Julie Menanno: Fix Your Relationship: How Communication Heals Everything | DSH #1514

If we could start communicating in a way where we're feeling more heard and seen and understood, and just instead of just calling

a whatever, you know, radical feminist or red pillar or whatever, I think it would help, you know, kind of balance some of that out.

I mean, what I found with working with couples extensively is when I can get the communication cleaned up, many of the symptoms just start to really resolve on their own.

All right, guys, we got Julie here today, podcaster, author, and uh, marriage and family therapist.

Thanks for joining us.

Oh, you're so welcome.

Yeah, this is some needed stuff these days, right?

It definitely, for sure.

Have you been in this space for a while?

I have, yes.

How long?

Um, I started working with couples in 2012.

Wow, yeah, so what, 12, 13 years?

Yeah, yeah, seeing the same stuff you saw back then, or anything changed?

Uh, you know, I always am looking kind of under the surface at the emotional stuff going on, which is very, very consistent.

So not really.

I see different ways that it manifests and different topics.

But I don't, you know, we're really, when I'm working with a couple, I'm working with kind of the same couple over and over

because what's going on under the surface emotionally and attach from an attachment perspective is just so human and universal.

So you get to the root cause and a term my generation uses is gaslighting, which I'm sure you've heard, right?

We just disregard people's emotions.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

I've been guilty of that.

And I don't even mean to do it sometimes.

Right.

I just, sometimes I'm too logical and I just disregard the emotion.

So I get labeled as a gaslighter, but hey, that's terrible.

I'm sorry that someone calls you a gaslighter because that's disregarding your emotions.

True.

Yeah.

I don't mean to like do that.

You know what I mean?

That's not my intention.

Yeah.

But I guess gaslighting has a very like

deliberateness to it to me.

Yeah.

Yeah.

To me, it's the intention is there.

That's what I think too.

Yeah.

That's where I separate.

Maybe they should invent a new word for they should.

They should.

Gaslighting is just kind of a real narcissistic thing to do, but missing someone's emotions is just, you know, a lot of us are doing that all the time.

Well, yeah, I don't want to like,

like, I have autism.

I don't want to put all the blame on that, but like, I just don't pick up on social like cues.

And sometimes people take that the wrong way.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm so sorry.

Yeah.

I didn't find out.

Well, I kind of figured I had it.

A lot of people have it these days, but yeah, I did a brain scan like a year or two ago.

Interesting.

Okay.

Yeah.

Okay.

So, so we can pick that up on brain scans now.

These days, yeah.

Okay.

What are they finding?

Like what area of the brain?

Just certain parts.

I don't know the exact area, but certain parts aren't activated.

Okay.

Like the mirror neurons and something like that.

Yeah.

Shout out to Dr.

Daniel Amon.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

I follow him on Instagram.

He's great.

Oh, yeah.

Yep.

Yeah.

But that was important for me to at least know, I think.

Oh, for sure.

Helped my friendships a lot and explaining to my friends that, hey, I'm not actually a dick.

I'm just not picking up on the social cue right now.

You know?

Yes, totally.

Yeah.

I think any kind of self-knowledge like that, you know, as long as people aren't using it to kind of pathologize themselves, but I think it's great.

That's why I do what I do with attachment theory is help people have these labels, not to kind of box them in, but to help them better understand themselves.

you know, what kind of work on themselves could be really useful.

Right.

So attachment theory, can you explain what that is for people that don't know?

Sure.

Attachment theory is basically a theory that says for two people to feel safe with each other and close with each other, we have to have these attachment needs be met.

And the more emotional expectation from the relationship, the more attachment needs are there, right?

So for you and I right now, I mean, we're...

we're assessing each other's safety, you know, not with words and not consciously, but we're feeling, we're, you know, our brains are going, is this person safe?

Is this person open to what I have to say?

Is this person, you know, closed down?

And if we really get more words to that operationally, it's, am I being understood?

Am I being heard?

Am I being responded to?

Am I being validated, right?

For example, if I were to say to you, well, I think autism is an overused word right now.

I mean, that's going to be hard for you because this label means a lot to you.

It has helped you in life to feel more secure and be able to communicate yourself and build safety with other people because you have a new way to make sense of behavior that maybe was sometimes pushing people away.

Right.

So it's a way to draw people closer.

So we're talking just that little blurb is you talking about your emotional needs.

And

so yeah, that's kind of, I'm kind of getting off track here.

But when two people do not feel heard, do not feel understood, do not feel validated, you're going to have a breakdown in communication.

We're going to go into kind of defensive positions.

And this happens at work.

It happens in any kind of interactions, right?

You know, political interactions.

I mean, you can kind of like apply the concept to these two polar opposites of the political spectrum.

Everybody has their ideas, but nobody's really truly.

kind of listening to each other.

And a lot of people aren't understanding the emotional roots of their ideas to begin with, which is very useful when you have an opinion, right?

And then you now plug all of this into relationships where we have exponentially more need for emotional safety and connection, right?

And now people aren't growing up in homes where they're learning how to do this.

And then it just creates, you know, all sorts of

problems.

And once you start eroding emotional safety and closeness between a couple, it doesn't doesn't matter what they're arguing about.

It's not going to, it's their, that emotional problem is going to find the weak spots in the relationship to start manifesting.

Wow.

Yeah.

And then people start saying, well, we're just incompatible or, you know, we just fight too much.

And really, there's a way around all of that.

And that is just to kind of get dig in there and get to the root of the problem and help them start building actual.

safety and closeness feel their communication.

I love that because a lot of people don't get to the root of the problem.

They don't.

And they don't know what it is.

And they want to, you know, most people want to badly, but they just don't, they don't have a way to make sense of it.

And that's what I do is I really start to help people make sense of the root because once you can make sense of it, it becomes so much easier to treat it.

And that's what I love about attachment theory is it, you know, I think it's the closest science has come to really helping us

understand what makes relationships struggle and what makes them thrive.

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Yeah.

And this is parent, child, and then romantic partners that you're going to use this theory for.

How often is the root from stemming from childhood experiences?

Almost always.

Yeah.

I mean, what happens is people kind of go into those relationships with poor relationships with themselves because our relationship with ourself is a template.

I mean, I'm sorry, our relationship with our earliest caregivers, you know, throughout life is going to create this template of our relationship with ourselves, which what does that even mean operationally?

I can explain that later.

And then we're going to take that stuff into a relationship with the partner.

They're going to bring their stuff in and now we're going to create problems between the two of us.

So my job is to go in and stabilize the problem between the two of them and the personal stuff.

that is contributing to the problem between the two of them.

And I've yet to meet a couple where both partners weren't bringing their own stuff to the table.

Yeah, I feel like that's just natural human nature, right?

Yeah, we

interact with other people emotionally very similarly to the way we interact with ourselves emotionally.

Are you seeing a lot of guys kind of more closed off when they're speaking with you?

You know,

the problem with my perspective on that is I see the ones who are showing up to therapy.

But no, I don't see a lot of that.

I actually see guys who are actually very open to this work and willing to do it and willing to open up.

I also am trained to open them up.

So that helps.

But I think, you know, in the past, probably there's some truth to the fact that men had

a lot less emotional awareness, let's say 10 years ago, or awareness that emotional awareness exists, you know, kind of a thing.

So I think there's been a lot of dialogue that's been helpful.

But for the most part, I think what I see a lot of is women, oops, sorry about that.

Men are aware they're emotionally unavailable.

Women think they're emotionally available when they're actually not emotionally available.

They're emotionally expressive, but there's a very big difference between emotional expression and emotional availability.

So I do see a lot of that.

Yeah.

What's the difference?

The difference is

people can, you know, have all sorts of emotional affect and say things with passion and say, you know, I'm sad or I'm.

angry or whatever and kind of like talk about their feelings, but a lot of people have a hard time talking from their vulnerable feelings.

So they're not really, they're able to know, I'm angry and I'm sad because, you know, you didn't call me back, but they're not really able to tap in and go, hmm, what about, what, what did that mean that I didn't call back?

What are the fears around not getting called back?

What happened in my life prior to this moment of not getting called back that's making this not getting called back such a big trigger?

Or what unmet needs am I experiencing in the relationship that is leading to me to be so sensitive to not getting called back, right?

And then around that, there's a lot of emotions that aren't being talked about.

And they're not able to really get those hurt emotions healed because they're not able to put words to that and say to their partner, hey, you know, here's what's going on with me, right?

You know, when I don't get called back, it takes me to this.

bad place and I feel kind of ignored and I've felt that before and sometimes I feel like that in our relationship and I can I let it go let it go but then bam when you don't call me back.

And that person is now drawing their partner in more than just kind of going off and saying, you never call me back.

You don't care about me and crying.

That's emotional expression.

It's not so vulnerable, though.

That definitely happened to me.

I was a big people pleaser growing up.

Definitely abandonment issues too.

Okay.

Divorced household and not feeling like I was enough.

Yep.

Yep.

Yeah.

So I went through that for sure.

Yeah.

So then you start kind of having those wounds that are getting acted out.

Yeah.

Because when conflict would arise, I would shut down.

Yeah.

And that definitely bud over into my relationship, that friendship.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Very, a lot of screaming in my household growing up.

Okay.

So you dealt with that anxiety by just kind of turning it off.

Yeah.

Right.

And what

helped you kind of get more in touch with that deeper stuff so you were able to start communicating in new ways?

Just slowly opening up over time, I think.

You know, at first I wouldn't tell anyone my issues and that that can bottle up.

You know, I saw it with my dad, like

he had a lot of trauma.

He never got it out.

So, yeah, I think just slowly doing that and getting my mental and physical health better.

Beautiful.

So a combination of things.

Yeah.

Did someone teach you how to kind of access that stuff inside of you?

Yeah, breath work was

that helped for sure.

Tried medication that didn't work.

So I wouldn't really, I don't know about that.

Yeah, that'll kind of blunt it, but not really treat it I'm not the biggest fan of that like I said I like the root cause getting down to that so I've tried like hypnosis therapy I've tried like just being in nature tried a bunch of different stuff talk therapy psychedelic therapy okay well good for you that you were able to figure that out

i'm still figuring it out like it's not fully healed if i'm being honest but yeah i mean i think that yeah i mean i think probably you'll see that you just keep healing over time yeah i feel like that ball rolling and it's always a like people think it just ends i think self-development's like your whole life.

I do too.

I don't think it ends.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think it starts to get more comfortable.

Right.

For sure.

Yeah.

Now I'm at the spot now where if I feel anxiety creeping in, I have some procedures where I'll prevent an attack from occurring.

Totally.

But before I couldn't control it, just have a panic attack.

Yeah, I would just come find you.

Yeah.

Do you ever deal with that too?

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

No, for sure.

I mean, I, I grew up with a lot of anxiety and just over time learned, you know, all sorts of strategies.

And I definitely don't deal with that as much as I don't deal with it a lot at all to be honest with you but when I do you know I kind of know I have like a large bag of tools because of just picking stuff up over the years so and I feel like back then you people didn't talk about the like mental health as much no I had no words for it I remember saying to my mom once like I just feel nervous all the time and she was like I was like what

I don't know what that means you know so yeah people didn't for sure I wonder if it was as common back then but people just didn't know what it was.

Yeah, I think it was.

Do you think so?

I do.

Yeah.

I think maybe we could go back further and find a time in history where people weren't maybe so anxious.

I'm not sure about that, but I think, you know, it's really, it did start to get, I think, a lot worse with more modern modernization seems to create a lot of, I think, anxiety in people.

The stats on it now are mind-blowing.

It's unbelievable.

What is it now?

Like one out of three people have anxiety?

I don't, I would say three out of three.

I mean, honestly, like one out of three to me seems conservative.

Wow.

It's that bad.

I look around people in my life, you know, for sure.

I mean, I, I, you know, I always have this perspect, this view of the people I treat and the view of the people in my real life.

And I feel like everybody's struggling with it.

Yeah.

That is crazy.

Yeah.

But it's, it's really hard economically to raise a family right now.

So I think that's part of it.

For sure.

Before only one parent had to work, could buy a house, easily work the same job you're holding.

holding.

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Thank you.

Now it's like

and then you have to live up to the you know the image expectations on top of just trying

on top of just trying to make a living.

You know, so you have to now have the right car and the right clothes and the right vacations.

Comparing.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I've been down that road.

Yeah, me too.

And I'm glad I'm not anymore.

I still kind of do it with podcasting.

I'm always competitive, but yeah, I'm very aware of it that it can get dangerous real quick.

It's hard because your livelihood depends on it.

You know, it's not like it's difficult.

I mean, it's like if you're at the top, then,

you know, you almost have to like

do, work harder to maintain that.

100%.

Yeah.

It's harder maintaining than getting there.

I think I agree with you.

Way harder because now you got a target on your back.

You got people constantly.

Yes.

Yep.

You can, anything can come along and your life is now built around that.

And yeah, you have more to lose.

Absolutely.

I did want to touch on the red pill stuff because I just had on a feminist.

I've also had on people in the red pill.

Have you studied that sort of ideology?

I do understand now that it's kind of like the battle between feminism and anti-feminism.

You know, I don't.

professionally know, but personally, yes, this is something that I have, you know, very familiar with and

interested in.

I find it fascinating.

A lot of this, I see the comments.

People think it stems from trauma where like a girl would screw that guy over or cheat on them.

And then now they're all about male empowerment.

I could see that argument.

I could too.

I think there might be plenty of people that didn't have that experience that are going over there too.

Yeah, there definitely is.

Yeah.

There's both.

Yeah.

I think it, to me, there, I always look kind of in the broader system view, you know, systemically.

I think it's, it's, it's this whole, I don't know what you want to call it, maybe politics and this whole masculine, feminine energy thing that's just like desperately trying to balance itself.

And the more out of balance it gets, the more you're going to see people kind of going on to these more extreme edges.

Yeah.

A lot of division, right?

Yeah, I think so.

And then that kind of circles back to, to me,

a lot of it is, I think, a communication issue, you know, between the different sides.

I mean, everybody's sort of talking about their ideas and opinions about it,

but we're missing the piece of people really kind of diving into themselves and understanding more about like, why do I see it this way?

What are my fears around this?

You know, why, why is this so important to me?

Outside of just kind of the surface level stuff.

And then nobody's, when people are having a hard time kind of speaking from that place or at least adding it in.

You know, I don't want people to change necessarily their beliefs or values, but if we could start communicating in a way where we're feeling more heard and seen and understood, and just instead of just calling, you know, being called a whatever, you know,

radical feminist or red pillar or whatever, I think it would help, you know, kind of balance some of that out.

I mean, what I found with working with couples extensively is when I can get the communication cleaned up, some of the symptoms just start, many of the symptoms just start to really resolve on their own.

It saved my marriage.

Oh, beautiful.

Fixing our communication.

Yep.

And I'm glad we did that because we have different love languages.

So like mine is action,

acts of service.

Okay.

But that's not hers.

Like when I would do things for her,

that to me showed I love her, but she is words of affirmation.

I was going to say, is she words of affirmation?

So that was my worst thing, like I mentioned earlier,

words, opening up communication.

So I had to develop that skill and tell her stuff every day.

Well, I love that you were able to do that.

Yeah.

And she was able to join you in that too.

That was a good test.

What's that test called?

A love language test or something?

Yeah, that's a good one.

Yeah.

I know there's a bunch of tests, but that one really learned a lot about that one.

Yeah.

Okay.

Beautiful.

Do you recommend any other tests?

I mean, I think it's always really useful to know your attachment style.

Yeah, we took that one too.

Okay.

Yeah.

I think I would say attachment style is maybe like a step deeper than the love languages,

but very useful because the love languages, you know, if you can start shifting

just that part and start showing up for people, you know, start showing up for your partner in the way that,

but underneath the surface, it's still emotion about emotional safety, right?

It's just that she gets to emotional safety in a different way that you do.

And so with some couples, the love languages just aren't going to be enough.

We have, we still have some more stuff to clean up underneath, you know, the surface to get them to understand, because a lot of people have blocks to doing their partner's love language, right?

They're like, I don't, I'm not going to give her words of affirmation.

She doesn't appreciate me.

She tell, I'm just constantly, and this doesn't have to be conscious, but I'm just constantly getting messages.

I'm failing.

I'm just constantly not feeling appreciated.

And that's going to be really hard for that person to all of a sudden go, oh, well, now I'm going to meet her where she's at, you know?

That happened to me.

Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think I had a block.

Yeah.

I didn't tell, my parents and I never told each other we loved each other.

Like, so saying, I love you.

It was hard.

Oh, my God.

Oh, is that so?

I remember on the phone with my mom.

I think the first time I told her was a few years ago.

It was hard.

What did she say?

I'm so curious.

She said it back.

She did.

And then I was like, okay, let me say it again on the next call.

And then it slowly got.

Now we say it every call.

It's like clockwork.

Okay.

That's so brave of you to be able to do that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The first time

I was in my car.

Oh my God.

Yeah.

I know.

It's like you hear, you hear these stories about, you know, Olivia loves a challenge.

It's why she lifts heavy weights

and likes complicated recipes.

But for booking her trip to Paris, Olivia chose the easy way with Expedia.

She bundled her flight with a hotel to save more.

Of course, she still climbed all 674 steps to the top of the Eiffel Tower.

You were made to take the easy route.

We were made to easily package your trip.

Expedia, made to travel.

Flight-inclusive packages are at all protected.

I was never told I love you.

And it's just, you know, there's so much to that.

It's like it takes that level of rising above that discomfort to be able to do it.

Yeah.

It's not like just people randomly withholding, you know?

Yeah, I guess with my parents in regards to them, it just wasn't their love language.

And they just showed it through action.

Yeah.

Like, of course, they love me.

But

yeah, even when my dad, when I moved, he gave me a hug.

And we both just started crying.

Oh, my gosh.

He's never done that before.

Wow.

And it was like, that's amazing.

Probably one of the most cherishing memories I have of him.

Wow.

That's beautiful.

Yeah.

So now I'm, I'm glad I'm learning all this stuff before I have kids, though, because

you got to change the way you're a rock star for doing that.

Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, you know, growing up in a divorced household, it's pretty tough.

It is.

Yeah.

It is.

If you don't learn to, you know, speak emotional safety, kids need it more than anyone.

Yeah.

It definitely like affected all my friendships, all my relationships, and

trying to fit in with friend groups and everything, you know?

Yeah, that's hard.

Yeah, not having that male father for you.

Oh, my gosh.

Did you grow up just with your mom then?

I saw him on like weekends.

Okay.

But it wasn't like an active role in my upbringing.

So

I was also too scared to open up to him about the problems I was dealing with.

So we never really.

touched on emotional stuff.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I feel like this is a therapy session.

I always, yeah, that's that's just you got that energy too.

I know, I know.

I can't not.

Sorry.

No, you're great.

I can see why you do this for a living, though.

Yeah.

I'm just, I have such a genuine curiosity for people and, you know, want to dive into that.

So, yeah.

So, do you think everyone is fixable?

Like, I'm sure you've seen some crazy stuff.

I think anyone who wants to be fixed is fixable.

Yeah.

Fixable.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And if someone doesn't want to be fixed, I'm going to give them a compelling reason to want to.

I love that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think it's a lot on yourself if you're ready to move.

It does.

Yeah.

It does.

You could tell them whatever, but if they don't actually do it.

Well, I can get people pretty quickly into their feelings, you know, in the session and do a lot of really good work in the session.

But whether or not they're able to kind of start showing up, like you, you did it with your mom, right?

You did it by

feeling that anxiety and not letting it win, right?

You felt that fear and anxiety, but you knew, hey, there's something, there's something good that might come out of being able to say, I love you to my mom.

Yeah.

And you were willing to face that vulnerability and go ahead and do it.

Some people just aren't.

They're not ready yet to do things new.

Yeah.

I think unfortunately it takes a big moment to get there sometimes.

Like for me, it was my father's death.

I was like, okay, let me really spend time with my mother.

Like you never know.

when their time is going to be over.

Let me cherish this.

And now she's the biggest fan of the show and she watches every episode.

And we talk every day now, which is crazy.

Cause in college, I called her like twice.

Okay.

You know, I was like, I'm getting out of here.

We used to butt heads a lot growing up.

Being an only child is tough for a parent.

I, I had a similar, I've had a similar experience with my son, you know, because I have six children and he was the oldest.

Yeah.

And I did not know how to create emotional safety.

And so he was kind of on the losing end of that, right?

Because he

not only didn't get a lot of that,

but then all, you know, the other kids started being born.

I had them all in 10 years.

So

it was pretty close together.

And so then I started just getting so much better at it.

Now I'm just, you know, so good at it.

And now we're so close.

I mean, he calls me every single day.

You know, yeah, it's beautiful.

So.

For anybody out there who's a parent that worries, oh my gosh, I wasn't getting it right.

Like there's so much hope and time, you know, there's so much hope that no matter how old your child is, you can

build those bridges and your partner too.

Absolutely.

What do you look for when it comes to finding healthy relationships?

I'm sure you get a lot of people coming to you for dating advice, right?

Absolutely.

I think someone who is, you know, willing to just be curious about you, willing to

kind of validate you emotionally and someone who when you're, when you're interacting, I mean, I always like to say a relationship is not just this big global thing, right?

It's a series of interactions and very simple interactions, right?

And we need for each of those interactions to be maximally positive.

And if we can figure out a way to have more of the, many, many more of the interactions, like let's say 10 to 1 or 20 to 1, be positive instead of negative.

then you're going to be fine, right?

And so what happens is, is people, they're having these negative interactions, but they don't know it because they haven't, you know, they just, they just have a disconnect between their body and what they want.

And they have a list and the person fits the list and they don't know how to assess for kind of like a felt sense of connection and safety.

And so they're having these negative interactions, but they don't know it.

So they just keep going forward.

And so what I want to help people do is like really learn what a positive interaction feels like and then start, you know, assessing for that.

Hey, at the date, the first date, right?

Did, yes, this person looks great on paper.

You know, we want the same things out of life.

I feel physically attracted to them, which is very important.

All of those things are very important.

But are they saying, did I feel really heard?

Did I feel really seen?

Did I feel really understood?

Did they let me see them?

Did they give me something to understand in them?

Right.

And I think people, because they didn't grow up in homes where they had words, you know, it's like we know what our favorite food is.

We can put words to it.

We can describe it.

We can,

we learn to talk about food from the time we're, you know,

our first words.

And we're not learning that about emotional health.

And so I just, I really want to give people like operationally something to assess for.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We're never taught about emotional health.

Never.

Never.

It's like frowned upon it ever.

No, it is.

Yeah.

Talk about that stuff.

It is.

And it's not like you have to live in it.

You know, it's not like you have to live in these heavy, deep.

emotional conversations.

I mean, just, you know, having the felt sense of being understood is getting that need met, whether you're putting words to that, you know, piece of it or like very explicitly or not.

But at least you know, you can put words to it explicitly if you need to.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I like what you said about the checklist earlier, too, because I see that in my generation, like with the online dating era, it's like they got to be this height, this amount of money.

They got to look this way.

It's no wonder, you know, people.

are having a hard time because there's so many beautiful qualities about a person that cannot be on the that, you know, you could really love that they don't fit into that list.

And there's so many people that can fit everything on the list that really aren't going to be good partners.

Yeah, 100%.

I just saw this crazy video the other day.

70% of people that are in relationships, getting into relationships right now, meet through online dating apps.

And like 25 years ago, that number was zero.

Oh, I'm sure.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

The dating scene's evolving so fast.

It's going towards digital.

And you don't get, you know,

there's so much missing from looking at someone on a screen.

There's just so much missing that, you know, meeting.

And I don't know what the answer is because the way we live is so different, but it's like, you know, let's just say going to a bar 25 years ago.

Like you have five minutes to feel the person out.

Like you, you know, you have a felt sense of them

in real life that you can't simply that five minutes cannot be duplicated on a screen.

And now you have all these people coming at you.

Like, how do you even decide who you're going to give that five minutes to?

Yeah, woman got hundreds of matches.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Exactly.

And guys are the opposite.

They're swiping away.

Yep.

Interesting.

Yeah.

So

really stunted things, I think.

But again, I don't know.

I do.

And I would like to think that people will adapt to it and figure out a way to navigate, you know, somehow it'll, it'll start to even itself out.

I hope so.

I don't know if people will start like that will push people into maybe wanting more in-person communities and people will start to build that up as a way to offset the trend, you know, balance it out.

I think it'll change because it's gone from like hookup apps and hookup culture to more like personalized dating now.

Like there's better apps, I think.

Good.

Like hinge and stuff.

Good to know.

But before it's just like hooking up.

Yeah.

Like that was, yeah.

I also think there's something to be said for things happening organically, you know, instead of like, we're going in this to date.

You know, we're, we're assessing each other for a romantic partnership instead of just kind of letting, you know, the classmate at your university involve in the conversation or whatever.

Oh, it used to be, right?

Yeah.

Referral of a friend or something.

Yes.

Yeah.

Those were the days.

Yeah.

And I mean, as I say that, it's like, I don't, I don't mean to be judgmental of people.

What else are you going to do?

You know, we kind of, if all the other people around you aren't doing that too, you know, you're kind of stuck.

It's kind of forced at this point.

Exactly.

What are you going to do?

Yeah.

You have a book on this stuff, right?

Secure Love.

Secure Love.

Yeah.

When did you write that?

started writing it five years ago.

It took me about four years and it was released January of 24.

So yeah, it's been going for a year and a half.

I was impressed with to dedicate that much time to it.

It did.

I, you know, I, I literally went into it thinking I could write the book in a month.

Like I would have never,

never signed up for that.

No ghostwriter?

No, no, no.

Hots off to you because you put in the work.

I did.

I did.

What?

Go ahead.

I was going to say, I haven't written a book yet, but that route is appealing to me, as long as you still have a lot of creative control.

I did.

Yeah.

My publishers were great.

They gave me a lot of control.

So, yeah.

And they gave me a lot of bounds, which I needed.

I mean, the first manuscript was 130,000 words.

Yeah.

And they wanted me to get down into 70, and that was hard, but we did it.

So

it's 70,000 words.

Yeah, maybe a little bit more.

How many pages is that?

I don't even know.

Oh, my God.

Maybe 300.

I don't know.

Yeah, it's pretty dense.

I mean, I don't know.

Like some, it's funny, you read the reviews and some people are like, it's just so simple and easy to understand.

And then some people are like, well, actually, most people love it.

I mean, it's got great reviews, but some people are like, it was too complicated.

I'm like, how do you go?

How are you so far apart from each other?

So.

Well, that's just life.

A lot of stuff is relative and subjective to people, right?

Yeah.

They could be looking at the same exact thing and describe two different things.

Totally.

It's all based off your past.

Like we started with.

I think so.

Your lens.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Your lens.

Some people have that victim lens, and then some people see a challenge and they're like, I love it.

Yep.

You know, yeah, absolutely.

I'm glad I experienced both because I could see which one I like more.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The victim one is not a fun one.

It's hard.

No.

It's not a fun one.

I don't like that.

Yeah.

I have to help people get really get out of that.

There's no growth.

It's just stuck.

It's just stuckness.

And then it turns into blame, right?

The victim little is in the blame role.

Yeah.

And it's like, it was never my fault yeah yeah i i mean honestly even people that come to me that they know they're like yeah i know i have a fault in this like they still don't believe they have a fault deep down in there you know just saying it to say it no they really they they really like intellectually know they have a fault but emotionally it's not part

it's the two aren't connected You almost have to get them emotionally engaged

and help them understand how they're dealing with their emotions in a way that is impacting their relationship and themselves very negatively.

And then they start to open up to their fault, you know, really, truly, without it just being kind of this like intellectual understanding.

I could see that accountability for me is one of the most important traits.

It's so important.

In a friend, in a relationship, in business.

If you don't have that, I just can't do it.

No, because you're always going to have, you know, relationship ruptures.

I always say rupture and repair.

That's what relationships are.

You know, we, we do, if two close people will have ruptures and you got to be able to repair those ruptures and if you can't take accountability for your part in the rupture and see your partner's accountability because some people take too much accountability,

you won't, you know, the ruptures will just start to destroy the relationship.

So you think those are inevitable in a relationship?

Absolutely.

Yeah, absolutely.

Interesting.

Yeah.

I call them negative cycles where, you know, people aren't feeling they're they're interacting right and they're not feeling heard seen understood validated connected with appreciated all these attachment needs.

And they don't, they don't know how to deal with the pain of those needs being unmet.

And they're not even aware of the pain.

They just know they're getting escalated in the argument.

And then they start behaving in ways that just keep unmeeting each other's attachment needs.

And then everything just falls apart.

It's like we have this, you know, the anxious attached partner who's typically going to be the one bringing up the problems because their anxiety is driving them to close the distance in the relationship.

And then we have the avoidant attached partner who their way of keeping things good is don't rock the boat, keep things stable, don't make things worse than they already are.

Yeah, that was me.

Yeah, exactly.

And so then

we have the anxious partner coming in hot with, you know, you do this, you never do that, you always, you never, because they have good reasons to be doing that.

They're upset, their needs aren't being met.

And then the avoidant partner is over here going, whoa, I don't know how to respond to that.

It's better just to kind of shut it all down and either get defensive and try to get them to see they're wrong or change the subject or

just shut down completely and don't talk about it.

Well, then that leaves the anxious partner feeling unseen and invalidated.

And then they get bigger.

And then the avoidant partner now feels unseen and invalidated and whatever else.

And then they, you know, go

into their position more rigidly.

And then we have these cycles.

And it's like, once a couple can actually see this cycle and map it out and recognize, oh my God, no matter what we're talking about when we fight, we're going, we're having the same pattern.

Right.

So.

Yeah.

The, what's the approach with people that get defensive easily and they, they get mad or

emotional, I guess.

Well, first we need to understand why.

Why are you needing to get defensive, right?

What, what, what unmet need are you experiencing in this moment?

And what emotional pain is around that unmet need that your body is kind of just

really, without even thinking about it, going into defending?

Right.

So I want to help you just, I don't want to say like, don't be defensive.

That's not going to get you anybody anywhere.

It's like, we need to understand what you're needing to not have to be defensive.

Right.

And then once we figure out what they're needing, they're able to kind of express that more clearly.

And then, you know, we also need to recognize why the other person might be showing up in a way that is eliciting that defense, right?

What are they doing?

What's their role here?

How are they, how is this a, you know, a co-creation?

And, you know, that defensive person, first of all, usually people get defensive when someone's bringing up a concern to them, right?

Yep.

And so I need to clean up how that concern is being delivered by the other party.

And what I'll see is sometimes even when that person is delivering that concern in the healthiest way possible, that doesn't always stop the defensiveness.

Sometimes we get defensive because of our own stuff, not necessarily.

And so I ultimately need to get that person to a point where they can kind of put all those bad feelings on the side and just dive in and lean into their partner, what their partner is saying to them.

Be like, okay, I'm not going to, I know what's going on with me now.

I'm getting some emotional awareness around this.

I'm not going to let that hijack what my partner has to bring to me.

I'm going to open up to them and I'm going to lean into that.

Hopefully they're delivering their stuff in the healthiest way possible.

And then later, hours later, once we've kind of, because that person has the floor if they're bringing up the concern, right?

Hours later, then maybe we'll go into my stuff.

Everybody's stuff matters, but couples get really stuck with bad timing.

Yeah.

Just going back and forth.

Everybody's, it's like a ping pong need, need battle, you know?

Yeah.

So taking that little break sometimes.

Yes.

And just like really helping couples lean into each other.

Yeah.

Cause once your emotions cool off, off, you can think more logically, right?

Yeah, exactly.

And I want, I want people to

think more logically, balanced out with emotional awareness.

You know, it's not about leaning too heavily into either.

Right.

We need to be, people to kind of be whole and be able to do both.

And sometimes we do need to turn our emotions off.

You know, sometimes we do need to just like go logic and whatever the moment's calling for.

And then sometimes we need to, you know, turn the logic off and just be, whoop, just be vulnerable.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Emotions are fascinating to me because some people say to listen to them.

Some people say they're like triggers.

They're warning signs.

There's a lot of different takes on it, but I know not to ignore them because I used to ignore them isn't a good thing.

Yeah, I used to do that.

So I don't do that anymore.

You want to not let them overwhelm you, but you want to pay attention to them for sure.

That's how I view them too.

Because some people, they let them control them.

Absolutely.

I see it with anger.

specifically.

When I'm playing basketball and, you know, guys talking and they get in a fight, they can't can't control their emotions.

Yep.

And,

you know, it's equally problematic for someone who they're also letting their emotions control them when they're shutting them down

because they're cutting off parts of themselves.

They're going to have a hard time connecting with others and they're going to have a hard time showing up for others emotionally.

It just, you're not seeing it as this big explosion of anger.

Wow.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I didn't even think about it that way, but that makes sense.

Yeah.

I think that's the, that's the root of the problem truly is that people are being controlled by their emotions period and nobody recognizes this it's like everybody

you know

that someone doesn't like or is

i how am i going to say this anybody who's doing anything that is not okay in the world that is not appropriate behavior is being controlled by their emotions

whether you see it on the surface or not right whether you you know they look like the most reasonable person or they look like a big big hothead.

So, yeah, so really, again, all of this is kind of rooted in how are you responding to your own emotions?

And that's going to heavily inform how you're showing up with your partner's emotions.

Do you think you could channel emotions for the better?

Like some people say they could channel their anger into like productivity.

Yes, I think that can be healthy unless the anger is actually being addressed.

If you're using the productivity to not address the anger, that's a problem.

If you're using the productivity as a part of dealing with the anger, then that's healthy, but not exclusive.

If anger is being channeled into productivity and not getting dealt with, it will find you.

It will find a way to come back out.

It will come out in passive aggressive.

It will come out in workaholism.

It will come out in

health problems.

It's going to be there.

That happened to me because I got bullied a lot growing up and I would say I was had a lot of anger from that.

Sure.

And

workaholic to the extreme.

Yeah.

And my physical health deteriorated.

It came out.

So I want to like my therapist question would be

what

was the productivity doing?

What was the workaholism doing to help you with the anger?

Why was that the way that you were regulating that anger?

That's what I would want to know.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Why was I doing that?

Well,

I wanted to prove everyone wrong.

Sure.

I wanted to like be super successful or whatever financially and on social media.

And I guess the way to get there was just to outwork everyone.

Sure.

So I was working 80 hours a week.

And I guess I was just, I probably wasn't even addressing it.

I was just pushing it to the side.

Yeah.

You know?

So the, so underneath the anger was kind of this like probably existential loneliness.

Yeah, I was there.

Yeah.

The, the epitome of rejection, right?

Yeah.

I mean, especially unhealthily.

And so that was like the wound, right?

It's kind of existential lonely.

And that's a sad place to be, right?

And so the only thing you knew to do to try to

regulate all of that was, well, if I can just get success, then I'll be accepted

and then I won't have to feel all this pain.

Exactly.

And I see a lot of my financially successful friends talk about similar stuff.

Interesting.

Yeah.

I think a lot of financially successful people have the most trauma.

I think so too.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm friends with a lot of these guys and

tons of trauma.

Yeah.

Like usually it's like they didn't fit in or they got made fun of or bullied or.

Right.

So they're regulating that feeling of rejection with through overworking.

Yep.

And then overworking is going to lead to, you know, health issues.

And then everybody's right.

Well, it'll also lead to wealth.

Yeah.

You know.

It leads to wealth.

And then a lot of them try to buy back their time because their health sucks.

It's like a never-ending cycle.

Exactly.

It comes at a great cost.

Yeah.

Everything does, right?

Every action has a opposite and equal reaction.

I mean, I think once you get healthy and balanced, you're not, your body isn't just constantly trying to rebalance.

It's so exhausting for the body to just constantly be trying to rebalance.

So once you start to live from a balanced place, it's just, you know, you don't have to work so hard.

Yeah, I would say

getting closer to that.

Good.

Beautiful.

I've been taking my sleep serious, my diet, my mental health.

And I'm, yeah, I'm probably the most fulfilled I've ever been right now.

I don't like staying happy because that to me is temporary.

I agree with that.

So I say fulfilled.

I love it.

But I wake up every day, like, I can't wait to interview these people.

Oh, that's beautiful.

You certainly have a great, great job for that.

It's a lot of fun.

I know you're a podcaster too.

So you can do it.

I am.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I do.

I work with one couple, though, for 20 sessions.

So basically, I'm, I wrote the book to kind of walk.

couples through a self-help version of the treatment that I do in my private, my practice with couples.

And then the podcast is

doing that with a couple, doing the book with a couple, you know, so people can like use the book to get to the work and then use the couple to see the work come alive.

So I love how like relatable and actionable that is.

Yeah, I really try.

I mean, I really like, I comment through that, throughout the whole thing, like, this is why I'm doing this with this partner.

This is what I'm hoping for.

This is going to be the result.

And it's kind of like, okay, my version of trying to walk people through a therapeutic process that they can't maybe access on their own because i'm sure you know like how difficult it can be to insurance doesn't cover it right yeah and just sometimes you know the quality isn't so great or it's hard for couples to to coordinate their schedules if they're both having to work you know so there's a lot of barriers to to good couples therapy so yeah there's definitely a negative stigma around it too if they have one bad experience yeah oh yeah they'll label the entire industry as a scam or whatever yeah absolutely yeah yeah Uphill battle for you.

Well,

we'll link your pod and book below.

Anything else?

Amazing.

You want to close off with your really?

No, it's been great.

I appreciate getting to know you a bit.

Thanks for the therapy session.

You're welcome.

You're welcome.

Amazing.

Well, check her out, guys, if you need some couple's advice.

I'm sure you have a website, right?

I do.

Yeah, thesecurerelationship.com.

And then my Instagram is

at thesecure relationship.

There are imposters, so you kind of got to make sure that you're...

We'll link it below.

Thanks for coming off.

You're so welcome.

Yep, check her out, guys.

See you next time.