Latest / Stacked Intent: Your Guide to Authentic, Intentional Living / The Four Types of Relationships in Your Life and How to Nurture Each One

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The Four Types of Relationships in Your Life and How to Nurture Each One · Stacked Intent: Your Guide to Authentic, Intentional Living

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_02: Hello and welcome to the Stacked Intent Podcast.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_02: We are going to discuss and drop the tips on how you can intentionally stack your life.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_02: I'm Becca Stackhouse Morrison, the CEO and founder of Stacked Intent, and I look forward to having you join us each week during our episodes.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_02: Stacked Intent is a family life education business that is resonating with individuals who aspire to rediscover or discover their most authentic version of themselves.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_02: Too often our society beautifies a relationship via romantic family or friendship, but that doesn't teach the true meaning of healthy relationship boundaries.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_02: This led a passion to share with individuals through each transition that it is truly possible to live an understanding that is healthy and it's possible when you understand your most authentic version of yourself.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_02: From a place of pain, of losing friendships, becoming one-directional friendships, or simply these two were temporary along life's road.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_02: It is important to know and practice the keys to creating well-balanced and healthy relationships.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_02: There are relationship breakups and choosing to be single with much reflection to develop of the authentic version of self.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_02: From all these places, stacked intent was created to provide these research resources through research-based information.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_02: We're going to look at the ways that you can be your most authentic self and be intentional with yourself.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_02: You'll laugh, you'll cry, and you're going to finish each episode being motivated to live your life more authentically.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_02: Be with it.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_02: But with each episode, we're going to have a special co-host, and I'm going to let her introduce herself.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: Hi, I'm Sarah Bradley, a licensed marriage and family therapist and owner of Hope Grows Therapy and Consultation.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: My practice is located in beautiful downtown Wakumka, Alabama.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: I grew up in rural Alabama, and my passion is investing in my community by investing in its people.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: At Hope Grows, we seek to do this by working to help people improve the health of their relationships, their families, their businesses, and themselves.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: In addition to talk therapy, we offer consultation services to organizations like churches and businesses to help them improve their organizational health through workshops, conferences, and intentives.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: I'm really excited to be here today and looking forward to talking about some of the most common issues that come up in my therapy session.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_02: Welcome to the Stacked In Pimp Podcast.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_02: Welcome to the Stacked In Timp Podcast.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_02: Today we are going to talk about what are four types of relationships plus a bonus one.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_02: So this episode is going to share different types of relationships that we can find within our lives.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_02: So first off, we're going to hit on family relationships.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_02: What are family relationships?
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_01: That's pretty self-explanatory, I think.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_01: I think most people have an idea for what family means when they when they hear the word family or family relationship.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_01: So what we're going to refer to specifically here, we're going to differentiate between family relationships and friendships, which some people would say my friends are my family.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_01: And we're going to talk about that during the next portion of this podcast.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_01: So for now, we're just going to focus on blood relational family talking, family relationships.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_01: So those are the relationships that are surrounded that surround us when we are born, right?
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: And I do want to do want to clarify here when I say blood, I don't just mean blood.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_01: I mean because we adopted family relationships, right?
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_01: Any any family that grows up with you in your house, right?
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_01: Those are familial type relationships.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_01: So this is our first kind of blueprint for love, safety, conflict, connection.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_01: These teach you how the world works.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_01: If you live in a home and family that's safe, where people love each other and take care of each other, then you learn that people can be trusted.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_01: You learn that in general the world is a relatively safe place and that it is safe to form relationships with other people because they'll help they love you and take care of you.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_01: If you grow up in a home that's not safe, if you grow up in a home where there's a lot of instability and there's not very much emotion regulation, where you kind of always find your safety in question, where you have to kind of keep quiet in order to keep going, then you're gonna learn that the world's not really a safe place, that trust is trust is a huge risk and that opening up to others carries a lot of danger with it.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: And you're gonna carry those kinds of bonds with you and those kinds of thoughts with you into your later on relationship.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_01: So we kind of we call those attachment styles.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_01: And so there's there's several different attachment styles: secure, insecure, disorganized, um, anxious.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_01: Like we've we've touched on those a little bit before in previous podcasts.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but those those all have to do with your family of orchid dynamics.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_01: And I really encourage you as listeners to look into that.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um, there's a lot of interesting research, and there's lots of compelling books about attachment styles, and it can be kind of an interesting journey to explore yourself a little bit and get an idea as to what kind of attachment styles you're carrying with you into your adult relationships.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_02: Well, it is interesting because it's we have what family relationships are, but that that doesn't mean that it looks the same for me and you or anybody that we come in contact with.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_02: And it can also be one of those things of like we need to have to be aware of these differences because when we're coming into partnerships, of like when you're coming into a partnership or a friendship, family relationships definitely have an influence of the view that you have on the world.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_02: And so it's it is interesting of like knowing where you came from and knowing kind of why you might have some of those ways that you do.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_02: That's definitely important in understanding why you might have those because family relationships are totally different.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_02: You have what's considered is the nucleus family of a mother, a father, children, but that's not necessarily what all of our families look like in the world, right?
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_02: You may have a single mother who's raising her children due to a multitude of situations, or a single father who's raising his children, like it might be one or the other, or grandparents that are helping raise children who are completely caring for children.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_02: And so it's just family relationships aren't necessarily as cut and dry as they might lead.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_02: And they definitely lay our foundational groundwork for the remainder of what our life looks like.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it lays the groundwork for all kinds of stuff.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_01: And this is a conversation I was having with the family this week.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_01: But if you it it shapes your understanding of how you handle emotions, right?
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_01: The place of emotions in life and in relationship.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_01: If your mom and dad never talked in front of you, right?
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_01: If they never worked through any kind of conflict in front of you, you're not going to have a very solid foundation or understanding for how to work through conflict yourself.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_01: Or you might think that the norm in a relationship is no conflict because your parents always argued behind closed doors.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_01: Because let's just be honest, we sure they argued, right?
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so I have that come into my office sometimes too.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: Like my family never argued in front of me because they didn't want to argue in front of us kids.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_01: And while I think that on the surface, that's a great idea, and we've talked about that before, you should definitely not have hardcore conflict in front of your kids, right?
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_01: But seeing you talk about difficult things, seeing you express your difficult emotions and wrestle with those things in an environment of respect and safety, that's powerful.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_01: That teaches your kids that it's okay for me to talk about my emotions too.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_01: And oh wait, mom and dad have emotions, they get mad, they get upset, they get hurt, they get disappointed, and it's okay for them to share that with someone else.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my goodness.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_01: As opposed to maybe a family where either that nobody talks about conflict, nobody deals with that.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_01: Or when dad gets angry or mom gets angry, they yell.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_01: And so anger equals fear, anger equals danger and risk and uncertainty.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_01: And so I have plenty of adults who grow up thinking that that's the way anger is expressed.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_01: Either, well, I got mad and so I threw stuff, or I got mad, so I punched a hole in a wall, or I got mad and I screamed at my kids, as opposed to, or you know, I got mad and I was afraid of getting mad, so I never let myself get mad and I shove it all down inside and I never deal with it.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_01: Those are those are those are modeling behaviors, right?
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_01: This is modeling behavior that that these children who are now adults picked up from their parents.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_01: So parents, kids are watching, and kids are watching what you do and they're watching what you don't do.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_01: So it's okay to have emotions in front of your kids.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_01: It's not okay to direct those emotions towards your kids in a negative way, right?
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_01: But it's okay to wrestle with human things in front of them so that they learn how to wrestle with human things too.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_02: And so they learn how to handle it.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_02: And so you are their first model.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_02: Like that is the first way that children learn how to do it.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_02: And so, I mean, when you're talking family relationships, I mean, you're talking about the family is gonna necessarily be the parents and the household siblings, and so it may also include a remarriage.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_02: If there's been a remarriage, it may be the children that are brought into that marriage, the new partnership of spouses or the children that then are born into that marriage as well.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_02: And so those people also have an impact on your children and how your children are.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_02: And so it's important to look at that of like I don't know, if you are in your family union and now you're beginning your dating stages, look at what that person's reactions are to things because you that's what you're gonna be looking at when you start to have your own family of their reactions.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_02: If you don't like the way that they react, you might want to address it then because once you add a kid into it, you're then figuring out, oh, wait, your anger and my anger don't look the same.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_02: Well, how do we now address that?
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, kids don't make things easier, they don't make things calmer or less chaotic.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_01: So for for those of you who are out there either dating, considering dating or working toward marriage, I really encourage you to take your partner around kids.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_01: They need you need to see them.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_01: There needs to be maybe maybe you got some nieces, nephews, young cousins that y'all can hang out with.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe y'all can offer a babysit for some beleaguered parents who would be very grateful to have a date night.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_01: I speak from experience, then offer to babysit and see how your partner does, right?
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_01: Do they do they get really frustrated?
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_01: Do they get really irritated and do they kind of lash out or are they kind of patient and they're learning and they're understanding or in their empathetic, keeping in mind that these are not your kids and it's a little bit different when it is your kids, but you can still see some of the foundational, those, those, those early warning signs in situations like that, right?
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_01: Can they handle chaos?
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_01: Can they handle the transition and the important moments and the weight that comes with being responsible for kids and being having to be the responsible adult in the room, right?
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_01: Which is really tough at times, which kind of leads us to this question of the evolving nature of family ties.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_01: So we kind of shift from like over the course of the life cycle, we go to from dependency, right?
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_01: You've got the small middle childhood where they are completely dependent on parents, can't drive anywhere, can't make their own food.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and even when they can make their own food, they don't know how to make decisions.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_01: They're not financially in any way knowledgeable at all, right?
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_01: Everything that you do, everything that they do has to come from you, which I remember that moment a few years ago when I'm staring at my little boy who's less than one year old, looking at him and going, oh my gosh, everything he has to learn, I have to teach him.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_01: And there's this huge moment where it felt so overwhelming that, oh my gosh, he has to learn how to walk and feed himself and put on his clothes and put on his shoes and cut his food.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: Like I was like, oh my gosh, the the weight of all of the stuff that I just take for granted.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I know how to pour myself a cup of tea, which I did right before we started doing the podcast.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_01: He hasn't a clue.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_01: Well, he does now, but he did it then.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_01: And so this massive weight of all this dependence on me as a person as an adult is pretty wild.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_01: So then the kids grow and they ease into adolescence and young adulthood, and you start getting from dependence to independence.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_01: What does that look like when they are forging their own identity, forging their own path, and parents and older adults in the family kind of step back and they they shift from primary dependent dependency caretakers to support system and cheerleaders, right?
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_01: I'm teaching you, I'm guiding you still as much as you'll allow me to, and I'm here to support you.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_01: But this is kind of on you, right?
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_01: I'm here, I'm on your training wheels.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_01: I'm here if you need me, but maybe you won't, and eventually I'll sort of fall off.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_01: And then you get to the beauty and the weirdness and the confusion that is the adult reconnection, right?
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_01: You're in your 20s, 30s, 40s, and hopefully your relationship with your parents and older members of your family is good enough that you want to be with them, right?
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_01: You want to hang out with them, have a good relationship with them that's on more even footing than there was when you were younger.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_01: Is it, and and if that hierarchy looks different for every family.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_01: Some hierarchies maintain a still a very rigid mom or dad is the leader of the family and what they say goes no matter what.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_01: And that can cause some conflict and boundaries when you've got smaller, established, independent families in that umbrella.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and some parents are very willing to step into peer roles with their kids that look well that look more like peers than than parents at that point.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_01: And then at the end of the life cycle, you've got you've got a tipping in the hierarchy where the child is now in a higher level of authority than the parent.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_01: And you've got, you know, maybe the child's helping parent manage medication and care, and they have power of attorney.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_01: And it's now the child's job to take care of the adult.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_01: And those relationships and those ties look different at every stage of the life cycle.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_01: And they constantly flexing and getting stressed and repair.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_01: As long as you're pouring into the relationship, those relationships can withstand those changes and transitions, but it requires ongoing maintenance.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_01: So boundaries shift, roles shift, it's kind of wild.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_02: It is wild.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_02: And it's important to notice that, like in these family relationships, you're cultivating what you're gonna get later.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_02: So it's taking the time to teach your five-year-old what they need to know that they've never been exposed to is gonna help you as you are developing into the later adulthood.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_02: Like, one thing that I've realized in reflecting and talking to some people is like growing up, I never really had a curfew.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_02: Like my curfew was really disgusting like it was discussed on what we were going to do, who we were gonna be with, what were we doing?
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_02: Were we out at a basketball game?
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_02: And so that was something that was later.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_02: And so that's and so it was okay, then here's probably about what time we would be home, and it was more of a discussion versus you're always gonna be home at 10 o'clock.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_02: And so my parents did that because they had worked with so many youth and watched youth end up having accidents, having problems, or having things because they were trying to beat this curfew.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_02: Whereas mine taught me this decision making, but what I've noticed in my like adulthood is it taught me how to navigate my adult life.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_02: Like, okay, here's what I have going on this week, here's what I've got tomorrow.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_02: So I really need to be home and in bed by this time.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_02: So you're you're giving your kids in this family relationship, you're giving them the skills that they need that are gonna either help them or hurt them as they get older.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_02: And so family relationships, they're important and they really mold what happens within those dynamics.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_01: Right, absolutely.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_01: And they're important because like you said, these relationships are foundational.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_01: What you pour in now is is what you're more likely to get back later for good or bad.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_01: So we as parents, it's one of those things that you you look at your beautiful kids and you go, Well, I'm gonna screw you up in my own special way, just my parents screwed me up in their own special way.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we do the best that we can, but we understand that we're gonna leave wounds on our kids and the world is gonna leave wounds on our kids.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not a it's not a job to be perfect, but it's our job to do our best and to build the relationship up so much that it can sustain these mistakes, right?
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_01: My kids are young, I have already made mistakes with them.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_01: I recognize that.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_01: And there's things that we're working to correct in, you know, in the moment, like, oh, I don't like how this is going.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_01: Let's let's try this instead, let's do this differently.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_01: And that pattern of like awareness and correction is something that we're going to continue up through their adolescence and into their young adulthood as long as they need us and allow us to, because our our relationships with our kids are important to us and we know what it feels like to be wounded.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_01: So unresolved wounds, like we alluded to this earlier, when you when you go into adulthood, if you grew up in a family where dad always yelled at mom and that was normal, then you as a as a young female maybe get into a relationship with a guy who yells at you and you think that's normal.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_01: You think it's normal to be anxious all the time or normal to feel terrible because that's what you saw.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_01: That's what was modeled for you in your home.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_01: Or you get into a relationship and overcorrect with someone who never shows any anger at all, right?
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_01: They don't talk about their emotions very often.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_01: They're they're basically like a blob, and that's that's a whole different set of difficulties, right?
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_01: I can't emotionally connect with this person.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like they're very passive, and I need somebody who's a little bit more assertive.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I overcorrected, and here's what I got.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_01: So being aware of the wounds that you have is important in moving forward so that you can recognize, oh, I have these tendencies because of this.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't want to end up this way.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_01: So how do I need to course correct now before I can get to that point?
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and that's that's it really in recognizing your family relationships, your attachments, what's been modeled for you, what your evolving looks like.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_02: That's what's important in it is recognizing, okay, these are my family patterns.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_02: I don't want this repeated.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_02: I do want this repeated.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_02: And so that's where understanding your family relationships and dynamics becomes a really powerful tool in really understanding yourself.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_02: It's one of those things that really does help in being able to model your family relationship for what's good, what you're gonna model.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_02: Because it is interesting to me sometimes what people will accept.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_02: You're like, but that's not healthy at all.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_02: But when you get to it, they've either swung one way or the other from what they grew up with, and you go, Oh, that makes sense.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_02: You've never been too exposed to anything different than that.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I'll I'll have those moments in working with clients who were in their 30s and 40s, and they're going, they're why am I miserable?
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_01: What why can't I, why can't I achieve this?
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_01: Why can't I accomplish this in my relational life?
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_01: And we start digging at the past and going, oh, this is this was your childhood.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_01: And look at these echoes in all of these relationships, these this trail of destruction, this trail of relational destruction that has that has journeyed through your teens and your 20s and your 30s.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_01: And let's look at the themes and let's see what we can do about this.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_01: Because this doesn't have to be something that lasts forever.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_01: But we recognize that these are the these are the things that we're built in.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_01: So what can we do to adapt and remodel as opposed to just continuing to try and build on something that's flawed?
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_02: So that's it's important.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_02: It's important to reflect, it's important to understand what family relationships can be, because you don't you don't have to repeat what you grew up in.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_02: If you don't like if it was something that was unsafe, the conflicts didn't show, or you didn't have some connection, you can't you can change that family relationship dynamic if you choose to and you want it to look different.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_01: Assuming that the other person involved in the relationship wants to change too.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_02: Wants to change, or they are different.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_02: Right, yes, like that's you can grow up with very similar backgrounds, but still have very different home lives.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, absolutely.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_02: You can either grow up totally different or have similarities, but no family is gonna be exactly the same in dynamics.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_01: No, not not at all.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_01: And it it's wonderful to attempt to pursue healing and familial relationships in adulthood, and some of that kind of just needs to happen, and it looks a little bit different, right?
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_01: It might look like accepting that some things happened and accepting that some things happened and choosing to move forward and let go and forgive.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes that might look like, hey, I'm willing to forgive this and accept and move forward, but I can't move forward in a relationship with you if this doesn't change.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_01: And so learning yourself, learning your individual identity and what your boundaries are so that.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, I would love to be in a relationship with you if these things, if these things are meant, right?
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_01: If if we treat each other this way.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_01: And then there's sometimes when wounds from childhood are not repaired, that it's not healthy or safe for someone to attempt to repair those wounds because they might have changed and grown, but the other person may not have.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_01: And especially in cases of toxicity or abuse, narcissism, where there is a pattern of unrelenting constancy where they are not changing, where they've been very consistent in their maladaptive relational behaviors, then you can there has to be a lot of acceptance.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_01: And typically for a healthy relationship, there has to be a lot of distance or even cutting that person off, especially in the case of abuse.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_01: There's if those patterns continue, then it is absolutely impossible for a healthy relationship to exist in that kind of environment.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_01: And you risk bringing ruin and danger onto your new established family, your kids and their kids and everything like that.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_01: So being being aware and being wise with those decisions.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and that's a good aspect of it you don't necessarily want to repair a relationship or allow a relationship into your life if it's gonna cause damage.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_02: If you if you're able to come to that healing place in a family relationship, you don't have to allow it in the same way that it may have been at one time where society says it should be.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_02: You can look at what your boundaries have to look like for that.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_02: So it's it's okay for it to look different than maybe what our TV shows say, our books say, our media says, or even society itself, because it's okay.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_02: It's okay if that's not what's the healthy choice.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_01: And let's just go ahead and say that books and TV are the last place you should be looking for models of healthy relationships.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_01: There do, there do exist some beautiful gems, some diamonds in the rough out there.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_01: But as far as looking at, you know, drop drop TV dramas, sitcoms, reality TV, those are not pictures of healthy, realistic relationships.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_01: They're just not, mostly.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_01: So if you're if you're going you're going to TV to, oh well, my relationship doesn't look like this, or this person's in a healthy relationship, and it works for them.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, because they're actors and they don't live together.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_01: So like one can scream at the other, and then they go both go back to their individual condos and call it a day.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_01: Don't don't be fooled.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_01: Do not be deceived by media.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_01: Look very carefully at what you're consuming.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_01: Romance novels, you know, all that kind of stuff.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_01: Be very careful.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_01: Those are not real, they are they are lovely little fictions.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_02: So with that, we're gonna hop into friendships because friendships can be the same way.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_02: They can be deceiving of how they're presented.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_02: So when we're looking at friendships, it's choosing your support system.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_02: So friends are often they are ones that become like our emotional family or fictive kin.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_02: So what about friendships?
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_02: Why can these be important in our life?
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you can start developing friendships from a really early age.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_01: And I added that language in there, fictive kin, because it's it's language that I've always really loved, right?
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_01: Fictive being not quite real, kin being family.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_01: So fictive kin being, I made you my family, right?
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_01: I know you're not actually my family, but you my family now.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_01: And a lot of times friendships, especially long-lasting, enduring ones, can be that way.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_01: There are plenty of people that I know and come in contact with or that I work with who are like, I don't really speak to my family.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_01: They abandoned me or they're not good people, but I have a family.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_01: And these are the people that I spend time with.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_01: These are the people I call at 2 a.m.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_01: or call when I break down on the side of the road.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_01: These are them.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_01: They are the ones who um we have a deep emotional bond.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_01: I trust them, they trust me, and we're there for each other.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_01: So things like vulnerability, shared experiences, deepen bonds of friendship.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_01: And it can be that you have the deepest friendships of people you've known the longest, but that doesn't always have to be the case.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes you decide, hey, I like you.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_01: We we share mutual weirdness, we should be good friends.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_01: And you dive in together and understand that deep friendship takes intent and effort and courage, and you go for it and it works.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes it doesn't, right?
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes friendships come and go, they transition over time and they look different over the lifespan, just like family relationships look different over lifespan.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_01: So in childhood, adolescence, you know, I had some really good friends in childhood and adolescence.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_01: Our friendship, my friendships with them looked different than my friendships look in adulthood because the biggest problems I had when I was a kid were my parents sent the wrong flavor of Yu-Hoo, right?
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_01: Like that was my kindergarten dilemma.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_01: And I was best friends with you because we had the same, you know, we liked the same color and we were in the same class.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_01: And all of a sudden, and a few years later, we're no longer in the same class, and our friendship becomes a little more difficult due to lack of proximity and the fact that we're, you know, we're 11 years old and we don't have the capacity and the power to go see each other and talk to each other all the time.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_01: And we need different things.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_01: And then we move to adolescence and things get a little bit deeper and things get a little bit harder, and you start to have the opportunity to forge some real friendships, sometimes with these same fringe that you had in early childhood.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_01: And it can be a beautiful, powerful, moving experience.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_01: And a lot of times, peer relationships and adolescence can be almost as important as your parental relationships.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_01: And if your relationships with your parents are not great, then these peer relationships are crucial to helping you get through in any kind of healthy shape.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_01: And then you move to adulthood, where about mid your mid-20s, everybody graduates from college and goes, wait, how do I make friends?
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_01: I forgot.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_01: Where is everybody?
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_02: It's one of the harder times in life to make friends once you get it, get into your adulthood.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, it's hard.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_01: I can't tell you how many times I've had that conversation, either as a professional and when I was in that place too.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_01: Like, oh, I'm not, I went, you know, to college and then grad school, and then all of a sudden I'm in my professional world and I'm not seeing the same people every day except for the people at work.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, I didn't really want to invite them to my weekend barbecues.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_01: Some of them I did.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_01: But, you know, it's it's different.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's different.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_01: You're living your life now.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_01: Your needs change, your capacities change, especially when you get into a deep, committed, romantic relationship, and maybe you start adding kids into the mix and everything changes and looks different.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_01: So you kind of shift from this, you know, friendship based on proximity, like childhood, adolescence, to um maybe experience, friendship based on experiences.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_01: You know, both of our parents were divorced, or we both, you know, we've we both play soccer, we both uh pursue the same major in college, and we both have, you know, maybe we're both newly married or we're both um young moms.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_01: And then you kind of get into a place where you you pursue friendship based on alignment, right?
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe some of your deepest friendships are people who are not in your same experiential level.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe you're 30 and you're one of your really good friends is in their 40s because you align similarly based on your values, your the way you live your life, and the things that you'd like to pursue and do together.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_01: So it's just it's about being intentional and recognizing what you need as a friend and also what your friends need from you.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_01: This is definitely a mutual exchange, and it can go poorly.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_02: I think that's one there's a few big things.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_02: One is friendships, they have to have some kind of a two-way road.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_02: Like you can't you can in some relationships, but it's only gonna last so long before it burns you out of giving and giving and giving and giving when nothing comes back.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_02: That makes it really hard.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_02: So friendships have to have something that's mutual beneficial, right?
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_02: Family relationships are the same way, and so some of the things that can be really important is you're finding somebody that might be able to support in some way.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_02: You may find a sense of belonging somewhere because friendships in some way they're gonna impact your overall well-being, whether it be mentally or physical.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_02: And so finding friendships that can have emotional support and can be a safe space, that can be really important.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_02: And that can be the child, the childhood friend, or it can be the one that you met two years ago that's been able to help really step in and support there.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_02: Um giving you that belonging so that you may not feel isolated or lonely.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_02: I know the years that I spent being single, it was really helpful to have different friendships that we planned trips or I had things coming up or different aspects like that because it meant I had something to look forward to.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_02: It gave me somewhere to belong.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_02: And so it's but you have to foster that.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_02: You've got to give it, you can't just expect it to stay and not go anywhere.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_02: And personal growth, the friends can help you with your values, they may be able to help you in some kind of communication skills, and so it that can help.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, having a friend that might not tell you what you want to hear, but what you might need to hear, that that can be a very important person, but that's not just something somebody can do.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_02: Like you have to have the earned right to come in on that area, and so that's why friendships and having opportunities for shared experiences are gonna be important because that's what's gonna help build a friendship, but on that flip side, you also have to be able to maintain the friendship, right?
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_01: And that looks different at different stages of life.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_01: And I'll say, you know, I had I had my first child right before the pandemic.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_01: So I went from, you know, we're two adults living in the home where we have a lot of freedom to uh two adults and a baby where we were afraid to go anywhere because it was midwinter and we didn't want him to get sick with the flu or RSV and then COVID.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_01: So enforced isolation, there's a reason why friends are important because we were not designed to live in isolation.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_01: And there's a reason why the people who come into my office, a lot of times in the worst shape, come in in isolated conditions, right?
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_01: Either they've experienced depression that has isolated them from their support system over time, or they've been isolated in the context of an unhealthy relationship and they can no longer reach the friends who would be their greatest support systems if they would allow them to.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_01: It's it can be a really challenging place to navigate because especially the more I isolated you get, the more unhealthy your thought patterns can become, which can lead make it even harder for you to reach out and make those friends and build those friendships.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's really challenging, especially when you've been hurt in the past.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's something that's important to acknowledge here is that just because you delve deep with someone and build this beautiful friendship doesn't mean it will last.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_01: I've had some absolutely beautiful, powerful friendships in my life that are gone now for one reason or another.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_01: For some, it was, you know, geographic unalignment, right?
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_01: They moved across the country and we didn't see each other very often, and they have their lives and I have mine.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_01: And if they came back to town, oh, that'd be great, right?
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_01: We'd love to talk and catch up.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but sometimes, sometimes friendships fade.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes, when this is this is a terrible one.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I run into this one on the mom forums.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_01: I've experienced this myself, but sometimes something's going on from one friend and the other friend gets ghosted.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_01: And that's one of the biggest friendship wounds.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_01: And it's amazing how often that does happen.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_01: And it can really damage the person who got ghosted.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_01: Like it can really lead to them going, well, you know, I put all this effort in and I don't know what happened.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_01: Was it me?
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_01: Was it them?
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_01: Ghosting, if you're out there thinking about ghosting somebody, don't do it.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's terrible.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_01: It's a terrible thing to do to somebody else.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_01: And if you've been ghosted, I'm so sorry.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_01: It really sucks because it makes it then difficult for you to move on to a new friendship and go, well, I trusted this person and they heard me.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_01: So what do I do with that?
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_01: How do I how do I willingly make myself vulnerable and invest in another person, knowing they could do the exact same thing to me again?
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_01: And that's that's the process of relationship, y'all.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_01: That's being brave and because trust is always a risk every time.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_01: Being brave and being patient and moving intentionally and slowly.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_01: And if you recognize that a friendship is, like you were saying, back up one-sided, and I've had a few of those too, especially as a therapist.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_01: That okay, do I need to take a step back here?
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_01: But can I take a step back without ending the relationship in totality?
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_01: Can I just take a step back and put some boundaries up and see what happens with the relationship?
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of times those friendships will fade on their own because they're not giving you what you want anymore.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and that's that's unfortunate and that's uncomfortable.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_01: But it's important to align yourself with healthy people who are going to challenge you to be healthy.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_02: And in that kind of relationship, you're also not giving them what they want anymore by not constantly putting in, it might fizzle out because you they just think you stopped, where it's like it became one-sided.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I'll say just personally, navigating friendships as a therapist is pretty challenging because people, you know, I joke and I'm gonna make this, I think I made this joke on my podcast as well.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_01: But when people hear you're a therapist, they typically have one of two reactions.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_01: One is they lean in and it's like, oh, well, you know, my my dad did this when I was 13 and um my parents got divorced.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_01: So does that mean I'm gonna get divorced too?
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_01: And they they lean into your role as a therapist, right?
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_01: They're like, oh, you're a therapist.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_01: Let me ask you all of my therapy-related questions.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_02: Let me just ask you everything instead of, you know, come into a therapist.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_01: So I mean, like, I know we're in the checkout line at Walmart here, but I'm gonna ask you all.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um, or they lean back and they shut down.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like you see the wall go up, and it's like, oh, you're diagnosing me, aren't you?
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_01: Like you're looking into my soul and learning all of my deepest, darkest secrets.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_01: And either way, it's not great.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't feel great on the other end.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_01: So moving forward with making friends of my own, I I'm I'm good at listening to people.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_01: I have a special set of skills, so I have to be really careful to use those in a way that don't turn me into somebody's therapist, but also allow me to be there for someone.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_01: And that takes the other person being brave with me too, and not thinking, oh, we're just therapizing me.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_01: No, I'm being a friend.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_01: You wouldn't ask that if I was not a therapist.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_01: But being intentional about I'm gonna share this vulnerable thing with you because you share this vulnerable thing with me, and we're making a decision to trust each other, we're making a decision to hold each other accountable, we're making a decision to support and love each other, even when it's uncomfortable to do so.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_01: So being being friends is it's it's a beautiful, beautiful process, but it's very scary and challenging.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_02: It's scary and challenging, and you you've got friendships that are all across the spectrum.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, we have acquaintances acquaintances, and that might just be people that you don't really spend a lot of time with.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_02: You just might see you've got casual friends, and so that might be like your work friends or just other social settings you see them in.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_02: Then you might have close friends, and so those are people that you might have a deeper bond with, and then you may have a lifelong friend, and lifelong can kind of happen at any time, but a lot of times that's somebody that happened in childhood.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_02: So you might have met them when they were like five or six, and you've stayed friends for 20 or 30 years, or you met in high school and you're still friends when you're a little bit older.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_02: And so it just friends have different faces that they take on.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_02: And I was having a conversation not too long ago, and friends can change from what circle they're in.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_02: They can go from somebody that's a really close friend who now has become an acquaintance, and that can happen for a number of reasons, but it's okay to let that happen.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_02: It's okay for it to happen, especially if it's gonna bring a lot of hurt keeping them close because you share with them, but then you turn around and they they don't even acknowledge it or something like that.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_02: And so that's where it becomes important because you're you have to build friendships, but then you have to maintain friendships.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that you being aware of that happening in your life, you being aware of your different friendships and how much you're giving to a relationship and how much someone else is giving to a relationship is important.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_01: And keeping in mind that there is a sacrificial element to love and friendship.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_01: There just is.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that sometimes we we get so caught up in our own boundaries that we forget that being a good friend also means giving more than is comfortable at times.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_01: Whether that's vulnerability, whether that's, I mean, no one wants to get a call at 2 a.m.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_01: that, you know, the tree fell in the neighbor's yard and they need your help.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_01: That it's not comfortable.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_01: I would rather be asleep, but I would much rather a friend of mine call me when they need me.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_01: So recognizing that, okay, it's required of me to give, it's required of me to be sacrificial and to be uncomfortable at times because that's what showing up for a friend looks like.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_01: Well, making sure that overextending is something that is time limited and intentional, right?
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_01: I am intentional, my friend is going through a big issue right now with, you know, she just gave birth and she needs a lot of love and support.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_01: And so I'm at her house a lot and I'm doing a lot for her.
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_01: That's not going to last forever because I have my own home, my family, my kids to tend to.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_01: But in this time of life, it is my joy to be able to show up for her in that way.
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_01: Or my friend has an illness or she's had surgery, and I can go over to her house and help take care of her kids, and I can go help clean up and bring food.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_01: These are things that sometimes a friendship is 50-50, sometimes it's 80-20, sometimes it flips back the other way, 70-30.
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's about reciprocity and flexibility and love, right?
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_01: If we are loving and respecting each other and we're doing our best to reciprocate in the best way we can, then that friendship is going to thrive, even as it maintains this sort of fluid nature.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_01: Now, like you said, there are times when you have a friend who's like level one, super close, call them a new time type friend.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_01: And for varied and whatever reasons, we have to take a step back, right?
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe they start making some unhealthy choices and we don't want to be involved in those types of things.
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_01: Or maybe they enter a place where they've isolated themselves and we've done our best to try and be there for them and show up and get them to kind of rejoin us in our vulnerability, but they pulled back and they they're not coming out of their little cave.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_01: So us stepping back temporarily is one of those things that we have to do to kind of maintain our own sanity and keep going.
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_01: We'll do the best we can for as long as we can.
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_01: And and I've seen that with romantic relationships as well, which we're going to talk about in a bit, but we were super close and it was really great, and our relationship was amazing.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_01: And then all of a sudden you lost your job and you turned into a jerk.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_01: And now you're treating me differently, and you're being unkind, and you're not getting a job anymore.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_01: And now you're just living in my house and I'm paying all of your bills, and you're not contributing to the relationship in any sense.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, what was or what might have been a better relationship has turned into one that isn't so great.
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_01: So recognizing that there is a fluidity and a flexibility, and like you said, maintenance, right?
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_01: If both people are doing maintenance on the relationship, it's going to be a lot better than if one quits.
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_02: Oh yeah.
• 41:39
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's like staying connected.
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_02: It may not be something that happens regularly, but and you may not get to see each other a lot, but we've got some beautiful technology that can allow for some communication and it's allowing for some of that back and forth.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_02: And it's allowing for knowing that all of us live busy lives in one way or another.
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_02: All of us have hard things happening.
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_02: And I think one of the biggest things that you have to recognize within friendships or any relationship is not everybody's heart is the same.
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_02: Your heart is not the same as my heart.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_02: What I see as really challenging may not be, it may be something simple for you.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_02: And so you have to remember that.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_02: And in your communication, you've got to offer some grace within that.
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_02: But that doesn't mean that you have to allow your boundaries to be hit and you're and to not be respected.
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_02: Or if you've planned like a lunch get together and it constantly gets canceled, it doesn't mean that you can't put up some boundaries of that for yourself.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_02: You don't have to be walked on just because of what somebody else's situation is.
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_02: So acquaintances.
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_02: What are the purposes?
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_02: And these might just be that neighbor that you wave across the road, a coworker, or somebody that's in our community.
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_02: But why are these impactful in our life?
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_01: I think that you know, if we if our if our communities and our lives were bound to those people we have close bonds with, the people of our friendships, our families, the world would be a warm place, right?
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_01: But as soon as you stepped out of those circles, then the rest of the world would seem really cold.
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I that's one reason I love, you know, I live and work in a small town.
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_01: And one reason I've always loved living and working in a small town is that it's easier to get to know your community.
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_01: It's easier not only to be more visible, but for them to be more visible to you.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_01: When I walk across the street, when I get out of my office and I go across the street to go get a cup of tea at the coffee shop, and I don't see somebody that I know on the street, I'm kind of like, oh man.
• 43:47
  SPEAKER_01: Which, you know, part of that is the in the extrovert in me.
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_01: But when someone, you know, when someone sees you and they wave, or when you talk to uh the varista that you really like, and y'all share a little bit of, you know, how's your dad?
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_01: How's your mama?
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_01: How's what's going on?
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_01: Then it's it's a reminder that there is goodness and there is kindness and there's respect in the world.
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_01: And that's a beautiful, beautiful thing, right?
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_01: We don't need flowers on the road.
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_01: Like we don't need flowers in gardens.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_01: Like Vatumka has these beautiful hanging planter baskets all around downtown.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_01: And they're beautiful and they're wonderful.
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_01: And they just add brightness and loveliness to the day, but they're not necessary.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_01: I could go about the day just fine without those beautiful planter baskets, but I see them and they they brighten things up for me.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_01: They they lift and elevate.
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_01: And there's something to be said for moments of beauty and loveliness.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what casual connections with people can be.
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_01: And you can think of in a more mercenary sense as well of, you know, that's that's helpful for business, right?
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_01: If we're friends with other people and we know people in the community, then I buy from them, they buy from me.
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we kind of we mutually help each other in that way.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_01: But I mean, when you shop in someone's business down here, it's an act of love.
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_01: When you refer someone to their business, it's an act of love.
• 45:03
  SPEAKER_01: Even if you're not technically close friends with that person, but you're like, oh, I know so-and-so.
• 45:07
  SPEAKER_01: They have a great little shop downtown, you should go.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_01: And it's it's supporting and loving and weaving the web of your community and your world around you in a little bit of a more pleasing aspect, which is just makes life better worth living, in my opinion.
• 45:24
  SPEAKER_01: My humble little opinion.
• 45:25
  SPEAKER_02: It also just makes your day-to-day better, like getting to enjoy your interactions, whether it be at work, in your neighborhood, or in the community that you're serving, it just allows for some enjoyment.
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_02: It allows to not totally not look forward to something, but it allows for you to look forward to it.
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_02: And so that's where boundaries and expectations may come into play of keeping your boundaries, of like um a neighbor, keeping your boundaries with your neighbor.
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_02: Of these aren't this is my property, this is your property.
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_02: Like keep your in a neighborhood, keep your pets in your space.
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 46:11
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think you know, understanding kind of the emotional length of these relationships that there's some maybe straddle the line between acquaintanceships and friendships, some straddle the line between acquaintanceships and people I'd rather walk on the other side of the street from.
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then there's times when when they cycle back and forth between the two.
• 46:31
  SPEAKER_01: So how much emotional energy do you give to these relationships?
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_01: What purpose do they serve in your life?
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_01: What joy do they bring to your life?
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_01: What, you know, is it a purpose of I love serving the community by being a good friend to everyone that I meet or being kind to everyone that I meet?
• 46:46
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes acquaintances evolve into deeper relationships over time, right?
• 46:51
  SPEAKER_01: When I first met the baristas at the coffee shop across the street, I did not know them.
• 46:55
  SPEAKER_01: They were strangers to me.
• 46:57
  SPEAKER_01: They were kind of strangers who smiled, but they were strangers.
• 47:00
  SPEAKER_01: And now, after many, many, many times of being back over there, many of them were friends.
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_01: Many of them are friends.
• 47:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I love that.
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_01: I love being able to go across the street and see friends when I'm at work.
• 47:12
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes acquaintances evolve a little bit.
• 47:15
  SPEAKER_01: You learn a little bit more about that person.
• 47:16
  SPEAKER_01: You're like, you know what?
• 47:18
  SPEAKER_01: Nope.
• 47:18
  SPEAKER_01: Let's just stay in the acquaintance lane.
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_01: I will see you at work and that'll be it.
• 47:24
  SPEAKER_02: So that's but that's being aware of things.
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's having an awareness so that you can have that conversation.
• 47:31
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I have to tell you, it is nice to walk in the coffee shop and they know exactly what you want to order.
• 47:37
  SPEAKER_02: And it's done with a smile and excitement, and they're really happy that they can help serve you in that way.
• 47:44
  SPEAKER_02: So it's it's getting to know acquaintances that might turn into lifelong friendships, or they may just stay that really nice face that you get to see sometimes in your day.
• 47:57
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 47:59
  SPEAKER_01: And that's okay too.
• 48:02
  SPEAKER_02: So romantic relationships, what why is a romantic relationship important?
• 48:07
  SPEAKER_02: Because we've talked about family, we've talked about friends, we've now talked about acquaintances.
• 48:12
  SPEAKER_02: Now, our romantic partners and relationships, these can give to us in multitudes of ways, but sometimes they can take away from us.
• 48:21
  SPEAKER_02: But how can they give back to us?
• 48:24
  SPEAKER_01: I think as you progress along these relational tiers here, and we've got them a little bit out of order, which is totally fine.
• 48:30
  SPEAKER_01: But as you progress along the from acquaintances to friend, family relationship level, and then into romantic relationship level, we generally consider romantic relationships to be the most intimate relationships we have in this life.
• 48:45
  SPEAKER_01: They are the person who will see you at your most vulnerable, physically, spiritually, financially, emotionally, physically.
• 48:52
  SPEAKER_01: I've already said that, but it's important.
• 48:54
  SPEAKER_01: That they they'll see you at your worst, they'll see you at your best.
• 48:58
  SPEAKER_01: And so the deeper the relationship, the greater the probability, the possibility, the opportunity for positive rewards, right?
• 49:08
  SPEAKER_01: The greater, the greater, the closer we're connected, the more I'll get from you.
• 49:13
  SPEAKER_01: But the closer we're connected, the the easier it is for you to hurt me.
• 49:16
  SPEAKER_01: The closer we're connected, whether it's a deep friendship or familial relationship to a romantic relationship, the easier it is for you to take from me.
• 49:26
  SPEAKER_01: The more is required from me, right?
• 49:28
  SPEAKER_01: I love my husband and he gives a lot to me.
• 49:31
  SPEAKER_01: He's also the person that takes a lot from me because we're in this relationship where we are, we are navigating life together, we're navigating parenthood together.
• 49:39
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes we're walking along, strolling hand in hand, and sometimes we're staggering along, holding each other up, right?
• 49:44
  SPEAKER_01: And that's just the nature of life.
• 49:46
  SPEAKER_01: And so the closer someone gets to you, the more intimate and vulnerable the relationship becomes.
• 49:52
  SPEAKER_01: It can be both joyfully connective and deeply, deeply exposing, which is why it's so important to choose intentionally and wisely when it comes to the person you promote to your romantic partner.
• 50:05
  SPEAKER_01: Because we talked, you know, we talked about attachment earlier on.
• 50:07
  SPEAKER_01: We talked about family.
• 50:09
  SPEAKER_01: These wounds are often reactivated here, right?
• 50:12
  SPEAKER_01: If dad, if dad would disappear on the way home from work a whole bunch and didn't come home, or mom would go away for a couple of weeks at a time, or mom would be present for you, and then she wouldn't talk to you for a week, right?
• 50:23
  SPEAKER_01: Your attachment's gonna be very confused and disorganized, and you're gonna carry that into some romantic relationship.
• 50:31
  SPEAKER_01: So it's an opportunity for healing, or it's an opportunity for repeating the same pattern.
• 50:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I've heard, I remember back when I was in supervision several years ago, and my very wise supervisor was walking me through a case I had where a marriage was having a difficulty, and one of the spouses was talking about maybe separating from the marriage for a time to rediscover themselves, right?
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_01: Sort of get to know themselves a little bit better.
• 50:58
  SPEAKER_01: And my my supervisor looked at me and said, The greatest mirror we have is a relationship.
• 51:05
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
• 51:05
  SPEAKER_01: Because we can tell ourselves all kinds of lies when we're alone.
• 51:09
  SPEAKER_01: I'm a great roommate when no one lives with me.
• 51:14
  SPEAKER_01: I am the exact right amount of clean.
• 51:18
  SPEAKER_01: But all of a sudden, I have a roommate where I get married and my husband moves in, and all of a sudden I realize, oh, all those cups that I left setting out on the counter, um, those are me.
• 51:28
  SPEAKER_01: That was me.
• 51:28
  SPEAKER_01: That was a totally me.
• 51:30
  SPEAKER_01: Uh look at how, look at look at this baggage I bring in.
• 51:33
  SPEAKER_01: Look at this relational baggage I bring in.
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't realize I had this problem until I needed to use this muscle and discovered that it had atrophied or that I never used it before.
• 51:44
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, oh something that, oops, sorry.
• 51:46
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, or it's something that you think that you have dealt with and have taken care of, and they can push just that right button and you go, oh no, I didn't.
• 51:57
  SPEAKER_02: Like I didn't recover from the toxic relationship, or I didn't heal that wound from my childhood or from that previous relationship.
• 52:06
  SPEAKER_02: When you were talking about how families communicated, I dated a guy one time and he did something that made his mom and his sister angry.
• 52:15
  SPEAKER_02: And for like four solid days, neither one of them would speak to him.
• 52:21
  SPEAKER_02: Wouldn't I talk to him?
• 52:22
  SPEAKER_02: And it wasn't anything big, but wouldn't I talk to him?
• 52:25
  SPEAKER_02: Wouldn't I?
• 52:25
  SPEAKER_02: And he's like, Oh, it's no big deal, it'll be fine in a couple days.
• 52:28
  SPEAKER_02: And he was right, like four or five days later, it was like nothing had happened and they just moved on.
• 52:34
  SPEAKER_02: It's like, wait a second.
• 52:37
  SPEAKER_02: We didn't even talk about what happened.
• 52:39
  SPEAKER_02: Like I don't like.
• 52:44
  SPEAKER_02: So you can't, you have to also be aware of when you see something that you don't like, or oh, it's just in this part of our relationship.
• 52:52
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of times things don't get better from that point.
• 52:55
  SPEAKER_02: They get a bigger magnifying glass on them.
• 52:58
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 52:59
  SPEAKER_01: And and at that point, it's a great opportunity for that person to go, oh, look, things I haven't dealt with, or things I didn't know I had to deal with, right?
• 53:07
  SPEAKER_01: Plenty of times in my relationship and marriage, I have come in contact with, oh, I did not know I had this problem.
• 53:15
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I did not know this thing.
• 53:16
  SPEAKER_01: Same goes for my husband.
• 53:18
  SPEAKER_01: And we're discovering, you know, we've been married for nearly eight years, and there's still things that are coming up.
• 53:23
  SPEAKER_01: We're like, oh, didn't know that was there.
• 53:25
  SPEAKER_01: Because as our life changes and new things are uncovered, we're like, oh, well, it's time to deal with this now, I guess.
• 53:30
  SPEAKER_01: And it's part of it, it's part of life, it's part of relationship.
• 53:34
  SPEAKER_01: And so you can either dig in and keep going and work on it, or you can pull out and run.
• 53:40
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes one is better than the other.
• 53:43
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes things are recoverable and repairable.
• 53:46
  SPEAKER_01: And if with intention and work, we can get through things like this.
• 53:50
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes we can't.
• 53:51
  SPEAKER_01: Let's just be honest.
• 53:53
  SPEAKER_01: There's some things that maybe I'm willing to work on it and my partner is not.
• 53:57
  SPEAKER_01: And it's a deal breaker, right?
• 53:59
  SPEAKER_01: Patterns of say, and I always go back to this because it's always true, but abuse and toxicity, things that things that are, especially because they're related to power dynamics.
• 54:10
  SPEAKER_01: So those kinds of patterns tend to be very difficult to break because one person is getting so much out of keeping that pattern in place, that a lot of times the end of the relationship is the only solution in those kinds of situations.
• 54:23
  SPEAKER_01: And recognizing this is happening and this is going to keep happening is really critical for the other partner to go.
• 54:28
  SPEAKER_01: If I want a healthy relationship, I ain't gonna get it here.
• 54:32
  SPEAKER_02: Well, or and it might be something that they didn't realize they've had.
• 54:35
  SPEAKER_02: Because depending on at what point you've started a relationship, you could be talking about 30 years of a pattern or a habit that's been going on.
• 54:42
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, yeah.
• 54:43
  SPEAKER_02: And so you have to look at it that way too.
• 54:45
  SPEAKER_02: And you also have to look at like yelling can be a great example.
• 54:50
  SPEAKER_02: You raising your voice may be yelling for me, whereas yelling for you is screaming, cussing you out.
• 55:00
  SPEAKER_02: And so, even though those are both definitions of yelling, if they're different in a relationship and you don't communicate that, then you're going to be, I'm not yelling, but you are in my eyes.
• 55:14
  SPEAKER_02: You gotta learn to, you have to be able to communicate.
• 55:17
  SPEAKER_02: And healthy, healthy and unhealthy relationships have conflict and comfort conversations and arguments and all those things, but it's how you handle it that is gonna change whether it was healthy or unhealthy in the dynamics.
• 55:33
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 55:34
  SPEAKER_01: And and a lot of times you don't know, you know, you don't have to, you don't you can read all the books about riding the bike you want, but you're not gonna actually learn how to do it until you sit down on the seat and put your feet on the pedals.
• 55:45
  SPEAKER_01: So when do we typically have our first romantic relationships?
• 55:50
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of times in our teenage years and young adulthood.
• 55:54
  SPEAKER_01: And what are the primary relationships a lot of times still in place in that time period?
• 55:59
  SPEAKER_01: The relationships with our parents and our and our authority, our parental authority.
• 56:05
  SPEAKER_01: So it's really that's another reason that parental relationships are really key.
• 56:09
  SPEAKER_01: And it's a reason that your parental relationships with each other, right?
• 56:13
  SPEAKER_01: Mom and dad's relationship or mom and stepdad, dad, stepmom, are really key because they're forming your opinions of how romantic relationships need to be, need to be engaged with.
• 56:24
  SPEAKER_01: And they're probably also present with you in the early stages of these early relationships.
• 56:29
  SPEAKER_01: So they are guiding you for better or worse as you start to navigate what having a romantic relationship looks like.
• 56:35
  SPEAKER_01: And so it can be a really great resource or it can be a really unhealthy one.
• 56:41
  SPEAKER_01: I've had so many people say, yeah, I would go at 16 and go spend the night with my boyfriend for a week and my mom didn't even know where I was.
• 56:48
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, that's a problem for so many different reasons.
• 56:51
  SPEAKER_01: Let's talk about how that's impacted you now, right?
• 56:54
  SPEAKER_01: Let's talk about, let's talk about how that made you feel.
• 56:57
  SPEAKER_01: And let's talk about what impact that had on your relationships at the time and what impact it's having on your relationships now.
• 57:05
  SPEAKER_01: So you can still recover from bad relationship lessons and learn yourself how to build secure love with empathy, boundaries, growth.
• 57:15
  SPEAKER_01: It just takes work, it takes effort, and a lot of times it takes a little bit of help.
• 57:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and it takes some recognition.
• 57:20
  SPEAKER_02: And it may take that, oh, I really don't like that about myself.
• 57:23
  SPEAKER_02: And you have to be willing to go through the uncomfortable to get to what you want it to look like.
• 57:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, absolutely.
• 57:33
  SPEAKER_02: Because one of the other aspects is our romantic relationships, which any of our relationships, but our romantic partners, mental health can be a big presence in a relationship dynamic.
• 57:48
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 57:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I think we skipped this part.
• 57:50
  SPEAKER_01: We we had it on the on the outline here to discuss this with regards to friendships, but it comes up here.
• 57:56
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think it's important to mention that what you're going through mentally, whether it's whether it's something as I'll say quote unquote simple as depression or anxiety based on a present situation, or whether it's complex trauma from your past, that's going to affect the way you show up in relationships.
• 58:13
  SPEAKER_01: That your experiences, your mental health is going to affect.
• 58:16
  SPEAKER_01: If I'm depressed and my my face is flat all the time, right?
• 58:19
  SPEAKER_01: We call that flat affect.
• 58:21
  SPEAKER_01: Then if I talk to somebody, they might think, wow, she's not interested in me at all.
• 58:26
  SPEAKER_01: She's not, she doesn't care what I have to say, she doesn't care what I'm thinking because I'm depressed and my face isn't showing any of my emotion because my emotions are so, so at such a low key right now, or I'm so closed off that it makes it really difficult for me to engage with someone else emotionally.
• 58:44
  SPEAKER_01: And it doesn't mean that I don't care.
• 58:46
  SPEAKER_01: It just means that it doesn't look like I care.
• 58:49
  SPEAKER_01: And my ability to care is buried under a whole host of heavy depression that's inhibiting my ability to be relational with you right now.
• 58:56
  SPEAKER_01: And that's why postpartum depression is such a serious thing, because babies are very, very relational in those early stages.
• 59:04
  SPEAKER_01: They look at faces, right?
• 59:06
  SPEAKER_01: They don't know anything about relationships.
• 59:07
  SPEAKER_01: They just know mom and safety, right?
• 59:10
  SPEAKER_01: So they look at mom's face, and if her affect is flat, then it can really have an impact.
• 59:15
  SPEAKER_01: And this is research documented, it has an impact on the child's emotional development, on their intellectual development, their relational development, and their attachment.
• 59:24
  SPEAKER_01: You know, they cry, they fuss, and they smile at you, and you don't smile back.
• 59:28
  SPEAKER_01: It causes distress signals to go off in their brain, right?
• 59:31
  SPEAKER_01: There's some pretty heartbreaking videos on YouTube of an experiment that was done with a mom and a, I think she was probably eight, nine months old, small baby toddler in a high chair where the mom is smiling and talking to the baby, and the baby's laughing and talking to mom, and mom's just interacting with her on a normal level.
• 59:48
  SPEAKER_01: And then at a signal from the researcher, mom's affect goes flat.
• 59:52
  SPEAKER_01: And so she just is staring at the baby, basically, without showing any kind of emotional response.
• 59:58
  SPEAKER_01: And you see the baby get a little confused, and then she starts trying to laugh and make her mom laugh and make her mom respond.
• 1:00:04
  SPEAKER_01: And the mom doesn't respond.
• 1:00:06
  SPEAKER_01: And you can see the longer this goes on, the more and more distressed the baby becomes.
• 1:00:11
  SPEAKER_01: I'm telling you what, that'll that'll melt your stone cold heart right there.
• 1:00:14
  SPEAKER_01: Like the first time I saw that, I just about bawled because, and then at the end, you know, the the researcher gives a signal and the mom snaps back to it and she loves the baby, hugs the baby, reassures the baby everything's okay.
• 1:00:26
  SPEAKER_01: But you can see just in that, in those few seconds, I guess it might have been up to a minute or two where she was having that in intentional flat affect, you can see how distressing it was to the baby because that's how they bond, that's how they recognize you see them, they're important, you're paying attention to them.
• 1:00:42
  SPEAKER_01: And when that's not present, it can really impact everybody.
• 1:00:46
  SPEAKER_01: And it's and I'm of a huge heart for postpartum mental health because of this.
• 1:00:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um, because it's just it can have such an impact on early childhood development and later childhood development as well.
• 1:00:57
  SPEAKER_01: And for the mom, right?
• 1:00:58
  SPEAKER_01: This is this is a key time of parenthood, and you're being impacted because of something you can't control.
• 1:01:05
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's really heartbreaking.
• 1:01:07
  SPEAKER_02: But that's part of what's important in all these different types of relationships to have somewhat of a presence of really being able to recognize what might be going on and being able to put that hand out or reach.
• 1:01:23
  SPEAKER_02: And in a partnership, you are probably the first person that sees the signs of what's going on.
• 1:01:29
  SPEAKER_02: And so it's being able to slow down and take some time to be able to recognize some of that and be able to see what's going on.
• 1:01:36
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, in a postpartum, really the partner is going to be one of those that's hopefully there and present, able to see some of it.
• 1:01:44
  SPEAKER_02: And so it's being able to see what your spouse might need, what your partner might need in that moment.
• 1:01:50
  SPEAKER_02: On the other side of that, this is where we add it in the relationship with yourself because this one is the importance and it's what the where the start to the other relationships comes from.
• 1:02:01
  SPEAKER_02: And so it's that strong relationship that is crucial to your overall well-being.
• 1:02:07
  SPEAKER_02: And it can come through the aspects of having self-awareness, self-compensation, self-care, self-acceptance, self-love, also positive self-talk.
• 1:02:19
  SPEAKER_02: So, like in the self-awareness, it's understanding your emotions, thoughts, and your behaviors.
• 1:02:24
  SPEAKER_02: And that can go back to your childhood of how you reacted, how your behaviors were, of what you present later in life.
• 1:02:33
  SPEAKER_02: That self-compassion is how patient and kind can you be towards yourself, especially when things might be challenging or times might be shifting.
• 1:02:44
  SPEAKER_02: Self-care.
• 1:02:45
  SPEAKER_02: To me, self-care gets such a bad name for it because it's like, oh, you must have go have a spa day.
• 1:02:52
  SPEAKER_02: Not to say spa days aren't great self-care, but it's also looking at what your physical, mental, and emotional needs might be of like, is an exercise that's 30 minutes every day really validly important to you or things like that.
• 1:03:09
  SPEAKER_02: It's positive self-talk.
• 1:03:10
  SPEAKER_02: It's amazing the research on self-talk, most of what we say to ourselves is negative.
• 1:03:16
  SPEAKER_02: And so it's being able to flip that script and have that positive self-talk with your who you are and what you want to be, and being able to encourage yourself and not just reliance on other relationships.
• 1:03:32
  SPEAKER_02: What other things are important with relationship and self?
• 1:03:36
  SPEAKER_01: I think that you've really hit the nail on the head with these here.
• 1:03:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it's really important to be able to talk, to have a good relationship with yourself, not in the sense of just knowing myself, because some people take that into a punitive place of I am very well aware of all my flaws.
• 1:03:52
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you very much.
• 1:03:53
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, great, but that's not what we're talking about.
• 1:03:56
  SPEAKER_01: A knowledge of yourself is a knowledge of your flaws and frailties, it's also a knowledge of your strength and your gifts and your talents and being able to be compassionate on yourself for your weaknesses while still pushing yourself to do better, grow, make yourself better, right?
• 1:04:10
  SPEAKER_01: So it's it's this place that I think, I think in this culture we're we are pushed to improve, right?
• 1:04:17
  SPEAKER_01: You know, here I get ads on Instagram all the time of, oh, here's this workout you can be doing, here's this new skincare regimen you have to try so that you don't, so that you look like you're 35 when you're 92, right?
• 1:04:28
  SPEAKER_01: Like if you don't look like you're 35 when you're 92, you're not doing a good job.
• 1:04:32
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, here's all these amazing things you can do to be the best mom ever, and here's all these amazing things you can do to be the best wife ever, and here's 17 ways you can improve your therapy practice because obviously you're not doing well enough on yourself.
• 1:04:43
  SPEAKER_01: So there's this constant barrage of do better, do better, do better, you can do better, you can do better, you can do your best, and your best is defined as what I define it.
• 1:04:53
  SPEAKER_01: And so that can lead to a very negative conversation with yourself of oh, you didn't get to work out 30 minutes today.
• 1:05:01
  SPEAKER_01: You suck.
• 1:05:02
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, you yelled at your kids today, oh, you're a terrible mom, because the Instagram people said you shouldn't do that.
• 1:05:08
  SPEAKER_01: And oh, you didn't cook dinner this week, and so you're not giving your kids and your family the nutrition that they need to do.
• 1:05:14
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's it's this constant push-pull.
• 1:05:18
  SPEAKER_01: So when we're talking about a relationship with ourselves, being aware of both our flaws and our strengths is really important.
• 1:05:24
  SPEAKER_01: And like you said, the way that you talk to yourself, and this goes back to modeling too.
• 1:05:30
  SPEAKER_01: All the way back to parents again.
• 1:05:31
  SPEAKER_01: I know so stereotypical therapist, but let's talk about your childhood for a second.
• 1:05:35
  SPEAKER_01: And how did your parents talk about themselves?
• 1:05:37
  SPEAKER_01: How did your parents talk to themselves?
• 1:05:40
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:05:41
  SPEAKER_01: I I was super young when I learned about diets.
• 1:05:45
  SPEAKER_01: And I learned about I didn't know what body image was, but I knew enough to know that there were certain members of my family that didn't like their bodies.
• 1:05:51
  SPEAKER_01: And so I thought that that was normal.
• 1:05:53
  SPEAKER_01: I thought that it was normal to not, you know, that we had to look a certain way.
• 1:05:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember being sick.
• 1:06:00
  SPEAKER_01: Six years old playing with Barbies and looking at their teeny tiny faces and thinking, I wish I looked like that.
• 1:06:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I was six, I wasn't designed to look like that.
• 1:06:09
  SPEAKER_01: And nobody's designed to look like a Barbie doll because they're anatomically inaccurate.
• 1:06:13
  SPEAKER_01: But how how your parents talked to themselves and talked about themselves is going to impact the way you talk about yourself.
• 1:06:23
  SPEAKER_01: Unless you're really intentional about it.
• 1:06:25
  SPEAKER_01: And how you talk to yourself is going to impact the way that your kids talk to themselves.
• 1:06:30
  SPEAKER_01: If they hear you call yourself stupid or an idiot, they're going to think that that's okay.
• 1:06:36
  SPEAKER_01: And they they might not think as much about it when someone else calls them stupid or an idiot.
• 1:06:40
  SPEAKER_01: So take a moment to think about the things you say out loud and the things that you say internally and think, is there is there a way I'm not I'm not being kind to myself?
• 1:06:50
  SPEAKER_01: I mean it is almost universally acknowledged that with the exception of people like some narcissists, that we tend to be the most critical of ourselves.
• 1:06:59
  SPEAKER_01: We tend to say things to ourselves that we would never say to somebody else.
• 1:07:03
  SPEAKER_01: And I mean, if you pause for a moment, that's probably true for you.
• 1:07:06
  SPEAKER_01: I know it's true for me.
• 1:07:08
  SPEAKER_01: So thinking about, okay, well, how can I rework that a little bit?
• 1:07:12
  SPEAKER_01: Does that mean I'm writing myself a blank check for everything all the time?
• 1:07:15
  SPEAKER_01: No, of course not.
• 1:07:17
  SPEAKER_01: But how can I encourage myself to strive for better without punishing myself for not being there already?
• 1:07:23
  SPEAKER_01: I don't I don't set out to drive to the Atlanta airport and go, serious, such an idiot, you're not already there.
• 1:07:29
  SPEAKER_01: Well, no, of course not, because it takes over two hours to get there.
• 1:07:32
  SPEAKER_01: So it's gonna take some time, it's gonna it's gonna be a journey, and let's have compassion on the journey.
• 1:07:38
  SPEAKER_01: Let's have gratitude for the journey and recognize that I'm gonna make mistakes, I'm gonna take some wrong turns, and maybe I'll still end up in a place that's pretty okay.
• 1:07:47
  SPEAKER_01: Good.
• 1:07:48
  SPEAKER_02: So I think that's what's important is know that all these relationships that we talked about in the beginning, they go back to you.
• 1:07:56
  SPEAKER_02: So they go back to how you overall look at yourself and look at your well-being, but then they are influenced by your childhood, your acquaintances, your friendships, your romantic partners.
• 1:08:07
  SPEAKER_02: And so it's important to take time to reflect on each of the relationships and really reflect on what you want them to look like.
• 1:08:14
  SPEAKER_02: So, what would you say the call to action from today's episode is?
• 1:08:20
  SPEAKER_01: I would say that all relationships matter.
• 1:08:22
  SPEAKER_01: Every single one of them.
• 1:08:23
  SPEAKER_01: And they all deserve intentional care and attention.
• 1:08:27
  SPEAKER_01: So sometimes that attention means this is not a relationship I want to put a lot of effort into right now.
• 1:08:32
  SPEAKER_01: It's not worth it, or it's a relationship I want to step back from.
• 1:08:35
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes it means I really value and treasure this person.
• 1:08:38
  SPEAKER_01: I want to give them everything I can.
• 1:08:40
  SPEAKER_01: And so reflecting where am I thriving?
• 1:08:43
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 1:08:43
  SPEAKER_01: Where am I thriving in my relationships with everyone, including myself, and where do I feel stuck?
• 1:08:48
  SPEAKER_01: So sometimes this can help to write things down, so journaling maybe a little bit, and asking yourself, what kind of relationship do I want to strengthen right now?
• 1:08:55
  SPEAKER_01: And maybe you pick two to five, and what's one small step I can take towards that strengthening place in each of those relationships?
• 1:09:04
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 1:09:05
  SPEAKER_01: Is it a friend that you used to really value and you haven't reached out to them for a long time?
• 1:09:09
  SPEAKER_01: And so you'd like to rekindle that relationship.
• 1:09:11
  SPEAKER_01: Is it a relationship with your spouse?
• 1:09:12
  SPEAKER_01: Is it a relationship with your kids?
• 1:09:14
  SPEAKER_01: Relationship with yourself.
• 1:09:15
  SPEAKER_01: What kinds of relationships do you want to strengthen and how to do that?
• 1:09:19
  SPEAKER_01: One step at a time.
• 1:09:21
  SPEAKER_02: So really reflect on your relationships.
• 1:09:25
  SPEAKER_02: I know that relationships are important, they are important to you for every single day.
• 1:09:30
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you guys for joining us today.