When Words Hurt: How Inner Critics and Tone Trigger Disconnection

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To creating relationships that feel good. Welcome back to dear Dr. Tracy. I'm so glad you're here. Before we dive in, if you've been enjoying these conversations, I would love for you to take a quick moment to pause, rate the show, and hit subscribe so you don't miss future episodes. Your support truly helps get these important conversations into more ears. And a quick reminder, my new book, you, your husband and His Mother is officially available for pre order. It's packed with stories, strategies and tools to help you strengthen your marriage while navigating those tricky family dynamics. And here's what I want to to emphasize. I hear from so many people that they do have good relationships with their mothers in law so they wouldn't necessarily need this book. And I want to share that this book isn't about just for people who have a quote unquote toxic mother in law, but it's also for people who want to maintain the connection they already have. I walk you through several different tools and strategies. My method, the Vault Method is a five step approach that's really going to help you keep your marriage and your relationship with your mother in law or an extended family member in that healthy place. All right. You can find the pre order link right in the show notes I can't wait. I hear from so many of you that you are excited for this book. Now onto today's question. This initially started as a question box and then I asked for more details. So if you've ever felt like your words come out sharper than you meant them to, or like your partner is waiting for you to mess up, this episode is for you. We're going to unpack what's really happening in these moments, how our inner critic plays a role and and the most important part is what you can do to break out of this cycle and find a new way forward together. So this question comes from Melissa and initially she responded to my Instagram story.

Box which was asking share your highs.

Lows or difficult moments. And she wrote in I always seem to say the wrong thing or say something to hurt them. Initially when I got Melissa's comment I thought this Some people have an over attunement to perceived or actual rejection. There's also this term called rejection sensitive dysphoria. Now the perceived part is really key. Are people saying what you said is wrong or is this the story you tell yourself? And who defines right or wrong? And I also added in if someone is about is upset about something, it doesn't necessarily make you wrong. And this is the piece that I teach in my first book. I didn't sign up for this, which is all about interdependence and differentiation because someone is allowed to have hard feelings around what's happening and at the same time what you have shared might not actually be wrong. And the space where we come together in interdependence is by seeing my impact on you and also knowing who I am, that I am not wrong or bad, but I can see the impact on somebody else. But I got more detail because so many of you responded to this story share saying, oh, I feel the same way. So Melissa shared more and we're going to work through exactly what she shared. So here's what Melissa said. She said, so my husband always says it's not what I say but how I say it. I mean, well, most of the time, but my words come out wrong, are too critical and end up hurting my husband. And honestly, a lot of times I'm actually unaware I'm an enneagram1 and have an inner critic that's always on. So when I say something to him it seems way less harsh than anything I say to myself. O Can we also just relate to that? I I'm going to derail us right away here in this question here. I want to just acknowledge here that a lot of times our partners don't understand that how things come out is so much softer than what it is that we say to ourselves. Or I also have said this to many couples in my therapy room, which is how she communicates with you, not excusing how it comes out, but she has learned to communicate in this way from her own family. And and it is just a sliver of the criticism that she experienced growing up because she's trying to break this cycle and that dose of compassion right there just hits so hard. Okay, so back to what Melissa said. Melissa said also, many times I have an idea of how I want the day or date to go and then one simple comment in the wrong tone or interpreted the wrong way and the whole day derails or the whole date derails. It's so frustrating. So this is where she puts out, say, a bid for connection. It's not taken the right way and then he has a hard time getting back on track. So it's almost like getting sucked into quicksand or glue. She said, it's so frustrating. I feel so helpless to get out of this pattern slash cycle. I struggle with my words and my husband seems to just wait for me to say something or quotations mess up so he can say there you go again ruining the day or moment. Would love any advice. Okay, I want to start here because I can feel how much this pattern weighs on Melissa and she intentionally took the time to come back into our DM together and share this with me. And I also know this from working with my clients. It is so hard when you're trying to connect, but you then end up getting swept away in your negative cycle, you say the thing you had intentions behind it, words and tones are misinterpreted, and then everything unravels. So I'm going to break this down together because there's so much in here to unpack. And I want you those listening today to have some practical tools to help shift this dynamic. So let's start here with Melissa sharing that she is an enneagram one. I just did a corporate session on personality, stress and the nervous system. And everybody in this group, this group of women, they all walked away with a deeper understanding of who they were. I have to admit, it was one of my favorite, favorite sessions that I've given. And we had a number one. We had an enneagram one in the group. And I said this to her, I said this to each person in this group because we ended up having one of each anagram type, at least in our group. And I said, we need people like you. You are so powerful. Here is the role that you play. And I said, so know that we need your one. So I want to identify first that your self awareness of knowing that you have this high inner critic and knowing your enneagram1 plays a role here. This is huge. So if you are one or you know a one, you're likely deeply attuned to improvement, structure and doing things right. And this is how they show up in the world. And we need these people because they help us to get things done and to do it accordingly. The challenge though, is that sometimes there can be this high inner critic that's relentless and. And constantly scans for when other people are not doing it this way. And I think the hard piece around this is because you're so used to this voice, it can feel like the way you communicate with others is much softer than it actually lands. I have a one in my life, and she brings something so beautiful to our friendship. And at the same time, I also know that she follows those rules and holds herself to those high standards, that if others do not, it can feel almost like this personal attack. So I think something for us to recognize is that self and other perspective. Because your husband doesn't hear the inner critic that you're having with yourself. He doesn't hear those micro moments in your mind where you're making this decision about how something should go and you follow the rules and he doesn't. He only hears the words, the tone that you use with him. And when those feelings feel maybe even slightly critical, even unintentionally, it can trigger feelings of inadequacy and defensiveness in him. And that right there is exactly where the cycle begins.

I think this self awareness piece is something so powerful that you can take to your partner.

Because remember, the more we understand each other, the more compassion and empathy we can offer the other person. I also love the idea that so many people. So there's a few concepts here. Dr. Stan Tatkin in Wired for Love talks about the couple bubble. I know Alyssa Blask Campbell talks about creating these connections in family. Dana Abraham talks about can the road map of each family member.

So when we begin to understand who.

Each person is in the family, we can then start to hold in mind what's the best way to communicate with them. So if we know, for example that you tend to have this tone or the critical sense comes in it, then your husband, this is a requirement of him, which is difficult because we can't control him. Hopefully you can listen to this episode together and talk about the ideas. But he can practice then. And this is the work I do with couples, I always do the both ends is that it's like I can hold in mind and remember that my wife is not trying to come at me, that this is who she is, this is how she comes forward the first time. And if I meet her with softness, then we can change the whole course of this cycle. I'll talk about the cycle again, but I just wanted to pause here. And also then as you as the enneagram one, you can then start shifting how you communicate with him and say love. I know that there are these times where I come in with this harshness and it's not always that way. Can I try to do this again? And, and, or maybe even then if we are thinking of the other person holding them in our mind, then one of you can say, is this your number one coming out right now? Like something that's, that's humorous, that is playful. As one client recently described it, there's these moments where we can disarm each other in sessions rather than choosing to escalate. So I'll talk about this with the negative cycle shortly. But there's this element here as well where every interaction you both have a choice point and you listening. You can only choose what you do in that moment and how you respond to things. And the same goes for your partner. And both partners have this choice. Am I going to meet you in this emotional road right here where I can feel your emotions and I think you're having these big emotions or am I going to take the high road? The high road is the front of our brain, and there are so many ways that we can tackle getting into the high road, which sometimes humor is a great way. It can also be a squeeze of the arm. So it's a connection, a co regulation. It can also be just naming something. Naming something out loud gets the front of your brain online, which says, oh, I think I'm having a big feeling here. Hang on, that didn't come out the way I really would have wanted it to. And that right there is how you start to change what's happening between the two of you. Foreign.

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All right, I'm going to Go big picture. Because here's what I want you to know. This isn't about being a bad communicator or ruining the moment. Instead, this is about emotional safety between you and your husband. I do this inside Be connected. This is my online relationship program which has reached thousands of people throughout the five and a half years that we have been live. And this is all about identifying the patterns in your relationship and being able to make real changes. So I'm going to first talk about the cycle that I suspect is happening here and then I'm going to come and leave you with three, maybe four things that you can do. Okay? So when your partner hears a critical tone, it's likely that it triggers something deeper for him. Maybe these are feelings of inadequacy or a fear that he's not enough for you. And those feelings most likely originate much before he found you. Those are often deeper feelings. But then he responds to you with a there you go again or you're ruining the day. This is him protecting himself, even though it ends up creating more distance between you. And it's tricky because when we go into these self protection modes, it is this, in a sense, emotional fusion. Because what we do in that moment, I'm putting my hands together because this is often, I'll do it right here. It's emotional fusion, one hand on top of the other. Because right here it's this loss of ability to see that you are having some experience that probably has nothing to really do with me, but I'm vacuuming it in into myself and making it about me. As soon as I make it about me, it doesn't feel good. You better believe I'm going to protect myself. And that protection right there is often connected to this old mechanism of how people remained connected to their primary caregivers. Remember, as children we saw parents do something that we might do now. We had parents do that thing to us, which we might do now in our romantic relationships, or we learned to do the thing to help keep ourselves protected and connected with them. I recently had a client not talk about the relationship with their caregivers, but actually a sibling relationship of how there was bullying between these two siblings. And the parents didn't interject and, or interrupt and stop the bullying pattern. And right there was how this person learned to develop these protective mechanisms because they had to, because it was every day this experience with this sibling. And that would lead them to feel like I have to protect myself while also remain connected in this family. So then when we go back to the cycle when your husband says, there you go again, right? So he's popped up. It's in the emotional part of his brain. He's not connecting with you. He hears this as criticism. He's protecting himself. This then triggers something inside of you. This is the infinity loop. It's the infinity negative interaction cycle. It's lesson three, inside be connected. It's my favorite lesson to recommend to people because of that, the. The core of emotionally focused couples therapy. And also for those who have pre ordered my book, it's also part of chapter four, which helps you identify those patterns within your own marriage. But so here you are. Something is triggered inside of you and maybe it's even shame because you feel like you can can't get it right. But whatever it is, it leads you back into the cycle and both of you not being able to break it and feeling further apart from. And it's tricky because that cycle piece then is how do we then get back together? What is it that you both need? So this doesn't derail. And Melissa, you had said earlier that then this derails the entire date. And that to me says that your husband stays longer in this sense of dysregulation. And now the question is, if this is going to continue happening, how do we find together a way to become regulated back again? I know you as listeners must be familiar with me completely derailing this. And I'm doing it again. And this is one of the reasons why I love answering your questions because so much comes to my mind about where we're going. And if you see my scripts that I write ahead of time, you know, I'm not methodical. Methodical by following the script to a T. But okay, here's what comes to mind in this moment. I had this beautiful session with a couple and we made some great movement in the escalation of their patterns that were now leading them to both shut down. And we talked about how there's this experience between the two of them that then can lead them to get defensive and to get critical and they both end up shutting down. And so I started talking about what would it be like to choose one of three roads. So this specifically is for if your partner can't get back on track, tends to hold on to something or you're just not sure where you're at. So this isn't necessarily the repair, as in I've done something to hurt you and I'm repairing this specifically. This is more about how do we get back on track for the date. And I recognize too, because a lot of listeners are parents and it's like we get such little time together and then one thing, and I didn't mean that, and now it's completely derailed and we just want to feel good again. So this is for this moment. So one of three things you can do. And I also talk about this in my after the Fight workshop, which is inside Be Connected. So if you're a Be Connected member, you can access this workshop. It's also one of my favorite ones. So there's three things you could do. So one, you take a mulligan. And as I've been golfing with Greg, I get to learn all this golf stuff. I only ever do nine holes, by the way. Can't go any further than that. But the mulligan is you ask for that one extra shot. It doesn't go against your score. I'm not a golf expert. I'm sorry for people listening if that was not a very good explanation. But so you say to your partner, can I take a mulligan? Can I have a do over? Because you notice in that moment that you're starting to get derailed. So you come back together. Okay, that's the one thing. The second one is touch and connection. And this is a. Is it about putting your hands slowly, gently, firmly on your partner's shoulder or grabbing their hand if you're in the car? This couple described them as being in the car. And so it was like a squeeze of the hand. And that for this person was like, that would just completely disarm me in that moment. Right. So again, we're not doing the big repair on the big moments. We're just trying to get back onto the same team and to get into a sense of calm and regulated. So one is take the mulligan. Two is the physical touch in some way a very grounding, soothing touch. And then the other one is an expression of gratitude or appreciation in some way. And in that moment, you get really specific. You say, there is no one else I would rather be on a date with right now or this morning when you packed the kids school bags and you got us all out the door. It was like magic. And I can't imagine doing this journey with anybody else. Or you find something smaller to say, saying, I'm so glad we're in this together. And I get to look over at you when it's you and I. This is the way we get out of that dysregulation into a little sense of connection moving forward.

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Now just turn around and see if you won't find a hamburger patch as you heaven for. Order the McDonaldland meal today and get the Mount McDonaldland ship with your very own character souvenir kit. Okay, I've zoomed out. I'm coming back in. So let's go into three things I'm going to offer you to tackle this and for the purpose of this episode, I want you to have these tangible things moving forward. But of course, if you're looking for more, join me inside Be Connected. We deep dive on so much of this through the several workshops. Any workshop I have offered throughout the years is located in inside of that the lessons. I have 12 core lessons of the key principal skills you need to learn in your relationship, plus several other library videos and guides that are going to support you through the way. And if you haven't looked at it recently, I also released Dr. Tracy AI. She's inside my program and she is so good that if you are stuck, if you've just had a blowout, you go to the bathroom or your bedroom and you say hey Dr. Tracy. You describe the situation and you get that immediate response right away. It's the same platform that people like Matthew Hessey, Lewis Howes are using and she has been incredible to watch grow. So it's not just some random AI person or bot. It is a piece that has been trained on my actual lessons and teachings and the five years of my coaching calls. Let's move forward. So the first thing you can do is really this hard skill that you're going to practice. This, it is around pausing and reflecting before speaking. And because you are a number one or maybe because of many other parts of you, like maybe you're an external processor. I'm an external processor and I can process really quickly and it comes out so fast. And boy, do I know how to flood Greg with all of my words. So here's the thing. Your inner critic is quick and it's easy for words to come out before you've had a chance to check in with yourself yourself. Here's one of the most powerful relational skills and I want to emphasize this. It is a skill because it's hard because you are having to override what your amygdala does in that moment, which is more of the knee jerk reaction. It's more about safety. It's more, something's happening for you inside. So you have to practice pausing before you speak, especially when you feel that urge to correct or to comment and ask yourself these questions, what's my intention here? How might this land for him? Is this something I need to say or can I let this go? And sometimes it's also about, is it something I need to say in this moment or can I make a note and come back to it later? And then asking yourself, how can I say it in a way that allows me to consider how he experiences me in the world? And then also, how can I name the process and the name need first before sharing the thing? This is all about slowing it down so that you can practice responding with intention rather than that knee jerk reaction. Okay, number two, name the cycle together. I've dabbled in calling out the cycle already, but let's do this specifically here. So you are stuck in that negative cycle. You say something that feels critical to him, he reacts with defensiveness and blame, and then you both feel disconnected. The important thing I say to all of my couples, it's not you, it's not him, it's the pattern that's the problem. And I love being able to say this to couples so that you can say, we're on the same team. And it's the cycle that is keeping us apart. So while this doesn't problem solve all the things, naming, this is a really powerful strategy and it's what I want you to practice first to help you get out of the mud. So then you can then start to problem solve. So here's a moment. Sit down with your partner in a calm moment and say something like this. Hey, love, I've noticed we get stuck in this pattern where I say something and it feels critical to you and then we both end up feeling hurt. I don't want us to keep getting stuck here. I would like for us to start recognizing that this is a cycle we get into and find a way for us to call quits on the cycle before it takes over. Naming that cycle is what's going to help you get it outside of you so you can start feeling more like a team. And as I mentioned before, this is also one of those moments where we want to hold in mind who is this other person. We operate and experience the world differently. It doesn't make either one of you wrong. And I want to emphasize this point here. Imagine you go to him and say, you're wrong. You're receiving this as criticism, you're wrong. This is you, this is all about you. It's the same thing just done differently. And that's not what we're doing doing. Because the goal here is not to find who is right or wrong. The goal is to co create together so that you can feel more connected, so you can problem solve, so you can feel like a team. And this requires both of you to do that inner work. And as I mentioned earlier, this might be a piece of work for your husband to do which we don't get to control him. But this pieces, where does that come from that you experience me as doing this? It's a bit of a deeper question to explore. Okay. Third, soften your startup. I want to emphasize that when people ask me questions and Greg and I actually talk about this around the coaching work that I do because he's sometimes like, oh, like you're really challenging these people and are you doing it like, is this a good thing? And my response is always, I do this with the most compassion possible. Because if you come to me and you want me to give you the list of three things your husband has to do differently, we're not going to make any change. I will sit with you in this supportive role of saying how hard that is, et cetera, et cetera. But when you send me a question, you're essentially asking me, how can I do this differently. And that right there gives you so much agency and control and choice. When we stop focusing on the other person to change, but instead asking ourselves, what can I do differently here? And this is where number three really steps in here. Because this is you softening your startup. Oh, this one is hard for me. I'm just going to confess that one to you as well. Because when I have the thoughts and I know where I'm going, I just want it out there so that they understand. And as we know, research shows. This is great research from the Gottmans, that the way you start a conversation is going to predict how it will go. So if you start with criticisms or frustrations, it's going to escalate. And if we don't share our inner feelings and needs, which is what I teach you how to do and be connected, then you're still going to get stuck in placing the blame on the other person. So the goal here is a softer tone. You're focusing inwards on yourself rather than on the other person. So here's an example. Instead of you never help with the kids. You've heard me use this example before. Try. I'm feeling really overwhelmed and could use some extra support. Could you do this at bedtime with me tonight instead of. And I made this one up because I don't have the examples from Melissa. Instead of your weekend planning is a terrible idea or this date just doesn't feel good. I don't think it's a great idea. Try. I'm reflecting on this weekend's plans and I want to talk about how it's landing for me. There's something for me that it's not feeling good and I need for us to be on the same page. And you might also say, can I ask you to hear me and what my feelings are? All right. I misspoke at the beginning when I said there were three pieces. I actually have a fourth piece. And this is really about you and your partner doing this together. And this is around the most generous interpretation, because here's what we know. And Dr. Becky Kennedy, in her book Good Inside, she talks so well about. She calls it the mgi, the most generous interpretation. And so here's the of. Piece. Piece. Our brains are designed to scan for negative. This is adaptive. It's a safety mechanism. We're going to see the negative before we see the good. And I also talk about this in terms of the cognitive bias, the confirmation bias. Our brains do this to help us stay safe. And so then the challenge in long term romantic relationships is that we're going to see something as negative first rather than seeing the positive intention behind it. So the most generous interpretation is by asking yourself, what could possibly be happening for this person if I were to give them the mgi? So this might sound like, oh, I know Greg got the kids off to school this morning, and there was a meltdown over the lunch selection and having to do the dishes and then making their beds before they got ready for school. And. And I know then that this kind of text to me, which feels a bit short, or how he approached me after drop off, is short, then I can say, of course it's a bit short because he had a really hard morning and his nervous system must be shot. Or I can say something like, he didn't consider how that might have landed for me, or he just had a really hard call. You get the idea, right? So I think it's so important then when we come into our relationship and we say something like. Like, how can I give my partner the most generous interpretation here around this really hard moment? And that's something for both of you to do. All right, I've already talked about repair, but also, let's talk about repairing in that moment, because it can sound something like this. I realize my tone came out harsher than I intended. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you. And what I say to my couples is repairing quickly prevents those small moments from snowballing into bigger conflicts. Those small moments feel like paper cuts, but the expression death by a thousand paper cuts just resonates deeply. It's something I often say to couples I'm working with is, yes, this is such a small moment, but it feels like death by a thousand paper cuts. And so repairing those moments and repairing it quickly is so powerful. I had a couple recently come in and be feeling really good, and I asked them what they had done, and they talked about this kind of sticky moment they had the night before and how he repaired really quickly, and he said, I'm sorry, that came out wrong. And it just diffused things completely. It's that disarming. I love that imagery of disarming something. All right, last, I want to touch on the frustration you feel when a single comment derails the day. And I think this is so common in our relationships. I think it's often because we don't know how to bounce back or we have a history of experiences that our brain is filtering through, and we have to regulate through that and be willing to say, I can make Choices that are in line with my values rather than dwelling on this because my ego needs to be right. Right. Like that's the self protective mechanism that we really have to walk through. So I want to emphasize it's so common in relationships and it happens when we are holding on to unspoken expectations. So if you have a vision for a day or a date or the weekend, get ahead of it with your husband so that you're both on the same page. So for example, you might say, I'm really looking forward to our date this weekend. I'd love for us to focus on having fun and connection. How does that sound for you? And. And the way my body would love to do that this weekend is by going for the walk to our favorite restaurant. That's what I had expressed to Greg recently. But you can do something along that lines of here's what would fill my bucket. Now what's going to fill your bucket? Because once we share those intentions, we can both feel more aligned and it reduces the chances for miscommunication. All right, I want to end here. This is hard work work. But I also see your willingness to grow and change.

I am so grateful that Melissa paused.

And responded to my dm to her that she said yes. Here's more information. And I'm also grateful for you for clicking Play for joining me here, for showing up in my DMs and asking questions. I've got the form for you to submit your question. Please do that because it's just what helps me connect with what's front and center right now for you. And I love being able to connect with you in this way. So I'll finish off by saying this. You're here and this is what matters the most. And you're not alone in this and that. With small intentional steps, you can create a new pattern in your relationship. One where you end up feeling more connected and supported. All right, thank you for listening today. I would love to hear from you. How did this end episode land for you? What's the one piece here that feels like a good starting point? All right, I'll see you next time. Thanks for being here. And remember, you are right where you need to be. I have to remind you at the end of every episode that this information is for educational purposes only and does not substitute for the care from a licensed mental health care provider Foreign.

As a psychologist and a parent of two kids, I know just how powerful it is when a child feels confident and supported in how they learn. Every child is unique. One of mine thrives with structure, while the other flourishes when they have more space and flexibility. What I've learned both at home and in my work, is that when we.

Honor how we learn, we unleash unlock so much potential.

That's why it's so important to give kids learning environments that match their needs and strengths. Because when they feel seen and empowered, they shine. This episode is sponsored by K12 K12 powered schools are tuition free, accredited online public schools for kindergarten to grade 12. They're designed to meet kids where they're at, helping them learn at their own pace, in their own environment with a flexible, engaging curriculum that supports their learning style. And the best part?

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