Kristen Boice 0:00

Welcome to this week's close the chapter podcast. I am so excited you're joining me today, if this is your first time listening to this podcast, welcome. All are welcome here just as you are. And the fact that you've tuned in, there's been something that pulled you towards this podcast. Maybe someone shared it with you. And I am so happy you are here with me right now in this very moment. And if you've been listening, oh my goodness, I cannot express enough how much you mean to me. And you are on this mission with me to help yourself. Find healing, growth, expansion, connecting with your authentic self being who you are freely in the world, letting go of outcomes and attachments and not going down the rabbit hole of what other people think of you, and being able to feel secure with who you are. So thank you for tuning in and listening, binge listening to the episode so many of you say I started from the beginning. And what episode drawn in that warms my heart. And I would love it. If you would subscribe, share, continue to share it and rate and review the podcast. That's how other people find out about the podcast, and those that are on the same healing journey that want to deepen their relationships, feel better about who they are, and start conversations that might be uncomfortable. Sharing this podcast is a great place to start. And there is a weekly informational newsletter. Hopefully packed with strategies and ways to cope with the hard things we're going through how to heal loneliness, anxiety, depression, improve your relationships, you can jump on that at Kristen k r i s t e n, d Boice. Bo ice comm forward slash free resources, and you get the free healing guide. I use this with all clients, you can reuse it over and over again their proven strategies and journal prompts to help you begin healing some of this deeper work. So if you want to know about the programs that I will be offering in 2022, you will want to get on the mailing list. Also, you can join the Facebook group for free on there, close the chapter, and follow along on Instagram at Kristen D Boice. And Facebook. And then Twitter is just Kristen Boice. So I love it when you tag me when you share that warms my heart more than I can express. So first things first, I'm going to confess, I have been doing a lot of deep breathing. Because this is the fifth time I've attempted to record this episode. And I always asked myself, What is the invitation for me. And the invitation for me is to let go of outcomes on Attach. Take a deep breath put things in perspective. So hopefully the fifth time recording this will be the best the first time didn't have any sound is send it to the producer. And he's like texting me back, Kristin. There's no sound. And I'm like how perfect so I get to practice, which I do every single day. What I teach clients and everyone on the podcast is to do five deep breaths every hour. Until you feel calmer. And so this episode is an important one. And I keep wondering why did it get scratched? Why not record after the end of each of the episodes that I've recorded. Who knows? I won't know. And I don't need to know. But what I do want to share with you are some staggering statistics about relationships, what makes them work, what makes them fail, some helpful strategies to break cycles and have better relationships with yourself and others. There are some really powerful statistics. I went down the statistics trail because it was so interesting to me. And I was learning a lot and I tried to summarize the main ones that I thought were impactful and that you will need to know so you're gonna want to listen to this entire episode and share it because it opens your eyes and helps you think and expand yourself in a different way. Now, I will say that if shame comes up that feeling of feeling bad, there's something wrong with you. You're not good enough.

Kristen Boice 5:00

those feelings are bound to come up any point in your life, any point in your day, here's what I want to tell you. Take your hand on your heart, yes, I'm cheesy, take a deep breath, and offer yourself grace. And it's that whole Maya Angelou quote, when we know better, we do better. And we're all learning on this journey. And we don't know what we don't know. And that's why I'm so passionate about you doing your own work. Because when you know yourself, you have more clarity, content, contentment, connection, compassion, and the ability to make better decisions. It's just the facts. And we all are going to make decisions that we may regret regret, that we might not be proud of. But guess what they help us evolve to help us have compassion, empathy. So hold that in mind, as you're hearing some of these statistics about relationships, and explore and take a deeper dive into maybe why you made some of these decisions, not to shame yourself to get curious about it. So let's jump right on in to some of these powerful statistics that we're going to deconstruct and remember statistics, take it with a grain of salt, it's more or less to kind of open our eyes to the reality of what's really going on. Okay, so we're gonna dive in 50% of all marriages in the United States, and then divorce, you've heard the statistic that's not a new one 60% of second marriages end in divorce. And this is important note about second marriages. And when people come into therapy, they think they're picking someone in a different package. If they haven't done the exploration work of childhood patterns, what did you learn about marriage? What what did you learn about working through challenges, disagreements, arguments, self regulation, self soothing? Did you learn communication skills? Did you hear your parents work things out. And then oftentimes, we subconsciously and unconsciously take the familiarity of what we know or what we witnessed or what we watched into our current relationships. And we by George think we didn't, we think I didn't marry my mom, I didn't marry my dad, I didn't recreate that same relationship. Although if you peel the layers back, it's a very familiar pattern to you as a child, where if you are compliant child, you learn not to have a voice and you get married, and you carry on that same pattern of not having a voice. And then you get married again, without doing that deeper work, and you recreate it somehow. And you think, well, that person was totally different. And yet you weren't different. And yet, you didn't do that deeper healing work. And yet, you You are the same. And it's not to change who you are, it's to D layer, the conditioning, and the survival responses that you learned to keep the peace to protect yourself to stay lovable, quote, unquote, in the family system. So let's continue on 73% of third marriages end in divorce. And we can deconstruct that statistic because it's a repeat of the pattern. And there's other things that can take place, which we're going to get into the reason why people get divorced in just a moment, which is very interesting. Here's another statistic every 42 seconds, a divorce occurs in America, every 16 seconds, a marriage is happening in the United States, nearly three divorces. At the same nearly three people divorce at the same time, it takes for a couple to recite their marriage vows. So while somebody is reciting their marriage vows three people are getting divorced. The average age of people getting divorced is 30 years old. We're going to break this down because this is an important neuroscience around age and development. And there's also an important aspect about Arrested Development. And what Arrested Development is, is if you've had a trauma in childhood, let's say you've had a loss. Let's say you lost a parent, maybe there was a divorce. Maybe something traumatic happened like a car accident. Maybe you had an alcoholic parent and you never got to process the chaos in your home.

Kristen Boice 9:53

You will be stuck at the age of the unprocessed material. So for example, if you started drinking at age 30 tiene and developed a healthy relationship with alcohol, chances are, you're developmentally, still 13 years old, you're frozen in time, or you started doing drugs or taking pills, or numbing or not processing anything, you're probably stuck developmentally at that age. That's why inner child work is so powerful. So you might have married somebody that started drinking young, maybe they started drinking in high school, and they look their age, and yet they are stuck. From the day they started drinking alcohol. And that relationship with alcohol became unhealthy. That's called Arrested Development. So someone may look 30 years old, but emotionally maybe functioning like a four or five year old or younger, even. So it's important to understand that, because sometimes we marry somebody, I always tell people, you marry someone at the same developmental level you are. And as you start doing work, you're growing developmentally along that continuum, and the other person is still frozen in time. And you're trying to change that person, you're trying to get that person to see the light. And if they don't want to do the work, they're not going to change. You can lead the horse to water, but you can't force them to drink. We've all heard that saying, and in therapy, it's the truth. You can pray for them, you can communicate with them. And what I encourage couples to do is do their own work. We're going to dive deeper into that and why that's important. I want to continue on this statistics, because I think it paints a picture of what we are not teaching children on how to work through their emotional struggles, connect with emotions, process them, and learn to heal the past. So they can go on and have healthier relationships and not live in a survival state where they're trying to protect themselves all the time. And I know many of you are in that same state. So helps to create understanding of why you may be where you are right now, not to blame your parents whatsoever, to start helping you have insight and understanding and how you're functioning in the patterns you're creating now. So the average first marriage lasts about eight years. So we've increased that it used to be seven, and now we've been increased it to eight. And January is considered the divorced month. It's the highest rate of divorces, in the 12 months, January is, and it's interesting, we're recording this podcast in January. If you're listening on the replay, it's it's helpful information to know, the other important information to know is what's not important. It's more interesting, as January 12, through the 16th has the most filings for divorce out of all the weeks in the calendar year, January 12, through the 16th. And we just passed January 12, in the 16th. Because people are starting to want to make a change. And they've been trying to figure out how to make a change. And they haven't gotten a courage up. And so maybe they've done some research in December and January, they've gotten the courage up. So that's interesting. If you're just exploring change, and how things evolve, January is the month for that change to occur, at least in terms of ending a marriage. According to a survey, here's why marriages end this is what people are reporting. So 73% said it's a lack of commitment in the relationship. 56% So they argue too much. See if you're in any of these categories, or perhaps your parents were in these categories, 55%, which is a close third was due to infidelity.

Kristen Boice 14:05

Married to Young was 46% unrealistic expectations was 45%. I see this with almost every couple I've worked with over the 20 years. They have this idea because they didn't see a really healthy emotionally connected relationship and or the ability for two people that to feel secure to come together. They have a fantasy that supposed to be super easy, no problems. They have more of a fantasy kind of thought process instead of the reality of what it really is. So they have like a movie playing and they compare themselves to the neighbors who they know really nothing about and they don't know what goes on behind closed doors but they see this perfect picture images on Instagram and they think That's what it should be. They have such a great life. They seem like they have so much fun and it's so easy. And that's dangerous because it's not realistic. So, expectations, according to in Lamont are resentments waiting to happen. If we do not check our expectations, and they're unrealistic, we're going to be set up to be disappointed in our marriages all the time, we're going to feel like, well, you're not. So and So whoever that so and so is because we have this fantasy, and it's not based in truth, and we have to watch that comparison. It's a dangerous game.

Kristen Boice 15:43

Okay, 41% a lack of preparation for marriage, they were just not prepared for what marriage really is. I think I skipped one. Hold on one sec. I skipped one. Lack of equality in the relationship was 44% of the people said it was lack of equality in the relationship. Lack of preparation for marriage was 41%. And domestic violence or abuse was 25%. And 60% of couples married between 20 and 25 years old. And in divorce. Let me dive into that for just a moment, because it's important to know neuroscience and brain development. So our brains do not fully developed until we are 25 years old. We have so much more data on this. Now, what does that mean? That means that our prefrontal cortex, the rational thought, the CEO of the brain, the executive function, the regulator of your nervous system, is not fully developed until we're 25. And therefore, we are more in the brainstem and our survival state. Because the brain has it yet that frontal lobe isn't fully developed. So we spend more time in fight, flight, freeze, or fawn, especially if we've had a trauma and unprocessed trauma, we might be frozen in one of those states in a perpetual fashion. So let's break it down the fight, we know what that is, we're going to fight we are going to try to protect ourselves. In all mechanisms, we can aggressively and intensely. We have a flyer and they're going to leave the scene they want out and these are can be really helpful when we're in the Tigers coming to get us when we're in danger. These can be helpful survival strategies literally that can save our life. They can also be a maladaptive. When we are frozen in time in a relationship we can still function from fight flight freeze or fawn we all do. And we're misfiring. There's no need for those to be going off. The Tiger isn't coming for us, but yet, they still get triggered. Then we have freeze. And this is the deer in headlights like it's safe, don't make a sound Don't make a move. Many people in childhood learn to go into freeze. So they're out of danger. They're they're safer and freeze. And then they take that into their relationships. And fawn is the pleaser, the peacemaker, the Accommodator, the play cater, just to make things go back into homeostasis into harmony to de escalate things. And that also is taken into relationships as an adult. So that's why it's an important statistic to note. We're still trying to figure out who we are between, such as our teen years and 25. And even beyond that, really into our 30s. Now we're seeing layer development, because of the use of technology is somewhat starting to show some Arrested Development emotionally. And the it's, it's showing PET scans where that prefrontal cortex is delayed because of perpetual use of the screentime the internet, and it's showing up similar to that of drug use, which I know sounds scary, but that's if someone's perpetually habitually using gaming screening, social media. It does show that brain changes are happening. And we can see that certainly, as we're seeing some Arrested Development right now in just the world. So let's continue on with these statistics. That is the I think this one is very interesting. The folks that wait until after they're 25 There's 24% less likely of a chance of divorce, is it that stat like 24% less likely to get a divorce if you get married past 25. I fall in that category. And I'm going to jump into a story after I get through to more statistics but I want to tell you this story, because I think it's important when we're looking at where I was and where I were, where I'm going or where I have gone and continue to go because it'll give you hope. Okay. If you or your partner have, this is really interesting. previous marriages, you are night both of you have previous marriages, you are 90% more likely to get divorced than if you had been married both for the first time.

Kristen Boice 20:30

And that's my guess is because two people haven't done their work. And then your fear of blending families on top of that, that's another episode that jumps that number pretty high. So it takes a high bliss secure person to jump into another marriage and have it work. If you've done your deeper work. And both of you have done the deeper work. That's why I'm recommending premarital counseling. Every single person listening, okay, 60%, a good premarital counselor, not just one or two sessions, we're talking some deep work, and I'm going to get into that 60% of cohabitating couples will eventually marry. However, living together prior to marriage increases getting divorce by as much as 40%. And I think and now this is sparely merely speculation This is me recording this five times. I'm tripping over my words, because I've recorded this so many times and said a lot of the same things again, so just bear with me as I stumble a mumble on my words, here and there. Okay. Here is the deal with living together. If you cannot have hard conversations, if you cannot speak truth with love, and Grace, I'm going to walk through how to do that the relationship is eventually going to come to a head, because there is no growth in the relationship. If we're not able to have deep authentic real conversations, hard conversations, it makes it difficult to have authentic connection. So when people say how are you doing, and they say, Find feelings inside not expressed, it's hard to connect with that. And find might have been a very nice way to one not be suffocated from a parent to keep the peace, three not get shamed for whatever you felt, for you didn't know any different. This is just what you did. You said fine in the thought you were fine, because you really didn't know any different. And what we learn over time is if we can't connect to emotions, we can't have a deep authentic connection. It's just, it's just, it's not the recipe, the recipe isn't there. And you'll see that when we look at the statistics, I can guarantee you there's unprocessed traumas, they didn't learn how to connect emotionally, they didn't recognize their own patterns. And they didn't, they weren't willing to do some deeper work. And sometimes, there is not a safe relationship. So let's be honest there. I mean, not every relationship is meant to stick together. And if it doesn't work, you have to do the deeper work on why you married the person to break the pattern. So let me break down some key ingredients to have a healthy, thriving relationships and through relationship. I'm going to start off with a story. And for those of you that have listened to the podcast, all along, you've heard this story. For those of you that are new, I'm going to give you the Cliff Notes version. And you can go back and listen to episode 100. With my husband, Mark, we've been married 20. We will be married 20 years, April six. And I'm going to tell you a little history about me. Because many of you might be able to relate I had just before I met my husband, I had been in a five year relationship. It's a college relationship post college relationship. And I was really, on the outside I looked very confident. Yeah. And on the inside, I really wanted connection. I wanted emotional connection so desperately because I didn't really have it with my dad, although I love my dad. He didn't get it either. And so he didn't have to offer that my mom was very insecure and afraid of abandonment. And so she didn't have to have it to offer she didn't didn't she had it at times and then didn't have it at times. And so I went into this five year relationship just craving this connection and craving worth and value and significance and importance. I wanted to matter I wanted him to love me. So the long story short is his history was a very broken home, not a broken home but a home where I don't even like that word broken. Because it doesn't. It's not real. It's a wounded.

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Everybody's got wounds, everybody's got issues, everybody's got stuff. He came from a family where they did not have a connected his parents did not have a connected relationship. There was a lot of discord. He didn't have the tools. And I would try to get him to see the light. So I would suggest therapy, and we would go but he really didn't want to be there. So really wasn't too helpful, super helpful for me, because it was inviting me into what I wanted, what I didn't want, how I was codependent, I was working hard at trying to make this work. And not that he wasn't he just didn't have the desire. And long story short, it ended it was one of the greatest gifts that ended. And I had met my now husband. It was, I don't know, six months a year afterwards. And I really wasn't interested in a relationship. I was like, No way. I don't want a relationship. We met at an economic development conference. He was a former racecar driver, I was working in corporate America, I wasn't interested in dating and hitting racecar drivers at all. I was closed, I wasn't open to that. And we met I wasn't interested in him at like that. I just was treating him like a colleague. He pretended to be on his cell phone when I got off my phone back then it's the flip phones, how convenient. And he asked for my phone number didn't think anything of it. We got together we went on a date. And at that point, this is an important note that I want to emphasize that I think is a reflection of these statistics. At that point, I had done a lot of work. I was very clear on what I wanted. I read the book keeping the love you find by Dr. Harville Hendricks, and there's exercises in there. And I forced myself to look at every relationship I had been in, what was my pattern? Where did I get that pattern from my family history, I really did a deeper dive than I read the book, getting the love you want, which is a couples guide. And I have read that in my previous relationship by Dr. Harville Hendricks. And that really started waking me up to that we subconsciously unconsciously pick characteristics from our parents, both good and bad. And I didn't really see that, that I had done that. And in this next relationship, I was bound and determined not to do that again. And so doing that work, I didn't have anything to lose, I felt more secure with myself. Whereas before I was kind of anxious about myself, I felt insecure and not that I still don't I still have my insecurities, believe me. And I felt more secure. So therefore I didn't care if you liked me or not. Which is different if you care if someone likes you very scary, to ask questions and get information, but I knew but didn't ask him questions, then I would not have the clarity I needed to make a decision. So here's what I asked him. What are your life goals? And I'm not kidding. I didn't interrogate them. I was curious. So what are your life goals? What do you want to do with your life? What happened in your previous relationships? What did you like? What didn't you like? How long did they last? What happened? Tell me about your childhood. And I'm not kidding. I actually asked these questions. And he was willing to go there with me. And I thought, okay, he's got a growth mindset. He values deeper dive conversations. He seems emotionally connected, and still wasn't sure about him. So the long story short, I'm gonna fast forward to two months into dating. He said, I think I love you. And I said, I think we need to go to premarital counseling. And he's like, Excuse me.

Kristen Boice 29:01

He's a former racecar. Well, he was racecar driver at the time. And he's like, okay, he didn't know what he was signing up for. He liked me. He thought, sure, I'll go whatever. How bad can it be? Well, little did he know I was going to take them to an A Mago. I am a GL, which is Dr. Harville, Hendricks therapy. And it's a deep dive intensive weekend where we get into childhood, parent relationships, our core wounds, inner child work, we learn how to communicate. And he at that point was saying I had a great childhood, a great childhood, which isn't a lie. We just our parents have growth areas, wounds of their own unmet needs. And they also have their strengths. It doesn't make them bad people. We have to know these things. So we can figure out why we're triggered by things not to blame them to go oh, I learned that or Oh, I did that. to keep safe. And lo and behold, we pulled the curtain back. And he discovered some of why he gets so angry was because that was acceptable in his family system that wasn't acceptable emotion, sadness, and fear was weakness. It was not being a man. And so he had trouble realizing the underneath that anger was fear and sadness. And it wasn't. And sometimes anger was appropriate, depending on the situation. But it was his go to, to cover up everything. And he struggled, it was hard. And it was hard for me because we're getting into my parents stuff and my shame. And my relationships. And my childhood, my parents got divorced at 17, his been married, they were going on 65 years. And my parents were married 17 years, and I was in third grade. And so I had done some work around that. But of course, when you're in a relationship, it triggers that. So one of the exercises you do is you start identifying your core wounds, like if you are triggered, figure out why you're triggered. This is the work I do in my life and with clients. And then you begin to understand your partner in a much deeper way. So it's not just your triggered over me not saying you know, me saying, Oh, watch out your, you're going to hit the car in front of us. And he hears criticism, shame, that he's a terrible driver and goes right into feeling less than, and I'm scared. So my anxiety is getting triggered. Because I was in five car accidents as a kid has nothing to do with him. He's a racecar driver, he's a great driver, it was totally about my unprocessed trauma around my car accidents. So you're able to identify your core wound, and then you're able to share that core wound in and help the partner understand that it's not them. Now, of course, I have my it's up to me to self soothe through that reactivity. It's up to him to identify and want to work on his anger responses. I can't make him do that. I can't change him. Nor did I want to I don't have that energy, I wanted to work on me. And when we, of course, are things we want to change, I'm not going to say I didn't. And because I did want that anger to change. It was up to him whether he wanted to do that. And then we learned how to communicate. And so let me break down a couple of things that are super important. And I was going to go 1-234-567-8910. And I'm deciding not to do that. I think the storytelling tells the story, and a much easier way to connect with. And the first thing the first lesson learned and the first thing research will show you is those people that go through premarital counseling, have a 30% less likelihood of getting divorce. And I don't mean premarital counseling that's required. With a couple of sessions, we're talking deep dive childhood wounds, inner child, looking at your unmet needs, looking at your relationships, what did you learn about relationships and then developing ways to communicate because we didn't get those tools? That's what I'm talking about. I'm not talking about the premarital class where you take a few assessments and you do a few sessions and then you go get married. Well, those may be helpful. I'm talking about a much deeper dive. Here's the first thing

Kristen Boice 33:47

about all of this is someone has to want to do the work. You can't make somebody do the work. We've already said that. I can't say that enough. Two is doing your own work. Three is evaluating Why do you want to be married? I have done so many premarital sessions where it's really about the idea of a wedding. It's the fairy tale. And then when that ends, they're looking at the other person in the mirror going oh, yeah, I knew this about you before we got married. And I'll say did you knew he drank? Did you knew she drank? Did you knew they drank? Yeah, I did. We kind of drink together. And then he outgrew it. Yeah. And then my relationship with alcohol changed and theirs didn't. Okay. Tell me about your history and your relationship with alcohol in your family system. And if we deny your own perception or your own reality of the other person and your own issues, you're going to perpetuate an unhealthy relationship yourself. You have to tell radical truth about the reality of the situation. So if you deny someone has an alcohol problem, it's called comeback. cup, I promise you, and maybe you never really looked at it like an unhealthy relationship with alcohol because everybody was doing it in college. And that's what you were doing too. And so you cannot get someone to do their work. You can do the work yourself. And then you have more clarity about how you feel, and where you need to go, and what the work is calling you to work on. And let me add another statistic about the premium accounting 30% Stronger marriages than other couples is what they report they feel like they have a stronger marriage than other couples. So when Mark and I went to premarital counseling, and we did the Maga weekend, and we went to a couple of therapists took us a couple to get one because one said he goes, Yeah, I get angry. She's like, well just stop doing that. He's like I want if I could lady. And so that wasn't a great fit, we needed tools and strategies. But in the Maga weekend, we learned a couple of things that have been imperative and as a marriage and family therapist, essential for me to teach. And here's a couple of them. First of all, take radical ownership of your own issues. Stop projecting, blaming, shaming, criticizing and judging your partner for your unmet needs. You got to dig in and say what from my childhood is my own needs, met needs and stop getting be the fantasy world has to stop? Because it's not realistic. So what we learned is we have to set up an appointment with each other. And what does that mean? So let's say I'm exhausted, and he wants to talk, and we're laying in bed, like oh, my gosh, I have nothing left. I am wiped out. And he says, has this a good time? And I'll say, Honey, I love you so much. And I am exhausted. Would you mind if we waited till tomorrow around nine? And then he'd say, Yeah, honey, I get it. I understand. And then at nine o'clock, it's my job to circle the wagon back, not his because I was the one that wanted to set a different appointment time. And we're tired or you're drinking, or you are hungry. Please do not try to have a deep conversation. I cannot tell you how many couples come in. And I'm like, Have you been drinking? Well, we only had a glass of wine and like, I don't care if you had a sip, no alcohol because what it does is it takes you into the brainstem and that prefrontal cortex that rational thought goes offline, and we're in the limbic system. So then the second piece that we learned is that I feel statements. I feel sad, I feel scared. I feel joy, I feel excitement. There's other episodes on core emotions and why those are important. You can go back and listen to those episodes, because we're not going to break it all down here. But what I made up this term called an acknowledgment sandwich because it works on communicating with your partner without criticizing, judging, controlling, belittling, shaming, gaslighting, somebody gaslighting is when you get them to doubt themselves. And that's a whole nother episode. But so what you'd say is, thank you so much for bringing that up. And I know it's really important for you to communicate about this and talk about this. And right now, I am so tired. I feel so tired.

Kristen Boice 38:40

I feel sad because I want to have the conversation and yet I am I got nothing left. And I really appreciate you bringing it up. Would you be okay if we met tomorrow at nine? Do you see how I acknowledge their intention? I acknowledged that they brought it up in the courage and I was specific. I was specific in acknowledging that they brought it up. I was grateful they brought it up and then I put in there my I feel I didn't say I feel like you that is a judgment and a statement and a thought it's not a feeling. So if I go you always you never I feel like you dot dot dot dot. Those are all statements I would give you the gong with Do you remember the gong show? I'm like going Nope, we're judging. We're in critical mode. We are in righteousness where you know, we're not in a calm centered mode. So stay away from you always. You never those are immediately going to be hit with defenses. And this is hard to do. And the other piece about this then is the other person so the sender says something the receiver then mirrors back what they hear verbatim at the beginning because We go through a filter, and we go through a filtering system of our own story that we believe is true. And we projected on the person, we believe that that person thinks we don't care about them. Or we're lazy, or we're stupid, or whatever we think that that person thinks of us. And we get so mired in that story. And I also love how Dr. Brene Brown will say something like, I feel sad. And the story I'm making up is that you think I'm an idiot. And I'm going to check that, is that true? So I'm going to check that I added that is that true in there. So you're checking with the other person, that story that you have going, I cannot tell you how many couples I work with in the stories are so big, and they're rooted in their childhood stories, their projections, and that goes back to that percentage of people that have these. There's like the argue that's in there and their expectations. Because it's rooted in a story. It's not rooted in reality. And so we learned how to talk to each other. It literally has been the foundation we've built our house on, we've built our relationship on this foundation. Do we do it perfect every time? No, it's hard. It's a lot of energy. Because there's two energies being exchanged between us. I'm responsible for the energy I'm bringing into the room. Thank you, Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor for that. And he's responsible for the energy he brings into a room. I can't get him to be responsible for his energy, he has to want to own his energy. I also want to implore this, as research shows, we have to listen to understand instead of trying to be right, you've heard that saying, Do you want to be right? Or do you want to be in relationship and listening to try to understand rather than what you're going to say next, rather than combating what they just say that isn't true. Mirror back what you hear. So what I heard you say is, and then mirror it back. And try to take a deep breath and stay regulated that is on us to regulate as children, we didn't get the memo, because our parents either was shut down or not regulated. And we didn't really get empathy. Sometimes, some of our parents did it. We didn't realize the power of offering empathy to someone in pain. It's one of the most healing things we can give ourselves is self compassion into others. And, and relationships that are able to process emotion, process pain, tell the truth, make room for joy, fun, and playfulness. They have better sex, they work through their stuff. So they're not frozen in time in a trauma, memory or a story in their minds. They're able to access more joy, and have fun and be playful. And so it's really about being centered and grounded, owning your own issues. I'm going to simplify this not projecting the story you think it is working on your defensive responses. And

Kristen Boice 43:20

one of the most helpful things I've learned to do is consistently own what is mine, not what isn't mine, I'm not gonna over own but what is mine, and humble myself instead of being attached to outcomes. So if you have abandonment issues, fear rejection, you got to dive deeper into that that goes into childhood. Along the way, you've gotten hurt, and you felt left and you're scared to ever have that happen again, you never want to feel rejected again, you never want to feel like someone's gonna leave you so your hustle, you will compromise who you are, to try to attach to safety and security. And that's the how you get it. How we become more secure is by doing this deeper work of our inner child healing. And I know people like oh my gosh, inner child, I'm like that is the way to freedom. It's the way to freedom rumbling through those emotions, and knowing the reality of relationships take work. They take a deep willingness to rumble through why you have these reactions. Why you pick the people who do and get curious about it, have a keen curiosity about yourself. I cannot express that enough. Yes, you can have a curiosity about other people which but at first comes from having a curiosity about yourself. Like why are the way Why are you the way you are? That's what propelled me into this job this field is because I had such a keen curiosity for other people. And I encourage you to if you're Relationship to ask questions. Please, I implore you all, or share how you feel with an I feel statement. And if you're scared, that's a signal that you're probably functioning from your inner child and not your adult self. They're signals to say is that my adult self, or somebody scared little boy or girl, inside my little soul inside that scared. So I've given you some tips, some strategies, a little storytelling to mix in there. And the good news is you can disrupt these statistics, you absolutely can. I'm proven because the the statistics for someone that has a divorced parent are higher. And you can turn that around, I have so much gratitude that I went through that it has helped me immensely be a better therapist, partner, mother, friend, boss, it has the gift that keeps on giving. Because my parents have taught me a lot about relationships. They propelled me into therapy and doing my own work. And they did the best they could. They really, really did. And I don't blame them for that I don't, I really, really don't. What I really wanted from them was to do their own work. That's it, their own their staff do their own work, the ability to empathize and listen to my emotions, was really what all kids want, they want to be understood. They want to feel safe, they want to be emotionally tended to and nurtured, hugged and acknowledged. That's the bottom line. And that's what healthy relationships are made of with a whole lot of empathy. So I hope this was helpful. This is my fifth go at it. I hope it was the best one. I'm sure I missed some of my other little nuggets that I like to share. And it wasn't that important. I'm gonna attach it to the outcome as long as this is helpful to one person. That's all that matters to me, and I hope that one person is you. Thank you for listening, sending you so much love and encouragement on this healing journey. And I look forward to being with you again next week. Have a good week.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai