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30: Relationship Red Flags: Recognize the Patterns and Have the Hard Conversations · The Everyday Awesome Project

• 0:23
  Polly Mertens: Hey, superstars, welcome back, Polly here and Sam Pruitt, what's up, beautiful humans.
• 0:28
  Polly Mertens: Hey, hey guys, we've got a.
• 0:29
  Polly Mertens: Really I think this is a juicy topic today.
• 0:33
  Polly Mertens: So I'm going to say what the topic is and, Miss Pruitt, if you tell us a little bit about what we're talking about.
• 0:37
  Polly Mertens: So we're calling this episode today pivoting in partner relationships.
• 0:43
  Polly Mertens: I want to add intimate partner relationships, but it is part.
• 0:46
  Polly Mertens: So we're not talking about the business world, we're talking about partners, your life partners men, men, women, women, men, women, whatever that looks like for you married, unmarried, non-denominational and all that stuff.
• 0:57
  Polly Mertens: So say something about that.
• 0:59
  Polly Mertens: What are we talking about there?
• 1:01
  Samantha Pruitt: So what we're going to get into today is when we say pivot and part of that title when is it?
• 1:09
  Samantha Pruitt: Either time and it's always time, by the way to do many of these things to get clear with yourself about what's going on in terms of the relationship, to revisit your values with yourself and your partner, to reestablish boundaries, if need be yourself and your partner, and how to grow forward together and stay in their relationship.
• 1:32
  Samantha Pruitt: Or maybe you've evaluated and come to a point it's no longer good to stay together.
• 1:39
  Samantha Pruitt: So that's a lot, but we know in humanity lots of people are partnered and we want to just make sure that people are always sort of taking time in their life to think about this really huge aspect of their life journey.
• 1:56
  Polly Mertens: You know, so much joy and so much suffering, you know, depending on how you're doing it.
• 2:04
  Polly Mertens: And so, to lead us off, I want to say a couple things, just a little caveat before we begin.
• 2:12
  Polly Mertens: So I'm not in a relationship currently, except for with myself and my divine source.
• 2:15
  Polly Mertens: Let's just say, yeah, I'm not currently in a relationship, have been married, have had multiple long termterm relationships, lots of small-term relationships or whatnot.
• 2:25
  Polly Mertens: So I just want to.
• 2:25
  Polly Mertens: I'm not a relationship expert.
• 2:27
  Polly Mertens: I'm going to give you, you know, my sense from lived experience, if you will.
• 2:31
  Polly Mertens: I've taken some courses, but I'm not coming at this like I'm a relationship coach or guide at any means.
• 2:38
  Polly Mertens: And you, my dear, tell us your, your journey.
• 2:41
  Samantha Pruitt: I have all of these things.
• 2:43
  Samantha Pruitt: So, um, I have been married twice.
• 2:47
  Samantha Pruitt: I'm on my second marriage.
• 2:49
  Samantha Pruitt: It is, uh, 26 years.
• 2:51
  Samantha Pruitt: The first one was to my high school prom date.
• 2:54
  Samantha Pruitt: That's a whole other story, but anyway and um.
• 2:59
  Samantha Pruitt: So, two major life relationships and I am in a long-term relationship.
• 3:04
  Samantha Pruitt: Now I'm not a relationship coach either, except in the work that we do with humans.
• 3:09
  Samantha Pruitt: A majority of them have some kind of partner relationship and it has a radical impact on them, their journey and how they operate in the world and, in particular, our business clients who operate businesses and own businesses or lead companies and organizations.
• 3:28
  Samantha Pruitt: It really does impact in a massive way.
• 3:31
  Samantha Pruitt: So we're not relationship experts, that's not our whole genre, but it is a fabric of everything that we do, for sure.
• 3:42
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, and I think you know, I don't remember a time where we've coached the business owner or leader and the relationship at home is a part of something that's shifting or they're handling or something is, you know, tied in with it.
• 3:57
  Polly Mertens: You know, because we're the human, is not just the silo, they're in a partnership at home.
• 4:01
  Polly Mertens: Okay, well, you know we're working with them.
• 4:03
  Polly Mertens: That's obviously going to have some, some impact both ways.
• 4:07
  Polly Mertens: You know how that person is and you know, okay, we're not going to go into near-term stories, but we'll, we'll touch, we'll touch on some of those Cause I think we've got some juicy stories.
• 4:13
  Polly Mertens: So the other little piece of housekeeping that I wanted to share.
• 4:16
  Polly Mertens: So, you know, big old thing that I want to put on the side is this conversation is not if you are in a relationship or in a situation where you're getting lied to, cheated on, there's abuse, you've got narcissistic overpowering, there's deep codependent.
• 4:40
  Polly Mertens: You know we're, we're putting those heavy lifting topics off onto the side.
• 4:44
  Polly Mertens: This is not the nature of where this conversation is going to go.
• 4:49
  Polly Mertens: So, if you're looking for something, if you've come and you, you know, listening to this, you're like, oh great.
• 4:52
  Polly Mertens: You know, I want to make a pivot in my life I've got this complete jerk and he's abusing me or whatever.
• 4:57
  Polly Mertens: It's like we're not going to go that deep right.
• 4:59
  Polly Mertens: You know it's kind of like we don't.
• 5:01
  Polly Mertens: We we do talk some about trauma in our work but we don't do like heavy, you know, like those types of things.
• 5:07
  Polly Mertens: So in this conversation we're going to put those.
• 5:10
  Polly Mertens: You've got some heavy abuse.
• 5:12
  Polly Mertens: Please get help for that, please.
• 5:15
  Polly Mertens: You know it's absolutely something we want you to address and be honest with yourself.
• 5:19
  Polly Mertens: We hope that through.
• 5:20
  Polly Mertens: If you continue to listen to this, I think there is value to people that are facing those situations.
• 5:26
  Polly Mertens: I think you will hear in our stories things of value, but if you're in dire straits, this isn't necessarily the solution or all the things.
• 5:34
  Polly Mertens: There's definitely a pivot needed.
• 5:37
  Samantha Pruitt: But we want you to get help right now, in an immediate source, so that there are helplines.
• 5:43
  Samantha Pruitt: For that there is counseling therapy.
• 5:44
  Samantha Pruitt: You need to tellines.
• 5:44
  Samantha Pruitt: For that there is counseling therapy.
• 5:45
  Samantha Pruitt: You need to tell somebody today's the day, so we will encourage that.
• 5:49
  Samantha Pruitt: If you stumbled upon this and this really attracted your eyeballs and you've got something going on, please Do it.
• 5:57
  Samantha Pruitt: Today is the day.
• 5:58
  Polly Mertens: Now, yeah, take action, action.
• 6:06
  Polly Mertens: So where we want to go with this conversation is the relationship maybe has some dysfunction, but it's not, you know, completely disempowering to one or two of you that are in it.
• 6:12
  Polly Mertens: It's just gotten a little off the rails.
• 6:14
  Polly Mertens: Basically everybody everything else, whatever married relationship for six months, all of you know, all use out there whatever married relationship for six months, all of it.
• 6:24
  Samantha Pruitt: You know all yous out there.
• 6:24
  Samantha Pruitt: No one's doing it perfectly, and why the hell should we?
• 6:27
  Samantha Pruitt: We're totally imperfect humans.
• 6:29
  Samantha Pruitt: That's why we laugh about it.
• 6:31
  Samantha Pruitt: It's quite hilarious what happens out there, Us included.
• 6:35
  Polly Mertens: And one of the things we said before we started airing is like, just like finances managing your business finances, or doing a good job of looking at your P&L and your business I taught this in high school or even college.
• 6:48
  Polly Mertens: Relationship is one of the key things that we navigate.
• 6:52
  Polly Mertens: It has so much going on through the life of our journey.
• 6:57
  Samantha Pruitt: It's how humans evolved in civilization, but we don't teach anything about it.
• 7:01
  Samantha Pruitt: We don't teach it.
• 7:02
  Polly Mertens: So what we want to focus on today.
• 7:03
  Polly Mertens: So I'll just kind of give you a prelude of where we're going.
• 7:05
  Polly Mertens: So we're going to talk some of the obvious signs or symptoms that you've got some.
• 7:10
  Polly Mertens: You know something's not working right and you probably know you already know that.
• 7:15
  Polly Mertens: So we're going to talk about what they might look like.
• 7:18
  Polly Mertens: We're going to introduce something if you haven't heard this before, it's called the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse by Dr Gottman, john Gottman of the Gottman Institute, which is like four glaring signs and four phases of relationship deterioration and what that causes.
• 7:34
  Polly Mertens: And then we want to say, okay, well, if you are in a relationship and you want to, you know, adjust, pivot, stay in it, you've decided, you know, thinking, hearing of all that.
• 7:41
  Polly Mertens: Okay, how do I?
• 7:42
  Polly Mertens: How do I get started?
• 7:43
  Polly Mertens: Where do I need to look?
• 7:44
  Polly Mertens: What are the?
• 7:45
  Polly Mertens: Looking at myself and looking at my partner.
• 7:46
  Polly Mertens: And then, if we have time you know we haven't gone too, too long with all this yummy topic We'll see if we can share with you, you know, 10 qualities of healthy relationships, or we can at least link it in the show notes.
• 7:56
  Samantha Pruitt: So yeah, All right.
• 7:57
  Polly Mertens: So at you I do this I was like yeah, okay, some obvious signs.
• 8:08
  Polly Mertens: There's a little disturbance in the force between you and your partner.
• 8:12
  Polly Mertens: Number one drains in your joy and I would say low energy drains.
• 8:18
  Polly Mertens: So like being around that person just sucks you down instead of lights you up, power you up.
• 8:24
  Samantha Pruitt: Power you up Exactly.
• 8:25
  Polly Mertens: Power you up, right?
• 8:26
  Polly Mertens: Another word, another way to say it like there's toxicity, like just something about being around them is toxic, emotionally toxic, spiritually toxic, verbally toxic.
• 8:37
  Polly Mertens: You know, their habits are toxic, something like that we could look at judgmental, or like critical or assertive behavior, right, whether you're being the one doing these things, like something's coming out in you and you're finding yourself judging a lot or being overly critical, or you're receiving that Lack of trust Oof, that's an ugly one.
• 8:59
  Polly Mertens: You know, when the trust breaks down, that, yeah, that's.
• 9:04
  Polly Mertens: You know we're losing some, we're losing good ground here.
• 9:07
  Polly Mertens: This one too especially women, but it can happen for men too is not feeling safe.
• 9:12
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, you know, oh, totally, it can happen for everybody, right, right, and safety can be emotional that's right, and physical, emotional.
• 9:20
  Polly Mertens: all of that, yeah, yeah, and then not intimate.
• 9:23
  Polly Mertens: Right so intimacy is a lot of things right, sexual being one of them, but also intimacy not wanting to be touched by them, not wanting to be around them physically, not wanting to open up and share.
• 9:34
  Polly Mertens: You know, intimate emotions yeah.
• 9:36
  Polly Mertens: Goings on unresolved conflicts, that, that things that either you're, I call it, so I've done this.
• 9:44
  Polly Mertens: You know, maybe this is time for a story, but I, you know, there have been times in my life, definitely.
• 9:50
  Polly Mertens: So unresolved conflicts that could be.
• 9:52
  Polly Mertens: You know, you have all of this could be like mini or macro, right, micro or macro, I mean it's like unresolved conflicts could be like oh damn, he didn't, you know, do this right, he left the toilet seat up, like you know, whatever, or um, something you don't agree on, but you just sort of shove it down right or you brush it off.
• 10:11
  Polly Mertens: Or it's like oh, you know, and especially in the beginning of a relationship, when we're in that lovey-dovey kind of phase, we're often more agreeable, tolerant.
• 10:20
  Polly Mertens: 26 years, I'm like I don't I mean you guys, but you're very a lot of flexibility exactly so does my partner exactly yeah, and and that.
• 10:34
  Polly Mertens: So that's and it's part of like the ways of being that you go about this, right, you know.
• 10:39
  Polly Mertens: So you guys have a chosen communication style.
• 10:43
  Polly Mertens: I'm sure that you've arrived at, and maybe some people I've seen, with this unresolved conflict it can look like an agreement to not let disagreements get pushed under the rug or not go to bed with a disagreement.
• 10:56
  Polly Mertens: The conflict doesn't allow to linger, because that sort of is poison.
• 11:00
  Polly Mertens: If sometimes that you sleep on it, it only grows.
• 11:03
  Polly Mertens: Maybe you sleep on it and maybe it's your energy style.
• 11:06
  Polly Mertens: It's like, oh, you get all puffy and then the next day you're fine, you can talk about it right, but those unresolved conflicts A couple more here.
• 11:14
  Polly Mertens: So you're either shoving down or you don't share your needs.
• 11:20
  Samantha Pruitt: More importantly, your wants.
• 11:21
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, ouch, yeah, needs.
• 11:24
  Samantha Pruitt: More importantly, your wants, yeah, ouch, yeah.
• 11:25
  Samantha Pruitt: A lot of the ones you were saying up front reminded me of, um, you know people struggling for control, struggling for.
• 11:33
  Samantha Pruitt: You know fear and anxiety and things of that nature.
• 11:36
  Samantha Pruitt: And now you're getting like down the rabbit hole, if you will, even to these really deep areas of self-worth.
• 11:42
  Samantha Pruitt: Am I I being seen?
• 11:44
  Samantha Pruitt: Am I being heard?
• 11:45
  Samantha Pruitt: Am I being respected?
• 11:47
  Samantha Pruitt: Am I being appreciated for my uniqueness in the world?
• 11:52
  Polly Mertens: This is the deeper layers, yeah, and this was the last one which is not feeling seen or heard, and your partner doesn't prioritize your happiness.
• 11:59
  Polly Mertens: It's like, oh, they just don't seem to care.
• 12:00
  Polly Mertens: Or you, you don't seem to care about your partner.
• 12:01
  Polly Mertens: All this, your happiness, like you know, it's like, oh, they just don't seem to care.
• 12:04
  Polly Mertens: Or you know, or you, you don't seem to care about your partner.
• 12:07
  Polly Mertens: You know, all this stuff could go two ways.
• 12:09
  Polly Mertens: So the way we say this is hear it for yourself, or hear it for how you're being responded to, or you're yeah, it takes two people to be in a partnership you know, and so I'll just maybe talk a little bit about.
• 12:24
  Polly Mertens: And so I'll just maybe talk a little bit about, and I I have done this, you know, in recent experiences and in older experiences of relationship with um.
• 12:30
  Polly Mertens: I don't, I, you know, I haven't talked to the therapist to know exactly what the roots of some of these are, but if I had to self-assess myself, there's definitely um worthy I think the worthiness is probably part of it Um, where, where I and some of the two I have this thing about in relationship, that I've noticed that I'm speaking it publicly now and it's like okay, declaring that it's not continuing on in my future, and that is, you know.
• 12:56
  Polly Mertens: You think that if, or I have thought that if I don't, if I say what I really feel or want, or my true self-expression, my truth, that I'll lose that person or they'll think less than of me or something like that, right, and so I don't feel comfortable.
• 13:12
  Polly Mertens: I haven't felt like my voice, that's a vulnerability, yeah, it's like, hey, I need this, I want, and it's not like a demand but even small micro things or macro things, not feeling comfortable at my own level, even not even saying that it wasn't safe, it was just that was my insecurity about this person is going to do this.
• 13:35
  Polly Mertens: If I say that, right, and whether or not that was true, that was just something that was made up in my mind and I was causing it.
• 13:43
  Polly Mertens: I was causing my own shutdown.
• 13:45
  Samantha Pruitt: Well, what you're reminding me is that we learn relationships through growing up in family units, where we are in these dependent and codependent relationships.
• 13:56
  Samantha Pruitt: Right, there's this relationship dynamic as we're evolving, from a baby and the needs you know to be taken care of by our parents or our family or whatever, and then our siblings, and then et cetera, et cetera.
• 14:08
  Samantha Pruitt: So these skills, or lack thereof, or awareness of our needs versus the needs of others, et cetera.
• 14:17
  Samantha Pruitt: You know, all of that evolves as we are evolving as a human, and so I'll just speak briefly to, for example I said it jokingly because it is hilarious that I got married to my high school prom date the first time.
• 14:31
  Samantha Pruitt: But I mean, I was really a child, Like I was a young person in the world who didn't have a lot of skillset around relationship, except what I had witnessed from my own upbringing and family unit.
• 14:44
  Samantha Pruitt: And then, when I went out and found that partner initially to be, you know, a husband and to start a life with, I was coming from this incredibly dysfunctional experience and you know I was.
• 14:58
  Samantha Pruitt: I've been on my own since I was 16.
• 15:00
  Samantha Pruitt: So I was really in this vulnerable place of looking for someone to help take care of me and bring stability and all of these things completely the wrong reasons, by the way, to get into any actual partnership that could be quality and lifelong, and also just being incredibly young and immature, as we were, you know.
• 15:19
  Samantha Pruitt: So we don't come to these relationships with these skills generally, and so a lot of times we are learning them as we go.
• 15:28
  Samantha Pruitt: Right.
• 15:28
  Samantha Pruitt: We're building the plane as we are flying it through the air at warp speed.
• 15:33
  Polly Mertens: And.
• 15:33
  Samantha Pruitt: I think that's where a lot of the pain and suffering and confusion comes from.
• 15:39
  Polly Mertens: Absolutely, and I would say I love what you're saying there at the end is like being in these relationships teaches us how to be in relationships, exactly, Totally.
• 15:47
  Polly Mertens: So we hired a relationship I was in.
• 15:51
  Polly Mertens: We hired a coach, a relationship coach, to help us through.
• 15:54
  Polly Mertens: You know, and people do therapy, either separate or together or whatever you want to call it Right, I haven't done.
• 15:59
  Polly Mertens: I tried a little couples counseling when I was with my husband but the counselor just was like not at a level that I was like we're not going to get anything.
• 16:07
  Polly Mertens: You know, it just wasn't workable.
• 16:09
  Polly Mertens: But find a good therapist, find a good coach.
• 16:11
  Polly Mertens: And wasn't workable, but find a good therapist, find a good coach.
• 16:15
  Polly Mertens: And the coach that we hired was giving us really good coaching and one of the things so I was in that relationship I was on a should I say, should I go like we'll talk about the four horsemen apocalypse?
• 16:23
  Polly Mertens: I was, you know, really down the levels in terms of things I had let things go for so long, right, and of my own admission, like my own shutting down of my voice and asking for what I needed and fear and stuff like that.
• 16:36
  Polly Mertens: And one thing I said to myself as we, as I thought about hiring this coach and we did was there's no better place for me to do this work than with the person I'm with right now?
• 16:47
  Polly Mertens: I was like if I you know, because a lot of times we say, oh, if I leave this job, if I leave this relationship, if I move across the country your problems don't go with you, do they?
• 16:56
  Polly Mertens: Well, you go with you.
• 16:58
  Polly Mertens: Exactly, I was taking me to the next relationship and I was like well if.
• 17:04
  Polly Mertens: I'm going to practice being a voice in the world, being seen, and you know all the things that I was working with this coach on.
• 17:11
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, I was like do it right here and see how it responds.
• 17:15
  Polly Mertens: Right, whatever the response was going to be, I was going to learn something right.
• 17:18
  Polly Mertens: And so I just want to encourage you.
• 17:21
  Polly Mertens: If you have that trait or any of this this isn't necessarily like none of this we're saying jump out of the relationship you're in right now Like boom, make a quick pivot exit stage, left.
• 17:31
  Polly Mertens: It's your choice, which it is, but you know, I think sometimes we get in these relationships long-term, short-term, whatever to teach us stuff, to learn stuff about ourselves, 100%, 100%.
• 17:47
  Samantha Pruitt: I mean I did obviously end up getting divorced and we did try counseling and therapy.
• 17:49
  Samantha Pruitt: It didn't work at all.
• 17:50
  Samantha Pruitt: And then I was single for a while, single mother, and then when I remarried, we actually did do marital counseling because there was stepchildren, blended family, there was a lot of complexities to this life we were going to build together and so, you know, we're both running businesses.
• 18:07
  Samantha Pruitt: There was a lot going on and so it made sense to do that.
• 18:10
  Samantha Pruitt: I'll tell you, personally, I didn't get a ton out of it, except it was a sign of my commitment to the partnership and I really wanted to see if that would add some value there.
• 18:20
  Samantha Pruitt: I have very few takeaways that I can think of, but still the fact that that was a sign of the commitment that we were making and investing in, of the commitment that we were making and investing in.
• 18:34
  Samantha Pruitt: So, whatever the path is for our listeners, I think you know taking these partnerships seriously, whether you're creating children or not, or growing whatever that looks like, you know whatever that looks like, do it your own way, but it's, it's a huge thing to really understand the value of the other and the self.
• 18:55
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, you know, and part of what you're saying.
• 18:58
  Polly Mertens: One of the things we're going to talk about is like, as you're evaluating, should you pivot in or out?
• 19:04
  Samantha Pruitt: Let's say you were like that's what we're going to get into next.
• 19:08
  Polly Mertens: So it's like I mean, one of the questions you could ask is am I settling or am I satisfied, or could I be more satisfied?
• 19:17
  Polly Mertens: Right, Like, is there something that I'm causing?
• 19:19
  Polly Mertens: Like, for me, I was causing my own dissatisfaction, you know, because I wasn't asking for what I needed, whatever, I wasn't getting out of my partner, blah, blah, blah, all this stuff, and I was settling in another relationship for something you know a little bit.
• 19:32
  Polly Mertens: I'm guessing your first marriage was, you know, maybe some misalignment.
• 19:35
  Polly Mertens: I feel like in mine there was some misalignment, you know I one of the ways I languaged it for myself is I said I think I married their potential and that happens, right, I'm like, oh, he could be so great, if that's, it's up, whatever, you know, but I settled for the person that I had in the relationship that I had and trying to make that work.
• 19:57
  Polly Mertens: It was never going to work, you know.
• 19:59
  Polly Mertens: So it was never going to work.
• 20:01
  Samantha Pruitt: And we'll talk about values alignment, which is what you're alluding to, which is a critical part of partnership.
• 20:06
  Samantha Pruitt: Okay talk about the nasty things.
• 20:09
  Polly Mertens: Let me introduce the Four Horsemen of the Ap apocalypse.
• 20:12
  Polly Mertens: This is by Dr John Gottman.
• 20:13
  Polly Mertens: It's not as bad as it sounds, so I don't mean like the name is like what the heck that's?
• 20:19
  Polly Mertens: horrible.
• 20:19
  Polly Mertens: I find the name not remarkable, but it's like one of those things that it jumps out at you, like if I said, oh, there's four bad things that can happen in relationship, like you're not likely going to remember them.
• 20:31
  Polly Mertens: But if I said, man, there's this thing called the four horsemen of the apocalypse of relationship, your ears perk up a little bit Like tell me more, what's that thing about?
• 20:40
  Polly Mertens: Right, and it's true, because these are four biggies and they're phases, and I would say you can kind of go back and forth if you will.
• 20:47
  Polly Mertens: It's not like you graduate from one into the next one and you don't have some of one also.
• 20:52
  Polly Mertens: So, um, and again, I'm not I'm, I'm saying the words that are the uh, categories or the phases, if you will.
• 21:00
  Polly Mertens: But Dr Gottman can definitely explain this more.
• 21:04
  Polly Mertens: If you want to go deeper into his work, please do.
• 21:05
  Polly Mertens: But the first one first step is you know you go from.
• 21:08
  Polly Mertens: You know everything's all peachy, and this could be in an immature relationship or in mature relationships.
• 21:14
  Polly Mertens: It doesn't necessarily mean like it's, you know, six months, in eight months, in eight years, in whatever.
• 21:18
  Polly Mertens: So criticism, right, attacking your partner's character or being attacked, so either way.
• 21:26
  Polly Mertens: So if you find yourself in a state of criticizing your partner or being criticized, or it's a growing states of criticism how you look, the way you're dressed, things you're doing you're not doing it well enough.
• 21:39
  Polly Mertens: You know those types of things.
• 21:40
  Polly Mertens: That's the silent killer, you know.
• 21:43
  Polly Mertens: So what's going on there?
• 21:45
  Polly Mertens: Take it, take a look at.
• 21:45
  Polly Mertens: Maybe I'll share the like, the antithesis that he recommends.
• 21:49
  Polly Mertens: You know, like, how do you recover from those things?
• 21:51
  Polly Mertens: I'll just drop this in is it's so?
• 21:54
  Polly Mertens: Criticism, it's opening up your feelings, right, so there's something that your needs aren't getting met.
• 21:58
  Polly Mertens: You're like criticizing that other person because you're not being honest about something that's true for you usually.
• 22:03
  Polly Mertens: So opening up about your feelings, I am statements like I am feeling this is largely how you can work with that stage.
• 22:10
  Polly Mertens: The next one is contempt Just that word, saying that word.
• 22:18
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah.
• 22:19
  Polly Mertens: So that's treating your partner with disrespect.
• 22:21
  Polly Mertens: You know, and I you started to say that a little bit earlier.
• 22:25
  Polly Mertens: You know, like I find that the three or four, so it's like respect and men and women have it a little bit differently.
• 22:29
  Polly Mertens: The study that I've done in relationships so men like to be honored and I think when women see men they can honor them, like I have respect for this man or my partner, let's say masculine, feminine, of who they are, then it can be a workable.
• 22:45
  Polly Mertens: If we don't respect that human being then we're not going to have the next phase.
• 22:53
  Polly Mertens: You know, workability in the relationship there's gotta be a level of respect.
• 22:56
  Polly Mertens: And for women, cherish and adore.
• 22:58
  Samantha Pruitt: Adore might be like the, the, the idealized, but at least this is so interesting because I don't see the field the male, female at all.
• 23:09
  Samantha Pruitt: Well, I don't know what the work is that you're specifically talking about.
• 23:13
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, but to me, um, it's the same thing.
• 23:16
  Samantha Pruitt: Like respect is at the root of that of all of that, you know.
• 23:21
  Samantha Pruitt: Yes, yeah.
• 23:23
  Samantha Pruitt: So I think you're just talking about an expression of that.
• 23:26
  Samantha Pruitt: How?
• 23:27
  Polly Mertens: do I show it.
• 23:28
  Samantha Pruitt: How do I, how does?
• 23:28
  Polly Mertens: it?
• 23:28
  Polly Mertens: How does it appeal to the masculine?
• 23:30
  Polly Mertens: How does it appeal to the feminine?
• 23:31
  Polly Mertens: What does that manifest like?
• 23:33
  Polly Mertens: Or what does it feel like?
• 23:35
  Polly Mertens: If you will, but yes, absolutely respect, yeah, totally yeah, and when that's gone or when it's being eroded, you know.
• 23:42
  Samantha Pruitt: Listen for any human, never mind your partner.
• 23:46
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 23:46
  Samantha Pruitt: When their respect is gone, what is left?
• 23:50
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, and why would you want to be there standing in the room?
• 23:58
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, I mean, that really goes for just humans, humanity, come on.
• 24:01
  Polly Mertens: You know, I can remember some men that I've dated.
• 24:04
  Polly Mertens: I remember this one man that I was dating years ago and you know we had been, I don't know, maybe in three months, six months, not not super long, or whatnot.
• 24:15
  Polly Mertens: And then I overheard him on a business call with someone, Um, can't remember the nature of the call, but how he was treating the person on the phone, just the language that he was, you know, just like berate, I mean, just whatever you want to.
• 24:28
  Polly Mertens: However, it was just lost respect for this person.
• 24:33
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, it's like yeah, how can?
• 24:35
  Samantha Pruitt: you, you know what's another example of this that is totally on my radar that I experienced is witnessing how that male person was treating other females in the world Not me, because I was the beloved right, but other females, whether it was a comment or an action or just things that I was bearing witness to.
• 25:00
  Samantha Pruitt: I was exposed to enough.
• 25:01
  Samantha Pruitt: It was like whoa, no, and I mean, I'm just this type of person that, like, if you're not just respecting all of us, then you're respecting none of us, right, and you see, that kind of character defaults.
• 25:16
  Samantha Pruitt: We will call them I'll be very gracious to call them that Um, and that's a very quick way to lose respect for somebody when you see how they treat other people.
• 25:27
  Samantha Pruitt: Maybe not you, but other people, yeah, yeah, and that's what we were both you know mine was a phone call business to business.
• 25:31
  Polly Mertens: He'd never treated me that way, but I was.
• 25:32
  Polly Mertens: You know, mine was a phone call business to business.
• 25:33
  Polly Mertens: He'd never treated me that way, but I was like, wow, you can be that way in the world.
• 25:37
  Polly Mertens: Like you know, I think also, you know, in this area of respect, one of the things we can or sorry, contempt you know, respect we can talk about is for oneself, right.
• 25:48
  Polly Mertens: So we can see people not respecting themselves stop taking care of themselves.
• 25:53
  Polly Mertens: You know, they just their sense of self is kind of imploding, right.
• 25:57
  Polly Mertens: That can be a slippery slope as well, so we've got to shore that up, ok, so we went through criticism, contempt, defensiveness.
• 26:08
  Samantha Pruitt: Defensive.
• 26:09
  Polly Mertens: Defensive yeah, which is responding?
• 26:11
  Samantha Pruitt: to this all the time Defensive, defensive, yeah, which is responding to the walk around like this all the time.
• 26:18
  Polly Mertens: So defensive, you know, I know.
• 26:21
  Samantha Pruitt: That happens, that definitely happens.
• 26:24
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, experienced all of those things Totally, whether my partner was getting defensive or I was Both.
• 26:30
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, and that's this isn't.
• 26:32
  Polly Mertens: We take turns, and this isn't to say that I mean all of these can happen.
• 26:38
  Polly Mertens: They can be an experience, like they're part of relationships.
• 26:41
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, you're going to be criticized, you're going to have a moment of disrespect, you're going to have a little different.
• 26:46
  Samantha Pruitt: You know, like this isn't it's just the repetitiveness, it's the continuation of it's.
• 26:51
  Samantha Pruitt: What do you do when these moments might occur?
• 26:54
  Samantha Pruitt: Because we're not perfect, but people are gonna slip up?
• 26:57
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, but then how do you handle it?
• 27:00
  Samantha Pruitt: What?
• 27:00
  Samantha Pruitt: And?
• 27:00
  Polly Mertens: how and how egregious is it you?
• 27:03
  Polly Mertens: know, so like, um, you know, we talked in the beginning about the abuse, right?
• 27:08
  Polly Mertens: So if the disrespect or the treatment is so egregious to to ourself or to someone else, it's like whoa, no, not right here, not to this human being, right?
• 27:20
  Polly Mertens: So that's where we step in and take care of ourself, our needs.
• 27:23
  Polly Mertens: Right, speaking up.
• 27:24
  Polly Mertens: So in that case that's a quick hot.
• 27:26
  Polly Mertens: No, you know, like, if it's right out, you're out immediately.
• 27:30
  Polly Mertens: But if somebody you know, you know, makes a, you know a comment or something, or they attack you in a heated moment and you know what have you?
• 27:38
  Polly Mertens: Defensiveness, you know, can be a natural reaction.
• 27:42
  Polly Mertens: It's just do you find yourself always on the defensive, like what's going on here?
• 27:45
  Samantha Pruitt: this person just you know, always on the attack.
• 27:47
  Polly Mertens: They're always on the attack.
• 27:48
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, because we're talking earlier about the signs.
• 27:52
  Polly Mertens: It's like that's draining, that's joy draining, right, that's not like somebody you want to be around very much.
• 27:58
  Polly Mertens: You know that's toxicness of those types of things.
• 28:00
  Polly Mertens: So all right.
• 28:01
  Polly Mertens: And then, uh, oh, so let me go back.
• 28:03
  Polly Mertens: So the the counter to contempt is appreciation, right?
• 28:07
  Polly Mertens: So instead of you know, disrespect, it's learning to appreciate things, not that that moment of that thing, depending on how egregious it was.
• 28:13
  Polly Mertens: And then the defensiveness is where do you need to take responsibility for something?
• 28:18
  Polly Mertens: Right?
• 28:18
  Polly Mertens: And it's not always your responsibility everything this person does, but maybe you had something to do with this.
• 28:24
  Polly Mertens: So taking responsibility for what's yours Responsibility?
• 28:27
  Samantha Pruitt: is not blame.
• 28:29
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 28:29
  Samantha Pruitt: It is a very different thing.
• 28:31
  Samantha Pruitt: Say that, yeah, say more, yeah.
• 28:32
  Samantha Pruitt: It is a very different thing.
• 28:33
  Samantha Pruitt: Say that, yeah, say more.
• 28:33
  Samantha Pruitt: Responsibility is not blame.
• 28:35
  Samantha Pruitt: Responsibility is me owning who I am Perfectly imperfect, right, and your feelings, yes, and all the things that might come out of this mouth or these actions that I do and this way I am in the world.
• 28:49
  Samantha Pruitt: Right, but that's not blame, whether me taking the blame for things that maybe go wrong over the course of this relationship or blaming the other.
• 28:59
  Polly Mertens: For sure, for sure it's empowered.
• 29:01
  Polly Mertens: I mean, what you're talking about is like there's always an empowerment behind that and blame is disempowering.
• 29:07
  Polly Mertens: So, yeah, stay in your power.
• 29:09
  Polly Mertens: The last one in the four horsemen is stonewalling.
• 29:12
  Polly Mertens: So this looks like pulling back, withdrawing, shutting down, not responding to physical touch, avoiding the person not taking their call.
• 29:23
  Polly Mertens: You know different degrees of this right.
• 29:25
  Polly Mertens: So, whatever, whenever you feel like you're kind of look at it like you're turning the love channel off, you're like no love here for you.
• 29:32
  Polly Mertens: You know, it's like not putting out the love factory that we used to.
• 29:36
  Polly Mertens: Um, that's a sign you know, like, oh, and that's one of the well, that's a sign it's gotten pretty far exactly.
• 29:43
  Samantha Pruitt: I mean, that's like you're coming to the end of this road, people, if you didn't already get there and repairing that is going to be very, very difficult to very difficult, to coming back from that.
• 29:55
  Polly Mertens: Massive intervention and, frankly, a lot of the things that you mentioned.
• 29:58
  Samantha Pruitt: If you don't go out correctly, repairing some of these things can be pretty impossible.
• 30:03
  Polly Mertens: For sure, for sure.
• 30:04
  Polly Mertens: And you know it's the last one, because it's where most relationships.
• 30:11
  Polly Mertens: The next stage is just you're done Fall off the edge.
• 30:13
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, yeah, yeah, for for sure.
• 30:16
  Polly Mertens: Um, okay, so those are the four horsemen criticism, content, defensiveness, but on a positive note, hey, let's go with this.
• 30:23
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, so now we've laid this yucky sewage here's what not to do.
• 30:28
  Samantha Pruitt: And here's the thing again.
• 30:29
  Samantha Pruitt: To be honest, we've all experienced some of these things, okay, whether it's past relationships, current relationships, whatever because we're humans having a human experience, learning Again.
• 30:43
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, we're learning as we go, and so some of this is going to be normal.
• 30:48
  Samantha Pruitt: I look at it as we're evolving, so each of us, individually in our own life, are evolving as a human being.
• 30:59
  Samantha Pruitt: It's amazing, it's magical, it's incredible, frankly.
• 31:02
  Samantha Pruitt: What a gift.
• 31:03
  Samantha Pruitt: But then you get into partnership with another human, and we were laughing about this earlier too.
• 31:09
  Samantha Pruitt: How does this even happen?
• 31:11
  Samantha Pruitt: How could you possibly come together with another human and be like we should spend the rest of our life together?
• 31:16
  Samantha Pruitt: I don't know where you came from.
• 31:18
  Samantha Pruitt: I'm sure it was radically different than me.
• 31:20
  Samantha Pruitt: You know, we're so different from one another.
• 31:23
  Samantha Pruitt: And we have this even more hilarious idea that, because there's some sexual chemistry, that's the one that's the perfect one, right there.
• 31:31
  Samantha Pruitt: The cute one is the one for me, right?
• 31:34
  Samantha Pruitt: So we have all these weird cultural instinctual, sometimes instinctual instinctual programming.
• 31:41
  Samantha Pruitt: So much programming right, so many stories we tell ourselves, and then we somehow miraculously narrow ourselves down to the one and then make this commitment and then we go on this incredible journey together.
• 31:53
  Samantha Pruitt: So what I like to think of is that is another opportunity for incredible evolution as a person and as a collective, as a partnership, and what is the potential of that?
• 32:07
  Samantha Pruitt: You know, when you find the right person to spend years with or a lifetime with in many instances, you know you can create so much.
• 32:16
  Samantha Pruitt: I mean it's incredibly beautiful, but it is not going to be easy, it is not for the faint of heart, you know.
• 32:24
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, I mean the, I think the I want to say, like the work, the strengthening of that bond is it's like muscles, you know it's, it's massive massive Talk about emotional fitness.
• 32:40
  Samantha Pruitt: There's a whole other genre of you know partnership, partnership, fitness, yeah.
• 32:43
  Polly Mertens: You know, I was just thinking also.
• 32:45
  Polly Mertens: We didn't touch this at the beginning, but just as we've been talking, I'm like man, you know, I don't want to, um, not give space here, cause there's a lot of people that don't have a philosophy or don't have a desire to be in a one on one relationship, like they have other needs.
• 33:07
  Polly Mertens: They have a multi relationship, kind of matrix, you know, or how they're made made.
• 33:12
  Polly Mertens: So we want to give space to that.
• 33:13
  Polly Mertens: You know like you and I talk because a lot of what, what is what has felt right or been, you know how we've operated in the world is one person feels good to us, but total, you know, however you, however it floats you, you know or for some people it's it's no person, which is also great and amazing, right Like if you know.
• 33:29
  Samantha Pruitt: however, you know yourself to be your best self, your best truth, and that's the path that you choose.
• 33:36
  Samantha Pruitt: We completely love and respect that.
• 33:38
  Samantha Pruitt: That's what everyday awesome is all about Finding your own personal way in the world.
• 33:44
  Polly Mertens: And you know part of this too.
• 33:46
  Polly Mertens: So some of you listening may be sitting in a relationship.
• 33:49
  Polly Mertens: So where I was, you know, like I was just strung out in the settling feeling.
• 33:55
  Polly Mertens: You know, whichever relationship I look at, what it was like is this all there is?
• 34:00
  Polly Mertens: And I was like, ah really, you know, not unwilling to do work, but either seeing the partner I had chosen or the person I was with at the time either wasn't willing to, wasn't able to, didn't have interest in, was totally satisfied with who they wasn't willing to, wasn't able to, didn't have interest in, was totally satisfied with who they were, you know like never did a day of therapy, or you know work on themselves in their life.
• 34:19
  Polly Mertens: It's like okay, right.
• 34:20
  Polly Mertens: So it's asking yourself and, as you said, you know, at some point, you know, I think sometimes people um, I had this in my first marriage because you know, my husband and I we wrote our vows and I was like took a lot of spiritual time in creating that, because I felt like there was I'm huge into ceremony and huge into what those agreements were.
• 34:41
  Polly Mertens: I mean, you can imagine like when we I cried, like I cried reading that was amazing, right, think, you know, years later looking back and seeing or thinking about the moment that we wrote those vows together and we spoke them to each other in the witness of our family and friends.
• 34:57
  Polly Mertens: You know to break that.
• 35:00
  Polly Mertens: You know to break that was so.
• 35:03
  Polly Mertens: I looked at that for a long time, right, and so if somebody's listening to this and they're like, you know I feel like I'm in the bottom of this, I'm in the stonewalling'm kind of settling or I'm just sort of going through the routines or when, the when the kids grow up, you know, whatever it's like your life is now like.
• 35:21
  Polly Mertens: I just felt like I was losing oxygen the longer I stayed in that relationship and at some point it would.
• 35:27
  Polly Mertens: It wouldn't kill me, but it was killing my soul and so was like I had to get real.
• 35:33
  Polly Mertens: With me Was my commitment to that relationship and what I thought we had, and you know these agreements that I had made.
• 35:40
  Polly Mertens: Is that what was going to take me forward?
• 35:42
  Polly Mertens: Do I have, you know, like these bonds people have of religious agreements and you know structure, like, oh, you're married, you're married forever, it's like, and you just suffer in silence?
• 35:52
  Polly Mertens: And I wasn't willing to do that for very much longer, and so I took a long look at this and we're going to go through these things to look at and address.
• 36:00
  Polly Mertens: Could you adjust any of these?
• 36:02
  Polly Mertens: Is this is there hope?
• 36:03
  Polly Mertens: Is there workability?
• 36:05
  Polly Mertens: Is there ways to restructure, re-communicate, re-imagine the relationship that will give it life again?
• 36:14
  Samantha Pruitt: put life in yourself and put that spark you know, and I would just add for me, one of the questions I've always asked myself as I, when I finally became an adult and couldn't have real relationships, it didn't matter, I was already married and parenting by the way and parenting.
• 36:31
  Samantha Pruitt: I was already married and parenting by the way and parenting, like anyway.
• 36:34
  Samantha Pruitt: Oh, I figured it out somehow.
• 36:39
  Samantha Pruitt: But um is this question and I've posed it to people before and it's just a nice reflection pieces it does this partnership make me a better person?
• 36:45
  Polly Mertens: Hmm.
• 36:46
  Samantha Pruitt: And do I make my partner a better person?
• 36:49
  Samantha Pruitt: It's an incredibly simple question to ask my partner a better person.
• 36:52
  Polly Mertens: It's an incredibly simple question to ask.
• 36:53
  Samantha Pruitt: That is so good, but asking yourself that in the partnership does this partnership make me a better person and do I make my partner a better person?
• 37:09
  Samantha Pruitt: Are we contributing to each other and to ourselves on this journey?
• 37:10
  Samantha Pruitt: Together, we've chosen this path where we're marching down it, and it's called life and, by the way, it ends at some point.
• 37:16
  Samantha Pruitt: It doesn't go forever.
• 37:18
  Samantha Pruitt: So the clock and calendar are moving as we're marching forward.
• 37:22
  Samantha Pruitt: Are we becoming better individuals together?
• 37:28
  Samantha Pruitt: So am I becoming a better version of myself?
• 37:31
  Samantha Pruitt: And asking that question.
• 37:33
  Samantha Pruitt: Now, there's going to be times where you're definitely going to say, no, I've gotten pretty horrible.
• 37:39
  Samantha Pruitt: Or maybe they've gotten pretty horrible, right.
• 37:42
  Samantha Pruitt: And and if you catch it early enough, because you're all going to have struggles, I mean, hello, I've been married 26 years, right, like there's going to be struggles.
• 37:51
  Samantha Pruitt: Life is really complex, but if you can be honest about it, be on the journey together, go through the struggles and continue to have conversations, work through it, support each other, do all of the things that are actually the work of being a partner, being in a partnership, then they're incredible.
• 38:11
  Samantha Pruitt: But you do have to catch these experiences that could be taking you down the wrong path early enough to resolve these things.
• 38:20
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, take some ownership.
• 38:21
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, do an inventory.
• 38:22
  Polly Mertens: So let's look at things that we should look at, right?
• 38:25
  Polly Mertens: So this list is not meant to be exhaustive, like oh yeah, you have to do everything on here.
• 38:30
  Polly Mertens: It's just, these are ideas.
• 38:31
  Samantha Pruitt: But you do.
• 38:32
  Samantha Pruitt: You have to do all the things and you should be writing it down right now.
• 38:34
  Samantha Pruitt: Are you writing?
• 38:35
  Samantha Pruitt: Notes, take a note Rewind, Listen again.
• 38:38
  Samantha Pruitt: Yep, here we go.
• 38:38
  Samantha Pruitt: We're going to hear somebody's partner going rewind that play that again for Fred Pull over.
• 38:44
  Polly Mertens: I need to write something down.
• 38:45
  Polly Mertens: You know, get off the get off the treadmill, Okay, Okay.
• 38:49
  Polly Mertens: So values, that's your key one.
• 38:53
  Samantha Pruitt: Oh my gosh.
• 38:53
  Samantha Pruitt: I mean.
• 38:54
  Samantha Pruitt: To me, values are at the core of everything.
• 38:59
  Samantha Pruitt: First of all, what are my values?
• 39:02
  Samantha Pruitt: Can we all just like get a grip on that?
• 39:04
  Samantha Pruitt: So many conversations you and I have with humans that we love and adore, that are disconnected from their own value set, haven't given it thought, don't think about it ever, maybe thought about it once and have forgotten about it, their life has just gone off course, right?
• 39:23
  Samantha Pruitt: So if they don't have a real sense of self-value, like understanding who you are and what is important to you in the world.
• 39:31
  Samantha Pruitt: Value, like understanding who you are and what is important to you in the world, how can you find a partner?
• 39:39
  Samantha Pruitt: And, I would say, how can you find any opportunity in your life that is going to be a match Right.
• 39:43
  Samantha Pruitt: So how would you know if this person, if they don't share the values, if you don't even know what yours are right, you can't have the conversation, being able to have the conversation.
• 39:52
  Samantha Pruitt: Hey, what are your values?
• 39:54
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, what do you?
• 39:55
  Samantha Pruitt: What do you live your life by?
• 39:57
  Polly Mertens: and you know, call us if you don't know how to do it like, like.
• 40:00
  Samantha Pruitt: We can help you create these you know we're going to sort that out because it's it's.
• 40:05
  Polly Mertens: You know, I've been through numerous workshops where I've understood this, but until I had been through those trainings, like never even occurred to me.
• 40:13
  Polly Mertens: Never even occurred to me.
• 40:14
  Polly Mertens: You know, value is something you purchase at the grocery store.
• 40:16
  Polly Mertens: It's like oh it's, there's a value of that.
• 40:18
  Samantha Pruitt: Whatever you know, it's like your value system drives all your decisions and your actions are reflected from your value system.
• 40:26
  Samantha Pruitt: So saying you value these things and then your actions, that's a misalignment right.
• 40:30
  Samantha Pruitt: So really having a handle on that?
• 40:32
  Samantha Pruitt: And then finding a partner that has a match there.
• 40:36
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, or enough of them are aligned, absolutely, absolutely Okay.
• 40:40
  Polly Mertens: So values.
• 40:41
  Polly Mertens: The next one is agreements.
• 40:43
  Polly Mertens: This is my, this is how I look at it, so micro and macro agreements.
• 40:48
  Samantha Pruitt: So contracts, you make them sign contracts.
• 40:50
  Polly Mertens: There are little little little yeses, and I'll do that and you'll do that, and sometimes they're unspoken.
• 40:55
  Polly Mertens: You know, it's kind of like oh you know you, I expect you to always open the door for me, or whatever you know, like you do the grocery shopping, I'll do the cooking.
• 41:03
  Samantha Pruitt: You do the laundry, I'll mow the yard whatever, I'll pay the bills you're gonna be the primary for the kids and I'm going to do this other thing, you know, like all of those, those are the agreements.
• 41:14
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, and I don't think people just like values, necessarily take them out and look at them, you know.
• 41:21
  Polly Mertens: And so I'm just saying in this, looking at where you might have some breakdown in agreements or agreements need to be updated too, because oftentimes you have some outdated agreements.
• 41:31
  Polly Mertens: It was like hey.
• 41:32
  Polly Mertens: And that goes to this next one, which is roles and responsibilities.
• 41:34
  Samantha Pruitt: It's like hey first of all, we should revisit agreements every year.
• 41:38
  Samantha Pruitt: I'm totally serious, cause I've been a 26 years, right, and, of course, come on.
• 41:44
  Samantha Pruitt: How can we possibly have the same operating agreements that we had 26 years ago?
• 41:52
  Samantha Pruitt: Trading agreements yeah, that we had 26 years ago.
• 41:55
  Polly Mertens: That makes no sense at all and so largely like where?
• 41:56
  Polly Mertens: So people are like oh, where do I find the agreements and is there a list?
• 41:58
  Polly Mertens: And should we, whatever it's like?
• 41:59
  Polly Mertens: Look where you have friction in your relationship, the areas that are causing you friction, frustration, tension, non-agreement, some, you know, lack of communicate, whatever.
• 42:11
  Polly Mertens: Where you're having little mini breakdowns with yourself, at the person, whatever these criticisms are showing up, or something like that.
• 42:17
  Polly Mertens: You know, take a look at where there's friction, cause there's probably a breakdown of agreements or roles, responsibilities, things that haven't been updated.
• 42:25
  Polly Mertens: You know like, hey, I'm still carrying the weight of all this.
• 42:27
  Polly Mertens: You remember when we you were supposed to do that and you know, whatever.
• 42:31
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, and don't feel like they can't be changed and that they can't evolve over time.
• 42:39
  Samantha Pruitt: Right, and they don't.
• 42:41
  Samantha Pruitt: Also, the whole traditional idea around agreements right, like that's just.
• 42:45
  Samantha Pruitt: This is the year 2024.
• 42:48
  Polly Mertens: Come on.
• 42:49
  Samantha Pruitt: Right.
• 42:49
  Samantha Pruitt: But there's still a lot of people who are living in these really traditional relationships, especially if they've been in a longer term relationship or whatever the dynamic was, maybe culturally, you know how they were raised, so they've inherited all these things.
• 43:01
  Samantha Pruitt: Blow it up, start over if it's not working.
• 43:05
  Samantha Pruitt: But you love this person and you want to stay in partnership with them.
• 43:09
  Samantha Pruitt: Below that shit up and just start over.
• 43:10
  Samantha Pruitt: Create what you want.
• 43:11
  Samantha Pruitt: To stay in partnership with them.
• 43:12
  Samantha Pruitt: Below that shit up and just start over.
• 43:14
  Samantha Pruitt: Create what you want.
• 43:15
  Samantha Pruitt: There's a lot of freedom in this one.
• 43:18
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, if the team is worth being on and you want to stay in it.
• 43:21
  Polly Mertens: There's just some friction, like speak up Time to do some talking Time, to use that mouth for what it's good for and share what you need and what and I.
• 43:31
  Polly Mertens: What I have found is, um, there's almost no unworkability.
• 43:35
  Polly Mertens: If you have a workable partner, like if you guys are up to the same thing, you can find ways to make new agreements, new ways of doing things that are workable, whether they're you know, a hundred, everybody gets their way, a hundred percent.
• 43:50
  Polly Mertens: No, it's maybe some flexibility, but it can be more workable than it is.
• 43:54
  Polly Mertens: That's causing you internal friction or friction between each other.
• 43:57
  Polly Mertens: So, exactly so we talked about goals or we're going to, you know so goals.
• 44:03
  Polly Mertens: So I think you've got some things shared and individual goals.
• 44:06
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, so I'm a big goal queen, and so what I find to be important and relevant in this piece of the topic is that the individuals have goals because they're individual humans.
• 44:20
  Samantha Pruitt: By the way, no person makes me whole.
• 44:24
  Samantha Pruitt: I am whole all by myself, and so is every other person out there.
• 44:30
  Samantha Pruitt: Right so, to be a complete person?
• 44:34
  Samantha Pruitt: We can't, we come to the party complete, right, so that would mean I would have my own ideas and goals and dreams and wishes, and that's wonderful and beautiful.
• 44:42
  Samantha Pruitt: So I think it's really imperative also to find that partnership that the other supports your goals and that you support their goals.
• 44:51
  Samantha Pruitt: You don't have to have matchy match.
• 44:53
  Samantha Pruitt: We want to do all the things together, and I've seen this so many times as a coach of athletes, but also a coach of people in business.
• 45:01
  Samantha Pruitt: The commonalities are so off the hook, by the way.
• 45:05
  Samantha Pruitt: But, like the athletic people you know, for many years I was coaching athletes and a lot of times the female or the male would come with this idea of doing an Ironman or doing a marathon or whatever the hell their thing was, and their partner was not part of this process.
• 45:21
  Samantha Pruitt: Right, this was their own personal thing.
• 45:23
  Samantha Pruitt: They were going to join the club, be on the team, do whatever, get trained, go and have this great experience.
• 45:27
  Samantha Pruitt: And many times the partners were super supportive and it was wonderful, it was beautiful.
• 45:32
  Samantha Pruitt: And many times the partners were super supportive and it was wonderful, it was beautiful.
• 45:34
  Samantha Pruitt: But also many times they were not.
• 45:35
  Samantha Pruitt: And I would witness this really interesting, strange, unhealthy dynamic where the other partner would get jealous of the time they were spending.
• 45:43
  Samantha Pruitt: They would start showing up at practices.
• 45:46
  Samantha Pruitt: Next thing you know they're trying to join the practice.
• 45:48
  Samantha Pruitt: I mean really, and I was like I'm not what's going on now?
• 45:53
  Samantha Pruitt: They just couldn't really handle the fact that their partner had this other thing going that they weren't part of.
• 46:01
  Samantha Pruitt: It made them feel insecure, unwanted, whatever.
• 46:04
  Samantha Pruitt: All their dramatic stuff was behind the scenes there, right, and it was really a shame to see that.
• 46:09
  Samantha Pruitt: And sometimes I literally have to have conversations with them and I'm not a marital or relationship counselor, but it was really a shame to see that.
• 46:11
  Samantha Pruitt: And sometimes I literally have to have conversations with them and I'm not a marital or relationship counselor, but it was like you know, this is just not a healthy experience.
• 46:18
  Samantha Pruitt: I've seen the same thing in business and I'm sure you have too Many times.
• 46:22
  Samantha Pruitt: The business owner is a partner to somebody but their spouse or their partner is not part of the business, right, and as the person sets really big goals for themselves to grow the not part of the business, right, and as the person sets really big goals for themselves to grow the business, buy the business, expand the business, whatever, transform the business, that partner is kind of swirling around on the outside of all of these things that are going down in that person's business life and they're not really part of it and it can create a lot of conflict, right, and jealousy and insecurity and things that are not necessary.
• 46:54
  Samantha Pruitt: So these things need to be talked about and they need to be understood and they need to be navigated so you don't create just literally a piling up, a building, if you will, of all this animosity and dysfunction that can happen so easily.
• 47:10
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, you know, and I think one of the things we said is like individual goals because you're both should have rich lives that are separate.
• 47:18
  Polly Mertens: You should be up to amazing stuff as a human being, and when two amazing human beings are crushing it and having fulfilling lives and and they have a shared experience and they co-create some shared mutual goals as well, but it's not you're, it's not 101 and zero the other, you get no goals.
• 47:37
  Polly Mertens: I gotta do all the things.
• 47:38
  Polly Mertens: Or you get, you know, whatever, and it doesn't have to be 50 50, it can shift whatever.
• 47:41
  Polly Mertens: But so, looking at making sure you have your personal goals and you're going after them in mutual and they're not too far apart, or they support each other or sometimes negotiate timing.
• 47:50
  Polly Mertens: Hey, you go after Ironman this year and next year I'm going.
• 47:53
  Samantha Pruitt: Seasonality, yeah Right, the seasonality of a relationship is so important to go with those ebbs and flows.
• 47:59
  Samantha Pruitt: Sometimes, like my husband has had several businesses and is a business person, so am I Different ones, right?
• 48:08
  Samantha Pruitt: So sometimes it's all in on some crazy thing I'm up to and then the pendulum will swing.
• 48:12
  Samantha Pruitt: And it's all in on some crazy thing I'm up to, and then the pendulum will swing and it's all in on what he's up to.
• 48:15
  Samantha Pruitt: But you know, finding that swing, that ebb and flow, so important, so important.
• 48:22
  Polly Mertens: All right.
• 48:22
  Polly Mertens: And then big one you know they talk about on, you know, people Magazine or whatever, not New York, whatever.
• 48:28
  Polly Mertens: The finances are the big reason why people you know disagree or relationships break down.
• 48:33
  Polly Mertens: I think there's other things.
• 48:33
  Polly Mertens: This is the worst category.
• 48:35
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, it's never pretty or whatever, but like okay.
• 48:38
  Polly Mertens: So I don't think we're going to spend too much time here, because people know if there's dysfunction or lack of communication or you're just out of whack with each other Like you got to handle that you got to handle that?
• 48:48
  Samantha Pruitt: Communication, I would say, is at the root of most of those things People not properly sharing information, or communicating or getting an agreement with how things are going to be spent and budgeted, et cetera, et cetera.
• 48:59
  Samantha Pruitt: One person, irrelevant of who is the primary earner in the partnership.
• 49:05
  Samantha Pruitt: If you're in a partnership, one person does not rule.
• 49:08
  Samantha Pruitt: This category does not rule this category.
• 49:16
  Samantha Pruitt: It is a shared life.
• 49:16
  Samantha Pruitt: You have made a commitment to a shared life, and so the amount of communication and respect and trust and transparency in this area has to be paramount.
• 49:25
  Samantha Pruitt: This will absolutely divorce so many people, as it blows up business partnerships left and right.
• 49:30
  Samantha Pruitt: This is a big bucket.
• 49:32
  Polly Mertens: And know it before going deeper with someone.
• 49:35
  Polly Mertens: You know, like if you're not too far down the road with someone by golly, look at this category.
• 49:40
  Polly Mertens: So I was in with what became my husband, and from the outside you know, driving a nice truck and had a house here and a rental, and I was like, wow, look at all these nice things this guy has.
• 49:52
  Polly Mertens: Like good for you, you're doing okay, right, I can't remember how, whatever you didn't look under the hood.
• 50:04
  Polly Mertens: Oh, but then I did and I needed to cause.
• 50:06
  Polly Mertens: He like so what happened for this young man when he was, um, when he he was struggling financially?
• 50:09
  Polly Mertens: Like it didn't, he didn't even know it, but when he got to the point of, you know, needing to look at books and I, you know, I have an MBA it's like, let's look at this, like I can, I can understand this stuff.
• 50:18
  Polly Mertens: Let me help you here.
• 50:18
  Polly Mertens: Like he was like pretty much curled up, sweating, trying to, you know, have conversations around this.
• 50:25
  Polly Mertens: I was like, well, this is interesting.
• 50:26
  Polly Mertens: And what we came to find, I was like, guess what?
• 50:28
  Polly Mertens: You're going bankrupt, guess what You're going to end up in foreclosure.
• 50:32
  Polly Mertens: I guess you know like just facing the music or whatnot, but had I not like?
• 50:37
  Polly Mertens: You know like, hey, let me take a look at this.
• 50:38
  Polly Mertens: What's going on here?
• 50:39
  Polly Mertens: You know like, from the outside sometimes things can look whatever and people's habits may be hiding something.
• 50:45
  Polly Mertens: So take a look, all right.
• 50:47
  Polly Mertens: Communication.
• 50:52
  Samantha Pruitt: I mean we could just go on and on about this one.
• 50:53
  Samantha Pruitt: I just don't.
• 50:53
  Samantha Pruitt: First of all, can I just ask a question?
• 50:54
  Samantha Pruitt: If you want to spend your life with somebody on the daily, can you not have a conversation with them?
• 51:01
  Samantha Pruitt: And I know sometimes it's uncomfortable and it gets heated and it can be weird and whatever, because we bring all of this lifetime of stuff with us to the conversation, all of our traumas, all of it.
• 51:14
  Samantha Pruitt: We bring it all to the party.
• 51:16
  Samantha Pruitt: But you've committed to this person, they've committed to you.
• 51:19
  Samantha Pruitt: Can you not have a conversation?
• 51:21
  Samantha Pruitt: And if you cannot have a conversation about any of these things we have discussed today, you have a problem.
• 51:30
  Samantha Pruitt: It's you, yeah, it's you.
• 51:32
  Polly Mertens: Get the mirror out.
• 51:33
  Samantha Pruitt: Get the mirror out Like get some help for that Pointing fingers across the table Get some help for that.
• 51:39
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, 100% Get some help yeah and it may be underlying beliefs.
• 51:43
  Polly Mertens: You know, like I was talking about mine, like trouble speaking what was real for me or speaking the truth because I felt I feared it would you know, blow things up or whatnot.
• 51:53
  Polly Mertens: It's like it needs to blow some things up.
• 51:55
  Polly Mertens: You know, if that's, if it's going to blow things up, blow it up.
• 51:57
  Polly Mertens: You know, like I say, when I was in real estate we used to get into escrows and people were like oh no, no, don't tell the buyer this, or whatever.
• 52:04
  Polly Mertens: I was like no, no, no, no, no.
• 52:06
  Polly Mertens: I'm sorry, we want to blow this deal up as soon as possible so none of us waste any time doing any of this dating thing called escrow any longer than we have to, right, no, you right.
• 52:17
  Polly Mertens: So I know that in business, but in my personal life I was like throw away the key, you don't need to know suffering over here, so yeah, communication learn how to learn ways to.
• 52:33
  Samantha Pruitt: And it's courage.
• 52:33
  Samantha Pruitt: Communication is courageous.
• 52:34
  Samantha Pruitt: It's vulnerability, courage.
• 52:35
  Polly Mertens: It's courage, it's courage.
• 52:36
  Polly Mertens: So these last three I would say are have to do with ourself or ourself.
• 52:39
  Polly Mertens: So one is if you're finding you don't value yourself, or maybe you've gone downhill, or you're let yourself go right, you know the kids are more important, or work's gotten too big and you just start like not taking care of yourself.
• 52:52
  Polly Mertens: Self care goes downhill.
• 52:53
  Polly Mertens: You're valuing yourself something you know you've been comparing yourself or you're just your monkey mind is getting away with you or you're not not growing.
• 53:02
  Polly Mertens: You're not like taking care of yourself right like this can just erode who you see yourself as in the relationship.
• 53:09
  Polly Mertens: You're not your best self in this partnership.
• 53:12
  Polly Mertens: That could lead to a lot of these things a partner criticizing you.
• 53:15
  Polly Mertens: You're feeling contempt, you're not feeling uh, you're feeling jealous, so you start throwing, you know, attacks at the other part, whatever you know, so having a solid sense of self, or working on it, if you're not taking care of yourself?
• 53:30
  Samantha Pruitt: Exactly yeah, which starts first with communicating that.
• 53:34
  Samantha Pruitt: Tell your partner I feel like shit, I can't sleep, my body hurts my brain and being you is just such a big part of all of this.
• 53:50
  Samantha Pruitt: Being able to be vulnerable, be seen and heard, means sometimes saying I feel like shit, this sucks, I hate whatever.
• 53:59
  Samantha Pruitt: I'm not talking like perpetual complaining and doing nothing, but like getting your partner on board with whatever is going on with you so they can step up or they can be a witness to yeah, honey, you haven't been taking care of yourself.
• 54:14
  Polly Mertens: You know, can I help with anything you know?
• 54:15
  Polly Mertens: Or you know speaking that you need support in this area, or just being able to talk about it with them Asking for help.
• 54:22
  Polly Mertens: Asking for help Helps you do better, something like that.
• 54:24
  Polly Mertens: Okay.
• 54:25
  Polly Mertens: So those are the areas to look at.
• 54:26
  Polly Mertens: So how are we on time?
• 54:27
  Polly Mertens: Can we just drop in some?
• 54:29
  Polly Mertens: We got five minutes.
• 54:30
  Polly Mertens: Let's drop in some juicy, okay.
• 54:32
  Polly Mertens: So we hope that you've gotten.
• 54:34
  Polly Mertens: You know, the obvious warning signs of like I got some, you know some fr horsemen, things, areas to take a look at and then let's go into like, okay, let's leave you with like quality areas of a healthy relationship, right?
• 54:51
  Polly Mertens: So what are those?
• 54:52
  Polly Mertens: Number one we talked about is respect, period, period respect, emotional intimacy, physical intimacy, spiritual intimacy.
• 55:01
  Polly Mertens: Can I open up?
• 55:02
  Polly Mertens: And I love what you just said is like just be yourself, like speaking what's real for you, right?
• 55:06
  Polly Mertens: Do you have a safe container, a safe relationship space that person will hear?
• 55:17
  Polly Mertens: You give you space, trust.
• 55:17
  Polly Mertens: Ooh yeah, a healthy relationship has healthy trust.
• 55:21
  Samantha Pruitt: Yes, yes, I think that goes with communication.
• 55:25
  Polly Mertens: Oh yeah, it shows up on this list too.
• 55:26
  Polly Mertens: Another one, I love this, so friendship.
• 55:32
  Samantha Pruitt: Oh, that's cool, you know.
• 55:33
  Samantha Pruitt: I mean, is this somebody?
• 55:34
  Samantha Pruitt: Isn't that at the core of it?
• 55:35
  Samantha Pruitt: It's funny.
• 55:36
  Samantha Pruitt: I just sort of take that for granted.
• 55:37
  Samantha Pruitt: Wow, we have to say it out loud, it's a thing.
• 55:41
  Samantha Pruitt: Wow, we have to say it out loud, it's a thing it's.
• 55:42
  Polly Mertens: You know, because I think you know a lot of the fairytale, hollywood makeup, cinderella stories lead a lot of women towards the desire to have this giant wedding.
• 55:54
  Polly Mertens: And don't take a look at what the relationship, the you know that's a one day.
• 55:59
  Polly Mertens: The courting and you know a wedding is one day that they spent all this time, money and energy towards.
• 56:05
  Polly Mertens: Do you, are you friends with this person?
• 56:07
  Polly Mertens: Like you're setting up yourself to be with this person for a lot of your life, right yeah?
• 56:12
  Samantha Pruitt: Can you just hang out with this person?
• 56:14
  Samantha Pruitt: Well and that speaks to what I said earlier is like oh, that must be the perfect match, because they're hot and sexy and I should definitely spend the rest of my life there, but there's no shared values, there's.
• 56:26
  Samantha Pruitt: None of the other stuff is there, but they sure look good.
• 56:27
  Samantha Pruitt: On the wedding announcement, yeah, and you know.
• 56:30
  Polly Mertens: on the honeymoon after that, you know, and it's so funny how, you know, I can remember so many years of my life, looking on, let's say dating, and this is before the dating apps, when I was yeah, we haven't have.
• 56:42
  Samantha Pruitt: The whole thing is based on what is a?
• 56:44
  Samantha Pruitt: What does it look like?
• 56:45
  Samantha Pruitt: What does it look like?
• 56:48
  Samantha Pruitt: This is so.
• 56:48
  Samantha Pruitt: I mean.
• 56:49
  Samantha Pruitt: I just don't understand that world at all because it's so feels so incredibly superficial to me.
• 56:56
  Samantha Pruitt: And let's see two, three, three of my children married people from dating apps and the fourth uses a dating app, is just still single.
• 57:06
  Samantha Pruitt: But so this is the world that we live in, is that?
• 57:11
  Samantha Pruitt: And, of course, my grandchildren will all be using dating apps no time soon.
• 57:14
  Samantha Pruitt: You're too young, but I mean, so it's so superficial.
• 57:21
  Polly Mertens: I know, but so that's where it you need.
• 57:24
  Polly Mertens: To put it through a different lens is okay, so that person looks attractive or looks acceptable, or you know, I I could their bio reads all the wonderful right, just like a resume.
• 57:35
  Polly Mertens: Oh, you're perfect yeah, so it's like you have.
• 57:37
  Polly Mertens: You have enjoyment with this person, right?
• 57:40
  Polly Mertens: Because I mean you're going to spend time with this person, right?
• 57:42
  Samantha Pruitt: Because I mean you're going to spend time with this person because you want every day.
• 57:47
  Samantha Pruitt: Yes, Hello every day.
• 57:49
  Polly Mertens: many meals, many meals.
• 57:50
  Polly Mertens: So you know we want friendship with this person.
• 57:52
  Polly Mertens: That's the sign of a healthy relationship is we're good friends, we're good, not good buddies, whatever, but like you're good friends, you treat each other like good friends.
• 58:00
  Polly Mertens: Would you care about each other?
• 58:01
  Polly Mertens: Thoughtfulness, connection is yeah, you connect with your partner right, you're on the.
• 58:06
  Polly Mertens: I call that like being on the same team.
• 58:08
  Polly Mertens: Right, there's commitment.
• 58:10
  Polly Mertens: Right, there's a commitment to the workability, to the doing the work, to growing together, to and then you know some of these other things is having healthy conflict.
• 58:19
  Polly Mertens: You know, like, you've talked about that.
• 58:21
  Polly Mertens: You know with, with, like, the communication style, so things aren't always going to go your way.
• 58:25
  Polly Mertens: It's always going to be sunshine and rainbows.
• 58:27
  Polly Mertens: Avoid, you know, get things on track before the four horsemen of the apocalypse show up, right Through healthy conflict, flexibility and then just enjoyment, right?
• 58:39
  Polly Mertens: So I think you know if you have this recipe and it's not always that every day right, I think you know you're 26 years.
• 58:45
  Samantha Pruitt: If I listed this list, you're like yep, didn't have that yesterday or the day before that you know, like the one that brings the most value to my mind right now is flexibility, because life is so complicated and challenging and messy and beautiful.
• 59:04
  Samantha Pruitt: So if we're not flexible with ourselves and then ultimately with our partner in the relationship, there isn't a flexibility component, how could you possibly evolve over the course of many years, if not a lifetime, together?
• 59:22
  Samantha Pruitt: Impossible.
• 59:24
  Samantha Pruitt: The stuff that my partner and I have gone through in 26 years is insane Multiple businesses, many kids, grandkids, illnesses, finances.
• 59:38
  Samantha Pruitt: It's endless.
• 59:39
  Samantha Pruitt: It's endless the challenges that come the way of a partnership yeah right and it's.
• 59:45
  Samantha Pruitt: Can you be resilient together?
• 59:47
  Samantha Pruitt: Can you be nimble?
• 59:48
  Samantha Pruitt: Can you be flexible?
• 59:49
  Samantha Pruitt: Can you find grace?
• 59:51
  Samantha Pruitt: Can you find humor?
• 59:52
  Samantha Pruitt: Can you know somehow can you still enjoy the ride?
• 59:55
  Samantha Pruitt: You know, because a lot of times it kind of sucks.
• 1:00:01
  Samantha Pruitt: But if it sucks together, all right.
• 1:00:03
  Samantha Pruitt: You, you know, you just kind of at some point you just laugh about it, yeah, totally, Totally.
• 1:00:10
  Samantha Pruitt: I love it.
• 1:00:11
  Samantha Pruitt: To me it still comes back to that primary question I asked up front is like does this partnership make me a better person?
• 1:00:17
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, Do I make my partner a better person?
• 1:00:21
  Samantha Pruitt: Am I contributing in that way?
• 1:00:23
  Samantha Pruitt: Does this partnership make me a better person?
• 1:00:27
  Samantha Pruitt: And am I contributing in that way with my partner?
• 1:00:30
  Polly Mertens: That's the one thing I want to leave people with.
• 1:00:32
  Samantha Pruitt: I think that's it, you know ask yourself the question and, if it's not, do something about it.
• 1:00:38
  Samantha Pruitt: Yes, we don't.
• 1:00:39
  Samantha Pruitt: We're not saying exit the building, even though in some cases, with all the dysfunction we loaded into this conversation, there are instances they should be exiting the building, there's no doubt about it, right, but in many cases it's like just the awareness and then opening up to the conversation and the healing and being back on the same team together, being back on the journey together.
• 1:01:03
  Samantha Pruitt: It can be magical.
• 1:01:06
  Polly Mertens: And you know, taking the responsibility to do the work, to evaluate yourself and what your role is in what's happening or has been happening or has led to.
• 1:01:14
  Polly Mertens: Whatever phase you're in in this, you know, are you in the early phase of criticism?
• 1:01:20
  Polly Mertens: Ok, what?
• 1:01:20
  Polly Mertens: How can I start shifting?
• 1:01:22
  Polly Mertens: What have I been doing to contribute to that?
• 1:01:24
  Polly Mertens: Or have I let it get to the point of defensiveness?
• 1:01:27
  Polly Mertens: And yet I can still repair it, you know, or I need to make some requests of my partner, I need to open up about some things, right, so, like stepping in and being empowered in this relationship to find out if it's workable or not, you know so I, you know, in multiple relationships, as I stand on the precipice of a pivot myself.
• 1:01:45
  Polly Mertens: You know, as I said, you know, when we hired that coach, I was like I want to do the work in the relationship instead of get out of it, because I will, you know, grow more and maybe this will make it work.
• 1:01:57
  Polly Mertens: You know, maybe this was the relationship that could be turned around.
• 1:02:00
  Polly Mertens: The growth would, would benefit both me and the partner.
• 1:02:03
  Polly Mertens: And you know off we'd go, you know we'd stay together.
• 1:02:09
  Polly Mertens: It didn't in that case, but you know, finding the opportunity to ask yourself and explore where your growth is and where the growth together is.
• 1:02:15
  Samantha Pruitt: I have this revelation that we upfront say we're not relationship.
• 1:02:18
  Samantha Pruitt: You know, coaches and therapists and all this stuff.
• 1:02:21
  Samantha Pruitt: However however, both of us have had partnerships, relationship partnerships that we also were in business and operating businesses with our partners Super complex, dynamic.
• 1:02:35
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, both of us.
• 1:02:36
  Samantha Pruitt: Yes, and in our business coaching specifically that we do.
• 1:02:40
  Samantha Pruitt: It's very common for us to work with couples that own and operate businesses.
• 1:02:46
  Samantha Pruitt: We are experts in this, that little niche right there.
• 1:02:50
  Samantha Pruitt: So if you have a business and you're in it with your partner or you want to start a business with your partner, I mean you definitely call us because we have like a lot of experience in that the good, the bad and the ugly but we can definitely help people through that, so I just wanted to throw it out there.
• 1:03:07
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, and it's not the only thing.
• 1:03:07
  Polly Mertens: You know I think that's true is like you know, we're not quote relationship.
• 1:03:11
  Polly Mertens: You know coaches or counselors, but we're great at this because there's a lot more.
• 1:03:17
  Polly Mertens: Oftentimes that's a complexity.
• 1:03:18
  Polly Mertens: That is a human, you know because if you just you know, it's like you just go to the ear, nose and throat person but gosh, you've got a cough, you know, and it's like, uh, maybe that's something else.
• 1:03:27
  Polly Mertens: You know what else is going on here, somebody that's more naturopathic or holistic medicine like us, you know.
• 1:03:33
  Polly Mertens: Hey, I think we can find the other symptoms of where this is coming from as well.
• 1:03:37
  Polly Mertens: Also, we're really good at having horribly awkward conversations In a loving container of like we're going to get up in your face and help you.
• 1:03:50
  Polly Mertens: You know I had.
• 1:03:50
  Polly Mertens: It was funny I had a call right before this with a client and it had been a couple of weeks it wasn't relationship counseling, but it's a newer client to me in business and we took a look at his profit and loss.
• 1:04:01
  Polly Mertens: This is the first time he'd looked in this year this is six months into the year that he'd looked at his P&L and said, hey, let's just pull it up, whatever.
• 1:04:07
  Polly Mertens: And so he like, at the end of the call I could just feel his, you know, he was disappointed with what his numbers were showing him.
• 1:04:14
  Polly Mertens: That's an understatement, right.
• 1:04:16
  Polly Mertens: So we get back on the call today and he goes well, once you, mike Tyson'd me, you know, you like knocked me out last time.
• 1:04:22
  Polly Mertens: It's like, well, wait a minute, you know.
• 1:04:25
  Polly Mertens: But it got him into action.
• 1:04:27
  Polly Mertens: He's like, man, I really appreciated that.
• 1:04:29
  Polly Mertens: Well, I said, I said I actually acknowledged him.
• 1:04:36
  Polly Mertens: I said, you know, it wasn't that I was meaning to, you know, give you a punch or whatever.
• 1:04:37
  Polly Mertens: But it's like sometimes we need that raw information, sometimes we need to know, like, what's really going on for ourselves.
• 1:04:42
  Polly Mertens: Like asking people like us who ask those questions, who put forth in front of people hey, let's take some inventory.
• 1:04:49
  Polly Mertens: Hey, what do you?
• 1:04:50
  Polly Mertens: What's the?
• 1:04:50
  Polly Mertens: The symptoms are great but like, let's get to the root thing here.
• 1:04:53
  Polly Mertens: Right, and I shared with him cause he's been in action ever since then.
• 1:04:57
  Polly Mertens: The last three weeks he's been just like a little tornado and I'm like, well, you know what you in that moment, instead of getting you know that stomach punch that you felt when you looked at this, which was just me helping you see what was actually going on in your business.
• 1:05:10
  Polly Mertens: It wasn't I did anything, it was like just showing your reality here, just showing your reality.
• 1:05:13
  Polly Mertens: You had the opportunity to either pity party it and not do anything or, as you did, you got into action and you took some steps and you made some growth.
• 1:05:22
  Polly Mertens: And now I can help you make some more growth.
• 1:05:23
  Polly Mertens: You know things like that, so you know that's where I think our coaching comes at people is with loving compassion, to help you get real and get to the bottom of what's going on in your life, whatever area, so that you can do some things right.
• 1:05:38
  Samantha Pruitt: We create the space right and then we curate the questions.
• 1:05:41
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, it's up to the human.
• 1:05:43
  Polly Mertens: you know what they're going to do next, but we're on board for all the crazy things, and that's what this podcast is all about is like hey, we want you to have an awesome life, we believe every day can be awesome, right, and so if it ain't feeling that way in your relationship and your body, something like that, like we, you and I are, we're like I don't know what we're going to call ourselves.
• 1:06:06
  Polly Mertens: It's like change agent, ding dong, like like like the hell out.
• 1:06:08
  Polly Mertens: So this, the work that we're doing in every episode that we record from the core of who we are, is to go hey, hey, hey.
• 1:06:16
  Polly Mertens: This is this is the life.
• 1:06:18
  Polly Mertens: Like hey, hey, hey.
• 1:06:19
  Samantha Pruitt: Right now right now yeah.
• 1:06:21
  Polly Mertens: And it's like does, does your life look, feel you know the way that you want it to.
• 1:06:28
  Polly Mertens: So let's, let's share what.
• 1:06:29
  Polly Mertens: Let's remind them of the last thing that we always leave with them as a reminder for every episode.
• 1:06:35
  Polly Mertens: What do you want to share with more beautifully, humans?
• 1:06:38
  Samantha Pruitt: What I always say.
• 1:06:40
  Samantha Pruitt: Maybe you should get it tattooed right here, by the way.
• 1:06:42
  Samantha Pruitt: I wouldn't be offended if you did, but how your life feels is more important than how it looks.
• 1:06:47
  Polly Mertens: And every day is your opportunity to find your awesome.
• 1:06:51
  Samantha Pruitt: All right, lady, nice work.
• 1:06:52
  Samantha Pruitt: See you next time.