#118: 10 Tips to Overcome Defensiveness in Your Relationship (Part Two)

And if you are successful in shutting your partner down or your child or. Or family member down, in the end, that's not going to be what you want. That's where the regret lives, right? So pay attention to that feeling of like, oh, I shouldn't have said that. Oh, I shouldn't have done that.

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

Hey, welcome to the love shack. It's a little old place where we get to get together, expl explore fresh perspectives and 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 118 and this is actually a two part series that we actually started last week. In episode number 117, we're talking about defensiveness and how it shows up in our lives and in our relationships and more importantly, what you can do about it. Like the 10 top things that you need to focus on in order to be mindful of defensiveness playing out in your relationship. So today we're covering numbers 5 through 10 and you can jump in and listen to this episode, but I do want to point you back to, As I said, 1:17 because you really need to focus on all 10. Now, as I had said in the last episode, pick one that you really resonate with and just kind of work with it for a bit.

And if you're new listener, thank you so much. You know where our followers are increasing. We really appreciate that. My name is Tom. This is my wife Stacy, and we have our daughter Brooke. So if you're a first time listener, thank you very much for being here. And I think it's actually this is 6 through 10. If my numbers are correct, we did 1 through 5 on 117.

Oh, you're right. You're the detail guy just the same.

So whatever. We can maybe go over five again if we want to, but we, we decided to go to watch it.

Don't be sassy.

We decided to go two episodes because we weren't getting through them fast enough.

Enough.

Yeah, we really focused a long time on number one in the last episode.

We did just because it's important. And for those of you right now who are wondering what number one was, it's. Remember, you have the power to choose. Sometimes when we feel like we're in defensiveness, you know, it's tough to choose out of it. We can get ourselves in spirals of conflict. And if I'm the person who's having to feel as though I need to weather the defensive behavior of my partner, Sometimes it's hard to remember that you get to choose out of that as well. And so there's some super tips in that. And that's just. Number one, I'll. Should I give them a precursor as to what was the rest?

Sure.

Number two would be be in touch with your body and internal wisdom. Now don't start rolling your eyes here. As human beings, not only do we need to be logical and strategic. That's important. But we also need to be in touch with the emotional experience of being a human being too. One is not inferior superior to the other. So, yes, we have to get in touch with our internal wisdom. I'm going to share a story with you in just a minute that's going to highlight that big time. And then we've got value yourself because if you don't, it's going to be really difficult to stay out of defensiveness. And then the last one that we covered was tell the truth, especially to yourself. Yes. And number five, the one that kind of keeps hanging me up right now, learn and practice the language of emotions so that you can share them. That's something, that's a skill, something that we need to practice. And so those are all covered again in Number Episode 117. Today though, we're going to jump into give up blame, dismissing others and the need to be right. And I kid you not, as I was creating this very episode today for all of you, I had an experience where, yes, little Miss Stacy Bartley ended up finding herself in a very, know, thrown off, you know, defensive posture as I'm sitting on the couch. And just to set it up for you, I was feeling a little pressure because we have a special episode that we're preparing for mental health awareness in addition to providing the content that we do on our podcast. And so I was a little under the gun. In fact, I decided not to go to CrossFit this morning. And so I, I was just working diligently and as Tom does most mornings, he makes me a wonderful cup of coffee. And it's just the sweetest thing in the whole wide world. Puts extra heavy cream in it. So I'm sitting on the couch drinking my coffee as he walks back in from CrossFit. Just about the time I was craving a second cup and unbeknownst to him, I had gotten up and put the pot of, you know, water for my pour over coffee. I had heated it and so I knew the water was really hot. And I, as he walked by, I said, oh, you want to do me a really Big favor and make me a second pot of coffee. And he turns to me and says, oh, so is this your third cup? And I'm thinking as I'm working on my computer, no, it's not my third cup. You know, get off my back. And. And then how. How. How's the water? How. How'd the water get hot? And I'm thinking, oh, my gosh, you're. I'm interrupting my thinking. I'm overwhelmed. I'm kind of stressed out. And he wants to know how many cups of coffee I've had and how did the water get hot? I'm like, oh, my goodness, I'm gonna have to draw him a map. And so in my haste of thinking, it should be obvious that the water doesn't matter. Who cares if this is my third cup? Why does it matter how the water got hot? Just make me a cup of coffee. That seems completely logical in my own, what we call a movie over here in the Stacy Bartley world. I attacked him, and I. I said pretty much that. Do we have to care about the water? You know, can we just let this go? Or if you're not up for making me a cup of coffee, just go ahead and say, no, it's totally fine with me. And coffee's, you know, he's just like, okay, well, sorry. I, you know, starts pouring my little cup of coffee. And then I started to feel bad because I realized that I left.

I took Jiggy, our dog, for a.

Walk, and I thought.

And I didn't give it a second thought, just so you know.

You didn't? No. That's almost sad.

No, I mean, it didn't, you know, just, okay, you know, whatever. I mean, no, it. It let you know. So just to show you the differences in what we like, we say our movie was a very different. We were at a very, very different movie, as all seven and a half billion of us on the planet are every day, just so you know.

And so he left and went for a walk as I'm sitting here writing a podcast on defensiveness. That's the irony of the whole thing, right? And I'm thinking, stacey, what if you were successful in actually shutting him down? Like, what if he never asked those questions again about, hey, how did this happen? You know, is this your third cup? What if he's just stopped engaging in his own natural curiosity about you, about what's happening, about what's going on? Would you really consider that a win? And there was a moment where I was like, oh, God, no, that wouldn't be a win because he wouldn't be able to just naturally ask questions, share, engage with me. He'd be really tentative about how he was going to approach any conversation with me. And is that really what I want? I thought, no. Where's the win there? There is none. There is no win there in there for me. And the very thing that I'm attempting to do by getting defensive and shutting it down is going to be something in the future I'm going to be sad and regretful about because it's going to be the thing that dismantles the safety in my relationship, the open communication and sharing that flows naturally between us.

I just want to take a minute and point out to people, if you're not drawing the connection like I am, this would be the answer to the question, why don't you ever talk to me anymore? Why don't you ever tell me anything anymore? Why don't you ever. Why didn't you tell me that? Why didn't you tell me that happened at your work today? Because of this exact thing and it happened. And we're not, we're not trying to stop the connection when we are defensive like this. That's not our intention, but it is the result.

Absolutely. And it, and it's not a big thing. I could, I could minimize that and go, oh, that was no big deal, I'm just going to let it go. But as I sat and thought about it, no, it is a small thing that could turn into a big thing later. I want to, I want to clean this up now. I just need to say hahaha. In my defense, Tom is very hypervigilant. We are very different human beings here. I'm much of a, of a high vision flyer. I don't like to get down into the minutiae of the detail a lot. And Tom is my, my polar opposite here where he is vigilant detail man. And as I jokingly say to him, do you want me to graph this out for you? Do you want me. And calculate some of the analysis that goes along.

Talk about sass.

So you can start to see in this little incident of a cup of coffee how this starts to play out. And so of course, when he came back from the walk, I just said, I want you to know I'm really sorry. I really am sorry. I shouldn't have treated you that way. And the worst thing that could happen for us and for me is that I'm actually successful in shutting you down. Like there's no win there. So I just want you to know I'm going to do a better job of regulating myself. I also want to point out it's obvious I spend a lot of time in this conversation, to say the least. And yet, human first. Any other credential that I have or certification is after that. And that's the same for all of us. Human first, meaning I get defensive, too. I'm no perfect person over here. And if I wrestle with it with all the time focus and energy that I put into this, then it's important that we all be mindful of stepping into defensiveness, because the reality is we're going to do it. And it's not about not doing it. It's about recognizing when you're doing it and get off it as quickly as you possibly can. So hence these 10 things we want to share with you.

I just want to add another caveat. I'm not a parent yet, but I know that this same situation happens a lot between parents and children. When they're trying to run out the door and the kid is asking a question and you don't have time for it and you brush them off. You can apologize to your kids, too, in the same way. Because kids, I know I was a kid. We all were kids. And if our parents acted like that, we don't understand why, and we're like, oh, I guess I shouldn't ask questions anymore. When, of course, that's the opposite of what you want as a parent. You want your kids to ask you questions so you can take the same. You can say, I'm human. I'm so sorry that I brushed you off. I don't ever want you to stop asking me questions. You know, you can apologize in the same way.

100% correct. I'm so glad you brought that up because it is in all of our relationships. We can find ourselves in these.

And it's very sneaky. Like Stacy and Brooke just shared. I mean, I said, gosh, you know, that's an incredible real life situation that just happened. And yet, you know. Yeah, you know, so it's a very compounding type of a thing, you know, and we talk a lot about permission and safety on our podcast here. And so you're just eroding both of those things with each one of these type of little incidences. Yeah, not a big deal. But again, it's. It's the compounding effect in the negative result, if you will. So it's almost. It will sneak right by you. It really will.

And do you want to share with the listeners what you were Thinking. And what was going on in your movie this morning while you were asking questions about the coffee and how many cups I'd have?

No, I mean, it was just water. I was just trying to figure out how I was supposed to put the coffee. You know, give. Make Stacy coffee when I thought the water was not even really warm. I didn't really understand how that. I said, okay, well, it seems like, you know, because I had heated up before I left, which is like 90 minutes ago, I think. Okay, well, I mean, I. Last time I checked, Stacy doesn't maybe like. Like a piping hot. I was just simply.

Yeah, just.

It was just how my mind works.

Getting clarification. And she was thinking you were interrogating her on how many cups you've had when you guys were talking about two totally different things.

Could have cared less if it was a 15th cup. You know, I. I was just. You know, again, I'm. I'm a very. Yeah, my. I'm a detail kind of a guy. This is how I roll. We. And we all process things. It's a classic example when two. Two people or three or more go through the same set of experiences. Very different reaction, very different emotional response. That's incredibly important to remember. So this little subtle thing between us, who are supposed to be experts, always remind you, we all are our own best clients first. We really are. So, you know, hey, it was just. And. But it played out in real time. And we said, gosh, this would be a great thing to share today, right now, because it's happening in real life for all of us.

Do you forgive me?

Maybe that's up for. We'll still figure it out. We'll let people know next week, of course. Yeah. No, I didn't really give it a second thought. I said, okay, well, you know, and then once they said, no, I heated. I heated up, you know, right before you walk, I said, okay, perfect. It makes total sense now.

Okay. Yeah. I don't say that. Very nice, though.

No, it's all right. And there again, I mean, it didn't affect me like it did, you know, Stacy. But the point is, you know, I say that often on our clarity calls. The only thing that we may have different than any other couple out there is we're really good at cleaning up our messes fast. That's it. But, I mean, because we've done it thousands of times, practice, and we're very.

Vigilant about it, you know, so the minute I got that sick feeling in my stomach, I was like, oh, I got to Think this through for a minute, right? And you're really good about doing that on the, on the reverse side of that as well. So there you go. That's how simple it can be. Let's jump into number six and let's do a deeper dive in this, shall we? So, number six, giving up blame, dismissing others, and needing to be right. I'm going to encourage you, when you catch yourself doing those things, to let it go. And instead I want you to advocate for something that you want. Just ask. It's really simple. Put it on the table. Instead of stepping out of the blame. Take ownership too. When you do it, hey, I'm sorry I did that. I'm sorry I said that. I. Let me just get off it for a minute. And I think what I'm really needing is for you to hug me or hold my hand or reassure me or, or help me with this item. Would you be willing to do that? Those are all really great ways to get off blame, shame, and the need to be right. Because just like me, they're not going to take you anywhere. And if you are successful in shutting your partner down or your child or. Or family member down, in the end, that's not going to be what you want. That's where the regret lives, right? So pay attention to that feeling of like, oh, I shouldn't have said that. Oh, I shouldn't have done that. Clean it up. Doesn't mean you shouldn't have. We're all human. Just go back and, and make it right and move on. Let it go. Let's move on to number seven, shall we? Postponing judgment of self and others. Here's the thing about judging. If you do it, it's actually coming from judgment that you hold with inside of yourself. Believe it or not, sometimes we're not aware of that. But very often, if I'm judging myself in these same ways, makes me intolerant out in my external environment for things that are being said or done or behavior that I'm seeing that fires off the emotion inside of me about my own personal judgments of self, of people, of circumstance, of politics, of religion, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And it can be around anything. And so I want you to, instead of judging, let it be a deeper sign of understanding that discovery and understanding is needed. Instead of walking around judging other people and other things for the things that are firing you up and getting all spun up about that, which, guess what's going to happen? You're going to take that out on others. That's how emotion works. I either learn how to manage it and regulate it and understand it with inside of myself or I will take it out on those around me. There is no other option here. So when you find yourself in the space of judgment, just understand that that's a sign where, okay, I need to stop probably judging myself. Be a little kinder, really take in some personal care and understanding with inside of myself and then discover more, understand more. Go beyond what you feel like your limitation of your judgment is. And I think this is really important not just in our relationships, but in our lives. You know, if I'm having a difficult time standing in a conversation that makes me uncomfortable, that's a great opportunity for you to explore why that makes you so uncomfortable. What is it about it that is rubbing you raw instead of acting it out? Okay, that's an important one. And you know, if you find yourself struggling with self judgment or judgment of others for any reason, you know, again, I'm just going to say this one more time. We'll move on to the next one. That's a really good sign that you just need to understand and expand more awareness around what's going on inside of you. Because the less judgment you have for yourself, you find the less, you know, you are intolerant of others. Conversations, perspectives, people, politics, religion. You can be more open and embracing as opposed to judging. And so that truly does come from a place with inside of yourself. Any other comments you guys want to say?

No, I mean, that's a big one. I mean, and that is a, that's a really, you know, when we're so certain. Yeah, just take that pause and really, as Stacy suggested, you know, take a look within before we're so anxious to point a finger.

Yeah. And just by the way, these are never a one and done these things we're talking about, you're going to find that you cycle through them and that sometimes you struggle with one or a handful. And that's okay. It's just making you aware of really what it takes to be mindful of doing your best to stay out of defensiveness as a human being.

Yeah. I think that when you're really judgmental about one thing inside of yourself, it's kind of like that car situation where when you, you know, like when you buy a new car, if you really want a car, it makes it very easy and you're like, oh my God, I never knew all of these cars were on the road before because that's all you see. It's. I think it's the same thing with judging you. Once you become very hateful about a certain thing inside of yourself, it makes it very easy for you to judge and see it in others. And so the, like you said, the number one way to stopping that is to first start accepting yourself so that you become a more loving, accepting person of who you are. And it will help you stop the judging.

You know, it makes me think of when I was trying to rectify my religious past. And what we have a tendency to do as human beings is we have a tendency to go directly to the opposite side. So I'm stepping out of, you know, reading the Bible and the Book of Mormon in my particular case, and that being my whole life revolving around those. Those teachings and that environment. And then as I was trying to rectify that, I swung really hard to the other side, and I didn't want to have anything to do with it. And there really was a point in time where people would say the word Bible and I'd go, ah, run. It was like this panic inside of me. Not that there's anything wrong with the Bible, but because of where I was coming from, in my experience, I. I was completely intolerant of it. And I. I had to rectify my own judgment around that to the point I could say, say, yeah, tell me about the Bible. Tell me your favorite part. Tell me your favorite scripture to find some peace with inside of myself. And I'm going to be honest with you, it took me some time to do that, right. So that I wasn't like, oh, you know, judgmental of people who hold that very dear to them because of where I came from. And I think we find that a lot. You know, people who have a difficult time with physical affection in public, for example, I could get pretty spun up about that if I have a lot of things with inside of myself where maybe it was done to me in a. Appropriately, maybe there was no examples of that, or I believe and was taught and buy into the idea that it's inappropriate. It's not okay. And so I have some unresolved experiences with inside of myself. So I'm out and about and see a cute little couple smooching in the park, and I'm like, you know, how could this be? You shouldn't be doing that. And I, I think there's your sign that it's time for us to kind of go back and look at yourself and examine your awareness about why does this fire you off? Because in and of itself, it's really not a bad thing. All right, so there's going to be lots of those as human beings. And it really is just the sign that says, hey, deeper exploration inside of yourself needed. You know, let's. Let's. Why are you so intolerant here? And, and I know a lot of the people who follow us on social media, and perhaps even you listening to this podcast, you find that we really try and be a neutral platform. And, and the reason why is because this is how we continue to grow and expand in our own work as well. Right. We're calling upon ourselves to do exactly what it is we're inviting you to do, where we get to be tolerant and accepting and find a safe place for all of us to learn and grow and become better human beings. That's what this is all about. So we're all on that journey together. We're in this journey with you. And I think it's a worthy effort and focus to continue to pursue that throughout your lifetime. Anything else you guys want to add to that one? No.

Number eight.

This one. I love this one. This one really rings true for us today. Put as much effort into understanding your partner as you do defending yourself. Right. So the minute I attacked Tom and. And then felt bad about that, I had to do the exploration of, oh, my gosh, what's going on inside of you. Like, what makes you think you've got it all figured out? And then it was understanding where Tom was coming from and what he was trying to accomplish there. And we had a good laugh about it after it was all said and done. But. But seeking that understanding. Because here's the thing I'm going to tell you is whenever you understand the behavior, the emotional driver behind the behavior, it always makes sense, even though on the front presenting side, it doesn't appear to make any sense whatsoever. You're like, that's so crazy. Why are you asking me about the water? I mean, who cares? I mean, it's hot. Just pour it over the cough. That's what I'm thinking, because I have all the answers. I know exactly how it all played out for me with inside of myself. Tom's coming in going, well, how did it get hot? And how many cups have you had? Just give me the coffee. You know, but when he starts to go, this doesn't make any sense. I'm just trying to understand because I didn't want it to be cold for you. That's the sweetheart message underneath it all. I didn't want the hot water to be cold for you. And if it had been 90 minutes, you're asking me to just pour it over. How about if I make it better for you and you go, oh, gosh, you were really kind of thinking of me and I was being a dick. You know.

My fiance always says to me, babe, if there's two options in your head where one of them is me being mean to you, and the other one is just me asking you a question to find out more information, it's always that one. I never. I'm never doing something. Pretty much never to deliberately be mean to you, but I think people who are naturally sensitive and err more on the defensive side than others. That's what we always assume. We always assume because of things that happen in our past or, you know, our own personal movies, that people are trying to get us or be mean to us or trick us or something. And usually that's not what's happening. So I found that very helpful when he said that it was a really simple thing, maybe wouldn't have helped other people, but for me, I was like, oh, okay, I need to hold on to that because that will help me not get really defensive when I don't need to be. Because you're literally just asking a question.

Yeah. That's so good. Well, this. This I'm going to just highlight here. You probably won't hear us talk about labels here inside the love shack. And it goes back to what you were saying, Brooke. The reason why is that once we can start labeling the people that we love, it makes it much easier for us to say and do things. And the mistreatment of them or negate them or dismiss them, minimize. Because now what they are doing. Yeah, yeah, because they're. Now there's this thing instead of my person. And again, when we understand the behavior, right? Or the emotional driver for the behavior, it will help us understand the behavior itself. And I think that's just a classic statement. Like, look, if we have a couple of options here, I promise I'm never trying to hurt you or. Or minimize you. You know, could there be another option?

I mean, great example of that, you know, plays out every day that we're down at CrossFit. I mean, we are in what we call the legends group. So it's. I think the youngest person in there is me. Yeah, probably. Anyway. But anyway, we're old. It's all.

We're older in.

In the life journey, if you will. But our.

Our.

The owner of the gym and our coach, Cinnamon, she's incredible. She just. She doesn't let us. Doesn't remind us and say you guys are old, you know. You know. No, no, no, no.

That's.

In fact, you're really not encouraged nor actually allowed to say, I can't, otherwise you will be doing extra burpees. Now, there can be modification. That's a much different thing. They're absolutely.

And where.

She's all about modification, but we need to figure out something to where you can not. Can't. Because she has a. Well, Annie is our wonderful. She's 93, ladies and gentlemen. 93. And she's in there, and she never says she can't. The next cinnamon says, annie, I don't want you to be competing with everyone else. I want you to be watching me, literally, because she's trying to compete with us at 93, the oldest one in our group, for sure.

Yeah, yeah. It's so true. So, you know, put as much effort into understanding your partner as you do defending yourself. I just think that's a good rule of thumb to live by. Let's go to number nine. Number nine, solve by exploring your own needs and wants, not by what you don't want. I think you just highlight it with the cants. If we think about the things we can't do or the things that aren't working, or we just continue to sit in the pain of it and not think about, okay, if this is what I don't want, which is the pain, what do I want? We're going to stay stuck if we don't make that transition into, here's what I need, here's what I want. And I find that that's where most of us in our relationships get stuck, is right there in that transition. There has not been a great demonstration, nor even an understanding or the wherewithal to go, oh, yeah, how come I don't just advocate for what it is I want instead of, you know, beat up on or continue to bang around on what I don't want and what isn't working, because that only keeps us stuck in the emotional pain or upset of it all. So it's important for us to just. And it's a brain thing. It's. It's like our brain doesn't even think to go there unless we start to tell it to go there very consciously. Okay, if this is what I don't want, I'm hurting. What do I want? What could I ask for? What could I advocate for? And you can create and share as many ideas as you can come up with as a couple, too, because everybody, especially when we're solving problems that involve us both in our life, which relationships are a co creation. You can both come to the table and start throwing down ideas of potential solutions so that everybody can create a win as opposed to pointing fingers about who's doing it wrong and who should be doing what. That's a better way to take a step forward. And we find something that we feel like we're willing to do and that we feel like would help take us where it is we want to go. We can, we can go in that direction and try it out and if it doesn't quite get us there, that's okay. We can come back to the table and we can think about other potential possibilities and solutions. And I just want to highlight, it is in this way that we figure things out as we go as a human being, not before we get started. If we're just going to sit and bang around about what hurts and what didn't work and what's happened in the past, there is no way for you to move forward. You're not creating anything new to move forward with. And this is why and how we can say, as John Mayer, we keep living out the same old moment day after day after day after days, because we're not doing anything different, but just harping on the problems and the pain of what everybody has did and why. And that prevents us from really taking some proactive action to move forward, to create what we want.

Right.

So it's kind of like this moment in our defensiveness to get off it and say, okay, well, what do you want to do? How can we leverage this to our favor? What would work for you? And everybody can put down a solution and share what it is their ideas are. Just don't minimize or diminish any of them. Because sometimes the greatest ideas come out of sometimes the most outlandish, creative ideas about what it is you might need. And also sometimes the little bit of novelty in this problem solving can refuel us to embark on pursuing those things that we want to develop and create in our relationships as well. So sometimes doing it a little different than it's never been done before is a good thing as well. Yeah. Thoughts about that?

Well, I mean, with this, this whole process has always been fascinating for me. Working with our clients and members is, you know, when you ask people what they do want, a lot of times it's like deer in the headlights, you know, because we just haven't spent much time there, all of us, you know. Well, if you ask people what they don't want, boy, it comes right out. Me included. Well, then well then we just said, well, you can then just, just flip it, just invert it and you can generate the what you do want out of the what you don't want. But I just, it's amazing because it just shows us, we just don't. And a lot of that I think, you know, early programming, you know, what do you think the world revolves around you? You know, those types of comments and shares that are so helpful for all of us. But yeah, advocating for what it is we do want is an incredibly powerful place to keep yourself and focus and think about. And guess what? I always remind people on our calls, our love recipe, as I like to call it, is always changing. It's always changing. That's why you have to get really good at this stuff, because it's not a set it and forget it.

And this is also why, excuse me. This is also why personality tests and love languages and our star signs and some of those other things that are really fun to help us express, explore and see ourselves in the moment aren't going to necessarily be helpful as life continues to play out. Because where you are, how you show up, what you need, what you desire, it's going to change. And my goal and my desire is to help you be able to live fluidly with life as it changes again and again and again throughout your lifetime, that you have the skills that you need in order to move through those inevitable ups and downs of life. And living and knowing some of those things in the moment as it's changing especially is not going to help you much. So just keep that in mind.

This concept always reminds me of one of my favorite movies, Runaway Bride with Julia Roberts. She loses herself in relationships with men and so she doesn't really know who she is anymore. And one of the things she does is she doesn't know what kind of egg she likes because she always chooses the same kind of her partner. So at the end, she's trying every single kind of egg scrambled over easy. And she's like, nope, not that one. Nope, not that one. And it kind of just goes to show that that's sometimes what you need to do. You need to try a lot of things to figure out what you actually do want. You know, I just think that's a good reminder because it is easy as we get older. And that doesn't have to be old, that can be in your 20s, where.

You lose who you used to be.

And you have to literally try things to figure out what you do want.

I love that. And you know, what have you Ever had the experience of like this being your thing? Like for example, you bring up the eggs analogy. I loved scrambled eggs as a young kid. I loved them and I loved them with syrup on them.

With my pancakes, probably some butter too.

Oh my God, yes. And my brothers, my three brothers and my sister and I would have pancake eating contests. Like that is so gross to me right now. So I even like pancakes. I don't like pancakes and I don't like scrambled eggs. So the type of egg I do like has changed over time. So even though once you did know what you wanted, that just highlights the fact that it's going to change because you as a person is going to change and what you like and what you don't like is going to change. I personally love a hard boiled egg right now with some coconut oil on it. And some people might go, oh, sick. But I go, that's delicious. So it's okay to evolve and change with time, which I'm just going to throw an extra bonus in here. Don't expect yourself or your partner to get themselves into a place where you can just set it and forget it and say, ah, you told me this last time, so it's got to be this way this time. Don't do that to yourself. Because as we start to do that to ourselves and the people that we say we love, we start to put them in literal emotional prisons because it's changing obviously and evolving for them. And now there's just that evolution, evolution of them as they've transformed that they don't feel comfortable sharing with you. There's no winners there. It's better to say, you're right, I did used to love that. And you're right, we've spent a lot of time me teaching you about that. But I think it's like this now and allow that space and permission for that to change and evolve over time. Because you're going to, you know, that's just human of us. There's nothing static about this human experience. And if I could just say one more thing about that. It is just like a baby turning into a crawler, turning into a walker turning into a runner, turning into a socially evolved being. And we don't realize that as we turn into adulthood, we continue to progress very patternistically, just like that. We usually have a huge transformation and a re identification in our mid-30s to 40s and we're going to go through another win in our 60s and 70s where who we are, how we see ourselves, what's happening is going to Change. There's this reidentification that happens and as best I can tell, it's probably going to happen, you know, into your 90s if we're so blessed to live that long. Right. So just keep that in mind. There's nothing wrong with you when you're going through a re identification process. That's like normal growth behavior as far as a human being goes, you know, so embrace it as such, especially if maybe it's not you, but your partner is going through one of those that can cause us to panic a lot. Right. We see so many things changing, we start to make up wild and crazy ideas in our minds that can make us a little defensive. Right. So I just wanted to give you that piece of caveat that actually maybe they're just going through a re identification process and it really doesn't have anything to do with you. That would be something that a wonderful conversation could uncover now with some understanding. And my last one is, if you practice anything that we've talked about to stay out of defensiveness, it would be this one. Because this one I invite you into to make an earnest effort to create a sense of well, being with inside of yourself. Like when you think about it, that is the thing we bring to relationships is a you. That's all you got. That's all any of us have to co create with another human being. And so if we can endeavor to make that a good experience with inside of ourselves in any possible way that we can, then we're going to show up better in our lives and therefore our relationships are also going to improve and get better as well. And that is something that's within all of our ability and control is just to care for ourselves, to value ourselves. And I have three simple things that you can do to do that that aren't elaborate, they're not big deals. But I find for me they make all the difference in the world. The first one is make sure you breathe hard every day. Like get your heart pumping, get some oxygen in your brain and in your body because it helps you feel alive and it reinvigorates you as well. As there's a whole host of other things that it's going to do for you hormonally. Your outlook, your heart, your or I mean it's just so good for you. So breathe hard every day, right? Regardless of what that is for you, it doesn't matter. Just get your heart pumping and breathe and take in some oxygen and feel invigorated with that. Know that you can do it. The second one is going to get a handful of hugs every day, get a handful of them. You know, hug yourself, hug your partner, hug your kids, hug your neighbor, hug your friends. This is so important and we all need it. And every time we get a hug, there's a surge of oxytocin that we get out of that, that goes, ah, it's going to be okay. I'm going to be okay. We got this. And then find a minute to laugh, because laugh causes us to not take ourselves so seriously and what we're going through and the challenges that we're going through. Because here's the truth. Most things are much too important to be taken so seriously. Like, just create some ease there. And I just, I just want to give a shout out to a beautiful client of mine who's no longer on the planet. He's a great example and a reminder to me and will forever tattooed on my heart that getting spun up in the minutiae of the past, the resentments, the, the regrets, the fact that you can't do it right, you can't be right. I'm not worthy. Unfortunately, he's no longer with us. And yet his example and his desire and his commitment to want to be better, do better, but yet his inability to step out of that cost him everything that was precious to him. And in the end of the day, it was just taken too seriously. He was taking himself too seriously. You know, really, at the end of the day, instead of valuing himself and finding a moment to laugh and just let the pressure off. And really all he wanted was love. He just wanted a hug. He just wanted to be accepted and appreciated, but he could not figure out how to give that to himself. So I pass his lesson along that he's taught me and has been such a great example for in my own life to you today, to remember to just laugh, take, take a moment and laugh and let it go and shake it off. Whether it's money problems, that last night's fight, challenges that you're facing with your children, with yourself, it. It's okay. Take a breath and regather and laugh for a minute, get a hug, breathe hard, and then come back around and take another pass at it. As Louise Pepperdine, psychology professor, says, the problem is when you depend on a substitute for love, you can just simply never get enough.

That's good.

And I just think that's so appropriate, appropriate for us. So I'll just recap these or maybe we can take some turns recapping these and then let's, let's Wrap up with any final thoughts that we have about these last five.

So number six is give up blaming, dismissing others and needing to be right. Number seven, postpone judgment of self and others. Number eight, put as much effort into understanding your partner as you do defending yourself. Number nine, solve by exploring needs and wants, not what you don't want. Create and share as many ideas as you can.

And number 10, endeavor every day to breathe hard, get a handful of hugs and don't take yourself too seriously. Okay, thank you so much for this lesson. I think it's really going to help you a lot. And thank you for giving us the opportunity to share it with you and teach it to again. This is not a one and done. This is something that you're going to need to focus on and embrace as part of your life. And that's okay, right? It helps you feel better when you catch it and you turn it around and you let it go. It starts to develop an incredible sense of self esteem and self confidence with inside of yourself where you kind of go, hey, I can do this love thing. I'm getting pretty good at this. I like it. I like who I'm becoming and I like how we're navigating through the inevitable ups and downs of life.

Life.

So give yourself more credit than you think you deserve. Give it to your partner and your kids and the people that you love around you. And remember, this is something we figure out as we go, not before we get started. So let's, let's have a little bit of fun here. I decided that as a a follow up to our conversation, a romance dinner might be in order. Although I want to impress upon you 90% of romance is novelty and atmosphere. So when we start talking about a romantic dinner, we all have those traditional typical things that come to our minds, right? Like candlelight, fancy dishes, you know, wine, fresh flowers, some slow, lovely music. And those are all great things that I am going to invite you to bring into this romantic dinner as well. And we're going to add a couple of novel things to the mix to just make it an extra wonderful, delightful experience. The first thing I'm going to ask you to add to this romantic dinner is a formal invitation that reads somewhere along the lines, you're invited to join me for a romantic dinner inn. And that's innocent, not in. It's a dedication to the love of my life and it's happening this day and this time. Hope you can join me and deliver that to your partner. Hey, I've got a special thing planned for you and me, it's a dinner at the inn. The second thing I'm going to ask you to do is just make it a spaghetti dinner, because I don't know of anybody who can't make a really great sauce and boil some noodles. So make it simple. Add in the salad, add in your favorite dessert. But here's the next novel part. I want you to purchase some inexpensive plates. You can get them at the dollar store for a dollar. So if we have three right dishes per person, we got two people, that's six bucks and some permanent markers. And so here's what I want you to do. I want you to write a message on the plate that then you then place the food on top of so that as your person is eating this wonderful romantic dinner, as they complete the salad, there's a lovely message there for them. As they complete the spaghetti main dish course, there's a wonderful message there for them. And as they do dessert, there's a message there for them. And I have a couple of prompts. If by chance you're saying, oh, I don't know what to say. Well, perhaps, you know, under the salad plate you could say something like, I just want you to know I love you forever. And maybe under the spaghetti plate it reads, my favorite thing about you is this. And maybe under the dessert plate it says, I desire to kiss you when you're complete. Use your imagination and use your heart. They're going to show you the way here and right ever. You know, you can put little hearts on it. You can draw designs. You know, you can be this little art piece if you want it to be as well. So have some fun with this and create a romantic dinner with all. Yes. The things we know that make things romantic. That's the atmosphere part. But throw in a little novelty and I think it's going to put a smile not only on your face, but it's certainly going to put a smile on your partner's face. As we wrap up this episode, we always leave you with a song. We call it the can you feel it moment, where we basically give you a song to help you feel what it is we've attempted to share with you today in the teaching and the learning. And the song that I've chosen for today is Sabrina Kalido. I don't mean to. And her song, I think, very much talks about defensiveness and the journey that it takes us on. And she says in her lyrics, you don't talk about our future anymore because it's probably too hard to imagine it when did we get here? Did I just miss it? Miss it? Was I not listening? Is it too late? Because I want to fix this. I've been swimming in my head and I've let you take the blame But I don't mean to. It's a good one. It's a really good one. One of my favorites. She's one of my favorite artists. You can check this song out on my website, stacybartley.com and you can also check it out on our Spotify playlist. Love Shack Live playlist. So I guess that's a wrap. Another one on the books. Thank you so much.

This one and again, the sister episode to this one or the one before this. I don't know if there's any particular order you need to listen, but yeah, that's 117 is the first five and this is the second five.

And if by chance you're in a place and you need support and help with this, don't wait. Most couples wait too long to get their own needs addressed when things are spiraling out of control.

In fact, you know how long they wait. We just saw this somewhere. The average couple waits even after they know they need help. Six years. So don't. Please don't wait six years.

Yeah, you can reach out. You can schedule a clarity call. You can jump into the better Love Club. There's all kinds of options that you can access, explore on our website. Again, that's stacybartley.com we would love to support you or port you, point you in the right direction for help and support. The bottom line is just don't wait. And also, if by chance you have a conversation about love, sex and relationships that you would like to have us share with you here in the Love Shack, please reach out to us and email us because we do want to talk about the things that matter most to you. So reach out to us. We're Tom and Stacy Bartley. We are the hosts of Love Shack Live along with Brooke, our beautiful, wonderful. I didn't need to come up. A name for you. Wonder Woman extraordinaire. Something along those lines. And a special thank you to you for being here and sharing some time with us inside the Love Shack. We look forward to seeing you again.

Bye bye now.

Okay, everybody, time to go. We got to 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 Stacey Bartley.