How to Have Healthy Relationships Interview

Hi John, how are you today?

Hi Pam, very well, thank you. How's yourself?

I've been, like I said, I've been in a kind of an unusual headspace this week, and I think, you know, my whole family's feeling really bored. And my relationship with my husband has been strained a little bit, to say it nicely.

Okay.

Yeah, it's been, um, yeah. So I thought a really great topic. I looked at your article that you wrote, which is Things to Do for a Healthy Relationship. Even though you didn't write it for this present, um, situation, I think it'd be great to talk about it and see if you can adapt it to help people to create that kind of relationship at this present moment, because I think this week, like I said before, people have gone on holiday in their heads, and this week it's like, okay, well, I'm back now from holiday in my head. Now what do I do? And it's kind of boredom has kicked in. But I think next week is going to be when people are really going to start feeling the strain.

I think so. I think it's been, what, a couple of weeks now? And like you said, holiday period is over. It's taken your foot off the gas for a little while. Now it's like, I'm a bit lost. We're spending so much time with people that we're probably not spending that much time with. So it's, uh, it's— I think you're right. Next week, over the next week or so, it's going to start to really strain on people.

Yeah, I think so. So let's talk about this really great article. I love the article because it was really straight to the point. It was divided up and it was really easy to read. You know, sometimes when we talk to therapists, they use these long words and stuff, but you really like You've made it really easy to understand. So you've talked about the first bit, it's, um, you've talked a little bit about, uh, every relationship needs a bit of working on, which is true. Some people don't do it and some people do do it.

Yeah.

And then you've gone on to say, one of the most common things that affect a relationship in a negative way is the way we learn to expect from each other. Let's, at this present moment in time, there's going to be some expectations from couples each other. So let's talk a little bit about that.

Yeah, so we are, uh, when we're with somebody, and not just because we're with someone, but as we grow up, we, we have expectations of relationships. Uh, but we also, when we're with someone, we, we think we know, uh, what they think, and we think we know what they feel. So therefore, we interpret all the information that comes back to us on what we think we know. Um, and And we don't know most of the time. And most of the time we don't actually express either what we want or what we really need. And most people don't do that. That's not a level of communication that generally couples do. So it's really important that we drop the expectation in this, especially under this kind of lockdown isolation. Because again, we're going to keep guessing and/or assuming that we know what the other person's feeling, what they're thinking, why they're doing what they're doing, what they need, and we don't know that. And so we really need to check in with each other at this time to say, okay, how can I help you? How can you help me? What do you really want? Do you want a cuddle? Do you want me to tell you it's going to be all right? Do you want me to hold your hand? Do you want me to go for a walk with you? Do you want some space? What is it that, you know, what is it that you need? And we need to lose those expectations. If you think that someone should be doing something, Then it's an expectation.

That's what I'm like at the moment. I'm like that at the moment with my husband. I'm like, hold on, you should be— you should know to help me with whatever I'm doing in the household. You should know that I need— the ironing's got to be done. Like, can you carry the basket upstairs? You should know these things. I'm thinking— I'm already thinking, why don't you know this?

Yep. So what I would suggest is you take your shoulds Yeah. And do this.

Okay. Chuck them out the window, yeah?

Exactly, just get rid of them.

Right, what can I replace that with? I know you're saying that we— it's good to have that conversation, but at this present moment, I can't get through to my husband because I think he's gone in his cave. I think he's disappeared in his head somewhere. So, you know, it's, it's really— I don't even know how to approach that kind of conversation. So what would be the best way if people are listening and they're partners? I mean, it could be— I mean, what do women do? Women start— what's the theory? I forgot the theory. Men go into their caves and what do women do? I forgot.

They'll start coming out a little bit more and, and yeah, yeah, depending on, on what your, what your own stuff is. Yeah, I mean, some women will shut down as well as men will shut down. Yeah, um, but it's general that— and then you'll start to approach. Someone starts to back away, we have a tendency to want to approach them more. And then again, because we've got this big bag of shoulds, we start to look at them in a very negative light because we are feeling neglected or rejected, or— and we need to kind of really step out of that space. Everyone's going to be struggling in their own way at this moment, and we need to approach them in that way. How would you approach someone that you thought was struggling?

Well, I'd just ask them, Are they okay?

Yeah, it's quite simple really. It's just showing some care, some compassion, and some understanding. Again, you know, every relationship dynamic is very different, so that's not always going to be received very well. But yeah, do you need some space? How can I help you? Can I help you in this situation, or do you need me to give you some space? Again, every relationship's different, but it's about showing some care And understanding, rather than going down the route of the shoulds, and all the frustrations that come along with those.

Yeah, I think, I think there is a lot of the shoulds going about, because, you know, I had a phone call with somebody, and he was saying about his wife, you know, why don't she get me? Why doesn't she get— I just need to go upstairs to the attic and switch myself off, you know, why don't she get it? So, you know, there is a lot of shoulds, you know, why don't they just get it? We're thinking that the other person should mind-read, and get to know what's going on in our own heads, you know, And vice versa, without us even knowing we're doing that. But you know what I find with couples, John? I find— I mean, you know, because I'm in this and I've done self-development for 25 years, I find that couples, they don't really communicate. They don't have these conversations.

They don't, they don't. They assume a lot. They go into this space of what they believe to be what's going on, but we don't know what's going on for the other person. But like you said, we don't Sit down and have that time. So how are you feeling? What what how you have what's going on for you at this point? What do you need? You know, or again expressing yourself yourself at this point. You know what I'm really struggling with this. I need you to do that. I want you to do this. Can you do that for me? Rather than again assuming that you know how they are feeling, what they're thinking, again of thinking that they know. They should know what you're thinking and what you're feeling.

I think you've got a really good point there, because now as I'm talking to you, I'm realizing when I've asked Sam to do something for me, he's not said no. When I've said to him, can you take this upstairs for me, or can you do that for me, he's not said, I'm not doing it. He's like, oh, okay then, just ask me, kind of thing. He hasn't said ask me, but he's just— I got it that he's just saying, well, just ask me to do it.

But if you said to him, oh, you haven't taken this upstairs, what's he gonna do?

Is he gonna give me something back in return? He definitely is. He's definitely going to give me some of that with that one.

Yeah.

So going on to, going on to, um, creating that really good relationship in this time. As we know, in any kind of relationship, it's so important to know yourself first. So important. You know, we talk a lot about this in matchmaking, you know, creating our relationships.

Yeah.

That, you know, the relationship you have with yourself will depend on the kind of partner you choose. into your life or attract into your life.

Yeah.

And in your article, you've written a little bit about that. Let's talk about that.

Yeah, well, we do. We learn— again, this is most— 99% of this will stem from your childhood. You learn how to have relationships, you learn how to relate to yourself, and you will, you will choose relationships or attract relationships into your life based on what that type is that you think that you need. And until you've looked at yourself to really understand how you relate to yourself— so what are your self-beliefs? How do you feel about yourself? What do you think about relationships? What do you expect from relationships? Until you've done that work, you are going to keep to a type. And if that type is unhealthy or you've got a maladaptive relationship style—

Sorry, what does maladaptive mean?

It means it's like an unhealthy way of developing a way of doing things. Okay, so like having a bad driving habit.

Okay.

It would be a maladaptive way of driving. You've learned to do it in an unhealthy way. So what we need to do is to check in and say, is this healthy for me to be doing this? But until you've created that, I think, as you said, if you've got that kind of relationship— there was a quote The comedian Tom Allen was on TV last week, or the week before, and he said— I actually jotted it down, let me quickly just— and I put it out on my Facebook the other day. Yeah, the world takes you at your own evaluation.

True.

So if you evaluate yourself in a certain way, that's how the world sees you, and that's how the world will evaluate you as well. So we really need to check in.

That is such a powerful thing to understand and become aware of. And, you know, we— a lot of time we walk around not aware of that at all. So that— I mean, that quote, you know, just breaking it down, you know, what you're saying to me as an individual, to me, if you take it— the way I see and respect and value myself is the way you would see and respect and value me.

Yeah. Wow.

I wish I knew that when I was 21.

Yes, so do I.

Life would have been so different.

It would. It would. And again, if you don't— if you're not in the world of personal development, that's generally how you're going to see people. Obviously, I think someone like you, someone like myself, I try and take people and I try and understand how people work. So I don't generally evaluate them the same way they evaluate. So I try to understand how they're evaluating themselves.

Same here.

And sometimes that's something that people don't want me to do because I have a tendency to do it all the time. Well, yeah, it is, but, but not, you know, the moment, you know, before I got into this world, exactly. I mean, everybody would treat me the way that I thought I was— I wanted to— I needed to be treated, or how I was treating myself.

Well, I think that's a really, um, valuable journey to go on, is to discover yourself. And, you know, and you've put down— you've given us like little short snippets, but let me go back to people pleasing. You put a little quote on people pleasing. So I just wanted to tell people that I was a people pleaser. You know, I would do things like that. This is crazy, right? I still find myself doing it probably a couple of times a year. But if my mom made food for me and I wouldn't eat it, I'd feel so bad because she'd made that food. I'd go and eat it. And now with my mother-in-law, when she cooks and nobody else is eating it, even though I might have eaten, I mean, that's my stuff. But even though I might have eaten, I feel so bad for her that I'll go and eat some of that food just to please her. But that's like, now that's only 1% of my personality. It's not because I've worked through it, but I was such a people pleaser. In this moment in time, there are going to be people pleasers out there and they're going to burn themselves out.

For sure. Yeah, definitely.

Definitely.

Yeah, I mean, people pleasers do have a tendency to attract takers. So if you're in a relationship with a taker, again, we're people pleasers as well. You've got kids, you generally have a tendency to people please your children as well. So it's always take, take, take, take, take. Your kids want something, your partners want something, your family wants something. And because you're used to being in that space where you're always trying to make people happy, you are now 24/7, if you weren't already before, trying to put the needs of everybody else before yourself. And like you said, that's going to completely burn you out. It's difficult under these kind of lockdown situations, I think, to instigate a massive change in that because you're just going to throw the dynamics of all of those relationships completely out the window and everyone's going to freak a little bit. Because they're so used to you being a certain way that if you try and change that under these enclosed kind of spaces, then they're really going to not be coping with that very well. But it doesn't mean that you can't start to instigate some changes even under lockdown now, this isolation. If you just start to reflect, what does that give you being a people pleaser? What need are you meeting by doing that? Because there's a need within you. You learned to do that again as a kid, probably because your parents were quite miserable or they had something wrong with them, or you didn't feel like anything you ever did was good enough. So you kept trying to do more and more and more to try and make them happy or to care about you, to give you some attention. So this will be a male adaptive pattern that you picked up in childhood. You don't have to keep doing this.

Yeah, I mean, I've stopped it. I did it because my parents really wasn't there. They were constantly in the business and I never saw them. So when they were around me, I just wanted to— I wanted their attention. I wanted— I just wanted them to see me. So I would do whatever it took so they would recognize me and, you know, see me. So though But, you know, yeah, like I said, that's like 1% of my personality now. I have strong boundaries and I don't take no more— I was gonna say that word, but I won't. I don't take any more rubbish.

I don't know how to put it. Well, that's it again. Just remember, that's rubbish that we bring on ourselves. Yeah, yeah, because we are constantly trying to do for everybody else, and they then become to expect that. I'm not saying that the people that you're with now won't be okay with you changing, but they would need to get used to it.

Yeah.

Some people will be like, oh, okay, I didn't realize you needed that. Yeah, for you. But generally, if you're a people pleaser, you attract people— your boundaries are very, very thin, and it's far— the boundaries are far too much on the side of somebody else. So when you start to change the boundaries for them, they will struggle. But so it's definitely under this kind of time, it's really important that you at least start to think about how you can change the dynamics of your relationships when you're acting in a way which is really unhealthy for you.

Sure, right, so you've given us a couple of ways in which we can begin to do this, so let's go through them. The first one, we've talked a little bit about it already, is be self-aware.

Yeah, yeah, just know yourself. Look at yourself. Try, um, am I allowed to push my book?

Yeah, yeah, John, John, do it, do it, because you work with us anyway. So, so if anyone's interested, it's— if it's going to help somebody, yeah, talk about your book because that's, that's a good book, you know.

Yeah, so yeah, I wrote a book that came out last year which is called The People Program. It's available on Amazon on Kindle and stuff if you want to have a look at it. Just search for John Kenny, and because PEOPLE program is an acronym, so it's difficult to find it. In the book, I talk about my life story, how I developed as a human being, how I developed my self-belief systems, my relational belief systems. And then the second half of the book is like a 6-part coaching program, the PEOPLE program itself, and it gets you to ask yourself the questions that I asked myself in order to come to those conclusions that I made. So again, if you've got the time just to do a little bit of self-reflection, it might be worth just looking at my story and saying, okay, how can I relate to John's story? And then at the back, there are specific sections for you to work through to say, okay, how do I figure myself out? But any kind of self-development book which helps you to work on your self-awareness, yeah, finding the right questions to ask yourself to understand your past, where you come from, why you think and feel and do Yeah, and then it says, which I think is really important for this time, we again, we kind of overlapping conversations, but specifically understand your wants and needs.

So what would you say about that? That's part of discovering yourself.

Yeah, so most people don't think about what they want, they think about what they don't want, So they keep finding all the things that they don't want because that's all they're ever looking for. And also the need. So what is my need? So your need to people-please— my need to people-please came from my childhood. Yours was about trying to get attention from your parents. Mine was very similar. I wanted to be the good kid.

Mm-hmm.

So I wanted— my parents were very, my parents were very miserable because of the state of their relationship and everything else. But I wanted them to be happy because I was a happy kid when I was in my own little space, but I was quite an unhappy kid because I didn't feel loved and cared about. So I would try and make my parents feel better to make myself feel better. I wanted to put a smile on their face so I felt like they showed me some kind of positive attention. Um, so That led me to be the people pleaser that I became because I was always trying to make people happy. And it just obviously doesn't work because I can't make everybody happy if they're not happy. So I was going against— that was my need, and that became my need. And then I realized that that was what I was trying to do, but I was doing it for me. I wasn't doing it for anyone else.

I got that.

I was doing it because I needed to do it, because I wanted to feel better. So if I can look at what I need, is that healthy? Is it a healthy need? Probably, if you know, if it's causing you pain, no, definitely isn't. If you feel unfulfilled or a little bit empty, then yeah, definitely isn't. And what you want, think about what you want. If you've got— most people are really good at writing an I don't want list, so just flip that around. If I don't want this, what does that look like if I want it? And then we can start to actually really think about, okay, what do I want?

Yeah, I think you've got that really, you've, you know, explained that really well. Because when we ask people, what do you want, you know, because we, you know, when we're talking to people and then we say maybe, you know, we think they might need some sort of coaching just to get into a better place before they attract the good person in their life. And when we ask them, people really don't know what they really truly want within themselves. Because I think there's been layers put down, and like you said, the needs— it's constantly trying to feed your own need all the time— that they never questioned it. They've never opened themselves up to even ask that question. Yes, I want a jumper. Yes, I want a handbag. Yes, I want that. That's how people come up with— but really, truly, what is their inner self really wanting is a question people don't ask.

Yeah. And all I was thinking, are they kind of, I want to be happy? What does that look like?

Yeah, what does that look like?

So, and again, we come back to those kind of ideas, the shoulds. You know, we, we have, uh, we follow societal stuff. So we grow up, you, you go to school, you, you go to college, you get married, or you buy a house, you get married, you have kids. Is that what you want? Is that what you think you should do? Is that what the pattern that you think you should follow? What are your— I think it's just saying in an article about your values and principles.

Yeah.

You know, we grow up being told what our values and principles should be based on generally what our parents or our primary caregivers or what our school tells us is what we should be following. What are your values? What are your principles? How do you fulfill those? You know, how do you feel congruent within yourself that you're living an authentic life? And these are lots of things that are quite Difficult to, to come to an answer to, but most of us don't ever think about it anyway.

It's true, because we're just blinded, like you said, you know, if we learn all these principles and values, which is the next section that you've talked about, we learn all the principles and values from our parents and our caregivers and schools and stuff. I don't think, you know, some, some of us go along aimlessly to that, and then there'll be some of us like possibly you and me who rebelled against everything. I rebelled when I was in my 20s, I rebelled against everything that I was taught, everything I was told. You know, but I found myself again in my own life, in my own principles when I was in my 30s. But in my 20s, mid-20s, I rebelled completely because I just thought these don't fit into who I am as a person. And constantly trying to be the should person, got to be the good girl, got to do this. It was a constant battle within myself which caused me a lot of depression and isolation in my own internal self. Yeah. So Yeah, I mean, getting to know that is such an important time, and people have got time to think now.

Yeah, and there is so much stuff that you can— I mean, don't obviously watch everything because it'll confuse you, but there is so much out there on helping you to look at you. Yeah, to understand yourself. There is a lot of YouTube videos. Again, but pick what's right for you. Think what, think what, what does resonate with you. Don't just do what everybody tells you to do. If they're telling you what to do, it's probably not a good thing. But if someone— if there's something out there you can look at, read, listen to that's going to help you to explore yourself, then I would suggest that while you've got the time to do that, then do it.

That's— yeah, definitely. We're gonna carry this conversation in our next session we do, and so people, if anyone's listening, There is a lot more we're going to talk about. We're going to talk about do it because you want to do it, learn about each other, communicate. So there's lots of sections to what we've talked about today, getting to know and being in a healthy relationship, get to know yourself and being in a healthy relationship. So we'll continue that next time, but thank you again for today, and we will speak again soon.

You're very welcome. It's lovely to see you again, and I'll speak to you again soon.

Thank you.

Bye for now.

Bye.