Are You a Heart or a Head?

Are you the Heart partner or the Head partner in your relationship? This is the episode that will give you the communication clues to discover your role. Hearts lead with everyone's feelings and Heads lead with logic and facts. It doesn't means Heads don't have feelings and it doesn't mean that Hearts can't be logical... it just means that in your relationship, you prefer to do it one way. Listen as Randy and Beverly break it down a bit.  #relationshipgoals #HeartVersusHead

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_02: 0:21

Hey everybody, it's Beverly and Randy. Welcome to the podcast. We had a request from a listener. Thank you for listening. And this person said, hey, I'd love to know more about heart and head specifically. I know you guys give a lot of examples and a lot of ways that heart and head impact things, but maybe I missed something or could you just give a little more of an overview, which we're absolutely happy to do. Heart and head really boiled down to how we make decisions And

SPEAKER_01: 0:53

it's how we make decisions in our relationship. Correct. Because we may make these decisions differently at work or in our life, but this is really focused on how are we making the decisions in our main relationship.

SPEAKER_02: 1:10

Yeah. Opposites tend to attract. And even if you feel as though you and your partner are the same, we've had couples come in where literally their personality personalities they've tested. They are the same person personality test-wise, even though everyone's very unique. However, what tends to happen, we see over and over again, is that in a relationship, because we seek that balance, one's going to sway to the head side decision-making-wise, and one's going to sway to the heart side decision-making-wise.

SPEAKER_01: 1:46

Even if you're in a relationship, if you're a heart in a relationship with someone who is traditionally typically a heart in their relationships, it seems to come down to, you know, kind of who's the bigger heart in the moment and the other partner kind of takes on a balanced role of being the head-led partner. So Beverly is right. There is a great deal of balance that we try to seek because a balanced relationship with solid head and solid heart is a pretty strong, working, functional, raising kids, dealing with the bumps and bruises of life kind of relationship when you've got Yeah, because two heads together feels like roommates.

SPEAKER_02: 2:51

There's not a lot of passion in that. And the opposite extreme, two hearts together, is all passion and we don't get a lot accomplished. So the reason that this is important is because as we were working with all these couples, one of the things that we noticed is we feel like we can't communicate anymore. In the beginning, it's great, we're on the same page, we finish each other's sentence But then at some point in the relationship, now all we do is fight. Now all we do is we don't see eye to eye. And one partner starts thinking, wow, my partner is crazy. And the other partner starts to say, I don't know what happened to my partner. I think they might be cheating on me. They're like a narcissist.

SPEAKER_01: 3:45

All they think about is themselves. And that is generally an indication that that's the head partner because head partners often know all we think about is ourselves and it's not it's not what hearts think it is it's not how it feels but it is often kind of a self-focused drive that heads have and so hearts can misunderstand that because they don't possess that in that same way

SPEAKER_02: 4:15

so there's some tells that help you to figure out am i a heart or a head in my relationship? Again, this is a range. It's not going to be 100% of the time. But for the most part, if you look at your relationship, are you more focused on being right, the facts, the logic of an issue? Or are you more focused on harmony and taking into account the other person's feelings?

UNKNOWN: 4:51

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01: 4:52

We were talking earlier about examples of this stuff because it helps. One of the examples that we use when you go to buy a car, the head partner, if you're the person that goes looking at what kind of car does this family need now, you tend to do that fact thing. You're looking for something that budgetarily fits the facts, that safety rating fits the facts of your family, gas mileage, and all the other things that people look at when they buy a car. Heads tend to take that very logical, oh, this is the best vehicle based on my list of X number of facts, whereas a heart tends to be guided more by how they feel about things, how they think the kids will feel about this car. One of you takes on that head role, one of you takes on that heart role, and that's where buying a car turns into a real potential argument amongst couples.

SPEAKER_02: 6:02

Another example would be that heads are wanting appreciation for the things they do. Hearts are looking for appreciation for caring. And so you might find a couple where they're talking about the in-laws, and one says, well, I Well, you were running away and doing the other stuff and not paying attention at all to their needs. Right, right. So two

SPEAKER_01: 6:45

different ways of doing it.

SPEAKER_02: 6:52

of looking at it, there is not a right or a wrong. You're both right. It's just we go about things differently and we need both in the world. From

SPEAKER_01: 7:04

the head perspective, you're both wrong. No, sorry, that's just my, no, there is no, Beverly is correct. No right, no wrong. You just do it differently. And it's really helpful to understand that you do it differently. And when you can understand that you do it differently, it kind of takes out Because it's easy to get hurt when you're at your in-laws and you're doing physical stuff around or whatever to help the in-laws and it's your partner's parents. And so they're sitting there hanging out with them. If the perception of that is you're ditching, you're ditching having to sit here with my parents and not, then the conflict can occur on, as Beverly said, on the ride home. Hey, I was doing all the right stuff. You were doing the wrong stuff. What's going on? Where were you? Yeah. Yeah. And it's where these conflicts come up because we just we filter it differently. We see the filters differently. You

SPEAKER_02: 8:03

know, it's funny because we see so many clients that come in and that's where this idea of heart and head really started was we kept having these recurring experiences with clients where they would come in and because it's all four of us in the room, which is very unique in the industry, and we would sit there and the heart partner would say, oh my gosh, we're on the verge of breakup or divorce. and everything's wrong and we're not talking and I don't know what's going on. Maybe he's cheating and I had to go look at his phone and I didn't necessarily find anything, but I was sure that he's talking to somebody and the head is just sitting over there shaking their head because they literally don't think there's anything going on or anything is wrong.

SPEAKER_01: 8:55

Heads are often oblivious to the problem.

SPEAKER_02: 8:58

They're like, she's crazy. No, Not all hearts are women, but a

SPEAKER_01: 9:04

lot of times. That's the common thing when you're dealing with a male head and a female heart. That's the common stuff that you hear. The difference for us was we also have dealt with many same-sex relationships and a lot of younger people relationships or even older couples, but it's more predominant in younger couples where you'll see that heart-led male and a head-led female partner. And that's really where we got into all of this. When you talk about, okay, where, why, why do you talk about heart and head? It's because we saw everybody else taking this path of the reason communications art is men and women do it differently. And we went, well, not really. And, you know, in other relationships where there may be, you know, same sex relationships or in a relationship where that heart and head is flipped, that rule doesn't apply.

SPEAKER_02: 10:01

One of the reasons that all of this is interesting is because even communication is might be a heart will usually talk in the way of saying, I feel. So for example, I feel to my partner that you aren't listening to me. I feel that we don't spend any time together. I feel that we just don't go out on dates. I never get to spend time with you.

SPEAKER_01: 10:52

Well, I think you're wrong because I have these particular facts that show that that's not the case. And this is the head perspective on it. When we communicate, we communicate from the I think realm of our brain, and the I think and the I feel realm of your brains is different and does it differently. So yeah, watch for the feel and think difference. Watch for the difference of direct and indirect. Heads tend to be very direct communicators. Hey, here's this, this, this, this, X, Y, Z, go. Hearts tend to be watchers. for what's going on with everybody that's involved and all the other people. And so they tend to be very indirect. Well, plus

SPEAKER_02: 11:40

we feel that you can read our mind. We feel that you must feel the way we feel. Therefore, this is something that I don't have to go into detail. And you should understand if I just beat around the bush and

SPEAKER_01: 11:52

say... I shouldn't have to tell you. Right. You should just love me right. I shouldn't have to tell you how. You should just know. A

SPEAKER_02: 11:59

lot of times when hearts are talking there can be a lot of words. And there's a couple of reasons for that. One is a heart usually is an external processor. And what that means is when I'm speaking to Randy, I'm the heart in the relationship, I have to speak externally in order to gather my thoughts around maybe how I feel about an issue or what it is I'm trying to get across to him. Whereas heads are very internal processors.

SPEAKER_01: 12:33

Yeah, we tend to take information very quickly in and make decisions just in a very internal processing way. This is why heads oftentimes will get quiet if they're working on a problem. Now, it's not always a problem if they're working on it quietly. Sometimes it's a problem at work or it's a problem with the car or a problem with my left knee hurts today and I'm going to think about why my left knee hurts today.

SPEAKER_02: 13:02

Because you're always solving problems. Right.

SPEAKER_01: 13:05

Right. And so it's quietly in our head fixing problems. This leads, Stephen, the challenges because it feels to the head like the heart is just always talking, just always talking about something. And for hearts, it feels like the head is completely isolated, never talks about anything and just holds everything inside. And suddenly we are two very different people and it's hard to find connection when two very different people are constantly together. It's tough.

SPEAKER_02: 13:38

Right. And so when we gave that example about me saying that we haven't spent time together and I haven't seen you and Randy went through this list of, well, that's not true. Here's the facts. We were here, here and here. There's so much disconnect there because when a heart hears that, we don't want to hear a list, right? Because some of those things on the list are just proximity, meaning that we were in the same room. We might have been at a friend's house and it was like six of us together, eight of us. And Randy will consider that a date night check that we spent time together. Hearts are very much into connection and attention because your attention and connection were on other people. I didn't feel like that was a date night at all. So we start to see this disconnect and that's where we start thinking that the head doesn't care. That they don't potentially love us in the same way.

SPEAKER_01: 15:01

I was putting my shoe on. She's going to tell me about how John at work was mean to her at four o'clock. And she starts with, this morning I was putting my shoe on and I was tying my shoelaces. And you know, I have those sparkly little shoelaces. Only to find out 48 minutes later, sparkly little shoelaces have nothing to do with the story. But I'm keeping track of all the facts because that's how heads kind of do

SPEAKER_02: 15:25

it. Plus you're looking to solve the problem. And none of this is a problem. I'm just venting. The shoelaces were important. because it started my day off on the wrong foot.

SPEAKER_01: 15:35

That must be the reason. One other tell for heart and head that's interesting is heads tend to be very future focused. Hearts tend to kind of live in the world of now.

SPEAKER_02: 15:50

I call it being. I want to just be with you. Being present, being in the moment.

SPEAKER_01: 15:55

Yeah, heads are kind of doers, chunk, chunk, chunk, chunk, chunk, looking to the future. What's next? hearts are beers they're kind of in the in the moment and i really like that actually beverly because if you spell it out it's b-e-e-r-s which is also beers um so that's cool um we do yeah i know uh we we look at that that future and and oftentimes our heads get so stuck in the future we get lost in the now and we've told the story before about looking at lake houses and i'm online looking at lake houses and beverly is like I'm never retiring with you to a lake house if you don't pay attention to me. Right now. Right now. And sitting on the other end of the couch, scoping out 20 year from now retirement homes. There's a lot of differences between head and heart and how you approach it. Neither is right or wrong. And we've already said it, but it's worth repeating. Neither of you is doing this wrong. You just do it different ways. And you got to learn. You got to understand. it so that when your partner comes at you, when a heart comes at a head with lots of words and lots of emotion, if the head kind of knows what's going on, they can be emotionally present and be there for their partner. It's not about who's doing it right or who's doing it wrong. It's about understanding what your partner's doing so you can hit those goals a lot easier and be a successful partner as a head.

SPEAKER_02: 17:27

And to wrap up for hearts, I would just say, Again, it helps to know the head and the heart because that example I gave of clients coming in and saying it's over and we're doomed and there's this huge problem. Sometimes hearts just don't understand their partner and the differences. So if a heart knew that, oh, this person I'm with, this partner is different from me, you might explore and ask questions and try to understand them better because truly when you have that communication, you start to see that, okay, it's not broken. We just see things differently, but yet that's okay. We can still connect. We can still be in love. All the good things is just going to be done in a way that's different than what we might have expected. It's

SPEAKER_01: 18:15

not broken. It's just different and that's okay. All right, everybody, that's the podcast for this time around. We'll talk to you soon. Check out The Couple's Rulebook on Amazon. The Couple's Rulebook. You can also check us out online We love hearing from all of you that are just jumping in. Just tell us hello and say hi, and we always try to reply back as well. Info at heartandheadcoaching.com. Info at heartandheadcoaching.com. Bye, everybody.

UNKNOWN: 18:55

Aloha.

SPEAKER_00: 18:56

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.