Saying what you feel and asking for what you want with your partners can often be very difficult. But why is that? And even when you gather the courage and patience to do so, they still don't understand. Kimberly shares that this is common, "What seems to be one of the most difficult conversations for a man and or woman to have in their relationship or in dating is saying how we feel and communicating when we have a need."
Activity to get better at communicating with your partner
This is an exercise to help you fill in what you are feeling and what you really need.
-> Get a pen and paper and write the below down
___<Their_Name>___,
I feel _________.
Because _________.
I would like it if you would __________.
I hope you understand that __________.
To learn more about how this works, listen to the full episode.
Takeaways
1️⃣ Make sure before having a conversation with your partner, they are in the present and free of distractions
2️⃣ When addressing an issue, focus on the behavior. Rather than blaming or pointing at your partner, find the behavior that is causing this conversation to happen.
3️⃣ Ask for what you want, rather than what you don't want. After sharing your feelings on how you feel, go that extra step further to suggest a solution.
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If you enjoyed listening to this episode (or the podcast), please share your diagnosis with 1 close relationship or anyone else who would enjoy listening to this as well.
If you would like to share your story, fill out this quick form.
The best gift you can give us is positive feedback and your observations. Follow us wherever you are listening and do us a favor by adding a Review on Apple Podcast.
LoVita – Love Vitamins for a healthier is a community by Partners for Partners. We share stories about how Partners are working intentionally towards building a healthier relationship. To learn more check out the links below 🔗
LoVita Blog for Frameworks
Sign up for our monthly Newsletter for exclusive content
We're also on Social media – Instagram, Facebook,
All above links in a single page
Connect with Kimberly Hill
Website: http://www.kimberlyninahill.com
Instagram: @kimberlyninahill
Podcast: The Self Confidence Project
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Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/lovitalovevitamins/message
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Kimberly is a Certified Dating & Relationship Coach and a Master Neurolinguistic Practitioner who supports men to attract and keep healthy, loving relationships. She is the host of the honest and relatable podcast, The Self-Confidence Project where she talks candidly about the stuff we all face in life and love. She has thousands of hours of direct intimate work with men on confidence, dating, and relationships and brings a mastery of coaching, emotional maturity practices, and leadership to her clients. Her clients go on to find fulfilling and deeply rewarding relationships.
Saying what you feel and asking for what you want with your partners can often feel can be very difficult. But why is that? And even when you gather the courage and patience to do so, they still don’t understand. Kimberly shares that this is common, “What seems to be one of the most difficult conversations for a man and or woman to have in their relationship or in dating is saying how we feel and communicating when we have a need.”
Activity to get better at communicating with your partner
This is an exercise to help you fill in what you are feeling and what you really need.
-> Get a pen and paper and write the below down
___<Their_Name>___, I feel _________. Because _________. I would like it if you would __________. I hope you understand that __________.
To learn more about how this works, listen to the full episode.
Takeaways
1️⃣ Make sure before having a conversation with your partner, they are in the present and free of distractions
2️⃣ When addressing an issue, focus on the behavior. Rather than blaming or pointing at your partner, find the behavior that is causing this conversation to happen.
3️⃣ Ask for what you want, rather than what you don’t want. After sharing your feelings on how you feel, go that extra step further to suggest a solution.
So what is the biggest problem that men face in relationships today? Raashi thinks that I don't understand the female perspective (how dare she !?) Huffpost rates attraction, sex and communication as the top 3 biggest relationship issues in Men. As per our expert guest, Kimberly, "Of course everyone is having unique or different experiences and different frustrations that they bring to the dating process and into their relationships. But without a doubt, over the last few, many years I've worked with men, there are common themes that do tend to reoccur." She talks more about how men are often unaware of what they are looking for or from a relationship, approaching them with unhealthy attachment styles.
It's essentially not a sustainable practice to be able to consistently be putting more energy or resources into your relationship than you are actually being able to replenish from it. Constantly creating this scarcity, this depletion of who you are, what you're bringing into this relationship, it's not a sustainable practice for a long-term healthy relationship because that's not built on equality. Kimberly adds to that about the importance of interdependence in relationships. Listen to the full episode for more.
If you enjoyed listening to this episode (or the podcast), please share your diagnosis with 1 close relationship or anyone else who would enjoy listening to this as well.
If you would like to share your story, fill out this quick form.
The best gift you can give us is positive feedback and your observations. Follow us wherever you are listening and do us a favor by adding a Review on Apple Podcast.
LoVita – Love Vitamins for a healthier is a community by Partners for Partners. We share stories about how Partners are working intentionally towards building a healthier relationship. To learn more check out the links below 🔗
LoVita Blog for Frameworks
Sign up for our monthly Newsletter for exclusive content
We're also on Social media – Instagram, Facebook,
All above links in a single page
Connect with Kimberly Hill
Website: http://www.kimberlyninahill.com
Instagram: @kimberlyninahill
Podcast: The Self Confidence Project
—
Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/lovitalovevitamins/message
Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/lovitalovevitamins/support
Kimberly is a Certified Dating & Relationship Coach and a Master Neurolinguistic Practitioner who supports men to attract and keep healthy, loving relationships. She is the host of the honest and relatable podcast, The Self-Confidence Project where she talks candidly about the stuff we all face in life and love. She has thousands of hours of direct intimate work with men on confidence, dating, and relationships and brings a mastery of coaching, emotional maturity practices, and leadership to her clients. Her clients go on to find fulfilling and deeply rewarding relationships.
So what is the biggest problem that men face in relationships today? Raashi thinks that I don’t understand the female perspective (how dare she !?) Huffpost rates attraction, sex and communication as the top 3 biggest relationship issues in Men. As per our expert guest, Kimberly, “Of course everyone is having unique or different experiences and different frustrations that they bring to the dating process and into their relationships. But without a doubt, over the last few, many years I’ve worked with men, there are common themes that do tend to reoccur.” She talks more about how men are often unaware of what they are looking for or from a relationship, approaching them with unhealthy attachment styles.
Lack of understanding of what you are looking for
One of them is that a lot of men dating today aren’t particularly sure. what they’re looking for. Oftentimes, and this goes for men and women, oftentimes we get into the dating process and we let. Things like attractiveness be the leading factor. Ooh, I think that guy’s hot, so I’ll date him. Ooh, I think that woman’s beautiful, so I’ll date her. And oftentimes we allow ourselves to be clouded by the sexual chemistry or the attraction, and we don’t really consider. The underlying components of personality, behavior, compatibility, shared visions, a and things that really actually are the, like the secret recipe for making a successful long-term relationship.
So first thing, of course, is getting into, dating or a relationship without really understanding what you’re looking for. What brings you satisfaction with you can, you can see now it’s very easy to to, to reflect and go. Of course that’s gonna cause frustration and stress. So clarity is super important and, and we can go about getting that in different ways.
Attachment Styles
More men, in particular in the United States, can expect to grow up in fatherless homes than they can expect to grow up with a father. Which means that the way men are being raised in today’s society is different from how men were raised in the past. If men are being raised by their mothers, their mothers are, usually displaying different characteristics and their fathers would. And I do tend to see a lot of men that are particularly conflict avoidant or can get into certain, behavioral patterns like people plea. Now this doesn’t bode well in the dating process or in your relationships because sometimes these men are lacking the ability to express what they need to ask for, what they need, and oftentimes they’re trying to do their absolute best to please their partner, but they’re, sabotaging their own needs and wants. And so early on, That might make a woman fall for him. Oh, he’s so shris and so charming and he always is sinking to me. Gosh, he’s so considerate and wow, this man is perfect , right? And then you get into the realness of a relationship where drama and conflict and mistakes and all sorts of things come up. And if an individual isn’t particularly equipped with how to be honest or communicate effectively or to ask for what they need, and they still tend to fall into that, people pleasing, usually it builds up a great deal of resent. And it causes the relationships to deteriorate because you are. Trust first and foremost. When you’re not being honest with what you feel, think what you need, you’re actually not being a trustworthy person. So when trust starts to dissolve in a relationship, your emotional connection dissolves, your physical connection dissolves. And guess what? A lot of these men are divorced. A lot of these men have been divorced by their partners because more women initiate divorce than men. So these guys who. , wow. I was just doing my best end up being rejected by their partners and they internalize that thinking it’s all their fault. when really they might just be missing a couple fundamental skills that are not always easy to learn and apply, but are essential to understand for any healthy long-term, commitment.
Strong Inter-dependence
It’s essentially not a sustainable practice to be able to consistently be putting more energy or resources into your relationship than you are actually being able to replenish from it. Constantly creating this scarcity, this depletion of who you are, what you’re bringing into this relationship, it’s not a sustainable practice for a long-term healthy relationship because that’s not built on equality. Kimberly adds to that,
It’s really important in any relationship to have what’s considered like strong interdependence. If two people in a relationship are so independent, then they’re not really sharing their lives with each other. and if two people in a relationship are so co-dependent, Well, then they’re sharing too much with each other, and neither of those are particularly a good recipe for a healthy, long-term relationship. Either of those scenarios might last long-term, but doesn’t necessarily mean they’re fulfilling or satisfying or healthy. And so really what we wanna look for is healthy interdependence, which means we have a really strong sense of our own identity. We know what we like and don’t like. We can communicate that with our partner and they can do the same. We can share parts of our lives together. We can trust that we can rely on one another, but we also know how to get out and get on with our day. We also have friends that we socialize with and hobbies and passions we pursue that are independent of our partner, and that’s what keeps us as an individual, strong and healthy because we know who we are and what brings us satisfaction.
Julie shares with us how she sends out energy to her Angels through a wish or a prayer or whatever term people might prefer to use in their own comfort. The idea being that you're not using directive action to ask for something. You're more of sending out this energy and this request to the things that you don’t have a lot of control over.
Some other things we talk about in the episode
1️⃣ Importance of Self Discovery
2️⃣ Looking at Polarity
3️⃣Conflict Decision Making Tree
Sometimes we don't have the healthiest ways to deal with conflicts. This framework can really benefit making conflicts easier. Here’s how it works.
1️⃣ Take a deep breath and ask yourself, can you think of one nice thing about your partner?
2️⃣ Can you say what really made you upset?
3️⃣ Can you honestly say what you need at this moment?
4️⃣ Can you honestly say what you need at this moment.
If you enjoyed listening to this episode (or the podcast), please share your diagnosis with 1 close relationship or anyone else who would enjoy listening to this as well.
The best gift you can give us is positive feedback and your observations. Follow us wherever you are listening and do us a favor by adding a Review on Apple Podcast.
LoVita – Love Vitamins for a healthier is a community by Partners for Partners. We share stories about how Partners are working intentionally towards building a healthier relationship. To learn more check out the links below 🔗
LoVita Blog for Frameworks
Sign up for our monthly Newsletter for exclusive content
We're also on Social media – Instagram, Facebook,
All above links in a single page
Connect with Julie Hilsen
Website: https://www.youneedapeptalk.com
Instagram: jhilsen
Facebook: jhilsen
Book: Life of Love
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Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/lovitalovevitamins/message
Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/lovitalovevitamins/support
Julie Hilsen is a spiritual activator who has written the book, Life of Love a Joyful Guide to Self and Sensuality. She is delighted to share how the everyday person in everyday life can reach a higher state of happiness through self-discovery and the simple task of asking. Her approachable book details how to call in your angels and guides as a supplement and to accelerate your ability to live a life of love.
Importance of Self Discovery
If you don’t understand why you need what you need or what is it that you’re asking for, it’s very hard for you to communicate that information. A lot of the times we come into a relationship just hoping that a person’s gonna be able to pick up the pattern or really help us do that hard work. Philosophically and logically, we do get that it’s something that we have to own. Consistently we come to a relationship because we’re so intimately tied, expecting our partner to be able to help pick up the slack and be like, “oh, you should know this by now.” “I always get angry when you do X, Y, and Z.” Well, okay, have you spent any time really understanding why X, y, and Z makes you upset? That’s still your responsibility.
Julie shares how she understand the needs of herself and her husband to build a healthier relationship.
Once I owned that, that my husband, even though he loves me to the moon and back, can’t read my mind once I was able to realize he wasn’t a superhero. He’s a mere human. He’s Im mortal just like me. That, me giving him, Cold shoulder isn’t gonna teach him to love me more.
You have to show up how you want to be loved and, and you know, show by example. And you have to lovingly ask from a place of resource, because when you ask from a place of scarcity or you’re feeling lack, then your partner picks up on that. That angst and that that feeling of frustration. And it’s just a hard platform to start from.
Once you find your inner light and you own that, you do have an inner light, that you’re responsible for your inner light. And once you come to relationship on, on that basis, then you can go and and request from a place of resource and a place of giving because you can’t expect them to give you something that you aren’t able to recognize. Or ld appreciate
Looking at Polarity
One of the ways to get started, understanding ourselves better is to pay attention to the way we self-talk. A bit more kindness to ourselves because sometimes that’s an ingredient that’s incredibly lacking. Julie shares her thoughts about how people should look at polarity in their lives.
We cannot continue to exist in a world of absolutes. because that’s not, that’s not who we are. We’re everything. We’re good and we’re bad. We’re messy, and we’re clean. And, and as soon as we accept that in ourselves and embrace that whole gamut of, of who we are as a person and accept and love even the messy parts of ourselves, the sooner we can show compassion for ourselves.
It opens up a, it opens up a dialogue, it opens up a healing when you can say from your heart, Hey, this is where I am and I’m just gonna accept it. I’m not gonna label it. I’m not weak, I’m not strong, I’m not fat. I’m not skinny.
it’s not to beat yourself up, it’s just to accept, hey, this is human nature. Like our brains try to make everything simple, that our brains are constantly trying to protect us and make sure we can get to. Fastest answer and the easiest possibility, but that’s not always the best for our joy. Our best for our joy is to connect to what’s really happening and accept it. Just be there with it.
Calling on the Angels
Julie shares on how she calls on the Angles every day.
I say, please show me the highest expression of this day. And then something recently I’ve added. Thank you for the obstacles that have been presented. I release them. They no longer serve me. I learned from them. I had my lesson. Now I, I release that back because you’re right. It’s opportunities. It’s opportunities to grow, to grow and ascend. So just because something’s not perfect doesn’t mean it can’t be a perfect moment.
Conflict Decision Making Tree
Below is a chart that Julie shared with us regarding the Conflict Resolution Decision Tree. To learn more about how this works, check out her book – Life of Love or listen to the episode.
In this conversation with Branch Isole, he shares some amazing exercises to build better communication in your relationships. We discuss the different levels of pain and the seven Rs that people in relationships can use as an opportunity to address issues and work towards finding a solution to reconcile and repair the situation. And repair the relationships.
He shares the seven steps that a couple or people in relationships can use as an opportunity to address the issue and work towards finding a solution so that you can reconcile and repair the situation, repair the relationship. All it costs you is an investment of your time and your emotions.
1️⃣ Recognize that you have harmed the other
2️⃣ Take Responsibility for your actions
3️⃣ Have Regret
4️⃣ Have Remorse
5️⃣ Redress
6️⃣ Repetition
7️⃣ Repent
If you enjoyed listening to this episode (or the podcast), please share your diagnosis with 1 close relationship or anyone else who would enjoy listening to this as well.
If you would like to share your story, fill out this quick form.
The best gift you can give us is positive feedback and your observations. Follow us wherever you are listening and do us a favor by adding a Review on Apple Podcast.
LoVita – Love Vitamins for a healthier is a community by Partners for Partners. We share stories about how Partners are working intentionally towards building a healthier relationship. To learn more check out the links below 🔗
LoVita Blog for Frameworks
Sign up for our monthly Newsletter for exclusive content
We're also on Social media – Instagram, Facebook,
All above links in a single page
Connect with Branch Isole
Website: http://www.branchisole.com
Facebook: podcastguestbranchisole
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Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/lovitalovevitamins/message
Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/lovitalovevitamins/support
Author, poet and storyteller Branch Isole writes and speaks about choice and consequence, accepting or avoiding personal responsibility, and the power of truth. Known worldwide, his contemporary short stories reveal issues and emotions often experienced, but not always voiced.With careers in teaching, corporate sales/marketing, and founder/partner of five small businesses, Branch is author of twenty-two books.
What does Branch do to build a healthier relationship?
Open communication
Vulnerability
Branch says if you can start and have those two things grow, then the conversation can be more open and honest and you can handle trouble situations where the rough spots are a little bit easier and when we hold it back, it comes out sooner or later.
An exercises to work on improving the communication with your partner?
Branch shares a beautiful practice for open communication – Make contact – Knees and hands; eyes locked
Start your conversation after you both sit in a chair facing your partner and sit knee to knee. Hold each other’s hands. You’re as close as you can get without in their space, i.e. without hugging. Look them in the eye. This contact gives you that intimacy, that when you’re far apart, is much easier to keep. When you have that physical distance, it’s much easier to keep that verbal distance as well. So you wanna make contact, knees and hands, eyes locked, and then you are at a place of intimacy that you can start to discuss, whatever the situation is.
Our takeaway: By creating this physical connection you’re creating an anchor for something that can be quite challenging to share somethings, like expressing our ideas, using our words. Sometimes, we arrive at the feeling state what our feelings are trying to communicate but then that journey that we take to express it using our words can be quite difficult and leave a lot of room for misinterpretation, which creates additional barriers for the conversations. In this practice you’re involving almost all your senses, by touching each other hands looking at each other, looking at each others eyes, and the proximity also activates your sense of smell which can lead to better listening overall. So it does open that space for vulnerability.
Who starts the conversation?
Branch shares more about what he and his wife do in their relationship.
“We’ve been together long enough now that we pretty well know each other and the things and the behaviors that we can expect. We both realize that we have strengths and we have weakness. So what we do is we try to get that 50 50, knowing that it can’t always be there, but we also know that in any given situation that we’re facing, one of us is strong than the other one. One of us has better skill sets to handle leading into the situation and finding resolution.”
He adds that by doing this practice they get closer to that 50 50 balance where what she’s saying has value for both of them because it’s something that both of them are trying to correct or change. This allows them to identify the problem quickly, put out some options for solution quickly and then they follow it up with their 24 hour rule.
24 hour rule
Branch and his wife set aside for at least 24 hours after they are finished talking about the situation in hand, after which they come back and re-engage. Branch shares on how this helps them, “we’re both in a better place mentally. We’ve had time to do other things that we need to do in our life. But when we come back, then we might have thought about it a little bit differently than what we would’ve said in the conversation. So we pick it back up 24 hours later and allows us to find a solution very, very quickly.”
How do you resolve conflict?
So what happens when there’s conflict, when you disagree on things on who has that strength, you both have different opinions on a matter. On how they resolve that and move past from that situation, Branch says, they ask a simple question, “is this a deal breaker?” He adds that unless you’ve done something so egregious to harm your partner the chances are that it’s not going to end the relationship, but we want to get away from that thought right out of the gate. And if it’s not a deal breaker, then talk about the problem. The sooner you can find the solution the better you become as partners and the faster and farther ahead you can move as partners.
3 Levels of Pain
Branch shares more about the different levels of pain and how a simple apology only addresses the first one. He says, “If you have harmed someone verbally or physically or doing something outside of your relationship, there’s three actual pain levels that are taking place.”
Manifested act that has caused the pain By saying, “I’m sorry, please forgive me, let’s move on” it only addresses this first level, which is the manifested act that’s caused the pain.
Betrayal When the person who has been harmed feels betrayal, that first action of let’s move on isn’t gonna cut it. It’s not gonna help.
Trust When we’ve committed some act that’s caused harm, we have betrayed the vow or the agreement that we’ve had between us as partners in the relationship. And when we’ve betrayed that by the action, we have caused a breach of trust.
7 R’s to Relationship Repair
Whether this is in an intimate relationship between partners, spouses, a relationship between parents and children, or a relationship at work, when there’s been a breach of trust, if that trust is never rebuilt, the likelihood is that relationship will never be rebuilt as before.
Branch shares the seven steps that a couple or people in relationships can use as an opportunity to address the issue and work towards finding a solution so that you can reconcile and repair the situation, repair the relationship. All it costs you is an investment of your time and your emotions.
Recognize that you have harmed the other
Take Responsibility for your actions
Have Regret
Have Remorse
Redress
Repetition
Repent
To learn more about these steps and caveats, listen to the full episode.
2/2/2 Date Night Framework for Partners to Build a Healthier Relationship with Saami and Nathan Jaeger –
Love Vitamins for Relationships
Our conversation with Saami and Nathan Jaeger was filled with fun Activities, Practices and Rituals that Partners can take away and practice in your relationships to add fuel to your love Tanks. First they share about a Gratitude Practice that they use for MANAGING RESENTMENT. Then, we get into one of their rituals of 2 COFFEE AND A TREAT and I love it not just because it has 2 coffees in it but also a treat. At the end, we get into their practice of 2 x 2 x 2 DATE NIGHTS.
The Framework of 2/2/2 Date Night, which they found on a Reddit feed sometime ago, adapted to their liking, is that
Every 2️⃣ weeks we go on a date
Every 2️⃣ months, we go on a weekend away
Every 2️⃣ years (or twice a year), we'll go on a bigger adventure or a bigger holiday
This is definitely another exercise that we are excited to try out in our relationship. Our cadence might change to different numbers but the idea remains the same. What do you think would be an ideal frequency for your date nights – 1/1/1 or 2/3/2 or something else? Let us know in the comments below
Listen to the full episode to hear what they share about how this changed their relationship and got them out of their worst fight early on.
If you enjoyed listening to this episode (or the podcast), please share your diagnosis with 1 close relationship or anyone else who would enjoy listening to this as well.
If you would like to share your story, fill out this quick form.
The best gift you can give us is positive feedback and your observations. Follow us wherever you are listening and do us a favor by adding a Review on Apple Podcast.
LoVita – Love Vitamins for a healthier is a community by Partners for Partners. We share stories about how Partners are working intentionally towards building a healthier relationship. To learn more check out the links below 🔗
LoVita Blog for Frameworks
Sign up for our monthly Newsletter for exclusive content
We're also on Social media – Instagram, Facebook,
All above links in a single page
Connect with Sammi and Nathan Jaegar
Website: https://dateforever.com.au/
Instagram: dateforever
Podcast: Date Forever
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Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/lovitalovevitamins/message
Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/lovitalovevitamins/support
Sammi & Nathan Jaeger are the Co-Host of The Date Forever Podcast. And they are on a mission to empower couples to create thriving relationships. Because with better relationships we can create a better world. Sammi & Nath fell in love as housemates and have now been married for over a decade and love sharing relationship insights from couples and experts on their show.
This is the second part of our conversation. If you haven’t listened to the first episode, you can check the episode on Let the air out of the balloon to prevent resentment. Our conversation with them was filled with fun Activities, Practices and Rituals that Partners, can take away and practice in your relationships to add fuel to your love Tanks. First they share about a Gratitude Practice that they use for MANAGING RESENTMENT. Then, we get into one of their rituals of 2 COFFEE AND A TREAT and I love it not just because it has 2 coffees in it but also a treat. At the end, we get into their practice of 2 x 2 x 2 DATE NIGHTS.
What comes first – Success or Happiness?
A big part of being happy in a relationship is managing resentment. Saami and Nathan share about how they implemented their Gratitude Practice. Before going into bed, they ask each other what are they grateful for today? Sammi shares “Sometimes gratitude flows thick and fast, other times it’s so easy to come by. But what that’s meant is that all day I’ve trained my brain to be looking for the things to be appreciative for the things that I’m grateful for. Like this glass of water on my desk, like I’m so grateful for that.”
This ritual of intentionally practicing gratitude does 2 things – It increases the good credit in your emotional bank account or as you refer to – is refueling your love tank for your relationships. The second, this is checking to make sure that all the parts are functioning as expected to do a “check” on the whole system.
2 Coffee and a Treat
One of the ritual that they have is something they practice pretty much every week. Nathan says “We would go for two coffees and a treat. So we would go, and find a new cafe around the place, have a coffee each and then have something, little to share, share a little treat.” With a practice that costs less than 20 AUD, it creates new shared experiences for them. Nathan adds on what they noticed as an effect to this practice, “the conversations that we have when we’re outside of our own home, when we’re actually out somewhere together are so different than when you are in your home together.” At home there are many distractions like the dog, doing household chores, the Television, and much more that can slowly chip away at your attention and the quality time with your partner. Whereas when you go somewhere new, you senses are activated to up different cues from your surroundings. The environment around you is what often prompts conversation, and a new one. This is what they were noticing as well. “The conversations and the deepness, I guess that level of connection that we were having when we were out somewhere else was so much better than when we were in our home, even if we were doing the same activity”, adds Nathan. This ritual which involves Coffee and Treats sounds like such a fun idea, something that we will definitely be trying out ourselves.
Looking each other in the eyes when sharing a drink
Another activity that they shared with us was about a really intentional practice of looking each other in the eyes when sharing a drink. They learnt this apparently from some Airbnb guests, a Korean couple who stayed with them around four years ago. They though this practice was just beautiful and implemented it into their life as well. It just adds that additional layer of a silent – I love you, I appreciate being able to share this moment of eye contact with you. Such a beautiful, free, enhancing way to add to something something that we already do, which is drink. Nathan adds how this is kind of PDA (Public Display of Affection) without any PDA, “No one else will probably even realize what you’re doing. If you’re out at a restaurant or a cafe, it’s just that micro moment of connection.”
2/2/2 Date Nights
This Framework, which they found on a Reddit feed sometime ago and adapted to their liking, is that
Every 2 weeks we go on a date
Every 2 months, we go on a weekend away
Every 2 years (or twice a year), we’ll go on a bigger adventure or a bigger holiday
This Framework, they share, “really just helped us kind of set that benchmark or that baseline for our romantic relationship, and really just helped us to actually find the time to prioritize it.” Previously they had a very ad-hoc approach to what they were doing. Date nights were unstructured and not very intentional as the weekend would roll around and they wouldn’t have a clue as to what to do.
They talk about how this need to have some structure around Date Nights was one of the challenges they had to face early in their relationship. The fact that only 1 of them was planning and organizing most of their relationship and social activities got overwhelming at some point leading to a really big fight, probably their worst.
Now they divide the month into two half and plan their date nights for their halves. Sammi explains some of the many benefits, they found when doing it this way – “we get the opportunity to both give and receive. We both get the opportunity to create a moment or an experience, something that I really wanna do and Nate’s just now invited to come along with me or something that I know that he will really love. We both get those opportunities now. And it’s a framework that it’s allowed us to have some predictability, rhythm, heartbeat, pattern around its priority. You’re a very important part of my life and I treat it that way. I treat you that way.”
A lot of people could benefit from just a little bit of structure to set them free to plan things, like they said, to give and receive that love and it’s all about creating opportunities for connection. A framework like this takes something we do anyways, plan things for each other and just puts a little bit of structure around it.
This is definitely another exercise that we are excited to try out in our relationship. Our cadence might change to different numbers but the idea remains the same. What do you think would be an ideal frequency for your date nights – 1/1/1 or 2/3/2 or something else? Let us know in the comments below
Fuel Collective
Saami and Nathan share their story about how they started working on the 8 different tanks. Listen to the episode or check the resources below to learn more about the types of tanks and the full story.
Let the air out of the balloon to prevent resentment in relationships with Sammi and Nathan Jaeger –
Love Vitamins for Relationships
We chat with Sammi & Nathan Jaeger, Co-Hosts of The Date Forever Podcast about how to increase the positive or the goodwill in your relationship to help you counteract the negative or the deficit that we tend to collect in our relationships.
Saami and Nathan were around 23 and 24 when they got married in December 2012. And they've been together now for about 15 years, just celebrated their 10th Wedding Anniversary. Congratulations! At LoVita, we're always curious as to why people get married. Everyone has their own reasons, and we really wanted to know why they decided to make that step after 5 years of being together in their relationship. Sammi mentioned that's something she had struggled with herself in the beginning and shares their wonderful story of how she ended up eventually taking the name Jaeger.
Bonus – an exercise to keep fueling their love tank. They had so many things to share. One of the first things they talked about, which I loved, is how they phrased it "let air out of the balloon". It's a weekly check-in conversation to help prevent resentment in their relationship. On what they do to build a healthier relationship, Sammi starts with saying they put goodwill into our relationship all day, every day. Listen to the episode for more.
If you enjoyed listening to this episode (or the podcast), please share your diagnosis with 1 close relationship or anyone else who would enjoy listening to this as well.
If you would like to share your story, fill out this quick form.
The best gift you can give us is positive feedback and your observations. Follow us wherever you are listening and do us a favor by adding a Review on Apple Podcast.
LoVita – Love Vitamins for a healthier is a community by Partners for Partners. We share stories about how Partners are working intentionally towards building a healthier relationship. To learn more check out the links below 🔗
LoVita Blog for Frameworks
Sign up for our monthly Newsletter for exclusive content
We're also on Social media – Instagram, Facebook,
All above links in a single page
Connect with Sammi and Nathan Jaeger
Website: https://dateforever.com.au/
Instagram: dateforever
Podcast: Date Forever
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Sammi & Nathan Jaeger are the Co-Host of The Date Forever Podcast. And they are on a mission to empower couples to create thriving relationships. Because with better relationships we can create a better world. Sammi & Nath fell in love as housemates and have now been married for over a decade and love sharing relationship insights from couples and experts on their show.
Why they got married
Saami and Nathan were around 23 and 24 when they got married in December 2012. And the’ve been together now for about 15 years, just celebrated their 10th Wedding Anniversary. Congratulations! At LoVita, we’re always curious as to why people get married. Everyone has their own reasons, and I really wanted to know why they decided to make that step after 5 years of being together in their relationship. Sammi mentioned that’s something she had struggled with herself in the beginning and shares their wonderful story of how she ended up eventually taking the name Jaeger.
I really love that you’ve asked this because I did not wanna get married. I didn’t really believe in the institution of marriage. I didn’t really understand why anyone would wanna involve the government in their relationship. , I didn’t really, put a lot of value on having the piece of paper. And at the time, like I was like 20 when I had those, Opinions, thoughts, beliefs, values, and there are a few things that really changed my mind. Like my, for reference, my parents were together for quite a long time, like 20 years, but they never got married. So I have a different last name than my brother, despite us having the same biological parents. My parents, my, my mom was quite fiercely independent. She. Had me at 21. She worked in a very heavily male dominated field and a lot of my resistance to marriage was like from a feminist point of view of like, I do not want a man to feel in in any way that he owns me. I want to have an adult relationship where we both agree. Mm-hmm. , and I’m not exactly. . There wasn’t one thing, there wasn’t one thing for me that changed the idea, but a part, a big part of it was that it was important to Nathan. And I was really challenging his view of the world by saying, no, I, that’s not something I want to do.
Nathan adds that one of the biggest real benefits that they saw was of creating that family together and creating a milestone moment creating their family together which gives a feeling of “this is us,” co-creating something new together, rather than having a level of separation while they weren’t married. Saami adds on to that
but it was interesting for me cuz I kind of went through that evolution of like, no, I don’t wanna do that. Hold on. I’ve met somebody and it’s really important to them and it’s how they see the progression of a relationship. And then it was like, okay, I’ll get married, but I’m not changing my name. Like, no, that’s. , I’m keeping it. And then in the time that we got engaged, I really wanted us to be united front. I had connected with this idea, like Nathan saying about being one nurse and creating our family. Mm-hmm. . Because I believe that, a couple can be a family without the dogs, without the kids. Nathan and I are family. Yeah. but there was, this sounds so corny, but I saw on Pinterest. Someone had set up a photo gallery in their home and right in the center of it was their last name, and it was surrounded by all of these beautiful family photos. And I just thought, gosh, I want that. I want Nathan and I to run out onto the field with the same GK ons. And he had a cooler last name than me,
They also mentioned that they had even considered a separate last name. Although, things turned out differently at the end, their relationship is a true testament of holding the space to be able to go through all of those layers of change. Initially they had very different ideas of what it meant to get married, but by the time it actually came around to the special day, their ideas had changed. And the fact that both of them approached those conversations with this sense of togetherness, is such a valuable concept that many relationships kind of find themselves struggling with.
Challenges
Nathan talks about how they didn’t really consciously work on solving disagreements early on in their relationship. They had some pretty bad fights but their willingness to work things out keeps them in this relationship where they can date forever.
probably the first 12 months or two years of our relationship, I feel like that we were very much scoping each other out and working out each other’s boundaries and, and a lot of those sorts of things. And so we did have a lot of arguments or disagreements or like real deep conversations kind of in that, in that early stage of our relationship. And then I think once. We kind of got over those initial hurdles of, of yeah. Feeling each other out and, and working out how we can actually work together and co-create together.
Sammi adds on how they got to a point where they figured out that this pattern wasn’t really suitable for a long-term relationships and spending their life together.
Nathan and I were like already in love when we got together because we’d been living together for a year as housemates. So I think a lot of the teething issues that people go through, we had sort of done that as friends, so we like our, our real honeymoon. The, oh my gosh, this is all really brand new kind of stage was probably kind of short. Really? Yeah. And then we entered like a power struggle sort of phase for what, what I now know is like this sort of power struggle phase. And then we went into a don’t rock the boat phase. Like, he’s so great. He’s so amazing. I don’t wanna lose him, therefore I’m not gonna. call him out on that thing that I didn’t like and I’m just gonna ignore that need that, oh, it doesn’t really matter. And then somewhere from there we fig, we started to figure out that that was not a long-term sustainable way to be doing our life together.
Weekly Check-in Conversation
We wanted to learn some exercises or practices that they use to keep fueling their love tank. They had so many things to share on this. One of the first things they talk, which I loved how they phrased it “let air out of the balloon”. It’s a weekly check-in conversation to help prevent resentment in their relationship. On what they do to build a healthier relationship, Sammi starts with saying they put goodwill into our relationship all day, every day
And that’s not to say that we don’t ever make withdrawals from that, but we’re having a really good conversation a couple of weeks ago about what are some of the things that we do to prevent resentment in our relationship. We have a weekly check-in conversation every week where we ask, is there something that you want me to apologize for? , is there something that I’ve done that maybe in the heat of the moment it wasn’t right to talk about or it was so it felt insignificant at the time, but then when you reflected on it, it did actually hurt and there was something, something that might build resentment there. So we’ve got this weekly opportunity to like let air out of the balloon.
Nathan adds on how their practice is makes it much easier to break free of patterns that are not healthy, while not building resentment from their partner’s side as well.
So rather than like, yeah, the same thing potentially occurring like week after week after week. yeah, it is turning into a much bigger kind of repeat behavior type of thing. this, this. Question that we do weekly does really give the opportunity to, yeah, air any of that dirty laundry or air, anything that you might have been hanging onto for a little while, and chatted out before it actually becomes a big thing. And I think that helps from both sides as well, because like if I’ve done something to upset Sammy, and it’s something that. Integrated or that I’ve been doing for quite some time, like it’s probably a habit that I’ve actually trained myself to be doing, which then becomes a lot more difficult for me to then try and undo when Sammy does finally bring it up. And also on her side, it’s been building this resentment over time because it’s been this long-term repeat behavior. Whereas if, if you’re able to see the behavior once or twice or whatever, and then have the conversation. . It’s not something that’s embedded into my behaviors or habits or anything like that
Amanda shared with us her story about the troubles and challenges she had in her life. How she was able to use Kinesiology to understand all these layers and get out of an unhealthy relationship. Her journey of self discovery helped her explore other relationships. She shares a funny and insightful story about how she used Tinder, as a tool, to find what kinds of energy she was attracting and her journey of how she met her current partner. A couple things she mentioned that she realized what she was intentionally looking in her partner and the relationship was were
Reciprocal relationships
Somebody who was able to hold space
Amanda knew what she wanted and the universe was waiting for her to identify that within herself before those people could be highlighted for her from the universe as a gift. It was bound to happen. One of her messages that I really loved –
“I was really conscious of finding in that reflection what was left unhealed in me because I knew that when I went into my next relationship, I did not want it to be the same. I did not want to be the kind of empath who naturally attracts another narcissist. I didn't wanna be that flame for the moths.”
If you enjoyed listening to this episode (or the podcast), please share your diagnosis with 1 close relationship or anyone else who would enjoy listening to this as well.
The best gift you can give us is positive feedback and your observations. Follow us wherever you are listening and do us a favor by adding a Review on Apple Podcast.
LoVita – Love Vitamins for a healthier is a community by Partners for Partners. We share stories about how Partners are working intentionally towards building a healthier relationship. To learn more check out the links below 🔗
LoVita Blog for Frameworks
Sign up for our monthly Newsletter for exclusive content
We're also on Social media – Instagram, Facebook,
All above links in a single page
Connect with Amanda Kate
Website: amandakate.com.au
Book: DIVINE. MESSY. HUMAN.
Instagram: amanda__kate
Facebook: amandakatetransformation
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Amanda Kate, the author of Divine Messy Human, A Spiritual Guide to Prioritizing Internal Truth Over External Influence is a kinesiologist. She’s an archetypal life coach, a mentor, a mother, partner, dog, mom, all of those things and lives in Melbourne, Australia.
Kinesiology for building healthier relationships
Amanda shared with us her story about the troubles and challenges she had in her life. How she was able to use Kinesiology to understand all these layers and get out of an unhealthy relationship. Her journey of self discovery helped her explore other relationships. She shares a funny and insightful story about how she used Tinder, as a tool, to find what kinds of energy she was attracting and her journey of how she met her current partner. A couple things she mentioned that she realized what she was intentionally looking in her partner and the relationship was were
Reciprocal relationships
Somebody who was able to hold space
Amanda knew what she wanted and the universe was waiting for her to identify that within herself before those people could be highlighted for her from the universe as a gift. It was bound to happen. One of her messages that I really loved –
I was really conscious of, finding in that reflection what was left unhealed in me because I knew that when I went into my next relationship, I did not want it to be the same. I did not want to be the kind of empath who naturally attracts another narcissist. I didn’t wanna be that flame for the moths.
Wrap up arguments
Amanda mentioned that one of the things that she and her partner bring in intentionality in their relationship is that they wrap up arguments.
We wrap it up. We make up at the end. We have connection at the end, and we don’t have to understand each other. He’s a completely different person to me, we don’t need to understand. And the thing that I, that grates on me about understand anyway, if you are standing under somebody, you are submitting to their authority. And we are equals in our relationship. So I don’t need to understand him. I love when I comprehend him. I love it when I can accept him for everything, but because we’re also aware of our own shortcomings, we will often apologize to each other just for being snarky.
At home exercises
Some tools, conversations, techniques recommended by Amanda from her coaching sessions that people at home can leverage to get started on their journey of exploration. Amanda says a lot of the exploration is asking questions and being curious and recommends one exercise that she practices herself.
So one of the things I do is say, I dunno. I get into an argument with my partner and I’ve done this in real time. I’ll be like, oh, this doesn’t feel like it’s our stuff. And so I just check in, is this mine? Is this his? Now, if I get a mine, I then go, okay, how old am I now? And an age will pop into my. So let’s use 28, cuz that’s one of those pivotal ages in my life. I was a new mom living overseas, away from my family. I’d been, pregnant with my first child with basically no support. Having my first child with no support and really, really struggled. I was not feeling seen, I was not feeling hurt, I was not feeling understood. So I can go, okay, 28, and I know all that stuff off the top of my head now, and I’m like, okay, so how does that relate to now, it’s actually nothing to do with him. It’s because I’m not feeling seen or I don’t feel like he’s hearing me, and I can say to him, whoa, hang on. This argument isn’t about what I’m making it about. This is actually why and so I’m almost coaching myself in that moment. Now I do not do that every argument by the way. It just hands up cuz I’m human . That’s the mess human part. But I have done it before and you know what? He’s never once said, no, let’s continue with the argument. Let’s forget about that .It just doesn’t happen. He’s more than happy to backtrack and go, you know, it’s basically me putting up my hand going, this is, this is all me. I’m sorry.
Final words
Amanda says, trust yourself.
I think it’s really about trusting yourself in this, because let’s face it, if we’re in a less than ideal relationship and we start going, oh, is this the person I should be with? We’ve all known the answer. Often. We’re just too afraid to act on it.
In this episode with Liam Naden, a relationships and marriage coach. He talks a lot about the responsibility that we have as individuals to do the, “I” work to make the, “we” work. It gives us the understanding of what is an individual's responsibility for the common components that make something like a relationship or a marriage successful. It also brings a lot of empowerment and responsibility and accountability for what we can actually do to build the relationships that bring us joy back into our hands and makes us feel like we truly are individual agents that are capable of change and leading a life that makes us happy.
Some other topics we discuss
How do you identify if a relationship is great or not?
Shifting the focus from the "We" to the "I"
Counseling or Un-counseling
What can individuals do to be more attractive?
“Then what?” Exercise
If you enjoyed listening to this episode (or the podcast), please share your diagnosis with 1 close relationship and ask them .
If you would like to share your story, fill out this quick form.
The best gift you can give us is positive feedback and your observations. Follow us wherever you are listening and do us a favor by adding a Review on Apple Podcast.
LoVita – Love Vitamins for a healthier is a community by Partners for Partners. We share stories about how Partners are working intentionally towards building a healthier relationship. To learn more check out the links below 🔗
LoVita Blog for Frameworks
Sign up for our monthly Newsletter for exclusive content
We're also on Social media – Instagram, Facebook,
All above links in a single page
Connect with Liam Naden
Website: https://liamnaden.com/
Book: Marriage Uncounseling: A Counterintuitive Approach to Healing Relationships and Bringing Back Love
Podcast: Growing in Love for Life Podcast: Save and Strengthen Your Marriage
Instagram: @liamnaden
Facebook: liamnadenfan
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Liam is a speaker, teacher, author and researcher. He teaches Neuro-State Rebalancing (NSR), a process for eliminating problems and taking control of your life by rebalancing the four parts of your brain.
How do you identify if a relationship is great or not?
We asked Liam for how can couples identify if their relationship is great or not. Liam says “ask yourself the question – What was I doing when things were going really well in our relationship?” Read the transcript snippet below in his own words on how that helps
What usually happens is people we’re doing something very different to what they’re doing now, and they’re wondering why they’ve got problems and why, that things aren’t as good but they’ve stopped doing the things that made it good.
What you need to start thinking is what was the environment that I had in my relationship when things were going well and what am I doing differently, and it’s the, the differences will be be pretty obvious and pretty simple.
Our takeaway: Shift your focus to the positive and what you wanna create rather than focusing on what you’re trying to remove. Put more of your time and your effort into increasing that positivity, that happiness.
“Relationship that you have with your spouse is a reflection of the relationship that you have with yourself.”
Quote from Liams book
Shifting the focus from the “We” to the “I”
Liam says most of the problems in the relationship, when a partner want to stop working on it comes down to “They don’t find you attractive.” In general, people blame their spouses for the problems in the relationship. Liam says,
You need to change. When you change, when you become an attractive person again, they’re going to want to change. They’re gonna want to stay with you. Who wouldn’t if you were back to being that person, they fell in love with that great attractive person that they decided they wanted to be with, then of course they’re going to want to communicate. They’re going to want to be intimate. They’re going to want to to be with you.
Counseling or Un-counseling
Should people go to Couples Therapy when struggling in their relationships? What are the pros and cons? Liam says “80% of people have said to me that didn’t work or it made, it actually made things worse.” Here’s his take on the topic
There are lots of reasons. Things such as, again, you’re focusing on the problems when you go to counseling and it, and the other problem is that well, often one the other person doesn’t want to go, which doesn’t help. And then it becomes a sort of a picking on them session it can do. But I think the problem, what I’ve noticed, again, problems are a symptom of what’s going on in your relationship. They’re not the cause.
What can individuals do to be more attractive?
There are many kinds of fears in our relationship, that Liam says stops us from being attractive. These fears make us a needy person where we’re always trying to put in all this effort and pressure rather than just being yourself, being fun.
It is a bit, counterintuitive or paradoxical, but that’s the sort of person you need to be. You have to be the sort of person who’s willing to let go of your relationship. if you want to hang onto it. And that’s when I found about people in great relationships who’d been together for a long time. They weren’t worried about the future of their relationship. They were like, Hey, I’m here because I want to be. I’m here because I’m having great fun. And if at any time in the future we didn’t get on, or something happened and we weren’t meant to be together, well, I could just look back and say it was no longer meant to be. And that’s all right. I’ll be fine. It’s just one of those things. Now, it doesn’t mean you’re ready to walk out, but it means you don’t have this pressure and fear attached to your relationship. You’re just enjoying being there and being yourself and allowing your spouse to be themself as well.
Exercise: Then what?
An exercise to help overcome your fear. So for instance, if you say, I’m really afraid that if my marriage ended, I’d end up alone and lonely. The idea is you have a friend. Who in this instance is yourself. You ask yourself,
Q: Well, then what would happen? So I end up alone and lonely. Q: Then what would happen? Well, I’d be really miserable, and I’d be living in a, little apartment with sitting in the corner all day crying my eyes out. Q: Okay. Then what would you do? Well, I’d probably get a bit tired of sitting in the corner and crying in my eyes out. So I’d probably maybe contact a couple of friends and ask if they want to get together. Q: Okay. And then what would you do? Well, we’d get together. And then what would happen? Well, they’d probably say to me, you know, they’d probably try and cheer me up and, and remind me that I’m a good person and hey, you know, why don’t you go and meet somebody else, and do some socializing and you’ll find somebody else. Q: And then what? Well, I probably would, I probably would start to stop feeling for it, sorry for myself, and I’d probably go out and meet new people. Q: Okay. And then what? And then another fear comes up. I’d meet all these weird, strange people and they’d have all these negative experiences, Q: Okay. And then what would happen? Oh, well, I’d probably start to get a little bit clever and or smarter and more experienced about evaluating people and seeing, who was right or not for me. Q: And then what? Well then I’d start to meet some better quality people. Q: Okay. And then what? Well then I’ll probably meet somebody really am really amazing actually.
All of these things that, because all you see, all your brain sees when you’re in a stress state, is that next negative situation. Sitting in the corner, crying your eyes out, with nobody around your brain, doesn’t allow you to see all these other possibilities. This exercise helps you see path that to other options.
What do you do to build a healthier relationship with your partner?
Liam laughs and says “We just have fun in the moment and don’t take anything too seriously.” Liam shares more about one of their philosophy “You worry about what you think, I’ll worry about what I think.”
A special episode this week to talk in depth with examples about our most recently published framework, the ESD (Emotional Status Dashboard).
The ESD (Emotional Status Dashboard) has the below 4 major components:
1️⃣ Identifying your emotion – reflect about the emotions being triggered and find a way to keep your partner in the loop
2️⃣ Nonverbal communication – to loop your partner in without the burden of sharing the details
3️⃣ Involving your partner – Don’t keep them in the dark and have them wondering what’s going on. If you don’t fill in the context for them, their mind will. They can’t read your mind.
4️⃣ Process the emotion – After digging deep into the triggers yourself, have a conversation with your partner to discuss it.
Partners – hold the space for each other while the other goes through the cycle of the ESD.
Say “I am angry” instead of “you did something to make me angry”. It is the individual's responsibility to understand and manage their own emotions. Even though your partner’s actions might have triggered the emotions in you, it is not their fault.
We use the ESD (Emotional Status Dashboard) as a way to identify the emotion being triggered, share it with our partner and then hold a space to move forward with it without being defensive or assigning blame.
How do you communicate with your partners when emotions get heightened? Do you have a framework or a process where you are intentional to build a healthier relationship? Or do you just “wing it”? Let us know in the comments below.
If you enjoyed listening to this episode (or the podcast), please share your diagnosis with 1 close relationship or anyone else who would enjoy listening to this as well.
The best gift you can give us is positive feedback and your observations. Follow us wherever you are listening and do us a favor by adding a Review on Apple Podcast.
LoVita – Love Vitamins for a healthier is a community by Partners for Partners. We share stories about how Partners are working intentionally towards building a healthier relationship. To learn more check out the links below 🔗
LoVita Blog for Frameworks
Sign up for our monthly Newsletter for exclusive content
We're also on Social media – Instagram, Facebook,
All above links in a single page
—
Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/lovitalovevitamins/message
Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/lovitalovevitamins/support
A special episode this week to talk in depth with examples about our most recently published framework, the ESD (Emotional Status Dashboard). Read more to about the framework to learn the concept and the reason behind it.
The ESD (Emotional Status Dashboard) has the below 4 major components
1️⃣ Identifying your emotion – reflect about the emotions being triggered and find a way to keep your partner in the loop
2️⃣ Nonverbal communication – to loop your partner in without the burden of sharing the details
3️⃣ Involving your partner – Don’t keep them in the dark and have them wondering what’s going on. If you don’t fill in the context for them, their mind will. They can’t read your mind.
4️⃣ Process the emotion – After digging deep into the triggers yourself, have a conversation with your partner to discuss it.
Partners – hold the space for each other while the other goes through the cycle of the ESD.
Say “I am angry” instead of “you did something to make me angry”. It is the individual’s responsibility to understand and manage their own emotions. Even though your partner’s actions might have triggered the emotions in you, it is not their fault.
We use the ESD (Emotional Status Dashboard) as a way to identify the emotion being triggered, share it with our partner and then hold a space to move forward with it without being defensive or assigning blame.
How do you communicate with your partners when emotions get heightened? Do you have a framework or a process where you are intentional to build a healthier relationship? Or do you just “wing it”? Let us know in the comments below.
Check out our Social Media channels for some fun comic strips of how the ESD can be used
Kim Sorrell and her husband were diagnosed with Cancer 4 months apart and only one of them survived. In this episode, she shares stories of grief and humor to put forward her thoughts as an expert on love.
A couple of our biggest takeaways from this episode that Kim shares
“Love is a one-way street. Love is not a transaction… Love is 100% up to you to give, period. Whether you get it back or not. You don’t give love to get love.”
“ The best gift you can give yourself is to get outta yourself a little bit and stop thinking about what you need to receive and think more about what you wanna give and want to give desire to give, because it's fun to give.”
If you enjoyed listening to this episode (or the podcast), please share your diagnosis with 1 close relationship or anyone else who would enjoy listening to this as well.
The best gift you can give us is positive feedback and your observations. Follow us wherever you are listening and do us a favor by adding a Review on Apple Podcast.
LoVita – Love Vitamins for a healthier is a community by Partners for Partners. We share stories about how Partners are working intentionally towards building a healthier relationship. To learn more check out the links below 🔗
LoVita Blog for Frameworks
Sign up for our monthly Newsletter for exclusive content
We're also on Social media – Instagram, Facebook,
All above links in a single page
Connect with Kim Sorrell
Book – Love Is
Website – https://www.kimsorrelle.com/
Instagram – @kimsorrelle
Facebook – loveisbykim
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Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/lovitalovevitamins/message
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Kim Sorrelle is the director of a humanitarian organization, popular speaker, and the author of two books. Her first book, Cry Until You Laugh, is about her and her husband’s battle with cancer after being diagnosed just four months a part. Her second book, Love Is, chronicles her year long quest to figure out the true meaning of love, a sometimes funny, sometimes scary, always enlightening journey that led to life-changing discoveries found mostly on the streets of Haiti.
Defining Love as a one-way street
What do you define love as? We started off with the most important questions and Kim defined it as a one way street instead of being transactional. Some might agree others might say it has to be somewhere in between with some boundaries of course. There is not right way of course, just your way of love. That’s the beauty of love.
Well, it is different than what I thought it was. I think there’s a lot of myths surrounding love, a lot of things that we’re told about love or are done in the name of love that are not love. Like one of the things we’re told about love is that it’s a two-way street. We put a number to it. It’s 50 50 or it’s a hundred- a hundred. You go through marriage counseling and these are the things you’re told, but it’s not true. Love is a one-way street. Love is not a transaction. If I give you money and you give me a pair of jeans, that’s a transaction. If I give you love to get love and return, that’s a transaction. Love is not a transaction. Love is 100% up to you to give, period. Whether you get it back or not. You don’t give love to get love.
Love is who you are basically. I think that’s another misconception. We think of it as an emotion, like fear or excitement, and it’s not. We don’t live in fear. We don’t live in excitement every day’s, not in Disney World, and every day’s not watching the Halloween movie or something, and then hearing every creek in the house when you go to bed. But you do live in love. That is something that you live in. That’s something that embodies you. It’s something that you are, and how you show up with it, then it is up to you.
What does grieving for Love looks like
Kim had shared with us her very emotional story of her husband passing away. So we wanted to know how trauma impacts ones ability to love.
That’s a great question. I was 47 years old when my husband died, and I thought we were gonna be that old couple in our nineties and rockers sitting on a front porch drinking lemonade and smiling at each other, or whatever it is that 90 year old people do when they’re sitting on the front porch drinking lemonade, and all of a sudden at 47, that dream of that life was gone. I had to develop a whole new, I had this understanding of love that I wasn’t dependent on my husband’s love to give love. I wasn’t dependent on that. I’m still able to love because of that. I think we all have probably seen some people who, almost feel like it’s disrespectful to laugh again or live again when you love so deeply and you lose somebody, that you can kind of stay stuck in this sadness, with this cloud over you, and that somehow you’d be disrespecting them to laugh again. And I think the opposite is, I think to really show my husband respect and to really honor him, I need to live. I need to live and be happy, because he made me happy and so I, I wanna live and be happy for him.
Manifesting your Love to reality
Kim shares with us a wonderful story of how at the age of 18 years old she got married. At that age, even though she had ambitious plans for her life and had no intentions to get married, she fell for a tall, dark, handsome man. They had babies and at some point in their marriage she felt like she was doing everything and him not much more than taking the trash out once a week. Kim explains how things changed after that that turned their marriage around.
And I started looking at him as just a paycheck and I thought, well, why is this guy living in my house? What’s he contributing? Why is he even here? He is just giving me more work to do instead of making macaroni and cheese for dinner, which would be so easy, I feel like I have to make a better dinner. Cause he’s there or I’ve got more laundry. but then I thought, you know what? No, I want a happy marriage. I want a happy marriage. So I decided, That I was gonna do everything I could to make him happy. Whatever it was, I was gonna do everything I could to make him happy. And so I started doing things like I’d go to the grocery store and I’d buy his favorite treat, and I would make his favorite dinner. I’d write a little note before work, anything I could, and I didn’t put a time limit on it. I didn’t say, I’m gonna do this for six weeks, and if fat guy doesn’t respond, then I’m outta here. I didn’t do that. I knew that I wanted a happy marriage and I figured it had to be up to me. And so the most amazing thing happened though, in doing this. Love has this incredible way of, even though you’re not giving love to get love, it comes back to you. And so things did change in our marriage, but I think a lot of the change was me, like my heart softened toward my husband, and I just grew more in love with him and, and loved him deeper, and it was a real turning point in our marriage.
Love the person, not the act
Well, one would thing that there should be some boundaries right. Sure, the idea of selfless love sounds great in theory but is that really practical? Kim explains more about how our love is for the person and not their actions. She shares about her stories and how love doesn’t keep score.
Our takeaway from the conversation: It is important to set up the relationship for the way you want to receive love, rather than having these unchecked expectations or this belief that things are just gonna miraculously work out. On the concept of familiarity. the longer you spend time with each other, the more you pick up your patterns of familiarity and what another person likes. A small change in the environment, but especially early on when you’re learning each other, you’re understanding your definitions of love is what it means to show up in love. It’s not fair on either party to just assume that the other person should know with one look of an eye what’s actually going on. That’s not a kindness we extend to our partner, and it’s definitely not something you would expect of our friends, and yet it’s a fallacy that we fall into with those that we share a home with.
After loosing a loved one
Kim shares her very powerful and emotional story of how it was to loose her beloved husband to Cancer.
It was quick, but not immediate. I mean, he was diagnosed and we had this incredible six weeks together. They thought he’d live about a year and it was just six weeks. But we did have this great six weeks together watching Cash Cab and playing rummy. I mean, the things that we did just hanging out at the house. He did so good. Like we had great hospice care, great palliative care, so he wasn’t in pain cuz it’s a very beautiful cancer. And it wasn’t until the very last day, that he woke up in pain. And I called the hospice nurse and she came right over and gave him extra morphine and she was on the phone. We were in the bedroom and he was sitting on the edge of the bed cuz he was, he didn’t wanna lay down. He was in pain and I was, Holding him from behind and she was on the phone calling for a hospital bed and a commode and, you know, whatever equipment. Cause up until then, we’d just been in our bed together. Just life as usual. And I was saying, guy, do I call my kids? What do I do? She’s like, oh, no, no, you’ve got lots of time. You have weeks anyway. You’re, it’s okay. It’s okay. Well, in holding him, I could just feel his mis. I could just feel it and I just, whispered in his ear and I just said, baby, just go. And that was it. That quick. He took his last breath. That was it. I consider that very merciful. As you see people just kind of linger. Who are in just a lot of pain and it can go on for weeks and months. And so it was real merciful for him to just go that quickly. He was a great guy. Like, if anybody should go that quickly, it should be him, I figure. Even though we had that six weeks, it was still a shock because it was quicker than we thought. But I felt like I had to be strong for my kids. I felt like I had to be strong for everybody else, and I was still going through cancer. So it was a weird time of really trying to process. And, I cried a lot during the six weeks from his diagnosis till the time he passed. I would just, I tried not to, but I would just start crying and he would just hold me and say, don’t cry for me. Don’t cry for me. You’re the one. It’s gonna be here, don’t cry for me. And, so then I didn’t quite know how to process things and then I was finally able physically to go back to work. And when I was, I wasn’t sure what I was gonna do. I had some businesses I didn’t know if I was gonna go back to there. I’d been running a nonprofit and resigning that because I got diagnosed with cancer. I ended up thinking, oh, I’m gonna take it slow. So, Took a job as a part-time bookkeeper of an organization that my father and I had started about 10 years before this, and, is being run by somebody else. And so January one that year I started as part-time bookkeeper, and 12 days later there was an earthquake in Haiti that killed 200,000 people. So I went from part-time bookkeeper at full-time 24 7. And within two weeks I was in Haiti. And then for the next several years I was in Haiti at least part of every month for the next many years. And I really believe that was the healing, that in service there’s healing, that there’s nothing that heals grief like surface. When you get out of yourself and give to others, that’s when real healing can take place.
Final Thoughts
The best gift you can give yourself is to get outta yourself a little bit and stop thinking about what you need to receive and think more about what you wanna give and want to give desire to give, because it’s fun to give, you think about the holidays or birthdays or whatever, and I love giving gifts. I’m not great all the time at receiving gifts as I am at giving gifts and giving, is fun. and that’s what love is, is it’s, it’s just giving. The more you can do that, the happier you’re gonna be. And who doesn’t wanna be happy?
LoVita 