Communication for Connection Part 2: How the Imago Intentional Dialogue Changed My Relationship

What if a single conversation could shift the trajectory of your relationship — not because the problem disappeared, but because you finally felt understood?

In this episode, I share the personal story of the moment I used the Imago Intentional Dialogue process in my own marriage and experienced a profound shift from disconnection to genuine understanding. Rather than offering theory alone, this episode explores what it looks like when structured communication tools move from concept to lived experience.

Through an attachment and nervous-system-informed lens, I describe how years of distress, hopelessness, and depression created a relational environment where connection felt out of reach. You’ll hear how the Dialogue provided a container strong enough to hold intense emotion without escalating conflict, which in turn, allowed vulnerability to emerge where defensiveness had once dominated.

I also reflect on why this process can feel awkward or even artificial at first, and why that very structure is what makes safety possible. By slowing down the conversation and focusing on understanding rather than persuasion, partners can interrupt patterns of simultaneous monologuing and create space for empathy, repair, and renewed connection.

This episode offers reassurance that meaningful change does not require perfection, immediate agreement, or both partners being fully ready at the same time. Sometimes the first shift comes from one person choosing to show up differently and trusting the process.

If you’ve ever wondered whether deeply entrenched patterns can truly change, or whether connection can return after long periods of distance, this story offers a grounded example of how relational healing can begin.

In this episode, we explore:

• The personal context that led to trying the Imago Dialogue 
• How structured communication can contain intense emotion without escalation
• Why awkward or scripted conversations can still produce genuine connection
• The role of safety in allowing vulnerability to surface
• What it feels like to be deeply heard after prolonged disconnection
• How understanding differs from agreement or problem solving
• Why change can begin even when only one partner can take a step
• How the Dialogue interrupts defensive, protective communication patterns
• The emotional impact of being mirrored accurately
• What makes repair possible after long-term distress

This episode is Part 2 of a three-part series exploring the Imago Intentional Dialogue:

➡️ Part 1: An introduction to the Dialogue process, including mirroring, validation, empathy, and the appointment
➡️ Part 3: A real, unscripted demonstration of the Dialogue between Trish and her husband Ben

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.

Transcript

Framing The Imago Series

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello, and welcome to the When Depression is in Your Bed podcast. Today is my second episode in what will be my trilogy about the introduction to the Imago Intentional Dialogue. In the first episode, I talked about the structure and steps of the Imago Dialogue Process, mirroring, validation, and empathy, and why they're so powerful. In next week's episode, my husband Ben and I will do a real-life, unscripted demonstration of the Imago Intentional Dialogue Process so you can get to see all the steps in action. And in today's episode, I will continue on from last time, sharing how the dialogue has affected my own life. I will share the moment that happened over a decade ago where I realized that the Imago Intentional Dialogue is so much more than a communication tool. It's the pathway to safety, relational healing and growth, connection, and for me, it was the key that unlocked real change for my marriage. I'll also take a peek through a nervous system lens so I can explain how the dialogue works so well. I'm your host, Trish Sanders, and I am delighted that you are here. Let's get started. So, moving on to my story about when I was really able to start using this process. And as I said, I did not use it in the structured way that Ben and I will demonstrate next week and in future episodes. So this was back over a decade ago, and my husband and I were separated. We had actually read before being separated the Getting the Love You Want book, which is the foundational Imago text. There's many wonderful Imago books out there. There's an Imago parenting book, there's an Amago book for individuals or singles, and many other books to support couples and also therapists and clinical practitioners. But Getting the Love You Want was what started it all. And we had read that book that my mom actually had given to us when we had first started dating. As a matter of fact, she was like, You and your boyfriend need this. And she was not wrong. And we had read the first two sections of the book, which is a theory, and I was really into it. And I was already a therapist. I did not work with couples at the time, but I was a child therapist and very much an attachment therapist and very much had an attachment-based perspective in working with children. I really connected to Imago and it made sense to me. But when it came to the final section of getting the love you want, which are the exercises, the dialogues to have with your partner, we were not able to complete those until much later. We got through a few of them, but we weren't able to get through all of them until we eventually worked with an Imago therapist and had some support. More on that another time, but just to share that I had this foundation in Imago, but we had not worked with an Imago therapist yet. And when we got separated, I told Ben that I really wanted to go to an Imago therapist and I really wanted to go to a Getting the Love You Want workshop, which is offered both by the founders of Imago Theory, which is Dr. Harville Hendrix and his wife, Dr. Helen LeKelly Hunt. And it's also offered internationally by different practitioners of Imago. And so I had found a workshop that was being offered. It ended up actually just by Harville Hendricks. His wife was not there that weekend. I believe, if I recall correctly, she had a family situation. So the workshop that Ben and I attended first was actually just run by Harville. And we were separated. It took me several months to convince Ben to go. And then we registered and then we unregistered because there was like a point where you couldn't get your money back and we lost the$50 deposit. Um, but then we ended up re-registering like the day before the workshop. But we got there, which was really amazing and I did really appreciate. But we went there and we got there on a Friday night and we did the dialogue process as they gave it to us and we did the exercises. And then Saturday, the next day, we were continuing to do the exercises and listening to the lectures and all of that. I was blown away, completely fascinated, just completely floored. And I don't specifically remember what exercise it was, what dialogue it was, but I know that it was right before lunch on Saturday. And Ben got really emotionally overwhelmed and he walked out of the room. And at this point, I had learned about the whole dialogue process, the appointment, the mirroring, the validating, the empathizing. And I was really keen on using it, but I didn't know how to use it if he walked away, right? Like if he left. So we broke for lunch. And since Harville was by himself and I was standing there by myself and didn't know what to do, I decided to take the opportunity and go talk to Harvel and ask him what the heck was I supposed to do. So I went up to him and told him our whole story up until the moment where Ben left and I didn't know what to do. And how do I use the dialogue process when your partner is not there to use it with you? And after hearing my whole thing, Harville said to me, Wow, your husband loves you so much. And I was like, Well, I think I agree with you. But did you hear the part where he left? Like, what do you mean? Like, where what are you getting at? And he's like, He came to a couple's workshop, a weekend couples workshop, hours and hours, you know, two full days and a night of immersing yourself into talks about your relationship. Who does that if they don't have a hope of making the relationship work? Like, if he didn't love you, he wouldn't be here. And I was like, Well, yeah, yeah, sure. Like when you put it that way, like that's absolutely true. So he explained to me then many things that were just again transformative, one of which was about this idea of safety. And he described my husband as a turtle. And you'll hear me talk about this. Ben and I touched on this last time. And if you watch the videos that I will eventually be posting about our podcast, when Ben and I are talking, I actually have a turtle and an octopus on a shelf behind me, which I think Ben referenced in the episode that we did together last time. And that's why I have them because in Imago Theory, we talk a lot about the turtle and sometimes the octopus, the original Imago theory was the turtle and the hailstorm. Other Mago practitioners talk about the turtle and the tiger. I really like the turtle and the octopus. So more on the octopus another time, but for now, the turtle, it's pretty self-explanatory, which is why I use it so often. But Harville said, Your husband's a turtle and he went in his shell. He was overwhelmed, which makes sense. There's, I mean, this is there's a lot emotionally happening between the two of you. You guys are separated. There's a lot of vulnerable conversations that he's being invited into, and it just was too much for him. So he went in his shell. And so he's like, So you have to create safety in your relationship so your little turtle can poke his head out and you know, come back into the world so he can reconnect with you. And I was like, Okay, great. How? And he said, Well, you can't ask him what happened. And I was like, What? And he's like, Yeah, he's like, if you go up to him and you're like, Hey, why did you leave? That's really likely to be overwhelming for him and may land as accusatory or judgmental or critical. And that will really, you know, lodge him in his shell. So you can't do that. And I was like, Okay, I didn't know if I really was buying this yet, but here was this relationship guru talking to me. So I wasn't gonna fight it, right? And I was like, So what do I talk to him about? Like the weather? And I had said that because it had been this particularly rainy morning, like it had cleared up to be this beautiful blue sky afternoon, like really sunny. And I was thinking, like, what am I supposed to just talk about? Like the sunshine, you know? And Harvel was like, Yeah, that's fine. He's like, But you can talk about anything else, but anything else that's neutral, right? And I was like, Okay, I'm gonna go for this. And by this point, Harville and I had walked out, and like I said, it was lunchtime. We were walking up, and I did let him go off to lunch, thanking him profusely for his time and support, which really proved to be completely transformative in my life relationally, personally for myself and professionally, because I became an Imago therapist. I started the process to become an Imago therapist by the end of that year. But as we were outside walking to the lunch area, I could see Ben kind of lurking in the bushes as I kind of think of it, because he was not going to come up to Harville Hendricks himself, right? Which made sense thinking about him as a turtle. He felt safer further away. He didn't want to have that conversation, did not want that confrontation, which made sense. But I saw him, he was there. And I went up to him and I literally said, so it ended up being a beautiful day, huh? That was not an appointment. I was not asking him to have a dialogue because I realized it was not a good time for him to have a dialogue. I knew that, right? That was I could intuit that he needed safety, and that was my focus. And not because I was trying to take care of him, but because I was trying to take care of our relationship. Ooh, that's hitting me to really think about that moment because I think even in this moment, as I'm saying it, I spent a lot of time trying to take care of him before. And I've talked about this and we'll talk more about this, but we both live with depression, hence the name of the podcast. He lived with a lot of anxiety. There was a lot of mental health challenges in our life, a lot of attachment challenges in our life. And part of my identity was a caretaker, and I got a lot of value out of taking care of him. And there are certainly good parts of that, but there's also a really often frequently occurring side effect that certainly happened for us, where I took on the role of being the expert, of being the competent one, of being the one who knew what to do, of being the powerful one. And he was the problem. He was the one who needed to be fixed. He was the one with the issue. He was the one that wasn't good enough. He was the one that was broken. And when I talked about earlier all the ways that I invalidated him, I just didn't know that that's what I was doing. But I came to so much more clear awareness. And it really started that weekend where I started to have that clarity. And I was like, well, I believe in Ben. Like I think he's amazing. You know, like I believe in us and moving towards trusting that, even when I didn't know if I had a good reason to, more than just my gut of like, I believe in us, and this is what makes sense to me and what I want is for us to be together and for us to figure out how to repair this. So it wasn't about me giving safety to him. It was about creating the space between us, which Imago talks about a lot, the space between that was safe so that we could both show up. Because how can anybody show up into a relationship where they don't feel safe? I think probably me asking him that landed with probably some shock or surprise on his end, I would imagine. Who is this Trish that's coming to me, not asking me what happened, why'd I leave, where'd I go, which certainly would have been my line of questioning previously without Harvel's wise guidance. And he said, I'm not going back to the workshop, was his response. And I had mirroring as a tool. So I mirrored him and I said, I heard you say that you're not going back to the workshop. And he looked at me with some curiosity or maybe alarm, maybe thinking that I had been abducted by aliens or something and that I was some other version of his wife. But he said, Yeah, and I'm not hungry either. I don't want to go to lunch. And I mirrored him again. So you're you're not hungry and you're not going to lunch and you definitely don't want to go to the workshop. Did I get you? And he was like, Yeah. And I stayed quiet, which I host a solo podcast. So you may already know that talking is something I often do a lot of. And being quiet was something I really had to grow into. And while I still think I can do it very well in certain situations, talking is my comfortable place for sure. But I was able to self-regulate and create safety for myself as well, and just be present with him. And so he said, Hey, do you want to go down to the beach, which there was a place on the edge of the lake with some sand? And I said, sure. So we went down and again, we just were able to sit together mostly in silence, which was very unusual. But I really trusted the process. Again, I trusted Harville's advice and guidance. And I started seeing Ben as this turtle that I had to create safety for. And I noticed that by me creating safety for him and by trusting the process, I felt safer and didn't have to work so hard. And we kind of sat on these lounge chairs by the water. And eventually he said, Hey, you want to go eat lunch? And we did. And then when we came back down and we sat back by the water for a little while. And eventually he said, Hey, it's uh just about time for the workshop to start again. Do you want to go back up? I didn't even know what to say. I had not tried to fix, I had not tried to push, I had not tried to explain, I had not tried to pull or beg. I had just been present and mirrored him and focused on creating safety and from a nervous system perspective, allowed co-regulation to occur. I was able to keep my nervous system and my body feeling safe. And I was able to offer that without words to him. And through the words I did use, they were safe words. They were words that helped him feel heard and seen and valued, not judged or criticized or pushed or not good enough. I gave him space to show up as he was. And because, in truth, he did want to reconnect and he did want to work on our marriage, and he did want to have the information that we both knew we didn't have because we were aware that we did not know how to have a healthy, happy relationship because we'd been trying for almost a decade at that point to do so. And we both wanted it so bad, but we knew we didn't have the skills. And he was willing to go back to the workshop. And so we did. We went back to the workshop. And of course, there's so much more to the story. Well, I will add this as the last piece of the story of that weekend. We did complete the rest of the workshop and driving home, I shared with Ben, wow, this workshop really taught me so much. And I understand now in such a new way how I contributed to the nightmare of our relationship. That's Imago language, how you contribute to the nightmare of the relationship, and of course, the flip side, how you can contribute to the dream. And I said to him, I understand now how I can take responsibility for what I have done that has had a negative impact on you, even though that's unintentional. So I validated him. That's validation right there. And I was able to say, and I can imagine how hurt you've been feeling all this time, and how I have really contributed to making you feel crazy and not good enough. So right there was some empathy. And this was all literally in my little speech driving away from Omega Institute, where the workshop was held. And I said, I really understand what I need to do differently now to help this relationship. And I'm recommitted. I'm ready to absolutely recommit to our marriage. And Ben said, in response to all that, I can laugh about it now. But he said, Of course you would say all of that. I think we need to get divorced. Even in that moment, I have to say, I think I was just so bolstered and supported. It wasn't what I wanted to hear, certainly, but I really heard with what I call imago ears. And my interpretation literally in that moment was he's feeling really overwhelmed right now. And this is a turtle response. He is shutting down because all of this was just too much for him. And so instead of fixing, pushing, trying, doing, explaining, begging, hoping, I just mirrored and I said to him, I hear that you still want to get divorced. And then I just added, and I get that, and which is validation, that makes sense. So that's how you feel in this moment. And I was preparing to have a hand surgery. So I just said to him, with my surgery coming up, it's just not a good time for me to move out. But by the time I'm recovered from that, if you still want a divorce and that's how you want to move forward, then I'll respect that decision and we'll figure things out then. And we actually ended up going to lunch together after that conversation. I can't say that I remember exactly what we talked about, but it was a pleasant lunch because I was focused on creating safety for both of us so that we could both be there and both be present, that he wasn't in his turtle shell and I wasn't being all tentacle-y. That's why we talk about the octopus because they have all their tentacles reaching out, fixing, doing, trying to make all this stuff happen, which can be really overwhelming for a turtle and quite exhausting for the octopus. And by me laying down my tentacles and being present and mirroring and trusting, I wasn't as exhausted. I was really able to be more present. And then we stayed separated for about a month and we ended up reconnecting about a month after that, which was on our 10-year dating anniversary. And so on that note, I will end my storytelling just to say that this process transformed everything that I knew about communication or thought I knew about communication. And again, I was already a kid therapist for many years by this point. And I knew about attachment and I knew about Ben's history and my history and all that stuff. And I thought I was really conscious. And in many ways, I was. I certainly had a lot of awareness. I'm not trying to minimize that, but there was so much I didn't know. And learning the dialogue process allowed me to see myself more clearly and my impact. And it allowed me to see Ben more clearly and to convey that to him. Like I see you and I value you. And that process transformed everything. And it helped us get to where we are today, which we will talk much more about, I'm sure. I've kind of held on to some of these stories, even though I've certainly touched on things about Ben with his permission in my solo episodes. I have felt strongly that Ben's voice talking about his own experience was more valuable than me trying to share my interpretation of his experience, even if sometimes it was what he told me and it was my understanding of what he said. But I think there's just value in him sharing his own experience more directly. But because of my experience and our experience and how it's transformed us, and then years later, adding in the layer of polyvagal work and nervous system regulation, which fits absolutely beautifully in Imago theory. They work together, they talk about very similar processes and somewhat different language. And Imago uses words and understanding and creating context to help regulate a nervous system and nervous system theory and polyvagal theory specifically starts the other end of trying to regulate the nervous system and the body to try to help develop better understanding of context and conflict. So they cover the same territory sort of from different sides, but still cover really the same area. And I think together they just work really beautifully because sometimes it helps to start in the story, and oftentimes it does also help to start in the body or in the nervous system. So I share all of this with you today as a framework for what has been so powerful for me and what I hope for sure will also be powerful for you in your life, so that you can take what resonates for you. And as you start to learn more about the dialogue process, you can use it. And as I shared earlier, the reason I talked about what I talked about today, obviously it was when things shifted in such a significant way for Ben and I. So it was valuable in that regard. But also it was an example of how I use the Imago process to start without its full structure, but still maintaining its power and transformation for our relationship. And if it's something that you want to experiment and play with in your own relationship, I highly recommend that you try it. I do recommend to keep in mind the idea of safety for both partners because again, people who don't feel emotionally safe can't show up. They can't communicate, they can't communicate well or clearly, or sometimes at all. You know, shutdown is very real. So this is a developmental process. You will grow through it as you practice it. And the way that it looks when you first begin experimenting with it is very likely not what it will look like after some more time using it. And if you are interested in more information, there is a vast amount of information on Imago Theory out there in the world already. I've already mentioned, of course, the creators of Imago Theory, Dr. Harville Hendricks and his wife, Dr. Helen Lakelly Hunt. They have many books available. You can find them on YouTube. They are still offering Getting the Love You Want workshops, as are many other of my Imago colleagues across the globe. And of course, I also offer Getting the Love You Want workshops and other Imago workshops as well. So there's way more information. So certainly keep listening. Please, if this struck you as something that you're curious about, definitely tune in next week to hear an actual dialogue between Ben and I. I am wishing you safe, connected, conscious communication that helps improve your relationship to yourself and your relationship with all those around you that you love. And I will take it one step further to say that I do think that conscious connected communication and nervous system regulation and being relational is in fact what we need to help heal the entire world. It's a tall order, but I think if you can start with yourself and the people that you love, we have a pretty good foundation to jump off from. I hope you tune in next week. As our time comes to a close, I ask you to keep listening for just a few more moments because I want to 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 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. 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 trish.sanders.lcsw. 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.