Permission to Feel: Creating Safety for Emotional Intimacy (Podcast #90)

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But smile when you smile and laugh when you laugh.

Something's around. Welcome to the human intimacy podcast. Dr. Kevin Skinner. Marianne Michaelis, licensed clinical social worker. Today, Marianne, we're going to talk about emotions, right? And throughout our career, my career, I know you've experienced people who run into situations where they'll say something like, I can't feel this. It's not okay. So today we're going to be talking about emotions and what we do with emotions that maybe we are uncomfortable with. So, Marianne, get us started. What are your core thoughts?

Dr. Skinner? This week especially, I've noticed something that as a therapist, I maybe hadn't consciously noticed before. And as I've been working with my clients, I've noticed that there's a tendency for us, I think, just as humans, where we'll be maybe stepping into a place where maybe I'm stepping into some emotions. And we know that emotions can feel scary and big and heavy. And I don't know how to manage them or what to do with them. But I think there's a place that we haven't talked about and that's about giving ourselves permission to actually go into the emotion because our logic gets tied up here and our logic says, well, you're not allowed to feel that or that's not acceptable, or you have to justify, like you have to logically and mentally justify this emotion. And that's not justifiable, so you can't feel it. And it's an internal process that I've just really been observing that happens. And so we start to step into it and we exit back out because, no, I'm not allowed to have that emotion. It doesn't make Sense.

So many years ago, I learned this from a friend where she grew up in a home where anger was defined as a sin. And I think about just that statement in of itself. So what do I do when I feel something? Because the first initial anger that we feel is not a conscious choice. We experience it in the moment. It is there with us. We might not understand why we're angry, might not understand the intensity we feel, the physiological sensation. And yet, if anger is a sin, and I'm already feeling a sin because my body is responding to a threat.

Can I pull that out just a little bit more, Dr. Skinner? Because I think when we're talking about that initial physiological response, our logic thinking brain has not even kicked in yet to put a label on. I call this anger. All that's happening is we are having an emotional experience, and our body is reacting and responding to something. And then later on, that's where our thinking brain comes and says, I'm going to label this anger. And, oh, that's bad. I can't do that. But initially, we are just having an emotional experience. And then the thought part comes in, and it's like a policeman who says, nope, you cannot go there.

Right, Right. So I first learned about this concept concept from Dr. Joseph LeDoux. And I think I've shared this before in the podcast, but when he was researching how our brains experience thoughts and emotions, he said, clearly, the research shows that we feel fear or we feel an emotion before we think, not just an opinion. That that was his research that you feel before you think. Now, obviously it could be very differentiated, but if I hear something and it goes to two centers, it goes to the thought process, it goes to the emotional center, it's going to go to the fear center or the emotional center about twice as fast, which could be literally a half a second faster or less. But still you feel before you think. And so if there are certain emotions that we have been taught, you can't have that kind of emotion, whether it's anger or sadness or anxiousness. If you have that anxious intensity inside of yourself and you're not allowed to have that, that's just going to make it worse. When you start to feel it and you're like, oh, I can't go there. What happens to the body is you're unable to finish that. The meaning of it. You're not allowed to give it meaning because you're instantly shutting it down.

Right. And if we're looking at this in the lens of betrayal, trauma, my body feels something, My body's Having this physical reaction to something. It's an emotional, physical reaction because I haven't even put the words or the label to it yet, but my body's saying, something feels off, something's going on. And so whether we call it anxiety, whether we call it intuition, one of the things I talk so much with my clients about is really trusting your gut, listening to your body. I think we get conditioned. Whether it's through experiences where we're told, you're not allowed to feel that, you're not allowed to think that stop crying. Whether it's those messages that are overt, they're spoken out loud, or whether it's me turning to my partner and saying, something's off, something doesn't feel right, and my partner says, no, no, everything's fine. This gaslighting feeds into this. And I may have been conditioned over time to not even allow myself to feel an emotion. Like, the minute I even get close to it, my feelers even start going towards it. I've just been so conditioned by these messages all around me that I'm disenfranchising myself from even allowing myself to acknowledge that there might be an emotion there that I could even allow myself to feel.

Yeah. When I work through that with clients, I'll typically get their story. Because if you were sitting in my office, I would be looking at what are some of the common emotions that you experience? And, you know, if I'm working with a person who's acted out and hurt their family through their actions, I'll often hear, well, I feel a lot of shame. So is shame an emotion? Usually it's a secondary emotion, but it's still a powerful emotion that is a feeling of, there's something wrong with me. I'm not good enough. I'm a failure. I've let everybody down. And when we carry that inside of us, it's a physiological response. In fact, I've just had an experience this week where I just saw someone. I would say weeping would be an appropriate phrase for some of their actions. And they're so uncomfortable with it. It's like, I'm sorry I'm using your tissues. And I can't tell you how many times I've had clients say, I'm so sorry that I'm crying. And to me, I'm sorry I'm having this emotional experience in your office. Where does that idea come from that there's something wrong with those tears?

Yeah.

And when our society does that, Marianne, I think what we've taught ourselves as a culture, and I say it's cultural. I don't think this is just one family. I think it' culture. I think we're uncomfortable with difficult emotions. Let me give an example of this. Another one. So what do you say to someone when they've lost a loved one to death?

I'm so sorry for your loss.

I'm so sorry for your loss. And. And if we're not aware of that, we might say something like, oh, they're in a better place now.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. We try to make it better. We're problem solving.

So in other words, I'm afraid to go into that emotion with you. How are you doing? Yeah, I'm crushed. I'm scared. I'm afraid. I'm worried. Do we even open up to share those kind of emotions? Because we haven't been allowed to, as a culture to speak into real, authentic emotions unless we have somehow overcome the cultural barriers to that and realize, I'm going to be authentic with some of these real emotions that I'm having.

I think you bring up such a good point that I know I want to focus on for part of our conversation today, and that's this. Fix it. And I think it's part of the rationalization that I've been seeing. I recently heard a client say they were starting to. To step into some emotion. They said, oh, I do that too. So it's not okay for me to feel this emotion because I also have done that same thing. So this emotion is. I can't go there because I'm also guilty and I'm pushing back, saying, like, that doesn't fix anything. That doesn't change it. We want to often fix things, so, oh, well, they're in a better place. It completely sidesteps and skips over the emotion completely and says, oh, let's feel better. We just glossed over. We just completely missed such a big pool of emotion that's deep down there that needs to be felt and expressed. And I think one other part of this that I want to make sure that we're talking about is most of the time, like, going back to what you said with your client sitting in the office and, you know, coming in when you're saying, like, hey, what are you feeling? I'm going to say, most of the time, we don't know what we're feeling. We don't have the words. We're feeling something. And if somebody's weeping and you say, what are you feeling? Like, what. What are the words? What words do you put on? What's the label for I'm weeping right now. That's anguish, that's grief. That's something that we probably can't quantify. And can we allow ourselves to feel an emotion that doesn't have a label that we can't quantify? Just to say there's probably 25 emotions going on right here and they're all on a spectrum in different levels.

And what's so interesting about what you said there is, is that my language actually wouldn't be what are you feeling there? It would be what language comes with what you're experiencing with those tears. Do those tears have a voice? Do they have a language? And I'll even add to that. Where do you feel this in your body? Right. So I will shift it from just that, the feeling. Because the feeling, they may not have that language yet. Because again, I think that is a developed awareness. I don't think that we are inherently great at understanding our own emotions, but I can give it a language, a fear. I'm scared. Okay, that might be a feeling. Right. But I feel like a failure. I think that would have been what my client would have said. Right. I've let everybody down. And so you start to have a language with it and where do you feel that in your body? And that's a transition where they become more attuned to self physiologically. So for me it's actually rolling the three of them together. You've got emotions, you have your thoughts associated with that and then you have the physical sensations. So if you were client sitting in my office, we're going to explore this. These tiers which are so informative and so educational and so non shaming. It's like, wow, this is fantastic. You're doing great work.

I have two thoughts on this. So I'm going to take two different roads. The first road I want to go down. I love talking about tears and this is where I get a little bit nerdy. But did you know that our tears have different chemical compositions? So my happy tears or my sad tears or my I'm frustrated tears, when they take and look at them under a microscope and they, they break them all down, they're built of different chemicals.

That's fascinating.

Yes. So when we say if your tears could speak right now, what would they tell me? I think that's a profound question. And yes, I get excited about this nerdiness. Like, wow, what are these tears right here? Like they are actually really releasing chemicals. They're helping release an emotion. That's why oftentimes after we cry, we feel this this relief because we actually physically removed chemicals that were related to the emotion out of our body.

Yes.

Okay, there's the one thought, the other thought I want to go into or talk about and touch on with. This is some of the work done by Joe Bolte Taylor. And she's a neuro. She's a. She has a TED Talk. She also has a book called the Whole Brain Living. And what she talks about in her TED talk is having a stroke. And because she had studied the brain and all the anatomy of how the brain works together, she talks about watching what was happening to her as she had the stroke and the states that she was in and. And also coming back from the stroke, the rehabilitation. And she talks about the brain. She basically divides it into four parts and says the top left part of our brain is about. It's kind of like our type A personality. Like, here's my list of things that have to get done. Here's. I'm packing the bag to go to the beach and I got to make sure everybody's needs are met and, and maybe how I'll look. There's a lot of maybe judgment, shame, criticism, like, I've got to perform. It's kind of our performance brain, the lower left part of the brain. She talks about being our historical part in the past. This happened. So you better not do this. This is where our fight, flight or freeze kind of really kicks in. This is really just about creating safety. So there's a lot of judgment tied to our safety seeking tied there. The top right of our brain is really relational. It's about how will this impact the relationships? What will this do relationally? And has more of the emotions in it. And that bottom right side is more just about our being in the present. Like, what is the emotion that I'm feeling right now? And so she talks about when we're having any experience, whatever it is. She proposes that we want to bring all four parts of our brain together to have what she calls a brain huddle, where we're stopping and saying, okay, I can see you're driving right now, but can we let these other parts in? So if my spouse comes and says, I'm thinking about taking a new job in another place, that top left part of my brain might say, oh, okay, what about the money? What will this mean for us? Having to buy a new house or having to sell our house, like, all the logistics might start coming through. The right side of my brain might say, well, wait, this will be so hard. What about the relationships we have? What about leaving all the people that we care about. And these are two very radically different schools of thought. But this is what our brain is doing. And so it can be really helpful to start recognizing which part of my brain am I using, because that left side of the brain often disenfranchises or says, we can't go here with that relational part. I'm gonna be running the show. It feels threatening, and so I'm the driver. So starting to really recognize more about what's going on inside of our brain can give us permission to say, okay, let's check in historically, what do we know about when we've moved in the past? Yep, let's look at the money, let's look at all the logistics of it. Let's look at the relationships, and let's look at what I'm experiencing right here, right now, in this moment. What a wholesome way to live using.

Because we're merging together a range of thoughts and those feelings that are coming to us. There's something that I want to highlight there for a second, that relational component, because as we've been talking, you think about these emotions that I'm having our challenges in. This really then shifts into a relational challenge. And it two or three parts here. One is, do I feel comfortable sharing emotions in this relationship? Is it okay? We started off by, is it okay if I feel these emotions? But what if I have emotion? And it's not an environment where we are comfortable the sharing of emotions either direction. And then if we are comfortable with that, what that does to the relationship when we can share deeper, I'm going to call emotional intimacy. And that's ultimately would be our goal, where emotions are freely shared and experienced. And if I can be with you in your emotions, that's what we would refer to typically as having compassion or empathy. Where I can feel what you're feeling. I can feel your joy, I can feel your sadness, I can feel your grief and loss. I can feel your shame. And it not overwhelm me. See that, to me, Marianne, is where we begin to really mature in relationships, where we can be with people and their emotions and not be afraid of what they are experiencing. That's really the depth of where intimacy can come or not come, because the environment isn't yet safe enough to share those emotions.

I think I'm hearing two different things here. I want to just fact check with you if I'm hearing this right. I think what I'm hearing is we're talking about me myself. I need to figure out how to Start connecting with these four parts of my brain, basically, to figure out where I am, because sometimes I can be super reactive, and that might be my lower left part of my brain. That's like, historically, this has happened. Mayday, mayday, Mayday. So I need to figure out where, like, connect with all four of my parts to understand me so that I can see clearly. Allowing. Allowing it all in. But what I think I was hearing you say, if I'm getting this right, was when I've done that with myself or I'm in the place where I'm doing that, I've learned how to do that. This mastery, facing the world from this place. I think I'm hearing you talk about doing that with other people. Can I come and look at all four parts of them or all four parts of their brain? And recognizing that response that they had might not be their full response, but that might be coming from this part of their brain. Did I hear that right?

So, first and foremost, you're absolutely right. I think we have to do that ourselves. Then we have to understand, are we in a relationship where I'm comfortable with your emotions, and if I could really understand it, then yes, I would understand it from those parts as an observer.

Right.

So. So if we simplify it, our goal should be to create an environment where our spouse, our children, everyone close to us, are comfortable sharing emotions with us. If I'm not comfortable sharing an emotion with somebody, I have to say, is that on me, or is there something in our past that has prevented me from sharing these emotions? And if there is something in the past, then we probably need to figure out how to resolve that, because emotional intimacy, if you think about emotionally focused therapy, what did Sue Johnson do? In essence, basically, to simplify emotionally focused therapy, is can you share emotions with each other in a safe environment where you realize that my spouse is there for me or this person is there for me, because that's really what she says, are you there for me? In other words, when I'm having a difficult, painful day, are you there for me? That should be our goal.

There are three words that keep popping through my mind as we're having this conversation. And the first one is curiosity. I think we're talking about, can I come to curiosity with myself? Can I push aside that judgment? And can I say, oh, this is curious? Can I allow myself to feel this emotion without having to logically explain it, to justify it, or to say, that doesn't make sense. You can't feel that. So there's this curiosity about what's going on with me. Also this curiosity about what's going on with my partner. And also I'm hearing you talk about being able to come to my partner or the people that I'm in relationship with. We're also talking about vulnerability and safety, and that's all the interpersonal relationship. And can I come with curiosity? You know, one of the tools that I talk about in my couples communication course and also the reflective listening courses. Can I put myself in my back pocket and just show up with this curiosity to understand, okay, you're speaking right here from this place. But that's not all of you. That's not everything in this moment. This is because of whatever is going on for you. This is the part of your brain that's speaking. But can I be curious? And can you feel safe? But can we create safety so that you're vulnerable enough to feel like you can share these things with me and so that I can hold space for that? And I think, especially when I'm looking at couples who've struggled with betrayal and infidelity in a relationship, the essential element, I believe, of rebuilding trust and healing comes from that ability to hold somebody else's pain. Can I sit with you when you were having this pain and instead of taking it internally and reacting, making it about me, can I see you fully and just allow you to be you? And can I absorb that and sit here with you and let that be your emotion without me owning it, without your emotion having to be mine or justifying it or saying you can't feel that way? That's not right. Can I give you permission to have your own emotions?

Yeah. So interesting, because there's many dynamics to what you just said. Can I allow you to have those? But let's take it a step further. What if I am coming to you with an emotion, almost with an expectation that you should fix it, you should make it better? Now I'm putting pressure on you to soothe me within my emotion, contrasting that with, I'm feeling this fear. I don't know what to do with it, Right? And being with somebody who can allow you to express it without them being the person who's going to make it all better. Because I think when I hear betrayed clients come to my office, they're expressing a fear and they want their spouse to make the fear go away, which would be comforting, right? I want to make it better. I often hear the betraying spouse say, I try to say the right words, and I try to do this, but I say it the right way. I mumble, I bumble, I stumble, and I don't do it the right way. But this is where people misunderstand. You're trying to fix the emotion rather than be with the emotion. Marianne, that's where the problem is. They'll say something like, well, I love you, or I'm sorry, trying to fix the emotion when that's not what the betrayed spouse needs. You know what they need? Help me understand. Tell me more. I'm here. I just want to understand what you're experiencing.

Dr. Skinner, I think you just blew this out of the water. I think the way that we have learned to see emotions is all wrong. Because when we have children who scrape their knees, we have babies who need a wet diaper or are scared, what do we do? We pick them up and we hold them. We rock them. We're not fixing it. We are soothing by just our touch, by our presence, by our being there. I can't fix a baby's diaper rash. I can't change their pain. But I can be with them and I can soothe them. And I think what you said is we have been conditioned or learned that I can fix your emotions. And rather than saying, I can soothe you, just me being with you, holding your hand, hearing your pain, that's actually the way through our emotions relationally. I can't fix anything. I can say I'm sorry until I'm blue. That's not going to fix your pain. But can I sit with you while you share your pain? Not even just sharing your pain verbally. It's you being vulnerable enough to have your pain and let me witness it. I think it's more of witnessing each other's pains. I've got to be able to allow myself to be vulnerable, to let you see my pain and then you witness it. That's very different than fixing.

Yeah, that's where I think we've misplaced that approach to being with people in their emotions. It's again, the mindset, I need to fix this or I need to repair it. And I could even. Even go the other direction. When a person is acted out and they go to their partner, are we okay? They're actually asking their spouse to affirm that they're okay. But am I really okay? No. I'm hurting. I'm suffering. Do you really want to hear me say that I'm suffering in this moment? So you often will have two people looking for reassurance or comfort. And who gets to go first here? Well, in most cases, they don't. And so they Both feel misunderstood rather than really, if we were to break it down. Let me be with you in your pain. Let me understand it. And then we might have the capacity as a couple to ebb and flow with each other into these darker spaces of I'm scared, I'm worried, I'm afraid. I don't know how to say this, but I want to because I want to be there. That kind of emotional vulnerability we've just really struggled with as a culture. And I hope today our listeners can understand your job is not to fix it, it's to be with it.

And some other words that are popping up for me today are about permission. Can I give myself permission to feel whatever I'm feeling without judgment? And can I give you permission? Like, even as I say that, that sounds so weird, but can I give you permission to have your emotions for you to feel whatever it is that you're feeling? As I say that, I really don't have any power to give you permission to fill your emotions. You get to feel your emote. But can I be with you? I think this is where it gets really hard because I might feel really uncomfortable with you when you are in pain. When you're in pain, I might not know what to do with it, especially if I caused it. Witnessing your pain, especially if I caused it, might create some really big emotions inside of me. And I might feel like, I don't even know what to do with this. This is too much. So I gotta clamp it down. I don't want to feel this. So you can't feel this. Versus can I be in a place where I'm going to be okay? Giving myself permission to feel whatever comes up for me while you're experiencing whatever's coming up for you.

And that then gets us to this other part that you're describing here that I've heard many people say is I'm not allowed to have emotions with my spouse.

Yeah.

Because if I do, we get in a fight or we have a conflict or something happens. And that's not the kind of relationship that's going to thrive ultimately when we're going to be successful. It's the capacity to experience emotions with each other in a way that we both feel heard, we both feel understood. I don't feel like you're ignoring me or you're overwhelmed by my emotions. I want to emphasize that it is a skill to learn what Daniel Goleman called emotional intelligence. He wrote a book titled Emotional Intelligence, the ability to understand emotions and really not be overwhelmed or consumed by them also understanding our own emotions. But if I'm in a relationship, Marianne, and I can't share emotional feelings, I'm going to be frustrated. I'm going to eventually explode. I'm going to hold back and withdraw from the relationship because I'm an emotional being. We are emotional beings, and when we don't know what to do with those, and we can't turn to our spouse or partner, we're going to do something with them. We might turn to drinking or we might turn to spending or gambling or sex or something because we don't know what to do with these emotions. That's not ever to blame a spouse. It's just to simply say the dynamics are not working and why can't we share those emotions? If I can't share an emotion, I've got to figure out why, Marianne. That's my job.

I'm so glad you went there, because that's my question. As you've been saying this, why can't you go there? What is it that's keeping you from that? And so is that it feels too unsafe to be vulnerable. I hear clients talk about weaponizing. So if I share this vulnerable thing, it will be turned into a weapon and be used against me. And so I can't share that. And so then we're talking about building up the walls. But when I work with individuals, as we're using some of the EFT tools of mapping out and figuring out what's that deep yearning deep down below, what I see, it's almost always the same. Just like that child that wants to be soothed when they're hurting deep down. Both partners in a coupleship want connection. They want to be seen. They want understanding. They want that deep attachment. And when they don't get it, then they have these reactions and they close down and get further and further apart. Now it feels like I can't.

Yeah. And to leave our listeners with some thoughts today, Marianne, I think here's some of my key takeaways. One, is this. Am I creating enough personal awareness and insight that I can understand and express my own emotions? Number two, when my spouse is experiencing emotions, what does that do to me? Am I able to be with it? Or do I go into fight or flight? So what do I do when my spouse is having emotions or for that matter, a child? And then three, if I can't share my emotions, then what needs to transpire between us so we can work towards that? And I would say, do I have life experiences that I'm projecting onto my spouse that are from my past and not related to our interactions. Because I've heard many people say, I'm just so afraid because when I grew up sharing emotions, that was not allowed. And so now they're projecting onto their spouse as if their spouse can't handle the emotions. And that's not fair either. So those are the questions that I would invite our listeners to think about. And one more thing along with that, we are now. This is our 90th episode, Marianne, which is absolutely fascinating. 90 episodes. But I've now got a worksheet from 80 up through today. 90. So they can go to human intimacy.com with a companionship course to this and take the worksheet that will go with us and practice some of these things and. And answer the questions that we have from today's class.

So you've gone back to every episode and then created a worksheet for each.

From 80 up to 90.

Wow, that's phenomenal. And that'll continue. Before we wrap up, I want to just add a couple more final thoughts to this. I want to challenge that idea of a can't share, because I want to challenge this in this way. If it feels like I can't share with my partner, I'm going to challenge our listeners to change that thought a little bit. That can't. Word to figuring out, where can I share it? Am I sharing it in a journal? Am I finding somebody else that's a supportive person, whatever that might look like. But figuring out a way to still honor the emotion that you're experiencing, giving yourself permission. Okay, I'm still feeling this. Even if it doesn't feel like it's safe to share with my partner, I've still got to channel and get it out of me somehow. I need to honor it, I need to recognize it, I need to work through it. Rather than saying, well, my partner can't receive it, there's no place that I can share this, so I'm just gonna suppress it and tap it down. So there's that part. You look like I have a comment on that.

Yeah, absolutely spot on there. It needs a place to go. Otherwise it's gonna harm me both emotionally, physically, mentally.

Yeah. Okay. I think my other last thought or takeaway for this is really, I wanna invite our listeners and viewers to slow down and catch yourself. Start noticing. Where am I stopping myself? Where do I have that thought? I don't deserve this. I can't. I need to fix this rather than going into it, because we all have parts and we have parts that have been with us from our childhood, that have learned, oh, that's not safe. I can't go there. Just as we've been alluding to or talking about throughout this session. So I'd love to invite you to start just noticing when you go into, when you just get to the edge of that instead of backing away and saying, no, logically, I can't. No, there's a reason why I can't go here. See if you can question that, see if you can push past that. See if you can give yourself permission to say, I don't have to justify or explain this. There doesn't have to be a reason or even a name for what this emotion might be. I'm going to just allow myself to feel it without judgment. I'm just going to come with curiosity and give myself some self compassion and some grace that I'm feeling something, I don't know what it is, I don't know the words for it, maybe, or I don't have a logical justification that would say, it's okay for you to feel this way. This just happened. Okay, that makes sense. You would feel that way. Most of the time we say, oh, I can't feel that because it doesn't make sense for me. So see if you can push back that barrier, ask that part to step to the side and allow you to actually go in and feel whatever it is that you, that you need to feel that's there. So recognize it, notice it, and honor it. I think it's a way that we honor ourselves by actually living a little bit more fully. So that's my takeaway for today.

Awesome. Marianne, my final thought. Maybe it's an assignment for our listeners. I'd like you to ask your spouse this question. When I share emotion, what is it like for you? When you share emotion, this is what it's like for me. So I'm inviting them into a conversation about I get overwhelmed, I get flooded, I get scared. I want to respond, but I don't know how. I invite you into that conversation. No judgment, but just have that open dialogue of when I share emotion with you, what's it like? And when you share emotion with me, here's what it's like for me. That would be just a simple assignment to get the ball rolling here. And then I would encourage you to really take away some of the key things that we've talked about here. If you want to be better at emotional intimacy, practice these things. You don't have to live in a world where you can't Share emotions. It's not healthy for us.

And can I tweak that just a little teeny bit?

Yeah.

If it feels like I can't have that conversation with my partner or spouse, I'd invite you to do it on a piece of paper and just write, here's. Here's how I would answer that, and maybe here's how I think my partner would answer that, because it's still, once again, just about digging a little bit deeper into ourselves.

And even if you think you can't, it would be very appropriate to say, I would like to have more meaningful emotional conversations, because I think that would help our relationship. I'd like us to learn how to do that so that's an opportunity to lean into. I would like this. That's an expression of, I want us to get better. I want us to be stronger as a couple. So I would. I would close with that part. And then just a reminder to our listeners, if you haven't been to Rise Hope and Healing from Sexual Betrayal, that's a new podcast that's out, and Mary and I did that, focusing specifically on individuals who are trying to heal more from sexual betrayal. And then Reclaim Podcast. This podcast is designed to help individuals who've been stuck in pornography. So we'd invite you to do that. And if you haven't signed up for the companionship course for this free podcast, you can go there, get the assignments. And finally, in the beginning of November, we're going to be announcing the dates and speakers for the upcoming second annual Human Intimacy Conference, which will be in March. I'm excited. We've got a great lineup of experts.

Awesome. All right, thanks for the conversation, Dr. Skinner. It's always lovely.