#38: Relationship Question: Do you feel free to show up as your authentic self?

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Welcome to the Love Shack. A little old place where we get to get together, explore fresh perspectives and eavesdrop on juicy conversations and uncover the mysteries that nobody talks about, but absolutely influence our relationships. If you are struggling in your marriage, just starting out in a new relationship, or are single and know you gotta do better next time, this show is for you. I'm Stacey Bartley, and I'm here with this guy, my lover. Together for the past decade, Tom and I have been loving on people from around the world with the sole purpose of taking the fear out of love and relationships and helping us learn the skills that can take us in the direction we want to go, which, in my opinion, is more toe tangling. So thanks so much for joining us here.

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Heck yeah. So we're gonna start out with a relationship question today as we jump into our topic for the heart of the matter. Do you feel that you show up as your authentic self, like your free self, or in your relationship, or do you find that you shut yourself down, you go along with. You put up with things that are not necessarily working for you? We tend to do this a lot in the beginning of relationships, only to find ourselves in what we call in our body of work and emotional prison. And I know for sure I've taken that journey and so many of us do, so much so that there's a whole conversation in our society about whether to get into committed relationships and at all. Because then we don't have to worry about rejection. We don't have to worry about the heartbreak. We don't have to worry about even admitting that I cared in the first place. If you decide that, you're out of here. So it's a way that we protect ourselves, right? And so this whole journey of navigating, I'm too far into my relationship and I don't know how to get the heck out, or I'm single and I don't know how to get in. All in. I'm kind of hanging on the fringes. It all points to how is it that. That I stay connected to myself, that I have and maintain the ability to freely and authentically express myself. So here in the States, it's going to be fourth of July here. Coming up this weekend, we thought it would be a great time to have the conversation. Are you free to be your authentic self in relationships and not just our romantic relationships, but other relationships as well? It's a question that we're going to dive deep into and explore how you too can work yourself out of the emotional prisons that maybe you find yourself in right now and find the freedom to express you. We'll be right back after this break.

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Working with stuff. Stacy has been life changing in a very magical way. I wanted to work with Stacy when I left a long term marriage because I didn't want to repeat any of my relational, how would you say, unhealthiness. I'm so amazed how she has taken her experience and wrapped it into her own program. A program that is designed specially for you, for anyone that moves forward with her. She's unique, she's profound, she's, she's magical. She has a love for others that is unmatched and it would be a gift to yourself to work with Stacy.

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Welcome back. We are your host Tom and Stacy Bartley, Love Shack Live. Great to have you with us. We today are talking about freedom. Freedom in our relationships. Again, if you're here joining us in the United States, this is a big weekend. This is kind of like the the halfway through huge summertime celebration 4th of July. So happy 4th of July to all of you here in the United States. And if you're outside the United States, happy weekend to you as well. Just a quick shout out or quick important announcement, I guess.

I guess important. I was wondering if you were going to get to that.

How about a PSA public service announcement? No. All kidding aside, also we have our awesome engineer, Eric Ryder at the spaceship kknw. Thank you so much. We are opening up our phone lines and again, this is something that we're really, really passionate about to be of service to you. And at any time, if you would like us to help you with some type of a problem, a question, how you might say something, how you might, you know, get through a difficult situation, we are here to serve you. There's no judgment. We don't take sides, we don't blame and shame. We're simply looking to help you take your next best step. And you can call 425-373-5527.

I think you need to say that again.

Okay, 42537, 35527. And I'll just say you just, you don't need to say who you are. You don't need to say where you're from. You can simply go right into your question. Eric will be there to answer your phone and he'll let us know and we'll do our very best to help you take your next best step.

We decided to thr this out on the front side because as we dive into this conversation today, there may be questions that you want to ask that come up for you as you're listening in. And if by chance you're watching this on the replay or the podcast, you can go ahead and go to our stacybartley.com podcast page and you can ask your questions there, too. So this is meant to be an interactive experience and we're going to stir up some stuff today through our conversation. I just know it. So let's dive into that, shall we? I asked the question as we were starting the show about do you feel like you can show up as the person that you truly feel like you are on the inside? We call that our authentic self, our true self. We have lots of names for it. But do you notice that it's difficult for you to just show up, say what you need to say, acknowledge some challenges that you're maybe not okay with, and just notice how we play that out? If we don't show up as our authentic selves, what we tend to start showing up as is somebody who's going to run the show, right? We're going to do it. Our agenda and nobody else's agenda matters or we're going to typically acquiesce or some combination of those two. It's a place that we typically go because we don't know what else to do. And so just take a moment right now as you're listening to my voice and see if you can identify where you might be in that pendulum swing. Now, this isn't just for people who are in committed relationships because this happens for people who are single as well. So let's take a look at both, shall we? And then I'm going to share a personal story about my own journey on both sides of being single and in a long term committed relationship so that you can see my story play out and maybe relate it to your own. So let's start with the married people.

Well, let me just say I'm going to be devil's advocate here because I love to do that because it's just, I just like this how I like to roll. But I can hear people like, are you freaking nuts? I mean, yeah, maybe if I'm single I could show up who I really need to be and be my authentic self. But as soon as I blend my life with another significant person, then all of that gets thrown out the window. Would you say that that's a, that might be a common narrative for people?

I would say it's a common pervasive belief that's taught. We almost brace ourselves when we get into committed relationships because we've been taught that it's going to require you give up some part of yourself and become one. That's kind of the common narrative. And if you think about it, we step into committed relationships from a place of I'm going to, I'm going to sacrifice me and I'm going to give it all to you. And we're looking at the other person dead in the eyes and saying, and you're going to do the same for me too, right? Like you're going to make me happy too, right? We go, yes, I'm in. I do, you know, till death do us part. And off we go to the races.

So we're literally looking. We're going to challenge that perception, that story, that narrative.

Well, let's play it out right now. What happens is we get into the relationship and what happens because we learn by experience as a human being, there starts to be things coming up and inevitably this is so that don't work for us. Because we learn through the experiences of our contrast. There's going to be things that we didn't see coming, that we didn't know were going to be part of our relationship. And all of a sudden I'm having an emotional experience that this either works for me or it doesn't work for me. I really like this or I don't like this at all. And unfortunately, because it's new and it's fresh, we don't want to rock the boat. So we have a tendency to not say anything or we have a tendency to attack the person that we feel is to blame for the reason why. I'm feeling the emotional frustration, agitation, irritation or fear and insecurity with inside of myself. And the more that I do this, whether I'm blaming somebody or I'm shutting down, the more this emotion is going to tend to accentuate, situate inside of ourselves to a point where something's going to give, we're going to have a blowout fight. I'm going to finally say what it is I need to say. I'm going to finally let you know how I've been feeling. And there's a. There's lots of fun stories that I could share with you about that. The one that comes to mind right now is somebody who had been given this really expensive perfume for years and years and years at Christmas time, only to find out in year 10. I can't stand it. Why don't you listen to me? Why don't you know me better than this? See, this isn't going to work. You never did love me because you don't understand me and what I like. Well, why did we wait 10 years to say that? Why didn't we say that in year one? Like, oh, thanks so much for the gift, but, oh, this really doesn't work for me. And there's lots of little things like that that we tend to do in our marriage and in our long term committed relationships where we go along with or we blame and shame and then inevitably it breaks down our relationship. So that's one side. So I don't know about y', all, but I certainly went through a place where I thought, well, I know how to solve that problem. We're just not going to get into a relationship. We're going to avoid commitment all together, huh? Handled. Okay. I can love and we can be BFFs and we can have a great time together and I just won't get all in. So I've constantly got one foot in, one foot out in the underground tunnel awaiting me in case I need to put on the shoes and get the.

Heck out of Dodge. The midnight escape Escape plan.

Yes. And there was still something there lacking too, because I couldn't say what I wanted to say. I couldn't tell you that I love you because that's like a forever commitment. So even if I was feeling it, I had to avoid saying I love you or that I care that I want this to work or let's create something because remember, my MO is we're not going to get all in. So I'm robbed of all of those feelings of building a sense of safety with this other person for myself. And then I get to go back to my own safe haven that I know that I'm in control of. But there's no co creation there. And I started to miss it. And I started to realize that keeping myself outside of a relationship isn't necessarily going to work either because I'm still doing something that I really want to focus your attention on right now.

So if I hear you correctly, then between those two extremes, if you will, or choices, there's we're going to be sharing and presenting a place. Well, as a third option.

Yeah. As the done done done to the conversation, I'm pointing you to a place where there's the same thing happening whether I'm in a long term committed relationship or I'm single and struggling to get all in. Can anybody see it? No. Can you see it? You can't play. Because the place that creates the problem is I stop myself. I stop myself from expressing how I feel. I stop myself from saying what I need to say. I stop myself for, you know, stopping blaming you and taking a look at what's going on for me. I stop myself from doing all kinds of things that prevent me from authentically showing up. Whether I'm collapsing and not saying anything or I just continue to blame you and can't figure out why I'm so miserable.

And would it be fair to say that that's probably going on with your significant partner, husband, wife.

So the first thing that I want to really highlight here is the pain, the agitation, the irritation, the frustration comes from you choking yourself off from what you feel, from what you know, from what you would like to explore, from the conversations that you would like to have, from sharing the experiences that you're having or not having, and the disappointment in that. It's all about choking ourselves off from.

Expressing you versus and we say this all the time, pain. There's nothing wrong with pain. Or there it's not that all of a sudden, oh my gosh, you know, the, It's a signal, it's an indicator. And it's the very finest indicator. Yes, partly that is telling us a little to the left, a little to the right. Again, we use this example often and you'll continue to hear us often because everyone gets it. If someone was, in fact, I just was at the grocery store right before our show and no one did this, but if someone happened to step back and step on my foot, we're still social distancing. But I wouldn't take. It wouldn't take me too long to say, excuse me, could you please, you know, you've stepped on my foot, you know, could you please step off? Right. So pain, emotional pain, feeling pain is the same thing. It, it doesn't have to freak us out. Oftentimes it does. It's simply the greatest indicator that we need to course correct.

Right.

We need to course correct.

Well. And I really want to point out how important it is for us to connect with ourselves, understand ourselves, be able to translate that language into a language that first we can understand. Because at the end of the day, it's my job to teach the people in my life how to love me. It's not their job to figure it out. And so you can see, when we step to the altar and we say, I do, or we say, hey, baby, let's move in together and let's build a life, you're going to make sure I'm happy, right? And you're going to make sure I'm happy, right? You can see right from the get go, we're set up on a faulty premise because they don't have nobody does the access to the information to know what makes you happy and what doesn't. That's information that you've got to become familiar with. And as a wonderful quote from a wonderful writer called Sark that I love, she said in a book that her therapist said to her one day and confronting her on this issue, you're forcing the people to carpet the world so that you can freely feel comfortable to walk it without realizing that if you would look within yourself, you can learn to walk anywhere you want to go. And I went, that is so well said. And we do that we think that we're going to be happy if we can force or coerce or explain, teach the per. The people in our lives what it is we need so that we won't feel pain and frustration and irritation in our emotional bodies without realizing, guess what? I need to learn how to navigate those things on my own, because then I can go anywhere. Yes, I can ask for the support of my person, my special someone, the people that love and care about me the most, but I'm still giving them the permission to choose and. Or not. And this is what frees us. If not, when we squelch off or stop ourselves from that expression of who we are, what's working for us, what's not working for us, we essentially choke off our emotional bodies. We choke them off. And when we do that, it's only a matter of time before things will escalate. So if I may, and feel free to ask me questions, I am going to share with you a personal story about my own journey here. Now, as some of you know, because I've shared it before in the show, I ended up pregnant and married at the ripe old age of 17 with a ton of world experience and a complete understanding of love and life.

That's a wink, wink.

Yeah, that's a wink, wink, wink, wink. Like I had zero, zip. None. So here I am trying to figure this out. And guess what? I'm going to cling to the narrative that I was given as a child, of course. And I was born and raised in an LDS family. And so when we find a special someone, it's a one and done. And you don't just marry for time, you marry for time and all eternity. I don't know how long eternity is, but folks, I'm going to tell you, it's a long time. And it feels like a long time. And so to this altar, we step scared to death, say I do. This is just going to go well, right? If we adhere to the principles that we've been taught, do it the right way, pull my life around, repent for my sins, I'm going to be able to figure this out. And then life is going to be good again. We're going to be happy. Well, that lasted about a year and a half. And with a daughter in tow, I ended up getting into a relationship at the age of 20. I was going to do it right this time.

This would be the second time I.

Found somebody that was aligned with me. We were going to drive it home from the religious aspect of our beliefs and what we knew, he was trying to put his life together, too. So it was like, voila. Perfect setup. Thirteen years into our marriage, I was dying.

And how many, how many more children.

At this point in time? We had five. So we've got quite the brewha. And that time in all eternity was something that weighs heavy on you. Like you're not just going to blow up a family in time, you're going to blow up a family that's eternal. I don't know. That felt really heavy for me. And I didn't know how to address the problems in my long term marriage. All I knew was this place where I was stopping myself. This personal expression of what worked for me and what didn't and what I needed in order to thrive and be happy or even give myself the permission to explore. And him too. It wasn't like that. It was a lot of finger pointing and blaming. We didn't really have a great opportunity or the skills to talk about what was working and what wasn't as we all played out our coping skills day in and day out of which ultimately our children paid the price for. And I knew that something needed to change, but I didn't know how to change it. So I too, right, start breaking down. I'm feeling depressed, I'm on medication. Not that that's a bad thing. This is just. But. But it's progressive. That's the thing that I want you to see. Until one day, unfortunately, I had taken it too far. My opinion, looking back, I was just crossing my fingers and hoping that if we kept trying to find or do the right things, prayed enough, went to church enough, repented of our sins enough, figured out how to serve more, love our kids more, all of this was going to work out. And unfortunately, it just continued to escalate until one of our children ended up telling a school counselor that they thought verbal and physical abuse was going on in their house after watching a little video.

Wow.

The next thing I know, I got CPS knocking on my door saying, hey, I hear that, you know, you've got some things going on here in the house that we need to investigate.

CPS as in Child Protective Services? Yeah, that's. That's a big one.

Long story short, after interviewing the kids, the family, me, they basically said, if you don't take these kids and get out of here right now, we're going to ensure that these kids are removed from the house. So take your pick. Now look, I want to point out here in my story, I knew there was problems and I had, in my own head thought about how I was going to address them again and again and again. But every time I would play that round in my head, I would shut myself down. I would stop myself from taking action because of the story, the narrative about how this was supposed to go. And if I was going to blow my family up. Not only was I responsible for hurting another person's feelings, I was also responsible for destroying an eternal family. And that's what kept me in. And I kept thinking, okay, it's just going to be okay. Let me make him happy. Let me give him something else that he needs. It's going to be okay. I'm here for the kids. I can protect the kids. And then I couldn't. And so this was the final straw. And I finally went. I got to take action, scared to death. And I remember the day that I ended up renting my little place. It had three bedrooms with five kids. And I remember, like, touching the walls as I would go around the house, thinking this was my new place. There was going to be a place inside of this house where me, I get to start over and I get to feel free again. No more am I going to be, like, pinned down to not say what I want to say or feel. Like I want to. Like I want to feel. Or decorate the house. I want to decorate, and the kids can run free and be happy and play, and I don't have to worry about how that's affecting anybody. There was this moment of incredible freedom. And because of that experience, that's where I went into the narrative. I know how to solve this commitment problem. We don't get all in. That's how we avoid ever being in that place again, which is where a lot of us that have been through a divorce and this kind of an experience might find ourselves, you know, And I.

Let me just add. I mean, again, please understand, ladies and gentlemen, we're not. We're not pointing fingers, and we're not saying what's right or wrong. That is an option. You know, that is an option. But which part? To say, I'm not going to get committed. I'm not. I'm going to choose to not go. To go forward in a way where I don't get connected, fully connected. I don't step all in. And I would just say the social scientists, people, like, way smarter than Stacy and I, you know, share with us, per their research. Right. That we're designed to be in relationship. In close relationship with people. So I would just throw that out. I'd like to try to keep things objective here. Again, that can be a choice. But what science tells us, what the universe tells us, how we're wired, is wired to being close relation. At least one or more. Yes.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, if. If that weren't the case, we would be getting happier as A society, wouldn't we? Because we're more and more single and more and more calling the shots when it comes to relationships on our own terms. But it's not making us happier. It's the act. It's driving depression and suicides off the chart right now. So let's talk about the other side and why that doesn't work. Like. Like, okay, that seems logical, right? Here's where we stumble as a single person, I certainly did. I would find people that I wanted to be in a relationship with, or there was potential and possibility there. And we would start to explore that. And for some reason, because of this story I had in my head, this fear that I hadn't grappled with inside of myself from my past experience, I couldn't get all in. Like, I could not get all in. I. You would call that, in psychology terms, commitment phobia. But you know what I realized about that, too. Commitment is the easiest thing we do as a human being. It's learning how to inevitably navigate the ups and downs that are going to come. That's what terrifies us. And because we have this narrative that you're just going to find a special someone and they're going to complete you and you're going to become one, and then you're going to ride off into the sunset perfectly and happily, if you get it right, is nonsense. And we need to tell the truth about its nonsense. It's a great story. I love the story. It's a romantic story. But I can assure you that that is not reality. And it's not a reality in anybody's relationship. Regardless of what you think is happening over at the Jones's house, and regardless of how perfect it looks, I guarantee you that relationship has parts and pieces of challenge in it. And I know that because that's how we get better. And that's going to have to be a conversation for another time. But just know we become better people by confronting and tackling the challenges that come to us. And you know what? If we don't have that, we can't become who it is we have the capacity to be. And this is why stopping myself, choking myself off from living in life and expressing who I truly am is so painful for us. Okay, so being single and not getting all in really didn't do much for me. It created a lot of other emotional challenges because I could never truly express how I felt. I say, hey, I really care about you. We have this funny thing inside of us as human beings that we're going to commit Forever. I want to say this right now. If I say I love you, it's not a destination. Love is not a destination, it's an emotion. And it can change because that's what emotions do. They're invisible, they're dynamic, they flow. And how I feel in this moment could dynamically change in the next moment. And it's this expression of our emotional selves that we need to talk more about and do a better job with because this is where our emotional pain is coming from. It's coming from. And I keep saying it, I'm going to keep saying it. From choking ourselves off, from not expressing who we are, right? If I were to draw a circle and say, depressing yourself is depressed expression, that's depression, right? So it's a big deal. And this is how we begin to find ourselves in a place where we feel stuck, where we make up a whole story about why we can't express, say, do be who it is we truly want to explore, do and be. It's not about whether I love you. I can love you and I can know that I don't have the capacity to stay right now. I can love you. But if I can't say it, it's going to turn into an interesting feat. Believe me, I know not only from my own experience, but from the clients that I serve. I had a client recently who for a year and a half danced around not wanting to say I love you because they were afraid that that was going to get them all in, that was going to comm. And so for a year and a half, both of them suffered from the fact of feeling it but not being able to express it. And knowing that if I could express it more freely, it would take us to the place where we felt safe enough to be in a relationship, to co create. So it creates this imbalance inside of relationships where if I can't express to you how I'm feeling and what I enjoy about being with you and what's challenging for me and what's not working, we'll never come up with a solution in order to improve ourselves and our relationships. And inevitably it will fall apart. And that's the reason why most relationships end or fall apart. Not because there aren't great things there to work with, but because the things we work with, right, aren't utilized. We have a narrative, we have a story that we're trying to live. We're going checks and balances about what you are and what you aren't. And I'm thinking that that's going to lead us to the promised land. But nobody's sharing about how they feel, what works for them in the relationship and what doesn't. How do we talk about that?

Well, and I would say that, you know, really looking at it again objectively as possible, you know, the, the common, you know, story, people come together, they have this family's fabulous day of celebration and then life is supposed to live happily ever after. I mean, that is so flawed from the very beginning. Rather than knowing, like, look, this is going to be one heck of a ride. Are you in? Yeah, I'm in. Yeah. Okay, well then let's build for knowing by studying and practicing and becoming better. What's come gonna come at us? Yeah, that's a whole different paradigm versus getting freaked out. The first moment we have that first, you know, non communication silent treatment, you know, I mean, whatever. I mean, it's just like, of course. So why don't we build for it that way? So we're literally turning the entire thing on its head.

So I want to leave you with a few things. Okay. I want to leave you with the idea that what hurts is you stopping yourself. This is the path to freedom. I also want you to know that it's not about going all in or not going all in. It's about learning how to express and share yourself with others in a place where you can have safety and freedom and permission. And those are things that we have to practice. Those are things that we're either really, really good at or things that we struggle with as a human human being. And we need to learn how to get better at those. When do we know how to get all in? In our relationships we have a lease option, contract for love that will help you with that because it's an exploration, it's a journey, it's a path. You're not going to ever know that on the front side. It's going to be a step by step learning experience to see how everybody does and how everyone shows up in a relationship. And you know what's going to inevitably show up? All of our doubts and all of our fears. Can we talk about those? Can we share those? If not, we're going to go to one of those two fabulous coping skills or a hybrid version of control where I'm going to push the agenda or collapse, where I'm going to go quiet like I did in my story, where I just kept thinking, if I please that person, if I go along with that person, I make them happy. It's going to finally work out. No, no, no, it doesn't. It just continued to escalate because I was stopping myself. So exactly how do we start working on this? The first thing that I'm going to encourage you to do right now is practice. In the morning or at night, sit your butt down and just check in with where you are emotionally. Like, tell the truth to yourself, for heaven's sakes. Tell yourself the truth about what's working and not working in your relationship right now. Whether you're single or you're in a relationship. What is it you're longing for? What is it that's frustrating you? What is it that hurts? And then as quickly as you possibly can, what would remedy that? What do you think would ease that, that you can give to yourself without insisting that other people carpet the world so that you can feel safe and comfortable walking wherever you go? You gain the ability to walk wherever you want to go because you know how to navigate through anything yourself.

And is that a writing exercise?

It can be. I recommend you do it as a writing exercise, but it could be a mental exercise. The beautiful thing about a writing exercise is it stops your brain. When you put pen to paper, it actually stops your brain from flipping over and over and over again so that you can focus on one particular thought or emotion. And so if you just bullet point it, you don't have to, you know, I say journal exercise, everybody goes, oh, gosh, I got to write a whole story. No, you don't. Just bullet point it. This is. Is where I'm at today. This is what I'm noticing. Boom, boom, boom, boom.

Or even if it doesn't stop your brain, it certainly will slow things down 100%.

Permission is unconditional love, and we need to learn to give this to ourselves first before we can truly give it to others. You deserve and need the permission to be free to be yourself, to show up, to say what it is you want to say and to know that it matters. It doesn't mean you have to get it, but it just means, man, it feels really good when you can express how you're feeling and know that at least you gave that opportunity in that moment to you. So those are our takeaways today. Begin by sitting down with yourself. Authentically free yourself in just that small little way by just exploring how you feel, what works for you, what doesn't, and what would you want, and set about simple ways that you can start giving those things to yourself and realize that the pain, it's actually stopping, stopping you from saying, doing, and being what you know you have the capacity to do.

And are there any, like, when you're sitting down, as you. You suggested, either in the morning or night, is there, are there any, like, really simple questions to understand and ask ourselves as to like, you shared, like, what is it that's most upset about?

What is the pain about? How am I feeling? What do I notice? And we have a feeling will that we give to our private clients that helps them translate that language. Because it's hard for us. We don't spend any time there. We don't spend any exploration really understanding our emotional selves. And we need to.

So most of us have a very. If I hear you most. We find most of us have a very, very tight amount of feelings.

Limited even.

Yeah, limited amount of feelings that we even can identify with. So that feeling wheel is designed to really expand what it is we're experiencing.

Yes. And if you want one, just go to my podcast page and send us an email and say, hey, I want one of those feeling wheels you talked about on the show. We'll send you one. No problem. On us, because we all have about five words we use to express how we're feeling. When. Oh, landscape is much more vast than that. It's okay. Let freedom reign. It's time for us to learn the simple practice of freeing ourselves. And it has to begin with you. Permission to be you, to express you, to feel you. It all begins within you. So take those few moments, gift yourself that time and just begin.

And let me ask. I mean, I'm just saying, like. Yeah, Stacy. Okay, so you're talking about being free and saying what we need to say and whatever. How could I possibly do that when I'm with someone else? I mean, that. Is that an oxymoron or is it possible for each person in a committed relationship to be able to show up like you're suggesting and really, really leverage and be a happy couple? It almost sounds. It sounds to me, again, I'll play devil's advocate that you're. What you're proposing is not possible only unless you're single.

No, not true at all. In fact, that's where the juice is in leveraging and co creating with another human being. Where you can talk about the difficult stuff, you can share where you're feeling. It doesn't mean it's the end all, be all, but there's space for. And then we decide to do collectively what to do next. We can find solutions. We can explore all kinds of possibilities that maybe we need to come back and share another time. Some solutions that are creative and outside of the box. But as long as we're trying to live, to live according to this common narrative, which is a setup from the get go, you can see that the solution to what will make us thrive and our relationships will continue to elude us because we're trying to force each other into a story that's not even reality. I know that's kind of tough to take in, but it's, it's the truth. So just begin simply. Don't worry about the how so much right now. Just get practicing. So I think it's time for us to take a break and let that settle in. And if you have any questions again, remember, you can call in and ask them. We're going to take a break and when we come back, we are going to step into our monthly giveaway. Yes, it's that time again. And today we're going to be giving a $50Amazon card and talk about adding some fun to your relationship as well as, ah, freeing yourself, I guess. Kind of part of the same, isn't it bae? Freedom play. They all deserve freedom and permission, don't they? We'll be right back.

Here's what one of Stacy Bartley's clients says about working with her.

Working with Stacy has been life changing in a very magical way. I wanted to work with Stacy when I left a long term marriage because I didn't want to repeat any of my relational, how would you say, unhealthiness. I'm so amazed how she has taken her experience and wrapped it into her own program. A program that is designed specially for you. For anyone that moves forward with her. She's unique, she's profound, she's, she's magical. She has a love for others that is unmatched. And it would be a gift to yourself to work with Stacy.

To book your 30, 45 minute or 60 minute session with Stacy, go to staceybartley.com checkup.

Hello, I'm Nathan Mum. Join me and Mike Ruday as we host a weekly technology show that talks about technology for the everyday company in person. We are a live radio program that airs Saturday from 4 to 5pm on YouTube, Facebook and Twitch. If you go to facebook.comtechtimeradio YouTube.comtechtimeradio or Twitch TV. Techtimeradio. You can catch us live Saturdays from 4 to 5pm you can find us at all podcast services online from Apple to Google and everything in between.

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Foreign.

Welcome back where you are. Your host, Thomas Stacy Bartley. Happy to have you here with us.

Inside the love, inside the look.

Are we gonna start to sing now? No, we better not.

No, let's not sing. Let's get to our giveaway. Every month we do a monthly giveaway.

The first Thursday. The first show. The first Thursday show of. Of the.

Every month. Yes. And in order to win, you got to be on our fun list. So if you're not already, we invite you to get on over there for next month's drawing. Because this month we're giving away a fifth Amazon gift card. And so, Eric, just so that you guys know this is random, we're going to ask our engineer to pick a number from 1 to 100 and that will be our lucky winner for today's Amazon gift card.

Eric, I'm here. Kind of just sprung this on me, so I didn't have a number in mind, which is good. That makes it more random.

Yes.

So let's go with 24.

24, 24.

Okay, let me count on down. Here we go. Okay, it's going. I'm not going to give the whole thing, but now if it's.

If Jack Bauer wins, it's gonna be. That'll be crazy. I'm sorry I interrupted you. Go ahead.

This is Don Nyb at. I'm not going to tell you the app part. Dawn, you're the winner today. 50Amazon gift card. We'll be emailing you today to let us know how we get that card to you.

Yay.

Congratulations, Don.

Yes. And you know what, Don? We're hoping that what you're going to do with that Amazon gift card is have a little bit of fun. So we're going to invite you right now to follow the fun as we inspire you with some fun, fun ways that you can bring that into your own relationship. And this week, we're going to invite you to create an at home film festival. That's right, folks. An at home film festival right in your own home. So this is what we're going to do. You're Going to clear the calendar, you're going to pop the popcorn, and you're going to let the movies roll. And I'm going to inspire you to create this film festival based on two things. Number one, your favorite actor, actress. Like, find everything you possibly can from however many years ago back and put them all in a playlist and let that film festival roll. The other thing that you can do is you can do it by genre. So you could do it by comedy or action or mystery or horror, whatever your thing is, pull together your favorites and put the lineup together and then take off. And then don't forget that between each episode, each place, there's always a panel discussion. Right. If you're. If you ever been to a film festival, there's a panel discussion. It's important for you, for you and the person or people that you're creating this with. You need to understand that you can talk about it, you can share what you liked, what you didn't like. So we're going to invite you to have some fun with us.

So again, by. By actor or actress or by genre is really how you suggest to set this up?

Yeah.

Is there a certain number in the playlist that you would suggest?

How much time you want to devote to it? It could be two days, three days, you know, whatever. And hey, by the way, I forgot to say this, but I'm going to say it right now. If you have some old DVDs and a DVD player, that could be your film festival, like, you just put your hand in there and pull out 10 and you watch them and then you talk about them and you go to the next one. So enjoy. Have a really good.

How funny does DVD sound? Like a long time ago.

I know. And, babe, what's our gonna be our film festival? Like, what is it going to be this weekend? He's on the fence.

I'm kind of thinking, you know, I'm. I like, you know, Stacy's kind of a documentary person. I say, honey, a documentary. I don't think documentary. In all fairness, we're gonna not allow that to be entered into this particular fun. Follow the fun. So I'm thinking I'm like a. I love. Like the Mission Impossible.

So action. It's going to be an action film.

Possible. And I mean, you know, I mean, come on. I mean, that's.

Or.

Or what's the one with Matt Damon? Those incredible.

Yeah, that's. That's Action Born.

Yeah, yeah. Jason Bourne. Yes.

Okay, so I gotta ask you, are you stuck? Because there's nothing to be done or are you stuck because you won't allow yourself to try something different? And we've been talking about that through this whole episode. So have some fun. Put your problems on the shelf and create that film festival. And if you're not already, get on that fun list so that next month you can be prepared and read. Be part of our giveaway. Again, congratulations to Dawn. We'll get that gift out to you. And because it's important to us that we allow others to spread love to share with you different ideas and perspectives about what's happening in the world of relationships and people that are doing great things, we always allow a few moments for us to share somebody else who might spread some love to you through us. And today we are so delighted to have Kathleen Hunter. And Kathleen Hunter has a canine coalition and she has this to say about relationships between humans and pets. This is Kathleen Hunter. I'm the founder and executive director of Northwest Canine Coalition.

My question is why bringing a rescue.

Dog into your home is beneficial to your relationship. The answer is because the dog most likely has lived a life of hardship, neglect and abandonment. Having this new life in your home, one that is hungry for companionship, love and affection, is an extension of what you and your partner want to share for each other. This is a time of mutual bonding and connection. The dog will be learning to trust.

Each of you, and you and your.

Partner will experience an expansion of your trust and love and affection for each other. It's a win, win, win all around. Oh, I love that. So if by chance you're needing to bring a little extra love into your life, considering a rescue dog might be a really great idea. And gosh, you know, sometimes we don't think about bringing something into our lives like, like a beast. I, I have to, I have to say to you, Tom and I were really, really ready to create our own space when we moved here to our little place in January of this year. And I have a 14 year old coon dog that's been with me for a long, long time.

In fact, pre Tom, Pre Tom, part of the package.

He's taught me a lot about relationships and he really helped me see through a person that I was in a relationship with. That wasn't very healthy for me and I would have never seen it if it weren't for this dog, for this animal. That kind of, I could see the interaction between this person and the dog and I would think, oh, where is that showing up in other places? And then I could see it. But until then, I was Too busy in the pleasing mode. Right. I was too busy thinking that if I gave enough that everything was going to be okay. And then what's been fun is that as Tom and I have come together, being able to love this dog is yet another co creation or co experience that we get to have with inside of our, our own relationship. So I really relate to what Kathleen had to share with us there.

Absolutely. And you know, like to say there is no accident. I mean, if you're a dog person, you'll, you'll certainly get this. But dog spelled backwards is what?

God.

God. Isn't that interesting? You don't make that stuff up, you know, I mean, so I wonder if.

They thought about that when they named dog dog.

Amazing. But I always have been. You know, in all the years I've, you know, I've been a dog owner my whole life as well. I've always been amazed whether you're gone for maybe that's a time continuing thing or whatever outside of my pay grade. But however long, you know, you're gone for, typically most dogs, especially if they're well connected to you, they act like you've been gone for a very long time.

Yeah. Even if it's like a couple seconds.

Greatest expression of, of of love I've ever seen. No strings attached.

Yeah, I totally agree. So, all right, let's move on. I, I a big shout out to, to Kathle. Thank you so much for sharing and.

I would let me, and let me just interrupt if I may. Respectfully, if you know of an organization, a body of work, someone you know that is doing wonderful work around relationships, whether that be parenting, step family, animals, I mean, you name it, Please reach out to us. And this is a place in a spot in our show where Stacy and I are very, very passionate to share others and, and, and, and feature others and their bodies of work because look, we all need each other and there's some great things going on and sometimes due to the neg, the mainstream media, we forget all of the great things that are happening out there. So reach out to us. Stacybart.com podcast you'll find everything, you know, in a very easy way to leave us a message.

Yeah. And you know, if I may, sometimes you might hear a perspective on spread some love that maybe you don't resonate with or doesn't apply to you or kind of rubs your raw. That's okay because we need to do a better job as a society of hearing perspectives that don't necessarily align with ours, that doesn't mean it's contagious. It doesn't mean it's going to get all over you. But it does give you that opportunity to do what we just talked about in our right heart of the matter, which is sit down and decide for you what worked and what didn't about that. Like, why is that so agitating or irritating? Why are you so against that? There's an opportunity to do what we call over here an emotional push up. Give me one.

Okay, give me 15 or give me 20.

It's good for us. We love to end all of our episodes. I can't believe it's time to kind of start wrapping this up. We love to end these with a song, a theme song. Why? Because we've given you a lot to think about and we also want to encourage you to feel as well. And there's nothing better to do that for us than music. And so each episode is ended with a little bit of music that makes us feel something, hopefully feel good. And this week we've chosen the song Bad at Love. And you might think that's an oxymoron when we've been talking about free yourself and authenticity, but you know, when we're in the throes of self doubt, you know what? We all feel like we're bad at love. Right. I love this song because used to be my theme song and maybe it's yours too. At certain chapters of your life, it's okay for us to feel like we don't quite have a handle on this and then we gotta roll up our sleeves and decide what it is. We need to get busy practicing in order to get better. So play that song this week, sing along with it and realize we're all bad at love. Sometimes it's okay. But boy, we can also do things to take ourselves in a brand new direction.

And we have a Love Shack live playlist.

Yes.

So every. Every episode on our. On our podcast page, if you will, you can go right to the. Right to the song for the episode. I always say that could be maybe a fun way to. To choose how you listen. As you listen to the song, first you feel a certain thing and then you can get into the. To the heart of the matter and more of the.

The.

The more ahead head part of the journey.

You know, I think that's great. Well, guys, we're going to wrap this up today. It's been so great to be with you. Go ahead and take that practice we talked about. Remember, sit your butt down, breathe. Put pen to paper, bullet point. How you feel what you need in order to free yourself to be your authentic self. And if you can't get yourself to do that, well, then for heaven's sakes, have a little bit of fun. Create that little music film festival and just chill out for a minute as you sing. It's bad at love because I'm bad at love. Sometimes it's just the way it is. We're not going to be perfect with it. Thanks so much for being here with us and letting us share and connect with you today. And listen, if you have any questions, absolutely.

If you have any questions again or any, any suggestions or if you have a body of work person you know that's doing great things, please let us know. Our intent is to be of service to you and answer your questions and serve you in places that you're getting hung up again. And you can do everything. You can. Find everything about us@staceybart.com podcast week we have a a number, a returning guest. One of our returning guests.

Shoot. Don't give it away. We want to give a special shout out to Kathleen Hunter, Canine yes indeed.

Thank you, Kathleen for sharing and the Canine Coalition. If you're looking to adopt a dog and love on something, some being with a with your partner, reach out. Sounds like they're doing some great work there.

We're Thomas Stacy Bartley and the Love Shack today with our wonderful engineer Eric Rider. Thanks so much for being here. We look forward to connecting with you next week.

Bye for now.

Foreign.

Thanks for joining us today in the Love Shack. We hope you came away with something that made your toes tingle. To learn more about everything you heard on today's show, go to stacybartley.com podcast Love the Show. Help us spread the love by sharing the show with others. Okay, everybody, time to go. We gotta close the doors to the Love Shack for this week. You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here. Come back next week though and join us for another edition of Love Shack Live with Tom and Stacy Bartley.

Ready to learn the most important thing you can do to revitalize your relationship today? Go to stacybartley.com fairydust staceybartly.com fairydust this is the number one thing Stacy teaches her VIP clients that has the power to improve the health of your relationship today. Learn how sprinkling a little fairy dust in your relationship can stop arguments in their tracks, rekindle your spark and take your difficulty conversations from the struggle bus to easy street.

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