Thrive Again - Your relationship podcast

Decoding the Essence of Lasting Love: With Relationship Psychologist Tracy Baker Lawrence

• Michael & Amy • Season 1 • Episode 29

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Ever wondered why some relationships stand the test of time while others crumble? Tracy Baker Lawrence, a distinguished relationship psychologist from Australia, joins us to unravel the mysteries of lasting love. With Tracy's wisdom on the Enneagram leading our journey, we're diving into the depths of personality patterns and how crucial they are in fostering empathy and understanding between partners. This episode promises to be a treasure trove of insights for anyone looking to strengthen their bond with their partner, or simply curious about the psychological underpinnings of human connection.

We focus on the importance of early intervention in preventing relational rifts and how recognising your own and your partner's behavioural patterns can lead to more effective conflict resolution. By addressing childhood wounds and unspoken needs, Tracy underscores that blame has no place in a healthy relationship. Discover how the conscious investment in your partnership can be the key to a resilient and deeply connected future, just as we maintain our health or our homes.

In the dance of relationship dynamics, understanding the motivations that drive us and our partners is like learning the steps to a beautiful ballet. Tracy helps us decode the pathways of our personal motivational drivers, be it through the head, heart, or gut, and their profound impact on the way we relate to one another. You'll learn about the delicate balance of personal responsibility, control, and the interplay of masculine and feminine energies, and how mutual understanding can be the most healing aspect of any relationship. So tune in and let Tracy Baker Lawrence offer you the keys to not just nurturing but truly flourishing in your partnership.

Check out Tracy's work and book in for her sessions here: https://theinsightagency.com.au/

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Website: https://michaelandamy.com.au/

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Speaker 1:

Tracy Baker Lawrence is a leading Australian personality expert and relationship psychologist, as well as a certified Enneagram practitioner. She has worked with the Enneagram as a therapist with individuals and couples for over 20 years. As she is passionate about early intervention, tracy founded the Insight Agency, an agency for change and a business for good, four years ago. Since then, she has been researching and working with couples married up to 40 years and at the point of separation to determine what they could have known and done differently early in their relationship that would have prevented the hurt that they were now experiencing. Tracy is like a relationship oracle and we have personally connected with her to do some of our own relationship work, which we unfold in this episode. This is going to be a really powerful one. Enjoy One, two, three, four.

Speaker 2:

We're Michael and Amy, your Couples Connection Coaches. Our mission is to help couples thrive using a conscious and holistic approach. This podcast is for couples and singles who want to unlock their relationship potential and reconnect on a deeper, more meaningful soul level. We share insights, client breakthroughs and personal stories to help move your relationship from surviving to thriving.

Speaker 1:

Okay, Tracy, welcome to the podcast. It's so wonderful to have you on, and I'd love if you could just introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about what your passion is in terms of relationships and your work in general. That would be great.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, thank you, michael and Amy.

Speaker 3:

It's such a privilege to be here and, as you know, I'm so passionate about this.

Speaker 3:

So I'm a relationship and personality psychologist and I've been working in this space for 23 years and I came across a tool called the Enneagram in the early days after becoming a psychologist, where this young man lent in the corner of my room some nice young man and said do you want to go to an Enneagram meeting? And I said, I don't know, but he was really lovely and I was single, so we went and then you know, fast track, 20 years. I've been studying that for 20 years and we've been married now for 20 years as well, and so I'm absolutely passionate about preventing hurt in long-term relationships. So I founded the Inside Agency four years ago so that I could work with couples married up to 40 years to determine what could they have known and done differently that would have prevented them of getting into the place that they're in now, which was often the point of thinking that they needed to separate because their differences were so great. And I created a method that's been resolving those issues and I'm now bringing it back more to the pre-marriage space.

Speaker 2:

Amazing. I'm so curious because you mentioned that you know you studied the Enneagram. Can you tell us a little bit more about, I guess, what that is? And for the audience to kind of why would that help?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, absolutely so. The Enneagram describes our inner worlds so, like there's patterns in nature, there's patterns in human nature and we've determined that there's these nine primary patterns in human nature and really it's describing our inner architecture. There's actually a sequence to how we work. You know, if you know somebody's beliefs, then you can predict where their attention on life will go. You can predict what's going to scare them, you can predict what they're going to avoid and what they're going to long for, what they're primarily going to need, and then how they'll behave if their needs aren't met. Like there's actually a sequencing to us.

Speaker 3:

We make sense and the Enneagram to me.

Speaker 3:

When I learned about it as a new psychologist and coming out I didn't really think I learned any more about human behavior in those degrees. But the Enneagram just taught me to understand people with such compassion that all our behaviors my own and my husband's and my family's that all made sense and in a way that was really compassionate, and so I deeply fell in love with it and then trained extensively in it. So maybe, just to add to that, if you picture an iceberg where you have the tip of the iceberg sticking out of the water, most personality models get at the traits, the things that we can see in other people, what we can see in the top of the water. There's's no other personality model like the Enneagram that actually describes what's happening under the surface of the water, the core motivations and the needs, et cetera, and beliefs that are driving the behaviour. So I worked on a PhD for a few years that was looking at comparing personality models, and the Enneagram is just, you know, arguably the most comprehensive, sophisticated framework of the human condition.

Speaker 2:

And is that, because of the under like understanding the depth of it all, the really deeper knowledge that the Enneagram can show up and bring to light for others? Is that right?

Speaker 3:

Yes, absolutely so. When I have a couple at the agency and usually they're saying, they come in and they say I just think our differences are too great and he or she just said that and I don't get it and we have repeating patterns of conflict, I don't understand their thinking, feeling and behaviour. We can shine an incredible spotlight on that and in that first session it makes sense of both their sets of behaviour in a way where neither's wrong, nobody's at fault. You both make sense there of behaviour in a way where neither's wrong, nobody's at fault. You both make sense. There's two truths in the room here Equal and not. Yeah, that's so incredible.

Speaker 1:

I think that's why we were drawn to you, tracy, is because that's really what our message is mostly about is that there can be two truths, and there always is two truths. It's just us and our, I guess, childlike ways we drop into no, my way is the only way. And I know in our relationship, like we went through of our 19 years together, probably the first 11 years was a lot of that like no, my way is the only way and your way needs to be more like mine.

Speaker 3:

Yes.

Speaker 1:

And so my desire was for Amy to relax and to chill out and just take it easy and, you know, take a breath. Sometimes I tell her to calm down, which is not a good idea for the listeners here who, you know, don't take that advice from me. And Amy would really desire me to be more attentive to things. Like you know, just think a lot more about what's happening next week and be in tune about the things that need to be done. Like you seem to just sort of drift off and just be, you know not, I guess, almost too present sometimes in the now, but not worrying about what's happening up next and I don't know. Once we actually went through a consultation with you, even though we'd already got to a place where we're feeling very secure in each other, it just landed with us all of a sudden. It was like this oh, I get you now.

Speaker 2:

Like that inner architecture, that you spoke about just before.

Speaker 1:

It just became so clear for us and even through all the work that we've done on our relationship, it just enhanced it to a new level. So for those listening, yeah, just stay with us, because you know there's so much to this. And, yeah, I love what you're sharing, especially in the preventative space. Can you tell me a little bit about why I love what you're sharing, especially in the preventative space? Can you tell me a little bit about why I guess your journey in terms of helping other couples and where you're at now with helping couples yes, yeah, thank you.

Speaker 3:

And you know, I couldn't be, as you know, more delighted to hear about how these sort of new learnings have landed on you both, and it's created deep intimacy, because when we don't understand our partner, that that's a huge disconnect. What we don't understand, we demonize rather than empathize, and so it's so important and, um, you know, if you, if you listen to all the love songs, one of the things that that's a repeating, uh, repeating pattern in sort of love songs is, you know, I fall in love with you and I feel like I've always known you, so I really know you, and that's a myth. You know, it's beautiful, but it's a myth. We don't really we project onto them and we're meeting each other's needs at the beginning, beautifully, we care more about our partner's needs than our own, etc. And so we, we don't know each other as well as we think we do, and I say that with deep respect we don't know ourselves as well as we think we do, and so that's what creates the wrong conclusions and misunderstandings. And so, to answer your question, michael, I have um. So I I'd worked with Enneagram in private practice for years and years and, as I said, worked on a PhD and trained extensively overseas in the Enneagram and presented at conferences and kept using it.

Speaker 3:

And finally I got to a point where I could see dear friends, you know, or friends of friends that were having really big issues in their relationships and they were preventable. And so I decided I was going to found this agency called the insight agency. Uh, four years ago, with, um, my dear husband luke's support, and in that time I've been working with couples that found me all word of mouth for years, married up to 40 years, so 20, 30, 40 years and often they found me at the point of separation or our differences are too great, maybe I've married the wrong person. All these these stories, repeating stories, and when they came into my room and we worked out or often by now, because I've done about 3,000 personality interviews, I really pick up people's patterns really quickly and I mean that in the most respectful way. I sort of see people's superpowers and I see them, I see the best in them. And so they'd come into the room, they'd sit on my lounge and they'd each have a story that they, when they shared about their conflict. The conflict was to me utterly predictable. Of course he was going to view this about her behavior and he would be hurt in this way. Of course she would see this and so my method started.

Speaker 3:

I started developing a method around the Enneagram. So just knowing your pathways isn't enough. It's probably at least a third to a half of it. But knowing your two pathways, you start to see, oh my goodness, there's a whole intelligence to how my partner operates, and no wonder their behavior is like that. And when I'm talking about personally pathways, I'm talking about hardwiring. But hardwiring can be changed. We know that plasticity of the brain and we can change that. It's like there's a formula inside us that can be tweaked and changed, but we can't change what we don't know. So I would help partners to deeply understand their own pathway and each other's.

Speaker 3:

And then I recognised over the next year or two that there was another missing piece here. It was the wounds. I started recognising that both partners did not know each other's unmet childhood needs and they didn't understand each other's wounds from childhood and previous relationships. They may have shared the stories, but they hadn't extracted the information that was most necessary to build the empathy. I would extract that information and, you know, in a very safe way, in a short way.

Speaker 3:

So the sessions tend to be really positive. There's a lot of humor, there's a lot of understanding and then, when they could see that they put together, it's like a jigsaw and I map everything on a whiteboard. But when they can see, wow, my thinking, feeling and behavior makes absolute sense. If these are my beliefs from childhood, these would be my core fears and my core longings and these are my core motivations. These would be my needs. No wonder I got triggered when he or she did that. No wonder my automatic responses for this and that, put together in a way that's really compassionate to that person, means you have more capacity to self-lead rather than self-regulate self-lead. You know to self, to manage your own reactions and responses.

Speaker 3:

And then when you know your own wounds and your partner's wounds, you realize that your partners were realizing they'd stepped on each other's completely unintentionally, unconscious, unconsciously, and often they were saying the worst things they could be saying, you know, for a woman whose self-identity was wrapped around, being really thoughtful and considerate, and he was saying to her oh, you're so needy, which was so wounding to her and goes right back to childhood messages. And when he could see that in a new way, something in him just shifted and he was really motivated to not do that anymore and instead actually to be a balm to that old wound and vice versa. So this beautiful empathy came into the space and and there was no blame. So the blame and the judgment started to come out of it. Nobody was at fault, and so that was.

Speaker 3:

That was beautiful work, but quite uh, took a lot of energy and heart and soul to change that around. And that's why, and when I can see how predictable these challenges and conflict is, I know I could have prevented it 10 years earlier, 20 years earlier, but met them pre-marriage. I could have predicted some of these rubs to prevent them, and so that's why now in the last month, I've realised I have to move to where my heart, you know, is longing to make the difference, and that is in the pre-marriage, early marriage space.

Speaker 2:

Let's prevent this Amazing, and I think there's so many points that I want to talk into there, but something that comes up and I think we were talking about this earlier is love is not enough you know, and. I mean, it's a belief I just love them. It's, it's okay like that. That will be enough for us to get through. But but obviously, over over years of being together, that that love actually isn't enough. Can you share a little little bit more about what that means to you and what you've seen in your work?

Speaker 3:

Yes, oh my goodness, absolutely, amy. So there is a relation. Because I've worked in this space for so long, I have seen a common relationship trajectory towards demise, and again, that's really predictable. And so, yes, in those early days I always think of partnerships like an infinity sign, where one person's needs are in one side of the bubble and the other person's needs are in the other side of the bubble, and in the beginning we just are all about our best selves are on display. We're being mirrored back. The very best of us, so the very best of us, is being mirrored back. Plus, we unconsciously get attracted Hendrick's work we unconsciously get attracted to somebody who can meet their needs and us that were not met in childhood, and they seem to meet those seamlessly, without us having to have even identified them or asked for them. And so this mirroring is beautiful and it's what we've longed for our whole lives, where all of us just want to feel good enough or special in some way, and this partner makes us feel like that.

Speaker 3:

And then life goes on and stress happens and other things come in and all of a sudden, partners are going back to their own needs and they're more conscious about their own needs and their eyes and hearts get taken off their partner's needs and then they start to blame each other for not meeting each other's needs.

Speaker 3:

And then you're in deep water.

Speaker 3:

And then, when you start to blame your partner for not meeting the needs in you that you have but you haven't even really actually identified what the needs are, nor shared them and our partners are not mind readers, but we think they are we will then have particular expectations of their behavior, which is which is unrealistic, without actually having shared what we, what we need, and then we start to make conclusions, wrong conclusions and misassumptions about their behavior.

Speaker 3:

So I've asked him to make me a cup of tea and he hasn't done it for a month now, even though I've reminded him five. He just doesn't care. The minute that your mind thinks my partner doesn't care or my partner is selfish or some label, we start looking for more information about that and we'll find confirming evidence and we will not see the other disconfirming evidence, and then you're on a trajectory to a really slippery slope and misreading each other. You are not holding, you were not holding on to the best of each other when the worst is on display. You're not understanding, you have an ego and a shadow Mm-hmm, yeah, so I'm not sure if that's that's so good.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, absolutely yeah, it's just you've really succinctly put it together how we see um couples, that often they come to us, uh, often at a point of, yeah, basically crisis we get. We get a lot of couples that come to us where they just need some up leveling for sure, but then there's a lot of couples that come in crisis and, how you've mapped it out, there's so much guesswork. That tends to happen through that period and you're right, like our mind, I think it's the reticular activating system just starts when it, when, when we we start to focus on the negative things, the things that I'm not getting. My needs aren't getting met and look, here's a confirmation of that then, of course, that part of the brain then looks for more further confirmation, like you said, and all it's going to see is this negative sentiment bias. You know, it's just going to everything that he said and he's spoken about, and the Gottmans, they speak about this as well. It's like how the researchers actually see that when they're doing their love labs is actually quite neutral.

Speaker 1:

The interaction, however, the person who has that negative sentiment override, they see it as as no, there was some real nastiness in there. There was, there was something in there that was really edgy and you're having a go at me or you're having a dig at me, but actually the reality is is you're looking through these glasses that are just hazy and um, so how you how you, I guess, describe that was was perfect and it doesn't need to be that way. We don't need to go all the way to that point of resentment where it's so hard to get back from that you know it's so hard mentored in people's heads and the stories are wrong.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely yes, and it's not only just rewiring all of that and changing those stories to make sure that you know there is that clear path is actually quite a challenge, you know, especially for the people who work in that space in those crisis. You know points with relationships and couples.

Speaker 2:

But, yeah, I love that. This could be all preventative if we just, you know, took the time earlier in the relationship. You know, and I think that's what I love about you and what your message is and why you're so passionate, because you've seen both sides right. You've seen the pain, you've seen the hurt, you've seen the years of despair, because often couples are living like this for years. It's not just oh, the last month's been horrible, I better get some help, it's like you know. It's often like the last 10 years it's actually been really horrible and I'm at my point where I'm going to, you know, want to leave. So I think this is the big message, isn't it? Well, I know that you're very passionate about it, and so are we, but I guess that's why we're at.

Speaker 3:

we're at so we can try and help those people, but I think we can really notice that it can be helped earlier in this whole process. Absolutely, and my message is it must be, because 10 years of pain is unacceptable. It's just, it's. The pain is incredible and it's like what I refer to as an attachment paradox. So the person that we stood with in the church or maybe not in a church, or why have you just made that long-term commitment to them was the person who was going to be our person for forever, who was our safe place, who would be our home, who we would turn to in times of, you know, hurt. And if that is the person, then that now we see as the source of our hurt.

Speaker 3:

That's an attachment paradox. Like, as adults, we still need to have attachments. That is the most, one of the most painful things that we can feel. It's an attachment trauma, and people can be in that place for a decade. It impacts their work. It hugely impacts their children and their families. I just, I just think it's. And when I say unacceptable, please know there's never a judgment of the couples. They are absolutely doing the best they can, but they need scaffolding and they need intervention and in a particular way, yeah, it's alarming the statistics, isn't it?

Speaker 1:

And I know you mentioned some statistics to us in your email, when you were probably really passionate about, you know, conveying this message to us. I remember there was 50%. Can you tell me a little bit about this, because you know? I would like to First, second, third marriages, all those sorts of things.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, interesting. Yeah, many people don't know this, but so we make this commitment to love somebody for forever and we truly want that, like in our heart of hearts. We want that and we say I will love you till death, do us part. But there's no sense of how we're going to do that and so what happens is partners. The average in Australia is partners married about the age of 30. And then 50% of those marriages end in suffering. And then second marriages 67% roughly end in suffering, and then third marriages it's in the 70%, which is a very clear story here that there is a huge social problem that we have that I'm very keen to address and I believe that my method can address that. And what I keep thinking is that people will.

Speaker 3:

These sorts of interventions have been required for a really long time, and there are some pre-marriage programs which are wonderful and they get at the conscious aspects of partnerships, so their expectations and values. And I think what I'm building on is the unconscious aspects. They're the things that I think will unravel a marriage. The unconscious aspects, they're the things that I think will unravel the marriage. And so the average cost of a wedding these days is around $40,000 to $50,000 for a wedding for one day, which is beautiful for one day, and yet if you marry around 30 and life expectancy is 83, that's 53 years. So you're paying $50 thousand dollars for one day.

Speaker 3:

And then, um, there's uh, hasn't been intervention to invest in the next 23 000 days 20, yeah, about 20 000 days that you'll have together. So it's fifty thousand dollars in one day. And you know, we ensure, um, we invest in our health, we're preventative and what we eat and we go to the gym, and we ensure our homes and we're concerned that maybe termites will get into our house. So we check that that doesn't happen. The idea is, if you were told you were buying a house and you knew there was a 50% chance the house would burn down and be lit on fire, you would do something about that, you would insure it, and so this is what I'm just really wanting to check. This is the mindset we need to have around marriage as well.

Speaker 3:

And now there is a method. I think humbly that I really think that will protect love.

Speaker 1:

Right.

Speaker 2:

Oh, my goodness, like an insurance. I love that. Sorry.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah it is. Yeah, you really have to look at it that way, because I think the bias is and and this is what happened to me and what happens, I'm sure, to most people is that we think that we're going to be an exception to this, the rule we're going to be different from you know, I, I think that happens when you know, like when I, when I, years and years ago, I thought I'll be different from the 90% of people who who fail at trading stocks, for example.

Speaker 1:

I'll be different because I've got a keen eye for this and I know how to do it. But it wasn't until I invested in, you know, some, some research and some studies, some books, some, you know, mentoring, and then my own downfalls and learn from those, that I started to get a little bit better. But there's so many other areas in our life where we think that we're going to be different and actually our connection is different to others. And then you have kids and then you, you know you both move into career, and career at age of 30 is normally you're hitting, getting to that point where you're going to be earning the most amount of income you know of your life around 30, 40 years old. So normally with that comes responsibility and therefore stress and divide, and all of a sudden you know you have these dynamics that you're playing with that you maybe didn't have when you invested that fifty thousand dollars in the marriage right yes, yes, and and, and those points of stress will bring out more differences that you haven't seen.

Speaker 3:

And then partners think that the differences are the problem. They're not. The differences, the attraction, are what will grow us. And there's a higher purpose to every union. It's just understanding, knowing those differences early on and honoring them in a way that you can use them to heal each other and be helpful. And the trajectory you're describing, michael, is exactly right.

Speaker 3:

Um, and you know, we tend to think, but I, you know, I've seen it because I've obviously, you know, I started working in the pre-marriage space and you know, know, pastors from churches will often have, you know, the last couple of years have come, have seen my work and have sent people to me pre-marriage and I'll hear these beautiful people in my room and they'll say things like, you know, I think we're pretty safe because this person is the right person for me and they're a perfect person and they're just wonderful.

Speaker 3:

They look at each other lovingly and it's beautiful and everybody thinks that. And then when they do the work with me, they will, you know, it's often only just, you know, two days or four long sessions and they will see, they'll say to me oh, my goodness, we can see. I would have completely understood that behaviour in his and he or he, and he or she and she, and they will say the same. They'll say we, we absolutely see that this is future-proofed LL. We would have completely misunderstood each other and come to wrong conclusions and we all feel like crying in the room because it's just so beautiful, it's so beautiful.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I'd love to kind of share a little bit about our experience with the work that you shared with us and what we kind of gained from doing the Enneagram and looking at our core needs that weren't met as a child, and I think Michael shared a post on this recently. I don't know if any of our audience follow us on our socials, but it was quite an in-depth post about how, yeah, we took time out as relationship couples. We're still learning, we're still growing, and even in the healthy relationship that we're still learning we're still growing. And even in in the healthy relationship that we're in is still areas that we're, you know, I guess, learning more about each other and understanding on a deeper level, and that's what humility, amy, because you both are so grown and done so much work, but yeah yeah, thank you.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and that's what we kind of found after doing this session with you. You know, we spent three hours hours with you, which we were so grateful for, but what came out of that was just mind-blowing, really, when you thought you already knew someone well enough, and it's just like a whole other layer came back again. It's just like, wow, I actually know you even more. Yeah, it's the why.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 3:

Why you've said don't worry about things you know yeah, it's it does.

Speaker 1:

It relates back to the little micro, um type interactions that you have with each other and how they contribute to maybe suffering and and maybe bickering sometimes in the relationship. Whereas what this has done for us is it's helped us to kind of really just see with lightness and not necessarily humor, but kind of almost a little bit of, you know, humor about. Oh yeah, I see that in you now, like you know. Yeah, that's cool, I'll do that for you, you know, because I know that it serves me if I help you with that and support you. And of course we are one, you know, collective entity. Basically our relationship is a separate entity, so it is investing in the relationship. But yeah, tracy, I wanted to see if you could really briefly maybe just speak about the what we are, because Amy's a six and I'm a seven pathway and I wonder whether you could briefly run down just what that is and maybe why you know, maybe why that was important for us to kind of pull apart.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, absolutely. And so you know, I think you'd shared that there was, there'd been a very small repeating sort of rub, but that that you were managing. But now it just brought clarity to why that was happening, but in a way where nobody's right or wrong, of course. And, and so you know, it's like I just get so excited about this. It's like there is like an inner formula to us, a compassionate formula. So when we know the core beliefs, so we are born with a temperament, we're not born in a blank state, we're born with a temperament, and depending on that temperament and the leading centre of intelligence head, heart or gut that we lead with, we will start to notice particular things in the world and develop core beliefs really, really early. And so, michael, for you, you know, if someone has the seven pathway and of course the pathway is just one driver it's your driving motivation, and around that you're completely unique, and so is Amy. So your conditioning and your culture all makes you a unique person, and so we also need to. When I'm doing the method, it's not just the pathways, but it's the uniqueness around you as well. The seventh pathway there will, you know, always be, which makes it the seventh pathway, this belief around. If I want to feel secure, my greatest need in life and of course this is the unconscious, you're not going to be saying this at the age of three my greatest need in life is for a sense of security, and there are many ways to get a sense of security. And, um, there are many ways to get a sense of security. The seventh way of getting a sense of security is by going, looking for opportunities, by seeking adventure and fun, to know that they're having a stimulating, exciting, interesting life. I'm not wasting time. This is a roller coaster ride, um. And so with that comes a little bit more of a sort of a risk-taking bent, and, um, you know life is a spectrum of possibilities and you know I want to taste a little bit of this and a little bit of that, um, and so the superpower in you is this joy and awe that you feel and you express, and you know you want everybody around you to be happy, um and um, and. And so your attention goes looking for the positive.

Speaker 3:

And then we move to amy, who's a little child that's born also leading with a sit, the same center of intelligence. So it's cognitive intelligence. We all have hearts and guts, but there's a leading center. And amy also. Her greatest need is for security, but for her particular pathway, because of her temperament and some conditioning, her pathway was more around finding security in a really obviously intelligent way, which is to go looking for what could be problematic.

Speaker 3:

I'd like my life to be as predictable and consistent as I can, because then I can see where the problems will be. So I'm very thoughtful both of you very clever, highly intelligent, very but I'm very thoughtful about what could go wrong or what could happen, because then I can circumvent it and I don't want to be blindsided, because then that means that sort of shows I hadn't, my goodness, I hadn't thought of that coming up and that can sort of pull the rug from under my feet, uh, and so I really, um, you know, uh, you know, the six pathway comes to the world with this beautiful humility, um, and so, because of these belief systems, they can potentially, depending on their conditioning, can potentially overestimate risk, whereas the seven pathway underestimates it, the six pathway can overestimate it but also underestimate their capacity to cope if it happens. So in the six pathways I need to be prepared, which is really intelligent. But then, of course, if that's the driving force then the whole life goes to I must be prepared, I must be prepared. And so the beautiful thing in your synergy is that there's a like, such a beautiful purpose between both of you, because the seven pathway in you, michael, leans into Amy's sickness, to say to let her know that that sometimes we can be spontaneous and we don't have to be as prepared.

Speaker 3:

But you can't just say that to her because that would be going against her very heart wiring and it would almost be, you know, it just would be nonsensical just to say don't worry, because her whole nervous system is wired around looking out for what could be a problem for your children, for you, for people she cares about, for herself.

Speaker 3:

And so that's why, when you were saying don't worry, it'll be fine, which is the seven mantra, it wasn't landing. And then if you say that to her, then she feels left in, michael's, not worried about it, then I'm left with a real worry about this. Just to you know, could be. I'm not saying this was your thinking, amy, but I feel a bit alone now in this worry and that feels a bit of a disconnect, not that you said that, but that is what could happen. And then you, michael, are doing the very best you can, bringing your greatest, best joyous self to the relationship. And why isn't this working? Why aren't I able to just cheer her up and make you know, make Amy feel, you know, more confident and secure, and when I tell her that things will just be fine?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's, it's, it's. You've basically nailed one of the major things that we conflict about and it's exactly right. My frustration with Amy was some of the most frustrating times are when she pulls apart things, like she pulls apart this potential for this happening. Have you thought about this? Like maybe we should do a plan, a financial plan, about our outgoings or our income and things like this and you know I'm about figures and, yeah, understanding money and things like that. But geez, that grinds me because I just want her to let go and just, you know, just release that, and you know we're going to be okay. And when I say that, what happens to you?

Speaker 2:

Of course, it's like the opposite. You know, like I go into like, well, if you're not going to worry about just exactly what Tracy said, then I'm going to have to, you know, sort this out myself. And then of course I well, you know, if we drop into that masculine, feminine but I felt like I could, I could had to be my masculine because you weren't able to be there for me in that and I think a lot of our audience probably relates to this and but yeah, so I feel like I had to control and micromanage everything, everything, you know, it just wasn't the finance situation, it was like the household running the kids pick up, the drop off. You know, like, because you weren't responsible enough to think about all of this stuff.

Speaker 1:

You know, and this is the thinking that I'm having, yeah, exactly the story, exactly so at a low level, I guess, of consciousness, like if I was two years ago, if, if I was to go out and have a few beers with with the guys like I would probably say something like oh, she's so controlling, yes that's right yes this is the stories that I work with and I'm so passionate about, about changing because they're completely wrong.

Speaker 3:

So, understandably, amy will think he's not being responsible. I'm left with this on my own um, and then you start to use the term micromanage, amy, which is the very. That is actually the core thing that will trigger michael the most, the more because your greatest need, michael, one of your greatest needs, or some of the seven pathway, is a sense of freedom. It's about remembering opportunities and I don't want to feel the limits, and so the micromanaging is the worst thing for you. It's like stepping on your wound and your core need. You will come back to that in a way that you will tell her more and more so to chill out and the more and more that she will be tempted to micromanage to help you be more responsible, and you'll just think she's controlling and you've got the wrong story.

Speaker 3:

And the more you think that, oh my goodness, you know that's. You know you've certainly both caught that already and you've already. You know you're managing that. I've just now really shone a spotlight in giving you the why, but you keep going down that trajectory. That can absolutely lead partners to suffering.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and you wouldn't understand why?

Speaker 3:

And you would keep saying but you should be more chilled out. No well, you should be more thoughtful about what's going to happen. Neither is right.

Speaker 2:

But between you, you've got it all, you know spontaneity and planning and absolutely and that's what I think is is the learning from this that we took away the most. It's like, okay, now that we know this, how can actually we support each other better? You know, and that's, I guess, what we try and help our clients. We don't use the enneagram but, um, we do try and help our clients to understand that, that, that motivator underneath it, the why, why are they doing that behavior? What is it? You know?

Speaker 2:

And I think this Enneagram is just like a really simple way to highlight that. It kind of short, fast tracks it, you know. It's like, oh, that's why, but we anyway, but I think for us now knowing that information, and just for other listeners who are interested in this, it just softens everything. That's how I feel. I'm like, oh, just soften. It softens me because then I can kind of I can go, oh, all, right. So this is really important for michael and this is why he's, you know, relaxed and chilled out and then, okay, so, but the more that I can express why it's important for me to have this, you know, security and this knowing, and he's like, right, yeah, I can, I can do that for you? Yeah, because I know why that's important for you. Sure, I can go and you know, look at the bank accounts and do all that stuff, whatever you need, and it's coming from a whole different energy, isn't?

Speaker 1:

it a totally different place. It's not coming from resistance, it's coming from okay, a little bit of extra effort and attentiveness to make sure that she's okay, because I know, if she's okay, I'm not going to cop bickering, I'm not going to cop.

Speaker 3:

Hey, why haven't you done this, this and this, you know, which is all coming from a place of like insecurity yes yeah yeah, exactly, and the more we're not getting a needs met, the more the fear goes up, the more the behaviors it's just more of the same behaviors which just don't get you.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, wonderful and I love that this particular model. It looks to bridge the trauma, if you like. It looks to kind of support the trauma rather than needing to go in and heal the trauma and the wounds. Because I think research is really pointing to you know a lot now that that as a couple, if we're going to go off and individually heal our wounds and go through our individual work, that's not necessarily as beneficial as if you actually are just to see and recognize each other's wounds and actually support each other through the wounds yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yeah.

Speaker 3:

And you know the Hendrix say that marriage, you know like marriage is like life therapy you know, actually, and you're right, it's about bringing a balm to each other's wounds to know where they are, don't step on them, but instead actually know what you could do. That would start to heal those wounds, be a balm to them, you know. And so every time you go to the effort of saying to amy hey, let's, let's check this, worry out, and let's jump into the worst case scenario and let's check this out and gee, even if that happened, this is what we could do something in amy calms down and it's fine, and she gets more and more evidence that you both have this um and and then behaviors change, um, and I loved, amy, your word of softening. So we think about, because the pathways really and I I mean the word ego in the most compassionate way, but we each have an ego which is just our setences. But it's about softening the ego, it's about yielding it. It'll never go away. We'll have these automatic defences, but if we know them and if we recognise them in the moment, we can soften them and we can speak more from what it is that we're needing.

Speaker 3:

And I'll just say one thing that I need to mention. You mentioned the wonderful Gottmans earlier, michael, and I think that their work has been so fundamental and what they've done a beautiful job of is showing how couples end up in separating and the how is through stonewalling, contempt, defensiveness and criticism. That's how A beautiful job of that. And they've also pointed out the what so, uh, the what, what they fight over, you know, communications, finances, sex, etc. Communication, um, but what my work is trying to build on is the why is the root cause for why they stonewalling, why they defensive, bringing it right back?

Speaker 3:

So, rather than working at the behavioral level of let's not be contemptuous, let's not stumble, oh, it's come right back to why were those behaviors happening? Because you're not a bad person, because they were happening. My goodness, there's a complete intelligence and there's a formula for that that, once known, just shifts, just everything shifts. There's all these points that we can make change to along the like the dna sequence. There's all these points that we can make change to along like the dna sequence. There's all these it's supposed to call it the couple, dna dynamics, neurobiology, attention, oh yeah yeah, it's so true.

Speaker 1:

You know we can sit here and try and tell people to change their behaviors. You know, just don't do that. But there's something driving that thing. You know it's. It's it's like an addiction. You know it's like any kind of addiction. We could just tell someone to just stop smoking, but there's something that's happening underneath there that that's causing that person to continually go back. They're finding something in that smoking that's giving them something that they don't feel that they have currently. And you know, I think it's. It's very similar. Similar in that if we don't get to the root cause of these problems, then it's going to be very tricky to just bash them out of someone. You know, as in behaviourally, you know, and it's about.

Speaker 3:

I know you know as well as I do, of course, that you know it's about safety, and so we really need every day to be thinking how can I be the safest person for my partner? So, Michael, like you said, every time you say, okay, let's check the bank balance, you're not just going out of your way, you're not just doing something. You're actually helping for Amy to feel safer. Like what is more important than that, it's just framing your behaviours to that fundamental importance that they have.

Speaker 2:

Amazing.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, amazing, which does remind me I do actually I do have to go through that with you. Maybe I have been putting it off, so let's get to that there we go yeah, wonderful.

Speaker 3:

Well, I think it's been. She'll give you all the freedom in the world that you want.

Speaker 2:

Exactly exactly. It's a payoff right now.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3:

I get to go on the tractor later and tomorrow?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and go surfing. It's been such a privilege to meet you and know what your work is and for you to share your work with us and our audience and honestly, I think your mission and your passion for what you do is so admirable. I honestly love it, and we speak the same language a lot of the times because we want to help the couple get to the why and so then they don't have to live in suffer and pain and all of the horrible things that come with that relationship breakdown. So I really am honoured to sit with you. We're so honoured to sit with you this morning and in the previous sessions that we've had with you, and I'm very grateful. So how can our audience find you? What's the best way to get in touch? Yeah, if they want to do some work with you.

Speaker 3:

Yes, thanks, amy. So I've just, I've just put together the pre-marriage programs, so the people that are pre-married, early married or first baby. So I also have done a Gottman's Bringing Baby Home method. But my couple DNA method is just really paramount for couples so they can text me, phone me. Just look up wwwtheinsideagencycomau. If you just put in the Inside Agency, I'm on Instagram and Facebook. I've only just been posting for the last seven months because I'm stuck in the 1970s, but I know, if I want to change the cultural mindset and protect future-proof love, that I needed to get on social media. And I've got a free just a free ebook on my Instagram too, if they'd like to download that. So it's just 35 pages and I don't want emails, I'm not interested in that. Just click on it. You get the book straight away and it really hopefully honors the journey that they're on and my big book is coming out next year. I've got a 60-page book I'll probably publish on Amazon shortly.

Speaker 1:

How late do that work.

Speaker 3:

You're discovering your couple DNA. Yeah, oh, wow. Let's just do early intervention. Let's just protect these beautiful partnerships. We do not have to get into the suffering that we need Love your message. Thank you so much once again, tracy, I love your work and I love your podcast and I love that you're on About the why. That's why I was so excited about meeting both of you too, so thank you for all your contributions to all those partnerships out there.

Speaker 1:

Thanks.

Speaker 2:

Tracy, thank you so much I have.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for all your contributions to all those partnerships out there. Yeah, thanks, tracy. Thank you so much.

Speaker 2:

I have a feeling there might be a number two out, like before your book. Maybe we'll get you back on and have another conversation we could go so much. I'm like I know there's so much more that you've got to share, but yeah, let's do that? I would love that.

Speaker 3:

I'd love that. Yeah, much love to you both thank you.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for having me bye.