#138: Defensiveness: The Hidden Barrier to Relationship Growth

Now we're going to get defensive, and we're off to the races in regards to creating cycles of fighting. And they start out slow at first, but they start picking up speed. And as they pick up speed, I'm now allowing myself to say and do things that I thought I would never say to this person. I say I love.

Hey, thank you for coming. Welcome to the love shack.

Hey, welcome to the love shack Back. It's a little old place where we get to get together, explore fresh perspectives, and easter up on juicy conversations in an attempt to discover the things that really matter while having a little bit of fun along the way. This is episode number 138. We're going to be talking about defensiveness. It truly is the hidden barrier to relationship growth, and it is usually the culprit at the heart of it all for relationship breakdown. So welcome to the love shack, and I am Stacey Bartley. I'm a relationship expert, and I'm here with my lover Tom and my wonderful daughter Brooke. And today we're going to explore defensiveness and how it can act as that hidden barrier to growth, to relationship breakdown. It is the thing that's responsible for how we go from being lovers, committed all in, it can't imagine a thing going ever awry to eventually feeling like years later we go, oh, my gosh, I don't even know you. What happened to us?

And sometimes I would say it could happen even shorter than years later.

Oh, yeah. That's the thing about defensiveness that we're going to talk about is it happens quickly. It can happen very rapidly. It also can become just a pattern of behavior that we can't quite put our finger on because all we're experiencing is the emotional aftermath of the defensiveness itself.

And if you're listening, and thank you so much for listening, you think, ah, you're going to click off because you don't ever get defensive. With great love and respect, none of us get the hall pass. I get defensive, Stacy gets defensive, Brooke gets defensive, and you do.

And you might even, like Stacy just mentioned, you might not know that what you're doing is defensiveness. There's a lot of behaviors that fall under the umbrella of defensiveness that you may be like, oh, I do that.

You know, so let's dive in and learn how to overcome these obstacles together, shall we?

Yes.

It's going to be not only an exploratory conversation. I'm just going to invite you to just take a big breath. There's nothing wrong with being defensive. In fact, it's human in us. We are going to be defensive. It's not so much about feeling bad or guilty or shameful for doing it. However, we do like to basically demonize the people who are offensive to us very often. And that's because of a little cognitive bias called if I'm doing it, I understand and know why and I feel justified. And when they do it, I have no idea. It just looks egregious and terrible, and I don't understand why it's happening. So that's typically what plays out in the world of defensiveness, is we know and understand what's going on inside of ourselves, but don't understand and know what's going on inside of anyone outside of ourselves. So it's easy for us to call their behavior terrible while we understand and feel justified in our own. And that's one of the slippery slopes of defensiveness that we're going to explore. Like I've said, defensiveness is a natural human reaction when we feel attacked, criticized, dismissed, excluded. It's our attempt to protect ourselves from emotional pain, which is the irony in the end, because defensiveness does not, and I repeat, does not protect us from emotional pain. It actually creates more of it. And so this is why this conversation of defensiveness is so important. Defensiveness absolutely creates barriers to our communication, to our understanding, and if. And the emotional safety that is absolutely necessary in order to have a healthy, thriving relationship. And this is why it's always at the heart of relationship breakdown. Because if I can't feel emotionally safe, if I don't understand what's going on for myself and my partner, and we can't share and talk about it, then there's only one way it's going to go. That's relational breakdown, both with myself personally and with my partner. That's pretty clear, right? It becomes this rehearsed reaction. And it's not the best way to move through upset. But if we don't learn other ways of doing it, it absolutely is going to be our natural intuitive go to.

I think, correct me if I'm wrong, and we've done other episodes about this, but it's so common, and it's usually very well received when people can better understand because we all do it. It's simply being a human. But I would say this would be a classic demonstration of you're behaving in the very way that you don't want to have happen in your relationship.

So, meaning you don't even realize what.

You'Re doing by being defensive. And I'm Sure. That's what you're pointing out to your husband, your wife, significant other, your special someone. Isn't that interesting. But yet you don't have the discernment and the objectivity to realize it.

Yeah. Or even know where to look. And what Tom is saying is basically when somebody says, you're being such a jerk, and in that moment, who's being the jerk? Yeah, really, I'm showing up or stop talking to me like that. I've heard it a thousand times. Okay, I get it. These are demonstrations of defensiveness, and you're shutting the conversation down, which is exactly what it is you're doing. And you're probably frustrated about that on the other side, and that's why you're shutting the conversation down. There's a lot of this going back and forth between us. And again, that cognitive bias plays huge in the world of defensiveness. I get it, why I'm doing it. I have no idea where you're doing it. And I'm going to make it up that it's not okay and it's terrible. I just don't. I just don't understand. And we're not talking enough for me to get to that piece of understanding. And so defensiveness can become an exceptionally slippery slope. So let's dive into why it breaks relationships down. Right. Literally, piece by piece, how it affects our relationships. Because I think this is going to help us see what I like to call the breadcrumb trails of relationship breakdown. It can seem so elusive because it's really emotions that were struck, struggling with, and there's no physical, tangible evidence of an emotional experience. I sure wish there was. But the one physical, tangible experience that we do have is being able to look at my behavior. That's going to be the physical demonstration of what we're doing and how we're handling these elusive emotions that can flood through our lives and through our relationships. So the first thing that's going to happen if you're struggling in defensiveness is it's going to shut down the communication big time. And this is because when we're defensive, we're less likely to listen to our partner's perspective and more likely to focus on defending ourselves. So again, the cognitive bias is huge here. I don't necessarily want to hear what you have to say. I just want you to stop or start doing whatever it is that's upsetting me. And in that moment, we start to come off as very manipulative in our defensiveness.

This is the classic if you would just do X all of our problems would be gone or just not do this. Either do this or not do this. That's the classic. Well, yeah, come on, man.

Just get your ex together and, you.

Know, we'll be good if you continually.

Defend yourself to your partner. I did this a lot in the beginning of my relationship with Jack. He would be telling me something that was hurting him that I was doing. And the only thing that I would do is say, no, that's not the kind of person I am. So that's impossible for that to be happening. No, I don't do that. I never do that. And he's like, do you hear yourself right now? I'm telling you that you are. And it doesn't matter if that's not the kind of person you are. You're doing it. And I know you're not doing it to hurt me, but it's hurting me. And I would like us to have a change here. But you're not allowing that conversation to happen because all you're doing is telling me that, no, you're a good person. That's not the conversation we're having.

Great, great example.

Hey, I just want to say this. Just because you're defensive does not mean you're not a good person. Right. It means you're a person that has emotions. And I like to say, welcome to the human party. We all do, and we're all going to find ourselves being defensive. So it's not a matter of not doing it. And highlighting that you're not that type of a person doesn't mean you're not ever defensive at the core. My intention is to not do those things or to hurt you, But I'm human, and so I am going to show up and do things that hurt other people's feelings, that manipulate other people, that undermine and dismiss people. Because you're a human being. And this is what makes it so difficult to make progress in the relationship space, is because we love to label people. We love to. To classify the behavior that's terrible and awful. And everybody's doing it. Not just the people who really have a huge pattern of relational defensiveness, but even those of us who claim we're good people and don't do that. The hell you don't. If you're a human being, you're going to do it. And I think that really limits our ability to do some of these things that help us get out of defensiveness because we're so busy protecting. What we think we need to protect is our identity. As I'm not that kind of a person. I will never be that kind of a person. I would never intentionally do those things for you.

And I've seen this a lot on social media lately because we're talking a lot about people getting canceled or apologizing. And a lot of people say, that was never my intent. And the point that people are bringing up that are kind of wanting to hold these people accountable is in situations where you're apologizing to some someone, your intent really doesn't matter. It's because those things still hurt the person. So if you say it wasn't my intent to hurt you, you're totally dismissing the other person's feelings. Because we're not talking about you right now. We're talking about the fact that your partner was hurt by your actions. So you don't need to remind them you didn't mean to do it or that it wasn't your intent. You just need to say, I. The result of it was that you did get hurt.

O.

Okay. Your intent wasn't to hurt them, but the result of it was that they did get hurt. So you have to let that go. Because using my intent is a form of defensiveness. You're defending yourself by saying that.

Great point. I think. Here's the thing. I mean, we're all human. So to become more actualized and to grow as a human being. And my understanding, I heard Alex Hermosi, he was talking about just his own growth and what he's asked of himself.

To become a better leader in things. It's not that you're not going to do things as a human.

We talk about the benchmark we use.

As body work for helping people change their behavior, because that's when we demonstrate that we've learned a new way, that we've mastered the lesson. We can study for as long as a day is long, but until we demonstrate the behavior change. So my point here is, when we feel ourselves getting defensive rather than acting out on that impulse, and we all have it because we're human, then we have to behave in a new way because we've studied in practice to take him. Stacy, I'm sure, has some of those things for us in this episode. And then we're going to demonstrate that we've become more masterful in managing this very human emotion and response that all of us have. So I think that was very. When he thought, he says, not that we're not going to do these various things. I'm not going to do the way I am because I'm human, but I'M going to then learn and check myself and ask more of myself to go above what it would be a human response or emotion that was a masterfully shared by him that I said. God, that makes a lot of sense. It's not that it doesn't happen, that's we're all human. I'm going to look at another pretty woman even though I love my wife. Okay, well, because I'm human and I love beautiful women. I love how they look, but doesn't mean I want to go have an affair with them. And Stacy has shared, there's been times where she said, you're looking at that. Yes, I am, I am. But I love you. And she might say, please tell share with me now that you mean a lot to me. And I will. I'm not going to say I'll never do that again. That's ridiculous. At least this for me.

Let's break this down into experience I'm sure all of our listeners have had.

Okay, okay.

While you're driving a car, have you ever cut somebody off? Absolutely unintentionally, like you're looking at your.

Phone, you didn't know they were there.

The coffee lid flies off. Or you're just in your own world thinking about the bills you got to pay, the kids you got to pick up, the work you have to do, or maybe the fight that you just had with your partner and you inadvertently aren't paying attention and you cut somebody off. And isn't it ironic when we have somebody, right, come up along the side of us and flip us off as though they never do it, when we know if we're all on the road, it's only a matter of time because of our humanness, we're going to cut somebody off. And could we give somebody some grace for that? And remember that I do it and behavior is like this, like we are absolutely going to get defensive. And if we could find some place inside of us to give ourselves a pause and some grace, not only for ourselves but for our partners, it wouldn't have its way with us so often because this is what shuts down our open communication. And remember, we're talking about one. The problem is communication is going to flatline. I want you to know also defensiveness is going to eliminate the ethos of emotional safety.

Oh boy.

So emotional safety is a critical element that must be present for open communication to take place. I want you to think of it as oxygen for a healthy relationship. And defensiveness will absolutely suck the oxygen completely out of the relationship to where you feel like you can no longer breathe. And that is an important thing to remember. Defensiveness, the minute you do it is going to sacrifice the safety. And it happens in a nanosecond. It doesn't happen in days, weeks, months or years. It happens in a nanosecond.

I would remind listeners, maybe you've heard and you can use the analogy of, you know, how hard it is to blow up a balloon. So use the analogy of emotional safety in your relationship. You blow that balloon up, you know you're having a party for a special summary. That thing is hard. You work a lot in the beginning and you finally get there. And if you can't get that, that.

Dang thing tied correctly, it's always incredibly hot.

It's kind of like I can't button a shirt. Sometimes I have to have Stacy help. Let's say you think you have a tide, but you don't do it. And then what happens? That air evaporates out of that balloon. How fast? That's exactly what happens to emotional safety. You've taken all that work to build it and it can go literally, you vaporize it out.

Right?

That's what we say. That's a good analogy. I think we all can get our.

Arms around, which will precisely lead when there's no emotional safety gone.

Okay, you said at the same time we did.

It's going to directly lead to escalating conflict. If it's not emotionally safe, then guess what? It's going to be our go to now when we want to express ourselves. Not vulnerability, not how I really think and feel.

Amp it up, baby.

Amp it up. Now we're going to get defensive and we're off to the races in regards to creating cycles of fighting. And they start out slow at first, but they start picking up up speed. And as they pick up speed, I'm now allowing myself to say and do things that I thought I would never say to this person. I say I love. Like it takes on a veracity of its own as we desperately desire to be heard and to be validated, it turns into a straight up competition for us to be understood and validated for what I think and feel. And I'm in a tremendous amount of pain now because it's not safe to tell you anything. And I believe that I have to do these egregious things to you in order to get you to hear me, in order order to get your attention, in order to save this relationship.

Would this be the root of we often hear I'm turning into a version of myself that I don't even like, Would that be the kind of a root cause of that?

I hear that often this relationship has turned me into a monster of myself. And this is how it happens is I feel like, right. I justify in my own thinking that I need to get more aggressive, more pushy, more controlling, more manipulative, which are all basic behaviors of defensiveness. Right. They're all kind of in the same camp. And as I allow myself to do those things in an effort to make sure that you love me, to make you pay for the things you said or did, then we are off to the races as far as, like, this escalating fighting that's continuing to go on. And it's the very cycle that you're saying you want to get rid of. It's the very cycle that you're saying, I don't know how we got here, and I don't know how to stop it. Because every time we try, it happens again. And it happens again. And it happens because we blame our partner, and our partner counters us with blame, making it difficult to resolve any issues whatsoever. Because what's lacking is the understanding that is necessary to stop the fighting. And so the fighting will continue to continue. Will continue as the understanding will continue to elude us. And the more desperate we get, the more we do it, the more escalated the fights become.

Hence that vicious cycle there.

We're in a vicious cycle now, so remember why we thought we were getting defensive in the beginning? I'm just pointing out this irony again. Remember, we did it to protect ourselves from emotional pain. And now we're in this cycle and the emotional pain is off the chart. Just wanted to highlight that this right thing that we think we need to do to protect us from emotional pain actually increases emotional pain. It does not stop emotion.

Also, what you call the classic race.

To the bottom, it is called the classic race to the bottom.

So I'm pretty good student, aren't I?

You really are. You got this.

Get a star next to my name.

Yes, absolutely. Maybe we can't go there. All right, so this leads us to the inevitable, which is going to be no more growth and progress can be had here. If I can't understand you, if we can't talk and share about it, if we have no emotional safety, if we're trying to get somebody to pay, we're all going to pay for that. The emotional pain is off of the chart. I know. I love you. I know things were good. I want to get back to the best days of our relationship. I just can't figure out how to get there. And in this space, it's going to prevent growth in myself and in us. And by not addressing the underlying issues of defensiveness, it's going to hinder any forward progress. Defensiveness will be our go to when we become emotionally upset. And we'll go round after round, year after year in this fight until we run out of emotional gas.

So do we. We work. I mean, you find people that have been in this pattern for like a.

Long time, 20 years, 30 years, my goodness, 40 years.

So wonder they're tired, huh?

For sure. And by then there is so much emotional constipation, it's unbelievable. So it's. That's a word I use on my body of work. I just need to clarify that emotional constipation is a real thing. Right. If you ever work with me, I'll tell you all about it. So I hope that you can see where in very short order defensiveness absolutely has its effect on our relationships. This is the physical evidence that defensiveness is taking place in your life. And so don't be afraid of it. Understand that most of us are going to find ourselves in a place like this because we don't study human behavior, because we don't study defensiveness, because we don't know what to do outside of being defensive. We don't know how to navigate our way through it. So I think it's important for you to give. I think it's important for me to give you also what you can start doing in order to do the defensive part because you're going to know when you're getting defensive. It shows up as though I feel emotionally escalated with inside of myself.

So I think this is important though, let's say Tom, Stacy, Brooke. Okay, you're right. I probably do that. It's kind of the Big Gulp moment. Okay. Is it hard to realize that we do that? To admit that?

Yes.

To come clean?

Yes.

As if we're less than.

Yes. Okay.

I just wanted, like we all are there. It's okay. It's okay.

Well, and just know that being self reflective with inside of myself is some of the most courageous work that I ever do. It's so much easier to look outside of myself and determine who should be doing what and to judge others for what they're doing and not doing. And then I judge myself based on the exterior. That's a much easier place for us to go. But when I have to go, okay, let me just check myself. Do I do this? God, I think I Might we can get defensive about that. Just like Brooke had described in our conversation as we started this piece. Jack was kind of a person. I don't want to show up like that. This cannot be happening. Because I swear, I. I judge myself harshly for people who do this, and I'm not doing it. It's like I can't admit or own the I am hurting your feelings, and I am being a jerk. And I have said some really messed up things in my own defensiveness. And what's interesting about that is I will not get out of this emotional hell I'm living in until I can accept the fact that I did it. And then it's almost like I get handed the emotional key to let myself out, to find this place inside of me that I can do this. It doesn't mean I'm terrible. I'm bad. I'm horrible.

I would think that'd be a very liberating place. Not without courage and growth, but liberating.

Yeah, it is a very liberating place. But to get ourselves to go there sometimes is the wrestle of a lifetime.

Well, so the one thing that really shook me up the most when we were in that cycle in our relationship, it was probably like, five or six years ago. He said, you know, I love you, and I love our relationship, but this is the thing that's gonna end it. And I said, what? And he said, your defensiveness.

Oh, wow.

If you don't. If you don't validate me for understanding where I'm coming from without making it about you, we're not gonna make it pretty.

Pretty clear, isn't it?

Pretty clear.

But.

But even still hearing that, it still took me time to be able to admit that I was wrong, because that was just a big lesson I needed to learn, that I wasn't perfect, obviously, and I wasn't this amazing, like, Mother Teresa partner that I was projecting myself. Myself to be. I would. Of course, I was not, like, verbally abusing him or being mean. I was just doing some things that were selfish. And he was like, could you just acknowledge that maybe what you're doing is a little selfish? That's all I'm asking for. And I was putting up this huge performance of how I'm just this martyr, wonderful woman all the time. And he was like, girlfriend, I think maybe you're not being real with your. Yourself. So in the end, it was a very good lesson, but. And I like to share it with people because it was the first time that my defensiveness had really been reflected back at Me. And obviously that was a very hard thing for me to accept, as it.

Is for all of us.

It is, and it's where it all begins is just the willingness to go, maybe I do do that. Let me just take a look at myself. That's where it all begins. And that's the first step, which is literally self awareness. Instead of me getting so hung up on what's happening outside, maybe I should consider some of the things that my partner is telling I do and consider things they've said I do that hurts their feelings. And maybe I should just contemplate that for myself and go, do I do that? Maybe I do. Give it a possibility. That's going to be the first step to getting yourself out of defensiveness and not only out of it, but managing it. Because as we've already said, it's going to come up, it's going to flash, and so be willing to recognize when you're feeling defensive and then simply take a step back and pause to understand why. What is it that's going on for you? Can you articulate it? Can you put it into thought? Thoughts? Can you put your thoughts, feelings and emotions into a language that you can then share? Because if you can't do that piece of translation, we're kind of dead in the water. And then if you can't allow your partner to share those things with you, then you're also down dead in the water. Just as Jack had said to Brooke, you know what? This is going to be the thing that ends our relationship. And it will, because in a nanosecond, if you invalidate me again and again and again, there's nowhere for this to go but to break down. So. So that's really important for us to be able to check ourselves.

I just want to bring attention to what you just said. For anyone that might have missed it, because it was subtle when mom, too said, if you don't allow your partner to share their feelings with you, meaning without you getting defensive. That's what she means by that. So it's your partner having the safety and permission to say, hey, this thing you do, it hurts my feelings, or this, you know, whatever this behavior that you're doing is breaking down our relationship. And for you to listen to that and say, hey, there might be some truth there, rather than immediately defending yourself, because that's what we all want to do. We want to make ourselves feel better and make ourselves say, no, we don't do that. No, that's not happening. But it's. That's a big Big skill.

I want you to understand and realize that even though this may be happening for the person that you're in love with, it doesn't mean it's your fault. That's I think, a big one that we get hung up on too. It's not your fault it's happening because just think about that this internally. We all have different things that work for us and don't work for us. There's tones of voice, there's looks on our face, there's behaviors that we have that can be construed as in our own illusions and in our own minds as right, hurtful. And so I may not intend to be hurtful, but it nonetheless doesn't mean you're not hurting your person because they're associating whatever is playing out as hurtful. And so we want to just be mindful of that's not your fault that it's happening. But to disregard it as though it might be a potential experience your partner is having is going to be the problem. Not the fact that it even happened, but the fact that we're not going to be able to address it course correct and move on from it. We're going to get stuck. I hope that makes sense.

That makes total sense. But make sure there's a lot there. And listener, please.

You know, you need to really draw attention.

You really need to wrap your around. Because I think here's the thing.

None of us are having the same experience with the same triggers.

Guess that's what we call our movie. That's if you really can get that.

It doesn't matter that you're not having that same experience. But if you truly want to stay connected and engage and have intimacy into.

The all of you into you see of your partner, then you've got to.

Get your arms around that he or she is having an emotional upset. And you need to be able to hear that and acknowledge that and understand that not that and not disregard it because it ain't happening for you. Do not do that because that is guaranteed to.

Cause that's one of the guarantees.

Drive a wedge. Yes, drive a wedge. Make you canyons apart. Make your partner resent you because you won't validate their experience. And it doesn't matter if you're not having the same experience. You may not even think there's anything wrong with the thing that you did. But the fact that it's causing your partner pain is what you need to acknowledge.

You might even think it's freaking ridiculous. Let's just be honest. Yeah, but that's not the issue. And that might not be the best thing to say to be.

And you're not.

Yeah.

You don't need to discuss whether or not you think it's ridiculous. That's not the conversation.

No.

I was having a little fun there.

But that's where you get hung up.

Like, that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard a human being say. I would probably suggest that on my new skill list. That probably is. We want to let that one. And let's be honest. We've all thought, like, that's. I wouldn't even go there.

I can't believe you're making me apologize for this. I would never make a person ever apologize for this. If that doesn't matter. That's what we're telling you. Move past that part and move on to the mending things and moving past defensiveness so that you don't have to get stuck in that same spot every single time.

And all it takes is help me understand how it is you feel this way. That's literally all it takes. There you go doing everything we just said.

What?

That's stupid. I can't believe you feel that way.

Say that again.

We're gonna go there again. Just simply say, hey, you know what? Help me understand why you feel that way. What is happening that's causing you to go there. Because that's not my intention. Attention.

See?

So to be fair, there's no accusation in that statement.

Meaning. So you're going to remain neutral but truly curious. Right. So that's what you want to do.

Because there was no invalidation that I heard there.

You're truly taking an interest. So you can better understand.

Because that's not how I intended it or that's not occurring for me.

See.

So only do that if you're not taking it personal. If you don't feel like it's your fault or you don't feel ashamed for having to have somehow known that this was going to be something that was going to affect your partner. And here's the truth. You're not going to know. There are going to be things that come out of left field that you're just doing you. Because that's what we do best. Right. Feeling the way I feel and navigating life from this internal lens that we all do. And all of a sudden, kablam. Your partner's having a meltdown. Your partner's struggling. Your partner's. Right. Seeing it differently. And it's in those moments when they come out of left field that we need to be able to go, okay, wait, hold on. Not get defensive and blame you for what you're saying, but to go, okay, I gotta understand something here that doesn't make any sense to me. It's your emotional experience. It's not my fault that it's happening. It's something that's happening to them. But it's my job as your partner to support you with it and understand it to the very best of my ability. That needs to be your goal. So self awareness is really important. If I can check myself. Now, this is going to require you to do what I call an emotional pushup. So before we move on to the second one, I want to talk about emotional weightlifting for a moment. It is the crux of being able to manage managed defensiveness and it's a huge part of the work that we do in the Better Love Club and with my private clients. Because until we can do emotional weightlifting, our communication is going to suffer mightily. You don't need communication tips. What you need is the ability to manage this going to happen. Defensive, right intuitive place that we go as human beings. So what is emotional weightlifting? I'm just going to give you a brief little ditty here. It's the skill, skill and practice that enables us you to truly utilize and benefit from your emotions in a way that allows you to feel good, empowered and complete. You can accomplish this by consistently building and strengthening your emotional ability to recognize, understand, manage and express your emotional self in a way that leaves us in the end, feeling peace. Complete. Complete. We've arrived at the place of understanding. And if I may, communication is the vehicle we use to arrive at understanding. That's it. That's a hard period. We should not be using communication as a weapon, which is what it becomes when we're in defensiveness, when we're in manipulation, when we're in competition, when we're in power and control, communication and our words are being used as weapons and not for the understanding of what's going on with me and what's going on with you.

So emotional push ups is the actual practice to take these different approaches, different behaviors that we're going to learn and then practice, study, learn and practice so we don't automatically get defensive. We're going to be doing this instead of that. Did I understand that? Correct?

Correct.

And how many push ups, emotional push ups one might need to do to become better at this?

Depends on the circumstances. Some days one will do it. It some days I might need to be able to pump off 10 or 20 depends on what we got going on. I want to be able to have that confidence inside of my ability to understand and know how to do it. Just like we work out to have a strong body and know that if I fall down, I can get up. I want to know that if we fall down, if we bump into a challenge, if we're going through a difficult time, we have the ability to navigate through it and we don't have to be afraid anymore of falling down, down, of going through a challenge or hiccup, it's the same. So we want to build for these things. Yes. And there's learning and practice that need to be done in order to accomplish that. But awareness is the first step and awareness of what's going on for you is what you need to bring to the table. Both so that you can set it down long enough to listen to your person and also so that you can let yourself out of emotional jail or defensiveness by understanding the that, oh, wow, maybe, maybe I can look and see if I'm doing that too. It's okay. It doesn't mean anything about who I am. It just means it's something I do as a human being and it's okay to look at that. So that takes us to the second one, which is active listening. Listening is hard. Listening is out of the positions that we can be in when it comes to communication, sharing and listening, listening is the most challenging place. And I better know how to do an emotional push up or it's not going to go well. Because what happens when I'm listening to you is that you're going to inevitably say something or bring something up that's going to fire me off emotionally. And now I'm not listening anymore. I'm thinking about my comeback. I'm thinking about how egregious this is. I can't even listen to this. I can't believe you're even going there. I can't believe you'd say that. And the minute I start going there in my thinking, I'm not listening anymore. So we don't have any hopes of understanding or arriving at that place of understanding. I'm probably gonna over talk, cut you off, roll my eyes, get exasperated, walk out of the room when these things happen, and then just realize listening is not happening. And if listening isn't present, there's no way we're gonna get to the understanding we so desperately need. And so guess what happens? Everybody's trying to talk over the other person and then we fight this, it escalates. And now we're fighting now. We're not mindful of even what's going on. We're just acting out the emotions that we're feeling until we say something horrible or egregious and somebody walks away, shuts it down, gets completely hurt. Right. And then we have to recover from that.

So the emotional push up would be what, in that specific situation then being.

Able to have the ability to work on the listening instead of the reacting when whatever is being said is coming out of their mouth. Mouth. Okay, let me give you an example of this. If Tom were to come to me and say, I'm finding you to be very verbally abusive. Ouch. Dang. Right? That's what. That's initially what I'm gonna. I'm gonna go, oh, gosh, that's not a person I want to be. That's not the partner I want to be. Really? If I'm gonna be defensive, I'm gonna go, that's just a bunch of crap. I don't do that. Sorry. And you know what? Let me show you where you're verbally abusive too, because I want you to know you do it too. And there are times I felt just exactly like this. And I'm gonna snap out my evidence sheet and go, remember Christmas, such and such a day, and such and such a time. You were verbally abusive to me.

You call that your big old bag of truth that you whip around?

Yeah. Remember the other day when we were out with some friends, you were verbally abusive right there too. And so what's happening? I'm shutting the conversation down. I'm attacking, I'm defending. I haven't been reflective as to whether maybe I do verbally abuse you sometimes.

I don't.

I don't know. Maybe I should take a look at that. Right. If you're feeling like that's what I'm doing. What's my alternative? Defensive. It's going to be my natural go to. But what have I accomplished there? Do I have understanding?

No.

Are we able to have a conversation about it?

No.

Did I shut the conversation down?

Yes.

That is exactly what I don't want to encourage you to do. We're dead in the water until it comes up again. And you have the same feeling where you feeling like I'm verbally abusive. And then I'm going to get defensive again and we're going to have that same conversation over and over again. The things that continue to come up again and again in your relationship are things that you do not have understanding around, and they're going to come up again and again and again and again until they don't come up anymore. And about that time you're done, the relationship is over, it's history. Right? We stop talking about or attempting to talk about these things even in non functional ways. That's about the time we throw our arms in the air and give up fighting to get you to understand.

And the classic version that we've all heard with people in our circle of influence that don't choose to stay together anymore. We usually hear some version of I just can't do this anymore.

More the fighting for my relationship to be heard, to be understood, to move, to progress, to grow through this.

Done.

I'm done. I can't do it anymore. Okay, so what could I do instead? Based on what we're highlighting here.

And this would be representation of what we call emotional push, emotional weight and better. We like to get people's arms around visualizing. Just think of yourself doing a push up. If you're in the physical space this would be the emotional version of that. And people seem to be able to understand that it's just a way of getting your mind around something that's not physical.

Well, and I am pushing again against something I'm pushing against or resisting the urge to react. It's hurtful to hear my person say that. So I am really having to do an emotional push up. I've got to hold that emotion or resist the temptation to talk over you, to pull out the evidence, to get down and dirty, to defend myself. And instead I'm going to have to in my emotional place of strength say help me understand how I'm being verbally abusive because I don't feel like I am. But if you're experiencing me that way, perhaps there's things I need to understand about you.

And that could be words that were used again.

See we got to separate. I think this is.

And this is because lots of push.

Ups have been done. It helps us again. It's not that you're in this true spirit of this. It's not that someone is looking to be harmful or they're inferior or superior. It's simply we all live in our own. We all have our own movie experience. We've talked about this on, on our like you're out of one movie and someone else and we all think that all seven and a half billion of us are at the same movie. We're not. We're all having our own individual experience of all that's being fired off externally. And to be fair We've never lived in a place in a time in history that we have so much coming at us. There's so much trigger, places of emotional trigger that we're all navigating as human beings. So we need to remember that. Oh my gosh, I didn't ever look that and I didn't realize that. Yeah, we all have same set of.

Externals connected can bring up way different responses for all of us as humans.

Let's continue to play this out. Okay. Hey, you know what? That hurt. That really hurts my feelings. It's not my intention to be verbally abusive. Help me understand how it is I'm verbally abusive to you. How do I come across this way? I want to understand that because that's the last thing I want to be for you. And you start to say it's this string of words that you use every time that shuts me down, makes it puts a pit in my stomach and I can't stand it. I absolutely can't stand it. These words that I'm saying right here, that's how where you go, right? Yeah, that's it. Okay, what are some words that I could use to explain what's happening on my side? Could I use these words? Could I use these words? Could I use these words? That would work. Those words would work. Tom would say and I'd say, okay, that's how we're going to go forward with that. I'm sorry, I'm sorry you felt verbally abused. We've got to a place of understanding about how what I was doing was causing him to go there. And if we can work through that, then we can come up with a solution that's going to help us move forward in a different direction. And we've uncovered it and I now know to avoid those words and use these other words. And if my person is feeling verbally abused, how are they going to show up in my relationship and how are they going to treat me? Not good. So even though you don't feel like you're being a verbally abusive, if they're seeing you in that light, we want to address it because it's going to affect the co creation called your relationship. We can't just dismiss it and go that's ridiculous. You're going to see I'm not verbally abusive. I love the pants off you. You know all these things I do for you that tell you I love you every single day. How could you go there? That could be another place where we could snap out that evidence that I highlighted Right. That's ridiculous. I'm not verbally abusive. Look at all these things I do for you. Look at how much I love you. How can you see me in that light? We don't even have to go down that path. If you understand the power of just saying, whoa. You're saying you feel verbally abused by me. I need to understand that one. How is that coming across? How is that happening? Happening?

Let's work with when what you've so wonderfully just really played out right here with us live is the foundation of what you often remind us and our.

Listeners is we show up as good as we feel in our relationship.

So if I'm feeling like Stacy is verbally abusing me, I'm not feeling so dang good. So guess what?

That's going to definitely not have our relationship experience the best that it can experience.

I'm gonna lose anyway.

Yeah.

So I'm gonna be in emotional pain anyway. I don't really have much to defend emotionally if I want a great relationship. Relationship. So I'd better get to the bottom of this because I'm going to lose either way. If you're really seeing me as verbally abusive, I mean, it's really not that.

Confusing when you think it's like, I want to get back to the good stuff.

That's that.

Remember, the goal is. If really the goal is you want to get back to the good, to the fun, to when you're feeling good and you're showing up as good as you feel and you're both feeling really good, it's going to create some good things. Let's just be fair. That's just how it works. So it doesn't have to be confusing. So if you're really like, let's get through this and get better, back to the good stuff. Raise our game. Really invite us to be invited into our special someone, our husband, Our wife's suffering, and they're not feeling good. And so we can understand that.

And then we can set up some.

Things through some really good experiences of what Stacy just demonstrated there to really find out.

Gosh, I had no idea.

Okay, how would these work? Would this work? Maybe it could be a way of touching.

There's. You can apply this to all places.

It could be words.

It can be that face we make. The frown, the stare, the touch that.

The way you touch me drives me fricking crazy.

Okay.

Hey. Good Lord, I had no idea. That perfume he gave me, I freaking hate it.

Don't ever give.

God, I will. Just literally, you can Apply this to all the places you really can.

Just the way that Stacy broke it down, this comes because she's a really skilled mediator. So you objectively just work it out.

But you gotta not get defensive if.

You'Re going to have the opportunity to.

Truly work it out, like she just demonstrated.

Now, for those of you who might be going, oh, man, there's so many of those moments in my relationship, I'm hosed.

Yeah, I don't have a freaking prayer.

Yes, you do. Yes, you do.

Yep, you sure do. Because here's the thing. Emotions thread together inside of us like telephone poles, right. If we push on one, it's going to affect many others. So we start working with one circumstance or situation that's present day, maybe the most difficult right now. And it's going to solve and relate to many others that have also transpired in your relationship.

That's good news, right?

It is good news. So you don't have to account for every single egregious place where maybe you were defensive in order to work your way out of this. I just want to say that we.

Might have had some people swerve off the road. They're like, oh, good lord.

Yeah, no, no, it doesn't work like that. One thing kind of threads to another emotionally. And so we start working with one. It makes sense in many places. Many places. I was going to give a number, but that's incorrect of me. Okay. Just many other places or experiences that we've had. It's going to start making sense in a lot of other places. It's like that metaphoric puzzle piece that snaps into place and we go, oh, my gosh. So that's why this was a problem. Wow. Like, it. It start. It's just like a domino effect. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

It's the connecting of the dots.

It's the connecting of the dots, which.

Is really fun to see people realize that. Right. You have a.

People say, I've never had it explained.

To me this way.

How many times do we hear that? I've never had her explained to me this.

So the last piece I'm going to just share with you is a piece that we've kind of already touched on. But it's important taking responsibility for and acknowledging that, yeah, there's probably a part I play in here. And I just want you to know that that is got to be true because relationships are co creations. Meaning there's some of what I do and there's some of what you do, and that's what Creates the experience we're currently having and everybody has a role to play there. It's kind of like making a batch of cookies, right? And not wanting to take and acknowledge the fact that there was pepper inadvertently placed in the cookies or there. There's this place where we don't want to accept that this was something I added to the mix. I'm wanting to defend it instead. And it's a very freeing feeling when we can start saying, oh, I see it now, you do this and I react like that and it takes us here. Wow, I never knew that's such a wonderful, marvelous, rewarding experience. Right. For everyone and absolutely is available to you as well. But you have to be willing to acknowledge your role in any given situation and be open to constructive feedback to get there. Now, I know that's easier said and done. However, even beginning with I'm a hot mess, this is really hard for me. I need to take a pause here. I'm not ready to hear this is the beginning of acknowledging your role in it. I'm simply acknowledging that I'm having an experience here too. It's not inferior or superior to yours. And we've got to find a way to include both of them of us in order for this to co create in a different space. Otherwise we're going to be doing the defensive mode of. Right, the race to the bottom, which we don't want you to be able to do anymore. My conclusion here is the emotional weightlifting pieces to begin working with. This is you got to look at yourself. You got to be self aware and recognize and realize that, hey, it's okay for you to be a hot mess. It's okay for you to feel the way that you feel, but it's got to always alt. It's got to also be okay for your partner to feel and be where they are too. And that's usually where it starts to go sideways. Okay. Because I'm feeling my emotions so intently, I forget that my person probably is too. We've got to learn better ways of communicating through that. What it's going to require is number two, somebody's got to listen. I call this the give first give fast principle. Somebody's got to set their agenda down long enough to listen to the other side and then, then be mindful of saying, okay, it's my turn now. I've heard where you're coming from. I want a chance to will you listen to me now like I've given.

The gift and would you think it's fair to say that the more Defensive we are probably the. It lessens our ability to give first and give fast.

Absolutely. We won't even be mindful of nobody listening. We're just gonna, we're too busy trying to spout out what.

Why my reaction is we have such a right to be is messed up and hot mess.

And the more I feel it, the harder it becomes. And so right out of the gate, when you're working with us, you know, you need to practice a pause, just stepping away, just giving yourself some chance to understand yourself and what's going on. And then we come back to the table and we start there.

And truly bringing in more oxygen into your body and system will help slow your brain down. And it really will help. So I mean that's pushing the brake pedal, if you will, by slowing things down, taking a pause and breathing. Step outside, maybe take a walk around the house. Some very simple things you can do to slow.

You have to slow everything down.

And it can feel like an eternity. It really can.

When you're going through it.

And as slow as you think you are, when you're emotionally, you're not going slow enough, you're still probably racing pretty fast. That's an emotional push up, right. Slowing it down, getting clear. That's a great practice to do that. And then the taking responsibility part, this is different from self awareness. Self awareness is understanding myself, not taking it out on somebody, but being able to allow myself to feel the way I feel. And taking responsibility is recognizing that when I do see or understand something that I might have done that is an inadvertently not working for you, that I'm able to own the fact that, okay, I see where you're coming from, I acknowledge that I've done that, or I can acknowledge at least that I see how you might see it. Right. And what do we want to do about this now? And then we can co create a strategy to problem solve. Solve us getting better at this together. We're going to work on it together. One of the things that we use in our work is called the lease option contract for love. And this lease option contract helps us have this conversation because we're driving for what we have uncovered that really works for you or what you really have as an emotional need in our relationship. And we can talk about how am I doing with meeting it? Are there places I could do better? Are there things that I need to switch up, up and do differently? And we get to have that conversation going both ways. And it really helps us work through a lot of the defensiveness that we're going to naturally step into otherwise if we don't have the intent and have a focus and a goal of what it is we're driving for to do these emotional push ups from a place of practice. And so that's a really critical framework that we have in our work to help us start practicing these things we call emotional weightlifting. So bottom line, as we wrap this up, defensiveness can be a significant barrier to relationship health and growth. Like it's got to come from a place of practicing self awareness, active listening, taking responsibility for ourselves and what we do and that we do accept and honor that we have a role in this. These are the beginning steps to working with defensiveness or doing that emotional weightlifting we call it. And this is absolutely doable and absolutely possible. And again, I just want to remind you, you don't have to go through every single moment you were defensive or your partner was defensive. It's more about getting to the heart of what matters most, which is the emotional understanding of what it is that's working and not working. It's really not even about what's happened, right? The physical action of what's happened, whether that's you're putting, you're dressing the kids incorrectly, you're not cleaning the toilet it correctly, you're not saying things that I need you to say. You're not hearing me, you're not validating me. These are behaviors, right? What we know are not working, but what's the emotional driver under it? Those are the things that we want to start understanding and having conversations about because that's what's running the show. I hope that makes sense and to help you get started and to take a next step if this conversation is making sense to you, I want to invite you right now to begin your emotional weightlifting journey with with me by getting a copy of my worksheet outlining the defensive behaviors that break down our relationships and also the behavior that helps you break through defensiveness. It's one of the many worksheets that I share in my Better Love Club community. And you can get yourself a copy today by clicking the link that's in the show notes below. This recording or video, wherever you might be consuming this content, I invite you to do so. It's going to help set you on the right path to get you out of this very elusive, seemingly unnoticed place where we break down in our relationships.

But I would say all encompassing.

So get your copy. It'll really help you get started. And if by chance you're in a place where you know you need more help and support than just a worksheet right now. For heaven's sakes, jump into the better love club. Schedule a clarity call. Schedule a session with me. This is what we do. A lot of our work with couples is helping them understand how to get better at emotional weight loss lifting, and we'd love to support you with that, too. So I think it's time for a little fun.

I do, too.

Defensiveness is always a.

Let's take a pause.

We just gotta exhale for a minute, right?

It's like, okay, that's heavy. Oh, man, that's heavy. Let's get to some fun. Heck, yeah. Maybe I won't even click off right now.

Yeah, don't do that. Because in spite of us maybe wrestling with defensiveness, or maybe there was some moments to our conversation today. You're like, oh, dang it, I'm defensive right now. Yeah. Maybe you even felt defensive while we were talking about it. Right? That could be happening. This is big stuff for us to kind of confront and look at. And I just want you to know it's absolutely doable. It's what we need to do to get better at this thing we call love. Right. It is what is required of us. It's an efforted journey, but it's a worthy journey that pays huge, huge benefits for doing so. It's worth it. That's all I'm going to say there. Today, I want to step you into your imagination. Imagination is something that we often detach from, especially as an adult. So I've got three suggestions for you today to step into your imagination. The first one is, it's really simple. All I got to do is pull out a piece of paper and a pen. It doesn't even have to be a colored marker, like, I'm holding up if you're looking, listening to this in the podcast. But I love colored markers. And you can just sit down with a piece of paper and just start moving the pen. Just however it is you want to move it, draw it around, Just kind of take your brain offline and just doodle, doodle. Just doodle, doodle.

When's the last time you've doodled?

Move it around a while, do something, and then it's always interesting to see where it starts to take you. And then it's always fun with doodles to you. Step into your imagination by seeing what you. You can see in there, or what do you derive as, you know, message back to you, perhaps. What does it look like? What does it seem like? What does it feel like. And that's an easy place to step into your imagination once you've doodled with no thought of drawing anything specific. But what's on the page, right? What do you see? Another great way to do imagine or step into your imagination is star gazing. As you're looking at the sky in the dark on your blanket, look up and see the stars on the sky and notice what what you see. Can you start crafting pictures of, you know, animals or people or faces or the myriad of objects that you could potentially see in the sky. They start to make like little and little images, little objects. And you can also see many of the images that other people have found on the stars by pulling up a stargazing app, you know, so that it can just start to stimulate your imagination. Imagination.

It was called Constellations. Constellations surprise you there, didn't I?

Yeah, I know.

Part time astronomer. Not every once in a while I share things. They say, where did you learn?

Because I know a lot of things.

We can talk cars and all kinds of stuff.

Yeah, you're amazing.

Exactly. Number three.

Number three sensations on your body. Walking through the grass barefoot, putting your feet in mud, maybe taking a shower and letting the water run by your.

Body when you're at the ocean. What do you have to do every time you go, oh, got to put.

Your feet in the sand for sure.

Yeah, Stacy, I got to take my shoes off and I got to feel the sand in the water. Doesn't we always have to do that? And I say, you know what, you're right. Even though I sometimes really, I got to take my shoes off.

Yes, we are here. Let's experience it viscerally.

What you'll notice is you know how great ideas come to you while you're in the shower. That's why is because you allow your brain to drift off and start thinking about your dream vacation or something that you would really like to do or plan or those places that you want to create with people that you love. Or maybe that email you forgot to send. It's just because you're letting your imagination kind of go offline for a moment and all kinds of wonderful things will set in. So any kind of physical sensation can open up your imagination. Looking at the stars or the clouds are great ways to just drift off and allow your imagination to take you places. As well as doodling on that page. That's also a really great thing. Thing. The benefits of doing this is it's going to help you calm down. If by chance you're struggling with anxiety if you're struggling with depression, if you're struggling with boredom, if you just need to take a break from the mental load that is on all of us now these days, these three activities will really help you manage that. So hope you'll take advantage of them and have a little bit of fun with them. Our song today, which we do each and every episode, is a song that I found where the lyrics just really spoke to me because of our defense defensive conversation today. It's a song by Nicolina, and the name of the song is Way out. And what she says in the song is, why do I say I'm fine when I'm breathing and I'm getting no air?

Oh, that's good.

Moving. But I'm going nowhere. But every time I get here, I break through to break down, to find my way out. And when we're working with defensiveness, it's like that, right? We hit a roadblock block. We're sucking air for a minute. I don't really know what to do. I feel like I'm working my guts out, but I'm getting nowhere. I'm getting nothing. I don't feel like we're making any progress, and I need to break down in order to break through, meaning I need to get vulnerable. I need to start talking about what matters most in order to get the breakthrough that I know is possible for us. So it's beautiful song. She's a beautiful singer, has a beautiful voice. So I invite you to check it out on my website, or you can go to Spotify and you can search up Love Shift Shack live playlist, and you can find that song along with all of our others. So I think that's a wrap, guys. Thank you so much for being here inside of the love shack today. It's been a pleasure to have this conversation with you. And if by chance you're needing help and support, please reach out someplace. Don't wait. We often wait too long to go in new places and new directions and learn new skills, especially when it comes to relationships. And if by chance you found this recording helpful today, please share it. Like it, Let me know that it me it was meaningful to you, that it made a difference in your life. I would love that. And don't forget to subscribe for more insightful relationship advice. We're here to support you in any way that we possibly can. But bye for now. We look forward to connecting with you again soon right here inside the love shack.

All right, it's time to leave the love shack. But before we part ways. We want you to know our door is always open and we'll leave the porch light on, ready to welcome you back whenever you need a dose of relationship wisdom. For more resources and tools, Visit us at loveshacklive.com to dive deeper into the topics we've explored and find additional support for your relationship journey. Stay connected by subscribing to our podcast. Thank you for being part of our Love Shack Live community.

It.