yes. Can you tell me, it’s my science and my experience that this is a process that it’s not like, I acquired these skills, and then it’s forever now accessible? For me, depending on life circumstances, sometimes the challenges are more difficult or it asks me to look at different parts of myself. Or sometimes it feels scarier than others, depending on how resourced I am. Or just in my early stages of practicing, what you’re describing, I was not sure of my ability to do it, what was going to happen. And having enough practice with it, I am so committed to it, and plus I have enough experience now with my husband, that I know that most likely he’s going to respond. But in the beginning stages, I didn’t know that. But also, what came from just holding myself differently in it, it was worth that in and of itself. Just to have my own integrity around what I was sharing versus engaging in maybe old behaviors. I tend to do more of that questioning and seeking, and not really being in full contact with my own vulnerability. So is your sense of this, that it is a process, that it takes some developing and a learning curve?
Absolutely, it’s a process. It’s not rocket science. When you first commit yourself to it, it can feel really overwhelming. “How am I ever going to get this? Oh, this is so beyond me. I didn’t have good models. I don’t know if my partner is going to respond. Maybe we’re going to end up worse off.” It’s all in the book. There’s 101 valuable lessons, little short chapters. If people read this, study it, and implement it, it’s going to lift their relationship up. But it can be daunting when you first really commit yourself to studying this. It’s just, day by day, week by week, conversation by conversation, we get better at it. It’s like any skill. It’s like learning a foreign language or learning to play a musical instrument or growing into being an excellent parent.
“Some people have romantic notions about we love each other, and everything is just supposed to flow. No, it requires some skills. It’s on the job training.”
We may need a tutor. We may need books. We may need the workshops. We may need a counselor who really knows what they’re doing, to give us some guidance.
But then we implement what we learn, and we notice: “Oh, I’m really enjoying my relationship. Whoa, we’re not fighting so much. Or that same subject comes up, but it’s not so inflamed anymore. Whoa, we’re really having a lot more good sex these days. I think we’re getting this stuff. I don’t feel afraid to bring the subjects up anymore. I feel like my concerns are welcome now, and I welcome my partner’s concerns. They seem to be more at ease. I noticed we’re laughing more.” The evidence starts to come in. So it’s just a skill set. Learning negotiation skills, conflict management skills, repair skills, and how to have a deeply intimate relationship where we really know the innermost parts of each other, that the other people that are alive don’t get to know those.
Absolutely, I mean, that’s where it’s at. It’s really the up-leveling, the dialing in. It’s going to these depths that we wouldn’t go to if we weren’t confronting and really showing, and the intimacy that comes. Anytime we go through something together, and we are stronger for it, that builds trust, that builds closeness, that builds so many of these intimate bond-connecting glue. So thank you.
You’re already mentioning your book here. So what would you like to recommend in this, as a support tool here?
Well, sometimes people feel like the The End to Arguing is a more advanced course and they want to take the basic first. I just tell people, get our first book: 101 Things I Wish I Knew When I Got Married. Because it’s nice and basic and platform. And when you start to implement some of the things that you learn there, then you can go on to some of our other books: Secrets of Great Relationships, and The End to Arguing. But I also like to encourage people to take a workshop. We cram a tonne of value into a weekend workshop, and we teach at Esalen Institute in Big Sur, for people who want to come out to California. We also teach at Kripalu for East Coast folks, and that’s in New England in the Berkshire Mountains of Massachusetts. We will be in the spring in May, at Esalen. And then we will be in the fall, in Kripalu, the last weekend in October. November, first we’ll be in Berkeley, California, with Love, Sex, and Rock ‘n’ Roll.
So if people go to our website, our courses are always listed there. We’ve got all kinds of free stuff on our website. We’ve got free e-books for people to download. We’ve got several hundred blogs on Psychology Today, where we’ve got 10 million hits, so they’re user-friendly. We also have a lot of videos on our YouTube channel. So people can get a lot from Linda and Charlie Bloom. Sometimes that wets their appetite to attend one of our workshops, and that’s one of those gifts that keeps on giving. Because it filters down in the generations when we give our kids the great gift of a model of an exemplary relationship, a really happy couple that commits and brings out the best in each other. That’s hitting the jackpot in my book.
Absolutely. Well, I’ll make sure to have all of these links on today’s show notes. Linda, thank you for sharing with us here today. I imagine people will be interested in getting one of your books, if not all of them, and also maybe even engaging in a workshop and going deeper with these principles. So thank you again.
Well, thank you for having me, and thank you for your very juicy questions.
You’re welcome!
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The absence of clear personal boundaries can lead to numerous challenges in relationships. Without defined boundaries, individuals may find themselves constantly overwhelmed by the demands and expectations of others, leading to feelings of resentment, frustration, and even powerlessness. Moreover, conflicts can escalate, communication can break down, and genuine connection becomes increasingly elusive without firm boundaries in place. Essentially, the problem of not having boundaries manifests as a pervasive struggle to maintain authenticity, self-respect, and healthy interpersonal dynamics.
In this episode, the discussion centers on the transformative power of consistently upholding boundaries despite potential pushback. Through insightful anecdotes and practical advice, listeners will gain valuable insights into identifying their core needs, overcoming fear, and building trust within relationships. Whether grappling with familial, professional, or personal boundaries, this episode offers actionable strategies for asserting oneself and cultivating fulfilling connections.
Abby Medcalf is a Relationship Maven, psychologist, author, podcast host, and TEDx speaker who helps people think differently so they can create connection, ease, and joy in their relationships. She brings a fresh perspective to life’s struggles using humor, research, and her direct, no-nonsense style. She’s the author of “Boundaries Made Easy”, bestseller “Be Happily Married, Even If Your Partner Won’t Do a Thing”, and hosts the top-rated Relationships Made Easy Podcast, reaching 170+ countries.
In this episode
4:59 From addiction to authority: Abby Medcalf’s journey to boundary mastery.
9:43 Understanding boundaries as not just a component, but a fundamental structure in relationships and business dynamics.
12:23 The impact of congruence between conscious and subconscious signals on how others perceive and respond to us.
20:07 Understanding the spectrum of boundaries and the impact of disregarding them.
27:06 Establishing clear standards and responses for personal empowerment.
39:22 Defining personal standards and boundaries for empowered relationships.
47:49 Making your way from complaints to core needs.
Your Check List of Actions to Take
- Identify your deal breakers by reflecting on past experiences that prompted you to consider leaving a situation or relationship.
- Create a list of your top five non-negotiable qualities for your ideal partner, friend, or colleague to clarify your standards.
- Recognize that anger often masks underlying fears, prompting you to explore what you’re truly afraid of when you feel resentful or frustrated.
- Practice redirecting conversations away from uncomfortable topics by politely but firmly steering them toward more positive or neutral subjects.
- Embrace the power of saying “no” without offering lengthy explanations or justifications, maintaining firm boundaries.
- Understand that setting boundaries is a skill that requires practice and repetition to become more comfortable and effective over time.
- Cultivate trust in yourself by consistently honoring your boundaries and observing the positive impact it has on your relationships and well-being.
Mentioned
Boundaries Made Easy: Your Roadmap to Connection, Ease and Joy (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
Be Happily Married: Even If Your Partner Won’t Do a Thing (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
Feelings Chart (*Hoffman Institute link) (pdf)
Relationship Map To Happy, Lasting Love
Shifting Criticism For Connected Communication
Connect with Dr. Abby Medcalf****
Websites: abbymedcalf.com
Facebook: facebook.com/abbymedcalf
YouTube: youtube.com/user/AbbyMedcalfThriving
Instagram: instagram.com/abbymedcalfthriving
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/abby-medcalf-phd-718969b8
TikTok: tiktok.com/@abbymedcalfphd
Podcast: Relationships Made Easy
Connect with Dr. Jessica Higgins
Facebook: facebook.com/EmpoweredRelationship
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Podcast: drjessicahiggins.com/podcasts/
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Website: drjessicahiggins.com
Email: jessica@drjessicahiggins.com
About Today’s Show
Abby, it’s a pleasure to have you with us.
Oh, thank you for having me. I’m so excited to be here.
Yes. I know this is a topic that’s gotten a lot of attention. Many people support people who are wanting to develop more boundaries, and I know that you offer a particular voice and recommendations. So I’m really interested in hearing your voice around this topic.
For people who are just getting to know you, what would you like people to know about you? Then also, if you want to share a little bit about how you came to focus on this as a topic?
Well, I’m originally from New York, and I live here in the Bay Area, California now. I came into therapy because I was a heroin addict, which I think a lot of people come through their own tragedy. So in my recovery, I got into counseling; that was back in the day when you’d have five minutes to sobriety to be a counselor. Then, you know, I’m a Jew from New York. So I went to school, and I kept going to school. I eventually got into business, and was doing psychology and business and consulting and working with executives who had drug and alcohol problems for many years. I was kind of missing my kids growing up; I was traveling all the time, and I wanted to change my life around.
And while I was working with these executives, they kept reporting to me, like: “Oh, my marriage is so much better, and I’m getting all my kids better.” These were people I had never met. So I thought, what’s going on here? So those of us who have PhDs, we’re researchers, so I started to really try to quantify what I was doing. That why is this happening? Part of it was because I didn’t know how to just coach. I was being a therapist too, which I didn’t know the difference at the time. So I was doing a lot of deeper work with them. But a lot of it, of course, was because as they were changing, of course they were acting differently at home and with the people around them. And guess what, people around you change, and people react to you differently when you start doing that.
That led to my first book, which is Be Happily Married: Even If Your Partner Won’t Do a Thing, because that’s what I was noticing. Then, what I was really specializing in, I started my podcast, all the things, and I started realizing that really what things started to boil down to were boundaries. No matter what question people asked me, I kept saying boundaries is the answer. How do I be happier at work? Well, boundaries. How do I have more peace in my relationship? How do I communicate better? How do I stop feeling resentful? Boundaries, boundaries. It’s like the only thing I felt like I was saying. Of course, my clients and my listeners kept saying you should write a book on this, and that led to that.
But it’s really been realizing that boundaries are misunderstood; people are focusing on the wrong things. We use the word so easily these days, like he’s a narcissist, or she’s codependent. So we throw around terms without really understanding what they mean, though they’re used in the wrong place. I’ve really been on a quest that people really understand boundaries, and how to make effective ones, what it really means, and how to troubleshoot. So I’m like the boundaries queen. And I’m a bossy Jewish mother, so it’s perfect too.
There’s a lot of clarity there.
Exactly. So that’s really the long or short story of how I got to where I am, what I’m doing now.
Yeah. Well, thank you for just giving us some sense of your journey. I appreciate your transparency, and just also how this all weaves together. Sometimes when we really enter into the work and how we’re supporting people, and we recognize how interconnected it is, but also maybe access point. One of the things I’m wondering, if you can help me, as you’re describing this focus of boundaries. A lot of people would perceive boundaries as, not a sub thing, but something that’s a pillar or a part of relationship. But the way I’m hearing you talk about it in this moment, it’s almost as if this is the clarity in which you occupy your position that allows people to feel and understand the shape of you, the structure of what you’re offering as far as business, or relationship, and how to operate. That there’s a clarity and intimacy, if we’re talking about relationship, but also business. That we’re clear, and that there’s coherency of this. Help me if I’m understanding.
Oh God, you said it so beautifully. I’m going to steal that. It is exactly what it is. Because when we’re in alignment with that, when we’re congruent in how we present, that we start to, number one, attract different kinds of people into our world. We’re always teaching people how to treat us, so we start to teach them better how to treat us.
“Boundaries are about trusting yourself. We tend to blame other people for our boundaries; they trampled my boundaries. Well, that’s on you, not them.”
So getting out of the victim mindset, that other people make me feel a certain way, this is what we do all day. It’s how do we move people, because there’s nowhere to go. If it’s everyone else’s fault how you feel, then you’re never responsible, and there’s nothing you can do; you’re left in this helpless situation.
And what this does, when you really learn what boundaries are and how to effectively deploy them, you start to really connect with people differently, you start to live in integrity, you start to live in this way that feels really good. I always tell people, you can tell that you don’t have good boundaries if you ever feel resentful or disappointed. A lot of people are like: Oh, I feel that a lot. I’m like, well, guess what, that’s you and your boundaries, and not having them clear. More importantly, though, not holding them. People say all the time, they’ll tell someone: “I don’t like how you’re treating me, or I feel really upset when you talk to me that way.” Those are not boundaries; those are just you saying stuff.
It’s a narrative. It’s a state of observation.
Exactly, that’s all that is. So then people say: “Oh, they trampled my boundaries. I told them I didn’t like that, and they kept doing it.” I was like, but you didn’t make a boundary, you just told them something. You just said something out loud.
Okay, so let’s orient a little bit, because you’re saying so many really good things. Just to the point of the bigger scope of this, I almost get a sense that it’s like Know Thyself, and being able to give some visibility and transparency to others. And when you say, you’re setting the tone and people are taking cues from all of us, can you say a little bit more about that? Because that is so important. I mean, I can say a lot, but I would love to hear from you.
Oh, I love this topic. A lot of people think about the woo-woo of that; law of attraction, and we track the people and all that. That’s great. But I’m a cynical New Yorker, so that wasn’t ever enough for me. So the research I love to point to, my favorite is Timothy Wilson’s research, Strangers to Ourselves, about the adaptive or conscious. Not that other people are going to read that. But here’s this, this is the thing. His research, he found that our conscious brains process information at a rate of 40 bits per second, while our subconscious brains process information at a rate of 11 million bits per second. So people don’t hear what you say; they hear what you mean. Everyone has experienced this. You’ve been at work, and Bob is talking to you, and he’s saying all the right things. But inside, you’re like, he’s full of crap. Like, I don’t trust this guy, I don’t like this guy. It’s because of the 11 million bits. The 40 bits, the consciousness is there. Oh, he’s saying what I should hear. But you know it’s different. You know it’s different, so you don’t trust him. And when those things are out of alignment, that’s how we present all the time.
So if you’re smiling at someone saying: Hi, it’s okay. But really, you’re seething inside, they’re picking up on your seething; they’re picking the 11 million bits. You don’t get a choice about that. So when you look at the research, at the science, then of course, we have things like confirmation bias, psychological terms we use, where we’re always proving ourselves correct. All men suck, and then I’m dating, and sure enough, I keep meeting sucky men. I’m saying, see? This is how they are. But really, we’re “attracting.” But again, it’s that 11 million. We’re pulling that in, and these men maybe are meeting us and picking up on I call it the wobble. That you’re saying one thing, but there’s this other energy coming at them that, again, their subconscious is picking it up. They’re like, what’s with this woman or this person? It feels like they’re lying to me. Because you are lying. When you’re smiling and saying: I’m giving men a chance. But really inside, you believe that there’s no good men left, and you’re saying things like that.
Yes. If I can add the understanding about the nervous system, and just even from the attachment research, that one of the primary ways, as social beings, that we get information is through the micro-facial expressions, through the tone of voice. They say 80% plus of communication is nonverbal. But also this attunement; we’re recognizing and picking up cues from other people’s nervous systems. So there’s this very sophisticated, very efficient way of gathering information that is not verbal.
One of the things you’re talking about is, what we’re participating in, what we’re attracted to, what we engage in. I imagine that this gets complicated. Because if we’re not used to trusting our gut, trusting that felt sense, then we might get very confused. Well, you’re talking about incongruence. So like, if I’m getting mixed signals, which signal am I listening to? Then that’s further complicated when we haven’t had relational dynamics that are more healthy, and so that we can feel that that’s familiar. Conversely, having dysfunctional relationship and that being familiar. Now, does this all interconnect?
They’re all the same thing, I agree, absolutely. I think that that disconnect is where we then disconnect from ourselves and trusting ourselves, and knowing that it’s okay that I tell my mom: “I can’t come over on Sunday, because I have the kids. I don’t want to do Sunday dinners anymore at your house. Because the kids have to nap, we have to get ready for school the next day or whatever, and I don’t want to be running around on Sundays anymore.” But is that okay? Oh, but my mom, and she loves having us, and it’s so great. There’s a whole thing that happens when we’re not really trusting that we’re allowed to ask for things, and create an environment where those things show up.
Initially, when you were talking about when we’re observing another and we’re feeling like: Oh, this doesn’t seem to add up, that that is something to pay attention to. But also, what you’re describing is, when we’re relating to others, if we’re noticing frustration or irritation or annoyance, that’s a good indicator signposts that perhaps there’s something I’m not okay with.
Really, it’s so interesting if you think about it. A lot of times, we’ll collapse a boundary. We’ll say: Oh, I told my mother I’m not coming on Sundays anymore. But then I do, and then I feel resentful and angry at my mom; I’m mad at her. We’re talking about creating these healthy, connected, truly intimate, emotionally close relationships, and you’re talking crap about your mom. That’s not loving and close. But you think it’s loving to go. You’re like: Oh, I should go because, you know, my mother. But you’re not being loving to your mother. You’re angry the whole time. You’re impatient. Maybe you’re resentful. What’s loving about this? What’s building? It’s alignment. Nothing. Then you’re probably talking to your partner about how much you’re pissed at your mother. You’re really doing more of that. There’s nothing loving about it, that’s the thing. I always say boundaries are love, they are. They’re from compassion and kindness to ourselves and to others. So sometimes when I’m drawing a boundary like that, I’ll say: “I love you so much, and I want to have a close relationship with you, which means that I don’t want to feel resentful or angry or put out in our relationship. So I’m going to say no to that.” It’s a very different way to present it.
Yes, so it’s not operating in obligation. Because a lot of people might confuse, and I’m curious what you would say about this, that showing up is, to your point, loving. But if it’s asking to abandon oneself, or what one’s needing, or to sacrifice, or take a hit as far as the stressor, not being able to advocate for oneself. Then that’s not a win. So typically, we want to look at win-wins. If it is true that I love you and I really want to find a way that we can really connect and be in service of something that feels really good.
Imagine saying that next. Imagine saying: “So Sundays really don’t work. But I love you, and I want us to have other connections. What else could we do? Could we quick text every day? Would that feel good? Do you want to have lunch, just the two of us, on Wednesdays?” There’s so many things you could then offer as a means to still get to the goal.
Right. Do you want to come over so that the children can see you on Sunday?
Yeah, there are 100 options that aren’t “I go over there on Sunday because that’s what my mother wants.”
Now I’m wondering, as we’re discussing this, there’s a congruence of value, of noticing. Because sometimes, living into something is a good feedback mechanism. Sometimes we don’t know; we’re in new territory, we don’t know what we want or don’t want. But when we’re noticing the frustration, the annoyance or resentment, those are good indicators to be like, something’s not working here. Now, there are times where it’s not convenient, it doesn’t feel good. But it is in alignment of this is a relationship. How does that fit with boundaries? Because I think some people confuse boundaries are like: “Oh, I’m doing me you do you, and it’s not so much that we’re doing the hard thing or having the hard conversation.” Help us here, if you will. Because you’re saying there’s things that aren’t really boundaries, and there are things that are. I’m wondering if this is.
Yeah, boundaries are really always for you. So let me step back before answering. The whole thing is that boundaries are for ourselves, and here’s what happens that I find. I put boundaries on a continuum of thin to thick. So we have thin boundaries; codependency lives there, people-pleasing, enmeshment. I don’t even know who I am without you. Everything you say, yes, yes, yes. I don’t even know what I want, you tell me what I want. Fawning. All that is on that side of the spectrum, and that’s too thin. There’s too much there. There’s too much closeness, so to speak. On the very far end are thick boundaries. If you’ve ever called your dad Sir, that’s a thick boundary. This is where we have disconnection, we’re able to walk away from relationships very easily, we really never are vulnerable or showing our real true selves.
Here’s what generally happens. You should never ever change your boundary depending on how you feel, or depending on how other people feel about the boundary. But what we do is, let’s say my mom has said: Okay, you don’t have to come over on Sundays anymore. But then my brother’s birthday is the following Wednesday, and she’s like: “Well, let’s just all get together on Sunday for his birthday. Come on, just one time.” So your boundary is somewhere in the middle, and you go: “Oh, it’s just she’s been so nice, everyone’s been so nice. I should just go to get along. Come on, it’s just one time.” So I collapsed my boundary, that’s on me. They didn’t do anything. They asked, and they are allowed to ask all they want. I’m the one who said never mind. So now my boundary gets too thin, I allow this to happen. Then I go, and what always happens, it seems, is that people aren’t appreciative enough. I’m dragging my kids. I had to do 50 things to get here, I’ve been out there. And I’m getting resentful and angry that no one knows. If anything, my brother goes: “Oh, about time you showed up again on Sundays.” Not even like: “Oh my God, thank you.”
So now I get pissed, and my boundaries go too thick, and I slam the door. I’m like, that’s it. We block people. We unfollow them on social media, where I’m never talking to my brother again. These sort of crazy pronouncements. I’m never going to my mom’s again! I’m sure people listening right now are like: “Oh, I do that. Oh, that’s me.” Because that’s what people do. Because they’re making it on feelings, on their own or someone else’s in a moment. Instead, when you have your boundary, that’s your boundary. This is my thing. Maybe to always be treated with respect, or whatever that is. Boundaries should be on a bigger level, and we can talk about that. But regardless, when you get out of alignment with that is when you’re not being true to yourself anymore. That is when you feel like: “Well, I’m just being nice to get along, or I’m supposed to do this thing, or everything’s a sacrifice.” Again, you’ve got to keep noticing how you feel. Feeling a little uncomfortable, with me, is fine. Discomfort is cool. In fact, discomfort often means I’m stretching my boundaries. So I’m like: “Okay, what is this, what have I got going on here?”
But resentment, rage, helplessness, or hopelessness, those are always bad. That’s always about a boundary. I think we don’t always distinguish between feelings anymore. I love using the Hoffman Institute’s list. They have this beautiful list of feelings, it’s the best. It’s like a thousand on there, and people forget. They think: Oh, I’m mad or I’m glad or I’m happy or I’m sad. There’s like 200 feelings you can have with all these nuances. So to start to really know yourself and notice. It’s like: “Oh, I’m resentful. Oh, I’m feeling very impatient here, what is the impatience?” You start to really get better at noticing what’s just some discomfort, which maybe is a good thing. Okay, I’m going to go on Sunday, because there’s some other reason, because maybe you’re too rigid or something else. Maybe your boundaries did get too thick. That’s different than this feeling of despair, feeling like a victim, feeling overwhelmed, or the resentment, the rest I just said. Those feelings, those are all in the box of: I need a boundary here. So that’s how I tell people to tell.
That’s so helpful. Because even as you’re describing this, it could be in the more amplified version, where it’s actually taking action and pushing people away or making them bad or wrong, explicitly, outwardly. It can also happen internally. Like, I’m annoyed, I don’t like you, I’m kind of saying things about you in my mind. Yet, what you’re saying, this is a direct correlation. That I’ve compromised something that is important to me, that I didn’t hold for myself.
Yeah, so how you feel is everything.
Yes. This helps with the question that I had, which was, it’s not so much about: “Oh, this is hard. Or this means a lot to me, I understand the purpose of doing this. It’s a lot of effort, but I know it feels good and it’s right.” That’s different than what you’re describing, okay.
That why I was like, let me back up, because you asked me that question. It’s when you see it in the big picture. Really, I think people laugh at therapy sessions or psychologists because they’re like, how does that make you feel? It’s one of our kind of standard things. But it’s so interesting how much people don’t know how they feel; they have no idea how they feel.
The body, the sensations, we’re getting cues in our physical state and emotionally. Like, emotions are the sensation of the feeling that we might describe. So as we’re discussing, there’s also something I really appreciated about how you were describing that we will be the ones to not honor our boundaries, and that that can happen very quickly. There’s a slippery slope there, especially if the relationships have history, or there’s a little bit of complications, or there isn’t necessarily. I can even imagine there’s relationships or family dynamics, where this is not the norm, setting boundaries or giving permission. Can you say a little bit about that?
I mean, I come from a family with no boundaries, or very thick boundaries actually. Again, both sides are very unhealthy. So we all do, as we know, what we’re raised with, what looks correct, what looks right. So I can go from that too thick to way too thin, being a Jewish mom, stereotypical. Control, everything. I’m the control queen. I’m the queen of control. So that’s where we end up going. Again, that’s how you sort of notice. Because if you look at your parents or anybody else, you can kind of see where your boundaries are. It’s usually how theirs are. But it’s hard. Because the reason people get upset with our boundaries when we draw them is because they miss us. They had a relationship with us in a certain way, and they were happy with it. We were the ones that were unhappy; they were fine. And when we start drawing boundaries, we’re creating some different dynamics in the relationship. And really, the person is mourning us. That’s why they get mad. “What are you doing? You’re so selfish.” We get called selfish. We get called things. You’re so rigid now. You’re so anal. I remember I used to get called anal all the time, having boundaries. It was this upset.
I can even remember my mom, I would draw boundaries sometimes, and she’d say: “Stop yelling, you’re always yelling at me.” I wasn’t even yelling. Like, I haven’t yelled. Of all the things I am, I’m not a yeller. But that’s how it was perceived. Like, there’s so much anger, and there’s so much upset, and so they lash back. Really, it’s like being disloyal to our families, to them. It is. We all have this deal.
Right. These implied agreements, covert agreements.
Yes, and now I’m changing the rules. I used to always to hear that: “Oh, you’re so hoity-toity since school, or you think you’re better than us now.”
Because they’ve been sacrificing, they’ve been compromising their boundaries.
Right. I’m sure a lot of people listening are like: “Oh my God, I’ve had that. Yeah, I’ve been called selfish. I’ve been called rude or mean.” And you’re nothing of the sort.
Or somebody takes it as a rejection. You don’t love me, yes.
Yes, and this is the thing to always remember. People’s reactions are 100% on them. Because we all know we’ve been there, where we’ve said the thing perfectly. Like, people are listening right now taking notes: “I’m going to say it just like Abby said.” Then they go do it just like Abby said, and they’re at a good place, and they’re feeling loving and compassionate, and they say it perfectly. And the person freaks out. That’s what you have to remember. You cannot control what they do. I get asked, a lot of people say, well, how do I say this? So how do I draw my boundary? How do I say it nicely? How do I say it?
AKA, how do I say it where they don’t have a reaction?
Thank you! That’s what they’re asking. How do I say it so that they agree and don’t get upset, so that they’re not mad at me? That’s what you’re asking, and that I don’t have an answer for, because there is none.
That’s it. Probably, if I’m hearing you, if I might interject, that is not the indicator for success of setting a boundary. People think that it didn’t work or it didn’t go well, because the person was upset with them. But that’s not what you’re going for.
That’s got nothing about it. How do you feel walking away? Again, you might be uncomfortable, that’s okay. Because it’s a little scary when you do this stuff. It’s generally initially, and I get this from clients all the time, they’ll say: I actually felt kind of good. Until they got away enough that they started overthinking. “Oh my God, now my mother’s going to like kill herself, or my mother is going to tell my other friend. Or my husband is going to say this.” They start doing that, the overthinking. That’s where it gets into trouble. But if you look at your original sort of where your heart was, it feels very empowering. It’s scary, but empowering.
It reminds me, Terry Real does a great job of describing going beyond this terror barrier. Like, doing the scary thing, doing the terrifying thing, because it’s unfamiliar, and it’s new ground. So just let the bad thing happen, I think is what he says.
Yeah, it’s okay, and that’s the part of a boundary too. A boundary is really that you’ve identified what your standards are. So you’ve identified that, you’ve got your standards, and then you’ve created some sort of response. I don’t say consequence, because that makes people think like you’re punishing them. But you have a response when people don’t meet your standard. That’s what it is, you having a response when they don’t meet it. So there’s a boundary in my house about how my children talk to me, to either of us. Always has been, it’s never changed. There’s never, ever, ever even a little acceptance that my children have attitude with us, ever, ever. And guess what, my children never. People will think, oh my God, your kids! They’re not perfect, by the way; my teenagers are anything but perfect. But I will tell you, it’s because we don’t tolerate it and there’s a very clear response that we have, whenever that has eked out. Of course it’s eked out over the years, they’re teenagers. Of course, over the years. But we didn’t go through any terrible twos or horribles. My teenage daughter and I go hang out. I mean, she’s got her own life, we’re not so close like sisters would. That’d be weird, you know. But we are very comfortable with each other. My son too, we are very comfortable with each other. There’s a mutual respect. They have not liked lots of things I’ve said, because I have a lot of boundaries. There’s been lots of times they don’t like it, but they’re not disrespectful.
It’s sounding as though that they’re not using the sass or the attitude as a protest, that they get a lot of maybe reaction out of either one of the parents. But you’re asking them to use their more genuine language, or when they’re able to, obviously age-appropriate. But you’re saying we’re not going to do that. So there’s a response that you have, and there’s action that you can take, either verbally or physically or however, that it’s something you can be responsible and accountable for.
Yeah, that’s exactly it. So a boundary is only a boundary when you have your standard and you have some sort of response, I call it the teeth, that you have, that go together every single time. And what happens is, and I’ll just do a quick example. I have a client who had lost a lot of weight; weight had been an issue her whole life. She was going to a family events, and she sent an email. We did it together. She sent a beautiful email to the family. “I know I’ve lost a lot of weight. I know people were excited to talk to me about that.” She still had more weight to go. She said: “But I don’t want to talk. I don’t want objectify myself. I don’t talk about my weight or food.”
My body is not up for evaluation.
Exactly, she’s very clear. She said, “I understand this is probably going to be hard for everybody. But I am going to leave, with love, if someone can’t handle that. So I’m giving you lots of notice. I’m telling you what I need.” She even knew this one brother was going to be a problem. So she texted him also. “I’m sure you got the email, but just in case.” I mean, she did it perfectly. She couldn’t have done it better. She gets there, it’s all happening. And of course, this brother that she knew, came up and was like: “Oh my God, you’ve lost so much way, you look great. You still got a few to go.” He’s doing his thing, and she just stopped him. She said: “I said it in the email, and I texted you about not talking about my weight.” Of course, what do people do? They go: “Oh, I’m so sorry. Yeah, you said that.” Then you usually go: Okay, just don’t do it again.
But no, my client did exactly what she was supposed to do. She left. She left lovely. She didn’t leave in a huff. She was like, we’ll have to try this again another time. That’s what she said, and she left. She’s been to two events since, and no one has brought up her weight or her food. Do you see the difference? But usually, then people say they’re sorry, and we go okay, and we collapse the boundary, because we don’t have the teeth.
“We think that saying something about the boundary is enough. No, you have to follow through. That’s not a boundary. That’s just saying stuff, that’s giving feedback. The boundary is, I’m going to leave if that continues.”
If I might add, this is where you’re teaching people, and you’re setting the tone, to your point earlier, about having the standard and holding the standard. That it’s not really up for negotiation, and that if the teeth are there, then we’re going to take action, and that’s the lesson. That’s the teaching around what you’re going to participate in, and people will learn.
Yeah, and her family gave her crap. They were like: Oh, you left in a huff. She’s like, really, I didn’t. Then when the next thing came, they were like: “I don’t know if you want to come, I know you got upset last time.” She was upset with me, of course, but not with them. She said: “Well, of course I want to come. I’m hoping everyone can respect this time, my request about my weight my food. Hopefully we can have a better try.” She did such a great job. But this is that piece that we don’t hold it, and then we blame other people. So she wasn’t mad at her brother. She was annoyed, of course, for a moment. But she didn’t build resentment and sit there the rest of the party seething, because she empowered herself and left. That’s really when you know you have a boundary.
She showed up for herself. She really had a way in which she could feel the integrity of what she was holding. Abby, one of the things I’m feeling as you’re describing this, that this doesn’t get talked about enough. That you’re talking about, if I’m understanding, a little bit of a learning curve here. That when we’re learning to either, A: set a new boundary, it’s new territory, which we haven’t done before. Or we’re learning to set boundaries for the first time, really explicitly. That we’re not always sure how it’s going to go. People maybe aren’t going to react. I mean, really, let’s be honest, let’s predict, in the likelihood that people aren’t going to respond, any rate is probably higher than not. That that’s actually the training ground, that’s the learning. So once we can really have something that’s actionable, that we can have teeth and be firm about, then that’s where we get to live into the boundary and get to experience. Is that right?
Because it’s a skill. Knowing boundaries is a skill. No one expects to play like Serena Williams the first time out on the court. For some reason, we get it with other things. But with things like communication, or listening, self-confidence, they are all skills. So the more you practice it, the better you’re going to get. That’s all. So keep practicing, keep doing it. I’m sort of amazed sometimes in my own life now that I’m really pretty good at them. It’s not so hard anymore. I don’t feel any guilt anymore, or shame, or all the things that used to come up when I draw a boundary. It really does get better. The more you do it, the more people respond, the better you feel, and you start feeling really empowered and confident. Then, guess what happens? You really start to be different in your world. I’m telling you, boundaries, getting good at this and repeating them, it’s a game-changer.
It is. I can see how many domains this helps, whether or not it’s business, or intimate relationship, family, parenting. Do you have ways in which you help people get clear on their standards? Because I can imagine this would take some developing options. Because in your example, she could have had something that she said; there could have been different things that she could have done. But that was something she felt really good about was leaving. But there could have been other options that she could have taken action, whether or not she’s like: I’m going to remove myself and not respond. Or however she responds and cuts it off, there could be different things. So do you have a way in which you help people devise this? Do you want to say anything?
It is in my book. But it’s also for free. I’ve done multiple podcast episodes on boundaries, so I do have it in there.
“I have people identify what I call their deal-breakers. I say the way you know your deal-breaker is it’s the thing, when it’s not there, that has had you leave a relationship or a job.”
Maybe you didn’t leave yet, maybe you just sent out your resume; you started sending your resume though for real, you started looking for real, you started looking for another place to live for real. You know what I mean? You went to therapy, knowing you had to leave, something. So you have to get clear on those. For some people, it’s things like respect or appreciation or love. It could be anything, we’re all a little different. But for me, there’s a thing about fairness. I really do fairness, there’s something I have to have there. Then you do your standards from that, how will that show up?
Okay, here’s something really important. There are rules we have, like in a house. Like, my husband puts away the dishes at night, so that when I wake up in the morning, it’s a clear landing zone. That’s not a boundary. That’s just a social norm you have within your household. It’s linked maybe, you think, to, well this shows appreciation for me. That I’m not the maid around here, that he has things he does too. But it’s not. Because I hear people: “He didn’t put away the dishes last night, I told him it’s important. He doesn’t think what I think is important is important. He doesn’t respect me.” I hear these and I’m like, whoa! He just didn’t put away the dishes, what are you talking about? We label things. We define them. We decide what they mean. I can tell you because I have probably more men in my practice than women, maybe it’s like 60-40. I’ve never met a man who’s trying to piss off his wife. I mean, other than someone who maybe is a narcissist, a true one, or something else. People are passive-aggressive, I get it. But in general, no one wants to piss off their partner. Oh my God, it’s the last thing they want! So he was overwhelmed at night, he forgot, I don’t know. But it didn’t mean all the things you thought.
But what I find is that people focus on what they want, when they’re not getting what they need. And what you need is the boundary, not what you want. Not the toilet seat a certain way, not the counters wiped thoroughly, not all the whiskers out of the sink. Those are just things you like; those are preferences. Your boundary, what I tell people over and over is, let’s say in this example, if your husband, if you felt like he always had your back no matter what. Like, any situation, that man has your back right away, that he’s always looking out for your best interest, and he left a sock on the floor. Do you think you’d even notice it? Of course not, you’d pick it up. If anything, you’d be like: “Oh, he’s so cute, he left a sock on the floor. Oh look, his little whiskers on the sink. Let me help. You know what I mean? You get my mug in all the time.” But that’s the problem. Then you go to your partner, let’s say in this example. and you’re like: “You didn’t do this, and you didn’t do that, and you didn’t do this, and you don’t love me.” You write all the stuff. And the men I know, because I talk to them all the time, are left going like, oh my God!
Well, and to the point, there’s so much charge. It’s quite confusing because they’re picking up on all the keys. But also the content is like, are you really upset about that? Is it that big? But to your point, there’s an underlying need.
Yeah, that they’re not getting. So then the men are confused, because that’s so weird. Like, really, you’re ready to talk about divorce because there’s peanut butter in the jelly jar? Like, really, we’re going to get divorced now?
“I talk to so many couples who blow up over the smallest of things. It’s because you’re not getting what you need, and you’re focusing on what you want. Just stop and really talk about it.”
Then the conversation gets diluted, because now we’re spending all this time on rules around the house.
Right, and it’s still not addressing the bottom of the thing.
Like, when you were out to dinner the other night, and my girlfriend was teasing me a little, you jumped on the bandwagon and you were teasing me too. That was really hard, because I need to know we’re a team and you always have my back, no matter what. This is actually a conversation I had with my man, my husband, very early on. I don’t like being teased. I’m not okay with it. We’re a team. Nope, I don’t want to be teased at all. Like, nope! We have a loving. I don’t find that sweet or cute or anything, for me. I find it troublesome. So guess what? In the beginning, he couldn’t quite get it. Because it seemed like, what are you talking about? Of course I love you. I’m like, I don’t feel like you love me when you do that. I have a lot of older brothers, maybe that was it, they were always teasing me. I don’t know. But for me, you’re having the opposite response. I don’t want to be near you when you do this. And he finally got it, and it clicked over into the other things. It’s like, this is always the filter I need you to use. I have Abby’s back 100% of time. I might disagree, and I might say something to her privately. But I’m never going to say something in front of other people. I’m always going to have her back 1,000%, in front of the kids or other people or whatever. Do you see the difference?
Well, and one of the things that I love about what you’re describing is, you didn’t make him bad or criticized or really, take him down. You were helping him understand how meaningful, what happens to your nervous system, where you go. It’s kind of like I have a client and we tease a little bit, because he’s been growing and helping people know what’s important to him. I was like, it’s kind of like the manual for you. Like, here’s my manual. You’re helping him know early on, this is a no-go zone for me.
Yeah, so let’s have this boundary together. Together. It’s not a Me problem. Again, if we’re really a team, it’s a We thing. It’s not something that’s my issue that you have to go around. It’s: “I love this woman, and this is all parts of who she is.”
“I talk a lot about unconditional love is fine, but that’s not really the key. The key is unconditional acceptance. Because we don’t feel loved if we don’t feel accepted.”
I hear people say all the time, well, I really love you. But if I don’t feel accepted by you, that’s like having a kid maybe who says they’re gay, and you’re like: Well, I love you, but that’s not okay. That kid is not going to feel loved, not really. Because you want to accept them for who they are. So how could you really love me if you’re discounting parts of me?
So this idea that I’m a little controlling and I have stuff, sometimes that’s wonderful, isn’t it? I’ve got planes scheduled. I’ve got life scheduled beautifully. Yes, sometimes you like it, but sometimes you don’t. You don’t get to cherry-pick it. You can lovingly give me feedback when you’re leaving the house as a grown man, and I’m like, do you have an umbrella? Like, I don’t need to say that. You can kind of lovingly go: I might not, Melf, I’ll be okay. Then I don’t mind a little like, hello!
But he can have a response that is really like, I got this.
Yeah, I’m going to be okay out there. I was in the Navy. I’m going to be able to handle the outside. It’s just a few raindrops. That’s okay, but to not embrace all of me. Like, this is all of me, so I need you to embrace it everywhere, not just the parts you like.
Yes. In relationship, likely your husband has some areas that are very meaningful to him, that are non-negotiables or boundaries or needs. Hopefully, that’s visible, and the two of you have really been able to show up for those. So for people who maybe don’t know, and I know they could probably find a lot in your book and other materials and podcasts. Is there anything you want to say about getting in touch and making greater contact with a need? Because in my experience, it takes a little unpacking. But we start with the all the light complaints, like we have all the laundry list. Like, well, if they were to do that, what would that allow me to feel? Sometimes you have to route around and really get at the deeper layers. Is there anything you want to say?
It is really just thinking about the things that annoy you. Here’s my favorite thing to do. Think about, like in a partnership or something, or even with a mom or whoever. Think about what are my top five things I want in my dream partner, or my dream mom, or my dream boss. What are those top five things? Pros and cons lists are crap, because you can have 100 pros and the one con, it doesn’t matter because it’s the con. So don’t do that. It’s weighted differently, so it doesn’t matter. It cancels out. Think of the top five things. So for me, it would be like: Gary always says my back, he treats us as a team, he respects me. I probably just have those three.
Then think about whatever is happening that your complaints are, and sort of compare it to the list. If you’re still complaining that he doesn’t wipe the counter well. I get this one a lot, I don’t know why it is. With women, I get this one all the time. Like, he wiped all the kitchen. He said he’d clean the kitchen and he wiped it, but then there was jam on the counter in the morning, or the inside of the pot wasn’t all the way clean. It’s like, was that on your list? Was that on your list: cleans the pots well? Was it on your list: mows the lawn great? I doubt it. So if you’re complaining about that, that’s what lets you know, and you compare it to your list and you’re like: Oh, this is something else, this is something deeper. That can be that first sort of blush of: Okay, let me think for a moment, let me try to sit with this.
Celeste Ng, the author, has this great line that I wish I had said, that anger is the bodyguard of fear. It’s the best line ever as far as I’m concerned. So I think of that when I’m angry, resentful, frustrated, impatient, I would put all those together in the angry. When I’m feeling any of those, what am I afraid of? What’s really going on? How do I stop and reflect for a moment?
Yeah, thank you. That’s super helpful. Well, this gets a little bit at one of the questions I’ve been holding, and I can appreciate many people have fear around setting limits and boundaries, and the impact that will have. I know we’ve talked about the reaction. But can you say a little bit more about people who fear that they’ll be changing the relationship fundamentally, that they won’t maybe be loved, or the people will go away, or something to that effect?
Or even worse, that you’ll decide to go away.
Maybe. But for people who really do love the person, and they want to set limits or boundaries. Maybe the relationship, to your point, needs to evolve, needs to change, and likely does. I guess that’s what you’re saying. If they can’t meet you in a space of real connection of what’s true for you, then likely they can’t engage in a level that’s really the healthy version. So this is a process. Essentially, it’s not going to be, again, a one and done, like I set a boundary and then now it works.
Oh yeah, no. In my book, and on the podcast, I literally have a whole section for troubleshooting; when they won’t take no for an answer, when they get passive-aggressive, all the things, when I feel guilty, when I still can’t get rid of my resentment, whatever, all that. It’s funny, I added a last section to the book. Because if you truly change your boundaries, saying what you said, you start to change yourself. So the last section I added to the book is about building a healthier you. Because I realized it’s like, if they get here, then what? Now you’re really a different person in how you’re relating.
“I will say that the I think the biggest reason people don’t set boundaries, one is because it’s easier to be a victim. It’s very comfortable, we all know it; we can blame other people for how we feel. God forbid, I don’t want to do it, it’s all their fault.”
But also because we’re so afraid of abandonment and rejection, DNA plays, and we’re so afraid of what it’ll mean. What, I’m never going to talk to my mother again? This is what I hear, stuff like this. I’m like, who said that? I never said don’t ever talk to your mother again. I’ll tell you, my mom truly had narcissism, narcissistic personality disorder. And I created such great boundaries with her that we actually had a deeper relationship. But I had such strict boundaries. Like, I never answered the phone when she called, ever. I never responded, because I knew it was always. I had topics I did not discuss with this woman. I used to keep little notes in my phone of funny things the kids did that I could share. But I never talked about my relationship. She would try. How are you and Gary doing? You can’t always be great. I was like, no, it’s good. Then I would move the conversation.
By the way, one of my favorite tips for this is, I have a brother who talks politics that I don’t agree with. Every time we’re talking, I’ll say his name and I’ll say: “You know, there’s so many things I want to talk to you about that I’m excited about, and this isn’t one of them.” Then I jump into it, and I just change the topic. I’m like, I want to hear all about my nephew’s baseball game. And you know what, people go right along. They go right along; you just lead them where you want them to go. So you don’t have to make a big pronouncement, like: “I’m sick, I have told you 60 times I hate this.” Again, that’s making the boundary so thick again. You’re getting too thick because you’re scared of holding boundary. This brother does it every time we talk, even though I have said to him many times. But I don’t want to cut off this brother, I love him. So I just direct the conversation. I can trust myself to do that. I’m great at that. I’m good. And I do it with love, because I love him and I have compassion for him, so he feels it that way, and he keeps calling. I did it with my mom. We would have these conversations about just what the dogs did, my kids, baseball, McCartney got picked for softball team. Just kind of nothing. But you know what, we would have our version, because I wasn’t so pissed all the time. I wasn’t resentful. I didn’t have my armor up, because I used to go up to the phone armored.
Yes, and that’s beautiful. Because when you have the boundary, you don’t need to. Well, I’m not going to put this on me, I’ll say for me. When I have my boundary, I can feel really open. Because I’m being held by the boundary, so I can be really open. I’m not feeling this guarded protection, like I don’t know what you’re going to say or do, and I don’t know how to respond to that. I’ve already established my standards, to your point, and what I’m going to do to take action. So it allows me to be more mobile and free in how I’m relating, and have spaces that feel open that we can go towards, because I feel that clarity. You said something really important, you used the word trust. I feel like when one is in a place of having the clarity of standards, having the clarity of being in the practice of taking action around setting limits and boundaries, in a way that they develop the skill, that there’s a trust that other people can feel. I guess if I’m using myself, me, and I also can trust myself that I feel more confident going into scenarios.
Yes. Because it’s a skill, you start to build the skill. People ask me, that’s one of the other answers. How do I get more self-confidence? I say boundaries. I’m telling you, every question you ask about how to be happier or whatever it is, I’m telling you, the answer is boundaries. I only know because for the last 40 years, I’ve been doing this, and I’m telling you, it’s what I end up telling. It’s like, every time there’s a boundary missing. And when you start doing it, again, practice, practice, practice makes it better. It starts to come easier. You feel kind of like a badass. You’re like, I got this.
Then you know, when the mother at my kids’ school asks me to volunteer for the auction, and I’m like, I can’t. I can say, I can’t do that right now. But let me know later this year when you’re planning for next year, and I could probably put the time in. I can give a response in the moment and not be mad at her for asking. She might come back and be like: “Well, are you sure you can’t do anything? You can’t do one?” That’s why No is a complete sentence. That’s why you don’t want to say: “Well, no, I can’t do it. I’m really busy at work, and the kids are this, and we’re moving soon, and this is happening.” Because then people come and they go at those things. Well, we’re all busy at work.
Then they work through your objection.
Yeah, that’s what they do, and then you’re like, ah! So just say: No, I really can’t, I don’t have time right now. Well, what do you mean you don’t have time? I don’t have time right now. Well, if we all thought that, nothing would ever happen at the school. And my favorite answer to that is, yeah. Like, I just agree. I’m like, yeah. There’s nothing to fight, it’s true. That’s it.
No kidding! One of the things, I know we’re winding down, I just want to comment, that when I think about the people in my life that I’m closest to, I want to know their boundaries. Like, if they’re not in the practice of setting them with me or telling me, I actually would love to know. So when we think about a climate where this is a little bit more welcomed or encouraged, that we can be working together, collaborating, and generating ways in which we can show up for each other that are real win-wins.
Yeah, that’s great.
Okay. So, Abby, tell us how can people get your books, and where would you like to direct people?
I think the website is just the best place. It’s AbbyMedcalf.com, it’s easy. I’m sure you’ll link to it. I do want to say my podcast six years ago as a give; for evidence-based, research-based information. Everything that’s in my books is for free, the episodes. There’s almost 300 of them, they’re all on the website. Even better, I do a corresponding blog for every episode. I do this on purpose, so that people who don’t always like to listen, or maybe you have a partner who you feel like should listen to this, and they will read though, a 10-minute thing or a five-minute thing. So you can just put boundaries in my website as the keyword search, and you can find everything I’m talking about.
So I always want to be really clear, accessibility of great information is really important to me. Everyone should have it, it’s my bid at world peace. If we’re all happier in our relationships, then we’ll have world peace. And if you want it all in one place, if you don’t want to do the work of going to find all the pieces, you can buy the book. It’s that easy. So there’s never anything weird or underhanded with my stuff. It’s always right there. It’s meant to be given. It is a give, and you can have this other way to access it if you choose.
Nice, I love that, so many different avenues and however people want to engage. So I’ll put the link to your website. What’s the name of your podcast?
Relationships Made Easy, and we’re in our sixth season, and we’re in 180 countries. It’s really just this you huge thing. I didn’t start it that way with any intention. And we’re on YouTube also if people want to watch. But it’s meant, like anywhere you go, that you could really get it. Everything is research-based, and everything I give tips. Like, you don’t have to buy tips, I have nothing like that for sale. So if I say here’s the five ways to do something, I give you the five ways, all right there.
Yeah, and it’s also available in article form and video form. Then, say the name of your book again.
The last book is Boundaries Made Easy: Your Roadmap to Connection, Joy, and Ease.
Awesome! I’ll put the link to that in our show notes as well. Thank you so much for being with us, it was a pleasure to have you.
Thank you for having me. It was wonderful.
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Have you ever wondered why you react the way you do in certain situations or why certain relationships feel so challenging? In many cases, individuals may not realize how past trauma is influencing their present relationships and personal well-being.
In this episode, we talk about trauma, its various forms, and its profound impact on individuals and their connections with others. Featuring expert insights from a leader in the field of trauma therapy, the conversation sheds light on how trauma from our formative years can shape our adult behaviors and interactions. Through an in-depth examination of cutting-edge therapeutic approaches such as internal family systems, and emotional focus therapy, this discussion provides valuable tools and strategies for identifying, addressing, and healing these deep psychological wounds. Discover how to reconnect with your inner wisdom and potentially transform your relationships and self-perception, moving towards more empowered connections.
Frank Anderson, MD, completed his residency at Harvard Medical School. He is both a psychiatrist and a psychotherapist. He specializes in the treatment of trauma and dissociation and is passionate about integrating current neuroscience knowledge with the IFS model of therapy.
His most recent book, entitled “Transcending Trauma: Healing Complex PTSD with Internal Family Systems” was released on May 19, 2021. His memoir, “To Be Loved,” is set to be released on May 7, 2024.
In this episode
03:26 Understanding the multifaceted nature of trauma.
09:33 Understanding the connection between present-day struggles and unresolved childhood trauma.
19:01 The dynamics of emotional intimacy within relationships, particularly in the context of therapeutic approaches like Emotional Focus Therapy (EFT) and Internal Family Systems (IFS).
26:02 Understanding trauma responses and their varied manifestations.
32:45 Embracing healing and reconnecting with self.
43:32 Inspiring collective healing through personal narrative.
Your Check List of Actions to Take
- Cultivate deeper emotional connections by holding space for each other’s feelings and vulnerabilities.
- Share your struggles authentically with your partner, allowing them to support you without feeling responsible for fixing everything.
- Instead of shaming them, acknowledge that your trauma responses are attempts to protect you, and appreciate them for their intentions.
- Trust your inner wisdom and intuition, reconnecting with yourself after disconnecting to survive past traumas.
- Engage in healing practices to release the energy of past traumas stored in your body and psyche.
- Once you’ve healed, work towards forgiving both yourself and those who have harmed you, recognizing the humanity in everyone.
- Participate in collective efforts towards healing and transformation, whether through personal initiatives or broader community involvement.
Mentioned
To Be Loved: A Story of Truth, Trauma, and Transformation (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
Transcending Trauma: Healing Complex PTSD with Internal Family Systems (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
Connect with Dr. Frank Anderson
Websites: frankandersonmd.com
Facebook: instagram.com/frank_andersonmd
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/frank-anderson-654b1836
Connect with Dr. Jessica Higgins
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About Today’s Show
Frank, thank you for joining us.
Thank you so much for having me. I’m really excited about this conversation.
Me too! It is such a gift, with your level of training, expertise, and stature, and just your level of what you’re offering in the world. So it’s a huge gift and honor to have you on the show.
Oh, thank you.
Yeah. One of the things we’re just going to help people look at, as we orient in our conversation, is given your expertise on trauma, and also just relational trauma, and as we focus here on the Empowered Relationship Podcast about relationship in intimate relationship, where would you like to start in just orienting about trauma and the effects of it? Can we start there?
Yeah, it’s a great place to start. Because oftentimes, people don’t even really know what trauma is, especially people outside the mental health field. People in the mental health field do know it. Most of my career has really been spent in the arena of relational trauma, or what we call complex PTSD. But what I like to tell people is, trauma is what happens to you, what event you experienced, what kind of violation you’ve gone through, what significant life events have happened. It could have been a rape, it could have been a loss of your loved one, it could be a car accident. So trauma is kind of what happens, and then your response is a whole separate issue. Like, I think about frequency, intensity, and duration, when I think about trauma; what happens, what effect did it have on you. Because some people can go through the same exact thing and have very different responses. But I’d like to look at frequency, intensity, and duration.
We can have a single event, like I said. You can have a family kind of trauma, what we call transgenerational or family type of trauma, which gets passed down through the generations. Relational trauma is what I’m really focusing on; most people growing up in dysfunctional families, and the ways they repeat these patterns in their adult life. Not really aware that the fifth person that I’ve dated who’s cheated on me is, oh, actually related to my young attachment wounding when I was six months old or something like that. So the relational trauma realm. And to finish off, super honestly, this is a weird thing to say, but I’m excited, because we’re so much more aware of systemic trauma, cultural trauma, people who are marginalized in society, in culture. We’re more aware of that now in a way that I think is very important, because it’s an important piece of the puzzle here. You can’t really talk about individual or relational trauma anymore, without looking at the systemic or cultural or institutional events that overlay it. So it’s a complicated answer nowadays, which is important.
Yes, thank you for just giving some scope to this. Because what you’re describing is the ability to identify and really give credit to these experiences that have profound impact on our learning, on our shaping, on our lived felt experience. This informs how we relate to the world, how we expect others to respond to us, what we feel in our nervous system. So perhaps people who have had associations with PTSD or trauma think of it in a certain way, perhaps in these more acute or single events or big things that happen. And they don’t identify with that, and with this new understanding about more complex relational traumas, how that fits with just even the family learning. Then also the collective and the culture and the systemic, and what we’re really able to acknowledge, the profound impact that that has on someone’s sense of safety in the world, of belonging, of being responded to. It’s incredible. I see this often in my work of people confronting how people have responded to them in their life early, in their families, and just recognizing: Oh, I didn’t have the responsiveness in that and the impact of that. That’s just a whole different paradigm, to give credit to this. This is what you and so many other people are contributing to in such a really profound way.
That’s right, it really is important for me to get this connection for the general public. Like, oh my behaviors, oh my struggles, oh my difficulties finding a partner or raising my children, are rooted in my unresolved childhood trauma. That is a big message. Because people don’t have that awareness. People don’t come into therapy, saying: Oh, I was unloved as a child, and I’m really struggling in my adult relationship. I’m having trouble in my sexual life because I was suppressed in my family and couldn’t express my authentic self when I was growing up. That’s not what they say, you know what I mean? They focus on the present day difficulties, and part of our job is like: Hey, I’d like to say. Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) calls it the Float-back. So I’ll often say, well, where did this pattern start, when’s the first time you noticed this? I’m always trying to validate the current-day struggle, and then helping people start to float back and think about the origins of these. Oh, I have an image of me as a little girl on the playground being bullied. Or, oh, I remember my mother saying you’re not good enough, or you’re too not pretty, or your legs are too heavy, or something like this. So to give people this connection to the origin, I think it’s super important, and most people don’t hold that awareness. Because we suppress our wounding in order to survive.
Absolutely, and these are fundamental. As you bring up attachment, the sense of feeling safe in the world, responded to, that these are very primal, fundamental needs. S when we’ve had pain, or we have had trauma, then we learn to adapt; we learn to deal. And the work of you and Dick Schwartz, all the Internal Family Systems, and the parts work. I mean, I would love for people to get a glimpse of that just so they have some recognition of what we’re talking about. But also, even access to this powerful modality that can really help people navigate this. Because part of what I think you’re describing is, when someone is coming in to seek support, they are initially oftentimes motivated by pain. Like, something’s gotten big enough where they’ve sought support, and maybe even a crisis. It’s hard to know what is what. So there’s a lot of, like you’re saying, validity to the current circumstances being painful and uprooting and unsettling, and the participation and the moves and how we relate and what we’re experiencing, that’s perhaps what you’re also paying attention to, to help give some understanding of the ways in which we participate and perpetuate maybe some of these dynamics.
People don’t know that most of their relational decisions are rooted in redemption of their childhood wounding. People don’t know that. Like, I’ll say to people sometimes when I’m doing workshops or teaching, like: Look, I didn’t make it this way, this was not my design, people. I’m just helping sort it out. Attraction is really an unconscious familiarity with: Oh, we have the same wounding, even though we may deal with it in opposite ways. Because typically, we’re drawn to someone who has the same wounding. But if we’re an introvert, we’re drawn to an extrovert.
“Opposites attract on the surface. But our wounds are similar. And people don’t know that we seek out the familiar in an attempt to heal our wounding.*”*
That’s why relationships fail all the time. It’s like: Oh, you’re going to be the mother I never had, or you’re going to be the father who loves me in a way that my father didn’t. But it’s a setup for failure, because an intimate partner should not be your mother or your father, any primary caregiver. So we unconsciously do this, and this is where we repeat our patterns.
One of the things I talk about in my new memoir, To Be Loved, I’ve certainly been through the journey, and I really am very open and honest in that book. Because it’s important for me, for people to get that even an expert has been in the trenches, struggling with this stuff, just like everybody else. I married a woman, once upon a time, and totally was my father, and my ex-wife was my mother. I was controlling. I was aggressive. I was just repeating my mother and father’s dynamic in that relationship. I felt terrible about it, but I couldn’t help it. I was drawn to repeat. To hell with this, I’m coming out! So I came out and I was like, let me try it with a man instead. I’m not suggesting everybody has to do that, that’s not what I’m suggesting. But what I did when I came out, and it was shocking to me, was like, I became my mother and I attracted a guy that was like my father. So then I took on this more passive role, and I was drawn to this guy who was more like my father, violent and controlling and all this stuff. I was like, what am I doing? Like, here I am again, repeating this pattern I grew up with. It wasn’t until getting to like, what’s up, Frank? Like, you’re running out of options to repeat here, buddy. So where are you going next? Then it was like, oh okay, started healing the wounds I was trying to fix in my relationships.
I’ll never forget, when I met my current husband, it was like, I don’t know this. It was kind of like new territory. It was very cool. It was a moment. It was like, this is not familiar to me, and it was intriguing because it wasn’t familiar and it wasn’t a repeat. It’s like, you don’t have to repeat if you heal your wounds. I think that’s a really important lesson for people to understand. I’d like them to read about it in my book, instead of having to go through a couple of divorces on their own, like I did, in order to get this lesson.
Oh, my gosh! Yes, I mean, this is living in that cis attachment system or compelled and the familiarity, there’s an attractive pull to that. Also, if we’re unconscious to the deeper fuel or the motivators, we’re likely to just play the part in the drama as we repeat the drama, perhaps with partners, and it’s just like: Oh, here it is again. Just this recognition, but also the attempt, like you’re saying, the underneath desires to have healing and to resolve that. Yet, when we’re unconsciously participating, we’re perpetuating in playing those roles. So when we can bring more contact, more consciousness, and have more choice in how we’re establishing and creating relationship. It’s unfamiliar. It’s likely going to feel, maybe the charge of it might not be the same, there’s some aspects of it that are going to feel different. Yet, what you’re describing is, there is capacity for healing and for choosing and creating and co-creating real, healthy relating.
Yes, that’s right. Relating not from your childhood wounding. We teach people in IFS, do the U-turn is what we call it, like, go inside. In fact, those young attachment wounds that we hold, other than the primary person who may have caused those wounds, they may or may not be available for authentic repair; sometimes they are, sometimes they’re not. But if they’re not, we’re the best solution to our childhood wound, and not our partners. That’s the hard lesson for people to learn, is it’s easier to want somebody else to fix it, instead of us being with the pain and healing in ourselves. That’s the real message around like, you can heal this, you can be there for those younger parts in a way that nobody else can, or should, outside of the original object. I was so fortunate. I did so much healing work on my own in the way that I’m talking about, and it was such a bonus at the end of my father’s life, who was my primary abuser, really, to have the corrective experience with him. That was amazing for me. Most people don’t get that option, and I was fortunate enough to have that. So without being able to work through it with the person or people who have harmed you, there’s a really good option, internally, to be able to heal all the wounds with you in the parts that carry the trauma. So that’s the good news here.
No kidding! I want to back up and reference some of what you were talking about how trauma is experienced. But before we do that, I wonder if you can speak to. Because some of the training that I’ve been exposed to and utilize a lot is the Emotional Focused Therapy with working with couples, and this gets confusing, I think for people, around so much of what is prompted is being able to turn to your significant other and have them respond. But I think the real difference is that there’s an ability to connect and hold space for what one is feeling in those deeper layers, the insecurities or the longings. To hold that, to be with that, and relate to that, and then show in a way that’s more softer visible so your partner can see it, and potentially they want to help. But they’re not responsible for it. That wanting to help or that ability to show up for it individually, and then also ask or set boundaries in relationship, and that partner can see it more, I think that that responsiveness can be more attuned. That can be an and. What would you say?
Yeah. So are you talking about Sue Johnson’s Emotionally Focused Therapy? I love Sue. Sue and I just did a workshop together. I did a course, and I interviewed her. She’s such a powerful force in our field, and I love her so much. She’s like, people have such a hard time feeling feelings, being with feelings! I’m like, they do, and it’s so true. So the first piece you’re talking about is helping people gain the capacity to be with their feelings. We do so much to push away overwhelming feelings. So this work and helping people be able to be with it, instead of farming it off, is huge. Because it’s easier to farm it off, or to blame somebody else for it.
“We’ve got to grow our capacity to be with the intensity of what we’ve experienced in the past. Once we’ve been able to do that, then relationships are about getting your needs met, that is appropriate. Not your unresolved childhood needs, though.*”*
So once you can be with your unresolved childhood needs, then you will have the capacity to ask your partner from a different place. That’s the key. Not from the past, but from the present. And you can speak for your past, which is actually expressing vulnerability, and people are drawn to that. Like, you’re drawn to something when you say: “Hey, look, I’m really struggling with this. This is hard for me. I wanted you to know that that’s what I’m struggling with. But what I’m wondering is, would you be willing to give me a hug? Would you be willing to just take all of my pain and take it away from me? Please, please, please.” You know what I mean?
Because we feel the energy of the desperate, and that’s what recoils people; you’re needy, you’re too much, you’re whatever, you’re on the spectrum, you don’t know how to feel. Like, there’s a way we can feel the energy of younger parts. Partners can feel it, and then they recoil because they don’t want that job. But that’s different than speaking for it, and then saying: “Hey, I am really struggling. I’m so sad lately, and this is why I’m sad, because this is what I’m working on. I’m not asking you to do anything. I’m sharing it with you. But this is what I’m asking for.” Then it’s more appropriate. Then your partner is like, what a relief! I can give you a hug. Yeah, we can go out to dinner, honey. It’s like that. So until we get a handle on it and we can be with that, farming it out is overwhelming for whoever we’re with.
Absolutely. I don’t even think even the one that would attempt to try, it’s even possible, because of the messiness of it and the unknown parts and all the things.
No, it’s not possible, you can’t, you know. This is a distinction I make in my book, To Be Loved, is I’ve had a lot of relational healing in my relationship with my husband. So I’m not saying relationships aren’t healing, they are. But it’s what you bring to the relationship and what you’re asking of the relationship. So if it’s like, I’m not supposed to get anything from a relationship, I have to do it all myself. That’s a repeat of my childhood. I had to do it by myself then, and here I am again. I’m like, no. If you take care of your pain and your wounding, of course you can get your needs met from a different place. That’s one of the reasons we enter relationships. But that distinction is important.
Absolutely. I think it’s confusing, as it often is in relationship, around when there’s charge and it’s intense and the nervous system is activated and what’s happening, and this U-turn that you’re referencing, and how we can find an ability to be in touch with those intense parts, and have that and then show some revealing. Like, here’s what’s happening over here, and this is what would be helpful if you’re willing. Not your job, not your responsibility, and I know you love me, and here’s a little bit of visibility into where my world is right now. With that vulnerability, people typically want to turn towards.
Yeah, that is what vulnerability is. A friend and colleague of mine, Toni Herbine-Blank, who runs the couple’s trainings in the IFS Institute, she said to me years ago. She’s like, Into-Me-See, that’s what intimacy. I’m like, oh my God, I love it! Into-Me-See, like, let me share with you who I really am and what I’m really struggling with.
“See me, instead of fix me, and the vulnerability of sharing it draws people toward you. It’s like, oh my goodness, we have empathy for that, or we have compassion for that, instead of the burden of fixing it or taking it away.*”*
Yes, qualitatively different.
Yes, and people know it. It feels different when you’re doing it, and it also feels super different to be the recipient of it.
Not easy work, though, to be clear. This is often terrifying. And what’s on the other side, what can come from these exchanges, is really mostly what we’re in service of, is this intimacy, this deeper connection that comes from this place of having access to what’s more genuine and real.
So can we go back for a moment? We don’t have to spend a tonne of time here. But as you give us some perspective on trauma, also what it might feel like in the lived experience, through thought, through feelings, through body, and even maybe relationally, we’re talking about that here. Also, my understanding of the trauma being on a spectrum. As we’re saying, people might say: Oh, I don’t have that, or that’s not me. Yet, there’s a lot happening in the system that’s getting activated. Can you help around what that can feel like or the effects of trauma, and help people recognize a little bit more here?
Yeah, and it’s a good thing to talk about, because it’s interesting. On the tagline of my book, it says: Truth, Trauma, and Transformation. To Be Loved as a title, then Truth, Trauma, Transformation. There are so many people in the general public that are recoiling from the word trauma. They’re like, that’s not me, I don’t have that. I wasn’t in war, or I wasn’t raped. So there are a lot of people that say, not me, I don’t have that.
Or even feel like, comparatively, why should I occupy space if I haven’t experienced what maybe someone has that’s more extreme?
Exactly. So what I really talk about is, have you ever been through an overwhelming life experience? That’s the languaging that I use. Have you had an overwhelming life experience? I don’t know anybody who hasn’t, in one way or another, whatever it is; medical illnesses, loss of loved ones, being fired at a job, teased at school, so many different things. So one is that, and it’s really the way we respond to it. I think about trauma responses that people aren’t aware of, and that’s most of the behavior that is intense, intentional, and seemingly problematic. That’s the way I think about trauma responses: intense, intentional. Like, I need to exercise, I have to exercise every day, and if I don’t exercise, I’m going to get fat, and people are going to hate me, and I’m not going to be loved; the story we tell ourselves. Or if I don’t get A’s, if I don’t do well in school, I have to do well in school, otherwise people are going to hate me. Or if I’m not thin and pretty.
Like, there’s all of these very intentional behaviors that are rooted in protection. Or we can go to the other side around the avoidance. Like, I’m not going to do this, I’ve got to stay away. Or I’m going to drink one to two glasses of wine every night after dinner because I’ve had such a horrible day. Or every time I get in a fight, I’m going to reach for the vodka, or I’m going to eat to soothe my pain. So any of these behaviors, people don’t say: Oh, I have PTSD. It’s like, oh, I have behaviors that I’m struggling with.
The way I like to approach those is, even if you want to go in the mental health realm, I have suicidal thoughts, or I get depressed, or I have panic attacks. Same thing, those are trauma responses too. And what I say is, thank your trauma response. That’s the way I talk about it. Thank your trauma response, don’t hate it, don’t try to get rid of it. Thank it, because it’s trying to help in the way that it knows how.
People don’t really get that. “What do you mean, I’m supposed to thank my husband because he’s drunk every night?” It’s like, understand that him drinking every night is an attempt for parts of him to try and protect him, that it actually doesn’t have much to do with you. So his response is that he should thank his responses because they’re trying to help him. Yes, they have a negative effect on you. And what do you do when he drinks like that, what are your responses? Thank your responses. So I always want people to thank their responses and appreciate them, instead of getting rid of them. If I lose the 10 pounds, or if I stop yelling at my kids, whatever it is. Even yelling at your kids is a protective response. Because your kids have done something that activates your childhood wounding, and if you stop them, your parts inside feel better. So that’s the first thing for people, is identify that these responses that seem problematic are actually attempts at trying to protect you.
And probably regulate to some degree. That if we’re going to look at this from the framework of healing and being able to have more transformation, that these are also indicators that are alerting us that there’s things here that have been overwhelming that we haven’t been able to really process or turn towards.
That’s right, exactly. So that’s really the first step is being aware of these behaviors, and getting the awareness that they’re trying to help. So if you can see them for what they’re trying to do, I always differentiate the effect that a part has from the intention at hand. Parts are always well-intended, the effect may not be so good, and they know it. Like, the part that drinks keeps drinking and keeps drinking to keep the pain of loneliness away. It only perpetuates loneliness the more it drinks. But it knows it’s not working well. So when we point it out, like, stop drinking, blah, blah, blah, blah, we just shame the part, because it feels bad about being ineffective in the first place. So it’s like, take responsibility for your own, and start looking at the positive intention of it. That kind of opens the door for a deeper layer of access to the pain, because that’s the first layer of protection is all of our responses. So if we can start appreciating that, we can learn more about what’s underneath it. Because that’s what needs to be healed, is what’s underneath our responses, not our responses; those are secondary things.
Yeah. If there’s more safety, more curiosity, more willingness to listen, then there can be some support and container, perhaps to even have some ability to do this deeper work. So I realize, as we’re talking parts, I know we’re not going to go into great depth about IFS. But I’m curious, do you want to say anything for people who are the aren’t as familiar, just some of what parts means?
Yeah. So the model of Internal Family Systems was really, Dick Schwartz is the founder. I think it’s like 45 years, it’s been existent for a long time. It’s gained a lot of popularity more recently for sure.
With your contribution, in very much like a partnership and being a key founder and helping promote, yes.
Yeah. So really, it helped me change my life, and so I’ve become a lead trainer, I’ve written books about it, I’ve just really kind of taken it to the next level in some ways. But it’s this idea that we all have parts of our personality, we all have aspects of our personality. That’s actually normal, it’s not pathological. Like, the part of me that loves to run, the part of me that loves to travel, the part of me that loves children, those are all different aspects of my personality. Because of overwhelming life experiences, those parts of me can take on extreme roles, and they overwork in the service of protection, they overwork in the service of keeping the pain away. Because some parts of us try to protect from overwhelming experiences, and other parts of us carry the pain and the hurt of the betrayal and the violation or whatever we experience. And separate from these parts, we all have this concept called self-energy, which is our soul, our intuition, our wisdom. One of the things I love about IFS is it says, you have all you need to heal. I like to say, trust that you have everything you need inside of you to heal, and that’s really true. In relational trauma in childhood, we disconnect in order to survive; we disconnect from ourselves and attached to our caregivers for survival. So part of the journey here is to reconnect to our wisdom, because we learned to not listen to it.
Yeah, we got told this isn’t okay, or we learn to fragment to exist.
Exactly. I always used to hear: “You’re too much. You’re too overwhelming. You’re too this. You’re too that. You’re bad. You’re bad. You’re bad.” So those messages we internalize, and so we disconnect from ourselves in order to be liked and loved. So it’s reconnecting with your own wisdom. When I work with couples, especially couples that are deciding to end their relationship, they’re like: “I knew this was a mistake, and I was walking down the aisle. I was walking down the aisle. I knew this was wrong, but I did it anyways. I was still in disconnect with my truth mode, in order to please culture and society and my parents or whoever else.”
“*So we have wisdom, we are just taught to not listen. So part of what we do is teach people to listen again, and trust their wisdom, and trust that they know what they need for healing more than the expert therapist does. That’s very corrective.”***
We know what’s right, we’ve just been programmed not to listen.
You’re such a great model of being in the practice of that. So I really appreciate your example. Just moments ago, you were talking about the parts and not shaming them or making them bad. I mean, it occurs to me that they don’t have any other options, they’re just operating in their best capacity. Like you said, they had a purpose at one time, and still are doing their very best. So if we can help create safety, and then deepen the listening. This is where you really help people know about the opportunity for healing or the capacity. Can you speak a little bit about that, if you’re willing?
Yeah, it’s a big piece for me. Healing is one of these overused buzzwords. Like, gaslighting was a word a couple years ago, where everybody was talking about gaslighting. Then I think this year’s word is narcissism, like, everybody is like, they’re a narcissist or whatever. I know healing has been kind of overused in social media and all this stuff. But I hold enormous value in the word healing, and I mean it. Because there are so many things that people do, or types of therapy that don’t actually get to the root cause, and don’t actually help us release what we’re carrying. Every traumatic experience, our system holds on to the trauma energy. Healing really is about releasing that trauma energy and transforming back to our original, unburdened state.
This is a strange thing to say, but people are always like: “Gosh, Frank, you look so young. Oh my gosh, you look so young, 60 years old.” I don’t look 60 at all. But I’ve kind of got to this, yeah well, I exercise, but it’s because I’ve released so much trauma. I really do feel like the more of that trauma energy I release through healing, the younger I look. They’re like, what’s your face cream? I’m like, it ain’t face cream, you know. It’s the healing, people. I was with Tammy Nelson, who’s a friend of mine, and she’s a sex therapist. We were talking on a podcast, and she said: “Don’t do Botox. Buy Frank’s book. Forget the Botox, heal your trauma.” Because that’s the message.
“*We can really release what doesn’t belong to us, and we can let go of what doesn’t serve us. Because it’s not ours in the first place. When we’re kids, we absorb it, because we don’t have a choice. But I want people to know, there is a way to heal.”***
There are some fundamental steps. Every kind of therapy has their own steps, and honestly, Jessica, they’re not so far apart. They really aren’t. I’ve done two courses on integrating different trauma treatments, and I’m like: Well, you use the word, organic faith, and you use the word self-energy, and you use the word trust your internal wisdom. But you’re all talking about the same thing. So they’re not that far apart. But there is this way we can heal.
Part of the problem with relational trauma, and you referenced this before, is we absorb our environment, and we use that for protection.
“We have perpetrator energy in us, because we learn how to protect from the environment that we’re in. So we learn how to protect ourselves from the people who harmed us, and that’s the reality. So there is a way that we can release that.*”*
There are steps involved in that. There’s ways to do that. And then we have to deal with it. For me, the next phase of healing is: Deal with what was done to us, and what we’ve done. Most people don’t talk that much about that. There’s this Us and Them mentality, and which side are you on? Are you on the good side or the bad side? I’m like, no, we need to stop that. It’s not a good side or a bad side. It’s like, we’re all both; we’ve all harmed people, and we’ve all been harmed. We have to look at that. Until you heal, from my experience, you can’t really appreciate the humanity in the person who harmed you. That’s a big step, and not everybody is willing to do that. I don’t know that everybody has to do that. But the thing that I’m talking about is forgiveness after healing. If you heal what you’re holding, can you look at the humanity of the person who harmed you, and can you look at the humanity of yourself and the ways you’ve harmed others? That’s taking healing to a new level.
Absolutely. The way I’m experiencing what you’re describing is, when we can engage in healing, there’s more space that we get to occupy; more life moves through us. I mean, I can just say, from my own experience, I continue to do my trauma work. Just when I’ve recognized different patterns, I’m like: Oh my gosh, I was so unconscious, I didn’t even know that I was perpetuating that. Or who knew that I was keeping myself so restricted in certain ways? It’s just profound. Or even my friend who I was in the Ph. D. program with, and my husband was asking her. She was talking about some health stuff, and he was like, how did you heal your inflammation? She was like, I did my trauma work. Not like it’s done, done.
Yeah, that’s right. Because so much we hold in our body around this energy that we’re carrying, because of what happened to us. Absolutely, trauma is a transfer of energy.
Yes. Part of what I’m hearing you also describe is, when we can start to move that and then do some of that work, then we have more capacity, and perhaps get to relate and understand and this humanity that you’re referencing, and seeing, you’ve even mentioned the intergenerational trauma. I mean, there’s layers here. So we can begin to have that compassion and that empathy, and also recognize it in ourselves too.
100%. I don’t think we’re going to truly be able to heal unless we’re able to do both. That’s a bold statement that I’m making, and I’m standing by it by my own personal experience, to be able to have forgiven and love someone who’s harmed you. It’s a place that people can get to, and I want them to know that it’s possible. It changes things when we stop blaming and stop othering, and looking at ourselves and looking at other people and holding the And in both of us.
Yeah, so important. I look forward to learning more from you around what you have to say about that. I want to make sure that you are able to talk about your upcoming book, To Be Loved. You’ve already mentioned it. What would you want people to know about the meaning and the purpose of this for you?
Yeah, I mean, it certainly was a passion project. There’s nothing like being a trauma expert and then talking about every aspect of your life in a way. Sometimes I wake up with these panic moments, like: Oh my God, people on the street are going to know everything about me, and I know nothing about them. But I really do feel driven to really say, horrible things can happen to all of us, and it can be healed. It can be healed; you don’t have to carry this forever. That is the biggest message for me. Like, it is life beyond your trauma. I want people to hold that hope that yes, you can forgive others once you’ve healed your trauma, and you can forgive yourself. Those really are important messages for me. My hope is that when people read this book, that they see themselves in it, and then they relate to their experiences. Not exactly like mine, but enough to make them say: Oh, I can relate, or I can identify with that. Yeah, that happened to me. I can heal too.
Yes. I mean, one of the things that I appreciate is not only your, again, being an example and making this accessible through story, that the way in which you’ve done it allows for this relating, and what you’re describing and being able to have an experience as one’s reading, and to be able to relate and identify their own experience. Also, I don’t know if you would agree, but it also feels like there’s this concept of when we do our healing, it heals all or it helps heal all. There’s something about it on a collective that being in your position, I know you’re not speaking for a body of people, but you’re giving, I don’t know that I have the right words.
Well, I am. It’s not me. This is my message, but this is a bigger message than me. I do want to speak to the collective, and I don’t think I’m going to do it only. I think there’s a number of people that are showing up in this collective shift, I think of them. I don’t take ownership of it. Because I don’t think it’s mine, I feel gifted with this information to be able to share. So I’m like, I’m like a conduit as opposed to the one. Nobody saw one, right. It’s a larger message. and I think we all need to collectively do it in order to really heal because we’re in need. Yeah,
I appreciate you just acknowledging you’re one of many, and also just the development. I almost get this sense of fabric or the ability to offer an example of how this can translate or how this can affect the interconnectedness of all of these things that we’re describing. So yeah, thank you for that. Is there anything else you want to say? I know we’re winding down on our time here.
Come and join the collective is what I want to say. Go to my website, buy the book. FrankAndersonMD.com is my website. I’m doing a tonne of stuff. I’m opening a trauma Institute to bring trauma treatment together. I have another company in LA called Trauma Informed Media, bringing mental health content to Hollywood. So I’m busy with a lot of different ways for people to join up and help this movement. Because I think we have to do it together.
Well, wonderful! I’m so grateful that you’re being able to impact so many different industries and people to help, again, support this development and the collective shift around transforming and healing trauma.
Thank you so much, and thank you for being a part of the solution also by doing this podcast.
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Jealousy is a complex emotional response often triggered by feelings of insecurity and fear of loss, and can profoundly impact personal relationships. It typically arises when an individual perceives a threat to a valued relationship, whether the threat is real or imagined. This emotion can lead to behaviors aimed at preventing loss, such as excessive monitoring or controlling tendencies, yet these actions often exacerbate the fears driving the jealousy.
In this episode, we delve into pervasive issues surrounding jealousy, uncovering their origins rooted in individual past experiences and amplified by today’s social media-driven culture. The discussion offers valuable insights into the psychological patterns contributing to jealous behaviors. You’ll discover practical tips and methods for self-regulation, including breathing exercises and strategies for improving communication with partners. Emphasizing self-awareness and the conscious choice in responding to relationship stressors, this episode aims to transform approaches to trust and connection, empowering individuals to cultivate healthier, more secure emotional bonds.
Shanenn Bryant is the founder and CEO of Top Self, a self-development company offering coaching, courses, and community to those with feelings of low self-worth, insecurity, and jealousy in their relationship.
Using her instructional design certification Shanenn has developed many sales, systems, and development skills courses and delivered more than 400 training classes.
As a relationship confidence expert, and the host of the Top Self podcast, Shanenn has inspired thousands to break up with bogus beliefs, crack the control code, and overhaul their insecure habits.
In this Episode
05:41 Shannon Bryant’s mission to combat relationship insecurities.
08:51 Understanding the roots and impact of jealousy on relationships.
13:43 The interconnectedness of jealousy, anxiety, and insecurity, relating them to past experiences of relational trauma and insecure attachments.
26:01 The tendency to be attracted to unavailable partners as a means of avoiding self-reflection and confronting personal issues.
27:13 The role of technology in exacerbating jealousy and practical steps to address it.
34:37 Balancing trust and vigilance: Navigating the fine line in relationships.
37:51 Strategies for overcoming jealousy addiction.
41:03 The concept of jealousy as a symptom rather than the problem itself, emphasizing its role as a solution signaling underlying issues.
47:38 Coaching, resources, and trust-building programs for overcoming jealousy.
Your Check List of Actions to Take
- Recognize and regulate emotions by focusing on physical sensations before responding to jealousy.
- Utilize breathing exercises for emotional self-regulation during intense relationship situations.
- Communicate openly with your partner, expressing feelings and concerns without criticism.
- Foster vulnerability with your partner to strengthen support and trust in the relationship.
- Reflect on and adjust personal behavior patterns that contribute to jealousy and insecurity.
- Set clear boundaries against intrusive behaviors like monitoring your partner’s texts or social media.
- Seek professional guidance or support groups to address underlying causes of jealousy and insecurity.
- Practice trusting daily, consciously choosing trust in small interactions to enhance relationship stability.
Mentioned
Shifting Criticism For Connected Communication
Connect with Shanenn Bryant****
Websites: topself.com
Instagram: instagram.com/topselfcoach
Podcast: topself.com/podcast — TOP SELF | Tips on Jealousy in Relationships, Anxiety, and Insecurity
Connect with Dr. Jessica Higgins
Facebook: facebook.com/EmpoweredRelationship
Instagram: instagram.com/drjessicahiggins
Podcast: drjessicahiggins.com/podcasts/
Pinterest: pinterest.com/EmpowerRelation
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/drjessicahiggins
Twitter: @DrJessHiggins
Website: drjessicahiggins.com
Email: jessica@drjessicahiggins.com
About Today’s Show
Shanenn, thank you for joining us.
Thanks, Jessica. I’m so excited to be here!
Me too. I love just this topic, because I think it’s something that is typically in the shadow a little; we don’t always want to admit it or acknowledge it, and it’s not always easy to talk about. I know that there’s more conversations happening with you and others. So grateful to have your voice here. And with the topic of jealousy, I’m curious if you’re willing to share a little bit about you, a little bit about how this became a focus for you?
Oh, sure. I mean, if you would have told me eight years ago that I’d be helping other people overcome jealousy, I would say: Nope, don’t think so, no way! I was extremely jealous and insecure in my relationships for decades, and I just thought: This is just how I am, it’s my DNA. This is just how I’m made, and there’s nothing I can do about it. So it was a very hard thing to feel very hopeless, that there’s no way to fix this. I didn’t have any resources, I had no idea that there even was a fix. So that was sort of the other part. I kind of thought I was the only person that felt this way that was doing these things. So I didn’t know. As you said, because people don’t talk about it, I had no idea that there were so many other people that are really suffering from it. It’s got a lot of emotion behind it; there’s shame, there’s guilt, embarrassment, all of those come up. So one, people who are suffering from it are not talking about it a lot. Two, there’s not a tonne of research, like there is in other areas. So there’s not a lot of research and not a lot of people bringing solutions to people that are suffering from it. So thank you for giving this platform to be able to, hopefully, bring some comfort to someone.
Great. Well, I love that you have your personal journey here. I think it’s always really helpful when one has done a level of their own personal work and has a deeper understanding of the experience, so that usually they’re a little bit better equipped in helping others. So thank you for acknowledging. Also, as you’re describing, is there a bit of a continuum as to perhaps someone who experiences jealousy, maybe some experience it in a great degree? Even the green monster, so to speak, it’s very intense. Then others have a tendency towards it, but perhaps it’s not as problematic or painful. Do you find that to be true?
Oh, absolutely.
“I think jealousy itself is natural. Everyone is going to have a little tinge of jealousy from time to time, and that’s perfectly healthy and fine. It is when we get into this toxic, morbid jealousy, where it is something that is on people’s minds all day long.”
They’re constantly anxious. They’re sick to their stomach. They’re worried that their partner is going to cheat or leave them, or they’re not being truthful with them. That is something that really, I see people fall kind of in two buckets of where this comes from. One, they may have had some dysfunction growing up, and that leads to these behavioral characteristics as adults in their relationship. So maybe they had a parent who wasn’t really parenting, and now they’re looking to their partner for that reassurance, for being that role. We know that that doesn’t work very well.
So, in my case, my father was an alcoholic. I grew up in a very violent and chaotic environment, and my parents divorced when I was 12. I told my dad at the time: As long as you’re drinking, I don’t want to have anything to do with you. I never imagined that he would have chosen alcohol over his daughter when I said it. But he did. I didn’t talk to him again until I was 25, and that was just briefly, and then not again until actually just these last three years, which unfortunately were the last three years of his life as well. So when you grow up, in my case, I told myself a story, and we all do that. Like, what does that mean to me when things like that happen, that you’re trying to deal with as a child? So for me, I made that mean that: Well, gosh, if my own dad doesn’t love me, who else would, who’s going to love me? I must not be worthy of love. So that jealousy would really later then sink in and the insecurity. So I ended up staying in a lot of relationships that I probably shouldn’t have been in, I stayed way too long. And then, potentially, ruined some with perfectly fine people, because of the jealousy. So, many come from that bucket.
Then the second one is, they’ll say they don’t have any type of dysfunction in their background or anything like that. But maybe they have had the misfortune of being in a relationship with somebody who cheated on them, or a series of relationships where there was infidelity. So as we do, we go into protection mode. I don’t like that feeling, I don’t want to feel it again. Then it just becomes these insecure patterns that we get into and habits that we get into.
Thank you for just giving us some scope here. So it sounds like you’re acknowledging that jealousy is a human emotion that everyone might feel a twinge of from time to time. If it’s something that someone is contending with on a more intense level or frequent level, then perhaps there might be some things that are operating, that one could get some support around. Things that you’re identifying here are perhaps some relational trauma, either in the relationship or past relationships, that inform this insecurity or anxiety, and also in the family environment growing up, those learnings. It wasn’t perhaps as safe or secure, that those dynamics were predictable, reliable, and safe. Is that right?
Yeah, absolutely. The jealousy can really get to a point where it’s affecting your health, when you’re anxious all the time, when your nervous system is just out of control. We know that stress does a lot of damage to our bodies. But then it also starts to affect your relationship and your partner. My husband, I always joke like, should he have left me be. Thank goodness he didn’t, and he stuck it out with me because he knew I was working on it. But he got to a point where it’s like: “Ah, I feel like I have to walk with my head down. I feel like I can’t even look around the world without you thinking that I’m doing something or getting upset or feeling insecure about it.” So when it starts to affect us in that way, that’s time where we’ve got to go, I have got to look at this.
I wonder if, Shanenn, you would agree. Because as I’m hearing you describe here, it sounds as though you’re using jealousy, anxiety, and insecurity a little bit as a constellation. Is that right?
Yes.
Okay. Because, I mean, I’ll just say, I don’t know that I’ve experienced the extreme version of the jealousy. But I definitely have had a flavor, and I definitely can raise my hand with you that my family dynamics weren’t as predictable or consistent, and the circumstances and the capacity of my caregivers weren’t able to respond to me in a way that I always felt seen and safe and heard. So that insecure attachment, if you will, I had to relearn or learn for the first time and develop more secure functioning. I’m grateful to have someone that I’ve done that with and continue the journey with.
Just a little anecdote. I don’t know if you’ve ever. So when my husband and I were doing our wedding weekend ceremony, we had all our family there. We had done the ceremony already; it was kind of an after-party. But we did a little bit of, it wasn’t quite a talent show, but it was like people sharing different things and gifts. One of our friends was from Germany. I think it’s a more popular game now. But basically, you have the couple sit back-to-back, the groom and the bride, so to speak, or whatever the partners are. And she had a list of statements. So we’re back-to-back. So for me, I had one of my husband’s shoes and one of my shoes, and he had one of mine. You’ve heard of this?
Yes, where you raised it whatever it was.
Yes. So you have to basically say what you believe, and sometimes we were thinking the same, and other times we weren’t. Like, who’s cleaner, and who does more dishes? One of them was, who’s the more jealous one? I had to really think about it, and I was like: Oh, I am, I totally am.
I’m raising my shoe, that’s me.
Yeah, very, very slowly. So I can definitely appreciate. And what you’re describing, that this is a tendency to protect, or perhaps mitigate threats when the world hasn’t been super safe, that this is a way in which if we can mitigate. Is that right, can you say a little more there?
Yeah, the threat piece is definitely something. I’ll just use myself as an example, again. But we got to a point where we couldn’t go out to eat, we couldn’t go to movies, we couldn’t go to events. We would go to a restaurant, and just as we were in the waiting area, I would have already scanned the room for any potential threats, anyone that I thought he may think is attractive or that he may look at or any of those things. It was already to the point where I’m nervous about going in the first place, because I’m worried that this jealousy is going to come up. So then of course, we get there, and I’m looking for all the threats, so I’m on high-alert. Because now, my brain is focused on it coming true. So I’m watching him. So the minute he may look in the direction of one of those potential threats, that just was the trigger, and then here comes the reaction. So he could have just been looking around to see where the restroom was, or a painting on the wall. But because I’m looking at everything through that jealous lens in a way, I am seeing those things. So nobody was going to be able to convince me. You’re like: I saw what I saw, I saw him look at her. Sometimes I was wrong, and sometimes maybe he did. But the more important thing is, what am I making that mean about me? Like, why is that driving my life that I am bothered that he may look at someone who’s attractive?
Oh gosh, I’m feeling so much empathy right now. Because as you’re describing those, it’s both the interpretation that may or may not be true, to your point. But what you’re describing is a felt somatic nervous system lived experience that it actually is real. That’s so debilitating. The person that you love and you feel most connected to matters the most, and the threat, it’s constant.
Constant. No matter how much convincing or him trying to convince, or the partner trying to convince this person who is experiencing this type of jealousy, it’s really hard to calm that person down in those moments, or convince them that what they’re thinking is not real. You go into that fight or flight mode. So of course, we are experiencing it on all levels, as if this is really happening, no matter what the reality is.
So it’s hard to function sometimes when one is contending with this constant threat, and mitigating, and then also experiencing. I mean, there are beautiful people everywhere; people that have great personalities or are attractive or charismatic. I mean, it’s almost an impossible thing to think that one is always going to come out on top as they rank or compare to others in any public or social situation.
Well, yes.
“Social media doesn’t make it any easier. Years ago, we would only have to compete with our friends at school, and now it’s the entire world where we are competing and comparing ourselves, male and female. So that makes it even harder.”
But also yes, there is this false thought that if I’m not always number one, because I don’t know how to operate unless I have all the attention. If there’s anything negative that is said or thought about me, it’s debilitating. So that’s where that comes in that I’m never going to win as long as I’m thinking that way. It’s impossible.
It is impossible. Then also, as I’m hearing you describe this, it sounds as though, for what might happen if I don’t come out on top, whether or not for some. Is it true that some might go to a fear place or a wounding or an attachment wounding around: I’m not good enough, or you’re going to leave me, or fear of abandonment, or these type of things?
I mean, that’s what’s driving it. I’m worried that this person is going to leave me. I have that fear of abandonment. But what’s really driving it is, I’m not enough. I’m not good enough, I’m not enough, I’m not worthy of whatever it is. We don’t realize that that’s what it is. As we do, we spend a lot of time first blaming our partner. If you had not looked at her, or if you had not done that, or if you were more loving or more romantic, or whatever it is that we’ve come up with. So the first thing is, we really have to turn it on ourselves and get really aware, self-aware, and get that self-awareness, and take that accountability. That if this is something that you’re experiencing, to where it is debilitating for you, to where you are anxious on a daily basis, that is a You thing, no matter what the partner is doing. So maybe they are, maybe they’re not, that’s not really what we’re trying to answer. It’s like, why is this driving you?
Yes, I appreciate you acknowledging that for most, unless they’ve done a level of introspection and contemplation around these things, likely, they’re not fully conscious of these deeper fears and insecurities, attachment longings. So what you’re really directing the attention to is like, can we do a little bit of excavation here and unpack this and really come into greater contact with what is alive?
Okay. So before we do that, I just want to wonder with you, if there’s anything you want to say about the partner that is in relationship with the one that is showing a lot of these jealous tendencies? Because I don’t know if you would agree, I wonder, it’s just part of my hypothesis here. At some point, people might be attracted to people that aren’t really fully available or are not all in or do have a wandering eye. Is that sometimes the case? And then other times, there are people who are really super solid and consistent and show up, and yet, they feel like they can never win?
Yeah, there’s definitely both of those. I said in the beginning, I definitely had my fair share of relationships that I stayed way too long in, and that person was not treating me the way that I deserve to be treated. I didn’t feel like I deserve to be treated well, so that was sort of the expectation. It was not okay, but that’s what I put up with because I thought that that’s what I deserved. And as you may know, of course the anxious attached person loves the avoidant person. Those two, for whatever reason, it’s not my specialty, but they just are so drawn to each other, which then of course fuels the fire. Because if I’m the anxious person, I want your reassurance constantly. I’m like: Do you still love me? Are you still attracted to me? Do you still find me attractive? Those are the things I’m constantly needing that reassurance from my partner, and that avoidant partner is like: Oh my goodness, I can’t handle this. So then they back away, which makes me, the anxious one, even more anxious. So we definitely fall into those patterns.
“When you don’t know your worth, and you have those stories that you’re telling yourself, you will settle. Because you’re in that scarcity, so you will settle for someone who doesn’t treat you well.”
Then you also have, like in my case, where I ended up with someone, thankfully, who has a very secure person, who then is less likely to deal with my antics for far too long. Like I said, he put up with it for quite some time. But a lot of times, someone might not and say: I can’t handle this, I don’t want to live my life being controlled this way.
Is that sometimes what brings someone into wanting to look at themselves more deeply, is getting that feedback?
99.9% of my clients come to me because their partner said: “If this keeps up, I’m done. I cannot do this anymore,” which it’s great that they’re getting help, but it’s sad. Because experiencing it, when you’re constantly checking someone’s phone and their email and their text message, and you’re looking them up on location services, and you’re worried about other threats, that is a miserable way to lead life. But they’re doing it. So they’re not getting help for themselves, they’re getting help when they feel like they’re losing that partner. So I just encourage people, if you’re feeling that way, let’s get a handle on it before your partner says: “I can’t do this anymore, we’ve experienced this for the last time.”
Yes. Well, pain is a huge motivator, and we know that as humans, sometimes we don’t take action until it’s painful enough. And unfortunately, sometimes when someone does raise their hand and say I can’t do this, they’ve actually already left the relationship. So sometimes we don’t even get that opportunity to work or repair. So I hear you, and I mean, just even from one’s health, as you said, the state of one’s nervous system, living life from this hyper-vigilance is exhausting and taxing.
I want to comment, just before we pivot to the person and what we can do about this tendency. In my experience, having been in relationship with people who weren’t as available, it was actually scarier to be in relationship with someone who was present and engaged. Because it’s like, oh, I have good reason. Like, if whatever the circumstances were and I was right, I’m validated, and then I don’t have to actually look at myself as much. Is that right?
Oh, for sure. A lot of times, being the jealous person, that’s why you’re trying to stick that blame on the partner, and you’re really monitoring them. It’s also part of why you’re doing it. Like, I’m going to monitor my partner and pick out all their flaws and tell them how they should behave, and remind them how they should behave in a relationship. Because as long as I’m doing that, then I don’t have to look at this stuff that’s really probably hurting, and the real pain in that person. So as long as I have somebody else to monitor, it doesn’t have to be me.
Thank you for speaking about that. You mentioned something just a moment ago that I am like, wow, this sounds like a whole other level, which is technology. I think that plays a huge role in the accessibility to be watching someone.
To be obsessed, yeah. Because I joke about it now, and I think it’s part of how you get through things, or at least how I get through things. But it was very serious at the time. I mean, I looked my husband up like it was a job. It was constant all day long. We’ll talk about one of the things, if it’s okay to move into that, just a little bit of what we can do, is we have to look at those things. So where I start with someone is to say, let’s look at the Think, Do, Say. So what are the things that you’re thinking on a daily basis, what is the most repeated thing? Whether it’s something that you’re telling yourself, whether it’s something that you think about the relationship, whether it’s I’m worried about my partner, whatever that is. But let’s start tracking that, let’s write it down and really see it. Because for all of these, for Think, Do, Say, it’s like we kind of know. I mean, I know I’ve got negative thoughts, and I know I’m thinking this a lot. But let’s look at how much of it we’re doing. Then when we come to the Say part, what are the things we’re saying to our partner that is ruining the relationship, that’s telling them I don’t trust you?
So for me, an example. Let’s say my husband was trying to remind me have something that happened, and he’d say, remember a couple years ago when we went to whatever? And I always had a jab, something like: Oh, that must have been your girlfriend that you did that with. But these little jabs that we say to our partner, that if you just hear the sentence, it doesn’t sound too bad. But I’m telling him, I don’t trust you, and that’s my little kind of reminder that: Hey, I’m going to say it again, like this could be a possibility, I don’t trust you. So what are we saying to them and how often are we saying it? Because I was saying it a lot more than I thought that I was. So that’s Say.
Then the Do is what we were talking about. So looking at my phone location services, social media, text messages, email. I’m seeing who’s liking things, whose things are they liking, all of it. Social media is really tough for someone who is struggling with jealousy. So in my case, it was the location, and that was a huge one for me. Just constantly looking at him to see is he where he said he was, is he where he’s supposed to be?
So what I recommend, if somebody just wants to start on their own, like, how can I get a little bit of relief? Go to the Do. So those are all the Do’s. Once you have the whole list of these are all the Do’s and the things that I’m doing in this relationship, then pick one. Just one. People love to go, I’m going to stop all these. No, just the one, and the one that you think is easiest for you to let go of. That’s the one that’s like: Okay, not today, I can’t do that one. I can do all the 27 other things, whatever you’re doing. But I can’t do that one. And what people find is, oh my gosh, it’s a little bit of relief. I didn’t have that upset stomach 10 times today, from that one thing. I may have done all my other things, but it was a little bit of relief. Then you get a little bit of a win, because it’s like: Okay, I can do that. I can stop looking at location services, or I can stop looking at their text messages, or whatever it is that they choose. So just start small, and see how that feels. Because the best way to trust someone is to trust someone, so we have to start doing that.
I was thinking that. Thank you for saying that. That when those privacy or boundaries or that personal space isn’t respected. I know every couple has their own way of what is privacy and what is personal space. But we’re not in the action or the engaging of trusting as a verb, like in the action of it. We’re not actually growing or even participating in that.
Yeah. I mean, if somebody looked at my phone or my text messages, gosh, depending on who it was and the person looking, you could interpret things in so many different ways. Like, what does that emoji mean, or how did you mean that sentence? Or how did they mean it, or why did they text here? So even that can start a whole nother spiral of non-trust. So now I have a tonne of questions about what I just looked at, and I’m even more miserable now.
Wow, I’m just getting, again, a sense of how pervasive this is. Because if people have access to one another’s emails or their phones or social media, as you said, it’s like, who are they liking, and who are they following, and who are they commenting? I mean, that is just deep around all the different interactions.
Look, I think this is true, that even if our partner had full transparency and we have access to everything, we still do not, with every attempt and all the time and energy, let’s just say, we still do not know their inner world and cannot monitor. I mean, they are their person, they have their own agency, they’re going to think and feel the way they feel. There’s no way, even if we tried, even if they wanted to give access to everything, there’s no way to be inside someone else’s experience.
No. Here’s I think the biggest thing is we’re trying to prove fidelity. You can’t prove that. So if what I really want is true, what I really want is I want a partner who’s faithful to me, who loves me, who cares about me, who’s not doing these things behind my back, then I’m never going to see proof of that on their phone or their social media.
“I get that people are looking to see if there’s something. But where we get in the habit, and this is true for jealousy sufferers, is because you’re not finding that. So then you say: Oh, I’ve got to look more, or I’ve got to look more places, or they’re good at hiding it.”
So you’re never going to find it if what you want is true, because it’s not there. So you would check forever, which is kind of how we end up here, because we keep checking.
Right. It becomes, like you said, an obsession, or it becomes so compulsive around compelling and almost like a job of monitoring, I just imagine. I don’t know this well, but I just am empathizing. The other thing I’m wondering, and this I do know, is it’s an incredible risk, it’s implied what we’re describing, to love someone and not have the guarantee, and to be taking a risk on someone to develop trust and fidelity. Like, do you want to say anything about that?
Well, I think what’s interesting is, the very person that we are doing all of this and saying negative things to them, showing them that we don’t trust them, potentially getting into arguments with them over things that may not even be reality, because our brain is trying to prove us right, are the same people that most of the time are beneficiaries on our 401(k) or our life insurance policies, these things. So it’s like we trust them, but we don’t trust them on this daily basis. So even if you look at it in that sense, it’s like, you can see the confusion. That’s when you know this is a fear thing, this is in me. A lot of people will say: “I don’t think they’re out there looking for things. I just don’t want it to accidentally happen.” So it’s kind of like they trust that they’re not cheating, but just in case.
Okay, so that’s interesting. Because I don’t know that I’ve ever bought into this, but I do believe it exists. I’m going to name it, and help me if it’s true or you think it’s true. It’s almost as if sometimes people think it’s their job, like this is a responsibility, that if you’re not checking or monitoring. Is that right? You’re nodding.
Yes, and that kind of goes back to what I was saying. If I’m monitoring someone else, if I’m checking someone else, then I do not have to address the Me stuff. So yes, they feel as if in some way they own that partner, or that partner should always reassure them, that partner should always make them feel better. That is a parent, and that’s partly why that person maybe didn’t get that from their parent. Those relationships are very different relationships, and your partner, that’s not their job to reassure you.
Right, and that’s not the arrangement. That I own you, or that you’re obligated to disclose every single thing.
I was just going to say, I hear some people, I get that feedback a lot. Like, don’t tell me not to look at stuff, I’m going to look. Because this is my life, and I’m going to protect my life. Okay, I get that. Sure, fair enough. What I’m talking about is when it gets in these insecure habits that we’re doing, and it’s this daily basis, where it’s making you sick and it’s making your partner miserable.
Okay. So you’re describing, I know there’s probably many ways in which you support people working through this experience of jealousy. You’re saying there’s the deeper work of understanding what’s underlying, view of self, view of other, just those kind of attachment styles or tendencies. And you’re also saying, coming at it from a behavioral standpoint, around what is it that I am thinking, what’s the narrative that I’m perpetuating every day? What is it that I am saying? What am I saying to my partner? Can I look at that and really take an honest look and track it? You’re saying let’s just do some inventory here. Then thirdly, you’re saying what is it that I’m doing? If I get really, really honest, a well-lit room with all the people that I care most about, can I stand and say: This is what I do, this is what I think, this is what I say?
Right. Going back to why this doesn’t get talked about, there’s shame, there’s embarrassment behind it, and there’s the heart, a reason why. We can go before when I would go to look up location services, but even before I was doing it, when I knew I’m going to go and look, I already didn’t feel good. Already, my stomach was hurting, it didn’t feel good. It just feels bad, so you know that that’s not a healthy habit that you’re in.
I’m almost getting a sense that this could even be addictive. Because as you’re describing, for maybe someone who struggles with gaming or porn or some substance or even emotional eating, they can feel the draw and being compelled, and they know that that’s not going to necessarily be the healthy option. You’re nodding.
Yeah, my Facebook group is called Jealousy Junkies, and that’s why. Because I do, as bad as it sounds, compare it to a drug addiction. Because it’s like, we get that urge, we need that reassurance. So whether that’s through questioning my partner, whether that’s looking at their phone and let me go figure out. But I’ve got to get reassurance somehow, I have to have it. So then I get the reassurance, whether my partner is like: Yes, I still love you, or no, I don’t think that the new co-worker is attractive, or I’ve looked at the phone and they are where they said they were going to be. I feel better for a moment, for-short term, and then I need it again. So that just vicious cycle of like, I need that fix again, and it’s only going to last for a very short time, and then I need it again, which I’m sure you can imagine, for the partner, is exhausting. For the person who is jealous, it’s exhausting.
Yeah, so there’s like almost a dopamine hit or a reward that’s built in short-term. But the long-term is that it’s not satiated, and that the need is going to be there again very soon.
So what else would you like to say around what perhaps someone could do to begin to shift out of this tendency? I know one thing you mentioned that I think some people might get curious about is, jealousy is a solution and not a problem. Can you say a little more about that?
Yeah. So I hear all the time, people will say: “Oh, I have such a problem with jealousy, or jealousy is such a problem in my relationship.” Jealousy is not the problem. Jealousy is a symptom. So jealousy is a solution. It’s there, like if it were kind of tapping, like: “Jessica, hey, there’s something going on, you need to go look at it.” So I really feel like it is the solution for you to go: Oh okay, this is something. So that’s why I say jealousy is not the problem, it’s a solution.
So there are a couple things to look at.
“Sometimes it’s projection, like we’re projecting either our own behaviors. I know people don’t want to admit this, but like, well, maybe you’re a little too flirty with the guy in accounting, or maybe you have had some indiscretions yourself. Then it makes you nervous, because you know, well, if I can do it and I can get away with it, is my partner doing these things?”
So sometimes it’s projection. It can also be projection in the sense of I’ve had this happen to me before by my previous partner. But that kind of goes more into that protection part. So protection and projection are two things that I would say, maybe look at which of the two it is. Or sometimes, maybe you’ve got both of those things.
But the idea, and I’ll leave with this, the idea of where you really want to get to is, between the trigger and your reaction, there is that space there. There is space, even when you’re in this jealousy. Because I hear it all the time: “I feel like I’m just out of control, and I can’t stop myself, and I just explode.” There’s some truth to that, where we have to get to like, can we lengthen that space between the trigger and your response? So there’s breathing exercises, there’s some other things that you can do to help in those moments when you are feeling jealous. So let’s lengthen that space, and then shorten the gap of recovery, whether that’s recovery between you and your partner because you were in an argument, or just because I’m feeling guilty and I’m feeling bad for either the things I said or I did, or that this jealousy is still here. Like, we have to have some grace with ourselves as well.
Well, I appreciate just you giving some scope to this, in that there’s a process, and being able to slow it down to give people some room. It’s sounding as though, which I know to be true in many areas in psychology, that there’s a good reason why we do what we do. At one point, it made sense, or it was an adaptive response, and perhaps it’s got a lot of side effects in current day. So it’s difficult to just eliminate without replacing. So if we can slow it down and look at: Okay, this was a move that made sense, and now I’m wanting to practice new moves. So you’re saying if we can slow it down, we can have more opportunity to practice new things, that can really assist.
Yeah.
“If we can slow it down just a bit, then you can see where there’s choice in it. It doesn’t feel like choice when you’re so geared up and you’re just unleashing. That doesn’t feel like choice. But there is choice there.”
There’s still room where there’s choice, and that’s where we have to go: Oh okay, there was an opportunity for me, as you said, to see can I replace this and do something different in this moment? Just play around with it even. Even if it’s like, I’m going to excuse myself for three minutes. That’s why I say breathing exercises, because you always have your breath with you, you can do that anywhere; you can do it sitting at the table at the restaurant, or you can do it in the bathroom for a minute, splashing water on your face. Even that though, no matter what, is going to be different than if you would have just kept going. So I have a choice here even if I do something different. The outcome may not be as beautiful as I want it still, but it can be different. So then just doing those mini, like let me see what else I have choice to change here.
Oh, there’s so many more things I want to say. I know we’re winding down. I just can imagine the trajectory of this, that as one starts to practice, they’re going to feel something different, to your point, whether or not it’s being able to have a little more stability in themselves and hold themselves, not self-abandoned. And also to feel in contact with the deeper layers, like I’m terrified, or I’m so scared. Once we can start to shift, even I imagine our partner can be more of an ally, because they’re not on the other side; they can be in a place of support. They can’t take responsibility for it, but perhaps can be a support, especially when there’s a level of vulnerability that one is practicing.
Yeah. Again, I have a choice to either accuse, as I’ve always done, or I can be accountable and I can say it in a different way. So even the communication that you’re having with your partner is a choice; the communication that you’re having with them in that moment, beforehand, afterwards, all of that. I mean, there are choices in that, even in the communication. So you’re going to have a partner that’s responding way differently, as we know. That if you’re saying: Hey, I’m feeling this way, I’m telling myself this, they’re going to respond differently than how I did. Like, why are you looking at that person, or why did you do that? Because most of the time, I may be wrong. So you’re accusing me of something that I haven’t even done, or your reaction to maybe something that I’ve done doesn’t match.
Well, I’m grateful for everything you’re sharing, and also all that you’re doing to help support people in this healing journey of when they’re struggling with this jealousy. How do people get in contact with you and what you’re doing as you’re helping people?
Well, thank you again, like I said, for giving a space here for somebody that maybe hears this, that doesn’t have another outlet other than your show, to hear some of this information, and hopefully get them on a great healing path. But they can reach me just through my website at TopSelf.com. Or I’m on Instagram, so you can look Shanenn Bryant. Shanenn is with an E and “enn”, so it is spelled different. But Shanenn Bryant or @TopSelfCoach.
Wonderful. So I’ll have the links to both of those, all your social media, as well as your website, on today’s show notes. For people who are interested and maybe want to know what they might find on your website, do you want to say a little more?
Yeah, so I definitely have some free resources. There’s a list of like, what are signs of healthy relationships, there’s the five things that you need to help overcome this jealousy. Soon, there’ll be a whole free webinar that people can just go and watch on their own time. So there’s some free resources. Also, I do private one-on-one coaching, and then I have a really great group coaching program called Trust-Building Boot Camp. So it’s a lot of fun. It’s a small group of people, and it’s a place where finally I have someone else that I can talk to, that understands, that doesn’t think I’m crazy, that understands the things that I’m doing and saying and feeling. So people love it. It’s six weeks long, and they’re always wishing that it was longer at the end. So a couple different ways.
Wonderful! Again, I’m so grateful for your leadership in this area. Thank you for all that you’ve shared today.
Thank you, Jessica.
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Keeping the flame of passion alive in a relationship can be a challenging endeavor, especially amidst the demands and stresses of everyday life. From managing work responsibilities to navigating household chores and family commitments, couples often find themselves caught up in a whirlwind of obligations, leaving little room for fun and positive connections.
In this episode, we explore actionable strategies and valuable insights aimed at addressing the challenge of maintaining fun and positivity in a relationship. From practical tips to infuse joy into everyday moments to revitalizing the bond between partners, we offer guidance on reigniting the spark and fostering a deeper connection amidst life’s demands.
Arlene Pellicane is a renowned author and speaker specializing in marriage and parenting. She has been featured on numerous media outlets such as The Today Show, Wall Street Journal, Focus on the Family, Fox & Friends, TLC’s Home Made Simple, FamilyLife Today, and The 700 Club. Arlene also hosts the Happy Home podcast and has authored popular books like “31 Days to a Happy Husband” and “31 Days to Becoming a Happier Wife”. Alongside her husband James of over 25 years, Arlene resides in the San Diego area with their three children: Ethan, Noelle, and Lucy.
In this Episode
06:43 Arlene’s journey from being raised in a loving family to becoming a champion of healthy relationships.
10:55 Cultivating daily intimacy.
14:42 Nurturing connection through fresh perspectives.
21:58 The importance of scheduling regular dates in maintaining a thriving relationship.
26:44 Rediscovering playfulness and adventure, especially for couples who may have lost touch with these aspects of their connection.
30:15 Strategies for couples feeling overwhelmed by the responsibility of planning weekly or bi-monthly dates.
33:13 Cultivating connection through regular getaways.
40:13 The importance of maintaining a positive focus on connection during designated relationship rituals like date nights and getaways.
Your Check List of Actions to Take
- Prioritize daily connection by setting aside dedicated time each day to focus on your partner without distractions.
- Schedule weekly dates to nurture your relationship, even if they’re simple activities, to maintain a sense of novelty and anticipation.
- Discuss and agree upon date night activities together, ensuring both partners feel engaged and excited about the plans.
- Rotate the responsibility of planning dates to share the load and encourage mutual investment in the relationship.
- Approach sensitive topics at appropriate times, avoiding discussing them during designated connection rituals like date nights or getaways.
- Plan regular getaways, whether big vacations or simple 24-hour escapes, to rejuvenate your bond and create lasting memories.
- Unplug during getaways to fully immerse yourselves in each other’s company and deepen your connection.
- Don’t hesitate to initiate positive changes in the relationship, even if your partner isn’t initially on board, fostering a culture of mutual respect and understanding.
Mentioned
National Marriage Week USA
Calm, Cool, and Connected: 5 Digital Habits for a More Balanced Life (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
31 Days to a Happy Husband: What a Man Needs Most from His Wife (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
31 Days to Becoming a Happy Wife (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
Atomic Habits (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
ERP 089: How to Use Love Languages to Strengthen Connection
ERP 090: How to Use Love Languages to Strengthen Connection – Part Two
Connect with Arlene Pellicane
Websites: arlenepellicane.com/about
Podcast: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-happy-home-podcast-with-arlene-pellicane (Apple Podcast link)
Connect with Dr. Jessica Higgins
Facebook: facebook.com/EmpoweredRelationship
Instagram: instagram.com/drjessicahiggins
Podcast: drjessicahiggins.com/podcasts/
Pinterest: pinterest.com/EmpowerRelation
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/drjessicahiggins
Twitter: @DrJessHiggins
Website: drjessicahiggins.com
Email: jessica@drjessicahiggins.com
About Today’s Show
Arlene, thank you for joining us.
Wonderful to be with you, Jessica.
Yes. I appreciate just it seems as though you are really reaching out to really support people and a message of supporting, healthy relating. I am so excited about our conversation.
Yes, I hope that every listener will feel encouraged. That they’ll feel: “I feel better after listening to that. I feel encouraged and supported.” That is what we’re here to do.
Nice. Before we get to talking about what we’re going to talk about today, and for people who are just meeting you, what would you like to share, as far as what got you interested in supporting people in this way of healthy relating and relationship?
I am an only child who was raised by a mom and dad who were very loving – loving towards each other, and loving towards me – and I kind of felt like: Oh, that’s just the way the world is. Because that’s the way that my world was, growing up. My parents are Chinese, they were raised in Indonesia, and then they came to America, and I was born here in America. So this was my world. As I grew up, I realized, well, there are a lot of people who didn’t grow up with a loving mom and dad, who both loved each other and loved you as a child. So that became very much my heart of how can I help and encourage people to build loving relationships? So that, first of all, they can experience that long-term love and goodness from that relationship, and then they could pass that along to their children, and etc. So that’s kind of the heart of the interest was, hey, I have found this to be a really good thing, this whole marriage and family thing, and even the parenting thing, even the baby years and the teenage years and all those things. So how can I help come alongside families to help them experience the same thing?
I have a weekly podcast called The Happy Home Podcast. I always like to end it with: “You don’t have to come from a happy home to create one.” Even though I came from a happy home, and I’m doing what I can to replicate that, I’ve met so many couples who did not come from a happy home, but then they’ve realized: Okay, there needs to be changes. and you see how amazing that you can grow and you can change and you can stop bad patterns. So that’s what I have devoted my life to, in terms of the podcast addresses that, and my books are trying to help people have a happier home. That doesn’t mean a perfect home. That doesn’t mean like everything is like roses in your marriage. But you know what it means to come from a happy home, that it is somewhere that is stable, somewhere that is loving, somewhere that is more encouraging than not, etc. So that’s been my joy.
My husband and I have been married for 25 years, and have really truly enjoyed. I was the girl, in high school and in college, who was like, I’m watching all the romantic movies and I’m wondering, where is he? So it was like, where is he? So finally, after grad school, after working, and you get married and you wait for that and you finally get married. It’s like, you treasure that. So that has been lovely. We have three kids, one in college and two in high school.
Thank you for sharing a little bit about you and your journey. It sounds as though, if I’m understanding, your real promotion and your real regard for the emotional glue, in this happy kind of healthy, loving connection, and know that it’s not always perfect, but that there’s a warmth and a safety that supports. It’s like the fascia, when you think about the body and the fascia that connects. It’s this connective tissue, this connective glue that supports. Am I hearing you?
I love that. My husband is going to come home today, I’m going to be like, you are my fascia! I like this very much. I have new language. Thank you, Jessica. I love that.
Wow, that sounds super sexy.
Right? Come to me, fascia, we’re like a glue together.
Yeah. Well, the connection, there’s an interconnectedness. You’re talking about the family and the children and the intergenerational importance of just how we all show up for each other, and that responsiveness and that being present, that’s so key. I really appreciate your message about even if you didn’t have these circumstances, or the optimal, good enough parenting and the happy home, that you have the opportunity to create this; you can learn these skills, you can earn a secure attachment and secure functioning in relationship.
Absolutely.
Yeah, wonderful. All right, well, let’s dive in. Just before we got started here, you were saying let’s talk about the rhythms. So when you speak about rhythms in relationship, and we’re talking more specifically about romantic relationship in adulthood, tell us a little bit about what you’re referring to?
Yeah. So one organization I work with is National Marriage Week, and National Marriage Week happens every year from February 7th to 14th. One of the things that is taught at the National Marriage Week, which I think is so beautiful, is this rhythm of: connect daily, date weekly, and get away regularly. And what does this look like, daily connection? This means, you know how when you’re first dating someone, you just cannot wait until you see them that day, or that you call them or you text them, or there’s some kind of connection between you. You’re just like: Oh hey, I’ve connected! You’re so happy. But you put a couple years into that, a decade or two into that, and sometimes it can feel like, let me avoid you so that I can get on with my day, instead of let me connect with you. So it’s just this return to, hey, every day, let’s make sure that we’re looking at each other.
My husband and I, when we were first dating, he was looking into my eyes and he said, do you know what I see when I look in your eyes? I was like, what do you see? He said, I see the letters AV, your contact lenses say AV. I popped those things out that night, and I was like: Oh my word, they really say AV on the rim. And he was looking at my eyes so closely that he saw the lenses in my eyes. You don’t have to be that intent maybe. But isn’t it funny? Just think when you were first knowing one another, how intently your attention was on that person. But then what happens? Life gets busy, you’re looking at your phone instead of your spouse, instead of your loved one, and that happens. So it’s returning back to that daily, even if it’s a one. Can you imagine even for 30 seconds, if there are no phones present, no agenda present, no to-do lists? But you’re just looking at your loved one for 30 seconds and just saying, how are you doing today? Like, what was great about your day, what was awful about your day? Is there anything that you’re dreading or you’re looking forward to this week? And you’re really looking at them. So this doesn’t take hours, you can literally take one minute and do this. But it is a daily connection.
We talk a lot about the five love languages, which is by Dr. Gary Chapman, and he and I have written books like Screen Kids together. The love languages, you can certainly look that up, five love languages, if you’re not familiar with that. But it’s basically that people give and receive love in different ways. So my husband loves physical touch. So when we were dating, he’d be like, do you want me to rub your feet? I’m like, gross! Like, why would I want you to touch my feet after we’ve been on a date? I was like, that is disgusting! But then in time, I realized, oh my goodness, it’s because you are physical touch, and you want me to rub your feet. It’s like, I finally understood why you kept offering to do that. So our daily connection is, I will rub my husband’s feet many nights, not every night. But many nights, I will rub his feet, and he will listen to me talk, because talking is mine; words of affirmation. He will tell me nice things about me, like: I appreciate you rubbing my feet so much, you looked very beautiful today honey, I love you, whatever. So he’s giving me my love language and I am giving him his, and that’s just this little daily ritual we have. I kind of tease him that he just hangs his feet over the bed just outside of the blanket, and it is kind of like a puppy dog, like: Please, please, see me, see me. I’m like: Okay, here I come, I’ll rub your feet and we will talk to each other. So daily connection.
Well, it seems really important what you’re describing, and having the ability to see each other in a real present way, almost see each other with the beginner’s mind. Because when we look at a relationship of 25 or 30 or however many years, we as humans typically get a little bit more automatic and automate things and get into habit. If we even think about driving, if you’re a proficient driver, one could even be in autopilot. So it’s this human tendency to want to automate, to be efficient. Yet, we don’t want to automate our relationship. So often, especially if there’s many tasks or different demands, it’s easy to be focused otherwise, or think that we know about our significant other, when really, they’ve experienced something new that day, or they’re a different person, or feeling something. As you mentioned, having feelings of certain sorts. So to be able to really have pause, prioritize that connection, and you’re giving some examples, especially referencing love language, so it really hits the mark.
But before I even respond to that, is there anything you want to encourage people to keep this a little bit more alive? Because even the question of how are you, highs and lows, roses and thorns, people can feel routine about it. So is there anything? Even the eye-gazing, like looking, there’s something that when we are familiar with it, it’s just this human tendency to just get into the routine of it. So is there anything you recommend or want to encourage people to do here?
Believe me, I need this just like everybody else, for sure. So that same National Marriage Week at MarriageWeek.org, there is a couple’s connection plan, it’s free, that you can download. It gives you these new prompts, new things to talk about. The couple’s connection plan, MarriageWeek.org. But I think questions like, what podcasts are you listening to lately? That opens it up, because all of a sudden, now the person is talking about what we’re talking about right now. So what podcasts have you been listening to lately? Like, what movie are you really looking forward to seeing? Where should we travel next, whether it’s somewhere really close or somewhere really far away? Is there a new restaurant that we want to try in town that’s some kind of food that we’ve never eaten, or we haven’t had in five years? My son is in college, and he has this roommate, and it’s adorable. His roommate eats very limited things. So it’s like, we introduced him to Thai food. He had never eaten Thai food in his whole life, and he’s just like, what is this? So it’s just little things like that that I think are fun. It is that curiosity. My husband and I, we had talked about trying to go to a ballroom dancing class, and we had put it off and put it off and put it off. Finally, we went, and we just stink at it. But we just kept going, and now it’s really cute. Although older couples try to help us, and it’s adorable, and we love it.
“Trying to do new things, so that you have new things to talk about. Reading new things, listening, podcasts, etc., new things. Put a marriage event in your calendar, where you are going somewhere for some kind of marriage retreat, or maybe a talk or something. So that you do have new things to talk about.”
I think you’re right, that even the questions we ask, to make yourself think of a new question to ask, which I know can be challenging.
Well, thank you for responding to that. I hear the curiosity and really giving some space to wonder and be in the unknown of what do I not know? Or were you surprised by anything today? Or did anything disappoint you? Or just maybe a different question. Then I really love their recommendation of bringing in something novel and new. There’s just a little bit of a dopamine hit that we get when there’s that new learning, and to share that with a significant other. Even as simple as a new restaurant or something, and maybe even scarier and bigger risk of going to a ballroom. I mean, that’s not a comfortable thing sometimes to get outside of that comfort zone. And how fun that you’re doing that.
With that, Jessica, it’s also the listening. I feel like we’ve been married 25 years, and we’re just kind of starting to learn how to listen. I thought we were really good at listening, and then we’ll be learning more about it and you realize: Oh, I’m pretty much listening to get enough information, so that I can respond correctly, or that I can get to my response. So that listening to our spouse without any agenda, without trying to shift it to now it’s about me. But instead, just really listening and, and just being quiet, and just listening. Then really trying to understand, like: Oh, well, I didn’t even realize you were so anxious about this, or whatever it is. That I think even evokes a lot of newness, because you think you know what your spouse is going to say. I do that all the time. I complete his sentences, because I think I’m so clever, and I know exactly what he’s going to say. Lately, he’s been like: Oh, you’re doing it again. I’m like: I’m sorry, let me shut my mouth. Because he’ll say, do you want to try again, do you want to try again, do you want to try again? So I think listening also is a really key component to that.
Well, and I think it goes to what we’re already talking about, and there’s a deepening and enriching in that space in listening. Because sometimes when there’s a lot on the agenda, or tasks that need to get talked about, or decisions needed to get made, it’s like: Okay, you go, and then I’m going to go on, and then you go. So we’re kind of fielding the ball. But if there’s a real listening and a deepening and just holding space, sometimes the person who’s speaking will say things that you never thought they would say, because there’s space and there’s room.
I will agree with you. I’ve known my husband since 2006, so it’s like 18 years, and been together in relationship. I still learn things about him that I’m like: Oh, now I get it, or that makes sense. It’s like a deepening. I knew it, but knowing it on a deeper level, just having those moments where I’m really contemplating. To your point, not only listening, but imagining and really trying to understand more deeply. This just brings that connection. To have somebody on the receiving end really see and contemplate it and be attended to, that’s a real gift.
It is a gift, and an easy gift to give. It doesn’t cost any money, it’s about the same amount of time. So it’s a good gift to give.
It is. Then to just, again, reflect back to you around the love language, and knowing our partner’s love language, the ways in which they feel most loved and most comfortable, it’s their primary native language around love. To have awareness around that and being supportive of that, that that can typically be that much more potent, if we’re going to put the effort in.
Okay, I can direct people to resources, the book and other podcasts about that. So thank you for pausing with me, you were going to go onto weekly dates, what were you going to say there?
I love to encourage people, Jessica. If you just shoot for the weekly, you’ll probably get one or two a month, and that’s absolutely fine. We give you thumbs up, that’s a go signal. Go for it. It is that same idea of trying to find something novel, doing something new. Having something on your calendar makes you know: Hey, even though we have a really busy, nut life, I know we’re going to connect on Saturday night, or I know we can look forward to that Friday night. So there is the anticipation of it, like: Oh, this is fun, and I’m looking forward to it. There’s the novelty of it. I heard one counselor say, now make sure when you’re on a date, it’s not like: Oh, I had a nice time. He said, you have your nice time with your Aunt Bertha. You’re supposed to have kind of like an adventurous time or a fun time or a sweet time, make sure you kiss and do the things you used to. Of course, not every date is going to be like this. So please understand that not every date is like: Wow, that just sent me to the moon! Some may feel very ordinary, and that’s okay. Because you just have to keep at it. There’s going to be some that are extra special, and some that you just did, and that is good.
Brad Wilcox at the National Marriage Project, and he’s a sociologist at the University of Virginia. So they surveyed couples of if they go on dates, and they found that 52% of couples say they don’t go on dates, which means they say we either don’t date or maybe just a few times a year. Then 48% of couples said we do date at least once or twice a month. So it’s a lot of people that are not dating. But you can imagine the ones that did report were dating, you can imagine that they want to spend time together, they’re willing to put a little money into it and time, they prioritize their relationship over their other activities. So it makes sense that these people that are dating would have a boost, a 15% boost, in things like overall satisfaction, communication, good sex life, not likely to divorce.
“One of the simplest things you can do for your marriage, for that relationship, is to date regularly, and to not forget that part. So it’s not just like, we’re business partners, but we still enjoy each other’s company.”
And when you fall off the wagon, which my husband and I do many times, you get busy, things happen. It’s like: Oh my word, three or four weeks have gone by, and we haven’t gone on a date. It’s okay, then you just go like, let’s put it on the schedule for next week. And when you’re in the super busy seasons, your date might look like, we are going to walk around with a dog for half an hour, and talk and kiss at the end of the road. That might be the date for that week, and that is totally fine. But it’s on purpose, and you schedule it, and you look forward to it.
Well, thank you for acknowledging just there’s a couple components to a date. Because I do think people get a little bit more specific around what constitutes a date, and you just gave a little bit more range. That it could be something simple, that it’s on purpose, we schedule it, and we have some connection and intention around it. Are there other things that constitute a date in your mind?
I do think that whole planning and that anticipation, let’s say it’s something really small. It’s like, we’re going to go to McDonald’s alone. But then it’s three days before, I can’t wait to go to McDonald’s alone. So you make the most of it, whatever it is. Let it take its course and make the most of it. I think it’s just the acknowledgement that I still want to be with you, and let’s carve out time to be together, I think that part of it. Even when you don’t feel that way, so sometimes, obviously, you feel that way, like: Oh baby, I really can’t wait to be with you. And some days, you don’t feel that way. But now, it’s like you made a vow. That’s part of our Love Beyond Words, which is the theme for National Marriage Week this year. It is this idea of it’s not just words, but I’m going to back these up. That when I said I’m going to be with you, till death do us part, in sickness and in health, for better or for worse. That means when I don’t feel like going on the date, I’m still going to go on the date with you. When I don’t feel like listening, I will still listen to you. That’s all very good for us, to say I can look at someone else and serve them. Guess what, when you love someone like that, wow, you are the winner! Because you’re the one that your heart will fill up with so much love, because you’re like, oh my goodness, I did the right thing, even when I didn’t feel like it. That’s such a good thing.
Yes, when we can show up with that generosity and also be present, that we might actually be the ones receiving when we think we’re showing up for the other. I love that. It does occur to me that you’re referencing play and fun, which I think is really important. I see your smile when you’re talking about this. For couples that lost touch, because my sense is that if one’s a little bit more in the crew, there’s a little bit more of a repertoire of like, what’s fun in the current phase of things or current season? But if a couple is out of habit or lost touch, they might actually not know what’s fun. They’re just classic, dinner and a movie, or fancy dinner or something. That might actually not feel so fun. What do you encourage people, or do you have any tips that you want to mention for this?
Yeah. Let’s say you’re in this place, it doesn’t mean like: Oh my word, next Friday, we have to have a cruise to Mexico. You don’t have to make this huge leap. It might be just this little thing. So on MarriageWeek.org, you can find a date night idea list that has all different things. So you can certainly look at that. It might be as simple as: You know, sweetheart, we want to go on a date, but I don’t know what to do. Do you know what to do? They’re like, I don’t know what to do. So they say: Okay, let’s both get a piece of paper, and let’s just write 10 things that we kind of like. So this could be anything from going to the farmers’ market, to seeing a movie, to going fishing, to watching a ballgame, to seeing a concert, to visiting grandchildren, whatever. Hiking, biking, knitting, whatever it is. So you both make your lists separately, and then come together and see, does anything come together? If you’re super lucky, one or two of those things, you’ll have those. So you’ll know those are a go. Then it might be like: Okay, you know what, you love football, I’d be happy to go with a game with you. Oh, you really want to go to this farmer’s market, I will walk around with you. So you kind of play like: Hey, let’s find what things we can do together that we both like. Then you also play the game like: Well, I’ll just do this because I don’t hate it, and you really like it. Then you do that for each other.
I think it’s ways to grow as a person, and what you’re doing is you’re preferring the other person. Even if those are really small gains, over time, that speaks a lot to your partner. Like, wow, look at them, they’re showing up! My husband loves to camp, and I never. Camping to us was like, stay at the hotel, walk around the lake, and sleep on your nice pillow and go in your nice bathroom. So those first times of sleeping in the tent or whatever, that was really hard. But we’ve come to compromise that there’s some times we’ve gotten a cabin, and then there’s some times we have gone backpacking. And it is good. Obviously, my husband does say you have veto power, so you are able to say I draw the line here. You can do that.
“As much as you can, try what the other person likes, and that’ll open up all sorts of new things for you.”
Yeah, it’s a generative cycle that when we can start to engage, that possibly we’ll get at new ideas or we’ll recognize: Oh, I had a little more capacity for this than I thought, and just a little bit more range. That gives more opportunities to have fun together, rather than so lost touch or narrow. I wanted to ask about the date, weekly dates, or if it happens twice a month. Do you recommend any strategy for couples that feel challenged by the load of planning? Or feeling like one is a little bit more of the planner, and it typically ends up falling on the other end? Because that can start to feel not so good.
Yes. If the planner is feeling like, man, I do not like planning so much, then that planner, I think, can say to the other: You know what, sweetheart, I am typically the one who plans all these things, but I am not having enough time to do this good. So why don’t we do every other date, or maybe I plan two and you plan one? Then the planner, let’s say your spouse or your partner, plans this really dumb date, and you’re like, this was awful! Then you need to be quiet about that. You cannot criticize and say like: This was an awful restaurant, you picked an awful movie, I hate sitting by the water. You need to not complain, and you just need to say, thank you so much for planning this day. So obviously, if you’re the one planning it all, you’re the idea person, and you’re all into this, and then your spouse really isn’t. So then don’t criticize them, because then they’ll never want to do it again and it’s back on your plate. So if you don’t want it back on your plate, then you need to say: Thank you, this was great! Guess what, your spouse is going to get better at that. Like, in a year, your spouse is going to kind of tune in. The more specific you can be with your spouse to say like: Oh, I really loved that, what we did. They’ll get it, like: Oh, this is what this person likes, I’m going to work on that. So I think that’s a nice way to do it is to swap back and forth.
“Even though we have been talking about creativity and novelty, if you’re in the stage where it’s like that is a lot of work, then my goodness, just pick a restaurant and a pretty lake, and just go to the restaurant, sit by the lake for half an hour, and come home. It is okay, you don’t have to burden yourself with trying to outdo what you did last week.”
You don’t have to do that. Take the stress out of it. Because this is supposed to be an anticipation of fun, not an anticipation of like: Oh my word, I’m having 10 people over for dinner tonight, and I’m so stressed. It’s not supposed to feel that way, so then you’re not planning it right.
Exactly. I really appreciate your encouragement that even if it wasn’t what you love, that perhaps you can give feedback for learning that: Oh, I really liked that part, or I want more of that, or that felt good. It’s just helping in a positive way, give specifics and give opportunity for that learning.
Fantastic. Then you mentioned regular getaways.
Yes, you can see this daily connection, this weekly dating, and then the regular getaways, whether it is like: Whoa, the big vacation to Europe that we’re planning and we’re saving for, and we’re so looking forward to! That can be definitely, that has so much power. Because all the years or months you’re anticipating it, it’s like: Wow, this is so exciting! So you get to ride all that anticipation. Then you do the big trip, and it’s wonderful, and then you have all the memories of like: Oh, remember when we did this. So that actually, to me, is a very worthwhile investment to save money for, to have that big dream trip, to have the escalation of anticipation doing it, and then all that memory dividend as you get older.
Now that may not be in the cards for everyone, and honestly, that’s okay too. Because whatever it might be, like: Oh, I’ve never seen Chicago, or I’ve never seen New York, or I’ve always wanted to see the Balloon Festival in Albuquerque, or I want to visit the National Parks. Like, whatever is your thing that you really would like to do, there’s probably something that is within your reach financially, that you can do and really look forward to. So I encourage you have that high point that you’re saving for and working for you. That’s a really beautiful thing to do together.
Then on a more regular basis, just think within 15 minutes to one hour from where you live is probably a nice hotel, or a nice little BnB, or something that is scenic or just a change of pace, that you can go to, and just that 24 hours away; away from your phone, away from your responsibilities at work, away from your children, your grandchildren, whatever it is. That is like gold. I just talked to a mom, and they all have young kids, and she’s like: Wow, we hadn’t been away together for five years. And when we were together for 24 whole hours, it was like, why have we not done this before? This is amazing.
So let’s say you’re working and you think I can’t get away from work, well, why don’t you work until noon, and then at noon, go to your getaway, stay all day long, have that morning with your spouse, be back for the next day afternoon. Guess what, you have not missed a day at work, but you have been gone for a full 24 hours. So work it in once a year, go for this little 24-hour break. If it’s not viable financially, then it could be like working with another family and doing like: you watch my kids for this year and we’ll be alone, and then we’ll watch your kids in six months as you guys can be alone. But do something, it really is attainable, where you’re just thinking how can we get 24 hours in a row by ourselves? That is a worthwhile goal.
Absolutely, and there’s something that happens with that more intensive time. You’re speaking about unplugging, not having the normal rhythm or the routine. But also to have this new environment or the concentration of time and connection that is really nourishing on a deeper level.
That’s right. If you’re watching Netflix for eight of those hours, that’s not going to help, because you could do that at home. So you need to do it where it’s like: Wow, we are so unhurried, we have this huge swath of time. Because we don’t have responsibilities, we’re not looking at social media or at news. We have all this time to talk to each other, do an activity we love together, whatever. So that’s super important to unplug during your getaway.
Yeah, just seeing the sunset, or just being in this place of being together and what occurred there. Well, it is interesting, as we’re talking, this is likely incredibly supportive for any couple. Also for the couple that’s experiencing perhaps conflict or difficulty or challenges, this is still really important, and it might be difficult to overcome any protective layers, blocks, things that are running interference. Is there anything you want to say to people who feel like this might be harder to reach or access, given the dynamics?
Yeah. I think the same rhythm of this effort to daily connect and to date and to get away, we want to make it. That if you play this movie, and if the relationship dissolves, where’s that going to take you? That is not necessarily the place you want to go either. So if the intention is we’re going to make this relationship work, then these rhythms of daily connection and weekly dates and yearly getaways, they’re going to push the needle towards that for you. So don’t give up on that. I would say, make that expectation low, and here’s what I mean by that. So when you go on the date, don’t expect like: Oh my word, this is going to change everything! Like, we’re going to go on this date, and all of a sudden, it’s like an interpreter will be with us, and we’ll all of a sudden begin to understand each other. Then you’ll come home and you’ll be disappointed, and you’re like: Ah, there was no magic, and they’re still the same person, blah, blah. But you have this faith, that no, as we do this, we will connect and we will get better at this, and we’ll get 1% closer to each other. If you keep becoming 1% closer to each other, in two years, you’re going to be like this is a different marriage.
So hang in there with that long-term love, hang in there and keep doing these things. Don’t expect that instant feedback of like: Whoa, that fixed everything! But just look for that 1%. Atomic Habits, James Clear, he just talks about that 1% of growth. Really, in marriage, that helps us so much I think, instead of thinking like, you’ve got to leapfrog from awful marriage to like: Wow, we’re so insanely happy together. But to realize that that 1% growth over time of: Yesterday, I would have been really upset about that. But today, I’m like: You know what, you have a lot of stress at work, and you’re probably just kind of so rude today because of that stress, and I’m just going to not fight back right now. That’s just like, well, that was a huge gain of what just happened there. So you do that over and over again in time. So just keep working this process of connecting daily, of dating, of getting away regularly, and you’re going to see good things happen in your relationship over time.
Yes, over time and the progression. Arlene, one of the things I’m hearing as you’re speaking about just continuing to be in the practice of this, that it’s a focus. That the intention of connecting and dating and getting away, that the focus is on that. So perhaps in a situation where a topic gets raised, and it’s a sensitive topic, and it could be like: Okay, kids aren’t around, let’s talk about this. But it’s almost as if like: No, let’s put a pin in it. This isn’t about let’s process things that are really difficult. Maybe it is, I don’t know, maybe it is a good time. But help me if I’m hearing you, that there’s the focus and the priority and the intention that gives direction. That it’s not about: Okay, here’s the chance to pick a bone with my partner, or give them critical feedback, or those type of things. The focus is about connecting and bonding. Is that right?
So in terms of date night, like this kind of daily connection and this date night and this getaway, this is like, let’s make this positive. So you’re right, let’s make these experiences positive. But obviously, I’ve heard it said that we can make the small things big, but we can make the big thing small.
“All these little small things, it’s okay, don’t be annoyed about every single little small thing. But then on the same token, the big things that you really do need to talk about that will matter two years from now, five years from now, 10 years from now, and then you put that under the rug, that’s going to be a monster in five years.”
So I’m not saying don’t talk about hard things, don’t bring it. That’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying, during date night, during vacations, make that pleasant. But then, when everyone’s fed and people are happy, be like: Hey, honey, there’s something on my heart that I really want to talk to you about that’s really bothering me. Is this a good time? Or would you rather me talk to you about this tomorrow? Give your spouse that leverage, and a good person – which let’s assume you’re married to a good and decent person – they’re going to say: Oh, I want to know what’s bothering you? But you know what, to be honest with you, really, this is not a good time for me. So let’s do this tomorrow. That’s fine, and then you do need to bring up those hard things. When your mother did this, and you defended her, I felt like you left me in the dust, or whatever it is. So those things need to be talked about; they must be talked about. But a date night might not be the right time.
No. I would suspect and feel that it’s true, in a lot of cases, that when the glue, the bond, and the connection is stronger, there’s more resource and resilience to do hard things and handle it. It’s a little bit more love in the bank, if you will.
All right, and I know we’re winding down here. I also just want to ask, do you recommend both partners to be on the same page or in agreement about this connection time? I know that when one shifts, that often shifts the dynamic. I’m just curious what you think.
That’s a sweet question. Because I think in any issue of marriage, it’s always easier if you’re both on the same page. So any issue you talk about – money, sex, communication, anything – it’s like, the more we are on the same page, the easier this is going to go. So all of these things will be more lovely if both people are like: Oh, that makes sense, let’s do that together. But if there is just one person that’s listening to this and is like, I’m going to do these daily connections and these dates, and the other person is like, why do we have to change anything, everything’s going fine. Then, you as that instigator, let’s say, you can do these things, and you can make the daily connections. You can say: Hey, look, I want to spend more time with you. I’m going to plan a little dinner date, is that okay? You can do those things. I think that your partner will, as long as they are not smothering or guilt-inducing, that you’re like: I just planned this date for you, and you haven’t planned anything for me in two years, what’s wrong with you? Then that’s probably not going to be very pleasant for that person. But if you make it winsome, and just the whole point of it is not to make the other partner feel guilty or like a loser, but the point of it is, I just want to spend more time with you because I love you and I care about you. Then I think your partner will feel that motive and will enjoy that experience, and will probably start returning in kind what you’re doing to them.
So don’t be afraid to be first. I know a lot of us, we feel like: Well, I’m not going to do that until you do that toward me, because what have you done for me lately, and I do this, this, and this for you. Just that whole attitude, it just gets us nowhere, because it just puts us in misery. So instead to say: You know what, I am willing to go first to say the nice thing, and I don’t need you to reciprocate right now. I’m just doing it because someone’s got to start, and I’m happy to do it. In time, that will be reciprocated back to you.
Yes, well said. I love that. Don’t be afraid to go first. Was there anything you want to touch on that we didn’t get to?
We’ve covered a lot of ground, which I’m so glad. So MarriageWeek.org, you can find out about National Marriage Week. Statistically, marriage is good for us, it’s good for our nation. We’re so into happiness right now, and what Brad Wilcox and that research shows is that if you have a college degree, you have a boost of I think 84% in happiness. Or 64 actually, 64% in happiness. If you’re college educated, that’s a 88% boost in happiness. But if you’re married, just plain married, you get a 151% boost. And if you’re happily married, you get a five times percent boost than the general public, a 545% happier. So we don’t hear about this in the news; we hear that marriage is hard and marriage is bad, because you’re going to end up in divorce, and it’s difficult, and it’s just a piece of paper. But the social science is showing otherwise, that when you’re in your 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, and you are in a strong and happy marriage, you are far and above happier, more stable, healthier, financially more well-off, all those things, than the general public.
“It’s not saying you have to be married to be happy. But it’s showing that us thinking that marriage is irrelevant to the younger generation is probably a mistake, because marriage has a great value to society.”
So that’s been kind of fun to find out about. So MarriageWeek.org. Then, my name is Arlene Pellicane, so you can look for my books at ArlenePellicane.com.
I’ll make sure to have those links on today’s show notes. Thank you so much for everything you’ve shared, and all the resources you’ve mentioned throughout the show that can be found on MarriageWeek.com. Then, also your books. Is there a book you want to mention that you want me to particularly highlight?
You know, we kind of talked about technology. So the book I’m going to point you towards is Calm, Cool, and Connected: 5 Digital Habits for a More Balanced Life. So it’s just the idea of is your spouse more interesting than your phone, are the real people in your life getting the short end of the stick? So how do we get that technology in balance, so that our relationships are not taking a hit from technology? So that book is Calm, Cool, and Connected.
I’ll make sure to have that link on today’s show notes. Thank you for the tips and the specific encouragement that you’re giving us here today. It’s been a pleasure to have you.
Thank you so much, Jessica.
Signing Off
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Loneliness and disconnection in relationships can often stem from unmet needs for emotional connection. When one partner reaches out for support, validation, or understanding, and their bids go unnoticed or ignored, it can lead to feelings of isolation and alienation. This lack of responsiveness can create a sense of being unheard or unseen, deepening the emotional distance between partners. Over time, repeated instances of unmet bids can erode trust and intimacy, leaving individuals feeling unfulfilled and disconnected in their relationship.
In this episode, Laura Heck and Dr. Jessica Higgins delve into the importance of turning towards your partner in a relationship to address feelings of loneliness and disconnection. By understanding the bidding system in relationships and learning to respond with empathy and curiosity, individuals can build stronger connections with their partners. This episode emphasizes the significance of acknowledging past traumas, developing new skills, and fostering grace and understanding to overcome emotional barriers and create a more fulfilling and intimate partnership.
Laura Heck is a licensed marriage and family therapist, Certified Gottman Therapist, co-host of Marriage Therapy Radio, and host of The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work workshop for couples. She speaks and trains for The Gottman Institute and is a regular media expert on the topic of intimate relationships.
In this Episode
05:30 Laura Heck’s journey into relationship support.
11:22 Understanding bids for connection in relationships.
16:27 Importance of positive to negative ratios in relationships.
21:23 Exploring bids and responses in relationship dynamics.
26:03 Understanding shutting down in relationships.
31:37 Responding to criticism and harsh startups.
33:18 Repairing miscommunications and misunderstandings.
42:32 Building compassion and empathy in relationships.
45:16 Addressing trust and misunderstandings in relationships.
Your Check List of Actions to Take
- Practice turning towards your partner’s bids for connection, even in moments of conflict or pain.
- Develop awareness of your automatic responses and the reasons behind them to build compassion for yourself and empathy for your partner.
- Cultivate curiosity and seek more information when faced with criticism or conflict to avoid taking the bait.
- Take a pause and get more information before responding to your partner, especially in heated moments.
- Acknowledge and address past resentments and barriers in the relationship to process and heal old wounds.
- Build trust and goodwill in the relationship by acknowledging and affirming your partner’s efforts and accomplishments.
- Practice grace and understanding towards yourself and your partner, recognizing that change takes time and effort.
- Communicate openly and honestly about your feelings and experiences to foster deeper connection and understanding in the relationship.
Mentioned
The Gottman Institute
The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work: A Practical Guide from the Country’s Foremost Relationship Expert (*Amazon affiliate link) (book)
Shifting Criticism For Connected Communication
Connect with Laura Heck****
Websites: marriagetherapyradio.com
Facebook: facebook.com/marriagetherapyradio
Twitter: twitter.com/forbetter_us
Instagram: instagram.com/marriagetherapyradio
Podcast: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/marriage-therapy-radio/id1295458667?mt=2 (Apple Podcast)
Connect with Dr. Jessica Higgins
Facebook: facebook.com/EmpoweredRelationship
Instagram: instagram.com/drjessicahiggins
Podcast: drjessicahiggins.com/podcasts/
Pinterest: pinterest.com/EmpowerRelation
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/drjessicahiggins
Twitter: @DrJessHiggins
Website: drjessicahiggins.com
Email: jessica@drjessicahiggins.com
About Today’s Show
Laura, thank you for joining us.
Well, thanks for having me. I’m excited to meet up with you again.
I know! Me too. I know I was a guest on your show and your fellow host, and really wanted to welcome you to the show and bring your voice here on the show. I would love to just have you talk a little bit about what got you interested in supporting people in the way of relationship and couplehood, if we can start there.
Yeah, let’s see here. I’m trying to think of how long I’ve been doing this for. So I have been in practice, private practice, for 13 years now. So we’ll go back a little further. I just remember I had graduated from grad school with my undergrad, and I was feeling pretty lost. I knew I wanted to do something. I knew that I was driven for something, but I didn’t know what. I was in Long Beach, California, at the time. I remember reading, I think it was like a Cosmo magazine of all things, and ripping out an article and just becoming so fascinated with this article. They were writing about this couple on Orcas Island, Washington, that was doing all this amazing research with couples. It was John and Julie Gottman. This was back in, I want to say it was probably 2007. I never rip things out, I’m just not, I don’t know how to describe it. But I might lock something into my memory. But this, for some reason, really stood out to me. So I ripped the article out, I shared it with my then fiancé, who is my husband for the last 15 years now, and just said: I don’t know what this means, but I’m really fascinated by it. Ever since then, I have been on this trajectory. I decided that I was going to go to grad school, that I was going to dive into couples’ work. That was the beginning of the end for me was just becoming so fascinated with this couple.
Wow, and you studied and got certified and all of the things with the Gottmans.
Yeah, it’s pretty neat. So in 2007, that was the first time I had ever read about John and Julie Gottman. Are your listeners familiar with who the Gottman ‘s are?
I would assume so. But it doesn’t hurt to kind of recap. Because they’ve done so much research to provide in the field and helping people understand what works, what doesn’t work, and really having that evidence-based.
Yeah, especially coming out of a magazine like Cosmo back in 2007. Most of what we read or what we pull off of the bookshelves or what catches our eye in the media is somebody’s opinion of what they think works for relationships. Oftentimes, it’s derived from their own personal experience. “I went through divorce and this is how the divorce was really successful for me and my family, and so I wrote a book.” That’s not me. But that’s a lot of what we find in the retail space. So to read about this couple where they were saying this is all empirically validated research on what actually is helping to create successful long-lasting relationships, and this is what if you do it will dissolve a relationship over time. I was just fascinated! I was like, this is grounded in research, this has never been done before.
So yes, I went to grad school, and then immediately after graduating from grad school as a therapist with my license, I thought I’m going to shoot for the stars, and I went and I applied at the Gottman Institute and worked there for, I don’t know how many years I’ve been with them, since 2011. Served as an employee, as their Director of Professional Development. I helped develop a course for the Gottman Institute, and then now, I’m a master trainer for them. So my business partner Zack and I will go around the world and we get to teach other clinicians how to do the Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work workshop.
Thank you for giving us a little insight into your background and how you found yourself in supporting couples, and also really working so closely with the Gottman Institute and you’re just developing yourself. I know we were chatting before we got started here on just what is top of mind for you. Would you like to share just where your thoughts are today, as it relates to couples and how to help?
Sure. I mean, it’s a little bit of a loaded question of where my thoughts are, because my thoughts are everywhere at all times. But I had mentioned to you that when I work with couples, usually what happens is, I get really invested in the couples that I’m working with. I would consider myself as having like a micro-practice, where I get to really focus on each couple. I’ve been really thinking about one of the couples that I’m working with, particularly right now. It’s a pretty common complaint that keeps coming up, is this idea of feeling really lonely, really isolated. It’s interesting, because I hear this quote a lot. But when it came out of my client’s mouth, I just sort of had that aha moment. She said, why won’t he just do what I need him to do? Meaning, why won’t he just show up for me, why can’t he just hear me and be there for my pain and hold me and be my emotional support person? It was interesting when she mentioned that, because I was like, why can’t he, what’s holding him back? So I’ve really been spinning on that a lot, the last 24 hours, of thinking about how this is a pretty common complaint, and it doesn’t need to be gendered by any means, of just one partner feeling like the other partner isn’t willing to show up for them emotionally, and is missing all of those bids for connection that they are putting out into the world. So that’s what’s got me on a hook right now, and I’d love to bat it around with you and get your perspective as well.
Yeah. Well, just to be clear, when you’re referencing this person, this client, you work with them as a couple?
Yes.
So you’re privy to seeing their dynamic.
100%. I love working with couples, but I also really enjoy breaking the couple up and seeing one person at a time. I really try to keep it balanced, because I don’t want to align more with one person over the other. So I actually had met with her individually, recently. This was something that she has been saying with the two of them, with her partner right next to her. But also trying to understand more about how she is creating meaning around what her partner not showing up for her looks like, why that’s so important to her, what it looked like in her family of origin of people showing up for her in pain, are their expectations that she’s holding? Really kind of spending some time digging into her side of it.
Yes, it’s so, so helpful. Because there are a lot of influences that predate the relationship, typically, that inform how we’re engaging in seeking support, and also how we’re interpreting how our partner shows up. Then you have the couple dance and the whole dynamic that’s at play and the history in the relationship. Well, if we could back up just a moment, when you talk about bids, I know that many people know what that means. But would you say a little bit more?
Yeah. So the bid for connection, or I would call it like the bidding system in the relationship, is a Gottman concept. But essentially, the relationship is made up of all of these micro moments, where you are constantly reaching for your partner; emotionally, for conversation, for physical touch, for humor, for any kind of connection. It can be through conversation. But it’s really just this system in which you are reaching for your partner, and the expectation is, when I reach for you, you’re going to be there. The bar is actually pretty small, it’s pretty low, in order for you to reach that level of turning towards your partner. So there’s many ways that you can respond to a partner’s bid. One way is to turn toward them. So if I was to say something to my partner along the lines of: “Gosh, I just can’t believe how beautiful it is outside.” I say it out loud, he’s in the room, but maybe I’m not turned directly to him. He can turn toward me and he can say something like: “Yeah, look at that.” Believe it or not, that’s actually turning toward. That’s his way of responding to me and saying: I hear your voice in my ears, and I’m responding to you because you matter to me. So that’s one way of turning toward, and that will actually strengthen the relationship. These moments are happening all throughout the day.
But then there’s also moments where you’re missing your partner’s bid for connection. It could be because we’re distracted; with television, with children, with life, or cell phones are a massive distractor where we’re missing our partner’s bids. I imagine, while we’re driving down the road, if I’m on a road trip with my husband and I’m behind the wheel, he’s most likely thumbing through his phone at some point. I might say something to him, and he doesn’t respond at all. That makes me feel pretty deflated, and sends a message like he’s not there for me. I might repeat myself. But if he doesn’t respond eventually, I’m going to stop bidding. That grows distance between the relationship, and it actually starts to erode away the trust system.
Then there’s turning against your partner’s bids. That would be, if I was to say something like: “Wow, I can’t believe how beautiful and sunny it is outside.” And my husband says: “Shush, I’m on the phone.” I’m going to feel like he’s rejecting me, and it’s going to take away from that relationship. So this bidding, oh boy, I got all sorts of distracted explaining the bidding system.
It’s perfect, because you’re giving us that there’s this cumulative percentage, if you will. But more or less, the felt sense is the responsiveness that my partner will respond. It doesn’t have to be 100%, but that there’s a responsiveness, even if it’s neutral, or even positive, affirming, validating. That that is building trust, and that our partner is there for us. Versus if there’s not responding, or even, I don’t know if it’s worse, but seems worse, that there’s a negative response, which is a criticism or blame or stonewalling, these things that the Gottmans have also identified, that are very harmful behaviors to connection. So tell us if you will, because a lot of people kick around the five to one ratio, and then there’s another ratio when one is in conflict. So can you say a little bit more for people who don’t know, or help us?
Yeah. I mean, Dr. Gottman’s research is very math-based, and so we have all of this really amazing quantitative data. One of the pieces of data that came out of his research is that when you look at a relationship, we have, you would assume, sort of like: Okay, well, the relationship feels overall pretty darn positive. Meaning, I guess, for every positive thing, there’s always a negative thing. But it turns out that healthy, sustainable relationships actually have kind of an overwhelming amount of positivity in the relationship. If you were to quantify it by observing a couple, which is something that he did when he was researching and still is researching couples, who would just observe and would count, this is something that’s positive. Maybe it’s the tone of voice is positive, it’s the eye contact, it’s the touching of your hand, it’s the responding with validation, these are all positive things. If you add those all up over the course of time, he found that healthy relationships, just in everyday experiences, were at about a 20 to one ratio, which is kind of bonkers, that healthy relationships are actually quite positive. Then when you take a look at a couple that’s really quite healthy, and they’re in conflict, it’s still overwhelmingly positive, of five positives for every negative. So that’s the goal of what we’re reaching for.
I love that it’s really important to keep in mind, you’re not turning toward every partner’s bid for connection. The ratio he found is actually closer to about 86% of couples that sustain their relationship, that’s the percentage that they’re turning toward their partner’s bids. So it’s not a perfect turning toward. You said the word, which I think is really important, it’s that cumulative impact of positivity that creates that culture in the relationship, which is really what we’re shooting for.
Yeah. Because even if we were prioritizing it as the most important thing that we’re paying attention to, we probably still wouldn’t meet the 100% accuracy of responding.
No, of course not.
Yeah, there’s this humaneness. I’m so grateful, because people kick around the five to one, and it’s not. It’s actually 20 to one, that that’s what we’re really looking at as far as the ratio. It doesn’t have to be overtly on the spectrum of super extreme positive. Like you said, just even acknowledging and validating, like: “Oh yeah, it is really nice out.” Not necessarily super effusive. That’s positive, that’s a responding.
That’s right. It’s interesting, you had asked: I’m not sure what feels more of a withdrawal in the relationship. Is it that your partner doesn’t respond at all to you? Or is it that maybe your partner responds harshly to you with criticism?
“We actually find that it’s better, and I say this kind of tongue in cheek, don’t do this, but to respond rather than not respond. Because at least your partner is still engaged with you, it just might be harsh.”
We find, it’s like you have those fiery couples where they’re engaged in lots of back and forth, and it’s negative, but they’re engaged. Then you have those stone-cold couples that are completely stonewalled from one another, massive barrier between the two of them, and those couples aren’t engaged at all. There’s very little bidding for connection with one another, and very little response. That feels worse. The loneliness is where people are really struggling.
Yeah, thank you. I remember coming across that research, probably similar, 2007. I remember being surprised that the high conflict couples, like that’s not an indicator for disaster couples. That actually, their ability to repair and they’re engaged, and it’s how they’re fighting too that matters. But I appreciate you spelling that out, because this loneliness, this not responding, which is kind of what you started with around what’s happening here when one isn’t responding? Typically, when the partner is feeling lonely, there’s a development of their efforts, whether or not it’s I’m going to get louder, or I’m going to get stronger in my language, in the hopes that you will respond, even however. Then when that’s not responded to, there’s typically this kind of atrophy or this kind of letting go, this disengagement.
So where would you like to start with just looking at? Because we’ve mentioned the history that informs someone’s expectations, also how they’re interpreting their partner, and then also the attempts. I know the Gottmans talk about the soft startup, but I don’t know if that’s helpful to talk about here.
Yeah, with this particular couple, that was what I was trying to figure out. Because what they basically said is, our bidding system is broken. I’m not interested in responding to my partner. She is like, I’m left out here high and dry. It is at the point of just complete and total resentment and escalation very quickly. Because she’s lonely, and she’s making all of these bids, and the bids are not being responded to. I’m looking at both of them. Well, what are you doing, what are you doing? Because I will tell you that it is never one person that is responsible for that bidding system. It’s both of you, and you’re working off of each other. It’s usually a pretty well-worn cycle that you’ve gotten into over time. The cycle that this particular couple has gotten into is that she has learned that if I request gently, if I come to you softly, if I make these requests of you, they’re not responded to. So naturally over time, she has done what so many people would normally do, is they up the ante; their intensity gets more fiery, they use more curse words. So everything escalates. Oftentimes she will get a response out of her partner, but it’s not the response she’s looking for; what she gets is him responding in anger, or him stonewalling. It’s just a really lonely place. Because what she’s learned is, at some point, I learned that if I just raise my voice and if I intensify, I’ll get his attention. Now that isn’t even working, now he’s completely shut down.
So starting with her of like, how can I help you move toward him in a way that’s soft and gentle that he can hear you, and how can I help to understand what it’s like to be him? That’s kind of the missing piece. I still need to work with him to figure out what his backstory is. But I can create a whole lot of stories as to why he shuts down, and that’s fun. I think that’s kind of the fun part about being a therapist is that we’re like little investigators, and we get to create stories and then check in and help them to uncover maybe why they’re not responding to their partner’s bids.
Yeah, thank you. I know I reference a lot of the Gottman’s research. I also, as you know, do my best to weave in the attachment research and a lot of EFT, and I think they’re such beautiful complements. One of the things that is so important in the couples’ work when there is a little bit more of this classic, and I say classic just because it’s such a common dynamic where the one that’s shutting down on the outside looks as though they’re disengaged. But again, in the Gottman’s research, when they’re hooked up to all the sensors that are given the physiological reads, their system is quite flooded and overwhelmed, even though it looks like they’re totally checked out and don’t care. Would you say a little more here?
Yeah, it is really tough. Because when you are approaching your partner, and you’re making all of these bids, and let’s just say that those bids are loud and angry and resentful, they’re still bids nonetheless. But that can oftentimes shut another person down; their nervous system just completely gets hijacked. Part of what they may unconsciously be doing is, and I hear them, I’ll often ask like, what are you doing when your partner comes to you? I will find that they are consciously trying to balance their partner. They say things like, if I notice that my partner is really amped up and fiery and upset, I am trying to just stay as calm and cool and stoic as possible, so that maybe I might be able to ground my partner. So they’re consciously thinking that. But what’s happening under the surface is that they’re getting really activated, and they’re trying to keep everything on the outside as still as possible so that it’s not amplifying their partner any further. But then they’re also in this sort of stonewalling shut down, where they haven’t told their partner what’s going on, but this is all happening under the surface. So their heart rate is escalated, all of their stress hormones are flooding throughout their body, and now they’re being completely quiet. They attempt to look as disengaged as possible, and it’s just a self-soothing mechanism. It’s not helpful, but it is what’s happening.
Yeah. When we look at the self-soothing mechanism or the tendency there, often, when we look at history, there is something that has made that really important or relevant. That in your family upbringing or whatever circumstances, that was the best move. That was a wise, adaptive move. Then when you look at, as you’re saying, in the pattern, perhaps it’s hurting their significant other and not actually helping achieve what they would like, which is for the system to be more trusting. I can’t tell you how many clients I’ve heard that they are in more of the camp of the shutdown that are so at a loss around: “I try and make attempts, and I’m in this bind that when I try and it doesn’t work, and then I go to shut down. It’s almost like I have to feel like I have to give up, because it’s like, all my efforts don’t help, and then I’m just going to make things worse. So just go to this place, and it’s extremely painful.” The learning here, like you’re describing, that this isn’t just a one interaction, there’s a history to the relationship. So we’re reading each other’s nonverbals, even before. Likely, I mean, I will say this is true in my relationship, where my significant other, he’s reading things on me sometimes before I even know what I’m feeling. I like to be as aware as possible, and I try to be in my practice, but I for sure get caught up and preoccupied and whatnot.
Yeah, that’s funny. My husband will oftentimes tell me when I’m feeling overwhelmed. I’m like: “Oh, thank you so much. I really appreciate. How did you know that?” He’s like: “Well, you haven’t sat down and the kitchen is spotless.” I’m like: “Oh, look at that. Okay, we’re in anxiety right now. All right, thank you for informing me of that information.”
It’s the feedback loop, the mirror. So we’re sensing each other though, these cues are evident. But when we don’t have the trust, or we don’t have the system that we can turn towards, like you were just describing that your husband can comment and you’re like: Oh, look at that. That’s a responding to him, even though if it’s not comfortable or even fun to look at.
That’s true. Turning toward is also turning towards your partner even when they’re in pain, that’s the hardest part. Like, when we talk about the bidding system, we like to talk about how fun it is when your partner sort of pats the couch next to them, and it’s like, come have a seat next to me. That’s a very overt, obvious bid for connection. I want to sit next to you, or I want to snuggle. Those are fun bids to respond to.
“It’s difficult in a much more mature relationship to be able to turn towards your partner’s bids when they’re in pain and when they’re angry, especially when they’re angry at you. But we still require that of our relationship.”
It’s kind of like this whole idea of in sickness and in health, when things are good and when things are bad. That all the emotions are acceptable, and I want to be able to trust and rely that when I show up, and my emotions are not happy, joy, carefree, but my emotions are sadness, depression, anxiety, that you’re still going to respond to my bids. That’s a really important piece of this relationship bubble here to consider.
I think about why a partner might not respond to your bids in those moments, and there’s a whole lot of stories that we can come up with. One that I was really thinking about is, we don’t do things that we don’t feel competent in, and we shy away from them as much as possible. If you have been told your whole life, or you haven’t had successful experiences to be able to tell you that you are competent in being able to show up for other people in their pain, then we’re going to shy away from them; we’re probably going to disengage, and we’re going to check out the moment somebody else is in pain.
“I think part of my job is being able to teach people, in the process of therapy, and give them competence and confidence that they can handle these situations, and that they can handle themselves and their partner’s pain at the same time, to be able to do that on their own.”
Right. Because someone who maybe is contending, and maybe again, not consciously, but is living in them, not another failure, not another disappointment, not another reason to let my partner down. Like, I’m just going to disengage, because I don’t feel competent, or don’t think this is going to go well.
It’s not going to go well, yeah. Or I’m going to get overwhelmed. I’m going to be so uncomfortable with my feelings that I don’t want to put myself in that. Nobody does, we constantly avoid putting ourselves in situations where we don’t feel good. If we’re boundary-less, or we haven’t learned to accept or manage emotions in a certain way, then we’re going to avoid them at all costs. That’s really hard. I’m seeing that in my personal life with some dear friends who are really struggling. One partner is struggling, and they’re going, where are you, why are you not here supporting me? I’m like, I know why, because it’s scary for them; they’re struggling themselves with their own emotions and feelings.
Yeah, so let’s dive into this. Because this is I think the harder task, I sometimes reference it as an advanced move or even a ninja move, when one’s partner is coming at them with criticism or some harsh startup, and to recognize that’s a bid.
It totally is. The ninja move is a jiu jitsu, where you’re just sort of moving around, you’re not using the weapon.
It’s like, get out of the way of the attack.
Yeah, I love the idea. I tell my clients this all the time, don’t take the bait, don’t take the bait. Your partner is trying to bait you because they want you; they want your response, they want you to engage. And what I tell clients is, don’t take the bait, meaning the weapon, and turn it around on your partner. But if your partner comes to you with criticism, see if you can stealthily move around that criticism and ask yourself, what is my partner really needing right now, what is it that they’re asking for? Clearly, they are asking for something from me. They’re using the wrong language, it’s a poorly constructed complaint.
“We say criticism is a poorly constructed complaint, and it probably is wrapped in all sorts of bids and anger. How can you not take the bait and instead be curious and ask yourself, what is my partner trying to communicate to me and how can I try and meet their need in this moment?”
That is a total advanced move. So good on you if you’re wanting to practice that.
Yes. For people listening, I wonder if it would be helpful to work with an example. I don’t know if the couple that you’re referencing, it’s still early perhaps.
Oh, I can give you all sorts of examples from my own personal life. Okay, are you ready? I found myself dropping into contempt. So I had mentioned earlier, we’re in the process of this move; my husband and I swapped roles. I’ve been the primary breadwinner, if you will, if that’s even language that we’re using these days, and he’s been primary parent. This has never been the case, but it has been for the last three months. I find myself incredibly critical of his ability to multitask and get things done throughout the day. I have a whole list of things that I think he needs to get done. So I come home yesterday, and he goes, did you see the garage? He was so proud of himself, all the organization that he’s been doing. I walked into the garage, and I swear to you, the first thing I thought in my mind was, are you kidding me? Like, you’ve been out here for five hours, what did you do with your day? So I can absolutely come at him. So he goes, did you see the garage? I could say, I mean I could literally say this out loud. I didn’t, I thought it. I could say something like, are you kidding me? Do you have any idea what I have done in the last five and a half hours, and this is all you have to show for yourself? So how do you hear that and you not take the bait? Because it is tough. He would naturally get very defensive. Because one, he was proud of himself, and he wanted to show what he had done, and here I was attacking.
And he’s seeking that you’re impressed.
100%, yes. I mean, he made a bid. Look at everything that I did! He was so proud, he wanted me to ooh and aah. This is actually a great example, because I repaired today. So I’ll give you the full meal deal here. How does he respond without getting defensive, or how does he respond to me? I mean, he did not get what he wanted from that bid for connection at all. But one thing I did do was, rather than not respond at all, which is turning away, I did respond, but it was really harsh. So maybe you could role-play like, how would you respond as my husband by not taking the bait?
Well, first of all, you said, you didn’t say what you were thinking? Can you say what you did say?
What did I say? Let’s see here. So I came in, I went, I did see the garage! So that’s where I left it, because I wasn’t really ready. I had not formulated anything kind or loving or generous. So I just said, I did see the garage. That’s where I left it.
You know what, I appreciate that you’re bringing this up. Because this is how it is. In my opinion, it’s so nuanced, and the nonverbals. I mean, I think the Gottmans really speak to this as well, just what is being conveyed in communication, most of it is nonverbal, in that tone of voice. But I appreciate what you’re describing, because you acknowledged his bid. I mean, I think this is a move we can reference. It’s kind of that idea when someone asks you a question, and you’re like: Oh, I don’t know what I want to say. So you repeat the question. It’s kind of like, I did see the garage. I don’t have anything to say yet. So I really appreciate that you acknowledged, and then you also just gave a little space. Of course your husband probably wasn’t happy, and if I were you, if you ask me if, I’d be like, he wasn’t.
I am not toting this as like, I did a great job. I absolutely know it needed repair, and it was definitely like, I was feeling let down and he was feeling let down. I’ll tell you the end of it in a bit. But I’m wondering, if I was to sort of attack you, how would you respond as my husband?
Well, I think you gave a real good preempt earlier. I think one of my best turn-to’s when I’m at a loss is just seeking more information. So if I was your husband, I might be like, depending on how regulated I was. So I might be able to say: Oh no, it’s not maybe what you were imagining, or I’m bummed that you’re not totally happy. Then put a pin in it. Because if you were bidding in this, even though your husband did. But if we’re framing this as the person that’s actually got a bid, because this is true, people can be bidding at the same time. So if we’re teasing this out and I’m responding to you, then I would say: “Oh okay, so there’s more here, it’s not all positive. Are you willing to say a little bit more about what you’re seeing?” So I would get curious. I don’t know exactly the words, but I would try to draw out if I was regulated or not. If I wasn’t regulated enough, I would likely say: Oh, I’m super, whatever, upset or bummed. I might take a minute or two and check back in after five minutes. I’m going to get some water. I’ll be right back. Then I’d try to be like, okay, our situation, this was a big turn, this was a big pivot. I wasn’t expecting this. Because it sounded like he was expecting all positive.
Oh yeah, he wanted me to ooh and aah, 100%. I love what you said, which is kind of like a golden ticket for a lot of people, which is, if you’re not going to take the bait and you are not going to get wrapped up in defensiveness, then take the pause and get more information. So you said if you were feeling regulated enough to continue to communicate, then you might go: “Oh, what a bummer. Like, what did I miss, help me understand. What were your expectations of what I was going to accomplish in the last three hours or something?” But I think curiosity is a really great place to start with, because it buys you time. Instead of getting defensive, instead of reacting to your partner, you can buy yourself a little bit of time and go: Ooh, that stung! Why did it sting? What’s in it for my partner? Because they’re coming at me kind of hot and hard. I’m wondering, there’s got to be something else going on here that I don’t know about.
Misunderstanding, like you said, we have different expectations, or our definition of cleaning the garage is wildly different.
Yeah, and it might be that I was under the impression that he was home for the last five hours. Turns out, he volunteered at the school, he went grocery shopping, and he had lunch with his mom. Those are all amazing things that I find really incredibly sexy and lovely. So I might say: “Well, gosh, I mean, five hours’ worth of work.” And he goes: Oh, there, that’s the misunderstanding, I actually just got home half an hour ago, I did da da da da da.” And I’m like: “Oh, well, you crushed it for half an hour then!”
Yes! Was that the repair?
Okay, so the repair was this morning. I went into the garage. I was in a different headspace this morning. I looked at what he had done, and I took a moment and I came back in and I said: “Honey, you really got a lot done yesterday.” That was me, on my own accord, giving him a compliment, and just sort of taking the moment. So what had happened was, I was in a different headspace yesterday; I was feeling overwhelmed, stressed out, frustrated. So when he said I need the oohs and aahs, and I didn’t turn toward him, I wanted to come back around, and I wanted to acknowledge all the hard work that he had done. But it took about 24 hours for me to get there. Not because of him, because of me.
For sure, that’s real. If I’m tired, I’m hungry, or I’m stressed, I don’t have the clarity to see in the way that I would normally see. And you revisited, and you were able to have a real genuine affirmation of him and his work, and he probably felt your sincerity. I don’t know, if I were in your shoes. I could also even say I really acknowledge you were wanting to celebrate, and I wasn’t in a position to do that. So I want to redo that now, if we can. That’s very important.
Yeah, I probably could have even said like: “I know you were really excited yesterday, and my response was so crummy. Thank you for having the grace with me, because I was really overwhelmed.” Real life situations.
I love it. There’s the grace that you’re speaking to, that likely points to the trust in the system, or even in Gottman language, possibly the positive sentiment override. If there’s enough goodwill, that the system can tolerate the bumps in the road. Perhaps for others, there’s not trust, there’s not lived experience in one’s early life that gives them confidence or helps them know how to do this. I mean, people have all kinds of traumas that indicate this is like Danger Zone, don’t go there. So where do you begin to work with people to help build responsiveness?
Yeah. Well, I mean, part of the work that I have been doing individually with this couple is, having them understand themselves of what’s going on. Because so much of this is so automatic that we don’t realize that really, we’re just sort of operating on these automatic systems back and forth with one another. So if I’m able to break the couple apart and say, can we just talk a little bit about what happens between the two of you, and have them understand for themselves where some of these responses come from, then I think we can build a little bit more compassion and empathy for ourselves, and empathy for our partner. So compassion for ourselves, and acknowledging that yes, I am responding this way, because of my childhood, because of the nervous system that I have developed over time, and this is sort of my automatic response to a lot of things. I’m not giving excuses to people, I’m giving them a pathway of understanding themselves so they can start to make some changes, and then helping them to then also share with their partner: “Hey, I wanted to let you know this is what I learned about myself.” So that they can develop empathy for each other. That’s where we start to build some grace for each other. That we are going to fumble this over and over and over for the rest of our lives.
“If we can, one, have some compassion for ourselves, empathy for our partner, and build some new skills, what a trifecta to be able to make some change. It’s not going to be perfect, and I don’t expect it to be perfect. But at least building in some of those different tools would be really helpful.”
Absolutely. I’m getting just the awareness that you’re helping people cultivate, in that there are reasons why I do what I do, there’s reasons why you do what you do, and maybe we weren’t even fully conscious or aware of that. So slowing this down really helps us see what we’re after, and then possibly building some new skill sets that give us what we need in the way of safety and what we’re after, and also help us work together for the goal of connecting. Because if we don’t even know why we’re doing what we’re doing, that’s a really hard thing to have change and progress. The other thing that I heard you speak to earlier with the client that you mentioned, and maybe I presumed this, but I often find it to be true when there’s a history in the relationship. That the partner that’s feeling that discontent or that loneliness, or that injury, that pain, it’s not in that moment. It’s like all the times or some pivotal moments of when you didn’t turn towards me didn’t show up. So it’s like, it kind of collapses into this emotional state. So even the person on the other side can feel the intensity of that and the pressure of that. I mean, this is one of the things Gottmans talk about too. It’s like, you can’t solve 20 things in one moment. So the recognition that there’s even just the awareness of like, oh, there’s a lot that informs this, there’s a lot here that I recognize I’ve been holding, which makes this much more intense.
Yeah, I can speak to that. It is tough, because you’ll have partners that will say, you’re bringing this up again? This was six years ago! Or I have been trying so hard, like we started coming to therapy, I’ve been making all the appointments, I’m reading the books, I’m asking you out on dates, I’m showing up for you. This has been the last six weeks, and they’re feeling like: Hey, I’m kind of crushing it here, I’m turning towards you. But there’s a lot of that built-in resentment that they’re carrying with them. If it’s left undone, unprocessed, unhealed, you’re going to carry it with you in the relationship. I imagine it as like these barriers, these walls between partners.
“It’s a little bit of twofold of let’s change the here and now. But let’s also go back in time, and let’s process through these moments where you can acknowledge and understand how there was a disconnect between the two of you, and why your partner is feeling this pain of not feeling supported and met.”
If you’re able to process that together as a couple, I think about when we just remove one of those barriers from between the two of you, but it’s slow going. Because I have couples that are coming to me with 20 years of these resentments that have built up over time, and it does take time to process through them.
Yes, because there’s so many misunderstandings, there’s so many different ways of being and how we’ll experience our partner and their difference, we’re going to interpret that. “Oh, you don’t care? I’m not good enough.” That’s what the injury is. When we can revisit it and process it and recognize like, oh, okay. We have our protective strategies, so we want to protect yourselves, so we don’t try to resolve it because we’re like: Okay, well, that really hurt, and so I’ll just protect this and move forward the best I can. But if I don’t ever get to resolve that with you, I’d still hold it. In a moment, you don’t care. Or in a moment, I’m not good enough. That’s on a fundamental attachment level, that’s a primary attachment injury or fear.
Well, I mean, now we’re talking about attachment.
I know we are winding down.
I won’t take the bait on the attachment, because I want to. But yes.
What were you going to say? I don’t want to cut you off.
Oh, I was listening to a podcast recently, and that whole concept of like, why do we hold on to these things, why is it that we’re unable to release, what’s the purpose that it’s serving? It is a protective mechanism of continuing to remind yourself that you have been hurt. So it’s really difficult to let those things go. I was actually promising myself to look this up, it’s a Brene Brown term that I love, love, love. But I forget what it is, maybe I’ll look it up and you can share it in your outro. But just the idea of like, why do we hold on to this pain? Even when we have evidence to the contrary and healing moments between the two of us, why do we continue to hold on to this pain? It is very much so is this protection of: “You were hurt at one point, and I don’t want you to continue to be hurt in the future.” Boy, healing is slow, growing, isn’t it? It takes a long time.
Yeah, it does. Thank you for acknowledging just how real that is. Even when we do have repair, the healing and the ability to really feel resolved in that, it takes a process.
Yeah, it does.
Laura, thank you for joining us. Is there anything you want to say before we wrap up our conversation that we haven’t addressed?
No. I’m a motor mouth, though. I’ve had my two cups of coffee. So I could keep going. But I think we should pause it. Put a pin on it for now.
Yes. Well, tell people where they can find you. Because you are offering so much, and people can connect with you and engage with you. So where can people reach out?
Yeah. Well, so I’m in private practice. I’m in Oregon, Washington, and Utah, so folks can come, and I work virtually with couples. That’s my website, LauraHeckTherapy. Then I have a podcast, Marriage Therapy Radio. So if folks want to engage with me on a more regular basis, you can listen to me. I would say it’s about, I don’t know 60-40; 60% entertainment, 40% information if we ever get around to it. But I think it’s a pretty fun podcast.
You both have a such a beautiful collaborative style, and very relatable and humorous, and also really well-informed, and people feel real as they navigate relationship and supported. So I appreciate what you’re doing. Also for people that are therapists, is there anything you want to say about trainings?
Yeah, so I train. I’m on the speaker’s bureau for the Gottman Institute. So if folks are interested in being able to bring the Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work training as a workshop to their community, I’m offering those workshops pretty quarterly through the Gottman Institute, and you can find out more by going to their website. But yeah, we’re doing some fun stuff. We have a book dropping in the fall, which is kind of fun, and all sorts of fun stuff. We’re constantly doing couples’ workshops, but all of that you can find on Marriage Therapy Radio.
Excellent. I’ll make sure to have the link to that and everything else on today’s show notes. Thank you, Laura.
Thank you.
Signing Off
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How can we cultivate a culture of emotional safety within our relationships, where vulnerability is embraced and recurring negative patterns are met with empathy and understanding, rather than defensiveness or blame?
Traumas, whether subtle or overt, can fuel recurring negative patterns that gradually erode the foundation of a relationship. These unseen wounds, left unattended, can manifest as distress and conflict, undermining the very fabric of our closest bonds.
In this episode, we delve into the depths of these dynamics, exploring how awareness, vulnerability, and proactive communication can pave the way for healing and transformation. Join us as we navigate the complexities of attachment styles, emotional safety, and the power of corrective emotional experiences in forging healthier, more fulfilling relationships.
Jennine Estes Powell & Jacqueline Wielick, are distinguished Therapists and co-authors of “Help For High-Conflict Couples.” Jacqueline Wielick is the owner of her practice, Therapy by Jackie, and is known for the empowering, empathetic, and engaging style she brings to her work. Jennine Estes Powell is a dedicated therapist for her clients, and is the driving force behind Estes Therapy, a thriving group practice in San Diego, the go-to hub for couples counseling. She also trains therapists globally.
In this Episode
07:52 Jennine and Jacqueline‘s personal journeys into emotionally focused therapy.
13:03 Distinguishing high conflict from regular conflict.
20:13 The subtleties of trauma, challenging stereotypical perceptions of traumatic experiences.
23:18 How differing attachment styles can create communication barriers within relationships.
28:15 The evolution of relationships: Understanding the shift from early romance to bonded attachment.
34:53 Individual and couple strategies for recognizing and addressing attachment insecurities.
40:54 Repairing relationship patterns through vulnerability and repetition.
55:59 Accessible support and resources.
Your Check List of Actions to Take
- Identify repetitive cycles and behaviors in your relationship that contribute to conflict.
- When conflict arises, pause to regulate your emotions before reacting impulsively.
- Share your fears and needs with your partner in a clear and safe manner.
- Take the initiative to break negative cycles, even if your partner is not yet on board.
- Work together to repair attachment injuries by creating corrective emotional experiences.
- Ensure emotional safety in all aspects of the relationship, including communication and intimacy.
- Communicate readiness to take emotional risks and provide support without blame or criticism in relationships.
- Utilize available resources such as books, websites, and therapy to gain deeper insights and tools for navigating high-conflict relationships.
Mentioned
Help for High-Conflict Couples (website) (speaking events)
Help for High-Conflict Couples: Using Emotionally Focused Therapy and the Science of Attachment to Build Lasting Connection Paperback (book) (affiliate)
Shifting Criticism For Connected Communication
Connect with Jennine Estes Powell****
Websites: helpforhighconflictcouples.com | estestherapy.com | jenninepowell.com
Instagram: instagram.com/estes_therapy
TikTok: tiktok.com/@jennine_estes
Connect with Jacqueline Wielick****
Websites: helpforhighconflictcouples.com| jackiewielick.com
Connect with Dr. Jessica Higgins
Facebook: facebook.com/EmpoweredRelationship
Instagram: instagram.com/drjessicahiggins
Podcast: drjessicahiggins.com/podcasts/
Pinterest: pinterest.com/EmpowerRelation
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/drjessicahiggins
Twitter: @DrJessHiggins
Website: drjessicahiggins.com
Email: jessica@drjessicahiggins.com
About Today’s Show
Jennine and Jacqueline, it’s a pleasure to have you both.
Thank you!
Thank you so much for having us on.
Yes. I think this is a critical topic, really supporting people. Looking at if they’re experiencing high levels of conflict, what might be happening, and how to negotiate this landscape, particularly in intimacy? You both are also referencing in Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), attachment, research, evidence-based therapeutic model. Is that my understanding?
You got it right, yes.
Well, very much a dear to my heart as well, just how important that body of work is, and the therapeutic model and all the principles that help guide us in this tricky terrain at times. So I would love to hear from both of you if you want to just share a little bit about yourselves, for people who are just getting acquainted with you, and how this topic and/or just the field of couplehood and intimacy is really just something important to you and how you kind of came into it.
Yeah. Well, thank you so much. Hi, everyone. My name is Jennine Estes Powell. Basically, when I first started therapy, I had a lot of couples that I was working with. I wasn’t getting much guidance from my supervisors, and I was not hitting goals with couples, and I couldn’t hit goals. It was really frustrating for me, because I wanted to help them. So I ended up finding Emotionally Focused Therapy, I got a supervisor, and I started hitting goals with couples. It became so important for me to understand Emotionally Focused Therapy, understanding what’s at the root of it, and why we get into fights, and really understanding the core root of it, versus putting band aids on it. Because that’s what a lot of the old treatment styles I was learning was, they’d just put a band-aid on it. Use I statements. Just very basic fundamental tools, instead of getting to the root of it. So I started getting more passionate about how to help them get out of this distress, because there’s so much on the line to lose. Couples are at a point of like, do we stay together and not, and they have children, and it gets really tough. So that’s where I got randomly fell into couples and randomly got into EFT, which now, I can’t not think of Emotionally Focused Therapy, because I see the results, which then landed us towards the high conflict. Because when you specialize in couples, you have to learn how to work with high conflicts too.
Absolutely. Jacqueline, I want to hear. I just want to ask one follow-up question. As you refer to goals as a clinician, can you help people with what you’re referring to there?
Yeah. So when couples come in, there’s a lot of different areas of distress. But we always set up goals of: we want to find ways to improve communication, we want to stop fighting. So some of those goals. Like, we want to understand how to repair after an affair. Some sort of really specific pointed goals with couples to get them out of it. So by the end of therapy, we can look and say: How are we doing? Did we hit it? Did we hit markers? I’m very much a businesswoman. So I like to get in, set those goals and hit them, get them out as quickly as possible. But give them the tools so they don’t need to rely on the therapy, that they can actually do the work themselves.
That’s one of the things that I very much appreciate about the model. That it’s experiential, it’s helping the partners and relationship really build the skills and have the muscle memory, have a felt experience around it, so that they can replicate it out of session. Also, just as you’re speaking to, the awareness around where do we get stuck, and having real clear understanding from places. As well as the roadmap around how to de-escalate, how to regulate, how to repair, these type of things. So thank you for just being super crystal clear there.
Okay. Jacqueline, I would love to hear from you here.
Oh my gosh, I love EFT! I’m so grateful that I found it. Just to piggyback off of what Jennine was saying too, the coolest thing about EFT is how research-based it is. I can’t remember the specific number, but over 90% of couples who do Emotionally Focused Therapy have success in their treatment. So as couples’ therapists, with those goals we want to hit, we get so excited about that.
So my story is similar to Jennine’s at the beginning, where I was not trained in Emotionally Focused Therapy, and I knew I wanted to work with couples. I had all these couples, and I was really struggling. I would bribe professors and Emotionally Focused Therapy experts to come to coffee with me, and I would buy them coffee and ask them questions. One of those experts in the field was actually associated with Jennine and introduced me to Jennine, and that’s how I started working for her back in 2017. So that’s kind of how we met. Jennine has been doing Emotionally Focused Therapy for a very, very long time, and trains thousands of therapists in this. I was one of those people, lucky enough to learn Emotionally Focused Therapy from Jennine. So since I’ve had a baby, and I’ve started my own practice. But me and Jennine have gotten to work together with clients using this theory for years, and it’s been really special. The coolest part about it is just trusting that the method, you know it’s research-based. So if you stay on track with the steps and stages, you know you can feel really safe and confident as the client and the therapist that progress is going to be made.
Yes. As we narrow in to today’s topic, and you both wrote a book about it, do you want to introduce the topic here a little bit more about this high conflict, which might be different than what people associate as regular conflict, and you see a difference. Can you share a little more there?
Yeah. The difference between high conflict versus conflict, or normal conflict, we all have conflict. Even if we’re in really secure relationships, conflict is going to come up. But the high conflict is when we have these quick-to-react, really intense, 0-60 feelings that hit so intense. It can often look like we’re dealing with the dishes, and there’s a comment around the dishes, to all of a sudden saying I don’t know if I want this anymore, to ice-cold shutdowns, leaving, yelling at each other, the cell phone gets thrown. There can be a high escalation. But it’s interesting that the high escalation we might think of somebody screaming and just yelling. Of course, the most extreme is if we have any type of physical abuse that’s going on. Affairs are a common place where high escalation is high conflict, and having certain types of addictions that are involved will always cause a high conflict. Those are the three A’s: active affairs, addictions, and abuse. But other times, we think of it as this intense yelling. But it could also be the ice-cold shutdowns and withdrawals that cause high conflict, even though you can’t point at it and say: Oh, look at them screaming and being the crazy one. It actually creates a lot of high conflict.
Yes. Jacqueline, do you want to add anything here?
Yeah, jumping in with what Jennine said. It’s your body having just that really quick, automatic, 0-60 reaction where your body goes into fight or flight mode, just boom, really automatically. In our book, we have an entire chapter on regulation and cooling down, to help people learn how to regulate and calm their bodies, so that they can come together and co-regulate with their partners and make different choices. But people in high conflict couples, it looks really similar to regular couples; they just might be a little bit more exaggerated or extreme.
Another aspect of high conflict couples too is the presence of trauma, either in a relationship or at any point in their life. We do a really thorough, as thorough as we could with the word count. I could talk about trauma all day; we could have written a whole separate book on trauma and EFT. But we did a really thorough examination about a more nuanced view of trauma than maybe what people stereotypically might come in with thinking what trauma is, and how it shows up in the relationship to create these high conflict, 0-60 reactions. Because your body at any time might sense danger, and react in this exaggerated way that spins you into your negative cycle. I know we’ll talk about the negative cycle today. But trauma is a huge piece too.
Yes. I really appreciate you just acknowledging the somatic response, the nervous system response. That this is how, if we can slow down or have a little bit more process and reflection, we can start to notice this escalated up energy of the fight or the flight, and even the freeze that you’re referencing and just the shutdown. We can have a little bit more indicators. While it might not be so visible in all the expression of it, that there’s still a lot of indicators that we can start to identify this shutdown and this kind of freeze.
I won’t go so in depth right now just for time. But in our book, we do section out fight, flight, freeze, appease, and exactly what all those behaviors might look like. So that readers can examine and go through this checklist: Oh, that’s me, that’s me. It’s really empowering. Because then people feel like: Oh, I’m not going crazy, these reactions make sense in the context of my history. Then they feel more validated, which is what we want.
Yes. I think that there is such importance to this assessment, or really looking at the imprint of those early formative years relationally, and then also the relational history. Because so often, I think, stereotypically, the average person might say: Oh, I don’t need to go back on my childhood or just this whole thing. It’s not that, it’s looking at what are the patterns, what are the dynamics around where we saw comfort or how we responded to? This is so informative. It’s just so helpful and illuminating to recognize all of these tendencies make sense in the context of my history. So thank you for just even pointing to that. Do you want to add here anything, Jennine?
Well, I think as you describe it, it’s a common piece of: “Well, my past was my past, I dealt with it.” We don’t want to make somebody the Identified Patient. It’s common to use IPs. We don’t want them to be this: Oh, because you have trauma… However, we also need to know that going rageful might have been so protective as a young kid and it saved their life, and we love that about them. We love that part that saved them. But maybe it doesn’t work now when we’re just having a disagreement. So we’re going to help make sense of that rage or the shutdown, the ice-cold shutdowns were so supportive and helpful, and how can we still resource it. Like, if a big bear is coming at you, you still want to resource it and not turn it off. But we also need to help the body learn to not have that same reaction. Our reactions might show up, even though mentally we know: I’m no longer in that situation. I know this isn’t my mom, or this isn’t that event. Logically, we might know we’re having a fight with our partner. But our body goes into this reaction. There’s a book called The Body Keeps the Score, and that really shows that the body re-acts because it remembers: conflict means I need to go into protect mode. So we do want to help people of like: Yep, there’s my body reacting, what can I do? How do I calm it down? How do I slow down?
Yeah, and the real important thing to acknowledge here is that this is the automatic system. Even if we have all this strength and developed executive skills and emotional intelligence, this nervous system response is kicking in for these survival tactics that we can’t just bull ourselves out of. It’s a different approach here. You were also mentioning, Jacqueline, about the subtleties of trauma. Do you want to just speak to that briefly? I know, like you said, we could go super deep dive into this. But just to name what you mean there.
Yeah. I think sometimes in our culture way, we might have a belief system that trauma is for war veterans, or I was in a tornado or something extreme. Obviously, those things are very traumatic and important.
“There’s also subtle nuances that can cause trauma as well, that don’t get as much headlines, which is like, experiences maybe with an emotionally neglectful parent, or a parent that had a mental illness, or experiencing bullying, or your relationship with your siblings. Or these more nuanced pieces that maybe fly under the radar of what our society might think of as trauma.”
So people come into treatment thinking: “Oh, I don’t have any trauma, my childhood was perfect. I don’t know why I’m screaming at my partner over the dishes.” Then we can dive in and understand. Typically, maybe there’s a thread there that we can follow. Like Jennine said so beautifully, we notice that Identified Patient, it’s not that because somebody has trauma, that it’s their fault or something. No, it’s more like understanding, why am I showing up the way I am in this relationship right now, and how can I feel empowered to know what my history is and make different choices? And we give lots of examples of what that is, too. There’s lots of them there. But those are just a few.
And what Jaqueline is describing is, in the book, we talk about Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) as kind of the diagnostic of what we think about veterans. But then we also talk about the smaller PTSD, those are the smaller cased.
The small T trauma.
Yeah, thank you. So that trauma is the big T Trauma, PTSD. But then we have the smaller T that doesn’t say put a label on your forehead. But just know that there’s this nuance, this smaller kind of wave on why our body reacts the way it does.
Absolutely. As we look at trauma and the individual that’s experiencing a certain circumstance and the sensitivity to their system, and what they’re absorbing, it’s my understanding in a broader sense of traumas that it’s overwhelming. It’s almost too much to process. So really, we could put this on a continuum. I know you probably both agree with that, and you’re talking about big T’s, little T’s. Then also just a spectrum here of, there’s been intense experiences that our nervous system is going to respond to, and there might be a pattern of behavior that we’ve chronically been in and upbringing, and that we have a muscle memory around that. So one of the things you’re both describing is the ability to help people identify this, recognize it inside themselves. Also, one of the things that I know you said we’re going to be probably talking about the cycle, it’s how we perceive the other, how we interpret the cues of the other. Because if one is operating with a different strategy, it’s hard to understand. It’s almost like a different language. It’s hard to understand that language, we don’t have the translation yet. You’re both nodding, tell me about it.
I love that metaphor of saying it’s like a different language. I think that’s so beautiful, I want to use that in my own work now. I’m like, I’m going to use that example, because it really is. It’s very common, very, very common to get two partners together, where one partner has a different language of way of reacting to their partner than the other. These two ways of reacting, they have to do a lot of times with attachment styles too. Like, you’re going to have one person who learned from maybe their past that we get really big and we get loud, and we slam doors, or we criticize or we chase, because that’s how I’m getting my attachment needs met and there’s so much pain underneath. On the other hand, it’s the exact opposite. I’ve learned to go ice-cold and shut down, and get in the car and drive away, or sleep in the other room or sleep on the couch to protect myself, and there’s so much pain and emotional needs underneath. And when we get them in EFT to talk about those two things, there’s so much empathy and connection that happens. But when you just see the behaviors, and they’re reacting from their attachment styles or their histories, it creates high conflict couples, and it creates this negative cycle where people are in a lot of pain and don’t feel safe or loved or seen.
Yes. Jennine, do you want to add anything here?
Well, I think Jaqueline just said it beautifully. It’s like, this is the negative cycle. We can reinforce it.
“The more that couples are in this type of sharing a different language or sharing in different ways, it creates this consistency and predictability on how are we going to react. Then the more we do it, the more it reinforces how we respond or react. So it snowballs and gets a lot bigger and can reinforce.”
Because if we do have a hard talk, it is going to go bad, so I’m going to avoid it at all cost. History says, this is it. It may not even be from my childhood or past, it’s because of some events that have happened in our relationship now and how we’ve handled it, and there’s predictability on what we’re going to do, and it doesn’t feel safe. If I try to share, you’re not going to hear me, so I’m not going to share it, or I’m going to avoid the conflict, or I’m explain 20 times because I’m not heard by you.
Yes. So we are constantly learning, whether or not we’re aware of it or not, about how people, our closest people respond to us, and how to negotiate those dynamics. We adapt and we start to modify based on those learnings, and that’s what you’re saying in relationship. Because look, one of the things you’re helping people understand around this toxic high conflict, what are the causes and how it gets developed. In the development of this, it could be what looks like, I think to your point, Jacqueline, we might interpret someone who goes quiet as like: Oh, they don’t care, if the other doesn’t speak that language, or that attachment style, or tendency. Then perhaps, they have a way that they get bigger or get stronger, and this pattern escalates. But you’re saying, with the repetition of these incidences or these dynamics, it starts to take a life or starts to snowball. Is that what I’m hearing.
Right. It can get worse. It can get bigger. This is with all types of couples, the patterns. Again, you don’t have to have trauma or injuries. But that pattern can get bigger or consistent and become very predictable. When we work with clients, I will say: If I was a fly on the wall, and I was watching you two get into a fight, who would do what? They know exactly who would do what response, so they know each move.
Yeah, and that’s helpful, because then that helps us identify: Oh, that’s your negative cycle. One way to get out of it, one of the first things to do is to even know what it is.
Exactly. This is really surprising for couples that are a little bit newer in their relationship, let’s even say two years into a very committed, serious relationship. I do think, I wonder if you both would agree, I haven’t seen any attachment research on this, but the early romance stage and how it’s highly fueled by the neurochemicals, and you’re bonding, and that’s super-intense courting and lots of fun, and we fill in the blank about who we imagine them to be, because we don’t really know how they are in all seasons; how they handle grief, how they handle anger, all these things. Then once the relationship forms a little bit more, some of that neurochemical decreases. Then we’re really in a place where we’re feeling this boundedness, but also going to feel these attachment and insecurities.
Tell me a little bit more. Because this is when we talk about this might be surprising, or that people don’t anticipate. They’re like, I love this person, and then they’re confronted with this difficulty or negative cycle, and it’s not working. They think: Oh, if I just try harder, or if I give them enough feedback, or if I avoid it, and with time it will heal. This is not always easy to really look at, that there is something happening here that is worth investing in, identifying, and working with.
Well, dating is the best time to start to feel out, can somebody be safe for me emotionally. How do we handle it? That euphoric time is usually more or less six months. Dopamine or epinephrine, we get this natural high, it’s amazing. You can stay up for all hours. But then we start to get a baseline, and that’s when we get to start practicing: How do people handle difficulties? How do we handle hard conversations? When they first start off, they might be going really vulnerable and get this sense of feeling seen and heard and feel a sense of safety, so they take more risks when they have that euphoric high.
Then once it starts to stabilize, that is the practice time of: How can I go vulnerable and share my emotions, and then how does my partner show up for me? We want them to be able to really go vulnerable, because vulnerability draws closeness, as Lisa Palmer Olson always says, one of my EFT trainers. But when the you go vulnerable, people get close. So that’s the practice time of: How do I go vulnerable, and how does my partner show up? They’re going to be surprised that sometimes their partner might get flooded, or feel overwhelmed, or worry about: Oh, I don’t want us to disconnect. Knowing that that’s okay, and it’s just part of patterns that happen. All couples get into them, and they just have to learn how to navigate and learn how to jive with each other, while having our talks and staying online for each other. Because at times, we go offline; we shut down, or we get flooded with our own distress, and we can’t see each other. So those couples who are in new relationships, we love our premarital couples because they’re so positive and so great, and they’re working towards marriage, for instance. And we help them highlight: Let’s understand your pattern now, so you can make sure it doesn’t get worse later on. So it’s very preventative, the more information you have on that pattern.
Yes, you’re catching it before it snowballs. Because when there’s many, many years of iteration of this, and the escalation and the intensifying of it, then it’s a lot more to work with. Jacqueline, do you want to say anything else here?
I love and agree with everything Jennine is saying, and was thinking about how at the end of the day, underneath both of these reactions, and we think of our attachment insecurities, that underneath maybe these reactions and the cycle, it’s really the same for everyone, no matter what behaviors they’re showing to their partner. Like, we all just want to feel like we belong, that we matter, that we’re important, that our partner cares about what we have to say, that we feel that conflict is safe. We all want to feel that way. And when we can unify with our partners a little bit, like: Oh my gosh, we both want the same thing, we’re just fighting for it really differently. Then it can help with empathy. And empathy is a hallmark of having a secure attachment. People with secure attachment have more empathy. That’s what our goal with EFT is, to go for a secure attachment style.
Thank you for underscoring that. Because that is what typically is going to help build the path towards a different experience together, is having this understanding of what’s on the inside of these deeper longings of like: “Oh, you do love me, you are for me, you are here. Or I am okay in your eyes, or I am good enough, and that we are good. But we just are going about it in very different ways.” That can be so incredibly transformative.
Right, and that’s something that we need to have explicit with couples, making explicit the intention behind the behavior. The intention gets missed because the behavior is hurtful, the blame or criticize or shutdown, and really understanding what that intention is below the surface, the emotional parts. “I want to be enough. I want to be good enough for you, so let me explain every reason why I got it right.” That’s why we go into defend mode, because I want to be enough in your eyes. Because you actually matter to me, and I don’t want to miss this. There’s this beautiful intention. But on the receiving side, it feels so awful. So we have to really dive into like, what’s that underlying piece, what are the fears that are underneath, what are those longings? The more that we can make those more explicit, it helps de-escalate things. It calms down our system. We start to feel like: “Oh, I really matter, you’re fighting for me! When you go quiet, you’re actually fighting for us, even though it sends the opposite message.” If we need that sense of reframe to it.
Well, I absolutely agree with you. I want to just give a little more room here, both for the individual and the couple, and the benefit of doing what you’re describing of being able to notice these deeper longings or even fears. Because when one can recognize the activation in their nervous system, and then start to identify the fear or the longing, even for the individual, there’s some stability that can start to happen before even expressing that vulnerable part to their person. Can you say a little more about that?
Oh, absolutely. I mean, it makes me think of like how when we have couples come in to treatment, and we’re using Emotionally Focused Therapy, one of the first things we have helped them do is learn how to stop the cycle when it begins. So part of that is, when you notice that cycle beginning, which is usually like, you’re having this self-awareness that I’m starting to explain, I’m starting to question my partner, I’m starting to defend myself of why I needed to be critical with you, or whatever that looks like. You just press the Pause button, and you fight really, really hard to keep your body online, whatever regulation tools you need to do. Maybe if you’re typically somebody who withdraws, you need to fight really hard to stay engaged with your partner. If you’re somebody who tends to lean in and get a little bit aggressive, you’re going to need to fight the urge to throw bombs, or blame them, or raise your voice.
So fight really hard to stay online in a safe way, and then take that moment to regulate.
“I would recommend people to start to explore in their bodies, what’s the emotion underneath this activation I’m having right now? We recommend in Emotionally Focused Therapy, go for the most vulnerable emotion you can find. Are you fearful? Are you sad? Then start to share that with your partner.”
Before you share, you can let them know: “Hey, I’m going to try and do something really different with you. Can you be silly? This might feel a little bit weird. But I’m going to try something different and step out of our cycle. Can I share a vulnerability with you?” Then say, I’m feeling really, really fearful that I’m not good enough for you right now. Or whatever that attachment insecurity is. So it’s kind of both pieces of doing the individual work of like, I need to fight really hard against my own pattern and cycle within myself and my own automatic reactions. Then I need to use that to jump in and do something different with my partner.
Thank you, that’s so helpful. It sounds like even just what we already spoke to about being able to identify one’s language or their tendencies, that can give some signal to like: Oh okay, this is something I do that is a part of the negative cycle or negative dance with my partner. Can I recognize that, and can I pause to be in my best effort to stop the cycle? Because I think one of the things I love, too, about EFT, is that there’s a real recognizing of the dynamics of the issue, and not either person. So to have this stopping, and to be able to slow down to access some of this, and really be in service of something new.
Right, can I piggyback up on that? I want to get on that. You just described, there’s that fear that we have. We have that cycle and that pattern, and we have this fear about I might not be enough, or fear of losing the relationship, or fear of disconnection, or whatever those raw feelings are. The more that we walk around that fear or that vulnerability, that sadness of not being connected, or feeling loneliness in the relationship. Once we can really identify that depth, then we can figure out what we’re needing, and we can ask for that need from our partner, which is critical.
“Our partner can’t read our mind. But when we come out in those reactive ways, we’re not getting the needs met. We might throw out a question, and then our partner answers the question, and it’s never good enough. It doesn’t really give that long-term comfort.”
But when you take that deep dive and really walk around in that vulnerability, we can find out what is it that I’m actually needing right now. “I just need to know that I’m going to be enough for you and you’ll love me no matter what. I need to know that I can be messy and you’ll still love me.” Then that’s an easy one for a partner. They could be like: “Absolutely, I love you. I just don’t like the dishes. I’m not getting rid of you. You matter to me. I just get annoyed about the dishes.” So then they can make that reach and ask for what they need in a clear way, and their partner can actually show up in a way that’s successful.
Right, it streamlines it. It cuts to the core and allows for this connecting that is satisfying, that does bring the repair. Also, I would even add, if please help me if you agree or disagree, that for the person that’s able to recognize their own need, yes, they can send a clear signal and ask. And they can also see the validity of that need, and even emotionally hold space for it. So it’s almost like, I am holding myself in this too. I’m holding my own back, and how much more direct support that is. Versus, I don’t even know why I feel the way that I do, but I can point to you and I can point to the things and say all my complaints. But I still feel all this angst. So there’s a lot of benefit to being able to do this.
As you both talk about trauma, past history, relationship, attachment injuries can complicate this and the intensity of what one is feeling. Would you like to say more about that?
Oh my God, yeah. There’s so much to say. But to boil it down, I really liked the word that Jennine used when talking about this a few minutes ago, which is reinforces. That sometimes our experience with our partners can reinforce our own reactions in the cycle, and then they get exaggerated, which is why the cycle gets bigger and bigger and bigger, and these behaviors get bigger. But really underneath it, it’s all the same, for high conflict and for not high conflict. This is for all relationships. But what we are trying to focus on in Emotionally Focused Therapy is, when there’s a rupture in the relationship, there’s an attachment injury that’s happened, this attachment need that we were just talking about hasn’t been getting met for so long, we go in after that to work to repair it. We have a whole section in the book about how to do this at home. We have exercises, which are really helpful to have a guidebook if you don’t have a therapist to walk you through it. But repairing these attachment injuries can help then create this new pattern where you start to see your partner differently and go: Okay, I can get my needs met from them, I do matter to them.
Right, that’s the corrective emotional experience. There’s a lot of research on the more that we experience our partners, as Jacqueline is saying, and we get that positive experience, our body is going to shift, how our brain reacts is going to shift. Everything’s going to change. So we need that positive experience over and over and over.
Which essentially helps us start to earn more secure functioning, and it’s very beautiful. Do you have an example for people that are listening? I know you have the book where you’ve really, really laid this out. Is there anything you want to say about what this can look like, both in the repair and the corrective experience. But also, how it might feel more complex if one’s dealing with previous injuries and/or traumas?
When we have so many of these, there’s so many layers. We use this example of trapeze. I used to do flying trapeze, so this is the way that I could bring in my personal world in my professional world. So if we think about flying trapeze, you have to climb up 23 feet in the air, put your toes over the edge, you have to lean out, and it’s a very vulnerable time and your body is really filled with fear. People who are up there, whenever I would do the classes, everybody would change. Everybody would respond different with their own fears; some would hold on tight, some would freeze up, some would go robotic, to do all these different reactions. Then what you have to do is, you have to tell them like: Hey, I’m going to throw a certain trek. You have to let the catcher know, who’s on the bar swinging, to let them know I’m about to come through. You grab that part, and they’ll let you know: Okay, I’m ready for you, take a jump. So they’ll say: Ready, Hep! That’s that moment where you jump off the platform, you swing through the air, you do your trick, you flip twist, whatever it is, and then you let go, and then you have to reach out to get caught. You have to reach out in a safe way. Then the catcher comes up, they grab you, and they swing through.
So the way that we talk about how to do this of reaching out for your needs is, one, to say: “Hey, I’m about to take a risk, you matter. So I’m at that ledge, I’m scared. I’m about to take a risk, will you catch me?” Then the person who’s going to catch, they have to be like: Well, am I ready or not? They have to get into a prepared state, like: Okay, I’m here, take that risk, Hep! The person then has to jump out vulnerably and say: Here’s what’s going on in that emotionally raw space. That deep vulnerability we just talked about, without blame, without criticism. It’s really got to be a spotlight on them, on what’s going on for their body, for their emotional attachment needs. They have to share it, and then they have to ask for what they need. This is the reach in a clear and safe way. Here’s what I need from you. Then the other person has to show up and catch them. So I like to think about it as when my clients are going out, you’re jumping. The other person has got to show up to catch you, to make sure that you know they’ll be there, they’ve got your back, they’ll hold on to you. But you have to reach in a safe way.
Well, I just wanted to chime in that there’s preparation sometimes for this. First of all, I’m so resonating with the metaphor of the trapeze. I actually was invited, this was several years ago, my friend wanted to do this. It was like a bucket list for her. So I went to just support her. She has a background of being a dancer, so she has a lot of physicality. Yet, this was scary for her. So on a much more basic introductory level, just even climbing up to the high platform, how to even position your body and actually want to lean forward, and you actually have to lean back to then get the momentum, and then getting into the air and holding on, like all of these moves are scary. Then to be able to reach and let go of the bar that you’re holding, and you reach for that other person. That’s not even any flips or any anything.
There’s preparation for this, sometimes we need to practice. Okay, I just need to lean back, can I just do that? Or can I just stand up on the platform? Like, sometimes these moves, there’s some preparation in the person who’s, ideally, wanting to respond, and might have things that are interfering or getting in the way. So what you’re describing is, I just want to acknowledge, beautiful, and a little more advanced than maybe the beginning level. Would you agree?
We do have it written in the book, which is so funny, because we’re talking about trapeze, and it’s my personal. I absolutely love circus. But it’s a great way of we do need to prep, and it is terrifying. That’s the feeling that goes in our body when we’re about to go vulnerable. We see our clients get to that terrified moment in our session, and we’re like, can you turn and tell your partner at that piece right there? They’re on the ledge going: “I’m scared and I have to jump, and I don’t know if my partner is going to catch me. Because historically, my partner hasn’t caught me and I’ve landed on my face.” So then we’re asking them to take another risk, and we need the partner to show up in a corrective way, and we need the reach to be in a corrective way. So it takes a lot of moving parts. That’s what we walk the clients through with the book of step-by-step how to do this, and we do it in a way where it’s using really clear. We’re not using lots of big therapy language. We like to put in fun metaphors and fun exercises for the clients to learn how to do it. If a partner is not open to reading the book, one person can still make changes. If you think about getting mobile, you pull on one side, the whole thing moves. That’s what the book is. We’ve actually written it in mind that one person might read the other book and the other person might not.
“If you make your move different, your partner is automatically forced to do something different. It only takes one person to step out of the cycle.”
Yes, thank you. Jacqueline?
Oh my gosh, it’s so exciting that there’s so much research that supports what Jennine saying. Like, really, you only need one person. I mean, ideally, we have both people read the book. If we got both people to read it, I know both of them would find it helpful. But if you can only get one to do it, that’s fine. Because research shows if one person steps out of the cycle, it will make a change.
I just love the trapeze metaphor so much; we get so much good feedback on it. We have clients come in using these metaphors. They’re like, I was on the trip, I was standing and jumping and taking a risk. That works so beautifully, because it’s exactly what the process is on both sides of the spectrum. You’re about to jump and take a risk. Or your partner is taking a risk with you. Are you going to respond defensively and drop them in the net? Or are you going to reach and catch them? That’s also a risk for you to try something new.
I think a big piece of thinking of this all as this trapeze and doing something new with your partner highlights the importance of neuroscience, of research, and that comes into our book, which is the corrective emotional experience Jennine is talking about. When you do this trapeze successfully with your partner over and over and over again, and you step out of your cycle and you’re vulnerable over and over and over again, it really does create new neural pathways in your brain. It can change your attachment style. It can change this automatic response that you’re having, with repetition, over time. Just like that reinforcement with your partner could reinforce your cycle negatively, it can also reinforce it positively. Our brains can help us in a good way when we do this positive moves over and over again. So we use that to our advantage in the book, with creating corrective emotional experiencing with the partner.
“It’s so needed. I mean, it’s amazing when we think about one in adulthood, and might be contemplating how come this is so difficult. Yet, if we look at the moments of repetition, early in life, let’s just say on average, that’s 18 years of certain patterns. That’s years. That’s moments. That’s days, weeks, months. I mean, it’s a lot of repetition that we’ve already had learning around.”
So it’s really important to have the support to be able to practice, to be able to have some muscle memory, to be in a place of trusting and being able to do it, and then repeat it over and over and over again.
I might just say, there’s one other thing that I love about this metaphor. It actually reminds me, when I did my dissertation, I did a meta-analysis, and one of the studies that I was looking at was using the metaphor of rock climbing. So it was like blame, where one person is belaying in the person. So there’s something similar about people’s fear, typically, of being in a precarious high position, fear of heights, and then doing something that’s difficult. But what I love about the trapeze example, or even rock climbing, is something you both were saying, that we’re both in service of doing this. It’s almost like an initiative, like we want to keep practicing so we can get this. So it almost de-stigmatizes one person doing something wrong, or one person is more of the Identified Patient or problematic behavior. It’s more of like, we’re really working together to land.
Yes, we both have to do this together, we both have to show up. They’re called the catcher, the person who catches the flier, they have to make sure that they pump up the swing in the right timing, the right moves; they have to hep the person off the ledge at the right time. Then when they’ve got to show up, they have to be able to reach and grab. So that part is so critical. The person who’s jumping, and everybody’s got to do a move. A lot of times we’re like, you have to change your behavior. It’s very much: I’m the victim, you’re the villain. The defense and offense. So it’s like, we need both; we both need to make it safe, we both need to learn how to do things different. So I really like that language of we both need to make our fights safe, we both need to find out how to show up for each other different.
Jacqueline, I know we’re winding down here, so I want to carry you if you have anything else you wanted to say here on this note. Or anything else that you wanted to mention and we haven’t gotten to?
Oh my gosh, I think we covered exactly what I wanted to share.
So there’s one other piece, I’ll jump in. I can keep talking, so I’m going to slow down. But the patterns that we also get through sex, which we didn’t talk about. There are patterns that show up around sex. There might be this avoid, avoid; we don’t talk about it, we complain about it, we push for it. There’s all of these vulnerabilities, and sex is a very vulnerable space for connection, and we really need that safety around sex. At times, there’s this: “I’m not going to have sex with you until you create emotional safety, or I won’t create emotional safety until you have sex with me.” There’s this standoff, and we really have to focus on making everything safe. That means the emotional connectivity is safe. But it also has to show like: “You are desirable, I love you. I just don’t like our fights.” How do we take risks with each other sexually? Even just talking about sex, we need sex to be safe. So there’s many layers here, which we also address different sex dynamics that show up in relationship, how to create a little bit more safety. But we want that on everybody’s radars, that sex is also a very critical role in our patterns. It’s a can of worms that I’m going to open up, so I won’t.
Yeah, we do have an entire chapter just on sex, in our book, because it was so important. We could have written a whole book on it. We could do a whole podcast episode on it. But it really is important to notice how the dynamic shows up sexually.
Yes. Tell us about your book and where people can find it.
It’s on Amazon. It’s at Barnes and Noble. It’s at bookstores. It’s called Help for High Conflict Couples. You can just do a quick Google search, we have HelpForHighConflictCouples.com. It’s really any bookstore, online.
It will be on Audible next month in March. So it will also be on Audible. Definitely check it out on HelpForHighConflictCouples.com, you can purchase it through our site. You can also go anywhere. It is all over. You can go to a bookstore, and it should be there.
Excellent, I’ll make sure to have those links on today’s show notes. On the website, they can purchase the book. Is there anything else that they’ll find there?
Yeah, we also have some resources for clients for learning how to regulate emotionally. We’re going to have a lot more different free tips and advice for clients at HelpForHighConflictCouples.com. We also are giving a lot of trainings for clinicians. So that’s something that’s also really important, is I do a lot of trainings for therapists on how to work with the couples. So we also have tools and strategies for the therapists as well.
Wonderful. Again, I’ll have those links on today’s show notes. It sounds like the best way to really do a deeper dive, get the support and the guidance, is to purchase the book, and really start working with all the material that you both have provided. Thank you so much for sharing your time with us here today.
Thank you.
Thank you, this was so much fun. Thank you for having us.
Signing Off
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Emotional immaturity can hinder our ability to form healthy connections and make sound decisions. But is it truly possible to overcome emotional immaturity, even if you’ve experienced significant developmental setbacks or challenges?
Similar to research findings that suggest it’s possible to develop more secure functioning or earn a secure attachment style later in life, it’s feasible to achieve emotional growth and maturity.
In our fifth installment on the topic of emotional immaturity, we uncover practical strategies and insights to foster emotional growth. With a focus on seven key practices, including creating a safe space for growth and honing interpersonal skills, the discussion offers a roadmap for enhancing emotional intelligence.
If you find yourself in a relationship with someone exhibiting signs of emotional immaturity, it’s crucial to consider revisiting the recommendations outlined in episode 416. Engaging in heartfelt, candid conversations with your partner about the importance of cultivating emotional maturity can pave the way for mutual understanding and growth within the relationship.
In this Episode
6:48 A recap of the previous episodes on emotional maturity.
9:13 The dynamic nature of emotional maturity highlights its placement on a continuum that allows for growth and development.
14:21 Establishing a safe practice environment.
21:28 Embracing emotional awareness and connection.
26:39 Accepting emotional growth as a continuous process
31:30 Cultivating conscious regulation skills.
36:12 The importance of engaging in honest and uncomfortable conversations
41:44 Taking ownership and accountability within relationships.
45:19 Cultivating interpersonal and relational proficiency.
Your Check List of Actions to Take
- Develop and maintain a safe practice ground for emotional growth.
- Accept and build a connection with your emotions.
- Understand that emotional development is a gradual process.
- Learn conscious regulation skills to manage your nervous system.
- Engage in honest and uncomfortable conversations to address emotional issues.
- Take ownership and accountability for your emotions and actions.
- Build interpersonal and relational skills to improve communication and understanding.
- Set boundaries to protect your emotional well-being and foster healthier relationships.
Mentioned
Signs of Emotional Immaturity: How to Identify and Support People with Emotional Immaturity
Emotions as Honored Guests (article)
The Value in Pain and the Pain in Value | Lode Dewulf | TEDxVlerickBusinessSchool
ERP 276: Understanding the Need for Both Self-Regulation and Co-regulation in Relationship – An Interview with Deb Dana
ERP 261: How to Strengthen Your Relationship from a Polyvagal Perspective – An Interview with Dr. Stephen Porges
ERP 140: How Pain and Suffering Increase & What to Do About It
ERP 410: What Are the Signs of Emotional Immaturity in Relationship?
ERP 411: What Are the Signs of Emotional Immaturity in Relationship? Part Two
ERP 413: How Does Emotional Immaturity Develop & the Difference between Emotional Immaturity and Emotional Abuse? Part Three
ERP 416: What to Consider If You Are in a Relationship with an Emotionally Immature Person — Part Four
Relationship Map To Happy, Lasting Love
Connect with Dr. Jessica Higgins
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Twitter: @DrJessHiggins
Website: drjessicahiggins.com
Email: jessica@drjessicahiggins.com
About Today’s Show
Let’s get started in today’s episode. Before we go into the content of today’s episode, I want to acknowledge that I had said I would be releasing this episode last week. So this episode was supposed to be 417, and it’s 418. So I apologize for the delay, I also appreciate your patience. On a side note, I think some of you may know that my husband and I have been in quite a journey this last year and a half, and we hopefully are winding down our exploration and search for potentially relocating, and all that has gone into this process. I just want to reassure you that I am so deeply committed to supporting you as a listener here on the Empowered Relationship Podcast, as well as all the work that I am doing with my coaching clients and all that I’m offering to you in other ways. So I just want you to feel that for me, as I acknowledge a delay here.
Okay, again, the topic here is how to build more emotional maturity in relationship. As a reminder, this is the fifth episode of a series around emotional immaturity. If you missed the previous episodes, I want to encourage you to check those out. 410 and 411, which are part one and part two of what are the signs of emotional immaturity in relationship: looking at the signs and characteristics, how this exists on a continuum, and building the awareness around the importance of emotional development, and so much more. 413 is looking at the differences between emotional immaturity and emotional abuse. Not all emotionally immature behaviors are abusive, however, there is overlap. 416 is looking at the experience of someone in relationship with an emotionally immature partner, and how to evaluate if the relationship is workable or not.
Today, we’re going to be looking at both how to overcome emotional immaturity and how to build emotional maturity in relationship. So let’s here start with how to overcome emotional immaturity. Some people may be even asking themselves throughout this series, is it even possible to overcome this if one is severely stunted or has been grossly underdeveloped? Now, again, this exists on a continuum. I will say, much of what we talked about in the last episode, 416, on the topic, give some scope around, is someone interested, are they aware? That that will help in assisting, is there a possibility for the relationship to be workable? But in a nutshell, yes, it is possible to develop more emotional intelligence and build emotional maturity. I believe we’re all on this path, myself included, in constantly looking at how to increase my ability to both be in touch with my experience and what that means, as well as how to relate with my husband around the emotional tension or difficulties, or even expanding our capacity for more love and intimacy, both.
What’s reassuring is that we can look at the research, as it relates to the attachment research, in that it is possible to develop more secure functioning or earn a secure attachment style, even later in life. Especially if one did not grow up with the circumstances that afforded this more secure relating in a secure attachment. Neuroscience helps us understand that we are always developing new neural pathways if we’re in the experience of learning and growing, and that our brains and the capacity for what’s called neuroplasticity, that’s the change that can occur in the brain. I will also say that if one is more stuck in their habits, or their routines, or perhaps stuck in addictive patterns or using substances, that may interfere with the growth process. Similarly, if someone is interested in building self-awareness, they’re willing and they’re engaging in a process, taking action and taking steps to improve, that’s going to help their growth process.
Again, if you are in relationship with someone who shows signs of emotional immaturity, please again, if you will, revisit the recommendations from Episode 416. As you will want to possibly have an honest, heartfelt conversation with your significant other about developing more emotional maturity and what that would mean to you. You also would likely want to build some support in your couple system, whether or not it’s having practices or curriculum to work with or a structure to help build these new skills. Because likely, if there’s any level of history, and those patterns are strong, and you’re going to want to build some new habits and new patterns together.
Throughout this series, I’ve focused primarily on emotional immaturity, and again, today’s episode is focusing more on emotional maturity. Likely, one could just take the converse of everything we’ve already discussed and replace that, likely to have a pretty good description of what emotional maturity is. However, I think it’s helpful for us to dispel some of this out. So referencing the article How to identify and support people with emotional immaturity by Angelica Bottaro, and medically reviewed by Stephanie Hartselle, MD. They write: “Emotional maturity is when a person has the skills to react to situations appropriately and can control their emotions. Emotionally mature people behave in an adult-like manner in all situations in which they are dealing with other people.”
Now, if you recall, one of the definitions of emotional immaturity, and one of the pieces of that was that someone will be behaving in more child-like ways. So it’s almost as if their emotional reactivity or their behaviors that are more emotional, as it relates to whatever the situation is, will seem much younger than their chronological age. They also write: “Emotional maturity is a person’s ability to manage their emotions and behaviors in a healthy manner.” So this is the ability to process their feelings, acknowledge what’s happening for them, be able to communicate to others in a more healthy, productive manner. They also say: “Emotional maturity helps us resolve conflicts, and have satisfying and secure relationships.” They also list signs of emotional maturity, which include: having empathy, recognizing and sharing feelings, being flexible and open-minded, maintaining healthy relationships, taking responsibility for actions and accepting the consequences of behaviors, setting healthy boundaries, seeking to resolve conflicts, and managing stress.
Now, I wanted to flesh out a little bit more so I can offer you more practices of ways to develop more emotional maturity. Again, emotionally mature people tend to engage in self-reflection, taking responsibility for their actions. Again, this is a repeat here. Having flexibility and being more adaptable in their personality, being able to navigate the world with minimal detrimental consequences, so that when things are changing or not going the way that they want, that they can pivot, respond, and adapt, rather than getting really stuck.
So let’s look at I have seven practices to offer you. Again, this is in no means a comprehensive total list, but giving you some structure to perhaps work with if this is something you’re interested in focusing on. Number one, develop, and then also maintain, a safe practice ground. Now, anytime we engage in developing a skill, sometimes it can be incredibly awkward, uncomfortable. It can even feel vulnerable to feel inadequate, or perhaps even this feeling of unable, not having the skill; we can feel just at a loss and out of our comfort zone. I remember when I was becoming more interested in developing my volleyball skills. Now I know this isn’t at all necessarily comparative, as far as an example. But I can recall, really having great desire to have more skills. The way that I learned was just through what they might call scrap ball or just jungle ball. There was really no skill, it’s just you’re getting out there and you’re playing. It’s fun, but there’s really no fundamental skills. I mean, maybe a few, but not really, technically correct. So learning a lot of bad habits. I remember being so visible. It was one-on-one coaching, and one of the things he was really encouraging, I don’t even think it had to do with me specifically, I think it’s something he just did across the board, was just welcoming a safe practice ground. That it’s okay to make mistakes, it’s okay to feel awkward, it’s okay to feel uncomfortable, and that part of learning is getting outside of the comfort zone. Easier said than done, and especially when the stakes are high, and something means a lot to us, it can be very, very difficult to take that risk.
So one of the first recommendations here is, however you can devise a safe practice ground, whether or not it’s building some inner self-talk around compassion and kindness, being gentle with yourself. Now, out of the gate, it may be helpful to engage with a coach or a therapist, that they’re going to be able to hold a container with you. They’re going to be able to provide this safety to begin to explore, that you can lean into this skill or the support of a guiding professional to explore your inner world in more of this gentle, non-judgmental, compassionate way. Now, if you can access this for yourself, I think that is great, and I would work with that. But just to build on that. Begin to repeat this more of to yourself, whether or not you have a little bit of a mantra, or you have some supportive quotes, or if it’s something you journal about or listen to, whatever is going to assist in this encouraging and supportive climate or environment.
Another helpful consideration is to perhaps look at the expectations that you have of yourself in this arena. Quite possibly, just to give yourself lots of room and lots of space to go slow, to do it in a paced way so you’re not trying to accomplish too much at once, and that giving yourself some doable steps so that you’re not expecting such a result so quickly. If you think about the patterns that you’ve developed over a certain amount of time, those tendencies may feel strong, and there’s likely really good reason why you do what you do or have done what you’ve done, and that there’s a protective quality to that. So this is where the therapeutic support may be extremely helpful. Because if there’s any past history, whether or not it’s trauma, or not getting safe responsiveness as it relates to emotions, this might be scary to confront. So when we look at safe practice ground, we’re not going to do something that feels unsafe. So getting the support will likely be helpful, if not necessary.
Another supportive tool can be engaging in a process group. Or I’ve actually heard, many people have success, just beginning, if you work in a corporation or you are working in a large organization or in a position of leadership, likely they have emotional intelligence trainings or workshops. So that can be a good way to start even contemplating some of these skills as it relates to developing emotionally. Perhaps even engaging, there’s men’s groups, women’s groups, or if you’re part of a faith-based organization, sometimes they’ll have groups that are support groups for various topics, or just even again, process groups, and likely there will be an emotional aspect to that. Again, just having some more support and safety around practicing. This will likely feel like uncharted territory, and to feel supported. It’s sometimes wee too much to ask to just start to approach something that we’ve not been comfortable to do up until this point.
Number two, accept and build connection with your emotions. Oh, it reminds me, there was this old poem or quote. I’ll do my best. I know I cited it on an early episode, now we’re at 418. So this might be one of the first 10 episodes where I described, and maybe even read, it’s titled Emotions As an Honored House Guest, I’ll see if I can find it and put it on today’s show notes. But in an essence, if we imagine our emotions as a guest, and we’re the house, that it’s like a part of ourselves, the emotions are the guest. Now, if they’re trying to get in and they want to come, and we say no, you can’t get in, and we’re locking all the doors and closing all the windows, that they might break in and make a mess of things and tear things apart. However, if we welcome them, give them a seat at the table and listen and hear what’s happening, the wisdom and the understanding that’s there, it’s a totally different relationship, to see our emotions as having value, as having importance.
Even if one attempts to override their emotional sensation, their feelings, the system doesn’t stop working; we just essentially wall off our connection to them. Hence, we perhaps limit the information that we’re operating with. And when we look at humans, and the way of functioning and relating, much of the information that’s being conveyed very quickly is through the facial expressions, the tone of voice, the nonverbals. I think we say 80 plus percent of communication is nonverbal, which directly ties to people’s emotional state.
“Emotions, in a lot of ways, is one of the primary sources of getting information about others and what’s happening in the dynamic; are they okay, are they not okay, what are they wanting, what are they needing, what are their preferences.”
Now, a lot of this is happening below the field of awareness, it’s just happening automatically. But as we bring attention to the value and importance of emotion, we can see that if we are more aligned, more congruent, more in touch with our emotions, we can be that much more coherent and clear when we relate to others.
I appreciate that this is easier said than done, especially if you have been taught or told or modeled that emotions are dangerous, they’re irrational, they’re a sign of weakness. So giving importance to emotion at all, or that it could strengthen relationships or help us feel more aligned in our life or help us with healing or experience more health and vitality, might just feel like a fantasy. Or that we might get it intellectually, but have no real way to access. This is where, again, I think a real helpful coach, therapist would be extremely supportive. One of the things that could come from that professional relationship is a corrective experience, a felt sense of relating to others and showing emotions in a way that feels reparative. Like, this is a new experience that gives a template to work from.
As we look at this second recommendation here, to accept and build connection with your emotions, sometimes people can come into greater contact or start to understand their experience and their emotions through other forms, whether or not it’s art, or whether or not it’s journaling, or dance, or any other creative outlet that helps one get in touch with their feeling, their experience, and give expression to it. People sometimes find a lot of value through reading. I’ll recommend a book here by Dr. Mark Brackett, [Permission to Feel: Unlocking the Power of Emotions to Help Our Kids, Ourselves, and Our Society Thrive]. Part of this process of giving expression or through journaling, and having a voice to it, whether or not it’s with a friend or a process group or a therapist or coach, that we are able to acknowledge and start to understand and see how it matters, and even possibly some self-validation. That this does make sense, it does matter, and to hold that with, again, some of that value in regard.
Number three, understand it is a growth process. With any developmental process or growth process, there’s a sequence of developing more competency. I can’t recall the model, but I’ll try to find it and put it on today’s show notes. Essentially, if I remember correctly, there were four phases of this developing competency, and it really had to do with our awareness as well as our competency. I think the example I used in a previous podcast was driving a vehicle. That in one’s early life, they’re not even aware that they’re not competent, that they don’t know how to drive. Then at some point, they are aware that they don’t know how to drive. Then as they learn, they’re not competent, and as they gain skill, they recognize they’re gaining competence. Then at some point, it becomes automatic; they’re not even recognizing that they’re driving. This is, sadly, sometimes people drive in autopilot, especially when they’re going the same route all the time, that they can drive without even really being super-conscious.
“There’s a bit of a process here of developing competency. And when we look at emotions, some of us may not even know that we’ve not been operating with a tremendous amount of emotional intelligence.”
So with the developmental process, some of what I was even saying in the first point, which is developing a safe practice ground, that with any developmental process, knowing learning is not about being perfect, that this might actually help when we look at that we are needing to make mistakes to learn, and that we want to have a growth mindset. That it’s about having more of an open mind, focusing on the learning opportunities; what can this teach me, what can I gain from this experience, what insights, what new understandings, what new solutions. If we have that open mind and that flexible thinking we’re more likely to approach a situation and feel the growth and the learning. Versus, why is this happening, this is so problematic, this isn’t a good fit, something’s wrong with me. There’s lots of ways that we can get really stuck in more of that rigid thinking, or all-or-nothing or black-or-white thinking. So having that growth mindset, again, looking at the learning not perfection. This may help with some of the shame. I think I mentioned in a previous episode. Sometimes people who really struggle with this emotional maturity have felt a lot of internalized pain and have felt some level of shame or even self-loathing. So it can be difficult to recognize and give space for developing, because it’s so closely tied to the fear of not being enough or not being good enough. Again, this is where a real helping professional can assist.
Having a growth mindset will also be helpful when things don’t appear to be going well, or don’t go as anticipated, or maybe even feel like they’re going wrong. That we will be able to adapt, perhaps even pivot, or just be in a place of acceptance and have some realistic meeting of what is. Rather than, perhaps having a strong reaction, or feeling as though everything’s turned to crap. That’s hard, to feel like one can generate solutions from this place of doomsday. So if we can have more of that open-minded growth mindset, look at the learning, be curious, have some non-judgmental space, have inquiry; how can I look at this from a different perspective, some of these questions can be really helpful to generate more of that non-judgmental space. The thing I want to also mention here that relates to the second point, is just to be in a regular practice of self-awareness, and again, focused on learning. If we’re in this repetitive practice, then likely we’ll be able to access this when things don’t go well, or be able to have more of this growth mindset attitude readily available.
Number four, learn conscious regulation skills. Part of being human is that every day we are having our nervous system responding to various stimuli, whether or not we’re driving and perhaps someone honks, or we hear a siren, likely, we will feel some activation. Now that’s a simple example, but perhaps there’s many examples in any given day. When we look at intimate relationship, again, what’s at stake, likely we’re going to respond, and it’s going to feel more threatening when things get tense or perhaps even off-track. So if we can start to build more awareness around our nervous system, when we’re reacting, when perhaps we can benefit from more regulation. Because if we’re not at all in that window of tolerance, and if you don’t know that term, I would encourage you to look it up. I’m happy to give some more insight. I believe I did an episode on that, I will also make a note to put that on today’s show notes as well. I do believe there’s some content for you to reference. So if we’re out of the window of tolerance, we are essentially operating offline; we don’t have all of our faculties to utilize, and we’re operating from a very primal place. In which we’re not thinking clearly, perhaps we’re not going to say or do things in a way that is in alignment with how we want to be, and it’s more out of that reactionary place or that very primal place. That can be aggressive, that can be competitive, that can feel regressed. So we do have an opportunity to regulate, so that we can engage more skillfully.
Deb Dana does a wonderful job of giving us a lot of assistance and skills. One of the books that she wrote, Befriending Your Nervous System: Looking Through the Lens of Polyvagal Theory. Also another book, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory. I’ll put both of those links on today’s show notes. I’ll also put the episode where she was a guest on the Empowered Relationship Podcast. Essentially, she’s helping us understand that even her as a teacher of this, and having practiced this for the majority of her career, I think it’s over 20 years she has been working side by side with Stephen Porges and helping people understand what’s going on inside their nervous system and how to help get into that more window of tolerance. She’s saying, I in a day will get out of the window of tolerance several times.
“It’s not so much about trying to not get dysregulated or not have reaction. It’s about getting into the driver’s seat, befriending the nervous system, helping assist the nervous system into more regulation.”
I know the Gottmans, in their research, they talk about, just even 20 minutes can help calm the nervous system if we’re engaging in something that is more calming. So if you notice you’re getting defensive or feeling like you’re getting upset in an interaction with your significant other, perhaps just saying: “Look, I noticed I’m starting to get activated, or I’m starting to feel triggered. Can we just take a half an hour and come back? This means a lot to me, I want us to resolve this, and I also feel like I’m losing my ability to really be with you and listen. I feel defensive. So I just want to take a quick walk, or perhaps I want to listen to some music, or I want to take a hot bath.” Whatever it is to help calm could really help give a little more ground to this regulation. Because once we’re in a more regulated place, we’re going to be in a much better state to deal with situations more calmly and have all of our faculties online. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard people say: “Oh, I don’t even know what happened. I was doing and saying things that I regret, and I didn’t even want to say, I don’t believe, and I just was reacting.” Or some people might even say: “I saw red, and I kind of lost myself.” And what happens out of those places is likely not going to be very constructive or productive.
Number five, having honest and uncomfortable conversations. Gay and Katy Hendricks, they run the Hendricks Institute. I remember years and years ago, I want to say 20 years, I came across their terminology, and had a sweaty 10-minute conversation. They are huge proponents of what they would call inarguable truths. This is getting into contact with the body sensations, the felt emotion, and this is on a deeper layer—the more vulnerable, primary core emotions. When we can get in touch with that and then perhaps reveal or share that with our significant other or someone else that we care deeply about, this can feel like a confrontation.
“If we can have the courage and the bravery to have these sweaty 10-minute conversations, or even what a lot of people reference as hard conversations, difficult conversations, that this gives the opportunity to build more connection, more closeness; what’s on the other side of those conversations is typically what we’re after. When we avoid them, it typically creates wedges of withholding, projecting, assuming, and distancing.”
Now granted, we won’t choose to do this with everyone, for sure. There’s going to be an inner circle, the people that you’re closest to, most intimate with, likely your significant other if you’re in partnership or married. That you want to practice, you want to cultivate a deeper sense of emotional intimacy and bondedness, and knowing one another and being able to trust one another. There’s a way to do this, of course. When we want to have a dialogue or set up a conversation, there’s a way to do this. I’ll put a link to an article that gives some structure to this. Some of this, I’m sure you’ve heard, it’s very common. There’s a lot of similar recommendations that people will offer. Finding a time to talk where people are calm, regulated, available, and then also how to structure that conversation so both people have an opportunity, and it’s more about seeking to understand. Having a level of openness, being curious. Hopefully with that ability to engage in this conversation, we can practice maybe even some empathy. Again, I’ll put the link on today’s show notes to that article. I’ll also put a link to Harville Hendricks and Helen Hunt’s Imago dialogue structure, where they’ve done a lot to provide support for these safe conversations.
I want to note a little bit more on the practicing empathy. When we can be in a place of slowing down, not having to defend or protect our position, and we can be in a place of listening, deeply listening to the other, seeking, again, to understand what things are like for the other person. Sometimes when I’m doing this, I’m listening, and sometimes I’m like, I don’t understand, but I’m trying to understand. I use the kind of phrase of: “If it were me, this is what it would feel like.” Or I’m entertaining, based on what I know and what my husband is sharing, I really try to put myself in that perspective that gives me a little bit more insight. Or perhaps I just have to stay really, really curious until something emerges. I also try to understand what is it that he’s feeling here, what’s going on for him emotionally. I try to be in service of how it makes sense, rather than trying to persuade him to feel or think differently, but more try to really understand his perspective. Because if we can give space for self and other, and this is practice the empathy for both positions, likely, there can be a more softened place and goodwill, that with that understanding, and maybe it takes several conversations to get more of that understanding. Oh, I can remember many topics, and my husband, a couple of them took years to actually get to a place of real understanding. Because either one of us weren’t clear, or perhaps there was too much conflict around it, and these were big ticket items, for sure. But until we got to this place of really understanding and really being for each other, that then we could come up with mutually beneficial solutions. This is where we become more allies working together as a team and building connection, that we want what matters most to the other.
Number six, take ownership and accountability. Now, ideally, we may be in the practice of this across the board. Because if we can be in greater contact with our emotions and our experience and what we’re needing, then we are going to be able to look at how our behaviors support that, and where our limits are, where our boundaries are, so that we can recognize where we want to engage and where we don’t want to engage.
“Sometimes when we have great issue with someone and their behavior, if we take a moment to really look at how am I participating in that dynamic, we can recognize, perhaps I’m playing a role; I have my part here. So if I can really take responsibility and take ownership, that allows me to have opportunity to grow.”
And yes, it does impact the relationship, and hopefully, in a positive way, that what is growthful individually is also growthful for the relationship. But some of that is unknown. It’s not a guarantee, and it’s a risk. But if we don’t take ownership and accountability, we likely may enter into that more victim mindset, that my partner is doing this to me, or they’re making me feel a certain way. Taking ownership and accountability can be really powerful for the relational dynamic.
Now, this has a couple of layers to it, but one of which is, when we can acknowledge where we have fell short or made a mistake or didn’t follow through, it gives ground; it gives a real place to work from. But when one is defending, denying, dismissing, and it’s almost as if like, where is our foundation, where’s our ground? I thought we had an agreement or I thought we had an understanding, and then it puts a lot of things up into question. Or how come you’re unable to see this? Then the person may have a lot of questions around do you care, and this is where it all gets really tricky and off-track, and the cycle can really create a lot of disconnection here. So when we can acknowledge, it gives that ground, it gives repair, it gives some place to work from. Also, similarly, when we can take ownership and responsibility, we can ask for help when needed, and we’re also in a position that we can share our struggles and vulnerabilities with others.
Now, I recognize, a lot of what I have already spoken to, that development may need to occur before taking responsibility and ownership. Because if one doesn’t feel a sense of goodness inside themselves, or that their emotional experience is valid and is important, and they haven’t had the experience of that, this is likely not going to feel safe to go towards, taking responsibility. Because it’s going to feel like activating that shame spiral and not enoughness.
Number seven, build more interpersonal skills and relational skills. Now all of this goes hand in hand, and I would even say much of the episodes on the Empowered Relationship Podcast are intended to build interpersonal skills and relational skills. So again, a lot of this is interconnected, and this relates to the communication, as I’ve already spoken to. This might mean: what are my needs, what are my preferences, what’s my experience? Am I willing to have conversations around these things, so that there’s more intimacy, there’s more knowing? Engaging in active listening, asking open-ended questions, really being in this place of attuning and seeking to understand, and just wanting more information. Can you tell me more? It might start with: how did you, in what way, tell me about, what is it like? There are many great tools and resources that assist with deepening in these dialogues. I have an upcoming episode, which I’m very excited to share with you, about attending to this deeper listening, and stay tuned for that.
So as we talk about building more interpersonal skills, also addressing challenges, differences, or even conflicts, proactively. When we keep avoiding, now, one way of looking at avoiding is actually to regulate.
“If we’re too overwhelmed, or if it’s too scary, avoiding can be a way of regulating the nervous system, ironically. Yet, long-term, likely that will create more challenges, more problems.”
When we avoid the conflict, we’re not actually resolving anything, and things tend to either stay the same or get worse. So we are limited relationally when we avoid these difficulties. I’ve already mentioned a bit, but setting boundaries is another interpersonal skill, relational skill. When we can recognize our limits, we’re in a much better place of taking care of ourselves, recognizing what we want to participate in and what we don’t want to participate in, and really having regard for one’s sense of self and our partners well-being.
One way of viewing boundaries is allowing your significant other to know the shape of you; making visible what matters to you, what you want, what you don’t want, and that contact. Being able to see both your boundaries, and also your partner’s, allows for deeper regard, deeper respect, deeper care, that that is part of the interrelating. Sometimes when we aren’t in touch with our limits, we can give too much, or perhaps feel intruded upon or over-extended, and it can get really complicated; we can feel resentful, we can feel frustrated, we can feel shut down hopeless, there’s a whole host of things that we can feel. But if, conversely, we’re in a practice of being in contact with what’s true, making that more visible, and also being in service of understanding our significant other, what’s true for them and their experience, and then the ability to work together. This is where that trust, that emotional connection. This is where the research really helps us understand. This is the glue. This is what typically matters most in relating, is that we’re both responded to, we’re feeling understood, we’re feeling that goodwill, that care, that regard. This is where partners build that trust, that faith, that confidence, that in their connection, they can address what arises that might be difficult in a productive manner and come up with solutions, feel closer, feel more intimate. This often is what contributes to a sense of happiness, satisfaction, and the longevity of a healthy lasting relationship.
In summary, the seven ways that one can practice more emotional maturity is, number one, develop and maintain a safe practice ground. Number two, accept and build connection with your emotions. Number three, understand it is a growth process. Number four, learn conscious regulation skills, that’s nervous system regulation. Number five, have honest and uncomfortable conversations. Number six, take ownership and accountability. Number seven, build more interpersonal skills, that’s relational skills.
Thank you so much for listening. It’s an honor and a privilege to spend this time with you. I have the utmost regard for your interest in developing and growing, and I am with you in the path of growing and developing.
Until next time, I hope you take great care.
Signing Off
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Many individuals and families encounter a common challenge: the struggle to harmonize their values, aspirations, and objectives. This issue is compounded by the inherent differences in perspectives, priorities, and communication styles within these relationships. When aspirations clash and priorities diverge, it often leads to misunderstandings that escalate into tensions and conflicts. Maintaining harmony becomes a daunting task without a clear understanding of each other’s goals and values, leaving couples and families adrift in a sea of discord.
In this episode, we delve into practical strategies for crafting a shared mission statement—a tool designed to align individuals and unite them in pursuit of common objectives. Through insightful discussions and actionable steps, listeners will discover how to identify core values, engage in constructive dialogue, and cultivate deeper understanding and connection with their partners and loved ones. Join us as we explore the power of intentional communication in fostering stronger, more harmonious relationships.
Dr. Heather Browne, PsyD, LMFT, helps people recognize the power of communication, one of the most important skills we possess. However, often, we fail to consider our understanding, approach, and belief, and consequently, miss out on our potential. No two individuals perceive reality in the same way, despite our belief in shared understanding. Harnessing this revolutionary awareness has enabled her to transform communication within oneself and other types of relationships.
In this Episode
04:45 Dr. Heather Browne’s journey of healing and growth.
08:57 The significance of self-awareness and conscientiousness in personal growth, particularly in identifying areas of consistency and growth.
12:38 The transformative power of a mission statement.
20:28 The importance of understanding and accommodating differences in stress responses and soothing methods within a relationship.
23:57 Tailoring relationship goals to individual values.
29:12 Navigating irreconcilable differences in relationships through effective communication and collaboration.
40:19 Nurturing self-discovery and inner alignment.
51:54 The importance of crafting and regularly revisiting a mission statement for individuals, couples, and families as a tool for fostering connection and guiding communication.
Your Check List of Actions to Take
- Reflect on personal values and desires to identify what matters most in life.
- Engage in open and honest conversations with partners or family members to explore shared values and goals.
- Practice active listening and empathy to foster understanding and connection during discussions.
- Create a mission statement together that reflects collective aspirations and priorities.
- Display the mission statement prominently in the home as a constant reminder.
- Schedule regular sessions to revisit and revise the mission statement as needed, with options ranging from weekly to monthly.
- Embrace vulnerability and authenticity to cultivate deeper connections and mutual respect in relationships.
Mentioned
How to Feel Less Lonely, Create Meaningful Connections and Love | Heather Browne | TEDxMountRubidoux (YouTube link) (video)
Speaking with the Heart: Transforming Your Relationship and Communication with Compassion and Connection (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
ERP 355: The Importance of Creating a Shared Reality in Relationship — An Interview with Dr. Heather Browne
ERP 372: How to Work Together in Relationship for a Strong, Secure Connection — An Interview with Dr. Stan Tatkin
ERP 389: Understanding Our Stress Language as Well as Our Partner’s Stress Language for Better Living & Loving — An Interview with Chantal Donnelly
Connect with Dr. Heather Browne
Websites: drheatherbrowne.com
Facebook: facebook.com/profile.php?id=100086978599835&mibextid=LQQJ4d
YouTube: youtube.com/@dr.heatherbrowne
Instagram: instagram.com/dr.heatherbrowne
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/drheatherbrowne
TikTok: tiktok.com/@heathermbrowne
Connect with Dr. Jessica Higgins
Facebook: facebook.com/EmpoweredRelationship
Instagram: instagram.com/drjessicahiggins
Podcast: drjessicahiggins.com/podcasts/
Pinterest: pinterest.com/EmpowerRelation
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/drjessicahiggins
Twitter: @DrJessHiggins
Website: drjessicahiggins.com
Email: jessica@drjessicahiggins.com
About Today’s Show
Heather, thank you so much for being here. I’m excited to have you back. I know you’ve been on the show once before, many months. I’ll make sure to put the link to that on today’s show notes. But welcome.
I am so honored to be back. Thank you so much.
Yeah. I know you have a book that you’re going to be sharing a little bit more with us about towards the end of the show, we might reference, and today’s topic and discussion. We’re going to be talking about couple’s mission statements and the importance of that.
Before we turn towards that, I know you shared a little bit about yourself. I’m just curious if there’s anything you want to share for people who are just getting to know you here, or even a little bit of as something new with you that you want people to know.
I guess the biggest piece is, I’ve been a psychotherapist for 27 years. I work largely with couples and with communication and intimacy and connection, also quite a bit with grief and loss. I’m a widow myself, and I have two adult amazing children. It’s been a fun and busy year, with a TEDx, and the book, and doing lots of podcasts. So it ties into the idea of the mission statement. Because when you’re in a big growth year, it’s important that you’re being honoring, what that is for yourself and what that is for your practice. So I think it ties in really well.
It does. Even as you’re describing, it feels a bit of entering in some GPS coordinates. Now I know we can’t always control what the outcome is. But having that clear intention is really important as to what we’re creating, because it gives us focus, and then it also can help us look at what’s not it and what’s it. So it really helps us orient or gives us guiding support, would you agree?
100%. And when you’re bringing in two people, or maybe a family, there’s a lot of trajectories going on. So having a clear idea of where overall are we going is important. I know, in my own life, I can easily get off if I’m spending too much time in one area. Then I think: Oh my gosh, I haven’t worked out this week. So if you’ve got four or five people all doing their own thing, it’s kind of easy to sink a little bit in some of the important areas if we’re not aware of where we’re going.
Yeah, thank you for acknowledging that. I find for myself, there are areas where I’m very consistent, and then there are other areas that are growth areas or growing edges for myself. If I’m not aware or conscientious about those growth steps, left to my default, I might delay or punt, or time flies and here I am; I’m still in the same pattern or looping of not actually in that growth trajectory. To your point, as a couple, some of these things are not easy. Some of the relational principles or even dynamics ask us to grow and are challenging, so the human tendency is to sometimes delay on those things. So I’m curious what you might say there.
Absolutely. The place we see it so much is with families who either are both career-driven, or very child-centered, and then they’ll say: “You know, we don’t really have any time for us. We’re not really connecting. We’re more like roommates.” Then you’ve all heard the saying: woke up one day, and I didn’t know who was in the bed next to me. To me, that means you’re not on a mission statement together. You’re going through life, and that’s beautiful in its own right.
| “If you’re not going through life connected to what’s most important to you, what’s most important to your partner, what’s most important to your whole family, it’s easy to have everyone in it, but not really interrelating.” |
So having a mission statement, having a check-in. We used to do a monthly check-in, when my husband was alive and my kids were alive. And we’d say: Okay, so let’s go through the places. Physically, how are we doing? Emotionally, how are we doing. Financially, how are we doing? Spiritually? Socially? So we’d look at the places and evaluate: You know, we didn’t do much this month this way. So then we’d make certain that next month we lay it in, and then that way, you don’t get too far off. But I don’t think families do that. I don’t think even individuals do that. So at the end of the year, you look at the year and you say: “Oh my gosh, I’ve gained 15 pounds, and I’m $20,000 in debt. How did that happen?” So there’s little counts and balances that you need to be aware of as you go through the month, just to help yourself out and to help your family.
Well, a year look is important. But as you’re saying, if we’re not keeping closer connection, we’re likely going to run into areas that we didn’t plan on or foresee, but maybe not be in alignment with what is really true or are important.
Well, when you think of the areas that are difficult for you, or challenging for you, or you’re not yet doing, it’s because you’re not yet used to it. It’s not something that comes naturally. I’m going to enjoy nature every single day, so easy for me. I love nature. So I have a beautiful yard and I enjoy it. Go into the gym, that’s something that I have to intentionally make certain I do. Because that’s not a place that I’m going to naturally go. I’d rather go for a walk. I’d rather go for a swim. So if I need to go to the gym, I have to lay it in. I’m not going to end up in the parking lot of the gym, ever, without thinking about it. So there’s the places of recognizing: This is a place I want to grow. This isn’t a place I’m going to go to naturally. So how do I help myself help myself?
Yes, there’s some support, some scaffolding? So let’s slow down, if you will. How would you define? Or if we can get more specific around what a mission statement is, what would that entail?
Well, if you think about a business, a mission statement speaks into: what is the integrity of the business, what is the purpose of the business, what are they trying to achieve, what do they represent, what do they stand for? When we think about our own life, we actually know those things. But most of us don’t speak into it, so it keeps it a little nebulous. Like, I want to be a nice person. Oh, beautiful. How am I going to do that? So if you add layers to it, like these are the ways we’re going to do it, it just makes it a little bit easier to fulfill it. Within a couple, there’s a lot of things. You came together because that person changed the way you felt about life, changed the way you experienced yourself in the world, being connected to them, and clearly there’s goals and dreams that you have that support each other. That is so beautiful. So if you start that when you’re fresh-faced and excited and delighted and passionate, it’s such a beautiful time to say, who do we choose to be as a couple, and what do we want to represent? Most of us don’t take time with that. Then there’s that place of if you have that. In my house, we printed it out, and we had it up. So when we’d have a tough day, I’d go read it. Like, “I’m not doing that. I’m not being respectful. Certainly not honoring. Not even listening. I don’t even like you right now. I don’t like me right now.”
So it gave me a place to really be self-reflective. I’m not the kind of person to then say to my late husband, you need to go look at our mission statement because you’re not doing it. But my viewpoint would be, and I’d go to him and I’d say: “You know, babe, I just read our mission statement. I failed today.” He’d just say come here, and he’d say, me too! So you can use it at this beautiful way to encourage each other to love each other more, and to become why you really wanted to be together. We come together a lot of times idyllically. But you can help yourselves create that by going back to that. Are you really holding to those tentacles that you’ve put up that you want so much, those tenets that you want so much; respect, honor, passion, compassion, helping the world?
Yes, definitely. One of the things that I’m hearing, as you’re describing this, that there’s the keeping in forefront, one’s and both partners’ higher intentions, higher self almost. As humans, when things are stressful, or there’s low bandwidth, or you name it, we can regress and not be our most generous selves. So to have something that’s visible, it sounds like a real strong encouragement to have. It’s something that you can reference that will be a continual reflective tool, as well as maybe some accountability. Not to, again, I like your differentiating between calling the whistle on your partner and trying to manage them, versus just really looking at how. Because we get into these states that are so emotionally driven, and it’s easy to remember, you mentioned grief. So if I’m grieving, it’s easy to remember all the other times that I’ve had loss or grieving other times. Or if I’m upset with my partner and I don’t like my partner, all the times that I have been irritated or haven’t liked them. So we easily forget, too, around the bigger picture and the bigger focus. So it sounds like there’s a lot of reasons why this can be so helpful.
Well, and when you go with all that you’ve just said, so powerfully and so importantly, a mission statement wants to make change. Think about that.
| “It’s fascinating to me that as couples, we come together, we talk about how amazing and how great we’re going to be. I encourage everyone to sit down and say, how are we going to be great together when life is crap, when something is going wrong?” |
When someone’s lost a job, when someone crashed the car, when someone has to go to the hospital, when someone’s mother is making a mock, when our child is doing things they shouldn’t be doing, how do we stand together then? Because I don’t think we talk about it. If you’re choosing to say I’m going to do life with you, Dear Lord, there’s a whole lot of challenges in doing life. So how are we together when times are bad? And most of us do not know how to do that.
So one of the things I always talk to couples about, when they’re coming to me and working on their relationship, is what do you need, what do you want when you need support, when you need soothing, when you’re angry, when you’re frustrated, when you’re scared? Is there anything you want from your partner? Or what is it that you want from yourself? We speak into that, and I help them massage it out, because most people don’t know. If you know that, then let’s say you’re going through a situation in your marriage that is scary, then I know that when you’re scared, you want a whole bunch of hugs. Well, guess what? Mission statement: we’ll hold each other and support each other through tough times. What does that look like for both of us? But now there’s tangible things to it, instead of keeping this in this “love me forever, sure I will” lovely, but nebulous state. If you would talk to each other about what you need when times are bad or tough, then your partner knows how to help you support yourself as you’re going through what you’re going through. That’s vital.
| “We know how to be happy. We know how to be turned on. We’re really good at that. But we don’t necessarily know how to do the tough times in a relationship, and those are what break us. The happy times don’t break us, it’s the tough times that do.” |
That’s what you get away from the mission statement of who you really are as a couple at all times, not just when life is lovely.
Yeah. I know you mentioned a couple times the more aspirational which can feel nebulous, and oftentimes, when we enter into some commitment or proclamation, whether or not it’s a marriage ceremony, a partnership ceremony, that these are really beautiful, but tend to be less actionable or less specific. So the mission statement sounds as though it speaks to the importance, the purpose, and the value. That perhaps in that, as you just said, as an example, when things are difficult, we hold each other. That there’s a way to maybe have an extractive, specific, actionable steps. Like, what does this actually look like? Can we put this into practical skill building, so we have a little bit of a template and a roadmap? Because, again, humans tend to be a little bit more in their own space, and hence be a little bit more egocentric. Even when we love our partner and we want to show up for them, sometimes we have to really think about it and understand, because we don’t operate the same. They maybe have a different stress language, or need different ways of soothing, so to really be supportive in that. Do you recommend having this be really fleshed out, so it is actionable?
Yeah, absolutely. Look, if you do a business mission statement, you’re going to do that. You’re not going to say we’re going to help the world in feeding our community, and then not have some idea how you’re going to do it. So the same thing would go toward relationship, absolutely, and then that’s helpful. If we’re going to hold each other in tough times, and then I know that means you actually like to be held, or you like your hand held, or you like texts, or you like your space and you want me just to pull back and let this be a safe container for you, then I know what to do. Because what happens when we get into tough times, our partner often says: what can I do, what you want? And we’re flooded; we’re overwhelmed. We’re like, I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know. But to have that conversation, not in crisis. I work with anxiety quite a bit, and that’s a huge thing. In the anxious moment, especially if it’s a frenetic energy, the person doesn’t know how to ground; they don’t know how to center. They’re spinning out. So to say to them what do you want, they have no clue! But if you’ve talked about it before, and you’ve gone through some exercises for anxiety, it might be that I’m going to hug you. It might be that I put my hand on your heart and I put your hand on your back and hold firmly. It might be that I do a grounding exercise, holding your feet down to the earth. If you’ve done these things in other times, you know what works, and so in that moment. Like, I knew with my kids what to do; one child you would just embrace and held, and the other one you did not touch. It was important to know. How can I respect you with what you need in these times that are hard for you? So to me, those are all conversations to have as you come together. Let me help you when it’s rough. Let me help you when you really need a partner.
These questions might be even new questions. You’re speaking about the more anxious one, there’s also the one that might be a little bit more shut down and more in that freeze place, and thus in that more flooded space can’t also articulate what would be soothing and comforting. So to have these continual conversations, and even being able to revisit. Like, how did that feel? Or did this hit the mark, and are we evolving this? So people change too, and they can grow into something else.
So I want to just stay with the mission statement a little longer here. Do you have other examples of what a mission statement could sound like, for people who are maybe less accustom or less familiar with making this more specific, just to give people something to work with?
Absolutely. It doesn’t have to be lofty. Not everyone has that desire. So it can be very concrete to the things that are important to you. Let’s say you’re in a relationship. We want to be fiscally responsible, so that we’re able to do travel, to enjoy our life where we live. We want to be compassionate and caring in our communications with each other. We want to remember to have fun and enjoy our life process. We want to be healthy in the thought processes that we have for ourselves. It can be very, very concrete. It doesn’t need to be in any way humanitarian, if you will. It can be completely centered on what do we really want? We want to have a great sex life, and so we’re going to be exploring different things. Every year, we’ll try some new experience or workshop or read other books. But it gets into how are we going to be our best together, how are we going to do these things. When you have that, just as a great reminder of what brought you together, and then how are you going to do this. If I want to have a great sex life with my partner, then some things need to be different than if I’m not thinking about that; my thought process is going to be different. If I’m thinking I’m with a partner who wants to have an exciting sex life, my head changes immediately. If that’s not as important, and it’s more important to be fiscally responsible, okay, now I’ve gone to a whole another place. So it helps you kind of gear where are you in your heart. You can be both. You can be sexually explorative, and also financially responsible. But there’s places where you need to kind of know that. Because otherwise, you can get really off. A lot of couples struggle with that, especially financially, where one person wants to explore and travel and have a great life and give people beautiful presents and have this gorgeous home, and the other person says we can’t live this way and ever retire. So it helps you find, well, where do we support both of us in this? Because both of our dreams are important.
I think that is very helpful, not only in the example, also helping couples really look at how to give voice to both people’s values and what’s important. Because in personalities, sometimes one can be a little bit more vocal than the other, or that one is a little bit more assertive or dominant in their ability to ask for what they need or want. So if we put that on repetition, it starts to give more weight to one’s preferences, and I think this is really a great exercise.
In my book, on that, which is when you’re on completely different polls, New York and Hawaii for a vacation, how do you figure it out? There’s steps that you can take. Because the challenge is, we’re right for us. So if I want to have an amazing life of travel and fun and beauty, all that stuff feels so good to me. If you say we need to be financially wise because we need to be able to retire, how do those come together? Now, there’s ways to do it. But it’s important that you’re looking at both. If the financially responsible one says: No, no, no, we can’t travel, we can’t travel, we can’t travel, because, because, because…” This person is just hurting inside, and the part of their spark in the life is going out. Yet, this person, if they’re getting all that they want, this person is scared to death, because they’re thinking: “Oh my God, I’m going to have to work when I’m 90, and I don’t want to work when I’m 90.”
So it’s important for us to be able to hear our partner’s needs and desires, and they say, how do we do this together? If you start with where you’re similar, and then find how do you keep moving in, it’s much, much easier than starting with where you’re opposed. You have to be financially responsible, I want to travel. It doesn’t really work. I want to be able to travel, but I know we need to be financially responsible. So how do we budget for a certain amount? Can we cut back, so we’ve got a certain amount that we can use for travel? Okay, now you’re opening the door for the conversation. So there’s some really simple things that you can do to start the conversation in a way that can be successful, or at least more successful, for both people. We tend to not do that. “I want to travel. You’re a cheapskate. Pisses me off!” “Where do you think money comes in, from the ethers? You were spoiled, and your parents gave you everything!” We don’t do it well. So there’s ways to help yourself support your truth, but also be respectful of your partner, to get to a place of agreement.
I want to mention one thing. I know you have much more to offer. But is there anything, since we’re talking about having to straddle these really pronounced differences? I mean, this is what the Gottman’s talk about as potentially irreconcilable differences, that they will be perpetual, they will never resolve. But how we do it, how we talk about it, how we problem-solve, how we work together is really essential in learning how to get through these challenges. Is there anything you want to mention around how to make this an easier conversation?
Starting with the place that I always tell my couples is, if you are committed to making it work, or even if you’re just committed to trying to make it work, say that first. “You are so important to me, and I love you so much. I’m hoping you can be happy with me, and I’m hoping that we can figure out a way to balance our dreams together in a way that works. Yours are important, and mine are important. So I really want to work with you on this, I really do. I also need to be aware that we might decide, we’re too different. I don’t want that. I’m not going to fight you on this, because you get to have your choices as I do. I really want to work together and see if we can figure this out together. I bet there’s some things that we can come up with to make this work.”
I used to say to my kids when they were younger, help me get to Yes. Because they want to do something, and it was possible, but there were some places where I didn’t have the information that I needed to have. So they just helped me get to Yes. I think that’s a really key place. If I want to be with you, and you really want to travel, and I really need to be financially responsible because I grew up and it was tight and I’m scared of the future, a perfect place for me was, I made a budget. I made a budget to start saving four years before my daughter graduated from high school, to have enough money when she graduated from high school, to go to Europe. Now in my head, I’m thinking: Dear Lord, four years ahead of time starting to put money we did for a trip? I did, because that was the way it worked for us. Then when the trip came, it didn’t hurt at all, because it was completely paid for, and that was amazing. That’s a simple example. Like, how do you make it work where it doesn’t throw one way completely off, but also can create it? Hopefully, it won’t take most listeners for years of budgeting for something, but it might. If it does, it does, and then you hold true to that. You know, that money went into the account every single month, and nothing touched it, so it would be there.
Yes, I love that. Also, even if it is a long time frame before the goal is achieved, that there’s a leaning in and supporting one another and working together. So it’s showing up for the other around what that means. I really appreciate what you’re describing. Because so often, it’s easy to complain or criticize the other, because it feels threatening. Like, oh, you’re different, or you’re perhaps going to take away from the value of what I need and want. So it’s easy that that could be an approach.
That is so key, you’re going to take away from me. I’d love to stay here for a moment if we can. Think about that, what does that mean? That means I’ve already decided that I am to have this, yikes! Have you? Clearly not. Because your viewpoint is, I’m not taking away anything. I didn’t agree to a trip to Hawaii, who decided that? How do you get to decide where our money is going to go? So this is the part that’s amazing in life, but also in coupledom. If you haven’t completely agreed to something with your partner, you haven’t agreed to it. It might be a hope, but it’s really important that you recognize: “Okay, I have a hope. I really want to go to Europe when our daughter graduates. How do we make this happen? I know, I know, I know it’s not laid in there. But what can we do? Do I need to get a second job? Can I make presents for the next five years, so we’re not paying for presents? Can we not buy bottled water? Like, what do we do?” But we tend, and this is where we argue so much with our partner.
| “We tend to think our partner is keeping us from the life that we want to have. But our partner might not have signed on for that.” |
This is another reason why the mission statement is so important, because you’re going to find out some of these things. These are just important questions before you step into a committed relationship. How are you going to raise your children? In spirituality, that becomes a huge problem for a lot of families. So there’s a lot of things that we assume are going to happen, and you need to check with your partner, are they onboard? If they’re not, how can you work it out, if it is healthy for the relationship, for you to be able to have this dream that you have? Maybe they’re not a part of it. Maybe they hate travel, so you travel with your best friend, and there’s funds that are created for that. So there’s ways to work with your partner. But when we feel like our partner is keeping us from something that is our right, we want to explore that a lot. If they are changing their mind on something that they’ve agreed to, super important to have a conversation to talk about that. Why is this now different? How has this now changed? You agreed to that, so I’m frustrated and I’m hurt and I’m mad. What can we do? That happens when someone crashes a car, and all of a sudden, you have to cover with $10,000 or $20,000. But otherwise, if it isn’t something they’ve agreed to, you want to clean that up.
I think what you’re helping people recognize is, at the beginning of these conversations, if they can open up a little bit more space around: “I really, really want this, or this is a need, or this is a real preference.” Growing up, my mother would sometimes ask me, I was very clear on things I wanted, and I was tempted to try to get her to say yes, like help me get to a yes. But she found me very persuasive. But also, I knew what her issues were, so I could kind of speak to them. But she would ask me, on a scale from one to 10, 10 being the highest of importance, how much does this mean to you? I would really be honest, and sometimes it wasn’t a thing and I just was caught up in the moment. Other times, it did really mean something. So what I hear you suggesting is, if people can recognize this isn’t already agreed upon. If you have clarity, and this is a real thing, it’s a nine or a 10, or even is a real strong need, something has changed around that, and can we have a conversation about that?
Agreements are hugely important, and we largely stay in expectation.
Yes, agreed. So to be clear about the language that we’re using, and to also identify clearly how we’re approaching. Because in this unit, in this system of the family, where everyone has consideration, and there’s love, it’s not only the individual, but it’s the members in the family that also are valuable. So it’s keeping that in mind. So I really appreciate your helping people be cognizant about that, and also some of the things you already suggested around how to get to yes.
One of the things that I also think is helpful, that people don’t always get in touch with, they get more attached to why the idea is good, rather than what it means to them. So sometimes getting in touch with: how come this matters, how come this is significant, what it would mean to me, that can bring us into a little bit more connection to the heart of it, and then there’s maybe other avenues to get that met. So I think this all sets the stage for more collaboration, which I think is what you’re really kind of recommending here.
That was your mom’s question: one to 10 this for me, love. Because she was trying to get to how significant is this for you. If you said, well, a four. She’s going to say, baby! But if you say, mom, it’s nine! She’s going to know for you that was vital, and that is important. It’s a great, great question that your mom had.
It’s not always clear and visible, even in relationship, what is higher ranking and maybe what’s lower ranking; we can have guesses. But it’s surprising to me, even couples who have been together for many, many, many years, still could improve, where that conversation and that visibility, that could be dialed in a little bit more.
It’s a beautiful place to really honor and respect and love someone. The reason I’m a therapist was my mom was a paranoid schizophrenic, and she killed herself when I was 16. So there’s a couple of memories that are really important to me, and one is merry go rounds. I have some beautiful memories of merry go rounds. So my kids knew as children, if we’d go somewhere and there was a merry go round, we didn’t necessarily need to ride it, but I needed to watch it. If we’re going to the zoo, we’re going to see giraffes. Just for my mom, that’s important. And I found those things with my children, like what were the places that touched their heart the most? I did that with my partner. So what did my kids do? Glorious! Like, they’ve bought me so many giraffe things. I have this beautiful wood carved giraffe, it’s glorious, that’s in my living room. I have this darling horse on a little, I don’t even want to call it, it’s a little box that has a giraffe on top. But they’ve done things, because they know it’s tender to my heart and it brings me to a place I really love. Knowing those things, and that comes in those moments of someone asking for something.
Yes, and it’s potent. If we’re going to put effort and intention and love and care into showing up, I think we are better served when we can really show up for the parts that matter most, rather than all the other stuff that maybe doesn’t rank as high.
Mission statement. Once again, brings it right back to the mission statement; what matters most and why. That’s so important.
Heather, I know we’re talking about people who are a little bit more clear on what matters to them and how to have these conversations. Can we say anything for the people that are drawing blanks, or perhaps don’t really know what they want or what’s most important?
I had a person yesterday for the first time in my office, and she really was not sure what she enjoyed. I thought: Oh, this is going to be interesting. She was feeling like she should know. So we sat there for a while. I’m like: Okay, well, if you had a couple of hours, and you didn’t have to work, and you didn’t have to do anything at the house, what would you do? It took her a while to come up with something, because she kind of lives not really here quite a bit; she just drifts quite a bit, or she gets caught up in social media or TV and gets lost. But the more we spent some time, things started to come up for her. So there’s the place of, well, what touches your heart, what excites you, what lifts you up? What experiences do you find are exhilarating or fun, or changing you up? Basically something that takes you to an energy of either peace, calm, comfort, or raised. You want to think about those things, because that guides you toward you either living in your very mindful, at peace, calm state, which is, I think, so important for all of us to know. Then also, our alive, excited, passionate state, which I think is also really important to know.
They don’t have to be big platitudes. Like, I like to have flowers in my house. I absolutely like having flowers in my house. So guess what? I have orchids that I grow, because they last a really long time. Flowers in my house, that’s an important thing to me. To somebody else, they’d say, well, that’s silly. Not to me. So for the person who’s not really sure, just to spend a little time. When I have free time, what do I want to do? Who do I want to be with? Where do I want to go? Where do I tap into my emotional center? If it’s somebody who isn’t quite as cognitive, and they don’t live in the mind space. Therapists live in the mind space a lot, so we know that. But sometimes it’s more so in the body. So where do you feel free? Where do you feel energized? Where do you feel like you could just leap and jump? For some people, it’s more in an auditory sense. Music, wind, hearing things, sounds. So you want to make certain that you’re helping yourself in whatever way you know you connect most to your energetic. Our world leans toward words.
| “Part of the reason we have such a hard time with communication is we lean toward words, and we miss out so much on the feeling; we miss out so much on the heart. Because we’re relying just on words, and they fall flat. Because words are created to describe a feeling, an emotion. They’re just a description.” |
Love means so many different things, and we know that. Like we say, I can’t put it to words, what are we saying? Oh, feel my heart, feel my heart! So wherever you are aware that your heart feels full, your heart feels light, that would be something to say this is important to me. It might be sitting in your bed wrapped up in a warm blanket, you might go that’s important to do that.
Yes, following the cues of the body, the nervous system, the feeling state, the senses. One of the things you were saying even that people perhaps can get very preoccupied in daily living, whether or not it’s the children or career, and not intending to be disconnected, but reach a point where they feel disconnected. This particular client, it sounds as though they have a way of being sometimes, it probably is protective or something, being adrift, but really inviting that pause, that real awareness, so we can listen to the cues of all these different ways of accessing information. This is a beginning. Typically, I imagine you would agree, that once we start listening, we get more information, and we can follow those breadcrumbs or follow that to then continue to understand more. Would you agree?
Absolutely. I remember early, early on in my exploring who the heck was Heather, because I didn’t know growing up. My life was really spent around, just keep mom alive. So when I was off on my own at 17, I really didn’t know who I was. I remember I was in therapy. I remember looking out the window, and I remember looking at this beautiful tree, and I said to my therapist, I think this is going to sound strange. He said, okay. I said, I don’t know how to be. He said: Oh, please, sure more. I said, I know how to do, and I’m good at it. I don’t live at the pace that my body wants to live.
He said, we’re just going to sit here. So we did. The longer I sat there, I thought: No, I do know this place, but I hardly ever go here. You know, the whole ultradian rhythms. So he said, five minutes a day, you’re going to sit and be with yourself. Inside or outside, I do not care. No sound, unless it’s natural. I’m like, and? He goes, and… I remember thinking this is going to be torture. I thought, well, I’m going to just sit looking at nature. It was glorious!
So giving yourself that place to be with you. The more you do that, the easier it is to be with others. The more you do that, the things that we get so caught up on so much of the time just aren’t that important. Because you’re at peace, and when you’re at peace, it’s like: “Okay, please go ahead of me. So glad there’s room. Go, be lovely! I hope the day goes better for you.” You just don’t choose to engage in an energetic that doesn’t serve you, and there’s no need to push against it. You just simply let yourself stay in your place. There’s a beautiful truth that so many of us in the world go into the environment to find ourselves. What do you think of me? Do you love me? Am I okay? Do I have value? Will I fit in? I’m 60. So the older I am, the more I’ve realized, okay, that’s kind of part of life. But I don’t want to live that way. I want to be me here, and then I step into an environment. I’m like: “Hey, want to welcome me? Yes? No?” So it’s not where I’m in reaction to what’s around me, it’s that I bring me. And what’s been really lovely is most people are absolutely fine with that, and they actually enjoy that. And when they don’t, then I know very quickly, this isn’t where I am to be.
I had something that happened right after I had left home. So I was just 18, and I was in New York. I was six foot one, and I was standing on a street corner. There were three or four German or Russian men around me, and they’re all like six-four, six-five, and I looked up for like the first time in like five years, and I went: Oh, I’m small! Then this giant man stepped off the street corner and I became the Amazon again. But my brain went: Eh, hold on, Heather! I went: Oh wow, this is fascinating. I didn’t change. I was six foot one before they stood by me. I was six foot one as they did. I was six foot one as they laughed. But my belief of myself changed because of my environment. I am not small. For three seconds, I was small-er. I knew I had just stumbled upon or been given, thank you, a beautiful truth.
| “We’re at jeopardy of losing our truth of ourselves if we rely on the outside environment to define it for us. Not even to be aware of it, but to define it for us.” |
If I was in a room with supermodels, I am for sure the least attractive person in the room. 100%, no question. If they said who’s the ugliest, everyone would point to me. But I don’t think I’m ugly. But depending upon your environment, it changes the perspective of it. So knowing that is vital. This is your experience of me, it’s not mine. And when you think about it, when you don’t have that integration, what is that saying? You don’t see me in the way that I want to be seen. Okay, so do I either work with you to see if you can see me differently? Or do I say, you know what, you don’t see me in a way that I really like, I don’t think I want to play with you.
There’s choice there. If we can come bring this back to the clarity about what’s important, one of the things I’m feeling. Thank you for sharing your personal stories, I’m touched by, I don’t know how to be and just the encouragement to be. One of the things that I feel as it relates to this topic is, all the noise can fall away, and we can get so much clearer when we can be and get that felt sense and that contact. That that can be the information that helps bring that integrity, that authenticity, and that alignment, that then the mission statement serves. Because if we think about society, or family, or all the expectations, and we craft our mission statement, it’s just another doing perhaps.
I love what you just said, that is so exactly where my spirit lies. I love what you said, because it is just so supportive of that. So thank you for that clarity, that’s beautiful.
Well, that’s what I was feeling as you were talking. So I appreciate you really just inviting this connection to self and how to begin to access this for one that maybe isn’t in the practice of it.
Well, I know we’re winding down our time. I just want to clarify, it sounds like we have an opportunity for ourselves and in relationship and in family, to workshop a mission statement. Also, when we arrive at a workable mission statement, that it’s revisable, and that we can revisit it, and that we’re continually in touch with it and in contact with it. So that it’s not something that lives somewhere hidden and we revisit it once a year if that. It’s something that’s a part of our lives. So you had mentioned in your family, you’d do it once a month. But it can depend on the couple and the family and what the needs are, that revisiting it could be weekly. It could be more frequent if one is getting a practice going. Sometimes getting a practice going requires a little bit more repetition.
We had it in our house. It was up in our house. So we together as a family read it once a month. But you could read it every single day, numerous times a day, if you wanted to.
Yeah. Well, Heather, talk to us about your book. I’m imagining your book helps people workshop this. Can you say a little bit more?
I’d love to. So my book is Speaking with the Heart: Transforming Your Relationship and Communication with Compassion and Connection, which of course is all the things we’ve talked about today. With working with couples for so long, I’ve seen that we don’t really know how to communicate well, and I don’t think we’ve really been taught how to do that. There’s a lot of things that I kept sharing and I kept sharing and I kept sharing, and I thought: My Goodness, I need to get this out there! There’s ways to come to a person more respectfully. There’s ways to take care of yourself more respectfully. There’s ways to step into an important communication. There’s so many things that we are to cover: finances, sex, and family, and anxiety, and budget, and intimacy, and children, and fear, and hopes, and love languages, and attachment theories. There’s so many aspects to doing life together, that when you have kind of a blueprint for some things to ask, or to explore together, to help you as you step into those places, I just find it really valuable.
I know I Google when I need to figure something out and I look what people have done. So I basically have taken those places that seem most paramount in relationship, and also the huge communication piece of what’s the best way to start a conversation, and how do you pace with your partner? So if someone starts to become emotional or upset or flooded, that you take care of that? How do you bring in structure? How do you bring in support?
So that’s what I’ve done in my book, and it’s my heart. Almost every chapter has an exercise. So what I did is, I spoke my book, because I wanted it to feel like I was there on the journey with my readers. So I’ll have them go do an exercise and I’ll say: Okay, how’d that go? Let’s talk about it. Where was it tough? So to me, it’s a living book, instead of just: “Read it, now go do it, and hope that went well for you.” That was why the publisher loved it. He said, you keep walking with them through this. I’m like, well, that’s the key. It’s on Amazon. It’s on Barnes and Noble. It’s on my website. So if people have questions about it, feel free to reach out. I’d be honored to answer any questions that you have.
Wonderful! I will make sure to have the links to the book, to your website. Thank you, Heather, for sharing with us today, and all that you’re doing to share your heart and help guide people in these difficult conversations, and helping them do it with more love and care and helping foster more connection.
Thank you for having me. You are such a gracious, kind, compassionate woman, and I just so enjoy speaking up with you and being with you. So it is an honor. So thank you, I’d love to come again sometime.
Signing Off
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Emotional maturity stands as the cornerstone of a thriving and meaningful bond between partners. Yet, navigating the intricate landscape of emotional immaturity within relationships presents its own set of challenges.
In this episode, we delve deep into this crucial topic, shedding light on how emotional immaturity impacts the dynamics of relationships and providing invaluable resources to aid individuals in navigating this intricate terrain.
Building upon insights from previous episodes, we explore methods for identifying signs of emotional immaturity, understanding its roots in development, and differentiating it from emotional abuse. The overarching goal of addressing this subject is to foster awareness and encourage deliberate efforts in honing emotional and relational competencies.
Join us as we uncover key insights into recognizing and addressing emotional immaturity, paving the way for stronger, more resilient relationships.
In this Episode
08:23 The challenge of recognizing emotional immaturity in relationships.
20:19 The emotional toll of carrying the relationship load.
28:22 Stability challenges for the emotionally mature partner.
29:03 Strained enjoyment.
29:49 Coping with lack of intimacy in relationships.
32:11 Struggle with confidence and conflict resolution.
34:29 Practical steps for addressing emotional immaturity in a relationship.
Your Check List of Actions to Take
- Reflect on your partner’s emotional immaturity patterns and consider their impact on the relationship.
- Engage in open communication with your partner about their emotionally immature behaviors and their willingness to address them.
- Evaluate your own reservations and relational needs in the partnership.
- Establish and communicate healthy boundaries to protect your well-being.
- Offer support to your partner as they work on developing emotional maturity.
- Seek professional help for both individual and couples therapy to address emotional immaturity in the relationship.
- Take proactive steps to break dysfunctional patterns and foster healthier relational dynamics.
- Stay committed to the ongoing process of personal growth and relationship improvement.
Mentioned
What is emotional immaturity and how can it impact relationships?
11 Signs of Emotional Immaturity in Relationships & Ways to Deal
ERP 410: What Are the Signs of Emotional Immaturity in Relationship?
ERP 411: What Are the Signs of Emotional Immaturity in Relationship? Part Two
ERP 413: How Does Emotional Immaturity Develop & the Difference between Emotional Immaturity and Emotional Abuse? Part Three
Connect with Dr. Jessica Higgins
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Website: drjessicahiggins.com
Email: jessica@drjessicahiggins.com
About Today’s Show
Let’s get started in today’s topic, again, what to consider if you are in relationship with an emotionally immature person. Now what I have found, when someone is gleaning and begins to recognize significant signs of emotional immaturity, they may begin to ask themselves: How come I didn’t see these signs earlier, and/or why did I attract this person? Like, what is it about me that I said yes to this? So when I really underscore significant signs of emotional immaturity, again, if you’ve listened to the previous podcast episodes on this topic, you’ve heard me mention that every person has some degree of showing signs of emotional immaturity at times. So we’re talking about a pattern of behavior, and when one is really unable or unwilling to turn towards their emotional development, this can be problematic. So for one, that’s in relationship with someone who is more emotionally immature, and they’re asking themselves: How did I get here, why?
What I want to say here is that it takes time to get to know someone on a much deeper level, knowing them in all seasons and under different circumstances. Now, I know this seems like I’m stating the obvious.
“When we are in those beginning phases of bonding with another, we might even call it the honeymoon or romance stage, it is highly fueled by the neuro-chemicals that are giving us a high, if you will, and we don’t have enough information. So the brain is likely going to fill in the blank.”
This is where we would call it in psychology, projecting. We are placing our imagination or our assumptions, expectations on the other, without really knowing what’s true. So in this beginning phase, which may last from nine months to 18 months, depending, we will likely feel as though we have enough information and we know who the person is. Yet, some of that is going to be based on our own assumptions and expectations. So giving enough time and space to really look at what someone is showing you. Are their behaviors congruent with what they’re saying? How do they show up when they’re disappointed, when they’re grieving, when they’re angry, when they have issue? How do they handle conflict? Some of the things that we’ve discussed, we can actually look at a little bit more openly and honestly.
Often, what will happen, if we fast-forward, and someone is asking themselves: How did I get here, or why did I not see this? If there’s enough time and space to really reflect and explore and unpack, they may even recognize times where they felt a gut sense, or they had a warning sign, and they didn’t pay attention. Or perhaps they overrode it, or gave their person the benefit of the doubt. There are many ways in which we can suppress or even ignore some of these indicators. Again, we care deeply about the person and we want to be with them. Again, just to be super crystal clear here, if someone is exhibiting signs of emotional immaturity, that does not equate to: Oh, this relationship is over, or that it should be ended. It’s more of a recognition that there are skills that need to be developed for more healthy relating. So I’m going to give you some support around that.
Before we do, I want to continue to just highlight a couple of things that interfere with being able to recognize this earlier, and that is that the emotional immaturity, on a subconscious/unconscious level, may feel familiar. We might not even recognize. It might not be a contrast to what we’re familiar with, what we’ve known and what we’ve grown up with. Particularly, in our early relationships, our family of origin, where emotional maturity was not modeled. It’s almost as if it’s the norm. It’s the way things are. So the person perhaps might not even question the emotional immaturity, because it is so familiar. This is a common experience, and it may take many different forms. As we’ve already discussed, emotional immaturity can have many facets, many characteristics. So the dynamics that are developed will be different, or could be different.
Even in my last session yesterday, working with a client who is in a position of leadership, has many employees, and really describing her nervous system, her rattle – her spiraling, if you will, in her words – and getting some constructive feedback, negative feedback. And what her experience growing up is that she didn’t get a lot of positive mirroring, positive affirmation. If anything, one of her parents was more volatile and had emotional outburst and anger outbursts, and she felt compelled to feel some level of responsibility, feeling as though she should pay attention to what she could do or say to help the situation, which then created this pattern. That the way in which she can earn love is through earning, through perfectionism, through proving or doing something.
So how this translates for her in her life, across the board, in relationship, is that she’s very prone to focus on the negative feedback. But also, simultaneously feeling the emotional threat of that. Her nervous system, her response and what’s underneath that is also this longing and this real attachment need of feeling valued, and feeling worthy, and feeling like her experience matters, and that she can be seen and that she gets to exist. Like, that wasn’t a part of her experience. She had to jump into this hyper-vigilance. So one of the things we were discussing, could it be instated? Could there be some boundary or standard that she implements, given that she is in a position of leadership, that the way in which feedback is given, that there is also recognition to positives? Because that’s also equally helpful in learning: what are the strengths, what’s working, as well as where am I feeling challenged, where are my complaints, or where am I feeling concern? To give a little bit more stability and balance. This is helpful to regulate, and then to be, for her, a little bit more open to looking at some of the areas of growth.
What’s often true is that we will participate in certain relational dynamics unknowingly, unconsciously, in ways that perpetuate some of these old, even harmful, hurtful, and even dysfunctional patterns. Remember, Harville Hendrix and Helen Hunt, they talk about how we have this picker.
“It’s almost like, in the amygdala, the part of our brain that stores all the bad things that have happened to us, and it recognizes, and it almost identifies very, very quickly in a significant or potential partner or a potential significant other, that this seems familiar.”
The idea here is that there’s a recognition of it, in the hopes that: Oh, we can repair this, we can have reconciliation, we can have healing here. So there’s an attraction to try to work it out. But if we’re unconsciously participating in it, we actually don’t have the skill, nor are we actually evolving the dynamic; we’re just repeating the drama. This essentially perpetuates this very painful dynamic.
Unfortunately, if these dynamics perpetuate, it can lead towards someone beginning to distrust themselves, or even feel a level of confusion and disorientation as to what’s real. Is this me, what’s happening? I have a client that comes to mind, and she tells me, very early on in her relationship, she recognized warning signs and felt the problem in the dynamic and what was happening between the two of them. Even on her wedding day, she recognized that it didn’t feel right, she didn’t want to marry him, and yet she did anyway. Fast forward, she’s in the process of getting a divorce and just recognizing more clearly now, the ways in which she was compromising herself, ways in which she was participating in a dynamic that was unhealthy for her. If we look at some of her early learning and life, having a narcissistic alcoholic mother, and also a father who was alcoholic and workaholic. The two of them were separated and divorced, so there was a lot of disrupt in her early formative years around relationship and consistency and being responded to, feeling as though her experience mattered. She often felt like she had to earn, prove, and do the right thing to get a sense of belonging and connection.
In many of the examples that I’m referencing, often it’s the case that one partner is over-functioning, perhaps people-pleasing, maybe even over-giving, and the other is perhaps a little bit more contained, withdrawn, avoidant, or even as we’re talking about in the sense of emotional immaturity, is underdeveloped. This is often the case and could even correlate with the attachment styles, with one being a little bit more of that anxious tendency, where the other one is a little bit walled off and avoidant and maybe even denying or dismissing the value of emotional and relational skills.
I know that particularly in the past, I resonate with a partner that over-functions, over-gives, and perhaps in the domain of emotional and relational skill, over-functions. In the first few episodes, I was holding space for the experience of the person that is underdeveloped in the way of emotional maturity, and in this episode, I’m trying to hold a little more space for the person that is demonstrating more emotional maturity and perhaps is holding a lot of the weight of the emotional intimacy in relationship, particularly when one partner isn’t as emotionally developed.
Let’s turn towards the common ways that a partner is impacted by their significant other’s emotional immaturity. Typically, when someone is having that experience, being with someone who is underdeveloped emotionally, may feel burdened, may feel drained, as they’re carrying most of the emotional load of their relationship. They’re tracking the emotional tone, the health, the well-being for both partners, as well as the relational bond. As I mentioned previously, they may do a lot of extra work to mitigate challenges, to eliminate stress or to reduce stress. They may attempt to anticipate their partner’s needs and trying to get their needs met, so that the partner isn’t even having to identify their need, ask for what they want, negotiate that. It’s already given to them.
“When the relationship has had enough history, sometimes it can even be the case that the partner will have some fear, or even dread about their partner’s emotional outbursts or responses. So again, there’s this attempt to stabilize, to equalize, to balance, to counteract some of the difficulty that their partner has in regulating their own emotional state.”
A partner may even take on more of the domestic work, social planning, parenting and decision-making, again to reduce the stress and conflict with the partner who has difficulty engaging in a more productive manner.
A client comes to mind in this regard, and that she would describe the division of labor between her and her husband. And while she’s the primary breadwinner, she would also describe doing the majority of the domestic and parenting work. She would give me all the list of things, like basically handling everything. If she would go out of town, all the food and the meals would be prepared and already cooked and in containers, and instructions laid out for both her husband and her child. I mean, it was just extensive what she was doing. All of this, she would describe, to reduce the amount of stress on her husband, in service of him being in a better emotional state. So that she didn’t have to endure his outbursts, his anger, his reactivity, and his dysregulation. This was all an attempt to help things go more smoothly, and there was a huge load to this.
If emotional immaturity is a part of the relationship in any significant form, it often puts a lot of stress and strain on the relationship and the partner. I’m going to list some ways. This, again, is not a comprehensive list. But it is something to consider, again, around the dynamic here. So typically, as I’ve just spoken to, the partner will feel some level of being emotionally drained, whether or not they’re compensating for their significant other, or perhaps they’re doing a lot to help their partner along; they’re wanting this more emotional depth and intimacy, they’re wanting empathy, they’re wanting mutual understanding, they’re wanting to collaborate. I have a client, he describes just the amount of work that he does to try to get his wife to approach some of these conversations, be more engaged emotionally, be more responsive and attentive and caring to him. Yet, this is an area that she finds very threatening and difficult to turn towards. So there’s a tremendous amount of heavy-lifting that he does to help provide some of this turning towards in the emotional, relational way. This is of course in hopes that he’ll get some of his needs met, and it’s in service of trying to help her along, and there’s a great cost and expenditure to doing this.
Another drain on a more emotionally mature partner, is that if there are difficult conversations to be had or tough decisions to be made, that this partner will likely be the front-line, the person to have those conversations, to take those actions, to perhaps even take the lead in initiating what should be done, where the partner that struggles to engage may not be as participatory. Over time, this can be difficult for the partner, as they may feel alone, they may feel as though they’re having to carry the relationship in this regard.
Another common complaint that I hear from people that are in relationship with a partner who is underdeveloped emotionally, is that in the attempt to repair after a conflict or a fight, so to speak, that there will be an attempt to discuss, to have learning, to try to empathize, to understand, to build repair. The partner that’s more emotionally mature will offer: “Here’s what I’ll do differently. Here’s how I’m considering you. Here’s how I can move forward in a way that supports you.” Then they look, and they wait, and they hope that their partner will also contribute or say what they’re going to do differently. And when it doesn’t come, they might even prompt: Is there anything you’re thinking about, or is there any way that you’re going to take action? And when they still don’t get anything, this can again feel like they’re alone or they’re carrying the relationship, and also tend to feel like: Are you with me? Are you willing to take any ownership here? So it can feel as though they’re the only ones that are taking ownership or taking acknowledgement for their part or their role in the dynamic.
The second category, I already spoke to this, is having fear of the partner’s emotional state. So this could be walking on eggshells, again, sensing or seeing a lot of reactivity, anger outbursts. Or even for the partner that’s been with a partner that’s had a lot of anger outbursts, may even feel some level of a trauma response. That they’re seeing their partner display dysregulation in various ways that can feel upsetting, scary. Then again, if we look at the partner who’s over-functioning, they may even have experiences in their upbringing where they had to be more mature than their chronological age. That can look like “parent-ification,” where the child is more mature or behaving in more mature ways than perhaps even the parent. So they’ve learned to be the peacekeepers, the mediators, the helpers, and yet, their experience is that there’s some level of fear and trauma here. So this could also show up in relationship, where they’re having a trauma response or anticipating their partner’s emotional reactivity, and be a little hyper-vigilant to that.
When looking at the impact of the more emotionally mature partner, the third category I want to speak to, which is similar to what I just described, but is that they’re experiencing more emotional instability in the relationship. Again, this emotional roller coaster, or perhaps it’s even hard to trust or feel secure that things are okay. They may feel some uncertainty and insecurity, that if and when their partner has a concern or even an issue, that they’ll bring it up, or that they’ll let things build and it will come out in unproductive or even damaging ways. That can feel very precarious and unpredictable.
Fourth. Partners may not, at times, even enjoy interacting with their significant other. Perhaps it feels difficult to enjoy a time together. Let’s say their partner is being disgruntled or grumpy or in a bad mood. It just might be difficult to be around. It might be difficult to enjoy whatever activity has been planned or the trip that they’re on. It’s almost as if the mood of the partner becomes the thing that takes over, becomes the focus. It’s what’s the most important thing in the room. I’ve had many clients describe how draining and negative this feels, and that they want to feel happy and enjoy their partner, and yet this feels what’s most dominant.
Number five. Sometimes partners will feel as though they’re settling for less, a sense of lack of intimacy, and that they are attempting or contending with having to accept less in relationship, particularly emotionally. That emotional intimacy is lacking, they feel a void, and they’ve really made attempts and try to engage their significant other, and with little result.
Now, it’s worth mentioning, as I’m describing this, as it may sound as though this is a one interaction. Yet, this is, again, accumulation of many, many, many, many experiences, and sometimes even years of experiences. To say that when we talk about emotional intimacy and being met in this way, that it could be a void, or it could be an active dismissal, where the partner is defending, is denying, is dismissing, deflecting. So it’s this active turning away that can be extremely painful. Often, the glue of relationship is the emotional connection, and that often comes from when partners are able to be more vulnerable, share the inside parts, have these more meaningful heart-to-heart sharings, whether or not it’s the longings or the love, or whether or not it’s the fear and the worries or the concerns or the insecurities or pains, that these things help partners become close.
“When a partner struggles with emotional immaturity, they tend to not be more vulnerable, they tend to turn away or be walled off, and they’ve decided that this is a no-go zone.”
This could also even be physically, sexually, that they don’t want to access more of that uncomfortability. That they may have a certain way that they’re comfortable in being intimate sexually, but that there’s many other aspects that they won’t engage in that more vulnerable reveal.
The sixth experience that people typically have when they’re in relationship with a partner who’s emotionally underdeveloped, is that they may lack confidence in the partnership, working together to address challenges and coming up with creative solutions. Again, they may feel as though their partner will avoid sensitive topics. So it’s almost as if there may be concerns or conflicts or differences that have been identified, but never get circled back to. If you will, get swept under the rug or get avoided. So there’s all these pending items or outstanding issues. So likely, they are going to repeat, because there’s no real solution or way in which the couple can work together. So again, conflicts don’t get resolved, they don’t get addressed, and it’s hard to feel as though the couple is growing, or there’s progress being made.
In the article titled What is emotional immaturity and how it can impact relationships by Emily Whitton, writes: “Being with or being involved with an emotionally immature person can be challenging. It can even lead the person to question their own sense of self or revert to regressive behaviors. In more complex situations, the other person in the relationship may develop mental health problems such as anxiety or depression,” which again makes sense. When we look at the long-standing pattern here, that it would likely impact the mental health of the significant other.
Research has shown a direct link between emotional satisfaction in relationships and the emotional maturity of the couple. So that’s huge. Emotional satisfaction correlates with the emotional maturity of the couple. This was written in the article clinically approved by Jenny Jacobson and written by Rachel Pais, titled: 11 signs of emotional immaturity and relationship and ways to deal.
Now let’s turn our attention to what steps you can take to address the concern of emotional immaturity in your relationship. These are suggestions, things to think about, steps to potentially consider. Number one, examine the bigger picture of the behavior. So speaking of emotional immaturity, looking at what types of things they are immature about. Again, as I’ve mentioned, all of us engage in emotionally immature behaviors at times, and we all have underdeveloped aspects of ourselves, perhaps weaknesses or imperfections. So as you look at the bigger picture, again, as I referenced before, when we look at the concept of emotional immaturity, it can be helpful to look at the bigger pattern of behavior. Also, I would highly encourage visiting the episode about the difference between emotional abuse and emotional immaturity, because that will be really important to consider. Because the impact of the behavior, the intention, the frequency, the severity, all of those things are very important, as you think about how to address this as a concern in your relationship.
Number two, does your partner have self-awareness about their emotional immature behaviors or tendencies? Are they open to addressing and developing more skill? So in this aspect, can you bring up the behavior? Can you have a conversation? Can you acknowledge how the behavior is affecting you? Again, with the communication, if you’re able to talk to your significant other about your concerns, some of the emotionally immature tendencies may begin to get resolved by just the conversation and the communication.
“Really, when we look at healthy relating and partnership, ideally, both partners are able to address their concerns, want to improve together, and they can navigate these issues in a way that they’re able to collaborate.”
Now, again, this may take several iterations. But there’s the forward trajectory of this. Under this second point of being aware and open about emotional immaturity, it goes without saying, but that your partner is willing to work on developing more emotional maturity. Now, that does take some effort and a process. But just even the acknowledgement and the willingness could go a long way.
Number three, do you have reservations about the relationship? Oftentimes, if the partner is carrying such a load, they may not even stop to consider their reservations, what their needs are, and how to resolve them. So I’m going to list a few of the relational needs, and perhaps if you are considering, again, the reservations or how the relationship is working for you, bringing pause to really evaluate here, these are some things to consider. Does your partner exhibit empathy? Again, this is not necessarily always. But do they offer empathy? Are they able to access empathy, emotional empathy with you? Because sometimes, again, without it at all can cause a lot of harm and damage to a significant other and to the relationship.
Is there intimacy: emotional intimacy, physical intimacy, sexual intimacy? Are they able to access vulnerability? Are they able to go deep? Do they keep things a little more superficial or surface level? It can be very frustrating for people who want to have a deeper connection, and their partner is unable to go deeper with their thoughts or feelings. Again, whether or not that’s due to their trauma history, perhaps neurodiversity plays a role, cultural factors, again, a lot of the family systems, that this may be difficult to engage with. Emotional safety. Do they have a difficult time controlling their emotions, again, the anger, outbursts, the regulation? While we can all have a difficult day or have incidences where we’re not our best selves, we’re looking at the pattern of behavior; what feels inappropriate to the situation, or may even seem out of control, or they’re unable to calm down. A fourth relational need is to feel as though you can work with your partner, the ability to collaborate. Can you resolve conflict? Can you repair? These are huge in the way of looking at the relationship bigger picture, and are your relational needs being met? Again, do they avoid conflict at all costs? Are they able to circle back, and can they engage at some point to come to some type of resolution, or even to take a step in the direction of resolution?
Looking at your relational needs here could help you identify areas where you have reservations, and that’s important to look out when you’re looking at the addressing emotional immaturity in your relationship.
“If you’re having resentment, or you’re feeling that these are some areas of non-negotiables and boundaries being crossed, then this is going to play a part in working towards emotional maturity in relationship. Because there’s baggage; there’s unresolved issues.”
Okay, number four, which is developing healthy boundaries. So this is really being in the practice of perhaps recognizing where you’re over-giving, over-functioning, and compensating. Also, drawing limits, where perhaps you’ve engaged where you feel uncomfortable, or it’s not safe, emotionally or otherwise. So being more clear, recognizing what makes you feel uncomfortable, identifying what you will and will not tolerate, and really recognizing what you’re going to do to take care of yourself; to remove yourself from the situation, not participate, and that you can communicate this with your significant other. Here’s what I’m going to do. Here’s what I’m no longer going to do. Really doing your best to abide by that, stick to that, and work on being consistent, in service of your care and what you’re participating in, for your well-being. Once you start implementing that, does your partner respect your boundaries? Sometimes, people who struggle with emotional immaturity will take someone’s boundaries as a personal attack or be offended. So if they’re able to respect your boundaries, that’s a really good sign.
Number five, offer support. Now, this can come from previous points, particularly if you’ve been able to have a conversation with your significant other, there’s awareness, there’s acknowledgement, there’s a willingness to work on developing more emotional maturity, and that some boundaries are in place, and there’s respect there. That then, perhaps, together, partners can create a supportive environment, so that there’s not blame and attacks and criticism around the emotionally immature behaviors. That there can be a plan in place, so that it can feel more encouraging and supportive to take emotional risks.
Number six, seek professional support. Particularly for the partner that is able to identify or is willing to acknowledge the emotional immaturity, that they can get some individual support, someone who’s qualified to help them really build skill in this arena. As well as getting couples’ support, to address the patterns and the moves and the tendencies, and also build new ways of relating, build emotional maturity.
As we go through these steps and considerations, your answers to these questions, and really looking at these different steps, will likely give you a better indication as to if you can move forward with your significant other that exhibits signs of emotional immaturity. Also, how to know if the relationship is workable or if you should move forward with your significant other or your partner? Again, these are all very individual responses and answers, and probably is going to take some time and effort, and you’re going to likely get more information that will be good indicators to you as to how to move forward.
Again, to remind the purpose of addressing this topic of emotional immaturity, again, is to bring awareness, to bring more consciousness to the opportunity of developing our skills, both emotionally and relationally. Both to break dysfunctional relational patterns, and to build more healthy relational dynamics. This requires both partners to participate and be responsible for the climate and the health of the bond.
Signing Off
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Couples face a myriad of challenges, from communication breakdowns to navigating societal expectations. Navigating these challenges and fostering growth requires intentional effort and understanding. However, for LGBTQ couples, unique dynamics often come into play, from negotiating identity acceptance to addressing external biases.
In this episode, we delve into the rich tapestry of LGBTQ relationships, exploring the strengths they offer and the challenges they face. Through insightful discussions on communication, identity affirmation, and seeking inclusive support, this episode provides actionable steps for all couples seeking to deepen their connection and thrive together.
Join us as we explore what LGBTQ+ couples can teach us about nurturing healthy and thriving relationships.
Laurel is a licensed therapist and the Clinical Director of Laurel Therapy Collective, an online therapy practice that provides customized therapy to driven professionals in California, Pennsylvania, and Florida. Her practice offers individual and couples therapy with an emphasis on trauma recovery and LGBT+ affirmative care.
In this episode05:56 The importance of shared identity and experiences in therapy for better outcomes.
10:48 Navigating licensing complexities for teletherapy across California Pennsylvania and Florida.
16:07 Lessons from LGBTQ+ relationships for all couples.
22:16 The significance of breaking away from prescribed relationship models and embracing a growth mindset in partnerships.
27:50 The power of language in shaping relationships.
34:25 Navigating common challenges in couples therapy.
37:20 Navigating unique challenges in LGBT couples relationships.
45:24 Identifying key criteria when seeking a couples therapist.
48:21 Holistic telehealth therapy services for couples and individuals.
Your Check List of Actions to Take
- Foster open and honest communication by actively listening to your partner’s perspectives and feelings.
- Embrace flexibility and avoid defaulting to traditional gender roles, allowing each partner to express themselves authentically.
- Prioritize intentionality in your relationship by discussing and co-creating shared values and goals.
- Practice conflict resolution techniques that prioritize empathy, humor, and affection, even during moments of tension.
- Cultivate a culture of appreciation by regularly expressing gratitude for your partner’s contributions and qualities.
- Seek support from therapists who understand and respect your identities and experiences, ensuring a safe and inclusive space for growth.
- Continuously invest in your relationship by staying curious, learning, and adapting together as you navigate life’s challenges and celebrations.
Mentioned
Same-Sex Couples (*The Gottman Institute) (research)
Therapy Den
Inclusive Therapists
Dr. Sue Johnson
The Gottman Institute
Imago Relationship
Connect with Laurel Roberts-MeeseWebsites: laureltherapy.net
Facebook: facebook.com/laureltherapycollective
YouTube: youtube.com/channel/UCzmtQve6GOsJt2z9XZ02nZA
Instagram: instagram.com/laureltherapycollective
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/laurel-therapy
Connect with Dr. Jessica Higgins
Facebook: facebook.com/EmpoweredRelationship
Instagram: instagram.com/drjessicahiggins
Podcast: drjessicahiggins.com/podcasts/
Pinterest: pinterest.com/EmpowerRelation
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Twitter: @DrJessHiggins
Website: drjessicahiggins.com
Email: jessica@drjessicahiggins.com
About Today’s Show
Laurel, thank you so much for joining us today.
Thanks for having me.
Yes. I am really excited about all the work that you do to support couplehood, especially serving the LGBT+ community, and just talking about relationship in general, and how perhaps people in heterosexual relationships can perhaps benefit from some of the strengths and where the LGBT+ community is excelling. Also, just helping the LGBT+ community where there are some challenges that are unique to that experience, and maybe helping support where there can be more resource. So I love this.
Absolutely. You know, I love talking to straight couples about what they can learn from LGBT couples. Because for so long, LGBT couples were seen as lesser; they didn’t have the same rights that other couples did. There’s some real strength that I think don’t get talked about enough, and I just love sharing those with everyone.
Wonderful! Well, before we dive into our topic, would you be willing to share a little bit more about you, as people perhaps are getting to know you here?
Sure. So I am a licensed therapist in California, Pennsylvania, and Florida. I have a team of therapists, including some really great couples’ therapists; they serve California and Florida as well. We have been working together for a couple years, and really leaning into this niche of serving the LGBT community, but also serving people that have really demanding lives, that have high levels of stress, that are dealing with either relational or external trauma. This is the work that really lights me up; how our relationships are so central to our lives, and when we can make them as healthy and empowered as possible, it just takes any lid or cap off of our happiness. So it’s just such important work.
Agreed. I love just the word “central,” because it is typically where we’re feeling most supported, regulated in that kind of inner bonding, and how that affects all aspects of our life, every domain. I really appreciate just the wisdom around that. Did you set out to really target this in your therapeutic training? Or was this something you developed into?
No, I didn’t. I was working in a really fabulous, kind of a combination of private practice community mental health clinic, like a sliding scale clinic, as I was getting my licensure hours. I happened to be the only LGBT person on staff. So whenever someone would call saying, I really want to work with someone that I can share an affinity with, it would be me. So I built up a caseload very quickly, and just really enjoyed the work. When there’s that bonding over a salient part of your identity, no matter what it is, you get better outcomes in therapy. So for a person of color, it might be really important to them to work with a therapist of color. Or someone that has had a pivotal life experience, like immigration, or growing up with a parent that was incarcerated, or even someone that is comfortable with a lot of wealth. I mean, wealth can be very isolating.
“Working with a therapist that doesn’t understand whatever your culture is, you end up spending a lot of time educating them. So when you don’t have to do that, when you have a shared identity or experience, you can just get better results in therapy.”
Yes. And while the unique experience might differ, there’s not this front-loading of, like you said, educating on the bigger broader context of it. Got it. Just a logistical question for people listening that perhaps are in California, Pennsylvania, or Florida, how did you decide to get licensed in those three states?
Yeah, I was always licensed in California. Florida has very easy-to-access telehealth permission laws. Then, Pennsylvania also was relatively easy; I had to do some fingerprinting and take a course. But I think a lot of therapy consumers don’t know just how incredibly time-consuming the licensure process is and how proprietary states are over who is allowed to practice in that state, even with telehealth. It feels totally ridiculous, because therapy is the same no matter what location you’re in.
Right. I have a licensure both at the master’s level and a PhD level, and I keep both, and there’s national exams for both; my EPPP was for a national board exam. It’s like, I get the state jurisprudence and the laws are different for each state. But to your point, the therapeutic work. I know there’s lobbying going on, but I imagine it will be years until that actually gets passed.
Yes. COVID really pushed it forward, because so many people moved to telehealth. By the way, a plug for telehealth, a lot of people have some skepticism around it. We are exclusively telehealth at this point, and the feedback we get is just like: Oh no, it feels the same. When you have that relationship with your therapist, it doesn’t matter. I have done a couple of sessions in-person with someone that I saw for years via telehealth, and they were almost disappointed that it was the same in-person, which is really validating. So if you’re someone that has a concern about that, especially with couples’ work, I encourage you to give it a try. Because, telehealth, it does simplify a lot of things. There are a couple tweaks I recommend, like of course, turning off notifications, and also where you place your computer, and how you transition in and out of the therapy session can really impact the benefit you get from it.
Agreed! I have a client who’s like I do all of my work here, and it’s harder to be vulnerable here. Then I have other clients. So when I transitioned, I actually was an early adopter. I think it was like 2015, I started doing remote sessions. I have found actually some of my clients that have a lot of anxiety, that it was actually better for them to have a little bit less to focus on in the room, and less immediate sharing physical space together, it felt a little more comforting. Then I can’t tell you how many couples who have children and logistics of getting whatever it is with work, just the convenience of it, I’m sure you totally resonate with it. It’s not likely going to go away. I will say that physical presence, there is something that I think some really prefer, but as far as the therapeutic work. It’s interesting as far as the other thing, and I know we’re going to get to our topic here. But on the screen, it’s like sometimes we’re actually closer to people’s faces than we would be if we were in-person. So there’s a little bit more up close feeling.
Yeah, like little micro-expressions, you get to see. I’ve also found, we do EMDR, which is a trauma treatment, and a really powerful, very effective trauma treatment. It’s very intense, and we’ve found that there are people who really prefer to be in their home environment when they’re doing that, because they don’t have to go out to their car and then get on the freeway and get home after a really intense trauma processing session. They can go get a drink of water and play with their dog. Obviously the therapist would be helping them reregulate at the end of the session. But there isn’t that anxiety of going back out and having to navigate the world after something very intense, which also can happen with couples’ work. So being in a safe environment, for some people, really is better for them.
Oh my gosh, and you’re speaking to me. Because actually, the EMDR work that I’ve done has been remote, and it’s so somatic-based. I do it at the end of week, and I don’t have any clients afterwards. I appreciate being able to just be in that space of integrating and giving myself that time to process without having to get into the car or traffic and whatever have you. I hadn’t even ever thought about that. So that’s a really great benefit.
Wonderful. Well, where would you like to start with our topic here?
Well, given that just statistically, most people listening to this podcast are probably in a straight relationship, I want to let them know how is this relevant to them. Because we can all learn from each other; there are plenty of things that LGBT folks can learn from straight people and vice versa. I know that, Dr. Higgins, you practice EFT, the Sue Johnson model, right?
I use a lot of the principles, yes.
Okay. There are three big couples’ therapy models, and they all have a lot of research behind them, and people choose to work with one for different reasons. There are a lot of strengths to all of them, and they’re all evidence-based. So there’s EFT, which is the Sue Johnson model, you use a lot of that. There’s the Gottman method couples’ therapy, we do a lot of that. Then there’s Imago therapy, which I actually think they’re not quite signed off on as evidence-based. But they’re in the process.
So we draw a lot from Gottman. It sounds a little bit creepy, but everyone in this study was consenting; they knew what was going on. Gottman had this lab up at the University of Michigan, and he studied, he was observing couples on camera. They knew that they were part of this experiment, they knew where the cameras were, it was all very consensual, and he got a lot of really incredible data about couples. He also did, not exclusively in the Love Lab, but he actually did a 12-year study on LGBT couples. Because there have been a lot of questions, particularly before Marriage Equality passed, about viability, and what is different, what is good, what is not so good in these relationships that don’t look like the majority of relationships out there.
This 12-year study, LGBT folks don’t often get longitudinal studies like that, so it’s really important and special that that happened. The results of this study were incredible. They really highlighted so many strengths.
“LGBT couples often have a more egalitarian dynamic, that there isn’t just automatically a gender role where one person defaults to a certain social or domestic role. Because of that, there was generally more satisfaction in these relationships.”
When you’re not just using a prescribed model, there’s a lot more intentionality behind it. And you know, you are all about intentionality in relationships, so we can all learn from this.
Then a lot of the research from this study showed how LGBT couples handle conflict. I know in a lot of your recent episodes, you’ve been talking about criticism and comparison. These are certainly things that all couples have to deal with. But there’s generally less criticism in LGBT couples, and they use more humor and affection during conflict. Particularly couples of two women, that there’s something that allows them to stay connected even during times of tension. If straight couples can figure out how to keep that connection, to use more humor and affection, even when they’re really elevated, I think they’re going to feel closer and feel more satisfied in their relationships.
LGBT couples, particularly gay couples, two men, had a greater ability to self-soothe themselves and to soothe their partner in conflict. That even though the content of what they were talking about or arguing about, they were having a big disagreement, there was still this care and concern for the well-being of their partner. That led to them being able to resolve things faster, and also to come out a little less scathed from conflict. Conflict is unavoidable, which is, if you have two humans that don’t share the same brain, there’s going to be conflict, and a complete avoidance of conflict isn’t good. But to be able to move through conflict with affection and the intention to do as little damage as possible, it’s looking like LGBT couples are a little bit better at that.
Well, first of all, I do reference a lot of the Gottman’s research. I am a big fan of what they’ve been able to provide in this terrain of couplehood. Also, I didn’t even know that this study existed, so I’m really grateful that you’re bringing light to this. It actually reminds me, in my qualitative dissertation research, I looked at nine studies that were looking at relationship from a growth-oriented model. I remember a lot of the same sex couples and people in the LGBT community, and how it echoes some of what you’re describing here. I really appreciate just bringing voice to this, thank you.
Yeah. I mean, what better way to express love than to continue to do it during conflict? It’s not saying: “Oh, I’m just going to let this go because I love you.”
“You don’t need to make unnecessary concessions or compromises. You can hold your position and still hold affection for your partner.”
Absolutely, and the ground and the regulation, and what’s being conveyed and the body language and the physicality, and that’s supportive too, or conversely, not as threatening. That there’s some stability there, even though we’re negotiating a difficult topic, is also very key.
I think I want to underscore something you mentioned around not having a prescribed approach or model. I think that when there is more of this willingness or openness to explore how do we want to co-create relationship, and that it’s not predetermined or we’re not following some expectation or norm, that that actually provides a lot more opportunity to have a growth mindset, at least that’s my understanding. That we don’t fall into these pitfalls or traps around expecting things to be a certain way, and yet being confronted with the very opposite, and then having to unwind all the damage that that might do. It actually is a really great skill set for us to work together in couplehood or partnership, and be proactive about it.
Then, I remember the analogy is like rock climbing, like you take turns; somebody is holding and the other one is taking risks, and then the other one is, I think they call it belaying, holding the security and the safety, and then the other one is climbing. So sometimes we are supportive, and that is more to that egalitarian, where it’s not one person having a role that’s always occupying that space. It’s that we support each other.
Absolutely. I mean, the reason that I think LGBT couples are exceptionally good at this. I also want to be clear, when I say LGBT, I don’t just mean gay men, I don’t just mean lesbians or couples of two women. I mean anyone under that LGBT, and some people add the Q, umbrella. It’s anyone that essentially has an identity that might be perceived as transgressive, so something that’s going against a cultural norm. Now, thankfully, this is getting more and more accepted, and we have equal rights under the law, at least as far as marriage equality. I will say that there’s a very long way to go, and actually we are losing ground, particularly around trans rights. But as far as recognition of coupledom under the law, for right now, we’re in a good place. But just having a transgressive identity, you’re kind of starting from a blank slate, and saying that my identity, who I am, my authentic self is so important, it is just objectionable to me to try and fit into this cookie-cutter. People that go through that experience are more likely to proactively design their coupledom. I will say, there are some LGBT couples that appear to be opposite sex couples. That may not be the case, whether because of gender identity or because there is a trans person, they would use the phrase “passes” as a cisgender person. But even within those couples that are maybe not outwardly perceived as LGBT, there is more willingness to self-design.
And have a constructively critical eye of like, why am I doing what I’m doing?
Yes. “My kid needs 24 muffins for class tomorrow, why is it my job? This kid has two parents.” I always joke that I am the more feminine presenting person in my relationship, but it is my job non-negotiably to kill all the spiders. That was a conversation we had. It was just like: “Okay, honey, this is on you.” That’s a silly example. But I think that all matters of business, and coupledom is a business together, should be talked about with a lot of intention.
Right, the domains, decision-making. It’s difficult to have everything be super 50-50 in decision-making, but to have at least a framework around where the couple agrees and who maybe has a little bit more decision-making power, because it’s maybe they’re more skilled in that arena. Then also, it can always be re-evaluated. So this is also important. I think for people, you were mentioning culture, heterosexuality, that might be more of norm or dominant, that as far as the mainstream, that there’s just this flow of like: “I’m just doing what my parents did, or what’s expected of me. I’m doing what I see. So I don’t even know why I do what I do.” I think even I’ll say, as a female, heterosexual, White woman, I think that there’s just so much that I’ve had to even recognize, like: Oh, I don’t even think I thought about that. But it’s so helpful to continue the dialogue and really look at my tendencies, unconsciously or consciously. So, so, so important.
Does language fit into this? Because one of the things I think, would you talk a little bit more about language with us?
Yeah. Well, in the LGBT community, there’s such intentionality around language; language around identity, language around how we refer to our partners, language around how we describe others and lived experiences. It’s really important that when you are interacting with a member of this community, that you most of the time reflect their language. There’s going to be some in-group/out-group language, or some language that you should probably not use, that maybe is a reclaimed slur, but only in-group can use it. But I would encourage straight couples to get really curious about the language that they use to describe their identity, to describe their sexuality, to describe their partner. When you’re out, do you refer to your person as your boyfriend? Do you refer to him as your partner? Do you talk in the We? Or is it I and He? Maybe even talk about it together. I was out with my partner, fiancée, and she introduced me as her partner, and it was like, I’m your fiancée. So now she knows I want that distinction. To not default on language.
“The same way we don’t want to default on gender roles and tasks and who’s doing certain emotional labor in relationships, we don’t want to default on language either.”
I remember having a phenomenologist on the show who was talking about how language can actually steer our experience and our behavior, and it sounds like you feel similarly. Do you want to say anything about that?
Oh, language is incredibly powerful. I guess I don’t have strong feelings about this, but I know some people that do. That they hate the term, like girls’ weekend. They’re like, we’re not girls, we’re women. Like, we’re having a women’s retreat, not like a girls’ weekend. Some people are just like, whatever, it doesn’t matter. But there’s some people that are like, this is not frivolous. This is critical, restorative time with other women, and that’s how I want to think about it. Now, if that’s not important to you, that’s fine.
I do share that. I have a group of friends that are like that, and I’m always chiming in with different language, because I don’t feel like a girl, and I also don’t want to call people I admire that are adult women as girls. I don’t correct them if they are using that language. But sometimes if it’s a group speak, I will add my language in, because I do feel like it’s more uplifting, personally. But that’s me.
I mean, the term girlfriend or boyfriend, it’s a weird term. Girl and boy, like we use that for children, and it can feel dismissive to some people to use a term like girlfriend or boyfriend. It’s like: “Well, honey, we’ve been together 20 years, I don’t feel like your girlfriend. I’m a partner here, or I’m the person you’re doing life with.” Change in language can change how you think about something. So if you wanted to ask your partner to use the word partner, because it feels like it has more weight and meaning, that’s great. That’s a way to reframe, and also let your partner know what’s important to you.
It’s interesting. Just another personal share. My significant other, we were together. I use terms of husband, partner, or significant other interchangeably. But before we were actually married, we were contemplating, did we want to just be in partnership or did we want to get married? So we were discerning that. After we were very serious and very committed, I was introducing him as my partner, and people were often extremely confused around what I was referencing. I think now the term is more acceptable, as far as just romantic partner. I do enjoy the term because I think it does convey a level of we are sharing in partnership together, and it does uphold the significance of that relationship, and I think it did feel very special. It’s very important, I feel like, to what you were saying around what heterosexual straight couples might be able to learn from the LGBT community or even the poly community, that there’s language that perhaps is now giving identification to things. Like, new relationship energy, I think that that was something people didn’t have awareness, and so it can really help give more repertoire or more understanding, and help people have more discernment.
Yeah, absolutely. The term partner was widely used in the LGBT community to indicate a kind of spouse level commitment before there was the legal ability to have a legal spouse commitment. Now I’m so happy that it is so widely used, it’s become an equalizer that partnership is seen as vital and important, regardless of gender identity.
Agreed. I know I’m really happy when I get emails from listeners or potential clients, and they’re using the word partner interchangeably with spouse or significant other. Even relationship, people use my relationship rather than my marriage, I just feel like there’s something about that that is getting more at the heart of the couple, or the partners that are continuing to invest in that. Almost like relationship is that third thing that’s happening.
Yes, there’s me, and there’s you, and then there’s the thing that we are creating together that is so special and sacred, and does not exist in any other place but between you and me.
Yeah. Well, I’m curious, is there anything else you want to say about strengths or what straight heterosexual couples might be able to benefit? Or do you want to pivot towards where there might be challenges and just to have the support, and where people can find support who are in the community of the LGBT community?
Yeah. I think that there are many issues that come up in couples’ therapy across the board, regardless of the identities of the people in the relationship. We know really common conflict topics are money and sex, and also the pursuer-distancer or time together versus time apart, or even emotional distance negotiation. We see that across all couples, these are extremely common and extremely activating; you’re activating your attachment system, you’re activating your sense of closeness and security. That is really the same across the board.
Also looking at, under sex, just intimacy issues around mismatched libidos. I hesitate to talk about sex too much with LGBT couples. Because for so long, LGBT couples were over-sexualized, and their relationships were really reduced down to sex, which is like, the kind of sex you’re having is really not the most interesting part of anyone’s life.
“Maybe there are some people that it’s the most important part of their life, and good for them. But for most of us, how we have sex and who we’re having sex with, it’s a very small percentage of our time in our life.”
It’s another manifestation. But if we look at other domains, it’s likely we’re going to find similar patterns.
Correct. I’m just very hesitant to too quickly associate LGBT couples or make it seem like it is unilaterally about sex, because that has been the case in how LGBT couples were perceived for so long, and I don’t like to perpetuate that. But the actual mechanics of how people are having sex, that’s one thing, and if you’re having issues there, then working with someone that has expertise there. But it’s the emotional impact, the meaning of sex, and conflict over frequency or maybe type of sex. But that’s not the content of it, that’s the process. So differentiating between content and process around these conflict points of sex, money, and closeness versus distance. We’re seeing just a lot of similarity there.
I’m curious, do you want to talk about some of the challenges are how to support the people?
Yeah. So if there are LGBT couples listening, I’m sure there are, just wanting these couples to maybe be able to identify some really common issues that come up between LGBT couples that are specific to LGBT couples, that you might want to address in couples’ therapy, or to just have a really deep intentional listening conversation with your partner about. So a really obvious one is coming out and visibility and stages of development in your LGBT identity. That if you have partners that are different levels of outness or different stages of identity development, that is likely to cause some conflict in a relationship. Down to like, if one of you is comfortable holding hands out in public and the other is not, that’s going to feel like a rejection. Even though it could be a totally legitimate safety issue, or just an emotional safety issue. So we see these things coming up a lot. We also see the Four Horsemen relationship apocalypse, those come up just as often. I’m sure you’ve talked about them plenty on this podcast.
Just state them really quickly for people.
Criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling, those are all going to come up around conflict. They have their antidotes too. Gentle startups, building a culture of appreciation, taking responsibility for what’s yours and not pointing fingers at what is someone else’s responsibility, but really looking at your side of the street first, and then being able to self-soothe yourself so that you can engage with your partner instead of cutting them off.
There’s often some issues around family planning. Now, for some LGBT couples, this is not an issue. As I said, not all LGBT couples are same sex couples, or that there may be some simplicity. But if a couple does want to have a child, often, there are some extra steps and other people involved in it. It may not feel as romantic and sexy. But there are also plenty of hetero couples that go through this, that they go through fertility or adoption or all kinds. The way we build our families is diverse, and that’s the case for LGBT couples as well.
We were talking earlier about how LGBT couples generally, they do a lot better with not having these default gender roles. But there are some couples that that’s still an issue, that there is a default and their resentment builds up. Like, why am I the only one that ever restocks the pantry or the toilet paper? Or why am I the one that does all the car maintenance? I didn’t agree to this. So having really intentional conversations about that. Straight couples, they have plenty of times they have issues with in-laws, and sometimes it’s a little more complicated for LGBT couples. Because this shows up around moments of celebration or grief, times when family comes together, either in celebration or despair. If it’s complicated by a homophobic grandparent, or a sibling that has rejected or cut off part of the couple, or if the partner just isn’t accepted by the family, an otherwise joyful event, like a wedding, or a birthday, or the birth of a niece or nephew, it can feel really dampened with that. So again, we also see this with straight couples, if you’ve got a crazy mother-in-law, or just a not supportive family, it’s similar. But when there is a rejection or estrangement, based on identity, it can be really painful.
Absolutely. Especially when maybe the in-laws or the extended family is well-intended, maybe don’t really see themselves as homophobic or having issue, but maybe have a difficult time creating a safe space, either in pronouns or just how the language that they’re using, coming back to language, that that can feel really confronting. It’s not just the relational dynamics and building comfort and safety, and then having the actual event and all the things around that, but also this safety for identity orientation, all of the ways in which there’s extra layers here that make it more safe.
Absolutely. I’m sure some of our listeners that are in an interracial marriage, or an interfaith relationship, or something like that can really resonate with this. It really does shift your experience of the celebrations and life milestones. The last thing that’s really specific to LGBT couples is just the prevalence of homophobic violence and internalized homophobia. Thankfully, we do have marriage equality now. But there were hundreds of bills introduced in state and national legislature last year, particularly anti-trans bills. It’s not just a few, it is hundreds. So there’s homophobic violence at the legislative level, but also, with law enforcement, with just people moving about their lives and getting comments or being attacked. It does happen, even when you’re in a very liberal accepting area. You just can’t move through your life or through a society like that without internalizing a little bit of it, viewing yourself as somehow a little bit less.
There’s absolutely a parallel here between misogyny and gender experience. Moving through a world that is inherently violent towards women, we have higher levels of stress and anxiety, we have hyper-vigilance. So then you add on to that or substitute for that this internalized homophobia, sometimes it is very obvious and very present, and actually has an enormous impact on relationships. Someone wanting to be completely closeted and not acknowledge their partner, or coping behaviors with substances or self-injury or self-sabotage. Then it can also be very subtle. Actually, that kind of insidious, little sprinklings of internalized homophobia, the impact can be very large at the end of the day, in the course of a relationship. It can be so, so painful and so difficult to see someone you love, suffering from a greater level of that, watching them be self-hating, or having to grapple with: “Well, I love my partner, but I feel that my love is bad.” That’s so invalidating and hurtful to watch someone you care about experience. So that’s kind of the last really unique element of LGBT relationships.
Thank you so much for spelling this out, building awareness and naming. Because again, as you mentioned, perhaps someone with various, if it’s interracial relationships, it’s like the air that we’re breathing and the water, and we don’t always recognize the impact and also the accumulation of it. To have some space held for this and a real look on this. Now, what would you encourage? I know that you were wanting to give people some support around how to find a good couples’ therapists, please?
Yeah, the most important thing is that you determine what’s most important to you in your couples’ therapist. If you’re in a LGBT couple, and you feel very strongly you want to work with an LGBT therapist, then go out and find that. But there are some people for whom that’s not the most salient part of their identity. So like, I’m a therapist. At this point, if I was looking for a therapist to work with, I would probably want to see someone that specializes in therapists, because that’s a very salient part of my identity. It really depends on the issue you want to work with. People of color, they may feel like I don’t want to have to work with some White lady that I have to explain my experience of walking through the world as a person of color. Totally legitimate.
“Everyone deserves to have a therapist that understands some part of their lived experience, so they don’t have to do all the educating and explaining. That feels like such a reversal of what the role is supposed to be.”
Now, there may be sometimes you have to explain small things, or things specific to your experience. No two people walking through the world, as an LGBT person, are going to have the same experience. But if it’s important to you to work with someone with a shared identity, don’t compromise on that, unless there’s a very strong reason, like you have to use your insurance and there’s just no one in network. Although, with telehealth, you would hope you could connect with someone in network that has that shared identity.
There are a couple of directories I really like. I think definitely, if you’re comfortable asking people that have that shared identity, if there’s a therapist that they know, that’s a good way to do it. But I really love the directory TherapyDen.com. It’s a very progressive directory listing that really allows you to filter by identity and salience of identity. Generally, a little bit more progressive skewing than some other directories that I won’t name. But I really like that one. For people of color, if you’re looking for a therapist of color, there’s InclusiveTherapists.com. They also have compiled a list of crisis resources for people of color, who may not want to interface with police and other systems of power and oppression that have historically abused people of color. So I really appreciate that. I think those are the major directories coming to mind right now, start there.
Well, that’s a real supportive guidance. You also have services. Would you like to share a little bit more about your work, particularly for people who might be in the states you mentioned and wanting to learn more?
Yeah. So my practice, we serve a plenty of couples, we also do lots of individual therapy, lots of really busy professionals, lots of lawyers, lots of executives, lots of people in marketing and people that are logging in between different meetings. Hopefully, they can find someone at their desk to log in for their meeting. So everything is telehealth. Like I said, we do a lot of trauma work, and we really love that trauma work. Everyone on staff is trained in EMDR, which is a really powerful trauma modality, and overall just a really holistic approach to healing. Not just looking at like, let’s just change your thoughts, because that’s just changing your thoughts. It’s going to have some impact, but not as much as having a mindfulness practice, and good nourishing food, and satisfying and cultivating those relationships, taking care of your physical health, and then some kind of connection to something bigger than yourself. For some people, that is spiritual. For some people, that is community, or even study and learning. That when we can connect to that something bigger, our ability to heal is a lot more powerful.
No kidding, no kidding! Also, with the EMDR work and helping the nervous system have ways to regulate and re-patterning or being able to metabolize some of the traumas, I’m sure you help people with big T traumas, as well as more relational traumas.
Which are sometimes bigger than the big T, I think relational traumas are as big as it can get sometimes.
Yeah, especially when we talk about the chronic or repetitive standing. Well, I know we’re winding down here. Is there anything you want to say that we haven’t touched on before we close out?
I don’t think so. A lot of couples often show up in therapy as they’re transitioning out of the honeymoon phase, because that can be really rocky and you’re just kind of like: “Oh, I’m not feeling all this fire and passion. Is there something wrong?” Or people wanting to reconnect after a long period of feeling distant. We’ve got some fun stuff on our website, which is LaurelTherapy.net. We’ve got a whole lot of different articles, some for LGBT couples, but most just for any and all couples. One that we just put up is like, when is couples’ therapy a bad idea? Because it’s not always a good idea. Then some other practical guides, and then we’ve also got a quiz about would couples’ therapy be a good idea for you? That is at LaurelTherapy.net/couples-therapy.
Wonderful! I will have that link on today’s show notes, as well as your main website, and just really helping people access the plethora of resources and your services. I will also put the link to the different directories that you’ve mentioned. I really appreciate your just thorough and articulate and informed view and sharing your insight with us today. Thank you.
Thank you so much, Jessica.
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Navigating the challenging waters of divorce or betrayal within a relationship can be an incredibly tough journey. It’s a time when seeking support becomes crucial, and for many, individual or couples therapy becomes a lifeline. However, the impact of a couple’s distress extends far beyond the partners involved. They often overlook how their struggles reverberate throughout the entire family.
In this episode, we dive into the critical importance of considering therapy for the entire family system. This episode offers strategies for gaining a deeper understanding of how family members at various developmental stages are affected, and how to create a safe space for open communication and emotional support within the family, prioritizing the children’s development amidst distress.
Kathryn de Bruin is a Marriage and Family Therapist, Certified Emotional Focused Therapy Trainer and Supervisor, and Registered Play Therapist Supervisor. She has a full-time private practice in San Diego, CA where she works with children and families. Kathryn teaches Play Therapy at the University of California, San Diego, in the Play Therapy Program. She is a Director for the San Diego Center for EFT, and serves various EFT communities.
Lisa Palmer-Olsen, Psy.D. is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in San Diego California. She is a Certified EFT Therapist, Trainer, and Supervisor, and is a Founder and one of the Directors of the Emotionally Focused Couples Training and Research Institute at Alliant International University. Lisa completed her dissertation research on how to train and teach Emotionally Focused Couples therapy to professionals. Dr. Sue Johnson, the founder of EFT and Dr. Scott Woolley were part of her dissertation committee.
In this episode5:02 Lisa and Kathryn’s journey into supporting couples and families.
10:00 The importance of considering the broader impact within the family system.
15:20 The growing trend of parents seeking comprehensive support.
19:40 Creating new pathways for family connection.
28:04 Creating space for dialogue within the family and seeking community resources to combat isolation.
46:43 Redefining conflict resolution in family law: The role of attachment-based mediation.
48:54 Valuable resources for individuals navigating family therapy and seeking emotional support.
Your Check List of Actions to Take
- Consider the entire family system in therapy, including children at different developmental stages and siblings experiencing stressors like divorce or betrayal.
- Prioritize the children’s development and seek guidance in untangling divorce or betrayal issues to make decisions in their best interest.
- If in distress and lacking therapist guidance on family dynamics, consider finding a therapist trained in systemic work or willing to collaborate with other clinicians for comprehensive care.
- Engage with your community, friends, or family for additional support during challenging times, acknowledging that everyone needs backup and resourcing.
- Encourage open discussions about struggles, even if they involve shame or embarrassment, to combat isolation and foster connection.
- Create or join support groups with others experiencing similar challenges to share experiences and provide mutual support.
- Consider collaborative approaches, such as mediation or therapy, alongside legal proceedings to mitigate fear and conflict escalation in divorce or custody disputes.
Mentioned
Emotionally Focused Family Therapy: Restoring Connection and Promoting Resilience (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
Together: The Healing Power of Human Connection in a Sometimes Lonely World, by Dr. Vivek Murthy
The Good Divorce (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
Constance Ahrons, Ph.D.
EFT Therapist Search
ERP 175: How to Heal from an Affair – An Interview with Scott Woolley
Connect with Kathryn de Bruin & Dr. Lisa Palmer-OlsenWebsites: renovasandiego.com | kathryndebruin.com
Podcast: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-family-express
Connect with Dr. Jessica Higgins
Facebook: facebook.com/EmpoweredRelationship
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Podcast: drjessicahiggins.com/podcasts/
Pinterest: pinterest.com/EmpowerRelation
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/drjessicahiggins
Twitter: @DrJessHiggins
Website: drjessicahiggins.com
Email: jessica@drjessicahiggins.com
About Today’s Show
Katherine and Lisa, I am so, so grateful that you both said yes to coming on the show and sharing your expertise with us around relationship and some of the very difficult places that we might find ourselves in. I know you do so much to support in the realm of EFT and helping couples and families. So thank you for being here.
Thanks, Jessica, for having us. Really appreciate the invite and the show that you’re doing, and the way that you’re helping the population that we really care most about. Relationship distress is what we do every day. So it’ll be exciting to chat to you about this.
Yes, thank you for having us. We’re excited to have this conversation.
Yes. For people who don’t know you or getting acquainted with you here, would you like to say a little bit about what got you interested in supporting people, couples, families in this way?
Sure. I started my graduate program at Alliant in 1995, I believe, and got quick exposure to Sue Johnson through Dr. Scott Woolley. I was lucky to start my master’s working under the EFT lens (Emotionally Focused Therapy), and became really interested in working with couples and families. Started my practicum doing that, as well as working in juvenile probation, and continued on throughout my training to work under Dr. Scott Woolley, as well as Sue Johnson. So it just was so life-giving to me to have a map and a model in terms of how to work with families in distress. So I continued on to training other psychologists and clinicians and opened up a training clinic. That was originally the Alliant Couple and Family Clinic. Now I have opened up a training and direct service agency, nonprofit, with Kathryn de Bruin as well. I’ll give you the floor to say how you got involved with helping people.
Thank you. I always wanted to be helpful in life and decided to study social work. In my social work program, there was one course on family therapy that fascinated me. So I very quickly got involved in working with children, became a play therapist. But what I’ve realized over the last 15 years of clinical service to kids, is that actually what kids need the most is healthy adults around them. So my focus has really shifted more to working with couples, working with people who are co-parenting. A lot of the way that I learned how to do that was from Lisa, who’s been my mentor for a really long time. So it’s really fun to have started a nonprofit together and to join our work and spend our days and hours working with families and couples’ industries.
Wonderful. Well, thank you for giving me a little bit of a snapshot. I know it does not do it justice. I will say, for both of you, to have such a lineage of direct contact with Scott Woolley and Sue Johnson. For people who maybe don’t know, Sue Johnson with her team, and the original research and developing the model of EFT. I mean, in my opinion, it has the most efficacy and the research to really support people in shifting out of distress or disconnect patterns. I think it’s a real treat that we have you both here. So thank you again.
Well, where would you like to begin as we orient in talking about potentially couples or partners who are negotiating issues around betrayal, or even experiencing high levels of distress?
Well, one of the things that Lisa taught me to think about when I’m working with a couple in couples’ therapy, is who’s at home, like whose lives are the couple impacting? For many couples’ therapists, I think that you’re thinking beyond the therapy session and thinking, how are the kids doing? So we’ve learned, early on in a couples’ therapy session, to do a family session and get the kiddos in. Or ask these questions. Or then at the end of couples’ therapy, whether the couple does well and stays together in a thriving relationship, or maybe decides to go separate ways. The next natural step for us is to have a family session and consider how these decisions are impacting the larger system, including the kids.
Yes. Lisa, did you want to add to that at all?
I think over the years, I absolutely agree with what Kathryn just said, the progression of how we ended up bringing the whole system in. I think working from this model, especially with couples that are in distress, just holding the whole system in your hands and being responsible for the whole system, I think, is really important. So bringing the children in, even if they’re at an older age. It doesn’t have to be little elementary or junior high. Even looking at 27 or 30-year-old siblings that have been through potentially a divorce, or are heading into a divorce, which can happen as well, as we know. Giving the family a safe place to talk through what their feelings are, and the distress that they are attempting to co-burden together when it comes to a divorce or a betrayal in the family system. Having that opportunity to talk through and be there for each other, even if it doesn’t end up in the way, the outcome that they were looking for in family treatment. It really gives a lot more space for people to develop resources, and not internalize and not become symptomatic after they’ve gone through such a big level of injury in the family. So it’s really important. I think just holding a systemic understanding of what’s happening when anybody comes in the door is really something that we are committed to. We look at the whole system in terms of wraparound care and what they need to best survive what they’re going through.
I think this is discussed in a greater dialogue. When a couple is thriving in more optimal functioning, secure functioning, that there’s a ripple effect. It can be there’s a whole environment, and as you’re speaking to, the whole family system that is benefiting from that. Then conversely, when there’s real distress, couples or partners are often grappling around how to get the footing and the secure relating. If they do get to some of that healthier dynamic, there’s still all the lived experience that the family is still orienting or trying to transition. So I think what you’re describing and giving voice, giving room to help metabolize, even if it’s been small relational traumas or distress that the children have failed, to give voice to. Then perhaps even, I imagine, is this part of the work, that the family perhaps can adopt some new ways of being that and incorporate more of that secure functioning? Is that right?
Absolutely. I think we’re opening up space, at all developmental levels, for people to process and show up and be present and responsive to what the children have experienced. The issue is not that they’ve experienced that. It’s that typically, even a couple that feels they’re thriving now and have gotten through, let’s say, like an affair, and they’re in a more thriving, healthy communication pattern. They also, Kathryn can attest to this, and I’ve seen it in her work, you bring in a seven or eight-year-old, that seven or eight-year-old may say: “I feel like I’ve lost both my parents for the last 12 months while they’ve been working through whatever.” They may know nothing about the affair, but they can feel the emotional accessibility is maybe not there. So there’s still work left to be done.
“It is a ripple effect when a family goes through anything. So it’s so important that we’re putting safety nets, emotional safety nets around the whole system.”
It’s remarkable what, especially the younger kids that don’t edit that much, can let you in on to how well the family is functioning or not functioning, when you get them in the door with play therapy, post-treatment, even with a couple that’s thriving. It really opens the eyes of the partners to see as caregivers. Like, wow, we have been so caught up with our distress! Even though you’re the one that had the affair, the distress on the couple really wrapped them in tightly and they lost accessibility to their child. So it’s really helpful. I think that in and of itself is a preventative move. That anyone that is thinking about going into couples’ work, just be thinking about the whole system. But the clinicians need to do that first. They need to be the ones asking, can we assess the entire family?
I think that some of what we’re teaching couples to do in treatment is to know themselves well, get to know the other person, and to have open communication, have vulnerable conversations, really lean on each other, be accessible, the way that Lisa is talking about. So when couples have learned how to do this with each other, the next natural step is that they come back and they want their kids to be able to communicate in these same ways. I’ve seen a very big shift culturally in California, we’re in California, over the last 10 to 12 years. Where 12 or 15 years ago, people would call and say: “My kid is having a hard time, can you fix them? I’m going to drop them off for treatment and do some shopping, and I’ll be back.” But now honestly, families are calling in and saying: we need family help. Parents are wanting to have these conversations with kids and teach them how to have emotional intelligence. It’s just very impressive, I think, how the public is starting to ask for this family type, systems type, healthy relationship work as well.
Oh, I’m so happy to hear that, and I’m really grateful that you’re sharing that. I also started, my undergrad was in psych, but my master’s was in children and adolescents. I had ran a teen program and was doing a lot with youth, and I was coming up in the same kind of barriers or blocks that they’re going back to the same family system. They might be learning new things, but then that exposure makes it difficult to have lasting change. So I’m really grateful. Even when I think about the therapeutic lens, even as adults negotiating romantic relationship, often those early imprints of relating, from family upbringing, childhood, of feeling so alone and not understanding, and having to grapple with really big emotions without the guidance or the understanding or that responsiveness and that support. So what you’re really offering is repair before, as it’s happening, experientially.
Like, early on. Because obviously, your early on relationships with your caregivers have a lot to do with the kind of partnership you land in one day. But the other part is the relationship you have with your siblings. So many years ago, there was a Newsweek that specialized on sibling relationships, and they were talking about how these are actually meant to be the longest-lasting relationships if all goes well. Because those are the ones who go through life together, who experience the same context. If you can negotiate and have good friendship with your siblings, that really leads also into the kind of romantic partner you pick one day, how you get on with coworkers, friendships. So yes, we do the couples, we do families. But we also look at the siblings, the sibling subsystem, and how are they getting along together. Especially those siblings who are moving between households, who are in a two-home family, they get to experience that context together.
Also, resourcing, helping them reach to each other. The siblings being able to reach to each other in high conflict situations, having somebody else that gets what they’re going through and opening up the conversation, so that they can resource and support each other.
If mom and mom or mom and dad or dad and dad are having a tough time, where are the siblings in the house, and then how do they find each other, and they go play a game or go to the trampoline? Or how do they look after each other in the light of the conflict that might be happening at home? Such a resource.
Absolutely. To your point, if they’re navigating two households, they’re having a unique experience that’s perhaps not fully visible to either of the biological parents. It’s a special unique relationship to have access to. The ability to help co-regulate and play are various ways of just being there for each other and supporting each other.
Because sometimes that really bonds them really closely, but sometimes that really splits them if they’re identifying with different parents, I think.
Okay, so we’re talking about the family system and the importance of really bringing the children, and even supporting the siblings and how they’re relating to one another. Help me if you agree, but it sounds as though you’re helping them create new ways of relating, so that they can create more support, and essentially have different roadmap for relating.
I do think that that happens. But I think first is opening the door to the conversation of how they’re impacted by whatever is happening. Obviously, that shifts developmentally. If you have a nine-year-old and a three-year-old, and this is where I think Kathryn’s expertise might lie, so I don’t want to take up too much time on this. But the most important thing is that we’re bringing them in the room to hear how they’re impacted by whatever the family is coming in to therapy about. That we’re not neglecting or dealing with the most distressed part of the system first, and not actually attuning to what’s happening at another part of the system. We want to have our hands around what is going on emotionally, for all family members, so that then we can develop and co-create resources and ability for them to have the conversation. Because whatever they’re going through, we can’t change. But whether or not they feel supported, cared for, and have emotional accessibility in the family system, whether that be a sibling or a caregiver, is what our eye is on, from a process perspective.
So we bring these families into a family session, and we often have like an hour or an hour and a half, and we just sit together. Lisa, you can speak to this too. But I often don’t really know what’s going to come up. But that’s not the point, we’re just creating space. We’re giving people just an opportunity to talk about what’s it like to be a part of this family, what’s one word to describe your experience in this family, which also lets them know that each of them has a unique voice, and it’s important to hear from each of them. Then the conversation just takes off by itself. Often, parents are very surprised; they don’t know what’s underground. I have a family as well; I have three kids of my own. As much as I try to have them have healthy conversations, we often sit down as a family and need these sort of family come-together moments. Because there’s always stuff rumbling under the surface, and the kids get into sibling rivalry and tension. So we have one of these heart-to-hearts, like once a month or every six weeks, and all this stuff comes to the surface. But you need space and you need time, and you need that invitation, like Lisa was saying, to bring this up.
“If you’re a family or a parent out there listening, and you don’t have access to family treatment, just consider sitting as a family and starting to open up these conversations around your dining room table. All kinds of things come up.”
Yeah, no kidding! I’m aware, as you’re talking, couples, partners in relationship often are aware that their children are witnessing or hearing, or if it happens in the car, an argument, or even an escalated fight. Being in a vehicle, that’s intense to be experiencing, often for some, or just even in the home. I think partners are aware, the couple is aware that their children are witness to it to some extent. But often, I don’t know if it’s more of a western mindset of feeling like need to problem-solve, or figure out how to fix it or what to do about it. I mean, if they’re, like you said, so concentrated trying to preserve or save or help their marriage or their relationship, but then how to help their children, I think people potentially get stuck around what to do. I think the thing that you’re both speaking to is just creating the space to come together, the opportunity to hear. That in and of itself creates something really important that can’t be overlooked, and to your point, that we need to slow down here and really emphasize that.
As Kathryn was talking, I was thinking to myself, wow, I remember those days. But I have an 18 and a 16-year-old now, and offering that invitation and having them sit down, and lean into what’s rumbling underneath the scenes that she says, is a little bit more of a challenge, especially as a single parent. While I give the invitation, that invitation, for them as a teenager, the way it looks is me sitting and waiting and hoping they’ll come to me. It’s so different, especially being a therapist. As Kathryn was talking, I was thinking: Oh yeah, I have to pay for that now. Because I want my kids to go to therapy and be safe to talk. So me being a non-neutral person, even though I’m an expert in this area, I still can’t do it myself. So I absolutely believe that if you can’t pull it off at home, if your reserves are just down, get that support. Even a neighbor, a family friend, a cousin, somebody who can give them the space, I think that is where the mission is.
Obviously, we want the caregivers to be able to do that, and that’s the most important thing. That when we’re sitting in those assessments, lots of different things come up. At the same time, we’re talking about, but can you talk to your parent about this? Are you able to bring up what’s happening at school with the bully that’s really causing you lots of distress? That is something that typically the parent is like, I never even knew that you were getting bullied at school. There’s an issue, there’s a block there, that’s not having the child naturally go to their caregiver. Even if you advance that up to a 30-year-old that’s thinking about divorce not coming to their caregiver, just to say like: “Hey, I’m in distress, I don’t know, if I want to stay married anymore.” We still want those access points. It looks different for a 35-year-old than it would look for a three-year-old. The caregiver needs to lead the way, and then hopefully, through the system, that can get blocked sometimes. Sometimes the couple’s distress is so overwhelming, you literally don’t have the reserves to offer up that space. I think this is where, as clinicians, we need to keep our eye on the whole system, and not get caught up in the weeds and the couple’s distress. But think big picture and look at resources for families that are going through this. People need to know that they’re out there, and they can be affordable as well.
Well, I just think it’s super important, and I think you’re both really giving an example that you’re bringing in the assessment in the beginning, you’re using the language that helps even the caregivers or parents. It’s just held a little bit more, rather than so focused on the couple.
If I’m a partner and a couple right now, and I’m listening to this podcast, one of the things I’m thinking about is: “Has my couples’ therapist or my therapist invited my family system in? have they considered how, if I have children, or if I have siblings or a parent in my space, am I reaching out to the people that I’ve been the closest with?” Maybe I’m not. Maybe I don’t have those connections in my family. Maybe I’m an individual person that feels very isolated. Even then, we’re still trying to increase systemic support somehow. That’s a matter of looking.
“The isolation is what really sends people over the edge. Being emotionally isolated and feeling like you’re going through a major, major trauma or loss, being alone in that is where the darkness comes.”
So be thinking about that. Is your clinician holding a systemic frame for what you’re going through? Even increasing friendships or social activities, that’s also a big thing. That’s how you hold that systems frame, increase the connections. Un-isolate the person, that’s very important. We’re doing that in a sense when we’re bringing the whole family, and we’re un-isolating a child that may be internalizing grief because their parents are going through a divorce. We’re giving them the space.
Even to be able to have the awareness to ask the questions around how do we get creative if we don’t have the external family network or resources? How do we start to put together more support, more connection that helps combat some of this isolation?
Okay. Well, as we’re discussing, and the importance of the family and looking at the distressed couple, I can also imagine, perhaps for the listeners that have experienced distress, maybe are in distress and haven’t had this conversation around the family system, what might you recommend if they’re already in distress and don’t have the therapist that’s asking about the family system? Perhaps they’re overwhelmed with the intensity of a betrayal or something. Is there anything you want to say here about how to guide? Is it to get a therapist that does have this perspective?
I think, again, just open up the conversation with your clinician. Most clinicians, if they’re working in couples’ therapy, have been trained systemically. So bringing this thought into the therapy process, like: “Hey, I’d really like to see if you could check in on my children. Or if you have a referral for me, for them to get some support, and maybe you could collaborate with that clinician.” Just opening up the conversation. Obviously, if your clinician is like: No, I don’t do systems work. If they say that and they’re working with you in a couple situation, I’d be alarmed. A couples’ therapist, they should be trained in systems work. But maybe they’re not comfortable meeting with small children. That’s okay, too. It’s just a matter of like opening the frame a bit more, and seeing what’s available. Typically, clinicians are going to be responsive to what their clients need. They want to give the best care possible, and it’s just a matter of helping that person who’s in distress navigate where the best resources are. It could be an ESS program after school, a counselor that decides to spend more time, or that is alerted that your child is in distress because dad has been deployed or mom has been deployed. It’s just a matter of increasing the resources outside of the distressed caregiver, just being present and having that child have space to be able to talk openly. Then obviously, we want to move that back to the caregiver once they have stabilized. But sometimes we don’t have that ability, so the therapist can be that person initially.
So I’d just bring it up if that’s something that you’re interested in, or this feels like an area you’d like to check in with your kids. Or like Kathryn said, you can have call your own family meeting and say: “Hey, I know a lot is going on right now for us. I’m imagining you’re all feeling it. You may not know exactly what’s going on.” They may not even be developmentally of age to know. But just saying: “Hey, we know there’s a lot happening right now, we want to check in with you.” There’s lots of different ways to check in with kids on their feelings, or even adults. “I know you’re 35, you have your own relationship now. But your father and I are struggling, and we know this is having an impact on the whole family.” Can we talk about it?
Oh, that’s really lovely, Lisa. You were also reminding me about the research done by Colbeck, I think, who said: If there was one thing that you could do to help a family out, it would be to resource the caregiver. So every parent just needs someone to tap out to, they need a backup, they need someone to vent to, because you can’t really be online all the time. So if there was only one thing we could do, it would be resourcing these families top-down, and making sure that parents just have some support. So find a parent in your life, support them, encourage them, find some resources for them.
Don’t do it alone. One of the things, as you’re talking, that it feels as though it potentially challenges listeners that might be in need of support. That they look around to their community, and it seems like, well, they’re dealing with that, or they’re dealing with that. They don’t want to be a burden or feel that somehow it’s a weakness to be asking: “Hey, do you mind if we do an extra few playdates?” Or asking auntie or uncle or whomever to show up a little bit more. It’s a little bit of a paradigm shift, I think, in this more Western thought.
Absolutely. I think also, if you look at couples that are dealing with betrayals, there’s a lot of shame involved. Like: “Hey, my wife has been cheating on me for the last year, and we’re in therapy.” You tend to hear people saying surface-level things, like: Oh, we’re in couples’ therapy. But what’s really happening is, there’s been a major, major betrayal, and they are encapsulating the relationship and getting support from therapy once a week. But the rest of the six days, and the rest of that day that they’re in therapy, the couple is coming back to the home. That one or an hour or hour and a half is not enough to regulate initially and stabilize the system, just because it’s like a bomb that’s blown off. And the whole family is impacted when there’s been a betrayal, any kind of betrayal of trust between a couple that felt safe and secure. It’s embarrassing to share with your community that your partner has done something that is so disloyal and deceptive.
It’s often what you see with couples that are dealing with affairs, for example, to use that as something that we’re kind of talking about. The person who has been not having the affair really isolates and absolutely shuts down and doesn’t want to tell anybody in the community, even other caregivers that they’ve known for years, like in elementary school, for example. They don’t say anything till years later, like: Oh, that’s what was going on for me. Because there’s shame. So at any point, offering space for your friends to say what’s really going on. Like, “I don’t want you to be embarrassed, it’s okay. We all have things we don’t want to talk about. But I want to be here for you.” Being able to move in those ways.
“If you see somebody suffering or in distress, really think about un-isolating that person. Doesn’t mean they have to tell me everything that’s going on. But I can see that they are really suffering, and I just want you to know I’m here.”
Maybe let me pick up the kids today or this week, so you have some time to rest and do some self-care. They still may not tell you anything.
I remember when I was going through my divorce, Kathryn knows this, because I think she wanted to be in the group, but she didn’t qualify. I opened up a group for women who were suffering from divorce. Divorce in and of itself is embarrassing. So as a young parent, I guess I wasn’t a young parent. But as a parent going through divorce, it felt like my kids were the only ones that were dealing with two homes and having to switch between both caregivers. Plus, I’m in the field, so I’m working with couples, and I’m like: “Oh my gosh, I can’t make my own work, even though I gave it my all.” I opened up the door to that. I also started talking about it in my trainings. And people started to come up to me in droves, like: “Oh my gosh, I’ve been through a divorce. I’m so glad that you’ve brought this up. Or it was so isolating, especially as a clinician, because people question you. Like, are you still married?” I may not still be married. But I understand what it’s like to be in the trenches and fight and leave everything on the table to try to make it work, and the distress you go under and what it’s like for the kids to go through. So I’m probably an expert at helping people climb out of that. If they end up not making it work, that’s okay. But the process of getting out of that as a couple, I know how to do and I’ve been through.
But I opened that up just on a community level, and I had multiple people call me and say: “I need this support. Please, please have these meetings.” This had nothing to do with my clinical career. It was about just I needed to know were there other women dealing with what I’m dealing with here. I have established this group of women that I continuously rely on now for years, and we come to the table with our worst struggles. We came to the table with: “This is what’s going on, this is the truth of what’s going on, and this is why I’m going through divorce.” That group has been such a source of love, resource, and comfort for me, and each for each other. Several of the members, two of the members have said, this group saved my life. So I thought to myself, what is this that’s going on? This is just about un-isolating someone in moments of suffering. It’s not what you went through that’s the thing that causes the traumas, it’s whether or not you were alone in it. I believe that’s the Vander Kolk comment, I don’t want to create it as if it’s mine. But it’s whether or not somebody can show up for you in that space.
This is really what Kathryn and I anchor our work in. We’re making sure that we’re not leaving anybody behind in the treatment. Even if the couple is so chaotic and distressed and just a complete mess, we are still bringing in siblings, we’re still bringing in adult family members, we’re still checking to see how is this impacting everybody. And we’ve done this work for a long time now, and the benefits of bringing in the whole family at some point, we have gotten in the way of people taking their own lives. Because no one would have ever brought in this 14-year-old. This is a story that Kathryn knows. We brought him in because his mother was dying of cancer and his dad was totally distressed, and he had been left behind. So can we bring him in? He said: “I’ve been planning my own death for the last two months, because I’ve lost both parents. My mom is going to die anyway.” Got him in the hospital, and he’s now thriving and doing fine, and mom is actually in remission. But at that point in his life, no one was able to pay attention. Parents were in survival mode, truly survival mode, and he was left to his own devices. If we had not just had that systemic frame, we might not have him here today. So it just is something that really our work is anchored in, and it feels important to both of us on so many levels. So we just really are committed to that. We hope that the message gets through to anybody that’s in therapy or is doing therapy, that they can really hold that systemic frame.
Yes. It sounds as though you’re acknowledging the shame and the isolation, and that to have these present moments of being available and listening and making space and being responsive is in some ways an anecdote.
Absolutely. I mean, this isn’t new material, either. I mean, AA has been doing this for years. Group work. Yalom has been saying: “To be seen by another who’s struggling in the same way that you are, how valuable that is for your view of self.” That’s just 100% true.
“The more eyes you can get on suffering, the more relatedness, the more validation, the more that someone can feel seen and held and understood – in a moment of trauma, suffering, or grief, loss, any of that – the more likely they’re going to be able to get through it.”
You’re saying it’s not new, and yet, sometimes in modern living, AA lives in a certain place, or the collective consciousness around what one needs to present and be in a certain way, or to have these pieces to really bring it in. Even the couples’ work, to have the children and the family be held in the work, it seems like it’s obvious, but it’s not necessarily fully integrated or a part of the bigger awareness.
I think in a lot of ways, it is countercultural to be thinking about attachment and about relationships, especially in a Western individualistic culture. But I think that’s what puts so much pressure then on the relationships and on couples, is that they are generally isolated in terms of lack of community. So then you put so much on that one person to meet all needs, that it really is sometimes unrealistic. So this is really a whole worldview philosophy that we’re advocating: we all need people, and we all need to belong in order to become the best that we’re going to be.
Yes, it reminds me of Vivek Murthy, he’s a former Surgeon General, he wrote a book.
Yeah, about the loneliness.
Lonely Togetherness is what he called it, yeah. It’s very true. I mean, just the fabric of our more Western living, that it’s so steeped to this individuation or this self-functioning, and to not rely and be in a place of belonging. I know one of the things we wanted to touch on is, in the circumstance where a couple or partners make a decision to separate or get a divorce, how to even negotiate co-parenting when they decided to separate. I think a lot of people feel really lost when we’re not talking about how to make space, how to open up these dialogues, how to show up, when it maybe feels messy. A: we’re isolated. B: we’re doing it alone, isolation. But we’re also not necessarily feeling like there’s a lot to draw on for resource from people who can give us a little bit more. Like, here’s what worked for me, or here’s some skills, or here’s an idea. That’s one of the benefits of having more belonging and connections.
Yeah, talking to each other and learning from each other anecdotally. I think there are just more and more divorced families. So at least now when couples are going through divorce, their kids at school know multiple other kiddos who have got divorced parents as well. That just really helps normalize things, brings it out into the open a little bit more.
“If your couples’ relationship is dying, it doesn’t mean that the parenting relationship needs to. In fact, it really needs to be vibrant for the sake of the children.”
Sometimes it’s hard to maintain that dynamic and keeping it positively focused on attending to the children when you’re in such distress. I think that’s where we see couples that are coming in. Kathryn and I have said this probably 10 times in the last six months, like I wish we could have gotten to this family earlier. Because we’re dealing with the consequences of not addressing or having those conversations pre-divorce. Then as people lawyer up, especially if there’s been a betrayal of trust, the communication is less than less, and it’s driven by attorneys, and the fear is greater. Then people are being stripped of their family homes, of their routine, of their extended families, of their time with their children. Everybody is on high alert, and the fear is running the show. The other person starts to be narrated in a way that may not be accurate, but is based on fear, and also on the injury.
So Kathryn and I have done a couple of things. I think the one we did, Kathryn, where we brought in the partner of the gentleman that had had an affair, we brought in the “affairee” to the room with the original couple. Because the distress was so extreme at the top because of the injury, and the two women had been friends. So when she ended up having an affair with her husband, obviously there was a betrayal of friendship in a moment when she probably needed her husband the most, and then also betrayal from her husband. Now this woman was actually co-parenting her seven-year-old. So we were like, let’s just bring them all in the room. Both of us kind of looked at each other, like, are we really going to do this? Like, this could go really poorly. I think we actually have it on film, we need to go back and grab that session. But I was terrified, so we had to first get ourselves co-regulated. Because I’m like, this could really go badly. But we stayed focused on what our goal was, which was, can they communicate and disarm some of the fear that’s running the distress at the top, and is there a way to repair the injury in service of this child’s well-being and his development? Like, are we far enough away from the injury that we can say: Okay, the way we’re going now, the way we’re moving with each other with our son, the two parents, is damaging to his self-esteem, to his development, his brain functioning, all of this? Would they be willing to commit to a different process together? They may never forgive each other for what happened. But educating the parents who are in massive conflict on the impact this has on the child.
This is where you see Constance Ahron’s research, which she’s probably my favorite family system person of all time, who has since passed. But she spoke about bi-nuclear families, and if you allow the distress at the top to continue, it’s not the divorce that causes the trauma and the long-term psychological damage. It’s the distress at the top that causes kids to have major psychological issues. She did a 30-year study, I think. So if you look at that, then that means we have to as clinicians, we have to as families who might be going through divorce or in therapy for divorce or betrayal, we have to be thinking about, can we put the children and their development first? Or do we have enough resources to say: “Yes, I feel like I would like to get into a fistfight with this woman who took my husband from me.” That may be this person’s perspective. But can I put my seven-year-old’s development, long-term development, ahead of my own needs in that space? So getting that couple, the original couple, into a place that they were willing to bring in now his new wife, and sit down and have this conversation, you have to get buy-in. They have to feel safe, and they have to feel like we are the stronger wiser other that can guide them through untangling this process, so that they can see clearly what’s the best move for their son. Versus just react because they’re mad at each other.
It’s not to say that the trauma didn’t occur or that you should feel great about it. It’s like, yes, I’m so very deeply pained and upset. And it’s also true that I’m putting my child’s development first and foremost. That this also still is painful, but this is what I’m focused on.
Yeah, and you don’t see mediation or law firms running an attachment-based mediation format. You see some that are savvy, some attorneys that are very clear: “If I increase the fear in this system, I’m going to get paid longer, and I’m going to be in court longer, and I’m going to be able to support my client getting what they need. I’m going to win more.” It’s so corrupt on some level, I hate to say this. But there are some attorneys that are like, I’m committed to mediating this. Part of that is mediating the process between them; they need us for that. So us working alongside a mediator is amazing. Plus, with the child therapy expertise we have in our agency, we’re flooded with high-conflict court referrals. People that have had 73 evaluations, they’ve had major, major divorce process, and they still can’t get on the same page. That’s because they have two attorneys talking for them. You get them even in separate Zoom rooms and start disarming some of the fear, they may make different decisions about the well-being of their child or custody or their ability to connect with both caregivers. But until you address it from that perspective, they’re going to be in court for a long time.
These are cases where it’s way too far gone for a family to be able to do that by themselves between the original couple, that then an agency like ours and others who do this work can hold that entire system. We can have multiple therapists meet with different parts of the family, until it feels safer for them to come in together. But important for someone to be seeing the entire system and have a goal of decreasing the tension and conflict in the system.
Even the potential authority that’s given to attorneys, I’m imagining there’s a lot of well-meaning attorneys that perhaps get caught into their focus of whatever the things that they’re aiming for, maybe aren’t as capable of holding these pieces. That maybe they would like to, they just maybe don’t have the ways of how to do that. So to have that collaboration seems incredibly important.
Well, I know we’re winding down in our time. I can just tell there’s just so much here. So for people that are negotiating some of this terrain, it sounds like you have the nonprofit. Where would you like to start around where to point people towards?
The nonprofit is called Renova San Diego; you can find us at RenovaSanDiego.com. You can also find out more about Lisa and my training schedules; we mostly train clinicians. My trainings are listed at my name, KathrynDeBruin.com. Then I also have a family podcast called The Family Express, which is for any therapists who are doing family work, but also, parents might enjoy listening to that.
And what might people find on the website?
What I think you’ll find when you move to the website will be a place where you can get trained if you’re a clinician, and a list of all those resources if you’re interested in doing this type of work, like holding the systemic frame, including the whole family. You can look at all the places where our trainings are being held across the country and across the next year. Then also, if you’re looking for direct services or a clinician that is actually holding this framework using Emotionally Focused Therapy for families, you’ll be able to see we have quite a big, very well-seasoned staff, diverse staff, that can come and is trained in these types of areas.
Obviously, if you’re in California, we can work with you directly. If you’re not, we can refer you to somebody who’s holding this kind of frame and is maybe closer in your area, through the ICEEFT website, which is ICEEFT.com. That’s the International Centre for EFT. You can literally type in your zip code and find someone who’s trained in EFT for families. Right now, there is quite a few trainers that are doing trainings all over the country for the EFT for family work. It’s really an exciting time. Because the book was launched I think last year, Kathryn, or two years ago, I can’t remember. Authored by Jim Furrow, Sue Johnson, Gail Palmer, George Fowler, and myself. So there’s lots of resources. Obviously, you can call or email either one of us, we’re happy to help direct you to what you’re looking for.
Wonderful. Well, I’ll make sure to have the link to that website, as well as both of your websites and the work that you’re doing.
Thank you so much for having us, Jessica. Fun to chat about these important things.
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In the ongoing series on emotional immaturity, we continue our exploration by delving deeper into the intricate dynamics that underpin its development. Drawing from our previous discussions, we aim to build upon foundational knowledge and delve into the nuanced differences between emotional immaturity and emotional abuse. By shedding light on these subtleties, we provide listeners with invaluable insights that can help them navigate complex emotional landscapes with greater understanding and clarity.
Through a blend of insightful discussion and actionable advice, our goal is to equip our audience with the tools necessary to not only recognize but also address and ultimately overcome emotional immaturity. By fostering a deeper understanding of these concepts, listeners can cultivate healthier connections and embark on a journey of personal growth.
In this Episode
09:05 Understanding the interplay of childhood experiences, parental influence, and intergenerational impact.
13:11 Exploring the obstacles hindering parental emotional responsiveness, including mental health issues, physical illness, addiction, trauma, and bereavement.
15:39 Understanding the role of trauma in emotional immaturity: Impact, coping mechanisms, and caregiver dynamics.
19:26 The perpetuating cycle of abuse: Impact, coping strategies, and emotional stunting.
21:23 The impact of unhealthy examples and poor upbringing to emotional immaturity.
23:33 The fine line between emotional immaturity and emotional abuse.
Your Check List of Actions to Take
- Reflect on personal experiences and behaviors to identify patterns of emotional immaturity.
- Seek therapy or counseling to address underlying trauma or emotional wounds.
- Practice emotional regulation techniques such as mindfulness and deep breathing exercises.
- Set healthy boundaries in relationships to protect emotional well-being.
- Educate oneself on healthy communication skills and actively practice them in interactions.
- Challenge negative thought patterns and beliefs that contribute to emotional immaturity.
- Engage in self-care activities to nurture emotional resilience and well-being.
- Seek support from trusted individuals or support groups to navigate the journey towards emotional maturity.
Mentioned
Recovering from Emotionally Immature Parents (Lindsay Gibson link) (book)
Signs of Emotional Immaturity: How to Identify and Support People with Emotional Immaturity
4 Types Of Emotionally Immature Parents
Tronick’s Still Face Experiment (YouTube video link)
National Domestic Violence Hotline: 1-800-799-7233
Connect with Dr. Jessica Higgins
Facebook: facebook.com/EmpoweredRelationship
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Twitter: @DrJessHiggins
Website: drjessicahiggins.com
Email: jessica@drjessicahiggins.com
About Today’s Show
Let’s get started in today’s episode. Again, as I mentioned, this is a several part series. If you missed episode 410 and 411, I want to encourage you to check that out first, as it lays more of an overview about what emotional immaturity is and what are the nine characteristics.
Just a brief summary here. Emotional immaturity has to do with the lack of emotional development, and having difficulty effectively managing, responding to emotions in a mature and healthy way. This is on a continuum, as everyone exhibits emotionally immature behaviors at times, and more or less, we’re looking at what is the consistency and what is the pattern of behavior as it relates to these topics.
The nine characteristics, and again, this was based on several articles that I read, and I did my best to organize the material. Again, you don’t have to have all of these characteristics. Again, we’re looking at what is the overall dynamic as it relates to one’s emotional world. The nine characteristics are, one: difficulty regulating emotions and handling stress. Two: emotional impulsivity and reactivity. Three: low frustration tolerance and rigidity in thinking. Four: lack self-awareness, emotional depth, and empathy. Five: make things all about them. Six: dependency, need for validation, and difficulty with boundaries. Seven: limited ability to engage emotionally and relationally. Number eight: trouble with hard or difficult conversations and conflicts. Number nine: struggle to communicate in healthy ways. To revisit the purpose of this series, is that we want to bring awareness to the topic. Not to blame or bring, of course, judgment against anyone who perhaps is exhibiting some of these emotionally immature behaviors.
In today’s conversation, again, we’re looking at how does emotional immaturity develop, and what’s the difference between emotional immaturity and emotional abuse? Typically, emotional immaturity happens for a reason.
“While there is no one reason why someone might exhibit signs of emotional immaturity, typically, the person has come from emotionally immature and/or abusive environments themselves, where they had experiences that perhaps interfered with the ability of developing emotionally and/or did not receive good enough support in this area of development.”
There’s a book that if you’re resonating with this topic, or even perhaps questioning the type of environment that you grew up in, as it relates to emotional maturity – meaning emotional attunement, emotional support, responsiveness – there is a book by a clinical psychologist Lindsay C. Gibson, and it’s titled Recovering from Emotionally Immature Parents. It talks about the intergenerational impact that emotionally immature parents can have on one’s mindset and personality. She observed that when one grows up in an environment where the parent lacks emotional maturity, that this can result in the child showing signs of emotional immaturity even as an adult. Now this makes sense, because we didn’t have the opportunity to develop these skills because our parent wasn’t practicing them or providing the environment to help the child engage with. Then we look at long standing patterns and how to cope with these environments and the best moves to really get by in these environments, and thus, we will likely replicate that in adulthood until we choose to perhaps engage in more emotional, personal, and/or relational growth.
I want to reiterate the intergenerational effect at play here. This is where the grandparent perhaps has limited capacity or there’s some circumstance that interferes with the ability to be more emotionally present, responsive, attuned. Thus, the child in that case, we would say parent, and then the parent doesn’t perhaps have the environment to learn and develop more emotionally. Thus, when they have their child, that they’re also passing on, or this effect is still impacting the development in the lineage. It’s important to acknowledge this. Because the goal here, again, is not to place blame. It’s to bring awareness to the importance of this emotional maturity.
I referenced an article by Angelica Bottaro, and it was medically reviewed by Stephanie Hartselle, MD. It’s titled How to Identify and Support People with Emotional Immaturity. It was stated: “Emotional immaturity has a lot to do with a child’s developmental phase.
“Research has found that a difficult childhood without adequate parental support, or childhood abuse, could cause a person to grow into an emotionally immature adult.”
In another article titled The Four Main Causes of Emotional Immaturity by Kristin Davin, who’s a clinical psychologist, discusses four prominent reasons for emotional immaturity. One, emotional neglect. Emotional neglect happens when our primary caretakers, parents, were unable, didn’t have the capacity or failed to respond to our emotional needs growing up. It’s a form of neglect that prevents healthy development in a child. Again, this is one of the leading causes of emotional immaturity in relationships. There are many circumstances that can interfere with a parent’s ability or caretaker’s ability to be supportive and emotionally responsive. This is not a comprehensive list, but it does mention a few. When a parent or caregiver has mental health concerns or real mental health disorder – this could be bipolar disorder, it could be depression, anxiety, it could be many different factors that, again, will inhibit the person’s ability to function and thus be able to parent in this emotionally responsive way.
Physical illness is another reason that a caregiver or parent would have the inability to be available, responsive, attuned, and very present to their child. Again, we could look at perhaps a cancer diagnosis or even having a major fall or operation. It could be, you name it, a number of things that will take someone out of this functioning. Alcohol and addiction issues, financial hardship or crisis, or perhaps needing to work multiple jobs. Having experienced some collective trauma, perhaps war or some really horrific event. Again, there’s recognition around what toll that would take. Immigration: as a family, moving to a new country, perhaps circumstances that really required that and the hardship around that, and there might be many traumas related to having to immigrate. Also, loss of a family member, or perhaps death of a child or death of a spouse. This could be incredibly painful and debilitating. These are just to name a few. But again, we look at this, and it’s hard to blame someone that’s going through a circumstance like this.
In the article, an example which falls under the mental health issue or concern is when a narcissistic parent fails to respond to their child’s needs at critical times in their life, which is primarily due to them being focused on themselves and having an unwillingness to do their emotional work and understand what it means and what it takes to be a parent who is available to their child. Again, this dynamic likely would cause emotional immaturity in their child and as they move through life.
The second cause, as written by Dr. Kristin Davin in her article, The Four Main Causes of Emotional Immaturity, is trauma. Many emotionally immature people come from a history of trauma, whether that be physical, emotional, mental, or even sexual abuse. And when we look at the dynamics of this, typically when abuse is happening, it’s often chronic. Also, the child is dependent on their parents for their basic needs and survival, and thus, there’s an experience of not being able to escape the abuse. When we focus more on the parent or caregiver engaging in emotionally immature ways to respond to their child, such as a silent treatment, ignoring their child, perhaps stonewalling, this could be even having a cold, blank face.
I believe I have referenced in the past, and you may have seen the video, it’s a short clip and you can find it on YouTube. I’ll put the link on today’s show notes. It’s called The Still Face Experiment. This is with a mother and her infant child, and just how quickly even the mother’s face going blank can have such a profound impact on the child. Again, this is looking at the lack of responsiveness, the lack of engagement, the lack of presence and attunement. This has such a formative impact on the child’s development, again, emotionally, relationally, and also this imprint of how people are going to respond, which is really about the attachment style. This impacts us on all levels. It’s what we expect. So our thinking around, is the world a safe place, will people be there for us, will they respond to us, our expectations. It also relates to how we feel emotionally. It also relates to what we feel physiologically, our nervous system. Again, this all relates to our learning and how we operate as it relates to our emotional relational engagement.
Coming back, again, to trauma and listing some of the ways that parents or caregivers may behave in emotionally immature ways that cause harm. So in addition to the ignoring or silent treatment, or stonewalling, having a still cold blank face, there also could be, conversely, the lashing out. It could be the yelling. It could be forms of manipulation, guilt trip, or drama that they perhaps perpetuate, that they, again, learned in their family of origin.
Regardless of the severity, or frequency, or even the type of abuse, the child had to learn how to cope in these environments and situations where they couldn’t escape, where the events were overwhelming, traumatizing, and causing great harm, and had to be on the receiving end of these behaviors. As we look at this, it starts to make more sense that a child in an environment where abuse is happening or emotional neglect is happening, that it wouldn’t be a smart move to turn to their caregiver or parent who’s engaging in these neglectful abusive harmful ways with their more vulnerable emotional self. Thus, learning how to suppress, deny, block their emotional world.
The third main cause of emotional immaturity – again, this is referencing Dr. Kristin Davin’s article – is abuse. Now I know we talked a lot about abuse in number two: trauma. But likely, what we can do here is reference some of the examples that I gave around circumstances that are impacting a parent or caregiver’s ability to be emotionally responsive and emotionally safe with their child. Again, that is the mental health concerns, physical illness, alcohol and addiction issues, financial hardship, working all the time, a collective trauma, war, immigration, loss of a family member, a death of a spouse or child. Again, these can be extremely traumatic.
So when we talk about abuse, we talked a lot about abuse in the last category. The thing I’ll add here.
“There’s a sense of hopelessness that often that when one is experiencing the abuse, and they can’t escape, and they feel helpless to change anything, because the person that they’re supposed to rely on to keep them safe is the one that is causing the abuse and causing the harm.”
And when there’s nowhere to go, they’re in this survival place, which puts their emotional system into a dysfunctional place, perhaps an overdrive, or perhaps they have confusion or have to compartmentalize or suppress or cut off. There’s all types of strategies to learn how to cope, but they can’t process the abuse. Again, because it’s happening, and there’s no space to feel safe to do that emotional work, and thus they may be underdeveloped or stunted in their emotional growth. It makes a lot of sense when we look at this all and the dynamics of it.
The fourth main cause of emotional immaturity – again, referencing the article by Dr. Kristin Davin – is unhealthy examples and a poor upbringing. Again, this is all interrelated here. She states: “Often, emotional immaturity comes from poor or even horrible examples set by their parents, where they weren’t setting healthy boundaries, engaging in productive, emotionally healthy conversations, emotional regulation.” Conversely, as we’ve been talking, they were exposed to unhealthy behaviors, or even abuse and trauma. Cumulatively, the child starts to have an experience of what is normal and what’s familiar and what’s supposed to be. So they actually perhaps won’t confront the unhealthy behaviors or even see it until adulthood where they have other experiences that are healthier. And when this happens, they will have an opportunity to change their behaviors and their ways of operating, even their beliefs. But this does require some insight and willingness to do the work and to put the effort in.
When we look at this – again, referencing Dr. Kristin Davin’s article, and it’s titled The Four Main Causes of Emotional Immaturity – she, again, in summary says the four main causes are, one: emotional neglect, two: trauma, three: abuse, four: unhealthy examples. We can recognize the intergenerational effect here. Or even said differently, the hurt people hurt people. While we can understand this, it doesn’t make it okay. Again, the goal here is to bring awareness, because there is significant harm and damage that’s done to both the individual, and also consequences to the relationship when we stay in this underdeveloped, stunted, or even behaving in abusive or emotionally immature ways.
Let’s shift our topic here to what is the difference between emotional immaturity and emotional abuse. Now, emotional abuse is known as more psychological or even mental abuse. It’s a pattern of behavior aimed at controlling, manipulating, or undermining the emotional well-being of another person.
“Emotional abuse is often characterized by non-physical tactics that are intended to exert power and control over the person or victim.”
If we look at the quality of emotional immaturity and some of what we’ve already discussed, it seems as though someone who’s exhibiting behaviors that are emotionally immature are likely trying to control their environment, so that they can protect themselves and not confront emotions that they feel overwhelmed by or really challenged by. Whereas, someone who’s engaging in emotionally abusive behaviors are more focused on controlling the other person to have power-over and keep that person small or less than.
I found these five criteria to be extremely helpful as we differentiate between emotional immaturity and emotional abuse. Now, again, I do not think that this is exact, or that we can distill this perfectly. Because with most areas in psychology, there’s a lot of overlap. There’s a continuum. It’s gray, it depends. It’s not an exact science. But I do want to offer this to you, as you perhaps are trying to discern between what is emotionally abusive and what is more emotionally immature behavior.
One is to consider the nature of the behavior. For more emotionally immature behavior, there’s a lack of emotional development or the ability to handle the emotions in a mature and healthy way, which, again, as we’ve talked about involves behaviors that are more typical of someone younger or less experienced in managing their emotions. So again, they appear younger when they’re processing emotions, again, due to this lack of development. Whereas, if someone is engaging in emotionally abusive behavior, this often involves a pattern of behaviors which are intended to control, manipulate, or undermine another person’s emotional well-being. Again, this is characterized by intentional actions to exert power or control over another. So again, this is the nature of the behavior, a little bit what I just mentioned around what the origin or what the motivation is here.
Number two is: intent and control.
“Emotional immaturity often is unintentional, where they don’t intend to cause harm. It may be a result of the lack of skills, again, experienced by not dealing with their emotions, and it is not a deliberate effort to cause harm or control over another person.”
Where, emotional abuse, again involves this intentional action, with the purpose of asserting control over another, where the person is attempting to manipulate and impact the other’s self-esteem.
The third criteria here is duration and pattern for emotional immaturity. It can be occasional, situational, and intermittent. So that the individual isn’t consistently engaging in them. Whereas, someone who is engaging in more emotional abuse, it involves repeated patterns of harmful behaviors over time. It’s more systematic, and it can be part of a broader pattern of controlling and manipulation.
The fourth criteria is: the impact on the other, or even the impact on the victim. As we look at emotional immaturity, while the immature behavior may cause challenges in the relationship, it may not necessarily result in severe emotional harm to the other person. Whereas, with emotional abuse, it has a significant and harmful impact on the other person’s mental and emotional well-being. So again, victims or people who are experiencing emotional abuse may experience long-lasting psychological effects, including low self-esteem, anxiety, depression, and trauma.
The fifth criteria is: responsibility. With emotional immaturity, the person’s behavior reflects a lack of emotional skill or awareness that can be developed with time, experience, and self-reflection. With emotional abuse, the behavior often involves deliberate choice by the person to engage in harmful behaviors. Thus, the responsibility lies with the person intentionally inflicting emotional harm on another. In summary, these five criteria are: the nature of the behavior. Number two: intent and control. Three: duration and pattern. Number four: impact on another or the victim. Number five: responsibility.
As I mentioned in Episode 410 and 411, some of the characteristics do enter into the territory of emotional abuse. But again, I want us to consider these criteria. Because again, there’s a lot of variables to consider. Some of the emotionally immature behaviors that perhaps enter into the territory of emotional abuse are: gaslighting, neglect, guilt trips, manipulation. When we look at manipulation, again, with this intent to control the other’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, which again might involve this guilt tripping, gaslighting, playing mind games, which essentially sets up a dynamic where the person on the receiving end or the victim can doubt their own reality and their own perceptions, which is incredibly harmful. Other areas that are emotionally immature but also could be emotional abuse is real anger outburst; the yelling, the screaming, the throwing things. It could be in a form of intimidation and this intent to power-over, again, would definitely fall in emotional abuse. And also, significant blame, where there’s a consistency to this behavior. When there’s an upset, something went wrong, or if there was an accident or a conflict, that the partner is always to blame. This would enter into that territory of emotional abuse.
Perhaps a less gray of this emotional abuse is verbal abuse. This would involve using words to belittle, demean, degrade. Another: name-calling, insult, yelling, constant criticism. Also, reckless behavior, such as cheating on a partner or misusing drugs and alcohol because of a fight, and using this behavior as a form of punishment. Bullying to get the other person to give in to demands and tolerate unwanted behaviors, or even deny that things really happened, as I mentioned before, this gaslighting.
“Finally, when we look at the differences between emotional immaturity and emotional abuse, would be the ability to change. One that is engaging in emotionally immature ways may benefit from the personal growth, self-awareness, and learning from emotional regulation skills.”
Whereas, someone who engages in more emotionally abusive ways often requires intervention support, and in some cases, legal or professional assistance, to ensure the safety and the well-being of their partner. If you are experiencing relational dynamics that have escalated to a consistent degree of emotional abuse, I really want to encourage to seek out support, professional support. Also, I’ll put the link to the domestic violence hotline. I’ll also state it here, which is: 1-800-799-SAFE, which is also 7233. Again, 1-800-799-7233. You could also visit TheHotline.org. I’ll put that on today’s show notes. Again, if you’re in immediate danger, call 911.
Thank you for listening to today’s episode on how does emotional immaturity get developed, and what’s the difference between emotional immaturity and emotional abuse? It’s not an easy topic to discuss and look at. My hope in this series is to bring awareness and to give you support in how to overcome emotional immaturity, and really develop more emotionally mature behaviors in relationship, and even just in one’s own being. Again, stay tuned for the next two episodes, where I’m going to be talking about what a partner can do to help a relationship where emotional immaturity exists, and also, how to build emotional maturity. Feel free to reach out to me. Again, my email is Jessica@DrJessicaHiggins.com. If you want to share or add to the conversation as it relates to emotional immaturity, please put that in the subject line. I’ll do my best to incorporate your input, your feedback. Also, I just honor you in your journey in relational growth. Thank you for being with me here on today’s episode, and I am honored and privileged to be supporting you in the process. Thank you again. Until next time, I hope you take great care!
Signing Off
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In a world where technology offers countless ways to be connected, why is it that so many of us still feel disconnected? Why is it becoming increasingly difficult to forge deep, meaningful connections with others?
In this episode, Dr. Jody Carrington and Dr. Jessica Higgins explore the intricacies of reconnecting and finding balance in relationships, along with the skill of nurturing genuine connections. Whether it’s strengthening bonds with our children, partners, colleagues, or even within ourselves, they delve into the heart of building authentic relationships. From handling emotional challenges to embracing the significance of acknowledgment, they unravel the multifaceted nature of human interaction.
So, if you’re ready to peel back the layers of disconnection and embark on a journey towards reconnection, join us on this episode.
Dr. Jody Carrington is a psychologist sought after for her expertise, energy, and approach to helping people solve their most complex human-centered challenges. Jody focuses much of her work around reconnection. Jody uses humor, and all she has learned in her twenty-year career as a psychologist to empower everyone she connects with. In her latest book, Feeling Seen, she dives into what it takes to reconnect a disconnected world.
In this Episode
7:24 Dr. Jody Carrington’s professional evolution: From first responders to child psychiatry.
15:55 The challenge of repairing relationships.
19:14 Building emotional language and regulation.
24:52 Identifying core motivators of disconnection in relationships.
30:52 The importance of acknowledging the various contributors to disconnection.
38:01 Indigenous teachings on land acknowledgment as a lesson in genuine bearing witness.
42:10 Fostering resilience in professionals to address the increasing emotional dysregulation in society.
53:28 Accessing Dr. Carrington’s workshops and podcasts for accessible mental health conversations.
Your Check List of Actions to Take
- Practice active listening: When others share their emotions, listen attentively without judgment, providing a safe space for them to be heard.
- Acknowledge emotions: Regularly validate and acknowledge others’ feelings to create a sense of being seen and understood.
- Develop emotional vocabulary: Expand your emotional language beyond basic terms like happy or sad to better express your feelings and connect with others.
- Prioritize self-regulation: Learn techniques like deep breathing and physical relaxation to manage your own emotional reactions and respond thoughtfully.
- Repair and reconnect: After conflicts, work on repairing relationships through open conversations that involve acknowledging emotions and finding common ground.
- Create emotional safe zones: Foster environments where people feel comfortable expressing their emotions without fear of criticism or dismissal.
- Use “I” statements: When discussing emotions, use “I” statements to express your feelings and experiences, promoting open dialogue and empathy.
- Embrace vulnerability: Share your emotions authentically with trusted individuals, fostering deeper connections and mutual understanding.
Mentioned
Teachers These Days: Stories and Strategies for Reconnection (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
Kids These Days: A Game Plan For (Re)Connecting With Those We Teach, Lead, & Love (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
Feeling Seen: Reconnecting in a Disconnected World (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
Relationship Map To Happy, Lasting Love
Connect with Dr. Jody Carrington
Websites: drjodycarrington.com
Facebook: facebook.com/drjodycarrington
Twitter: twitter.com/DrJCarrington?s=20&t=6-oqtPKGW3zZnKeT0eI6Hg
YouTube: youtube.com/c/drjodycarrington
Instagram: instagram.com/drjodycarrington/?hl=en
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/dr-jody-carrington/?originalSubdomain=ca
Connect with Dr. Jessica Higgins
Facebook: facebook.com/EmpoweredRelationship
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Podcast: drjessicahiggins.com/podcasts/
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LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/drjessicahiggins
Twitter: @DrJessHiggins
Website: drjessicahiggins.com
Email: jessica@drjessicahiggins.com
About Today’s Show
Dr. Jody Carrington, thank you so much for joining us here today.
Dr. Jessica Higgins, thank you for having me here today, come on! What do you want to do with all this brilliant therapeutic energy?
I know, we’re going to talk about connection and disconnection. It sounds like something you’ve devoted a lot of your attention and focus and just heart and soul to addressing, to help support people. Is that right?
Well, it’s my favorite thing in the world. I think because I get a lot of questions as a psychologist about the mental health crisis, and the big worries around trauma and suicide, and are the kids these days going to be alright, and all of those questions. I mean, the answer, to me, always comes back to this idea that in the history of the free world, we’ve never been this disconnected, and we weren’t meant to do any of this alone. So the pandemic has expedited that process exponentially. But even in the last two generations, we’ve seen such an epic proportion of disconnection from humanity, that has really contributed to so much of it. I think therein lies the answer to healing some of that pain and that trauma and that misunderstanding that we have really perpetuated. So I love to talk about it. I love to talk about it in stories and in the patients that I’ve had the privilege to treat.
And certainly, I’m very privileged, in the way that I grew up in this little town in Alberta, Canada, and I’m straight, I’m able-bodied, I’m White. I have all of these things that allowed me to start on third base. So I use so much of the things that I talk about, in having learned from people who didn’t have those things, and how that further makes it so much harder to do this thing of connection, to step involuntarily into relationships, and work through and just do the things that we think everybody should do when they’re healthy. I think the more that we talk about it, it gives permission for people to understand and see each other much more as humans, rather than: “You’re not doing this. Or what’s getting in the way? Or why is mental health such a struggle for you?” I just love that. I think it’s the greatest place to be right now.
No kidding. Thank you for starting with that, and just how passionate you are, and I have things I want to say in regards to that. But I also typically like to ask people, what got them into really focusing on their particular topic? Was it the COVID pandemic or you were already looking at this as a topic of interest?
Oh, yeah. So I’ve been a psychologist for 20 years. I mean, there’s so many reasons, I think, why it all came together, most of which I didn’t realize until I was 38. I talked about this story, I’ve only talked about it on stage a few times. But I talk about when I grew up in a small town, I’m the oldest of two, or I thought I was the oldest of two, and my brother is three years younger than me. I’ve always sort of had this sense about, I was always the funny one, I always wanted to make people happy, and I had this interest in relationships. I was really inspired by a teacher when we had a student die, when we were in grade 10. I remember just her way of walking us through that, I was so impressed. Just really, I later came upon this quote by Ram Das that I keep above me all the time. “We’re all just here walking each other home.” I love it, I think it’s the most profound statement in the English language. And when I think about what Holly, my teacher back in grade 10 did, and certainly the story that later unfolds around disconnection in my own life.
So I’ll tell you that real quick. So we grew up in this family of four, and lots of happiness and joy, and everybody’s blissfully frolicking. And then my mum and dad get a divorce. None of which I saw coming, and there were lots of stories behind this, and I didn’t quite get it for a very long time. So I get married, and my brother gets married, and we have children. And we still speak. I mean, I speak to my mom every day, my dad probably a few times a week. I came back to the farm when I was, I think it was 36, must have been 36. I was pregnant with our first baby and my husband was away. So mum says can you come home for the weekend? I was like, absolutely. It was pretty good.
So we’re sitting around the kitchen table, and in walks my dad, they had been divorced for 15 years at this point, and my brother. So everybody sits down, and we’re having coffee, and mom brings up the lemon loaf, which is the universal sign of death. It’s really weird, and mum starts to cry, and dad starts crying. And dad says, we have to tell you kids something that we haven’t told anybody in 40 years. So I’m like, maybe dad is gay. Like, what possibly couldn’t I know about this man? So obviously, he’s not dying, if he’s known this for 40 years, or imminently. And he says, you have a sister; you have a full biological sister. Your mother and I got pregnant when we were in our teens, and because we grew up in a small town, very religious upbringings, we didn’t want to disappoint our parents. So we bound your mom’s belly and we found a home for unwed mothers, and your sister was adopted by a lovely family, and we were told very clearly by the nuns that we couldn’t find her. So we’ve sort of wondered for the last 40 years, what happened to her, and she’s found us.
So we were both like, holy mother! My dad was like: “Oh, Jode, you should see! She looks just like your mom. She sounds just like you.” I was like, what? Wow! What do you mean, you’ve talked to her? And my dad is like, would you guys like to meet her? In my head, I was like, Jesus! I mean, I was the oldest and the only daughter, now I’m a middle kid? And my sweet brother is like: Of course dad, of course we’d like to meet her. And he said: Great, she’s in the garage! Like a puppy.
Wow, my mouth is dropped! Yes.
I can’t even tell you. So this isn’t exact. She was on her way.
Just the same, though.
It’s the same. Because at what point, my dad was like, if you guys aren’t ready. Well, what were you supposed to say at this moment? So she drives up the driveway 20 minutes later, my brother and I are holding hands in our childhood’s living room, which we don’t do, generally speaking, my brother and I. I was like, what? What do you say to a sister? and he’s like, Oh, come on. Like, he’s like, maybe Hello. So I was like: Okay, good. Let’s start with that, that feels great. So she comes in. And honest to goodness, if we’re in the same room, you can’t tell the difference. Like, we are both loud and ridiculous, and she’s funny. She got an undergraduate in psychology. And we were at university the same time together, we lived six blocks from each other. She looks just like my mom. So she comes in, and we have this really interesting family dinner. My mum’s partner is there, and my dad’s partner, and we’re frolicking around this table.
That was, gosh, 13 years ago, and now we see each other often; we’re such good friends. Our children are just very connected; her son looks more like me than my sons do. Yeah, she’s the coolest, she really is. She has been the biggest gift, and we really appreciate that our story is quite unique. Sometimes adoptions don’t work out this way. But she’s been probably the biggest gift in terms of watching my parents navigate that connection and that reconnection. Often thinking about what it would have been like to know that piece of our story without our mum and dad still here to walk us through that. My brother’s response, her adoptive parents’ response to us.
I don’t know if this is the reason I got into this work, but certainly, this was the bow. It’s part of the first story I tell in my latest book, because it really is about, gosh, we are all just here walking each other home, and there’s so much about each other that we have no idea about. So yeah, I mean, it really then turned into a big love of, even before I knew about my sister, trauma. I worked with the police force, I was a civilian member of a police force, our national police force for a couple years. So I fell in love a lot about emotional regulation and disconnection, and what it means to do the walking, as a first responder, as a teacher, as a nurse, a health professional, how so many of us need the walkers in the biggest time of distress, and we do a very poor job of looking after the walkers historically; your profession, my profession, first responders, period. So I dove a lot into my masters in my PhD around first responder trauma. Then when I did my residency, I had to do rotation with kids, and I was like: Listen, I’m not a fan, I much prefer the big people. They said, you’re kind of like a little person, we think you’d be a good fit. So I did a bit of a postdoc in child psychiatry, and then spent 10 years on a lab psychiatric inpatient unit with kids. I learned some of the most incredible things about trauma and attachment and emotional dysregulation, and what it really takes to walk people home.
I mean, we had three kids. I met my husband when I was finishing my PhD, and he’s a farmer. I tried to land a hockey player and a golfer, and all those things didn’t work out. So I got myself a farmer, he’s a really nice guy. And we’ve got a spreadsheet for everything. He’s a feedlot nutritionist. He’s got a PhD in ruminant nutrition, which sounds boring, but I’m sure it’s exciting.
What’s ruminant nutrition?
How you feed calves. Yeah, brilliant, I’m sure it’s really difficult. But he’s a really nice guy. So we get married. He’s lovely, and we have three kids. So the first kid, I feel so confident with; he’s easy, everything’s fantastic. But I really miss my work. So I go back to work. And then I get twins. At 38, I get – thank you, Jesus – twins. So I have three kids under two, I don’t even like children, and I’m losing my mind. And he said, I know what’ll help you, let’s move closer to my mother. So I wake up in this little town in Alberta, and this is where we live now. We’ve lived here for, gosh, almost 11 years. The twins are now 10. Our oldest is 13. This has been the greatest gift. I started a little practice, I started to consult the schools. And then I started to write about it, and then I started to talk about it. And now I have three books, and I speak around the world, and I get to talk to cool people like you. So I still have a little practice. I’m just such a big believer in talking about how disconnected our stories can make us, our trauma and our experiences. I still so believe that anxiety and depression and all those things won’t kill you, but not talking about it might. We’ve never had such a lack of ability or access to be able to truly have connections to talk about our things.
Well, even as you’re giving us a sense of who you are, where you’re coming from, with the quote from Ram Das of we’re all walking each other home. I don’t know if I have it exactly right. But it seems like it encapsulates so much of what you’re describing. I know the Empowered Relationship Podcast is focused on intimate relationships. But I do believe there’s a bigger network that we’re talking about with connection, and hence, what you’re describing here really relates. In that, not only in the disconnect that happens, but that the reconnecting and the ability to have guidance, to be able to help assist, and to be able to walk someone through, is such a healing reparative thing that we have such ability to do. But perhaps shy away from, or don’t know what we could do or the power of it.
We don’t have a script. See, we’re not born with that.
“Connection is the easy part; reconnection is the hard part. And we know this in intimate relationship.”
I mean, Gottman is the guru, and he talks about that the number one predictor of couples who make it and couples who don’t, if we take it down to the bare minimum, is really your ability to repair in times of distress. The issue is, somebody needs to show you how to do that.
So if we had, let’s say two generations ago, even more proximity to our parents. Think about the square footage of the house that your grandparents lived in and where you are, and this refers to the house in which we raise our babies, is significantly different. In fact, it’s estimated, our great grandparents looked at their children 72% more of the time than we look at our babies. And what’s inherent in that process is how I fight with my partner, how I repair. If somebody had a knock down, shoot ’em out in your grandparents’ home, with three kids and two bedrooms, everybody knew about it, and when they repaired, everybody knew about it. But now, in our house that’s really big, our babies are in the basement, I’m texting somebody when it’s supper time. Because be goddamned if I’m going to go down those five steps myself, I’m going to text you when it’s supper time. So we lose that ability. And when Aaron and I have a fight in front of the kids, or we’re arguing with each other, what they don’t see necessarily is the text message that he sends an hour later that says I’m sorry, honey. They just see that we’re back on track with each other. We lose the nuances of navigating relationships. So it perpetuates then, their inability to have conversations with their friends.
If we think about how much time social media inundation happens, there’s very little opportunity. It’s not the media that kills us, the social media, that’s the problem. It’s how we use it that becomes the issue. It’s how we take time away to repair. Because we as big people have also been inundated by the media, and all day long, we’re exhausted. So I need a break from my children, and if you’ve got your iPad, and my husband got his Netflix show, I feel justified to settle in to learn how to launder money in the Ozarks in that particular evening. Because I’ve single-handedly saved the children of central Alberta today, and I’ve watched other things and been on Zoom meetings and done all these things. The coming together of family is no longer the purpose of filling up our souls, it’s actually just to decompress. That is so difficult in building relationship and skill to be able to then take into our dating relationships, or into then the next time that I step into somebody else’s relationship. What do you think about that?
Well, one of the things that’s happening, or what I’m thinking about as you’re describing this, is the accumulation. So if we have this, using Gottman’s language, a bid for attention, and we’re asking a question of our loved one, let’s say our spouse, and they’re occupied by watching a program or looking at their phone, and they’re not really that responsive, that is a lack of responding. Or some people might say just neutral or turning away. But it’s not a responsiveness. And so much of what we know about the research, especially as it relates to attachment research and bonds and feeling a sense of security, is having that ability to feel that responsiveness. So we have a small interaction where that bid was not responded to, that’s just one moment. And you’re talking about modern living when there’s so many moving parts in a given day, then we’re talking about weeks and years. I mean, it’s just pervasive, about all the moments of disconnect, and how it’s not necessarily built into our modern life to have the restorative connecting and bonding that fills our cup. Like, it’s more of a demand.
Yeah, and we haven’t even had time to make a new world. So Adam Grant talks about this, we’re playing by a set of rules that were established for a world that no longer exists. So if we look at the education system, or the justice system, I’m going to punish you when you make a bad choice in the hopes that you’re going to learn the behavior I want, which is all predicated on Watson and Skinner’s behaviorism. You make a good choice, I reward you. You don’t make a good choice, I punish you. As children, many of us were raised in this way. Kids should be seen and not heard. You pee on the potty; I give you a smarty. We understand that I need you. We’ve been raised in this way that says show me that you respect me, and then I give you the connection.
When we are in this place now where we’ve lacked proximity, for now, increasingly, over the last few generations, we see a group of people that are unable to bid successfully for connection, and there’s then a lack of response that then perpetuates the disconnect. You know what, I’m just going to text you instead of come over and visit. You know what, I’m just going to send an email. You know what, you work from home. The less opportunities we have to practice that. We think about emotion regulation and attachment. The relationship itself, the connection itself is the teacher. And if we’ve had lacks, that we increasingly lack that, how do you regulate emotion?
“The number one thing you can teach a child, the number one thing you want to look for when you’re gauging a relationship with a friend or a new partner, is their ability to stay calm in times of distress, to regulate emotion. The healthiest among us have the ability to regulate emotions and not lose their freakin’ mind.”
The only way, when you bring a baby home from the hospital, that they let you know what they need is they lose their freakin’ mind. And the job of big people is to welcome home, again and again and again. The more I walk you through that, show you how to regulate emotion; use your words, sharing is caring. No, no, no look at me. Unh-uh, baby girl, come here. The more I have a teacher, a coach, an aunt, a grandmother, who can walk you through those things, you start to create that language that then when somebody pisses you off at the schoolyard, you can be like: No, that’s not okay, I don’t like it when you do that. Versus I’m going to throw a punch at you. So if we have much more throat-punching happening, and we look at domestic violence.
We haven’t been able to internalize all of the support and the co-regulating, as you’re describing, that we can access, that we’re lost.
Yeah. So we do the only thing we have on board, which is fight, flight, and freeze. And we want to get back to that state of regulation. “You have wronged me. I don’t feel right in this relationship. So I’m going to tell you that.” Versus: “Jess, can we just talk about that for a second? When you said those things, I was worried that you might have meant I didn’t care. Versus: “You know what, Jessica? Go to hell! That is not what I said, you took it.” So when you don’t have that skill, and historically, women have been better at this. Women, generally speaking, have much more of an emotional language than men do. And we’re stepping into a time now where so many of our organizations, our institutions, our major players still have a penis. I mean, I often predicate this just to process. This is not about penises and vaginas. I mean, I have two sons and a daughter, and I think they’re both going to do amazing things. Our ability to be very conscious of the way that we speak in an emotional language to our boys, and walk our girls through this process, and however you identify, being able to have an emotional language becomes so critically important these days. So the best way we do that is face-to-face. The best way we do that is to step in and coach, and spend time with our nieces and nephews, and really on purpose, have the family dinner, go on the road trip, stay in the hotel room, be in that physical proximity. There will be no replication for it ever.
Turning off the devices. We think that we’re engaging in something that’s entertaining or fun, and sure, there’s a time and place. But not at the cost of what you’re describing, this face-to-face, being with one another. The facial expressions, the tone of the voice, the non-verbals, and what gets created out of that is profound.
It’s life-altering. I wonder about your thoughts about what happens, the degree of the mental health crisis. I mean, our countries are similar in so many ways, and so different in so many other ways. What is your biggest concern when you look at your practice now and the navigation of people trying to navigate relationships?
Well, most of what I focus on is what I shared with you and what we’re talking about here, is looking at what are the underpinnings, what are the core motivators for how people are feeling disconnected and what they’re longing for in their connection, and helping them access that. So that they can start to have a new way of relating, a new dance, a new dynamic where they can be in this responsiveness. Because most of the time, people are putting a lot of effort to articulate, to describe, and they’re not actually talking about the thing that really matters the most. So it ends up being this disconnect cycle that both people feel so pained by. Because typically, people’s moves, if you will, to get responsiveness, it’s perhaps maladaptive in the current state, which was adaptive if we look at their childhood and why those tendencies or those strategies were helpful at that time. But it’s uniquely just so surprising to me how often partners, their particular moves land with the other person in a very painful way. So it fits like a puzzle that they are injuring each other in their attempt to connect and seeking for this responsiveness. But they’re not sending very clear signals, they’re actually doing moves that hurt the other person, or the person is interpreting based on their experience. So it ends up being just this messy disconnect cycle. So really helping people unpack it, get to those core more vulnerable places to be able to send those clear cues, and have this type of connection that you’re referring to.
What I think is so interesting is, I mean, Harriet Lerner is one of my favorites, The Dance of Intimacy. When you know one dance step, and you just keep doing it, and then it’s not working, so you just keep dancing harder, and then you just think if you dance more forcefully in that same way. Versus that’s the whole point of therapy to me, is how do we then just take a look at that dance step, and can we learn a different way around it? “Ah, if you just do it like this, then we actually turn. If you just do it like this then, oh, now we can spin! Holy moly!” I think that’s the thing that becomes so critical about the stories which we come from, or even that that’s in our bones, and that we step in with. How do we get into that place more? I just don’t see any way around it. I think therapy is the most important thing on the planet, for every single person I’ve ever met in my life. It’s the fit with this sort of understanding somebody who can help you unpack that story or relook at that dance a little bit.
“This always gets me every time. Despite the fact that we’re neuro-biologically wired for connection, the hardest thing we’ll ever do is look into the eyes of the people we love.”
Particularly for couples’ therapy, my only job is to get them to look at each other. It is profoundly remarkable to me, every single day, how hard it is for people who’ve been married; they’ve been together for five years or 50 years, they procreated multiple times, they know everything about each other, they really want each other to win. There is a deep desire there to be loved. And when I just say, can you turn your chair just a little bit now and just look at your partner for me for a second? “Look at them? Huh, can I look at you?”
It is so amazing. When I ask people even when I speak: “So before we start today, I just want you to make eye contact with somebody in the room.” I mean, these are teachers and cops and people who have a lot of skill, and they’re looking at each other or they don’t; they just wait for the moment to pass. They look at me like this is stupid and ridiculous. Or they’ll look at each other, and their tongues are sticking out, and they’re doing all these things. I’m like, what is happening?
The discomfort is so, yes, you can cut it.
I love it, and we know this to be true. If you disconnect from an infant, they die. We are neuro-biologically wired for connection. We will never automate that. How come it’s becoming increasingly hard, and why, to the people that you love the most, why is that hard? Why as a therapist can I sit with anybody all day and be like: “Um hmm, yes, tell me more, okay.” I won’t break gaze. I’m in it. I’m so excited that you would give me this opportunity. I’m honored. And then at the end of day, I go home to my personal husband who we’ve been married for 15 years, and we had three kids together. He’s late and he’s exhausted, he comes through the door, and oh my gosh, the cows, they were just, whatever the frigging deal is. And I’m like, “I can’t even. You’re tired? You think you are tired? Do you know what I am?”
So the hardest thing we will do is look into the eyes of the people we love. It’s remarkable to me how easy it is to break it down to the necessity to get back into physical proximity with somebody that you love, even somebody you lead. Because the uniform nature relationship is really interesting to me, where I speak to teachers and farmers and first responders and funeral directors, it doesn’t matter to me, dads, moms, teachers. My slide deck never changes. The story is the same. If I work with NHL coaches and talk about how they’re going to be effective in leading their people, if I work for corporate America, or I get the opportunity to sit with six teachers in a classroom in Milwaukee who are really worried about the kids, same story.
“It is the same fundamental underpinning about emotional regulation and staying connected through the hard stuff that helps you rewrite the dance of leadership, of intimacy, of parenting, of all of those things.”
I mean, I feel like I don’t know anything most days, and then it’s just all so simple to me sometimes. Do you feel like that at all?
Well, as you’re describing your experience and inviting people to look at each other, I absolutely can endorse what you’re describing, that people have a lot of resistance in turning to their person, whether or not it’s about can you tell me what you see in them, in their faces, as you’re sharing? And that they’re anticipating, without necessarily looking. So what they actually can see, just the discomfort or the resistance to do that. Or even if I’ve ever been in a position where I’m inviting an exercise of eye gazing, which we know the research and some of the findings out of that. But even for a couple, like you said, who’s been together for, let’s say, 18 to 20 years, and I’ve even heard: “I’ve never done this before, we’ve never looked into each other’s eyes like this before.” So I absolutely agree with what you’re describing. I also just really think it’s beautiful that you’re saying how universal it is, how much we’re wired up for this. Again, the research is from cradle to grave, that we need this. We don’t ever become big people and stop needing this. This is so much a part of our fabric of being and thriving and surviving. So it’s critical.
I guess I’m curious, one of the things we’re talking about is just how much disconnection is happening, and maybe how we’re not even aware of how we’re perpetuating it and how it’s influencing us and our health and our relationship and our sense of family and community. And you’re also talking about how to reconnect, how to walk each other home. So is that part of your process, is to help people recognize all the places that perhaps they’re feeling discomfort around this or a resistance, or how many places that disconnect is occurring, and then also to invite them to start engaging in ways to reconnect? Is that part of what you’re offering here?
Well, yeah. I think so. I think it’s sort of what we do every day in therapy. But really, in my mind, it breaks down in three parts. We always want to jump to the fix. I think some of the spurious work that happens in our respective fields is that we really want to fix it, because we’ve always put a high emphasis on emotional regulation, on being well, being happy. If I ask a parent what do you want for your child, they often say, I just want them to be happy. For your partner, I just want them to be happy. If you’re no longer happy with me, then find somebody who makes you happy. Like, we get back to this elusive state of happiness, which is really ridiculous, because nobody is happy all the time.
That’s not the human experience, yeah.
Nobody wakes up and they’re like: “Jesus, I just love this body. I’m so grateful. This is what I thought 47 would look like. I’m so happy I married this feller, and I’m so happy, I’m so grateful for my children.” Nobody says that. I think that you can’t address what you don’t acknowledge. So, so much of it, I think the first part is really where we don’t spend a lot of time, is really unpacking all the reasons why we should, in this season, feel disconnected, feel depressed, or ungrateful, or anxious. Or what are those things, what are the contributors of the world?
So often in any talk, or even in any therapy session, I impact those things. There needs to be a space to put that down before we fix it, if we ever do. And so much of that work comes in acknowledging. Because I think when you’re acknowledged, you rise. So the first part is really, what are all the reasons that we got here? In Feeling Seen, the latest book that I wrote, it’s the biggest part of the book. There’s trauma and racism and colonization and grief and mourning and all of those, COVID that expedited this process exponentially. It’s okay if we’re here. It’s okay if we don’t feel better yet, if we’re still burnt out in our job, and we’re still wondering about our ability to be a good partner if we married the right person, or for a parent of the year. All of those things are okay. Can we hold space for those things, and the quick common experience that nobody feels like they’ve arrived?
And it’s painful to look at.
Which is why we want to jump to that next step. How do we get there? Okay, so what are the reasons, tell me the strategies. If you jump into that too soon, particularly as a therapist, you’re met with this. “Yes, but… I’ve already tried that. We’ve been in therapy a number of times. We’ve tried this relationship thing. I journaled, I went for a run, I did all of those things. It’s not working.” Which means we don’t understand the emotion. You can’t address what you don’t acknowledge. So that acknowledgement piece, particularly as therapists or teachers or helping professionals, period, parents, when you look at your own children, your own partner, we want to fix it when things aren’t good.
And one of the biggest, I think, things that I talk about all the time, is the importance, these days more than ever, of acknowledgement, of feeling seen in a moment. That we have the ability to give this away at any given moment, and it’s actually more healing typically for us than it is for them. Because to truly acknowledge another human being, you have to step out of your own internal locus of control. And the most anxious, traumatized, people who are experiencing the most distress in our life, tend to be, by virtue of biological safety, in this sense of emotional inward focusing, being very ego-syntonic. Which means then you miss everything else around you. And being able to simply acknowledge. The simple task of acknowledging another human today; looking at somebody else, giving a compliment, sending a text message, buying coffee for somebody behind you. It’s sort of tricky, but it really then calls you to be in this place of, even for a moment, noticing another. So there’s an emotional regulation that happens in your body. And when you truly then understand our ability to acknowledge each other, it gets back into this place of then, so then what? I think that’s not the answer to everything. Because the problem is, we will always mess it up again. So you don’t arrive.
So it’s this three-step process of: how did we get here, what is acknowledgement truly about, and then what happens when we get lost? Not if, but what happens when we get lost again? Because in that state of acknowledgement, when we’re really clear about our importance, our worthiness in relationship, our power in relationship, how critically important it is to look after our own bodies and our own selves, we will get into a place where we are awful and disconnected, and we eat nothing but chips, we feel like we’re unworthy of relationships. So it’s like, how’s this roadmap of how we got here, what do we do in the moment to sort of drop those shoulders, and then how do we stay there and get back there?
Yes. As you’re saying, life, and all of the different reasons and circumstances, will bring disconnect. It’s just a part, there’s no way to be 100% attuned all the time and be 100% connected all the time. So that ability to get back into connection, and to also have repair, the corrective experiences, are critical to our health and our well-being.
Can you speak a little bit about the acknowledgement? Because some people might think of acknowledgement as a reflective listening exercise, or let me repeat back to you what I hear. But when I’m hearing you describe it, there’s an emotional component that is vital to it actually having the impact that you’re describing.
Oh, my gosh. So this is maybe the greatest learnings of all time. So indigenous peoples in this country of Canada have taught me this more than anything. Because they have survived a cultural genocide, and in my position of privilege, I had no idea. That’s the definition of White privilege, you don’t know what you don’t know. So there’s a call for a land acknowledgement every time that we give a public address in this country. So many times I’ve heard people say: “Oh my God, how many times do we have to do this? We’ve already apologized. We’ve already acknowledged the issue.” And here’s what I’ve learned.
“Here’s the definition of acknowledgement. It is the act of bearing witness to. It is the act of holding space for. And it is not two things, but it must be one. It is not an apology. It is never a one-shot deal. But it must be genuine.”
So when we talk about, one of my favorite hockey coaches said this, you should see how fast I can get a kid to skate when I know the name of his dog. There’s so much, it is so profound when I think about that. Because when you truly have ever been acknowledged, somebody didn’t fix you or tell you what you should have been doing or what you needed to be doing, they noticed you. I mean, if you have a child and somebody sees you in the community, and they just say: “Can I talk to you for a second? I just want to tell you. Your kid is amazing. I don’t know what you’re doing, Mama, but you’re doing something right. I noticed him yesterday. I mean, the friends of my friends. I just wanted to tell you I think they’re pretty incredible.” What happens, after we get over the suspicion and we really want to confirm that they got the kid right, is if we believe it’s genuine and there’s no intent to garner anything from this, they are not looking for anything, two things happen. It’s contagious. So you lean in and your voice goes up a couple octaves. You go like, aww!
It is this interesting human experience that acknowledgement really provokes a sense of vulnerability and safety, and the ability to do that is predicated on emotional regulation. So when I think about my work as a psychologist, it really is about how do we get people back into the physical presence of their body, so that they can get back to the best parts of themselves, which is where acknowledgement lives. Our ability to acknowledge each other is predicated on the safety we feel in our own bodies.
I want to chime in as it relates to intimate relationship. Because so often, I think partners are attempting to get into repair when they’re dysregulated, and not emotionally regulated and grounded. So part of what you’re describing is, this genuine ability to acknowledge in a really sincere attuned way requires emotional regulation. That’s why sometimes, as you talk about: Oh, that didn’t work, or I tried that. This is key.
It is so critical. I think so much of the time, we often try to find strategies, like deep breathing, journaling. All of those things are really wonderful in their own right. But you can do all the yoga and eat all the kale you want, and if there is not a sense of physical safety in your own body, or the acknowledgement of what it means when you’re in the presence of certain other people, maybe all other people. If your body isn’t in a state of emotional regulation, it will be very, very difficult to do the work. It’ll be very difficult to do the healing. Which is often why when we get second relationship, people say to me: “Can you just see my kid? I really need to bring my husband to this talk.” Which may all be very true. As a child psychologist, when I worked as a child psychologist, I rarely, rarely, rarely see kids in isolation. I think it’s a waste of time.
It is, I agree. Do you want to say why, for people listening? Just because there’s a system that the child is living in.
I can give you the gold standard treatment. So I could see your kid for 90 minutes, you could pay me 500 bucks a session for the rest of their life. And if I send them back into a dysfunctional system, into a war zone, to a story that is perpetuated, it is a waste of time. And it further perpetuates the idea that the kid is the problem, and that’s the story in their own head: I have to be delivered to therapy every week to be worked on, and to come out to see if I am powerful enough to shift this whole system. And no single person is, particularly a child. So it becomes so detrimental to do that in isolation. Now, will I do assessment in isolation? Yes, I want to know your story. You tell me the things. “What is it like to be in your family? Draw me a picture of your dog. Tell me about your mama. What is the best part of your dad?” I love to know those things. But if I’m going to do the work of therapy, I will only be able to do that most effectively when I have as many players as I possibly can on board.
So I think that none of us are in isolation. So, so much about this, with kids in particular, they taught me the most when I’m thinking about that in organizational stress, when we work with teams or communities. I don’t really need your players or your frontline workers as much as I need the people doing the holding. So when we do that work in organizational stuff, again, police systems are so fascinating to me, because I think police officers do some of the holiest work on the planet. You only call a police officer when somebody is emotionally dysregulated. Holiest work. They’re there when people are shooting and killing and fighting each other, when domestic violence is an issue, when you’ve just been robbed, all those things. And the question is, I want them to be regulated enough to walk us home. If there’s no system in place to be able to look after the walkers, which there isn’t in the vast police departments in your country and mine, and there are zero programs for first responder spouses, and you’re only as okay as the people who hold you. So before I die, I will perpetually change the Royal Canadian Mounted Police by implementing a family system program into training, and a support network for spouses that is trauma-informed and relationship-focused. That is when the people doing the work will be healthier.
Okay, so thank you for describing just what we’re experiencing collectively, especially here in the West in Canada and the US as you’re describing these two countries. And how the holding and just the support for the health of the system, as you look at the child and family, and also for first responders, officers, and the family and the couple, that there’s a holding. And as I was bringing up any couple that is dysregulated, if I’m hearing you correctly, you’re saying there needs to be support to walk that couple home.
Exponentially. And there remarkably isn’t, particularly in the workforce. We spend more waking hours with the people we work with, typically, in many professions, than we do with the people we go home with. And there is zero infrastructure. In fact, the work-life balance discussion is very much about how do you keep them separate. I think that historically, that made it so much worse; you go to work, you leave your bag at the door, and you come home. When we had a safety net to come to, this is the family system, it was supposed to fill this back up. That’s a set of rules that were established for a world that no longer exists. Now it’s not that you need to know everything about your employees, or that it needs to become some big kumbaya issue. But you need to understand that if the spouse feels acknowledged, particularly in this work where we’re doing human services work, like teaching.
The two most important professions, in my mind, are first responders and teachers. And we perpetually, particularly in your country, do a horrific job, not your, I mean our respective countries, of looking after our teachers. Yet, they spend more waking hours with our kids, our dysregulated babies. If they’re dysregulated and feel unseen, our kids don’t stand a chance. So where’s the best intervention? It’s not the children. What are we doing? Why aren’t we looking after the big people? When I go get to speak to teachers, I often say, do you know how holy you are? Do you know that if you can get three students in your head, right now in this moment, in this gym, where had to come to PE all day, I promise you, the ones that are the life sucking pirus, or the ones that threatened to hurt you, or the ones that remembered your birthday, maybe even the ones who died. They or their families think about you 10 times as much. You are woven into the trajectory of so many stories. And the reasoning behind all of this is, when you are acknowledged, you arrive.
We are wired to serve each other. But when we stop acknowledging and seeing each other, it gets exhausting and hard. And when people come to us and say we should defund you because you’re pieces of shit. Which is true. If I haven’t looked after you, and I only serve emotionally dysregulated people, I get defensive and hateful and othering. So the answer isn’t then to further punish the people doing that. It is, how do I then look after the people who I will perpetually need to be walkers? We will not eradicate mental health issues. We will not eradicate emotional dysregulation. We won’t. This is part of growing and learning. We will all get to places of emotional dysregulation. Who do we have in place? How are we looking after the people that have said: “For certain parts of my life, I want to be the walker, as a therapist, as a nurse, as a physician, as a police officer, as a firefighter, whatever that is.” How do I hang on to those professions so that we can do the walking? Because the dysregulation that happens in our day to day lives is only increasing exponentially. That’s the data we know to be true. Child maltreatment, domestic violence, all of those things, suicide.
Highest rate of suicide in your country and mine right now is middle-aged men. People said, how come? Who has nowhere to put it? How many times have we said this? “Suck it up! Boys don’t cry. You’re fine. You got it.” And in a couple’s relationship, she always wants to talk about things. The dance tends to be the pursuer and the connector. I’m a huge lover of Emotional Focus Therapy. And when we talk about, often in that place, it’s like, can I give you more skills to not run when I need something from you, can I give you more skills to back off and gently pursue when you need to fill that place? And you’re much better at that typically when you have an emotional language. If you come to me and I have three words to describe my emotions: happy, sad, and pissed off. And you say to me: what just happened here, you’re being such a jerk? “Well, I’m just mad. Leave me alone!” If I can say to you: “Jess, we were at your mom’s, and you embarrassed me in front of everybody. I felt like such a failure. Your mom was looking at me like what kind of husband are you to her.” If I have that much emotional language, if I have some words to say embarrassed and frustrated and humiliated, you’re like: “Oh, that’s not what I meant to do. Shit!”
But if I don’t have that ability, if I have less and less time with people, if my children, the children of today have less and less time learning those nuances, they will struggle significantly to stay in those relationships. So now we’re going to have conversations around: You know what, maybe people shouldn’t be in long-term relationships. You know what, maybe we should have multiple relationships to meet those needs. You know what, affairs really make sense to me. Because you know what, I just need the need to be seen. We’re talking about the difference between a breadth of relationship and a depth of relationship.
“A depth in a relationship requires emotional regulation, it requires vulnerability, and it often requires at least one of them, one partner, having an emotional language. An ability to pull you back to the table to say: Unh-uh, come back here, let’s re-examine that story.”
If you don’t have that ability, and many of us don’t in our couples’ relationships, it is that therapist that often that is their job is to be like: Okay, let’s talk about this one more time. So it is that bridge between that lack of an emotional language that’s simply our job. It’s never to fix or to judge or to make sense of why you had an affair, and why you’re an idiot, and why you shouldn’t have been in this abusive relationship. It is so much about how did we get here? That is the question.
Thank you. You’re giving us some real nuggets, and probably really key principles, around the walking and the holding. Which I’m getting a sense, it’s the slowing down, it’s being really present, it’s seeking to understand, it’s looking for language to bring congruency and some distillation around what’s happening here.
Yeah, didn’t you just describe emotional regulation, didn’t you just describe the best parts of ourselves? When you look at your child and you see them using their words and being kind, that’s who they are. When you fall in love with somebody, you go on a second date generally because somebody is emotionally regulated; you typically decide not to go on a third date if they’re not.
Unless you need to do some really deep work and you’re not aware of your unconscious tendencies.
If there’s something going on there, I would love that case. The issue so much of the time is, you are at the best parts of yourself when you’re emotionally regulated. Part of my job, when I think about building this community, is how do we give people information to get back to the best parts of themselves? It’s as simple as things like this. Drop your shoulders. That’s it. In this moment, wherever you’re listening or watching us, you just drop your shoulders.
Most of the time today, so many of us operate like this. Our bodies are in this, we’re ready for it. Because the COVID might come back, or my boss is going to be an asshole, or I forgot about this, or I just scrolled social media and I’m like: God, I need to drink more collagen. We do like this. So oftentimes, that first step, I put a note; I have a note on my computer, I have it on my bathroom mirror, I say this to my team all the time. Hey, let’s drop our shoulders, wiggle the toes, relax the jaw. Let’s get that body back into that place.
I mean, this is the premise of Eastern philosophical practice. How do we get back into that sense of self that is in all of us? I say this all the time, I’ve assessed and treated over a thousand kids in this country, and I’ve never, not one time met a bad kid. I met a lot of emotionally dysregulated kids. I mean, I’ve visited people in jail, I’ve been with couples who’ve been in domestic violence situations. I’ve never met a bad human. I’ve met a lot of emotionally dysregulated humans, who have rarely been seen for how amazing they are. And when you do that, and you provide some sense of feeling what that’s like. I mean, that’s the definition of empathy. But when you feel that somebody else sees you finally, you then have the capacity to give that away. If you’ve never felt that you can’t give it away. Empathy is a skill; you have to feel. Most of the time that’s the purpose of therapy is can we allow others, both of you, to feel seen in this place where you felt so unseen by the person who has tended to matter the most to you in life?
Wow. Well, I know there’s so much more here you have to say. And I just want to acknowledge that as you’re describing, I’m having a lot of imagery in my mind around seeing children when they have felt seen, or there’s some difficult circumstance and there’s this ability to hold or walk them into this place of coming home, and what emerges from that. This sense of like, it shifts, and then they’re bouncing away, and they’re themselves. Or even a couple that has been in such disconnect, and there’s an ability to find that regulation, find that connection, and it moves through all the years of pain and sorrow and disconnect and despair. It’s like they can move mountains. So what comes from this repairing and finding and coming home is such health. Again, it’s not this static place, as you’ve described. It’s coming and putting this into iteration. Because we’re going to get off track, we’re going to get lost, and we’re going to have to find home and find our center and find each other again. But the importance of this connection, it’s the most important thing.
It happens with us first, before we’re really able to give it away. So it is so interesting I think, that’s Bobby’s original theory, it’s secure base and safe haven. So how do we know that that is a continuous cycle? You won’t always land there. You will always flip your lid. Dan Siegel talks a lot about flipping your lid from an emotional perspective, and I love that. I mean, babies flip their lives all the time. Our job is to walk them home. And we do this in adolescence. Oh my gosh, I have three middle-schoolers in this moment, and the amount of lid-flipping. And I’m a phenomenal human. I wrote a best-selling book called Kids These Days, I think it is the best parenting teacher book on the planet. I really do feel like that. If you watch me with my own personal children, you wouldn’t buy the book. Because I wrote that when I was emotionally regulated. When we are emotionally regulated, we know what we’re supposed to be doing. We’re good at it. I mean, my husband is so lucky to be married to me when I’m emotionally regulated. When I lose my freakin’ mind, that poor guy! He could have done much.
I think this is the point, is we all get that way, and how do we just hone that skill of understanding what sets us off, what gets us into these places, what in that dance gets us there? Why does one kid make us want to throw punches at the world, where the other one, you’re just like, you’re my favorite. Because there’s a story wrapped up in all of those things. When I’m calm, I’m a phenomenal mom. When I’m calm, I’m a phenomenal leader. And there will be times where I won’t be; there’ll be times when it’s necessary that I shouldn’t be. How do we get back there is always the question?
Yes. Well, for people listening that want to connect with you more and your books and what you have to offer, what would you encourage? What would you like to invite people to do?
Well, I would love your incredible community to access ours too. I mean, I’m all over social. DrJodyCarrington.com is our website. I mean, we have a podcast that’s going to launch in the fall, called Everyone Comes From Somewhere. I think similar to you, Jessica, it’s really about courses and books and places, where in my own life, I’ve been so lucky enough to be able to put this into some words that I think really resonate with people. So I would just love for people to come check that out. If we can help, we’d love to.
Yes. And what might people find on your website? You said courses and your books, do you want to just reiterate and remind us what your two books are?
Yeah, so I have three. I have Kids These Days, and that’s a book I wrote for parents and teachers. Then I wrote specifically with a teacher, a book called Teachers These Days, around some specific classroom management stuff. And then, Feeling Seen was published by HarperCollins in January, and we just did a big book tour around it. It’s really about how do we stay connected in this lonely world? So I take you through those things that we talked about today. Then I do workshops every month, where you can just jump on, and for 90 minutes, we just talk about a mental health topic. Making this conversation around mental health and emotional dysregulation so much more accessible is really the goal. So that’s what you’ll find when you find us.
Wonderful. Well, I’ll make sure to have all of those links on today’s show notes. Thank you so much for what you’re doing in the world, and thank you for sharing your valuable time with us here today.
Thank you for having me. It was a joy.
Signing Off
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Do you find yourself reacting in certain ways that you can’t quite explain or notice that you feel more emotion than you would expect for the situation? Have you ever wondered why certain patterns persist across generations in your family? The complex web of family history, with its unspoken stories and unresolved traumas, can leave an indelible mark on our lives.
In a world where we strive for personal growth and healthier relationships, it’s crucial to delve into the depths of our family tree and uncover the hidden influences that shape our behaviors and emotions.
In this episode, we delve into the profound connections between our family trees and our personal growth. From understanding the “ancestral alarm clock” to recognizing patterns of codependency and rediscovering our authentic selves, this episode offers actionable steps and resources to navigate the intricate journey of healing and growth through ancestral awareness.
Whether you’re seeking to break free from generational patterns or unlock a deeper understanding of yourself, this conversation provides a captivating exploration of how our past shapes our present and future.
Johanna has been connected to the world of separation and divorce for decades, originally due to her personal situation, then as a systemic therapist focusing on restoring relationships for the past 12 years. Johanna is the founder of The Family Imprint Institute with an international private practice.
In this Episode
4:47 Introduction to Johanna Lynn’s journey: From personal curiosity to professional expertise.
9:06 Unmasking familiar patterns: The importance of fresh perspective in relationship dynamics.
14:12 The link between language and the body: Tracing patterns from thoughts to somatic sensations
19:50 Empathy and understanding in addressing subconscious influences.
30:48 Ancestral Alarm Clock: Life Stages as Opportunities for Healing and Growth.
37:52 Balancing autonomy and intimacy.
42:51 Sustaining connection through art and symbolism
47:47 Navigating complex family structures.
Your Check List of Actions to Take
- Explore Your Family Tree: Investigate your family history, looking for patterns, unresolved issues, and traumas that may have been passed down through generations.
- Pay attention to the language you and your family members use, as it can provide insights into hidden dynamics and emotions that impact your relationships.
- Regularly take time to reflect on your own behaviors, reactions, and triggers to identify potential connections to family history.
- Create Visual Reminders: Display family photos or symbols that remind you of your family lineage, helping you stay connected to your roots and triggering awareness.
- Strive to be your true self in relationships, even if it challenges family norms, allowing for genuine connections without sacrificing your identity.
- Set Boundaries: Recognize and establish healthy boundaries to avoid over-giving or sacrificing your well-being for others’ needs, thus maintaining your sense of self.
- Work with therapists, coaches, or experts who specialize in family dynamics and ancestral healing to gain deeper insights and tools for growth.
Mentioned
It Didn’t Start with You: How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are and How to End the Cycle (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
About Banyan (*Wikipedia) (article)
Relationship Map To Happy, Lasting Love
Connect with Johanna Lynn****
Websites: johannalynn.ca
Facebook: facebook.com/groups/1470185283292404 | facebook.com/johanna.lynn.54
YouTube: youtube.com/channel/UC98HkGzauNSSHYfmIA4fVuA
Instagram: instagram.com/thefamilyimprint_institute
Pinterest: pinterest.ca/family_imprint
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/johannalynn
Connect with Dr. Jessica Higgins
Facebook: facebook.com/EmpoweredRelationship
Instagram: instagram.com/drjessicahiggins
Podcast: drjessicahiggins.com/podcasts/
Pinterest: pinterest.com/EmpowerRelation
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/drjessicahiggins
Twitter: @DrJessHiggins
Website: drjessicahiggins.com
Email: jessica@drjessicahiggins.com
About Today’s Show
Johanna Lynn, thank you so much for joining us here today.
It’s wonderful to be with you, Jessica.
Yes. I am very excited about this topic that I’m sure for many listeners, you’ll be able to shed light on. Because it can be confusing when we talk about the subconscious or even unconscious tendencies. I’m really excited about what we’re going to talk about today.
Great, me too!
Yeah. Well, before we get started, I’m curious, you have a personal story that prompted you to be investigating this more and even supporting people. Would you be willing to share a little bit about what got you interested in supporting people in this way?
Yeah, absolutely. I think even as a young person, I was always very curious about why people do what they do, why we choose certain partners, why some habits we just can’t seem to give up even though they’re not friendly to us. So I was always that way minded. My first relationship was very much like a roller coaster. I think we learned so much about ourselves in the contrast of what we actually don’t want and what maybe isn’t so healthy. That relationship continued on, we were married for five years, and it ended hitting a brick wall in my finding out about his affair. The affair was really a symptom of all the things that weren’t working, that I think I was too afraid to see and really admit at the time. I had a lot of my own family history that I just wanted this relationship to work, and just believed I had to find a way, even though there were so many red flags, it was piling up to the ceiling with the red flags. So the affair was that breaking point for me, where the trust has been broken and I don’t know how to go forward from here.
Wow! Well, everything you’re sharing, I resonate with. I want to say, and I will also go in my own journey, that my own struggles led me to do a deeper dive and come into contact with things that I would say were rather subconscious or unconscious. I had been doing a level of work, mind you, but it took me on a deep, deep dive, which I’m so, so grateful for. I will also echo the sentiment that relationship can be one of our greatest teachers and an invitation to really turn towards that. The other thing that I’m hearing you speak to is just such an awareness around whatever our mindset is around relationship and where we are culturally, and the collective around wanting to feel successful or wanting it to work, and what we might focus on and also be ignoring or omitting. So there’s a real invitation in the way that you’re describing of like, let’s look at this, let’s really open this up. Let’s look at the family tree, because there is so much that is interconnected.
Yeah.
“I often will say, red flags can be so hard to spot or do anything about when they’re just an extension of the familiar. So we don’t even really hold them as a red flag.”
It’s just like: “Oh yeah, my partner slams the door or freaks out about the little things, because that’s what maybe we grew up with.” It doesn’t mean familiar is healthy, and we want to look at it with new fresh eyes.
That’s beautiful, I love that! For you and the work that you’re doing, how do you begin to help someone look at this when it has been so familiar? It’s like, so many times clients are like: “It’s just the water I’ve been swimming in. I never questioned it. Or it’s the air that I breathe. It wasn’t some thinking that I had a lot of contrast.” To your point, the contrast really does help us see things more clearly. So how do you start helping people look at these subconscious or unconscious influences?
Yeah. I joke that I’m a bit more like a detective than I am really a therapist or coach, that that’s my main hat. Because I start off and I build a three-generation genogram. Typically, I’ll do it for both sides of the partnership. So there’s such a clarity of why patterns are coming up, why the same arguments, why the stuck points are just not moving. My clients really are shocked that they’ve tried other therapy, they’ve tried other approaches, and there’s just light bulb moment after light bulb moment when you start to look at it in the really big context, where you’re really widening the view to see why they’re stuck.
Well, I’m sure our work will fit very beautifully together. I tend to focus a lot on the early attachment system that gets developed and those relational patterns. It’s been on my radar for years, but I recently read Mark Wolynn’s It Didn’t Start With You, and I was like, oh my gosh! To your point, if we don’t look at some of these family intergenerational, what’s been passed down, we could do all this beautiful therapeutic work, but there could be something that we’re replicating because of our parents’ or grandparents’ trauma.
That’s it. I like to think of it like there’s a force behind all of us, an invisible force, that ends up shaping how we show up in relationship. To your point, this is where our attachment styles come from. Yet, how do we change it in a constructive way that doesn’t feel like hard work every conversation, but we just begin to change in a way from the recognition that our parents wouldn’t want us to carry what’s broken in them, our grandparents wouldn’t want us to stay stuck where they were. That there’s this evolution and getting more and more freedom as we move through the generations. As we do this work, we also protect our own children. It kind of comes to completion with us.
Yes, and it’s for the health of the whole system. Coming back to looking at the system, our parents or grandparents, there’s no disloyalty when we really look at the overall health, that we actually can be bringing honor when we can bring some of that metabolizing the trauma or the healing. Because one of the things that’s really common, I’m sure you would agree, in humanity, is when there’s trauma or injury or some really extreme hardship, it’s easy to want to pretend or make it go away, or even be quiet or secret about it, even horrific things.
That’s right. You mentioned Mark Wolynn’s book that it really showcases, I really like the case studies that he brought in. That it’s as if, the more we keep it a family secret, it becomes almost like this snowball rolling down the hill that just gets bigger and faster as it moves through the years.
“A lot of the times, even if we can give an age-appropriate story and understanding to our kids about what might have happened in the past, we’re equipping them to understand maybe why they have fear about certain things, why they’re sensitive about other things. We’re helping them to understand sort of the lay of the land in the family system.”
Oh, my goodness! I will just speak personally, that when I’ve done my own trauma, much of it was even preverbal, not having a lot of language or explicit memory. It’s been so, so helpful, and also to look at the lineage of that. So how do you help people start to investigate or explore the family tree? Because they might know certain things. It’s amazing to me, there might be certain facts or knowing, but it doesn’t necessarily capture the emotional tone or the lasting way in which somebody related to that trauma. Can you speak a little more about that?
Well, it’s a little bit like what you said earlier, that the fish doesn’t know they’re in water. It’s all they know. So there’s this piece where, like: “Yeah, I was in an incubator for my first month of life. Or yeah, my mom had to go right back to work after I was born. Like, what’s wrong with that?” So we just don’t recognize, because we lived it, the impact that that has and how we feel in relationship. It’s like, intimacy brings up all of those things that have been recorded in the body. It’s preverbal, we didn’t make sense of. It was just our experience. Now we’re coming from that reference point, as we react and conflict, as we might make meaning in our mind about what our partner has done or said. It all comes from that very early history background.
So from the three-generation genogram, I’m looking for: where did love stop flowing, where was there a break and trust, where am I even unconsciously repeating what happened with my parents? Because there’s this unconscious loyalty that runs through the family, this feeling like who am I to have it better or have more love than my parents could, or even make more money or have more success? It’s a little bit like a family glass ceiling; we call it a family speed limit in this work. Can I have more vitality and health, where is that stop point?
“It’s about starting to look at where our family has shaped us, that we just haven’t looked at because it’s our family, because we’ve lived in it. It’s so darn familiar that we can’t see where it might be messing things up for us today.”
I’m getting a sense, my own experience professionally is that some people are a little more primed or a little bit more ready to start doing this work. Would you agree?
Definitely. I think some people come to me because the other spouse is insisting, or their sister got some amazing changes, and they’re kind of putting their baby toe in. They’re not so sure. And what I really have come to appreciate about this work is it really rests on the facts of the family. We’re not pulling anything out or making anything up. It’s sort of this place of: “Hey, you know how you just described your partner, those are the exact same words you shared about your mom.” So this piece that you think is a relationship issue, is actually kind of a body memory piece, where you lost trust with your mom, or the estrangement that you have with your dad. It’s almost like life says, “I’m going to serve it up again, how do you want to work with it this time?” Well, a lot of the times, if there’s a resistance, or just a natural, like: “Ooh, this hurts, this is a little too close to the heart.” It’s really just looking at the common thread between the present and what is in the family.
I like that a lot. So to reflect what I’m hearing, you say there could be two paths, or maybe many more paths to this inquiry. That if we were to map the family genogram, the family tree, that we could ask questions, and it could be very illuminating to some of the areas that we haven’t maybe given as much attention to, that could be really supportive and healing. You’re also speaking to what our current complaints are, or what our current challenges are, that can be signposts or indicators that we’re participating in perpetuating things that are familiar.
You will probably recognize this also as a healthcare professional, is we give everything away with how we describe what’s going on. So over the years, I’ve learned to listen, how are you describing the common complaints in your relationship, and now I’m kind of attuned to, is that you’re living life like, or the relationship is going like your parents and where they had challenges? It’s this more of what I call in my work a breaking the bond, where it’s more of an early attachment break and now the things that went on, that we couldn’t resolve because we were babies, we were toddlers, are now showing up in our marriage. That it’s less of a relationship issue, and it’s more of a childhood injury piece that we’ve got to work with, at a body level.
So you’re saying language, and you’re also saying somatic, a felt sense body sensation.
Yeah, I just think they go together. If we only lead with one, we’re missing a huge component. For me, I really need to understand. I need to have that mental component before I can almost filter down into the body, before I can soften into something else. So a big part of where I lead my clients is, sometimes even in the three generation genogram creation, it’s like: “Oh, so that’s why my previous marriage didn’t work out. Oh, that’s why I feel so amped if my partner goes away on business, and I’m just unsettled.” That we’re sort of giving meaning to some of those body sensations that maybe the person has been making themselves wrong for, or thought: “Gosh, haven’t I done this work, aren’t I over this?” It’s not really about that. It’s about, again, understanding the context. Let’s gather that bigger picture so that we’re not stuck.
In my experience too, when there’s an awareness and bringing empathy, and the more conceptual of understanding how this got developed, and like you said, in early upbringing and then as children perhaps, or young ones negotiating the family dynamics, that we learn to adapt certain strategies to get through. Although, perhaps when we’re in adulthood, they’re maybe not needed, or aren’t as necessary, or aren’t as optimal for our health and well-being. As we bring awareness to those tendencies, then we have some ways in which we can work with that. There’s the empathy. There’s also the capacity of like: “Oh wow, I didn’t get the support in this particular way, or I didn’t get the guidance, or I didn’t have the safety to feel like my emotional experience, there was space for that, or that could be seen and attuned to.” So typically, for people, there’s an awareness around it, there’s an empathy around it, and then it can start to take care of those parts a little bit more. Would you like to say anything about just even acknowledging it, and the emotional shifts that can occur when we start to identify these old breaks or challenges or traumas?
I think you bring up such an important point. Because if we aren’t thinking in that way, we automatically lean almost that emotional weight onto our partnership, and it can really collapse the whole thing. It’s almost like what mom or dad wasn’t able to give me, I demand it from you. Sometimes we pull those needs in, in some pretty unhealthy ways. So we really want to recognize: “Okay, I’m feeling amped that my partner is looking at his phone or off on another golfing weekend, and I’m feeling like I’m less important.” Okay, so yes, that is something we approach in the relationship, obviously. But best if we can have our time to really recognize why is this such a charge for me? Where am I in time with this? Why is this so familiar? Then being able to do our own work around: “Gosh, I just came home from school one day, and Dad no longer lived with us. Then I saw him one weekend, sometimes only once a month. So there’s this sense of anything can happen at any moment, and now it’s just changed, and I didn’t have any way to deal with that.” So if that’s rolling over into our relationship, and it does, we’ve got to be able to clean up our side, so that when we go into the conversation, it’s really just about the golf, it’s really just about the desire to spend more time together. So that we’re not coming from a “you need to fill what has been left over from the hurt, from my experience.”
I mean, just what you’re describing is so important. Because one, this could be another indicator. When we can feel a level of charge that might be more intense than what we would normally experience, that could be a good indicator that there might be a little more happening. Would you agree?
Definitely. So it’s not that the desire to have more time with your partner isn’t real and true and in the now, but the way we respond to it, it’s almost like, what else is this connected to, and is there a way I can approach this that feels a bit more present, and how can I really take full responsibility of healing my side? It’s like that beautiful Ram Das quote: “The best way that I can love you is to work on myself, and the best way that you can love me is to work on yourself.” It feels sort of a bit maybe independent and each on our own sides. But truly, it allows us to come together with greater strength. Because I accept, as your partner, as much as I’d love for you to heal that stuff with your mom, there’s nothing I can really do about that. That’s your journey and your path, and you need to do it at your own rate and willingness. It’s almost like, if we love someone who’s in active addiction, we can’t make them be ready to let it go. So sometimes walking in the path with our partner at different rates of readiness to deal with this stuff, that can be another hard part of growing in relationship. So can I put all the focus back on myself? That changes everything!
Well, when I so often am seeing a dynamic, if we’re talking about a monogamous relationship with two people, and you have each individual and their particular experience and journey. As you’re describing, if they can each have awareness and contact with themselves, and also do, one way of looking at it would be the emotional hygiene. If there’s a bunch of stuff that is blocking or interfering with their ability to send clear cues or be more exposed and make themselves more visible, it’s like there’s a level of clarity. I like to think of the analogy, I heard this, I can’t remember years and years ago, the analogy of cleaning your windshield when you’re driving. Like, if you just let a bunch of stuff accumulate as you’re on your journey, it makes sense that there’s a lot of stuff that would debris and various things that would get on your windshield. That’s part of the driving experience when you go a long distance, you’re going to accumulate. So if we don’t do some hygiene, we’re going to lose visibility; we’re not going to be able to see, and we’re not going to be able to interact with where we’re going, and all of the things.
So if we look at these two individuals and their ability to engage and see the other, I can be so much more present, to use your word, about what is in the here and now, and what’s happening for my person, and being able to see more clearly. I’m going to be in a much better position to do that if I’m in a solid clear place myself. Granted, this is a process that we don’t ever arrive at, that it’s a journey. But the more that we can participate in that, the more the interaction and the interconnection between these two individuals, we’ll be more present, we’ll be more in the here and now.
Exactly. Just like we don’t put the windshield wipers on once in a lifetime journey, we’re coming back to this. But it’s that intention: I’m going to bring my open heart, I’m going to bring my vulnerability, and maybe from that systemic perspective, I’m going to bring the context, the context of my history and the context of yours. So that there’s this sense of what shaped you, I’m not going to take personally. It’s just a part of you. Then we can respond differently.
Oh gosh, such difficult work! It’s so profound and offers so many gifts, and I find that there’s many layers. It’s not just one layer and like, oh, I’ve done that. It’s just a deepening, in my own experience with my husband and just what’s evolved over the many, many years. Also, Johanna, I’m thinking about it, this keeps echoing in my mind, people perhaps who are like, “I don’t know that I need to do this work. I don’t know that I need to go back in my family.” Because I do think in a lot of ways, especially in the West and US, there’s such an individual focus. Even as we’re talking, it’s like, how can I take care of my side and stay in my lane and take care of my lane? But we’re also talking about an interconnection with our family and what’s been passed down. So for people who might question whether or not they need to do this, do you feel like everybody needs to do this? Do you feel like it’s helpful for any person? Or how do you typically approach that question?
I think our life leads us to the clues. Am I ready? Am I walking down the path of divorce? Or am I going to look at what I need to do to repair this? Because the darn windshield, I can’t see out of it anymore. Because I’ve just let so many things build up under that proverbial rug, we just haven’t really addressed it. So I do certainly come across those people that think: “Well, I don’t want to go back, or I’ve done that in another way.”
“I just really go back to the facts, which is, chromosomally, epigenetically, we are half our mom, and we are half our dad. It truly is like we’re operating from a blueprint, and so much of what maybe they weren’t able to resolve emotionally or understand or come to terms with, we have imprinted in our very DNA.”
So we might think: “Well, whatever! I haven’t talked to my mom since I was 10. Or my dad left when I was eight.” Well, that’s actually even more of a pronounced reason as to why you might need to do this. Because it’s so much that unconscious embedded impact is running things from behind for you. That pain or that defense is kind of like in the driver’s seat of your life or of your marriage, and it has much more of an influence than even maybe we realize.
Oh my gosh, yes! I will just say, in my own iteration of this, that it was so much a part of me. I’ve heard Harville Hendricks talk about the picker and the amygdala, the part of our brain that stores all the information of where we’ve ever been hurt, injured, or felt betrayed, or whatever. Especially when we talk about these early fundamental years, that we will likely replicate or have this picker out of the field of awareness, that like: Oh, I recognize that! I think I might be able to resolve that pattern. Thus, I’m going to choose this person.” But if we’re not conscious, then we’re likely going to just put it on repeat. So to your point, that we can be in these patterns and continually experiencing the dynamic that we are challenged by, unknowingly, without the conscious awareness.
Very well said, that’s absolutely true. And what’s so interesting about bringing up the amygdala, that emotional center of the brain, it’s online and aware by seven months, gestation. So even us as infants, it’s sort of like: “Hmm, I’m aware of this family I’m going to be born into. Do I need to be the quiet baby? Do I need to be the good baby? Does mum and dad have three other kiddos before me, and so I better not have too many needs?” We’re all organizing around how do I belong? How can I be loved? Because that’s our survival. So all of that is also stored. That symbiotic connection we have with mom, it all begins in utero.
Yes! For people listening, I wonder if it would be helpful for you to speak at all about what this healing work could look like, for some that are interested in approaching this work.
The good news for many people who think maybe, is I typically work with clients about three to four times. The work is a deep dive, it’s a real eye opener, a new perspective, a new way of looking at things. Then doing body-centric, somatic, land it in the body. So now we’re coming in to those same old arguments, but from a very new perspective. So it’s not like, let me get ready for year after year kind of a commitment. It’s very much a deep dive, and it has a finish line. So sometimes I’ll see clients a couple years later, and they’ll say: “Oh wow, I liked this piece. But now something has come up with my daughter who’s now getting ready to leave for university. Or, gosh, my parent has a scary diagnosis, and I’m just feeling all this stuff come back up again.” So it’s not to say that we’re done and finished. But we’re very much with a new understanding and that new perspective that we can bring into our relationships, it’s like bringing the work into action in your life and seeing it change.
So glad you mentioned that. Because our life stages, or even our chronological age, can evoke, or somewhat replicate something similar in our family tree, that then we’ll feel that rattle, which could be another indicator or signpost that hey, something here to look at, and can I lean into this and have this be an opportunity for healing or for growth?
Absolutely. It’s so common in fact, we call it an ancestral alarm clock. That’s why I always ask, did mom and dad stay together or divorce? Oh, they divorced. How old were they, and how old is the client? If I lost a sibling, how many children do you have, and what are their ages? So we’re looking for this common thread. Because it does happen around the same age and time. The why of it, we still don’t know. But it happens commonly enough to ask and be sure.
For some, just even the awareness and then the connection to the emotion and the body sensation, that could be healing in and of itself.
Well, it’s so interesting. I remember this case where this woman got married. She felt I picked the right partner, lots of attraction, everything was great. Until they got married, and it was as if everything shut down. She had no more attraction. She didn’t even want to have a conversation. It was more about, how do I get out of this, what have I done? So that was very curious to her. So she kind of came in and thought, it was almost like a light switch, what has changed? And when we look at her family history, very sadly, her mum and two aunts were all in arranged marriages. This was a client from India. The one, I think it was her mom, or maybe it was her sister, I’m missing the case now, but at any rate, had been married to a much older man. So this feeling of I have to, this feeling of I have no other choice. The youngest aunt decided not to marry at all, stayed single and was quite defiant about it. So this feeling around, if I get married, I give up myself, I give up my choice, I give up my freedom, and there was that replication that came over. So for her, it was enough to look at: Oh, that’s why the light switch went on, that’s why my feelings changed so much, because of this imprint that lives inside of me. So she could really begin to open up and find that love again with her partner.
Beautiful. So the awareness was almost enough to help set a different course.
Yes, and that’s not always the case of course. There are things that happen preverbal that go on in families that we really do need that, I kind of call it the slower unwinding of how it sits in the body memory. That’s another beautiful place to come back to your own clarity, instead of being run from behind by that family history.
So with that clarity, the way I’m hearing you describe that, there can be a new experience or you can cultivate a new way of relating to that part that lives. Is that right?
Yeah. It’s almost like, let me step more into me, let me be more influenced by my sensations, by the guide for what’s right for me. It might not be right for you, Mom, or you might not understand it, Dad. But by having that, I give the word courage, to really be me, even if that risks my belonging to how it makes sense to my family members, my siblings, whomever. That there’s a big piece about what do I need to do to belong to this family, and sometimes we give away parts of ourselves to do that. Then that’s really the roots of codependency when we look at intimate relationship of where that sort of experience from the family and family love goes into relationship love.
Or another way of saying that would be perhaps just this automatic reaction to be helpful, or whatever the tendency is. But it’s almost like, I’m not actually choosing this, I feel almost compelled and it’s a reaction, and it feels like my automatic tendency, hence the subconscious. Is that right?
That’s it. It’s almost like we developmentally learned to be over there with the addicted dad or sad mom. So we’ve learned to leave ourselves to be loved, to belong. So now, gosh, our partner could stub their toe or something pretty silly. Oh, are you okay, what do you need? And we’re not noticing, hey, I was in my own focus, I needed to stay here with myself. As you say, it’s just so darn automatic, we don’t realize we’re doing it. I work with a lot of people-pleasers and over-givers. Until that tendency ends the relationship. The over-giver can often collapse that relationship. So we’ve got to learn new ways of being to keep that relationship healthy and flowing.
And self-healthy, because sometimes over-giving can lead towards resentment, can lead towards I don’t recognize myself or my relationship, and perhaps want to blow everything up because it just feels incongruent.
Absolutely, so depleting!
Yes, okay. So just even that ability to recognize where am I having that contact with a sense of self, to be able to make choice, or be able to just occupy space with other and to not lose that ground. That’s a real critical thing to notice if you’ve ran this automatic, habitual just reacting and being there for another.
Yeah. A lot of times, I like the question, where have I lost myself, where am I losing myself? Because I know with even my own relationships, there are some friendships who feel like they push my limits; maybe they don’t have their own healthy boundaries, so they kind of step into mind. So now it’s up to me to say: “Hmm, am I giving myself away for connection? Am I not rocking the boat because I just want this friendship to be okay?” This is just the way she is, we tell ourselves. Instead of, oh, that’s a bit much, that feels like I’m being asked too much. So sometimes we need to reflect; we don’t maybe do it in the moment. But we reflect, how do I feel with this person? Am I needing to address something so that I can stay with myself a little more strongly?
That sounds like a really powerful question and something to reflect on. Wonderful! So part of it if we’re looking at this in bigger picture, there’s a real invitation to look at the family tree and have some awareness around the bonds and history and just have greater clarity. You’re also speaking to when we have complaints or upset in relationship, to have a willingness to get curious around some of these indicators we’ve talked about. Does this relate to my early years or the family lineage in some form or fashion? And you’re also speaking to just how we are in relationship with ourselves, and how we negotiate sharing space with another and not losing a sense of self. That’s the balance between intimacy and autonomy, or closeness and separateness. That’s a real challenge for people sometimes. Do you want to say a little bit more about that part?
Yeah. There’s a quote that always sticks with me, about when authenticity is up against attachment, very sadly, attachment often wins. Because we are wanting to keep that relationship okay, and we might lose our okayness in the process. So can we look at how authentic can I be with my person? Hopefully all the way, sometimes that’s not the case. So that’s a piece we want to look at. And to evaluate each of our friendships. Can I bring all of myself? Or do I have to put parts of it away to keep the attachment solid? So it’s a bit of a negotiation between both. But I think if we can bring it towards our conscious mind, towards our focus, we can be a little more aware of where we might slip, and that giving ourselves away for connection thing comes just back in.
It ain’t great. I realize, just even the language of subconscious, unconscious and conscious, is there anything you want to say about making what’s out of the field of awareness more conscious? I know we’ve been talking about it not as direct. But I wonder, is there anything you want to speak to directly about this?
So I think maybe to use a metaphor, like we are in the family tree, we are a branch. So it’s hard to really see it from that full context. So I often like to use a computer metaphor, that we’re not born with a clean hard drive; we share that operating system with our parents and our grandparents. So the more we can recognize, here I am the branch of the tree, here I am influenced, it’s a part of me. But I want to be sure that I’m not operating from just the family map, but I’ve got my own relationship to my own compass. That that feels a little bit more personal, so that I’m able to follow my direction, not just simply the direction that my family goes, if it’s a different direction. That there’s space and openness and permission to do that.
“I think we’re healthiest when we have our compass in hand that’s personal to us, but that we also feel a part of the family map. Again, we’re sort of in these two different places negotiating the two.”
I really am resonating with what you’re describing. I’m trying to take the metaphor with the compass, and I’m like, is it like a banyan tree? Because a banyan tree creates their own little root. I mean, I don’t know the age, but they’re quite old, I’ll have to look it up.
Longevity, yes.
Well, this is so powerful. Is there anything else you want to say that we haven’t touched on? I know we’ve really covered a lot of territory.
Well, I really love that you brought in Mark Wolynn’s book, that’s what I recommend most often to my clients. So if your listeners have really loved this conversation, that would be a great way to deepen their understanding. I guess for me, this whole learning has helped me to understand myself in such a deep way, from a place of: Oh, that’s why it is the way it is. Instead of sometimes we can get lost in self-blame or regret, or it shouldn’t have been that way. That if I’m a part of this family map, things are going to flow in a certain way, unless I really cultivate and develop that compass, that personal compass. So I just needed to understand why certain things were happening, and once I could fit that in, then I could start to heal and evolve from there.
Beautiful! One of the things that I’m curious, just on a personal level, have you ever found clients, or have you ever even encouraged for people to create some form of art? Because I don’t know that the average person, some people are a little more sentimental and have photos, but sometimes it’s not with the essence of what we’re describing. If there’s something, not that somebody would make their family tree into a art piece. But is there anything that you recommend to keep that interconnectedness, but also, perhaps in a new way?
So one of the things I got from the book, Mark Wolynn’s It Didn’t Start With You, which I’ll put the link on today’s show notes, is that even if the circumstances were less than ideal, and even if one’s parent, if we’re talking about a parent-child relationship in adulthood, even if that parent is still limited and doesn’t have the capacity to engage in real healthy relating, that there’s still a way in which you can still receive their love and their connection, or you can still feel the love and the family bond. I’m just wondering, I don’t know, I’m just curious, this may not be relevant. But if there’s any symbolism or representation or art that you encourage for people to continue to make contact with this? Because I think it’s so common for people, they get wrapped up in whatever they’re doing and lose sight of some of this work, even if they’ve done some profound work. So to keep it in mind.
Oh definitely, that’s such an important question. I’m a big proponent of that. Because we do have this beautiful session and the awareness and wow factor, and then life takes hold of us. So we know that our mind really runs in inner images and pictures. So a lot of the times, if we’ve got that difficult relationship with our mom, can you place a picture of mom on your desk or beside your bed, somewhere that you’re really going to see it and engage with it? Because a lot of the times, our first movement is to create an inner relationship. So this idea that if it’s really hard for me to talk with my mom, or she steamrolls right over my boundaries, or maybe mom has already passed on, that it doesn’t mean that we can’t heal. Or that we’re just stuck, and I didn’t get to say the things I needed to say. But can we start a relationship with mom’s photo? Some of my clients really prefer to do it more on like an altar setting, where they’ll have special plants, or if they’re into crystals, or they’ll read a passage of a book that really feels grounded. A lot of the times, I’ll give my clients a piece of the resolution. I used to be a Clinical Hypnotherapist. So I guide them through a bit of a guided inner conversation with that parent, with that sibling, with their spouse, whatever the challenge is. So that oh yeah, right, we’re grounding into the piece, so that it has a chance to take root in the stress and where life pulls us off and distracts us.
So that pitcher, or let’s say a grandparent has passed and it was a very difficult relationship with them, can you give them their rightful place with the family photos in the hallway?
“The family members that are forgotten, that we try to push away, they actually have a habit of coming back, depending on the hard pieces that might show up behaviorally in one of your children, or the dynamic inside your primary relationship.”
So we want to really face and look at these pieces, and having a relationship with that picture can be a beautiful daily understanding to help it forward.
Well, I can tell, my questions keep coming. So people, just be mindful of your time. One of the questions I have, just an aside, do you find that people who have been either adopted or have a step parent and their family tree is more complex? As we’re talking about epigenetics and genetics, do you find it more important to have an understanding of the biological tree?
So I’ve worked with many people that have been adopted and have absolutely no family history, or really significant estrangement, or just a family full of secrets; Mom or Dad never talked about it, so I’ve no idea, any of the answers to these family questions you’re asking me. So then it’s a little bit more like reverse-engineering, where I’m using the core language approach that Mark speaks about in his book, where it’s really decoding language, understanding what the language is revealing, around that adopted person. How do your relationships go? How do you feel at work? Where’s your confidence at? What are the today challenges or even just traits and themes that will help me understand what we don’t have the physical history of, so that we can start to work at it from the original root cause kind of place? So language reveals everything. So even if there isn’t family history, a lot of times the language can fill in the blanks, and still we can get to that resolution place.
Wonderful. Well, how do people get in contact with you, what would you like to invite people to connect with, with your work? This is just so powerful. I almost feel like every single person needs to do this, so it’s super important.
Thank you. My website is simply my name, JohannaLynn.ca. You can find me on Instagram under TheFamilyImprint_Institute. I’m on LinkedIn, I do a regular weekly newsletter there under my name, Johanna Lynn. So if you’re wanting to check out epigenetics from what’s going on in the headlines today, I try to weave the two together.
Oh, beautiful. Okay, so follow you on LinkedIn, and you have your website. Tell me the other thing you said.
Oh, and Instagram is The Family Imprint Institute.
Okay, gotcha. Can you say a little bit more about The Family Imprint Institute, and then also what people might find on your website?
Yes. So the Institute is really where I train other therapists, coaches, energy healers, all kinds of unique people have come in, mediators even, that want to understand the systemic approach to helping their clients, really bringing in another tool to how they’re supporting their clients. So that’s a really big excitement for me around being able to pay this work forward. Because just like you, I can only see so many people a week, and by sharing this approach, it means there’s that many people out there that can really pass it on. On the website, there are different classes. So I do online gatherings where people come and experience this work in sort of a real sacred container with a few other people. There’s a way that you can book private sessions with me as well; my practice is fully International.
Wonderful! I’ll, again, make sure to have all of these links on today’s show notes. Johanna, thank you so much for just being willing to share and offer so much, and how important this work is.
Thank you for having me, Jessica. I really enjoyed our conversation.
Signing Off
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Relationships often confront us with moments of uncertainty, where conflicting emotions and wavering decisions leave us feeling overwhelmed. But, what if we could view ambivalence as an opportunity for personal growth, self-discovery, and empowered decision-making?
In this enlightening discussion with relationship expert Rachel Zamore and Dr. Jessica Higgins, we explored profound insights into navigating the intricate landscape of ambivalence in relationships. From recognizing the significance of self-care to cultivating compassion, this episode provides a roadmap for embracing ambivalence and making impactful relationship choices with clarity and confidence.
If you currently stand at the crossroads of a significant relationship decision, unsure of which path to choose, join us on this transformative journey. Together, we will uncover empowering principles that guide you towards embracing ambivalence and making choices that honor your personal growth, authenticity, and overall well-being.
Rachel Zamore is a leading practitioner in discernment counseling, a process that helps couples on the brink gain confidence and clarity about the next best steps for their marriage. Rachel’s compassionate, nonjudgmental approach empowers honest self-reflection and welcomes each person right where they are. Drawing from 15 years as an integrative psychotherapist, relationship guide (Certified in Emotionally Focused Therapy & Discernment Counseling) and trainer, Rachel coaches individuals and couples online and at private retreats worldwide.
In this Episode
5:55 Igniting a passion: Rachel Zamore’s journey to empower couples in ambiguous relationships
10:19 Rachel’s revolutionary approach to couples in crisis.
12:31 Common mistakes in couples therapy unveiled.
16:51 Appreciating ambivalence and embracing complexity in relationship dynamics.
20:39 The transformative power of providing a supportive container for couples grappling with difficult and anxiety-provoking issues.
25:05 Unpacking the cumulative effect of ambivalence in relationships.
30:26 Discernment counseling: Differentiating hard and soft reasons, and individual growth.
35:59 About Rachel’s intensive sessions and retreats, individual and relational growth.
39:49 Outcomes and statistics of discernment counseling.
45:11 Encouragement and advice for finding clarity and well-being.
Your Check List of Actions to Take
- Acknowledge your ambivalence and give yourself permission to explore your conflicting emotions and thoughts without judgment.
- Practice self-care to nurture your well-being and create a stable foundation for decision-making.
- Manage anxiety by incorporating stress-reducing techniques, such as mindfulness or deep breathing exercises, to help maintain clarity during the decision-making process.
- Seek support from trusted individuals who have your best interests and the well-being of the relationship in mind.
- Take responsibility for your actions and behaviors, focusing on personal growth and self-improvement regardless of the decision you ultimately make.
- Consider individual therapy or coaching to gain insights, clarity, and guidance throughout the decision-making process.
- Address difficulties in the relationship directly and openly, fostering open communication and a deeper understanding of each other’s needs and desires.
- Make decisions from a place of wholeness, authenticity, and alignment with your personal values, honoring your own growth and well-being in the process.
Mentioned
Type Of Relationship Support (survey)
*Connect wi*th Rachel Zamora
Websites: relationshipcrossroads.com | innerwell.org
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/rachelzamore
Connect with Dr. Jessica Higgins
Facebook: facebook.com/EmpoweredRelationship
Instagram: instagram.com/drjessicahiggins
Podcast: drjessicahiggins.com/podcasts/
Pinterest: pinterest.com/EmpowerRelation
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/drjessicahiggins
Twitter: @DrJessHiggins
Website: drjessicahiggins.com
Email: jessica@drjessicahiggins.com
About Today’s Show
Rachel, thank you for joining us today.
It is a pleasure to be here. I’m delighted to join you.
Yeah. I first learned about you, a client had sent me a podcast where you were the person featured, discussing ambivalence and relationship and discernment. I know we had a conversation and I just felt like there’s a lot of resonance, especially with your EFT training. I’m very much in support and promoting and utilize the principles in much of my work. So really excited about what you’re going to be able to share and help deliver today.
Great, thank you.
Yeah. Well, as we turn towards the topic of ambivalence, how did you start getting interested? I know you work with couples and you train therapists, and there’s so much you do. But as we focus in on the topic of ambivalence and relationship, how did this become an interest of yours?
Yeah, it’s a great question. So I had been, for years, really specializing in mind-body therapy with individuals. I had a rich background in mindfulness and studied internal Family Systems and Parts Work and Hakomi, which is all these very experiential approaches to doing individual work. Around 2011 or so, I decided that I really wanted to lean more into the couples’ work. I was licensed as a marriage and family therapist and had dipped my toe a little bit into couples’ work, and for a variety of reasons, got interested in that.
As part of my training and experiences, I ended up going to a conference, a couples’ therapy conference. While I was there, I did a workshop on working with mixed agenda couples with Dr. Bill Doherty, who is the person who founded Discernment Counseling. I attended this workshop, and I was just mesmerized. I was like, “Oh, my God, this is such an important missing element from our couples’ therapy training!” We have all this training about how to help couples, when both people are like, “Yes, let’s make this work.” So often, the estimate is around 30% of the time, you don’t have that situation. You have one person who’s like, “Yes, let’s make this work,” and the other person who’s getting dragged into therapy and doesn’t really want to be there, maybe he doesn’t feel any hopefulness about the relationship at all. So he developed this process for working with these couples where you have what they call mixed agenda. One person is really there for repair, really wants to save the relationship, really wants to make it work. The other person isn’t sure they want to stay married, let alone even feel like it would be worth the effort to do couples’ therapy. So there are a variety of reasons why couples’ therapy is bound to fail when you have couples committed.
So I encountered this, and I had just been doing a deep dive and learning about couple therapy, deepening into EFT and other approaches. He had this extensive handout that he gave out after this two-hour workshop; there was no training at the time, there was no way to deepen into this. I literally went home, I transcribed. I had recorded his workshop, I transcribed the entire two-hour workshop, and studied this very long handout in depth, and just started applying it, just started trying it out and using this work with. I’ll get into that later. But basically, there are a lot of differences between Discernment Counseling that he developed and regular couples’ therapy. But I was just on fire about it, super-excited about that. Because it seemed so much needed and so valuable, and it really attended to the different needs of each individual. I loved also just how deeply non-pathologizing it was, which fit so much with the way that I worked and the way that I approach this work at all. So it just felt like a great fit for me and incredibly useful. As I started using it with couples, I found really positive results in the couples who were able to find their way through difficult moments of, like, even figuring out do we want to work on this or do we not, and how do we approach these questions thoughtfully with integrity and intention? Slowing down that moving train that can really happen when there’s a lot of activity and a lot of hurt, when you don’t have the safety to really process things together. So Discernment Counseling offers some different kind of tools to be able to navigate that in a more effective way, and the outcomes seem to just get better all around.
No kidding! I’m really grateful to have your voice again. Because I think as this becomes perhaps more mainstream, that people will understand there’s another option to get support, that doesn’t mean: “Oh, we’re doing couples’ therapy.” I’m remembering as you’re talking, I’m remembering back when I had my brick and mortar practice in Boulder, Colorado, and I was primarily working with couples. At that point, I think collectively it’s changed a little bit because of all the information age and people are more self-studying than they were at that point. But it seemed as though couples’ counseling is often a last ditch effort, and one person is really out of the relationship. So it is very difficult to really do the work when one is in such an ambivalent or even have left the relationship. When I listened to your podcast, I was like, “Oh, I’m doing this naturally. But I didn’t have a name for it.” I actually think having a name for it is really supportive, because then everybody knows what we’re doing. The differences that you’re going to help us understand between couples’ and Discernment Therapy or counseling, I think is really giving that slowing it down, so this moving train, that doesn’t feel like pressure. I think you’ve talked about pressure. So I love that you’re helping educate us here today. So anything you want to say in response to that?
Yeah, it’s true. I feel like there is a way. So what happened after I attended that workshop was I started using it and started just trying to engage that in my practice, ended up reaching out to Dr. Doherty for some consultation. At that time, he had started this thing at the University of Minnesota where he works, Couples on the Brink project, and they ended up launching a very small training program, which then they ended up launching an online training a few years later, and the certification program. I was actually the first Certified Discernment Counselor; it was kind of fun. So that started growing, and I think it kind of seeped out into the world of relationship coaching in couples’ therapy, some of these principles around it. There are some very specific things that make it quite different. But some of the mistakes that couples’ therapists often make with mixed agenda couples, I think some people are kind of catching up on how to do this. But couples’ therapists are all in it, making relationships work, which makes sense. Like, you have people come in, and they’re like: Okay, we’re here.
“So one of the big mistakes that couples’ therapists often make is, if there’s a pursuer distance or dynamic going on, where one person is really emotionally withdrawn from their relationship, and they jump in there with the pursuer pursuing the person who’s withdrawing from the relationship, you end up creating a dynamic where you exacerbate the existing problems in the relationship.”
Then you have other folks where they sort of hold back and wait until the couple is on the same page and say, “Okay, I can either help you with the relationship, or I can help you split up. I just need to know which one you want.” But they have totally different needs. Or they can side with the withdrawer and be like, “Oh well, clearly this relation takes two to tango, and the relationship is clearly done if you can’t make them work on it with you,” where they kind of give up early. So there are all these ways, and I love that there are elements of this that you’re finding, like, “Oh yeah, that’s what I’m doing. So there are elements of this that I’m doing.” That was partly what happened to Bill Doherty. He was like, I’m doing some things.
That’s a little different than couples’ therapy, right?
Yeah. Like, you have lots of time individually with each person, it’s a longer session. You’ve got people coming and going. You start together, you have individual time. You have different ways you’re working with each person based on their needs. What you’re doing that’s so, so different from couples’ therapy, is you’re really welcoming that ambivalence, and some people instinctively know to do that. The goals are totally different. This is sort of a pre-couples’ therapy intervention, where you’re essentially saying, “Okay, we’re not sure, collectively, if we want to move this forward, and we need to figure out our next steps.” Generally, couples that are in really serious distress like this, think that there are two options: stay together, or split up. So what we do in discernment work is, we’re looking at three paths. One is, stay in this as it has been, don’t make a decision right now to work on it or to split up. The second path is to pursue separation or divorce. The third path is to take divorce off the table, really do an all-out effort to restore the relationship to health, often rebuild it truly as a marriage 2.0 from the ground-up, and see what’s possible before making a long-term decision. It ends up creating a lot more room for breath. If you feel like your only choices are staying happy in this marriage, it’s not really working, and you’ve got all this uncertainty about it or reasons why you want to stay or reasons why you want to go. But it’s like choosing basically death or life, and neither one feels like an okay option. So often, people feel like they’re caught between a rock and a hard place, especially when they have children. There’s this sense of like, what to do here?
So the framework of Discernment Counseling, the fact that it’s short-term, the fact that it’s structured, the fact that it has this very specific agenda that is not to improve the relationship or not actually working on relationship repair. It’s really specifically a process to say, “Okay, let’s look at this, let’s see if we even want to do another session.” Up to a maximum of five or six sessions, intentionally short-term. It makes it really low stakes for the person who is leaning out of the relationship, and makes it viable.
Yes. I’m really appreciating that you’re giving range here, because I do think when we’re caught in this binary Yes or No, it can be really difficult, and we can go back and forth. So not only is Discernment Counseling providing another option, that even before that happens, there’s a lot of room and space to explore the ambivalence, and really make room for that, which is so important, which gets back to what you were describing around the non-judgement.
So if we can turn towards ambivalence, I wonder, can you give some context to this as people are listening? Maybe you can say a little bit about what ambivalence typically looks like, and then perhaps if you can give some context to when it’s a concern. Because sometimes, people might be like, is this a sign or is it normal?
Yeah, that’s so great. One other thing I just wanted to mention, one of the reasons why I was so drawn to this work, is because it really holds the complexity of our values, lives, competing priorities, in a way that just feel so important. It’s so tempting to just be like, “Oh, pursue your bliss and be happy.” But there are other values and ethical considerations, especially when there are other people impacted and involved. It’s just I love how it holds from a real kind of grounded in values place of being able to navigate really deeply complex issues. So I just wanted to name that.
Yes, and it welcomes the shadows. It welcomes the things that are hard to discuss, or feel unwelcomed, and really providing a lot of room and space to make that visible. Because that’s where we can really have more contact, that authenticity, that deepening, and make that really available, making contact with that.
Yeah. So often, the people who are leaning in and really wanting to save their relationship, are very resistant to the idea of Discernment Counseling and discernment coaching. Because they’re like, “We can’t give this any oxygen. If this is given oxygen, it’s going to make it real.” What I have found again and again, is that the people who are able to hold their center, the ones who really are anxious about the idea that their spouse is considering, has a foot out the door. It is a really stressful time. It’s hard to bring your best self when that’s going on. The people who can say, “Okay, I will make space for your ambivalence, I will honor this by engaging this process with you.” There is something about being able to actually honor those shadows, make room for it, without making it wrong. Like, if somebody is considering leaving their marriage, that is not something most people think of lightly. That is a huge, torturous often, process and decision to be in, all the things. So for the leaning in spouse, being able to have the courage to step into that crucible with your partner, or to even make space for them being in that space, it helps uncook often from that intense cycle that’s going on, the negative cycle, that the only option is out for one person. So it’s a little counterintuitive sometimes. But I digressed.
No, you’re breathing life and fresh air. I mean, the support that I’m sure you’re offering along with your colleagues practicing this work, you’re providing such a container and ground to maybe offer that stability to look at these things that are so, so difficult and anxiety-provoking. That even the more pursuer or anxious one might feel supported in that, that they can hold a little bit more and then be able to see what comes through in that.
Right. Part of that work too, the work with that person who is leaning in, who has a such deep desire to make it work, is coaching them. So much of the discernment process is helping zoom lens out, helping take a breath and be able to see what’s happening systemically, so that each person can be aware of their own part in that relationship dynamic and dance and how. So for that person who is in that pursuing place, being able to slow down and get curious about the experience of their partner who’s doing something that is hurting them. But there’s also a reason for it, and getting curious about it is happening for you, and being able to be in that space where they can then take a cue too, and be able to start getting curious and maybe even validating, like, “Oh, it makes sense that this would be hard for you, the way that this has been going.” So each person being able to learn something about themselves and about what’s happened to their marriage, what is happening, that’s part of why the outcomes are almost always better, as a result of doing this. Whether they stay together and work on it, and they have this huge head start for their couples’ work they do. Or that they decide to split up, and there’s more understanding, more compassion, and more grace.
There’s such grace if you can take the pressure of we’ve got to stay married, or whatever the pressure is, and the fears and associations around that. If we can turn towards this, and the grace and the space that we offer, that’s so relieving and relationally supportive. It occurs to me, and we want to talk about ambivalence, but that this is likely a contributing factor to when couples’ therapy doesn’t work, when so many people are like, “Oh, it didn’t work.” But when one person is not really bought in.
It’s destined to not, when that happens. Good couples’ therapy can be incredibly effective. I’m certified in Emotionally Focused Therapy and love that work too. It’s beautiful work, being able to support that rich, deep, transformative healing that can happen in good couples’ therapy. But when you are starting off without both people deeply feeling supported, right where they are and meeting them right where they are needing to validate, which is one of the things that I think EFT is actually really great with. I know that there are other approaches to therapy too, that are also good with validation. But one of the things, if a couple contacts me, and this has happened recently, where they’re like, “Okay, our marriage is in a really difficult place, and we both want to work on it, we want to do Discernment Counseling.” I’m like, why don’t you do couples’ therapy? It’s not for everybody. It really is specifically when one person has a foot so out the door that they’re not even sure they want to do couples’ therapy. So it’s really being able to say, what’s the right medicine for where you’re at right now?
But it’s true. Because couples who do jump into couples’ therapy and don’t have a couples’ therapist who is intuitively skillful with navigating that ambivalence and gives themselves permission, and we don’t get trained in couples’ therapy, except sometimes during an introductory session, to meet individually. But if you don’t have the safety for emotional vulnerability, and if you are going to invite somebody to get really honest with themselves, really curious and vulnerable about: “What is my part in this? What would I likely bring with myself into a future relationship that I love in this one? What are some of the ways that I have collapsed this narrative into something really over-simplistic, that doesn’t account for the full breadth of what is really happened here?”
I’m so glad you said that. Because if I can chime in, in my experience, when people are experiencing this high degree of ambivalence, there’s a cumulative effect, if we look at what’s been building for maybe even years, that hasn’t been really addressed or talked about. So being able to give a lot of that space to unpack and really explore.
Yeah, it’s so important. I think that that safety that we’re able to create in the discernment process, where I am primarily spending the time meeting individually with people, and then we’re weaving it back together. That part is really important too, that weaving between. I won’t share what somebody said specifically, but I can share an insight. “They don’t care at all!” I’m like, “What gives you that? That’s not the impression that I’m getting, but help me understand why you are. What’s telling me that, whatever the thing is?” There is an important weaving. But I do think that the safety, especially if you are trying, it’s high stakes. This is high stakes stuff, and if you had both people in the room, you wouldn’t get to that level of vulnerability that fast, you wouldn’t be able to do that. Because they have such different needs and agendas, so the leaning out person really needs a safe space where they can explore their ambivalence and really work through whatever the thing is. It might be things that they can’t say in front of their partner. Like, “I’m repulsed by his body, I don’t know how to deal with that. Or I’m actually in love with this other person, and I can’t figure out if I’m willing to give up that affair or not.” I mean, sometimes it’s really complex things. Sometimes it’s like, “I just have so much ancient resentment, I don’t know if I’m over it, or whatever the thing is.” But being able to unpack that without the reactivity in the room is super important.
Should I get back to answering your question?
Yes, please.
Okay, about ambivalence. It is perfectly normal to sometimes be ambivalent in your relationship, and it is not necessarily a danger sign that they your marriage is in trouble, that your relationship is on the brink. One of the ways I like to think about this is, is it poetry or is it a plan? Thinking about when it shows up, that ambivalence, that like, “Oh, I just can’t anymore with this person.” Is that sort of a passing moment of steam release, a little bit of a flight instinct kicking in and a moment of distress? Or is this an ongoing, pervasive sentiment that you’re having, or a way that you are starting to actually, concretely, think about leaving, and next steps? Sometimes, it’s really clear. Like, “Oh, this is a way that I self-soothe in moments that are really hard.” That truly is not something that you need to be concerned about. Everybody has different ways that they navigate distress, and some people tend towards a little more drama in their inner world, and some people tend towards less drama in their inner world. Sometimes it can feel really liberating to remember that you could leave and that could be an option, and then you can choose to stay. It is not necessarily a sign of anything to be worried about. Sometimes, it is, and it depends. So it’s complex, as we are.
Then the other piece too, that I would say about that is, in the discernment work, we talk a bit about the difference between hard reasons and soft reasons for considering leaving a relationship. Hard reasons being things like abuse, ongoing affairs, addiction that’s not getting addressed, things like that. Things that are safety and wellbeing issues at their core. Then there are soft reasons, which are things like, we have grown apart, or we don’t communicate well, or we have different sexual desires, or incompatibility, or things like that. Those are the things that, with effective couples’ therapy, can often be addressed and resolved in really deep ways. So just thinking too about are there safety issues at play? If there are, take that seriously, please. Talk to somebody, get some help. With passing fantasies, those are like, “Oh, what a slob! I can’t believe he left his socks out again.” Those moments of frustration are normal and they’re real, and you might need to find different ways of communicating about your different needs, that housekeeping or whatever the thing is, and get the responsiveness that you need.
“Because sometimes those little annoying things actually are symptoms of bigger patterns in a relationship that you would do well to address. It doesn’t mean your relationship is about to fail, but it would improve your relationship probably.”
The socks are never about the socks. It’s about do I feel respected and cared for, and perhaps all those things? So I hope that answered your question.
Thank you. It gives us more context too, when we’re talking about ambivalence, what you’re typically seeing, and what it means based on your vantage point, having done this work for a long period of time. You mentioned earlier, being able to distinguish between Discernment Counseling and couples’ therapy, and this might be helpful for us to give some differentiation here. Even with, you called them the hard and the soft reasons, so in the Discernment Counseling, is this also something you would help support when there are hard reasons, whether or not it’s accessing other supports or safety? Is this something you address?
Yeah. One of the screening, so for the discernment process, we do start with a screening for each person individually, and actually, there being act of violence is a rule-out, coercion as well. Like, we want to make sure we’ve got people coming into this process who really have free will, who have the safety where they could make a supportive choice. So Discernment Counseling is not the appropriate place to be if you are dealing with an unsafe situation. However, when folks come in. It’s not always clear also. What is an intractable character thing of my partner? Do I want to stick around while they do the individual developmental healing or trauma healing that they need to do? Do I want to stay by their side while they get treatment for X, Y, or Z? Sometimes there are big questions like that about, like, what is realistic to expect?
One of the things that I always say about the process for couples who are trying to decide between these three paths, usually, most couples say, “I can’t stand the way it’s been. That’s what I know for sure. And what I don’t know is, do I have the energy and motivation and hopefulness, to really put energy into working on this and commit to working on this for a period of time before making a long-term decision?” Now, if somebody is on the brink, and they’re ready to leave their relationship, it is not realistic for them to say, “Sign me up for another 20 years, I’m good to go.” You can’t know that yet. That would be basically saying, keep me in the status quo. So they’re trying to figure out, what is their next path?
So when somebody is looking at what is my next best move, we’re definitely going to be looking at all those hard and soft reasons, all the reasons that come up. It’s like, whatever is showing up, we’re going to be looking at. I mean, the goals for Discernment Counseling are to get clear about your next best step, with a deeper understanding of yourself and the relationship.
“The definition of success is a deeper understanding, and being able to move forward with clarity and confidence and integrity and intention. That’s the goal. It’s not specifically to stay married or to not stay married, or to work on it or not work on it.”
So what I always say is that, this is your time. This is time for you to do your own growth work, your own relationship growth work, in the context of this marriage. You may find that, because we’re looking at what’s your part in this? So also do move into working on the relationship come in with their own personal agenda for change. It’s like, what do I need to work on in myself? So part of what I love too is it holds the attachment frame and the relational systemic frame, from couples’ therapy. But it also holds this individuation differentiation frame of the parts, like, “Okay, I have to own my own parts in this and take responsibility for myself.” There’s some personal accountability. So for each person, they’re coming in saying, “Oh, this is how I may have contributed to some of the negative dynamics that have gotten us to this point. Here is my part, what I want to work in in myself, that will make me better in my next relationship, whether that’s with this spouse where we do a redo, or with any future person.” So people can step into that choice to work on it, often with a sense of like, “I’m doing this for me, and we’ll see about the relationship and we’ll see where we end up, and we’ll reevaluate, and just have more information.” So it takes some of the pressure off too, about like, “I have to choose that I’m in it. You’re in it, you’re in it to work on it and to grow yourself, and use this relationship to grow yourself, and then you get to decide and see what your partner brings to that process as well.
Yes. As I’m listening to you, Rachel, it’s almost as though this could be helpful for everyone to do this process before doing couples’ work, even if ambivalence is not super high. Because I do think sometimes when people come into couples’ work, they’re so hyper-aware of the things that they’d like their partner to improve, but perhaps haven’t had the opportunity, or maybe haven’t had the mindset of really looking at their contribution and what’s in it for them and their opportunity for healing and growth as an individual, and what gets activated and triggered within them. So I just think what a priming!
I know, it’s really great for just that setup. But there’s this front-loading that happens, and the stakes are high enough that you can get people to really focus and dive in like that, and we do these extended sessions. So the first meeting, when this was originally designed, it was a two-hour first session, and then 90-minute subsequent sessions. I now do two and a half hours, and two-hour subsequent sessions. I also designed and developed a private destination retreat model. So sometimes couples would be like, we want to really focus on this without the distractions of daily life. So I will either have couples come to me, or I will go meet them somewhere without distractions. We schedule these sessions out over four or five day, so there’s plenty of spaciousness in between the meetings, so that people can really take that time for introspection. Couples will often stay in separate rooms, so they have lots of solo time. Obviously, it’s sort of a high-end offering. But for those who can do that, it can be really great. For the couples who I’m working with remotely, I’m doing most of this online now, they have that space between their meetings, which is also really valuable, and being able to have that time just to get that clarity. For the couples who do end up splitting up, there’s just so much more ease and closure and connectedness. For those who do work on it, you’re right, it’s so primed. It’s an interesting thing to think about, about how could some of those principles be incorporated into a therapy process, and perhaps there’s a model that’s doing that, I don’t know. But it’s certainly something that philosophically I bring into my work all the time. Yes,
Yes, me too. People who listen to the podcast regularly, every introduction, I’m talking about it being both an individual intimacy journey of growing oneself, and also the relational intimacy and growth; they are twofold. I love the mindset and the intentionality that you bring, and it’s really helping orient people and directing. Because I think the other way of doing it, and really expecting your partner to change or really putting so much pressure for it to be a certain thing, that I think loses the essence of what we’re really after in the end goal anyway, which is this deep, authentic intimacy and knowing. Well, is there anything else you want to distinguish between the couples’ therapy and Discernment Counseling?
Well, let me say, the goals are different. In terms of, we’re really looking at the decision-making process, and each person is owning their part in that. Even that person who comes in and they’re like, I definitely want to save it! I’m like, okay, let’s slow that down. Because sometimes I’ve had people where their partner is cheating on them all the time, disrespecting them. I’m like, “Help me understand why you’re so desperate to save this. What’s happening here? Help me understand.” So sometimes we do have to slow that down. But the difference is, it’s brief. It’s low-commitment. For couples who choose to do a package or choose to do an intensive retreat, obviously, they’re committing to that chunk. But generally, couples choose each time if they’re going to do another session up to a maximum of five or six. It’s short-term. Yeah, I think we’ve kind of covered the differences.
Great! Then do you want to speak a little bit more? You’ve mentioned the outcome and the goal, and I know you also have some stats that you can help us. Do you want to speak a little bit more about what you typically see, as far as outcomes with Discernment Counseling?
Yeah. I don’t have the numbers right in front of me, so I’m going to ballpark them. But I think that the outcomes from the Couples on the Brink Project at the University of Minnesota, I think it was something about 47% of couples who go through the process choose to work on the relationship. I don’t have that right in front of me at the moment. But 41%, I think chose path two, which is to split up, and I think about 11%, I’m not sure if that math all works out. But I think it was around 11% who choose not to make a decision at that time. The outcomes that I’ve seen in my work also tend to be the highest percentage of couples who end up choosing to really do an all-out effort to rebuild and restore the relationship to health, which is kind of amazing, given that, when you think about it, it sounds like it’s not that far off from each other. But these are couples, often, many of them have already either filed for divorce, or already separated. I’ve had a number of couples come to me for discernment work, who are already living in different places, have been separated for a while, about to finalize their divorce. Sometimes it’s people who are just flirting with the idea of splitting up, or I don’t know if I really wanted to couples’ therapy. So there’s the gamut.
But I think that it’s really one of these things where the outcomes do tend to be better, but it just helps also prevent premature and unnecessary divorce decisions. There’s some good research out there showing that a pretty significant percentage of people end up having regret after pursuing divorce, even those who initiated divorce. It’s something like 11% of people regret having done that. They did some research from the University of Minnesota, that about one in nine couples that were already through the divorcing process enough that they required parent a co-parenting class, one in nine folks from matched couples, when they looked at these surveys, both spouses indicated some belief that their marriage could still be saved with hard work. About one in 10, both spouses independently said, if some kind of reconciliation process were offered, I’d be interested. These were couples who already had filed for divorce. So this process is one that, like I said, just to help slow things down, helps people be able to find. There was a family judge in Minnesota, who was the one who contacted Bill Doherty and got this whole thing going. He was curious, because he kept seeing these couples coming in his chambers, and he’s like, “I’m not clear why these people are getting divorced, some of them.” He said, on the highway to divorce, there are no exit ramps and rest areas.” So this was designed to create that.
Well, it’s really standing out to me how you’ve talked about it being high stakes, and also that Discernment Counseling is really offering another opportunity to create something new. While that might seem obvious or intuitive, as we’re kind of talking about right here, right now, but I think when we’re in it, especially culturally, we often don’t even know that that’s an option. So the exit or the divorce as an option can be a real stand for “I don’t want to do this version of it, and I don’t have anything else. So I’m left with these two choices.” So it seems incredibly important to really explore, like we’ve been discussing, to give people more option, and also understand. Because when couples are in or partners are in a reactive, highly conflictual, or just the dynamic is so disconnected, I mean, what you’re speaking to about the percentage of people that would be interested in doing reconciliation work or having an opportunity to take a pause or do any of this work, there’s an intuitive sense that, like, “I still love you. It’s just really crappy what we’re doing and how we’re doing it. But I still care.” It’s really difficult to hold both of that. I think sometimes with all the messiness of the dynamic, that sense of goodwill gets lost, or it’s hard to stay connected to. But I think this does give a lot of room and space. I know I keep saying that, but It’s just so important.
Okay. Well, I know that you have a few things That you want to say potentially about what you would advise or encourage someone who’s leaning in, more of that pursuer or someone who might have a little bit more of those anxious tendencies, or even the person that is leaning out. You can start with whatever one feels best. But any encouragement you want to offer for people?
Sure. So I would say, if your partner is expressing ambivalence and that is stressing you out, it totally makes sense. It’s a really hard thing to be sitting with, it can create a lot of anxiety and insecurity. The stress of that uncertainty can sometimes bring out not the best behaviors in a person, if they’re feeling desperate or anxious. So for that person, I would say, take a deep, deep breath, focus on your own self-care and wellbeing, work on managing your anxiety so that you don’t exacerbate the negative relationship dynamics, it’s really hard, when you’re feeling threatened, to zoom that lens out, to feel safe enough that you can take perspective. Just taking that breath and taking that space can often help so much. Because if you are anxious, the ways that your anxiety shows up in the relationship may be causing your partner to lean out even more. So being able to sort of take, with lots of self-compassion, take some responsibility for that and get your own house in order. Focus on the things that help you feel whole, that help you feel grounded. Spend time with people who love you, and are showing you that.
“Try not to pursue, and try also not to distance. So hold that middle space. Because the more that you can be like a big oak tree holding that grounded space in the midst of the winds that are blowing, the more likely it is that your partner can work through whatever it is that they’re needing to work through.”
It won’t be about you, don’t make it be about you. So take care of you, so that you can just be grounded, as grounded as possible, present. To be responsive to your partner’s concerns and curious about what’s going on, in a way that you don’t lose yourself and that you’re not pressuring them. Sometimes it can be helpful to get a great individual therapist to help you in that, or to work with a coach who is familiar with discernment. Lots of discernment counselors also do something called hopeful spouse coaching, and that’s certainly something that is available. But it
This sounds like a whole retreat, and if I reflect on my own anxious tendencies and what that required of me, I know there was grief in that process, there was really like how to nurture the parts of me that I hadn’t really felt in the past. It’s really hard work, and it’s so rewarding, regardless of the outcome. Like, I fought back, I didn’t abandon myself.
Yes! Again, all this work, it’s all growthful. If you think of relationship as a path of growth, then it’s being here for it. Like, “Okay, here I am on this journey of life. It’s messy sometimes, and relationship will grow you like nothing else.” So being in that place where you may not have learned early on how to nurture yourself and have a hand on your own back, and doing some parts, it can be really great for that, and other self-compassion practices, mindfulness can be really helpful practice to get grounded and be able to just watch what’s arising without having to act on it. So focusing on self-care and wholeness; not pursuing, not distancing. Those are the things that I would advise somebody who is leaning in. It’s also course from a grounded place, sharing with your spouse or partner information about, “Hey, there’s this thing called Discernment Counseling, maybe this is something we could look at,” if they’re not interested in doing couples’ therapy with you. Because they may be actually saying like, “Yeah, I actually want to do that.” But if not, Discernment Counseling might be just the right next step.
For folks who are feeling ambivalent, if you’re that person who has a foot out the door, and you’re just not sure if you want to keep going, want to work on it any more, again, I’m sure it makes sense. There are reasons why you feel the way you do, and everything makes sense. There’s nothing in human dynamics that is not going to make sense for one reason or another. For you, I would suggest, befriend that part of yourself that kicks up a flight response when you’re feeling stressed, frustrated, hopeless, and just bringing compassionate curiosity to your own inner experience. Allow the impulse to arise, that exit flight impulse to arise, and let it pass away without needing to do anything just right now. This is a place of if you are feeling reactive, and you’re having that flight response kick in, this is assuming safety. If you’re unsafe, let that flight response kick in and go. You don’t have to take care of that. But otherwise, watching that impulse arise, and seeing does it pass away? How do I get myself grounded and whole, before making any long-term decision that has massive implications? I would suggest also trying to address whatever it is that’s causing you difficulty in the relationship directly. Sometimes, and this has happened more times than I can even count, I have somebody come in and they say, “I’ve been miserable for years. No, I never said anything about it, but I can’t take it anymore. I’ve got to go.” I’m like, okay. That’s part of that. Like, oh okay. So there’s something familiar about that, about bottling it up and holding it. That’s something that might be worth thinking about.
“Maybe you could try speaking, I’d say, for your parts, instead of from your parts. Being able to say, like, I have a part of me that is feeling this way. Rather than just being like, you’re terrible, or whatever, embodying that feeling.”
But attending to the issues and dynamics that are challenging before they become huge obstacles, if you can, if you haven’t gotten too far. I’d say if the thoughts of ambivalence or feelings start showing up more regularly, I would suggest considering trend coaching or therapy with somebody whose expertise is in relationship dynamics, or in discernment, if you’re really out the door and don’t want to do that. Also, just knowing it’s okay and normal to have feelings, all the feelings, and that doesn’t necessarily indicate your marriage is in trouble. If your marriage is in trouble, and you really are eyeing the exit, I would encourage you to just take a pause. I also have on my website, at RelationshipCrossroads.com, considering divorce do’s and don’ts. I would suggest if you are listening, and that is you, just go download, to take a look, and you can reference it. It’s got a number of hot tips and notes to self about what to do.
One of the things I also just want to name here, for both people, the person who is leaning in and the person is leaning out, be mindful about who you share with. It is really important to get good support, and you should get good support, and you should also have discretion in who you turn to. Because different people in your life will have their own agenda, their own level of self-awareness, and their own ability to hold the complexity and nuance of your situation, especially if they’re only hearing about it from you and from your distressed parts, because they won’t necessarily have the whole picture. So if you’re going to share with somebody, I would encourage you to find somebody who has your back and your partner’s back, and has the back of your relationship and your family. That doesn’t mean that they have an agenda to keep you together either; they have an agenda to support a process of unfolding, of self-awareness, of self-discovery, of healing and growth, whatever the outcome is going to be. So I would encourage you to just be mindful about who you include as a confidant if you are in a place of significant distress, and also that it is important to have some confidant, whether that’s a coach or therapist, or a dear friend, or clergy, or whoever is your person. But it is important to also not to just keep it all inside. Because it can be really isolating, especially if you’re feeling like, “Everybody thinks my marriage is awesome, and I don’t think it is.” That’s a really hard place to be.
*“So it’s important just to take good care, focus on your wellbeing, focus on your wholeness. Because you want to make an important life decision from the best in yourself, and the things that help you feel whole and grounded and anchored into your own goodness, and connected in the world in a way that feels authentic and true and whole and aligned with your values, that’s where you want to be making life-impacting decisions from.”*
Absolutely, such great wisdom and advice to really be aware of these different aspects when seeking support. So thank you for giving voice to that. Rachel, you’ve really directed people towards your website to get the do’s and don’ts. I’ll make sure to have that link on today’s show notes. You offer so much more. So I’d love to turn towards how people can get in touch with you, what you’re offering. What would you like to encourage?
Yeah. If anybody wants to reach out, my website is RelationshipCrossroads.com. My email, if you want to find me there, is Rachel@RelationshipCrossroads.com. I am happy to hear from folks who are interested in Discernment Coaching processes, both online and private retreats. I also am available for short-term individual coaching with folks who are leaning in or leaning out. Though I would always recommend, if you can get your partner to do the discernment process together, that would be even better for yourself. Happy also to offer, I do consultation and supervision for therapists. So also available for that if anybody wants to reach out to me. I’ve also done some presentations to mediators and other folks who are encountering folks who are potentially looking for divorce but might have some ambivalence about that.
Yes, thanks for acknowledging that. I know I have attorneys that listen, and just really giving some space around where the referrals might be able to come from. Because this is, as we’ve talked about today, so incredibly valuable before putting into the couples’ work when maybe both people aren’t on that page.
Yeah. One other thing I should note, and this is relatively more recently, so I have another website, InnerWell.org, and I’ve just started doing some discernment work around things that are not relationship-specific. Because I’m so interested in this intersection of how we make decisions, over the last number of years, I’ve been studying a lot around decision-making, and that interplay between intuition and data and stakeholders, and how we navigate decisions that are not necessarily just about our own personal happiness, that have ethical implications that are just more nuanced, whether they’re in business or in life. So that’s more through my individual coaching work. So I do also leadership coaching.
Mixed agendas that come in many different environments and industries.
Exactly. So anyhow, I’m also broadening my discernment work a little more broadly. So for folks who are navigating other important life decisions around career or moves or family decisions, things like that, or business decisions. I used to be a business owner, so I have this entrepreneurial background also. So decisions about starting, stopping, growing, pivoting, restructuring, big life decisions and business decisions, I’m here for it. So they can reach out to me anytime if they’re interested.
Great. Well, I’ll have your email and your website. I think this is just so important. One of the things I really appreciate about you, Rachel, is you have this systems’ perspective, and you’re really making it all welcome. I mean, that’s one of the things that’s really standing with me is, so often we want to push away the thing that’s uncomfortable, and ambivalence being part of that. But that is quite the opposite of what we’re really talking about here today and giving space for that. So I love that. I was thinking about decision-making too as you were talking earlier, just helping people really look at all the elements and get the support to really do that in a really mindful way. So wonderful. Well, thank you so much.
It’s such a pleasure to talk with you. Thank you for having me on the show.
Yeah, it’s been an honor. Thank you.
Signing Off
If you have a topic you would like me to discuss, please contact me by clicking on the “Ask Dr. Jessica Higgins” button here.
Thank you so much for your interest in improving your relationship.
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Thank you!
*With Amazon Affiliate Links, I may earn a few cents from Amazon, if you purchase the book from this link.
Building a strong and secure connection within a romantic relationship is a goal shared by many. We strive for harmony, understanding, and a deep bond that withstands the test of time. But with human nature being what it is – aggressive, warlike, moody, and easily influenced – it can be a challenging task.
So, how do we achieve this level of connection? Is it about finding the perfect partner or following a set of rules?
In this episode, Dr. Stan Tatkin and Dr. Jessica Higgins embark on an enlightening exploration of human behavior within relationships shedding light on key elements that foster a strong and secure connection. Join us as we delve into the strategies and insights that can help you and your partner work together to create a solid foundation of love, trust, and mutual support.
Stan Tatkin, PsyD, MFT Clinician, author, researcher, PACT developer, and co-founder of the PACT Institute. Dr. Tatkin is an assistant clinical professor at UCLA, David Geffen School of Medicine. He maintains a private practice in Southern California and leads PACT programs in the US and internationally. He is the author of We Do, Wired for Love, Your Brain on Love, Relationship Rx, Wired for Dating, What Every Therapist Ought to Know, and co-author of Love and War in Intimate Relationships, and the upcoming, In Each Other’s Care.
In this Episode
6:01 In Each Other’s Care: Practical Guidance on Applying the Principles of Secure Functioning.
10:56 Normalizing stressful situations and creating purpose-centered relationships.
15:36 Preserving relationships through proactive engagement.
26:05 Creating purposeful relationships: moving beyond psycho-biology to action.
30:37 Embracing a collaborative stance: Exploring partner’s needs and approaching conversations with mutual interest.
Your Check List of Actions to Take
- Acknowledge human flaws and self-centered tendencies to approach your relationship with compassion and empathy.
- Maintain direct eye contact during face-to-face interactions to deepen the connection and reduce misunderstandings.
- Monitor and adjust your behavior based on real-time observations of your partner’s emotional state.
- Create a safe space for your partner to share without judgment, demonstrating genuine interest and understanding.
- Take responsibility for your emotions instead of projecting past experiences onto your partner.
- Stay present in the adult mindset, seeing your partner as an ally rather than an aggressor.
- Prioritize each other’s well-being and work collaboratively for secure functioning in your relationship.
- Attend couples workshops or retreats for valuable tools and insights to strengthen your bond.
- Seek professional help or specialized training programs like the PACT Institute.
- Commit to continuous effort, understanding, and adaptability for a thriving, long-lasting partnership.
Mentioned
Type Of Relationship Support (survey)
In Each Other’s Care: A Guide to the Most Common Relationship Conflicts and How to Work Through Them (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
Learn How to Interact When Conflicts Arise (excerpt)
We Do: Saying Yes to a Relationship of Depth, True Connection, and Enduring Love (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
Wired for Love: How Understanding Your Partner’s Brain and Attachment Style Can Help You Defuse Conflict and Build a Secure Relationship (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
Your Brain on Love: The Neurobiology of Healthy Relationships (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
Relationship Rx (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
Wired for Dating: How Understanding Neurobiology and Attachment Style Can Help You Find Your Ideal Mate (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
Love and War in Intimate Relationships: Connection, Disconnection, and Mutual Regulation in Couple Therapy (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
ERP 291: How “Love Is Not Enough” – An Interview with Dr. Stan Tatkin
Relationship Map To Happy, Lasting Love
Shifting Criticism For Connected Communication
*Connect wi*th Dr. Stan Tatkin
Websites: thepactinstitute.com
Facebook: facebook.com/drstantatkin
Twitter: twitter.com/DrStanTatkin
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/stan-tatkin
Instagram: instagram.com/drstantatkin
Connect with Dr. Jessica Higgins
Facebook: facebook.com/EmpoweredRelationship
Instagram: instagram.com/drjessicahiggins
Podcast: drjessicahiggins.com/podcasts/
Pinterest: pinterest.com/EmpowerRelation
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/drjessicahiggins
Twitter: @DrJessHiggins
Website: drjessicahiggins.com
Email: jessica@drjessicahiggins.com
About Today’s Show
Dr. Stan Tatkin, thank you so much for joining us.
Thank you. Thank you for having me again. It’s good to see you.
I know. It’s always a pleasure. I know you are so busy writing, and as you just shared with me, you have published your eighth book, which is such a congratulations and such a gift that you’re offering people in the world to distill these very, sometimes, complex topics around intimacy and relationship, and really helping it feel accessible for people, and teaching other clinicians, and being a guest speaker and keynoting all around. So we’re really honored to have you here and sharing your time with us here.
Thank you, Jessica.
Yes. So we are talking about your new book. Do you want to say the name of your back?
Sure, why not? It’s In Your Own Care. No, that would be terrible. It’s In Each Other’s Care, not in your own care. That would be the wrong book. That would be the book I would have written when I was a young man, In Your Own Care. No, in each other’s care.
Yes. and that’s really important in what you’re trying to describe here. If you’re willing to share, what prompted you to be writing this book?
Well, that’s a long story, I’ll just make it really short. I was struggling with an adaptation of one of my direct to audiobooks. Lo and behold, audio doesn’t transcribe well to written word. The other way around perhaps, but not that way. So I thought, what am I going to do? I scrapped the whole thing, and I thought, wouldn’t it be interesting fun to write and organize a book by complaints? All the complaints that I get in my clinic: my partner doesn’t share with me, my partner doesn’t like my kids, whatever. So that was really fun, I really got into it. I started to organize every chapter by general complaints, having to do with money, time, sex, messiness, kids, and other things. Then I was able to really give people a sense of what is secure functioning, how to talk, the wrong way to talk, a better way to talk. I think it’s the first book that actually really is a workbook on how to apply secure functioning principles, everything that I have been teaching about. So I hope people like it.
Yes, and I’m sure we will all benefit greatly. Because I agree with you, not only have you been writing about the science of secure functioning, really helping people understand the concepts, giving them some inner workings and principles around how to foster and scaffold secure relationship, and some of the real principles around that. And the application, to have language, to have examples, to workshop it, and to have a guidebook really helps with the specificity. I think it’s incredibly important.
Well, we’ll see, I can’t wait to hear what people think.
Yes. Well, you talk about the main message that you want, in my impression, was that this is a guidebook for really helping people have repair and also cultivate secure functioning. What would you say the main mission of the book is?
It is secure functioning, which is different than secure attachment, and we’ve talked about that before. This is more along the lines of social contracts that people make, whenever unionizing in a free society of equals. So we have two people in this case; it could be more in other situations, other configurations. But let’s say two people entering into a social contract of terms and conditions; not love, not emotion, but purpose-centered reasons for being a couple, a union, an alliance. It has to be based on general social contract theory: fairness, justice, mutual sensitivity, collaboration and cooperation. Harder to do than it sounds.
“Instead of focusing on attachment types, although I do a bit, I found that people tended to grab on to the classifications of attachment styles, as all people will do that, and forgetting that attachment is a research model. *It’s not intended to the general public, and it’s not really talking about people per se. It’s talking about aggregates of large amounts of people.”*
So what I found is that people that come to me, people that we see in retreats and so on, tend to use classifications that are meant for medicine, psychology, psychiatry, as a cudgel to beat each other up with or themselves. So that worries me.
To be pathologizing, if you will.
Right. Anytime medicines or DSM categories or any of that, even terms like codependency, gets co-opted by the public, it gets used and abused, and in a manner that otherizes; even their partner otherizing their partner. “You’re a narcissist. You’re borderline. You’re codependent.” Or whatever. This is more emphasizing that this is not about whether you’re a cat or a dog or an island or a wave. There’s an actual issue about our species, about the human condition, that is common to all people. You don’t have to categorize that. If you’re a human primate, you’re a difficult animal; you do bad things. You do great things, but you really can do very bad things, and you can get in a lot of trouble in relationships with other human beings. So I’m trying to level the field here, and in take out, I did the best I could with the examples, take out any identifying information, including gender, including sex, including nationality, religion, ethnicity, and so on, the best I could. It’s sort of to flatten everything as really having to do with problems with the human brain. To say they’re problems is a misnomer, they’re just features and bugs of the brain that are features in one area and bugs in another.
Two things. One is, I really appreciate your normalizing, under stress, under pressure, under not having any governance or shared purpose or principle, that we can regress or even resort to aggressive tendencies, or things that we wouldn’t be necessarily proud of or be promoting. That this is something we’re all capable of, and tend to go towards when we’re in these very stressful pressed situations. So I love that you really make that so, so clear, and normalize that.
The second thing, as I’m hearing you talk about secure functioning and directing people’s attention towards what does this look like, getting out of the categorizing. Because I agree with you, the research, it’s almost reductionist. It’s very simplified, it’s not maybe looking at the spectrum or the variations of how it actually manifests. But one of the things I love too, is that the secure functioning, it gives direction towards what we can create. So even if one did have insecurity in their attachment and function or experience, that they can create more security through these behaviors and through these patterns.
Absolutely. The idea here is that people, in my mind, if they are pair bonding, let’s say, like any union, I expect that they co-create this thing they’re calling a relationship.
“A relationship doesn’t really exist. It’s an abstraction, it’s an idea. You can’t take a picture of it. Since a relationship is in your head and in my head, it’s a good idea that we get the same fantasy, the same idea, the same mythology in mind, otherwise we’re going to have trouble.”
Then how are we going to govern each other, to keep each other from doing stupid things that all human beings will do? So we plan for our devils, not our angels. Angels would be great, especially when we’re feeling good. But under a certain amount of stress, and in distress or with competing interests, our devils come out, at least our partner thinks so. So like anything else where we unionize, it makes better sense that it is based on: why should we exist, what are we going to do for each other, what’s the point? It has to be purpose-centered, not feeling-centered, which is a very hard selling point for couples already in relationship. Because they’re in it for love and attraction, because they have kids. But unless there are shared sense of vision, shared purpose, that people are able to get each other on board before doing things, unless people will do that, their relationship will degrade over time, in various ways. It’s a predictable trajectory, that unfortunately you and I see, when it’s long in the tooth. So this is an orientation to something that is quite rational, and has been around since the beginning of civilization. It’s basically you and I coming up with our relationship culture from scratch, our relationship ethics and morals. That’s our business only, and it’s to our pleasure, our design, and constantly being molded and shaped by the two of us, nobody else.
This is so important, and again, there’s a couple of comments I want to make. One of which is, I have felt from you, when you are so clear about this recommendation and encouragement, that it’s helping people have a focus that gives them direction, rather than when things are threatening and stressful. It’s not convenient. It’s not pleasurable. It’s difficult. As you mentioned in the neuroscience, it’s just easy to want to be efficient or take the easier route. So without this guiding principle, and having an interest that helps us evolve and be in the interest of growth, and what we’re co-creating, as you’re saying, it’s so important to be cognizant and have that front of mind. Otherwise, we will be left to our tendencies, which isn’t ideal and optimal, as you’re pointing out.
No, it isn’t. Because we’re automatic creatures that are driven by memory and impulse, and we are really keen on picking up threat cues from the environment. Because of all of those things, we’re liable to do things that are inconsiderate, to violate another person’s rights, that is unfair, just without even thinking about it. It’s not personal, it just feels that way.
Here’s another thing. This is a short way of memorizing, a mnemonic: PEPPER. PEPPER is basically: Predict, Plan, Prepare, and Revise as necessary. This should be done in all instances. So Tracy and I, before going anywhere, doing anything, we decide, by the end of that time, how our time is going to be experienced. By the end of this vacation, we had a great time. By the end of this dinner with the family, we did great, and we can high five each other. With imagining that shared vision, then we start to go down the list of what could possibly ruin our time, including each other. Then we start to predict what could go wrong, we plan for it, and we take it off the table, and then remind ourselves each other before walking in the room. We do this with drunk Uncle Harry or anything else, where we have to think about seating, and so on. So we don’t really allow ourselves to walk into something without knowing what we’re walking into and prepare. Because we want a good time; we want to put our safety and security first, and then we consider other people. This is how we preserve our relationships.
Yes. This is the title of your book, In Each Other’s Care, and the active engagement with this. It’s not something that just happens to us. It’s something we’re intentionally creating. This is something that I wanted to also comment on, is how often people are entering into relationship expecting that the difficulty is finding the partner. I know this is where I think most of us who have been around the block or have been self-studying know that this isn’t true, but there’s still so much that’s assumed and expected, and we’d rather not have to. It just feels like work. Why do we have to reverse-engineer everything? But yeah, there’s huge implications of this, and to be in each other’s care and really set it up for success, especially when we can forecast that things are going to be a little rocky or challenging or there’s going to be things that we’re going to have to deal with and negotiate, why not set that up for success? You’re really speaking to this clearly.
I think it’s because we’re lazy.
“Almost everything I’ve discovered in biology, the main thing is in biology, the tendency for all organisms to conserve energy, and we’re no exception. By conserving energy, I mean doing the least amount necessary so that we can do more things and not just one thing. So we automate each other and think we know each other, and then we take each other for granted, and we take shortcuts.”
We lose our formalities. Is this a good time? I’ve stopped doing that. I just walk in and just start talking to you, or calling you from another room. All these things that we might not have done when we were dating. These things cause problems if we don’t know them. Or I don’t look at you, because I’ve memorized your face and I’ve honed a picture of your face, maybe for months, and I haven’t really taken a good look at you since then. There are all these things that are problematic, that make me wonder how we ever really hold on to relationships.
This is the only thing that really makes sense, with all the psychobiology and all the infant brain development and development that we study, arousal regulation issues. All of that is interesting, but then what do we do? Unfortunately, what we do about it is having to expend energy and stay awake, and stay present enough to watch where we’re walking, watch where we’re stepping. That’s more than a lot of people want to do. Also, love relationships seem to come with certain entitlements that other relationships don’t. Because it goes back to the earliest attachment relationships that we’ve had, and we get confused. Are we family? Or are we strangers? The answer is we’re strangers, always, and strangers trying to get to know each other.
So there are all these forces that operate against us in keeping our unions intact. This goes for rock and roll bands, or businesses, or clubs, or anything, the same thing goes. It’s just harder in the romantic pair bonding situation, because of all these other factors. This is really about thinking around purpose, tabling emotions, and coming up with legislation that protect emotion. This turns out to be very hard for a lot of people to do.
Absolutely. So much of what you’re offering is the organization, the science, the scaffolding, and also process, and you’re giving, in your new book, real language and situational circumstances to help people apply. If I might just wonder with you, in my experience, when we do participate in this type of co-creation and this type of intentionality, the rewards help motivate and help fuel in a positive cycle to continue to do this. That we can feel the result of it, versus carelessly or maybe even lazily going through some of these interactions.
I want people to experience earned love, earned respect, earned admiration. Because every day, you and I are doing things that we both decided are the right things to do and the best things to do, even though they’ll be the hardest to do, and we do them. That is awesome. I mean, that’s co-creating a really good life. But sometimes, with people that have come in and have already accrued a lot of threat memory, there’s a lot of unwinding to do. It’s a lot harder to look at how to build this thing properly when there’s a lot of water under the bridge, but still doable.
Yes, there’s a lot of repair and trust building. I mean, in my experience, even when things are going well, that this is an evolving process; we’re dialing it in, we’re continuing to learn. Is that right? It’s not just like, we strategize once, and then that’s our recipe. You’re nodding.
It’s an ongoing process of molding and shaping, because we’re moving through time. Conditions are changing constantly, with our bodies, with life, with the amount of load bearing we’re having to take on. This is about two people resourcing each other, and this is the real thing that’s underneath this that we’re trying to accomplish in this work. That is to lower something called allostatic load, that’s the price we pay for adaptation. Interpersonal stress is a killer. It leads to early death, unhappiness, a whole host of maladies, both psychologically and medically. Home, the two of us or whoever is in this relationship, the home is the relationship. If there’s a lot of interpersonal stress, because of threat, and because of resentment that keeps getting built up, that’s not good. So what we’re really trying to do is lower interpersonal stress to a hum, and to eliminate threat. That’s when things start to take off. We have suddenly resources to grow, to create, to do things that we really love to do. But we can’t if we’re too busy having a war in our own foxhole, which is crazy.
It makes everything more difficult. Because the place in which we want to have refuge or sense of home and comfort is stressed and distressed or threatening, that it makes everything that much more difficult. Versus, when we can invest in this home in a way that’s nurturing and mutually rewarding, then we have more capacity to live life, and to this load that you’re talking about. It is a very different equation.
It is, yeah.
I don’t want to lose you, Stan. I would love to give listeners a taste around you’re helping people workshop, if you will. I don’t know if you like that word. But some of these complaints, and what you’re helping people navigate here? Would you like to talk about one or two of some of the common ones? I know there’s so many in the book, I remember going through it and I was like: “Oh, this is juicy. Oh my gosh, yes!” These things, people can relate to and are confronting,
The secret of the book isn’t really about the complaints. Because here’s the real issue. It’s actually never the subject matter. The subject matter is a stressor, and the problem is stress. When you and I talk about something stressful, unless we’re very skillful, unless we’re very good at maintaining collaboration and cooperation, even under those conditions, we’re going to make mistakes that will lead to conflict.
So here’s one that’s really common. In my narrative, the manner of my speech, I begin to work on you instead of the problem, when we should be working on the problem as a third thing, like a puzzle. I invoke your name. I make it clear that you’re the problem. That compels you, automatically compels you to protect your interests, which then is threatening to me, and compels me to do the same. Within a heartbeat, we’re adversaries. So the real problem here is, in a two-person psychological system, which is a level-up in terms of social emotional functioning, where I have to take care of myself and you at the same time, or you will experience me as unfriendly, which has consequences.
That’s basically the formula. I have to keep your interests in mind as I talk, and my own interests. I can’t forgo mine, I can’t forgo yours. They have to be there, at least in the speech and the manner in which I’m talking, or you will take a lot of time and start to protect yourself. That’s easier said than done. It takes a higher level of social emotional functioning, and an understanding that as a team, we’re separate, autonomous people. But our fates are tied together.
Because if we are truly interdependent, we should have the same things to gain and the same things to lose. Meaning that we’re holding each other to the same standards, which on a moral level, anything I do to you that hurts you is self-harming because it will come back to me. If I broker a deal where you are unhappy with it, that will come back to me. There’s no way I can win if it’s win-lose. So that’s just the realities of a two-person system, full stop. That has implications for the length of time that you and I can be happy and get along, without building up a lot of memory that we have to look backward and litigate.
So working on each other, not the problem, is one. Talking in a way that is non-collaborative, non-cooperative, is another. Not looking at each other and facing each other when under stress is another problem.
“Because of our brains being visually oriented, we error-correct through the visual stream. So if I’m talking to you on the phone and arguing with you, or through text, or in a car, which you should never do, or across the room or to the side of you, we’re going to fight. I have to actually keep my eyes on you at all times.”
Because if you are not okay, then we don’t get anything done. So I have to make sure you’re safe and secure at all times, even under stress, and you have to do the same with me. Or we walk away with nothing. So that’s another issue.
Yet another one is bringing up anything historic. Anytime we bring up the past, we’re going to fight, because our memories are bad. “It really bothered me what you said the other night.” Then now you’re going to argue about, “That wasn’t the other night, that was a week ago. You didn’t say that, you said this. I did this, and I did that.” So we’re going to fight about that, and we’ll both be wrong. So that’s another mistake. Always move forward, take the past and talk about it in the way of what do we do about this thing going forward? Do we both want to, whatever it is that went wrong? That’s another mistake.
Over-describing, talking too long, holding the stage too long. Under stress, you and I have to move quickly. Because it’s not a neutral state, we only have so much time before we get depleted. Or so much time if we do it badly, our heart rates and blood pressure will go up to the point where we move towards fight-or-flight, and then game over. So people have to understand how our minds work and don’t work, and we have to be practiced in this.
Yet another thing is referring too much to other people. “My therapist said you shouldn’t be doing this. I spoke to my mother, and even my mother thinks you’re wrong.” I think we mostly know that that’s unfair fighting, but that is called mismanaging thirds, bringing third people into our orbit as a way to bolster my point, which is kind of a chintzy way of trying to win. Even the dog doesn’t like it.
So they’re all these things that are based on what we know about the human condition and the human mind. That’s what I think I’m trying to educate people in this book. Even though the topics are rotating the problems, the ghost in the machine is always going to be the manner in which we are interacting under stress. The other one is, we do not have an organizational structure to our relationship. We don’t have it, never did. Therefore, it’s flying by the seat of our pants, and not really coming up with a structure and set of principles that guide us and keep us from doing things that we ought not to do.
Perhaps some of these challenges are actual flags or signals to say: “Oh, this needs attention. We haven’t actually come up with a good agreement around this topic or this instance.” So it could be a teaching or an opportunity to evolve, if we see it in that way. But often it feels pretty alarming or threatening or uncomfortable. Would you agree with that?
The smartest thing to do is to create policies. You and I fight about being on time, and someone says, well, do you have a policy about being on time, the two of you? No, we don’t. We’re never really affectionate. Do we have a policy around affection? We should put that in place, it’s better than a poke in the eye. Why don’t we put that in place? We’re both avoidant, so that would be good for us. Then we come up with a principle focused on that, where we give each other permission to enforce, with the explicit understanding the other person must cooperate immediately. That’s how we get things done. That’s how we create things we maybe never would have done for ourselves or wouldn’t be able to do by ourselves.
So a clarifying question, and then I have another question, and I have one more question. So as I’m listening you talk about putting again front and center, this collaborative approach, I’m also recognizing there may be instances where two partners, if we’re talking about a monogamous relationship, where they’re approaching a conversation, and they may have no sense about what their partner needs. But one can still approach that conversation with: “I’m in your interest. I don’t know what it is exactly. But I am for you, and I’m for us in this collaborative stance, even if we don’t know what it is.’ So it’s almost like an exploratory process. But we can be really clear about we are for them, even if we don’t know yet. Is that right?
Could you give me a concrete example, so I can understand it better? It’s a little bit general. Do you have one?
Sure. I mean, I think I was thinking more generally, that if let’s say we’re planning a vacation, where we’re deciding whether or not we want to take a vacation. My husband on the outside is seemingly having some concerns, and I don’t actually know what those concerns are, or what he really is needing. Is it “I want to do things in a really paced way. I don’t want to get overwhelmed. Or I don’t want to take on too much. Or perhaps it’s not a good time.” Or maybe he just doesn’t want to do this. I don’t have any clue. But instead of feeling like he’s against me, and I have enough wherewithal to say, “Okay, I know that we want to get to a win-win here. I know I really want a break and want to get away with you, and I want to play with you. It seems as though you have some feelings. I don’t know what they are. But can we be in a conversation to understand more about what we both need right now?”
Yeah. So that would fall under a principle you could co-create. Is it a good idea that we be fully transparent with each other, so that we don’t leave each other wondering things, which is a bad idea. Because in this space, I’m going to make things up, and they’re not going to be positive, and so will you. If you want me to do that, or if I want you to do that, then let’s continue just being mysteries and big holes of data that we can’t figure out. But I think that’s going to cause us a lot of trouble. So do you think it’d be a great idea for both of us to do business that way, so as not to create a problem with one person making stuff up or starting a fight? Because these things will start fights. So we don’t have to be good at it. But if I start to notice that you’re not saying something, do I have your permission to cue you and remind you of this principle, “You’ve got to talk to me. Remember, we said this is what we do. If I do that, will you cooperate with me immediately without rolling your eyes or pushing back or any kind of giving me trouble?” You will. Okay, this will work. That’s a guardrail.
“Governance is always done by previous agreement and permission to enforce. People make the mistake of not having these agreements and permissions, and then they get into fights.”
So that’s the way to deal with that. Then you could say, “Talk to me, I can tell something’s wrong. Spill, tell me what’s bothering you.” He’s got to do it based on this agreement.
Right. And what if one is giving permission and is wanting to cooperate, but also isn’t quite sure that they’re going to be able to spell or dish or know? They might say, “Yes, I want to share with you. But I’m not entirely sure what this is about for me. I need to kind of get clear.”
Great, what better! A couple is singlets as partners. Partners are able to make up anything and to serve each other in a way that nobody ever would do in the outside world, unless you pay them a lot of money. But here, it’s free. That’s fine, you don’t have to know. Let me help you. I’ll ask you some questions. I’ll help you think. That’s a good thing. Save your money on trying to figure this out with a therapist. “What images come to mind? What were you thinking about? Is it about the trip? Is it about something else? Oh, it’s about the trip. What do you think about it? What comes to mind? Are you excited by the trip? Be honest. Are you worried about something?” Help them think. That’s the whole idea, is not to, and islands or avoidant people will do this, “I need time to think about what my thoughts are.” Usually, it’s because I’m afraid that anything I say can and will get me into trouble with you. So I have to avoid. But that’s a lot of work on that person to do that, and it’s unnecessary. So that’s what I would say about that. That is great. Because many times I don’t know what’s going on with me, and it’s helpful for me to talk it out with Tracy, because I’m trying to figure it out.
Absolutely. The other sense that I’m getting in this cooperative approach, and being for each other and in each other’s care, is that, because sometimes I find, when I’m listening to clients and how they’re operating, is they’ll let things fester. It’s almost that anger is the thing that fuels taking action. Like, “Enough already! I’ve got a bone to pick with you.” It’s not as though their attitude is, “I’m seeking resolution, I’m trying to find out what will be a good win-win for us, or how we might be able to work together.” It’s like, “I’ve got an issue, and I need to tell you about it,” which was kind of what you were saying before, is describing the other person and some of these things to be really aware of. Or that we might be in fight-or-flight, and that’s typically not a great state to be in trying to resolve something collaboratively.
Well, first of all, I personally am done with holding on to anything that is very uncomfortable. If I’m worried, because I didn’t hear back from a friend for a few days, that we’re okay, I’ll reach out and I’ll check right away. I don’t want to carry it very long. If Tracy is upset with me, she’ll tell me immediately. If I’m upset, she’ll tell me immediately. It gives us a chance to fix it quickly, and then take it off the table, and it’s not remembered. So again, that would have to be established as principle, the best thing we could do for each other, for the relationship. But it’s also healthier, because why drag yourself around holding something that you could unburden yourself with quickly, by reality-checking or simply telling your person? “That really hurt me.” Which gives your partner, hopefully, they’re good at this, an opportunity to relieve you immediately. “That was stupid. God, that was terrible! I don’t blame you.” Oh, thank you. Done.
It’s almost emotional hygiene, where we’re really taking care of the health of the connection and what might be interfering or getting in the way.
And it also doesn’t make sense for me to drain my resources simply because there’s all sorts of reasons why I would hold on, most of them historic. I’m afraid I’ll start trouble. Or I’m afraid that you won’t respond well. Or I don’t want to burden you. Or, or, or. But it’s always a bad idea to not just say it. Health reasons, safety and security reasons, and also for ease. This is what we do.
My last question is about the eye-to-eye. I do remember coming across more than once, this idea that sometimes, for a person identifying male, that standing face-to-face can feel a little confrontational, especially when it’s a sensitive topic, and that having a little bit of angle. But sounds like you’re really recommending head-on.
Head-on for a reason. When I’m not looking at you, since we’re visual animals, and if I’m upset, what am I looking at? I’m looking at something. Something is always internally in the visual field inside, behind the eyes. So if I’m upset, and I understand the formula here that state of mind drives memory, memory drives state of mind in a loop, and state of mind alters perception like a funhouse mirror. Then I am looking at a static picture of you that goes along with my state of mind, which is angry with you. So I’m looking at an angry you or something else. That is bad for me, because I’m ginning myself up with an internal vision of you, without actually seeing the source and being in real-time. That’s one.
Two, it’s in my best interest to keep my eyes on you because this is a fast moving game. If I don’t see you shift, I’m going to still assume that you are doing the same thing you did a moment ago, but I didn’t see it. I didn’t see the change, and so now that keeps us in a fight.
“Think of it this way. If you and I are moving through a stressful situation, a painful situation, it’s like both of us are on a tight wire. If one of us falls over, we both fall over; we’re tied together that way. Therefore, it’s in my best interest tactically, to see my impact on you, moment by moment.”
Because if I did or say something that makes your face go not great, I better do something about that, or game over for me. Game over, that’s it. It doesn’t make any sense for me to not be monitoring in real-time, my effect on you.
Which goes back to what you were saying. It’s not so much the importance around the content, it’s understanding how each person is feeling in the engagement.
It’s tactical. I need to keep you safe and secure enough, or I get nothing. As soon as you move out of safety, you are not influenceable, nobody is. If I start to feel threatened, my brain has changed, chemically. I have no concern for you, I have no grace available to you. I will not put myself in your shoes. I am thinking about my interests only. I am not your friend at this moment. But you did that. You’ll blame me, because that’s the human condition. I’m upset, I don’t know why. I’m feeling really depressed. I feel so lonely. Oh yeah, it’s you. That’s the human condition, we always look to the outside for that. That’s dangerous in a two-person system where we’re interdependent, you can do that with a stranger.
So this is really helpful for us to get information. We’re going to get it. But if we can be able to turn towards that, it’s strategic and tactical, as you’re saying.
All strategic. It’s not personal. But all of this feels personal.
Yes, and it also works conversely, if I’m hearing you. I see this a lot in my sessions, that one partner will be looking to their partner with compassion and interest and understanding and care. But the person sharing, it’s almost as if I can’t even look up, I don’t know what you’re going to be thinking, or it’s hard for me to know how you’re going to receive me. So it’s a risk to look. Then often I’ll say, what do you see, and what do you see in your partner’s face? That can be really reassuring of like, “Oh, he’s genuinely listening.” Or they’re really seeing caring, and it’s really helpful, it starts to shift things in a more positive way.
These are autonomic things that actually are memory-based, and this is where these relationships, why they’re so hard. It’s all projection, number one, in these relationships. The other is that we tend to regress. I’m no longer an adult thinking, I’m now back in my family of origin. You’re the aggressor, or you’re the person who’s shaming me, or you’re the person that I feel small with. So I drop you. I no longer am a partner, I’m something else. These are the challenges that we face in these relationships constantly, which is why they’re so fascinating. There’s nothing more fascinating than couples to me.
I understand that everything that people do isn’t really about pathology, it is mostly the human condition. Basically, the things I’m talking about, brain error potentials, it’s the things that have to do with our warlike wiring. If people could just remember that human beings, as swell as we are, because I’m one, I’m not putting myself down. But by nature, and this hasn’t changed over the millennium, we are by nature, aggressive, warlike creatures. We’re selfish, self-centered at all times, even when we’re altruistic. We’re moody and fickle, opportunistic. People have got to remember that, opportunistic. We’re easily influenced by groups and other people, which makes us kind of wimpy and unreliable. And we otherize, we’re xenophobic; we otherize. “You’re different than me, I don’t like you,” as if that’s a big surprise. You’re so different from me, so of course I don’t like you. But we otherize, and that’s a nifty way to distance and to make the other person the problem. This is what we’re dealing with. It’s been across our entire existence, and it’s in every corner of this planet.
Yes. Well, I am so grateful for everything you’re sharing. I know we’re winding down our time here. Is there anything else you want to say before we talk about how people can get your book and get in touch?
It’s lovely to see you. I forgot how much I like you.
Likewise.
You’re so lovely. People can get ahold of me at all social media, it’s Dr. Stan Tatkin. Then, if people are interested in a couple’s workshops, which we do online, we do them all the time, and we do couples retreats in nice places like Portugal next year. If people or therapists want to learn this approach, they can also go to ThePactInstitute.com, and there are all of our training schedules. Everything.
Wonderful. I’ll have the link to your book on today’s show notes.
In Each Other’s Care.
Yes. One of the things I’m feeling is that you’re helping this be doable. You’re giving people a roadmap and some real actionable, real doable, real understanding to make this applicable. So I love that you’re really helping people be successful.
Secure functioning isn’t easy. It is hard. It’s hard for me. But anything worth it isn’t. If it’s easy, it’s probably not worth anything. If you think about it, this is the only way to ensure that your relationship is going to last. There is no other way that I can think of.
Yes, wonderful! Again, I’ll have all the links to your social media, your websites, your retreats, your workshops, your book, and I know people will be reaching out. Thank you again for what you do.
Thank you. Thank you so much. It’s good to see you.
Likewise.
Signing Off
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*With Amazon Affiliate Links, I may earn a few cents from Amazon, if you purchase the book from this link.
You’ve probably heard the well-meaning relationship advice to “learn to compromise.” It seems like a reasonable solution to navigate differences and find middle ground. But what if I told you that this popular advice might be doing more harm than good?
In this thought-provoking discussion with Dr. Jessica Higgins and Dr. Alexandra Stockwell, we explore why the conventional wisdom of compromise may not be the ultimate solution for relationship harmony.
If you’re tired of settling for less and yearn for a relationship that thrives on passion, understanding, and unwavering closeness, then this episode is an absolute must-listen. Prepare to embark on a journey towards uncompromising intimacy, where compromise takes a backseat, and authentic connection takes center stage.
Known as “The Intimacy Doctor,” Alexandra Stockwell, MD, is an Intimate Marriage Expert who specializes in coaching ambitious, successful couples to build beautiful, long-lasting, passionate relationships. She is the bestselling author of “Uncompromising Intimacy,” host of The Intimate Marriage Podcast, and creator of the Aligned & Hot Marriage program.
Dr. Alexandra has been featured in the Huffington Post, Rolling Stone, USAToday, Cosmopolitan, Business Insider, Thriveglobal, Mindbodygreen, FOX NEWS, and many more.
In this Episode
5:17 Dr. Stockwell’s personal journey that led her to focus on relationships and intimacy.
12:46 The significance of personal transformation and setting positive examples for others in fostering healthy relationships and self-discovery.
17:21 Challenging the notion of compromise in marriage: Discovering a vibrant and satisfying intimacy.
27:41 Uncompromising intimacy: The Key to vibrant and fulfilling relationships.
32:53 The impact of unspoken compromises: Nurturing vulnerable honesty for deeper connection.
38:40 Embracing authenticity and empowering relationships through uncompromising intimacy.
51:11 Cultivating sensory awareness and unleashing the power of pleasure in intimacy.
56:07 Connect with Dr. Stockwell and learn more about the tools and principles for a committed partnership and creating lasting and fulfilling connections.
Your Check List of Actions to Take
- Be curious about your partner and ask questions to understand their desires.
- Practice mindfulness and be fully present to strengthen your connection.
- Seek pleasure and find joy in everyday activities.
- Communicate openly about your desires and set clear boundaries.
- Embrace new experiences to keep your relationship exciting.
- Prioritize genuine connection and emotional closeness.
- Commit to personal and relationship growth through learning and self-improvement.
Mentioned
Uncompromising Intimacy: Turn Your Unfulfilling Marriage into a Deeply Satisfying, Passionate Partnership (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
The Intimate Marriage Podcast (*Spotify link) (podcast)
Aligned and Hot Marriage (program)
Relationship Map To Happy, Lasting Love
Shifting Criticism For Connected Communication
*Connect wi*th Dr. Alexandra Stockwell
Websites: alexandrastockwell.com
TikTok: tiktok.com/@intimacydoctor
YouTube: youtube.com/channel/UC_NFfwXTz2n6C_2QdmrfEVg
Instagram: instagram.com/intimacydoctor
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/alexandrastockwell
Connect with Dr. Jessica Higgins
Facebook: facebook.com/EmpoweredRelationship
Instagram: instagram.com/drjessicahiggins
Podcast: drjessicahiggins.com/podcasts/
Pinterest: pinterest.com/EmpowerRelation
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/drjessicahiggins
Twitter: @DrJessHiggins
Website: drjessicahiggins.com
Email: jessica@drjessicahiggins.com
About Today’s Show
Dr. Alexandra Stockwell, thank you so much for joining us.
I’m really glad to be here. Thank you for the opportunity.
Yes, and I am really excited about our conversation. I know that I’ve had my own sentiments around the topic of compromise in relationship. It’s something that I think the average person might repeat that that’s part of what helps relationship. I love that you have a different perspective on this, and I might share some of the similar perspective that you do. So I can’t wait to get your voice on this.
Before we get started, I would love to hear a little bit more about you, if you’re willing to share, and also, what got you interested in this particular area or topic of relationship?
Yeah, so there are really two different pathways that converged. One is the professional context. So I was a practicing physician, I had a small holistic practice north of Boston. Actually my husband and I met the first week of medical school, and we’ve been married 27 years now. Anyway, we were together, we have four children; at the time, we had three. We lived in a house that I really liked. In other words, I had worked really hard and accomplished all of the things that I had intended to accomplish. I think I had some idea that continuing to practice medicine, I loved being a doctor, I loved practicing medicine, and care for my family. Essentially, just do more of that for the next four decades, hopefully, that it would be really fulfilling. This is what I had given about 15 years of my life to create.
But I didn’t have that sense of deep satisfaction. This was a while ago, 2005. This is before the phenomenon of physician burnout, which is really common now. I wasn’t burnt out, I wasn’t depressed. It wasn’t anything like that. It’s just that I had worked so hard with all that it takes to get to that point, and it just didn’t feel like I had arrived or it was worth it. Everything that I Did, I was really in the paradigm of it being a means to an end. So even when my family went on vacation, it was the means to the end of making good memories. I wasn’t really present, really mindful, really gratified in the moment. I wanted to be able to activate some dormant part of me that could really feel, I think contentment is the best word. Because it’s not contentment in suffering, that’s a whole other matter. I’m talking about, in all the good that I had created, not feeling content.
So eventually, having tried different things, time management, and this and that, I eventually arranged to take a sabbatical, in which I gave myself permission to do things just because I felt like it. That actually was very confronting for somebody ambitious and hardworking, to even know what I would want to do when I could just do it because I wanted to. Still, I had three children. It’s not like I was in bed with my iPad for hours and hours. But I sat by the river, I took a painting class; things that were just because they pleased me. In expanding and learning to be more connected is essentially was what I would now call my desire and my inner vitality, my life really got brighter and more meaningful.
I got to where the last frontier was sensuality and sexuality, and I wasn’t going to stop before. Like, this was the area to bring mindfulness and presence and gratification and a way to put all of this in more sexual terms. It’s like, I wanted to enjoy the foreplay, regardless of where it ended up. Although, it was more likely to end in glorious places when I did that.
Anyway, I didn’t know how to really bring this new awareness into the bedroom. I took a very in-depth training on sensuality and sexuality, which happened to double as a coach training. But that’s not why I went, I didn’t even really know what a coach was back in those days. I just went because I wanted to learn how to have more richness in my life in the sensual sexual realm, and I was curious. So I went to the teaching lab, and I thought: “Oh, this is what I want to do for the rest of my life.” I actually transitioned out of medicine, and have been doing relationship and intimacy coaching ever since. Although, for me, sure, in the professional realm, in terms of credentials and things along those lines, it seems like a very big change to step away from medicine and become a coach. But in terms of the motivation, from my heart, it actually feels like a very consistent through line. I’m just wearing different clothes, but it’s very much the same me serving from the same place.
Wow, what a journey! I’m really touched by what you’re describing. I have a couple of follow-up questions. So one of my things that I feel really touched by is, so often, as you really beautifully described — didn’t say it in these terms, but what I’m getting is — we’re motivated by these outside drivers, or what we might imagine is going to provide a certain quality of living, and with the ambition and the achievements that you accomplished, likely it was driven from some internal place as well. It sounds like helping and being of service and healing in some capacity. But what I am really touched by is that you have the listening to your inner world. Then also, as you discovered, I’m totally projecting, but it sounds as though you were being motivated and driven from within and listening to that in your responsiveness to what was engaging you. Am I hearing that right?
You are. It really started at the level of a whisper, but it caught my attention. There are two more things that gave it context. One is that in my early 30s, first one, and then two years later, my other parent died. I’m sure that that had me considering my life in a way that I might not have if I hadn’t been through those experiences. The other thing, which is, when I initially answered, I said there’s a personal and a professional. So even though my professional response has a lot of personal qualities, that was really the response in terms of professionally. Personally, at this time, my daughter turned nine. I remember her birthday, she was so radiant, and feminine, and strong, and joyful, just self-expressed in this really beautiful way. She’s my oldest. So on the one hand, I just felt so happy that she got to really be her, that that is what life had allowed for her, and that I had obviously helped facilitate. Simultaneously, I freaked out on the inside, because I realized I’m not that way at all.
“There’s something that happens for all of us, whether we’re in a healing profession or not, where when our children get to an age where something important happened for us, we can sort of either consciously or unconsciously recapitulate it.”
It just became so clear that when I was nine, which was the year my parents got divorced, there’s a way in which I had divorced from a part of myself. Like, something had shut down. But I didn’t realize until I was in the presence of Josephine’s radiance, that I hadn’t actually completely reconnected with whatever got shut down in that transition.
There are lots of things I could say, moving into adolescence, whatever, whatever. The relevant thing for me in that moment, was to realize that, and also to know that because mammals learn through imitation, children learn so much about relationships from the parents they live with, or don’t live with, I suppose, I should say also. That I knew another nine years at home, if she left for college at 18, if I didn’t activate my own radiance and my own self-expression in a comparable way, in my version, with my personality, and my age, and my life circumstances. But if I didn’t really learn to reconnect with more of my own juiciness, that there’s no way that she could sustain how she was in the presence of a more contracted woman. So this in a way was external mode of motivation, if you want to put it that way. But I was much more capable of dealing with this, I want to say. It’s not really a thing you deal with, but opening to this, softening to this. Really, it felt like figuring it out, even though it’s not really a problem to be solved in the traditional sense. But I was motivated because if she had gotten to nine with all of this, I wanted her to get to 18 too.
No kidding! Especially, I would wonder, and I feel like for the average person in a world where there’s certain messages that are getting delivered in school with peers, that that contraction also, there can be other forces of that contraction. So to have modeling and examples of that radiance is so vital. One of the things I’m also hearing that I’m very much, again, touched by and moved by, and I don’t know if you had this awareness in the moment where you were observing your daughter celebrating her ninth birthday, that it all came more clear, or that you felt more awake to it and thus turn towards it. But that paying attention to the scope of what you were able to reach back in your own life and recognize the learning that occurred for you, in the circumstances with your family of origin, and the impact of that, and also being able to forecast your role in helping shape your daughter and your other children. That there’s a lineage there that we don’t always speak to.
Absolutely. I’ll respond by saying something which may also function as a segue into our main topic. Because my parents were divorced when I was nine, my husband’s parents were divorced when he was six. Our step parents, various ones, have had multiple marriages. The day that we got married in 1996, I don’t mean this technically, but I felt almost like a split personality. Because on the one hand, I was really in love with my husband, I was so excited for our future; there was so much harmony in our relationship, and also in our way of approaching things and valuing personal growth for one another. There just was so much that seemed so right about our relationship. I had no illusion there wouldn’t be challenges, but he was the one I wanted to go through them with. On the other hand, I just was sure we’d get divorced. Like, there was part of me that just couldn’t picture it would be otherwise. That didn’t, for me, mean, therefore don’t get married. I get to have this beautiful experience. But I just had no question that of course, we would end up divorced, because at some point, that would be the right thing. Then actually, when my daughter was born, we had her within a year. I remember this was before cell phones and video cameras. I mean, video cameras existed, but it wasn’t a time of memorializing everything and taking photos and video. So I would, in my mind, consciously, just really try to deeply remember how it felt and how beautiful things were. Because I was sure, once we were divorced, I’d want to tell my daughter how wonderful a family we’d had together when she was little.
Now, I also was really in love and creating a good life. This wasn’t anything that anybody knew, but it wasn’t vague. I consciously had this in mind. Then at some point, I don’t actually remember how many years into our marriage, it occurred to me, “You know maybe we won’t get divorced. It doesn’t look like that’s where we’re headed in this moment. Maybe that’s not the case. So what do I need to do, who do I need to be, how do we need to evolve, so that we actually can have a life together, which is the thing that we both wanted?” That’s when I really started to dive in — this was while I was still practicing medicine, for sure — and begin to find what were the ingredients. Because we were not going to stay together because of some religious edict, we were not going to be staying together because we couldn’t afford to divorce, we were not going to be staying together because we couldn’t imagine getting divorced. There are many, many things that provide a glue, other than the vitality and health of a relationship, and that glue was not in our home. So what I came to realize is how important it is to let go of compromise. I have a lot more to say about that, but let me just pause for a moment.
Well, please continue, because I’m already with you, and I usually like to reflect back. But it sounds like there’s just such an awareness. I know we all have this capacity, some of us are a little more aware or tracking it. Just your ability to notice these different parts of you, and just the dialogue and the noticing, and then just even what emerges through this stability and perhaps security that you were feeling, that allowed for you to even start to get more comfortable with: “Oh, this could last, or this could be something we nurture and develop beyond maybe what I’ve known.” I love just the wondering there, and also how compromise fits into this.
Yeah. Well, I’ll just share another story, which is, I was seeing a wonderful therapist after my mother had died. At the time, Josephine, who seems to come up multiple times in this conversation, when she was six at that time, things started to feel really weird in our marriage, and I couldn’t figure out why. I mean, things had felt weird before; we’d have a disagreement about something, or one or the other of us would be particularly sleep deprived, or there’d be something with an extended family member. There just were various complications, of course, or miscommunication. But none of that was going on, and it just felt weird between us. I mentioned this to my therapist at the time, who has a depth of experience in family constellation work. One of the things she said to me was, how old was your husband when his parents got divorced? I said, six. That is exactly how old our oldest child was. She said, hmm, and explained to me how when a child gets to the age that we’ve been through something, it can bring it up again. I went home and I shared this with my husband, and it was the most amazing thing. Because we felt good with one another, and he started to feel a lot of different things and went on his own journey with exploring this for himself. But the point is that I knew that how things had been was an influence. So I’ll just leave that there.
So clearly, if you look at the data, we don’t really know how to do marriage well as a society. If you base it on the percentage of divorce, it used to be about 50% of first marriages. It’s a little lower, but that’s because people are getting married later; there just are fewer marriages to get divorced. If you skip the people who aren’t getting married in their 20s and 30s anymore, then it lowers the divorce rate. But it’s still essentially around 50%, 60% of second marriages, 73% of third marriages. But then you look at the people who are married, and most of them are not really truly enjoying the experience of being married. They don’t want to split. But I actually think there’s an epidemic of what I describe as conflict-free, passion-free relationships, where there’s just a lot of toleration, a lot of putting up with things and putting attention on the kids, on work, on gardening, whatever it is. They’re not inspired marriages, the majority of marriages, I would say. So I started thinking about this.
“Far and away, the most common relationship advice that is given when it comes to marriage, is that you need to compromise. If you want to have a happy marriage, you’ve got to be good at compromising. That is just completely wrong.”
Thank you. I couldn’t agree more.
If you want a bland, pleasant companionship, compromise will deliver it. It’s the best compromise has to offer. I think this whole message about “we need to compromise” is contributing to the landscape of marital relationships, as I’ve described it. It used to be, people got married to maintain good political relationships among the aristocracy in Europe, or as a deal between the fathers. There were all these different contexts for why people get married that are completely irrelevant now. It may be that when those were the reasons, compromise actually was a useful skill. But that just has no place in creating the vibrant, alive, erotically adventurous, or in any case, erotically satisfying, intimate marriage. So for that, I talk about uncompromising intimacy. But I really like to define the terms.
“When we’re talking about compromise, what we’re really talking about is withholding your desires, sometimes even your challenges, your internal realities, and withholding them so your partner is not uncomfortable.”
So the longing and the discontent and withholding that in service of this idea to keep things stable, or like you’re saying, not confront your partner make things uncomfortable for them. I love the way you just said that.
Yeah, that we essentially prioritize our partner being comfortable over the truth within us. So when I talk about uncompromising intimacy and being uncompromising, I am not talking about the usual use of the word uncompromising, where it means you get your own way, my way or the highway. Because that’s not the solution either. That’s too much of an either/or paradigm. But I’m talking about being uncompromising in the sense that you share the truth of who you are, and you learn to do that in a way that your partner can receive it, and invite them to do the same. Just to tidy up the loose ends, I have found, both in my own marriage and in hundreds of clients I’ve worked with, that learning to be uncompromising in this sense really ends up being the key to lush connection, to good communication, to emotional, sensual, and erotic intimacy, to allowing the goodness in your relationship. To fuel, both your sex life and your communication, and really, the hopes and dreams in the rest of your life as well.
I couldn’t agree with you more, I’ll just say that. The way I’m feeling, as you’re describing, it’s like keeping the spark of one’s life alive. This idea that we get super comfortable, and that’s the priority, and we start cutting off or limiting certain aspects of ourselves. That can be extremely restricting. Also, to your point about passionate, it’s one of the biggest passion killers.
It really is. I come back to what is my favorite saying in personal growth, which is, how you do anything is how you do everything. If we are just contracting, sometimes it can feel like amputating little parts of ourselves, big parts of ourselves, what we’re talking about, it’s in terms of where we live, whether or not to have another child. But it’s also in terms of where you go for dinner, and whether you go for Italian because that’s what the rest of your family wants, and you feel like some Thai. But you even forget you feel like that and that you love it, because you’re always doing what is going to work for everybody. Even though, in some ways, it doesn’t work for you, having it work for everybody is so important.
When you move through daily life with compromise as a priority, and most people do it habitually without even choosing to compromise. I mean, it’s a very enlightening exercise to just start paying attention. If you just said what you wanted, when would you be speaking up when you’re not? I’m not saying you should. I’m just saying notice in yourself. If you honored yourself that way, just start noticing how much more you might have something to say about what’s happening in the moment. But anyway, if you’re in the habit of trimming parts of yourselves, keeping things quiet, being disconnected, making things remain dormant and compartmentalized, rather than bringing them into your relationship in your day-to-day interactions, there is no magic switch, that when you get to the bedroom, you can flip it on and be fully present, fully expressed, bringing your whole self in the way that makes for really wonderful lovemaking. I enjoy saying it in a more provocative way, which is as follows.
“In a long-term, committed relationship, everything which isn’t sex functions as foreplay. It’s either bringing you closer together, or pushing you further apart. Interestingly, what brings you closer together can be saying something that your partner doesn’t want to hear, but doing it in a way that is respectful and self-expressed, rather than critical or blaming.”
Absolutely. It’s so counterintuitive, that it’s actually incredibly sexy to feel the shape of one’s partner, even if it means we have a conflict or there’s a difference here. Again, I love that you’re really spelling out: with kindness, consideration, and tact. We’re not talking about just word vomiting or attacking our partner, and expecting them to find that sexy. You’re talking about a deeper connection with oneself, and to be able to bring that forth.
Yeah, I really love that you make that distinction. So having a fantastic relationship is a learnable skill, and I have a program that really teaches how to be uncompromising. Because we can talk about it, but how to actually do it in the day-to-day when we have our usual patterns, is not so easy. Anyway, one of the things in my program is, I distinguish between vulnerable honesty and brutal honesty, and they are not the same. Brutal honesty is not a part of uncompromising intimacy, that is just more in the direction of narcissism or selfishness. That’s not really contributing to grow and cultivate the intimacy. But vulnerable honesty, I have to say, it was astonishing to me when I learned some of the things that I could say, if I just said them in a way that respected our connection.
Exactly. I think the converse of this, that I think is really important to spell out, is that when we, collectively or any of us or one, is in the habit of prioritizing this comfort or not making one’s partner uncomfortable or even the relationship tension, the cumulative effect of that is huge. Do you want to speak to that at all? Because I think It’s really important to paint that red.
Yeah. I’ve heard somebody give the analogy that there’s this clear glass window, let’s say, between two people. Every time there’s something a little unspoken, or a lot unspoken, any kind of dialing down to calibrate for the impression that will be made, for approval, for emotional convenience, it just adds a little layer of dirt to that window. Sometimes maybe it’s more like a splash of mud. But sometimes it can be super subtle, just a thin little cobweb. But over time, you cannot see one another anymore, and in a way that this analogy doesn’t really work with, you can’t feel one another anymore. If you can’t see one another, and you can’t really feel who that other person is, in a way that’s only possible if you can be receptive and not be shut down. Even if you’ve shut down in service of being happy, it doesn’t change the actual impact.
There are so many consequences of the built-up grime between individuals, one of which, which is, for me, heartbreaking, although this also can evolve and change with attention on it, is that so often, both men and women, in whatever constellation of relationship they’re in, they lose touch with what they actually want, which in some ways is losing touch with who they are. So if I ask, let’s say, an ambitious, successful woman, let’s say she has two or three children, she’s been married to a man for 20 years, she runs some department in some successful company, the household is taken care of. In any given moment, she knows exactly what everyone in her sphere needs. I say to her, but what do you want? “Well, I want to make sure that everyone has what they need, and the lunches are taken care of, and I have to get the tickets before they go up for the vacation.” Yes, but what do you want? It’s a very humbling, confronting, vulnerable, cluelessness. Because when we accomplish all kinds of things, but through the lens of compromise, we dial down our connection with ourselves. That inherently is dehydrating, and also erodes passion. Just like you said, compromise is the ultimate passion killer in relationships.
I appreciate you giving an example so people can relate. I would also add that if this gets further down the line, it can look like depression, it can look like anxiety, it can look like questioning one’s entire life, or maybe even hurting people, not intentionally. But because they’re reaching a threshold where they can’t do it anymore, but then they’re already so far down the road, it feels like the best option, is to just perhaps blow up on life or abandon ship or whatever terms we want to use here.
I just want to say I really appreciate that you said that. Because anyone who’s in what I’m going to very inadequately call a bad state, who wants to get to good, connecting with what you care about and what you want is a really essential part of that journey. I emphasize more the part of the journey of going from good to great, where getting in touch with what you want is also an essential part of the journey. So yes, the whole spectrum of feeling more alive, feeling increased capacity for connection with anyone you love, knowing what you want, which by the way, we don’t choose. We always have a choice with how we respond to what our desire is, whether we take action, whether we just smile and know it for ourselves. We always can choose that. But we don’t choose what we want, it comes and finds us.
Well, I’m really appreciating that you’re giving different versions of this. Because when you were speaking a moment ago, one of the things that I feel sometimes is challenging for people who didn’t grow up in an environment where they felt encouraged to be advocating for themselves or be really clear about what they want, just that invitation to even have that connection, so that this might feel like a lot of energy. So there’s that where people haven’t necessarily been getting a lot of experience with flexing these muscles around knowing what they want, and then being in service of it in relationship.
The other thing that I know to be true, I’ll say for myself, and tends to be true, it tends to be a little more difficult to tolerate the tension of having polarity or differences or things that are unresolved. The mind, I think just our system, wants to, and you probably can speak to this as a physician, or I don’t know if you still call yourself a physician. But it requires a lot of energy, and it’s like dissonance. Holding different parts that don’t seem to fit, and to stay in the unknown, to stay in the wonderment of “How do we work together? How does this fit? It doesn’t seem apparent, and we don’t have a solution.” That is uncomfortable. It requires a lot of energy. Sometimes this isn’t going to be resolved immediately. Sometimes it’s a process, and that takes time. So to stay in that engagement. I remember interviewing Dr. Ellyn Bader, and she’s part of the Couple’s Institute in Menlo Park, which you might know, in your neck of the woods.
Oh yes, I’m familiar with it.
Yeah. She was talking about people who, likely either one person is the entrepreneur, or they’re both entrepreneurs, and she was talking about decision-making. She really highlighted that if the couple can say, “Okay, you have 65% or 60% decision making, and I have 40%, we basically both weigh in, but you’re going to make the final decision. Or you have 90%. I trust you, whatever you do, you got this.” Then the 50-50, she said, that is really hard to come to. It’s not as easy. It’s not as efficient. It’s not as quick. So I think part of what we’re asking and inviting here is the acknowledgement of the benefits of being in an uncompromising place that requires some energy. So I wanted to get your input on this. I hooked on to what you said, because it maybe doesn’t need to look like: “Oh, I’m having all these sweaty, 10-minute conversations with everyone in my life, and throughout the day.” That just could seem like a lot, and maybe not even, to your point, appropriate. It could look like, I know it for myself, and I smile. Or I do something differently that I don’t necessarily need to engage others in, but that I’m showing up for in some form or fashion. But I’d love to hear your thoughts on this.
Okay. Well, so it really depends. I’m talking to you, listener, where you are. So if you feel like there are things you know you want, but you haven’t presenced them in your relationship, then that’s the next step for you is to learn how to do that successfully. How to ask for what you want so it feels really good to give it to you, rather than being a threat or an accusation or some indication of inadequacy? So that is one situation.
For the listener who isn’t really sure what they actually want, it’s not something that’s been cultivated before. Because it wasn’t modelled, you didn’t give yourself permission, you thought it was inconvenience. Actually, it doesn’t matter why. But if that’s your situation, then the transformation begins by just opening to what you might want. Sometimes I’m talking about this in terms of some sexual adventure or some experience, and that’s way too much for somebody to start with. If noticing your desires is essentially foreign and you don’t even really know exactly what we’re talking about, even though it sounds good. So in that situation, start noticing which is your favorite mug to drink your coffee or tea with. Don’t just grab it, because you probably already know what your favorite mug is. But just actually enjoy that you have your favorite mug. Like, is it heavy, is it light? What’s the shape of the handle? When you put your beverage in it, let the aroma come to your nose, whether it’s coffee, or chamomile tea. It really doesn’t matter. In other words, let the fact that you desire it, and you’re experiencing it, be part of how you feel. That is a good next step.
Or when you’re getting dressed in the morning, you can get dressed based on what’s proper or convenient. But instead, again, when it’s the right moment for this, pay attention to what kind of fabrics do you want on your skin? Do you want to have silk? Do you want to have wool, like cashmere, whatever it is? It doesn’t need to be fancy. That’s not my point. I mean, fancy might be what you desire. But I’m just saying that just paying a little bit more attention to what your sensual experience is, it’s one of the access points to desire.
The other thing that I wanted to say in response to this very beautiful question you’ve asked, is that so much of life, we look at through a binary perspective. I’m not talking about gender right now, although that’s also true there. But what I mean is that if we want something, then either we have it or we don’t have it. Those are the binary options. Yes, or no; we either have it or we don’t have it, or we have it a little bit and don’t have it a little bit. That’s really not the nature of desire. I’m going to use sex as an analogy, just because it’s easier to understand it that way. But we know that we’re not not having sex, and then we are having sex, in the sense of intercourse. There’s a whole process; there’s arousal, there’s desire, there’s some foreplay, and maybe you have a drink of water, and then things build, and they have a life of its own, and then you get to where whatever form of sex you’re having occurs. Then there’s also what happens afterwards. Are you going to lie together and cuddle until the energetic waves go all the way down to neutral? Or are you energized, and you’re going to take this fuel, and I don’t know, go do something important? Or do you want to just lie together and giggle? There’s so many elements of the before, during, and after, which many couples don’t do. Yet, we can understand how that would be appealing.
Similarly, there is a whole arc with desire, and the first thing is perceiving it. “I’d like to go to Bali this summer, wooh!” I’m just going to perceive that and enjoy that that’s what came to mind. It’s not anything I’ve ever thought before. It’s just happened in this moment. Then it can be very tempting, if you’re in more of a binary mode, to be like: “Oh, I’m not going to go.” Or, “Oh, let me start planning and figure out the budget and dates, and get into the logistics.” That’s important if it’s actually going to happen. But that is not the next phase with desire.
“There’s something about yearning, which is uncomfortable in the way that you described, but is a part of the desire cycle. It’s the foreplay in desire.”
So sometimes the yearning can be “I want to go to Bali, and that’s my little secret that this arose for me. I don’t need to tell anyone.” Or it could be that I say to my husband, “You know, I was talking to Dr. Jessica Higgins, and this thought came in my mind that I want to go to Bali. Let’s see if there’s any movies about it to watch together. Or have you ever wanted to go to Bali?” I literally could just keep talking about the infinite number of ways that one can be in relationship to one’s desires, both just privately, and with my husband or with one’s partner, whoever might be involved, that you just want to share something. It’s a little bit more vulnerable to share something like this, and let them know another part of you. That is something that can be practiced and cultivated, starting with the most benign things. Like, instead of saying, “I want to go to the movies tonight at eight,” to say, “I wonder about going to the movies together,” and take your time choosing which show. Not as a practical activity that you’re going to discuss the options, watch a few trailers, and make your decision. But more kind of like smelling wine before tasting it.
I’m so appreciative of what you’re describing. First of all, when one uses the word sensual or sensation, it depends on the context obviously. But in the realm of couplehood, it so closely is associated with sex or even intercourse. I hear the invitation here to access all senses, through eyes, through seeing, looking at the steam in a cup, perhaps, or the smell or the aroma, and maybe even listening; all the different senses. That that’s a part of our living and experiencing, and that can be accessed throughout one’s day, and that it has a big influence on one’s desire. Then, I really appreciate you describing. Well, first of all, am I hearing that right?
Yes, absolutely. I’ll just add to that, that for someone who’s depressed, they’re not really aware of the sense experiences. If someone is anxious, they’re also not, in the moment, aware of the sense experiences. If someone is neither depressed or anxious, but just very much in a doing mode, they’re also not really, in a way that can feel numb, even if you’re accomplishing a lot. So I’ve coached many couples, particularly in a heteronormative couple, where the woman wants to experience more pleasure. Often, my first coaching is: “Okay, well, in any context of your life, where do you have pleasure, where do you have enjoyment?” I remember this one woman, this very high-achieving physician with three children, and a devoted husband who really liked sex, and she didn’t.
The one thing she could identify in her very busy life, besides being with her children — but then she was in a caretaking role, so that wasn’t going to serve what I was after for her — is she loves coffee. So my first assignment for her was that she make a point of actually enjoying her coffee, because that is a way to thaw; not coffee specifically, for some people. For someone else, I might say, sit on a bench and feel the way the sun caresses your face. I’m not talking about the heat of the summer. But you’re going to be outside sitting on that bench anyway. Bring your attention, and let yourself feel it. It’s why I think it’s so consonant with your message about mindfulness, because pleasure is a state of mind in many ways. Don’t start focusing on that when there are body fluids, and someone else’s ego is on the line, and there’s a sense of performance. No, start at just the right size, so that you have more delight in your life. This is a way of being uncompromising, is to give yourself space to actually enjoy the feelings that you’re having in your body. Then by all means, titrate up to have that be the case in the bedroom too.
To be fully present and there, and to be in service of what’s true in the form of desire that will look and be different depending on whatever moment or time that is.
Well, Alexandra, I’m just recognizing that there’s so many questions I still have, and I know that we’ve already spent a significant amount of time with you. So I will just invite people to access your book, and then whatever else you want to invite people into to learn more. I can say, for me, the questions I still have are like, what are people typically feeling when they’re engaging in this awareness and presencing of their desire? You talked about it can be confronting, and we haven’t really gotten back to that. You also talked about the cycle of desire and what that typically involves. Just even that anticipation, I’m aware, for some, that could feel incredibly arousing and exciting. For others, it can feel like: “Oh, I just want to get to it already. I don’t like to have that.” It’s not as comfortable for them to be in that space. So I love that you have some insight and wisdom to share around that. I think there was another thing I was going to ask you. But I know you wrote a book, and I would love for you to tell us a little bit more about it here, if you’re willing.
Yes, thank you so much. It’s called Uncompromising Intimacy. I tell a lot of stories in there, because we learn so much from stories. But also, I just detail the very, actually simple-to-implement ways, that you can be more attuned to yourself and create more intimacy with your partner. The book is written for anyone who’s in a committed relationship, or wants to be, and wants to know what does that landscape look like if you haven’t experienced it before. My goal in everything that I do is that what I share is useful for the rest of your life. These are tools that my clients use on a daily basis, years after they’ve completed coaching with me or reading my book. So it’s all there. Whatever questions arose in our conversation, the answers are in the book.
Although, I don’t spend a lot of time explicitly talking about desire. I spend more time in the book making room for that, when your desires arise, how you navigate that with your partner. I will say, they’re very easy things to understand, but more challenging to implement. Because for example, it all really starts with curiosity. Because for so many couples, with the beautiful stability that comes with familiarity and the security of the relationship, we end up giving up curiosity. But if you think back to the feeling of being in love, we are filled with questions. “Where is that scar from? What vegetables did you like to eat when you were a child? If you weren’t in this profession, what profession would you choose?” Like, there’s a way that we can turn up the desire, turn up the intimacy, turn up our presence, without sacrificing any of the stability. That’s really what I’m after.
“There’s this artful, ever-evolving way, to have novelty and depth and erotic delight, in the context of the stability and long-lasting commitment that you share with someone.”
Well, I’m so excited you’re doing what you’re doing. I’m so excited you wrote a book about this, and you’re helping people with this. My experience of you here today, Alexandra, is that even though we’re on video, I can see you moving your body, I can hear it in your voice, and in the story and the presencing, and just how I’m feeling you modeling this and being this. So I appreciate the work you’ve done to cultivate that. You’re speaking about your coaching. Is there anything you want to say about how to direct people towards if you are accepting new clients, or how you work? Is there anything you want to let people know?
Sure, and thank you. My website is AlexandraStockwell.com, and that’s really the place to go. You can download the first chapter of my book for free, and get the rest if you’d like to. You can find my podcast, The Intimate Marriage Podcast, where there’s more of all of this, and my courses and programs. I have a Work with Me page. I have a $49 course called Intimacy, and then my signature program, The Aligned and Hot Marriage, and also private coaching on relationships and intimacy. So really, the place to go is AlexanderaStockwell.com.
Perfect. Well, I’ll make sure to have the link on today’s show notes. Again, thank you for sharing your valuable time with us here.
Thank you so much.
Signing Off
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Are you feeling like your relationship has hit a plateau? Perhaps you and your partner have been together for a while and things just don’t seem to be moving forward. Don’t worry, you’re not alone.
Maintaining a healthy and happy relationship can be a challenging task, even for the most committed couples. Over time, relationships can hit a stagnant point where both partners feel disconnected, bored, or unfulfilled. Fortunately, there are steps that can be taken to avoid that.
In this episode, Abi Singh and Dr. Jessica Higgins shares valuable insights and tips on how to reignite the spark in a relationship and prevent it from fading away. From effective communication to prioritizing self-care, these tips can help bring your relationship back to life.
So if you’re ready to take action and bring some excitement back into your love life, listen to the full episode.
Abi Singh is a life coach and relationship expert. Abi helps couples find balance and prioritize intimacy so that they can effectively make key decisions that will positively impact their relationships. Abi and her husband live on the beautiful island of Grenada and run their restaurant business, which they co-founded in 2017.
In this Episode
6:52 Abby’s personal experience in an intercultural marriage.
8:58 How to overcome stagnation in relationships after the honeymoon phase.
12:12 The importance of communication and intentionality in relationships: Avoiding the faux pas of relationship.
16:23 Overcoming misunderstandings and building a stronger connection.
21:53 The importance of communication and comprehension in relationships.
25:21 Creating happy habits to strengthen relationships.
30:13 Strategies for having difficult conversations in relationships.
36:34 Nurturing lasting love: Building strong relationships through relational skills and practices.
41:29 Upcoming workshop for couples to rebuild their connection.
Your Check List of Actions to Take
- Communicate openly and honestly: Create a safe space to share your thoughts, feelings, and desires with each other, without fear of judgment or rejection.
- Prioritize self-care and personal growth.
- Create new experiences together such as traveling, trying new hobbies, or even just exploring new restaurants or neighborhoods.
- Practice gratitude: Expressing gratitude for each other and the relationship can help couples feel more connected and appreciative of each other.
- Address any unresolved issues or conflicts.
- Work on setting and achieving shared goals. This can be anything from personal goals to relationship goals, such as planning a future together or working towards a common interest or passion.
Mentioned
Relationship Map To Happy, Lasting Love
Shifting Criticism For Connected Communication
*Connect wi*th Abi Singh
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/abi-singh-73572a41
Instagram: instagram.com/coachabisingh
Connect with Dr. Jessica Higgins
Facebook: facebook.com/EmpoweredRelationship
Instagram: instagram.com/drjessicahiggins
Podcast: drjessicahiggins.com/podcasts/
Pinterest: pinterest.com/EmpowerRelation
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/drjessicahiggins
Twitter: @DrJessHiggins
Website: drjessicahiggins.com
Email: jessica@drjessicahiggins.com
About Today’s Show
Abi, thank you for joining us here today.
Thank you for having me. It’s a pleasure!
Yeah, I’ve been enjoying meeting you and just talking a little bit. I appreciate your heart, and your smile, and your passion for helping people and navigating relationship. One of the things that we’re going to be talking about today is stagnation, and how that sometimes perhaps when we’re not expecting it, or just the gravitational pull, maybe taking people for granted. I’m curious what you would say about what leads to that in relationship. But before we turn towards that topic, what would you like people to know about you or where you’re coming from?
Well, thank you again. I think that’s a wonderful topic, the stagnation in relationships. I think it’s a huge topic. But I would definitely want people to know that I am a wife. My husband is from India. I’m from Grenada. So I am part of intercultural relationship, which has had its ups and downs, and it has taught me so many things about being in a relationship, which I use my experience and my education to help couples, just like me, navigate the trials, the tribulations, the ups, the downs, the lefts, the rights, about relationship. I currently live on the island of Grenada, and we run a small restaurant here in Grenada as well. So we are both co-founders, entrepreneurs, and husband and wife.
That’s a lot to negotiate.
Yeah. So I am really proud of the work that we’ve done together. So I am in the business of helping couples. That’s my passion, that’s what I love.
I just want to reflect that you’re really sharing personally, that you’ve had a huge commitment in your own life and your own marriage to practice these principles, and just straddling two cultures, and what that takes to be really aware and conscious of in cultivating intimacy when we have different perspectives. That’s not always an easy thing.
Yeah, let’s turn towards the topic of stagnation. Tell me a little bit more about where you’re coming from with that topic.
When I say stagnation, for me, in relationships, and I see this very often. Dr. Jessica, I see a lot of people, after some time, obviously when the honeymoon is over, and we look at each other as man, and I’m just saying that of any couple, you find that there’s a point in a relationship when it’s reality. It’s you going to work every day, you having to make sacrifices, you having to spend time. You might be indifferent; you might have a lot of different activities that you are part of. Or you might just be somebody who is very laid back, while your partner is something else, maybe more outgoing.
“You find that after some time, once the honeymoon stage is over, we get to a stage where we’re moving steady. But maybe there’s no excitement.”
So we start to feel like, okay, what’s happening here? We start to question ourselves. We start looking at our past, like, “Oh, I was so outgoing, I used to do so many different things. Or I did marry this person, and I thought that spark and that extroverted personality is what I wanted. But at the end of the day, I’m a homebody, I just want to stay on the couch or watch TV.”
So I would say, those little scenarios, they speak to us in our heads. If we don’t talk about it, we are just going to be going with emotion, and after a while, the relationship feels like it’s a chore. It feels like, “Do I have to be doing this? Do I have to speak? Do I have to communicate? Can I just do my own thing?” It really puts a pressure, and it makes the relationship just feel like a drag. I find that with couples, when this happens, the first thing we want to do is run towards the exit door. We find that it’s the easier way, the safest way. Because we don’t want to do the work to get our relationship back to that connection, back to that stage when it was fire, and it was hot, and it was exciting. So the stagnation, for me, I feel is that phase after the honeymoon, after you meet, you greet, you learn about the person, and then there’s nothing. So I speak to that when I talk about stagnation.
Thank you for spelling that out. I think we can all relate in the development of just natural stages in relationship. It almost sounds to me as though this is really helping people confront maybe expectations, that are finding this person that we feel so well-suited with or matched with, that it just then sustains itself. You’re saying actually, this requires a little bit more intentionality, that we don’t just rely on it and lean on it as if it’s self-sustaining. Is that right?
Oh my gosh, you have nailed it! That is exactly right. How we perceive, and in our minds, whatever expectations we had in the beginning, if that is not put to the table, Dr. Jessica, your partner is not going to know what you’re thinking, they don’t know how you’re feeling. They can only find out if you speak it, if you express it. I mean, I don’t know about you and your marriage, but these are things you talk about when you meet somebody. “Hey, what is your future plan? What do you hope to get out of this relationship?” I mean, you may not say it like that, but you talk about it as friends. Oh my God, this just brings me back to that feeling of being in friendship with. That’s that early stage I was talking about, when you are friends with your partner. You can tell them anything, you can talk about anything, and it feels right, it feels normal. But when the expectation is something and you’re mute about it, then how do you expect them to know? Then it becomes a whole thing, and it’s a fight for whatever it was that we were expecting and we didn’t get it, and then we become resentful to our partners. Absolutely. That’s what I call the faux pas of relationship, the relationship killer.
Yes. I’m hearing you, and it sounds like there’s a couple of things involved in what you’re describing. One of which is, in the beginning stages, this person is new, and we’re open, and it’s uncharted territory, we’re excited; we want to learn, and we’re interested and curious. Once we get into the routines, and like you said, when the romance stage settles, all the neurochemicals settle, then we sometimes can assume; we stop asking the questions, we stop being as interested and curious, and we think we know. That can be a huge block to continuing to cultivate this juicy spark and interest.
So I’ll give you an example to touch on what you just said. So one of the couples that I’ve coached in the past, that same thing came up, in the sense that the female, she was an entrepreneur, she had her own business, and her partner was working corporate. She thought, “Okay, I’m going to beef up my business, I’m going to make sure I put in the work and I make an effort. Because I’m thinking, more money coming into our lives is going to be helpful for us financially, future wise.” But her partner saw it as “I don’t get to spend time with my wife, she’s always busy. I come home, and she’s working. I leave, she’s working.” You see the expectation that is different there. She’s expecting him to understand that this is going to be beneficial for us financially. But she’s not understanding that yes, you want a future, but say, “Hey, honey, I think this year, let’s work on building a financial future for ourselves. Here’s what I’m thinking that we could do, and you let me know what you think.” You know what I mean, so everybody’s on board. But that didn’t happen. They’re all thinking in their head, different things, and not sharing it, not communicating it. It just led to one day, they’re having to speak to somebody about it.
It’s almost this interpretation of one another, that we’re maybe perceiving it’s landing in a way that might be very different than the person’s intention. This brings me to the second thing I’m hearing you say is, perhaps we’re having these questions or these doubts or feeling hurt, and we’re not talking about it. It’s hard to broach these or bring these topics up, and when we don’t talk about it, this is where they accumulate and build and become bigger issues.
Oh yes, that is correct. That is absolutely correct. I think when you find that you can’t talk to your partner, that is when you need to realize that, “No, something is definitely wrong, that we can’t have a conversation about it.”
We can take issue with each other’s behavior. Like, criticizing, “Oh, you’re working so much, where are you?” This and that. Then she might be thinking, “Why are you getting on my case? Look at all these things that I’m doing, I don’t feel your appreciation for our vision or the goal that I’m really trying to work towards.” So that can get into that negative cycle where people are criticizing.
Exactly, criticizing the decisions that they’re making internally.
“That comes back to our expectations of our partners; we expect that they should understand. But we forget that they’re also human, and they’re part of this.”
This is a team. This is a union. It’s not me versus you. Or I do my thing, you do your thing, and then we just meet in the middle. No, it’s so much more than that. Like in my relationship, I can give you an example, I think, based on the attachment styles, I have a fearful-avoidant style. There was a point in our lives when we were fighting all the time. I was fighting because I wanted him to get where I was coming from, and he wasn’t seeing it that way. Part of the fight was me fighting for the relationship. But I just didn’t know I was fighting the wrong battle. I was like, “I don’t want to lose this guy. But at the same time, why is he not getting me?” I mean, culture had a lot to do with it, background had a lot to do with it; how we work, our scheduling and everything, how we worked had a lot to do with it. But I was fearful that I was going to lose him, and still, I was fighting.
He probably didn’t see that your fight was really about wanting connection and really wanting to maintain the bond.
Right. He thought that, I don’t want to say it, but that I was being just stubborn, and I just wanted to fight. You don’t want to, especially when you have that person who you really care for. You don’t want to. But I probably didn’t know how to communicate it well. I think that’s what it was.
I think this is largely what we all encounter that’s hugely surprising, that when we really start getting attached and love someone, it becomes that much more threatening, so much more is at stake. So we might be feeling and doing things that surprise us, because we feel that threat or we feel afraid, of losing them, or feeling rejected, not being good enough, these type of things. So it’s really common that we don’t send a clear cue. Like, “I’m afraid to lose you, or I don’t know how to be in this unknown place with you,” whatever it might be. That’s a hard thing to send over.
Oh my, I appreciate that you said that! Because I think that looking back at it now, that was probably what was happening. I was fearful because I am in a different stage now that we’ve done something to, like, build a business. So love now has really taken a different level of connection. Here is this beautiful thing that we’re creating, but yet still, there’s turbulences; we are fighting against what we were building.
Yes, I can relate to that myself. I raise my hand with you, that when things get more, like I invest more, or I feel more is at stake, I feel more vulnerable, and it’s easier to feel more threatened or feel the risk of it, and it’s easy to want to protect. So the thing I’m hearing you speak to is, how do we really come to the table and have conversations? Because even with the couple’s example that you mentioned, if people are in pursuit of different values, it can be total miscommunication, be taken as an insult or an injury, when really, people just don’t understand what the goals are for each. They could just be entirely different goals.
Absolutely. I think in all relationships, and I coach my clients as well, to expect that there will be turbulences. But it’s what we do in the situation, and how we find breakthroughs in the situation, that is going to propel us into an even deeper connection with our partners.
“Because we all say one of the ways that you can improve your relationship is to communicate. But I also think that, and I will add to that is, comprehension is also the missing piece of it. It’s something that we don’t say much of.”
Because you can communicate something, but is that person really comprehending what you’re saying, or comprehending what it is that you truly mean? Because I tell them all the time, I say, it has to be a two-way understanding. It has to be two ways. Sometimes I do this really cute exercise. Sometimes I say, close your eyes, and talk about how you feel. Don’t look at the person. Don’t get distracted with what they’re wearing, if they’re smiling, they’re not smiling. Just close your eyes and say how you feel, and let that person hear you. Because they have nothing to distract them. All they will take in is what you are saying. I mean, it does get a little bit deep when we do this exercise. But I love it because it’s something that in the moment, you can only feel it in the moment.
Yes, it’s a great invitation. I really love that you’re speaking to this. Because so often things are happening so, so fast, and when we’re observing our partner, their nonverbals, the interaction, it’s highly triggering sometimes. So when we can just tune in to our inner world, we have a little bit more access, like you said, to not be distracted. But also, a little bit more connection, and then we can hopefully reveal a little bit more. That’s likely going to help the understanding and the communication, to your point.
Definitely, I’m happy you get it. Because I feel like it’s so important, and it helps in terms of couples who are at the point where, as I said, the honeymoon phase has ended, and you’re stagnant, and you are kind of in the rocky stage. You want to understand, like, what happened, why did we get to this point, how can we fix it? As you said, without the triggers, without being distracted by what’s happening around you, you are then able to listen and comprehend what the person is saying. To the point where you get it and you’re like, “Oh, this is what you were saying all the time, I never got that. I was not able to understand you. I thought this was what you meant, or I thought this was what you were feeling.” Dr. Jessica, I don’t know if you get this all the time, but I feel like we get misunderstood so many times, even the verbal language that we use.
I know. One of the things I’m thinking, Abi, as you’re talking, is that there’s so much happening in an interaction. So the importance of perhaps slowing down and really asking these questions. Because when there are differences or there are conflicts, or people perceive things based on cultural differences, or even just backgrounds, there’s so much that people could be in very different places, or just have a totally different meaning about it. So to slow down and really unpack it. It’s not always easy or convenient, or even really that practical, if we’re running a business, and we’re serving, or whatever we’re doing that is helping deliver the restaurant in the way that you want to. It’s not always viable to have that conversation. But to create space for it, and to slow down and pick that thread back up. It’s not easy to do.
Yeah. I feel like you have to be strong mentally, and you have to want it.
*“You have to desire a relationship that is built on a friendship, that is built on shared values and expectation. The moment you start to drift, and you start to allow outside factors and other people, or maybe social media, to influence you, is when you lose focus and lose sight of your relationship altogether.”*
I know during the pandemic, we were all stuck at home, when we were forced to share spaces together when we were not used to, that would have either helped it, or it would have really destroyed it. I think that if you are strong in your relationship with you, this is what you want, this is what you desire, this person makes you happy. This person may not be perfect, but they have something that is tying the knot or keeping the relationship glued, then this is worth it. Go for it, fight for it! Because to be in a world without somebody that you care for could be very lonely.
Totally. How do you help people stay connected to this? Because I do think it can be easy to focus on the things that are challenging or difficult, and maybe omit or take for granted the things that are real strengths? How do you encourage people to stay connected to that?
One of the things that I do in my business is, I help customers create habits. I always tell them, “Don’t write a list of 10 things. Don’t write a list of a whole page. Just start with one thing.” I call it the one happy habit. It’s easy because it’s just one thing, and it’s a quick win. So for example, if you are a stay-at-home mom, or you are the one that works and your other partner stays at home, one of the things that I say is, for example, I’ll ask them, what is something that you really like doing or your partner really likes doing? They always go back to their love language. Sometimes their love language is touch, they like to be touched, or they like talking. So I said, if your love language is communication and talking, what’s a habit you can do? Some of them have some cute habits. They want to spend just two minutes, just having a little conversation about how you’re feeling in the morning. I said, let’s try this for one day. Let’s try this tomorrow. They’ll try it, they’ll love it. I said, how are you feeling after that? They said, I love it. I said, let’s try it for another day. This time, let’s try it for two days. These are the little breakthroughs that we start seeing. You do it for a week, and it becomes a habit. This is what you do now, like we’re doing this. I love that they’ve taught me how to include your love language into habits, I didn’t even think about that. But I was like, this is fantastic, we can just do it by what our partner appreciates and loves. It’s vice versa, it doesn’t have to be just one-way. It’s vice versa. So, quick wins.
No kidding! That can be such a resilient thing to incorporate. If we can access this love, this filling the cup, so to speak, or having love in the bank, then it can be motivating to want to protect the bond, or turn towards our partner, or take emotional risk and tell them some of the things that are difficult, and hopefully, get to a better resolution.
I love that.
“I think when you tell people to do so many different things at once, it can be a little bit overwhelming. So you’ve got to break it down to, sometimes, just a one-minute task, or one thing that you can do to just switch it up and make it exciting, or do something special that they don’t expect.”
I love that. The little breakthroughs, they’re coming, and as you said, they’re filling my cup.
Yes, right. It’s definitely got a positive cycle. It’s synergistic. It builds. It’s motivating and inspiring. Well, are we getting at what feels important as it relates to stagnation? You’re speaking about how to stay awake, not just get into the routine, and be willing to turn towards one’s partner to have difficult conversations, to have that courage, and seek to have more understanding. Not to assume your partner operates the same way that you do, or that it means the same thing. I’m reflecting this back, and I realize I haven’t asked you. Is there anything that you support people to have those difficult conversations?
You mean something they can practice?
Yeah. In relationship, like if they notice they’re questioning, or bothered, or feeling like they’re having a hard time, like in your example, the wife that was working and the husband that wanted more time together, how do you support? Or what do you encourage people to do to have those difficult conversations?
Oh, yeah. Well, let’s get back to that couple. So we had a conversation, we talked about it. One of the ways that we’ve done work with them is that we have encouraged them to leave sticky notes. Leave a note. This was our beta that we did with this couple. This was beta, but it worked in the sense that you probably don’t want to say it, but you can write it down, and you can leave it there. It’s almost as if you’re doing it, but you’re not doing it in the way that it’s daunting. So you leave a note, “Hey, can we talk today, seven o’clock? Or hey, I’d really love for us to get together, go for dinner.” Whatever the note is. Because sometimes we don’t want to say it, but we can write it down and leave it.
It’s more doable.
Yeah. Because then you can just leave it when they’re not watching, and you can go out the door, and you know that they’ve seen it, and everybody knows that seven o’clock, we’re going to have a conversation. So these are the little steps that we worked with this couple in encouraging them to have that conversation. I’ve tried it. I’ve done it myself, and I’ve done it in text as well. This is something that I feel is working, it has worked. We’ve tried to incorporate it when it does get difficult to open up. You don’t want a situation, Dr. Jessica, where you’re washing dishes, and all of a sudden, you want to go into a full-blown conversation about something that’s bothering you. Another thing that I encourage them to do is, if you’re angry about something and your head is hot, as I say, I don’t encourage them to talk about it right away. Because your emotions, whatever is happening and going on with you, it may come out, not the way that you want it to, and you might get the opposite reaction from your partner.
Exactly. Like you mentioned, your own experience of feeling like maybe your husband might have seen it as stubborn. But really, in the inside, you were wanting connection, but it looked like maybe you were fighting. But really, the goal was to really be for the relationship. I love the Post-it note, and this is why I love it is because it doesn’t offer a lot of room for this whole story. It’s short, and in some ways, it asks people to get really clear, like, what is the thing that I’m really wanting them to hear? If I’m hearing you correctly, Abi, it sounds like it’s not so scary that we can be maybe a little more vulnerable, because it’s not so direct and scary. Like, we can put it on a note and know that they’ll see it. Is that right?
And you feel good. Because you feel like okay, I’ve made the first step, or I’ve done something to bring us further along. Yes, you can feel anxious, because you know, “Okay, time is coming, we need to talk.” But at the same time, this is what you wanted.
It sounds like, too, if we can catch some of these things before they accumulate, it can be so much easier to have connection and understanding. When it gets layered and layered, then it gets so much more complicated, and maybe a lot more resentment. It’s gotten so much further down the road, that it can feel a lot more difficult to resolve.
Absolutely, you’re so right. You don’t want to get to that phase.
No, and it’s easy. You talked earlier about when we don’t open up to our partner, and we withhold, it can sometimes create this wedge, and then it’s easier and easier to not turn towards them. So it’s almost like that gap and that wedge gets bigger and bigger, and then that disconnect gets bigger and bigger.
The disconnect gets bigger. Just to add to that, also, the opportunity comes up where when we go back to expectation, we start viewing, and the negative thoughts come in and feed us. Like, we can’t see them as they were before. Because we’re now consumed by these negative thoughts and these negative self-beliefs are so far from the truth.
No kidding! It’s dangerous.
Tell me about it.
Don’t we know! Well, I’m curious. I wish we had more time. I know we had some internet challenges in the start. So as we’re looking at stagnation, we’ve talked a lot. But the two big nuggets I’m getting from you are really to turn towards these moments that feel conflictual, maybe like we’re on different pages, and really address that in any doable way, whether or not it’s a Post-it note, or scheduling through a text, or some way to engage to have more understanding. You’re also talking about the second part is, being in service of the love, continuing to nurture that, whether or not it’s one positive habit of cultivating connection. Am I hearing you?
Oh my God, you have it spot on!
“I think this is the recipe for a relationship that has a lot of potential, is that you’re going to be tested, but will be able to ride over these challenges and make it through forever.”
Because the love is there, and the foundation is there, and the willingness to take it to strong undefeated love is there. You’ve got to be able to say to yourself that my relationship is worth it.
These are practices. It’s like, we don’t ever stop doing a healthy practice, whether or not it’s getting a certain amount of sleep at night, or moving our body. These are things that in order to be in health, we continue to practice, and we get stronger when we do them. So when we build these relational skills, it does take some intention and energy. But it is really worth it, like you’re saying, we all long for this connection. But you qualified this type of lasting love that is unbreakable almost.
I mean, I can’t remember what I said. But it’s almost as if it’s something that is undefeated.
Yes, we’re so much stronger when we really practice these skills. Rather than not testing them and hoping that we don’t encounter one of those bumps, but that’s likely not going to happen.
Yeah. I’m thinking about another couple that I worked with, who really looked at the exercises that we did, and they were surprised. One of the comments that the male partner said to me was that he said, “I came in here thinking, they’re going to tell us what we’re supposed to do, and we go home, we do it.” He said, but I didn’t expect that I had to share my feelings. His partner shared her feelings, and he was taken aback. You would think that these are the conversations that they’re having every day, but it wasn’t. He was surprised. He was like, “Wow, I didn’t know that. I didn’t know that’s how you were feeling, or that’s how you wanted to be felt. You want me to be there more. You want me to make you feel like you’re the woman for me, the only woman for me.” We all want to feel that. We all want to feel like we’re the only one for them. Sometimes, that want is never communicated. Because we probably say, “Oh, I don’t want to be too pushy or too upfront, and they might take it the wrong way.” So we hold back, not knowing that all it takes is for the person to know about it.
It’s creating a space that feels safe to engage, to really go deeper and share these things. So I love what you’re doing. How do people get in touch with you? It sounds like you have a LinkedIn.
I definitely would say LinkedIn, my full name Abi Singh on LinkedIn. Look for me there. I post three times a week, I share advices, I share examples. I have a workshop that I’m working on right now. It’s going to be amazing. It’s going to be for couples who are in committed relationships, who are thinking about marriage, who have been together for a long time and really just want to re-build that connection, or find out what it is that they need to get it to a different phase. I don’t know, maybe I can share it with your audience when it’s out.
Yes. Please send us the link, and I’ll be happy to post it on the show notes for that to be easily accessible. So LinkedIn is the best way to find you, to learn about what you’re sharing, what the latest and greatest that you’re doing. Well, is there anything else that you want to say before we sign off here?
I just want to say thank you for having me. It’s been a pleasure. I think that we all have talents and skills that we need to share to the world. I think what we are doing, myself and you, in the relationship base, is so important and so needed. So thank you so much for having this platform for me to share, and for us to be connected. Because even in a podcast, we build relationships.
Yes, we do. We totally do. I equally feel similar, that everyone has a different voice and a different way to help people, and just to be in guidance of this practice and in service of these connections, and cultivating long-lasting loving relationships. Thank you for being here and sharing your wisdom with us.
My pleasure!
Signing Off
If you have a topic you would like me to discuss, please contact me by clicking on the “Ask Dr. Jessica Higgins” button here.
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Developing secure attachment skills in a relationship is crucial for creating a strong and lasting bond with your partner. In this fast-paced world, it can be easy to neglect your relationship and fail to prioritize the emotional safety that comes with a secure attachment. However, neglecting your relationship can have long-term consequences and negatively impact both you and your partner.
In this episode, Dr. Jessica Higgins, EJ, and Tarah Kerwin discuss the skills needed to develop secure attachments in relationships. They provide actionable steps to help you strengthen your attachment style and create a more loving and fulfilling partnership.
Whether you’re single, dating, or in a long-term relationship, listen to this episode to discover how you can develop secure attachment skills in your relationships.
EJ and Tarah Kerwin are the hosts of The Relationship Renovation Podcast. They are two licensed therapists, a married couple raising a blended family with four children, and owners of a couples counseling center in Tucson, AZ. They have created a couples counseling program that has supported thousands of couples in creating more secure, loving, and intimate relationships.
In this Episode
6:31 The birth of the couples counseling center.
11:43 Creating emotional safety and support: Understanding secure attachment in couples therapy.
17:07 Recognizing negative core beliefs and learning from conflict.
23:33 Creating emotional safety in heterosexual relationships: Understanding triggers, developing compassion, and managing conflict.
27:56 Improving relationships through self-reflection and shared responsibility.
34:30 The importance of holding hope and creating a secure, loving, and more deeply intimate connection with one’s partner.39:15 Building safe and strong relationships through somatic work.
Your Check List of Actions to Take
- Learn about the different attachment styles, including anxious, avoidant, and secure, to better understand yourself and your partner’s behavior in the relationship.
- Practice emotional regulation skills, such as deep breathing, meditation, and mindfulness, to manage emotions in a healthy and constructive way.
- Improve communication by practicing active listening, expressing emotions and needs clearly, and validating your partner’s emotions.
- Build safety in the relationship by practicing vulnerability, being reliable, and showing empathy and care.
- Incorporate somatic work, such as breathwork and movement, to develop a deeper connection with your body and emotions.
- Consider seeking professional help from a licensed therapist or counselor to work on improving your relationship and developing secure attachment skills.
Mentioned
Relationship Renovation Counselling Centre
Relationship Renovation at Home Program
Wired for Dating: How Understanding Neurobiology and Attachment Style Can Help You Find Your Ideal Mate (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
ERP 291: How “Love Is Not Enough” – An Interview with Dr. Stan Tatkin
Relationship Map To Happy, Lasting Love
Shifting Criticism For Connected Communication
*Connect wi*th *EJ & Tarah Kerwin*
Websites: relationshiprenovation.com
Facebook: relationshiprenovationcounseling
TikTok: tiktok.com/@relationshiprenovation
YouTube: youtube.com/channel/UCfb8I3evBi7aZcVnmvN_yPw
Instagram: instagram.com/relationship_renovation
Connect with Dr. Jessica Higgins
Facebook: facebook.com/EmpoweredRelationship
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Podcast: drjessicahiggins.com/podcasts/
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Email: jessica@drjessicahiggins.com
About Today’s Show
EJ and Tarah, thank you for joining us today.
Oh, you bet! Thank you for having us on.
Thank you, we are very happy to be here.
Yeah. I loved just even talking with you both a little bit before starting this conversation and interview here, your love for attachment. Before we get into today’s topic, I would love to hear from both of you about what got you into supporting couples and relationship.
So we’ve both been clinicians. I’ve been a clinician for almost 20 years, Marriage and Family Therapist, and EJ was Licensed Professional Counselor. Of course, we met at our job, we were both working with clients who struggled with eating disorders. We started dating, really great communication, loved each other. EJ had two kids from his previous marriage, they were pretty young when we got engaged and got married. So a year and a half after we started dating, we got married, we went on our honeymoon, came back pregnant with twins. So in a year and a half, I had gone from zero to four kids, and this kind of blended family. Let me just emphasize that the twins had colic, both of them. So I was nursing every hour, I was not sleeping for five days at a time. EJ and I, we had to go by the minivan. There were many times I got in that minivan, and I said, “I am out of here. I did not sign up for this.” I had no idea what overwhelmed meant during that transition.
Again, this moment is very clear. I was on this little run with the twins jogging stroller, because the only time they would really be quiet is if they were jiggling a little in their stroller. I called EJ and I said, “EJ, we have to start a couples counseling center. This is not okay. If we’re struggling like this, and we have a lot of the tools and we know a lot of theory, and we’ve always had a good relationship. If this transition is this hard for us, we have to support our community.” And we did. Within a year, we opened up our couples counseling center, and that was seven years ago. Now there are 15 of us here, rocking it with couples, and helping them just heal and build transition skills and understand each other better. That’s our story for me in a nutshell of, like, we took our own train wreck of what was happening in our relationship, and tried to make it a diamond.
I think it just really took us both by surprise. Because we were so in love, and we had such a great connection. I remember, prior to Tarah and I getting together, where I literally made a list of what I was looking for in a partner, and she just nailed it in every single component of it. Then, literally two years later, it felt like, literally daily, the wheels were coming off the bus. Like Tarah said, it was just like, if we’re struggling through this with the information we have, and we’re older getting into a relationship. If we’re struggling, we’ve got to take this personal experience and translate it into supporting others.
The other thing that we connected with really early on, because both of us had been working in the eating disorder realm for a while, was we knew that if you do the same type of work over and over and over, you just get really good at it. So we wanted to apply that same thing to couples. We know that a lot of therapists see a few couples, and the bulk of their work is individual work. So we were like, if we really want to get good at this, if we want to help others get good at this, we’ve got to focus on this; we’ve got to do this day after day after day. So what it led to, I think, is we do really wonderful work with couples. Then in our podcast, we have really great information with a breadth of knowledge coming out of all that work to support couples.
Well, I agree. This is probably true for any industry, that if one is focused, they’d be able to develop an expertise and a mastery. So I really appreciate what you’re saying, EJ. Tarah, you’re saying something that I so resonate with in my own experience, that I felt pretty well-equipped to negotiate relationship. I had a Master’s at this point in psychology and undergrad in psychology, and then grew up in a family where a lot of the communication practices and principles were really utilized and emphasized. I thought that if you put all of the ingredients into the mix of chemistry and really feeling the same goals, and then you have these psychology and relational principles, I felt really well-equipped. I had a whole confrontation with that, that it wasn’t enough at all. So I so appreciate what the both of you are offering, and just willing to share your own journey, and really listening to what you needed, and being able to provide that for others.
Thank you. I know, I think back. The twins are nine now, and I just think back in that first year and where we are today, and all of the couples we’ve supported, and just the work EJ and I continue to do in our relationship on a daily basis. Who would have thought in that time of suffering, when I’m literally in this minivan sobbing, that nine years later, it would become this miracle and this drive to do what we do right now. So I just feel so grateful every day.
Wonderful! Well, I know today’s conversation is on the theme of attachments, one of my very favorite couples frameworks, as we look at assisting people and understanding what’s at play. I know that there’s a lot that’s out there in the world, and I think the understanding around this has been growing in the last 15 plus years. But I would love to hear your voice around this. When you talk about secure attachment, is there anything you want to say about what you’re referring to and what you both mean around this?
“I think on the most simple level, when we talk to a couple about secure attachment, it’s the ability to give and receive love freely.”
That all of the baggage, the barriers, the blocks that are established, especially early in childhood and early adulthood, that we become aware of those barriers, and then with our partner, move towards this secure attachment, where we’re aware of those obstacles, and we’re supportive of one another in working through them.
Yes. For me, the term of the words emotional safety is very powerful for me when I discuss secure attachment and secure connection within a coupleship. Because emotional safety to me is like, I can have these strong feelings, or my partner can have these strong feelings; they can be uncomfortable, they can be comfortable, whatever it is. But that our nervous system together is like, that’s okay, we can regulate this. I can regulate this on my own, but my partner is here to support me to also have my back.
“What usually happens when couples don’t understand this is, one partner will have an uncomfortable or a big emotion, and then the other person, because they don’t know what it’s triggering their own stuff, they defend themselves against it.”
Instead of saying, “Wow, I can see you’re going through a really difficult moment right now. How can I support you?” So I always give these little examples of what emotional safety looks like. It’s surprising, because I would say 80 plus percent of our couples have never been able to say, “Yes, I’ve had emotional safety.” Whether it was growing up within their family of origin, or the two of them together over 10, 20, 30 years, they have never been able to have emotional safety in their relationship. They’re just in this constant defend, blame, guilt, resentment, whatever it is. So we just really help them slow it down. We always take them through attachment theory in the first few sessions, because again, couples will come in, they’ve dealt with infidelity, they’re dealing with horrible communication. They want to talk about it, they want to fix it. We say, listen, there’s kind of a process to this. In order to really understand how you guys got here, we really have to look at your attachment history. So we spend a lot of time, and couples love it. They love it, they don’t even realize what they’re bringing in or what’s happening in those moments. I know that was like a really long explanation.
No, it’s super important. I also find, so the way that I work is they focus on one partner and then I focus on the other, and it’s usually one session. But it can be so illuminating what they experienced around comfort, around feeling responded to or not responded to, how that was negotiated. That’s a tremendous amount of learning, and that informs their tendencies typically. So to be able to give us some insight and spotlight to that, I think just even that in and of itself can be a huge change agent.
I think the biggest thing we see right away when we take them through that, what we do is a genogram, which is a breakdown of the building blocks of where you came from, all the way back to your grandparents down, and then a timeline up until when you met your partner. The biggest thing that we noticed is just an uptick in empathy and compassion for the partner. Because oftentimes, by the time they get to couples counseling, there’s a real deficit there. That they see their partner as almost the enemy, that they’re in this place of whatever the behaviors of their partner are that they find disruptive. They’re just so angry, so upset, so hurt. Then all of a sudden, they see their partner in a much more rich way, and their heart opens up a little bit. Maybe they don’t have the solutions yet to the problems that led them into counseling. But at least there’s a softening, and to us, that’s really the beginning of the work.
Totally. There can be a reframe, to your point, around certain tendencies or ways in which people protect themselves, what’s happening on the inside, that that is what they’ve been seeing on the outside, is usually like, “Oh, you don’t care, or you just want to change me,” or whatever the dance is. But it’s so helpful to have that perspective.
So there are many moments I get goosebumps when I’m sitting in sessions with a couple, and I see healing happening, and shifting and increased awareness, and identification of negative core beliefs that actually happened in those times that you can’t quite get to consciously in those moments. When couples are able to understand at a deeper level, what’s happening during conflict. For example, I’ll just use EJ and I. We would get into conflict. I would just be like, “Why are you making me feel this way? How could you not understand This?” I did my own work, and usually, in most conflicts, I have this negative core belief of I’m insignificant. But I didn’t know that. So I’m just pushing past that and being like, “Stop making me feel that way. Stop making me feel that way!” But when I got to understand where I’m insignificant comes from, because how often do we look at our life from a timeline perspective, from birth until now? I was able to go back and recognize so many moments in my life, where I’m insignificant. Yes, EJ is triggering them. But he is not the one that caused it; my negative core belief goes back early, early on.
When EJ recognized it wasn’t just him making me feel that way, he was like, “Oh my, it’s not just my fault.” I think that’s very empowering for couples, again, we’re taking them through this whole attachment. They recognize, “Oh my, she or he has been like this for a really long time, it wasn’t just my fault.” Then there’s that opening, to have that compassion and empathy. Those are the moments where couples really start to shift and develop this new narrative for themselves. Again, it’s freedom for me.
“When we’re not hijacked by our attachment issue, then we can understand them to always be there. But we have freedom to be who we need to be, and then our partner understands that. Hence, secure functioning.”
Yeah. This goes back to what you were saying, EJ, similarly, that when we can have more visibility to what’s operating, and perhaps where this got learned, or how this got developed, we can recognize that tenderness or that insecurity or longing or discontent, or woundedness even, and have a little more contact with that, I’m hearing you say.
Yeah, absolutely. One of the sayings, we have it out in our lobby, is “Your partner can be your greatest teacher, can you be patient for the lesson?”
*“That’s a big shift, I think, for couples when they realize that this hurt that is being triggered by their partner, really what it’s doing is it’s activating their deepest suffering.”***
Because it’s your partner, who at one point things were very simple at the beginning of your relationship, that your partner is hitting this deep, deep pain. Instead of seeing like, well their behavior is yucky and horrible and all this, instead of it, seeing like, they’re sort of highlighting this area where if I really want to evolve in this life, I have to address this. If I have that awareness, and then my partner is also like, I’ll help you in that. Because it’s not my responsibility to never trigger Tarah, but it is my responsibility to understand when she is triggered, and adapt in that moment, versus becoming reactive and being like, why are you acting so unreasonably right now?
Well, and this comes back to what you were speaking to, Tarah, that the safety, hopefully in these sessions that we’re referring to, that we’re helping assist in slowing things down, helping them recognize and establish a safe environment, so that we can be more revealing, and show these inside parts that maybe we weren’t even aware of. I can tell you, I’ll raise my hand here with my husband. Even though I know all of these things, it’s still so hard and difficult to say the thing I’m ashamed about. It’s less difficult now that we’ve been together for 17 plus years. But still, being in the practice, I can still recognize, it doesn’t feel fun, it doesn’t feel good. It’s not the impulse to share the thing that is deep down super vulnerable. Luckily, we build enough safety so that I feel more encouraged, and I obviously know what’s on the other side of that, and greater intimacy. But the safety is huge in being able to find each other in these moments that often get off track.
Absolutely, and I love the experience that you share. The vulnerability EJ and I share on our podcast or in sessions, couples love to know they’re not alone. They come in thinking they’re uniquely broken, and when we normalize the shit of how difficult it could be in relationship, they’re like, you guys fight too? We’re like: Oh, absolutely.
20 minutes ago.
But we have the skills, it’s about learning the skills. Because a lot of times we weren’t taught how to regulate ourselves, we weren’t nurtured or cared for in a way that felt safe. So we have to say, this is about building skills, but we can learn them. I’m not supposed to know how to respond in a kind, loving way when EJ is mad at me.
“I’m trained, my brain has evolved to defend myself, because that’s threatening. But that we can learn the skills to build emotional safety and secure functioning. It takes a minute, it doesn’t happen overnight. But just knowing that you’re both in it together, and it’s going to be a clunky process.”
That so many couples have come out on the other side saying: “Oh my gosh, you were right. Thank you for, whatever, your support through this.” Because it’s all on them that they did that work.
I think that safety thing is such an important thing to unpack too. Because especially in heterosexual relationships with men, when men hear their partner say, I don’t feel safe, it boggles their mind! Because they go right to the extreme. They’re like, “Well, I don’t do this, and there’s never been any physical violence in our relationship, and I don’t curse and yell.” So they get really resistant and defensive. So it’s important that you give them a context of like, that’s a different thing. This emotional safety is about this ability to open up and be vulnerable in these moments. But then also, the whole education basis around our fight-flight-freeze response, that even though they are physically safe, their existence is not threatened in those moments, it feels inside like it is. It feels like I’m dying right now in this repetitive argument.
This seems super helpful to the work that you both do in unpacking and really looking at the genealogy, the family history, understanding the early environment. That if the nervous system is recognizing cues that are similar to things that have been painful, or even traumatic, the body and the nervous system is going to respond. So even if one is feeling so regulated, like I had a couple last night and he grew up in a family where there was never a question of love and connection and bondedness. But he had three brothers, or he’s one of three, and they all would raise their voice and argue and verbally go back and forth and argue, and sometimes fight, not physically but verbally. But they would always repair, they understood what they were doing, and it was never a sense of threat. This was not the case for his wife. So to have that understanding of what cues and how that’s being experienced, I think this is really helpful, especially when people might not get that sense of like, “What are we talking about here with safety? I’ve never done anything to intentionally hurt you, or I’ve never hit you, or these type of things.”
I would say very early on, again, couples come in usually in crisis, where it’s like either this or divorce or separation. I wish more couples would come in to be like: Oh, we’re great, but we’d love to learn more. That’s rare. We would really like to have that happen more. But one of the things we develop early on for couples is, you guys are here, and we really want to set you guys up for success. So one of the things we offer early on is a code word. Like, when you guys start to get into this pattern, this dynamic, it’s pretty repetitive. You know what it feels like. You know what it is. You can probably identify the thoughts right when it’s about to happen. That you each say a code word. If you know you’re not your best self in this moment and you’re just getting hijacked, you say your code word.
We have this little protocol that they go through, the RAIN technique Tara Brach talks about a lot in her podcasts and her books, where you Recognize, you Allow, you Investigate, you Nurture. So that in these moments, you’re not triggering; you’re not re-traumatizing or reinforcing what’s happening between the two of you, which has been reinforced before you came in. Just having that code word, that space to kind of be like, what is happening right now. Then you come back when you’re feeling better and you say, “Hey, let me tell you, when you looked at me that way, here’s what I was thinking, here’s what I was feeling. Here’s how I acted, I started yelling at you. But I went and I took this timeout, and I did a reflection, maybe it was 10 minutes, maybe it was an hour, it doesn’t matter. I realized that that just made me feel really insignificant, and there’s so many times in my life where I felt that.” Then EJ responds totally differently, like, “Wow, honey! Thank you for sharing, I had no idea. Thank you for letting me know.” We just learn better about how we trigger each other. Because again, like EJ said, we’re not going to stop triggering each other. But we keep getting better and better and better at understanding our person’s trigger, and how they might be suffering in those moments.
So early on, we develop that code word and protocol practice to help them just get into their window of tolerance. Again, so your nervous system and that wiring can stop that old pain and bring in some new ways of experiencing conflict with your partner.
I think also, what we’re really striving to do, in the beginning of working with people, is that we’re trying to get them to reverse their instinct. Because their instinct is to look at the external stimulus, whatever their partner is doing, seeing that as the source or the genesis of their discomfort, and then trying to get that other person to stop it. Just stop doing that, and then everything would be okay. Instead, it’s like, we have to automatically go to a mirror. What’s happening for me? How can I understand this better? Then if I can understand it better, there’s a decent chance that I’ll also be able to communicate it in a kind, loving, open-hearted way to my partner, which then hopefully, they’ll react to in a more positive way. That’s not our instinct.
No, we want to point to the thing that hurts. I mean, that’s the natural impulse is to call it out, and of course, we’re going to want attention around that, as you’re both referring to. It’s so much more helpful, because it’s a huge distraction. Like you said, it’s likely if the person is on the receiving end, and feeling blamed or described in a way that doesn’t feel accurate, they’re going to want to defend against that. So you’re both speaking to the practice and the work around giving yourself an opportunity to just regulate, get into that window of tolerance, kind of getting one’s footing, and then being able to have this inquiry to really look at it. I love, Tarah, your just acknowledgement of, like, where did I go in my mind, what was I feeling emotionally? These are really good things to reflect on, and then we can come back into relationship and share. “Here’s where I was. Here’s what happened. Here’s the vulnerable or the reveal.” So it’s, again, not attempting to describe the other or change the other, to your point, EJ.
I also want to just emphasize that this feels so important. Because I think a lot of times people hear safety in the personal growth space, and they think I’m responsible to help my partner feel safe. I think there’s a nuance to this, which you’re both hitting on, which is, when we’re in our own experience and growing ourselves individually, we’re responsible for ourselves. That if we’re in service of cultivating a dynamic that’s healthy, we want to reveal to our partners so they can see us. Yes, that’s vulnerable. Then the natural impulse, typically when there’s enough stability in the dynamic that the person cares and wants to help. So EJ, I was hearing you say, if I listen to Tarah talk about what she’s experiencing, I want to help and I want to know her. I’ll say for myself with my husband, again, with the length of time that we’ve been together, I still am so curious, and I learn things, and I’m like, “Oh, okay, I get it now!” The more that I know, the more that I want to help. But I don’t feel responsible, and I know that he’s his own person, that he has his own responsibility in that. So I’m just curious, is that what I’m hearing you speak to? It’s like two-pronged.
Absolutely, I’m so glad you shared that. Because a lot of times, couples will come in, and maybe one has identified that or whatever, but it’s like, that’s a You problem. We really try to help. Yes, because a lot of the work we do is individual for the sake of a couple when we’re in session. So a lot of the work we do is helping you guys understand that if EJ is depressed, it’s happening to our relationship. It’s not just happening to EJ, it’s not just EJ’s responsibility to take care of his sadness. Because I’m invested into this relationship, that depression is ours together. I think when we really help reframe that’s a You problem, to actually this is an Us problem. It’s like, oh! Because we’re so taught in our society, like take care of yourself, be independent, blah blah blah. So we kind of get lost in the whole. You’ve got to do that work, I think you need the individual. I don’t think that I’m the problem. Just really helping educate on like, when you’re a couple, that you have these agreements. That you don’t necessarily know that are agreements, but they’re unconscious, like you’re in each other’s care always. Dr. Stan Tompkins work is incredible in that way, we’re always in each other’s care, no matter what.
The other super important thing for couples to also recognize, is that this is an ongoing process that never stops. That just each time we confront a dynamic within our relationship, it’s an opportunity to do it a little bit better, to be a little more mindful of it. That we’re not going to extinct these things, it’s not like it’s never going to happen. I can just think like, two nights ago, Tarah and I had a moment where something was going on for her, and I really didn’t show up in the way that she needed me too, and we talked about it. She has given me the cliff notes on how to be in these moments. So she came to me and addressed it. My initial instinct was to defend, to shrink away from it. But because we’ve done this over and over and over, we understand it better. Like, I had an internal process where I was able to be like: “Okay, this is happening. This response is happening with me. This is the way I want to show up. It might not solve the problem instantaneously, but at least it’s going to be different. Even though this is a super uncomfortable moment, and there’s not going to be a great resolution in the next 10 minutes, at least I’m doing it a little bit differently. We’re doing it a little bit differently now.” I think couples get discouraged, because they’re like: Oh, it happened again. It’s just like, yeah, it happened again. But was there any gradation of a difference in how you guys dealt with it for three minutes or 30 seconds or seven minutes?
“Each moment of conflict is your opportunity to grow as an individual and together.”
Thank you both for speaking to that. I really appreciate just the spectrum and the range here. It’s not all or nothing, and that it typically is a progression and a development. I appreciate what you’re both speaking to, too, in that if there’s something that’s occurring in either partner, that it is the couple is experiencing it, the family is experiencing it, the unit. So likely too, what I have found is, let’s say in the example that you mentioned, Tarah, that one person is really struggling with some depressive symptoms, likely the partner has a response to that or a reaction to that. I’ve seen, “Oh, I grew up in a family where one of my parents wasn’t okay. It was scary, and I felt responsible, and I tried to fix it or I really tried to help. So that gets activated.” So it’s not just I’m neutral about this. Usually, there is something that’s occurring. Even EJ, as you’re saying, I had an experience, I wasn’t in my maybe most high level capacity place, so that I could respond in my most optimal way. But I worked through it, and it was still a better version than maybe what it could have been in the past.
I’m telling you, our center here in Tucson, there are so many times where you just look outside the windows, and couples are embracing in the parking lot after they leave here. It is literally the most beautiful moment for me knowing, that EJ and I with our own experience, to create what we have, but to know that they are developing. Because couples counseling is hard. It’s not like: “Oh, this is going to be awesome, and in four months, you’re going to have the best relationship.” It is the hardest thing in the world, and it takes such courage and bravery to look at yourself and shred through all this pain and suffering and awareness. But when you look in that parking lot, and you see these couples embrace, it’s like, it’s so possible. I do feel like a lot of couples feel hopeless and powerless. In the beginning, we train all of our therapists, we are their hope holders. Because we get to hold hope, because we’ve seen amazing healing and shifts. So I guess if I have to say anything and it registers, it’s that it is so possible to create a secure, loving, more deeply intimate connection with the person that you chose. Is it going to take a little bit to understand and get through some of the pain and resentment? For sure. But that coming out on the other side, it’s beautiful, and you get to be in this relationship where you feel free, or where your partner feels free and supported and loved.
Yeah. It’s helping partners find each other. There can be all these things being said and felt, and with the guidance that we’re describing, can assist in distilling it and helping people access these deeper places, and find each other in this place of more vulnerability. It all falls away, it’s pretty miraculous to witness and to observe and to see that connection. I love that you’re describing what you’re seeing, even just in the parking lot, that’s a real testament to the work. It is difficult, I echo that, and it is also so inspiring and exciting to know that there is a way to cultivate this, that can be pretty profound.
We really look at it in how we’ve created our vision and the impact we want to have on the world. That relationships are the smallest building blocks of a healthy community, and then a healthy world. That if we can help the two people who have decided to be together, create a supportive, loving, caring environment that gets you through what life is going to throw you, which is suffering at times, that then, like you referenced a few moments ago, then the family is more healthy, and then the work environment is more healthy, and then the soccer game is more healthy. That it just reverberates. But that basic thing of healthy relationships, which we’re not really equipped to do instinctively, that’s what’s going to make big changes in this world.
Absolutely. Well, Tarah, I know you had talked about, and I would love to hear if both of you want to share anything around this. It stuck with me, and I wanted to ask you, and we just kept moving. But to go back to it, you had shared often in the beginning stage of your work with couples, that you’ll give them a description of what safety looks like. Would that be helpful for you to speak to that at all here?
Yes. So a description of safety, what it feels like and what it could look like. We do a lot of somatic work within our program here, because again, so much of our reactivity is based on our body saying, “Something’s wrong here, I’m in threat.” So it’s that you can have a really uncomfortable moment together. But instead of your heart racing, and your throat closing up, and your entire stomach feeling like you’re just going to vomit everywhere, it’s like, “Oh, actually, this is happening, but we know we’re going to get through it.” It’s like this trust that you’ve never felt before, that starts to enter your body. I guess instead of disempowered, you become empowered, because you build trust that even when It’s difficult, we’re okay. I don’t have to get my minivan anymore and take off to go see my twin sister. Because EJ and I are in this moment, but I know we’re going to get through it, because we’ve built the skills and the insights and the awareness in order to know that we can trust our relationship, which again, feels secure and feel safe.
Hmm, and what reassurance in that when things get a little bumpy or difficult!
Yeah. I mean, so often, we’ll hear a couple say something like, if it’s something about work, my partner can come home and be really activated about work, and I can stay present for them. But when it has anything to do with us, that’s when it completely breaks down. For me, that’s what the safety is about. It’s exactly what Tarah is talking about. When you’re activated together, and you have those uncomfortable feelings, that you can stay open in that moment, that you don’t have to shut your heart off from your partner. I think of suffering as constriction and tightening, in an uncomfortable moment with your partner. I felt this, like I said, just two nights ago, and I’m sure Tarah was feeling the same. That we could work through staying as open as we could be in that moment with one another, it was safe enough that we could stay open to where we are right now. That to me, that is safety. Like, we can be uncomfortable together, we can be uncomfortable as a result of our little chemical mixture when we’re in the same room.
I actually am more attracted to EJ after we get into our fights now. Because I’m like, “Oh my gosh, we were able to get through it, and he didn’t get defensive, and I didn’t get defensive.” I am like, that’s sexy. It’s crazy. Because in the beginning, EJ was like, how do our fights make you feel more connected? I’m like, they do. Because we got through them, and you didn’t avoid me, and you stayed present.
Conversely, I don’t have the hangover from those moments. Because I am avoidant. I grew up in a family where there was a lot of conflict, and it was really uncomfortable. I had my adaptive, which eventually became maladaptive coping mechanisms. I’m able more quickly to be like, that was okay. That actually means she loves me, that she’s willing to show up and share something really uncomfortable with me. Even if I share responsibility, it’s not all my fault, and I’m not being blamed for everything. So we both have had this evolving experience of being able to see that moment and experience that moment in a way, where it’s like, that actually brought us closer together.
This is the difficult spot when both people are triggered and activated, which likely happens in couplehood when it’s about the relationship. So what I’m hearing you both reference is, through the development, there’s more that you can resource. That you have this trust, you have this safety, you have this belief, you have a wider perspective than maybe what the framework would have been without having done the work that you both have done. Then through the repetition, being able to build something that you really are in service of. It’s quite beautiful. So thank you both for sharing so much. I always am honored to hear about the guidance, and also to be speaking with people That are not only professionals and have a level of training, but also do the work and can really speak to their own journey and transformation. So thank you.
It’s always so wonderful for us to connect also with another person, who we don’t know, but obviously is really aligned in how we see relationship. Also, we can just hear it from you, just that it’s bringing so much heart and care and empathy into the work. Because couples, they need that warmth, because it’s a difficult process to go through. If they have this really insightful, well-educated individual who also has a really warm heart, it makes the work for them so much easier.
Yeah, I’m so happy to have been a part of this podcast, and just for the work you do and your love of attachment theory, too. I remember when I was in grad school, and I had to do my master’s thesis, I was like, “Oh, definitely Emotionally Focused Therapy.” I always knew I wanted to do work with couples. But we look at it always coming back to the attachment piece. So thank you for having us on your show.
Yeah, wonderful. Well, for people who are listening, I would love to hear a little bit more about what you want to invite people to connect with or look up.
I mean, a couple of things would be great. One is, I’m very excited right now, because we’re doing a retreat in Denver, outside of actually Colorado Springs, place called a Nature Place, October 5th through 10th. We’re going to bring in 15 couples, and it’s going to be very experiential. There’s going to be ropes course. There’s going to be some orienteering, which is kind of like, you have to race; you and your partner have to get to this rock over here, find your way there together. So it’s going to be in a really beautiful environment. We call that I’ve Got You, and it’s all about emotional safety. Like, how do you create emotional safety in your relationship?
I think, Jessica, our podcast Relationship Renovation, we’ve had several guest speakers on, we’ve had couples that have gone through our program, we’ve had many of our therapists on that specialize in different areas in the couples. So it’s just a great resource, it’s free. Couples, individuals love it. So again, it’s just ways to learn how to be in a relationship wellness, really.
No kidding! So to connect with your podcast, Relationship Renovation. If you’re interested in really getting into the experience. Because in my understanding, we can know something and have insight about it, but if we’re not living it and getting it into our body, to your point about the somatic and even the experiential learning, this reminds me of like a trust fall. Actually putting it into your body and feeling that your partner has you, it’s quite profound. Then also to see what gets activated that maybe we weren’t fully aware of, and to have the support and guidance to really work with that. It just sounds like a really wonderful thing. I lived in Boulder for many years. So I think October could be, hopefully, a beautiful time of year to be there. For people that also might be in Arizona, it sounds like you have a, I don’t know if you call it a clinic or an institute.
It’s called Relationship Innovation Counseling Centre, and then we also have a Relationship Renovation at-home program. We developed that during COVID. So couples all around the world really could have a way to work on the relationship, get curious, be understanding. But they might not be able to afford couples counseling or didn’t feel safe to go in-person, so we also have a Relationship Innovation at-home program for couples too.
Yeah. You can access all of our information just at our website, RelationshipRenovation.com, and just see what we’re up to and what we’re doing.
Great. I’ll make sure to have those links on today’s show notes. Thank you, Tara and EJ, for joining us here today.
Thank you, Jessica.
Thank you for having us, this was a blast!
Signing Off
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Communication is the foundation of any healthy and fulfilling relationship, but expressing yourself in a way that fosters love and connection can be difficult, especially when conflicts arise.
In this interview, Laura Doyle, a relationship coach and author of “The Empowered Wife” discusses six essential skills for building intimacy and connection with your partner. From taking care of yourself to relinquishing control, showing respect, receiving graciously, embracing vulnerability, and using positive affirmations, Laura offers practical tools that can transform your relationship, even in seemingly hopeless situations.
If you’re looking to deepen your connection and create a more fulfilling relationship, listen to this episode to discover Laura’s expert advice on how to express yourself in ways that inspire love and connection.
New York Times bestselling author Laura Doyle was the perfect wife…until she actually got married. She is the founder of the international relationship coach training school Laura Doyle Connect, the star of Empowered Wives on Amazon Prime, the Creator of The Ridiculously Happy Wife program, the host of The Empowered Wife Podcast. She has helped over 15,000 women fix their relationships–even the hopeless ones– without their husband’s effort.
In this Episode
6:19 Laura shares how her personal experience led her to develop a coaching model and framework that supports women in heterosexual relationships.
10:24 How a women’s support group turned into a movement to end divorce.
19:49 Two “cheat phrases” that can help improve communication in a relationship.
25:43 The power of intimacy skills, receptivity, and manifesting desires.
41:09 Take charge of your own happiness: The power of self-care and positive cycles in relationships.
44:54 Building positive relationships through fundamental cues and intimacy skills: Insights from “The Empowered Wife”
51:36 Laura reveals the 6 intimacy skills that can improve your marriage, even in seemingly hopeless situations.
Your Check List of Actions to Take
- Identify your needs and communicate them clearly to your partner. Use “I” statements and avoid blaming or accusing language.
- Practice active listening when your partner expresses their needs. Focus on understanding their perspective without interrupting or becoming defensive.
- Develop a daily self-care practice that replenishes your spirits and boosts your sense of self-worth. This can include activities like exercise, meditation, journaling, or spending time in nature.
- Let go of inappropriate control by allowing your partner to make their own decisions and respecting their autonomy. Avoid micromanaging or trying to change them to fit your ideal.
- Show respect towards your partner by valuing their opinions, feelings, and boundaries. Avoid criticism or dismissiveness, even in times of conflict.
- Learn to receive graciously by accepting compliments, gifts, and help from your partner without feeling guilty or obligated to reciprocate immediately.
- Practice vulnerability by opening up to your partner about your feelings, fears, and hopes. This can create a deeper level of intimacy and trust in your relationship.
- Use positive affirmations and spouse-fulfilling prophecy to reinforce your belief in your partner’s abilities and potential. This can create a more supportive and encouraging dynamic in your relationship.
Mentioned
The Empowered Wife, Updated and Expanded Edition: Six Surprising Secrets for Attracting Your Husband’s Time, Attention, and Affection (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
The Empowered Wife Podcast with Laura Doyle
Relationship Map To Happy, Lasting Love
Shifting Criticism For Connected Communication
*Connect wi*th Laura Doyle
Websites: lauradoyle.org
Facebook: facebook.com/lauradoyle.org
Twitter: twitter.com/lauramdoyle
YouTube: youtube.com/user/lauradoyleauthor
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/lauramdoyle
Podcast: lauradoyle.org/podcasts
Connect with Dr. Jessica Higgins
Facebook: facebook.com/EmpoweredRelationship
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Podcast: drjessicahiggins.com/podcasts/
Pinterest: pinterest.com/EmpowerRelation
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/drjessicahiggins
Twitter: @DrJessHiggins
Website: drjessicahiggins.com
Email: jessica@drjessicahiggins.com
About Today’s Show
Laura, thank you for joining us here today.
It is a pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me, Jessica.
Yeah. I feel privileged when people who have done a level of work are able to speak about their journey with a level of humility, which it sounds like you are very much willing to show some of the maybe areas that have been embarrassing or not pretty, and just also what you’ve been able to cultivate in your journey and your transformation. We’re going to be talking about empowered relating. I know you have a whole brand Empowered Wives, so I know you’re speaking from that perspective. But these principles, it sounds like you’re saying, translate to any person and relationship looking to deepen and navigate the lasting terrain of long-lasting intimacy. Is that right?
Well, yeah, I totally hear you. You want me to tell my embarrassing stories, which I’m happy to do. No problem. For Me, it all started out, just sharing my experience in marriage. That’s what I continue to do. I continue to rely on, like, I don’t really have any advice for anybody. But I do have this experience, and it turns out other women have found it valuable to hear some of these embarrassing stories and apply that in their own relationships. Then, men certainly respond to that, too. I think almost everybody on the planet wants to be loved and seen and heard and understood. I certainly wanted that so badly, that’s why I got married. But unfortunately, just not very long into marriage, I was noticing my husband didn’t really want to spend any time with me. He was watching lots of TV. He seemed like he was more interested in watching reruns than he was in talking to me, or even making love to me. So it really was very lonely. It was heartbreaking actually.
I remember, just after getting married, thinking, “I’m going to help improve my husband. I’m just going to show him a few things, just how to be more ambitious and a little more romantic, and definitely tidier.” I couldn’t understand why he didn’t want to have anything to do with me. But I knew what to do. I knew that if your marriage was in the situation where you couldn’t even have a conversation without having a fight. Or sometimes we’d have cold wars, where there was no talking for days. I knew that meant you should go to marriage counseling. So I convinced him that we had to go, I remember dragging him to marriage counseling. We went for over a year, and we spent $9,000 on marriage counseling. It’s a long time ago, so $9,000 would be a lot more now. I remember sitting on the marriage counselor’s gray couch and realizing, “This is hopeless, he’s never going to change.” I was there really wanting her to change him, so that I could finally have a happy marriage that I wanted so bad. But we were too far apart, and I just felt like my options were really clear: I was either going to get divorced, or spend the rest of my life in a loveless marriage. I wasn’t willing to do that. So I decided to get divorced. There was just one big problem with that, and that was, I was too embarrassed to get divorced. Because people have been to the wedding, maybe six or seven years before that. I thought I didn’t really want that. I felt like there was going to be a loss of status.
So in my desperation, I decided to ask women who had happy marriages and had been married for an eternity, which was 15 years, what was their secret to happy marriage? I mean, I’ve been reading marriage books, and I’ve been doing this marriage counseling, and I knew a lot about relationships, what you’re supposed to do. But these women said things that were just cuckoo, they made no sense to me. I remember thinking like, that’s not what you’re supposed to do. But I was so desperate that I was going to try these cuckoo things, I had nothing to lose. I remember I had been doing that for not even that long, and I came through the door to our home, and my husband saw me and his face lit up. Just happy to see me again. That had been gone. So I thought, maybe who knew that the women with actual happy marriages would know the things that would work. So I was so excited, I thought now I’m going to be able to have the kind of marriage that I’ve always wanted to have. Because I knew what to do. We wouldn’t be having those big fights in the car, and it’d be peaceful, and we could be playful. So it was very exciting.
Then not that long after that, we were in the car, and we had that big blowup, where he was saying horrible things, and I was saying horrible things right back, basically. I knew I was going to regret those horrible things that I was saying. I was really deflated, because I thought: “Oh, I know what to do, but I couldn’t get myself to do it.” The new stuff wasn’t that hard, it was just new. So I had this idea that if I could get my girlfriends to do it with me, that we had a little support group, that maybe I could get myself to employ the new things that I needed to do. That worked. There was five of us, we’d meet in my living room; they were complaining about their marriages too. We were seeing miracles! One woman said my husband won the sales contest at work, he took them on the most romantic getaway of their lives. Then another woman said, “Well, you’re not going to think this is such a big deal, but we’ve been fighting for months about him painting the family room, and do you know, he got up and painted the family room, and he did it with a smile.” She’s like, this is a miracle! And we are all like, “Yeah, I get it. Because sometimes it can feel impossible to get your husband to do the thing you’re wanting him to do.”
So one of the women in that support group said, can you write down what we’re doing for my cousin in Florida? We’re in California. I was like, sure, I will write it down. That became my first book, which debuted on the New York Times bestsellers list, and was published in 19 languages in 30 countries. It was the number one book on all of Amazon, and Dateline did an investigative report, and then we just really saw tremendous interest. The women started emailing me saying, “This is great, but I need support,” like me. They were like, “This is great information. But now how do I keep it alive in my marriage?” So that led to me starting a coaching organization. I’ve trained coaches, around 30 coaches now who teach. So there’s kind of a worldwide movement of women who practice the six intimacy skills, which is what I distilled from the wisdom from these happily married women.
Can I ask you? Thank you for sharing. When you talk about the story where your husband lit up, was there something you were starting to implement that he was responding to? I didn’t hear what that was.
Well, I know. So that is where the six intimacy skills come into play. I’m on a mission to end world divorce now. My parents are divorced, so I was following a failed recipe, and I was about to get the same results as Mom did basically, in my marriage. So it wasn’t until I learned these skills, and began to feel empowered in my marriage instead of a victim in my marriage, that everything changed.
“In looking back, I was suffering needlessly, because there were skills. It’s sort of like if I learned to drive a car by just jumping in the car and just taking a little tool around town and crashing into things, that wasn’t necessary.”
So I want every woman to be able to get her hands on the six intimacy skills. So I’d like to share as much of that as I possibly can, in our time together. I will tell you, it’s not going to be enough time in my experience. It’s sort of like the way the word water doesn’t quench your thirst. Like, if I just list the six intimacy skills, it’ll be like: Oh, okay. But I would love, there’s one particular piece, the second intimacy skill, that I feel like every woman needs to know, and it’s pretty easy to grasp onto. I want to just share that formula; it’s called “Expressing your desires in a way that inspires.”
There’s another embarrassing story, which is, when my husband took us to a romantic getaway to Hawaii, very early in our relationship, I was so excited. Because on the first day, I thought: “We are going to go to the beach, I cannot wait, that’ll be so fun.” But instead of saying what I wanted to do, I said, what did you want to do today? He said, well, let’s go see a volcano. I was like, “Uh, a volcano? Okay, I’m going to just suck it up and go see his volcano. I’m not going to mention the beach.” Because I didn’t want to have a conflict, I wanted to be close. So we get in the rental car, and we’re driving around, and you don’t see a volcano for a long time. There’s just these little molten rocks on the side of the road, and I started just to really feel disappointed and upset. He was like, is everything okay, is something wrong? I was like, “Did you think it was going to be fun to look at these stupid things? You didn’t even ask me what I wanted to do, I wanted to go to the beach. [indistinct 17:30]” So he saw a volcano alright, not the kind that he was intending to see. Do you know, after that, even though I behaved so badly, he turned the car around and we went to the beach, because he just wanted me to be happy.
But I feel so sad for that younger version of myself, who just had no concept of how to say what I wanted. Of course, if you can’t say what you want, you’re never going to get what you want. This carried into our marriage. I remember I would say, and I thought I was saying what I wanted, I’d say, “John, this kitchen is a disaster area.” I thought he was just going to jump off the couch and start cleaning the kitchen. That never happened, Jessica, as you already know. I think he probably heard, “John, blah, blah, blah.” He probably couldn’t even hear what I was saying. I don’t think people can hear you when you’re complaining. So finally, I learned to express my desires in a way that inspires. I’m going to give out that formula in a second. But what I said was, “I would love a clean kitchen.” He said, “Okay, I’ll clean it.” And he did. That was over 20 years ago, he’s been cleaning the kitchen ever since every day. I never do the dishes, because he knows it makes his wife happy. As part of my research, I’ve asked thousands of men, how important it is that their wife is happy, or even their girlfriend is happy. Do you know, they all said the same thing? They say something like, “Oh, it’s everything, or it’s the most important thing.” Or in the UK, they say, it’s imperative! So it seems to be this universal thing, husbands want their wives to be happy.
Now, I didn’t think my husband wanted me to be happy. I thought he doesn’t care about that. He just wants to watch TV. But when I learned to rephrase my desires, instead of complaining, to actually express my desires, I saw that I was able to trigger his hero gene, and he just wanted me to be happy.
So I just want to give everyone that formula, which is, “I would love,” and then it’s just the final outcome. So you don’t want to get into how it’s done. Like, I used to say things like, “I want a new dress for my birthday. I want this blue one. It’s at Macy’s, it’s in the window. It’s the three-quarter sleeves. But wait till it goes on sale next week, and get me a size eight.” Nobody is inspired by that, that’s just control. Then I also don’t recommend this phrase if you want affection or attention or his time, because it just doesn’t feel good to have to ask for those things. You want him to want to hold your hand, or to make love to you, or spend time together. But for everything else that you want, and if you’re like me and most of the women I talk to, you want a lot of things, this is the magical phrase. Just “I would love,” and then the final outcome.
Agreed, that’s really making visible. Again, as you mentioned, the desire to make one’s partner happy and to feel that win. Also, conversely, not have to push away from what sounds like criticism or complaint, and have to feel not good enough, inadequate, all the things that that usually ingenerates. So I agree, it’s been very helpful for me to use that languaging, for sure.
Right, it’s pretty magical. Because you go from feeling like he doesn’t care about my happiness at all, to seeing, like: Oh, my gosh! I had one student who was sitting on the couch reading my book, reading the Empowered Wife, and she just looked up from the book. She just had read that. She said, “I would love a glass of wine.” Her husband’s like, “Oh, we don’t have any. She’s like, “Oh, I know. I was just wanting some, no expectation.” The next thing she knows, he’s coming down the stairs with his keys in his hand, and the kid is behind him going, “Dad, can I go to the store with you?” She’s like, where are you going? He goes, “Oh, I’m going to go get you some wine.” She’s like, “All right, thank you.” So it feels nice to feel so cherished.
Yes, yes, yes, lovely! Well, are you wanting to say more about this?
Yeah. I mean, I’m happy to share as much as I can about all of them. So another one, another cheat phrase, that is in the third skill actually, and I’ve got a great story about this. The cheat phrase is one that I used when I realized I was a little controlling, you probably heard that in my story where I was going to help improve him. Improve meaning tell him what to do, which is the same as being controlling. I was a little too helpful. So I learned to use this phrase, because I had trained my husband to check with me before he made important decisions, like making an investment or starting a business or getting dressed. I wanted him to check with me first. So the phrase I came up with was, just to kind of refer him back to his own thinking, which is, “It’s whatever you think. Whatever you think.”
So I had a student who had also just read my book, and she was reading about all the intimacy skills. Her husband came up to her and said, “Oh, you need to tell me what you want me to do about the cellphone plan? Because we need a new plan.” So she decided she was going to experiment with this phrase. They had been sleeping in separate beds for six months, and it was her second marriage. They had a blended family. She’d been going to marriage counseling every Saturday, for almost a year actually, and he wouldn’t go. So she was just going and complaining about her husband for an hour a week. That doesn’t work, by the way. Nobody ever got happier by complaining for an hour a week. It always seems like it’s going to work, but it just doesn’t work.
So she just decided she had nothing to lose by experimenting. So she said about the cellphone plan, she said, “Oh, whatever you think, Doug. Doug was like, “No, I really need you to tell me what you want me to do.” Because he didn’t want to get in trouble later for doing it wrong. His wife was the CFO of a large private school. He knew that she didn’t really think that he would be able to handle it correctly. But she just stuck to her guns. She said, “Whatever you think, Doug.” Then she added, “I trust you.” So Doug went away and figured out the cellphone plan. She was worried he was going to mess it up, but he did fine. He was okay.
That night, he went up to her and put his hand on her shoulder, and said, “You were so nice today!” Tears just rolled down her cheeks, and they slept in their same bed that very night. The next day, she fired her marriage counselor and she came to train with me. Divorce was off the table at that point, she was able to springboard off of that one cheat phrase to save her marriage. It’s been 20 years since she did that. She still gets tears in her eyes when she talks about how tragic it would have been to throw away the marriage with this man who turns out to be the love of her life, now that she knows how to communicate, how to show up as her best self in her marriage.
Well, I’m hearing you speak in my vantage point as a clinician, and really touching in on some deep needs and attachment longings of feeling that. In this case, as you’re referring to the husband and the wife, that the husband feels that she’s safe with him, that she trusts him, and that he is also helping her feel happy, which in turn has this positive cycle of helping him feel this sense of agency and feeling also empowered. That it really allows for this generative way of relating, that calls into. You mentioned the hero or the king, there’s different archetypes to refer to here. I do think these are really important underlying motivations.
Yeah. You said that so well, that is beautifully said. That’s exactly right. These are speaking to three basic human needs that we all show up to our relationships with, that we want to feel seen, and known, and appreciated, and understood. Certainly, in Kathy and Doug’s story, he really wanted to be her hero, her king, I guess is another way to say it, for sure. We see this so commonly, it’s like yin and yang, in a way.
“I love the idea that every object has yin and yang. Like, my coffee cup, this ceramic polka dot part here is the yang; it’s got the handle, it’s the structure. Then the yin is the part that can receive the coffee. If you imagine a coffee cup that can’t receive coffee, that’s the end. It has no purpose.”
In the yang position in a relationship, you want to feel purposeful, and maybe that’s where you see men go get the car when it’s raining, or give up their jacket because she’s cold, or move across the country to be near her family, or take the longer commute to work to provide a better living for that family. I think the longer I do this work, the more I so appreciate that yang energy. It’s just so really self-sacrificing, in a way, but also feels loved when they feel respected, and that they’re contributing.
And received, and then also their efforts to make a difference; there’s an impact that they get to see a result of. If it doesn’t land, or it’s being rejected, or a person isn’t really happy with it.
That is intimacy skill number four, it’s receiving graciously. The slogan is: receive, receive, receive. I know for me, my husband used to buy me flowers, and I’d say: Oh, this is kind of expensive. I don’t know if we can afford this. They just die anyway.” So I was rejecting, I wasn’t receiving those. Or we’d wake up in the morning and he’d say, “You’re so beautiful! I was like, “No, I just woke up like, don’t look at me.” I’d just reject that compliment. I just felt like there was a lot of pressure to be independent and carry my own weight. So I was constantly rejecting compliments, gifts, help, apologies, special treatment, all the ways that he wanted to cherish me.
So it’s funny. There’s the TV show, So You Think You Can Dance? The host is Cat Deeley. She got up on stage there one time, and she looked absolutely gorgeous, like she always does. The coaches said to her, “Cat, you look gorgeous!” She just beamed. She just stood there in the white hot spotlight of that compliment, and said, “Thank you!” I just thought, oh, she’s so beautiful, she’s so confident. Then they said to her, “And Cat, congratulations on your Emmy Awards.” She did it again. She just stood there in the white hot spotlight, like, “Thank you.” Now, those coaches had also been nominated for an Emmy. She could have easily said, “Oh, thank you, and congratulations to you too on your Emmy nominations.” But she didn’t. She just received that attention, and just delighted in it. I see her as just my role model for receiving, she’s so confident and so beautiful in this receptivity. That is the essence of femininity. No wonder we all think she’s so gorgeous and she’s such a great host on this show, because we enjoy that confidence that we see in her.
So I see this with my students again and again. I had a student who was separated in her own home, and her husband had said it’s over, he was leaving. They were definitely getting divorced, and they were living like awkward roommates; there was no speaking, there was no touching, no interacting at all, really tense at her house. She has been on my program, and she was using all the intimacy skills to try to fix her marriage, even though she didn’t really think that that was going to work. She gets to the part where she decided she was going to try to express her desires in a way that inspires. She went into the living room, and he was sitting there watching TV, and she said, “I would love a leg massage.” Now here’s the critical piece. She didn’t say, “Oh, my legs hurt.” Because then he would not have known what to do. So then he said, “Oh, would you like it now?” Her heart was just racing like crazy. She’s like, “Oh my God, I think he’s going to massage my legs!” And he did. He’s like, okay, sit over here, and he gave her a leg massage. That was the beginning of their reconciliation, to where she’s now a coach with me too. He then cleared off the patio and built a fire pit for them to sit and hold hands at night by the fire. So their marriage was saved from her doing this. But imagine if when he had said, “Oh, do you want it now,” is she hadn’t received that leg massage. So that was key that he saw a way that he could delight her and make her happy.
“That is part of how we see that men fill up, when they kill that scary spider or carry heavy things for you. So the receptivity, being receptive makes you 10 times more attractive than rejecting those gifts, compliments, help, special treatment, and apologies.”
Well, you’ve spoken to three skills. I’m also hearing you talk about the learning curve around this is not always easy to access; our heart might be racing. It might be like, I need my sisters to support me, if we’re in the feminine and identifying as a woman. Like, having collaboration and knowing that one has got other people that are also in practice, and holding accountable and capable.
Would you like to say anything about how one starts to re-pattern some of these brushing away compliments, not receiving? I don’t think the intention is ever to not receive, necessarily consciously. But it’s these learned ways of being self-sufficient, or I don’t want to be a burden, or I don’t want to be too needy or demanding, or I don’t want to be too selfish or seemingly better than. There’s all these reasons why people get stuck around accessing these. So would you like to speak a little bit more about how people can start to be in the practice of this more?
Yeah. I mean, we all have to overcome that training we got in junior high where it’s like, don’t act like you’re hot stuff. That’s part of it, kind of a false modesty I guess you’d say, or maybe not false. For me, this was one of the best self-improvement programs I ever undertook was the wisdom of no escape in my marriage. Because as I decided to take on these practices of becoming a better receiver, and not being too helpful, and expressing my desires in a way that inspires all the other intimacy skills. For me, with the receiving thing, what came in was just an awareness that I didn’t feel deserving, or just that I wanted to be polite. I thought it was selfish, and I had been trained not to be too selfish. Of course, my mama trained me right! But really, part of me just felt nervous.
I remember being at a live event with a bunch of my coaches, and we had a dance party; we had an 80s dance party, super fun. I was hanging out with this other coach, who’s a great dancer. Like, she really studied her dance moves in the 80s. So we were just having a blast. The next morning, another coach came up to the two of us and said, “You guys are such good dancers.” And I had this moment of like, “She’s a good dancer, I was just standing next to her.” I almost rejected that compliment. But instead I thought, “Oh my gosh, I teach this stuff, I’m trying to not be a total hypocrite here.” So I just smiled and said, “Oh, thank you.” I’m just going to receive. Like, she has this good impression of me, why am I going to argue with that?
So a lot of times it comes up when I’m wanting to reject a compliment, or a gift. It’s been an amazing journey of just stretching into feeling worth that gift or compliment or help, and maybe feeling a little vulnerable, or more than a little vulnerable; maybe my heart’s racing when that’s happening. But don’t we all want to receive all the things that are around us, all the time, that people want to give us? I mean, other people want to feel purposeful too. Then you kind of start to find it everywhere. Like, oh my gosh, that contractor went above and beyond, or the customer service person got me that refund or whatever. Just as you begin to bring that receptivity, it’s endearing also, it’s attractive. It is vulnerable, and that inspires people.
Agreed. I think you said it was the third skill, the first one we talked about today. So I’m not sure if I’m tracking them correctly.
I’m sorry, I didn’t go in order.
No, it’s totally good. But it’s something that I reference a lot, and we use different language, for sure. But that it is really vulnerable to lead with the request and to be able to say, here’s what I would love. Or whatever it is that one is really making visible. So that is way more vulnerable than the criticism or the complaint. So I appreciate you acknowledging that.
Yeah. That just reminded me of a great example, this happened recently. For years, for decades, I’ve always wanted a swimming pool, I’ve never had one. It seemed a little indulgent, just to want a swimming pool. We don’t have kids. So it’s like, I just want a swimming pool for me. I remember thinking, like, “If I only had kids, I could say I want it for the kids.” But I couldn’t. So I had to just really own that I wanted it. But no, not practical, maybe kind of expensive, maybe a maintenance hassle ongoing. So I finally decided to stop holding that desire at arm’s length, and I just really stepped into it. I just said, “Gosh, I would love a pool.” Do you know, we just went through old backyard remodel. I have like a backyard resort now, it’s fantastic. But I could really see just my own environment responding to me being willing to honor myself. Before, I wasn’t willing, so there wasn’t a swimming pool, and now today, happily there is, and I love it. I’m thrilled to have it, and I’m also thrilled to be able to honor myself in that way.
Yeah. It sounds like it really harkens back to the worthiness, and to even be able to give yourself the expression and even access your creative energy. I think there’s a lot that brings value for anyone in contact, that gets to also experience something you created, or your vision or your desire, essentially, was vocalized.
The other thing, I wonder if you would agree with this, that even as I’m hearing you speak to it and how I try it on for myself, it’s giving space and permission to say, here’s what I would love, and to be in the vision and expression of it. It’s not so pointed that like the subtext is, I would love you to do this for me.
Yeah, that would be control.
Or even the subtext, if it’s not said, but if the energy of it is like, “Hey, I’m on pins and needles, what are you going to do?” So it’s not gamifying it, it’s more of just being in the authentic. Like, here’s what I would love, and the mystery of the I don’t know, but I’m going to be in reception and be in the visioning of this and the creative energy of this, and how fun is that. That is potentially attractive. That then, one’s partner is like, “Oh, I’m interested in that. I want to play, I want to help.” Then that also gives an opportunity to feel, so if I imagine the heterosexual couple, and the man in this relationship is like, “Oh, I want to help,” and wants to feel like contributing, and that masculine of being of service, and then getting the accolades for that. Not that, again, it’s gamified, but that it’s giving him an experience of feeling really valued and feeling that purpose, that confidence of like, “Look at what I just did! Look at how I created this and helped my partner be happy.”
Yeah, it’s so true. My husband was so proud and happy, he dealt with those contractors and he got me that pool. I’m still thanking him. I’m still in gratitude about that. So it’s really amazing the sparks that fly. Because that desire became his north star. “Okay, this is how we’re navigating, we’re getting the pool. We’re going that way!” It’s really fun. We talk a lot on our campus about being the girl of fun in life that you were when you first fell in love. I’m well over 12 and I’m still calling myself girl of fun in life, because I think every woman has that inner ‘just want to have fun’ girl in her. Like Cyndi Lauper’s profound anthem about it that still always have that. Sometimes she gets left behind in the seriousness of work, child-rearing, chores, mortgages; a lot of things can come up and suck that out.
Another one of the skills, this is actually the very first thing we ask women to do when they arrive on the campus, the first skill, is to make a list of 20 things that bring you joy, just frivolous fun; not to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, or to improve cardio fitness, or whatever. I mean, maybe that’ll happen as part of it. One of mine is I love to play volleyball, I love to play poker and Wordle, and I love to listen to a podcast and go for a walk. So I have these lists of things that are just to put a smile on my face or make me laugh, make me dance in the kitchen or whatever it is. If you make that list of 20 things, and you do three things a day off of that list every day, well, this is taking responsibility for your own happiness, making yourself happy.
What we see, and this was true about me too. Like, I am so miserable in my marriage, I’m not going to be smiling. “Oh, no, if I smile, he’s going to think this is okay, what he’s doing.” I am being dour over here on purpose, so he knows he’s doing everything wrong. Because it’s totally his fault, all the marriage problems I was having. Then the problem with that is, so I’m unpleasable, and I’m not receiving, you cannot make me happy, and I’m unhappy all the time. Like, who’s winning in that situation? No one. This is not teaching him to behave differently necessarily, because he’s like, I can’t win. It’s teaching him to give up and maybe keep his distance from his porcupine wife. So it seemed really hard to start paying attention to my own happiness. But when I did that, it was interesting, that had to do with that smile on his face, his face lighting up. When I came in the door, I was coming in feeling good. I was happy. I was fine. So instead of scowling at him, like he’s seeing me come through the door, his face is happy back. Like: Oh, you’re happy.
So we talk about even having a smile campaign with your husband, or just smiling at everyone you see. How would it be to just smile at everyone? I remember one student, Gabby, she was really having a hard time with this. Because she said, they had five children, 20 years of marriage, had been unhappy for like 19 of those 20 years. He was flirting with co-workers, being deceptive, and he told her he wished they never had kids, and that she was a terrible mom. She said she felt like she just wanted to die. So for me to say, how about making yourself happy? She’s like, that seemed like a big stretch to her. But she was in one of my programs, and that’s what all the cool kids were doing in that program. We were all sharing, like, “I got my nails painted, or I went kayaking, or whatever, all the joy. I was playing with my pets, or I decorated for Halloween, or whatever it was.” So she started doing these things for her self-care, for her delight. She’s like, “You know what, I am already winning. Because even if this doesn’t fix my marriage, I’m feeling better.” Instead of waiting just like a statue for him to make plans, she started planning her own thing. So she was going here and going there.
Then so one day, she was listening to a podcast she loved while she was folding laundry, and her husband came over to talk to her, and she had her headset in. She was even thinking like, I’m listening to my headset right now. Then she was like: “Oh, I’ve always wanted him to do this, so now here he is coming over to talk.” So they had this nice conversation. Then she said she overheard him talking to their oldest son, and they were talking like friends, she said, and it just melted her. Then she started hearing him talk to all five of the kids this way. So she realized, something has changed. He was seeking out her company coming home from work early, and instead of feeling like I’m older now and less attractive, she said: “I started to feel gorgeous, because he wanted to be with me.” He was leaving work early, like, hey, what are you up to, and the flirtation was back on. All from her making herself happy.
It was a big epiphany for me too. It’s like, only happy people have happy relationships. Mic drop! Here I was being miserable thinking that was going to help.
Well, I appreciate, there’s just some very fundamental things you’re describing that are no-brainers. I think the average person can lose sight of this. But as far as the accessibility of it and how powerful they are, and how fundamental and elemental, that we are constantly looking at one another through neuroception, which is reading the facial expressions of non-verbals, and these welcoming cues that bring people close versus pushing people away. I think it’s incredibly powerful.
Now, there is a part of me too, as a psychologist that’s listening, that’s like: Oh well, it could be helpful for them to talk about their dynamics and the way that they interact, and previous maybe painful injuries, and have some repair around that. But what you’re speaking to really gets the couple into a positive cycle. So it makes much more available to do this work, rather than it being so threatening, and that that togetherness and cohesion is so fractured that it’s hard to even feel hopeful, or like what’s the point? So the juice, I don’t know, I see you nodding.
Yeah, it is so true. Just that inspiration, that motivation, that reminder, that little spark. There’s this old ad that I loved, a magazine ad, and it said, “We flirt not because he looks good, but because you do.” It’s like, when you’re walking around the house feeling like, “Ooh, I’m hot, or I’m feeling good, because I did my hair, or whatever it is. I have endorphins in me because I just went for a brisk walk, or whatever it is, all of it.” That is something that you can take to the bank for your relationship, because it is going to create immediacy in terms of the focus here is like, wow. I didn’t really get to touch on one of the skills, and we still can if there’s time, but the best aphrodisiac on the planet for men is skill number two, or maybe number three.
I might have you read them all or list them all, just so we have some organization.
Yeah, because we just have little pieces of a few of them here. There’s so much more. That’s why I just invite everybody to get your hands on all the six intimacy skills, they’re all inside the Empowered Wife. Or I have something else that’s kind of fun, you can get for free. But the book, The Empowered Wife really lays out all the skills, ideally.
So the best aphrodisiac on the planet for men, and if you’re anything like me, you’re like, what, there’s an aphrodisiac for men? Yeah, and It’s fast, it’s free, it works quick. But no one ever told me. Even if they had, I would not have known what they were talking about, because I thought I did know. So the aphrodisiac is respect. It’s respect. I think for me, I grew up knowing that you should be respectful to your husband. I was like, I am, except for the way he dresses and the way he drives, and I don’t think he tells me that he’s a little drunk. So I’m like, I’m respectful. But really not. I had no awareness of what that really meant.
“I also thought I was being respectful when I was being considerate. I’m like, I reheated this dinner, or I tell him where I was going to be, or I didn’t leave a mess. It’s none of that. None of that.”
So it’s just been interesting to learn what respect really looks like. I have this cheat phrase, that as a well-educated feminist, I thought I’m never going to say those words, that’s ridiculous. But now I love them. They felt like sawdust in my mouth at first, but now, turns out I actually want to show up respectfully, it feels more dignified. Not too long ago, my husband and I were out to dinner on a Saturday night at a swanky, the bomb kind of restaurants. Saturday night, it’s like flying waiters, and the bar is laughing, and the music is playing, and we’re just having this really nice time. He’s telling me something about work, and I say something about one of his clients. The subtext of what I said was really like, this is what you should do at work basically. All of a sudden, my husband got this look on his face, like, ah! Then the music stopped, the waiter stopped, the laughter at the bar, everything shuts down, and our good time is gone. Because now we’re having a tense conversation instead of that fun one, and I’m not really excited to be accountable at this time. So I’m just sitting there like, what just went wrong? Then I say, what I said, was that disrespectful? I asked it like a question, like I didn’t know. He’s like, yeah! I was like, oh!
Then I said, and this is the cheat phrase, “I apologize for being disrespectful, when I tried to tell you what to do at work.” All of a sudden, the music came back, the waiters are back, the people are laughing at the bar, and my husband says, thank you! Our good time is back, the evening is saved, we are now just enjoying each other; we’re holding hands, just having a great time.
So it’s a phrase. I thought respect was for parents or teachers or bosses, people in authority over you. But now I realize, it’s really just seeing the best in my husband, and treating him like he’s competent and capable. Like, he can handle the cell phone plan, he can make decisions when he’s running his company. He doesn’t need me to tell him how to do that, he’s been running this company for decades, and what do I even know about his company? But it’s my own hubris, really thinking that I know what’s best. I’m really coming out of a place of fear. I’m afraid he’s going to make a mistake at work, and I’m going to save him from making that mistake.
“So what I’ve seen is, when I am bringing that respect, the passion skyrockets in the bedroom. Then when it goes missing, when I am disrespectful, it has a very chilling effect on the physical intimacy in my house.”
I see this again and again, with thousands of women, who have used the six intimacy skills to make their marriages not only last, but thrive, even when they seemed hopeless, that respect is key.
Well, thank you for making sure that you spoke to that really, really important intimacy skill. Would you like to just list them all so we can organize them with you? I hear you as far as the examples and the stories, and to really understand this at a deeper level to be able to access it and be in practice of, it would be helpful to get the book. I’ll make sure to have the link on today’s show notes.
Yeah. Then even once you get the book, you might want support on implementing them. They’re literally counter to a lot of pop psychology or whatever. But let’s go through them, for sure.
So the first one is about replenishing your spirits, so you’re making yourself ridiculously happy every day. What I love is that all the intimacy skill sets are super practical; you can know if you did them or not. It’s not just like, love yourself, which I didn’t know if I should hug myself or what that meant. But anyway, three things a day for your own, to replenish your spirit. Then there’s relinquishing inappropriate control, which is being too helpful. Instead of making helpful suggestions, we talk about staying on your own paper, which is where all your decisions are. Like, he’s got his paper, and you’ve got your paper. So how are you feeling, what are you doing over here? Then respect is the third one, we just got to talk a little bit about that one, we just scratched the surface on that one. Then we’ve got the receiving graciously: receive, receive, receive. We talked about gifts, compliments, help, apologies, and special treatment. Then we’ve got, we didn’t get to touch at all, unfortunately, on the skill of vulnerability, skill number five. But we did talk about how expressing desires can make you feel vulnerable, and it sure does. Then we didn’t get to talk about skill number six, which actually is probably the most powerful intimacy skill of all, which is the spouse fulfilling prophecy.
Anyway, I invite you to come to LauraDoyle.org, you can get the free Adored Wife roadmap. It gives a high level overview of all the intimacy skills, and talks about the three mistakes that women make trying to get their husbands’ time, attention, and affection, and what to do instead. It’s really fun to get that Adored Wife roadmap. Or to get the Empowered Wife book wherever books are sold, and that’s going to lay out all six intimacy skills in great detail.
Thank you, and thank you for giving voice to the feminine, and really helping give some clear guidance and practical tools to be able to implement this, and helping people have a book or a roadmap to be able to utilize. You also have a website and a podcast. Is there anything else you want to say about what people can connect with to get more in contact with you and what you’re up to?
Well, yeah, the podcast. Every week, I interview a woman who has fixed what seemed like a hopelessly dysfunctional marriage. We’re talking husbands with affairs, active affairs, he’s moved out, he’s with the other woman. We’re talking alcoholics and addicts. I have coaches who had physical abuse. Physical abuse, Jessica! I mean, it blows my mind, because I used to say, “If you have that stuff going on, then I don’t know. Maybe the intimacy skills work, I’m not sure, but I don’t think so.” But so many women have come on long and proven me wrong, that the intimacy skills can really transform a situation that maybe conventional wisdom says, actually, you should get a divorce.
“So we like to say that you can transform your marriage without your husband’s conscious effort, and no matter how hopeless it seems, so that you can feel desired and taken care of and cherished.”
Okay. Well, I will make sure to have all of these links on today’s show notes. Thank you so much for being with us here today on the Empowered Relationship Podcast, and sharing all these stories and tips with us here.
It’s been a pleasure. Thank you for having me on.
Signing Off
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Is your relationship constantly fraught with emotional arguments? When things get tough, do you resort to emotional weapons like anger, blame, or shutting down?
It’s time to take a step back and examine the role these emotional weapons play in your relationship.
In this episode, Dr. Shawn Haywood and Dr. Jessica Higgins discuss the ways in which people use emotional weapons to protect themselves, the negative impacts of using these weapons, and how to identify and disarm them. Dr. Haywood shares valuable insights and practical tips for gaining awareness of our emotional weapons, asking for what we need, and finding healthier ways to meet our needs in relationships.
Through deep devotion and commitment to her evolving spiritual path, author, speaker, and life and relationship coach for 24 years, Shawn Haywood, Ph.D., continues to transform toward increasing unconditional love and joy for the whole of her life, while teaching her clients and team to do the same so that their lives, marriages, health, and businesses can thrive in unimaginable ways.
If you’re interested in improving your relationships and creating deeper connections with your partner, this interview is a must-listen.
In this Episode
3:44 How to assess success or failure in a relationship and the different factors that contribute to it.
13:16 The importance of descriptive language and mutual connection in relationships.
17:26 The importance of different types of connections in a relationship.
23:40 Understanding your partner’s needs: Enhancing connection in relationships through emotional, sexual, and intellectual fulfillment
28:52 Analyzing the fight-or-flight response to improve connection in relationships.
31:07 Understanding attachment style and types of connections.
33:25 Defense mechanisms and their impact on an individual’s ability to connect with others
39:56 Understanding marianismo and the effects of shame on connection and wellbeing.
44:00 Dr. René Vázquez del Valle talks about his book and explains how the simple formula of assessing head, heart, and crotch connections can have profound effects on people’s lives.
Your Check List of Actions to Take
- Gain awareness of your emotional weapons by reflecting on past conflicts and identifying the patterns you tend to fall into.
- Practice vulnerability by learning to ask for what you need and being open to receiving it.
- Learn to regulate your own emotions by practicing mindfulness, meditation, or other self-care techniques.
- Focus on building connection and empathy with your partner by active listening and validating their feelings.
- Consider seeking help from a therapist or coach who can guide you through the process of disarming your emotional weapons and building healthier communication habits.
Mentioned
Living For Love: Set Yourself Free from the Daily Stress, Worry & Hurry that Wears You Down (Amazon affiliate link*) (book)
Reroute Your Relationship (free guide link)
Relationship Map To Happy, Lasting Love
Shifting Criticism For Connected Communication
*Connect wi*th Dr. Shawn Haywood
Websites: reimaginelove.com
Facebook: facebook.com/shawn.ashley.haywood
Instagram: instagram.com/drshawnhaywood
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/drshawnhaywood
Connect with Dr. Jessica Higgins
Facebook: facebook.com/EmpoweredRelationship
Instagram: instagram.com/drjessicahiggins
Podcast: drjessicahiggins.com/podcasts/
Pinterest: pinterest.com/EmpowerRelation
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/drjessicahiggins
Twitter: @DrJessHiggins
Website: drjessicahiggins.com
Email: jessica@drjessicahiggins.com
About Today’s Show
Dr. Shawn Haywood, thank you for joining us today.
Hi, thank you so much for having me, Jessica. I’m super excited to be here.
Oh, I am grateful to have your voice on this topic. I do think that we’re not always conscientious of how we might utilize and weaponize some of our emotional protections or even reactivity, and how these emerge in relationship and the dynamics around it. So I’m super excited about what we’re going to talk about. I love your just passion and enthusiasm. I can feel it already.
Oh, thank you!
So before we get started, is there anything you want to share with the Empowered Relationship audience about who you are and where you’re coming from?
Oh gosh, yes. So what to share? So I have been doing this work for almost 23 years. I was a coach before people knew what a coach was, and they said, what sport are you in? So I’ve been around the block a few times. Yeah, so I’m super excited. I have a new book out called Living for Love. Gosh, I’m just really excited to be here, Jessica! Thank you so much.
Yeah, it’s wonderful. Well, I love that you have such a wealth of experience and you’ve been at this, and I think there’s a certain level of perspective that someone has when they’ve been, and cultivated the level of experience and education. So in this particular topic, how did you come into really supporting people in recognizing emotional weapons, if you’re willing to share?
Oh, of course. So over time, we just started to develop this methodology around emotional weapons, and identified the top seven emotional weapons that people tend to use. From there, we just literally started curating parts of our program around it. Because when you think about emotional weapons, one, we have to know what they are. Like, what are they, and which ones do I use? Then from there, when we learn how to lay them down, it literally becomes impossible to fight. So I will share on social media about fight-free marriages, and we have so much pushback that people just can’t believe that it’s possible. But really, it’s not that crazy. It’s just something that people don’t hear about. They hear about fighting fear and picking your battles and things like that.
When Chris and I were really struggling, actually, I think a little more than 10 years ago now, we just couldn’t comprehend the idea of “This is the person I love so much, why do we want to fight fear with him or pick a battle?” Like, we’re not in the military. We’re love partners. We’re adventure partners. We just didn’t want to have any of that. There was like a little spark in us that didn’t really have any idea how we would get there. But we both had this idea that it was possible.
Yeah, so we developed this emotional weapon piece. I mean, that’s one piece of our program, and as we started to understand and research and all this stuff, we just started to really believe that it was possible. We are now almost having our sobriety chip. We’re almost five years with no conflict, and our clients experience the same thing.
“When people learn how to lay down their emotional weapons, you totally don’t have to fight anymore. You just outgrow it, essentially.”
It sounds like Chris is not only your love partner, but also your business partner. Is that right?
He is, he’s a business partner.
Well, there’s a level of work, not only in cultivating intimacy and the relationship, but also being business partners. So there’s a level of terrain that you put this into practice. So being a testament to this really works, and not only with your clients, but also in your own life. So I appreciate that. To be clear, we’re not saying, if I’m hearing you correctly, that one is not going to feel triggered, or have reactivity, or feel something emerge? It’s the choice around what we do with that. Am I understanding this correctly?
Yes. So I would say there’s two parts to that, Jessica. So one, I don’t think that unless you become an avatar of some kind, like a Christ or Buddha, I don’t think you ever stop getting triggered. Maybe they did as well, I don’t know. But yes, so we have a couple of surrender tools techniques that we teach people, to learn to eliminate negative emotions to a very, very high degree. So people will learn these skills, and a month later, they’ll be like, “Wow, I used to get really upset about that, and it barely bothered me.” So if you think about, like, let’s say there’s 500 things that somebody gets angry about.
Or gets triggered about.
Exactly, any of that. Anxious, depressed, whatever the triggers are, fearful. You practice these surrender tools for 30 days, 60 days. It’s an expanding skill set. If there’s 500 things that you got upset about or triggered by on month one, there’s going to be a number of those that don’t bother you at all; you literally don’t have any trigger. So it just diminishes over time over time over time. So as our clients do get triggered, it’s so small over time. People feel so capable of handling it, or talking about it, or recontextualizing it. Does that make sense?
Yeah. Now, is this for someone that is working with their activation across the board and individualizing, like, understanding what’s going on for them and helping them metabolize? Or is this specific to relationship in their relationship?
Such a good question. Really, both. We set up our client journey, whether it’s an individual or a couple coming to us, it’s 80% individual work. Does that make sense? So I come into my party with all of my history of stuff, and if I keep all of that, then it interferes with everything, from business to the bedroom. Yeah, we really have our methodology structured where it’s self-work first.
Is there anything you want to say about that a little bit to help people understand? I mean, I’m getting a sense just based on my background of helping people become more aware of what gets activated and helping them excavate that. Is that more or less? Is there anything you want to say about how you support people in this cumulative process that helps them metabolize, or as you said, as this way of feeling more confident in dealing with the triggers, but also that the intensity decreases. Is there anything you want to give people a little nugget around?
Yeah, so many things. One, I love your terminology around activation. I actually haven’t heard it quite like that before, so it’s really beautiful. I love it, activation. Can I bounce a question back to you real quick?
Sure, yeah.
Do you use that in the same way as you would trigger?
I do. I use it synonymously, and just that the nervous system is activated.
Yes. Oh, I love it. Okay, great. Thank you. Let’s see, a little nugget. Would you like me to share something that’s like a practice for people, something tangible that they can practice? Or about the journey of letting go of emotions?
Let’s do a practice, and if you can give maybe a little bit of an example to support people around what that might look like. Then we can get into the weaponizing.
So let’s think about blame. Everybody knows how to blame. “He hurt my feelings. She did this.” So one of the spaces that we really dig into arson foremost within oneself, because it’s so easy to blame me as well and be like, “Oh, I’m such a loser today, or I ate too much.” We can find any reason to beat ourselves up, or our partner. So the first emotional weapon that we help people overcome, override, stop practicing and then practice something else, is blaming. So when people let go of blame, and certainly it’s systematic, Jessica. Like, nobody is getting rid of blame the first week.
Right, it’s not a light switch.
Exactly, it is a well-worn path for people. Even, like, “Ah, that person cut me off while driving, and now I’m so mad.” Like, there’s so many spaces where we put our feelings outside of us, and therefore we feel powerless. So the journey of laying down emotional weapons is so unbelievably empowering. Because it says, “Oh wait, I get to have the power over, do I even choose to get triggered here.” Again, yes, there’s some practice along the way. But it’s like, “Am I really going to let myself go there? Am I going to give my partner, or this driver, or my work mate, all the power over me that says, you made me feel this way, and now I’m just stuck feeling this way?” So it’s just the most empowering space to learn to lay down these emotional weapons. Because you just get to feel good, it’s a whole new story. Does that make sense?
Yes. Okay, and you’re also giving us some insight in how these things are related. So when we talk about emotional trigger or activation, you’re helping us recognize there’s something that’s happening, and then we, in response to that, maybe habitually, will choose a weapon to deal with that activation or trigger. Then if we can recognize what’s on the other side of choosing differently, or pivoting towards surrender, if I’m using your word, then we can feel this liberation, like we’re not so victim to the trigger, and thus engaging in these emotional weapons. Is that right?
Oh, 100%, you’ve totally nailed it. One maybe a little tiny additional piece is that we look at everything, like, we come from the standpoint that practice makes permanent, and it also braids into our body. So I hear a couple say all the time, “I don’t want to fight. I don’t want to fight anymore.” Well, interestingly enough, when we become gotten into these habits, we’re actually wired to fight. It’s so fascinating because it’s like, let’s say, you and I are in a conflict, and we’re both angry. Our body is having this chemical rave party, like, the dopamine and the serotonin and the adrenaline and the cortisol. It’s a physiological thing. People think it’s just up here, it’s just our head, just our mind going, “Oh, I don’t want to do this.” It’s so much more than that. That’s why we take such a maybe unique approach from a lot of people who do this kind of work, in that we work with neurology, we work with the spirit, we work with the mind, the emotions. Because it’s all tied together. If we don’t know how to unbraid the entire dynamic, body, mind, spirit, then we’re just going to spin our wheels and continue to be in this place of, “I think I don’t want to fight. Like, I don’t want this particular piece, or trigger, or activation.” I love that word so much. “In my life anymore, but I don’t know how to untie myself from it.”
I’m sure you’ve gotten this. I know that I feel a tremendous amount of empathy, as we’re talking, that people really well-intended. They have looked at these things, they’ve been around the block, they kind of know what not to do. Then they get into the interaction, and they’re spun and triggered and activated. It’s almost a sense of like, I’ve heard clients say, “I see red, or I’m saying and doing things I don’t feel good about.” It’s this sense of like, I know better, but in these moments, it’s like I lose capacity. As you’re talking about the nervous system, the fight or flight or freeze, that’s so primal. We’re not going to override that with, you’re making the gesture of just the head and the intellect. So there’s this comprehensive system.
Okay, great. Well, that’s so important to acknowledge. Is there anything you want to say about that?
Oh gosh, I think you tidied it up really well. I mean, it’s fascinating. To your point around having empathy for people, it’s so true. I mean, people come to us, and they’ve been to therapists after therapists, they’ve read 50 books. There’s so much support available these days. But if you’re not getting the appropriate blueprint for all the spaces, then it just turns into trying. If we use, again, the example of getting triggered into a conflict, and then it’s like, well, now we’re spun out. It’s actually something that the body craves. So we talk about things like anger addiction or anxiety addiction.
“If people don’t know how to get that hormone chemical neurotransmitter rave party, from joy, and love, and connection, and depth, and contribution, we’re going to get it from somewhere. It’s like, we just have to learn how to shift that dynamic and lay down those pieces that are so detrimental, and pick up tools that allow us to get our chemical highs from love and joy and peace and contentment and connection.”
I remember in some early internships of my training, it might have been in my master’s program, that we can’t just ask people. Maybe it was in my PhD, I can’t remember. But it’s this idea of harm reduction, and that we don’t ask people in a kind of therapeutic way to just stop doing behaviors that are destructive. Because they have nothing to replace it with, they have nothing else to turn to. So you’re saying if we’re so in this habit or this pattern and sequence of, whether or not it’s blame or anger or anxiety, and whatever that state is, or even running late and that pressure, whatever it is that we put on repeat, you’re saying we want to replace that. We want to be able to build up other things that bring more of that high, that positive reward. It’s almost like the scale, we want to let one atrophy and build the other. Is that right?
100%. I mean, a super simple way to look at it is, if I am going to change my eating habits, and I decide I’m not going to eat burger and fries anymore, I’m not just not eating. I’m swapping it out for more kale or more fruit, or whatever it might be. So exactly, you are on it.
Okay, and that’s very helpful to have guidance. Because some people, again, haven’t maybe looked at this super intentionally or consciously, and it’s just they’re doing what they’ve always done, and there’s reasons why. Like, we have good reasons why we do what we do, given our environment growing up.
So I have a quick question before we dive into the seven emotional weapons. There’s a way in which you’re describing that I’m hearing the question around choice. Some people might feel convicted and really decided about, “I’m not going to do X, Y, and Z anymore.” So it’s this idea of like, “I’m going to just have more willpower, and I’m going to try harder.” Then the way I’m also hearing you present is, we do have some choice to lay down the weapons, to be in a little bit more of a surrender. So where does choice show up here? Because it’s almost like, if we go too far, we’ve lost the ability to maybe choose. I don’t know, that’s how I’m wondering. If we can catch it a little bit ahead of the activation, or set it up more for success, or like you’re saying, replace, then we might be a little bit more set up to have access to make choice? I don’t know.
Yeah, I totally get it. This is such a great question. Because overriding what feels, to most people, the most challenging piece, is literally getting out of that habit. So say, if we drink too much, if we eat too much, if we work too much, whatever the habit is that isn’t serving us any longer, one, it’s really important to understand that we form habits for really good reasons. So they’re all some form of a coping strategy that we learned when we were a little kid, that our mindset, “This is how we stay safe. This is how we’re protected.” Even emotional weapons, whether I’m blaming, yelling, angry, whatever it might be, even passive aggression. That’s like, I’m afraid to share my heart, my truth, my vulnerability. So this is how I try to get my needs met.
Yeah. So when you’re working to make those different choices, at least how we set it up for people is, we have a number of things. So one is teaching people literally how to surrender. So we hear it all of our lives, “Let it go, surrender! Give it over to the universe, or whatever.” But people don’t know how to actually do that. It’s very easy to say that. But also, then it’s like all this energy is stuck in here, and people wind up feeling guilty because they couldn’t do it. We’re literally giving a how-to to make that happen, to allow that to unfold. So we’re setting up daily practices to soften the emotions, so that when the triggers come, they’re less potent.
Then we have another little methodology that we call the four steps, to talk about anything anywhere, anytime without conflict. It’s literally, we have our clients print out 50 copies, and keep them in every room, in your lunch pail, in your car, in your office, wherever. As soon as a trigger comes up, that’s your first line of defense. You go here first, and then you see if there’s actually anything else to solve, which most of the time there’s not. So we’re helping them interrupt their patterns, in a way that’s really fruitful. Because once we get into it, the most efficient thing to do is we ask people to just walk away. Because if practice makes permanent, every time you engage in that way, you get better at it and better at it and better at it. So if they fall off, we call it falling off the cliff, just playfully. Like, “Oh, we fell off the cliff together.” Then it’s like, who can remember to walk away more quickly? But at the same time, we really have to honor that our egos love the payoff of a good righteous indignation, or a good fight, or a good blame, or rubbing our partner’s nose in something. Even though when we’re in our real self, our spirit self, we’re either in ego dominance.
The wise.
Yeah, exactly. Then we would look back and go, “Oh my gosh, I can’t believe I humiliated my partner like that.” But when we’re in it, we’re just like, “I’m hurt, and I want you to be hurt too, you big jerk!”
We’re looking for some sign of, like, they care, or whatever it is that is in service. But it is often this amped up competitive energy that you’re saying there’s a lot of addictive qualities to it. So it sounds like, to the question around choice, it’s not so much, again, that the nervous system doesn’t get activated, or we don’t feel the charge. It’s being able to have that choice to do something different with the pattern interrupt. So it’s not just like, we’re expecting ourselves to somehow do this super-avatar, evolved, enlightened move. It’s being able to just catch it and then have something to replace, and you give people a lot of clear guidance around how to do that. You essentially unpack it, maybe get into that a little bit more vulnerability, I’m imagining.
Yeah, absolutely. Because people think sort of that the choice is A or B. I’m either mad and yelling at my partner, or I’m not mad, which really usually translates to trying to stuff it and deny it, and you’re going to have that inner build up until the next time, and then it’s really big. So yes, to your point about choices, it’s like, now I have this whole toolkit of choices. I don’t have to just not be upset, or just not be shut down. I get to try something that’s more empowering. You said something actually really, really lovely. I love it. You said, trying to feel that others are cared for. It’s like, I used to be volatile, and Chris would shut down, and I really did perceive that as he just didn’t give a shit. I would poke that bear, poke that bear, poke that bear, and he’d shut down more and more and more. So his core weapon was shutting down, and my core weapon was amping up. So I love that you gave that example, because it’s so true.
“If we don’t understand our own value worth lovability, we will be anybody down to try to get that, to perceive that.”
It’s critical, and this is what the driver and what’s at play. It’s the most important thing. So I don’t want to lose you without talking about these seven emotional weapons. Is that okay if we turn towards that?
Oh, heck yeah! So if I share too much about them, we’ll be here till the end of time, Jessica. So I’ll just go through them, and then you can ask me any questions that you want. So the first one is blame, which we talked about a little bit, and that one is usually everybody’s go-to. So we always encourage people, when they go through this module in our online piece of our program, to get really clear about their top go-to’s, and blame is always at the top of the list. Then there’s anger, and then emotional shutdown; there’s passive aggression. I think that passive aggression is really important to make a little pause on this, because it’s such a tricky area. I’m not talking about necessarily clinical passive aggressive personality disorder, if that makes sense. It’s really about what we see most of the time, just because we have a really specific archetype of couples that we work with. So we call them tornado and the inchworm, which won’t mean much to you, but it’s super just fun and playful.
So our feminine archetype is typically the tornado in the relationships that we work with, and then there’s the inchworm. Our inchworms are just this amazingly kind, loving man. They have been taught somewhere along their journey that showing emotion isn’t appropriate, and especially anger. My husband literally would tell me at the beginning of our relationship, I never get angry, I’ve never been angry. I was like, whoa, whoa, we got some hiding out going here. It was just so, so cute when he first started to get more in touch with his emotions and let them express. He was like, wow, I actually do feel angry.
So with that often comes out as passive aggression, which can be anywhere from mild to abusive of course. What we see there so often is, the most damaging piece that I see is this cycle of conflict there, with this passive aggressive piece, is that she always ends up feeling like she’s crazy for bringing something up. Because they do a really good job of wrapping it around, and by the end, you’re like, “I’m sorry, I don’t know what I did.” It’s just a really masterful way that they’ve learned to abdicate responsibility, because that responsibility feels too heavy for them to carry. Just to put a little pause on that one, it can be a tricky one to unravel. Because people just aren’t in a hurry to be like: Oh, I’m passive aggressive. But I definitely encourage people to really, really clear about that dynamic. It’s just a tougher one to get out of.
It’s not as visible or obvious, it can be a little bit more nuanced or hidden.
Exactly, 100%. So there’s anger, there’s blame, there’s emotional shutdown, there’s competition, there’s passive aggression, there’s shame. and then there’s jealousy. So those are sort of the top. Now as you might imagine, there’s nuances, resentment and things like that.
Is there any example? I’m sure we can all conjure up what these tendencies result to, as far as behaviors. So do you deem the behavior the weapon? Is it giving it too much power, like you were saying earlier? Because some of these feelings might be there, around like shame or jealousy or anger. But it’s how we deal with it or behaviors or tendencies. So can you help us with that? Because I mean, some blame, of course, or there’s certain things that are on face value, like pointing the finger at people typically isn’t a good strategy, it doesn’t result to a lot of constructive resolution. But do you see a point of which it becomes really like a weapon?
Yes. So shame is a really good one. So shame is our lowest emotional denominator, and we work really efficiently to move people out of shame if they live there a lot of the time. It’s more difficult to make progress, and people often can confuse shame and guilt.
“While guilt is really challenging, when we’re using shame as an emotional weapon, one, undoubtedly there is a great deal of inner shame that hasn’t been overcome yet, surrendered let go, released. Then we start shaming, using it as a way to make someone else feel small, or humiliated, or not good enough.”
So every word that comes out of our mouths, it’s all a projection. So if I’m trying to humiliate you, Jessica, because you left your stuff on the floor or by the bed one more time, then I have shame to dissolve myself, and this is a weapon I know how to use. Does that make sense?
Okay, that helps me. So it’s not just feeling shame, it’s how we’re shaming, or even just the flag that gets raised when we engage in shame that is indicating we have a lot of internal shame.
Exactly, how its utilized. It’s interesting, because with emotional shutdown, people really are like, how is that a weapon? But it serves as weaponry within a dynamic because it’s impossible to have vulnerability and care and conversation if you’re paralyzed. So it’s not only a weapon to myself, if I’m using it. It’s a weapon to somebody else, because they don’t get these soft, tender, beautiful parts of me.
It’s really disengaging in the relationship. That’s one of the things that occurs to me with all of these, is that it’s such a great analogy or a word of weapon. It’s hard to really be in contact and have mutual care and regard if there’s weapons. It’s even like, “Everybody put their weapons down. Let’s actually try to calm this. Let’s actually try to have some dialogue and repair and understanding so we can get to some solution.” Like, when we’re in that threatened mode and we’re ready to fight, we’re in protection. The goal is very different. It’s not where the goal is to get to a positive outcome or to be in this intimacy.
Oh my gosh, I love it. It’s sort of on the fringes of “all of the emotional weapons is some level of pridefulness.” Because if we’re using an emotional weapon in any way, this is the part that people don’t love to hear, but it is also empowering, is that we’re doing anything we can think of that we’ve learned along the way to get what we want. So I used to use anger. I’m kid you not. If I were doing dishes, and I thought Chris should be helping me, all I had to do was go, huh. By gosh, he would leap off the couch and run over and be like, “Hi, do you need some help?” By then, I was already off of my own emotional cliff. What was challenging and then beautiful is that, that was just pridefulness. Going, like, how dare you sit on that couch and I’m doing all this stuff? This big drama situation happening inside of me.
Then part of the tool set that we teach to help people lay down emotional weapons is vulnerable asking. I had to believe that I was worthy of receiving to be able to ask him lovingly for help, instead of like, “Well, he should just know, and why would he think it’s appropriate to just sit on the couch while I’m doing dishes?” We have all this sassy dialogue. But at the end of the day, what it really ropes around to is learning how to feel worthy of receiving in a loving way. “Hey, babe, would you mind helping me do the dishes.” When we asked lovingly, how many times will they be like, “Oh my God, no, you suck! It’s like, “Yeah, I’d love to help. Okay, I’ll be right over.”
“Cultivating that vulnerable space is the antidote, so to speak, to the emotional weapons. But it’s not easy, being vulnerable.”
No, and I love that you’re really recognizing the worthiness. Because it’s almost caring for the part of us that feels resentful, insecure, all these things that are usually not very attractive, that it’s easy to want to push away, and with you mentioning the word pride, we don’t really want to make that welcome. So it’s easy to push it away. Then the other thing that I’m sensing, it’s almost as if, like, “I want you to reach to me, I want you to be showing care. But I’m going to be behind my protective weapons. But you go first, show me and then I’ll let my weapon down.” It’s this idea that we have these feelings, we don’t want to acknowledge them. But then we want our partner to respond to us. But we don’t want to be vulnerable, we want to be behind the weapon. So it’s really a mixed message signal when we send these emotional weapons over.
Oh my gosh, girl, that is the best way to describe it! It’s so mixed message. As long as there’s emotional weapons being rolled around, we can’t have emotional safety, and without emotional safety, we can’t have uninterrupted connection. As a coupleship progresses over time, at first, it’s all love and sunshine and rainbows and so cute. Oh my gosh, we had our first cute little, and then it compounds. It gets bigger. We use an emotional weapon once a week, and then twice a week, and then 20 times a week. Pretty soon, now we’re fighting at dinner time every day, because I cooked last night and what are you going to do tonight. Every single time that comes up, every piece of conflict includes a weapon, and every time that happens, our connection breaks.
It’s like, think of a giant Jenga board. Every time we’re pulling out a block, and we’re pulling out a block, because we don’t know how to put those blocks back in, because we don’t know how to lay down our weapons. At some point, it collapses. People think that divorce happens because somebody had an affair, or something really big happened. No way. Even affairs happen because that connection broke so many times that there is no connection. Couples get divorced because there’s a lack of connection, and that’s our heart’s deepest desire is feeling that sense of connection and belongingness.
I hear people say, it’s like death by a thousand cuts. It’s such an appropriate space. Because then emotional weapons become more fertile, because we’re trying to get connected, which doesn’t make any sense. But it’s like, I’m going to beat my partner down to get connection because I’m craving it so much. Meanwhile, we’re putting more wedges between us.
Exactly, I love that just description around we lose connection when we use the emotional weapons. It’s just a real direct painting it red, that there is a vulnerable emotional risk in creating, and I love the interrupted connection. We want to continue to lengthen the time, get back into connection, know how to do that, and be able to sustain that longer and have that confidence. So when so many weapons are being used, it’s really hard to undo some of the damage of that, when you’re saying the death by a thousand cuts. It’s like, well, this cut and that cut, and everybody feels so injured. But it’s really difficult to do triage on all of that.
This is so, so, so helpful. Is there anything you want to help us with before we transition here? I mean, we’ve talked a lot, but is there anything else you want to stay around how to lay these weapons down? Or how to not utilize them, and really prioritize some of this surrendering and connection? Or how to get rid of the emotional weapons, as you might say?
Heck yeah! So from a foundational perspective, obviously, this is what we do is escort people through how to do all this, But I would love to give at least a beginner nugget for people, we already talked about it a little bit. It’s like, the first thing that people need to do is identify. If we don’t have any awareness around like, what do I do? Oh, I want to blame her. Or shoot, I really tried to get my partner to comply by using anger. I was a bully, and I learned how to do that, and it is how I got my needs met, even though it was super bastardized, it didn’t feel great in the end. So we use this for really specific reasons.
So for people listening, their first mode of operation could just be gaining some awareness, even in hindsight going, “Oh, wow. I’m going to think about the last three fights we had. Okay, what did I do? Oh, I used anger, I used shutdown. Okay, what was the need that I wanted to be met, and I didn’t know another way to get there?” So if we can just start to be a little bit more transparent with ourselves and look behind the curtain, it’s like the Wizard of Oz. Once we know the man was behind the curtain, then all the mystique was gone. So we need to sort of peek behind our own curtains and go, “Wow, I am using emotional weapons, and I really want to have my needs met in a more meaningful way, and I can learn better ways to do that.”
We talked a little bit about asking. Asking is very vulnerable, especially when we don’t perceive that we’re worthy of receiving, which is every single one of our clients.
“That’s just human nature. We grow up in imperfect homes, and one of the biggest issues is that we don’t learn that we’re worthy of receiving.”
But we hear women say all the time, “Oh, I hate asking, I hate asking for help.” Well, if that’s your MO, then 100%, you don’t feel worthy of receiving.” That’s a big space of healing to shore up, which creates so much amazing stuff in your life and in your marriage. So there’s just a couple of little things that I encourage people to do right off the bat, to gain some awareness. Is that helpful?
It’s super helpful, and I think it ties a lot of what we’ve already discussed into the frame, so that people can start to really find some entry points here.
As you and your partner, Chris, have already developed, you have a lot of guidance you offer. So what would you like to encourage people to connect with, if they’re interested in learning more?
So one, we actually have an emotional weapons download, and I think you’re going to add that to your links. But that is ReimagineLove.com/emotionalweapons. So it’s very simple. Then we have a Reimagine Love Facebook group that is for women. Sorry, men, we have email lists for you. But our Facebook group is for women, and as you might imagine, most of the time, it’s the women that do the seeking and the hiring. So you can just look for Reimagine Love on Facebook and go there. Yeah, you can check out our website at ReimagineLove.com.
Nice. So I’ll make sure, again, to have the link to the free download for emotional weapons, and then also the link to the Facebook page.
Wonderful. Well, thank you again for joining us here today on the Empowered Relationship Podcast.
Oh my gosh, thank you so much for having me. This has been absolutely fantastic. I love it.
Signing Off
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In today’s fast-paced world, we often hear about the importance of maintaining a healthy relationship, but how do we actually assess the health of our connection?
In this episode, Dr. Réne Vázquez del Valle, a psychotherapist, and author of “Head Heart Crotch Connections: How Not to Fail in Search of Your Perfect” shares his simple yet profound formula for evaluating the head, heart, and sexual connection in our relationships and provides tips for identifying areas of weakness and working on them.
Dr. Vázquez del Valle breaks down his technique and offers a free connection scale on his website, allowing individuals to assess their level of connection and identify areas that need improvement.
Join us in this insightful conversation as we explore the importance of connection and how to maintain its health.
Dr. René G. Vázquez del Valle, DSW, received his MSW at Columbia University and his Doctorate at the CUNY Graduate School. He was an Adjunct Professor at Long Island University; guest speaker at both the NYU School of Medicine, Dept. of Psychiatry and CUNY Law School. He retired from the NYS Office of Mental Health after 30 years of clinical practice. He currently resides in NYC and East Hampton, NY, and works as a private practice therapist.
In this Episode
3:44 How to assess success or failure in a relationship and the different factors that contribute to it.
13:16 The importance of descriptive language and mutual connection in relationships.
17:26 The importance of different types of connections in a relationship.
23:40 Understanding your partner’s needs: Enhancing connection in relationships through emotional, sexual, and intellectual fulfillment
28:52 Analyzing the fight-or-flight response to improve connection in relationships.
31:07 Understanding attachment style and types of connections.
33:25 Defense mechanisms and their impact on an individual’s ability to connect with others
39:56 Understanding marianismo and the effects of shame on connection and wellbeing.
44:00 Dr. René Vázquez del Valle talks about his book and explains how the simple formula of assessing head, heart, and crotch connections can have profound effects on people’s lives.
Your Check List of Actions to Take
- Assess your connection using the Connection Scale that measures how connected or disconnected you feel in each area.
- Identify areas of weakness or disconnection and work on improving them.
- Take the time to reflect on your thoughts about your relationship, your partner, and your connection to explore your emotional connection.
- To gain a deeper understanding of your emotional connection, try reflecting on your feelings towards your connection, partner, and relationship.
- Explore your sexual or crotch connection by asking yourself how you engage physically and sexually with your partner.
- Continuously work on improving your connection with your partner to maintain a healthy and fulfilling relationship.
Mentioned
Head, Heart, Crotch Connections: How Not to Fail In Search of Your Perfect Union (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
Connection Rating Scale
Relationship Map To Happy, Lasting Love
Shifting Criticism For Connected Communication
*Connect wi*th Dr. René Vázquez del Valle
Websites: renev.authorchannel.co
Facebook: facebook.com/reneleo2
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/rené-vázquez-del-valle-dsw-lcsw-r-71484563
Instagram: instagram.com/rene_vdelv
Connect with Dr. Jessica Higgins
Facebook: facebook.com/EmpoweredRelationship
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Podcast: drjessicahiggins.com/podcasts/
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Twitter: @DrJessHiggins
Website: drjessicahiggins.com
Email: jessica@drjessicahiggins.com
About Today’s Show
Dr. V., thank you for joining us today.
Well, thank you for having me. I appreciate this opportunity.
Oh, well, it’s an honor. I know that you have such a great background and have been really working to really distill a lot of these principles as it relates to relationships. So I know we are also lucky to have your voice here on the show. We’re going to be talking about connection today, and you have a really comprehensive look around how you’re orienting.
Before we get into today’s topic, I’m going to love for you to share a little bit about who you are, and giving people a chance to connect with you and where you’re coming from, if you’re open to sharing.
Sure. Currently, I’m a psychotherapist, primarily in private practice. I retired about 10 years ago after working for about 30 years for the New York State Office of Mental Health. I worked in an outpatient clinic where I did treatment, supervision, administration; supervised a lot of psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, nurses, art therapists. After having retired from there, I went just basically as a consultant to work at different mental health agencies. About 10 years ago, I started, at the behest, the request, and the urging of my patients, to consider writing a book about the treatment that I offered them in therapy. It was a specific formula that I devised to get them to explore the nature of their intimate connections. Meaning, when I say intimate connections, I mean their mental, emotional, and physical sexual connections and relationships.
Wow, great! I mean, how beautiful that you were urged by your patients to provide a guidebook or to provide some manual, if you will, around your approach and how you worked in this arena.
Yeah. Because primarily, it helped them overcome a lot of the difficulties they were having in creating that perfect union that they had always said they wanted. They primarily came in a lot of times, either single or partnered, struggling with remaining connected, but not knowing exactly what the difficulty was. So when I wrote the book, I was considering that, and the title of the book, of course, is [Head, Heart, Crotch Connections: How Not to Fail In Search of Your Perfect Union]. I wrote “how not to fail” as opposed to “how to succeed,” knowing that relationships often fail, as evidenced by the high rates of divorce, that 50% of first marriages end in divorce, and 60% to 65% of second marriages end in divorce. So to understand where things go wrong was very important, where the disconnections occurred; not just where you connect, but how you disconnect.
It occurs to me that probably most people don’t even have the conscious word of connection. Like they’re not coming in saying: “Oh, we’re disconnected.” Maybe some do, but you’re bringing to light that connection is the essence of typically where people are off-track. Is that right? And how it manifests in these different areas of our life. So you’re bringing light to, like, let’s look at what this can look like when it’s not going well.
Sure. I think that there’s lots of books out there on how to succeed in relationships, from the Six Pillars of Intimacy, to The Five Love Languages, lots of books. But nothing about what goes wrong, or how not to fail, the inverse of that. Being that relationships fail more than that succeed, the why of that remains elusive to a lot of people; not only elusive, but often shameful to talk about. So opening up the shame associated with a failing relationship.
“Before you go on to what’s going to make it work, you need to know what happened, how it fails, at times, as well.”
It almost sounds as though you’re inviting people to be where they are, and use what might be so-called “failure” as the signpost, and really focusing there to be able to confront some of this, to then be able to transform or shift some of these dynamics. It might be too difficult or too big of a leap to just go into implementing some of the more transformational principles of how to succeed. Where would you like to begin with the description of the failures here? I mean, I recognize it’s extensive, perhaps.
Right. Well, usually, when a relationship is failing or disconnecting, there are reasons why. There are determinants that cause failure. Usually, it’s a failure in the connecting to a person’s thoughts, or failure to connect emotionally, or a failure to connect sexually, one of those three spheres. So getting a person to sit down and think about their connection. Their mental connection to their partner: what is it that they admire and love about the partner’s thoughts, their values, their belief systems? Emotionally: what is it that they like about the emotional expression of their partner that attracts them? Then sexually: what is it that they are attracted to sexually? Success within the sexual arena usually has to do with mutual satisfaction, and the willingness to please yourself and the other person. Does that exist within your crotch connection, that’s what they call it, and to explore that openly and honestly. I also get them to discuss what it is that they are attracted to, identifying their connection. I get them to say, what they relate to most, what do they seek in others, what is that order of preference if there is an interest? So for example, do they first connect at the level of the head, the heart, the crotch? Or is it the heart, the crotch, the head? So it requires that they identify their particular preference for connection. What is their preference, do they have one, and is there an order of the current relationship they have? So getting them to look at that and expound upon it is very helpful to them.
Okay, so this is a little bit of an assessment that helps determine success or failure. Also, it reminds me of even some of the personality tests of the Myers-Briggs. Do you rant more through your thoughts and relate to the world through the headspace? Or are you in orienting more through feeling, and is that how you typically relate is through more of the feelings? I mean, as we look at intimate relationship, these tendencies probably exist. Then also, just the attraction and sexual connectivity, and just how that’s operating and where their tendencies lie, and where their current relationship is functioning. Is that right?
Yeah. Do they relate to the world, for example, when they project images of themselves? Do they relate to the world through their head in an intellectualized way? Do they relate to the world emotionally? Or do they relate to the world sexually, displaying a lot of sexual energy? You would think that the best way of relating is through a concerted effort of head, heart, and physical. But not everybody can engage that way. Some people compartmentalize who they are, and what image they prefer. So do they like the erudite individual, the intellectual type? Or do they go for the feely touchy person? Or do they go for that sexual being, that sexualized image out there that gets projected?
I’m interested as you bring emphasis to how to not fail, and you’re inviting people to look at these different aspects of how they engage, and I appreciate you acknowledging that they’re not all equally strong, or the preferences are not always equal. How do you help someone look at what’s maybe failing, or where it’s thriving? Like, how do you help people identify in their thought, their head, heart, and crotch?
Sure. It entails exploring the words that they ascribe to their connection. How are they talking about their partner, what are the exact words? I encourage them to use very descriptive, nuanced words, versus very vague explanations. So if they just say, “I think he’s bright, I like that.” But that’s not good enough, you need to be more specific about the brights. What is it about his thoughts that attract you? What is it about his feelings? So to use very nuanced specific words. Because words create our experiences; they ascribe meaning to our lived encounters.
“When we think about our experiences, we use words to enrich them. The more nuanced and descriptive the words you can use to describe your thoughts and feelings, the more you create bonds of attachment to those experiences. In turn, the more intense the bond, and the stronger the connection.”
That’s my theoretical perspective of why I get them to be as descriptive. It creates internal imagery when you’re more descriptive and more nuanced, and the paucity of words, for example, will decrease your connection. If you can explain well what you like and dislike, that creates this connection.
Okay. So as I’m hearing you in these different aspects of the head, and as we’re focusing on the verbalization of the thinking and the interpretation and perception of the other, you’re saying the lack of being able to be clear and specific can be a detriment, and is also a sign.
Absolutely, it can hinder a connection, it could create a weakened connection. Because you haven’t fully elaborated your feelings and your thoughts. The more you elaborate, the more descriptive you are, the more you attach to those memories, to those connections.
Okay. So it amplifies when we can articulate it. It amplifies, it brings into more visceral felt experience. This is how we typically, to your point, feel more connected is through the emotional connection and boundedness. These things all assist, they all probably work together.
Yeah. Equally important is what I used to get my clients or my patients to talk about what they liked about their mind-body-spirit connection, was getting them to talk about their partners connection to them. Did they have any awareness of what their partner liked about them, appreciated about their intellect, about their mind, about their emotionality, about their physical sexuality? That was much more challenging for many people to think about.
So it’s not only the individual experience, but it’s also the interaction, and also, as you’re describing, knowing how the person perceives and connects to you as well.
Yeah. That’s part of creating a perfect union, knowing your connection and knowing their connection to you. Sometimes we underestimate, or we don’t appreciate the value of those connections. We just think about our connection, but fail to think about their connection to us. So thinking about their connection to us, what do we need to improve? How do we need to elaborate and work on our intellectual connections; our thoughts, our feelings, our sexual connection?
Yeah. In a lot of relationships, this isn’t necessarily clearly articulated and expressed. So to be able to invite these type of conversations really helps foster more of this connection.
Yeah. I would get them, for example, to approximate their connection percentage wise, for example. I’d come down to that. I would say, in terms of your head, heart, crotch connection, approximate? Is it 70-20-10? Is it 50-20-30? Which is the one where you feel least connected? Is the heart the area where you have a 10% connection, and you have a 50% connection to the head, and the 20% sexual connection? But the heart is what’s faltering, that’s the area of vulnerability for your relationship. That’s what you’ve got to work on. Then equally the other way around, your partner to you? Where do you think the strongest connection is and the weakest connection? Because those weak connections is where, often enough, the person begins to experience a desire to escape the relationship, where failure starts. So if they’re missing a heart connection with your partner, there’s where you look for someone who’s emotional. Or if you’re missing the sexual connection, then you go out and have an affair looking for sex. Or if you’re missing the mind connection, you go out there looking for someone really bright, who you can connect with at that level. So where you’re missing the connection, that is what’s most important to focus in on. There’s what you want to work on.
Yes, it’s illuminating that there might be a little bit of a weakness or a deficit. It seems like there might be, to your point earlier, a good follow-up around how would you give percentages to the head, heart, and crotch? But also, what would you like it to be?
Yeah. What is the actual order, and what is your preference? Would you prefer to have a heart, crotch, head connection, and then what do you actually have? Those are things that we discuss as well.
Do you ever find that partners will be mismatched around their preferences?
Oh, absolutely. All the time.
Okay. So how do you approach that?
I don’t think there are ever two equal connections, usually. Every relationship is different. Every person you encounter, you have a different mind, body, spirit connection to them. No two are the same, absolutely not.
Okay. So you’re saying mind, body, spirit, and you’re also saying mind, body, crotch.
No, mind, body, spirit is another way of saying head, heart, crotch. See, the old paradigm was mind, body, spirit. The new or more 21st century adaptation, I call it head, heart, crotch.
Okay. Mind, body, spirit. Is spirit heart?
Spirit is heart, clearly. Body is the sexual body.
Okay, I just wanted to double-check that. So what do you do if people have a mismatch around preferences? How do you negotiate that?
I mean, that’s okay. You don’t have to have the same preferences. But it’s about are you creating connection within those preferences? Are you amplifying the connections mentally? Are you stimulating each other mentally? Are you appreciating each other’s emotional experience? Connections require empathy, and there’s basically two kinds of empathy: affective, and cognitive empathy. So when you explore their ability to empathize, that’s how you analyze their level of connection.
Would you, for people that don’t know the affect, can you spell that out for people?
Sure. Cognitive empathy is when you’re able to relate and empathize with your partner’s thoughts.
“I see what you mean, it makes sense to me.”
“That makes sense to me. I appreciate it. I like it. I enjoy your thoughts.” Or is there a disconnect there, where you find their thoughts abrasive, disconcerting, offensive? So looking at that, can you develop more cognitive empathy for your partner’s thoughts? Emotional empathy. Can you feel what they feel? Can you appreciate their feelings? Do they appreciate your feelings? Can they verbalize that? So how do you increase that? Again, it’s about the words you employ to describe those connections.
Yeah. It makes sense to me that, as you’re describing this, and I love that you’re welcoming. It doesn’t have to be same-same for there to be success in partnership, if you have two individuals that perhaps have different preferences. I often think we partner with someone who has maybe more skill or is exuding aspects that are underdeveloped or are a weakness. So we sometimes find, and this is where people might say opposites attract. I don’t necessarily mean that per se. But I wonder if you think that if we’re welcoming these three aspects and giving attention to it, and if our partner has a stronger preference than maybe we do, it doesn’t mean that there’s a no and a block. It means we have different preferences, and how do we get to a win-win? How do I support my partner in having this experience?
Sure. Hearing the preference that your partner has for you, and what’s the strongest connection that they appreciate in you, you know that you’re connected there, you don’t have to pay that much attention to that. But if they have, for example, a feeling, that emotionally, they’re not connecting with you, that they don’t appreciate certain emotional states in you, the mere awareness of that. For example, if they think that you are materialistic or distrustful or vengeful, you need to know that. You need to know that there are contrasting states to those that they would prefer; they would prefer perhaps someone who is understanding, forgiving, spiritual, sensitive. If you’re not that, you need to know that, that that’s what they would prefer in you, the same way you would do for them. So the exploration of contrasting states in the person is what helps them realize what’s missing.
Yes, I love what you’re saying. There’s something that I’m hearing, I want to check out with you. That when one is hearing their partner speak to the specific way that they prefer, that that’s almost an invitation and a calling that this is where they experience love the most. So if I’m going to put energy into cultivating connection, I want to keep in mind, what’s the bullseye for them?
Absolutely, what hits the mark.
Okay. The other important thing that I’m hearing you say, that I think is especially important and critical in relationship, is that when somebody is leading with a complaint, that there’s an underneath. That that directly relates to a longing perhaps, and that’s the thing that it’s almost like, what’s the opposite of being selfish? Or like, what is it that matters to them? They might be critical or even complaining, but there’s something there that is important to them. Is that what I’m hearing you say?
Is important to them, exactly. That you need to hear that and empathize with that wish, and attempt to create and fulfill it. That’s what creates a better union, a better fit, a goodness of fit between two people, when you’re willing to sexually please, emotionally please, and intellectually please the person in some way, and fulfill their needs.
Yes. Well, I think this could be potentially easier to approach if the context or the frame of the conversation is about, let’s look at our connection. I mean, that might be difficult to hear for someone to interpret or decode, if there’s a complaint around “you’re selfish, you’re this, you’re that.” But to be able to understand what the underneath longing is. So if we’re framing it as the way of connection, and we’re getting really curious and in service of how are we more connected? If my partner is saying, “Oh, you’re too talkative, you’re selfish.” It’s like, if I think about this, what is getting in the way of that? Are they needing more time and space? Are they needing more of their preferences? Are they needing to feel more seen and heard? So that, if it’s in service of the goal of connection, I think people could tolerate a little bit more.
Sure. Rather than viewing it as criticism, viewing it as what the other person may need to create a better attachment. What is it that you need? What is it that your partner needs from you?
Right, this is a really important framework for people to be talking about explicitly.
In the book, I break it down. I can give you a few names of the chapters, so you could see where I go with the book. The first chapters, the first three are broken down into: what do I mean by a head connection, what do I mean by a heart connection, what do I mean by a crotch connection? So people are clear about what I’m talking about. Then I have a chapter on how psychotherapy can help. What is the role of psychotherapy in addressing these connections? How would it help identify your connection preferences? Then a chapter on why a relationship can fail? A chapter then goes into what affects success, whether there’s a fight or flight response in your connections? Do you fight for your connections, or do you flee from your connections, for example, running away? There’s a chapter called Where Fantasy and Flight Works, But For a While, where I talk a lot about fantasy bonds, and the use of those in relationships. There’s a chapter on denial, called Heads In the Sand, where I discuss healthy and unhealthy denial, and how each one of them serves to keep us connected and disconnected at the same time.
There’s a chapter called When Familiarity Breeds Contempt. So that the more familiar you are with them, the more intimate you are, the more you can either love them or hate them, and the exploration of that familiarity. There’s a chapter on When Trauma Affects Our Connections; how childhood trauma can affect our current sense of attachment, our attachment styles, and our connections. Then the final chapter is on How Age Affects Our Perception of Head, Heart, Crotch Connections, as we age, and how it changes, and the need for it to change as well. We don’t experience at age 20 what we experience at age 50 and 60, and our perceptions of the need for our connections change over time. So that’s a breakdown of what’s in the book and what I’ve elaborated or theorized about and wrote about.
Yeah. As you’re talking about, just even your last point, that viably, if I’m hearing you correctly, our preferences and these percentages of the head, heart, and crotch, that might change throughout time. You have chapters about flight and flee and your nervous system. I’m curious what you would like us to maybe know a little bit about that here, as it relates to connection and the head, heart, and crotch?
Yeah. Well, analyzing the way you react to situations, the whole fight or flight response, and how that leads to either connection or disconnection. Clearly, if you want to fight for your connections, it creates connection. But if you flee from interactions, from conflicts, that leads to disconnection. So you need to explore your own personal fight or flight response in situations, in order to better understand where you’re not connecting or where you’re disconnecting.
Yeah. In my experience, I do feel like this can be nuanced. I get what you’re saying, that the impulse to want to engage or that fight is more conducive for connection, and it can be done in very overbearing ways or anxious ways that can be off-putting, or even feel a little intrusive or not really honoring of the person that might feel overwhelmed. I get that these dynamics sometimes have some ways in which they interact that create connection. I think both styles could create connection or disconnection. I agree with you though that the flight, there’s something wise about that that’s happening. But on face value, it’s difficult to see how that fosters connection, but it does create a lot more. Like, there’s a real voice for safety and regulation and having it feel contained.
Yeah, sometimes you need to flee. Absolutely. But do you come back? Do you stay fled? Do you run away from connections and totally disconnect? Or do you come back and fight for something? Fight for your thoughts, fight for your emotions, fight for your sexual well-being? So understanding the fight or flight response in terms of your own attachment and your connections is really important. Understanding your attachment style. There’s a lot written now about attachment styles, whether you’re anxious, ambivalent, insecure, avoidant. Understanding your attachment styles will understand where you’re connecting or where you’re not connecting. So even talking about that, and understanding that there are different attachment styles, and its effect. I mean, an anxious attachment style is clearly disconnecting. An avoidant attachment style, an ambivalent attachment style creates disconnection.
Right. I think fundamentally, we all are wired up for connection, and these different ways or tendencies are typically related to our early imprints. So I really appreciate what you’re acknowledging around how these things show up, and if we’re having a conversation about connection, and we can look at the influences, that this is helping us really unpack how this is operating. Because my understanding of attachment is, it’s a whole working model that is very much affecting the thoughts, that’s affecting the physiological body, and the emotion. Like, what we feel in our nervous system: do we feel relaxed, do we feel at ease, our muscles, our heart rate, or are we tensing and bracing, or what’s our thinking? I’m anticipating, even if there was a clean slate in relationship, what I’ve known in my upbringing, my predisposition is to think you’re not trustworthy, or that you’re going to be here or not there. So that lens of which we come into relationship is impacting the head, heart, and crotch. Yes?
Yes, absolutely.
“When you think about it, relationships, in and of themselves, can be extremely traumatizing. They can be an assault on our emotions. They can affront our thoughts. They leave us questioning about our sexual desires and our needs.”
So we need to understand the effect, for example, of trauma, on relationships, on our well-being and our sense of connection.
Would you like to say a little more about that? That’s very important.
Sure. I explore this issue of trauma, for example, in the form of abuse or neglect or physical punishment in childhood, and the effect that it has on the individual. I talk about that defense mechanism that gets built up when you identify with aggression. When you’ve been aggressed upon verbally, physically, emotionally, as a child, your conception of love is imbued with aggression and hostility. So it’s very hard for you then to accept a loving person who comes along who’s non-aggressive, non-manipulating; you’re a little leery of it. That’s not a form of love that you knew. So when something good comes along, often enough, you’ll end it out of fear. It’s something that you want, but it’s something that’s so foreign to you that then you will create rejection of it. So identifying with aggression can be a problem in terms of connection. So I talk about that defense mechanism. I talk about how splitting defenses can be a problem for connection.
“If you’re using black and white thinking, if it’s all good or all bad, if you’re idolizing or devaluing, those have consequences and implications for your sense of connection.”
So the avoidance of those splitting mechanisms, the avoidance of fantasy bonds where you’re reenacting childhood traumas.
Can you give us an example of that, for people who don’t know the fantasy bonds? You gave some examples of the splitting, and also the familiarizing and what’s been associated with love in one’s upbringing, that informs their relationship to maybe aggression or certain traumatizing things. But would you say a little bit more about the fantasy bonds?
Sure. The fantasy bond is that compulsion to relive the past within our current relationships. It comes from emotional pain in childhood. So that in a fantasy bond, a connection goes from being, for example, two independent persons in love to being two dependent persons. That’s a difficulty. Once they form this illusion of being together as one, they lose the sense of being together as two people. That’s what you’ve got to be very careful of, and you have to try and overcome and avoid creating these fantasy bonds. So I go into a lot of elaboration in the book about it, because it’s an interesting concept.
“Especially, disconnection begins when the other person is no longer seen as a separate individual person with their own thoughts and values, their sexual desires and needs, different from your own. You have to be able to acknowledge that.”
So how do you help people begin to recognize this? A lot of this can be operating below the field of consciousness.
Sure. One of the things I do is I get them to understand that emotions and feelings are not the same thing. They’re often used interchangeably. But emotions are internal and subconscious; you can have emotions without demonstrating them. But feelings are usually conscious. They develop when your brain assigns a meaning to the emotion; they are the outward expression of your emotions. Like, psychologists have identified only six basic emotions: happiness, sadness, disgust, fear, surprise, and anger. But there are many more feelings than there are emotions. So getting them to distinguish between emotions and feelings, is very helpful.
How do you do that with people?
I sit down, I ask them, what are your emotions, what are your feelings? Tell me more about that. Just don’t say, you have hate or jealousy. Are there more feelings than that? Is there envy? Is there kindness, benevolence, compassion, empathy? What other feelings do you experience? Because usually, they limit themselves, and in limiting themselves, you limit your world; you limit your connection. That’s vital, that’s the key. That’s the linchpin to the work.
Well, the way that I’m framing this, as we’re talking, is that with this overarching goal of assessing the health of the connectivity, or the connection of the bond between two individuals, that there are many things that can interfere, hinder, cloud, block connection. Many of them or much of them, if we’re not explicit or intentional about, could be just not addressed and wreaking havoc, almost.
That’s usually what does wreak havoc, what you don’t attune to, what you’re not paying attention to, what is the weakest link in your connection. People want to avoid that. People would prefer to think about their strongest connection, but their weakest in the connection is very difficult, very painful.
It’s almost I’m getting, like, being awake to the health of your connection, that that’s vital for the health and the bond.
Sure. One of the things that I also explore a lot is this issue of shame, and toxic shame in relationships. I explore that a lot because I work with a large immigrant population, with a large Latino population. In getting them to understand that certain cultures, for example, are shame-based cultures. Other cultures are more guilt-based cultures. With us, it’s about shame and inducing shame as a way of controlling people. Shame has definitely negative effects on a person’s thoughts, their feelings, and their sexual wishes. If you’ve been shamed or ridiculed or embarrassed or told something is not good, shameful, that will clearly affect your ability to connect in a healthy way.
So machismo, toxic masculinity, is very toxic to relationships. So I get them to explore those concepts in their connections. The counterpart of course of machismo, which a lot of non-Hispanics are not aware of, is in the woman is marianismo. You hear a lot about machismo, but they never talk about marianismo, which is its counterpart. Marianismo is that aspect that the woman should be in the world to please the man, that they have to suffer, that they suffer in silence, that they’re different, that they’re virginal. All these things affect our connections, and our ability to connect, mentally, emotionally and sexually.
So I go over a lot about toxic shame. People don’t even know, often, the difference between shame and guilt. They think it’s the same thing.
Can you spell that out a little bit?
Yeah, sure. Whereas guilt is something that’s external, guilt is, I feel bad for something I did wrong. That’s guilt. Shame is, there’s something wrong with you. It’s internal. It’s much deeper. It’s much more pathological if you think about it. It’s much more damaging when you are shame-based than when you’re guilt-based. Guilt is a higher order defense. Shame is very primitive, very deep, and it’s very harmful when you live shame-based. Now, a lot has been written, of course, about Jonathan Bradshaw’s Healing the Shame that Binds You, working with the inner child and the shame.
“In terms of connections and disconnections, shame can be the most difficult thing to work with in terms of creating connection, if you are shame-based and if you’ve been shamed all your life. If your thoughts are no good, if you’re ashamed of those, if you’re ashamed of your emotions, if you’re ashamed of your sexuality.”
Like, with the LGBT population that I also work with, they’ve been shamed into believing that there’s something horrible about their sexual needs or desires. So all these things have an effect on your ability to connect in a healthy way.
Yes. Because as you’re talking about this shame, and I appreciate you giving some examples, that often, if someone’s already attacking themselves, likely, they’re not going to bring that to the table for connection. They’ve already made it bad before they’ve even allowed anybody to see or access them. Like, I’m stupid, why am I like this, what’s wrong with me? Or this feeling emotionally of like, feeling alone and not good enough.
What’s important about connection is, I borrowed a lot from what we used to call the trauma safety model. You need to feel safe in your connections. You need to be able to feel safe in the expression of your thoughts. You need to be able to feel safe in your emotional world, in expressing your feelings. You also have to feel safe in that they’re going to guard your emotions, your partner, and take care of them. Sexually, you need to feel safe to enjoy your sexual world. So safety is a vital component to connection, and when you don’t feel safe, that often leads to disconnection.
Or if you haven’t felt safe and have felt shamed, then you’re already approaching relationship from this.
Shame-based, unsafe perspective, exactly. So you need to understand that too.
Yes. As you do the trauma work, too, I can see how these things are, all of it is interwoven. When somebody has experienced trauma, oftentimes, not always, but many times people will internalize the effects of trauma. Like, why do I feel anxious, to your point earlier? So being able to bring some visibility to this, it’s quite healing and critical, again, for our health and well-being. So thank you so much for giving some structure to how to approach this very large topic of connection, but also what gets in the way.
What’s interesting, what my patients often told me, is that it’s a very simple formula, the head, heart, crotch, but it has very profound effects in their lives. The simplicity of it they loved, and that’s why they wanted me to write about it. Because the way I would just say, what’s your head connection, what’s your heart connection, what’s your sexual connection? Where’s it not connecting? What are you doing about it? How are you thinking about it? It was very profound for them, because no one ever asked them to explore these things.
Yes, no one ever asked, nor do I ask myself, nor do we ask each other.
Yeah. Like, what’s your head, heart, crotch connection?
Well, Dr. V, this is wonderful. Is there anything else you want to say on our topic?
Well, one of the things that I did create was a scale, where I get them to look at their connection, where I get them to rate their connection, where the rating goes from: very connected, somewhat connected, not connected. They can use that as a way of quickly identifying their area of weakness. So that’s in the book. We call it a lead magnet in the book industry, so people can see what the book is about. You can quickly assess your level of connection, and you can assess where it’s not happening and what you need to work on.
All right, so where do people find that?
That’s in the book. It’s also on my website, it’s given for free. It’s called a connection scale.
Okay, I love that. What’s the website? What would you like people to go to?
The website is ReneV.authorchannel.co.
Okay, now this is your website?
This is my website.
Okay, excellent. On the website, one could get the book, they can also do the connection scale.
Exactly. They can do the connection scale, and then see if they want to pursue reading the book, based on the results of the scale. If they find that they’re very disconnected, or somewhat disconnected, versus very connected and somewhat disconnected, they could see where they lie and what they need to work on.
Lovely. Well, is there anything else you would like to say about the book? I know you’ve given us so much here today. But is there anything else that you want to direct people towards? It sounds like this is the website you really want people to go to and really engage with. Is there any other?
My author page is on Amazon, you can view that. The book synopsis, my background, areas of work that I’ve done. I’ve been doing this since 1978. I graduated then. It’s been a long time, and it took me 10 years to write the book. I started it 10 years ago, but then I put it down because I wanted to explore this technique more and more and more and see what happened with it.
Beautiful. Well, say the name of the book again, before we sign off.
Yeah, I’ll give it a quick go to see if they could see it. Head, Heart, Crotch Connections: How Not to Fail In Search of Your Perfect Union.
There we go. Dr. V, thank you for sharing with us and really breaking all of this down. I know there’s so much more to be learned and accessed through the book, and I’ll make sure to have that link on today’s show notes. Really lovely to have you.
It’s been a pleasure. My pleasure, getting the opportunity to tell people what it’s about. Really appreciate it.
Signing Off
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With the changing dynamics of society, the traditional definition of masculinity is being redefined, and there is a growing need for men to develop new skills and behaviors to thrive in today’s world.
In this episode, we will explore actionable steps that men can take to develop these traits, enhance their personal growth, and succeed in both their personal and professional lives. Join us as we dive into this fascinating topic and discover how you can develop modern, high-value, masculine traits.
Kristal DeSantis is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist with specializations in trauma, sex therapy, couples, and men’s mental health issues. Creator of the STRONG Relationship Therapy Model of trauma-informed couples therapy. Certified clinical trauma professional with training in EMDR, complex PTSD, and relational trauma in first responders, LEOs, and veterans.
In this Episode
5:32 Kristal Desantis’ background and interest in working with men, emphasizing the importance of normalizing therapy and emotional intelligence as part of strength building.
9:06 Redefining masculinity: moving beyond traditional roles and finding new ways to be a “high value” man.
16:33 Relationship field guide for the modern man: emphasizing safety and self-awareness.
20:05 The four key components of building a healthy relationship
27:07 Importance of self-regulation and trust in building healthy relationships.
30:35 The importance of Strong model for healthy and thriving relationships.
37:15 The importance of nurturing connection in relationships and expanding the definition of pleasure beyond just sex and increasing and expanding examples of pleasure.
40:30 A personal story and insights on true generosity and self-care.
Your Check List of Actions to Take
- Define what you consider to be modern, high-value, masculine traits.
- Focus on developing the qualities that you value most. Some examples of modern, high-value, masculine traits could include emotional intelligence, empathy, self-awareness, leadership skills, assertiveness, resilience, and a growth mindset.
- Work on cultivating a positive mindset. Learn to manage your thoughts, practice gratitude, and develop a growth mindset.
- Take care of your physical health. Eat healthy food, exercise regularly, get enough sleep, and manage stress.
- Look for role models who embody the traits that you admire, and try to learn from them. You can also seek out mentors or coaches who can offer you guidance and support.
- Step out of your comfort zone and take on new challenges. Embrace the opportunity to learn and grow, even if it means taking risks and facing failure.
- Practice self-reflection. Consider keeping a journal or seeking out feedback from trusted friends or mentors.
- Stay curious and open-minded. Embrace lifelong learning and remain open to new ideas and perspectives. This can help you stay relevant and adaptable in a rapidly changing world.
Mentioned
Strong: A Relationship Field Guide for the Modern Man (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
Relationship Map To Happy, Lasting Love
Shifting Criticism For Connected Communication
*Connect wi*th Kristal DeSantis
Websites: strong.love
Twitter: twitter.com/atxtherapist
Instagram: instagram.com/atxtherapist
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/kristal-desantis
Connect with Dr. Jessica Higgins
Facebook: facebook.com/EmpoweredRelationship
Instagram: instagram.com/drjessicahiggins
Podcast: drjessicahiggins.com/podcasts/
Pinterest: pinterest.com/EmpowerRelation
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/drjessicahiggins
Twitter: @DrJessHiggins
Website: drjessicahiggins.com
Email: jessica@drjessicahiggins.com
About Today’s Show
Kristal, thank you for joining us today.
Thank you so much for having me.
Yeah. I am such a fan of really supporting just human development, and today, we’re going to be talking about men’s development, and also just the shifts around what it means around being a high-value man, for people who identify as a man, and just welcoming the masculinity of any person as we come and be inclusive here.
But for people that maybe don’t know you, Kristal, what would you like to share about where you’re coming from before we dive into the topic?
So I’m a marriage and family therapist, and I specialize in trauma and couples and sex. So what I found as I started my practice is that I just really enjoy working with men. So in developing the strong model of relational therapy, I wanted to pick a word that really highlighted strength, to dispel a little bit of the myth that therapy is something weak or something that you only do if your relationship is in trouble, that you do if you’re really sick. Instead, changing it towards that strength focus, especially in trying to appeal to men. That this is like going to the gym, it’s something you do to get strong.
Oh, no doubt! I love that, just really normalizing this as a part of us all, and that in order to grow and be strong, and relational, emotional intelligence type of things, this takes a little bit of lifting and repetition.
Are you open to sharing? I mean, I love, first of all, your background, and your weaving together of the trauma-informed therapeutic modalities with attachment research and influence, and also weaving in the sexual piece too. I mean, that’s all interconnected. So I love the background and the experience you have to really weave that together, it’s critical. As it relates to providing a different model, as it relates to being a high-value man, what got you curious about this, or what spawned your interest in this particular topic?
So Asian-American, and I actually spent most of my life growing up in Asia. I moved to the States to go to college. So when I came here, I was right at that age where I was very observant of the interactions between men and women. Coming to America, I started working at a sports bar, and I think that really gave me this insight.
“The way that we socialize women in America versus the way that we socialize men is so incredibly different. Then you put these two people into a relationship and expect things to go well? This seems really challenging.”
No wonder there’s difficulty.
Right. I mean, even just the way men bonded with each other, versus the way women bonded with each other. So I think for me, coming from a different culture, I was able to have like this outsider perspective, and also for myself, figuring out like, where do I fit in, how do I fit in? Then I went to an all-women’s college, so that was an interesting thing as well.
Anyway, then, so as I became a marriage and family therapist, I really saw everything through that lens of the way that women and men would interact in the room. I found myself realizing, there really isn’t a bridge between the way that we socialize men and the way we socialize women. Often, what I saw the conflict was that it was my way or your way; one of us is going to be a winner, and one of us is going to be a loser. Because from the man’s perspective, he was like, this is how we do things. From the woman’s perspective, she’s like, no, this is how we do things. So that’s really where I wanted to say, wait, no. There’s a bridge, there’s a middle, just maybe playing translator a little bit.
Well, it’s so beautiful to have the perspective that you’re saying. I mean, it’s really you’re awake. You’re observing, you’re in this space of trying to understand. So it might be more visible to you culturally, where it’s new and different, so you’re seeing things. Then also just your own interest in couplehood and just how this is operating. I do think there’s this competition, sometimes if there is one up and one down, and especially in America and the West. So to be able to offer this different paradigm of the bridge and help be able to give value to both perspectives and give some opportunity for meeting, that’s just so beautiful. So I’m really grateful. Thank you for sharing that. I love that.
Yeah, absolutely.
Okay. So where would you like to begin on maybe when we are looking more specifically at the men’s experience?
Absolutely. So what I found was, for men, just focusing on them, it used to be really easy to be a man. It used to be really easy to be a high-value man. I came across this anthropologist, his book is called [Manhood in the Making], and he talks about how masculinity, for many generations of men, was defined by being good at the three P’s: being a good Protector, being a good Provider, and being a good Procreator. If you did these three things well, you were a high-value man, every woman wanted you, every parent wanted to set you up with their daughter. Like, you could write your own script of how your life would be. It was easy to be a high-value man.
Then the world changed. That is where, when I was looking, it’s like, do women still need men to be protectors? If so, how? There are a lot of men that still want to be protectors. But how is that relevant in the modern world? We don’t necessarily need women, again, looking at this, women didn’t want men to be picking bar fights every weekend trying to defend her honor. That would actually bring them into the therapy office where she would say he’s got a temper issue. He’s maybe in this position of like, “But I’m protecting you, I’m protecting us.” But she’s like, that’s just not what I want. Again, this idea of, how do we do that? How do I be a protector in this new way that she wants, where’s the script for that?
The same thing with being a provider. What I found was that if we emphasize that men’s value is in their wallets, then we see the rise of these men who find that their entire identity in how much money they make and what kind of car they drive. It becomes very objectifying of men, but then that also leads to the objectification of women. It’s like, I’m the guy with the big flashy car that can get the bottles at this restaurant, and then I want this type of woman because she looks good on my arm. So that also, once again, it’s like, that’s kind of dehumanizing for both genders. Nobody deserves to be reduced to production value; you’re a pretty face, and you’re a big wallet.
So what does it mean for a man to be a provider now, especially when the reality of so many American relationships is dual-income households? I mean, we’ve seen the research on this, that women earning the same amount as men, also having dual-income households, what we started to see and the research bears that out is that if a woman earns more than 40% of the family income, sometimes the man’s mental health starts to take a hit. That sets families up for being at an impasse. It’s like, if the woman earns more, the whole family wins. Yet, you don’t want to do it at the price of your husband’s mental health. So I saw these women being stuck in these impasses. So again, how can men be providers in a different way, where it’s not just reliant on the amount of money he brings in? So then, we can remove that.
Then the same thing with procreation, and this is so interesting. I was talking with a male friend about this, and he was like, is that why men want to send dick pics on social media? I’m like, maybe so, because it’s this primal thing of like, “You need this. Woman, you need this to procreate.” It’s like, of course, when you look at the reality of the world now, women are like: “Absolutely not, do not send me that. It is not attractive. Why do men keep doing this?”
So again, the three P’s of being a Protector, being a Provider, and being a Procreator, or simply, “I’m the guy with a penis that can give you pleasure.” That’s another thing, is that then studies of heterosexual women showed that not many women were getting pleasure from simply P&V intercourse. So these items that used to be really high-value, and again, not every woman wants to procreate.
So what does it mean now to be a high-value man? What we see is often the rise of these men that are doubling-down on these three P’s, where there’s this rise of men being really super, super fit. Like, if you’re not in the gym, if you’re not lifting if you’re not doing jujitsu, you’re worthless as a man. Then these guys that are like, if I drive a Lamborghini Bugatti, if you’re not me, you’re trash. That’s the thing. It’s not only unhealthy for women because that tends to objectify women, but it’s also really unhealthy for men, because that is not an accessible reality for most people.
It’s so narrow! I’ve even heard the term, I don’t know if you’ve come across this, of gender abuse, like the trauma of having to live in such narrow, confined range of human emotion and experience.
Absolutely. I call that restrictive gender identity, restrictive masculinity, where it’s like, you’re not a man unless you have like these three things, otherwise your man card has been revoked. Anyway, it’s a whole thing. So that’s why I really focused on the strong model as like, this is what I’ve seen. Again, I’m a woman. I’m not a man, I don’t inhabit the male experience in the world. Yet, when I was looking at relationships, especially heterosexual relationships, women still want strong men, women still want a masculine man, at least heterosexual women, and there are a lot of them. Yet, the ways of being strong needed to just be adapted and developed for this new generation.
“I really wanted to validate that healthy masculinity is a thing; not all masculinity is toxic. There is restrictive masculinity that doesn’t allow for men to be entire whole people with a full range of emotions, but also, women were participating in that as well.”
So really expanding, in my world, what I mean when I say women want a strong man. I think a strong woman needs a strong man by her side, and a strong man needs a strong woman. I love formulas, so breaking it down into a little formula helps my brain.
Well, this is beautiful. Because I find sometimes, I have equal men attracted to my work, and it sounds like you have a lot of men are attracted to your work. I do think the ability to articulate and break things down and have it be a clear structure or being able to help organize is really helpful.
Kristal, one of the things that I’m hearing, and really so grateful for your voice in this, is the ability to make it explicit, and again, building that bridge. Because so much of what is in the collective, either culturally, or historically, and family lineages, and also just how people are operating around gender, a lot of this is not named. It’s not always conscious. So you’re really bringing in some awareness, consciousness, and explicitness to this, and helping build a path. Not only a bridge, but a path towards assisting people in having a clear vision around how to develop. Like, sometimes we fumble through with our eyes closed through development. But it can be a little smoother when we have a little bit of leadership.
Absolutely. That’s why, my book, I call it a field guide. It’s a relationship field guide for the modern man. Because again, like you said, in the collective, sometimes there’s this message from women that’s like: “Guys, do better! Go to therapy. Be better.” Then guys are like, okay. But where, how? It’s just so nebulous. So what I wanted to do is be like, let’s break it down. Here’s some stuff. It’s a map. It’s a guide. Again, you don’t have to follow this guide specifically, but here’s the general direction. Then you can go to your therapist, and then you can feel more empowered when you walk in there. Because that was also something else is the barrier of men feeling like, “God, I’m just going to walk into a room with a stranger, and then I’m supposed to?”
Likely a woman.
Yeah, it’s nebulous and non-directive. So I also then saw a lot of value in breaking it down. So on my website, I have it very clearly spelled out, “Therapy is not woo-woo, I don’t cast a spell on you or anything. Here are some steps.”
Here’s what we’re looking at. Here’s how to make it approachable and doable, and also clear. Because as you speak, I have heard so many men say, what’s the work? I mean, you look, we come from a history of genderizing around the man’s experience, and it being such a narrow range emotionally. Then there’s this call or this request to be doing the work emotionally, or help create emotional safety. They’re like, what does that mean? So you bring such wisdom here. Okay, so let’s pivot towards that.
Okay. So the first thing, again, coming from a trauma-informed perspective, the first thing is Safety. So that’s the essence around safety is the foundation. Again, this is where I saw a huge gender divide, where women are very hyper-aware of safety. Because of the reality of the world that we live in, and physically more vulnerable, women’s safety is on women’s mind a lot. Even again, being in college watching, “Hey girl, text me when you get home. Are you safe? Do you want me to walk you to your car?” Often, men just didn’t even think about it. So setting down safety. If you can be a safe man in an unsafe world, you are already way ahead of the game. Again, safety is such a big concept. So what does that mean? I broke it down to the four S’s.
Please. Because even as you’re saying this, I could hear that there could be the facet of physical safety, but there’s so much more, and emotional safety is huge. So let’s hear that.
So the four S’s is, number one is Self-awareness. One of the things I found that brought a lot of insecurity into relationships, what Gotland calls sliding into commitment, and this is what makes women feel insecure in relationships. It makes everybody feel insecure, but if I’m positioning it this way, is if she doesn’t know why you’re with her. Are you with her for convenience? Are you with her because she’s beautiful? Or are you with her because you genuinely want to connection with her as a person? If you can articulate why you chose her out of everybody, that shows some self-awareness.
It shows even commitment. So for people who don’t know what that means, do you want to spell that out? It’s like, just this sequential, just doing the next thing without being super-intentional.
Exactly. Then also, that self-awareness of like, do you actually want to be in a relationship right now? Or are you feeling pressured because of societal expectations? I think also, for men, normalizing that just because a woman wants to be in a relationship with you doesn’t make you a bad guy if you want to say: “No, I’m not ready for that right now.” You’re allowed to have consent and autonomy as well. So again, that self-awareness of, are you actually in the place to be committed to a relationship right now? Or would you rather not? It’s okay that you don’t want to be, but let’s make that explicit. Then how do we protect those boundaries? That’s self-awareness.
I know you have four things, and we have so much we want to get to. I just want to comment really quickly that that is such a counterintuitive thing that sometimes people get caught in this people-pleasing tendency of like, I want to tell them what they want to hear, I want to do the right thing and want to be liked, and this whole song and dance. When really, counterintuitively, by one really claiming and occupying their space clearly, it’s so much safer, and so much more likable.
Absolutely. Brene Brown says, “Clear is kind. Unclear is unkind.” So that’s the self-awareness piece of what are you even doing in a relationship? Then the second one is Stability. Again, this is where I think we overlook how much basic life skills cause conflict in committed relationships later on. Like, if you don’t have basic life skills under your belt, or your partner doesn’t have basic life skills, you’re going to struggle. Some of that is about looking at your life and saying, are you in a healthy place? Are you stable as yourself? Do you have untreated mental health issues? Do you have unaddressed trauma? Do you have other things that you just need for yourself to get to a place of stability? I found, for men especially, just that idea of like, “I can be a stable person, then I can have the security of building a relationship from there,” rather than trying to find security in a partner. I think also, we give men sometimes this message that like, “Don’t worry, boy, you’re a disaster. You just need the love of a good woman, she’ll put you right back together.” I’m like, that’s awful for both parties. That’s disrespectful to men, and it’s also like, she’s now your mother/caretaker. Then that again, as we know, it leads to a very unsexy dynamic.
Totally. The parent-child, and then also, it takes away that sense of agency and advocacy. It can be emasculating that that you need the care of a woman to feel stable. Or going right from a family home into a relationship, and that dependency. I get the comfort and the need and the desire to have bondedness. But that’s very different than stability.
Exactly. When you are with another stable person, and one of the quotes I put in my book, and this is one of the things I like to say is, a healthy relationship is not half a person searching the world for another half so they can say you complete me. That’s that Disney-fied version. I’m like, no, it’s multiplication. One whole person times one whole person makes one whole relationship. So be a whole person first. Be stable in yourself, be self-aware. Then you can have a good foundation for being a safe person in an unsafe world.
Yes. Even just having the pursuit of that. That we don’t arrive at ultimate stability, but that we have the commitment to it and we’re responsible for it.
Exactly. Then the last two, which really speaks to communication and conflict issues, is Self-expression, and Self-regulation. So the ability to regulate your body when you’re upset, again, cuts a lot of conflict issues out, and the ability to self-express. For a lot of people, for men specifically, it’s about having more words to describe what you are feeling so you can express yourself more accurately.
“All emotions are information for connection. I always just want to normalize that emotion and sensations are just information about what your body and your soul are experiencing. Sensations are words that are happening to your body. Emotions are words that are happening to your soul.”
It’s data, let’s normalize that. So the more accurately you can describe the experience, the clearer the data.
Yeah. Again, I’m appreciating your ability to name this and organize this, because it gives some direction. In my experience and the research I’ve come across, and I don’t know what you would say about this, that stereotypically, in the way in which we’re talking about binary masculine and feminine, the masculine typically has the same internal faculties for emotion and empathy, but don’t always have the language or the verbal. So it’s that pathway, and sometimes I think in a relationship, there’s this sense of pressure or urgency or it needs to look a certain way. So to give a little bit of room and space to maybe learn what works for me in the way that I express, and how do I find what’s true, and how do I give myself a little time? It might take me a little bit longer to get to that clarity, but that’s more important than just blurting something out that’s not true.
Absolutely. Also, again, this is the way that we socialize men is, anger is the only acceptable emotion. So everything becomes, I’m frustrated, I’m angry, I’m pissed. It’s like, well, if we dig in a little deeper, maybe you’re hurt, maybe you feel disrespected, maybe you feel unheard, maybe your needs are not getting met. Being able to simply express that, it makes just a huge difference in the way that you can then connect with a person. Anger is not the most connected emotion, so just putting some flavor to it when you say you’re angry. Again, then the self-regulation of what does that feel like in your body? Are there any other memories attached to that? Is there a trigger here for you? Is there a different way that you’d like your partner to express themselves that maybe doesn’t poke on that pain point for you? So as a therapist, and as a couples’ therapist, conflict and communication issues are the number one things that people come in with. So when we talk about self-regulation and self-expression, that’s so much of the work of couples’ therapy.
It is, and I’m also feeling that these relate to each other with the four S’s. In that, if one has a little bit more clarity about what they’re feeling and can express, self-awareness helps with that self-expression, and when we can advocate for what we need, we’re a little bit more stable. Because then when we don’t advocate or we’re used to tamping down or suppressing our needs, it’s going to come out at some point. These are these bursts. It’s legitimate if we look at the emotion, but the actual expression of it doesn’t maybe create the most safe environment.
Exactly. Same with self-regulation. If somebody doesn’t know how to self-soothe, it’s going to turn into unhealthy habits and unhealthy ways of self-soothing; drinking, maybe out-of-control behaviors. So again, when I say safety, this is what I mean: breaking it down into tangible, manageable, achievable goals.
I was just meeting with a male client yesterday, and he was asking about this safety, and I was giving him some essence of this, but I didn’t have the language to these four things to be so clear. So I’m absolutely going to recommend your book to him, and just this framework. So it’s really, again, helpful to have it be so clearly eliminated. Is there anything else you wanted to say? Or do you want to go back to the STRONG?
I can go back to the STRONG and keep going. So the next one is Trust, and again, you cannot trust somebody you don’t feel safe with. Again, I think when we look at couples’ work, a lot of people come in with trust issues. I’m like, if we don’t have safety, it’s just never going to happen. Trust is where I bring in a lot of awareness around attachment styles, and your imprinting of what you’ve learned about the trustworthiness of people is really going to come into play in your ability to build trust with your partner. So again, working on trust is not this nebulous thing. It’s like, let’s talk about attachment, and then let’s talk about repair. Because conflict is going to happen in every relationship, I don’t care how healthy or how soulmate-y; you’re going to have a disagreement, you’re going to hurt your partner’s feelings. It’s going to happen, and what’s important is a commitment to repair because that is what builds trust, is do you care enough about the hurt that you’ve caused to start to fix it?
That’s the actual felt experience in my view, is if we don’t go through it, if we avoid the difficulty, we don’t actually ever get to feel the strength of having overcome it.
Absolutely. That’s where I go back to the gym thing of like, rupture and repair is how you build muscle; rupture and repair in a relationship is how you build a strong bond. Trust is in the bond. It’s not an inherent quality that people just have or don’t have when they get into a relationship, it’s something that you build with each other. I trust you because there is a reliable, consistent record of us being there for each other, having each other’s backs and caring when we hurt each other, and we are both committed to protecting the bond. That’s what I trust. I don’t have to trust every little micromanage-y thing about myself or yourself. I trust the bond that we’ve created.
Yeah, so beautiful. Even if someone comes into the relationship initially with an imprint that isn’t necessarily trusting, given one’s experience, that that can be developed through what you’re describing. Would you agree?
Exactly, absolutely. This is where I think the misconception about attachment is that it’s like a diagnosis. No, it’s not. It’s a tendency towards. But you can change your attachment style based on the security of the relationship that you’re in. It’s called getting to earn to secure. So that’s what I really describe is the difference between earning trust versus believing in somebody. Again, I love my little acronyms. So I have an acronym for repair that I’ve put in the book, and it’s like breaking it down into steps to follow, and there’s a rupture.
Then the next on the STRONG model, so R is Respect. Again, especially for men, what I found is that respect is huge. If I don’t feel respected by my partner, I just don’t feel the love. I don’t feel loved if I don’t feel respected. So really narrowing that down to, well, respect often goes back to how do you want to be treated. So then how can you articulate and hold your boundaries? Now, once again, I saw a lot that when there’s no respect, resentment built, and again, the way that we socialize man is this idea of: “Happy wife, happy life. So make your wife happy, your needs don’t matter. You’re at the bottom of the pile, your wife and children come first.” That just led to a lot of men feeling disrespected and resentful. But then putting the onus back on them of like, well, what are your boundaries? Do you want to say no to your wife right now? There’s that fear of like, “I don’t really want to say no to my wife, I want her to be happy.”
“It’s like, here’s the paradox is that when you tell your partner your boundaries, they can then show you love more accurately, and more respectfully.”
Vice versa. Are you able to hear her boundaries and respect them, and not see them as a rejection or a personal insult? She’s telling you how to love her well, that’s the way you show her respect. So really, again, bringing all of that into a relationship is like breaking love down into a recipe.
Yes, I’m really responding to what you’re describing, and it’s so helpful. Thank you.
So the STR of the STRONG model are what I talk about as the basic survival skills. If you don’t have Safety, if you don’t have Trust, if you don’t have Respect, the relationship will not survive. So if I’m working with a couple that’s coming in, in crisis, or the man is like, I just can’t figure out how to keep a relationship. I’m like, let’s work on these three skills, the STR. That’s surviving. Then when we go to the ONG, that’s about thriving. Again, there are a lot of couples that are like, “Nothing’s really wrong, we just want to come in for a tune-up, or we just feel like we could take this to the next level.” That’s where I’m like, that’s the ONG part.
So O is Openness, which again, affirming that the person that you married at, I don’t know, 25 or 35 is not going to be the person that you end up retiring with. So building an openness throughout your relationship, looking for new things about your partner. Not seeing those things as threatening, instead seeing that as opportunities to continue to grow together. Because as we know, with the recent studies, is that, have you heard the term great divorce?
Yes, but not well.
So basically, the baby boomer generation has the highest rate of divorce right now in the entire country. So again, just the idea that in the past, people could rely on the tradition and the institution of marriage, just like it’s there until you die. Till death do us part. It’s like, no. Unless you continue to stay open and grow together, guess what, you’re going to grow apart. So when your children leave and you look at your partner, and you’re like, “I don’t know that person. I haven’t had a conversation with them in years, except about the kids. So I don’t think I want to do this anymore.”
Where I’m retired, and I don’t have my work to occupy me to such an extent, and now we’re building a new life. It’s like, who is this person? Like, we left our relationship on the backburner 30 years ago.
Exactly. So really highlighting that openness from the beginning, staying curious about your partner. Not assuming similarities, but assuming difference, and continuing to be curious about that difference. It’s really opening up your relationship for whatever growth that comes, and that way, you can continue to grow together rather than apart.
It takes a level of engagement. It’s easy to go into this comfort zone of thinking you know your partner, or you’ve got them figured out. It’s seductive to just assume, because it’s easier; the brain is trying to be really efficient.
Exactly. So openness, continuing to highlight that. Then N is for Nurturing. This is one of those words that I think I hear it a lot when it comes to parents, mother-child specifically. Like, women are nurturing, and all of that. Again, bringing this back, men are also parents, men can be nurturing. We just don’t often allow them to call it that. We call it maintenance, or we call it something else. So really highlighting that, and this is where I break it down in the book as well. It’s like, maintaining something and nurturing something is flavors of the same. But maintaining something is keeping something running, versus nurturing is about keeping something alive. A relationship is alive. It is something that needs active nurturing; you need to be paying attention, you need to be present.
That’s also what I heard sometimes in therapy was women saying, “I just don’t feel like he cares. He checks off a box, and then it’s like he’s not really present the rest of the time.” He’s like, I took out the trash, what else do you need? It’s like, well, I need you to be present, I need to be actively invested in nurturing this relationship and nurturing this partnership. That’s also where I bring in a lot of the sex stuff, and again, talking about the difference between responsive and spontaneous desire is, a lot of women identify with more responsive desires. It needs to be cultivated. It needs to be nurtured. There needs to be a culture and an activation of pleasure before there’s any kind of desire there. So relying on “Hey, it’s Wednesday,” that’s not nurturing. That’s maintaining.
I know, you’ve been checked out, and now you’re interested because you wanted sex. No, there’s a lot more here that matters. I think to add to what you’re saying, that presence, I love that word as you described nurturing, because I think, again, as we’re talking about heterosexual relationships, or just even the masculine here, that energy of presence can be so healing and so powerful in such a embodied way. So to not give value to that is, I think, a big miss.
Absolutely. I think this is where it goes back to the science.
“Men have the same neural pathways that women do that allow them the capacity to nurture, we just don’t often give men the permission to access that in a way that we honor as masculine.”
Again, breaking this down to what does it mean to be nurturing, what I give my clients is the three P’s on nurturing connection.
It’s starting with presence, and then checking in with your partner around a point of Pride, a point of Pain, and a point of Pleasure. Again, it’s more than just like, how was your day? Good, cool. Okay, what’s on the agenda. But really saying, again, emotional conversations don’t have to be always painful. They can be like a validation of something that you’re proud of. Nurturing like, “Oh my gosh, I’m so proud of you. Wow, you’re amazing! I’m proud of us.”
Then Pain. Again, this idea that even pain is going to be this really hard conversation. It’s like, but not if we normalize it. If we normalize that, like, “Hey, I’m curious about your pain. Tell me about it.” Because that’s also where nurturing comes in, is being able to provide care. “I’m sorry that happened to you today. Is there anything I can do to help? Or what do you need right now from me as your partner?
Then Pleasure. Again, paying attention to did anything pleasurable happen to you today? Maybe it’s as simple as “Oh my gosh, I saw the first Daffodil of the season.” Then that also gives you, and especially for men, what I found is it gives you more information to then tuck away. She likes daffodils, maybe I’ll plant some in the yard for the next spring, a little surprise. I’m going to give her a little moment of pleasure. Or that could be an opportunity of like, if she says nothing pleasurable happened today, this was awful. Being able to then say, well, would you like to create a moment of pleasure right now? Would you like a backrub? Should we go for a walk around the block? Let’s go watch the sunset.
Also then, for men, also being able to expand the definition of pleasure. It’s not just about sex. It’s like, well, I haven’t had sex today. Well, are there other ways in which you have experienced pleasure?
Yes, increasing and expanding, and giving example and connection to different experiences of pleasure. I love what you’re describing, it rings a bell. Did you ever look at the Blue Zone research of health and happiness? So he wrote another book about how it’s correlated, health and longevity of life is correlated with happiness, and he really focused on pleasure, purpose, and pride. So they’re very close. I mean, these are just part of our wiring. So what you came up with and what you’re visualizing or seeing in your work and your research, I think it’s tapping into something very human that really matters to us in significant ways. So I love that.
Yeah. Also, just again, that little moment of pride, I think coming from a different culture, what I noticed is that the ethos to be humble in American culture is really ingrained. Yet, for a lot of people, especially what I saw with men is, hearing the words “I’m really proud of you. You’re doing great, and I’m so proud of everything you’ve accomplished,” it’s like gold. So giving yourself permission to express that to each other in the safety of your relationship, where it’s like, you don’t need to go out and like toot your own horn all over the street. But at least telling your partner like, “Hey, I did this thing, and I’m really proud of it,” and having them validate you like, “Oh my gosh, I’m so proud of you, too.”
Oh my gosh, it’s profound. I’m willing to add a little bit, because my mother visited us. I know our time, and we want to get to your G. But a quick story. My mother had come, she bought us the Esther Perel Where Should We Begin card, the bronze, and so we were doing them. Anyway, we were in the living room, it was just the three of us. My husband and I have been together 17 plus years, so she has seen him throughout the years. I’ve never heard her speak in these terms. But she was saying I’m really proud of you, and she reflected and affirmed him in all these ways, just knowing him and his background and his family. It wasn’t explicitly verbal, so I don’t know that he got that. But I was so touched, and I think it meant so, so much. You’re right, I think a lot of people push this away, especially in America. It’s just like, not wanting to feel too self-involved or promoting or something. But when we’re talking about it in this really meaningful way, it’s touching on something really important that I think you’re speaking to her, which is powerful.
Absolutely, yeah. Then, so the G is Generosity, which I like to call the fairy dust of the whole STRONG model, where it’s like, it’s at the end. Because sometimes, if you Google and you find pop psychology articles and stuff, often they want to start with generosity; do nice things for your partner, be kinder to them, be more generous. I’m like, and I’m testing, so I’m like, it’s lipstick on a pig, unless you really have the foundation there. But once you do, that generosity is what makes it feel like a breath of fresh air. That’s where you start to assume the best of your partner, rather than the worst; a generous perspective. Like, “I know you’re trying your best, and I’m just letting you know that this little thing landed wrong. But I know that you’re a good person, and I love you, and you love me.” That generous perspective. If we try to start there without the safety, you’re setting people up for potentially being in really toxic relationships or pushing their own boundaries. So that’s what I always want to affirm is like, generosity and kindness and showing up for your partner and giving them the benefit of the doubt is so important, if you have all the rest of the ingredients. That’s the cherry on the top.
So important that you’re highlighting just how this all works together. Please, go ahead.
Well, and then just that last piece, as it pertains specifically to men is, often we tell men, don’t be selfish, don’t be selfish, men are just selfish in general. Then I think men sometimes slide to the other end of the spectrum of self-neglect. So that’s where I think we’ve all heard as therapists, you can’t pour from an empty cup. It’s really starting with self-generosity. What do you need as a person? Again, I love my little tips and things, and I like the four P’s and the four parts of self: how are you doing as a Person, how are you doing as a Professional, how are you doing as a Parent, how are you doing as a Partner? What’s working? What’s not working? What do you need more of? What do you need less of as a person? Are you getting enough friend time? Do you have a supportive friend community? Do you get enough time for yourself at the gym, so you can feel good about yourself? As a professional, how’s work going? Is there anything that’s coming up that’s stressful? Being more generous with the way that you’re taking care of yourself as well, and self-care. I guess we’ve all heard this, but self-care is not selfish. It’s self-mastery. Again, really highlighting that.
“If you want to be a strong man, you have to take care of yourself. That’s being generous with you, so that you can pour from a full cup. True generosity does not come from a starving place.”
No, and it’s so abundant in the way that you’re describing. Not only in our ability to focus, but if we’re coming from a place of resource, it’s so much more generative in this synergistic way that it continues to multiply, as you mentioned earlier. It gets out of that competitiveness, that one down and one up, if we’re looking and we’re generous. It reminds me, I don’t know if you’ve ever worked with the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. There’s this game in there that they will get groups. I can’t describe it really well because it’s been so long since I’ve been in touch with it. But the essence of it is you divide people into two camps, I think it’s blue and red or something, and you either get you take, and then you get a certain number of you take, and then if you give, you get a certain number. Anyway, the way that everybody gets the most is more generative and more generous. It’s very counter to the competitive maybe, that if I give I’m not going to get. It’s such a great example.
Absolutely. This is actually one of my favorite chapters to write, because I found what’s called the Human Generosity Project, and they break it down into research. That the cultures that are strongest, that survive the most, or the cultures that come together and are generous with their resources. It’s not the ones that are highly competitive. It’s the ones that are the most, like you said, generative. So that’s that generosity piece.
Also, last thing. For men, what I found was that, the way that we socialize men is to be highly critical and performance-focused. It’s like, if you’re not first, you’re last. Are you winning? Are you losing? It’s very hierarchical. So with the generosity, also really highlighting the importance of self-compassion, rather than self-criticism. Again, tying it back to research is that what research has found is that the more self-compassionate you are, the higher your self-esteem actually is. Because you have a healthier sense of self, you’re more generous with yourself. You’re like, I’m a good person who made a mistake, I’m a good person who made me made a bad choice, but I can learn. It doesn’t go down that shame spiral of like, “Oh my God, I’m terrible, I’m worthless.” When you’re in that place, you can’t be generous if you don’t feel good about yourself.
This is tremendous, especially for men that might have come from or of a certain age, where I do think, collectively, this is changing. We’re developing as a culture, and globally even. But like, if we look at sports, and maybe some of football coach, there’s so many messages here that can be internalized in this self-criticism. Like, that’s actually how I’m going achieve more is by being hard on myself. Yet, you’re really pointing, the research is really the opposite. So thank you for spelling that out.
Oh my gosh, I really could spend hours and hours with you, just so much wisdom here. I’m so grateful for what you’re sharing. How can people get in touch with you and what you’re teaching and your book? What would you like to invite people to do as they’re resonating perhaps?
Yeah. Well, if any of this resonated, I would love for you to check out my book. I actually just hit the printers yesterday, so you could still pre-order it. But the website is just https://www.strong.love/, you can see my book on there. Then also, my Instagram is ATXTherapist. So yeah, if you’re interested, if any of this resonated with you, that’s where you can find out more.
Beautiful. What can be found on stronglove.com?
It’s actually just strong.love.
I didn’t know that dot-love was available, what a domain you got!
So I have the book that you can pre-order, and then I also have all the illustrations from the book for anybody who’s downloading the audible. Then I also have just a giant, ongoing list of resources that is on men, on masculinity, on couples, on parenting. So there’s a resource page. I have a giant bibliography for this book, I have all kinds of other resources. Again, my goal is to enhance awareness and to contribute to a change. Because I think there are a lot of people out there that are looking for avenues. They’re like, “I want to change, I want to do the work. Where do I go?” So I’m working on continuing to build resources so that I can point people that are looking to avenues that they can then continue to do the work on.
And get the book. Say the title again.
It’s called STRONG: A Relationship Field Guide for the Modern Man. Of course all genders can read it. But what I found was, there just wasn’t as many resources directed to men as there were to women. So I wanted to even the playing field a little bit for the men.
Yes. Well, thank you for your contribution, thank you for sharing your wisdom and knowledge here today. I do feel the change agent in what you’re providing and the power of it. So I feel very, very grateful. So I’ll make sure to have the link to your book and your website and your Instagram on today’s show notes. It’s been a pleasure. Thank you for joining us here.
Yeah, thank you so much. Thank you for the work that you do, and for having me on today. It’s been fun.
Signing Off
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Relationships can be a beautiful source of joy and growth, but they can also be incredibly challenging. Every person enters into a relationship with their own experiences, beliefs, and patterns of behavior. These can either support or hinder the connection we are trying to build with our partner. To create a healthy and fulfilling relationship, it’s crucial to recognize that we have work to do on ourselves. The question is — what does “your work” within a relationship really mean?
In this episode, we’ll explore actionable steps you can take to cultivate a deeper understanding of yourself and your partner, and create a more harmonious and loving relationship.
Madhur-Nain Webster is a licensed marriage and family therapist, specializing in the integration of eastern and western philosophies for mental health for individuals and couples. Her first book, The Stressless Brain (2018), makes a scientific argument for the positive influence meditation has on the psyche; she is currently working on her second book. In addition to releasing over 60 meditation singles, Madhur-Nain maintains international outreach by appearing on podcasts and holding meditation workshops.
In this Episode
6:33 The importance of transparency and collaboration in couples therapy: Navigating individual and couples work and addressing behavioral change
11:46 Individual therapy: The importance of doing your own work to benefit your relationships.
17:15 A discussion on adjusting lenses and coping mechanisms towards relationship longevity.
22:26 The importance of self-reflection in relationships.
29:03 The Importance of Continuous Personal Growth and Therapy in Building Healthy Self-Esteem and Self-Worth.
34:29 Cultivating the wise self and soul self.
Your Check List of Actions to Take
- Take responsibility for your own emotions and reactions.
- Identify and communicate your needs and boundaries clearly.
- Practice active listening and empathetic communication.
- Work on your own personal growth and healing.
- Be willing to compromise and negotiate.
- Practice forgiveness and let go of resentment.
- Show appreciation and express gratitude.
Mentioned
Soul-Self & the Emotional Facets of Your Personality (workshop)
The Stressless Brain (book)
Relationship Map To Happy, Lasting Love
Shifting Criticism For Connected Communication
*Connect wi*th Madhur-Nain Webster
Websites: madhurnain.com
Facebook: facebook.com/madhurnainwebster
Spotify: open.spotify.com/artist/5wvZFb0E0Ybc4oSdlDSn0h
YouTube: youtube.com/channel/UCOof1-ACJXP9SufPBHbQeQw
Instagram: instagram.com/madhurnain
Connect with Dr. Jessica Higgins
Facebook: facebook.com/EmpoweredRelationship
Instagram: instagram.com/drjessicahiggins
Podcast: drjessicahiggins.com/podcasts/
Pinterest: pinterest.com/EmpowerRelation
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/drjessicahiggins
Twitter: @DrJessHiggins
Website: drjessicahiggins.com
Email: jessica@drjessicahiggins.com
About Today’s Show
Madhur-Nain, thank you for joining us today.
Thank you for having me here.
Yeah, I so appreciate clinicians that are in the field actively working with clients. You are also providing either information in the way of books or materials, and you do meditations. I know you focus on several areas, and one of the topics we’re going to be diving into is about self-work and doing one’s own individual work. I’m curious, are you open to sharing, for people who don’t know you, just a little context around how you got into focusing on that area as one of your areas?
I have been a therapist for about 22 to 23 years. I actually started off primarily as an individual therapist. Because in the earlier days, if I can say now, in the earlier days, it was easier to get one person into the office. Mental awareness, mental health was not as prevalent and talked about in the mid to late 90s, as it is now. So I started off with individual clients, but I also actually worked with more families back. Because I worked in an agency, and I used to get a lot more family systems or family groupings of clients together. I have really enjoyed working with individuals, because as I’ve mentioned earlier before we started the podcast, even though you might have one person in the room, you actually have their whole system there, through their experiences, through their memory, and through their feelings.
Exactly. So it can be helpful to have the training and hold that in mind when working even with just one individual, correct?
I was working with a couple. Each of them have their individual therapists, and I was trying to explain to them why I really wanted them to sign a release so I could speak to their individual therapist. Because some of the work that we were doing in couples was getting hijacked by the work they were doing individually. I was like, not that I was one telling them what to do. I just want to be able to so we can all be on the same page to support the system, which is each of them individually and the couple together, which is the relationship. They didn’t want me to talk to their individual therapist, I don’t know what they were worried about. I was going to maybe tattletale on them or something. But it’s interesting that when you’re working with an individual, I work really hard, when they talk about people in their life, I try to ask for a lot of examples.
“What people tend to do is when they’re sharing about their life, they’re really sharing their interpretation of everything, which is biased.”
Yes, agreed. For someone who does do couples’ work or does the family work, likely when they’re working with an individual, will have that awareness as they’re working with the individual, as you’re speaking to, to might ask for those examples. Or what did this person say or do when you did X, Y, and Z? Or how did that look? Or what’s the dynamic? Also, it can be very tricky for an individual person who’s listening that maybe doesn’t have the fuller picture. It could take an angle that, as you’re saying, might not actually support the couple’s work, or might sabotage some of that progress. So I love that you’re bringing a fuller perspective around how it’s all related, and that if we can have more transparency there perhaps or even more acknowledgement, and working together, that it can assist in the progress.
Yeah, and with some of the couples I work with, I will see them each individually. It’s not unethical or illegal. It’s taught in traditional psychotherapy to not do that, and I have found from just years of working with people that sometimes I know the whole system, and I keep things confidential to each session. Yet, I want to tell the couples, when I see you together, my client is your marriage or your relationship, not each of you individually. Then when I see them individually, my client is the individual, and I’m always keeping in my mind the unit of the two of them. The thing is that sometimes I can really move the needle individually a lot quicker than I can with them together, especially when I do a little bit of confrontational work. So it’s really a tricky balance to know when to do it in the couple’s session and when to do it individually. Because sometimes it’s really good to do it in a couple’s session. But then I have a rule with my couples, that anything I say cannot be used as collateral in an argument outside of therapy; you will hurt the work we’re doing.
Absolutely, and perhaps weaponizing is another word for that. That when someone’s really getting vulnerable and revealing certain parts, to then use that in an argument, it’s really painful.
It is. “Well, you know, Bob, Madhur-Nain said that you’re controlling too.” It’s like, no, no, no, that is not going to be helpful. That’s not going to win your case, you’re going to hurt the work we’re doing together.
Right. Likely, you’re confronting behavior, not the person and the essence of who they are. So it’s the strategy or the move that they make, that you’re really looking out. Okay, tell us more about that, what’s going on here, where did this come from, those type of things. Is that right?
Yes. It’s interesting when I hear you say that, because there’s moments when I’m working with couples, that I have to teach them the difference between requesting a behavioral change and not throwing a character attack at your partner. Big difference, but they often don’t see the difference. Like, “They’re just so insensitive, and they’re always insensitive, and I can never rely on them.” Then they go on and on. I say, “Whoa, wait, stop! This sounds so horrible. Why are you with this person?” Oh, but I love them. Okay, well, what behaviors would change that would make the person not be, in your eyes, self-centered or unavailable or unreliable? But people really love to tell you their opinion.
So true. So directing them towards specific behavior, and also pointing out perhaps dissonance, that there’s such a love and commitment, and yet there’s such complaint, and some ownership there around how are you participating, and you’re choosing in on this, and let’s look at this a little bit. How does this fit with the individual work, as we’re looking at that topic and your interest there?
Yeah. This has come up in my couples’ work, and then I’ll come into the individuals, is when I’ve worked with a lot of couples, and it is people who’ve been dating, premarital therapy, and even people who have been together for 20 or 30 years, I go over a concept called Deal Breakers. One of the things that has shown up quite frequently over the years, more recently than not, is a deal breaker for me is if my partner does not do their own work. So that segues into the idea of individual therapy, which is the idea of really looking at how do I grow, learn about myself, face some of my neuroses, learn to do my own inner work as I work with somebody, and then I can learn how to do that inner work outside of therapy? Because this benefits the relationship.
Does it ever?
Yeah. Well, the thing is, is that sometimes I will get people who will come to therapy, and they’ll say, my partner won’t come. It tends to be women who come, and the men don’t, but it’s not always. I say to them, it doesn’t matter. If you do the work, your relationship will change. I do this thing. I hold up a pen in front of them. Kind of a big note taker. So I hold up my pen, and I say, “The pen here is your relationship, and then you’re hanging here and your partner’s hanging here, and you’re connected to the relationship, which is symbolized from the pen.” Then I move the pen to an angle, and I say to the client, “When you change, the relationship structure changes, the energy changes, your behaviors change. Your partner has to change. That they will even change without knowing they’re changing.” So it says benefit the relationship, even if just one person goes to therapy.
Yeah. I’m curious on an aside. I’ve referenced this many times that sometimes there’s an adjustment period that somebody might, let’s say, Partner A will be seeing or observing change in Partner B, but might still see them through an old lens. Sometimes there’s a transition phase, or that they might need a little time to adjust or adapt. What do you think about that, that sometimes it won’t be immediate? Because sometimes people are looking for that immediate result or benefit from taking that risk, and it’s not always evident immediately. What do you think?
That’s true. I think it can be that if negative behaviors happen for a long time, and then it changes, the partner may not trust that this is a permanent change. They may be gun shy, no pun intended. Be in this kind of like, “Oh, I don’t know, you’ve said you’ve changed before.” That’s when I tell the individuals, if it’s the individual in my office, you’re not changing for your partner, you’re changing for yourself. Because if this relationship ends, you’re going to still have this issue.
Oh, I love that. That’s changing the motivation from “I’m doing this for my partner” to “I’m doing this because it’s in my best interest and sets our relationship up for having a better dynamic, which I’m in service of. But I’m not depending on my partner’s response to continue to motivate me.” Is that right?
Yeah, well, that becomes a control issue. It’s almost a passive way to control your partner. “Well, you’re not really supporting me, and you don’t believe me that I’ve changed.” It’s like, now you’re creating a new problem.
Or that I won’t continue to do this, because you’re not giving me the result that I’m looking for.
As I’ve heard a client say to me before, years ago, “What does he want, slabs for crumbs?” So part of it is coming and working with individual. There’s a really important piece I say to them often. You could change dramatically, and your partner may still leave. It’s really why are you doing the work?
Then the ownership, maybe even.
Well, part of it is you tie in, like if they have children, how are your relationships with your children? Or if they run a company or work for a company or a small business.
“Relationships are everywhere, we can’t get away from it. So sometimes, something that’s a chronic, if it’s low self-esteem, or if it’s addiction behavior, or if it’s trauma responses and having a thin skin, this is going to show up in all areas of your life.”
So when I’m working with an individual, and I’m a really, really big goal-setter. So within the first three sessions, we have a list of goals. So I’m not really a chatty kind of therapist, I’m more of like, “When you’re done working with me, what do you want to see changed in in your life?” I write down the goals, and I’m always coming back. Then when we’ve hit the goals, I’ll say, “You’ve hit all your goals. You want to take a break? You want to come less often?” So we’re always working on what that is, and it holds them accountable, because it’s their goals. I don’t come up with them, they bring up.
Yes. Well, I want to come back to just a couple of things that you’re saying, because this is so important when we look at the longevity of relationship. I mean, what you just said now, it’s not even just the intimate relationship. It’s bringing into light and perspective, and really bringing some honesty perhaps. Like, let’s really look at this. If we’re looking at this, let’s really look at this, how is this showing up in this area and that area, and can we have a real assessment of that, so that someone can see, and perhaps be a little bit more bought into the personal work and the benefit of that? Because one thing that I’m also hearing you say in the ownership, and this is true in my work, that if someone is willing to take the risk, the experience of taking that emotional risk, even before getting their partner’s response, that’s probably what they want most is a positive response from their partner. However, if we slow that down, just even whatever is being sent over or communicated to their significant other, that is the emotional risk or whatever behavior that they’re doing differently, usually, it will feel good. They’ll feel the difference internally, and that is motivating. I feel so much relief, or it feels so refreshing, or it feels so empowering, or it feels so real, and to be able to be in that space is very reinforcing in and of itself.
Yeah, it is.
“In some ways, productive, healthy therapy, psychotherapy is uniting the experiences of your life with the feelings and how you process things. Part of going to therapy is helping to readjust the lenses that we look at life through.”
I have this whole concept around lenses that all of our experiences in our youth create different lenses. Sometimes we could be walking around wearing seven pair of glasses; they all are your prescription, but they’re seven pairs. I’ve actually tried that before because I wear glasses, and you can see nothing through seven pairs of lenses. That’s what happens.
Let’s say your mom was just really busy raising a household with many children, or running a business and had two kids, and then the partner was traveling a lot, the father or the partner. That child, their experience was feeling alone and not seen. So that alone and not seen are two lenses. Then let’s say one of their siblings really acted out and had lots of issues. So now they become the forgotten child, there’s a third lens. Now let’s say, they have these great friends, they go to middle school, and they just get shunned. Something changes, middle school is harsh. Now they have a fourth lens of, no one likes me. So now it’s all unconscious, but these are these lenses.
The way I tell people, it’s like, we need to go to the optometrist and say, is it A or is it B, is it D or is it F? For us, it’s like, is it loneliness or is it self-hatred, or is it nothing ever works out for me? So I help the individual look at, these are lenses, they are only true if you believe them to be true. That then can actually help them then look at their partnerships differently. Because they go, wait a minute, is this actually true?
I don’t know if you would agree with this. But it feels as if when one experienced that particular lens, likely they had a strategy or a coping mechanism to deal with that. Thus, they have certain moves in how they relate to others with those glasses on. So often in couples’ dynamics, it’s almost as if their moves are triggering each other, and they’re not actually talking about the deeper glasses of what’s going on. So I think what you’re doing with the individual work, because I think most of the time, that is beneath the field of awareness; they’re more aware of their secondary emotion. Like you said, they’re pointing their finger and maybe character attacking, or if my partner would be X, Y, and Z, then I would feel better. So this whole bringing the attention and the focus around like, let’s look at what you’re experiencing, what the beliefs are, or the injury or pain or trauma or attachment longing, and let’s look at that and hold space for that. Do you have any thoughts around that?
100%. When clients come to us, they’re hurting. They’re coming for a reason. They’re not coming just because they don’t have someone else to talk to. They want you or whomever they’re working with, to say what’s wrong and how to fix it. Sometimes old therapy can be like, it’s like Friday; you lay on the couch, you talk about your dreams, you talk about what’s wrong. The doctor says, “Great, thanks. See you next week.” “Thanks, doc. Bye.” That’s it. That was old therapy. Now people are basically saying, “I’m hurting, and here’s all the reasons, why or ways, how I am. Help me. Help me change, help me fix it.” The pieces is that there’s a combination of building self-esteem so that they can handle the feedback of looking at it in reflection.
Yes, thank you for saying that. Because when you were speaking earlier about the value of doing one’s work, and if one is not in alignment with that, that that could be a deal breaker. I’m just so grateful that before dating my now husband, I had had an upset more than one, but one devastating upset relationally that spawned me into deep diving into the relational world and understanding the principles. So I really got that I wanted someone I could grow with. But it wasn’t somebody. It was like, you want somebody that’s going to do their individual work, and this is backed by research, and here’s all the reasons why. So the fact that you’re bringing it so explicitly into conversation, I think is so wise.
Also, I’ll raise my hand here, that even with that value and us being both committed to that. So what I’m raising my hand to is, I’ll say, in partnership, we have a front row seat to our partner and their beingness, and it’s a unique position. Probably no other place in our life are we going to have someone be so witness to us in all areas. So they have the capacity to hold a mirror. Now how clear that mirror is, to your point? It’s like, is this a loving mirror that’s really holding wonder around, “Hmm, tell me more about this?” Or is it the “You’re triggering me and what you’re doing is hurting. You’re triggering me and what is what and who is who.”
That is one of my biggest pet peeves right now with pop psychology of social media self-help people. No offense to those listening, but that’s one of my biggest pet peeves is, “I feel hurt and you have to listen to me, and let me tell you how hurt I am, and I have a right to be.” It just makes my skin crawl. Because that is not helpful, that’s not relational. It’s very individualistic, which individual therapy is not individualistic.
Because of what we were just talking.
Yeah, exactly. So part of it is like, healthy self-esteem is knowing when to pause and listen and ask. “Hmm, I seem to be a little triggered by what this person is saying to me. I wonder if there’s any truth to it, and let me stop and reflect.” If we get defensive, then that to me shows there is something inside of you that’s going: “Oh, shit, they got me.”
Or if your heart is racing, or you’re shutting down, these are all those fears. Partly what I’m hearing you say is almost like, the virtue of being in relationship your partner now is required, or there’s some obligation, that they are then to listen to whatever you have going on. That’s very different than what I’m hearing you start to speak to, around the slowing down. One of the places that I like to come from is, in my own work, and then when I’m guiding and assisting, is really to stay in one’s lane, so to speak, or their side, around: “Here’s where I go in my mind. Here’s the interpretation that I have. Here’s my association with that. Here’s what it reminds me of.” So I can share about where I go emotionally, I can share where I go in my mind when X, Y, and Z happens. So there’s a little bit more reveal. But it’s still the permission or the invitation, does my partner want to engage in this? They have a sense of whether or not they want to do that, or when they want to do that.
Yes. I have a saying in my waiting room that says “How you treat me is your karma. How I react is mine.”
I love that.
Really, that is 101 in families and relationships. Also, to move to couples’ work just for a second. When I’m working with a couple, I sometimes will literally do individual work. I put my hands up and I say, I’m working with you right now. I look to the other person I say, “Put up your boundaries. If what they’re saying rings true, you soften your boundaries and hold that space.” If you’re like, that’s not true, you put up your boundaries and you stay in compassion to see them for them. I get their permission to do this work with their partner.
I’ll be working with individuals, and sometimes they’ll say something, and I can see the reaction on their partner. I’ll be like, wait, boundaries! I’ll look and it’s like, “I can’t shoot, don’t do that.” They’re like, I’m okay, I’m okay. Then I’ll work with the individual within the couple, and then at the end, I will say to them, once they do their work, if I do somatic work, or if we do communication work, opening up and breaking down. I will then say to the person, what is the one thing you want your partner to understand about this, one very specific thing? I put a little box in front of the screen, or in front of them when I’m in-person. What’s the one thing? Because people tend to bring 10 things or three things, and the person is going to pick up what they want to pick up. Then you’re like, “Well, that’s not what I wanted you to, you’re not listening to me.” So there is that piece of like, “Whoa, whoa, whoa! You are responsible for you.” Sometimes we’ve got to do it as an individual because they’re so reactive, the person can’t hold the boundary. So then sometimes doing the individual work for a couple of sessions really, really creates a change, because then I can come back and the person can communicate in the way, and then we switch and I’m doing it with the other person.
Well, and then the partner doesn’t have to be along for the whole ride to get that distilled what the learning is there.
Yeah. If your partner is very similar to one of your parents, and they act that way, then they’re just like, trigger, trigger, trigger.
Yeah, exactly. At the same time, I guess in your position or my position, we’re gauging the regulation of the system, and can this person have boundaries, in your language, and be able to hold to see differently? Or maybe see what’s more on the inside, maybe in my language? But that there’s more happening that isn’t always revealed, and that what they want to share, what you’re helping them access, that can be a change agent. But sometimes, getting there can be a little bit of a journey.
I was saying I wanted to raise my hand because I would say, I don’t know if it was like five years ago, I’m a proponent. I mean, I’ve been doing my work. Even when I got into it, I had a Master’s program in psychology, I had an undergrad in psychology and I was going into a Ph. D program. The first year, they were like, you’re going to be doing your work, and then you’re going to be doing more therapy. I’m like, I’ve got this, I’ve been doing my work for so long. But it was like turbo, and I was like: Oh my gosh! So all that to say, I’m very much committed to my work. But I remember my husband showing some blind spots to me and recommending that I engage in therapy again. I was like, oh! It’s been really profound, and I’ve gotten so much out of it. I don’t know that I would have done it, had he not really held the mirror there or really been in wonder with me around it. This is just so critical for us to be on the path.
Yeah. I mean, what I tell people is, we are never in a position in our living life to not have to do the work. Once you’re there, it’s your last breath. I’m not saying that in a dark, sinister way. Maybe things between the relationship become more harmonious, the disharmony is less. But you’re still going to have disharmony, it’s just part of life. Then all of a sudden, your kids start having children, and then now they’re parents, and now there’s a new set of dynamics, maybe there’s in-laws, or your grown adult child has their partner who you don’t click with. There’s always going to be something. Or maybe it’s health.
So these stressors can actually put pressure on us. If we’re not doing the work, it can then amplify and intensify so much so that these stressors or complications can be overwhelming if we’re not turning towards some of this work.
Yeah, for sure. I think that there’s multiple ways to do the work, you don’t have to do always the same. It might be you spend a couple of years really self-educating, and you’re reading books, and you’re learning a lot. Then you find something happens, and now you’re going to go talk to someone, or you’re doing more workshop stuff. Or that maybe another time, you’re creating a new entity, if it’s a new business or a new hobby, which also then forces you to grow and learn.
“It’s not always about mental growth. It’s spiritual, intellectual, physical, relational, intellectual. They are all facets of growth, and we can’t do them all at once.”
No, we can’t. So you’re giving some examples. Because I have had clients, it tends to be more male-identified clients, that are like, “The work, the work, what does that mean?” So you’re giving some examples, and it sounds like you’re referring to work as in development, or growing oneself in different lines or aspects of themselves. Is that right?
Yes. Again, there’s an important factor or belief system that we always want to work on, which is healthy self-esteem and healthy self-worth. Because when we don’t have healthy self-worth and healthy self-esteem, when something comes up that’s maybe quite triggering. I know triggering is a big word these days. But something comes up that brings something up inside of us, if we’re not doing the self-esteem and self-worth work, we’re more likely to go into toxic shame, what I call toxic shame, which is: “Oh my God, I’m so bad for doing this, why does this always happen to me?” We can get stuck there for a while. Rather than: “Okay, this just happened. This is uncomfortable, but I’m going to ask for help. Or I’m going to go for a run, or I’m going to sign up for that workshop I saw for the weekend, or I’m going to do some journaling and sift through what’s coming up. This is really uncomfortable, but I know I can get through this. Or I know I’m a good person even though I said that or did that.” That is huge. If not, we can get really stuck or go down a rabbit hole is what I call it.
Yes. I was even thinking, these thought trains that we get stuck on, and that could be like a shame train that you just get sucked into and on this ride that is really detrimental. Some of the ways that you’re suggesting to work with that toxic shame, it’s almost like supporting a supportive voice that maybe someone never had. Is that right?
Yeah, and that’s where the healthy self-esteem and healthy self-worth comes out of the work that we do. It comes out of really strengthening the identity of the wise self, the wise adult. Then I also believe that every person has the wise adult when we have done enough work. I mean, some people don’t live in the wise adult. They live in a very reactive adult self, which is usually being hijacked constantly by inner younger parts of who we are, lenses. Each one of us are born with an entity, which I call the soul self.
“Each of us are born with a uniqueness that’s just us, and when we do the work to cultivate that uniqueness, it becomes a really strong asset. I call them the two bookends of the soul self and the wise self, which is the mature you, and the part of you that came into this world with.”
Because I have two sons, they’ve been raised relatively similar. Yes, it’s first child, second child, and all those dynamics. They could not be more different. So as a parent, it’s my job to help each of them cultivate the uniqueness of themselves, which I think is the soul self, and we all have it. Another way to think about it is your inner light, and some is really dim and some is really bright. But you can increase the brightness when you do the work, when you work on yourself.
Nice, I love that. So a professional in a supportive role, like a therapist or coach, can assist someone in cultivating more strength in the wise adult or wise self. Also, that wise adult and also supportive outside people can support nurturing the soul self too.
Yeah, because there’s uniqueness to people. I was one client I’ve worked with off and on for years, who had just a very, very, very difficult childhood; foster, addiction, family situations. There’s a certain uniqueness to this person, and when you work with someone, you’re able to say, this is who I see, and then help them connect to it. I’m not making it up, it’s right in front of my face. It’s like helping them come home to their essence. I know it gets kind of woo-woo. But it’s like helping them come home to themselves to then strengthen that, to be able to face the diversities of life, even those lenses that we’ve created. That helps us get to our wise adult self.
Okay, so I don’t want to lose you without asking this question. So for people, I hear the voice of listeners right now that are like, what if my partner is shut down and is afraid or doesn’t want to do the work or won’t turn towards this? Like, what would you be suggesting?
Well, it depends. There’s two things. One is, we are only responsible for ourselves. If an individual has been doing a lot of work and their partner won’t, then I would invite that individual to go to their therapist or coach and talk about the concept of relationship reconciling. What are you getting from the relationship versus what you’re not getting? Is what you’re not getting, can you mourn the loss of that because of what you’re getting? Maybe you need to get off and let go of trying to change your partner, because you’re choosing to stay, and you mourn. I tell people, this can happen on a healthy way once or twice a year, your whole entire relationship. Now, once in a while, we might do relationship reconciling of: “Okay, this is what I’m getting. I’m getting seven great things. and then I’m getting these two really big thorns.” Maybe it’s addiction, I’ll use a somewhat easy big one. You might find they’re not doing the work, they’re not willing to get sober, I’ve tried everything, then you might have to choose to leave.
That is that piece of saying, we can’t control the partner. Sometimes it’s that piece of, this is where the healthy self-esteem and self-worth comes in, is being able to sit with “I’m a good person, they’re a good person, and they’re not willing to look at X, whatever that X is, that situation. As much as I love them, I don’t want to be in it.” It’s that piece, and what people tend to do is, every time they’re upset and have a big fight, they’ll say I can’t do this anymore, but yet they stay. So it’s a little bit more complicated of a bigger conversation than like, just go do your work and it’s fine. Because maybe the healthiest thing is to leave. Again, it’s individual basis, and it’s a personal choice.
Right. I appreciate you just acknowledging that it’s not formulaic, or there’s no real good recipe for this to help people who might be in this situation. Sometimes it means, to your point, accepting, taking that pressure off, but really being in the experience of growth and the benefit of the growth, and sometimes that modeling. Not so much like I’m modeling, in that parental parent-child dynamic. But like, I’m modeling for you partner to get on board here. That there’s a living and you’re not growing and the benefit of that, that it can naturally, even without that pressure over like, I need you to do this with me, it just can start to create some distance or separation. That somebody is like, okay, I need to look at this perhaps. So I think there’s a bunch of different versions around how this can look. But what I hear you speaking to is, we can’t control our partner, and we can be really responsible for what is important, really be clear about our decision-making around what we’re willing to do and what we’re not willing to do, and how we negotiate that. We might have some options around getting our needs met, and grief is often involved when our partner isn’t showing up in the way that we hope.
Yes. Sometimes it’s also, in individual work, is being able to look at why am I so attached to the story of my partner changing or doing the work. I’ll share a little personal story. My older son is in college, he’s 20. I love sending packages in the mail. He’s in an apartment, so they ding him, let him know the package is there. So I’ll be a little transparent here for a second, to show an example of how we can get attached to controlling. It’s quite subtle. So I text him, did you get my package? It had his new driver’s license and some granola bars he likes. Oh, no, I haven’t gotten it yet. So a few days later, I paid extra for it to get there. I said, “Oh, hi, did you get my package?” No response from him. Then a few days later, I sat and I remember driving, and I could feel this urgency of wanting like, “Why can’t he just tell me that he got it or not? Or why isn’t he even getting the package? Maybe I shouldn’t send that package.” This is my lenses coming in. It’s such a simple, benign topic. But this can happen in an extreme.
I remember saying to myself, “Madhur-Nain, it really does not matter if he checks that package or not. Look at how you’re creating a story of this need. Yes, you could text him one more time just to ask, but that can come across as controlling.” But I just want to check, or it’s important. If you’ve said it once, you’ve said it twice. unless someone’s bleeding or something’s breaking, it’s learning to let go. It’s a really simple benign example. Just to show, even as a therapist myself, I have to keep doing the work, and I’m able to hold myself like, “Wait a minute, Madhur-Nain, your texting him more than twice about this is obnoxious.” I’m not beating myself up, I’m just going, “Stop! He’s going to get it, and he doesn’t have to tell you. It’d be nice if he told you he got it. But is it really a deal breaker?” Is it something to get upset about and be like, why don’t you care about what I’m doing for you, and we’re paying? I’ve heard this from parents. We pay for college, and they’re being disrespectful. Out of what, because they didn’t text about a package? So that’s just an example to show what our minds can do and how subtle the control can be.
Oh, it’s huge. Just to recognize and have the awareness of that activation and the intensity of it, and how you’re putting that into perspective. Sure, at some point, could it be a conversation in a more regulated way to say, would you be willing? Or it feels like a good adequate thing to let me know, and if I send you something I liked, that that’s not maybe a conversation. You can ask, but at the same time, they might not do it. Just the level of what you’re describing and how activated we can get about these things in the attempt to control. So I really appreciate that voice.
Yeah. Part of it is, for me, I’m able to look at, is it really about him not responding, or is it about feeling appreciated and when in my life did I not feel appreciated, or my parents didn’t really see me? Oh, there we go. I’m projecting my hurt from my parents onto my son. You’re like, “Hello, part! Hello, you don’t need to do that.”
Oh okay, you are giving us so many great things to think about. Is there anything else that you want to say about the importance of doing work and how it impacts relationship?
Yeah. I think that, and this is a plug to any life coach who has good certification and psychotherapists and mental health workers.
“I think if everyone went every quarter for a couple of sessions for the rest of their life, there would be a lot less issues in the world. I think that it’s like a tune-up on your car, like you get your oil changed every three months.”
Think of it as an oil change. If you do that, you’re not necessarily having to go in crisis. You’re going because you’re getting in front of it, and when it happens, you’re like, “Oh, I can handle this.”
I would endorse that. I will sign and promote, because I agree. It’s like any area of importance, and we’re learning to evolve, like we get support, and how do we not do that? Some of these are critical areas of relationship and well-being and all of it, and you talk about the ripple effect, the impact on our children or who comes into relationship and generations to come. This has huge implications.
We don’t have time, but there is research that shows how doing our work does change our brain structure, which does impact our cells and our response, and it impacts future generations. There’s a book called It Didn’t Start With You. It’s quite good, and it talks about how we pass our trauma through our DNA.
Yes. I will say, I feel so much more integrated, so much more coherent. I feel so much more access to things that I wouldn’t have had access to had I not done the work that I am committed to doing personally. So thank you for bringing voice to this. How do people get in touch with you and what you’re teaching and offering?
Yes. So they can go to my website, which is MadhurNain.com. I have over 60 meditation singles on there. I have a workshop currently happening called The Soul Self, which is all about the two bookends and all the seven facets in between of our personality and how it’s developed. That will happen again, and I have a second and third book coming. My first book is called The Stressless Brain, and I have the second edition coming out in about a month-ish. So I’m really proud of that. Social media is, I’m on Instagram, which is MadhurNain.
Do you want to spell Madhur-Nain for your website?
Sure, it’s MadhurNain.com.
That’s on social media, as well as your website?
Yes, Spotify, Apple, YouTube.
Nice, and these are all your meditations?
Yeah.
Oh, my goodness! I will hope that maybe we can talk after we stop the recording here. Because I know a lot of people like to have something that they can turn to in a heated moment, that helps them turn towards themselves, have a little guidance. I think this meditation practice is exactly what people look for in these moments. It can be a self-esteem moment, a shame moment. It could be also relational trigger intensity moment, anger.
Okay, great. Then just really quickly, as far as your workshop, is that in-person or online?
It’s online. Right now, it’s happening this month in February. I’m hoping to have it as a self-paced on my website coming soon, and I will have it again in the fall. So it’s online, I’m really proud of it. It really talks about all the lenses and our personality traits, and how they are created from our childhood, and how you can change it so you can change your personality.
Nice. The third book, are you able to say what the topic is?
It’s about disappointment.
Okay. So people can follow you or get on your email list, and be in the loop about when that goes live. Thank you again for what you’re doing and your contributing and the way of supporting people in their growth.
Thank you so much for having me on your podcast. I’ve enjoyed our conversation.
Signing Off
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Are you feeling stressed out and overwhelmed? Do you find yourself struggling to manage the demands of everyday life? If so, you’re not alone.
Stress is a common experience for many people, and it can have a significant impact on your health and well-being. But what if you could learn how to master your stress and reset your health?
In this episode, we explore how to do just that with Dr. Doni Wilson, a leading expert in stress and health optimization. She shares insights from her book, “Master Your Stress, Reset Your Health,” as well as practical tips and strategies for recovering from stress and building resilience.
Dr. Doni Wilson is a Naturopathic Doctor, certified professional midwife, certified nutrition specialist, and bestselling author of Master Your Stress, Reset Your Health. Dr. Doni suffered from migraines, and in the process of solving them, she developed her Stress Recovery Protocol. Dr. Doni brings awareness to the impact of stress and trauma on our health and how it is possible to recover and become resilient to stress.
In this Episode
6:50 Naturopathic doctor shares insights on root causes of health issues and the power of addressing stress.
12:08 Understanding cortisol and managing stress: Finding the right herbs for optimal cortisol levels.
17:18 The importance of cortisol: Understanding the benefits of regulating this powerful hormone.
23:00 Navigating the limitations of health insurance and investing in preventive care.
25:18 Identifying and understanding the five common stress types.
29:47 A case study of a couple’s journey to optimum cortisol and adrenaline levels.
35:29 A guide to resetting your health.
40:21 The care approach and the role of relationships in stress recovery.
Your Check List of Actions to Take
- Identify your stress type and cortisol levels through a stress assessment test.
- Optimize your neurotransmitter levels through proper nutrition and supplements.
- Implement self-care strategies such as exercise, meditation, and sleep hygiene.
- Address any underlying health issues or imbalances caused by stress.
- Read “Master Your Stress Reset Your Health” for a comprehensive guide to stress recovery and resilience.
- Consider one-on-one coaching or online programs for additional support.
- Start small and make incremental changes to avoid overwhelming yourself.
Mentioned
Master Your Stress, Reset Your Health: The Personalized Program to Calm Anxiety, Boost Energy, and Beat Burnout (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
Dr. Doni’s Stress Type Quiz
Shifting Criticism For Connected Communication
*Connect wi*th Dr. Doni Wilson
Websites: doctordoni.com
Facebook: facebook.com/drdoniwilson
Twitter: twitter.com/glutenfreedoc
YouTube: youtube.com/user/DoniWilsonND
Instagram: instagram.com/drdoniwilson
Pinterest: pinterest.com/DoctorDoni
Podcast: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ho-humans-heal/id1509561919
Connect with Dr. Jessica Higgins
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Website: drjessicahiggins.com
Email: jessica@drjessicahiggins.com
About Today’s Show
Dr. Doni Wilson, thank you for joining us today.
Thank you for having me here.
Yes. I think it’s a really beautiful perspective that you bring to this conversation, as I do believe so much of our way of living and being and relating is interconnected, mind-body connection. You’re coming from more of the body lens, but also helping people understand the impact and the importance of stress, and stress’s impact on day-to-day living, as well as relationship. So we’re going to dive into that a little bit here today. For people who are just getting to know you or don’t know you, is there anything you want to share with people here today about where you’re coming from?
Oh, thank you. I am a naturopathic doctor. Originally trained as a clinical nutritionist, and then naturopathic doctor. I went to Bastyr University in the Seattle area, and I graduated in the year 2000. So I’ve been up to this for, this year will be 23 years. I mean, I am trained in primary care as a naturopathic doctor. But really, because I’ve been most of my time on the East Coast in the New York and Connecticut area, I really am more of a specialist as a naturopathic doctor.
I specialize in, sometimes I like to say, I help people who aren’t getting helped. My mind is really good at being a detective and saying: “Okay, what are we missing here? How do we really understand, for example, why someone might have unresolved anxiety, or depression, or digestive issues, or infections, menstrual issues, autoimmunity.” Cases where it’s like, what is happening here, and why can’t I resolve this? So that’s where my passion is, to help in those situations. I am also trained as a midwife. So I have not been attending birth since my daughter was born. But I help with fertility, and I help with, during pregnancy, postpartum, from a perspective, again, of how can we help you through this so that you can feel your best and feel as good as you can feel?
A lot of times, the people who contact me are saying: “Hey, I understand that medications are sometimes necessary, sometimes procedures are necessary. Of course, we acknowledge that and appreciate that. At the same time, how can I really take a perspective of looking at what’s really going on in my body? What’s the real cause for my symptoms, whatever the symptoms or the health issue? What’s really the underlying issue, and how do I address that?” People who are saying: “Hey, I’m willing to change my diet, I’m willing to take herbs and nutrients if it’s going to address it, I’m willing to do whatever I have to do. But I just need to know what to do.” So it puts me in that position of saying: “Okay, let me understand really the root causes of what most people are dealing with.” That’s when I really started researching stress, because I don’t know, I even had an interest in stress way back from when I was in college. Even when I was in Bastyr, I was researching how stress affects women in labor.
Then I was in Manhattan right after 9/11. So I’m researching how does stress affect adults, and humans in general? So I was always asking this question of, we know we’re exposed to stress and trauma and major events. How does that affect our bodies in a way that then leads us to develop different health issues, and what can we do about that? Instead of just feeling like we’re stuck with whatever develops, I like to see how can we feel empowered about implementing evidence-based, effective approaches to prevent health issues. That’s what I do. That’s what I think about all day. That’s what I write about and talk about
I love it. Well, we’re going to dive in. I know you have a bit of a typology around our stress types, which I think will be really helpful for us. Before we even turn to that, as I introduce the topic here, one of the thoughts that I was having was how our physiological state and our levels of stress impacts our relating and being in the world. But also, what I’m hearing you speak to, which I really believe, is how the world and our environment impacts our state of being. Am I hearing that right?
Well, this is the thing. For so long, we were thinking that our health was determined by mostly our genetics. Of course, genetics comes into play. There are things we’re going to have a tendency toward because of what we inherited in our genes. But the research over the past couple decades is really showing us that that’s not the whole story. We can’t blame it all on our genes. Actually, the real influence on what happens with our health and our human bodies is the various stresses we’re exposed to, whether that’s psycho-emotional stress, or a physical stress, like an injury or an infection, or a toxin as a stress. Like, what are the things that we’re exposed to in our environment, that influences, and that even is what turns on the genetic expression. That’s what determines what we’re going to experience. The cool thing about that is, we can do something about all that. We can make different choices. We can navigate toxin exposure, or toxic relationship exposure, for that matter, and we can help ourselves recover.
“It makes us realize that the destiny of our health is not set in stone. You have so much power in your hands to influence your health, and sometimes, that alone is overwhelming.”
That’s why I really like to try to break it down and make it less overwhelming.
Yes. I mean, part of what I was experiencing, just now as you were describing, was how comprehensive it is. If one had an upbringing where trauma or abuse or some circumstances existed, that it was a hardship, and the imprint of that or the shaping of that lives in our body, and how as you’re talking about the environmental toxins, or perhaps even our choices that we make, and then also our relational environment. That’s a lot, and it sounds like you have a real gift to have some discernment around how to assess and guide people into pinpointing, which is really helpful. Like I said, it feels like almost this, not a feedback loop, but they’re interconnected. So one perhaps can show some signal and signs and pointing to something. So if we’re really attuned and skilled as you are, then that might assist in the overwhelm of all these interacting variables.
Absolutely. This is the thing is that I think I see the more and more people are aware of stress and how it affects us, and trauma and how it affects us. So what I often see is that people often think of it as something that’s just in our mind, and certainly, that’s an important piece. I mean, I’m an advocate for all different kinds of therapy; we need to choose the type of therapy that’s going to work for you. Also, meditation, mindfulness, these different techniques that have been developed to help the nervous system heal. Biofeedback, I’ve been studying for also over 20 years. Yes, we can. But to know that our nerves can heal, we can create new neural pathways, we can process emotional traumas, and there’s a lot of support out there and a lot of research and practitioners who are offering that. So definitely, that’s there. And where I put a lot of my focus was also on understanding, I like how you use the word imprint. It is like that, what we’re exposed to is an imprint on our nervous system, but also on our hormone levels and our stress hormone levels.
So what happens is — this is, again, just from researching this and testing patients and myself and analyzing those results over the past couple of decades — when we are exposed to whatever stresses we’re exposed to, of course our stress hormones are going to respond. We have a built-in human stress response system. That includes our cortisol, which is our main stress hormone, and adrenaline, which we think of as a fight-or-flight. The stress happens, and our bodies are going to try to get us out of danger, one way or another.
“We’re familiar with that immediate stress response in the moment. But sometimes what we aren’t, I think, paying enough attention to is how it leaves our cortisol and adrenaline in a stress state. So now, even if you’re out of this stressful situation, your cortisol and adrenaline are still thinking you’re in a stressful situation.”
So your cortisol and adrenaline, I call it get stuck in stress mode. This being stuck in stress mode is different for each person, because it’s based on somewhat your genetics, and it’s also based on your history of stress exposure. So we can’t assume that we’re all the same. This is another mistake I often see is we understand, my cortisol and adrenaline is important, and so then everybody just goes to the same, let’s say, supplement for cortisol or the same supplement for adrenal glands. I’m saying the supplement is not the same for all of us, because we respond differently. So what happens is, some of us, the cortisol gets stuck too high, maybe part of the day or all day; some of us, the cortisol gets stuck too low. Now we can easily look in the research, because they’ve done research on this. We know this herb is better at dropping cortisol that’s too high, and this other herb is better at raising cortisol that’s too low. So if you don’t know where your cortisol is, you might be taking the wrong herbs. These herbs are usually called adaptogens, which I love that there’s more awareness about adaptogens. Because adaptogens, the concept is it’s helping us adapt to stress. These are herbs or substances, plants from nature, that help us humans recover from stress. So beautiful, let’s use them. But let’s make sure we’re using the right one for you.
So we need to know where’s your cortisol, so that we can recommend the right herbs to help you bring it back. Because it is possible to correct it. You can actually correct your cortisol. I see my patients do it every day; we get the cortisol back to optimal. Because it’s not that we want zero cortisol, we want an optimal amount day in and day out. We can get that cortisol back to optimal, and then your body can maintain it there. It’s just that the body, when we’re under stress, it gets stuck, and it can’t get back. It’s like it’s just stuck in that stress imprint. But when we can get it back, now you’ve got optimal cortisol. Optimal cortisol, first of all, it’s associated with living longer. I mean, that alone is a good motivation to get your cortisol optimal.
Aging.
Yeah, and it helps us decrease every different health issue: from anxiety, depression, and other mental health issues, to headaches, to joint pain, to digestive issues, to infections, to hormone imbalances. I mean, you name it. If your cortisol is off track, you’re vulnerable to a whole long list of health issues. So to me, I’m like, if we can get your cortisol back on track, we’re having one strategy that has such a positive ripple effect. Because a lot of times, I think sometimes people feel overwhelmed. They’re like: “Okay, I want to get to the root cause. But now I’m trying to take them a multi and a probiotic, and they’ve got this big, long list of supplements. Oh, maybe I need to take some different mitochondria, maybe I need to take some antioxidants. and now I heard about mushrooms.” So now they’ve got this big long list, and they’re like, how am I supposed to do all this? I would say, yes, there’s research on all those good things, and I talk about them in my book. But to me, the first thing to do is to know your cortisol and get your cortisol optimal, because that could take care of a lot of the other things, then you may not need all those other things.
Okay, great. I love this perspective. It sounds as though helping the cortisol levels get back into optimum range allows for an assist to have the healing, and really targeting such a powerful hormone that really helps the body get back into balance, or assist that balance and the homeostasis of that.
Yes. Cortisol influences our digestion, it influences our hormones, it influences our immune system and our nervous system. So I think of it as the best way to multitask with your health. It’s like, let’s do one thing that has this positive influence on everything else. That’s a positive way to use multitasking.
Oh, my goodness. I would bargain that the average Westerner, living in Western culture modern day living, is more stressed than they even know. I’ll raise my hand with this. I’ve been practicing impeccable self-care for a long time, and it’s still noticing the more that I become sensitive to my signals, I am still so surprised at how quickly and easily. I do have background where there was a lot of stress, and probably have had exposure due to chronic stress in different circumstances. But my point is, I would bargain that most people are more stressed than they know that they are.
It is. Part of it is, first of all, we just normalize it. I mean, it makes sense. We’re open to the pandemic, let alone all the other stresses of life. In some ways, it’s a healthy, I think protective response to go: “Okay, this is how it is. I’m going to have to figure out how to survive this situation.” But then we get so used to being stressed, all of a sudden, you realize: “Oh my gosh, I’ve been squished in this little box, and became so used to being squished in a box, it started to feel normal.” Then all of a sudden, you have more room to move, and you’re like: “Oh my gosh, I was living in that little box thinking that was my only option, and it’s not my only option. I can have a whole big space to move around in.” It’s little into that, to me. It’s equivalent to being like, wow!
Sometimes it is hard to imagine, when we’re going through our busy lives. It’s hard to imagine how can I do one more possible thing. So that means that a lot of times, by the time people contact me, they’re feeling really awful. Because it’s usually only when we’re so anxious, or not sleeping, or severe bloating. Or a lot of times, I’m helping women who have been tested positive for abnormal cells on their Pap smear. We go in for the Pap smear, it’s a good thing that women are doing. But sometimes, that’s how it shows up. That abnormal Pap says to us, now I’ve got to do something about this. Sometimes we just get through our day to day just dealing with a lot of discomfort, and it’s only when it really hits a certain threshold that we go: “Wait a minute, what’s really happening here?”
I know. Ah, Doni, I’m aware there’s so many things that we could be talking about. I’m thinking about that, largely the person that is working a lot or feeling the demands of life has a certain level of monetary financial resources to be able to even hire you, and most insurance companies may or may not, but I would say a large amount don’t necessarily; they’re more still allopathic doctors. Then we add, like you mentioned, pandemic, or cultural oppression, or racism, or homophobia, or family systems. There’s so many things that people are confronting, that they aren’t in a safe space, or they don’t have the buoyancy to have the actual space. Because what we’re talking about is people who maybe have a level of safety, but their body and their nervous system is still habituated to stress, even maybe though that that stress response isn’t necessary. But there are a lot of stressors that people are counteracting, and it sounds like one of the things that you’re aware of is how to make this more accessible. Is that right?
You’re making such a good point. Sometimes we’re just having the realization that we could be paying for health insurance. But to realize that the health insurance is really not about preventive care, it’s about access to the standard prescriptions or procedures. Again, sometimes we need those things, and so we’re glad to have insurance. I have insurance too, and if we need to get a Pap smear, we need to get a bloodwork done, if we need a procedure, we want that health insurance there. But we have to realize that, for the most part, health insurance is not covering more preventive care. Now, depending on the state you live in, some states do offer naturopathic doctors under their primary. So you could choose a naturopathic doctor as your primary care practitioner in certain states, and not in other states. I love that, because you can go to a naturopathic doctor as your primary doctor to order your lab work and help you with prevention, and have it covered by insurance. But not everybody has that, depending on where you live.
Yeah, you might be in a situation where you’re like: “Hey, I’ve already been to the doctor under my insurance, I’ve already done the bloodwork that insurance covers. Yet, I still don’t feel good. I’m still dealing with a health issue that I want to be able to prevent or reverse, and I’ve already hit a dead end in the conventional medical system.” That’s when people are like: “Okay, I’m going to have to relook at my budget and my priorities and my values and say, do I need to shift my priorities here to make it possible for me to invest in steps to help myself?
“It really comes down to prioritizing health and quality of life, quantity of life, ability to do what you’re passionate about. If you’re running a business, or you want to be able to travel, or you want to spend more time with your family, then your health comes higher up on your list and you start to go, I need to find a way to take care of this, so then I can do the things I want to do.”
Yes, health is everything. What do we have if we don’t have our health? There are choices that we can make even with dysfunctional systems. So as we turn towards your unique stress types, what would you like us to know around how these manifests or what it looks like in people?
So the stress types are what I identified as the five most common imbalances of cortisol and adrenaline in humans after stress exposure. So if you’re wondering, as I mentioned before, do I have high or low cortisol? Same is true with adrenaline by the way; some people it gets stuck high, and some people it gets stuck low. So we can measure these things, there’s tests that measure cortisol at different times a day. So yes, you could do a blood test, but then it’s only at one time a day. So what I do, usually in my practice, and this is, again, over the past couple of decades, I measure cortisol from the morning, the midday, the evening, and the bedtime, so we can see. Because cortisol is a hormone that naturally changes during the day, it should be higher in the morning and gradually decreasing. So we need to see your levels at different times a day. Adrenaline, we can also measure in urine. So these can be done with urine and saliva, a test that you could do at home. I hope in the future, it’s going to be even easier to get these tests done. But for a few $100, you can get this information. You have to order the tests through a practitioner like me who’s using these tests in their practice. This is what I do when I work with people one-on-one, is we do the testing and we can then see, is their cortisol too high or too low, is their adrenaline too high or too low? So I can really see which pattern they fall into. Because I then do retroactive studies on my patients, I could see the most common ones.
So those most common patterns, I named as the five stress types. The first most-common pattern is what I call the Stress Magnet; they tend to have high cortisol and high adrenaline at some point during the day. Then the Night Owl tends to have high cortisol and or adrenaline, but at night. Then the Sluggish and Stressed type has high cortisol, but low adrenaline. Then the Blue type has both low cortisol and low adrenaline, and the Tired and Wired type has low cortisol with high adrenaline.
You see, these are very different scenarios, and all five of those scenarios have a different treatment plan. Because this is where it’s key. It’s not just something fun to know. It’s interesting to know. A lot of times it’s validating for people to be like: “Oh yeah, no wonder I have a second wind at night and I’m up late working. I’m a night owl. Okay, makes sense.” But where it really comes down to, to me, is that I think everyone should have this information about their stress type is because the treatment is different. So you’re going to use different herbs, you’re going to use different nutrients, even your self-care. You were mentioning self-care before.
Even the way you implement things like what I call stress recovery activities, like meditation, exercise, even your diet and food choices, these are different based on your stress type. In this way, we can really fine-tune and individualize your stress recovery, because you’re learning your body, your system that you’re living in, and knowing here’s what I need to do to take best care for my body and system to keep it constantly recovering from stress. Not only recovering from stress from years ago, but recovering from stress in the moment each day. How do we constantly become a stress recovery system?
Intelligently.
Yeah, exactly. You know exactly what I’m saying. Just automatically doing our stress recovery. Because we know we’re going to have stress every day.
Right. The intelligence that it’s specific, and targeting our system and working with our system, so that we’re allowing for that recovery process to take place. Now, out of these types, I know we don’t have a chance to go through and break down each one. But I’m curious, what would you say is the most common, and could you give us an example around what that looks like? Also, if possible, what it also looks like in relationship? Or maybe one or two types? I don’t know, whatever feels easier.
Yeah, for sure. There’s an interesting one where I was working with a husband and wife, and one of them was a Sluggish and Stressed. She had high cortisol in the middle of the day. Literally, where the cortisol curve should start high and gradually go down, her cortisol curve was going up in the middle of the day and then finally going down. Then she had also this low adrenaline level. She’s feeling very stressed during the day, feeling anxious. So I could help her navigate, not only help her with addressing. This is another thing I do is help with the neurotransmitters, like serotonin and GABA, to calm her nervous system. But when she first came to see me, she was actually taking a supplement that raised her cortisol more, the complete opposite. So I’m like, we have to stop this supplement because it’s making things worse, and now we need to actually help calm down your cortisol level. So she was that scenario. Now I’ve been working with her for about a year. My patients see gradual improvement even month by month. But now she and I could look back over a year and be like, wow! We just saw her results, and that high cortisol is now right where it should be. It’s so clear. It was like, yes, this is where we want to keep it! Now she can really feel empowered around it.
Now, her husband is more like a Stress Magnet, high adrenaline with high cortisol also, but his high cortisol was at a different time of day as hers. So where her cortisol was going high into the evening, his high cortisol was in the morning. So he was waking up early with all this energy, and he’s like, why is she still tired in bed sleeping in? He’s got all this high cortisol in the morning. He’s like, let’s go, go, go. So in their relationship, it was difficult. Because they had high energy at different times of day because of where their cortisol levels were high at different times a day. So his cortisol, when cortisol is high in the morning, we want to dose it night before you go to bed, so it prevents it from going up so high in the morning. We want it to go up in the morning, but not that high. So now his is not going as high in the morning, and his adrenaline is calming down. Because we can use nutrients to also help the body metabolize adrenaline. So now they both have optimum cortisol and adrenaline, and now it makes it so much better. They can actually enjoy each other, they understand each other. It’s been cool to see the effect it’s had on their relationship.
How do you have both of them? I think that’s perhaps maybe unusual for both of them to see the same practitioner. But is that not unusual for you?
For this kind of scenario, we tend to do it. Because in therapy, usually, two people would have different therapists, unless they were doing group therapy. But when we’re working with cortisol and adrenaline, some cases, I can keep it like that. I work with families; sometimes I have the husband and wife, and the children as patients as well. Because then we have the whole family system saying: “Hey, we’re on the same goal of everyone wanting to be having optimal levels and preventing health issues.” So it’s really beautiful to be able to help families like that.
I love that. Is there anything else you want to say, in regards to the unique stress types and how it manifests to day-to-day life or relationship? I mean, you’ve given us a really great example. Is there anything else you want to say about how this can look?
Because it can influence a lot of different symptoms, what I would say is to know that the focus is not as much on the symptom. I mean, I know the symptom is what gets our attention. I had migraines for many years, and the migraines would constantly get my attention. It’s when I started to realize that the migraine is just trying to tell me something. So whatever the symptom is for you, if it’s menstrual cramps, if it’s joint pain, whatever it is, turn it in and say, what is this symptom really trying to tell me? This is how the stress is coming out as a symptom. Because a lot of times, we can be very angry with our bodies for having, especially pain can feel like we’re in a battle with our own bodies.
So if you feel like: “Oh my gosh, I’ve been in a battle with why my body feels this way, and how am I going to do this?” Even if it’s anxiety and depression, we can be like, it feels uncomfortable just to be in your own body and mind. That’s when I would say it’s worth it to look at this. I want people to know that yes, we can use medications when necessary, and even I work with patients who are on different medications too. But we can do this alongside the medications, and we can say, let’s start helping to balance these hormone levels, neurotransmitter levels. Then, not only do the symptoms start going away, but then maybe you’re not going to need as many of the medications anymore because we’re actually getting at what was causing the symptoms to begin with.
I can imagine what a relief this is for people, as they start getting support and feel their body responding and feeling improvement. That so often I think there’s a message around mind over matter, or it’s easy to even judge our significant other. Like, why are you being lazy, or what’s wrong with you, why are you so anxious? That there’s a lot of choice or ways in which people adjust their mindset, and when there’s a physiological system that’s out of balance, to address that, what a relief that is to not think that it’s just a mindset thing.
Exactly. Oh my gosh, I am glad you mentioned that. Yeah, a lot of times, stress gets dismissed and symptoms get dismissed, and then people end up feeling like, is this all in my head? You feel really lost and disconnected from yourself. To know that the standard bloodwork doesn’t pick up on these things, they’re not going to pick up on it. So if you have unresolved health issues that you’re struggling with, and you’ve already done all the conventional care, and you’re like, “I’m still stuck, I’m not feeling good,” then to me, it’s really worth it. But I think everyone should try to do this.
Which is why I wanted to say, in the Master Your Stress, Reset Your Health, I have a stress type quiz I developed. This is based on my research in my work with my patients. I figured out what are the symptoms in our bodies that can tell us likely what your stress type is. This quiz is also available on my website for free. So people can go to DrDoni.com and do this stress type quiz. It should take less than two minutes. It’s asking about your mood, your sleep, your energy levels, how you feel in your body, your experience in your day. By looking at that, I have a high degree of accuracy of predicting your cortisol and adrenaline imbalance. Then from there, you might decide, you could start to use. I teach you: “If you’re a Stress Magnet, here’s the herbs and nutrients that makes sense for your case.” You could start there. Or you might decide: “Hey, you know what, I want to invest in actually measuring my cortisol and adrenaline and neurotransmitters, and then have the actual data to specifically.” I guide you in the book how to, because it’s not like you just take one pill and you’re done. It’s we need to go through a systematic process of helping your body to get these levels back on track. It’s doable, possible. Again, I see patients do it, and I’ve done it for myself over the years. But I can guide you through that systematic process of getting them back to optimum.
Lovely. Well, I’ll make sure to have that link on today’s show notes. I think it’s a real gift that you’ve been able to distill this and offer some guidance in helping people understand their cortisol and all the ways in which their hormones and neurotransmitters are impacting them. You also spoke a few times about, and I think you have an acronym CARE. When you were talking earlier, and we were both talking about the interconnectedness of our environment and the body, that one of the things I was getting was, it’s perhaps that your care and the self-care is giving some support to reset the setpoint of the nervous system, and giving support to that if one hasn’t had the optimal environment. I wonder, do you want to share with us a little bit about the acronym and what you would have to say around that?
Even just thinking of it as like, we’re humans living on earth, and the reason we’re even here and survive here is because our human bodies are responding to our environment all the time; light and darkness, temperature, the foods we eat, the people we’re around. Our human bodies are constantly responsive, and I think we forget that. We’re so busy racing through life running to an office, and sometimes we might be in an office all day, every day, and then just going to bed and waking up the next day. Or we’re in front of computers and devices, and we lose touch with it. “Oh my gosh, my human body needs some exposure to nature and earth, and earth signals.” So that alone helps us to say, our environment makes a huge difference.
I love how you’re bringing it back to the self-care. Because it’s, in each day, how do we choose? Because sometimes, it feels like, I don’t have hours of time to do this. But the cool thing is, even just implementing one minute, five minutes, in small increments, we can usually fit that into our day.
“We know we’re going to need to eat every day. We know we’re going to need to sleep every day. So how do we do those things in a way that helps our bodies recover from stress?”
So it becomes part of our daily self-care routine of this attention to how do we create a sense of safety for our nervous system? How do we create consistency? How do we create the messages that are anti-stress messages? Because there’s already enough unpredictability out there. How do we create some predictability for our nervous system, so our bodies know it’s safe? Hopefully, you have a space, a shelter you can go to. You have, hopefully, some access to food and somewhere safe to sleep. So you start starting there, and then you go, how do I even fine-tune this more?
I use CARE as acronym for: C for Clean eating, A for Adequate sleep, R for Recovery activities, and E for Exercise. So it’s a way to just have a little checklist in your mind. Am I taking care of myself? Am I giving myself access to it? Clean eating can be different for each person, depending on where you’re starting from. But maybe it’s like, how can I reduce my sugar intake, how can I make sure I have protein at each meal? So just starting simple.
“We don’t want to stress you in the process of helping you recover from stress. We have to make it doable. It’s like, how can I take little steps, and these little steps add up over time.”
Little by little, you’ll be like, oh my gosh, and in a couple months already, you’re like, “I’ve already made these changes in my eating plan, so that I know I’m improving my health and getting closer to clean eating.” Or adequate sleep, what do we need to do about your bedtime routine so that you can get to bed and get enough sleep? Even recovery activities, how do we integrate that into your day? Is it just taking a five-minute break, putting that into your schedule so you get breaks between meetings? How do we actually integrate in this time for your self-care and recovery?
I love it. I can’t echo enough just how critical these things are, and how they’ve been in my life, for sure. The outside time. That there are days that if I don’t get outside, and I’ve just got a heavy work schedule, it’s such a different feeling than if even I get to be outside for 20 minutes or an hour. I mean, I feel that optimally, an hour minimum would be ideal for me. But just all of the different variables. It’s so key, and I feel the impact of it on so many levels. I know you also speak, and I know we’re winding down our time here, but you also speak about how couples or partners in relationship can assist in some of the stress recovery. Is there anything you want to say about that?
Oh, I love that. Definitely.
“I think of it as, in a relationship, you want to have two individuals who are taking good care of themselves, and then coming together with enough energy and compassion to be able to support each other in taking care of themselves.”
Because at some point, if it’s imbalanced, if one person is not able to take care of themselves, then the other person becomes a caretaker. In some relationships, that is the case. But it then becomes more stress on the caretaker role. So just to be able to look at your relationships and say, especially if you’re intentionally choosing into a new relationship, or even if you’re in a relationship and if you’re trying to find a better balance. To just say: “Hey, how can I be taking better care of myself, and communicating about my self-care routine, and prioritizing my self-care routine?” Because the more we do that for ourselves, the other people in our lives will pick up on that and then do it for themselves, and maybe you can do it together. Maybe you end up going: “Oh, we want to both make some diet changes, let’s study this and do it together. Or we both want to shift our bedtime routine, let’s figure out how to do it together.” So then actually, the self-care and help prevention becomes an activity that you do together. What’s better than that?
I know, and it provides so many great rewards. I know it’s not always easy, or it can even feel difficult or hard to do. It’s not the fun, comfortable, pleasurable thing sometimes, to go exercise or go to bed early or eat unprocessed whole foods or something. It takes more time, it’s not as convenient. But the payoff and the reward; how I’m going to feel when I eat whole foods, or how I’m going to feel when I wake up in the morning rested, or how I’m going to feel after a workout. That these things are what we’re in service of, and if we can do that in partnership, how we might even motivate each other or inspire each other or feel that sense of connection, not so alone like you’re on the bandwagon alone. So I think there’s a lot of benefits. Just even in the restorative recovery, how we might be able to.
I said this in the past that some of the really sweet evenings I have with my husband, I think my husband watches more TV than I do. But I would say, at a maximum, I try to keep it to a nature show or a documentary or something like an hour a day at most. Oftentimes, there’s many days where we don’t watch TV. But the sweetest times are when there’s no technology, we dim the lights, we’re on the couch, we’re resting, and we’re just talking. There’s times where he’ll read out loud if we’re reading a book together. It’s just a very sweet time that we can share together. But it also is so restorative when we both need that. So I love that you’re bringing voice to that.
Well, you’ve shared a lot here today, and you have mentioned the stress typology, that people can take that assessment on your website at DrDoni.com. Is that right? You’ve also mentioned your book. Do you want to say a little bit more about the book and read the title to us again, or share the title with us?
Sure. It’s Master Your Stress, Reset Your Health. It’s purposely not called Manage Your Stress. Because I think a lot of times, we’re used to hearing that, “I need to manage my stress.” I’m saying, why should we stop there? Why stop at just managing your stress? Why don’t we actually help you to learn how stress is affecting you, and transform it into being able to be doing what you love, feeling as good as possible? So that’s why I purposely used the word Master Your Stress. That by doing that, as we’ve talked about today, when we can know your cortisol and adrenaline levels, know your stress type, address it, optimize your neurotransmitter levels, as well as anything else that was disrupted by stress, which is what I teach in the book, I teach you, I guide you about how do you know your stress type, and then we implement care, in the book, implement each step of care chapter by chapter based on your stress type, and I guide you through my stress recovery protocol.
So there’s a lot in the book to guide you all through, including recipes, some clean eating recipes. That’s a great place to start. The book is also available on Audible. So if you’re not as likely to read the print book, you can get it by Audible. It’s me reading the book. Then from there, you can say, what maybe do I want? I try to really make it so you can implement a lot on your own. But then if you feel like you need more help, then I do see patients one-on-one. I help people around the world because I can help people by phone and video, from wherever you are. So if you need more help, definitely you can find that at DrDoni.com. I also have online programs. One of the online programmes is called The Stress Warrior Program, where I’m guiding you through how do you address your stress type, how do you get your levels optimized? That’s available for instant access at DrDoni.com also.
Lovely, I love that! My mom was visiting this last weekend, and I don’t know what she was looking at online, probably some social media feed. It was this beautiful background, and it was like: “Be a warrior, not a worrier.” It feels relevant because what I hear you inviting people to do is to be intentional, be a little bit more in the driver’s seat, rather than reacting to whatever stimuli or stressors are coming and worrying and reacting in worry. So I love that you have that program, I love that you are making this book and the process more accessible to people so that they can start getting into that driver’s seat. Then if they need a little more support, working with you one-on-one, and also, obviously getting your worksheet or your assessment on your website to get started. Thank you, I’ll make sure to have all of that on today’s show notes. Is there anything else you want to say before we sign off here?
Well, I’m also happy to offer, I have a seven-day self-care reset. So if you’re feeling like, after what we talked about, if you’re like, I need to get my self-care on track, then I have a seven-day self-care reset. I can give you the link so your audience can access that for free. So you can go through, and I guide you each day: how do we start making small incremental steps? Again, my whole thing is, I want to help you recover from stress without stressing you out more. It doesn’t make sense to overwhelm you and trigger your stress response, now we’re right back where we started from. So how do we do this in a way that helps you to recover, learn about your body, and integrate in activities that you can do and supplements you can take, to then also become resilient to stress? So once you recover, it’s about resiliency. How do we do that ongoing? So that you now just know your body, and if stress comes along, you know what to choose. So this is like the instruction manual for your body that you never got when you were born.
Yeah, so powerful. Again, I’ll make sure to have that link, as well as the other links on today’s show. Thank you so much for joining us here today.
Thank you, Jessica.
Signing Off
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Human sexuality is a complex and fascinating topic that has intrigued people for centuries. Sexual desire, in particular, is an essential aspect of our sexuality, yet many people struggle to understand and increase it.
In this episode, we delved into the intricacies of sexual desire, exploring the factors that can impact it and the techniques that can help boost it. From exploring the impact of stress and lifestyle factors to discussing the benefits of mindfulness and communication, we uncovered a wealth of insights that can help individuals enhance their sexual desire and improve their overall sexual experiences. Whether you’re struggling with a low sex drive or simply looking to deepen your connection with your partner, the insights shared in this conversation offer valuable guidance for anyone seeking to understand and increase their sexual desire.
Dr. Lori Brotto is a Professor in the UBC Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, a Registered Psychologist in Vancouver, Canada and the Executive Director of the Women’s Health Research Institute of BC. Dr. Brotto holds a Canada Research Chair in Women’s Sexual Health. Her book, Better Sex Through Mindfulness: How Women Can Cultivate Desire (2018) is a knowledge translation product aimed at sharing the science of sexual desire with a broad audience, and the accompanying Workbook will be published by Greystone in October 2022.
In this Episode
7:16 From volunteering with rats to researching female sexual dysfunction: A journey of unexpected discoveries.
12:40 Causes and factors contributing to low desire in women.
18:44 A paradigm shift in cultivating desire for long-term relationships.
24:25 Understanding the impact of low desire on relationships and cultivating arousal.
26:55 Tips for reframing sexual experiences in a more positive light.
33:45 The importance of mindfulness in enhancing sexual response.
Your Check List of Actions to Take
- Understand your own desires and needs.
- Communicate openly and honestly with your partner about your desires.
- Prioritize self-care to reduce stress and increase energy.
- Experiment with new experiences and activities to increase arousal.
- Seek professional help if necessary, such as therapy or medical treatment.
Mentioned
The Better Sex Through Mindfulness Workbook: A Guide to Cultivating Desire (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
*Connect wi*th Dr. Lori Brotto
Websites: loribrotto.com | brottolab.com
Twitter: twitter.com/DrLoriBrotto | twitter.com/ubcshr
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About Today’s Show
Dr. Lori Brotto, thank you for joining us today.
I’m so happy to be here, thank you.
I always feel so, so privileged to be talking to people who do research and have something really valuable to share and findings, to convey to people that are interested in negotiating relationship more skillfully. I know we’re going to be talking about low desire, sexual desire as it relates to intimate relationship. For people that are just getting to know you, or maybe do know you but want to hear a little more, what got you interested in looking at this topic?
Yeah, thanks for the opportunity. It’s an interesting question, because I never set out to be a sex researcher or sex therapist. Yet, this is what I do all day long, day in and day out. I do research on sexual health, trying to discover ways of cultivating it, helping patients who are distressed by it, teaching students to understand it better, etc. So I guess my story started when I was a teenager and fell in love with science, I knew that I wanted to be a researcher one day. So I set out, I started my undergraduate degree. I also had a love of the brain and just the brain’s role in controlling behavior. So what I learned within my first few weeks of my undergraduate degree, I was about 18 years old at the time, was the importance of volunteering and getting firsthand experience in the life of a researcher.
As I was taking my coursework, at the time, I was really interested in depression, and I knew that I wanted to do research on treatments for depression. I had personal friends in my life who struggled with depression and struggled with antidepressant use, and that was the career path that I set out for myself. So started knocking on the door of different professors at the university. I was just looking to volunteer, get any experience at all with helping out in the research lab. It was door closed after door closed after door closed, mostly in response to the fact that I was too young, I had no research experience. How could they let someone so junior into the research lab, dealing with humans?
So finally, one of the doors did not close. I sat down and had a conversation with a professor, and he agreed to take me on as a volunteer in the lab. Still, I had no idea what his area of research was, other than he was a psychology professor. Then he said, “Let’s head up to the lab, and I’ll show you around, you can get started tomorrow.” So we take the elevator up. I thought it was weird that he had to use a fob to get into the lab. It was behind lock and key, and then there was another fob to get into the backroom of the lab. He was an animal researcher. So he took me up to the animal colony, and what I very quickly discovered is that the volunteer job that I had just signed up for involved watching rats have sex for about 12 hours. So I would be seated in this tiny little room with fiberglass chambers in front of me, and my job was to move the female rats from chamber to chamber while the male rats engaged in sexual activity. Then I would count the number of times that the male rat mounted, and ejaculated, and how long it took, and I was sat there with a stopwatch. So I did that for about six years. I became heavily involved in studying animal models of sexual dysfunction.
So yes, depression made its way in. Because we looked at the effects of antidepressants and stress and housing conditions, which it turns out to be really stressful for rats to be crowded in cages, on the sexual activity of these rats. I absolutely fell in love with it. I loved that we could manipulate their environment, that we could learn a lot about the impact of environmental stress and antidepressants on sexual activity, and that actually, rats were not a bad model of understanding sexual activity in humans. So that happened for six years.
Then Viagra was approved. The year Viagra was approved, that same year, a quite a large landmark study was also published on sexual dysfunction prevalence in the United States, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association 1999. It found that 43% of human females reported having sexual problems that lasted at least three months or more in the past year. So it was the combination of: “Wow, 43% of women struggling with sexual problems! We have this incredible blockbuster medication that’s easy, it’s effective, it’s discreet, to treat male sexual dysfunction.” It led me down to starting to do some investigation into, do we have anything comparable for women, like Viagra?
The timing just happened to be right, it was right before I was starting my PhD. So I switched at that time, left the rat lab, started doing research on human female sexuality, and looking at the impact of similar things: stress environment, hormonal changes, perimenopause, relationship issues, on sexual arousal. So we’d bring the women into the lab, show them erotic films. They would have a small vaginal probe that they inserted into the vagina, and then they used a little handheld lever, and they would move this lever back and forth to correspond to how turned on they were in their mind. It would give me a window into the impact of these different life events and life stages and relationship aspects on their capacity for sexual arousal. So that’s how the story started.
So many questions I want to follow up with. I mean, just bringing us back to those early years and your first day at the lab, I imagine that was an adjustment to what you thought you were going to be doing and what you then were doing, and then growing to love it. I’m curious, as you talk about how much translates from rat sexuality to the human body and human sexuality, as you describe what you were observing, did you feel like it was both the behavior in the female rat as well as the male rat? Or did it correspond more with the male rat?
It corresponded more with the male rat. One of the things that I soon learned is that the effects were opposite in female rats. So for example, chronic stress decreased male rat sexual behavior, but it increased female rat sexual behavior. Now, if you did a one-to-one relationship between the female rat as a model of human sexuality, you would quickly see how ridiculous that was. That for the vast majority of human females, stress does not increase their sexual interest or activity. There’s a small segment that it does, but for the vast majority, it doesn’t. So some of those diametric opposites that we saw in male and female rat models has to do with different parts of the brain that give way to opposite behaviors in response to the same stimulus.
But it also led me to face this question around: are there limitations in the rat model? That we can even study motivation; we can definitely study motivation and fear and interest, definitely behavior. But when we look at some of the fundamental concepts, like pleasure, interest, emotional parts, it’s just not accessible in the rat model. I’m sure if there’s an animal researcher listening to this episode, I’m going to get a Twitter message that says: “Yes, you can!” But at the time, it was limited for the kinds of things that I was specifically interested in.
For sure. Just out of quick curiosity, I know we’re not here to talk about your experience at the lab. But I am interested, were you able to decipher, in what you were measuring the female rats, responsiveness or their willingness?
Yeah, absolutely. So rats show both receptivity, as do humans, so the extent to which the female rat accepted the male rats’ advances. They also show proceptivity, which is sort of a solicitous behavior if you will, which is a term we use in animal behavior. So when they do darting and hopping or ear wiggling, those are invitational behaviors the female rat shows. Whereas lordosis, which is a curvature of the back to allow easy penetration of the vagina, that’s more of a receptive behavior. So yeah, proceptive behaviors are more akin to motivation; flirting, initiating, winking. Similarly, solicitous things that we would see in human females, you can look at some of those differences in the rat as well.
Okay, thank you. So given your research and all that you’ve done in identifying what contributes to the experience of arousal and desire, it sounds like particularly for women?
Yeah.
Okay. Help us with what you would like to share around low desire as it manifests. Sounds like there’s lots of contributing factors, which you just named. But where would you like to start?
Yeah. So that 43% figure that was published in the 1999 JAMA article, it’s been replicated now numerous times, using different study methodologies, looking at different countries of the world, whether you ask people on a self-report questionnaire or an interview. So what we pretty consistently find is, probably somewhere between 30% to 40% of women will say: “Over the last year, I’ve struggled significantly with some domain of my sexuality.” When you dig a bit deeper and ask the more specific questions: “Is it desire? Is it arousals or orgasms? Is it pain? Is it discrepant desire from your partner?”
“Low desire is the most common complaint, and interestingly, it’s also the most common sexual concern in men as well. Although, in the media, and maybe even in healthcare, we tend to focus much more on erectile functioning. Like, what’s the penis doing, as opposed to what’s the brain doing? But low desire is the most common of the sexual difficulties in both men and women.”
We have relatively less data on gender diverse people, on trans people. But among the data that we do have, it also seems like that’s probably the most common of the sexual concerns as well.
So when you asked about what are the causes, we could run down a list. Of course you want to rule out some of the common medical causes. So is the low desire because of depression? We know that depression, first of all, 20% of people have depression, more than that are using an antidepressant, and both depression and antidepressants can be associated with low desire or sexual problems. So we want to make sure that we’re looking at what other kind of diagnoses or issues is the person experiencing? Have they had surgery? Are they going through the perimenopause, where there’s hormonal fluctuations and sex hurts, and painful sex is the reason for their low desire? Do they have another endocrine issue that’s contributing? Then once you run down that list, then we get to the far more common causes. So, stress, interpersonal issues, the chronic to-do list distractibility, negative judgments, body image. I could go on and on and on about those contributors.
Yeah, no kidding. So sounds like one of the first ruling out is the physiological, whether or not it’s a medication, or depression, or some medical thing that might be interfering with their physiological arousal and a sense of desire. Also then, the environmental or interpersonal, the more relationship stuff as well. Even as you mentioned the brain, as far as I remember coming across some of the research or how it works is, for the female brain, a lot of the arousal pathway goes through the brain. It’s a little bit longer of a route for that actual genitalia responsiveness. Is there anything you want to say about that?
Yeah, thanks for that opportunity. Because it is a place where I think we have a lot of stereotypes and myths around desire, one being that you either have desire or you don’t. That desire is fixed, and once it’s gone, you can’t get it back, and that desire declines with age. All three of those are myths that don’t stand up to the science. In fact, what the research tells us quite clearly is that desire acts like many other emotions do. So we feel happy when good things happen to us: when someone says something nice, when we see something that is pleasant, when we do something we enjoy, we feel good, we feel happy. Same thing works with sadness, and desire works the same way. In that, desire is responsive, it is experienced in response to arousal. So very often, when there is a desire problem and the person says I have no desire, we have to look at, well, is arousal happening? Are you getting the right stimulation? Are you feeling sexual pleasure? Beyond just feeling it, is your brain registering that that is happening? Because desire is a brain mechanism.
“Desire happens in response to arousal, not the other way around. It’s not that first you’re in the mood for sex, and then you find it, and then you get aroused. That has been the historic model of desire that’s been completely turned on its side, for women and for men, for the most part.”
Especially people in long-term relationships, where you do have that natural decline in desire that happens as you are with your partner longer, and there’s less to be surprised about, and there’s less mystery, and there’s less novelty, and there’s less desire. However, if we can focus on novel methods of cultivating arousal, then that can be the pathway towards cultivating desire.
Oh my goodness, Lori, this seems game-changing! Even as we’re thinking about it, I’m like, what a paradigm shift! Because so often we think, we see something attractive, we feel desired, thus, we then respond with arousal. Or even in relationship, if I love my partner, I find them attractive, or they look sexually attractive or desirable, then I will feel aroused. But what you’re saying, in long-term relationship, actually, if we can be conscientious, intentional about cultivating arousal, then we will feel desire. That seems like a very different mindset.
Yeah. But it’s a very positive one, a reassuring one, and optimistic one, that gets away from this idea that once desire is gone, you can’t get it back. So what I often say to couples is, what are you doing to cultivate your arousal? They’ll say, I don’t know, what do you mean? Have you ever touched yourself? Have you incorporated sexual tools, like fantasy, and a good lubricant, and a vibrator? Are you paying attention to arousal as it’s unfolding? Or are you lost in judgments, or even just basic benign distractions?
Disconnected, not even noticing the arousal.
Yeah, exactly. So it is a game-changer, because it suggests that there is actually a lot we can do to cultivate desire.
I feel such compassion for many of us that have been in relationship with the paradigm of expecting our partners to turn us on or activate that desire, that then we feel arousal. The way I’m hearing you talk about right now is that we are having some agency in our own arousal, and then that we bring that into relationship and share that with another. But it’s not as though it’s this passive thing that we’re not engaged with.
Yeah, there’s all sorts of myths and stereotypes that come up, even just in your story. One myth being, the longer I’m with my partner, the more they should know how to turn me on, and I shouldn’t have to tell them. If I have to tell them or show them, that’s a sign they don’t care, we’re not compatible, they don’t love me. Again, the list goes on and on.
“Whether you’re in a mixed gender or same gender relationship, your partner has no idea what things feel like for you. Their frame of reference is what things feel like for them, which have almost no correlation to how good things feel for you.”
That’s assuming that we’re static beings and we’re not going through changes, and that our needs might differ depending on where we’re at.
Yeah, our physiology differs or what have you. So if we can look at the opportunity to share with a partner, information about what feels good, show them what feels good, discover what feels good together, it can actually be very pro-sexual. It can be very, very sexy, in fact, that discovery pathway.
I remember I watched a Netflix series, it’s by The Goop Lab, and it was the Sex, Love, and I can’t remember what it is. I think it was Jaiya, she has the Erotic Blueprint. I feel like some of these models have some value, but also, I think there’s a wider perspective, with the research and evidence-based that you’re bringing in. But I remember just the education around the clitoris and how big it is, like how it goes around the mound. I was like, I did not know that! Like, that makes so much more sense. Just even that piece of education was so helpful of even knowing. I guess what I’m sharing right here is, even as open-minded as I might believe I am, there’s still so much that I don’t know about my own body or maybe my own arousal.
Yeah, and it’s not your fault. I mean, we are facing a centuries old, long-standing, shame-cultivating legacy around women’s sexual pleasure. Thank you, Freud, who said that if you only have orgasms from clitoral stimulation, that was a sign of immature psychosexual development. So you’re right, most people have no idea. Even clitoris owners have no idea that the clitoris is so much more than what meets the eye, that most of the erectile tissue of the clitoris is below the surface. So you can stimulate the clitoris by touching either side of the vagina on the outsides, or even further down stimulating the vestibular bulbs. It’s this beautiful, very elaborate object, full of erectile tissue, that responds very much to touch, fills with blood, gets engorged. Most people assume it’s just the little button that you see on the outside.
Yes! Well, before we go into it, I would love to get your input on how people can cultivate more arousal. Before we do that, I know you also have something to say around how low desire impacts relationship. I’m sure this is a thing that people have a pretty good sense of, but is there anything you want to say about that?
For sure. I mean, we talk about that as being discrepant desire. So we’re just going to assume that there are two people in the relationship, it just makes this a lot easier, and one person has lower desire than the other person. So what often presents to the therapy room or to my office is, “Help me, Doc, with my low desire.” Then you start to investigate further. It’s not this person’s low desire, it’s only their low desire in relation to their partner’s higher desire. So of course, the question is, maybe their partner’s desire is too high.
“Often, doing sex therapy is best done by doing couples therapy, where you can ask both people around what their expectations and norms are around desire and sexual frequency. So when you frame it from a couple’s-based discrepancy point of view, it takes the finger-pointing away from any individual.”
Then you can talk about things like negotiation, and you can talk about capitalizing on the times where the lower desire person feels much better and feels in the mood, you can talk about other ways that the higher desire person might find other sexual outlets; maybe they masturbate more, maybe they watch erotica more, maybe they go for a run and work off that energy. So that’s often really important, because so often, it’s the low desire person that feels like they’re broken, and then they take that expectation with them into the therapy room. That the therapist is going to fix them, raise their desire, send them back into the relationship, and everything will be perfect. Again, I think everything I’ve been saying so far is, that’s not the way desire works.
Well, I love that you’re speaking to the couples’ system and having both people in the room to participate in the dynamic that’s created between the two individuals, and also looking at the high desire. Well, obviously, my work with couples. Not obviously, you don’t know this. But I tend to do more of the relational dynamics and the emotional component, and so often, the person who has high desire feels somewhat, not controlled, but limited by person that has a low desire. So to be able to have access and support them to feel some of their own agency or their own sexuality, and then also how they participate together.
Yeah, 100%. I mean, I hear that all the time, that the higher desire person says it’s the low desire partner who is the deciding factor. They decide when and where, because anytime I initiate, I’m told no. It leads to me feeling rejected. It leads to me feeling bad. So I’ve learned to just wait for the low desire person. Well, guess what kind of pressure that puts on the low desire person, to be the person who always instigates, when they don’t want to; they don’t want to instigate. So in addition to the higher desire person gaining some agency of their own, it’s also about what role can they play in helping the other person discover their arousal, in learning how to cultivate desire. In looking at, are their ebbs and flows, during the day, during the week, during the month, where desire is a little sharper than other times. So there’s actually quite a bit that the other partner can do.
Yes. As we even look at the sequence of what comes first, desire and arousal, even the question of: “Would you like to make love? Or do you want to be intimate?” If the person that might typically in the past had more low desire, is confronted with that question, they might just check in around, do I feel desire or do I not feel desire?
Right, they don’t feel it. They don’t feel desire.
Rather than, “Are you open to engaging with me and explore arousal?” That then can give a lot more space and fluidity to the experience.
100%. So just reframing that question in a different way. “Are you open to going on an exploration with me? Are you open to receiving touch? Are you open to spending some time together and connecting physically?” Not “Are you feeling in the mood for sex right now?” Ask me in an hour, once well into it. Ask me that question again.
Exactly. As I reopen to being together in ways that feel pleasurable and maybe experience arousal, and then can we explore the question around do we want to be intimate, and share that together. It seems like such a different setup. Just a personal share on that, I remember. I mean, look, my husband and I have been together for almost 17 years. I think literally, just in the last year or two years, I become more aware that the anticipation is really helpful for me, and I didn’t even know that. So sometimes just getting into this field of just really noticing and paying attention, it’s just so much more revealing.
So before we go, I know we’re going to get to arousal and what you would recommend around that. I just want to ask, as far as the brain and any gender differences, I’ve always interpreted that the pathway for women going through the brain had something to do with safety. But I don’t know if that’s actually true. Do you know what I’m asking?
For sure, yeah. So when we look at what actually happens, from neutral towards engaging in sexual activity, that’s not a light switch. There’s a series of decisions at every time point that happen. At the outset, the first decision one needs to make is, do I have good reasons to engage in this or not? So we talk about those as being approach reason. So what’s in it for me, what’s in it for my relationship that’s important to me? So is it to gain intimacy? Is it to celebrate a birthday? Is it because I want to have an orgasm on the other side? Is it because it helps me manage my anxiety? Is it because I feel powerful? So really contemplating what the approach reasons are. If the reasons are only to avoid something bad, so I’m going to agree to sex because if I don’t, you’re really difficult to live with, we fight all day, you’re belligerent towards the kids. We call those avoidance-related reasons, and those are a direct line to resentment. So we need to be really mindful of what are the reasons that a person has. For some people, when I ask them what their reasons for sex are, they kind of look at me like, “Ah, I’ve never thought of that before.” So we start there. We start by helping them come up with what’s a good reason, that would take you out of what you’re doing right now, towards being open, towards engaging?
Then the next step after that, that we look at, is the range of stimuli. So what are the things? What are the touches, the exchanges, the smells, the sounds? What do you need to see? What are the things that elicit arousal for you now? Not the things that worked 20 years ago, but now? Is it nipple stimulation? Is it a foot rub? Is it seeing a clean bedroom? What are the things that are happening right now that elicit arousal? Then the third part of that is context, and that’s where safety comes in. Do I feel safe with this partner right now? What’s our emotional tone between us? Did we just have a fight that is still dimming the context of this? Am I worried about kids walking in? Am I worried about getting a sexually transmitted infection? So all of those fit within context.
“So we’ve got these three pieces: the reasons, the stimuli, and the context. When those fit together and they’re all positive, that paves the way for the brain to process the information and create arousal in the body.”
So you start to see physiological signs. In females, nipple erection, vaginal blood flow, fullness, etc. Then, really, really importantly, and this is where all of my research is focused on, what does the mind do? If we pay attention using mindfulness skills, and we really notice the arousal, that paves the way for wanting, or desire in other words. Then of course, if the outcome is positive, emotionally positive, physically positive, or both, or however the person defines positive, then this reinforces the likelihood the next time. So that’s kind of the sexual response cycle. So you can see at every turn of that cycle, there’s actually quite a bit that the person can do. They can think about their reasons. They can know what are the range of stimuli that elicit arousal for them. They can have a really good sense of things like context and safety. They can use mindfulness skills to pay attention. They can have a broad definition of rewards, so that it’s not just orgasm on the other side; most women don’t orgasm through vaginal penetration. So thinking about what would make the encounter rewarding, and then really registering when it is rewarding so that it reinforces behavior the next time.
Thank you so much, this just gives such empowerment to people that are maybe grappling with what’s happening, and giving them a lot to work with that gives them that sense of agency. I’m also like, in partnership, most partners want to assist in creating those things to be positive.
100%, they just don’t know how.
They don’t know how, yes. So before we lose you, I know your time is super-valuable, I am interested in hearing a little bit more about the mindfulness and your research and what you would like people to know around that.
Yeah. So I’ve already planted the seed, that the brain, the mind, same thing, that it’s really important for that brain-body connection that happens, that is essential for sexual response to happen. So what’s interesting is the number of times during a day that people get distracted. Like, we’re chronically distracted; we’re pulled left, right, and center, we multitask constantly, we get pulled by notifications on all the different devices that are around us. It doesn’t stop during sexual activity, so those same distractions happen during sex. So very often, what people will say is, I can easily start asking myself, “Did I turn off the stove? Then I start thinking, did I lock the front door? I wonder who’s coming up the front door? Should I stop now and go and lock it? Or should I just hang on because it’s going to be five more minutes? They sort of go down this rabbit hole of seemingly benign distractions, but not benign in the sense that they do disrupt that brain-body connection that’s critical for sexual response.
Then on top of these benign distractions, there’s a whole laundry list of judgments that people have. “Do I smell okay? Will I orgasm? Will my partner notice that I’ve gained 10 pounds? What if sex hurts, should I stop?” Again, the list can go on and on here, and as a sex therapist, I hear these all the time, the specific kinds of sex-related judgments that people have.
So that combination of the benign plus the judgments means that you have to work really hard to keep the brain-body connected during sex. Thankfully, there is a tool to do it, it’s mindfulness. Mindfulness is not new. It has historic roots in Buddhist meditation. But it’s been gifted to us in the western world about 40 years ago in a very secular form, where it involves a set of practices and skills that teach a person to exercise the muscle of the brain, to pay attention non-judgmentally.
So I was introduced to mindfulness, not as it pertains to sexuality, but as it pertains to managing extreme emotions. This was when I was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Washington, and learned at the time that mindfulness can be such a powerful way of writing out negative emotions, withstanding distractions, staying present, staying anchored, and even discovering parts of yourself that you never knew were there. It just struck me at the time that “Oh my gosh, this is exactly what we need for people who are complaining about sexual problems.” At the time, I was doing research with cancer survivors with sexual problems, who really mourned the loss of their sexual arousal after cancer.
So I immersed myself. I started practicing mindfulness, I started going to retreats, reading books, going to a teaching session with people who were new to mindfulness. As I was learning, I gathered together a group of cancer survivors who had sexual problems who wanted to learn about it as well. So I was learning, I was teaching them, I was gathering data at the same time, and that set the wheels in motion for my initial research on applying mindfulness to sexual problems. Yeah, that was 21 years ago.
So fast-forward two decades, and we and many others around the world have taught mindfulness groups, we’ve done it online, we’ve done it with couples. Essentially, the outcomes are pretty consistent.
“I’m convinced mindfulness is the most powerful tool for cultivating sexual pleasure. I’m absolutely convinced of that. I wasn’t convinced of that 10 years ago, but I’ve just seen enough of the data and heard enough of the stories from people to convince me that this is really the missing element in sexual pleasure.”
Wow, how beautiful! What a gift that you have the research to support the findings, but you’re also a clinician and being able to see the transformation in applying this treatment to sexual, or low desire in this case, or just dissatisfaction or what might be called dysfunction. Even as you talk, it’s almost like, with the distraction or even all the judgments that might interfere, it’s like the mindfulness gives focus to allow for some deepening and to have connection to the desire or the arousal that gives it life and move air debris and sustain. Is there anything else you want to say about just the power of it?
Yeah, just that it’s accessible. It’s a simple practice. It’s not an easy practice, because it does involve training the brain, how to stay present non-judgmentally. So both of those are tall orders: staying present, and being non-judgmental. But in our research over the many years, we’ve also looked at the question: What if a person has never engaged in yoga or anything remotely close to mindfulness or meditation, can they really still benefit? The answer is, yeah. It worked just as well for the veteran meditators as it did for the people who were brand new to it. Over the years, we’ve looked mostly at low desire. But we’ve also looked at it in populations of women with genital pain, prostate cancer survivors with erectile dysfunction. We’ve looked at it in survivors of sexual abuse, lots of different samples of cancer survivors, men with situational erectile dysfunction. Yeah, as I said, the story is pretty consistent.
Wow, it sounds incredibly powerful. Also, just the applications, it sounds far and wide around who can benefit and really engage in the practice. I appreciate you underscoring that it’s both the focus and the non-judgement. That it’s a discipline, that it takes a level of practice and a learning curve. I know we’re winding down our time here. What would you like to invite people to engage with as they perhaps want to try to practice mindfulness and apply it to their sexuality?
Yeah, I think maybe three things. One is, practice mindfulness in your life somewhere. So maybe while you’re standing in line at the grocery store, or you’re eating part of your meal tonight, is take each bite slowly, pay attention, notice the colors, the flavors, what it feels like in your mouth, and eat slowly and deliberately. So you could do that totally on your own.
The second thing is, next time you engage in sexual activity, whether on your own or with your partner, try and apply that same skill of really feeling every sensation, and catching yourself when you jump ahead to, “Am I reaching orgasm? Are we at the end?” So catch yourself and bring yourself back.
Then third, and this is a bit self-serving. But I did write a book on the topic. So definitely, have our skills training manual that we’ve used in our research over the years. Because I was approached by so many people to get into our groups, I finally said, why don’t I just write a book on it? So Better Sex Through Mindfulness describes the science of mindfulness.
Tell us more about your book.
Yeah. I mean, I’ve never thought I was an author. I’m a researcher, and I do a lot of writing for scientific articles, but those don’t make their way out to the general public. So Better Sex Through Mindfulness, which came out in 2018, is really a synthesis of the science as it’s been applied to sexual concerns. Then 2022, so just a few months ago, I publish the workbook to accompany Better Sex Through Mindfulness. Again, it just walks people through all the exercises that we’ve delivered in our programs. People can do this at home on their own, with a partner, and have access to the very same exercises that we’ve been studying for the last few decades.
This sounds like a must-have for any relationship. You’ve been able to provide right from the research to the application and really deliver this, so that people can work with it in their own way. I’ll make sure to have the link to both books on today’s show notes. We are definitely gifted by your presence here today. So anything else you want to say before we wrap up, or anything else you want to invite people into or direct them towards?
Yeah. It’s not just for folks who struggle in their sexuality, there are plenty of couples in relationships that actually enjoy quite happy and satisfying sexuality. There’s an invitation there, to how do we infuse some mindfulness to make it even better, be even more present?
Yes. Well, I know I will be getting the book, and will definitely appreciate just the wisdom and what you’re bringing to really help. I mean, you’re saying really, in a lot of ways, it’s not our fault, that we don’t have the guidance around this. So it’s really important. Thank you for your contribution.
Thank you. I’ve really enjoyed the conversation, thanks for the opportunity.
Signing Off
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Thank you so much for your interest in improving your relationship.
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*With Amazon Affiliate Links, I may earn a few cents from Amazon, if you purchase the book from this link.
Do you find yourself constantly drawn to partners who are emotionally unavailable or abusive?
If so, it’s time to hit the reset button on your attachment system and break free from the cycle of toxic relationships. In this age of self-help and personal growth, there are countless resources available to help you navigate the complex world of relationships. One such resource is Mark Sholes’ book, “Reset Your Romantic GPS: The Journey to Self-Discovery and Healthy Relationships.”
Through his extensive experience as a therapist and his own personal journey, Sholes offers practical guidance on how to rewire your attachment system and establish healthier patterns in your relationships. So if you’re ready to take control of your love life and build fulfilling, sustainable relationships, tune in to this episode to learn more about how to reset your attachment system for a healthy relationship.
Marc is a New York City psychotherapist with 35+ years of experience working with individuals and couples. He is a board member, faculty, and supervisor at the National Institute for Psychotherapies, a leading training institute for psychotherapists.
He is also the author of the popular book Reset Your Romantic GPS: Why You Steer Toward the Wrong Partners and How to Change for the Better.
Marc lives in Manhattan with his wife and three children.
In this Episode
7:33 Attachment and its impact on relationships.
15:36 The impact of insecure attachment on a child’s development and how it affects their adult life.
20:57 The benefits of taking risks and standing up for oneself, even if it may not result in a positive outcome.
23:40 Motivators for change and overcoming hindrances in developing healthy habits and relationships.
29:03 Overcoming fear and loneliness from childhood trauma.
32:07 Overcoming challenges to make healthy choices and improve mental health.
38:00 Understanding the avoidant style in relationships and navigating healthy patterns with “Reset Your Romantic GPS”
Your Check List of Actions to Take
- Identify your attachment style through self-reflection, therapy, or online quizzes.
- Understand the characteristics of different attachment styles and how they manifest in relationships.
- Practice mindfulness and self-awareness to notice patterns of behavior and thoughts related to your attachment style.
- Challenge negative beliefs and patterns related to attachment by seeking therapy or using self-help techniques.
- Develop healthy communication skills to express your needs and boundaries in relationships.
- Engage in activities that promote emotional regulation and self-care, such as exercise, meditation, or journaling.
- Set realistic expectations for yourself and your partner, and understand that relationships take effort and compromise.
- Avoid entering into relationships with people who exhibit incompatible attachment styles.
- Read self-help books or seek guidance from a therapist to gain additional tools and support in resetting your attachment system.
- Practice patience and self-compassion in the process of resetting your attachment system, as it takes time and effort to create lasting change.
Mentioned
Reset Your Romantic GPS: Why You Steer Toward The Wrong Partners, And How To Change Direction For The Better ***(Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
Relationship Map To Happy, Lasting Love
*Connect wi*th Marc Sholes
Websites: arcsholeslcsw.com
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Email: jessica@drjessicahiggins.com
About Today’s Show
Marc, thank you for joining us here today.
Jessica, thank you for having me. I’m excited to be here!
Yes, this is one of my very favorite topics as it relates to relationship. I was just sharing with you my background and all the different people that I’ve really felt tremendous gratitude to their contribution to the couple’s field. But when it comes to attachment, and I know that this has been a buzzword for many over the last several years. Because of growing awareness and so-called the new science around the powerful impact of our attachment systems, and how they influence how we relate to the world, and more specifically, to relationship. You wrote a book, but we’d love to dive into this topic with you about, I think the thing I’m hearing you speak to is: how attachment hinders us, our attachment style, and also attachment and how our style can help us live our most optimal authentic life. Yeah?
Yes.
Great. Okay, well, for people that are just getting to know you here, what would you like people to know about you? Also, if you’re willing to share a little bit about what got you interested in serving people in this specific area?
Well, I’m in Manhattan, and I’ve been a psychotherapist and psychoanalyst for 35 years here, seeing a lot of couples and a lot of individuals. Just living in New York City, it helps bring patients in. Because it’s a complicated city, and a great city. Originally, what got me into this work, that goes all the way back. I mean, I grew up with a charismatic, interesting, but kind of depressed mother. I was born with a kind of curious and empathic disposition. So I started counseling her at a very young age, I got good at that, and so it became my profession. But what also it did was, it created a kind of insecure, anxious attachment, in which I felt most familiar, my language for connecting was trying to figure someone else out and try to help someone else. So that becomes a way of relating, as opposed to figuring out what my own needs were.
So as I got into the profession, I sort of focused on that, and was able over time for myself to move from an insecure attachment to a more secure attachment. So you write what you know best. I also know firsthand how limiting and time-consuming the waters of an insecure attachment can be. I spent a lot of time in relationships before I got married. I’m married now for 25 years, and I have three great kids. But I spent a really long time in relationships, I think, waiting in those waters, making people unhappy. I mean, it takes two to tango. As I worked out of that, and learned from that, into a more healthy relating.
Yeah. Well, thank you for your willingness to share. You’re, like many, and I also am in this category of being inclined, but also being shaped in part by my upbringing. I mean, we all are, but just as it relates to my profession as a psychologist, similar to the way you describe. Also, the journey and intimacy, that that is largely my own journey, and hardships brought me into really doing the deeper dive and understanding the deeper nuances and principles and workings of relationship. I mean, psychology is such a wide field. I didn’t necessarily set out to focus on intimate relationship, that was in my own hardship that led me into this. I feel grateful that I’ve been practicing and have seen the benefits of doing the work. I’ve been with my husband now for, not as long as you’ve been married, but we’ve been together, I think almost 17 years, and I feel like we continue to nurture and do the work. So it’s powerful, and it pays off.
So one of the things that I am grateful for is your framing of attachment, because it seems like you’re emphasizing, bringing awareness to, when we’re not conscious of our strategies. To your point, if I can be super hyper-attuned to another people-pleasing, and know what they need and accommodate, that there’s a way of relating that that works. But it’s also likely for the person people-pleasing in an attempt to get that connection. So there is a strategy; there is a learned way and learned moves. One of the things that the language that I hear you using is the GPS, and the awareness around what are we mapping, and what perhaps is already programmed, and are we in awareness to that? Is that right?
Yeah, that’s exactly right. It’s hard to believe that is, it’s really true. Attachment is a language, say, a language of relating that we learn very early on. So very quickly, somebody who develops a secure attachment, it usually happens through when an infant and a young child’s needs are responded to, in a good enough consistently enough way. Those are needs of tension relief, of eye contact, of response to hunger and physiological needs, needs for comfort and care. So what happens is that those needs of the child, when they’re responded to well enough — not perfectly enough, but consistently enough — they internalize the sense that not only are my needs okay, but that the world is going to respond to them. They internalize this kind of lifejacket, this sense of safety, that they’re lovable, that the world is going to be there for them if they need it, and they go out into the world with this sense of buoyancy.
“Life is filled with obstacles and challenges. But if you approach those obstacles and challenges in relationships with a sense of buoyancy, you’re not afraid you’re going to drown. So you can really pick-and-choose and work through the things that mean something to you, and you can also leave things that aren’t good for you.”
On the converse side, with an insecure attachment, that’s usually developed where the response to those kinds of needs we were talking about are met very inconsistently; at times, not at all. A tragic thing happens around that, because the child internalizes this sense that their needs are not okay, they’re not lovable, they’re not going to be responded to. Now the burden of the attachment is on the child: maybe what I need is not good, maybe I need too much, maybe it makes my parents anxious. So the child begins to become preoccupied with the other, with the caretaker, in the hopes of being able to connect with them, and that’s how they feel secure. The security isn’t internalized; the security is now external. That’s very different, going into life in that way, with that sense that I don’t have it inside of me to feel safe and secure.
Oh, my goodness! This is often not in the field of awareness, it’s happening, all of these mechanisms as you’re referring to, in adulthood, that got shaped through our environment growing up. It impacts our thinking, our beliefs. It impacts our physiological responses, our emotional sense, our sense of esteem and worthiness, and also, how we relate to others. I mean, it’s so vast in what it impacts. If I can also just echo, I love the word buoyancy and what that provides for someone that has that inner security, or even the security and the belief in relating to others in the world, and the big impact. Even as you’re talking about the life jacket, I was like, wooh! Like, if someone has had the experience of almost drowning and not having the life jacket, that is traumatic.
Yes, people will try to avoid that at all times.
Well, and if it’s the lived experience like that, in the known, felt sense of not having it, it’s profound.
Yeah, it’s profound. So the longing for security becomes the main motivation under those circumstances, and the language for attaching is: to try to get somebody to love you, try to meet their needs, try to be invaluable to them. That becomes the main motivation. Then what’s not the main motivation is necessarily what you would authentically love, or what you would authentically like, or what you would authentically like to do. The main motivation is for security.
“People with an insecure attachment, although they’re very empathic and attuned, they will often stay in something that might not be good for them. Because there’s that possibility, and they don’t want to let go of that attachment that they’re in. They’ll do so sometimes, often, anything to stay in.”
Yeah. It reminds me, there’s an old saying, and I need to remember what it is because I often want to refer to it. But it’s this idea that we are more comfortable perpetuating things that are dysfunctional.
I like to say, we perpetuate things we know, so what we know is our home. Home does not have to be a regulating place. If home is a dysregulating place, it’s still home. It’s still what we know. The unknown, we are pretty terrified of. That’s how we get to a more secure attachment, is actually, as we become aware of these attachment styles, then the goal is to move in the opposite direction of what we know. That’s often where the hard work comes in.
Very hard work. Because from my own experience, but also what I understand about just the framework on how we’re describing this, it’s as though, even how you’re saying, these learned strategies interfere with one being able to live in alignment and congruency with themselves if they haven’t had the circumstances or even the privilege. I would hope that this isn’t a privilege, that we all have this. But I know that that’s not the case. But if we have the fortunate circumstances that we have that security, then we get to be able to live and express and be congruent and feel this authenticity. That without having it, it’s interfering with that. So it’s part of the call that I’m hearing you speak to, and also, when we didn’t have those fortunate circumstances, the path of healing and corrective. I’ve always framed it in my mind as like, almost getting the things that we didn’t get along the way, so that we can relearn. It’s like a relearning or a new territory, that we’re learning to take risks, but also feel security in the actual circumstances. It’s not just a thought thing that we make up, it’s that we actually have to have someone that we partner with that can show up. I’m curious what you would say about that.
Yeah, I mean, you’re spot on. There’s two points to what you’re saying. One is, we do need a new relational experience. But also, you get something, the person gets something merely by taking the risk of moving in a direction that shows self-respect for oneself. Even if you don’t get it that time, a person will get a piece of themselves when they take that risk. So you get something either way with that risk, believe it or not. Hopefully, you get a response, and you normally do get a more positive response. But if you don’t, you feel better about yourself for having stood up for yourself.
Marc, thank you for underscoring that. Because one of the things that I’m understanding that you’re also helping people have awareness around is when they’re choosing a partner, perhaps single and dating and looking for relationship, that this can play into the orientation there, if one is aware and taking those risks and showing up for oneself. I can feel inside myself, when I became aware, I don’t think I had the language or the understanding of attachment. But I was in service of healthy relating, and I could say not it. Because me saying not it, even though it wasn’t earning a secure attachment with a present other, the ‘not it’ and me being in the practice of being in service of that was huge, and not abandoning myself or going into dysfunction and continuing to be okay with that.
Exactly, so well-said. It’s hard. It’s hard to do that. But exactly like you said, there’s a positive feeling when you do do that, and you have your back and you take care of yourself.
Not easy work, just saying.
No, it’s not easy work. Because of that early experience, the world isn’t going to be responsive to your need, that your job is to accommodate to the other. So when you don’t accommodate, and you take care of yourself, and you’re in something that doesn’t feel right, and you’re able to say no, that’s the beginning of that kind of journey. To really simplify it, it’s like going to the gym. So for insecurely attached people, doing anything for the self has kind of a dread to it. But it’s just like when you go to the gym, if you take that dread, and you bring it with you, and you go to the gym, the next day, you feel there was something positive about that, and you want to do it again. So it’s kind of like something like that.
I’m glad you said that. Because it’s getting at where I wanted to go next, which is the motivation or the agents of change. Pain is often a motivator for people. “Oh, I don’t want to do this anymore, or this hurts too much.” Or, unfortunately, some people come in to some circumstances that push them into tragedy, that then make them have to really question and look and re-evaluate. Hopefully we don’t get there, most of us. But the motivator is often pain to do something different. The thing that I’m also hearing you speak to as a motivator, if we can tolerate some discomfort, to have a little bit of a longer-term game, and play it out enough that we can start to train ourselves, that it’s worth taking those uncomfortable steps.
Yeah, you’re reading my mind. The discomfort of a healthy choice. So to know that in a healthy choice, there’s going to be discomfort; there’s going to be a sense of loss. But to trust it enough to see that there’s a gain.
“The initial feeling in a healthy, more regulating choice, if you have a more insecure attachment, is going to be discomfort, and then you know you’re onto something.”
Yes. This is where there’s a fallacy sometimes that’s romanticized in a collective media culture, around finding the one and the date. It’s all this fairytale and magic and chemistry and the soulmate. I’m not saying none of that exists. But it’s part of it, and when we’re working with these other layers, it can get confusing. One of the things that I think you also do a great job, and I’m getting a sense of this, and help me if I’m getting this, is a motivating way is to paint the picture. “Like, here’s the hindrance, this is what the hindrance life looks like when we don’t perhaps say yes to this work and restructuring of it, or working with the GPS. And here’s what it looks like when we do start to work with the GPS.”
That’s exactly right. The consequences of overextending and over-accommodating, one of the tragedies is, you often don’t get the thing that you’re hoping to get. It doesn’t happen that way. You often end up with someone who’s very much like the early caretaker, and not able to give you what you need, no matter how attuned you are to them. Then what happens is, because there’s so much depletion and hyper-attuning on the other, there’s often an emptiness in the self. There’s a sense of, then, a lack of self-esteem, because you’re obviously living in a state of fear, as opposed to of courage. Then there’s all sorts of compensations for that, which aren’t always pretty. It could be substance abuse, or just being very attached to the known, and never really taking the risks and having lots of regrets.
I’m interested in this work, and wrote this book, because it has nothing to do with the essence of a person, one’s attachment style. It’s really something that was kind of superimposed, and it’s a language that was learned. It doesn’t have to do with the core of that person. Every person deserves to be able to be who they are. So when you do change, when you become conscious of this, and you’re able to make more healthy decisions — those are healthy decisions in relationships, they’re healthy decisions with exercise, with sleep, with food — you notice that you’re in relationship to all these things, and sometimes they’re the ones, like food, you don’t want the food to be the driver of the car, you want the food to be the passenger. You want to be able to make conscious choices. So when you change the direction just a little bit, the journey ends up in a much different place. It doesn’t take 100% change. It really just takes a couple of healthy choices each day each week, and the direction begins to shift.
Right. Some of this can feel daunting if we look at all that might want to be changed in one’s life, but just the power of making small adjustments can have really big effects. I want to check something out, it’s rattling in my head, around when you’re talking about attachment style not being the person’s essence, that this is imposed, I get a sense that it’s the young or the little one’s vast adaptive strategy to make sense of and to work with the circumstances. So it’s like, those strategies and moves are really perhaps developed from a very young age. So when I say that, it’s like, if I put this on for myself, my people-pleasing, that strategy is actually three years old. It came from a three-year-old’s or a four-year-old’s self and brain, and it’s the best attempt. We don’t want to make that bad. But I’m 48. I mean, obviously, I’m not doing that as much as I used to do that. But it’s to think that, when we look at GPS and what’s programmed, again, not blaming it, but it might be four years old.
Yes, I think that’s right on. Just to go with that for a second, the fear and the anxiety of the lack of attachment at three and four or two years old, or as an infant, is overwhelmingly frightening. That’s the fear we carry with us as an adult that we’re trying to avoid. That fear is gone also. I mean, really, as an adult, we have an apartment, we have friends, we have strengths.
“The existential fear of loneliness that a child or infant has when there’s that lack of connectedness, we carry that with us, too. So we’re feeling a two-year-old’s existential horror, not our grown-up self’s situation. That’s why if we take the risk, we’ll find that we’re not going to drown.”
We can start to begin to be in relationship with that fear. Begin to talk to people about it, notice that we’re okay, do something for that fear that’s more healthy. We can start talking to that part of us. “Oh, you’re not drowning, we’re doing okay. We have our apartment; we’ve paid our rent. We have food in the refrigerator.” Literally, reminding it that it’s not a helpless being.
Yes. Somewhat, taking these risks sounds as though it’s being open to new information, open to new experiences that allow us to expand and perhaps up-level
Yes, up-level, that’s good. Like a computer, to put in the new stuff, it’s got an update, with updated information.
Yeah. As we’re talking about it, I know this personally, I also know it professionally in assisting others in this terrain. I understand that it, again, is not easy work. But it’s also so powerful, I would never want to live in the ways that I used to live. Again, I don’t blame or shame that, and recognize it was the best I could do, and all of that stuff. But how accessible do you feel like this is, and what are you seeing in your work, and how people will get motivated to continue to stay on this path? I mean, for me, I’ll just say one thing before I turn it over to you, is that my experience with people and myself is that, and even as you’re talking, if I can start taking steps, that that becomes motivating, that helps me feel more committed to the path to keep going. But tell me what you’re seeing, as far as the development of this.
Yeah, what you’re saying is really important. First of all, there’s a lot more information. I mean, if any positive thing came out of COVID, it’s this mental health acceptance and how important mental health is. So there’s all sorts of places to learn about attachment theory, about healthy choices; there’s plenty of information to get.
“As you start taking risks or walking in the opposite direction of what you know, it’s hard. Because you’re basically saying, go from a place that feels like home, even if it’s not a healthy place, to a choice that feels unknown, but that you’re going to have something there for you.”
Things as simple as shutting off your social media or your phone an hour before going to sleep, dealing with the loss of what that’s like, because you want to find something that’s going to satisfy you before you go to bed. Actually shutting it off, and seeing if you can get a better night’s sleep. When you begin to make those kinds of choices, you find that the world presents other people who are doing those kinds of things. When you talk about those things, it brings in conversations where there’s a kind of support that happens. So it’s kind of a self-generating thing: the more you do it, the more you get. But it is a conscious choice.
So another thing that people do, which is probably the number one thing to do, is five minutes of mindful meditation, a day. Five minutes of focusing on your breath, and when your mind wanders, coming back to your breath. Just doing that each day for five minutes begins to get you out of your thoughts, and begins to teach you that you can have a thought and a feeling. If you notice it, and you come back to your breath, you come back to your self, and that your self actually is a thing that can be relied on. Those little movements make a big difference. Then if you’re in a relationship that doesn’t feel good for you, you can notice: “You know what, this doesn’t feel good.” You can make some healthier choices around that. You can ask for what you want, take the risk of that. If you don’t get it, over and over again, with somebody who’s contemptuous or just not a very nice person to you. Or you can leave. Once you’re able to do that, you’re already well on the road.
Yes, the strength, and being able to put this into practice and implement it. This has far and wide impact when we start practicing. It impacts our whole life, in every aspect and every sphere.
Yeah. It helps in work also. I mean, think about it. If you anticipate that the world is not going to respond to you, or that what you need or what you deserve or what you want is going to be rejected. If you go in to ask for a raise, or you want to get a promotion, how anxious, before you’re going in, you are! Because you anticipate this early experience. You want to shift that. You want to change that. You want to be able to take those risks, and see, maybe the world will respond to you differently now than it did back.
Yeah. Well, I love what you had spoken about, that it’s almost what was superimposed isn’t the self. So when people are having these interactions that don’t feel fulfilling or don’t feel good, not as a result, but the contribution of some of those insecure moves, that if one is not aware, they could then further reinforce or internalize: “Oh, I’m not lovable.” It is the self. But if we can start living in more congruency and alignment and authenticity, where people are responding to the self, the authentic, that’s super-exciting. I don’t know if I said that and it made sense.
That’s great. Because unfortunately, when you’re repeating the old pattern, what happens is, you really do feel that the self is not worthwhile. Unfortunately, it really is not giving the self. I mean, it’s a terrible feeling. So when you show up for the self, when you become aware that there are other choices, and you’re willing to stand in that uncomfortable space, and you show up for yourself, you give yourself a chance to be responded to for your authentic self, and chances are, people are going to respond to it.
Yes, that’s the beautiful thing that we have working with us. That life and expression and authenticity, that is the urge, and people resonate, and we’re wired up to feel that connectedness. So we have that going for us. Just when we haven’t had the fortunate circumstances to experience that, it can be terrifying to enter into that field. So I know our time is winding down here. But I do recognize we haven’t talked as much, and I don’t know if you want to say anything, about the style of one that might shut down or turn away, the avoidance tendencies. Anything that you want to say? I know it fits into everything we’re talking about.
Yeah, an avoidant style is a real fear of intimacy and rejection. It’s kind of a real feeling that it’s not safe to trust people with your emotional vulnerability. So avoidant people usually come across as very sure of themselves, very independent. Or if you go on a date with them, you might have a really great time, and then not hear from them for five days or two weeks, whatever. They run away from their own vulnerability. Also, if they are in a relationship, they sort of have contempt for your neediness because they can’t own their own. Avoidant it takes a little bit more work, because an avoidant person is not so apt to feel the pain of a more insecure ambivalent or anxious person who really wants to be close. Often, the two go together.
“An insecure anxious person who’s preoccupied with the other is going to be drawn to the unavailable, aloof, avoidant, and they can play out a whole dance there for quite a while. You want to spend as least amount of time doing that dance as you can.”
It sounds like your book is really assisting people in navigating this terrain. Is that right?
Yeah. It’s really a book to help people introduce them to the idea that they have this GPS, and how to change it, how to reset it, how to veer towards more healthy relationships, what it’s like to change course, the kinds of feelings you have to live with in order to give yourself a chance to get to the place you want to get to. It has some practical ways of doing that. Hopefully, it’s a book, like many self-help books, to help people have that moment of insight, and in the end, adds even just one open door that helps them make a choice that adds to their growth.
Well, thank you for writing it and giving that gift. Because it’s people like yourselves that offer these openings. It depends on how people resonate, and the timing and whenever people get certain things and are ready. But to have the support and the guidance is huge.
Thanks, yeah!
Is there anything you want to say before we transition out and talk a little bit more about how people can get your book and get in touch with you or what you have to teach?
It’s on Amazon, you can go to Reset Your Romantic GPS, or you can go to Marc Sholes and it’ll show up there. I have a website, MarcSholesLCSW.com. If people want to refer to them, I can talk to them, they can give me a call or email me, which is fine. I have an Instagram, @RomanticGPS, with some tips here and there, and some motivational facts to help you along your road.
Well, thank you again. I’ll make sure to put the link to the book, and that seems like the best way to really get support. If people want referrals, or are in New York, or maybe want to work with you, depending on your availability or waitlist, and that you also provide nuggets and tips on Instagram, and there’s various ways to keep in touch with you. Well, thank you so much for spending your valuable time with us here today.
Oh, thank you. You make it very easy to think and talk. So I really appreciate it.
Signing Off
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Being difficult in relationships is a topic that is often misunderstood and shunned as the term “difficult” is usually associated with negativity, but what if it could be a catalyst for growth and development in our relationships?
In this episode, we’ll challenge the common notion that smooth sailing is the ideal in relationships, and instead, explore how speaking up, having honest conversations, and being vulnerable can lead to deeper emotional intimacy and stronger relationships. Join us as we dive into the power of being “difficult” and how it can assist in the growth and development of our relationships.
Tonya Lester is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, private psychotherapist, Psychology Today contributor and author. For over 16 years, Tonya has taught couples and individuals how to manage their minds and emotions, develop relationships that are mutually respectful and supportive and approach decision-making and communication with clarity and courage. She believes in starting where you are, experimenting with new ways of being and focusing all of your attention on what you can do now, as opposed to fixating on what is currently out of reach.
In this Episode
04:55 Understanding how unspoken resentment impacts long-term relationships.
8:35 What is good about being difficult?
14:13 How to navigate difficult conversations in relationships.
20:18 Tonya encourages co-creation and mindfulness in relationships.
25:34 Communicating effectively in relationships and overcoming gender roles and expectations.
28:57 Honesty, vulnerability, and setting boundaries in relationships.
34:13 Overcoming gendered paradigms in relationships through assertiveness.
39:46 Three key elements to navigating difficult conversations in relationships.
45:40 Finding the middle ground between shame and grandiosity.
51:27 Tonya’s vision for society: Building a world of collaborators.
Your Check List of Actions to Take
- Identify and acknowledge areas where you feel uncomfortable or apprehensive about communicating with your partner.
- Plan a time and place where you can have a calm and safe conversation with your partner about the difficult truths you want to express.
- Reframe communication of difficult truths as a positive thing that can deepen the emotional intimacy in the relationship.
- Create a safe space for communication by setting ground rules, such as no interrupting or belittling each other, and choosing a partner who is open to negotiation and respectful dialogue.
- Observe and acknowledge your own tendencies and personality traits, and make an effort to share space and accommodate your partner’s needs.
- Practice being honest and vulnerable in your relationships, even if it means having uncomfortable conversations and risking hurting someone’s feelings.
- Reflect on your values and worthiness, challenge any negative self-talk, and work on core vulnerabilities. Seek therapy or counseling if necessary.
- Evaluate how you value yourself, your strengths, and your values, and make an effort to live in service of those values.
Mentioned
Are you the Good Kind of Difficult? (*quiz)
Relationship Map To Happy, Lasting Love
*Connect wi*th Tonya Lester
Websites: tonyalester.com
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Instagram: instagram.com/tonyalesterpsychotherapy
Connect with Dr. Jessica Higgins
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Podcast: drjessicahiggins.com/podcasts/
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About Today’s Show
Tonya, thank you for joining us today.
Thank you so much for having me, I really appreciate it.
Yes, and I’m looking forward to this conversation with you and your topic. You just shared with me, you have a book that will be coming out with the title Be Difficult, and we’re going to talk about what this means as it relates to relationship. Before I even get to know what you’re sharing, I just want to say, I feel like I’ve had a journey with this myself, as I look at my younger years, and we get to talk about I imagine some of what you’ll be sharing. I feel like it’s been a development for me, and still is to be honest. As a woman, and that kind of cultural West that I’ve been brought up with and all the messages around that.
For people that are just now meeting you and maybe aren’t already acquainted, are you open to sharing what got you interested in serving people with this specific area as it relates to relationship?
Sure. So I’m a psychotherapist who was working a lot with anxiety. I’ve always worked with couples since the beginning of my career, and was noticing that I kept running into couples who had been married for quite a long time. They were coming into the therapy room, and I kept hearing the same story, which was essentially that one person — this is a little gendered, so I’ll just say this right off the bat — but oftentimes, the woman in a heterosexual couple would have been wanting to come to therapy, would be wanting to make some changes, and over the years, would have subtly told her husband that this is something that she was interested in. Maybe they’d work a little bit, but not go to therapy, and then things would settle back into the status quo. Then slowly, her resentment would be building over the years. Then finally, maybe something would happen that brought them into therapy.
But at the beginning of therapy, essentially, the wife would say: “You know, actually, I’m done. I’ve worked so hard at this, and I’ve really hung in there, and I just don’t want to collaborate anymore. I’m really unhappy, I don’t think things can change, and I’m finished.” Then the husband was flabbergasted, and really had thought that they were going to come in to do some work, with a total unawareness of really how far gone she was and how much had happened between the two of them that now felt insurmountable to her. He would have been really participating in a very different marriage than she felt like she had been participating in. So what I saw in this was oftentimes, the woman would have been very reluctant to really share how bad things had gotten for her. So I would hear a lot in these sessions: “I don’t feel important. I’ve stopped telling him things. I don’t feel like he even really knows me. I feel very lonely in this marriage.” And we don’t want to feel lonely in our marriages. Why partner up, to feel isolated?
So what I was hearing over and over again, is that the reason that there wasn’t more action taken earlier is that the wife didn’t want to nag, didn’t want to make demands, didn’t want to ask for change, didn’t want to be difficult. So I would say why not, what’s so bad about being difficult? Particularly, when now the relationship is going to be very hard to repair at this point. So what I really saw in my work with couples — with individuals, and then to be totally honest, myself in my own relationship, not just my marriage, but in all my relationships — a real tendency to over-accommodate, over-accommodate, over-accommodate, and then have a lot of resentment. But almost not even know how to have the language to speak up. So to try and talk myself into accepting things I wasn’t happy with, or talk myself out of my own feelings, which we know never works. I saw that the advice that I was giving to clients was actually stuff I really wanted to hear, that I needed to hear for myself.
So I started organizing around this idea of being honest, being seen, allowing yourself to be seen in your relationships, and being courageous, and being difficult. While I do a lot of couples’ counseling, this really applies to all the different relationships. I had someone say to me, “I don’t care who’s mad at me, as long as it’s not my mother, like I’m willing to let anyone else down.” Or people who get too codependent or enmeshed with their adult children, and are terrified to speak up for themselves. There’s a lot in the book about work environments where, of course, we feel very nervous about asserting ourselves in any way, and then unable to lean into even healthy conflict. So the book is really about speaking out, saying hard things to the person who needs to hear them, and trusting that either those relationships will be strengthened, or they weren’t viable long-term in the first place. So kind of taking some risk there.
Right. To your last point there, that if we have — I love the term, I think I caught it from Gay and Katie Hendricks — the Sweaty 10-minute Conversation, it’s so helpful. Because these exist, and it’s part of negotiating relationship. If we’re going to deepen in intimacy, it requires negotiating conflict. That requires some level of honesty and coming to the table with what is uncomfortable and difficult to speak about. So what you’re saying is, if we don’t challenge our relationships, if we don’t approach the table or come to the table, then perhaps we’re not even entirely sure what that relationship, the substance of it. That we’re just accommodating; we actually haven’t tested it, and therefore, we don’t have that information around how someone’s going to respond to us or show up with us.
That’s right, 100%. Ironically, it’s those people-pleasing, or over-accommodation, or perfectionist tendencies of not wanting to make a mistake, and so wanting to go along with whatever the expectations are. We then don’t allow the other person an avenue to really know us, which is what emotional intimacy is. Like, we want to be seen in our relationships. It’s like, we’re cutting off the oxygen to ourselves, and then having a lot of resentment at our partner. These are always co-created. It always happens in tandem; no one is at fault completely, one way or another. But we do have the responsibility to do our part and to have the relationships we want to have. A big part of that is having — I hadn’t heard that term, I love that — Sweaty 10-minute Conversation, and being clear about what we have to say, and then being able to tolerate. I’m sure your work as well, so much of it is getting acclimated to tolerating being uncomfortable in these hard conversations. Because if you wait till you’re comfortable, it will never happen. That’s a lie. It will always feel uncomfortable, and the only thing that will get us over that hump is practice and creating relationships where there’s an expectation of honesty and forthrightness. But that is going to take a lot of 10-minute Sweaty Conversations.
Precisely, in my own experience, it’s been iterations, oftentimes. It’s not even one-and-done. It’s this progressive development, and what I’m hearing you speak to, if we can create a climate within the relationship, that that’s welcomed, because we know the results or what we’re in service of. That perhaps, it does ask us to take risks and is not comfortable. I mean, I am sure you get this, and in my work, it’s such a common thing for people to describe if I’m working with the individual, it’s never a good time. It’s like, “Oh, it’s already kind of a hard moment. I don’t want to add more to the plate. Or we’re having such a great time, I don’t want to rock the boat. There’s so many precious and cherished moments.” Then you have a couple that’s like, “We don’t talk about this in between sessions, this is our time to talk.” But then you have a certain amount of time in a week if we’re lucky, or every other week, and that’s a lot to ask to get everything covered in just that one session. So this climate, that this is part of what we’re welcoming in the interest of our growth and being in service of this deeper level of intimacy. It’s a paradigm shift.
It’s a paradigm shift, and I really encourage couples to really view it as a positive thing. Certainly, if your partner is coming to you wanting to share something that’s upsetting, it’s so easy to be defensive, and that’s going to so predictably drive them away. So oftentimes, I’ll coach people to say things, if I’m seeing someone individually, like, “Look, I’m working with my therapist, and being more honest and forthright with you. Because I love you, and I want to have a deep emotional intimacy. This is going to be hard for me, and I think some of the stuff I’m going to say is going to be hard to hear. But I’m doing this for the health of our relationship, and I hope you can do the same with me.” When I have certain structures to try and create more safety in how the communication goes. But I think a big thing is just framing it, like, “The truth is, if I no longer am trying to talk to you, or I don’t care about talking, or there are no more tears, that’s maybe too late.” Like, you shouldn’t want to get to that point. If you’re not nervous before the conversations, it’s because the stakes have gotten so low for you that you know that the relationship is already pretty far gone actually.
Agreed. Tonya, thank you for giving some language and some template to this. I know there’s many versions to give structure. But the setup, the delivery, when you talk about the person on the receiving end likely being defensive, sometimes our best attempt isn’t maybe skillful, or it’s the You. Sometimes what happens in long-term relationship is we’re attempting to change norms, and we’re changing the rules a little bit, which isn’t usually easy to do. When we think about establishing a garden, if it’s already overgrown and then we’re having to pull weeds, versus like a fresh amended soil and we just plant, it’s very different.
It’s very different. But that is so inevitable. Even when the soil is fresh, we’re coming with our own baggage and our own expectations, and the cultural influence. I don’t know if we ever truly have a fresh plot of land. Then, throughout a relationship, we enter different phases, depending on how long we’ve been together, depending if we’re caring for children or our parents, or where we are, if we’re really full bore into a career or not. So having to renegotiate one’s relationship is totally inevitable. My advice, if there truly is a plot of land, to people just getting together, is make sure you’re picking someone you can negotiate with. Life is one problem-solving exercise after another. So are you with someone you can partner with and say hard things? But that aside, I think if people love each other and people want things to work, I think we can actually adjust. We can make more adjustments than we imagine, and so can our partners. If you want it to work, it can work.
“I have an image I use all the time with relationships, that it feels like one person is like granite, and the other person is like water, and the other person is always meant to go around. That’s not a healthy relationship, and we need to be able to ask granite to shift.”
People who are in the position of “It’s going to be one way,” you have to make room for your partner. But I have a lot of faith in people’s ability to make things better if they want to.
I do, too. I’m just smiling because I’m so in appreciation with you holding the line and just the point around working together and normalizing that, speaking to some of the difficulties. You’re just saying, look, it is something always to be negotiated. Life, circumstances, difficulties, there’s so much today, it’s almost a fallacy to think that there’s some fresh place that we get. I think that’s part of the misnomer or the myths around some of these hard conversations, even in me as I’m describing these things. So thank you for just really making that clear.
Now as we turn towards just some of what we’re combating, you’re naming anxiety, you’re naming perfectionism, you’re naming some gender pieces, likely speaking to the feminine experience, but also, I know a lot of men in that nice guy syndrome who get into this people-pleasing. So even as we’re talking about heterosexual or how somebody identifies with the masculine or feminine in a binary way, that this is something all people probably have, and there’s some things that are co-joining here that make this difficult in relationship. Is that right?
100%, so much of this does feel gendered from a cultural point of view. But absolutely, it’s certainly not absolute. In every type of relationship, I think that this can rear its head, of one person being over-accommodating, where the partner is almost encouraged sometimes to be very self-focused. There might be a natural tendency for that, and then the whole relationship grows around these two stances, regardless of gender. Then gradually, a lot of resentment will grow every time. This isn’t to say that one partner was bad. It’s just to say that we need to be flexible, and we need to look at like, who needs the attention, who needs the support? Ideally, we can move back and forth through those roles, fairly comfortably. It just so happens that still even in 2023, there are different expectations for female-identifying and male-identifying. I think that male-identifying people suffer because of not being allowed their whole breadth of emotional experience, and them not being able to be vulnerable and ask for things and to need maybe more care, or that emotional intimacy that I’m talking about. It’s better for everybody if we’re all just people doing the best we can, working flexibly with each other, and having an open heart and a lot of love. So what we’re trying to do here is normalize healthy conflict in all relationships, and just to move the ball forward in all relationships, and really look at that we get to show up as individuals and give and take.
Absolutely. Again, you’re speaking to some personality pieces. I can say right here right now that I tend to be a little bit more assertive verbally and can express more than my husband, and if it were just left to our personality, I might occupy more space. But if we’re really being cognizant about sharing, it does require me to slow down or being in a little bit more stillness and curiosity to give a little bit more room. Not to enable, it sounds like I’m giving him power. But there is this sense of attention to how is the relationship supporting both. Because as you’re describing, in the longevity, if it just naturally starts to take shape and one person is getting more of their preferences and needs met, then the relationship starts to really be an expression of more of one than the other. So we really want to be mindful of that co-creative and that it’s working for both.
Yeah, and be generous about it. Because I didn’t hear what you’re saying about just making space for your husband, that isn’t giving power. It’s understanding that he might have a different style, and that you want to know what’s going on for him. If you were married to a version of yourself, it would be different. But you’re not, because you’re two different people, and making room for both is absolutely vital.
Just to share, on the other side of that, my husband has work he’s extremely passionate about. As do I, but I’m not talking about clients with my husband obviously. So we spent a lot of time talking about his work, which is fine up to a point. But what I realized was happening was that we were talking about his work all the time, and then I was feeling resentful, and I kind of a little bit just had had enough of it essentially. But then, caught myself that he will say to me, “How are you?” I’ll be like, “Fine, how are you, what happened at work?” So I will ask all these questions that led to him taking up all the air to talk about what he wants to talk about. It’s like, he cares how I am, he’s not trying to be a jerk. But if I ask questions, he’s going to have stuff to say about it, because he cares deeply about what we’re talking about. So I really had to train myself to say, “How am I? Let’s see.” Really take the space to say how I am and to share what happened in the day, or say something that I want to talk about one of our kids. So it’s a funny thing. It was like I was saying, I don’t want to talk about his work all the time, and then I was immediately directing the whole conversation towards his work, though.
Yeah. You’re like, “Here’s the ball. Go ahead, take it.”
Right, instead of challenging myself. I’m used to asking questions. So to really be like, what is going on with me, what is happening inside here? It was something I had to get better at, and we had to shift. We’ve been married more than 20 years, and this is in the last few years. So sometimes, these things, these patterns can be entrenched, and they can still be changed.
Absolutely. I’m smiling too, because I’m like, I so feel you! I’m very verbal, but when it comes to psych, you don’t talk about your work. Especially if I’ve been in the session mode, I’m in that more locked in and attentive to another, rather than this reciprocal give-and-take. So it can take some switching gears, and so I appreciate the dynamic.
I want to just come back to one thing that you mentioned about when we are influenced by the genderizing or whatever that informs our tendency to people-please or be perfectionistic, that actually, nobody wins. That even if it feels like the person that is feeling resentful or not getting as much space, that it’s not a win for anyone. As this story in the example, where the wife gets to a certain place, and she’s like, I’m done! Like, how painful that is for her husband, like, I didn’t get a shot.
Yes, it’s heartbreaking. I’m sure you’ve had those sessions where you sit in a room and everyone is just brokenhearted, and it’s so sad. Hopefully, sometimes we can bring it back from the brink. But it’s not just about having the hard conversations, it’s having the hard conversations with the person who needs to hear it.
“I think we are all guilty of having a lot of intense conversations in our head, with our caricature of who our partner is and how they might respond, and that is a terrible way to have dialogue in a relationship. So we want to give each other a chance to be the person that we need. Like, we want to give the relationship a chance, and that comes from sharing.”
I see that in all sorts of ways. That we don’t want the conflict, and so we try and do something that will cut it off at the pass, which often is secrecy; not outright lying, but omission or avoidance. All that does is it creates more distance. All that does is kind of dead-end the relationship, and I think that it’s very, very hard not to do that. We do want to stay comfortable. We do not want to ruin a nice time. But that is absolutely 100% sometimes what needs to happen.
Exactly. I think that’s why people like yourself, that are giving a lot of fresh air and room to express this, and even giving language to it, is so important. Because as you’re even describing, in session, an example where they’re getting to this place, and it’s maybe too far gone or on the brink, the wife in your scenario may even have felt like she made attempts and the signal was sent, and he didn’t either get it. It’s like, was she having the conversations, how did that actually play out?
But more of what I’m feeling right now is, Be Difficult is really making it visible. I will say, even for myself, there’s times with my husband that I’m like, “I’ve said this!” But what I’m kind of circling into is like saying the ugly. So as I mentioned, in my own journey, before I even really heard about where you were at, but the idea of being liked and caring a lot about my relationships and people. I would say, in my young 20s, just being very attentive to relationship and not maybe saying the thing that was hard, doing a lot of work to get to a place of speaking the honest and being committed to saying the honest, but I’d do it in a very diplomatic way. This whole journey around owning and honoring and setting boundaries, and doing it in a way that’s relational. But I still tend, I think on the spectrum, to err a little diplomatic. So even now, at 48, been with my husband for 17 years — we’ve worked these principles, we’re committed to growth — I still will say something, and I’m learning to say the ugly and the vulnerable way. So I’m not attacking him in an ugly way, but I’m saying something that feels just like bleh, and he’s hearing it for the first time.
You’re like, “What? I’ve said this a hundred times!” Yes, that’s absolutely right, and thank you so much for highlighting that. Be Difficult isn’t about saying everything so perfectly, that they will immediately see your point-of-view, and no feelings will be hurt, and everything will be perfect. I think people really tie themselves into knots, around some idea that there is some perfect path through the obstacles where no one will be upset. That is an absolute fantasy, absolutely not! There’s a bunch of tools, one I give clients all the time is just to narrate what’s happening for you. Like, that’s a very good way, not to go on the attack, but also to say the ugly, like you’re saying. Like, “When I heard you say that to your brother, I felt like I was going to start to cry. That hurts so much. It felt like such a betrayal to share that information, and I just need you to know how much that hurt me.” That will hurt to hear. He might be or she might be like, “But I did it, you misheard.” But then you just have to go past that. Then it’s like, “You are not responding to my feelings. You are being defensive, and you’re not responding to my feelings, and I want to share my experience with you.” Then very often, there can be an exhale, and there could be more hopefully of a coming together.
Then there’s all this, I think, self-help — which I totally love, I wrote a book on self-help — but there can be jargon, I think around responsibility, like you are responsible for your experience.
“Of course we’re responsible for how we act, we’re responsible for the lives that we create, and how we engage. But we can’t use that to shut ourselves down and not share what’s going on with ourselves.”
I think, to be relational, a word you used earlier, to be relational is to be vulnerable, and to have a life that we’re co-creating with this other person. Sometimes I think it can get a little too far about taking care of your own feelings all the time. Like, okay, but you’re allowed to share your feelings as well, and be seen in the way that we’re talking about.
Right. Well, let’s pivot towards some of what people are combating. Because as I mentioned, for myself, some of the messaging around what it means to be a woman, I know that seems so archaic. I mean, it still exists, and it was inside me, whether or not I like it or not, it was operating in me. I’m just curious what you’re finding. Even what you just mentioned ties really beautifully, with podcasts and books and people wanting to be more skillful, that that can also run the risk of damping down or diluting it so much that we’re actually not necessarily being difficult, in your language. So talk to us about what people typically have to work with here to overcome, or even become conscious about, or come back to and enter into a little bit more of this honesty and authenticity.
That’s great. I love the word diluting, because I was thinking of that before when talking about “I have said this to him.”
“Sometimes we’re so careful about saying it, it’s so, so diluted that it isn’t coming across at all. Then we feel like we’ve taken an emotional risk, we’ve made a bid, and it’s been rejected.”
So then we give up, and then this leads to all the problems we’ve been discussing.
Accommodating, being overly-accommodating, I think is something that I do think women are really encouraged to do, to be this kind of cool girl where nothing bothers you. I laugh with clients all the time about this myth. I’m 49. Well, actually I’m 48, I’ll be 49. It’s like, how old am I? I don’t how it was for you around. But I remember in college being said you were low-maintenance. Like, you didn’t want to be a high-maintenance girl, you wanted to be a low-maintenance girl. I totally bought into that as like, “I’m no trouble, I’m low-maintenance.” Now I’m appalled! It’s like, lawn can be low-maintenance, cars can be low-maintenance. People should not be low-maintenance. This idea of “want nothing, need nothing,” the idea that that is the feminine ideal is tragic. I hope that that is changing. I think we see a lot with younger generations feeling much more entitled to ask for what they want, and of course, every older generation complains about younger generations doing that. But I think it’s amazing and great, the sense of assertiveness, I think that often we’re seeing in younger women. But that said, when I sent in my manuscript, I heard from an editor and an agent, because the book is aimed at people around our age, but everyone was saying: “No, this is good for my daughter.” I thought: “Oh, no! Because your daughter is in her 20s, I thought that they were going to do better than we did.” But I think that it runs deep, this idea of making other people happy, and having to fix yourself in order to be sort of acceptable and presentable to the world. I think that these gender paradigms have deep, deep, deep roots.
It’s funny. So I have a son and a daughter, and my daughter is 13. Of course, she’s been raised in this household. We’re talking constantly about egalitarian gender roles, but also, the fluidity of gender roles and sexuality. Still, I find often, she really over-accommodates, in ways that my son does not do. It’s like, well, good for him. But I think, once again, somehow, it’s in the water. It’s very tough to root out. I do this work all day where I’m talking to women about “Say what needs to be said!” I work with couples all the time, where I see these beautiful relationships blossom once there’s a lot of honesty and a lot of being really open to the other person’s experience. Yet, I go home and struggle with it myself. So just to say to everybody, I mean, we’re all in it together. I’m a fellow traveler. This stuff, it’s deep, and it takes time. But we can make incremental steps and keep working on our own Be Difficult mantra.
Yeah. I realized, I would love to ask you more before we run out of time with you, what would you like to share? You gave some five marks in the beginning around what being difficult requires. But I also want to just give a little more room for what you’re encouraging. I know we’re not going to do it full justice, but any part that you want to share with us in this conversation that give people something to work with or implement or practice.
Sure. So kind of a starting point is to be clear, both on what your values are and your own sense of worthiness. The idea of being kind of same as, so that there’s not someone superior in the relationship and there’s not someone inferior. That we’re both flawed loving human beings, having a human experience, doing the best we can. That is not what is reflected to us very much in the culture. It can be very much this shame/grandiosity paradigm that we see reflected all the time in a lot of our relationships. So first off, is just to say, to work on, if that’s a core vulnerability, a sense of unlovability or unworthiness, to really start there. Of course, I’m a big proponent of therapy. But also, you can do journaling around this, you can challenge your thoughts when you’re noticing that mean part of you attacking you, you can just think about seeing yourself through the eyes of a friend who loves you and believes in you, and to try and challenge that voice that tells us that we aren’t a worthy person unless we’re over-accommodating and being perfect and paying our way all the time. That’s one piece.
Another is being pretty clear on what your values are, and this shifts over time. I have a values exercise actually on my website, TonyaLester.com, and there’s a whole section in the book about values. But understanding who you are really does go a long way to not letting your own values go to take on another person’s, which I think does lead to a real imbalance in the relationship, and leads often to someone waking up midlife and going: “These are not my values! This is not the life I want to be living, and I don’t like this at all.” So to have an idea of what those are, and to be sharing them with other people, and making sure that what you care about always has a seat at the table, is very, very important. That is the part I think of as sort of being seen. So you know who you are, you’re seen by yourself, and then you can be seen by other people.
Then, speaking honestly. I can narrate my experience, and I can own that. I can make requests, not demands. But I can make requests of other people and my partner. There are so many versions of this, but the one that I use all the time is like, “I notice, I imagine, I feel, I need.” So I notice is just what you see, the objective truth that would pass in a court of law. Like, this is actually what happened, everyone would agree on it. I imagine is the story that I’m telling myself about it, which is where all the juice is, of course. Because we’re constantly telling ourselves a story and projecting that on to other people, and they’re doing it with us, and this is just how our brains work. So we want to take responsibility for what we’re projecting and share it. So I imagine. I feel, of course, is what feeling comes up, and I need is your request. That can be a very safe structure for some of these hard conversations. That one person can say it and then the other person can, and you can just sit with it right there for a while; nothing needs to happen. There probably will need to be many conversations, as you said earlier. If it’s important, it’s probably going to evolve, and there will be many, many conversations, not one big one. So that is the honesty piece.
Then the final thing is to be courageous. Like, it takes courage to put pressure on the system this way, and we’re doing it because we believe in ourselves, we believe in our partner, and we believe in the possibility of a deepened relationship, and that we don’t want to settle for anything different than. So that’s how I think about the three parts of being difficult.
It’s interesting, as I hear you describe, this could keep someone busy to really enter into this in a real connected way to make this conscious. So even the first, as I heard, of looking at leveling the playing field. Yes, we all have unique talents and gifts and strengths. But when we’re talking about value of personhood, it reminds me of Terry Real, he’s really calling out a lot of the competitiveness, and maybe even patriarchal one-up/one-down, and how pervasive it is. So oftentimes, people will go to a social gathering, and it’s so habituated to size up. Like, who’s this, who’s got that, who’s this, based on societal value system of fitness or money or hair, all these things. Like you said, the air that we’re breathing and the water we’re drinking, it’s such a part. So to make conscious, and spend time to really look at how we value ourselves. I think that was the bigger picture you’re trying to really hold space for. That with the age of social media and comparison, how easily one might feel inadequate. That if we’re being held by a loving person, like a best friend, or someone who is so, so dear to us, how they would reflect our value or goodness and our strengths, and how important that is.
I also heard you talk about values. I remember David Bach, he wrote Smart Couples Finish Rich, and he talked about doing these workshops, and people are able to really be super-clear and conscious about the things they want. But he says, largely, our values don’t change over our lifetime. It’s something we’re pretty convicted around, but oftentimes aren’t super-connected to and aware of. So if we can make decisions and orient our life in service of those values, that we don’t get to a midlife and be like, “I want to throw this all out!”
Yeah, the money piece is interesting, and I have something to say about the worthiness piece as well. But you want to know what values you’re living, look at your bank account and your calendar. This is the evidence. These are our resources, our time and our money; our time is more valuable. If you say your kids are the most important, what does your calendar look like? Or if you say you’re trying to reach some goals, it’s like, check that out. Because there’s data, actually. That doesn’t have to be in our head, but there’s hard data to look at. So do identify the values and make sure that they’re reflected in the way that you’re living. I think there’s a lot of people who are like, “I don’t care about this big house, I want to travel. Or I don’t care about having things be really clean, I want three dogs.” It’s like, we have to know what those are before we can live them. So that is so important.
I’ve studied with Terry Real, and I love him, and I love his work, and so much of my thinking around shame and grandiosity is based on his work. So I feel like I should have shouted him out earlier, and so happy you brought him up. This idea I learned from Terry, and I love it, that if we have a scale, where grandiosity is at the top, and shame is at the bottom, nobody wants to feel shame; shame feels terrible. It actually feels pretty good to be grandiose, at least in the short-term. Until our partner calls us out on it, and then that feels terrible. But oftentimes, grandiosity is how we’re trying to get rid of the shame.
“People will bounce back and forth between shame and grandiosity, that’s a very hard personality to work with, because we need to land at this “same as” in order to be able to hear our partner. Like, humble enough to hear, and grounded enough to speak. So we really want to land at that middle ground.”
If you’re grandiose, it’ll be hard for you to hear. If you’re ashamed, it will be hard for you to speak. If we don’t have the worthiness piece, to connect it back around, then we’re always going to be looking for worthiness mirrored to us in others. Think of how people-pleasing we’ll have to be then. Think of how hard it will be to put pressure on the system then. If all of our worth is what is being reflected back to us, then we can’t speak up, because too risky.
Wow, thank you for so much knowledge you are dropping on us here! I love that teaching, thank you for making that so crystal clear. I’ll make sure to just help people have some access to some links, to help towards your work and your book, and I’ll also put Terry on there as well. I also heard you speak about this language and format to help have these honest conversations, that gives some structure to identifying this inner world that can often feel like it’s all colliding and we can’t tease it out. So to have some organization helps us start to deal with it, and I love that. Do you want to respond to that at all?
I think there’s safety in structure. So the “I notice, I imagine, I feel, I need,” I learned actually when I was trying to do group work, I’m not even exactly sure where that comes from. But Terry has the feedback loop, and there’s a lot of different structures that are useful. I think when you’re getting your sea legs with having these conversations, I think it can be useful, if you feel nervous to talk to your partner and say that you’re going to do this. You both can write it down ahead of time, if it feels overwhelming to say something on the fly, and you can read it. I think there’s so much safety in the structure.
Couples’ therapy, I think, benefits from the structure. Like, we know we’re going to go into this room and have hard conversations, and there’s a container, and we can brace ourselves a little bit, we know what’s going to happen. I suggest to people all the time that actually, whether they’re in therapy or not, you can create that space. You can sit down on a Sunday with your coffee and say: “Okay, we’re going to talk about hard things, and we’re going to do it in a gentle manner. But we’re going to really say the truth here.” Then we’ll do that for an hour and then we’ll leave, go about our day. In that way also, there’s not the pressure of saying everything immediately, which some people are like, mind doesn’t work that quickly and that feels so overwhelming to do. Or if they feel like because their partner is so lightning quick in an argument, that they feel overwhelmed. We can put structures in place that can address a lot of those fears that so many of us have.
Yes. That’s the thing I was feeling as you were talking, is the ability to slow down and have some regulation as we move through. There’s no reason to approach a hard conversation with this urgency that then often will get us into that dysregulation, or feel as though we’re moving so fast. That we can set it up with some of this, it gives us a little more ground.
Don’t blurt it out, or have it come out in a way that is terrible. Then you think: “Oh, no, how am I going to walk that back?” Or the whole conversation gets derailed because it came out in this way.
“It’s like, we can throw a hand grenade, and that will create an honest conversation. Or we can sit down with our coffee, and we can do it this other way.”
Exactly. So to your final point around putting pressure on the system, what I was hearing in that is, what you were referring to, that this has deep roots. As we evolve and grow and do our work, that we not only help raise our interactions with others, whether or not we’re parenting or in intimate relationship, or whomever we’re relating to, we’re actually bringing a vibration that’s evolving hopefully, probably in the way that we’re talking. Does that challenge the system? Talk to us a little bit about what’s this putting pressure on the system.
Yeah. So I’m a relationship therapist, and certainly, that’s my purview. But that said, think of what the world would be like if everybody did this in a responsible way. Think about what it would be like if no one saw anyone as one-up or one-down, that we were all collaborators, and that it was normal to call out injustice and unfair treatment, and that it was expected that people be treated as the worthy beings that we are. How seismic that would be, politically, internationally! Like, what that would be like, that everyone is worthy; deserving of help, deserving of love, deserving of finding their potential and their contribution to the world. So certainly, this is the world I want to live in.
I have a very, very busy practice. I have two kids. I have a full life, and I wanted to write this book. So one of my girlfriends was like, why are you going to take this on right now? The truth is, this is my contribution to the world that I want to see. That’s it. I think that the fabric of society is loving relationships, in whatever way that that looks. So if we are starting with that at home, and then the circle widens in our social circle, and then our work circle, and then how we look at other people and how we believe we deserve to be treated — same as, not better, not worse — and to get real about a lot of the kind of… I might’ve swore, but I’ll try not to. Well, a lot of the bullshit expectations that we have of both genders, and have a little bit more questioning of that. That’s the world that I want to live in, and to me, it starts with these relationships.
Yeah, me too. I’m like, yes, please! I mean, there’s so many times I’ve had some thought about, whether or not it’s couples’ therapy or family therapy, but that being a part of these bigger global conversations with deciding people making big decisions, with conflicts. I’m like, why don’t we have that, that would be so helpful.
Thank you so much, Tonya. This has been such a treat, and I so appreciate just your willingness to weave together so many things for us to think about, the impact, and then also give us real clear structure for us to work with and implement. How can people find your book, what would you like to share around that?
The book won’t be out until next year, so maybe I can come back. Then my website is TonyaLester.com. I just put a quiz up there that I hope people find valuable, about are you the good kind of difficult? So there’s that, and there’s tons of resources, and my blog is there. I also have a blog on Psychology Today. Lastly, I’ve been doing a tonne of videos on Instagram. So I’ve gotten over my fear of Instagram, and hopefully, I’m creating some valuable content on there. So that’s @TonyaLesterPsychotherapy.
Okay, great. Well, I’ll make sure to have these links on today’s show notes. Tonya, it sounds like if someone’s interested in being on your list, I imagine, they can take the quiz. Is the quiz giving somebody an assessment tool to work with where they’re falling on this being difficult scale?
Yeah, it is. So we have low-maintenance or impossible, which we don’t want to have. That’s the kind of grandiosity piece. So there’s the assessment, and then we’ll point you in the direction of some resources that I think might be helpful based on where you are.
Great. Then also, being in the loop around when your book is actually going live, and then being acquainted with what you have to offer in the blogs and the videos. I do appreciate your articulation and what you’re bringing to us. I’m sure people will be checking you out and connecting with you. Again, thank you for joining us.
Thank you so much for having me. This has been great. I really appreciate it! Take care.
Signing Off
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The definition of masculinity has been undergoing a significant change in recent years, with a growing realization that the traditional model of masculinity has been harmful and limiting for men.
In this episode, we delve into the uncharted territories of masculinity and the challenges men face in today’s society. Our guest, Trevor, shares his journey and the lessons he has learned along the way, including his latest project, “Behind the Masks of Men,” a three-month program aimed at helping men delve deeper into the topics of anger, relationships, sex, and desire.
Join us as we explore the false initiation of sexuality through porn and the importance of tackling these taboo topics for the betterment of not just men, but society as a whole.
Traver Boehm is the author of the books Today I Rise and Man UNcivilized. He’s a two time TEDx speaker, men’s coach, and the founder of the UNcivilized Men’s Movement. He’s helped men all over the world to become UNcivilized as they wake up to meditate, train their bodies, and blaze their own path by uniquely blending both the primal and the divine within them.
He is dedicated to doing his part to help end the suffering in men, and the suffering caused by men, by guiding them through their own journey into an actualized version of masculinity.
In this Episode
2:46 Traver Boehm’s personal journey of self-discovery and growth after a series of events in his life that led to a destabilization of his sense of identity and purpose.
12:12 A new paradigm of masculinity proposed amidst epidemic of pain in the male population.
18:23 Breaking down gender stereotypes: The negative impact of narrow masculine emotional expression.
20:17 Understanding masculinity in today’s society.
26:08 Exploring the importance of balancing masculine and emotional intelligence in relationships.
32:37 Integrating masculine and feminine: Moving beyond limiting identities.
38:26 The importance of integrity in relationships and life.
41:31 Understanding the pain of “nice guys” and practical solutions.
47:53 The power of embracing the primal and divine within.
53:46 Behind the masks of men: A three-month program to explore emotional and sexual issues.
Your Check List of Actions to Take
- Take action to process your old traumas because avoiding them will not make them disappear. Seek therapy or counseling, or engage in activities that help you confront and work through your traumas.
- Practice honesty with yourself by identifying and acknowledging your true feelings and beliefs. Reflect on areas in which you may be deceiving yourself, and work to correct these behaviors.
- Use the question, “What would you do if you woke up tomorrow and there were no more women?” as a tool to identify which aspects of your life you genuinely value and which are motivated by external factors such as impressing others.
- Seek out and build relationships with healthy, conscious men who can support you in understanding and meeting your needs on a deeper level.
- Make a conscious effort to acknowledge and honor the full range of emotions you experience, both positive and negative. Practice self-compassion and seek support when needed.
- Work to balance your strength and love in your relationships with others. Strive to exhibit strength and power without resorting to tyranny, and to express love and compassion without becoming a victim.
Mentioned
Behind the Masks of Men
Man UNcivilized (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
Today I Rise: How To Overcome The Gut-Wrenching Pain Of Your Breakup Or Divorce & Reclaim Your Life (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
Relationship Map To Happy, Lasting Love
*Connect wi*th Traver Boehm
Websites: manuncivilized.com
Podcast: The UNcivilized Podcast with Traver Boehm
Instagram: instagram.com/traverboehm/?hl=en
Connect with Dr. Jessica Higgins
Facebook: facebook.com/EmpoweredRelationship
Instagram: instagram.com/drjessicahiggins
Podcast: drjessicahiggins.com/podcasts/
Pinterest: pinterest.com/EmpowerRelation
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/drjessicahiggins
Twitter: @DrJessHiggins
Website: drjessicahiggins.com
Email: jessica@drjessicahiggins.com
About Today’s Show
Traver, thank you for joining us today.
Thank you so much for having me.
Yeah. As I mentioned, you come highly recommended. I’m always in favor of really supporting the conversation of men’s development, especially for people and men that are speaking into the transformational journey and have done a level of work themselves. I know that you are a testament to that and do a lot to teach. For people who maybe don’t know you, I’m sure we could talk the entire episode about what got you into this arena. But what would you like people to know about where you’re coming from, as you came into this?
Yeah, for sure. Jessica, one of the points I like to make early and often, especially when talking to men, then we’ll speak to everybody here. But speaking specifically to men is, my journey started through loss; my journey started through pain. So many men don’t get to a point of wanting to change, or willingness to change, or willingness to even open up to new ideas. Until, and I’ll raise my hand as like the classic example, till I woke up face down on rock bottom and went, “Oh, okay, this is new. My charmed life is now over. Something is happening to me. Something bigger than me is going on.”
So my story came of, I lived in Santa Barbara, California, as you know well, married to the woman of my dreams, first kid on the way, brilliant business that I didn’t have to work too hard, and very expressive life. And I lost it all in a very short period of time. My ex-wife had a miscarriage, which led to a divorce, which led to a business partnership divorce for a separate reason, as I said, in a very short period. That was wildly destabilizing, as it would be for anybody. It showed a mirror up to me. Then, as opposed to going, “Wow, all this stuff happened. I can’t believe it. Man, what bad luck!” I looked in the mirror and said, “There’s a central player in this story. I’m the central player. Okay, let’s take a look at all the things that I’ve never looked at before in my past. Let’s take a look at how I was an active participant in my life “falling apart.” Then how do I now reorganize myself? What did I not know that I need to know? What did I not do that I now need to do? What did I not have the understanding of or a comprehension of?” Because I was like your normal typical American guy.
Let me look at my patterns. Well, I drank a lot in my marriage. I smoked a lot of pot in my marriage. I looked at a lot of porn in my marriage. I over-exercised, I overworked. If you asked me at any point in my marriage, how are you doing, which my lovely ex-wife did, I would tell her straight up, I’d be honest, I’m fine. I’m clearly fine. We make money, I have a 7% body fat, I’m a really good deadlifter, I can write well, I’m educated. Like, what could be the problem here? You and I seem to have an issue, but that seems to be more your issue than mine. So as soon as you figure that stuff out, everything will be great. I hope people find the sarcasm and the gist of what I was just saying, because I wasn’t within a country mile of being okay. But no one had told me that, specifically as a man, what had happened to me in my past would be informative of my behavior and my future. No one had told me that if I don’t work on old traumas, old wounds, old, etc., they don’t go anywhere. I was your classic American dude, which is like, if I ignore this long enough, it has to go away. Okay, cool. Let’s get some really good coping mechanisms for ignoring things, and life’s just going to be dandy.
Not an unfamiliar narrative. I know you’re saying I feel as though I’m making fun of it a little bit with the sarcasm, however, this is a very common strategy and approach.
100%. I’ll even add that the day my ex-wife left, I quit drinking, I got into therapy, I gave up looking at porn, I gave up smoking pot. Something hit me that went, “Huh, you’re about to go through a process. You can ignore the process and end up right back here where we are a couple years from now, or we can actually go through the process.” What was such a curiosity, Jessica, was how many guys came into my life and said, “Hey man, let’s go out drinkin’! Hey, you know what you need to do? You need to get laid this weekend. Hey, let’s roll a joint and just forget this whole thing.” So it wasn’t only an uncommon narrative, the narrative was supported. People told me I was crazy when I quit drinking. People made fun of me for quitting drinking. People shamed me for quitting drinking. I wasn’t an alcoholic. It’s like, if you’re going to quit drinking, that means we all have to quit drinking. It’s like, I didn’t say that. I just actually made a personal choice. But please, keep projecting and carry on.
So I know this is a long-winded answer to a short question. But I started to have to ask two questions in that moment, or in that timeframe. One: who am I? Which is a big, lifelong, existential, spiritual question, which I don’t know if any of us ever get to the bottom of. But question two was: who am I as a man? That was the one that I went, “Okay, this is not going to be something that I navel gaze through. This is something I’m gonna have to have concrete answers for, and be able to put pieces in place for. So that when I do rebuild my life, that is the foundation upon which I build it on.” This is who I am as a man.
It sounds as though that’s not only an inner, like you’re saying, navel gazing, it’s so funny. But it’s an outward expression around the pieces of a structure that I’m scaffolding for who am I as a person and who am I as a man.
Yes, absolutely. Masculinity is a curious thing, there’s doing involved in it. There’s a lot of doing. Real men X, we say this a lot in culture. Real men Y, real men ABC, etc. If you don’t do this, you’re not a real man. It has to be earned. I remember the first time I heard Esther Perel on a stage, say “There’s no word for women for emasculate. There’s also no word for loser.” Yes, there’s words for women that don’t exist for us, for men. But I remember when she said that, one, I got chills. I secondly went, there’s something about this masculinity thing, this being a man thing, that has some doing in it. That if we don’t do, we feel off-track, or something doesn’t feel right.
So then I dove headfirst into study. I went and read a book called To Be a Man by Robert Masters, on a flight. Then look the guy up and was like, “Oh, he’s coming to Santa Barbara to do a workshop, of all places.” I went to this workshop, Jessica. So what I’m thinking is, lecture hall, take a bunch of notes. I show up to a yurt on a property in Santa Barbara. There’s six other guys. It’s a five-day ordeal, and within an hour, someone’s on the ground screaming, crying, punching a pillow, and I have my eyes on the exit as fast as I can possibly get there. I didn’t run out of the room. I think I duct-taped myself emotionally to the chair. It was like, you will sit through this! But by the end of it, I was heartbroken at the time, but felt like I had gone 40 years of my life not knowing I had a right arm. I walked out of that workshop going, “Oh my God, there’s this whole part of me that’s undiscovered, unexplored, and unexpressed. Now I have to learn how to use this thing, because it’s clumsy. I’m really good with my left hand, I built a whole life with my left hand. But it’s not the one, now I need to have some unity.”
So the challenge was, as I said, it was clumsy. So I walked around and smashed some shit with it unfortunately, and bobbled some things, or didn’t know how to use it skillfully. So therefore, went on a whole journey of study, of teachers, of workshops, and books, of self-exploration, of contemplation, of examination, and came to the idea very quickly that no one had taught me how to be the thing that I am. That was a giant gap in my life. Then I got out into the world and wrote a book called Today I Rise, on divorce and heartbreak and how you use it.
And this curious thing happened. Men reached out to me, in droves. My entire professional life had been mostly women. I ran a gym. I was an acupuncturist. Women were seeking me out professionally. Now I’ve got a dude emailing me, like, “Hey, man, I read your book. I think I want to quit drinking too, but my buddies are telling me that I’m kind of a wuss for doing this. Do you have any advice?” Now I’m in an interesting stage of my life at this point. I’ve sold my business. I’m divorced. I’m living in, God bless him, a buddy’s house in the Hamptons, where I don’t have to pay rent, and I have a paycheck coming in for the next year. So every single time a guy emailed me, which was multiple times a week, I went “Hey, do you mind if we get on the phone?” I’d get the curious, like, are you sure? I was like, yeah, let’s get on the phone. So for the course of a year, I probably talked to 250 men, and got their stories and got these patterns, and started listening and hearing. And going, “Oh, you know what, I don’t think you have a relationship issue, I think you have an integrity issue. I don’t think you’re drinking too much because you’re an alcoholic. You don’t know what to do. You don’t have a vision. You don’t have a purpose. You don’t know what to do with yourself.”
The space to even occupy and be connected in this deeper way that I’m sensing you’re referring to.
Yeah. What was so interesting was how much hurt, pain, trauma, little t trauma and big T trauma, I listened to, and I’d say, “Hey, have you worked through that? Like, I’m not a psychologist, or a psychiatrist. Have you ever talked to a professional?” They were like, “No, it wasn’t a big deal.” I’m like, “Hey, man, you watched your dad beat the shit out of your mom on a weekly basis, and then beat the shit out of you. Or you were raped by your neighbor.” Or something horrible, things that I know I’d be a heroin addict over. They’re like, “No, but it was 30 years ago.”
Okay, there’s something going on here in the world. There’s an epidemic of pain in the male animal that we’re not talking about, we’re not addressing, we’re not even acknowledging exists. We’re actually shaming it. We’re saying, “You need to man up. You need to get through this. You need to buck up. You need to cowboy!” Whatever we want to say it. As opposed to saying, “Oh my God, come with me. Let me hold you. Let me hear you. Let me see that. Let me carry some of that burden with you.” So that’s how I ended up here emotionally.
One day, I had an idea for a different paradigm of masculinity, which is a whole nother story, which I won’t put your listeners through. But essentially, I came upstairs from a gym and threw an idea on Instagram that said, “Hey, what if masculinity had like spectrum, from the primal all the way through the divine, and it was inclusive of both as opposed to one or the other? Just an idea, like, hey, what do you guys think?” Well, post, and I go back for the rest of my life. Then boom, everything blew up! Emails and DMs. “Hey, will you come speak? Hey, can I hire you? Hey, will you write this stuff down?” I went, okay, I may be onto something here. I tried to run from it and hide from it because it was too big and too scary and I didn’t want to take it on. After about 24 hours in bed, praying to God to give me another talent, I decided to run with it. So again, long answer to a short question, that’s how I got here.
Well, there’s so much, and I know that you’ve been giving us the abbreviated version. So I think that as people are listening and resonating, perhaps, will definitely seek out either one of your books or even what you have to offer to learn more. I can even just feel, and we’re looking at each other via Zoom, and I can feel the meaning in this. This was many years ago, and yet there’s still a living into this that I can palpably experience through Zoom, but through your facial expressions and your tone of voice. So I appreciate you embodying that.
I also hear you speaking to a collective, that you’ve referred to the uncivilized movement, and I want to turn to that in a moment. But as we look at evolution and development, and we look at masculinity, and you’re referring to some ways in which we’ve labelled, judged, shamed, and put men or even young boys into certain boxes. Even as you talk about the spectrum of a human experience, and then also referencing the primal and the divine, and I want people to hear what you mean about that. But it’s allowing for a fuller spectrum. I’ve even heard the term “gender abuse” as it relates to masculine. Like, anger is okay. The range of emotions. Like, really, it’s pretty narrow.
Angry and horny, this is what you guys have to work with. That makes a great combination, by the way. Sad? No, no, no sadness. No, don’t get there.
Oh, my Goodness, and that it’s actually abusive to have such a restricted narrow. Because not only is it in the external collective at large, and how we’re perpetuating, but it’s also highly internalized. So as you talk about these coping mechanisms to function, but with such limitation, it’s a lot to ask somebody to live in such limited zone and restricted, and cut off parts of themselves. To be living this fully authentic, integrative, embodied balanced way, I don’t know how that works.
It’s a conundrum. We are confused societally of what we want from men, and so we give a lot of mixed messages. I’m not going to say that we don’t do the same with women, but I’ll speak specifically to men. That we say like, “Hey, you need to feel everything. Oh, by the way, if you act this way, it’s toxic. Oh, by the way, but we’re going to ask you to act this way.” I remember, I think the APA came out with something around some guidelines on what was toxic masculinity a couple years ago. It was stoicism, leadership, risk-taking, and compartmentalizing. I went, okay, cool. Then a week later, California caught on fire. I remember thinking how many men are going to fight these fires, who have leadership, stoicism, compartmentalism, all the things. What I didn’t see was a parade of protesters on the way to the fire, saying, “Turn around with your toxic masculinity.” Like, no signs and asking of these men. So we’re confused, we don’t know what to ask of men.
I think the challenge is we haven’t gotten to the “Yes AND”, which is, “Hey, we need you to be able to compartmentalize, we need you to be able to shut your feelings down, because we’re going to ask you to go kill and die.” But here’s what we’re going to do, here’s the And. When you come back from doing something like that, we’re going to hold you, and we’re actually going to ask you to step into your feelings. We’re going to ask you to release them. We’re going to give you a space to do that. Because we’re not just going to ask one thing of you but then not take care of you on the backend.
So again, there’s this confusion about real men Y; real men cry, real men don’t cry. Like, bullshit! I’m like, is it one tear, what’s going on here? We want more vulnerable men; we need more vulnerable men. We hear this and hear this and hear this. I remember asking a group of women this question, I was like, you guys want more vulnerable men? Every hand goes up. I said, cool. Okay, imagine dating a guy and he cries twice a year, he breaks down and has this beautiful display of emotions and shares his feelings and his fears with you. They’re like, “Oh my God, that’s so beautiful.” I was like, cool. Now imagine he does it once a month, how many of you want that? It was like, nah, a couple of hands didn’t go up. I was like, how about once a week? Nah. I said, how about twice a day, you’re going to be okay with this? It was like, no, he needs to be a man.
“So we don’t really want more vulnerable men. We want this kind of Disneyesque “vulnerable when we want it, but not vulnerable when we don’t” type of human, which is confusing as hell to our masculine linear brains.”
It’s like, “Well, is it 63.2% vulnerable? Is that good? Or 63.4%? Show me on the chart, where am I supposed to be?” So we say some of this in jest, but when I talk to men or talk to men in relationship, I feel like I’m pulled in every different direction.
No kidding! Also, you’re talking about how this manifests in intimate relationship, which I love. Because that’s what really, here on the show, we focus on, in the Empowered Relationship Podcast. So there’s probably so many dynamics, which I would love to keep. I know we don’t have time to fully delve into that, but I just appreciate you bringing that up. Also, you talk about the types, historically. The Marlboro, which is disconnected to one’s emotion for the sake of what was needed at the time. It was a wise, most smartest way of being, given the culture and the terms of that. I would love to hear your voice around that. Then also, you talk about the nice guy. It even can be, a lot of times in development, there’s like a pendulum swing. So part of what I feel like you’re bringing into conversation is, how is this more integrated, and can we make space for the primal? I want to quote you, but I want hear your voice on the different types up until now. Because I think a lot of men in the nice guy perhaps are rejecting and pushing away the Marlboro Man, because they don’t want to hurt anybody. Or maybe they even fear their own primal-ness, because they don’t want to be toxic men. So talk to us a little bit about that.
There’s a lot to it. So let’s talk first about the 1950s Marlboro Man. That was many of our fathers or many of our grandfathers. I think one of the challenges is that we look at these men through 2023 eyes, as opposed to, my grandfather was in the third wave of storming the beach at Normandy, as a 19-year-old. I remember at 16 thinking 19-year-olds were grown-ass adults. As a 47-year-old, I look at a 19-year-old and go, “Oh wow, you are a child, no offense to 19-year-olds!” A mile off of the beach, they didn’t stop all the boats and say, “Okay, John, how are you feeling? You’re sad and scared. Okay, John, you don’t have to do this. Stuart, how are you? Oh wow, you’re a little bit terrified. Okay, well, you don’t have to do this either.” There was this requirement of men, which when I go back to the fire story is still in play; we still require men to do our killing and dying for us for the most part. If you look at the top 10 jobs that have the highest death rate, they’re all male-dominated. We still ask of this. We still expect this. So it’s still in the culture. But it was more prevalent back then, and for different reasons.
Now, then the pendulum swung the other way, to how many of us grew up with that man as our figure and went “I will not be him. I will not be an alcoholic. I will not be screaming at my mother. I will not be toxic. I will not be abusive. I will not be shut down.” But what we don’t realize is how traumatized that 1950s Man is. This is the way I like to say it. We throw the masculine baby out with the toxic bathwater. So instead of saying, “Hey, I don’t want to be like my dad, my grandfather, my uncle, these men that I see on television,” I’m just going to collapse. I’m going to go the completely other direction and turn myself into something that actually doesn’t fit who I am.
Accommodating, pleasing.
Completely shapeshifting. I have no needs, I have no wants, I have no desires. Tell me who you want me to be, and I’ll be it for you. Just please don’t leave me, because I’m sourcing my okay-ness in the world from you the feminine. I’ve turned you into my mommy. So please, let me snuggle up with you, let me cuddle with you at night. Just don’t call me a bad boy, which is very infantile. This was me in my marriage, so I can speak to it directly. If we sent her back to the two pillars of what I talk about with uncivilized, it is both the primal and the divine, where so many men have been put in the middle and said, “Okay, you’ve got to go left, you’ve got to go right, which is it? 1950s, or sensitive New Age shutdown nice guy. What do you want to do here?” A lot of guys do choose that, and society does ask us to choose that. So my inbox and email blew up on that day when I posted on Instagram because they said, what if we meet in the middle?
What if we actually say, there are parts of me that are very traditionally masculine? I like to deadlift. I’m just using archetypal things. I like 1967 Mustangs. I like to shoot guns. I was a professional fighter. I like man shit. I like to chop wood. I like to lead. I have a vision. I have a purpose in my life. I know why I’m here. I want to adventure. I want to put myself in some scary situations to remind myself I’m alive. I love jujitsu. I like to have sex with my partner in a certain way. I have primal aspects to me. I love the quote that civilization is only three days deep. You take a guy and you put them in the woods for three days, and suddenly, he doesn’t really give a shit about his cell phone. He doesn’t care about a lot of the things; he’s just fully engrossed in nature. That’s the primal.
Now let’s swing over to the divine, which is a loaded term. I know a lot of people think, White male Jesus. But I’m talking about consciousness here. That man on the left, the primal man, is incomplete in this day and age, especially if he wants to be in relationship. I don’t just deadlift and chop wood and my partner’s like, “Oh my God, thank you so much for all that you bring to me and support me in.” I need to have emotional intelligence. I need to be able to feel my damn heart.
Well, it’s incomplete, and it’s partial. It’s painful and not fully embodied for the person living it or the person in relationship.
Exactly, it’s like you’re living in black and white.
“Emotions are the color of our experience. When we hear a song and we start crying. When we smell a smell and we have feelings. If we’re cut off from that, we just turn into robots.”
So awakening that in men also requires giving them permission, and holding space for it, and an allowance of male emotion beyond angry and horny, which requires all of us. But first, that permission has to come from that man to work through the patterning and conditioning that said, “We will actually assault you if you cry. We will beat you. We will shun you. We will kick you out of the friend group.” Whatever happened to us in junior high, or below or even younger, from our parents, from our mothers, from our fathers that said, “Hey, you’re going to grow up to be a man someday, you’ve got to shut that shit down.” Awakening that allows for the full spectrum of experience, allows for men to feel.
Then we have to say, when you feel, guys, here’s what’s going to be hard. It’s going to make you change some things, you’re suddenly going to start challenging what you’ve been told. You’re going to stand up in your relationship and say, “Actually, that’s not okay with me,” which may cause friction in your relationship. Or you may say, “Hey, I love that, I want more of it,” which then you have to tap into self-worth, like, am I allowed to want more of something good? Yes, you are. So it’s opening up, as we’ve said many times, for the full spectrum of the human experience cloaked in a masculine banner or under a masculine umbrella.
Infused with the masculine-ness.
There you go. So I often get guys that are shut down in one area, pretty clear. They’re shut down in the primal. Had an abusive father, they think masculinity is scary, they’ve been told their desires aren’t allowed. Or they’re completely the other side, and they’re collapsed. They have no sense of masculinity; they think it’s bad to be a man. They truly do, they’ve been shamed out of that. So we go: “Cool, let’s wake up both of these sides. So let’s wake up the side that’s not awake.” Beautiful!
“Here’s what most guys do, and I know this because I did it. They ping pong back and forth between the two. Mondays: I deadlift, Tuesdays: I write poetry. Which, it’s okay, but it makes for a bit of a confusing life as well.”
As opposed to, how do we integrate the two of these? How do you make art out of your exercise? How do you make exercise out of your art? How do you make art out of your relationship? How do you make your relationship primal? How do you make your relationship a connection to God, whatever that word means to you? How do you turn sex into something beyond friction, and into something that’s enlightening and connecting and deepening? How do you allow for your partner to weep and cry and sob in the middle of an experience like that? How do you learn to hold exquisite space? You do that by actually allowing yourself to be human, no matter what your anatomical makeup is. That, I think, is the big hurdle right now, Jessica. That’s the challenge. Because when men step into this, they immediately get smacked in the face with all of the societal conditioning that says: “Whoa, slow down. Wait a minute. We need you buying shit. We need you chasing women. We need you on pharmaceuticals. We need you working 20 hours a day. And we need you being a man. So unplug from this new idea that says you have autonomy and sovereignty, even though we want you to have autonomy and sovereignty, and plug back into our collective unconsciousness.”
Wow, I appreciate you giving voice to these two parts that just lived into, on their own, are incomplete and limiting and probably harmful to themselves. Not harmful, but potentially, and can be a limiting experience, which often for men is unsatisfying, or for anyone, unsatisfying and unfulfilling. You’re really bringing into how to hold both and even live into it in integration. Even when you were talking, I was like: Oh my gosh, when I was young, I dated. I was with him for like two and a half years, and he played college football, and very much was in the physical part of that very masculine, but also wrote poetry and majored in English. But his dad was LAPD, full line, whole career. There’s a stereotype to that, and I think that stereotype existed. But he raged all the time. I mean, I felt his heart and I felt his love. But living into it, and really relating from this integration and being able to hold both, we broke up and then since had some healing conversations. He has just developed, he’s not stupid and not fazed. But we need this voice; we need other people that are modeling this. Because even if people listening who identify as a man and can recognize these parts of themselves, and maybe do things in their life that give expression, you’re talking about something very different than just tapping into it. You’re talking about living from a different stage.
Yeah, living into a different paradigm, one that is inclusive of both sides. Prior to my marriage, I was a professional MMA fighter and an acupuncture student at the same time. So my life was wild; my morning was hyper-masculine! Guys on steroids, gangbangers, people who were doing this sport so they didn’t go to prison. This was 20 years ago before it became lucrative. It was just like, fighters off the street would gather, and then at night, going and sitting with primarily women talking about soft energetic medicine. Then I felt a little bit insane. It wasn’t until I said, there needs to be an integration here. It’s the Yin Yang circle. I want the little bit of the black dot and the white piece; I want a little bit of the white dot and the black piece.
I know we’ve talked about relationship. I find this to be far more trustworthy in a man. My partner needs to know that there’s a primal aspect to me, because she can feel it. This is the thing that we do, just don’t get. I’m fine, is like, “Oh no, you’re not. I can feel every part of you that’s out of alignment, every part of you that’s out of integrity, every part of you that’s full of shit, when you just said I’m fine.”
“I have to be primal, and I have to be conscious. I have to live both of these two. Here’s the beauty, they feed and require each other.”
I really want to go down the road of “Okay, this thing happened to me when I was eight, and I now need to process this and work through it.” Guess what, guys? That’s going to take some courage, that’s going to take some warrior energy, that’s going to take some balls, and it’s going to take your heart being able to hold you. Not just your partner, but hold you through that process, where afterwards you get to go look in the mirror and say, “I love you so much for working through that with me.” I don’t want to speak crassly, but honestly, that’s fucking courage! It takes every ounce of strength that you tried to develop in the gym, it requires that. So these things aren’t lost. You don’t just put one to the side and then shift over to the other. They actually do feed each other.
I’m still stumbling through the articulation of that with men, because it’s the felt sense thing for me now. It’s like, well, how do you talk about feelings? Oh boy, you stutter through them!
Well, as I’m hearing you speak, and I get it that these things are not easily named, because it is such an energy, embodiment, a feeling. It’s like one listening, or even myself when I can recognize places where either I was unconscious, had trauma, or lived in ways that I pushed it aside, made it not welcome, not okay, or cut myself off from it, and then when I have some awakening. I can feel the dissonance, I can feel the fragment of that in myself. Then when I learned to see it, hold it, learn to be with it, learn to start having it be more with me and a part of me. Then the openness, the spaciousness, the access that I have, is so much more whole. I feel like I can stretch my arms out, and I don’t have to be all twisted up and making all these Twister moves. So it is hard to describe. But it’s a real feeling that I think people listening know what it feels like, to lie, to hide, to deny, to repress. To have certain parts of myself, or certain parts of ourselves that are trying to get attention or knock on the door and we say: No, no, no, no, no. Yet, the side effects of that which you talked about in the start of your story.
I wanted to quote you because I just feel like it was so beautiful, in your Uncivilized Man. What’s the title again?
Man UNcivilized.
Man UNcivilized, I will get it. That you had talked about “strength without love is tyranny, and love without strength is victimhood.” That resonated so strongly. That when we live in these fragmented parts of ourselves, it can be imbalanced and unhealthy and lead to harm to ourself and other. I’m not saying in really traumatic ways, we have choice, of course. But just even living, I can speak to myself when I have cut certain parts off or been coping to certain traumas, there’s harm in that.
For sure. It’s mild self-abuse to say, I won’t be who I am for the sake of society. I’m not talking about like, I don’t get to be a serial killer, and that’s what I’ve always wanted to be since I was a kid. It’s not anything dangerous. But just to say, “Hey, I am a poet, I am a writer. I need to write for the world. I need to give my gift, even if it’s just on napkins to myself.” But to deny myself that for external reasons, to me, it’s self-harm. It may be mild, but it’s really easy to be out of integrity with your partner if you’re out of integrity with yourself.
“It’s really easy to lie to your partner if you’re lying to yourself. When you make the decision and the choice to be in integrity with yourself, with your heart and with your soul, then it’s very easy. It’s simple, let’s say, perhaps not easy.”
But it’s more simple to say to a partner, “Hey, this doesn’t work for me. This no longer works for me.” To say to a boss, “Hey, I’m actually not going to be treated that way. Yes, there’s downstream effects of choice. We live in ecosystems. But at night, when you put your hand on your heart and your head on the pillow, you will feel good; you will feel different, you will feel peace, you will feel the beauty that is integrity. It’s like, “Hey, I know why I’m here, and I’m living into that.
Yeah. Traver, I’m smiling because I also have felt your voice around how healing that is, not only for oneself. To be living in that integrity, and to be able to have that clear conscience, and to feel right with oneself. But also, how healing it is to be witness to that, whether or not it’s a spouse or a child, whomever is in relationship, in the workforce, or being in leadership with. It’s healing!
It’s a big word, but people don’t seem to understand it. I didn’t understand until someone said, like, I get you. I burst out crying and sobbing, I was like, “Oh, finally, someone understands me!” I see you. Oh, I felt invisible my entire life, thank you so much. Now let me celebrate you.
Oh, I have tears in my eyes just feeling it! Because it’s so powerful to be in presence with someone who is honoring their essence, and in your language, the primal, but also is honoring the emotion and the full spectrum of emotion, and the purpose. I mean, it’s quite powerful for any human being to be living in that way, but when we give permission and model for the development of the masculine. I’ll say, when I was listening to your book, it was like, my masculine parts were resonating with you. I don’t identify as a man, but I could definitely appreciate the voice and what you were offering in the scaffolding around that.
Is there anything you want to say for people listening that can put this into practical? I mean, this journey is, I imagine, maybe years. So just even practical, like, what does this look like? Because we’re saying it’s not easy to describe, and that the process of integrating likely is a learning curve, and will take a lot of iteration. Just like you said, getting in the learning curve, fumbling around a little bit, and starting to feel this out. What does this look like when somebody starts to have? Is there any practical example you want to give us? One thing I will say, to just start this off, and I know we don’t have a ton of time with you, but the one that maybe resonates a little bit more with the nice guy. You were like, ask for something every day. Most of the time, someone who’s in that nice guy kind of persona, tends to not either give themselves permission to know what they want, and then even to ask for it. Do you want to speak to that at all?
Yeah, I’d love to! I love talking to nice guys. I have a huge community of those guys who I work with. It’s like, that’s my heart, because that was my pain. That was the pain that I lived through. I think it’s very apropos or very necessary to speak to that demographic and say that you guys are in pain. Like, your heart is in the right place. I really want to be in relationship. Those guys have so much love to give. Yet, the avenue that they’ve chosen to go down is a dead end street, so then they start down the same street again and again and again.
Here’s a great exercise that I give these guys, and I want to say this probably eight times before I give the exercise. I’m not advocating for there to be no women on earth. So here’s the exercise. I will say to guys, what would you do if you woke up tomorrow and there were no more women? Now I will then get 15 emails or DMs, dude, why don’t you want there to be women on earth? It’s like, I said eight times in the disclaimer, I don’t want this. But what would you do with yourself? Would you still go to the gym in the same way? Would you still have your same job? Would you live in your city? What would you do with your free time? It’s a bit of a mind scramble for so many men to start to think: “Oh, I actually just do this to be around women. I actually just do this to extract nurturance from the feminine. I don’t actually know what I want.” I’ll tell you, I would keep surfing as often as possible. I would still do jujitsu. I would still write my ass off as often as possible. I would still hike mountains. I would still do a lot of the things that I do. But 10 years ago, the answer to the question would have been like, I probably wouldn’t do any of the things that I’m doing. Because I’m covertly doing them to put myself around women, to get the affirmation of women, to get the sexual whatever I want from women, whatever it may be.
So I tell men specifically, I want you to know what your needs are as a man. If it’s the nice guy community, instantly, it’s like, “Well, I don’t really think that way. I just have needs as a human.” Cool, I have needs as a human too. I need a roof over my head, food, water, shelter, a little bit heat, love. Good. Now, here’s what I need as a man. I need challenge. I go to jujitsu every day, because it’s a test. I need friction. I need to know how do I match up against this guy in front of me or person in front of me, I need that. I need to write with a certain frequency and with a certain intensity. I need to have sex in a certain capacity and with a certain intensity. I need actually to have contemplative time. I need to go sit under a damn tree and go “Man, this whole thing is really confusing! There’s a lot out here I need to feel.” I need to meditate. Like, that’s my Man playbook, just for me personally.
So when I got in relationship, I handed that playbook to Katie, my partner. I was like, “Here’s the deal, this stuff won’t change. I would love to be influenced in certain ways by you, and then have you add and color my life in all the ways I don’t already have. But like, jujitsu, surfing, writing, adult time let’s call it, that stuff is not changing.” So if I don’t do these things, here’s what I know from my history. I need to start drinking again. I need to start smoking pot. I’ll be jerking off on the internet. I will be shut down, depressed, anxious, etc. I won’t be sleeping at night. Like, I know what happens when those things aren’t in play. Now, it’s my responsibility as a human, man or otherwise, to say, I have to orient my life in a way that allows for those things in the best capacity. I get that it’s a privilege to say, “Well, I need 18 different things today, and if I don’t get that, I’m going to be an addict.” It’s not quite like that.
Just being in service of what you’ve gotten connected with and know your optimal zone of where you thrive and where your purpose is. I love that you’re exercising. I’ve used something similar, but I describe it differently. It’s almost as if pushing away other people’s opinion or what they want from you, just to give enough space. You can always come back to, how does that fit with that person, or how does that fit with that? Like, just even get to know where you are and what you’re occupying, what matters to you, what you would prefer? These types of things.
What does your soul want? That’s another important question for men. Like, if we take certain things off the table, and I get it, we have to make money. We live in a culture where I don’t just get to go to my landlord this month and be like, “Well, my soul really wanted freedom, so thanks.” But my soul is also like, “Hey, if you just live a life to pay rent, I’ll burn the damn house down for you and let you go live in the woods for a couple of weeks and figure out what’s really important.” So I think addressing both, Jessica, is something that nice guys specifically, nice guys are afraid of the primal; they’re afraid of masculinity, they’re afraid of other men. That is the number one thing I immediately do with a group of nice guys. Hey, we need to get you around healthy conscious men, who aren’t your competition, who aren’t going to beat you up, who aren’t going to put you down. Because then you actually will be okay and safe around a group of women, because you’re getting your nourishment; you’re getting your needs met at a deeper level.
*“Hanging out with a group of guys, that’s like organic salad from Whole Foods, so you’re not over here trying to pluck everything that you can get off the fruit of the feminine.”*
So that’s another big piece for those guys.
You’re being the brother’s keeper as you were talking about it, and having that brotherhood. I appreciate this so much. I have a question that relates to this before we close out here, that fits with this. The question is, when I was listening to your book, there’s a certain style in which you’re referring to and speaking about, and I think many men would resonate, and it’s a little bit more around how you describe like the man shit. It’s very much expressed.
I also know that what you’re describing, and the primal and the divine and the integration, perhaps doesn’t need to look exactly like that to be primal. Could you speak to other versions that you’ve seen, where men are embodying the primal that might not look like the jujitsu fighter or the guns or that? Just to give people some reference around accessing that in maybe other ways?
Sure. One of my best friends, a guy named Dr. Jeremy Goldberg, @LongDistanceLoveBombs on Instagram. The way he writes poetry, it’s fierce. I’m like, dude, that was epic! Like, that makes me want to go fight a city. But he’s a poet. I remember when I met him, he had long hair, he painted his fingernails. I was like, the way you write, the way I’ve seen men dance. It can be any expression to me, we don’t have to take the classic. I’m old school classic, sort of hyper-masculine world. But I’ve seen anything you can think of; the way people make art, spoken word, poetry. That is fierce! That’ll light a fire in your ass. It’ll punch you right in the heart. Literally, watching men paint, watching men play music, make music, or it doesn’t even have to be men, there’s a fierceness to it. I don’t care what the activity is.
Jujitsu can also be soft and beautiful and lovely. Not often, but it can be. So can deadlifting, so can “chopping wood.” Just the same way that dance singing, art, beauty, anything that’s got oomph to it, to me is the primal. Or go hang out in the woods, you can just sit under a tree and you’ll realize. Anything that drops you into your instinct. Get you out of your head, even out of your heart, into your guts. That to me is the primal. I don’t care what the expression is, or what you’re wearing, or how long your hair is, or if your nails are painted. Like, that’s the window dressing, that’s irrelevant to me. What’s the feeling? Does it make you feel alive? Does it light something up in you? Surfing is a prime example. It’s both. It’s truly, truly both. I have wept in the ocean, sitting out there waiting for a wave, just at how beautiful it is. I’ve also had mama ocean try to drown me, and I’ve had to fight with every ounce of my physical being to get air and go: Okay, this is the perfect blend of the primal and divine. People stare at the ocean and cry. People go sit by the ocean and watch the sunset, and feel connected to something bigger. Anyone who’s paddled into a set of a wave that’s over five feet knows. Okey dokey then, she needed to whoop my ass today.
Power and humility, yes.
Does that answer your question?
I’m so glad. I felt that, and I just wasn’t sure. I wanted to check it out with you, and I appreciate that you’re giving room and space for any expression.
So, Traver, how do people access your teachings, what you’re offering? What would you like to share with people that want to connect with you more?
Beautiful. I’m going to first talk about something we have coming out, which I’ve been planning for about a year and a half. It’s a three-month programme called Behind the Masks of Men. This is partnered with Dewey Freeman, if you know him. He’s a brilliant seven-year-old therapist, who has probably trained more therapists than any other man in the world. And Michael Gay, who’s another therapist who did years and years of wilderness therapy. They’re my co-teachers in the workshop, The Initiation. After The Initiation, one time, we sat down and went, we need to go deep into a couple of different topics. We need to go deep into anger. We need to go deep into relationship, because men and relationships are still sometimes foreign objects. And we need to talk about sex and desire. Let’s talk about all the things that we’re not talking about in those three sections. So we’re taking a month for each section. I’ll say the relationship and attachment one, the middle one is co-ed, so women are welcome to join us for that one. But anger, we’re getting a roomful of guys together and being like, let’s talk about it. Sex and desire, there’s a lot more than friction, fellas! There’s stuff that most guys aren’t talking about even the basics.
I hit on something this morning that I’d love to share around that, just because I hit it off this morning, is how many men have had the false initiation into sexuality through porn? The false initiation. It’s like, no wonder why they get around a real woman and are like, “Ah, wait, you’re not, but what about the plumber just came over and then she was, etc.”
So please check that out. It’s at ManUNcivilized.com/BehindTheMasks. That program we’re hoping is going to blow up. I’m on Instagram @TraverBoehm. I have a podcast, The Uncivilized Podcast. My two books are, Today I Rise, which you know what’s crazy Jessica? That thing sat on Amazon. That was like, you know when you have a big brother and a little brother, and the big brother is like: “Wow, you’re the football star.” And the little brother, everyone is like: “Oh, look at you, you’re adorable.” Then five years later, he’s like 6’8″, 240, and he’s crushing his big brother’s records. Today I Rise sat for about two years and sold 50 copies, now it is outselling Man UNcivilized three to one. I have a team of marketers behind Man UNcivilized, and I have a podcast that sells Man UNcivilized. So unfortunately, I think heartbreak is perhaps on the rise, or people are realizing there’s something they can do with it. So, for everybody listening, please get your hands on Man UNcivilized. You can get a hold of a physical copy. It is a force! It was designed by a genius who is not me, and is an easy read for both men and women.
Absolutely, I’ll make sure to have all of these links on today’s show notes. Traver, thank you so much for sharing your time with us.
It was a pleasure!
Signing Off
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In relationships, it’s not uncommon to experience difficulties and obstacles that can strain even the strongest of bonds. However, with the right tools and approach, it’s possible to not only heal from past hurts but also continue to grow and develop as individuals and as a couple.
In this episode, renowned relationship expert Gary De Rodriguez shares his insights and wisdom on how to achieve healing and development while in a relationship. From taking ownership of our thoughts and emotions to speaking with kindness and drawing appropriate boundaries, Gary provides actionable steps and practical advice to help individuals and couples navigate the ups and downs of relationships with ease.
Gary De Rodriguez known as the People Mechanic is an internationally acclaimed expert in the science of human excellence with over a 35-year career in designing and integrating influential models of psychology-based systems of success in leadership, human behavior, relationships, communication, team dynamics.
He is the CEO of Peopleistic LLC USA, Associate Professor at the Business Education Institute, Master Trainer in Humanistic Neuro-Linguistic Psychology, a licensed Executive Coach, and Published Author on the topic of Humanistic Business.
In this Episode
6:17 An overview of Gary de Rodriguez’s 35-year career in human excellence.
14:28 The importance of relationships and the role they play in personal growth and evolution.
20:24 Exploring the concept of psychological safety and its impact on relationships and team dynamics
24:44 The importance of understanding the impact of our emotions and behavior on the culture and energy in our home and environment.
30:03 The importance of boundaries and relationships in personal evolution and growth.
34:37 Key to improved relationships and overcoming trauma.
40:28 Understanding the impact of past traumas and the urgency to develop mental and emotional skills to live a fulfilling life.
46:07 The realization that made Gary break away from his addiction and start a journey of self-improvement.
51:59 The one thing that creates psychological safety is our ability to manage our own minds.
Your Check List of Actions to Take
- Practice self-awareness and manage your own emotions to create psychological safety.
- Watch your thoughts and words with care and speak with kindness and accountability, avoiding blame towards others.
- Draw appropriate boundaries and practice kindness towards others and yourself.
- Take action and pursue self-improvement through Gary’s relationship course online.
- Learn more about healing and development in relationships.
Mentioned
Creating Incredible Relationships (*Gary’s course)
Shifting Criticism For Connected Communication
*Connect with* Gary De Rodriguez
Websites: peopleistic.com
Facebook: facebook.com/peopleistic
Twitter: twitter.com/garyderodriguez
YouTube: youtube.com/user/peopleistic
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/garyderodriguez
Connect with Dr. Jessica Higgins
Facebook: facebook.com/EmpoweredRelationship
Instagram: instagram.com/drjessicahiggins
Podcast: drjessicahiggins.com/podcasts/
Pinterest: pinterest.com/EmpowerRelation
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/drjessicahiggins
Twitter: @DrJessHiggins
Website: drjessicahiggins.com
Email: jessica@drjessicahiggins.com
About Today’s Show
Gary de Rodriguez, thank you for joining us today.
It’s an honor and a pleasure, Jessica. I’m really, really happy to be here.
I am, too. I love this topic about psychological safety, and I know you have a lot to offer on the topic of relationship. As we pivot towards that, is there anything you want people to know about you, where you’re coming from, that might be helpful as we begin our conversation?
I’ll just tell just a tiny bit, just to kind of give an overview. I’ve been studying how to work with the subconscious mind, because it’s 90% of us, for about 35 years. So a lot of the individual coaching I do, the group coaching I do, the seminars I lead publicly, and the corporate consulting that I do publicly, is really diving at a much deeper level. Because all change, deep change, actually happens at the subconscious level. It doesn’t necessarily happen at the cognitive level. So it became really important to me because I mentioned before that I watched my career in the AIDS community. In those days, you were diagnosed you were a skeleton in three months, and there was nothing anyone could do for you. I thought I had to step up and do something, because so many people were dying this horrific death.
So I started studying how to work with the subconscious mind that led me into hypnosis, I became a master hypnotherapist, that led me into neuro-linguistic programming, which is sort of the science of human excellence, that evolved into humanistic neuro-linguistic psychology, which I’m a master trainer of, and that is more of a spiritual evolution to neuro-linguistic programming. That’s non-religious, of course, It’s just that if you look at Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs, or Gregory Bateson’s logical levels, the highest human need is always: where do I belong in the larger context of my creation? Where do I belong in the universal impact that my life, my breath, my mind, my consciousness, is contributing to? So when we make a change there, literally everything underneath, it changes our behaviors, our identity, our beliefs, our values, our actions, our capabilities. It all makes a shift. So I decided that if we’re going to make a deep change quickly with people, we have to make it at the highest logical level: identity, capabilities, beliefs and values, purpose, we’ll call that spirituality. So I developed a whole series of trainings and corporate consulting around that concept. That’s just a little touch about me.
Thank you. As you describe feeling the call to be of service, and especially for the epidemic of AIDS in that timeframe, the humanistic linguistic, or that neurofeedback or the linguistic NLP, how does that help? Can you connect the dots there? I can imagine, but I would love to hear from you.
Yes, I can talk for days about that. It really is the owner’s manual for the human mind. It teaches us how we created the filters in which we see our world through.
So just to be clear, for the people that are maybe diagnosed with AIDS and having to go through that journey. Are you saying that if you’re able to help them be able to change their identity and their mindset and their orientation of being, that that actually has an impact on their recovery? I mean, not recovery.
Well, what it helped with was the ability to create resolution in the relationships that had gone and healed their whole life. So I developed early on a process which I just completed a book about, and I’ll be launching that probably in the second quarter of this year, and I’ll have a whole series of certifications that will follow that. Because this process that I created quite by accident. Like, I’m not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but I’m a very determined guy. This particular process will decode your nervous system — I know this will sound ridiculous, but it’s absolutely true — in anywhere from five minutes to 20 minutes, from any trauma.
So what many people do in their relationships, especially at the time of death, there’s no more denial. So you have to face all the things that you’ve compartmentalized that you didn’t have either the courage or the resources to resolve, and then it all comes up and percolates up. People want resolution to their wives, especially their relationships, at the time of death, or nearing the time of death. So I had a whole series of processes that I would use to help people get to resolution. So I’ve said at the bedsides of more people that have passed from that disease than anyone should have, I’ve eventually reached compassion fatigue, I couldn’t do it anymore. I passed on the processes and the mantle to other people that I trained, it just became too much. So when I lost my best friend, that was sort of like the crushing blow.
So that is where HNLP becomes so incredibly powerful. If we look at it in the context of relationships, it’s like, where all of our wounding happens is within some form of a relationship, where the greatest love that we will ever experience and the elevation of joy and unconditional connection is within our relationships. But very, very, very few people have understood that. Of course, first it’s a relationship with self. Because when we are in this place where we’re aligned to our core — we are living from a value-driven, purpose-driven life, we have deep people intelligence, therefore, communication skills, we have built our emotional intelligence to the point where we truly understand the impact of our words and our actions on others — and we have decided that we’ve made a change at the highest logical level of what our purpose is, then when we come together in a relationship, we can have a far deeper, far more connected relationship than someone who’s just going in: “Gee, you’ve got a great booty, and I’d like to hang with you. I mean, that can only go so far.
Okay, Gary. So I love what you’re saying, and I also just want to ask a question. I understand a lot of the developmental models are looking at, not that it’s hierarchical, or even linear or progressive, but there is a tendency to evolve through stages or through steps or sequences. So it’s usually a visualization, even with the Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Like, we get our basic needs met, survival needs, and as we get those needs met, then we have more capacity and more privilege, if you will, to be able to endeavor into these higher rounds. I also hear what you’re saying, it’s almost this top-down philosophy that if we can access this higher, purpose-driven alignment, that that actually has a speed of implementation that’s almost inviting a quantum leap. That if I’m not in the reactivity of the human, whatever the story or the dynamics have been, if I come in from a different vibration at a higher place, that’s going to influence my thinking, my behavior, my physiological body. That my moves will be entirely different, and then that sets a tone that’s very different than what it was. So it’s almost as if changing from the top, as you’re describing, can actually influence a tremendous amount of change in the “lower.” Because at the end of the day, it’s all interconnected. But what would you say, am I hearing that right?
You are hearing it right, and there’s a caveat. I keep getting this image in my mind of an infinity symbol, it is working from the bottom-up and the top-down. Because quite frankly, it’s very hard to sit and meditate and go for that higher connection for yourself when you’re starving or you’re freezing cold. There’s certain needs that need to be met in order for you to even have the luxury of being introspective enough. So those fundamental human needs feed our ability to focus on something higher, more than ourselves in our fundamental functioning, that we have to have met in order to survive. So the two really work together. But once the basic human needs are met, the higher logical levels that we live from, more of a purpose-driven life that we can definitely claim for ourselves, the greater partner we make, the more connected we are.
One of the things in my couples’ coaching that I do is when a couple comes to me, I first of all do their individual values. As we do contrastive analysis, we land on the top five values, because that always drives behavior, which is very unconscious; values are very unconscious. We may think we know what our values are. But when we do contrastive analysis, it ends up really revealing what they are. Then you have the couple actually compare their values.
“So what I found was, the couples that struggle the most are the couples that have very different values. At least, if three of the main five values are very different, very hard for that couple to make a long-lasting relationship actually happen. They’ll be in values’ conflict, most of the time.”
But when the values are in alignment or more complimentary, then I have a couple of say: “Okay, out of all the trillions of genealogical combinations you could have met and connected with and decided to live your life with, out of all the trillions of people. I don’t know if it’s trillions, but there’s trillions of genealogical combinations. I was like, why you and why you, why are you two together?” I have a deep belief system that life is not happenstance, and it’s not random chaos. It’s perfect order. So there’s something that those two individuals required to teach each other, to reflect back to each other as a mirror for each other’s evolution. If that’s true, then you look at, then what does your relationship stand for? So what are the couple’s values that you’re going to go to and say, “I’m so angry right now, I can’t even see straight. But then, what are we standing for? How do we return back to our purpose as a couple, so that we can realign to that purpose?” But if the purpose isn’t identified, if a couple’s values aren’t identified, they have nothing to hold on to.
So one of the primary things, I think, for individuals in relationships is, there’s a higher purpose for why we’re all here. Now, why is it that you come together with one other person, what’s that higher purpose for that individual, what are you teaching each other? Because I personally think, I’ll give a metaphor.
“Relationships are like rocks falling from a cliff into a river. Once the rock, with its sharp, pointy edges, is in the river, it is tumbled against other rocks. Until eventually, that rock becomes completely smooth as glass. But in its first entrance into the river, because of its sharp, pointy edges, it causes turbulence as the flow of the river flows over it. But once it has tumbled enough against the other rocks, it has no turbulence and creates no turbulence in the river of life.”
So once we’re able to actually reflect, because I think our relationships give us insight into things we cannot see about ourselves if we’re willing to look, if we’re willing to look at that shadow part of ourselves, embrace that and use that energy. Stop condemning it, but use the energy, and stop projecting it onto our partners and claiming like: “Oh, well, you made me feel this,” and using dysfunctional language like, “It’s your fault, and you did this, and you did that, and you make me feel.” But when we take our power back and go: “No, I am the creator of my own emotional states. I’m literally the neuro-chemical factory of my own life, and the meaning I give what you’re doing or saying is the emotion I’m going to have, I have choice over that.”
So if I start looking at my partner as a reflection back to me, that there is something that I have either missed, not done, taken for granted, or taken advantage of, and I’ve not owned it, I’ve blamed and said, then that is a beautiful piece of feedback from myself. I’ll just speak for myself. For myself, to correct, upskill, and upgrade, when two people are committed to each other, and they’re committed to their own for personal evolution, and they look at each other as a teacher and a coach and a reflection and a mirror, then they can actually begin to start taking that kind of projective lens of, “I never got loved enough by my parents, and now you’re going to be the one that’s going to be responsible for making me feel great.” When they take that game out of the equation, they start to evolve, they start to grow, they start to mature.
I love this, this is very in alignment with a lot of the principles discussed on the Empowered Relationship Podcast. That so much of what gets activated or triggered, even emerges in relationship, is an opportunity for growth, and also can be used as curriculum, another way of just putting language on this, for our development.
So when you were initially talking, I was thinking, I absolutely appreciate what you started with, talking about making what subconscious or not-conscious conscious, and the process of that, and the growth in that. That so often, when we enter into relationship, we’re not always super-cognizant, or conscientious, or conscious of what our highest values are, and being really intentional also about the shared values that might be the guiding compass for our relating. That might be up for reevaluation at some point, or really up-level that even as two people grow. I was like, how does this fit with psychological safety? Then something just sparked as you were talking, in that when we have conflict about our values, or we might judge or attack or criticize the tension or the static, and the dynamic that when we can reframe, or even see that as an opportunity, really no other place in our life are we going to have people holding a mirror so clearly. Or maybe not even so clearly, but holding a mirror, and that we get to have some discernment about how to, like you said, upgrade, up-level, upskill.
It brought up a theme that came out of my dissertation research. I did a meta-analysis which is on conscious intimate relationship, and one of the things that bared out of that research was this idea of relationship as a container. The idea of that is that if we have a container, it gives us some structure and safety to be able to do this work within. I think my mom would say, she’s studied a lot of child development, and she’s like, “If you give children parameters, they can play, and they’ll have so much more safety and can feel at ease to be a little bit more creative or exploratory. But when there’s no boundary, it can feel less safe.” I don’t know if that fits at all with what you’re talking about.
No, it does. You see, the psychological safety piece really was created or developed — well, I don’t know if it was developed, but it was really identified — because there was a project done, called Project Aristotle, in a very large organization. They wanted to understand how to create high-performing teams. So they tried every iteration, every combination of people together; all women, all men, one race over here, one race over there, all combined. They were trying everything to try to discover what created high-performing satisfied teams. But nothing worked. Except for, there was this one manager who had a collaborative style to management, would do collective problem-solving, would look at each other and look at the team and say: “In this meeting, everyone’s equal. We require feedback, ideas, innovation, from everyone in this meeting. There is no hierarchy here. Let’s give our voices, let’s give our creativity for the resolution of these historical problems that has haunted our department. Let’s make this resolved.” Because of the engagement of people’s minds, and respecting the individuation of each individual, and honoring everybody’s voice, there was this new dynamic called psychological safety that began to be birthed forward.
In my corporate work, because I’m published on this topic of how to create high-performing teams, here’s one of the things that became very, very clear to me.
“Our homes are many corporations. They are a culture, and sometimes, the culture is toxic because one person on the executive team is dysfunctional, reactive, doesn’t take accountability for their own emotional states, won’t take ownership. As a consequence of that, they’re constantly not safe, and they’re not safe to be around, and they don’t feel safe to be around.”
There’s an energetic field that issues off of our body, measurable by science, 15 feet out from our body, discovered by the HeartMath Institute. They’ve proven that in a five-foot radius, the neural synaptic firings in your brain will be affected by the energy emanating off me. That energy is created by the thoughts we think, by the words we speak, and by, therefore, the emotions that we walk around in. Those emotions either create psychological safety, or toxify the culture of the environment in which we’re in. So that is, I think, something so important for everybody to really understand. That literally, the culture generates from you. This is why the whole piece that I was speaking about around psychological safety, we have to do our personal work to be the best expression that we can be, and hopefully, our partner is like, “I’m holding up the light for you when you drop it for yourself.”
I think that can be delivered in delicate ways, or just even have agreement around how that gets negotiated. Because I just had a couple I was working with last night, and he’s like, “I don’t want to be controlled!” Like, just how we offer that feedback, and when we do that, I think there’s some consideration there. But even going back one step further, I can hear and feel within me, Gary, people that are listening that are like: “Ah, what if my partner doesn’t take accountability, what if they don’t buy into the fact of the culture that they’re creating inside their neuro-factory, or however you describe that, and the field that they have around them? That they’re aware of the tone that they’re setting, and how that’s being emanated from them?” What would you say? Because there’s some people in a relationship.
I got answer for that, because a lot of my coaching clients are in the same position. So the best way to influence anyone ever is to be the change that you want to see, that’s the best way. You have to embrace it in yourself. Now, there’s multiple ways to communicate without being critical of the other person. Number one, there has to be a philosophy in your mind, for the person who’s holding up the light for the relationship and the family, is that everyone is growing at the right rate, at the right pace, at the right time. This one person who’s made the shift, that means that at that moment in time, they’ve come to the determination that they were done with old toxic behavior, emotional states and suffering, and they were going to make a shift. Their partner may not have grown at the same pace or the same rate. It doesn’t mean that the love is destroyed, all it means is the one holding up the light needs to shine a little brighter.
There is a little thing called SHUVA, that was created by a colleague of mine named Patty Beach. She wrote a book on alignment, The Art of Alignment. It’s a very important book, actually. There’s this process called SHUVA. I’ll tell you, it’s an acronym. But it means, the S stands for: I’m going to truly See you. I’m not going to see your flaws. I’m going to see the little boy or the little girl in you that is the purity of your spirit that you came in with. All of the personality stuff, and the things that are aggravating and annoying, are literally your adaptation to the loss of love in your life, and you adapt it. So if I can see past your adaptations, to really the spirit of who you are, then I can truly see you.
Thank you for spelling that out. Because I think a lot of us get stuck in feeling violated, or feel some level of injustice that we protest against. So to be able to slow down enough to be in service of that commitment, and maybe that’s part of the value-driven, of like, “I will be in service of seeing you and your essence and who you are,” and slowing down enough to be like: “Okay, what is this really about? Like, what is it they’re really wanting, or what is it that they need? Staying in that curiosity to be in touch with that, and there might be some practices around how to stay attuned to that, because it’s very human to get into the reactivity. But to come back to that higher purpose, I love that.
See, if we don’t claim that our life stands for something higher, and we don’t own the fact that every word we speak, every action we do, forms our character, and that now is the only moment of power we have to create a new neurological superhighway of a new habit that is in alignment with everything we feel like we came here to be. This is about us taking a stand individually for who we’re going to be. Because at the end of our lives, having seen so much death, we’re going to die, and what are you going to take with you but the accumulation of how you’ve treated other people? I can say this with authority, because I know what caused people to claw at the sheets of their bed to stay in their bodies, because they had no resolution to their relationships, and I witnessed incredible deaths where people danced out of their bodies because they had complete resolution.
If we want to look at what is this thing we’re doing called living, and I’m going to go a little spiritual on this, that it was said that you will know me by how you treat one another. That is the true temple, the temple of our relationships. For those people who claim that they’re great Christians, or great Buddhists, or great Hindus, it still boils down to the same thing. Every faith fundamentally says the exact same thing. If we’re going to follow this road of our own personal actualization, it’s going to come in the temple of our relationships. if we can see our partner, if we can see them as this person that is evolving, having patience for that evolution, never ever, ever put up with physical violence, and draw a very firm boundary with emotional or verbal violence as well. But I will say, if we can practice this SHUVA piece, it really helps.
When you’re really setting that boundary for people that are feeling some gray area, maybe not so much in the physical but the emotional abuse, is there anything else that you can say around being in the practice of seeing, but also not tolerating abuse?
It depends on how intense it is.
“I really don’t believe that anybody should stay in a verbally or physically abusive relationship. Because there’s a certain part of your heart and soul that starts to die, and you can’t afford that; none of us can. Every one of us has suffered enough.”
The world, it is beautiful, and yet it’s filled with our own suffering, and that’s just the fact of it. So if we’ve suffered enough, and we have, then we pick our partners more carefully. If we haven’t picked carefully, and we desire deeply to evolve, it may be a transition in a relationship for you. Because you cannot evolve with someone stopping on the sprout that is trying to come up out of the earth.
Yeah, thank you for saying that. I would just add, I don’t know if you would agree with this. But for me, when we’re talking on a more evolutionarily, even maybe spiritual level, that if I’m engaging in abusive dynamics or toxicity, not being abusive in my language, but even maybe on the receiving end, that if I’m willing to tolerate that, that on some level, I’m participating in harm.
I’ll say that, where the toxicity comes in. First of all, if you participate in it and tolerate it, you’re fundamentally saying yes to it. Then at the same time, what that does is it programmes your own subconscious mind, which this infinite reality-generating mechanism inside of us. Because our subconscious mind takes our language and the things around us and other people’s language literally and personally. So if we’re allowing this to occur, we’re programming ourselves for this lower self-esteem, because we’ve rationalized it in some way. Like, “I deserve this, or I should have acted that. Or I shouldn’t have done this, I made them upset.” All that, there is no way that any one of us deserves to be treated in that way.
This is assuming someone’s conscious is right. When we just started talking earlier, we’re like, sometimes we’re not even conscious of the abuse. Then it’s like, as we become more aware, then that’s when we have more of an opportunity to choose. So thank you for pausing and detouring a little with me there. I know you were helping us understand the keys in this SHUVA, so let’s go back to that.
We cannot be a frog in a slow-boiling pot. We adapt to the heat, we adapt to the heat, we adapt to the heat, until finally, we lose our lives. So that is very important. So the H is about truly Hearing someone. Like, hearing them, giving our full focus to them, giving them the honor of our complete attention. Then we go to Understanding, being able to ask strategic questions to understand only. “Can you tell me more about that? Can you tell me why that’s important to you so that I can understand you better?” So you’re asking strategic questions to gain a deeper understanding, and that’s the only thing you’re asking questions to achieve.
The next piece of SHUVA is the V, which is Validating the person for their experiences, their wisdom, and their communication, and the willingness to communicate with you in a way that allows you to understand them better, at whatever level they can. Then you appreciate them, for the things they’ve gone through, for the ways they see their own world. Knowing that, of course, they have gone through their own fires that they’ve walked through. Then when you Appreciate them, all aspects of that, the S-H-U-V-A, what they all do is they meet the fundamental human needs of all of us; we want to be seen, we want to be heard, we want to be understood, we want to be validated, and we want to be appreciated. So that we give really the fundamental respect to people that people oftentimes have never even gotten.
No kidding, no kidding, no kidding! Sometimes, this can be so powerful, it can shift in such profound ways, talk about up-levelling and quantum leaps. That couples who maybe have experienced this merry-go round of constant circling of issues and tension, this can actually really liberate some of that human tendency of defensiveness and jockeying to be heard and not listening. It’s almost as if the way, Gary, you’re describing this, it’s a spiritual practice that we can enter into, that offers so much more visibility, vulnerability, and connectedness and intimacy. Is that right?
That’s exactly right. Ah, I feel really compelled, and I always listen, I’m a little clearer audience, so I get impatient. So I would like to just go a little deeper, if that’s okay. So we have to ask ourselves this question. Because many of us have been involved with individuals who were deeply wounded; they come from an environment where they weren’t loved, and there’s going to be an epidemic of that in the next couple generations that come on to the streets into adulthood. There’ll be an epidemic, where people have really poor relationship skills because they don’t know how to be in relationship. It all begins, if we really think about it and ask ourselves, “How did I become me? How did I learn how to think and believe and see and react and respond, and have this reptilian brain takeover where I’m just in reaction to stuff that I don’t even understand why I’m so reactive to it? Why do I have anxiety that slowly builds up, and I get anxious over nothing when there’s nothing to fear, but yet I’m walking around anxious? Like, what is that?” Then relationships, this is where people become thought possessed. Because they want their lover to either be something or treat them some way, and they hide because they don’t want their partner to see things about them, they cannot accept. All of it comes down to one thing, and that is, key significant emotional events that have occurred that remain emotionally unresolved. We have to know that we’re meaning-making creatures, we have a key significant event, which may be at birth, and what we do is we create constellations of beliefs around those key significant events, which then turn into an absolute hardened perspective filter of how we see the world.
Then we come together with another person who has had a whole a series of other types of key significant events, and we come together and we’re hardened to perceive in very different ways. As a consequence, until the individuals can unravel the emotional cement around those key significant events, they can’t feel differently, or they can’t change the limiting beliefs that hardened into the filter they look out of, and therefore, they feel like, “I’m going to go to talk therapy and that’s going to cure it.” It’s not going to cure it. Because we have these filters we can’t break out of. So we have to do our individual work to neutralize the past, and actually propel ourselves with our full potential into the future.
“We only have so much energy, and every one of those key significant events that remain unhealed are like a balloon of lifeforce, and those key significant unhealed events are like pin holes in our energy bodies that just drain us to where we don’t have enough juice left to make a dynamic, successful future.”
That the impact is far and wide!
It is far and wide. I did lots of research for my book on this, and just the health consequences of unresolved traumatic events. There’s lots of different traumas: there’s acute trauma, there’s transgenerational trauma, there’s compounded trauma, small events that happen through time that actually become even more impactful on us. So what I’ve been doing since the beginning of the New Year, I decided after I finished the book, that I was going to make a list of all the small compounding traumas of times I was betrayed, times I was failed, times I was shamed, all that stuff, times I was almost murdered or killed. I’ve just made this huge list about maybe 30 different events, and I’ve been just going through the list using my own information, and decoding my nervous system from these impactful events. So what’s happened is, I have this incredible sense of peace and purpose now, I mean, more so. I always had it, but I’m like pedal to the metal right now, because I am not carrying around that luggage.
We have to remember this one thing, Jessica, is those events, they’re literally only pictures, sounds, and feelings, that are our memories. That’s all they are now. However, we’ve created beliefs that further solidify them. We can still feel the emotions of them, therefore it makes it real to us. But what if we could take the pictures, sounds, and feelings, and make it completely neutral? So when you think of the memory, it was like a black and white photo in a photo album, and it has no emotional impact. That’s what this technique does.
Well, I would arc in, Gary, that you’ve done enough to have a sense of health and integration in your own being, that you can engage in a process like this and feel the motivation of what it will offer you, but also have enough stability to be able to confront it in a way that can be like an exercise like you’re describing. When you talk about maybe those initial stages of partnering, where there’s these such deeply rooted ingrained sense, what you called perceptions of self or the belief, that in relationship, if we’re engaging in the SHUVA (Seeing, Hearing, Understanding, Validating, and Appreciating), we’re allowing more space to make some of that a little bit more permeable.
We are softening the filters! I always say in the book, I give a process for self-facilitation. But I also say, these are small compounding traumas, not for acute. For acute, you need to be facilitated. But I think it’s vitally important that we go on a quest to learn how to open up the owner’s manual for our minds, that we know how to actually adjust this Ferrari we’re riding around in. Because no one has ever shown up and said, “Hey, would you like an overspend for your head so that you know you can have more mental emotional management skills, so you can be more functional in the world?” No one has done that.
I also hear your voice, and I think it’s incredibly important given what you’ve been witness to and how you’re very aware of the mortality and impermanence and the sense of preciousness of life, and that we’re not guaranteed. That there’s a real urgency that you’re speaking to around, not only the impact of far and wide, but also how critical that we have our life and the sprout and the blooming of how we’re developing it. Like, we don’t get forever.
Oh, you’re very welcome. I mean, I’m 71, I never thought I’d ever live to be my maturing years. I just never thought I would ever be here. I still think I’m 30, because that’s what I feel. Now you’re supposed to say: “Well, you look 30, Gary.”
You look great!
Oh, thank you, darling! But I think it’s really, really important that we understand this one thing. That life is a bit of perfection, pain is the very first step to awakening, our emotional world is a gift. I can really speak to this because I’ve had so much trauma, and I’m totally transparent about it, I don’t care who knows. But I was molested from the time I was in diapers till I was 11, I was raped at 15, I was an IV drug addict till I was 18, and I should not be here. I should be dead. Because it was heroin and methamphetamine, and I was a complete needle fanatic. I was carrying so much emotional pain with me from my childhood, and all the things that had occurred, and I really didn’t feel like I could function at all. I was terrified most of the time. I was agoraphobic during a period of time for a year, I couldn’t leave my home. I would only leave at like three in the morning with my dog, and we’d walk the beach and then come home, and the state would deliver food to my little furniture-less little apartment. Because I couldn’t see anyone, and literally, people terrified me.
Now what I know is that if I can go from that to what I’m doing currently, and it’s been a journey, for sure. But if I can do that, there’s hope for everyone. I’m not the most courageous guy, I just demand more for myself.
“I really believe that each one of us has come here to be an angel, rather than watch our own quest for personal significance. I think we’re here to do good, and our relationships are really the temple in which we do that.”
It’s sort of like a quest for all of us to look at ourselves authentically and go: “What is my life going to stand for, for this moment forward, and what is my life going to be celebrated for at the end of my life? What am I going to look back on and go, I did what I came here to do?” Because at the end of our day, there’s no more denial; we will either know we did what we came here to do, or we will know that we fell way short of it. I’m not going to fall short of it, and I would encourage everyone. Because there’s nothing worse than seeing an individual die in an ocean of regret for what they didn’t have the courage to do. It’s an absolute torture to witness!
No kidding, and the experience! I want to just say, I appreciate you giving personal testament to what this can look like, and what one can overcome and heal and process and metabolize in the way of trauma, and also, the conviction and the connection. I do feel like we’re all wired this way. But it sounds like, as you described earlier in the interview, that there’s been some feeling, I don’t know how you would articulate it, that you were able to either remember or get back to some spark that helped you overcome or work through those traumas and have that courage to face, confronting the work to do some of that healing.
I’ll explain it. Because it is a short story, but a really beautiful one. I got sober in 12 hours from smoking three packs of Marlboro Longs, and dealing and shooting up methamphetamine and heroin. I went to a concert. The girl I was dating at the time, she bought me front-row tickets. No one remembers this guy because my generation, but his name was Donovan. He was quite the contemporary of The Beatles and The Rolling Stones and all those guys, was a Celtic folk singer. It was during the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi days when the Beatles had gone into meditation and they were doing all of that, and so had Donovan. So Donovan comes out on the stage, and of course, he’s dressed in white linen, there’s a sitar, there was an ocean of flowers on the DS that he’s going to sit and sing to people. I love his music. So he was tuning up his sitar, I’m in the front row, and this is what I want to say to every single person in the listening audience, because it’s exactly what he said to me. Tuning up his sitar, and he looks at me and he goes, “You are wasting time!”
I literally reeled back. Every single neuron in my body started to vibrate, and my soul knew exactly what he meant. I took my cigarettes out of my pocket, tore them in half, never smoked again. I left the concert, went home, broke all my needles, flushed about $80,000 with the drugs down the toilet. I went out on a hillside, I’m a Leo, had to be raining and dramatic. I went on a hillside over Mission Bay in San Diego, and I sat there in the rain and cried all night. Then when the sun came up, I was a different man. I walked home covered in mud, but I walked home, I kicked everybody out of my house.
That’s when I went agoraphobic, as I no longer had the drugs to disrupt, to protect me, and to shut down the feelings that were now free to percolate up. That was a very, very dark period. However, I was determined not to waste any more time. This becomes a point for all of us. It’s like, when is going to be the moment where you’re going to put a stake in the ground? “I’m going to evolve myself, I’m going to work on myself, I’m going to figure this out. Then I’m going to demonstrate it in the laboratory of my relationships, and I’m going to start creating success instead of failure. Because that’s where it happens.
Yes. Well, I know we are definitely experiencing a gift of what you’re sharing, and increased by what you’re offering here today. Is there anything else? You’ve left us with so many things to work with, and I know we’re going to pivot towards how people can get in touch with you. But before we do that, is there anything else you want to comment on, on our conversation about safety or anything we’ve discussed?
I would love to quote from the Dhammapada from Buddha, and leave that quote as the one thing that creates psychological safety is our ability to actually manage our own minds, our own emotions, take full ownership, and walk our way and each path that we each individually follow with kindness and self-awareness. So Buddha said 3,000 years ago, he said, “The thought manifests as the word, the word manifests as the deed, the deed turns into habit, and the habit hardens into character. So think your thoughts and speak your words with care, and let it spring for concern for all living things. For as the shadow follows the body, as you think and speak, so you will become.” We take ownership. We watch your words, because that is the point of our creation. We speak with kindness. We speak with accountability. We do not blame others. We look into ourselves, to find our own healing. We draw appropriate boundaries, take massive actions of kindness, give SHUVA to as many people as we can, and to ourselves as well.
Yeah, wonderful! Well, Gary, as people are perhaps feeling moved, inspired, and motivated from what you’ve shared, how would you encourage people to learn more or connect with you? You’ve mentioned your books, your certifications and trainings. Where can people find you and engage?
Well, I have a relationship course online that is near and dear to my heart. You can find that course on Teachable, or you can go to just GarysCourse.com, it’ll take you right to that particular class. I wanted to create a discount code for your listeners. So the discount code, if they choose to participate in that course, is Empowered100. They’ll get $100 off of the entire price of the course. So I’ve lowered the price a lot, just for this listening audience. Because this is where I think a lot of people are showing up looking for help and answers, and I want to be able to do as much service as I can for them. So it’s Empowered100 at GarysCourse.com.
Lovely, thank you! I’ll make sure to put that on today’s show notes. Do you have a website you also want to share?
Yes, it’s Peopleistic.com. It’s a more of a corporately-geared website, and there are courses on there, there’s other products on there. I’m going to be launching, if you desire to get involved in some of the courses I’m going to be coming up with this year, because I’m restructuring all of my trainings because of the book, then you can reach me at Gary@Peopleistic.com. Shoot me off an email, I’ll add you to the database, then you’ll be in the loop and you’ll know all the trainings that are going to be coming up.
Wonderful. Well, I’ll put that email address on today’s show notes for easy access as well, and then any link to your book or books that you want us to put on the show notes, I’ll make sure to do that as well. Thank you for spending your time with us. It’s been quite an honor and a treat to hear all the things that you’ve offered here.
Well, I had so much fun with you. You ask me back anytime, I’ll come in and talk more. Thank you so much for the honor and pleasure of spending time on your podcast.
Signing Off
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Thank you so much for your interest in improving your relationship.
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Thank you!
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Are you constantly checking your phone while spending time with your partner? Do you find yourself spending more time on social media than connecting with your significant other?
Technology has drastically changed the way we interact and communicate in our relationships. From social media to dating apps, technology has greatly impacted the way we form and maintain intimacy in our relationships. But what exactly are the effects of technology on intimacy?
In this episode, we will dive into the research and explore the positive and negative impacts of technology on intimacy in relationships, from how it can enhance connection and communication to how it can lead to feelings of disconnection and dissatisfaction.
Join us as we uncover the truth about how technology is shaping the way we connect with our loved ones.Tim Johnson is the founder and CEO of Couply, which is an app for couples. Couply has helped over 250,000 people build better relationships.
Prior to that, he was with Wattpad, which was an app that helped writers share their books, which grew to 100 million monthly users and was acquired by Naver for 660 million.
Tim also spent 10x years in the Red Cross, in various programs from, helping reunite families separated by war and conflict, to supporting bullying prevention in youth.
In this Episode
6:16 An app that helps people navigate and sustain healthy relationships inspired by his personal experience and heartache.
12:49 How technology is impacting the relationship space: Insights from a study of 1500 couples.
21:07 Social media algorithms and their psychological impact, including the infinite scroll feature and how it can lead to people becoming distracted and spending more time on their phones than intended.
26:05 The conversation of trust and boundaries in the digital age.
35:44 The pressure of presenting a perfect relationship on social media and its negative effects on mental health.
41:52 How technology can be helpful for relationships and self-discovery: the importance of discussing both the positive and negative aspects.
44:30 Virtual reality and long-distance relationships.
51:03 The power of the enneagram app.
57:30 Tim explains how the Kupple app gamifies the relationship-building process and makes it more convenient for couples to connect.
Your Check List of Actions to Take
- Set clear boundaries and communicate them to your partner, including limits on phone and screen time and acceptable communication and behavior.
- Make a conscious effort to spend quality time together, disconnecting from technology and focusing on each other.
- Practice active listening and open communication, being present and expressing thoughts and feelings in a respectful manner.
- Seek resources and support for building and maintaining healthy relationships.
- Address any addictive behaviors related to technology, such as constantly checking social media.
- Prioritize self-care and self-awareness in relation to technology use, taking breaks and practicing mindfulness.
- Incorporate technology in a positive and meaningful way, such as video calls or shared playlists.
Mentioned
EEP 255: How to Deal with Problems Related to Social Media in Relationship – An Interview with Dr. Marisa T. Cohen
Sharing Resources (*Google form)
*Connect with* Tim Johnson
Websites: couply.io
Instagram: instagram.com/tigertimj/?hl=en | instagram.com/couplyapp/?hl=en
Connect with Dr. Jessica Higgins
Facebook: facebook.com/EmpoweredRelationship
Instagram: instagram.com/drjessicahiggins
Podcast: drjessicahiggins.com/podcasts/
Pinterest: pinterest.com/EmpowerRelation
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/drjessicahiggins
Twitter: @DrJessHiggins
Website: drjessicahiggins.com
Email: jessica@drjessicahiggins.com
About Today’s Show
Tim, thank you for joining us today. I’m so excited to have this conversation with you.
Thank you, what a pleasure and honor it is to be here! I so appreciate you having me on.
Yes. I know we’re going to be discussing technology and relationship and some of the dynamics that we can bring more awareness and consciousness to how technology impacts us and our relationships. Before we pivot to that, I know that you’ve shared with me a little bit when we had our call several weeks ago in just preparation for this, around what prompted you to even be interested in this topic.
Yeah, absolutely. So my journey into relationship and relationship technology has been really, I think, an interesting one. I had to go through a real whole self-discovery. That process really began for me when I worked and helped build an app with a company that was really early on, and this app grew and grew and grew. It was called Wattpad, and it’s an app for readers and writers. We had this amazing experience of watching the app grow and grow and grow.
While that was happening, my personal life was doing the inverse. So I was married, and I was going through really hard relationship troubles. We went to counseling, couples therapy. But we didn’t make it, and we ended up getting a divorce. I mean, on the whole thing, like the scale of how bad divorces can get. My sister is a divorce lawyer here in London, so I know they can get pretty bad. But we had a really great divorce. But it’s still devastating. At that point, I was living in Canada. I had to move back to England to my parents, and really start everything again. But as I started to look at the dating apps and try those out, and eventually get to the space where I was ready to have another relationship after doing a lot of work and self-exploration, I was really struck by the thought that there are so many apps that help people get into relationship, why not an app that helps you stay in a relationship. That is where the genesis for Couply came from, which is how I got into the relationship tech space and how I ended up having this conversation.
Thank you. It sounds like it was really from your own experience and seeing a need, that you couldn’t find what you were looking for, personally, to assist in cultivating a healthy relationship or a relationship that had the sustainability or that you could set up for success, if you will. I know that’s so dismissive maybe of your first marriage. But it sounds like with the devotion and the commitment to the startup and the app that you and others were creating and had great success, sometimes, and I think a lot of people felt this with COVID, when there’s external stressors, that sometimes we unconsciously expect that our relationship has its own flame that’s burning, and that it’s got its resources. So sometimes not only with the external stressors, it can also show us where the areas of weakness are, because the tension and the pressure is put on. So I appreciate what you’re saying.
I think you talk about this a lot. I was definitely in the trap of like, “Relationships just work, right? You don’t need to have to work on them, these are just things that happen.” I think as I started to really look into why things didn’t work, I think when you go back to square one, and you’re having to press this reset button on your entire life, you can’t help but look back and be like, why did that not work? I think once I’d had some distance from it, and a little bit less of the emotions around it, you could look at it with a bit more of an analytical lens. I truly didn’t really know at that point that relationship skills could be taught, they’re something that need to be practiced, you’re going to be working on this for the rest of your life, your relationships have the biggest impact in your life, and this is something that takes regular practice. As I started to realize that, I was definitely of the mind of like, “Wow, I work in tech, I build products, that’s what I do. This needs to be your tech product.” That was definitely how I looked at things.
Thank you for sharing that, the journey that you’ve been on and recognizing the importance. I similarly share, in that same sentiment and my own experience in relationship, having almost a rude awakening around what I was confronted with, what it required of me. It spawned really my interest in deep diving into this topic myself and devoting my career to it, and I still recognize how critical it is to continue the practice as you described. So I love that.
Okay, thank you. That gives us a little bit of a backdrop of where you’re coming from. Not only bringing success in the tech world, but really this interest and really seeing a need in the greater community for an app that supports healthy relating, nurturing the long-term relationship and the skills and the things and the practices.
So before we turn towards that, I am interested, you talked a bit with me about some research that you did around technology. You were excited about the findings that came out, and I’d love to start there. Unless you have something else you would like to bring in here.
So we’ve been doing quite a bit of research. It’s one of the coolest things, we have this community of almost very, very close to 300,000 people that have downloaded the app. So part of that is we work with this community and generate new insights. I think some of the things around the way that technology has played in the relationship space is so interesting to us, and it’s been so amazing working with our community to understand their challenges. This is what we have to do. Technology is constantly shifting and changing, and the challenges that couples are facing is constantly shifting and changing.
So part of what we looked into one of the studies, and we’ve done several, but one of the ones that I think is quite interesting, and it’s quite juicy to talk about, which is good, is around trust. Trust and technology, and how technology is impacting trust for couples? So we interviewed 1,500 Couply members, and they shared with us how their trust has been impacted. Firstly, they said that 60% of them has had their partner break their trust in some form at some point. But 70% of those people said that social media played a role in reducing trust in their partners. As we began to dive into both the data and the research, it was kind of obvious. It’s pretty interesting, it’s kind of what you expect. But the big one, 30% came from lying, catching their partner in a lie, and then 20% was sketchy or inappropriate phone usage.
Now this actually had a pretty wide gamut, and I’d definitely want to talk about some of these things with you. Because I’m really curious how you’re seeing these things in your practice and with your clients as well. As we got deeper into what our users were talking about, two main things came up that we were really surprised and weren’t expecting. We’re kind of getting right into it now.
Let’s go. I actually do have one quick question before we go there. Can you describe the typical user, just so people are understanding fully?
Yeah, absolutely. Our users are typically between the ages of 25 and 45, and the majority of them are in the US. This accent is from the UK, other than that, we’re focused on the US. So hopefully that all makes sense. On the whole, our audience scores their relationship, and most of them scored their relationship like a 6/6 when we gave them like, how happy you are in your relationship. So these are really happy couples. Most of them are looking at Couply as a way of continuing to strengthen that bond and to build these healthy relationship habits that you do every day. So that’s a little bit more about them. Does that answer your question? I think so.
Yes, thank you. Then you were going to share two things, and I’d love to hear those.
Okay. The first thing that we saw a lot about was likes on Instagram. This came up a lot as we spoke to people.
“So people have different social media rules and boundaries, and like many things, these remain often unsaid until it’s a problem, and then it comes up.”
I really want your perspective on this, I’m really excited to see what you think. But I’m a Millennial, and I think we look at Instagram and social media in quite a different way. Some of the younger folks we have working at Couply are Gen Z, and for them, this is like a living, breathing element of your personality. This is like a living, breathing document almost. That if their partner is liking another person’s picture, they see it as an absolutely massive problem, this is like a deep thing. They’re doing this for a reason, what is it? Or why are they doing it? It’s just a very, very interesting space. So I’m really curious if you’re seeing any of this in your clients, or in the work that you’re doing as well around this liking and social media, what’s an appropriate like and what’s not?
Well, I will say, it’s not a heavy focus. I’m usually focusing on the dynamics around what gets activated in the couple’s dance. Although, there’s usually triggers, so that can occur. The way that I’m hearing you describe the agreements or rules of engagement that the couple decides upon, as far as social media, often that’s not discussed. I agree with you that many times, when we’re entering into relationship, we don’t get explicit about these types of things, or maybe we don’t even know the landscape or what we’re going to even feel like. Like, I didn’t intend to feel jealous, or I didn’t intend to feel threatened.
Although, what does get activated, I think, is really great material to look at and work with, because it’s making visible. Where if we’re at a party with a significant other and we can visibly see them talking to certain people, we might get interested, maybe innocently, or maybe there might be some probing and checking for safety, as far as like, “I saw you talking to that person for a really long time.” So it’s visible. Where in social media, it feels like it’s a personal thing in some sense, but it’s so public, so it’s making it much more public and visible. Thus, the partner, depending on their lens around what social media means and how one’s using it, some people dabble, some people are like, “This is an expression, and I take a lot of care in the social media.” Obviously, depending on many factors, like you mentioned around generation and where people are at.
I got very, very curious about this, because it wasn’t something that I had thought of. Really, this isn’t something I had put a lot of thought on, like, which pictures you like and don’t. I wanted to do just a little bit more research into this. So as we started to speak to more of our users, we kind of noticed that there was definitely that dynamic. We definitely saw more of our female users have a problem with what our male users were liking, and our male users, this is in heterosexual relationships, tended to have more of a problem of what our female users were posting. So that was the dynamic that we saw, just a little bit of a gender difference there in our heterosexual relationships, which was interesting too.
When we spoke to some of our male users about this, I was like, “Hey, I’m really, really curious why you like, what images prompt you to like what on Instagram?” The reasons were so diverse, they were so wide, and it was still very interesting. So some guys like every picture. They’re like, “Oh, I just like every picture on my feed. I was like, “Well, that’s interesting. How come? They said, “Well, because I know that some people put a lot effort into their pictures, and it makes them feel good. So I just like everything.” That’s cool. Other people are like, “Oh, I liked that picture because I thought it was really sexy.” I was like, interesting. I think there wasn’t much thought around the wider, like socio dynamic around that.
Or what it would be conveying.
Exactly, what it would be conveying, which was interesting. Then there was sort of like a third bucket that were like, “Oh, it’s an ex, so I’m liking that picture so that people don’t think that I’m not liking it.” So it’s like, you start to play the social dynamics. Then the final thing was like, “Well, I know I get tension from my partner if I’m liking other people’s pictures, so it kind of keeps them on their toes,” which is then moving on to a bit of a problem area. Game playing, that’s not great. So it was very, very interesting seeing the different dynamics at play. Some of these things might be a simple conversation, and others are not. So there was a wide range of responses just in that one single, tiny area.
No kidding! I can tell my curiosity, because as a technology app developer, I understand there’s a lot of algorithms that go into this. So it’s not like a totally neutral space around what’s being presented.
Exactly. The more likes and engagement things get, the higher they get up the feed, the more they get promoted, and the more that they’re seen and viewed. On TikTok specifically, the algorithm really is around pushing these performance posts. With Instagram, you’ve got a curated feed mostly, it was like that previously, of our friends and acquaintances. But now with Tik Tok, you’re just getting pushed. If you’re a content creator, your life can be changed literally overnight with one good lip-syncing video, dance video. Think about those dynamics in your relationship as well, if suddenly you are famous and you’re getting all this attention and optionality that might not have existed before. Like, this can be a challenging time as well. The more that people engage, the higher it raises, the more people it gets exposed to. Jessica, me and my co-founder re-onboarded onto Tik Tok, I think around 15 times, just to test their onboarding, and they push the racy stuff; they push the twerking, they push the dancing, they push the racy stuff. We saw it so much, and we were onboarding as a new user every time. So we were like, “Wow, there’s a very sexual element that they really push, especially as you’re onboarding into that.” That was really interesting.
You might be able to help with this too, and I know we’re getting a little technical here. I just understand that a lot of the ways in which the software is developed, is utilizing people’s psychology around their attention and engaging. So yes, of course sex is going to be something compelling. So often, people are like, “I pick up my phone to do something, and I get distracted, and then I’ve just spent all this time. I’m like, I didn’t even mean to do that, where did I go?” So you find yourself in places that you didn’t intend, and It’s just this whole cycle. Is there anything you want to say about that, first off?
“The infinite scroll is something that you have to watch for, where you go into this hole, and you end up just scrolling and scrolling and scrolling. It’s like any tool, you have to keep an eye on how you’re using it and keep an eye on its effect on you, and also keep an eye on the fact that we’re humans that exist in the real world.”
Like, you see people that sit together, and everyone is just scrolling on their phone. Maybe that’s fun when you’re just wanting to chill. But I’m sure you get this complaint that partners are being ignored because one partner is just on their phone.
I remember being on vacation in Morocco, and me and my brother were on this brother trip; we sat in a nice hotel, did surfing, did writing, it was great. There was a couple that we saw that would sit near us often, and the male, the dude was just hunched over while they’re eating, just scrolling. Just on his phone, hunched over on his phone, shoveling food into his mouth. His partner was all dressed up, her posture was up, and she was looking around at the room. You just thought, “Wow, that’s so sad. You’re eating dinner together. Like, really? Is this how the world is becoming?” I talked to one of my interns about this, and she said, “Oh, well, my boyfriend is an iPad kid. So he can’t actually eat well unless he’s watching a video on his phone.” I was like, “I’m so sorry, you’re telling me he can’t eat unless there’s a video playing on his phone?” She’s like, yeah. I’m like, what are we doing to these kids, is this real? So there’s going to be challenges. I don’t know where the research is, I believe I read some research here that said that it was having some pretty negative effects. But it looks like you’ve looked into this as well.
Well, I just am naming, and I know we could defer to this. But I’m just naming there’s a lot of compelling ways in which the devices themselves, and also the software and technology that we’re engaging with, that it’s really hooking us; there’s a lot of pool, there’s a lot of draw, it’s compelling. So just the awareness around that.
Then when we’re talking about relationship, what’s interesting is when you’re talking about a partner viewing their partner’s social media, or even how they’re using their phone, it seems sketchy, and as it relates to trust. I think back in the day when cell phones were a little bit more new, it was kind of like, that’s your personal device. I mean, there’s etiquette, and obviously, every couple is different; some couples look at each other’s phones. But most of the time, it’s like, you wouldn’t just go on to your partner’s email. Or maybe again, some couples do. But again, for the most part, the majority of people think, it’s like your diary or your personal thing, it’s your purse or your wallet or something. It’s your personal space. Yet, when there’s engagement in social media, that’s very public.
So again, if we’re not being conscientious about how we do that, and it’s being made visible, that does bring material for your partner to wonder and have inquiry around, or to your point, actually find out information. Like, “Wait a second, I don’t know that we talked about this. Or wait a second, you told me this, and it looks like that. Or you didn’t tell me this at all, and I think you’re lying or you’re cheating, or something else.”
Absolutely, and the boundaries of cheating is a sliding scale. This was going to be the second point, is that what we saw so many people talk about, and it was such a shame we’ve discovered this afterwards, and I almost want to do more inquiry into this. But it’s not as deeply related to the main core of our product, so it’s just my own personal curiosity. But so many people talked about OnlyFans, and they said, “Oh, social media got my partner hooked on this influencer who was promoting their OnlyFans, and then my partner, behind my back, spent hundreds of dollars on this influencer’s OnlyFans, buying pictures or videos or whatever it is.” But we saw multiple people complaining about that who said, “Look, I get my partner using porn occasionally, but OnlyFans is crossing the line.”
I don’t know what OnlyFans is.
All right, well, okay. OnlyFans is essentially a place where as an influencer, you can go on and you can sell intimate videos and images of yourself. I have not pursued this topic deeply yet, and I also have not yet been on OnlyFans. So I don’t know if it also has live chat functionality. But people also spoke about their partners spending money on chatrooms and webcam people, and this kind of thing. So this is a very interesting grey area of where people cheat and lose trust and break trust using social media and technology.
Okay, wow. So technology as a means. So not only is trust broken and your number one point, but then what’s available in the technology? I’m thinking there’s ways in which people can have crushes and why certain paraphernalia. I’m thinking old school, where there’s an artist that’s doing something really cool, it could even be local, and you want to support in getting a t-shirt. Obviously, that sounds so innocent. But then you also have prostitution, where you’re paying for sexual, I guess you could say favors, but sexual engagement and interaction. So in the tech space, I get that there’s likely no physicality shared. But the extent of how intimate it is, and this almost exclusive, inside, very personal. It’s fascinating how it’s being used, to your point.
Yeah, it’s true. You know what, the boy band thing is really, really interesting. The company I used to work at is called Wattpad, and it’s famous for fanfiction. It’s a little bit less of fanfiction site now. But in its heyday, it was huge for fanfiction. If you’re familiar with fanfiction, this is like a really huge thing with Gen Z, in which they are exploring their sexuality by writing and sharing and reading stories of people of the same age going through the same things with the same crushes that they are. It was huge with One Direction, back from 2011 to 2016, and then BTS, the Korean boy band juggernaut took over. We could see this in the data at Wattpad, and we’d look and be like, “Wow, what is this BTS? Is that everyone getting really excited about going back to school?” No, it’s a Korean super group that no one has heard of, this is back in 2016, that’s about to become the biggest band on the planet.
Jessica, these stories that these younger people are writing are racy! This is extremely racy content! A lot of it got flagged and moved to a mature category so it couldn’t be visible for anyone who’s under 18. But it’s extremely racy, and you’re playing with really your sexual identity for the first time. I would have loved to have said it’s empowered. It’s not. It’s very kinky, people are playing with a lot of power dynamics. The big thing was like, one of the boy bands has been adopted into their family and it’s like a step brother play, or they’ve been hired by the band as an assistant. It’s very, very, very racy. But it was very interesting that this is still kind of in the same realm, and you’ve got a lot of adults reading this too. Is that in the gray area as well? Is reading this erotica about this band, and then going to see them, and then buying the t-shirt, traveling down to see them, is that in the gray area? I don’t know.
It kind of sounds like, in the US, they have this thing of the Wild Wild West back in the day. It’s like, anything goes, it’s such uncharted territory. I’m all for exploration and exposure and wondering, and breaking boundaries in the sense of what you’ve been taught, and really questioning. But I also can recognize that like, if I think about a library, if there’s so much information that’s so much categorized and wealth of knowledge, and I can go and it’s organized and categorized and all of that. While with the online space, there’s really little regulation as far as what’s being offered. So again, what continues to come up for me is the intentionality or the awareness.
So tell me where you’re coming from, because you are living in this space. What are you seeing as far as the impact on relationship and how people can negotiate this with a little more health? Not to say, I think the way that we’re talking could be construed as like, this is the dangers of technology, which I do think could be legitimate. Also, I’m sure there’s many positives, and maybe we can pivot towards that too. But I’m just curious where you’re at here.
I truly think it’s all about the conversation that you’re having with your partner. I think maybe if your partner was writing some pretty serious erotica in a fandom, and maybe it’s something that you didn’t know that they were doing, all of these things. Like, is your partner aware that you’re writing erotica? Or maybe you and your partner are sharing an OnlyFans account, and it’s something where you both get a crush on this one person, you’re buying their videos and supporting them in whatever way you want, that’s awesome. It’s like, are you comfortable with your partner knowing this, or is there some level of understanding between you and your partner?
“I think that’s what it’s really all about, just having your boundary set. It’s tools, it’s content. It’s still been the same kind of things and issues that I’m sure we’ve seen over and over again, just in a very, very different way. It’s a little bit different because it’s all hidden on your personal device, which is in your pocket almost 100% of the time.”
But I think the positives are also really important to talk about.
Okay, before we go there, I just want to underscore that. Because what I’m hearing you say, almost the subtext of this is, in relationship, as you are in relationship now or even entering into relationship, that this could be a very important conversation to have. Can we talk about how we use, up until now, it might change? But can we talk about how we like to use our technology, how it might impact or influence us and our relationship, also including sexuality and anything around that, but what are our expectations? Just to have these conversations. I don’t think I would imagine the average person is going into relationship thinking, “Oh, we need to have this conversation.”
Oh, it’s a huge deal, with Gen Z especially. We did so much research into Gen Z at my previous work, and I’m working with Gen Z’s now, and the Instagram conversation. First, you shadow introduce someone on your Instagram, so you show, like, your partner’s hand on a glass next to yours, or that someone is obviously taking pictures of you in a location. So you shadow introduce them, and then you do the Instagram reveal, which is a cool thing. Then there’s also the expectation that you’ve gone through everyone that is in your partner’s list, because it’s visible, and that you’ve gone through and your partner has unfollowed whoever is deemed to be important who is unfollowed. So these are definitely big conversations, because it’s someone’s public presence. Because I think, especially during lockdowns and COVID, and even then, workplaces are still closed, and people aren’t mixing as much at the workplace and not seeing each other as much, this is still how a lot of socialization is being done.
Yes. I know what we’re not talking about, and this probably is not going to be captured in the positives, but also how people present themselves as a couple or what they say about relationship and what it looks like on social media, and the mental health around how people evaluate their relationship based on what they’re seeing on media. Do you want to talk about that?
Yeah, it’s so important, and what we’re touching on here is the highlight reel. The social media highlight reel, it plays into the new narrative. I grew up on Disney films, so I have the Disney relationship narrative. But now the next generation is growing up in the social media highlight reel narrative. It’s not just good enough to be in a happy relationship, it’s so important that on one half of social media. We’ll talk about other trends in the realness trend that we’re seeing, but so much of it is a highlight reel. You have to have your videos edited. Like, me and my partner’s year-in-review: here’s all the places we went to, here’s a slow-motion video of me walking down the steps, here’s us doing this. It is an entire production that people are putting out.
It could even be a little bit more emphasized on the actual appearance, maybe even, rather than the actual experience, being so caught up in the presentation. Hopefully that’s not true of the majority, but that can happen.
I spoke to a good friend who is an influencer, and we had a great catch-up. She said, “I just realized that our entire trip, we were like a travel influencer couple, and our entire trip was around the photos we’d get. So we’d wake up at four in the morning to be in this busy square at five before people got there, and then we’d set up our stand and start taking our pictures.” She said, “I realized it all just got too much when my husband wasn’t putting the right face, and I was in this flowing red dress. It was 5am, I didn’t sleep properly, and I just had a complete meltdown in the middle of the night. Because he wasn’t smiling properly, and we had taken all these pictures.” Then she was just like, “This is ridiculous! I’m spending so much effort to present my life is perfect that it’s wrecking my life.”
I think the pressure around that is enormous. I know we were interested in maybe sharing how the technology and what you’re seeing in the positives. At this juncture from where you’re coming from, would you say technology? This is so grossly reducing it, so I apologize for the question. But would you say there’s more dangers or things to be considerate of around how technology can be damaging? Or do you feel like the opportunities there or just how it’s being used, I guess currently as you’re seeing it in the impact on relationship?
I’d love to do. I’m really curious about if people reduced the amount of technology and just used it ethically. So I think our generation really went through something special. We had to pick up a phone and dial in the numbers and book a date, and you’d ring someone whose house you’re interested in, and you’d pray that a sibling picks up, and not one of the parents; we had to go through that, we didn’t have DMs. We also got to go to all of these parties, have all these experiences, and the worst thing that could happen is someone somewhere had a photo of you on a disposable camera or something like that, doing something a little bit sketchy, and maybe they showed it to their friends. That was as bad as it could get.
But I think you’re seeing our next generation exposed to a plethora of new challenges. We know that Gen Z are having way less sex. I think we’re seeing this in Gen Z males especially, which is really interesting.
“You have pretty privilege on steroids once you’re on social media, because you’re more accessible. So good-looking people can have more experiences, and if you’re not so good-looking or don’t present well on social media, then you’re going to get pushed to the bottom of the barrel faster.”
Whereas, we know that in relationship science, proximity is so important, getting to know people. You know what it’s like when you meet someone, they have amazing personality, they have a spark inside them, great energy, how attractive do they become so fast! You see, all of the physical stuff drops down to second.
But I think for our next generation, because so much of this is done through apps, where you are judging everyone on how they look in a photo, much less of that is true. We did a study on this as well actually, on how people are meeting. For younger people, a lot of them are meeting through apps, and it’s really, really hard. So I think there’s a lot of really damaging things. Especially because if then those young people are meeting less people, and then they’re spending more time watching porn or trying to build. That really, really scares me, and I’m just so thankful that I didn’t grow up with those dilemmas. I really want to talk about the positive side.
Yeah, I want to comment really quickly. Just in that, I’m feeling the empathy around what that does to someone’s self-esteem, their sense of self-worth, when maybe you’re at the bottom of the barrel, or you haven’t gotten the likes or the type of exposure comparatively. Thus, you might approach a real-life situation very differently than you would had you had some confidence around like, “People like me, and I feel good. I may not be whatever as I might rank myself and whatever, but I have gifts to offer.”
Let’s talk about the positives, because I know you’re doing something really important in this way. But also, even before we turn to Couply, what do you see as far as how technology can be helpful for relationship?
I think even relationships and self-discovery, I think technology is the place where you can find community. Technology is the place where you have something you’re into. We talked about fandoms already. But there’s also a really amazing thing about finding your tribe, finding your fandoms. I mean, it lets people like yourself, people with an incredible message, reach so many people. Think about how many people your podcast is reaching. For people like me who are new into the space, I can go into the archives, this episode was born from Episode 7 in 2015 when I think you first did your relationship technology episode, we’re running it back seven years later. It’s really powerful in that way. You’ve got people whose passion you share, and they can be really fantastic role models as well. I’ve learned so much about business, about app development, about relationships, through incredible technology. We also have some really brilliant therapists on TikTok who are blowing up and doing great things. It’s still very, very bite-sized, and it’s not like a true deep dive. But I think maybe it sparks people’s interest in it. So I think that’s really good too is that good messages can also be elevated, you can find your tribe.
Let’s not forget, for people in a long-distance relationship, it’s amazing! And where we’re getting at with Virtual Reality is really exciting too. The Metaverse, and I don’t think it’s going to be as big as Mark Zuckerberg is hoping, but I’m very intuit. I have an Oculus Quest 2. I live in Canada, my brother lives in the UK, and we get a chance to team up and play games together. I can see him as an avatar, and you play a group game, it’s a shooting game. But I can recognize my brother by his movements, despite him being an avatar. Like, I know it’s him by just the way that he moves. There’s a connection that you have in VR, because it’s so immersive; there’s no distractions, there’s no devices, and that’s something that I have to be. Again, as you can probably tell, I get very interested in lots of subjects. I’d love to do something in VR for couples in long-distance relationships. Create your own space, create your own LDR room, put your own music on. It’s a space where you wait for your partner at the beginning of the day or the end of the day, and you guys can hang out and watch TV together. Like, you have that ability in VR to really have that connection, which is really great.
I think I was going to say companionship, I’m a little bit worried about where things will go with companionship. But if you’re lonely, it’s a great place for you to connect with others. I think we’re going to see much more down here as AI continues to improve and robotics continues to improve, we’re going to see a lot of companionship stuff. I have some friends that are playing in this space, and they have said, the way that they’re looking at companionship and robotics is that it will be via Mechanical Turk, and that is essentially someone who’s controlling an avatar that will be in your home. But that’s probably in the next 30 years that we’re going to be seeing more of that, which will be very, very interesting.
No kidding! Thank you, you just dropped just so many things. First of all, as you’re mentioning, just the Virtual Reality of this immersive experience, and the benefits of that. I mean, look, you and I are talking through video conferencing, and that in and of itself is a technology. You’re in the UK right now, I’m currently in Bellingham, Washington. So we’re having this conversation, and I’m grateful for that, and just sharing on this topic. Also, couples in long-distance relationship. I’m even thinking about, for a couple that perhaps is in the same home, that if they’re wanting to explore new territory, or just even explore something, that there can be so much novelty or even experiment. I’m not talking just sexually. I’m talking about anything in life. That there’s almost being able to put on this costume or put on this new, or not even new, but a different way of accessing the world. I get that it’s virtual, so there’s things to be aware of around that. But it could be just experimental.
One of the things I was hearing in the way you were describing all this is the learning and what we have access to. Even when we come back to our phones or whatever devices, how it’s being used. Is it interrupting? Like, if my husband and I were at dinner, is my phone visible, and if I get any type of alert, am I immediately drawn to it or do I put it away? Or if we’re doing stuff and we’re not intentionally together, but I’m using my device, then I might say, oh, look! Or I’ll show him, “Here’s what I’m doing, I’m texting so and so.” I’m including him. Because it’s almost like, it has this vacuum of like, “Oh, my attention is in this other space. It’s not with you, I’m not really about that responsive or available.” But if I include you in it, or what I learned or what we’re learning together, and we can even talk more about Couply here. But it sounds like the way in which we’re using it, it can be new information, it can be new experiences, it can be shared. Again, to your bigger point, how we’re working together around how we want to use technology, as individuals, and then as a couple, how we do that and how we negotiate that.
Yeah, totally. To speak about Gottman’s work, it becomes another bit that you’re sharing with your partner, a cool reel or something on your phone. It’s another bit, and so your partner has those free ways of responding to it. I think that almost seamlessly goes into a little bit what we’re trying to do at Couply.
Before you do that, just even to comment too, that partners perhaps could even, by continuing to be visible and continuing to be honest and open around, “Oh man, I just spent 20 minutes on my phone, I don’t know that I want to do that.” Or, “Oh, I just found myself in this place, and I don’t know how I feel about that. Can we talk about it?” There could be some space that we bring some of that back to the relationship, and thus, it can be, again, material for us to learn about ourselves and also be of support to each other and maybe even grow our relationship.
Yeah, exactly. I think that’s a really wonderful way of looking at it. It’s how we cultivate our feed, respond to the content, and it’s how we bring our partner into that too.
Okay, talk to us a little bit about Couply. Because it sounds like you’re using the technology space to really help people engage in material that brings them back to the practice of relationship.
That’s it. I mean, how often if you read your text messages with your partner, I read mine, it’s tactical. “Did you pick up the asparagus? Okay, I’ll be there in five minutes.” It’s all very, very, very tactical. You speak about this a lot. Those initial two years of your relationship, where your body is flooded with hormones, neurotransmitters, everything’s doing it, you’re having these deep conversations. Because you’re basically on drugs, you’re basically having these temptations. So what we’re trying to do is bring back a little bit of those intentional conversations, those deeper questions. It’s so important, and it’s not hard. It’s not the sticky work. This isn’t the work that I think you and other professional couples’ therapists do where they get really deep in. This is more like the small things often. This is the asking deep, fun, silly questions, and responding to them. That’s part of the app. The app will give couples questions each day that they can respond to. Like I just said, some are challenging, some are hypotheticals, some are little things about goals.
The second part of the product, and when I say product, I mean app. I’m going to talk in non-technical language. So the second part of the app is quizzes. I think couples’ quizzes are really interesting. Because of course, you’ve got really major established quizzes, like your love styles, or Gary Chapman calls them love languages. There’s a bit of a debate about how much utility that there is to them. But I think something that is really powerful, is it’s almost like a gamified way of saying, “I’d like more gifts. I want something different.”
I know, continuing to explore the depth of understanding of one another.
Exactly. I think the ones that we really love, I personally have my favorites. I’m a huge fan of the Enneagram. It really helped me to understand myself and my weaknesses specifically, and it really helped me understand my partner and my partner’s deep, interesting rules. She’s a bit, in Myers Briggs as well, judging. Like, rules are so important to her, and when people break rules, it is really bad. Whereas, I’m very much so like, “Uh, rules?” You know what I mean, we have a different dynamic around rules. But I understand now how important these are to her. For her, these are the fabric and the foundation of everything. So it’s just helped us, and it’s helped our community understand each other a little bit of a different way.
“I think there’s something very powerful where you can see, in black and white, written down in front of you, a number next to your introversion or extroversion.”
So that’s been so powerful for people. Because there’s a lot of quizzes out there, they’re all over the internet; some of them are great, and some of them aren’t. But there is something really powerful to be able to tab across and see your results and your partner’s results, and be like, “Wow, my partner is introverted, and that means that they actually need to think through things. I’m extroverted, so I actually need to talk things out. So we have two completely different ways of communicating.” I know people who listen to this are professionals. So they’re like, “Obviously, Tim!” But most people just assume that everyone is like them. So it’s very, very powerful for folks to see in black and white that their numbers are different, and it really sparks that new conversation and learning new strategies of how to relate and love your partner.
Yes, I love that you said “spark the conversation.” Because it’s a real conversation piece, and it really sparks the dialogue. Even if I know that my partner is introverted or that I’m extroverted, the continuing of the dialogue to understand the significance and the meaning of how it plays out, I think these conversations are so incredible.
I’m interested in how you like to see people using the app. Because I know that a lot of couples, whatever the demands of the day, whether or not professional or domestic, whatever have you, get to a certain point in the day, and they’re tired and they want to relax. Yet, that could be couple time, or it could be sitting and watching the TV, which can feel relaxing, but it maybe doesn’t necessarily feel enriching or supporting the connecting. I’m curious what you think. Because I mean, could it be an alternative to watching TV? It also could be something they do independently throughout the day and then come back and maybe have that conversation. What are you seeing, and what are you liking to recommend?
We’ve interviewed so many of our couples, and we see a split almost 50-50. So for one, they’re like, “Hey, this is the moment when I tick down. A notification will go off my phone, I see it’s Couply, I’m at work, and I’m like, oh, goodness, my wife has sent me something, and it brings back those lovely flirting feelings, and they answer the question.” It’s different. Like I said, it’s usually things like, did you buy avocados, whatever it is, or get this. But then it’ll be something like, what was the date that you knew that I was the one for you? Or something like that. Then they open it up to see this essay from their partner about this day and the moment, how they looked, and all of these kinds of things, which is cool. Then we’ve also had people say that “Actually, we do this side by side, and we discuss it. Or we do it when we’re having a glass of wine after dinner, we’ll do some Couply stuff.” But I think the favorite part for me, and the most important part, is that we give people date ideas based on your partner’s quiz results. So if you’re into gifts, you get gift ideas, quality time.
It’s not static, it’s tailoring. I love that.
Yeah. The more you use it, the more tailored it will become. My favorite thing is when people are like, “Hey, I got your date idea, and I was like, wow!” So it’s based on their partner’s personality. It’s not for them, it’s for their partner. They’re like, “Wow, I would have never thought of this day. I didn’t do that exact date, but I did my own spin on it, and we just had such an amazing date night, and we just did something new and different.”
“It’s so important that we continue to date our partners. It’s so important that we continue to carve out that time to pass them as the hero in our lives and do these special things for them.”
I think that for me is really my favorite thing, is that people are out there, and they’re going on dates, and they’re creating memories together. It’s just giving them a very gentle and the most polite kick up the bum to make it happen.
Well, I have my husband’s best friend, he is very knowledgeable in business and economics and all of it. He was like, “If you can make something convenient for people, you have a really great potential product or service to offer.” Because when things assist in making things easier, and I’ve often had couples tell me, “Oh, I wish you were with us, or we should just have you on speed dial.” That’s obviously to deal with the dynamics and what gets complicated and tricky. But it sounds like what you’re offering with Couply is on quick demand. Not speed dial, but like app-ready. That it’s helping nurture more of the romance, the play, the interacting, the connecting, and that it’s gamifying it. So hopefully, there’s enjoyment in the process of it. So I love it.
Are you seeing the app grow? I mean, as you talked about the success that you had, are you seeing the same type of growth?
We’re very, very fortunate. So we’ve seen it grow quite significantly. We’re coming up to a full year in the game. So our Couply anniversary of me and my co-founder is Valentine’s Day, which maybe we should have thought that one through a little bit more. But that’s the official one-year anniversary of Couply, and we’re closing in on 300,000 downloads. We’re almost closing in on a thousand 5-star reviews, and we’re the number one app for couples on the Google Play Store in the United States. It’s been very fun, but we’re just at the very beginning of this journey.
I need to and I have to say, Jessica, how much you’ve helped me and the team understand so much more about relationships and relationship psychology. Huge fan of this podcast and everything that you’ve done, the people you’ve brought on! Some of the episodes have just been life-changing. Like, the aperture episode, I thought she was so fantastic. It just helps us not just build a product, help us understand more. But it helps us communicate better with everyone that we love, which improves our life immeasurably. So you’ve definitely had a part of this journey too, even just as sort of like a mentor at large. So thank you for that.
Oh, thank you so much. I receive that, and it means a lot to me. I don’t always know who’s listening, or how it’s being applied, or how people are feeling impacted by what’s on the episode. So I love that it’s helping you and your team and what you’re providing, and perhaps even exposing all of you to even other experts and people and the curriculum that you’re providing. So I love it.
Well, thank you. Let’s hear from you, how do people get the app? What would you like to encourage people to do?
Just Google Couply, and we’ll be there. We’re in all your app stores. It’s free, so you can definitely try it out. There’s no charge to try it out. Then if you want to, there’s Premium options if you want to. But you can get a really good feel of it all for free, so give it a whirl.
I’ll make sure to have that link on today’s show notes. Tim, thank you so much for sharing your time with us here.
Thank you so much, Dr. Jessica. It’s an honor and a privilege to be on.
Signing Off
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Sexual intimacy is a vital component of any healthy relationship, but for many couples, it can be a challenge to maintain. Whether it’s due to changes in your body, stress, or other obstacles, it can be difficult to keep the passion alive. However, there is hope. With a little bit of self-awareness and some open communication with your partner, you can reignite the spark and nurture sexual intimacy in your relationship.
In this episode, we’ll explore some tips and strategies for overcoming obstacles and reigniting the passion in your relationship. So, if you’re ready to take your intimacy to the next level, listen to this episode to learn more.
Dr. Liz is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and Certified Relationship Coach with over 35 years and 75,000+ hours of expertise working with women and couples to reignite relationships so they can prevent divorce, infidelity, and dissatisfaction and navigate huge life transitions.
In this Episode
4:09 Nurturing intimacy and passion: The importance of “redos” in order to address mistakes in relationships and improve communication and connection.
10:52 Myths and realities of sexual intimacy in long-term relationships: How life stages and circumstances impact couples.
20:19 Navigating life stages and overcoming challenges to maintain intimacy in relationships.
26:07 The challenges and opportunities in building and maintaining a sexual connection.
31:41 The Importance of Self-Awareness and Relaxation.
36:16 The importance of self-care, mindfulness, and communication in the bedroom.
42:05 Misperceptions and fears in sexual intimacy: How to address and communicate to maintain passion and connection.
47:29 The unconscious strategies to avoid intimacy.
Your Check List of Actions to Take
- Practice self-care before engaging in sexual intimacy, such as taking a bath or going for a walk, to increase connection with your body and make yourself more accessible.
- Communicate openly with your partner about your needs and preferences, and have these conversations outside of the bedroom to reduce anxiety and reservations.
- Be aware of unconscious strategies that may be avoiding intimacy, such as placing a physical barrier between partners or allowing other distractions to take priority.
- Address any fears or misperceptions about changes in your body and seek to understand the underlying emotions behind them.
- Assertively express your interest in sexual intimacy, instead of tracking your partner’s interest without speaking up.
- Remember that one person can impact the entire relationship and making changes in yourself can lead to positive changes in the relationship.
Mentioned
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Weekend Reconnect Coaching Program
FREE Gift Couple’s Connection Checklist
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About Today’s Show
Dr. Liz Jenkins, thank you for joining us today.
Oh, thank you so much, Jessica. It’s a thrill to be here. It’s such an honor. I’m looking forward.
Yeah, me too. I love this topic, it’s something that’s so important. Especially when we look at the demands that the average couple is enduring as far as all the things that are on the plate, and that intimacy and passion, especially in long-term relationship, how do we continue to nurture that? So I’m excited about what you have to share with us.
Thank you. So I just got off the call from a session with a couple that, yes, they’ve moved in together, they’re engaged, and she’s already feeling like I’m less of a priority. So it’ll be great to be talking about this today with you, I appreciate it.
Yeah. For people who aren’t are necessarily super-acquainted with you and your work, is there anything you want to share to help people get to know you and where you’re coming from?
Well, I’ve been licensed for over 37 years, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, and married, we just finished our 35th wedding anniversary. So I really lead in with the priority for making sure relationships are rewarding and people are being able to enjoy the best in themselves and their couplehood. Plus, we have two adult daughters. So I’m kind of biased to make sure that our daughters have the opportunities to choose wisely and choose well in the beginning. That’s why I brought all these aspects from my professional life and my personal life into my work with couples in my coaching programme.
So it sounds like you really do your best to live what you are teaching and facilitating in your work.
Absolutely. I’m the master of asking for a redo when I’ve misspoken or it didn’t come off the right way or a way that was supportive or loving in my marriage or even with my kids. So we do a ‘redo it back up’, that’s really what I wanted to have said or would’ve wished I had done differently is this. It’s magical. But if anybody tries it out there in the world with their kids, don’t be surprised when they get to the point where they’re asking you to do a redo. I can’t tell you how many times my daughters are like, “I think this sounds like a good redo time. What do you think, Mom?” I’m like, okay.
Oh, wow! It’s part of your family, it’s actually a practice.
Yes, absolutely.
I think the redo is highly underrated. When we look at it intellectually, it can be easy, like: “Oh right, we all know, we just went through this, we get it.” But the power of being able to embody it, to be able to express it, and then on the receiving end, to see the person that you love, your loved one, really express the thing with the emotion and the vulnerability and the connection there. It’s so powerful. Even if we intellectually know what we just processed and where we got, to actually live into it is so powerful. I love that you are like, I’m known for this, this is something that I practice and use.
Absolutely, and what a great way for me! So when I have misspoken or been stressed or whatever, didn’t show up at my best, to be able to ask for that, my husband gives me the space to do that, to step back. Then guess what? My mistake goes away because I put the success in there, and it really solidifies for me. It’s like habit stacking successful encounters with my relationships; my husband, my daughters, wherever it be. I see that in so many couples as they start to get disconnected, and they come to me. I’m sure you see that as well is, they feel like they’re a failure or their relationship is a failure, or they’ve made these kinds of mistakes. It’s because they’ve had multiple layers of encounters with each other that fell short or disappointing and were hurt, and there wasn’t any successful redo or a different strategy or a different way to talk about the situation. So they’re left with feeling: “This is the best it gets, and this is not what I signed up for. I’m not feeling sexy in my marriage. I’m not feeling connected to my partner as back then. I’m starting to feel depressed and wondering how much departments cost in the area, because I’m thinking about I need to leave.” I then start doing that silent questioning that starts to tell me that they’re already stepping away physically, as well as mentally.
Oh my goodness, we could talk the whole show about this. I do agree that it’s living into, it’s giving some scaffolding, it’s getting some experience. It almost occurs to me, some of the analogy of even some of these emotional relational skills is like getting practice and weightlifting, if you will. Like, you can’t build the skill if you don’t actually get the reps in. So it’s almost like, “I read a book about weightlifting, I got it,” versus actually doing it. So there’s so much neurochemical. Anyway, we could talk all the time.
I love that. Yes, absolutely.
Okay, let’s pivot towards when we look at passion and intimacy, what got you interested in really diving more into this area and supporting people in this way?
We start off with our dreams and we start off with this chemical boost, and we really have those butterflies in our stomach kind of moments. It’s very, very sad when I talk to a wonderful couple, and they’re not feeling anything towards each other; they’re not even feeling anything towards themselves. Some of the times, the passion and the intimacy is misinterpreted. Not some, a lot of times it’s misinterpreted. From maybe it’s just a staging in their relationship, or there’s so many life events, I can talk a little bit about that too. So they’re attributing a drop in the passion, or a drop in that times per week or times per year that they have sex, that they are intimate, and they’re getting misinformation, and they’re coming out with the wrong outcomes.
Then again, as we talked about scaffolding, it further solidifies to them that they’ve made the wrong decision, and maybe they need to step out, or maybe this is just the way that things are. There’s so many myths that float around in social media, and even within the professional field, or even with my friends. It’s like, “Passion has to die out. It goes away when you become a couple. As you get older, as you have kids, this is the best you could expect.” Then there’s also the Facebook ones, where people are so excited, and they’re so into each other. It’s human nature at times to do this compare and contrast and say, “We don’t look anything like what I’m seeing out on Instagram or Facebook or TikTok or anything like that.”
Wow! I’m sorry, I’m saying wow because I’m just recognizing how much is involved in this perception. So not only perception of the other, and the availability and the interest around intimacy, sexual intimacy. But also, what we do and how we evaluate that. So you’re saying a few things, and let’s dive in here. So you’re saying life stages, I’m imagining that’s what the couple, whether or not you have children or careers or these type of things. But also, just normal pacing and what’s happening and circumstances in life; a pandemic, or whatever it is. Then, it’s such a private thing. This is one of the things that I find most people are contending with, as it relates to sexual intimacy. It’s like, what’s the healthy amount per week or how much? They’re looking for a gauge of: are we healthy, are we not healthy, and what’s okay, what’s not okay? Then when we do this comparison, and the myths that are out there, or this one version that’s not giving us the whole picture. Yeah, there’s a lot here.
It’s understandable, when we’re lost or we’re searching for an answer, some kind of horizon, say, “Are we on track? Are we off track? Is this normal? Is this not normal?” Oftentimes, what we have that are reliable resources are maybe what we watched growing up, or our peer groups around us, or now the social media. So oftentimes, we are not having accurate information. Wouldn’t it be so easy if we could just like, I don’t know, you just stand before the screen, it scans you and says: “Yeah, passion is normal, don’t worry about it, this happens” kind of thing. Then we go get blood tests and things. But it doesn’t, and there’s so many factors that are individualized for each person. I mean, we talk about couples that start off dating in high school, and maybe they go to college, or they go straight into work, and then they go into marriage and whatnot. So they’re going to be experiencing many, many different stages. Some of which is that maybe they were different when they were in high school or early college, even my college folks. So as they find themselves, as they’re adults themselves and step into the careers and their interests and become successful, or at least even more self-aware, that’s going to impact and reflect back on their relationship, their marriage.
If you get into the place where you’re trying to have children, just the process of getting pregnant can be a big wet blanket in the bedroom. There’s like, “Okay, we want to do this, so we’re going to have sex a lot of times and it stops being fun.” Or we’re not able to get pregnant right away, so then there’s a sense of failure there on both partner’s sides. We started adding in support of systems like IVF and those type of things. There is a lot of intrusion into your bedroom and the cycle, and it becomes very clinical, all the different tests and whatnot that go away. Everybody knows your business, and that is not sexy. So those struggles do impact even the climate for a couple that’s really trying to go the next step, that can be a big roadblock in being spontaneous and intimate. Pregnancy changes the body; women feel different about their bodies, men feel different about their women’s bodies. Many men say: “I do not want to do anything to upset her and the baby, or it feels kind of creepy, or I’m not sure how I’m supposed to do things.”
So it’s lack of education around that. I’m being open about it, as well as maybe there’s some real cautions that maybe pregnancy is high-risk, so they do have to hold off on that. Then as time goes on, we don’t reconnect, or we don’t know how. Having kids and things are expensive, and there’s different kinds of life events. Those are real big spontaneous or intimacy fun suckers there, the extra stress, the extra responsibilities.
“One of the biggest things that I see with couples that have become disconnected, is they’re not talking about the changes. They’re not talking about it, they’re trying to just manage it or suppress it.”
Well, as you’re laying and identifying some of these stages, it also occurs to me that any level of stress can impact the sense of desire or arousal. So we might have phases that might predict, or even retirement. Like, if one is retired, or both are retiring, the sense of who am I and identity, the sense of having purpose. I mean, there’s so many things that could interfere.
Oh yeah, absolutely. You would think that a retirement is a great and wonderful thing, and we’re thinking we’ve done everything, we’ve laid things away. Oftentimes, I find that that is when people start to disconnect or lose sight with themselves. Maybe one is still working and the other one is retired. So there’s different, like, what do I do with myself? You talked about a sense of identity, and a sense of purpose too. Now where? One can travel, and one can’t. I’ve seen some of the biggest fights happen when there’s maybe a stay at home, then the retired, we’ll just throw a guy under the bus. But the gentleman, he’s retired, he’s been used to running big companies or businesses and stuff, and now he’s going to go in and reorganize the kitchen, because he’s an efficiency model here. They’re like, “Get out of my kitchen, I’m not happy with it. This has been working just fine. Go find something else for you to do.” So even good stress can impact and impede.
One of the things that maybe people don’t really recognize until you start to share is that intimacy really starts in the head, and it starts in our brain. As we’re maybe dating or in the early years, the butterfly moments or things, there was a lot of anticipation about being with that special person; there was a lot of feeling good about them. So when we saw them, the mind was clear, the passion was there, the hormones were going. But when you’re living under the roof of someone and it’s day-to-day, maybe they’ve dropped their manners. Maybe they are still wearing the same pair of pajamas they’ve had for the past three years.
I thought you were going to say 15 years.
Well, I was being generous. But yes, absolutely. Those same ratty T-shirts or whatever they might be. It’s not cute. It’s not sexy. We sometimes forget about that, that we aren’t even dating ourselves, let alone showing up better for our spouse. Because it’s easy, because we don’t have to. The Please’s and the Thank you’s, people drop their manners. So many couples say, “Why do I need to thank them for taking out the trash? That’s their job.” Because we’re setting the stage from the moment we get up to the moment we go to bed, we’re building that respect, we’re showing appreciation, and that stuff becomes sexy. Also, for many people who may love that love language, just an act of service feels really good. So we’re lining them up and saying, take them out there.
“I think part of it is also just not taking them for granted, not taking yourself for granted, and really exploring some of the routines and ruts that are diminishing spontaneity and spark in your marriage or your relationship.”
Oh, my goodness! I’m reminded, I know that you are a fan of the Gottman Institute. It reminds me of a quote I remember being referenced, I think to John Gottman, is that everything is foreplay.
Yes, you’re right, good memory.
Well, what you’re describing is so key. I don’t know if I’m feeling this accurately. But it almost feels like, collectively, maybe in more modern Western culture, sexual intimacy, it has a place. It’s almost compartmentalized, and it’s so private. The way we’re talking, that you’re really helping bring some fluidity, perhaps, to the congruency of nurturing the connection that supports the container and the space to enter into that type of relating.
I love that, I love how you tied that together. Yes, it is, not that you’re bringing that and illustrating that. Yeah, absolutely. It does start in those simple gestures, in those niceties. Someone that has a ritual or has a routine of making coffee. I have one that makes coffee puts it by their wife’s nightstand. She’s still asleep, and they’re getting ready to go off in the morning. It’s just there’s nothing more loving than to see that he remembers me, and my coffee is there. That gets sexy. Because later on, when you’re bumping around them in the kitchen, or they’re late for dinner, or they haven’t done something, you still have that positive feeling. It’s called positive sentiment override. You still have that positivity, and you still have those things that make you feel like a priority. So you can give space and give grace to them when they don’t necessarily show up. There’s a very real thing that I see with one of my women clients, is the mental load or the mental list.
Yes, talk to us about that. It’s so huge.
It is. Sometimes, maybe they haven’t offloaded that list or shared it with their husband, they don’t even know. So I’ve been talking to a couple I said, So you come in and you’re thinking, “Okay, it’s sexy time, kids are in bed, we’ve done this, we’ve done that,” and you’re already making the moves or sitting there watching television, and they’re kind of pushing you away. So there’s a mental list in there. That the list is, maybe in this example, “I’m tired. I’ve got to get up at five so I can work out tomorrow morning. How long is this show going to run? He’s trying to make the moves. I still need to make lunches for the kids, I’ve got to get the coffee ready. Dog has to go to the bathroom.” So we’re going through this list, and we’re starting to do like an agenda. Like, how does that fit in with all the things that are on my to-do list, and we don’t even necessarily share that with our spouse or partner.
I know some of the men have to-do lists, too. But how do we share that? Say, “I’m all in for that. But I’ve got all these things I have to get done before go, so how do we do it?” Like, some people want to sit down and have dinner after cooking, and I’ll leave the dishes in the kitchen, and they’re all lined up on the counters, and then they’ll have dinner, and then they’ll go take care of the dirty dishes. There’s other couples that say, we’ve got to get the dirty dishes before we can go enjoy our dinner. You’ve get to decide in your relationship, which kind of couple you are: do we eat first or do we do the dishes first?
“The mental load is huge, and that is a big dissatisfier. It slows down the passion. Because we’re in our heads, and sex becomes a chore.”
We add it to the chore list. “Gotta get that tick, be done. Good, or normal. Got it right, next.” That isn’t necessarily an enjoyable, long-lasting system.
No kidding! It does, as you’re describing, being in the head and being in the doer mode, the actual satiation or experience of being able to share in intimacy and the creativity of that. It ties into something you were saying a moment ago about even the circumstance where the couple, one has given birth, had a baby. They both had a baby, but one body actually delivered, and the circumstances and the hormonal changes and all the things that go with that. Then there might be even circumstances where, given if it’s a high-risk, that perhaps intercourse is off the table. For some that could mean, we’re just not experiencing intimacy, which is more binary, like we do it or we don’t do it. Versus, there’s a whole host of things that we could be engaged with. So the way in which we’re perceiving sexual intimacy, just the paradigm around it could be, “Oh, are we reaching orgasm, are we actually having intercourse? That’s the thing that counts. What other things count?” Not so much even the acts, but even as you’re describing, the way in which we’re nurturing each other throughout is perhaps part of the lovemaking.
That’s interesting that you point out the binary. But like, what is the goal, the objective? We’re going from point A to point B? A little bit of a Google map: we’re going to go here, and we’re going to do this, this, and this. For many folks, the actual intercourse isn’t very satisfying. So there’s some research that really speaks to that, one, men tend to have a higher rate of reaching that climax or having that orgasm than women, and it ties in with the fact that women tend to initiate it less in these groups in the study.
Can I clarify? When you say higher rates, are you saying they are able to achieve orgasm? Like, that’s more of like, 99.9% of the time they’re going to reach orgasm? Is that what you’re saying? Or is it that they reach orgasm faster? What do you mean when you say higher rate, what are you referring to?
They studied couples, and men in the research reported having reached an orgasm. So it was pretty much like a numbers game, and then the women were reporting that it wasn’t always a sure thing. So then they were able to start looking at who would initiate and who was really getting enjoyment. So you see where, if I’m not getting the pleasure out of it, then I become that doer to check the box and move on, same in that realm. But in reality, intimacy starts with a rub up, and there’s so many other ways to be loving, to be intimate, to achieve a climax and orgasm, that doesn’t include intercourse.
To kind of illustrate this, then there’s a disconnect, because there’s a couple’s dictionary. So someone might say, we’re having sex once a week, and someone might say, same couple, no, we’re only having it once a month. Then when we start talking about it, define sex. For one woman, in this couple, she’s saying, “Well, we either have oral sex or manual sex, and we have intercourse, but we do that at least once a week.” He’s saying,” No, no, no, sex is only intercourse. Everything else is just dessert kind of thing, foreplay.” So now they understood why they were fighting so viciously about the fact of when and when they were not having sex, they had not defined what that meant to each other.
Also, what triggered some of this was he had brought in a journal, or he had been recording for a couple of years, when they were and what acts they were doing, so he could support his case. So this was like a long-standing brewing thing, and when they finally just shared their definition, the argument went away and they were both able to agree that the data was right, and then we got to the real stuff. Like, how are we going to make it spontaneous? How are we going to make it planned? How are we going to make it enjoyable? Can non-intercourse still count on the register for each of them? So it starts outside the bedroom, it really does; the cuddles, the touches, the “let me rub your feet” type of thing, as opening the door. It’s, “Hey, I thought about you at the store and I knew that you were running low on this, or you like this kind of ice cream.” Those are the things that say, “Ah, they’re thinking about me! I’m a priority,” and that gets sexy.
For sure, that’s where we can actually flirt, or perhaps even express the playfulness, or be even open to exchanges. When I say play, yes, I mean playful, but even the sexy play of flirting and being in that space, that does allow for more of that spontaneity and that creativity. Because where’s the fire if it’s just in a box that we do, and we then check it off?
Check the box, right. Yeah, absolutely. Throwing music on, and maybe you’re dancing in one area, or bring music into the bedroom, and the tickling, and the touch, and laughing when something doesn’t go well; not laughing at them, but laughing together. Like, “Oh my gosh, that didn’t go so well, or that was fun.” I think, also, you talked about, not the binary, but putting the pause button on the rest of the world, and really getting out of your head, and just start getting into your body and getting into your partner and into your spouse is so important to have that deepening lovemaking.
I want to hear more about that. Because in my experience, that couldn’t be more of a game changer. That if I’m in task mode, or in head mode, work mode, whatever task mode I’m in.
Yes. Pick the moment, and there’ll be some to-do on your list.
Right. I can feel dramatic shifts in me when I turn inwards into my body, and then I’m able to orient from there.
Absolutely. When we’re in that task mode, we are so far detached from our body, it’s not even funny. So we might not even be aware that “You know what, I’m feeling a little aroused, or I’m feeling a little bit of this.” We don’t. So I think that the practice of mindfulness is huge, this practice of self-stepping in and checking in with yourself, being more self-aware. But also, maybe as the tool of you, being able to make it cooperative. It’s not a bad thing. It’s just like, “Hey, Liz, you look like you’re running around the kitchen and you’re trying to do these kinds of things, or hurry up in the bedroom, and it just doesn’t feel like you’re really there. You’re brushing your teeth, you’re doing these kind of things. Slow down, maybe you need to just slow down. Let’s just back the train up type of thing.” I think self-awareness, mindfulness, pausing, if your tendency is to be that Type A kind of person, then it means, what do I need to do to shift from that task into just relaxing? I don’t know if there’s statistics, but it seems like lots of romance happens when you’re on vacation. Lots of babies are suddenly discovered on the cruise ship kind of thing.
“There’s got to be something about disconnecting, stepping away from the demands of the day, and going into that vacation resort kind of mindset, that really does amp up the intimacy and the passion and the connection.”
I’m so glad you named that. Because even before you had said that, I was thinking, it’s quite likely that many people, we talked about stress or even any stages in life, or even crises that are happening, either personally or in the community or more at large, and there can be a lot of pain there. Yes, we have the demands, the domestic duties, professional duties, all of it. But then, when we do get in our body, it might be that I’m exhausted or I need some self-care. The doers or the ambitious ones, that this doesn’t always get prioritized in this sexual intimacy. Like, oh, it just feels difficult when people have a lot on their plate.
Right. So some of those folks that were back in the study, where they were like, who reaches climax or not, how many of those things were really attributed to, like you said, exhausted, or I’m not in touch with my body, my head is still running it. So it interferes with the ability to relax and enjoy pleasure or reach the climax. So the more we’re aware of ourselves, and even just call it, “I need a raincheck. Or I don’t feel like intercourse or I don’t feel like oral sex, but I would like to cuddle. I would like to just lay in your arms or cuddle you or whatever it might be. Or I could use a really good back rub right now.” Sometimes that starts to rev the engines. Or sometimes you just go, that was a really good backrub, and there are no strings attached, and you guys can regroup and reconnect. I see sometimes a premature no from a couple, that if they had shifted and tried something that is maybe nonsexual, but is relaxing, touching, bonding.
Not TV and technology.
No. Yes, thank you. No phones, no TV. Maybe some music, who knows. But no blue light. Just relaxing a little bit and being in the moment. Sometimes the mood shifts. Our bodies are pretty resourceful, and if we give them a chance, sometimes they know what they would like and what they don’t like.
It’s powerful. Even as you’re talking, I’ll just raise my hand here, that if I know I’m a little depleted, I’m still maybe a yes to sexual intimacy. But I might want to draw a bath first, or I might want to go for a walk first. Or do whatever self-care to get into my body, so I can arrive to that space a little more connected, and then be a little bit more accessible. So that could potentially be an option.
Yeah, and that’s a win. That’s a wonderful win, and there’s also these little opportunities. So let’s say that a bath is one of the things that sets you in a place, or the walk, you’re happy. You’re saying, “Hey, look, why don’t you just go run a bath, take as long as you want. I’m going to take care of the stuff in the house. Or you go for a walk, I’m just going to tidy things up, or I’m just going to go here. It’s okay.” It becomes really sexy, and that’s really nurturing and loving partners. I’ve had some folks that say, “All I needed was a nap. I just said, I can’t do this, can’t do this. They said go to bed, I got it. I went and took a nap, and I woke up and I was like, yeah, the kids are still napping. I was like, let’s go. Let’s do this thing.”
Yes. I just am saying, there’s such beauty. When you had said the body and the resourcefulness, we have a lot that’s working for us. A moment ago, when you were talking about their research, and perhaps, when women stereotypically, or in that research study, maybe don’t reach the orgasm to the same rate that their heterosexual partners are, or comparatively the men in that study. The confidence, like, I could see. If I knew I was going to get pleasure and I knew that I was going to have a good experience, even if I was stressed, or even if I did feel like I need a minute to get in my body, I could feel a little more motivated to engage if I felt confident that it was going to be a win for me.
Yeah, absolutely. You’re receiving as well as you’re giving. A lot of times too, if you don’t give yourself a chance or you don’t know what you need, and you and your partner or your spouse aren’t talking about it, I think that’s one of the biggest things. It’s absolutely understandable, but we do get a little bit tongue-tied when we talk about what I like or what I don’t like, what I want or what I don’t want. Sometimes it’s harder in the moment to even express that. So having some conversations outside the bedroom. Go for a walk, or you’re in a quiet drive, and just say: “Hey, let’s talk about how we could maybe do something different, I’m not feeling it. Or I know that I really like when you rub my back or kiss my neck or something like that, that really feels good.” You want to give your partner the inside scoop. They want to please you, male or female. But having the conversation in the moment sometimes can be landmine-ridden, and it’s tough to be there in the bedroom having that conversation. So oftentimes, it’s like, just go for a walk, know that you guys are going to talk about it, have an agenda. Like, “I’d like to talk about our bedroom, or I’m not feeling it, or I’d like to try something different. Let’s talk about what options might be open, what you might be open to.” You go for a walk, you go for a drive, it really kind of allows. As you’re moving and as you’re outside that space, it allows people to drop some of their anxieties and their reservations around it.
I had a woman. She was in a second marriage, and she was loving it with her husband, was head over heels. She was giddy. She’s menopausal, definitely a menopausal, but just having a wonderful time. Because intimacy and sex had not been a part of their marriage, her first marriage. Then she started having some pain and some discomfort, and wasn’t reaching orgasm as fast or as effectively. So we started talking about what she was doing, and what she had not been aware of was that as we age, or as we’re under different stress, our body is going to change, or we’ll need more time to prep or to get ready. For women, that the arousal to get all the things up and out of the way and to be lubricated wasn’t there. In menopause, the vaginal tissue gets thinner, is drying. It can create pain or discomfort, which is definitely a Debbie Downer for if you’re wanting to try. So we just talked about using lubrication, like the K-Y. She’s like, I didn’t know. I talked about telling or sharing this with her husband, so that he could slow things down, and then that would allow her body physiologically to reach that arousal.
On the flip side, I see that with men, too. That maybe “I used to do this, I used to be like Johnny on the spot. I could do it once, I could do it twice, it was no problem, and now it’s taking longer and longer. Is that a sign that the marriage is over? Is that a sign that I’m doing something wrong?” The woman, their spouse, is like, “What’s wrong? I’m not turning them on anymore.” So now you’ve got two people with misinformation. He thinks there’s something wrong with him, and she thinks perhaps that she’s no longer finding her sexy. That the mindset right there diminishes the passion, diminishes intimacy, and less times are we going to be willing to show up in the bedroom.
Well, I’m so glad you mentioned that, because I had wanted to ask you a little bit more. I know our time is winding down here. You had mentioned the way in which people perceive, that they’ll perceive inaccurately or get misinformation. Then we’re talking right now about potential fears, where when my body changes, what is the meaning around that? Can you talk to us a little bit about how to work through those misperceptions, and how to address some of those fears?
Okay, that’s a big topic.
I know, it could take the whole time.
It’s a huge, huge topic, and it happens in the matter of a second. Because if we’re having, I’ll say, these silent conversations, let’s say, I’ve had children, and my body has changed, and I’m not feeling as great, things are a little saggy in different areas, and there’s that one moment where maybe I initiate, or I’m cynical and I’m wondering, “It’s been these for the days, and they haven’t reached out to me, what’s going on? Am I not sexy? Is there someone else that they’re talking to?” Then I get suspicious on the text and phone, or my head goes all over the place. So I think one of the things is starting, if you can, to capture the thought. If you’re having a feeling, capture the thought that goes with it, and see if you can lay them up there. It also is really helpful to ask better questions with your spouse, is to say, “It’s been five days and you’re expecting. It’s been two weeks, now you’re expecting it.”
It’s important as early on as you can to ask curiously, and not accusatory. It’s like, “Hey, it’s been two weeks, it’s been two months since we’ve been doing anything, I’m wondering what’s going on? Is there something I’m doing or is there something that’s going on for you?” Then sit back and hear them. Don’t dismiss them. Don’t cut them off, if you can. Write some notes. If you’ve got to say something, write some notes. But have a really focused, open, curious situation. If you’re feeling a certain way, share those. Like, “This is a feeling I’m having and this was the thought,” that’s just trying to share the true confessions. “Well, I thought because we hadn’t had anything in a couple months, it was because you didn’t like the way my body was after we had the kids.” It might be, “Oh my gosh, no. Actually, I find you sexier than ever, because you are the only one that brought these kids into the world. It’s just that I thought you weren’t interested, or I’ve been under a lot of pressure with work.” So we have these conversations, and we start to realize that we’re guessing and we’re assuming, and then we’re guessing wrong.
“The fastest way that I know is to see if we can catch the feeling that we have, catch the thought, and then check the data with our spouse or partner, or check the data with yourself.”
I’m smiling, because I’m just so thrilled that you just distilled that so clearly. Because so often, people might be reacting or withholding or judging or all the other things we do, and not even know it. Not even know what’s there, not even catch the thought. It’s just caught up in the protection strategies, if you will. So what you’re really inviting is to notice the feeling at the thought. Like, “What’s the fear there? What’s going on? Where am I going? What is that saying to me? What can I know about this?” Then once we can access that, then the checking it out, and not just going to accusation or assumption. But really, that takes some vulnerability too.
Yes, it does. Absolutely. One of my ways too, I’ve got, let’s say, typically exhausted parents, one of them is going to fall asleep with kids, at some point in time, or non-kid, but critter families, and the dogs are all suddenly in the middle of the bed between the two of you. If we share that, “I don’t know if you realize that, but I feel like you don’t want to spend time with me. Because you’re taking the kids to bed and you’re reading and you’re going to sleep with them. Or I feel like you don’t want to touch me, and that’s why our dogs are on the bed, and it’s a good reason why we can’t touch each other.”
So we can start talking about it. Sometimes they are really unconscious strategies to avoid intimacy. “Yep, we got this darling lovely puppy, and we all love Cuddles, and Cuddles is going to lay in this bed, and then we’ve got to cover it up under the blanket.” But it’s right in the middle between us, and we need to do that. Or there’s couples that are like, “Our kids are sick, so they come stay in the bed for a little bit.” Got it, understand. Who wants to be climbing upstairs when you’ve got a kid that’s maybe throwing up or running a fever? Totally understand that. But when that lasts, and that becomes the new routine, it’s maybe time to look at, what is the benefit? What am I avoiding, by having the child here or the dog here or falling asleep up there? We get to talk about that and make some changes. Or if that’s really what’s going on and I am avoiding those intimacy, I’m avoiding the relationship, then we have a different conversation to talk about if I get disconnected to this point.
Yes. Like, what are the emotions I haven’t been clear to? Perhaps, how is the sexual intimacy challenging or what’s happening there? I’m smiling also, because I think this is so common for partners in relationship to observe, are they available, or are they going to respond, just in general? When you talk about intimacy, it’s easy with like, “Oh, my husband is reading a book, so I’m going to go do a thing, and then he might look at me and think, she’s doing that thing.” Speaking again about the Gottman, I remember there being some research that they either did or quoted, that 70% of partners will not actually ask for sex or bring up sex. But they will be tracking their partner to see if they are interested in sex, but never say anything.
Yes, what a missed opportunity! I’m investing so much energy. I’m watching you, they’re doing this, and then, ah, missed opportunity. Yeah, absolutely, we’re pretty observant critters. If they’re interested or if they want to start something up, or they want to see if I’m viable enough or sexy enough, that not only am I tracking you, you’re going to come pursue me. So maybe that’s a different conversation to have.
Oh my gosh, Liz, this is endless, we could spend hours and hours and hours with you, I can realize and see right now. Just for our show, as we wind down here, as people just are getting a sense of you, is there anything else you want to say, to just wrap this up? I know there’s so much to say.
I know you had asked me to be succinct and concise. Let’s see, I want to say that there’s hope. No matter how long it’s been, no matter where you find yourself in this continuum, you can reignite your relationship, you can reignite passion; passion for yourself, your self-awareness, and then bring it into the marriage, into the relationship. One person can impact the system.
“As you start showing up differently, as you start trying new things, or being more aware, or trying pauses, or giving them loving gestures, you are going to directly and significantly enhance your relationship and your partner. Because they can’t keep behaving the same way if you’re showing up differently.”
So maybe instead of tracking them, maybe you’ll be saying, “Hey, would you like to come sit on the couch with me? Or I really miss you, and I would love to give you a hug and a kiss.” Or whatever it might be, you start being more assertive and more aware. So there is hope. There’s so much hope and so much more fun for you to have in your relationship, if you just give yourself a chance, give your partner a chance, and you go in speaking the same language.
Oh, I’m like, let’s go nurture sexual intimacy. It’s just so important, and it gets lost sometimes. So thank you. How do people get in touch with you, with what you’re offering and what you are encouraging people to connect with?
Oh, that’s wonderful. Well, I’m on Facebook at Dr. Liz Jenkins, and at Instagram is Dr_Liz_Jenkins. But I really want you to, you can just jump on my website, DrLizJenkins.com, and click on a connection call. It’s complimentary, and we can spend 30 minutes or so chatting, finding out where you are, strategizing and creating a plan that works for you. If we would be a good fit, great. But you’ll walk away with really having a deeper insight, maybe some accurate information. Maybe you just need a quick “Hey, is this typical, this is normal?” I’m here. So reach me at DrLizJenkins.com.
Wonderful. I’ll make sure to put that link on today’s show notes and just encourage anyone listening who could benefit from a little more support and assistance in this arena.
I guess one of the things is that when we talk about this, there’s hope. It doesn’t have to take a long time to see that change in your relationship. That’s why I have my Couples Smart Restart Sprint, and it’s packed and stacked, so that both, you’ll quickly identify your struggles or gaps. We’re going to have coaching. It’s inside of sessions, and outside access with me through WhatsApp. Then there’s a self-paced weekend reconnect that goes with it. So you can have date night activities, or you can use it for an extended weekend away. But it’s designed to get to dive deep and personalize what you need fast, so you don’t have to spend hours and years and years and years. You can have a big uptick in the enjoyment in your relationship and the passion and the intimacy fast.
Lovely. That sprint, is it for one couple or is it group format?
It’s for one couple. We keep that between the two of the three of us, so that I can keep it really personalized and focused, and that helps with the sprint for that uptick. Because I want you to be walking away very, very quickly, re-enjoying and re-confirming: “We made a good choice, we chose wisely, we chose well,” and we’re just going to keep layering that success.
I love it. I’ll make sure, again, to have that link on today’s show notes, and your social handles and everything.
No problem. Thank you, I really appreciate it. I also appreciate being on your podcast, on your show. It’s been great.
Yes, it’s been wonderful to have you.
Signing Off
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Are you tired of feeling unheard and unseen in your relationships? Do you struggle with finding a shared reality with your partner? If so, you’re not alone. Many of us struggle to navigate the complexities of human interaction and connection. But the good news is, with the right tools and mindset, you can improve your relationships and create a deeper sense of connection and understanding with those around you.
In this episode, Dr. Heather Browne shares some actionable steps and practical advice for creating a shared reality in your relationship and improving communication and connection with your loved ones. From identifying and expressing your needs to holding boundaries and creating space for growth and healing, this episode is packed with valuable insights and strategies for building stronger, more fulfilling relationships.
As a relationship expert, Dr. Heather Browne has worked with thousands of individuals and couples in psychotherapy. She is published in hundreds of journals, has an active YouTube channel, has been featured on ABC-7 news, was the relationship expert on KDOC Daybreak OC, and is published in Inc., The Toronto Sun, Thriving Family Magazine, Light + Life, and Psychology Today. She is a regular guest blogger for both Links for Shrinks and for Marriage Friendly Therapists.
In this Episode
7:36 Dr. Browne’s personal experience that inspired her to help couples.
11:33 Relationship: A place for growth and learning.
19:18 Ownership of ourselves and how we choose to perceive things.
24:25 Navigating difficult conversations in relationships.
31:23 Navigating differences and maintaining connection: The art of empathy and holding multiple truths.
34:21 The importance of curiosity in a healthy relationship.
39:26 Navigating the balance of self-care and caring for others.
44:29 The process of growth and transformation in relationships, emphasizing the importance of communication, curiosity, and compassion.
53:00 Where to find a variety of resources and learn more about her and her work.
Your Check List of Actions to Take
- Prioritize the relationship and bond over the need to achieve consensus in every situation.
- Recognize that couples often have irreconcilable differences and try to understand and respect each other’s perspectives.
- Practice active listening and try to understand where your partner is coming from, rather than focusing on correcting them.
- Practice self-care and self-compassion to help you stay grounded and maintain a healthy perspective.
- Take time to reflect on your own attachments, fears, and insecurities, and work on healing them with the help of a therapist or counselor.
- Make a conscious effort to create a safe and loving environment in your relationship where both partners feel heard and seen.
- Practice empathy and kindness towards your partner and try to maintain an attitude of love and compassion, even when things get difficult.
Mentioned
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*Connect with* Dr. Heather Browne
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About Today’s Show
Dr. Heather Browne, thank you for joining us.
Thank you for having me.
Yes, and I’m grateful that we’re going to be talking about the story that a couple shares about their history, their relationship. Just before we get into the content of what you have to share with us here about this topic, I’m interested if you’re willing to share what prompted the interest in supporting this particular area of couples.
I’d love to. It comes out of my childhood. I was raised by a mom who was a paranoid schizophrenic. So her story changed based upon her ability to be in this reality or realities that I was not familiar with. So the idea of us having our own stories and trying to find those places where we connect within our stories, and then those places where we’re completely lost with others, became very profound. Then led to me wanting to work with people and trying to help them learn, how do you walk alongside someone whose story is very different and has a different reality? But then learn to love them, and hopefully, help them heal themselves and their process in part of that unity of a relationship? Which I find really beautiful, and very sacred.
Wow. Well, this sounds incredibly personal, in the sense of like where you recognize the impact and the power of a narrative, and also how different it can be, and if I’m hearing you correctly, how also revealing it can be; where somebody is coming from, their orientation, their perspective. It sounds as if, the way I’m hearing you is, the goal isn’t necessarily to have the same story in couplehood. But really, being able to honor the story, and perhaps through a development, there can be more integration of a story that is more shared. I don’t know if I’m hearing that.
You’re hearing it perfectly. When people come to me for counseling, and couples is one of my specialties, what I tell them is I have three entities that I’m working with: the partner, the other partner, and then the relationship. I tell people that the relationship is my primary. But it is the same in life. There’s me, there’s you, and then there’s what’s us? Us can help strengthen where the one person might need more strength; it might uplift. And also, if we are not very careful, it can also harm and injure. So there’s a beautiful place of finding out, who are we in partnership? How do we show up for ourselves and for one another? Do we give room for figuring this out moment by moment when we’re wobbling, or a little unsure of ourselves or our partner’s intentions? That’s an important place to be able to talk through and walk through and figure out who are we right now. And the knowledge that we can change that in every single moment if it’s not serving us, and how beautiful that is! That’s a place of my couples’ work that I’m always surprised that people don’t realize.
“Just because something has been the same till now does not mean it needs to completely be the same any moment longer, if it doesn’t bless you and serve you and help you and support you.”
Yes. I mean, what I’m hearing you speak to is perhaps a more empowering intention that does support the relationship, and both individuals, ideally, and that the process of getting there can be very transformative. I’ll just say, in any therapeutic work, the awareness and the deeper understanding can be so transformational. That can help us see from a different perspective, a different orientation. That can be so much more liberating and empowering.
Absolutely. And isn’t that really the reason why we’re in a relationship, to bring out the parts of us that we’re not quite able to do on our own? Because a relationship is different than me by myself. Now I really need to care about you, and work toward the goals that you have, and also work for not the way I see myself, but work toward the way that you see me. That takes us to a whole nother way of experiencing ourselves. It’s really not so much “I think I’m this.” It’s “How do you receive me, and how do we work with that to keep helping each other in that place of growth?” I think relationship is, in my experience, the deepest place of learning how to walk that in a myriad of ways, which to me is more inclusive than the individual walk. But certainly, you need to have done a lot of your own work before you can be pretty healthy in a relationship.
Or just be really in service of growth, and that that is part of the individual intention for me and my work. I agree with you, I couldn’t emphasize that enough. It was actually one of the aspects that came out of my dissertation. It was a meta-analysis, and one of the things was really seeing relationship as an opportunity for growth. Even an aspect of that is that what gets evoked is really an opportunity, or even showing a mirror, or presenting curriculum, if you will. So I couldn’t agree with you more.
That’s the story of us. What is the image I’m getting back in the mirror? Because that is you, but it’s also me. And where am I not liking what I’m seeing in this moment of mirroring? I tell clients, and they get it, when we’re trying to talk about mirroring. I’ll say, if you see somebody doing something and you think “Oh my gosh, I would never do that,” then there isn’t a challenge there in the reflection. But you know when you’re talking to somebody, and you feel like they’re being really judgmental with you, and your response is, “Wow, they’re really judgmental,” is to look at, “Okay, so where’s the part of me that that now is touching upon, where is that pulse point right now? Because that is really me being aware of that, I could otherwise just let them be them.” So in a close relationship, be it a lover, or be it a dear friend, or even a child, the story of us becomes what starts to rise up to the surface, and how is this person here to help you with that? I’ve heard a saying where people will say, “This is God before you, and this is the message from God.” And whatever your spirituality can be, you can say anything in that place.
“If you look at the people who are significant in your life in that way, they do start to become part of your future “you,” if you allow it. That’s in both ways, helpful, and maybe not too.”
Heather, I want to slow down. Because there’s something that just keeps echoing in my head that I know a lot of couples and people get stuck in, and what you’re describing seems very different. So I’m going to reflect it back to you, and I would love to hear your thoughts. So the thing that’s in my mind is how often and how easy and human it is to get stuck in content, to try to almost replay the facts and get some footing around what we’re talking about. That can go on and on, because potentially people see it differently and never will arrive to this consensus around what happened. So what I’m hearing you describe, which seems very different is, what is the process here? How are we being? What are the themes, what are the things that are getting evoked? And can I turn towards that in a way of is there any grain of truth here, can I wonder about this? It’s almost as if the way in which we’re being in relationship, and how I’m experiencing the other, how I’m experiencing what’s happening internally, that’s the thing that you’re really wanting to put some light on.
Yeah, absolutely right. Because people will say to me, “Well, but that’s not the truth.” And what I’ll say is, well, maybe not for you. And I’ll tell clients, you think you’re right, and you are 100% right for you, and your partner is 100% right for them. That’s fine. But you’re in a relationship. So the focus for us needs to be, how are you together? And when someone gets into that place of “I’m now going to tell you the 5,000 times you’ve done this in the past,” I will rather quickly jump in and say, you guys probably have done this a lot at home, at least the 5,000 times, but you’re here to make a change. So how, right now, can we do this differently? Since you’re professing this has not worked 5,000 times, let’s not do it the same now. How can we do this differently now? And they sit with egg on their face and don’t know what to do, and they don’t know what to say. Because they’re so used to that pattern and that rut. I say, it’s okay, we’re just going to stay here until we figure it out. But we’re going to figure this out together.
And it goes to the other side, moving away from the aspect of “I’m either going to put you down or blame you, or point out your faults.” Everything is a duality, everything is contrast. So I can either do that, or I can make a request. I can say, “I hate it when you do this, and I hate it when you do this, and you always do this, and this is frustrating.” Or I could say, “Hey, would you be willing to?” And what I share with my clients, and what I believe in my heart dearly, is that when I make a request, I have a much bigger opportunity for it to happen. And the biggest place is, I realize it’s a request and you might say no, and that is your choice. Then I have to deal with that in whatever way I will.
As I’m hearing you, and as we’re talking about the narrative and the story, it sounds as if one of the things that I am hearing you assist people with is being able to, the way it’s ringing in me, is this sense of ownership around what gets activated or what is being experienced. Because a moment ago, you were talking about people have choices. If there’s material that’s getting presented, they can reject it and say, “Oh, I’m not going there.” Or they can get interested and get curious. Or perhaps, even the way you’re describing right now is, they can get blamey or critical, or “Don’t you see?” And when we turn something into a request, part of what I understand about that is being able to own it. “This is something that I want, or this is something that has value and meaning to me.” And maybe even sharing a little bit about how that is significant, what the charge is and where that maybe comes from as far as the importance. Then when we can reveal that, that can be way more vulnerable than just the pointing, or “Don’t you see? Or let me show you what you did. Let’s replay what just happened, don’t you see what a jerk you are?” Or whatever. I don’t know, in my understanding, what you’re describing in this way that requires some ownership and really standing in, “Here’s what matters to me when we make a request.”
Absolutely. And on a really large level, isn’t our life about our ownership of ourselves? That includes how we choose to perceive things or look at things. I had someone, who I know pretty well, say to me, “I need to ask you a question, but I think you’re going to be really pissed off.” In my head, I thought, well, just don’t ask me that question then. And I thought, “Hmm, this is interesting.” And I said, “Okay, well, maybe I can just let it be a question.” She said, what do you mean? I said, “Well, I think it’ll depend upon how I choose to respond, so go ahead.” So she asked her question, and if I had not had that little insight, I would have gone to feeling that she was being self-righteous, that she was being critical, that she was being judgmental. But I told myself, “Okay, I don’t like this energy that’s coming toward me. I don’t like this thought process that’s coming toward me. This is not my reality. This is hers, and I can let it be hers. And I can take a really deep breath, and respond in mind.” So I just simply said, “No, that’s not what I believe, and that’s not what I think, and I’m actually great. And you can ask me any questions that you want about this.” And she just looked at me, and her eyes got really big. She said, I’m so impressed with your response. And I laughed, and I said, so am I! But there’s something I realized in that moment.
“When someone comes towards you or into your field, into your us-ness, and their energy is one that is much lower in vibration—it doesn’t feel as honoring, it doesn’t feel as loving, it doesn’t feel as supportive—that it’s up to you to decide. Do I lower myself to it, or do I let myself stay where I am? Most of us, sadly, jump right back into theirs, and fight back, argue about, point the finger.”
I wanted to say to her, “Are you kidding me? You have known me for 30 something years. Are you kidding me?” And I know what she would have said. She would have said, “Wow, it was just a question.” So I took away my joining in a place that didn’t benefit us. And to me, that’s the beautiful choice of the story of us. You can decide, do I join you here or do I not?
I had it happen with my daughter, when there had been a misunderstanding, and she needed to get a shot. This was a couple years ago. And she went to the wrong place, and it was a lot of money. And it was last moment, so we had to pay for it. And she’s very conscientious of not trying to waste money for me, because I’m a widow, which I really appreciate. So she was frustrated on the phone call. I said, “I’m so sorry, you’re so frustrated.” And she said to me, “Well, I wasn’t until we got on the phone.” And I went, “Oh, we’ll talk about this tonight.” So she hung up, she came into my room that night, really frustrated, really angry. She said, “You didn’t tell me, and I didn’t know, dah dah dah.” And I looked at her and I said, “We are not in the same reality. I’m all good, and I’d love to have a lovely night with you all fine.” Then she kept going with her little narrative. I said, “Sweetheart, I want you to listen to your voice, and the way your body feels. And listen to mine, and the way my body feels. You can join my reality, which is, I’m just going to hug you and love you, and we can watch a movie and have a great night. But you’re asking me to join you in yours, and I don’t like the energy, so I’m not going to. So it’s up to you, you choose. Either is fine.” She looked at me and she said, “Mom, what’s going on?”
This is what I think is, like, Relationship 1001. Right now, we both get to choose for ourselves. And if we’re really, really gracious, right now we can choose something really beautiful for us. And we had the most glorious, simple, peaceful night, and we just hugged each other and cried. And she said, I love you so much. I said, I love you so much. But that’s the story of us. How do we take a moment where one of us is hurting, one of us is frustrated, one of us is confused, one of us doesn’t understand? And how do we bring enough space, compassion, choice, self-decision and ownership, to let it move into something that can bless both people? Sometimes, you need to do that separately, and that’s okay. That’s okay, too.
Yes. Okay, so I just want to, again, chime in here, in the sense of just checking a few things out with you. As you are describing these examples, it sounds as though you are so crystal clear, and able to really have awareness around your space, and really being in service of the intention that you want to hold. And also, in some sense, asserting a boundary for that, in service of that. One of the things that I heard you describing a moment ago is when maybe one person leads with what could feel like an attack, or is out of fear, or out of pain—it might be a protest, it might sound critical or judgmental—the human tendency is to want to defend against that, or maybe even react against that. So you’re really speaking to a choice here.
I also wonder, in addition to the choice of setting parameter and holding and being in service of the intention that you’re wanting to hold, that perhaps another way of seeing that attack is that there’s something there. Like, even with your friend, that might have been her best attempt to reach to you, and an attempt to resolve it or clear it. But she didn’t necessarily say, “Here’s what I’m afraid of, can you help me?”
It’s a very beautiful awareness you have in that, Jessica! That is beautiful. It would have been so much easier for me to receive in that way, and you’re right, she didn’t. But to even be in that place. And I honor what you just said, that people bring to you the best way that they know how and where they are. And if you take that, it might be with an attacker judgement. But if you realize that’s really all that they know how to do, that does put a little bit of a softening to the experience, if you can allow that.
It’s a ninja move! Like, I don’t know that I am always able to do that, but if I have my ground and I can recognize. Because part of what you’re also distinguishing around one person’s field, and then the other person’s field, is that as humans, it’s really easy to point the finger. And it can be a lot of projection, and you’re talking about the other person. And that gets off and running in the criticism defensive loop. But one of the things you’re really bringing attention to is, you don’t have to pick that up, you don’t have to react to that; you do have a choice. And the ninja move that we’re referencing here is, is there a way to be witnessed? Like, the story with your daughter, I know and I imagine she felt seen and she felt like her experience was held, even though you didn’t get into the reaction with her. But it sounds as though the softening and the tears and the affection being expressed, she did feel seen and honored. Even though you didn’t necessarily share it, you could still hold her pain around it, and you were probably able to respond to that, especially when it’s much more vulnerable. Is that right?
Absolutely. I think I was oddly blessed, or I chose to be blessed, in the reality of my childhood, which was really, really hard. But what it showed me from a really young age, is that relationship is always more important than the situation. And I haven’t had people necessarily respect that with me, always. I’ve had some people who have chosen to step out of relationship, which to me is just like, “Oh gosh, how sad. But if that’s what they need to do for them to feel safe, or to feel protective, if I’m somehow a threat, okay.” I think part of the place where, to me, it seems so odd to be a threat, is that I really do try to love. And some people just aren’t comfortable with that, and they really want or need the person to stand with them in their belief system. I’ll stand near someone and say, “I see you standing there, but I don’t necessarily need to stand with you.” That to a lot of people—I won’t say a lot, but to some people—can feel like you are not truly caring for them. And I disagree. I think the relationship is more important than the issue that you’re going through. I share that with clients all the time. I’m like, what is the most important thing here? Is it the car? Is it the meatloaf? Is it the Visa bill? Or is it the two of you and what we help this to become in spite of what you’re going through? I say that with infidelity.
“I tell people, you’ll never go back to what you were. There’s no way to do it. You can never go back to anything; you can only move forward. Even if you try to go back, it’s a replication, which makes it different because it’s now. But what I say is, you will never be better because of an infidelity. You can’t be. But there are ways that your relationship can be stronger in spite of it if—and it’s a big If—if you’re both willing, as if you’re both able.”
But I heard something on a podcast with Matthew Hussey, who’s a relationship expert out of England, and he said something and it was such a deep truth. And it was so hard for me to hear, because I didn’t want it to be the truth. But it was so true. He was talking with a woman who had a horrible challenge with trusting people. And what he said, it was so honoring, but my ego didn’t like it. What he said is, “Well, why are you wasting your time trying to trust other people? Who knows that they’re going to be trustworthy? They could do anything in a moment! The focus isn’t to trust them. The focus is to trust yourself, that you’ll take care of you.” And my heart broke open, and then my heart also went, “Oh, I want to have somebody I can totally trust who will take care of me, other than me?” Then I thought, isn’t this our life path: I will take care of me, do I let you take care of you? And if we both do that, then we can have this beautiful relationship together. Because I’m not going to put myself more important than you in the relationship; we’re both going to be. And at times, we might need to trust ourselves and do what we need to do. But there’s no reason for it to ever dishonor the other, unless we choose to look at it that way, which I think is very sad. Because we’re never going to be the same as somebody else; we’re not here to be the same.
It sounds too, Heather, when you’re talking and even referencing your experience and your environment growing up, and really what you were negotiating in maintaining connection and bond with your mother, when the realities would be so, so different. It sounds like you really had heavy, heavy, heavy-lifting around how to negotiate that. And it sounds like you have a lot of skill, and being able to emphasize the bond and really the unconditional regard. And not to say, you don’t have conditions. But the capacity to hold love, to hold regard and hold connection, despite maybe even vast differences. That might be really foreign for people to try to experience, and there’s something about that. Let me just pause there, does that feel like a reflection that resonates?
Yes, and it’s the reason people come to me. I’m known as the Reframe Queen in Orange County, because I have the ability to see the other side. Not that it’s necessarily my truth, but I have the ability to see the other side. So I help people find those places of bridges. So I can hold my truth, but I don’t need to dishonor you and yours.
Well, I want to turn to that in just a moment. Because that is a question as we talk about the story and the narrative, and you’re talking about perhaps, two partners in relationship might have very different stories, and then through the work and through the process, may be able to have some integration and a shared story that is empowering. As you’re describing, perhaps initially, people in your life that you’ve had some conflict with might have challenged with your orientation. And one of the things I’m feeling as you’re describing it is like, “Oh, are they feeling like you’re able to really see them and see the truth of where they’re coming from?” It sounds like you are. But it also sounds like you do not abandon yourself. You are crystal clear that I don’t have to abandon my truth, my intention, my position to join you! That’s not it, it’s not that type of process.
Can you speak to how somebody, let’s say your daughter, can feel seen and feel really empathized and held? Like, her experience that she really feels seen, but that you don’t maybe agree or have the same experience, and that you can hold both. That’s not an easy thing to do. In psychology, we call that like some dissonance; cognitive dissonance, emotional dissonance. It’s not the same, holding two different parts. Can you speak to that?
Sure. For me, it’s the reality that I will never really know what you think, or how you see things, or what your experience is. And you spoke earlier of curiosity. To me, that’s such a huge component of a healthy relationship. So when someone expresses something that I don’t understand, or I just don’t get whatsoever, instead of me making a judgment upon it, or deciding my belief system around it, once again, I take a deep breath, and then I try to find out. My daughter is an artist. So when we were in Europe, and we were at these beautiful museums, and I was taking all these photos of the whole painting, she was zeroing in on one corner. I said to her, what are you seeing? And she would show me, “Well, do you see how the pink right next to the blue? Stand back, do you see how that illuminates it? So now you start to see that edge.” I’m like, oh my gosh!
So this is my truth. I could not see through my mother’s eyes. I couldn’t, and I don’t even really know where she went, because she didn’t share where she went in her psychosis. But I knew she was struggling. So when I was 12, there was a moment where she was fearful that the helicopters going over the house were going to come and get her. And my dad did what my dad did every single time, which is, “Jenny, it’s not real. You’re crazy. It’s not going to happen.” And I was watching my mom get more and more and more and more scared. I knew his telling her that her psychosis was not reality was not doing any good for her. So my thought was, what does she need? She needed to feel safe. So I grabbed my blanket, and I threw it over her head, and I cuddled up with her. And I said, “They’re not going to get you, mommy! They’re not going to get you.” And she shook and shook and shook, and the helicopters went over. I told her they were gone, and she could come out, and she didn’t. Then when she finally came out, she looked up at me, and her eyes said, you believe me! Now there’s a little caveat, because I didn’t believe her psychosis.
But you believed her fear.
Yes, and I believe she believed her psychosis. That’s all I needed to know. And that is the moment where to me, God/ Spirit/Universe said, “This is why you’re here. You are to bring comfort, support, love, compassion, joy, happiness, another belief system. But you’re not to challenge somebody who’s not ready, able, willing, wanting to be challenged. Just because it’s not your Reality does not mean it’s not theirs.” So I don’t need anyone to believe what I believe, and my focus is not you need to believe me. My focus is, what am I to know about you, and how do I help you in your walk, and where do we find these places where we do join and can celebrate together, and where are there places where I can learn so much because I don’t experience that? Like, I look at paintings differently now because of my daughter, and how beautiful that is. That’s part of the story of us, she has now given me a different awareness about painting. My husband was physical touch. I was molested; it was the lowest on my love languages. He, bless his beautiful heart, gave me the gift of physical touch, and I love physical touch now, and I miss it dreadfully since he’s passed. But we can give each other, other awarenesses and other ways of loving that we don’t know. To me, that’s why we’re here.
Yeah. Well, it sounds like the richness that can be so expansive when we do have some rapport, that relationship, that curiosity, that some level of safety, to be able to be influenced or even be interested in such a different perspective, that can bring growth. I know we don’t have a tonne of time with you. So I wanted to just circle back to a couple of things. I don’t know, I had mentioned not abandoning yourself. I just even know, many people who grow up in circumstances that require a high degree of awareness of the parent, not to say that you felt like you had to parent her, but in that moment.
I did, for sure.
Okay. So can you speak to was it a development for you to really also attend to yourself? I mean, it sounds like you’ve gotten to a really beautiful place with it. Was that a development for you?
It’s been my whole life. Bless her beautiful, beautiful heart. She was so not well that I really didn’t feel like I had a voice. I really didn’t feel like I had any choice other than I took on the role of keeping her alive. I would stay up at night to make certain she wouldn’t kill herself, and I did all sorts of things. So there’s been a lot of therapy, there’s been a lot of healing, there have been a lot of books. But I want to tap upon something that you said that’s so important. Think about the phrase, “abandoning ourself.” Like, what’s going on in our world that we would require that of anyone or ourselves, and how can we be anything other than who we are until we decide or learn or choose to be other? So when we pretend we’re not, we still are. It’s like, if I don’t go to the doctor to find out I have cancer, because I don’t want to know I have cancer, I still have cancer. So this belief of “I don’t get to be me, or the world won’t let me be me” is hugely pervasive. But to me, there’s the place of asking, “Well, gosh, this is my life, and I am the only one who can be me. And I don’t need you to agree with me. But why would I abandon myself anymore?” It has been a long process of me learning to do that. I’ve been disowned twice; my mom died, and then my husband died. So I’ve gone through a tremendous amount of loss. But in that, I have to say, it’s really given me the beauty to say, “But I will choose me. And I can still choose you. But I’m not going to force myself upon you.”
Right. Or that it’s not the survival tactic, “This is the best way to function and survive because of my early experiences.” I can resonate with the importance of caring for others, and not being important way of keeping the peace or helping things function. And I’ve really worked a lot myself to really get to balance and health around that tendency. It’s still always a pull in me that I’ve noticed and I work with. So thank you for speaking to that.
Well, attachment is huge. Looking at that, when I take the test, I come off as secure, and I think I really am. But deep down in my soul, I’m anxious, and I need to embrace that. Because little Heather was scared to death, and there’s a little part of little Heather that’s going to be with me till I’m 90 years old. And I want to take care of her, just like it took care of my mom. I want to take care of little Heather when she’s scared. So to your listeners, that would be my hope for all of them. That you take care of you, and that you know that taking care of you in no way has to hinder or hurt or harm anybody else. There’s always room for more love, there’s always room for more compassion, and largely for ourselves as well.
Yeah. Well, Heather, the last thing I want to ask before we pivot towards just how people can get to know what you’re up to and teaching and offering, and this might be too difficult to speak to in just a few minutes. But the process of going from such different positions, different stories, and what the transformation can look like, and what might be needed to allow for that growth. Because one of the things I’m hearing in the way that you’re talking about is curiosity, as you’ve talked about, is this love. I’m also hearing a sense of space or time, that people tend to feel a sense of urgency. And you just mentioned, attachment can be very threatening when things are off or disconnected, that we need to push this to get to some place. And we also talked about how it is hard to hold, “We see this differently, and I still love you.” That can be a difficult thing to tolerate the discomfort of that. So it does feel like there’s some level of space or time to give it process. Because the curiosity, sometimes the getting to know, in the way that you described with your husband and his love language of touch and how that was a process for you and feeling safety and welcome in that, I imagine that just didn’t happen in one instant. So can you speak to the growth here, any nuggets that you want to speak to around how people go from two very different places and positions in their story to what the growth and what is needed in that process?
Sure. And you’re right, it’s a huge topic. To me, the place of exploration is letting each other know what the fear is, and letting each other know what the hurt is from the past, and then asking your partner, “I really need to heal on this, and I know this is mine to do? Is there a place that you can support me in this? Or is this something that I need to do on my own?” Sometimes, the answer is really going to be “No, this is something you need to do on your own.”
“Sometimes, and this is when a relationship just gets so beautifully holy and sacred in its work, sometimes there’s the place for the other person to be that safe container while you’re seeing a different reality.”
I had a flashback when I was with my husband. I remember telling him beforehand, I thought I was going to have a flashback. He said, have you ever had one before? And I said, no. He said, why would you have one? And I said, oh, because you’re really getting in. It was beautiful that I had that awareness that that was going to happen, and of course that did. So he was laying on top of me, we were fully dressed, nothing was going on, and I had a flashback to being molested by my dad. And I reached out across the room, and I was insane for sure. For a moment, I was absolutely psychotic. Like, “Don’t touch me!” Then I said, “Yeah, you can come to the corner of the bed, but don’t touch me.” And so he did. And I said, “You could put your hand on my knee, but don’t move your hand.” So he did. And then I said, “You can put your arms around my shoulders, but no groping.” And he did. And then I said, “Okay, you can just hold me.” And we just sobbed. And when I looked into his eyes, he said to me, what did he do to you? And I just felt even more madly in love with him, because Ted cared! And I told him, you’re the first man in my life who’s safe. Ted never pressured me. I was very blessed. Ted never pressured me to go to a place that sexually, I would be scared or petrified of. He always told me, “If we do anything or go anywhere, I want you to let me know how you’re feeling.” And so I did. So there’s that place of letting your partner know.
People will say they won’t share that they’ve been molested, that they won’t share they’ve been raped. And without meaning to, your partner is going to touch upon that horrible, horrible, horrible wound, and you’re probably going to be scarred even more, and they’re not going to mean to. So when there’s a part of you that you know really needs protection, protect it! And let your partner know, like, “I’m not comfortable with you going here. Or if we do go here, I kind of need it to be on my terms.” Walk them through that. Because they can’t heal you; no one can heal anybody else. But they can hold you or just stay while you’re going through your healing. And when you allow yourself to embrace yourself fully in healing, and when someone looks at you with positive regard, or compassion, or just tenderness in that place, there’s deep respect and love.
And profound healing!
Profound healing. And that is the gloriousness of the story of us, for sure.
Yes, thank you for sharing that. I’m deeply touched. I can feel the emotion and the intensity and the power and the willingness on both of your parts. So thank you for sharing that.
He was a beautiful man.
Yeah. Also, it does hook in to the last thing I’ll say here, as you mentioned, the piece about trust. It feels as though this is an example, and I like the two-pronged approach to the trust and safety. I agree that inevitably, there will be loss, and the relationship will end by some means. It’s inevitable, there’s no way it can’t. And the truth around that, and the control or the attempt to seek that assurance or that permanence in the other which doesn’t exist. I do think there’s reality in really confronting that and really turning that towards like, what’s happening in me around that. Then what you’re describing also in relationship with your husband, you trusted yourself to move forward with him that you said, “Okay, you can approach the bed, but don’t touch me.” You had your own back, and you were trusting yourself to take care of yourself. But you also were in relationship. And that your husband was safe, he was trustworthy, and he was demonstrating that. So that then there could be that resonance, that corrective experience, that healing in relationship, and I do think that is also necessary. So oftentimes, I think there’s a few things involved. I don’t know if you want to respond to that, but I just feel like that’s also important.
It is. And I knew at that moment, if he hadn’t listened to me, I probably would have stayed in the relationship. but it would not have gone to the level that it needed to or could have for me. And that’s what was really beautiful. But also in that, in having that experience, and I hope everyone has had something like that with someone. I think most of us probably have. Maybe it’s not a partner, but it might be a dear friend, who’s helped us walk through a place where we’ve really been hurt, to see that that doesn’t have to be our truth always. I would hope that you allow yourself to have that and to say, “Okay, no, we’re going to stop here, I’m just going to take care of me right now.” Because sometimes, your partner just is not going to have the awareness and the knowledge. There also is the place where they can feel rejected, and then the focus becomes: “You don’t love me, you don’t trust me.” That happens a lot, and it’s unfortunate. Because that takes the focus away from the person who’s really needing to heal. But there is that place to realize, and that that does happen.
“It’s going to be important to take some time for both of you, lick your own wounds, and then come back and say, “I wasn’t trying to not trust you, I was just scared because I’ve never felt safe.”
But there’s a lot of walking hand in hand, and maybe a couple feet apart, and hand in hand and a couple of feet apart, as you do that.
To have stability under ourselves, like our feet to be under, and then to be able to be in contact and be responsive and engaged with another. It’s not a leaning on always.
Well, and when you have that belief of “I really am here to help myself heal through what I’ve been through, and learn beyond what I have learned so far, or remember what I am to remember in this life,” I think there’s a little bit of an ability to take it to a bigger place so it’s not so much about me. And that is a beautiful place of awakening, yet is a beautiful place of our true journey on this earth, and in this life, and in this lifetime. I love that piece! People have been saying for a couple of years, “Thank you for helping me walk myself home,” and I didn’t even really know what that means. Then one day I did and I thought, “Oh, yeah! Yeah, I do. Yeah, I do.” I think that is so much of what this is all about: how do I bring love to all these places where love needs to be brought?
And expression, and really even a sense of purpose and meaning.
Well, Dr. Heather Browne, you have so much to say and so much to give. Where would you encourage for people that are connecting and resonating with you and want to know more, what would you like to invite people into or get connected with?
Oh, I would love to hear from anyone. So please, feel free to reach out. My website is DrHeatherBrowne.com, and I’m pretty active. So if you go to that, you’ll see that I have gifts, and I have blog, and I have TikTok, and I have YouTube. I have workshops, I have an online course. Of course, I do one-on-one sessions. So anybody who has any questions or would like to see how to connect with me more, feel free to go to my website. I’d be honored to see in what way I can assist or in what way I can guide you towards some resources that could serve anybody in whatever way that I’m able to offer.
Well, we’ll make sure to have the link to your website, which sounds a bit of a hub where you offer.
It is a hub.
Yeah, and there’s many resources and free guides, free gifts. You also have a blog, and you also have your social with TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram, and all of it. I’ll make sure to have all of those links on today’s show notes. Thank you so much for sharing your time with us here today.
An absolute honor. You have been a delight, Jessica! If there’s ever another need where there’s something that I can share that you would like, I’d love to come back again.
Oh, I would love that too.
Bless you all.
Signing Off
If you have a topic you would like me to discuss, please contact me by clicking on the “Ask Dr. Jessica Higgins” button here.
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Thank you!
*With Amazon Affiliate Links, I may earn a few cents from Amazon, if you purchase the book from this link.
Our personal history can shape the way we perceive and react to the behavior of others and the types of relationships we form. If we have experienced neglect or abuse in the past, it may be more difficult for us to trust others and form close relationships. We may also be more prone to anxiety or depression. On the other hand, if we had a supportive and nurturing upbringing, we may be more confident and able to form healthy, positive relationships.
In this episode, Ana Gabriel Mann discusses the use of neurofeedback as a treatment for trauma and other issues such as PTSD, brain injury, and processing disorders. They describe the process of neurofeedback and how it can be used to specifically target and address specific areas of the brain that may be over or understimulated. She also emphasizes the importance of self-care and the role it plays in healing and personal growth.
Ana Gabriel Mann earned her Master’s degree in clinical psychology before going on to serve as an educator, therapist, and corporate trainer. She currently coaches Go-Giver Marriage clients and leads the Go-Giver Marriage Coaches Training Program.
In this Episode
6:45 Exploring the use of authentic movement in processing and healing trauma.
11:57 The importance of boundaries in therapy, particularly in couples therapy.
22:47 Understanding and managing flooding and multigenerational PTSD with EEG neurofeedback therapy.
29:03 The Benefits of Neurofeedback Therapy for Managing Trauma and Overaroused Nervous Systems.
37:12 Neurofeedback for trauma, brain injury, and processing disorders: How EEG therapy can help regulate brain function and promote healing.
48:46 The importance of prioritizing self-care in trauma healing and personal growth.
51:42 How they’re helping individuals and couples.
Your Check List of Actions to Take
- Consider using neurofeedback as a tool to address trauma and improve brain function.
- Have a CAT scan every 18 months to two years to guide neurofeedback training.
- Focus on self-care and prioritize activities that nourish and pamper oneself in order to grow and improve overall well-being.
- Consider working with a coach or therapist, to improve relationship dynamics and work on personal growth.
- Check out the book “The Go-Giver Marriage” and consider joining the coaches’ training program to learn more about the principles outlined in the book.
Mentioned
The Go-Giver Marriage: A Little Story About the Five Secrets to Lasting Love (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
Sharing Resources (*Google form)
ERP 270: How to Resolve Relational Trauma in the Body through Dance & Movement – An Interview with Orit Krug
*Connect with* Ana Gabriel Mann
Websites: gogivermarriage.com
Facebook: facebook.com/anagabrielmann
Twitter: twitter.com/AnaGabrielMann
Instagram: instagram.com/AnaGabrielMann
Connect with Dr. Jessica Higgins
Facebook: facebook.com/EmpoweredRelationship
Instagram: instagram.com/drjessicahiggins
Podcast: drjessicahiggins.com/podcasts/
Pinterest: pinterest.com/EmpowerRelation
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/drjessicahiggins
Twitter: @DrJessHiggins
Website: drjessicahiggins.com
Email: jessica@drjessicahiggins.com
About Today’s Show
Ana, thank you so much for joining us today.
Thank you, I’m excited for this conversation.
I am too. You and John were on the podcast many months ago at this point, promoting and talking about the gift of your book, and we can talk about that a little bit later. But it really occurred to both you and I that there was so much synergy in the work that you do. One of the things that you have a really beautiful voice and message around is trauma and how it relates and shows up in relationship. So that’s our topic today. I would love to hear, for listeners that are still getting to know you or want to know where you’re coming from as it relates to this topic, are you open to sharing what started helping you support people in this way?
Absolutely. Well, first off, I became a therapist like a long time ago, 35, almost 40 years ago. I studied actually in a field that at that time was very new but now is quite mainstream, which is dance movement therapy. My initial break into it was really around working with a therapist who was a supervisor to me, who had a great deal of experience dealing with trauma, and who used a body-centered approach to dealing with trauma. It was specifically a method called authentic movement. Authentic movement, for those listeners that don’t know what it is, it’s that you’re alone, or even in a small group, in a studio space. You have your eyes closed. There is a witness, i.e. the therapist or the witness. And you move in any way that you feel like moving, which might mean you don’t move at all for the whole hour; you might just twiddle your finger. But if you embrace moving in a way that is authentic for you, you will eventually bump into, in your body, what it is that’s troublesome. I have seen people move in a space, and six sessions in, all of a sudden, they are very clearly in something extremely traumatic. They will basically move in whatever way is authentic to that experience, and come out of it realizing that they touched right on the base experience.
In one of these cases, it was somebody who had been hit as a child. It was an extremely high-functioning person, they did not appear to have a serious history of trauma. They were doing authentic movement purely because they wanted to really understand the form. Then all of a sudden, in this unconscious and moving place, they bumped into a memory that they didn’t consciously remember. In the case of this person, their mother had actually taken green switches from the forest and had actually switched them back and forth across this woman’s legs. She was only four, and it had completely welted her legs. It was a reprimand. It was a beating, if you will. This person, who was probably 35 or 40, didn’t remember it, until she went into it in movement, and then she remembered it completely. So it was a lost memory that woke up. Then it was really a process over the next month or two or three, we worked together and she ended up really processing this journey.
“Authentic movement allows anything that’s there under the surface, cellularly, to find its voice, if you will.”
Now, the thing that’s unique about authentic movement is that the witness is not allowed to make any inference into what’s happening with you. In fact, the witness only speaks if you, the mover, allow them to. So as the witness, you’re the container, and the mover gets to have as much privacy on that experience as they want. So this person chose not to tell me a thing for about a month, because she really just was so startled by it all that she just wanted to be with it and see what happened, as she continued to work with that. It was almost clear to me that you could see that she was trying to avoid being hit; she was moving in a way that looked defensive. Like, she was putting her hands up, and she was thrashing back and forth, trying to avoid being hit. So I was feeling a great deal of emotion.
So when the mover invites the witness to speak, you are only allowed to speak about your experience. So I could only speak to what was happening for me as I was watching. I couldn’t interpret what was going on, or in any way project onto what was happening to her. That’s what makes it so unique. I think that in therapy, there’s always transference and countertransference. Having studied deeply unconscious communication, unconscious communication will always show you through derivative communication, what the client is really telling you about the boundaries of the therapy.
Can you say, for people who maybe don’t know what you mean there, would you be willing to give an example or break that down for a quick moment?
Sure, absolutely. In derivative communication, the client might tell you a story about how they go to meet their friend for coffee and their friend is always late, and it really bothers them that their friend doesn’t care enough to show up on time. That is a direct communication, that you as a therapist are leaving them in the waiting room, and you’re spending that extra four or five minutes, whether you’re going to the bathroom, or whether you’re still talking to the client before them, it’s disrespectful. If you are going to be good at what you do, you end on time, you start on time, and you never make people wait. Because it’s just the boundaries, and the boundaries are critical. The boundaries are what create the security of the experience.
I remember studying in somatic therapy in my PhD programme, and the different forms of dance therapy and authentic movement being one of them, I did not study in a deep way as you’re describing. But I understand the space around what is revealed in the movement in the body and what we can confront in the container, and the importance of having that safety in that witness, and being really aware. Like, in the guidelines that you’re articulating as the helper or the therapist or the guide, that the person that’s doing the therapeutic work, the client, if you will, has a lot of power to decide how they want to experience their therapeutic process. So much so that I will ask you when I want you to say anything, and even when you do say something, I want you to talk about what you’re experiencing in your body or you are experiencing as you witness, but not to project and not to interpret or give some analysis, if you will. That it’s a very different thing than what we classically think of around a therapist. I know some people who have experienced therapy know that that’s not necessarily the job of the therapist is to give advice, if we know that.
As we transition here to couplehood and trauma, I don’t know if you want to segue or bring this in for us. Often in my work with couples, I know that if I just sit back, they’re likely going to do the thing that they do, and they don’t need to pay me to do the dynamic that they do. So for me and my work, part of creating safety is offering a different experience for them. So I am facilitating more than I do with an individual, absolutely.
I do too, I jump in more in couples’ work. Because it’s important to be able to ask questions sometimes of someone, and to really get a picture of what historically happened for them. Because a lot of times, trauma is something that happened to somebody in their childhood, or in their teens, or in the case of a client that I worked with years ago, an assault that happened in her 20s. She simply hadn’t gotten over it, and it was impacting their sex life; it was impacting her ability to be intimate. Those are things that really deserve work and deserve the healing. What was great was that, in a situation like that, if the partner can be really compassionate, the person with the trauma can do a lot of work on their own. It isn’t really about the couple. It is about the couple and how they’re interacting. But if the person who’s been traumatized can do some work on their own, it can often really start to melt away and be something that isn’t so much of a dynamic in their personal interplay.
Yeah. Even with a therapist or a skilled coach or a guide, they could even assist the dynamic between the interaction, between the couple and partner. I believe all of us have a history that informs what we’re experiencing, whether or not that’s injuries, small traumas, big traumas, there’s so much that we bring into relationship with your background. So as you’re describing, if one person has experienced trauma, it might not even be visible in the interaction, but it’s alive in the person. That if as a therapist, as you’re describing, can slow down, hold space, and even if the partner is just in witness, and there can be some work, whether or not also that individual that has experienced trauma gets individual support outside of the couple session, but even what can happen in the session, to be able to help some processing. That that can be extremely corrective to have a different way of holding and being present with, and then most likely, will access a little bit more vulnerability, a little bit more reveal, that will provide for that empathy and that connectedness.
Because one of the things you described with the authentic movement that I just found so beautiful, in this story you mentioned with your client, that it took her a month. That she held space and she was ready, that she got to go at a pace that felt safe for her. Where sometimes, if we’re not really attuned, connecting with injury, especially traumas that we haven’t been fully conscious of in adult life, that can be a lot, and it can be overwhelming. So I like this pacing, and I love that just being attuned to one’s own rhythm around what feels doable.
Especially since a lot of people who have experienced trauma, experience flooding in couples. Often there’s one couple getting in the face of the other one, and the one that is being confronted, if you will, is flooded; they can’t even respond, they’re so overwhelmed. That is so typical of people that have any history of trauma or any history of neglect and abandonment. This is the thing I want to honor for people who are listening. If you have a history of trauma, you are a deeply sensitive person. There’s no way that you can be anything but. So if there’s a message I like to give people that have experienced trauma, and that would be about 99% of us, is to honor the part of you that’s very sensitive.
John and I sometimes go to bed very early. It’s not about trauma, it’s just about we’re both so sensitive, that if we go to bed early, the next day is going to be powerful, because we’re rested. But if we stay up till midnight and get to bed and get a little less deep sleep. I mean, the sleep research is really clear that you get the most profound deep sleep before midnight. So if you can be asleep by 10 or 10:30, then you’ve really got your chances of getting an hour and a half or two or even three hours of deep sleep, and that is profound for healing your nervous system and healing your adrenals. Let’s be honest, all sensitive people tend to have a higher cortisone response; they’re much more quick to respond with a hyper-adrenal response, because they’re in that fight-or-flight or even freeze. Those are the very facets that make it hard to control how your body is just unraveling in front of you, and you feel emotionally overwhelmed and unable to move.
So I really like to teach people a lot, that you really want to trust your body, you really want to trust and respect where you’re at even, in the middle of somebody getting in your face in a fight in a couple. It’s really important to say, “I can’t do this right now,” and walk away and be okay with that. That’s part of the work that I teach couples is that when one of you is flooded, there is nothing going to happen here. Because that person that’s flooded can’t function right now. So it’s kind of like, for one person, the battery has run out, and they no longer can respond. So the other person has got to sit down and cool off and let it be, give their partner time to regroup.
Well, and I know that it can be activating in the couple system if there’s not a trust that partners are going to come back. So if there is some felt sense of “we will revisit this,” that can make that much more tolerable. When you’re referring to the person that might be experiencing the flooding, you’re also helping us here to really acknowledge, there’s likely a lot of feeling and sensitivity, and that if we can learn to care for that, we’re going to be so much better in navigating this territory, including if we can set ourselves up well in getting sleep. I remember hearing that years ago, that one of the best ways to process cortisol in the system is through sleep. So on many levels, not only in the repair, but also in getting the resource for the following day or being set up for more resource in the next day to come. That these interactions in couplehood, we’re going to have a little bit more capacity perhaps, and/or the ability to discern that I’m getting flooded. Because if we’re asking so much of ourselves, that we’re not getting good sleep, we’re so back-to-back with all of our tasks, and then we have previous injury and trauma, it’s like, “Which way is that? I don’t even know.” Then flooding, just to reiterate, would you please help people? I know most people know what flooding is. But can you explain just what that looks like?
“Flooding is when your emotions rise so rapidly that you’re almost unable to respond, and you get so overwhelmed that you can’t even figure out what to say or how to respond in any situation.”
I mean, I have a daughter with special needs who gets flooded in the middle of a job interview. It’s because her anxiety has risen to the place where she’s sure that she’s not going to get the job. She has cognitively talked herself into this corner where she feels like she’s the least attractive applicant. Her anxiety rises to the point where when the person interviewing starts really pressing in with questions, she starts to freeze up, and it’s so painful to watch.
This is really worth saying. A lot of people who are traumatized have what I call an over-aroused brain and an over-aroused nervous system. Now what does that mean? I am trained as an EEG Neurofeedback therapist, it’s one of my additional trainings beyond being a therapist and a coach. In EEG Neurofeedback, the way that you diagnose what’s needed for the person is through a CAT scan. You can do a CAT scan with a good portion of the brain, or you can do a CAT scan with the entire brain, where every last sight on that CAT is picking up what the brainwaves there. It will tell you exactly what areas of the brain are over-aroused; the amygdala can be over-aroused, the frontal cortex can be on fire, the frontal cortex can have high beta, and high beta means you can’t even think you’re so overwhelmed. These are very normal reactions to adverse cortisol release, where you’re releasing cortisol simply because you’re anxious, and/or you’re drinking too much coffee, you’re not really getting enough sleep. All of these things rev up the engine that will then keep and perpetuate the anxiety.
People who grew up in situations where they felt anxious as children—perhaps they had an alcoholic parent who was screaming and yelling all the time, and they were constantly afraid of getting hit, or afraid of just the fact that Daddy was hitting Mommy, or whatever was going on in the home—they often will feed their own cycle of anxiety by revving up the engine with caffeine and with things that get them going in the morning and keep them going. Then they’ll use alcohol, pot, whatever they can at night, to self-medicate, to sort of take themselves down. All of these cycles contribute to people being flooded and feeling like they’re in overwhelm and they can’t get out of it.
In survival mode, really.
Yeah. So once we have a CAT scan on somebody with EEG neurofeedback, it’s really profound. I’ve not only been a client, but I’ve been an EEG Neurofeedback therapist. As a client, I can say that I grew up in a family where there was a whole lot of action going on all the time. I had a father who was a PTSD World War Two vet. I didn’t really understand multigenerational PTSD. But he grew up under a father who was abusive of his mother, to the point where he had to threaten his father’s life at 16, in order to stop his father from hurting his mother. Then he went to World War Two at 19, and was there until 22. So it’s like, it was really young ages for what he witnessed; the amount of death he saw, just all of the things he witnessed. So I grew up under this father who was exceptionally loving, he never hit me. He was an incredible father. But he was very traumatized, so he was always worried about us. He was always saying things like, “Look out, watch out for this or that, if you’re ever in a car with a boy…” He would lay out all these scenarios that were dark, and explain them, what do you do if this happens?
He was tackling all the threats and the risks.
Exactly, and so I grew up with this anxiety. So when I got trained as a Neurofeedback Therapist, I became a client, and of course, my brain showed that I had a hyper-aroused brain. It was so refreshing for me, because it was sort of like, I thought I was always Type A, but I wasn’t Type A. I had an over-aroused brain, which is kind of like thinking you’re Type A, but your brain is just working overtime; your nervous system is aroused, you’re always hyper-vigilant. I was always paying attention to every nuance, which as a therapist can be a skill, because you notice when someone’s tapping their foot, you notice every little nuance. But on another level, it’s very tiring, to always be in that over-aroused state.
So when you get a training, and they down-train that over-arousal, I remember going out of a session one day and feeling like I’ve been meditating for a week. I was so calm, and I felt so relaxed, and my brain was not doing any kind of ping-pong game. So for people who are traumatized who are listening, I really want you to recognize that over-arousal is the part of you that has your brain and your nervous system working overtime; you are overthinking, your brain is racing, there’s a great deal of difficulty quieting things down. So that’s yet another tool that can be powerfully effective for people, if they want to look up somebody. They’re all over the country now. There are EEG Neurofeedback Therapists everywhere, and they can really help you calm down things.
When you’re describing this for people that may have interest and want to explore this further, the down-training, is that using the neurofeedback or what would you say there?
Yeah, neurofeedback is really simple. I mean, they’ll have a computer in front of you. It could be like a visual picture that comes together while you’re training. Or it could be a game, it could be a Pac Man game. They have every possible thing. You can do it visually, or you can also close your eyes. There’s like a little beep in the background going off, and as your brain is responding to the training, the beeps will increase. The therapist that’s running the computer on their end, they might have one little node here and another one on the back of your head, and what they’re doing is they’re taking different areas of your brain that are over-aroused and they’re calming them down. Your brain will always try to win the game. It will always try to increase the beeps. It’ll always try to make the Pac Man eat the cookies. It’ll always try to make that visual image come together on the screen. And it’s very fascinating to watch. Because people with ADD can get more organized thinking, people with trauma can become calmer and more in control of the feelings and emotions they have, and it really gives people an opportunity to gain some measure of control over trauma.
Especially PTSD, for those of you who are listening who have experienced flashbacks, I was a therapist for almost 15 years before I had an experience where I was having my own flashbacks, so I understood what flashbacks were. But my brother was killed in a tragic car accident, and I was at the scene of the accident for four hours. I was the only person in the family who saw him after the accident, and I just couldn’t get the images out of my head. It took probably two years for the flashbacks to back down.
So when you’ve been traumatized, and it’s particularly playing like a movie in your head, something like EMDR or neurofeedback, or any number of things that can calm the trauma down so that your nervous system isn’t overreacting constantly, that you’re not in that state of flooding and feeling so out of control, those can be extremely important tools. Because sometimes you just feel like you’re on a roller coaster ride and you can’t control it. I mean, I was seeing clients then, and I could be in the middle of seeing the client and suddenly feel hot and sweaty because I had a flashback just wave over me, an image that I couldn’t just shut down. So I would just be sitting there, trying to breathe, and stay calm. That’s the kind of impact. People are in lots of very important jobs, people have high positions; they’re teachers, they’re therapists themselves. There are all kinds of different jobs in the world that are extremely important, and when you’re in that state, it’s almost hard to continue whatever you’re doing.
Oh, my goodness. Well, I appreciate your sharing just the experience of your own in your own life and the impact and just to really validate and normalize how powerful trauma influences our experience and impacts us, and also how much we can engage with these therapeutic resources to help regulate, to help down-regulate. Did you say down-train?
It’s down-training, yeah. Down-training is to calm an aroused brain, and up-training is to elevate an under-aroused brain. A lot of people who are under-aroused, really, a bomb could go off next to them and they wouldn’t even jump, those are people who have trouble thinking and who are very slow on the uptake. Anyone who has been through a brain injury has an under-aroused brain often, and they need their brain to wake up. The beauty of EEG Neurofeedback, unlike other forms of training for trauma, is that it’s specific to your brain. So you have to do that CAT scan first, and that gets read by an expert. There are these incredible experts at UCLA and Stanford and at all different kinds of facilities, where their skill is reading a CAT scan. Once the therapist really understands, then there’s a protocol for training to really be specific to those areas of the brain. So if the amygdala is over-firing, it can be quieted. If high beta is clouding someone’s ability to think clearly in the frontal cortex, that can be completely addressed. So trauma takes many forms in terms of how it impacts the brain in the nervous system.
I love this. So as you’re talking about someone who’s under-aroused, and that shutdown or freeze, is the brain also under-firing, if you will, or do you see that the brain is actually still firing in these ways that indicate like the amygdala, and I would imagine so, and yet their somatic or their physiological state, it’s almost exhaustion? Like, it’s overwhelm, it’s exhaustion, it’s chronic, repetitive. Where we have felt like we can’t mitigate the threat anymore, that over-arousal hasn’t worked, so it’s like the next best or the most primal option, playing possum. What do you see in those CAT scans?
You see a brain that is completely not functioning in certain areas, and is hyper-aroused in other areas. So the training, we’ll take people, we will quiet down the hyper-aroused areas and upregulate the under-aroused areas. That brings the brain into a more dynamic balance. It’s very interesting, because I’ve had clients that couldn’t articulate. The trauma was so deep and so constant, and they were so over-aroused and so flooded at the same time, that it was difficult for them to talk about it. Then all of a sudden, as the brain became calmer, not as over-aroused in specific areas, like the amygdala, and at the same time, the under-aroused areas were allowed to come up and be a little more balanced and have a little more activity going on, then they were suddenly able to be articulate about what had happened. In a way that allowed them to see it and have cognitive understanding of it, and also to see the negative thought patterns.
Because I’m also a believer in cognitive therapy, in the sense that if you can see the ways that you tell yourself negative stories. People will tell stories, like, “Oh, this is going to be a terrible day, I just know it,” and they start off the morning in that fashion, and they keep repeating to themselves the mantra of “I knew this would happen. Oh, I just knew I’d be late! Argh!” They stay in that pattern of verbally and emotionally and personally circling, they will create that bad day, because they’re really just in it. It’s like a soup they’re swimming in and they can’t get out of it.
“Once you can help people to see those negative thought patterns and start to take it in a new direction, it is very powerful. People just sometimes need to retrain themselves to the way they think about things.”
Well, two things. One, it sounds like this neurofeedback has a little more specificity and being able to access. How often do people get this CAT scan?
I recommend people have a CAT scan every 18 months to two years; you don’t need to do them often.
Oh, I would wonder though if the brain is in a different state.
Well, it changes, but it will revert back to the pattern, and then it’ll come back as you do the next training. The thing that’s interesting about neurofeedback is, people train either once a week or twice a week, and that’s it; you don’t need more than that. Because the training will last three to five days, and then your brain will slowly start. Because this other pattern, this trauma pattern is deep. It’s ingrained. Your brain wants to go back to that loop. It’s like a hamster on a wheel, it wants to go back to that loop. But the more that you specifically train to calm down your over-arousal, and to elevate the places where you’re cognitively slow or you’re not able to express, you will find that it really just gets incredible.
My most favorite moments in that are people who have been brain-injured. I mean, I’ve had stroke, I hate the word “victim,” but people who have experienced a stroke, and they’ve lost their verbal skills, that area of the brain has shut off. But as you uptrain that area of the brain, suddenly they’re starting to speak, they’re able to get phrases back, and suddenly those phrases make them feel really giddy and happy. They can say, I’d like a cup of coffee. I mean, these are people who can go into a Starbucks and not speak, because the stroke has damaged them. So what the brain will do is it will rewire wherever the damage is. It will go right around it and say, “Oh yes, let’s have a cup of coffee.” Whatever it is that you have forgotten how to say, it will learn again how to say, and you’ll be able to get all your language back. These are things that happen more in the case of stroke victims or people with brain injury. But brain injury often slows the brain. So you see people with brain injuries having very slow responses, and that’s what processing disorders are all about. Processing disorders often are about slow processing. They are not a sign of a lack of intelligence, they’re a sign of not being able to process quickly.
“For somebody with a processing disorder that’s based on a brain injury, neurofeedback is a powerful, powerful tool. Because it speeds the brain up. But it’s very specific to the regions of the brain that need to be sped up.”
So a stroke will go through the brain in a specific pattern. It might start on the left side of your neck and go up and lodge on the right side of the cranial region. That stroke will cut a path through the brain, and where it cuts that path, there’ll be tremendous damage. But all those areas of the brain can be trained specifically. The electrodes just go in wherever they need to go; they can go behind your ear, they can go right on the top of your head, they can go on the crown, they can go at the base of your neck, they can go on the inside of your eyebrow. They can go down any number of about 16 places on your forehead, so that it’s operating directly on the area that needs it.
Well, this is profound, and the healing and what you’ve been able to witness, and the impact of people’s functioning based on their brain’s functioning. I love just your ability to name how it can have a specific result with specific experiences, like a stroke. You’re also saying, for people that have experienced trauma, and it’s almost like this assist, that being able to help get some support to operate in a different way. The second thing I was going to say was, it also feels like it mimics or has a similar aspect of, like you mentioned, EMDR, or some other therapeutic approaches that offer a little bit more space, so that there can be a little more regulation and functioning to them to start to process. Like, we can’t actually do the therapeutic healing if we’re so dysregulated, and either hyper-aroused or hypo-aroused (the under-arousal). So it sounds like the neurofeedback also has that, as well, working for it.
Exactly. Taking it back to couples and normalizing it a little. Again, I believe that 99% of people have experienced trauma in their life, that impacts how they get triggered in their day-to-day life. So let’s go back to a couple. You’re somebody, let’s say, a woman or a man who likes to be in control, and control is just how you manage. You like to have everything in its place, you like to have your tasks all laid out. Maybe you make a list every night before you go to bed. Maybe you keep a day planner, where you really have your day organized and planned; everything from your workout to every last detail of your workday is all organized. So when you get in a couple, and he leaves his socks on the floor, this is a problem. Sometimes people will get triggered because there’s somebody else in their space and you can’t control them, and that will suddenly bring up stuff that makes you want to get critical, makes you want to try to control the other person, makes you get into codependent behaviors. All of these things are really reflections of whatever your historical background has brought to who you are in the present moment.
I find that it’s really easy if you can get aware of them. Like, a lot of the work I do in coaching and counseling with couples, and it’s worth saying on this podcast, I work only with individuals. I will occasionally work with a couple, but I will often see both of them individually, and then we’ll work as a couple. Because I really want to understand what’s their piece, what’s their partner reporting about them and what are they reporting about their partner, and what are the reactions, who’s reacting how? Because when you can start to get conscious of the fact that maybe you really have control issues, and maybe those control issues have to do with having been assaulted in college 15 years ago. But you were assaulted in college, and now you really are a control freak in a lot of areas of your life, because that experience made you feel so out of control that you vowed you’d never be out of control ever again. So there’s a dynamic there that people can really start to get conscious of.
Part of what we talk about in our book when we talk about the five secrets to lasting love is that there’s five opposites to the secrets, and they are things like, criticism and control, contempt, stagnation, not growing in your own life, things of that sort. If you can get a grip on those things, and not figure that you’re going to change yourself, but change the behavior, so that you actually employ the secret instead of its opposite, you can really start to change your pattern. We have found that even with couples where one of them clearly is traumatized, hates feeling out of control, wants to smack her husband, or he wants to yell at her because she has interrupted his day or challenged him in some way or another.
“Fights often break out when people are triggered, and triggers are exactly what people experience that have trauma.”
It’s like you’re triggered suddenly, something has triggered you. That’s just so important to pay attention to and to really honor in your own self. It’s like, it’s okay to get triggered, it’s okay to be flooded. It’s like, these are natural things that happen to 99.9% of couples. It’s just about getting awake to them so that you can change the pattern with the smallest gestures and the smallest behaviors that can help you change the pattern.
Well, Ana, that’s one of the things I’m really hearing from you is that it’s almost as if in the couple dynamic or in the relationship, there might be certain things that get activated or triggered. We use that as a curriculum, if you will, to then look at the inner constellation of what’s happening internally, to do the individual work to understand and welcome it, as you’re saying, and to look at it. Not judge it, make it bad, but really turn towards that, and the transformation that can come from that and the healing that can come from that and opportunity there. Am I hearing that right?
Absolutely. Also, just really coming from a place of compassion for yourself, as well as your partner. I’ve got to tell you that the two years after my brother’s car accident are kind of a blur to me. I was in a previous marriage, and I don’t have any idea what kind of a partner I was, but I don’t think I was a very good partner. Because I was barely coping, and I had a child with special needs and a job, and the combination I was running without my head on, and trying to just squash down flashbacks. Even though I had been a therapist, I didn’t understand them until they were happening to me. Then my compassion for my clients went through the roof, because I suddenly had a whole different understanding. It’s kind of like the [Invasion of the Body Snatchers]. You’ve been taken over by a foreign entity, and it’s out of your control almost. It really is truly out of your control.
So what I’m also hearing you say, and really helping people get a sense of how we can override this, I know we have said this, and you’re saying we can feel hijacked by this nervous system brain functioning. It is critical that we get support for that. To think that we can just overcome that, that that’s a setup, if you will. I just really appreciate you bringing so much light and attention. I know we were going to really focus on how trauma impacts relationship, and we’ve really spent a lot of time here talking about the inner work and just how important that is and how much that does impact the relationship. I know we have just a couple more minutes here. So I’m curious, is there anything you want to say in our conversation here that maybe we haven’t touched on?
I do. In our book, the most important secret, in my opinion, is the fifth secret. The first four secrets are about being generous with your partner. But the fifth secret is about being generous with yourself. The fifth secret is called Grow. I operate both as a therapist and as a life coach. Part of the reason I choose that is that I have found that when I work with clients with trauma, when we focus on their dreams, where do they really want to go in life, there’s something that happens where they light up, and they start to choose experiences each and every week. Because we’re working weekly, they’re mapping their week, to include experiences that are about pampering themselves, taking care of themselves, spending time with their women friends or men friends, having playtime with their child that’s completely stress-free, going out for ice cream. It all sounds like Pollyanna, but it’s not Pollyanna. Because everyone has dreams. Maybe they’ve wanted to go back to their hobby of painting, and they love painting and painting really feeds them. Maybe two hikes in nature every week just nourish them. Maybe really prioritizing that hot Epsom salts bath every night with lavender oil and just a candle, and just taking care of themselves in a different way. That that’s what growing really is, when you take care of yourself. That’s when you’re really growing.
So I like to emphasize that. Because I feel that when clients really, or any person, decides to take care of themselves in ways that they haven’t in the past, magical things happen. Their life lights up, their attitude changes, their trauma backs down. Maybe they go for therapy, maybe they go for EEG neurofeedback, maybe they decide to change their diet and eliminate sugar, or eliminate too much caffeine. It’s like, there’s just so many ways to grow. So I like to emphasize that for people.
“I think that we don’t give to ourselves, because everybody thinks it’s selfish, and they’re taking care of others so much, but they’re not taking care of themselves.”
I’m so struck. We could spend many, many podcast episodes with you. You’re giving us insight to so many different areas. You’ve also mentioned your book that you wrote with John. As we start to transition out here, what would you like to encourage people to connect with you around, or what you have to offer? I know we had a whole episode on the book, so I’ll make sure to link that to today’s show notes. If you just want to, again, say the name of that book, and then whatever else you want to encourage people to connect with?
Absolutely. The name of the book is The Go-Giver Marriage, and the subtitle is, the 5 Secrets to Lasting Love. It’s a parable, and then the second half of the book is a didactic how-to. It explains the depth of each secret, and it explains the opposite of each secret, and it’s very rich in its understanding and nuance of how to work with the book. The other thing that we are doing is that we are training a bunch of coaches that will work with the book and work with the material, so that people can work. People work individually with these coaches. This is not couples therapy, this is you working to change the dynamic of your marriage. Because it only takes one person in a marriage to really, really shift it in terms of the energy. So we also have a coaches training programme that’s launching in March, and people can reach us through GoGiverMarriage.com. That includes working with me directly if they want to work, that’s there as well.
Okay. So when you say work with you directly, that’s in the capacity of counseling or coaching?
Yes, and I work via Zoom. So I have clients in the Netherlands, in Switzerland, in Germany, and I also have clients all over the United States. So it’s from anywhere you want to be, I can work by Zoom. It’s really a wonderful format, it’s changed the world of therapy and of coaching.
Yes, it has. Well, I’ll make sure to put the link to the GoGiverMarriage, so people can access the book. I’ll also put an Amazon link there, as well as your coaching, training, and then how to work with you directly. For people that are interested in learning more and connecting with you, that will be there available. Ana, thank you so much for joining us today and spending your valuable time with us.
Thank you so much. It’s been such a pleasure.
Signing Off
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Death is a natural and inevitable part of life. It is a reminder of our own mortality and the impermanence of things. While it can be a difficult and painful experience, it is believed that consciousness about death brings people closer to each other.
In this episode, Dr. Jordana Jacobs talks about the importance of mortality awareness and how denial of this fundamental human experience can lead to greater suffering and isolation. This awareness can also inspire us to prioritize our relationships, make the most of the time we have together, and find a deeper sense of purpose and meaning in life.
Dr. Jordana Jacobs is a clinical psychologist in private practice in New York City. Her approach is integrative, combining psychodynamic and existential therapy in her treatment of patients. Dr. Jacobs’ training at Memorial Sloan Kettering working with terminally ill cancer patients, her studies in Northern India, and her Vipassana meditation practice inspired her work exploring the complex relationship between death and love.
In this Episode
10:31 Dr. Jacobs’ unwavering faith in the power of love and connection to bring meaning and resilience in the face of trauma and loss.
14:09 Exploring the complex interplay between love and death in long-term relationships.
16:56 How the power of mortality awareness can deepen love and meaning in life.
25:56 How denying or avoiding this fundamental human experience can lead to greater suffering and isolation.
35:27 How surrendering to difficult emotions and experiences can help us move forward.
37:33 Actionable steps you can take to gently bring mortality into awareness.
Your Check List of Actions to Take
- Write an essay about what happens to the body after death or create a timeline of your life.
- Take some time to reflect on your own values and priorities. What is most important to you?
- Practice the “last breath meditation” by focusing on each breath as if it could be your last, and allowing love to come to the forefront of your consciousness.
- Consider talking to a therapist about your feelings on mortality and how it impacts your life.
- Practice a meditation on love and death with a romantic partner or friend to help you confront your own mortality.
- Consider trying a meditation on heartbreak to help you surrender to grief and process it in a healthier way.
Mentioned
Ram Dass Fierce Grace (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
Love & Death Meditation (*Youtube video)
Love & Letting Go Meditation (*Youtube video)
WeCroak
Sharing Resources (*Google form)
*Connect with* Dr. Jordana Jacobs
Websites: drjordanajacobs.com
Instagram: instagram.com/drjordanajacobs/?hl=en
Connect with Dr. Jessica Higgins
Facebook: facebook.com/EmpoweredRelationship
Instagram: instagram.com/drjessicahiggins
Podcast: drjessicahiggins.com/podcasts/
Pinterest: pinterest.com/EmpowerRelation
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/drjessicahiggins
Twitter: @DrJessHiggins
Website: drjessicahiggins.com
Email: jessica@drjessicahiggins.com
About Today’s Show
Dr. Jordana Jacobs, thank you for joining us today.
Thank you for having me.
Yeah, and we were just talking a moment ago that actually you were mentioned by my husband who is in the grief space, and with the app of Grief Refuge. But he mentioned you as a potential guest, and when I looked at your work, and really looking at the sense of contemplating one’s own mortality, and how that relates to relationship and love, I was like, this is a fantastic topic, and unusual for the more mainstream. So such a gift to have your presence here.
Thank you. I mean, this is sort of an aside. But it’s a nice feeling when you hear that someone has heard about your work. Because you sort of put something out there, and I have no idea who’s listening or who’s reading. So I really appreciate that, thank your husband for me.
I will, I will. You’re right. I’m in this same kind of wondering around not always knowing who’s listening or who it’s impacting, and to have feedback can be really helpful to know that it’s landing and building awareness somewhere.
Totally.
So talk to us, if you will. Oftentimes I’m asking people who are on the show, how did they come to start focusing on a particular topic, or how are they coming to helping others and offering teachings and support? How did this emerge for you?
There are two ways I talk about it. The first is historical, I believe it’s part of my legacy, if you will, and what’s been passed down from my grandparents. Because they were Holocaust survivors, and I grew up hearing endless stories about the war and surviving war, and trauma and death, and about how to love and create meaning out of that suffering. More specifically, my great aunt, whose name was Sandra, fell in love with a German officer. He didn’t know she was Jewish at the time; she was pretending she was Catholic. And when she did tell him she was Jewish, about two years into their relationship, she was in hiding, he decided to save her life and my grandmother’s life, who was her younger sister, and actually dozens of other Jews from being sent to the death camps. So I quite literally grew up hearing stories about how love can save you from death. So that’s been part of my schema or my template around love and death, since I was a kid.
I know you said you had a second version or second story. But before I ask that, I also wonder, in this lineage, it’s so present. It’s been so much a part of the stories and the fabric of your ancestors and just very close relatives. It’s not further, further back. It’s very close. You’re hearing, and it’s very much a part of the fabric. I can imagine that a sense of love and connection is such a source of resource or sense of resilience in such traumatic, horrific circumstances. But I don’t know, I’m making that up.
Yeah, I think you’re right on. That there are horrible aspects of being alive, one of which is that mortality is inevitable. There are very traumatic ways in which we can die, and then there are far less painful and horrific ways. But death is inevitable, and it’s coming for all of us. I did grow up hearing about how death was inevitable and it could happen at any time, sometimes in ways that are terrifying, which, as a kid, is sometimes hard to hear about. But I do think because it was sort of in the water in my family and talked about so often, it was present.
“I became very aware that love and meaning and connection is the best antidote we have to that truth, that inevitable truth, no matter how we go.”
Does that answer your question?
Yes, an antidote. It couldn’t be more clear.
So I think I started thinking a lot about love and death. But I didn’t have the words for it until I thought about writing my dissertation in grad school. I imagine you wrote one as well, because you’re a clinical psychologist, and you know how it goes. It’s like, what am I going to spend two or three years researching? I have to care about it a lot. I had been reading Esther Perel’s Mating in Captivity. She’s actually one of my supervisors now, so I’m very grateful I’m continuing to learn from her. But I was very struck by what she wrote about it in terms of how to make long-term relationships last. She says, fire needs air. I’m sure you’ve heard this.
“In order to keep passion alive, you need to give it room to breathe. The way that that translates for romantic partners is, you have to realize that you don’t actually have anyone. That you could lose them at any time, to divorce or to separation, whatever it might be. But it’s that feeling of having that creates a sense of complacency, and passion then often dies.”
So when it came to my dissertation, I thought: Okay, well, fire needs air, what’s the ultimate air? So I thought to myself, I think the ultimate air or the best I can do to operationalize that is mortality, recognizing that you could lose anyone at any time. I designed a study to look at how priming for mortality can increase contentment in romantic relationships. Since then, I still think that’s a core component of the work, but I’ve moved to thinking about love and death much more broadly and much more spiritually than just that, and have been able to connect it in my life, to my ancestors, my childhood, and all throughout. I just think it’s sort of my line of inquiry.
I love that. I’d love to dive into that if you’re open. Also, are you willing to share any of what came out of your dissertation research around complacency?
Totally. So I did find that in long-term relationships, if you make people aware of mortality, that they rate their intimacy in partnership as higher than in the control group. So priming for mortality makes you feel more intimately connected to your partner.
Just for people listening who might not understand what that priming might look like, or the awareness of one’s mortality, or everyone’s mortality. For the average person listening, what would you invite them to contemplate or consider around mortality?
Yeah. So the idea of the prime, just for anyone who doesn’t know, is that you’re bringing something that’s typically unconscious into conscious awareness. There’s so many different ways you can do that around mortality. I use the standard mortality question. There were actually two questions, it’s valid and reliable. But the two questions were something like, what do you think happens to your body when you die? So you write sort of an essay response around what you think happens as your body decays? That brings mortality to conscious awareness. The second question was somewhat similar to that, but really just has you focus on the inevitability of death.
What I would suggest, though, for anyone that’s listening, if they want to do a prime, this is my favorite mortality prime. It was too complicated to do for my study. But in talks that I give, I often do this. Again, I tell people to just get out a piece of paper and to draw a horizontal line, where the beginning of the line symbolizes your birth, and the end of the line symbolizes your death. So for whoever’s doing that, you can take a second and do it. Make a slash mark where you are right now. Yeah, I love that. Because I think it brings into acute awareness that life is finite. You have a pictorial representation of it. So I’ve gone to people’s houses, I see them put it on their fridge or by their bed, or some people keep it in their wallet, almost as a memento mori object. I ask people in that moment to reflect on where they think they are right now, and how much time they think they have left. With that time, what do they want to do, who do they want to be, what’s most important to them? Inevitably, people don’t say I want to work more hours, or people don’t even say I want to travel more. At the top of the list is almost always love and relationships; not just romantic love, love in general. But that relationships are, and having deep, meaningful loving relationships are really the most important thing.
Right. I think we’ve heard studies or stories referenced that on someone’s deathbed, they’re not wishing they worked more or did certain things, that it’s spending time with loved ones. That that’s at the heart, the most significant and meaningful. It doesn’t mean that somebody’s purpose, or even as you’re referring to, a legacy, or what’s living in them or the song that they need to sing and purpose, that doesn’t have meaning. But you’re saying, at the top, in the top three, or even at the very, very top are these meaningful, deep connected bonds.
Absolutely. Yeah, not to undervalue our purpose in life at all. But I do think part of our purpose in life is to love richly and deeply. That if we’re not doing that, in addition to fulfilling maybe our more career-driven purpose, we end up, I think, really feeling like we missed out on some of the most meaningful parts of life.
I definitely resonate with that. As I’m listening to you describe this exercise, and the visual, it feels like it offers an opportunity to bring into perspective what we might not be cognizant of. Even I will say, in Western culture, more modern living, it’s almost this sense of hidden or denial often, it’s not really discussed or talked about. Obviously, that wasn’t your experience, that it was very much a part of the awareness, and a reminder to not take these things for granted, or to know how impermanent life is, how finite it is. But yeah, I think the average person doesn’t necessarily come into contact with that on an intentional level or mindful level on a frequent basis. So this invitation just feels so special, because it is so real. Yet, I think many of us, and I’ll raise my hand, I don’t contemplate it much. It’s not a place that I spend a lot of time in.
The other thing I’ll share as far as like a prime, I noticed for me, if I come into contact, whether or not it’s a client, or someone I care about, and they’re telling me a story of loss or death, or something that’s unforeseen or tragic, I can feel immediately. Not necessarily in session, but very soon thereafter. It puts into perspective how fragile life it, in the sense of not guaranteed and uncertain, and how much I want to turn to my husband and just appreciate him, love him, and embrace him. Just it brings into question, I can feel even the emotions arising, of like, if he wasn’t here anymore, the impact of that. Just to be aware, the air that that brings into the relationship. It’s not taking him for granted, it’s not expecting that he’s going to forever be here.
That’s exactly right, that’s exactly what I’m trying to convey. I think in long-term relationships, not only do we get so used to our lives and we think it’s going to be like this with our partner forever. But I think we’re actually pretty invested in the idea of forever with our partner. Because the concept of not having them is so terrifying that we don’t want to contemplate it, just like the concept of not existing anymore or of dying is so terrifying we don’t want to contemplate it. But part of my work and my work with patients is really encouraging them to step towards that rather than away, because there’s so much beauty there. That when you step towards, and you step into it, and you do it gently, and in a way that feels safe enough, you reap so many benefits, including getting in touch with that feeling that you just mentioned: “Oh my God, this person is so precious to me. I see them every day, but they’re so precious, and I’m not always going to have them.”
I met somebody who was sick with cancer at one of my talks, and she said: “Death has been, for me, the great clarifier. It has completely rearranged all of my priorities.” When we think we’re going to live forever.
“I mean, I know we know we’re going to die. But when on a day-to-day basis, we’re not reminded of it, we’re not thinking about it, we’re not contemplating it, our priorities can get really out of whack. We don’t appreciate who we’re with necessarily, and the deep love that’s there. Also, I think we lose a sense of what’s most important to us.”
Even as I’m saying it, I’m like, whoof, yeah! I mean, it’s helpful for me to do a podcast like this and to remind myself. I think the third reason I got into this work is because I was like, I need to do this work.
It’s powerful. I will say, I imagine you would concur, that there is a human tendency to seek comfort. That as we are looking at growth and development, it’s not always comfortable, it’s not always pleasurable. Being awake and aware isn’t always easy. To hold dissonance, to hold something that’s painful. Yet, you’re also speaking to, if we can have a balance. We’re not necessarily talking about let’s go jump into trauma and horrifying, shocking things. We’re talking about, can we, in a doable way, confront the realities that bring more breath, more air into the room? It also reminds me, too. Before I go to the second point, do you want to comment on that, just the human tendency to seek comfort and the impact of that?
I just think it’s such a good point. My thought in addition to that is, it’s inevitable. So we can only stay comfortable and hide from this truth for so long. If we remain in a place of avoidance rather than approach, I think it does us much more of a disservice. Because then we get to what existential psychologists call a boundary situation, which is a situation that brings us into a confrontation with that. Let’s say, cancer, or a natural disaster, COVID, for example. And we are in a state of total terror at the confrontation of what has always been inevitable.
Because we’ve been sheltering, and avoiding, and denying perhaps even. It reminds me too of stories that I’ve heard. I even have a family member right now that is diagnosed with stage-four breast cancer and it’s metastasized, and I think she’s trying to protect people. Like, there’s this sense of: “Oh, I’m not going to tell a lot of people, or I don’t want to traumatize anybody or bring them into this tragedy.” So it’s almost like they don’t tell anybody. Yet, that can be really painful for loved ones, and actually create a lot of resentment and trauma, to not have had the opportunity to connect and show up.
Absolutely, it’s so isolating for people who are indeed in the front row in an experience like that.
“Our culture has created, or we’ve collectively created, an environment in which people feel they have to shield each other from this process of death that will happen to all of us.”
Right now, it’s so isolating and alienating. But another iteration of this, or in another culture, you see it’s what actually brings people together. Oher than love, it is the most common fundamental human experience that brings us all together, because we all go through it.
My husband and I just took a road trip. Many of my listeners know, my husband and I have been displaced for the last few months due to toxic mould. I think we’re in like the 12th place in the last three or four months, it’s been nuts. We were driving. It was like a nine-hour day trip, and we were in stage one of this road trip from California up to the Pacific Northwest. We had been listening to the audio I was recommended by someone who does my skincare line. Her name is Danny, she runs the Skin Harmonics. But she was referencing, I was just in Tulum, and she was talking about an indigenous healer that was leading a ceremony there. We did a Temazcal, which is like a indigenous Mayan sweat lodge that’s similar to like a Native American sweat lodge. Anyway, she’s like, you have to know this author, his name is Martín. I’ll have to put that on the show notes. But he wrote this book about grief and praise, and how interconnected they are. That actually, in that kind of orientation that he’s coming from, in this collective in a lineage, that grieving is a way of actually praising and loving.
It just brought that connection up for me. Because as you’re talking about perhaps in other cultures, it’s a way of coming into connection, it’s a way of coming into honor. It’s a way of mourning and being in the experience, how even painful, but genuine. That’s the part of the healing, perhaps even. As a collective, we need to grieve, and we need to be in the process of praising and honoring life, and it includes death.
Absolutely. You’re reminding me of this quote that I love, I think she’s an author, by Jamie Anderson. I’ll just read it if that’s okay. But she says: “Grief, I’ve learned, is really just love. It’s all the love you want to give, but cannot. All that unspent love gathers up in the corners of your eyes, the lump in your throat, and in the hollow part of your chest. Grief is just love with no place to go.”
Wow, that’s beautiful!
You and I were talking about this a little bit before recording. Just about the importance of surrendering to grief, allowing it to be there, recognizing it as part of the process. I mean, surrendering to grief, I think, is much like surrendering to death. It’s surrendering to a loss.
“Grief is the price we pay for love, it’s part of the experience of love. If you’re not grieving, then you’re not fully loving. I think it would be horribly sad to live a life without grief. If you don’t die, then you’re not living. We can’t cut out half of the equation here.”
Talk about being comfortable. We will actually be much more comfortable if we accept it all, rather than cut out half of it and spend much of our emotional resources trying to shut out that darker half.
Resisting, avoiding, denying, and essentially cutting off parts of ourselves even, in an attempt to block it.
Exactly. There’s a quote I heard, I think it was in a Ram Das podcast, I don’t know if he said it or someone else said it. But he said: “We call holy men or women holy, because they’re whole. They incorporate the entirety of an experience, and they don’t resist any of it.” The biggest thing, I think, that we all resist collectively as a whole is death.
I couldn’t agree with you more. It’s so funny you brought up Ram Das. I was thinking about this documentary he did, I watched it years ago. I think it’s called Fierce Grace. Did you see it?
Yes. I’m a Ram Das fan, for sure.
I love it, I’ll make sure to put the link on today’s show notes as well. And what I really took from that, and what resonated so strongly for me in my own personal experience with grief surrender, as you’re describing, is how it was so closely connected to the experience for me of grace. I’m remembering a time I’ve referenced on the podcast; I won’t go into the whole story here. But in grieving a relationship, I legitimately thought it was going to kill me. I didn’t think rationally like I was going to physically be harmed. But I thought the emotional intensity was so great that I couldn’t tolerate it, and it was going to be a death of some sort. I remember making a conscious choice of like, I’m not going to resist this. I remember lying back in my bed and surrendering. I didn’t know what I was doing. It was like jumping off this abyss of like, this probably is going to kill me! I know I’m saying it’s silly now, but it was a lot of intensity.
It resonates. I’ve been there, I know.
Yes, I’m sure you’ve had a similar experience. For me, it was like, as soon as I said Yes, and I surrendered, and I leaned into that, I felt this enveloping of something that felt so spiritual, that felt so warm and loving and graceful, that it was so closely linked. I don’t know that I would have been able to access that had I not leaned in. This references what I think you were speaking to a little bit ago about when we cut off or block or deny, there’s so much realm and beauty and so much access that we have to something so profound, that we don’t even know what we’re cutting off from, that we’re limiting ourselves. That if we do lean in, there’s so much there that’s available to us.
Absolutely. I mean, I can hear that I keep saying absolutely, but I just really agree with what you’re saying.
“There’s actually a bliss in surrender, even to excruciating pain. Actually, the pain changes when you surrender to it. When you resist it, it intensifies. That’s the case with emotional pain, it’s also the case with physical pain.”
Can you say that again? I agree with you, and I’ve talked about this with emotional. But in the realm of grief and contemplating death and mortality, can you repeat that again and just spell that out for us?
I think another way to say it is that the resistance is futile. I don’t know if Spock said it or the Terminator said it, it’s something from the 90s that resonates for me, which is that resistance is futile. That the more you resist, the more something persists, whether emotional pain or physical pain. I’ve dealt with some chronic pain issues in my life. It was really only through doing 10-day silent meditation retreats, where I spent 10 hours a day focused on fully accepting pain and sitting with it, and not trying to change it or fix it. Being with it as it was, and giving up this sort of internal battle within myself. I do think when you do that, there’s such emotional and physical freedom when you’re no longer fighting, that there’s a healing element to that process.
Thank you for sharing a little bit more. I know in psychology, they sometimes talk about, from the neurological perspective, like name it to tame it. It sounds like it’s related. Just how important it is for us to be in a practice of doing this. For people who are listening, and you mentioned a while ago more of the modern Western world, there might not be a lot of space that supports this practice. You’re doing such beautiful work, I’m so grateful that you’re offering guidance in this. So before we turn to how people can get in touch with you, I just wonder, is there anything here that you want to speak to? I mean, you mentioned the priming, and that in of itself is something, right?
If anybody is listening and wants to do a few things so that they can bring mortality into their awareness in a way that’s gentle, I do suggest getting a piece of paper and doing that exercise, and putting it up somewhere where you see it, just to remind you. Or an index card or something, some people even frame it. That I recommend. For something else that’s quick, there’s something called the Last Breath Meditation, where if you just sit and you focus on each outbreath as if it could be your last. I mean, it’ll certainly bring up some fear, you don’t have to do it for very long. But just as a technique that you can do almost daily, to feel into that transience, that impermanence, and then let love float to the top of your consciousness, as I think it typically does, if you can do so without tremendous fear.
There’s an app called WeCroak that is based on a Bhutanese concept that you need to think about death five times a day in order to live life fully. I don’t think it’s the best app. But conceptually, if you want reminders on your phone, I think that can be great too. Those would be my sort of more structured ideas. But a lot of the work that I do around this happens with patients that I see one-on-one, and I encourage them to bring up existential issues, and I nudge them in that direction if they’re not going there themselves. So if this is something that resonates for people, and they’re in therapy, go there with your therapist and see what comes up.
Yes. Because ideally, the practitioner therapist or psychotherapist would be providing a safe container to hold that, as a safe beginning step perhaps.
One more thing I will say, I know we’re about to wrap up. But I’ve been doing a few meditations at retreats that I have spoken at, and I just put them up online on my website. There’s one about love and death that could help you get into contact with mortality. It’s a partnered experience, though. So you can do it with a romantic partner, or you could also do it with just a friend. It doesn’t have to be someone that you’re romantically involved with. But that might be helpful. Then I have another meditation that’s about heartbreak. It’s sort of like what you were talking about helping people lie down and surrender to that grief, and be able to hold it in a different way.
I will make sure to have those links on today’s show notes. Also, what else would you like to invite people to? I know you offer many other things in the way of writing and the teachings that you’re doing.
I don’t have anything concrete coming up. If people want to follow my professional Instagram, which is Dr. Jordana Jacobs, I post on there if there’s any talk I’m giving or a retreat that’s coming up, or a picture or a quote that feels like it’s related to this work.
So it sounds like that would be a great place to follow. Also going to your website for the videos. Is it a video or an audio for the meditations?
They’re YouTube videos. But there’s no real visual, it’s just meditations you do lying down or sitting up with headphones. But you can find them for free on YouTube.
Perfect, I will make sure to do that. Is there anything else that you want to say that people could find on their website? It sounds like if they’re in New York, they could perhaps reach out to you. I don’t know if your schedule is full, but sounds like you have patients that you work with one-on-one. Anything else you want to mention?
Sure, feel free to reach out. I have a waitlist right now. But there’s often turnover at the beginning of the new year. I don’t know if you experience that. But the highest rate of turnover for therapists is typically September or January, people want to start therapy or feel like they’re ready. So feel free to reach out if this feels aligned.
Wonderful. Well, thank you so much. It’s such a gift for you to spend time with us here today. I’ll make sure to have all of the links that you’ve mentioned, including your website, on today’s show notes.
Okay, thank you so much for having me, and for helping remind me to do this. This is my mortality prime of the day, so I appreciate it.
Mine too!
Signing Off
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Do you find yourself constantly overreacting to your partner’s words and actions, or do you often overthink simple things and always assume the worst?
Everyone faces challenges and struggles in life, and it’s natural to feel overwhelmed or uncertain at times, but it’s important to remember that there are ways to reduce overthinking so you can be your best self and enjoy life.
In this episode, Alicia Munoz discusses the five rumination cycles that destroy relationships and four simple ways to break these cycles.
Alicia Muñoz, LPC, is a certified couples therapist, and author of four books, most recently “Stop Overthinking Your Relationship: Break the Cycle of Anxious Rumination to Nourish Love, Trust, and Connection With Your Partner” (New Harbinger Publications, 2022). Muñoz currently works as a Senior Writer at Psychotherapy Networker and as a couples therapist in private practice.
In this Episode
3:17 How overthinking obstructs connection and relationships.
13:56 What rumination in relationships looks like.
18:08 The five rumination cycles.
27:41 How attachment styles influence rumination.
31:16 Four simple ways to reduce the amount of overthinking.
41:22 The significance of having direct contact with oneself.
47:25 How to break the cycle of anxious rumination in your relationship.
Your Check List of Actions to Take
- Take a step back and examine your thought patterns.
- Label the thought. Putting a label on it takes away its power over you.
- Anchor your body in the present moment and observe the sensations that arise without reacting to them. Simply observe how they influence your thinking.
- Allow what’s beneath the surface of your racing thoughts to come to the forefront of your awareness. So that you can truly embrace all of who you are with acceptance
- Accept that we will overthink to some extent at times, but we can reduce the amount of time we overthink.
Mentioned
Stop Overthinking Your Relationship: Break the Cycle of Anxious Rumination to Nurture Love, Trust, and Connection with Your Partner (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
The 7 Hidden Relationship-Wreckers (free mini course)
Shifting Criticism For Connected Communication
*Connect with* Alicia Muñoz
Websites: aliciamunoz.com
Facebook: facebook.com/aliciamunozlpc
Twitter: twitter.com/aliciamunozlpc
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/aliciamunozlpc
Instagram: instagram.com/aliciamunozcouples
Connect with Dr. Jessica Higgins
Facebook: facebook.com/EmpoweredRelationship
Instagram: instagram.com/drjessicahiggins
Podcast: drjessicahiggins.com/podcasts/
Pinterest: pinterest.com/EmpowerRelation
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/drjessicahiggins
Twitter: @DrJessHiggins
Website: drjessicahiggins.com
Email: jessica@drjessicahiggins.com
About Today’s Show
Alicia, thank you for joining us today.
It’s great to be here, Jessica. Thanks for having me.
Yes, and I love talking to professionals that are doing couples’ work, and have also done a level of offering information in the way of books or research around topics. Because it’s really important to conceptualize and distill these concepts, and psychology, as we all know, can be rather complex. So I just am grateful to have your voice here on the show. We’re going to be talking about relationship rumination. But before we get started in that, for people who don’t already know you, are you open to sharing a little bit about you and how you got interested in this topic?
Sure. Well, you mentioned that, as therapists and psychologists and people in the helping profession, there’s so much complexity to a lot of the frameworks that we work in. But I think I’m not alone as a therapist in that I’m always looking for a linchpin, what’s that thing that kind of connects all the dots?
“For me, overthinking and rumination is that linchpin, in terms of the thing that undergirds so many of our conflicts with our partners, so many of our challenges, the things that go awry in relationships. Often, you can trace those things back to overthinking and rumination.”
Yes. So just through your experience and your practice, you’re recognizing that there was a thread here, and that you could actually identify it and maybe expand it and unpack it to be of value and help. Is that right?
Absolutely. But not just professionally. I think a lot of times the things that we see and the things that engage us are issues that we ourselves struggle with. I like to tell people the story of my son, who recently was telling me: “Mom, you’re really overthinking. I just asked you a simple question, and you keep telling me over and over again, all these different things that could happen.” I’m like, oh wow! Yeah, we really do focus on and write about what we ourselves need to learn. So for me, it’s also personal. I’m always looking for ways not just to support my clients, but to work with my own human mind and my own emotions. I think the combination of those two things, both the professional common thread that I’ve seen people struggle with in their relationships, and for me personally also—both as an individual, and in my own relationship with my husband—overthinking, rumination, and relationship rumination have been really important things to look at.
Thank you for acknowledging that, and I also agree so much. Well, first of all, I will say, everything that I’m talking about, I try to do my best to practice in my own life, and I am on this journey with everyone else. Also, when I have the personal experience and have done the work, I can speak from a different place than just thinking about it or conceptualizing it. So I think there’s a richness in adapting. Then also, as we’re navigating the terrain, and maybe people haven’t articulated or explained or laid out the map of the terrain, we’re navigating it blind, if you will. So I think having a professional to be able to provide that map—what it looks like, what are the impacts, and how to have awareness around this, and then maybe concrete real ways to work with it—can be so incredibly helpful, as we all know.
Yes, very, very true. There’s a tendency for people to blame themselves and judge themselves and feel like outsiders, feel abnormal, feel as though the things that they’re struggling with are unique to them, and that they’re uniquely flawed. I think that part of the gift of psychology and therapy and different helping professions—going to somebody who can guide you, both professionally, but also from a place of their own experience—is that you really realize that welcome to the human family, you’re not alone.
Exactly. It helps normalize and validate, and that can be so healing, just to even have that recognition and acknowledgement. Well, let’s talk about relationship rumination. You really distinguish what this is different than maybe what one might think of as individually ruminating, or just the term rumination on its own.
Yeah. So I find that it helps to have a visual metaphor to understand the nuances and the differences between these two types of thinking. Solo or general rumination is really something that you do, mainly alone, by yourself, in your own head. A lot of it revolves around the past, so looking back, having regrets, brooding. It’s really mainly a private experience, even if it does indirectly end up impacting people in your life. So I like to think of it as riding a unicycle. If you’re on a unicycle, if you swerve, if you have poor weight distribution, if the brakes fail, or you’re going too fast, you can hurt yourself, and you might run into somebody, that’s also possible. But with relationship rumination, I think of it more as a tandem bicycle, where you’re riding this intricate, dynamic, cognitive dance with your partner, and you’re riding it together. So your wrong moves, your impulsivity, your blind spots, the miscalculations that you make, will really impact your partner as well, and vice versa.
So that it’s really both of your responsibility, how you think, how much time you invest in metacognition, which is a form of healthy thinking, where you’re observing your thoughts, you’re stepping back, you’re looking at patterns of thinking, and you’re taking responsibility for something that a lot of us don’t even know we’re doing. So in that sense, relationship rumination is really something that you’re doing together with your partner in the shared relational field, and you do it together, and you try not to do it together, or you try to find healthy ways to reduce the intensity and the degree to which you’re engaging in this type of rumination.
Thank you. I can just feel the visceral difference between being on a unicycle and what to manage there and how to balance, and that there’s many things to pay attention to. But then the complexity of having two people and their weight distribution and all of the things they are. Can you give us an example of what relationship rumination might look like, if one was observing?
Yeah. So I always like to think about something that happened recently between my husband and I, because I find it’s usually most alive for me. So for example, yesterday, I had a long work day, and I’m working on a project and there’s a deadline. So I had kind of been in my own head all day, and I hadn’t been making the progress that I had wanted to make. So I was ruminating about: “This isn’t good enough, this isn’t working. This isn’t going to happen on time. I’m not doing this successfully, what’s wrong with me?” So these are the kinds of ruminative thoughts that are going through my mind. I’m standing at the kitchen counter, making myself a snack, and my husband walks in through the door, and his energy is very cheerful. He comes over to me and proceeds to move toward me to give me a hug, and I bristle, and I can feel this quality of just rejection, really of irritability. So I was conscious enough to say to him: “Listen, I’m not ready to embrace you, I’m not ready to hug. Just give me a moment, I’m not in a good headspace. I’m just feeling self-critical right now.” So he took a breath and stepped back, and sort of did his thing and waited for me to be able to settle and receive his warm welcome.
If I hadn’t done that, he would have spun into: “What did I do wrong? How did I fail her? Did I forget to do something she asked me to do? Am I not a good husband? Am I not a good partner?” So that my rumination would have then triggered his rumination, and we would have been on that tandem bicycle, heading off the road, going into a ravine, falling, spinning, in emotional pain as a couple. So that’s how relationship rumination works, and why it’s important to be aware of your thinking.
No kidding! It’s almost the places that we go in our mind when something appears to be off-track, or how we might interpret or attribute or perceive. Is that right?
Yeah, absolutely. You just listed a lot of the forks in the road that we can take in our minds, based on a lot of different factors. It’s hard to reduce it to one thing. But definitely, these beliefs, these false attributions, these stories, that are often shaped by many things, like our attachment styles, what kind of a history did we have, what are our personal triggers, or what are the triggers that we have with our partner in this particular relationship, our mood at a given moment. All of these things can lead us down this path of ruminating and getting into a cycle that isn’t healthy with our partner.
Thank you for acknowledging, I just appreciate how much is informing this experience, and our background and all the things you just named. I also am wondering, in the example that you just described, if in the past, perhaps you weren’t able to articulate and reveal what was happening for you on the inside. That that might have triggered something for your husband, and he might have gotten to a certain place with that. Now, the couple or the relational rumination, the shared space, I imagine that it can be both expressed and perhaps not expressed. These nonverbals, where you didn’t want to hug him, and then maybe he didn’t even vocalize what did I do, and him tracking what happened there and what’s this about? Is that right that it doesn’t necessarily mean this vocal, verbalizing rumination, and it could be very internal to you but shared in a couple dynamic?
Absolutely. I think most of the time, it’s nonverbal. Most of the time, it’s not being tracked. Most of the time, there are all these layers of inner experience that we’re having, that we’re not taking the time to tune into or be aware of, that influence how we respond or react in these just everyday situations that we have with our partner.
“We have so many little micro-interactions throughout the day, and I don’t think it’s humanly possible to track and be aware and conscious of even a small percent of them. But to try to at least begin to know what happens internally, and to be able to slow down and pause, and just check in with yourself.”
Notice, am I beginning a rumination cycle, am I starting to ruminate in a particular direction, and what direction is that going in, what direction is that going to take me in and my partner in as well?
I talk about five different rumination cycles that are pretty common for couples, and individuals too. But we tend to get into blame cycles with our partner, control cycles, doubt cycles, worry cycles, and self-pity cycles. So for me, when I can notice my thoughts are heading in this direction of blame, it’s often that that in itself can help me gain awareness to the point where I don’t have to actually start to blame. I can stop, I can pause and be like: I’m starting to blame my husband or I’m starting to blame myself, can I just pause and accept what’s happening in this moment?
It sounds as though even having the understanding of these five cycles, and if one is recognizing their tendency or perhaps their rumination blueprint if I might, that it can be a signpost that I’m ruminating. Like you’re saying, it’s so perhaps habituated, or even conscious, and how frequent this is, that we’re not likely going to be tracking it on a very conscious level. So we might recognize when we do the thing that we know that we tend to do, and that’s what’s a little bit more conscious. Is that right?
That’s right. In a strange way, it can be gratifying to be able to recognize these cycles when they’re at work, too. Over time, you’ll begin to notice that you might tend to do one more than the others, or one or two of them might be the ones that you do most. I’ve noticed that for me, I think it changes over time, but in the past, I used to really just be in this doubt cycle constantly, where I would second-guess myself, need external reassurance and guidance and validation, and didn’t trust my intuition or my memories. So I was constantly in these cycles of doubt. Then there are people who need things to happen a certain way to feel safe. So they’re predicting and planning and telling you how something needs to be done accurately, and those people tend to be perfectionists and to be in control cycles a lot of the time, because they have this fixed idea of how things have to have to happen. So recognizing these types of thought patterns, I love your word, blueprints, that you tend to fall into, can help you understand where your work lies, I would say, in your healing journey and in your relationship.
As I’m reflecting on my own marriage and my own relationship with my husband, I can recognize how quickly we will both participate in this relationship rumination, and we’ll call each other out sometimes. It just feels like it’s a big jump. We were kind of in-sync and we were understanding each other, and then all of a sudden, something was taken in a certain way or perceived in a certain way, and then one of us will take it to a level that we’re like: “Whoa, how did we get there, like what just happened?” So sometimes it does show up in these cycles, or the types of cycles that you’re describing. Probably, as we maybe unpack this a little bit more, I might be able to raise my hand of like: “Oh yeah, that’s definitely more of my lien, or I can recognize already one of my husband’s.” But before we do that, I’m curious if you’re talking about overthinking as well. Do you use these terms synonymously, the overthinking and ruminating, or are they different?
Yeah, I use them often synonymously. I mean, rumination has more of a pejorative undertone, and it also tends to refer to thinking that you’re doing in the past. So you’re thinking about the past, you’re brooding on the past, you have regrets about the past. When I talk about relationship rumination, I really use it as an umbrella term to capture all these different types of negative overthinking in a relationship.
Yeah, thank you. Also, it’s likely as we’re describing this, that as we’re using the word tendencies, our best moves or have been our best moves from the past around how to get our needs met or how to cope with a certain environment, and thus being a little bit more protective. Would you say it too?
Absolutely.
“I often think about relationship rumination as like a symptom to an allergy that we’ve developed to our own vulnerability. So in the past, as children, as adolescents, even as young adults, we’ve often been in situations where vulnerability has felt really dangerous or been really dangerous, in which case, we’re dealing with trauma. So the one avoidance strategy to our emotional pain, that is always within reach, is overthinking.”
You could be in a small box with nothing else that you have access to; you can’t grab your phone, you can’t grab a shot of whiskey, you can’t go on a spending spree, you can’t over eat, you can’t have all kinds of sexual acting-out behaviors, whatever it is that you’ve used in the past, to cope with pain and with this feeling of being alone and vulnerable. But you can always think about it; you can always overthink the situation that you’re in. So in that sense, it’s really our most commonly used mind-altering substance.
Oh my gosh, I can so resonate with this in my own therapy, I’ve done some EMDR and some of my early traumas. One of the things that my therapist was reflecting back to me was just, he’s like: “You’re really smart, and one of your strategies is you try to figure it out. You try to find a path out and you’re trying to solve the problem, and if you can find an opening, then that gives you relief. But in some sense, it’s moving away from the pain that’s really difficult to be present with.”
Yeah, that’s beautiful, and true.
You also mentioned attachment in our early experiences of relationship, and how this gives us that roadmap. On first blink, it might be easy to think, someone who has a little bit more of that anxious style is more prone to the overthinking and rumination. But possibly, any person that has some degree of insecure attachment, even the avoidant or mixed ambivalent attachment style, will also participate in this. It just might look different, it might look very internal, like the pity or more shutdown, but there’s a lot happening on the inside that’s just not as visible. Whereas, the anxious, perhaps tendency, anxious attachment would be a little bit more vocalizing and checking. How do you relate attachment to how it shows up in rumination?
Wow, just rewind, and what she said. I mean, you just really summed it up beautifully. I think there are different presentations of it. But when you’re on the attachment spectrum, and most of us are not perfectly securely attached, I think those are like unicorns. I certainly don’t come across too many people who are perfectly securely attached from day one.
“Depending on your attachment style, you’re going to experience closeness and distance in a different way in your relationships.”
So if you are avoidant and your partner is looking for affection or closeness, that’s going to be a trigger for you most likely. Most likely, if your partner continues to ask for or insist on or just non-verbally seek closeness with you, your thinking is going to respond to this threat of too much closeness with some sort of overthinking. Whether you start to doubt: “Maybe I shouldn’t be in this relationship, my partner is too needy. How come they’re so dependent? I need space.” Or whether it’s in the form of a blame cycle: “What’s their problem? I just told them I love them yesterday, how come they need me to continue to tell them that I love them today?”
If you’re on the anxious side of the attachment spectrum, that your partner’s need for more distance from you, when they say I’m going to go out with friends tonight, and they don’t invite you, that’s going to most likely also trigger this sense of danger to where you’re thinking whatever, you’re blaming them. So you get into a blame cycle. “What’s wrong with them? Why didn’t they invite me?” Or you’re going to get into a self-pity cycle. “This always happens. I’m always with people who don’t appreciate me. Why are they so selfish?”
Or the control cycle. Like, “Where are you going to be? When are you going to be home? What’s happening?” All this stuff just to try to feel safe, and then all the questions that might follow up of like, who’s going to be there?
Exactly right. Or when they come home, the suspicion, the worry. The worry cycle of: “Are they telling me the truth? I’ve got to check their social media channels, and were they really where they said they were?”
So it’s true that any threat that you experience, and you’re going to experience more acute intense threats in a romantic relationship than you would if you were not in a romantic relationship often, you’re going to be coping with in the best way that you can, including by overthinking things.
Thank you so much for elaborating. That was extremely helpful, and I love just how you named all of that. Alicia, as we’re talking, I knew this was going to happen. As you started talking, I was like, this is something that I’m sure a large portion of people experience. Then as you started talking, I was like, I think most of us do for sure, I know I do. It just sounds like, how do we not do this?
Yeah. Well, first of all, when I wrote the book, Stop Overthinking Your Relationship, and then it came out, I think I had this illusion that I wouldn’t be overthinking after I wrote the book. Not true. I think that to a certain degree, we need to accept that we’re going to overthink things at times. But there are ways to reduce the amount that we overthink.
I’ve come up with a process that I summarized with the acronym SLOW, as a reminder to slow down and pause and bring your awareness back into your own internal experience. SLOW stands for four steps: Seeing, Labeling, Opening, and Welcoming. I could give you the complex breakdown of these, but you can always go and read the book if you want that. But the short version is that, when you’re able to see that you’re in a cycle of overthinking, then you’re not believing your thoughts as the truth. So they can’t hijack your reality. It’s like, you’re no longer that fish in water saying, what water, there’s no water.
You see your thoughts, step one. Then step two, when you’re able to label your thoughts, nothing fancy, you could simply label the thought as: “Oh, I’m in a blame cycle. I’m in a self-pity cycle. I’m in a worry cycle. Or I’m having a thought about how selfish my partner is.” As soon as you can label it, then you’re no longer hijacked by it. From label, the third step of this process is open. Open really means to anchor in your body, to anchor in the here and now, and to drop down underneath your cognitive experience, and notice the emotions that are here, the sensations that are here, the impulses that are here, without acting on them. You simply notice them, and how they’re fueling your thinking. From there, step four is welcome, which means that you approve of what you discover, you may not like it—you may not like feeling sad, or angry, or afraid—but you welcome it. You can even say to what you discover, welcome anxiety, welcome sadness, welcome vulnerability. So you allow what’s under the surface of your racing thoughts, to come into the forefront of your awareness. So that you can really embrace all of who you are with acceptance.
That’s so key to not just try to push it away, or so many of us want to put our best foot forward. To turn towards that vulnerability without the judgement and with that compassion, that is a very different approach, and can be so much different in results. It’s being able to see, as you said. It’s not only see it from a recognizing and labeling and then entering into, but it’s also, as we open, it sounds like with this welcoming stance, there’s so much more that will get revealed, rather than this judgment or self-critic.
Yeah, absolutely. Just kind of carrying forward that idea that, if our overthinking and rumination is often a symptom of this allergy that we’ve developed to our own vulnerability, then just like with immunotherapy, one of the ways that you reduce an allergic reaction is by building up a tolerance to that thing that you’re allergic to. So when we can build up a tolerance to our vulnerability, which we’ve often developed an intolerance to, through life, through being socialized, through being in a society that many of the values of our society are anti-vulnerable, and not necessarily supportive of us being whole human beings.
“If we can begin to open to our vulnerability, then we don’t have that allergic reaction of overthinking, mind racing, controlling, blaming, doubting, just feeling sorry for ourselves. We don’t have that reaction as frequently.”
Yes, and I couldn’t agree with you more. That the conditioning and the shaping of just modern living, really reinforces the allergy to vulnerability. I think that’s changing. I will say, I’m very grateful that with all the awareness and growth and consciousness that we’re prioritizing, it’s helpful. One of the things that I’m hearing in what you’re saying with the SLOW acronym, it’s almost as if being in the driver’s seat a little bit more, there’s so much around not reacting, just that more impulse, more responding. It sounds like this is a more intentional approach by using this acronym.
Yeah, I love that. Your metaphor of being in the driver’s seat brings to mind one study that I was looking at when I wrote this book, was this 2020 Queen’s University study that they did in Canada, and don’t ask me how they figured this out. But they figured out that on average, we think around 6,200 thoughts daily. So that’s a lot of thoughts, and if you’re not aware of those thoughts—how are they impacting you, how are they impacting what you say or what you don’t say, how you act, how you feel—who’s in the driver’s seat of your life? Is it these passive thoughts, these 6,200 passive thoughts a day? You do the math for a week, a month, a year. You do the math for two people having these thoughts who are constantly interacting or riding that tandem bicycle. That’s a lot of somebody else driving your life, and these passive thoughts. Not even somebody else, really these reactions to your environment, these reactive responses to your life, to your history, guiding you. So it’s really important not to leave our thinking unchecked.
Right. As you imagine, as you’re laying out the impact of one’s life, or a year in a life, one of the things that I think is so beautiful about what you’re laying out—that I’m sure many listeners can resonate, and I’ll also raise my hand here—that the cycle that I might utilize, whether or not it’s control, or worry, or whatever it is, I have been around the block enough to know that it doesn’t usually give me that much relief. I think it does on a short-term. It’s like a short-term fix, rather than a long-term gain. So having run that, and I even think some of us, as we’re talking more specifically about overthinking and rumination, it’s exhaustive, at least for me. It’s like I can run that, and it’s almost never ending; there’s no satiation with it. Whereas, if I do drop into my body, and I do access the SLOW and the way you’re describing, there’s some direct connection with the vulnerability that starts to be transformational. It’s like the very thing I don’t want to do sometimes, but it’s the very thing that starts to open a new path or a new experience. Especially when we talk relationship, when I can show that however much to my significant other, he responds, and that’s a different cycle in the dynamic of my relationship.
Yes. What you’re saying that really speaks to me is, I hear two things. Like, there’s this compassion for yourself and for all of us, for resorting to these coping strategies that almost help but don’t. Over and over again, they almost bring relief, but don’t. In fact, often will then later make our problems worse. But in the short-term, they seem to bring relief. It’s almost like we’re on the gerbil wheel so many times, so often, until finally, we realize that we’ve got to get off this gerbil wheel somehow. That moment that you were describing, of sharing with your partner, showing up really in a way that’s vulnerable and honest, and shaky and uncertain, and requires trust and courage, it’s so counterintuitive for many of us. It’s still, most often, what brings us connection with one another.
Yes, and there’s lots of research to support that. I think people can also reflect back in their lives, where they’ve been able to show some of this, and how human it is to feel someone show up or feel more connection, despite how terrifying it might be in those initial moments. Even if it’s an individual, I want to just pull back for one moment. Even if the opening, coming back to the SLOW process and your acronym, sometimes when I can connect with a sensation, or even the fear that I might be feeling, it feels like a direct contact that I can be with, and it’s so much more soothing. It might even still feel really, really painful. But it’s so much more helpful in the long-term to have that direct contact. That then I now know how to show up for myself, and I now perhaps can take that emotional risk to share with my significant other if I so choose. But I’m not on the gerbil wheel hoping that I’m going to get the result. For me, it just feels like so much more direct path to transformation and opening, and yeah, it’s often the most scariest.
So true. What you described as that direct contact, which may seem basic when we talk about it, or simple or ordinary, or not a big deal. I think a lot of times, we think that transformation or healing or growth has to be this kind of cathartic thing or process. When really, it’s often an accumulation of those small moments of contact between our awareness, our self, and our inner experience. So that we’re present for what’s happening; we’re not abandoning ourselves, we’re able to stay with whatever our experience is. In my world, that’s love. I mean, that is love, whether you’re bringing that to yourself, or you’re bringing it to another person.
Thank you for saying that, it’s really beautiful. Even as you’re talking, and I mentioned earlier, just having done some of the EMDR work and relational traumas, it’s almost as if it’s so reparative and healing even on trauma. Perhaps my environment, in certain circumstances growing up, didn’t provide the ability to have that direct contact, from my caregivers, whatever the circumstances were. But it’s like almost going back and having that repair and that healing, that it’s almost like the rumination and overthinking is a trauma response.
Yes, very interesting. I think of it that way on kind of a subtle level. Trauma response is: fight, flight, and freeze, fawn. Those don’t have to be behaviors that we do. At times, they’re hidden, and they happen on a very subtle level within ourselves.
Okay, there’s so much here, and I’m so grateful you wrote a book, as people are engaging and want to learn more. Before we turn to that, I would love for you to just revisit the five cycles. Just if you want to say anything else about those, before we transition out here.
Sure, yeah. I’ll just give you the rundown.
“It’s helpful to have a structured way of thinking about thinking and overthinking. Just to keep in mind that there are these five cycles, that they are: blame, control, doubt, worry, and self-pity. Almost like a rainbow that you can hold in front of yourself and just be curious.”
Am I in a blame cycle, am I blaming? Am I attacking myself or attacking somebody else with my thinking? With the control cycle, to just notice, am I fixated on something happening a certain way, in order for me to feel safe? With doubt, am I in this space where I’m just not trusting myself over and over and over again? In the worry cycle, to notice, am I in the future, am I listing off this sort of endless web of uncertain outcomes, and trying to control the future through worrying? Then in self-pity, to just notice, am I often in this space where I feel powerless, where I feel like I’m my partner’s victim, where I feel like I’m the victim of life, where I feel like I’m the victim of situations? Can I be compassionate with myself and do what I need to do to feel more empowered?
Well, thank you for acknowledging that. Again, it helps us have indicators so that we can start working with the way to shift out or be in the driver’s seat with the SLOW acronym. Would you like to say anything about your book or how people can get in touch with you?
I would just ask people to jump onto my Instagram platform, it’s @AliciaMunozCouples. Send me a DM, I love to interact with people through my posts there.
Do you also have a website?
I do. It’s www.AliciaMunoz.com. There’s a free course on the website, a mini-course. Then there’s another course as well. So feel free to take that free course, and hopefully, let me support you in that way.
And what is the course about, is it about the rumination?
No, it’s actually about these seven different ways that we can sort of recognize and do less of. I call them relationship records, so it’s called The Seven Relationship Records Course.
Wonderful! I can tell based on what you’re referencing, that you have so much to offer that expands beyond our topic today. So I love that you have a course on another way to improve and really be more skillful in relationships. I’ll make sure to put the link to your book. Do you want to name the title and anything else you want to say about the book?
Absolutely. Just it’s called Stop Overthinking Your Relationship: Break the Cycle of Anxious Rumination to Nurture Love, Trust, and Connection with Your Partner. It’s a mouthful, but that’s what it’s called.
Oh, my goodness! Well, this has been such a treat and a gift to share this time with you. Alicia, thank you so much.
Thank you so much for having me. It’s been a really inspiring conversation with you, and I really appreciate this opportunity to connect with your listeners.
Signing Off
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*With Amazon Affiliate Links, I may earn a few cents from Amazon, if you purchase the book from this link.
Although emotional intelligence is important in developing positive relationships, it is only one piece of the puzzle. Some of the factors that contribute to long-lasting relationships are establishing rapport, developing trust, and embracing inclusivity or diversity.
In this episode, Dr. Adam C. Bandelli talks about his research on the pros and cons of emotional intelligence and how this can make or break your relationships. He then introduces the concept of relational intelligence, going through each of its five essential skills.
Relational intelligence, sometimes referred to as social intelligence, is the capacity to perceive, understand, and navigate emotions in oneself and others, and to use this awareness to effectively communicate and interact with others.
Dr. Bandelli, emphasizes that by developing your relational intelligence, you can improve your communication skills, build strong relationships, and effectively navigate social situations.
Founder and Managing Director of Bandelli & Associates, Dr. Adam C. Bandelli is an organizational psychologist and seasoned leadership advisor with over twenty years of corporate consulting experience. In his latest book, “Relational Intelligence,” he details the five essential skills he has found to create life-changing relationships. Adam received his Ph.D. and master’s degree from the University of South Florida and now runs Bandelli & Associates, where he and his consultants help their clients unleash their true leadership potential.
In this Episode
In this episode7:14 Guest introduction: An athlete turned psychologist/leadership advisor.
10:12 Emotional intelligence plays a role in creating strong relationships.
12:30 Define relational intelligence and the five essential skills for developing life-changing relationships.
12:50 Building rapport: The ability to use energy to make a positive first impression on others.
18:04 Investing in deepening relationships through time and effort.
22:07 Celebrating diversity and inclusion.
19:08 Understanding and connecting with others.40:56 Information on how listeners can access resources to support them in improving their communication and negotiating skills in relationships.
Your Check List of Actions to Take
- Practice active listening: Pay attention to others and truly understand their perspective, rather than just listening to respond. By actively listening, you can better understand their perspective and improve your communication skills overall.
- Be comfortable in your own skin so you can come as you are to others and inspire them to do the same. Accept that people are different and that’s okay.
- Find out who you really are, and if you need assistance, seek it from a therapist or a coach.
- Honor your commitments to your partner, no matter how modest they may be.
- Learn to nurture your relationships without expecting anything in return.
- Do your best to bring out the best in your partner.
- Spend time getting to know people so that you can develop trust through consistent and positive interactions.
Mentioned
Relational Intelligence; The Five Essential Skills You Need to Build Life-Changing
Relationships (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
Facilitating Communication and Effective Interpersonal Relationships at Work: A Theoretical Model of Socio-Affective Competence (dissertation)
Shifting Criticism For Connected Communication
ERP 336: Strengthen Your Relationship with 5 Daily Practices — An Interview with John David & Ana Gabriel Mann
*Connect with* Dr. Adam C. Bandelli
Websites: bandelliandassociates.com
Twitter: twitter.com/abandelli
YouTube: youtube.com/channel/UCDhhamF26lfFqe8UAsEFv4g/featured
Instagram: instagram.com/adambandelli
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/adambandelli
Connect with Dr. Jessica Higgins
Facebook: facebook.com/EmpoweredRelationship
Instagram: instagram.com/drjessicahiggins
Podcast: drjessicahiggins.com/podcasts/
Pinterest: pinterest.com/EmpowerRelation
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/drjessicahiggins
Twitter: @DrJessHiggins
Website: drjessicahiggins.com
Email: jessica@drjessicahiggins.com
About Today’s Show
Adam, thank you for joining us today. We’re going to be talking about relational intelligence. I understand that you do so much to support people in the way of cultivating leadership, and recognizing there are many ways in which we lead, and how relationships whether or not it’s in the workforce or in the home life. Before we get started in our topic, just for people who don’t know you, would you like to share a little bit about what got you interested in serving people in the way of leadership, and relational intelligence more specifically?
Yeah, absolutely. My pleasure! So I’m an athlete first, before a psychologist or leadership advisor. I grew up in the 80s watching Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson. It was really through playing basketball that I learned about leadership. I watched and got to participate on teams where you got to see motivation and leadership and all the aspects that make for a good leader. So when I got to college, and I realized I wasn’t going to be like Mike and go to the NBA, I had to come up with a Plan B. I always had a passion for psychology and kind of helping people and friends. So kind of directed my energies towards psychology.
I took a class my freshman year called Organizational Psychology, and I had no idea what that meant. The professor walks in in a three-piece suit with a Rolex, and he starts talking about leadership and hiring people and coaching, mentoring. It was just fascinating! I wrote him a letter at the end of the semester saying that I had learned so much and would love to take another class, and he invited me to come see him present at the American Psychological Association in New York City. This is in the mid-90s, and he was presenting on a topic called Emotional Intelligence, which I had never heard before. Became fascinated with the subject, and really spent the next 10 years dissecting what EQ is, which ultimately led me to doing my dissertation on relational intelligence.
So during those years, a lot of the research that I did was looking at both the positive and the dark side to EQ. Leaders are people in relationships. They can use emotions to inspire others, to motivate people, and galvanize them. Or they can use motivations to instill fear in people, to manipulate people. So if the research showed that there’s kind of pros and cons to using EQ, depending on the person’s interest, was there a set of skills that leaders can use or practice to really build long-term relationships with their colleagues or their friends or their peers? In the dissertation, found the five skills, did actually connect to each other, and they related to different things like engagement and job satisfaction and purpose and fulfillment. Like most graduate students, I put it on the shelf after, I didn’t want to look at my dissertation. But I started practicing those five skills personally and professionally, have been using those now for the last 15 years. I joined a global management consulting firm when I started my career, I spent about a decade there before I started my own firm seven years ago, and we really focus on helping our clients identify and unlock and unleash their authentic selves, so that they can bring the best for their people, teams, and organizations.
It sounds like you’re consulting in the professional field.
Yes, absolutely. Mostly with CEOs, senior executives, the leaders who run companies.
That’s been my experience in graduate school and recognizing in the field of psychology, I understood it to be an industrial organizational psychology, where psychology is applied to the business sector, and emotional intelligence is such an important aspect. It sounds like you just did an incredible deep dive. I think there’s more popularity around the term relational, and even relational intelligence. It sounds like it’s closely related to emotional intelligence. Is that right?
Yeah, the two are separate concepts, and I’ll take you through each of them in the moment. But EQ does play a role in building relationships. So if I’m building a relationship with you, Jessica, I need to understand my emotions, your emotions, and how we both manage emotions. But that’s really just one piece of the puzzle. Things like developing trust, or embracing inclusivity or diversity, there’s other factors in the relational intelligence framework just beyond EQ.
I appreciate you naming. I don’t know that I’ve heard it articulated that emotional intelligence has essentially a dark side, which it makes perfect sense. Like, electricity can be used to light a room, and it can be used to electrocute somebody. So it sounds as though we can run a deficit and be low in emotional intelligence, and we can also be high in emotional intelligence; we could use that high emotional intelligence for sources of good, if you will, and also sources of manipulation.
Yeah. So I did my master’s thesis on the concept Machiavellianism, which is basically people who use others to get to their means or enter their desired outcomes. So what we found is Machiavellian are not bad people or evil people, they just know how to use emotions to get to their outcomes that they desire. If that’s using a person to get to it, or getting a promotion, they are skilled at doing that. But they take the skills of understanding emotions and reading a room and getting to know people’s emotions to serve their purposes.
Okay, so you wouldn’t even label that, I hesitate to even say good and bad. But perhaps, how would you label that? Because you said dark side or shadow, is that how you say it?
Yeah, dark side, kind of the Star Wars thing. I would call it self-serving, versus relationally intelligent leaders are more serve others. That’s the real differentiating. People who are relationally intelligent, they put other people first, they’re serving leaders typically, versus being self-centered or only after your own desired outcomes.
Then it could also be collaborative versus competitive, and collaboration is looking at win-win and how people can all be feeling considered in the process.
Okay, great. Then let’s go to the relational intelligence.
So let me share a little bit of, first, the definition.
“We define relational intelligence as the ability to successfully connect with people and build strong, long-lasting relationships.”
That’s kind of the 50,000-view overarching framework. Within our framework, there are five skills, and I can walk you through each of the skills. The first skill is establishing rapport, and this is the ability to use energy, Jessica, to create a positive initial connection with other people. So when you think about building rapport, you think about things like making a good first impression, drawing people into the conversation, the choice of words that you use. We’re firm believers here that it’s not what you say, it’s actually how you say it that matters. Things like finding common ground with people. Eye contact, we’ve kind of lost that in COVID now. We’re talking to each other right now, but we’re staring at screens. But eye contact is really powerful to create that initial connection. Then, nonverbal behavior and body language. Are you leaning in when you meet someone, whether it’s in the dating romantic world, or the business world? Are you showing them that you’re interested in what they’re talking about? So great, relationally intelligent people, they know how to use their energy to connect initially with a strong another person. That’s the first skill.
So as you are in your firm, consulting with people in probably high-executive roles, or people who are in management, this is incredibly important. Then as we’re looking at more intimate, romantic relationships, obviously, not only in partnering and how to cultivate relationship, but also how to maintain. Because we can take each other for granted, and we’re not necessarily investing in that sense of bondedness and goodwill, and that sense of connection can get lost. So it’s almost like this attentiveness, that I’m engaged and I’m present and I’m aware and I’m focused, that undivided attention.
Okay, great. Is there any other example, and you’ve given lots here, that you want to say in regards to using energy to cultivate rapport?
The other thing is, I’m sure you’ve seen the iceberg analogy. There is always kind of what’s going on in our minds when we’re meeting new people. So we have our own self-perceptions, our levels of confidence and self-esteem; we have the perceptions that we have of other people, and stereotypes and biases, or unconscious biases. So that’s always going on under the surface when you’re stepping into a situation with someone on a first date, for example, how you want to show up versus how you think they’re showing up. There’s always something going on behind the scenes. So someone who’s relationally intelligent can kind of pick up on those things and tailor their energy. You don’t want to walk into a situation with super energy and scare people. I think we’ve all been in a situation where people come into the room and suck the life out of the room, or there are times when we walk into a room and people really energize and inspire us. So that would be the big piece of the first one.
It’s almost as if this rapport is this dance. It’s not that I come in with a certain agenda, and I’m not attuned to the person or the room, I’m just pushing whatever it is that I want to say or do. It’s very subtle, in my experience. There’s a sensitivity to recognizing, are people responding with, like what you described, with the facial expression and the nonverbal? Are they with me? Or am I talking too much? And how are they feeling me? It’s this give-and-take, that it’s this really sensitive zone of relating, and it can be really masterful if one is very aware and conscious of it.
But I mean, what’s your experience? Do you feel when you’re consulting, people are very cognizant of this? Or is it something that’s just so natural that people are like, either I have it or I don’t have it, and it’s not very teachable? Yet, these things are very teachable.
Yeah. I’m a big Marvel fan, so I like to say it’s your Spidey sense. So going with your gut or going with your intuition. I can teach you how to make eye contact, I can teach you how to lean into a conversation or ask questions to find common ground. But the beauty of relational intelligence is that when you get really good at it, it’s an art. So both Adam and Jessica can learn about how to build rapport. But each of us are going to do it differently based on our personalities, based on our temperaments, based on our values, based on the cultural upbringing that we have. So the skill is universal, but how we apply it depends on our own wiring.
I like that. It’s not a recipe that just is plug-and-play, there’s a lot of nuances and being able to find one sweet spot, if you will, around how this all comes together, and to feel some sense of success. How does somebody know when it’s working?
I mean, if we go into the dating romantic relations world, if you get a second date, if you go on a first date, you have that chemistry. I mean, we’ve all been in a situation where you have that instant chemistry and you’re talking, kind of finishing each other sentences and those type of things. So if it’s in that setting. If it’s in a business setting, if you’re trying to get a sales deal, or if you’re looking to get a promotion, the initial time you meet someone, that first impression that you get. So those are kind of the things you can look forward to say: “Hey, I was able to do this and do it well?”
Or even if I imagine, I’m totally guessing here, but one is learning how to manage more effectively. Being able to walk away from a conversation with someone, they’re leading, feeling as though they were able to get their message across. But yet, the relationship is strong. It’s like, they walk away, almost like it was their idea, or they’re passionate about it. Then when I think about a long-term relationship and that rapport, it seems like a funny thing to apply to a long-term relationship. But how would you say it, I would love to hear from you.
Yeah, so the skills build on each other. So rapport for romantic relationships is usually the early stages, I call it the honeymoon phase. The first four or five months where you’re with someone, rapport is really important. But it then ties into the second skill, which is understanding others. This, Jessica, is the ability to be intentional about putting in time and effort to get to know someone on a deep level. This is where emotional intelligence comes into play. Because if we’re going to learn about each other, we’ve got to know our emotions and the emotions of our partners.
But it goes deeper than EQ, it has to do with being a good active listener.
“So great relationally intelligent leaders are people in romantic relationships, they listen to hear, they don’t listen to respond. That’s a really big difference.”
There’s power and curiosity and inquisitiveness. People who are curious and who are inquisitive are more likely to get better connections with folks. I think most people go through life wanting to talk about themselves. Or you look on men and women go on dates, men more likely to talk about their accomplishments and what they do well. If a man goes on a date and asks the woman questions versus bragging about what he’s done, he’ll probably get a second date faster, because he’s showing interest in her and he’s showing curiosity, he wants to learn her story. Then the fourth piece is really being empathetic. Can you put yourself in someone else’s shoes, and show compassion?
So those four components make up understanding others. This is a skill that can play out at any point in your relationship, marriage or first dating, because you’re constantly understanding that person. If you’re growing together into a long-term relationship or marriage, you both should be evolving, and if you’re both evolving, there are things to continuously understand. When you first get married, when you have kids, you’re going to learn things about your partner that you didn’t know before when you have kids. So all those things kind of play into it.
Thank you, I appreciate you just laying out the different aspects. If I heard you, it sounds like: rapport, being intentional, curiosity, and also empathy. Is that right, did I get that?
So EQ, act of listening, curiosity, and empathy.
Thank you, and that’s helpful. Because even as you started talk about the understanding, and the act of listening, and being intentional, and being curious and the empathy. I was thinking, oh, how rapport relates to long-term relationship? I love that you just named it, and that people are always developing and evolving. So perhaps your partner, you might think you know them, and then you’re in a different season of life and you’re looking at them or the space that they’re in, and it’s different in how do you build rapport. It’s not like a new person, but there’s something there to be attentive to, and you’re saying this second skill of understanding helps calibrate it.
Yeah, absolutely. It’s personally and professionally.
Gotcha. I guess I’m curious, is there any more you want to say about the second skill? Because there’s a lot there in of itself. I wanted to ask you on an aside, when you did your dissertation, did you have participants that you were working with?
Yeah. So what we did was for my dissertation, and we’ll come to this a little bit too, so I developed a test to assess relational intelligence, like the Myers Briggs or the Enneagram or the DISC. So my dissertation was kind of coming up with a theory and looking and seeing what does the research say about rapport and trust and diversity? Then we built our little assessment. As an IO psychologist, you know how to do all these advanced statistics and create tests. Then we went out and did a study with about 500 young professionals between the ages of 25 and 35. We wanted to see that if you have high relational intelligence, does it predict the levels of engagement that your employees have, or the levels of purpose and fulfilment that they have in their work, or how happy they are in their jobs? And what we found was that for people who are higher on relational intelligence, they have employees that work for them; they’re more engaged in their work, they’re more committed to their companies, and they’re more satisfied in the work that they do. So relationships matter just not in a personal setting, it matters at work.
So it matters across the board, and there’s a lot of criteria, and being able to quantify the benefit of developing the relational intelligence. Okay, great.
Ready for the third skill?
Yeah, go for it!
So the third skill is another big psychobabble word. It’s embracing individual differences, and we define this as the ability to be authentic, then acknowledging and accepting that everyone comes from different backgrounds and experiences. So this big key word here is authenticity. People who are relationally intelligent, they’re comfortable in their own skin. So they’re willing to be open, honest, transparent.
I’ll give you a very simple example. Probably four or five years ago, I would have never had a wall display behind me with 200 shoes. Because I thought my client would think I was crazy, or why does he have so many shoes? And in meeting with my own team, we were talking about it. They know that I’m a sneakerhead, and I collect Jordans. They were like, “You should display it. That’s part of your identity, that’s part of who you are.” So I did it, and it’s the thing clients know me for. Most clients don’t even know my name. They know me as a shoe guy, I say it in a joking way.
Embracing individual differences is about appreciating racial and ethnic diversity. It’s about understanding and valuing that men and women think and behave differently. It’s understanding that sexual orientation can play a role in terms of how you understand others, or cross-cultural factors, or neuro-diversity, or mental health. So all the things that make us unique, however we define it individually, and that’s part of authenticity, those things need to be embraced by others if you want to build strong relationships. I don’t have to agree with your beliefs on any specific area. But do I understand and acknowledge that you have your own perspectives, I have my own?
*“In a work setting, and I guess it plays out in a romantic relationship as well, people strive for diversity of thought. The only way you can create good ideas or get innovative solutions is to have people around the table who think differently.”*
Agreed, that there’s so much more strength and richness when we have diversity. Rather than just partnering with people who think the same, and there’s no challenge, and there’s no real growth in that. For long-term relationships, and you named some very big prominent ones that can activate a lot of emotion for people. Also, I know things as like, introvert or extrovert, or the pacing, someone talks faster, or someone talks a lot versus someone who doesn’t say as much, or the spender and the saver, or the one that’s on time or the one that’s not as on time, or spontaneous versus planned. Like, all of these things can have a lot of rub when we’re in relationship, and you’re saying if we can hold space and not let this threaten us.
Yeah, accepting that people are different and that’s okay. But at the same time, being comfortable in our own skins to be ourselves, so we can come across authentically to others and encourage them to do the same.
Your shoe wall was one of the things I commented on, and I feel so much joy in being able to experience you a little bit more and what matters to you. It’s very personable. I actually asked you a few questions and you were sharing some stories. It also sounds like it took a little bit of development for you to feel really, and occupy that and hold that with comfortability? Is that right?
Yeah. It’s tied to the fourth skill, which is the most important piece in relational intelligence, and that’s developing trust. You can define that as the ability to be vulnerable, and risk being exposed to the actions and behaviors of others. So just to your point there, if someone’s going to be authentic, or if they’re going to develop trust in others, you really have to get under the hood and learn about who you are. There’s that famous saying: “Know thyself.” Like, you have to do the hard work, whether that’s with a therapist, or a life coach, or an executive coach? Like, how am I wired, what are my values, what’s important to me? How do I show up on my best days? How do I show up on my not so good days? What are my blind spots when I’m stressed?
“Really getting an understanding of who you are, if you do that, there’s a comfort that comes in terms of knowing who you are and where you stand, and then it becomes about how you develop trust with other people.”
So there are things our research has shown, we call them the 5C’s of things that both people need to do that are the underlying aspects of trust. So in a work setting, there’s competence: can I trust that you’re competent enough to do your job? There’s commitment: can I trust you’re going to honor the commitments that you make to me or the organization? There’s consistency: can I trust you’re going to show up the same day regardless of what’s going on outside of work? There’s character: can I trust that you have good values and ethics? Then courage: can I trust you to say things that need to be said, not just the things that people want to hear, on the things that matter most? So those things, any person, even in a romantic relationship, both people have to honor commitments to each other. If you make plans to go on a date with your partner, you should keep the plans. If you don’t, they’re going to lose trust in you.
“Trust is not just about the big, egregious cheating on someone or something like that. It’s these little things, these daily activities that people do, that strengthen trust over time.”
Another big piece that’s different with the way we look at trust, we have a concept called intentional generosity, Jessica. This is where people are, we like to use the farmer analogy at our firm. It’s when you’re continuously sowing into the relationships that you have with other people, without the expectation tit-for-tat that you’re going to get something back. If I’m in a relationship with you, I love you, I care about you, I’m going to give things to you because I want the relationship to grow; I’m going to invest in the relationship. Both partners, if they’re doing that kind of in a loving way, you’ll get relational reciprocity. You’ll get that feeling of we’re both being comforted, we’re both getting the support from each other. So I think trust in personal life is more important than professional life, just in terms of getting to that place where you really can build something with someone. That’s kind of the big piece around trust.
Yes. If there is that foundation of trust, it does really support the more reveal, as you described, and feeling comfort and being more open and vulnerable. Not to say, you can’t have the vulnerability without that trust. It’s just a much riskier place, and we have to kind of hold ourselves almost; sometimes we would choose not to be vulnerable in an unsafe situation. So as it relates to relationship, I appreciate you just naming that all. I also love the generosity that you’re describing, because it can really get tit-for-tat, or being aware of like this 50-50, so to speak. I had this couple on the show, and they had written a book about the 80-20 formula. That basically, we want to be giving 80%, and that it’s giving towards the relationship. It’s having this generative approach that does get out of that tallying that often happens in relationship.
Yeah. Again, if we go back to where we started, say the tallying is kind of self-serving approach of what am I getting if I’m giving? Whereas, selfless is someone who’s giving with the sense of wanting to invest in the relationship, there’s less of that tallying that’s going on.
I guess I’m really curious, as you lay this all out. It’s so informative, and I get a sense that any one of these skills and what is required for each skill, there could be a deep dive with it.
Yeah. I mean, you can spend a whole weekend on trust, there’s tons of books you can read on trust. Building rapport, diversity and inclusion, authenticity. These are all kind of meta-skills that when brought together, you’ll build life-changing relationships with people if you pile all of them together. But in and of themselves, you could spend a whole bunch of time doing a deep dive in any of the five of them.
Collectively, I guess the word I’m trying to think of is, how powerful it is that if one is actually paying attention to developing the relational intelligence, and like you said, the ways in which it benefits one’s life in many facets. It’s quite profound, and then also recognizing on a more common level, I don’t know that everybody’s hitting all these marks.
Well, you just give me a great segue to the last skill, which is called cultivating influence. This is defined as the ability to have a positive and meaningful impact on someone else’s life. So in a romantic relationship in a marriage, it’s about wanting the best for your partner, it’s about putting their needs before your own, in the small or big things. It’s about wanting them to become the best versions of themselves. It’s providing regular feedback. A lot of times, couples will not address something or go to therapy until there’s a fight. Well, you should be constantly giving feedback, positive or constructive, throughout the relationship. “How did that make you feel? How can I do this differently? Did you enjoy that date we went on?” Like, having a culture of feedback in a relationship is really, really important.
So people who are relationally intelligent, they want to bring out the best in their partner. They want to see them achieve their dreams, or encourage and challenged them to push themselves. A lot of time, that’s having the tough conversations. If you see your spouse or your partner stopping going to the gym or not taking care of themselves, and they’ve said to you that’s important, can you be courageous enough to say: “Hey, you told me at the beginning of the year, you’re going to lose 20 pounds is a New Year’s resolution, and it’s April and you’re eating Oreos!” Like, those types of conversations. So it’s again, wanting the best for your partner.
That’s why cultivating influence is the most powerful skill in the framework. Because if you build a strong relationship, where you’ve built some rapport, you get to know someone, you start the process of learning about them and understanding them, you’re able to embrace whatever they share with you and however they are, and all the differences that make us each unique. Then you really start to develop that trust, and you honor your commitments, and you show up consistently, and you show some vulnerability. When that relationship gets that strong, and I think in all relationships in life, the marriage relationship is the one where it happens the most, then you can start to bring out the best in your partner and challenge them to grow. And what you do with your kids, or how you do with your family, the role models you want to play for other people in your family. That’s where it really unlocks the life-changing aspect of relational intelligence.
There’s two things that I’m feeling in what you’re describing there. One of which is something that you wrote a book about recently, which is leadership, and your whole business is really focused on this, in the relational intelligence approach. So what I’m feeling in regards to leadership is, the type of leading and persuasion and influence that can happen when there’s strong relationship, there is that trust, there is that understanding, like that moves mountains. It’s such a different dynamic, and you use the word energy! It’s a different energy when one is leading through relationship, versus leading through any other way.
Hierarchy or rules and processes. I mean, we’re sitting in the middle, close to the end of the great resignation which had gone on the last year, where people are leaving companies rapidly; they’re not just leaving for pay, promotion, or titles. There’s that famous saying: “People don’t quit companies, they quit bosses.” So if you aren’t getting a leader that invests in you and helps you to grow and develop and gives you stretch opportunities, people are leaving because they don’t have those connections to their employers.
And divorce rate is extremely high, and then even parenting and the impact that we make when we’re raising children.
Imagine we could learn these skills when we were in third grade.
So one of the things that, also on the same note, reminds me in my graduate, I did a separate master’s and I did a separate PhD, and my Ph. D. programme is a little more holistic. One of the things they asked us to do was a martial art. Aikido, I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of it, but it covered it. It’s such a great metaphor, and I wonder if you would even find benefit in and learning a little bit more about it, given your work. Because it is a martial art about relationship. It’s connecting with the person so that you can lead them. Yes, there can be so-called combat. But how if somebody is coming with a line-of-attack or is attacking, the normal or the habitual tendencies are to want to fight back or to flee. But how to actually get off that line of attack, stay in connection, and be leading? I can’t do it justice, but it does remind me of the power of how, through connection, even if someone who’s attacking me, has a sword, and I don’t have a sword, that I can actually be in power, stay in connection, and lead and persuade in a way that I’m not harmed.
Not Cobra Kai, but I’m thinking I’m Mr. Miyagi in the 80s, kind of moving your body and being in motion with it.
Yes. The other thing that I thought of when you talk about being a person of intentional generosity and bringing the best out in someone, it feels very nicely fitting with, as I understand, the fifth stage of relationship, which is like this synergy. That we’ve now been able to work through our differences in a way that we can honor each other and we know how to work together, and now we can be so much greater than just the sum of two people.
Yeah. Building a life together, raising children together.
Yeah, wonderful. Well, I’m curious, is there more that you would like to share as it relates to relationship or anything that you’ve seen here?
Yeah. I think the biggest thing that I would say to your audience, if they want to pick up a copy of the book is, really two things I would say.
“If you are intentional about how you build relationships and you actually focus on it, and don’t just kind of go with the status quo or how things are, and if you’re authentic in how you do that, you’ll build strong relationships across all areas of your life.”
Most people go through life, when it comes to relationships: “Well, I just have relationships with my family, I see them every holidays, or I see people at work, we do our jobs, we go our separate ways.” If you just spent a little time and you go into work and ask about your colleagues, and want to learn a little bit about their stories, and what are some of the things they are dealing with. COVID gave us a really big opportunity to get a glimpse into more of the work-life balance aspects. For people who had young kids, they had to become teachers overnight and still do their jobs. So showing empathy for people and just common decency, and wanting to make sure other people are doing well. Some of the things that we’re probably taught at a young age, golden rules type stuff, but if people are intentional in doing that. And you can be comfortable in your own skin and kind of joke at yourself. Like, if you do those two things, you’ll build great relationships with people.
Yes. I love that you have the experience personally, and now you are a teacher, and you lead and you guide people in developing this skill. So I know that you know the benefit. But for someone who maybe recognizes they don’t have as much relational intelligence, what would you describe the trajectory here, as far as like what the path of developing this looks like?
So in our consulting work, when we work with clients, we typically do six-month coaching engagements. So at the start of the process, in January, you’ll be able to tell your listeners to go to our website, we’re launching our relational intelligence tests January 1st. So people can pick up the book now and read about an idea. But you can actually go onto our website and take the test and say, “Okay, what’s my relational intelligence?” But usually, that’s the start of any six-month journey where you kind of say, “Okay, I’m really good at building rapport. But I’m not so good at kind of being authentic. I kind of wear many masks or have different facades, with my work friends, my personal friends.” So you’ll get clear on where do you want to spend your time. So if it’s on being more authentic, then working with a coach, or writing in a journal and saying, “Here’s two or three goals I want to do around being myself around people, or being able to share more personal stories with my colleagues.”
When I was in my teens, my father introduced me to Tony Robbins. So it was one of the first times that I learned about setting goals in all areas of your life. At the time, I was just an athlete setting goals, I wanted to jump higher for basketball. But that sent me on a journey of lifelong journaling. So I would encourage anyone if they want to grow in these skills, taking even a Myers Briggs or taking some type of assessment to say, “Okay, am I more extroverted or introverted?” Getting clear on the wiring, like we talked about, and then just setting some goals. “I’d like to make two new friends this year at my church or in my organization, or whatever social circles you’re in.” Then trying out some of these skills, going in meeting someone for coffee, whether it’s a man or a woman, just the relationship you want to build, and focus a little more on eye contact when they’re talking, lean in a little more, ask them questions, be curious. All the things that you can practice that everyone’s going to develop in their own way, and that’s the beauty of the art of relational intelligence. But that’s what I’d recommend.
Thank you. Do you find that after six months, people have grown quite a bit, after setting some of these goals?
Yeah, I think so. I mean, I just wrapped up an engagement last month with a leader who had worked with an organization for 30 years, and he was used to leading people who were 20 to 25 years younger than him, so a great mentor. Then he got promoted into a role where all of his new direct reports were his age. So the tactics and the playbook that he used to inspire people wasn’t going to inspire someone his age or older. So he had to adjust his relational intelligence, and he had to show a different side of vulnerability around saying, “Hey, I may not have all the answers, and we’re all kind of in the same boat.” Whereas, in his former role, he was kind of like the status quo, the guy who was talking to the younger employees. So we worked for six months, and he kind of shifted the whole thing to share more with his employees, take more feedback from them. So yeah, he saw a turnaround in six months.
Wow, that’s impressive, and that’s a testament that these are skills that can be learned. It’s so easy to think, “Oh, this person is so gifted socially, that’s not me.” Yet, there’s such a terrain here to be developed. Even as it relates to relationship, the trust, it occurs me that there could even be an assessment of like, “How much do you find me being trustworthy, or how much trust do you feel?” Looking at the components around consistency, commitment, these different things, and that could be worthy terrain to set some goals with that. If I really want to build my trust worthiness, what does it mean being a little bit more reliable, does that mean that I show my commitment more? Again, this could be subtle, or even in big ways. There’s so much here.
Well, thank you so, so much for laying this out with us and giving us such great insight from your dissertation. I just want to say, having done a dissertation, oftentimes, a dissertation will be creating the assessment. So not only did you create an assessment, but you also did a study on top of it. So it sounds like two dissertations in one, a lot of work goes into that. I know that was a while ago, but still.
That’s so fascinating, I never thought I was going to. If you Google me now and look up my dissertation, it’s not called relational intelligence, it’s an even worse psychobabble term. But it’s the five skills and everything. So put it on the shelf, but I think just applying it. That’s been the beauty of it in my own life. To see over 20 years, my own challenges personally and professionally, friends and family, all the different things that happen in life, to see these skills still play out and to still have an impact on my relationships 20 years later, is really cool.
I think that’s the lasting, I don’t know the terminology, but that’s like the testament to these things being so worthy. That it probably motivates you to do more of your work, because you can see, and you can see how much it has a lasting impact. It’s fabulous.
I would love to hear, and would you be willing to share a little bit more about your book?
Yeah. So the book is focused really on two parts. The title of the book is, Relational Intelligence: The Five Essential Skills You Need to Build Life-Changing Relationships. First part of the book, like we talked about today, is a chapter on each of the skills. At the end of the chapter is a playbook of four or five things you can apply right away to start practicing that skill. So very hands-on, kind of a playbook in a sense. The second part of the book, which is more exciting, kind of looks at what are the applications of relational intelligence? Now that you know these five skills as a reader, how do they apply to your family relationships? Every family has a black sheep or a golden child, how do you deal with those family members at the Christmas parties or the holiday parties and everything?
Friendships. We all have the one friend in our group who’s the high-maintenance friend, or we have lifelong friends that we’ve known. How do you show up for those relationships? Then you look at the workplace, how do you network? Everyone says professional networking is important. Well, I can teach you how to build rapport and do it when you go to a conference or do things like that. So how does it apply to that. Then ultimately, in romantic relationships. From the honeymoon phase on your first or second date, to marriage, and how you build something and cultivate influence with each other? So the book is the playbook, and then how it applies to different areas of life.
I love that you have the practical application, I love that you have the research, and there’s so much behind what you’re offering. More than anything, I love that, again, it’s something that people can access and they can develop. It’s not something elusive or unreachable.
To be honest, I would say that if I was going to write a book about authenticity and vulnerability, I’d have to model it. I model it in my clients, but I wanted to model it for the reader. So the book is tied in with stories from my consulting practice, but also from my personal life; struggles with mental health and addiction, or issues that I’ve had with family members. So I tried to bring that to life. The book is not an autobiography, it’s about these skills. But I tried to interject aspects of myself that if you saw me on the stage, this guy has a PhD and he’s a psychologist, you wouldn’t know some of those stories. So I do that. It was a decision I made early on when I sat down to start writing it, is that if you want people to be more vulnerable and authentic, you need to be that with the reader. So your readers will kind of get that added bonus on top.
I love it. I’m so with you in being able to be on the path and share and give real examples. That you’ve really done the work and you continue to do the work, and it continues to pay off. Is there anything else you want to encourage people to do? It sounds like after January 2023, you’re going to have the assessment available, and you have a coaching consulting company firm. Is that all on your website?
Yeah, everything’s on the website. So your listeners can go to BandelliAndAssociates.com. We just relaunched our website. So the landing page, you can click on Relational Intelligence, you’ll learn about the book, you’ll learn about the assessment. We also have a two-day immersive, we call it the Relational Intelligence Experience. It’s a training that we take leadership teams or groups of people through, where they learn the skills and practice them right away with the people they are in the group with. So they’ll learn about that, they can learn about my team members, our social cause around mental health awareness. So everything’s on the website. Or your listeners can follow me at AdamBendelli on Instagram or LinkedIn.
Wonderful. Well, thank you so much for joining us, it’s such a gift to have your voice around this. I encourage people to check out all that you have to offer, it’s incredibly important.
Well, thank you Jessica. This was great!
Signing Off
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Have you ever felt like you were trying to fit into someone else’s shoes? Maybe you’ve wanted to do something that you know will make you happy but have been holding back out of concern for what people will think of you.
Well, you are not alone. Many people around the world are afraid to be who they truly are because they are scared of being rejected and abandoned. As a result, they hide and carry on living lives that are dictated by society, family, or friends.
But how would you like to live your life if there were no rules or judgment?
In this episode, Keely and Dani, the founders of Coming Out Happy, talk about their journey from their early struggles with sexuality and confidence to living the most authentic lives that they want to share with the world. They discuss overcoming insecurities and fears, self-love, and creating a safe space for queer adults so that they can grow closer as a community.
Dani and Keely created the world’s leading holistic mental wellness platform for queer adults. They help you achieve better relationship skills, healthier habits, and greater well-being. Instantly, you will find mind-body wellness tools, courses, and intentionally-designed exercises to help one increase their peace, happiness, and balance in life as a queer adult.
In this Episode
5:39 Dani’s inspiration for supporting the LGBTQ+ community: struggles with sexuality and confidence.
7:37 How Keely’s inability to express herself negatively affected her relationships.
8:21 Dani’s decision to quit her corporate job and start a membership for the LGBTQ+ community.
14:00 How the inner work of self-care and self-love can help you move into the world in a way that feels more true to you.
17:21 Making a safe space for the LGBTQ+ community?
31:03 How to work with insecurity and fears that will emerge in relationships
36:05 The importance of community and community-building.
45:49 How they resolve conflicts or when either feels triggered.
Your Check List of Actions to Take
- Do what makes you happy; redefine the rules.
- Invest in yourself because that is the longest relationship you will ever have.
- Always remember that you are valid for being you, regardless of how queer you perceive yourself to be.
- Instead of looking for someone to make you feel more secure, learn to soothe yourself.
- Find and join like-minded communities where you can be your authentic self.
Mentioned
Pride Amplified Program
Relationship Map To Happy, Lasting Love
ERP 349: Navigating Cultural Differences in Relationship — An Interview with Dr. Kathrine Bejanyan
*Connect with* Keely & Dani
Website: comingouthappy.com
TikTok: tiktok.com/@comingouthappyteam?lang=en
Facebook: facebook.com/comingouthappy
YouTube: youtube.com/c/ComingOutHappy
Instagram: instagram.com/comingouthappy
Connect with Dr. Jessica Higgins
Facebook: facebook.com/EmpoweredRelationship
Instagram: instagram.com/drjessicahiggins
Podcast: drjessicahiggins.com/podcasts/
Pinterest: pinterest.com/EmpowerRelation
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/drjessicahiggins
Twitter: @DrJessHiggins
Website: drjessicahiggins.com
Email: jessica@drjessicahiggins.com
About Today’s Show
Keely and Dani, thank you so much for joining us today.
Thank you for allowing us to be here, we’re so excited to be here with you.
Yeah. I know that we had a chance to meet before, and just appreciate both of your enthusiasm and passion and real desire to support people, specifically in the LGBT community. We’re going to be talking about that a little bit more today. I’m just curious, if you’re open to sharing so people can get to know you both a little bit better, what got you interested in supporting people?
So I’ve been doing this for a very long time, since 2017 or 2016, I believe. I always struggled with my own sexuality, my own confidence from a really early age. I remember there were just so many failed relationships that I had had growing up, with friendships, with romantic relationships. It came to a point where I was just so uncomfortable with myself, with the relationships that I was having, and I wanted to do something about it. So I went through my own personal transformation of trying to figure out how to love myself, how to take care of myself, how to just let go of the toxic relationships that I had so deeply held on throughout all of my life.
So I decided to start doing the things that actually lit me up inside, which was music. I started writing music and putting it out there, and publishing it to Spotify and Apple Music. So people were loving it, because I was just talking about being open about who you are. Then it led to me making YouTube videos about how to be your most authentic self, because I wanted to share that message. Then from there, I decided to become a certified life coach. Because I was like, if I could do this, I want to help other people do this. There’s so many people like me who are struggling in who they are, and I wanted to be that one to support them through that. Because I hadn’t seen anyone supporting people the way that I wanted to be supported. So I became a coach.
I started my company as a coach a long time ago, and I took a break, and I moved to California. I’m originally from New York, if you can hear a little bit of the accent. I moved to California, and I started to get other jobs, and I lost my way in supporting people. So I took a little bit of a break. Now I’ll let you kind of come in. Because this is where me and Keely, my partner in life and business, came together.
Partner in crime, you know. So we started dating, we were dating for about a year and a half, I think, at that point. I think really early on in our relationship, we were both struggling with toxic relationships. A little bit about my background. Grew up in a really religious conservative environment, and really struggled to express who I was until I was in my 20s, and just felt very uncertain and unsure of how I could really express myself. That poured into my relationships, because I never knew how to speak up for my needs. Then when I met Dani, I knew I wanted to do things a little bit differently. She also had that same vision and mindset. So from the very beginning, we really built such a strong foundation together. We weren’t really sure what we were doing. But we were figuring it out, and knew that we just wanted to support each other.
Then pass a year and a half, COVID hit. I was working a marketing job in the grocery industry, which is nothing of what I do today, completely different, had no experience with supporting people in this way. I remember Dani at the time was doing her corporate job, and then wanted to figure out a way to sell pride masks.
This is at the beginning of the pandemic. I was like, I need to get back into helping people. I feel like I’m stuck in this corporate job, and I was not passionate about it. So I was like, let’s just figure out how to get back into this. So it started with making pride masks.
I posted about it on TikTok, and it just blew up, completely blew up! I mean, we had thousands of orders we were fulfilling all over the world. I was at my job working from home, and she was at her job at that point working from home. But she asked me to kind of help her go to the post office and stuff, and that was my first involvement with Coming Out Happy. I really liked shipping out the orders and everything. But then I remember she was like, wow, like I feel competent enough to actually go back to what I was doing. I feel like financially, I’ve made enough money that I can walk away and take a little bit of a risk here. I was like, oh my gosh, you’ve got this! Like, I’m here to support you, no matter what. I have my job, very stable, I’ve been in it for a while, we’re going to be just fine.
So COVID is really just getting more serious, nobody knows what’s going on. And she’s taking a risk, I’m here believing in her. I remember I met her on her last day of work. She was going to start a membership for the queer community to connect and just have community while we were in COVID. I remember I met her on her last day. For two weeks, we went to lunch together. And she looked at me, and I just saw so much passion in her and so much excitement and love to help people. But I also saw this fear, and she was so afraid for what she was about to embark on. I, again, looked at her and I was like, you’ve got this! Like, I know that you’re so passionate, you have done so many incredible things, you’ve accomplished so much at such a young age. I know that you’ve got this no matter what, you can do this.
So I walked away from that, and I felt this feeling inside of me that was like, maybe you should make a little video about it. I really didn’t even know what she was going to do. But I had the general abstract languaging of like, my partner is going to do something amazing for the LGBTQ+ community. I took to TikTok. I had my account, it wasn’t even set up for coming out heavy or anything. I think it was my name, and I was making funny ones of our little miniature dachshund. But I went on there and I started speaking from my heart, I sat down with some good lighting that was coming in. I just said: Hey, my girlfriend, she’s going to start something incredible for the LGBTQ+ community, today is her last day at her job. If you want to go follow the Instagram Coming Out Happy, go give it a follow. I know that would just make her day, and you can be a part of this movement.
I wasn’t really sure how that was going to go, or if anyone was going to see it. Turns out, in a little less than 24 hours, 100,000 people had seen the video. She had like 10,000 followers on Instagram. She was texting me and she’s like, do you know what’s going on? I was like, I don’t know. Then I looked at the page, and it was clear that it was all coming from that one video. By that time, she was getting ready to launch this membership she had been working on while she was working on her other corporate job; she was doing both at once. So she decided that she would open up this membership, and she had 300 people just banging on the door ready to sign up and join, and she needed my help. So I didn’t really know what I was doing, I jumped in.
From there, we were just kind of leading people in community, weren’t really doing as much of the personal development. But I also found my passion, in my own healing journey, of somatic attachment, therapy and healing. I got certified, and I started learning about just non-traditional healing modalities. Because a lot of the talk therapy I was doing wasn’t really working for me, a lot of it was stuck in my body, and I saw many people were struggling with that as well. So we started incorporating it into our programs, and paired it with some of the life coaching Dani did with reflection. And really, we saw it transform hundreds of lives. So we’re like, wow, this really works, and we want to support people! Now we have the PRIDE Method and the Pride Amplified Program and our membership.
Yeah, it all started just from the pride masks, really. I mean, it started long before with all that you did. But for us to come together, it happened to be COVID and the masks.
It’s a digital wellness company just for LGBT adults, and it’s been a beautiful thing to run.
Oh my goodness. I’m looking at the both of you and the smiles, and it feels as though there’s such guiding principle that you both are so aligned with. That sounds like there’s a few things there. But one of the things, Keely, I’m hearing you speak to is just that affirmation and the vision and the belief. That sometimes it’s not pretty, but let’s be authentic, you both had this goal of really not needing it to look super-pretty and having it be really real and accessible. That’s something I really felt from when you were talking, Dani, about turning into this work or coming into this work from a place of real deep dive in yourself around self-confidence and really honoring self-care, and self-care specifically. That that helped you, almost from the inside out, find connection within that allowed you to start moving into the world in a way that felt more true to you. Is that fair to say?
Yeah. The most interesting thing that we have found through running this company over the last few years is that we can operate and make connections without doing the inner work. But the difference that it makes when you actually take the time to do the inner work is mind-blowing! Because you will have healthier relationships with everyone that you meet or everyone that you can, just because of what you’re feeling within yourself and how you perceive people, and how you perceive yourself and the world. The difference was, in the first community we created, there was no personal development, and we saw that there were unhealthy relationships just being created, even if in friendships. So there’s just such a difference.
Everything that we do is placed on genuine self-love and taking care of ourselves, prioritizing our own well-being, creating the life that you want, however it looks. Giving everyone their own freedom to be the person that they want to be, while also operating in a way. We’ve made so many mistakes as business owners, but we will always show up authentically, and we will always provide the best tools, knowledge, and experience that we can. Because we’ve been there and want to help people just like us, navigate a world that maybe just wasn’t made for us. So that’s what we’re doing.
Keely, I love that you were also able to be in alignment with this too, with recognizing the transformational model, as far as the somatic and the body-centered and being able to incorporate that. Because I do think a lot of these principles, when we consume through podcasts and videos and reading and articles, it can be easy to just get it on an insight level or an intellectual level. But to really be in the practice of how our body is experiencing and holding, and what information we can glean from the body, and how to use that as a guide and a source for transformation, it’s so afar.
Oh yeah, for sure. I think it was the most transformational thing that I learned about and studied. Because for so long, I was just stuck with so much anger and resentment and frustration, and I couldn’t figure out why. I really was unsure. I was doing all the things, and I was listening and reading and whatnot. But it wasn’t enough. I even saw it show up in our relationship, and I think that’s really where I just wanted to learn so much more. Uncovering somatic experiencing, and just the whole part of that your body and your mind is connected, changed my entire life. I am not the same person, I am so much happier; I’m a better partner, I’m a better friend. Because I was able to learn about how my body is connected and actually create a relationship and repair so much of what had been abandoned. So yeah, it was life-changing. I know you’ve incorporated it into your life, and our clients have changed their lives as well. I mean, people have done things they never thought were possible, because they feel so much trust and love within themselves.
“It’s really just about letting go of only intellectualizing these feelings, and just coming into your body and realizing that we can create a safe place to be ourselves and it starts with us. Instead of looking for everyone else to heal us, it can be done within ourselves and within a safe community.”
They’re both necessary. What you were just saying, in a world that hasn’t been ready for us, and your own unique experiences coming from a very more religious background, and still having a lot of uncertainty and ambivalence or questions. I know you didn’t speak super-specifically, Dani, about your background. But on a wider context, that there hasn’t been as much safe space for the LGBTQ+ community. So really, what I’m hearing, and I don’t want to grossly stereotype or reduce this to anything. But the message I’m really hearing from the both of you is, there’s this really needing to connect with the authenticity and the health and the well-being from the inside. Because sometimes when the world does not affirm or reflect or welcome, that can be very damaging and toxic as you’re describing. And where do we anchor, where do we have a place of resource? There’s so many people doing great work, and I love the two of you are really providing a safe space and holding a path for the light of this. It sounds like the way you’ve come into it is through an inner dive. Is that true?
Oh yeah, 100%. I mean, I never thought I would be doing any of this, truly. But I think as I opened up the doors inside myself, and I think a little bit of my experience of being in marketing, managing, playing soccer my entire life, semi-professionally here in California, I’ve been a leader, but I didn’t know what kind. I think being able to step into this role has fulfilled so much of why I’m here for me and why I want to continue to do it. Because everything that I’ve been through has led me to this place, and has shown me that this is why you’re here, Keely, and you can continue to show people that they can find that light inside of themselves too and be the leader they want to be. Because you’re right, the world rejects us in a lot of ways. It’s still illegal to be queer in 69 countries, I think this changes all the time, but it’s around there, and it’s criminalized and the death penalty and many things like that. It’s very difficult. But I think for each of us individually, we need to take on our own inner work, and that’s where change begins.
That’s really what we can control at the moment, and then working on creating a better future is also a part of it. So we can continue to create these safe places where people do feel like they can express their most authentic self and just be the person that they want to be.
We emphasize a lot on that, if you’re familiar, many of the queer spaces are bars. This started a long, long time ago. People didn’t want queer people to be in society, and there weren’t a lot of spaces. So they hid in bars, and they got together and they met. But we also realized that there’s not a lot of room for deep meaningful connection at a loud bar where there’s a lot of alcohol, and there’s things going on. Queer people need these spaces more than ever right now, and we want to provide that and have places all across the world someday.
It’s really focused on wellness. Like, we haven’t found many organizations or spaces that provide the wellness and the care for LGBT adults, the way that we wanted to create it, which is why it’s like, this is so necessary. If all everyone is seeing is just meeting in bars, it’s a little different than learning how to create a healthy relationship, setting boundaries, learning how to stop being a people-pleaser, and learning how to love who you are. Those are very different spaces. So it’s just a really necessary part. In both of our healing journeys as well, this has changed our lives. Because we get to also experience all of these things while teaching them at the same time. I can’t even tell you how incredible and confusing it is at the same time, to be navigating the self-love journey, whatever that looks like, while also teaching it. It’s very interesting.
Well, I can raise my hand here too. I’ve been everything I teach. Well, I struggle to say everything. I am so committed to the path as well, and I practice what I teach, and I do my best to very much be in the work. So there are times where I’m just in it along with everyone else, and it’s definitely challenging. I’m so in belief of it and what it provides, so I know that that continues to motivate and reinforce my efforts. I wouldn’t do it any other way, for sure. But it is an interesting thing.
Coming back to just the specificity of the LGBTQ+ community. I have been in the field of psychology for so, so long, and so much of the messaging is, these relationship principles can be applied to any relationship. I know that’s true. And, there’s something very beautiful and special to have something made for people. Not that it’s necessarily super-different. But to have the examples and the language and the orientation be so, so focused on the LGBTQ+ community, would you agree?
Yeah. So the reason why we create every single thing that we do is, because we’ve seen that all of the clients who come to us may not feel exactly understood with someone that hasn’t walked in their shoes. So the identity focused-support that we give them helps them feel more understood, because we can talk to the same experiences of relationships. Yeah, relationship advice can be given, and it can be held in a space of, I understand what you’re talking about. But there’s just a deeper understanding when you’ve really walked in someone’s shoes. That’s why we’ve been so successful in helping queer adults, because they look to us as just one of the people who have also gone through the same things. So it’s really, really important to get identity-focused support.
I think another layer can be gender, and how people identify in some of the roles and relationships. I think with being queer, you break down every fricking rule there is, and you tear it apart. You go: Okay, let’s get out of this box, let’s move out of this box. Okay, what does it look like to be in a monogamous queer relationship and have queer friendships? What are the depths that you go to emotionally and share that experience with them? Whereas, it can be confusing, and you can look it up online and be like: Okay, well, what does it look like for a man who is married to a woman to go to a bar with another woman that’s single? These scenarios can be very confusing, and there’s a lot of stereotypes and a lot of societal things. We break it down from so many different layers, and try to understand how we all are humans and want to experience this life together and connect, and how there can be trust and communication, and you can still be in a healthy monogamous relationship and have all of that.
But things can be really different, and that’s why this is just so important. Because most of our clients come to us with expectations that have been put on from their family, that they have to be married by a certain age, and they have to have kids by a certain age. A lot of people who come to us are just breaking down these different beliefs that they’ve had from society or their family or religion, and they just get to create a new life for themselves that doesn’t have any written rules, which is really scary and really freeing at the same time. Because in our relationship, even as an example, there’s no man here, there’s no one person who’s providing that man role. So we get to create whatever relationship we want, because there’s no written rule here. It’s a cool thing. But also, it is so empowering. Because you get to rewrite the story of who you actually want to be, without having to fit into a box of what you’re supposed to look like. Which is why everything we do is really just based on how we feel in our bodies, how we want to navigate this life, and we’re learning how to create it. It’s just a very cool thing.
No kidding, no kidding! It sounds like there’s, again, the guiding principles that really help lead you in a way that feels so aligned. If you question it and you run up against something, it sounds like you’re so willing to be flexible and open around: what’s this, let’s look at this, and where’s this from? Dani, I really want to just acknowledge what you’re saying, as far as the queer adults that are navigating relationship, and what the support the two of you provide at your organization. That the understanding, having walked the walk. I can be an ally, and I can be supportive and loving and all the things, and I haven’t walked the walk. There’s something really special to be able to provide that.
Keely, you’re saying it’s a unique experience. I was just meeting with a different guest on an interview earlier, and she was talking about cross-cultural relationships and what they have to navigate, and so many of the things that we just inherit or live within and don’t even question. It’s just a part of us. So when we’re having to straddle by culture, there’s so many things that require us to be conscious about: do we want this, do we not want this, or how do we want to be? I know that it’s very, very different. But the consciousness and the awareness of what you want to look at, and what you want to take with you, or what you want to leave behind, or what you want to create anew, that’s sometimes more effort. But it’s so much more expansive and liberating and empowering, and maybe there’s something so, so much better that hasn’t been created yet.
“I would challenge even people who don’t identify as LGBT to get out there and redefine those rules. Because sometimes, you don’t want to fit into the box of who everyone told you to be, no matter who it’s from.”
So you get to rewrite rules. I mean, even just in careers, or in just the way people are going about any part of their life. Like, we all get to decide, and we’re trying to get to decide the life that we want to create. If we have the ability to make these changes, do what the hell makes you happy! Why are we trying to fit into these stereotypes and these molds? Like, we don’t have to. So let’s make a change.
Yeah, it does. It limits everyone really, when we’re all trying to operate in these more narrow boxes or confined spaces. So looking at how we can expand, and really, the invitation and the courage and the growth that comes from that.
Yeah, there’s a lot of growth that comes from that. I mean, just in having to present to the world in a different way. Not that coming out is simple, because obviously, this is extremely hard. But to be someone in society who you were not, it’s just not as accepted in society. So to be someone who may be seen as different, it’s hard. But we all get to figure out how to navigate, again, like I said earlier, just a world that is trying to be more inclusive. Just having conversations like this is just really important, because we all get to expand our knowledge on how to treat other people, how to be a better ally, how to just come into the world with an open mind. I mean, for all of us, it’s just really important.
Keely, do you want to chime in at all in this?
Yeah. I think it’s just so much of the work that we do is just centered around this, that it’s much bigger than us. This is a movement beyond what I could have ever imagined it to be, it’s huge. Every single person that does the work and is part of breaking down these barriers, is making such an impact; they’re affecting the person next to them, they’re affecting their relationships, every single thing that they’re doing. It really just has a domino effect. So anyone who’s even thinking about jumping on the journey of doing the work on yourself, it is so much bigger than just you, and it is one of the most beautiful things that you can do.
“I think people forget that the longest relationship we’ll ever have is the one that we have with ourselves, and when you can really put that into perspective, you can take time to start making yourself a priority.”
Thank you for just bringing that into our awareness, that the longest relationship that we’re going to have is with ourselves and the investment in that. Also, how we may impact another through our language, through our expression, through the example of how we’re being, that that does create change.
You never know who’s watching you. I mean, we talk about this all the time. We have 130,000 followers on TikTok and 20,000 on Instagram, you never know who’s watching. So to show up and be authentic, it could really impact someone. I know for me, it did. I saw someone show up and be their authentic self, and it inspired me to come out and inspired me. They probably don’t even know that they impacted me in that way, and now look at where I am and what I’m able to do because of that one interaction and seeing someone show up that way. So it makes the biggest difference.
I know that for us in the queer community, it’s also a privilege to come out. I also want to bring light to that. It’s not always safe, it’s illegal in many places, and we all do the best that we can. I think at the end of the day, no matter if you can be out or not, you’re still valid in your queer identity. I just want anyone who is listening, because I’m sure you have listeners from all over the world, to know that and really know that you are valid. No matter how queer you think you are, you’re valid for just being you.
Thank you for saying that, and I want to pivot towards that. In my experience around self-regard and being in relationship, and both of you also talk about attachment and feeling secure in oneself, and also, how to work with insecurity and fears that will emerge in relationship. My understanding is that both self-regard and love, and the way people are responding to us and having safe people be able to reflect, and we can always get that. For healthy relationships, feeling a sense of belonging, feeling a sense of inner network or inner circle, or even another person that we can feel a sense of safe haven with, that that is so healthy for our nervous systems. I’m just curious if you want to speak to that, because you’re clearly really naming that some people don’t have the safety, and you’re really saying: You are still valid, I still affirm you and still want you to hold that with high regard and health, even if you can’t be received by your people in your life. So would love to hear from both of you on that.
Yeah, 100%. I think, like with any concept, attachment can be limited in a lot of ways, and I want to acknowledge that too. It’s a concept that is White and educated. That’s something that we also think about is that it can give us great languaging, but may not apply in some ways to every single person, with the systems that we live in and how the world works. So I think for this specific topic and what we’re talking about here, for queer people who maybe can’t be themselves and can’t heal necessarily in community, I just want to encourage you to continue to trust just this relationship that you have right here. I know a lot of this, and for me, it was timing. It was getting out of this toxic environment that I was in and moving into a new environment, and it took 20 years. It took my entire life to move out of that. So I just want you to hold onto the fact that you right now can be there for yourself, and there may be one person.
“I truly believe that in my belief, that the universe puts people in our life, and there’s opportunities for us to just even have a little bit of connection of some sort to feel, even if it’s online.”
I mean, that’s why we do the online space. Because people all over the world, people that are in those countries, they are a part of this, and you can connect. Even if you’re following along, if you can just see something or anything, just hold on. Because this piece of you is here for a reason, and no one is here because they’re not supposed to be here. So I know with circumstances and privilege and the environments that we’re in, that can have a large impact on how we show up. But continue to trust. If you’re listening to this, hold onto the fact that you are feeling this way for a reason, and every single thing has led you here. It’s so important that you trust that little part of you that you know is feeling this way, because your feelings matter and they’re valid.
I was just going to say, community is so important, which is why if someone does have the opportunity to be involved in a community like ours, they’re able to navigate what it looks like to be in a community of people who are also growth-minded and working on becoming the best version of themselves, which is why it’s so important. Because most people may not have the in-person community that they want, depending on where they live. So that’s really what our mission is, is to help people work on creating that relationship with themselves, and providing them with people who are also doing the same thing. Because it’s very hard to find queer people around you sometimes, on top of the ones that are also working on becoming the best version of themselves. So that’s what we’re here to do.
You touched a little bit on just like, our nervous system feels safe when we can be received. A lot of the research that’s been done around this has been around animals. Many people know that usually in the wild, there’s always some other animal looking out, watching whatever the other animal is doing, is there. Because we’re constantly doing that, and our brains are wired the same way to look for threats. So if you have someone there that you feel safe and comfortable with, you’re able to kind of let that guard down and barrier down and not be looking for threats and slowly move into, I’m going to start really healing and allowing my body to do so, instead of staying in that fight-or-flight mode. Because many of us are stuck in fight-or-flight, and we are constantly stressed and overworked and not allowing yourself to break and come into that pause and reflection and trust. So being in communities is so important that are safe.
Even as the two of you are talking, I’m aware for research purposes, things need to be very separated and categorized, and in life, it’s typically not like that. So even with the attachment, I often think there’s a spectrum of we’re not necessarily insecure across the border, or we’re secure across the board. I might be more secure with my mom and less secure with my father or whatever, if my parents were in a heterosexual relationship. So I do understand that you both are validating the power of being reflected, and also the importance of community. There’s something else that I’m hearing, that even if it’s something that we can see in the world, that is a model, that is an expression, that resonates with us, there’s something there to follow a thread with or nurture. Like you said, Keely, there’s somebody, I don’t even know if that person knew that they sparked some permission and expression for you that was so profound. Or in community and online, to be able to have that contact and to feel positive, in the smallest ways, this can create a little bit of room to breathe.
It’s a really unfortunate thing. But because there may not be so much visibility of what we’re trying to do, you just kind of take what you can find. Like, when you were coming out or when you maybe saw someone coming out that inspired you, maybe you didn’t see that there were other people like you. So it’s really hard.
They weren’t even coming out actually, they were coming out about their eating disorder. I didn’t have that in my world, I grew up in such a religious environment. I mean, I was in private schools where we just didn’t have this, and to see that, oh my gosh! It was someone that I looked at, that had looked great on the outside. I mean, they had everything. They were going to Harvard, they were doing all the things and had scholarships and whatnot. So I saw for the first time, and what it was for me was that you don’t always have to look like you’re perfect. Not that being queer is not perfect, because I think it is. But to see that I could show more parts of myself and be vulnerable, because that’s just not talked about in religion. It’s showing up: God first, others second, yourself last. That’s really the messaging that I received my entire life.
So visibility is just one of the most important things here. Because you never know who can be receiving this message and how you can be inspired as well, which is why I love social media and hate it at the same time. It just helps so many people, because we’re able to get the message as far as we possibly can.
It’s like all we do right now really, and our focus is just education around queer identity-focused support. Because no one knows because they haven’t had it that they need it, or that it could really benefit them. Also, I think another thing that’s really under-researched and there isn’t a lot of information about is somatic healing, not everyone’s talking about the basic things that we have. Every single day, no matter where we go, no matter if we have clothes on or if we’re naked, we always have somatic healing and we have tools that we can regulate with, with our real nervous system. I mean, even giving yourself a little tight squeeze, your nervous system doesn’t know the difference if it’s someone else or you. You can regulate in so many ways, and just education and providing that for people and showing them that there is a different way, and if they’re stuck, they can move.
This is the thing that I was thinking earlier when I was asking about the real specific targeted support for the LGBTQ+ community, is that the practical application and the examples, and the visibility of that. Because I see myself in you, you’re helping me walk through what that looks like; we need teachers, we need guides, we need leaders to show us the terrain when we haven’t ever been there. So to have some examples, what it looks like, and how to implement it. So I’m really grateful.
We’re trying our hardest; we’re posting all the time. But all of our identities, they’re all different from the people that we work with, and we’re just trying to help in whatever way we can with whatever experiences and tools that we have. This is just so important to show people that you can grow and have healthy relationships, even though it may not be modeled around you. I mean, this goes for just anyone listening. Like, you deserve to have a life and relationships that just make you happy. Because this life is so short at the end of the day when you look at it, and it’s like, let’s just have the best time that we can, let’s make it. We have to take responsibility for the life that we’re creating, and if we have the ability to, make these changes that we’re able to.
I’m also getting a sense of who better to turn to than someone, again, who’s been able to question and be in a place of evaluating and discerning and expanding. I’m sure you serve primarily people that are identifying as queer and queer adults, but it sounds like you could serve many people that are willing and wanting to look at how to break out of the boxes they’ve been living in.
I mean, obviously, the main market that we work with are queer adults. But it’s anyone who’s questioning the traditional way of living, because we are non-traditional people. That’s the whole point. I hope everyone starts to question, just the overall question of like, are you happy? It’s just such a loaded question. But it’s like, we all deserve to question if we are happy with the life that we’re living. If we’re not, what are the things you can do to slowly make these changes? But it goes for everyone. Everyone deserves that question. It’s not easy to question every single thing that you’ve known.
Sometimes we stay up all night talking.
Just talking about what if this, what if this. But I feel like this is what we’re here for, to question these beliefs, to question the roads that so many people have walked down and have just given the advice of like, I wish it did this differently. I wish I didn’t take this job because it just wasn’t what I wanted. Like, I wish I had done this earlier. So it’s like, we get to question this and help people at all different stages in life just come back into their own truth, whatever it looks like. That’s authenticity, that’s what we’re here for. It doesn’t even matter where they come from. Let’s question, let’s just question more.
Don’t get us wrong, it’s not the easiest thing. But sometimes, Dani and I’m like, today, do we have to challenge each other today, do we have to keep working on things?
That’s our personal relationship, because we’re dating each other, and along with teaching, we’re actually applying this into our personal life and relationship, which is hard.
But I love it. But we’re also imperfect humans, and we are transparent about that. I never make it seem like our relationship is perfect. I can confidently say that we genuinely show up as the best versions of ourselves every single day, or try to be that and strive for that. Because we know, and on a much deeper level, that our souls are so connected and are here to do this work. She challenges me more than anyone I’ve ever met. But that’s the thing, that’s support. It’s like, we do the work outside, but I also do the work every day in my relationship.
I think some people forget that. They’re like: Oh, I can’t wait till I find my person or my partners, whatever that looks like, and I’m super-excited for that to happen because I’m going to be happy finally. The truth is, it does make you happy, that’s great. But every single day, you will be challenged, and if you don’t have the tools, it can become a really vicious cycle situation, and a container that’s not really fun. You want to make it supportive. I always look at everything that we do in our company, with the people that we help, our relationship as we are nurturing the soil every single day; we are watering the plants, we are doing the things to make sure that we are building and growing. Instead of tearing the leaves, pulling apart, letting the soil dry up, we want to really nurture and see what can we add today that’s going to be beneficial and really support everyone involved. I think a relationship that is healthy, there can be many different definitions, but here’s one.
“In a relationship that is healthy, not only do you have the energy to give to each other, but you have the energy to give back to the world. That doesn’t matter if you are going to drop something off at the neighbor’s house, you’re going to do something for a friend. But you have the energy together to do something more, all the partners that are involved, whether it’s monogamous or not. You really can support and give back to the world.”
Thank you so much. I’m also aware that we’ve talked a little bit about how we’re holding ourselves, but also how we’re being received. The two of you’re both so transparent about just the work that you’re both willing to do in your relationship, and then also what you do out in the world? What does this security or safety look like when perhaps either one of you are experiencing activation in your nervous system or feeling triggered, so to speak, or having a conflict? Are you open to sharing what you’re in practice with that?
I think this definitely shows up the most in queer, for us in our relationship and queer friendships. This is an interesting topic, because there’s many layers to it. Of course it can be anything, but insecurity that may come up for one of us. I’ll just use myself as an example. Of course, I still feel insecure sometimes, and there’s parts that I still need to understand and work with. But what I love about our relationship is that we really are able to identify for both of us, what are those triggers that we have. I actually write mine down, because it’s just very important; control, when I’m not in control all the different things. I write these things down, and Dani also is aware of them.
So what we get to do together is we get to be really intentional when someone is experiencing an activation or a trigger, and we can use languaging to support that person. Because sometimes, I need a sentence, and I’ve worked on my sentence, and it’s: Hey, I just need to process through this for a moment, and I’ll be back at this time and then we talk about it. Dani knows what that means. So we’re very on the same page about what we need when we’re both activated. I know I’ve got to do my body scan, I’ve got to do my walk or my meditation, whatever it is. Dani knows that I’m not abandoning her, I am going to come back at a certain time that I say and we will work through it then. Same for her, when she’s feeling insecure or activated in a certain situation, I am providing that support for her to work through it. Because we are healing in relationship at the end of the day.
We’re also dealing with these things on our own, to be able to comfort and self-soothe and everything.
Yeah, I’m not looking for her to fix my insecurities. I think that was the number one thing that was in the way in all of my past relationships is looking for that other person to fix how I’m feeling. I can now soothe myself, but then come together and regulate together. That’s really, really helpful. It’s been life-changing.
Well, I love that, and I agree. Because there’s some stability in getting the feet underneath us. Or I’ll just speak for myself. If I can get my footing and do some work to get clear, then I’m not just like grasping, grasping, or whatever I tend to do in the past with my significant other. Then I’m in a better place to be able to reveal more vulnerably, and that helps my partner be able to respond and be able to really turn towards me. It sounds like there is a coming back and a sense of willingness to share and be in connection and intimacy around it. Is that right?
Yeah, 100%.
We definitely connect after having arguments and having to self-soothe. It’s all about communication for each other, while also giving each other the space to figure out what we’re feeling. It’s not just all about figuring out together, but just who it is that we are separately and what it is that we want separately, and then coming together to figure out. Because we’re navigating life together, but also separately at the same time. So there’s a lot of communication involved.
And compromise, too. I think a lot of people don’t realize that when you get into a relationship, it is going to be compromise. That’s not giving up all your needs. It’s give and take. It’s like: Hey, Dani really likes to go out and be with people on the weekends, and I know she wants me there. I may not love to be out and socializing all the time. But I know for her, it’s so important, and I’m going to go spend two hours and go mingle with her friends and show that I really, really care, because this is important to her. Versus where I just want to stay at home or I want to go do a hike or whatever it is, Dani is going to come and hike with me. She’s from New York, she doesn’t do that. But she makes the compromise, and there’s this give and take and we show up for each other. It’s never about, well, I did this for you, so why aren’t you doing it for me? It’s like, I’m here to support you, I know this makes you really happy, and I also know that you do so many different things for me that make me happy, and we just really want to support each other. I think it’s been a journey to get to this place, though. It definitely has, we haven’t always been like this back and forth. But we finally feel like we’re at a really comfortable place now. I’m sure it’ll change and evolve over time, but we definitely are communicating more than ever.
Well, it sounds like you have a system more or less, a process in which you really fine-tune, that you both trust, that you both work, and you both feel so much benefit from, that you have that to rely on. Then through the process of doing your own self-work, and revealing to one another the natural impulses, I love you and I want to help, and if there’s a way that I genuinely feel like I can participate and support that need or that desire, then of course. Not to compromise myself in a way that isn’t authentic or compromises my well-being, but in a way that I genuinely want to give, and then, thus the cycle is generative.
Oh, yeah. It’s a different intention from the people-pleasing I’ve done in the past, where it’s like, I just want you to want me and I want to feel worthy, so I’m going to do this for you. That leads to resentment, whereas actually supporting Dani now, it’s coming from that place of: I’m not afraid that you’re going to leave me, I know that you’re here for me and I’m here for you. So let’s do this, whatever it is. It’s aligned with me, it’s aligned with you, and we can move forward.
Dani, do you want to say anything?
No, I just think the safety was built over time. Just with that trust of, obviously, no relationship is ever promised. But with showing up with this dedication to ourselves and each other to work on this relationship. Like, this relationship has always been about trying, and it’s never just been easy. Like, I know you’re going to be there whatever I’m going to do, whatever I want. Relationships do require this work, and we’ve always shown that for each other and with each other, and also with other relationships that we have. So it’s just so important to build that trust, to build that safety, and to come back after we’re experiencing life, and just continue to build these relationships over time.
Well, I was going to say, to add on to that one more layer, a lot of people get into relationships, and maybe they hit it off right from the start. We know, especially in queer relationships, things move really, really fast, especially with women, and you just kind of pick up. They make the joke about the U-Haul, because it’s usually there within the first couple of weeks, and you’re moving in together and unpacking your things. But something really interesting that we love to talk about is that we actually don’t know.
“The truth is like, I want to be with you as long as I possibly can. But things may change, and that’s okay. To take that pressure off and know that we are always going to be checking in and seeing how we’re feeling makes the biggest difference.”
Because we both know that we will be okay without each other, and I think that’s also what makes our relationship so strong.
Just saying this, too. Like, verbally saying it out loud, and most people don’t ever say stuff like that. It’s okay if we ever don’t end up together.
I mean, I will definitely be very, very heartbroken. But at the same time, I know that we’re both doing the work, and we’re here to do this. If it’s not working at some point and it’s not aligned, we’re going to do everything we can to make it work. But if it’s not, we’re going to be okay, and that takes that pressure off of: Oh my gosh, we have to make this work, we have to figure this out right now.
Even when it’s unhealthy, it’s not what we want to do.
Exactly. So not to say give up if you’re not feeling it one day, because that’s not what relationships are. It’s a commitment to your significant other or partners. I think it’s just about taking that pressure off and knowing that you will be okay, no matter what. She’s not my other half. A lot of people are like, I’m looking for my other half. We are completing each other on our own, and we are great additions in each other’s lives, and we’re sufficient with or without a relationship. Anyone who is listening is.
Yeah, and it’s a real synergy when you have two people co-creating together. It sounds as though you’re really identifying that the commitment is that I’m continuing to commit with health. It’s not the commitment is the thing that keeps us together, and that I’m going to do that no matter what, and we have some vow or we have some promise or something we verbalized. But it’s the continual recommitting and the intention and the effort that’s brought in, that that’s the thing that we’re invested in.
And we choose each other every day, that is something that people forget. It’s like you think you just choose that person when you start dating. We consciously choose each other every single day, that’s something that we have practiced a lot.
Which inspires you to show up and be intentional. Just making sure that you’re really checking in, nothing is a given here. So it’s like we have to continue to try all the time.
Yeah. Well, is there anything you want to say here as we wind down? I know we could keep going. But is there anything else that you want to say that we haven’t touched on?
I don’t think so. I think we’ve hit a lot of really great points. Sorry, our dog is barking. We have a miniature dachshund, and she just loves to jump in whenever she can. She’s like, hello, you forgot about me! But yeah, I think we touched on a lot of great points. For anyone who is interested in learning more about what we do, we have a program called Pride Amplified that really takes people through breaking unhealthy relationship patterns, specifically for queer people who want to feel more confident, build that trust, do a lot of the nervous system education in there, and really show people how they can self-soothe and regulate. Because it’s going to show up in our relationships no matter what, and we need it with or without a relationship.
So regardless if you’re in a relationship or not, that program is super helpful and can walk you through our entire framework of the PRIDE Method. The P stands for Prioritize, the R is Releasing unrealistic expectations, the I is Identifying the person that you want to become and really feeling your feelings, which not a lot of people do, and the D is going out and Developing that relationship with yourself, and the E is Exploring what it looks like to heal in relationship with others. So we really take you through that framework and process. I think a lot of people get stuck because they don’t have a framework to follow. Again, the languaging and support that we provide isn’t just like, here’s the many different things that we can talk about. But here’s how you can go from this point to this point, and here’s something that’s worked for hundreds of queer adults all around the world.
But if you’re looking to join our community and be a part of everything that we do, we do live Q&As. There’s monthly experts that are not just us talking all the time, people that come in and speak about all different topics. That’s the Queer Happiness Collective, and you can join and see if you like it and jump right in. We have a free trial. So you can definitely just try it out and see if it’s for you.
Yeah, but everything can be found on ComingOutHappy.com, or on social media.
We have tons of free resources, too. We have an attachment guide, and we have a people-pleasing guide, and just so many different things that you can jump into. ComingOutHappy on Instagram. ComingOutTeam on TikTok. We’re not sure why it’s different.
Wonderful! Well, I’ll make sure to have these links in the show notes, we’ll have a transcript and hopefully be able to help just get connected with you, whoever’s listening. Thank you both so, so, so much.
Thank you.
Yes, thank you.
I hope you have enjoyed today’s interview with Keely and Dani. At one point during the interviewer, Keely mentions the attachment research coming out of a privileged place. I also want to mention, particularly with the Emotionally Focused Therapy, in my understanding, there’s a lot of research and a lot of implementation that that is being done globally, and that the attachment system and the ways in which people perceive one’s emotions is universal, through the nonverbals and the facial expression and body language and the eyes and the tone of voice. That the way in which two people respond to each other, that that is universal. There’s a lot of cultural influences, and yet, that attachment system is universal. So I do appreciate her bringing awareness to where sometimes the research comes from and that perspective, and also that there is a wider body of universal global research and application that I just wanted to also mention.
Signing Off
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Childhood, environment, culture, religion, and background all have an impact on who we become and how we perceive ourselves. These factors also influence how we present ourselves in relationships.
Most relationships start out with the lovely phase of courting and falling in love. Up until differences arise, everything seems to be perfect. These differences can be significant life choices like having children, purchasing a home, moving to a different country or city, or even something as basic as eating habits. Dealing with cross-cultural differences makes this even more challenging.
Dr. Kathrine Bejanyan discusses the typical issues that couples from various cultures encounter. She acknowledges that some sacrifices are necessary for the relationships to work, but she also expresses caution, saying that some sacrifices are not worthwhile.
In this episode, she discusses how to resolve disagreements with your partner or get yourself ready for a successful relationship with someone from a different background.
Dr. Kathrine Bejanyan is a practicing therapist specializing in the areas of dating, relationships, and cross-cultural topics. Her practice focuses on working with individuals and couples on love, dating, and relationship issues, with an emphasis on building deeper intimacy, connection, and authenticity in their love lives. Outside of her private practice, Kathrine is a speaker, consultant, and lecturer in psychology. She holds a Ph.D. in social psychology and a Master’s in counseling psychology.
In this Episode
5:31 Dr. Kathrine Bejanyan’s keen interest in understanding cultural dynamics.
11:34 How overcoming struggles fosters relationships and individual growth.
13:50 Defining the problem before solving it.
17:38 Typical issues that cross-cultural couples face.
20:04 The importance of curiosity in a healthy relationship.
26:33 How to handle cultural differences in relationships.
36:29 Cultural identity is dynamic rather than static.
48:42 How to connect with Kathrine.
Your Check List of Actions to Take
- Recognize that the other person may not share your worldview in the same way that you do.
- When faced with conflicts, talk to your partner about it rather than taking a defensive stance.
- If the person you want to date comes from a different cultural background, learn as much as you can about them by doing research, watching movies about their culture together, reading books, and listening to podcasts.
- Examine whether you’re prepared for that kind of relationship.
- Step out of your comfort zone.
- Don’t make sacrifices that will diminish you or cause you to feel insignificant. To become more is the ultimate objective. If you’re not becoming more, that’s not a relationship you want to be in.
Mentioned
Relationship Map To Happy, Lasting Love
*Connect with Dr. Kathrine Bejanyan*
Websites: kathrinebejanyan.com
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/dr-kathrine-bejanyan
Connect with Dr. Jessica Higgins
Facebook: facebook.com/EmpoweredRelationship
Instagram: instagram.com/drjessicahiggins
Podcast: drjessicahiggins.com/podcasts/
Pinterest: pinterest.com/EmpowerRelation
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/drjessicahiggins
Twitter: @DrJessHiggins
Website: drjessicahiggins.com
Email: jessica@drjessicahiggins.com
About Today’s Show
Dr. Kathrine Bejanyan, thank you so much for joining us.
Thank you for the invite, I’m happy to be here.
Yes. I know you do so much to support couples and people in relationship navigating intimacy, and you support in very practical ways. So we’re lucky to have your voice here and helping people implement practical skills. One of the topics we were going to be geared towards is the topic of finances. I’m just curious, if you want to share anything else about you that will help people get to know you a little bit better, and how you came to support couples and how this became your focus.
So originally from California. But currently, I’ve been living in London for I would say the last over 11 years. I have a private practice here, which is licensed in the US, but I also came and did a PhD here. There’s a series of reasons how I ended up here. But throughout, psychology was always like a strong point of mine, I just enjoyed it a lot. And then ended up working in the realm of cultural psychology, and also working with individuals, and slowly ended up sort of becoming more and more clear that I wanted to work with couples. Initially, I went in when I was doing my interning in the States or my practicum, I was working in women’s shelters, and I was working in domestic violence and sexual assault. So female empowerment was a big concern of mine, a big sort of area of interest.
Then, to my sort of naive thinking, I thought: Go in there, explain what healthy relationships are like, support these individuals get out of these toxic dynamics, and then boom, they can then live happily ever after! But what I quickly realized is that there’s a lot about our childhood, our environments that we’ve grown up, our culture, our background, that determined who we become, how we see ourselves, how we see relationships, and how trusting we are of the world and others in it. And a lot of our choices come from that space.
“So it’s not a simple task of having intellectual knowledge to be able to make right choices. Our emotions, our internal world guide a lot of our choices, in ways that we’re not even aware of.”
So that was sort of my first entry into like, ah, relationships are a lot more complicated than they seem on the surface. Then I ended up in Hawaii, I was working with a military in the similar realm, in domestic violence and such, and I encountered a lot of cross-cultural couples there. So soldiers would get stationed somewhere, they’d meet someone, and they’d fall in love, get married, and then eventually they’d end up in the States, and then things would start to unravel. When I looked at these couples, I thought maybe they just weren’t in love, initially; maybe that dating period was rushed. And what I often found out was they had really lovely stories about the dating and falling in love process. But when they eventually started to build a life together, their understanding of what a relationship is, based on different cultural backgrounds, different upbringings, what they expected from the other, what roles each expected themselves and the other to play, all that differed. And the more they differed, the harder they had in creating a life together. There was a lot of friction there, and then it started to wear away at the love. So then it became a really sort of strong interest of mine to understand cultural dynamics.
That’s how I ended up in London, ended up coming here and doing a cross-cultural psychology degree, and then eventually, setting up a practice. So because of the different experiences I’ve had, I’ve realized that there’s much more to having a successful relationship than just falling in love. There’s the falling in love, there’s the feelings, and then there’s the actual relationship part. So I always tell my clients, I don’t have any stake in whether how you guys feel about one another. But I do know how to develop and help you develop a healthy relationship. So we can do that; we can develop conflict resolution and clear communication, and how to manage finances in a relationship, something we’re going to talk about today. Help you deal with all of those issues, and then underneath that, help the love that if you have for one another will thrive. So we step out of the way and love let love do its thing. But when you haven’t got the practical stuff done, the practical stuff really starts to create friction and starts to weigh down on that love. Eventually, that love just can’t overcome all of the issues of differences that come up in a relationship.
There’s so much in what you’re saying. I hear you, and I absolutely agree with you. Somehow sometimes, depending on our cultural messaging, the idea that love will conquer all, that that is potentially a real setup. I do believe what you’re describing, in the romance stage and the bonding and the developing of that connection, and then when we’re confronted with differences that feel conflictual, I think every couple has to negotiate that. However, when we’re talking about cross-cultural or bicultural or however, even if one person’s bicultural, and then you have someone who’s from a different culture, and then you’re maybe contending with multiple cultures to straddle, that just in my mind, adds a layer of additional factors to consider and much more to manage.
I am just also wanting to say how excited I am about the cross-cultural conversation if we can pivot towards that, and maybe talk about finances or maybe not. But is that something you’d be willing to pivot towards? It just feels like such a gift to have your perspective on that.
Of course, absolutely. It’s one of my most favorite topics to talk about, so sure.
Okay, great. I have had many listeners even wonder about some of the complexities, and even dealing with families. Because depending on our cultural background, and the expectations of the in-laws or the extended family, that can get really complicated. So I just also want to acknowledge. Well, first of all, before I go there, slowing down, do you also agree that most couples have to contend with negotiating differences?
Absolutely, every couple does. What I often say to people is that we have this belief system, really reinforced by romantic movies and our western narrative, that relationships are about happiness and love. In reality, that is not what they’re about, they’re about growth. And what happens during growth, we struggle. We are confronted with our own limitations, with our ego, with areas of us that are underdeveloped, that have been hurt, wounded, all that stuff. So a relationship is going to hold a mirror to all of those areas; you cannot get away from those challenges. So if you are willing to do your own personal work and hold that mirror up, that your partner is amply going to constantly shine at you, and take accountability for what’s coming up that is your part to play and work on that, and they do the same, then the result of that, the consequences of that is growth and happiness and connection. Without that, without that self-development and willingness to engage in that struggle and learn and grow, you are going to be miserable, and relationships can become then really a source of pain rather than any source of happiness.
And I would add too, additionally, it can be very constrictive. It’s almost as, the way of adapting is we just get narrow in our way of living because we don’t want to rock the boat. But then we really constrict the sense of passion and intimacy and the growth, as you’re referring.
Well, Kathrine, I also want to mirror and reflect back to what you’re saying that, as you talked about the dynamics that are often unconscious, and the blueprint that we got from growing up, that that’s often at play, and you’re also seeing the practicality. It seems like you have a really great blend of having the awareness of what informs our perception and our experience in relationship, as well as what are the moves that we’re making, and the practicality of implementing that. Would you agree? Because it does sound like you offer such practicality that can be utilized. But if we don’t understand maybe the deeper threads of it, it can be difficult to sustain.
Yeah. When people come in, they’re usually like: Give me tools, help me figure out conflict resolution, how to communicate. But before we can implement the tools, we have to know the problem we’re working on. So those are tools, yes: how to speak to one another, how to be more patient and compassionate, how to exercise certain skill sets. But if we don’t know what we’re working on, on a deeper level, those are just band-aids that we sort of keep putting over the problem. I often say, issues in a relationship are like symptoms to deeper stuff going on. So if we figure out how to manage money, let’s say, but there’s underlying unconscious issues that are playing out between the two of you, that will just then manifest itself in another problem. So we have to first get to the deeper stuff, the deeper layers, and then use those tools to then help heal at a deeper level, and then deal with the practical issues, the way that that issue has been manifesting in real life, then we deal with that as well.
I’m smiling because I’m just always so in awe of the curriculum that’s available in intimate relationships. Because as we’re talking about perhaps our relational, even attachment, ways of being in relationship, and how complex and important that is to recognize, like our fears and our traumas and our wounding. And when we talk about culture, a lot of that is unconscious. Again, it’s like the water we’ve been swimming, and that we don’t really always analyze or really look at. Then when we enter into relationship, it’s like, the blending of two seas that are different, and we just don’t always know. So where do we begin with this conversation of culture, where would you like us to have our foundation here?
Well, I will say, back to your point that in every relationship, there’s going to be differences. I think in cultures, sometimes those differences can be amplified. Like you’re saying, culture can often be so internalized, because it is what it is. As soon as we’re born, we’re born into a culture, and we pick up on all of those rules and expectations, all that, from such an early age, before we can even speak. So we don’t even know how it affected us on a cellular level. Those differences can sometimes be really amplified if we’re coming from very different cultural contexts in a relationship. Just being aware that what we find and hold as the norm, the way to do it, because that’s all we’ve known all of our life, may not be the case for the other person. And that’s where the conversation has to start, in acknowledgement that what we’re doing isn’t the only way to do it, and being curious about where this other person is.
It’s funny, the way that it can come around in the simplest things. Like, I had a couple constantly fight about their eating habits. He felt that her eating habits weren’t clean enough, there was too much pastries and sugars and stuff. And lo and behold, when he went to visit her country, he realized that’s what they eat in the mornings; they have a pastry with a cappuccino. So he came back going: Oh my God, this huge area of conflict, where I looked at her as a flaw in her thinking process and a flaw in the way he she takes care of her body, had nothing to do with that.
“That’s the trouble sometimes. We can assign character flaws and personality flaws to the individual, not realizing that this is a cultural norm that they’ve grown up with and adopted.”
Yeah. It even occurs to me, as we’re talking about differences in conflict, perhaps the way we resolve conflict could be very different, and also different culturally.
Yes, definitely. Like, for some individuals, open conversations are not the thing to do. What’s respectful actually is to avoid it, is try to go with the flow; you just don’t discuss problems openly, that’s seen as rude and disrespectful. So if you’re coming from a cultural framework where you talk about everything, again, that’s going to be a problem. I think, because we’re in a Western context, we can talk about the norms here that I tend to see. But that is one of the big ones, that we hold communication and open direct communication as such a high value on our list. And when someone is not able to do that, or they’re much more indirect in the way that they express themselves, you think that, again, that’s a flaw in their development; they just don’t know how to, or they haven’t learned how to. Maybe that is the case, maybe they haven’t developed that skill. But there’s a reason why they haven’t developed it. Maybe for them, being more self-sacrificial, or putting the group needs or the relationship needs beyond their own, is a higher virtue.
So while you’re demanding all these things from them and openly communicating, and then come to realize years later that they’ve been giving in and giving in, all of a sudden, it’s like both people can grow resentful. The one that’s the open communicator can feel like, well, you didn’t tell me you had these needs, so how was I supposed to know? The other person often feels like, look at the amount of sacrifices I’ve made, look how selfless I’ve been in this relationship, and never once have you sacrificed your own wants for me. Communication style, conflict resolution style can be very problematic if there’s big differences.
Again, I want to echo the thing we’ve both identified, that a lot of these will exist in relationships between people of the same culture. And sometimes, when we have cross-cultural relationships, that it’s amplifying because there’s maybe more or the differences are so great. What else would you like to name that are common difficulties for couples straddling different cultures?
One of the big ones is dealing with family. The expectations around family involvement: whether it’s going to be sort of a nuclear family, we’re going to break off and we’re our own people, or we are being integrated into a greater family framework and extended family are more involved. So that’s another big one. The hierarchy of who can say what, who do we go to for what information? Again, as the couple deals with, are they the sort of ultimate or do they refer to the elders in their family? The other area could be finances, certainly: who holds the money, who earns the money, how is the money spent? Children: whether we have kids even, but how we deal with kids and how we manage discipline? How we’re expressive not only in terms of conflict, but our affection, our show of respect or affection for the other person? Some people are a lot more stoic in the expression of their feelings and needs. On a really sort of practical level, just like eating habits and sleeping habits and stuff can be very different as well, and certainly work habits.
And with the education that you do and the support that you offer around this topic, what are some of the places to start as far as building awareness around differences? How do you help people navigate this?
It’s whatever they bring to the session. So my form of therapy is, we’re not going poking around to find problems or find differences, we’re going to allow whatever is coming up in the relationship to lead us. So if a couple is coming in, and there’s a certain theme that keeps coming up in their relationship where they can’t seem to resolve or there’s a lot of conflict, that’s where we start to focus. I will say, the go-to isn’t necessarily, oh, it must be a cultural difference. But that’s one of the areas that we explore it. We first look at the individual, their own sense of values and identity. Then, where did they grow up, what was their family context like? Then environmental impacts: country, culture, religion, things like that.
So would you say that, as a couple is negotiating cultural differences, that the process might be similar to what any couple will go through? That is to slow down when there is tension or emotion, and let’s look at what are we both feeling, and can we understand the deeper layers of that, and can we have vulnerability and share that with one another? Yet, perhaps, when there are cultural differences, that might require a lot more slowing down and being curious, as you mentioned, and having inquiry about: Oh, it was like that, or it was like this, without a lot of judgment and just real openness. Is that true?
Yeah, that’s definitely it. Curiosity is the key to any successful relationship. Because as we both stated, differences are going to come up, they’re supposed to come up. A relationship really forces you to look at yourself: who am I, why am I the way that I am, why do I feel the way that I do, why do I think the way that I do, why do I express my needs the way that I do? I would say romantic relationships are like that, like almost like no other. When you think of your parental relationships, or even your relationship with your kids or friends. With your parents, you eventually grow up and you go off and you form your own family. Your kids grow up, they leave you they go and do their own thing. Friends, as close as they are, they have their own home and household.
But your romantic partner, if you stay together, that’s the one relationship where literally every decision you make, from what time you get up, because they’re right there next to you in bed, what you eat, how you spend your money, how you spend your free time, what upsets you that you bring home to the other person. Almost in every way that you are impacts that, either directly or indirectly. So like, if they have problems with the ways that you are, you wouldn’t have known about it. People say things like, no one’s ever seen this as a problem in me. I say, well, no one’s ever had to live with you on such an intimate level, and in no other relationships do your decisions directly impact the well-being of another human being.
So relationships really force you to look at yourself. So being curious about yourself and your partner is the key to having a successful relationship. When your partner is accusing you of being a certain way, rather than going to a defensive stance, I will say, from their position, they have to be very careful in how they word things, so it doesn’t feel like an accusation. But if you were able to, rather than think about defending your position, but really sort of just going: “Yeah, I don’t know why I do things that way, I don’t know why I have to manage the household in a certain way, why is that?” I think a lot of people think, well, who cares? It is what it is. But if it’s coming up in the relationship, it’s a problem, and just telling your partner to get over it, sometimes that’s necessary. But often, that will just build up resentment and lead to unresolved issues that will lead to bigger and bigger issues.
So the earlier that you get together and things come up, and the more willing you are in that space to go: “Oh that, let me look at this, and this is why I think this way, why do you think this way, and where does that come from, and where do then we fit in together,” the better. If you develop that ability early on, when the stakes are really low, then you get into the habit of communicating with one another at that level, that level of intimacy. So as your problems grow bigger, your way of managing and your emotional resilience to manage that becomes more effective and easier.
It’s almost as if I wonder if you would recommend couples starting out, that are negotiating cultural differences, to prepare themselves for these kind of things?
100%, for sure, for sure. Because you won’t know differences until they come up. So in the beginning, you are really wanting to know about the other person’s position. You don’t want to become really emotionally invested in this relationship, and then suddenly figure out that on a really fundamental level, once you get married and move in together, that “Oh, by the way, your in-laws are going to be coming and going as they please. Or “Oh, all of a sudden, no, we don’t have two bank accounts, we’re married now, it’s all going into one.” So at that point, there are certain things that are issues we’re not going to deal with until they come up. But when they come up, they are intensely personal issues, and it’s hard to backtrack.
“If you’re coming from a different cultural framework, please do your due diligence, and watch cultural movies together, podcasts, read books; do everything you can inform yourself about the other person. Because whoever your partner is, whatever they bring to the table—the good, the bad, the ugly—you are taking on. So you have to be prepared to take that on.”
It’s all well and good to sort of say: “Well, I’m going to reject, their values aren’t my values.” But again, it will impact you on a day-to-day basis, and you can push it out of your household or out of your life. But that’s a significant part of your partner then that you’re pushing out, and that’s not a healthy relationship where people have to cut off parts of themselves just to be able to stay in that relationship.
Look, I will also say, maybe their identification with their culture isn’t that strong. So that also can be the case as well. But I will say some people say that, and then actually, in practice, it’s a lot stronger. Also, as people get older, their identification with their religion or their culture does become more stronger. So yeah, it’s worthwhile knowing it. I will say, the couples that I’ve seen that have had the most trouble have gone in there with the most lack of awareness. They’ve really relied on this fantastic love story. Because something about being brought together from different cultures, it’s like, you weren’t supposed to be together, but you ended up together, the universe brought you together. So there’s a lot of destiny and just romantic notion that can play into that narrative of falling in love for those couples. Then outside of that, when they actually get to the real life part, suddenly, they’re like: Oh my God, but I thought the love that we had that was so great and so intense, and it helped us merge the gap between these two cultural frameworks, that meant that we’re soulmates and this should be easy.” So those are the couples that I’ve seen struggle the most.
It’s so devastating to confront real life day-to-day, as you described so well, moment to moment, and all the different decisions that need to get made, it’s really, really difficult. That love and the essence of that is still there and is unlimited, perhaps. But we are human beings, and we are making decisions, and we do have certain limits and boundaries. So how we negotiate all of that does require other skill sets. Also, when we look at the cultural context of this and the cross-cultural context, it does remind me even of the maybe more romantic notion of, I don’t see color. Just this kind of attitude of like, we’re all equal, which is a beautiful sentiment, and it perhaps is diminishing the value of different experiences and different cultural understandings. What would you say?
Absolutely, yeah. I certainly don’t buy into that. I think that everything about us makes us us, and it’s important that that gets acknowledged. But I think when we’re saying that I don’t see any color, we mean that people on a very basic level are all equals, and that’s true; we value humanity, regardless of your color, creed, race, whatever, the same. So we value human beings the same. But we haven’t had similar experiences, and that has to be acknowledged. Different things like the color of our skin, or where we’ve grown up, or whether we’re male or female, or whether we’re from Western or an Eastern culture, has had a fundamental impact on the way we see the world. So to gloss over that, I think is really harmful. It doesn’t recognize the beauty of the human condition and our own unique struggles. So it’s important to value that about your partner, and there’s something so loving about people expressing interest in those differences.
“When you know that you have a significant part of your identity, and your partner comes from a completely different frame, and they’re genuinely interested in understanding that about you, there’s nothing more loving than that.”
So I think that when we talk about rational approaches or practical approaches to relationships, sometimes people think it takes away from the love story. In my experience, it actually adds to the love story. It shows that I genuinely want to understand you, I want to get you. I love you, saying I love you, but I might not know you. I have strong feelings that are drawing me towards you of attachment. But especially in those early years, when you fall into that sort of lovey-dovey stage, it’s like, you might not know that person very long. That’s where it’s really interesting to me, where people really uphold that as the highest level of love. It’s like, on what basis? You don’t really even know this person, you haven’t even shared experiences. So when two people actually really engage in the process of seeing one another, or really understanding one another—having those kind of real, sometimes awkward, uncomfortable, deep and intense conversations—that’s where I think true love, genuine love, those are the moments that that love is built on.
I feel my heart just responding to what you’re saying, and recalling times where I’d been in a setting and someone’s had an opportunity to bring a dish from their childhood, or if they’re in a different culture, from the culture they grew up in, or their heritage, and just seeing the smiles and the memories. It’s so important to be able to honor that, I just feel like it’s such a gift to be able to hold space and have reverence for that. So I feel there’s such resonance with what you’re describing.
I’m also aware that some couples will choose to have children. When you use the language of how much one wants to take on, if we are going to have a child together, that’s a whole other thing around, what’s the environment in which we’re honoring the cultures we come from, and that our children are going to be bicultural? Is there anything you want to say there?
That’s why when people don’t feel that it’s important to explore each other’s cultural identity, this is where it really becomes significant. If you are going to have kids together, that might not be important to the two of you. But it might be important to your child. So you’ve got to have that information because they’re looking for you. Because culture is something, again, that’s not innate. No is born with innate cultural rules. It’s something that is passed down from the elders to the others. So if you decided you’re not interested in cultural identities or cultural information, and your kid is now looking at you for the guide—well, what about this part of me, what about that—and you don’t have that kind of information, that part of them leaves to be unexplored.
So I think the more complex individuals that we have that have different aspects of them, that they’re not sort of like one-dimensional individuals, if we can help children expand their sense of self and develop very different aspects of them, the more successful you are in the world. Because you’re flexible and you have different perspectives, and you can relate to people on multiple different levels. So I think that’s one of the values of being a bicultural couple, you get to equip your child with different perspectives on the world, and that’s cool. That’s really cool. They’re going to be a lot more flexible and adaptable in the world than they would be when we come from one perspective.
Yes. And while there might be more complexity, that there’s something about tradition and being in a more uniform culture that we don’t have to question and evaluate, and maybe be so discerning about. But the contrast is someone that is negotiating more. We don’t want to ignore that, because one can feel lost; there’s not such structure, there’s not such a woven path that one can just follow. So it might take more consciousness, more intention. As you’re describing, helping the child know where they come from, know what the different parts are from. It’s not feeling as lost, there’s this sense of development, one can identify and know and feel integrated.
Also, I love that you named earlier—I know there’s so much more to this than what we’re giving justice to—but in one’s own adulthood and personhood, that there’s a development in one’s identification, whether or not it’s race or culture, if like one person moved to a different country. That identification is likely going to have a developmental process. Do you want to say anything about that? I know you kind of mentioned it already, that it’s not static.
Yeah, it’s not static, because our identity isn’t static. If we look at ourselves, who we were five years ago, 10 years ago, it’s very different than who we are today, and will be different five or 10 years from now. So we are sort of ever-evolving individuals, and there’s nothing fixed about us. We’re not also born as fixed individuals. I think people think that their personality or their identity is innate, and it’s largely not. If we took you today, whatever framework you’ve been born in, and we drop you halfway across the world in a completely different context, you would think differently; your hobbies, your interests, your wants, your desires would be very different, and so would your emotional experiences.
“So we have to acknowledge that our identity is ever-evolving, and it’s this interplay between us and the way we engage with the world and the environment.”
Part of that evolution is our cultural identity. What I’ve seen is that as people tend to get older, they start to get more curious about their background and their heritage. I certainly see that with clients that come in here. One of the things I strongly, strongly encourage my clients is to engage with their parents as adults, not just from like a parent-child dynamic, but just as the man or the woman that raised you. So beyond the scope of a parent, as a human being, as a person, as someone with their own story. It’s really interesting how exciting that is for both individuals, to see your parent as a person, as an individual. Then you start to get that sense as well, that if you come from a different cultural background or religious background, you start to get sort of curious about some of the things that were told to you as a child, that you were raised with, that you saw, that as kids you could care less about. I just want to go off and play, it’s sort of a burden, all these traditions and these expectations. But I think as adults, you start to appreciate the traditions, what they’re trying to imbue, what that actually means. So I start to see people get back and get curious and want to implement more of their cultural identities or traditions, now as adults, into their home.
Absolutely. Even as you describe, if I were to go to a different country and be plopped there, there’d be a whole piece of my wanting to feel accepted and belonging and perhaps trying to learn about the culture that I’m in, and trying to implement or take on some of that. But then, how do I still hold where I come from? Like, it’s not an easy thing to negotiate and who we are and being in different cultural settings.
Well, I know there’s so much more here, and I’m just wondering if you want to share a story or anything that you see based on your work. Because we’ve talked a lot here about the difficulties and the complexities of what maybe a cross-cultural couple or a bicultural couple will contend with. But also, do you want to talk a little bit about what it looks like, and being able to overcome that, and any tips and tools that you want to encourage people to be aware of that you haven’t already named?
Yes. So often, anything that’s more difficult in life, if we’re able to overcome that difficulty in a really healthy way, in a significant positive way, it tends to be more expansive. It allows us to grow more, to see more; the benefits, the rewards tend to be bigger, the harder the struggle. I would say that definitely is aligned with cross-cultural couples. The challenges that come up can be more varied than when you come from very similar backgrounds. They can be a lot more deeper, they can really cause quite a lot of conflicts in your relationship.
Now, with that said, if you are able to maneuver that correctly, come from that curious place, really try to learn and understand more, then you yourself develop quite a bit. The norms and the standards that you’ve held, the expectations that you’ve held, that are set in stone, suddenly, are more flexible. And in that flexibility, when you start to see that actually, the world can work in a different way, what you gain is choice, which is like that’s the cool part. But in order to have choice, you have to first be able to challenge your own comfort. Then when you are able to step out of that comfort zone, suddenly, it’s like: “Oh, I can actually do it this way, and this way, and this way.” And a new world like expands.
It’s often what I hear, being in London, being an expat. I come across a lot of international individuals where they’ve lived in different places, and that’s the thing that we value the most. Like, above and beyond all the challenges, and you go to a new place, you have to adopt, and you have to figure out, and you have to develop new community and all that, there’s various challenges that could come from living in different countries. But what you develop is this richness of understanding, both in the way that you feel about the world and the way that you see the world, and that is invaluable.
So cross-cultural couples, that’s what they bring to one another: the promise of expansiveness, of greater flexibility, of a greater understanding and feeling about the world at large. So if couples are able to do that, their appreciation and love for one another not only grows, but their appreciation for the support in helping their own individual growth grows as well. So those couples, they’re solid couples, because they can take from the different cultural frameworks and go: “In this case, we’ll apply this. This makes more sense here, and this makes more sense here.” So they have more choices, more tools, more ways, more options to do things differently, and they’re therefore more adaptable to a world that’s ever-changing.
That’s beautiful. It’s inspiring to feel motivated to do the work, regardless of whatever situation or circumstance that a couple is negotiating, just to be able to have that flexibility. That openness to look at the possibilities and choose; we have so much more expansion and so much more diversity and richness in our experience.
Yes, but you have to be ready for that. Something that I will often tell my couples is, you have to be ready for what this relationship is asking of you. If you are not ready, again, rely on the love. But it is going to ask for you to really challenge your thinking process and your heart as well. Like, you have to be able to step out of those norms, and that’s what loving this individual is going to require. It’s not just the fuzzy, fun stuff. It’s in the moments that this person feels like they’re challenging your very basic understanding of the world. In in that moment, acting from a loving place, genuinely loving your partner, is asking the questions of: how come, and where did you learn this, and why is this your way of seeing the world? Those are the key moments where that’s when love is practiced. It’s not in the, let me go out and we do fun stuff. Like, that’s easy to be loving to someone in those moments. But in this kind of a relationship, you’re going to be challenged and you have to be willing to engage in that process. If you aren’t, you might not be ready for this type of relationship.
Well-said. How does one know if they’re ready?
I think if you are looking at this relationship, and you’re going: “Look at all these lovely feelings that I have for this person, I just love them so much,” and that’s what you’re relying on, you’re like no, but love will get us through, I’d say really reconsider your readiness. If you’re looking at this person and going: “Oh my Goodness, there are a lot of conversations that need to be had here. There’s going to be a lot of awkward, uncomfortable dialogues that we’re going to have to have. I have to adjust quite a bit, but my partner also has to be willing to hear it out.” That’s where you’re ready, when you’re ready to do the work. It’s no different than if you are going to get hired in a position where it’s like, it’s the dream job, but it comes with this role and you have to do all these things, and you’re like, I don’t know if I’m ready. This is a perfect job, it’s in the perfect location, it has amazing pay and all this stuff. But do I have the capacity to want to step up and take accountability for what I’m being asked to do here? If I am, then awesome, go for it! But if you’re not, if you’re like: “Oh boy, this is asking too much of me, I thought love was just about being happy,” then reconsider your readiness for that level of relationship. Because it will be asking a lot of you.
Yes. I’m even thinking too, in alignment with what you’re saying about readiness and capacity, is also the desire to prioritize. When we think about a job and the dream job, that’s going to be priority in that learning curve.
Absolutely, exactly. That’s exactly part of it. It’s like, okay, I’m going to have to sacrifice a few things in a couple of years, where I develop the skill set to be able to handle this job. I can’t go out as much anymore, I can’t do this and I can’t do that. So that’s what I mean, you have to step out of the comfort zone. You’re not going to get the perfect position, and then be able to continue living your life as is. So what I mean is like, it will push you to expand, it’s going to push you to have to give up things so you can become more. You’re going to have to give those things up in the short-term for the vision of what you can be in the future with the hard work.
That’s so beautiful, I love that! I hope we can quote that. Because it is in the interest of growth, and it’s not like we’re just sacrificing to be martyrs. We’re in the interest of expansion and who we want to become.
Yes, that’s a key point. If you feel like your relationship, the sacrifices it’s asking you make of yourself, you’re fundamentally caving into yourself, you’re becoming a smaller individual and cutting off parts of yourself, that’s not the kind of sacrifice you should be making. The kind of sacrifice is that it’s asking you to grow, it’s kind of challenging your ego. It’s like, I’ve done it this way, but I want it this way. You know in that moment, you have to be more compassionate, you have to be more patient, you have to be more understanding, and you can feel that that’s what that is asking of you. You have to challenge yourself to let go of those egoic parts of you to be more expansive.
But the kinds of challenges that are toxic and unhealthy, it’s asking you to be less of yourself, to silence yourself in ways where it feels like you’re betraying yourself. You’re having to become less and less, and be less seen and be less heard, in a way that doesn’t just serve in the moment. Where it’s like, maybe I should just keep quiet in the moment because I don’t want to cause a bigger problem. But as in like, that’s a permanent state that’s being asked of you, just be smaller and smaller. That’s the wrong kind of sacrifice, and you should get out immediately. That’s depleting you, that is diminishing you as a human being, and that is not what a relationship is about.
“Relationships will for sure ask you to negotiate, to sacrifice, to give up things. But the ultimate goal is to become more. If you’re not becoming more, no, that’s not the position you want to be in.”
Such an important distinction. Thank you for making that so, so clear. Well, Kathrine, how would you like to invite people to get in touch with you, or what you would like to offer, or how to learn more about what you’re teaching?
Get in touch with me if the topic appeals to you, or if you’re in a relationship, or as an individual. I work with a lot of individuals that want to prepare themselves to have healthy relationships. Because the relationship really starts with you; whatever unresolved issues you have going on, you will bring into the relationship. So I have a lot of individuals now that really get that and come to work on themselves, to be ready for healthy relationships. So if you’re an individual, if you’re a couple, you are focused on self-development, you’re focused on constructing a healthy relationship with another individual, and you need support with that, please get in touch. I am coming up with a course at the moment that’s being put together that will speak on a lot of these topics. So if you contact me or go on my website, you can get that material. Just email me if you’re interested in any of this stuff, and we can take it from there.
Wonderful! What’s your website?
Oh, it is just my name, KathrineBejanyan.com.
Okay, and is your contact email on your contact page?
Yeah, it’s Kathrine@KathrineBejanyan. I will say, Kathrine, there’s no E in the middle, so watch that. It’s K-A-T-H-R-I-N-E.
Perfect. Wonderful, I’ll make sure to have these links on today’s show notes. Thank you so much for joining us today.
Absolutely, it was a pleasure.
Signing Off
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The separate self is a lie.
Contrary to modern culture’s idea of the solo self or individualism, which emphasizes the need to look out for and take care of oneself above all else, indigenous people believe that everything is interconnected. There has always been a connection between us and the rest of the world.
Although it originated in Western culture, individualism is a global phenomenon that prevents us from living in greater balance and harmony.
In today’s society, self-reliance is highly stressed and valued, which gives the impression that we are on our own and leaves a lot of people experiencing feelings of worthlessness, loneliness, and desperation.
In this episode, Dr. Dan Siegel aims to shift that mindset into a more relational approach. He places a strong emphasis on how crucial it is to understand how connected we all are. He believes that by understanding and embracing this ancient message, we can find solutions to more significant problems like public health and planetary health, in addition to our relationships with other people. Let’s dive in.
In this Episode
5:38 The inspiration of the book: the deep desire to let go of the idea of the “solo self” and discover how to lead a more balanced, harmonious life.
17:33 The flimsy fantasy of certainty.
20:59 How our culture encourages us to see ourselves as separate, independent beings.
28:34 How the word “me” can be a limiting word and the origin of the word “MWe.”
36:08 The ineffective use of the word “self” in the field of mental health.
41:54 The solo self is a lie: a broader understanding of who we are and the realities of our entangled lives.
48:41 How the idea of intraconnectedness, or MWe, can change romantic relationships.
Your Check List of Actions to Take
- Accept the reality that we are all connected. Every action and decision has an impact on everyone.
- Consider the planet and every individual as an extension of yourself that requires proper care.
- Find ways to preserve and protect the environment.
- Become a part of creating a world where people coexist in harmony with nature.
Mentioned
IntraConnected: MWe (Me + We) as the Integration of Self, Identity, and Belonging (book)
Wheel of Awareness by Dr. Dan Siegel
Aware: The Science and Practice of Presence–The Groundbreaking Meditation Practice (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)
Noosphere by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (*Wikipedia)
ERP 216: What to Know about Loneliness and Relationship
ERP 219: The Human Need for Belonging
ERP 215: How to Deal With Being “Alone Together”
ERP 208: How to Find Balance and Direction
Relationship Map To Happy, Lasting Love
Shifting Criticism For Connected Communication
Connect with Dr. Dan Siegel
Websites: DrDanSiegel.com | mindsightinstitute.com
Facebook: facebook.com/drdansiegel
Twitter: twitter.com/DrDanSiegel
YouTube: youtube.com/user/mindsightinstitute
Instagram: instagram.com/drdansiegel
Connect with Dr. Jessica Higgins
Facebook: facebook.com/EmpoweredRelationship
Instagram: instagram.com/drjessicahiggins
Podcast: drjessicahiggins.com/podcasts/
Pinterest: pinterest.com/EmpowerRelation
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/drjessicahiggins
Twitter: @DrJessHiggins
Website: drjessicahiggins.com
Email: jessica@drjessicahiggins.com
About Today’s Show
Dr. Daniel Siegel, thank you so much for joining us.
Dr. Jessica Higgins, thanks for having me.
It is such an honor and a privilege to have such a distinguished guest on our show, and I’m just thrilled that you’re sharing your time with us. You have such a background, and we could spend the whole show just talking about your contributions to the field, as it relates to interpersonal neurobiology, development, and parenting, and also mindfulness. There’s so much that you do.
You also have a book that’s coming out soon in like a month and a half-ish, two months. What’s the title of that book, if you’re willing to share?
Sure. Well, November 15th is the birthday for IntraConnected, and the subtitle is MWe (Me + We), as the integration of self, identity, and belonging.
I’m interested, do you want to share anything around what prompted this book and what you were hoping to contribute here?
Yeah. I mean, partly, it’s from being a therapist and seeing how much struggle people have with relationships, their close relationships; with romantic partners, with relationships in their family, whether it’s an adolescent relating to their parents, or a parent relating to their kids. And then relationships we have in general, in society. The relationship cross-divides that are really unnecessary. Racism is an outcome of the mental construction of the idea of race, which actually isn’t the biological entity. It’s not a biological thing or reality, but yet we construct it with our minds.
“The way the mind constructs a view of self as separate, I think, is also at the root of not only racism and social injustice, but things like the misinformation we’re experiencing now on the Internet, and the polarization we have.”
It’s also in many ways responsible for the difficulties we’ve had dealing with the pandemic of a virus. But there are other pandemics too, of loneliness and incredible disconnection before the pandemic hit. Then there’s a pandemic of, sadly, the way biodiversity is disappearing on the planet, and the climate issues that we’re experiencing. Climate crisis in many ways is also due, I think, to the construction of a self as separate, which you can simply use the phrase solo-cell for defining this thing called the self as only inside the body or bodies like yours, that look like yours, similar skin color as yours, similar beliefs as yours. So that’s like a plural solo-self.
And when you look at this solo-self issue, you realize it’s kind of like the splinter of modern society that’s leading us to limp through life, even though we have all the capacity. We really have the abundance for everyone to live well, and to have food, to have water, to really make a clean environment, to respect other species. But we’re not, for sure we’re not. So I just was feeling this deep need to see if there was anything in the field of interpersonal neurobiology, that’s been what I’ve been working on for about 30 years, to say, is there anything we can offer to the larger discussion on where we as a human family might want to consider going that’s getting rid of that splinter of the solo-self perhaps, and learning how to walk through life with more balance and harmony?
No kidding! It occurs to me, even as you’re describing this, there’s so many impacts in this way of constructing reality. I’m sure there’s a lot of things that contribute to the tendency to construct in this way, and one of the things I’m thinking about is just self-protection, or the impulse or the desire to protect. But it’s in a limited way, it’s in this restricted way. That we actually have so much more capacity, and it’s through fear we might construct and insulate, and yet there’s so much more that you’re bringing our attention to. Is there anything you want to say around the tendency of why we tend to maybe have this solo-self construct?
Yeah, well, it’s really important to acknowledge that, like here, I’m in Santa Monica, the land of the Chumash and Tongva. I can deeply respect not only that I’m living on unseeded lands of the indigenous people that were here, but that the indigenous way of living was really more about a much larger sense of who we are as a people, that were fully a part of nature and a part of each other. It wasn’t like an idealistic way of living, but it was certainly a self that was much larger.
In the book, what I begin with was a number of indigenous elders who had been interviewed on a documentary. So you’ll see from all around the planet, what an indigenous view is, which is a much larger self. Even in contemplative wisdom, also from thousands of years of teaching, there’s a view that the separate self is a lie. Sometimes it’s called no-self. But when you really talk to scholars, that it’s really not no-self, it’s really no separate self. So I just want to really say that for thousands of years, human beings and indigenous practices, and in wisdom traditions such as contemplative practices, have been saying this. So this isn’t new. So the question you’re asking is really important. Like, why didn’t modern culture?
People will often say, isn’t it from the West? I once said this to His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, who said: Don’t call that the West, it’s all over the planet. So I said, okay. So I don’t call it the West, but it’s derived from Western thinking and Western philosophy and Western ways of doing things. So let’s just call it modern.
So the modern way, why would it be that way? There are a number of reasons that are possibilities. One is just like you’re saying, when things get tough, people get in a threat mode, and then they start shrinking back how they define the ingroup. So there’s studies that basically, under threat, we really say who’s in my ingroup, and I’ll treat you really nicely, and who’s in the outgroup, I’ll treat you like you’re just trash, or worse. So that’s one thing. But even when we’re not under threat, there’s lessons that are taught about the self being separate.
It really parallels what’s called linear thinking. The way the human mind can think about things, it has lots of ways. But two ways to think about are linear thinking, versus systems thinking. So linear thinking, imagine A and B and C. You go A interacts with B, that leads to C. So it’s like a line, that’s why it’s called linear. You go okay, I can handle that. There’s a virus, I’m going to figure out its composition, and I’m going to make a vaccine, I’m going to save billions of lives. That is fantastic. There’s nothing wrong with linear thinking. However, if you don’t also embrace what’s called systems thinking, where A influences both B and C, and B influences both A and C, and C influences A and B. Then you go, Oh my God, it’s too complicated, it’s so complex. Yeah, sure, it’s complex. But it’s the way the world really works in these systems terms, and especially something called complex systems, which are capable of being chaotic and open influences from outside themselves, and they are nonlinear, meaning a small input leads to large results.
I think when people want to simplify the world, they become linear thinkers. And one way of simplifying life is to say, I’m a solo-self. I’m an A, and I can interact with B. But that’s it, I am an entity like a noun. Versus systems thinking is more like, I’m a verb-like massively connected set of unfoldings. The entity identity has this illusion of certainty, whereas the verb-like way of existing is this open emergence that you don’t control. So that’s probably how modern culture got constructed on identity as entity for certainty. Then you started accumulating stuff and you said, that’s my stuff, not your stuff, and then you build a whole society around putting fences up and separating your stuff from their stuff. Oh my God, then there’s us versus them, and then how do we build military to protect our stuff from their stuff? Pretty soon, you can explain much of modern culture.
It’s complex, but human beings are incredibly compassionate. It’s just that a separate self has huge implications for how we are living our life, not only in creating racism, where it’s ingroup versus outgroup, but also how we excessively differentiate from nature. So we see Earth as kind of like this big trash can surrounding us. And if we can just build our fences, have our stuff, build factories outside our fences, throw the extra stuff or the garbage out in the garbage can, the Earth, who cares? Because I’ve got my little thing. Well, that time is done. We are now cooking the planet with carbon emissions, and we can’t live like that anymore.
This book IntraConnected, I’ll tell you where the term comes from in a moment, but it’s just to say, we are not just noun-like separate entities, we are massively connected within a whole. The word Intraconnected came from being on a retreat with some system scientists, and we went on a retreat, and we were three days by ourselves in the forest. And when we came out, everyone was saying what the experience was like, and they were using words like interconnected, interbeing, interlaced, interdependent. Then it was my turn to talk, and I’m kind of a stickler for words. I said, the feeling I had resonates with what you’re saying, but I really can’t use the word inter because that implies it’s between us, and there was like a wholeness of everything. I was the trees, and I was the creek, and I was the sky, and I was the body. I was all those things. So I don’t know what to say, except maybe, I guess I’ll say, and I said the word Intraconnected, and everyone was nodding and whatever.
Then we went back to where we were staying, and I got out my computer and took some notes, and every time I typed out Intraconnected, it autocorrected back to interconnected. It turns out, there wasn’t a word Intraconnected. And I thought, how weird, we have a very intricate language called English, and there’s no word to describe the wholeness of a system. So that really is what initiated the idea that I’ve got to write something about that word, and another word, which is MWe, which is you’re both a Me in a body, and a We in your relationality. And the Intraconnected identity would be this Me + We as MWe. I actually wanted to call the book MWe, and my publisher said no one knows what that means. So I said, well, they’re not going to know what Intraconnected means anyway. So we went with putting one as the subtitle and one as the title.
It sounds as though what you’re really describing in this Intraconnection and the MWe, is calling into a larger capacity that we have, that we all are capable of, which I think you mentioned a moment ago. Yet, so much of our modern living is from this very linear foundation that keeps us in such narrow, constricted limitation, and separates us. And a lot of the long-term effects of that you’re describing, and the disconnect, and perhaps the harm and damage. So really switching and opening up the frame and the capacity for this MWe. Is that what I’m hearing?
I couldn’t say it better, that’s beautiful.
This is just incredibly profound as we look at it. I mean, I remember listening to you, I told you right before we started recording, that when I listened to you speak in Santa Barbara, and you were talking about the boundary between me and we and what you’re starting to describe here. I remember just being like, oh, the articulation of that! I have felt sense of it, but I don’t know that I hear it being described or even languaged. Like, even what you’re saying, the dictionary wasn’t supporting what you’re trying to write about. And what do you find for people that are encountering what you’re describing, what else would you like to say around that?
Yeah, it’s so interesting. It does relate to this larger issue of our planetary health, but also our public health, and also our professional work, and also our personal health. So it’s kind of wild. I was visiting my daughter once in Brooklyn, and at the Brooklyn Public Library, on the entryway, it is this quote from an artist named Rasheed that says something like, “Having discovered the flimsy fantasy of certainty, I decided to wander.” I was so inspired by that quote, because in a way, we get into business as usual, we keep on doing what we do, and we try to find our way in the world, and try to fit in and try to have some way of feeling safe and successful or accomplished, or do what we can do and just make it in the world somehow and feel okay. Let’s just call that business as usual. But within all that Is some longing for certainty.
“So when you realize all of life is filled with uncertainty, then you realize that drive for it is a flimsy fantasy of certainty.”
I thought she captured it so beautifully.
So in a way, what the journey to identifying the splinter of the solo-self, this thing that’s making us limp on the planet, and this is why I wrote the book the way I did, it’s really kind of a lifelong journey. That when you look at the issues that create self, versus other, as a fundamental stance in the world, and what do we do to amplify that modern culture? I mean, I do this in the book, but I’ve never done this orally, so let me see if I could just depict it for you. 13 billion years ago, before the Big Bang, the idea is, it was just potentiality. It was just pure potential. Then when the Big Bang happened, all this potentiality was flowing as energy, and some of that energy condensed into matter, and became galaxies and stars and planets, and one of those little globs of matter was Earth. So now we’re 13 billion years in, flying through space, whatever that is.
Then, at some point on Earth, some people say it was, I want to get these numbers, 800 million years ago, some long period, life sort of began in these complex ways, which was based on something called a cell. So that you had the membrane of the cell determine what was inside the cell and what was outside, and the cell could stay alive by making a big deal about: this is me and that’s not me, this is inside and that’s outside. So it’s understandable that for almost a billion years, we’ve had this distinction of inside and outside. If you didn’t, your whole living system called your body—whether it was the body of a plant, or fungi, or the body of an animal, those three kingdoms of living beings on Earth—you wouldn’t survive. So we have a long history, that there’s inner and outer.
So what I tried to do in the book is show that our ancestry of all living beings, even before that of potentiality, into matter, into living forms, into vertebrates, and then into primates, after we became mammals, 220 million years ago, primates about 50 million years ago, and then we became our unique species only 300,000 years ago, roughly. So that’s a teeny little time, but we’ve inherited as long history of keeping cells together and bodies together. So as the nervous system developed and could start to construct the experience of self, it looks like it was based on three things that spell the word SPA: a sensation that you had, perspective, and agency. So you could act in the world with agency, you could have points of view with perspective, and sensation is subjective experience of what was going on.
So then you can say, well, then there’s a self, like of an amoeba. And you go, yeah, there’s a subjective experience perspective and agency of an amoeba, absolutely. Then you go, okay, well, then humans have got it too. And you go, oh sure, that’s the way it is. So then, as the culture is evolving, you start, especially in human beings, to have this thing called allo-parenting, which other primates don’t have. It means that we give birth to our babies, and we give the babies to non-parental adults usually. And those allo-parents—allo means other—we have to make sure we read their minds. And pretty soon, the mind becomes something we see with this thing you can call mindset or reflective function or theory of mind. And that becomes a big deal. Because at that moment, then you start constructing a sense of self, that you realize that the people caring for your baby are actually extensions of what you might call you.
So this idea of a separate self in mental life is different from just the inner and the outer, defining self versus other. But I tried to talk about this in the book in a way which really leaves it open to saying, well, what happens in modern culture? So in modern culture, your parents called you Jessica. Maybe they called you Jesse, I don’t know what was your nickname when you were younger. So they had all these names for you. But when they used the name, you knew it was this body that you’re in.
“The body, in modern culture, becomes the fundamental center of subjective experience, perspective, and agency.”
And they say, Jesse, do this, do that, or whatever. Danny, do this, do that. And pretty soon, you become to believe that, and you think this must be who you are. Because they’re telling you, you’re Jessica, I’m Dan. And you get this thing that is, in the beginning, you can call it…
And basically, what I do in the book is, because the book actually started as a 300-page rhyme. You follow this journey of a person into emergence from nothingness, and then to the end of this person’s life named Sam. And it was like this 300-page rhyming thing that my publisher, I sent it to her and she said, what’s this? I said, well, I don’t know. It’s not a poem, but it rhymes, and it’s about the self-identity and belonging and Intraconnection, and I guess this is the book that was meant to be. And she said, no, it’s not going to be at our publishing house. So anyway, I went back and translated that into a large book, and then I condensed the large book into a smaller book. That’s this book, which I’m really happy with, and I still have the rhyming book.
But the bottom line is, I learned from Sam that there are all these key moments across the lifespan when subjective experience, perspective, and agency can get the message of separation embedded in it. So there’s a core self that develops in the first year of life that has this sense of affectivity, agency, continuity, and coherence. So you kind of learn about that. You learn about what the narrative self is. Now this narrative self is kind of in between the relational self and this core self. And then how culture tells you, this is now you’re on two, how culture is telling you what this narrative self is can be the solo-self, or it can be the larger I am all of nature. And literally, what your parents tell you makes a difference. So the reason I write all these parenting books, and I say, your kid is not a Me, your kid is a MWe (Me + We), that’s when it starts, and then they get into preschool. I just came out with a preschool book, which kind of talks about this NowMaps Jr.
So all across the lifespan, there are moments of opportunity to realize modern culture is selling you a lie. And then you go through preschool, and then you go through elementary school or primary school, then you go into adolescence. I think, at least when I’ve worked with kids and adolescents, when I talk to them about MWe as their identity, there’s this incredible liberation. Because they said, I thought I was just a Me. I go, no, you are not just a Me. They maybe told you that. So you’re receiving the message accurately, and the message is a lie. Not only is it a lie, it’s a lethal lie. And it’s what makes people feel totally isolated and lonely, and it makes them feel like there’s no meaning in life because they’re told this lie. It’s called a violation of epistemic trust. Epistemic trust is a research term. Epistemology is how you know what you know. So when authority figures tell you lies, and you try to believe them as truths, it gives you this violation, and it just feels really unsettling. Anyway, so that can happen from parents, it can happen from teachers, it could happen from heads of companies, heads of countries, and it just makes you feel like something is really wrong.
Anyway, so I try to go through in the book, all these things into early adulthood, and then look at this thing called the Immunity to Change that Robert Keegan talks about, about what keeps adults fixed in their way of believing this self as separate. Because, sure, we have to help kids and adolescents. But we adults are the ones carrying out this message-giving, and also running companies that are spewing out carbon. So it’s going to have to happen at all these layers of development, to have this conversation that the self is not just in the body. Even though when you ask people, where are you, they go, here! They point to their body. Well, actually, you are bigger than your body; your mind is broader than your brain, and you are bigger than your body.
Oh my gosh, I’m in such gratitude to your wisdom and all that you’ve studied to be able to distill this and put this together in such distillation. I want to say, as I was listening, I had a remembrance of just the earlier stages in development of categorizing. That it’s a way of which we’re learning and being efficient in our brain to categorize, but it’s not the whole picture. So when you describe this linear A plus B plus C, the influence of that, or how that equation works. There can be truth in it, but it’s not the whole picture.
So as you’re inviting more into the perspective and the consideration here, I’ll just say one other thing too. That while there might be a place of that, and that that’s a certain developmental perspective that’s important, but it’s not the whole thing, that I feel some level of anxiety when you talk about the solo-self, and how to maintain that and how to protect that. And when you talk about the MWe, I feel a felt sense of connectedness that I can just be more present and hold space and be in connection to, versus this solo-self. And I don’t know if that is something you have found, or if there’s any neurobiology of just even being able to name this and give space for this and invite more dialogue around this, and call into consciousness and development in our collective evolution, if you will, as you’re describing. Can you speak to that at all?
Oh, you just said it all, Jessica. So I would just build on what you’re saying and say, yes. Big yes! The funny thing about words is they can be limiting, for sure, and they can be liberating. So we have to recognize they have these two features to them. So the limiting part is, if you think you only have the word me, or I guess I can give up, even have we, the origin of the word MWe was, I was giving a talk called Me to We, and one of my students would get really angry with me. She said, you’re a hypocrite! I said, why am I hypocrite? She goes, look at the name of your talk, Me to We? I said, yeah. She goes, well, aren’t I supposed to be aware of the sensations in my body? I said, absolutely. She goes, well, that’s Me. I said, yeah. She goes, aren’t I supposed to be aware of my immediate history, my attachment experiences? I said, yeah. She goes, that’s Me. I said, yeah. She said, shouldn’t I be sleeping my body well and feeding my body well and exercising my body well. I said, absolutely. She said, that’s all Me. I said, yeah. She goes, look at the name of your talk! I go, Me to We. She goes, it sounds good, but it’s a lie. You’re saying give up Me to become We. That’s what Me to We means. I said, you know something, you’re absolutely right.
She goes, well, come up with another title. So I said, okay. If integration is well-being, then you need to differentiate things, but maintain their differentiated nature as you link them, so they don’t lose the integrity of each differentiated part. It’s not like blending. So if you integrate Me and We, I know, not only Me, but also, We. She goes, that is so clunky! I said, okay. So if you integrate Me and We, I guess you come up with Me + We is MWe. She said, that’s it! So that’s how it was born, because she was so mad, appropriately mad. So that’s also an example of the collective mind. So I just thought Me to We sounded so cute and fun, blah, blah, blah. But it was wrong, she was absolutely right. So that was the idea of MWe.
And then as I mentioned, in the forest, we only had words in English for interconnected and inter this and inter that. And inter implies, one thing here, one thing there, and there’s a between this, which is cool. But it isn’t also embedding the wholeness of the We. So that’s where the word Intraconnected comes from. I know it’s not good to make up words, but sometimes to wake up, you have to make up new languaging. And people have described exactly what you’re saying. So like in the Wheel of Awareness meditation we do, I was once presenting it to Richie Davidson’s lab, and they say, put these loving kindness terms in, and I hadn’t had them in. Because that time there was research that shows it’s helpful, and they showed it’s very integrative in the brain. So I said, okay, I’ll put it in. That’s where I got to be able to put the word MWe in the Wheel of Awareness practice. I couldn’t figure out how to put it in there. So then you hear this kindness given to all living beings, and then you say the word I. May I this, may I that? But then you do the MWe, and people have said exactly what you said. They cry, they laugh, and they go, I am so liberated, because I didn’t have to choose between Me and We, I am both!
Then you see where words liberate. Because in a funny little word MWe, and we’re trying to get this from all over the planet, whatever language it is, you have this invitation for a larger cultural conversation on the planet. To say, look, if the human mind created all these disasters of social injustice, all the way to climate disasters and climate crisis, the good news about that is, the human mind can course-correct. Identify the splinter, remove the splinter, and then we can start integrating in this kind of Intraconnected way. So I find myself so filled with energy that this book could finally articulate it.
And we went through a long journey of the rhyming thing, and this long, long scientific tome. And then I realized that these days, people don’t want to read a 600-page book. So I had to really say, what’s the essence of the message? And with help from people from the publisher, I was able to say, this needs to be reordered and put together. So initially, it totally matched the rhyming story, that was really fun. Every little one-page rhyme, it was a 300-page rhyming thing, had like a two or three-page science discussion of what was happening in the rhyme. So I thought that was fun, and my publisher thought that was nuts and too long. I’m really glad I stuck with her pushing back. But it was hard over three and a half years to write two complete books, and this is basically the third one.
This one, I just did the audiobook for it, and I’m super excited about it. And the audio engineer, when we started it, he stopped being able to engineer it. He was entering this trance state, and we had to stop. I said, what’s going on? He goes, I know you’re just talking about the self, but my whole feeling of the self is now changing, just as you talk. I said, okay, well, let me tell you the whole picture of the book. Because I need somebody to be doing the engineering, and so he was able to pull out of it. But I’m really excited to see if a book format, whether it’s audio or written, can not just bring the idea of these important issues into our discussion, but actually, the experience of reading it will have this kind of deep… In Greek, there’s noesis for conceptual knowledge, but then there’s gnosis for experiential knowledge. So you’ll get this experiential wisdom, because there are practices that I invite people to do if they want, to really take in this material and just sit with it, and just see how it can allow them to experience with their in modern culture going from Me to We, basically.
I wonder if this connects back to what you were referring to in the lie, that there is so much more that we are. I mean, this is connection and the way that we are relating to Earth, to other, to self, and our surroundings. That giving language to it can invite us to be in more connection with it, both in a mindset, and then mental framing and construct, but also in the experiences you’re describing. But that it’s something that we can actually feel and resonate in truth in. Because do you know what I mean? Like, if we hear somebody and it feels like we don’t actually know all the facts, we’re not attuned to it, it doesn’t resonate. It feels like a lie, or it feels like just a partial truth. So it feels like what you’re bringing light to in this book is being able to expand our awareness to what is a real felt experience. I don’t know if I’m articulating that well.
No, I hope it does exactly what you’re saying, Jessica. The challenge is, language become so automatic. So if I can just roll back what you said in a moment, and just look at it in terms of languaging. So you beautifully said, it’s kind of how we relate to the Earth, to others, and the self, which on one level feels like exactly what we need to do. Then on the other level, I’m going to ask you, and I don’t want you to edit it in the recording, but I want you to look at this. I have dear colleagues who work in the area of self-compassion, and I said, please change the name. You are perpetuating the lethal lie of the separate self by the word self-compassion. Now, they won’t change the name. But I find every time I hear the word self-compassion, it really hits me in my heart. I go, that’s exactly the problem! Or my colleagues in research, they talk about self-regulation, or in the whole field of mental health, talk about self-awareness and self-actualization. No, no, no, no, no.
I know, it’s so embedded!
It’s embedded, right? So let’s talk about how we would look at this Intraconnected notion of self, and then how to go about it? Now it’s hard, but if you do a spatial arrangement for it, it’s very helpful.
Well, I get what you’re saying, and I don’t know that I have the language. And I love the experiment of this right now.
Are you okay with me pushing you?
Yes, I love it! Because even as you started talking, I’m like, this is the thing I was saying I got from your talk of just the paradigm shift of it’s not me. Like, the very thing you’re saying, that it’s not me and you, and this We that we’re exchanging our shared space together. It’s the We that we are inhabiting or embodying, and that it’s something we don’t acknowledge. I know often even in my language just there, you’re saying I totally missed that.
I do it too sometimes, so it’s really about looking at our modern languaging and seeing this, and it’s hard. I mean, even as I was writing the book, writing was one thing, and then editing it, and then going it over again and again and again. And then I was happy when I did the audio reading that there was never an error where I said self or other or self-regulation or self-understanding or something like that. Unless you’re talking about the understanding of the interconnected wholes.
So the idea is, if self is subjective experience, perspective, and agency, and it gets clunky, but if you say, for compassion let’s say, inner compassion, you get all the wonderful work of the research “self-compassion,” without the destructive use of the word self as this separate self. So to me, this is more than just like, oh, you’re quibbling with words. No, it’s not at all. Or like, in my field of attachment research, people talk about the development of the self. I go, yeah. So you can say the development of the inner self, or they have phrases like core self, fine. But your self is also a relational self. To put it simply, you can say, there’s the self-experience within another body. So you can say that. There’s the self-experience within this body that’s the Me, that’s your Me and my Me. And then you go, cool.
So there’s kind of a differentiated inner thing that we call Jessica and Dan, whatever. And then you say, well, there’s our relationship. Okay, there’s a way they’re communicating with each other. And then you go, well, there’s the wholeness of the Me and the We, and that’s where the MWe becomes the interconnected wholeness of it all. And you haven’t said the individual self word at all. It’s all the self, you see. So then you go meet with indigenous elders, and they go, yes, that’s what we’ve been saying for thousands of years. You talk to contemplative practitioners, they go, yes, that’s what we mean by there’s no self. And it gets a little weird, because they say there’s no individual self. I said, actually, there is an individual self. So this is actually where I’m in conflict with some of the contemplative views. But whatever. Since we do have bodies, you have an inner aspect of subjective experience, perspective, and agency. So when I engage with my contemplative brothers and sisters, I’ll say, there is an inner self because you have a body. So when people say that’s an illusion, I go that’s not an illusion. That’s a reality that you have a body. They go, oh, but it’s temporary. I say, yeah, it’s temporary. So okay, it’s temporary.
So this is where the spatial can sometimes help you with the languaging. Just to locate it, the inner experience of Me, the relational experience of We, and the intra experience of Me. And then you can see where it’s inner, inter, and intra. Especially as a writer, I said, how am I going to actually word this so the reader is going on this journey of how we’re going to make these new words work? Because MWe is new, Intraconnected is new, and talking about an Intraconnected self, like what is that? That’s the Me and We. So it actually spatially becomes somewhat simple, in a really cool way. You go, okay, so now I’m going to edit myself as I talk, and I hope you really are okay with me saying, let’s go back and see. Because people use that word self that way, even our whole field of mental health.
“The reason we really haven’t created more mental health is because I think we got the self wrong.”
I’m grateful, and I am feeling the importance and the quality of the description. Because I think when we say self, but it’s overly-identified perhaps with self, and it’s also maybe isolating, or it’s not honoring the whole, as you’re describing. And when we can speak from that and honor it, it’s so much more inviting and holds so much more space. I just think it’s an incredibly important, and I so appreciate you calling it out. It’s such a learning.
Great! Well, thanks for being open to it. This Rasheed quote from the Brooklyn Public Library, let’s wander together. Because even as indigenous teachings have taught for thousands of years and contemplative teachings have taught for thousands of years, I think it’s going to help modern culture to not go totally collectivistic, where you lose the individuality. We have the middle ground, which is this MWe idea, which I think is in some indigenous teachings and some contemplative teaching. So it’s an incredible moment, because there’s a kind of new urgency to this. It may not be a new message, although the science is new. But the message and the invitation to broaden the self is an old message.
So how do we do it? Well, there’s an identity lens that I talked about in the book, where you can do simple practices to feel into the subjective experience, perspective, and agency within the body. And not to ignore that, not to deny it, not to say there’s no self. So this is not like that at all. It’s saying you have an interiority to that’s super important to be aware of. Then you start feeling the relationality with another person you care about next to you, with maybe a larger circle of family and friends, maybe a larger circle of your community, maybe a larger circle of the city you live in, or a bigger town or state. And then in the Wheel of Awareness, you do these consecutive openings of that connectivity, and you feel into all that. So it’s subjective experience: the sensation of living: perspective: the point of view, and agency. So just with that simple SPA of self, you start to realize: Wow, I can walk in a forest, and I could feel the forest. I can walk in the forest; I could take the perspective of the whole of the forest. I can even act on behalf of the forest. I pick up trash, I do things to preserve the forest. So my self is now the forest.
The reason why we have to take self away from being a synonym for the body, is because the solo-self has incredible outcomes that are bad. People feel lonely. They feel despairing. They feel like becoming meaningless. Because actually, they’re living a lie. And then relationally, we start us versus them. And there’s no reason for us to do that. Then for the climate of course, we just are mistreating other species. So in all these ways, the win-win-win of it all is, we can deal with social injustice and racism, we can deal with the climate crisis, and we can also deal with the personal suffering that people are experiencing.
Teilhard de Chardin was a philosopher who had this great term called noosphere.
“The atmosphere is like a living, breathing world. But the noosphere means it’s an atmosphere of knowledge. And the noosphere of the self in modern times is of separation and disconnection and isolation. And that noosphere, we can switch.”
You can start doing it, and this is why I wrote the book. You read the book, you feel empowered. I have this thing called pervasive leadership. You go out, you start looking at someone differently in your neighborhood, down the street, outside your neighborhood, then in then larger world. You start feeling into the subjective experience, perspective, and agency, that we are all a part of this interconnected whole, and everything starts to shift. And that can happen really relatively fast.
So it is a conversation, which “con” is with and “verse” is to turn; a con-versation is how we turn together. And my deepest hope is that with people hearing us, Jessica, and with taking in the ideas of the book, or maybe reading the book, or whatever, that the message is, let’s take something, and it seems so basic, as the word self. And the things related to it is, how you identify what your self is? That’s identity. And then, how that identification of self means you belong or don’t belong to larger spheres of membership?
So these three things are related: self, identity, and belonging. The acronym there is a SIB; you’re a sibling of all of reality, of all living beings. Then when you embrace that, life becomes very, very different. Even when you come to realize that you are part of this journey, as we started, from actuality, which I think is where consciousness comes from. And in the back of the book, it reminds you how to do the Wheel of Awareness throughout the book. But if you move from this plane of possibility, this sea of potential, where it looks like consciousness arises from, and you tap into that. Then you realize that, okay, so the body is the Me that’s only part of myself. So even though this body just gets like a hundred years to live if I’m lucky, when the body goes away, the self does not disappear. It stays within this larger, living world. So then even your relationship with death, at least for me and people who are beginning to get this stuff inside them, it starts to switch. Because then you realize you’re much bigger than just a separate self.
Well, I definitely can tell that there’s some habit in me that I really want to work with this languaging. And I also recognize, even in a very simple way that maybe isn’t fully described like a conversation we’re having here. But to be able to hold this language, the resonance of that has an impact. That we hear that and there’s something in that that’s honoring, that does foster this sense of belonging and this reverence for the connectedness, that does light something or it sparks something in us that we can begin to have some change in that. I also know that we are winding down our time. Is there anything you want to say about romantic connection? Anything that we’re talking about here that you wanted to spell out, how this can really benefit couplehood?
Yeah. Intraconnection is basically being in love with life. And when you allow that expansion of self to include your romantic partner—someone that you’re sexually connected with in intimate ways, someone that you’re connected with as you move along life, as a life partner—everything we’ve talked about is the MWe of your relationship with your romantic partner. So you absolutely can apply this in the romantic world of coupleness.
And what’s really beautiful about it, and it’s hard to say this just without a context. But in the Wheel of Awareness practice, which is in other books like Becoming Aware, but it’s in the back of this book IntraConnected, you learn to tap into the hub of this Wheel. And I’ve done it with 50,000 people in-person before the pandemic. And when people take the microphone, one of the most common things they say, besides this is incredibly joyful and there’s this spaciousness, is they talk about love.
“In many ways, the love that you tap into is almost like this fundamental thread of the fabric of the universe. It’s this life force that when you access that hub of the Wheel, that’d be one way to do it, or when you’re in states of awe, you just release this natural force of love that I think is the foundation for a really incredibly rewarding and thrilling romance.”
Thank you for naming that. I do hear you and how what we’ve discussed here today applies to our romantic partnerships. That if we’re in that solo-self and that singular frame, that it’s limiting in being able to hold space for the experience of the person that we’re in relationship with, and also the MWe in the couplehood. And that when we’re in those conflictual states, it’s easy to retract and be really positioned in the solo-self, like the lie of the self, and that there’s such a bigger frame. And that if we can really be in service of the MWe of the relationship, that there’s a bigger MWe that we’re talking about here too that’s in context. But that that changes so, so much.
Yeah, exactly. That’s the win-win of it all is that you walk through life and romance, and in your public life, and in your contribution to the world, where this is the conversation. So this is what we together can do in the world. Thank you so much for bringing me into your conversation, Jessica. Appreciate it.
Lovely. Well, I’ll make sure to put the link to this book, both audio and the paperback. I know it’s going to go live on November 15th. I’ll make sure to put your website. Is there anything else that you want to invite people to and connect with you and your work? I know you’ve written several books, and I’m curious about anything else you want people to know.
I mean, this conversation I think is great to catalyze how we can move forward. Interpersonal Neurobiology is where we bring all the different disciplines of knowing into one framework. So we have lots of interpersonal neurobiology stuff; you can get involved in books, you could read little videos, you can watch courses, you can take community, we have a whole community of interpersonal neurobiology folks you can join with. So whether it’s for your professional work, or your personal life, or public contribution, or you’re really trying to help the planet, Interpersonal Neurobiology has all these ways of applying it. It’s not a way of doing something. It’s not a form of therapy or education or anything like that. But it informs all those things in a way that I hope was of a good resource for everybody.
Is that at MindsightInstitute.com?
Mindsight Institute is where the courses are, and it’s linked to my website, DrDanSiegel.com.
Well, thank you again, it’s been a great privilege.
Privilege is mine, Jessica. Thank you so much for all you do.
Signing Off
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Although co-dependence is often referred to as being unhealthy, to some extent, it is beneficial in marriages. Deeper connections are made when partners lean on one another and give and receive as acts of generosity ...
There is no such thing as a perfect relationship. No matter how great your relationship with your partner is, conflicts are inevitable, and that is not always a bad thing. Depending on how well you ...
Every one of us struggles with something that impacts our relationships. We were raised to believe that whatever we struggle with—be it self-worth, emotions, or body image—is a flaw.
Despite the fact that we are heavily ...
Marriage entails a commitment to support one another through both good and bad times. The traditional vow goes along the lines of, “For better or for worse, in sickness and in health, until death do ...
Making the choice to leave an abusive relationship can be one of the most difficult things a person has to do. Without the right resources and support, it would be hard to move on even ...
It is incredible and worth celebrating that this generation is actually the first in all of human history to make an attempt to establish equality in marriage. However, we simply lacked the skills necessary to ...
A strong relationship requires human connection. Ironically, though, when you seek connection from a place of scarcity, the universe tends to take it away from you. Enrique Delgadillo asserts that the only way to get ...
If you’ve been listening to the Empowered Relationship Podcast, you’ve probably heard Dr. Jessica Higgins talk about criticism and how it affects relationships. The goal here is to collaborate with your partner to co-create a ...
Before the age of two, children seek unconditional love, but not a lot of parents are able to provide it, resulting in unmet needs, fear of rejection, and fear of dying. These childhood experiences can ...
We all know that disagreements are an inevitable part of every relationship, but would you agree that they are not personal? According to Drs. Michael and Barbara Grossman, conflicts between partners are not personal but ...
Frequencies such as WiFi and radio are all around us. Although our brains are not equipped to see or hear these, we know that they exist. In the same way, frequency, also known as lifeforce ...
People who care for loved ones suffering from addiction or mental health issues are frequently labeled and even pathologized as part of the problematic and addictive cycle. Dr. Robert Weiss would like to honor, validate, ...
Different factors, such as social, political, and cultural, influence parenting styles. While one parent may be more concerned with their child’s sense of agency, whereas the other might be more attentive to their child’s sense ...
It’s amazing how couples can function as two distinct individuals in a relationship. Maintaining your own identity while encouraging your partner’s interests and personal goals is gold. On the other hand, individual independence can be ...
There are a lot of moving parts in relationships, such as your background, having children, career, previous relationships, and so on. So, how can you cultivate a more secure and intimate relationship with your partner? ...
Conflicts are opportunities to learn more about your partner, and depending on how you handle them, they can either bring you closer together or lead to a toxic dynamic, or worse, an abusive relationship. If ...
One of the benefits of knowing your family history is that it can help develop a strong sense of who you are, but did you know that it can also reveal some dysfunctional patterns that ...
Many professionals believe that fantasy is perfectly normal and harmless. They can be a reliable source of comfort, stimulation, escape, or relief. It can also be used to address long-standing relational needs and activate unconscious ...
Most of us hope to find that one true love that would stand the test of time but that is not the case for everyone. Some people jump from one relationship to the next without ...
Every relationship goes through five developmental stages. The first stage is typically the romance stage, also known as the honeymoon stage. However, as you become more acquainted with your significant other, you will begin to ...
Growing up, men are taught, either directly or indirectly, that showing emotion is a sign of weakness, and that if they do, they will be mocked. Vulnerable is almost a derogatory term for men. As ...
Sexual infidelity is one of the biggest issues in long-term relationships and failing to address it will only make the problem worse.
Most people find sexual communication difficult. It’s easy to believe that we can’t do ...
Most of us know something about reproductive health yet almost nobody knows anything about pleasure. Pleasure is frequently associated with sex and like sex, it’s an uncomfortable subject to discuss for a lot of people. ...
Are you one of the three Americans who have a step relationship today? Demographers expect that one out of every two Americans will be in a step relationship at some point in their lives.
It’s not ...
Sex is an expression of our love and passion with our significant other but over time our desire for it tends to fade away. According to Esther Perel, what makes sex really hot is the ...
Many people have this fairy tale view of love in which there is always passion, a lot of sex and everything feels wonderful. It may appear that way at the start of the relationship but ...
Falling in love is human nature. The moment you are born and see your mother, you form a bond, and that is love. But if falling in love is that easy, why are there so ...
We are all shaped and informed by our childhood experiences, and these experiences undoubtedly influence how we show up in our relationships. And, while our childhood is a part of who we are, it does ...
Do you have to keep reminding your partner to take out the trash or put away the laundry? Well, you are not alone and it can be frustrating when you expect them to do something ...
Everyone learns about money differently and these differences shape our perspective on it. And because it’s closely linked to our safety and security, it makes it difficult to discuss. However, despite how awkward it may ...
Fewer and fewer people are opting to get married as time passes by. Is marriage outdated? According to Marcia Naomi Berger, absolutely not. However, marriage has changed.
In this episode, we’ll talk about how marriage has ...
Our brains are hardwired to seek pleasure and avoid pain and that’s what’s been keeping us alive. However, that’s a problem in this day and age where we have an overabundance of highly potent and ...
When we talk about mothers, qualities like nurturing, caring, and compassion always come to mind. Mothers are also known for putting everybody else’s needs first and theirs last. And for many years, there’s been a ...
In this episode, we’ll discuss an often overlooked skill that is so simple yet has a significant impact on how we negotiate relationships. We’ll also talk about some tools and practices that can help us ...
Just like Roy, some people jump from one relationship to another because they believe that the right person is going to fix their relationship challenges. What they don’t realize is that they are just avoiding ...
How do couples draw the line between business and romantic relationships?
Managing a business is a powerful force that can take over the family in so many ways and have a significant impact on the marriage. ...
To commemorate the 300th episode of the Empowered Relationship Podcast here’s a special episode for you all!
Since the premiere episode in 2015, our goal has been to help people feel more prepared and, as a ...
When confronted with situations that make us feel distressed, it’s so easy to project those feelings onto others, and sometimes we don’t even realize why we are feeling that way.
This can be caused by deeply ...
Most of us are familiar with non-verbal communication being upwards of 80% of all communication and part of that is facial expressions.
In this episode, Dan Hill talks about his journey and 20 years of experience ...
According to research, women are the primary initiators of divorce, with emotional intimacy being the most significant factor.
In the early stages of a relationship, you may feel that intense sense of connection even without emotional ...
In the spur of the moment, a simple argument can go out of hand if we focus on proving that we are right rather than seeking to understand our partner’s emotional needs. We basically just ...
Research shows that practicing mindfulness helps reduce stress, anxiety, lowers blood pressure and improves sleep. If we make it a habit, aside from our mental and physical health, it can also improve every aspect of ...
Friction and differences are breeding grounds for real conflicts, especially for couples. Because of one’s environment, upbringing, situation, and other factors, we develop different personalities which can all contribute to our reactive patterns and biases.
Personality ...
The overarching reason couples seek help in relationships is to rejuvenate their connection and learn the skills to ensure the spark doesn’t go out in the long term.
Alicia and Erwan join me today to share ...
Cultural patriarchy and heteronormativity often negatively impact sexual and relational development — but they can be difficult to recognize and challenge.
On this episode of the Empowered Relationship podcast, we’re talking about gender and its construction ...
Understanding why love is not enough in an empowered relationship can be a challenge. So in this episode, Dr. Stan Tatkin helps us recognize some of the most common biological and human factors that take ...
Leveraging higher-level communication skills rooted in emotional intelligence helps drive connection, growth, and performance in professional and personal relationships alike.
In this episode, leadership language expert Krister Ungerbock describes his TalkSHIFT™ System and explores how it ...
On today’s episode of The Empowered Relationship Podcast, we are going through a laser coaching session. I speak to Vanessa and support her to refocus regarding her connection with her partner. One of the things ...
On today’s episode of The Empowered Relationship Podcast, Dr. Ian Kerner and I discuss what a ‘sex script’ is and why it can help couples achieve intimacy by rewriting our sex script. He shares his ...
On today’s episode of The Empowered Relationship Podcast, you’ll hear Dr. Betty Martin really inviting the practice of slowing down and exploring not only our partner’s needs, but equally as importantly, our own needs. We ...
On today’s episode of The Empowered Relationship Podcast, my guest, a neuroscientist known only as Dr. L, joins the show to support us in understanding limerence, what it is and how to negotiate the experience. ...
On today’s episode of The Empowered Relationship Podcast, I welcome Dr. Jeanne Michele, who gives her valuable insights into strengthening a relationship after an affair. We discuss the landscape of long-term intimacy, why the challenges ...
As a practitioner, Varvara originally trained in psychotherapy and spiritual development. Because of her personal journey, she later found out that our fear of relating doesn’t necessarily come from our brain, but from our body ...
A narcissistic personality operates in a way that drains its partner’s emotional, mental, or financial health. During the course of this toxic and abusive relationship, the victim would voluntarily give up their sense of self ...
Contrary to the other five, the love language of personal space isn’t expressed in an active manner, but rather it’s being intentional, supportive, and respectful with one another. It gives someone permission to spend time ...
Knowing your partner’s love language can offer positive outcomes in your relationship. The five love languages describe the different ways that romantic partners express and experience love. Oftentimes, the act of love that we’re willing ...
The natural fear we feel when showing vulnerability is tied to our survival instinct. However, this fear can affect intimacy in our relationships. Working through the specific moments in our past which triggered this fear ...
Every single person needs secure relationships. While this is true for everyone, finding it is not always the simplest process—and here is where extended family comes in. Tracy McMillan, a television writer, relationship expert, and ...
It is common for codependent people to be people pleasers. While this strategy is effective at avoiding conflict, it also builds up anger and resentment that your partner may not even know about. Michelle Farris is ...
Authentic relating refers to how you express your own authentic self, the way you seek the same from your partner, and the dynamic created in between. Sara Ness, an internationally acclaimed facilitator, teacher, and community-builder ...
Self and co-regulation is an essential human need that couples need to understand to know that their relationship is somewhere they can feel safe and come home to. Deb Dana, LCSW, clinician and consultant specializing ...
Substance abuse disorder wreaks havoc on a relationship with trust being one of the first to erode. Chantal Jauvin, an attorney and book author, joins the podcast to talk on the ASCENT approach which couples ...
Borderline personality disorders make things appear as black and white with no integration between the two. It manifests as rejecting the love and support from a partner, the very thing that a person with this ...
Vulnerability is a key aspect in connecting with your partner. It makes you feel seen and provides a sense of belonging. However, the longing to feel known and the fear of letting down our guard are ...
New parents cannot truly prepare for the profound changes a baby brings. Catherine O’Brien, Licensed Marriage, Family Therapist, and founder of HappyWithBaby.com shares tips to keep your relationship strong despite the very real challenges of raising ...
Holding on to the past may seem like gaining power over things that cannot be changed, but the opposite is true. Judith Belmont, motivational speaker, author, and psychotherapist for 40 years, advises that forgiving makes ...
People who live with relational trauma develop hypersensitive nervous systems as a survival instinct. Orit Krug, an award-winning Board-Certified Dance and Movement Therapist, explains that this results in a disconnect between what the mind wants ...
The Nice Guy Syndrome has become the norm for so many men. Dr. Robert Glover, author of the book “No More Mr. Nice Guy,” comes on today’s show to tell us how to unlearn this ...
In today’s episode, I talk with Irene Fehr. We discuss how to be better prepared to navigate long-lasting intimacy and deal with the extensive range of emotions that come with long-term relationships. We also talk ...
In today’s episode, Dr. Joli Hamilton speaks about jealousy, defining what jealousy is and approaching jealousy in a relationship. Jealousy isn’t a simple emotion and is made in tangled layers of gross emotions we don’t ...
In today’s episode, Shana James and I talk about being more vulnerable and showing more transparency about our experience, intentions, and hopes and how this can help promote more intimacy in relationships.
When relating to others, ...
In today’s episode, Georgia, Silver, and I chat about how to take a different perspective with your partner, how to know each other more deeply and have the ability to cultivate intimacy in relationship.
Prior to ...
In today’s episode, Robin Hills and I chat about emotional intelligence and how your EI can improve your relationship. Robin talks about his life-long journey in developing EI skills for himself and what emotional intelligence ...
In today’s episode, I’m chatting with GS Youngblood, a coach focusing on masculine energy. The values of clarity and leadership are what he uses as a basis for his model on masculine leadership. We talk ...
In today’s episode, I will offer some input on what you want to be considering if you are doubting or questioning your relationship. Evaluating the choice to stay or go will matter depending on your ...
In today’s episode, I’m joined by Stephen Porges, and we’ll be talking about how to create safety with reciprocal cues within a relationship from a polyvagal perspective. Polyvagal theory helps us understand how our nervous ...
In today’s episode, I’m joined by Sherry Gaba, who has a clinical background with addiction and codependency, and we discuss where people get stuck with codependency. We talk about how problematic codependency can be and ...
In today’s episode, I’m joined by Melissa Orlov, one of the foremost authorities on how ADHD impacts adult relationships. She gives insight on what problematic dynamics to look for in your relationship when one partner ...
In today’s episode, I’m joined by Dan Solin who helps us understand our conversations and interactions with others, as well as how to cultivate more happiness and positivity in our relationships.
He talks about gaining awareness ...
In today’s episode, I’m joined by Diana Richardson, who talks about the practice of conscious lovemaking. She speaks from the perspective of a heterosexual connection and notes that couples of any gender orientation can adapt ...
In today’s episode, I’m joined by Tracy Poizner, who talks about the different dynamics between a traditional family and a blended family. Many parents who are divorced and remarried have an expectation that the blended ...
In today’s episode, I’m joined by Dr. Marisa T. Cohen, relationship coach, and researcher. We talk about how the influence of social media on couples can be damaging to their relationship. Marisa points out how ...
In today’s episode, I discuss the importance of prioritizing safety in relationship. If we do not feel safe, we will have a very difficult time being open and available for connection and intimacy.
Dr. Stephen Porges, ...
In today’s episode, I’m joined by Susan Anderson as we discuss primal abandonment and what brought Susan to this topic. Learn why abandonment is a cumulative wound that can be triggered well into adulthood.
She talks ...
In today’s episode, I’m joined by Ian Kerner. We discuss the effects of pornography on sexual health, why Ian became depressed about his personal sexuality, and how his sexual anxieties impacted his early relationships.
He talks ...
In today’s episode, I’m joined by Helen Mia Harris, and we discuss the love addiction phenomenon. This complex and pervasive problem can lead to an overwhelming love withdrawal experience, lovesickness, depression, and anxiety.
She talks about ...
In today’s episode, I’m joined by Lindsey Ellison, and we discuss the ways we cope with trauma and pain. We all have pain points, and it is important to understand the origins of our pain ...
In today’s episode, I’m joined by Michael McPherson as we chat about how to develop sexual energy and sexual intimacy beyond the typical immature and limited notions we live within.
Michael talked about how common it ...
In today’s episode, we will take a look at negotiating with your significant other when you have a conflict. My interview with Juliet Grayson will delve into how she works with couples to navigate intimacy ...
With modern day life, it is easy to get wrapped up in outside distractions and at times even turn towards these distractions as a way to avoid discomfort and pain. However, in the process of ...
William Ayot has worked in personal development and organizational settings, using poetry and the arts to teach worldwide. He speaks about his emotional state at the age of 30, being clinically depressed, not finding any ...
Richard Bolstad has devoted his time to running workshops with his wife Julia and has authored many books on coaching and cooperative relationships. In this episode, we talk about how he became interested in couples ...
Angela shares her stance on what divorce does to a child’s development, as well as looking at how a divorce is handled before, during and after can determine how much it impacts a child down ...
Kenneth Cloke talks about how the language we use, the stories we tell, and how we approach our conflicts often have the outcome of making them worse and destroying our relationships. He talks about how ...
Suppose you’re with an emotionally unavailable partner. In that case, you’ll find that you can feel emotionally destabilized at times, that your partner is keeping you at arm’s length. You might find that you can’t ...
Have you sat down to dinner with your partner only to find them on their cell phone most of your time together? Does your significant other consistently bring their computer into the bedroom, and you ...
Bio:
Chris Seiter, the founder of Ex Boyfriend Recovery and Ex Girlfriend Recovery has been helping thousands of broken hearted individuals win their exes back for over a decade.
Implementing the very creative “no contact rule,” which ...
Bio:
Sarrah Rose is the founder of the tantric sex coaching platform Tantric Activation. She developed her coaching techniques by studying tantra, mixing in evolutionary biology, and adapting the method for practical use in the modern ...
One of the most difficult tasks in relationships is to maintain our sense of self…to not loose our self in relationship. This can be even more challenging during times of conflict, stress and uncertainty. And ...
Bio:
Karl Staib is the author of Bring Gratitude and the Creator of the 30-Day Bring Gratitude Challenge. He has helped thousands of people train their brains. He developed the Dig to Fly method and SOAR ...
Bio:
Mike McNulty, PhD is a psychotherapist specializing in couples therapy, and the founder of The Chicago Relationship Center, and practices in Evanston and Highland Park, IL. Dr. McNulty is a senior certified Gottman relationship therapist ...
Bio:
Ericka Young founded Tailor-Made Budgets in 2005 after she and her husband Chris climbed out of nearly $100,000 in debt. She is a certified financial coach by Ramsey Solutions and combines her passion for helping ...
Love presents a great opportunity, and it can also feel like a great risk. Especially, when we have felt hurt in the past. If we are not conscious (and aware), we can mistake the fear ...