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?
In this episode we chat with Silvia Dutchevici, a psychotherapist with more than 20 years experience working with individuals and couples on topics ranging from relationships, intimacy and how to survive a long term partnership.
Some of the topics we discuss
🧑⚕️ Therapy to understand ourselves and our Partners
💪 How Power shows up in Relationships
⛪ Traditions and How People hide behind Culture
🎯 Shared Vision and Goals
🥷 Dealing with Conflicts and Practice to Fail
We discuss how to become aware of power statuses in relationships and the power struggles so that Partners can lead into power negotiations.
Shift our understanding of power is not something bad
Cuz if it's something bad, it's something we don't wanna have. And then when we have it, we pretend we don't have it. And that gets really problematic, especially for couples
Power means responsibility
I have a responsibility to you rather than I have power, I exert it over you.
Shift the way we talk
Language is powerful. Pay attention to how you talk. Rather than saying I'm doing this for you, try I'm doing this cause I love you or as a gift to you.
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 Silvia Dutchevici
Book – Critical Therapy - Power and Liberation in Psychotherapy
Website – https://criticaltherapy.org/
Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/silviadutchevici
LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/silvia-dutchevici/
Email – [email protected]
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Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/lovitalovevitamins/message
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Silvia M. Dutchevici, MA, LCSW, is president and founder of the Critical Therapy Institute. A trained psychotherapist, Dutchevici (pronounced “doot-KAY-vitch”), created critical therapy on perceiving a need for the theory and practice of psychology to reflect how race, class, gender, and religion intersect with psychological conflicts.
Therapy to understand our Partners along with Ourselves
With more than 20 years experience working with individuals and couples Silvia engaged with us in conversations around relationships, intimacy and how to survive a long term partnership.
One of the things that I realize, and this is one of the reasons I created critical therapy that’s a little different than traditional therapy, is that most people go to therapy and because of the way therapists have been trained, it’s usually only a one-sided relationship. So you go to therapy, you talk about yourself, and you know it’s great. You have all this insight and now and then, Wow, I think I’m healed now. I’m ready to have a relationship. And then you go out there and you can’t have a good relationship because nowhere else in the world is it all about you. So I think part of good therapy is to teach us and to teach our patients how to be in relationship with another, how to share space, how to share power. I think power is the biggest thing that happens in relationship dynamics. and it is really not analyzed, it’s not talked about it. We kind of shy away from power. We don’t wanna look at it, which, is the missed opportunity. So therapy can offer you the space to learn how to be with another and a blueprint for a relationship where you learn how to communicate, you learn how to ask questions, you learn about your partner’s desires, you learn about your own desires, you learn how to negotiate.
Power
Silvia shares her insights on how power shows up in relationships
To go back to power, so power is a very important aspect of critical therapy. And the reason is that there’s power in every relationship. Especially couples, couples, always wanna be equal. Everything’s equal. Nothing is ever equal ever in our world, but power is not a bad thing. What makes power a bad thing is that the models that we’ve seen in our society are always models of power over someone. I have power. I’m going to use it to manipulate you. I have power. I’m your boss. You have to do that. I have power, usually traditionally as I’m your husband, a heterosexual relationship, I get you to do this for me. But power can be something that we share together. And depending on our race, class or gender, our relationship to power inside the world and outside is different. So we’ll always be more or less powerful than others. We need to learn how to negotiate that. So because of that, I figured therapy should be one place where people investigate, interrogate, and learn how to share power.
One other thing to be cognizant of is that, especially for people who have been disempowered, power is not something that’s given to you. Power is something that you have to claim. You have to assert, you have to learn how to reckon with it. So in critical therapy, part of the dynamic that happens between the therapist and the patient is we have these conversations. We look at our identities, my identity, your identity as a patient inside and outside the clinical hour, and how that influences who we are and how we show up. And after we do all that, and we question why you believe the things that you do and how do you use power, and how do those beliefs impact your daily life? Then we learn how to create a more collaborative space. And as I often say, if you are able to do it in here, then you’re able to do it out there in your life.
Our conversation drifts towards what can Partners in a relationship can do to become aware of their power statuses and their power struggles so that they can lead into power negotiations.
Shift our understanding of power is not something bad Cuz if it’s something bad, it’s something we don’t wanna have. And then when we have it, we pretend we don’t have it. And that gets really problematic, especially for couples
Power means responsibility I have a responsibility to you rather than I have power, I exert it over you.
Shift the way we talk Language is powerful. Pay attention to how you talk. Rather than saying I’m doing this for you, try I’m doing this cause I love you or as a gift to you.
People hiding behind Culture
We discuss about how communication plays into effect when, there are people coming from different races or different backgrounds, with different communication styles. Silvia shares her wisdom on how to embrace the differences and goes on to talk about what role society plays into it.
I often say people hide behind culture. So a couple of things. We all have very different identities and we all have very different intersectionality of our experience in the world. Whether you are a woman, whether you are a person of color, whether you’re heterosexual, whether you are rich or not, and all those things matter in relationships, and by talking about them, by not erasing the differences but embracing them.
Traditions
Silvia addresses another layer, which is how society views us. She thinks it’s important to always question ourselves, what are the traditions we want to keep that enhance our lives? This is what makes us lovable that builds community rather than these traditions that we’re keeping, that actually impact the way we show up in a very negative way. Our discussion goes into the process for negotiation these traditions with your partner. Below is our takeaway from the conversation:
the prerequisite to even getting to negotiation is being able to have a dialogue and the prerequisite to being able to have a dialogue is realizing that you’re on the same team and being charitable to your partner and knowing that they are coming from this understanding that they’re on your side, they’re not against you. We are having a moment of difficulty here, but it doesn’t have to be the end of the world. This ties back to something Silvia mentioned earlier, which is that we really have to change the language that we’re using at home because that distills down into all of the smaller interactions that we have in the day. Using the concept of an emotional bank account: All of these little transactions either add to your emotional bank account and then you can leverage that shared foundation to continue having some more difficult conversations leading into negotiation otherwise, a lot of the times we’re chipping away at that bank account without even realizing it, and then we enter into this deficit. So it’s absolutely a fundamental way of, starting this, this much longer, maybe slightly more difficult process called negotiation, but the prerequisite for it is our bread and butter or everyday aspect of living in a relationship.
Shared Vision and Goals
Can it help couples communicate better when they have a shared vision or goals that they would be talking towards. Silvia shares what she has discovered.
What I discovered about couples is this opposites attract, but they may not stay together. what’s important is not that you are similar in what you do and how you do things, what’s important is that you have similar values, and this is how sometimes you get people who seem like opposites but actually make it work. And that’s because deep down they have the same vision of the world and the world they wanna live in. So what’s important is how do you see the world? What does happiness look like for you? Because if you’re someone who’s like, well, happiness for me is having a stable home and doing, taking vacations, if we could do that and so forth that’s great. If you find someone who’s like, happiness for me is having tons of money and going to 5,000 parties, throughout the year, then it’s probably not gonna work out because you have very different ideas of what you want in life and I think it’s important for people to talk about those things and to sort of like when they start dating.
Conflicts
We tried to peel apart what Silvia said, that, opposites attract, but they don’t usually last forever.”
The first one is I believe that the people we choose in relationships reflect something about ourselves. We’re working through. So whenever someone says, well, I’m in this relationship and it’s all their problem, I’m great. I remind people, but you picked this person for a reason. And the reason is because we’re attracted to those things that we haven’t quite mastered, or understood. And this is one of the reasons I say it’s important that you reckon with yourself and know who you are, because the healthier you are, the healthier your relationship is. It’s a dynamic. It’s always between two or more people. It’s never just, it’s me. I’m great. This person’s the problem. You are in it.
What I often also say to people is that what makes a good relationship. It’s not the absence of conflict that’s not possible.
Practice to Fail
Something that we practice is that in moments of conflict, to revisit the conversation from a healthier place, from a healthier emotional state because there’s still some work that needs to be done there. Silvia shares her practice
It’s lovely and I think when you’re in the midst of conflict, if you are so activated, I think it’s your responsibility to also say, this is too much for me right now. I need a timeout. And then to really reckon with yourself what is happening for me? Cuz sometimes it’s not even about what is happening in the moment. It’s about, again, all your history and all the things that you are associating with this conflict. So if you have that space, you can realize, well, maybe this is not really about you. Maybe this is about how, when I was 12 my mom said this and you sound just like her right now. And I never resolved that. Because I think it puts a different spin on things. And it’s important to take a pause and come back and also be open to being wrong.
What does Silvia do to build a healthier relationship?
Therapy and many failed relationships were a couple Silvia shared. Listen to the full episode to learn more.
At the age of 83, Dr. Laurie has been married for 62 years, business partners with her husband for the last 50 plus years. She shared some details about that journey along with us in this week's episode.
Along with many other things, she shares a few simple steps on how and when Partners should communicate when there is a conflict which arises.
When to communicate – The moment you (or your partner) notices there's something wrong.
After noticing – Take time to think about it.
After thinking about it – At the first opportunity, tell your partner that you'll like to share with them what you've realized.
Just say it straight out – Ask them instead of trying to read their mind
Some of the other topics we discuss
Serious Relationship Problem vs Ordinary Growing Pain
Release Stuck Energy
Stories from Laurie Weiss
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Laurie Weiss, psychotherapist, coach and relationship communication expert has helped more than 60,000 individuals reclaim life energy and find joy in life for more than four decades. She has taught professionals in 13 countries and authored 13 books that make complex information accessible to anyone. Her popular, Letting It Go, teaches rapid anxiety and stress relief. She and her husband, Jonathan B. Weiss, Ph.D., started working together in 1970. Both Drs. Weiss love mixing business and pleasure and enjoy visiting professional colleagues and friends around the globe. They live and work in Littleton, Col. USA.
Life Partners as long as Business Partners
At the age of 83, Dr. Laurie has been married for 62 years, business partners with her husband for the last 50 plus years. She shared some details about that journey along with us.
Well, one of the interesting things is I married at a time when women had very limited options and where women were seen as second class citizens, and so, The evolution from that very rigid structure that we both expected to maintain to the second wave feminist, and I was a strong cart carrying feminist therapist. For quite a while and learning to make it a co-equal relationship rather than a co-dependent relationship as relationships were supposed to be, was I think probably one of the most important things
As we learned that we also were learning ways to communicate very cleanly and very effectively. So that we didn’t let problems go by and we taught other people. We went around the country and around several other countries teaching people how to not let things go by, and that was very influential. And after a while we kind of settled. . It’s like, well, we know how to do this. We’re pretty comfortable doing it. We would get in the hot tub at night after a therapy group, would not have anything much to say about it because it worked just fine. We trusted each other. We worked just fine.
Then of course, came the inevitable children growing up an empty nest and what do you do now? And we kept on working and, starting to write books. We wrote our first book together. Basically I wrote, he edited, put together, challenged me and then he decided that he didn’t like writing, but I kept on it, sort of became a disease.
I think one of the biggest challenges is not being exactly the same. The same field, but we’re, and doing very much the same thing and learning a lot of the same things, but we have very different interests. In fact, sometimes we joke and say we’re incompatible.
For example, he loves jazz. I love classical. He can’t stand offright. It’s one of my favorite things, but in a lot of ways we are compatible and it’s been a constant struggle about getting back into the very old patterns of doing things without asking about it, assuming things, and then getting caught up short and saying, whoops. We’ve gotta do something else. And now our relationship is changing again because he has some physical disabilities so I have to compensate in ways that I never had to compensate. So it’s been an evolution all along.
Think there’s one very significant thing that is probably unusual, and that is very early on, we made a commitment that we would support each other’s. And that got to be pretty scary sometimes. But we did it anyway.
Serious Relationship Problem vs Ordinary Growing Pain
In her book, being happy together and what do you do to keep love alive, Dr. Laurie points to the difference between a Serious Relationship Problem vs an Ordinary Growing Pain. We asked her to talk a bit more about that
When people fall in love, it’s fireworks. You wanna be with each other constantly. And then the first transition is when you get married, then you are together constantly or can be. And then its like oh, it’s not so exciting anymore. We’ve fallen out of love uhoh, and people think that that’s, that’s a crisis We’ve fallen out of love. There’s, there’s no excitement anymore, but it’s not, it’s normal. It’s what happens. And at that point, you stop being at the position. I love everything he does. I love some things he does, but I hate other things he does. Then comes to the point of, we won’t talk about it. We’ll just go into the patterns that we think we’re supposed to have, and that works for a while, and then it doesn’t. And again, that’s an ordinary crisis in a relationship. The fact that we start struggling.
For me it was really funny. He had dragged me to psychotherapy. I didn’t wanna go, but I, I went and the first time the therapist said, it’s okay for you to like opera. It was like, really? can still do that. It’s that kind of a change. It’s okay for you to be who you are, but I don’t know how to do that. And so that’s another crisis, that’s a normal kind of development is how do we set our boundaries? How do we figure out who we are? How do we keep being who we are and still be together? Because then at a point in relationships, it feels like we’re going our separate ways, we’re going in our own directions. And then, it’s like, oh, I don’t need you anymore. People feel like they need each other, and then it’s like, I don’t need you anymore, but I, I still like you. I still wanna be together. and that’s really the healthiest part of a relationship when you’ve got two individuals sharing fully with each other, and they may be dividing things up.
Like when my, when we go somewhere, my husband usually drives because I don’t particularly like driving and he enjoys it but, but if there’s something wrong, I can drive, there’s no problem. And we don’t just have to do. and I usually cook, but I don’t always cook and I don’t have to cook. When in, in a support group early on, women were whispering to each other. I really don’t like to be in charge of all the cooking. I really don’t. But we thought we were supposed to be, there was a whole lot of. issue about teaching our husbands to be responsible for dinner once or twice a week, and they would serve our leftovers that we had planned for another dinner. It doesn’t seem like a big deal now, at the time, trying to establish those boundaries was really difficult.
And then the interesting thing that happens is when there’s a major life change of some kind, you cycle through all those things over. So it may be that you need each other and you’re locked together for a while, and then you figure out your boundaries again in a new situation, a new way.
Communicate when conflict in interest
Dr. Laurie shares a few simple steps on how and when Partners should communicate when there is a conflict which arises.
When to communicate – The moment you (or your partner) notices there’s something wrong. After noticing – Take time to think about it. After thinking about it – At the first opportunity, tell your partner that you’ll like to share with them what you’ve realized. Just say it straight out – Ask them instead of trying to read their mind.
Release Stuck Energy
Dr. Laurie talks about a whole other area that she’s passionate about. She explains that so much of this is all about stuck energy and about 12 years ago, she learned a way to release stuck energy, that is so simple. The process is more involved but includes the below three sentences
I retrieve all my energy bound up in this rumination and I take my energy to the right place in myself.
I remove all of the not me energy involved in this rumination from all of my cells, my body, and my personal space, and I send it to where it truly belongs.
I retrieve all my energy bound up in all of my reactions to this rumination.
Final Thoughts
I’d say work on your relationship, not just in your relationship. Be aware of what’s going on between you and take the steps that you need to grow. rather than just assuming that everything is okay, cuz it inevitably will crash in some way.
Dr. Ray & Jean have been married since Valentine’s Day in 1998, and in 2002, they Co-Founded the Lighthouse Emotional Wellness Center, a counseling center in the Chicagoland area. They created and perfected a unique approach to coach couples to have amazing relationships, called Couples Synergy, and have helped thousands of couples transform their relationships. When it comes to relationships, they believe that they cannot teach it unless they live it. They are a real couple who have worked hard to create an amazing relationship through the difficult challenges life brings us all. They cohost the podcast, Couples Synergy: Real Couples, Real Storie… Real Relationships. Dr. Ray & Jean help couples create the relationship of their dreams, with the partner they fell in love with!
The quotes below are taken from the episode transcription and might have some minor errors or missing words.
Relationship Check Ins – Time for Hearts
When asked about the value of doing regular check ins in a relationship and how to check in with your partner, Dr. Ray had the below to share
It’s not a surprise that we are all locked up in our head, right? We are ultimately alone in our experience, our human experience, and it is very common for couples to feel alone, even within a loving, committed partnership. And if couples are not checking in with each other. And getting to know their partner, where they’re at in that moment, then we lose that opportunity of consistent evolution together. And so that check in is not just about, how you doing, but it’s really about what is, what is your experience right now in this world, in this moment.
And so one of the things, we definitely do. As a check in and as a show of affection towards each other, is that we always start and end the day off with a show of affection, of an embrace, so the first thing that you’re doing in the morning when you wake up is you are starting that day off with an embrace with your partner, and that the last thing you do at the end of the night is you are closing out that day with that embrace.
Jean adds that this a practice in time that they call as time for our hearts to have a conversation
And it reduces anxiety, it reduces depression, it increases oxytocin and the bonding hormones. So it just makes you feel better. And there are certain days we don’t get to do it cuz like we gotta catch a plane or something and we feel off. All day.
Deeper Connections
We touch on the above need for check ins in a relationship as a trigger and not necessarily a long conversation. On the topic of how to get to a deeper level if there is something that needs to be discussed in more details, Dr. Ray shares the below
A lot of times people have the cart before the horse. Think that when I have a conversation with my partner, I’ve gotta jump into the deep stuff, and so what happens is they, they have this long periods of time where they are not connecting with their partner. And then when they do have that time now, they try to stuff all of these deep conversations into a small period of time. Typically, it’s maybe a vacation. They’re not spending time together, they don’t have quality time. And then they say, well, you know, when we go on vacation in a month, then we can connect. And then what happens is they go on vacation and then everything that’s stuffed in the closet comes out. They end up in a fight.
So it’s, it’s the, the smaller touch points, the smaller connections that add up. To be able to have , those deeper conversations. And by that time you already are connecting with each other, priming each other, understanding all of the different dynamics that are occurring. So when you are having the deeper conversation, half of it is already done.
To summarize: Check-ins really are like cashing into your emotional bank account. They are creating deposits of happiness and love and care and affection, which you are then able to leverage as that healthy foundation for when you do need to have those deeper conversations. But the concept of a daily check-in doesn’t need to be a conversation per se. It could be something more, a little bit more intimate, like a physical touch, which is what the embrace example is kind of catering too. Usually when we think of check-in, our brains automatically does go to a conversation like, “oh hey, how’s your day doing?” Or “How’s your day been?” Or “you seem a little off, you wanna talk about it?”
Finding time with your partner
If there is a conversation that you do wanna have on a deeper level, how do you get alignment from your partner? What sort of techniques do you use to get each other’s attention? Do you block some time on your shared calendar, if you have any or anything else? Jean shares
This idea of time, we hear it all the time. That We don’t have time. We very rarely spend time on screens. So once our day is done, we typically go outside, we have a fire and we talk, or we have records if we’re inside, cuz it’s cold out and we listen to records and we talk and we do this five times a week. We’ve always enjoyed doing stuff like that more than, being distracted by something. Those allow you to have those more organic conversations.
Dr Ray adds
I think that it depends for each couple, for some couples. Maybe they do need to schedule a time to talk and they say, Hey, if you got some time this week, I really want to connect. I really want to talk some things out. And that might be okay for that couple, but for another couple, that actually might be a trigger, it may be a way of having power and control over each other. It may be a way of putting off your partner. So it really comes down to each couple. How each couple needs space and time, emotional consideration in order to have those deeper conversations. So the investment in the account is happening separate from the rebuilding and the healing.
We all know that the most successful people in the world, they always talk about meditation and starting their day out. Because we need to be able to center ourselves before we, go out into the world and, and deal with everything that we’re being bombarded with. Well, now you have the complication of two people coming together and, having different needs. And how do you find that that sync between the two of you when the world is going to be affecting you in many different ways.
The research says: that couples should be spending a minimum of five to six hours of quality time per week, and that is without screens. So it’s not even cuddling up and watching the same show together. That doesn’t count. Or going out with another couple that doesn’t count either. It’s spending that time connecting and bonding and talking about each other’s experiences through this world.
3 THINGS YOU CAN DO TO CHANGE YOUR RELATIONSHIP RIGHT NOW
To get to a better future and change your relationships, Dr. Ray and Jean explain 3 things you can do right now
1️⃣ Do something new, exciting and thrilling together. When focused on an activity, especially if something new, allows you to bond at a different level. For a while it substitutes the labels of you being partners for being friends and lets you stay away from bigger topics and just focus on having fun.
2️⃣ Surprise each other Surprising each other is a really good way to add to that connection so that you can get into the more difficult stuff later. Surprises can add that missing spark and help you communicate how much you care for each other
3️⃣ Sleep naked together Yes, sleeping naked. Shocker right. Experts found 57% of couples who slept in the nude claimed to be happy together, compared with 48% of those in pyjamas, 43% of nightie wearers and 38% of those in onesies.
These three things shared, remind us of the concept of reconnection through recalibration. A jolting of your system by doing things that you don’t normally do, a complete opposite of monotony. By introducing these elements into our everyday life, we make it easier to talk about the harder stuff later.
Dealing with Conflicts
On the topic of dealing with conflicts and tips on solving the problems in relationships, Jean suggests.
What we focus on grows and the human brain is designed to seek out negativity or potential threats much faster than something positive and so people wanna talk about the problem instead of where do we wanna reach for.
When we’re first interviewing a couple, we ask them, “if you had a magic wand, how would you like your relationship to be?” And sometimes they’ll say, “well, I don’t like that.” We’re not doing this. Like, no, what do you want? that place. Which then it’s like if, if you get that agreement that you both have a common vision of where you wanna be, well then you can work backwards and and reverse engineer it. If you start focusing on the positive stuff what you like about your partner, what they’re doing well, it’s easier for you to do more positive stuff and you’ll see more. And that is the momentum because the other stuff, we don’t have to practice.
When you think about in the beginning it’s what can I get? And the longer you’re together and the more common experiences you have, the more your brains mirror each other. Cuz our brains are designed to do that. And so then you want to say, what can I give? Because if I give him something that makes him happy. My brain becomes happy too. If I give him grief, I get grief. You can feel what your partner’s feeling and it’s not so selfish anymore. And, and the selfishness in the beginning, it’s not good or bad, it’s just the way we’re wired. It’s the way we’re designed, and as we mature, we care more about making sure they’re. because we can’t be happy if they’re not happy.
When we’re younger, we can, when we’re younger, we think, you know, I can keep score and I can win and, and my partner’s gonna lose and I’m gonna win. you don’t keep score with your teammate.
Dr. Ray adds
The fact of the matter is conflict is inevitable in every relationship. We can expect it to happen. We just don’t know when or where, but it’s gonna happen. Analogy I use when it comes to conflict is that it, it’s like a credit card bill and the the bill is always gonna be due. And the choice you have at that point is whether you’re gonna pay it now or you’re gonna pay it later with interest? This calibration has to happen. It has to happen consistently. When you are focusing on the problems, then that is what you’re gonna create more of.
Keeping Love Exciting and New
In the beginning of a relationships, everything’s new and exciting. You’re interested to learn more. But as you spend more time with your partner, your frequency tune in sync and the sense of security makes you start feeling comfortable. So how do we keep exploring and how does one keep maintaining that curiosity, that mysteriousness within each other?
What is it that you do to keep exploring and how do we keep maintaining that curiosity that mysteriousness within each other? Let us know in the comments below. Listen to the episode to learn about our guests story and learn what they do to keep the fire burning.
Comfort vs Discipline for Dealing with Pain
Jean shares an analogy of comfort and discipline. We notice a trend here, which is that a relationship is built over time and discipline. That component of showing up, checking in with your partner, doing the fun activities, creating that organic space that’s disconnected from tech to be able to have those deeper conversations. All of these are forms of discipline so that eventually one day when that fire say, diminished a little bit, instead of feeling like “everything’s breaking apart and I don’t know what to do”, you can be like, “hey, I have a feeling that things are getting a little bit cold in this relationship. Can we do something about it?” All of the work that you would’ve done previously enables you to then have a successful and healthy conversation at the end. But really it’s the building up of those smaller things that we do every day, rather than taking the easy way out and choosing the route of comfort and being like – oh, I don’t need to worry about this.
When we’re in pain, we have two choices. The first choice is to comfort ourselves so we drink, eat, stuff we shouldn’t eat, watch tv, distract ourselves. All of those things make us numb. and make us sicker over time. so the pain comes, I hurt my back. I’m gonna take a pill and lay on the couch. Well, now my muscles are getting atrophy. And, and you need more and more of that comfort stuff. And you get less and less sensitive to the subtle pain where you could actually do something. The other thing you can do when you’re in pain is discipline. Really takes discipline to love another human. takes the discipline of, if we are using the back as an example, I gotta go to physical therapy and it’s gonna hurt and I’m gonna push through it and I’m gonna get stronger and I’m gonna heal and I’m gonna get you joy. comfort leads to temporary pleasure that goes away where doing the discipline consistently leads to a joy and, and a feeling of safety in the. And connection, and you cannot have that without work. You have to know yourself. You have to know your partner. You have to invest, you have to do your work just in the same way, taking care of your body.
Individual Growth
First we talk about how to channel your pains and communicate with your partner without assigning blame, to which Dr, Ray says
You can’t prevent that from happening. You are going to dish out blame from time to time. It doesn’t matter how, how peaceful a person you are, at some point it’s gonna happen. And that’s, that’s, it’s one of the rules that we came up with when we did the hike. You know, we, we hiked 180 miles. It was grueling. We crossed 10 mountain passes, all our food survival gear on our backs, and the first thing we noticed is that when you go through difficult times, you go through pain, you go through discomfort, the first thing you’re gonna do is you’re gonna blame your partner. Yeah. It’s just, it’s just what happens. You know? It, you, your partner is your closest, the closest human. The closest connection you can have to another human being, physically, mentally, spiritually, emotionally. And so when we hurt on the inside, we have to get it out. Yeah. And the first thing that that we’re gonna do is it’s gonna go at our partner.
Jean adds
It’s really important when your partner does blame you to not take that personally as best as possible. And also to to understand everything is a 50 50 in a relationship, meaning that you’re both contributing equally to what’s going. And so the question I always ask myself is, what is it about me that chooses to hang out with someone like this? Ha. if this is not that pleasant in that moment. So what, what have I done to teach him how to treat me? What, what boundaries do I need? What, what do I need to show up at? Maybe nurture him because he’s hurting and I’m treating him in a way that maybe someone else did and, and I’m activating that and, and. Tricky things to figure out and they require a lot of calmness. Yep. That you don’t have initially in blame. When you’re in blame, you can’t figure that out. Your brain doesn’t even work. You’re just like, what? You’re, you’re in fight or flight and it doesn’t work. And then later you can dial it back and you can look at what, what’s going on here? And typically if you’re the person who, you know, stepped on your partner and they got a reaction, Blasted you, you didn’t even know you did it. And you’re like, what, what did you hear me say? And it’s like the telephone game. They’re hearing something that they heard 20 years ago. And if you take that personally, you keep it up at the surface and now you’re fighting about whatever toilet paper, right? not about that. It’s about what it brings up. And that’s true for all of us.
Iceberg Moments
Dr. Ray explains the above with an example and something they call Iceberg Moments
Those moments where you’re in pain and. Have this need to blame your partner. Or that it happens. It is something we call iceberg moments, and you think about an iceberg, 15% above the water, 85% under the water. And when, when each of us as individuals go through something painful it brings up something from our past that 85% under the. And we are dishing out a hundred percent onto our partner when maybe they’re only part 15% part of what the issue is. And so when couples do that deep dive and they really start understanding more and more about their partner and where they came from and what they brought with them, it’s easier than. Like easy at all. But it’s easier to see that moment as an iceberg moment, and to not take it personally. Oh, my partner is hurting right now. And what’s being brought up for them is this whole past history that I was not part of, but it’s being played out in the moment.
Jean adds
and you’ll always attract a partner. Who knows exactly how to smash into your iceberg because your iceberg smashes into theirs and if it didn’t, you probably wouldn’t have a relationship. And so it’s designed that way because we get wounded through relationship and we heal through relationship. And so we come with all our wounds and no one teaches us how to heal that. And a lot of it is very unconscious. We’re not very aware of why we’re so activated by someone. and it’s, it’s that discovery that can lead to a deep sense of healing between two people. That’s where the work is and it’s, it’s incredibly beautiful and most often when we first meet a couple, they’re saying, if my partner would just change this, I’d be fine and of course it’s never about that, but they don’t even know that. They don’t even know what it’s really about. And, and that discovery of bringing that deeper stuff up into consciousness, I think someone said we learned how to have a conversation we didn’t even know we were supposed to have. Mm-and it takes that type of, eyes to see it. We can’t see it. Just if two people are so close, they can’t and you have to get that distance and sometimes that pain can give you some distance to understand yourself and then to come back to your partner and go, this is what I discovered through that.
Walkabout – Conversation with yourself
We then talk about our last topic of how do you work on your own individual self and Jean sheds her insights on this with a practice they call Walkabout.
There’s an exercise we practice and we give to people, and that is to go on a walkabout. And a walkabout is 48 to 72 hours. By your to go somewhere you’ve never been and you can’t have any agenda. You have to feel what you feel at any given moment. Are you hungry? Go find food. Do you wanna sleep? Sleep? Do you want to learn something? Go out in nature, whatever you wanna do. And people are so scared, they’re like, well what if I don’t wanna go home in the end? Or what if my partner doesn’t wanna come back? We’ve never seen that happen, but I’m sure it could. But we don’t have that type of time cuz the. 24 hours, you’re just all in your head. And then it starts to go, and then you can have a conversation with yourself in, in, in a bigger part of yourself, a higher self and the universe. And then you can come back. And I do it when I’m angry. You, you do it more regular, like as a schedule. Right. I’m a runner, so that’s kind of my process. Right. But, but it’s a difficult thing. Absolutely impactful.
Dr Ray then shares a beautiful idea below. It is scary to ask because a lot of the times, people are afraid of what they’re going to find. If they do take the time to have that conversation with themselves, they’re afraid of the scary things that might come up and therefore the reckoning that they’ll have to do. By embedding this as a daily practice, it becomes a little bit less scary and you don’t have to indulge in it or schedule time and make it into the special big thing. You can also just piecemeal it and that makes it a lot less scary and therefore just a part of your everyday life. And that’s how you’re able to bring not only the best of yourself to the relationship, but also help yourself grow in the process.
The whole point is to completely, unplug, to disconnect yourself from, the monotony of life and everything that is. All the pressure that you have. So you can’t be online. , you can’t be on your phone, you radio, read books, drink. If you check into a hotel, you can’t watch tv. You can’t listen to the radio while you’re driving. you can’t talk to anyone either. Mm. So you know, you can order at a restaurant if you’re going to. Or you could check in a hotel, but from that point forward, you don’t have conversations with people because that is gonna pull you outside of yourself, and we need that time within to really understand our insecurities. And, the things that we wrestle with, Carl Young talked about it being the shadow, the shadow. Part of ourself that we hide from the world, and if we don’t understand that and our focus is just on removing it, well, it is going to permeate into our relationship for sure.
In this episode, we bring to you a quick and easy free at home date night idea called creating a Shared Relationship Vision.
It doesn't matter if you're just starting your relationship or you've been together for several years, it's never too early or too late to sit down with your partner and talk about what you aspire from your relationship. This is why we came up with a list of deal breaker questions. By taking the time to go through these questions, you can create a Relationship Vision that you and your partner are willing to invest in.
List of deal breaker questions: https://tinyurl.com/lovita1
Takeaways
1️⃣ We believe that a discussion around a Shared Relationship Vision should be a recurring exercise, perhaps even a Tradition. People and their priorities change over time. This exercise can keep partners in alignment.
2️⃣ Just because you and your partner share different perspectives doesn't mean that you are not on the same page. This activity is all about helping you understand your similarities and differences, and if and whether you want to invest your time in addressing those gaps and remember. Remember – It's okay to disagree.
Our inspiration for the activity was from our previous conversations with Brendan Kumarasamy, a communication expert and Victoria Raider, a possibility coach on their take on the value of working towards a Relationship Visions. Links below 🔗
https://lovita.blog/2022/11/11/unleash-prosperity-in-your-relationship-with-victoria-rader-a-possibility-coach/https://lovita.blog/2022/08/29/communicating-relationship-boundaries-with-brenden-kumarasamy/
LoVita – Love Vitamins for a healthier is a community by Partners for Partners. We share stories about how Partners are working intentionally toward building a healthier relationship. To learn more check out the links below 🔗
All below links in a single page – https://linktr.ee/lovitalovevitamins
Website – https://lovita.blog
Newsletter – https://mailchi.mp/81f58463e76b/subscribe
Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/lovitalovevitamins
Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/lovitalovevitamins
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Shared Relationship Vision
Today, we are sharing a quick and easy free at home date night idea called creating a Shared Relationship Vision.
It doesn’t matter if you’re just starting your relationship or you’ve been together for several years, it’s never too early or too late to sit down with your partner and talk about what you aspire from your relationship. This is why we came up with a list of deal breaker questions. By taking the time to go through these questions, you can create a Relationship Vision that you and your partner are willing to invest in.
Intention
This concept of a shared relationship vision has come up again and again as we interviewed relationship coaches and experts for our podcast. In our conversation with Brendan Kumarasamy, a communication expert, he brought up the concept of a shared Relationship Vision as a way to get on the same page. When we talked with Victoria Raider, a possibility coach, she brought up the concept of establishing a Shared Relationship Vision as a way to either find your soulmate or save yourself years of misery. We thought let’s be explicit about this and practice it for ourselves.
Things you need
📝 A list of Deal Breaker Questions. (Some sample questions available on Framework Relationship Vision. You can a complete list for free that we used) 🤫 A private and quiet space to have a conversation with your partner
Rules
Take a few moments to look over the list of questions you gathered and collect your thoughts. Then go ahead and set the space and environment for the conversation. Remove any distractions like cell phones. If you have pets or kids make sure that they are entertained so you don’t get interrupted.
Feel free to break up the questions into parts or segments . So you can take breaks in between as well.
Our Discussion
Listen to the episode for our conversation around the below topics
What do you consider cheating? In the context of a relationship
Do you have my back no matter what?
Takeaways
1️⃣ We believe that a discussion around a Shared Relationship Vision should be a recurring exercise, perhaps even a Tradition. People and their priorities change over time. This exercise can keep partners in alignment.
2️⃣ Just because you and your partner share different perspectives doesn’t mean that you are not on the same page. This activity is all about helping you understand your similarities and differences, and if and whether you want to invest your time in addressing those gaps and remember. Remember – It’s okay to disagree.
Experiment with a few different Deal Breaker Questions that suite your relationship. Let us know what you think about the date night activity in the comments below and share your story.
A quick and easy, free, at home date night idea.
Here’s how the activity works – Each person takes turns to click photos from your phone or camera to make a story in 2 minutes. So, if you are the storyteller first, your partner will have to leave the room and set a timer for 2 minutes. In that time, you'll use your phone or something to click photos. These photos can be of yourself, or any objects as props around you. After 2 minutes your partner will come back into the room and look at your photos as a slideshow and try to narrate the story. Once they're done, you'll share what you had in mind. Then take some time to discuss the differences and similarities. When done, switch roles. Do this in parallel if you have different rooms available.
Things you need
🤳 A phone or camera to click photos with
⏱ Something to keep track of time.
Rules
1️⃣ You have 2 minutes
2️⃣ Use selfies and things around you as props
3️⃣ Click photos and share your story
Takeaways
1️⃣ This was a great activity to see your partner's perspective. It's very unlikely that both of you are going to have the exact same story or even something close to it. So this gives you an opportunity to see how your partner sees the world and how they interpret it versus how you do and then talk about it and get to know each other.
2️⃣ Introducing or reintroducing the idea of play. As we grow up and become adults, quote unquote, with responsibilities, it's very easy to stop prioritizing the concept of play, but the role that it plays in our relationship is bringing back lightheartedness and re-introducing opportunities for you and your partner to connect with that same childlike enthusiasm. Curiosity and playfulness that you used to when you were a child.
Everyone likes to take pictures or see pictures that others have taken. Communicating with photos has two layers – the first: what the photographer perceives, and the second what the viewer conceived. This date night activity combines both of these ideas to play with your partner, get creative – and learn what kind of stories we tell ourselves.
The point of this is to enforce that your partner is not the same person as you. Even though they might see the same things as you do, they interpret it differently. This is an exercise to appreciate each other's creativity, and get to know their thought process a bit better. Depending on how much time you have to spend, you can deep dive on the “whys” and “hows”.
LoVita – Love Vitamins for a healthier is a community by Partners for Partners. We share stories about how Partners are working intentionally toward building a healthier relationship. To learn more check out the links below 🔗
All below links in a single page – https://linktr.ee/lovitalovevitamins
Website – https://lovita.blog
Newsletter – https://mailchi.mp/81f58463e76b/subscribe
Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/lovitalovevitamins
Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/lovitalovevitamins
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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
Activity
Time: 2 minutes
Cost: Free
Today, we are sharing a quick and easy – free, at home date night idea. Everyone likes to take pictures or see pictures that others have taken. Communicating with photos has two layers – the first: what the photographer perceives, and the second what the viewer conceived. This date night activity combines both of these ideas to play with your partner, get creative – and learn what kind of stories we tell ourselves.
Here’s how the activity works – Each person takes turns to click photos from your phone or camera to make a story in 2 minutes. So, if you are the storyteller first, your partner will have to leave the room and set a timer for 2 minutes. In that time, you’ll use your phone or something to click photos. These photos can be of yourself, or any objects as props around you. After 2 minutes your partner will come back into the room and look at your photos as a slideshow and try to narrate the story. Once they’re done, you’ll share what you had in mind. Then take some time to discuss the differences and similarities. When done, switch roles. Do this in parallel if you have different rooms available.
Intention
The point of this is to enforce that your partner is not the same person as you. Even though they might see the same things as you do, they interpret it differently. This is an exercise to appreciate each other’s creativity, and get to know their thought process a bit better. Depending on how much time you have to spend, you can deep dive on the “whys” and “hows”.
Remember to relax. This is not a competition. Focus on making a story using pictures and have fun. Feel free to change the rules above as you like. Play for a win-win scenario where everyone wins.
Rules
You have 2 minutes
Use selfies and things around you as props
Click photos and share your story
For variations – limit to 5 or 10 photos instead of 2 minutes.
Things you need
🤳 A phone or camera to click photos with ⏱ Something to keep track of time.
1️⃣ This was a great activity to see your partner’s perspective. It’s very unlikely that both of you are going to have the exact same story or even something close to it. So this gives you an opportunity to see how your partner sees the world and how they interpret it versus how you do and then talk about it and get to know each other.
2️⃣ Introducing or reintroducing the idea of play. As we grow up and become adults, quote unquote, with responsibilities, it’s very easy to stop prioritizing the concept of play, but the role that it plays in our relationship is bringing back lightheartedness and re-introducing opportunities for you and your partner to connect with that same childlike enthusiasm. Curiosity and playfulness that you used to when you were a child.
Experiment with a few different variations of the rules and have fun. Let us know what you think about the date night activity in the comments below and share your story.
In this episode, listen to Charlene Byers talk about masculine and feminine polarity, feminine embodiment and romantic relationships. She is an expert on male/female relationships. She shares her stories and learnings from her 25 years as a relationship coach. She talks about her struggles as a woman that she faced early on and how she was able to overcome them and build a healthy relationship with her husband.
We explore the answer to the very important question of “How do Women Want to Feel in a Relationship?”
Learn about the RAM (Relationship Attachment Model) Model and how it can help you in your relationships.
In the full episode we go over the below topics
1️⃣ Impact of men around Charlene in her youth
2️⃣ The effect of that in her Relationships as an adult
3️⃣ Struggles of leaving the past behind
4️⃣ Slowing down to find alignment
And much more…
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 🔗
Website – https://lovita.blog/
Newsletter – https://mailchi.mp/81f58463e76b/subscribe
Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/lovitalovevitamins/
Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/lovitalovevitamins
All below links in a single page – https://linktr.ee/lovitalovevitamins
Connect with Charlene Byers
Website – https://www.charlenebyars.com/
Tik Tok – @levelupforlove
Instagram – mscharlenebyars
Facebook – mscharlenebyars
YouTube – Charlene Byars
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Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/lovitalovevitamins/message
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Charlene Byars is a leading relationship expert, Certified Empowerment Coach, and women’s revolutionary mentor. She helps women heal their hearts and attract devoted, masculine men who want to be in a long-term relationship. She is on a mission to equip single, successful women with the tools they need to attract the man of their dreams.
In this episode, Charlene talks about masculine and feminine polarity, feminine embodiment and romantic relationships. She is an expert on male/female relationships. Her style is direct, entertaining, and she has a very dynamic personality. She shares her stories with us and learnings from her 25 years of relationship coaching experience. In our discussion she shares her story and we talk about her struggles as a woman that she faced early on and how she was able to overcome them and build a healthy relationship with her husband.
As a women’s coach she helps women find their person, heal from a past break-up, and level up their relationship with themselves and their lover. Something that motivates her to do her work is that, she has a very inspiring story – a long term relationship of 23 years with 4 kids in an abusive situation. When she realized she needed to leave, that’s when her journey towards the work she does today started.
The Past
Transcript from Charlene talking about her childhood and experience with men around her.
“When I was a little girl. Um, both of my parents are a Cuban, and so I am first Generation. So both my parents spoke Spanish. That’s my first language. And I, um, saw, you know, not my father because my mother and my father, they, um, divorced when I was about four years old. When I was a little girl, I saw the men in my life, um, really mean, really mean. So I grew up in an environment with a really mean stepfather, abusive stepfather who, you know, emotionally, physically, you name it, abused me and my brother. And so I knew that. The way that I grew up and the way that I saw men and the way things were, I knew as somebody, I was like, Ooh, this is, this is not good. This is not good. I want something more. I want a real connection. No one teaches you relationships, teaches you how to pick a partner for the rest of your life. You dunno, I was young, You dunno all that.”
Impact on Relationships as an Adult
Transcript from Charlene talking about her ex-husband and her first marriage.
“So what happened? I fall in love with this. And, I’m like crazy love, like, you know, like I, I like love and love and love, I love, and, and the guy, and lemme just tell you something about this man. His core is a good human being. He was an asshole with me though. I’m just being honest with you. He was a good person, but he didn’t know how to also be in a relationship. He didn’t even know, you know, like how to truly, honestly treat a woman, how to show up with kindness, how to show up with respect. He was like, he was almost kinda like a wild man. Like he had no filter. So I went throughout this marriage, you guys just so confused. What is this? So hard?
So then we started gonna counseling and you know how long we went in counseling? I’m not even kidding you. 10 years. And guess what we learned in counseling? Zero. So that was just for me, just beyond Confus. Because I was thinking, how can you have two people be going on a regular basis for over 10 years? And we’re still talking about the same thing that we talked about 10 years ago and nothing’s changing. So I finally realized you can’t change a person. You can only show. And, be what you want that person to be with you, right? So I started showing up respectfully differently. He didn’t do anything. like, you know, it was all, it was all me, me, it was of me, you know, Hey and be nice and happy, and he didn’t do anything. So then we went another, How many more? And then I realized it was getting worse.
I had to leave. I finally decided after 23 years, and lemme tell you something, that is the hardest decision, you know someone’s gonna make because I was a married woman with four kids. So you can only imagine what that was like for me. It was. Um, but I was determined. I was like, you know what? If I’m gonna be in a relationship, it needs to be aligned and we, we cannot fight the way we’re fighting and it can’t be this hard. If it is something is not right, we’re just not meant for each other.”
Struggles of Leaving your Past Behind
Transcript from Charlene talking about her experience about leaving the relationship and moving on to the next chapter
“I was, at the time, I was a stay at home mom, remember I had four. And so I knew to leave him that I was gonna have to make sure financially, that I can stand on my own two feet. So I hired a coach and it took me six years to leave my ex-husband, he had no idea. So in the background, Because he was abusive. So in the background I was, I was preparing. Because I knew for me to leave a marriage that I’ve been with for 23 years, he was the, the one that made the money. Um, I could not just leave and, and, and no, I have to take care of my children. I had to, um, provide a home for them and I didn’t want him to give me money. I didn’t want that. No, because I knew that we were gonna be 50 50 custody.
Before I was a stay at home mom, I owned, um, businesses and I was a sales trainer. So I just got back into that. I got back into work. So by the time I was gonna leave my ex-husband, I was making a lot of money. So anyway, I did it. I left the guy, I got the house on my own. I had everything by myself. And now I’m a single mom for the first time with four kids, and I am working like crazy? Like, I’m working, I’m busy, I’m going, I’m going, I’m going, I’m going. So then finally, when that settled, I started dating again.”
Slowing Down to Find Alignment
Transcript from Charlene talking about a key realization that she has – to slow down
“Okay. So I slowed all this down and I started thinking about, okay, Charlene. Something’s up here. Because if you keep attracting those type of guys, what’s up? What’s up? So I went in again, I went in again and I got coaching again. I got therapy and experience and I figured out something. And this, I figured out on my own. And I didn’t understand that I still for so long was operating on a belief system that all men were assholes. And that’s not true. That’s not true because they’re amazing men out there is what I learned. Oh, they’re so good. They’re amazing men out there. The first thing that I, I did for Charlene is I had to learn polarity. I had to learn really what it was to be in masculine and feminine energy and how that really played a part in romance, because I wasn’t looking for a friendship.”
How do Women Want to Feel in a Relationship?
New research from the menstrual cycle tracking app Clue in collaboration with other researchers analyzed the answers from 68,000 people in 180 countries. And overall they found: personality comes out on top, with 88.9% of women considering “kindness” a very important trait in a partner. Close behind were “supportiveness” and “intelligence,” which were chosen by 86.5% and 72.3% of women, respectively.
When Charlene asked this question to her clients, she found a slight variation – her top two findings were: safety (mental, physical) and men who choose to be with them
RAM Model (Relationship Attachment Model)
The R.A.M. Model (Relationship Attachment Model) was produced by Dr. John Van Epp in his research regarding relationships progression. It’s a simple way to look at how relationships should grow to become healthy relationships. It consists of five dynamics: Know, Trust, Rely, Commit & Physical. Essentially, it’s about progressing through these 5 steps linearly, instead of jumping from getting to know someone to committing to them or getting physical in your relationship right away.
Transcript from Charlene talking about why this is essential.
“You get to know someone, then you get to trust someone, then you get to rely on someone and then you commit to someone and then you’re physical. So you have to slow down. You have to get to know them. You have to be able to trust them. Once you start trusting, then you gotta rely on them and see if you can rely on them. Once you rely on them, then you commit, then you commit. So the RAM system really helps people slow down and get to know people.”
Limiting Beliefs
Transcript from Charlene talking about her learnings.
“I had to learn what limiting beliefs were. Okay. And because I had certain beliefs about certain things and I had and that kept taking me to each relationship. So even though I was with a different man, I had certain beliefs about how men are. Your beliefs and you don’t take care of why you are the way you are and why you do the things you do and how that actually affects your new partner, then you are gonna bring all that to your new partner.”
LoVita 