.png)
The Relationship Blueprint: Unlock Your Power of Connection
Colleen is a student of Dr. Harville Hendrix and Dr. Helen LaKelly Hunt who created the Imago Theory and have brought this work to over 50 countries around the world. She is profoundly influenced by this belief shared by Dr. Harville Hendrix. He said, "We are born in relationship, wounded in relationship and healed in relationship."
What are you struggling with today? Colleen believes that almost any problem we have began with a broken or unhealed relationship. The anxiety or deep sadness we feel often began with unresolved issues in our relationships with our parents, partner, family or friends. When we have unmet needs we are programed to get those needs met. When we don't get what we need we protest by protecting ourselves. this often looks like defensive, critical, demanding behaviors. these behaviors are most often ineffective. As a result we may develop unhealthy relationship with food, sex, gambling our or a substance.
Colleen invites world renown relationship specialists from all over the world to help her guests explore their own relationships and see their problems through a relational lens. She will help us explore how to create intimacy to deepen our connections. Her listeners will gain insights to create a more joyful life.
Colleen is a Licensed Professional Counselor in the state of South Carolina, a certified, Advanced Imago Clinical therapist, a clinical instructor for the Imago International Trading Institute while maintaining her clinical practice in Hilton Head Island, South Carolina.
Thank you for joining Colleen today. Remember, don't let life happen to you. You can be the architect of your relationships. Join her next time on the Relationship Blueprint; Unlock Your Power of Connection.
Contact Colleen at colleen@hiltonheadislandcounseling.com for questions or to be a guest on the show!
The Relationship Blueprint: Unlock Your Power of Connection
Episode 6: Turning Conflict into Connection: Maya Kollman's Imago Insights
Can conflicts in relationships actually be signs of belonging rather than incompatibility? Join us as we welcome Maya Kollman, a master trainer from the Imago International Training Institute, who shares her transformative journey of embracing Imago therapy. Inspired by Dr. Harville Hendrix’s insights on an Oprah episode, Maya reveals how this approach reshaped her understanding of relationships, turning struggles into opportunities for growth. Through her personal story of overcoming hesitance and significantly improving her relationship with her wife, Barbara, Maya illustrates the profound impact of self-reflection and understanding one's role in conflicts.
Explore the intricate dynamics of long-term relationships and discover how vulnerability and authenticity can deepen connections. Maya sheds light on the misconceptions surrounding conflict and shares tools like intentional dialogue to manage reactivity effectively. With insights into how early childhood experiences shape emotional responses, this conversation emphasizes the importance of safe spaces to process distress. Beyond romantic love, Maya highlights the transformative power of connection and the need to make the most of our time for a fulfilling life. Whether you're in a new relationship or a decades-long partnership, this episode offers invaluable perspectives on nurturing meaningful connections.
Thank you for joining me today on the Relationship Blueprint. Remember, don't let life happen to you. You can be the architect of your relationships. So join me next time on the Relationship Blueprint; Unlock Your Power of Connection.
Contact Colleen at colleen@hiltonheadislandcounseling.com for questions or to be a guest on the show!
Welcome back everyone, welcome to the Blueprint. Unlock your power of connection. And today I have with me a very amazing woman. Her name is Maya Coleman. She's out of Princeton, new Jersey. She's a master trainer for Imago International Training Institute. She's a dear friend and really someone I admire so much, so I want her to give a chance to tell you a little bit about. Would you do that for me mine?
Speaker 2:Sure, of course, so many years ago. Well, first I should tell you, yeah, many years ago I had a small private and I loved doing it. Except I hated seeing couples. I did not know what to do with them. It was like every week they'd come with a different problem and of course they were in conflict. And at the same time I was in a very conflicted relationship.
Speaker 2:And what was so confusing about my relationship was that I'd been married to a man for nine years, and when I grew up I got the message that if you're unhappy in a relationship, dump the person. They must be the problem and, you know, go find somebody else. So I was married to a perfectly fine man, but I was unhappy, so I thought he was the problem. I was married to a perfectly fine man, but I was unhappy, so I thought he was the problem. So I got divorced and shortly thereafter I met my current partner, barbara my current wife actually and I thought I'd never be unhappy again. It would always be perfect, and they say romantic love lasts anywhere between two hours and 18 months, but we were particularly lucky because ours lasted even longer.
Speaker 2:But then some very strange things started happening. I started feeling the same frustrations with her that I felt with my ex, and he started saying the same complaints that he'd had and I realized, oh my God, they are not the problem. I'm the common denominator. So the mixture between that and hating seeing couples, I kind of. I felt so at sea around. You know, what are these? What's this thing? This thing, romantic love, and how can something that feels so fabulous end up feeling so terrible? And so I was pretty discouraged.
Speaker 2:And a friend of mine who knew that I was discouraged, told me that there was going to be a rebroadcast of an Emmy Award winning program on Oprah and that it was about a couples therapist and it was a workshop. So I watched it with Dr Harville Hendricks and I was stunned by two things. Well, stunned by one, which is the transformation of these couples from the beginning of the workshop till the end. In the beginning they look like they would hardly look at each other and at the end they were holding hands and felt seemed very connected to me. So I was very curious about that. And then when he said this thing called the power struggle, it's not a sign that you don't belong together, it's a sign that you do. You just haven't known how to read it, how to understand it, so that you can work together in partnership and create the marriage or the relationship you long for.
Speaker 2:Well, I was hooked and I decided I wanted to get trained, and Barbara and I, by the way, we've been together now 44 years, thanks to Imago, by the way, we've been together now 44 years, thanks to Imago we went to a workshop and it was in that workshop that an issue, an anxiety issue I'd had all my life, that I tortured my partners with, began to resolve because we worked together and it was a deep understanding I had of how my behavior impacted her. Rather than me being so stuck in, it was her job to take care of whatever I was feeling. So anyway, that's a long time ago. I started my training in 1989.
Speaker 2:I've been fortunate enough to be part of this amazing Imago community. I have bed and breakfast all over the world, but, yeah, I'm completely. I feel a little I'm Jewish, but I feel a little like a missionary because I'm so I believe in it so much and it has evolved amazingly over the last many years. Anyway, so that's my story. Feel very grateful to you, colleen, for giving me this opportunity to really talk about this work. That is my life's work, so that's my story.
Speaker 1:You know, maya, I'm struck by so many things that you've said just now, although I've been in your classroom many times, many hours studying many things. But what struck me the most is what, to me, makes the biggest difference in the Imago work is that I, too was drawn to this. I'm thinking Oprah Winfrey has no idea how many lives she affected when she invited Harville Hendricks to be on her show, and why that was such a stunning Emmy Award episode, because it really did strike many homes in America. Anybody who was in a relationship, who watched the show, couldn't help but connect with that feeling of like I loved you so much and now we feel so disconnected. How did that happen? And where do we go from here? And so that's very powerful, and it's really the purpose behind the blueprint, because what you said about having this discovery wow. This isn't about, you know, fixing my partner so that I can be happy. This is more about looking at myself and what I'm bringing to this space between us, and if I can unlock that, if I can, you know, really look at how did it get there? What do I do with it? And we really have a path forward.
Speaker 1:And I too, I went to a workshop. I don't know if you know this, maya, but my first husband did not want to do any kind of a workshop. I don't even think there was a workshop in South Carolina, to be fair. But when I did do a workshop with a marriage and family therapist who insisted I go, I went yes, this is wonderful. I realized that not only was I with another avoidant relationally, but that this whole thing about me was about me choosing people who were unavailable. That was my moment too Like. So this is what I'm bringing to relationships, my attraction and how I behave in. That is affecting everything, and I know that I would not be married to Kevin today had I not had those insights.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So then you talked about, I think which is also just really important is that you've been with Barbara for 44 years in this loving relationship and I think what's interesting is what you're describing as you were in love, crazy in love, had the romantic stage, entered the power struggle. God helped, got through it. But I think that what many people continue to think as they come into my office couples is that when it's hard, it's really my reason to go, like this relationship just isn't working or I have to just be complacent and live with what is what do you tell your couples that really sort of get in that place?
Speaker 2:Well, I think what I tell them is that, no, you're not going to live happily ever after, even with this wonderful model, because your conflicts are actually a sign that growth is trying to happen for both of you. And so the main thing is to not read your conflicts as a sign that there's something wrong, but rather that it's a time for you to become partners, look at what's happening, take responsibility for yourself and work together to find a different outcome, because you both have that capacity. And, of course, we have this thing called the intentional dialogue, or the imago dialogue, whatever you want to call it, which is a way of talking and listening that actually you learn to talk in a way that someone might listen and listen, in a way that someone might talk. You learn to talk in a way that someone might listen and listen, in a way that someone might talk, and you begin to unravel and understand why it is you're behaving the way you are, and the more you do it, the more confidence you have in it, the less these ruptures feel catastrophic, because the reason they feel so catastrophic is because it's so painful to feel disconnected from the person who's most important to you, and the catastrophic feeling is because you're not sure you can find your way back, yes, but you really understand that you have this toolbox and in that toolbox is everything you need to find your way back to each other. It's not like Barbara and I love having conflict. It's not fun, no, but it's catastrophic. It doesn't feel like we're never going to find each other because we have confidence that this process really we can sit down, face each other and find a way to slow down and really understand what is going on, because it's never about what you think it's about.
Speaker 2:I mean, I really do believe that, no matter what you're fighting about or upset about, it's actually a protest against feeling disconnected. The fights occur most when we haven't been tending to the relationship, when we haven't been giving the relationship the support and the positive energy that it needs, and we feel disconnected. That the way we manage the disconnection is not to reach and say here, come close to me. It's to get mad and you know, say hey, you're not there for me or no matter what, it's never enough for you, right? Which you know are old ways of behaving that don't work.
Speaker 2:But I think the other thing I want to say that I tell my couples is there are not two mean people in this room, or even one. They're just two people whose defensive behaviors actually interact, and it's the dynamic that's the problem, not either one of you. And so, yeah, so you know to answer the question. What do I say? Yeah, you know that you'll still have conflict, but it's the way you feel about it and it's the way you take responsibility for yourself and it's the way you are to kind of expand on this, this reactivity right our, our defenses, that we feel when we're not connected.
Speaker 1:And people will often say, well, I just can't help myself. I, you know, when I'm so mad I I say this thing, I yell at him or I criticize, and, and afterwards you know they can see that that behavior was ineffective. But I think people really struggle with that management, that self-management of my own reactivity, any tools that you could give someone to take away today that might help them just in their next interaction with a friend, with their boss. It's easier to practice on people that are less intimate, I have found, than with your partner.
Speaker 2:But well, that's because it matters so much with your partner. I mean, the reason we have so much reactivity is that we feel we're going to die, because they are the thing that matters the most. Yes, well, first of all, no, sorry, I want to normalize reactivity. No-transcript. And it's kind of complicated because we have two competing impulses in our brain. One is survival, because if we can't survive, all bets are off. But as human beings, in order to survive, we need connection and cooperation. So there's this constant competition which is inside our nervous system which is oh, I have to protect myself, no, but I need you. Oh, I have to protect myself.
Speaker 2:Well, the problem with protecting ourselves is when we do that, the way we protect ourselves, which comes from what kept us safe growing up it scares the hell out of our partner. So then they grab their nuclear weapons and hurl them at us and it becomes dance their nuclear weapons and hurl them at us, and it becomes dance. So one of the things I think is to say it's normal and natural to struggle with what's happening inside. And the other thing I try to get people to look at is I believe that the root of all difficulties is that when we're little and we have strong emotions because emotions are energy in motion that if we don't have parents who are a container that can hold us when we are in distress, we actually learn to fear our emotions because they feel like they're going to kill us. They're so powerful and we have such a little body. If we're lucky enough to have parents who are there with us when we're struggling, we learn life's most important lesson, which is when, in distress, the safest place to go is relationship that you can trust, relationship.
Speaker 2:But most of us didn't learn that, and those feelings that we're so afraid of are what I call primary emotions Fear, despair, helplessness, hopelessness, pain, those feelings that make us feel very small and vulnerable. And instead, because we don't want to feel these things, we're afraid of our own feelings. We don't want to feel these things. We're afraid of our own feelings. In order to get rid of them, we've jumped to secondary feelings, which are about the other person anger, annoyance, irritation, contempt in order to not have to feel the things that scare us. So we're not afraid of the other person. Their behavior or something they've said is affecting us in some way that causes us to feel vulnerable and have these scary primary feelings and we don't want to have them, so we act them out by becoming reactive.
Speaker 1:I'm sorry, do you need some water? Good, you know I'm thinking of my reactive behavior that I learned as a child, which was to get really quiet, and my mom was very emotional, could rage right. So I thought when I grew up and I intentionally did this that I wouldn't talk when I was angry. I made a conscious decision that I wouldn't be like her, made a conscious decision that I wouldn't be like her. And then what I didn't realize about that behavior is that my inner rage was just as powerful and damaging and people didn't know when I'd come back, like where'd you go? When will you be back? And so that whole idea of managing your reactivity unless you're aware of where it comes from, what you do, why it's harmful. You know, and it was so scary for me in the moments right early on with, when I wanted to shut down, get quiet and almost couldn't talk. You know, from practicing it so long to be, what you said is that in those moments of distress it still connects. Even though it was scary, that was an exercise.
Speaker 2:Yes, and I'm glad you're bringing that out. We don't only act out by yelling and getting angry. We act in. Yeah, we distract ourselves by going quiet. That also keeps us distracted from our own pain. It numbs us out. So we're not feeling those primary emotions.
Speaker 2:And what we look like to our partner, which we don't know, is we look contempt, sympathetic to the person who couldn't talk, not understanding that the person that's over there losing their mind is actually greatly affected, who's inaccessible looks I'm fine, nothing wrong with me, and that's absolutely not true. So I'm glad you pointed that out, that it's an equal opportunity at either acting in or acting out, and you said something really important. What we have to learn is the power of our impact on our partner. We're only too aware of their impact on us, impact on our partner. We're only too aware of their impact on us, but we forget, because we can't see ourselves, hear ourselves, how much we affect them. And when you understand that, you can feel quite powerful because you know you can affect a different outcome. When you're aware of your impact on that person, you can choose to behave in a way that you know will bring them close to you rather than scaring the hell out of them.
Speaker 1:And I love that in your sessions that you always videotape your couples, that that's part of the normal routine and I believe that that is so powerful because people don't see those micro movements that their faces make that only really their partner can see. I don't always pick up on these things. Do you see how angry she is? And I'll think, huh, I didn't see that. But they're so attuned to one another that they're picking up on these things. And when they can see that on a video, what do you find happens when they watch themselves on the video in a session?
Speaker 2:Well, before I video. You know, in the past, when people were coming to my office, I had a mirror. Now, of course, I wouldn't do this unless I had a relationship with this couple but I used to hold up the mirror and say is this the face you'd want to talk to? Because we don't see ourselves. I mean, I think, when you're right. You know, I video every session and I send it to my couples and I ask them to watch it and watch themselves in particular. And very often they come back and say you know, I had no idea how I sounded, I didn't know what my tone was, I didn't know how I looked. And the other thing I want to offer in terms of helping couples to see each other differently, a big part of the Imago process is re-imaging. So one of the things I love about the way we work is we don't pathologize and make people bad. We recognize that the defenses they use aren't who they are, but that that is just a protection that they're throwing up. So one of the things that I really highlight is to help people look behind the curtain. What do I mean by that? Well, in the movie the Wizard of Oz I don't know if you remember it. But there's a great scene where Dorothy and the cast of characters come to the edge of Oz and there's this great big wizard and he's light and, you know, noise and terrifying I mean terrifying and they're shaking in their boots and the dog goes over, pulls the curtain back and what's behind the curtain? A little old man who created the wizard because he didn't think anybody would take him seriously because he's little. And at first, of course, dorothy and the rest are kind of angry with him because he kind of tricked them. But then they realize he's this vulnerable old man who's really struggling and they get together and they get Dorothy back to Kansas. Well, what's the message? When your partner looks scary? Look behind the curtain. I love that.
Speaker 2:In order to get there, you have to understand what's behind the curtain. What's the story, what's the childhood story that influences what they see? You know, our brain is a meaning-making machine and the meaning we make is based on what phenomenon meant in the past. So our partner might be completely innocent, but we see something and we project the meaning of it based on the history. And so, like your story about the woman said, I could see that or whoever I could see she's angry. She may have been, but it's also possible that that person saw something that looked like their mother or father or parent or caregiver, and so they immediately make meaning, and it goes so fast that we don't even know what we're doing.
Speaker 2:So part of the work is to begin to notice, to begin to use your good prefrontal cortex to notice the stories, to notice the meaning you're making, because you know the people who meditate, they call the cerebral cortex, which is the thing the humans have to think and logic and all that, they call it the monkey mind, because it makes up stories based on history and it can't tell the difference between now and the past. So thank God, we have this wonderful prefrontal cortex and most of us not very well developed, which can absorb, which can observe us and make a difference. So anyway, so go ahead.
Speaker 1:No, no, I think that what you're talking about, about making up stories reminds me and I'm not sure if you taught me this or where I learned it, maya, but you know the idea of checking in.
Speaker 1:So like I look at Kevin and I make up that he's mad at me, and so then I pull away and then we're in a dance. So what I have learned and what I feel like helps couples so much is just teaching them the check in. Hey, maya, I was just wondering, did you really want to meet with me today? I made up a story that you were too busy. Did I get you or did I? Where are you with that? And then you get to answer and clarify what's really going on. And so I think the more couples can use a check-in in their just daily life and interrupt that story you're talking about in that monkey mind that we all carry around with us, they can breathe again like sigh, like oh, you're not even thinking about me, you were thinking about Barbara. Oh, that's good news, I feel better now. So that is something that I found a really quick tool that seems to help people on a daily basis.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I can give you. I mean, I can, absolutely. I have the same example. I used to look at Barbara's face and she tends to, when she's thinking, have very little expression on her face, and when my mother was angry at me, she would shut down right. So what did I do in the past? I would say, what are you angry about? This time, right. Which, of course, would make her angry Perfect. What did I learn to do when I would get anxious is to say honey, you know this could be more about me than you, but I'm feeling frightened, a little frightened, are we okay? And it made it just completely changed.
Speaker 1:I got the. Instead of assuming I knew I got to find out. Yes, maybe she was disturbed, but she then she would say I am a little upset, but and I'll talk to you about it. So, in distress, instead of going to your defensive behaviors, what you were able to do is own your own feelings. Say to Barbara I kind of need help with this and with that, instead of telling her are you mad at me. It's just so funny when we think about it. How we scream, yell, give dirty looks, all in the effort to change our partner's behavior, is so illogical, right, but when you did that, all of a sudden, now she wants to reach out and help because you were vulnerable.
Speaker 2:Right, and she cares about me right, and I think also people care about each other. Yeah, I remember thinking about power tactics, to your message about how illogical our power tactics yelling, screaming, shutting down, threatening, throwing things I mean all those things In order to get our partner to be more connected to us. I mean what moron would want to be connected to you when you're yelling at them or shutting down. That's what I don't. You know, that's we're not really thinking. It's completely unconscious. That's why it's not logical. But it's our own anxiety that has that, where we get into the survival mode I have to take care of myself, leave you, you know, and then the other person feels annihilated. Yes, okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you. I won't take too much of your time. I know you're busy, but I love your introduction on your website. Will you name your website for our listeners?
Speaker 2:Yes, it's mayacolemancom. K-o-l-a-n.
Speaker 1:And you'll see that in the summary for our listeners and following Maya on any kind of TED Talk or YouTube channel. She's just as you can hear. She's brilliant and fun and interesting. She's an amazing teacher for those clinicians who are interested in not dreading couples. They don't come any better than Maya, but you have in your it really captured me actually In your brief. I think it's a two-minute segment about imagotherapy. You talked about surrendering to love.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's that interview.
Speaker 1:It was a beautiful interview, yeah, and will you just speak to that for our listeners, because I think it encompasses so much?
Speaker 2:Yes, first of all, I always say to my couples that the thing that we're asking of them or they're asking of each other is the scariest thing they'll ever do in their life, but it's the only thing that actually makes life worth living to. You know, we really, as human beings, we must have two things to live a really good life we need to belong and we need to have a place where we can be ourselves. Often those are, unfortunately, in childhood. We have to choose one or the other. In order to belong, I can't be me. In order to be me, I can't belong, but we long for that to be. That's what we want, and when we have that, we can go out and do amazing things in the world. We are free really, and we can re-experience our full aliveness and who we really are.
Speaker 2:But the problem with living as a human being is loss and disappointment are very frightening and overwhelming and once again, we feel like we won't survive them. And if children, if you've had early loss, or if you I mean everybody's had loss of one kind or another. That's why surrendering to love is so difficult, because when we really surrender to love, we become completely vulnerable to the possibility of loss. Maybe your son is fighting in a foreign land, maybe somebody's sick in a hospital. The uncertainty of life makes really being willing to let yourself love and be vulnerable, which means caring about another person, means being attached to another person, means feeling at home with another person. The loss of that is very, very scary, and so I always want to normalize that. That's one of the things that I think about. When people are making a lot of noise or silence is that they're scared. They want to love, but it's never worked out too well, or maybe not, and yet they need it so badly. They need it so badly and so I don't.
Speaker 2:There's no, you know, easy answer, except that surrendering to love is what makes life worth living, and you know, and doing it with somebody you know who is equally scared but willing to give it a try, it's, and you know, and feeling, I think it's also, and feeling it's also. You know, whatever we give out, we give in. In other words, if I'm hateful to somebody, I feel it on the inside it damages me. If I feel loving, on the inside, it nourishes me. So it's like if we don't do it, we live half a life. We waste so much time. You know I'm older, I'm 75. Barbara's going to be 80 in November. We don't have a lot of time, and so that's the other thing. But even if you're young, you don't have time to waste this precious life, and so, you know, making that choice is very scary and as far as I'm concerned, it's the only thing that makes life worth living.
Speaker 2:And that doesn't mean you have to be in a committed love relationship to surrender to love. By the way, there's lots of ways to love relationship. You are in relationship and so behaving in a way that is kind and loving and seeing the best in people. You know my mother lived to be 106 and a half. My father died when she was 78, 68, excuse me and she continued to put love into the world. She continued to make her life worth living by showering love on people. You know strangers, people she knew. You know new acquaintances. So I don't mean to say that you have to be in a relationship, but if you're in one, that's the most effective and efficient and sometimes the scariest way to accomplish what I think is life's main purpose, which is to learn how to open yourself to loving another person.
Speaker 1:Anyway, that was a long answer. Who you know? It sounds like it is tragic. She had a first husband. He died of an overdose. She had a second boyfriend who also died of overdose, and she's with someone new who just shot himself, also a drug user, and right, and he was saying he was just telling me about her pain, her loss. What I couldn't help thinking about is obviously the pattern that she's in about choosing men in addiction Okay, but that's kind of obvious. But also the idea of surrendering to love for yourself. You know that your mother had your father for a long time, but then in that 68 to 106, I wonder. I don't know the answer, but my curiosity says that she must have had a surrender to her love for herself to be able to give that much love. Because when you're in so much pain and you're only fighting the struggle in this world and protect yourself and all this energy is going into he won't take advantage of me or I won't let her do this. There's really not a lot of room for that is there.
Speaker 2:No, I mean, I think that what we have to understand is and I think it's important to discover it is that deep down, because of some of our difficult childhoods, we have a negative cognition that we don't want to feel, and it usually is like I'm not worth loving, I'm worthless, I shouldn't exist. But we can't touch that or we would have to destroy ourselves. So we actually, you know, hurt people, hurt people. So I think you're absolutely right. I think it's a mixture, you know. It's a mixture of learning to have compassion for your own, for yourself and the way you behave, so that you stop shaming yourself, because if you shame yourself for how you behave, you just are worse, exactly Because if you shame yourself for how you behave, you're just worse. And I think for me, what really helps me grow in self-love is to really be aware of my impact and to make choices that not only don't hurt someone else but don't hurt me. And when I do that, I feel so good about myself. When I behave not in a crazy way, know a compassionate way for both of us. You're absolutely right, it's not, it's.
Speaker 2:You know, this is a kind of a conversation we have in Imago. Yes, there is the space between, but there's also the space within, and both are really important to pay attention to what you're putting in it. If you put in a lot of painful thoughts about yourself, that's not a great idea. Or put in painful, bad behavior with your partner, that doesn't work. So it's what you put in the space between and the space within that will make a big difference, and that's why we have this prefrontal cortex. We're very lucky to have this part of the brain where we can make choices. We're not like animals that only can go through our children, that have to only go with their impulses.
Speaker 1:We actually can choose no matter what we feel.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was definitely you, Maya, who taught me about the monkey brain, the reptilian brain, the mammalian brain and how they interact, and then they lead the story of the monkey brain and then how we have I think I'm not sure if you coined this phrase but the zookeeper, which is that executive decision maker who can test those stories, and it's very helpful.
Speaker 1:One thing I just want to say before we close is what you talked about re-imaging your partner and seeing your partner in a new way, Because we've known our partners, sometimes many years, or we've known our daughters years or our best friend, whoever. We feel like we're having this struggle with at this moment, and we almost think we know what they're going to say, we know what they're going to do and then we limit their opportunity to grow or change in our own opportunity. But I think it might be from being an elementary school teacher many years ago, but remembering that that little child is inside is so helpful for me to see someone when they're hurt or they're acting out and to really kind of take myself there as a practice of you. Know who was that person? About five, and can I, if I can image them in that way, it's really hard to hurt a child.
Speaker 2:Very true.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then that child within us. So the surrendering to love for others and for ourselves. I've really enjoyed our time together, Maya.
Speaker 2:It was great and it's always wonderful to be with you Absolutely, and I love the last thing you said. Barbara and I have pictures of each other as children on our nightstands and so it's so helpful when she looks to me as scary that I remember. Right on her shoulder is this very sweet but frightened little girl who thinks she's got to control and manage everything, and she does the same for me, so that is a wonderful. It's the re-imaging right. Look behind the curtain, see the little kid, yep.
Speaker 1:Look behind the curtain, thank you, and I get to see you in Atlanta this weekend, so I'm excited about that. Did you turn off the recording yet? No, I will do it now, but thank you, maya and I are going to just enjoy each other for a few minutes and we want to thank our listeners. Thank you for being with us today, unlocking your power of connection, and we'll see you the next time.
