Relationship Resistor | LQ049

Welcome to our love space today. As always, I'm excited to have you here it is working some spring sunshine today, so I'm just ever so excited and feeling super uppity and perky and bubbly because of that. When I was having to record some stuff a few days ago, it was dreary and drizzly and like blah and not feeling like spring at all, and get me down a bit today, and but that's okay, because today we're actually going to be exploring the idea, and maybe a little bit more this month as well. If you're listening, as this episode drops in April, we're going to be talking about how April showers bring May flowers. And that idea really stems from the idea that, you know, we've been talking a little bit earlier this year, a few episodes back about planting our relationship seeds, and kind of declutting our our relationship for spring cleaning, and thinking about the seeds we want to work on and what we're going to plant, and all of those things. And really, like if we plant the seeds, we need some showers. We need some some water in order to make those seeds grow. And when I say showers here, I mean some relationship hiccups. And I know you may be thinking crystal, but you are here to help us avoid relationship hiccups. Absolutely not. I am not here to help you avoid relationship hiccups. I'm here to help you minimize the hiccups you run into because some of them, you're right. Some of them, we don't need, but we're not avoiding them. It's just we have honed our skills. We have, you know, created a better connection, a better understanding for each other, more acceptance for each other, and through that we will have less little hiccups, less miscommunications, less arguments, less, you know, misunderstandings between each other, fantastic, but we are going to run in to showers. We're going to run into seasons of life where it's difficult. Someone loses a job, or, you know, something traumatic happens in the family, or things like that. We're going to have seasons that are difficult, and that is fine. That is part of life. I know we get caught up in social media and thinking that life is like super curated and lovely, and we're all just unboxing things every day, but we're not bloody unboxing things every day. I don't know about your life, but my life is full of joy and wonderment without having to unbox something every day, and that's because I am just living in a love space, loving every minute of it. Now we are going to have these showers so thinking about how to get through them and or how to navigate them, how to weather this storm together, like a little boat, you know, bobbing out there on a windy day. That is what we need to think about. So today we're going to think about the idea of a relationship resistor. So a relationship resistor is when you have one person in the relationship that doesn't really want to participate in places that could be important for making the relationship healthier, so that could include things like family events or sharing out support, or changing routines, or even getting support from someone like me. And sometimes there is some resistance, even maybe to trying like new things on a date night. And here's the thing is that resistance is never resistance is never about the actual thing. There's usually a thing under the thing. And, you know, we've been chatting a lot lately about how usually I with any with anything that comes up a bit repetitively, there's usually a thing under the thing. So you might think that the person who's being resistant in your relationship, and this could even be you, and if I'm calling you out, don't get defensive. Just hear me out. I am here with you because we all go through these times in our life. You might you may think, oh, that person only likes to do one or two things on date night. But that's actually probably not true, right? Or they don't like coming to family events because of blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. No, there's a thing under the thing, and really that thing is going outside their comfort zone. Okay, that's the biggest picture. Simplest way I can put it. We're going to go through a quick list of like examples of what that could look like, but these are more like even within that big picture. So if our big picture is that I don't that I can't tolerate going outside my comfort zone for certain things. Okay, we're going to go through the list of what you can't tolerate so and it's really important, because the smaller we make our comfort zone, the smaller kind of our our life can get, and the smaller you know our experiences get, and then the smaller our love space gets, and the smaller our social connections get, and it just starts to create a smaller and smaller world. And I want to create a world that's more expansive for everyone, right, not where we're just sitting on our phones, where everything is perfectly curated and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, but and more expansive world where we're getting outside our comfort zone we're creating, you know? So a better love space for us, better social relationships, to connect to our love space, all of those things. So here's a few different possibilities of what we could fill out the big picture idea of of being outside your comfort zone with so one could be a fear of vulnerability, right? So not going outside your comfort zone because it's going to make you vulnerable, you're going to feel unsure. Two, could be a perceived lack of control, so I'm not going to go outside my comfort zone, because I won't be in control of the situation. And this kind of goes with maybe one that's a further down, but like fear of the unknown, right? Like I don't know the expectations of the situation, and so if I don't know that, then if I go into that new situation, or if I try out this new thing, right? If we go see crystal for some help, for some support, I've never done that before. If we go to marriage counselor, I've never done that before, so I won't have any control over the situation, and that is scary. And so I guess stay inside my little comfortable comfort zone, right? Okay, the next one would be past negative experiences. So if I have gone to a relationship coach, or if I have gone to marriage counseling, or if I have gone to these kind of family events, and they have not been pleasant, they have not been joyful, I got blamed for everything. I was miserable while I was there, I'm going to try to avoid those so I'm going to stay inside my comfort zone and not even even if it's with a new counselor, new coach, new family, right? If you're in a different long term relationship with than you were, when those negative experiences happen, you may still be turned off of them, or you may still not want to go outside your comfort zone because of them. We have concerns about cost. Okay? So that could be more for like, definitely getting support, like counseling or coaching, but could also go with things like certain kinds of new mega moments of love, slash date nights, right? You might be like, I don't want to try that out, because I'm not sure about it. It costs a lot of money, right? And some of these things could actually be paired together. That's why I really wanted to pull it out to you guys for the big idea of like, it's just not wanting to go outside our comfort zone. It's just not wanting to dis to tolerate discomfort for any period of time, right? Whether that's a moment and then I might get into it, or whether it's like the whole time I'm participating. The next one would be a belief and self sufficiency. So I like to say that no person is an island, because that's an old saying. And you know, here I like to bring up all these old waka doodle sayings that people said a million years ago, but that was like, I think there's no man is an island, but we'll update it. We'll make it No person is an island. And like I said, I think this is just a few episodes ago. I said, you know, every couple, every relationship, needs a village, right? It takes a village to raise a child. It takes a village to raise a couple. It takes a village to be a successful human being. We are social creatures. Please don't kid yourself into thinking that we can just be totally self sufficient. And then, usually the thing I have with self sufficient people, or that when I run into them in coaching is that, you know, they're very like, they're not. They think they're self sufficient, but they're not even like, you know, going out and researching for themselves or reading the self help books for themselves, slash the relationship books, or doing whatever, because that's even outside their comfort zone, because that's even trying to ask for help, and they're just avoiding asking for help altogether a fear of confrontation. So that can happen a lot. If we are thinking about coaching or counseling, we can be resistant to that because we think we're going to go there and just get in a big fight, or we're going to have to say some hard things. And people don't like saying hard things. I know I hate saying hard things, but sometimes you gotta say the hard things in order to get to the better parts, right? Sometimes those saying the hard things is the April shower to get to May flowers, misconception about expectations in the situation, right? So we've already chatted about that, but you know, if you think that a thing's supposed to go a certain way, and it doesn't go that way, the next time, you're going to want to avoid it because that made you feel uncomfortable. And then another, another one that goes a little bit more with the coaching and counseling piece, or maybe the making and tweaks and improvements in your relationship piece, rather than saying, you know, being resistant to family events or date nights is that maybe there's an unwillingness to take responsibility for a person's actions. So I always talk about here, you know how we're going to be open, honest, vulnerable with each other, and that we can choose our behaviors, that we're going to acknowledge and recognize, that we can choose our behaviors that are going to either move us towards the things that we want to live or away from the things that we want to live. And if we are, if we're not willing to say, like, Hey, I was wrong, or that was an oops, or, yeah, actually, I kind of made the choice to do the easier thing there, and it didn't really make it better. And I probably could have taken the I probably could have chosen the other behavior, which would have moved me towards the thing I want, right, which would have moved us towards the love space that we want.

So those are kind of like, kind of the detail things you can pick. But really, if we break it down, like I said, we can pull. All of those things out to like, I don't want to tolerate being uncomfortable, I don't want to go outside my comfort zone, and I want to stay in here and cocoon. So if we have a per if this is if you have a resistor in your relationship and or you are the resistor, and it's okay if you are right, because we are in our love space here, we're being open, honest, vulnerable, self reflective, and that is fantastic. So the first thing that you need to figure out, maybe, is a little bit what's the thing under the thing? So is which one of these kind of things is really keeping us stuck? Right? Because if we're being resistant and not going outside our comfort zone, we're really staying stuck. Okay? So we want, we need to see what is keeping us stuck. It could be a combination of those things, like, I don't want to be vulnerable, I don't know what to expect. That's going to make me feel like I'm losing control. And, you know, it's going to cost us money if it goes badly, who knows? Right? So it could have some overlapping things. And this is where a third party can really a third party, someone who's objective can really come in handy, like myself and or a marriage counselor and or any relationship coach, right? That when you get support and you can see how someone come in that's objective, they're able to ask you some guiding questions and lead you through the process, because no one likes to be told, right? It's so much, it's so much more beneficial to your journey on this path. If you can discover what is keeping you stuck yourself, if you can, even if you come in, the reason why you come in, you can tell me a bunch of things. I'm a behavior analyst. I know lots about studying behavior. And you could probably start giving me, telling me some some stories, some anecdotes about your relationship. And in my brain, I could go like, Ah, well, you know, maybe this could be it, or this could be it. I don't like to jump to conclusions. I like to be on the exploration with you, but probably I know, probably I know the thing that's holding you back, okay? Or I can make a very good guess between one or two things. But if I go, Hey, you know what's holding you back? You're not being vulnerable. Are you gonna go, Oh, get crystal. Thanks. Thanks for telling me that. Now that I know I wasn't being vulnerable, that makes so much more sense. No, because if you go, oh yeah, I'm not being vulnerable, that's actually an instance of vulnerability, right? And an instance of of willingness to accept your mistakes, which also puts you in a vulnerability zone. So more likely you're just, you're more likely to just get more defensive, right? I'd be like, no, because, well, that's not at all, and you know nothing. And that's sometimes, like, why would we point things out to our partners very directly, and they don't have a chance to discover it. That's why sometimes they cannot accept it, right? Like, if we're like, hey, and this comes up a lot in addiction cases. If you're like, hey, I think you're drinking too much, the person's gonna be like, now. Or if you're like, I think you're doing that too much now, or they might make excuses, or I'd be like, Oh, well, I did last night. But, you know, the night before I did this or I did that, and, you know, blah, blah, blah, and we're gonna get defensive about it. People get defensive when you point things out directly sometimes, and that's why it's helpful to have someone to ask you some exploratory questions, where you can really sit in that moment and think, hey, what does that behavior mean? What do I really think I'm doing? And you feel less defensive, and you can come to that conclusion yourself, that maybe vulnerability is your own difficulty, and that's going to help you grow more than if someone just tells you, right? The just telling part often doesn't really work. So once we figured out, what's the thing under the thing, why are we staying stuck in our comfort zone? Why are we resisting to get out of there? The next thing we're going to do is we're going to be kindful with each other. We want to remember that being kindful to our partner means being kind, right? And also being present with them. So that's when we are, you know, using our active listening, we're being there. We're not having distractions. Our phone is not even on the table or not even on the couch. It is a way so that we can show we're really, truly there for them. Okay? That's going to open up a space. It's going to open up your love zone for vulnerable moments, right? Because, going outside our comfort zone, right? It's like, you don't want it to be received. If I'm going outside my comfort zone, and I'm a resistor, you don't want to be received like, you know, something like, yeah, the See, you were being stupid, right? Or you were being unreasonable, or I told you so, right? Because those are all those kinds of phrases, are all going to shut down our vulnerability. Are all going to shut down any types of trying to go outside of our resistance zone, right? Because then we're not really providing a safe space in our love space if we're giving those kind of comments back. So we have to remember that we want open, honest communication, if someone is a verbal processor, that we also need to remember that they may need to verbally process. They may need to say out loud some of their worried thoughts or some of their concerns as they're working up to the moment going up. Inside their comfort zone. So again, we're going to be kindful in this, like, if it's a family event, we're not going to be sitting if we're the resistor, we're not going to be sitting there bad mouthing all of the family members that we don't want to see, or why it's going to be so boring. But we can do some verbal processing as like, Oh, I'm feeling really uncomfortable right now. I'm really worried, you know, I'm not feeling good that we're doing this, but I really am trying to pull through right? Some people may need to say all those things, and if they do, that's okay. We're not going to take it as offensive. We're like, Ah, you keep harping on this thing. We're going to recognize the thorough verbal process and go, Okay, this is them just trying to talk themselves into and through this moment. And we're going to get to that better place right this April shower. US tolerating this, us going outside our comfort zone, us thinking about how to navigate the situation. This is our practice. This is our positive practice. This is our wonderful instances of practice that are going to get to those May flowers. And that's why I say that it's not that we never want to go through these hiccups or these tough times, because these are the times where we get to practice all of these skills, all of these skills that we practice when maybe we're like our good communication, when we're calm and we're just thinking about grocery shopping lists or making dinner, you can tell what's on my mind, hey, right, when we're have when we're just trying to get through those pieces that and we're using all of our good communication, then when We hit some of these hiccups, that's really going to give us the time, that's really going to give us the opportunity to test out these skills and to tweak them and practice them in the times where they're most needed. And that's what we're going for, right practice it get, getting to use these skills in the times when they're good, so that they will be useful in the times that are hard, then we're going to pull out a few other tools from our toolbox, and these are some things that we can do, like, if we're just in a have to situation, okay? So we have to go to this family thing, we have to do this thing. We have to tolerate this thing together, right? Like I said, there's going to be some seasons in life where things are not going well. We're going to put a little bit of a reward in that, a little bit of reinforcement, a little bit of like, hey, if we do this hard thing together, and this could even be for practicing these skills I tell you to practice, like, if we do this thing that crystal told us about, then we get to do this other fun thing, right? If this seems like really difficult to do, which hopefully it shouldn't, so if it's seeming difficult to do, you know, DM me, message me. Get a hold of me at sparked forever on both Tiktok and Instagram, if those are your jams, but or, you know, email crystal at sparked forever.com send me a message. Because it shouldn't be hard, but some things aren't going to be hard, so if they're hard, let's add some reinforcement. Okay, let's add a little reward to pair with it, because that's just like a scientific fact that that's going that's going to draw some motivation to it, to doing the hard thing. But also, if you pair something hard, okay, this is like a behavior thing, if you pair something hard or blah with something good, your heart or blah spirits will start to seem not so bad. So I know I've had, and I

I have had some couples where they come to coaching, and some of those first sessions can be difficult, because sometimes we have to say some hard things, or share some things, or be vulnerable, and we're going outside of our comfort zone, and that can feel a bit yucky, lucky, going outside of our comfort zone just at the beginning there, but you know, hey, if on the ride home, you get to go and, you know, go for a happy hour on the way home, or, you know, go out for like, a special dinner, go to a movie, go on a walk. Because maybe when you're coming to see me, it's by, like, a great trail that you never get to do unless you come see me. So fantastic. So then we're going to go on a walk together, right? If you especially, because that's also giving you some connection time. You're doing a hard thing together, and then you're planning to have some connection, relaxation, enjoyment, time together. Oh my gosh, that's amazing. That's going to mean that that yucky thing you did is not going to seem so bad, and in the future, it will seem less yucky because you've paired it with a good thing. And you can keep doing that. I doing that. Okay? The other thing is, if you are trying to do something new, like something that's putting you outside your comfort zone, but it's more like, Hey, we are trying to do date night thing. We are trying to do this thing. We're doing a new family event thing. And it might seem a bit harder, but sticky, take some pictures, reminisce about the positive points about it, how some things to look back on that you can reminisce about, because we all know that's great also, if you're putting in some reinforcement with it, right, if you're putting in your little reward as you the as the thing that's hard is coming up, and maybe you're talking about, like, Oh, I got I really don't want to go to this family event. I really don't want to do this thing. You can also be having using, again, as we've talked about here before, the power of positive anticipation to talk about the thing that is coming up. So like, Oh, we're gonna have to go do this thing. But you know, on the way home, we get to go to the happy hour at that pub that we never. Get to go to or we get to go on for that hike, on that trail that we've been wanting to do for years. You can actually start talking that part up, the Part B part up, more than talking about the part a part that you don't want to do. There you go, um, right. And we also want to focus on the good, the benefits that have come out of going through the situation that put us outside our comfort zone. Now you may go to the situation outside your comfort zone. You may say yes to it. You may get that little resistor, that little resistor person outside of their comfort zone, and they try it, and it's not so bad. Oh goodness, hallelujah. It was not so bad. And that's fantastic. Okay, so let's reminisce about that. Let's talk about the benefits of that, right, especially if it's counseling or coaching. Let's be like, hey, you know, that was really hard, but that point that we got to about this thing, or the fact that we have something to try this week, or maybe you try it this week, and it didn't work out well, but or it worked out better than we thought. You can all talk about the benefits of that, right? And if it didn't work out, well, then you can have a laugh about it, right? Like, ah, we're gonna have to talk to Chris about that one next week, because that did not turn out the way we thought it would perfect. We're gonna chat about it, because it's all about these little steps, these little movements towards the love space we want, right? Nothing is perfect, but we can be creative, and we can always find some benefit, and all of these life experiences that we have, even if something is hard, boring or stressful, right? But we got to share that together, and that kind of action is going to keep us energized. Remember that we also need to make sure we have some affection in there. So when we're doing something hard and we're tolerating something hard, we're going to this family event. We're going to coaching counseling. We're trying this new mega moment of love date night thing. Okay, so all of those things, remember to also make sure that you have outlets for affection built in, like we're holding hands, or, you know, when we're there, we're making sure we're getting our snuggles in. We're having some kisses before we have some sort of affection. We've made sure we maybe exchange some love languages throughout the day, leading up to it, or dream the situation or after the situation, right? So for our love languages, acts of service, right? May and we know that person's doing something hard for us. Maybe we're making them breakfast, maybe we're making them coffee. Maybe we're, you know, like, Hey, I know it's your day to take out the garbage, but we have to go to this thing. And so I had some extra time, so I took it out for us, right? Anything like that, anything where we're kind of cushioning that the hardness or the difficulty, the tough time with some affection is great, because affection, remember, our non our physical, non sexual affection, really fills up our emotional cups and our and using our love languages with each other really fills up our emotional cups without us really knowing, right? It's kind of those secret things that we sometimes do accidentally and don't realize we're doing it. That's the thing that we're looking for, right? Those are the things that we're now being more mindful and cognizant of, that when we're like, well, we're feeling drained and gross, ah, maybe we've stopped doing some of these things, and we can get back into those things. So getting through these kind of rain clouds of resistance is really giving us practice with all the pieces of cake. So we talked about communication and kindfulness, kind of at the beginning, and how, you know, our affection and our energy for the situation can support our kindfulness and our communication in these tough times. And it's so great to practice these don't be scared of practicing these things in the easy times and the tough times, because when we practice them in the easy times, that gives us those foundational pieces for our April showers, right for our rainstorms, for our hurricanes, whatever you have coming up, or whatever might come up by accident, right? We don't, we don't expect these things, right? We don't expect these things to happen in life. But life just happens. Life is not perfect and curated as we know, as I as we have to remind ourselves every day, because really, the world makes it seem like it is, but it don't. So don't be scared to use these things, because they're going to open up your love space to vulnerability, and you're going to match the vulnerability with creating safety, and that safety is really going to be the foundation that is going to keep you sparked. I.