How to Create a Truly Flourishing Relationship

Welcome to the Happiness Squad Podcast. Your weekly dose of practical tips and inspiration to help you operate at your fullest potential, integrating the science of flourishing.

Into how you live, work and lead.

I'm your host, Ashish Kothari, the founder and CEO of Happiness Squad and author of the best selling book Hardwired for Happiness. I will be your personal guide on your journey to explore the many facets of happiness, well being and flourishing, from personal growth to building more positive environments at work. In each episode we will share powerful insight, tips and stories from our guests who are leading experts, company executives and flourishing solution providers that you can implement right away to make happiness your competitive edge. Whether you're looking to overcome life's challenges, to go from good to great, or to enhance your team's performance through flourishing, this podcast is the place for you to find more joy, health, love and meaning in everything you do. Join us every week as we rewire for Happiness together.

Hi dear friends. Welcome to yet another episode of the Happiness Squad Podcast. This one is the third in our series of the solo podcast that we are recording, one a month on how you can use the Sunflower model to really hardwire yourself for happiness and to really resolve many of the issues that we deal with in our day to day lives. So one of the key topics that we're going to cover today is the topic of how we deepen relationships with our spouses, our partners, as a way to truly flourish. So one of the longest running studies at Harvard on flourishing clearly highlighted the quality of relationships as one of the most important drivers of flourishing. And there is no relationship that is more near and in front of us and where we spend the most amount of time than those with our partners and our spouses. So we're going to start there and we're going to talk about how these nine practices can really help us deepen that relationship and through that relationship ensure that we are happier, more resilient, more adaptable and truly flourish. We are able to better navigate whatever life throws at us. So that's what we're going to focus on today in our discussion. So let's start with why are we actually even talking about this? Why is such a big deal now? You know, marriages are one of the happiest moments in somebody's life. I know they were for mine. I still remember when I got married to Lizzie. Every day in that on April 11 is really enriched and etched in my mind and it is really one of those highlights of my life. It fundamentally shifted my life into such a big, big, big Positive direction. I'm sure it was the same for you as it's for so many. On that day we make vows to be with each other till death drew us apart. But yet, at least in the U.S. over 40% of those relationships end up in separation or divorce within the first eight years. Over 50% overall of marriages result in divorce and separation. 40%, as I mentioned, within even just the first eight years. So what goes wrong? What happens? And how can we prevent that from happening? Because when it doesn't go well, when relationships do go sour, they come at the huge amount of emotional, financial, mental stress and difficulties and suffering that we face from it. So how do we make sure that that doesn't happen? And instead we, what we are able to is harness all the positive effects that marriages and partnerships can give for us. Now we know from research done by Dr. Brendan Case and Tyler Manderweel, who are both Associate director and Director of the Human Flourishing Program at Harvard, who've studied these at length, have found they found that marriage promotes human flourishing. It results in increased longitivity. Those who are married find higher purpose in life. They have lower depression and loneliness. They experience greater happiness and hopefulness. They also found that the effects of marriage are significant in terms of reduction in smoking, heart disease, stroke, and all causes of mortality during the 25 year period. In fact, almost a 30% reduction. We know when marriages are healthy, relationships are healthy. They are big source of joy, that foundation. In fact, I would say that, you know, finding the right spouse or creating right conditions with your spouse, where both of you grow together and get tighter, deeply connected with each other can be the biggest source of joy and the most important decision you would make in your life. So let's talk about that and let's talk about how do we do this? Because we all are in, we face conflicts and relationships because the answer is not to avoid conflicts, because conflicts is what gives us direction on what's working versus what's not. Life throws us obstacles. Life throws us hardships. And if we have a strong relationship, we can get better. So the research that I turn to as part of the book and what I want to highlight for you here, and which is what most of this episode is going to be around, is going to be the research done by Dr. John and Julie Gottman, two of the preeminent researchers around relationships, and what they were studying was around what actually makes relationships not work, in addition to what makes relationship work. And they coined what has now been called the golden ratio, the Gottman Ratio. Five is to one. What they found in their research as they studied couples that stayed together and couples that drifted apart, that there was a very distinctly different pattern in how they resolved their conflicts and the overall space in which they interacted. Those spaces were not characterized by one is to one, one positive versus one negative interaction. But five is to one, five positive to one negative interaction. So the negative interactions are things like anger, blaming, defensiveness, name calling. Positive interactions are one that are filled with joy, appreciation, gratitude, hope, love, intimacy. So five is to one was the ratio that they found in those couples who stayed together versus those who got divorced. They had a 0.81. They had slightly more negative interactions than positive interactions. How do we do that? Let's talk about some really specific strategies by truly leveraging the Sunflower model. Let's first talk about how the Sunflower model can help us generate positive emotions. The first and foremost thing that we often miss, we can turn to is the power of gratitude. Intentionally practicing gratitude and appreciation for our spouse can be a really, really powerful thing that most of us forget to do. Our minds, which are wired for negativity, always go to the negative things that are not going well. Quite contrast, isn't it to when we first meet our partners for the first time. Love at first sight. That first meeting, we are so enamored. We're looking at all the positive things about them. How beautiful they look, how vivacious they are, how kind they are, how they ask questions. They're interested in us, how they make us feel. That's what we are focusing on. But over time we take those for granted. The hedonic property of the brain, the hedonic adaptation. And instead we start focusing on all the things that they're not doing well. They might be a little messy, they might be a little absent minded. They might be too. Thinking from the heart or too much from the head versus we might be different. They might over time have, you know, when we first go out and start dating, you know, we want to look our best. When we get married and we're living, we might not have enough energy to take care of ourselves as much. Over time we stop appreciating, we start giving thanks. So one of the micro practices that I invite you to start to do, it's actually in our rewire program that you can look at as well, is being a gratitude detective. Start to notice, keep a journal. Start to notice all the things that they do for you that you might take for granted. It might be that, that you don't, you know, it might be that they do the laundry and they folded your clothes. It might be that they are playing a bigger role in taking care of your children, cooking meals, keeping in touch with friends, taking the initiative. There are so many things that our spouses do that we don't notice. Asking, how are you? When you come back, offering a word of kindness, just start to notice all the different things that they're doing every day that are making it possible for you to enjoy what you're doing. For this is especially important for couples that are both working because in addition to the busyness that comes with work, we often start thinking about what they're doing and what they're not doing versus what I'm doing. And that can be a huge source of frustration and agony. Instead, let's look at what they are doing for us and small ways in which they are contributing to our quality of life and the life of our children. Second is we can turn to things that we do together and that is well being. Look, our lives, our work lives and what we have coming at take so much pressure. They put so much pressure on us when we have kids. Even if we don't have kids, we have busy jobs and often acts of well being, physical, mental, spiritual, are great opportunities to do together with our spouses. They are activities that we engage. Whereas we do these activities we are actually truly focusing on deepening our intimacy. Play gets in. So let's talk about three things that can make a big, big, big difference. You know, physically, we can go for runs or walks together. My wife and I, through Covid, always, at least every day, went for a walk. It made a big difference to us. When it comes to mental, we can think about building a new skill. Maybe you think about starting a dance class, maybe you start learning a new language because you're planning a trip outside. Thinking about activities that you can do together can renew that spark, can renew the fun and play. And then the third around spirit, is spending time in nature or any spiritual as part of spiritual communities. Maybe it's a church you go to, maybe it's a temple. Spending time in nature, going on hikes, planning excursions with your spouse and your kids can be really, really powerful ways. Nature is an amazing healer. It calms our emotions, we are grounded and it creates that opportunity where we can both experience awe, we can experience oneness with each other and one with the universe. So the second petal of well being and actively thinking about doing well being together rather than well being for me can be a very, very powerful way, especially given how busy we are with our lives right now. And how many demands do we have on each other? The third one that I would turn to around positive emotions is acts of kindness. Now we know that when we give, we receive so much more. And there is no relationships worth giving into than those with our loved ones, with our partners, Whether it is a week or every other week, surprising your partner with, with some flowers, a smile, a hug, maybe a surprise unplanned date night. Small little acts of kindness that we can give to our partner or maybe to those who they care about can make such a, such a big difference to a relationship around more positive emotions that we can generate in a relationship. Now we can further amplify it by taking on volunteer activities together maybe once a week or once a month, even once a quarter. Something that we engage in together to make an impact in the communities in which we live and with people we care about. Again, things that we do together in the service of another grounds us in the shared humanity of how much struggle there is out there. And collectively we are making a difference. That act of giving that you do together, that seed that you sow, will continue to reap rich fruits way beyond that act itself. So the third one is practicing acts of kindness for self and for others. The fourth practice, around the sunflower that can be really helpful in generating positive emotions is the practice of purpose and meaning. Continuously grounding ourselves despite the busyness of life, despite everything that comes at us on our bigger why can be such a huge source of renewal and recommitment? Now I know of many couples who every 7, 8, 10, 12, 15 years, you choose the number, renew their vows. Imagine if we renewed our commitment to each other every quarter. Every quarter, taking a step back and connecting together and really having a conversation heart to heart, where we give each other time and space to say, what are your dreams? What's working well for you? What's not working well? How are things going at your job? How are things going with your friends? You know, in the day to day struggle, we get so busy in the mundane that we forget to notice the magical. We're so busy problem solving and together creating solutions to, you know, your son or daughter are sick, or you know your boss is not as understanding, or your targets are high, or the plumbing needs to be fixed, the faucet is leaking, et cetera, et cetera, that we actually forget the time. We don't take the time to just connect with each other. We all grow, we all change. Change is a part of life, but we still hold on to the image of the person that we fell in love with way beyond when they've changed. Just think about how much you've changed. And these quarterly check ins can be a really, really powerful way to continue to dream together, invest together, you have your North Star and to continuously tack so that you're going in the right direction versus drifting apart. The next practice that can help us really practice and increase positive emotions is the practice of mindfulness. Now mindfulness is an overall meta practice. Why is it so important? Because for connection, love, admiration to grow, we need to be physiologically and emotionally grounded. We need to be calm, we need to be stable. And mindfulness as a practice, whether we do it together with our spouses and with our younger children, or we do it individually, can really help us on our own lower our emotional triggers. We know with meditation our amygdala shrink, our prefrontal cortex increases in gray matter, our emotional regulation goes up. And that's a really powerful skill to invest in. Because in conflict, when we get triggered, when that fight flight freeze mechanism is active, this is the meta skill. The work that we are doing now before it happens, can make a big, big, big difference in how we're going to respond to it. How are we going to find our center in the midst of the storm? So I invite you as a family to start mindfulness practices together. Maybe it's just a minute over dinner, maybe it is you start your days or end your days together rather than just numb ourselves over TV. We take five or 10 minutes to do mindfulness together. Now there's a couple of mindfulness practices techniques that I find to be really, really powerful. One is the practice of loving kindness. The meta meditation in Buddhism. Now the meta meditation works using these four phrases that we repeat. We have one in our community. You can use that. A script for this is also available in my book Hardwired for Happiness. You can use that. But you can also go to YouTube and just search for meta meditation and you can use that as a guide. In effect, it's using a series of phrases to help us start with those who we care about and move to those that are neutral, those that we don't like to the rest of the world sharing our loving kindness. And the phrases are may you be happy, may you be healthy, may you be free of suffering, and may you be at peace. So four simple phrases which we start by imagining somebody loved one sending those to us and then we sending it to them. We can practice this with our spouse in mind. We can practice this, sending it out to the rest of the community, cultivating loving kindness, compassion and good feelings for all.

We hope you're enjoying this episode. If you'd like to start building habits and integrating the hardwired for happiness practices into your life, come check out Rewire our program on the Happiness Squad website. Rewire contains 35 minute micro practices that can help you truly build habits for a happier, healthier life filled with more love and meaning. The program uses the science of habit formation and the power of community to.

Support you in moving from knowing to doing to being.

Now back to the episode.

The last practice that I would highlight here, and I think this is a big one, is connection. Connection, not just with their spouse, but really engaging in a rich web of relationships around us. You see, in our work lives, we get so busy that all we have is some time at home and maybe a little time for yourself. But we lose connection with our friends. We lose connections with the broader community. The richer the web of connections we have, the more support, support structures we've got, the stronger is going to be that foundation on which our relationship sits. It creates space. Together we can share the burden around creating amazing experiences. Both Lizzie and I are lucky to have a large set of friends that support us, that renew us, that nurture us. You know, it also reminds us when we truly connect with others that what we think are just our problems are not just our problems. These are shared problems. Everybody has them. So sometimes we run into the story of, oh, look at my life and all these issues. Everybody else has a perfect life and nothing is further removed. Dear friends, from truth. Conflicts are a part of life. Arguments are a part of life. Hardships are a part of life. It's true for all of them. Doesn't matter what we see in Instagram. Everybody has struggles. And that shared that we are going through is what others are going through can bring a level of levity into our lives, can bring a level of realism in our lives and still keep us committed to our relationships, to work through them together rather than escape them. So I talked a lot about, you know, I talked a lot about these positive emotions and ways in which we can generate them. And really it's all about taking responsibility. And I'm reminded of this beautiful story that I read in one of the teachings of Thich Nhat Hanh. You know, as many of you have heard the podcast, I deeply revere him as a teacher. I've learned so much from him. I read his books so frequently. So here was the teaching he was sharing an example of. Imagine, Imagine if you have a beautiful flower, it is colorful, it is so fragrant, and you bring it home, you notice a week or two weeks later that the flower starts to wilt. It's not looking so good. What is it that you do? I don't know about you, but my first reaction to a flower that's wilting is, I'll see what does it need? Maybe it doesn't have enough water. I'll put some water. Maybe it's not getting enough sun. So I put it in the sunlight. Maybe it needs some more nutrients. Maybe I put in some nutrients. So my focus is on figuring out how I can give what this particular flower needs. Now our relationships are the same. Our partners, our spouses, when we meet them, are like a fragrant flower. But over time, when they start to wilt, what do we do? Our focus immediately goes on blaming. You've changed. You're not giving me this, you're not giving me that. Our focus is not on us inquiring into what is it that that flower, our partner, needs. How are we contributing? And how can, more important, regardless of what we are contributing, take responsibility to create conditions for that flower to blossom again, to be fragrant of a. To be filled with color again. It's available to us, my dear friends, and these positive emotions, the practices I shared with you can be really powerful ways in which we can take small steps towards bringing life back into our relationships with our partners. So now let's talk a little bit, switch gears and let's talk a little bit about how do we actually manage the negative emotions, the negative interactions, because as I said, conflicts are a core part of life. We are two different individuals. And if everything happened the way you want, where would there be space for another? And if there is needs to be space for another, there will be conflict because there will be a disagreement that you will jointly resolve together. So a big, big part of how we practice and how we have better conflicts we can learn from. Again, going back to John Gottman and what he found, he found four key archetypes, four key moves when we are engaged in, in a conflict are sure predictors of divorce and us falling, our relationships falling apart. I found these to be really, really powerful. And some things that I try my best to keep in mind. My wife, Lizzie will tell you that I always don't succeed, but hopefully all the positives we infuse 15 years in are resulting in our relationship, which continues to bring me joy. And I love her more every day than the day before. And I hope this is for you too. So let's talk about the four Horsemen. The four horsemen that John and Julie talk about are, number one, criticism. Verbally attacking or blaming the other person. Second is contempt, which is attacking their sense of self with an intent to abuse or insult. So in first, we're criticizing. You're not doing this well. The second is, you are a horrible person. You don't listen to me. You are self centered. The first is criticism. The second is contempt. The third is defensiveness. This can show up in two ways. Either we make ourselves a victim or we point back at them to say, yeah, that's like pot. Calling the kettle black is interesting. This coming from you. So we can be defensive. And the fourth one, which is stonewalling, we tune out. Our partner is telling us something that we're finding hard to process. So we just tune out. What happens then? My friends, the blame, the criticism, the contempt only goes stronger because they're like, you're not listening to me. So instead of these four, we can make four different moves. What are the four different moves? First, instead of criticizing or blaming the other person, let's say you're sitting down for dinner and your partner is going on and on about their day and how horrible of a day they've had and all the things they had to go through. And 20 minutes in, you feel that you've had a pretty hard day yourself, but they haven't asked you anything. So one way in which criticism would show up is, hey, you've spent the last 15 minutes completely talking about you. Or maybe they're so tired they haven't talked at all. They're just eating their food. You haven't engaged at all. You don't. What's wrong with you? Why didn't you ask me anything? Criticism. So there are four, as I mentioned, Horsemen of Apocalypse. As John and Julie Gottman in their research highlight criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling. Let's think about what are the four antidotes or four different ways in which we can show up to still have the conflict, still have the disagreement, but not have it in a way that destroys relationships but strengthens them. So the first is by truly focusing on and talking about our feelings as I and expressing them not as a complaint, but as a need. So, for example, instead of saying, you only care about yourself, you're not listening to me. You haven't asked me about how my day was. Let's instead focus on saying something like, hey, I wanted to share that. I am feeling like sharing what my day went like. And There isn't enough space here for me right now. Second, instead of defensiveness, what do you mean? When we hear a criticism, we can take accountability and saying, I'm sorry for you feeling this way, Tell me about your day. So instead of defensiveness, we can take accountability, we can take responsibility. We can take responsibility to understand the other's perspective and inquire for a minute. The third, instead of contempt, we can create a culture of appreciation. All the things we talked about in creating positive emotions, gratitude, appreciation can go a big part, can play a big role in that. And fourth, instead of stonewalling, which is we turn off, we can explicitly ask for a break. We can turn towards what they call physiological self soothing. Let's take a break. Let's spend some time apart so we can be in the right emotional space to have the conversation. It's not always possible to be present. This might not be the right moment. We might be physically exhausted or emotionally drained. Nothing to do with what's happening here, but with what might be carrying from the past or from our day. So four moves in the midst of a conflict that we can use. Instead of criticizing, owning and sharing what you're feeling versus what their role is in making you feel that rather than placing blame, let's take ownership of how we are feeling and what we need. Rather than calling names and thinking about and making it about their personality or in some shape or form about their sense of self, let's tune in and focus more on the positives. Instead of defensiveness, let's take perspectives and inquire. And instead of stonewalling, let's take a break. I think those can be really powerful. But there are other ways that we can continue to use the petals of the sunflower, those practices to work on negative emotions. And the second one that we can turn to is actually letting go of the past, surrendering, which is again, a key practice in mastering your emotions. Now I want to share a story with you which really captures a lot of how we go on in life. So this is the story again of two Buddhist monks, a younger monk and an older monk. It was raining a lot. They were at the bank of a river and they had to cross it. The water was flowing very strongly. And on their side of the road was a beautiful woman who was stranded and she's quite afraid to cross the river. And she asked for help from these two monks. And the older monk said, yes, I will be happy to help you. And he picked her up, and together with the younger monk, they crossed the river and at the end of the river, they put her down and they continued on their journey. Two days after the event, the younger monk comes up to the older monk and says, master, I haven't been able to put this thought aside. It's constantly been bugging me. We took a vow to be celibate, to not touch, come in touch with the opposite sex. But you carried that woman across, you broke that vow. And I'm really struggling with this because I don't think you should have done that. The older monk smiled and said to the younger monk, you know, I left that woman on the bank two days ago. Why are you still carrying her two days after? In relationships with our spouses, with our partners, how many of us continue to carry past hurts, past mistakes, past resentments, way past there over. We continue to water the seeds of hatred, pain. We relive a mistake, a harsh word that was uttered. We keep sowing the seeds of unpleasant emotions. Instead, we can practice surrendering, letting go, accepting and moving on. Now, one powerful practice that I've learned that makes a big difference is writing out what's happened, writing out the hurt, writing out the disappointment, writing out the act. Let's write it out. And then you can burn it. If you have a fireplace, you can make a little fire, or you can tear it apart and throw it. And with that, make a vow that I'm letting go. I'm choosing to let go. I'm choosing to forgive. And it's not for them, but it's for you. Because anger, resentment, holding on to hurts is that poison that we drink, hoping for the other to feel hurt or for them to die. But it does more harm to us. Forget about the fact that in this, that also hurts the other person because we are in such intimate relationship with each other. So that's the second thing that I would highlight, which is truly letting go of the past hurts. The third, even in conflict that we can turn to, is the practice of compassion. Because if there is one thing that is true, no matter how harsh, how hard, how hot the conflict is, no matter who's right or wrong, in any conflict, there is suffering, and that suffering is for both. Now, with a loved one, we can tune into that level of compassion for ourself and for the other, recognizing that they are suffering too. Just like us, they also want happiness and joy, and we can use that to truly open our heart. It can be such a powerful practice. Because in those moments, let's say, if they are blaming us and we are feeling attacked, our brains naturally go to attack. Or to numb, move away. But instead we can, rather than closing, we can open up and recognize that suffering that they're in. We might even apologize to say, I'm so sorry you're feeling this way. Apologizing for how they're feeling does not require you to take blame for what you did. Oftentimes we confuse that. We can still feel sad, we can still express love for how they're feeling because we deeply care about them. And from that place, see what emerges. The fourth practice that we can turn to, and this is a really important one, dear friends, in avoiding unpleasant emotions, is the practice of intention setting. What do I mean by intention setting? Intention setting. In this practice, we talk about boundaries and living life based on what we intend, where we want to go, rather than continuously responding to what life is bringing on for us. So the first thing when it comes to intention setting is really setting boundaries to spend time with our spouses, our partners, often in our day to day drive to achieve more at work, to progress. We constantly draw and make withdrawals from our relationships, from our loved ones. Our bosses might not be as accepting as our spouses, and so we take them for granted. And we keep spending more and more time in work and we keep under investing in those relationships at home till they break apart. So a really important part of intention setting is setting clear boundaries collectively together on how and when you want to spend time together. Second is when we are spending time together, practicing really being present, practically being present with each other, for each other. There's so often I see couples where they're together but both are on their phone, or they might not be on a phone, but they are lost in their own thoughts. I know, I've done that myself so many times and my wife always reminds me, put your phone down or you're not even here. We all make mistakes, but we can remind ourselves when we are to truly practice being present. In fact, one of the ways in which we can do that is by starting by one mindful minute before a meal together. Now in many traditions that was part of when we said grace, we really consciously disconnected from what was out there to the gifts laid out in front of our table, and through things that we have done together, prepared the meal together. You can do that through grace, you can do it through a prayer, you can do it through mindfulness. One mindful minute where we connect with each other, bring our minds where our bodies are to enjoy the meal, and then the third is around really creating time. Dear friends, as I mentioned, at least once a quarter for real conversations with each other, conversations around how was your day? How's your job? How are things going? What are you excited about? Truly creating that space to dream together, to ask a lot of questions, to inquire into the state of the relationship, to state of where they want life to go. So with that we can craft how we spend the next quarter, the next six months, the next year together. Because friends, if we are not intentional about this, life will get in the way. So I hope these practices around both how do we generate more positive emotions and how we generate and manage and tamp down the negative emotions were helpful. So dear friends, I wanted to end this episode of the Happiness Squad podcast on how do we strengthen and deepen our relationships with this beautiful poem from the book the Prophet by Khalil Gibran. And this one is called On Marriage. Then Almitra spoke again and said, what of marriage, master? And he answered saying, you were born together, and together you shall be forever. You shall be together when the white wings of death scatter your days. Aye, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God. But let there be spaces in your togetherness, and let the winds of heavens dance between you. Love one another, but make not a bond of love. Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls. Fill each other's cup, but drink not from one cup. Give one another of your bread, but eat not from the same loaf. Sing and dance together, and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone, Even as the strings of a lute are alone, though they quiver with the same music. Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping. For only the hand of life can contain your hearts. And stand together, yet not too near together. For the pillars of the temple stand apart, and the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow. So friends, hope you found this episode helpful. Please comment, let us know your thoughts. Which practices resonated the most with you. Please share it with your friends. We're on a mission to reach a billion people, but we can't do that without your help. So we appreciate you reaching out. We appreciate you sharing what we are sharing here with your friends and colleagues in the spirit to collectively rewire ourselves for happiness. Thank you.

That wraps up another episode of the Happiness Squad podcast. We hope you found the insights actionable to enhance your journey towards happiness and fill your life with more joy, health, love and meaning. Please consider leaving us review and share the podcast with anyone in your professional or personal life who you feel will benefit from some of these very insights. It's a really simple way to extend support and spread positivity. Take care and remember, happiness is a choice that's available to you moment to moment in the here and now. Take care and see you next week.