Heart Versus Head
A podcast that helps couples fight better and connect again.
Heart Versus Head
Avoid The Landmines
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What do you do that triggers your partner? What do you that causes them to blow up like a landmine? For Randy, it's criticism. For Beverly, it's looking over her shoulder. But how do you handle those things as a couple? How do you avoid the landmines to keep from triggering each other? Then, how do you defuse those things so you aren't always walking through a minefield? In this episode, we'll show you how to learn to laugh at yourselves a bit while growing together into more stable humans. #HeartVersusHead #AvoidTheLandmines
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, Randy Hampton and Beverly Craddock.
SPEAKER_02:Hey everybody, it's Randy and Beverly with the Heart versus Head Podcast.
SPEAKER_01:Welcome everybody. What are we what are we talking about today? Beverly, I heard we were looking for landmines.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, they're everywhere sometimes, right? You fell in one the other day.
SPEAKER_01:I I did. I tend to step on a lot of landmines. I'm I'm not very smart, but I am trainable, darn it. Landmines in our relationships, what are the things you do that triggers your partner? What what what of their landmines do you step on? Some of them are pretty basic and pretty minor things. Examples, um, you you have a trigger if I stand behind you in the kitchen.
SPEAKER_02:Yes. My trigger, my story, is that when I'm cooking or and it's not just actually cooking or or in the kitchen, it can be actually a lot of different places, but tends to happen frequently in the kitchen. Uh Randy, as he's probably mentioned on previous podcasts, is more of a chef. I was kind of more of the quick and quick and efficient, get the food done, not so worried about the quality. So when I'm in the kitchen cooking, and when Randy has a tendency to come into the kitchen but yet linger, I I have this feeling of a presence kind of looking over my shoulder. I am shorter than he is. And when that feeling comes over me, I used to get very angry and I would say, get the heck out of my kitchen. What are you doing?
SPEAKER_01:That wasn't actually what she said. Um but yes, yeah. She clean up she definitely wants me to. I said, get the hell out of my kitchen. Okay. I don't curse. That's that's true. I'm I'm the sailor in the family.
SPEAKER_02:You make everybody think I'm a weird cussing.
SPEAKER_01:I'll match your cussing. Yeah, yeah, that's colorfully. I have to be aware of this this trigger, and I I've become aware of it too, but we were talking about these triggers because we we we see them regularly and what we want other people. Yeah, we see them see them in clients all the time, and what we want to talk about is kind of where do these triggers come from and how does heart and head play into it? For those of you that have been listening for a while, we take a heart and head approach to things. Hearts are the partners that are kind of watching to make sure everybody's okay, taking care of everybody else in their decision making. The head partner is the one that is logical and tries to take a black and white right or wrong approach to things in decision making. And these relationship styles determine how you communicate in your relationship. So that's what we focus on, uh, heart versus head. Beverly is the heart partner in our relationship, and I am the head partner. So as heads, we have to kind of logically become aware of what triggers our partner. But we also have to be aware we're we're maybe not responsible for it either. But where where do you want to start in this discussion of triggers, landmines, Beverly?
SPEAKER_02:They can be all kinds of things. We we we're gonna work on uh probably break down this this one with the kitchen. Uh maybe let's let's use another example. So uh Randy's got a trigger for criticism. Probably have heard that in previous speech. I do not. I'll let him tell his story. So what's up with criticism?
SPEAKER_01:See, but I don't have a trigger for you telling my story. I have a trigger criticism. So I'm kind that's Beverly has a criticism for me telling her story. You may have caught that earlier when I tried to tell the kitchen story.
SPEAKER_02:I'm respecting you. Actually, we had a trigger on the way. Tell the trigger today on the way to the library.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, so so today we were we were walking to the library up the street um to return some books uh because we read. And as we were walking to the library, Beverly had mentioned, I want to walk slowly. My knees bothering me today, and so we walked a little bit slowly. However, Randy has a bit of a trigger for a couple of them now, too. Yeah, annoying people. Uh and so, like, there would be a car that would be waiting for us. In the crosswalk, you know, so I would kind of speed up. He always tries to and try to drag Beverly along with me, and then there then wait, he's he's so it's like he's trying to I'm telling the story, but no, oh never mind. Sorry, I just uh in your way. Maybe I am triggered. I uh there was this couple in front of us, and they were very, very slow, and they were aware that they were slow too. So this guy, it was all I don't don't I don't know, grandpa whoever waited for us because we were younger and we were gonna, you know, he he in his head had us passing them, and so I I was trying to to to pay attention to that and pass him, and Beverly was having none of it.
SPEAKER_02:Right, because I had fully told you the expectation that we this was a slow walk and I was not walking faster than them. I I didn't know how how slow, but anyway, so I Well they thought you were walking faster because you were running in the crosswalk.
SPEAKER_01:That may be true, but I was trying to get out of the way of the car.
SPEAKER_02:Well, he had to wait for me anyway, so you wasted your time.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, so you see how triggers work in relationships. We all have them, we all have these moments in our relationships where our partner does it.
SPEAKER_02:Well, you missed the second trigger. So then we're debating the same debate that you're hearing now is being replayed because it also happened in real time on the way to the library, where then he was like, What's up? And I said, I told you I'm walking slow and you can run all you want, but you're still gonna have to wait for me.
SPEAKER_01:And then I said, Okay, you're right. I get it. Sorry, I'll slow down. I am fine walking behind these people.
SPEAKER_02:And then I continued to explain.
SPEAKER_01:You triggered me by continuing to explain what I had done wrong, yes. Right, yes, six times.
SPEAKER_02:And I'm like, I know, I know, but I was doing it to make a point that you were triggered.
SPEAKER_01:So I know that you were doing this was the podcast. I know. And so there I was triggered, and um, she was triggered, and it was a great podcast.
SPEAKER_02:It was a discussion.
SPEAKER_01:It was it was a good podcast discussion. It was a fun walk to the library too. A beautiful day. So we appreciated that. Nice, nice breeze and nice and cool. Um love winter in Hawaii.
SPEAKER_02:Uh back to what we do. Yeah. Right. What goes on. Okay. And there can be other triggers. Uh, I just wanted to get mine and yours out there. And then uh just so maybe listeners can uh find this more relevant if if those things aren't triggers. There are a ton of triggers around when hearts tend to feel like we're not heard or we're not chosen or um we're not understood. Uh sometimes we just need closeness. If we feel like we're we're pushed away, those can be triggers. Heads, some common triggers would be if something doesn't make sense or like it's irrational, or if they feel like they're being blamed, I think that's the criticism one, or or if there's a lot of problems and there's just no solution, they can have a significant trigger for incompetence as a is an ENTJ personality type.
SPEAKER_01:I I I don't deal with people that can't do do their job. Um cooking. Yeah, it fires me up. So yeah, well, no, I I'm I know I'm better than that. I'm I'm smarter than that. It is not you cooking, but I was uh I was a tough manager, yeah. So, you know, yeah, we all have different triggers. We all have triggers for for things. I was probably a tough dad too. Sorry, kids.
SPEAKER_02:So a lot of our triggers uh come from you know something that happened prior. It's usually not our partner that created this this trigger. So I think we all pretty much know past relationships, maybe growing up. If you think about it, it's not that hard to figure out triggers. I know right away that the the one in the kitchen standing over me was my dad. You know, when I was a kid, uh he was very particular on the farm that things had to be done a certain way, which, you know, it it makes sense. You know, if you're putting fertilizer in the ditch, you don't want to put too much or too little.
SPEAKER_01:That that's an actual story of putting too much fertilizer in the ditch.
SPEAKER_02:Well, yeah, I was probably like 14, a young teen, and and and my dad is requiring that I do this while he's on the other end of the field doing something else related to it, and I agreed to it, wasn't very happy with it. I'd much rather be home doing something else. And so while I was doing it, it was a very boring and tedious job. And so before I knew it, to make it fun, as hearts do, I turned it into like sing my song, and then I was shoveling to the beat, and apparently my beat was way too fast. So my dad's clear on the other end of the field, and he looks across just to see how I'm doing. I'm like double speed, he's like, holy cow, she doesn't listen, she's gonna kill everything, so he has to get back in the vehicle, drive all the way back over there, and then you know, what the heck are you hell are you doing, right? And uh and I would get in trouble for those things.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, so me standing over you in the kitchen equates to to dad yelling at you over fertilizer. I I I see kind of the correlation, and you can kind of see where the triggers come from. She doesn't like somebody standing over her telling her what to do because she got in trouble, and that's also you know, that that's a trigger.
SPEAKER_02:That happened a lot too. Well, sure.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, me too. Um yeah, we were we're we were all kids growing up and and kind of I wasn't a the best farmhand, what can I say? Yeah, well I don't know money a lot of 14-year-olds that are the best farmhand, but um you also had your moments where you were the best farmhand, so yeah.
SPEAKER_02:I mean they couldn't have done it without me.
SPEAKER_01:So I I guess it all works out uh i in the end. So how do we resolve triggers? I mean, we all have them, we all have these experiences. I mean, I even notice it in the way you talk about the trigger. It's funny. I'll probably go back. In fact, I'll I'll I'll do a little edit in this here in a minute, and I'll play how you talked about how that makes you feel when I stand over you in the kitchen, because there was an interesting thing. You described it as if it was an eerie presence of Satan himself, very, you know, evil kind of thing. And I'm like, whoa, because I don't think that's what your dad was going for. It's certainly not what I'm going for in the kitchen. Right.
SPEAKER_02:Well, that's a distinction we need to pull out, right? Because hearts very much will uh feel triggers, they're they're not just words. So I think heads, it's the words, sometimes tone, maybe, uh, attitude perhaps. But for hearts, we're all about facial expressions and timing and and the presence, the way that that feels huge when it comes to heart triggers. So even just a look, I know when I say used to say to Randy, hey, can I have five minutes to ask you a question? And and he would look at me and then look at his phone, and I'd say, without your phone, and then I'd always get the eye roll, right? Well, the eye roll was more painful than than even words right there, right? Because your words would have probably been okay, or you know, it's so hard to say.
SPEAKER_01:I'm now actually actively trying not to roll my eyes right frickin' now. You're doing well. Oh, thank you.
SPEAKER_02:So, so what what we just went through there is number one, know where your triggers come from, that it's not your partner. Randy does not intend to cause that havoc. In fact, you know, we talked about it earlier that there's a lot of positive things that he's trying to do. Maybe when he lingers into the kitchen, maybe he's trying to figure out what I'm doing, or or maybe he wanted to provide a suggestion. Again, I'm not the chef. Um, maybe I'm do I'm usually so creative with my cooking that sometimes he's just puzzled and curious as to a new technique. Or wow, does that work? Is that gonna taste good? So a lot of it's not about me. And and I don't think of those things.
SPEAKER_01:I'm sorry, I'm over here laughing at you calling it a technique.
SPEAKER_02:I invent things all the time.
SPEAKER_01:I'm not sure it's a technique, it's a just it's a Beverlyism.
SPEAKER_02:You said my steak the other day was way better than your steak.
SPEAKER_01:No, no, no. I don't know about way better than mine. You made a good steak, it was it was delicious. Anyway.
SPEAKER_02:So, anyway, long story short, is when I realized that this isn't Randy, this is my dad, and it's not fair to Randy, and so forth. Over the years, we've had these conversations. So, communication is key, knowing your triggers, knowing that your partner isn't the source, original source. So, therefore, you're it's unfair. You know, these landmines, uh it's kind of like ones from the army that are just left for years and years and years. My little metaphor story here. And you know, unfortunately, now sometimes hikers go along and they find them.
SPEAKER_01:Luckily, no one's set one off, but oh, people actually have set them off here here in Hawaii. We have a bunch of unexploded ordnance on you know certain beaches and things where they they kind of know some of that exists. And anytime somebody finds one, they have to rush the bomb squad and the the military retrieval guys out there to to clean stuff up, but they have had people that have set them off and blown themselves up.
SPEAKER_02:So sorry, we sorry listeners, I didn't know that.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, but that's okay. It's uh I don't think there's anybody that we know personally.
SPEAKER_02:It's just graphic. So anyway.
SPEAKER_01:Well, thank you, Princess Diana, for your your continuing quest to get rid of landmines on the podcast.
SPEAKER_02:Um, so basically, that's why we're we're talking about them, we're referring to them as landmines, right? Because you didn't cause them. Randy didn't cause this, and yeah, they got laid, they got laid down in battles long ago. And they're you can't see them, and you don't know they're coming, you know, unless you figure this out, communicate about it. And for me, then what changed is I used to, you know, say that, get the hell out of my kitchen thing, but now I'm not angry anymore. I just say that wouldn't be you standing over me in the kitchen, would it? Or, you know, are you lingering in my kitchen? And that's just enough to let him know, get the hell out.
SPEAKER_01:Right. That's that that should be my spidey sense kicking in there because I know there are landmines. I'll be walking along. I'm not I'm not trying to get my leg blown off, but I'll be walking along and getting a seltzer, yeah. Just yeah, grabbing something out of the fridge or or whatever. That that was always creating PTSD for me, uh, and probably for you too. So it's best if you're able to talk about these. I think that's why Beverly and I are having this conversation today. We can do it in a way you hear the back and forth, you hear the challenge of it, you hear where these triggers are, where they come from, and the fact that we both have them and that we get in arguments when we walk to the library. But what we hope this podcast all along is doing is helping you find the places to talk about these things, to have these conversations. Because if you and your partner can sit down and have a conversation like this one, maybe eventually you can learn to laugh about your own crap too.
SPEAKER_02:Right. And I think the the thing that happened on the way to the library, just to go back to Randy's trigger, and we had already picked this topic, and so I was kind of poking the bear, knowing that I had hit one of these landmines that I was already aware of. And instead of just backing off and letting it go, I was actually poking at it to to kind of make this point and to just see, and and we're we're scientists too, to kind of see what what Randy would do. And of course, he he got more irritated with me. So things that don't work is saying to your partner, you're overreacting, right? Uh any kind of criticism right there, pointing the finger, that's not going to be helpful.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, generally does not solve the problem.
SPEAKER_02:What would maybe help sometimes reaching out at a display of team, you know, reaching out, maybe touching their shoulder gently or or apologizing, or uh that wasn't my intent, or some kind of acknowledgement in that way. That that could be helpful, although some people have physical triggers where they don't want to be touched. So that depends on the situation. You would have to communicate about that.
SPEAKER_01:Well, I've I've certainly found that it's pretty darn easy to go, oh, sorry, didn't uh you're right, I'm not in your kitchen. Not my intent. At all. I'm over here grabbing seltzer. Bye bye, run away. It's okay to say you're sorry for it. It's not that big a thing, you know. Okay, boop, sorry, didn't mean to bump into you, didn't mean to set you off, didn't mean to create PTSD, didn't mean to create fear, anger, any of these other things within you, just my nasty habit of looking over your shoulder when I'm walking through the kitchen, because I like watching people cook.
SPEAKER_02:So back to the library. So as I was poking the bear and just kind of testing some things, one of the things that I kept doing when he said that I said the same thing five times was I was arguing facts. So I became very head-led in that moment because he was emotional, he was triggered, getting angry with me, and I was bringing up more facts. Well, I said this, and then there was this, and I was going back to logic, and I was trying to prove the point, and that never works. So, what's underlying all these things is safety. Who knew? You gotta be safe.
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely have to be safe. We talk about safety. We're not talking about, at least not in this particular episode, we're not talking about physical. Yeah, this isn't this isn't violence, this isn't you're unsafe or or you can't open your mouth because your partner punches you, or or those things. That's not this. This is about being emotionally safe enough to explore triggers with your partner, and so you've got to do a bit of a job to make your partner feel safe enough to have these conversations without the landmine going off. Because what you're trying to do is kind of what the military or the bomb squad ends up doing. They go out there to try to diffuse the landmine. And you can diffuse the landmine. When Beverly and I were able to talk about the kitchen landmine, we found a way to diffuse that with maybe a little humor, and no, that's not you standing behind me, and of course it's not me standing behind you. And that trigger no longer blows up. Same thing as we're walking from the library being able to talk about it.
SPEAKER_02:And we obviously talked about it when we're not triggered, when we do feel safe after the event, and that that is uh what we recommend for couples is to take a pause when when everybody's feeling safe again, connected. Then you can have this conversation and you can include not only I get triggered when these things happen, so avoid that, uh, but it's also, you know, what you could do to help me would be this or that. And that's where a partner might say, a touch on the shoulder would be nice, it's it's that connector, that team. Maybe that's what makes that person feel safe. It's really our nervous system that goes crazy when we get triggered, and we're just really all looking for the ways that we can reset and get back to a state of calm.
SPEAKER_01:And and yeah, just provide a little bit of safety. And I I will announce sometimes when I walk into the kitchen so I don't end up lingering, so I'm just kind of letting you know I'm there. And and and we do a pretty good job of of defusing the the triggers. It but it does really come down to safety. You've got to be you've gotta be safe and you've got to make sure your partner has the safety, and then be able to sit down and talk about it and be like, okay, where's that come from? And and help your partner recognize that maybe what that trigger is, maybe that criticism that I was responding to wasn't really something that was coming from Beverly, and it wasn't her intention to be critical. It was just life, and it set off a trigger of all the other times in my life where I feel not good enough, and that makes me an anxious human, and all those things. Safety is the key, discussion is the key. And as we wrap up, anything you want to add, Beverly.
SPEAKER_02:It's it's great to talk about these things, all of our Podcasts are around communication. That's what we're all about. We're communication experts helping couples to work through these things, to fight better, to communicate better, to get on the same page, and that will bring connection into the relationship. So lastly, I would say that it's it's not always possible to talk about triggers in advance. So a couple maybe starting out a couple years in, they might sit down and say, okay, well, what are your triggers? And and we might know some of them, and that's great that we can definitely use that that time to talk about it. Other times triggers are just gonna come up and we're gonna have to talk about them after, which is fine as well. So what we need to do is have that that safety where we feel like we can be vulnerable with our partner, we can share those those tough parts of our life and see it as a team where you're gonna have my back and recognize that we're not broken. These triggers are just signals, they're not flaws. Really, the landmind idea is as uh a fun topic for this this podcast, however. Really, they don't need to cause harm for our partner. We want to really avoid that by using these solutions and and techniques.
SPEAKER_01:That is the podcast. Don't forget, uh please uh tell your friends. We we appreciate when you share podcast episodes uh out there on your social. Like a podcast, comment, uh, thumbs up, subscribe, whatever it is on the platform you use to catch this podcast. We appreciate so many of you being out there, having a lot of fun doing it, and trying uh just to get through our relationship and help people see you don't have to blow your partner up all the time. That's the podcast for this week.
SPEAKER_02:Trying to get through your relationship.
SPEAKER_01:We're trying to get through our relationship without blowing each other up. Okay, well, maybe that's maybe that's a head way of looking at it sometimes.
SPEAKER_02:I'm trying to connect with you.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, yeah, that's right. Yeah, you're you're trying to connect. Okay, well, I'm trying to survive. Okay. Um the the welcome to Heart versus Head. Yeah. Uh we will we will talk to you next time. Next time, a a very special Valentine's Day.
SPEAKER_02:Anniversary.
SPEAKER_01:Uh anniversary of the podcast one year. Um, so go su go check out season one, bunch episodes in there too.
SPEAKER_02:We'll try to make it special next time.
SPEAKER_01:Next time special anniversary podcast, uh Valentine's podcast next week, so we'll have that for you. Thanks everybody for tuning in.
SPEAKER_00:Aloha. Thanks for listening to Heart versus Head. You can learn more at Heart and Head Coaching.com and check out new podcast episodes every Wednesday. If you have a question for Randy and Beverly, send an email to info at Heart and Head Coaching dot com.
