Welcome to the Embodied Relationship Experience Podcast. My name is John Weinland. I’m here with my good friend and brother, Brian Reeves, author of the book, Choose Her Every Day or Leave Her, which we’re going to get into in a moment. But before I start, I wanted to let you know
that there are a number of practices that I may talk about on this podcast. There of practices that I may talk about on this podcast. There’s content that I may talk about on this podcast, and I’ll refer to the Embodied Relationship Experience platform, which is a subscription platform that I have for those of you who want to go deeper.
So as I go through this thing and you’re thinking like, oh, okay, like how do we do that repair practice? Or how do we do that breathing or embodiment practice? I’ll have a link of the ERE below, and you can go ahead and sign up for a free trial if you like and dive deeper into the practices
and the content that you hear here. Okay, so glad to have you here, brother. Oh man, I’m excited, thank you. It’s good to be here with you. Yeah, so Brian, and I’ve been in a men’s group together for over three years.
We’ve known each other for a little bit longer than that, but we’ve really gotten to know each other over the last three years. And so, I’ve been having men from my men’s group. What else are we for? It’s just really good.
I had Steph here, I had Preston here, I have you here. So, I love what you do in the world. You work with men primarily. Your wife is also a therapist and you have written a couple of books. One was, first one was called-
Tell the truth, let the peace fall where it may. Right, I remember that. And that was more personal story of your awakening. My own coming out in all the ways that I realized I’ve been lying to myself and therefore others. And it was sort of your awakening. My own coming out and all the ways that I realized I’ve been lying to myself and therefore others. And it was sort of my wrestling with how do I really
tell the truth of who I am in a way that doesn’t also just cause chaos in the world. Got it. And then your second book was really focused on this concept, which I want us to take a deep dive into today, which is about choosing, you know,
you wrote it for men primarily, so it’s choose her every day or leave her. Yeah, well, it’s interesting. Yeah, I wrote it because I was, again, a man waking up to it. Oh my God.
Like the first sentence, it was actually, it came from an article I wrote in 2015 that there’s a good chance if you’re watching this or listening to this, you probably read that article in 2015, like it was everywhere. It was my first real viral article per se,
like a million people a day were visiting my website, reading that blog, like it changed the game for me in so many ways. And I’ve been writing about relationships for some time. I’d already been working with couples and I was finally understanding in the past. I’d always thought that, you know, I’m in a relationship.
I’m in relationship. I’m doing this. Why are we having so many problems? Simplistic view of relationship. You know, which by the way, embodied relationship. I love that language because I was in relationship,
but I was not very embodied. I wasn’t really present. My physical body was there, but man, I was just always in my ideas and my head and, you know. And the first line of that, of that article, that blog at the time, which turned into the book was,
I spent five years hurting a good woman by staying with her, but never fully choosing her. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And that just resonated with people. And that, so it’s, so the book is really for men and for women.
But the title was written again from my own, like, holy moly. And by the way, a lot of women, when they read that article were like, oh my God, I haven’t been choosing my partner. Yeah. And so on as well.
So. Yeah, I think it’s a pernicious issue in relationships that are struggling. Yeah. Right. And it’s of course very easy to choose our partners in the first six months or even a year, right? Yeah. You know, when-
At least 30 days. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. When the hormones are hopping up and all of that. Right. But I think it’s such an important concept to expand for all humans, gay, straight, however, right?
That if you are choosing to be in a committed devotional relationship with your partner, there is, it sounds so simplistic really. Like, of course I’m choosing, I’m fucking here. I sleep with his ass every night, right? And I wake up and, you know,
make him some coffee for me. I put up with his shit. You know what I mean? I put up with her complaining about her girlfriends, whatever it is, right? I’m here, I’m in.
But there’s a difference between tolerating our partners, right, and sort of like living in this state of low grade, I don’t wanna say contempt, but just tolerance. And then literally choosing them, which requires, and I’d love for you to speak on this, which requires us to actually know who they are.
Not who we want them to be and the projections that we place on them. Yeah, man, when I was probably 26 or 27, I remember I was with a girlfriend. We were maybe four months into what would be a five-year nightmare. I remember we were already having some issues, some challenges.
I remember saying to her, I was on her patio visiting her home country. I’ll keep her anonymous as much as I can. I said to her, I want a magic relationship. And I said it with conviction. I said it with like at least a sense of clarity. Like I knew what I was talking about.
John, I had no fucking idea what I was talking about. No idea what that even meant, have a magic relationship. You know, it was sort of this youthful ambition of what, of again, the fantasy of relationship. And there’s this beautiful, this beautiful notion that I’ve come across
in a few different books over the years. And Clarissa Pinkola Estes says this in her book, Women Who Run With The Wolves, the masterpiece book. But I’m paraphrasing,
until we get over the fantasy of relationship, we cannot do real relationship with another human. And that just, that has been an idea that has continued to reverberate in me. And yeah, I mean, I think there’s a lot of, there’s a lot of fantasizing about,
and it’s mutual by the way, it’s not just guys fantasizing, it’s totally mutual. Very much, we’re projecting the shit out of each other. 100% and even, you know, in my book and in that article that I wrote back in 2015, the choose your everyday that essay,
you know, look, I am all for, so my model of relationship is not 50 50, it’s 100 100. Both people got to take 100% responsibility. Yeah. Right now, when I was writing and I’m as especially as a man in those days Waking up to all the ways like oh my god. I can’t believe like why didn’t anyone
Teach me. Yeah, this secret that shouldn’t be a secret about relationships, right? I was waking up to all the ways that I had Not been showing up that I had been giving mixed messages that I had been one foot in one foot ways that I had not been showing up, that I had been giving mixed messages, that I had been one foot in, one foot out, that I had been not helping her feel safe, for example, that I just had no concept of safety. All these different ways, these mistakes, but the reality is she wasn’t choosing me either.
Yeah. Yeah. She also was living in a fantasy. Yeah. Of who she thought I should be. Yeah. Right. And I think that’s, you know,
that’s a such a common dynamic. Both partners are embracing the fantasy, but met with the reality. Demanding the fantasy. Demanding. Yeah. You know what I mean?
And that, and I was just, I was just on with the reality. Well, demanding the fantasy. Demanding. Yeah, you know what I mean? And I was just on with a client on my way here and we were talking about this very issue of like, hey, what you want him to be, the level of presence that you want from him, there’s nothing wrong with that. Right, right.
But that request coming from your wound is gonna feel totally different from that request coming from your wound is gonna feel totally different from that request coming from your total acceptance of where he is. And you know, and- Oh man, even as you say that, I’m like, oh, my nervous system goes, yeah, give me the second one.
Fuck that first one. Yeah, and I think we all do it. I’ve certainly done it. I’ve had it done on me. And I think that there is this concept that’s kind of underlying your book,
and I’m sure you address it. We can get into it, but this, yeah, this idea of how do we choose them, right? How do we choose them every day if based on most relationship experience, they’re not meeting all the needs and desires
that we expect them to. Right. Let me just leave you that as an open starting point. And that a lot of culture is teaching us they should be able to provide in a sense. Yeah. You know, I think there’s three decisions
that we have to make to, you know, this word devotion that we talk about. It’s like the word magic for me is same thing, magic, devotion, whatever. I had no idea what that word means. Well, I’d like to get into what a magic,
what you think a magic relationship is now, you know, eight or nine years. Okay, great. Yeah, we can certainly do that. But let’s continue. There is something to that. Yeah. So let’s do that. But I think, you know, I’ve been with my wife, Sylvie for 10 years. 10 years, yeah. which you know to some is child’s play and to others is an eternity.
We’re kind of in the middle zone. I get that. So, but still 10 years is a long enough to this ain’t a fluke. You know, we’ve and we’re doing really well as a couple. This we’ve navigated so many challenges in the last few years just circumstantially in life and curve balls and all this stuff, it’s been a hard season.
And she and I, as a couple, are doing beautifully well at a deep level, right? It’s not a fluke. There are three decisions that I think anyone has to make in order to create a healthy, long-term, devotional relationship that is nourishing,
to both mutually so. Three decisions. The first decision is, am I willing to take 100% responsibility for this relationship, for my part, for the success or the failure of the relationship?
100% responsibility. You know, what does that mean? That means, you know, my relationships always come off the rails, John, when I am focused on her part. Yeah.
When like the finger is pointing, she needs to do X, Y, Z. Why isn’t she doing X, Y, Z? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And vice versa, by the way, of course. Not to, of course, there’s, that’s true.
She has her 100%, but if I’m focused there, nobody’s home over here. I’m avoiding vulnerability. I’m not being honest about my experience. I’m sort of, you know, probably playing out mommy and daddy wounding and all of that. Definitely playing out mommy and daddy wounding. Let’s just be clear on that. Acting out of my automatic patterns, right? So that’s the first decision. Am I willing to take a hundred percent responsibility?
My hundred percent. The second decision is- Can I just double click that? Okay, cause I’d love to just drill a little deeper of what that means, right? We talk about that and it’s such a beautiful concept, right?
But what does it mean to take 100% responsibility? Let me give you a couple ideas I have and then you can expand on it. You know, for me, it’s to repair anything that I did wrong, anything I said, anything I, you know, lost my cool, acted like an ass.
So the repair feels like part of my taking 100% responsibility. The other one’s a little more subtle and it’s what I was talking to part of my taking 100% responsibility. The other one’s a little more subtle, and it’s what I was talking to one of my clients about, is this, what’s really the issue? Not the superficial piece, but it’s my responsibility
to go into the depth of my heart and go, what’s really upsetting me? And is it all the present or is it part present, a lot past and to really like look, okay, how much of my experience that I’m having, my big feelings I’m having are the result
of what asshole just did or, you know, are the result of what asshole just did or are the result of a lot of past pain and a lot of past wounds. And I think that those two things for me are the starting points and often the points that are missed in taking 100% responsibility,
but I’d love for you to add to that list. Oh man, 100%. Both of the things you just said, absolutely. I think also, and by the way, like be willing to go see a therapist, be willing to go get support to uncover those things
because blind spots are blind spots for a reason. You know, and I like to say the parts of us that don’t want to die, they don’t want to die and they’ll do everything they can. They’ll throw up all their defenses, the parts of us that are scared, that are the protector parts of us.
They’ll do everything they can to stay hidden, to keep you safe. So be willing to get support. That’s part of taking 100% responsibility. Don’t put it, don’t put it, don’t put the responsibility on your partner to coach you, to be your therapist or to, or to give you, you know, hold you accountable. It’s something I talk a lot about, especially with men. You know, I think one of the valuable reasons of being in a men’s group is we can hold each other accountable so our partners don’t have to play that role because they don’t want to play that role. So I think in addition to that-
So getting support, men’s group, therapy. Okay, that’s another piece of taking 100% responsibility. Yes, another piece is being willing to be vulnerable. As I said earlier, like rather than be pointing the finger and you’re pointing at it too, like knowing what are the deeper issues here.
Being vulnerable means it’s like also having boundaries. Maybe there’s two different things, but when you do that, you know, normally what that comes out is stop doing that. You know, why would you do that? There’s sort of a contemptuous, arrogant, blamey thing. But rather when you do that, I feel really scared
or I feel hurt. It’s not okay with me that you do that. Right, that’s also taking a hundred percent of responsibility, it’s a way of saying, it’s not okay with me, it might be okay with you and with other people, that’s not even
what we’re talking about here. It doesn’t work for me, whatever this is that’s happening. Right, and being able to say that from a place of clarity, you know, like that therapy may help us get to, so it’s not just, you know, you’re my daddy and I don’t want you to be my daddy.
You’re my angry, abusive father, stop it. You know, no. And maybe also, you know, look, my wife, and by the way, vice versa, like we turn each other into our parents all the time. We all do this.
All the time. I don’t know how many times I’ve said, people are probably bored of me fucking saying this, but we’re doing this all the time. It’s not a problem. So just, because I really want them to get this,
like setting boundaries, being vulnerable and getting to the deep heart’s truth. Yes. What was the other one? Getting support. Getting support.
And then the first one was, see, I’ve already forgot them. I’ve forgotten it too. I don’t remember what the first one was either. But I’m sure it was. It’s on video. There’s four of them so far, I know that.
Okay, what else would be taking 100% responsibility? That’s why we videotape these conversations. Yeah, exactly. So we can remember. Yeah, our senior moments. Yeah, yeah.
I think another part of taking a hundred percent responsibility is being honest with actually where I may be struggling to embrace my partner, right? Because every couple, every relationship there are going to be gaps that are painful between the two of you.
Sensitivity gaps, desire gaps, hell, even potentially values gaps, right? One partner may value privacy and the other may value transparency. That’s a common, especially in the day of social, age of social media.
Yeah. Right. So taking a hundred percent responsibility can also mean, uh, owning that I do have a hard time accepting this part of you. It’s not about you. It’s something that, um, again, I’m, I’m working with, um, I would call that I’m, again, I’m working with. I would call that just speaking your truth. Speaking your truth. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Absolutely. When you do this, like, you know, like her point earlier was, I need you to be more present. Right. I mean, okay, that’s the truth. I mean, it’s hard to argue that too.
Totally. I mean, okay, that’s the truth. I mean, it’s hard to argue that too. So I remember the first one was, was be willing to repair. Yeah, be willing to take responsibility for repair. So I think those five are really good to taking 100% responsibility. I’m sure there’s more.
And this is, I like to think of this as a pillar that is constant, that has, you can constantly improve on it. You can constantly get more artful in it. You can constantly learn. What are the ways? And this is the one, man.
I think if I was gonna look at relationships and pick this one area where I see the most missing, it’s this. It’s people’s commitment to take 100% responsibility for the dynamic that they are co-creating. Yeah, it’s a it’s a it’s a I think it’s a it’s a massive shift that happens. It certainly happened for me when I made that decision.
And that’s why I say there’s three decisions. That I think is the first decision. Are you willing to take a hundred percent responsibility? Great. And what’s the second? Second decision,
are you willing to let your partner be human? Being human is messy. It’s messy. And again, it goes back to that, that we have these idealized fantasies, you know, I mean, look in my case without getting into all my childhood stuff, you know, I looked to women to save me. I mean, I mean, how many men do that? Yeah, right. Maybe all of us to some degree. Yeah, I’m more trying to save them. It’s the same. It’s the same for them. Yeah, but if you save them, you’re safe.
Fair enough. Yeah, fair enough. It’s very calculated. My savior is very calculated. It’s a mutual saving going on there. Yeah, yeah.
So let them be messy. Right. Right. And in the same way, like for example, you know, that, that, that woman saying I, I need him to be more present, right. What, what, for a lot of men, not all men, hell for some women, it can, it can sound like I need you to back off or I need you to just let me be a little more free and whatever, thinking what I wanna think, doing what I wanna do, whatever, right? That freedom value. Being in relationship to someone who has that freedom value as a predominant core value,
being in relationship by its nature is limiting. It’s bonding. My partner is going to experience things that I’m going to experience as like, I’m feeling trapped. And also, by the way, we could throw in the attachment layer here, right?
I’m more avoidant in my attachment style. And so when my partner is messy, for example, my tendency is to go sort of just that visceral reaction is, oh God, I have to deal with this. I have to put up with this. I have to make a decision I don’t want to make. I have to, you know, I don’t know, I have to deal with this. I have to put up with this. I have to make a decision I don’t want to make.
I have to, you know, I don’t know. I have to drive five miles per hour slower than I want to drive, whatever. If I lead with that, oh man, relationships a nightmare for everybody. And I used to lead with that.
So it seems like what you’re talking about is accepting their humanity. I think it might also curl back to this thing about being able to remove or relax the attachments we have to our expectations. That they’re going to,
most people going into relationships have these unspoken, often unconscious expectations that so-and-so heal the thing that got installed in my childhood. Right? Or in all of the, and all the relationships since. So I’m already coming to relationship with the expectation
guaranteed 99.9% of you are going into your next relationship with this expectation. I’m expecting you to do the things that heal the wounds that I’ve had to carry in my entire life. That’s right. That’s a fucking, that’s a huge.
And so then we’re, then we wake up, you know, year in or year and a half in, and they’re like, oh shit, they’re not gonna do that. That’s not actually who they are. Can I love who they are? Yeah.
Right? And that’s the moment. And by the way, that takes years. Who they, cause I, I mean, I’m married 10 years and, or I’m with my wife anyway, 10 years and I still learn new things about her. Yeah. Yeah.
You know, discovering who someone is. And by the way, if you’re also both growing and evolving and maturing as humans, it’s gonna change. So it’s, it’s a, again, it’s a, it’s a daily commitment to allowing relationship,
allowing each other to be messy. And by the way, that also is very liberating for me because if I can let her be messy, it means I get to be messy. And I think that’s, especially a lot of men, and I don’t want to impose anything on anyone
if it doesn’t resonate, but I think for a lot of men, we tend to evaluate our worth by how we perform. Yeah, that’s very clear. Yeah. Right? And if I don’t perform- Well, I would add how we perform and how we’re validated.
Sure. How we’re acknowledged in our performance. Well, exactly. And if I perform in a certain way and I don’t get the validation, I’m worthless. I’m a nobody.
I’m right. And so we tend to impose this perfectionist approach on ourselves, which we then project onto the other. And what I’ve found is when it’s almost, I mean, it’s a dance. It’s like, as I’ve allowed a woman to be messy,
to not do all the things perfect. And I also give myself that permission. Oh man, by the way, repair becomes so much easier. Cause now I can apologize. I don’t have to defend my identity. I don’t have to defend my reasons
why I did the thing that you said hurt you because I’m not defending that perfectionist, the performance, like I get to make mistakes. And by the way, so does she. You know, that’s part of that decision. Am I willing for that?
Am I willing for this to be messy? For my partner to be messy? It makes perfect sense. And then the third decision I think is, am I willing to lean in to the challenges of this relationship daily for the long haul?
What I mean by that is, so again, I shared I’m a little, I tend to be more avoidant in relationship. And so- You can’t take three days off and- Exactly. Watch Netflix or do whatever.
Well, early in our relationship, this was a conversation between Sylvia and I, right? Because I traveled a lot. I mean, I went to, I would go to Ireland for weeks and be in a cabin in the middle of nowhere. And we had conversations around, well, how much contact, right? She wanted contact every day. That was important for her nervous system. My nervous system was almost overwhelming at times, especially when I’m trying to have
a certain kind of experience, right? And yet I decided, well, I mean, I am choosing this woman. I’d already written Choose Her Every Day or Leave Her, the article. I don’t think the book had come out yet, but I’m like, all right, I am choosing this woman.
She is giving me the feedback that it is important. She’s not telling me you need, she, see this is important. She wasn’t telling me you need to contact me every day. That probably wouldn’t have gone over well with me. We would have had to work through that, but she was just very clear, giving feedback, taking responsibility for her 100%,
which is this is what I need. I need at least a touch point every day. Okay, cool. So I’d lean into that. I remember the first time we had a conversation like this, I did the thing, I called her,
hey babe, how you doing? Yep. You good. All good. Just sleep well. Everything’s okay.
Yeah. Your laughter says everything. How you think she liked that job? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. She hated it. Yeah.
It was, it was just checking off a box. Yeah. So I, she gave me that feedback. I don’t remember how, but I got the, I got the point. So the next day, hey babe, hi, how are you? You know, I changed my, cause it matters to her nervous system.
It matters. Is it a big sacrifice? I don’t talk like that to anybody, John, except for maybe a child. And maybe I’m even talking to her child in some way, who cares, man?
It makes a difference to her nervous system. That I just, you know, it’s like using emojis. Yeah, you just kinda lighten up, you lighten up your butt cheeks a little bit. Just like, just, you know, I’m being a robot. Exactly, it’s just like, ah’m being a robot. Exactly.
It’s just, it’s like, ah, okay. And that to me is an example of just leaning in to, for me, it’s a real challenge. Every day to lean into relationship is a challenge for me on some level. Because my tendency is like, no, safety is by myself. You guys live and work at home together.
You know what I mean? Like, it’s been this way for a number of years. So it’s like, it’s like you’re, you’re on a spaceship together. In your mug. Exactly.
So, okay, great. So what else on, what else on that? So, I mean, leaning in daily. Similarly, when there is a conflict, when there’s, look, I don’t necessarily believe in, don’t go to bed angry.
I think sometimes it’s better to go to bed angry. Just sleep it off. Come at it again tomorrow, but I Don’t think it serves and look every couple gets to decide this for themselves But I don’t think it serves to let 24 hours go by
without Speaking into at least some form of reassurance if there is is a conflict, if there is a rift, at least to say, look, I know that we can’t solve this right now, but I want you to know, I’m committed to figuring this out. Booking a session with a therapist.
Over the years, or a coach, that has been a great out for us. You know, we’ve got someone on standby that if we ever encounter something that is too big for us, okay, let’s call this guy. Let’s get it, let’s book a schedule, let’s book a session in. Cause then again, our nervous systems go,
okay, we’ve taken action. It’s not gonna solve today, but we’ve got someone we trust that’s there and gonna help us even if it’s in a week or two weeks. Ah, right? But we’ve handled it, right?
At least we’ve, and we know where it’s gonna get handled. Like that’s again, leaning in, not just letting things, you know, just like letting things ride, get under the rug. The way that I, you know, interpret leaning in is, I’m, you know, I’m going to do the thing necessary whether it’s my preference or not in the moment that is going to relax your
nervous system and going to honor love. You know, I like to talk about it in terms of what’s going to liberate love, right? So you leaning in and letting her know, hey, I can’t talk about this now, but I promise you we’re gonna work it out or we’ll get on with our therapist and we’ll work it out.
That’s sexually doing something to alleviate the tension in her nervous system. Yeah. And I think in long-term relationships, that can become harder in some ways. You know, again, every couple has to find their own way.
I don’t know that there’s one thing that is gonna fix every couple or help them work for every couple, but I, man, there’s just so many factors. And I think in our culture where a lot of us do work at home with each other and we’re in the same space all of the time. And, um, I think, I think, you know, getting, learning what practices serve your couple that
help you keep the relationship vital and alive. I think every couple has to maybe experiment and be willing to explore how to do that over the long term. And that’s very practical solutions. Yeah. Like, like maybe spending a couple nights where you don’t sleep in the same bed, for
example, right? Giving yourself some space. So again, I like to keep this very practical, you know, leaning in as a practical approach. That’s why I give you some of the examples of, I’m such a relationship guy, John. And the irony is that relationships are really hard for me.
You know? Yeah. Well, if you’re avoiding, relationship is are really hard for me. Yeah. Yeah. Well, if you’re avoiding, a relationship is by definition hard for you. Leaning in is hard for you. But you give a really good example of how,
because we’re all gonna be bringing some pathology and choosing someone every day, honoring their humanity, taking 100% responsibility, and then like leaning into repair and loves honoring, is probably gonna go against your preference. Often.
It’s probably gonna go against what you would rather be doing. And so that I guess is what creates the, you know, the deeper sense of safety. Like, you know, your partner, I imagine can start to feel like, oh, he’s leaning in, even though I know he’d much
rather be, you know, on a trail, you know, with yellow John, you know, like, you know, doing his thing. Yeah. And, and that, that helps them to feel safe. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. A hundred percent. And, and I think also, you know, this like letting it be messy, you know, both Sylvie and I realized that on some level we’re gonna fail each other. By which I mean, I I mean I’m never, not for more than a minute or maybe when I’m on mushrooms, succeed at pouring love into her in the way that would,
that she craves. It’s not gonna happen. But we have some practices where that does get to happen. We intentionally create some practices where that does get to happen. And similarly, like she’s probably never gonna be able to show up. And I say probably,
cause that’s probably the part of me that still hopes one day but she’s never gonna show up in a way where I just feel that magic freedom that my, you know, my 15 year old boy is, is, is, is hoping to, that wanted to be a pilot and fly in the skies because there I would feel free.
And so on and so on, all the ways that we think that we’ll get that. And knowing that that’s reality, it’s like, oh, okay, yeah, there’s a part of me that’s always gonna feel a little bit burdened.
Yeah, you bring up something that I think would be really interesting point is, how do you balance that need for personal sovereignty and everything we’re talking about, right? Because everything we’re talking about does require awareness, presence, effort, concentration, focus,
you know, like to really, you know, take all the energy that I’m dealing with in a daily basis and then turn it towards somebody for a period of time. But how do I do that and remain self-sovereign, take care of my own nourishment, do the things that fill me up
so that I can continue to choose her or him every day? Yeah, it’s a great question. It’s a really great question. One of the things that Sylvie and I are exploring, and we’re actually gonna be, we’re doing a keynote speech in Vancouver
at a conference in April. One of, and we’re gonna be talking about this, is the notion of sharing power. Like sharing power. Previously in my relationships, I didn’t know anything about sharing power. It was a power struggle.
It’s either, you know, I’m giving up all my power to her and just doing whatever she wants me to do, which is just building resentment and exhaustion and fatigue and just setting me up for the explosion to come. Or I’m taking power and it’s I’m just doing
what I’m gonna do and you deal with your, I don’t care what the impact is on you, I’m just, this is me, this is who I am, right? And that power struggle, and I think, I hope this is getting at what you’re asking. I think again, every day,
there’s an attuning to each other. There’s an attuning to self and other. You know, Sylvie will often tell me, she’ll often be the first one to point out, Brian, I think you need some alone time. You’re a little grumpy.
You’re a little crunchy right now. I think, you know, what’s going on? Well, I think that’s because she’s chosen you and your grumpy ass, you know what I mean? Like she totally, yeah. And if she calls me a grumpy cat. Yeah, and if she hasn’t chosen you
and you’re grumpy ass, then she would probably be resentful. Which also brings me to another point that when I see people struggle in accepting their partners for who they are, not who they want them to be,
it’s usually because they’re personalizing their partner’s behavior. Sure. Right? They’re not just, it’s not just something that their partner does that could be a little annoying, but can be addressed. Right.
You know, it’s, it’s a, you know, it’s a heart wrenching attack on, you know, you know, me as a human. And that, that requires us to do, you know, me as a human. And that requires us to do, you know, again, to be keep taking responsibility for our own response, our own response, our own reactivity. That to me has become such an important piece
of what I’m trying, the message I’m trying to get out is like the moment you get reactive, it’s probably not their fault. Yeah. But we’re gonna make it their fault because they’re the one who initiated
or triggered the reactivity. Yeah. Yeah. And let’s, I mean, let’s just be real about that too though. Most people are not very skillful in their communications. Few people are consistently skilled. Hell, I mean, I make mistakes every day.
And I think I’m one of the most skillfully communicative persons in relationship. And I still, if I’m doing things well, I’m apologizing to Sylvie all the time. For, oh, I’m sorry, babe. I’m sorry.
You know, that kind of thing. So I think it’s important to realize that, to recognize that. What are we talking about? What’s the question? Where were you pointing at? Let’s stop.
Let’s stop. Okay. Because this is really good. There’s something really good here, but I, I lost my train right there. I did too. Cause we’re, we’re taking nice tangents, but sometimes you might lose the first threat. Senior moments. That’s funny. What were we talking about? We were talking about sovereignty
Remaining sovereign we were talking about her choosing you as a grumpy cat because she’s you know, because she’s not personalizing Okay, that’s right and the point I think the point that let’s let’s we have to start it cleanly So okay, so do you know where we’re at? I think so. Okay. Are you ready to just jump back in?
Me? Yeah. Probably not. Okay, so let’s say, let’s- The point I was wanting to drive at too is that people are personalizing,
oh, I think I know where I wanted to go. Okay, I want to share something that I do with couples that reveals something really fast. Okay, so what’s the context? People are personalizing things? It’s how quickly we get triggered.
Got it, got it, yes. How quickly we personalize things. Let me just tee that up, let me just tee that up. So let’s continue with exploring how quickly we personalize things. Let me just tee that up. Let me just see that up. So let’s continue with like exploring how quickly people get triggered and what some ways that people can work with.
Right, well, how quickly people make it personal. Yeah. That’s why they get triggered. Of course. If it wasn’t personal, you wouldn’t be triggered. And, you know, again, people are,
few people are very skillful at relationships. So, I mean, we’re constantly saying things like dad said it, you know, or like mom said it or whatever, or my past girlfriend. The one that, the one, the saying I always love is if it’s urgent, if like we feel we need
to address something urgently, it’s trauma. I’ve heard it also say is if it’s urgent, if like we feel we need to address something urgently, it’s trauma. I’ve heard it also say, if it’s hysterical, it’s historical. Yes, same thing. I do this,
I’ll do this sometimes when I’m working with a couple, this very simple practice. It’s so profoundly revealing where I’ll put them in a conversation and I’ll tell them, talk about something, a disagreement you’ve had in the last few weeks, not a level 10,
not a level one, but like a level five, do something that, you know, it’s not nuclear, but it’s in your crawl, you know? And before I start them though, I’ll say, and I want you to silently give yourself a score on a scale of one to 10.
How safe do you feel right now? Each of you, right? Just silently 10, I feel so safe. I’m solid, I’m golden, we’re good. One red light stop, I’m terrified. Usually, and I’ll have people say their number,
usually at this point in a session, it’s around a seven, if we’re at a seven, that’s good. Might even be at an eight, six, but generally people at this point are okay. And then I’ll say, okay, great. Begin, you know, whoever, start.
John, one sentence, they start. John, one sentence. They don’t even get through a sentence. I’ll stop them and I’ll say, okay, now give yourself a number. How safe do you feel? Immediately.
That number, especially the one who’s listening to whatever the upset is, their eight just went to a two within seconds. They haven’t even, they don’t even, they aren’t even fully processing what being said. The content of it.
They’re hearing it through their voice. They’re filtering it through their own listening. It happens that fast. And when people aren’t aware of that, and none of us are, I mean, hell, I’m not aware of it. I mean, it can take me minutes to realize,
oh my God, I’m so fucking triggered right now. I’m, oof, okay. Yeah. Right? But when we’re not aware of it and then we respond, now I’m responding from a two, on a level of safety level two. What kind of response am I going to offer?
It’s not going to be a skillful one. It’s not going to be a helpful one. It’s now it’s war. And so I think one of the first really important things to just be aware of is we’re all unskillful all of us. And I think you know one of the pitfalls that couples kind of
get wrapped around the axle is trying to figure out who started this? Whose fault is this? You know you did this to me well I only did that because you did whatever. It’s like I used to say like, I used to say, I think I used to say to a girlfriend when we’d get into these fights, which was so stupid, but also true.
It’s like, look, we’re gonna have to go all the way back to Adam and Eve to figure out the cause of this thing we’re going in. Cause I did this because you did that. Well, the truth is we both do it. We’re both like we’re triggering each other. And I think your point about how fast it happens, how quick it gets personalized,
and then how quickly we go into seeing them as somebody we love, who we want to spend our life with, into somebody that we loathe and want to stab in the eyes. Yeah, they become adversarial. So if we’re trying to choose our partners every day, in moments like that, would it make sense to say that,
you know, you go back to principle one, which is take 100% responsibility. So I’ve just gone from an eight to a two in 30 seconds. What is it, what’s happening in me? You know, and the way I always like to work with couples in this is like, okay, in that moment, just slow down,
go inside for a couple breaths and start to narrate what’s happening in your body. Like stop the whole conversation and be like, wow, I’m noticing that I’m starting to feel shaky and my heart’s super tense and I wanna scream and I feel scared and I’m having these memories
of my last relationship and this happening. And that at least is allowing them to take responsibility for their experience in the moment. So are there other things that you think would help in those flash moments of reactivity? So I teach a four, what I call four S’s,
the four steps to repair. And the first one you said, you already said the word stop. Well, I’m sorry, the four steps to repair. And the first one you said, Yuri said the word stop. Well, I’m sorry, the first one is see, actually see. See what’s happening, see what’s really happening, not what I think is happening, not the story I’m telling.
Oh, I didn’t see what’s happening, she’s being a pain in the ass. That’s not what we’re looking for. No, see, oh, I’m tight, I’m tense. You know, I used to cross my arms as soon as an argument would start. Like if I could feel a disagreement come on, I would cross my arms and turn my body.
Because I’m defending myself. I’m getting, I’m ready for the fight. My partner can feel that, right? Well, once I started to see, oh my God, look what I’m doing. Okay, well, first off, second S is stop. Stop the thing, stop the pattern.
Or, you know, if I’m voicing, so I’m caught in a story. I’m in a blamey game. Oh My god see it and then stop it. Just even if it means just shut up, you know or Drop my arms. Oof All right, and the third one is interesting. This is the one that I think we really lack. I mean, look, we lack every, we don’t really see what’s going on.
We don’t know how to stop skillfully. And, but the third one, especially soothe. We don’t know how to soothe once we’re there. Right. We don’t know how to soothe ourselves. We don’t know how to soothe ourselves. We don’t know how to soothe our partner, right?
And a lot of times, I don’t think we can soothe a partner. We have to go do some self-soothing before we can continue. Well, that’s a skill. I mean, I would push back on that a little bit. That’s a skill set that can be learned that centers around breathing, right?
So the greatest soothing exercise anybody can do, and I say this all the time, but you know, it’s progress, not perfection, is breathe. Like that’s literally soothing the inside of your nervous system with breath. In fact, usually what I’ll do when I uncross my arms
is I’ll take a deep breath. Yeah. Because right when we’re in fight or flight or fix as to Terry real likes to call it fight, fight or fix, we’re, we’re, we’re, we’re breathing shallow. We’re not breathing deeply.
We’re cause we’re, we’re, you know, our body’s flooding with cortisol. We’re getting ready for the, for whatever action we have to take. can, our partner can feel the adversarial stance in that. So yeah, a hundred percent, man. Just, I think, look, when you get really good at this and we’ll talk about magic, maybe this is a good time to revisit that word magic.
The fourth S and then we’ll go into magic. Yeah. The fourth S is often you don’t even need it. Oh wow. If you do the third one well, soothe, that’s actually all that’s really needed,
but the fourth S I call solve or resolve. Right. Because sometimes there’s very real problems that couples have to navigate. There’s very real world issues with the money, kids, like there’s things that need resolution.
Yeah. But a lot of times there’s no solution to come up with. There’s just connection to be restored. Yeah, yeah. You said something to me once, I don’t know, a year or two ago that really stuck with me,
which is at the time I was with my partner and we were having, we were in conflict and you were like, well, it sounds like what’s most important is how you’re solving conflicts, not the actual content of the conflict. And that really hung with me.
And it became, it’s kind of how I try to live my life and flawed as it is in trying to be, how are we creating a container that can hold both of us in all these big feelings, in these wounds, et cetera, et cetera. And so I think that this, you know, what we’re talking about here is how do we solve conflict, which has been coming up a lot on this podcast.
And I think all of these things, you know, like most great concepts, you know, choose somebody every day or leave them. The fucking devil is in the details, right? Like what it actually takes to take 100% responsibility, to lean in and to allow them to be, you know, to not meet my needs
in the way that I think they have to be met. Like the work that’s behind just those three things, it’s fucking incredible. It is, it is. You know, I’ll often say that this stuff is actually simple, but it’s not easy. It’s, we’re just stuck in automatic patterns. Krishnamurti said this beautiful thing, true liberation is freedom from our automatic patterns. Right?
I would agree with that. It’s a, and I think intimate relationship is a profound arena within which. Nothing, it’s more automated than our responses to our partners.
So the devil is in the- You know it’s true, don’t like, don’t pretend like it’s not true for y’all. That’s a fact. So the devil is in the details. And that’s why you said, you know, progress not perfection.
I think if a couple can get good at seeing that first step, just seeing what’s going on. When I first start working with couples, man, it can still take them hours to see it or maybe they get it right one out of 10 arguments. They like, oh my God, I see what’s happening. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, stop, pause, right? That’s progress.
I mean, John, I would go years in an argument. I’m not exaggerating, you know that years fighting an argument because neither one of us, we didn’t see what was really going on. So we didn’t know if we were stopping anything, it wasn’t the right thing. We definitely didn’t know how to soothe ourselves or each other. And so nothing ever got solved. I call that actually what we’re doing. I call it, we go from step one, see,
I think I see what’s going on here, which is you’re being a pain in the ass. You’re thinking wrong about things. You need to change your thoughts. That’s what I see. And I’m gonna solve it.
So I go right to step four, solve. If you just think like this, just see it this way or stop being such a pain in the ass. And then I call it the see, solve of insanity. See the wrong thing, solve nothing. See the wrong thing, solve nothing.
But when we can learn to see what is actually going on in the moment, and I think, again, I love your term embodied relationship. There’s embodied relationship, right? Because relationship happens in the moment, man. It happens in the, it’s a moment by moment. And this is magic.
Let’s talk about magic. Right? When I was younger, you know, in my adolescent mentality of things, magic was this ethereal, otherworldly, mystical, just, oh, everything’s going to be, you know,
rainbows and unicorns and blowjobs. Great, right? Not in that order. I don’t care. Any order. It all sounds wonderful. In Fruit Loops.
Magic today is a much more of just a grounded reality. Like as I shared earlier, my wife and I, just the circumstances, the things we’ve been confronted with, just life, man, has been so heavy. We’ve been through, we’ve had a lot of loss and moving through a lot of grief and upheaval
and the fact that she and I can still go to bed at night and look each other in the eyes and laugh. We still, you know, we hug every morning. That’s one of our connection practices. We do an intentional, you know, we hug every morning. That’s one of our connection practices. We do an intentional, you know, five second hug where we stop whatever we’re doing and we hug.
And by the way, that’s also something on some level I don’t want to do, because that’s choosing relationship, you know? But I do it. I lean in because I know it matters. Like now, like that to me, there’s a magic in that.
There’s a beauty in that. There’s no guarantees that we’ll live another day together. I mean, who knows, but like we can repair, we get through arguments. It doesn’t take us, as I said, it used to take years. It doesn’t even take us days, man. We, hours at, for the most painful things we might go
through, we can get through it typically in hours. You know, that’s, that’s magic to me. That’s a beautiful, beautiful dance. That, I think that’s what I was talking about at 27, but also not, because I was clueless. Yeah, we just don’t know.
So, what else would you say defines magic in relationship? I think… I… I don’t, you know, it’s interesting. I had this conversation with my wife the other day because she sees me, man.
It’s spooky. I don’t know if it’s that woman’s intuition. No, no, she’s witchy. She’s witchy, like witchy woman. They see, they see. And Armenians have some witchiness in them naturally.
That’s true. Yeah. Yeah. And, and, you know, she’ll often say, she like, you love how much I see you and you also hate it. Don’t you?
I’d be like, yeah, kind of, kind of both. And there’s a, there’s a magic to being seen in that way. It’s like, and not just to be seen, but to be loved. Yeah. Yeah. To be loved in your messiness. To be loved in my messiness.
You know, I, and I was trying to, I said to her the other day too, is like, you know, she, I guess I was a little grumpy and she was calling it out, you know, oh, my grumpy cat, you know? And I’m like, look, I know I’m grumpy, but as far as grumpy men go, I’m like, I’m, you know, I’m okay. I’m not that like, and she’s like, oh, it’s so cute.
Yeah, you’re so grumpy. Sure, grumpy cat, whatever, you know? And it’s, there’s that beautiful playfulness. I think that’s also, I think a hallmark of a magical relationship is there’s a playfulness. There’s a childlike innocence that gets to still live in, you know, I think in a lot of relationships
is this sort of funny, I don’t know, formation, I suppose. There’s always an old person and a young person in any relational dynamic. Obviously, that’s not necessarily true, but you look at two people,
one of them probably has a little more of a youthful spirit to them, and the other is maybe a little bit more the adult and then in that those roles can switch look all I’m saying is I’m the old guy in my relationship Sylvie’s the young playful spirit you know I’m one of my other friends like he’s he’s he’s the young guy his his wife is the old person you know I get I don’t want to get, it’s not a serious rabbit hole to go down.
But I do think what I’m pointing at is I do think somebody’s got to bring a spirit of play and the other person’s got to be willing to participate. I think when you lose play, you lose laughter. I was actually married before to a French woman in France many, many, many years ago. And, um, we married pretty quickly and it was a disaster very quickly as well. But one of the things that I’ll, that I’ll take with me from that is, is we didn’t get each other’s jokes. We didn’t have the same humor.
And that was excruciating. And it wasn’t just because we spoke different languages. I mean, I spoke French, but we just didn’t have the same humor. And that was not fun. Sylvie and I, oh my God, man, we have the same humor.
We laugh at like 10 years in, we’re still laughing every day. That’s precious. Yeah, I think the thing I see in you guys that I really appreciate is you really have chosen each other, you really have. You know, I mean, you might not like what the other’s doing
or you might not like the decisions they make, but you’ve like chosen like, okay, that’s that’s important to them. And yeah, and I am choosing them and there’s like, there’s a real consistent consciousness to accepting. Right? And I’ve been listening to a lot of Alan Watts lately and really getting into, you know, the problem with attaching to our expectations about others and what that means and what that does to our hearts and what that does to them to constantly be feeling like they’re never going to measure up
to these sort of expectations they can feel coming in. And I think that the whole premise of your book is about being able to, it’s as much about acceptance as it is about choosing. 100%, absolutely, man. And I think, thank you for that observation.
I think, Sylvie and I have had, as you know, we’ve had to navigate some really difficult decisions. I mean, profoundly difficult decisions the last few years. And I mean, some of our biggest fights have been around some of the decisions that we’ve had to make, like our gnarliest battles.
And in the end though, what characterizes, what helps us bring us through those is exactly that, you know, and I love Alan Watts, like even Abraham Hicks, like a lot of these sort of spiritual teachers, as a spiritual practice have given me access to a surrender. Okay, so this isn’t how my egoic mind would have drawn it up.
But I am choosing this woman. And I’m choosing her attachment to her family, for example. You know, being a more American family, individualistic, like my family’s doing their thing, I’m doing mine. Let’s go. She comes from a more communal family system, right?
That has other dynamics, right? So I’m not just choosing her, I’m choosing her attachments. I’m choosing her sensitivities, all of that. And so, talk about a spiritual practice of surrender and trust and allowing and embrace. If I just tolerated it, fine, you and your god damn family. Where does that go? Nowhere fast.
Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, thank you for that observation. This is, I think this is the most profound personal work of my life. Let’s take a little break.
Clear my sciatica on my butt cheek here. You have sciatic issues? Not really, but just, oh, sitting in that half-stress position. We’ll get it on time. Yeah, we’ll rock it. Yeah, we’ll take another 10 minutes or something.
Great. Pick up on that last point. Yeah. So, you know, we hear about that all the time, right? That the work we do in the confines of relationship will be the deepest, gnarliest,
most grueling work that we do. I’ve certainly had that experience. You know, and I consider that to be both the work we do in relationship and the work we do coming out of relationship, which is still in a way dealing with those relationally triggered wounds.
You know, those are the things. And to me, what I think, going back to this question of magic, right? What I think creates magic is when we can feel safe to fail. Yeah, I like that. When we feel safe to fail in front of our partner and that they won’t punish us, withdraw love,
stonewall us, do all the things that, you know. I love that. Some partners like to do. And so when we feel like we have room to fail, then we have all of this creativity. Totally.
To explore in the relationship. We can try crazy shit you know we can try crazy dates or crazy moves or crazy bits of connection or crazy moves in sex or you know I mean like we can try things because we know it’s okay if we don’t get it right. 100% yeah. And and that that is something I think that creates a lot of magic in relationships. I agree. In fact, we’ve been together, we’re coming up on 10 years and it occurred to me,
I don’t know, maybe earlier this year, maybe a few years ago, but it took me seven years to trust in the relationship. Not trust Sylvia as a person. She’s wildly trustable as a person, but to trust in the relationship, like to be able to relax and trust that,
whoa, this is legit, like I’m safe, I’m safe here too, right? I can make mistakes, I can be myself. Obviously be myself doesn’t mean I can be a jerk just because I feel like being a jerk. I’m grumpy and in my grumpiness, I can be snappy. That’s not okay.
I don’t get to just snap at my wife and let that be letter. Oh, it’s okay, honey, grumpy cat. No, it’s like, whoa, Brian, back off. Timeout, pause. Got it, okay. But yes, totally, man.
Like it is a beautiful, magical thing and it takes years. I wanna impress upon people. It can take years to build a strong relational container that can withstand the stresses that any couple is going to go through. I think, and I had this expectation that no,
we just like, I’ve met the one, you’re amazing. Let’s go. Like strong relational container. I’m going to do it. Like it’s going to be able to hold all the pressures of, no.
Oh yeah, no, no, no. My experience recently has shown that’s absolutely not how it goes. But I think that there is a, yeah, I think another way I would look at choosing someone every day is,
oh shit, lost my train. I had something. Let’s rewind, start over at the beginning of that sentence. What was I gonna say? Oh, okay, I got it. I think another idea that comes to me around this concept
is that when you choose somebody every day and you’re in this sort of fire of relationship for years and things change slowly. You know, David used to always talk about like, look, people would say, well, how long should I wait? And da da da. He was like, these things take months and years to unwind.
These are deep things that you’re working with, right? And so, you know, giving some space for that, but choosing somebody every day is being a yes to the, not just the messiness of them, but the messiness of the process, which is often really, that’s where people,
I feel like they’re on the top floor of a burning building and they’re like, I gotta get the fuck out, right? And so, you know, trying to train people to relax into the process of unwinding your generational trauma, her generational trauma, you know, all of the histories and all that shit.
You know, that is a, I think a huge piece of choosing, you know, it occurs to me that it’s not just choose them, but it’s choose the relationship. Totally. Yeah. Choose the process, choose the journey. Yeah, I was working with a couple of weeks ago
that had been with each other for a few years and man, high conflict couple. And we did, you know, I’ll do one session with almost anybody. But I told them after that session, I said, look, you guys, I believe you can make the changes that are necessary
for you to, there weren’t any like overt red flags. You want to have a child and you don’t. Okay. Yeah. Right. It was just communication, conflict, styles,
childhood stuff, right? But I said, look, we’re not gonna get at this in one more session. This session isn’t really gonna do much for you. We’ve outlaid the dynamics that are going on and surely there’s a lot more to uncover.
You’ve gotta be willing to commit to a journey together. And it’s okay if you’re not. This isn’t, it’s not for everybody and maybe it’s not if you’re not. This isn’t, it’s not for everybody and it may be, it’s not for you. Right, but again, it’s like those three decisions. Are you willing to lean in to the challenges
over the longterm? Right, are you willing to take a hundred percent responsibility and are you willing to let them be messy, yourself be messy and the process be messy. Absolutely, man. It’s…
Yeah. Well, it brings me to the second part of that title, which is or leave. Or leave. Or leave. And that, you know, that’s often most people will think,
oh, that’s a bad thing, right? Right, right. But I think with that, I think what that illustrates that the maturity to leave when you’ve really figured out that you can’t for whatever reason, right? And this was the experience with my last relationship
is we just could not choose each other every day. So we had to end. And I think that’s the piece that can also be as much spiritual practice as the first part, right? The first part is much more nuanced but actually deciding to leave,
because we all know people either stay too late or leave too early, most people. And so talk a little bit about that. Like what does that look like? You know, I heard it said by a couple of teachers over the years, and it took me some time to unpack it,
but they said, only leave in love. Only leave in love. What I’ve learned that, or what at least that has come to mean to me is I’ve walked away from relationships in anger you know out of fuck you. That never takes. It never I’ve always gone right back. At least if she was willing, you know, because I’m, I’m, I’m leaving from the wound. I’m not leaving from clarity. I’m not ending
because I’m clear. I’m ending because I’m triggered. I’m walking because I’m bouncing. Cause I can’t deal. And, um, not to say that there isn’t a place for that. I mean, if there’s abuse happening, if there’s like some gnarly shit going on, who cares, don’t leave him love, just get the fuck out if you need to, fine.
But I just mean in general, I think, again, if you’re clear this person isn’t for you, we’re not talking about that scenario. We’re talking about a scenario where you’re with someone you really want this to work, right? Only leave in love to me means like do your work.
Look at your 100%, spend your time and focus there, right? Until you get to the clarity that, wow, I love this person but we’re not compatible or they’re not going to be able to give me what I need and it’s not a character flaw it’s just they can’t do it it’s like they’re a dog and I’m asking them to meow like a cat yeah and they’re not going to right okay I love them as a dog I don’t want to be with a dog I want to
be with a cat. You know, it’s like that deep, deep clarity, right? And I think we leave too soon because we’re in an automatic response pattern. Oh, you know, some kind of fuck this. I’m not, I’m not marrying my mother.
Or, or we leave too late, same thing. Oh my God, I got to heal my childhood wounds with this person. That’s the subtext. So is that what you’re- Yeah, yeah.
And I think that people, you know, need to embrace leaving as an act of devotion and love as well, right? And that is, you know, that is a really important part of the process of being able to recognize, like my nervous system is not built for your nervous system.
And I’ve tried for periods of times, a year, six months to really like, fig two years to really like, fig two years, to really like see if our nervous systems could find this middle ground. And if it can’t, then we’re just agitating
the problem of each other. And I see that too. I see that too, where people won’t leave and they’ll stay in this process of trying to figure out how to allow, how to soothe each other’s nervous system
and instead just keep agitating each other’s nervous system. So, you know, it’s okay to leave. It’s okay to leave guys. You know what I mean? Yeah. It’s the most loving thing you could do.
It is definitely, you know, the case that I experienced as well. Yeah. And, you know, sometimes we need to go into a relationship in order to learn what we haven’t healed, grown through, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah.
Yeah. So if, you know, and to wrap this up, I’m curious, you know, how would you take somebody? Because I think most people would say, you know what? I love my partner. Of course, this makes perfect fucking sense.
Yeah, choose them every day or, you know, let’s unwind. But how do you get somebody, you know, talk us through how you can get from that place of, hey, I want to, I just don’t fucking know how, right? And I know I can leave at some point if I can’t make it happen, but like, I really want to.
How do you get them across that chasm? Well, you used the word earlier, these are skills we can learn. It’s a skill. Yeah, I remember hearing a teacher once say, Diane Connolly, amazing woman that I studied with many years ago, she would use this language. She would say, look, I don’t use
the language. I’m not good at something. I’m not good at relationships. I’m not good at computers. I’m not practiced is what she would say. I’m just not practiced. And I think that holds true for relationships. There are practices. I’m just not practiced. And I think that holds true for relationships. There are practices. I mean, you’re embodied. My whole thing is all about practice.
And so what I’m focusing on is, okay, let’s see what are the sabotaging patterns that are going on first. Oftentimes, oftentimes is we got to see what we’re doing that’s not working, not the stories we’re telling about it, but what’s really going on.
You know, what’s not working is every time you talk, you cross your arms and you turn away. Okay. Or you could say, or you raise your voice. Your voice, your tone of voice. Exactly, right?
So we’re looking at patterns and we, you know, again, there’s so much room to explore the childhood stuff, the family system stuff. That’s so valuable. But in the end,
what I want people to know is these are skills that we can learn. I was so, I grew up with two moms and three sisters, you know, mom and step-mom. I have a master’s degree in human relations. Take that in, a master’s degree in human relations
from the University of Oklahoma. And John, I sucked at relationships with women, sucked because no one told me the skills. Nobody showed me the practices that I could do. And so that’s the thing that I really want people to take away is there are skills, there are,
in many ways, I think in like the world of polarity, there’s skills to create polarity. In the world of communication, there’s skills that make, you know, I used to hate fights. I don’t love them today, but I welcome them now. I welcome conflict because I know I have the skills to turn this conflict into deeper connection.
You know, I don’t avoid conflict with my wife whereas I always avoided conflict in the past because I knew it would be a shit show. I embrace it now. Oh my god, talk about again magic, willingness for there to be conflict. I have the skills to turn that into actual even more sexual tension, deeper love, connection. Trust, right? I mean, repair is magic, right? To go from, in our nervous system,
to go from total rupture to somebody, you know, working with whatever we need to work with in order to like soothe the nervous system. That’s a bit of magic. I like to think of magic in a very specific way, which is, I’m going to use my attention,
awareness and energy to shift and attention, awareness, and energy to shift and open your nervous system and body. Yeah. That’s magic. That’s nice, yeah. You’re moving energy in another with your practice.
Yeah, yeah. Whether it’s sexual energy or emotional energy or just relaxation, you’re taking them from sympathetic to parasympathetic. And that’s a sort of magic that I think a lot of people, a lot of skills that people can use.
And I think the skills that you’re really talking about here are pretty wide. The skills of self-reflection, the skills of communication, the skills of compromise, the skills of presence, and, you know, the skill of, you know, uh, you know, willingness, right? Like, to just be willing
to do everything. But it is the kind of thing that on the other side, at least from what I’ve seen with you and Sylvie, there’s a real deep experience of being held together. Yeah, yeah, for sure. And I think that’s what I’d really like, you know,
because I know Brian and Sylvie very well, and it’s just, you know, I’ve known you guys for a few years, I’ve seen you go through a lot of crazy shit. And there’s something, you know, to kind of punctuate on this point of magic, like getting through that darkness together, you know, in this kind of dedicated way
and coming out the other side, like that’s gotta feel magic. Man, there are some nights where I go to lay down next to her and oh man my heart just fills with gratitude that she’s still here, that we get to do this and even that’s hard for me to lean into you know and I could do a better job of
showing her that gratitude. I bet you could. Yeah. Oh, endlessly. Yeah, another skill. Praise. Another skill.
Oh, yes. Endlessly leaning, leaning in, man, leaning in. And even this conversation is like, okay, deep breath, Brian, make sure you communicate to her today. Cause I can say it to you easy. I can write it in a blog all day long,
but to turn to her and express and pour, oh man, all my childhood stuff. You know, you’re not going to be met. You’re not going to be held. You’re going to be vulnerable and be dropped, you know, neglect.
So, right. But, but it is true, man. To be able to cultivate through skill and through all the things that you mentioned. And that’s, I believe, I honestly believe. You know, I’ve never met anyone,
certainly never worked with anyone who went into a relationship thinking, I can’t wait to fuck up this person’s life. Nope. Quite the opposite. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Not consciously at least. Not consciously. Not to say there aren’t people out there that are thinking that, but I don’t work with that. I don’t, from the process of it, as far as I know. Me neither.
It’s a matter of just of just being willing that word willing in the decision, those three decisions, the word willing appears in all of them. Yeah. Am I willing to lean in, to let it be messy, to take a hundred percent responsibility, man. Yeah. It’s if I can succeed as I do with my wife, I think, not saying we’re perfect. We’ll have her on next time. Yeah, okay, confession time.
No, no, no, I would love to do that. I hope actually, oh man, that would be amazing. That would be really fun. But it is available to be able to thrive in relationship, I believe is available to anyone who just really, really wants it and is willing to learn the skills
and put in the time. Yeah, so I think what I’m gonna do is I’m gonna take this whole concept of skills that we’ve been talking about, I’m gonna put it into a challenge. So here’s my challenge to y’all if you’ve made it this far through the podcast, if you’re watching on YouTube,
leave a comment, what skills are you committed to working on based on all of the ground we covered today? Because we talked about a lot of skill sets in a lot of different ways. What are the skills that you’re committed to bettering
so that you can lean into relationships, take responsibility 100%, be able to accept your human for the flawed, beautiful being that they are? What are the skills that you need to cultivate so that you can get better at relationship?
Great challenge. I mean, I, yes. Yeah, I like to, I like to give them homework. It’s good. You know, nothing’s free, motherfuckers. Yeah.
All right, so, so anyway, man, thank you very much. Brother, pleasure, man. Thank you, man. Yeah, pleasure to talk about love with you. Yeah, always, always. So much fun to talk about love. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And we’ll have you back another time.
And just grateful for our friendship, man, and for the depths that we get to go to. Me too. It’s fun to occasionally share with others. Yeah, yeah. Deep bow. Thank you, brother.
Thank you, Brian. Thank you, man. Thank you.
