EP94 – Non-Monogamous Coaching

Transcript

You're listening to Swinging Down Under, a podcast about the swinging, non-monogamous lifestyle from two crazy Australians with over four years of lifestyle antics to keep you entertained, informed, angry, happy and horny. Join our international swinging adventures. And welcome. I'm C, crazy female Australian sheila and believer of all things love, balance and sexy times. And this is Dee. I'll be doing my best to keep the dad jokes to a minimum which is probably going to be highly unlikely. Along with that I'll keep C and check where I can. Did I mention I'm a pilot?

We'll be your podcast hosts for today so sit back and enjoy the sweet sweet melodies. G'day everyone and welcome back to Swinging Down Under and if this is your first time joining us welcome to the show. Today's podcast is episode 94 and we are talking to Catherine. This is a little bit different to our usual style.

Today's episode Catherine is a counsellor and we are actually going to do a little bit of a live counseling session for you guys on how we are struggling, I guess, with some energy differentials or a bit of a different balance, I guess, in our relationship when we attend things like lifestyle events.

So we just came back from Nordia, New Orleans, of course, in New Orleans, and we struggled with perhaps some of the differences in what what we wanted to achieve at the event i wanted to go out and perhaps party and get amongst it and daryl probably wanted a little bit more of a quieter maybe two-on-two kind of dating style and so we talk about how you know we were unable to really make sure that both of us felt like we were getting the best out of our event and out of our time and really how as a couple that you can manage that in this particular episode we do talk a lot about me wanting to go out and podcast you know in the street however I mean really these situations can be used for anything it could be how do you spend your time with new couples versus friends that you've already been with for a longer time you know how much time do you devote to one couple versus the next what happens if one person is an introvert or an extrovert so today's episode really you can use a lot of things we're talking about in your own relationship and in your own lifestyle out and about when you're even going to hotel takeovers and things of that nature and i really want to thank katherine again from expansive connections she did a fantastic job and we really appreciated her time to walk us through some of these things that perhaps we did wrong as a couple or things that we can actually improve upon.

So thank you again, Catherine, for that. Now, Catherine does actually mention a number of links in this episode as well, including the mirroring link, the still face experiment. I'm going to put those in the show notes today. So if you are interested to go and have a look at that, just pop over to the show notes. There's a number of hyperlinks that you'll find, including Catherine's email address if you want to contact her. And you can find all the information through the show notes that way.

Now a bit of a surprise actually, Catherine is going to be joining Podcasterpalooza in Miami in May 2020.

So Catherine is coming down and we'll be hosting some morning tantric kind of couples sessions and we're putting together the final details on that but the announcement will come out on the website and information shortly on what Catherine's going to be doing while she's in Miami with us but we're really excited that she's going to come down and lend a hand to again kind of make this event more inclusive you know have a lot more information and seminars and just fun times for everybody to share together so that's what it's all about and so thank you again Catherine for helping us out and coming down to Miami with us if you want to know about Podcasterooza, just go to the website.

You can go to the swingingdownunder.com website. We have a page link there on our events page. Or you can go to podcast-a-palooza.com and find all the information out there as well. We'd love to see you guys with us. And we're just going to have a great time in Miami next May. As always, I really do want to thank all of our Patreon members. You guys are fantastic. We have been putting out some exclusive content just for Patreon. So check that out if you are connected with us already on Patreon.

And you know, these sorts of things really do help us to feel like we're actually putting content out in the community that is of a worthwhile nature. So that's why we really want to thank you guys. The financial benefit is of course fantastic and we do appreciate that because it helps us to buy things like our road board or in this case my new travel pack for the road because I am hitting the US again in December and January and so I'm going to be doing some interviews on the ground there and it just helps us to be able to you know continue to bring content to the broader community.

So thank you again to everybody on our Patreon account helping us to support you know the lifestyle community. Now this going to actually be released on the end of international podcast day international podcast day is a fantastic uh event that has been created by dave and by his father steve to celebrate what is podcasting really globally now international podcast day is the 30th of september and hour on hour they have they release a live stream podcast many podcasters around the world. There's actually 30 hours of actual content there.

And Daryl and I were so chuffed and so freaking humbled that we were included in the International Podcast Day. So yesterday, we were able to sit down at, I think it was 2 a.m. to 3 a.m. in the States time, and then it was 5 till 6 p.m. here in Singapore, and we did a live stream.

Now, this was Ethical Non-Monogamy 101, so for those of you out there who perhaps have been listening to us for a while, Ethical Non-Monogamy 101, maybe it's not your thing, but we were so inspired by the fact that the International Podcast Day team allowed so much diversity, not just through cultural and country and geographical locations, but also the actual content we were really really inspired by the fact that they allowed a podcast that talks about non-monogamy and sex positivity to be part of their revolution so again to the guys at international podcast day thank you so much you know we really really appreciate your support your non-judgment for the broader community it's not just about us but just actually pushing this information out there for people who may be curious and don't know where to turn so if you guys want to check that out you can head to internationalpodcastday.com they will be posting all of the live streams in about a week's time so you better find all that information there all right guys let's get into the episode today again thank you so much for listening to the swinging down under podcast have a great day guys thank you so much for listening to us and again drop us an email if you have any questions comments concerns or an itunes review we absolutely love it see you later guys all right guys and welcome back we are joined by katherine now some of you may have actually heard katherine's voice in the past and we're going to talk a little bit about some of the other podcasts that katherine has been on.

But Catherine is a counselor and has been for the past 13 years, wellness and mindful, a focused relationship coach for nine years, and a registered yoga teacher for 10 years. And Catherine joins us from- Flexy and smart. I know. She joins us from Expansive Connection. Thank you so much for joining us today, Catherine. Thank you so much for having me. It's great to see you two again after having so much fun just kicking Daryl's ass in New Orleans. It was such a fun time. Well, I mean, you know, don't think that that'll be the last of it. I'm sure there's more coming in this episode.

I feel like I've been lined up a little bit here, which is, you know, important. You know you're having a good time when you can walk away saying I keep Daryl's ass. Now, Daryl, are you handing out shirts or vouchers or ticket stubs for that? Like I feel like there should be some sort of loyalty program. Yeah, I was thinking of getting some cards printed, but, you know, we don't see people often enough to get a 10 ass-kicking, extra ass-kicking. That just gives them more opportunity when they do see you to really, really get in there, right? Yes. Yeah, get in there, babe. Two knuckles.

Absolutely. That's mine. Before we get into today's topic, let's hand over to you for a second. Can you maybe just introduce yourself, talk a little bit about your history, your obviously impressive counsellor licensing that the dumb people in the room here, namely Kate and Daryl, have no idea about. Tell us. Sure. Let me save you from that Daryl over there. So let me just start with my personal side. I'm going to do this very briefly because I have gone into this in a lot more detail in the other podcasts I've been on, which you can certainly link in the show notes.

But my husband and I have been together for 18 years. We got together really young and we had a little foray into non-monogamy, my best friend, before we got married. And that was super fun. We put this pressure on ourselves that we had to put that aside so that we could get to the job of serious adulting, you know, how that can go. And that was not so fun for him. No, we had a great time. But just, we definitely thought that once we got married, we couldn't continue to be doing these, quote, wild things. So we just really put it away, put it out of our minds.

And then we literally stumbled into temptation, not knowing what it was on our 10-year wedding anniversary. There's more about that story on We Got a Thing. Definitely check that out. It's pretty silly. And after that, we just very slowly started pursuing this, pursuing our renewed interest and curiosity in non-monogamy.

Jumping right on in i never thought i would be the jealous one definitely thought it would be my husband and i was all ready to be a supportive loving spouse and you know shepherd him through the journey such an arrogant ass it was me i got totally jealous first and the first time i hit it was about six months in and then it really kicked my butt about 18 months in and that launched me into some pretty serious internal work trying to figure out like where is this coming from why am i feeling this way when if what i call the upstairs part of my brain or the front of my brain was so on board with this and excited about it and enjoying it but the kind of the downstairs part of the brain was freaking out and not on board.

So this started a lot of work for me. So I'd got my butt into counseling and walked the walk that I talk and had a lot of really good support. Along that, during that time, I stumbled upon We Got a Thing and I listened to Mr. Jones's discussion of his jealousy in that episode early on. And it just it was it resonated with me so much. And so I reached out just to thank him. And at the very bottom of the email, I think I said something like, you know, the vulnerability that you two put out here is so inspiring. And I wish that more of my clients would do it. He wrote back. He's like, thanks.

And did you say clients can we talk about this and he said he just really was encouraging me to to do something with my my professional and personal lives kind of combine them and he just kept saying people really need someone like you to help them with their journeys so i resisted him for about 18 months but if he's met mr jones he's hard to resist for for very long So, um. So yes, I have been a counselor for 15 years. I've also been a wellness and mindfulness focused relationship coach for nine years and a registered yoga teacher for 10. And so I managed to pull all these things together.

What I do in the world of non-monogamy is not really your typical counseling or therapy. I'm actually not working under my license at all in this way. You can think of counseling and therapy a little more like if you had an injury. Let's use like a running analogy. Let's say you had an injury and you needed therapy to help your knee feel better so that you could do the running you wanted to do.

So the therapy and counseling is more on the diagnostic side helping people you know dig into any mental illness or personality disorder kind of issues and then i think of the coaching side which is where i where i work in non-monogamy it's more like you know your your knees are healthy your joints are healthy you're in decently good shape but you really want somebody to help you reach the next level of your running or train for a race or help you see where you're getting in your own way. That's kind of the difference in the counseling and the coaching.

So I started a small coaching business that brings my experience from counseling and the work I've done in that realm, but brings it into the focus of coaching because let's face it, in my opinion, most of the people that are experimenting or succeeding in non-monogamy, they're pretty healthy people. These are people, if they're listening to your podcast, these are people that are interested in making their relationship better. They're already doing some of this work. I like to call non-monogamy adulting 2.0.

And so you've got to pretty much have adulting 1.0 down before you're ready to do 2.0. And so I help people, couples, individuals, sometimes morsels, you know, whatever your thing, I help them become more aware of their body, their sensations, their feelings, what's going on in their head, their kind of auto response behaviors. And then we use the tools of mindfulness and yoga. We're not doing yoga in session. It's just more getting people mindful and aware of what's going on with them. So when I first start seeing people, I get information, background, usually some paperwork.

We do some email correspondence to determine if we should start one-on-one or if we start just jumping with the couple or the more some. And then during that first session, I want them to jump right in, tell me where it is, what's going on, what's the rub, if you will. And then of course, we fill in background about their current relationship, past relationships, their family of origin. We get to that, but we do it in the context of what's happening now.

Once I get a basic idea of what's going on, what the patterns are, the dynamics that are at play, then I just really work through intentional conversations and pointing things out to help them understand and be aware of what's going on in their bodies, their minds, their hearts, their auto responses, these behaviors that they're doing usually out of protection for some reason, help the partner understand what's going on, ways that they can be supportive, ways that it might be triggering their own cycle. And then we just go from there. Some people see me once or twice.

Some people have standing monthly appointments. It really just depends on what they're wanting. Ironically, we very often veer off of the road of non-monogamy and we talk about their businesses or their kids or their in-laws because this is only one piece of our lives, right? So as we learn these tools and I help people become more aware of what's going on with them and how they're behaving and acting and ways that they can improve that, they tell me all the time that they end up using that in other areas of their life. So we kind of run the gamut.

But that's a little bit about me and what I do for work. And yeah, excited to do some of that work with you guys. Oh, thank you. Before we move on, though, I'm just curious. I feel like there's an infinite loop in a scenario of a counselor meeting with a counselor and there might be a, you know, how do you feel about that feedback loop? Is that, is that like a thing? How does that make you feel? How does that make you feel? Does that just, you know, just keeps going around? No? I think it's important.

Actually, we've talked, we talk about this in our, in our field that a counselor has to find a really, in my mind, kind of tough counselor to go to. I need somebody that can really feel through my bullshit and tell me if I'm deflecting or trying to do that. But no, I'd say at least for me, when I go in, I am so ready to have somebody point out where I'm getting in my way that I try not to get in his way when he does it. Okay.

So, I mean, that's a really interesting thing just as a topic on its own i think the fact that you know we all need help the the best of us no matter where we are in life you know if we have a problem with money we see a financial financial advisor you know and no matter who you are no matter where you stand the richest people in the world guess what still have a financial advisor it's not this is not uh something that's unusual or somehow abnormal that people might go see a therapist.

And I think certainly as a guy in his middle 40s, there's still some frowning in the room when a guy's involved in seeking any sort of mental health support. And that sort of stigma needs to go away because we need to be a bit more real about how life is. Absolutely. I love your analogy of the financial advisor. And I will say that it is interesting, this whole coaching, life coaching, nutrition coaching, business coaching, this genre of work, I do feel like it is starting to take some of that stigma away.

Because again, with my analogy about running, it certainly feels like more of a bummer to say, I've got to go to the physical therapist than, yeah, you know what? I care enough about my running that I'm hiring a running coach. And I find that when the couples that can see it that way, it's really neat how empowered they feel. And they really, it's like this high five between them. Like we care enough about us that, yeah, we're going to reach out for some help for it. And good on them. I love that. It's so nice to see people stepping out of that stigma.

So yes, thank you for that plug for our profession. Thank you, Daryl, because I'm so happy that you're receptive to this podcast session, Daryl. Thank you. That's interesting. Let's carry that on for a little bit later. Now, you guys out there might be wondering what the hell we're doing with Catherine today. So Daryl and and I just got back from a pretty significant lifestyle holiday, and we were away for a couple of weeks, and that obviously can drain you on a personal level.

You're away, you're perhaps taking a lot of international flights, you're not sleeping well, you're drinking, whatever the case may be. But then if you add a little bit of lifestyle activity in the middle of that, sometimes your energy levels are just imbalanced, right? Fair to say? Yeah, absolutely. And then we thought, hey, you know what? We know somebody can help us with this free fucking session. Smarty pants. So we came back from being away and we thought, hey, we found something new about ourselves.

We thought there's a differential in perhaps some of our desires, wants and energy levels while we're, traveling and whilst we're attending lifestyle events. This can go for a lifestyle party, a dating session with a foursome or moresome, right through to a week away in a resort. Then we thought we'd get Catherine on, and so basically today's podcast is a little bit of a reverse episode.

We're actually going to hand over to Catherine, and she's going to do a session with us on how to balance some of these energy differentials in our own relationship and we're willing parties can we just get the legalities out of the way daryl are you a willing are you a willing participant do i get to sue after this i'm not sure who i'm suing though i see you i just get my own money back yeah it might actually be positive so yeah so that's that's what we're doing today and uh we thank you, Kathryn, for coming on our show and being part of this and I'm excited to see what we're going to talk about today.

So I'm going to hand it over to you now and have at it. Awesome. Thank you so much. And same kudos that I gave to the Joneses. Thank you for being so brave and willing to be vulnerable with mics in front of you. So thank you for that. And when we talked about doing a podcast together, I've never went a million years would have thought to even propose this. And I just loved the idea. And again, want to salute your bravery. All right. Now, let me say just a couple of things, though. You know, we are doing this in a little different way.

Certainly when I start to see people, I don don't know them yet so our first session is a lot about rapport building and background gathering and that sort of thing we already have spent some fun time together and gotten to know each other some I don't have a ton of your background but some certainly from listening to some of your podcasts already so we're gonna jump right in maybe a little bit more than we would in a normal session because we already have this rapport established that has made us want to spend more time together.

So that's that's makes me know that I have some license to be to push on you a little bit. But certainly, but certainly, as I say to everyone, you know, it's important for you to take care of yourself during this and to report back with what I call immediacy. What's going on for you in the moment? So if you're feeling like you're on the spot too much, if you're feeling like, okay, can we switch the hot seat to the other side of the room here?

If you're feeling saturated, if you're feeling like you need to take a moment to take a deep breath, my guess is that one of you is more introverted than the other. One of you may need a little more internal process time before you speak what you're thinking. Ask for that, make room for that. If you need my help in doing that, I got you. So those are sort of some ground rules for us. Thank you, ma'am. All right. So the two questions I always start a session with are these. What do you want to talk about today? And then what do you hope to get out of our session?

Some people have said, isn't that the same thing? I would answer that differently. Like if I were going to see my counselor, I might say, what I want to talk about today is this fight that I had with my husband. And what I want to get out of this is some understanding about how we got into that mess and maybe understand what my role is in it so that I can do something about it next time. So you hear how that's different. Mainly because I don't know. No, well, it was my idea, actually. I'll field this one, Daryl. I got you, I got you.

What we want to talk about today, what I want to talk about today is some of that energy differential that we had at Naughty in New Orleans.

So there was a situation perhaps where I would really want to get out and get amongst people and spend time partying and talking to all these various people and perhaps Darrell is more more interested in doing something else and so what we experienced this year having gone from 2016 when we're quite new to now being a little bit more seasoned in the lifestyle but you know knowing ourselves a little bit more it was a bit of a shock to us that we realised that we don't necessarily manage that well you know just those differentials so what I want to get out of this today would be that you know some takeaways some solutions how do we manage manage that a little bit better you know things for the future what we can do you know is there a medium ground or you know how can we both get what we desire and feel like doing without necessarily feeling like we're giving something away to the next person so both of us feeling like we're happy and we're not taking one for the team or being out when we don't want to, or being in the room when we want to be out, these sorts of things.

Okay. Sounds good. Anything you'd like to add to that, Daryl, now that you know what you're in for? No, that sounds pretty good. No, I'm good. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. You have 15 minutes to fix this. Go. All right. So let's start with, and this is always the hardest part for people. I'm going to ask you to do a little reporting, but I'm going to ask you to use the idea of economy of words.

So I want you to tell me in the shortest report that you feel like you can, while you still give me the understanding of what's happening, maybe either a more detailed example of a situation where you both situation where you had differing desires or when that happened and how it sort of devolved. So I need you to report, but I want you to report as little as you can. That's hard when they're your details and it feels like everything's important, but give me what you think is just enough of what I need.

Day three, Daryl's worn out, wants to relax in the room kate is keen to get out and interview people on the street that then devolves fairly quickly into i suppose a a fairly a fairly firm conversation i'm not going to say an argument but a firm conversation that that led to me going out into the street and getting really drunk during the day How does that sound? Okay. Yeah. And that pretty much sums it up from my side. All right. And when you're getting pretty drunk, I'm assuming that there were some consequences there to other things.

Only that I ended up having my sleep in the afternoon due to the fact that I needed it rather than I wanted it. Okay. All right.

Anything add to that Kate no not necessarily I think that's that's a pretty apt description where yeah I wanted to I wanted to go out and he he didn't so there was a moment of actually I will add something to that remember the economy of words portion of this when we had this stronger conversation it was me saying hey not an ultimatum but we've come this way we spent this money enjoy the moment because this is our chance that's it you know kind of suck it up you know let's do this okay so a couple things first of all let me just make sure i understand what what would it would have been like for you kate to just go out and do your interviewing in the street by yourself is that i mean of course i'm assuming i'm making some assumptions here that maybe because you were trying to record in the street you were wanting the presence of your your brand your you guys being recording together maybe that that you really feel like you needed Daryl there for that actually I just really enjoy spending time with him and having him next to me as a partner in that so not necessarily for you know necessarily for the podcast but he's funny he adds to me so i wanted him there because i enjoy him being there and so when he doesn't want to do that i get a bit a bit bummed so that's one side of it and the second side is yes i could absolutely i would have no qualms going and doing it on my own but then would i feel guilty you know like what's he doing should should i be back in the room with him rather than being out here you know those sorts of things so one question for you right away Kate as this conversation got more heated was there was there a time where you that was really sweet what you said I really you said I really want his energy I really love spending time with him he makes me better did you share that part yes absolutely so he he knows that and I think that's probably why he came out or I think he knows that.

He's raising his eyebrows. I don't know. I think the question was, did you share that? Well, I'm going to go with no because I can't recall. So let's just go with no. Did I share it? Not that I'm aware of. So let's go with no. Okay. Or here's another way to say it. Daryl, did you get, whether she said those words or not, did you feel that message? No, absolutely not.

No, it was all it was for me it was more about the as you stated a little earlier i suppose the brand rather than the us all right so it's for you the message was more about the brand not about not about us and not about your contribution to the us correct yep that's a nice sum up statement a little more and i i can't remember which one of you said it, the suck it up buttercup kind of piece. Was that more the message that you were walking out the door with? Yes, without a doubt. Okay. There's a little guilt that comes along with that, right? You've come here. We've spent this money.

You know, there's a level of expectation associated with that. Obviously, value buttons for you would have just rolled off your back. If you didn't agree with those values or that quote guilt, it wouldn't have motivated you to get out or to change the behavior that you were wanting to do. So even though it might have been what Kate was saying, my sense is that it landed on your values as well. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, certainly don't want to travel all that way to have a perception that it's been a waste of money, you know, in either of our minds. Okay.

Now, Kate, I'm watching your face and even when I was asking you, did you give him that message?

Is this surprising for you to hear that Daryl didn't either intuitively know that message or after you've said it a million times before that he didn't bring that message into here to it is this a little surprising for you that that wasn't clear to him at the time yeah of course it is because i i imagine or i assume that he would know those things so you know we've spoken about them before i mean even there's been times when we're trying to schedule even just an interview like with yourself, Catherine, and we'll move things around because I want him here. He adds value to the conversation.

He adds value to my time, my day. I love it when he's here. We bounce off each other really well. So the fact that he, as you said, wouldn't have perceived that does surprise me. You know, maybe I do need to say that and make sure that it's communicated rather than assumed. This episode would have been really hard without me, though, just FYI. This one. Especially. We would have come up with all sorts of things that you could do better. Absolutely. I'm not sure that we're not headed that way anyway, but anyway.

Well, and I don't know if in Australia you all have the saying about what assume it means. Yeah, make an ass in you and me. So certainly that assumption is easy to fall back on and especially when we have partners the way that I sense you guys are and the way I know that my husband and I are, we are on the same page so much of the time. We are best friends, we're partners, we're for us, we're co're co-parents. We're lovers. We're also wingmen for each other in this fun journey that we're on.

And there's so much of that that it really can be easy to take it for granted and to just assume, like, I don't need to say all that. The point is right now we need to get out on the street. I can totally see myself doing this, Kate. All right. Yeah. Blah. You know, I love you. Can we just get on with it? Let's do what we need to do. And it can be easy to fall back on that assumption that they just know. Right? Yeah. I would agree with that too, because we did start our relationship as friends and then moved into a monogamous relationship and then moved into a non-monogamous relationship.

And we do spend a hell of a lot of time together and we love each other's company. We've traveled together all the rest of it. So you're right there that probably we are on the same page and so then when we're not, it's a bit of a shock. Absolutely shocking. And my husband and I, we were friends for three years before we were monogamous too. And it is, it's just so easy to rely on that comfort of being on the same page. So when we're not, I think this is an interesting key, when we're not on the same page, it's disorienting. It's blindsiding.

It kind of, this sounds too strong, but sort of rocks the foundation or just shifts the floor underneath us just enough that our usual ways of communicating and getting our message across, I feel like, get out of whack. So, you know, if you have that image of one hand going over the other, where usually your hands come together and your fingers touch, no problem. And it's just off enough that you keep going the way you usually do, but you just seem to miss each other or miss the connection point. That's a pretty fair statement. Same sort of deal for us.

It is, you know, certainly coming to Singapore has made some differences to our relationship and how we deal with things. And we've probably learned a lot, actually, in terms of some of our strong points and weak points after living here. There's some very solid nodding happening in the background. Oh, nothing puts more stress on your relationship than shifting to a country where you know no one and initially you're running on, you know, one salary for a prolonged period of time. You know, if things are shaky, don't do that. Do that only when you're strong.

Yeah, the only recommendation I can give is when things are that shaky, please get pregnant. I mean, that's the best way to go from what I've said. Maybe with twins. Okay. I often have these little sayings that I try to make them catchy enough that maybe when our footing feels odd or the upstairs part of our brain isn't as online as we'd like for it to be, that maybe somehow are we able to catch it and use it. So one of them is connect before you correct.

So I think about this and being in there, I think imagine being there in the hotel room with you guys watching, like fly on the wall watching, or if I could have been like had a little earpiece in your ear, Kate, that might have said, because I think what made that go sideways and the missed opportunity was a missed opportunity for connection. At the end of the day, that is what we are all wanting the most is authentic connection with people that we know or don't know, but especially with our love love. That's what we want, one authentic connection.

And so the way I imagine, I'm just going to kind of come up with a scenario and then you guys tell me if this sounds right, maybe what was some of the internal that was going on. So Kate, I can imagine you having the little bit of pressure, but also excitement of what you wanted to do, get out in the street and talk to people and feel the energy and make the best use of your time there and go out there and be fun and silly with your awesome partner.

And so you're all filled up with the excitement of that and you throw it out there with the excitement you have and instead of being met with the excitement you hear i'm tired i just want to rest may i ask a question to help kate answer that what is your most overused word in our relationship that's why i'm laughing um i use the word excited so often i will say daryl oh my god are you excited Have a great day.

most overused word in our relationship that's why i'm laughing um i use the word excited so often i will say daryl oh my god are you excited we're going to miyama this weekend daryl are you excited i made chicken roast for dinner daryl i'm so excited we're going to the movies to the point where i actually had to draw this to kate's attention so that because she kept expecting me to be excited every time we're doing anything it's like i'm cutting my toenails are you excited i'm like you know like i'm not so excited about that yeah but you're absolutely right so for me it was you know we spent like i've been i've been excited for 12 months and now i'm here you know this this hard work has paid off we're now here let's have fun let's push all of the singapore worries away work worries away let's have a great time enjoy each other's company let's get amongst it and yes when your excitement levels or your interest levels aren't met to that that same point it does make it really hard because then for me I'm like oh he doesn't want to do that so should we just sit in the hotel room and then I start then I start having negative things like why we here?

Why couldn't have we just done this in our own living room? Sure. So one of the things I'll point out that's really interesting about when I was saying what we all want is that connection. Another word for it is attachment. So one of the ways that we, the most basic part of our brain can accept or acknowledge attachment or connection is mirroring.

So you, if you think about like, you think about parents with young, young children and you see the ridiculous faces they make at them or when they're trying to get them to eat and they'll open their own mouth, hoping that the kid will open their mouth.

You can imagine just like a caricature of a mom or dad just being ridiculous in front of a kid, right a lot of that is really basic in our lizard brain where if the kid is the kid will reach out with excitement and wants the parent to be excited back when the kid feels sad they want the parent to show a face that acknowledges or registers that sadness and they're actually videos it's called the still face experiment um i can we can link the show notes.

It's about a two-minute video where it shows with a maybe one-year-old, a little less than one-year-old, it shows how when the parent doesn't meet the child with the same excitement that the child is reaching out as a bid for connection, in the video, the parent actually gets completely still-faced. And you watch the child completely deregulate. I mean, just try all these things to get her attention back. Because in his mind, in this baby's mind, he has lost the most important thing for a human, which is connection. And especially at that age, if mama ain't connecting to him, he's not eating.

He's not going to be protected. And this is so deep and old in our brain. Now, let's go back to 2019. We were talking about two awesome swingers, whether they're going to go out and record in the streets or not. Why are we talking about lizard brain? Because it really can hit that something that old where your excitement level was a certain way. You floated out for connection with your partner and you get a completely different mirror. It was not mirrored. It was actually what he wanted.

And in the moment, if you're not aware that this isn't about a lack of connection or about you or a judgment of you, you can very easily spiral down because it's from such an old part of your brain. It's funny. I mean, not funny, but you bring this up and I can see just recently we had a disconnect as well, not recently, but a couple of months ago. And I actually asked Kate, you know, how do I make this better for you? How do I make you feel happy about where we sit right now? And one of our responses was, you know, look excited when you come home after work.

And, you know quite literally wrote these down um because i i need them there as a constant reminder and i've been trying to do that every day since just to and no matter we all have days where we just want to come home and put a handgun in our mouth but we don't we you know we sometimes sometimes substitute that with a with a glass of red or, you know, something like that. But, you know, we all have those days, but it's important, you know, I try desperately now to do it every day.

I don't succeed, of course, because I'm not perfect, but I try to be excited every day when I come home purely because it's something that Kate needs from me. I'm hoping, look, I haven't brought it up since then because I don't need acknowledgement on it. I just would have a preference that she's happy when I get home. Sure.

I don't need acknowledgement on it i just would have a preference that she's happy when i get home sure and and so the other thing i would i will throw out there well first before i say that kate anything else about how i was just explaining that kind of from that lizard brain um mirroring anything about that that resonated with you that you want to comment on yeah it does make a lot of sense because there's been multiple times when i have been super excited about something and i've and i've brought that excitement over to to daryl and when he's not at that level it almost feels like he i feel a bit crushed and i i kind of go into an instant sadness i don't it's not like i go oh he's not excited about that and oh well i don't do that i'm like he's not excited about that this is shit the whole thing's pointless let's not apply to Myanmar whatever it is like let's not do that I'm just not even going to worry about it you know and then that's my reaction as opposed to going oh look at that he doesn't want to do it like that's his business move on right right so the first bit was the downstairs brain of what you just said and then the last bit was your upstairs brain my one my episodes with the Joneses, we talk about flipping your lid.

So since people are just listening to us, imagine a fist in your hand, your hand being a fist, excuse me, your wrist is like the lizard brain, your brainstem, and the center where your thumb comes in is your amygdala or your emotional memory and regulation. And then wrapping around everything, the top, your fingers are your prefrontal cortex. So that's your upstairs brain, if you will. And so remember what I was saying, when we aren't mirrored, when our emotions are not mirrored by people around us, it can be so deregulating because that's such an old survival instinct of ours.

This brainstem where right in there with food and shelter and water and procreation, the survival of the species depends on connection because we have to take care of each other. Our infants cannot live without adults. And so it is such an instinctual survival technique or need to be mirrored in our emotion that when you don't feel mirrored in your emotion, it hits that old, old part. So if you will, it engages the downstairs brain. So that's when you went into this, oh, screw it, you know, never mind, we won't do any of it. It's all shit.

You know, where you start to get really worried about that lack of connection and it can bring you into this sadness and this like pull away like well maybe i should go find somebody else that will see well we'll be able to mirror my emotion where we get like old and lizard and dramatic sounds very familiar in fact all of us do it all of us do it and then but then there at the end you were able to get back up to this amazing this amazing part of the brain that says, or, you know, maybe Daryl's just tired. Maybe that's just him. Maybe he has nothing to do with me.

And of course, that's where we want to live the majority of the time. We also don't need to shame ourselves or our partners for having the normal human reactions of, ah, you didn't mirror me. Ah, I don't feel connected. Ah, am I going to get voted off the island? There's only one. There's two votes here. I feel I hold the bigger one because the dog's very small. I think you're going to stay on the island, Kate.

Yeah, look, you actually touched on some things there that are humorously aligned with exactly how things either happen on that day or have happened in other ways around the the response and certainly i have seen the look of i don't know just oppression is the best way to put it in kate's eyes when when i do get my response wrong it's almost like she just got you can see her brain go well shit why do i even bother with any of this you know and you don't need i don't need to hear her say it i got, you can see her brain go, well, shit, why do I even bother with any of this?

You know, and you don't need, I don't need to hear her say it. I can just, you can feel it immediately. You know, again, being, well, not again, but being a guy who's an engineer and hence is somewhat of a fixer, the immediate response for me is, how do I, how do I work my way out of this? Because I've gotten myself into a position that I don't enjoy? And sometimes my response is, you know, just fix it, which is stop being stupid about this. It doesn't mean that I don't care about you. It just means that I don't care about this, you know, which is. So let me just stop you.

Stop being stupid about this. Mr. Engineer is a tool that will never fix anything. You need to take that tool out of your toolbox. Yeah, no, I may not ever say that out loud. Just FYI, I'm not quite that foolish. I've managed to retain a wife for now 10 years. So I'm not sure I get away with using that terribly often. Yeah. So no, but the rest of that sentence, which is, you know, all about, you know, let's just fix this and get on with life.

And which is probably the mode I resorted to in terms of this particular conversation in New Orleans where it was just, oh, well, fuck it, you know, fine, you're excited, I'm not interested, but I'm just going to, we're just going to go out and do this and get in get get in get done get out you know yeah so that's where i ended up it goes two ways either either he will react and say you know no that's not what i want to do very strong strongly opinionated or he'll he'll go hey kate really wants to do this so i i'm i'm going to go along and of course those two things then have their own it's cause and effect situation so then when he is out on the street and I know I know that he's doing it only because I've asked him to I know that he has no joy in it and so then there's that element while we're out there too and doing these things I'm like he doesn't really want to be here so again that really brings my energy down as well and then again it rolls back into like what are we doing why are we here you know this is ridiculous nobody's happy and that's kind of one of the things i said to you about getting out of today's session was to a point where both of us are feeling happy with the decisions that have been made or the outcome where it's not that we are both feeling upset so he was feeling upset that he was forcing himself to do something that probably he didn't really want to do i'm upset because i I know he doesn't want to be there.

So he's half-arsing it. And then he's dragging my energy down and my excitement down as well. And then we both feel like we're just getting the rear end of the stick. Yeah, absolutely. Okay. So a couple of things that I wanted to jump into. One is about sort of, I call it, you're keeping your side of the street clean. We're going to get into that. And then also wanted to just quickly comment though, Daryl, on your idea of this, again, being an engineer, wanting to fix it. Troubleshoot is another way I think of it. My husband is also an engineer.

And so it's always fun to, you know, fun and like, because I'm a dorky therapist way to try to align that engineering fix it kind of energy. And I will say it's not just engineers, it's not just men. There usually are usually one or one person in the relationship that has a stronger tilt toward that. And really, most of us have some sort of tilt toward that because at the end of the day, if we see our love hurting, we want to fix it. We don't want them hurting.

So one thing that I'll mention that my husband shared with me is that he used to, let's say that something was going wrong or like you say, if you said something and you watch Kate's face kind of just crestfall and you realize you've done that. Okay, now what do I do?

And so it used to be that he would just jump in and try to fix, like come up with different ways to get me to look at it or or well can't you just see that this this or this or the facts are x y and z and he would get very logical and rational now given my example of the brain as your fist which part of the brain do you think that would be uh i would have thought it i would have thought it'd be the like the top the toppy bit yeah yeah exactly the rational, the thinky bit, the thinky bit. Exactly.

I mean, that's why we bought the nerdy therapist on so she can, you know, use the big words and I'll just talk about the toppy smarty brainy bit. No, you got it. And so keep in mind, if I, if I'm hurting, I'm sad, I'm feeling disconnected from him, that's going to be the lower part of the brain, like we just talked about. And then he comes in and his way to try to, quote, fix it is to use all the smarty part of the brain, the top of the brain. That's like him yelling at me in French and I only speak Spanish. And he's like, well, surely if I just yell it or say it slower, she'll get it.

I don't understand. Exactly. It's one part of your brain trying to speak and getting frustrated that the other part of the brain isn't understanding. But if you start to realize that they speak different languages, then that basically what he realized, he's like, I'm wasting all this energy, all my really good fix it strategies on a part of her brain that is not open or available for that.

So then instead of going straight to that that we inserted a new plan of fixing it which is connect before you correct don't tell me how I got the facts wrong connect with me about how sad it must be to not be mirrored connect speak the language of the part of the brain that's in control right so if Kate is feeling you know kind of going to I've heard the way that you started kind of brainstem, like sad, not mirrored.

And then I heard the middle of the brain getting a little bit, in another way that I understand this is a little bit like adolescent or snappy or like all this stuff and supposed to go and you can imagine like kind of fingers snapping in the air. Yeah, absolutely.

So those two parts of the brain are going on or what's in control and then in order to get Kate's brain back up to where you guys could talk about facts and actually come up with a solution that could work for both of you those two parts of the brain have to be spoken to first so I think what happened is you guys left the room before you guys had both gotten up to the top part of your brain to create a good solution. Obviously, you two are great at being partners and coming up with solutions and being on the same team when you're both in the top part of your brain.

I'm not a great finger snapper, though. So what are the tools to deal with the adolescent? I mean, just put her in the room and get in the corner and give her a time out. That's what I'm Oh, Oh, no. I'm kidding, I'm kidding. No. Actually, it's funny. I have people all the time when I use that adolescent brain analogy. They're like, can we just put the adolescent brain off the island and keep the rest? Yeah, that'd be nice. No, that's a pretty protective part of us. We need it. Okay.

So in that day, on that day, the first piece would have been to try to connect for you to maybe, and the other piece is the size of the street. Let me say that too. This is not all about one of you, quote, fixing it for the other. So let me just, let me pause this for just a second and go back to the example of coming in the house and showing excitement. So that's lovely that Kate was able to give you that request. It would really be great if when you walk in the door, I get some of your excitement, like that.

I see that you are as excited about me and have the same have some energy left for me, not just left it all at work.

It's kind of the thing I'm hearing in that request right yes so you're so she made this this request which is lovely and you are doing your best to meet it lovely now okay I'm gonna put you on the hot seat the other piece of that is you make the request but then you also got to make sure that your side of the street is clean and that you're doing the work over there so if he happens to walk in one day he isn't, that you're able to stay in the top of your brain and be like, I bet he's really tired. I know how hard he has worked to meet this request of mine. And I know that matters to him.

And so if he's not able to put on a happy face when he walked through the door today, damn, maybe I could be the big girl here and take care of him a little bit tonight. I do try to do that. I try to recognize that.

Just just recently i think he came home and i could tell that he was quite bummed and so he just went and sat on the couch or was doing whatever he was doing and then i didn't harass him like what do you do today like what happened how are your meetings what you know um i just kind of let it go and let him kind of come to me so that's some of the ways that i might try to recognize that and and then i won't be like hey what are you making for dinner or anything i'll just kind of i'll go and make dinner and I'll recognize that he's probably just wanting to chill right and then two other things one is take the opportunity to connect with him to be able to say to be able to say I can tell it seems like from the from the outside anyway it seems like you must have had a really tough day and I just want to know I just want you to know I see you you're where you're able to hold up the mirror for his emotional experience on that day so what I mean by like your side of the street yes you know getting up and making dinner and doing all that but the first step of that is you is and it's again obviously you're doing it if you're able to get up and make dinner and all those sorts of things but the first is your own emotional regular regulation which is to be able to say for the top part of your brain to talk to the downstairs and say, hey, it's all good.

This is a this is an outlier of his reaction. This is this is not about us. Right. So us meaning like you, Kate, talking about your different parts of your brain. So it's that where you're able to stay adult enough to kind of soothe those those grouchier parts underneath, if you will, that might have taken it personally or tried to say, no, I need you, I need you. When you walk in and you can see that he doesn't have much to give, that your adult brain or the thinky-talky part of your brain can soothe those other parts. Oh, that's great. Thank you. Thank you for sharing it.

Yeah, I love the way you've adapted your language to suit my thinky-talky brain. Yeah, I mean, I think there's actually quite a few things in there. The reason I'm sitting here as quietly as I am, and I think this is quite unusual for most of our podcasts because I just got some feedback recently that I should shut up.

You know, some of the things you're saying here, I can actually see some alignment already in perhaps some of the things we've tried and not done well in the past and certainly i understand my weakness as well in terms of reaction before thought as well you know i know that's something that is is not a because you know i'm generally not a highly emotional person and i can be with kate you know i can use my emotions and sometimes, like all superpowers, they can be used for good or evil and, you know, some days I do use them for evil, you know, in terms of how I come home and, you know, some days I don't feel great and I want her to understand that and unfortunately, in some cases, that means me making her feel bad and I don't want to say on purpose but it makes me, you know, I just, I almost want, again, that mirror, I suppose, of, I feel bad, why don't you feel bad for me, you know?

So, yes, or with, well, yeah, I mean, commiserate, yes, but for lack of commiseration, the next step is camaraderie, right, where you've now dragged somebody else down to your level. Well, another way to think about it, Brene Brown is a, I'm sure you've probably heard of her, a very famous prolific speaker and researcher on all sorts of things, emotional. And one of the things that she says, as soon as I heard this, it just resonated.

She said, one of the greatest gifts we can give someone is if they're in a dark place and they're hurting, is that we are willing to slide down and sit in the dark with them for a little while instead of reaching up and turning on the light to make ourselves more comfortable. Yeah, that's a really good way of putting it. Absolutely. And it doesn't mean you're going to wallow down in it forever or I have some people who say, well, if I do that, I'm supporting their depression or I'm condoning it or saying it's okay to be sad or angry or whatever.

It's like, well, first of all, yes, it is okay to be sad and angry in the whole spectrum of feelings. And sitting with someone, connecting with them where they are doesn't mean you're going to get stuck down there forever or they're going to be stuck down there forever. It's actually just the opposite.

When we're able to give the gift to somebody we love of sitting in the dark with them i also like to call it sitting in the suck like just sitting in there and not giving them any expectation or demand to change or to turn the light on so that we can feel happy that is such a gift and when people feel heard and connected with on that level it usually can spark them to start to move towards the happier end of the emotional spectrum on their own. But doing it because somebody's forcing you to do it really works and best we put on a clown's face. Yes. And get drunk in the street. Exactly. Yeah.

Yeah. Very drunk in the street. In fact. Yeah. I recognize a few things about myself.

And one of them is that I will put on a mask regularly um to deal with the the issues i'm having at work you know i'm i'm not actually generally a person who like who recharges off other people you know which most people who meet me don't really understand that but you know 20 years of being in sales there's a mask that i have that i can put on to help me be engaged with people for a lot longer than i feel comfortable now that mask comes off as well when i get back into the room and in some cases that can be perceived again by kate as a total lack of enthusiasm with doing anything um and it's just because i'm not there there is no excuse for this it's just more of an understanding of myself and trying to figure out how I can best deal with that and not upset the person that I care most about in the world.

So I find it quite difficult again, you know, coming from a household where there was a little emotion because, you know, men are not supposed to have emotion as it was where I came from, to try and then touch my emotions without also pissing off Kate is sometimes difficult for me and hence that mask comes on and I go out and get drunk in the street I really appreciate everything you've said that you've actually given us a lot to think about when when we are having some of these challenges is to as you say kind of meet that person back down at that level and then try to collectively come up together is i think some great tools i think definitely something we need to keep in mind for when this happens because this is not just a isolated lifestyle as daryl mentioned before this can be really anything you know i do use the term are you excited about so often that i've tried to take it out of my vocabulary so i think we can use this for broader broader things as well not just lifestyle related right yeah one of the things that i've learned along the way is the the ability to stop and just pause and think and coherently put a sentence together before i respond rather than just reacting you know i think somebody said to me and i use this regularly in training actually you know you've got 600 words a minute you can speak and you can think at a thousand so you've got that 400 you've got going in the back of your head.

You've got to make sure you stop, address those with the 600 that's at the front and then align them and actually come back with something that's not just what you've been thinking as a side note in the back of your head. Two other things, if I may, just before we wrap up. One is I want to make sure because this is where I find people turn the message sideways when we're first working together. And it usually takes about three or four sessions before I realize how they've turned it sideways and been running with it. So I want to stay this right away.

I want to make sure that this doesn't become a way for us to vilify the lower parts of our brain. So the brainstem is all about keeping us alive. We don't want to make it a bad guy. The amygdala, I call it Amy G. Dallow. Amy is all about remembering emotions so that she can move us toward good ones and away from bad ones. Because again, in survival language, generally when we feel great, we've just found a juicy mango and we're starving. When we feel terrible, it's because we just got chased by a bear. So neither one of these parts of the brain are bad.

It's also important that you don't diagnose them or point them out in your partner, because when you're in either part of those, it's like, think about when you were an adolescent.

Did it ever make you feel good and connected to your parents when they said, stop acting like a you're being such a teenager and at best the teenager keeps a straight face until you turn around and then you get two middle fingers as soon as you will turn around you it does not make them want to connect or act anymore or how about when you're fighting with your partner and they say you're being ridiculous has anyone ever ever stopped being ridiculous when somebody says Yeah, you're right. I am actually. Let's just forget about it. Do you want toasts with your tea? Exactly, exactly.

So let's make sure that we don't vilify them. And when we can realize that they're not out to get us, Daryl, when you were saying that about taking the pause, it's beautiful. But here's another way to think about the pause.

Take a pause and check in with the downstairs brain what's going on are you hungry in uh recovery language substance abuse recovery language we talk about halt are you hungry angry lonely or tired if you're any of those you are not going to be at your best are you having a motion come up that doesn't really make sense for this this setting is your amygdala pulling on something old that isn't necessarily appropriate or factual about this current situation?

Whether it's happening or not is not good or bad, but if it's happening, it's got to be addressed for you to get up into the thinking part of your brain and move out into the street as a united couple being at your best. You got to take the moment to check in with your own downstairs. It also doesn't hurt to wonder about your partner's downstairs. Just don't point it out or diagnose it.

If you wonder about it and you get some pretty clear ideas, one of the things that we often do in further sessions is help to identify what the other person's downstairs brain, what language it speaks, and how to speak to it so that you can get on the same page more readily. Yes, absolutely. Couldn't agree more. A lot of people can't see the head nodding that's happening on our end of the podcast. Look, as humans do, I suppose, I'm aligning this to some of the previous things that I've been trained about.

One in particular, this is going to sound terrible, and I'm sure I'm going to get beaten to death about this, but I've done some sales training where using the phraseology that the person is using with you to excite the same emotional response from them when you use it back in their direction is something that helps you with that connection.

And granted, it's kind to center here but the ability to use the same literally the same words to speak to that part of the brain I can see immediately how that would really drive the emotional the same emotional response I mean if you use the right words you can drag somebody back to something they said days ago you know that is that that was a that was a phraseology that they used then which is you know excited is a word that you use all the time and if i use that now it's almost become a piss take but but it doesn't need to be you know it should be that should be something that invokes the same excitement as you as you you want from me when i say it so it's something there, again, for me to learn on that side when I'm speaking to that part of you.

I need to be aware of the fact that I don't need – it shouldn't be a piss-take. It should actually be me wanting to be excited and wanting you to feel that as well. There's a funny movie. It's like, I just want you to want to do the dishes. I don't know. I kind of want that movie. Catherine, we actually have two questions. Do you have time to answer a couple of listener questions with us? We do, absolutely, yeah. Hang on, are we fixed?

Well, actually, before we shift away from what we were talking about with you guys, let me just bring a little bit of wrap up to the original question that you had.

And so here's the thing, we could certainly spend some time together with this knowledge coming up with some plans about where the the energy was waning what you could have done to to increase that energy after feeling depleted of from being with people daryl or or how kate maybe you could have gone out and enjoyed some people and then you guys met up later we could come up with all sorts of those strategies but here's my in my instinct is you guys already know how to do that you're good at that obviously good partners in so many ways that, to me, the takeaway is we just got to make sure that you guys are speaking the same language and the same parts of your brain are engaged.

And then I don't really think you necessarily need me to come up with all that. Okay. So I just want to point out- I love that she thinks we're so adult. I know, right? I mean- So much faith in us. She mentioned adulting 2.0 before. I'm like, fuck, I'm pretty sure I'm on software 1.2. I was going to say, my last version update was like 1.6. Bullshit. If you update your versions of human software as often as you do your iPhone, you're still on like, you know, you're still back in the dark ages. I'm beta testing.

Let me just say that in this and then kind of top row of the bleachers to explain to people how I work. I would say that what we've just done is very similar to what I do with people, but then sometimes we bounce back up and I very often will have engineers or list type of people like myself who say, okay, this is great. I understand. Now, can you bring me back to the present? Let's make a bullet point list. Let's make an actionable list about what I'm going to do. At the end of a session, I always ask people to list their takeaways. I list the takeaways that I saw for them.

So sometimes we're bouncing down into some of this psychoeducational, like I'm talking about. Sometimes we bounce it back into maybe why, Kate, why it becomes so sad for you if you're not met with excitement. We would get into some of that old stuff, but we kind of bounce around where we'll also come up with very Thank you. Thank that on your own. Thank you. If not, you know where to find me. Absolutely. Absolutely. So we'll Skype you in about four hours after Kate's beaten me to a messy pulp. No, we really appreciate that. Thank you so much, Catherine. We do, absolutely.

And honestly, guys, and Catherine, there's actually a lot in there already. I think the unfortunateness of not having us on camera is you can't see the constant nodding that was going on when we realized, well, yeah, okay, that makes sense and we do that and we don't do that and we should do more of that. I think there's actually quite a lot. Now I feel like we should pay for this. Well, thank you. Thank you for saying that because, yes, we were both, we were all head nodding. We were thumbs up in each other and certainly do miss that on the podcast.

I appreciate you pointing that out too and it it was nice to see that it was resonating with you guys. Okay. A couple of listener questions before we, before we wrap up, because I think they're going to be really interesting for you. This one's a little bit similar to what we've actually just been talking about. So this is from Mrs. Sweet and she's saying, any advice for a couple where one person is outgoing, extroverted, confident, and the other is reserved, introverted, self-critical.

It seems as though the dynamic lends itself to having a pusher and a puller, which can lead to mismatch expectations on the mild end and resentment or hurt feelings in the more serious ends. Is there a way for this couple to navigate social lifestyle situations, perhaps a game plan that allows them both to feel like their needs are being met? Yeah, I got it. So certainly there are lots of places to unpack that, but just a couple of things off the top of my head. First, the idea of introversion and extroversion is very misunderstood.

But just to speak to this, and Daryl, you pointed this out too, one of the hallmarks of it is in understanding the difference is where do you get your energy.

And so if the extrovert, you can imagine if they had plugs in their hand, they would have outlets on the the world with all the people they would go out into the street and they get their energy from being with people even whether they're having very deep conversations or interactions doesn't really matter just walking down the street and being in and among other people's energy can be energizing an introvert you can imagine an introvert holding the same plugs and they have receptacles on themselves. So they plug those plugs into themselves.

So there are plenty of very gregarious, out there, good speaker, hilarious, like you are, Daryl, introverts. And it has nothing to do with how you are around people, your presence around people. Bill Clinton is an introvert. He's out there speaking and engaging all the time. The difference is when he would come back and just like you were saying, Carol, when you came back, you're wiped. So you need to plug back into yourself. And so part of it, just kind of the lowest hanging fruit with your listener question is managing your energy.

If the introvert's exhausted, let them stay inside and give them time away from you. An extrovert, go to the coffee shop and chat up the barista and just take even 20 minutes, 30 minutes, an hour to do that.

My husband is an introvert and we always laugh that he needs, quote, eye time, meaning he loves being around us and our family and people and he's out and about but after a while he wants to just mow the grass by himself or go for a run i when i work out i work out with people he's like no no no no i need the eye time i need that energy rejuvenation so that's certainly the one thing i would say for the listener question the other thing would be same thing where we're trying to speak each other's language when you've catch yourself in a in a push-pull dynamic we also call this pursuer-withdrawer dynamic if we try to take a minute and sit with the other person's needs and desires so for the one that's pulling back if the pusher might come around and instead of being on the other side of the cycle, creating it, sit with them and say, what makes you nervous?

What are you feeling nervous about? Why are you pulling away? What's feeling threatened enough that you need to wrap around something? Or for the person that's the pusher, the withdrawer could come and say, what are you feeling like you need out there? What's going on? Get curious. This is another little one of my little catchy phrases. Get curious, not furious. Sit down with them and find out instead of being on the other side of the dance or feel like you're at odds with the cycle, see if you can walk around and get shoulder to shoulder and look out together at what's happening.

Yeah, that's really interesting because that draws back to the conversation took notes um we find we managed to get to a point where i could ask the questions and dig in a little bit without kate wanting to strangle me in bed and and get a response and even though at the time i know i know that you felt very uncomfortable doing that you're like why are you writing this down why is this you know why because i had my iphone out in bed you know typing out typing it out in notes and she's like why this is crazy why are you writing this down?

Why is this, you know, because I had my iPhone out in bed, you know, typing it out in notes. And she's like, why? This is crazy. Why are you writing it down? I said, because I don't want to forget it. This is important to you. So I need to try and get it right. I mean, I'm not going to get it right all the time, but I'm going to try. And it's in my notes so that when I forget, I remember that I'm looking through there and I go, why did I not do that? That's something that Kate needs from me.

Well, it's lovely because basically what you're doing is you're acknowledging this isn't my natural reaction. This isn't my natural form. But in doing these things, it could really bring a lot of ease to our relationship. So I'm going to challenge myself to go outside of what my norm is.

Again, when you've got and pull relationship if you're always pushing they're always pulling there's a counseling theory where they call it stance stance dance you have your stance push I have mine pull now we're in this dance if either one of you change your stance the dance changes so Daryl are you taking notes was you saying I'm willing to change my stance stance and try to make our dance go more smoothly. Beautiful. Yeah. That's awesome. Okay, next question, last question for you today, Catherine.

This is from Jay, but this actually has a little bit of compliments up front, so I'm going to give you those first, and then you can answer the question after. Nothing better than wind being blown first.

I'd totally like to give a shout-out to Catherine for all all her practical and applicable advice it's been a huge positive influence to my life and my lifestyle journey okay so the question is that i think my partner and i do a pretty good job at balancing energy and personalities at events what we're finding more challenging is when we make more lifestyle friends attend more events where we know couples what are some good tips or things to keep in mind when attending events where you know so many different couples different levels of energy and interest especially when you live afar and you don't get to see them so now we're talking about balancing energy between multiple people and events yeah etc absolutely yeah this one's this one's difficult for us too we uh we always say that sometimes we would rather go in and not know anybody and be anonymous because there are no expectations so to me that question is really about expectations and getting i think that my my best my best thoughts about this would be to really take time as you're leading up to an event to get clear with yourself first then with your partner about what your expectations and hopes are for the event so you know there's some events that we go and really the play stuff isn't even that big on the agenda.

It's more about maybe for me, like making some professional connections or we want to reconnect with a lot of friends, but we aren't sure that we know that we wouldn't be able to play with all of them. So maybe it's, that's what it is for some, some events we're looking to make new friends. And so depending if we're looking to make new friends versus reconnecting with old friends is going to really change our strategy, if you will. And maybe part of that is to say to some of our old friends, you know, we love you guys.

We're really looking forward to when we're going to get together, just the four of us in November. But when we go to that event in October, we're kind of hoping to meet some new people. So not that we don't want to hang out. So it just comes back to managing expectations. But I think where people, the steps that I see people forgetting when we have not done it very successfully, it's when we have not paid close enough attention to what's going on with ourselves and gotten clear about it with each other.

And so I would say spend more time on the awareness of what you're wanting personally and how to talk to your partner about what they want and come up with being on the same team together there before you even think about what you're going to say to other people. That's great advice. Thank you so much. Absolutely. It's something that we could actually spend a little more time doing ourselves. Yeah, we have that problem as well. We do because we regularly go to events with a different expectation.

Expectation may not be the right word, but'm going to use it because interest level maybe yeah different interest level too you know that that um and typically when we're going to an event i'm normally the who's pushing us to be more involved which is kind of ironic because um after i get there i'm typically the one pulling back not wanting to be as involved so thank you it is keep in mind. I'll give you an example. My poor husband being married to a therapist is a whole special gig for him.

But almost every time when we're getting on a plane or when we're driving, I'll say something dorky along the lines of like, what are your goals and hopes for this event or this trip? And he'll kind of look at me like, oh, you just counselor-eased me. I'm like, I know. And the first time he's like, what are you even talking about? And I said, well, you know, do you want, are you more interested in meeting new people? Do you want to hang out with people we know? Are there people that you know are going to be there that we wanted to connect with?

When we go to New Orleans, we often do a mix of playing separately and together. So I'll say, how much are you wanting to play separately versus how much are you wanting to play together? Where are you feeling like, which bucket do you feel like we haven't filled enough? How do we keep the balance? And just even just asking those questions starts the awareness. And then we, again, once we're both in the top part of our brain, we're great at coming up with solutions for it. It's just making sure we're coming, restart the conversation in the same place.

So probably just having that conversation beforehand and knowing where you both sit rather than when you're in that emotional state, maybe mid-event and you feel like you haven't had those mythical things met that your partner doesn't even know exist and then you're down in the lower parts of your brain, I guess. Couldn't say it better. Perfect, Kate. Yep. All right. So thank you very much, Catherine. Now, everybody out there, this is going to be in the show notes.

Catherine mentioned a link earlier as well, I'm going to put that in there, but you can hear more from Catherine in the We Got a Thing podcast episodes 41 and 54, and also in the Normalizing Non-Monogamy podcast episode number 57. So all those links will be in today's show notes, as well as Catherine's email, expansiveconnection at gmail.com.

Catherine, thank you again so much for talking to us about our energy levels and how we can communicate better absolutely and uh you know now you've got you'll have me thinking it's 9 p.m here so roughly 9 a.m your time i would imagine so uh thank you that's probably half a night's sleep done for me trying to get through uh trying to get through some of the stuff that that i need to try and commit to uh commit to memory here. It was so much fun.

I have to say, when we were all together in New Orleans, for anybody that happened to be around Daryl and I, we had this habit of turning all of our conversations hilarious but a little dark. I'm actually impressed. I'm actually pretty proud of us. Yeah, me too. I was expecting this to head downhill in a fairly serious way, but we've managed to keep the top part of the talky, thinky part of our brains engaged. That's right. That just means we need to get together soon and get dark and hilarious. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Our lizard brains do have a lot of fun together, I have to say.

They do. And I'm definitely excited to see you guys in Miami. I'm so excited about your event and been spreading the word. I'm really excited for you. And thank you for putting it on. Did you hear me, Kate? I'm excited for you. Yes. Thank you so much. She just totally salesied you as well. I did. I liked that. She did. You've actually, you know, it's interesting.

We say this jokingly, but I can actually see the level of excitement lift in kate when you talk about your excitement for the event so it's it's really interesting to hear to see those words actually and then look you're smiling you're i am excited yeah exactly see so it's it's uh it is definitely something that's um that's an important takeaway so thank you again katherine and we look forward to seeing you again soon. Okay, take care. Absolutely. Thank you.