Verbal & Emotional Intimacy: Using Your Voice to Create Deeper Connection (Episode #102)

There's something about you that I can't.

Help but smile when you smile and laugh when you laugh, something surrounds.

Welcome to the human intimacy podcast. Dr. Kevin Skinner with Marianne Michaelis, licensed clinical social worker. Marianne's today's topic is a continuation of intimacy. We've talked about psychological intimacy. Last week we introduced it the two weeks. All of the types of intimacy that we're going to be talking about today, we get to dive into verbal and emotional intimacy. Before we do that, Marianne, I want to just highlight some things coming up at the Human intimacy conference, the second annual one, which will be March 13th and 14th online, with some incredible presenters. Dr. Karen Strange, my good friend Dan Oakes, Dr. Theobald, Dr. Hal Stewart has agreed to do a presentation this year. And, and so I'm really excited about that. Just so many incredible presenters. So I just want to just invite our listeners, just come join us and we're going to put in the show notes how to get access to the conference. And we got a 40% off coupon.

Marianne, I'm so excited to hear about Hal Stewart because I know he's just done a lot of research regarding men who get stuff in their recovery and where they kind of plateau. So that's phenomenal. That list that you shared. I know there's more as well. I want to just clarify. I know last year what our setup looked like. We had the first day, the Friday we had a track for betrayed partners that was running concurrently with a track for partners who had betrayed their spouse. Is that the same track this year?

Yeah, actually. So the day one is the same. We've have people who, who are acting out and people who are looking to heal from betrayal. So individual tracks that day, a Q and A at the end of the day with experts where you can ask questions. Dr. Sherry Keffer, who's going to be presenting again, and Chris Cristiano. And we've got yourself, who's going to be speaking? I'm going to be talking about empathy and compassion in the healing and the recovery process. And then day two, we're going to be just a phenomenal outline for couples. We've got Michelle Mays coming back and she's going to be doing a presentation. I mean, this thing is absolutely loaded with phenomenal professionals. But the couples day, Dr. Dave Robinson is going to be back with us. And so we've got just some incredible presenters. And what's going to happen on the second track that day? Some individuals are going to not be able to do it live. So they're Going to give us a recorded presentation. So we're going to actually have that second track which is pre recorded sessions where people will have access to that and they can watch those at any time as well. So we're gonna have that second track. There may be a couple of live ones and we'll have recorded ones at that same time. That second track is gonna be a wide variety of topics just related to healing. Recover. A lot of couple healing will be in that prerecorded session. Jeff Stewer will be back with us. I can't believe how many incredible experts are gonna be with us this year. It's exciting.

Thank you for explaining that. I've had some clients ask and so we just wanna be really clear. I had some clients who like where do we show up, where do we go? So it's going to be online. It's in mountain standard time. So it starts at what time and ends at what time.

So it depends if you want those who are doing yoga. I've got yoga with Lo back again this year. I mean everybody loves her. I mean she's just incredible trauma informed yoga. She's just phenomenal for yoga. She's gonna be doing early morning, so it's actually gonna be starting at 7:30 on both days where she'll be doing a yoga track for an hour. Every time she presents everyone says can she come back? Can she come back? So an incredible conference and we invite you to join us. 40% off till the end of January and then the price will go back up without the discount.

The promo code is 40 off.

40 off? Yeah, 40 off. And we'll put a link into that so you can go directly to sign up.

And can we just talk really quickly pricing just so everybody knows. So it's 295 for an individual enter.

40 off. You'll get 40% off whether it's a couple or individual.

Okay, so it's 295 per an individual.

And it's 295 per for the couple per.

So with that. So it's 295 for an individual without the discount. It's 590 for the couple without the discount. But right now there's the 40 off promo which kind of in half. We hope that you take advantage of this because this is a great time to jump in and work on healing, whatever that looks like for you.

And one of the other things that I'm doing is that when they sign up they get access to all of last year's presentations as well.

Oh wow.

So, so when they register, they will get all of last year's sessions that were recorded as well. And if you can't make it, if you can't come on those days, it is recorded so you'll have access to it. That's another things that we should mention is that if you can't make it, on the 13th and 14th of March, every session is going to be recorded. In fact, we're going to be doing a pre session where we're going to be having the experts talking together.

So even if I can only make one hour of it, I'll still have all the content, plus last year's that I can access throughout the year at.

Any time, at any time on demand.

Awesome. That's fantastic. Thank you, Dr. Skinner. I know what last year's looked like and how much phenomenal information was there, and so I really look forward to this year as well. Thank you for putting this together. I know it's just invaluable resource.

It's a lot of fun. I get to talk with all my friends and have them present, which, I mean, our community has some incredible experts. And just hearing them makes me a better therapist. I know last year that we had therapists who signed up just because they wanted to learn from some of these individuals. So, I mean, it's just. It's. It's just a lot of good content.

So I don't know if you want to go here or not, Dr. Skinner, but I also saw a Katie Skinner.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So my wife just graduated through master's degree in social work, and she has been working really hard on the concept of differentiation in couple healing. And so she's gonna be doing a presentation on helping couples learn how to differentiate as they go through the healing journey. And that concept, differentiation. I'm gonna actually have to have her come on with us as she talks about it.

Awesome.

And your husband's gonna be presenting, too.

My husband is also. And this is kind of our. I know. I don't. I don't know that our listeners know, but this is something we've talked about in the future, doing some couples intensives or retreats together, as all four of us are therapists and working individuals.

So, yeah, coming. Coming soon, hopefully to Hawaii.

Right.

This summer, in fact. Stay tuned. We'll get those dates out there as soon as we can get them.

Right.

All right, so Marianne, today, talking about what I believe is just really the next stage. We've talked about psychological intimacy. Really now leaning into verbal intimacy. And we'll talk today as well about Emotional intimacy. But if I was to talk about verbal intimacy, I might say something like, marianne, tell me about what's been going on in your life.

A year ago, I had the opportunity to participate in as a co author for an amicus brief for the Free Speech Coalition versus Paxton US Supreme Court case. And as an addiction professional, I got to put together data and share experience of my clients and what I've seen, the impacts of pornography on individuals and children. And so the case was really about protecting children online, accidental exposure to pornography. And yesterday I had the opportunity to be in a different Washington and to testify on a bill for age verification here in my state. And today we're talking about that verbal intimacy. And I think we've got to start at showing up and being able to say, hey, here's where I'm at and what I saw yesterday as I testified. I know public speaking isn't everybody's forte. A lot of people, that's one of their worst fears. Yesterday I saw a mother show up and say, let me tell you about my son who became addicted to pornography and was incredibly depressed, and it led to his suicide. There's some incredible, incredible vulnerability just being able to show up and say, here's my story, here's my pain. Let me share it with you. And there were other people who showed up who were very passionate as well. And when we're talking about intimacy, we're not always necessarily talking about doing it on a broad stage, like with the US Supreme Court or state legislature. But being able to start and say, how do I use my words? Whether it's in writing, whether it's verbally, how do I allow my words to let you see into me? Because I think most of the time, there's some topics that we say, hey, don't talk about religion, don't talk about politics. Let's keep it to the weather. Oftentimes we have relationships where that's as deep as we go. And we need to have boundaries, because there are some people in some places where we need to be careful about what we share. But really, to have deep connection, we have to be able to use our words, to find the words to be. To be able to say, I want you to understand and know and see what's going on inside of me. That's where we connect. It is through our words, which also carry context and tone and meaning. This is such a layered topic that I'm really excited to dive in with, into with you today.

And as I think about it, you share that story. A really cool Experience. Right. It's a really cool experience. So on a very brief level, and say, hell, I was busy this weekend. I went and testified before Congress or the state legislature or whatever it may be. And it could be really a non growing conversation. It could be stymied just by, oh, that's, that's cool. But if I was to say, wait a second, tell me more about that mom, what you heard her say and what you felt. Now I'm going into emotional intimacy and the two of them just overlap because we're talking about this story. But your emotions changed as you told her story. I want to point something out. We're not, they're not always mutually exclusive, these types of intimacy. You start with verbal intimacy and suddenly you go into a space where there's emotion there and here comes some emotional intimacy because you shared a deeper experience of this mother whose son had completed suicide. We start off with a verbal conversation, not knowing where it might go or where it might lead us to. And that's the really amazing thing about intimacy and these conversations is when we start them, it can morph into this incredibly beautiful conversation.

And I think that if we were talking about, what are some of the keys to get there? I think that curiosity is such a huge key here because you can say, tell me about testifying, Marianne. What was that like for you? And I can say, well, you know, I knew this was coming up and for a week in my mind had been thinking I could say this and I could say this and I could say this and this. Sorting process and practicing it and trying to figure out, not knowing how much time I had and trying to figure out which words are most important and practicing it. There's so much there that I could share with you about my process and my experience. And so coming to someone with curiosity, tell me more about that. What is that like for you? This is such an easy tool to create more intimacy. It's this. Tell me more about that. What's that like for you? Letting down my barriers or walls or my need to tell you about me, but just coming with curiosity about you.

Are you comfortable testifying before state legislature? So just a curious question. Do you like speaking in front of public? What was that like? Preparing for it? How did you prepare? Right. Just. Just these types of questions. By the way, when I talk with couples who are struggling, that that's something that I find that is a common missing element when couples are having conversations. It's almost like I assume what you're thinking, what you're feeling, what you're experiencing rather than checking in, like, how are you experiencing this? Or what was that like for you? But the question itself just opens up the opportunities. I can open you up or I can shut you down. I often, when I'm talking with couples, I'm generalizing here, but we often think we know our spouse well enough that we make these assumptions. Oh, you're this. Or what you meant by it was that. Help me understand what you're thinking. Help me understand you in this situation. What was going through your mind, Marianne, as you prepared for that? Were you nervous?

Yes, absolutely. I was. And I was, yes. I rehearsed it the night before, and the feedback I received was, just read what you've got written. Don't. Don't try to just do it verbatim. Everything that I said was something I could talk about all day long. But, yes, knowing that I'm speaking to state representatives who are going to create a law that I feel really passionate about, suddenly the words disappear. And so, yes, I was. I was nervous. And afterwards, there were a lot of things that I wish that I had said or that I had done differently. I want to go back to something you talked about, Dr. Skinner, and I heard you mention it twice. There's research out that says even though we think that we know what our spouse would say or how they would react, oftentimes we're wrong. I remember years ago, I was working on a project, and we were preparing for prom for our kids, and it was a big to do at somebody's house. And I remember my friend said, we said, hey, do you want to ask your husband about this? What do you think about this? And she said, he will say, that's fantastic. Great idea. Let's do it. And they've been married for 20 plus years. And so I was like, okay, let's see how this goes. He came out and she asked him the question. He was like, that's fantastic. Let's do it. And I was like, wow. Like, she knew she could predict what her husband would say. But the research says that even though we may have been married to our spouse or we've been in this relationship for a really long time, we actually aren't usually that accurate on knowing and predicting how they'll respond.

And the result of that is if I hear you say, oh, this is what you're thinking, this is what you're experiencing, I could actually be shutting down an opportunity. So I might go for the ride, and I might not say anything at all, or I might resent it because you're telling me how I'm feeling or how I'm thinking. So the verbal intimacy, it really allows us to be that creative self of like, what am I thinking? Because you asked me, what am I experiencing here? What are my thoughts on that? And that starts a cascade of other types of intimacy, emotional intimacy. It's not uncommon for us to shift from verbal into emotional. If I said, which I did, what's it like for you preparing for that? Do you get nervous? I'm asking about an emotional response.

Yeah.

Which gives you the opportunity to say, yeah, I was nervous. Or, or, you know, I. My body just. Honestly, I get so nervous that I. I can feel my heart beating. Right. And now you're talking about a different form of the boy. The body's responding to this experience and that's interesting.

I thought about that, but I didn't go there. But yeah, sometimes when I speak publicly, I'll notice one of my legs start jiggling. Sometimes when I play my cello in public, one of my legs will just start doing its own thing. And it's. It's my body reacting, even though I don't even recognize it. But that's fascinating because you asked me that and I didn't necessarily go there. I stayed a little bit higher in there, didn't step into that space.

And then the other part of verbal intimacy is being prepared for self disclosure. And this is really the part I'd like to, you know, emphasize as well. Because if I am inviting you through my curiosity and through interest, and we're having this conversation, one direction, and it's not reciprocated or it doesn't come back like, well, that. Do you feel that way or do you experience this? Then what happens is it's one directional conversation and sometimes that's normal and that's okay. But when we are in relationships that are going to grow, I find ways to integrate you into the conversation. How about you?

You know, I hear that Dr. Skinner, and I think that depending on the relationship, it can be really healthy. In my reflective listening course, I talk about putting yourself in your back pocket. Just saying, like right now I am just going to focus on learning about you and your experience. What was that like for you? And I'm going to ask questions because I am genuinely just interested in hearing from your perspective what that was really like. I think it's such a freeing space to be because I don't have to worry about my own thoughts or ideas about it. I am just climbing into your brain and seeing the world through your eyes. And I think that's so fascinating. And I think that there's space in a healthy relationship if both partners can do that. It lets us dive so deeply into the other person's experience. And I don't have an agenda right here. What's that like for you? Tell me more.

This is about me understanding you. And sure, I can share myself later. The problem occurs when it's one directional and not reciprocated or not opened up. And so one partner doesn't disclose or holds back information. That's when we begin to have problems in the verbal intimacy arena where it's one directional and. Or I'm not opening up.

And this is so important because we've got to have that psychological intimacy there. And if we have that, that opening up is more likely to occur. Yeah, because I feel safe enough to tell you what that was really like for me. That was so hard. And I think especially if we've experienced trauma or heartache or pain or just life, we need those spaces where we can be a mess, where we can just show up, especially with betrayal trauma. We need to have groups, we need to have safe spaces of support where maybe I can't right now talk to my spouse and tell them how hurt I am, but I can go to a group because oftentimes while we experience something really hard, we might not even have the words. I just experienced something and I was just surviving the part of my brain that has language, that part was probably turned off. That part wasn't functioning because I was just in survival mode. And so when I am with other people that are safe, they help me find my words, they help give me words as they share their experiences. I say, oh yeah, those words you're.

Describing, the additive effect or the power of community. Because as I hear your story and if I relate with it and I'm experiencing this, and I feel this way as well validating what you've just said. And I also have a hard time sleeping at night or I also have at times had nightmares and oh, me too. And now we're going back and forth having shared experience. But I now know your experience because you opened up and shared it. See, the power of that is the vulnerability in sharing who you are. That's the power of verbal intimacy, which then enhances the emotional intimacy. So if I said to you I feel and I just stopped right there, I'd probably have your attention because I'm identifying something that's happening inside of me. And then if I continued off, I said, I feel so excited now. You didn't know what I was going to say. I feel. Your brain's like. You feel what? Yeah.

Embracing what's going to come out next. Yeah.

And then you said, well, what are you excited about? And I said, well, I'm going to tell you, I'm so excited that when I started looking together at the conference and Marianne, as I was putting together a speaker list, I'm like, that's going to be incredible. And that's going to be incredible. And that's going to be incredible. And all of a sudden I'm like, man, we got to get the word out. This is going to be a phenomenal experience. I've just shared internally what I have been experiencing this last week. As we've really been honing in on getting this conference rolling, I want to.

Highlight Dr. Skinner, what I just saw happening there. So these words, I feel. When we use I feel statements, it primes the other person to say, hey, I'm going to dive into some vulnerability here. When you said I feel, you know, as I started looking at the people who we've got lined up for this, your body language changed, your energy changed and there were so many parts of non verbal communication that showed up. Your tone changed, everything that I could see. So for those, those of you who are viewing this on YouTube, you'll definitely get to be able to see. But there's an energy that changed. Your voice changed, everything changed. And I, I could feel inside of me because we have mirror neurons that my body's picking up. What's going on for you? There's this energy that I'm feeling going like, oh, wow, I feel, I feel a little more energy in me because I'm hearing Dr. Skinner talk about how excited he is. Wow, this is going to be amazing. And that is transmitted and that is the emotional vulnerability. You're using your words, but I'm picking up on the emotions as well.

You're describing mirror neurons. Right. And it's contagious. Right. When I feel something and I share it and you share something, the contagion of that, it's like, well, now we're feeling a part of something. We're together, having this conversation in a group, it's a very similar thing. So let's. Now I want to be a little bit practical for a second for couples as we get ready to close up. If you want to enhance this experience. This is something that my wife and I have intentionally done. We often do it when we're all gathered around the table for dinner and we will have an opening, how's your day? Been? Followed by very specific things. What was the best part of your day? Very different question than how are you? Because usually my adolescents would say fine or good. The shift into what was the best part of the day or the most difficult part of the day requires self reflection. It requires me to think, oh, what? Scan through the day. And then the thing that comes out, oh, you know, I forgot, I didn't even tell you this. When I got home, my friends were doing this, or I did well on this test, or this happened to me yesterday. My son gets in the car, I go to pick him up after school. He's running indoor track right now, preparing for it. And I said, hey, how was your day? And he said it was great. I said, what was great? He said, well, I went to all my teachers and I figured out some of my grades and I figured out this assignment in chemistry that I thought was going to be harder than it was. And then I had this test in sign language and I figured out that. And so I went to all my teachers and I'm really, really feeling up to date with my grades. And then he said, I went to track and we had the option of running a four mile run or a mile. That's time trial. I said, so what did you do? He said, I ran the mile. I said, how did you do? And he said, dad, I was, I ran a 5 16.

Wow.

I said, you ran a 5 16? I said, it's, it's January and you ran a 5 16. He said, yeah, I was feeling so good, dad. That was a three to four minute exchange on our way home. And it was just one of those moments, like that's verbal and emotional intimacy. I mean, great. And it was so much fun. And when I can have those experiences with my son, my soul just delights in it.

I love that, Dr. Skinner. And what I heard you talking about was, your son feels safe. Your son feels like you are ready to hear him, wanting to hear him engaged in his life and excited to support and cheer him on. And that's such a gift.

Such a gift and so much fun. That's, that's the part of life. When we apply these types of intimacy in all of our relationships, the world gets better.

I want to make sure we talk on another side of this because you just described a healthy relationship with your son. And I know that not all of our viewers or listeners have grown up in healthy environments where they've had a parent who was engaged or interested. And there may have been some Abuse or neglect. And that may be occurring also in the relationship. And so this can be hard to say. Okay, yes, here's the healthy ideal that wasn't mine. So how do I do this when it hasn't felt safe or if there's been abuse? That means there's some power dynamics there which mean maybe I didn't have the opportunity to say no or learn to use my voice in a way. I learned that it wasn't safe to be emotionally or verbally vulnerable. And so I want to make sure that we're also talking about that aspect here as well, because this can be tricky to say. Oh yeah, what you described was great. I have no idea how to get there.

So what's interesting is I think everybody who's listening will say, I would like to do that with my child right now, with my spouse or with my ex, my family, my parents, or with my siblings, or people that I've had eye conflict with. I'm not going to have that. Stephanie Carnes does a really interesting exercise of looking at who's in our inner circle and it's really looking at who's in our primary relationships. Where would we place them? And we'd different levels that to me is a self awareness of who am I talking to day in and day out and are there people who I'd prefer not to be talking to right now and are there people who I want in that inner circle but they're not in there right now or that I'm really opening up to? We have to define and identify the roles of people in our lives. Who's in, who's out, who's on the stage of our life with us, who's in the front row, who's in the back row, who's in the balcony and who's not even in the auditorium. The depth of the intimate conversations will be based upon the nature of our safety in the relationship and our time with that person and their openness as well. And so we look at who is in our life and are there people that are on the outside that we would want to bring inside? We just haven't taken the time or we're so busy. So I think my, my answer to the question is we have to understand first who's in our life and where we would like them in our, so to speak, in those inner circles or on the stage of our life with us.

You know, I remember being in a training with Stephanie when she taught this and they gave us a bunch of note cards and probably 20, 50. I don't know. And we had to write everybody we could think of down. And then we actually laid them on the floor. Here's my first tier. Here's my second tier. Here's my third tier. And she talked about using a ribbon. And you can kind of use a ribbon to divide this, or you can even do this on a piece of paper. Just draw three circles and say, here are the people that are in this inner circle that I want to let in that I can share things with. Here are the people in that second tier that maybe I want to keep them a few more boundaries there, maybe not. They haven't proven themselves quite as trustworthy and in that third tier. But one of the fascinating parts of this tool I found was when Stephanie said, sometimes we have to really look and evaluate. I had maybe my sister on this card or my best friend, and I thought that they were trustworthy or they could handle or were safe for me to really share all this stuff with. But I realized actually they're not. I need to put them into a different layer. So actually, sitting down and really thinking about it can be really surprising and really bring a lot of awareness to an individual. Saying, like, oh, I have to consciously be aware of where I can and can't share and where it's safe and healthy, too.

Yeah, Yeah, I like that a lot. You know, there's a lot that we could share on this verbal and emotional intimacy and this conversation, I think for me personally, it's just brought up just additional reminders of concepts. Who's in, who's out? Am I safe? Am I comfortable? Am I holding back? If I'm holding back, why am I holding back? These are the types of questions I invite all of us to consider. And then as we get ready to close, if you struggle with verbal and emotional intimacy in your relationships, start simple. Be curious. Show up. Listen intently. Ask questions. Follow up with, and then what happened? And tell me more. And I'd love to learn more about this or learn more about you. And what you'll find is, most people, there might be some initial hesitancy just because they're like, what are you doing? But if we will do that consistently, they're going to be like, this is real. You generally do show interest in me. You do care. Over the years, as I've talked with individuals about people who've had the most impact on their lives, the answer always is they just were there. They shared, they listened, they talked with me. They were curious about my life. So that, to me, is just a starting point. I Mean, there's other types of intimacy, but that's, you know, we've got the psychological, but really let's focus on verbal and emotional and get better at it.

I think my wrap up for today, Dr. Skinner. I am going to quote the, the ever wise Shrek. So here you go, ladies and gentlemen. I am quoting Shrek. But if you've been my client or you've worked with me, you know that I love this phrase. And he is talking about bodily functions, but I think it's so applicable here. He says better out than in. I always say, and with emotions, I believe that better out than in. Now I need to do it in healthy ways, controlled ways where I'm not abusing or hurting other people. But I think it's so important if I were to underscore what's the biggest takeaway for me in this space. It is about showing up. You know, if I'm keeping everything in and I'm not, I'm not sharing what I'm thinking or feeling, you don't know me. That's not intimacy. And so to have intimacy, we have to be able to show up with the emotions. So let them out. And I would also encourage our listeners and viewers to always remember, we always want to use I feel statements, not you made me or you're so or you should. Those are blaming and shaming. And when we use like looking at our language, if we're using blaming and shaming language, it closes doors versus when this happens, I feel or I experience this, that, that I feel gives me ownership. And that is the key to connection. It is me being able to show up and share with you where I'm at, what I'm experiencing and it being a safe place for me to be able to do so. So I am grateful to have been able to talk about this topic. I think it's such an important one and I think we could talk for weeks or months about this. So. And I know, Dr. Skinner, you're going to talk more about this and do a presentation on intimacy in the human intimacy conference as well. So I look forward to hearing that as well. Thank you.

Yeah. I'll be introducing the intimacy repair method. It's something I've been working on for quite a while. And this will be the time where I actually fully bring it out and show everybody this whole process. And it's going to be something that I'm going to be doing online, offering an online course for couples on the intimacy repair method and walking through each of these in depth. I'm going to be introducing this whole concept at the conference.

So here's our primer. Just grease to the wheels here. So I'm excited to hear that, Dr. Skinner.

It's been great being with you. And thank you so much for our listeners. Thank you so much for being with us. May you be blessed in your pursuit of human intimacy.

Thank you.