The Four Horsemen

Here's a question worth sitting with: what if the thing that's slowly destroying your most important relationships isn't the big blowup, the betrayal, or the obvious stuff — but something you do so regularly you don't even notice it anymore? Something you probably did this week. Maybe this morning. Researchers who study relationships have identified a handful of specific behaviors that are so corrosive, so quietly destructive, that they can predict whether a relationship will survive — with over 90% accuracy. Not might damage. Will destroy. And the brutal part isn't that these behaviors are rare or extreme. It's that they're completely ordinary. People do them every day in their closest relationships and genuinely believe they're just being honest, or protecting themselves, or handling things the only way they know how. This Sunday is the final talk in our series and I'm going to name them. All of them. Fair warning - you're probably going to recognize yourself in at least one. Probably more than one. But knowing is the whole point.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

I don't know if you know, but I I have a team of volunteers who are coaches to me. So I present or build a message, do a bunch of work, and then I sit down with a coach and I preach it to him. This week it was Trevor. So if everything goes well, Trevor's to you can go thank Trevor and give him a hug. If something goes bad, he'll be like, I told you not to say that. Six weeks ago, I was sitting down with my tre or my coach, his name is Vince Fowler. I said, We're doing this series called Detoxification. I preach the whole message to him like my heart and soul. It's like everything I got. I'm preaching it. And as as we're going through it, I can I can see in his eyes, I'm like, hmm, something's not something's not going well here. And at the end of the coach, he's kind of takes a moment and he's quiet and he's like. So the series is called detoxification, right?

SPEAKER_02 0:53

Said yeah. But you haven't defined what's toxic.

SPEAKER_00 1:00

And I was like, You're right. Because it's not that simple.

SPEAKER_02 1:11

Just sit with that for a second. Can you define toxic behavior simply?

SPEAKER_01 1:22

First week we talked about how certain things that we do get stuck in people's long-term memory, and you'll have to deal with that for the rest of your life. Future you, I put a picture of old me on the screen. Future you will have to deal with those problems for a long time. I told you a story about I tricked Jeff one time. Got him say yes to something that he didn't realize what he was saying yes to. That's stuck between us for decades. Every time I'd be like, hey, let's do this thing, he's like, What are you trying to trick me with this time? So we know toxic behavior are things that get stored in people's long-term memory and future us has to deal with. We know that. But that still doesn't define what's toxic, does it? Next week I talked about bidding, this idea that the core way of creating relationships starts with this idea of a bid. A bid is anything. It's gonna be like this: hey Mars. Me and my wife do this. It's a bid. You can be like, hi Kennedy, how are you today? That's also a bid, right? Going in for a hug with someone. You ever go in for a hug with someone? That's a bid. The core of relationships, all relationships are built around bids. And the the beauty of the Gottman system is they say how you respond to those bids matters. If I go like this to my wife, and she just turns away. Anyone ever felt that before? I actually had Les. Remember, we had people doing these different um little kind of games. Les was a little kid, Dad, look at me, and they just turned away and pulled up my phone, and we all just went like this.

unknown 3:15

Oh, that's horrible.

SPEAKER_01 3:18

We've also seen people where you know, someone goes to the frog and someone's like, Why do you always do that to me? You come in without even asking. Turning against. So turning towards bids makes sense. That's not toxic. Turning against bids, toxic, probably, right? Somewhat, mostly. Turning away from bids, pretty damaging to the relationship. So, can you throw up the definition of toxic for me, Esmond? If we define toxic as this, our actions that get stored in long-term memory that people relating to that ends up destroying the relationship, turning away from a bid, turning against a bid will get stored in long-term memory. You will deal with this in your future. Lack of trust, lack of safety. Then Emily came along. She preached this idea of saying, wait a second, but you can look at people, they bid to you, you can look at them and you can see the emotion behind the bid. And if you match the emotion, it will feel good to the person. I'm not awesome at this. The reality is if somebody bids to me using sadness, oh, it's raining today. My natural reaction is to be like, great, we're gonna do something awesome in the rain. Because I don't like feeling sad. But what happens is that disconnect starts to get stored in long-term memory in the person, and they stop bidding, which means they stop building the relationship with me, which, as we've defined, is toxic. And yet sometimes I miss it. Sometimes we read the wrong emotion, sometimes we don't want to go to that emotion. Then I showed you guys how we are all there's a way of looking at the world through a series of boxes. Gobman's call it the emotional command system. I was talking to a friend of mine. He his partner is an energy czar. He's like, I can't stop seeing energy czar everywhere we go now. It's like every time she says something, I'm like, energy czar, energy czar, energy czar. Anyone start to realize? Wait a second, I tend towards this one, and the people in my life tend towards this one. Gets tricky, doesn't it? I used the Beatles to say, difference doesn't cause damage. How you manage difference, that's what matters. The Beatles, John Lennon and Paul McCartney, were very different. When they harnessed that together, it became a superpower. When they let it destroy them or tear them apart, it destroyed them. And we lost the Beatles. They owe us something for that, don't they? I said one of the things you can do with the people in your life, and it's strange this week. This has been coming up a lot. Why is that always the way? There's a way you can look at somebody and you say, I take you as my pain in the ass. Because when someone's different than you, sometimes they are a pain in your ass. When they're freaking out about something that you don't care about, you're going, uh don't poke anyone next to you, but y'all know what I'm talking about, right? Yeah. It's hard. Difference is hard. And yet there's a way to manage it that you become better than you are alone. That gets us to here today. To say, well, give it Vince. Back to Vince Fowler. You still haven't defined what's toxic, dummy. You told us the bits and pieces, but like, give me the list, give me the thing, give me the something. Well, here's the thing: toxicity is as unique as the people we are in relationship with. Let me show you. Imagine, imagine. So there's a underneath a social hole over there, there's a long hallway downstairs that's dark usually at night, especially in the winter. So imagine you're hiding in one of the alcoves there in the dark, and someone's about to walk down that hallway. Let's imagine it's Jeff Jarvis. Loves to laugh, loves to laugh. So as he's walking down that hallway, you in the dark, you jump all the throws his bags all over the place. He screams, and then he looks at you, and then he starts laughing, and he's like, ah, that was so good. Him and Carmen, those guys, sometimes they leave, they're still waiting there. I'm like, how long have you been here? 45 minutes. Still waiting for Jeff to come. Yeah, I'm gonna scare him. Okay. So just let me get this straight. This is a good thing, right? They're like, oh, it's so funny. Well, you love it. A jester walking down that hallway thinks that's the funniest thing in the world. Toxic? No. Now imagine somebody has high sentry. They're already nervous. They have their keys in, but you know, they're doing these with the keys. What's this thing where you put them between your fingers? Right? They're walking down there, you know, heartbeats like 600,000 beats per second. Someone jumps out, you jump on you like boom, and they're like, then they stab you, and then they scream all the way out the door in their car. They're still screaming and hyperventilating, and then they go to therapy for years. Toxic? Yes. This is why you parents, all you parents who had one kid, genius, right? You are your first kid, and you're like, okay, I'm gonna learn my kid, I'm gonna figure this all out, and you figure out what's toxic for them and what's not toxic, and you're like, nailed it. I'm like killer parent. Then some of y'all have a second kid, and you think to yourself, oh, I figured this out. I know it's toxic, what's not toxic, right? Doesn't work, doesn't it? Every parent's like, no, it doesn't work. Because what's toxic is as unique as the relationship dynamic. So I can't just say, hey, never scare people walking down the hall. Jerry, you know, Jerry double lung transplant, cut him in half, called him this week. He's like, hey Jerry, happy birthday. How you doing? Oh, they're reconstructing my nose. Now, when Jerry says that, he's not joking. There's chances are he's on an operating room table someplace and someone's cutting his nose apart. But he started it by saying, Can you please give me a clown nose this time? Let's try that again. Jerry's a jester. If you can laugh, he can you can do anything to Jerry. And so Jerry says to the surgeon, can you please give me a clown nose this time? Right. You know what he says? He's like, they didn't even laugh. It didn't care how his nose looked. He's like, they didn't laugh at my joke. What is this, Jerry? What is toxic is as unique as a person. In Jerry's case, very unique. So I can't just go, hey, here's a perfect list. Now, here's where part of a second part of Emily's message that's genius. Here's the moment. You come up with someone, they biders do something, and you respond. Now she taught us how to watch for emotions. If they also get really upset, you notice that now and you go, whoa, whoa, whoa, just hold on, stop, stop, stop. What just happened? I had that just happen this week. It happened over text, so you we lost a bunch of stuff. I sent it a message. The response back was like, is that text from me? I what's going on here? Right? You can tell something went wrong. Now, if toxic is defined as things that go into long-term memory, her genius is you can stop it before it goes there. Stop, stop, stop. What just happened? Slow down. Whoa, whoa. You're upset. What did you just hear? What did I just say? Okay, let me back that up. Back that up, back that up.

SPEAKER_02 11:39

It's the beauty of it.

SPEAKER_01 11:44

Now you're still thinking what Vince Fowler's thinking, right? Vince, give me the damn list. Well, there is a list, and Joe just preached it. Now here's the thing. This list isn't arbitrary. Remember, the Gottmans had this thing called a love lab. They brought in couples, and it works for everyone, but they brought in couples. They wired them up with mics, cameras, even heart rate monitors, see how much they sweat. And then they watched them. And sure, that's where they figured out bidding was the core of relationship building, but they saw something else. They saw four series or sets of behaviors. Now, here's the thing. They figured out that if you engaged in those behaviors as a couple, they could define whether or not you were going to be divorced in four years with a 90% accuracy. Think about that for a second. You invite John Gottman to your house for a dinner party, you're talking with your spouse, and he's doing one of these, and you're going, oh shit. Do we make it or are we not gonna make it? 90% accuracy. These four series of behaviors destroy relationships with partners, with your kids, for your kids with your parents. Your parents will take a lot more than anyone else, but it it yeah with your neighbors, with your colleagues at work. If you do these behaviors, there is a 90% chance that that relationship will end. There will be so much toxic stuff stuck in the long-term memory of those people that they will end the relationship with you.

SPEAKER_00 13:45

Just sit with that for a second.

SPEAKER_01 13:49

It's fine if it's somebody you don't care about or you don't even like. But if this is someone who lives in your house, this is someone on your team.

SPEAKER_02 14:01

If you don't want to lose that relationship, these four things are worth paying very close attention to.

SPEAKER_01 14:11

Now, as usual, I take I'm gonna transit, I'm gonna tell them to you, but let me do it this way. The Bible to me, actually, religion to me, is early psychology more than anything. It's less about some conception of a divine character and more about humanity, me and you in life. And so I want to tell you these four things through biblical stories so you can see them. First one, criticism. There's a story about a Mary and Martha. I told it a couple weeks ago. Two sisters. It's funny, I have an aunt, Mary, and another aunt, Martha. And they kind of get on like Mary and Martha. If you're listening to this, I apologize. Mary and Martha have Jesus and his students over. They're having a big shindig. Mary's hanging out with Jesus. Martha is like host, she is like nest builder. So she is like getting drinks ready, getting food ready. She's just like running. And meanwhile, her sister, who she lives with, is sitting there doing nothing. What are you feeling right now? So Martha pulls Jesus aside, which is funny. Jesus aside, you throw the quote up for me. She pulls Jesus aside and she says this to him Jesus, don't you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me. The criticism isn't towards Mary.

SPEAKER_02 15:35

It's towards Jesus. Don't you care?

SPEAKER_01 15:43

Not, hey, could you get her to help me or hey, you know, is this dinner party going the way you were hoping for? Like, is that what you're seeing? No. Don't you care? Criticism, can you throw up the definition for me? Criticism says this it's an attack on a person's core character or personality rather than a specific specific behavior. It just differs significantly from offering a critique or voicing a complaint. So when I talk about these things, this does not mean we don't bring things up. We bring things up because that's healthy. How we bring them up is the genius of the Gottman system. Start bringing up an issue with criticism. What happens? Just think for yourself. When someone does it to you, they start off with like you're an idiot or you're dumb or you suck or you always screw up. What happens? Yeah. Can you throw up the first list of examples of criticism so we get this in our heads? You never think about anyone but self. You're so completely selfish. Can you see the criticism? Attack on character. Next one for me, Esmond. Can you ever arrive on time or are you just completely irresponsible? Do not talk to the person next to you. I swear it will not go well. Next one. Can you see how these attacks? No, but but let's go deeper than that. Can you feel that in your mind sometimes?

SPEAKER_02 17:35

Someone in your life does something and you go right to, you are a bad person. You have a character flaw.

SPEAKER_01 17:49

Do you see why we started or ended last week's message with, I take you as my pain in the ass? Instead of going directly to this stuff, what you're looking for is you're going, wait a second. What if this isn't a character issue? What if this is a behavior issue? If someone started with this with you, like, are you just completely irresponsible and then they want you to do something? What are you gonna do? Are you gonna do with anything with it? No, you're gonna say, screw you. You suck too. So let's look at the healthy, the skillful way of dealing with it. Can you swell the first one up for me, Asmond? So I did the first one. You never think about anyone but yourself, you're completely selfish. Skillful way. I've been feeling really disconnected and lonely lately. I need us to spend 15 minutes tonight just catching up and talking about how our week's going. Does anyone have, I don't know if I can say it this way, pardon the male pun, have the balls to pull that one off? Can you feel the difference in how that would land? The first one, right? You only ever think about anything about yourself. Do you actually want to hang out with the person? No, you want to get away from them. The second one, I'm going, I'm thinking about it.

SPEAKER_02 19:08

Same issue.

SPEAKER_01 19:12

Totally different approach. Can you throw the next one up for me, Esmond? Can you ever arrive on time where you're just completely responsible? I get really stressed out when we're running late for dinner. Can we aim to leave the house by 6.30? Beautiful. Doesn't mean you're gonna say yes to 6.30. You might say, can we do 645? Can you say, well, can we start a little bit earlier so that we're not rushed at the end? But can you feel the difference? How you're not switching to I have to defend myself. You're focused on how do we do this? One more quick one, Esmond. I'm feeling anxious about her budget this month. Can we sit down tonight and look at our expenses together? Such a different approach. Can you see how criticism puts toxic stuff in long-term memory and haunts us? So let's go back to the story I started with. Martha talking to Jesus. Jesus, don't you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Don't you care? You uncaring Messiah, you again, in these stories, he's not that character. He's like, yeah, whatever. Don't you care? Okay, what's this what would be a skillful way of handling this? Just yell it out.

SPEAKER_02 20:37

Come on.

SPEAKER_00 20:44

Sorry?

SPEAKER_01 20:46

Yeah. What do you think she could say to Jesus to get more help? Perfect. Jesus, I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed right now. Is there any chance you could give me some hand running drinks? I bet you Jesus has got a pro serve license, right? Should be fine. Can you feel the difference with that though? Don't you care? Now he's on the defensive.

SPEAKER_00 21:16

Hey, would you help me? Can you see the difference?

SPEAKER_01 21:23

As we go through these, here's what I want you to do. Just mentally note which one is your kind of go-to. Oh, yeah, I like that horseman. Yeah. What did Joe Joe had one? Actually, me and Joe have the same horseman. Defensiveness. We'll get to that one in a second. Note which one you tend towards, which way your brain wants to go. Even if you don't say it out loud, what is your brain thinking? Okay. Next one. I think it's defensiveness, right? Esmond. Yep, defensiveness. Okay. Oh, yeah, there we go. Remember, I talked about the Adam and Eve story. I talked about it during the sins series, where one of the definitions of sin is this idea of a belief that there's something I lack, and if I could just get that thing, everything will be better. So the walking, talking serpent walks up to Eve and says, Well, if you just have this fruit, everything's gonna be fine. You'll be awesome. Life will be good. The sin there is lack. Now, let me go to the rest of the part of the story. The character God walks through the garden, which is always a funny metaphor. Uh, the character God walks through the story and sits them both down, is like, so I told you not to eat of the fruit. Did you eat of the fruit? And here's what Adam says. The woman you put here, she gave it to me some fruit and I ate it. It's like, did you fall and like land on the fruit? And it like uh went in your mouth, and you're like, I tried to spit it out. No. Can you just see the defensiveness? So then the character god looks at Eve and is like, Well, did you eat of the fruit? And she's going like this. It was a serpent. Did the serpent wrestle you down and shove it in your mouth? No. Let's put up the definition of defensiveness. I like it this way. This is how I define defensiveness. It's your fingers out before the conversation's even finished. Someone's like, Vince, I have some feedback for you. It was them. What are we talking about? I don't know yet, but it wasn't me. Second horseman, defensiveness, making excuses, deflecting responsibility, or meeting a complaint with a counter complaint to play the victim. Don't put up your hand. Any defensive folk in the room? Okay, let's put up some examples quick. Esmond, first one for me. Well, what about the this one's too? You say to somebody, hey, can you do this? Can you pick up the dry cleaning? Well, what about the time you forgot to pick up dry cleaning last week? Someone says, Hey, I need you to change something. And the reaction is, you're worse. You did that over there. Don't put up your hand, but anyone? Like, hey, I'm not gonna admit what I did wrong until all the stuff that I can point at is dealt with, and then maybe I'll think about it. That's defensiveness. Next one. I only forgot to text you because my boss completely slammed me with work today. Is that ever gonna fly? If your teen texts you that, is that ever gonna fly? And yet we do it, don't we? It wasn't me. It was a serpent. Next one. Sure, go ahead and blame me for how things turned out. I guess I'm just a horrible parent who did everything wrong. Disco, you could switch out parent, brother, sister, colleague, boss, whatever you want. It's the I'm not gonna take responsibility because I'm a piece of crap and I just am horrible and I probably suck, right? So another way to be defensive. So let's look at skillful ways. First one up, Esmond. Uh what about the time you forgot to pick the drug clean? Is that just me or is this common? Put it up your hand. Not for you, of course, and not for the person sitting next to you, of course. But if you heard this theoretically in your life, can you just put up your hand? Is this something you see a lot of in your life? Nothing, no one ever has anyone defensive in their life. You guys are all squirming. Liars. Okay, skillful way. Someone says you did something wrong, and instead of coming back, you say you're right. I forgot to dry clean your last night, and that frustrated you, and I'm sorry. Here's the part we sometimes forget. But right now, let's finish talking about this issue so we can fix it. The beauty of defensiveness is you can distract people. The skillful answer says, Oh, yeah, I I'm gonna own the stuff I did wrong. And we're gonna come back to the thing that I brought up to start with. You still broke a promise. You still didn't do what you told me to do. You were gonna do. Can you feel the difference? Next one for me, Esmond. I only forgot to text you because my boss uh completely slammed me. You're right, I forgot to text you. I got completely overwhelmed by work. I know this leaves you hanging when I didn't check in. I'm sorry. What would happen if someone said that to you?

SPEAKER_00 26:34

How would that feel?

SPEAKER_02 26:38

Someone sent me that, I'd be like, okay, I might be hurt, I might be a little upset, but thank you.

SPEAKER_01 26:47

Next one for me, Esmond. This is a funny one. The horrible parent. I can see I'm getting overwhelmed and taking this as a total failure. I want to hear your perspective without shutting down or making this all about my feelings. Tell me what you need from me. Any parent who's ever pulled this one off, just write that down. It's totally fine. You can just time out in the behavior, the conversation be like, hold on a second, I've got one second. Tell me if your boss, colleague, neighbor, friend, parent, child, whatever, did that second one.

SPEAKER_02 27:28

Where would that take the conversation?

SPEAKER_01 27:34

Okay, let's see what we've learned back to the Adam and Eve story. God sits them down and says, Woman, sorry, Adam, did you eat the fruit? He's pointing before he's finished the sentence. The woman you put here with me, she gave me some fruit from the tree and I ate it. What would be a better line? What's a line that's not defensive? Just yell it out for me. Yeah. Who said that one? Yep, that was me. Can you feel the difference though? Right? He's just going, yeah, I did it. I'm sorry. I screwed that up. The pointing does not help. Yep. Write that one down too, just so you know. When you're in that moment, you're about to be defensive. Yep, that was me. Okay, second or third uh horseman, stonewalling. Stonewalling is a crazy one. You can't define it in the same way. So there's a story about a guy, he's uh we define him as the rich young ruler, means he's wealthy. He comes to Jesus and basically says, How do I live a good spiritual life? Jesus says, follow all the commandments. There's a ton of them. This isn't just the Ten Commandments, whole ton. He's like, Yep, nailed them all. Perfect. Jesus says, okay, sell everything you have and come be my student. Remember, we know one thing about him. He's loaded. And Jesus says, sell everything you have. This is what happens in the story. He doesn't respond. He doesn't say, Jesus, that's really hard. Okay, wait, do you mean like pre-tax income I have to get rid of? Or like post-tax income? Like, what are we dealing with here? Like, where are my RSPs in this whole conversation? None of that.

SPEAKER_02 29:41

He just walks away. It's called stonewalling.

SPEAKER_01 29:47

Can you throw the definition up for me? Completely withdrawing from the interaction, shutting down, stopping responses, or turning away. This is we learned this already in bidding. The turn away is more damaging to the relationship than the turn against. Stonewalling is the action of turning away. Now, here's the thing though. Most people are not weaponizing this. Some do, but most people are not. Gobman's realize, because remember, they have everyone in a lab with like pulse meters on them. Most people stonewall because they are over, they're freaking out. They don't know how to deal with it. They don't know how to interact. They're going, well, I'm going to scream and yell, or I don't, I don't even know what to say. Whatever I say is going to be wrong, or the antidote to stonewalling is not a clever sentence that you write down in your phone and use next time you have a problem. The antidote to stonewalling is realizing, oh wait, I am getting overwhelmed. You know that feeling in your brain where it's like it's getting louder and louder and louder, and it feels like it's just gonna either blow up or shut down or something. The way you deal with this horseman is you realize this is coming. I need to stop this. Now it'll show up in a bunch of different ways. Can you just throw the list up for me? Stonewalling behaviors, avoiding eye contact, stone face, closed body position, monosyllabic responses, abrupt changes in topic, silent treatment, pretending to have something urgent to do, physical exit without a plan. It's like my playbook right there. That's great. That this remember, these are all things that will destroy relationships. Doesn't matter if you're a kid, your partner, your friend. So what you do before that, if you feel yourself going to the stonewall, you feel yourself getting overwhelmed. Just this week, someone stonewalled me. I was so mad. Then I heard my own voice saying, Vince, they're just overwhelmed. And I was like, son of up. I want to put an intent. They're doing this deliberately to hurt me. No, chances are they're overwhelmed. So what do you do? Your neighbor just cut down that branch of your tree, that's your prize tree, and it's over their fence. But jeez. What do you do? Gauman says, This is what you do. First, you notice that it's happening. Can you up the next list for me? Notice before you're completely flooded. Once you're flooded, you're screwed. Sorry, you're screwed. We know enough about the brain that once your brain's overwhelmed, it shuts off and you can't get it back for a time. If you think I'm just gonna let this go, I'm just gonna let myself get dysregulated, and then I'll handle this well. So, first thing you do is you take a break. You need 20 to 30 minutes. You don't just walk away like the British Young ruler. What you do is you say, I'm getting overwhelmed and I'm about to handle this poorly. I need like half an hour to just get my brain back online. I will come right back. And then you just walk away. Now, once you're away, here's what you do: there's you can do box breathing, belly breathing, any breathers. I'm a big fan of this. I was just doing it before I came up. It regulates me, calms me. Next one. Tense and relax. Hold your whole body just like this. And then relax it. What you're trying to do is you're trying to get your heart rate back down again, get your brain back online. So you can be like, wait a second, what's going on here? How can I be skillful? Next one. Temperature shock. This is why you splash cold water in your face. I bet you jumping naked into freezing water would also work. So if that's your thing, try that one. Next one. Go for a walk. Not as good as jumping naked into the pool, but whatever. Ground yourself. 54321. This is a way of just getting yourself out of the moment and looking around. Final one. Read a book. Here's what you don't do. You don't sit and mull over the conversation. Oh, I can't believe they said that. Oh, they're gonna see this. Stupid. Calm. Okay, let's go back to Jesus and the rich young ruler. When you're starting to feel overwhelmed, when you can feel yourself heading towards stonewalling, what is the way that you regulate?

SPEAKER_00 34:36

Is it breathing? It's going for a walk. Do you know yours?

SPEAKER_01 34:50

If you can see it ahead of time before you get overwhelmed, you have a chance of not just stonewalling. And again, remember that's the toxic stuff that gets stored in long-term memory that'll destroy a relationship. I have one last one, it's gonna be quick. It's the humdanger. This one is contempt. There's a story about King David. Remember King David of David and Goliath? Anyone heard of David and Goliath? Yeah. Famous story, right? Well, something good happens in his his kingdom. Assume it's like his team wins the soccer thing. What's the one? What's the thing we're doing right now? World Cup. World Cup. I nailed it. I got it. Come on. No judgment. You take me as a pain in the ass. It's okay. We're fine. King David's team wins the World Cup. He's like so excited. He like gets into his dancing clothes, which is like his gitch. And then they like he heads out of the town. This is serious. He heads out and he just starts dancing his butt off to celebrate. Like this is like red mile times a bunch. And his daughter, probably a teenager, sees him. And this is what the text says. It says, this is what she thought in her heart. She despised him in her heart. So embarrassing. Next one. How the king, so this is when David finally comes home. This is what his daughter says to him. How the king of Israel has distinguished himself today, going around half naked and full view of the slave girls, as any vulgar fellow would do. Here's the definition of contempt. Contempt is criticism with a layer of moral superiority over top of that. You suck. I'm better. You're not doing your work. I'm doing my work. Can you throw up the list of contempt statements for me? Partner tired after a long day. Oh, you're tired. Please. I've been running a household and managing actual budgets all day while you sat in meetings playing on your phone. You wouldn't survive a single day in my shoes. That's contempt. Can you feel the moral superiority? Next one for me. Friend chairs and accomplisher. They run, like they finished a 5K race. Eye roll. Any don't put up your hand, but the eye rollers in the room?

SPEAKER_02 37:11

Kind of a tail.

SPEAKER_01 37:13

Eye roll. Wow, look at you, a regular Olympian athlete. Do you want a gold medal for jogging slow or just a cookie? Next one for me. Bad idea. Did you actually spend time preparing for this or did you just put these ridiculous ideas out of thin air 10 minutes ago? Now, even if you don't say it, anyone think those thoughts?

unknown 37:38

No.

SPEAKER_01 37:44

When the Gotmans looked at this, contempt they called the saphiric acid for relationships. They said, On contempt alone, I can predict the end of your relationship. I can predict your kid will go no contact with you. I can predict predict that your boss will end your working relationship. I can predict it all on this one. And yet our inside voices are often thinking exactly that. So let's look at the skillful way. First one for me. After a long day, you saw the first one, like, oh. What if you said this? I know we both work incredibly hard and are totally exhausted by the end of the day. We both have pushed hard lately. Right now I'm feeling really drained and overwhelmed by the household chores. Can we figure out a way to split the evening tasks so we can both relax? First, who says that? Second, how can I make sure that I say that next time? How skillful is that? Here's the thing. Gottman's realized that when you look at another human being, if you say something negative to them and then you say something positive to them, those aren't equal and balance in people's lives in their relationships. In fact, you need five positive things to count to one negative thing. Go through your core relationships right now and ask yourself: have I got five positive things that I've said out loud to that human for every one negative thing I've said? The antidote to contempt is seeing the positive pieces. Not perfection, not all that. That's just another way to handle it. It's seeing, actually, they put away the dishes. Actually, they mowed my lawn when I was out of town. Actually, that guy normally hits out of the park.

SPEAKER_02 39:47

Just today, I think he's having a bad day.

SPEAKER_01 39:52

When I look at the five-to-one rule, I realize even if I don't mean contempt, chances are that's how it's coming across. Okay, so you're Michael. I want you to all embrace your like 14-year-old teenage girl. Your dad's just done something horribly embarrassing. Do not look at your dad if you're sitting next to him. What do you say? It's not this. It's not zip it. What do you say? Throw something else. Let's try this. Try and say five positive things. If David was your dad, five positive things about him dancing to the World Cup in his underwear on the street. Throw out something positive.

unknown 40:43

Look great in your underwear.

SPEAKER_01 40:45

Look great in your underwear. Dad bod nailing it. I love it. What else? What was that? Just be happy and won the award. Number two, love it. What else? This is hard, isn't it?

unknown 41:01

Let it out, man. Have your moment.

SPEAKER_01 41:03

Let it out, man. Have your moment. How about you dance good, dad? That's not bad. Okay, when we start asking, thinking, Dad, you have good hair, we're running out of problems here, right? Can you see how hard it is? Try this. Before you use a contempt statement of someone, say five positive things about them in your head or out loud, preferably out loud. Think of that. Before you say to your partner, hey, why do you keep not doing? I see you trying. I see you crushing it in this part of our relationship. You're an incredible this. I love how you handle that. This is beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 41:43

Now bring up the thing that's missing. Can you feel the difference? Okay, I'm going, I've gone long and ice cream is waiting.

SPEAKER_01 41:55

Let me wrap it this way. Just don't do these. I can beat around the bush all day long. But if that relationship matters to you, this will destroy it. Those four things: criticism, defensiveness, stonewalling, contempt. They will destroy the relationship that you want. Why do we care bigger? Can you throw up the model for me? We believe in this whole thing called this we call this our spiritual journey model. When we're in the eye against them, the bottom core, this is the horseman stuff. You're fighting against the people. You're not trying to figure out how to work together. You're going like, you do it. No, no, you screwed up. You have to fix that because you're making me upset. I can't do that when you're not catching my sadness. Eye against them. Next one up. This is what we've been trying to get you to. We. Have you ever been in a party where somebody, a couple just showed up, and you know they just had a banger in the car? Like they just were fighting tooth and nail. And they walk in and they're like, and their eyes are not smiling, and you're all like, that this I against them relationship sucks everything out of us. It takes everything from us. We become obsessed with that part of our lives. There's nothing left. When we're in we, and this is why I care so deeply about it. When our relationships are healthy, we have so much capacity for more. This whole idea of taking water, it rests on us having healthy we relationships, win-win, reciprocal, honoring. We're talking the Beatles, not John Lennon hating Paul McCartney.

SPEAKER_02 43:49

The Beatles.

SPEAKER_01 43:53

When you don't do this, your entire life gets sucked into the black hole of I against them. I want us changing the world. To do that, this needs to be healthy. And I don't know about you, but freaking hell. Being an eye against them sucks. I have a relationship right now that's a bit eye against them. I was dirt biking. I could not go fast enough to get that out of my head. It will eat you from the inside. May we be a skillful community with all relationships so that we have capacity to take water to the world. Amen. Let's ice cream. Thanks, everybody.