Somatic Therapist: The #1 Reason Couples Miscommunicate | Elizabeth Ferreira, Being Well

0:00 Hello and welcome to Being Well.

0:01 I'm Forrest Hanson.

0:02 If you're new to the podcast, thanks for listening today,

0:05 and if you've listened before, welcome back.

0:07 Today I'm here with a very special guest, back by popular demand.

0:12 I asked the people on YouTube who they wanted to see more of this year,

0:15 and they all said this person,

0:17 uh associate therapist and very importantly my fiance, Elizabeth Ferreira.

0:22 So, Elizabeth, how are you doing?

0:24 Wow, what a what an introduccione.

0:27 I had to roll out the red carpet for you.

0:28 you really I really felt it out.

0:30 podcast celebrity.

0:31 You're like you're you're who the people want.

0:33 You know, they come for for me and Rick, they stay for you.

0:38 I [clears throat] we're really flying by the seat [laughter] of our pants today.

0:40 I'm I'm feeling loose, I guess.

0:42 So, today we wanted to talk about something that came

0:45 out of conversations that we've just been having with each other.

0:47 Our kitchen conversations.

0:48 My kitchen conversations about work that we're doing with clients.

0:51 I do a little bit of coaching work.

0:53 Elizabeth does a lot of therapy work with people.

0:55 Mhm.

0:56 And some of the themes that we were

0:57 finding in that also reflected our personal experience.

1:00 And some of the stuff that we've bumped into as a couple

1:03 in addition to people who kind of work in the world of mental health.

1:05 And so we thought we would kind of bundle all

1:07 of that together and have a bit of a conversation about it today.

1:12 So, I want to start with you, actually.

1:14 I want to We're flipping roles a little bit.

1:17 script on me here.

1:18 You know, much to probably you know, Rick, who saw this coming years ago.

1:23 Finally, Forrest is coaching and sitting with people and having that experience.

1:28 Like I think generally people kind of view you as this very logical,

1:34 not so much a touchy-feely kind of guy, you know, very into rational I like

1:39 learning I like knowing things stuff like that.

1:42 And it's been interesting watching you sit with other

1:45 people that kind of identify in that way.

1:48 And kind of I don't know,

1:50 sometimes you have this joking like chagrin kind of energy to it,

1:53 but coming out of your sessions being like,

1:56 man, I've just kind of turned into Mr.

1:59 Rogers here.

2:00 It's so true.

2:00 I I've become the warm and fuzzy very humanistic Uh-huh.

2:05 type person.

2:06 I think in part because the people who often seek me out to work

2:09 with me see that more logical rational I can take this guy seriously,

2:14 it feels like he knows his stuff aspect of who I am, which is true.

2:18 I I also have that as a big part of my personality.

2:21 But then what emerges in the work together is

2:23 these are people who often want to get more

2:25 in touch with their feelings or more in touch

2:29 with the ability to relate to other people really empathetically.

2:32 Uh that kind of sensitive boys club thing

2:34 that I've talked about on the podcast in the past.

2:35 And they want to be able to find that in their relationships and open up to it.

2:40 And then, you know, shoe on the other foot,

2:43 you've talked with me a lot about how

2:45 you are the emotional feely heart centered person.

2:49 And then it turns out that you end up holding up

2:51 the more logical rational stuff inside of the room with people,

2:54 problem solving driven, how do we actually like do things on the ground

2:58 to make your life a little bit better day after day.

3:00 So, there's this funny thing where we've both leaned into the the the opposite

3:06 side of who we are a little bit in our work with people.

3:08 And I I think that that really speaks to the importance of having

3:11 the yes and of this and being able to access both sides of the street.

3:15 And maybe that's a place we could kind of start.

3:18 I want to follow some curiosity that I have.

3:19 And I'm sort of wondering as you're holding this container with other people,

3:25 what does it feel like for you to be confronted with someone who's

3:28 in that logical analytical kind of part maybe as more of like a defense?

3:35 Both of these aspects are good and useful.

3:38 And both of them are kinds of defensive adaptation often

3:42 in how they show up particularly in relationships with other people.

3:46 The more logical rational side,

3:48 the kind of sharp scalpel of your big sparkly brain Mhm.

3:51 can be a great defense against needing to feel painful feelings.

3:55 Inside of relationship, this often shows up as a lot of problem solving.

3:59 Um here, let me fix that for you.

4:01 I'm a big fixer.

4:02 So, I really get this.

4:04 And then the more kind of emotional sensitive side,

4:07 there's a lot of good stuff in that, joining,

4:10 establishing the shared base of connection from which we can solve problems,

4:15 feeling of you and me together so that there's this sense of team,

4:19 and that team helps everybody feel really safe.

4:22 At the same time also,

4:24 if you just only ever live there and you never move into more problem solving,

4:27 well, that that can be a kind

4:28 of defense against needing to actually do something.

4:30 And I think that I've learned a lot from you

4:34 about how to be with both of those parts.

4:37 So, these days when I work with somebody who

4:39 is the more cognitive logical rational, I really like it.

4:43 I find that work very natural because I know what worked for me.

4:47 I I think I find that more natural and intuitive than if I

4:50 were working with somebody who is really the opposite end of the coin.

4:53 I think I would struggle more.

4:54 So, I'm curious about kind of these adaptations or these defenses,

4:58 and I want to kind of invite you to be

5:00 a little more personal than maybe you've been in the past.

5:03 Sure.

5:03 Cuz something that we're sort of also kitchen talks we're

5:07 talking about emotional touchy-feely is

5:10 feminine and logical analytical is masculine.

5:14 And I think it's really dangerous to create things in such

5:17 a gender binary because one then what happens to you

5:22 when you're an adult and it's like your whole life

5:24 you've been told oh you're not allowed to do that.

5:26 But also I think like it can remove certain aspects

5:30 of people being seen like in other identities or forms like that.

5:34 And I think when we were talking about this it really

5:37 became clear like we both have these energies inside of us.

5:42 Yeah, I think everybody's got both.

5:43 Yeah.

5:44 And so I'm sort of curious if you could

5:46 walk me through and people listening your kind of reminiscence

5:51 on how you felt that pressure of being socialized to actually

5:56 kind of sharpen [clears throat] the scalpel versus stay open-hearted.

5:59 Well, I think there are there are two pressures on people that are really big.

6:03 One of them is definitely gender socialization.

6:05 As we talk about this, it's going to be

6:07 natural for me to use terminology like masculine or feminine,

6:10 particularly more masculine traits when I

6:12 talk about that logical rational stuff,

6:14 and more feminine traits when I talk about the more empathic relational stuff.

6:19 There's some evolutionary psychology in how

6:22 these traits might be distributed unevenly

6:25 on a gender basis or on a sex basis between men and women,

6:28 but the reality is most of this is pretty constructed.

6:32 So, there's the pressure of that socialization.

6:34 But then there's also just the defensive adaptation of these strategies.

6:39 I think that I did receive socialization pressure,

6:43 but I grew up in a pretty progressive household with a pretty touchy-feely dad.

6:47 I was definitely not hit over the head

6:49 with like boys don't cry rhetoric, that kind of stuff.

6:52 For me it was often really defensive in nature.

6:55 I was a big feeler.

6:57 I was very very very sensitive.

7:00 And hanging out in that place,

7:02 particularly when you're on the playground with other kids,

7:05 very dangerous place to be.

7:07 Lots safer to be logical rational guy.

7:10 Lots safer to kind of like close those aspects of yourself up.

7:13 And and that's a story that's echoed by a lot of the people that I work with.

7:16 Then on the other hand,

7:17 I was really rewarded for the more logical rational stuff.

7:20 They I had a natural affinity for it.

7:22 I could do it well.

7:23 I could perform in a classroom.

7:24 And bottom line, the more sensitive feely parts of me

7:30 were sources mostly in my experience of suffering, frankly.

7:35 They were these were the ways that the hurt got in.

7:37 And the more logical rational stuff was what

7:40 I was really benefited when I did it.

7:42 And so I was like, okay.

7:44 And now obviously I'm going to gravitate more in that direction over time.

7:46 So, that was that was definitely a big part of my experience with it.

7:49 I don't know if if the opposite was true for you.

7:52 I think trauma complicates things where there was this you know,

7:58 insular experience of I I was expected to be highly attuning and empathic,

8:05 um particularly to my mother.

8:08 But then in the extended family, that was viewed as weakness or a vulnerability.

8:13 But what I feel like is kind of my experience is the more

8:19 emotional space is what comes up first for me, I would say.

8:23 And then I kind of have had to learn how to hold that and include

8:30 kind of the logical analytical or more directive um action-based kind of thing.

8:35 But yeah, I I think it's like a little more complicated for me.

8:38 But what I see kind of across the board is

8:42 in a lot of family systems girls are expected to perform like girls.

8:48 And boys are expected to perform like boys.

8:51 And I'm just going to say I kind of hate that.

8:55 The girls are allowed to be the more emotional um unmoored one.

9:03 And the boys are more expected to be kind of aggressive,

9:06 push your feelings off to the side.

9:08 Don't like that.

9:10 Um feel just overall feel less.

9:12 Yeah.

9:13 And the bummer of this is that everybody needs both.

9:15 Yeah.

9:16 You want both.

9:17 You want to be able to play with all the toys.

9:18 You want to access to all of the moves on the chessboard,

9:20 particularly inside of your relationships.

9:22 I think that our relationship story from a problem solving perspective,

9:28 like how did we go from where we were

9:30 to where we got to inside of our relationship,

9:32 is really a story of two things happening at the same time.

9:35 It's a story of me getting that things got better for me when

9:41 I hung out in empathic relationship with you for a longer period of time

9:46 Mhm.

9:46 before I tried to fix a problem.

9:48 Yeah.

9:49 This required me to be able to do two things at the same time.

9:53 It required me to trust that you would

9:55 eventually be open to moving into problem solving.

9:58 And it required me to be able to regulate my own

10:01 emotions that came up when I saw you in distress.

10:04 Mhm.

10:05 And this is a big thing that people don't always talk about with fixing,

10:08 where fixing is often an an attempt

10:10 to solve something that's called emotional contagion.

10:13 So, when I see you feeling bad, I don't want you to feel bad anymore.

10:18 Because I am sensitive boys club.

10:20 You know, there is that feeling center that's inside of me,

10:23 and that by the way, is inside of most if not all men.

10:26 And when I see you in distress, a really easy way to move you out

10:30 of distress is to provide the solution to your problem.

10:33 So, all of a sudden, I don't have to feel bad anymore if you stop feeling bad.

10:38 But, there are a lot of practical reasons that somebody

10:40 might not be able to move into problem solving immediately.

10:43 For starters, they want that sense of team.

10:45 They don't want to feel like they're doing it on their own.

10:46 There's a lot of advice in life that is

10:48 so easy when we give it to somebody else.

10:51 Yeah.

10:51 Yeah.

10:52 And we so struggle to apply it to ourselves, you know?

10:55 Even me, as I captain problem solver,

10:57 am I always applying all of my great solutions to other people to my own life?

11:02 No.

11:03 No.

11:04 [laughter]

11:04 No, I'm not I'm not sitting on the mountain top with all of this stuff,

11:08 you know what I mean?

11:08 We're all human.

11:09 It's really okay.

11:11 But, that's that's a project.

11:13 So, on the one hand, I had to do all of that.

11:15 I I don't want to put words in your mouth here, but you're part of the process.

11:18 But, what I've seen in you is you've become much more proactive

11:23 and much more solutions oriented and open to solutions as time has gone on.

11:28 Um I don't know if that was something that you like actively worked

11:31 on or if it just kind of happened as other stuff was going on.

11:34 Before we met, there you know,

11:39 I was still living in an environment where

11:42 all my survival strategies had to be there.

11:45 And I was fairly emotionally closed off.

11:49 Mhm.

11:50 I was very focused on achievement, goal orientation,

11:55 even though I was way more artistic and I never really felt

11:59 like I had a ton of um I guess like intellectual game.

12:04 I was in school a lot, and I was always doing something.

12:08 So, there was always this energy that I had of constantly being oriented out.

12:14 Mhm.

12:14 And you know, what would often happen was when

12:18 nobody else was around and I was finally by myself,

12:20 then this like eruption of kind of like emotion would kind of happen.

12:24 And I think what occurred in the beginning

12:28 stages of our relationship was the unraveling

12:31 of this sort of false identity that I

12:35 had constructed in order to protect myself.

12:39 And that was an incredibly vulnerable and frankly chaotic moment.

12:46 And looking back now as someone who's training to be a trauma therapist,

12:54 it's very clear to me, oh, I was triggered a lot.

12:57 Mhm.

12:58 Meaning, the part of my brain that could fire to actually

13:01 get to problem solving was not really online at the time.

13:07 So, I would be coming to you with what appeared

13:09 to be kind of out of left field emotional uh material,

13:16 but the real kind of ask was I I'm not at a place where I can problem solve yet,

13:23 because I've never even been taught how to regulate this.

13:27 I either totally cut it off and pretend it's not there,

13:30 or I am showing you what happens when I

13:33 don't do that, and it is completely overwhelming and chaotic.

13:37 And I think that during that time that was the most turbulent moment,

13:46 because as I was learning a lot about myself and what happened to me

13:51 and the impact of trauma at as it the impact of trauma on me,

13:58 Yeah.

13:58 I was really able to see how it was affecting you as my partner.

14:04 Mhm.

14:02 And I think to you, you know,

14:06 we both really showed up in ways that helped move through that, and a part

14:11 of that was and I know this is a as someone who works with trauma,

14:17 is that if I'm sitting with someone who's actively triggered in session,

14:24 no amount of problem solving is going to move that person

14:28 into a place where they can actually hear what I'm saying.

14:32 There is a distress that is happening to where

14:36 the body is in a fight or flight state.

14:39 Yeah, your brain's not working that way.

14:41 working that way.

14:42 So, that attunement is necessary, because now we're entering co-regulation.

14:52 The experience is able to come down,

14:54 and now I'm able to move back into that problem solving space.

15:01 And so, over time, to sort of say this back to you, Mhm.

15:05 what I saw is that you became more internally regulated Yeah.

15:09 in a way that let you move into that more rapidly.

15:13 Yep.

15:13 Um it needed you needed less and less fuel to be able to make that transition.

15:20 But, like everybody, you still need some fuel.

15:24 Yeah.

15:24 If I'm problem solving in a work environment, the most logical, rational,

15:29 not empathic attunement environment you can imagine,

15:32 what do I still want to hear from my manager?

15:36 That they're not going to fire me if I get this wrong.

15:38 Mhm.

15:38 There's some basic level of emotional,

15:41 relational stuff that helps every logical,

15:44 rational communication go as good as possible, right?

15:47 Like, that's why we talk about emotional fluency inside of the workplace

15:50 or uh being able to create psychological

15:52 safety in work environments, things like that.

15:55 So, this is important everywhere.

15:57 And there are people who are going to have uh

16:00 more of a natural inclination one direction or the other.

16:03 They're going to find it easier to do one or the other, but over time,

16:07 the hope is that it becomes easier and easier

16:10 for you to access the whole game board.

16:13 And I think that one of the things that helps people

16:15 with that is just this kind of thousand-foot view of the whole thing,

16:18 appreciating both of these as important aspects of the whole process,

16:22 and appreciating your nature and temperament.

16:25 My nature and temperament was to have a lot of game with logical, rational,

16:28 to be very uncomfortable with that emotional intimacy,

16:32 because that was where a lot of my pain was.

16:35 Mhm.

16:35 I I had to go into that material in order to process it,

16:38 and that was not fun for me initially.

16:40 Yeah.

16:40 And to add, you know, like if the story from, you know,

16:45 my family system was weakness is bad,

16:50 meaning vulnerability is bad, it was incredibly difficult for me to move

16:55 into a space that I had not practiced a a ton,

17:00 which was this more kind of rational, how do you Okay,

17:03 what's the step plan, all of this, you know,

17:06 majority of my life before kind of entering into a heap of trauma work myself,

17:12 was sort of just shooting from the hip and being really lucky.

17:15 Sure.

17:15 Um and having a lot of stamina.

17:18 I have an incredible endurance for pain.

17:21 Um [clears throat] but it was even more distressing to show you my distress

17:26 and how difficult certain things were for me to do in that space.

17:30 I wonder if that's a piece of it.

17:31 We actually haven't talked about this before,

17:33 but I I wonder about that showing incompetence,

17:39 for lack of a better way of putting it,

17:42 inside of a relationship as being a big point point of vulnerability for people.

17:46 Like, if I go into that more um relational place with you,

17:51 that's a place where I'm uncomfortable,

17:52 yes, but it's also one where maybe I don't have as much practice.

17:56 Mhm.

17:56 Also, frankly, most guys have a lot

17:58 of wounding experiences around showing vulnerability.

18:02 They were really punished for doing it.

18:04 Uh a lot of guys receive messages these days

18:07 around being more emotionally vulnerable and responsive with their partners,

18:11 and so they say, "Okay." And they try it, and it really does not go well.

18:15 Maybe because there's a lack of skills

18:16 or they don't know how to communicate that.

18:19 Uh maybe it's something I think we're going to talk about in a bit,

18:21 this idea of um in order for somebody to kind of fall apart like that, well,

18:26 the other person needs to be able to hold the container at least a little bit.

18:29 So, if you're bidding for more emotional openness from your partner,

18:34 you need to be able to have the stability inside

18:37 of yourself to hold that greater degree of vulnerability, right?

18:41 Somebody needs to be the person who's kind of like

18:42 doing that job inside of the inside of the relationship,

18:46 and that kind of an inversion can be very destabilizing for people,

18:52 just cuz they're not used to it, and they don't have practice with it.

18:55 I think socially, we are really uncomfortable with our emotions.

19:02 Mhm.

19:03 I think we're really uncomfortable being witnessed in our vulnerability,

19:07 and we're really uncomfortable naming things that are painful.

19:12 I think as a society,

19:15 I've always felt that logical is good and emotional is bad,

19:20 or at least that's what I felt I was taught when I was younger.

19:25 And so, I really built a mask of I don't give

19:30 a And I could be in a way like emotionally present,

19:37 and I could have some layers of like intimacy with people,

19:42 but I was never actually being vulnerable in those moments.

19:47 Um because I had a lot of practice being

19:52 emotionally attuned to frankly a very um emotionally chaotic mother.

19:59 So, it didn't freak me out to sort of be with someone who was unhinged.

20:05 What freaked me out was actually you.

20:08 I felt incredibly intimidated early on in our relationship with just how cool,

20:14 calm, and collected you appeared to be.

20:17 And honestly, it was like very attractive to me.

20:19 It's something that like really drew me to you cuz I was like,

20:22 oh, this is something that I like want.

20:25 And it looked so natural.

20:28 And what I experienced was when I would really be honest and kind of drop

20:32 into my own like emotional space

20:36 of trying to be authentically vulnerable with you, it would make you cry.

20:41 Sure.

20:42 And it And I would be like, oh my god, I did something bad.

20:45 Like I I cracked the the person that I thought was just uncrackable.

20:52 cool, calm, Well, me, like I guess I'm just too much.

20:55 And it would like reinforce my own

20:58 withholding and lack of vulnerability in the relationship.

21:02 And it would push me into trying to be your equal

21:06 in terms of what I would define as more masculine traits.

21:11 And I tried to suppress my more feminine,

21:16 I guess, or like the emotional, chaotic, like Yeah.

21:20 vulnerable place.

21:21 Yeah, there's there's a whole piece of this.

21:24 There really is something in guys seeking out highly,

21:29 in terms of gender socialization, classically feminine partners,

21:33 and then essentially complaining when they aren't masculine enough.

21:37 Yeah.

21:37 What's that about?

21:39 Yeah.

21:38 Like what a weird Huh.

21:40 Yeah.

21:41 Um and I I I don't know if I have anything to say about it other than There's

21:48 [laughter] There's a lot to unpack there.

21:49 But I I do think that it's a real thing.

21:51 I mean, in inside of our relationship to some extent,

21:54 I sought out somebody who I perceived as being very

21:58 empathetic and very sensitive and very emotional and extremely artsy.

22:01 I met Elizabeth at a dance thing um where she

22:04 had the full cockatiel haircut and was like extremely bi-coded.

22:07 And And then you know, just the whole the whole situation.

22:11 Um And then inside of our relationship,

22:17 one of the things we had to really figure out

22:19 was my my frustrations around this kind of problem-solving thing.

22:24 Yeah.

22:24 Where And my own fixing tendency and my perception

22:27 that you weren't interested in in problem-solving.

22:30 What's kind of funny about this whole thing is

22:31 that it's really easy for us to view that as nature.

22:36 So, Forest's nature is this logical, rational thing.

22:41 Elizabeth's nature is this emotional, sensitive thing.

22:46 Frankly, that's It's adaptation.

22:48 It's adaptation.

22:49 It is not nature, and it is really, really critical particularly inside of like

22:55 a therapy or coaching context or something,

22:57 one of the big revelations for people is who I am is constructed.

23:05 Mhm.

23:04 And yes, if I get down beneath all of it,

23:08 I can find something that feels like true nature.

23:14 But often that something is very

23:17 different from the performance that you're doing,

23:20 including the gender the the gender performance

23:23 that we're doing on a day-to-day basis, the mask that I've learned how to wear,

23:27 the way that I've learned to kind of move through the world.

23:30 And I don't know if it was like a revelation

23:33 to you that I was in fact this incredibly sensitive, very touchy-feely person,

23:39 or if that was something that you like saw the whole time and knew was in there,

23:44 and it was just going to be a matter of time maybe before it popped out.

23:48 Um I don't know what your experience of that was.

23:50 But I've never doubted that about you.

23:52 Mhm.

23:53 I just didn't know how to do it.

23:56 Yeah, I think that was the thing that I felt was that it was in there,

24:00 but and it brought up my own insecurities of like, oh,

24:03 I'm not good enough to be allowed to have that part of you, Mhm.

24:06 which I was very desperate and craved.

24:09 Sure.

24:09 Because to me, that's where a lot of my intimacy kind of comes in.

24:15 Mhm.

24:15 And also, I think historically, I was way more rewarded in previous

24:25 relationships for not being the emotional one.

24:28 I I found myself being often pushed

24:31 into this certain type of presentation or archetype.

24:35 Mhm.

24:35 And I was rewarded for that.

24:37 But the one that I was never rewarded for was a more standard feminine Mhm.

24:45 classic uh uh archetypal thing.

24:49 Um it was either like I just could not figure out

24:53 how to fit into that, or I think you're a good chameleon.

24:57 Yeah.

24:58 I think you're a good chameleon and you're a flexible person.

25:01 Yeah.

25:01 And so you kind of moved toward what you felt was needed Mhm.

25:06 um by the other person or what they were pulling for from you.

25:10 Yep.

25:10 Yeah.

25:10 And so I think the shift in our relationship

25:14 was what happens when I stop being the chameleon Mhm.

25:18 and I get really honest.

25:21 Yeah.

25:21 And I think what I have observed in you is that oddly,

25:28 the more that I've been able to really own

25:30 the fact that I do have classic masculine traits,

25:33 it's freed you up to kind of be more Totally.

25:38 in your feminine.

25:39 Yep.

25:40 100%.

25:41 And that's the area where breaking out of those words,

25:49 I think, can really help people out.

25:51 Cuz I had to really, as somebody I I mean,

25:55 there there are literal comments that have

25:57 referred to you as my beard Elizabeth.

25:58 So, like Your beard?

26:00 My beard.

26:00 [laughter] There are literal comments.

26:03 Like from Ted Lasso?

26:05 Yeah, no no no no no no no.

26:08 [laughter] Yes, absolutely you are that beard Elizabeth.

26:11 But no, the way that people mean it is in the uh the sense

26:14 of like a gay guy who's doing

26:16 a performance of straightness by being with a woman.

26:18 Oh, yeah.

26:20 Yeah.

26:19 No, yeah.

26:19 Or or vice versa.

26:21 Um and that's still something that to some extent,

26:27 if you're if you're a guy who is somewhat sensitive,

26:30 somewhat relational, and you know, works in mental health or whatever,

26:34 like you just got to deal with that.

26:35 That kind of comes with the territory.

26:37 So, for me, it was really helpful

26:38 to move away from thinking about those as being,

26:41 like like you said, quote unquote,

26:43 feminine traits, and more toward them being traits.

26:45 Mhm.

26:46 You know, emotional sensitivity, desire to connect with other people,

26:49 these are positive traits in anybody.

26:51 These are good traits.

26:53 There are a bajillion women out there who are looking

26:55 for a guy who has those traits because they are uncommon.

26:58 Therefore, they are desirable.

27:01 And when I was able to think about them more as just being feminine traits,

27:05 got a lot easier for me.

27:07 And this is why I'm I know we're doing

27:11 a lot of this language of masculine and feminine,

27:13 but like I don't know how else to really way to talk about

27:17 It's a convenient way to talk about it.

27:18 But like really what we're meaning is like thinking versus feeling.

27:22 Yeah.

27:22 And hello.

27:25 Problem-solving versus feeling.

27:26 happens in queer couples.

27:27 Oh, for sure.

27:28 Like people who technically identify as having the same gender, guess what?

27:32 There's often one that presents as I'm more thinky,

27:36 I'm more logical, analytical,

27:39 uh and then there's another one that is like, but what about my feelings?

27:43 Yeah, and often even inside of those relationships,

27:46 as you've told me many times, you adopt that language.

27:49 Yes.

27:49 You know, um I'm the I'm the husband, I'm the wife,

27:52 or the [laughter] other people are are the same gender

27:54 and have the same gender identity and all of that.

27:56 And I think it just speaks to how insidious this whole

27:59 this whole structure that we are all trapped in of socialization.

28:04 I mean, thank god for the queer community

28:06 and like communities that are like you know,

28:09 ringing the bells of like, hello, this is like highly problematic.

28:14 Because it is.

28:15 I mean, look, I'm not going to lie.

28:17 Nothing sounds worse to me than like being

28:21 in that standard Leave It to Beaver like old-school

28:26 family system structure of like mom stays home

28:29 and takes care of the kids and wears the apron

28:30 and wears her pearls and lipstick every day and is quiet and na na na na na na

28:34 na and and the dad goes out and does

28:36 work and comes home and blah blah blah blah blah.

28:38 Like because it's such a performance.

28:41 And I think that when we start

28:45 to observe things from a more psychological perspective,

28:50 we realize that all of these categorical

28:53 differences we've created don't actually exist.

28:57 Sure, yeah.

28:58 Like you are just as emotional as I am,

29:03 and I am frankly just as logical as you are.

29:07 But it's how do we balance them within what

29:11 we perceive as we're allowed to, what we're rewarded

29:14 for, what do we get hit over the head

29:16 with versus what do we get like, oh, praised for?

29:19 Yeah.

29:20 And you know, people are going to have a 60/40 or a 70/30.

29:23 Mhm.

29:24 I I think that in a lot of ways,

29:26 in terms of where do I hang out, I hang out in the emotional,

29:32 relational place, and I figured out how to do all

29:34 of the other stuff in order to handle those emotions.

29:37 Yeah.

29:38 That's my distribution of the pie.

29:41 Um I don't know if that makes me a more logical,

29:43 rational person or a more emotional, feeling person.

29:46 In a way, I don't really care.

29:47 They're both very important to me.

29:49 I I use both of those tools a lot these days.

29:52 And I think that that's also something that kind of help

29:57 people figure this out inside of a partnership because one

30:00 of the most common stories that like walks in when

30:04 my dad used to talk about couples walking into the office.

30:07 There was a Twitter thread recently along those lines

30:09 where there was this guy who you know,

30:12 is I I think that he was an engineer or something like that.

30:15 He had a big Twitter presence.

30:16 And he basically posted something to the effect of, "My wife has come

30:20 to me for the last 3 weeks with the same problem over and over again,

30:24 and she's just not interested in solving this problem.

30:28 How can I get her to solve this problem?" Sort of the framing of it.

30:32 And then there were a million responses, "Hey bro,

30:34 you got to hang out in some kind

30:35 of empathic attunement and relationship before you move

30:38 into problem solving because blah blah blah blah

30:40 blah." And his response to all of those was,

30:43 "Well, that's nice, but I don't want to do that.

30:45 I want to solve her problem.

30:46 Tell me how to solve her problem." And the deep irony

30:48 in this is that people were telling him how to solve his problem.

30:52 Yes.

30:52 And he wasn't interested in that because he wanted

30:55 them to get that his wife was the problem.

30:58 That was the real motivation.

30:59 Can't you see my wife is the problem?

31:02 Somebody empathize with me about this wife being the problem or whatever it is.

31:06 And and I just think that like this is a dance

31:08 that we would do with each other all the time.

31:10 I don't know if there's a what to do

31:11 about it other than appreciating both sides of it.

31:15 I think how how to move into actual change with this is first

31:21 what we're talking about is become very aware of how you've been socialized.

31:26 tendency?

31:26 And what have what beliefs do you have about this stuff?

31:31 And where do you feel your kind of vulnerability a little bit?

31:36 Kind of you feeling that but not knowing how to do it.

31:40 And for me, wanting to problem solve

31:43 but literally not knowing how to move through that.

31:47 Um for me what I found helpful was getting really

31:53 comfortable with discomfort and practicing being the one that doesn't know.

32:06 And being open to leaning on my partner's strengths.

32:12 Not in a codependent way,

32:14 not in a way where I'm expecting you to handle these things all the time.

32:18 But in a way of I don't know how to do this yet.

32:22 You already know how to do it.

32:23 Teach me how to do it.

32:26 And equally I can help you in a different way.

32:30 One person in the relationship is often

32:32 the trellis and the other person is this rose.

32:36 And a rose is healthier when it has a trellis to climb up on.

32:40 But we need to take turns being that for each other.

32:46 And I think part of that is being able to take

32:49 on the qualities that you see in your partner even if they feel unnatural,

32:53 even if you feel vulnerable like I don't quite know how to do this.

32:58 Like for me, I feel like you started to really

33:02 trust me more and frankly allow your rose bush

33:05 to climb up my trellis when I started to kind

33:07 of embody and practice traits that I saw you modeling.

33:13 Absolutely, yeah.

33:14 Hey there.

33:15 Thanks for watching and sorry for the little interruption here,

33:17 but it turns out that over 60% of the people

33:19 watching this video right now are not subscribed to the channel.

33:23 I really appreciate your support even if you don't subscribe,

33:26 but it's even better for me if you do.

33:28 So, if you can take a moment to hit the subscribe button, maybe you know,

33:31 whatever they say, smash that like button while you're down there,

33:34 I'd really appreciate it.

33:36 So, thanks so much and back to the show.

33:38 I'm wondering in work you've done with people,

33:41 there is that person who is typically more

33:43 sensitive um and you know, is more the rose.

33:47 And there is that person who is more the trellis.

33:49 And the rose is making the bids to the trellis, "Be more relational,

33:52 be more emotionally open, tell me how you feel." All of that good stuff.

33:57 "Hang out with me in empathy before you move

33:59 into problem solving." And the other person says, "Okay." Mhm.

34:03 And then they they try.

34:05 And it might be messy, it might be unskillful.

34:07 And often what you've reported is that the rose kind of falls apart.

34:13 It doesn't transition well into being the trellis.

34:16 Um my guess is that in terms

34:19 of the distribution of people who listen to this podcast,

34:21 there probably a lot more people who listen

34:23 who are in that typical like rose model.

34:26 And so this is a helpful thing to talk about learning how to do.

34:30 So, it's not just about you know, "Hey guys,

34:33 listen to your partner more empathically

34:35 attuned." Obviously all of that's important.

34:37 It's also how do we create the space

34:39 for their emotionality to be on the table more?

34:41 Yeah.

34:42 And I'm wondering what you've seen about that.

34:44 Is Is there something that tends to help people?

34:47 Are there key skills?

34:48 Is there some kind of a process here?

34:50 Just anything you want to talk about.

34:52 Well, because everything for me gets filtered through the lens of trauma,

34:56 frankly a person needs to do their own work to a certain extent.

35:02 And the thing about if I condense trauma work kind of down to what my own little

35:08 theory of it is is that um someone's

35:13 literal life force energy gets trapped somewhere within them.

35:17 And trauma, the layers of defense,

35:20 the layers of survival strategies blocks that person

35:23 from moving into actionable change outside into the world.

35:28 There's sort of a feeling of being caged and trapped within oneself

35:33 where you have all these desires but you can't do anything with them.

35:37 So, it's a it's a block on problem solving.

35:39 Yeah.

35:40 But that block is incredibly painful and it's not in that person's control.

35:47 So, there is this side of the person who in this metaphor we could say

35:51 is the rose that has a ton of trauma that when they are not triggered,

35:58 yeah, I want to be this way with you.

36:00 But what happens when a part of that trauma soup is having relational trauma,

36:05 developmental trauma, even maybe some big PTSD moments.

36:10 Like now the space of relationship is going to be

36:15 riddled with all of these landmines of potential trigger.

36:19 And what we know about triggers is that that part of your brain that can

36:23 problem solve the part of your brain that can be the trellis that's gone.

36:29 So, what I notice help is you have to do your own trauma work first.

36:36 Which means you have to free up that energy.

36:38 You have to find a way to claw yourself out of it enough so that you

36:46 can take all of this force inside of yourself and bring it out into the world.

36:51 And what that does is it creates a ton of space inside of you,

36:55 space for your own experience,

36:58 but now you have room for somebody else's experience.

37:02 And once that foundation gets laid like for example, I'm not going to lie.

37:09 When you come at me sometimes, like it's rough.

37:13 And and it's rough because it's triggering for me.

37:18 But I learned how to hold myself being triggered,

37:22 how to take care of myself, that self-regulation piece.

37:26 And still have enough room for your stuff.

37:31 To kind of hold your stuff.

37:33 And I think when you have trauma that is incredibly high practice.

37:38 But even if you don't have trauma, we're just not taught how to do this well.

37:43 And so kind of setting the trauma stuff off

37:47 to the side for a moment because let's say you know,

37:50 blessed be, you had a great childhood and and you

37:53 don't have these um triggers within this like relational dynamic.

37:59 Okay.

38:00 Well, now we're competing with how we've been socialized.

38:04 Which is kind of the piece we're talking about.

38:06 Which is, well I'm I'm the woman in the relationship

38:10 and you're supposed to take care of me.

38:13 What does it mean if you don't open the door for me?

38:15 You know, I'm the one that you know,

38:18 I should cry and say these things and you take care of me.

38:21 And now all of a sudden that paradigm gets flipped.

38:25 Discomfort.

38:26 What does this mean now?

38:29 All of the the external judgments people have on this start to like filter in.

38:35 And so I think it gets down to you have

38:39 to be able to shut out the outside world to some extent.

38:43 And you need to be fully present with the many

38:47 layers of the person in front of you.

38:49 And what I often see because a lot of the times I'm working

38:54 where one person in the couple has complex PTSD and the other person

38:58 does not is that actually the person who has experienced trauma has

39:03 a lot of wisdom attunes to their partner pretty accurately most of the time.

39:13 Yeah.

39:11 And has a lot of stamina actually to kind of be in that uncomfortable place.

39:20 And what I see a lot of the time is that the person who

39:24 does not have CPTSD really really struggles

39:29 to either make contact with their emotional world.

39:33 They find it incredibly distressing to have that role shift of like,

39:38 "Well, if I'm not the giver, what does that mean?

39:42 How do I receive?

39:43 Ooh, I've never learned how to do this.

39:47 And there's often the story of like, well, I don't want to hurt my partner.

39:51 And I think that's made louder when we're working with trauma and there's

39:53 this like a little bit of like a differentiation between the one that's like,

39:57 well, I'm not traumatized and the one that is.

40:00 Where the one that isn't traumatized is like, well,

40:02 I don't want to traumatize this one more or I don't want to hurt them more.

40:05 And it's like, you can't.

40:07 You can't.

40:08 I mean, they've already survived the big bad thing.

40:11 And if, you know, you're anything like me,

40:14 the catastrophe that is potential within a relationship is not

40:17 going to be the catastrophe we survived when we were children.

40:20 Yeah.

40:21 And so then you start it starts to shift into So, what is it about you?

40:29 What is it about your temperament, your nature,

40:32 how you've been socialized that is making moving

40:35 into more intimacy and forms of togetherness challenging.

40:40 And almost always it's I don't feel safe.

40:43 Yeah.

40:44 And that's the thing about the the emotional relational moment

40:47 is that it's all about helping the other person feel safe.

40:50 That's what we're doing by doing that is we're we are

40:54 giving the gift of the clear communication of it's all right.

40:59 Mhm.

41:00 I'm not going to be mad.

41:02 Mhm.

41:02 Or even if I'm frustrated, I'm okay being here with you for a while.

41:07 That same team feeling is I think at the core

41:14 of pretty much every healthy relationship I've ever witnessed in life.

41:17 Yeah.

41:17 And maybe the number one thing I would point to in the relationships

41:22 that don't seem as healthy or don't seem as successful.

41:25 Yeah.

41:25 There's just not the feeling of same team.

41:28 We're both in these two different boats and we hope

41:31 that on a day-to-day basis we happen to be rowing in the same direction.

41:36 But there's no guarantee of that.

41:39 I think going there though,

41:40 like that getting on the same team feeling can be very very

41:47 stressful because all of a sudden you're very implicated by another person.

41:51 That's a lot of what I see in some of the people who

41:54 I've worked with where you don't want to feel implicated by that person.

41:57 Mhm.

41:57 That person's distressed.

41:59 That person's really emotional.

42:01 That person gets intense.

42:03 I don't I don't know if I Do I really want

42:05 to take that on into my little rowboat of this life?

42:08 And that's a fair question to ask yourself in any relationship.

42:12 Just as it's a fair question to ask yourself in a relationship,

42:16 do I want to be with this person who

42:17 can't move into empathy very effectively with me right now?

42:20 Those are both legitimate questions to ask and part of what

42:23 you're looking for is some kind of a growth curve.

42:25 One thing I've always said about you,

42:27 Elizabeth, is that you've a remarkable growth curve.

42:29 Um you learn incredibly quickly.

42:32 You've changed enormously in the time that we've been together.

42:35 And it may it was maybe, I don't know, I don't know if it was the number one,

42:39 but it was certainly in the top three of traits that really,

42:42 really drew me to you as a person.

42:44 You've just been 10 out of 10 about everything I've ever brought to you.

42:49 Which is really pretty remarkable.

42:51 And that was possible because that incisive

42:54 scalpel that you learned how to have, you learned how to not slice through me.

43:02 Yeah, totally.

43:03 Got to be a little kind about it for sure.

43:05 For sure.

43:06 And now maybe we could talk a little bit here toward the end about

43:09 what helps people do that, what helps

43:10 people move into that more emotional space maybe.

43:13 Well, what have I think this is kind of your territory a bit more cuz

43:16 like what we're really kind of focusing

43:19 on more is that more logical kind of perspective.

43:23 And so I'm wondering like what have you seen as you've been sitting with people

43:28 that even in just between the relationship

43:30 between you and them that kind of helps Sure.

43:33 the warm fuzzy Mr.

43:35 Rogers kind of come into the space.

43:38 I think that a lot of people who lead more this logical

43:42 rational way really do not like how painful their emotions are.

43:46 Mhm.

43:47 They do not like it.

43:49 They don't want to feel that way.

43:51 They don't want to feel that imperiled by somebody else.

43:54 And so when you start to tread in that territory, it just feels bad.

44:00 There's a lot of individual work for people

44:02 who are that way around emptying their own bucket.

44:07 The bucket of tears, the bucket of things that they wish that they had done,

44:11 um the feelings that they've pushed down over time and experiencing out.

44:16 Because a lot of what's happening when you move into emotional

44:20 relating with somebody else is your own material is being activated.

44:24 So if they're talking about this feeling of insecurity

44:29 or vulnerability or I don't know how to do this thing.

44:33 If you talk about that to me, what do I do in that moment as a social mammal?

44:38 I think about my own experience with those things.

44:41 I remember that time when I couldn't do

44:43 that or didn't know that thing or whatever it was.

44:46 That's really painful.

44:47 We don't want to do that.

44:49 And so you have to do your own emotional processing work.

44:50 I think a lot of this starts with various forms of exposure and various

44:54 forms of emotional processing where you start

44:56 to get more comfortable touching that stuff.

45:00 Mhm.

45:01 Can I ask you a question about that?

45:02 Absolutely.

45:02 Yeah.

45:04 What advice would you give somebody who's sort of noticing

45:08 that they're there of I identify as this more logical person.

45:13 Sure.

45:13 I hate the feeling of my feelings.

45:16 Why would I even go there?

45:19 What's in it for me?

45:20 Yeah.

45:22 Yeah.

45:21 Uh what's in it for you is you stop feeling like you want to cry all the time.

45:25 Oh.

45:25 So that's that's I think part of what's in it for you.

45:30 I I just think a lot of these people, man,

45:32 maybe maybe I'm projecting, maybe I'm generalizing from a small sample,

45:37 but so many of the people who are this way act as they

45:42 do because of a deep sense

45:45 of insecurity and uncertainty inside of this landscape.

45:49 And as you become more fluent with it, you just learn how to play chess better.

45:56 And all of your relationships just kind of start improving Mhm.

46:00 because you spend a little bit more time getting it.

46:05 And you know how to communicate to the other person, I get it.

46:11 In just really small ways, in really um nonverbal ways even.

46:18 It's how you angle your body.

46:20 Are you actually looking at them?

46:22 Are you really listening to the feelings that they're trying to communicate

46:27 through their words or you just listening to the verbal contact?

46:31 Uh these are these little things that you just start to do more naturally.

46:34 And what you see almost always is people

46:39 get teary as they contact their own material.

46:43 This is often accompanied by a kind of movement

46:46 into a younger part to use that sort of language.

46:49 Uh reclaiming of exiled parts of their personality.

46:54 And then you just start feeling more complete over time.

46:57 Uh you have access to more of your own emotions.

46:59 You feel your feelings more.

47:01 Uh you're able to move through them when you feel them.

47:05 And what this means is you don't have to adapt around them as much.

47:08 So you don't get so mad when somebody says

47:12 a stupid thing to you because you're just like,

47:15 you know, you you have more freedom with it.

47:17 If you're watching a movie that's that way and you want to cry, you cry.

47:19 If you don't want to cry, you don't.

47:21 You just get more freedom.

47:22 I think that's really wise and well said

47:24 and I think the words that really stood out

47:27 to me and I mean the whole thing I thought I thought that was like a gem,

47:30 everything you just said right there,

47:31 but that feeling of completeness and freedom.

47:37 Yeah.

47:38 Totally.

47:38 And I think that everybody wants that.

47:43 I think we all want to feel like a complete whole person.

47:46 And I think we want to move through our lives with as much freedom as possible.

47:52 Right on.

47:53 And also frankly, there's a certain amount of enlightened self-interest Mhm.

48:01 in this whole thing.

48:03 Like that person with the Twitter thread.

48:05 90 seconds, dude.

48:07 90 seconds.

48:08 90 seconds [laughter] of hanging out and hey, I get it.

48:15 I'd some learning some simple language.

48:18 Are you looking for solutions or you looking for empathy?

48:21 Mhm.

48:23 Yep.

48:23 Sometimes I don't [snorts] want solutions and I'm the solutions guy.

48:28 Sometimes I want you to be like, yeah, Forest, you're doing great.

48:31 Yep.

48:32 It's okay, buddy.

48:33 Yep.

48:33 We all want to be able to do all of it.

48:35 Mhm.

48:36 And I I think that also accentuates

48:38 this the the freedom aspect that you're talking about.

48:44 Wow, I think that was I think that was the gold for us.

48:48 [laughter] end of the thing or whatever it is they say.

48:50 Uh Elizabeth, thanks for doing this with me today.

48:52 Thanks for doing it with me.

48:53 fun.

48:53 I really enjoyed it.

48:54 And it was I really liked having more of you kind of in the conversation.

49:00 Oh, thanks.

49:00 I really appreciate that.

49:01 That's very sweet.

49:03 And uh we should do another episode soon Yeah.

49:08 cuz the people demand it.

49:10 And uh one of the things that people

49:12 asked after that you already started talking

49:14 about a little bit was uh being in a relationship with somebody with trauma Mhm.

49:19 or complex PTSD or just a mental health condition in general.

49:23 Mhm.

49:23 And I think that's a really interesting one we could do sometime if you want to.

49:27 I'll give a little I'll Oh, previews, spoilers.

49:32 you know, a mooj booj.

49:33 Ha ha ha.

49:33 [laughter] Mooj booj.

49:37 Recognizing that if you're not as fragile as you think they are.

49:44 That the fear of hurting them is getting

49:47 in the way of something really magical happening.

49:52 And I've experienced this in our own relationship,

49:55 where there were parts of me that were so frozen in survival,

50:01 that I don't think I would have ever achieved what I

50:05 achieved without having someone kind of like pushing me off the edge.

50:11 And I'm screaming going like, "What?" And you're like, "No, you'll be fine."

50:14 this.

50:14 You'll be fine.

50:16 And it's like, And I think if you are

50:20 a person who's in a relationship with someone with complex trauma,

50:24 trust that if you're a good person,

50:27 and if you have um a lot of love for this person,

50:33 and your intention is that and your goal is

50:36 that you wish for them to be more free and safe,

50:42 that you can be less self-conscious of how

50:44 you are making requests and asks of them.

50:48 This person has already survived something that I think the majority

50:52 of people that have not experienced trauma couldn't even fathom.

50:56 There's a strength in people with complex PTSD that I think is often overlooked,

51:01 because we've existed in a body that is filled with trauma,

51:06 on top of getting this far in life.

51:10 And that creates a huge container.

51:13 Mhm.

51:14 And whether that person realizes their container is that huge,

51:18 I think you can trust as their partner,

51:20 that there is enough space in there for you, and you can advocate for yourself.

51:26 On the flip side, because I can't help myself,

51:29 if you're the person with complex trauma,

51:31 and you're with someone who doesn't have it,

51:36 really being willing to look at the ways in which

51:41 what you are doing is coming from a place of survival,

51:45 rather than this is coming from a place of growth.

51:50 I think that we get safety and discomfort very confused.

51:56 Being unsafe is a very different thing than being in discomfort.

52:01 And you need to become more comfortable being uncomfortable.

52:07 Well, I think that was more than an amuse-bouche.

52:09 I think that was the first 10 minutes of our first episode.

52:12 I mean, we we should have just turned

52:13 the turned the cameras on and let it roll there.

52:16 I thought that was fantastic, Elizabeth,

52:18 and right on, and so consistent with our experience inside of our relationship.

52:24 Absolutely.

52:25 So, I look forward to talking about this.

52:27 Yeah.

52:27 To be continued.

52:30 [laughter] I loved today's conversation with Elizabeth.

52:34 I always so enjoy having her on the podcast.

52:37 And today we talked about these two big

52:39 families of tendencies that everybody has to some degree,

52:44 but which due to a variety of factors

52:46 that we talked about at length in the episode,

52:48 people tend to develop one of them more than the other.

52:51 And on the one hand, this is this kind of logical,

52:54 rational tendency that shows up in interactions with people,

52:58 and particularly in relationships, as this kind of fixing impulse.

53:02 I'm going to solve your problem.

53:04 You don't have to worry about that anymore,

53:06 if you just do the things that I told you to do.

53:08 Then on the other hand, there's this more emotional, relational,

53:12 feeling-based drive that people have to connect with each other,

53:16 to empathically attune,

53:18 and to feel a real sense of safety based on those relationships.

53:23 So, when somebody shares a kind of problem,

53:26 or it might feel like a problem that they're having inside of a relationship,

53:30 maybe they're not looking for problem-solving,

53:32 maybe they're not looking for fixing,

53:34 they're looking for attunement and emotional connection.

53:37 And the conversation with Elizabeth today covered

53:40 why do people have these different impulses,

53:42 why do some people develop one and others develop the other.

53:45 The answer to a lot of that is gender socialization.

53:48 Then on top of that, people often have kind

53:50 of more of an innate tendency toward one or the other.

53:53 And really what we said over and over

53:54 again inside of this conversation is you need both.

53:57 Both of these things are good.

53:59 Both of these things come with their challenges,

54:02 if they're misapplied, or if they're taken to an extreme.

54:05 If you're just the logical, rational scalpel,

54:08 or if you're just the hyper-emotional relater,

54:11 you're only going to be able to make half of the moves on the chessboard.

54:14 So, how do we open ourselves up to the possibility that everyone can be both,

54:20 at least to some degree.

54:21 And how do we look for the parts of ourselves that we've left behind,

54:27 the the parts of our interior that are true for us.

54:31 Like I was saying, I have the adaptation of being the logical, rational guy.

54:35 That was a defense that I developed over time.

54:38 It was also something that I had a natural

54:39 affinity for, and that's a really normal combination for people.

54:42 They have a natural affinity,

54:44 and then they also get rewarded for that natural affinity,

54:47 so it becomes a kind of defense against these other painful experiences,

54:51 or the things that they're just less familiar with and less comfortable with.

54:54 And then over time, I had to do the work

54:56 of connecting more with what was true all along,

54:59 which is that I was this sensitive, touchy-feely, very emotional person.

55:04 It can be really helpful to see how each

55:06 of these tendencies can solve a kind of problem for a person.

55:10 Fixing is a great way to deal with emotional contagion.

55:14 I'm putting some separation between the two of us.

55:17 I'm essentially complaining about the fact that you've brought this to me,

55:21 and I'm suggesting a really easy way to take this painful emotion off the table.

55:26 On the other hand, the more emotional,

55:28 relational attunement can be its own defense.

55:31 It can put other people into the role of having to solve your problems for you.

55:35 It can be a kind of defense against agency.

55:38 You're just hanging out in emotion forever,

55:40 without being interested really in moving into problem-solving.

55:44 Hey, maybe there's a part of you that's concerned that if you moved into action,

55:48 you wouldn't really be able to solve the problem anyway,

55:50 and you would rather not find out.

55:52 Inside of a relationship, the best advice that I could give people is to really

55:56 lean into the part that you do not do naturally.

56:01 If you are the more logical, rational person,

56:03 really lean into empathic relationship toward

56:07 the person that you're dealing with.

56:08 If you're the more emotional, relational person,

56:11 really lean into embracing maximum how-to problem-solving,

56:16 how do I make this better?

56:18 One of the wisest things that Elizabeth has ever said to me,

56:22 and I'm just paraphrasing it here,

56:24 but it's basically that when we adopted the other person's viewpoint,

56:28 was when our relationship started getting a lot easier and a lot better.

56:32 And we still deal with this.

56:34 This was an active process for us.

56:36 I had to do a lot of work to get in touch with that more emotionally open,

56:42 sensitive part of who I was.

56:44 And she had to do a lot of work

56:46 to get increasingly open to the problem-solving aspect of it.

56:50 And what let us get there was

56:52 me being increasingly willing to spend somewhere between

56:56 30 seconds and 5 minutes just hanging out in the experience that she was having,

57:03 before I tried to fix it or change it.

57:05 When I did that over and over again, over a long enough period of time,

57:09 enough trust developed in the relationship that she began to take my advice,

57:13 I think, a little bit more seriously.

57:16 As she got more comfortable moving into that kind of doing aspect.

57:20 And frankly, she was fantastic whenever

57:23 I did move into that emotional vulnerability.

57:25 She received it incredibly well.

57:27 When we see these tendencies as a combination of adaptation and socialization,

57:33 it really helps us move up to that 10,000-foot view.

57:37 This really lowers shame.

57:38 It reduces our identification with these tendencies.

57:41 We take a lot of really complex material,

57:44 particularly about gender socialization and gender performance,

57:47 kind of off the table.

57:49 It's just not such a big deal,

57:51 because we see it all as constructed and changing,

57:55 and not the way that things have to be.

57:58 I don't have to be the logical, rational person all the time.

58:01 I can be the emotional, sensitive person, and still be a great guy, you know,

58:07 and still be very masculine, and still be connected to this logical,

58:11 rational, sharp scalpel part of who I am.

58:14 I get it all.

58:16 And that's really what we want to encourage people toward here.

58:18 Getting it all.

58:19 Being able to make all of the moves, you know, use all the tools,

58:22 play with all the toys,

58:24 and just have a bigger sense of possibility in their lives altogether.

58:30 I hope that something in this episode was useful for you.

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59:13 So, until next time, again, thanks so much for listening to the show.

59:17 Deeply appreciate it.

59:18 It's so crazy to me that so many people listen to these podcast episodes.

59:22 I'm I'm just deeply touched by it all the time.

59:25 And I yeah, I hope that you're doing it because there's something in here

59:28 that you're really connecting with, and that hopefully

59:31 is helping you out a little bit.

59:32 So, until next time, thanks for listening and I'll talk to you soon.