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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
When Depression Shares Your Bed: A Therapist's Journey with Trish Sanders, LCSW
What happens when depression isn't just in your head, but in your relationship? Certified Imago Advanced Relationship Therapist Trish Sanders takes us on a deeply personal journey through the landscape of depression, connection, and healing in this captivating conversation.
Drawing from her 20+ years of clinical experience and her own marriage, Trish reveals how depression creates profound disconnection—even when lying next to someone you love. "When depression is in your bed, it affects everything," she explains. "It affects how you sleep, it affects how you dream, and it certainly affects every part of your relationship." Having experienced depression herself and supported her husband through his struggles, Trish speaks with rare authenticity about both sides of this challenging dynamic.
The conversation illuminates how couples can navigate mental health challenges through connection rather than conflict. Trish introduces us to Polyvagal Theory and how understanding our nervous system states transforms relationships. She describes these states in beautifully accessible terms—the "sunny place" (regulated), the "stormy place" (fight/flight), and the "cloudy place" (shutdown)—language so clear even her six-year-old daughter uses it. These concepts help explain why we perceive the same situations so differently when dysregulated, wearing what Trish calls "depression goggles."
Most powerfully, Trish shares how connection became the antidote to depression in her marriage. After separating when their son was young, she and her husband reunited through Imago therapy, learning to validate each other's experiences without necessarily agreeing. This path led to profound healing: "Depression is disconnection," she explains. "Connection is the antidote." Years later, neither experiences the severe depressive episodes that once threatened their relationship.
Whether you're struggling with depression, supporting someone who is, or simply wanting to deepen connection in your relationship, this episode offers practical wisdom, validation, and genuine hope. Listen now to discover how understanding our nervous systems and practicing validation can transform even the most challenging relationship dynamics.
Find Trish's podcast "When Depression is in your Bed" on major platforms including Apple, Spotify, YouTube, and at wholefamilynj.com.
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!
Hello everyone and welcome back to the Relationship Blueprint where we unlock your power of connection, and I'm so excited to be back Today. I'm really thrilled to welcome Trish Sanders, a certified Imago Advanced Relationship Therapist and workshop presenter. She's based in Paramus, new Jersey. With over 20 years of experience, trish brings a vibrant blend of clinical rigor, creative modalities like play and sand therapy and somatic awareness through polyvagal theory. She's the force behind the Getting the Love you Want retreats, communication and intimacy workshops. Destigmatizing in her podcast when Depression is in your Bed. Drawing from her own healing journey, trish leads with authenticity, helping couples and families build deeper connection and resilience. And without further ado, I just want to introduce Trish and thank you so much for being on the show today.
Speaker 2:Coco, thank you. I want to take a moment to just really let that soak in. I really appreciated your words. They touched my heart and really felt authentically me. I was like, yes, that's me, this is what I'm doing in this world and I'm so honored to be here with you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Is there anything I left out that you want to share with our listeners before?
Speaker 2:we move on. I honestly was so with you. In that moment I wasn't thinking. There was not one thought that came to mind that said, oh wait, but she didn't include this. It just felt really complete for this moment. There's always more, as we know.
Speaker 1:Where I thought we'd begin really is with your podcast. Could you tell us a little bit? I mean, the title is so beautiful, Thank you. When Depression is in your Bed, it really. It touches me deeply because of many reasons, but the vulnerability for you to share your own story. So tell us about how you came to this podcast. Where did it begin? Well, it's.
Speaker 2:Actually it starts off with a little bit of a. It was funny for me. It was a really funny moment with my husband. But maybe I don't know, two years ago or so, at this point I was really working and figuring out that in the therapy world you hear about niching down your practice and you know to be able to tell clients exactly who you help and all of that. And I had been really doing a lot of work like what's my specialty, what's my niche? Well, all this, and one day I turned to my husband and I said, ben, I know what my specialty is Like. My specialty is working with couples who live with depression. And it was like this revelation to me. And he looked at me and literally laughed.
Speaker 2:I was like obvious, like this has been our life for like almost 20 years, you know, and it was, it was so brand new to me, like that this is really what I know in my bones and what I live and, in addition to knowing the hardships and the challenges, like I know how to connect through it and grow through it, you know, and to maintain and keep and enjoy a relationship with another person through this.
Speaker 2:And so he was just you know, so I don't know unsurprised or I don't know. He was just so confident that I really knew what I was talking about. Like it was like so plain to him, I guess. And so I kind of started this journey of how do I really bring this experience that I have into the world? And of course I do and plan and have through my therapy work and working with couples and expanding into doing the retreats, and I certainly bring my unique perspective into that as well. But all of a sudden it just came into my plate that I doing a podcast was a way to literally share my story in a way that I think I love writing as well, but it's a totally different medium. Like I said, it's literally my voice.
Speaker 2:And I think that there's a vulnerability or an authenticity that is able to come through just in a different way. I think that comes through in writing as well, of course, but in a different way, when people can really hear me. So that's when it began and I didn't know what I was doing at all. I know that comes through in writing as well, of course, but in a different way, when people can really hear me. So that's when it began and I didn't know what I was doing at all.
Speaker 1:I know that feeling. I didn't even listen to podcasts.
Speaker 2:To be honest, I was interested in them, but I'm a busy mom of two and all of this. But I just dove in and started to create it and the name when Depression Is In your Bed really was just. It just came to me quickly because I think that when depression is in your bed, it affects everything. It affects how you sleep, it affects how you dream, it affects you know how you feel going to bed.
Speaker 2:Do you have insomnia? Can you not get to bed? Do you not want to get out of bed? Right? It affects how you open your eyes and look at the day and it certainly affects every part of your relationship. You know, when you're laying in bed next to somebody and you're feeling so disconnected, I can feel tears in my eyes, because I know that experience of feeling so alone from both sides, both being the person who feels depressed and also my husband himself lives with depression, so I know what it feels like to be on the other side as the partner, and, of course, it affects your sex life and physical intimacy and all of those things as well, and so it just felt like it described really what I wanted to share what it's like and also what it can be like Wow.
Speaker 1:I really, really love the vulnerability, and I think I feel like this is one of the things that many therapists struggle with is how vulnerable should I be? How much should my clients know about me personally? And I think that our training really helps us get past that, because it's really not about us. It's really about how do we use our tools, experience, training to really help people get through whatever they're getting through, and I just so appreciate your truth and how important it is for people to know therapists get depressed. We're not cured because we're therapists, and that many of us come into this field because of. I have suffered with anxiety most of my life and what Imago has done for me has been nothing short of a miracle, so I love your story and so where do people listen to you? Just I want to get to that for sure today.
Speaker 2:Sure, I'm on the big platforms Apple podcast and Spotify and YouTube, audible and Amazon music and I'm going to add on some of the other platforms as well. But you can. You can search when depression is in your bed and you will. You will find me. You also can go to my. I know a lot of people, myself included, did not understand the podcast world or how to find a podcast, and so, if you're interested, you can even just go to my website, which is wholefamilynjcom, and you can go to my podcast tab and you'll find the episodes there. It might be easier than having to find your way through a podcast platform.
Speaker 1:I really I like that people are going to be able to access you after this, because there's so much that you have to share with us today. So, when you think about your, with this awareness that you had with your husband, that he, he saw clearly and you had an aha moment. But since then, how has how would you say that your work, really your personal work, has transformed your professional work? Tell us about that story.
Speaker 2:Goodness, there's such a real beautiful interplay, I think, between my personal and professional. I started out as a play therapist and I'm still a play therapist and I work with children and teens and way back and again, I still technically specialize in this. It's just not a bulk of the work that I do in my day-to-day practice now, but I've always worked with children and teens who have experienced trauma or abuse or witnessed domestic violence, so it's a lot of attachment and relational trauma and so that's really been the root of what I've done forever. And I actually I really did not like working with grownups. I mean, it's just the truth. I did not like it at all, probably because I was, you know, 24, right when you're starting, when you come out of school, and I think working with grownups felt a little bit unsafe to me and working with kids felt very comfortable and I understood the symbolism of play. It just made sense in my brain and my body and so I did that work for many years and loved it and still do love that work.
Speaker 2:And then, all the while I was having this you know, very challenging relationship with my boyfriend actually my now husband we were dating when I was in graduate school and then eventually got married and we were having these huge relational problems, these huge struggles with depression and anxiety as well, and they led to us separating just over 10 years ago now and our son was born actually Our son's 13 now. He was two or three when we separated and I had known about Imago at the time. I actually owned the Getting the Love you Want book. At the time we had read it, my husband and I, my boyfriend and eventually husband had read it. But when we got to the exercise part, I had a little habit of doing his exercises for him and because he would say like I didn't experience any childhood hurts and I was like, yes, you did Right.
Speaker 1:It's very doing. The book is great, book is great. However, doing the exercises on your own, I would say for everyone, be a little warned about that. Having someone to facilitate, it's a whole different experience.
Speaker 2:It was a whole different experience, for sure, and I've learned a lot through being able to work with a MAGO therapist and going to the Getting the Love you Want workshop and all of that. So I've learned that my help was not always really so very helpful.
Speaker 1:So you really found a MAGO, like many of us do. You know it came from a need, yes, came from a need, and you were in this relationship, dance with your husband, which you, it really tore you apart the conflict, the power struggle, so we say. And in addition, you had these mental health issues, anxiety and depression that were really getting in the way of connection, it sounds like. Is that right?
Speaker 2:Yes, absolutely Absolutely. And I think for us, my husband and I, one of the most challenging things was that we knew we loved each other. You know, even in our separation, you know, my husband said listen, I love you, I will always love you, we will be wonderful co-parents, you will always be my friend. We just don't know how to make this relationship feel good for both of us. And he wasn't wrong in any sense, you know. But there was a part of me that said but there's something here Like how can we have all of this and still be miserable so often? Like this just doesn't make sense. How can we have all of this and still be miserable so often? Like this just doesn't make sense.
Speaker 2:And then I was able to convince my husband, while we were separated, to come to a workshop, which was pretty extraordinary. And as Harville himself did tell me at the workshop, you know, your partner doesn't come to a couple's weekend if they don't care about the relationship at all, right. If they're hopeless, if they don't want to do any work weekend, if they don't care about the relationship at all, right. If they're hopeless, if they don't want to do any work, if you mean nothing to them. Essentially they're not going to take this huge emotional risk. And so and I really the I won't go into the whole story, but basically my husband had left during some of the exercises that weekend and I ended up talking to Harville and said, like, what do I do now? My husband came but he left and he was like, wow, you and this relationship really matter because he's here. And when I was able to, I mean, that was one of so many shifts that happened that weekend that I was able to say, wow, okay, right, this relationship matters. This is just really overwhelming. This is hard stuff that we're doing. And so we went to the workshop and for me it was absolutely life changing.
Speaker 2:And again, you asked about the personal and professional. It changed me. I saw things that I had just never seen or understood before. I saw them in a new way. I felt completely empowered in what I needed to do in the relationship which spoiler alert I was just blaming my husband a lot prior to that. Maybe that sounds familiar to some of your listeners if you find yourself in that position. And then it changed my work eventually as well. I mean right away how I worked in the office. I started bringing the dialogue into the office and then, within a month or so, my husband and I decided to recommit to our marriage and we've been working the Imago work and doing walking the Imago path since then.
Speaker 1:So what you've said so many things that I want to sort of circle back to your journey sounds so much, so familiar, right from our couples that come in. They love each other. They come into the office or they come to the workshop because they're not wanting to let go of the relationship, but they also don't know another way to fix it. Most people, including myself, believe that if you could just make him do the right thing, then I'd be better. If you could fix him, that would be great, because I'll bring you to the workshop, you fix him and then everything will be fine.
Speaker 1:Yeah, obviously, obviously, and so I think that that experience is so important, not only as a participant but as a therapist, because we've had so much training and at our own therapy most of us that when you go to the workshop and the transformation that happens about your awareness is kind, where they came from, from my childhood, and so your story is so lovely, and so it touches me so deeply because it's such a common thread that we share the people that are so in love with this work. In fact, I had someone say it might have been one of my kids. Is this a cult? Because you're like a Mago a Mago, and I said, no, it's not a cult, but when something saves your life, you really find something that is transformational. Once you see, you can't unsee it.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, absolutely, and I felt that way. And so, again, I was a play therapist, working with kids and teens, and by the end of that year I had registered for the, the, the Magago Basic training to become a couples therapist, which was a an enormous shift from, I mean again, I never stopped working with kids, but adding by choice, not just grown-ups, but working with couples. It was. It was this soul-led obligation. You know like I was just following my path. It was. I experienced this. I saw what it did for for me and my husband, and I knew that I had to be one of the people who are bringing it out there into the world. I knew that that was my part of my purpose.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it's so interesting. I don't know if you knew this, but I worked with children for 30 some years and, yeah, and I did play therapy and sand tray work and you know I really got burned out and so when I was planning my exit strategy, I was working in a school setting. I was pretty much traumatized. I know that I had secondary trauma from all the years working in the school, working with DSS and court cases and the police, the domestic violence, the child abuse. I took it home with me, Trish. I wasn't able to let it go, and so what I decided then was when it's a longer story how I found Imago. But I knew that I could help couples and if I could help couples I could really help children. And this feels so much more comfortable for me because I wasn't able to be, I wasn't able to make clear boundaries around the kids, but I can with adults, and so it was an interesting shift, you know, similar to your story and different from your story.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, and I think that that's true, and I imagine that most, if not very close to all, therapists who work with children know that feeling of first of all, how it had a need to create boundaries. So you don't cause, you want to. I mean I can. I can think back decades and remember the names and faces of kids that I wish I could have adopted.
Speaker 2:You know I mean I have my list right and and I I know that feeling and also you figure out pretty quickly that you only get this tiny little window with this little human and you hope that you're you're having an impact. And my view of doing child therapy is very much to certainly create some safe space and a healing environment for children, but also I see it as a way that they have a positive introduction into healing work and therapy that when they're older they'll say oh, I tried therapy when I was a kid, let me try it again as an adult, because developmentally there's only so much you have. You can only access what you can access where you are. And so you know, probably a lot of children who come to therapy are going to return to therapy or hopefully will return to therapy later in adult life and you realize that they go home to their parents and their caregivers and that can be really wonderful and it can be not so wonderful in a lot of ways, even with really loving parents, absolutely. I mean even with parents who mean you know, I've had so many conversations over the years with parents who say you know, how could?
Speaker 2:It was special with teenagers, like how could my kid think that I hate them or that I'm I don't like them, like I do everything for them, I live for them, I would do anything for them. How could they say, and they get deeply offended. How could their kid feel this way or think this or not understand or receive their love right? Receiving love is such a hard thing sometimes and you start to look at what's happening, I think, for me now. I've always had a lot of perspective on this, but now I really see it as deeply rooted in nervous system perspective and as my own experience as a mom, especially now I'm a mom of a teenager you know really be welcome.
Speaker 1:I want to reassure you. They come back.
Speaker 2:Well, I have to say I've been pretty bold, knowingly, for many years, because I have said and we'll see, my son's only 13. So you know he's just into it. He's been into it for a few years, honestly, but he has many years to go still. So we'll do a follow up in about six years that the age child that I feel most ready to parent is a teenager, because I work really, I've always worked really well with that population at age and I've always understood and I didn't mean that I thought that I was going to be a perfect parent of a teenager, but I knew enough to know that that was not ever going to be possible.
Speaker 2:But I felt like I really understood what it was like to be a teenager and for me to be a very depressed teenager and wanting connection and not knowing how to get it and being sort of rebellious and difficult. I imagine you know like sort of like someone said this to me many years ago as a friend, but she said you know, I know I have this hard outside, but I'm just a marshmallow on the inside and that's what teenagers are so often. You know they're like tough and hard and mean, but on the inside they're just like ooey gooey and they just need so much softness. Oh, I've said for many, many years we'll see. I'm aware that I might, you know, eat my words at some point, but at this point it's no easy task to to parent a teenager. I don't think it's any easy task to be a teenager either. But we talk a lot about, you know, using mirroring. I mean, we dialogue a lot and we also talk nervous systems every day. So you know, we're doing it, we're figuring it out.
Speaker 1:Well, you know, I love what you're saying about really understanding that age group, because it's a little bit of a mystery. I think, partly because every generation my husband and I were talking about it yesterday that I have a client who was coming in and saying you know that her daughter talked to her terribly and what I had to remind her of is that our generation was parented often by guilt and that this generation we didn't, hopefully do much of that. We're all trying to do better but in our effort to really give more unconditional love to our kids, that they're going to behave differently than we did. It's just a different way of raising kids and so changing and shifting expectations. I would have never done that.
Speaker 1:To huh, what other influences are impacting my child that I really had nothing to do with? It's not that personalization like I'm doing the bad job which I think at the heart of the pain is like what have I done wrong Right Versus what you have, which is the tools They've been introduced? You're an Imago parent from a very early age and so they don't think it's weird to dialogue. You have that structure to be able to communicate, and how few people in the world actually have that. So I know that this is going to be a great journey for you, and I think we should definitely do another podcast around teenagers, because it's hard.
Speaker 2:So hard, so hard Again, like I can see, when I'm regulated and my nervous system is feeling safe and I, you know, feel my feet firmly on the ground and I I'm not. I call it the roller coaster of adolescence and I'm not going for the loops, you know, with my son, which I sometimes get on the ride because I'm so human.
Speaker 2:But I can see his dysregulation and I can see how he's just moving into needing to protect himself. You know, and I can see the defenses and all these protective factors and you know my son and I would be happy to come back and talk. You know more about teenagers specifically, but he had early medical trauma. He was born with a heart defect and needed open heart surgery. He was nine days old and needed open heart surgery. He was nine days old. So he absolutely needed to shut down and withdraw and go into this collapsed place for safety right from birth.
Speaker 2:And thank goodness he had that accessible to him and what that looks like for a 13-year-old who has that memory in his body of shutdown and fear to protect in his body of shutdown and fear to protect, along with, I mean, being my child and dealing with two parents who were depressed. I mean by the time he came around, my son was born, I stepped very much into the over performer role you could call it, and my husband stayed, you know, in the underperforming kind of disconnected, very depressed place for a long time. But my son's early life was hard, was really hard and, like I said, I can see the defenses and how he protected himself. And so now, as a teenager, I really see my role as a parent in providing that empathy and that validation which, of course, are core Imago skills and being able to create that space where he can stretch into feeling safe with taking risks and coming out of his you know protective little turtle shell.
Speaker 1:You know you've mentioned some vocabulary that we as therapists, you know it's part of our lives. But you know dysregulated help our listeners just understand not only what it means but how to identify it.
Speaker 2:Yes, that's such a great question. I son asks me Mom, can we go like 30 minutes without saying the word dysregulated?
Speaker 2:I use the word dysregulated a lot and it's very helpful to slow down and name it, I think. I think that dysregulation, as simply as I think of it anyway, is when we feel like we need to protect ourselves in some way and we can identify it, when we feel that defensiveness or that urge to sort of fight or correct or control or run, get away or shut down, disconnect and avoid altogether, and those are our defense strategies that are hardwired into our brain. That people often know the fight or flight response, that's our, you know, mobilized response to threat. You know like my body notices something that is threatening it and I have to do something about it. And we know that that charged, very fiery often feeling that comes with that. And then if you feel like you just don't have it left, you don't have the resources left, you don't have the fight in you, you don't have the energy, you don't know how we can fall into that freeze place, and so that fight or flight or that freeze is that dysregulation, and I'm referring specifically to our nervous system. In Imaga we refer to it as dysregulation, also as reactivity or our defenses, but when we feel like we need to stand our ground, that kind of feeling.
Speaker 2:I think that for me and I think that this is probably true for for many but I notice a lot of feeling of I have to do it on my own, whether that means like so there's a lot of isolation, like I only I can do it, or only I can do it right, or it can only be done my way, or, you know, no one's ever there to help me, or a lot of hopelessness around it, and so I think that that's kind of when I, when I feel that disconnect, I know that I'm dysregulated. And if I'm thinking a lot of negative stories people don't always see them as stories, but the interpretations that we make about what's happening in any given moment, and I'm telling myself a very negative story, like my husband is horrible and I'm a failure of a parent and I have no idea how to make it all better.
Speaker 2:Everything Right. Those are all good signs, Not bad too. I'm probably dysregulated.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you know, I think what's interesting too, that Imago and Polyvagal like really we often live from our neck up. We don't realize that our body has this memory right, and so when I feel the dysregulation, I know that it starts here for me, almost like I can't talk, a little frozenness, and I think that helping people start to notice, like the next time you have a fight, like notice if you can stop yourself. And where am I feeling this right now? We're very programmed to live here and when we cut this off we're really not accessing so much of our power and little warning signs Like I feel this throat thing, here it comes. I'm in a story that you know my daughter's mad at me or whatever. It is right. So I think what you're really leading to is also your great experience and your depth of knowledge around polyvagal. Can you tell us more about?
Speaker 2:that? Yes, sure, polyvagal is a little newer to me than Imago is. I've only been training in polyvagal theory for the last two, two and a half years or so, so it feels very new. However, just like with Imago, when I found it it was this, it was like a key in a lock. It just it was like wow, okay, this is the answer. This is the missing piece that I didn't have before. This is the answer.
Speaker 2:This is the missing piece that I didn't have before and also, much like it, gave me a whole new language in order to identify what was actually happening and understand the process with greater compassion, and and and and kindness and forgiveness, both for myself and for for others. But polyvagal theory is about our nervous system and how our nervous system is really at the root of our whole experience of life, how we perceive ourself, how we perceive and experience others and the world. And our nervous system can only be in three states all humans, this is just true for everyone. It's a beautiful commonality amongst humans as species, which we can feel so different and so othered and separate. This is a really connecting experience for all of humanity that we can either be in our safe state, grounded, that's called ventral, that's the language there.
Speaker 2:With my six-year-old daughter, I call it the sunny place great I love sunny, yeah, I'm in my sunny place, yeah, and we talk about how to get back to the sunny place. And then you have, as I mentioned before, that fight or flight is the sympathetic state of your nervous system that mobilize, charge. You know, protect yourself, I have to do something. We call that the stormy place, and then the dorsal experience is that depressed place that's stuck, frozen, freeze response, shut down, collapse.
Speaker 2:We call that the cloudy place my, with my daughter, and you know, we, we perceive the world based on the state of our nervous system. And so if you can imagine, you know, like I don't know, like forgetting your keys or some like tiny little frustrating experience, if you're in a ventral state and you're like, oh, I forgot my keys, like let me go get them, or let me call my husband and see if he can bring them to me, or something. It's like, oh, no big deal, like I have what I need to figure out this problem. You know, but if it happens, maybe you're, if you're like me, you're me probably running late and maybe you're a little sympathetically charged and then you're like, oh my goodness, like this always happens.
Speaker 2:What's wrong with me? I can't get my stuff together, and you know, and it feels like this horrible tragedy. Or you just can't figure it out. And then you're like they're right here, and then you're mad at yourself that they were, you know, right next to your phone the whole time, kind of thing. Or if you're in that dorsal place, you know that shutdown collapsed and everything. I mean I describe it as very bleak, gray dreary. And then you're just like you know, I'm hopeless, I'll never figure this out. I'm not even going to go out today. I can't find my keys.
Speaker 2:And so to understand that, when I learned that that the nervous system experience, like the state of my nervous system, colors the lens that I look through I've actually always called it depression goggles I like knew forever.
Speaker 2:As long as I'm with all my teens in therapy, for years I've said you have your depression goggles on and eventually they're going to come off. You might not know how to take them off right now, but they will in fact come off and the world's going to look really different. So what can you do to help them come off and what can you do to feel better while they're still on? And so I knew about this, but I didn't have the nervous system language years ago, and that's how I really described my own experience, thinking back, like going back to like 16 years old you know 15 years old and I was like, okay, I have on my depression goggles, like they're going to come off eventually. And so when I learned about polyvagal theory and I said, oh my gosh, there's like this biological, neurological reason, like there's this interplay between my nervous system and my brain, like I'm not crazy.
Speaker 1:That was a pretty good feeling. Validating right it's like, oh my God, and that you have some ability to change Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you know, I love your languaging, I love your metaphors because when I think about it, even though you're explaining this to your daughter, I think couples could say, yeah, I'm in a sunny place, it doesn't bother me, or I'm feeling the storm and I'm not going to be able to dialogue with. Is that Because it really is a disease of perception? Right, most things are, you know. So when we think about our lenses not being clear, so helpful, like, well then, how do I get them clear?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and for me, you know, relationally and this is harder to do in some moments than in others, but it's really a tool that I've been able to have a lot more compassion for my husband. He's moved. He hasn't had a severe depressive episode in quite some time, many years at this point. But he does have more of that sort of what I would refer to as sympathetically charged energy, which is kind of like that anxious or like frustrated. You know he's had a bad day at work kind of energy. That kind of happens a little bit more frequently these days than like the depressive episodes rarely happen now. But you know I can look at him and either be like wow, he's a real jerk and I can get really annoyed and kind of get that same sympathetic fight or flight charge and either want to kind of pick a fight or be a little difficult or kind of just avoid him altogether, sort of thing.
Speaker 2:Or I can say, okay, like let me ground myself, let me anchor in my event, let me allow my nervous system to anchor in eventual space which feels better to me and to him, quite frankly, quite frankly. And then I can say, all right, he's, he's, he has his you know, fight or flight lenses, his sympathetic goggles on and he doesn't want to be frustrated or unhappy or short or whatever. He's just kind of living his own experience. And what do you know, how do I engage? Do I say, hey, babe, like had a tough day, what can I, what is anything I can do to connect with you?
Speaker 2:And sometimes, especially when I come from that place, you know, he might say like, oh, I just need to unwind, or whatever. Or he might say actually, yeah, that would be great. Like, can we uh, you know whatever go to dinner? What? Can we watch a movie after the kids go to sleep? I just need to to relax and it just allows understanding. We take things so personally, I definitely we take things personally, have taken things, and we think that it means our partner doesn't love us or doesn't care, or if they knew us or we were important to them, they would do this thing.
Speaker 1:They would know how to make us think. They should know. They should be able to read our minds and know they have lived with us this long. If you don't know what to do by now, then something's wrong with them, right.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Oh my gosh, our 15 year wedding anniversary just passed a couple of weeks ago and we had a little minor conflict that turned into a big story. And that was very much the story. I was like we've been together, we've been married for 15 years, we've been together for 21. If we haven't figured this out by now, we should just throw in the towel.
Speaker 2:But I was able to recognize, like, okay, this isn't true.
Speaker 2:It's not not true either In this moment.
Speaker 2:It just is the thought in my head yeah, you know, and I didn't like fuel the fire and I also didn't try to like push myself somewhere where I wasn't quite ready to be, you know, like a softer place, and then I kind of like let it just sort of, I imagine it like kind of cascading down and then eventually the waterfall of you know pounding waterfall ran dry and I was able to take a breath and regulate a little bit and say you know what, let me, let me, let me reconnect about this.
Speaker 2:And I was able to reconnect with my husband and thankfully he had also regulated himself and we said we should really dialogue about what happened before. It was a little relatively minor thing that, you know, minor things turn into big things because they're connected to so many other important needs and unmet needs and all that and that was very much what was happening and we were able to reconnect and have a lovely anniversary dinner. So I'm thankful literally every day for Imago and Polyvagal Theory because it really shapes my life in a much better way than I was able to shape my life. I was kind of like at the mercy of what was before.
Speaker 1:And now.
Speaker 2:I feel like I have a lot more choice.
Speaker 1:So you're actually really accessing your power. I think that's what this is all about when I created this podcast. It's like we are not powerless. We have choices, it's all decision-making. But when we're in that state, in that stormy state, it's really hard to make a good choice, because I always say my reptile got hijacked, yes.
Speaker 1:And so what I love about your story of your 15th anniversary is that little things turned'm more anxious. We travel and man, that guy was wound tight and he still gets that way, and so what we finally figured out after a dialogue is it's just really, it peaks his anxiety that he's forgot something, a number of things, right. So now I just look at him in the airport or wherever we are. I'm like put my hand on him, what do you need? And he calms right down because it's the connection that we're trying to create and that one of us is able to put on the big girl or big boy panties. It's bad when it happens to both of us at the same time, right. But when both of us can see, wow, you've been hijacked, I know something that I can try to help you instead of getting into that mess that is so painful, yeah, absolutely so. One of the other things that you talked about I think that's important to just circle back to is you were talking about it with your 13-year-old son, but I know that this is part of who you are now because of your work.
Speaker 1:But you talked about validation and I had an experience yesterday where my feelings had been really hurt and I had simmered on it First, didn't simmer, boiling then went to a slow boil, then I simmered, but I was able to talk to the person and the person really offered what I would consider a validation. Talk to the person and the person really offered what I would consider a validation, which was I'm sorry, I probably should have communicated that better and right away I could feel all like the boiling stopped, it was all gone, it dissipated, because it didn't matter what happened before, because you've just basically said you know you made a mistake, you know, don't we all? So I think that validation piece is important. If anybody's going to try something at home, it's something you can take from this episode and really try to like. How do I validate someone? So tell us more about how you validate and how that works in your relationships and what you teach your couples.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, it's so interesting One I remember so clearly in the getting the love you want workshop that my husband, I attended when, when we were separated, and you know Harville was, was, was was the facilitator. Actually, helen was had an emergency or something. She was there was just horrible that weekend. But I remember him saying at the workshop everything that everyone does make sense all the time and that's a bold statement and many people might hear that and say like absolutely not, there's none, and I have a hundred exceptions, let me tell you about them. But in that moment I really was able to receive that and say okay, yes, okay, I want to know more. Like this makes sense to me and it was absolutely life-changing. To not think of your partner as crazy or defective or there's something wrong with them that I have to fix is often the end of that thought as well right Like it's my response to the conversation and so I was like, oh okay, so everything makes sense.
Speaker 2:So now we can be curious like what's happening that's creating this dynamic and I'll tell you. Curious like what's happening that's creating this dynamic, and I'll tell you, for me there's been like, maybe like an interesting learning in the process, because sometimes I say something that is, you know that I'm, I feel grounded, I feel like I'm in my ventral, you know, my nervous system is feeling safe and I really think about what I want to say to my husband as a validating statement and it doesn't land as validating. And then I often get dysregulated after that because it comes with, like the thought of, like I tried so hard and it still didn't work. You know that feeling of putting an effort and not paying off, which is an old feeling. But I've learned and nervous system has helped me with this as well about how to validate, like the state that somebody's in without maybe it's a hazard of the job, but like without therapying it you know I think I get a little bit.
Speaker 2:I think I can get a little over validating or try to like jump into, like my interpretation with the validation.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know saying like it totally makes sense to me that you're frustrated because of blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, but like that's not really what the? That's my story of the frustration not necessarily my husband's or my son's, and so validation for me again, adding the nervous system piece doesn't have to only be, but I think that for me it feels sometimes a little bit safer and more accessible to say you know, like I mean nobody likes I don't want to say nobody, but it's not always welcome for someone to say like, oh, you're in the stormy place, like you know. That's not a validation, that can feel like a real attack. But if you can say, wow, it really makes sense that you know, you're feeling, you know.
Speaker 2:I keep things vague with my validations at this point. I found that those land better, like I see you're having some feelings about this. Or I also validate in this way of saying my nervous system is experiencing a shift in your nervous system and that makes sense. And I want to kind of slow down and get curious about it when we can. And I have found that those when things are activated, sort of general taking some ownership, like naming what's happening rather than interpreting what's happening.
Speaker 2:Yeah, land is much safer ways of validating for both my, my husband and my son. And it totally makes sense for me to you know, I don't I don't really want anyone going to go telling me how I feel. Nobody does. That's not a, that's not a well received experience. So, yeah, I think that validation of just saying like okay, wow, like how you're, what you're experiencing right now, really makes sense and I want to know more, like maybe it doesn't make sense to me yet, right, maybe maybe I would experience it differently. Or I mean my husband, we joke like we never experienced the same thing the same way. You know, like what we always have the the opposite experience or thought about just about everything in the world. So it's not that feeling of like, oh, I know I feel the same way or this is right. But, like I said, I kind of keep things general, like okay, yeah, you're having feelings right now and that makes sense.
Speaker 2:That's kind of like a safe, the safe when things are heated when there's some friction going on, some conflict, some dysregulation happening, that usually is a safe go-to for me and that experience of a little sigh, a little breath, that can happen, that creates that softness that allows for more helpful conversation and dialogue to follow. Those are good that you know then that's possible after that bit of validation.
Speaker 1:That it's interesting because that too was one of the biggest ahas that I had from. I'm not sure if it was from workshop or where the book, whatever. But for someone to validate me myself, it makes sense that you're upset about that, but that it doesn't mean that you agree with me. You can just see, you're leaving your world, you're coming into my world. You're seeing it like this person did yesterday. You're seeing it from my point of view. You had lots of reasons for what you did. I mean, she did have lots of reasons for what she did, but she left that world, came to my world and said it makes sense that I didn't communicate that with you and I will do better. I will try to do better, because that makes she didn't use the word. That makes sense because she doesn't use the dialogue. But I still got it. I got the validation.
Speaker 1:So I do think it's a challenging thing to ask people to do. I think even in my office and I'm sure in your office sometimes we just go with that made sense to me, because they're still in the mindset that that means if I say to you, you make sense to me, trish, that that means I agree with you. And that is not it. It's just right. It's just, I really, really care about you and I'm trying to really hard to see it through your eyes, and through your eyes, that makes sense. That's a big distinction, right? No, that's okay. We're having such a good here, we're wanting to keep talking, go ahead.
Speaker 2:Well, I disagree with you so much. I was going to say, like, exactly what you're saying, that what it is not, that it's not agreement. That's how I usually start telling couples, like, just to tell you what validation is, I tell you what it's not first, because it's hard to think that you're agreeing with your partner or saying that they're right, especially when the thing that they're talking about is what you know the impact of something you did that had that to them, you know, or the impact of what you did had on them. And I think that that's, like you know, the ultimate validation.
Speaker 2:And sometimes, certainly when I'm dysregulated or when I'm in the thick of it and the heat of it, I'm not always paying attention to the impact that I had on my husband.
Speaker 2:You know I am paying attention to the impact that I had on my husband. You know I am paying attention to the impact that he's having on me. And so I want, I have this pull for validation. You know I want to be validated, and then that can be the power struggle, like, no, my feelings make sense, no, my feelings make sense, and being able to start that that's a. I mean, that's a lot of growth that I have done, being able to say, wow, I see how I have contributed to this. You know, in a general way, the nightmare of the relationship and then in much more specific ways, you know, depending on different situations and hurts and conflicts and frustrations. But for me, being able to own that and say, wow, I'm impacting you, and not focus on how my husband is impacting me, and to know and to know that that doesn't mean I'm going to ignore you know how he's impacting me. If I can get, I think, validation is such a gift.
Speaker 1:It is a gift, and it's a gift to the relationship, because what often happens is that the big or even the little thing that starts out as the fuel for the fire, right, the little thing that we start fighting about. I told you that they were coming for dinner Thursday. No, you didn't. How many people have that all the time? If we can stop it there and say you know, well, maybe you didn't hear me or maybe I thought I said it regardless, you know they're coming and it makes sense. You'd be surprised because you don't remember hearing it.
Speaker 1:I know I said it, right, I mean. But it doesn't matter at that point, it just means the person didn't get it. So I go back to Brene Brown's work about the generous assumption. Are we big enough as people right to give our partner of all people and our children, the people we love most in the world a generous assumption that they are not trying to hurt us can do that, and I I also was circling back when you said you've said it twice now that your husband has and you have not had major bouts of depression in the last I don't know how many years, but many, many years yeah years and I was curious because of the whole what we know now about our physiology.
Speaker 1:What do you attribute that to? That you, you here, you were having these bouts and it was so big that you separated, and now you're you're not having them. I think it's so important to tell our listeners what changed?
Speaker 2:Oh gosh, that's a big question. If I and there's a lot of sort of small answers I think that if I were to kind of try to group it together or kind of generally say what happened in truth, I think that the shortest answer is that we learned how to connect the first major breakthrough that we could have, these experiences of connection, which included again, like the validation piece of me being able to validate his experience, because I was so invalidating without intending to be back then. And then, with polyvagal theory, I've been able, I've been on an incredible self journey with polyvagal theory as well I mean with Imago too of figuring out how to connect with myself and being able to be present and how to bring my whole self into the relationship and not feel like I'm going to lose myself or dissolve or be too big or be too small, like how to just be me in relationship, and I think that that's has been a huge contributing factor. Like I said, the ways it looks.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of other answers, but depression, but you know, again, sort of my own inner knowing, I have always said depression is disconnection. Again, before I had any of the language going back to when I was a teenager. It was isolation, it was aloneness, it was feeling separate from the world, even when I could like see it, you know, it felt like the world was behind glass. You know, I'd be with my friends as a teenager and they were right there, six feet away from me, but they felt like they were worlds apart and I just knew that this is an experience of disconnection and my husband and I didn't know how to connect. And again, like now, I would add the nervous system layer of we didn't know how to connect when our nervous systems were in these protective, defending places, need to defend places. And through Imago we had the experience of being able to connect and more and more we're able to be able to say hey, like I'm out on my own here, it's scary.
Speaker 2:It's scary out here. It doesn't always sound that nice, by the way, but sometimes it does. Sometimes it really does sound just like that and other times, you know, you have to read between the lines and the way we sometimes communicate poorly when we're not feeling safe, when we feel like we have to defend ourselves. But being able to connect and again, for myself and my own own journey, being able to learn how to connect with my myself has been um, it's it. It's a whole new world, like it sounds like I think to say it sounds like it's cheesy or something like that, but it's true. I like I literally see a whole new world of possibility, of hope. I could even get a little bit teary-eyed thinking about my own transformation my husband.
Speaker 2:I think he's on his own journey, which is different than mine and, without saying things, you know, without his permission and his consent to say, I don't want to go too much into his journey, but I do think that I've seen his evolution and growth in his own way, which has been so different than the path I've traveled, of him coming back into connection with his self and knowing that I'm here. Because when you're depressed, you do not believe your partner cares, you do not believe your partner cares about you and even if you think they might, you still think that your partner's better off without you because you're so awful and so horrible. And so depression as disconnection perpetuates itself. It's just a cycle that disconnection begets disconnection begets disconnection and you just stay further and further and further and further and you keep like building your case as to why this is really how it is and we have been able to kind of like catch that story before it gets so deep in.
Speaker 2:You know, before we're totally, you know, underwater with it, and now we're like oh wait the tide's coming in, I'm feeling disconnected, like let's not go out there and figuring out how to connect. I mean, that's right, that's the Imago thing how to connect through difference and how to find each other when you feel lost at sea. I think has been I would describe it that way for myself and that really has been, like I said, totally transformative in my own relationship to depression. And I want to just say because not everyone listening may have a partner or a relationship that's safe to connect to, and I want I really.
Speaker 2:What I'd want to say is that, more powerful I feel, the emotions come up in my eyes because, like, I just know the feeling of feeling like there's nowhere to connect to, that you're totally alone in this world and it's really just the story that you're telling yourself to protect yourself.
Speaker 2:And at one time you needed that story. At one time you needed to feel like you could do it all by yourself and you could hide and be safe, whatever that means to you, because it means different things to different people, whatever that means to you, because it means different things to different people, but there's always something there to connect to, whether it's nature or a friend, or music or, you know, creating a relationship that feels safe enough to connect to, including the relationship you have with yourself. And that's really been my journey and I'm just in a I'm able to access hope in a much more consistent way, that feels more real than it's ever felt before. So, anyway, I could talk about that quite a bit, but I hold a lot of hope for our world, even today and amongst all the hard things that are happening in our world these days, all the disconnect, but I see our society as a very dysregulated society and I think and I don't think naively regulated society. And I think and I don't think naively, so I think that connection is the antidote.
Speaker 1:Well, that is powerful and beautiful. Thank you so much for sharing from your heart. I was thinking about what you said about depression and connection, and they say the same thing about addiction that addiction is not around. The opposite of addiction isn't, you know, sobriety, it's connection, and that what we're learning about so many things in mental health and your story is really an anecdotal story of you know you didn't. I'm not saying you're not on medication and I'm not saying that medication isn't the right thing. I'm just saying that your answer was so big that you and your husband found a way to connect and since then, neither of you have had major bouts of depression.
Speaker 1:I will share my own experience as far as some difficulty in our, the most difficult times in our story. We lost a grandson in 2000 and we weren't connected through that grief and it was the loneliest, saddest, angriest feeling I think I've ever had. And when we found connection it didn't go away. There was still sadness there, but it made stronger and we were able to navigate it together instead of in the same boat paddling in different ways. And so I love what you've shared today about. You've given us so much hope for those people out there who are walking around with those depression goggles. I really hope that you listen to Trish's podcast when Depression is in your Bed, learn more about polyvagal. There's so many ways that we can help ourselves. We need to access them, and so, before we end today, I just want to say thank you to Trish and thank you to our listeners for listening to us and hopefully that you'll come back to the Relationship Blueprint again.
Speaker 1:Our next guest will be Banu. She's from Turkey and she's been working in the earthquake zone and helping those people recover from their trauma, and many of us have recovered from trauma. All kinds of trauma is out there, so one is not more or bigger than the other. Trauma is trauma. So we look forward to seeing you again on the Relationship Blueprint, Unlocking your Power of Connection and, as Trish so beautifully explained, her journey to connection back to her husband and how that's changed not only their marriage, but their mental health and their whole family. You know that their two children aren't watching two very depressed parents anymore. They're getting to live a real beautiful family life, with its ups and downs, like all families, but they get to see a healthy mom and dad, and that's really powerful. Thank you again, Trish, and we'll see you next time on the Blueprint.
