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Saving A Marriage On The Brink with Dr Glenn & Phyllis Hill · The Trauma Therapist

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Speaker 1: Welcome to the Trauma Therapists podcast. My name is Gaming Person.
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Speaker 1: I interview incredible people who've dedicated their lives to helping
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Speaker 1: those who've been impacted by trauma. A big thank you
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Speaker 1: to our sponsors and our guests who are supporting this show.
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Speaker 1: So five four, three, two and one. Doctor Glenn and
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Speaker 1: Phillis Hill are the founders of Connection Codes, a relational
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Speaker 1: model built from their own lived experience. Connection Codes began
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Speaker 1: with a marriage on the brink. Doctor Glenn and Phyllis
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Speaker 1: were drowning in pain, stuck in cycles of connection, and
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Speaker 1: desperate for answers. Determined to understand what was wrong, Glenn
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Speaker 1: went back to school not just for degree, but for
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Speaker 1: way to save their relationship. Out of that struggle. Can
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Speaker 1: the science grounded emotional tools they now teach to couples, families,
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Speaker 1: and organizations Today They speak, train and mentor people around
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Speaker 1: the world, helping them understand their emotional wiring and build
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Speaker 1: relationships that actually work. The book is called The Connection Codes,
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Speaker 1: The Blueprint and Tools for cre the relationships you crave.
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Speaker 1: All right, welcome to the podcast. Before were going share
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Speaker 1: with our listeners where you're from and originally and where
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Speaker 1: you are currently. Yeah.
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Speaker 2: Well, now we live in Nashville, Tennessee, and we've actually
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Speaker 2: been here twenty five years. So we've been married forty
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Speaker 2: three and have lived numerous places in those forty three years,
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Speaker 2: but have been here a long time raising our family.
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Speaker 3: Okay, Phillis actually grew up in Germany and I grew
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Speaker 3: up on a farm in South Carolina. So two different worlds.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, Okay, Well let's I mean, obviously we
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Speaker 1: touched upon a little in the bile. How did this
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Speaker 1: journey start for the both of you.
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Speaker 3: Well, I'll give you the short answer, and that is pain. No,
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Speaker 3: she'll explain.
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Speaker 2: Wow, Well, we met as teenagers and got married young.
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Speaker 2: But we thought we had a really great foundation, good jobs,
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Speaker 2: bought our first house right away, like the things that
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Speaker 2: established what we thought would be great. Uh, and right
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Speaker 2: away we really disconnected. We disconnected on our honeymoon and
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Speaker 2: it was like we didn't know, we didn't have any tools.
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Speaker 2: We didn't know how to recover from that, and it
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Speaker 2: just began a life of pain. But we didn't know
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Speaker 2: how to get through it or out of it. We
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Speaker 2: didn't know how to We didn't understand trauma. We didn't
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Speaker 2: understand our own childhood trauma, and we got busy, we
2:26
Speaker 2: got we had jobs, and we had children. And it's
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Speaker 2: like the story that you often hear right where just
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Speaker 2: before you know it, a decade has gone by and
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Speaker 2: two decades have gone by, and you know, we we
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Speaker 2: were pretty good roommates, like at that point, like we
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Speaker 2: were I don't know, I mean, I mean, sex was
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Speaker 2: definitely a part of our relationship, but it was like
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Speaker 2: we were just coexisting and definitely parenting was our number
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Speaker 2: one thing, and but it was like we constantly were
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Speaker 2: missing each other and the missus did not make any
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Speaker 2: sense for us, like an and I would say. One example,
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Speaker 2: one story that was such a common one is we
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Speaker 2: would find each other in the kitchen at the same time,
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Speaker 2: and I would notice that Glenn had unloaded the dishwasher,
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Speaker 2: and so I would say to him, Hey, babe, thanks
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Speaker 2: for unloading the dishwasher, and he would respond in such
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Speaker 2: a way that always totally threw me.
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Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. I would say something like, well, it's not
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Speaker 3: like that's the only thing I've done today, which she
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Speaker 3: would say, I didn't say it was the only thing
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Speaker 3: he did today. I just said thanks for learning the dishwasher.
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Speaker 3: I said I don't know why you have to make
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Speaker 3: such a big deal about it, like some miracle. I
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Speaker 3: did something useful for a change, And of course this
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Speaker 3: poor woman was like what she was completely bewildered. And
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Speaker 3: we did this pattern for over twenty years, guys, So
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Speaker 3: I'm not talking about a bad weekend. This was really
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Speaker 3: probably about a quarter of a century of that sort
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Speaker 3: of pattern where we.
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Speaker 1: Just land so Phyllis. When you said you disconnected, is
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Speaker 1: that are you talking about?
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Speaker 3: Yeah?
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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it was like it was the fight.
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Speaker 2: It was like that underlying fight where I didn't get it,
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Speaker 2: Like saying thank you made sense to me, Like I
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Speaker 2: thought that would get us into the same room, getting along,
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Speaker 2: having a great night. Instead of his reaction, everything would
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Speaker 2: just explode all of a sudden, and then I for
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Speaker 2: many years I would just get quiet, like turn away,
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Speaker 2: be like whatever, and just let it be, hoping it
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Speaker 2: would just simmer and go away, not really ever getting
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Speaker 2: curious until about twenty years in and then it was
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Speaker 2: one of those moments in the kitchen where I first
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Speaker 2: turned away and then I turned right back to him
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Speaker 2: and I said, what happens for you when I say
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Speaker 2: thank you for unloading the dishwasher, like.
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Speaker 1: What do you hear gold?
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Speaker 3: Right there?
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Speaker 1: Gold?
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Speaker 3: That was gold.
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Speaker 2: We didn't know it was gold.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, it was gold.
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Speaker 2: And it changed everything because then he was able to
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Speaker 2: share with me what happens for him.
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Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, And I was very snarky. I did not
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Speaker 3: handle these scenarios well and all back then, so I
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Speaker 3: don't even know what I said to her them. And
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Speaker 3: she said, but what do you hear me say whenever
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Speaker 3: I say that? And I said, I hear you say
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Speaker 3: what you said? And I didn't use the B word,
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Speaker 3: but I thought it. And she goes, yeah. But and
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Speaker 3: she could have turned away and been like, I forget it,
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Speaker 3: I give up, you know, left the room, and she
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Speaker 3: didn't because she's powerful. And she said, but what's the
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Speaker 3: message that you hear from me? And that changed our life?
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Speaker 3: The fact.
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Speaker 1: Let me plase a second. This is amazing here, So
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Speaker 1: twenty years in this happens. How the hell did you
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Speaker 1: survive twenty years? So I've been just a little background here.
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Speaker 1: I was married for what eighteen years, got a divorced
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Speaker 1: three years ago. Other stuff going on, not too dissimilar,
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Speaker 1: but curious. I mean, at some points, my guess is
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Speaker 1: one of you or both of you were like, this
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Speaker 1: is not working. Did you ever have that discussion?
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Speaker 3: Yes, but we also didn't. I'm the internal optimist as
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Speaker 3: well as the eternal and pessimist. I kept thinking, there's
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Speaker 3: gotta be an answer here. This doesn't make sense. Number one,
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Speaker 3: we're not idiots. Number two, we actually care about each
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Speaker 3: other a lot, So how can we be You know,
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Speaker 3: we didn't if you had said to me on our honeymoon,
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Speaker 3: if you'd said to fellows are one of us? You know, Hey,
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Speaker 3: you're in line for a quarter of a century of pain.
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Speaker 3: I don't know what we would have done because we
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Speaker 3: didn't know, you know, so a day becomes a week,
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Speaker 3: a month, a year, a decade. We didn't know, And
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Speaker 3: so I was always looking and I would read. I
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Speaker 3: read all the books, we went to, all the seminars
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Speaker 3: trying to figure it out. There were little nuggets here
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Speaker 3: and there, but nothing was really that helpful. So I
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Speaker 3: I don't know the answer to your question. I've thought
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Speaker 3: about that a thousand times, you know.
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Speaker 1: Okay, let me let me let me ask something else here.
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Speaker 1: I mean, I think in order to have a discussion
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Speaker 1: like this, I feel I need I mean, the elements
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Speaker 1: have to be put on the table. It's not right.
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Speaker 1: A marriage is not just about communicating, it's about everything.
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Speaker 1: It's about physicality. Were there other elements in the relationship.
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Speaker 1: Everything else was going great except this communication stuff.
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Speaker 2: I would say we were always trying, right, Like at
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Speaker 2: first we uh, we thought at first that oh, we
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Speaker 2: just need better sex. Like that's kind of how the
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Speaker 2: honeymoon was such a disaster because that was our like, whoa,
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Speaker 2: what is happening here?
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Speaker 1: If you can't go, if it's not going to happen,
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Speaker 1: the sparks aren't gonna fly in the honeymoon? What is
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Speaker 1: that telling us?
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Speaker 3: Right?
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Speaker 2: Right? And so we put a lot of years into
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Speaker 2: let's get really good at that, which we did. We
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Speaker 2: got really good at that, and which you know, Glenn
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Speaker 2: has his doctorate in sexology, so that's kind of like
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Speaker 2: made a lot of sense that that was the direction
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Speaker 2: he went in because that was such a big part
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Speaker 2: of who we were. But there were still these super
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Speaker 2: painful moments like that one that I just described about
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Speaker 2: the dishwasher, like it just would come out of for me,
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Speaker 2: out of nowhere, like I would think, oh, this is
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Speaker 2: a good thing. You thank your partner for whatever, and
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Speaker 2: then his response would leave me so like, what is
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Speaker 2: happening here? That did not make any sense to me?
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Speaker 2: And you know, I mean we were so different, which
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Speaker 2: obviously opposites attract that kind of stuff. We were like,
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Speaker 2: oh yeah, we hear that, we're very opposite. So but
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Speaker 2: it was that those moments that just did not make
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Speaker 2: sense to me. And that's why the curiosity finally kicked
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Speaker 2: in big time, where I was like, what do you
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Speaker 2: hear me say? What happens for you when I thank
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Speaker 2: you for unloading the dishwrusher? And I don't know that
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Speaker 2: I had ever really gone into this with curiosity. It
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Speaker 2: was more to me black and white. It was like, okay,
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Speaker 2: well you do this, this and this and you get
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Speaker 2: this result, and for us that just didn't play out.
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Speaker 2: And so I just finally thought I'm missing something really big,
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Speaker 2: really really big. And that was such a huge turning
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Speaker 2: point because once I saw the emotion behind it, once
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Speaker 2: I heard him and understood that what he was experiencing
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Speaker 2: was not kindness from me. Right, the thank you for
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Speaker 2: unloading the dishwrusher was an attack. It was it was
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Speaker 2: a stabing. He experienced it as a judgment like that's
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Speaker 2: finally you did something today, you know, finally you were productive.
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Speaker 2: And that was so then I was like, wow, I'm
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Speaker 2: missing you probably every day by the things that I say,
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Speaker 2: because of your experience, Like his emotional experience was so
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Speaker 2: different than my emotional experience, and which kind of opened
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Speaker 2: up a huge door because once I asked him and
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Speaker 2: he actually answered, I'm like, oh, my goodness, babe, this
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Speaker 2: probably happens every day. And so we were twenty years
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Speaker 2: in when I really heard the internal struggle that he
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Speaker 2: was having every day.
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Speaker 1: And let's get into how things shifted for you, how
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Speaker 1: you developed this.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, well, let me intergeneral. I want to intergeneral quickly,
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Speaker 3: just that Phillis was never wrong to say thanks for
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Speaker 3: loading the dishwarger. That's not an evil thing to say,
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Speaker 3: of course, But I wasn't really wrong in feeling wounded
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Speaker 3: in it. I wasn't trying to feel wounded in it.
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Speaker 3: I just did. I felt hurt right by it. So
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Speaker 3: that when she slowed us down that first time, and
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Speaker 3: so all along the way, I'm reading books, I'm you know, exploring.
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Speaker 3: Then I go back to school to what I got.
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Speaker 3: I got to do full time because she built a
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Speaker 3: business which was amazing. And I would bring home these
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Speaker 3: research projects and I'm like, babe, you got to read
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Speaker 3: this three hundred and fifty page research project. It's so interesting.
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Speaker 3: She's like, I'm not reading that. I don't have time to.
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Speaker 3: Why are you crazy that? And you know, I'm an academic.
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Speaker 3: I love reading stuff like that. She's like, I'm not.
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Speaker 3: And I'm like, well, at least read the nineteen page
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Speaker 3: abstract at the beginning. You'll you'll be intrigued. She's like no,
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Speaker 3: And she would say to me, I have two minutes.
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Speaker 3: I got two minutes. Tell me what it says in
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Speaker 3: two minutes. I'm like, two minutes, this is ours. And
11:44
Speaker 3: so that came into play later because and so there
11:47
Speaker 3: were two parallel things that were happening. Number One, I
11:50
Speaker 3: was discovering that we kind of didn't really know how
11:53
Speaker 3: to help people connect. We have all these therapy models, modalities.
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Speaker 3: I got degrees and certifications in several of them, but
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Speaker 3: they didn't really work. They had the little nuggets in them.
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Speaker 3: They were helpful in some ways, but not overall. They
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Speaker 3: weren't directional. And then I started studying emotion, and just
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Speaker 3: you know, I'm the educated one. She's the smart one.
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Speaker 3: She's the one that actually figures out what matters. I
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Speaker 3: just read about it and study it and research it.
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Speaker 3: And so she began hearing the things that I was saying,
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Speaker 3: and again she would say, I have two minutes. So
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Speaker 3: I realized, I have to do something that we can
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Speaker 3: do quickly two minutes or whatever. We have to design
12:29
Speaker 3: something that will be simple, quick and implementable. And that
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Speaker 3: changed everything for me because, and of course it's true,
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Speaker 3: most people are not going to sit down and read
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Speaker 3: a three hundred page anything, so who are we kidding?
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Speaker 3: And so as I began studying emotion, I discovered that
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Speaker 3: emotion is what disconnects people. And again I'm thinking from
12:50
Speaker 3: it from the disconnection angle. She's the one that actually goes, well, wait,
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Speaker 3: we're not trying to figure out what causes people to disconnect.
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Speaker 3: People want to know what causes them to connect. That's
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Speaker 3: the reason they're in this relationship to begin with, because
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Speaker 3: they wanted to connect. I was like, oh yeah, and she,
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Speaker 3: again she's the smart one. She said, what if you
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Speaker 3: reverse all of this? If emotion causes people to disconnect,
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Speaker 3: what if you reverse it? Is that what causes people
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Speaker 3: to connect? And she is correct as she usually is,
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Speaker 3: because she realized that that's what's happening for people.
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Speaker 1: Okay, Okay, wow, wow, I love that, and I love
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Speaker 1: what you said about you know, you weren't wrong to
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Speaker 1: have that feeling or that emotion. I think that's a
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Speaker 1: great thing to say, because you can't blame people for
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Speaker 1: how they're feeling. But it's understanding, as you were saying,
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Speaker 1: phyllis getting curious about what's going on, all right, So
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Speaker 1: that's a great I think lead into how the hell
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Speaker 1: does this work? What does it look like?
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Speaker 2: Well, going back like to the dishwasher moment, which was
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Speaker 2: so topic for us, it was it was realizing that
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Speaker 2: what he experiences and what I experience is very different.
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Speaker 2: And if you take the judgment out, like, there's not
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Speaker 2: a right or wrong in it. It's just the curiosity
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Speaker 2: of Okay, I want to understand what happens for you,
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Speaker 2: but I don't have an hour to hear this story
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Speaker 2: or to hear this explanation, so we got to get
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Speaker 2: it shorter. And that's when I think we began doing
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Speaker 2: all this work on emotions. And I actually was the
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Speaker 2: one who said, genuinely said I don't do emotion. Glenn
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Speaker 2: has enough for both of us. And I said that
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Speaker 2: for decades, and I was in my fifties before I
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Speaker 2: learned that our brains, how's emotion like it's it happens
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Speaker 2: to us, it's not. You can't opt out. We all
14:46
Speaker 2: have emotion. And you know, I think emotion is very misunderstood.
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Speaker 2: It's gotten a bad rap. You know, it's weaponized. There's
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Speaker 2: so many things about emotion we just don't even understand.
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Speaker 2: And when I began to under really, I'm missing a
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Speaker 2: huge component by making the statement I don't do emotion.
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Speaker 2: Glenn has enough for both of us. I didn't realize
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Speaker 2: what kind of damage I was doing to my own
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Speaker 2: body by not tuning in. I was I was always
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Speaker 2: one of those who just plowed through, you know, suck
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Speaker 2: it up, like ignore what's happening for me, just tune in,
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Speaker 2: make the world better for everyone around me, but don't
15:23
Speaker 2: care what's happening for me, and which is also very disconnecting.
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Speaker 2: And in those moments, I'm like, wow, I'm not even
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Speaker 2: sharing who I am, Like I'm not showing up authentically.
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Speaker 2: And then Glenn didn't feel safe to show up authentically
15:41
Speaker 2: until we began to realize this is a really really
15:44
Speaker 2: big part of it. And you know, we have just
15:50
Speaker 2: we had to simplify it though. That was the thing
15:52
Speaker 2: that we realized early on. I needed it to be simple.
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Speaker 2: And you know, I think Glenn realized, Okay, how can
15:59
Speaker 2: I bring emotion into this whole relationship married to someone
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Speaker 2: who says I don't do emotion? And I was telling him,
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Speaker 2: you got two minutes?
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Speaker 3: So yeah, yeah, And that was a big guiding principle
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Speaker 3: for me. It's like, Okay, I got two minutes. This
16:17
Speaker 3: is a powerful person, you know, I got two minutes.
16:21
Speaker 3: And so I was like, this is a this is
16:23
Speaker 3: a six week seminar she needs to go to, but
16:26
Speaker 3: she's not going to do that, So what can I
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Speaker 3: do in two minutes? So as again, and there's lots
16:31
Speaker 3: and lots of research behind this. But as I've began
16:34
Speaker 3: studying emotion and I realized, oh, there's over three thousand
16:38
Speaker 3: emotion words in the English language, but there's actually only
16:41
Speaker 3: eight core emotions. All other emotions are either levels of
16:45
Speaker 3: or hybrids of those eight. Well, I can learn a
16:47
Speaker 3: list of eight, phyllis can learn the list of eight.
16:50
Speaker 3: I can't learn the list of three thousand anything. So
16:53
Speaker 3: when I began understanding that, and of course I'm bringing
16:56
Speaker 3: all this home to her, and she's half paying attention
16:58
Speaker 3: to me because she's busy with her business and with
17:00
Speaker 3: our kids, but she's kind of tuning in. And that's
17:05
Speaker 3: where I developed what's called the core emotion wheel, so
17:09
Speaker 3: that people and it's a two minute exercise to start
17:13
Speaker 3: recognizing core emotions. Humans connect through core emotion. If somebody
17:18
Speaker 3: says I'm overwhelmed, the other person doesn't know what that means.
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Speaker 3: They know it means something. Everybody has their own work
17:23
Speaker 3: and definition. But if you say to someone I feel fear,
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Speaker 3: every human on the planet knows what fear is. All
17:29
Speaker 3: languages and the core emotion wheel we don't even know.
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Speaker 3: It's been translated into countless languages now because every human
17:35
Speaker 3: knows fear, every human knows anger, every human knows joy.
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Speaker 3: So it's the human condition. And that was part of
17:42
Speaker 3: what lit me up so much, is that this is
17:45
Speaker 3: based on the human condition. This is not a neat theory, philosophy,
17:50
Speaker 3: an idea we came up with one weekend around campfire.
17:53
Speaker 3: This is all research down to the human condition. How
17:57
Speaker 3: do babies operate? How did all of it's operate? When
18:00
Speaker 3: we were six months old, eight months old, twelve months old.
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Speaker 3: And that's when I realized, oh, we're coded for this.
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Speaker 3: That's where the word codes come from, in the connection codes.
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Speaker 3: We're hardwired this way. I'm faith based. I think there's
18:12
Speaker 3: some sort of God designer behind it all. But even
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Speaker 3: if there's not, it's still true. A six month old
18:17
Speaker 3: conveys what's happening for them and expresses their need, not
18:21
Speaker 3: because they believe in a God. It's because they're hardwired
18:25
Speaker 3: that way. And it's not because their parents believe in
18:27
Speaker 3: a God. It's just a function that way automatically. And
18:31
Speaker 3: so the problem is we get lost from ourselves. And
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Speaker 3: that was certainly my story. Fillis's story is I didn't
18:38
Speaker 3: know how to convey to her what was happening for
18:40
Speaker 3: me authentically and vulnerably, and now I do. I'm not
18:43
Speaker 3: perfect at it. I'm a pilgrim on the door, just
18:45
Speaker 3: like everybody else.
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Speaker 1: But all right, let's get I know you guys want
18:49
Speaker 1: to demonstrate this as we kind of wind down here,
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Speaker 1: Let's see what this looks like in action.
18:53
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, and for your listeners, we want to make
18:56
Speaker 2: sure they have access to this. So let's make sure,
18:59
Speaker 2: we do that for all your listeners, so you free
19:02
Speaker 2: free download, free download.
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Speaker 1: And just for the listeners here who are listening on
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Speaker 1: the podcast, you're holding up an emotion wheel, yes, okay, yeah,
19:12
Speaker 1: it just has emotion wheel.
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Speaker 2: Eight emotions on it. And so we will demonstrate how
19:18
Speaker 2: we do this with each other. Okay, I'll go first. Uh, okay,
19:23
Speaker 2: a lot of joy that the weather is incredible right now.
19:28
Speaker 2: Just love, love, the sunshine and the warmth. Anger. I
19:34
Speaker 2: would say, oh, I could do a lot of these
19:37
Speaker 2: around this one topic, just that we disconnected this weekend
19:42
Speaker 2: and how to fight feel anger because it it really
19:46
Speaker 2: messed up our Monday in a big way, and I
19:48
Speaker 2: don't know how to kind of catch up from that.
19:50
Speaker 2: So I feel anger about that, feel really hurt by
19:56
Speaker 2: just that I don't feel like you've slowed down with
19:59
Speaker 2: me in it, and we're just so affected by it.
20:04
Speaker 2: Sad that it did derail us for a whole day,
20:09
Speaker 2: like really sad about that. I think in those moments,
20:12
Speaker 2: I feel really lonely because it just it seems so
20:17
Speaker 2: vulnerable to try to talk to anybody else about it,
20:21
Speaker 2: and so I get really into just myself, and that
20:24
Speaker 2: feels really lonely.
20:27
Speaker 1: Fear.
20:28
Speaker 2: I think that carries just fear in those moments because
20:31
Speaker 2: then I feel fear of being stuck and it affecting
20:37
Speaker 2: not just one day, but two, three, four days. And yeah,
20:41
Speaker 2: I feel fear in that guilt that I am part
20:47
Speaker 2: just a huge part of the equation, you know, guilt
20:50
Speaker 2: that I don't always tune in to you, slow down
20:55
Speaker 2: with you, become a good listener and and make that
21:01
Speaker 2: space for you. So I feel guilt in that. I
21:03
Speaker 2: feel just shame because I have such great tools, and
21:08
Speaker 2: you know, this weekend was crazy busy with our family
21:10
Speaker 2: Thanksgiving celebration and everybody coming into town. And that's when
21:14
Speaker 2: I think, that's when I in the busyness is when
21:19
Speaker 2: I think I lose with you. So I feel just
21:22
Speaker 2: shame that I can't keep it, keep the tools going
21:26
Speaker 2: during really heightened times like that.
21:30
Speaker 3: Yeah, wow, thank you now for me. Tons of guilt
21:34
Speaker 3: just in that miss with each other. A lot of
21:37
Speaker 3: shame in that too. I mean, we're the founders of
21:39
Speaker 3: the connection codes. We ought to be perfect and we're not,
21:43
Speaker 3: and I hate it when we're when we and I
21:46
Speaker 3: just miss so badly and lost from you. Listen, fear
21:52
Speaker 3: you know you're mentioning, just we get behind on some things,
21:55
Speaker 3: and you know we're always busy. We got lots of
21:57
Speaker 3: stuff happening at the event this weekend, and fear that
22:00
Speaker 3: it's all going to be on point lonely in that
22:04
Speaker 3: just that a lot of that's my responsibility. It's just
22:07
Speaker 3: up to me to make those things happen. And if
22:10
Speaker 3: I miss on things, if I miss a day, that's
22:13
Speaker 3: a lot and lots of sad that we ever miss
22:18
Speaker 3: Because you're my best friend and I just adore you
22:21
Speaker 3: and I love being connected with you. This is sad
22:24
Speaker 3: when we get lost to each other. A lot of hurt,
22:28
Speaker 3: you know, that's kind of what started, what sparked it,
22:30
Speaker 3: Just hurt with you and not conveying that well, not
22:34
Speaker 3: processing that. A lot of anger. I'm really driven in this.
22:38
Speaker 3: We that's what so much of what has gotten us
22:41
Speaker 3: where we are today. You know, so much anger that
22:44
Speaker 3: we were going to live this well, which we usually do,
22:48
Speaker 3: and you know that core level anger has driven us
22:51
Speaker 3: to be really powerful in this and tons of joy
22:53
Speaker 3: in that, I mean, and even our plan this evening,
22:56
Speaker 3: I'm super excited about. Somebody's joy is getting to be
22:59
Speaker 3: with you and setting aside, reserved sacred time just for
23:04
Speaker 3: the two of us. Yeah, so much joy. That's woty exciting.
23:09
Speaker 1: Thanks, thanks for sharing.
23:11
Speaker 3: And that's the wheel.
23:13
Speaker 1: So what I what I noticed is now, this is
23:19
Speaker 1: this is a what a time you would set aside
23:24
Speaker 1: once a week, maybe twice a week.
23:25
Speaker 3: However once today.
23:28
Speaker 1: Once a day, okay, once a day to check in,
23:30
Speaker 1: quote unquote, check in with each other. Now, what I
23:34
Speaker 1: noticed is you each went around the wheel. The other
23:37
Speaker 1: person is quiet and listening and obviously acknowledging that they're
23:43
Speaker 1: hearing the other person. Is there a point at which
23:47
Speaker 1: you are able to reply?
23:51
Speaker 3: M I may ask her later. I mean, we've done
23:56
Speaker 3: around this so already know. But if it's something I
24:00
Speaker 3: might ask her about it later. Okay, the wheel is sacred.
24:03
Speaker 3: We don't ever interrupt the wheel.
24:05
Speaker 1: Okay, I appreciate that. But if we go back to
24:09
Speaker 1: the uh, the dishwasher example, Phyllis, if you were to
24:19
Speaker 1: say you know what was going on there, and Glenn
24:22
Speaker 1: you said, well, I felt whatever hurt is. Does that
24:29
Speaker 1: give you the opportunity then to create a discussion around that.
24:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and you like in that situation, I would
24:36
Speaker 2: I would say, oh, what's happening with the hurt? I'm
24:40
Speaker 2: opening the door. It's an invitation. I think that for
24:44
Speaker 2: too long, my response would be to defend myself. Well,
24:47
Speaker 2: I wouldn't trying to hurt you. What in the world's
24:50
Speaker 2: wrong with you? Everybody else on the planet when they
24:52
Speaker 2: are thanked, they like it, and that would never connect us.
24:56
Speaker 2: That would derail us more. But if I slow down
25:00
Speaker 2: and I say, ooh, babe, what's happening with the hurt?
25:04
Speaker 2: That's an invitation. It's like I'm saying, come in and
25:07
Speaker 2: sit down with me. I want to hear about your hurt,
25:11
Speaker 2: because that's just what's firing for him. It's not an
25:14
Speaker 2: accusation that I have hurt him, even though I am
25:18
Speaker 2: the other person in the relationship. But it's said he
25:21
Speaker 2: felt hurt by being thanked for unloading the dishwasher, and
25:25
Speaker 2: so it's like, I want to know because that's what's
25:28
Speaker 2: happening for him. I want to know, so tell me more.
25:32
Speaker 2: And then there's the what you're trying to get to
25:35
Speaker 2: is the need? What is the need? And that would
25:39
Speaker 2: be the way that I would end by saying, so,
25:41
Speaker 2: what do you need, babe, And then he would be
25:44
Speaker 2: the one who would have to say either oh, I
25:47
Speaker 2: just need to process it with you when I feel it,
25:49
Speaker 2: or he would maybe say, well, instead of using those words,
25:53
Speaker 2: could you say it differently, like could you say thanks
25:56
Speaker 2: for partnering with me in the kitchen? And I'd be like, okay, sure,
26:01
Speaker 2: well she did not have.
26:02
Speaker 1: So that that's the discussion that's going on when you're
26:05
Speaker 1: doing the wheel. The purpose of the wheel is I mean,
26:10
Speaker 1: obviously it is an invitation for both of you, both parties,
26:15
Speaker 1: to be vulnerable, to be aware. But at that time,
26:21
Speaker 1: as you were saying, Glenn, the wheel is sacred, you're not.
26:24
Speaker 3: You're not.
26:24
Speaker 1: That's not a time for discussion, right, that's a time
26:28
Speaker 1: for what Sharing the core.
26:31
Speaker 3: Emotional wheel is an exercise. The individual doing the wheel
26:34
Speaker 3: is exercising their emotional muscle to recognize these eight core
26:37
Speaker 3: emotions to find themselves. The other person, we call it
26:41
Speaker 3: the OO is simply ooing is being as audible listening.
26:45
Speaker 3: That ooh is a label. There's dozens of versions of
26:47
Speaker 3: the oo. But she's audible with me. She's not silent,
26:50
Speaker 3: she's that would be called a still face. So she
26:54
Speaker 3: is audible with me. But yeah, we never interrupt the wheel.
26:57
Speaker 3: The other thing we're talking about is we call it
27:00
Speaker 3: the three phrases, where if I said to her, baby,
27:02
Speaker 3: I felt hurt by what you said, she would go, oh, wait,
27:05
Speaker 3: what's happened? That's an ooh, she'd say, what's happening with her?
27:08
Speaker 3: What am I missing? She's missing it not because she's dumb,
27:11
Speaker 3: She's missing it because I haven't told her. Yeah, and
27:13
Speaker 3: that's such an incredible invitation. And now I'm going to
27:17
Speaker 3: tell her. What amazes me is we do this in
27:20
Speaker 3: thirty seconds or less. It blows my mind because we
27:23
Speaker 3: used to do We used to not do it in
27:25
Speaker 3: three weeks, literally three weeks. We would have these conflicts
27:28
Speaker 3: and fights. And now almost all of our and we
27:31
Speaker 3: really miss each other on Sunday evening, but almost all
27:34
Speaker 3: of our misses are processed in thirty seconds or less,
27:37
Speaker 3: which I can so as.
27:38
Speaker 1: We kind of wind down here. Obviously, there are a
27:42
Speaker 1: lot of models out there for relationships, for connecting. What
27:45
Speaker 1: do you feel sets you, guys apart from the others
27:49
Speaker 1: out there.
27:50
Speaker 3: Because this is just a human condition, This is already
27:52
Speaker 3: hardwired inside of us. Every baby on the planet is
27:56
Speaker 3: a connection coder. We just get lost at age two, three, four, five, six, whatever.
28:01
Speaker 3: I was lost by the time I was five years old.
28:03
Speaker 3: My parents they would say many things, but they would say,
28:06
Speaker 3: you stop your crying. I'll give you something to cry about.
28:08
Speaker 3: And so I'm not mad at my parents. I think
28:10
Speaker 3: they were doing what they thought was best. But they
28:12
Speaker 3: train me early in life to shut up, to not
28:18
Speaker 3: convey anything, and so it took me only a half
28:21
Speaker 3: century to recover from that.
28:24
Speaker 2: I would say it's the simplicity too, Like I would
28:27
Speaker 2: say in every relationship, whether it's a partnered pair or
28:31
Speaker 2: in business or in friendship, when you can show up
28:35
Speaker 2: and in two minutes kind of tune in like, hey,
28:38
Speaker 2: this is what's happening for me today, that's huge. Like
28:41
Speaker 2: if in two minutes I can come in and say
28:45
Speaker 2: here's where I'm at. You know, it's like and there's
28:48
Speaker 2: such a connection with emotion. It fires, It tickles that
28:51
Speaker 2: region of your brain when I share all those things
28:54
Speaker 2: and I think about that guy with what we just did.
28:57
Speaker 3: Now you know so.
28:58
Speaker 2: Much more about us then you would have ever known,
29:01
Speaker 2: because we shared so vulnerably in front of you what
29:05
Speaker 2: was happening for us, and so you get there so quickly.
29:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love that because oftentimes someone could be doing
29:14
Speaker 1: something or saying something and you might have no idea
29:19
Speaker 1: what the underlying emotion is. In fact, it could be
29:23
Speaker 1: like what you were scared of that you were acting
29:27
Speaker 1: such and such a way. I thought you were being X,
29:29
Speaker 1: Y and Z. But so what I think is so
29:35
Speaker 1: incredible about you both is that you've been together for
29:39
Speaker 1: so long and even in the midst of the storm
29:45
Speaker 1: of the relationship, you were able to grab a hold
29:50
Speaker 1: of the wheel and turn things around. That takes a
29:55
Speaker 1: lot of what does that take a lot of takes
29:58
Speaker 1: a lot of heart, to take a lot of awareness.
30:01
Speaker 1: This is no joke, right. People have to be willing
30:05
Speaker 1: to be vulnerable, Yeah, for sure, But for.
30:09
Speaker 3: Most people, they're just I don't want to be too offensive,
30:13
Speaker 3: they're just illiterate in this. I did not know. I
30:16
Speaker 3: had no idea that this even existed. And to realize
30:19
Speaker 3: this was literally firing in my brain. It's brain chemistry.
30:22
Speaker 3: It was firing in my brain the whole damn time,
30:26
Speaker 3: and I didn't even know it. And these tools taught
30:30
Speaker 3: me how to find myself and I couldn't. She didn't.
30:34
Speaker 3: She couldn't find me because I couldn't even find myself. Yeah,
30:37
Speaker 3: and once I found myself, I was able to convey
30:39
Speaker 3: authentically and vulnerably to her.
30:41
Speaker 2: You know, guy, with what you do? I love the
30:44
Speaker 2: idea of what do we do with trauma? And you
30:47
Speaker 2: think about, Oh, if we had this in a two
30:51
Speaker 2: minute tool where I can find the trauma in my life,
30:55
Speaker 2: which we all have it, we all have trauma and
30:59
Speaker 2: to go because I think for me especially, I'm sure
31:02
Speaker 2: your listeners there's those of just like me who'd go,
31:04
Speaker 2: oh my gosh, I have to go away for a
31:06
Speaker 2: month to deal with the trauma of my childhood. Well,
31:09
Speaker 2: who has a month? But if I have a two
31:12
Speaker 2: minute tool that every day I can tune in and
31:14
Speaker 2: I can begin to find the anger, that was a
31:18
Speaker 2: big one for me. Until this year, I've really struggled
31:22
Speaker 2: with anger. Like I can be angry about politics, or
31:26
Speaker 2: about the war, or about famine. But I was having
31:30
Speaker 2: a super hard time finding the anger inside my body,
31:33
Speaker 2: inside myself, about my own story. And I had to
31:36
Speaker 2: really get some help, like how do I connect to that?
31:39
Speaker 2: And I've a first I realized I am terrified of
31:42
Speaker 2: my own story, my own anger, and so I had
31:47
Speaker 2: to talk about it a lot to go, yeah, I
31:49
Speaker 2: have a lot of fear to go into the anger.
31:52
Speaker 2: I feel like it's gonna engulf me and I'm never
31:55
Speaker 2: gonna come out. And so then, but then when I
31:58
Speaker 2: began kind of going okay, let me tune in and
32:01
Speaker 2: let me I went down the road of my childhood
32:05
Speaker 2: and it was interesting because I loved my mom like
32:08
Speaker 2: she was my friend. I thought my anger would be
32:11
Speaker 2: towards my dad, But then when I started doing this work,
32:14
Speaker 2: it was towards my mom that she was silent, she
32:17
Speaker 2: stood by my dad, she never protected me, she didn't
32:20
Speaker 2: stand up for me. And I'm like, wow, I did
32:23
Speaker 2: not know that was in there. I did not know
32:25
Speaker 2: I was storing that anger. But it's so cool to
32:29
Speaker 2: have a two minute tool that you can use not
32:32
Speaker 2: just once a day. I do this many times a
32:35
Speaker 2: day where I'm like, okay, what's happening with me? My
32:37
Speaker 2: body is telling me something is happening, and I can
32:40
Speaker 2: really quickly go through and go okay, is it fear,
32:43
Speaker 2: is it hurt? Is it sad?
32:44
Speaker 1: Lonely?
32:45
Speaker 2: Where is it? Where is it? Let me find it?
32:47
Speaker 2: And it's helped me to process tons of my whole
32:52
Speaker 2: life without going away for a month or going to
32:57
Speaker 2: a treatment center for a week, Like, it's phenomenal to
33:01
Speaker 2: me to have a simple tool that really works. And
33:04
Speaker 2: what I love is that this is phenomenal with children.
33:07
Speaker 2: Children are so much better at connecting to their core
33:10
Speaker 2: emotions than adults are because they've not been tainted yet.
33:14
Speaker 2: They're still really able to identify their real core emotions.
33:20
Speaker 2: And so you go, wow, I want to be like that,
33:22
Speaker 2: like if I want to teach this to my kids
33:24
Speaker 2: and all the kids on the planet, because if they
33:26
Speaker 2: can speak up and say, hey, I feel really lonely,
33:30
Speaker 2: I don't feel supported here, I don't feel seen, I
33:33
Speaker 2: don't feel heard, Like that's huge.
33:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, all right, As we kind of close out here,
33:39
Speaker 1: how do people learn more about this, what you're doing
33:42
Speaker 1: and the training you guys offer.
33:44
Speaker 2: What's the best way, I would say, jump on our
33:47
Speaker 2: website connection codes dot co coo co and that's where
33:52
Speaker 2: you immediately get the free download of the Core Emotion
33:55
Speaker 2: Wheel and all the instructions on how to use it.
33:58
Speaker 2: That's the best place to start because that will take
34:02
Speaker 2: you down a journey of more and then you'll also
34:05
Speaker 2: find out from our website about our book and our classes.
34:08
Speaker 2: We have a School of Connection. We have so many
34:11
Speaker 2: things that we have to offer now that helps people
34:14
Speaker 2: just to simplify the tools that we have.
34:17
Speaker 1: Okay, that's connectioncodes dot co dot co and we'll have
34:22
Speaker 1: all that linked up here at the show notes page
34:25
Speaker 1: at the Trauma Therapist podcast dot com. Folks. Really inspiring.
34:34
Speaker 1: How long you've been married forty three years? Damn incredible.
34:39
Speaker 1: I mean, thank you so much for being here.
34:42
Speaker 3: We'll be in
34:43
Speaker 1: Touch, all right, you guys, take care.