The Relationship Grid That Fixes Fights - Baya Voce

So what is this? What does this.

So this is called the relationship grid. This is explaining when we go into blaming outward. Right? We. It's. It's what you call grandiosity. This is where. This isn't me. This is all you.

You did this.

You did this.

You need to take responsibility.

That's right. Like this isn't. This isn't me. I didn't. There was no fault. Over here, we tend to. And this is going to be on the dramatic end of things. We tend to either go up one up to grandiosity or one down into shame. But we do a couple of other things too. We either go into boundaryless behavior and boundaryless behavior is yelling, it's crying. It is exactly how it sounds. It's crossing over your boundaries. In order to get my needs met or to protect ourselves, we wall off. These are the silent people. These are the ones who are going.

Like give in also. Is that what we do or is that more boundaryless?

Well, it depends on where you fall in the quadrant. We'll get to that.

I used to give in to someone blaming or screaming or crying at me. So I didn't create a boundary to try to keep peace. But it never had peace.

No, no, no. I have a guess of where you fall, but I wanna say, okay, so those are the four places that. The four places on the quad. But we basically embody one of these four places. So in grandiosity, if we go one up into grandiosity and we tend to be more boundaryless, this is behavior that's. It's on again, the very dramatic end. This is where all abuse and violence lives. This is yelling, this is hitting, this is throwing things.

When you are being grandiose towards your partner and you're not having a boundary, is that what you're saying?

It's not actually not having a boundary. And we can talk about boundaries in a bit. Boundarylessness is. It's like the way that we express ourselves. So if someone who's walled off is gonna get quiet and reserved and distanced, the boundaryless person is gonna get needy and please and I. And it can show up in a lot of different ways. Actually, that's the one. If you're getting needy and graspy, that's down here. So up here in grandiosity, your boundarylessness, that's where it looks like anger you. I'm screaming, I'm getting big. I'm trying to intimidate you. When we go down from boundaryless and shame based. So now we're in the one down Category now. I'm not yelling at you and making things about you. I'm over here being like desperate and need. Please don't leave me. Please. I'll do anything. Like, I didn't mean to do that. I can't believe I just did that again. I'm being dramatic.

Sure, sure, sure. Of course.

And my guess is bringing neediness. I'll make it go away. Okay. I'll do anything that you need. This is appeasement. But appeasement can also be wa.

Off.

But you're probably gonna find more appeasement and the like. Okay. I just want to make this. This is why I kind of feel like this is where you may have lived, I don't know.

But extreme.

No, no, no.

In that area for sure.

Most of us, by the way, don't inhabit the extreme. Some of us do. But, you know, this is like. You can think about what a moderate version may look like. I would do this. I. This is where I live. I live in boundaryless and one down. And so how it would look for me is I would be. She would. My wife goes into kind of a walled off, close down space. And I would do it super covertly. Oh, baby, are you. Are you like a little bit shut down right now? Do you like. I would go into, like. I would therapize her. I would be like, do you need space? Like, is there something that you need? But I'm not doing it from a regulated place. I'm doing it from place of please don't leave me.

Wow, really?

Yeah, totally, totally. Okay, so then we go over to walled off and shame based. This is like, just curious, before you.

Go in there, what would happen if she left you, like, or someone left you? What would happen for you if someone's like, you know what? I've tried. This just doesn't work for me anymore. I think we're done.

How would that make you feel, by the way? That's happened? So it's really.

But what happens in you when that happens? I guess. Or that's happened.

It's actually sort of what I talked about before. It's the place in me where I go, is this lonely. Well, that feels like if I touch it, it's so big that I'll die. That's how it feels. It feels like this space of there's one place I can't go. It's that dark thing that lives in this amorphous place that if I touch it, it's like the world ends.

What is that thing? Is that you being alone? Or not loved by one person or not accepted by one person, or is that. What does that mean for me?

It's the space of, if you leave me, you prove that I am actually as unlovable as I may think I am. And that's in kind of my unhealthiest space. That's where I go. I've done a lot of work on that part. But the part in me that will always exist, that I'll always do work on, is the part in me that feels like no matter what I do, am I actually lovable? Can you really love me if I have a big reaction? Am I worth loving? Or would you leave? Would you walk? And so part of, again, my kind of young adult life and growing up in relationships would be, I'm going to be big and I'm going to cry. I'm going to get loud. And so that you. I can. You can prove to me.

So you can come in and show me.

Show me you're not going anywhere.

No matter what I do.

No matter what I do, you'll still be here. Yes. Yeah. Which I got to tell you, it didn't work so well. Was not that. Not a winning game. If we're going to talk about, you know, not. Why do you think I'm in the space of repair? Repair has been the hardest place for me in all of my relationships, and I have had a lot. So it's like the work that I've had to do for myself, this is. This is work. You know, I grew up in Salt Lake City. I'll just hold this like a. Yeah, yeah.

You can put it down, for example.

I will get back to it, though.

I promise.

I grew up in Salt Lake City where my parents were hippies and I wasn't Mormon. But I grew up so desperately wanting to fit in. And so I went to church. I dated the Mormon guys. I.

Your parents didn't go to Mormon church?

No, no, no. They were.

They weren't lds.

No, no, no, no.

But you were in a community where a lot of people did.

It was Salt Lake city in the 90s.

Yeah.

Mostly everyone was Mormon.

So you wanted to. You wanted to fit in and be accepted, and that's what they were doing. And so you're like, I'll go.

I mean, I just. At such a young age, I got a hold of it. Okay, great. I will come back to it.

Yeah, you bring it back. Yeah.

At such a young age, I learned how to chameleon. I learned how.

I did the same thing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was I remember in junior high, getting into seventh grade and being like, okay, there's a new game to play, and it's called I'm gonna be liked and popular by every single person in this school. And I will do everything to fit in with every single person. And so that's what I did. You could take me anywhere, and the bea you would see in hip hop dance class would be a completely different bea you would see in a. In church with my friend or dating my boyfriend or whatever. It would be like, that's. And I. And it. By the way, it worked. I was everything you would. I was miss high school until it didn't work.

It worked until you realized my nervous system is still unregulated.

You know, I mean, it worked until I started. I would date. I would literally be like. I gotta tell you, I'm kind of like an indoor outdoor cat. I, like, I could be outside, but, like, you know, I actually feel really good inside and being warm and cozy and whatever. And I would date, you know, pro athletes and be like, yeah, let's go on a black diamond on a really crappy day outside where it's gonna be, you know, super cold. And, yeah, let's go. I'm in. And like, the whole time I'm like, I hate this. I hate. This is terrible. I hate. But I didn't care because all I wanted to do it was like, I was great at the game of seduction. And in fact, I went. I used to teach a worksh when I was younger called Seduction 101. I used to be in the. In the.

She likes seducing men.

Sounds like it was a game to.

Like, get them to be into you.

Yes.

But then what? You didn't.

But then about six months later, like.

You'Re saying, what am I doing?

I was probably a lot like your ex. Like, six months later, I would be like, oh, I can't keep the game up any longer. Now it just. Now I don't know how to hide it anymore. So here's this thing that it's actually really vulnerable. And here's how it's gonna. It's gonna come out sideways and lopsided and not cute and.

Are you gonna accept me for who I am? Not that I'm not this perfect person that you saw for six months?

Totally. I mean, it sounds a lot of my life. Yeah. I gotta tell you, from. From all of your exes. I just wanna say I'm sorry to my exes. I'm sorry I didn't know better. And it wasn't it wasn't. By the way. I was not doing this consciously. This was who I was. It was like, survival. It was as easy to me as picking up this glass of water and drinking it. Like there was nothing to it. Like, I had to sit there and be like, oh, what am I going to do next to make this person like me?

They say the number one skill is.

Emotional regulation, and there is no way around it. You cannot escape this if you want to have a meaningful, intimate relationship. There is no way around this. There is no truth in relationship. There are just two people who are having their own experiences. And you live in your world, and I live over here in my.