Finding The Bedazzlement in Your Relationships. You Deserve It.

This is not a podcast about being broken, although you may have been. This is a podcast about strength for women who find themselves in difficult relationships, including that sometimes difficult one with yourself. We'll look at your relationship through a lens of psychology, faith, and a little dash of my own kind of feminism. We're not fixing them, we're fixing you, and that changes everything. Welcome to Stronger in the Difficult Places. Save yourself, heal your relationships. Listen in. Hey there, welcome to Stronger in the Difficult Places. I'm your host, Dr. Zoe. And today's topic is, is your relationship right for you? With Dr. Megan Rice. I'm excited to have her on today. She is a licensed psychotherapist. She has a busy private practice, and she specializes in relationships and attachment theory. But before we get started, let me share my win and my fail, which I share every week. And it's been 2 weeks since I put up episodes, so I feel like a lot has happened. So this I consider both a win and a fail. I'm disclosing it because, you know, it's part of my life. I'm dating. Why do I feel like I have to whisper that? I'm dating. I'm not going to give you guys any more information than that, except that dating at this time in my life as a mom and professional It's really weird. So for my win, 2 wins, I think. First, I am writing 15,000— I'm sorry, 1,500 words every other day with my writing. I'm so excited. I see progress. For all of you writers out there, you know, I changed my schedule. So I'm writing one day, working out one day. So I'm now only working out every other day, but I'm still working out intensely. My back is still jacked up, but it's going to be okay. And so far, I feel like I'm getting things done both on the workout area and the writing area. I'm moving forward in my writing because I have a deadline looming, so that feels really good, like a really good win. My other win is that I'm going to a conference soon in Tennessee. I think I'm coming to Spring Hill, Tennessee. I'm flying into Nashville, coming to Spring Hill. I'll be at the Esther Conference in Spring Hill this April. If any of you guys are gonna be there, look for me. I'll be easy to find. I'm usually the only brown person at these kinds of events, or one of the few brown women at these kinds of events. We gotta fix that. But yes, look for me. I would love to chat with you, love to say hi, love to hear about what you're doing. So that's my win. I'm gonna be at that conference in April. And yeah, I think that's enough. I will share more next week. So let's get on with the interview with Megan Price. Listen in. Hey, Megan, how

are you?

Hi, I'm great. Thank you for all the rescheduling and all of my mishaps. I'm glad that you were able to still work with me.

I totally get it. I think we're both, uh, really busy humans, if I were to guess.

Yes, busy humans. I think that's what we are. So let's talk about— well, we've got a book coming out, so some of the things we're going to talk about today have to do with some of the concepts in your book, and we'll tell people about how to order that or preorder that, um, afterwards. But so, you know, I talk to women in difficult relationships, women who struggle with codependency, shame, and sometimes have diff— difficult relationships with themselves too. And so we're going to be talking to those women today. And you've come up with some concepts, with some skills, with some behaviors that you've noticed that women should be looking for in their relationships, or maybe looking for if they're looking for a relationship. You said it way so much better than I did. So can you share with my audience?

Yeah, absolutely. So I think about like 3 facets here in development of my book. The first facet was like people that are looking for a relationship, you know, and this can be looking for a relationship for the first time. It can be kind of like dabbling in the idea there. And then there's a second facet where we're already in a current partnership and we're looking to kind of like spruce that up, overhaul it entirely, if you will. But there's—

Right.

There's these components that we can start to bring into a current partnership and like maybe get a better outcome that we haven't had before. My third facet is like, okay, maybe we're just gonna scratch the current partnership that we're in and we're going to completely move on and find a new partnership. And so I feel like my book has been designed to incorporate all those different facets. Assets of people and really just to specialize in this idea that says, I think we are the best version of ourselves amidst a partnership that encourages us to thrive. And so I'm always encouraging people to push for that, especially if they don't currently have that. That's transformational. My book talks a lot about— and I don't go into too many details in terms of what happened with this really dysfunctional relationship that I was in. The inspiration to be a couples counselor honestly came from this relationship where he just wasn't that interested in me. And so instead of sharing that he wasn't interested in me, which would have been, you know, mature and adult-like and would have been

very nice and saved a ton of time, I'm sure.

It would have saved me so much time in the earlier parts of my relationship dynamic. Instead of that, um, he just treated me horribly. And so it was just over this course of a long term— it was almost a decade that I spent with this man. It was just the Completely tumultuous relationship where it was just fighting. Like, it was just, you know, this conglomeration of fighting. And I was like, you know what? There has to be a better way in the future. So not only am I going to, like, figure this out on my own, but I'm also going to, like, make sure that I'm paying it forward to other people that want to learn about the same exact space. So that is the inspiration behind my book, and that creates the 3 different facets of, like, where, where we should be going if we don't currently have a partnership that we're sitting on where we feel like we can be the best version of ourselves.

I love that. I love that. And thank you for sharing just that tad bit of your story. I'm sure that so many women can relate to that. And I love that for you and for me too, we use— we mine our past, right, for, um, for the diamonds. Actually, we mine our past for those things, um, and We've been through our own painful experiences, but we don't just leave them for ourselves to, to learn from. We actually help other women hopefully avoid some of the pitfalls that we've had. So that's wonderful. I'm, I'm so glad that you shared that. And you said something that's so powerful, and I'm gonna paraphrase it, and you did it better already, and everyone's already heard it. But I just wanna, just wanna highlight what you were saying about the fact that, you know, essentially when we get ourselves healthy, we can have healthier relationships. We also recognize that we deserve healthier relationships, and we can figure out how to show up in our healthiest self. And sometimes we can encourage the people that we're in relationship with as a result of us getting healthier. Sometimes they get healthier. Sometimes we have to leave relationships. And so I think we're going to talk a little bit about that today is what are the things you should be looking for?

Absolutely. So I want to give you the, the first kind of rundown of different components that I, that I put in my book. And so I created the acronym BEDAZZLED, and it's this, you know, random word, um, that I feel like I just kind of like pulled, pulled out of the sky in terms of this representation to say like something sparkly, right? Because I'm not really interested in, you know, people settling. In a lot of ways, it feels like settling. I'm not really interested in people settling for something that feels like bland, right? Because like bland to me doesn't stand out as like a— can you become the best version of you? Does your relationship encourage the best version of you on a regular basis? You know what I think about love as an action? You know, I think about love as like a commitment to showing up, constantly creating space for the other person, constantly making it known that like— I do want you to be the best version of you. And I do want to make sure, you know, you have all the resources or all the activities or all the events or all of the, you know, career lifelines or hobbies, passions, and interests. Like, I want to make room for that. Right. And so, like, I'm interested in bedazzling in a relationship. And so I created this first one, becoming, in my book. And that talks a lot about, like, making sure that we know about us. And I think we can accomplish that in so many different ways. I think there's Myers-Briggs assessments that we can do for our personality types. There's colors. We can figure out what our color is in terms of introverted or extroverted. Or do we need time and space alone? Or do we need to be in a crowded room all the time in terms of our needs? The Enneagram is great to kind of figure out where we are in terms of reaction to stress. And so it's a love language. I love the love language quiz, too. It just feels like a very basic understanding. I feel like it applies to all human beings in terms of what are the things that really fuel your soul? If we know about those things, we can advertise those things to our partners. And so going into relationship, I think about this really dysfunctional relationship that I was in. I didn't have a clue who I was.

Right.

I didn't have a clue what I needed. I didn't have a clue how big the world was. I had just left home. Like, I was going into college at the time, and so I felt like it was this whole bucket of unknowns. And so really, anyone could have taken advantage of me in that space because I had no clue.

Right. You didn't know yourself. You didn't know what you needed, and you didn't know how to show up for yourself in that space. Yeah,

I didn't. So now that I think I'm almost a 40-year-old woman, it's very different. Hindsight is 20/20. It's like I can tell you exactly what I need when I need And so, uh, my partner only has to be responsive to exactly what I need when I need it because I'm going to verbalize that. Um, in fact, I, I think it might even take like less skill from him in order to be able to, uh, pull out the things that I need because I'm actually communicating that directly instead of him trying to assume, which we do get into like a lot of assumptions, I think, in couples counseling with the, um, you know, I just thought that they needed flowers. Right. You know, I never stopped to ask them if they wanted flowers. I just assumed that they probably did. And so I did it. And it's like, well, maybe they wanted your quality time. And by getting them flowers, you, like, completely missed the boat. So Becoming is this whole chapter of, like, let's figure out exactly what you need so you are in your best version of yourself and you know exactly what you need. And so when you find someone, you're like, hey, here's all the things I need. You can either give them to me or not. But if not, you know, we're probably not gonna be the best fit. for each other. And so it's more of a best foot forward, the best foot forward in terms of like, this is who I am and I'm comfortable with my natural form. I've spent, you know, nearly 40 years trying to figure that out. So here it is.

It's your authentic foot forward, right? It's just who you are. And so when I think of that first step becoming, I just think of it as you knowing who you are, And you having a good relationship with yourself so that you can show up exactly as you are in this relationship, in a possible new relationship, or in the relationship that you're in now. And I think you made a really great point when you said, you know, we— if we don't know who we are and we don't know what we need, then if we're in a relationship that's not healthy, we're not even able to ask for the thing that we need. We might have a sense of it. We might be disappointed because we're not getting it. But But sometimes we're not even fully aware. And so it sounds like step one is getting to know yourself well, being honest with yourself about what you want, be— and allowing yourself to speak your needs, right, in your relationship. Um, but just really getting to have that healthy relationship with yourself. And so I also wanted to just talk about bedazzled, which I love bedazzled. I can't even say the word. I love bedazzled as a woman who, you know, just likes bling. Oh. Um, yeah, I love my bling. But I also just want to highlight for women that the point isn't that you always have to be bedazzled in a relationship, because relationship over the course of a long term, over decades, it's not always going to be bedazzling. And if something feels bland, it doesn't mean you need to get out of a relationship. Bland is not a reason to get out. You should be fulfilled, and there should be moments of that glittery, blingy, bedazzling feeling, right? Um, and so if you are feeling in that bland space, I think we go back to what you just talked about, is that first step is understanding who am I, what do I want, what do I need, and now how can I show up in the relationship and talk about these things and ask for them? Okay, so let's talk about the next one.

I did want to validate that first, Dr. Zoe, because I think that's hugely important. It's like we are going through relationships, especially longer-term relationships, and it's not always the bedazzlement. It's not always the bling feeling. But I think it's more often better than bland than not. I think it's usually like the things that I'm looking for in relationships is like you are having regular moments, intermittent moments of this bling. this bedazzled throughout the context of your relationship. And it's a recurring theme. It's not just like, oh, wow, I felt amazing in the beginning of the relationship, and now all of a sudden it's like completely bland.

Mm-hmm.

I'm not talking about that. It's still like interwoven. So I still want to like serve hope for the fact that like we can, we can bring it back in even if it's gotten to a place where we've settled into a zone that's primarily bland and doesn't incorporate like a lot of those. Those big, big bang moments in our relationship. So,

and when I think of that, I think of, you know, in a long-term healthy relationship, you're going deep. You know, there's a deep level of intimacy that is, is amazingly fulfilling because you are connected deeply with your best friend and you enjoy each other's company and you care for each other and there's reciprocity. And so That's a bedazzlement in and of itself. It's not the limerence, you know, exciting period, but that deep intimacy is so valuable. And I kind of think of that as a— as the kind of bedazzling part of a healthy longer-term relationship.

Definitely, definitely. And like having, having a partner, I think, that wants to go deep and wants to continue to go deeper. I think would be part of that becoming portion because I think like if we encourage, if we're vulnerable and raw and transparent and we encourage depth and our partner mimics that or reciprocates that in that exact way, I think like that encourages our own interpersonal growth in the same way that it encourages growth with the relationship. So like all about depth.

Absolutely.

Whole chapter about depth. I won't cover that today, but I have to read

the book for that. But none of that can happen if you haven't gone deep with yourself, right? If you're staying surface with yourself, You're not going to be able to go deep with anyone else.

Right. Right. Okay. So number 2, chapter 2 in my book talks a lot about expression. And so our communication styles. And I know, like, a lot of couples complain about communication, but a lot of couples don't, like, actually break this down in terms of what exactly we should be looking for with communication styles. And so there's a lot to be said about nonverbals. Um, that we don't always like necessarily give it credit for within the context of our communication styles. And so like, I'm, I'm well known for, uh, the fact that like my tone is usually like fairly abrasive, fairly abrupt, fairly blunt. And so, you know, that has been something that I've learned in my own marriage is like, okay, uh, there's probably a pretty high probability that if we're communicating about something that's remotely conflictual, that I'm going to throw in some sort of tone that's probably aversive to the other person. And so, like, coming up with some means of check and balance system— not to say that, like, having a harsh tone is a terrible, horrible thing that you should avoid, but, like, having a check and balance system in your relationship that says, like, your tone is a little much, like, I'm having a hard time paying attention to the context of your conversation or the content because Your tone is distracting, and it's creating you know some sort of defense mechanism in me. It's creating some sort of aversive feeling that's taking us away from the moment, you know, not allowing us to be mindful. And so it's this transparency I think that's really important within communication styles to just be able to say like there's something within the context of this conversation that's pulling us away from being solution-oriented or from hearing each other like truly, or you know finding space, reserving time and space. space to make sure that we both get a lens or we both get a perspective here. And so I think it takes couples a while to kind of normalize the fact that we can share that there's something not working right within the context of the conversation. But it needs trust. It kind of is like a plant in a lot of ways where it needs some nourishment and it needs some— over a longer period of time, it needs some help to kind of make that plant grow. In the way that we would envision. So expression is everything, I think, in a lot of ways. Taking turns in a conversation, making sure that, like, you're truly listening. You know, I think it's one thing to, like, be listening to someone and then be declaring your next argument in the background.

Right.

Which I think all of us are well known for.

Yeah.

I'm especially good at that, you know, depending defending my next case, you know, before I even have a chance to, like, really listen to them. But it's the listening to reflect and, like, listening to summarize, listening to, like, truly hear someone, right? It's a very different experience. And honestly, like, I think it requires patience, and I think it requires tolerance. A

little maturity and wisdom. But I want to— I want to go back to what you were talking about body language, because You know, really most of our communication, especially person to person. Now it's on phone, it's different, or text, that's a whole nother thing. But person to person, we actually communicate more with body language than we do with our words. And so many people don't realize that, which is also why we can easily kind of gaslight each other or, or, or, you know, deny something when someone is talking about body language. But when I'm talking in relationships, often what I will say is, Mm-hmm. Your body language is telling me this. So I might say, your body language is telling me that you're concerned about what I just said, or your body language is telling me that you're feeling angry with me or frustrated with me, um, or your body language is telling me that you're dismissing the thing that I just said. So I like to do that because I want the person I'm talking to to understand What I'm experiencing. Now, I could be completely wrong, or they could just deny it. Um, but either way, now we've introduced what's actually happening. Because if I don't say what I'm feeling as a result of watching their body language, I'm gonna respond based on it, right? Yeah. I am. And they're going to experience that response and have their own response based on my response, and it just ping-pongs back and forth. And so I can stopgap that by saying, this is what I'm experiencing from your body language. Now, maybe they will admit it, or maybe they will say, oh no, correct it. Either way, now they know, and now they at least understand maybe why I might be responding the way that I'm responding, and their response might help me change how I'm feeling. But I think it's important to let the person you're talking to understand how you're responding to their body language, because body language is predominant— a predominant way that we communicate with each other face to face.

We do. Yeah, I absolutely love that. Um, I think that, you know, a lot of people get stuck on the, I, I should just assume, I should just assume whatever is going on here, you know, and it's completely based off their lens. And what you're saying is absolutely 100% where we should go. It's the understanding both lenses. Yes. In the moment, which to me is like a very high-level skill. This isn't, you know, for, for the faint of heart by any means. This is a really high-level skill to say, like, you cannot only like give out some content or give out some information, but you can also be receptive,

right?

Whatever is going on with the other person, to be in tune with that. And like, if you can acknowledge that out loud, I feel like that's the icing on the cake. It's icing on the cake because like we have the potential to change the trajectory of where a conversation is heading just by being mindful and just by acknowledging that like someone might be not, not taking something well. And if we attend to that and cater to that feeling, we might have a better experience than just both of us reacting on assumptions, whatever is coming to mind for us. So space, tolerance, maturity.

Yeah, it takes all of it. And it's also teaching and modeling because I find that in relationships when I introduce that, then I find in other future conversations someone might say to me, your body language is telling me, and then I've got to check myself like, oh, okay. Of course I'm gonna get that back. And then I get to ask myself, okay, was that how I was feeling and it was coming across in my body language? Yeah. Can I honor that and, and admit to that? And can we have a conversation? Or did I truly not feel that way? But now I need to understand that there's something about what I'm doing that's making them feel that way. And that matters because when it comes to com— communication, this is like communication 101. The words that you say don't really matter. They don't. They're just words. What matters is what the other person hears. And sometimes we decide that that's the responsibility of the hearer. Like, I'm gonna say what I'm gonna say, and it's their responsibility to hear it the way I wanted them to hear it. I would say no. Like, if when you communicate, you want the person to hear exactly what you're trying to tell them. And so I think we also need to be responsible to make sure that that other person hears it that way. Otherwise, we're not really communicating.

We're not. We're not. And I think about it kind of like parallel play. I think it's a higher-level skill to actually have that intersection where both parties feel heard. It's completely different to parallel play where both parties are having their own conversation with themselves and we're just going— whoo, sorry— going down the same lane.

And that happens. That definitely happens.

Just provoked my Enneagram there. Sorry about that.

No worries. Yeah, that definitely happens.

I think there was one more point I had with communication. The listening too. I think that goes right along with what we've been talking about is just reserving time and space for the fact that we need to actually hear what they're trying to convey to us rather than formulating our next thing or our next agenda item. A lot of my couples treat communication like, you know, we're in a courtroom.

Yeah. And you're the judge.

I'm the judge.

Yeah.

Sometimes it's great, you know, that they, uh, feel so honored to give me so much power. But in other times, it's like, well, I'm, I'm trying to, like, help you guys develop your own way of communicating that's, like, a little bit more conducive to your style. And so, um, I'm big to push for the how. In which we exchange content rather than what we're actually exchanging. I feel like there's a lot of couples that I see that get caught up in, you know, like the details, the details of things. You know, was it 5 PM on a Friday or was it 5 PM on a Saturday? You know, like what specifically is the date and time? It's like, oh my goodness, we're not, we're not trying to come up with, you know, this exact evidence to like prove a court case. Folks, what we're trying to do is like both parties feel heard, both parties feel accepted, both parties feel understood. And like validation is everything before we move on and we like actually try to solve this problem. So less about the courtroom vibes, more about the— we are here to like be equals in a lot of ways. We're here to like intersect in a really healthy way.

I love that.

Yeah, we have a third. So my third chapter is all about like conflict specifically. So not just communication styles, but like how are we resolving conflict? Because I think there's a couple key components that I look for that are everything in terms of whether we're solving problems to some degree or whether we're walking away completely feeling— I don't know. Sometimes I see some couples that it looks like the movie The Hangover, where everybody wakes up on the top of the roof and you have no idea how they got there. And they've been— strung out for days. And, you know, like, they, they haven't had, like, any sort of recoup or healing or, like, means of, of feeling like they're walking away with some sort of nugget that's helpful for them. And so conflictual styles, I really hope to encourage, like, ownership, right? And so I think we experience big feelings right off the bat. I think conflict pulls from different things for different people. You know, for some people, it's pulling directly from childhood stuff. For other people, it pulls from, like, a traumatic incident in particular. You know, maybe there was someone that always yelled at them, um, or always criticized them or always bullied them. And so I think we're all pulling from, like, different spots as soon as we get to, like, this defensive place. And so I'm less interested in, like, preventing the fact that we get to a defensive place because, you know, I'd be working against all of the different things that have happened to us as humans.

Right.

I'm more interested in, like, once we get to a defensive place, What do we do with it? Right? So, like, based on attachment styles, like a lot of us need like time and space to kind of cool down and regain our composure and like get a little bit more grounded and a little bit more mindful. I'm one of those. I've got you know an avoidant attachment style that seems to mean or equate to the fact that like I need a little bit more time and space to feel composed than the average person. And so when I'm taking space, you know, twenty minutes. an hour sometimes, depending on what it is, I'm like doing really mindful things. I'm doing like meditation. I'm bringing in like some prayers, some mantras, some, you know, changing my temperature. Maybe I've gone for a run to just kind of like cool off and cool down. But like, we need to figure out what that is for us, what type of attachment style we have. What do we need when things get escalated, when things get heated, so we can like regain our composure? We don't want to have a conversation with a gut reaction brain. I think they get—

We do, because some people's attachment style is an anxious, right? Anxious. And what they want to do is they just want to glom on and want reassurance, and they want to stay in this until it's resolved. And maybe they're with someone who's more avoidant, you know? And so that's, that's going to create problems. But some people do feel that sense of, well, if he goes away because he needs his space, now I feel rejected. And So I think the point that you're making though is that you need to understand your attachment style. You need to understand how you tend to respond to conflict and know that about your partner as well so that both of you guys can be aware and accommodate for that when there is conflict.

And I like time limits too, Dr. Zoe, because of this idea that usually avoidant attachment styles find an anxious attachment style. It seems to be a very, very common theme, at least within the The couples that I see anyway. And so it's giving an avoidant a time limit. My husband is probably more on the anxious end of the attachment scale than he is avoidant. And so he needs a time limit. So, like, 20 minutes. Are you going to be able to come back to this and we can finish it and move on with our lives? But he needs some sort of time and space that says, we'll be coming back to you. Right. And I think anxious attachment styles do really well with that, too, to say, we are going to continue this. Doesn't necessarily mean the relationship is over. This doesn't necessarily mean, you know, the world is coming to an end. This doesn't mean that there's something wrong with you fundamentally, um, that's contributed to like why we're in this boat. Um, we like really hone in on the fact that like it's just space. It's just space. It's for a time-limited period of time so we can regain our composure and come back to it with less of a glob onto each other and not solve anything and more of a, hey, I see things from this angle. You see things from that angle. I can see how you got there. You know, like, I can validate that opinion. I can validate the emotional condition that you were in when we talked about the information.

Right.

And then, like, here's a couple ideas. When I was gone, I'm great at this. When I'm gone as an avoidant attachment style, I'm thinking about, like, maybe there's 3 options of, like, ways that we can solve this thing. And, like, we can bring some options back to the table and have more of a, like, Here's how we solve something together rather than like how we can disagree about the content that prevents us from like actually walking away with some sort of resolution.

Right. So I feel like a lot of what we've been talking about has been kind of high level. And for people in healthy relationships, this is very doable. For people in relationships that do feel disconnected, that do feel unhealthy, I'm not sure how doable this might feel for them. Yep. And so I'm wondering if, well, 2 things. One, if you could give some like first steps in these directions for a woman who feels like, I can't have that kind of conversation with my partner. We are so disconnected. We, you know, we, there, we have so much criticism between the 2 of us. There's so much sarcasm going on. We don't really communicate. Um, I'm not, I don't, I don't even know how to start something like this. And then also maybe for the woman who's maybe had an experience like that and is looking for a new relationship. How can she figure out, like, how do I see these things? Or how do I even know that I can create these? Or are there signs that I can look for in a new relationship that I know this is— there's space and possibility for this? I just asked you a lot of things, but we

can— So let's start off slow, Dr. Zoe. I feel like that's completely applicable here. But earlier stages, I think about back to my first chapter, that self-exploration, I think, comes Coming to the table, especially if we're starting off with like a relationship that feels really unhealthy right now for people, like having a basic understanding of what you need, a basic understanding of attachment styles, basic understanding of like love languages, you know who you who you are, like what your personality traits are, that type of thing. And so like that way we can kind of sit down. Like one of the first things I do with couples is establish like a ground rule, and and maybe it's a series of ground rules depending on you know what what the couple is able to kind of conceptualize. But very basic. ground rules, like, hey, could I sit down with you and we could talk about like some, some basic things that I feel like, like might improve us together? Mm-hmm. Um, you know, I think about maybe we could just like stop cussing, you know, like maybe we could make a commitment to like stop cussing at each other.

Um,

maybe, maybe we can make a commitment to start thinking about each other like a boss or like a supervisor in terms of would we go to a boss or a supervisor and talk to them in that particular way? Would we still have our job if we talked to our boss like we talked to our spouse?

Right.

Um, right. So like, can we, can we go to our partner and, um, see if there's any means of like establishing just a few common, easy ground rules, um, that might feel like an improvement, that might feel like there's a little bit more space? One exercise I give my couples is, um, can we, can we put each other on a soapbox? And so you get 5 minutes on your soapbox to talk about anything and everything, sky's the limit, uninterrupted. And the sole responsibility of the person who's not on the soapbox is to listen and reflect and summarize on what was shared on the soapbox. And so can we just practice that volley back and forth where we say we take turns? Like, you get some time and space, I reflect and summarize, and then we switch and you get some time and space and I get reflected and summarized upon.

Mm-hmm.

So ground rules, some basic volley. You know, and I, I ask people to like look for this in the earlier stages of finding a relationship in the same way. You know, when you, when you sit down, I, I think dating apps are completely overwhelming. But, um, I did, I met my husband on Tinder, so I can't, I can't, yeah, I can't be too much of a, um, a dating app hater. Um, but apps are overwhelming. And so like, I encourage people to get in front of someone rather than the texting and the email. Right. You know, technologically advanced means of communicating with someone. Can you get down in front of them and see, like, whether or not they volley? And what I mean by volley is, like, do they ask you questions about you? Do they actually listen to you when you answer the questions?

Yeah.

And do they give you some sort of feedback that keeps the conversation going based on the things that you've shared? So,

A,

are they reserving time and space for you? B, are they answering questions and providing some sort of feedback that, like, keeps the conversation going? Or Or does it dead end? I think that tells you a lot about people. And obviously, like, there's nervousness in the beginning. Sure. Finding someone. So I think, I think we have to account for that a little bit. But the volleying thing seems to be a theme that carries through all different kinds of partnerships and is absolutely a cool thing that we can kind of look for from the beginning. It also, to me, says a lot about whether or not the other person could potentially put you first Occasionally, are they? Are they putting you first always? No, I think that's incredibly dysfunctional to always have it on one side or the other. But like they could put you first at some point because they're asking about your life and your interests and your passions, and they're actually invested, I guess, in some ways into like making those needs become a reality for you, like making those needs get met.

You know, I think of reciprocity and that. That volleying part just gives you knowledge about, will there be reciprocity in this relationship if I continue with this person? And if they're able to volley in the beginning, that gives you an idea that, yeah, that reciprocity, there's space for that, probably.

Space for that, space for you, you know. And like, like I said, being bedazzled intermittently throughout a relationship, I think, requires that, okay, like, you focus on you and you put your own oxygen mask on first and you make sure you're taken care of. But like, That eventually overflows and it gives back to the relationship in a really healthy way. Like, you want, you want people that can do both. They can take care of themselves and they can also, uh, have some overflow occasionally to give back to you.

I love that. I love that. Well, thank you. This was very helpful. Do you have a last word of advice for a woman who may be struggling in a difficult relationship?

Uh, I'd like to think about everything as being temporary. Um, and I think that's even true, you know, for people that are in longer-term relationships as well. Like, relationships are really fluid. Mm-hmm. And so, like, just when you're feeling like there's no hope and there's no chance and there's, there's no other probability of getting to a better spot in your life, like, it's never too late. It's never too late. And, like, um, you know, there's a lot of rain, um, that happens during a storm. And, like, when the rain clears up and, like, the rainbow comes out, uh, all that rain was probably for an amazing thing. You know, like, there, there's hope and light and a whole bunch of goodness on the other side. So, So it's never too late. It's never too late. Relationships are fluid. Um, you can always find a better way. You can always find a better relationship. You can always do things to like overhaul your current partnership. You can always, you know, move things around in your life. So, uh, you're put in a position where you're like, you're creating the best version of yourself through the other people that you're in a relationship with.

Thank you. Thank you. That was such a great word. So how can people find you? How can people find your book coming out? Is it available for preorder right now?

It's available for early bird VIP list. So I gave you the link, Dr. Zoe, so we can post that in the comments, I'm assuming. And then @Dr_Meghan, all the letters. My parents got really creative. So Dr_Meghan on Instagram are the best ways to reach me. You can direct message me that way. Also my website, betterlivesbuildingtribes.com. Um, you can submit a form there if you're interested in learning more about what I'm up to. Um, I run a busy private practice, so I've got a whole bunch of different therapists working for me. I work out of Colorado and Arizona. Um, we specialize in mostly relationships, um, to some degree, either couples or families or even individuals that want to talk heavily about their relationship. So I hope you reach out and find me.

Thank you. Wonderful. We will put all of that in the show notes. Thank you for coming on, Dr. Megan. Have a great day.

Thanks, Dr. Zoe. Appreciate it.

Thank you for listening to Stronger in the Difficult Places. Please hit that follow or subscribe button so you don't miss an episode and share and review to help others find me too. If you haven't already, go to drzoeshaw.com to sign up for my newsletters to get freebies, quizzes, and encouragement that will help you strengthen your relationships. Connect with me through Throughout the week on Instagram. I love hearing from you all. Until next time, have a strong week.