They're All Space Aliens!!

In this episode Beverly has a concept for how to be less controlling in all of your relationships. Basically, think of your partner as a space alien. Listen and learn why thinking this way could really, positively change your relationship with your partner, your kids and even your best friends. 

Heart Versus Head is a podcast about relationship styles and how those relationship styles influence communication in the most important relationships. The hosts - Randy Hampton and Beverly Craddock - are a married couple who are sought-after relationship coaches, award-winning authors and regular people who (like everyone in relationships) are just trying to stay connected through all the noise of life in the modern world. You can learn more about the couple and their work at HeartAndHeadCoaching.com, where you'll learn to fight better and connect again.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Welcome to Heart vs. Head, a podcast that helps couples communicate and fight better. Here are your hosts, Randi Hampton and Beverly Craddock.

SPEAKER_01: 0:22

Welcome to the Heart vs. Head podcast, and this is Randy and Beverly. Hope you've been listening on a regular basis, but for folks who are new to our podcast, we are relationship coaches in Hawaii. Started this podcast back on Valentine's Day.

SPEAKER_02: 0:39

Valentine's Day, so it's only been, what, a

SPEAKER_01: 0:42

couple months? Well, it's been four months, but okay, who's counting? A couple.

UNKNOWN: 0:46

Okay.

SPEAKER_01: 0:47

And then if you were listening last week, I think Randy went rogue and I was out of town.

SPEAKER_02: 0:53

Randy went dark.

SPEAKER_01: 0:56

I can't leave. Apparently it affects Randy.

SPEAKER_02: 0:59

Randy had issues. Randy had to do the podcast by himself. We don't know what he's done.

SPEAKER_01: 1:04

Yeah, but we're just moving on from here.

SPEAKER_02: 1:08

We're skipping over the dark stuff. Welcome back! Yeah! There was the elf that fills the coffee maker with water. There was the elf that cleans the litter box and the elf that actually cleans the house.

SPEAKER_01: 1:37

Or laundry. We could go on and

SPEAKER_02: 1:40

on. The elves apparently all quit when you were gone. And so it was really, really very stressful for me. The elves have unionized. Fortunately, they seem to be back. They like you, I guess, because whenever you're here, all that stuff gets done. So that's amazing. So, well, Welcome back. I'm glad you're home.

SPEAKER_01: 1:59

Yeah, and if you're a heart, you might have missed that that was a compliment and him saying that he really missed me. I missed him too.

SPEAKER_02: 2:08

Actually, I did really miss you. I think I said that on the podcast, but I did miss you. You should not ever go away and visit your daughter ever again.

SPEAKER_01: 2:20

Moving on to today. Today, I did spend time with my daughter and I had this thought. You know, I spent a significant amount of time with her and I love her. She's an amazing person. The one thing that struck me is that sometimes as a parent, you look at your children and you feel this deep connection. Sometimes it goes so far as that child looking like your mini-me. I've done enough work on myself and with with clients to know that children are very different, very unique. And it's really just been even the last 10 years where I've just continued to learn more about each of my children and to really appreciate and respect the differences. But today's theme is this moment where I'm spending all this time with my daughter and I look at her and I am thinking to myself, she is a space alien.

SPEAKER_02: 3:22

She's a space aliens, but why so?

SPEAKER_01: 3:27

Well, the more I pondered this idea, and it kind of made me laugh. It is a way to...

SPEAKER_02: 3:31

It kind of just made me laugh too, as you said it. So I agree. Okay.

SPEAKER_01: 3:35

Yeah, it's a humorous way to look at someone and realize, wow, you know, as much as we're alike, we are completely different people. And I guess that's one of the things I thought would be appropriate for the podcast is not only is it about children, but all relationships, especially intimate relationships. We might think our partner is just an extension of us or that mirror that you can read my mind kind of

SPEAKER_02: 4:03

thing. I mean, that's an element of why we fall in love. I mean, we find somebody that connects with us and automatically our brain goes, oh, this person gets us, so they must be like us. And so often they are not. I guess... Beverly talked about this when she came back. We were having a chat about it, and she's like, I really think they're like space aliens, and... I kind of went, what? Okay, well, if I think about it that way, does it change something? So I had to think about my son. Great kid. He's finally got, to put it simply, he's finally got his shit together. He's getting there. He's a good kid. And I say kid, and he's like, what, 33 years old, married? Anyways, you know, when he was growing up, I always thought of him like me. And I think we do that with kids is we think, oh, they're just like me. And my son is nothing like me in a lot of ways. And I think when I was able to finally give up that expectation that he was going to be kind of the same as me, I was able to accept him where he was. And that was pretty important, I think, for the relationship to begin to heal. So there's probably something to this when we're, it drops our expectations. If I look at Beverly and go, you know what, Beverly is a space alien.

SPEAKER_01: 5:38

It's endearing.

SPEAKER_02: 5:39

Endearing. Depends on what your vision of a space alien is. I'm able to say, okay, wait, I don't have to get her. I don't have to understand why she does the quirky crap she does. God, gets back to that rule of relationships that we talk about. Your job's to love them. Our job's not to fix them, not to get them, not to understand them, not to change them. Beverly's perfect. I don't need to change her. Does that make her actually perfect? No. There's not such a thing, but she's perfect for me. When I'm able to go, some of that's just the fact that she's a space alien and I have no possibility of comprehending her. It takes the pressure off of me feeling like I have to figure everybody out. So I like the concept, Beverly.

SPEAKER_01: 6:28

Right. If you really look at it, you know, why did I pick space alien? I don't know. I'm random. But it implies that the person that you're with is unfamiliar, strange, different. Maybe it's their behavior that's prompting that. Maybe it's the way they're reacting or what words they use, their values, just even a communication style difference. even though we have the same DNA, I mean, in theory, 50% of the same genetic code, it just also looks so different when it's a daughter, when it's someone that, especially I think for a mom, they come out of our body and they just feel so much like an extension of us that it really makes for bad expectations, but also just I think the pressure of wanting them to conform to what we think they should be or who they are. And when we can let all of that go, then we can actually see them for who they are, be curious, and just kind of learn and evolve without that need for that certainty about that person and who they are. There's this thing that you and I know as social scientists that I'm not sure the world's which is that we are always looking for our tribe. And tribe here just means people like us. And I think what we get out of that is validation and being heard and seen. And there's a deep connection that runs when we feel like at least one other person in the world gets us. So if we feel as though even our loved ones are space aliens, and perhaps no one It is a very disconnected feeling.

SPEAKER_02: 8:54

And can we ever really be sure? There would be none in the experiment. People were overanalyzing all the dots and tended to see purple. What the study showed is that our brain does not do well with uncertainty. When we're uncertain about what our person or what our kids or what our stepkids are thinking or feeling, our brain's going to make mistakes or at least more mistakes about what they possibly could be thinking or feeling because our brain tends to overanalyze it. And that's just the nature of habit. Now, I do need to take a sort of total ADHD geeky aside here and mention one other thing that Beverly mentioned. She talked about space aliens, and then she talked about when it's your kids and they come out of your body. And I just shout out to Sigourney Weaver and the Aliens movie, which is still probably one of the greatest sci-fi films of all time. of all time. But when you said, and they come out of your body, all I could think of is that creature thing with the double mouth and, you know.

SPEAKER_01: 10:34

No, no, no. My children were not that.

SPEAKER_02: 10:36

But you do tell the story every once in a while, your daughter sounding a bit like that when she was born.

SPEAKER_01: 10:43

She sounded like a wild animal, like a cougar. And I was a little surprised that that was a baby, but the nurses-

SPEAKER_02: 10:54

Yes.

SPEAKER_01: 10:57

I guess we always provide some tips and some helpful information, not just going down a rabbit hole of people being like space aliens. Hopefully what you're picking up through all of this is that while our mind wants to make us all the same and especially those people around us, and we're looking for that connector, especially hearts, we're looking for that bond between us. I would argue that if we could really step back and allow our person to be who they are, not change them, to be curious about them and to ask more questions, to love them the way that they are and not need them to be a certain way, I think hearts and even heads would really do a service to that. And even to, you know, if you do this with children or other family members or best friends, look at the other person and say, okay, you're a space alien, and I just want to know more about you. I want to understand.

SPEAKER_02: 12:14

Well, when you take that, and we've talked about it, when you take that scientific, that curiosity approach to your relationship, much better things will happen in your relationship. It opens up communication because you're questioning to understand, not questioning to criticize. And it makes a really, really big shift in the relationship. You know, I love the podcast for the fact that it always kind of runs in circles. So many of these things that we talk about apply to other things. And you can go back, there was an episode a couple months ago about the three I love yous and how I have this I love you that I'll say to Beverly when she's being um, a space alien. I think for heads, the important part of this is when you can recognize that you don't have to understand them. You just have to love them. It does take that expectation off. Beverly talks about this desire and goal to be in our tribe, in our team together and how we seek that. For heads, it's really about kind of pulling back and not having to have Yeah. and maybe gives us the curiosity about them and why they feel and why they think the way they feel and think, it makes relationships easier. So maybe you're right, Beverly, maybe everybody's a space alien.

SPEAKER_01: 14:10

I think it also helps when it comes to conflict, and that's what couples are always looking for. And one thing I wanted to note is that I was listening to some of our podcasts catching up when I was away, and one of the things that we We always talk about, you know, our clients that came in and did this or did that. And I want to just stress that we have clients all over the world. So sometimes when we say we had a client this week, last week, and they had this experience, we might be talking about somebody in another country or we're in Hawaii, but the client is much likely to be in the mainland or different locations around the world. So just wanted to throw that out there. And

SPEAKER_02: 14:50

apparently, as Beverly would say it this time, they could be from another planet. So our clients might actually be space aliens. Pluto, Mars. You know, I'm just hopeful, I guess, if I really take the broader look at is everybody a space alien? I'm just based on society right now and life. I wish some of these space aliens would go back. Just go home. The planet is crowded, tired, out of control. Confused. Get on your ship. Come

SPEAKER_01: 15:28

on. Pedal to bike faster, E.T. In closing, because I know we try to keep these on point with time, is that being opposites is really a superpower if we let it. It is a strength because, face it, if we're just clones of one another, we're identical twins, so to speak, which is gross if you're married.

SPEAKER_02: 15:52

You're making it weirder. Keep going.

SPEAKER_01: 15:54

But if we were clones let's stay with that uh you know i i couldn't i couldn't live with myself no no you could not nor could you because those elves just don't come out of nowhere right no of course no we know i can't

SPEAKER_02: 16:09

we know i can't live with myself i can't i can't live by myself i certainly could not live with myself i hate that guy be kicking his butt clean the kitchen you pig

SPEAKER_01: 16:23

so hopefully today The podcast has built some awareness and maybe some respect for the differences between you and all the people in your life and know that you can still find common ground. You can still have shared goals. You can build connection. You can solve things together because that difference is really what allows us to come up with even better goals, even better solutions. And some Sometimes you might want to adapt your style to your partners. Other times, maybe just a blending of the two. But either way, it's all about communication, being curious, being patient, taking the time to really listen and find ways that the two of you can reach that connection, but in a way that allows for those differences. And when you really celebrate that each of you are so so different, so unique, and have your own strengths, it really is a way to put kind of respect and admiration back into your relationship.

SPEAKER_02: 17:35

See, and that's so nice and uplifting. And isn't everybody glad that Beverly's back? Because it's just so much nicer and more pleasant, the podcast, when there's a heart on it instead of just a head. Beverly, I'm so glad you're back. I love you immensely. That's enough about space aliens, everybody, but it's a good way to maybe take a look at it different. Think about it. And we love your comments, love hearing from all of you, love seeing where you are in the world if you have something a question a comment hey how are you I'm in wherever we love that stuff you can always send us an email info at heart and head coaching info at heart and head coaching dot com love the questions and those kinds of things too if you're encountering something in your relationship we would love to help you sort it out until next week that's us thank you so much

SPEAKER_01: 18:33

Aloha

SPEAKER_00: 18:36

Thanks for listening to Heart vs. Head. You can learn more at heartandheadcoaching.com and check out new podcast episodes every Wednesday. If you have a question for Randy and Beverly, send an email to info at heartandheadcoaching.com.