Heart Versus Head
A podcast that helps couples fight better and connect again.
Heart Versus Head
Fix You First
Is everything their fault? Even if it is, if you focus on fixing your partner, you'll end up wasting a lot of your energy. In this episode, Beverly and Randy explore why focusing on yourself will generally yield better relationship results. #HeartVersusHead #FixYouFirst
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.
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:Hey, everybody. This is Beverly and Randi with Heart vs. Head. Welcome to the podcast. Today, we're going to talk about these conflict cycles. When we talk about the cycle, about being stuck, how do we get out of this pattern? It's this recurring fight, it's over and over, and we just can't see the forest from the trees. In our book, The Couple's Rulebook, which for those that are new listeners, we wrote in 2018, published in 2019, it's on Amazon, The Couple's Rulebook, Randy Hampton, Beverly Craddock the authors, of course. And the reason we wrote our own book is because working with so many couples, we found that there was something else going on. And this whole concept of heart versus head, how we make decisions was developed. It's something that no one else talks about. And it really is the foundational root of everything. So today, we're going to break down how to stop having these fights. And one of the chapters in the book, number six, is called Fix You First.
SPEAKER_01:Fix You First.
SPEAKER_02:The reason this is today's topic is because couples need to look at what they're doing individually in order to fix the problem relationally. So I'm going to start with a little excerpt from the book, and it's about a story from Plato's Symposium. And it was really about how humans were once complete beings without needs. And that completeness challenged the power of the gods. The gods decided to split humans into
SPEAKER_01:two parts.
SPEAKER_02:That you would find that partner, that opposite, and in doing such, we would then be whole.
SPEAKER_01:And this is the concept of the soulmate. You are searching for the other half of your soul that the gods have scattered amongst the world for you. And so it gives people this concept of soulmate.
SPEAKER_02:Which I think over the years, Randy and I have debunked a little bit from the standpoint that your soulmate isn't one person. It can be a multitude of different people. It's really kind of that opposite, which is, again, the heart and head that we talk about throughout this podcast. So today, I want to focus on, okay, so back to hearts and heads. Today, we're talking about Fix You First, which is individually what must happen in order to get these conflicts and fights to be more productive.
SPEAKER_01:You're really learning a lot more. This is true with fixing yourself. As you begin to go through these processes of working on you, the individual, not the relationship you, not the you you, but the individual you, as you begin to work on all these things that are triggers, you begin to work on all these things that are junk that you're carrying around in your life, as you're working on all this stuff, you're You're learning about what it is to be human. You're learning about how to have compassion. You're learning about how things get misinterpreted in our life. And when you learn those lessons, you're also able to then extend them to other people. So fixing yourself, working on you gives you insight. It lets you see what that other person might be going through too. And that can be useful. Empathy is incredibly important in our relationship. So just work on yourself makes you more understanding of your partner.
SPEAKER_02:So basically in a relationship, there's kind of this mirror element where because we're opposites, we tend to challenge one another. And what it's meant to do is remember, go back to Plato, we're supposed to be whole. It's meant to help us to grow in ways that make us more healthy. However, what tends to happen is couples do challenge each other, but in ways that we fight and downgrade each other, and that is not helpful. One of the reasons for this is that hearts and heads are complete opposites. Hearts, they're looking at the problems in the relationship, the way they feel is they feel rejected, they feel abandoned by their partner, they feel alone. And this makes total sense for a heart because hearts are looking for harmony, connection, and bonding. So when they are with their partner and there's conflict, that is threatening that closeness. And so that is a threat. They'll drag their partner in for couples work. They'll say, we're about to break up. And what's so interesting is every time we look at the head, we say, okay, what's your take on this? And they say, we're fine.
SPEAKER_01:There's a problem? I didn't know there was a problem. Heads are generally oblivious to Dr. Justin Marchegiani And the head looks at the heart partner and goes, okay, you're the problem because you're crazy. And you're just emotionally spinning out over here. Nothing is wrong, right? Because the head sits there and thinks nothing is wrong. And the heart thinks everything is wrong. And so we get spun out. But the solution, our brain thinks, is to fix the other person. The heart believes if they could just... grab us heads and shake us, darn it, we would just come out of whatever weirdness we're in and be back to being in love again.
SPEAKER_02:Never shake a baby.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, but shake a head. Holy hell do we need it.
SPEAKER_02:But the thing, hearts, it's the same thing with heads. Heads look at hearts and they'll come in and they're like, she's crazy, just work on her. I'll be over here doing my logical
SPEAKER_01:thing. Always. We're not screwed up. It's part of how we process the world and how we think our way through it. Heads are definitely the partner that comes in and goes, oh, there's not a problem. And hearts are desperate in needing to fix the problem.
SPEAKER_02:Right, because relationships, connection are everything. And heads and hearts can both be guilty of criticizing one another, which for a head, they can feel like a failure. Which forces them to go focus on other things that they're good at, which feels like more abandonment, more rejection, which further makes the argument in the heart's head that we're ending. This is over. This is the worst thing, catastrophizing.
SPEAKER_01:But all of that then creates the problem with the head because we see all the crazy. We see all the, oh, no. And because we don't sense all that stuff, we don't feel all those things that are wrong. We go, but there's not really anything wrong. If there was something wrong, we'd talk about it. We'd fix it. We'd logically approach it. Everything would be great. And you see the trap that you end up in is no matter how you dice this, no matter how you look at your relationship, the natural tendency of your brain is to blame the other person. And fix you first is about maybe just about recognizing that, about being able to say, okay, I see that there's probably some kind of flaw. If my brain just does its thing, there's some kind of flaw in how we're going to have this relationship. Maybe the better approach is to stay focused on me, to stay focused on what are these triggers? What are these things that make me crazy in my relationship? Because if I can work on that, not only am I helping me, I'm taking the pressure off myself. My partner, because that's important too.
SPEAKER_02:Right. So that's why we see actually a lot more hearts in our office, at least initially, because hearts have this tendency within. It's who we are as hearts to want that connection, that bond. And when we feel rejected or abandoned or alone, then we're going to want to fix that. So when hearts come in, what we do is we work with them individually. We work on helping them to understand what it is that they're going through, that a lot of these challenges aren't the end of the world. They could be just some growth and growth sometimes can be hard. But when we do grow, we do become stronger. And once they understand what their own expectations are, how they're projecting things onto their partner, they can start to have that individual self perspective where now they show up as more of a whole person and stop looking for their partner for happiness or relying on them to change. And once we do that, it's huge.
SPEAKER_01:That is huge because if you're putting the pressure on your partner, and this is really huge for heads. Hearts, if you're putting the pressure on your head partner to do better, to be better, whatever, to change, to pick up their socks, if you're putting that pressure on your partner trying to fix them, that in and of itself tells them that they're not good enough for you. And because you're trying to fix them, they're not good enough for you. And when you really truly understand heart and head at the core, what we understand is it is the hurt, it is the damage, it is the not good enough behind all of this that's driving all the problems in your relationship anyways. It's the fear, it's the not good enough that leads to infidelity. It's the fear and the not good enough that leads to conflict. It leads to fights. It leads to the arguments. You cannot fix that in your partner by trying to fix that in your partner, because when you try to fix it, especially in your head partner, when you try to fix it, you're saying you're not good enough for me and there's no safe space in that. to fix it in the relationship. Your partner cannot come to you with a sense of strength when they feel like you look at them as less than. This is the trap that heads end up in and why heart partners can help so much when the heart partner focuses on the heart partner. When you, Beverly, are focused on, okay, how do I make sure Beverly's not crazy? And I can focus on how do I make sure Randy's not crazy when we can each kind of take that focus and shift that back and go, okay, wait a second. If that's not our partner, if it's not Beverly screwing up this relationship, what can I change? What can I do for me? And this is where fix you first matters so much for heads because it does, it gives us the safe space to fix us too. We can't fix If you're trying to fix us. At least not at the brain level of it.
SPEAKER_02:from their vantage point. But it doesn't mean that that's all we see are hearts because once we work with hearts, hearts then start to make the change and then it becomes apparent that the head also needs to come in and work on himself or herself.
SPEAKER_01:Well, and it always leads to a place too, and this is the challenge for heads sometimes, I think. The work, when you begin to work on yourself, for heads, what we find out is, hey, wait a second, maybe some of our junk is what's messing all this up. Maybe some of our stuff does play a role in this. And maybe some of our stuff at the very core of it is the problem with relationships in general. When we work on ourself and when we can feel free to work on ourself, we as heads can finally find a place where we can be good enough. This is the big trap. You cannot fix your partner. You can't change them. You can make them believe in themselves enough that they want to change. You can make them feel safe enough that they want to talk to you about how they want to change, and they're not afraid to tell you, hey, I think I'm screwing this up. I think I'm screwing this life up because we do. We run down those paths all the time. Hearts and heads are no different in that regard. We are human. We do stupid, squirrely stuff, stupid things that make our brain happy, stupid things. We see it like addiction and all of those things, and you can't pull your partner And through their addiction, you can't make them stop doing that because of the core level of the addiction is something that they're hanging on to that gives them control. And you can't out-control the control. You cannot fix another person. You can be there with them. You can help them. You can't, as Beverly says all the time to clients, you can't ride their roller coasters. And cheer
SPEAKER_02:them on.
SPEAKER_01:It's exhausting.
SPEAKER_02:Be their cheerleader.
SPEAKER_01:Yay, go you, right? Go us, go you. But you got to fix you first. And if you think there's nothing to fix... That's something to fix because that in and of itself, if you think there's nothing to fix, no growth available to you, congratulations on your arrival at perfection. You got to fix you first, and we all need some fixing no matter where you are, no matter how tempting it is to be like, okay, I'm good, but that person that I'm with is absolutely freaking crazy. Look in the mirror and breathe. Okay, I want them to do better. I want my partner, I want my person to be awesome. But I can't make
SPEAKER_02:them awesome. And I was not feeling real connected to Randy. So I wanted to solve that. Connection, again, was everything. Hadn't really jumped into the couple's rulebook yet or any of those things. So I didn't really understand all of it. And as a heart, the number one thing is connection. I had it in so many areas of my life, my family, my friends, so many other areas, but I really was looking for that from Randy. It had been there in the Just through time, focusing on careers and other goals, I felt like we had lost some of that connection. So I sat him down, had the talk, and I had thought about, first I started with, you know, we need more connection. And so I think we scheduled a date night. That was great. But then that was a one time. So then I went back to him a second time. Okay, that was great. But really, I'm looking for ongoing connection. And we kept going down this path. And eventually, I would say, you know, what if every night before we go to bed, we take an hour, we turn off the electronics and just one hour a day. I
SPEAKER_01:only need an hour of your time.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. And if I just had an hour, then life would be great. And so I was looking to Randy, you can already tell based on what we've already told you that, again, I was looking to my partner to provide So this is
SPEAKER_01:where, as we have problems in a relationship, our brain goes, oh, well, the connection is missing. Maybe it's time. And so Beverly's approach was, okay, I just need time. Now, as a head, many of the head listeners out there are going, yeah, I've had that talk with my partner. Where in the hell am I going to get more time? Where am I going to come up with an extra hour? Because Beverly goes, I don't know. need an hour of your time. And I'm like, I don't have enough time. I don't get enough sleep. I have all these things and this stuff and busy and blah, blah, blah, and excuse, excuse, excuse, and rationalization, justification. Cat videos. Stuff. And so we immediately become, as Beverly goes, I need more time. We become stupid defensive. The amount of time that I've spent, I think, an our relationship, defending stupid stuff is vast, vast amount of time.
SPEAKER_02:Now I'm on my, you know, second or third attempt here to get some connection and being shot down in every direction I had. Really, when I came down to the one hour a day, I thought I was really going to solve this one. I thought, wow, you know, one hour, the other 23, I'm busy. I'm sleeping. I'm working. I've And I tried to make it easy. I thought, how can he say no to one hour? And when he got so defensive, my mind immediately went, wow, wow, I am not worth one hour of his time. I must not be a priority. He must not love me. What the heck is going on? I became very depressed. I thought that I was worth an hour a day. And I really let it impact the way that I viewed my own self-worth. And that must be how he views me in the relationship. So that ended up with some aloneness for a few days. I think we didn't speak. Each kind of sorting out in our own mind what was going on and individually what we were doing. And I think eventually Randy came back to me and said, okay, look, I can do this hour a day. I mean, I think we eventually settled on in the morning we wake up and maybe that second cup of coffee could be an opportunity to connect, to chat. And so we started putting that into the routine. What I think Randy learned from all of that is it technically wasn't even an hour. Yeah,
SPEAKER_01:it's not an hour. You've got to get the connection. And if you can get the connection in 10 minutes, whether thing i find is beverly and i connect when she gets that feeling of connection she goes okay i'm i'm good for the day i'm kind of you know fill up the tank and and off we go it it wasn't the hour the the time was a lie the connection was definitely not a lie these are the roots of where we came to the couple's rule book as we began to see these things in everybody's relationship where so many hearts out there are like what i just need your time you were so good i was such a I was all you ever thought about. And now you think about that and that and that and that and that and that and that, and I'm not a priority. And you hear it in Beverly's story of, I need an hour. She looks at it and goes, oh, you can't give me an hour. I'm not 1 24th of your world. And I hear that story and I go, my gosh, no, you're 25 24ths of my world, but I just suck at showing it. It stacks on the overwhelmed head and the head's like, okay, I got to figure out how to poop out an hour a day. That's going to be good. And then all you get is that resentful hour of the head sitting on the couch going, okay, I'm here for my hour. Like it's prison or something. Don't try to fix your partner. Stay focused on yourself. Create a safe space for them to fix themselves, for them to come and say, hey, I think I'm messed up too, and I want to work on me, but fix you first. And if you can always kind of lean back to that, we might have a chance.
SPEAKER_02:And for hearts, I would say, recognize that the problems in your relationship, the things that you're feeling are not as catastrophic as you think that they are. That if you really understand the differences, the opposite, then I think you would understand that neither one of you are broken. You just look at it differently. And when we work with clients, it doesn't take much, one to three sessions, depending on the person, the work. I mean, obviously people build on the work. They find something that works. They're all about that. It's amazing how just really understanding these concepts on a personal level, because everyone's different. You know, this podcast is great because we can give the generalities and those are super helpful. I hope you're gaining from all these tips. We also did one I want to talk about, though, individual work and it is something that can really move you and then your relationship to the next level. Recognize, hearts, that heads don't see conflict as catastrophic. They see it as growth, as learning. They view it as a testing ground, open discussion, that it leads to growth or even truth in the relationship.
SPEAKER_01:I've often said I like throwing hand grenades. You know, I like the chaos. That was my style in work was always kind of throw that hand grenade out there, blow somebody up metaphorically to push them to see how they can do at their limit, to see what they're capable of, to push them to give you that idea that they might not give you otherwise. So we see some as heads benefits in conflict. So, but that's a boy, that's a whole nother podcast topic probably someday.
SPEAKER_02:Right, because those hand grenades led to reactions from me like, we're getting divorced.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, they're not always a good idea. I didn't say they were a good idea. That's kind of how we do it. Don't do that, Ed. Well, do it better. Recognize
SPEAKER_02:your audience.
SPEAKER_01:Once again, probably a topic for another time. That is the podcast for today. If you You've got a copy of The Couple's Rulebook. Go check out Rule 6, Fix You First. If you haven't gotten a copy of The Couple's Rulebook, as Beverly said, it is available on Amazon. Rule 6, Fix You First. That is the podcast for today. We'll talk to you next time, everybody.
UNKNOWN:Aloha.
SPEAKER_00: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.
