Women Be More Direct
Transcript
Speaker 1
Hi and welcome to make love not war. This is Tara Harrison, licensed professional counselor and this is her husband, Jeff Harrison, who is not any credit, have anything whatsoever to. It's an old dude and we have a special guest here, which is our four year old daughter. Now bear with us on this. She's. She has some wisdom to share and then we will be able to explain why we have her on here and what the point of it is. It's going to come to a very useful conclusion for you. It's not just a sound cute on. Well, I mean she is cute if I do say so myself, but, but there is a point to it so bear with me on it and I will get to the point I promise. All right, let's get started. I'm here with a special guest and we are here to learn wisdom for from my four year old daughter, Audrey Harrison. Today what we're talking about is how you understand your feeling. How do you understand your feelings? Audrey,
Speaker 2
if I go to sleep and it helps,
Speaker 1
what else do you do? Remember? Remember our little thing that I taught you, one, two, three,
Speaker 2
and, and I have a book is one, two, three,
Speaker 1
taking care of me,
Speaker 2
taking care of me.
Speaker 1
So when you get upset and you're very upset and angry and sad and all those feelings together, what can you do as a mom? What can you do for yourself if Mommy's not there? Yes, you can breathe deeply and you can and you can say something that helps you feel better for you. It's one, two, three, taking care of me. You know, one thing that I say that makes me feel better, but you're going to recognize this. I am safe, I am loved and I am worthy. You say it loud, right? Honey, you are. And we all are. And sometimes whenever we get really upset, it's our little four year old inside feeling really sad and we can make our little four year old feel better by saying you yell at what's the next one?
Speaker 2
Yeah.
Speaker 1
Yes. And
Speaker 1
that's right. So let me ask you something else. When you feel really sad or you're mad, what do you do to get your feelings out? What's something you can do to get them out? I know when I get mad, when I feel sad to do well, when I feel sad, when I cry, I go to sleep, go to sleep. Yes. And and when I'm mad I owe you throw stuff. Hm? I wonder if there's something else you can do. When you're mad. Now you have any ideas. Let's think of something. Well, what else can you do when you're mad? Can you? What about take a walk. What about walk it off and then you can. You can think about your feelings and figure out why you're mad. Because you know what? Sometimes when you're mad you're actually sad or you're actually disappointed or you're actually afraid. So sometimes when you're mad, it's good to take some time to figure out what that feeling really is.
Speaker 1
So to recap when you're feeling big, strong feelings and we as adults feel those big, strong feelings to we can tell our little four year olds, what do we tell them? You are safe. Wow. That was super cute. Way To go, Andrea. Good job. The purpose in interviewing my four year old daughter for this segment is because we all have unresolved issues from childhood. No matter how great your parents were, there still something you're carrying from childhood. And we bring it into our relationships. So we all have this little inner four year old and sometimes when we're in an intimate relationship and we, I call it, we get triggered by each other because we feel hurt by something that this hurt goes back to some unresolved hurt from childhood. So I call that your inner four year old. Um, you probably heard inner child that came out in the seventies, you know, um, so it's really important to learn to soothe your adult self, but it's also really important to learn to suit that child inside.
Speaker 1
And what anyone wants to hear is you're safe, you're loved and you're worthy. And so being able to tell your adult self and your child self, that is a great way to be able to regulate your emotions. And even though you in an argument with an intimate partner where you're really risking and you feel really vulnerable, that's when you can feel super raw and you can shut down. But if you can see that in her four year old and your adult self through the argument, knowing that even though I'm in conflict with someone, even though this feels scary to me, this feels like I could really get hurt. I know that I am safe, I am loved, and I am worthy because I'm giving that to myself right now. Then during that argument, you may be able to soothe yourself enough that you come back and be able to work through something so you may actually have to take a break and take a walk, um, to be able to soothe yourself this way and tell yourself that. But that is really one of the keys to non-defensive listening in an argument.
Speaker 3
Do you think that some of the guys feel like maybe an argument reminds them of maybe something that their mother did or something along those lines that it just triggers that?
Speaker 1
Oh, sure. Yes. That's definitely. That is definitely true. And that's why it's really important to be able to look within yourself and ask yourself, why am I getting so upset about this? Why is my feeling so strong? You know? And the whole, the whole thing about suck it up that I've been bringing up in every podcast is not suck your feelings down. It's learn to regulate them. And that means being curious about what your feelings mean and asking yourself instead of just projecting them onto the other person, like, I'm just angry at you. Well it's probably that I'm hurt some, some deep part of me is hurt by this. Let me take some time and figure out what it's about. Because a lot of times it's about you, not them. I mean, yeah, there's something they did or said or something that triggered that. But there's something going on with you. And if you can take the time to figure out what that is and then learn to express it to the other person, then you can be really authentic and real and your connection with somebody. And you know, that takes a lot of courage and vulnerability to be able to do that.
Speaker 3
Okay. You keep bringing up this whole thing about suck it up, but it feels like you're saying that all guys need to suck it up and just walk away and think about it. And then it's all on us.
Speaker 1
Yeah. I'm glad you asked that because I don't want to project that at all. Um, we all need to learn to regulate our emotions in an argument. It is 50 slash 50. Both people bringing something to the table. And what I was saying earlier about checking yourself and figuring out what is this about. I'm talking about both men and women, both partners in the argument there. We're all bringing some crap to the table that's not about the other person. And so that's the stuff you have to work through. And that looks different for men and women, how they worked through it and for will. And for individuals in general. I'm more introverted. People may work it out in their own heads and more extroverted people may call people and talk it out. But really the thing is, is that it's our responsibility to work through our emotions.
Speaker 1
It's not our partner's responsibility to work through our emotions. Now we can work through together. That's amazing when you can do that together. But you know, sometimes you just can't because both people are triggered and when that happens, there is nothing productive going to come from a conversation. And that's when it's really important to know when to say, hey, we need to take a break. We need to walk it off and we need that and then we'll come back. And a lot of times it's really also to have a time limit on that so that people know it's important. You're going to get back to it. So that may look like you and I are having an argument and we're both super triggered. You're getting flooded because I'm super emotional and I'm just vomiting everything on you, which happens sometimes, right? I'll bring up an old argument or I'll bring up something that we were even talking about and you're then you're totally bummed, puzzled, and you're like, what is, what are we even talking about here?
Speaker 1
And that's the point where I know that I need to calm myself down and hopefully in the midst I will realize that, but sometimes I won't, but that's when partners need to be able to call a time out or you know, take a break, whatever your little safety code word is, you know, walk it off. Maybe it could be at and you need to separate. Actually not, you can't. I mean, I'm not saying that people can't do this together, but that's a lot to ask. I think. So the best thing is to go and, and then soothe yourself by yourself and come back. Because the thing is, is that we need to know we can do that for ourselves. That's for our own self esteem, self efficacy, that I can soothe myself, I can figure myself out because I am worthy of that.
Speaker 3
Let's just say that you're in an argument and all of a sudden you know, you're starting to get worked up about this whole thing and you just decide, hey, okay, I'm just going to walk it off. I mean, there's some times when I start to walk off and you're like, hey, why are you walking away from me? We're not done with this argument. What about that? What about,
Speaker 1
that's what you need to communicate with me. If you need to walk it off, then tell me what you're doing. You just like walk away. And then I'm like, I was talking. So I mean that's when you have to regulate yourself enough to say I need to take a break and then I need to regulate myself enough to say, okay, let's do that. And then one of us needs to decide when we're going to come back to it. It might just be like, let's just talk about this later. Okay, that's fine. Because maybe you can't say I'm gonna. Set the timer for 20 minutes, you know? But um, the point is that we need to get back to it and I think we usually do a pretty good job getting back to it. I mean, I'll bring it up, but I mean, I think that that's really important too is, is that there is some self regulation even when you're triggered, that you need to be able to get to.
Speaker 1
Okay. So I think that a good way to be able to walk through this is to talk about a scenario. So Jeff and I are going to deconstruct an argument we had last weekend and um, it was, it was pretty intense, but we were able to work through it. Not all in one go though. So that I think is really important is that we did take a break in it. I'm not to go too far into the background because it's really more of the process of the argument that matters. Not the content, but. So the deal is that uh, jeff was asked to be a part of a wedding as a groomsmen, family, friends, really dear people both really. Obviously he had to go and wanted to go be in it and was really excited and I also wanted to go, but it was an evening wedding with no children and we didn't have kids at our wedding, you know, so I totally get that kind of the problem was for me is that it was a perfect storm weekend where there really wasn't anyone to watch our daughter that I feel comfortable with.
Speaker 1
So I had the choice do I put myself out of my comfort zone by maybe asking somebody that she doesn't know as well as I would lie or do I just stay home with her and, you know, kind of bite the bullet and, and not go. So I decided not to go to the wedding and stayed home with our daughter. But there was a part of me that felt good about that because, you know, that was what I felt what was best for her. And then also I wouldn't be worrying about her while I was there. But then I also really just wanted to go to the wedding. It was a beautiful wedding. Um, I would've had a lot of fun there. We would have gotten to see people that we haven't seen in a while. So there was this big part of me that was a having Fomo, fear of missing out and really did miss out on that part too.
Speaker 1
But I felt like I was doing the best thing for our daughter. And in the end I wanted him to recognize that Jeff did all that he could so that I wouldn't feel like I was missing out. He sent me pictures, he called me, he texted me throughout the thing. I mean he did awesome, but the next morning as he was talking about how much fun he had, I was getting grumpy about it and I said, well, I just feel like you're rubbing my face in it. And so what came up for you then, Jeff?
Speaker 3
Well, I felt like I did everything that I could do. I didn't, I didn't feel like I was rubbing your face in it. I felt like I was doing as much as we can possibly do, considering you weren't there, uh, let you experience it and, and all that kind of stuff. So I felt like you were mad at me for no reason whatsoever.
Speaker 1
Yeah. And it did seem the way that I projected it. Totally seeing that I was mad at you, I'm what I couldn't express to him and the moment which is what I needed to have some self regulation and go figure out how to say this to him directly was that I wasn't mad at him. I was just the situation. I was just disappointed in how it turned out even though it was really felt like to me the right thing to do, but I was just sad. I felt left out because I wanted to be there. I just wanted him to know that. But the way I told him was you, I feel like you are rubbing my face in it. So I made it about him, not me. That was where I needed to step back and talk about how I was feeling using those I messages saying more like I, I just feel left out and in the end what I wanted him to do really was validate my sacrifices and mother because I felt like that was a sacrifice as a mother and it was mother's Day weekend, so and on Mother's Day weekend, the last thing you want to do is be with your kid all weekend.
Speaker 1
I mean, come on, we all need a break from our 24 slash seven jobs. I did need one that weekend and so I was frustrated with that too and it was the situation I was frustrated with. I wasn't mad at Jeff but. But that's, that's how I express it to him. And of course that's how it came across.
Speaker 3
Yeah. I had no idea you want to do any kind of validation for staying home with Audrey and doing all that. I just, it wasn't even a thought in my head. I thought you just mad at me because you know, I was telling you about some of the fun stuff that we did there and all that stuff, which once again I felt like that was trying to make you feel like you're included, but you're acting like I've rubbing your face in it. It just didn't. There was nothing I could say. It made no sense to me what you were talking about.
Speaker 1
Yeah. Well it wasn't rational. Was it [inaudible] feelings? Seldom are and that was really something that in the moment I was wanting to work through my feelings with you, but tell me how you eloquently put it to me later on. How did you feel?
Speaker 3
Oh, I said you made me feel like you were just kicking me in the ball.
Speaker 1
That's right. So you felt like you were kicked in the balls and when you're kicked in the balls, all you can do is just grab them and cower and that's how you were feeling emotionally, at which point you walked away. Right? Exactly. So what could, what could you have done right there when you walked away? That maybe would have helped out with the argument.
Speaker 3
I have no idea.
Speaker 1
Well, that's what we were talking about. Just you telling me like I, I need to go take a break from this and we'll come back to it. Right. That's all because I mean he, you did take a break and I didn't really understand why you're walking away, but what we talked about it that evening and we worked through it and finally came to the conclusion we came to, but definitely had to give it space and time for both of us to figure out and for you to be able to tell me you felt like you got kicked in the balls and then for me to be able to understand that what you meant by that, which is that deep hurt of I really did everything I could and now in you're still not happy with me. What you know now. I just feel defeated.
Speaker 3
Yeah. It just seemed like I should've just, I would have been better off to not even bring up anything that happened that during the wedding and or it seemed like you were like, well, you had a good time, so you're just being a jerk to me and it's like I sit there and go, well, would you have felt better if I told you I was miserable the whole time I was there. It's just it. It made no sense.
Speaker 1
Yeah. He just felt like there was nothing you could do right in that situation. Even though you tried everything you could do.
Speaker 3
Yeah. I would've never known that you were wanting validation for being a mother and making a sacrifice and all that. It wasn't even thought and it seemed like you didn't even know that.
Speaker 1
Yeah, I did not. Right. Then I had to really think that through and be able tell you that is really how a typical argument looks between partners. Going back to that self regulation and being able to understand your own feelings now. If Jeff had been able to tell me in the moment, I just really feel like I got kicked in the balls and I was able to understand where he was coming from and then I was able to express to him that I felt left out, not that he was rubbing my face in it and that I really just needed some validation of my sacrifices of mother then argument, what it turned out differently. However, we did get to that point at the end, so I think we deserve a pat on the back for that, but it didn't happen right away and so you know, that's I think what makes. That's why it is so important to be able to take a break when you're not getting anywhere because if you're not getting anywhere, all you're doing is just both getting flooded with your own feelings, getting amped up and not being able to get to that place of non-defensive listening where you can understand each other.
Speaker 3
Yeah, I could definitely see how somebody could have blown up and just taking a whole nother turn to a whole nother argument that they know that they were valid, like they just pick something from the past that they were mad about and maybe they were absolutely 100 percent correct about that. Just go to a whole nother area just to be, just to keep the argument going, just to prove a point like um, right and, and just make it, just, just take it like nuclear option on this thing.
Speaker 1
Oh sure. I mean right now I can think of other times I felt left out and I could have brought those up. Right. And you could have brought up all these other times that you felt like you couldn't please me even though you tried so hard. So when that urge comes up, that's when you start feeling like you're going to bring up stuff from the past. It doesn't even, that doesn't even apply directly to the, the scenario you're talking about that, that is assigned to you that you need to walk it off and regulate your feelings and really think through what is this bringing up for me? For me, it was that feeling, you know, even going back to childhood of feeling left out of things that other people were doing because I was introverted and kind of shy and I wouldn't speak up and I did feel left out and so that feeling really got triggered with, with Jeff who's much more extroverted, extroverted, enabled and popular and able to talk to everybody.
Speaker 1
And so I was really getting triggered by that. It didn't really have anything to do with him and he wasn't making me feel left out. I always feeling left out because of my own stuff. Just realized that right now, ah ha moment. So therapeutic. So I think the big takeaway from this podcast today is really having compassion for yourself and an argument and trying to take the time to really reflect on you because the argument more for both people is about you, not them. Something that they have done, a behavior that comes from them is something that's triggering for you, so it really is a time to be more self aware. It's an think about more about yourself and really figure out, okay, how much of this is my four year old who's crying out and who wants to throw things and fall asleep and how much of this is actually the other person because more likely it's there some adult things going on and there's some child wounds going on at the same time and so you are worthy of being able to give yourself the time to reflect on what that is and the way you do that depends on the person.
Speaker 1
Maybe you do need to go literally take a walk and solitude and think about it. Maybe you need to call a friend. Maybe you need to, you know, just go do something that's mindless for awhile and it will come to you. Part of this is really figuring out what you need to do to self regulate and that's taking time for yourself again and that again is proving to yourself that you're worthy of that. Because when you have that inner feeling of safety, then you know that you can understand yourself and you can regulate yourself. Even an argument where you feel emotionally threatened by somebody else. Do you think
Speaker 3
that some people feel that if you don't solve the thing quickly, whatever the matter is, that that's like that's actually a problem. Like they're not willing to let it take some time?
Speaker 1
Oh yes. And you know, one of the things that I hate the most that people say is don't go to bed angry. Cause sometimes you need to sleep it off. You need time. It doesn't have to be sleep, but it's time that you need. Sometimes you need to be able to go to bed angry. And people. I think that the reason people want to solve things fast as their own fear of leaving things without a conclusion, and again, that's something to work through for yourself. Why is it that you feel like this needs to be solved right away? Can it just wait a little bit and you can know that you are safe within yourself and that you know your partner loves you and you are going to come back to it and you love yourself enough to give yourself the time.
Speaker 1
Thank you again for listening to mate. More love not war. If you'd like to learn more about learning to regulate your feelings and understanding your own worthiness, I highly recommend Bernay Brown. She is a guru in the therapy world and I just love her so much and she has a great book called rising strong. All of her books are great. She has great ted talks, so I strongly recommend listening or reading her. She has a great voice. I just love her. So, um, I think that that would be a great resource to get more information on this. And as always, I welcome your feedback. Please send me any questions you have. If you want to be on the show, I'd love to have you as a guest. Please send me an email@makelovenotwaratGmail.com. You can also go to our twitter and the handle is at terra harrison. Loved to hear me and thank you for listening.