299. How To Have The Argument You've Been Avoiding

You've already had this argument. In the shower, in the car, at 2 am when you can't sleep. You've explained your side perfectly, anticipated every comeback, and won every round. The only problem is the other person was never actually in the room.

Join Anna and Tim as they talk about why most people don't avoid hard conversations because of the actual issue. It's because you can't control what happens once you say it out loud. They get into the slow retreat that happens instead: the distance, the sarcasm, the twelve smaller arguments instead of the one real one, and what it actually takes to finally have the conversation you've been avoiding.

This Episode Covers:

• Why the argument you've perfected in your head never goes the way you planned it.
• The moment avoidance stops being peacekeeping and starts being resentment.
• What happens in a relationship when one person pushes, and the other shuts down.
• Why waiting six months to say something changes nothing except how it lands.
• The difference between wanting someone to understand you and needing them to.
• What it actually means to own your part without taking the blame for everything.
• The line between someone needing a minute and someone punishing you for talking.
• Why confidence has nothing to do with controlling how the other person reacts.

Until next time, here's to deeper connections and personal growth.
Mad love!

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Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey everyone. Welcome back to the podcast. This week we are talking about how to have the argument that you know you need to have, or the argument that you have been avoiding for weeks or months with someone. Yeah. This is a hard one. It's hard because we get mad at people, friends, family members, and we don't really want or know how to have an argument with someone, how to really kind of air quote fight with someone because of our worry of how it's gonna go. So we I think most of the time we just kind of try to blow it off or avoid it.

SPEAKER_01 0:46

So this is when you're contemplating having the argument, right? We haven't we haven't quite gotten to the point of like and I'm I'm gonna help you give you some tips on how to have the argument. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:56

I mean, this is this is the and it's bothering you. It's this is the the issue that you're having with someone where you're mad at them, and you sort of have had the argument in the shower with them, the argument, the fighting you've had in your head that we I think we all do. Like, you know, my client said to me one time, she's talking about something with her husband. She goes, Yeah, I yell at him in my head all the time. I've never said anything to him. I'm like, okay. We have to get it from out of your head into real life. The problem was she didn't know how to do it, you know. And I think that that's true of so, so many of us, if not all of us, at some adults at one point or another in our lives, you know. I mean, we've we yell at somebody in our life while we're driving to work or going to the grocery store. We've had it, you know, like I said, in the shower. You've had it in two o'clock in the morning when you can't fall asleep, right? It's just the all that you want to say, you know. You've and you've explained your side brilliantly, right? You've you've argued your side, right? You've anticipated everything the other person might say to you, you know, you've had the perfect response to them.

SPEAKER_01 2:04

Well, that's the argument you'll never lose.

SPEAKER_00 2:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:07

Right?

SPEAKER_00 2:08

Right. But the only per the only problem is the other person wasn't there, right?

SPEAKER_01 2:14

It's like when you're raising the, like and you're at a stoplight, right? And you're like, oh my God, I'm gonna beat this person. Like, they have no idea that you're air quotes racing them off the stoplight, right? They don't know.

SPEAKER_00 2:26

Is that what you did when you were like 16?

SPEAKER_01 2:27

Well, yeah, I've seen you do it like this week. So what are you talking about?

SPEAKER_00 2:32

Just because I have a little bit of a lead foot does not mean that I'm like thinking about racing the person next to me.

SPEAKER_01 2:37

Who's to say? No, who's to say?

SPEAKER_00 2:39

No.

SPEAKER_01 2:40

So wait, so hold on, go back. So so there's so there, you're contemplating having the argument, period, right? That's part of this, and then you're also You're mad at them.

SPEAKER_00 2:49

You're basically mad at them, right?

SPEAKER_01 2:51

But I think you're also contemplating potentially, you're also contemplating how you want that con that argument to go, right? Like there's two different things. Like, am I gonna do it, yes or no? And then if I am gonna do it and talk myself into it, then how do I want to kind of like funnel that conversation right, right?

SPEAKER_00 3:07

A little bit, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:08

Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_00 3:09

You know, like I said, you know, you you we have these arguments in our heads, but the other person is not there, right? So, and what and it's three weeks later, someone's bugging you. They're bugging you, they're getting on your nerves. There's one thing that they did, you know, one slight now, man, maybe another slight to you towards you. Now maybe you're offended or you feel a little insulted. You know, it's it's it's they're irritating you. There's something that's like, oh, you know, why they say that? Why do they do that? They're not right. That was an obnoxious comment. I hate when they act that way. I hate when they say that, right? You know, it's been what is three weeks can turn into three months, you know, or maybe longer for people, right?

SPEAKER_01 3:51

Yeah. Isn't there like a slice of this too? Like, like if that if it goes three weeks, I mean to me that seems like an eternity, but like what it's doing inside of yourself, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:01

Right? It's it's ripping you shred into shreds, especially with people you're in intimate relationships with, like your spouse or your life partner. Yeah, I don't think maybe someone, maybe with your adult kids or your like daughter-in-law, your son-in-law, your brother-in-law, you know, I think that it it can really eat away at us. Yeah. You know, I think it's it's I think it's sometimes it's more with family, or it could be like a best friend, somebody you're really close to, right? A best buddy, you know, someone like I can't believe they're acting this way, you know. And we're and maybe there's somebody that like you love them and you're good friends with them, but they they don't do debates or arguments very well. You and it's like, I know how they're gonna get, I know how it's gonna be. Well, we yeah, for sure. So we're gonna get into that, right? You know, but here's what happens is we are annoyed and we start acting differently around them. This is what I, you know, we start we're not the same, we become evasive, we avoid them a little bit, yeah. We don't text as much, we don't send those funny bees as much, you know. And what we also do is we start to keep score in our head, you know. We we replay things in our head and we kind of keep score about, well, okay, so well, I'm not, I didn't do it that bad. Like, okay, maybe I did that back too, but but you know, that that was worse. That was worse, you know. I mean, they were being really rude. I wasn't being rude on purpose, you know. Or we just go, it's not worth it. I think a lot of people do this. It's not worth it because I care about them and I want a relationship with them. And I see them like every, you know, month, every Sunday for football games. They come over or I see them with family at family events or I see them at Mahjong each week. I'm just gonna let it go because you know, it's not worth it to me. That's what we say, right? Except you're not letting it go. You haven't let it go, right? You just decided that you're gonna, you're just gonna carry it by yourself inside yourself, right?

SPEAKER_01 5:51

You know, you kind of lean, I think we do this too, right? We lean into the logistics and we use that as the excuse. Well, I haven't seen this person in two weeks. Well, maybe part of that is you didn't really want to because you wanted to avoid this, right? Right. Or it's like, well, there were just too many people around at this particular dinner or what there wasn't time for it, right? And we totally embraced that, right? Not in a good way, right? And then all of a sudden a week turns into two, turns into a month, turns into whatever, and then it's you like you said, it just gets watered down.

SPEAKER_00 6:26

Yeah. So today, this episode is about how to have the argument. I'm gonna I'm gonna coach you through how to have that argument that you've been putting off for weeks, maybe months, all right. And I'm calling it an argument because I think it's we become a little too afraid of conflict. I think that conflict has a negative connotation in confrontation, and we become afraid of it. And oh, I don't want to have conflict. You know, I don't want to confront them. You know, I say this all the time. Say it to my clients. Confront in Latin means to turn and face. So that's what it is. It's just to turn and face something that you are dealing with or an issue that's coming up for you in your life, right? That's all it is. Confrontation doesn't mean it doesn't mean yelling, it doesn't mean screaming, it doesn't mean mean words. That's not what it means. It just means to face an issue, okay? Because not every disagreement needs to be turned into something that's perfectly regulated, beautifully scripted in your mind, and then said, you know, not everyone is a like really air quote productive conversation, right? I mean, sometimes people are angry, right? We get angry, feelings get hurt. You know, sometimes two people just strongly disagree about something. That doesn't mean that the relationship is broken. And I think the goal is not to completely eliminate conflict in our lives. That's not the goal. The goal is to learn how to stay in conflict without becoming cruel towards the other person, totally collapsing under yourself where you get shut down, disappearing, or totally abandoning yourself because you're afraid of a situation or you're afraid of the other person, right? You know, it's it's for 30 years as a therapist and then later becoming a high performance coach. I can tell you this. I know this anecdotally, the evidence is there for me to be true. Most people, we don't avoid hard conversations because something is wrong. I mean, we know that there's an issue, right? Most people avoid these conversations because they cannot control what happens once they bring the issue up with the other person.

SPEAKER_02 8:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:42

And that's what we're afraid of. Like, oh, how they're gonna be, right? What if the other person gets really angry? And well, I know them, they get really defensive. You know, we know this. You all of us, I think, almost all of us that are watching and listening can relate to this. Like, oh, that's how they're, you know, they get really defensive, or they're just gonna shut down. They'll they'll just walk out of the room. They won't even let me have this conversation, right? You know, or what if what if they totally dismiss me? They do that, you know, they're gonna minimize what I'm saying, they're gonna interrupt me, or she or he or they're gonna start crying. Yeah, they're gonna start crying. And when that happens, it's like, okay, why am I even doing this? You know, or what if they blame you? What if it's like, nah, uh-uh-uh-uh, it's you. Okay, I brought this up and now here we go. I'm getting completely blamed, you know, or what if they say to you deep down inside, you know, it's not 100% them because it's almost never 100% one person. And what if you know that, like, well, they're gonna bring this or that up because there is a situation that I kind of was like, I'm a little girl, a little responsible for that. Yeah, they're gonna bring that up. I'm culpable, you know. That's the real risk of an honest conversation, right? Of what's gonna happen when it comes back at me. You may get information about yourself that you can't sort of unknow. It might bring up something deep inside of you that you're like, yeah, I I am that way. I do get I get defensive, I do get that way, and I get argumentative.

SPEAKER_01 10:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:21

And I want to talk to them about how I'm feeling because they're really they've hurt my feelings, they're getting on my nerves, they embarrass me in front of these people, and they've now done it more than once with different groups of people. But then if I have this argument, they're gonna or debate with them, they're gonna tell me about me. And I don't really want to do that, all right. Not that okay, so go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 10:44

Yeah, I I think we gotta be careful. I think a lot of times and you and I have done this, like like we just we look at trends, we look at history, right, with a person, like how that person was in that one moment, like and we make that to be how that person is in all moments, right? Like, like we don't that that person very well might want to have this conversation just as much as we do, right? Like, like I think, but then we assume that oh no, this person's gonna act this way or that way, or you know, we don't know. And and who wise? It's not up for us to say that.

SPEAKER_00 11:18

Well, we do have predictability and and we can intuit that they are this it's I see their pat well, because we see their patterns.

SPEAKER_01 11:26

I think you're right, and it's our best guess that it's gonna happen again, right? Like, I don't I don't think it always is is what find the courage, we're gonna get into it.

SPEAKER_00 11:34

Yeah, they it may happen again, it might, and this is how it's gonna go.

SPEAKER_01 11:38

Yeah, all right. Let me ask you a question. How how much of an influence does social media have on this?

SPEAKER_00 11:46

What do you mean? What do you mean by that?

SPEAKER_01 11:49

Well, I think like it as you're playing this script in your mind of of how this argument or conversation is gonna go, right? We are so driven by the the perfect scenarios that we see on TikTok. Pick us pick a platform, right? Like everything's perfectly scripted, and it's all I don't know. Everything's wonderful. Well, I think subconsciously it might factor into this. Like, I think that, like, oh, I I'm I'm envisioning how this conversation is gonna go. And I remember seeing like I see this on like Instagram where people have these tough conversations.

SPEAKER_00 12:24

Well, I do, okay. So there is in the zeitgeist right now social media is a lot of people talking about self-care, which I'm all about self-care, but like keeping finding peace and taking care of me. This is a lot, you see a lot of like written carousels on Instagram and TikTok about like I'm gonna do me, it's time for me. Yeah, and I think that comes from a really great place. Can it go too far? It's hard, right? Because the messaging is all about I'm doing me, all I care about is me. And you know, people and the person who wrote that, the influencer or the creator who who put that post up or did that talking head video and TikTok, you might get a little bit more of a sense of the life that they have lived and why now they're all about themselves and they're not, they're not, I'm not here for that. I'm not here for that debate. I'm not here for that argument. It's I ain't gonna have it.

SPEAKER_02 13:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:19

Right. And you're like, okay, but you don't really know that person, right? You don't know their dynamic. I mean, it's all there's always nuance. And this has been my criticism on the podcast before is that, yes, take any age, a 16, a 26, a 36, a 46, a 66 year old, could see that and be like, you know, you go, girl. Yeah, that's me. That, or that's me in my life with with my spouse or with my mother, you know, and my low conflict or what's it, my low low contact relationship I'm having today. And that's why I've gone low contact because that resonates with that woman said, I'm doing me now, you know, and and I'm not here for you anymore. You know, yeah, and you can extrapolate, like that's just like me. Well, we don't really know. I mean, yeah, this person's getting on and talking about we know nothing about their relationship with this person. There's yeah, so there's that. Yeah. So we can be, and I think we are affected by, you know, these posts about not wanting to deal with or not wanting to have arguments with people in our real lives because these people are really just hard personal, not me, they're hard personalities, and they have really affected me. Not me. That's exactly right. And so, well, I'm not here for it. So bye, yeah, I'm out. I mean, I see a lot of that right now.

SPEAKER_01 14:42

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:43

But I would tell everybody, like, okay, get off social media. I mean, don't pay attention to that. I mean, or or if you do, remember that that's their story and you don't know their story. Right. You don't know their story.

SPEAKER_01 14:55

Yeah, but I think it could be positive too. I I do. I think that like you could hear something on social media that might help you.

SPEAKER_00 15:02

I think it is, I think a lot of it's positive.

SPEAKER_01 15:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:04

I think a lot of it is positive. I think people are learning sort of to take unto themselves and to to learning to stand up for themselves, right? And learning to like no longer be dismissed or be dis be diminished.

SPEAKER_02 15:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:17

Or and and I love this. I'm I'm here for this all day long. You know, I'm all what do I do as a therapist and as a coach in in both of my practices? I'm here to help people find their voice. Find your voice, speak your voice, step up, find courage. You know, you have the capacity. I talk about the podcast all the time. So I'm here, I'm here for that all day long.

SPEAKER_01 15:39

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:40

But there's nuance.

SPEAKER_01 15:41

There is. Yeah. And I would say just it's not gonna be this perfect conversation. No, you know, as you see it portrayed. So just be careful. Like, don't set yourself up for complete disappointment, right? When it doesn't end the way you wanted it to, because that's the way you saw it on social media. Like, okay, well, that's staged. Yeah, it's like be careful then, right?

SPEAKER_00 16:03

Yeah, okay. Well, you got me thinking, like, when you and I have gone into fights with each other, I think we try to resolve it in one conversation. There have been times when it's had to be like to be continued. We'd had we have had to have a part two, usually when the kids were younger, like we were really mad at each other, we had a big issue, or things are building up and we couldn't finish it because somebody's coming, like, mom, like somebody was maybe we shouldn't have had it in the moment that we had it. We were so mad at each other, and we like we're up at the bedroom, usually up in the bedroom talking, but somebody needed to be driven to school or something, somebody's coming in the room, yeah, and we had to do a part two. It was never ideal. I don't think either one of us liked it. We just wanted closure to finish it out.

SPEAKER_01 16:47

You're talking years ago, but yes, you're right.

SPEAKER_00 16:49

But there were times could finish a conversation.

SPEAKER_01 16:52

Yeah, but you but that's a wonderful point. Like, like closure.

SPEAKER_00 16:56

You tried, you try closure is better. Get closure, of course. Get closure on these arguments with these fights you're gonna have. Okay, so avoiding conflict. I mean, I think that for all of us who have and are avoiding conflict with someone in our lives, you need to know that that is not preserving the peace. I mean, that's important. You know, people will say to me, Anna, I just I just don't want to create a problem, I just don't want to make the problem worse. Here's the thing the problem already exists, it's there. And don't think for a second the other person doesn't know that it's not there. They know it. They know it. If they have half a brain, which we do, the other person knows that there's an issue. They're just acting like there isn't one too. You know, the conversation that that you're avoiding is often already showing up in your tone of voice with them, in your distance. They're they know this, they see it. You know, your irritation, your lack of affection, you've pulled back, your sarcasm, their sarcastic statements that you're making, you know, they see it, they feel it, or you know, or the 12 smaller arguments you keep having instead of the real big one. You know, you're nitpicking, you're bickering with them, you're annoyed about, you know, why haven't you taken up the trash? You know, when are you gonna do this? When are you gonna file that paperwork? You know, you just the little you know, don't do this, do that. I know. It's not like and like you and I will say, okay, what's really going on? What what are you really upset about?

SPEAKER_01 18:25

What's the real problem?

SPEAKER_00 18:26

Yeah, because you normally don't do this, and I know you're annoyed because you're like, you're you're, you know, hen pecking me, yeah, you know, browbeating me. It's important for you all to know. I mean, you're not keeping the peace. You know, you're you are keeping the tension when you're doing that. You know, I mean, relationship researchers have studied this for decades. And when one particularly destructive pattern that we talk about, it's called demand withdrawal. One person pushes, criticizes, or demands, the other person shuts down, avoids, changes a subject, or just leaves. Right? That's the demand withdrawal pattern. You know, the more that the one person pushes, the more the other person withdraws from the situation from you. The more the other person withdraws, the harder the first person is going to push them, right? I mean, this this is also attachment theory for many of you. Some of you know about this because what's been popular in the past, I'd say five, six years since COVID is people are talking about attachment. It's all over social media, anxious attachment, anxiously attached people, avoidantly attached people. That's a big one. We talk about secure attachment, insecure attachment in the field. So this is sort of like that demand withdrawal pattern that goes on. Research has repeatedly linked this demand withdrawal pattern with relationship distress and poor conflict resolution. So, this this episode today is really sort of like an offshoot again of emotional intelligence. This is emotional intelligence. It's having emotional intelligence and working on bettering your emotional intelligence. Okay. You know, some of us, as you're listening to this or watching, some of you are doing a version of this right now and you're doing it entirely in your head, right? You're replaying the conversation, you're imagining what they're gonna say. You know, you're arguing against their imaginary answer to you. And you might be very, very right about their answer to you, but still it's an imaginary answer, you know. And what are you doing? You're getting more upset. You get you get more upset inside. Like you go over the argument again and again. You're oh so you're just getting really mad. Yeah, you know, and overthinking can become, and I know you know this, its own form of conflict avoidance, you know, because you we can talk about how we each other is, and we we get really mad at each other, we get shut down, we both get shut down, you know, and we both need to take time. I know I need to take time away from you when I get really mad at you, and I will do a conflict avoidance. We both know to not let it go on for too long, but sometimes we get really mad at each other. We will we really get into conflict, we'll avoid each other. It's not great, it's not perfect, and I know especially not to do it, but and I'm not gonna say but and I do do it.

SPEAKER_01 21:20

Yeah, but I think sometimes it's not bad at it's not a bad move.

SPEAKER_00 21:24

Well, because we have good conversations that come out of it, but it's we I get it's not healthy for us to get mad at each other for an entire day or two. Well, no, I'm good.

SPEAKER_01 21:34

Yeah, let's quantify time, but yeah, I would say there are moments where it's it is a good move to to walk away from the city.

SPEAKER_00 21:40

Yeah, we do it less and less as the years go by, but we just got into one recently. We were really mad at it. I was really mad at you. What was it about?

SPEAKER_01 21:48

I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 21:49

It was just recent. Think about it.

SPEAKER_01 21:51

Well, we've already solved the problem, so I cross it off the list. Right, it's gone full. Think about it, it's gone down the river.

SPEAKER_00 21:57

Put your thinking cap on, too. You just want to talk about it in the Podcast.

SPEAKER_01 22:01

No, I'm good with talking about it on the podcast. I honestly don't remember what it was.

SPEAKER_00 22:05

I don't know. It was just a recent one. I was really mad at you. Well, we we got it through it quickly.

SPEAKER_01 22:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:09

It'll come back to me. It'll come up in this episode, believe me. If I can remember it, we're gonna talk about it. Okay. So, so that's what I was saying in the beginning of the episode about how we we we fight with that person and we stay very actively involved with the fight with them in our heads. They're just not in it yet. Okay. But here's the thing confidence is not controlling the outcome. Okay. So this is where confidence comes in. Confidence is not walking into a difficult conversation knowing that you're gonna get the response you want. That's control. That's you or me being controlling. Confidence is knowing that you can handle the response that you're gonna get from this person. You can hear something disappointing without completely falling apart or shutting down or going to attack mode. You can hear something that you don't like that makes you really uncomfortable, like, oh, and stay calm enough to speak clearly. That's you staying regulated and calm that you can hear and you can speak clearly to them. It's you recognizing when the conversation is going nowhere. There's that too, right? We've had that. Yeah, you we've had these arguments. It's like this is going nowhere. We are going in circles.

SPEAKER_01 23:24

You just spinning wheels because we're both dug in.

SPEAKER_00 23:26

We're both really dug into our positions, right? You know, and and recognizing it and acknowledging it and saying it out loud to each other.

SPEAKER_02 23:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:34

You know, it's confidence, is you being able to apologize for your part without taking responsibility for the whole thing, and also saying, Yeah, I am sorry for that. I did do that, right? And or you setting a boundary. That's confidence. You can you can set the boundary and you can leave the conversation with more information than you had before, even if you don't leave with agreement. It's okay, I I see that. I can see my part in that. I don't completely just completely agree with you. I disagree on these pieces, but I will own that. I will take accountability for that part of how I contributed to this relationship blip in our in the blip on the radar of our relationship. I I can own that, I can take responsibility for that. Okay, that's confidence.

SPEAKER_01 24:21

And isn't that like the biggest miss most of the time is the ownership? Like, I think we get so clouded with what this is about that we forget, like, like, oh yeah, I played a part in this too.

SPEAKER_02 24:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:34

Right? We're so like on the on the offensive of like trying to prove that the other person's so wrong that we don't take a step back and we just a second.

SPEAKER_00 24:43

We've said this before here. We've had this in so many of our conversations that we've had on the podcast. I mean, yeah, because the more that the person defends and sort of like puts their armor up, puts on their shield and puts her wall up and puts her armor up, the madder it makes us.

SPEAKER_01 24:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:58

You know, it's like, especially if you're the one who brought the conversation up. If you're like, we need to talk, or I'm gonna talk about this, like we talk about this, and the person just gets defensive, defensive, defensive. We get more and more mad.

SPEAKER_02 25:09

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_00 25:10

Yeah, and that's what often happens. And that's why people come to me. I coach them up on this because they are like, I've tried this, Anna. Yeah, I've tried it on my own. You know, I mean, they just get more defensive and I get more mad at them. And I I'm trying to make them see my point. Well, you can't make them right. But there are different ways that we can we can I can coach you up on how to have this conversation again. Yeah. Have this conversation again with them. And it might be again, and it might be again. You're gonna keep at it, you know? Yeah, you're only responsible for your part. Now, yes, are there people in your lives who completely are like, nope, not doing it and they won't. Well, yeah, then we we have that, and we talk have that conversation about what you're gonna do with that person in your life. Because there are those individuals who they're shut down enough or repressed enough, that they don't have psychological, they don't have emotional intelligence, they're not psychologically minded, they have really no, they there's no ownership, then okay, we have to talk about how you have that person in your life and where they need to be in your life. Because not everybody gets to be in the first 10 rows in the theater of your life when you're on the stage. Some people don't get to be there. Like I say all the time to my clients, if any of you are a client, you've listened, you're like, oh yeah, I love this analogy of the theater. You know, some people need to be out in the lobby of the theater, some people need to be on the street. Not everybody gets to be. Who gets to be in in your front row? Who gets to be in the first five rows? Not everybody gets to be there, right? And the there are people in our lives that they you can't have these conversations with them. And maybe that you maybe they have a personality disorder and they're and you don't know how to deal with that because you I think people lay people have never been trained in how to deal with a borderline. You know, those are difficult personalities. People who are emotional emotionally immature, they're hard to have these conversations with. They're so immature and they're not psychologically minded, they're not, they don't have an interest in in changing or growing. And because they're immature, they're like no no no no no no no no no, not me, not me, not me, not me. I'm not doing this, not doing this. Yeah, because they have spent no time in maybe it's therapy or sort of some self-reflection, they've never been able to look at themselves and they're not going to start today. That's a different that's a different conversation.

SPEAKER_01 27:32

They don't want to look at themselves.

SPEAKER_00 27:33

I'm having a different conversation with you. Yeah. If I'm your coach, and if I'm your therapist, I'm having a different conversation with you about those people. Okay. These people that I'm talking about, that we're talking about for today's episode, are people that are workable, that they do care about you and they love you, you love them, and this is something where you're like, Yeah, I think I I think I could do this with them, or I'm gonna give it a try.

SPEAKER_02 27:56

Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_00 27:57

Sometimes you have to have these conversations before you realize I tried, and people come to me and I tried with them. All right, you did try. Yeah, like I I've tried and they're not doing it. Okay, so what are we seeing? What's the result? We're seeing that maybe there's some immaturity there, they have no interest, they're more interested in their own self or their ego. They really like don't want to, they just can't do this. Yeah, so those are the people that you have to back away from in some way. Yeah, in some way. Okay. So I'm gonna give you power moves. We're gonna move right into power moves. Power move one. Figure out what you are actually upset about. Okay, so let's go back to you. Figure out what are you really mad about? So before you have a conversation with this person, this is your work that you need to do on your own. I want you to separate three things. What happened, what you made it mean, what you made it mean, and what you need now. All right. Replay this. If you're walking the dog, you're driving the car, go back and write this down. What happened, what you made it mean, what you need now. So let's say your partner, your spouse has been working late and staring at their phone through dinner. Like, okay, they're working late every night now that we're at we're sitting down, we're in a restaurant, we're at the dinner table at home, we're in the kitchen, and they're like on their phone. What happened? They worked late four nights this week and were on their phone during dinner. That's what happened. What did you make that mean? Okay, okay. What I made it mean was I'm not important to them. Work always comes first, and they don't want to spend time with me. That's what I made it mean. Okay, those are valid thoughts. What do you actually need? So, what do you need? I want us okay, you know. I mean, I want us to protect a couple of evenings a week and eat dinner without our phones. I want a couple of nights to be about the two of us and our family and to put their freaking phone down. A couple nights can we do that? I I know they're working late. I know that. Yeah, there's a lot going on. I know they're drinking for our family. I get that. But this is what I want. Yeah, those are three different things, though, right? So most, you know, most arguments that go off the rails because we skip right over the actual behavior and we go straight to their character. And if you want to get somebody defensive, do that.

SPEAKER_01 30:29

That's not wrong.

SPEAKER_00 30:31

Right. Yeah, yeah. Because they they you're going right for their character. You're trying to make a point and you're pleading with them.

SPEAKER_01 30:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:38

But when they're the person like, I am working my butt off. Let's let's stick with this argument. I'm working my my butt off here. And I have to be on my phone because my boss is, I'm getting text from the team, and my boss is gonna call. And I need to make sure I'm on top of it. This, you know, I gotta read through this contract again, whatever it might be. Well, you're you, the upset partner, you're not talking to them about their behavior. You're kind of ripping on them as a person, their character. They forgot something, so they don't care, right? They didn't call, so now they're selfish. This is what we're making it mean. They they questioned your decision about something, so now it's like they don't respect you. This is what we've made it mean. And I'm not, there's no no judgment here. No judgment, because I know I've been on the other side. I have done this. You know, you you didn't ask me questions, and I have made it mean something about you. I have. You've probably done it around me. But I've done it around about you, yeah, and you know it because in linear tell you. Because what?

SPEAKER_01 31:36

I tell you what I think it means.

SPEAKER_00 31:38

I tell you what I made it mean and what I thought about you. I do, I do, I do, I have. I've been like, that's your character.

SPEAKER_01 31:44

Well, and and yes, this and this is perfect because like, and what's my response? Like, well, why I was and I've said it, I said it to you this week for sure, a couple times.

SPEAKER_00 31:52

Okay, right.

SPEAKER_01 31:53

Like, you can't paint with that big broad brush, you always say that right, like you can't, like you can't make this isolated thing represent all things, right? Like that's risky.

SPEAKER_00 32:04

That's because I really want you to hear me, yeah. And then I get really mad and I start lumping all my complaints about you into one big lump. I do, I put them into one bucket, right? And you say that to me, I'm like, okay, fine.

SPEAKER_01 32:15

All this unfair fighting, right? All this all this stuff you coach people not to do, like you're you're you're pretty good at it.

SPEAKER_00 32:22

Yeah, hey, I am not perfect. I do do these things, I do, and I know it. And then you call me out, I'm like, fine, fine then.

SPEAKER_01 32:34

But I think my name's Anna. Hi, Anna. Hi, Anna.

SPEAKER_00 32:40

I have a problem with extrapolating issues into one big, huge lump sum about Tim's character. Okay, yeah, okay, don't do that. Okay. I'm gonna stop, try to stop doing that. Well, I get really mad at you, I do that. Yeah, yeah. And you will say that to me, and it sort of knocks me off my ledge because I get on my high horse and knock me off.

SPEAKER_01 33:01

And you're not unique to this. I mean, I think we all do this, right?

SPEAKER_00 33:04

I think the important part is the repair. Yeah, and this is got goes back to Gottman. The important part is that we do make a repair. And you you call me out, and I I have a strong personality, I have strong convictions, but I'm also willing to be told I'm wrong. And I'm also willing, of course, you and I, we say, sorry, I'm shedding right now, I'm pulling hair off my head. I'm willing to say I'm sorry. We both are, and I'm willing to, and then like after I've like vehemently told you all the things I'm mad at you about, and you I just need to say it. And then you tell me I'm like, you know, generalizing. I'm like, yeah, yeah, I kind of was generalizing. But I wanted to say all those things. Now I feel better. Okay. We do. I think women do that a lot. We do. Okay. So it's true. I mean, we we will go over, we will, we will skip. Oh, I'll I'll own it for myself. I will skip over your behavior that I'm upset about, and I'll go straight. I will go to your character, you know, and I will think to myself, he doesn't care, you know, he's being totally selfish about this, you know, you don't respect me. You know, so before you talk, before I and I talk to you, Tim, but before any of you talk, ask yourself, what do I know? And what am I assuming? So, what do I know? What are the facts of the situation? What is the situation? What are the facts and what am I assuming about it? So I want you to name the actual emotion, not just some generalized broad brushstroke of I'm upset. Okay, you know you're upset. We know you're upset. Are you hurt? Are you embarrassed? Are you angry? Were you made to feel unimportant, disappointed? You know, did you feel taken for granted? So the research out there, the research on affect labeling, which is what that is, affect labeling has shown that simply putting emotions into words can reduce emotional reactivity. So find the words that's affect labeling, really, really important. I remember uh a few years ago, I was really upset with the boys about something. Yeah. I don't know. I was really upset about the with one of the boys, one of my stepsons. And I I think I felt slighted. I felt less than the I don't know what it was. And I don't know if it was directly about them. I think it was something with a step being a step situation or something with their mom's side of the family or their mom. And I said that really, when you do that, I said it really hurt. We were arguing. I was arguing with one of them, and I said, It really hurts my feelings. It just hurts my feelings. So that was affect labeling. And did it take the gas out of the whole argument? Because he was like, Oh, okay. Like I I showed vulnerability to him, and then he it just it just deflated for both of us, it deflated the energy of frustration and anger for both of us. Because I went to, well, how I'm like, you know, how you really feeling here? I'm like, well, yeah, inside myself, I'm like, well, I hurt my feelings. I was hurt. And that it really did change the whole conversation. And we came to and he's like, Oh, I didn't, oh, I didn't know that. He just thought he was he had his back up and he was defensive and arguing. And then I think, and I I think he didn't never specifically said this to me, but he probably thought, oh, well, that's what it is. Oh, okay. And I remember the conversation when that comes, it did like a pivot, major pivot, and went a different conversation. It went a different direction, the conversation, and it ended up being it was a really good resolve. I felt understood, and I think he understood me.

SPEAKER_02 36:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:37

And I showed vulnerability to him. It's like, oh, okay, okay.

SPEAKER_02 36:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:42

It like it softened him, and I softened. It was hard to do. It was hard to do to make myself vulnerable when I was also kind of mad at him. It just was a really wonderful conclusion. Yeah. I still think about that because we don't really fight like that anymore. Well, we didn't really argue that much anyway. We would, we wouldn't. Well, he was younger, but now he's in his you know mid-20s. We haven't had a whole lot of fights, he and I. But when we do argue with one another, we move to this place of just really showing vulnerability, and it's it's been great. It's been great. So we don't really fight a whole lot.

SPEAKER_01 37:17

Yeah. You know? Well, you know, fight. We don't really fight a whole lot, but when we do, we'd get into it.

SPEAKER_00 37:23

Like debate or well, he'd get so defensive, and I get defensive, and I remember you getting mad at him. We had a we had an ar last argument was at Christmas time, and I and I was really mad at him. And I said, I'm calling bullshit on that to him. And he was kind of bullshit. He was. I mean, if he was sitting here, he'd be like, Yeah, because he was so defensive with me. And I said, I call and he lied about something. He was just blind about a situation because it was so defensive. And I think he felt bowled over by me. And I said, I'm calling bullshit on that. And he's like, uh uh-uh. And he, I said, what he did was he was answering my questions with a question back to me. So he wouldn't answer me. And he was asking me questions. What about you? What about and I said, Stop answering, stop answering my question, stop asking me a question with a question, answering me with a question. He's like, and he goes, Yeah, okay, I'm doing that. He did, he goes like, Yeah, okay, I'm doing that. Yeah. And once we got past like the vehemence of our madness at each other, I remember it because it's up in my, I was up in our bedroom. He came up to the bedroom. We were going back and forth. Everybody else was downstairs, and we were going back and forth in the bedroom about how mad I was. He was mad at, he was mad at me and you. He'd already talked to you. He was mad at us for six months about something. Like six months? This is last summer of 2025, and now it's December of 2025, and you're mad about something. I can't, that's not fair. Like you have to tell me you you have been holding on to this for six months. Right. So I think that there was a big lesson learned in that. And I said, You can't let it go like you're holding resentments and and hostilities towards me. I had no idea. I said to him, I won't say his name. I can't help a situation if you don't tell me what you're mad about. Right. So, like, this is what we do. We get mad, mad, mad, mad, mad, mad, mad. And we we it gets to a crescendo, and I'd like, I call bullshit on that. He's like, and I said, Stop answering my questions with a question. Like, okay, fine. And then it comes down. And then we start to talk. Our toes, our toes come down, the pitch comes down.

SPEAKER_01 39:28

And I think there's lessons for everybody in that scenario, right? Like you learned a lesson.

SPEAKER_00 39:33

It's a good well, we've learned a lesson.

SPEAKER_01 39:35

I'm sure that um my part of that earlier conversation, I learned a lesson.

SPEAKER_00 39:40

Well, I think we well, he and I have learned how to fight with one another. Yeah, I think you have to learn how to fight and fight well with one another. And he and I have learned that because we've had it had it over the years. We do this with each other. So here's the thing. Hopefully, he's not holding on to resentments from six months ago or even three months ago, and he will bring it up sooner. Yeah. And I think he does. Yeah. Okay. So affect labeling, name what it is you're feeling. So before you enter a conversation with someone, finish this sentence. The part of this that is most upsetting to me is write that down. The part of this that is most upsetting to me is dot dot dot. Write that down for yourself. What is it? That is usually where the real conversation needs to begin for all of us. Okay. Power move two. Know what you want. Know what you want. Do not start the conversation with someone until you know why you are having it. Okay. Really important. Do you want an apology? Do you want a change in behavior? Do you want more information?

SPEAKER_01 40:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:50

Do you want them to make a decision? Do you want to do you want a boundary? Do you want to let them know about a boundary you're setting, or do you want them to set a boundary? Maybe with someone in your extended family. Or do you simply need to say something because staying silent is changing how you feel about the relationship? Like it's affecting me and it's affecting how I feel about this relationship by not saying anything. And we got to talk because I can't keep doing this. Yeah. It's really affecting, I don't think you realize how much it's affecting me in this relationship. So and here's one goal I want you to stop having. Okay, everyone. I just need them to understand. You cannot force understanding, right? You cannot force remorse on someone. You cannot force someone to agree with your version of events. And I know, I know, I know, I know this is really hard for so many of us because you can't force this. You can't make somebody feel remorse. You can't, you can't make someone agree with your version of the events. You know, a useful goal. So this is here, let's just get I'll throw you a more useful goal. It might sound more like, okay, I need us to agree on how we're gonna handle money. For example, let's use money. I'm I need us to agree on how we're gonna handle money going forward. I need to know whether you're willing to work on this. Are you willing to work on this? I need to tell my friend, I need to tell Susie, I need to tell Joe that those comments that they're making or that they made were really hurtful to me. I need my boss to clarify what I am actually responsible for. Like I need to have this conversation with my boss at some point. And what I need them to know, I need to know what I'm actually responsible for. I need to tell my kid, my 24-year-old son, daughter, that I cannot continue helping financially in the same way. I just we we have to have this conversation and they need to know that's what I that's what I need. Yeah, that's what has to come out of this. I cannot keep giving the money. I just can't. You know, it's all about economy, and I'm trying to work on my retirement or I I I'm saving for this. I can't keep giving that giving them that money. Yeah. Sometimes the outcome of the conversation is not resolution, sometimes it's clarity, and clarity really matters.

SPEAKER_01 43:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:12

What are you thinking?

SPEAKER_01 43:13

Well, I like the way that you shifted right there. Because I was gonna say, I don't I don't think the word should be want, I think it should be need. But it's interesting that every example that you just gave, you didn't say want one time. You said need every single time. Yeah, but I think that's the label. I think it should be the label because when I approach something in my own head where I want, I'm an and I'm saying that I want, like, there's a much different vibe there than when I go in saying I need. Right. It's a way different vibe, you know. Totally. So there you go. Totally interesting.

SPEAKER_00 43:46

Okay, before we get on, move on to power move number three. Please don't hesitate to reach out to me. If you want therapy, you're in Illinois, I'm here. If you want coaching, no matter where you are in the world, I can coach you. Okay. So email me, hello at Annamarka Lean.com. We read every email that comes through. Okay. And you can get on a discovery call and let's work together. Okay. This is it. This is your call to action to finally start working on those issues in your life that you need help with that you've been trying to do all these months, maybe years by yourself, and it's not getting better. Reach out to me. Okay. I will help you move in another direction. You're going to get results if and when you work with me. I've been doing this for 30 years. Okay. So there's something I don't know everything. That's for sure. I'm a I certainly don't know everything, but there's certain things I'm good at. And my superpower is helping people move into a different direction in their life. All right. I'm really, really good at helping people in their relationships. Okay. So if it's a clinical issue, therapy, a mood disorder, depression, anxiety, relationship issues, dealing with your past, unresolved issues from your childhood, that's my jam when it comes to therapy. And I will certainly help you with that. I've done trauma work, trained in trauma, done trauma work for years. If you are some, if you're looking for coaching, if you, if it's relationships that you're dealing with today, even if we go into the past a little bit, that's okay. I can coach up on that, right? If you are somebody who wants help with goals and you don't even know what your goals are for your future, you're working on maybe retirement. You have, oh my gosh, you name it. You're dealing with illness in your life, and you need help with how to do this in your present day, and you want to know what the future is going to look like, and you need help with helping to curate that for yourself. That's what coaching. I can coach you on, and I do draw from sports because that's my background, sports performance, high performance. Okay, that's what I do. I'll coach you up. And you may be thinking to yourself, well, I'm not a high performing person. I call bullshit on that. And it doesn't matter. I will coach all of you and use my high performance coaching to help all of you. That's the thing, is I think that many of us put labels on ourselves of who we are and who we are not. And that's what the badass confidence coach is. If you know the story behind how I came up with the name of this podcast, it wasn't because I think I'm a badass. It's because of my clients that I sat across from for 20 years in my office, and this is before COVID. And I thought to myself, this person's a badass and they don't know it. All the things that I listened to, all the issues that people came to me with, and all the ways that people were surviving and thriving, how they got through their addiction, how they got through their parents' addiction, living in that family with so much dysfunction, you know, people who white knuckled it through their schooling, through their academics. And here they are now, like this farm-to-table chef. Here they are now in graduate school, you know, these people who are entrepreneurs, these people who are getting through and they've got three, four, five, ten kids, and they're still working on their marriage and they have a decent marriage. That is badass. Those are the people that I coach. And you are a high performer. So don't forget that, okay? You are. You're more. I will tell you what you won't tell yourself, but you need to hear. You need to hear how badass you are. Those are the people that I coach. Okay. So don't put judgments on yourself already about who you say you are. I'm gonna help you say who you are. Because sometimes we need an outside objective person to come into our lives and remind us of how great we are, how awesome we are. All right. So that's important. And please don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review the podcast with five stars. Makes all the difference in the world. Okay. Perfect. All right. Oh, and if you have a question for me, if you have something you want us to talk about, email that to me too. We will talk about it. Okay. We're gonna do an upcoming episode in a few weeks about we're gonna do a QA. We're gonna ask questions of each other, okay? So if you have questions you want there, and we're gonna bring in one from viewers and listeners, some questions. So ask a question. We'll answer it on here and ask it about your life. You can stay anonymous, and I will answer it. What kind of questions are we asking each other? You to be, I don't know. Well, we I may surprise you.

SPEAKER_01 48:29

I may surprise you.

SPEAKER_00 48:30

But we're gonna do we're gonna do one all that's more about you because I think a lot of people don't know who you are. I think they who are my I think they know you're my husband, but I don't think people know much about you. So we're gonna do it's a mystery. Yeah. Okay, let's get into it. So, you what's your next power move? Power move number three. Do not ambush these people that you want to talk to in your life, all right? Choose the time. Okay, that's important. Don't ambush people, do not start the conversation while the other person is walking out the door, you know, falling asleep. Don't do that. Trying to get the kids somewhere, or they're going into a meeting and you're on the phone with them, or you're, you know, don't do that. All right. Watch your timing and do not say, This is a big one. Do not say to them, we need to talk, and then you disappear for six hours. Or they're walking out the door, hey, we need to talk. You know, that's provocative. That's not right. It's not fair to them. Okay. I mean, I I I don't think I do that, but don't do that to people. Anytime somebody does it to me, like, why, what, what, what, what? No, talk right. We need to talk right now, or like, I gotta tell you something, but I gotta go. I gotta go see my I gotta my kids will do this. I gotta go. I have to get back to work. No, don't say that right. Tell me right now, or I'm gonna bug them, I'm gonna call them back. Tell me, what is it? It's like, I got a secret to tell you. Yeah, don't do that because it gets people worried. Yeah, you know, and it takes and it's not nice, it's not kind because it can take up they're at work or they're driving somewhere, and their mind is all taken up with what is it that we need. I think most times we know, but sometimes we're like, what is it that we need to talk about, right?

SPEAKER_01 50:03

Or sometimes we think we know.

SPEAKER_00 50:05

Yeah, right, exactly. So instead, try something like something's been bothering me lately, and I don't want it to keep building inside of me. Do you think we can talk later tonight? That's better, at least. Like something is building up inside of me. I do want to talk about it. Could we talk when you get home tonight? Or, you know, I need to have a difficult conversation with you about what happened last weekend. Is tonight better, or could we talk tomorrow morning? What's what's better for you? And usually the other person knows what it is, you know. And it and you're saying it's gonna be a difficult conversation.

SPEAKER_01 50:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:38

And they may start in right then and there, like, no, no, no, you know, we don't have time to do this right now. I don't have time, you don't have time, but it's it's it, you know, we do need to talk. Could we do it? What's what's better for you?

SPEAKER_01 50:48

See, I'm not a fan of that. I'm not a fan of like dropping that little nugget, right? Because then what happens? Everybody has a chance to kind of like pre-formulate their their complete agenda and that's fair, right?

SPEAKER_00 51:02

Like I that's but I I I know with my clients who are really busy, if they don't say that to their spouse or their partner or through their mom, they'll they won't do it. It's like we we are all so busy, and many times we're two ships in the night. Is if I don't say that to like my mom or my mother-in-law, we're not gonna have it. And I want them to stop avoiding what they what I know they're also avoiding. You know, I I need to kind of put it on notice that yeah, we need to talk. I mean, something happened last week, and you know what I'm talking. Remember, we were at that family reunion, you made this comment and it hurt my feelings. I just want to talk about it more. Yeah, you could go a little, what is it? What is it? Yeah, I yeah, it hurt my feelings and I want to talk about it. Okay, all right. Yeah. Can we do it? Are you home? Can we talk? I'll call you or I'll come over, you know. Let's like say like seven or eight after the kids are in bed. You know, can we do it at six? You know, yeah, let's do it when I'm driving home. Yeah. I don't think it's it, I don't think it's ideal to be driving in the car and having this conversation. I think it's prefer preferable to be in person, but if you can't talk on the phone when you're at home, you know, or you park the car and you're in a safe space to talk. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 52:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 52:08

So yeah, it's I get what you're saying, Tim, but I think sometimes we we have to put it out there or we won't have the conversation.

SPEAKER_01 52:15

Well, I think you can put it out there in a different way. Like I think you can put it out there in a way where it's like you arrange to to connect later in the day, but you don't have to say, like, we have to have this big conversation. Like, I think you can just say, Hey, you want to join me for a quick walk or you want to join me for later on the day, you want to go like work out with me later. And it's like, okay, then we can like have a moment, right?

SPEAKER_00 52:38

Okay, yeah, that's good. Yeah, that's good. I I think the point is that you're not asking them for permission to have a conversation about something. You you're creating, you know, what you're doing is you're creating a better container for the conversation. Yeah, you're creating, I'm concerned about however you want to do it, yeah, you're creating the container that we need to have this conversation.

SPEAKER_01 52:59

Sure, sure. Okay. Cause then I think you're setting it up where it can be a more genuine conversation versus it's all pre-choreographed. It's like, you know what I mean? It's like in my head, like, all right, well, I gotta make sure that I because I know this conversation's coming up later. Now I gotta make sure that I'm like, I make a list of all the things that I have to remember. You know what I mean? It's just like it's too planned out.

SPEAKER_00 53:20

This and this is like I just said, this is especially important for people who are high performers, and many, many of you are high performers because high performers can function beautifully while they're angry. You know, they can work, they can take care of people, they can meet deadlines, they can handle everything, and then three months later arrive with exhibit A through exhibit q. That that's really why I'm also saying this. You know, bring the issue up while it is still specific. Sure. Anger is a great, it's an engine, it's a motivator to do to do to do do do keep going, keep going, keep going while avoiding the situation. And that's that's also who I'm thinking about. And I think that that's most of you, you know, bring the issue up while it is still specific. Right. Don't let it go on.

SPEAKER_01 54:09

And if you think about it, like this this kind of parallels just in life. Like it, there's so many things that we kind of go through in our heads. Like, just think about just work stuff. Like, I have a presentation. Well, I need to rehearse, rehearse, rehearse. Like, I need I need to make sure that I am going to guide how this goes and the outcome I can see before I even give the speech, or a business meeting, or I'm a salesperson. I need to like practice like overcoming objection objectives, right? Or objections. Like, like you like in life, like I think we do this, like the process is not new, right? We do this all the time, right? Like we don't we want to know that our our day is semi-scripted, even though it's gonna go off the tracks, but like we we try to have a vision of the day, right? Or the meeting or the whatever it is. So this is like that.

SPEAKER_00 55:02

Yeah, it is. And I think I was gonna, you got me thinking about when you have this conversation with the person. I would I would recommend you write down some of the things you want to say. Like, write down some of the points that you want to make, because what happens is to almost all of us is we forget all the things that we might be upset about. Now, I would tell you, now this is what I coach, so we won't get into this too much here, but try to stick to one issue. Don't bring up the whole kitchen sink, everything that you've ever been mad about. That's just we call that it's dirty fighting. It's not fair fighting. Don't do that. But you might have, like, I want to talk about that. You embarrassed me last weekend. It has happened before, but there's a pattern I'm seeing where I was embarrassed. I don't know if you realize it, but it's hurtful to me. So let's say that's the issue. Write, write down what you want to say when you have that conversation with like your spouse. Write it down because what'll what can happen is it's going it's going to be probably a little emotional, I would say, right? I predict it's gonna be there's gonna be some emotion there. You're gonna forget some of the things you want to say. So write it down. It's okay. It's okay to have a piece of paper or have some notes in your phone and say, I wrote some things down. I want to, I want to make sure I don't forget them.

SPEAKER_01 56:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 56:17

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 56:17

I think that's no, I no, I agree with you. I mean, and and I think that that also parallels a lot of things we do in life.

SPEAKER_00 56:23

Yes, right.

SPEAKER_01 56:24

Right? We make we make lists and we just so that we don't forget or that we feel good about checking boxes throughout the day and on accomplishments and things like that.

SPEAKER_00 56:34

Right, right, right. Okay, your fourth power move. I want you to start soft, but stay direct. So this is this is really basically Gottman. Like, don't do the negative startup. And most of us know negative startups. We've had people in our lives, everywhere in our lives, neighbors, coworkers, bosses, friends, family who have done this negative startup. Negative startup is they come in aggressive, the tone of their voice, and you're all men already like, okay, no. I have a friend, a former person. I'm not, I don't really not really friends with her anymore. We just are different different times in our lives.

SPEAKER_01 57:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 57:06

Much younger kids. But she would do that to me, and and she'd be like, What? And I it was the way she was raised, and she would just be like, like, no, I can't, I can't. No, I can't do that. No, can't change plans. And it would really turn me off because she was, it was always a negative, kind of a negative startup when we'd first see each other, not all the time. And I would just, ugh, it would just, it would turn me off and make me just not want to be with her because that's how she would the tone in her voice, the way she would speak to me. You, you know what I'm talking about. And and I know that she had a mother, her mother was like that. And we know who this is. Sure. And she was like that. And I actually never did tell her because I would see this is what I would do. She didn't always do it, so I'd blow it off. It would like it, she's she's prickly, and it would make me like, uh, but I kind of just sucked it up because in this, I don't think we're gonna have time because we are already an hour in to get into it on this episode today. There's some times when it's not worth it, it's just not worth it to have a conversation. Like you have to also weigh in your and for this episode, these are these are important issues that you need to bring up. It's probably with a spouse, a life partner, somebody you do care about and you love and you're around, but they're really bugging the crap out of you. And you think, I've got to talk to them. This is a good friend of mine, I've got to talk to them about it because it's really affecting, it's affecting like how I am around them, it's affecting how much I want to be around them. I notice I'm like bullying off going out with them because I don't, they're bugging me. Yeah, you know, but there are situations with every relationship because we're all flawed, where people do things that bug the crap out of us, and it's just not worth bringing up. It's just not worth it because it doesn't happen all the time. And they and it's kind of who they are. That's how I am with that one friend. You know, because I'm not, we're not not friends, it's just we're different times in our lives. It's something about her that really would bug me. Yeah, but it wasn't always that. She didn't do that every time we got together. And I'm like, that's just that's her personality, it's part of who she is.

SPEAKER_01 59:05

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 59:06

Because of how she was raised.

SPEAKER_01 59:07

Yeah, you know, okay.

SPEAKER_00 59:08

So the little little caveat there before we get into power.

SPEAKER_01 59:11

What is that sandwich concept where you start positive, negative, positive? Yeah, like like that, that kind of is part of this too, right? Like you don't want to go in the feedback sandwich.

SPEAKER_00 59:21

Well, it's from a feedback sample.

SPEAKER_01 59:23

It is, but like I think that concept could work here too, right? Where you don't go in hot to start soft, yeah. And and then you get in direct yes, exactly. The meat of it, and then hopefully you come out on the backside where it's like, okay, we're we're good, right?

SPEAKER_00 59:36

And I think starting soft, it does it doesn't mean that you're weak, doesn't mean there's weakness in any of us, right? It means you start with with the behavior instead of an attack on the person. You can start with something positive and then you want you to go into the behavior.

SPEAKER_01 59:51

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 59:52

You know, this is you know, so it's compared to like you saying, like, you are completely selfish, you're totally selfish, you know, you, you, you, right? We don't like the you statements. You know, everything is always about you. How is it that everything turns out to be about you? You make it about you, right? We okay, we don't, I know you might feel that way, and I get that. I do get that. And you don't want to start that way. You know, you want to maybe start with when you made plans for both of us next last weekend without checking with me. I felt totally dismissed. I mean, I need I need you to talk to me first before you commit to spending a weekend with your parents. For example, before I need you to talk to me first before you commit to us doing but you know, A, B, C, D, E. You know, the second statement, you know, what I just said, it's it's that's not passive, you know, that it's it's just you being extremely clear. So for this, a good structure would be write this down, everybody. When this happened, dot dot dot, the impact on me was dot dot dot. Here's what I need going forward, or what I need going forward is dot dot dot. So write that down. What this when this happened, the impact on me was what I need going forward is yeah, all right. For example, let me finish this. When you joked about me in front of everyone, I felt embarrassed. I know you may not have intended it to be that way, but I need you not to use me as the punchline in front of our friends going forward, okay?

SPEAKER_02 1:01:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:35

Or when I found out about the decision after it had you had already made it, I felt totally excluded, Tim. Like I felt totally excluded by you. I need to be part of these decisions going forward. I need that.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:50

Make sense?

SPEAKER_01 1:01:51

Yeah, totally. Okay, go ahead. Totally. No, I was gonna say, as you're saying this stuff, I'm like, I'm hearing like how you're saying it. Like, like if you had through thrown the word want in there, like I'm gonna hear that differently, right? Like, because then now all of a sudden it's about you again. Yes, right, I need I need it. It just a better, such a better way to say it. Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:12

So this is this is the research of what psychologists call conversational receptiveness. This is what I'm this is what I'm saying to all of you right now. Conversational receptiveness, the research has found that people are more persuasive and viewed as better collaborators when they communicate a genuine willingness to engage with another person's perspective. Okay. So that means you can say, okay, I can see why you I can see why you thought I was okay with it. You know, I may not understand everything that was happening for you. Or I agree that I should have brought up this issue sooner. Or, you know, I I want I want to hear your perspective, and I also need you to hear mine. Right? Receptiveness is not surrender to the other person. There can be room for just for both people in this conversation.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:04

I mean, that that's really how it should be. Yeah, right. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:07

Okay. Next power move. Stick to one issue and own your part. All right. This is, I mean, I learned this in undergrad. This is basic communication, but we're gonna do it because I think we all need these reminders. If you have been avoiding this conversation for months, you're gonna be tempted to discuss everything that's come up in the past few months or the past year. Do not do that. Do not add in Christmas 2019. Don't do that. Do not bring in their mother, do not add in now their spending habits, their communication style, their drinking, their work schedule, and the vacation that they ruined seven years ago. I know you might feel like doing it. I understand that. I know you feel like it. I'm telling you, don't do it. Pick one issue, one issue, and use, you know, one or two examples. I want you to make one request and then ask yourself here's the hard part, everybody. Here's your challenge. What is my part in this? I know you don't want to do it because I don't really want to do it either. And we gotta do it. What is my part in this? So I often tell my clients to find their 10%. Maybe your part is okay, I should have said something sooner. I agreed to something I didn't really actually want. So this is you kind of taking some ownership here.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:30

I I yeah, I became sarcastic. Yeah, I was. I was sarcastic with you. I should have told you I was hurt, but instead, you know, I I got sarcastic and I'm working on that sarcasm. I ex I did. I expected you to know what I was needing without asking. Why didn't you tell me? Well, okay, fine. I was doing a little mind reading, which we consider a thought distortion. I was mind reading. And a lot of us do this, and we don't even realize we're doing it. Okay, yeah, I did. I raised my voice. I raised my voice. Okay, so so own own your part. This is not what 100% the other person's air quote fault or all on them. You have a part in this too. Owning your part does not, like I just said, it's just it's not all you. It keeps you honest, though, right? You it keeps you honest. Yeah, you can say, I shouldn't have, okay, I shouldn't have called you selfish. I'm I'm sorry, that was not okay. You know, but the underlying issue does still matter, and we we gotta I I think we need to continue to talk about this, you know. You know, that is you all having emotional maturity. That is all of you and us having emotional intelligence. This is how we raise it. This is how we raise our emotional intelligence, saying, Yeah, I'm really mad at you. We have to talk about I'm glad we're talking about this. I was really mad at you, and I'm I'm telling you this. And okay, I'm glad you're able to to see that. And and I will own, I will own my stuff. It's not completely, completely you. You know, you you can correct your own behavior without abandoning, you know, your concern about the issue, about the relationship.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:59

Yeah. The whole concept of ownership, like it is that something I think this is a rhetorical question, but I'll ask it anyway. Is that something that's ever presented to anybody under the age of 18? But aside from being in therapy? Like, is this a topic in psych 101 in high school? Or is this something that you just have to like at some point discover along the way? And by the time you're 40, like maybe you can understand it.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:27

It's starting to be taught in the schools. They're starting to teach emotional intelligence in the schools. It's I'm looking at my book over there that I just got. I just listened to is it Mark Brackett just wrote a book on your feelings, feeling giving yourself permission to feel. Yeah, they're starting to teach emotional intelligence in the school system, the public school system. It's amazing. Yeah. I mean, it this needs to happen. This needs to happen because many of us are not learning it at home. We're not learning it from our parents. We have emotionally immature parents. It needs to happen.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:58

And it is.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:58

Yeah, because you think about it, like we lean on these, you know, we start hiring kids at like, well, 14's a little young, but but we do hire 14s with a work permit, like 14, 15, 16, all the way up. Like, and if there's if they don't even know what you're saying, like this whole concept of the world. I know you talk about you talk about it. But if they did, like what a different world that would be.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:20

Well, we have a lot of work to do because I know you talk a lot of time about these younger seasonal employees and the emotional immaturity. Yeah. And how it comes into the workplace.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:30

It affects the workplace. And it and it affects a lot of folks. Because if you're if you're leaning on these these kids to do certain tasks that are being managed by older kids, air quotes that are 22, that are then managed by the supervisors who like are 30, 40, 50, like all of these things have to work together. But if you've got the the bottom, like that first rung of of staff that have no idea what you're even talking about. Like imagine how much different it could be.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:01

Okay. Right. We got to move on because I have so much more to say. We are well, well over our time. So yeah, I'm going to move into the next power move. I'm going to unfortunately, everybody, I'm going to have to make this quick because I think we're we're an hour and 10 minutes in. So your next power move, number six, is you got to know when you are too activated to continue. So there are times when we get into these conversations when you're no one's listening anymore. So this is maybe a conversation that, and I've coached people up on having these conversations and they went awry. And, you know, I kind of expect it because many of us are not used to doing this and we're and we're newbies at it. We're green, and we're just learning how to talk about our thoughts and feelings and learning how to argue. Most of us did not learn how to argue. And so I expect it to be like kind of a fail, or like, okay, Anna, that didn't go well. All right, that's okay. You know, I think what happens is people get defensive, and then you're like, shoot, everything that I talked with Anna about just went out the window. And now I'm yelling and they're yelling, and it's like no one's even listening to each other anymore. I think sometimes or a lot of times it's okay to say, we need to take a pause. I I want to say this though. I want to finish this conversation, but I'm really mad at you right now. And we don't, we got to go to bed. We can't continue. I do think that sometimes it's okay to go to bed angry. That's something we I know I heard in the profession is never go to bed angry, never go to bed angry. I don't completely agree with that. That's a blanket statement. Never go to bed angry. There are times you and I have gone to bed angry. Like we can't finish this right now. And maybe we need a nice sleep and we need to, if you can sleep, you know, but maybe you just need to walk away from one another because it is, it's going south. Wait, right? I mean, you know, but you need to say when you're gonna have a conversation again. And this goes back to Gottman. You need to say, let's talk tomorrow after work. We'll finish this conversation tomorrow night at seven. Okay, fine, seven. Like you can be still really like fine, we'll just do it tomorrow. Or text each other if you can't talk, text each other when you'll have a conversation. Sometimes the rule sort of is you have to tell each other when you're gonna continue the conversation. You you can't just walk away, it'd be shut down and walk away. That's withdrawal. It's mean, it's considered mean, it's withdrawal. It's sort of it's avoiding the person, withdrawing from the person. It's not fair to do that to you to the person. So you do, it's okay to take a break because your nervous system is completely overloaded, but you do, and you need to get more regulated because you know that this dysregulation for both of you or one of you is the the conversation has started to go south. Yeah. You just need to say, All right, we'll talk tomorrow. And when you go off on your own, and when you go and you go take a shower and you go walk the dog, or you just go and you start and you go to listen to music, you just gotta go into another room. You need to ask yourself, what am I trying to communicate here? What was this whole conversation about? Write it down. Answer that question. What am I actually trying to communicate with them?

SPEAKER_01 1:11:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:04

All right. Then go back to the conversation ready to say that. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:08

Well, and even more important than that, I think you need to go back to that other question. Like, what's my role in this? Right? Like, take a second to consider that there is a role that you have.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:19

Because you may have skipped that part of my past.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:22

You skipped that part. Okay. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:26

We both have with each other. Like, go back, be ready to own at least 10%. This is hey, this is not all when you go back to the car. Hey, this is not all you.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:35

You know, I do want to talk about this. It's upsetting to me. And write it down and look at your notes.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:42

And speak from there.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:44

Try your best to take the emotion out of it. Don't get revved up again. Don't try not to get agitated and own some of this.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:50

Yeah. And I think if that's your lead-in going back, the owning part of it, like that should be the strategy. Right. Oh, go in with an owning attitude, right? Because that's going to soften everything up versus coming in hot and then it just escalates one more time and then it's like, okay, what are we doing?

SPEAKER_00 1:12:11

Yeah. You know. Okay. Your next power move. I want you to listen for what is true. Listen for what is true. You don't have to agree with everything the other person says, right? But listen for them, the part that might be true. Now, this is on you. This is on you swallowing your pride, eating humble pie, putting your ego to the side, right? Listen for what is true. If they say to you, you know, you've been distant too, your immediate reaction might be it's only because you, you this or you that. Stop.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:43

Stop. Is there some truth in it?

SPEAKER_01 1:12:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:47

Okay. Yes. All right. Yeah. I have been distant. Because I was angry and I didn't tell you. And I I have been distant because I I've done this before and you have been b-buh-buh. You've acted like this or that. Okay. If they say, you know, you waited three months and now you're you're acting like I should have known. You waited three months to tell me this and I should have known. What was that? Like Halloween? Like it's February 1st now. Come on.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:15

Maybe they're right about that part. They they're not wrong. You did wait three months and they're upset and they have a right to be upset. Own that part. Okay, but it's taking me three months to get here. Okay, but okay. Own it though. All right. They're ups, they're upset and they they're come up. That was three months ago. Now you're bringing it up, right? Okay. Own it. Yeah. You know, you yeah, yeah, you can say, like, yeah, you're right. You know, I I should have said something sooner and I didn't, and I and I'm bringing it up now. That doesn't okay, okay, honey, but that doesn't erase the original problem. All right. It simply means that you're no longer trying to defend the impossible position that you did absolutely nothing wrong, right? That's an impossible position to put yourself in. If you think you've done absolutely nothing wrong, you are wrong. There's no you're mistaken. You are mistaken. There's no perfect person here, right? And then ask, ask this. What do you hear me saying? That is a very useful question. What do you hear me saying? Because sometimes we think we have communicated clearly to the other person, you know, and what they heard was something totally different. And that happens, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:14:28

Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:29

Okay. Okay. So I want to go into this before we end. What if they do not respond well? We know we all know people in our lives who do not respond well to this. They get defensive. You know, most of us are not amazing the first moment somebody tells us we have, you know, we have hurt or disappointed them. Think about it like someone's confronting you, someone's talking to you about you. You know, I know I can think of situations, you know, many people in my life who've confronted me about something I've done. You know, I'm like, oh great, what I do wrong this time, you know. You know, you can say I'm not saying you intended to hurt me. I'm I'm telling you the impact. Or, you know, I'm willing to hear your perspective. I also need us to not skip over what the issue that I'm raising right now. You can say, like, think about this person that you seem to struggle with in your lifetime. You know, I'm not saying that you intended to be this way, so-and-so, you know, I'm telling you the impact of it on me. Yeah, it has impacted me.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:34

And I don't think you that's actually really good for you for this one person you deal with in your life.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:39

I'm telling you the impact.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:41

And this is who I am. And I and this is this is it had this how it's affected me. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So, because there's a difference between defensiveness and contempt, right? I mean, and we don't like defensiveness, and we don't really like contempt. Those are the four four horsemen that in marriages uh predicts divorce, actually. There's different levels of defensiveness, though. There's a difference between disagreement and intimidation. Right. So, you know, do we like defensiveness? No, but defensiveness, I probably would take that over someone having contempt. Contempt is really mean, mean, mean. Disagreement, you can disagree. Intimidation, that's different, right? There's a difference between someone needing a minute and someone punishing you for speaking, right? If someone routinely frightens you, threat okay. This is a more next level now, so I have to always put this in. If someone routinely is frightening you, threatening you, threatens retaliation on you, is controlling of you, or becomes violent, this is not a communication skills problem, which is what this episode is about. Safety comes first. You need to get out. You know, that's a wholly different conversation about how you need to be out of that, you need to be out of that relationship, you need to be out of that situation. And that's another episode that we're not having to do. Totally. Okay. Yeah. Right. And sometimes the conversation gives you an answer that you you did not want. You know, you can do all of this well with someone. You can do all of this well and say, I I did, I did everything Anna in that episode told me. I did everything I've read, or everything actually my therapist told me to do, or my my coach coached me up on. And I'm still, it didn't, it didn't go that well. And and I'm disappointed because I'm disappointed. You can say it calmly, clearly, respectfully to the person. And the other person may, like I said earlier in the episode, may still refuse to change. They may minimize, they may continue just to disagree because they are a disagreeable person. The you know, we talked months ago about the five big personality traits. Agreeableness is one of them. This is just a disagreeable person.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:54

You know, they may tell you the things that you need to change. What's wrong with you? And unwilling to see anything in themselves and unwilling to give in the conversation, like and turn it on, like you, you, you, you, you. And this is why, and this is exactly why people avoid these conversations for months and months and months, right? It's it's not only that they're afraid of the argument, they're afraid of what the argument may confirm. And that's big. The argument may confirm what deep down inside I think what we about that person may have known or always known. They are the certain person for you that maybe you do need to put boundaries and limits on this person. Maybe you do need to go low contact with this person. I have watched people spend years searching for the perfect sentence that will, you know, finally make their spouse care about them, or finally make their parent understand where they're coming from and understand their perspective. You know, make their boss all of a sudden become a fair boss, you know, or make someone else take responsibility for themselves and their lives. And sometimes there is no better sentence.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:00

Sometimes that sounds like fantasy.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:03

Yeah, I mean, with that person, sometimes it's like, I have, you know what? I have already communicated this clearly so many times before. And then the question becomes what am I gonna do with the information that I have? Because I have the information, it's all there. What am I gonna do with it? That's where confidence becomes action. And I know you and I have dealt with this in our lives, and we have had to make decisions to take action based on this person who this is this person who's like, nope, nope, nope, not changing. Actually, don't even want to have this conversation anymore. Stop talking about it. I'm done. Yeah, and I ain't changing. Why don't you change? I'm not changing.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:45

So you and I have had to be like, okay, and it is hard, it's painful.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:50

Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:51

But we have had to do it to have peace in our lives.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:55

All right. Okay, so here's your power move this week. All right. I want you to think about the conversation or the conversations that you have been avoiding. I want you to write down five things. Here's your power move. Number one, what happened? Number two, what did I make it mean? Number three, what am I actually feeling? Number four, what am I asking for? And number five, what part can I own? And then I want you to write one opening sentence. Maybe something like something has been building for me over the past couple of months, and I just don't want it to turn into resentment. Or, you know, to my care about this relationship. I care about our relationship, obviously. You know that, which is why I need to tell you something that just is not working for me in this relationship. Okay. You know, I I might be like, okay, what's not so here comes a defensiveness in me. I get I might get defensive, like, all right, what's not working for you in this relationship? And I'm gonna hear it. I'm gonna hear it. Yeah, I'm gonna feel defensive. It's on me to hear hear you three.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:00

Well, I think there's this isn't that a it's human reaction. It's a human reaction.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:04

And I and I can say to you, and you're gonna get your defenses up right away. Trying, and I would say, try not to get defensive, but there's something about our relationship that's been bothering me. Or I would say to you, I should have brought this up sooner, but can we talk about what happened last weekend? You know, it's it's really still bothering me. Yeah, and and I think you would be like, I know, because the way you're acting towards me. Yeah, you know, then choose a time to have the conversation. Okay. Confidence is not waiting until you are no longer uncomfortable. Confidence, you know, is you deciding that the discomfort of honesty is better than the cost of silence, right? So that's confidence. Conversation you're avoiding probably isn't going anywhere. It's not disappearing, it's becoming distant. It is you becoming resentful, it's becoming a story that you keep telling yourself about that other person, like we said in the beginning, where you're just replaying it over and over and over in your mind. Have the conversation, stay specific, own your part, listen for what is true. Own your part, listen for what is true, take a break if you need one. And remember, your job is not to control the other person's response. This is very important. That's not your job. Your job is to represent yourself clearly, respectfully, and honestly, and then decide what the response tells you. Okay. That is the work, and that is confidence.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:29

Yeah. I think another episode of this should be skills that you can work on to perfect not becoming defensive, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:22:39

Because that's, I mean, that happens like I think we did an episode on that a couple of years ago.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:42

Maybe, but like it, I I feel like there's more to say, there's more research to do. I think that's just such a thing.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:48

Yeah, we could talk about that. Yeah, let us know if you want us to do, yeah, we could certainly do an episode. You all let me know. Give me feedback. Do you want an episode on the skills on how to not get defensive?

SPEAKER_02 1:22:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:58

I know it's so easy to talk about, and it's a completely different animal to do. I I know I get it because I I mean we get defensive. It's it's a human, it's our it's our humanness, it's our nature. But you know, when we're when we're working on emotion regulation and advancing our emotional intelligence skills, it's an important one to do, just to work on. Okay. Mad love, everyone. Until next time, have a good week and see you. See you next time.