 So, Laura, could you tell our listeners a little bit about yourself, and the work that you do, and how you got affiliated with the Garmin Institute? Sure. Yeah. So, well, I'm a lady. I'm a mom. I am also a marriage and family therapist. I have been a therapist now. I mean, it's my first career, my only career of choice, so for a while. And I specialize in working with couples. I actually only work with couples. I think that my work with individuals is probably pretty crummy. I get a little bored if there's not another person in the room. And I'm an outdoor enthusiast. We were talking about living here in Salt Lake, which is amazing. It's a little bit like just being a kid in a playground, which I didn't realize Utah is so incredible. It has so many national parks. So, I play in the winter. I play in the summer. I'm out there golfing and trail running. I heard you guys are actually training for a Tough Mudder. Is that true? We completed the Tough Mudder. We just dropped the video last week on our YouTube channel. It was quite the experience. Have you done one? You know what? I'm glad that I'm talking to you after you did your Tough Mudder, because I actually broke both of my wrists doing a Spartan. And I did that three years ago. So, I think that there will be some redemption. I mean, I will go back. But the Monkey Bars got me. Oh, the Monkey Bars got us as well in the Tough Mudder, although the electrocution was the worst part. So, that shock therapy was too much for us. So, for our listeners who aren't yet familiar with Dr. Gottman's research and the Institute, how did it all get started? And what is really the focus there? Yeah. So, Dr. Gottman, he started way back when he was actually a mathematician at MIT. And then he had switched gears. It was his college roommate who was studying psychology. And I think he just thought that looks really appealing to me. So, being Dr. Gottman, he finished up, he wrapped up with his degree in mathematics, and then he went right into psychology. And that's really where he is a very unique person and individual in that he has this strong mathematics background. And he also has a research background and is incredible when it comes to helping and supporting couples. But it didn't really start to click until Dr. Gottman's research with couples met Julie Gottman, who is his wife. And Julie is a really talented therapist, psychotherapist. And when the two of them met, that's when everything began to move forward in helping couples and supporting couples and transforming lives. Because up until that point, Dr. Gottman jokes that he was really happy just watching couples' lives deteriorate at that point as a researcher, just following couples and watching them. Yeah, you know, over the last year, we've talked about emotional bids as a big part of our program and what really tipped us off to Dr. Gottman's research and what's going on at the Institute. But when we think about communication and how important it is in all of our relationships, of course, our most important relationship, it's going to be an issue. And we need to be comfortable communicating as well as listening to our partner. And I know that's a big part of the work that you guys do. How much overlap are there in these issues that we see in marriage with other relationships, like friends, relatives, coworkers, dating, and so on? Well, I think that all of it overlaps, to be perfectly honest. A while back, I had several companies that had reached out and they said, we love Dr. Gottman's research, and we think that this would be directly applicable to professional relationships. And then also, when my husband had started a startup, he had the CEO and the COO, and they both said, well, we're so glad that your wife is a couple's therapist because we feel like a couple oftentimes. I'm sure the two of you feel like a couple when it comes to ways in which you communicate. But it's all directly applicable, which is great because one skill set that you build either in the professional world or in your intimate relationships, it's all directly applicable to all facets, all types of relationships, including children. Well, there's certainly going to be. I mean, we've been working together for 12 years now, so there's compromising and there's certain that you have to pick your battles and they're accommodating of your partner and for everyone to be happy and healthy in a working environment. And not only that, it's been a working environment we also live together in. And also being a startup where as your husband, I'm sure that you've seen it, it's like there are so many unknown things of a startup and a vision has to unite and a passion has to be to unite in order to fight through all of the beginning hurdles that come with a startup. I totally agree. I have several business partners and they slowly start to discover just going to Costco. Like you shop all the time with your significant other. But when I go to Costco with my business partners, they don't know how neurotic I am with money. And they're like, okay, so this is obviously a piece of the puzzle that I'm learning about you as a business partner that I hold the purse strings pretty tight. So yeah, you understand hurdles as you go through in all different types of relationships. It's funny you mentioned that we're a couple, our internal team calls us Bert and Ernie off of times behind the scenes. So definitely understand that, you know, we started earlier this month talking about love languages. And of course, you know, love languages, people get that perception that this is just to do with your partner or significant other spouse. And we were really digging into, hey, you know, these patterns that we're seeing inside of our most intimate relationships are the same patterns that we're presenting when we're interacting with our coworkers and with our friends. So understanding how to have a solid relationship with your partner allows you to show up for your friend's family and coworkers that much more. You know, that's a big part of the work that you do. And in terms of obviously, when it comes to relationships and couples and their struggles with communication, you know, what are the biggest problems that you see facing newlyweds and couples who are now moving in together, right? Taking that big step. Yeah. So you're not talking about remaritals. You're talking about people who have never been married and they're just now entering into their first committed long-term relationship, right? Correct. Okay. Well, I would say probably the biggest problem that I see personally is that there is expectation and you have an expectation up here about what marriage is going to look like, what partnerships going to look like, about how you're going to spend your money, what kind of sex you're going to have, how often you're going to have it. And then you have reality and somewhere in the middle is where that resentment builds. If you don't have proper communication to be able to talk about what those expectations are. And actually on our most recent podcast, we were talking about pre-marital and what is it that their expectations are? When you stand up at the altar, you're essentially saying, I do, I agree to show up in these ways in the relationship. This is what I'm agreeing and what my expectations are for the next 60 years. And unfortunately, you just don't know until you get in. So if I was to help couples, I would help them manage their expectations by being able to give them language to communicate through those expectations because if you're not talking about them, that's when that resentment builds. That's when you're silently seething and you probably need a little bit of coaching and being able to communicate that conflict with your partner. And it's so funny you mentioned that idea of expectations in reality because we think about so many relationships in our life when we talk about new coworkers, we talk about our relationship with our boss and being mentored. We come in with all of these expectations and then of course they often aren't met. Some of us are putting so much pressure on that relationship before it even really develops. Right. Yeah. And even when I start a relationship as a therapist with my couples, my very first question that I ask them is what are your expectations for yourself when you're entering into a therapeutic relationship? What are your expectations for your partner? Because everybody who comes into therapy and their assumption is you're here because you need to change. So obviously that is an expectation, right? They're going to change. And then what's your expectation for therapy itself? Am I going to be the cure-all or am I going to be the judge that's standing up there and saying, you're right, you're wrong? So I just, I get it right out of the way from the get-go. I've always wondered, what is it like for a couple to go into couples therapy? Well, I think I'm biased in that it's an amazing experience, right? No, I think there is always trepidation. Most often there's one person that is really into personal development or they did all of the research, they found the perfect therapist, they read all the books, and now they're dragging their partner to therapy. And just so you know, the therapist knows who's in it and who's not in it. Or maybe you just showed up and you're waiting to see if there's some sort of connection. But my biggest tips for people who have never gone to therapy and they want to try it is, especially with a couple's therapists, you need to find somebody who is a specialist who says, I work with couples. And if you find somebody where that's what they do exclusively, they're not working with children, they're not working with eating disorders, because when you're a generalist, you don't master anything. But you really want to be the master of couples therapy. So find somebody that is a couples therapist, even better a certified gotman therapist is a great way to go. But I will tell you that couples therapy is going to ask that you change some things. And it's not about changing your partner, it's about changing things within yourself. It's going to ask that you do things that are going to make you feel a little bit uncomfortable. It's going to ask that you try out some new techniques of communicating and working through conflict. And it might feel a little clunky, but usually things get a little bit better bit by bit by bit. And it's not necessarily in therapy, but it is that one time after therapy on the drive home, when your partner reached over and held your hand, or it's that one time when you had a conversation that for the first time didn't escalate. So it's these small things that you want to be able to feel like it's improving bit by bit. Now a lot of people have trepidation around therapy. What do you have for someone who's nervous around, you know, should I go to therapy? Is it as bad as I think it is? How do they decide for themselves? You know what therapy is a good option? Yeah. Well, gosh, I think that trying anything new is scary. I really do. And I think that it's when we push ourselves to do scary things when we see and improve the most. So if you're thinking and you have that thought process of maybe I should go to therapy, my guess is you should go to therapy. Listen to your intuition. Yeah. Yes, exactly. It's never going to hurt to have someone in your corner that can ask you some questions to think about things a little bit differently that can provide support that maybe your family members or your coworkers really shouldn't be providing because that's outside of the boundaries of that relationship. So I would say find a therapist that you trust and that you feel a good connection with. If after it's just like dating, if after the first three minutes, I wish we could speed date therapists, honestly, as you will know after the first three minutes whether or not this is going to be a good fit. And sometimes you have to date around a little bit. Absolutely. And I've gone through therapy a few times in my life and found it very helpful. And we talked about this earlier on the show how recent researchers come out showing that in in a couple's situation, a lot of times the women are wearing multiple hats, including therapists. So bringing someone else in third party to help you sort through your own issues and communication can be incredibly beneficial. Yeah, I agree. Well, of course, when we're talking about therapy and showing up, oftentimes it's very easy for us to see the problems in the partner, the other person in therapy with us. It's oftentimes difficult to see those in ourselves. So how do you work through that where you're in a situation where maybe both sides aren't in agreement on what the issues are? You mean both people are right. So one of the very first things that we tackle in therapy is being able to take a look at yourself, have a really clear picture and own your shit, basically. I didn't tell you guys I have a potty mouth, so it's going to come out from time to time. No problem. Okay, cool. So we had talked about Dr. Gottman identified these four problem behaviors that come up in relationships, and essentially it's criticism, defensiveness, stonewalling and contempt. And within the very first session of therapy, I want for people to identify what their weapon of choice is, which essentially means I don't want you. It's really easy to say, well, my partner's constantly criticizing me. They're constantly putting me down. But I don't want to hear about that because I want them to first develop the skill of being able to own what's going on for them. So what is your weapon of choice of those four, which do you use most often? Because we'll notice that in relationships, it's just one big cycle. So if you're critical, most likely your partner's going to be defending themselves a lot. So that's probably one of the first things that I do is an exercise in taking a look at yourself. What are you doing and owning it? I would think that would also take some of the heat off of you as well because I would think one of the partners would come in seeing you as the enemy because the other had picked you out to solve this problem. So now, of course, she's already had a discussion with my wife. She now is on her side. So by getting them to focus on themselves, they can start to be honest, see some issues and see that you're clear here that you're not going to take that side. You're here to mediate this situation. Yeah, absolutely. That's one of the hardest things as a therapist is to help each person in the relationship feel like you are not on their side because I'm not on anybody's side. I'm on the relationship side. That's my partner. That's my client is the relationship, not the individual. So having to balance that and let them each know that you're each right. So you would ask the original question of what do you do when you have two people and they both might feel like they're right? Well, the truth is they are right. They both have a perspective and you're looking at two perspectives through their own lens and they're absolutely correct. There's always two truths. So who knows? I think a lot of people like to feel like they're right. And as a therapist, I get to tell them you are right. That's your point of view. That's your perspective. And of course, it's got to be better as you're saying earlier in the couples realm where you get those two point of views to help you as a therapist sort out what's truly going on versus that one-on-one therapy session where you're not getting the full picture, right? It's so true. It is tough. There are some couples therapists out there that can also do individual therapy with each partner. I just choose not to do that. It's really difficult to be an individual therapist and in fact, studies show that if you are having relationship struggles and only one person wants to go see a therapist, you are less likely to support that relationship if you go and see an individual therapist because that individual therapist can only provide support for you and the story that you're telling. They can't provide balance. They can't represent the other person who's at home. So if you're in a relationship and it's crummy, don't go see an individual therapist because all that therapist is going to do is support you and it's not going to support the relationship. Well, we've noticed when we were talking about this the other day that anytime that there had been a party that come to our programs in order to get help because of their relationship. After going through the program, they're like, wait a minute. I'm the one doing all the work. They're just sitting at home. They're not willing to put in and then all of a sudden they're like, wait and I'm here thinking I'm the bad guy. And of course, if you're going to be going through all this work on yourself and meticulously finding fault and working through this, we all know that that's certainly not easy. No, not at all. Now, when we talk about these four horsemen, you know, I think a big part of this show is trying to help our audience raise their own self-awareness. And I know myself in understanding emotional bids, becoming a better listener, I had to take a look at myself. So for our audience who, you know, obviously this is the first time they may be encountering this idea of the four horsemen, how do they identify their weapon of choice? What are some ways that we can go about understanding, okay, you know, I tend to stonewall when I'm in these situations. How do we find that out about ourselves? Yeah. So, you know, in addition to me explaining what it is, I think that Dr. Gottman has a really great YouTube video. And I always recommend if you want to meet the man, the maker of all of this, you can go to YouTube and watch a video of him. It's called Making Relationships Work. And it's a video that I watch, I would probably say every few weeks, but I give it to couples to watch often. And he explains each of the four horsemen in detail. But criticism would be one of the four horsemen. And essentially, you see something that is not right in your relationship. You see something that you have a problem with. I always use the example, not that my husband would do this, because I would never throw him under the bus. But he disrobes next to the bed every single night. And so at the, at the end of the week, there's a pile of clothes next to the bed, because the man doesn't hang anything back up and he doesn't put it in a hamper. So rather than looking at that as a problem and wanting to try and solve the problem, I would come to him and I would say, why are you such a freaking slob? What did your mom do to teach you raise you up like a man? So now I'm attacking him and I'm criticizing his character by calling him a slob. And I'm taking something that's external. It's a problem, but it's outside of him and his character. And I'm actually attacking his character. So that would be a criticism. Is complaining, um, about a situation. And rather than complaining, I'm criticizing him. So that would be one is criticism and criticism and defensiveness go hand in hand. So the second one would be defensiveness and defensiveness is essentially feeling as if you're being personally attacked, attacked by your partner. And it could be if, if I had come to my partner and said, why are you such a slob? He might want to defend himself and he would say, Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, why are you coming at me with all of this? Have you seen the kitchen right now? You just got done cooking yesterday and all of the dishes are crusted over. So now he's, he's counter attacking, uh, by defending himself. So that would be number two is, uh, one of the other four horsemen. The third one is stonewalling and we see stonewalling often in men. Dr. Gottman said that of the ones that he had studied of people who use stonewalling, 80% of them are men. It doesn't mean that women don't stonewall, but it tends to show up more often in men. Um, and stonewalling is when you're physically present with your partner and you're having a conversation, but at some point you check out and you do everything we've talked about body language. Your body language is essentially showing I'm disengaged. I'm not interested. I'm not listening to you and you're putting up a stonewall. So you cross your arms, your eyes are facing down. Uh, you're giving your partner zero attention, zero nodding. Right now you're nodding along. That would not be stonewalling. Okay. So, um, stonewalling is a way to self soothe, but it's not a healthy way because if, if you were stonewalling me right now, I would probably raise, I would raise my voice. I would counter attack. I would do whatever I could to try and pull you out. And it's a nasty cycle that couples get into. That's where I think a lot of times conversations start to escalate and the person who's stonewalling is really trying to do everything they can, not to escalate the conversation. They're trying to keep it at this level that feels safe. So they're retreating inward, but the listener, the person on the other end of the conversation just continues to escalate, try to break that stonewall down. I've been known to stonewall from time to time. I hadn't noticed that in there. 12 years together. No, it's funny. We're both stonewallers. We've had often quiet rides, quiet conferences. Well, there's also the times we would have been in meetings where both of us will shut down and we'll even put on sunglasses. So because if we look at each other, we'll just start laughing because of the situation that we're in that we haven't, from working together for so long, have a sort of kinship of being able to icode each other where everyone else in the room doesn't, they can't see it, of course. So we can't look at each other. We'll just start laughing. Now obviously contempt, that one is a bad one. That one sounds really awful in terms of trying to relate together in a relationship and stay a couple. And how does contempt come up? Yeah. So contempt is what Dr. Gottman would refer to as sulfuric acid on the relationship. It's the most deadly of all four of these behaviors. And these are all four behaviors that what he says is are predictive of divorce. And that means that if these are showing up in your relationship and you're doing nothing to contain them and you just let them run rampant, of course, it's going to deteriorate and start to erode at the health of the relationship. But contempt is particularly difficult because it tends to show up later on in relationships, typically not seen early in relationships with pre-marital or puppy dog love. But over time you start to think that you're better than your partner and you use language and you you're putting your partner down in ways that raises you up and puts them down. Sarcasm, which is unfortunate because I love sarcasm, shows up a lot. But it's basically what you would consider emotional abuse, your name calling, you're calling your partner a loser. You are telling them that you're smarter than them, funnier than them. And it's not just blatantly calling them out and saying, I'm smarter than you. But it's all of those snide comments that come out on the side that may essentially portrays that you are scum and I'm better than you. I believe it was the contempt part where I first had run into Dr. Gottman's work which and I believe it was in Blink, it was in Malcolm Gladwell's book where they were talking about relationships and that contempt was the thing that they were being able to pick out that would lead to those relationships not being able to be repaired. And of course, when you get to that point, it's pretty difficult for the other partner to feel secure, happy, healthy in that relationship. Some of the first, the criticism and defensiveness that will happen, of course, as a relationship is blooming. But as we get into stonewalling and contempt, we're talking about exactly that sulfuric acid on that relationship. Yeah, what I think is pretty interesting is when you have a relationship and one partner is the recipient of contempt. So if you're incredibly contemptuous of your partner, the recipient of contempt, it actually erodes and wears down your immune system functioning. So it makes you more susceptible to communicable diseases. You're more likely to get sick. And if you think about it, there are some people that you know in this world that are in these nasty relationships where their partners are incredibly contemptuous of them and they're just not healthy. They call in sick a lot to work. They look worn down. And it makes perfect sense because we know that the health of the relationship determines the health of your life. So Dr. Altman has mentioned, if you're going to spend money on a gym membership, you might as well be spending money on a couple's therapist instead. That is brilliant. And it's something that we see this a lot when there'll be some older gentlemen who will come through our program and their body language, it will look as if they've been hit over the head with over the back of head with a shovel or they're just carrying the world on their shoulders because they've been so beat down. And it's when they see that through video work, it's it's quite a shock to them. And they're like, wow, no wonder everyone is greeting me and reacting to me in such a certain way when I'm projecting this without even saying anything. Yeah. Yeah. Now that we've identified these behaviors, let's work through actually overcoming these destructive patterns. And first off, how do we work around criticism? Because I feel like that one is is pretty easy for all of us to encounter. We recognize it from time to time. And sometimes it's coming from ourselves. And sometimes it's coming from our partner. How do we deal with that? Yeah. Yeah. So I think, I think first of all, with all of these patterns, the first step is simply taking the ownership. You have to be able to recognize when they're showing up for yourself and just taking a really honest picture and saying, look, we all do this even healthy, satisfying, happy relationships from time to time. We'll have some of these patterns present. But the difference between what Dr. Gottman calls a master of relationship and a disaster of relationship is that the masters actually notice when these are present and they try to bring in the antidote, which was what we're going to talk about. So the antidote to criticism, what I had mentioned is that you're taking a problem or a complaint and you're internalizing it to your partner and you're criticizing their characters. So the antidote is that you need to be able to complain in your relationship. If you have a like, a want, a dislike, if you have a complaint, you need to be able to provide some words to that so that your partner has the honor of being able to change that to make the relationship better. So if I'm uncomfortable with my husband throwing his clothes beside the bed every night, I need to be able to complain. So I'm going to complain gently. And that's really what it's all about is that you have to have a gentle startup in how you complain about something. It's okay to complain. It's not okay to blame. It's okay to complain. It's not okay to criticize. These are the differences between criticism, internalizing a character flaw. My husband's a slob to externalizing it. He takes his clothes off next to the bed and it drives me bonkers. So I need to be able to bring it up, bring it up gently. So I would use this formula and I think it's easy to understand, but it's, I feel so you're going to use a feeling statement. And the reason why that's so important is that you want the listener, your partner to hear that. And it's so much easier for them to hear you when you're using a feeling word. So I am feeling uneasy. I'm feeling like my world is in chaos when my surroundings are messy. And I would really love it if you could pick up your clothes and put them away in the hamper before you come to bed. So what I'm doing is I'm letting him know how it makes me feel. So I feel about, I'm going to describe the situation in as non-judgmental way as possible. Just say feeling uneasy and I don't even know what word this, this is obviously an example. I wouldn't, I don't normally get this crazy about clothes next to the bed, but I'm feeling uneasy about your clothes next to the bed. And I'd love it if you could put them away before you come to bed, something like that. Yeah. Identifying the external, right? It's the clothes. It's not the person. Exactly. That's such a huge distinction. And the other thing is, and this is a pet peeve of mine, using absolutes like always and never, right? That takes a complaint and turns it in to criticism because now you're not leaving any gray area at all. You're basically saying this behavior is constant and it's all you and your fault. Where of course there are going to be moments where you just come home late from work, you're already asleep. You don't want to wake up your partner and you just take off your clothes real quick. But that doesn't mean every single day the clothes are next to the bed. So we want to stay away from those absolutes because that one really sets people off and that can start developing that defensiveness that we're talking about. And defensiveness is another one we would love the antidote for. Yeah. So defensiveness is again, this perceived attack. Your partner is attacking you. And the antidote is trying to find some piece of responsibility. So if your partner's attacking you, sometimes you have to filter through the tone and ask yourself, what is their complaint? What are they complaining about? And if they're complaining about something, is it possible that maybe I have some ownership in this? Is it possible that maybe I do happen to leave my clothes next to the bed? So rather than counter attacking or getting defensive, you want to take some responsibility. I'm not asking for you to fall on your sword, but being able to defuse the situation and say, you know what, you're right. I do have a habit of taking my clothes off before I get into bed and leaving them on the floor. So that's all it takes is just find one small piece of the puzzle to take responsibility for. Yeah. And that defensiveness, right, is the I am right fallacy. When you are defensive, you're clinging to the fact that you're right. So imagine turning to your partner and saying, you know what, you're right. Like that is such an easier way to handle that situation, diffuse it instead of internalizing that you're right and fighting through it. If only, I mean, there's sort of like these, these dirty words of relationships, like the always and never, and then there's these words, these like crystal ball words, where if you were to just say you're right more often, I honestly think we would diffuse so much conflict because that's really what you want to hear more often is what you're saying right now makes sense to me. I hear what you're saying. Yes, that I hear you, you're right. So boy, put that in your back pocket, pull that one out more often. It often gives both Amy and I applause. In fact, sometimes we feign hearing loss to say, wait, can you repeat that for me? Who's right in this? So yes, I understand how much those are the magic words. And of course, when we think about these situations, it can be difficult at first, but we're talking about working on ourselves to improve our relationships, not only with our intimate partners, but with our coworkers. Imagine the conflicts we've had over the years. We're just someone saying, you know what, you're right, giving in instead of digging their heels in how we can avoid a lot of this needless conflict. Absolutely. Yeah. Now, of course, stonewalling, Johnny and I need the antidote for immediately like Amy was very excited for this podcast episode to be recorded. So what do you got for us to really help us through our stonewalling? Yeah, well, I think I would say right now, are either of you wearing a smart watch where it takes your pulse? Oh, yeah. Okay, perfect. So what are you at? That's probably the baseline is understanding what your resting heart rate is at. So where are you at, Johnny? Well, I had taken mine off, so it doesn't buzz me during this podcast. Okay, okay. I'm at 68. Okay, so you're at 68. So that's good to know that that's your resting heart rate. So what research indicates is that we do this thing that's called emotional flooding. When you are in conflict, you start to internally start to escalate. And essentially you go in a fight or flight mode, your heart rate starts to quicken. The moment your heart rate starts to quicken, your body starts to secrete all of those adrenaline and cortisol, the stress hormones, and you go into fight or flight. Fight or flight is not the place to be in when you want to have a really great business meeting with your partner, you want to, right? Or you want to help your partner solve a problem when they come home and they're angry at their boss, whatever it might be. So what we need to do is we need to recognize when we are in fight or flight. And the quickest and easiest way to do that is it's happening when your heart rate reaches up and over 100 beats per minute. And for those of us that wear smart watches, that's a really great way to tell us when we're up and over 100 beats per minute. Cause I guarantee that in the middle of a business meeting, the two of you are not going to be checking your pulse, counting it out for 10 seconds and saying, well, I'm at 102. It's time to take a break. So it's good to know with one of those, if you can't, we all have these body signs that we're going into fight or flight. I am a sweater. That's probably more of a personal problem. But I tend to sweat when I am in fight or flight. Other people, they'll feel like their face gets hot. A lot of people will pace. Do you know what your signs would be if you're starting to feel emotionally flooded? I definitely get hot. Yeah. Sweating for sure. Right? That's the phrase hot under the collars because of that executive. It's getting hot, sweaty, heart's racing. I don't know where I've gotten the term, but I've usually referenced it as emotional theater. And to take a step back, watch it play out. And if you know the cycle, you'll know when it's over. And it may be 20 minutes. It may be four hours. It may be a full day before you can go in and go, all right, I went through my whole show here and now I'm back to being able to have a conversation. Right. Yeah. It usually takes the rule of thumb is that it takes your body 20 minutes to come back and flesh out all of those hormones, those chemicals, but it's no less than 20 minutes, no more than 24 hours. And if you need to take a break, then you need to call it a break because otherwise you shut down. And that's where the two of you are stonewalling is you're internally starting to flood, but your partner sees you and wants to engage with you. And the moment you start to flood, you retreat because you're like, well, I'm checking out, I'm done. I can't have this conversation logically. So you start to retreat, you're ignoring your partner. Meanwhile, they're escalating. So the rule of thumb is that the antidote to flooding or the antidote to stonewalling is that you have to call a break. And it has to be a mutually agreed upon break that if you and your partner were in a conversation, you have to have a safe word to be able to say now is the time where I'm feeling flooded, right? Your safe word, like, okay, we all know what safe words are used for. But you know, the important piece of that is that if you do have a safe word, you don't go for five more minutes. You have to stop immediately because now it would be breaking trust. And that's the deal with calling a break is that you see section immediately. And the two of you need to go to two separate places. You can't be in the same room. And you need to do something that's truly physiologically and self soothing so that you can calm down and you can allow your body to rest. I like that 20 minutes. I can easily do that. Nice little break. Come back to it after all those emotions have waned and now you can dig into the real problem. And certainly when you're on the receiving end of stonewalling, it can be infuriating because you just want to get your message across and the other person is completely despondent. Just checked out. So taking that break, I love that. Now the fourth contempt. This one, we've really run the ground here. So how can we find an antidote for contempt in our relationships? Yeah. So that's really a tough one because at that point, you're really in kind of a negative sentiment. The way in which you view your relationship, the way that you view your partner, you have, it's all negative. And you have to do what you can to flip the switch in your brain and remind yourself what you love and appreciate about your partner. And so it really takes you to focus on and be really almost meditative about what you love and adore and cherish about your partner because they're not all bad. And you're not all bad, but we oftentimes have to change that switch by putting our rose colored glasses on and thinking of things that we're fond and admire about our partner. So it's really forcing yourself to change that thought process. Yeah. I mean, clearly at that point, a pattern has been built that you only reach for the negative. Now you're only seeing the negative. That's where all of your focus is. So we have to break that pattern with some positive. And sometimes it takes a lot of positive to break through and change those perception filters so that you're reoriented around reality. And of course, contempt doesn't just magically happen. This is something that's built up over time. So it's going to take time to unwind it so that you can get back to centered with your partner. And it's so funny, you know, obviously going through business relationships, personal relationships, friendships, and even now in my current relationship, understanding your own behaviors is just such a big part of this, right? Paying attention. I have on my Apple Watch, it tells me to breathe when my heart rate gets accelerated. So I know that I'm on the verge of stonewalling, but, you know, a lot of us are so focused on the other person and their behaviors and how their behaviors are impacting us. We often don't realize that we're triggering these behaviors with our own behaviors in turn. What do you think has developed these behaviors in us? Obviously, we're coming into relationships with these as our go-to weapon, so to speak. How do we build up these as our go-to weapon? They all seem so harmful. Yeah, they do. And I think it's interesting and part of it could certainly be modeling. If you are someone who was at a heightened state of crisis as a child that you were constantly being dumped with cortisol all throughout your childhood, you're probably going to trigger much quicker. So just as an example is maybe your partner loves to raise their voice when they get angry, but you grew up in a household where your parents not only raise their voice, but they also raise their hand. And so the moment that your partner stands up, raises their voice, boom, you get flushed with all of this cortisol, all of this adrenaline. You get triggered and now you're flooded and not only that, you're stonewalling. So it could happen like this, but I don't know if you've ever noticed this. It sometimes is dependent. It's like, I might be a defensive person now, but I wasn't in a previous relationship. It's a unique chemical that the two of you bring together. You create your own little microculture where, boy, you get really critical. So I get super defensive, but I was never defensive in my past relationship. In fact, I was really contemptuous in my past relationship. So I don't think it's a one-size-fits-all. I think that it's unique to the relationship and it can evolve over time. It's very interesting. I spent some time because obviously in a relationship, you're always bringing in your stories and your viewpoint and explaining things. And oftentimes, the way you were raised, you don't really learn about until a lot later as that relationship has developed. You tend to share the happier memories. You tend to share all the fun stories about your family, but some of these behaviors that we're patterning off of our parents and modeling, we're not explaining to our partner. We're not explaining to our business partner. We're not explaining to our friends, hey, the reason I'm getting hot under the collar is because this is exactly what my dad would do at the kitchen table. And we had an episode a couple months ago talking about our relationship with money. And the challenge that we asked our audience was to share their history and relationship with money with their significant other. And I found that to be really fascinating because I shared with Amy some of my story around money and the way I was raised and it allowed her to start to see my behaviors in a new light. So are there some exercises or some conversations that we could help facilitate in our current relationships to, before we even need the antidote, to start to explain, hey, these are some patterns that I've recognized in myself and it's not necessarily about you. And by the way, I'm working on these things. I want to improve them. So how can we foster that so that it's not necessarily reaching for the antidote, but allowing our partner to see us more fully? Yeah, well, I think the example that you gave is actually a really beautiful example because we all attribute a deeper meaning to money. So money is actually a really great example of how we can enter into a conversation and you think you're talking about money, but you're definitely not talking about money. You're talking about the meaning underneath money. So there's a lot of different ways of which we attribute meaning to money. For me, it was security growing up and I grew up in a very unknown, poor situation. I was a pastor's kid and a single child or a single parent child. And so whenever money comes up for me now, I have this desire to squirrel it away and not spend money on things. I even don't like to go to the doctor because there's a copay and can I afford it? Absolutely. But I have to let my partner know and my partner needs to understand what's underneath all of that. So if you're going to have a conversation and you're in a new relationship with your partner, I would say cease all desire to solve the problem at that moment. So let's not talk about money, but help me understand your point of view. So if you come into a conversation with your partner and you're curious and you're open and you're generous and empathetic and you're genuinely curious about, Hey, you know what? Gosh, AJ, I'm just really curious. Like, what's your history of money? Is it rooted in your childhood in some way? Why do you feel so strongly about this? And if I'm open and listening and you're sharing openly, I can develop more empathy for you so that when we're out spending money and you get triggered and I get pissed off, I can actually see through your lens a little bit better. I'm asking for more information. And we just don't do that in the height of conflict. Instead, we're so focused on sharing our point of view and trying to force that down our partner's throat. But I'm just saying in a moment where you're not in conflict, just have an open dialogue, go out on a date and say, let's talk about money. Like, what does it mean to you? Is it freedom? Is it security? Does it build you up in order to have money? And you can pick any number of topics. It doesn't have to be about money, but that's a really great one to start with. Yeah, we actually jumped from that to conflict resolution and the way that we encountered conflict in our families and in our households and how much that was imprinted on us. And it really was enlightening because to be honest, my background with my dad, stonewalling, there really wasn't a lot of emotional outbursts. So for me, when I see emotional outbursts, it makes me stonewall even more. But obviously, there are other people who come from different backgrounds where emotional outbursts are just how you get it all out on the table and then you move on. And that's just their norm in their family and the way they were raised. So I think obviously money is one of those conversations, conflict, thinking about our past, because as I said, we're oftentimes just sharing all those great memories of family trips and the fun stuff that happened. But unfortunately, some of these negative things have a big impact on the way we behave when we are stressed, when we're feeling judged, when we're feeling defensive. I know Johnny and I are very curious, how did your own relationship change through what you've learned with Dr. Gaman as well as the work that you do? Oh, that's a great question. I have always believed that when I met my husband, he came from an amazing family and a very emotionally intelligent family. And whenever we would get into, oh man, I have some stories, we met in college. And so I imagine me as like a 21 year old that is coming back from the bars and I'm tripping over my shoes and dumping my bag over. So this is the state that I met my husband in years ago. And I flooded very quickly. And I just remember he was so patient and so kind. And it was the evolution of me learning what I was doing and how I needed to take some responsibility for some of these behaviors, rework them because they're really well worn patterns. I have been working in this pattern of defensiveness and stonewalling since I was a little girl. And you never lose those neurons. You have to recreate new neurological connections doing something different. So I had to practice it over and over and over of how to sit with him and have a conversation without getting triggered without getting defensive using some of these antidotes. So needless to say, I mean, I just have the perfect relationship. Like I say that sarcastically, I say it sarcastically, but we really do have an amazing relationship. And there are times where he'll look at me and he said, he'll say like, are you, are you, are you therapizing me right now? Yes. Yes, I am. Well, I feel like Amy is taking notes on how to handle my pile of clothes next to the bed. So I'm excited to hear that conversation when I get home. Well, it just also goes to say how important self development is that you constantly looking for opportunities to better yourself. And then of course, when you're in a relationship to, to better each other for, as you were saying, you're on the relationships side, because that's supposed to be sanctimonious. I mean, that's supposed to be the thing that you are gathered around and it's supposed to hold sacred. Yeah, it's, it really is when you come to therapy, it's not 5050. I mean, both of you have to show up 100%. You have to be willing to clean out the crap in your closet, get rid of some of the stuff that's not serving you or your relationship and, and also doing it equally. You're both moving and progressing so that the relationship can get better over time, but it's 100% commitment on both sides. Now, of course, as we're talking about working on ourselves to improve our relationships, there are going to be times where it's not happening at the same speed. And we talked at the start about expectations and we oftentimes come in with these lofty expectations. How can we develop patience in our partner's development? Right? If we're, as Johnny was talking about, you know, some of our clients come through the program and afterwards they're like, Hey, I put in all this work. Now they're a little frustrated. They're not seeing their partner put in as much effort. And of course, I'm sure you encounter this in the couples you work with. What do you say to your couples who are a little impatient with their partner's development in these areas? Well, it is really tough. And I think that it just, you have to set the expectation that two people are going to move at different paces. And if you can continue to just turn your attention and your focus on yourself, you might be sort of like the turtle in the hair. You might start off like a hair and you're reading every personal development book out there. You went to a great men's retreat, you came back, you were lit up, you were so excited, started changing all of these things about yourself. And there's your partner, the turtle. And they're just slowly creeping along. But I would say it doesn't matter the pace that you're going as long as you're going in the same direction. And just being okay with having the two of you move at different paces and encourage your partner. We all need words of encouragement. We all need to say, how can I support you? What are you working on right now? What is your dream? How can I, how can I lift you up? How can I remove barriers so that you can get closer towards your goal? I love that. And I know it's something that I often struggle with myself. So I need to take a longer look at myself and my impatience in that regard. We love your podcast. Johnny and I had a chance to check it out, found it very informative. Where can our audience learn more about the work that you do with the Gatman Institute and listen to your fantastic show? Yeah, so my podcast is called Marriage Therapy Radio. And you can find it on wherever podcasts are listed. Even I love it that you can now say like, Hey, Alexa, play Marriage Therapy Radio, which is pretty cool. And then the Gatman Institute is great. If you are looking for a therapist in your area, somebody who is highly trained and vetted, there's about 350 certified Gatman therapists in the world. And many, many thousands more who have been trained in the method, you can go to Gatman.com. And they have a referral network for therapists in their area if you're looking for a couples therapist. Thank you so much, Laura. That's fantastic. And we want to give our audience a challenge for this week. We love giving our listeners a way that they can work on their own personal development each and every week. And I know we were talking earlier, you have a great sticky note challenge. I do. Yeah. So I love this one because a lot of people, well, I'll set it up here. So what I want every couple to do is for a week, go and grab a sticky note. And I want you to stick it next to your toothbrush. We're going to do something that's called habit stacking. You take an existing habit like brushing your teeth in the morning and you're going to stick your sticky note next to the toothbrush. And when you go to brush your teeth, I want for you to think about something that you love, adore, appreciate about your partner in the last 24 hours. And you're going to write it on the sticky note. Put the sticky note then on their side of the bathroom mirror. So when your partner goes to wake up, put makeup on, brush their teeth, shave, whatever it might be. They get to see these words of affirmation essentially, but the power of this habit is not in giving your partner words of affirmation. The power of this habit is scanning your own environment and taking personal responsibility about shifting the lens that you see your relationship through. So by actually thinking, boy, what can I love and adore and appreciate and have gratitude for? You're going to begin searching for those things more often. So do the habit stacking ritual of sticky note appreciations once a day for at least a week? And if you want to continue, go for it. Oh, I love that. And we talk about habit stacking all the time. So taking something as simple as your toothbrush, which hopefully everyone is practicing proper dental hygiene every morning and allowing not only your partner to see that little affirmation, but for you to start to rewire your brain to focus on these positives and not dwell on the negatives. Love it so much. I know Johnny and I taking notes on our antidotes here, our morning meetings on Monday are going to go a lot smoother. So we're excited to get this stuff into practice. Now, as always, if you could do us a huge favor here at the Art of Charm, if you could head on over to iTunes and rate this podcast, it really would mean the world to us. And we love sharing other great podcasts. So be sure to check out Laura and Zach's Marriage Therapy Radio, take a listen to it and give them a review as well. Thank you so much, Laura Heck from the Gottman Institute, Therapist and Marriage Guru. It's been a lot of fun for me and Johnny and very informative on our, not only our relationships with our partners, but our relationships in our business. Thanks guys. Thank you.