THRIVE Show Feat. Samantha KP - Make Love Not War in relationships- Hosted by Val Nichols

Hey guys, welcome to the Thrive Show. Val Nichols here. I am your host, and if you love this content, don't forget to subscribe. Hit subscribe right now and hit the bell if you want to be notified each time I go live. Also, don't forget we release content every Monday, so hit subscribe so you're in the know. Love you guys. Hey guys, welcome to the Thrive Show where we are talking all about creating a healthy lifestyle, a thriving business, and a life of intention even amidst the COVID-19 crisis. My name is Val Nichols. I am your host. And today we have a very special guest. She is a friend of mine, a mentor, an amazing woman. I would love to welcome Samantha.

Thank you, Valerie. I'm so excited to be here. And I'm so happy to help anyone that we can help out there listening with us today.

Awesome. Me too. And I'm so glad that you're here. She is joining us all the way from Denmark. So on the other side of the world from me. So can you share a little bit about yourself and who you are and what you're about?

Yes, thank you, Valerie. I do. I help powerful and ambitious women to stop fighting with their husband and also right now stop yelling at their kids, basically. But I call it leadership training, so I don't do couples counseling. I tried that, but I found the men never— they were never really telling the truth. And so I talk to women and I learn them how to lead with love versus fear and insecurity. So notice when you're leading with love and trust, versus fear and insecurity, all the way down to, oh, I'm so scared my kid's not gonna eat what I put in the lunchbox, right? That's insecurity. And just, you know, I developed 12 steps that I call leadership, right? To lead with love. So it's not couples counseling, it's leadership training. And our leadership gets so tested at home with the ones we love. Never forget about, it works for CEOs, I coach CEOs too, but, you know, nothing is as hard as at home, right? Work is easy. The real triggers happen at home. So leadership really starts at home, because we get so disappointed when we yell at our kids and we don't show up as the loving mother that we know we are. We get like, oh, it's a whole guilt-shame cycle that I just helped break free. So I'm really happy to do this work. I love this work, Valerie, and it just makes me happy to get up 5:00 AM and teach just one person. And then my kids wake up and I'm just a happier mom. So I love this, and thanks for having me on, Valerie.

I love that. And that's something we were talking a little bit before we pressed record, and we were getting into this rift and we're like, oh my gosh, let's just press record, get This is great information. You know, something we were touching on was the fact that especially as women, that when our lives are off balance at home, you know, in our relationships, whether if that's with a spouse, if that's with a significant other, if it's with your kids, a lot of times it can affect every single area of your life. What are you observing in that?

I'm observing that it comes from myself within. It's how do I lead myself? 'Cause like I had this client, she keeps talking about her husband. And I'm like, we're not gonna talk about him. We're gonna talk about you. She's the opposite of me, right? So she, like, I take up the whole room and I talk too much and I should just shut up. So most of the women that are like me, I teach them how to shut up. That's basically the best advice I could ever give a woman is stop talking. It literally helps so much, but we don't have time to get into that.

Yeah.

So I just find it starts within, right? It's not about what your husband should or shouldn't do or what your kids should and shouldn't do or what your employees should or shouldn't do. It's about what you can do right now without blaming, complaining, or throwing a huge pity party? So it's always about what can I do right now? When we go over and we focus on, oh, it's so annoying, if you just understood, even with our employees, that's not it. How can you show up? Like, when you get triggered, what can you do? And there's gold mines in triggers. And when you figure that one out, life gets really fun when you see that everything is a test. So I don't know if I'm allowed to swear on your program, but I call it—

Please.

Seeing the gift of learning in everything that pisses you off about your husband. Once you see that gift of learning, it becomes funnier because it just does, because it's a test and you don't have to pass it. But if you see it as a test and know that there's a great learning and growth opportunity, and then you finally one day you're able, without cutting out your tongue, you're able to not say that one thing, you know, you shouldn't say to him. And then you see, wow, I created that. I was able to do that. And all the other times that you don't, you do say what you know you shouldn't have. That's Just fail and recommit, accept and surrender, move on, it happened. You know, we can't control ourselves, if you're like me anyways. You say things you know you shouldn't have to your children and your husband, and you do. It's all a matter of habit.

Oh yes, I count on that.

So it starts from within. That's what I would say. Yeah, and yet stuff comes up, but it's a learning opportunity. It's a gift of learning.

I love that because, you know, something I say a lot is that sometimes your biggest agitators Are your biggest teachers. And I hear you saying that in the fact that, you know, things are here to— things aren't happening to you, they're here to serve you.

Yeah, as soon as you just— like, this is the number one thing I say, stay on your own turf. Just stay on your own turf. Okay. And it's a matter of, like I say, honesty loves speed. Money loves speed too, but I'm all staying at home first and the money will come afterwards.

Naturally.

The sooner you're able to be honest about what story you're telling yourself and the fact that that story is not serving you and that you're operating out of jealousy, hurt— whenever you're angry at your husband, you're like, ah, that's when there's something for you. That's when you have acted in what I call bad behavior. You were either jealous or you blamed or you shamed or you told yourself some stories about your husband that wasn't serving you that made it okay for you to finally snap, like cleaning up his socks, oh, he's so lazy, or whatever story it is. Like, so how fast are you able to be honest about the stories that you're telling yourself before or after so-called bad behavior? Bad behavior is just everything that stands in the way of connection— blaming, complaining, and pity parties. I'll tell you a funny story about pity parties. I remember listening to this person on YouTube. She said, stop hosting your own pity party. And I love that phrase. And I used to cry when I did the dishes Being all sorry for myself about the only one cleaning up, and I was just about to start up the same stories in my head. You know that give us the go ahead to start crying once we're in the pity party. We can't stop, right? So don't get into it because it's like you can't stop because you're telling yourself these stories that boo hoo for me. And I just noticed them, and I heard that. I just heard that woman stop hosting your pity party, and I smiled. And I never went back to those pity parties anymore doing that same thing. Because this is, this is the key. I figured out there's 3 things I can do without blaming, complaining, or throwing a huge pity party. Like, I can B, leave the dishes, or I can C, pay someone else to do— or A, B, I skipped a B— or I can C, do them myself. So 3 options, you know, pay somebody else to do it, leave them, or do it myself. Look, I have options. I have choices, right? You do have choices.

I love that idea of, you know, you can lead someone or you can do it yourself or pay someone, because that's so true in every situation in our life. You know, when people get caught up in that idea that I don't have a choice or I'm stuck in this, like something I remind them all the time is you're choosing this. There are options. There's always— you'll be provided a way out. You just get resourceful and get creative in that.

Yeah, so what, so what happens when you complain and blame and throw a pity party is that you get disconnected, right? And then you don't connect with your husband because of the stories that you're telling yourself. And some of the stories is not even conscious. It's before puberty, something traumatic happened. We made up a story about ourselves or the world around us, and that runs us. But there are day-to-day stories that you can change immediately. I'll tell you the biggest shift in my life and how I really became what I call a leader of my emotions instead of a follower. It's all about managing your emotions. And that's all about managing your mind. But here's how I did it. I decided enough is enough after a phone call with my mom. I was complaining. So my husband is, I think you call it technically a hoarder. So it makes it kind of hard to live with this practical stuff, right?

Mm-hmm.

But he's a beautiful man. I have my issues, we have both our issues. So, but I decided I'm never ever gonna utter or think a negative word about my husband because all your girlfriends and your mom is gonna say, oh yeah, yeah, yeah. They're gonna be on your side, right? But they're not telling you what you need to hear to break your story, to get the connection. So I just decided, I call it remove verbal garbage. Like, I was all about cleaning up. How about cleaning up in myself? So I never say a negative word about my husband, or now ex-husband. Like, I just don't. And from that day on, I became a leader. So I took all the negative words that I used to use, like never getting anything done, lazy, blah blah. I flipped them to the positive, and I saw that, oh my God, he's patient, you know, slow. That then you're effect— you're efficient and patient and grounded. And I flipped all the negative words around, and you know what I found?

What?

All the positive flip sides, you know, they go together, right? So you can say, honey, oh, you're so efficient, instead of slow, just for fun, right? To say that, say the positive words. But, and it's really funny, and guys do it too with girls, like, you know, they just have different things that they do. But here's what I found out. All those things, Valerie, were exactly what I needed to learn. And from that moment on, I'm like, wow, those are the qualities. What triggers you in other people is either the quality that you lack in yourself Or something that you envy. Those are the only 2 reasons for triggers, or symbols of insecurity. Like beer cans on the table freaked me out because I felt like I can't live with him, and that was evidence, right? But it's just a symbol.

Hmm.

So the beautiful part is that I knew why God had put him in front of me. It was so crystal clear that all my powers that I have automatically— oh, you're so inspirational, walk into a room— yeah, but I can't connect. I couldn't connect with people because I lack what he has. The ability to lean back, shut the F up, and see what evolves and be patient, right? And when I master now these skills that all those triggers taught me, I get to be who I can really be and provide service. I can't serve people when I can't connect with them because my ego's in the way, or however way I was, like the opposite of him.

Mm-hmm.

So there's a reason he's in front of you, your husband. There's something to learn. And it's not about whether or not you should be with him, or divorce, or whatever. It's not even about that. It's about how do you lead yourself with love to get all those gold mines of all those triggers that are in whomever is in front of you, your husband, or what just happened. But your husband, there's a really, really good reason he's in your life. There's something for you to learn. And when you learn that, you will be rich in a way you cannot even imagine.

Yes! So good, so good. I— my favorite part of what I'm hearing you say Is that— and I want people to like really like hook onto this if they're watching— the fact that if you're always— you're limiting yourself because your world gets really small when you're looking at how separate you are from your spouse, or, you know, always looking for evidence. I heard you say that, looking for the evidence that you should leave or that he's somehow wrong or whatever that is. What I'm hearing you say is that when you lead with love, It's so much more empowering because you then take your power back and you have a choice and you're taking a stand for yourself to lead with love instead of being separate and looking for evidence and somehow making someone else the enemy.

Yeah, so there are many parts to what you're saying. First of all, when you lead yourself, then you get what you, you send out, right? So if you want love, give what's love to him. Not talking, that's not love to him. Silence and PJs. I used to say in my— what's love to my husband. But give us— lead yourself, and then your outside will reflect that. But what I want to say about the evidence is here's what happens when we get disconnected, or we try to talk our way to connection in getting him to understand that he should do something different or understand us. It's just never going to happen, because what happens is the only thing that's variable— here's what I ask. Sorry to talk about sex all the time, but here's what I ask my women when they have that long list of things. about the mess around the house, and I used to be very into those, wanting more clean and practical. I'd say, does it matter after great sex?

Hmm.

No, it doesn't, unless they don't really love them, but that's very rare. Like, no, it doesn't matter. Why doesn't it matter? Because what you want is connection. And when we get that what we really want is connection, and the longer it's been since we connected, then we start seeing the symbols and the evidence that he doesn't love us. If he loved me, he'd clear the table. If he loved me, he'd hang his socks up or in the drawer or whatever, because our insecurity goes up. So the only thing that varies is our insecurity. Those socks don't matter after great connection, because what we want is love. It's not the sex, it's the love. It's the knowing we're able to give and receive love. But we can also find that connection inside ourselves at any time.

Mm-hmm.

You can get back to connection in an instant with him. And you can literally try it out. There are tricks and hacks. You can be stuck fighting, but if you find a way back to manage your emotions, to say something smart and get into connection, You'll stop fighting. And I have plenty of funny stories about that. So what happens when you're looking for evidence that he loves you? Because you've become insecure. So after you connected, a couple of days, whatever happens, you go like, does he really love me? That's our inner voice, right? Insecurity goes up. And then you look, I want evidence that he loves me. I want evidence that he loves me. And then you're not seeing all the evidence. It's all out there, but you're looking like this for evidence.

Mm.

I'm staring at those beer bottles. If he moves them, he loves me. If he doesn't, he doesn't love me. Or if he doesn't move the beer bottles, can't live together, and then all hell breaks loose because I'm in the future thinking that we broke up already, right? It's not— forget about the notion of whether or not you should stay with him. Take that out of the picture. So I ended up getting separated. I didn't expect to get here. That, for me, I thought that was a failure. But it would— I just— lead yourself with love. It doesn't matter where you end up. Take that pressure off. Because what we do as women, we think— I know, I remember crying like, I don't know, for days or whole nights Imagining the whole breakup because something happened. I'm like, oh, then we can't live together. So I go through all the emotions of a breakup that hasn't happened, it won't happen, and I put that into my present. Like, stupid, right? So what, what you, you know, what you focus on, that's what you create. What you look for is what you see, and what you see is what you get. And then, you know, the more you say it, the more you cultivate it, it just becomes your reality, and that is what you can change. Change what you look for and change the stories that you tell. If you tell yourself you married a loser, that's what you're gonna get. That's a stupid story, right? So I said, hey, Superman, and he's gonna come eventually. Action Man is what I called mine. Action Man, I love that.

So much of what you're saying is just like clicking, you know, because I've got my girlfriends, I have my clients, and there's a lot of women out there who I do feel like there's this constant like game playing where women are— and I don't know if it's because we're more complex, we think a little bit more complex, but we—

Oh yeah, brains are very different.

Oh yes, very different. And so what I see women doing, and I myself have done this in my early 20s, and I've been guilty of it, is we're looking for signs and wonders and we're trying to decipher these behaviors, or if he sends a text but he didn't say this, or we're always deciphering. And really, like, guys usually are pretty straightforward for the most part. But as women, I feel like, you know, sometimes, especially with our girlfriends or with other women, we'll be like, well, what do you think he meant by this? You know, I'm reading the body language. And so, like, what do you have for those women? Because I know that there's one or two of them watching right now and they might be thinking that. Yeah, but you don't understand. My husband used to Bring me flowers and do romantic things, and he's not anymore.

And I— Give him flowers. If you want something, you give it, right? Like, I know it's really hard when you're the most sad. And I remember being so sad, and I was stuck fighting for 7 years before I learned these principles, and it all turned around. And somehow we ended up here, but still following God's plan and leading myself with love. I used to be so miserable, and that's when you're reaching out for help. And I noticed the hardest thing to do is to do the opposite. When you feel completely depleted and you just want him to give you a hand, you just want him to do that one little thing. Go do it yourself. Give what you want to get. Find that courage and that strength to be that leader. Like, you want him to take responsibility, you take responsibility first.

Absolutely.

And taking responsibility is a little scary because we feel like we're putting the blame on ourselves. But as soon as you take it, you grow, right? You know, you grow as a— like you're the king or queen and everybody looks up at you and you're like this great person. When you take the responsibility, it's only scary until you do it. And here's what I say, like, someone you are meant to be will catch you when you jump and you do that scary thing you know you have to do. So take the responsibility, be honest, be vulnerable, tell them what it's about. Your honesty— here's the one thing I forgot to mention that makes everything like absolutely complete. You don't need it. Absolute is not the word, but honesty. It's way easier to just be honest. Like, so people tell me all these things, like, just tell him that, but have a good feeling inside. You can't have blame in your body when you do it. So before you go, ask yourself, do I have any blame? Because we women, we blame directly and indirectly our husbands for everything, right? So just ask yourself, do I have any blame inside of me? If you do, stop talking. But if you can find— be in that space where you're honest about yourself and vulnerable, just be honest. Just tell him honestly what's going on. It's so much faster and so much easier. Tell them, honestly, I'm super insecure, it's stupid, I've been thinking what you meant by that, or why you didn't something. But don't do it with blame. If you still have blame inside of you, forget about it. Just don't. It's not gonna create anything good.

Wow.

You want to get to connection. That's the only place you want to get to. So there are behaviors that I call bad behavior, take you away from connection. It's the war path. And then you have the love path. So you either walk towards love or away from love. And it's okay to walk away from love. We do it all the time. Just admit it and acknowledge it and at least see it. Get real about how you feel. I feel jealous. I hate him. I feel vengeance. I feel defense. It's okay, but you've got to be honest. If you're not honest, you can't change your direction. And it's super simple. We're just not used to being honest about it, really. I remember working with this guy recently. I started up his sales department, so I was kind of like his employee. And he just made that mistake. And he was— I was like, why are you not just honest? And like, nobody expects you— it's so much easier. Just be honest.

Yeah.

But not when you have points. Don't be honest about how annoying you think he is. That's not gonna help you. Remove verbal garbage. Like, think about how great it is when you married this person, right? You chose him. You gotta lift him up. Like, never ever say or think a negative word about your husband. Don't do it to go first. They're gonna nod. It's gonna grow. He's gonna be that that you say. He's gonna be lazy, annoying. They're gonna go, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like it even happens now with my ex. That's not where the learning is. Go the other way and see. Wow! Like I have so many stories still going on where I learned so much because he's like an enigma. He's super beautiful, impossible person at the same time. But I learned so much. I've developed a whole program that I wouldn't have if God had not put him in front of me. Impossible and beautiful as Like, so it is, there's so much learning.

I love that because, you know, having your experience and then creating beauty from the ashes of that. I mean, I think that's something we can all choose the story that we tell ourselves about our experiences. And so that's beautiful that you were able to do that. And I also love that you talked about, you touched on something that I know is one of your like key phrases of Make love, not war.

It's a choice.

I love it. It is a choice.

When we're fighting, we're screaming, I want to make love to you! That's what we're doing. We should be effing instead of fighting, right? That's, that's the same energy, and we choose to always go down the war path when it's so much easier to shift. So I did this. I remember being really, oh, you know, so romantic about wanting to come home and hug my husband. I'd be like a real little kid. We were in love for years. Crazy lot of love, and I'd be like, just can't wait to open the door and run into his arms. I was playing this image in my head, and I opened the door and see the mess, and I start bitching and complaining on auto. I remember, I'm like, ah, all these words come out. That's not what I meant to say. I just rush over and kiss him, stop talking. That's one thing you do. You can also take your clothes off. I mean, it's pretty hard to fight when you're naked. Do whatever it takes, or you say that one thing. There we go. So you just want— you just want to get to connection. And there are hacks to getting to connections, like saying efficient instead of slow and saying it out loud. So that brings you to connection. And I taught my husband a phrase that I didn't realize he was using on me. And I was— we were completely stuck fighting. I don't know if you've experienced it, but even when you say something that you want to— you think it's your way of saying something nice to him, but because you're so vulnerable, the words just hurt like hand grenades. Like, words can hurt so much because you have emotions and then words Just do not work. Don't use words. And they're like, oh, it hurts. And then I say something and he misunderstands it, and we're just stuck fighting like this. Bing bong bing. I'm trying to make an espresso, the espresso thing, and he's lying there. I remember it was so stuck, right? Still had this thing in my hand going to get coffee or making coffee. And then he says this magic word that I, you know, 3 years ago came up with for a man to say to a woman. I didn't even realize it. This is the word that he said.

What?

Oh, I see. Wow, I never thought about it like that. When you put it that way, I understand. And that's what he said, right? Boom, we're making love. And afterwards, he's looking into it. You just want to get to connection, right? You want to— you want to look into his eyes. You want that peaceful bliss feeling and make love. When you make love, and it doesn't have to be sexual, you just make and produce love all around you. It lasts forever, right? You're making, you know, love. And then he— and I look up at him and I say, did you mean that? And he goes, no. And I didn't care that he didn't mean it. I was just happy that— that's— I just wanted him to say that because it brought us to connection. Because we have this desperate need for a man to understand us. Here's the deal, you'll never understand— he'll never understand you.

Mm-hmm.

You might understand him in glimpses, but a man will never ever understand a woman. And here's how I know this. Sorry, I'm talking so much, but you know— Oh no, it's fine. We have 9,000 words a day we need to say, right, and get out, and then have 3,000— that's a whole problem itself. One time I really wanted to understand and communicate with my husband. I remember we're sitting in the car and he's all— like, I'm all happy, he's all— he's gonna explain to me how the engine of the car works. And for the first time, I'm really like, yes, I'm going to listen to him and he's going to explain something to him— to me that he knows a lot about. I get a good— I was really ready, like, yeah, come on, bring it on. I want to understand how the car engine works. And then I just see his mouth move and I hear words. I just remember, like, I see, I see his mouth is moving and I know he's speaking words, right? I know the words are coming out. I've never been more interested in really understanding and really excited. And then I just don't understand. It's like, it's like putting something square into something round. There was a whole thing around that made me not understand anything. Like, it was just like impossible to understand. And then it hit me. Oh my God, that's how he feels when I talk about my emotions. Like, that's it. That from that point on, I never ever tried to explain my emotions. So I know a lot of therapists and say start with I feel sentence. I get the whole idea of that, but when you say I feel to a— at least if your husband are like mine, sometimes my clients, we switch roles, gender roles. So you might be the man, he might be the, the wife. But when you start a sentence with I feel, he gets scared, you know, he knows he's in trouble. So I, you know, it's good to start with I, but That's just little superficial tactics, right? It's just like he goes, I'm in trouble now, because they just don't understand. We have— you can see the brain scans, and we go straight to the hippocampus of the brain where all the memories and the feelings are. And first of all, we don't know if it's memories or if it's new feelings. And they just don't have that much blood flow to that. They have to see really big dangers. Like, we see in moderate stress, we have 8 times more blood flow to the hippocampus where memories and feelings and Feelings are stored, and they don't. They have to have a huge danger sign. Maybe when you say, "I feel danger," but they have to have a lot more stress to have blood flow, the same right of blood flow in their brains. They can go to dead zombies, blue in a brain scan, nothing going on. We can't. We can't shut our mind off. So I actually have a thesis that the real penis envy is peace of mind envy. We're enemies that are men. Can just not think, because peace of mind is number one to managing your mind. It's very hard for us to get to that because we have thoughts running all the time, and they don't. So when you start talking to him, we think out loud. Men don't think out loud, and they don't expect us to be thinking out loud either. Even though I tell him I'm just thinking out loud, he'll never expect it. So to him, I've thought all these things and I'm giving him some kind of conclusion or instruction, or like, they're just different. So stop trying to explain your emotions or explain how you feel to him. That brings disconnection. You just want to make love and look into his eyes and afterwards say a few words, practical things, but you want to make love first. Otherwise, you go straight to war. Like, the odds of creating connection using your words, especially if you want to explain yourself, they're very, very much against you.

Yes, I couldn't agree more. Like, My husband is a mechanical engineer, so he's very much like, yeah, I mean, I work from home and I've learned that I need to give him like 20 minutes to come home, sit down before I even start talking.

Of course.

Because I will just drive him crazy, you know? And I'm very much a verbal processor. So I've also— something I put into place is like, I have my girlfriends for that, or I have someone that I call to verbal process because I think a lot of women will understand this part. And then when I have a conclusion and I actually want something like done or a solution, then I go to my husband. Because otherwise it's going to be like him trying to explain what he does at work. Like, I have no idea what he's talking about. It's math, it's angles, it's— I don't get it, you know, like, so I—

Good to already figure that out. Yeah. So what can we help the— is it mainly women watching the show?

We have men and women. Yeah. So it just kind of— I think the relationship pieces are great tools for people because we all have that. We all have our relationship issues or things that come up. And I do know that you have an amazing offer for our listeners as well. So would you like to share about that? Sure.

I have 2 things. I don't know when they're going to get this recording, but I often have masterminds or masterclasses. classes they could join, but they could just book a call with me and we can talk and we can see what helps them. I'll send them a masterclass or whatever files with shows. I've done tons of shows like you, right? So interviews with great, great people. And after that call, we'll figure out what helps you. And if you want to enroll in one of my programs, they're very welcome to that as well. It's all about managing your emotions and lead yourself with love. Stop yelling at your kids and your husband.

Awesome.

Yeah.

So this will be live on The 20th, no, 27th.

27th, super, super. Well, I have masterclasses all the time. I'd love to invite the listener who's interested to join one of the masterclasses, and I'll put a link in for my calendar, just book a call and we'll connect on Zoom. Awesome.

And I know that there's people who are watching that are gonna want to connect with you. How do they get ahold of you?

I'm giving you the link so that they can just book it when this interview comes out. Very good. Into the calendar. And they answer a few questions. What's your number one struggle and what would your life look like if that wasn't an issue?

Perfect. Well, thank you so much, Samantha. It has been great having you on here. It's been an absolute pleasure. It's been so much fun. And I know that people are going to get a ton out of this interview.

Thank you. I have all these words to get out, so I'm pleased and happy. To be able to express them and anything anybody wants, don't ever hesitate to reach out. I love helping people in this field with whatever I can help with. I think it's beautiful that I'm able to provide value from just, you know, from love, even though it ended up in a divorce, which is, it's a happy one anyways, as it can be.

Well, thank you so much. And thanks guys, thanks for tuning in and we will see you next week on The Thrive Show.

Yeah, right.

Hey guys, again, thanks for watching. I hope you love the Thrive Show. If you are interested in getting more information, hit subscribe below. You can also find me on my website at www.valnichols.com. I'll see you guys later.