#117: 10 Tips to Overcome Defensiveness in Your Relationship (Part One)

And there's really where the power of pain is. Meaning. It's such a tremendous indicator to us. The key point here is just to learn how to listen to it, pay attention to it. I know we've all me included. Unbelievably, we dismiss ah, that intuitive. Just like our navigation says, recalculating. But we don't choose to recalculate.

Hey, thanks for coming. Welcome to the Love shack.

Hey, welcome to the love shack. It's a little place where we get to get together, explore fresh perspectives, eavesdrop on juicy conversations to discover the things that really matter while having a little bit of fun along the way. This is episode number 117, 10 things you can do today to improve your ability to resolve conflict and stay out of defensiveness. I'm Stacey Bartley. I'm a relationship expert and I'm here with my co host and lover Tom, along with my everything girl and Brooke Brown. She's a significant part of our team, both in the backside market marketing piece as well as she comes to the front from time to time. And I suspect that we will be seeing her face today.

Topic seems to have her name written all over it. And she's also our daughter. What a shock.

Yes.

So we got quite the package there. She's our everything lady and she's our daughter and we work her really hard.

Yeah, we do work her really hard. She works weekends and nights. Her bosses are real dicks. Anyway, let's jump into our topic today. Defensiveness. It really is at the root of what destroys our relationships and makes them so challenging. And unless, like me, you've had the the privilege of rolling up your sleeves and really diving into understanding defensiveness, most of us as human beings are going to do it unknowingly.

And may I make a quick note just because I'm the detail guy, if you haven't listened to our episode 116, that's the other side of this. It's all about defensiveness. How you're showing up. Many times we think, oh heck no, I don't ever act defensive. And just to be loving and with great honesty and respect, none of us get the hall pass and we all show up with defensiveness. So if you haven't heard, listen to that episode. You may want to this will be the other side of that. All the remedies, all the suggestions to keep you out of that place the best that you can.

Absolutely. So let's begin there. I want you to understand that as human beings, if there's anything we're really good at. It's going to be defensiveness and manipulation. And don't take that personal. It just happens to be that there hasn't been a lot of outside influence or education or practice and learning in regards to doing things differently. So given our options of getting our needs met or not getting our needs met, we've all pretty much been able to acquire on our own accord how it is we need to find acceptance and validation, which are very critical to us as human beings thriving in our lives. And when we can't just ask for it, be honest, or when we are, those things are used against us, we very quickly find strategies or coping skills around how to get our needs met. Then instead of disclosing what it is I truly want or how I truly feel, or what it is I truly need, and a lot of us come from backgrounds too, where asking for what I want is not necessarily okay. You could have parents to say, it doesn't really matter what you want. It's going to be my way. You're the child, I'm big, you're little. And so this is how it's going to roll. And we learn very quickly that there are things I long for and I want and there's things that don't work for me as well, but I don't know what to do about it. So I learned to cope with it instead. And that's what creates our defensive behaviors, our manipulations. And once you think about it, it really is a truth where we're all the very best we know how. And as a human being, I don't know what I don't know. And when I get defensive and I sometimes I'm aware I'm a defensive or I'm not aware that I'm defensive, but it's really plugging in or triggering the person that I'm trying to get my needs met with. This is where you start to see, we start to fight. Because your defensive behavior and my defensive behavior don't make such a great mix. In fact, it makes a very dramatic, volatile, escalating mix. And so unless we can start to work and understand with defensiveness and why it happens and how to identify when I'm in it, chances are nine times out of 10, it's going to happen regardless of whether you're aware with it or not, especially when the emotions start to take off and how this shows up in my office is couples you can tell that really long to go in a different direction. They really love and care about each other and the conversations unfold to where you can see as they're dialoguing about things in my office, somebody says something that plugs the other in, and then the next thing you know, they're whipping out the evidence about how they've done it, too, or how they've not done it. It often also turns into a dialogue of, I need you to hear me, I need you to understand me. And the other person says, yeah, and I need you to hear and understand me, too. It can't just be all your way. And I go, okay, whoa, timeout. Who's going to go first? Because the need is high where everybody wants to be heard and listened to and understood. And it becomes that question of who's going to go first? Who's going to lay it down, the defensiveness down long enough to say, okay, I'll listen to you first, and then you listen to me. Right? And I know that sounds very simplistic sometimes about the complications and challenges that we face in our relationships, but at the heart of the matter, it really is just that simple. Where somebody says, okay, I'm going to get off it for a minute. I'm going to set my defensiveness down and let me just do my best to attempt to understand where you're coming from. And then if you'll promise to do the same for me, I think I might be able to take that leap of faith.

And would you say that's one of the main benefits when people are struggling in this place that you just described? And I just would also add a quick radar point here, is when Stacy shares office, she means our physical office as well as our online office, because we work with people all over the world, actually just want to point that out. And then number two, what you just described, would you say that's one of your initial greatest things, gifts that you offer our clients is the ability that you establish that ability for one person to lay their defensiveness down, because otherwise probably wouldn't be able to do that.

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. There. There's a place where we gently but lovingly, with strength, say, okay, let's dissect what's going on here. And I will pick who goes first. Often that's what's needed. Okay, why don't you go first, you lay it down. And I just want to point out here that I spend. Tom, Brooke and I, we spend a lot of time in this conversation just to highlight the fact that as human beings, like this is so in our nature that we're going to do it, and then we're probably going to catch it on the backside. And that's true for all of us because it's so practiced, it's so rehearsed and we know what to look for and we still find ourselves doing it. Okay. That's how human it is of us. In fact, over the weekend, Tom and I were sitting and working on some things, sending some emails and some text messages, and I noticed myself, and I'd been doing this for several minutes, looking over his shoulder, and I was literally telling him what he needed to type word for word for word. And he had been very good at tolerating it. But I caught myself trying to be controlling and pushy and reeled up in regards to the specific way that I felt like it needed to be done. And that was my own defensive posture coming out to play. And I was able to catch myself and said, gosh, what am I doing here? I'm trying to, what do I want to say? Overly control this situation where obviously you know what needs to be said. Why can't I just trust you to say it and be done with it and let go of it? That's a great example of how that's me, that's not him. And he's trying to co create with me and I'm spinning up and I'm telling him how to do it and I'm getting pushy. And we all know that as human beings, we all love to be in that position, right? Don't we love to be in that position where we feel like we have no choice? Somebody's trying to tell me how to do it. They're getting pushy. Oh, yeah. We all thrive in that. No, not. We do not.

Well, I would just stack on that a little bit. Is everything that we coach and teach and mentor here. Look, everyone is going to step into these behaviors. The really, the place where you have done some actualization where you've grown is when you can catch yourself not trying to say you're never going to do this. Us included. Like Stacy just shared. This is all that Stacy, Brooke and I do all day, every day.

And we can.

So the ability is just so you can catch it more quickly instead of staying in this place for a long time. We say, look, we just. I say on our clarity calls often the only thing that Stacy and I may have that you don't is the ability to clean up our messes quickly because we want to get back to the good stuff fast. I don't want to hang out in the mess. That's it.

And we still make messes.

Oh, my Gosh.

And so don't take messes personal. If you find yourself after dialoguing or listening to some of these podcasts, or even our clients that might be listening to our voices right now, I reassure them consistently and I'll do it again right here. Just because you make a mess doesn't mean you're not making progress. It means you're getting better at getting through it faster and quicker. Because here's the reality. As couples, we have a blow up and we might fight for two or three or four days and then we spend another two or three or four days giving each other the silent treatment or being passive aggressive. And then there's another two or three or four or five days where we're all stewing in isolation, deadly silence, trying to figure out how it is we're going to come back and clean this up and talk about it. And who's going to be brave enough to like, step in and address the situation? How am I going to say what I want to say? These moments we're having, like, shower fights where I contemplate a thousand ways in regards to how it is I'm going to approach it and how I should say it, and I work it out and dialogue with it in my own mind as I muster up the courage to actually step in and clean it up. And then that's going to take me another four or five or six days to muster up the courage to actually step in. And then by then you've got 30 days that have gone by. Like, literally, you've got 30 days that have gone by. And then I step in because I'm doing my best and then it goes to hell in a hand basket and I'm right back where I started from. We do another 30 days just like that, and then before you know it, there's a whole year that's gone by that's absolutely been a lot of pain and suffering and unmet needs, defensiveness, manipulation, etc. And guys, that's what makes me passionate, our team, passionate about the work that we do. That is so not necessary. That is just so not necessary. What if instead of taking 30 days to clean up a mess, you could actually do it in less than six hours? What if you could do it in less than one hour? What if you could do it in 30 minutes?

30 days to 30 minutes, that's not.

Such a bad return. And so think about the rest of the month where you would have now 29 days and I can't calculate the hours. Babe, that's your deal. You calculate the math for me. Thank you, I appreciate that.

Look.

See? Yeah. That's what we're talking about. So there's more time in your life and your relationship that you're spending co creating in a way that feels really good and that you can thrive and feel good knowing that these messes and challenges are going to come up because we're human, because we're different, because we have different backgrounds, different experiences, different drives, different needs. That's okay. We just need to learn how to navigate through them. So I have 10 suggestions that I want to make for you today. And there I tried to do my best here to just make them something that you could do like right now, that you could put into your life. So as I go through these, pick one or two or three that you can actually start focusing on. I appreciate you're not going to be able to focus on all 10. Pick one in regards to where you feel like you are today in this moment, and then work with it for that 30 days instead. Okay, so the first one that I want to just throw out there is remember that you have the power to choose. Now this becomes really important when we talk about defensiveness because so many of us forget that we have the ability to actually make a choice. And that if my person sees me in this light or says these things because maybe they're in defensive mode or they cause me to feel like I have to do certain things or behave in a certain way, I want you to realize you have the choice to to do that or not. You have the choice to speak up or not. So really nobody can force you to do something that you don't actually choose into and ofttimes. This is how we avoid not ofttimes. You need to do this because you will avoid being manipulated altogether. And not only that, you'll be able to see manipulation when you're doing it and your person will do it. But you have to remember out of the gate you get to make a choice. And if you don't want to choose in, if you don't feel good about it, if you feel like something's funny, then say so. But recognize the distinguishing difference between it being something you're anxiety written about and fearful and afraid of and something that feels genuinely true for you. And if that's something you're not in touch with, then start creating those distinctions inside of yourself. Am I just reeling and panicking and anxiety right now or do I really feel this way? Is this really like of pure intent, Good intent, The honest truth with inside of myself.

And I would sense that that's easiest to do when you're more in a calm place than when you are in a triggered place.

Yeah, absolutely. We have to accept what is happening. Sometimes our heads start to spin and creates a lot of anxiety about, I'm not in a place where I'm going to be okay. This isn't fair. I shouldn't have to deal with this. This is wrong. This is crazy. And if you're in that kind of a headspace, I need you to reaffirm yourself by saying, you can do this. It is okay. It is happening. What are we going to do with it? I can figure this out. I'm capable. We're going to be okay. And that puts you in a better place to go. And what am I choosing into? Instead of being coerced or manipulated into a corner that you feel like you can't now work yourself out of, what.

If you are getting a good handle on your defensiveness, but your partner is just incredibly defensive, how do you navigate?

I love this phrase that says, hey, you know what? I want to hear what you have to say, but not like this. I need you to go think about what it is you want and what you need and what you're trying to say to me, and then come back and let's talk about it. Let's take another crack at it. Because it's not okay for somebody to be pushy or demeaning or critical or shutting you down, instilling doubt in you. When you see those things, it's okay for you to say, hey, wait a minute, I want to hear what you have to say. Obviously, you're very impassioned about it, but not like this. This. This is not the way we're going to do this. And that directive of decide what you want, decide what you need, then come get me, let's talk about it. Says, I'm open, I'm in your corner, I'm working on the same team, but I'm not going to allow you to mistreat me and talk to me like this.

And as a specific time frame that you agree upon, I would think is important.

Right?

Because other times, it often gets swept under the rug and doesn't get revisited very much.

But in this particular scenario, you're not in the one where you can put a TAM frame on it. You're asking the person to come back to you when they're ready. And I don't know what that's going to look like. You can certainly inquire, hey, are you Ready to talk about that thing you were upset about. I'm ready to listen if you're ready to help me understand what it is you're. That in that particular scenario, you can't put a time frame on it because you're not the one that's in charge of when you're going to come back around. It's outside of your control or your willhouse, so to speak. But it is a really great way, with loving strength to say, no, I'm not participating in this. We need to go in a different direction. I'm not willing to choose into having a conversation with you right. Right now because it's not going to go well. It's not going to go well for me, and it's not going to go well for you. But you're also reminding them and the communication. I do want to hear what you have to say. That's important to me. It's valuable to me. I just can't hear you like this. So if you could get some more clarity about what it is you need and want. And that's important, too, because that's what we want to focus on in solving challenges and problems is not so much what the problem was, but about what it is we're trying to accomplish or need to have happen. That puts us in a very empowering place to advocate and talk about and strategize what we do want to accomplish, where it is we do want to go, instead of just continuing to bang around on the problem. I had a conversation earlier today where a couple has been in a defensive cycle for several days for a myriad of reasons I won't go into, but here's how this typically plays out. Somebody extends an olive branch. And in this particular case, they had been fighting, and one of the partners brought a gift to surprise them, one of their favorite things, and just set it on the counter so that when they came out of the bathroom that they would see that they were actually thought about and there was a little note on it. And the person came out of the bathroom and of course said, oh, my gosh, thank you so much. I appreciate what you gave me. And then said, but I want you to know this doesn't change the way I feel. Okay. All right. You were going really good there for a minute. Right? Praise to. Yes. Doing your best to extend and the thoughtful gift and to write the note. You're basically reassuring the person that I love you, I care about you. But the need to continue to bang on the problem makes everybody feel like we're not making any progress and that what I just did doesn't count.

Would that piece of behavior be a classic sign of defensiveness?

Yes. Yes. Like, I can't accept what you're doing here. That's nice because I need you to know I'm still really ticked. That's just going to keep you from making progress. You've just insisted now that instead of moving forward, you're saying stuck. You're going to stay stuck where you are now. I know that it doesn't solve anything when somebody says, I, here's a little gift, Here's a little note. Let's move forward. I love you. But it is the person who said, I just want to remind you that I'm carry. I care about you, I care about us. And they're not using words, they're using acts of service. And so for you to embrace that and accept that does not mean that you have to just wipe away everything that you still need to understand. Understand and work through to solve the issue emotionally doesn't exist. But it's a great way for you to take a big step forward, to just leave it at. Thank you so much. I appreciate your thoughtfulness and allow that to be a little bit of balm on your, on your emotional wound as you now think about what it is you need and want in order to take another step forward.

I've been thinking about this recently. It seems like a lot of our listeners and, and sometimes our clients and a lot of our followers on social media have this belief that they need to punish their partners. And it just reminds me of, like teaching or not teaching. It reminds me of treating your partner like they're your child. It's not your responsibility to punish them. Also, like a pet, you don't need to punish them.

That's.

Maybe we want to, or maybe that's just like a natural human response to some of these things. But we always say that you can't punish the pain out of somebody. You can't say anything to them that they haven't already said to themselves. So it's just like a very antiquated belief or behavior that you need to punish your partner. And that kind of reminds me of not necessarily your client, but it's. If someone tries to make up with you, you're like, okay, I'll give you a hug, but I'm still mad at you. You know, that, that, that.

Yeah.

And if you think about it, what is that? Is that achieving? Certainly not what you're looking for.

That we probably all heard in some form or Fashion about, I cut the ends off the ham, and I don't know why I cut the ends off the ham. I cut. That's what you do, right? That's what Grandma before her did. And then you cut it all the way back. And Great Grandma goes, Great Great Grandma goes, oh, because. Because the pan was too small. And we all go, what? It's like what you've described, Brooke. It's such a rehearsed pattern of behavior that we all come from and that we're all very familiar with in our lives and in our society, that if you do something wrong or you make a mess, then you must be punished, you must pay the consequences. And while, yes, there's absolutely appropriate places for that, really aren't very many when you think about the totality of human behavior. And so it's almost like this rehearsed place where we feel like, if you hurt my feelings or you make a mess, then I must make you pay. And that somehow is going to get us over it so that we can now get back to thriving again in our relationships. And what we don't realize, if we were to call Great Great Grandma, Great Great Grandma would say, I just did it because I didn't know a better way. But you know what? It's not very effective. It didn't work really well, but it's just been something that's been passed down from generation to generation. So I would suggest to you that what I see is true not only for myself, but for the clients I work with, that if somebody's going to pay, we're all going to pay. And how we're going to pay is we're going to stay stuck in the past for a really long time. And you thought the 30 days that I talked about in the beginning of this podcast was a long time? Try years and lifetime. And that's how we do it, is we won't let go of a mess that happened 5 years, 10 years, 30 years, 20 ago.

It's a good old.

And you have to pay. Well, at what point in time have I paid enough for you to feel better so that we can move on? Because the longer we hang here is the longer that we're wasting our life together. And guess what? We're probably not going to make it. The outthrow of that is we're going to create some kind of a hybrid where, yes, we still might be married on paper so that we don't have to divide the assets and deal with the kids. But you and I, we started living different lives about 15 years ago, and we're just good with it. And that's how we arrive at those places is usually somebody's got to pay, or we both feel like somebody's got to pay. And guess what? It's like the fart in the room if I don't feel like I should pay, but I feel like you should pay, and my partner feels the same way. Now we've just created a co creation and a dynamic where I'm trying to make you pay and you're trying to make me pay. And we're breaking down as individuals and there's nothing left of our relationship. And that's how we get there.

What when you have a relationship dynamic where one person says jump and the other person says how high? Because they're being punished and they need to repay you, that is not a co creation. That's the opposite of a yeah, like.

You'Re entitled to pay. And because I have made a mess, I feel terrible and I want to make amends for that. So I try and jump through some hoops because I love you, I want this to work, and I feel terrible about what I did. I want you to realize you can do all of that without having to jump through any hoops. You don't have to create the hoop with which you've got to monitor vigilantly about whether it's happening or not. And the person that's trying to pay a penance doesn't have to continuously emotionally, mentally and physically punish themselves to jump through the hoops. Now, some of you, by hearing this, it's gonna, it's gonna light you up. And it's just because we come from a very ingrained pattern of behavior where if somebody wrongs me, then they must pay. And that's the only way through. But there's no right criteria on how long do I get to punish this person. And oft times, what you find is the person who's doing the punishing ends up becoming worse than the person who did the egregious behavior in the first place because they feel like they're entitled to mistreat, talk, to belittle, minimize, shut down this person because of what they've done to them. And so very quickly, these things, as I like to say, can turn on you. The tables will turn and you'll find yourself in a position where you're doing the same egregious behavior that you're making them pay for yourself. So that's the world that's fascinating about human behavior.

I, I'm sensing this may become a two part series, ladies and gentlemen, because we're only on number one.

That's true, that's true. Maybe we should do the next 10 episodes on every one of these topics and I bet our listeners, what are the, the 10, what are the 10?

So let's moving on to number two.

Yes, how about, how about we do five on this?

We're going to edit this in real time with you taking a journey with us. Number two, that, that's a really big one. And again, remember what it was because we've talked about a lot of things. You have the power to choose. It's important that you don't lose your power to choose because of times. For example, if somebody's punishing you, you can say, I'm sorry, I'll make amends. We need new agreements to decide how it is we're going to go forward that we can all agree, agree and buy into. But I will not agree to go along with this piece.

Well, and I would just really, to stack on that, just really ask if you're listening to us right now and thank you. If you are, is in punishing your special someone, is that really going to create some new momentum in your situation? It is not. And don't we all hear, I say this often on our clarity calls, don't we often hear whether it's in our own relationship or someone close to us when they make the difficult decision to not stay together, don't we always hear some version of this, I just can't do this anymore? What is that really saying is I have run out of emotional gas. And if you continue to punish your partner and make him or her pay, I don't guarantee many things, but I guarantee that's going to have both of you run out of emotional gas. It will.

And the one golden rule I have for all relationships is it's okay for you to feel the way you feel, but it's not okay for you to ever take it out on somebody, especially somebody that you say you love. So when I say you get to pay or you have to pay, what I'm really saying to myself is I give myself license to mistreat you, to say things that I know in my heart of hearts. I, I should not be saying to you, do not allow yourself to go down that road because then you end up feeling terrible about yourself. And that's where the rubber meets the road. When you put your head on the pillow at night is you know what you've said, you know what you've did you're justifying it because of what has happened. And yet it doesn't make you feel better about how you're showing up and how you're becoming a version of yourself that you don't love and respect yourself.

And a quick note about that is if you find yourself wanting to say something mean to your partner or like you, you did this or you did that, an easy way to still express those feelings and not be mean is to change it to, I feel this way because I am feeling this way. You know, I am hurting because of this. It's a really quick way to reframe it. You could still get the feelings out.

But it's not attacking your partner. And those are a lot of the things that we teach. Speech patterning is important, and those are one of the things that we spend a lot of time teaching our couples, because the way we speak, you'll start to learn if you study speech patterning is that you can say what you need to say, but you can say it in a way that it can be heard and listened to and understood instead of it coming across as some kind of an attack. And again, that's just what we've learned and what's been modeled to us. And so we don't know any different or better. We know what we know as human beings. You're gonna hear me say that a thousand times. We only know what we know. And that is so true until we get exposed or expand to something different. And then we go, ah, okay, wow.

One last point on number one. I promise, if you're saying, okay, we still haven't heard two yet, is, and I share this often is the speech patterning that we teach. Guess what? They're not fancy words.

They're not.

They're very simple words, just like Brooke shared with it. It's just a simple change of the sequence of what you would have shared. Or maybe in substituting a few of the first words that are going to make it accusational and you change it to taking, you're sharing truly how this is how I am feeling. So it's not complicated words at all. It is not.

So I'm going to just jump to the next one.

It's a good idea.

Learn and practice the language of emotion so that you can share it. That's a really important one because, you know what we often do that takes us directly into defensiveness is that we end up trying to solve emotional problems by banging around on the circumstances of what I do for you, what I pay, what I take care of around the house and those are not in the same camp. We can't create emotional connection by justifying it from some kind of a task or circumstance that I'm managing or taking care of for us. Now, I'm not saying those things aren't important and valuable, absolutely are. And they're a contribution to the relationship. And they create safe places for us to be able to count. If I can count on you to do the things that you promise to do, task wise, circumstance wise, it creates an opening and a safe place where I can start to explore the emotional aspects of things. But what I find we believe is true is that if I'm doing the circumstantial things, then I don't have to share with you emotionally about what's going on with me when I might have a partner that's begging and pleading for that. It is on all of us as human beings because we are emotional creatures. And you need to know that a relationship is the most emotional endeavor that we ever embark on. It is a relational experience that is emotional. So we need to develop the words and the language to express our emotions in a way that they can be heard. So not only do you need speech patterning, we've got to be able to translate our own thoughts, feelings and emotions into a language that we can first understand ourselves. Otherwise, we're dead in the water. If I can't share my thoughts, feelings and emotions in a way that it can be heard, there's no sharing that can be done. There's no emotional connection that can be built. And if I haven't spent a lot of time here in this place, it's going to be difficult for me at first. And somebody who might be good at emotional expression goes, come on, just tell me how you feel. It's no big deal. Spit it out. And what you don't realize is that can be really difficult for somebody. Just like learning a brand new language. It is just that you're learning the language that is within you and being able to take that and transcribe it into something that makes sense to you, and then to be able to put it into words is a whole journey of learning and practice in and of itself.

Okay, I have a question. We created quite a. We drummed up quite a bit of emotions with a recent post about saying, a couple comes in, one of them says, I'm doing all the tasks, I'm making the money, I'm taking out the trash, and the other one is begging for emotional connection. You talked a little bit more about that in the TikTok. And so many men came and said, that's just how men show love, by doing tasks, period. So I answered back to them. You can't have a relationship without any emotional connection. That it's essential. So what do you say to the people who stand firm in that conviction that doing tasks and doing things around the house and making the money and all this is how men show love? And so that's it. They don't need to.

What's so precious about that is it's really coming from a place where they don't know how to even approach that conversation. So don't make me go there and don't tell me that I have to do this, because I don't. I beg to differ, but let's just dig a little deeper into this conversation. Men by. By historic. How do am I trying to say this? Men historically, I guess would be the way to say it. Men historically have not been given the outlet of emotional expression that is not manly, that is not strong. They've been given the title in our society of being the provider, being the tax doer, doing the fix it. We all know that a honey do list is for the man to actually take care of the tasks in the relationship, right? So this belief they come by rightly, they really do. What we've negated is the fact that men are human too. And all human beings have emotions. And when I arrive at those places and I might be the gender of a male, I've basically been told I can't have emotions, that it's more about the doing task. And so those are men who are trying to. Trying to and being and endeavoring to fulfill that role that they have been taught to be good men and their families. So that's the precious part. The precious part is they're saying, hey, don't knock on me. I'm knocking it out of the park. Like I'm doing exactly what I was told I needed to do and I'm doing my best at it. And so I do want to give some acknowledgement and some credit to all the men who are saying, hey, that's just how men show love. And you know what? I get it because. Because societally we have put you in that position to say this is how you show love and everything should go fine except for it doesn't you know that there's a hole and a gap there that's missing. That's frustrating to you because you think I'm doing it all, I'm doing my best, I'm doing What I was taught, I was. I'm doing what I was told, and what more do you want from me? And yet there's still this emotional gap that's happening because by nature, historically, females are taught that we share our feelings. If there's anything a female is good at, it's dissecting down how we feel, what we think, what's going on. And if I can't figure out an emotional problem by myself and my own obsessing, I'm gonna go get a slew of women. And, man, we'll pound that into powder dust. We're gonna walk away with something. It may not be rooted in truth, but we're gonna come up with some answers that are gonna make our men crazy, absolutely crazy. And then we're going to want them to take this journey with us without realizing. The reason why we're so good at expressing emotions is because we sit around and we do it for hours and hours, almost to a fault. Come on, women. I know what, you know, it feels like to be so lost and overwhelmed with your emotions. You can't see the forest for the trees. Like, I'm drowning in it. And I've obsessed and thought about this from an emotional perspective, and that perspective has taken on 10,000 different positions. And so that's a craziness on the opposite side of the coin. And so what I'm trying to impress here with you is that there is a balance where we as human beings have the ability to do both. We can think strategically, and we can be in touch with our feelings and be able to express them. The goal is to be able to do both. Women, we need to get more logical. We need to think things through a little easier. And more importantly, we know we need to know when to stop the obsessive thinking, because obsessive thinking just creates more emotional overwhelm. And men, yes, you are amazing at what you do. You take care of us. You repair the car. You build shopping malls out of toothpicks. You are incredible in that way. And we need you to understand that when somebody is asking for emotional connection, they're asking for you to look inside and be able to translate your own thoughts, feelings, and emotions into a language that you can share. Now, what's interesting about this is we all know how to do this in the beginning. Think about it. We go back to the beginning of creating a relationship. A man won't get a woman if he doesn't share how he feels. And it might be uncomfortable, and it may not work so great, but at some Point in time, you told somebody you loved them, that they were important to you, that you missed them, that you wanted to build life with them, that you couldn't wait to dream and share these emotional things with them. And then we fall in love and it all gets boxed away. But women, we do the same thing. If we were to think about this in terms of strategy and logic and the physical expression that men are so good at that women are not, we're more prone to do the emotional expression people piece. We have a difficult time with the physical expression and so we all jump in and we have great sex in the beginning and we're willing to go there and we're willing to try on all kinds of different things. And then somewhere along the line, just like men do with emotional expression, we get very uncomfortable in the physical expression of things and the sex gets shut down and we're not necessarily interested in trying new things and we're not necessarily interested and a lot of things, things physically that a man would want and that we probably did in the beginning. So I'm just going to ask us all to go back to the beginning and realize we all have the capability to do it. We just may not have the acumen and the capacity to continue building on it. So we do just enough to get us in a relationship.

I love that. I think it's Tony Robbins in some form or fashion. I don't think I'm speaking to direct quote, but it's a version of if we did more of what we did in the beginning, there would be no end.

And so long story short, wherever you might fall on that spectrum, there's no wrong or good or bad to it. What I'm really trying to highlight that I'm just going to say as clearly and succinctly as I can right now is our opportunity as a human being is to expand our capacity to do both. That one is not superior or inferior to the other, that we have the capacity to do both and we want to develop it. And ironically, in the co creation of relationships, somebody is probably going to be the more logical, analytical, task driven partner and somebody's going to represent the emotional side. That just seems to be how it rolls. And your opportunity is to become a little of both. That language of emotion and tasks are not going to take us there. Doesn't matter if you like it or not, it just happens to be the way it is. And over analyzing emotions and criticizing what is being done for us is not going to take us there either. We have to do a Measure of both and find a place of balance with that.

Okay, number three.

Number three, value yourself. Relationships go better if you can find a place to truly value yourself. Regardless of what's happened to you in your past. You are here and you are among the living. This is spectacular. And I think if we could really understand what it takes for creation to happen in, we would all have a better respect of our lives. Seek deeper self awareness through self reflection, through meditation, through learning, and a supportive people. And I encourage you to engage in activities that cause you to feel good about who you are and who it is you're becoming. Because the value that I have of myself will directly affect the relationship that I'm creating with somebody else. And if my value for myself is poor, I'm going to show up poorly in my relationship and I'm probably going to find myself in a place where I'm either refusing to get all in and commit with you, or I'm jumping through hoops to please you at any chance and turn I have. And both are going to create a breakdown in the relationship because that is a defensive behavior. So that correlates ironically with remember you have a choice. If I don't value myself, I don't remember that I get to choose. Those things are very directly correlated. I don't feel like I'm valuable enough to choose to have a voice, to be able to show up, to have a perspective, to have emotional needs and wants and desires. Or I feel like because of what's been done to me and how I've been wronged, I get to call all the shots and push my weight around. Okay, I could file on either side of those camps. And both highlight. The challenge is, is you don't value yourself. And the only way we can develop that value inside of ourselves is to do those things. I just suggested self reflection, meditation, learning a supportive environment that cheers you on, and engaging yourself in activities that you feel good about who you're becoming instead of activities that you consistently justify doing that, you know, make you feel good, feel shitty. That has to stop because that's not valuing yourself. Number four, be in touch with your body. This coincides with valuing yourself. You have a body and it brings in billions and billions of bits of information in a nanosecond. It has a tremendous amount of wisdom. And what I want you to do with this body is seek alignment of connection with your thoughts, your feelings and your emotions. Emotions, I'm sorry, your thoughts, your feelings and your actions so that your actions are congruent with the way you feel and the way you feel is congruent with what you think. And it's probably going to start from the perspective of thinking. Perhaps I think thoughts. It causes me to feel a certain way. And the way I feel generates an action or a behavior that's out of that. And we can look at any one of those three to see if I'm in alignment with myself and who it is I want to be. And if I'm out outside of that's where our pain and suffering happens. Absolutely. And if I don't know how to manage that pain and suffering, I'm going to take it out on somebody else. That's just how we're wired as human beings. It's not right, it's not wrong, it's not good, it's not bad, it just.

Is when there's really where the power of pain is meaning. It's such a tremendous indicator to us. The key point here is just to learn how to listen to it, pay attention to it. I know we've all me included. Unbelievably we dismiss odds that intuitive, just like our navigation says, re recalculating. But we don't choose to recalculate. That's where it's the most accurate and most quick indicator that we have all within side of us that internal gps, so to speak. But many times we just, we don't. We override it.

Well, the pain signal means I rip your face off or I run and hide. The pain signal doesn't mean that there's something I need to remedy inside of myself. It means now I need to justify why I did what I did did because I feel silly, I feel like an asshole. Those are the places where we get defensive is when I get fired up and I don't know what to do about it. Then I make a story about why I should have been able to do it or why you've done it too and so don't get on my back. Now that's defensiveness. And we need to understand and honor those pain signals inside of ourselves. So it's important that we get in touch with our bodies and that we take responsibility for our bodies and that we align ourselves with our thoughts, our feelings and our actions. Because my friends, that's where internal peace is. When I feel like those things are aligned, I have peace and I feel good about who I am. Those are precious moments right there. And they're moments that I want to encourage you to consistently seek because they're absolutely there and it's worth the journey, it's worth the endeavor. And then the last one kind of coincides with everything that we've been talking about is the icing on the cake. It's important for us to tell the truth. Truth to ourselves specifically. Now, sometimes when we start talking about tell the truth, it's, oh, I have to tell him everything I'm thinking. That is not at all what we're talking about. Please don't do that. But tell yourself the truth about what you're thinking, what you're feeling, and then what you're going to do about it. But don't allow yourself to cross some of those lines of taking it out on others. That's where we need to hold ourselves accountable, that it's okay for you to feel the way you feel and think the way you think, but think of some positive remedies that you can come up with, things that you can advocate for, pursue strategically create in your relationships instead of just the default, which is very easy for us to do, to blame somebody else for it or to judge somebody else for doing it differently or seeing it differently. It's important. And it all begins with telling yourself the truth. Justifying a story about why you're entitled to do things you don't feel good about doing is not telling the truth. Truth that's creating a place of defensiveness where everybody is going to break down. And I call that the race to the bottom. And if you are going to problem solve anything and go in a different direction, how the heck do you expect to do that without telling them? Because then we're just all running around trying to solve problems that we thought were the problem, but nobody's really laying the card on the table. And so we end up going down these rabbit holes that don't take us anywhere. And then we don't know what to do about that. Now I'm even more pissed off and I'm more frustrated. So what is it? What is it? Oh, I can't tell you because I'm afraid to tell you. So I'm going to tell you this little teeny tiny piece of this other thing. And so then we start working on that little teeny tiny thing and we go down a bunch of other detours and rabbit holes. And again, how in the hell are we going to solve the problem if somebody isn't going to tell the truth and lay the card on the table? We're never going to be successful with that. And yet most of us handle our problems just like that. So our relationships live in a constant state of illusion where we're all running around trying to do the very best we know how. But nobody's telling the truth truth to our partners or to ourselves. And that's going to create a problem.

Shout out to my mom. She raised me wonderfully. And so many times when I was in the throes of a lot of hot messes, either she would put a sticky note on my door or she would just share with me some very simple words. Son, remember to thine own self be true. And that's all she would say.

Yeah, yeah.

A little woman, but very wise. Miss you, mom.

Yeah, we both came from really good moms, and they were single moms for the majority of our upbringings. And they were very small in stature, both of them, as Thomas said, but very wise and large and mighty in spirit. And it is the greatest principle to thine own self to be true. Because if I'm not true to myself, I'm going to break down anyway. If even if I justify doing some things that I. I don't feel good about to love you, that's going to be a zero sum game because eventually it's going to have its way with me and I'm going to fall apart. I'm not going to be okay with that for the long haul. And that happens. And I see that where we love so much and we want it to go so well. It's really the sweetheart message at the end of the day. But I end up sacrificing myself and then at some point in time, I can't do it anymore and I end up creating exactly what it is I didn't want to have happen in the first place. Tell yourself the truth and remember that you have that choice. Remember that it's important for us to create an awareness and a connection with ourselves. Learn the emotion, the emotional language. Be able to translate those thoughts, feelings and emotions into a language that I can understand myself. Those are the things that you're going to share in order to create emotional connection. And these are the things that I encourage you to begin developing today because it's going to help you stay out of defensiveness. Otherwise you're going to live there. And it's a very painful suffer ridding place to be. Is that a word? Suffer reading? No, probably not. I just made it now, at least.

For this moment, suffer ridding, filled with suffering.

Yeah, that's probably a better way to.

Say an environment of suffering.

Yeah, I like that even better. Is that Shakespeare over there?

Oh, my goodness.

No. All kidding aside, I need to really spend some time and think about what we've shared here and we'd love to hear your thoughts about it. What comes up for you when you hear these things, Share them with us. We would love to hear where you go and where you feel like you struggle. And again, as I said in the beginning, just pick one or two that you want to really focus in on. You can't do them all. We can't do it all right now, but we can do all things in a lifetime. Pick a few to start with and begin there. It's an endeavoring journey and one that that you are so worth embarking on. We all have tremendous value. We it is all a gift that we are here and among the living. And my encouragement to you is that you value that by valuing your life and yourself and that's going to put you in a greater capacity to be able to show love and show up for the people that you say you love the most. It's the greatest gift you'll ever give you. So as we take the corner and we turn it here, we're going to jump into a little bit of follow the fun. And today I got thinking we just don't celebrate life enough in my opinion. It's like we set these goals and intentions and then we hold off waiting for the end run. There are the goal post to actually be met before we give ourselves any credit for the effort and the end result energy that we put into life and living and in our relationships. Like I know you've got goals like getting out of debt, saving for a trip, saving for maybe you've got some physical mental health goals that you're pursuing right now. Maybe it's running that marathon or getting back to the gym or walking your 10,000 steps every day. And I know with kids there's goals that you have for them or intentions that you have for them about helping them read and write or do better in school or get along with their friends or do their chores. There's always something that's in motion, something that we're focusing on and that we're working with. And ofttimes what we fail to do is we fail to celebrate our progress. And progress, unless we look back and remember where it is we came from will always be missed. And so my follow the fun moment today ironically is do just that. Take a moment and think about it's now going into completing the first quarter of 2023 when this was recorded it we're not very far into the year of 2023, but gosh what is your progress not only from January to now, but what about from last January to now? And how are you coming with some of those longer term goals that you're working towards and maybe you've been working at them for years. What I want you to do this week is I want you to celebrate a halfway goal. Halfway is just as wonderful as the whole enchilada. Or celebrate a measure of practice or progress that can be something even smaller than a halfway goal. And to really talk about it and celebrate and acknowledge yourself and acknowledge your kids and acknowledge your partner for all the effort, focus and progress, whether it be big or small, that we have made towards accomplishing things. And by the way, having a conversation about some of these things is huge need and cause for celebration. And there's some fun ways that you can do it. My favorite is Ben and Jerry's half baked. It says it all right there. Get a little bit of half baked ice cream or celebrate with a little half and half. Make something out of it. Make a creamy soup or how about a half baked loaf of bread. That's a real thing. And we're going to just take and combine these things and make something special to celebrate and talk about about the progress that we've made. Whether we're halfway or not. Whatever progress deserves to be accelerate celebrated. And you can do this with acts of service too. Maybe if I'm in a process of. I'm thinking about a book that I wrote last year celebrating a place where I get a gift, where I start it and then I get a gift when I end it. And it could be an act of service. You get half of it now, half of it later. Maybe it's a new pair of shoes. You get one of the shoes now and you get the other one when you complete it. It or I'm going to do this for you and babe. I won't get into specifics, but there are some really specific things that Tommy loves. So maybe he gets one now and then maybe he gets one when it's completed. These things can be negotiated and talked about. But do your best to just take a moment and celebrate whatever you've accomplished and whatever progress you've made today. That's my encouragement. Long story short, short. Anything you want to say about that other than blushing?

I would just say and we blame this on Italy. But you know what? We, Stacey and I, we love champagne. And you think about it, most of us don't have champagne only what, what? Once or twice a year. Usually on New Year's Eve. And then maybe if you go to a wedding and we think, you know what, that's interesting. Why would you. In Italy, that is not the case. Prosecco is enjoyed all the time. Like, I find it like, really you would only have it like, like New Year's Eve. And maybe at a wedding, that's the only time you could have champagne because it is a very celebratory. It's viewed in a very celebratory sense. So heck, we're big halfway celebrators. We have champagne all the time.

And in the spirit of full disclosure, we probably ought to tell our wonderful podcast listeners that actually we intentionally pour champagne because we love and celebrate being here with you each and every week. This is a ritual that we have with inside of ourselves and our own practice. This right here, it's inside the love shack. It's inside the love shack every week because we want you to know how much we enjoy doing these podcasts for you and we want you to know how much we celebrate you taking time out of your day to come and be and celebrate with us.

And if you're not driving while you're listening, we would encourage you, if you're in a safe place and you're not driving or operating complicated machinery or doing anything else, then please join us and share with us what your favorite champagne is. How about that?

Or beverage. Or beverage doesn't have to be champagne, but yeah.

So as we land this one and we the next five, we'll handle in the next episode of this part two as well. Excuse me.

We'll leave them hanging a little bit. And do you want to announce the song?

I don't know what it is. I don't usually know. You asked me for one today and then I think I was going back to my office to find one and then I got distracted. Tada.

Today is Kevin Ross, this Thing Called Love.

Good musician.

He has an incredible voice, doesn't he? I heard him sing this song with acoustic and his voice is absolutely spectacular. And the reason why I chose this song is his lyrics are, I never was too good at this thing called love. All I know is if you teach me, I know I can do a better me. I can be good at this thing called love. And I think that's the endeavor for all of us, isn't it? Regardless of where we are on this journey of relationship and love, we can all get better at it and it will be a lifetime pursuit. And I find it's easier for us to hold that as the goal instead of feeling like we're going to be the right person, we're going to be the perfect person. We're going to find the perfect person. Now just do you today in the very best way you possibly can and let the rest of the days take care of themselves. It's a journey, it's a pursuit, and it's a pursuit for a lifetime. And some days we're going to knock it out of the park and some days we're not. And that has to be okay. But we can all become better at this thing we call love. So you can find this song along with all the songs for each of our episodes on Spotify by looking up the Love Shack Live playlist. And you can also go to our website and you can gain the access to that same Spotify playlist on our website as well@staceybartley.com and if by chance you have a conversation about love, sex and relationships that you would like to hear us talk about here on the show, we would love for you to reach out to us and let us know what that is. We're dedicated to talking about the things that you value most in your life and in your relationships. So thank you so much for being here with us today and we look forward to continuing this 10 point bullet point list next week. We'll give you the secondary five. We're Thomas Stacey Bartley. We're the host of Love Shack Live. Thank you so much for being here and spending some of your time with with us today inside the Love Shack. We'll see you next week.

Okay, everybody, time to go. We gotta close the doors to the Love Shack for this week. You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here. Come back next week though and join us for another edition of Love Shack Live with Tom and Stacy Bartley.