#148: Beyond the Gap: Navigating Space & Commitment in Relationships (Part Four)

Imagine standing at the edge of a dense forest, the path ahead, unclear shadows playing tricks on your eyes. The map. It's the commitments and agreements we make. But how do we chart a course when the terrain of love becomes unfamiliar? Welcome to Love Shack. Live your compass for those wandering in the wilderness of relationship crossroads. If you've ever felt lost amidst the trees of doubt, longing for the sunlight of genuine connection, you found a guiding star today. I'm Stacy Bartley, your relationship expert and guide on this journey. Joining me are my trusted trail mates, my co host and lover, Tom, and our beautiful daughter Brooke. We've navigated our share of relationship challenges and we're here to blaze the trail with you today too. So today we embark on a quest to answer a burning question in the vast forest of love. How do we stay on course when commitments waver and the landmarks of trust become obscured? Journey with us as we explore the essence of commitment, the weight of promises and the art of renegotiation. Together, let's uncover the signposts that guide us in the intricate landscape of relationships.

Hey, thank you for coming. Welcome to the Love Shack.

As we step into this conversation, know that this episode is part of a four part series. It's actually highlighting the road map that we offer in a 30 day community. Roadmap is what we call it and it's a place where we take groups of people through a 30 day experience and we've highlighted this in the four part series. So for those of you who have been following along, thank you so much. It's great to have you here with us today. We're going to of course jump into creating a plan and for those of us who are just joining us, enjoy this episode and then we invite you to go back and enjoy the previous three. Because these episodes actually stack on themselves. We actually build from principle to principle to principle. The first one being choose yourself first and developing a working acumen of understanding and being able to translate your thoughts, feelings and emotions into a language that you can first understand. We step into the second episode which is all about emotional weightlifting. We need to be able to understand and do a few what we call emotional push ups in order for us to set ourselves up for week three, which is productive communication. And productive communication is being able to say what you need to say in a way that it can be heard. And that is actually a skill, but it's a skill that doesn't do us much good unless we have the first two on board. An understanding of myself as well as the ability to listen Sometimes to some difficulty, some things that are really hard to deal with. And hear that I might have a tendency as a human being to take personal, but instead of reacting, to be able to take it in and do that emotional push up. And now we are ready for that communication piece. And today is where we put it all together. Today we look at what it means to create space with a plan. It's also a place where if we were just coming together and recreating a relationship from the ground up, it would be the same conversation. It's a place that we don't often talk about planning. Agreements, commitments. What does all mean? What's the difference? If you're like most of us as human beings, agreements and commitments are kind of synonymous with each other. So que pasa? What's the difference and why do you use both? So let's start with that question. What is the difference between agreements and commitments and my cute little counterparts here? What would you have to say about that? Where do you think people typically go?

I would say that agreements are the puzzle pieces of commitment overall. So agreements are the little promises that you make to each other or big. But there are many agreements inside of commitment.

Love that. What do you have to say?

Yeah, I would say it's the starting point. It gives you the possibility to explore the many moving parts of what an. What a commitment is. And they're usually around significant. I'm not going to give the tip here, but they're significant places in a relationship that are important to consider for all of us.

They're probably around places that most people would identify. Okay. A boundary needs to exist here. So then you create an agreement around that area that also can serve as a boundary too.

Very well said. Agreements are very much indeed a boundary when we can approach it as though it's an agreement between the two of us. I want you to think of agreement as the exploration of what it is we want to do here. And then the commitment is the doing of that agreement.

So it's the execution of the agreement.

It's the execution of the agreement.

Love it.

That's the promise. Okay, I'm going to do this. This is what we have agreed to do. This. And that would be the commitment part of agreements and commitments. And we very often commit without clarifying what the agreements are. Are. How often do we just go, okay, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, fine, no problem. Do whatever you want, you know, and on the inside I'm going, yeah, whatever.

I'll never follow that. I am never going to do that.

Yeah, knock it Out. Knock it out. Go ahead, Go on with your bad self. And then we have all kinds of little statements that we say where we're saying we're going along with that. And I'm willing to make a commitment to you, but the reality is I have no intentions of doing any of it. And we often step up and make big, bold commitments without knowing what the specific agreements to that commitment are. So when we think about the execution of a commitment, well, that has to have the agreement part. What are we committing to do? If we think of commitments as the doing part, you can start to see the breakdown in how we even set up our commitments and our vows to each other. What are we committing to and promising to? Where are the agreements? What are they? And so the agreements would be the itemization of this commitment that we're making together today as a couple. And unfortunately, this sets us up for some personal interpretation that is not good without clarifying what the agreements are. It's totally a setup. And then what happens is we interpret along the way what they meant, right? No, no, no. The agreement that we made about that meant that this. And that's my own interpretation. I'm sorry, you got it wrong, but my way is right. So here we go. You've done it wrong. And so the interpretation is left to the individual, which, if you know anything about my work, Ground zero foundation is we all have a narrative that we are interpreting and making things up. And I can come to conclusions that make sense to me, but not to anybody else. And now you start to understand why agreements and commitments fall apart.

So we're going to help people totally change the way that they approach this, the way that they use these in the way that they're executed. And they're going to be much more successful with this.

Absolutely. Absolutely. I'm pointing out how we typically set it up. Right. There's not a lot of thought. I mean, it's kind of this idea of we go from mindlessness, thinking, I'm just going to give you whatever you want, and then that everything's going to be fine, or I'm going to do an overboard example and demonstration, please, and going along with and making this really work for you, and that's going to be the measure of our agreements and commitments.

I would say a lot of times people don't even know that they're making agreements or that agreements are part of a successful relationship. I mean, people who have done some work are probably familiar with the term agreements in regards to relationships, because it's common in our world. But for just the average person, I would say they know they've made some, but I don't think they see it as an essential building block of how trust is created and how to communicate correctly. I don't think most people see it that way, which is a shame because we make agreements every single day and we don't realize we're making them and then we break them because we don't hold them in the place that we need to, which is, you know, they need to be held up and honored because that's how the energy in your relationship and the trust and everything remains good is by keeping them.

Well, I think most of us can relate to making one solid commitment in our relationships overall. And that's probably going to be the commitment that we make on our wedding day when we take our vows to love, honor and cherish. Right. Forever and always until death do us part. And that's the one commitment that is left to interpretation about what all that means. Yep, it's in the. Where the wedding vows, the marriage vows, and then there's all.

Excuse me.

Layers of interpretation along the way.

We also make a commitment that same way when we decide to say, okay, you're my boyfriend or you're my girlfriend. Like, we view that as the commitment because some people who are listening are not married. So it's the same thing whether you're choosing to say I do or you're choosing to say, okay, we're committed, we're couple. Yeah, we're coupled, but we never dive deeper and say, well, what does that really mean? What are we committing to? What are the commitments that we're making here? We just say we're committed.

Which usually means you're going to love me and I'm going to love you. And the mindset around that is I'm going to make you happy, I'm going to please you, and you're going to do the same for me. Right? Yeah, we are going to so knock this out of the park. Like we are going to make a home run happen here. What could possibly go wrong? Well, in our naivety about commitments and agreements, there's a whole lot that can go sideways if we don't really understand what's happening here. So at the end of our conversation today, I am going to give you a step by step plan. But what I want to talk about beforehand is the nuances that you need to understand and know about commitments and agreements. What do they do for us? What's the difference between knowing and getting some clarity around it? And who cares, right? If I have a great story to justify it, everything's going to be fine. I mean, anyway, commitments make me feel stuck and a whole host of emotions that I hate anyway. So if I just please my partner and take it day by day, we're going to be fine. Kind of the narrative. So let's talk about the essence of commitments. And I want to talk about the positive side, the upside first, because there are two sides to commitment, just as there are to most things in our life. The upside is this. When I make a commitment that I'm clear about and I keep it, there's a couple of things that I want you to be aware of. Number one, there's a motivation behind commitments that actually fuel us to show up. So I might do some things because of the commitment that I've made to my person, to my children, to my work, to my employer, to my clients. And because of that commitment that I have made, it's going to cause or motivate me to show up in times when if left to my own accord, I would not, I would not do that. And in that, it can be a very good thing. And as I keep that commitment, I feel good about the lover, the parent, the business owner, the supporter, the mentor, the teacher, the community leader that I am. And so it can be very validating and very motivating to make commitments. There's a huge upside to this. It also can play out in simpler ways, like keeping my commitments to myself to work out three days a week, or to eat more vegetables, or to slow down on my drinking or whatever coping skill that I might be trying to change my behavior around. It can be really life giving where I start to build a sense of I can trust myself. I got this. There's an awareness and an appreciation that develops with inside of myself when I keep those commitments. Okay, so there's a real upside to commitments. And just as there's a real upside, there is a downside to those commitments. The weight of broken promises can be actually very invalidating and demotivating absolutely in the opposite direction. And that is the ultimate price that we pay when we don't realize the role that commitments play in our lives. If I make commitments I have no intentions of keeping, or if I make commitments that then I just gloss over with a really great story of justification. I'm not taking ownership of the fact that I made this commitment and then I broke it with you, but I'm actually justifying it with a really great story and narrative as to why I had no Other choice, okay, please, you've got to just accept that this has happened. When we look deeper in those, as a human being, most of us will discover a place where I really didn't want to do it in the first place. It was kind of a half assed commitment to begin with. And that's no right or wrong or good or bad. It's human. And we just want to start being more honest about that place with inside of ourselves. Because we as the individual, the person making these commitments and agreements are going to pay the ultimate price for that broken commitment. And it's going to show up in an invalidating place. Because think about it like this. Regardless of the story I spun to justify the fact that I broke that commitment to you, even if I get somebody to buy off on it by playing the victim or pleading my case, I still on many levels with inside of myself, know what has just happened that I spun a story that you bought off on. But at the end of the day, I know the whole story. I know that it was something I put off, didn't want to do, tried to justify, tried to reroute around. And then the time came where I was supposed to do it and I didn't. And now I'm making up a really great story about it and I feel terrible about myself, really, I feel terrible about myself. And not only that, there's an insecurity, invalidating quality that starts to happen where now I don't even trust my own ability regarding what I say I'm going to do. And there's a tremendous amount of self doubt that starts to set in with me not being able to count on the words that are coming out of my own mouth. And I start to feel like an imposter. I start to create a lot of internal chaos and a lot of internal conflict because the next time as a human being I go to make a commitment, that voice inside of me is going to go, go. You're so full of. You're so full of. Yeah, you're gonna keep it this time, right? The internal dialogue within my own head, literally with repeat after repeat of what I'm talking about here, becomes a monster within my own experience. And that becomes an invalidating experience. And then my dialogue with internal, internally inside of myself turns into a very self deprecating right monster in its own accord. And that's why I say the person who breaks a commitment pays the ultimate price. Yes, there's going to be a throw off of people feeling betrayed and disappointed and their lack of trust in us only starts to circle in and add to the emotional weight of the broken promise with inside of myself. And so I personally, when I lay my head on the pillow at night, pay the the ultimate price for a broken commitment. So now I circle all the way back to what we started to talk about here. Being mindless about the commitments that we make. And now that you start to understand the repercussions, the emotional repercussions of such. I hope I have your attention right now. Like this is not any small thing. We start to understand depression, anxiety, self loathing, personal breakdown that I as a human being have to endure because I did not understand the power that happens. When we start talking about agreements and commitments. I thought it was just something that was no big deal, right? I just thought it was something I could go, yeah, yeah, yeah honey, whatever you need, you just knock it out of the park. I want to make you happy. Happy wife, happy life. And we don't realize the setup for ourselves and the concept of who I am and who it is I'm becoming. It is a big deal not to over exaggerate it, but just to, to bring into focus. This is something we need to get a lot more mindful about.

And I would just say though, to me this is good news because yes, I don't think a lot of us set up this way with this kind of clarity and understanding. But the good news is, is we can set this up for our success. I mean, for heaven's sakes, we say this often, if you follow us, especially when you work with us more closely in our membership or one on one, don't put something in agreement or commitment that doesn't work for you. Like that's 101. So there should be no resistance to want to step into this. Well, because you're the one that helped co create it. And if it doesn't work, then don't put it into the agreement. And yes, you need some skill to perhaps have that conversation, say that thing you need to say. Yes, that's very important because a lot of us don't have that ability. We don't have the courage, we don't have the emotional safety. So that's why we acquiesce and agree to things that we don't really want to agree to.

Well, and as a human being, I show up as good as I feel. So just realize the invalidation of myself leads to the invalidation of others and my effort to justify my own existence. So even if I get somebody again to believe in my excuses, I know the truth inside of myself. And this invalidation breeds invalidation of not only myself, but of others. And the more that starts to play out, the more desperate I become for the validation of others. The next item I want to point out here is it's tough to co create with someone you can't count on. And the person you need to count on the most is yourself. The difference between feeling dumped in the soup or understanding and knowing someone's not in a place to show up are very different experiences within us as a human being. It's one thing for you to say, you know what, honey, I'm sorry, I can't commit to that. I can't agree to that. I might feel really disappointed about that. But at least I know being dumped in the soup is an entirely different thing. Being dumped in the soup is me counting on you to do what it is you said, or what I thought the agreement was only to find you not doing it and not showing up. In that case, in that scenario, not only am I going to be disappointed, I'm going to also feel betrayed and frustrated and let down. And then my little narrative is going to go on steroids and I'm going to start making up a whole bunch of things about us, our relationship, you, myself, and I'm going to insert that into the disappointment and the void that has been created because you broke that commitment. And then I'm going to build on that as though that is definitely the truth and where you were coming from, what you intended, when the reality was I got too busy or I didn't have the emotional capacity to show up for you, or I never really wanted to do it in the first place. I just decided to go along to please you and to be a good partner. But I didn't want to say that because I didn't want to disappoint you. Now what you've done is you've taken a little disappointment and now you've actually fractured the foundation of your relationship. And there's only too many of those. There's only so many of those that we can take on as a co creation before. I don't want to risk co creating with you anymore. And that's about the time where I say I can't trust you. I can't trust you. What I'm really saying is I can't risk with you anymore because I set myself up for this tremendous amount of emotional pain. Not just disappointment, but the feeling of being completely dumped in the soup. And so this is why agreements and commitments are so important in Guiding us is because they are at the heart, at the core of us being able to co create together. And so what I want to also highlight is they need to be fluid. I want to touch on that as my next point here. We often think of commitments and agreements as something that gets set in stone and they come fraught with obligation. And if you don't keep them, then there must be somebody to blame, some kind of a punitive measure. Obviously you broke it. So now we have to do something different. And I want you to be able to think of commitments and agreements as something that's fluid, that we can renegotiate over time, again and again and again if we need to, simply because we as people and what we need and want in our relationship and our co creation is going to change, become fluid over time as well as circumstances are going to to change. We have kids, the kids go on, they grow into teenagers, they leave the house. Now we're empty nesters, right? There's all this fluid change when we think about the categories that really impact our lives. Career, money, children. I could go deeper, but we'll cover those later. All that to say there's nothing that set it and forget it at all really. When we think about it and when we hold them as something that is a set it and forget it or set in concrete or stone, we then start to live relationships from a place of obligation which can lead us to lots of reasons why this doesn't work. The first thing that I want to point out is it creates a tremendous amount of fear to get all into our relationships. Because commitment is terrifying, especially when we realize the reality of change. If you've been around or two in the relationship arena and you know that you can fall madly in love with somebody only to find yourself in a place where you can't coexist any longer, right? Like myself. I'll take that one on personally. You think, what the heck just happened here? Commitment became a very terrifying thing for me, especially when Tom and I came together more than a decade ago. And what I realize and know now that I didn't know then is commitment isn't the scary part. It's easy to commit to you, to want to build a life to you. What's hard is knowing that those commitments have to be set in stone in spite of the fact that we're going to change and evolve over time. So how do we navigate all the moving parts? How do we navigate through me changing you changing, etc. When we have these commitments in place, it commits that commitment can Become very scary to where I don't want to get in at all. I don't want to promise anything at all. If I can't commit, then there's not a lot for us to co create with because I can't count on you. And you start to see where if it's going to be like one foot in, one foot out, we can't do much with that. And so the way that we hold our agreements and commitments currently creates a lot of fear. And so we've got to realize they have to be fluid in order for us to be successful with this. Because if not, I'm committing and making promises to you that down the road, a year from now, five years from now, 20 years from now, I may not even be able to do that. That might be terrifying as heck to me. And I don't know what that's going to look like even next week, let alone 10 years from now. So can we just take this as we go? Yes, you can. As I've already touched on, the other reason why it doesn't work is it creates obligation. It creates this place where I deserve to be punished and blamed. It also prevents us from learning and growing as we go. It prevents a lot of lack of understanding about me, about you. And then it promotes ultimately to this place of feeling stuck, rebellious, frustrated. This is as good as it's going to get. I can't do anything about it because I made these commitments 20 years ago and I know now they don't fit, but I don't know what to do with them. And so I'm just going to try and grind it out until I can't anymore. And this is why we have such egregious demonstrations of divorce and separation and the hurting of the people that we say we love.

Well, let me just ask. We've done a lot of work, if you've been following us recently, really since episode 140, all around this very difficult and challenging place of space and separation in a relationship, in a marriage. Would you say this is one of the fundamental components of that, that one of those persons asking for space?

Very much so. In my book, feeling like your marriage is dead is all about this core principle of the change that happens within us and in our relationships. And yet we don't want to address it or take right a look at it. I know and understand that the reason why we do these things, especially in marriage, is because we are risking everything. We are building lives together, having children together, building our financial wealth and futures together. And we're looking for some kind of a guarantee. What we don't realize is that marriage gives us some sense of security, which is awesome. It's a good thing, but it's not going to give you the guarantee. And we expect it to. We really expect it to be the answer to all of the fear and insecurity that I feel on the daily in the uncertainties of life. And if we could literally wrap our arms around the uncertainty and address it and have conversations about it, we could literally create more certainty. But what we do is don't want to talk about it and hold ourselves to some kind of an obligation, thinking that that's going to be our way through. And unfortunately what that does is it creates a very stuck feeling and it creates a lot of rebelliousness where I'll say one thing, but I'll do another. And then because of all the reasons we've just highlighted in our conversation today, you can start to see why an individual breaks down. And then my co creation with my partner breaks down, and then my partner breaks down, and then my family breaks down and then my future breaks down. And it's just what I call the race to the bottom. Because we're living in this place that really at the end of the day doesn't work for anybody. But because of these commitments that we've made all these years ago, we feel like we have to stay the course without renegotiating, negotiating them. So that moves me to the next point that I want to make around commitments and agreements. The empowerment that comes from allowing ourselves to renegotiate our agreements.

Hopefully all you listeners just took a huge breath of fresh air with that, like, oh my gosh, like I can renegotiate. Yeah, that's the sweet spot.

It really is. Yeah. Our agreements and our commitments need to be fluid and adaptable. And there is no set it and forget it to them. To prevent feelings of betrayal, both of self and others, we need to renegotiate our agreements and commitments. And the kicker is this, we need to renegotiate them before they are broken. If we can do that, then we can renegotiate agreements and commitments that we make any old time we feel like we need to. What we have a tendency to do is break them and then come back around with our story of justification and our defensiveness and our desire to cover them up, to not be the bad person in the relationship, beg and plead for forgiveness. So it's imperative that you understand and realize, look, our only goal here, and the really good news is just don't dump somebody in the soup. That's what I call it. What does that mean? It means I've promised that I'm going to swim with you in this sea of soup. And then I don't show up and I leave you to swim in it by yourself. I dump you in the soup and go, good luck. Hope you can figure it out.

But what would be a more. More typical and an example that people, the listener would really, really resonate with. Give us a simple example of that. Of something I've agreed to, but I'm not following through on it.

It could be everything. That's the kicker. Little small things like saying I'm going to take out the trash. Okay, over time can become just as impactful as you having an affair.

No kidding.

Yes.

Wow.

Because every time a broken commitment is done, I want you to think about it as like it's. It's. Either there's a couple of analogies. You take money out of my bank account or you literally take a chunk out of the foundation of my ability to count on you. And with repeats, whether I get there in one full like backhoe of that foundation or I get there in millions of little teeny tiny places, the result is going to be the same. And that's why not breaking that agreement or dumping me in the soup is so important.

So renegotiate on the front side, it's.

Okay if I say, hey, I made this agreement to you, I committed that I was going to do this and this and this. And I'm noticing today that I'm not going to be able to make good on that. Great. Thank you so much for telling me. In the business world, it shows up often as don't be late. And if you can't make the appointment, then do some kind of a renegotiation before the day and time arrives. That's important because it's good for us to all know where we are. That feels like you're communicating with me. And we can all wrap our heads around the idea that life happens or.

I would even just even closer to a simple event appointment. Let's say you are running behind and you know that the appointments at 11 o' clock and by 10:30 you're going to be late. Well, then reach out to your partner, your husband, your wife and let. Or even a business commitment and let that person know ahead of time rather than at 10:30 you're going to be late. Let them know then.

That's if you're not going to get to the trash today that's not the big deal. The big deal is that you let it play out without saying something, and then it becomes that chunk in the foundation. Hey, you know what? I know I said I was going to take out the trash today, and I'm not going to get to it. I've become swamped. How about this? I'm renegotiating it. I'll do it first thing in the morning, right? So I'm throwing out an alternative. I'm not just saying sorry, I guess you're going to have to take care of it. I'm saying, hey, it was my commitment, my duty to take out the trash. Guess what? I'll do that for us tomorrow morning. I just wanted to let you know that's a renegotiation of a very small commitment that we make that can have, yes, very impactful consequences if left over time.

Another good analogy is that every single time you don't do that thing you said you were going to do for your partner, it's like you're chipping away at the rock of your relationship. You know, it's like you're taking a little shovel. Chipping away, chipping away. And then the person who's like, I'm done with this relationship. You've broken all of these promises. I feel like I don't even know who I am anymore. You've caused me to totally turn into a person who's just nagging you and telling you to please do this thing over and over again, and you never do it. And then it gets to the point where you honestly are like, why am I even in this relationship? And the person who's breaking the commitments is like, wow, I didn't even know it was that big of a deal.

Absolutely. And we do chip away at our foundations just like that, little by little by little by little. I do want to address also, not only do we break agreements and then try and cover them up with a great story, there's a saying that comes back in my mind from a mentor of mine many years ago. Accomplishing a task, we either do it or we come up with a great story as to why we didn't. And that's so true when it comes to commitments. If I can come up with a great story, it's synonymous with actually doing it in our own minds. But in reality, it's not. That's that chipping away at our foundation. So let's talk about the cleaning up of a broken agreement, because that's going to happen, too. There are going to be broken agreements along the way that we didn't have the opportunity or ability to renegotiate on the front side before they were broken. How do we handle those? What do we do with the broken ones that we didn't feel literally like we had any alternative in regards to breaking or we got so wrapped up in our own conflict and our own hot mess that it I missed it. What's important is that you understand and do is clean them up. And what does that mean? It means take responsibility. I made this commitment to you, this was the agreement that I understood and I did not do it. And I'm so sorry. And here's what I am going to do now to go forward. Would that work for you? That's cleaning up and taking responsibility for the commitment that you just broke. Not covering it up, not justifying them, explaining in your defensiveness why it is that you just couldn't possibly get to it. All of that is going to fall on deaf ears. You need to take responsibility for the commitment that you made and that's going to set everybody free.

But also what you just said completely highlights why listening to these episodes in order is important. Because you can't do that. You can't say I can't keep this commitment if there's no emotional safety in the relationship for you to do that. If you're in a relationship, which I know many of us are, where emotional safety is not available to you because you don't know how to create it. And the person who knows inside of themselves that they can't keep that commitment because what, for whatever reason you just know you can't do it. You know, that doesn't feel good to you, whatever. But you know, if you say that to your partner, they're going to attack you or be incredibly defensive or manipulate you and say, well, if you don't do this then this is gonna happen, then of course you're probably not gonna do that. You know, that's a situation where you would just let the commitment slide and hope that no one notices because you're trying to keep yourself safe. So the reason why I'm pointing this out is that agreements are the last step in this four step process. Because the skills leading up to agreements and commitments are so important to learn because they make this a possible.

So it's just going to be, you know, that sounds good in theory, it's just going to be more knowledge, but there'll be no wisdom because there's no application. That's exactly right. So yeah, it's very important if you're new to us this episode. Thank you. Number one, really encourage you to go back and start in order because it's going to really benefit you the most. When you, as Stacy started the this episode, these have stacked on each other. It's the same way that we're facilitating our road map. We're right in the middle. If you're listening live, we're right in the middle. We're in week two of our 30 day roadmap having an awesome experience with people all over the world. It's wonderful. But each week stacks on the week before it and just as these four episodes have.

Yeah. So if you're listening and you're like, oh man, I could never go to my partner and say, I don't know if I could keep this agreement because I know it would hurt their feelings or I know they would get into an immediate fight with me or all of those reasons, then just know it's because you don't have the other skills yet. There's nothing wrong with you. You just don't have the skills that you need to make this specific situation possible. But you need to go and get them because otherwise your relationship is going to keep running into these same issues.

Yeah. There's a saying that's highlighted by what you've just mentioned, Brooke, and thank you so much for that. It's better for us, regardless of how scary it seems on the front side, to be in with ourself and out with others than to be in with others and out with ourself. Like there's a huge price that's paid there and yet most of us will err on being in with others and out with ourselves. It's just a standard protocol thinking that's going to take us to the problemless land when indeed that's the race to the bottom that we often talk about here. All of this conversation about commitments and agreements is to highlight one very important fact that we are not going to be able to get around regardless of how we want to spin this or justify it or live an illusion, and that is this. We figure things out as we go. There is a plan and then there's what happens. We call it the contrast with that plan. And we don't know that. On the front side, we all pretty much, especially if it's something we truly desire and want, which relationships are something we truly desire and want. We all step in with the best of intentions. We want this to go well. I want to make good on the promises and commitments that I make you, regardless of why we're doing that at our wedding, moving in together, becoming exclusive. All the many places that we make those promises and commitments with our whole heart and soul. And then there's the playing out of it that we cannot predict or determine on the backside of that called life. Called life. This is how we grow and learn. And it's inevitable. And it's the piece that, yes, we don't like to talk about, but it can be very freeing to talk about. I am going to do my best. I have no idea how this is going to play out and what's going to come up for me and what it is I'm going to learn about myself and us and our relationship along the way. Nobody knows that part. We just step in and go for it. Just like if I were starting a business, right, I, I, I step in with all the best intentions and that to the best of my ability and my skill set, I'm going to go for it. And then there's the playing out of it.

But I, I say this in our clarity calls, which I really believe is, is empowering. And again, good news. Here's the thing. I mean, I'm not getting political or whatever, but the military in the United States is known to be very capable because it's not as if they don't think things are going to happen, it's just the opposite. They know in the execution of what they do that there's going to be many things that happen that they don't know. But that's why they have so many contingencies. A, B, C, D, E. So my point here is just set it and forget it. We're going to come together, we meet a special someone, have this fabulous day of celebrations, check the box and call it good. Based on these commitments that okay, we get 10 years in, life is so much different. So like, how would that ever be successful to be fair? I mean, it's set up to fail from the get go. And what we're proposing and teaching and encouraging you to take on is a place for success because we know, we just said life is going to happen. None of us gets the hall path. It's gonna happen. Things have changed dramatically than when Stacy and I first came together 12 years ago. Almost 13 now. It's getting serious, I think, but around.

For one more day.

Exactly. Looking good for today anyway, I'm just saying. So how about if we built for that, knowing that yes, things are going to happen, we're going to have to be able to renegotiate as we go to Me like, oh, okay, well that makes a heck of a lot more sense. Yes. Then I can commit knowing like this is a very dynamic. This is the most dynamic process you're ever going to embark on and to bring your life with another hot mess human being. Let's just be honest. Come on.

Wait a minute. I'm a hot mess?

Yes, very. And so everyone. Yes. So we need contingencies A, B, C.

D. You said that, you said that a little too fast.

Come on, we're all mess making machines.

The light heartedness that can come about when you just go, you know what? Yeah, you're right. I am a hot mess. I mean we all are.

I mean so really, I mean that with all great love and respect so that you ought to just again take a next exhale like oh my gosh, that makes so much sense. Yes, of course. How could this be so rigid? I mean this is the most dynamic process really to bring our life with another person and he or she is going through what they're going through. We're going and we're supposed to live happily ever after. Now that is a dang good story that we have, right? Really bid off on. I mean, come on. That's a good enrollment conversation that someone has been really successful at.

I agree. So, so let's talk about the phases of the plan. I think we're ready. I think you now understand the nuances of commitment and agreements and how important they are and how incredibly mindful we need to become about them. And yes, you know what that's going to take? It's going to take focus and energy which is sometimes as a human being, why I go, eh, whatever, it's going to be fine. Don't get lazy about this. These are important and they have huge throw off in ourselves. Right? The concepts and the relationships that we have with ourselves as well as the co creation of others. The component we love to call the us space. Right. Huge throw off there unknowingly. So give yourself a little grace today too. There are some things that we've probably said today where you're like, oh my gosh, I had no idea. Okay, well don't hold yourself accountable for knowing this five years ago or 10 years ago because the reality is you just heard it today. So take it today and go forward with it and be grateful for that. Don't beat yourself up for not knowing it five or 10 years ago. For heaven's sakes. Be grateful you know it today and go forward with it. So here is the plan, the part that you probably said, no, no, no, no, stay. Just give me the plan. Just give me the plan. I don't need to worry about all the other stuff you just talked about. Well, plan's not going to do you any good if you don't understand the front side. So let's give you the plan. Let's give you probably what you were hoping to get out of this episode when you started listening in. Shall we? There's actually three phases that become a cycle. Now, what's a cycle? A cycle is day and night. Right. The sun cycles up in the morning and we know that it's going to go dark and we're going to sleep and then the cycle starts all over again. We also have seasons. For most of us that live in in the world, we have seasons. Whether that's one season, two season, three season. Does anybody have a one season? No.

I think most people like saying the tropics. It's a wet and a dry.

So we have at least two seasons. Right. Okay. Thanks for helping me work that out.

Just call me Weather Tom.

We, where we live, we have four seasons. And there's a cycle that happens, and there's a little ish ish that happens. It's summer ish, it's spring ish, it's winter ish, it's fallish. But so is it. With our agreements and our commitments, there's a cycle that happens again and again and again. And the first step of this cycle, when we're coming together with a special someone for the first time or we're repairing a relationship, the cycle is the same. I start in the same place. When we have created space or separation from each other and we're trying to decide what are we in the future. This cycle is going to play out yet again. And the first step that we have to embrace is the exploration phase. And in this phase, we're going to explore the agreements that we need to have in order to decide how we're going to figure out what is possible in the future. And it's very difficult to do if we don't have this. As you've probably heard me say before, and I'll say it here again, space without a plan and agreements is just space. And if left in that space, it's going to atrophy. That's just a principle of life. I didn't make up the rules. I think it's just important you understand them. It would also be true if I was starting out in a relationship, if we had a really great first date, second date, third date. And then all of a sudden there was just space that's going to atrophy and we're going to maybe come back together and pick up where we left off, or we're going to pick up again and go, you know what? I think it's time for me to just let go of this. Okay, so the agreements that we have create the us part, we don't do so well with exploring the us part if we don't have some sense of this is how this is going to play out. This is. Is what we're good with and we need to explore what's possible. And there are actually many categories that we need to consider that in our Better Love Club, we actually do a process with putting our lease option contract together with. And we do this in our roadmap as well. Today though, because we need to make our agreements simple and doable, especially in the beginning of any journey, whether we're coming together for the first time or we're trying to reorchestrate our. Where do we go from here? It's important that our agreements become very simple and doable. Because here's the thing, we need to be able to build on our wins to go deeper into the agreements that we're going to make. And when we've thrown the flag for space and separation, we literally saying, okay, we got to reevaluate this whole thing to decide where I am, where you are, and what us is going to be in the future. And so we're literally coming right back to exploring the agreements that we need. And again, they need to be doable and simple. We need some wins here. So we're going to break these categories into tiers. And I want you to think of these tiers as each tier we move down gets a little more emotionally risky. Or said it another way, each tier that we move down in requires more and more emotional safety in order to risk with you to make agreements around these categories. Okay. For example, Tier 1 is where all relationships begin. I need communication time to talk and share, and I need play and novelty. Play and novelty can also include. Especially if we're coming back around for consecutive cycles. Are we going to celebrate our anniversary? Are we going to celebrate our birthdays? Are. Are we going to be able to go out on a date? What are the parameters here for this place of space? And how are we going to talk and share? Are we going to talk and share face to face right now? Are we going to talk and share over email or text phone calls? What is it that we need to do around this idea of communication and play and novelty, and you're probably going to need both. That would be tier one, and as we have success with that, we can move into tier two. Tier two includes money. Who's paying for what, who's contributing to what, how are the finances going to work? It also is going to take into account children slash pets. How are we going to take care of the kids? How are we going to take care of the pets? Who gets to see what, who's going to do a visit and then the household tasks. Because we, especially if we are recovering from trying to decide where it is we want to go from here, from a place of stuff, space and separation. There's a household we've created, there's children we've created, there's pets we've created. There's money that we've mixed and mingled and invested in together. Businesses or mortgages or 401ks, etc. So how is the money, the children, the pets and the household task wing to roll during this time of space and separation? Okay, so if I'm coming back around, it's probably tier one and two that I need to put to probably consider creating some agreements around. And I just want to say this because I haven't said it yet. The agreements don't matter only to the degree that it works for the two people involved. That's it. So I can't tell you what the agreements need to be. I can only share with you the categories that need to be considered and then you need to come up with your own agreements. And just what Brooke had said earlier, this is again highlighting the importance, importance of starting at ground week one, ground zero. Because most of us would say, well, I don't know what to say or ask for. Yeah, that's because you haven't gone all the way back to choose yourself first. You haven't gone through what it is and how it is. I show up through the emotional weightlifting week and that's also. I haven't learned how to say what I need to say. So I just go along with whatever because I think the goal is to just please my partner. So I don't have really great communication skills and you can start to see where. Well, then that's going to make it really difficult for you to make agreements and commitments, isn't it? Because you don't have those foundational skills that we just touched on. So tier one and two are going to be necessary when we're coming back around, probably from a place of space. And separation. Tier 1 is where all great relationships begin. Communication, play and novelty. Right. If you don't have that going for you, you're probably not going to venture into the lower tiers. So what are three and four? Well, three is religion, spirituality. It can be business, which is a vocation or a career. How does that impact our relationships? And then there's the conversations and the agreements around extended family. How are we going to deal with our in laws, our brothers, our sisters. Right, our grandkids. And then there's the conversation of our physical health. Is that a priority or not? Do we have any kind of limiting abilities here that we need to make sure we're mindful of, Am I good with that or not? And they need to be disclosed so that we can choose into these places where I might need a little more physical help or support. And then we move into tier four, which are the, what I call the big kahunas. Right, the ones that really make us shake on our boots and our armpits. Sweaty sex. And this is where we would have a conversation about an open marriage or a closed monogamy. Overall. What does that mean for us? Who. Those are big, right? Those are very big. Mental health is another one. Emotional needs. Disclosing what it is that I really emotionally need in order to have my emotional needs met in this relationship. And then the big, big kahuna. Porn, alcohol, drugs, and how are we going to handle our death? Those are big ones. So that's a tier four experience. And I just want to point out again here, we can't talk about Tier 4 when we're just, how do we make this really good and awesome or we need to restructure. What are we going to become in the future here? I have no idea. I want you to see space. And saying, hey, I just need to figure some things out for myself means I can't talk about these deeper things with you anymore because I don't feel safe to do so. So we got to go all the way back to tier one, tier two. And then as we make success happen, right, with those wins I talked about, we can then start to contemplate tiers three and four. But I don't even want to go there with you right now if we can't be successful with tier one, Tier.

Two, and how about. And maybe I'm a little got the cart before the horse here. So how about a time period like those? Tier 1 and Tier 2, what are we talking for the initial agreement and commitment to what period of time it's.

Difficult to put a time frame on this because how this is going to play out is going to be very unique and different to the people that are involved. We all come from different needs and experiences and backgrounds. We all have very different needs with inside of us as a human being.

But for the people that we've really been resonating, working with closely, say, let's say, okay, they've been in, say they've been had this space for 90 days and they're going to come back together and put some agreements and commitments around tier one and tier two. Would you say like a 30 day out of the gate would be a realistic time frame to just start?

I wouldn't recommend you go any longer than 30 days, especially in the beginning, because that 30 day time frame is going to need to be reevaluated. And getting comfortable with the reevaluation process is part of the cycle overall. Okay. You want to be able to come back to these agreements and commitments 30 days from now because things are going to change very rapidly in the beginning. And then as your relationship kind of creates a foundation of its own, it's going to kind of stabilize and there's going to be, shall we say, a normal place where this really works for us and we can count on that and we can write on that foundation. When we are coming from a place of needing space or being in what we call the land of maybe we're reevaluating everything from the foundation up like it's, it's a remodel and we're taking all the way back to the studs.

Okay.

And as we then begin to redesign it, there's going to be a familiarity, a safety that happens from this redesign of this remodel called us. And so just as you go, you're going to create some stability with these things. But if we're taking it all the way back to the studs, then 30 days is going to be as long as you want to go. And if we're recreating it from the ground up to start with, 30 days is as long as you're going to want to go. And then you can move into longer extensions with some of these agreements. Right. And you can go deeper in the tiers themselves. Okay. And then there's the commitment phase. So all of that was the exploration phase. What do we want to agree to? Here's the categories we need to consider. What would work for you? Here's what I need. What would you need? And let's craft up something again, simple and doable. In the beginning and we can go deeper as we go and create some wins. And then there's the commitment phase. And we're literally saying, okay, let's do this, I'm ready to move forward. That's the commitment phase. And some check in points for you is for yourself. It's clear, it feels doable. Right. You're understanding what it is we're doing here and what's required of me. And the next one I would ask you to check in about is I slash, we feel good about doing it. If I don't feel good about doing it, then I probably need to ask for something and at the very minimum disclose. Oh man, this is feeling really uncomfortable for me. I don't know that I can make good on this.

And that's what I was coming and that's what I was saying, you know, before this is important. So before you can you, you know, seal the commitment for this period of time, this agreement and the doing of the agreement, then for heaven's sakes, then renegotiate on the front side, that's okay too. You can not only on the back side, but on the front side is way more effective and way more powerful. Say, you know what, as I review that that's not going to work for me and then hopefully it's okay. That's cool. What would work for you around that specific point of not being easy about it, not feeling right. Okay. So I mean it's just an ebb and flow and so this should take so much of the, you know, like OMG around this whole process that literally freaks most of us out and we'll literally avoid at all costs with great damage to us and our relationship. So you just how does it feel?

And remember, just because somebody asks for it doesn't mean you need to do it. And that's usually a big pitfall for us. Like. No, I need to consider if I'm really willing to, to do this, if I really have the emotional capacity to get all in with this, what comes up for me. What do I need to talk about? Experience. I want you to see also, I hope you're seeing in this conversation today that we miss so many opportunities to understand ourselves and our partners in a deeper way. And yet that's what we say we all want. Yeah, we're not having those conversations because we're really not talking about agreement that work for me and don't work for me in a way that we can share it. There's just this expectation and obligation and assumption and interpretation that kind of runs our entire life. And we miss the real sweet spot, the joy of being able to explore myself and you explore yourself and come to a place where we both feel really good about moving forward.

And again, I'll just reiterate what Brooke had shared earlier. If this is like, gosh, this all sounds good in theory, but there ain't no effing way that I could do this. And you would need to please go back to episodes the first two and one, two and three of this series, because this is not meant to be just theory. This is meant to be unbelievably powerful for you and where you are, because I can share with you personally when you get to this place. It's an amazing process. It really. I say that with all great love and respect. It's unbelievable because it works and you're constantly going back to it and you're constantly reevaluating, renegotiating. So it just keeps things.

And I just want to add, everybody can do it.

Yes.

So if you've ever wondered if love and relationships are just for the lucky few, I'm telling you right here and now, no, it's not. You've just simply not learned the skills and principles that are required of those of us who get to participate in this place. Yes, it is for everyone. It's available to everyone. The only question is, are you going to do what's necessary in order to have it or experience it in this lifetime? And on that note, I just want you to know that feelings of excitement and nervousness, if we're doing this part of commitment correctly, are very normal. And that's because you're at the edge of what's possible. Yeah, like, I'm excited to go forward. I feel like I can knock it out of the park, and yet I still don't know or have any idea how this is going to play out for us. That's a beautiful place to be. And if there are any feelings of dread or like, yeah, yeah, whatever kind of attitude, then you need to go back to exploring your agreements as there's something that you probably need to ask for instead. There's something that's not being disclosed there. Okay. So that is the commitment phase that we want to be highly aware of and in tune with. And then we'll step into the last phase, which is the discovery phase. This is the evaluation of literally the contrast, which is what works and what doesn't. And it's going to play out in real time. So this is going to require you to talk about your Agreements and commitments often. And I want to encourage you with some questions here to do just that. Number one, what are you feeling good about oft times? What we do is we tend to not just follow the good moments when they're good, we just go, oh yeah, everything's good, we're all good. And then we get all serious and mindful when things go terrible. I want to encourage you to actually track the breadcrumb trail of when things are going really good so that when it starts to wane a little bit, we know what we need to do that works for us to get back to the good stuff quicker. I know if we spend some time together, talk about these things, we're going to be able to go back to. Back to the good stuff. Well, if you don't know what the good stuff was because you just went, ah, it's good, I don't need to look at it, I don't need to pay any attention to it, well, then you're, it's going to be this elusive. Like, I don't know what to do. And I don't want you to be afraid of that anymore. I want you to go, no, no, no. Here's what I need to do. I just need to go back and do these things that really work for us in our agreements and we're going to be fine. I know how to get back to the good stuff. We do this, this, this and that, us. So what's working? Make sure you take careful notes there. This is also taking you and us in a direction we want to go. So like these agreements and these commitments, as it's starting to play out, you sense a no with inside of yourself that it's taking you and us in a direction that we ultimately want to go. It's not. There's nothing willy nilly about it. And if not, then we want to course correct. Right. Like, I'm kind of concerned about where this is taking us. I'm concerned about what's coming up for us or what we're navigating here. Maybe we need to, we need to rethink this thing. Maybe we need to go back to phase one and explore some more about some things we could put in as our commitments and agreements to help us realign with where it is we ultimately want to go. And that takes us to what's truly not working. And when we talk about what's not working, I want you to ask yourself this question. Is it not working at all or is it just not working in this moment? That's a Huge distinction, because I could be having a challenging day with inside of myself. Personally. The agreement's good, but my ability to execute on it today is really compromised. I want to maintain the agreement and the commitment that I've made, but today I can really see that I'm not going to be able to knock it out of the park or even make good on it at all. So we don't need to go all the way back to renegotiating except exploring it. I just need to say, hey, you know what? On the front side, I'm really struggling today. I'm not going to be able to make good on this commitment that I made with you. But here's the deal. I think I can do it tomorrow or next week or next Monday. Would that work for you? So there's a difference between it not working at all and not working in this moment. And sometimes we create a lot of drama in our lives by just saying this isn't working and it never will. Maybe, but more than likely it's probably just not working in this moment for you. And. And then I want you to ask yourself what's difficult about this for you? What. What is it so that you can get to know yourself better in this process. There's a lot to learn in the throw off of our commitments and our agreements. So what is it that's making this for diff so difficult for you right now? And what are we learning from this? And what would we like to see happen differently? These are going to become the remedies that when we cycle back up to the exploration phase, we're going to be able to implement in regards to making suggestions or asking for things that we need and want in the future. So the remedies and, and what we want from what isn't working or just flip it becomes a huge leg up so that we don't spend too much time in the don't want and more time in what it is we truly do want to create and explore. And the agreements that we feel like we could commit to that would help us rudder in that direction. All this to say that in this phase, I want you to highly encourage you to view agreements as a journey of adjustments rather than punitive measures. They're not. These three phases are a continuous cycle that will happen again and again and again and again. And the better we become at them, the more foundationally sound and and safe we will feel in our relationships. So as we wrap this up, I know I've given you a ton here and I know it's a very alternative conversation in regards to how we view agreements and commitments. But from the bottom of my heart I feel like these are the little nuances that really cause us to make up terrible things about ourselves, about our partners, about love, about all men, about all women. That just simply isn't so. It's because we really haven't been taught how relationships work and what it is we need to know and understand to rudder through them with love and patience and grace to literally experience the good stuff that is available to us. These are powerful things for you to understand. So don't hesitate to listen to this again and again and again and again. But if I were to summarize it all for you, right, in four steps, it would be this. Recognize and realize the phases of agreements and commitments are important when navigating the unknown. And the more we don't know what the future is to hold, the more I need to talk about tier one at a minimum, tier two, right? Because if I don't have that to rudder myself through this as a human being, I'm going find to flip around like a fish out of water. It's going to be a very painful, difficult process. So let's just talk about it. Let's come up with some agreements that we can both be okay with. Number two, agreements and commitments are the core part of co creating. If we can't rely on and or count on each other to keep these commitments and or make new agreements and commitments when needed and necessary, the foundation called us is going to be chipped away at we. We've got to come back around and re establish and affirm that again and again and again. And then I want you to be mindful that agreements and commitments you make are important. They're nothing. There's nothing. Set it and forget it or willy nilly about it. So I want to encourage you to become mindful of them and not make them unless you truly feel like you can knock it out of the park for yourself. And you want to contribute that to the US So become mindful with them. And then my last, or I guess my second to the last is begin with small doable agreements. You need wins to build on to explore deeper. That's really important. Don't set yourself up for failure by having these long lists of elaborate agreements. Start with a couple. How are we going to talk? Can we get together and enjoy some of the good times? Our favorite things, right? What does that look like? Are we going to celebrate birthdays, holidays, anniversaries? How are we going to Handle the kids birthdays, you know, how are we going to deal with some of these things that we've created that we both enjoy, have conversations about those and then let that build, because as it does, you're naturally, as a human being, going to want to go deeper into those tears. I hope that.

I know.

I don't hope. I know that gives you a lot to think about. And it is truly my honor and my pleasure to help us bring light to these very important conversations that also often don't live in light. They live as these mysteries that we don't talk about. And what would be really fun, you as our listener, is if you would share with us what your experiences of commitments have come and agreements have been like in the past. Like, what did you hold them as? What did you think they were? And then compare that to the conversation that we've had today. That is the beautiful principle of contrast. Right? It's fun to see, oh, I was holding it like this, but now I see and understand it like this. That's growth, that's learning, that's understanding, and that's what agreements and commitments are all about.

And I would just say, just as we have had the orders of these four podcast episodes, it's the same order of the weeks of our four weeks or 30 day love and limbo roadmap journey. And so this is the last module, the last week of the journey together, because it needs. You need to have, as we've said repetitively, all the other skills and ability to deploy those skills and use them ideally for this very unique and powerful agreement and commitment process to go well.

Mm. I think that's a wrap. Brooke, you have anything to add?

Yes, I just want to say if this sounds good to you and you have are like, man, I wish I would have joined the roadmap. I have good news. We are opening enrollment for our next January 2024 roadmap cohort. And you can get all the information you need and reserve your spot by signing up@loveinlimboroadmap.com.

Awesome. So I think on that note, it's time for us to talk about having a little bit of fun. Fun has got to be part of the deal.

Well, we said that's. That's tier one. That's a beautiful thing. No wonder we include it in every episode.

Of course, of course. Well, and as we get deeper into the tears, you know, what tends to happen is we forget about the first.

Oh, yeah, we don't need that anymore.

Yeah, it's no big deal. Deal. No, no, no, no. It's adding, not taking away as you go deeper. And on that note, what I'm going to invite you to do this week is take yourself on a date. This is a part of our roadmap and it's an important part of our road map. Because if you'll take yourself on a date, you're going to be able to discover some things that you maybe didn't know or haven't been in touch with with inside of yourself for a very long time. And some ideas are maybe that museum that you've wanted to see and check out that nobody else wants to see but you, and so you just don't allow yourself to do it. Now would be the time. Or maybe there's a concert or a favorite musician that you want to see and attend but nobody else wants to see, so you never do it. But this week you are. And what about that little restaurant or that little cafe that you've wanted to check out? And again, nobody has the time to go with you. Take yourself there, take that class, whatever that might be in, explore and take some effort and time to just step into some of the things that you want to do for yourself. Take yourself on a date this week and you're going to be able to discover some things about yourself that you had forgotten. And that's a beautiful place to be. Each week as we choose a theme song for our episode. Why? Because we want you to feel the experience we've just talked about inside of the love shack. And so today's song. Oh, this is such a fun one.

It's going back. We're gonna date ourselves.

Oh, my gosh. And for those of you, because we do attract a much younger audience, you're gonna go, wow, this is a brand new song. It's like that far back. The group is Champagne. Tell me, you know who that is, right? If you do, then we all know we're kind of in the same age genre, right? If you don't like. There was a group called Champagne. Yeah, there really was. They were kind of a one hit wonder. But the song that they did knock out of the park is one today that is very, very fitting for our conversation. The song is called how about Us? And the lyrics that are so perfect go, honey, you want to sing it?

No.

Some people were made for each other. Some people can love one another for life. And that's. Isn't that what we all want? For sure it is. And do we know that on the front side? Hell no, we don't know that. On the front side, we can only go for it and then hope that we are those people that can love each other for life. And why not us? Fun song. Enjoy it. You can go to our Spotify page, our Love Shack Live playlist, where you can go to our website where you can access today's song, champagne. How about us? Why not us?

One more housekeeping too. If you're resonating with this whole space and separation conversations we've had. Number one, thank you for listening. Number two, we still are going to have a couple more several more love and limbo separation sessions. Actually, if you're listening live, we're having one tonight that's we don't have any more slots available. We do have our next one in two weeks. Again, if you're live, it's Thursday, October 26th and then we will have someone in November and December. So those would be a good place for you to get an experience of what this conversation is about. We cap them at 15 participants so it can be a very intimate and powerful experience.

And you can find those@loveinlimbo.com and also.

In our show notes.

Awesome. All right, that's a wrap. And again, if you want to reach out to us and tell us some of the things that you're discovering about agreements and commitments from our conversation today about how you originally held it and now what's coming up for you, we'd love to hear from you. And if you have any questions or conversations that you would like to have here in the Love Shack, don't hesitate to reach out to us. We'd also love to hear from you. So until next time, it's been a pleasure to be here with you today. Bye bye for now. 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 our podcast. Thank you for being part of our.

Love Shack Live community.