How To Advocate For Yourself In Difficult Relationships

Hi there. Welcome to Stronger in the Difficult Places. I'm your host, Dr. Zoe, and today we're talking to a guest, Heather Hansen, about advocating for yourself in difficult relationships. Heather Hansen empowers women to believe in their leadership, power, and potential, drawing on her experience as a trial attorney, psychology degree, and dispute resolution training, time as a media personality, and hypnosis training. She helps women use stories, evidence, and their bodies to easily influence their relationships. Heather has appeared on the Today Show, the Dr. Oz Show, CNN, Fox News, CBS, and she's worked with business school Google, including Harvard Business School. She's the bestselling author of The Elegant Warrior: How to Win Life's Trials Without Losing Yourself and Advocate to Win: 10 Tools to Ask for What You Want and Get What You Want. She lives in New York City with her dog Wolf. I'm thrilled to be able to talk to her about advocating for yourself because reality: women in difficult relationships don't advocate for themselves enough. Reality: it's hard to sometimes step up and have the hard conversations. When you have some codependency, when you have some shame in your history, it's hard to do that. And so we're going to talk about easy ways, about ways that you can show up in your relationships, talk about the hard things, advocate for yourself. Listen in. Welcome, Heather. I am so excited to have you on the podcast today. We're talking about something really important, advocating for yourself in relationships. Can you tell me a little bit about how you even got started In this career journey?

Absolutely. So I have a psychology degree undergrad. I went to law school and immediately started defending doctors in medical malpractice cases. So I tried a lot of cases and got really good at advocating for the doctors and nurses that I represented.

Wow.

And really won most of my cases, became very well known in the field. And yet Zoe was terrible at advocating for myself in any of the ways, right? Whether it's at work or at home with significant others, with family members. And I sort of hit a point where I was at ultimate burnout, as many of us have in recent years, although this was way before COVID And I recognized that I had to learn how to apply the things that I did in the courtroom for other people and actually do it for myself. And so now that's what I do. I teach people how to use the skills that I used in the courtroom to advocate for themselves in all of the ways that they do in their regular lives.

That's wonderful. Isn't that amazing that it's easier to help someone else advocate for themselves? It's easier to advocate for other people than it is for ourselves. As a psychologist, I've experienced the same thing in my practice and in my work, and I had to go through all of that kind of painful work of learning how to advocate for myself, both in business And relationships. It's a little different, but both of them can be really hard when you haven't been used to doing that.

Absolutely. And it's even harder, studies show, for women. Yes, women really are very strong, and perhaps this is my interpretation of the data, perhaps even stronger advocates for someone else. Absolutely. But when it comes to advocating for ourselves, we really do seem to struggle with it a little bit more.

Yeah, when I think about mama bear, right, our mama bear instincts come up and we are gonna fight for our kids, but we've gotta learn to do it for ourselves. So let's talk a little bit about that. You know, one of the things I noticed when I started to learn to advocate for myself is that I use a lot of hedging words when I speak, right? I, it's kind of like, I think, or maybe, and I had to learn to eliminate those hedging words. And that makes a really big difference both in how I come to the table when I'm talking to somebody in terms of my own confidence.

Yeah.

Um, and of course how I'm perceived, and then of course the outcome. But let's talk about what, I don't know, I'm trying to think, do we wanna talk about why, why women tend to not, or what it looks like to not advocate for yourself in relationships?

Well, I think we can jump off of your idea of these hedging words. Yeah. Because words are really important and we hear the words that we say to ourselves.

Mm-hmm.

Right. And so your, your self-awareness that you knew that you were using words that came across as hedging is huge because so often we go through our days having these conversations where we are in fact advocating for ourselves and we don't know it. We don't know how we're doing it. We don't know how we're not doing it, and therefore we're not doing it effectively. So I think that the first thing that everyone listening, everyone watching should be thinking about doing is telling yourself, you know, the, the, the Skills that I teach are stories, evidence, and the energy of your body. And you use stories, evidence, and the energy of your body when you're advocating to others, but you also use them in your own brain. So if you're telling yourself the story, I'm not ready, I'm asking for too much, they're going to be mad, this is going to start a fight, you are far more likely to use those hedging words.

Absolutely.

And your voice sounds different, your body language is different, all of the E part, the energy part. And so you've got to tell yourself a story of power and worth and that what you're asking for serves the other person as well, so that you are really grounded in what you're asking for and less likely to use those hedging words.

Wow. That's so, that's so powerful and so true. It's so true. You know, I notice men don't use hedging words as much when they talk. Um, they're trying to get a point across and there's confidence there. Um, but I think a lot of times it comes down to how are we feeling about ourselves and our value and what we have to offer and our influence. I think especially women, we minimize, we undervalue our influence, and our influence is so strong. You know, it's funny, I was just talking— this might be getting off on a tangent, but I was talking to a friend about the whole concept of using the word woman Or not, especially like chairman, chairwoman, you know, even in the boardroom and things like that. And this might step on some people's toes, but I prefer to use the word woman. I know a lot of women will say, well, no, I want to call myself a chairman or an actor instead of an actress. And my thinking in that is that when we do that, we are saying that the word woman, right, or adding, you know, that, that suffix of S is, is less than. And I would like to have a conversation where we don't need to minimize the meaning of woman, but instead we need to allow that word woman to be powerful, right? Instead of minimizing it. Yeah.

Yeah, I love this conversation. I, years ago, had— oh gosh, her name, first name's Elizabeth. I'm blanking on her last name, but she wrote a book called Cassandra Speaks. And we were talking about women in power and how many women don't like the word power. They don't like to think of themselves as being powerful, which I don't struggle with that one. So that was a little bit surprising to me. I think you're right. I think it's important. But also the important thing is what you believe about the words you use. If some of the listeners believe that saying chairman or actor or I was a waitress, waitstaff, flight attendant, like, you know, there's these different things that we now use. It's really what you believe. If you believe in the word that you're using and that there's strength and power behind that word, that belief comes across. It comes across in the way that you tell your story.

Right.

It comes across in the way that you present your evidence. It comes across in your tone of voice, which we can talk about is so important when you're advocating for yourself, but also your body language and your facial expressions. And so I love that you're opening up this conversation so that more people are aware of this because the self-awareness— I go back to that, the point that you made, you pick these hedging words— the self-awareness is an imperative before you start advocating for yourself. You want to know that you're doing so, right? You want to know what is— where your bad habits are so that you can really step into your power and do it effectively.

That's beautiful. That's beautiful. So let's talk to a woman who's in a relationship And she may feel a lot of shame. She may feel that she can't really speak up for herself. She may feel like she's too much or just doesn't know how to have those difficult conversations. What would you say would be the first step for her?

So the first thing that I always like to talk about, because all of us, but especially women, we are thinking about the other person and worrying that they're not gonna like us, that they're not gonna, that they're not gonna approve, that they're not gonna wanna give it to us, that they're gonna get mad, that they're gonna be judging.

All of that.

And so, What we want to do is think about their perspective and what is their pain? What do they want? So, for example, if you are trying to get your— I'll give you an example from one of my actual clients. Mm-hmm. I had a woman who hired me. She was pretty high up at a company and wanted to go higher. And so, she hired me to advocate for herself in her work. And then we did that. She got that promotion. And the next thing that she wanted was her husband to agree to get a pool. So she was advocating for herself to get a pool in the backyard.

Yeah.

And she was anxious about asking and felt like, you know, he's gonna get mad and he's gonna say no, and we're gonna get in a fight about money, and then he's gonna— we're gonna have cold shoulder, and he's gonna say I'm always asking for something and I'm never happy with the yard, and all these things. And so instead of thinking all the things negatively that he was gonna think about it, we talked about why would he want the pool? What pain does the pool Stop for him, or what pleasure does it bring? And one of the things that we as women really need to own is happy women make for happy partnerships. Yes, without a doubt.

Right.

And so that in and of itself is part of the selling point of asking for what you want. Now you don't want to do it in a bratty way to be like, "Well, if I don't get this, I'm gonna be a jerk." But it's more that I will be. You know, if you help me with the laundry, I am going to be so much more present. when we're sitting watching our show at night, or when I'm— we're playing a game of checkers, or when I'm rubbing your back and not thinking about the laundry and sort of ruminating about the laundry, which sticks in my mind. So it's going to be better for you. And you don't have to specifically say it, but you can say, I'm going to be more happy, I'm going to be more present. But then, Zoe, you have to follow through and actually do that, right? You have to actually be more present and really be there. Yeah. Because the evidence of what you have said, you know, if you help me with the laundry, I'm gonna be more present. And then you actually are. Now you're building credibility. Right. So the next time that you ask for a pool and you say, the pool's gonna make me so much more fun and our family's gonna get together and we're gonna be able to get together as a family. Now there's gonna be more credibility there. And if you see it through, through your partner's perspective, you know, he hates going to the beach. He hates sand between his toes, thinking about what he wants and likes. And then how what you want feeds into what he or she wants. It's really important. The way that I— the umbrella that I put this under is know your jury. Who is the person or the people that give you your wins? Right. And you have to understand their perspective so that you can speak to it in a way that's effective.

That's beautiful. Part of what I hear is honor the fact that your happiness matters, right? And recognize that your happiness is part of the equation in this relationship. And so you need to come with the confidence of my happiness does matter. And so does my partner's. And so how can I speak to my partner in a way that I'm recognizing that his happiness matters too, right? So I'm attaching, like you said, the jury to what he is interested in. I'm attaching it to his interests, but also Mm-hmm. Honoring mine at the same time.

Exactly right. That's exactly right.

I love that.

The other piece of that that's really important is questions. Questions are magic.

Yeah.

When you ask questions rather than attacking or making statements, you can, you know, in the courtroom, that's all I did the whole trial.

Right.

I don't, I don't say a whole lot. My opening statement, my closing argument, but in between, I just ask questions. And questions can be used to build up a case or take down a case. Yeah. And when you ask questions, the person you're asking the questions of, they hear their answers. And so you can almost get people to make the case for you with the questions that you ask. You know, like, isn't it— is it important to you that we have family time? You know, do you want to have a home that the kids' friends want to come to? And maybe the answer is going to be no, but if it's yes, You're making the case for the pool without having to say we really need the pool. Questions are a really great way to get into what feeds your partner's happiness and then thinking about your own and how the two can come together.

Right, right. I love the question part. Obviously, as a therapist, I ask a lot of questions. And the point is not to trick anybody. The point is to lead them, right? And when you're asking questions, you're engaging them instead of just talking to them. And then all of a sudden, You know, they can see, oh, you know what, this is something that I'm interested in or may want, or I can see the value of it, and I've just talked to you about why I can. And that's beautiful. That's beautiful.

Yeah, their questions are so important, and people sometimes think asking questions puts me in a place of weakness or I'll look stupid, and it's quite the opposite. The research shows that people find you to be more intelligent.

Yes.

When you ask questions.

Absolutely.

So go for those questions.

Yeah, yeah. And often, you know, and the thing about— I should say, speaking to someone, when we're trying to kind of make our points, people tend to feel a little defensive, and in their mind they're already countering, right? They're countering the points. But when you ask a question, they're not countering anything. They're thinking about what you, you said and coming up with an answer.

Yeah. And the Defensiveness can be so problematic in relationships.

Yeah.

Yeah. When you put down your defenses, you really open up your hands to pick up compassion and curiosity

and

love and all of the things that you need. But, and listen, this is coming from a defense attorney for 25 years. It's one of my biggest struggles not to be just automatically defensive. I'm very good at it. But it really doesn't serve, especially in those personal relationships where you want to make connections and that's impossible when you're holding up your shield.

That's so good. It's impossible to connect when we're holding up shields. And so we want to be in a place where our shield is down and we're encouraging our partner's shield to be down and we've got to foster that environment. Yeah. So as I'm thinking about a woman who may be listening to this and all of these are really great points and we're giving some great advice. But it can feel really scary.

Oh yeah.

Um, to actually do the thing, to take the next step for a woman who maybe there's been a lot of cold shouldering from her partner. Maybe there's been a lot of disconnect. Um, maybe she wants some big things in the relationship and this sounds great, but how, but like, how does she get over the fear of taking the step to, to step up in that way?

So most of the time, most of the time emotions There's a lot out there about emotions. We're learning that emotions start in the body. So I'm not taking away the fact that our emotions often start in our body. But the majority of the time, maybe only 51%, our emotions are a result of our beliefs. So you believe something and then you feel something.

Right.

So if you are feeling fear, I want you to go back and think to yourself, what am I believing? I'm believing that they're going to be angry. I'm believing that this is going to hurt our relationship. I'm believing that I'll never get what I want. I'm believing— and you are— the way that I often talk about it, Zoe, is that you have a negative attorney in your head.

Yes.

Making the case for those negative stories.

Right.

That person's gonna say no, it's gonna hurt everything I just said. Right? Right. You've got to counter it because you have an inner jury. And a lot of times when I say that, people think that's the part of you that judges. It's not. Your inner jury is the part of you that is listening and choosing what to believe.

That's so good.

That's what your inner jury is doing. And so you've got this negative attorney arguing for, this is bad. Don't speak up. It's risky. It's scary. It's bad. You've got to give it an opposing voice. You've got to make the case for, this could help our relationship. I might get even more than I want. We might come to a conclusion of something that's even greater than I could have imagined.

Right.

This is leading me in the right direction. And you've gotta tell yourself an opposing story.

Mm-hmm.

And you've gotta collect and create evidence to support the opposing story so that you actually believe, yeah, that it is worthwhile. And then your emotion, when you believe this conversation is going to lead to better connection, no matter what, whether I get what I want or not, it's going to lead to better connection.

Right. So good.

Yeah. Now the emotion is gonna be anticipation. Curiosity, determination, and then that changes what you do and how you do it, and will definitely change the result. Versus if you go into it thinking, this is going to hurt my relationship, the emotion is fear, the action and the energy of the action is different, and the result is going to be very different.

Absolutely. That, that is so, so good. You know, in my couple of decades of being a therapist, I have never seen a partner going to another partner and speaking the truth ever damage a relationship. Now, the relationship, you know, may have already been damaged, but speaking your truth and standing up to yourself does not damage a relationship. You are talking about what already is, and sometimes we're— we need to talk about the damage that already is in a relationship, but it's not going to make it worse. It may just reveal some things that are already in existence that would have eventually been revealed or not. But I can promise you, you are not going to make it worse by speaking up.

Yeah, I, I think that that's right. And I think it's especially right if you speak up with an energy of love, compassion, curiosity, and not an energy of defensiveness or attack.

Attacking.

Yeah, I think that when you're, you know, energy is So important. The energy of our bodies. I'm obsessed with tone of voice. I could talk about it forever. And there's a study out of Yale that says that you can tell more about a person's emotions, right, from tone of voice than their body language and their facial expressions combined. And so it's, that's why it's so important for you to get into the right belief and the right emotion, because your partner's going to hear it. And anyone who is in a partnership who is listening knows what their partner's voice sounds like.

Yes.

When it is angry or impatient or frustrated. Or distracted, like, you know their voice.

Absolutely.

And so it's— and you've gotta know that your voice is reflecting your emotion. So get yourself into a place where you can generate the emotion of curiosity is a great one, right? Because it doesn't have to be positive.

Right.

It just has to be, I wonder what will happen if we have this conversation. I wonder what kind of connection we can make. But it's really important. And then it's important to listen to your partner's tone of voice, because there are days your partner gets home from work and you can hear in the voice that there's some exhaustion. Might not be the day to start advocating for what you want.

Yeah.

Listening is important too.

I love that energy. And I'll talk a little bit about, about tone in a minute. But, um, I have found in my relationships that when I get really curious, when my question isn't, why did you do this? But I wonder what was going on with you when you, you know, chose to make that decision, or when you said that thing, what were you feeling? When I ask questions like that, I get such a different response because then it, it indicates to my partner that I actually care about what was going on for you emotionally in that moment when you said that thing that might've hurt me, but I'm just trying to understand you better instead of. You did something wrong and I'm blaming you for it right now.

I love that. And I love your natural understanding and not natural. You've also been doing this for decades, right? Understanding that the word why can put people on the defense,

right?

I, I had Judge Rosemary Aquilina on my podcast and she is the judge who did the Larry Nassar case. Yeah. gymnastics, all those gymnasts. And she's amazing. And she taught me so much. I met her, I talked about her in my book, but she really hates the word why. Yeah, she does a lot of sexual assault cases. And people say, why were you wearing a short skirt that short? Why were you out so late? Why were you walking alone? And it puts people on the defense.

It does.

And if instead you say— the questions you just asked were beautiful— or tell me, tell me what you want me to know about that night. Tell me, like, that's, that's a Judge Aquilina phrase. Tell me what you want me to know. It's a beautiful door opening to all kinds of information that you can then use to find ways that your happiness feeds your partner's.

I love that. I love that. And I was trying to think of who was doing this research, and I can't remember right now, but there was research, marriage research. Was it Gottman? I think it was Gottman. Did you know he did so much research in marriage, and he was able to Predict divorce with what it was like a high 90%, not by the words that were spoken, but just by taking the tone out of the words. So only listening to tone, he was able to predict that, and, and partners communicating with each other.

It's so interesting. So my background is defending doctors, and Wendy Levinson did similar work with doctors and patients and recorded the interactions, took out the words And were able to predict which doctors had been sued based on that as well. So it really— tone of— that's actually— that study is what got me down the rabbit hole of tone of voice.

Yes.

And so it really is, you know, we hear warmth, interest, joy, curiosity in voices. So use that to your advantage and get to a place where the person's going to hear those things as opposed to hearing resentment, frustration, boredom, distraction, all the other

I love that. I remember learning in my graduate program when we were talking about malpractice and, and things like that. One of the professors was— there was some kind of research that they did about doctors who get sued. And what they found was that it wasn't the doctors who were the least competent that got sued, right? It was the doc, and it tended to be the ones who were the most competent that got sued. Yeah. sued because it was based on a relationship. And the people would say, you know, I didn't feel that they cared about me. Whereas a doctor could do something agree— like egregious and really make a big mistake, but someone would say, but that doctor was so good and he cared so much for me, and I'm not going to sue him because I know he really tried to do the best, you know. And they really emphasize that relationship makes a difference.

It makes such a difference. I talk about this quite a bit in my work. Because there's a lot of research about how the doctor-patient relationship makes patients healthier. A lot of research.

That's—

We don't talk about it enough because there's no money in it.

Right?

No. And in fact, there's less money in it because part of that relationship is slowing doctors down from seeing a million patients a day.

Yeah.

And poor doctors, you know, they're stressed, they're burnt out, they have all those things going on too. But as patients, we need to be aware of that and make sure, especially people of color, because there's a whole other conversation around implicit bias, right? But we need to make sure that we are connecting with our providers, that we're comfortable talking to them.

Yeah,

because that relationship, just like your relationship with your significant other, has a huge impact in your health, your, your body health and your mental health.

Right. And your relationship health. I, I always think about that saying, people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. And when you can You know, when you can insert and make sure you're really expressing to your partner your care, even when you're advocating to yourself, then the relationship will be healthier. You're going to feel like you're getting what you need in a relationship, and you in response will be healthier as well.

Absolutely. It's— and that's, that's part of the cell, right? Yeah. When, when I get what I need, you get what you need.

Yeah.

And so really thinking about it from that perspective.

Yeah.

It also then helps women, you know, we started this conversation talking about how we're better at advocating for others. So if you can change, shift your mind to think, I'm actually advocating for them when I ask for this because it's gonna ultimately benefit them. If you can do that mind ninja thing, then you can get to a place where you know that you're actually being of service when you ask for what you need.

That's how I feel like I, I have to sell women sometimes in self-care. You know, it's that whole concept of when you're caring for yourself, you have more to give to other people. And if that's the way you have to look at it, then that's the way you have to look at it. It's true. It's true. You caring for yourself helps other people too.

Yeah. Yeah. And it, it, it opens the door to it and then it becomes fun because a lot of times I think women see this as like a struggle. I don't wanna do it. And, and so once you We've talked about stories and the story you tell yourself and the story you tell the other. And we've talked about the energy of your body, but that evidence piece is an important piece. So the way that I like to talk about it is data is the ingredients and evidence is the meal. Okay. So you want to take the things that happen in the relationship and turn them into evidence to support what you want to believe or what you want your partner to believe.

I like that.

So for example, If you start— we talked about having your partner help with the laundry. Now you can create evidence for your partner that when they help with the laundry, you are more attentive, you are more present, you are more fun. And I put that in quotes. You are more appreciative. You are more likely to give in other ways. And so you're creating evidence to support this, this idea, this belief that when you get what you need, Mm-hmm. So do they.

I love it.

And so you need to be constantly thinking about evidence and then you can collect it. So creating evidence is actually doing something. The best example of this is say I want to run a marathon and I've never run a marathon. I can collect evidence that I could run a marathon by looking at other women my age, my height, my experience who have run marathons. I can collect evidence by looking at things I've done in the past that were hard, but the best way is to create evidence. By running 1 mile and then 2 miles and then 3 miles. So in your relationship, you want to collect evidence by looking at things that you guys have done in the past or things that other couples are able to do. John Gottman's work, for example. And then you create evidence by actually doing something. It's a little more risky because you're putting yourself out there, right? But that evidence has a lot of weight.

It does. It has a lot of weight because it's very specific to you and your situation, and you can do it Little step by little step, little at a time.

And you have to almost. Yeah, I am not a patient person, right? That's the hardest part for me is these little pieces of evidence. Even in the courtroom, I kind of wanted to just like shove it down the jury's throat and say, find this. My mentor always said it's like a pearl necklace and it's one pearl at a time. And so in our relationships, it's the same. It's one pearl at a time and you're putting together this beautiful

I love that. Wow, Heather, this has been amazing. Thank you so much. I love your insight.

I am delighted to be here. I love your podcast. I love the work that you do in the world, and I'm excited that we could have this conversation.

Thank you so much. Is there any last word of encouragement that you'd like to give a woman out there on just on advocating for herself?

I just think that you really be aware of what you're believing and know that it can change. It's a matter of changing the stories, Collecting the evidence, creating the evidence, and then your— the energy of your body will change. Nothing happens until someone believes. So work on that belief.

I love that. Thank you so much. So how can people find you? How can people work with you?

So my website is beliefbuilders.com, and there's— I have a membership, and I do a lot of keynote speaking. And then my Instagram is @anelegantwarrior. So A-N Elegant Warrior. My book is called The Elegant Warrior. Um, which is available on Amazon and everywhere you buy books.

I love that. All of that information will be in the show notes. And Heather, thank you so much for coming on today. It's been wonderful.

My pleasure. Thank you.