#23: Love & March Madness: Feeling Like A Hot Mess In Your Relationship?

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

Hey, welcome to the Love Shack, a little old place where we get to get together, explore fresh perspectives, eavesdrop on juicy conversations, and uncover mysteries that nobody talks about, but absolutely influences our relationships. If you're struggling in your marriage or just starting out in a new relationship or are single and looking to do better next time, this is the show for you. My name is Stacy Bartley, and I'm here with my co host and lover, Tom. Together for the past decade, we've been teaching and loving on people from around the world with the sole purpose of helping individuals and couples to love more and fear less on their relationships, both with themselves and others. It's great to be here with you today.

Absolutely. Just a shout out to our podcast listeners. And you're listening via podcast. We appreciate that. But you're listening to the replay of our live show, which is every Thursday on our awesome collaborative station, KKNW 1150 in Seattle. And I share that. So if you'd like to catch us live, we'd love to have you live. Bottom line is, wherever you're listening, wherever you are, we sure appreciate you taking some moments to be with us.

Oh, and in honor of March Madness, which actually is officially today, starts today.

If you're listening live, it's. It's. Yeah. Today's March Madness. I love March Madness.

We are going to kick off a conversation that's relational driven and we're going to talk about being a hot mess because right. There's a playoff here and there's some interesting, you know, who's going to take the trophy conversation. And. Right. It usually makes us. When we don't know the outcome of things as a human being, it turns us into a hot mess. We. We like to be reassured. And yet we live in a world of unknown variety. And the reality is we don't really know what's going to happen until we take.

So let me just. I'm going to be devil's advocate right out of the People say hot mess. I'm not a hot mess. So tell us. Share with us. I mean, do I have to be like, you know, a babbling baby? Is that the definition. Definition of a hot mess? You know, we are going to talk.

About what a hot mess when it is.

Sorry, I was ahead of myself. That's a term we use a lot. You're probably thinking, I'm done. I'm tuning out because I'm not a hot mess. Well, maybe you are. Just, just bear with us here.

Well, and, and if you're not a hot mess right now, let's celebrate that and let's talk about what to do the next time you are. Because I guarantee you as a human being, a hot mess is coming. So a hot mess is not a bad thing. And a hot mess is something that we all experience. In fact, I just had a hot mess about, oh, I don't know, 10 minutes ago. So it's. It's feeling the hot mess, being with the hot mess, identify it, understanding it, and more importantly, then what do you do? What we tend to do are things that make it a bigger hot mess. And so we're going to talk about all those things today as well as we're going to walk you through what to do when you see yourself there. It can be really important if we de escalate fights, right? And when we escalate fights, they seem to take us to the same place. And let's be honest, it's not a happy place. It's not a good place. And we end up saying and doing a lot of things that we regret and wish we could just take back. And in fact, it turns out that when we're feeling like a hot mess and we don't know what to do about it, we typically create an even bigger hot mess because we don't know what to do. But because we don't know what else to do, we do the thing that we've done again and again and again. That's how it works as human beings, right? We will continue to do what we know until we know to do something different. So today we're going to jump in and learn how to turn it around. How to stop visiting that place that makes our hearts ache, and how to stop creating a tremendous amount of regrets in our relational journeys when by chance, I'm a hot mess, or maybe somebody else is a hot mess, Right? Maybe you're not going to be the hot mess, but somebody else is. So stay tuned as we jump into this juicy conversation. We're going to be right back.

Are you tired of sitting on a couple's counselor's couch and feeling like you're just rehashing the past and making no progress. Do you feel like you're holding on to your relationship but panicked you're losing your partner? It's time to learn how to deepen your connection, finally resolve the arguments that keep coming up. Understand yourself and your partner and create the level of intimacy and you've been dreaming of. It's time for love to tingle your toes again. Schedule your private session with relationship expert stacey bartley@stacybartley.com checkup.

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Day one Transform your hot mess.

Learn how Catching yourself in the moment is the secret to learning what we call the power of a pause.

Day 2 Get back to dreaming with your partner.

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Exactly what to do during arguments during.

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To learn more and to register, visit stacybartley.com reset that's stacybartley.com reset. Do you feel like your love life is on life support? It's time for a turbocharged relationship resuscitation with an alternative to marriage counseling. Head over to staceybartly.com to learn more about their proprietary programs their clients use to save their relationships. S T A C I B A R t l e y.com visit staceybartley.com today. Self help, healing, spirituality and more on Alternative Talk 1150.

Hey, welcome back. If by chance you're just joining us, we're going to be having a conversation today about being a hot mess. Either you're a hot mess, somebody you're you're with is a hot mess. You don't know how to support them. And how do you navigate your way through that hot mess? And we're doing all this in light and then spirit and celebration of March Madness and Babe, I have to be Honest with you. You know, there's this thing in the spring when spring gets close, right. And there's in the behavioral world, in the human behavior world, there's piece where it's like, you know, you're like howling and you get all out of sorts and you know, you. I mean, because historically that's when you would braid your animals and some things like that would happen. And it wasn't until we were coming on the radio station, I was like, oh yeah, it's basketball too. Like, like that hadn't even clicked for me in regards to March. So anyway, I just wanted to share that. I'm not quite sure. So, you know, spring tends to elicit like all kinds of changes in our lives and we tend to get a little more excited ML and we kind of come out of hibernation and we want to, you know, get jiggy with it, you know, maybe procreate, hopefully, you know, create some things, build some things. Whether that's, you know, a cute little human being or it's like planting in the garden or maybe starting that business. You know, these are normal experiences that we have with inside of ourselves that kind of creates a bit of March madness right. In us as human beings. Because it's like, ah, I got to get to it. It's time to get started. Let's go, let's go.

So, yeah, so March Madness again per this episode. Keep it relevant and tight. Sorry, we had a slight little woo. Stacy like to take us way out there sometimes. All good, honey. You know, this is March madness in a sense. So again, it's all based around. We're doing a five day challenge right now. If you're listening live, it's relationship reset. So, you know, we're finding this place of, of being a hot mess. There's some madness going on. There's some things that aren't working. Guess what, number one. It's okay. There's nothing wrong. It's simply part of the journey. Many times we've been led to believe or we think there's something wrong. Yeah, there's something wrong in the sense things aren't going well. But it potentially is not the end of the era, if you will. It's not doom and gloom. It's simply the message, Knock, knock, who's there? There's some challenges and we need to work through them.

Absolutely. Unfortunately, as we've talked in previous episodes, we did a whole episode on emotional weightlifting and I'm just throwing that out there in case what I'm about to say really highlights some Antennas that go up inside of you, this place. Emotionally. We relate a lot emotionally with our pain. We relate it to our physical pain. Because when it comes to emotional pain, we tend to think that there's something wrong with us, that we've done something wrong, that somebody else has done something wrong, and we must get to the bottom of where it all comes from without realizing, okay, just like our physical pain, there's a place where I need to look at it and I need to address it and I need to maybe take the next step and get into some remedies. And we're going to talk about those today because it's really important for us to just take a breath and realize you wouldn' think that you were never going to cut your finger again or stub your toe, right? Or, or maybe have some kind of a physical mess, you know, kind of a hot physical mess in your life, like the breaking of a glass or, right, A mishap or a spill or you wouldn't just think you're done with that and you're going to move on now. And yet we do that in our emotional lives. It's. It's this place where we. We really kick ourselves hard and those that are in relationship with us when there's an emotional mess that's made, when maybe I forget about something that was important, you, or, you know, I say something trying to communicate my side of things, and it seems to, you know, challenge you in a way that I don't understand and I don't get. And these are little places where the emotional pain is just saying, hey, it's time to look and see where, where off as far as our understanding goes. But instead it kind of reels us into these places where that should have never happened or that should have never been said or you should know better. There's all this should that gets pulled out and, oh, it makes us really challenge to communicate and to talk about and explore the emotional pain, let alone find a remedy. Unfortunately, we don't get better at finding remedies because there's no safe place to really talk about the emotional pain as we beat ourselves up for doing it wrong or getting it wrong or making a mess emotionally as well as for our partners or the people that we love the most. This all leads us to a place where we start trying to leverage and coerce because that's what we know and that's what we've been taught to do. And so we've got to walk you through some better remedies, in our opinion, about how to better manage hot messes emotionally that are going to come up. It's going to happen. And how I know that is just live enough life, you know, the emotional messes are coming just like the physical messes are. And then we have this whole illusion and this dialogue around what an emotional mess is and how often it should come and what it means when they show up without realizing. It's just kind of a natural, normal part of being a human being. And as a matter of fact, if you're a human being, and I hope that you're raising your hand, and if you're not a human being, well, then this doesn't apply to you. Forget about what I'm trying to, you know, what I'm going to say next. But if you are a human being, you are literally a messmaking machine, physically and emotionally. Like, we get it wrong more times than we get it right. And if we could use the metaphors of how we handle a physical mess in comparison to how we handle an emotional mess, those things can be managed the same. So I'm giving you some clues in regards to where to look when you lose your way.

And I would say that again, just building on what Stacy just shared with us as many times. And again, it's nobody's fault. We're not pointing fingers here. And no one's superior or inferior. It's simply we're doing the best we can with the information and practice we've had is when we get to these places of challenge emotionally in our relationships, we typically think it's the other person, the sibling, the parent, the spouse, the husband, the partner's problem and not mine. And once we get them to see that, it's all going to be good. And you won't hear that from us because again, and we're not dismissing what's going on. Please hear us what we're saying. But the way to, to. To get through that, the way for everyone to be heard, acknowledged, and appreciated when these hot messes occur, is what we're all about.

So let's talk about what a hot mess feels like for a minute. Right? And I'd love to hear what they. I mean, I assume that they. I mean, I see in our clients that we serve that there's a similar thread to them all. But, you know, it might be kind of fun for. I'd love to hear what your hot mess feels like.

Never had one in my entire life. Not. Come on, whatever.

For me, I noticed that. And we all kind of start out in a different place. In fact, we have a whole process to uncover this in the body of work that we do. We call it that thing I do. And we all have a thing that we do. We don't need to be ashamed of it. Most times we try and bury that thing I do do in the closet. And some of us have, like, a visceral physical reaction. Right. Some of us, like, have more of an emotional reaction. But eventually there are combinations of physical and emotional. So let me tell you what I'm talking about. The minute I start turning into a hot mess, I notice that I get this supercharge of energy in my body. Like, it's like, whoo. Right? And I'm. I'm like, okay, I think I could move a mountain right now. And what did you just say? That's my first sign. Sign for me that, okay, here we go. Hot mess is looming. So what would you say is your first.

It would be shut down. I'd be the opposite. You know, go quiet, withdraw, go within. And. And. And very quietly and very effectively look real good on the outside. I'm a freaking hot mess on the inside. So I'm fuming still while looking good, but definitely quiet. Go quiet, go within.

Mm. And then for me, I just. And I think this happens for most of us as our minds just start to tumble. They start to just ruminate on that phrase or that experience or that event that just took place, and you kind of start obsessing about it. You just play it over and over and over and over and over again in your mind. Right. Would you say that's true for you too?

Yeah, I would say there's. There's a. Certainly a pretty entertaining, fatalistic type dramatic flair that can get infused as well.

Yeah.

Maybe I should be in movie production, right?

Maybe. So we all have a horror movie, by the way. In fact, most of us spend a lot of time in our horror movies. It's kind of like, get your popcorn, get your Coke. This one's gonna really kick your fanny.

But, you know, it's interesting. We like to remind people, guess what? No one else is at the. At the flick but you. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but that's an important distinction. All kidding aside, you know, that's a movie framework that we use a lot with our clients. But yeah, you're the only one at your movie. And we think everyone is there.

They're not.

They're in their own.

Yeah.

Believe me, they're doing a fine job on their own as well. Hence why we have this huge disconnect. Everyone's at their own movie and we all think we're at the same ours. Yeah.

And so this movie can turn into a place where, you know, the principle applies in our human behavior that we show up as good as we feel. So this emotional undertow that we experience, whether we're feeling good or we're starting to turn into a hot mess, absolutely dictates whether I can be present and hear you, whether I can show up and address what's at play. Most of us, I mean, I got to be honest, as a human being, managing this internal experience is a full time job for us. So if it feels like a burden to try and figure out somebody else, that's why it is a burden. Because we got enough of a job to kind of try and keep ourselves in check. Right. Let alone trying to figure out what you've got going on. Right. Although some of us out there are going to relate to the idea that we try. We try and figure out somebody else, we try and figure out why they do what they do and say what they say. And we try so hard to manage them and enroll them and coerce them and.

Right.

Beg and plead. And you need to know if that's you. All right. That's called doing the emotional weightlifting for everybody. And it's going to be only a matter of time before you're going to get exhausted.

And I will just share one important point is trying is much different than, you know, figuring out. And everything is much different than, you know, the Stephen Covey seek first to understand. We even say no, actually behave as you. As you know and understand. So it's much different to understand what someone is going through than to try to figure it out for them.

Yes. And figuring it out from that's a huge distinction, babe. I'm glad you brought that up. That's huge. The only way you're ever going to know what's going on internally in somebody else's world is if they share it with you. So we can ask and we can inquire and we can share our own experience with them. But if you're guessing or assuming or jumping to conclusions, you're doing the emotional weight lifting of the relationship as you yourself are probably turning more and more into a hot mess. You're either looking for answers to kind of reassure yourself or you're wanting to move the needle for them, which is this really sweetheart thing when you think about it, it's just, it's going to make everybody into a position of lose, lose. And I say lose, lose because you're going to run out of emotional gas if you're doing all the weightlifting for the relationship. And the person that should be the emotional weightlifting person who has show up and needs to show up and share with you what's going on inside of them. Well, they're going to go quiet as somebody else speaks for them and somebody else figures it out for them. But there's probably a whole nother agenda going on on the inside.

So we. I'm sharing our notes here. So we have step one, transform your hot mess into omg.

Well, okay, but. But now we know what a hot mess is, right? Either somebody you're in relationship with, whether it be a lover, a child, sibling, best friend, a bestie, it all kind of plays out the same. These are at the core relationship principles that. That's what a hot mess is. When we refer to it, it's like. And we're all going to have times where we're like, here we go, hot mess afoot. How are we going to navigate this? And instead of doing what we traditionally do, which is trying to do all the emotional weightlifting for everybody, or figure something out about them, figure out why they're doing, saying, not doing, not starting, why they're not stopping, all of those wonderful ideas that you have that would be really good for them. I want you to go in a different direction. Which takes us to step one. To transform a hot mess, what you need to do, believe it or not, is stop, just pause, just sit your butt down and get clear about what's going on for you. I know that sounds very, very counterintuitive because we kind of go, what? What are you talking about? We got to get busy here. We got to let them know. We got to alert, you know, alert.

Well, in the business world, that would be the same. And you correct me if I'm wrong, Mrs. Bartley, slow down the speed up. Right? We have to.

Well, and in the relational world, it's your job to be able to communicate your own thoughts, feelings, and emotions. And until you do that, nobody really knows what's going on for you. You need to do that place or that piece of effort and translation for yourself. And what we tend to do is skip over all of that and just get to trying to understand what the heck the other person is doing. Why do they do that? And why do they say that? I swear, if I could be a mind reader, honey. I mean, but I'm not, and most of us aren't. And so we need to take responsibility for how we see it. And Then inquire about how somebody else might see it and allow them to speak. So many clients and couples come into my office and they are doing all the emotional weightlifting of their relationship and they're exhausted, they're running out of gas, and yet right before my eyes, they'll show up and speak for the other person or they'll tell me what the other person is feeling or why it is they do what they do and just reflect for yourself for a moment. Do you do that in your relationships? It's okay if you do, but just recognize that's never going to help us navigate through a hot mess because you're jumping to conclusions and assumptions and, and you think you've got them all figured out. And I guarantee you there's a piece and a place inside of there you have no idea about because it's not coming from the source. Let's be honest. You don't have access to what's going on inside of them. You don't know how they're interpreting what happened. They're just going quiet like Tom describes he does. And until I ask him what's going on, I will never know. Sure, I can jump to some conclusions and some assumptions and, oh, he must what I said just hurt his feelings, or he doesn't like where we're going, or this isn't going to work with him. But until I ask him, I really won't know for sure. It's important for me to, okay, I have my general ideas of maybe what I think is going on, but then we need to vet that out. And the very best way for me to do that is, is for me to sit my butt down, pause, and get clear about what's going on for me and what it is I would like to ask or know or share about what I just experienced with him. It's the difference between accusing him of, oh, so you don't want to take that trip. You want to go somewhere else and saying, hey, I noticed when I brought up the trip you withdrew, will you help me understand what that's about? And he might say, I'm not ready to talk about it. And I'll say, okay, when you are, will you come get me? And then I'm going to leave him with it. But I wouldn't even know to ask that question if I hadn't done my own part of sit down, pause, get clear about what it is I'm feeling so that I can share that. And that's my part of sharing in the equation. Right? And then I can ask for what it is I want.

Yeah. You'll hear us say many, many times past, if you've listened before and many, many times in the future, that feelings travel faster than thought. So you can understand the power of, you know, you have to slow down. You've got to slow everything down because that will slow your brain down and that will slow the feeling producer down and everything will get synced up to give you an opportunity for it to go better.

Now these, these steps that we do, 1, 2, 3, 4. Here you're going to get to the point where you can do them literally in seconds, if, if not minutes. But we need to kind of walk you through them so that you understand what we're talking about. So if you start to turn into a hot mess or somebody else is starting to talk, talk and turn into a hot mess. What I'm going to encourage you to do is everybody sit down and get clear about what it is you want to say, where it is you, you, what it is you're feeling. Just sit down and pause. Best gift you can give yourselves and your relationships. If not, what's going to happen is you're going to escalate, you're going to turn it into a fight. And now we're really off to the rodeo. And gosh, just ask yourself, does that ever take us to a good place? Nine times out of 10, no. It's the place where we regret saying things, doing things. We start leveraging for the position of power and who's in the. We can't talk about that right now, but manipulation, we start jockeying for who's in the power position, which I call the race to the bottom. So we have to be mindful of that. And your best course of action, when things start to escalate or go south or you turn into a hot mess or your partner turns into a hot mess is, is sit down, be quiet, take a pause, let everything catch up, as Tom had mentioned. And then the next thing I want you to do is, yes, get clear about what's upsetting you, like what just happened, that's really upsetting you. But don't stop there. That's just the beginning of what I want you to do. In step two, once you get clear about what hurts, right where the pain is, what's not working, I want you to do the really challenging emotional push up of, well, this is what you don't want, then what do you want? And we don't talk about those things. Right. When it comes to solving emotional pain and problems, we tend to Just think if we bang on, around on the problem long enough or who's responsible for this problem in the first place, it's going to somehow resolve itself. Right? It's going to somehow. And heaven forbid we have to come back and have this conversation again. Don't make me do that. When the reality is it might take several rounds of communication, seeking the understanding about what's playing out for the two or more people in your relationships to get to the solution that everybody's looking.

For, you know, or if you have enough presence and you take that pause and you're one or however many is not ready to really have an honest, honest, you know, where everybody's heard type conversation around this mess and you say, okay, I'm not ready yet. And then when make sure you. And then. But many times we find our clients like you don't seem to get back to that rescheduling of this.

So yeah, pause is not to be misconstrued as a let's just bury this and move on. Pretend like it's not happening. No, it's a pause. And we're going to identify a time and place where we're going to come back around and we're going to actually take another try at this. But that's how I want you to view it as you take another stab at it. Right. It might take you to resolve more challenging problems and challenges in our relationships. It might take us 50 tries. And that's okay because every round counts. Every round gets us a little closer to uncovering, covering what it is we need to understand that's going to actually be the clues to how we move through this. So it's important that you get from don't want to want because once we get you to want, that's where we want to step into the communication and the conversations with each other. Until then, we're going to talk about the problem. And every time we just bang around on the problem and try and point fingers and get somebody to take responsibility for that problem, we are heading off to the land of the, you know, where. It's not a place we want to go. It's not a place we want to build a life. It's a place that we always end up doing, saying, behaving, leveraging things that don't make us feel good at the end of the day and we inevitably create a bigger mess.

So pick your own adjective there, you know, but it's pretty self explanatory. Yeah, it's a place of. No, it doesn't take any of us into any place. That's good.

Yeah. So step one, sit down and pause. Let everything catch up.

Up.

Step two, get clear about what it is that's frustrating you and take that don't want and flip it. It's just the polar opposite of this is what I don't want. For example, I don't want to be shut down. I don't feel like I'm being listened to. Well, then I need you to listen to me. That's my want. I just want you to hear me out. Ask for that. Now you're in a primed position to step in and have a conversation about that. Right. And then we step into step three, which is how to say that. And there's some wonderful phrases that we're going to give you right now on the radio. We're going to give you some. Do this, don't do that. Right. Replace this for that so that you can step in and powerfully say what it is you want to say. Once you get to want, that's where we want to start the communication. And so come on back. We're going to take a break for a minute, but come on back. We're going to give you those communication frameworks and then we're going to step into step four and give you the rest of this. Be right back.

Reset your relationship in five days flat. From March 8th through the 12th.

It's a free five day experience.

Five days full of free live workshops, foolproof roadmap and the exact tricks and tools you'll need to reset your relationship.

Day 1. Transform your hot mess.

Learn how. Catching yourself in the moment is the secret to learning what we call the power of a pause.

Day two, get back to dreaming with your partner.

You'll learn exactly what you need to do to start dreaming with your partner again. So often when our relationships are suffering, we're focused on focused only on what we don't want. You're going to learn what to do instead.

Exactly what to do during arguments.

During arguments, most of us either find ourselves in one of two camps. Controllers. We're trying to bogart the conversation and tell our partners what to do.

Collapsers.

We shut down or walk away from the conversation. There's a third and really powerful option today. Today you're going to learn it.

Ready to return to bliss.

Resetting our relationships is all about getting back to how we felt at the beginning of our love stories. Remember what it felt like to know you were the most important person to your partner. So today you're going to learn how to sprinkle a little fairy dust.

Let's pull it all together.

We're going to bring together everything you've learned so far. And you'll learn the four step strategy our clients use to stop the endless arguing, reignite their connection, and save their relationship.

To learn more and to register, visit stacybartley.com reset that's stacybartley.com reset. Do you feel like your love life is on life support? It's time for a turbocharged relationship resuscitation with an alternative to marriage counseling. Head over to staceybartley.com to learn more about their proprietary programs their clients use to save their relationships. S T A C I B A R t l e y.com visit stacybartley.com today are you tired of sitting on a couple's counselor's couch and feeling like, like you're just rehashing the past and making no progress? Do you feel like you're holding on to your relationship but panicked you're losing your partner? It's time to learn how to deepen your connection. Finally resolve the arguments that keep coming up. Understand yourself and your partner and create the level of intimacy you've been dreaming of. It's time for love. To tingle your toes again. Schedule your private session with relationship expert stacey bartley@staceybartley.com checkup. Get your daily dose of Variety Alternative Talk 1150.

Hey, welcome back to the Love Shack. Inside the love shack. Today we've been having a conversation about what a hot mess is. How to know when you're there. And we've talked about the first two steps, actually, that you can take when you or yourself or maybe a loved one is turning into a hot mess. Because it's about navigating through the hot mess.

Step number one. Quick recap, if you're just joining us.

Yeah. Step number one is you gotta pause. I know that's the hardest thing in the whole wide world. It sounds really easy. But when the emotions are flared and we're starting to spin and run in a hot mess inside of ourselves, sometimes that's the most difficult part, is just to get yourself to disengage and take a pause. Pause.

And how long when you say pause, are we talking like 10 minutes or 10 breaths or somewhere in between?

Well, it could depend on how big of a hot mess you are. Right. If I, if it's a small hot mess, you know, maybe I can just sit down and breathe for a few seconds. If it's a big hot mess, I can even get to a place where I can Close my eyes and take a breath while I'm still talking. Right. I do that often, right. When I feel like we're in a conversation and I feel like I just need to reset myself. I'll close my eyes and just take a few breaths and nobody ever notices. But it's everything to me because what happens when you breathe and you close your eyes is there's no way that your emotional body and your physical body can't reconnect. So there's this beautiful place where I get to feel my heartbeat and I get to feel my emotional body and what's really going on.

And I would say it also, correct me if I'm wrong, it would close you off to all the external stimulation. Right. And closing your eyes is important.

And where I go next is, okay, what's going on and what do I need to ask for? That's how fast this happens.

Okay, what's going on and what do.

I need to ask for? That's step number two. What's going on? What hurts, what's troubling me and what do I want out of this? And I try to get to want as fast as I can. Now, if by chance, and you probably haven't, we don't think about want enough in our lives. In fact, it's almost been something that we've been maybe shamed for as a kid, for a lot of us where what do you think? You know, the world revolves around you. You just get what you want. I mean, you know, so there's a lot of messaging around us as human beings that tells us that talking about what it is we want or asking for what it is we want is not something that's okay or you're being very selfish. And so I want to really. That's going to be a challenge for us. And so that's, I'm sure, one of the reasons why we bang on the problem. Thinking that's going to help us find a solution. It will never help us find a solution. It just makes everybody feel shameful and guilty and bad. And it's not a great way to problem solve the emotional hot messes that we have that come up and are inevitable and going to continue in our lives. We've got to find some better ways to work with them. So this emotional place is what is it that hurts? But as quickly as you possibly can, start to develop a drawer of what do I want, what do I want, what do I need? Right? What's going on? Because once I get to want, I can advocate it, I can Share it. I can inquire, we can strategize. There's all kinds of places we can go out outside of the problem, as I'm driving for what it is I want. And so I can do that in nanoseconds now, but it's only because I've practiced it and practiced it, which is what I want you to do. Okay, I want you to practice creating a file drawer of what do you want emotionally? What do you want to have happen? What's the problem? That's going to tell you what you need to remedy. And if I ask myself, what do I want to have happen here, that's going to give me the remedy for what it is that's troubling me.

Okay, so again, we've taken that pause. We're asking for what we want.

Step three, from within side of myself. Step three is where we get to step in now, armed with our want or some idea of what I might want or maybe the exploration of what I want. That's a great place to enter into a conversation and a communication with somebody else. And what we tend to do is we tend to react. Ah, can't believe you just said that. Ah, how dare you go there. Didn't we already talk about that? Those are, you know, examples of what a reaction looks like. And instead of reacting, we want to take that time to pause. We want to take that time to reflect on what's going on inside of me and what's driving the show. Right? That's so important. Right? We can't attack somebody enough to motivate them or enroll them in understanding me, giving me what I want, etc. What's going to happen is you're going to push something that you want to have come closer to you further away. And unfortunately, that's what typically happens. If you've ever asked yourself the question, you know, we started and things were so great, and now we're, you know, six years in and I feel further away from you than ever. It's because we don't know how to navigate ourselves through a hot mess. And so, believe it or not, we show up as good as we feel, and we keep pushing that person further away in an effort to try and get them to come close and understand us. When you really think about it in logical terms, you kind of go, gosh, that doesn't make any darn sense. It doesn't make any darn sense. But that's what we do, right? We push you away in hopes that you'll come close. And it's painful because you're doing exactly the opposite of what it is you're hoping to have happen.

Yeah. Or you're creating the exact thing of what you don't want to happen. Said another way, which we. When we're able to share that with our clients, I think, oh, my gosh, you're right. I never thought. Yeah. We're oftentimes we're creating and behaving in the exact manner of what were so called a hot mess about. So if you can get that around, then you have to flip that.

So right here, we promised to give you some things that you could say. Right. I'm going to do that. But you can also go to our website@stacybartly.com reset and you can sign up for the challenge. Now, we're day four into our challenge, but that's okay because once you get into the Facebook group, you can watch all the videos that go more in depth into each of these steps that we're sharing with you today. And the really juicy part, the part that would make it all worth it for you, is that there's workbooks attached to each one of these, and you can get a whole list and a whole lot of other goodies that are going to help you create the templates and the worksheets to do exactly what it is we're describing.

And it's all complimentary.

Yeah, absolutely. For free. So what I want you to do is say this. Say, I want to hear what you have to say, but not like this. Instead of maybe it's alternative. Shut up. Shut your mouth. I don't want to hear what you have to say. Or you can say this. I need some space to myself. Instead of, leave me alone, leave me alone. I just need some time alone. Or you can say, how can I support you? Instead of what's wrong with you? Or I miss you when you're not around. Versus you're never home anymore. How about this? Say, it seems like you're playing. Is that true? It seems like you're upset. Is that true? Instead of what's going on now? Are you okay? Switch these out. Right. I would like to help you with feeling better. Or I'd like your help doing the dishes. Or I would like your help with. Please. You never help me. You're never there. I do all this for you and you're never around. How about I switch out? I'm worried about money. Can we work on this? Versus you're spending too much money. That's all you do is spend. I can't Believe it. Here's another one. Here's another one. When are you going to stop it? So these are things that we can learn how to switch out. We can still say what it is we need to say, but one is a reaction to the emotion and the hot mess that you're experiencing and the other one is actually a want or and inquiry in regards to what it is we need to do.

Yeah, and just, I mean think about just as a, just as like in powerful writing and speaking, there's just a slight change. Many times in the order of how you're delivering the same words. You notice the difference when Stacy said would encourage you to say and share this versus the opposite. They're, they're not hugely different. Excuse me. Many times it's simply the sequence or the order of which we are encouraging you to share.

I'm going to encourage you to replace furious with curious. Replace blame and shame for exploration and understanding. Replace manipulation for permission and safety. Replace ignoring for expression. Tell them, share with them. Criticism for disclosure, control for support. Waiting. Don't wait. Create a do over in real time.

Okay.

These are things that we can do that absolutely can help us navigate through hot messes and really move the needle in regards to the directions that we want to go in our relationships. And again, until we know how to do better, we will continue to know what we do. And so this worksheet right here alone is a great reason to get inside of that Facebook group and print this out because everything I just described and more is on that worksheet. And you can literally internalize them and use them in a moment where you need to say one thing. Okay, okay. How do I say it? Oh, I say it like this.

Yeah. Because I can tell you and it seems, I know you may be surprised, may not, but many times we'll have clients say, you know, Stacy, share with me again. How do I say that? So again, to be redundant, to be repetitive, a lot of our work is to help you just change the sequence in order of what you're sharing. And it can create a 180 different outcome, I can promise you.

But it's really hard to do if you don't do steps one and two first. That's why we don't just give you the communication frameworks. You gotta take the pause and you gotta get clear about what you're feeling.

All builds sequentially on the prior step. So yeah, this is very, very. It's only five steps. It's not 500 or 50. So.

Well, and here's number four.

Number four.

Let's move into number four, which is my fantastic favorite. It number four is at the end of the day, we're all fighting and banging around for three simple needs that we all have as a human being. And those needs are thus, number one, we all have a desire to feel heard. Even if you don't agree with me, I want to somehow get that you understand where I'm coming from, man. How many fights continue to outplay because I simply just don't feel heard. I know for myself sometimes I'll say it again and again and again and again and again. And Tom has to go, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, I hear you. And I go, okay, I can let that go. He understands where I'm coming from. What about you? How much of the time are you fighting to just simply feel heard? The second one is I want to feel appreciated and acknowledged. Let's be honest. Relationships that mean a lot when we care a lot, they take a lot of effort and energy, don't they? And we want to be acknowledged and appreciated for all the hard work that we're putting in, all the self sacrifice that we're doing and experience, experiencing to love you, to make this work. Right? All of that really intense emotional weightlifting that's required from time to time. I want to be appreciated for that. If I'm the one that's earning the money, I want to be appreciated for that. If I'm the one that's cleaning the house and taking care of the kids or doing the cooking or washing the dishes or taking out the trash or walking the dog or all the myriad of things that happen, right? We want to be acknowledged and appreciated for those things. We all do. They're important. We want to know that it's being seen, that it's acknowledged. And then the last one is the culmination is I want to know that this all matters, that it's all for something, right? That I matter to you and that this relationship matters. I matter. What we're building, what we're doing matters. It all matters. And those three things, I want to feel heard. I want to feel appreciated and acknowledged, and I want to feel like I matter. We matter. This relationship matters is usually 99.9% of all the reasons we fight. We're looking for those three things. So if we were to go back to number two, there's a shortcut for you.

And number two was.

And number two is knowing what you want. Yes. This is looking at pain. I don't want this. This doesn't feel good. I'M really upset about this. What do I want? Well, there's a shortcut to want. Do you want to feel heard? Do you want to feel appreciated and acknowledged? Or do you want to feel like you're mattering? Those three wants are typically what we're fighting for. So just go there.

And I would encourage you to remember, so does whoever you're, you're having this mess with, like, whoever that is, they, you know, any human being really. And we say this because it's in our 10 years of work, we've pretty much been able to distill it down. Think about it, that that human being across from you or whatever wants to have those same three feelings and experiences too.

So you're going to forget about what these three are. But what we're going to call it so that you'll remember is fairy dust. You'll remember fairy dust, and we want you to sprinkle it freely because knowing this information gives you a huge leg up. And if there ever was a fairy dust for relationships and getting back to bliss, this would be it, right? And we can't get enough of it. We really can't as a human being. And so, and also, you know, as I sprinkle it, I can not only sprinkle it for somebody else, but I can also ask for it it, I can advocate for it.

And I'll give you an example, you know, times, you know, guess what, ladies and gentlemen, Stacy and I, we, we navigate life just like all of you and teach this because we need it the most. But Stacy, you know, there'll be times where she'll just stop what she's doing and turn to me and say, you know what, I need to hear from you right now. I mean, that clear and that concise. I'll say, share with me. And then I will. I love the clarity and the, and the preciseness of it.

And also, anytime is a good time for fairy dust. We can use fairy dust if something is escalating, right? I can say, you know what? Let's stop right now. I just want you to know I love you and I want to hear what you have to say. But not like this. Let's come back to this in a minute. I can call that pause. I can, I can call that reset, right? And push that reset button. I can also say, or offer fairy dust for no reason at all. Hey, as you're leaving the house, or, you know, just because I poked my head in your office, I can say, hey, I just want you to know you're pretty awesome. I love you. You're amazing. Thank you so much.

And I can tell you from the receiving end, that never gets old.

I agree.

Never gets old. Think about it. How infrequently any of us going through our normal course of our day experience those three things that we're all after. It's very, very infrequent. I'm pretty confident in saying that.

And here's the really juicy part. If you're having to share something that's difficult, you can use it on the front side and say, hey, what I have to share with you is really kind of challenging me, and I'm really kind of scared right now. But I want you to know I love you and this relationship matters to me, and I just want to say my piece. And then I promise I'm going to give you a chance to talk, to. Imagine if you stepped into a conversation that was going to be a little challenging for everybody and you already knew it from that place. That in and of itself is going to be a game changer. In fact, we have a framework in our body of work called the Communication Sandwich. And the fairy dust is the beginning, the top of the bread and the bottom, the end of the conversation. Right? And then there's some guts and some communication frameworks in the middle. But literally, fairy dust is the thing that threads through it. Where I start with fairy dust, hey, I have some things that are really challenging I need to share with you, but I do want you to know on the front side, I love you, I care about you, and I want to hear what you have to say about. And here we go. And then I'm going to tell you what I want to say. And then however it goes, the fact that you even allowed this time for us to share, I'm going to thank you for that because remember what I said a little bit ago, we could come back around and big, challenging solutions where everybody's kind of more of an emotional hot mess. They sometimes take several rounds, and that's okay. This idea that we have problems that we have to solve right now and that we never have to come back to that them is a lie. It's a misnomer. It's something we've got to kick out. And please, for heaven's sakes, don't go to bed. I mean, don't go to bed and tell you. How does that. How does that saying go?

Never go to bed when you're still arguing.

Please don't buy into that. That's terrible advice. Terrible advice. If you're tired Go to bed. It'll still be there for you to solve in the morning. And what happens is we get so tired that somebody's going to end up giving in and it's not true for them and that's going to get vetted out later down the road. So I am. I think that's terrible advice. Please go to bed. We'll come back to it. Do it. Okay. Okay. That's a total side note. Back to fairy dust. Fairy dust can be sprinkled anytime for any old reason, any old time.

And you can never share it too often.

Yes, absolutely. Now, step five. Step five is something that hasn't happened yet. It's happening tomorrow, live, 10pm PST.

No.

Yes. That's what I said. Did I say PM?

Yep.

PM oh, I'm so sorry.

Becoming late. Yeah, it's a.m. if you want to.

Be involved in the culmination where we're going to bring this all together and we're going to actually walk you through the four step strategy that I teach my clients that stops the endless arguing and reignites the connection to save relationships, to actually create relationships, all the juicy stuff that we love. I'm going to encourage you to join us for that.

And if you're listening to this at a later time, just go ahead and follow those prompts and I'm sure we'll have something connected with our fabulous team that will figure out and get you to that place. Yeah. Just one way or the other. But if you're listening live or shortly thereafter, then join us tomorrow, which is Friday, March 19th.

Yeah, absolutely. So on that note, any questions that we want to say, hey, that's.

Well. And I just.

That's a question.

And if we don't, it's a great reminder. Usually I remind people, you know what this, we'd love to be able to be of service to you and you can call and ask us a question. You can be very private and anonymous. If you'd like, you can go to our website, Stacy S T A C I and right on our Love Shack Live radio show page, part of our website. Excuse me, you can. There's a wonderful technology called speak pipe and you can leave us a voice message. You don't have to say your name or where you're from. Simply ask us the question. You can also call or text us as well.

And we want to hear from you. Right. There's also going to be a live that's happening in conjunction with our challenge tonight on our Facebook page. Again, you can get all those juicy details at our website, stacybartley.com if this makes sense to you, right, if these steps are things that are helpful and that you're finding useful in your life, come and be part of implementing them into your life. It's one thing to learn it, a whole nother thing to implement it. So, unfortunately, we have to say goodbye now, right?

Fastest hour of our week, right?

I totally agree. We're going to tell you right right now that next week we're going to be having a wonderful Vixen Academy woman who's going to come back and talk to us about all the sexy things related to relationships. We want to invite you to come on back and be with us. And we also want you to know that we appreciate you being here and listening to us and being part of our show. And our song that's going to close out this episode is a wonderful song by Copy Yak. Now, if you're like many of us, you probably don't know a lot about them. They're kind of new to the scene in the last five years and I love them. They are fantastic. And by the way, they're great dance music. But the reason why I chose this song for our episode today is I think they're worth words. Say it best if I want to be your lover you never know until you try, try, try. Meaning that if we want to become better lovers on our relationships, if we want to become better at this relationship journey, we need to try. We need to go for it. We need to allow ourselves to immersed, to be immersed in it and to just try, try, try because it's important, because it's valuable to us and this is. Is what we need to do. Don't be afraid to try anymore. To go for it, to give it your best.

So I would say that's why you, you love to choose a song at the end of each episode is to bring us into the experience, the experiential part of this relationship journey.

I want you to feel. I want you to feel what we're talking about. I want you to. There's nothing that does that better than music. So enjoy the song. We. We say try, try, try. Go for it. Allow yourself to jump in and love wholeheartedly. Right? It's never going to work out unless you get all. So go ahead, get all in and try, try, try. We look forward to being back here next week with you. We'll talk soon.