(00:07) greetings boys and babes it’s the magic hour a place where we navigate through life’s peaks and valleys with all the vulnerability and shamelessness we can muster with the help of world-class guests from all walks of life we uncover new truths and valuable tools for manifesting our highest potential i’m your host mercedes tarot along with my partner in shine jade bryce hi you guys if you’ve been listening for a while you know that we love to talk about how to strengthen relationships and you know that we love the gottman

(00:37) method our guest today is an expert in both but we will be covering these topics in different ways than we have before yes and i feel like i can never really get enough information on how to better my relationships and use my relationship as a method of personal development since there always seems to be some new angle to cover um so let’s get her on jade our guest today is a licensed marriage and family therapist certified clinical trauma professional and founder of a better life therapy in philadelphia pennsylvania using gottman method

(01:09) couples therapy elizabeth supports couples through difficult issues such as betrayal grief and loss and traumatic experiences regardless of if a couple chooses to divorce or continue their relationship she believes that a sense of peace can be gained through learning the art of communication and feeling truly heard she believes that the ability to maintain and nurture the many relationships family romance friends and work brings incredible personal benefit she is a wife and a mama who is on a mission to help people have a better

(01:39) relationship with themselves and others her passion and enthusiasm for helping others through through overcoming their relationship challenges and creating conscious connections is so powerful and the work she does in the fields of love healing and self-growth is profound we are so excited to welcome elizabeth earnshaw to the magic hour well i told tom make sure you get sun on your eyes he went outside he came back in he was like hello i got a sunburn hi hi hi how are you good how are you good i just realized my earphones are

(02:21) only the kind that plug into a phone not my laptop oh no okay so and i have to have my phone on the charger so you’re not gonna see my face is that okay yeah we could use stock footage um or do you record this and you need to see my face we record it um so we prefer to see your face if that’s possible for you we can totally wait for you to set up our website well there’s really no way because it’s an apple iphone and because of that they only let you plug in the mic to where the charger is unless it’s on a charging

(02:53) pad okay and i know you have a call in less than an hour so um [Music] so we can just work with this that’s okay okay i’m sorry guys no that’s okay we came to um the beach to like get into a new location and so i don’t have all of my stuff here i have earphones but did not realize they don’t plug into a computer oh that’s okay um so uh so we don’t need to ask her about the hd then um okay so mercedes you’re recording i’m good to go okay so um if it’s okay we’ll just jump

(03:30) in normally we read a bio but just to save time we’ll just jump in and ask you questions and then um get as much in as we possibly can we’ll put your bio on the episode you know yeah it’s this is pre-recorded so we’ll put it all together later cool awesome awesome background that’s such a pretty whatever is behind you is awesome yeah everyone loves hers i don’t it might be yours jade i don’t know yours is pretty too they’re both yeah oh thanks um [Music] so you the one of the reasons why um i

(04:01) wanted to get you on the show is because i saw your post about how to manage stress in a relationship it was everybody can relate to that but your caption um where you relate your experience was so vulnerable and for me i felt like i was reading my own journal entry so um can you just share your experience with that and also the steps that you recommend for managing stress in a relationship absolutely so i’m guessing you’re talking about my more recent posts yes about how i’ve been kind of feeling in

(04:34) response to everything that’s going on and um really how wonderful in many moments my husband has been able to be um in response to that stress you know i run a business and i’m a mom and it’s it’s a lot and so there have just been days where he’s kind of found me you know crying okay now

(05:45) [Laughter] maybe we can schedule this because it’s no good for us if she’s not on the video either because we need to be able to put these on youtube now too yeah i did tell her that we record a video um crap um because i can already hear the feedback too because she doesn’t have headphones on and the recording’s going to be shitty because she’s doing that on a phone pause this shoot to make it work do you know where you lost me uh jade why don’t you just let’s just re-ask because we lost you right

(06:25) yeah right in the beginning no problem unfortunately sorry that’s okay okay so the question was about asking uh can you share your experience um about how to manage stress in a relationship as well as your steps sure so a lot has been obviously going on during i’m sorry liz but before we i know i’m interrupting again but now that you are on um video can you just check your zoom setting on yeah the video it’s usually on hd yeah it’s that’s an hd camera is that good sure awesome thank you so sorry okay

(07:03) no worries at all let’s go i’m going to get this wine out of here guys this is so funny actually it probably is going to make it better though because it’s like loosened me up just to be like okay it’s a real person talking here yeah knowing how to use technology we’re also quarantined trying to figure this thing out exactly all right we’re all set now okay do you want me to just answer yep i’m recording we’re all good on the side yeah okay yeah yeah thank you okay okay so um clearly we’re under a lot of stress

(07:42) just like a lot of people are and my husband has done a really beautiful job of being really responsive to my stress so there have been obviously a lot of moments where i’ve either thrown little temper tantrums or been crying at my desk and he does this great job of doing a lot of the things that i tell couples to do right so at this moment where he found me crying at my desk he walked into the room he kept his body really calm and you could kind of just see it right like he took a deep breath and his shoulders were relaxed and

(08:16) he you know slowly walked over and i remember he kind of just looked at me and was like you know what’s going on so he opened it up with a really open-ended question a lot of times what we do when we see people stressed or upset is we kind of close it off by restricting it right away right so he could have walked in and said why are you crying don’t cry nothing’s wrong it’s all gonna be okay but you know he kneeled down he took my hand so he was physically affectionate and he really slowed things down while

(08:47) we were talking and listened and asked lots of questions and validated me and then at the end of the conversation he was able to help me think of a way forward right so it’s really good to wait to give advice but sometimes we still want to know what is the way forward and you know he did a really good job of offering some suggestions but also listening to what i thought and letting me know that he would be supportive and so this all wraps in i know one of the things you were wondering is what you know what are some things couples

(09:21) can do to support each other when they’re stressed and one of the biggest things is to calm your own body which is really really hard right now because both people might be feeling stressed so what can you do in those moments where maybe you recognize yeah we’re both stressed but this person is a 10 out of 10 and i’m a six so can i take some deep breaths and calm my body that’s called co-regulation you regulate yourself you actually help somebody else regulate themselves pretty cool right um and you see that with moms and babies

(09:55) they can co-regulate with their babies and then the other thing that’s really important is allowing the other person to i always explain describe people that are stressed as being kind of like a balloon so they are so filled with air that if you just start shoving more at them so solutions are telling them not to feel upset you’re putting more air into their balloon and what happens if we overfill a balloon it pops right and it doesn’t that doesn’t feel good for anybody so what is really important is that a

(10:30) partner is able to drag the air out and you do that by being quiet by asking really helpful open-ended questions like what’s most upsetting to you what are you worried about um what is this making you think so just really allowing that person to let all of that air out of their balloon is really really important validating right my husband was able to say to me this makes so much sense you’re upset i think at one moment he was like i’m so upset for you right like he was like i want to cry for you because i understand

(11:06) why you’re upset and that validation feels so good because then you know you’re not in it alone and then really being able to withhold problem solving until the end when we offer suggestions we think it’s going to help um usually it actually just makes people feel worse and i’m sure you you both have experienced that before where you’re telling a story and somebody’s like well didn’t you just try to do x y and z and you’re like if i could have tried that i would have yeah yeah we’re always trying to fix people

(11:34) it’s our worst and best characteristics it comes from a really loving plea and it makes people’s balloons pop so really withholding that problem solving but then also offering ways to move forward right we don’t want to stay stuck forever so it can feel helpful to have a friend or a partner or a family member who says you know i’m not going to offer you solutions but what would be helpful right now like do you want to talk about ideas do you want do you want my ideas do you want to tell me your ideas is there

(12:07) something i could do for you so really opening up the floor of what moving forward could look like yeah yeah and i noticed that i i have been a lot better about this but one thing that would trigger my partner when i noticed he was a little eggy or stretched stressed i would ask the question what’s wrong and that seemed to trigger him because it’s almost like a negative like well something must be wrong with him then you know if i’m asking that question and i think that was triggering so kind of like what’s what’s your

(12:37) problem is another one yeah triggering too right like what’s the problem somebody walks in and they have a look on their face and you go what’s the problem it’s almost like you’re saying like what now you know yeah yes yeah and of course i don’t mean it that way i mean it like how like i’m trying to be supportive but it comes off to him as something is wrong with him and i’m not just a word wrong yeah absolutely more open-ended of saying you know even just saying it in a way like um

(13:06) how are you doing today you know something a little more neutral yeah yeah like what’s going on how are you doing today you know i think sometimes even saying what’s wrong but maybe having a little more of a lead in like hey i can tell something’s up what’s wrong what’s up um in some way kind of making it a little more open-ended can be helpful yeah absolutely i noticed that something i’m sure everyone listening has gone through or maybe is going through like i am uh is that we have this

(13:40) this money question these hard questions in relationship but money specifically being this source of conflict in relationship um can you go into that some and just why that specific topic always seems to cause you to have fear around it yeah yeah yeah yeah jade i mean you’re right there’s there’s a ton of fear around money so there’s there’s a couple reasons that it’s pretty powerful one is that it is a realistic concern right there is actual need for financial um you know comfort and um ability

(14:19) to pay your bills to get food to to really do what you need to do with your finances so there’s fear in that actual need but there’s also something that we call legacy dreams and extinction dreams and we carry those with us on some basic topics money is one of them so when we’re growing up we watch how people manage money and we also feel the impact of that right so if we grew up and people were very frugal and that was really helpful to us and we liked it then we are likely going to want to maintain that legacy

(14:55) and we’re going to grow up and we’re going to say it’s the right thing to do to be frugal because my parents were frugal and because they were frugal they saved a lot of money we never um we didn’t have any chaos in our lives and so on and so forth and other people they might also grow up with a frugal parent and they might see that as something that wasn’t helpful right so they might say it was horrible for me that my parents never spent any money i never got to go on the school trips i was always the kid

(15:25) with the dirty shoes and that didn’t feel good so that person might have what we call an extinction dream where they want to get rid of that behavior and money is something that we have a lot of legacy and extinction dreams about we either want to do the same thing our family did or we want to do something very very very different and if we get with a partner who has the same dream it’s all good if we get with a partner who also um wants to be frugal or also wants to spend a lot of money no big deal but if

(16:00) we get with a partner that deals with money differently and we come up against each other’s dreams it’s super hard to move past that because we’re in a war about something that is core to who we believe we are and that is really really challenging and so the way you do move past it is that you get past the concrete tangible aspect of money and you actually try to sit down with each other and explore you know what does money mean to you how was it managed when you were growing up um how you know when you were growing up and it was

(16:38) managed that way how did it impact you and what’s your biggest fear if it keeps happening that way or what’s your biggest dream here when people are understood they can often get through those hot topics right so money sex um how to raise children those are really hot topics yeah and there’s uh yeah for those listening uh the book eight dates by gottman they have questions laid out for you at the end of each of those chapters um yeah it seems like a lot of times um one person in the relationship is

(17:08) fearful that the other person is going to be just irresponsible or not stable financially sometimes yeah so sometimes there’s one person that’s fearful that the other will be irresponsible and the person that they’re designating as irresponsible is fearful about that other partner too the other partner is way too restrictive are the other partners not going to allow them to live a life that feels good or fun or you know that allows for access to things i’ve worked with a lot of people where you know one person feels like you’re

(17:44) being irresponsible and you’re going to make it so that our lives are a mess and the other person thinks you’re being so rigid and you’re actually taking away my access to life right i’m not allowed to enjoy life because of our conflict around money and the most important thing that you can do in your relationships is to be able to validate both perspectives right because if we label one person as you’re the rigid boring one and you’re the irresponsible one then you don’t get anywhere right but if you can look at it

(18:18) as you’re the one who’s really trying to change something that happened in childhood that didn’t feel good or you’re trying to maintain something that felt really good and so actually that’s a really good thing you have you have a good purpose behind this um and the other person does too you can kind of look at what is core to both people how can you get those things met in a way that kind of honors you both yeah for me it’s been largely around ability to make money um and so i don’t know if that ties in any

(18:51) differently or if you have any perspective on how to go in from that angle where it’s a matter of um not so much i think there’s a power play there’s like a power struggle over uh who’s holding the money essentially and doling out who’s spending it but also um the ability to make money because it’s that the it feels like it’s only one part of it when we’re talking about the power struggle over who’s who’s got the bigger bank account um but the piece about like i might be a very um

(19:29) for instance i’ll take my own relationship and life and relationship with money as an example i have always made more money than my partners and i’ve specifically i think called in those partners now i’m aware of this but wasn’t you know during my all my past relationships um and wanted to have partners that didn’t make as much money as me or struggled in that arena because it allowed me to hold some sort of power over in my child mind that you you know power over them not leaving me or no not

(20:04) being abandoned by them to some degree or another but then there’s this piece also that i was never frugal with my money it was always spent in relationship with the people i was with um almost like extremely freely where i was um you know paying for all the fun things and doing extravagant things and making sure their life was had all the things that it needed and that type of thing and maybe that’s almost a sense of enablement to some degree and the enablement piece is what i think i’m talking about here where you feel like

(20:34) well this person doesn’t have any incentive to go make their own money and maybe that keeps me in the power seat you know because of that i don’t know do you have any thoughts on just that yeah and i mean i think it sounds like you have a ton of insight on that right is that this wasn’t necessarily about the money but it was about safety yeah right and i mean if if we were talking to the part your partner at the time i wonder what it would have been about for them right because there’s what is that about that they

(21:06) were engaging in in that relationship with you where um you know there are a dynamic role in it as well and so i would be curious and i’m sure you know for anyone that you’ve been in a relationship with it’s been different different reasons yeah but there’s something for them too so there’s always this underlying thing and you have a lot of insight around yours mine is that you know you’re saying it makes me feel safe and i know you’re using the word it makes me have power but what’s that

(21:36) about right safety all safety yeah it’s safe it makes me know that i’m valuable that if they leave me i’m gonna be okay you know and um so that makes a lot of sense and you could kind of like maybe look back even in your own life or anybody who’s listening and think so what’s that connected to like what what legacy i can see exactly what it’s connected it’s connected to my story around uh my dad living in his girlfriend’s house when i was growing up who is like my um antagonist you know like growing up

(22:12) who’s the the terror of the story you know the the all my friends called me cinderella growing up so she was like my wicked stepmother and my dad would always use the word stuck that we couldn’t leave there because his business was tied to there he wasn’t able to essentially what it came down to in my child mind at least was that we financially could not step away from this woman and so we i had to live in this household and be under this you know this dictatorship whatever she was running um and so i think that that spurred me

(22:44) from a very early age i mean at 15 years old i had two jobs you know and kind of never stopped from there and so it was always like well i’m just gonna make enough so i never have to so i can be independent i never have to be stuck essentially yeah so you had an extinction dream i’m not going to do the same i’m not going to have that again so the thing that motivates me the thing that’s my dream is based off of getting rid of something that was yucky in the past absolutely compound that on my other end of it my

(23:16) mom who you know my mom and dad divorced when they were when i was five so she on the other hand was a very independent like probably the number one word you’d use for my mom is independent and so she was always able to find her way you know go figure out how to make money or do what she needed to do to be independent and that was something that i never ever ever considered my mom stuck you know and i’m sure they were attracted to each other because of those opposites but i’m obviously compounding this extinction

(23:49) dream along with the other side of it where my mom’s showing me the other option yeah that’s interesting so you have a legacy that you want to keep and you also had something that you wanted to extinguish and get rid of um and most of the things that we got really stuck with with our partners um you talked about gottman just now jade and um you know he talks about things being gridlocked so when we we get in gridlock with the same partner or you know i even think about gridlock over the trajectory of all of our relationships so we have

(24:21) the same problem again and again and again it’s almost always related to something that was really really important to you a dream to get rid of something or a dream to keep something and so it’s about so much more than the money it’s about so much more than what the kids eat for dinner each night it’s about i have a dream and that is so connected to something very important usually something like safety or fun or access um and those are really important core needs but we struggle to say it that way

(24:58) right and we say this is about money this is about your responsibility this is about our bank account really it’s about i’m scared i don’t want to be so abundant yeah yeah so on that what are the four conversations that are required to solve those most difficult problems yeah so one of the really important conversations that you have if you’re if you’ve had conflict um is a repair conversation so if there’s been an actual you know interaction that was less than what you know what you would want to usually do

(25:36) then you want to be able to repair that’s really really important so let’s talk about it in terms of money you say i know we were talking about money last night and it went off the rails and i’m sorry right i that was really not right of me i called you names i criticized you can we talk again um other forms of repair can actually happen in the moment so let’s say you start fighting about money and are you able to say hey let’s take a break let’s just take a second this isn’t going anywhere

(26:08) very good um or you know you might even say something affectionate like babe i’m on your side here i don’t know why we’re arguing about this we have different perspectives but i love you so that’s kind of like the first aid right i’m still here for you i’m reminding you that i am reliable that i am i love you and that what is going on between us isn’t going to like make us break up exactly so that’s one really important conversation another really important conversation is a conversation where you have the

(26:46) ability to kind of hear perspectives right so you’re sitting down and you’re able to say just tell me what is your perspective on this what do you think about this um and really like in an open-ended way just listening um and being able to actually hear what they have to say without trying to correct them or get defensive you just want to know what’s their opinion so mercedes with your example if i was your partner it would be me really being able to say well what do you think we should do with money like what would feel right to

(27:24) you um so that is the help me understand your perspective conversation right then we do a conversation called the getting beneath the surface conversation so that’s that dream conversation so now not only do i understand that you think we should save a lot of money and i think we should save it and have fun or spend it and have fun now i want to understand where does that come from what are some experiences you’ve had that have made you think that that’s the right way to do it um what are big fears

(27:58) that you have if we don’t do it that way and then the final conversation that’s really important with challenging topics is the what’s next conversation and it’s so much easier to have those first three if you know that eventually you are going to come to some sort of agreement yeah really hard if i suggest to people why don’t you just like dig in and understand like what’s beneath it all and we’re not going to talk about what’s next most people’s reaction is i don’t want to talk about that this person is

(28:29) spending all of our money and we’re going to be in debt and we need a solution but if we can promise each other we will talk about what’s next i promise but first we have to understand each other because if we don’t understand each other then we’re giving solutions that might not stick we might even be offering solutions to a problem that isn’t there right so that what next conversation always make it last and what about the opposite what are um the conflict responses that we want to avoid that would harm the relationship

(29:03) yeah so um in decades of research so gottman coming up again right he studied lots of couples thousands of them actually since the 70s um and he’s actually watched them in labs and in their apartments and all sorts of stuff and he found that there are four habits that couples have that really can lead to divorce okay um with over 90 accuracy if a couple does things chronically the relationship often ends so it’s criticism defensiveness yeah what were you gonna say what i’m just curious why do we like

(29:40) we we send we tend to criticize our loved ones the most why do you think that is yeah it’s a good question i think a lot of times we’re criticizing loved ones based off of some unmet need mm-hmm we don’t have many needs from strangers right yeah you know i mean affect much yeah yeah no and if you think about it you’re the most critical of strangers when you have a lot of unmet needs in your life you know if the person at starbucks messes up my coffee and i’m having like a terrible day and i have so many needs that aren’t

(30:17) being met i’m more likely to criticize them and be mean then um you know if i have all of my needs met i’m having a great day and they mess up my coffee mm-hmm i’m gonna criticize i’m gonna say oh no big deal doing it can you make it again that’s okay um so when we’re in intimate relationships most of the time we’re criticizing because there’s a need we have and we just don’t know how to say it in a soft way okay sorry so the so it was criticism’s the first one yeah and then defensiveness is number

(30:53) two the third one is stonewalling stonewalling is what it sounds like so it’s when you look like a stone wall so you’re you’re in the conversation but it’s very clear that you’re not no you’re looking at the person’s looking in a different direction their bodies kind of shut off they’re not talking checked out totally checked out a lot of times you’ll notice that they like kick their foot really fast or something um i don’t know if you if you think back to moments people have stonewalled you

(31:26) they’re likely fluttering their eyelashes kicking their foot really fast um or crossing their arms across their body these are all ways that they’re trying to soothe themselves because when we stonewall our our heart rate is usually actually completely elevated and the act of shutting down communication freeze yeah it’s a freeze response so yeah there’s lots of self-soothing that’s happening inside but to the partner unfortunately it looks like a withdrawal and it feels terrible yeah yeah and then the fourth one is contempt

(32:03) so contempt is criticism supercharged and that is when we criticize but we criticize from a one-up position so criticism might sound like you always leave the dishes in the sink it drives me crazy mm-hmm um we’re using always and never to always and never yes good exactly always the never guilty totally i do you know i do it i work on it daily so um but contempt is where it starts to sound pretty abusive and so somebody leaves dishes in the sink and we say hmm you know we kind of get a look on our face it’s actually the only

(32:50) unilateral expression that people make which is where one side of the face goes up and the other side of the face stays so your nose goes up on one side and your lips go up that’s contempt and it is you know this expression of i’m better than you your mother your mother would be ashamed of you the way that you leave the house um if you know you’re and people will really go below the belt right like if your dead mother saw the way the kitchen looks she would be disgusted with you so contempt is this really kind of toxic

(33:30) way of of expressing that you don’t like someone and it’s it’s the most likely to lead to the end of a relationship yeah as you can imagine you can’t stay in a relationship that’s yeah he’s talking to you that way and i know harvard hendrix talks about when we say always and never that’s a sign to us that’s like a flag to remind us that we’re in a regressive state because our subconscious does believe it was always or never because we’re projecting our parents onto them

(33:57) so that’s like an immediate signal that you’re because you really do feel like it’s always a never because to you your partner is the same as your parents subconsciously you know so that’s like a big a big red flag to like step back and remind yourself that you’re projecting yeah and you’re really kind of living in that moment in a world where you are feeling so kind of disempowered yeah that nothing’s ever going to be different right you’re having this experience of i’m always let down ever

(34:27) since i was four ever since i was five i’ve always been let down right and really there’s very few things that are always in never right and and the interesting thing is once you use the always or never you elicit defensiveness because what is somebody gonna say you not if i say you never clean the dishes they’re to tell me about the three times that they clean the dishes right right yeah um and then we just get into a back and forth so defensiveness stonewalling contempt what was the first one criticism

(35:01) criticism those are to look out for for sure okay i love that you give us the solution of the four uh ways to to broach those or solve those difficult conversations too um so i guess this is largely what you just spoke about is the signaling of an unhealthy relationship or maybe you can go deeper into that what what are the things we’re looking out for if we’re trying to determine whether we’re in an unhealthy relationship yeah so there’s three i would say primary topics and then a whole bunch of

(35:37) things that fall under them so issues of disrespect issues around responsiveness and issues around reliability okay so the signs of a healthy relationship are respect responsiveness reliability but in an unhealthy relationship you’re gonna see a lot of disrespect so some examples of that would be um you know feeling like or noticing that when you’re with that person they almost belittle you so contempt where they make you the joke um or even just eye rolling eye rolling um we’ve all had friends where for some reason with that

(36:16) particular friend they know where it hurts and they make fun of us and they say that it’s being playful but that’s really an issue of disrespect when your influence is disregarded so when your thoughts your beliefs your ideas about what should happen in the relationship are shut down um that’s you know an issue of disrespect it’s saying i don’t see you as my equal or my teammate um obviously physical or emotional abuse you know if physical or emotional abuse um are occurring that’s the biggest

(36:52) issue of disrespect once that line has been crossed incredibly unhealthy relationship um boundaries being ignored core parts of you being criticized and then just like your growth or your wins or your joy are kind of discouraged right like people will disrespect that um when you’re doing well so those are some some disrespect signs issues around responsiveness so when you share your feelings the person dismisses you um they’re not curious about your inner world um every time that you’re struggling um or most of the times i won’t say

(37:31) every most of the times when you struggle and you’re looking for them to kind of reach they don’t reach back um and just finding yourself on the other end of that if you’re struggling to offer responsiveness so if you feel dreamed if you feel like you can’t be there for that person that’s another sign um and then issues of reliability is the third so you know do they follow through on their commitments on what they say is the stuff that they say does it match the stuff that they do and then um do they actually

(38:08) maintain their contracts with you so some examples of contracts are we are in a monogamous relationship and then the person a couple weeks later says you know what i actually don’t really believe in monogamy and so that’s an issue of reliability right because you don’t really know from one day to the next if what they’re contracting with you is what they really mean wow these three r’s respect responsiveness and reliability really all point to feeling safe so is most of what your work is in relationship um

(38:47) coaching and therapy is it all about making both partners feel safe in that relationship is that really what it boils down to yeah safe and honored honored like seen and heard yeah and feel like they can lean on this person and have that inter-dependency yeah it all comes down to safety i feel like for me i really um like the three questions that you suggest we ask our partner before bed um can you share that with our listeners sure so i hope these are the three i think we’re thinking about the same three i’m sure i’ll like whatever you say okay

(39:29) great um so yeah there are three really powerful questions you can ask and of course you can make them fit your own personality as a couple um but one really powerful question is um what in what ways did i kind of like shine for you last week like how did how did i do the right things for you and allowing your partner to reflect that back to you um or you could ask that every day you could do it every night and say how did i shine for you today it’s that’s a really good way to mark the ways in which somebody’s being

(40:03) successful for you is to say oh my gosh you were so lovely when i was crying at my desk thank you so much for hugging me and you’re letting them know keep doing that do that again in the future um another question that you can ask is what are some things i could have done better so what happened today or this past week where i could have maybe made you feel more loved or supported or safe um and then the third question is what’s going on next week that you might need me to be aware of or support you on

(40:36) yeah yeah those are really those the three questions that you were thinking they are yeah yeah those are good i don’t know if i could do an everyday regimen but definitely weekly i think it’s weekly yes yeah yeah look at me like i’m exhausted let me please just go to bed tonight yeah we ask um almost every day we ask how is your um how is your level of feeling loved your level of feeling supported and your level of feeling safe like on a one to ten so we ask that um a lot but i i really like yours so it’s a

(41:10) it’s a nice way to end the day i love yours that’s beautiful and easy because it doesn’t it’s just like you know oh i’m a five i’m a six well how can i get you to a ten yeah yeah i love it that’s awesome all right so what is the root of power struggles in relationships um there’s a few so some of us get into power struggles in our relationships because well let me back up a little bit we start out our relationships and if you read harvard hendricks or anything about the imago you probably know this nature takes away

(41:46) our ability to see the stuff that’s difficult about the other person in the beginning because nature wants us to meet yeah or connect um or as harvard hendricks would say wants us to heal our wounds so we get into these relationships and they feel really beautiful and then a major stressor happens and sometimes that’s just something that we all experience like a move or yeah a big bang might happen like somebody dies or gets sick or a baby is born or something like that and so the way that we then respond to

(42:26) these things in a certain way that either makes our partner feel safe or unsafe and we get into these dynamics where um you know we either kind of like dance together and we don’t get into power struggles or we get into a i’m gonna pull away and as i pull away you’re going to pursue me and then as you pers as then i stop doing that pursuit then you kind of start to pursue me back and we go back and forth in these power struggles sometimes it’s because the thing that’s going on brings up a lot of shame for

(42:58) the other person so your problem brings up my shame is one reason that we get in power struggles that can happen with money right i want to talk about money and it makes my partner feel ashamed my partner distances from that conversation right i want to talk about sex and my partner feels ashamed they distance the second reason we get into power struggles is because we really want connection which kind of sounds funny right but there’s this feeling of i’m afraid that if i go there with you we’re going to get into a fight or our

(43:34) connection is going to be harmed in some way so i pull away and then the other person is like oh my gosh if we don’t talk about this or deal with this right now we’re gonna fall apart so they kind of pursue and you get into that dynamic the third is um this desire for autonomy so feeling like me myself i’ve kind of gone missing in this relationship i’ve been taken over so i pull away to then get that back and i i kind of struggle with you around that and then the fourth is punishment and when there’s a really really painful

(44:12) experience that’s not dealt with well or when these other three power struggles happen for a while we might want to punish the other person and they you know we might say you know what they don’t deserve to have me talk to them right now or they don’t deserve me to listen and take their influence so i’m just going to do what i want to do because i’m mad at them and the other person might be thinking well they don’t deserve me to give them space because they cheated on me or because x y and z and so that’s that’s the

(44:48) fourth way that we can get into a power struggle kind of like who’s in charge here i like yes that’s a good way to describe it yeah yeah i’m in charge here because i don’t trust you right protecting our safety yep yeah those are difficult so um we we kind of broached this a little bit but i want to get into it deeper we we often talk about um ways to connect with our partners in big ways but there are tons of simple ways that we can connect every day so maybe you can go over the ways that we can create these bids

(45:29) the way you talk about it is making bids for connection so can you go into that some yeah sure so we all make bids all the time i’ve probably made bids with both of you i did actually we first got on i said i love your background right that’s me making a bid and you responded to my bid you said um oh yeah a lot of people love her background right so you you caught my bid you caught me throwing the ball to you and when we respond to each other’s bids we can build a relationship with each other now if i would have said i love that

(46:08) background and you would have said why are you talking about my background that’s not what we’re here for you would have been turning against my bid and over time i would say oh my gosh i can’t get anything right with these people i’m done i’m not gonna say anything to connect anymore they don’t like me it’s over um and then the third thing that might have happened is i could have said i love your background and you might have kept texting on your phone yeah and just ignored you yeah didn’t even

(46:42) hear it right so you kind of drop the ball is how i describe it so when we um are making bids to people we’re really hoping that they respond and sometimes we do it in really little ways for instance we um hold the door for our partner or for a stranger even we bring them home their favorite snack we make a noise that bids for connection are often just like what i just did yeah yeah exactly that was a bid for connection we make a noise um you know when you’re like in the kitchen and you start like grunting because you

(47:23) can’t open something you don’t actually have to do that grunt right i mean sometimes you do but you’re reaching for something and you go like ugh i can’t get it um wow so even a sigh like can be a bid for connection if you’re doing it in the pres because i totally noticed that i do certain things when my husband is around vocally that i would never do like even i talk to my cats or sing to my cats it’s a way of i don’t do that as much whenever he’s not around it’s not for my

(47:52) cats i know they can’t they don’t give a it’s like my husband might be around and we have this thing with our cats where we enjoy this connection that they allow us so that’s it i love that yeah yeah you just made me think you know when i’m with my husband i make like funny noises you know like i might be like [Laughter] i don’t actually think i ever do that i love when i’m walking around my house by myself so yes noises um like physical attempts to connect are obviously bids asking people to have

(48:26) experiences with you babe come help me in the kitchen it’s a bid um so we do all of these things because we’re really hoping that people will respond back even sharing um you know come share this moment with me as kind of a bid so when you say things like it’s really beautiful outside right now you don’t really need your partner to like do very much there you’re just trying to share a thought and so we really look towards that person being responsive and we do it all day long you know once you

(49:00) notice it you’re just constantly bidding for your close relationships to do this and also for strangers even and when the other person doesn’t respond or they turn against us the relationship starts to hurt right and you know mercedes like if you were singing those silly songs to your cats and the response you got was what is wrong with you right why do you do that that’s so annoying that would be turning against this really sweet desire you had to connect what’s funny i wanted to just give a personal note on that

(49:38) because when we were talking about this it brought up i often whistle whenever i i only whistle whenever i mean you only whistle whenever you’re like pretty happy or you know you feel content in your day or whatever yeah and so i whistle once in a while and um i have this thing now with my husband when i i try not to whistle as much like actively because there was a time when i was whistling and he said why do you whis why do you always whistle or he made some remark that made me feel like i shouldn’t express myself that way or you

(50:10) know like something that it annoyed him essentially is what i thought of it as and since then he’s been like i don’t care when you whistle like i i it’s okay but now i like have a i don’t know but you’d be like yeah but now i have like a grudge against like i’ll notice i’ll be whistling because i’m content in my day and that’s my expression and i don’t whistle alone it’s because he’s nearby somewhere in in hearing distance um or within ears reach i don’t know what

(50:41) they’re saying i’m looking for there is but yeah so that definitely speaks to that point of you can easily turn someone off with that you know taking away that moment of connection that was possible there with that um bid so yeah totally and look this was such a great example of how that can really reverberate over time like these the rejected bids are so incredibly powerful and it sounds like there’s even been an attempt to repair that and say no like whistle it’s okay but there’s still this kind of felt

(51:16) sense of oh that was rejected and that felt bad and so i’m not gonna do it again yeah like i don’t trust that you really mean it now it’s like for so it’ll take time but i was whistling yesterday and i was like i’m going to do it a little bit and see how i feel about it you need to just start whistling all the time just obnoxious said it as his ringtone yeah you should totally like record it for him yeah that’s great and you know you can imagine if that was happening with every bid that you need

(51:51) look at what that means you stop whistling so if every bid that you made got that reaction you stop of course and that’s really really sad because a lot of times when i see couples they are just at a point where no one’s making bids what do we do then if if we realize our partner has stopped making bids of connection with us what is the best thing to do and i feel like that’s right now in self-isolation there’s probably a lot of partners like we are we’ve seen a lot of each other you know what i mean

(52:22) yeah we’re done with the bibs i don’t want your whistles anymore um yeah and i think there’s probably actually a lot of partners who realize that they haven’t been bidding for each other and they don’t know how to do it you know they’re living with each other seven days a week 24 hours a day and not sharing a noise a thought a request with each other at all um and so when that happens obviously knowing this information helps because you can start being more aware you know i’m going to really make a

(52:56) conscious effort in those little moments that my partner still manages to bid to me i’m going to respond you know i’m really going to look you know are they telling me oh my gosh there’s a squirrel outside i’m going to try to say oh yeah look at that squirrel what’s it doing um and then the other piece of it is then yourself kind of reflecting what are some ways that i can make bids it’s really hard for me but you know maybe i’ll ask them if they want to come watch a tv show or maybe i will start whistling again and

(53:30) see how they respond and if it’s a relationship where things were just really rejected obviously you should have those four conversations you know you’re gonna have to sit down and say this has been painful i’ve you know i’ve stopped asking you to spend time with me or to have sex with me or to you know help me with things or to listen to my jokes because when i’ve tried to connect it’s rejected and um so that’s where resent grows isn’t it yeah a lot of resentment and when resentment is there it’s very hard

(54:11) because you have to have a willingness to try to do it anyway yeah ooh and you have to that’s it’s for me when i’m thinking of it as you’re you know describing how that looks in relationship it’s like in order to go make a bid after you feel resentful in a certain situation with your partner you first of all have to have set aside you know your ego for the moment and um and prepare yourself for rejection because there’s probably some distrust on both ends you know on your end and on your partner’s end where they might

(54:47) resist your bid because they feel like it’s maybe for some selfish reason you know it’s not actually genuine they don’t trust you essentially exactly and so you know another thing is how do you build that trust yeah yeah and again it takes having those really hard conversations i need to take responsibility and repair with you for this you know all those times that you were really trying to connect with me and i wouldn’t do it or i made fun of you or shut you down i i’m sorry and here are some ways i want to rebuild

(55:23) your trust the person who kind of turned if both people turned away um that’s actually it’s really hard to like get energy back in there again because it’s just like a flat line literally the connection the bidding is is is a connection line of energy line that’s being cut off yeah so if both people kind of turn away you know always on their phones all of that it’s just a flat line so you kind of have to jump start it there’s not actually a lot of repair that has to happen because you know did anything actively

(55:56) nothing was actively like mean it was just meh i gave up um so with that it’s it’s jump starting it it’s planning dates it’s bidding a lot on purpose it’s responding to bids a lot on purpose turning against is different because turning against was kind of active harm you know me telling you when you tell me something that it’s stupid is is act of harm and it obviously in varying degrees sometimes it’s not meant to be harmful like your husband right but it’s still painful and so it was

(56:32) still important that he came back and said i’m i’m sorry you can whistle yeah and you know it’s making me feel comfortable with it but there’s a lot of turning against where you know somebody tells a big dream that they have and the other person says are you an idiot like you that’s never gonna happen yeah that’s never gonna happen and so you don’t need jumper cables with that because planning a date isn’t gonna repair that bidding more isn’t going to repair that that person is really going to have

(57:01) to come back and say sorry and they’re really going to have to come back and process what was the impact on me either that one time or continually kind of rejecting you i have friends that i have well one friend specifically in mind that i have had that uh type of thing distance us where like i expressed a dream and they said he’ll never have that and it’s like boom like honestly it feels like well if you can’t validate me in that moment then how can i even have a friendship with a person who doesn’t

(57:35) see me for what i am hoping i become you know that’s important i think that’s what friends make you know but i love this idea of bidding it feels almost as if it’s um like the way i’m picturing it is acupuncture for a relationship in a sense like where acupuncture uses the bio meridian you know to the chi energy to like pinprick or jump start essentially or open up a channel or close a channel if needed and uh that’s just uh i really like this idea it helps me really put it into my brain in a way i think i

(58:11) can understand it and utilize it so thank you for explaining all that i like how you connected it to acupuncture that was like a really great kind of imagery well the energy thing like we are all everything we’re experiencing is all energy and we talk about that a lot on this show but this specific thing it’s like seems so minut when we’re talking about the bids in your relationship and the bids in uh relationship with every any person in your life for that matter not just romantic partnership but it’s just

(58:36) energy flowing between the two people and we can block it or we can open the channel and we can sometimes be too open and sometimes we may be too closed and we just got to find that balance that she that balance of the energy we have a magic mob question from sarah she says what are the best things i can do to heal after a breakup um yeah it’s it’s really you know so painful to go through that and one of the best things you can do is to remind yourself that this is grief um a lot of times i think people

(59:10) are kind of encouraged to just like move past their breakup very quickly it’s not like embraced by their friends or their family as really grief um and so number one just giving yourself that validation i’ve lost something that mattered to me whether it was good or not good that i lost it um and i’m grieving that loss and i’m grieving all of the things that i thought were going to come next that can’t now because of it and so that grief process looks like allowing yourself to feel it you know revisiting memories writing

(59:47) about it if you need to and if that feels like too much you can also kind of create like a grief time for yourself after your breakup where you say to yourself you know i’m really going to allow myself every night at 8 p.m to just sit and be really sad about this and i’ll write about it or listen to music we liked or look at pictures and then i’ll have some sort of ritual that brings me some sort of um peace right so maybe i’ll go make dinner at nine o’clock or i’ll go take a shower other important things is to find people

(1:00:25) that you can talk about it with you know and also remembering who you can’t so don’t keep going to the friend that says to you oh my god you’ve got to get over it you know that’s not going to make you feel any better go to it might only be an accountability partner yeah go to somebody that cares and gets that it’s hard they’re not going to let you like wallow forever but they know they’re wrong what about um do you have a tip for someone who um is struggling not contacting their ex in the middle of the pain

(1:00:56) yeah it’s that’s really really hard mm-hmm yeah i mean and it’s it’s really kind of biological that we want to we want to connect addiction yeah and we have like an attachment to a human being we have energy with them and it’s gotten cut and it’s a normal human reaction to feel panic because when we used to live like out in villages we really needed our people to keep us safe so it feels really scary to lose somebody and that that creates anxiety that makes us kind of like reach out to somebody

(1:01:31) don’t leave me don’t leave me behind but one thing to remember is that every time you’re reaching out you’re actually kind of recycling all of these attachment hormones in your body yeah and it’s like taking a drug so you’re feeling it again it feels really good and then you’re gonna crash you know you’re not gonna hear from them and then you’re going to need them again and they’re going to become what you’re dependent on for feeling better so taking that space is actually

(1:02:00) physically really healthy for you too [Music] does make it easier though no no no no it’s hard and i think that’s another thing it is really hard and very hard no bypassing that so you’re not doing it wrong if it feels like it’s hard it is and then you like you also think like well i just have one thing i need to say yeah if i get this off my chest i’ll feel better yeah yeah yeah it’s like they go in either direction right i have to tell them how much they suck or how much i love them yeah exactly and then once you

(1:02:30) get on the phone and who knows what their motives are and where they’re at and it wraps you up into a whole nother thing it’s like uh i’m relating it to to trying to diet or trying to get on a workout program or something where you feel like you know i’m not having sugar anymore you know i’m not going to have the the bad sugars anymore and then you go in the cabinet and of course the cabinet’s full of things that you shouldn’t eat of course because you haven’t cleared that out yet and you

(1:02:56) decide that well if i just have one little bit i’ll be satiated i won’t feel this feeling or i deserve it for you know you make all these reasons you justify why you should have that donut or call your ex or whatever the thing is because you know for whatever the reason you’ve made and then after you do it you always feel shittier and you might have to do like kind of outrageous things you know i actually when i had a breakup where i just made all the justifications in the world i left my phone at home you know i would

(1:03:28) say you know what i’m running to the grocery store and this phone is not coming with me because if it does i’m going to convince myself of something really really stupid i had a yeah i had a girlfriend once that was like i like she wanted to text her ex so bad and then she said i’m going to set an alarm for an hour and if when that hour alarm goes off if i still want to text it i’ll let myself but she said that almost never did she still feel the need once the hour alarm went off because she would fill

(1:04:00) that power with either working out or reading a book or something so um i think it also has a lot to do with them controlling impulses so hard yeah and i think like letting the feeling pass we are so reactive to the feeling of like i have to do something and you know when i would leave my phone at home and go to the store for an hour i actually had to like sit with myself in that feeling yeah and it shifted and by the time it shifted i didn’t need to relieve it anymore because it already had done something different and yeah i would get

(1:04:30) home and i you know for the next five minutes i wouldn’t want to do it again but um but sometimes five minute increments is all you can do you know like yeah just get through that just get through it and do whatever you have to do to get through it and there’s no shame in that because this is truly something that is very painful and everyone struggles with it so if you’re thinking i just should be over it already or my friends get over it believe me i see lots and lots and lots of people in my office

(1:05:05) everyone has struggled with a breakup and it’s really painful and it’s a deep neural groove that you’re trying to soften and that takes time and and essentially like the way that you created the habit of being with that person you have to create a habit of being without that person in the opposite direction so it’s just it’s like as hard as breaking any other habit might be um if you have the time liz i do just want to touch on the big bang in relationships and validation if you have that type of time to give us

(1:05:36) yeah i can do that and then would it be cool if we hopped off after that yeah yeah well we have our staple questions though mercedes that we we truly well okay do you wanna our stable questions are like super quick speed questions so maybe we ask those first just so that we have them what’s your time what i’m just trying to be respectful of your time list so just let us know like five minutes okay so let’s just go to the staple questions then okay okay sorry so uh we have so much info we just share to the world that i know we

(1:06:08) haven’t broached but we’ll get there on a different episode we can talk again yeah yeah all right so there’s a few short questions we like to ask everyone who comes on the show first off if you could hug your younger self right now what would you say that’s such a sweet question um i think i would say that it’s okay to speak because when i was little i was really really really shy and i would never ask for anything ever and so i would tell her it’s okay you can ask for things i like that yeah

(1:06:40) if you could have the whole world read one book which would it be um oh my gosh this question is hard when you let me know about this question because there’s so many books that i love but um you know i really love the untethered soul i think that we get that a lot do you oh i’m so unoriginal it’s an important book i’m glad it gets repeated clearly clearly it’s an important book i just i know that i’m talking about relationships and it’s not necessarily a relationship book but i just think it’s such a powerful book

(1:07:14) to truly being able to like in a sense be with yourself yeah i would have i i think it is a relationship book it’s just a relationship with yourself yeah totally and you know i just it’s a beautiful book so that that’s my recommendation yeah beautiful if you could whisper one phrase to everyone on the planet what would it be [Music] before we let you go where can people find you online sure so you can find me on instagram liz listens or at my practice which is philadelphia based which is www.betterlifetherapy

(1:07:52) and if you find me at liz listens i also have a membership program called love lessons 365. and the easiest way to find it is just through my instagram you know click the link in the bio yeah you have a great a great account so thank you so much for what you do so nice to meet you both today and thank you for having me on yeah thank you for being thanks for being an inspiration and being a light yeah thank you and thanks for sticking with um all of this of course it was worth it thank you so we will send you uh the the launch date for this

(1:08:28) episode and any promos we make for it and that type of stuff we’ll email that all over awesome thank you awesome wonderful bye all right that was a lot of a lot of magic tricks in one episode we got a lot in but i had so much more to add i know i just love though that it’s like when you ask a question she’s like well there’s four well there’s three yeah there’s four that’s what i i i love that because it’s the structure i love the structure i love lips it’s attainable and i can remember okay

(1:09:06) there’s four like yeah make sure sometimes i’ll be in the shower and i’ll be like i need to text four people when i get out do not forget these four number four yeah yeah and so it helps me um you know like uh that um the what is it uh done miguel ruiz’s book um the foreground the four agreements yeah it’s just like it’s your number i know but well four is the number of stability actually you know the four things on a chair on a table it’s what stabilizes so but um square is very stable yeah yeah but i

(1:09:36) just yeah i just loved how she had that but um but i actually um i love how to throw out random things like a square it’s very stable and like you and i we don’t it doesn’t faze us people probably listening or like what the are these things wrong with the triangle but uh so anyhow she had a lot of magic in this episode and i i felt like it was so applicable um and i pulled my magic trick from her page which is something that like this is something i’ve been trying to work on for two decades probably since i knew

(1:10:10) that like i was doing this so probably like 11 12 years old but i i um would come up with little things like you know making little notes on my um you know on a post-it or something like that and i just have never really um found a trick like this but so her um from her page liz listens she posted a communication hack so she said before you add your two cents during a pause in a conversation count to five to make sure the other person is truly finished and that’s something like for me i always think that they’re done

(1:10:46) i always think someone’s done because they take a pause and then i start talking and then like they start talking right when i start talking and then i realize that i’m interrupting and i really thought that i was getting better at not interrupting just because i waited for the pause so she takes it a step further and says count to five so um you know obviously not out loud but um she says when i was studying to be a therapist this was one of my favorite hacks sometimes i’d have something important

(1:11:12) to say to a person or couple i was working with but i didn’t want to interrupt them and i struggled with the art of this because i also didn’t want to let the conversation go on too long i do this to the point that i missed my moment to explore something important that they’d say so that’s that’s a big struggle of mine is i think [Music] right um so what i learned to do when i had a thought i wanted to share or a question i wanted to ask was to count to five or ten she said she mostly counts to 10 and

(1:11:41) her mind she learned a few things in this practice one i didn’t really need to interrupt they ended up taking themselves where i was going to go anyway which is probably you know always true for me too uh two i didn’t really need to interrupt because by sitting quietly they ended up giving me more information that made what i wanted to say more powerful um three they ended up finishing up within five to ten seconds anyways for i did need to ask my question or interrupt but nothing was lost by waiting to make sure yeah so

(1:12:15) um she says i now do this naturally i have a thought or a question and i just wait a moment i tune into the other person and into myself to make sure it really needs to be said but the counting in my head hack really helped in the beginning you can use it too whether you’re in a business meeting with a friend or an argument with your partner take a few to decide if your question needs to be asked or your thought needs to be shared you’ll notice you end up hearing so much more than you usually do and you’ll also learn to make edits to

(1:12:41) your interruptions so i remember on our very first episode when we asked paul selig what would you tell your younger self he said he said something that was really powerful and it was our first time like feeling really vulnerable with a guest like that because he was our first guest and i didn’t count to five i just i just moved on to the next question yeah because i i don’t know and and what’s a bummer is right when i started to ask uh the next question he started to go deeper in his answer and i’m sure it

(1:13:10) would have been so much you know more vulnerable and and um just such a uh especially people like paul selig you know um who who’s so open already so i still that was a year and a half ago and i still think about that interruption i made so um yeah so i’m gonna really start to work on this counting to five we’re counting to ten um as a communication hack but i know you pulled your magic trick from her page as well so i did but before i get into that i wanted to just so many things came up while you’re

(1:13:41) saying that that i think are interesting did you count to five yeah i was gonna count to five out loud right now you had already pushed me to my magic trick which i thought was interesting because uh this this idea of like uh it’s almost like an anxiety that comes about us when we feel like we have a good idea we want to express and we want to get it across in the midst of a conversation that has invited us to essentially or that’s how we’re feeling it feels like um you want something on your hair because

(1:14:10) we only have so much time with our guests yes and just in life in general especially when we are like time restrictive people and want to make sure we get our stuff all into our schedule so we want to make sure we get heard too because it’s such an important part of being human and you happen to be this very intuitive person but when it comes to this specific thing interrupting or like in conversation where you want to be heard you drop your intuition for some reason like all those things you mentioned about what liz says about the

(1:14:38) five second taking five seconds is about being intuitive allowing the other person to have the intuition exchange and have that connection of like they might actually bring up what you are going to approach or they might finish talking in just a moment or whatever it is but you’ve closed off your listening ear in that moment and now you’re just worried about what you’re having to say and getting it it’s not so much that as much as it is i’m respe i’m truly because this is why i’m so timely i’m always on time i’m

(1:15:09) truly trying to be respectful of the other person’s time and so i’m trying to squeeze in as much as possible while not going over because i know that they fit us into their schedule it was like kind of them to do so and so i’m trying to like make sure i don’t um [Music] you know be i’m not being selfish in a way of like well let me just talk about what i want to talk about or well let’s cover this i’m trying to like stick to their timeline as well you know yeah i think i understand why you’re relating that to

(1:15:41) this show but i’m saying that in life in general you you mentioned that that’s something that you want to heal in yourself is this interrupting things so i think there’s a piece of it that has to do with um the anxiety of wanting to be heard and maybe there’s something deeper you know to play that on yeah outside of the show that’s true yeah and then so but you happen to be this intuitive person so i see those contrasts like very interesting to me that you have this ability to listen to so well to

(1:16:09) people that you have an intuition you have a psychic ability yet you have this one part of your life that’s very frustrating to yourself of you feel like you’re interrupting you feel like you’re going to be a dick you know you’re going to come off like a dick because you’re interrupting and um so maybe there is like some mantra or something you can pull out of whatever that is for you so you can see yourself in the moment of don’t worry there’s going to be enough time there’s enough abundance there’s

(1:16:34) not scarcity of time so that i get to express myself i get to be seen and heard whether in this moment or otherwise and maybe the other person will read your energy of calmness and it’ll allow for that piece of the conversation that you’re so excited to bring up to flow out you know one way or another and to just trust essentially that that’s yeah allowed and i think like we talked a lot about scarcity mindset abundance mindset and that’s one of those things you have to yeah that does go into that yeah like let go of

(1:17:05) the thing you want to say so bad in that moment because the only way it’s going to get to have its rightful amount of time and be able to be respected is if you let it go enough that it you know what i’m saying like otherwise we get so rigid and then we get lost um yeah and it brought up this other thought that was something we didn’t cover in this conversation that liz speaks on so eloquently and um i feel like we’d be a miss if we didn’t bring it up and it was validation and i feel like that’s kind

(1:17:35) of what you’re first of all giving to the other person when you respect their their what they’re saying right you respect you’re giving them you’re giving a person you’re in conversation with validation just by allowing them to finish their sentence and their thought fully and give them that five extra seconds or however you want to accomplish that and that’s so huge because then they in response by you being a light in doing that give you the same thing in return hopefully you know and they validate you by saying okay now

(1:18:05) now it’s your turn turn to speak and you get to have the stage yeah and um one thing liz says about validation specifically is that there’s like a few i don’t know if she has three or four phase four steps to it probably but um she covers being uh saying the words that makes sense to me because yeah when you respond to somebody even if you’re not necessarily in agreement fully of course being in agreement with them you can easily validate them because you’re in agreement so you go yeah i totally agree

(1:18:35) with that that’s a big thing in the harvard hendrix book on how to mirror you always say that makes sense it makes sense to me that you feel blank because blank yeah those words that make sense to me and then because is the ex exciting end of that sentence that makes the other person feel fully validated even if you don’t like if you’re having a political conversation the other side can still make sense to you if you listen to what they’re saying because they’re another human with another perspective and it’s important to hear

(1:19:03) you know their side of it and then validate it and saying that makes sense to me because in giving whatever that reasoning is and she says curiosity is the other piece of validation that i think a lot of people maybe overlook and i think specifically talking about this interrupting magic trick that you’re giving us curiosity is the probably the missing piece there because you’ve already decided you probably agree that’s why you’re excited to say the piece you want to say and you don’t want to interrupt with or that it makes

(1:19:33) sense to you so you want to give your piece and you know feel you you have an intelligent opinion to add to this conversation but the curiosity piece is what i think can kill a conversation or make it thrive so it’s about what we say on the show a lot be interested not interesting and that means shutting your mouth because you’re probing with questions you’re coming up with thoughtful questions because you’re actually interested in what this other person has to say and that’s the most validating thing you can ever do for

(1:20:05) another human i think and uh and by not worrying about being interesting right by interjecting with your opinion or saying the thing you want to say so you can look interesting you suddenly have this error of curiosity about you that makes you interesting because um a thing that gets repeated a lot and i read it in one of the first books i read on this type of subject of how to communicate with others it’s a really old book it’s called how to win friends and influence people that book is i have a look one of the first things i

(1:20:40) say is um that this idea of be interested not interesting but he puts it into example he’s like i was at a dinner with a guy who was you know a doctor in something that i had no idea about so i had all these questions to ask him about his profession at the end of the dinner i went home and then my friend who had hosted the dinner called and said that guy that guy the guy who wrote this book was the most interesting person i had ever met yet the guy specifically didn’t say anything about himself he only asked questions about the person

(1:21:13) yeah it’s really we just want to be validated and yeah that’s a good magic trick i think it um it’s it both of ours went really well together um that wasn’t even my magic trick it’s just something i wanted to broach oh do you want to turn it into your magic trick now that we’ve gone so long though yeah okay so maybe maybe in or i’ll edit out what i just said but do you want to say an ending to it or you want to just end it with me saying our communication hack so that is that wasn’t actually my magic trick for

(1:21:48) the show today but i’m going to leave it at that and use what i was going to talk about um which is exploring your partnerships for a different episode because that’s a lot to be said on this yeah and that’s a good one too um yeah i love that they’re both communication hacks and um uh both things that i really need to apply so i’m really thankful for those um all right magic moppers thank you so much for tuning in and taking this journey with us if this episode held some magic for you please share it with your friends and

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