Step Into Your Imagination

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

Hey. Welcome to the Love Shack. A little place where we can get together, explore fresh perspectives, eavesdrop on juicy conversations, and uncover the mysteries that nobody talks about, but absolutely influences our relationships. If you are by chance struggling in your marriage or relationship, just starting out in a new relationship, or are single and looking to do better next time, this show has been created for you. My name is Stacy Bartley and I am here with my co host and lover, Tom. Together for the past decade, we have 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 in their relationships, both with themselves and others.

Hello, everybody. Quick shout out to our podcast listeners. We are live every Thursday at 1pm PST at KKNW. I share that. If you'd ever like to join us live, ask us a question, text us a question, we'd love to have you. Bottom line is, wherever you are today, whenever you're listening, we sure appreciate you taking time with us.

Okay. And listen, today we are going to talk about something that you may not associate with your relationships whatsoever. It's imagination. And we're going to invite you to step into your imagination today. I was thinking because the holidays are coming up, perhaps like me, you have powerful memories of being a kid and maybe laying under the decorated Christmas tree that's aglow. And after turning off all the lights in the room, you laid there with the tunes playing and imagining what was possible for you in your adult life. My secret hope was that I was going to catch Santa at some point in time, eating the cookies that I had masterfully created and set out. And I would always position them in hopes that I could, like, catch him in the act. But of course, that would never happen. I'd either fall asleep or my parents would insist that I hit the bedroom pillow. So unsuccessful with that mission. But here's the thing. My point is, wherever you are in your imagination right now, for most of us as adults, when we get older, we tend to forget about the power and the ongoing impact that imagination can bring into our lives. Not just at Christmas, but all year long. And believe it or not, imagination is an important key to keeping the joy and the passion alive in this human experience. And yes, in our relationships. And as I see it, in this moment right now, as we bring 2020 to a close, it would be a great time for us to be able to step more into the power that we all have living within us. This thing we call pure imagination. So join us. We're going to give you some tips. We're going to help you connect with yours, and I promise you, I'm going to absolutely uncover the question you might have in your mind right now. Like, what the heck does this have to do with relationships? We'll 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 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. 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 monetary 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.

Ready to learn the most important thing you can do to revitalize your relationship today? Go to stacybartley.com fairydust staceybartley.com fairydust this is the number one thing Stacey 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 difficult conversations from the struggle bus to easy street.

Do you find yourself attempting to get your point across to friends and family and notice their feelings become hurt instead? Do you tend to feel misunderstood and taken for granted the majority of the time? Instead of listening to others in a conversation, do you find yourself formulating your next response to prove your point? Are you having a difficult time showing up to say anything but you think about doing it a lot? When we feel like we are being the jerk or the doormat in our relationships, we tend to criticize ourselves harshly. The reality is we've never been taught how to share ourselves effectively with those who we care about and love. Your skills as a salesperson, master negotiator, or expert debater will only lead you into a fight. Matters of the heart require different skills for a limited time. Get half off the regular price of a communications workshop designed to help you Gain the understanding and skills you need to navigate through your communications with others, giving you the ability and experience to feel heard, appreciated, and a sense that you matter to the people you care about the most. Get all the juicy details@staceybartly.com communication an.

Alternative to everything else on your radio dial. Alternative Talk 1150.

Hey, welcome back. We are about to approach a conversation about the topic of imagination. And if you're like many of us, you might be asking, in this moment, what in the world does imagination have to do with me improving my relationships? And my answer to you would be, everything. First, let me ask you, how do you personally, in this moment right now, value imagination alongside knowledge per se? Like, how does each one play a role in your life? How do you think that your peers or your society values them? And I'm going to pick on Tom for a minute and I'm going to ask him what his answers to these questions might be. So, you know, babe, how do you value imagination right now alongside your own personal knowledge?

I would say not nearly as high as knowledge or expertise because I don't see where it's rewarded. But if you think about it like some of your, you know, boldest, greatest business ideas obviously have to come from imagination. I mean, let's think about SpaceX right now. I mean, there's some serious imagination right there. You're going to do what that thing lands on, that floating thing out, comes up and then comes down and lands on that moving target. You know, that has to be a lot of imagination first.

I totally agree with you. And, and what about the role that it plays in your life? Do you feel like it has a place in your life or do you.

Feel like, I would say, kind of a sliver?

Oh, really?

Yeah.

That's kind of disappointing.

It is, yes. I mean, I'm a co host here. That was. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm right here with you. Help me, Mrs. Bartley, how this is going to help our relationship. No, I mean, it seems to be in a different category where, where I'm hoping you're going to come away with realizing this is a very integral part to life and especially to our relationships.

Yes, absolutely. If I do my job right. And what about the peers in society at large? Right. How do you see them valuing imagination?

Well, you know, I. It's hard to generalize, but I would think, you know, you know, maybe not, you know, certainly as we get to be responsible individuals and adults, you know, I would say less and less. That's appreciated, you know, I mean, you think about children, how we're, you know, masterful, you know, but then it seems to kind of get tweaked out of us, if you will, because we got.

To get down the business, right? And the more responsible we are of times, the more disassociated we are with our imagination. But here's the kicker. Here's the thing. I want you to know if right now you're feeling hopeless, stuck dead on the inside. That's a saying I hear a lot of. Drained, exhausted. If life has become an experience of simply going through the motions and checking the boxes, guess what? You desperately need some imagination. So let's uncover this a little bit, shall we? What is imagination? So I decided that, okay, since we're going to approach this from the knowledge base, right, it might be a little more difficult for us to step into our imagination in just this moment. Then let's approach it from the knowledge base, shall we? So, Tom, go ahead and read what the meaning or what Merriam Webster has to say about what imagination is.

All right? The act or power of forming a mental image of something not present to the senses or never before wholly perceived in reality.

I think that's a really great description of what imagination is. But you know what? I actually really like the second one.

Number two, is a creative ability or the ability to confront and deal with a problem.

Now we're starting to kind of get.

A little ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.

The freedom to imagine the world anew anytime, any place. Is your imagination at work. If you were creating as a child your first masterpiece with paper and crayons, that's your imagination. If your imagination was leading you to visualize you making out, perhaps as a high school student with your high school sweetheart, and you imagined what that might look like, feel like. And I know you imagine that with me all the time, right? You know the answer. That's your imagination. You imagine creating a business, it's your imagination. Or writing that book or designing that house that you're going to build one day. Imagination helps us create what we want and what we need and what we desire. And it also has a huge place in helping us solve the problems of life. Now, this awareness for me was actually instilled by my mother, Elaine, who first showed me the power of imagination while I was growing up. As a young kid, I lost my father at the age of six, and I was the youngest of five siblings. And unfortunately for us, when my father passed, he did not leave any life insurance behind. So here's my mom with five children at home the oldest being a junior in high school and the youngest being me in a little kindergarten class. She worked at a little job that she had acquired while my dad was sick. And so she wasn't left with a whole lot to work with. And what would happen consistently, I'm not even joking, is I would come home from school and, like, the power would be off, right? And. Or I remember the day I came home and there was a couple of men that were complete strangers to me sitting on our front porch. And my mom told me that it was time for me to go to the grocery store with her and help her while these two men sat on our porch. Well, come to find out, those two men sitting on our porch were waiting for us to return, and then they were going to repossess the car, right? We were behind on the car payment, we were behind on the mortgage payment. We were behind on the utilities. And each and every time we would hit some kind of a roadblock or a disaster like that, my mom would immediately play. She would immediately step into imagination when the car got repossessed. We had a party that night. She pulled out a sheet, we blew popcorn all over the living room. We watched a movie. And then the next morning, we came up with the creative solution that she would get back and forth to work by riding on my high school brother's motorcycle, that the vehicle for the family had now become the motorcycle, and it was going to be fine. And we laughed about how she was going to get to work while having to wear a dress back in those days. And eventually, yes, we saved money and bought another car. And I can remember the delightful moment where the new car pulled into the driveway when the power went off. That was picnic time. We would go out and fire up the charcoals in the Barbie, and oft times, we would barbecue up some frozen burritos, right? It was building a fort, telling stories with a flashlight, right? There was all kinds of little memories that I have where my mom, when disaster would strike, would regroup, refuel, and then come back and approach the problem with the decision. Now, some might say, oh, gosh, you're just living an illusion and fantasy. And I would say it was brilliant because I watched her solve the problems that we faced. And she did it while infusing energy, infusing possibility. She reminded us that we could create, that we were not stuck, we were not a victim of our circumstances. It was not all hopeless, that we actually, indeed had the power to see through the circumstances of the moment and to recreate something that would help us solve our problem. And that was the demonstration that she gave me over and over and over again. And when I became a single mom myself of six children, many of these same principles played out and I remembered them and I would reach for them. And even still to this day, if I hit a roadblock, the very first place that I go is doing something to refuel me. After, of course, I've thrown a good foot, something that makes me smile, something that makes me dream again.

And what would you say? Let's, you know, bring it back to the relationship paradigm, if you will. What do typically most of us do when we hit a roadblock, a bump in the road in our relationships? It's. I don't, for me, it's not. In all fairness and all the spirit of full disclosure, Stacy and I say to each other, that's not. Where I go is imagination.

Yeah, yeah. And I wouldn't have either unless I'd had that demonstration growing up as a kid.

So where do most of us go?

Yeah, we go to a place of resolve or resigning ourselves to the same is as good as it's going to get. I guess. We can't get through this. I've done something wrong. And I want to impress upon you in this moment that imagination is a feeling thing. Right? It's not so much a thinking thing as it is a feeling thing. And right now in our society, in our world, we seem to be so exceptional at the knowledge and at the logic and at the thinking. But that we've literally cut ourselves off from the feeling and our imagination is a huge help when it comes to understanding the emotional pain babe that you're referring to. So let's talk about pain first a minute, shall we? I think there's a great conversation here as we continue to drill down on the benefits of imagination and our relationships where we need to talk about pain for a minute. Right.

And I will, I will have some fun here. This is a question that we ask everyone, all of our clients and our students. What is the four letter word that is involved in every single relationship you've been in, you know, are in currently, now, or will be in the future? And at point this, it doesn't start.

With L. We kind of gave it away. I know, but it's pain.

Pain, P, A, I, N. And when.

We talk about pain in the physical terms, like if they were to have you imagine for a moment separating yourselves in the physical body and in the emotional body, let's talk about how we handle physical pain first. When a physical pain happens let's say I get a sliver in my finger. The first thing that I'm going to start to do is that pain tells me, hey, something's gone awry. I need your attention, like, right now. And I start looking in what finger my sliver is in. And I'm going to search for it until I find it and identify it. Or if I have a stomachache, I'm gonna think back on all the things I've eaten and why it is my stomach is hurting. And then I'm gonna step in. And this is where my imagination plays a role. I start thinking or imagining what I might have at my disposal in order to alleviate the pain that I'm feeling in my physical body. And so if I go back to the metaphor of my sliver in my finger, I would, you know, maybe dig it out with a pair of tweezers, right? Maybe, you know, it's going to bleed a little bit. So then I'm going to do a little. Maybe alcohol, some peroxide, put some Neosporin on it, and then maybe wrap it all up in a little band aid. But it doesn't stop there. I'm going to continue to watch it, right? I'm going to continue to make sure it doesn't get infected. And this really has happened to me. And I had to go to the doctor a couple of times because this liver was so deep, I had to raise my hand and say, I don't know what to do. I've tried all my remedies. I need to get some help with this. And this liver was removed by a medical professional. So with that in mind, let's go back and think about now how we handle our emotional pain. Our emotional pain is, I want you to know, the same signal. It's a signal that says, hey, we got a problem here. I need your attention. Let's address this right now. Except for most of us, then don't continue the steps that we do with our physical bodies, right? We pause right there and we start. Our imagination does things that maybe are not so good for us. Where we start going, well, what about this? And this is not going to be possible. And see, I screwed it all up again. And see, it's their fault. No, it's my fault. I don't. Right? And we. We get into this. This place where I call it the rabbit hole. And in the rabbit hole, it gets really dark, and you get deeper and more desperate and you feel more resigned to, there's nothing I can do. And that would I. And the people that I serve as well as right, my own experience. At times, I can find myself deep in the rabbit hole and resigned to my emotional pain is just the way it is. But what if for a moment that we actually handled our emotional pain just like we do our physical pain? And I looked at it, right? This is what I call in my body of work the principle of the emotional cookie. Like, when you feel emotional pain, I want you or I want to invite you, shall I say to someone, sit your butt down and be with it. Feel it, right? This is a time to feel it. Because if I do, then kind of like figuring out what is in that emotional cookie, I can start identifying what I'm feeling, right? And most of us don't have even a vocabulary or an awareness inside of ourselves that I even understand or can put words to the way I feel. Because I've never sat down to really be with it. I'm usually trying to run from it, defend it, blame it, pretend like it doesn't happen. I don't hurt. It's not bothering me, right? Cover it, cover it up, cope it, drink it, shop it, work it, exercise it, right, in an effort to diminish it. And what happens is it just numbs us out. Just like if I were to stay in physical pain for a long period of time, all of a sudden my nervous system would numb out and I would stop feeling it for a while, right? Until it comes back bigger and better than ever. And I want to impress upon you that that's what our emotional bodies do as well. So in uncovering this emotional cookie, what we need to realize is that if I sit my butt down and just like my physical pain, I start going, what's going on with me? Like, what is it? Identify it, put words to it, understand it. Just like trying to understand what's in that emotional cookie. Emotions are the whole package, right? The feelings are the individual parts. So if I was trying to figure out what my emotional cookie was, I would say, there's a little bit of sadness, there's a little bit of rage, maybe a little rough frustration, disappointment, right? And I would. Grief, yes, grief. And I would understand just like saying there's a little bit of salt, little brown sugar, little chocolate chips, and it makes the total experience, the emotional experience I'm having as that emotional cookie. But we're not done there. Just like I would in my physical pain, I would say, okay, what have I got? What would remedy or ease this emotional pain for me? And this is where your imagination becomes a huge ally. Because what ends up happening is I can say, well, gosh, let me try this on in my imagination. Does, you know, getting a hug make me feel better? Does journaling make me feel better? Does going for a walk, would that make me feel better? You know, do I need to have a conversation and clean up my mess? Do I need to take responsibility? Do I need to apologize? What is it I'm not getting? I need that would ease my emotional pain. And as I try those things on in my imagination, I'm going to get to a place where I feel like it's going to work or I feel like it's going to help me. And then I can step in and I can empower myself by asking for it, because now I know what I want. Our interactions and our relationships would dramatically change if instead of blaming and acting out and taking my pain out on myself or others, I actually had the ability to use my imagination, digest down that emotional cookie for myself, and imagine for a moment what it is that my ease is my emotional pain. And then I can ask for help, I can ask for support, I can brainstorm some ideas. And instead of spending a lot of time deciding who's right and who's wrong or who's responsible for this emotional pain, we're moving on to meet that want that you need so badly.

How about, you know, Stace, we, in our work, we oftentimes find when we work with our clients and ask them what it is they want, many times, you know, they don't know and myself included. So let me ask you a question. Could. Could you use your imagination first? If you didn't know what you wanted and what to advocate for, could you start with what I don't want? Could you. Could you reverse engineer it, so to speak?

Yeah, but you know what? The truth is, as human beings, most of us aren't going to pay attention until the pain becomes great enough. If we were to spend more time in our imagination, more time feeling right, and I could imagine things that make me feel good most of the time instead of all the what if questions that we typically ask ourselves and our thinking that make us feel worse, right? Like, what if this happens and what if this doesn't work out and what if I get sick and what if I lose my job and what if I'm not really wanted and what if my wife or husband doesn't really love me or. Or what if my kid gets sick and what am I going to do? We spend so much time in our imagination there without even realizing it. That's just like mode of operation. We don't even realize that imagination can work for our good and our benefit as well. So I could sit around and ask better what if questions. I could say, what if this is. There's some good news in here, you know, what if this all works out? What if this is the opportunity that I've been waiting for to step in and do some of these other things that I've wanted to do and what is it I want to do? Is it this is it? This is it? This is it? This is it More like this. And anybody who spends a lot of time in the creative field can tell you that it's a time in the saddle thing. If I'm writing a good story, it doesn't just flow out to me on the page. I put an idea on there and then I continue to reimagine it and work with it and reimagine it again. Just like if I were to redesign a room, for example, right? I might start with a paint color. And then I'm going to reimagine the art on the wall and I'm going to reimagine the linen. I'm going to reimagine what the carpet would be and maybe I need to throw out and bring in something else. And it's a reimagining process. And unfortunately, if we don't spend time or value our imagination, all of those kinds of things continue to elude us. Now, here's the kicker. I hope that you're starting to pick up on the fact that imagination is the gateway to some of the things that I'm lacking, like passion, like joy, like excitement, like we like to use in our body of work. Toe tingling excitement, like, I'm so excited, I can't hardly.

How about romance and romance? Sensuality.

Sensuality. Role play is a huge, huge gift when we have been together for a really long time and we need to spice things up. As I always say to Tom, look, I don't want to be your wife. And I am on paper, right? And I am emotionally, but I don't want to be the wife who wants to be the wife or the husband. That's just so awful, right? And not only that, the images that come to my mind and my imagination about being the wife or the husband, for me personally, are not necessarily all that special. But if you tell me about being the mistress, oh, now I show up completely different. Yeah, I want to be that girl. I want to be that person because they have all the fun and they have the rendezvous and they they have these tantalizing, passionate experiences. And I don't have to have an affair in order to be the mistress, because I have an imagination. I can be the mistress right now in this moment. And you can be. What do they call that, Tom? Is that the jiggle?

Hopefully we can say that, Eric.

Now listen, I hope that you're starting to get the idea that imagination empowers us not only to solve problems, but it takes away our pain, it lowers our anxiety. If we would just sit down and imagine how this might be different for a moment, right? If we were to understand that it is the doorway to passion, surprise. That's imagination. When I create a surprise for you. Romance, sensuality, innovation, Right? You had mentioned SpaceX soul expression. It is the ultimate pursuit of the impossible. Our imagination is, and Einstein has been quoted as saying back in 1929, imagination is more precious and valuable than knowledge itself. And I want you to just think about that for a moment. And we're going to take a break so that you can just kind of let this settle in for a moment. We'll 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 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. 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 visit staceybartley.com today.

Ready to learn the most important thing you can do to revitalize your relationship today? Go to stacybartly.com fairydust stacybartley.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 difficult conversations from the struggle bus to easy street.

Do you find yourself attempting to get your point across to friends and family and notice their feelings become hurt instead? Do you tend to feel misunderstood and taken for granted the majority of the time? Instead of listening to others in a conversation, do you find yourself formulating your next response to prove your point? Are you having a difficult time showing up to say anything but you think about doing it a lot? When we feel like we are being the jerk or the doormat in our relationships, we tend to criticize ourselves harshly. The reality is we've never been taught how to share ourselves effectively with those who we care about and love. Your skills as a salesperson, master negotiator, or expert debater will only lead you into a fight. Matters of the heart require different skills for a limited time. Get half off the regular price of a communications workshop designed to help you gain the understanding and skills you need to navigate through your communications with others, giving you the ability and experience to feel heard, appreciated, and a sense that you matter to the people you care about the most. Get all the juicy details@staceybartly.com communication Seattle.

Tacoma, Antwerp that's right. We're streamed worldwide on our app and on the web@1150 kknw.com.

Welcome back. So we've been talking about, if you're just joining us by chance, how our imagination empowers us to to solve problems. It has the ability to take away pain, lower our anxiety, and it truly is the doorway to passion, surprise, romance. All those juicy things that we say that we want and we so desperately need right now is we start to imagine a new year. It really is the ultimate pursuit of what is impossible. And we were talking a little bit ago about how it can really help us in our relationships. Why? Why? Because I can work with my emotional pain, the pain that often has the power to drive us apart instead of bring us close. Right when I'm hurting and I don't know what to do with it, I tend to blame. I tend to point fingers and I really don't know how to go about solving it.

And it's important to remind everyone, Stacey, share with us. I think because so many of us in our relationships, especially the moment that we feel pain or we sense something is wrong, we freak out. And what is your response? What are you always in working with your clients, remind them when that happens. Guess what? It's a normal part of the process. It's a normal part, normal part of the process. So use it as the tremendous indicator that it's there to serve rather than to freak out and shy away. Cover, you know, all the things we Talked about. It's the finest indicator we have. Yes or no?

Yes, absolutely. And I want you to kind of, if you can, in this moment, take, take the idea that pain is a navigation tool. It is something that gets our attention and when we utilize it, like we had said earlier in our physical bodies, it really is that thing that says, okay, stop what you're doing. I need your attention right now. Something has gone awry and it works just the same in our emotional bodies. The indicator is the same. Stop right now. I need you to pay attention right now. We have a problem.

And what are some of the most common indicators that drive people or motivate people to come. Come work with us? What are the. What do those look like? What do those feel like?

Yeah, well, let's just take it. Our physical body and let's do the analogy here, because in my physical body, right, it's always communicating to me. Pain or discomfort might say, hey, I'm hungry, I need to rest, I need to sleep. I ate something that's not settling well, I need to poop. Like, like, you got about 10 minutes and you're going to have to handle this. And we have these sensations or these communications that go on in our body all the time. And my emotional body does just the same thing, right? It's constantly speaking to me as well. And it's saying things and discomfort and pain, like, hey, you're going along with something that doesn't work for you. Hey, speak up. That's not okay. Hey, you know that thing you just said right there? That is a bunch of bs. Go clean that up. Hey, you know what? I think you just dumped somebody in the soup. Hey, somebody's stepping on your emotional toes and you're not liking it. Are you going to say something? Right? If we take this to somebody stepping on my physical toes, it wouldn't be long before somebody was actually stepping on my foot. Before any of us human beings would say, excuse me, could you not step on my toe? But when it comes to having our emotional toes or stepped on, we'll let people hang out there for hours or days or weeks, months, even years, sometimes hoping that at some point in time they'll get the idea that they're hurting my feelings, right? That they're creating discomfort for me, that what they're saying is causing me to feel a certain way. And I need you to know that if you're the one feeling the pain, whether be physical or emotional, that pain is a message for you. It's an indicator light for you. And you're right, Tom. We freak out because we don't know what to do with it. We've never had this conversation. We've never been taught these kinds of things. And instead of freaking out, like I'd said earlier, it's time for you to sit your butt down and spend some time feeling and breaking down that emotional cookie for yourself. Because before I can alleviate the emotional pain, I've got to understand it for myself. And if I can't sit my butt down and be with it, A, I'm never going to understand myself very well, B, I'm never going to be able to share it with you and see if I can't step into my imagination and try on what might alleviate it. The reality is nobody else is going to know how to alleviate it either.

And don't we. You find we work with our clients and students, that most of us have a pretty narrow feeling range. Right. That's why we have. We use a feeling wheel in our body of work. Right. So most of us haven't spent a lot of time understanding what those feeling ingredients are in our emotional cookie, correct?

Absolutely. Most of us are very much cut off because we are valuing our thinking, which is not a bad thing. But we're not valuing the way that we feel. We're not spending any time in our bodies, especially right now. We're all kind of freaked out. We're all kind of emotionally exhausted from what we've been through this year. And we really, honestly weren't so great at it before then. But it definitely has put the whole experience on steroids. And so we don't want to feel uncomfortable emotionally because we don't know how to deal with it. We don't know what to do with it. And so we just kind of pretend, right, that everything is okay, or pretend that things are going to work out and that somehow this is all going to make sense in the future. Right? And then we put it off, and we don't deal with it, and we put it off. So if we were to use the same physical metaphor, and I had an injury to my body that needed my attention, and I put it off, and I put it off and I put it off. Right. We know that it probably wouldn't get better. Right. And actually, something as simple as that sliver in my finger that we talked about earlier has the potential to take my life. If I leave it and allow it to fester long enough, it would get infected and then it would turn systemic, and then there I go. Well, the same principles apply in our emotional bodies, if we kick the can down the road, if we keep not addressing what's going on as it's screaming for our attention, the same thing applies. It's only a matter of time. We either address it, get to a place where we can understand it, and do our best to remedy it so that it eases the pain or discomfort that I'm feeling, or the other option is also possible. I can kick it down the road, and I can try and outrun it and ignore it, and I can blame you for it, and I can refuse to take responsibility for it, right, and not step into my imagination at all, trying to discover what it is, I need what it is, I want what it is that's not working so that I can alleviate my pain. And eventually I'm going to have a mental health challenge. I'm going to have a physical health challenge. I'm going to be faced with, right, the default option of kind of my life blowing apart. And our emotional bodies, right, are not valued to such a degree as our physical bodies are, and yet they are running the show. I show up as good as I feel in my life, and if I don't feel so good, I don't show up so good. And most of us don't even realize it. So I want to share a story to kind of highlight how this whole conversation could play out in real life. And in fact, it was a situation that played out in my sister's life. She was in a relationship and had been married to her wonderful husband at this point in time for about 18 years. So they'd been together long enough, had their traditional family, had the dog, the picket fence, the house. You get the picture. They had done a great job of, right, setting themselves up, had a. A nice foundation underneath them financially, physically, and yet they were unhappy. My sister was really unhappy, and she was in the throes of doing exactly what I'm inviting you to do. What is it that's not working? What it is it I'm longing for? What is it that's right, Causing me to feel such pain and discomfort. And her husband came home from work one day and she invited him to sit on the couch. And she decided she was going to muster up the com. The. The courage to actually disclose to him how unhappy she was. She had been wary and exhausted from trying to just pretend that everything was okay. They'd done that for a year prior. She finally decided, I got to do something about this, and I feel like I know what I need. She says, Wally, I've decided that I'm not happy. And here's my decision. I'm going to have an affair. And her husband, of course. Gasps what do you mean? What do you mean, have an affair? I mean, we can't be to that point. Have you been. What's going on? I don't know what to do. Right. She says, please calm down and take a breath. And she put her hand on his thigh. And she said, I want to have an affair and I want to have it with you. We've lost our way. I need to remind you that I love you. I need to be reminded that you love me. I need to be reminded that our relationship and what we're doing in it is a priority for us. Because I feel alone. I feel like I'm facing these things by myself, and I don't want to do it anymore. So here's the deal.

Yeah.

In our imagination, we're gonna have a freaking affair. And you know what, you guys? She did. And it turned everything around. The same couple has been married now almost 40 years. That's so cool. 40 years. But they make an active part of using their imagination. And when things get stale and when things start to become disenfranchising, right, they're the first ones to run away, even if it's just down the street to the locals hotel. Right? I've been known, Tom and I, you know, we are just here in this human experience, right along with you. There have been times where we've had to rekindle our spark, right? And what do we do? We build forts on our bedrooms, right? We. We have parties on a tent. We have picnics on the floor. We too have been known to run away for the day and pretend like, right, we're lovers having an affair. Meeting at the winery in secret. It. We've even been known to secretly in the mornings, like, sneak out of our house. Not because we have to, but because we get to. So I just want you to take that in for a minute. This is the power that the imagination gifts us in our relationships if we're willing to utilize it as the incredible tool that it is. Right?

Yeah. I mean, it really is. It's counterintuitive, but so powerful, you know, where imagination can be the real. The real bridge, you know, to give us, you know, to take us to those places of solutions and really creativity of in any regard that we want to help us to a much better place and very, very quickly. Very, very quickly. So bottom line is, when you're having a problem, when you're Having a challenge. Guess what? As Stacy likes to say, we're mess making machines because that's what we do best as humans. So there's nothing wrong. We just need more skills and tools to be able to navigate them them quickly and efficiently rather than just bury them and put them under the rug and get them at to at a later date. Doesn't work like that. Well, it does temporarily.

Yeah. Well, so let's play along. I'm, I'm feeling inspired that maybe we need to show everyone who's listening to us right now they might be saying.

Okay, okay, you guys have lost your mind.

Well, and, and you know, my imagination has kind of been dead and gone for a really long time. So I really want to get you an opportunity. And Tom, maybe you can play along to help you see and understand that your imagination is alive and well and that perhaps, maybe what we need to do is just dust it off a little bit, you know, give it a little attention and you will be amazed at how it begins to flourish if we just spend a lot of, or not a lot, but a little, a teeny tiny bit. A little with it. Right, okay. So if you are in a place right now, as you're hearing my voice, don't do it.

This, if you're driving though.

Well, yeah, that's why I said if you're in a place to close your eyes. But good point, honey. Safety first.

Safety first.

It's actually a relationship principle we use in our work. Safety first. Okay, back to the topic. I want you to close your eyes. Now, the interesting thing when we're working with our imagination is it's not difficult for us to pull images up that are familiar to us. Us. That's super easy. So right now I want you to imagine something that we're familiar with. Right. I'm going to encourage you to imagine a bowl of fruit. Okay. This is pretty simple. See it in all its grandeur. I want you to pay attention to the bowl. What kind of a bowl is it in? I want you to look and see what kind of fruit you have in it. Like what is your selection there? And I want you to notice that wasn't probably hard at all. You could go right to it. Something very familiar and easy for you to do with a little effort. Now I'm going to invite you to do something that might be a bit more of a stretch. I want you to imagine a piece of fruit in that bowl. Just pick one. Anyone will do. And I want you to imagine that piece of fruit giving you a kiss. Right on the lips, like right. Right on the kisser. Which one was it? Which one did you select? And now I want you to imagine that same piece of fruit that just kissed you on the lips, whispering a message in your ear. It's telling you something and maybe you're going to have a conversation. Go ahead and imagine that happening right now. Receive the message. And now let's take it even further. Can you dress up that bowl of fruit? Can you, like, put it in little outfits with little hats, little shirts, shoes? So open your eyes and, Tom, I'm going to ask you to share with us, us what you imagined so that we can all play along.

I imagine we have a big, big. It's not really a bowl. It's a big, kind of like a fruit stand thing that right at this moment is overflowing with mandarin oranges.

And that's what you envisioned?

Yes.

Key to imagination is we usually imagine something that we're familiar with. And so if we were to take this back to what we had been talking about with you today. Right. This is where the power of imagination is closely associated with what you're going through. If I sit my butt down and I spend some time with the way that I feel, it's much easier for me then to take the next step and imagine what might alleviate it. It's much easier for me to go from don't want to do want than it is for me to go right to want in my life. Right. And that's why. Because what I'm feeling or what I'm experiencing or the reality of my situation is much easier for me to step into than it is for me to just go to anything that's possible. It gives me a starting place. So great job. So then who kissed you?

One of the biggest, juiciest Mandarin orgies in that group.

And did they have a message for you?

Yes, they said that. They said that you're gonna have a kiss like you've never had before.

Oh, does that mean you're gonna kiss me like you've never had before?

Maybe later.

And were you able to dress them up?

Yeah, it had a little sequence jacket and a top hat.

And this is the man who about a few minutes ago said his imagination was not live alive.

It was a blue sequence jacket and a black top hat.

Eric, did you by chance play along with us?

Caught me off guard there.

Yes.

I know I do that to you. I'm so sorry.

No, it's totally good. It's totally good. But Tom's visualization there with the fruit just really. I just got on board with that rather than think of my own. Sorry.

Okay. I love it.

It was just so fruity.

It was just so fruity. And this is the beautiful thing about our imagination is it can take us anywhere. And these are the places with, inside of ourselves as human beings that we solve the biggest problems that we face. Right. Yes. In the world, but yes. Right here at home in our relationship.

So let's say someone out there, somebody listening, babe. Has had just like a really, really nasty argument, you know, with. And it's got not gone well at all. And that person has had to leave their home or their apartment or wherever they live, you know, slam the door and they think, I think we're, I think we're about done, you know, so what would be a couple like imagination, processes, experiences, things that they could do quickly to listen to that tremendous amount of upset that they have as they're driving away. You know, what would, what could be a good place for them? Obviously we always know you got to push in the pause and go to neutral.

Well, you're, you're. What, what do we typically do? I think it's important for us to identify. Right. What we typically do. What we're going to do is we're typically going to drive away and it's going to be something like that, you know, blanket blank, blank, blank or that. Yeah, I can't believe that. So. And I'm going to, I'm going to justify first or validate the way that I feel, and I'm going to do that by typically blaming somebody else or talking about the messed up part of whatever just went down. And we're going to validate that story by, you know, typically blaming somebody else for it. If they would have done this, then I wouldn't feel this way. And how could they. And I can't believe they can go there and. What a jerk. And. Right. And what's ironic is we're all doing that to each other. But remember what I said just a bit ago, that perhaps in this moment you forgot. If I'm feeling pain, emotional pain, it's a message for me. And that's a tricky one for us. In fact, you've probably never heard that before. Until this moment, you didn't realize that somebody wasn't doing something to you so much as it was your own navigation system getting kicked off. Right. So we don't even know to go there. The best thing you can do is, is at any point in time pause because you need some time to sit your butt down and digest that emotional cookie that we talked about earlier, right? Why am I mad? Why I'm upset? Why am I hurt? Right? What am I wanting? When I start to digest that down, it's going to start pointing to what might alleviate it by just flipping it to its opposite. If I'm frustrated and angry and hurt, why am I hurt? What do I want? What would alleviate that? And that helps me get to the want, and I can then try it on in my imagination. Well, is it that, you know, I want to have an apology? Is it that I. I want to be hugged and reminded that I matter? Is it I did I get ticked off because I wasn't heard and I don't feel valued and appreciated in this relationship? Am I. Am I ticked off because they won't communicate and engage with me? What am I going to do about that? Why am I applying set. Understand your own language first and then imagine trying on some solutions for that. What would ease that?

And I. And we say this often, you know, at the end of the day, ladies and gentlemen, Stacy and I have really. I think we really are all really looking for three things, right? We want to know that we matter. We want to be appreciated and we want to be heard. So, you know, you could even. Yes, Stacy, right. You could take your imagination around those kind of foundational places of knowing a feeling. That's really what we're all asking for at the end of the day. However it's disguised, however it's can be camouflaged. You know, those three things is what we're after and probably what our loved ones are after as well.

Absolutely. What you're pointing to, Tom, is us, human beings, really, at the heart of every argument, every upset, and every disappointment, are seeking 99.9% of the time. Three primary things. The first one, like Tom had said, is to feel heard. We want to know that our perspective is heard, that it's valuable, that it matters. You don't have to agree with me, but please, just hear me out, right? You might even hear that in your relationships right now. The second one is I want to know that I'm putting a lot of emotional investment in this, and I want to know that it's appreciated, right? Because the reality is most of us are doing the very best we know how and we want good things, right? We don't commit ourselves to another human being to build a life with. And we look each other dead in the eye and say, you know, I'm really gonna screw you over. No, we don't. We Step to those places with the best of intention. And so if we could assume that we're all doing the very best we can, most of us don't get acknowledged, and we don't really get the appreciation that we're longing for. And we don't realize we can ask for it. And of course, the third is, at the end of the day, we want to know that we matter. We want to know that this relationship matters, that I matter to you, right? And I get really afraid of that. If you're like most human beings, especially when we have a fight, do you like me still? Do you want me? Do I matter to you? Is this whole thing for not. And that's a fear that's always kind of like rumbling around in the back of our mind. So what if we could just go to those few things, right? If we could look to say, am I feeling this, this, or this? That's kind of the shortcut, right? Tom's just giving you a shortcut. Is it this, this, or this? When I'm upset, am I feeling unheard? Am I feeling unappreciated? Or am I just feeling like I flat out don't matter? And that's usually a great shortcut to getting to understanding what's emotionally going on for you. But then again, right, you're going to have to take the next step in your imagination and say, what would alleviate this? What do I need to do now? Or what do I want to do? And just like my sister did, she was like, you know what? At the end of the day, I'm sick and tired of being the wife. I want to be the lover. We have lost our way. When was the last time we were lovers instead of husband and wife? And not that there's anything wrong with those things, but at some point in time, if we don't keep a balance of both, we lose the zip and the zing and the passion that was once alive in our relationships, right? And so that's why I say I always want to be the mistress. Because that I know, is going to be something that's going to keep me in a place where I'm feeling good. And so I show up differently in my relationship with Tom.

When I would bet, think about all the imagination and everything, everything that goes into when two people, you know, people first come together. My gosh, the amount of imagining you're going to take to the first, you know, restaurant and the first meal and the first, you know, there's a tremendous amount of imagination that goes into that, you know, partnership so, yeah, just take yourself back there. You know, I mean, I think it's Tony Robbins. If we did what we did in the beginning, there would be no end.

100% agree. And notice we're still back to talking about amount imagination. So imagination, I hope you can see now why it is we feel like this is a very important conversation to have when we're talking about relationships. And if we could go to the place where I could take responsibility for my emotional pain, even know how to start working with it, and I could understand it myself, it's going to help me understand myself better. It's going to also help me find something that's going to help me ease this discomfort. And then with a little bit of practice and skill, I actually have the potential to share it with my partner and ask for what it is I need. Which is going to have to be a conversation for another time. But right now what I want to invite you to do is step into your imagination. As we're wrapping up here, I'm going to leave you with a few quick ideas in regards to how to keep your imagination robust. It's variety, right? You need variety, you need possibility. You need your imagination. And our song in closing out today is a beautiful song that comes from Charlie and the Willy Wonka Chocolate Factory by Josh Groban. Pure imagination. Because this is where we need to step in. With this holiday season upon us on the new year fast approaching, we want to acknowledge each and every one of you for the incredible ability to step into our imaginations. You've done incredible hard work. We've been courageous. We've faced a ton and it's time for us to celebrate. Step into the ease and the grace and the joy of imagination. We look forward to seeing you again soon.

We won't be here next week, but we've be here two weeks. So if you celebrate Christmas, Merry Christmas and happy holidays to everybody. And we'll be here on back on New Year's Eve for a very special, very special show.

Oh, that's absolutely right. Know that we are thankful for you, sending you off with extraordinary love. Merry Christmas. Bye Bye.