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Core Toolkit of Healthy Relationships

all right. Core toolkit of healthy relationships. What? This is basically a compilation. Just pull it up right here. Show you a compilation of the areas. If you had a toolkit like you have, you were plumber and you had a kid you wanted to put all your tools in. You want to grab from these items These items that over time, with relationships, all sorts of relationships as a parent child relationship, as as a business, A client relationship with your wife with your girlfriend? Um, I'm just not gonna keep naming relationships. You basically gonna have these tenants these tools in your bag? So let's jump in right away. Communication communication is to relationships. What water is to life hits that significant. It's that important. Skillful communication is the backbone of all relationships escaping over this part or thinking there's not much to it or thinking you talk well enough. What's the deal you're talking to speak basically is paramount to ignoring the underlining the underpinning f...

acet that holds everything together. This is the structure, and the foundation is good communication. But the ability to speak so someone feels so. There's two things to its ability to speak so that somebody can actually hear you not assume that they just must listen. And all you have to do is put your words together and toe listen in a way that's active and present those air, not easy skills to harness and to manage and toehold into practice. The word practices there because it takes time and effort to be able to utilize thes skills were gonna dive into that a lot deeper later. But right now, let's go into one of the second tools. These are not put in order of priority. Specifically, they're gonna adjust per individual and for relationship. But affection by everybody's standard was significantly up there. This was a surprise to me. The idea of just being affectionate with each other, being kind to each other. We know. Yes, you. It's important to be nice. It's important to be kind of others. But the amount of affection that two people in a relationship share with each other was a leading indicator across the board of how healthy relationship would be, how much the two would probably be likely to stay together. How well a business might make it over a long term with co partners. Affection came up again and again and again. And this is something that I think most of us feel is a nice tohave, not a critical core component right at the top. Would you agree? I was felt like it's nice to be nice. That's a nice little extra thing to do. But that's not the major thing you need. It's the major thing you need, which I think is so interesting. Affection, of course, is an expression of care. Could be physical affection. It could be just being thoughtful. It could be actively adjusting how you behave to somebody else just because you want to be kind versus what you automatically feel. So even though it seems like a rather soft soft concept, are you guys familiar with doctors? Gottman, who ran the Love Lab in Seattle s 02 doctors that they're both Gottman. So that's why you say Dr Scott maned. I think that's actually how you do it. They ran this lovely love lab for decades, I think nearly 30 years in Seattle, Washington, and what they did was they studied the way couples interacted, and by studied, I mean didn't just interview them, but hope them up to all kinds of machines and tracked how their breath moved and how their pulse raise and what their blood pressure did and all these sort of things, and then had them interact in a way that they would normally interact and studied. How they did this as and it was meant to be is realist possible. It's how they would normally communicate. They were studied behind a window, and they were left in a room by themselves. And what they found over time is they had a 90% accuracy rate on determining, determining right away whether a couple would make it long term or not. That's really stunning to be able to call it that fast and that consistently over the long term. And what they found was there are top three indicators that came into play when, when it had to do with if a couple would stay together and this is all kinds of couples. But if they would stay together over the long term, first and foremost it was knowing each other's lives in terms of what your shared values are, what your dreams are, were your aspirations taking the time to really know this level about another person That was one of the number one things skip to number three real quick. The third was that when couples had any source of friction between them, they turned toward each other instead of turning away. And this was physically, emotionally in terms of being open versus shutting off. Um, and the number two of the top three indicators of everything they looked at was affection, which is surprising to me because it had to do with just the daily practice of sharing affection each other, how people framed things that the other person did. The lens they used toe look at what the other person was doing. Something so simple turned out to be critically important when it came to not just a long term relationship, but one in which people were content and happy and joyful together over the long term. So if you look at thes spectrum on the opposite side of affection was content contempt for the other person in terms of mannerisms, words, used expressions, actions from a contemptuous view that was on the far other side. Contempt flagged them to say this couple is not gonna make it, or if they do make it, it's gonna be miserable. For both of them, it's that important. Contempt on the other side is a leading indicator that a couple would not make it over the long term. What is an easier way to frame affection versus contempt? Super simple. You walk into the bathroom and there's a wet towel left on the floor. You could either say, Oh, that little smuggle Bugel down before big it up. Walk out. That's affection. Or you could walk out and say, How many times have we had? He's so inconsiderate. That's affection versus contempt, obviously a little bit at extremes on a minor issue. But that's what plays out time and time again, how we framed it. So he chose to don't call anybody smuggled local, but it had at a massive difference on an overall level. So if you were to say things like we talked earlier about the concept of perfection or pure fiction, we air conditioned for perfection as it relates not only to what we want to achieve, but what we expect in others, or especially what we expect in those closest to us. The standards that we hold for those closest to us are really, really high. We don't expect the same things from people who aren't that close to us. And in fact, what you hear time and time again is people saying you know what? At the end of the day, what I want to do that do most is shut the door, put my feet up and just be myself. I don't wanna have to be nice to you. I want to be myself with you. Have you guys ever heard that or said that? Yes. Is Have you have you literally that had an exchange similar to that where that has come up, whether it's like a passionately happy one or negative ones. Sometimes I'm, like, really like I just want to and we do disagree sometimes unlike how we emote, certain things could be minor. It could be a major, but definitely when you say you disagree and how you vote, you mean you both use different ways to express how you feel. Probably What I guess I meant is how that would make the other person feel, I don't know is that I understand how, like I can be pretty passionate positively or negatively. And when it comes like the negative side, sometimes it could be interpreted as personal, you know, statement towards when I'm thinking more general, you know, And I'm just frustrating inventing and it's taken personally with you. It's just me letting things out. S o. I learned how to become more conscious of making that clear, like, or even setting the expectation where I'm upset. I'm gonna say this like this. I don't need it like yeah, yeah, and actually, that's fantastic, because what you end up happening is two people very frustrated, feeling misunderstood. The one says, Look, I want to have one person that I can just I don't have to fake it with. I can say what I want to say. I could do it. I want to do, I can feel I want to feel and I don't have to gloss it up for you. That's a good thing. That's what I want for this relationship. Whereas the other person may perceive that exact same experiences, you gave all your kindness to everybody else and I get the crap at the end of the day that that's a big change and how two people are perceiving one experience. That's affection versus contempt. Affection means instead of giving you what's left of me at the end of the day, I'm gonna recognize that you get the most kindness. You get the most of a break. I'm not gonna put such a perfectionist standard on you. I'm actually give you the bigger break. I'm gonna understand more about you. I'm gonna be a sanctuary for you instead of expect that you're a repository for anything that's not going well for me, that that's a fundamental perspective shift for people when you start to frame things through the lens of affection versus contempt, It's an odd thing that we tend to hold the people closest to us to the highest standards and expect to give them the lowest parts of ourselves. Sometimes I read the story once that just well, I thought showed this off so well, I mentioned earlier that I have audio sensitivities, things that audio. I'm very lucky in that My husband doesn't snore. I know a lot of people with that that have kind of snoring issues and their relationships. Guess where you hide here. Nothing to do with. If you do snore Do not snore. But I read this story where this grown woman went to visit her mom and dad and he fell asleep on the couch, his legs, that he fell asleep snoring. And she's in the living room, and she says to her mom, She's like, Oh, how do you see to hand it? How have you been able to stand it for so long? Normal human response, Whether Mom said was and the mom keep in mind, head lived through a lot and she had lost a lot. And she had lost people close to her and especially she she had lost people that unexpectedly and then she also had experiences this I'm summing up the story. She also had experiences with dear friends who had unexpectedly lost their husbands, and she'd been by their side. And she's been at funerals, and she seen what was left of them after with an unexpected loss. And she said, When I hear him snore, that means he's home. That means he's safe and he's with me and we're together When I hear snoring, it means he's here with me and I get to love him for one more day in one more night, and that's an incredible perspective shift that is going from contempt. The same activity, the same people. Nothing has changed, but we've gone from contempt to affection. That's how you hear it. It's someone's you put on the chewing. That means my baby boy is by my side. I love him. There's so much to learn from that, Um, The underlying theme, of course, is gratitude for what you have and the way it's coming at you, even if it's not exactly the way you would have set it up to be coming at you through these reminders of people around us, affection is about being more graceful with each other on purpose, and that is why it's so significant. Cross all relationships, forgiveness. This is another one. Um, it's been said that a great long term relationship is made up of two very good for givers. I think there's so much to that. With closeness comes, pain comes mistakes. Stumbling to become close to another means to open yourself up in ways that you're going to get hurt and you're going to either have to forgive or avoid or shell up like a turtle and backup away, whether it's tacitly understood or full blown discussion with all kinds of declarations of apologies, Forgiveness is is very significant in relationships, and you can't be in a long term relationship and not practice forgiveness on some level. If you want to remain close, ever think of any relationship you've had in your life. You can't get through the relationship without having to forgive at some point. And if you go into relationship with the understanding or continue current relationships with the understanding that forgiveness is going to be required, you have an expectation for it. You may find that you have more tolerance to be able to forgive because, you know, it's something that is part of all relationships. So there are an incredible amount of theories on there on how to forgive. I had no idea. Apparently there's processes and their systems, and there's suggested steps. There were so many of them that I said, you know, I'm gonna boil it down to five that I think would make sense that you could kind of place in this order. I mean, some of these are like 12 step 14 step programs on how to forgive and obviously what you're forgiving. There's a large spectrum there, too. It's the wet towel on the floor. It's the extreme situation that you don't even know how to forget. We're actually talk about that in just a second, but sometimes it helps to toe fall along with concrete steps. First and foremost is identify what occurred to find who did what. Isn't it interesting on how many of these steps involved with managing irritation managing forgiveness? There's a couple more you have to start with just identification. Sometimes we go off and get really upset and frustrated. We can't even tell you exactly why. So just starting with saying you define exactly who did what Number two is acknowledged the feelings. This is one of the very first steps, but it's unreal. How many people cannot do this part like just to be able to say, You know what, I'm not gonna put pretty words to it. I have to acknowledge it to myself. I feel like I just got screwed over. I feel like I got lied to. I feel like I feel like I just got betrayed. Just put whatever words, and it doesn't matter how delicate they are. Just go ahead and acknowledge that you feel indignant. You feel like your privates bruise that you didn't deserve it. That it was unfair to you. Just acknowledge it. Um, number three. And I love the way this is raised. Bear the feelings, bear the feelings, and that means a lot of different things to a lot of different peoples. But in this case, it's meant as that part where you do the work and you actually feel it and you don't know now in all the ways we know had an amount, I'm really upset. I'm going to get some ice cream right now. You know, I'm gonna turn on the TV, and then I start with this bottle of wine and then moving on to that one and that one and that one. All the ways we know to not there the feelings and the ways we do know how did not numb out? Um I mean, I look sometimes in the grocery store and I see these trashy magazines that said, celebrities without makeup look a close up of her, but she's got you like and I'm like, you don't wanna have any feelings yourself and after experience them you could die right into this and just like mock other people. Um, but the biggest thing is toe let it all it all let it all in and actually feel it. Because when you don't do that, these feelings have a way of knocking you on your ass later. Especially when the other person you're in a fight and it's three months later. And suddenly, Rick, and you know what else? Moom So bear the feelings. Determine what you want the most again, getting really logical with yourself what I want. We talked earlier about what you want in a relationship. This is, you know, time and time again. It's like if you want right now, just to see, then a bigger then that's what you want. I want to see that anger I'd like to tell you right now I'm going to be seething, going to spend the next hour doing that. But if what you want to do is move into a more aware situation with the person who you feel that you need to forgive than to frame that and understand that what I want is to move into a place after this I don't want to wipe it away because I don't think we can. I don't think we can whitewash things and feel them at the same time. But I can acknowledge that this occurred and then find ourselves here from this new place where we have this information about each other and then last is recognised. It's a process. I think sometimes we kind of expect that we're gonna get all done right now. All right, Baird, the feelings. I determined what I one of the most and now I am finished. It's complete. You know, there's two parts to that in terms of the recognizing that the processes that give yourself whatever amount of time you need. But the other thing is to set boundaries, get smart and care for yourself. Caring for others doesn't happen until you can really care for yourself. So what you need to be able to say is if I felt like I got so screwed over by this person, But what I know is what I want a relationship with them again. I'm going to be careful in this area. I'm not gonna just fly back in its they do it in be careful. That's the setting boundaries part not setting yourself up for more damage because you want to be intentionally come to yourself. Um, I find this interesting that there is a surprising need, Teoh forgive in business. And we don't normally think of it that way. What we think about in our life, the people we know, the people we interact with is that these are our relationships. And what we think of is happening in business is those relationships are more transactional nature. This is real. And this is But those are still people and you're still a person. You still have all the same human experiences. And they may be transactional in nature in terms of frequency. Maybe only see people two times a year when you have a client interaction or whatever the case may be. But you can still have a lot of feeling around things, especially if you're putting your passion into your work. You're you should have a lot of feeling when you're putting all that passion into your work. Um, I have a photographer that I've worked with. I think we speak about four times a year, and she kind of brings up the issue she's struggling with, and we work for them. And what I have found is the last four conversations in a row. A really talented photographer runs a good business, is doing very well for herself. But and she will be the first to tell you that she gets hung up on clients that she feels make things hard for her, make things difficult and very hung up. And in fact, she had this one exchange with a client where going to make this very third party rise for above so that I'm keeping the the this privacy part. But basically where she felt overwhelmed by the clients need, she felt rejected by the clients feedback she felt put down. She felt like her stomach hurt whenever she'd see an email from this client that she started talking about it more, more with her husband. How? Oh, it's time for another shoot. They're gonna call me again. I'm gonna have to go through all this again. It started affecting her life and one of things I said to her, as this may seem bizarre, but I think you need to start with actually just forgiving her for treating you like crap and then determine if you want to work with her again or not. But otherwise it's just gonna stick with you. It's toxic. It's all over you. So acknowledging that that's one thing. The other thing. I mean, I can think of a 1,000, examples in business, and I have had several of them where I have teamed up with people who did not do their end of the bargain on and caused a lot of damage to either the product we working on or something that we were doing. And I found that I could either cut them in on my life and ate the forever, or I recognize that this was a human experience. I had a human response. I need to have a human action of forgiveness. Have you guys ever had a rough experience in business and found that to be an important part, kind of going through one right now, similar to the story you told about that other photographer and I'm really struggling with dealing with it, and it's literally affecting my days, like happened right before the first day in your workshop where things started to get Iraqi and like, honestly, I have been losing sleep over it. I'm like, I don't know what to do. And it involves, Like, I don't ever want a client. Have a bad experience with me. And I'm sure you know, your friend feels the same way you do it. That is like the worst thing for me ever is to have a client have a bad experience, you know, because I'm like, until this 0.100% satisfaction and I ask, you know, And I'm really thorough about kind of interviewing people about their experience with me, I'm like, I'm really destroyed about. I just don't know what to do. And it's like my integrity is on the line. My business, like how I feel about my business, is on the line. You know, getting my last check from them is on the line like it's questioning a lot of me. So, uh, can we take a moment just to look at the 1st 2 points? He said. Integrity is on the line. I feel as an artist e want toe stop and pause on that because I think your integrity is quite in check for a few days of you. I'm sure from everybody. You've talked Teoh. Everybody has worked with you. There's no question about that, right? The decision makers, the only person who's making it difficult, right? Right. Everyone else around them is like the words loss you've been great to work with. Yeah, but But it can get. Especially as an artist developing. I mean, it's personal. We literally did this for you. Do you like it? I made this ashtray for you like that. I don't want You don't want to take it personally right now. You're an artist, A little hard soul in it. But, you know, it's still like its work. It's like it should be the same as delivering, you know, I don't know. Not not, you know, to really break it down, a case of water, like whatever it is it should be like, You know, there's some commoditization that to a service. So, yes, I understand that very well. Very well. I mean, every single instructor who gets up here and creative I've with a large audience, they do their very best. They pull their hearts off their amazed they sit down and see some sort of comment that snarky mean and they're like I thought I did. Well, everybody, everybody. I mean, you guys moderate. The chat host. I've jumped in that chat room. I'm watching somebody do a fantastic job. They're blowing me away like, Wow, what a great instructor. I long in the chat. Someone like her shoes look stupid. You know, it's just And then I'm not saying that the norm. Normally, it's a very positive, friendly, lovely space. But if that's what strikes you, but what strikes you? That's what pops out because 99% of the people in the chat room 99% of the people that you're interacting with Excuse me, 99. are extraordinarily positive and love it. And this and that and that 1.1% is now. That's your focus, and you feel like your integrity on the line. You feel like you're reputations on the line, and of course it's not. It's not. It's just become that large do. But the idea of actually stepping through a process where you what that gives you what that gives you is the ability to find peace within yourself. It's got nothing to do with the other person. It's got nothing to do with that client. What that does is that you go back to sleep at night and let you speak with assurance to all your future clients that you will do the very best job you can. I mean, it's for you. I want to show you. And because and and I want to show you this because I'm not sure many people are familiar with Jeremy Cowart, photographer. Very dear friend of mine. He was that he was an instructor here. Absolutely. Yeah, I just got the chills because I know what's coming. Good, good. And he is. If you're not familiar, this striking work, please go to jeremy Cowart dot com. Andi specifically check. Check out one of his areas where he traveled to Rwanda with a filmmaker, Laura Waters Henson in August of 2011 with the sole focus on documenting survivors of genocide in Rwanda, who had reconciled with the people who is the victims and the perpetrators, the survivors and the perpetrators who had reconciled. And we're now living peaceably together. So to have done to this horrible time and be a person who did horrific acts and to be a person who the horrific acts were either done two or you lost people dear to you because of what that other person did. The portrait in the Siri's. They captured them standing together, the perpetrator and the survivor and and the whole emphasis on this was forgiveness. And we run into things, and I wanted to show this. I reach out Jeremy and I said, Do you mind if I showed this? Because I think it would illustrate a point I want to make, which is that when you look at forgiveness, most of us say, Yeah, I can forgive up until a point and we have an R points Very right. We confer, give up into a point. But something's feel like, if I were to forgive that I would be. I would be, um, if I were to forgive what that person did to me. Basically, I would be saying, Hey, everybody, walk all over me as if there's a relationship between what you're able to forgive and what other people might think of you now for having a big, forgiving, generous heart or being able to see the business upside of what you can do next, you know? Wow, this is a great lesson. What can I do next time? Now that I've learned everything that you will learn, this is an amazing If you've never had one shred of negative feedback before Congratulations and I'm not lying. I have never produced one product that one person hasn't made some sort of comment like, I mean, I'm teaching relationship course I'm gonna be like, Where does she doing? Therefore, she's not a psychologist, That's why. Start up. I think I'm not a psychologist. I've learned so much from that sort of feedback and ways to be able to tweak and do a better job. So you're you're getting that If you're if you feel like you are someone who has have these two or three pockets that like, you know what? No matter what, Tama says that there there's no way I could forgive this. I want to show an example of that. Each of these people together, we're asked to hold a joint statement that they chose to write. So in this image, um, and forgive me if I don't pronounce correctly. But Tatyana's Kenya, age 60 lost 25 members of his family during the genocide, including his wife and seven Children. John, the 41 year old the man who killed one of his brothers, begged him for forgiveness from prison, and they have since reconciled. What they have written together on this branch right here is still best friends. That's their message. Bernard and Earnestine married after the 1994 genocide in which nearly all of her family members were murdered. She later forgave the killers of her family and married Bernard, a former Hutu, the ethnic group that largely perpetrated the genocide. They're members of an association of reconciled survivors and ex prisoners with the as We Forgive Rwanda Initiative. And they're featured in an upcoming documentary, a documentary called Mama Rwanda, about women entrepreneurs in Rwanda. The message that they hold says, We are all Rwandan here. We've have Anesta age 45 survived the genocide by hiding in a banana tree while his entire family was chased by a mob into the lake, which is pictured here and drowned. Jean, age 29 is the son of the leader of that mob. Although the father fled the country in fear, Jean Claude begged a nice stuff for forgiveness during a trial and an Austin out of his Christian faith for gave them all the message and I have this forgiveness releases fear Xavier, Age 48 survived the genocide by hiding alone in houses and forced to evade the killers. And earnest on the left. Age 48 was part of a group that murdered eight of his family members. Afterwards. He quickly admitted his guilt to the local authorities and spent 13 years in prison, after which time Xavier decided to forgive him. They're pictured outside the house where eggs a view hid during the violence. The messages We restored our humanity. Clementine's age, 31 endured years of rage after the family friend that lived in her home, Celestine age, 38 killed her mother, three siblings and aunt and an uncle. During his seven years in prison, he was impacted by various ministers who taught him about the need to repent and ask for forgiveness. Later, he begged her for pardon, but it took more than a year for her to agree, she said. When I finally for gave, I felt so light hearted that I cried today the to remain friends and he actually helps her with household work message hearts unburdened. I would love for you to go to jeremy Cowart dot com, check out its blawg and see a lot more images like this. Why would they decide to forgive when it was like the worst thing anybody could imagine? Could you imagine? Like, we tend to think it's the other side of the world, right? I think Dr Wayne Viruses Amazing quote that says there are no sides and around world, the other side of the world is just us this way. I mean, it's not the other side of the world, and these messages hearts unburden. We restored our humanity. Perspective like this sharpens for me the ability to see clearly the things I still hold on to. And I feel like I could never forgive them that because I've never had that and if I could see it done, there's a power within me to find that. So I think part of why many people find so much peace and forgiveness is that lightning that releasing they realize that holding onto angers and hurts and rage is just another way. We imprison our own cells, and it could have nothing to do with the other person you forgive and everything to do with you and what you let go of and what you confined from that place. Recognizing that truth is an incredible route to freeing our own self. Any questions on that On the on the FAA I've seen, by the way, I've seen his work. I've seen him president that twice, and I'm gone for his bald probably 18 times. And I'm so struck by the power of that that that occurs in our world today. I'm so struck by that, and you probably have all seen extreme examples of forgiveness where you're just sitting like I don't know how. I don't know how they could do that. I don't think I could ever do that. And yet there's so much to learn from that. I think the idea of pulling back and looking at that kind of perspective is a very powerful way to find changing ourselves. Yeah, I mean, I think just people think it's very, very humbling. And then forgiveness, of course, starts with Who do you want to forgive first before anybody else? It's your own self, you know, holding onto past regrets and guilt and shame and all the things that we just loop in our head. A great relationship is made up of very two, very good for givers.