Hard Feelings & Relationship Repair

Everyone's lovely on a good day. How you each do hurt and how you find your way back to making repairs is really what your relationship is going to come down to in hard times. Today we're talking about hard feelings and making repairs.

Stick around until the end because we're gonna share some prompts with you that you can use when you're feeling so hurt or fired up that you want to retreat or lose it on your partner. And there's still a tiny part of you that says, hmm, maybe it'd be better not to do that.

We've talked a lot in this season about the the dear barista, how your first date talks to the barista or talks to the barista when they're stressed. How do they talk to you when feelings are hurt or when there's a sensitive moment?

That first rupture or first few ruptures might even help you see how you respond to someone when your feelings are hurt. You might have a moment where you feel proud of yourself for how you handle those moments, or it might be a little shocking that we fall into some of these patterns too sometimes that we experience with other people and don't like. Mm.

It might also bring up historic memories of how you've been treated or how you've treated other people. All of these are opportunities for you to pause and feel your body and offer yourself some compassion.

Think for me, becoming more compassionate to myself has helped because I can pause and have a little laugh. Like I can get so angry with my partner with how they're responding to me and how I wish that they would respond when I'm upset. And then if I think about it, I'm like, I do that too sometimes. Oops. And it helps, I find it helps soften the tension a bit when you realize that thing, I'm so annoyed. that they're doing right now, I do sometimes too, and perhaps together we can get better at this. Yeah.

And in dating, especially slow dating at this stage in your newish relationship, this is actually a really great thing. You're gonna learn a lot about each other. You've had a few interviews at this point, right? When you first connected, you know, wherever you met them online or in person, when you had your first date, as you started to notice the patterns. These are all kind of little interview processes. And now is the time where you get to notice how do we do difficulties together, which is gonna set the tone. Kind of for the rest of your lives.

This is such a key to pay attention to because it's all great and dandy to be able to have a great time together. Of course we're gonna choose someone who we have a good time with, but life inevitably brings a lot of harder things along the way. And that's what we wanna be testing for. How do we do hard things together?

Yeah, people sometimes really hopefully ask us, can the honeymoon last forever? And I I think what they actually mean is can we continue to feel deeply connected and passionate about each other? And then they unconsciously mean, can we never fight? And the answer is probably no. I mean, fighting is one thing, but difficulties. You will inevitably face difficulties. And during these initial interview phases, when we're talking about How we are and how we want to be. We're not generally talking about how we are when things are difficult and when we're triggered. That's the stuff that comes up when you're in the middle of it.

Could you imagine if that became a really typical early dating question or conversation you had with each other? Like that would give us, I mean, again, just verbal information. You don't actually know how you show up in real time. We don't always show up the way we think we do or the way we want to. But I'd love to normalize talking about that. Talking about how do we want to show up for each other when moments are hard. Yes.

And part of the difficulty of talking and like prejudging these things through conversation is that we all have such a different chemical mix together. We're all different pattern matches for each other. So the way somebody is with one person is gonna be different than the way they are with you. What triggers them in one person might not in you or it'll trigger something slightly differently.

I found it really helpful and important to notice more in real time what is it that I feel I need in this moment? What is it that this person who lets assume they have good intentions, what is it that they could do or say right now that would feel supportive? And good people are going to want to be of support when we're having a hard time. They just don't always know how because they're not us. And so it reminds me of the importance of getting to know ourselves on this deep level, to get clear with what would help me in this moment feel just a touch better. And do I have the courage to say that out loud to this person? Yeah, right. And these good people who wanna do supportive things for us, they might not be able to access that in the moment that they're triggered. Right.

This is why there's an arc here. There's the trigger, there's the how you handle it, there's the repair afterwards. So the gist of this first piece here is that shit's gonna happen. There's gonna be some shit. And the way that you handle it is interesting and helpful to notice and to feel into. There's gonna be anger as well. You're gonna feel angry towards each other, towards life. You're gonna project your anger at life and existence onto them accidentally 'cause you're triggered. All of this stuff is gonna happen.

I'm chuckling a little bit here because there would have been a time in my life where I would have told you, What do mean? I don't feel angry. I'm not angry at all. And that's also how I would have thought that I was presenting. But inside, inside behind the facade of the, you know, smiley face or whatever would be anger, but I didn't know that at the time. So for those of you who know, yes, she's right. Anger does show up inevitably. Excellent. Yeah. And for those of you who are like, I don't know what you're talking about, I don't actually ever feel angry. Just hang on, be patient, get curious. Yeah.

It'll come out sideways, right? Anger is just one of those things that exists. It's it's a universal, transcendental feeling that people experience. We balk at the idea of directing it at people. And because we fear being angry at someone and that having some consequence, we come around to imagining we don't have any anger. Mm-hmm. But in fact it'll be coming out some different way. Right.

Pay attention to the feelings of annoyed and irritated. Or maybe you don't associate with feeling those things, then watch the eye roll and the comments that you say under your breath. Yes.

Yeah, the inner dialogue. Right. If someone's inevitably an idiot, or they're just stupid or they don't know what they're talking about, I mean, that's all anger. I think we think it has to be much bigger than it is to qualify it as anger. That's at least how I used to feel when I was in the I don't have any anger, what are you talking about mode. Think about how you feel about politics, how you feel about global affairs. That's a place where we displace our anger.

This reminds me of tracking the thoughts that come up. A good sign that there might be some anger brewing is you should. What's wrong with you is one of my favorites. Those all have some fire in them, some energy, some fight energy in them. Yeah. Pay attention.

A couple of practical things to notice when there's a conflict. Do you go cold and distant? Do you separate from each other? Do you get big and loud? Do you be the long arm? Or do you expect them to come fix something?

My go-tos were I would get quiet, but like I wouldn't have thought that I withdraw. But I think getting quiet is a form of withdrawing. Or I would pretend like things are fine. So put on the smile, some of that fawning that some people talk about. Or what was one of the last things you said? Getting cold, loud, expecting them to come right here. So when you hear us present some of these options, notice what your body's response is because the moment Steph said this, I felt it in my body. I'm like, ooh, ding, ding, ding. I do that. And then you said it again and I felt it right away, which is what I expect the other person to do to make it better, to make me better, to make the moment and the situation better. I carry a lot of expectations that I don't always share with the other person. They don't know that these are my expectations. And then when they don't do the thing, I'm getting angrier and more hurt and the it's snowballing inside me while I could actually be putting on still a nice smiley face on the outside. So pay attention to those kinds of things. Yeah.

This is maybe the key place to be able to discover this latent anger that you might not know you have is when somebody does not meet your expectations, especially in these heightened moments of hurt where the person loves you or is supposed to love you, whatever words your angry head is giving you, they're not doing what you expect them to do, what you tell yourself they would do if they cared, what comes up inside you. And I tell ya, it's gonna be anger. And you might think it's sadness, and that's because these are two sides of the same Coin, right? Anger is typically a cloak for sadness, and sadness is typically a cloak for anger. Just notice which pattern you run and know that the opposite is probably in there somewhere too.

For me, it would be easy for me to tap into blame and want to outwardly blame my partner, whether I said that out loud or thought it in my mind. But when I would actually sit with it, often I would notice it was something much more tender than anger. Like I was hurt, like my feelings were hurt. Something that was important to me didn't get held with the kind of kindness and softness and welcoming that I had hoped. It's been life changing for me to get curious about my blame energy. What is happening for me right now? What am I finding hard right now? What is this reminding me of that makes me want to go on the attack with you? Whether I do that like directly towards you or in my mind and in my heart I'm beginning to attack you. Yeah.

Now the martyrs among us, I'm raising my hand, both of my hands, can take this to an extreme where we can let any kind of anger, including abuse, be allowed, because we can see that there's just pain and hurt under there. I get this visual of an injured dog who's barking and snarling to protect an injury, or whether that's a physical or an emotional injury. And when I see people being angry out in the world, I just feel like sweetie pie, like, yeah, there's something tender in there. It could be these big burly biker dudes. I'm like, honey, yeah, I know it hurts, you know? And that's true. And it's a wonderful thing to be able to tap into, especially with a loving person who generally is showing you a lot of care and respect and is having a triggered moment. But I've definitely experienced, because I can see that good heart in there, I've stuck around way too long and I've put up with horrific. abuse because I could see their good heart inside. And that won't change in everyday life, right? That then creates your everyday experience. And for some people, they will never be able to move through that.

For those of us who are deeply compassionate, probably also a little bit conflict avoidant. That was me. It was both of those things, very deeply compassionate, but also conflict avoidant. To tap into our compassion so deeply that we forget to also see and feel the truth that this behavior crosses a boundary. It crosses a line that I can. see where this reaction is coming from and I can have compassion and understanding. And it's important for me to know whether this behavior is a yes or a no for me. Those are two very separate things. This is one of the things that parents have to really practice and learn because if you are just empathic, you're gonna have a three year old who rules your house. And it's gonna get out of hand when they get faster and stronger and louder than you. But It's not about coming in and meeting their anger with yours. It's about coming in with the compassion, but also letting them know, hey, you know, that is okay to feel. That makes sense. I'm here for it. I love you. And that hitting is not okay. Or those words that you're using to talk to me are not okay. Right. That part has to stop. And I didn't even register that. That was what was needing to happen in my relationships.

Yeah, super important. So it's clear that you're gonna stick around for the long term when it's your kids in that situation. It can get a lot more confusing when we're dating, especially when it's new dating. This is somebody that you don't know very well, or it's somebody that you've known as a friend and you're discovering that they're completely different in relationship. Partly why we're slowing this down and observing this pattern over time is because it it does shift over time. If we go back to the injured dog example, which is a great example because the dog doesn't have an ego. It's not holding on to stories. It's going to protect itself with anger or, you know, being scary one time, two, three, four times as you gently approach. But eventually it's going to realize you're not actually a threat and it's going to soften and it's going to snuggle. It's going to take some time for you to discover what that pattern is actually like with a person. And if you're coming into a new relationship fresh or not so fresh off the heels of say an overly angry, abusive situation, you're gonna be super sensitive to that. Right. In any anger, you're gonna be like, fuck this, I'm out of here. I'm not doing this again, you know? That might be true and important for you and certainly honor your needs in the moment. But if it feels like there's a little bit more something there, if you can notice, hey, wow, this is really my trigger system, slow down and step back for a moment. Run through some of these prompts are gonna give you at the end of the episode and see what's really there and beyond just your triggers or your sensitivity.

Things are going to reveal themselves in you, in the other person, and in the way you both handle conflict and repair. If you come from a family or past relationships where nobody ever really repairs, nobody takes your hurt feelings seriously. Then the fact that someone says, I'm so sorry that I did that, could be like, my gosh, I've won the lottery. This is excellent. And this feels great. And then over time, as you progress in this relationship, you might actually realize, well, they're quick to say they're sorry, but I don't actually see any changed behavior. Or they're quick to say they're sorry, but they don't actually have a true understanding of the impact of what they did and why that hurt me. Like they they don't really know me. You might be a person where if someone does something that's you don't love and they say the words, I'm sorry, you're like, Excellent. I can connect back with you and we're good to go. But for me, I realized like that's not how I'm wired. Like I want to be deeply understood by my partner. Just the words I'm sorry don't actually bring me back into full connection. If we're like doing life together now, for me personally, I'm like, I need a little bit more depth than that. Yes.

We've got a whole old episode, I can't remember the number, about apologies. If you just search in Spotify or whatever, apologies, it'll it'll come up. There's a lot of good content there. You and I are not angry people, generally. We have anger, but we don't lead with anger. So there are a lot of people who do. And it's important to notice if you listener are the one who's bringing the anger. Usually wound matches and pattern matches are a real thing. We attract these parts of ourselves that we have either ignored or rejected. So if I'm bringing a lot of anger, chances are I'm gonna be attracting someone who is not comfortable with their anger, who is more inclined to cower and apologize and abandon themselves in some way. So it's great to notice if you're the one leading with anger, what that means for you, how that dynamic plays out in your relationship. The first few episodes of this season were all about getting to know yourself and your patterns. And those would be great places to explore if this is something you found in yourself that you might like to shift in some way.

This is a big deal. It's about knowing what you want. It's like having this relationship vision and philosophy that many of us never really think about. Do you want a relationship where we both lead with anger? Maybe you do. Maybe you're okay with that, but get clear on that first. Yeah.

This is why we went so deep in the first three episodes about knowing yourself. Cause you know, we all come into dating and relationships saying, Well, I just want to have a a good time. I just want to feel nice. I just wanna be happy. And you have to know what that means at a granular level for yourself. How you show up and how they show up in all these different ways are gonna determine that happiness level. And that's something you actually have quite a lot of power over.

This is a good opportunity to also notice whether you feel, I don't need repair. Who needs repair? You might come from a family where we blow up at each other and then we just pretend like nothing happened and we move along and it's fine. And if you are truly heartlit up by that, let that be great. But it's an opportunity now to get curious about is that actually what I long for in connection with my partner? Or would I like Or be curious about a different way. Even if we don't know what that would look like, we don't know how to grow the skills to do that. Is it something you're interested in? A relationship where healthy repair is present. Someone is curious about why you're hurt, why you're in pain. Somebody wants to tend to you. Somebody wants to let you know you're understood and that you matter. Does that matter to you? Do you want that? Be honest with yourself and be honest with who you're dating about whether you want that or not. If you deep down actually want that and they don't, it's gonna make for a lot of extra conflict on top of the existing conflict. Yeah.

And there's an interesting nuance here between like familiarity and what feels genuinely good. And I mean long term good. So I'm thinking about a time when I was, I think like twenty two. I was living in a house with a bunch of people and two of them came from yelling families. My family is not a yelling family. So one day these two girls were yelling at each other and I was like, my God, it's the end of the world. I hid in a closet. I was freaked out. And then one of them, and this I'm still florid when I think about it, she noticed I was in the closet and she just stopped. Like the anger was not an uncontrolled thing, which I didn't know was possible. And she just went, honey, are you freaking out? And I was like, I don't understand what's going on. And she's like, no, no, no, no, no. This is fine. Like We yell we both come from yelling families. We yell, it'll be totally fine. And the minute I knew that was what was going on, because it's it's like a salve for our minds when we know what's going on, we're like, I understand, I can be with this. That's different than wanting to be with it long term. So now in this housemate instance, if I hear them yelling, I can just go, I know what's going on, great. I don't need to be freaked out by this. But that does not mean that I want to have a yelling partner. That will not be comfortable for my nervous system long term, whether I understand what's going on or not, it becomes differently personal when it's like that, you know.

This reminds me of working with someone who has adult children and she speaks so lovingly about how her daughter's husband treats her daughter and how they navigate things, the way he speaks to her. And I was like, how does that feel when you watch how your son-in-law speaks to your daughter and to your grandchildren? yeah, it warms my heart. Like it's so beautiful to see. I'm just, I I marvel at it. That's excellent and great. But my next curiosity is do you long for that yourself in your relationship?

And do you bring it yourself to your relationship? Right.

Like the fact that I'm so touched by this probably means something. It's telling me that this matters to me. But a lot of us, we don't believe that that could be possible for us. Like we love it for the people who we love and we love it for other people, but it doesn't occur to us that maybe we could have that experience as well or that we want that experience. Yes.

One more important thing about anger is you can't just not have it magically. If it's here, it's there. It's what's happening. So it might need to be expressed before it can be softened into the next thing that will allow for some more connection and repair after the fact. We should talk about moving the energy, the physical energy of it.

Yeah, something I've had to learn like it went in stages because remember I was in anger denial and never occurred to me that you had to move any energy. What is that all about?

And it feels dangerous, right? Like it's like, Well, what do you mean? Am I supposed to yell at someone and punch them in the face? No.

Like that's a definite no in my mind. And it didn't occur to me that there's any other option. Right. If I'm not gonna yell and scream at that person, then obviously all the thoughts in my head just have to be locked down inside and shut down. And if I'm not gonna punch you in the face, then all that impulse inside to want to punch you in the face also should just be ignored.

Yeah, which then turns into depression.

And sideways stuff coming out. The the the interesting thing is I prided myself on being the nice girl, on being the person who doesn't lose their mind. But if you had a camera watching me, like that's not what you'd actually see. There would be like these shaming, blamey kind of remarks, passive aggressive things here and there, right? So it wasn't that anger wasn't coming out and moving out of me. It was just totally unpredictable. Probably way more intense than the situation called for and just meaner than it needed to be. And no ounce of tenderness or vulnerability attached to it. Yeah.

I mentioned earlier that anger is just a universal emotion. It's not really that scary when we're not directing it at someone, when we're not filling it with vitriol and stories and hatred. It doesn't need to be any of those things, which I know sounds crazy and totally unfamiliar to people who have not done a bunch of anger work.

So this makes me laugh because we were doing our relationship lab call earlier and we were talking about how much we can learn from toddlers who are fully in their like full feeling mode, full expression mode, and how they can easily declare what they want or what they don't want. The other thing that toddlers are really good at before they're suppressed is I'm so mad about blank. Right. And to own that part of ourselves. Is so freeing. It never occurred to me that I could just look at my partner and maybe even bring it with a little bit of lightness and say, I'm so mad at you for this. And for it to sound a bit outrageous, even that shifts some energy. Yes. I'm no longer holding it. I'm no longer brewing resentment underneath. I can say, I'm so mad that you did blah, blah, blah. Even though there might be a logical part of my mind that knows, like maybe that wasn't a fair expectation or whatever, but I'm pissed about it. That's like true. There's a part of me that's. Maybe irrationally angry about this, but I'm just here owning it. Yeah.

And that's actually a lot more approachable because it gives the other person the cue that this is not personal. The more childlike and ridiculous and extreme you can be with your expression of I'm angry, the more they can go like, yeah, that's that universal anger that we all have. This is not about me being bad or wrong. It's about them having some anger right.

It reminds me of if you ever look at those memes of my son was angry at me because I wouldn't let them drink the water from the puddle on the street. Right? But a three year old will tell you that. I hate you. Why won't you let me drink from the puddle? So when we own that, we own some of the ridiculousness of it all, that like I'm just in fury right now, but I don't need to attack you. I don't need to dump this anger, this fight energy on you. I can just tell you what's happening inside me right now. It's very different from I'm gonna attack you with this anger energy. Yes.

And so how about this? This is one of the golden keys of doing personal growth work in a group is that both parties know what the hell we're talking about. So if you play this segment for your partner and you're like, this is how I feel about anger and how I want to approach anger, and can we have a safe word for when I'm feeling angry, I can just yell at you, I hate you so much you won't let me drink from the dirty puddle. Then you both are on the same page and you know, I understand what's happening here right now. Yeah.

And like what this does is it brings us back into remembering we're on the same team, right? We forget that we're on the same team when our feelings are hurt. That makes sense. But we don't want to forget that long term because that makes the repair so much harder. It makes the repair take so much longer. It actually keeps us both in isolation when generally both people just ultimately want to get back into connection with each other. So What helps remind you that you're on the same team?

That's so much about what the discovery of dating and long-term compatibility is. Is are we on the same team? Are we playing the same game? Do we have the same goals? Are we on the same team? Do we have each other's back? One of the wonderfully socially acceptable ways of bypassing anger is this very familiar statement, happy wife, happy life. And I think we misunderstand what that statement is all about. It's not let me ignore my needs and abandon myself and my feelings because my woman wants something. It's about remembering what's important for you, what matters more in this moment is it my anger? Is it my connection with my wife? Is it about winning an argument? Or is it about winning the long game of life and love together as a team? Mm-hmm.

I think for a lot of people, when they're just sort of opening to these ideas, it seems unfathomable that you could be true to yourself and prioritize connection at the same time. It feels like it has to be either or. Like I'm either true to myself and I'm a jerk to you, or I could be nice to you and I gotta abandon how I feel and what I want. And finding that place where you can hold both. is a completely different kind of way of life and way of being in relationships.

Yeah, that's peak adulting. Right there. Peak adulting. No pressure.

And I I luckily don't feel the pressure to be peak adulting, but what helps me is to have that as the vision. Like that is what I am striving for. That when I check my responses to how I'm doing life in relationships, I can see am I moving myself and my relationship closer to that kind of relationship or am I moving it further away? And that's like a good checkpoint for me. So watch for this. Do you or your partner or you collectively suck at repair? Let's just say this other person right now is not really good at repair. They're not very skilled. It's clunky. Maybe it doesn't even happen at all. It could be that they've never come from experiences where they got the opportunity to practice that, where they even know that that was a possibility, where they even knew that that's something that is important to them. However, They are curious about it. They have interest. They want to learn how best to do repair with you. And they want to put in the time and effort to grow this skills. That is a very different kind of currently sucking at it than someone who is not good at it and shows no curiosity and interest towards how to repair well with you or want to invest any. And I this is key. Invest any sustainable amount of effort and energy in growing those skills. That's what you want to pay attention for because I think it's such a new skill for so many of us that I don't think it's a great measure to say, this person sucks at repair, so I gotta get out of here. There could be lots of reasons why they're not good at repair. You might not be good at repair. I certainly wasn't really good at repair. I had to learn. But I'm choosing to practice with someone who sees that as just as much sacred in our relationship as I do. Yeah.

And I think it can be really easy to lose sight of how much people can really love and care about us, you know? I'm so loving and caring. And it really didn't occur to me until much later in life that other people are also the same way, you know? I didn't imagine somebody would want to repair with me because I felt just bad and wrong. And once I cleared that out, I was able to see like, gosh. There's very little someone that I love could do to cause me to not want to make things feel good between us. Lots of people feel the same way about me as well. Yes.

It's kind of common sense when you zoom out and think about it, but when you're in the middle of it, it's hard to see. When you are guns ablazing, blaming someone, generally humans are going to be defensive, maybe even fight back. I grew up in my family of you're either going to meet that fight energy that's coming towards you and fight just as hard, or you're just gonna retreat. There was no other option. I never learned. That I could bring a softer side of I feel really sad about this right now, or that really hurt my feelings, or I'm having a really hard time with this right now. And when I catch myself wanting to dip into blame energy, I have given myself the practice of, okay, slow this down. What would be? And sometimes it's that energy. What would be really what's happening right now? What am I feeling sad or hurt? Or What is hard for me right now? And can I share a little bit of that? A little bit more of that right now. And to my surprise, every time I've done that, the response was a leaning in from my partner. Like a, tell me what it is, right? What is hard right now? It wasn't fight energy coming towards me. It was actually the soft, really loving, curious energy coming towards me. Yeah. And like I think that's what most people are wanting to do. They're not wanting to fight with us. And if I'm willing to not add fuel to the fire, then I actually might get to experience a different dance here. Yes.

This is a beautiful alchemical analogy because fire meeting fire just creates a bigger fire. Putting water, which is your emotions, onto the fire will dampen the flames and give you something that you can actually work with instead of just fight. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

So that made a huge difference for me.

So we've been talking here about repair and anger and fighting, but there's another realm of just generally hurt feelings. When you're just down or misunderstood, something unrelated to the relationship, how do they meet you in it? And I want to give an example that Shalina gave us many years ago about her and her partner Ben, when they were first together, she realized that he did not know what to do with her hurt feelings. So she's like, Cool, I don't need you for this. I'm just gonna go into the room and handle my business. so she was doing this beautiful thing that we're encouraging all of you to do, which is to hold yourself in your feelings, which gives other people so much wonderful data about how they can hold you and your feelings. So he'd get mad because he just didn't know what the hell is this? You know, this is a woman having some big feelings. I don't know what the hell's going on. I don't know how to deal with it. I'm gonna get a little shirty about it. And she's like, I've got this, man.

You do you.

Eventually, she said, he would poke his little head into the room and he'd be like, Like, how you doing? Can I get you some tea or something? He can slowly approach, right? When we've got our own back, people know how to have our back 'cause we can share that with them. We can show them. I think it's important the you shared the after.

This is sort of where they got to over time. But my understanding of it was she'd be really pissed that he wasn't tending to her and bringing a softness and the warmth that she was wanting. And it would end up being like fire on fire, like what you were just talking about. That fire, I think, would make him want to retreat even more. And they'd just keep on doing that cycle until she realized, like, I gotta. Try out a different approach here. And that's what all of our work here is that we talk about. This whole podcast, everything we do in one-on-one and group work is are you willing to try out something different? Because probably what you're noticing is something about your autopilot patterns is not working for you anymore. And she yes, she was willing to try on something different. And what's shifted in my relationship is my willingness to try on something different. And I want to be specific about. what Shalina was trying on and what I was trying on that I have found to be so invaluable, which is I tried to do something different in the in the in-between time. In the I'm mad at you, you're probably mad at me. Now what? We both seemingly do not have it in us to resolve this right now in a way that feels good. So what happens in this in-between time? There never used to be an in-between time. It used to be we're mad at each other. We have no capacity to handle this in a way that has integrity or respect or care. So let's just continue to throw fire at each other. Yeah. Or have sex. shut down or have sex. Yeah. Right. It's that willingness to try something different during that period of time where it's super uncomfortable because someone is unhappy with you or you are unhappy with them and there's no resolution at this moment. Yeah.

And I would like to encourage you to do something completely unrelated, you know? Go ice skating. Like when I'm saying do something new in the in between time, I'm not like try a new communication tactic. I'm like go pet a turkey. Something different. Do that. Yeah.

What you're doing is interrupting the old pattern that says, Let's continue to escalate this or let's disassociate from this altogether and bypass.

And this is so key because you interrupting that pattern will show you if it's a pattern that can be interrupted, or if it's something the other person is so invested in unconsciously that it's never going to change. So I want to say a little bit here about the anger meter that our our teacher Phil gave us. And in hindsight, you know, after whatever it was, 13 rounds of conscious relationship training, I've never heard him speak about this again. It's been 10 years. So I've decided that this was directed specifically to me and my partner at the time. And I think the teacher was trying to demonstrate that there was an anger problem in our relationship. So the way he explained it is there's a scale of emotions out of ten between two people. And in this case it's a scale of anger. So you've got ten anger points between you. If one partner is always at ten, there's no room For you to have any anger. So if you bring some anger, say if I bring two anger, my partner's anger should come down to eight. If our anger goes up to twelve together, we're off the scale. It's not working, right? So when our teacher suggested this, I thought I this is something I need to test out. And so I did exactly what you're describing. I tried different things. And I'm saying this now to illustrate. How differently you can do things. So the first thing I did was instead of I think I started out by maybe cowering and apologizing. And then I thought, okay, no, I'm gonna bring my own anger because the teacher had said that should shift the scales. Fucking did not, right? We just had a big old blowout. And so then I started getting ridiculous. I can't remember. I tried at least five different things. The last one I did, and this is wild, this really illustrated so much. I literally started dancing around this big like elbowy dance. And I thought, well, surely this will interrupt the pattern.

And it didn't.

He just kept going, you know?

That's good data to collect. Right. You know, last time we talked about the price of admission. Is that the price of admission you're willing to pay? That on a regular basis the two of you are in a level fifteen out of ten in anger together. Yeah. Yeah.

So and then this brings us back into the chemical loop. Cause if you're then having makeup sex and reconnecting after that and it feels extra fiery passionate, that's gonna be pretty confusing to your system. That's gonna partly mimic something to do with the honeymoon phase. That if you're not really feeling into the long term compatibility of this relationship, if you're still very involved in the passionate dramatic aspects, that's gonna blind you a little bit to what's gonna be happening over time. If there's any part of you wishing that something was different, that's the part to listen to. Yeah.

I mean, who doesn't love passionate sex? But that in that moment is a band-aid for a bigger issue. And that's the thing you want to get clear on is do I want to sign up for a relationship where that's what we do? We band aid over these things with something that feels great, but we never actually address the root or we never actually get honest with ourselves enough to say this isn't actually the type of relationship I want to sign up for.

It's not really a repair. So the subject of the episode broadly is hard feelings and repair. If it's all hard feelings all the time and then passionate makeup sex, that's not really repair and it's not really being with the hard feelings. It's a wonderful physical opportunity to kind of ignore the feelings and replace them temporarily with something else.

Can we talk about what makes repair hard? Sure.

Is it just one thing?

Well, I think it's one big thing, which is how hard we can be on ourselves. If we are still living in a pattern where we're very self critical, repair, which is one of these huge keys to a healthy relationship, is gonna feel out of reach and really hard. Because repair requires us to own our part. But if we're super hard on ourselves, we're either not going to own our part because Owning our part means I have to say I'm wrong. And I'm wrong means I'm bad. And I've been trying my whole life to hold up the facade that I'm actually good. It's gonna go against everything that we thought we need to keep together for survival. We're not going to want to admit we're wrong. Well, and we're also gonna assume that the other person is as hard on us as we are on ourselves.

That they feel all these things. Right. I oscillated between two sort of archetypes.

Either I'm super wrong and I suck and you're better, or I cannot admit that I'm wrong and you have to be wrong for me to be okay. It was one of those two places, which does not leave you very much room to have a healthy, fulfilling relationship. That's why we are so passionate about the shadow work and the self compassion muscle and the nervous system work. Because if you don't grow the muscle to be able to own your stuff with some humor and lightness and some shared humanity, it's going to be very hard to grow your repair muscle. And without a strong repair muscle, you're gonna have a very hard time in relationship.

And the lovely offshoot of this is that the more compassionate you can be to yourself and your feelings, the more compassion you're going to be able to bring to your partner and their feelings. It's going to open up a whole new dynamic of the relationship. And a lot of the anger and hard feelings will be able to soften because there's space for them to exist. I have to say, I'm very blessed of a partner who is very easygoing, doesn't take things very personally.

So what I have noticed is when I sort of mess up and say the thing that's sort of unnecessary or unkind, I probably don't actually have to offer an apology. Like he's he's he's fine. He didn't take it personally. He can let those things go quite easily. So it didn't actually cause maybe any outward Downside to our relationship. But now that I have this skill and ability, I can tap into the part of me that just wants to. I want to take accountability for that thing that I said that was unnecessary and unkind. And when I go back and say those things and apologize and I explain why I feel like that was not a nice thing to say, the response I get is, like thank you. Like I can tell like it's appreciated, even though it wasn't necessary in his mind. And I feel like that brings closeness, that grows trust, that grows a I can see my partner pays attention to moments that weren't in service of bringing us closer. Yeah.

And it shares so much of like where I'm at, of my internal trajectory. Here is what I'm working on right now. Here is what I'm actively trying to change about my reactivity. And obviously our connection matters to me because I'm coming to you and letting you know this. I'm letting you in on my world a little bit. And let this serve the listener to realize this is what someone can bring to repair. You can have someone. Who thinks about these things after the fact and instead of just letting something slide or sweeping it under the rug, it can be important enough to them that they want to let you know I didn't like how I handled myself in that interaction and I love you and I care, just so you know. Mm-hmm. So sweet. Yeah. It's just a n such a nicer way to be in a relationship. right? Yeah, man, I would have just thought we were stupid so many years ago, but this is really the most important stuff in the world to me. I just didn't know it. Yes.

So this is all possible, even if you've never entertained the idea that it's possible, even if you don't know how to co-create it yet, right? These are learnable skills.

Not fighting ever is not the goal. There are surely some rare people who are very, very easy going and don't fight about anything. But disagreement is natural. Conflict is natural. So if you're one of these rare birds who genuinely has never any conflict, then please enjoy. But don't get involved in the either self-abandonment, the appeasement, the people pleasing, or the spiritual bypassing. Of I have no anger, nothing's ever wrong, everything's always fine, and then just becoming a quiet, simmering, resentful Buddhist.

I'm trying to visually picture what that looks like, a quietly simmering, resentful Buddhist.

I think there's a lot of Buddhists like that person. Yeah.

I've lived with some actually. Yeah.

It's a good way to do it, right? We're afraid of our anger. We're afraid of our feelings. So we hand them over to God and we call it something else. And we meditate, you know, we say, Fuck you, I'm gonna go meditate for a minute. And then we dissociate and we call it meditation and we come back saying, Everything's fine. Nothing ever was wrong. This is fine. Yes.

When someone presented to me that a relationship with no conflict was actually not a good one, not a healthy one. This was years ago. I was like, what? What do you mean? Like there was so much fighting between my parents and my family growing up that like the thing I wanted most was no fighting. And if I look at, you know, past relationships, I've been in a no fighting relationship. It also was a no passion relationship. It also was a I wasn't fully myself in that relationship. It comes at a cost when that's not actually your true experience. Yeah.

I'm almost never mad at somebody. It's I I can't even th I've probably there's a few times where I've had anger at someone. But generally I have this existential rage that I used to point at someone. I used to have to make it mean that it was somebody's fault, right? But it's actually just this larger thing of it's some kind of mask for fear that we have no real certainty or control about existence at all. You know, and sometimes that'll strike me like a toddler, like the same way a toddler will be enraged one minute and then delighted the next. We all have those experiences. We've just learned how to adult them into acceptability. So I'll be hit with this feeling and where I used to direct it at someone or turn it into some crunchy anxiety thing that I needed drugs for. Now I can just be like, R'T stand it. And then it It flows by just like every other emotion has ever flowed by.

Yeah, importance of sounding and making big gestures and following that physical impulse to move that energy. Yeah.

And the best feeling is when a partner's like you're having that feeling and now okay, you shouted it out, come for a snuggle, you know pulling me in. Yes.

It reminds me of when you can look at a child, your child, a child you care about and say, I can see you're having a hard time. I love you. Do you wanna push all that anger into my hands right now? Do you wanna like try to push this wall over? Do you wanna stomp and be a big bear or a lion and roar? And then they move that energy and you remind that I love you and it's okay that you feel angry. They're like, okay. And then you skip along and do the next thing because that energy has moved, right? So when as partners you can make space say, you know, be your angry bear right now. Right? Let's push into the wall together or let's push our hands together. And it's not meant as a let's be violent with each other. It's like, let's just move some energy together.

In olden times, I would have heard what you were saying and I would not have known myself or my feelings. I would have said, Okay, those are words that I can repeat when my partner is angry and when I feel afraid. I can say, I see you're really angry right now. Would you like to push on this wall? But inside I would have been crumbling and terrified. This is not a message to do that. It's a message to have your real feelings. If you can hold something wonderful, and I think again with Children, it's so much easier to do that. You don't take it personally. You're just like, they're having, you know, they're connecting new neural pathways and they're having all these big feelings. I can absolutely hold space for that. But if my partner did it, I might want to recede into the background and cry and be afraid. What's really important is that you show them what's true in that moment. If their anger makes you want to burst into tears, for God's sake, burst into tears. Let this dance play out the way that it naturally wants to with authentic honesty and see what's there for you.

I hope that everyone takes this invitation because I think many of us can relate to feeling so angry that you could cry. Like you're holding so much inside, but you're trying to keep those tears away. Imagine if you just let them come and you let that person, your person, see that more vulnerable side. You know, a good partner is going to want to move towards you and bring some warmth. Right? Someone that shames you and belittles you because you're crying now. That's unfortunate, yet also good data. You want to know that.

There's such an internal nuance here of authenticity. So I'm thinking about this level 12 anger relationship and the amount of crying I did because I had this consternation internally. I wanted him to be different. I wanted things to be different. My tears were true. They were naturally there, but they weren't pure. They weren't a pure expression of energy. You know, they were a way to unconsciously. Expressed that I wanted things to be different, which a person can feel that vibe, right? They're not like just, she's sad. They're like, she's sad because she wants me to be different. And that's hard to interact with. The only instance where he met me with kindness and compassion was when I fell down stairs and I was already in a mood and I just burst into tears like a five year old. There was nothing there other than like ultimate existential frustration. And he could see and feel that. And for the first time ever, he could hold me through it. You know? And I have to wonder now, if I'd been able to bring that purity of emotion the whole time, how might our relationship have been so different? You know? Mm-hmm.

This is a really big one, and this is the shadow work to own and admit this, right? Like I can look back and I know, I know the feeling now between what you're calling like genuine, clean tears or the situation. It sort of would make sense that I would cry now, but there's also another person. purpose that I'm using them for. It wasn't really so calculated, but I could I I know that there was something going on where I was like, instead of saying the thing that would be harder to say and more vulnerable, maybe if I cry, that will help something. Right. So like it's not like well thought out, but I'm aware enough, if I'm honest with myself, of this feels different than the tears that are like just genuine. Like this is just pure emotion here.

Yeah, it's only with hindsight that I realize that was the case. Today I'd be able to notice it happening and I'd have to be like, E yeah, they're doing that thing.

But what's nice about today is I can say I wanna cry so that you feel bad for me, so you'll be nice to me right now.

And what a more powerful that somebody's like, I understand what you're saying because feelings are the one universal thing we all have in common. I know what to do with that. I understand what you want from me and I can tell you if I can give it to you or not. Powerful. Yeah.

Just reporting what's real in the moment is so powerful. And feel like it's important to touch on this before we wrap up, which is fault. I think that I've gotten myself into unnecessary issues in relationship and more distance than is pleasant by wanting to assign fault. to the other person. I grew up in a family where that's sort of the framework of how life works. It's always somebody's fault. It's either your fault or someone else's fault. That's not a great model to use in relationship. And what I have found more effective is what am I needing right now that I'm not getting and that I would like to ask for? Or what would feel better for me right now? How could this person offer some presence or support in a way that would feel decent or nice to me? And can I say that out loud? That will take you so much further in building a healthy relationship with someone than if you use the model of fault. Right. Yeah.

a real practical thing we haven't touched on. Are you hungry? Are you tired? Do you need to go to the bathroom? Please pause and meet these needs. You know, before you fight You played and had a break.

Have you had a rest? Yeah. Yeah.

That's a really beautiful thing. If you can pause a fight or a hurt feeling to play together for a few minutes, what a wonderful way to realize that these things are not personal. You can still react and feel good.

What's fun about that is when you interject some play into that, either you'll you'll realize that thing we were so upset about actually isn't a big deal. Or you'll realize it still is a big deal, but now we have more capacity and connection to handle that in a way that will actually move us through it better. Mm-hmm.

There's actually a playful way to have arguments and rules.

yes, I like this.

I like it. I love it so much. And it's to have your argument making only noises or gestures or speaking in alien language. Because if I'm if I'm angry and I say that is almost more expressive than the words I'd have to summon from my mind and the blame I want to point at you. And boy, is it also entertaining.

And I think there's something about obviously some ruptures need actual words and communicating and understanding of each other. But some need us just to remember that we're both human and that we actually like each other. Totally.

So go back to episodes one, two, and three and discover what's in there for you in terms of your patterns, the ways that you handle your body's signals, the ways that you cope typically with difficulties, so that you can know what you're bringing to this dynamic and how you might handle it and how you might like your partner to handle it too.

Can I give some bonus prompts before we get into the prompt prompts? Sure. Okay. What I do well in repair, rupture and repair is and what I want to practice in rupture and repair is. Okay. Okay, so we're going to walk you through some prompts to help you clear out some of the muck that's happening when you're in a hard feeling or a hurt feeling.

These are going to give you a little bit of clarity about what's really happening in you and connect you with the reality of the moment. The way that you would use these in a real life situation, we call a pause and we need a moment with ourselves, some time frame. You get to decide what it is and you get to ask questions. it. And then you're gonna go find some settling space for yourself and either write these down or say them out loud, or you're gonna phone a friend who has your back and who's not gonna collude with you about, yeah, your partner's a piece of crap. They should never have hurt your feelings. Someone who's gonna just be able to hear you and hold you and let your feelings be what they are.

So if it wasn't clear from what Stephanie said, you are not taking these prompts and saying these things to your partner. We are practicing breaking the pattern of dumping everything either immediately on the other person or breaking the pattern of not getting curious about it for yourself and not expressing it at all anywhere to anyone. Right. Okay. So for me, my go-to's, I think before I connect with. You're here. prompts and things is like I like to jump around and bounce, right? Or I like to lay on the ground on my back. Just depends on what feeling like. Right. But all of that helps me move energy, but also feel like I have a body. I'm here. These prompts are not just a heady experience. They're like a whole knee experience. Yeah.

And I think, you know, that can take some work to to get to the experience of a whole me of like I am able to pause this rush of anger or hurt and actually do something constructive about it in the moment. So if you can do that, great. If you can't, feel free to go through the prompts in ways that are not yet constructive until they become that way. You know, I can angrily run through them right. And then eventually the anger would subside by virtue of doing the prompts. And then I'd be able to access my heart. Mm-hmm.

And this will be something you notice over time because if you take the approach that Steph's talking about and you just get into your head and say these things out loud, you might notice that what you're doing is adding more and more logs onto the bonfire and that you get more and more dysregulated. Pay attention to that because for some people, the more they say and move the energy, they can actually come closer to settling and back into connection. And then sometimes we talk ourselves up in a way where you're just more and more activated. Right. So a very simple way, if you have that tendency or you just want to try out something different, is if you're writing them out, just as you write frantically, if that's how you write in the beginning, feel your pen in your hand, right? Or as you're saying the things out loud, can you feel your feet on the ground or your butt on the chair? Just bring a tiny bit. of body awareness to your big thing at some point.

For me, these words, tiny tweaks of words can make all the difference. So feel the pen in my hand. In the past I would have just been like, yeah, I feel it. Here's the fucking Shit. But if the words are bring your awareness to the pen in your hand, that for me is a completely different vibe. I can feel it, great. But my brain is over here having eight hundred nasty thoughts while I feel the pen in my hand. But if I'm bringing my conscious awareness to the pen in my hand, to my feet on the ground, that's what gives me the reprieve. Right.

And that's amazing. And that's Steph showing you the importance of knowing ourselves, being able to see what is the essence of this thing I'm being presented as an option. And can I find a way for it to work for me? Because if someone said bring your awareness to the pen or your feet, I'd say, F you Yeah.

And like, can I feel the pen?

Yes, I feel the pen. You know, so we have different access points and you want to find what helps you. connect to something other than just the big spiral.

Me about seven, eight years to understand what feel your whatever meant. And this is a beautiful skill to bring to relationship too and to conflict is like we have different meanings of words. We have different understandings of things. And how can we try to help each other through that?

And with this very simple example, you can see people can be very well intentioned, just as your partner is very well intentioned and you want to offer something that you think is supportive, and they just think it's garbage because they don't understand it or they they don't know how to do that. And see how quickly we add all this meaning to things when someone is just trying to be kind and supportive, right? A big muscle to grow in relationship is can I connect to what the essence is of what this person is trying to communicate. Right. And not to say that that means they can communicate it in whatever trashy form they want to and there's no boundaries. But I always find that it's great to tap into someone's good intentions and then from that place tweak and make requests for tweaks. All right. Hey. Do you want to walk us through these three prompts? First prompt is something I'm angry at you about is or something I'm angry at you for is. Yeah. Right? And it's even more powerful when you can add their name to the front of the sentence stem. And let yourself go wild with this because nobody's going to hear it. Nobody's doing anything with it. If you are with a trusted friend, of course there's always the agreement of confidentiality. But this is the place to say all the Outrageous, intense, ridiculous things you may or may not fully believe, but they swirl there. I had to really learn this because I was like, you're not supposed to say mean things about people, or you're not supposed to say things that aren't totally true. But I learned that this practice is about give voice to every fleeting thought, even if it's just there momentarily, even if you only believe it one percent of the time. Just say it because it's taking up real estate in your mind and body, anyways. Just say it, get out of your system. As you say it or write it, you might realize, yes, I believe this to be true. Or sometimes I have surprised myself that something that I thought was super true that I was so angry about, I was like, actually, I don't feel that angry about that. That's not it. Yeah. That's clarity that you're getting through playing with this.

Definitely do the directed I'm angry at you for and see if there's more in there too. See if you're just generalized angry. You can be displacing your anger onto a person. You might be really angry about the state of the world. And that's being filtered down into your relationship. So if your prompt was, you know, Joan Jett, I'm angry at you for blank, you wouldn't be able to access your anger at the state of the world, because that's nothing to do with Joan Jett directly. So Find all of your anger and draw it out. Write it down. Say it. Shout it.

And this is a great time to practice growing the muscle of being very specific. It we can fall into the trap of saying, for example, Sally Sue, I'm angry at you for being mean to me. Well, what the heck does that mean exactly? Right. What did they do that you perceive as mean? Get really specific about it. And the the reason we really want to encourage that is the more you get to know why you're angry, the specifics of it. The more you get to be more curious about it. But also eventually if you're like, yes, this is something I'm really angry about. And it is really important for me to convey this to my partner, you can be very specific. What's hard sometimes I think when we share with our people is we're very vague and they don't know what that means. And they're like, Can you give me an example? I don't know what you mean. Not because they're trying to gaslight us, but because they actually don't. And it would be really helpful if you can get very specific. Yes.

The other piece I'll add here is that anger is not logical and your expression of anger doesn't need to be either. In fact, it it can't be and it shouldn't be. If you're getting into logic brain, you're not really tapping into your anger, you're back into the intellect. So these things that you're saying you're angry about don't need to make sense. They don't mean anything. You're not a bad person for feeling these things. I remember we had some anger processing with our parents in one of our maybe it was women's group or conscious relationship many years ago and I realized I was angry at my dad for having had cancer. And of course I'm not, you know, but it's back to that existential anger of our powerlessness, right? That's something to be angry about. And to express it moves it out of your body. It doesn't mean you believe it or you're buying into it or you're giving it energy, naming something. can either give it power or take its power away. And in this case, we're we're shedding that, we're moving that energy. Yes, yes. Okay. Next one? Yes. Mm.

Was it something I'm afraid of is?

Yes, what I'm afraid of is Hmm.

I'm like, wow, there would have been a time where both of those prompts would have felt very hard for me, right? Because I was conditioned to not feel angry. And then definitely shouldn't tell anyone that I'm afraid. Even admitting to myself that I might be afraid would be too much. All right. So notice what comes up for you when you sit with these prompts. you might be super excited that you finally have the permission to express these things and it just all comes flowing out of you. Or you might notice some constriction and some fear of like, what? What do you mean? I'm not afraid of anything. I'm not angry about anything. Right. Right.

You know, they say that there's only fear and love. Those are the two things that really exist. So unless you're feeling all kinds of loving, compassion, and care, you're probably experiencing some degree of fear about something. Anxiety or anger. It'll take all those forms.

I just practice this in my head to play the contrast out. And for me it feels different. Like so if I was, if it was my partner, I'm using his name. If I were to say, if I didn't use his name at first and I said something I'm afraid of is, I said the thing. I think it would have feel a certain way. But if I was like, Adam, something I'm afraid of is. For me, that takes it to a deeper level. That that is like, my gosh, see me. I am telling you.

what I'm afraid of. It's deeper.

It's closer to my heart. It's personal, right? So play around with that. See what happens when you use their name and when you don't. I Yeah.

I wonder what happened in his body when he heard you say that, because I know he's listening. Hello, Adam. When he hears Georgiana say, Adam, something I'm afraid of is I can imagine him just wanting to leap into some kind of helpful loving action. And that's so nice. Sweet.

I feel like that is a way we extend a bridge to our people, right? Is really letting them in, like letting them know I'm talking to you right now, like I'm sharing this part of my heart with you right now.

Yeah, the thing we usually protect, right? Our fears, the thing we defend against. I trust you to be on my team to hold this and face it with me. Mm-hmm.

It makes it more personal for that other person. But right now, while we're giving you these examples to use, it's not about having a conversation with your partner. But notice even when you reflect on these prompts and you use them, but you use the person's name in the sentence stem, how much more personal it feels.

And this can highlight like I'm thinking, yeah, if I had done this exercise back in that rough relationship, what it really would have illustrated to me was there's no way I'm bringing any of these fears to this guy. You know? Good information. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. dear. Yes. Right.

So if that's your body response, right, what Steph's describing right now, that is good information too.

Maybe or I would have brought it to him as like a test of like, here's something I'm afraid of, what are you gonna do about it? Mm-hmm. Yeah, right?

This is actually the whole point of these sentence stems, is it shows us what else is lurking around the corner. Ooh, actually it has more of this flavor. Yeah. Man. Yeah.

And then so the last prompt, I wonder if I would have been able to access any of this in that relationship I'm thinking of. The last prompt is what I like about you is, or what I appreciate about you. So you and I have very different experiences of these words, which is also useful for the watcher and listener to notice. You prefer appreciate. That's something you can access.

I prefer appreciate in this context of I'm angry at you, I'm afraid of this, and like the context of rupture and repair. Because for me, often when I'm in my blamey mode, I've totally disconnected from my appreciation of this person. And when I tap into my appreciation, it it describes my experience more wholesomely. I'm angry about this, I feel afraid about this, and I appreciate this about you and I like want to repair with you. Right. Whereas if it's just what do I like about you, like for some reason that I experience that is very separate. It's like, well, I like this about you, but I'm still pissed about this. And what I like about you has nothing to do with this repair situation. Right.

It's so funny. And for me, the exact opposite. I'm like, I don't appreciate a fucking thing about you right now. You're a dick right now. But well, I like that you're funny, you know, I like that you do X, Y, and Z. Yeah. Yeah. So whatever words. Yeah. Yeah. The point is to remember why you're in this relationship. And what I said at the beginning of this prompt, like if I had been able to get through these steps, what I would have realized with that I like you or I appreciate you step was, E, I don't know if I am in this relationship for the right reasons or, you know, whatever it is. If I was genuinely able to connect with the things I like about a person, that's a reminder of what I'm doing in this relationship, why I love this person, why I want to be with them. Mm-hmm.

I think I struggled with these prompts in the past because in my mind they contradicted each other so much. How can I be angry with you and appreciate or like you at the same time? Or if I tell you I appreciate certain things about you, that by default means that all of your behavior is okay and I'm not entitled to feel angry about anything that you've done or haven't done. Right. I didn't know that those things could all go together, that it's a full spectrum human experience. So we're talking to you with these three prompts and you might get the idea that it's meant to be easy. This was not easy for me. I don't think it was easy for you, Steph, when we first practiced with these, but they are important to practice with. Yeah.

Cause the thing is all of those feelings are happening at once. They just are. And if we don't acknowledge them, we end up feeling separate from ourselves and each other and unfulfilled in our relationships. Here, here. All right. Yeah. Okay, so to recap this here episode, fights are gonna happen, shit's gonna happen, hurt feelings are gonna happen, and repair is what comes next. Here, here. The way you do all of these things, the hurt feelings, the arguments, the anger, and the repair are gonna set the tone for what happens in difficult times in your relationships, which will inevitably happen. It's important for you to face your own feelings and to recognize them, say them out loud to yourself or to a trusted friend, not immediately to your partner. And then to come and do relationship repair in a way that feels true to you and sustainable to you or to notice. If that's not present, and if perhaps this is not the relationship that you want to be in for the long term.

If you're wanting some support in practicing these really important skills, you can join us in our relationship lab where we do two live calls every month and practice these things in real time with your real life situations. And I think, what were you saying, Steph? By the time this episode airs, we will have been into our fall cohort of conscious relationship training. So if you're interested in doing that with us, join the wait list and you can find out when we run that again. Mm-hmm.

That's where we practice all of these things, but we also add in the experience of discomfort and triggers interrelationally. So we can practice that in safe places outside of the high stakes of your relationship.

I just my body just did this right now because I have such deep gratitude for this work. Like I am so pleased that it came into my life. Right. My relationship with myself and my relationship with my people can be different. I always joke that I won't say my ex's name here, but I say thank you to him because it was from that heartbreak that brought me to conscious relationship training. That bar brought me into somatic work. And when I share this work with my friends and they have done conscious relationship training and you know, this, that and the other, we all say a thank you to him. Hallelujah. Yes.

And Meach, I was thinking this just yesterday. I think I've leveled up, I want to say, from feeling grateful to my ex to actually, I was thinking yesterday, that horrible relationship was the best thing that ever happened to me. I want to thank him and give him a hug, but maybe not literally.

I feel the same way. And like when that breakup happened, I definitely can tell you did not feel that. No.

Yeah, things change. Repair with ourselves. That's what we've been up to for these last 10 years. Relational repair with ourselves. Mm-hmm. You're here. Okay. Well, thank you guys for joining us. Next episode, we're going to be talking about bringing your worlds together, meeting each other's people, and all the wonderful information you could gather from that. So I hope you'll continue to join us. As always, please do like, follow, and subscribe. And if anything we've said here today has been helpful for you, please share with somebody that you care about. And we'll see you next time. Bye!