Still Becoming One
We longed for a marriage where two people truly connect as “one flesh,” but we had no roadmap. After years of missteps, hard seasons, and questions about when real closeness would begin, we discovered that building a thriving marriage takes time, intention, and guidance. Now, more than 26 years later, our marriage is stronger than ever. Brad is a licensed counselor, and Kate is a relationship coach, and together we help couples and individuals explore what it means to build a deep connection, uncovering the stories and patterns that keep them stuck. Join us as we continue the journey of growth, healing, and intimacy. We are still becoming one, and we want to walk this path with you.
Still Becoming One
Trauma Whisperers: The Art of Healing Together
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Brad and Kate explore how our personal stories and childhood experiences shape our marriage relationships in profound ways. Story work provides couples with a framework to understand recurring conflicts and create healthier patterns of interaction.
We invite you to start your own story exploration and join us next week as we continue our series on story work and its impact on marriage.
Welcome to Still Becoming One
Speaker 1Welcome to the Still Becoming One podcast. We are Brad and Kate.
Speaker 2In our more than 20 years of marriage, we've survived both dark times and experienced restoration.
Speaker 1Now as a licensed marriage counselor and relationship coaches. We help couples to regain hope and joy.
Speaker 2We invite you to journey with us, as we are still becoming one.
Speaker 1Let's start the conversation.
Speaker 3Hello everyone, Welcome back to Still Becoming One.
Speaker 2Yeah, welcome back.
Speaker 3This is fun.
Speaker 2That's what I was thinking too.
Speaker 3So Kate and I I hope it doesn't sound too much different on the podcast We'll, we'll see.
Speaker 2Okay, I was going to say it doesn't sound different to me, but that doesn't mean it won't.
Speaker 3Kind of rearranged and um set up a little bit differently, so now we can actually do these conversations looking at each other. That's kind of fun.
Speaker 2It is.
Speaker 3And we are hoping that we can do some video recording and at least do some snippets of what we're putting in the podcast that we can use for social media and other things like that, and we'll see where all that goes.
Speaker 2Yeah, so we're currently looking, but we look at each other when we do the podcast anyways. I just have to look sideways. Yep, so now we're actually facing each other. It's going to be exciting it will.
Speaker 3It will, of course.
Speaker 2No, I always like looking at you, it's not a problem oh, me either I just think this could be like danger zone where we just like you know, have our conversations that everybody thinks are amazing.
Speaker 3Yes, exactly Right. It's maybe a little easier to get into things this way.
Speaker 2Probably, I would think so, that's right. But yeah, we're going to, we're toying with it, We'll see how it works out. Just fair warning, if should, we do the videos. I'm not dressing up every Monday.
Speaker 3No.
Speaker 2I told Brad that as soon as, as soon as he was like, yeah, this would be a fun idea.
Speaker 3I'm like, okay, they're all gonna get the monday morning me I know, I totally understand and I think that's who we really are. And, yes, we can maybe have some videos where we, you know, don't do it on a monday morning, but you know there are other times some monday mornings I get up, get ready right, exactly monday mornings less.
Speaker 2But you know I have been bemoaning this for years. You actually were like sad when you decided to shave your head because you know you're like, okay, I'm losing too much hair. I would love to have a shaved head because then I could get up every morning and look fantastic without having to do anything.
Speaker 3Yes, that is an advantage.
Speaker 2It is.
Speaker 3I just kind of brush the beard down and then that's about it. Brush the beard, so it's pretty easy. Yes, I do admit it takes me a little while to shave it every couple of days, but that's about it.
Speaker 2I do admit it takes me a little while to shave it every couple of days, but that's about it. I'll never forget the time that you were like I. I had like the epiphany. I was like do you cause I usually handle buying like the shower items and everything. I'm like, do you need more shampoo? And you're like, for what? I was like oh, I guess you don't. Okay, you're like I can just use regular soap on my head now, because it's not hair anymore.
Speaker 3Nope.
Speaker 2So, anyways, just know you'll see the real us, which is kind of us, anyways it is, I don't know I know, and that's kind of what I was thinking anyway, our podcast is really us having conversations anymore.
Speaker 3Is really us having conversations anymore? And you know, kind of thinking through a lot of the conversations that we used to get into over dinner or something like that, and we'd be like, oh you know, we should have this conversation on the podcast.
Speaker 2There you go, so now dinner is just us.
Speaker 3I know it's been interesting. Yeah, we told everyone a couple of weeks ago that we were kind of jumped into empty nest really quickly. So, yeah, how would you say that's been going? What's it been like?
Speaker 2and say I don't know if we said this on air before, but I was a little apprehensive, because I enjoy spending all of my time with you. Never really had a problem with that, and you do too, but you also. We're both introverts, but your introvertedness needs just time for you, which is totally fine. And so I was a little worried that I was going to suck up that time you are.
Speaker 3I am, it's just right on the line.
Speaker 2Correct. So you need the best of both worlds, right.
Speaker 3Exactly, I am still an extrovert that needs some of that social and needs some of that time. It's just yeah, there are times that I'm like, okay, I need a little bit of me time and that's one of my self-care things that I've learned over the years, like I never thought that, as you know, a younger person, Needing me time. Yeah, that wasn't really.
Speaker 2Yeah, well, it plays into what we're talking about today Story. We talk about that a lot because we think it's super important, but I yeah, part of my story is that I enjoy being around the people that I trust. It's not like I want to be around lots of random people, but you're one of those people and so.
Speaker 3But I enjoy being around you as well. I'm not worried about that side of things. I enjoy being around you as well. He says as well, I'm not worried about that side of things. I think the thing that you're specifically talking about is more my ADHD.
Speaker 2Yeah, you can't function with me around you tend to like. Verbal processing.
Speaker 3Right verbal process, the work that you're doing or the things that you're seeing or the kind of things, and I can't get anything done while that happens.
Speaker 2It's my own ADHD, but it functions differently in me.
Speaker 3So yeah, so yeah, that would be. The challenge is that I need the space in order to get work done, that I need this space in order to get work done, but social time like downtime. I'm good with hanging out.
Speaker 2Yeah, I think it's been fine. I think we're figuring things out. I think we were super excited for this time, but I think I am realizing how much of that, for me, was met with managing lack of better term, their schedules right. I got that interaction believe it or not, that I was necessarily looking for it from our kids, and so it's just different.
Speaker 3Um, I think there is a huge time shift in some of that right. Like you, you know, and we've said on the podcast before, we've had all different types of arrangements and work levels and all that kind of stuff in our, in our married life. But for the last 10 years you've chosen to work more part-time.
Speaker 2I think we chose that too. I would say it was a decision together.
Speaker 3Correct, it was an us decision, but you were a part of that decision for sure.
Speaker 2It wasn't like me telling you oh gosh, no, that's not us either.
Speaker 3But you've chosen to work 20-ish hours a week, knowing that there's another 30-plus hours a week that you were doing kid stuff, home stuff, like those kind of things.
Speaker 2So you were definitely working very for full time, just right, some of that was yeah, running kids around and all the and connecting with them, checking in on them the two that we had at home at the time, but yeah.
Speaker 3Now that that's less, it's not gone by any means. We still have kid time, you know, it's just less.
Speaker 2It's mainly on the phone too.
Speaker 3Yeah, correct.
Speaker 2Our daughter, who's only like an hour and a half away, our middle daughter for college. She popped home this weekend, which was amazing and fun, but yeah, it's just. It's such a strange time. Someone recently told us we're not empty nesters because they're in college, but it does. And they'll come back and they will, but it still feels that way the majority of the time.
Speaker 3I don't know in this, in our generation of parents, how you ever get to empty nest in in that reality, because the delayed like delayed figuring out where kids go long term it's so difficult because of housing prices and job issues, and you know, it's just not unusual for kids mid or late 20s to need a place to land for a little while.
Speaker 2Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 3Man, I can't imagine waiting till empty nest for that hurdle to be completely done. Who knows when that would ever be.
Speaker 2And that's why we're taking it now.
Speaker 3Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2Because it may change again.
Speaker 3So one of the things that we're doing in our empty nest, although we kind of decided to do this even before. I was going to say it just happened to work out that way, yeah is both of us are signed up to take the next level of the narrative therapy, trauma care um. From dan allender the allender center yep, and so that is a intensive, what? Six month commitment. I think it's longer than that, isn't it something like that? Because we start in and so that is a intensive, what six-month commitment.
Speaker 2I think it's longer than that, isn't it? Yeah, something like that, because we start in October and end in March.
Speaker 3March yeah.
Speaker 2Oh, so yeah, maybe Six months, maybe.
Speaker 3So we are jumping into that course and looking forward to it. Both of us took the NFTC1 level. Now what two years ago, a little over two years ago?
Speaker 2No, I think it's longer than that it's three.
Speaker 3It'd be three years ago.
Speaker 2I was going to say because my dad passed away right before your mom passed away as we were ending.
Speaker 2Right, and I'm thinking yeah, that was three years ago, yeah because I think yeah, I think so so thinking on air, I don't know guys that's okay but it does seem, I think it's longer than that, so yeah, what are you hoping to get out of nftc2? Oh, um, I mean learning more. I think I've, as I've understood, nftc2. There's a lot of like how your own story influences how you engage other people's stories, which is I get it completely true.
What Story Work Actually Means
Speaker 2So I think there's gonna be um, there's gonna be a lot of that which I'm I think I need to learn more about and be more, um, cognizant of that. So that's a good thing, I don't know, I think, just learning more about, well, as we're reading the book about the body and how it all impacts, like I think there's going to be a focus on that, of course. Well, it's trauma care.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2Focus trauma care, so definitely anticipate that.
Speaker 3Yeah, I don't know, so definitely anticipate that. I mean this is all a part of the category of work out there that they call trauma-informed care, right, and trying to make sure that we know what we're doing in our coaching and our counseling that does respect and honor the trauma work that people need as they're going through often really hard things.
Speaker 3And that's some of why we decided we wanted to talk about story work today, and you know, probably do a little bit of series of what is story work, what do we mean by those terms and how do we use story to help couples actually grow in their relationship? Because still, while we do, now have people coming to us and going oh wait, you do story work.
Speaker 3I want that Right Like so you do have some of that, but I would say the bulk of our clients still are going. I'm struggling in my relationship. How do you help me Right and in their marriage. Yeah, and so then we're kind of going okay, let's talk about the relationship, let's talk about you know, all of those kinds of things, but then let's also get into your story. Right, right, yeah Well yeah.
Speaker 2And what does?
Speaker 3that even mean.
Speaker 2I think that's kind of our niche that make us a little different than a lot of other people Although there are people out there you can get who focus on this in marriage, but I think it's a pretty limited number.
Speaker 3Individuals. I think there's a lot, a lot of people are doing this work in individual. There's only a few. Steve and Lisa Call that we had on the show a couple of weeks ago is one of them.
Speaker 2And Dan and Becky, because they sometimes do theirs together right, Correct the marriage retreats or whatever, for sure.
Speaker 3But I don't know that many who are I mean obviously we have Barbara Case on our staff and she and her husband are doing some of that as well. So we've kind of tried to seek out the people who are doing story work for marriages, because I think it's really beneficial.
Speaker 2Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 3And we keep seeing it in everyday arguments right, that's something that people bring to our sessions all the time right. We sit down with people and they go. Oh, we just had this big argument and want to talk about what happened and why this person got upset when they came home or whatever it was, and it's just so easy to see people's story popping in.
Speaker 2Yeah, and I think, just listening to that, the one thing I would encourage people who are listening is, if you're a married couple, that if one of you is doing story work, I would encourage the other one to take a brave step and do it as well. Because sometimes I do think there is a place, and it's great if we have spouses separately that they can just dive right into their story and not be worried so much about the dynamics between the two of them. Yet but I know that's hard because usually people come to us in a tough space. But I think it's because our stories are always rubbing up against each other, bumping up against each other. Whatever analogy you want to use, you have to understand what's at play for both. Yeah Right, helping one spouse understand what's happening for them is great and that can drastically change things, but it can't completely if someone is still in their own pattern that they don't understand.
Speaker 3Correct. So before we get too far ahead of ourselves, let's maybe define what does story work, even mean?
Speaker 2Okay, do you want me to define it?
Speaker 3Yes.
Speaker 2Why.
Speaker 3Because you're good at it. I've heard you say this and I think it's pretty good.
Speaker 2Oh, I'm glad. I'm glad. I just don't know what I'm about to say. So I'm glad that you think whatever I'm about to say is going to be amazing. I think StoryWorker is a journey into your own story, which is your background, your family, your community, your everything that has shaped you before. Adolescence kind of solidifies our brains and how we have interpreted the world. There's lots of pieces to it, but that's how we continue your story. Your childhood, your teenage, hood, like that is the lens you are doing life with. Yeah Right, and story for me answers the questions of why do I do what I do, which often can be very frustrating. Why do I do that? Why do I keep doing it? Why can't I stop doing it?
Speaker 1Right.
Speaker 2Why can't I choose something different? Um story work enables us to dive into those things and actually have some answers and then have the ability to move towards healing or freedom from those things.
Speaker 3So, yeah, I think that's exactly right. It is trying to explain the why am I upset about that? Why am I hurt by that? Why am I getting angry right now? Why am I yelling when I don't want to? Why am I doing X? So it's trying to understand some of those things.
Speaker 3And it's doing it in a way that is looking at and informed on are trauma. Now I'm going to guess most people like myself feel like, oh well, I guess this doesn't apply for me because I didn't have any big, huge traumas when I was growing up. Nobody died, there was no shooting that happened. There was know. I didn't live through 9-11, you know those kinds of things.
Speaker 2All the things that the world would describe and honor as trauma.
Understanding Personal Trauma
Speaker 3Yeah, and those are huge, significant, big traumas, right, and every once in a while we get clients who have had those experiences think something horrific that happened, that literally anyone hearing this story would go, oh my goodness, that's a trauma, and I think those are obviously really big and important and we can honor how hard that is. The challenge, I think, is how often other things become, or were, a trauma for us because, we did not have the cognitive ability or the relationship ability to process them at the time. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3And so things that were not big T traumas where we were put in situations where we didn't know what to do, where we felt overwhelmed and we just didn't have the support that we needed to get through that situation became stuck points. Yeah. And all of us have them. Right. Absolutely stuck points, yeah, and all of us have them right.
Speaker 2absolutely every one of us have those moments that really, you know, keep us, yeah, stuck well, and we've heard dan allender say several times over our training and the book we're just reading for nftc2. Um, hillary mcide said I think that's her name said the same thing of like little T traumas, those things that we all experience as average people where our parents were maybe not in tune, or a teacher or a friend at school like right. All of these things there are little T traumas, but they often add up and they are harder for us to honor than the ones that the world says are horrible.
Speaker 2Right, understandably so, but the reality is we need to understand how that impacted you as an individual and what were your strategies coming out of that? Or the repeated little T traumas. So I think it's huge and it's also really hard to honor it.
Speaker 3give it the voice that it needs and be able to, like, move in a positive place with that and I think it's interesting, right, this is not necessarily every time you are in a hard situation. I have like and I've searched some of my memory of this like I remember being bullied as a young boy and being in those kind of really overwhelming situations, and there's a couple of fuzzy ones that I can kind of remember.
Speaker 3But, it's more this generalized feeling of not knowing what to do and those kind of things. And so in many ways those I'm not saying they were good, those were hard memories for me.
Speaker 3And they certainly laid the groundwork for other traumas. But for me and I really just mean this, for me those were less the traumas than some of the other things that happened, and I can tell by how my brain has stored the memories. I can go back to third grade and remember, you know, some of the teasing and some of those kinds of things, but it's not vivid. It's there. I know what they called me. I know like those kinds of things, but it's not vivid for me. Yeah.
Speaker 3Where story work often goes into those moments that are frozen memories. Right, it's the vivid picture of something happening, it's the oh my gosh. I remember this in so much detail. I have no idea why. Kind of moment.
Speaker 2Although some people I hear that, but remember it's still, although some people. I hear that, but remember it's still remember it vividly, but it's just snapshots. Yeah right, it's not like I remember, start to finish all the way, because that's what people somehow think they should.
Speaker 3Yeah, I find, and that's just not how our memory works we wouldn't be able to survive, remembered everything no, no, no from the moment it started to the moment it ended no, the I've heard it explained that, like when we get into that fight or flight mode, that one of the things that happens to us is our mind, our brain, is accessing more information. So it acts like a slow-mo video because, if you want to do a slow-mo video.
Speaker 3you actually increase the frame rate right, like you make it go faster. So then when you play it back at normal speed, it is slow-mo. That's kind of what's happening in our brain in a trauma it's taking in more information.
Speaker 4So then afterwards, we don't know what to do with all of that information.
Speaker 3Our brain doesn't know what to do with that information, and so then afterwards, we don't know what to do with all of that information. Our brain doesn't know what to do with that information, and so it often gets stuck.
Speaker 2Right, and it often as a young child, teenager tries to figure out okay. So this is a situation I'm in regularly which can absolutely happen with bullying or at home, and your little mind and your little body says okay, if I do this, that helps me right, right, and it could be something right a strategy.
Speaker 2It could be something that helps you to be seen with your family, helps you to not cause tension. Like strategies are just things you come up with to survive the best you can in your family situation, and sometimes it's also coping strategies.
Speaker 1Absolutely.
Speaker 3Right, that's what happens and that's why it's frozen and we're kind of stuck, like when we talked a lot or didn't talk at all or went around and made sure we had all our homework done or, you know, did all kinds of things in order to gain attention. We worked really hard to be the best on the soccer field. We worked, you know, in so many different avenues. We worked to fix things that we didn't know what we were doing or, as dan allender says, to restore peace to our lives.
Speaker 2The problem is they're broken like they're not real restoration right it's temporary. Oftentimes it ends up hurting us or someone else. Words, you know, like anger, but those are not the only ones, right, so yeah?
Speaker 3And you know we were talking about introvert extrovert earlier, like the, and this is just one of those interesting things. I am an extrovert.
Speaker 2I I know I'm an extrovert, but as I've grown, I said we were both introverts, though I know you did.
Speaker 3But I'm an extrovert. But as I've grown older I've recognized and gotten closer to my introverted side, like there's places of self-care in being alone and I've learned to grow in that. But as we're talking about trauma stuff, I grew up in a family of four that three of them were pretty far on the introverted scale and here I am, the extrovert kind of like, bouncing around a little bit and wanting to be social and wanting to do things, wanting to be social and wanting to do things and like that wasn't what was normal in my household, and so like I think I learned the strategy of spending a lot of time by myself, which is why it took me so long to come back to that being healthy.
Speaker 2Hmm, yeah.
Speaker 3Because for a long time it wasn't.
Speaker 2So you would mainly consider yourself an extrovert.
Speaker 3Yeah, oh, I mean, if I look at the true definition of introvert and extrovert. Introvert is that I gain energy by being by myself and I spend energy when I'm social Right. Extrovert is the reverse I'm gaining energy when I'm with other people and I'm spending that energy when I'm by myself.
Speaker 2Gotcha.
Speaker 3So it's not even what I like or dislike. It's where you get energized.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3And I absolutely get energized from being with my clients, being with people, being in groups, being like I had my. I'm doing a new group this season and had a first meeting with them and I had a bunch of guys and it's two hours eight to 10 on my time zone, cause some people aren't in the same time zone, so it ends at 10 o'clock at night and I'm buzzing, you know like, just because that filled my battery and in a really good way. I had lots of energy, but it's then. It's like okay, I got to go to bed soon.
Speaker 2So that's what I mean by the extrovert side of me I was going to say because I feel like in the last bunch of years you've more leaned and said you're leaning towards introvert.
Speaker 3There are definitely places where I am, and I think some of that is my self-care. I know there's times I need to quiet myself and I need to learn how to be with myself again in a healthy way. You're fun to be with.
Speaker 2I appreciate that you are, um, yeah, I get that. Okay, so brad's an extrovert guys, but you ride the line. Oh, I do, I absolutely. I feel like you have one foot on each side as I've grown older I'm I'm definitely more in that.
Speaker 3That other camp of like okay, I got a little too much people Now I need some just me time, like that does happen, which takes you only like 5.3 minutes. Depends which people.
Speaker 2Well, and that's what I would say If I'm with people the very few, select few that are kind of in my inner circle not because I'm exclusive, but because it's hard to bare your soul to tons of people and I want my inner circle to be ones that know me, can challenge me, call me out, but also love me in the hardest moments, so with them I never feel like I can't just spend time with them. But spending time with them doesn't drain me like spending time with large groups of people whom I don't know, or I'm having to make small talk and you know that kind of thing. So I'm definitely more introverted, but it took me a long time to understand that because, yes, for me escaping from my family was also a coping strategy. Right, and teenage years I think that's also kind of a somewhat normal stage you go through. Yeah.
Speaker 3So. So how do we do this work while respecting, like we're not trying to turn people against their family?
Speaker 2Well, and I think sometimes, yes, we're not trying to. I say all the time reiterate to my clients I'm not judging your family, I am not deciding things about them. Most parents, they are doing the best they can and they aren't right Like it is what's available to them emotionally, physically, but it's oftentimes missing the mark with their kiddos. And I can stand on the one side and be the person in my family we're talking about. I can also stand on the other side and be the mom who knows I've done this to my kids at times. So it really is just trying to find that balance of honor and honesty.
How Stories Collide in Marriage
Speaker 3I think we need to, and should, figure out what it means to honor a parent in how they attempted to love us, even in places where that love seems off right.
Speaker 3Like there are times we can look hard and try and understand what that means. So you know, but for many of us it's okay. My parents tried their best or I can see you know their parent was this. So look at what my parent did right, and we can honor the growth in them, we can honor their attempts at connection, but we can also honor our own struggle and our own pain and go yeah, but there were times I was still hurting and that wasn't necessarily their fault Like we're not looking at trying to place blame with our stories.
Speaker 3We're going okay. You know what I saw this thing, you know that happened. I saw this different relationship that you had with my sibling, or I saw this different way that you you know treated me, or something like that In that work. We can be hurt by that and we can acknowledge that and try to you know and try to understand and be honoring what that means for us.
Speaker 2Yeah, I think the challenge comes in where we push into families most of the time, because I don't feel like I've ever done any stories where their family doesn't come in somewhere. I think, in order to be honoring, we have to actually be honest, right, right, order to be honoring, we have to actually be honest, right, because if we're not honest about how it impacted us emotionally, in our body, spiritually, all those things, then we will always come down on the side of self-contempt for ourselves. Why did I do that? That was dumb, all of that kind of stuff. And yet yet, as a child, your brain isn't developed enough to figure it out.
Speaker 3That's why your parents are there to help you navigate and figure it out, and so I think it's interesting, I mean, you said it really well we trade contempt for somebody who hurt us or missed something with for self-contempt, right, because they were our parents and they were for self-contempt.
Speaker 2Right, because they were our parents and they were doing the best they could. Right, and maybe we've even been told that, but it you know, dan Allender says we have to be brave and name the harm, the harm and who caused the harm.
Speaker 3I totally agree.
Speaker 2Right, because people are complex, no one's all good, no one's all good, no one's all bad, and if we don't understand the complexities and are able to name them, then we just continue to beat ourselves up, do things that are not helpful, do things that are painful and hurtful. Right, and so it really is a journey to figuring that out for yourself, so that you can honor your family better.
Speaker 3Yeah, and that's the goal. Right Is not to, oh, make you acknowledge all the places that your parents screwed up so that then you separate from them. Like you know, I think that's the fear out there, but and it's not even necessarily so you can go back to your parents and get them to acknowledge all the places where they messed up. Really, the goal of story work and trauma care is to go wow, why is it that I'm still carrying this self-contempt? Like you said, or why am I still carrying these various wounds?
Speaker 3that then impact my other relationships. That then, impact other places where I'm interacting with people in a certain way and they start showing up. Yeah. That's the challenge is, how do we see this reflected into our future, because these stories don't stay in the past right. They don't just happened back there and now I haven't thought about it for 100 years and it's just there.
Speaker 3It really is something that is impacting us as we go through our lives, as we go through how we interact with people, and certainly this is where Kate and I keep coming back to. Certainly it interacts with our marriage all the time. The whole dynamic that we were talking about of me learning how to spend time by myself and enjoying time by myself is something that I have worked on as I've tried to understand my story and understand myself.
Speaker 3Totally honest, like when we got married, I didn't like spending time by myself. Time by myself was bad. And so I would avoid it at all costs, and I think that was part of my story playing out right. I didn't really like being with me.
Speaker 3And so then I would try and avoid that and fill that with anything possible and so often got filled with TV or often got filled with distractions or other things. Where, as I've grown and tried to get a little healthier, there is a place of me learning how to actually like being with myself and liking what I like and being for me, it almost always is being outdoors. Right, this weekend you and Lily were hanging out a little bit and so I had reading to do so for our course, so I was like you know what? I'm going to go sit outdoors. It's lovely. I'm going to go sit outside and read for a little while and just kind of enjoying being in the outdoors by myself is something I've recognized I need and is a healthy thing for me.
Speaker 3I think that is me trying to understand my story. I think at the same time that can bump into your story of feeling like I'm pulling away in some ways that that can activate your story.
Speaker 2Yeah, and it's interesting because I, like I'm sitting here trying to think do I enjoy time by myself? I do. I think as a mom, I've fallen into or drove straight into I don't know like time. You know, up until this year, time by myself was.
Speaker 2Cleaning and doing house chores, and it was a commodity and if there's, any kids in the house, like you cannot guarantee it and um, which I love, having my kids in the house, so it's not that at all. Um, so I think, uh, time alone for me is okay. I tend to be more comfortable with it when no one is here, if that makes sense, cause I think I feel that pull of, like, my responsibilities in the home, what I want to cultivate in our home, those kinds of things. Um, and with you I will say, like I've been trying to think about it more. I just enjoy your company, like I enjoy sitting next to you, which I know you would allow me to do when you're outside. It's hard for me not to talk to you, so like and I'm trying to think where that would be in my story, probably because I don't I generally don't feel like people in my family understood me or wanted to know, but I can be a bit of a verbal processor too.
Speaker 3Sure.
Speaker 2So anyways.
Speaker 3But I think, if I can put it out there, I think you worry that my wanting to be by myself is because something with you. Hmm, Something with me like you don't want to be around me. Right, something with me, like you don't want to be around me, right, like something? Right, or you're being too much, or you're being, you know, too needy, or something, so now I'm pulling away in order to do that, which is not that at all yeah, no, I don't, I don't know that.
Speaker 2I think that so much. I think, because of our story, sometimes space feels vulnerable to me, or like, yeah, even though you've been walking your freedom journey and I don't really worry about that a ton, but I think it probably does influence that. Um, so, yeah, I I'm trying to think where my story would come in, where it as far as like wanting to be alone or not. I spent a lot of time alone as a teenager, but you're not wrong, I filled it with music, right, like I would just listen to music all the time. So I mean, that's the reality. Our stories are bumping, whether we realize it or not.
Speaker 3And that's that's kind of my point. Is this thing that I may be trying to do for health can send off ripples that could be bumping into your story? Yeah which then you come back and be like oh, why are you going away, right, like. And then I'm like well, wait a minute, like you're right, like, this is how you make me sound so pathetic. I'm not even saying that's something.
Speaker 2Why are you going?
Speaker 3away. I'm not saying that's something you would say, I'm just giving you an example of how stories bump into each other right, and you know it's this, then frustrating thing. That's like wait. Why are you upset by this? This is not, you know, know, that kind of dynamic that happens that definitely happened in the beginning of our marriage.
Speaker 3Sure, I think, for sure, um, I don't I think it even happened in the beginning of my trying to figure out what alone time was, because and and this is still somewhat true in the time, wise, not not the emotions is, at that time I was working full time, you were homeschooling and dealing with little kids full time, and so any alone time I had was taking away time with you or the family. Right Cause, right so it, or your assistance or the family right Cause, right so it, or your assistance with the family.
Speaker 2that's probably more correct.
Speaker 3Right Like so it was a cost.
Speaker 2You're like claiming this was years ago.
Speaker 3Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay. When, when that was happening, I think there was a place that you're like well, wait a minute, why don't you want to spend time with us and like me trying to go, okay, like you know trying to figure out what healthy looked like in this and how to keep growing, and you know those kinds of things was a hard journey. I think I think we worked through it because it is a cost, right, like if we're just talking alone time, that is a cost for a couple. And.
Speaker 3I think it's something that we tried to work through, and there's been times that I've taken personal retreats and things like that, but I've been really, I think been really intentional of coming home and going. Okay, here's the benefit of that right. Like not just okay, now I'm exhausted, Although that does happen sometimes because I tend to hike too much when I'm on a personal retreat and then, I come home and I'm like, oh, I'm sore, but anyway like trying to be here and be present. I don't know.
Speaker 3I think, that's just an example of how sometimes stories run into each other.
Speaker 2Well, and we, yes, and I think one of the ones like that is a dynamic you can think about in your marriage. There are so many others like figuring out when one of us is sick, like how that dynamic impacts. That's probably the one I feel like people grasp really well when we share it, but like there are lots of different things that our story is playing everything. Really Sometimes it just doesn't matter.
Speaker 3You don't notice. I mean, being sick is such an interesting dynamic, right? Because you can probably think through what was what happened to you when you were sick as a kid and that feels very normal yeah although it's probably different for you and your spouse of what happened absolutely right in my household.
Speaker 3I was pretty much sent to my room if I was sick sounds like fun and sometimes I would be allowed like to come down and watch tv or something like sit on the sofa for a little bit, like that kind of thing, but it was pretty much alone and it's crazy. I can't even imagine that I mean I can actually and like, and this is just you know how my parents did life, but like if one of my parents was sick, they would then sleep in separate bedrooms so not to get other people sick.
Speaker 3Like this was household, not just me. It was like if the house was, you were kind of supposed to isolate yourself so that you don't get other people sick. That was the rules, and so that meant kind of being by myself a lot.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 3Which actually does mirror or does look a little bit like what happened to you.
Speaker 2It does. But I think, yeah, I feel like mine's complicated and convoluted. But I was left alone, but not because I suffered from migraines. I still do Like that kind of thing. I was usually left alone, preferred to be alone. Well, I don't know what came first, if I'm honest, but having a migraine and a bunch of people around you making noise and whatever. I would often go to my room with those.
Speaker 2But then I think when I'm talking about other sickness besides that, we were the family that you got to lay on the sofa right, you got to be in everybody else's space. I don't remember my parents talking too much about like, don't spread it. I think probably my own views on that is reflective of like. When our kids have been sick, I've been like it's inevitable. We all live in each other's spaces. Of course, I don't need one kid going over and licking the other kid's snotty hand, need one kid going over and licking the other kid's snotty hand, like I mean, we're not doing stuff like that, but and we've very much done that with our kiddos when they're sick, like they get to sleep on the sofa.
Speaker 2Yeah, Um so, but yes, mine when I was sick, otherwise I was invited into a space of my family. But I think I learned very quickly, with my mom specifically, and whatnot, it was just better not to be sick.
Speaker 3Not to be sick and to keep going.
Speaker 2Right. So most of my history with being sick is what I do I just keep going.
Speaker 1Right.
Speaker 2You know, and I'm dealing with something right now and it's health-wise, and it's hard for me to slow down and just be like okay right. Right, so you can see how those dynamics me not slowing down you going to the room and isolating. In the beginning it was like oh my word. First of all, do you not like me anymore? Second of all, dude you me anymore.
Speaker 3Second of all, dude, you can still do things when you're sick well, and there were times that I, you like, I'd isolate all day in the bedroom and then you'd come in to go to bed and I'm like, okay, I guess I'll go sleep on the sofa then. Right, like with this idea of I need to isolate myself from you, so I don't get sick, I know, but that was what was normal for me right.
Speaker 3Is I'm supposed to handle this by myself. And so I fight that instinct to just, when I'm sick, just retreat and you can see how that trigger that feels normal ends up doing things for you. And then I end up minimizing your sick of like when you're like oh no, I'm fine, I'll just keep going. I'm like okay, I guess she's not that sick, right because I don't, I don't recognize it. I don't recognize it, I don't see it.
Speaker 3So I'm like okay, like you know, kind of thing, and it's only much later that I've been like whoa, you need to stop, you need to let your body be sick, right, like you know, that kind of thing that.
Speaker 2Yeah, I'm not so good with that.
Speaker 3I know. Anyway. So I'm working on it, but yeah. This is all stuff that we've done and understood about each other, like I now know that when. Kate's sick. There is this message that says she has to keep going.
Speaker 2Right.
Speaker 3Right. And so then there's a place of care that I can start to say hey, wait a minute, I see you. You don't have to do that, right, right.
Speaker 2Yeah, and I think that's what we right. That's where our stories, understanding that for both of us is so helpful, because Brad is able to enter in and say, hey, maybe you should cancel that for today. Like, yes, of course we can't always cancel everything, that's just not life, but you've been able to enter into that and then I've been able to enter into and hold for you Okay, you don't feel good, you need time to yourself, right, and not taking that as personal.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 2And you not taking personally that I won't let you help me.
Speaker 3That's exactly right.
Speaker 2Right, and it's not anymore. I'm just so used to doing it on my own.
Speaker 3It's interesting.
Speaker 2We both went on our own, but for different reasons. That's the thing.
Speaker 3Right, like you can have a similar response. Look very different between two people and this really is the heart of story work is understanding yourself better and understanding your spouse better and as you do that, all of a sudden some of the arguments that you used to have go. Oh okay, so you're not doing that because you're mad at me? You're not doing that because you're something else. You're acting out of this strategy that you've developed. You've acted right in that place.
Speaker 3So, we're going to be spending the next couple probably a couple of weeks exploring more about some of the story work and talking through how we do that as a couple, what it looks like, what we're learning as we journey in some of this, so I hope that you'll join us on that.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 3And we'll be a part of us learning even more as we're going through another level. Of course, and keep learning for each other.
Speaker 2I would encourage people like if you're listening to this, have the conversation of what do I do when I'm sick? What do you observe I do when I'm sick? Yeah, when does that come from? Yeah, right, like that's a dive into story, right there.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2Because every from Right Like that's a dive into story right there of like, because every husband and wife dynamic you've had to have it like everybody gets sick at some point. So yeah, just kind of I'd be curious for those couples to just enter into that conversation. That's really good. Yeah.
Speaker 3All right. Well, this is great. This is a lot of fun, and we're going to keep talking about stories and about marriage and how we can keep growing towards each other as we are journeying towards still becoming one. Until next time, I'm Brad Aldrich.
Speaker 2And I'm Kate Aldrich. Be kind and take care of each other.
Final Thoughts and Invitation
Speaker 1Still Becoming One is a production of aldrich ministries. For more information about brad and kate's coaching ministry courses and speaking opportunities, you can find us at aldrich ministriescom for podcast show notes and links to resources and all of our social media. Be sure to visit us at stillbecomingonecom and don't forget to like this episode wherever you get your podcasts, and be sure to follow us to continue your journey on Still Becoming One.