When Depression is in your bed

Depression in the Bed, Partnership on the Path

• Trish Sanders, LCSW • Season 1 • Episode 22

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The path to a transformed relationship rarely follows a straight line. Most couples encounter significant challenges when trying to work together toward positive change, often finding themselves caught in familiar cycles of frustration despite their best intentions.

This episode explores two pivotal moments where partnership efforts commonly derail: at the very beginning when trying to establish teamwork, and when discovering you and your partner want different next steps. Both challenges reveal something profound about how our nervous systems interpret differences as threats, creating protective responses that block genuine connection.

Drawing from Polyvagal Theory and Imago Relationship Therapy, I share practical guidance for navigating these roadblocks. You'll discover why your nervous system state matters more than your words when approaching your partner, how to extend genuine invitations rather than demands, and ways to transform differences from threats into opportunities for deeper understanding.

We explore the common "disappointed-disappointment" dynamic that leaves one partner feeling chronically let down while the other feels perpetually inadequate despite their efforts. This pattern creates serious obstacles to partnership but also offers clues about what's needed for real change.

The journey isn't about perfection but practice. Each attempt to work together—even the messy ones—represents growth toward creating a relationship model you may never have witnessed before. This simultaneously exciting and frightening process requires compassion for both yourself and your partner as you learn to maintain regulated nervous systems and connect through differences rather than despite them.

Whether you're just beginning to shift toward partnership or already encountering obstacles along the way, this episode provides guidance for transforming struggle into opportunity. Subscribe and share with anyone who might benefit from understanding how to take steps together, even when depression is in your bed.

- If you are looking to take the first step towards improving your connection and communication with your partner, check out this FREE monthly webinar on "Becoming a Conscious Couple,".

- If you and your partner are ready to co-create the roadmap to the relationship of your dreams, join us for the next in-person "Getting the Love You Want" Weekend Couples Retreat!

For support in how to have deeper connections and better communication in the relationships that matter most in your life, follow the host, Trish Sanders on Instagram , Bluesky or LinkedIn.

Speaker 1:

Hello and welcome to the One Depression is in your Bed podcast. Are you ready to take steps with your partner towards improving your relationship, but you realize you may encounter some obstacles along the way. Have you been trying to work with your partner but you're hitting some roadblocks to your progress? If so, join me today as I explore some common challenges you may experience as you begin to shift into working in a real partnership towards creating a better relationship, and, of course, I'll share what you can do to help grow through the challenges instead of being stopped by them. I'm your host, trish Sanders, and I am so delighted that you are here. Let's get started.

Speaker 1:

The last several episodes I've been talking about my take a step approach, and I started talking about how individuals can use the take a step approach to really attune to their nervous system and their body and, from that attune place, decide what steps they may need to take. That helps allow them to move from where they might be stuck and be able to take a step towards somewhere that feels better and is closer to where they want to be. Then I moved into talking about how the take a step approach could that feels better and is closer to where they want to be. Then I moved into talking about how the take a step approach could be used in relationships, and that's what I've been talking about the last couple of episodes, and today I will continue talking about that from a specific perspective of when you're trying to take steps with your partner, what common challenges could occur and what to do about them. Any relationship can have its own unique challenges, of course, as they begin to try to figure out what steps they wanna take together, just as much as the steps that they take will be unique to their relationship. However, in all the possible challenges that might occur, the way I see it, there are two places where challenges are likely to come up. One is in the very beginning. If you are used to being in a dynamic with your partner where you don't feel like you're working together, or it feels actually like you're working against each other a lot of the time, or you think you've tried expressing to your partner many times before that you want to work more together and you feel like it hasn't been heard or received by your partner, then just beginning this shift towards how to work together, how we take steps together, that in and of itself can be a really big challenge. The second place where a challenge might creep up is once you've decided with your partner hey, yes, let's try to do this. This is a good idea. We really want to work together. What step should we take? And if you both want to take different steps that potentially could create a conflict, it is not necessarily true that these two places will be a conflict for everyone who tries to take a step approach. It's just two places that I expect conflict to be possible. So I want to talk about those two areas today.

Speaker 1:

For the first potential challenge just getting started together it's really important to know that when you go to your partner, the state of your nervous system means everything. Now, the truth is, most of us are not used to thinking about the state of our nervous system. I know for me, I have spent most of the last 21 years of my relationship not thinking at all about my nervous system or my body experience, for that matter, when I was doing anything in my life, let alone how I showed up in my relationship with my husband. But the last few years, now that I have been really diving into polyvagal theory, which is all about how our nervous system affects how we show up in our life, how we interpret our life, how we experience our life. I have really made this huge shift and now I realize how incredibly important it is to be aware of how we show up all of our relationships with our romantic partner, with our kids, with our coworkers, with everybody in our life, including with ourself. As a matter of fact, how we show up for ourselves matters quite a bit. So I've talked about this before and it's something I will continue to talk about for probably the entire duration of the podcast as long as I make episodes. I will talk about dysregulation and regulation in the nervous system, and you can go and find other episodes in the past or you can go out and look in other places about how to regulate your nervous system. But just the little tiny thing that I'll share today is just to remember that you can only connect when your nervous system feels safe, and if you're feeling like you have to protect yourself, your nervous system is in a fight or flight response or a freeze response, then you're not really going to be very effective at coming to your partner, and I will kind of give a little warning here that a lot of the time for many of us.

Speaker 1:

I am definitely one of these people. When my nervous system is in the sympathetic, fight or flight mode, which is that mobilized response to threat Something is happening and I have to do something about it. My mobilized response doesn't always quite look like the traditional fighting, like I'm not necessarily arguing with my husband or name calling or insulting or fighting, so to speak. However, I am very frequently in a fix it response and I'm trying to help and I'm trying to do something and I'm trying to say how things could be better and I'm trying to say what we can do that would help the situation improve. And this is so easy to say oh what, I'm just trying to help, they're not letting me help them or they don't care, or whatever stories we might make up. And so to really understand that if you're in that like I have to help help place, I have to tell my partner what to do. I am responsible for making this relationship better.

Speaker 1:

You're actually probably in a dysregulated state and it would really benefit you to take some time to figure out how to get yourself back into a safe state. And of course, I will talk about those things, but I won't go into them very deeply today. But just to note, if that's where you're coming from, that's a sign that you're dysregulated, in all likelihood, and it is a very different experience to be in a safe place we call it ventral and polyvagal theory when your nervous system feels safe and grounded and you could be in that connected place. That is different than sympathetic energy. When you're in ventral and you're in that safe, connected place, you can come to your partner with curiosity and with invitation and you can still say hey, you know what. I really want things to be better for us. I think we deserve more than this. I think we both are wonderful people and I really love us and the relationship. I really love what we have and I think it's worth figuring out how to do it differently and in a way that feels good for both of us. Are you willing to join me? And that's a very different energy rather than this is what we need to do and this is what you need to do.

Speaker 1:

And if you only said this or did this or said it that way, or whatever your approach is, please know that I am not criticizing your sympathetic helpfulness at all. The truth is is that I have spent so much of my life in that state, that I am intimately familiar with it, and I go into that state absolutely with my husband. I also go into that state with my teenage son, and so I have a lot of awareness and compassion for why we go there right, because we want our husband to be happy, or our kid or ourselves, and our happiness being threatened, or our partner's happiness or our kid's happiness that can land as a real serious threat. So it's no wonder that our nervous system goes into this protective mode. So just a little warning there, as you get started, that it's so important for you to be in a ventral, safe, grounded place. So do whatever you need to do that you know yoga, meditate, go for a walk, have some fun with your friends, do whatever it is that makes you feel safe and grounded before you go and begin. This invitation to your partner and that is how I invite you to begin with your partner is to invite them into this journey with you.

Speaker 1:

In the Imago relationship therapy work that I do, we use a structure type of conversation called the Imago intentional dialogue, and the first step of the intentional dialogue is to ask for an appointment. And it sounds weird because we usually don't make appointments with our romantic partners to talk to them, but it is a mind blowingly powerful skill because it takes into account that maybe your partner is not in the best place to have a conversation, even if you are, and so beginning to invite them into this process. You can say hey, I heard something on this podcast that was really interesting to me about how we can work together more in order to create a relationship that feels better. Are you interested in hearing more about it? And you can say is now a good time to have a conversation about that with me? And if your partner says, sure, yeah, I'm willing to talk about that with you, then great, you're off and running. Right, the conversation is open, you have consent from both of you.

Speaker 1:

And if your partner feels a little bit like, uh, I don't know what you're talking about. This is like a weird beginning to a conversation, because you've never talked to them like that before and you've never asked them for an appointment before, their nervous system might experience that as a cue of danger, to be quite honest, and they might be like uh, why are you being so weird, you know? And you could say I'm just trying something new. You're right, you know what we've been doing hasn't been working so well, so I'm willing to try something new that I heard about. So that's why I'm asking in this kind of weird way but are you willing and they might think they have to say yes, otherwise they might disappoint you or you might get frustrated or annoyed, so you can also let them know.

Speaker 1:

I'm genuinely asking, I really want to know if you are open to having this conversation right now. Is it a good time for you? Did you eat? Is there work that you need to take care of or whatever? Is there something else that feels really important to you right now? Because I want you to be able to have this conversation when you're ready for it, and if later is a better time, I genuinely want to know that. So the power of invitation is really important, and the next part of this invitation, of beginning this conversation, is to let them know and be clear about why you're inviting them into this conversation, and the details will look different and what you say will be unique to you, of course, but the general reason you're having this conversation is because your relationship with them matters to you and you love them and you want to work better together because you realize that you haven't always been working like a team and you really would like to change things in a meaningful and real way for both of you and you're hoping to be able to figure that out together so you don't have to feel like you're doing it alone and that your partner doesn't have to feel like they're figuring out things alone either. So that's a pretty good reason, I think, anyway, to want to do something together and it's a really beautiful invitation.

Speaker 1:

It's not like I know what to do and you don't, which is a power differential and can really create a queue of danger in the nervous system. And as you go into this experience, that power dynamic or that power struggle that we call it in Imago, one of the very common things is we often refer to one partner as being the disappointed and the other partner being the disappointment, meaning that one partner is usually asking for something or wanting something or desiring something and the other partner, no matter how hard they seem to try or how hard they feel like they're trying, they don't feel like they're measuring up, they're not feeling good enough, they feel like they're always letting their partner down and this disappointed disappointment dynamic occurs and it's so very common and it is very likely going to be an obstacle for couples that are caught in that dynamic when they begin to start working together. Because the truth is that in relationship, oftentimes both partners are doing a lot of work for the relationship, but they're not doing the same work and they're not necessarily doing what the other partner needs them to do, but they might feel like they're doing a lot. The partner who feels like they're the disappointment is likely to be weary and cautious about this idea of working together, because their narrative might be something like I've either tried so hard before and it's never worked, so what's different now? Or what do you mean? Work together? I've been trying to work with you all this time, and they might feel like you're insulting them or criticizing their past efforts. This really beautiful invitation might actually poke on some tender places in your partner and, of course, for you, as you're starting this process, some tender places might get activated in you as well. So just to really be aware of that and to know that you really want to be able to validate your partner's experience, whatever they're saying, and so if they say, what do you mean? Take steps together? Isn't that what we always do or something like that you can say, yeah, well, it makes sense that you feel that way.

Speaker 1:

I do know that we try to work together and I also know that it doesn't always feel like our working together always works, and I really want to try something new so that we can really move to a place that feels better, because that's really what I want for us, and so you can validate whatever your partner's stance is. It might seem like, well, I want to work together. Should my partner be excited about that? Well, maybe, but it really depends on your history, and it's also really important to know that this is a vital time to share your experience, so you might share. I feel alone or overwhelmed, or I'm aware that I get stuck focusing on the negative in our relationship, or I find myself thinking that there's only one way to get out of a situation, and if we don't do it that way, I get really frustrated. Or maybe you can even identify like to your partner hey, I realize that I tend to over-focus on you and what you need to do in this relationship, even though I'm also always thinking about what I need to do, but what I communicate might sound like I'm telling you what you need to do and that might not be helpful, and so I'm trying to figure out a new way to do this that really helps both of us, and if you can really own how you've contributed to the dynamic of being stuck in a relationship that doesn't feel like you're working in partnership, it's really a gift to your partner. It's letting your partner know hey, I'm not perfect either. We're human. I'm not expecting perfection here. I'm just hoping that we can move to a place of being curious about how to do this together, about how to find a new way so we can create a relationship that we really want and deserve.

Speaker 1:

My first podcast episode is called Struggle Is so Last Year, because that's the place that I got to in my personal life, both as an individual and relationally. Like struggle is so last year. I'm not doing this anymore and, as I talked about at length in my first episode, I know that suffering is to be human and that there's many, many, many real struggles that we just can't eradicate. And I'm not trying to be avoidant or ignore real struggles. I'm talking about getting to a place where you say you know what. I'm committed to figuring this out in a new way, because I want to do everything I can to feel better and a lot of us, by the way, I know this is true for me felt like we were doing everything we could true for me felt like we were doing everything we could and I was doing everything I could, but it was everything that I had awareness of that I could do. And, for me, thinking about the nervous system, experience and understanding how the nervous system was affecting everything in my life gave me a much greater and wider view of what I could do, what possibilities existed, and for me, they've been transformational, and that's what I share through this podcast is how I have improved my own relationship with myself and certainly my relationship with my partner, my relationship, my kids and all my relationships, my whole life. So I'm a big fan of nervous system work because I think it increases the possibilities that we have and it offers clearer paths again, at least for me, about what we need to do or what we can do to have the life we really want to have and the relationships we really want to have. I would also say here, by the way, that you can offer for your partner, if they're curious, to listen to the podcast.

Speaker 1:

Again, this might be a little bit tricky. There are some relationships where one partner does frequently send social media clips and podcasts and articles or whatever of like hey, read this, read this. And it kind of comes with the message of like, I found out what's wrong with you and this is it, and I want you to listen about it so you can understand what's wrong with you. Like I understand what's wrong with you. They don't always land as hey, I found this interesting piece of information that I really relate to and I connect to, and I learned a little bit more about our relationship and I'd love to share it with you. It doesn't always come that way, so use this with caution, but you can share and say, hey, I heard this podcast about taking steps together and how important it is to work in partnership and how common it is to feel like people are either working by themselves or feeling overwhelmed or not knowing what to do or how.

Speaker 1:

So often in relationships, people feel like they are doing so much work, they're trying so hard, they're already doing everything, and it feels like they're just like in this hamster wheel, spinning and spinning and spinning and not getting anywhere, even though they're putting in so much effort. And the host was talking about other ways to do things that feel better, and I really want us to feel better. So if you're interested in listening to the podcast, I'd be happy to listen to it together or I can share them with you if you want. Again, very invitational, and I really mean invitational, because if you got an invitation to a party, you're allowed to say no, and so when you invite your partner into something, they're also allowed to say no.

Speaker 1:

Now, again, this gets tricky. And, going back to the appointment, I won't go into much detail, but the idea with an appointment is if something's important to one partner to talk about, they will eventually get to talk about it. It's just the other partner has to be able to agree that it's a good time for them, and so if your partner says it's not a good time to talk, then you would say to them something like OK, this is a really important thing for me. I am really excited to talk to you about it. Please let me know when it's a good time for you, so that you can kind of be on the same page, so you don't lose it, because I know that a lot of people out there again, I'm one of these people.

Speaker 1:

When you want to have a conversation, your partner doesn't want to have it, you have some terror inside of you that's the word I would use. Maybe terror feels big for you, but you have some concern or, like I said, for me, terror that if you don't talk about it right now, it'll never get talked about. That is, by the way, sympathetic, fight or flight energy in there and, again, understandable why it's there, but it's really not helpful to the relationship and the connecting process. So this invitational approach truly invitational is really key because it'll help create a space where your partner's nervous system can feel safer and also then more available to connect with you. So really it's a win-win. It does take some practice.

Speaker 1:

I might make this sound easier or more simple than sometimes it looks like in real life, although with repeated practice just like with yoga or meditation or anything that's a practice. The more you do it, the more you do, in fact, grow and your ability to do it well increases. And nobody ever does it perfectly. That's not what a practice is about. So I share this with you and I really also invite you to see what makes sense for you, what feels like a fit. I try to give concrete steps on how to do things, because I like concrete steps, but I also know that step one, step two, step three, step four might be different for people. So please know that that I don't necessarily always mean that everything has to be done exactly as the protocol lays out. This is more ideas for you to be able to see what you connect with and what makes sense for you. So hopefully you'll be able to connect with your partner and talk with them about this idea and invite them into connecting with you in this new way and figure out some steps that you want to take together. And if you do that, or if you've already done that, awesome Congratulations. That's awesome work. I'm so happy for you and your partner and I'm excited to see where the two of you go, and I send you and your partner lots of ventral energy and love to be able to move forward together on this journey.

Speaker 1:

So now, as you're talking about, what steps should we take? This is the second place where there's likely at some point to be some sort of conflict, and that's because you and your partner may very well want two different things and some of you might say, oh yeah, we want two different things. We can figure this out, and if that's you, then that's cool and you and your partner can do whatever you and your partner are doing to figure that out. But if that's not your experience and if your partner wants a different step than you want and that feels threatening to you, or vice versa, you want a different step in your partner and that feels threatening to your partner then this is what I'm talking about and how to help that process a little bit. You may not identify with the word threaten, like oh, I don't feel threatened when my partner doesn't want what I want or when my partner wants to take a different step than I do.

Speaker 1:

But I will say that if you're annoyed or frustrated or angry or you feel hopeless or you want to give up or you feel exasperated, those are good indicators that your nervous system probably has moved into a protective state and you probably are in a survival place. And that's what dysregulation is. There's nothing bad or negative about dysregulation. It just means you've identified a cue of danger, either in yourself or in your environment or in relationship with someone else, and you're going into protection. And so it's very, very, very common when somebody is different than us and we see this all over the world. I won't even begin to go into that conversation more deeply, although it's a worthy conversation to have and I'm sure we'll talk about it another time but it's very common for our nervous system to experience the other as a threat. So when our partner disagrees with us or wants something different than us, it's really understandable how we might feel threatened by that. So please know that.

Speaker 1:

So, for example, if your partner says, hey, sure, taking a step towards physical intimacy sounds great, I would love to do that, and you're like what? That's where you're starting. You're talking about sex. We obviously need to take steps towards communication first, of course you would want that and you're like what? That's where you're starting. You're talking about sex. We obviously need to take steps towards communication first. Of course you would want to take a step towards sex. You never really want to do the hard work, that kind of thing. That's the situation where your nervous system probably feels really threatened and you're probably making up a lot of stories like my partner doesn't really care about me, all they care about is sex. They never want to do the hard work, they never want to actually communicate, and there's a whole bunch of stuff that can happen when you go into that dysregulated place. So I get it, I've been there and my heart is with you.

Speaker 1:

It doesn't mean that all hope is lost. It actually means, believe it or not, that you have stumbled upon what is probably a really awesome clue about one of the helpful steps that you and your partner can take together. And it doesn't necessarily mean that it's the first step you have to take in that moment, but it could be something to consider, because if you experience your partners being different as being threatening to you or, like I said, the reverse is true they experience your difference as being a threat to them. Taking a step towards curiosity is probably really important and how to be curious about difference, how to feel safe when your partner feels differently about something than you do. Do you feel unheard or unseen or unimportant? Or do you feel that you've been devalued in some way, that your perspective doesn't matter as much as your partner's perspective if they believe something different than you believe?

Speaker 1:

These can get into some deep needs, unmet needs from childhood, pretty quickly here, through the perspectives that I look at the human experience, like what it means to be human. I do strongly believe that our early experiences with our early caregivers impact how we show up in our lives as adults, and this can go back to a lot of that stuff and how difference was tolerated in your house when you were a kid. Were you allowed to have a different opinion? Were you supported if you wanted something that was different than your family? So these are good things to think about, but you can get pretty deep pretty quickly.

Speaker 1:

So, admittedly, you might need some support here. This is a great place for some support with a relationship therapist or a relationship coach. So if you notice that this is happening, then you really want to try to regulate and that means moving your nervous system back into safety. So it might mean taking a break, it might mean sighing and taking a breath there's a lot of different things that you can do and to really start to be able to move your system back to safety, so that you can start to be in a curious place and start to wonder about what's important to your partner, instead of thinking that you know why your partner wants that step. Actually being curious about why they desire what they desire, why they want what they want, what's important about it, what's meaningful, what's valuable, and you might find out something really interesting. And again, you might really need some support to go through this process, and this can be a sticky process. I can't cover it quickly in the podcast, but just some pointers about noticing if it's happening and being able to again take a break or take a breath and try to move into that curious place with your partner again as we move towards the end.

Speaker 1:

I will also share just a few little things to remember. Number one expect challenges here. Okay, they are opportunities to be curious. If you and your partner have struggled in the past when it comes to working as a team and feeling like you're in partnership together, then this is going to be hard. If it was easy, you'd be doing it already, and there's nothing wrong with you per se because it's been hard in the past. This is something new. The fact that you desire working together is fantastic. So this is something new and there's a lot of growth potential here and that's really exciting. But it doesn't mean that it'll be easy every step of the way. It also doesn't mean that it'll be easy every step of the way. It also doesn't mean that it has to be hard every step of the way. So there's a lot of opportunities to be curious. But know that this is something new and there's going to be bumps along the road, but that doesn't have to stop you or end the whole process. You might just have to take a break and come back. It might not just be one conversation. As a matter of fact, it's likely that it won't be one conversation. It'll be ongoing conversations that you'll learn from and through as you go along.

Speaker 1:

I will also tell you to remember that you and your partner may not be in the same place, and that might mean that your nervous systems are not in the same place. Like, maybe you have gotten to a really safe place, but again you might come to your partner and this new way you're approaching your partner might land as a threat for them and so their nervous system might go into a survival place. But also you might not have the same goals. Again you might not agree on what step you need to take, or your partner may be in a place, like I mentioned earlier, that they really feel like they are doing work and it feels like an insult this idea of taking a step together and you might have to work through that, and so just know that you might come very excited with a lot of good intentions and love, and that is wonderful and that's that's a great place to come from. Your partner might be in a different place, especially if there's been a long history of disconnection. This new shift towards coming closer and working together might be like whoa, whoa, what is this? So, again, there's opportunities for curiosity and growth and perhaps some support could be useful as you move through the process. Also, please remember this is not a linear process. Again, as I kind of said before about my protocol, so to speak, I try to give concrete examples about what people can do, because I find that helpful, but it's just a guide. As you're exploring these things and working on things, you're going to be learning and growing, but the process can be very windy.

Speaker 1:

I often refer to myself in my life as taking the scenic route, and sometimes it's a really beautiful detour, and other times I really wish that I had avoided that particular leg of my trip, but it was the path I took and I saw a lot. Maybe I didn't really feel like I wanted to see all of the things that I saw on that particular detour, but I have really come to learn and appreciate whatever comes up and whatever my view is, as I'm traveling through this life again as an individual or in partnership with my husband Both ways. The journey is not always straight. Sometimes it's a very windy road, and sometimes it feels like you go back on yourself or you're going around and around and around the same block over and over again. Take a break, get regulated, feel safe, see how to reconnect.

Speaker 1:

You might consider taking a step towards fun, by the way, or something like that. Playfulness, something a little bit lighter, that might help you reconnect, and then you may be able to find a path or a road that you didn't know existed before. That's certainly been my experience, and I hope that's true for you as well. I also really want to encourage you to support all the steps you and your partner take towards perhaps taking the big step or the step that you're working on, the step that you have identified you want to take together, because sometimes things don't go as smoothly or as well, or you think one thing is one step and it might be 10 steps to actually get, to be able to take the step you're trying to take, and so every single little bit, even the mistakes, are really worth celebrating, and every small accomplishment really is a big accomplishment, because every effort that you take together or you attempt to take together is a step towards being able to figure out a new way of being in the relationship, which is really really special, and that's truly what we're trying to do.

Speaker 1:

Oftentimes we don't have models for wonderful relationship, and that's not to insult or bash any parents or grandparents. The truth is is that mental health and relationship wellness, certainly nervous system wellness those are not concepts that were available to our parents and our grandparents and our great grandparents. So I truly come from a place that I believe that everybody is always doing the best that they can. People may very well disagree with me about that, that's okay. So I really truly believe that my parents, my grandparents, my great-grandparents, my husband's parents, his grandparents, all of our ancestors, all the people in our lives, were always doing their best, but sometimes I Someone's best just wasn't what we needed, it wasn't good enough for us, or their best still ended up being a hurt to us.

Speaker 1:

And that's the process. That's part of being human, and what we do with it now is really the important part when you're in your present day, current intimate partnership, figuring out how to have the relationship you really wanna have might be really new. It might be something you actually haven't had before or you haven't witnessed before, or specific parts of it might be things you haven't had or haven't seen before. So you're creating something new which is actually really exciting. But also talking about our nervous system. New things can be really scary, and so sometimes we avoid the new things, even if in our head, it's what we really want. If you really can understand that this is a process and that change is absolutely possible and you can have some compassion for yourself and your partner along the way, you really can make truly beautiful things happen. That has absolutely been my experience with my husband. I continue to be in awe of what is possible when I'm regulated, when I'm working in partnership, as I continue to expand my awareness and know myself more in my nervous system, and so, again, I hope that this is also true for you and anybody who's on a path of healing and growing and trying something new and trying to heal and have a life that is different and hopefully even better than the one we have, even if your life is pretty good I have a lot of really beautiful parts of my life and yet there's still a lot of room for growth in many ways as well. So it's not an either or kind of thing.

Speaker 1:

And my last little reminder is for you to notice if you or your partner is doing something that indicate a survival response and a protective response. So if you're trying to take steps for your partner again that fight response that I mentioned earlier, that mobilized response to threat my partner is not taking their steps I have to take them for them or my partner is not doing what I think they should do, so I think they should do this. Those are really mobilized responses to threat. So notice if that's coming up and take a breath and try to take a step back. I'm making that sound really easy. I know that it may not be, but it's worth paying attention to.

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Also, if you have the feeling or you notice your partner wanting to give up, or if you're having a hard time finding time to talk about this with your partner, or you've talked about it once and then you somehow magically never got to talk about it again, those are all indicators, and there's so many more that this feels scary in some way. But there's a lot of stuff at play and I just encourage you to notice those things and identify them, and then you can start to do something with them and you can say, hey, I'm feeling scared, or, oh, my partner's feeling scared, or this is new and this is unknown, and so it feels a little bit like we should be cautious here and again. Every time that you can reach for some more compassion for yourself and for your partner, it's really an opportunity to allow your nervous system to be more in that grounded, safe place, and then there is so much more possibility available to you because we are so limited when we're in survival. And that is truly what I have learned and I will continue to talk about with you, and I hope that, as you're on this journey, your nervous system continues to be able to find more and more ways to move and stay in ventral as often as you can. As you're on this journey, I hope that you and your partner find lots of opportunities to move your own nervous systems into that ventral, safe, connected space, which doesn't necessarily mean happy and zen and beautiful, it's just being able to connect. So it's like, okay, we have a difference of opinion and we can figure that out. It's not, we have a difference of opinion, and now you're a threat to me, right? So, again, there's so much to talk about here, but to know that you can connect through your differences and you can grow through your differences it's at the core of the work I do in Imago Relationship Therapy and it's just in line with my beliefs and my experiences. And so good luck to you and I look forward to talking with you more about all of these things, and I hope you join me next week.

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Stop and move back out into the world on your own unique wellness journey In order to move from where you are today to the place where you want to be. The path may seem long or unclear or unknown, and I want you to know that if that seems scary or daunting or downright terrifying or anything else, that is totally okay. Know that you do not have to create the whole way all at once. We don't travel a whole journey in one stride, and that is why my invitation to you today is to take a step, just one, any type, any size, in any direction. It can be an external step that can be observed or measured, or it could be a step you visualize, taking in your mind. It can be a step towards action, or towards rest, or connection or self-care, or whatever step makes sense to you.

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I invite you to take a step today, because getting to a place that feels better, more joyful, more connected than the place where you are today is possible for everyone, including you. Today is possible for everyone, including you, and even when depression is in your bed. If today's episode resonated with you, please subscribe so you can be notified when each weekly episode gets released. I encourage you to leave a review and reach out to me on social media at trishsanderslcsw. Your feedback will help guide future episodes and I love hearing from you. Also, please share this podcast with anyone who you think may be interested or who may get something from what I have shared. Until the next time we connect, take care of yourself and take a step.