Latest / State Of Mind Mental Health Podcast / #115 - It's Never About the Messy Kitchen: Therapist Martina Nova on What Couples Are Really Fighting About

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#115 - It's Never About the Messy Kitchen: Therapist Martina Nova on What Couples Are Really Fighting About · State Of Mind Mental Health Podcast

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I think when people hear same page parenting,
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they assume it means you have to agree on everything.
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So it's like, well, let's agree that they watch the exact same shows
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or that we always do the shoes the same or that we always agree on the same color
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of paint, et cetera, but that's just not realistic.
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And so.
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because you're two different people with different upbringings,
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different triggers, different instincts,
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you're going to see things differently sometimes.
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Being on the same page is less about agreement about exactly what you do,
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and it's more about understanding.
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So part of it is knowing about where your partner is coming from.
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Like, why do they react the way that they do?
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What are they carrying from their own childhood or upbringing or systemically?
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what feels important to them as a parent because when you understand that
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you stop seeing each other as the problem
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Hello, everybody. Welcome to the State of Mind Podcast:
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Tools, Stories, and Truth on Being Human.
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My name is Mike Stroh, and this is a podcast for living with courage,
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clarity, and compassion.
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In today's episode, I'm speaking with Martina Nova.
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Hello, Martina. Thank you so much for joining me and for sharing your wisdom
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and experience with us and to talk about your new book.
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can you please, excuse me, can you please introduce yourself and tell us
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how you got to this point in your life and what you're up to today?
1:18
Absolutely. So thank you so much for having me,
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Mike. My name is Martina. I'm ~ mom of two.
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I'm a therapist in Vancouver, BC.
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I'm a co-parent and I'm the author of a new book called Same Page Parenting.
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It just came out this past March,
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2026, and it's been a combination of experiences that I've seen need
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a little bit more attention in both my clinical practice,
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but also in my personal life.
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in my own experience being a mom and being a parent and in
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my friends' experiences and in reading all these parenting books after
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I had kids and I was like, hmm,
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no one actually teaches you the important things to talk to your partner about that
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isn't just about some of the more common things that capitalism would get
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us to talk about. Like how many diapers do I need?
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How many onesies do I need?
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this kind of a thing. so getting on the same page is something that I work with
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a lot in my clinical practice and what that actually means
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for partners and dispelling some notions of how we get there or what
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it means to maybe not agree on everything.
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And I wanted to bring therapy level questions to people's living rooms
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and living spaces. So that's what I tried to do with this book.
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Awesome. And can you tell us how did you get into being a therapist and maybe just
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a little bit about your kind of life history?
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So I was born in Slovakia,
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which is the heart of Europe. When I was born there,
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actually my entire family was born in the exact same hospital in a small city called
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Kosice. And when I was about one and a half,
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my whole family immigrated from Slovakia to Canada to try to find a better life
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for all of us. And when we moved here,
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we were experiencing
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a lot of new things that new immigrants in Canada would experience like barriers
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to resources due to language or lack of access
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due to privilege or other pieces where we really had to work hard
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and focus on survival. And my parents did such an incredible job giving
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us all the necessities we needed.
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We always had fruit on the table.
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We always had extracurricular activities.
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We always
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had a school, we always had clean clothes,
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and they really helped make sure that we made it and we survived.
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And behind the scenes though, and I talk a lot about this in my book,
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there was mental health struggles going on that we didn't really know
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how to talk about. There was intergenerational trauma and mental health
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and lack of support. My parents didn't have a village when they came to Canada.
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They had to figure everything out on their own.
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and they did an incredible job giving us what we needed day to day to survive.
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And now being a therapist and getting into this work,
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recognizing that there is a lot that when our parents and we're really focusing
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on the survival part of upbringing,
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we maybe miss out on pieces like emotional language.
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or communicating about trauma and nervous system regulation and coping tools
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and strategies and neurodiversity and things that I learned when
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I started my master's program and when I graduated and I recognized there's
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so much more to mental health than just eat healthy and exercise.
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There's so much more to parenting than just which stroller am I going
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to buy or which brand of baby food is the most organic or healthiest.
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so a lot of my early childhood experiences have really impacted how I work,
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what I wrote this book about, honoring my cultural and my family's legacy while also
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trying to show the next generation of parents that yes,
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it is a privilege to even reflect on what can we give our kids now that maybe
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we didn't receive when we were younger because our parents were busy focusing
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on other things. And if we have privilege,
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We can talk about this now and we can show our kids what healthy communication
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and conflict resolution looks like.
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So it's a little bit about where I came from and what has helped inspire some
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of the work that I talk about in the book too.
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And did you move straight to Vancouver?
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Have you lived there your whole life?
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Like in Canada? Yeah.
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Yeah, we moved
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to New Westminster first, which is a smaller suburb.
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And then we moved to another suburb called Burnaby.
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And that's where we lived in a cooperative housing unit for the majority of my life.
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And so they slowly, we slowly built a community of other Slovak immigrants and,
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and children here. So we were able to find that even though we were so far away,
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but.
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Burnaby was where most of where we grew up and spent most of our time.
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And how did you
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choose?
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How did you choose to get into counseling and psychotherapy work?
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And then ~ I guess as you started your career as a clinician,
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what were some of the things you started focusing on?
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Growing up, I always felt like I was a very attuned child.
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And we say, heavy lies the crown of the kid who's really good at reading a room,
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who's really good at predicting moods and shifting conversation.
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And I felt like I was always really good at being the person that other people talk
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to, including my parents. And I wore that as a badge of honor to be able
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to support them through what they were going through.
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And as I got older and I was thinking about what field I was going to go into,
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I was recognizing that I genuinely had a passion to help support people,
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but I also had a lot of legit experience in how to regulate with someone.
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I don't even know what that word was,
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but how to co-regulate, how to empathize,
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how to validate, how to problem solve.
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And so it's funny, because at first I was really into
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culinary pursuits and I told my mom maybe I'll be a culinary chef and
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my mom's like no I'll teach you how to cook.
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You go you go do something else you go you know go into the world
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and be somebody and I'll teach you whatever you want and she is like
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a brilliant cook and chef and baker everything so I was like all right
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I guess I'll I'll find out what I want to do and a couple of my best friends
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at the time were starting to pursue counseling and getting their masters
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and I was like whoa
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you can get your master's, like if you can do it,
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I can do it. And so I graduated post-secondary at UBC,
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University of British Columbia,
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and I applied to Adler University,
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the first master's level program for counseling,
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and I got in and I was so excited.
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I immediately knew I was really interested in working with early attachment trauma
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and
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more kind of complex cases. And it's funny because some of the case studies
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in grad school, you get a very clear cut image of a person.
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says, you know, John, age 30 comes in for anxiety.
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Yeah.
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How do you support them? So I was like,
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okay, this sounds really like clear cut and maybe too simple,
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quote unquote. But then you get into the real world and you're like,
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okay, so.
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John, age 40, actually has 10 different things going on in his life which
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is contributing to his anxiety.
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So what are those 10 things and how do we support it?
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And maybe we've got a little bit of sprinkling of toxic masculinity
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in there or early attachment trauma or racial discrimination.
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Like there's so many overlapping pieces that a real person comes in for.
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So my work has really developed over time and since I became a parent,
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I've just found a big...
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gap in the support that parents receive postpartum.
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And that's been one of my most specialized interests right
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now is postpartum parents, postpartum moms with early attachment struggles
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who are people pleasers or who have ADHD.
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I have ADHD myself. And so neurodiversity is a big part of what I work with.
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A lot of what I specialize in is things that I've got.
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lived experience in, which makes me even more excited to help support people with
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it.
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Yeah, it's a hard one to, well,
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not that anyone wants to perhaps not work in the field they're more personally
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attached to, but it does tend to be common.
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And I would also put myself in that domain.
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Although I do also sort of stretch around the edges,
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which I'm sure many people do.
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Can you tell us a little bit about how
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I guess how you blended the personal professional experience with your
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own journey and then into the parenting and into how you've started supporting
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people, perhaps more specifically around parenting and sort of,
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well, to honor the title of the book.
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the same page parenting. Like how did that all kind of come together
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and what are some of the insights I guess that you,
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that led you to write this book?
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Mm-hmm. Yeah, good question. So originally,
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I've always been someone who likes to manualize things.
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And it's funny because after my first son was born,
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I have two kids. My son is four right now and my daughter is two.
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And so after my son was born, I would write down after every day,
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okay, so 15 minutes left boob,
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15 minutes right boob.
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five mil, ten mils of formula and then five minutes of bicycle legs and then
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I have to do this and then at this time I do this and I and I wrote
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it down and after all anybody who I knew who was pregnant I was like guys
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I figured it out and I sent it to them and I was like do this and your
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kid will be fine because this is exactly what you need to do and then they would
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be like Martina it didn't work and I was like what what do you mean
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it didn't work so I started recognizing early on that I like manualizing things
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and also
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It's not one size fits all for everyone.
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When I started going back to work,
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I used to work with parents even before I had my own kids,
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but it's a different depth of connection when you actually have your
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own kids and can maybe just can imagine or validate or empathize with certain levels
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of experience that you maybe wouldn't have been able to before,
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even if you are highly empathetic or attuned.
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And so after I started working with parents,
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once I had my own kids,
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I was noticing that there was so much conflict coming up after having
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a baby, whether I saw it in my couple sessions or in my individual sessions when
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I worked with clients. And some of it would be things like the mom would have
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a really hard time asking for help or support,
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or she would, or she thought she was,
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and she felt like she was getting nowhere with her partner.
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And we would talk about that and so much of the time it didn't just lead to,
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what was going on in the present moment?
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It was leading to growing up. How did you ask for,
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did you ever ask for help or support or what did you see growing up?
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What did your parents do? Did they support one another?
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Was there a division of labor that was very gendered or how did
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you see conflict resolution? And so some of it,
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we're actually re-teaching how to...
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communicate or how to ask for support.
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That's not about the present moment.
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It's about our patterns. And especially when I worked with couples,
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sometimes we would get to the end of a session and I want them
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to have these conversations and I'd be like,
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okay, guys, we're out of time,
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but I'm going to send you these conversation starters that I want you
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to talk about together. And we'll talk about it next time and see how it went.
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And after I had my kids, I was like,
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I'm going to put all these in a guide.
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all these conversation starters,
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and I think it would be a pretty good idea.
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And I started keeping track of all the themes that were coming up in my sessions,
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or even within myself and my own husband at the time of like,
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what kinds of things were we finding that were sticking points and we were having
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a hard time talking about. And since I have ADHD,
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my hyper focus was on a dopamine hit.
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And I thought I'm gonna write down every single question.
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I think at one point I had like 60 questions and...
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I had a hard time categorizing them,
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but I did my best and I just started sending it out to all my couples.
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And one day I said, I wonder if anybody would want this as a book.
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And I'm just gonna pitch it. I'm gonna send it to as many publication companies
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as I can just to see what happens.
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And so I did, I sent it to like 15 different publishing houses and it was very kind.
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A lot of them got back to me saying,
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unfortunately they're not looking for new authors,
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but one got back and said,
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this is a cool idea, but could you organize it a little bit more?
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Could you break it down into like age category?
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So instead of just general questions for people,
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what about if there was like questions for people before they even had kids
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or when they have little kids or when they have preteens or teenagers?
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And I was like, absolutely. And I did it and I edited
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it and we were going back and forth for a few months and then they said,
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I think this could be a good idea.
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Let's turn it into a book.
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And so that's how it happened and it was a very surreal and exciting moment.
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Yeah,
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yeah, amazing. Inspiring. OK, so you you sort of through the personal experience
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of of marriage and children having kids and then the challenges of navigating that.
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These, I guess, as you say, the questions emerge,
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the journey begins and then.
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How did?
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I guess I'm curious just for people to know really and hear from others.
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Like how did, and if I got it right,
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you were married. Now you're not.
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Okay. And can you just tell us a little bit perhaps about how that happened
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and how that informed, I guess,
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the book and all these questions and sort of what not being on the same page looked
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like.
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for you.
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Yeah, absolutely. It's interesting because the book took me about
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two years from beginning to end to complete and for the first maybe year
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and a half I was still married while I was writing it and then it was only
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in the last half year of like doing the edits of the book that things kind
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of started to fall apart a little bit and it's tough because while
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I think my ex-husband and I do have a lot of the same values and a lot
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of the same ways that we want to bring up our kids and a lot of the same things
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we want to instill in making sure that they feel loved and safe
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and secure and valued. There were differences in our communication style.
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There were differences in our upbringing and how we showed up in
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our relationship in Kim.
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maybe even like both of us were people pleasers to an extent where
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he wouldn't say things because he was afraid it would hurt me and I would
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do the same. we didn't have like a highly conflictual relationship.
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We weren't yelling at one another or anything like that.
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But I think the quietness said a lot more than the yelling ever would.
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And when some things arose in our relationship where there was an opportunity
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to go really deep.
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and talk and fix and repair, it got too much.
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And without going into too much detail at this point,
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unfortunately, things didn't work out marriage wise between us.
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And I see him being a really good dad and finding his own footing
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and trying to find who he really is as a dad,
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as a man, as someone who our kids are gonna look up to one day.
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And while there was a lot of resistance in the beginning and I
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was fighting and didn't want to accept it,
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I have to. And it's the reality that a lot of my clients are going through as well.
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And I see it where we have this idea of a picture perfect family that
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we want to have where everyone is happy.
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Everyone is loving. Everyone is communicating.
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No one's breaking down. No one is holding on to their own mental health struggles,
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right? Like what we see on TV.
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but that's never the case. And so I think a lot of this book,
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and I talk about a lot of personal anecdotes in it as well with regards
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to conflict style or how trauma informs our ability to show up,
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not only for our kids, but for our partners.
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And my own therapist said to me,
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a lot of the times our first real relationships are where we play
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out the patterns that we learned growing up.
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subconsciously, whether we like it or not,
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whether it's, I'm going to please you or avoid conflict,
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or I'm going to pretend to be the person I think you need me to be
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and not really have boundaries or say what I need.
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And then that's going to lead to resentment,
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perhaps. And so I guess some of the conversation starters in the book
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are meant to say, talk about this before it's too late,
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right? Talk about
18:20
Talk about how your past around speaking up for yourself
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or about feeling shame or about intimacy and how you want to have intimacy with your
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partner. What does that even mean to you?
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Or a lot of other topics. Let's talk about it before we stop talking
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and then we don't feel connected anymore.
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And sometimes it goes so deep or it's been happening for so long that it's hard
18:45
to find the way back to one another.
18:46
Yeah, thank you. That was very insightful.
18:50
Yeah. And maybe to sort of pick it up from there.
18:51
Mm-hmm.
18:55
I often had to learn the hard way myself,
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I guess. This idea of how important it is to be honest and to express ourselves,
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irregardless of.
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how it's received by someone else,
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as long as we're respectful and sincere.
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You talk in the book about the sort of day to day avoidance of that
19:17
and you also just mentioned it to some extent.
19:20
~ just from simple things like I whether we get picky about it
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Mm-hmm.
19:26
and stubborn about it is one thing but just simply communicating right.
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I don't like the way you put the boots on the boot rack right to
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You
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I don't like the color of this paint on the wall too.
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I don't like the way you let our kid watch that show or whatever.
19:46
Can you maybe talk about the importance
19:47
Hmm.
19:52
of making the hidden thoughts and emotions and desires and needs,
19:58
making those explicit and maybe how you see or how.
20:03
couples navigate those conversations.
20:06
Yeah, that's such a good question.
20:07
And I think what you're heading on to is,
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it's funny because the title is same page parenting,
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but the ideas, I think when people hear same page parenting,
20:18
they assume it means you have to agree on everything.
20:20
So it's like, well, let's agree that they watch the exact same shows
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or that we always do the shoes the same or that we always agree on the same color
20:27
of paint, et cetera, but that's just not realistic.
20:31
And so.
20:32
because you're two different people with different upbringings,
20:35
different triggers, different instincts,
20:37
you're going to see things differently sometimes.
20:39
Being on the same page is less about agreement about exactly what you do,
20:43
and it's more about understanding.
20:46
So part of it is knowing about where your partner is coming from.
20:49
Like, why do they react the way that they do?
20:52
What are they carrying from their own childhood or upbringing or systemically?
20:57
what feels important to them as a parent because when you understand that
21:01
you stop seeing each other as the problem and that's a lot of where
21:06
the resentment comes from where we say you know it's not about the dishes it's
21:09
not about the shoes it's not about the specific thing it's about what
21:15
are the needs that are not being met underneath this and are we in line
21:19
on the bigger picture so again not do we handle this the exact
21:24
Do we handle this moment the exact same way,
21:26
but what kinds of humans are we trying to race?
21:29
What kind of home do we want to keep?
21:31
If you both value things like emotional safety and respect
21:35
and independence and cleanliness,
21:38
then you can actually take slightly different paths and still be moving
21:42
in the same direction. So with that being said,
21:45
conflict is gonna arise and you're gonna have moments where you don't agree with
21:50
what you wanna do.
21:52
But if we know what our values are and if we know what kind of people
21:55
we want to raise, then we can both get curious and why am I being rigid about this?
22:00
And why does it have to be this exact way?
22:03
And is there distress here? Can we find a compromise?
22:07
When conflict happens, another huge part of it is how you come back together when
22:10
you don't get it right, because you won't.
22:12
You'll contradict each other. You'll have moments where you're not aligned,
22:14
Thanks
22:16
especially when you're stressed or if you're tired.
22:18
or if you're neurodivergent and you have demand avoidance
22:21
and you're immediately like, don't tell me what to do,
22:22
because that feels too distressing.
22:24
If you're on the same page, it means that you can talk about
22:27
it after without turning on each other,
22:30
but with curiosity. And then we figure out,
22:32
okay, well, what do we want to do differently next time?
22:34
How are we still on the same team?
22:36
How do we still show appreciation for one another?
22:38
And where is this really coming from?
22:40
Are we actually stressed about this or do we feel hurt that our partner hasn't?
22:46
asked us how our day was and now we're taking it out on them with this,
22:49
Yeah,
22:50
right?
22:51
no, was awesome. Perfect. Yeah,
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I think.
22:56
What was sort of coming up for me as you were saying that is when
22:59
we can articulate the needs underlying it or even the fears
23:03
and the projected judgments on what we think the other person is doing when they're
23:09
doing something we don't like.
23:10
Sometimes it doesn't even matter,
23:13
at least in my experience, both personally and professionally.
23:18
it doesn't really matter what the,
23:20
there is really a resolution to the disagreement,
23:23
it's more that both people are not keeping anything inside and that
23:28
the other person knows to the best of their ability,
23:32
kind of what's actually happening for the other person.
23:34
Yes. Yes.
23:34
And it's such, it's such an amazing or difficult thing to accept the sort
23:40
of problem solving control desiring part of our minds doesn't sort of
23:47
or at least for me does not want to accept that that sometimes I don't need
23:51
an outcome or someone to agree with me.
23:54
I just need to express myself and it's ideal if the other person hears
23:59
me and can kind of acknowledge it.
24:01
But even if they don't sometimes it's just enough that I express myself.
24:07
Mm-hmm. Absolutely.
24:08
And
24:10
when you, I wanna ask you two questions at the same time.
24:13
Yeah, I guess I'll try to just ask one while finishing my comment.
24:17
I like how you distinguish the same page.
24:20
Parenting does not mean we agree on everything.
24:23
It means that we're both aware of what the other person is thinking and wanting.
24:27
That's sort of what you meant,
24:29
right? Yeah. Right.
24:30
Yes, and where they're coming from.
24:32
Yeah. And this is subtle side step.
24:38
I have ADHD. worked in a clinic part time for a little while that specialized
24:44
in assessing and treating ADHD.
24:46
tend to,
24:48
Okay.
24:50
I take, I don't know what it is.
24:53
Maybe it's the contrarian in me.
24:56
I don't like the word neurodivergent.
24:59
I don't like this. Just in general,
25:01
I don't like when we
25:03
create a word and then identify with it and then use that as a
25:07
way to describe ourselves and almost compare ourselves to the world.
25:12
I get kind of as a description,
25:14
it can be useful for some people,
25:16
but I think it actually reinforces the,
25:20
I'm different than you, therefore,
25:22
dot, dot, dot. I'm not sure if you have any thoughts on that as opposed to kinda,
25:28
yeah, we all.
25:30
are different in a sense. Yes,
25:32
I have these particular symptoms or whatever you wanna call them,
25:36
neurochemical qualities or ways my brain works.
25:41
But if I cling to that as like an identity and then use it to compare myself
25:47
to other people, I find that just makes things worse.
25:51
So one, does that make sense? And do you have any thoughts on that?
25:54
Yes,
25:55
that makes so much sense. It's actually something that comes up so much
25:58
in my clinical work with people,
25:59
especially since I work a lot with women who are late diagnosed ADHD in their life.
26:05
I just got diagnosed myself a couple years ago,
26:08
but the writing was on the wall since I was five,
26:10
Yeah.
26:11
six, losing my things, stuffing my things in my closet,
26:14
staying up till midnight to work on homework assignments,
26:15
I think.
26:16
but they always were like really good.
26:18
~ But yes, absolutely.
26:19
Yeah.
26:21
It comes up where
26:23
It's, and this is such a highly individualized thing,
26:26
so I'll tell you more about what I mean by that is,
26:27
Yeah, yeah.
26:28
for myself, I've felt my whole life,
26:31
I've already felt like I was different,
26:34
but I felt like I was different in a weird way.
26:37
Why am I so highly sensitive to rejection and why am I so...
26:44
Why do I have such a hard time remembering things or keeping organized or?
26:49
You know organizing my time or even saying no like people pleasing
26:54
can be highly attached to the impulse control as well and like I quickly will
26:58
say yes, and then I feel shame of like what's wrong with me that I can't
27:02
say no and so speaking from personal experience For a long time because
27:03
You
27:09
I didn't know what was going on
27:11
I would shame myself and I would say,
27:13
well, I am the problem. especially,
27:17
you my parents didn't shame me particularly,
27:19
but they would be like, what is wrong with your room?
27:22
Why can't you, what is, okay, you gotta clean out your closet now or what
27:25
are your shelves? You can't find anything.
27:27
Why can't you find anything? ~ you lost your case again,
27:28
Thank
27:30
come on. And like, wow, that's just a normal comment.
27:33
I would always be like, ~ shoot.
27:35
There I go again.
27:36
my brain is just messed up and it's bad and it's wrong and most people don't
27:40
act like this and it doesn't sound like most people think like me.
27:43
So I'm just weird and I'm different and I'm bad.
27:47
Like that's how I attributed it.
27:48
Yeah. Yeah.
27:49
And so for me, when I found a label with ADHD,
27:54
it was actually a bit of a relief.
27:56
And so I know you're talking about neurodivergent versus the ADHD label,
28:00
but here with ADHD for me, it's,
28:02
Yeah, yeah.
28:03
it's that is
28:04
there is a cluster of symptoms that are associated to something
28:07
I'm experiencing and then I don't use that as an excuse.
28:08
Mm-hmm.
28:12
You know, I wouldn't say, I remember once my ex said,
28:16
um, like, can you please just throw out the cheese string wrappers?
28:20
Like you always will open a cheese string and you leave the wrapper on the counter.
28:23
And I remember immediately I got that sting of like,
28:27
Oh, don't tell me what to do. But also,
28:28
~
28:29
um, Oh man, like why can't I just get this right?
28:33
and I keep forgetting. And so knowing
28:36
that I have ADHD, I'm not going to be like,
28:38
I can't because I have ADHD and I have a hard time with task completion
28:40
Yeah.
28:43
and I have bad object permanence.
28:44
So if I don't see it, it doesn't exist.
28:45
Like I'm not going to do that.
28:47
But if anything, I can be like,
28:49
okay, yes, I need to work on this.
28:52
So what do I need to do in order to make this different?
28:55
Because it's not that I'm bad or I'm messed up or I'm dumb or I'm lazy.
28:59
my brain just has a difference in functioning and I switch attention really quick
29:04
and that wrapper gives me zero pleasure putting in the garbage.
29:07
So that's why I just forget to do it sometimes.
29:10
And so part of it is when I found my label,
29:14
it helped me figure out this is what it is and how do I work on it and
29:19
do I need medication? Can I go to therapy?
29:21
What is dysregulation? How can I stay in the present moment?
29:26
longer. Why does that feel distressing or hard for me to do so
29:29
and therefore I'm just switching from thing to thing to try to keep myself busy,
29:34
keep my brain occupied. So for me I found that it was helpful and it gave
29:39
me access to resources under that label that I have kind of like pride
29:44
in where I'm like yeah I have ADHD and I'm quirky and I'm a little
29:47
bit odd but that's also what makes my brain really cool and really different.
29:52
And I like different. Different isn't always bad.
29:55
And I know I have skills that maybe people who don't have ADHD don't have.
29:58
So that's just one way to look at it as well.
30:00
Yeah.
30:03
You know, that was lovely. And as you were describing much of that,
30:07
you know, I'm watching my own life flash in front of my eyes.
30:12
~ In particular,
30:13
Mm-hmm.
30:16
well, many things, but just touch on the sort of why am I like this?
30:21
I'm bad. Right. And that just that that shame piece is so
30:23
huh.
30:26
painful and difficult and it gets in the way so much of us changing
30:30
our behavior or it gets in often in the way of people's ability
30:35
Yes.
30:36
to change their behavior. There's one other thing you said.
30:39
about that. The reiteration of,
30:42
it's not an excuse. and I like that.
30:45
And so I think part of my resistance to how the labels get used so much
30:49
in pop psychology, or even sometimes in therapy or whatever is,
30:54
is that it people then I don't know if they use it as an excuse per se,
31:01
but it's just, again, it's like that attachment and the identification with
31:04
and then the
31:05
sense of.
31:06
like being a like a like a person as that
31:10
~ is is definitely kind of where it can go and that's true
31:11
Yeah.
31:15
for anything obviously not just a label like a psychological label yeah
31:17
Absolutely. Yes.
31:20
and then i was gonna ask you
31:23
too many thoughts at once. ~ Yeah.
31:26
I
31:27
boy.
31:27
Yeah.
31:28
Maybe back to the book per se or to the parenting kind
31:33
of relationship guidance. So people are trying to have those conversations,
31:36
Okay.
31:39
like you just said, with the cheese string thing,
31:41
right, or whatever it is. And what are ways that personally
31:42
Okay.
31:45
or professionally and maybe also in the book that you help people navigate those
31:51
things specifically?
31:53
Yeah. So a few things. One is depending on which person I'm working with,
31:58
if I'm working with the me equivalent or I'm working with the my ex equivalent,
32:03
right? I might have someone come in and be like,
32:05
my gosh, I know my partner has ADHD,
32:07
but they drive me bonkers. Like they never put the laundry away.
32:11
They do this. They do that. They're always late.
32:14
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, All the things which
32:17
Yep.
32:18
Depending on the partner, like,
32:20
okay, I empathize with you. And also,
32:22
let's figure out what we have control over and what we don't have control over here.
32:26
When I'm working with the me equivalent,
32:29
you have control over two things.
32:31
You have control over, okay, I recognize that this is something that like,
32:36
do I agree that there shouldn't be cheesestring wrappers left out all the time?
32:40
Okay, yes. So that's fair.
32:43
what can I do about it? And so that's what I have control over is what
32:47
can I do about it? So is there a system that can help me remember this better?
32:51
And therefore I can figure out do I need a sticky note on my fridge that says
32:58
throw away the cheese string wrapper?
33:00
Or do I need to have a special bin where I put the wrappers in and
33:06
then I put that bin or empty that bin at the end of the day.
33:09
Like this is just an extreme example,
33:10
Yeah.
33:10
but do we need to make systems that work for our brains knowing that
33:16
we think this way, that it's not just as easy as I need to remember next time,
33:19
but I probably need to have specific systems that help me do this.
33:22
So that's the first thing I can control.
33:25
The second thing I can control is how do I communicate how my partner makes
33:31
me feel about it? Because my partner wouldn't shame me about it.
33:36
my ex at the time, like he didn't say,
33:38
my God, you're so dumb. You're so lazy.
33:40
Why don't you do this? I've asked you so many times,
33:43
like he wouldn't do that. He would just say,
33:45
could you please do this? It's been happening a lot.
33:48
But if he were to turn it into judgment or turn it into shame,
33:53
then I can, I can learn how do I communicate how that makes me feel because that
33:57
is now not just about the cheating rapper.
33:59
That's about you maybe disrespecting me or judging me.
34:04
And so how do I communicate? Like,
34:05
hey, when you use those words,
34:08
when you say it like that, it makes me feel disrespected or like
34:14
I don't matter or like I'm a child.
34:16
Like I feel infantilized here.
34:18
Let's talk about that. Like, because when I was younger,
34:21
maybe my parents would talk to me like that.
34:22
And so we can control how we communicate what we say,
34:27
how we, how that makes us feel.
34:29
You can't control how your partner is going to react to you,
34:31
but
34:33
The big part of my book talks as well about if even if we have
34:36
the perfect script and know how to bring things up,
34:39
if we struggle or if our partner then gets reactive or defensive
34:42
or doesn't come with it with understanding and says,
34:44
OK, I understand you have ADHD and I'm going to try to be a little
34:47
bit more understanding or I'll pick up or is there a way that you like
34:50
me to bring it up that wouldn't be as activating for you because we're going
34:53
to falter. We're going to mess up.
34:54
So we're not going to be perfect.
34:56
But if we get to a point where our partner isn't able to do that,
34:59
then we can say, this is a bigger issue then.
35:03
This is not just a Chi string issue.
35:05
This is a communication issue.
35:06
It's about being with one another when the other person says that they don't feel
35:10
good about something, especially something that the other person did.
35:14
That's a deeper core relational communication thing that should we
35:18
go to couples therapy and someone can mediate this conversation for us
35:21
and we can both learn how to talk because this
35:25
book, the book that I wrote can be activating in ways that we think we're talking
35:29
about a cheesestring wrapper, but we end up talking about,
35:31
well, I would hate it when my mom would tell me what to do and it would make
35:34
me feel dumb. And therefore I feel demand avoidance.
35:37
I want control. want autonomy.
35:38
Or, you know, I grew up in a house that was always messy.
35:42
And when I see the cheesestring wrapper,
35:43
it makes me think of that. And it's really activating for me and I don't know
35:47
how to calm myself down. So I need it fixed right away.
35:49
What's actually going on here that
35:52
maybe is making this a harder conversation than it needs to be.
35:55
So it can go deep pretty quick,
35:56
Yeah. Well, because
35:58
but...
35:59
it really never is about the G string wrapper,
36:02
right?
36:02
Yeah, that's great. think one thing that I need to remind myself of
36:07
and you didn't say this particularly the idea of when you do this thing,
36:12
I feel this not so much that you're making me feel this way.
36:15
Mm-hmm.
36:17
I guess I've sort of been groomed in the nonviolent communication jargon.
36:18
Mm-hmm.
36:23
~
36:24
Yes.
36:25
Yeah, like, yeah. So when this happens,
36:27
I feel this because I need this.
36:29
You know, can we do this kind of idea?
36:32
And I think I'm curious, actually,
36:32
Beautiful.
36:33
what you think about sort of that notion of no one can make you feel any
36:37
way or make you do anything versus when somebody behaves a certain way,
36:43
it impacts us, obviously, and we have our own emotional reaction to it.
36:45
Mm-hmm.
36:48
And how, I guess, what do you think about that?
36:50
And then
36:52
How do you see people struggle with that idea?
36:55
I think what comes up that I see in clinical work is the difference between like
37:01
feeling and behavior. Like I remember,
37:07
I'll change the details about the story so it's a little bit different,
37:10
but I was working with a couple ones who were arguing about let's
37:14
say putting away dishes and
37:17
the one partner was so frustrated because they were the ones who always
37:20
had to put away the dishes and always had to be the one to do the task even though
37:24
both of them had decided that they were going to do it together.
37:27
And so the partner who was putting away the dishes got so frustrated
37:31
and so angry and let's say the one who put away the dishes was a man,
37:35
the one who didn't do the dishes was a woman.
37:38
So the guy got so frustrated that he slammed the dish on the floor and it broke.
37:42
And the woman
37:44
was shocked and scared and overwhelmed and would say like that
37:49
was terrifying you scared me you when you did that like it made me it made
37:54
me feel like i was in danger and that loud was like that sound was so loud
37:59
and it was so scary and he would say well yeah i did it because i
38:03
was frustrated and like you know you never do this and then we get into
38:06
an argument of
38:07
you don't hold up your end of the bargain and that's why I did it,
38:10
that's why I did it. And so when we understand the difference between feeling
38:10
Yeah.
38:14
and behavior, I talk through it with them,
38:16
I say, you're absolutely allowed to feel frustrated and hurt
38:21
and maybe even betrayed. Like,
38:23
is there betrayal here? Does it go that deep that you trusted that your partner
38:26
was gonna do this and they didn't?
38:28
But the behavior that you're doing is not okay.
38:30
And the behavior that you did is maybe what...
38:33
brought out this reaction, this fear response in your partner.
38:35
And so, yes, we could say the behavior,
38:38
the act of that happening scared her and it made her feel scared.
38:44
And that's okay to say because when you take ownership for your behavior,
38:49
which is the thing that you can change,
38:51
then you can change the outcome of how the other person feels because your behavior
38:55
is directly going to impact that person.
38:58
If we just say, it wasn't your
39:01
you it wasn't the man who made you feel scared.
39:04
Mm-hmm.
39:04
It was because you were scared that the dishes broke and that's just your thing
39:11
because you got scared. It's not.
39:13
He threw the dish. So he is responsible for that behavior.
39:16
And that distinction is where I see sometimes people have a hard time with where,
39:21
yeah, I'm allowed to feel frustrated and hurt and angry,
39:24
but how do I bring this up in a way that is collaborative,
39:27
that is curious?
39:29
And so I don't engage and behave in ways that could potentially be damaging
39:34
and hurt my partner because my behavior can hurt.
39:36
At least that's how I see it. I don't know if you agree.
39:38
Yeah,
39:40
No, I think that's a good distinction.
39:42
In particular, the dish, like the breaking of the dish and sort of
39:47
the fear of aggression or even violence perhaps
39:52
Yeah.
39:52
~ is real for sure. And I don't think it.
39:55
Yeah, I don't think there's sort of any,
39:57
there's no gray area in that. I think maybe prior to that,
40:02
the idea of I'm gonna rationalize breaking this dish on the ground because
40:08
you made me do it is a better example of,
40:10
Yes.
40:11
of sort of blaming someone else for your behavior.
40:14
Yeah. And so the,
40:15
Good noticing, yeah.
40:19
guess, similar to the,
40:23
to the
40:24
sort of being responsible for our behavior idea,
40:26
the person who is in fear, right,
40:30
then has a responsibility to protect themselves,
40:33
right, or to, which is obviously not fair,
40:36
so to speak, but or not ideal.
40:39
But then that's sort of where I think also people get caught,
40:42
right? You smash the dish, you made me feel unsafe,
40:46
therefore I'm going to then rationalize my reaction to it.
40:50
I think that's sort of where it can go off the rails.
40:50
Yes.
40:53
Yeah.
40:53
Yes, exactly.
40:55
And unless we slow it down and like parse through what led to this reaction
41:00
and how can we repair or avoid it happening next time,
41:00
Right, right.
41:04
not like don't feel frustrated,
41:04
Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
41:06
feel frustrated, but what are we going to do about it?
41:07
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
41:09
Then that's, and even that then can go deeper too of does that connect
41:12
Yeah. Yeah. Yes.
41:14
to other things? So never ending.
41:16
Oh, wow.
41:18
Yeah, that's so good. Wow. I was watching the time disappear.
41:23
Are there other sort of particular things from
41:28
the book that you want to share right now or that may sort of follow what we've been
41:34
discussing and
41:38
other things I guess around this whole I don't know parenting
41:44
slash communication slash being our best self type of idea that you want
41:49
to bring up.
41:50
Mm-hmm. Yeah. So a lot of what I talk about in the book
41:55
is about alignment between parents.
41:58
And it's, we read between the lines to understand why that's important for our kids.
42:02
But I just want to explicitly say why is it important for kids that parents
42:07
are aligned? And there are a few different reasons.
42:09
Like if you are co-parenting from two separate homes,
42:11
like how I'm doing, if the kids,
42:14
if there is a shared value,
42:17
structure between the two parents and if we have we don't have
42:21
to do things identical but again if we both agree we want our kids
42:25
to feel emotionally safe to have tools to regulate themselves to learn body autonomy
42:31
and safety etc then it's important that my
42:35
ex and I I mean I've been going to therapy every week for
42:42
the past nine months so I'm
42:44
been doing a lot of work on doing this,
42:46
but to not let our past grievances get in the way of us showing up for our kids.
42:52
And with that means that we are both at drop off telling each other,
42:58
hey, this is what worked with the kids when they had a hard time,
43:02
or I found that this was helpful.
43:03
And I'm gonna do the same thing because even though they're in two different homes,
43:07
We want them to not have to continuously be scanning the environment and say,
43:11
is this going to trigger dad differently than it triggers mom?
43:13
Are they going to send me to my room when I'm having a tantrum as opposed
43:17
to mom doesn't or vice versa? And so if we agree on some of the big things
43:22
on how do want our kids to feel from two separate homes,
43:26
then the kids will feel more regulated.
43:28
If we are living in the same home and we're having these conversations.
43:35
and we're talking about intimacy or we're talking about division of labor
43:40
or we're talking about food or body safety or how to raise kids
43:46
who are social justice informed,
43:48
et cetera, then we're also going to have kids that see that conversations like this
43:55
are okay to have. And I say,
43:59
Don't just whip this book out once your kids are asleep.
44:01
If there are some questions that are age appropriate and your kids could actually
44:04
benefit from watching YouTube and how you talk it out,
44:07
ask each other in front of the kids.
44:10
let your kids watch how you talk about it.
44:13
And maybe rehearse it beforehand if there potentially could be a sticking point.
44:17
But we're teaching our kids then because our kids are watching us
44:20
and they're seeing what kinds of things do mom and dad talk about?
44:20
Mm-hmm.
44:23
Do they show appreciation to one another?
44:26
Do they repair after they fight?
44:28
Do they acknowledge that they both want to have similar boundaries with family?
44:34
Or even if they don't want to have similar boundaries,
44:36
that they respect one another and the differences in how they want
44:40
to show up.
44:43
So just as much as it's important for parents to get on the same page,
44:46
it's getting on the same page or having an understanding of each other's background
44:50
so that our kids can then benefit from having
44:54
parents that aren't continuously fighting over cheese string wrappers
44:58
or aren't continuously stonewalling or giving each other the silent treatment.
44:58
Thank
45:03
And that makes everyone walk on eggshells and feel uncomfortable.
45:07
So if we see it as we're really doing it for our kids,
45:10
it's going to feel a lot more empowering and we're hopefully going
45:15
to strengthen the bond with our partner in the meantime.
45:17
Okay, maybe one last question,
45:21
which sort of came up as you were describing that.
45:23
curious what you think about my wife and I have different tolerance
45:27
for how our children speak to us.
45:30
And that's there's no right or wrong.
45:31
I if I had to say I'd probably say she's more on the right end of this experience.
45:37
Because of my own, as you know,
45:38
as you say, my own past, my own issues,
45:41
my own all that kind of stuff.
45:42
I tend to be a little bit more
45:45
not as what's the word
45:47
Not as concerned with some of the language that I use because to me it's more about
45:53
what am I actually trying to communicate?
45:55
And I do often clarify that with my kids.
45:58
Maybe the answer, we've already talked about the answer,
46:00
how do you think about, because those are sort of two different expectations,
46:07
right? So perhaps it's okay to talk to me like this,
46:09
but your mother doesn't like you talking to her like that,
46:12
so you need to learn to talk to us differently in certain ways.
46:18
So that can be perhaps difficult or whatever,
46:22
and maybe hard for a young person,
46:25
my kids are.
46:26
almost 11 and 14. maybe it's a little easier as they get more mature.
46:31
But I guess I'm kind of just curious what you think about that or
46:35
how you would think through. We have different expectations
46:39
and tolerances for language. And therefore our kids need to learn that
46:45
and to try their best to act accordingly.
46:51
Can you give me an example?
46:52
Sure. So something like,
46:56
swear more than my wife does, right?
46:58
So I'll say something like, stop fucking around,
47:01
right? Like you're being brats or something like that.
47:04
And, you know, some people might be like,
47:05
my God, you, you you swore, but to me that it's not the same because it's more
47:10
common, right? So to me, it's like,
47:13
stop behaving in a way that's not acceptable to me and to your mother.
47:18
And to the world, so to speak,
47:20
but it's so much easier to say,
47:22
stop fucking around. So, so then something,
47:25
one of my kids might say to my mom,
47:27
you're fucking around or something like that.
47:29
Okay. That's not a perfect example.
47:30
Yes.
47:32
Okay. But then my wife's like,
47:33
Hey, you can't talk to me like that.
47:35
It might be okay to talk to your dad like that.
47:37
So if my kids say that to me, I I'm like,
47:40
~ you're probably right. I am fucking around.
47:42
I'll stop kind of thing.
47:44
~ but my wife just doesn't like that language and obviously due
47:44
Mm-hmm.
47:48
to her own Expectations and values and whatever is not there's no right
47:53
or wrong per se but so does that a a good example?
47:56
Yeah, yeah. Yeah
47:57
Yeah, yeah, no, I appreciate you telling me that it's
48:00
it's directly, it's mirroring the same language that you're using.
48:03
Yeah, yeah.
48:04
And they, I mean,
48:07
if you're using it, they're seeing it as okay,
48:09
but then your wife doesn't want you to use that with her.
48:10
Yes.
48:13
She doesn't want my kids to use that with her.
48:15
Yeah, yeah, sorry, yeah, yeah,
48:16
Yes, yeah, the kids check that with her.
48:17
yeah, yeah.
48:18
Absolutely.
48:19
Yeah, so it makes me think of the piece around if our kids
48:25
can be informed about what that word means or why that's important,
48:29
then we can help them make an informed decision as to why maybe
48:34
mom doesn't want that or I am okay with that.
48:37
And it's like, I was picking my son up.
48:40
from preschool last week and there were two kids running around saying fucking shit
48:44
continuously. And they were like,
48:46
fucking shit, fucking shit. And then the teacher was like,
48:46
~
48:49
what are you saying? Don't say that.
48:51
And then they were whispering it to one another.
48:52
And I was like, my God, they don't even know what that means.
48:54
They probably just heard it. And so yeah,
48:55
Right. Yeah.
48:57
it makes me think of that of this is an opportunity for connection with your kids
49:02
in terms of, you may have already done this,
49:05
but to have that conversation with them of.
49:07
Okay, do you know what fucking actually means?
49:09
And not in terms of just like the vulgar,
49:14
like sexual way, but where does that word come from?
49:17
Maybe we do a little bit of research ourselves so we know where
49:19
it actually does come from. So we help them understand.
49:21
Yeah, there are some words that some adults,
49:24
some people don't like to hear outside of the house or to them.
49:29
And I've got experience with this word that is a little bit more lenient than your
49:34
mom does. And so...
49:36
I mean, if it becomes a big sticking point between the two of you,
49:39
like you and your wife, then perhaps there is more adjustments to be made
49:43
so it doesn't cause conflict or resentment.
49:45
But if it's really just a, come on,
49:47
I don't want the kids talking to me like that,
49:48
and she's not particularly upset at you,
49:51
then we can use this as an opportunity to educate our kids about what does this word
49:56
mean? Why do I say it? Now that you know what it means,
49:59
are you okay if I keep using it?
50:01
Should we use a different word?
50:03
Do you think you're able to?
50:05
restrict yourself from saying this to your mom.
50:08
like giving them choice and agency and explaining what is it?
50:11
Why is it triggering to mom? Etc.
50:14
Because I mean if we were to use any word we would probably do
50:18
the same thing regardless if it was like a typical swear word or not.
50:21
Mm-hmm.
50:21
But that's kind of how I would see it is if it's if it is causing
50:25
big amounts of conflict and distress between you and your wife then yeah,
50:29
it could be a conversation as to well,
50:32
am I rigid and wanting to?
50:33
keep the word and why can't I be flexible with using a different word?
50:37
Is that hard for me? Do I get demand avoidance or the other way around with my wife?
50:40
Yeah.
50:41
Like is she having a hard time just act allowing something new that wasn't part
50:46
of her experience and can she be flexible?
50:47
Mmm.
50:48
Can we agree on a word together that we use?
50:50
So both conversations for the kids that we could help expand their minds,
50:56
give them choice, give them agency,
50:58
but then also seeing.
51:00
Is this a hill I'm really going to die on if it's hurting my partner?
51:03
That's the expression, right? Yes.
51:03
Yeah, Something like that. Yeah,
51:04
Yeah, so.
51:06
yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, that was great.
51:08
That was great. That
51:09
was really great. Just to kind of,
51:11
I think.
51:11
It never really has been much of an issue.
51:13
I do think if ever it was one,
51:17
I do think in fairness, I'm the one who should probably try to use other words.
51:23
And as you described, demand avoidance,
51:26
I'm not sure as opposed to for me,
51:29
one of the at least how I rationalize it to myself.
51:32
And I do think if I could articulate myself better.
51:35
That's better.
51:36
but I sort of, you I rationalize it maybe unfairly or whatever as like,
51:42
it's actually really hard for me,
51:44
right? The impulsivity, the emotional reactivity of the,
51:47
Yeah.
51:47
you know, like the way I am and all that stuff is what makes it actually,
51:51
and there's also good research on people that use swear words on kind
51:54
of the psychological personality underpinnings of it all,
51:57
but yeah.
51:57
Yeah.
51:58
There's a great book that came out a couple years ago,
52:01
10 Nasty Words. It was more on the linguistic history of swear words
52:05
by a wonderful guy, John McWhorter.
52:07
Anyhow, or back to just the kind of,
52:11
it's hard for me to use other language and the four letter short words
52:15
~
52:17
are so descriptive and so effective at communicating our discontent or whatever.
52:22
So.
52:23
So yeah, I know I really appreciate the way you sort of parsed all of that out.
52:27
And and I think if anything,
52:31
I am the one who who can move more in my wife's direction on that.
52:36
And I've said that much to her before,
52:39
too. And that sort of ends up being the conclusion of the discussion when
52:42
it does come up. ~ Yeah,
52:44
Totally fair. Totally fair. I appreciate you sharing.
52:45
yeah. OK. Yeah.
52:49
And thank you for for sort of.
52:52
I guess, you know, clarifying the layers of all of that.
52:55
Yeah, so I guess maybe now's a good time to stop and say thank
53:01
you so much for being here with me and sharing all your wisdom
53:06
and experience with us and any sort of lasting words,
53:10
all your info and where to get the book and that stuff will be in the show notes.
53:16
but any other lasting things that we didn't discuss or that's really on your mind
53:16
awesome.
53:21
or that you're passionate about that you want to share.
53:24
I would probably say just thank you for listening and thank you for letting
53:29
me be here. The whole point of the book is just don't stop talking
53:34
to one another and let's be more equal in how we want to show up,
53:40
like the amount of work we're putting into our parenthood.
53:44
If we're noticing one partner is doing a lot more of the labor on
53:48
researching the best methods for parenting or researching
53:51
how to emotionally regulate or doing all the therapy and the other partner
53:54
is not doing their own emotional labor,
53:57
their own work, their own even trauma work if they have trauma,
54:00
then that's such a big part of it as well as let's bring out any dynamics that might
54:06
be present here. Let's talk about it.
54:09
Let's...
54:09
read up every single chapter in same page parenting.
54:12
There's 13 chapters in total and each chapter has three subtopics.
54:18
And so I can't do the fast math.
54:19
I say this all the time. What is that?
54:20
39, yeah.
54:21
39? 39 topics. And each topic has like psychoeducation
54:27
as to why that topic is important,
54:29
what it's about. And then I share resources.
54:31
If you want to learn more about this,
54:34
here's a resource to learn more about.
54:37
and dive into that resource and understand it so that we're not,
54:41
even if we're having these conversations,
54:42
it's still not heavily based that one person is saying,
54:46
well, okay, we don't really know how we do this here.
54:48
So I'm just gonna do all the research and then I'll tell you how to do it.
54:51
It's let's also be more equalized as partners and do the work together here.
54:57
So we show up in a similar emotional energetic capacity.
55:03
is also just another takeaway that I'd like to put in the book.
55:06
Wonderful, thank you again so much,
55:09
Martina. It's been a pleasure and I wish you all the best.
55:12
Awesome, thank you so much.
55:13
Let's not hang up.
55:15
Thanks for listening to this episode of the State of Mind Podcast.
55:18
Before you go, pick one idea from today's episode and practice it this week.
55:23
Remember, live with courage,
55:27
clarity, and compassion.
55:29
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55:31
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55:35
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55:41
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55:43
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55:48
We wish you all the very best.
55:49
Take it easy. Peace out.