407 - This Conversation Could Save Your Relationship | Harville & Helen

0:00I came here with my biggest enemy. me, I'm leaving with my best friend. Took his wife and went. And of course, everyone just cheered. What are some of the most common communication mistakes that all of us can make in relationships, whether it's our intimate partners, our friends, our co-workers, our teammates? And what's the first step in starting to transform that? The basic mistake that most people make in a relationship is to assume that their partner sees the world the way they do, and then to behave as if that's true, and then to be shocked and judgmental when it turns out not to be true.

0:42But that's reality, that nobody sees the world the way you do. Everybody sees the world differently, and that's what's normal. What's abnormal is to assume that that's not normal. So what that means is that in order to not have a relational problem or to resolve a relational problem, you have to learn something that we think is relatively new in the human scene, which is listening. that in order to listen, when you listen, you get to know that you are living with somebody different from your fantasy about who they are. So to listen is to discover the otherness of your partner. And then in order to make that work, you have to not only discover it.

1:35I've had, I sort of giggle because many times in the process, it's like, well, I got it clear who you are but that but you suck you're worse than what i thought you were before i got to know you but you so you have to discover and then i accept that this is the person you're with and they live in that world and your job is to share your worlds without judgment and then and stay in that so that that becomes very exciting and creative if judgment is removed. But if you judge each other's world, then that's a pathology because there's nothing you can do about your world except share it and maybe grow, bring the two worlds together to grow into something new.

2:25But I would think that's the biggest problem. We call it the objection to difference. In fact, one day I remember it sort of consolidating in my mind. what is the couple's problem? And because, you know, there are lots of symptoms, but then there's one thing that produces all those symptoms, and which is the rejection of the difference that your partner is. I think that's the major human problem, and especially a couple's problem. Marie, your question is so good. Harville makes a point that I think is the answer to your question also. So we grow up and the value system of the culture is to be the best.

3:11What people don't know is that learning to be the best is called monologue. And that's how people talk. And there is a place for being accurate and precise. If you want to have good relationships, there's another way to talk. And it's called dialogue. Hmm. We've talked about this before when I had you guys on the show, because dialogue has changed my life. It's changed my relationship. And I just want to say for everyone, um, they've got a new book out and I don't know if we've entered this, but how to talk with anyone about anything. I've read it cover to cover. It is excellent. So we're going to be diving in, in this conversation between intimate relationship, but also friendships and team, um, family members, you know, anyone that you have conversations and you want to be in relationship with.

4:00So what I loved, what I heard both of you say, and I wrote this down in the book, it's that difference is a key feature of nature. And that notion that, oh my gosh, I remember when I was in the first workshop with you guys and it was like, they are different. And we're going to get there a little bit later. I want to talk about the accepting and the appreciating and the advocating. We'll go there. But difference is a key feature of nature. And like, it was a light bulb moment for me. Right. And I said that in the workshops. I say, hey, everybody, human beings are part of nature. And guess what?

4:35Nature is dyadic, dark, light, hot, cold, wet, dry, sweet, sour. So your partner's different than you. And the goal of marriage is to learn to accept difference. Yes. So I got curious about that. And I kind of do strange research on Google that they have never found a particle, even the smallest particle after you break down all the other particles in which one particle was identical to another particle. Even at the subatomic level, sub, sub, sub, sub, subatomic level difference is the difference between the particles that determine what the particle becomes and what it does. So I thought, well, what about universes and galaxies?

5:22So far, nobody's been able to say there's a single identical galaxy, all galaxies. So from the galactic level down to the quantum level, difference defines nature. And so then anything, any objection to a rejection of difference, I'd hate to use this word, but it's kind of pathological. Well, it's silly. It's like you're fighting against reality. Fighting against reality. But you don't have to agree with difference. Yes. It's about learning to harmonize and people, you know, what political party you voting for? Well, that's not what I'm voting for. And I also, I made the note too, in the book, it's like we struggle in our relationship because of how we talk and not what we talk about.

6:12And I think that's so insightful because the tools that you give in this book about how to talk with anyone about anything speak to just that. So this is a piece of, this is a question that I have that actually arose from our last conversation when we had you on the show. And I want to talk about the advice that you have for those of us who struggle with how to balance our own individual needs with the needs of people that we're in relationship with. So it could be our significant other, but it could be our friends. It could be our coworkers. So let me read you what somebody wrote to me about this conversation.

6:48what happens when you don't agree with what your partner wants from you in your example you think you're spending enough time together but they may want to have a lot more time with you how do you manage when you have a different viewpoint and your partner expects you to change or do something different to make him or her feel better but you don't want to what would be your advice well you just keep trying to come up with a plan for both of you are happy. And Parville suggested I tell the story. There was an opportunity for us to have a vacation. And I was multitasking, working in two different worlds, one with women and one with women and men.

7:34and I was tired and he had two kids when, before we married, I had two and we had two together who we love, but I was tired. Yeah. On vacation. I just want to, uh, and Harville said, no, no. For a vacation, I want to travel to another part of the world. I love nature. I want to be someplace different. And I said, Harville, can't we just sit on the sofa and relax and have movies and watch? Yeah, just rest and take care of our bodies, exercise. And he said, no, I don't think that's right. And then he woke up. He said, Helen, let's get a motor home. And so we got a motor home and we had more fun in this motor home where Harville, he planned, we went to, in Mexico.

8:31Well, once we got on the road, I just went and watched TV shows on our vacation. So what we discovered is the thing we just talked about is difference. Yeah. I'm a wanderer. Helen is a nester. she wants to stay home you know like a hen take care of the eggs and i want to go out and look around so we came to this conclusion that if we had a motorhome i can wander and drive and she can go in the back and look at travel logs and then at night we can talk about what i saw in front of me and what she saw on the video so that we would then share and we found that so successful Well, I think we did that about 22 times.

9:17That's amazing. And what I'm hearing there is there was an interest to keep exploring the differences and to also keep being creative about possibility where you felt like you could get your desires for what an ideal vacation for you look like as you, you know, Josh and I, we vacation is interesting because I know this question. A lot of people have this, you know, my partner wants X, Y, or Z. Z, but I really want something different, A, B or C. Josh and I noticed that on our vacations too, where he loves to not have plans and discover things. And, you know, I can be a little bit of a control freak in a good way.

9:57And I have my, I know the number one croissant place in Paris and we must find, you know, and so we've had battles and the way that we've settled it is some days are absolutely free flowing. There is no agenda. I'm like, I am at your service wherever we want to wander and discover. And then other days I get to then check things off my list of the best of X city. We're going to go visit that. So thank you for sharing that story. And the beauty of that is that you can have two outcomes. And one is if you hold the difference intention, it produces a third option that could not come out of one or the other person.

10:37Yes. Or you can take turns and say, okay, I want to go have a structured day. I want to have a free day. But if you collaborate and using dialogue to really listen to each other each way, then you get all kinds of options. And you don't have to polarize. You then have to just invent. And when couples discover that, they're at another level of consciousness because most of us live, it's me, it's me, not you. Or it's me or you, but it could be us. And that's the kind of consciousness that ultimately produces the best relationship possible when it's us, when it's us, me or you, you know, I want to underscore also what you said, which was so key for me when I read it in this book was we are so trained, especially in our culture, you know, it can only speak to here in the United States, because this is where I was brought up.

11:33We are so trained to win. We are so trained to, you know, and, and especially I'll speak for myself as a woman. There's also some interesting kind of subterranean messaging around surrendering. And that makes me weak. So if I submit and I'm using bunny here's there for my listeners, you know, I'm, I'm being a little fishy facetious, you know, to Josh's point of view that I'm somehow not a powerful or strong woman. So there's a lot of layers to this, but I love bringing it back to dialogue and this interest in us. We are born in relationship. We're wounded in relationship and we can only heal in relationship.

12:14So when there is difference, continue both of you to look for a compromise or one day you do this, next day you do this, or to arguing about where to go for a vacation when you're one selects the next year. Just make sure both of you are happy and connected.

12:39Stress got you spinning? Look, I get it. With everything going on in the world, plus all the daily demands of living, it can feel overwhelming, which is why I want to share with you a free five minute tool that'll help you slow down and focus on what really matters. You can download it for free now at marielovesyou.com slash stress log. This is a powerful little ritual that'll melt away your toxic stress fast. So go to marielovesyou.com slash stress log and get it now. Let's look at another situation, which happens for, I think, most of us. Let's say you've had a major blow up with someone in your life.

13:17Again, it could be your intimate partner or it could be a friend or it could be a boss or a coworker. And there was either a big disagreement or there was some type of breach of trust. What are some strategies that we can use to start to rebuild that connection after something big and hurtful goes down and we just don't feel equipped to reenter that? Let's assume that the blow up was somebody was really mad at you because you did whatever they said you did. And I think it's important just as a little sidebar that one thing we've learned over the years, we used to think there was a cause and effect relationship between, you know, you're upset and I did something.

14:01And what we now know is that I can never be the cause of your upsetness, but I can be the occasion. And I'm the occasion because you have a background, a childhood. I did something that triggered a memory in you. And you, not knowing it, and we don't do it intentionally, not knowing it, that memory, sort of move from the past into the present. And you thought it was me doing that. You don't know you had a choice or you don't know that you had a reaction to what I did. So hardly anybody knows that. So this is why the person who feels, who was the one who did the wrong and is therefore or accused or in some sense judged by that, has to do something really courageous, which is, I'm aware, could we have a talk?

14:58Would you be willing for us to have a talk? Because I'm aware that I've really upset you. And you have to go ahead and say, I'm aware that I've really upset you. And not say, I'm aware that you decided to interpret my behavior. as directed at you because that's anybody upset cannot take reality you have to say i'm aware that i that i upset you and i really um i i'm sorry about that i i apologize for it but mainly i want to know what what's happening for you in other words you go to curiosity it's a principle it's not so much a tactic it's a principle you go to curiosity i'd like to know really like to know what your thoughts and feelings were when you experienced me doing x would you be willing to tell me you don't do the exercise let me see if i've got that did i get it because then they know you're practicing a skill and just say really it's really important to me that i hear you accurately so would you let me check with you if if i'm getting it because i might miss something and then you go to more curiosity so is there more about that and then they'll always generalize because this pain does not really come from you it was triggered in the moment then they say well you're just like everybody else or you're just like peter or my other boss or or whatever and then god and he was like my father and so you just mirror that what you have to do is hold that reality without judging it in any way shape or form or defending yourself that i didn't do that everybody decides how they're going to respond to an experience because that would be adding insult to injury is that I'm making this up and that's what somebody will say to you you're telling me I made all this up no you have to ask them for it because they are telling you their truth that's where we get to difference they're telling you their truth no your truth and here's the magic of that is that they've been operating and telling you about it out of what we would call the emotional brain, the lower brain.

17:36And when you mirror them back and say, let me check now, am I getting this? They have to go to their prefrontal cortex to check so that they then come out of the affect into cognition. And after a while, they'll say, well, you know, there's something like, you know I've had this feeling before and and I just hope that we I just thank you for listening to me and I and it's okay you know I don't have the training to go in and say well tell me what happened for you so that the person who is accused has to take ownership of the process not necessarily of the behavior because it has a history but of the process of allowing a person who has been injured by their own memories to feel held because when they were little nobody held them when they were hurt so when you do that you're actually and you don't want to call it therapy but it is it is therapeutic because nobody listened or somebody did do that And then nobody listened to their reaction and told them to quit complaining, you know, and shut up and find, you know, what parents do to children, what bosses do sometimes to employees.

19:02And I think that's the important thing. If you're going to listen, you have to give up judgment no matter what you hear. It's their world. And if you judge them, then you've annihilated their world. And now they're doubly hurt because they got hurt. They told you about it and you told them it's your fault. Yeah. So, so nuanced. If that makes sense. It does make sense. And I'm so excited for people, you know, for those listening right now and you're like, wow, this is deep. It is deep and it's nuanced. And so much of, I know what I have struggled with in my own life in relationship comes down to these basic elements.

19:40And that's why I always get so excited. And I'm such an advocate for your work and your mission and specifically for dialogue, because I've watched in myself, you know, whether it's Josh and I having friction, and we both, the temperature gets taken down or when now I mirror in very, I call it stealth ways with my parents or, you know, my friends or, uh, coworkers or anyone. And it's amazing how it can take what can feel like is a contentious, touchy, delicate, you're walking on eggshells kind of situation and really support someone in getting out of that kind of crocodile brain, right? And moving into the wise Al brain, your, your terms.

20:27Um, thank you for that. So let's talk a little bit more about dialogue. I've mentioned it. We've, you know, for those who didn't see our first episode, what are the elements of safe conversation dialogue and, and how we've talked about how it can transform any relationship, but let's really break down. What are those key parts of dialogue? Well, it's a structured, so we'll just be bald about it, it's a structured process. Meaning, another way to say it, it's a skill. And a skill requires practice. So you have to know, just like tennis, you have to know how to hold your arm so that it's counterintuitive.

21:06If you hit a ball naturally, it's not going over the net. You have to hit it when your arm doesn't feel right. and do that all the way, follow all the way through. So it's like every skill. It calls on your brain to do something it has never done before. So as we began to develop this process, discovering it first between ourselves. We had our first two dates, horrible fights. We ended up yelling at each other, both dates. The first date, he took me to a very expensive restaurant. I don't need an expensive restaurant. So at the end, you know, I like Kentucky Fried. He took me really expensive.

21:53So I just said, just to let you know, next time I don't want to go to a restaurant like this. Well, he started yelling at me, and then I took him to a, I got two tickets to a play that had just opened, and no one had, and they were doing a play. and surprise, I want you to, let's go to this play together. The play was Equus, and a guy was punching out the eyes of horses. A child was punching out the eyes of horses. Well, Harville just yelled and yelled at me in the car going home. And he credits me that when we got to my house, and he was still yelling at me going inside, and I go, I didn't know what it was about.

22:37And so then I said, hey, stop. one of us talk and the other listen. And they come to self. So that was the beginning of dialogue. It's taking turns speaking and then the other person listening and mirroring back and saying, did I get it right? Yeah. And that, in fact, was the beginning of our discovery because I'm a couples therapist and I was doing a couples therapy that was based on problem-solving, conflict resolution, mainly using your brain to figure out things. And it wasn't a very successful form of marital therapy, but that was the field. That's all they had. And when Helen sort of yelled at me and said, one of us, actually you said, one of us talk, and then the other one talked.

23:28In other words, let's do parallel monologues, but not at the same time. But take turns. But take turns talking. I realized that did calm me down and I have a clinical sensitivity. I could have killed her two minutes before and I'm now calm. So what's happened here is that she called us into the prefrontal cortex and calmed down. So I went to my practice of couples the next day. and for the first time, instead of them looking at me and doing what I now call parallel psychotherapy, which was called couples therapy, two people in a room makes it couples, but it was really parallel psychotherapy as if only one person was in the room because you work with one at a time and then work with the other.

24:20I turned them for the first time to face each other and said now, and I started off sort of like what Helen did. One of you will talk. and then the other one will talk. But then they got into that and they said, but couldn't he tell me back what he's hearing? And so I learned from couples what they needed to have a conversation. So I said, oh, do you want him to reflect back what you're saying? She said, yeah. I had come up with mirroring at that time. I was, okay, George, would you do that? And so he said, well, yeah, I can say back what you said. And so he did that. Um, and then I kept asking her, okay, so is there, so that's the mirror.

25:05Let me see if I got that. We weren't using sentence stems then as Helen talked about sentence stems in a minute, but it was just reflect back. And then, um, she amazingly said, well, uh, I said, what else would you want? And, uh, she said, well, I'd, I'd like him if he would ask me if I have anything else to say. So that was the beginning of what we now call, is there more, which is the curiosity piece. Well, so he said, yeah. And she said, yeah, I do. He said, okay, I can ask. Have you got anything else? They were in Texas, so they spoke with Texans like, got anything else? And she said, yeah.

25:45So she gave some more things. And so I said, do you want him to do something else different? Well, yeah, he could tell me, is he getting it all? So she asked for a summary. Now, I'm learning this for the first time. Okay, now you got your summary. Is there anything else you want? Well, I like to know if he thinks I'm making sense or am I crazy? Well, he had said to her so many times that you don't make sense or that's crazy. And they just kind of did this, like, you know, people, kids tussling and hurting each other. And he said, well, it doesn't make sense. and she said i want you to know that i don't ask i'm not asking you to agree with me i'm asking you to see how i'm thinking so she asked for validation and he said well if i don't have to agree with you i can see how you could come up with that conclusion you know and then i said is there anything else she said well i wonder if you know how i'm feeling when i had that experience so she was asking for empathy so essentially that's what a dialogue is the one thing that we added it took about five or six years to actually crystallize that with enough practice for it to be enough for me to see that that was our going to become and became the therapeutic process that's the engine of imago couples therapy couples learn to dialogue.

27:15They don't need anything else because dialogue helps them hear each other, discover each other, become safe for each other. All the things they were complaining about not having, they get it in this new way to talk. So the one thing that we added, which was, actually it was a gross oversight, but it's one of the most important things is always when you want to talk to your partner ask permission make an appointment and when most of us just start walk up and start talking and so helen she's running a movie her movie and i'm running about something else oh i'm just putting my movie on her screen and say i don't ask her if she'll let me put my movie on i just start projecting it yes now so helen is a wonderful person and she probably said well, okay.

28:11But if she had a bit different personality, she would say, would you get your damn movie off of my screen? I am watching this thing. I am having my own set of thoughts right here. So what we finally discovered was that those are boundary violations. And there's nothing more disruptive than a boundary violation. And that leads all the way from talking while without asking permission to war. That's what's going on on the planet now is people cross boundaries. And when you cross a boundary, you have a war. And so we have built in the first thing you do. And after you come to one of our workshops, we'll say always from now on, We're going to task you with whenever you want to talk with your partner about anything, say, is now a good time.

29:10And if they say no, not now, when? Say when it is. If not now, say when. And you all make an appointment to talk. And we found that that regulates about 50 % of the problem. It actually does. I mean, I see this all the time because Josh and I both work from home. and we really have to watch ourselves because it's so easy because you love this person and they're right there and you're so comfortable to just launch into whatever it could be exciting. It could be something fun. It could be an invitation, but, um, I know for me, like I can get so myopically focused. I get most humans can, and I'm like, whoa.

29:50And the, my instant reaction is frustration, you know? And so then the whole, then we're off to the races. So this, Now we have another problem. Now we have another problem. So is this a good time? And I think it's also so useful in work relationships. Oh, yes. We have technology right now. I think, you know, in our company, we use something called Slack. And I encourage the team to actually turn it off when they're in focus time. Because you get these pings and dings when you are in the middle of doing something that's just basically interrupting and not asking permission. And it just sends our brains, I think, in a haywire kind of fight or flight state, which, you know, you do that enough times, 20, 30 times a day, you're exhausted at the end.

30:35And then, you know, you're with your partner. Forget about it. It's, you know, fight city. So thank you. It's just like, is this a good time to talk? Is this a good time? And if not, say when. Yes. If not, say when. Um, so some of those key sentence stems, because I think for most of us, because if we haven't done your training, which I'm actually excited to go back to another workshop, you guys can just Google, they do workshops. They're amazingly effective. Please go. Um, some sentence stems. So is this a good time? And if they say no, when would be a good time? That's a sentence stem. That's a sentence stem.

31:15Let me see if I got that for mirroring. right? Did I get all of that? Let me see if I heard that right. Would you? We like it. Let me see if I got that. If I heard that right, sort of puts you into a legalistic thing. I love that. Did I get that? Did I get that? Anything, any other sentence stems that we love for the dialogue process? Well, the big one, is there more about that? Is there more about that? That's like the magic sentence stem. The other person just relaxes when you say that. And that's probably one of the most, and we didn't start with that. I didn't quite pick that up for a while, how important is there more is.

31:56One day, someone who knows people at the Mayo Clinic said, Helen and Harville, I'd like the dialogue work to go to Mayo Clinic and have people analyze it about what might dialogue do where people say it feels so good to use it. And suddenly, relaxing neurochemicals are released. Left brain hemisphere, right brain hemisphere, and especially between the two is the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. And it releases relaxing neurochemicals, dopamine, acetylcholine, norepinephrine, and serotonin. And people who live in this part of the brain that they live, life is a wonder. The Mayo Clinic says a person who lives life from the upper brain sleeps better and wakes up feeling better and lives longer and has a healthier life.

33:02So both for your relationships being healthy, your whole body, you are a healthier person. If you use dialogue. Yeah, the research on it is your brain changes. It's not just a new habit that you can get out of doing. But the structure of your brain changes so it becomes integrated. Yeah, they discovered a couple decades ago neuroplasticity. The more you use a certain part of the brain, the better. It does get easier too, because I feel like it's been years now since I've had my first experience with dialogue training and with safe conversations. And the more you practice it, like any skill, the more integrated it does become.