When Depression is in your bed

Conscious Connected Partners In Real Life: The Mirrors That Shape Us

• Trish Sanders, LCSW • Season 1 • Episode 27

Share episode

Have you ever had a moment of startling clarity about how the people closest to you actually experience you? That's exactly what happened when my six-year-old daughter observed my husband and me dancing in our kitchen and declared we were "in rare form." Those three words stopped me in my tracks.

As someone who considers herself playful and lighthearted, I was struck by the realization that my children rarely witness that side of my relationship with my husband. Our playful moments typically happen late at night after they're asleep, while our days are consumed by the practical responsibilities of family life. This insight led me to question not just how my children perceive our relationship, but how my husband experiences me as well.

This revelation could have been crushing. Instead, it became a powerful opportunity to bridge the gap between my authentic self and how I show up day-to-day. The mirrors provided by those we love offer invaluable feedback about who we are versus who we want to be. When we can receive this feedback openly, without spiraling into feelings of failure or inadequacy, we gain a roadmap for growth.

Conscious partnership isn't a destination but a lifelong journey of learning and evolving. Each mirror, each moment of clarity, gives us another opportunity to align our actions with our values. I invite you to reflect on how the important people in your life experience you. Is there alignment between your perception of yourself and how others see you? The answer might surprise you—and it might just transform your relationships.

How would your loved ones describe the way you typically show up? What would it look like to intentionally create more moments that reflect your authentic self? Share your thoughts or reach out to me on social media!

- 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 when Depression is in your Bed podcast. Starting today, I'll be sharing some moments from my real current life about what it actually looks like to be a conscious partner in a conscious partnership. In this episode, I'll be sharing a glimpse of how feedback from the most important people in my life has helped me to see who I really want to be with much greater clarity, and also how it's helped me shape how I want to show up in my day-to-day life. I'm Trish Sanders Sanders and I am delighted that you are here. Let's get started. In the last episode I shared that as sort of a summer break, I was going to be doing what I called mini episodes for the next six weeks, and I'm not quite sure if they will end up being quote-unquote mini, although I imagine they probably will end up being a little bit shorter than my typical episodes so far. But my vision for these episodes is a little bit different than how I approach the first six months of content.

Speaker 1:

In the first six months, I was thinking about the lessons I have learned and the information that I have come across and the experiences I've had that I think could be helpful for other people to know, and so I started out with what I wish I had known many years ago or had been able to access a long time ago, because I think it would have shaped how I showed up in my relationship and, of course, how my relationship felt if I had had that information earlier. So I shared the information or the lesson or the learning really with you and I tried to use examples from my life to support and illustrate the information that I was sharing with you. And I tried to use examples from my life to support and illustrate the information that I was sharing with you. But for the next six weeks, I'm going to flip that and do it a little bit differently and I'm going to talk about current happenings that actually are going on in my life and in my relationship right now, something that has happened from during my week, and use that to illustrate a learning or an example or how I think about my interactions with my husband and also even with my kids now, based on what I've learned. So I hope that hearing about my current day-to-day life is something that maybe you can relate to and I hope perhaps you can even learn something from it. So let's see how this kind of episode goes. I would really love for you to let me know on social media on Instagram, on LinkedIn how these episodes land for you, to let me know on social media on Instagram, on LinkedIn how these episodes land for you, because I'm really curious what feels like useful, interesting, engaging content for you, because that's certainly what I want to provide.

Speaker 1:

So, right after I decided to do these mini episodes based on my real life experiences that are happening now, as opposed to my historical real life experiences, things that may have happened 5, 10 or 15 plus years ago I had this experience and I immediately thought, ooh, this is the first episode that I'm going to share in this little mini summer series. I called it mini episodes, but I'm kind of thinking about it as moments in real life of conscious, connected couples. So that's how I think about it and that's what I'm sharing today. So just a little background for this story. My husband Ben I'm sharing today. So just a little background for this story. My husband Ben frequently uses the term in rare form and he uses it oftentimes to refer to me when I'm acting silly or goofy or lighthearted and in truth, I actually don't think that's rare form for me, but I'll touch on that more in a little bit, but it's important to know that because it's a term that is used with some frequency or, you know, some regularity around my household.

Speaker 1:

So the other day, ben and I were in the kitchen dancing and we were also singing our wedding song, which is you Found Me by Kelly Clarkson, and our kids were sitting at the table and they were looking at us like maybe we were from another planet, and I imagine that my 13-year-old may have found it to be cringeworthy, even though there was nobody else around to watch this happening. And our six-year-old daughter looked at us and she said wow, you guys are in rare form. And in the moment it really was just so funny to hear her say that, knowing that Ben says that about things, and she really used it in the proper context and it just seemed funny coming out of my six-year-old daughter's mouth, right. So we kind of all laughed. But then I started to really think, like, were we in rare form? Was this something? Was this fun, engaging, connected, playful way of acting together, dancing in the kitchen, something that my kids didn't really see?

Speaker 1:

And I started to think and I said well, ben and I do sometimes dance in the kitchen and we do have those moments. But when I thought about it, they usually happen really later at night, when the kids are asleep, you know, when we're putting the dishes in the dishwasher and kind of finishing up for the night. And it doesn't happen super frequently, I wouldn't say either, but it definitely happens. It's something that we do. But I realized maybe it wasn't something that always happened in front of my children, and so then I kind of started thinking about what they do witness day to day, and maybe there's a lot of busyness or a lot of practical stuff about making sure we have what we need for lunch or making sure that homework is done, or, during the summer, making sure that they've practiced their instruments or cleaned up their room or something like that.

Speaker 1:

And so I realized that even though I do think, and I would consider us a fun family, I think we do a lot of fun, cool things together In our actual day-to-day life we're not always having that playful, engaging, fun experience. I think as a family all four of us, but also I don't think they see that between Ben and I I think that we can get swept up in the busyness of the day-to-day and we're not always slowing down to enjoy the moments so fully. And so when I realized that, I immediately felt pretty heavy, pretty sad, like oh gosh, you know we're not making good use of these precious moments, that our kids are young and they don't see us as playfully engaged parents and, especially given the long history of tension and challenge that Ben and I have grown through, they haven't seen as much not none, but as much of that fun, engaging relationship that I would like to really model for them. So again it felt pretty heavy for a moment. But then I realized that awareness was really beneficial and it also made me think about what I mentioned before, that Ben says that I'm in rare form when he sees me acting silly or goofy or dancing around the living room by myself singing some song on the top of my lungs. And I realized like, oh, you know what I feel like I act silly and goofy and funny and I'm lighthearted a pretty good amount of the time. Again, not constantly, but with some regularity. But maybe Ben doesn't always see me like that, maybe he does see me as busy and caught up in doing my work and getting our life stuff done that needs to get done.

Speaker 1:

And I realized, again kind of heavy. This is not how I want to show up in my life. I want to be perceived in a way that feels more aligned with who I authentically am, and I don't think that my true, authentic self is wake up in the morning, be busy, do all this stuff one thing after another, and then go to sleep and wake up and do it all again. I don't think that that's who I truly am and that's certainly not how I want to be perceived, not just in the world but really by the most important people in my life my husband and my kids. And so I decided to take that information and really think about how I can use that to shape how I act day to day.

Speaker 1:

And so I turned that heaviness and that sadness and, though I didn't go too far into it, sort of it touched on that feeling like I failed. It definitely went close to that area, like I'm not good enough. I'm not doing a good enough job as a mom, I'm not doing a good enough job as a partner. But I didn't go too deep in there and I came back really quickly to be able to say, hey, this is great information, because I had this mirror from my daughter and I've had this mirror several times from Ben about how they see me showing up in this world, and that is a true gift because then I can compare that mirror to how I want to show up, how I want them to experience me, and that felt really exciting. Like, oh, this is something that I can do something about. I have control over this, I can choose my behavior and I can choose to slow down and make more moments to be silly and goofy and engaging and have dance parties in the living room or whatever, just make moments that don't have to be long or certainly even planned, and allow for that playful, lighthearted, carefree fun, engaging, really meaningful, connecting relationship stuff to happen.

Speaker 1:

So when this happened and I kind of processed through all that, I quickly realized like, ooh, this is the thing that I wanna share on my first little mini episode, because it's the experience of certainly how being mirrored by these important people can be a reflection to us, if we can pay attention to that and receive that feedback, and how we can really use that, because we don't arrive as a conscious partner or in a conscious partnership like, oh, we're done, we got here, we're conscious. It's a whole lifelong process of learning and growing, and I think that's what really makes it amazing and fun and delightful it's never boring, there's always opportunity available, and this little conflict was an opportunity for me. And so the question that I'll leave you with for today is how do you want to be experienced by your partner or by other important people in your life perhaps your children or friends or other family members, the people who really matter the most to you? And I invite you to compare that to how you may actually show up in your day-to-day life and to think about how you think you show up versus, if you're lucky enough to have a mirror, how people actually see you and if you're able to invite a mirror or notice, when you're getting mirrored, how other people perceive you. And it's kind of an interesting thing to see how people perceive you and how you perceive yourself, and I won't dive into that very deeply, but it is interesting to think about.

Speaker 1:

In Imago Relationship Therapy, which is a big part of what I do with the couples that I work with, mirroring is a key skill and it really helps us see who we are and also, again, informs who we want to be. So, even though we certainly can get caught up in the busyness of life or in the routines and all the stuff that needs to be done. If we can slow down enough to really think about who our authentic self is and what are the spaces we want to grow into, we can take something that may elicit that not good enough and maybe a little bit of that I'm failing here. I certainly can go into that place and wonder how can I stretch and grow? And we can remind ourselves that we aren't destined to be disconnected or going through the motions for our whole life. We actually have choice here and we can grow into a bit more consciousness and we can use that mirror how we're seen and how we're perceived by the people we love most in our life. To use it as a little bit of a temperature check how are we showing up and how do we want to show up, and how do we make a little bridge between those so we can be more and more of our full, authentic selves? Because in truth, when we show up in our relationships, we live a life that is more full, joyfully alive, connected and much more satisfying.

Speaker 1:

So please let me know what you thought about today's episode and I will continue to share moments of my current life for the next few weeks of the podcast.

Speaker 1:

As our time comes to a close, I ask you to keep listening for just a few more moments, because I wanna thank you for showing up today and I want to leave you with an invitation as you hit, 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, it can be observed or measured, or it could be a step you visualize in any direction. It can be an external step, it 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.

Speaker 1:

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, 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.