These Behaviors Are Slowly Eroding Your Relationship - Reverse Them Now

Do you ever wonder why your relationship(s) struggles so much? Why some couples seem effortlessly happy while you feel stuck, frustrated, or disconnected?

What if there are hidden patterns silently sabotaging your connection — and you don’t even realize it? 🧐

In this talk, we explore the subtle “death traps” that can quietly erode trust, intimacy, and love over time — and more importantly, what you can do to shift them.
You'll learn:
↠ 14 common relationship death traps and ↠ 8 ways to rebuild solid connection.

Are you ready to stop settling for tension, frustration, or distance — and start experiencing true closeness? What if small, intentional changes could transform the way you connect with your partner?

You don’t have to feel stuck. Watch now and discover how to protect, nurture, and grow the love you deserve! I believe in you both! 

For FREE Resources, Book Link, 1:1 Mentoring, KB’s Self-Love Merch Shop and more: https://www.linktr.ee/kristenbrownauthor

Chapters: 
00:00 Opening and inspiration
07:39 Stonewalling
08:22 Contempt
08:53 Unspoken resentment
09:54 Emotional neglect
11:50 Score keeping
12:42 Defensiveness
14:06 Assuming instead of asking
15:51 Passive-aggressiveness
17:22 Taking each other for granted
19:24 Emotional affairs
20:55 Not growing together
23:55 Control
26:03 Always the victim
28:54 Avoid accountability
33:08 Q & A
41:49 How to rebuild connection after fracture
42:29 Take radical responsibility
43:59 Repair - not react
46:09 Rebuild emotional safety
49:08 Reconnect through appreciation
52:39 Grow together intentionally
53:40 Practice emotional maturity
55:09 Reignite affection and presence
59:26 Forgive and begin again

Transcript

Kristen: 0:00

Relationships are extremely important. We all have them, we all experience them, and I believe that they are our greatest classroom. They are our greatest classroom because they help us to up level in ways that are serving to ourselves and to other people. So they are what is reflected back to us. So when we're in a relationship, not only is our inner world reflected back to us sometimes, where in the case of me, where I was not honoring and disrespecting and not protecting myself and my relationships were reflecting that back to me. But it also shows us where we can move closer to capital L love. So these are what relationships guide us to do. They help show us ourselves in many capacities, the ways that we could be showing up in a dysfunctional or unhealthy way that could be contributing to the greater problem. But also it helps us to heal ourselves because we will have the opportunity for who we are to be reflected back to us based on the treatment of other people. We've all heard the phrase by now, teach people how to treat you. And sometimes they're teaching us how we are treating ourselves. Isn't that crazy? I love it. So today I'm going to dive into relationship death traps, which means these are things that we could be doing in our relationships that we don't even realize how destructive they are. And what I've heard, my gosh, for decades is that resentment is the number one relationship killer. So many of these things, when left unchecked, are going to eventually lead to resentment, where the person is just, they just resent you. They're just like, ugh, just don't even want to be around you anymore. This is never getting better. This is way too difficult, way too hard. This conversation might open your eyes to a few things that you might be doing or could validate the experiences that you're having of somebody else. I'm not attached to what you pick up here by any means. You this is for you to factor into your life in whatever way it fits for you. I do hope though, if you recognize some of these behaviors in yourself, that you do not shame yourself. Shame does not serve anyone, ever, unless it's the type of shame where I did something wrong. You know you did something wrong and you need to go make amends for that thing. Okay, in that regard, yes. But when we self-shame believing that there's something bad about us because we're recognizing areas that we need healing, we're actually hurting ourselves even worse. But also we are blocking our healing. We're blocking our healing because a person who is deeply shamed often does not want to look at the facts, the reality, the truth of themselves because it is way too painful. So if you are recognizing some things about yourself in this conversation, just look at it as observance. Like I'm wearing shoes today, or I'm wearing a light gray sweatshirt that's really cozy. Just look at it through the observance perspective, not some type of judgment perspective, because that's only going to hold you back. And I don't want you held back. I come up here and have these conversations with you happily, joyfully, and totally inspired every single day for the most part, unless something else is going on in my world. But because I believe in you and I want you to heal, and these are my daily reminders to you that awareness is key. We cannot handle or deal with things that we are not aware of. So the more aware that we become of habits, dynamics, or patterns that we have, and we can be aware of the fact that it is destroying connection, trust, and maybe eating away at love, then we are actually changing trajectories. Right there, something has shifted in your life. Your mind has shifted, you have taken a new information, and it can start you down a different path. So steering away from self-judgment is one of the ways that we can do this the best because when we implement that in, it's going to hurt us. So I do again, I'm reiterating this again. Don't judge yourself if you're recognizing, oh, I do that thing. And I also know that there are no absolutes. And some of these things that I say you might be thinking, well, I kind of have to do that in this situation because this person is so toxic and so dysfunctional and maybe even abusive. I get it. Okay. This is not here for you to have to defend your position. This is for you to get more empowered and strong in who you are and recognizing what's working for you, what's not working for you, where you're kind of like, yeah, I do that. I do that sometimes, and I do do it as a form of punishment, and that's not cool. Whatever it might be for you, just a recognition. So grab a paper and pen, kick back if it's safe to do so. If you're not driving, if Steven's here, we know Steven's driving. So do not start to write and things like that if um it's unsafe for you to do so. So let's dive in. So I'm gonna go through the um death traps very fairly quickly because I do want to share with you how to rebuild the connection. Because it is 100% possible. When there's love involved and someone really wants to be there with us and we want to be there with them, there is this possibility of connection. Unless the relationship is completely over and fractured, you still have a chance. We, us and our people still have a chance. And sometimes the best thing that we can do is just shift some aspect of ourselves. Even if your other person is 80% of the problem, you by you shifting your 20, you're gonna change the outcome. Somehow that dynamic is gonna shift and it could lead you to additional healing in your relationship. I know that's shocking, but one changing one variable changes the sum of an equation. Think about it that way. Two plus two equals four. Two plus three, one variable changing, equals five. So you are gonna get some type of different outcome. And it's not always one and done. Let's just say that. We we change one aspect of ourselves and we're expecting this miraculous thing to happen from the person that we're dealing with, and it doesn't always happen that way. This is not about trying to keep score or trying to manipulate the system. Anytime we manipulate the system, we are in lack and we are in disbelief and of things changing. It's like, well, let me just change this so I can control this situation on some level. That's that's low vibes, guys. That's not the right energy. This is healing for the sake of healing because you love. That's it. Because you want your people to have a good experience for you. Again, you might be recognizing some of these behaviors that I'm gonna share. I'm sure you are. I bet every single one of you who are listening are gonna recognize some of these behaviors in some person in your life. Okay, aside from you, there could be someone where you're like, oh yeah, it drives me nuts when Bob or Trish does that particular thing. And I did put down here dating and family and parenting because those are the only relationship tags that we have. So when I say relationship, it could be any relationship in your life. All right. So let's dive in. Let's first talk about the emotional death drops. There is stonewalling. What is stonewalling? Stonewalling is shutting down, refusing to talk, or giving the silent treatment instead of working through conflict. Now keep in mind, stonewalling is usually an attempt at manipulation. When someone's doing it on purpose to hurt you, or you're doing it on purpose to hurt another person, there are times that we do need to protect ourselves and remove ourselves because this conversation is going nowhere, and we are refusing to engage in the same pattern again. So keep in mind when I mention these things, stonewalling is attempt at control or manipulation or an attempt to hurt another person. All right, the next one is contempt. And this is the eye rolling, the sarcasm, the belittling, demeaning statements. And eye rolling is extremely destructive. Not just eye rolling, I'm sorry, contempt. Just like, ugh, just like you disgust me. You're awful. You're ridiculous. Just over and over and over again does not provide a supportive platform for people. All right, the next one is unspoken resentment. Now I've spoken about that, and a lot of these can lead to unspoken resentment, but let's talk about the ones that are coming up that we're actually not sharing. Now, this is one of the hardest things for a lot of people is to actually be willing to share what they're feeling. And resentment is a feeling. So I am feeling resentful because you've promised me 12 times that you would stop doing that painful, destructive, or abusive thing, and you haven't. Now I'm resentful about you about this, and it's pulling, it's making me feel disconnected from you and like I want to pull back. See what I'm saying? So being willing to speak about your resentments, where you're starting, what you are feeling. Communication is is optimal. And I could go off, and I'm really trying to stay on track because I can segue off into any of these topics. But I'll tell you, communication is key and it's healthy communication. And starting by using I feel statements. All right, the next one is emotional neglect. And this means someone is physically present, but they're emotionally unavailable. They're not connecting with you on any form. And so, gosh, in that what what show was it? I think it was the oh no, it was something else I was watching about body language. Okay, yeah. I don't know what I binged like all kinds of informational things yesterday in the afternoon, afternoon, evening area. And they were talking about these two couples and this, or they were zooming in on just random people. And this this woman kept like, you could tell she was really trying to get this guy's attention and like it was her person, and she was like tugging at his shirt a little bit, and she was facing him, and he was facing her, but his arms were spread wide out on the railing that were next to the ocean, and he was just kind of looking away, and then eventually she just gave up. And that's kind of a form of emotional neglect. She was looking for com communication, or not communication, connection, and he was kind of like, yeah, no, you know, and so thank you. I just got a message on the back channel that said, love this stuff. Thank you. And I love you. Thanks for being here. Okay, so emotional neglect is also when people are not paying attention to you emotionally, like how you're feeling and what you're needing. Uh, it could also be that they just they don't tell you they love you or they appreciate you. You know, just there's just no emotion involved. It's neglectful, all right? That feels awful. And people, we want to be connected. That is part of our core. Our core is that we want to feel connected. That's how, that's how we feel safe and like we belong, which is one of our core, core needs on Maslow's hierarchy of needs. So if we are not feeling that, likely the person is going to move away and move towards somebody that they can feel that connection with. The next one is scorekeeping. And this is about tracking who did what, who hurt who last, or who owes something. And it's like keeping a tally sheet of all of these things. And I will say I've never been a score scorekeeper. Although a scorekeeper that was in my life was scorekeeping and accusing me of scorekeeping because they were projecting that onto me. It's like, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah. I I move on from things. I don't, I just, it's not me. I don't dredge up things from the past and keep throwing them at people. You know, I have mentioned past experiences as a means of evidence of a conversation we were in talking about, but it's never about the who does what thing. I just think that's um that's just not part of me. But perhaps you know somebody or you have been a scorekeeper in your past. The next one is defensiveness, and I'm highlighting this, I'm circling this, and I'm putting like 12,000 font italics on this one because defensiveness is really destructive. It's hyper destructive because you can't get to the core of things because someone is constantly defending. And defense can be very loud, it can be big, it can be it, it's it's a defense is an attack, by the way. Byron Cady says defense is the first act of war. And I've never understood that more than I do to this day. Because when someone gets defensive, they are ra, they're coming at you, right? And what does that do to our nervous system? It goes, okay, and now we tend to get back into attack mode because we now need to defend ourselves. Defense is the first act of war. When we choose not to defend and we choose to listen, and we could feel the defense rise up, maybe, but just not act on it, right? Just listen, just stay and listen, get curious. I'm kind of going into the how-to, so I'm gonna I'm gonna pause right there. Defense is extremely hard. It's a very, very rough thing for people to deal with because if the person is continually defending, you can't get to the core, and that's problematic. The next one is assuming instead of asking. I'm putting another big highlight on this bad boy. Assumptions make an ass of you and me. We all know that, right? Assume, ass, you, me. Get it the way it's spelled. If you've heard that for the first time, I'm sure you haven't. But assumptions instead of asking is believing you already know what your person thinks or feels, and then you act on the assumption. I cannot tell you how many times that I had acted on assumptions back in the day, before I read the four agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz. And one of the four agreements is never assume. Stop assuming. And as soon as I read that, it's probably 20 years ago, I maybe 15, I don't know, you guys. I know I was in my 30s and I'm in my 50s now, so I'm assuming 20 years ago. It feels like it was four years ago. It's crazy. But I remember that. I was like, oh, I do that. I assume. I make a lot of assumptions and I act on those assumptions. So that creates a lot of drama, everyone, because we're making an assumption. We we're believing it's real, we're calling it's true, calling it true, and then we're acting from that information. Big, huge problem. I've also been the recipient of this, and nothing drives me more crazy than when somebody assumes something of me and they're acting on that assumption instead of coming and asking me. I would so much rather somebody say, Hey, what did you mean when you said blank or you know, you didn't call me back, so I assumed this or this happened or that happened, whatever it might be. It's frustrating to me because I will be honest. You just gotta ask. Like if there's something going on in one of my people's minds, ask me. Ask me. And I do my very best to be a safe place for that because I know how destructive assumptions are. Okay, the next one that we're gonna take a break and bring up a guest. The next one is passive aggressiveness, another biggie. And this is expressing our anger towards something or someone through sarcasm, through withdrawal, or through subtle innuendos, kind of backdoor little things, talking under our breath, show, you know, just throwing little jabs at people. You know what passive aggressiveness is, and it is very destructive because you're not a person is not addressing the issue head on. They're just trying to hint their way around it. But what they're doing, passive aggressive behavior is destructive. AF, it is destructive because now your person is innocent, they have no clue, they're ignorant to what's going on, but now they're feeling this yuck coming from you, which is going to hurt them, which is going to feel destructive to them. And then they're feeling some kind of a way. Wouldn't it just be better if we spoke? And I know that's easier said than done for some people, especially people who are not in the practice of speaking openly and honestly. Um, the person in my cube popped out, so it might have been an accidental join. So if you I'm not ignoring them, guys, that they just popped out. Okay, so passive aggressive, that's a big, that's a big no-no. No no. The next one is taking each other for granted. This is big too, because when we when we just assume that person's always gonna be there and they're always gonna do the things, and we're not extending love to them by saying, Hey, I appreciate you. I see how hard you work, thank you for doing that. You're always so thoughtful, you're so kind. You know, when we just like, yeah, they're here, they're always gonna be here, and leaving it at that, that's that's problematic because the connection, again, is lost. And we as humans want connection. And I can say that when someone takes someone for granted, and I'm not condoning this at all, but that is one of the lead-ins to cheating because they don't feel appreciated, they don't feel loved, they don't feel wanted, they don't feel valued. And then in walks, mister Admiss it, mr. or miss, and they start to give that to that person, and their cup is so empty, they feel so unseen and so unvalued that it's like water to a thirsty individual. Do you get what I'm saying? So they're like, oh my gosh, I've been eating you. It's like, you know, air when someone's been holding their breath. Again, I don't condone cheating. That's not what I'm saying. But, you know, honoring our people, appreciating our people, loving our people, saying, You're so great. I love what you do for me, even if there's work to be done still in the relationship. Right? Nobody's perfect. But can you blow up and expand on what it is that you do like? That's something that I really do my best to do with all of my family members. Even my youngest daughter, if I have to remind her to do the cat boxes. When she does do them, I say thank you for doing them, even though I had to remind her to do it. Like, thanks, honey. They look great. Thank you for doing that. See what I'm saying? I want to be a vessel of appreciation. I want my people to know that my life is better with them in it. And I'm so glad and I don't take that for granted for two seconds. Okay, the next one. Oh, interesting, leads into emotional affairs. That's a death trap for relationships because you're sharing your inner world more deeply with someone outside of the relationship, someone other than your partner, right? This is mostly in romantic relationships where the very things that should be going to your partner, they're going to somebody else. And it could be a plethora of reasons why they can't go to your partner. But you know, when you are sitting with another individual and you're sharing your deepest, darkest feelings, your deepest, lightest life, whatever it might be with somebody else, and it's getting really close. And intimate over there. That's what an emotional affair is. And again, sometimes these happen or organically as a result of a huge disconnection, which is one of the why I have these conversations is so that we can build and keep connections with our people, mostly in this respect, mostly with our romantic relationships. But if you think about it with our other loved ones too, we're emotionally available for them. They're going to feel seen and connected and they're going to want to keep you in your life. And I believe this is one of the reasons why all three of my kids now, you know, consider me their one of their best friends. In fact, I'm just going to say it. They call me their best friend, you know? And this does not mean I've moved out of parenting role in any way when that's needed, but I appreciate that. And they feel close to me and they come to me with their things because I've provided that space for them. All right. The next one is not growing together. Again, massive, massive, massive, massive circle. 12,000 font, highlighted italics, I don't know, bright fuchsia. Huge, not growing together. Couples who grow together stay together. Period. Couples that grow together stay together. Couples that don't grow together eventually will fracture. And this is because one side, you're energetically aligned when you meet, or else you wouldn't be meeting, by the way. You're energetically aligned. And then one starts to grow and starts to up level. Now, guess what? Just see you both as two, like two lines on a paper equally in a line. And then move your line up about six inches on the paper. Now there's a disconnect between your line and their line, right? That's a fracture of energy. That's a disconnection of energy. That's also a disconnection of healing, all right? Where one person's more healed than the other person. And it that's it's not one and done, like you grow and all of a sudden the relationship ends. It's not like that because sometimes the other person will grow and catch up, or they'll grow a little bit more slowly, but there's progression in the right direction, or they grow past you and then you catch up to them. But you know, I call that leapfrogging. And I talk about this in my book, The Recovering People Pleaser. When both parties are growing, again, not at the same rate, or in always even in the same areas, because sometimes we have different areas that we need to grow in. But growth generally is going to keep a relationship together. When there is a huge disconnect in growth, as I can raise my hand to two former relationships that those people absolutely refused on any level whatsoever to grow. In fact, I would be bold enough to say that I still think they haven't. And those were a long time ago. In those cases, the relationship will end. It can't not, because eventually they're going to resent you too, because you're going to show up a healthier version of you, which means you're going to require that they grow in some areas too. You're going to want that, you're going to edge towards that, and then they could resent you. It's so messed up. It goes both ways. What's interesting is that sometimes the growing person is the one who's resented. Isn't that wild? You're up-leveling, you're getting better, you're healing, you're getting stronger, you're more empowered, you're calmer, you're more peaceful, you're grounded, and someone resents you. Like, what? That was a mind blow for me, if you get what I'm saying, when I had that experience. I'm like, okay, you're over here doing all these toxic things. I'm over here growing and showing up, but you resent me. And that was because I required, so to, I don't know what a better word to say, that person to step up, to step up and to do better than they were doing. And they process that differently because they're not at the same level. So yeah, not growing together. The next one is control. This is a biggie. When we try to fix, manage, or change a person instead of respecting their personal freedom and autonomy. Now, I am talking about control here. All right. We all have been controlled. We're someone's trying to get us to do what they want us to do. That's different than speaking their grievances about us to us. That's different than wanting us to up level and to heal and to work on the relationship. This is about control. All right. We know what that feels like. I don't do well with control in any form. Do not try to control me. It is, I got myself so solidly, I'm going to show up in the best way possible. But also, people try to control. Hear me now. So important. They try to control other individuals out of fear. They're trying to control you because they're scared of something. Many things they can be scared of, but they're scared of that thing. For example, they're scared, they're afraid of what people will think. So they're trying to control what you wear. What is the control there? The fear. I'm sorry, what's the fear? The fear of what others think. See what I'm saying? There's always an underlying fear to somebody controlling. Control is an aspect of the ego, and the ego is fear. Period. So when someone's trying to control us over and over and over again, which they're not letting us be who we are, they're not letting us be autonomous. They're not letting us be free in our expressions and whatever form that takes, that can be very destructive to a relationship. I'm gonna pause for a water break. This is the time of year I I drink more room temperature water because it's cool enough in the house, the water's cool enough. But man, I'll tell you something. In the summer here in Arizona, I got about 8,000 ice cubes in my water cup. Because it and it because they don't stay, if you get what I'm saying. Well, the cup I have now does. I'm getting off track. All right, the next one is victimhood. Again, another big circle around this one. Victimhood is believing that the other person is responsible for your happiness or your unhappiness. It also means that you're always the victim. Somebody can come to you and express their concerns. And instead of you sitting with their concerns about you or their experience of you, you then turn it around and you're like, are you saying I'm not a good wife? Are you saying I'm not a good mother? I can never do anything right. You get what I'm saying? It's that kind of energy that's off the top of my head. That's the first thing that came to me. But it's that type of energy that is coming at someone. You're just the victim. It's always poor me, no matter what happens. And that's a really, again, super hard to deal with somebody who's in constant victim mode because you can't get anywhere. They always make it about them. You're trying to talk about your experience, and whoop, they flip the script, and 20 seconds later, it's about them. I remember I was in this relationship once where this per this guy, it's it's always it was a romantic relationship. We had had some sort of disagreement, some argument, and then, you know, he was doing his toe dipping to try to get back into the conversation. And he started out with, How are you feeling? You know, like what's going on inside you? How are you feeling about all this? And I remember pausing and thinking, hmm, do I really share? Because I know what happens. They don't listen. This person would end up always turning it around on me, always. So I took a deep breath and I thought, okay, well, how I'm feeling right now is I'm feeling um very disheartened. I'm feeling like there's broken trust. Um you've broken my trust again, whatever it was. I I don't remember exactly, but I expressed the things and you know what he did? He said, Well, this is how I'm feeling, and started spouting all this stuff at me. That's a victim. They didn't really care about what I had going on. They didn't care about the question they asked. They asked the question so that they could spout their stuff. It was just their segue into the conversation. I remember saying to this person, I remember this like it was yesterday. I remember saying to them, You just asked me how I felt. I shared how I felt, and you made it about you. And I remember them just kind of looking at me like a little shocked. But that's exactly what happened. That's what a victim looks like. They can't sit in it with you, they can't explore themselves and explore the situation through an open lens. They're always the victim. So victimhood. No bueno, everybody. The next one, another huge one, is they avoid accountability. And this is refusing to admit their mistakes or take responsibility for their part, the thing that they did. Where did it, where did they go wrong? And I'm hoping that you can take responsibility for your part already. But there's a pile of people out there that just don't want to take responsibility. Again, they're the victim. It's you. You could have done everything correct, and they do something wrong. You call them out on it, and they'll twist and turn, and they'll change this thing and deflect it off of that and somehow make it you, right? This is really emotional immaturity, is what this is. This is a lack of self-reflection and a lack of self-awareness. Avoiding accountability is very destructive because, in my words, the relationship can't heal. We have to 1000%, without question, to heal any relationship, the relationship with ourself or the relationship with another person, we must take accountability for our behaviors. We all have a built-in system that knows what right or wrong is because we've got the ego and we got the higher self, and we've been in both of those spaces. And we know when we're being destructive because the person has likely said it to us before. But if we don't take accountability for it, that person is left with nothing. Nothing. Accountability is the first step to healing. I always say own your shit often and early. The minute you know you did something, often and early, take accountability. You know what? I shouldn't have raised my voice right there. I'm sorry about that. Please continue. Or I'm sorry, I don't know, I can't come up with anything on the fly, but you get what I'm saying. Whatever it might be, take accountability. Or they're gonna give you a look, or they're gonna say, what was that, or why are you doing this? And you, the second you have the awareness that you did it, own it. I'm sorry. Yes, I've hit flipped back into my old pattern. Let me just take a deep breath here because I can feel myself getting defensive. Whatever it might be, whatever it might be, I will tell you this with 100% certainty that accountability is balm. That's the only word I've come up with so far. It's like, it's have you ever put your hands in a paraffin wax treatment? Has anybody done that? We had that in one of my salons. It's like this rectangle-shaped unit. Yeah, a couple people have. And it has paraffin wax and you put your hand in it, and while it's in there, it is like the most soothing thing on the planet. And then you pull your hand out, you sit there. Oftentimes they put like terry cloth gloves on you, and you just sit there. It's so soothing and balmy. And then they pull, once the wax solidifies, they peel it off your hands, your hands are left really soft and yummy. That's kind of how accountability feels. Maybe that not that soothing because paraffin wax is like super yum. But it feels it feels calm, it feels balmy because you know in that moment this person knows and they care about you and themselves enough to take accountability. So think about that one. All right, the next one. Um, oh, that's it. Okay, those are those. And then I'm gonna jump into the how to rebuild connection. But first, I want to invite anybody up who has had a thought or a feeling or an idea, something that they want to share with all of us on this stage. That would be great. I'm going to be checking right now. My back channel. Paula said, she said she is going to be watching that show for sure. Cool. And Giancarlo said, I have a question. What about people that want to attack but cannot handle being attacked? Passive aggressive, please. Oh, sorry. Okay, I already mentioned, all right. Sorry. I didn't mean to mention your name. You have to put that first, you have to put anonymous. But that's a great question. So I am gonna talk about this. This is a huge, huge thing where we have people that want to, oh, they will attack us. Okay, and they'll say, you're doing this, you're doing that. And then no matter how we word it, I've said this before that we can word it with hot fudge sundae and a cherry on top, and they still can't receive it. And this is rooted in their wounds, all right? Their wounds that are then touched, and then the trigger happens after the wound. So these people are not on the healing journey yet. They still have it, or they could be, they've just not addressed those particular wounds. So when we share something, I'm telling you guys, oh, I have shared things dripping with hot fudge, just in the most gentle way, but this I can see the flip switch when I say you, and then that is combined with the experience. It's like boom, the flip switch because I touched something inside of them. I touched something that was already there. Remember, our buttons are ours to heal. The problem is not that someone is touching our buttons because people love to say, they really know how to touch my buttons. No, you have the button. You heal your button, they're not going to be touching your buttons. See what I'm saying? So, yes, that's very difficult, that's very, very difficult and extremely destructive to a relationship. And so the conversation for me would start to become about I need to share this with you. I love us. Again, any relationship doesn't have to be a romantic one. I love us, I want our relationship, and I but I want to, you know, relationships require conversations because none of us are perfect. So I just want to discuss this. But when I when I discuss this with you, I don't feel like I'm heard. See the I feel thing coming out there. Honestly, you guys, this is mix and match. Try different things to see what is going to hit. Something will hit eventually. They just need to hear it in a different way. And there's some people that will never hear it, and you got to make a decision whether that's someone you want to keep in your life or not. All righty, we're bringing up my sister Lois. Welcome up, Lois. Thank you for joining.

Loyce: 35:53

Yes, I I've heard I heard the first part, but I don't I don't even hear the middle part because I'm trying to move stuff. I moved stuff on my daughter's story.

Kristen: 36:01

So Lois, anything you share at any point is awesome. So just dive in. Okay.

Loyce: 36:08

Okay, I was gonna say I was just having a conversation with an old friend of mine yesterday, and they were telling me that they're in a new relationship, and they actually started uh as they were speaking, I was hearing all these things that you were talking about. And I'm gonna say this the first and foremost thing when in a relationship or when cultivating a relationship is honesty, okay? Honesty from the gate. Honesty that that you that you say, I ain't gonna tell them that because they may not like me. Then if they don't like you, they ain't your person. Okay? You know, the the person was telling me all kinds of stuff. And I was thinking, did you tell me you don't like that? No. I said, so what are you gonna do? Act like it's okay, but then if they if it progress and y'all move in together, then you're gonna act like whatever, a Nazi? Because you know you don't like that. But my thing is you gotta tell the the truth from the beginning. If you don't like something, don't think that you like it. If you don't like sports, don't say, oh, I love sports. Let's go, I'll go with the game, not watching. No, do your thing, let them watch their game. And don't be trying to interrupt them when they're watching it, especially if you played that game to get them. Okay? You play that game to get them. Oh, I like sports and you hate sports, and then they watching sports every Sunday and you want to dance around half naked in front of the TV. No, it's too late. You lie, you gotta eat that, okay? And you and you'll feel and you'll feel neglected, and then you'll get resembled. But if your lie that started that shit, who started that stuff. So my say my thing is stay honest from the beginning. If they can't accept your life and your dislikes, your tolerations and your intolerations, then they're not your person. And I watched a lot of people, a lot of people, and it came in the TMP room. Man, it was so many lies told in the beginning. It's like the representative came up and the representative was down for everything. But then the real person came out later. Okay. I'm serious because of these lies. Because people want to be have a desperate need for people to love them. But guess what? If you're loving yourself, you ain't got that desperate need. Okay? You can live with it or without it, because when you really get to the bottom, there, the bottom thing of all of it is the thing you love in the other person is reflection of who you are. Okay? That's all. So you're just loving yourself in another form. Okay. Just liking yourself. Yes, man.

Kristen: 38:44

No, no name, no names, but is this who I think it is?

Loyce: 38:48

Uh well, it's it's a dear friend that that that I had to let go of as a friend for a while. Yes. Yes, yes, yes. And the transistency already is there, and this is only a week into being a relationship. And I'm like, oh, I said, and then I said, Well, they I let them do what they do. Okay, I'm gonna tell you, I let them do what they do. I said what I need you to say. It's about being honest, okay? And I said, and don't be running. Heal, if you get triggered, heal, get healed. Look at that. That's a that's a gift. And they just listen to me, like I said, they had to get away from me. They got out of here as soon as we got to step out into the truck to get out the story. I'm serious. We talking about what is that smoke was coming from the back of their truck. And my laugh. And my daughter was burning out.

Kristen: 39:42

They were leaving a burnout.

Loyce: 39:43

They were burning peeling. Oh, I didn't want to hear it. He didn't want to hear it because he's in this of this this the fairy tale part of a beginning of relationship with the flutters and all that kind of stuff.

Kristen: 39:56

Yeah.

Loyce: 39:56

And so he's missing, he's in, I guess he's not seeing the And when I submission some stuff, and he's like, and like I said, talking about somebody work fast and help me get that stuff moved out of the store. Oh my God. But it got done. But yes, so the bottom line is be honest. If they can't accept who you for who you are, all of you, makeup, no makeup, jelly, no belly, tall, short, uh, educated. You don't need them. Don't just oh no, he's the best in the images I'm always looking for. That's a pipe dream fairy tale. Get out of fairy tale out. Okay? Be real about yourself and be real about your relationship. But I love you. I gotta go turn this new hole in.

Kristen: 40:46

Bye. That was awesome. Thank you so much. Yeah, be honest and be real. I'm dying about the peeling out. Oh my gosh, it's so funny. And you know what, Lois, if you're still listening, this is one of those situations where, um, and I say this figuratively, and in jest, you guys, all right? Is where you just you pick up your little box of popcorn and you just sit there and watch, just watch the whole thing implode because you know what's gonna happen, right? You know, you know that's gonna happen because of all these things, and the person didn't want to hear that. And it's like, you guys relate too, don't you? That's a hard thing about life, I want to say. It's a hard thing about life, especially if let's say you really love someone and you're watching them doing, making oh, choices that you you know because of your experience and wisdom where it's gonna go, and you're like, uh, and you don't want to sit there with the popcorn. In fact, you leave. You're just like, I can't even not leave, like literally, but you get what I'm saying. You're like, I'm gonna turn my head the other way because I can't even watch this destruction that's about to happen. Excellent chair, Lois. Thank you for that. All right, you guys. So we're gonna talk about how to rebuild connection after falling into these traps. Let's get out of the death trap. Number one, as always, KB's mantra, awareness is the first step. Awareness, awareness, awareness. It's always key. We can't change what we can't see. We have to be able to see it. We have to be able to own it, we have to be able to recognize it and not with judgment, but with openness and just clarity. Oh, that makes sense. I get that. That makes sense. All right. We may not know what to do with the thing yet, but at least we're owning it for crying out loud. It's so important. All right, here we go. We're gonna jump in. Number one, shocker. Take radical responsibility. Healthy relationships start with ownership. Ownership, 100% ownership, radical ownership all the time. Stop looking for the blame. Own your part. If you did something destructive and you did what I call Drew Flirt first blood, own it. Own it. Because I know sometimes people draw first blood, and I don't mean physically, you guys. It's just a it's just the way I'm saying it. They draw first blood and then they're going off, and then all of a sudden we're joining it, and the whole thing's a big old convoluted mess, but they're the one who who started the whole thing, right? And then just gets really messy and yucky. Well, for one part, I'm gonna say, take responsibility that you join, by the way. Mm-hmm. Somebody had to learn that lesson. Take responsibility that you're joining in the frenzy for number one. But it would be so helpful if that person understood or you understood that you drew first blood by doing blank. Okay. And sometimes first blood is the lie that was later caught. And then the person says, Hey, I caught you in this lie, right? It's, you know, sometimes first blood happens behind the scenes. We don't even see it, and it catches up to us later. We have to take accountability, you guys. Huge. I can't tell you. I already went off about that, about it being balmy and like paraffin wax. So I'm gonna leave that one there. The next one is to work on repair. All right. What does repair mean? Repair means when there is an issue that we know that we have done something wrong. It is our duty of a person who loves another person to do whatever it takes to repair and to give them the space to trust again. Period. Because a lot of times people think I'm sorry is the end of it. It's not the end of it. I'm sorry plus changed behavior, plus a reinstallation of trust through consistency over time. Many times people want it to be over with. It's not over. There was a wound that was created based on the situation, and now repair is required. Conflict is inevitable, repair is optional. We're gonna fight with people, we're gonna argue with people, we're gonna have conflict. But what are you gonna do? When are you gonna shift from winning to understanding? When are you gonna say, let's get on the same page here? When is it stop being about, let me see how much I can hurt you? To I don't want to hurt you. When can it move from deflection to I can see how that hurts you, or I want to do better, or tell me how I can handle this better next time? We're working towards repair. So keep that in mind. Write that on your forehead, put a sticky note on your mirror, just says repair. That's it. What that means is anytime there's a conflict, when you have in your mind, I want to get to a positive end goal here. Keep that in your mind. You will aim towards a positive end goal because that's your intention. Sometimes it might get a little messy in the meantime, but when your intention is, I want repair here, I want to move on from this, then you will get there. Okay, the next one is to rebuild emotional safety. Kind of touched on that already in the respect of repair. And this is created by being consistent, kind, and transparent. Big. Like Lois was talking about, be honest and real. Listen, I know sometimes the truth is gonna hurt. I get it, but I would much rather have that short-term discomfort of telling somebody the truth and seeing the cringe on their face or whatever, rather than the long-term discomfort that eventually will eat away at the relationship through resentment. Remember, I gave a talk the other day, short-term gratification equals long-term pain and delayed gratification equals long-term gain. So when you're like, this is gonna smart to say this to them. It's gonna be hard to tell them this type situation. But what is it gonna do? It's gonna build trust because number one, they're gonna know you're honest with them. Number two, all the cards are on the table. And when you have that out and about and you combine that with you taking responsibility and understanding where you might have gone wrong, and you do this consistently and kindly, this person is going to begin to trust you again. I hope that makes sense. I had like four thoughts coming in at the same time with that one. So if it was um messy or confusing, please let me know. So it means to listen fully before responding. It's about validating their feelings, even if you disagree. Validating of a feeling is basically I understand. I see how through your perception that this is the feeling you were feeling. So validation is I understand that you're feeling hurt. I understand that you're angry. I understand that that was wrong, whatever it might be. Okay, we we're going to build emotional safety where people, number one, can come to us with their grievances and their feelings and their thoughts around us, and we're not gonna run. We're gonna sit with it. It's uncomfortable to hear about ourselves, isn't it, everyone? Send up your claps if it's uncomfortable. I don't like it. I don't like it, but I know how healthy it is. And yeah, yeah, thanks everybody. I see all the emojis coming up. It's it's uncomfortable. And I have to fight sometimes that my ego just wanting to go. You have no idea what you're talking about. That's so untrue. That's ridiculous. I have to sit with it, create space. And again, I bring love in. What would love do? Love would listen. Love would validate what this person's feeling. Love would seek to understand what this person is feeling, even if it's not true, even if they've made something up. Number four is to reconnect through appreciation. Gratitude revives warmth where there is resent, where resentment once lived. So think about it if you're you're resenting something about somebody, and then they just come up to you and just so wholeheartedly, they say, I'm so grateful for you. You're so patient with me. You really try to work with me, and I see how much you love me. I know I'm a mess sometimes. But thank you for that. Do you see how resentment would just melt away? It would just melt away. Did you guys even feel that when I was saying it just now? If you felt that in your heart when I was saying that right now, send up some emojis. It feels good, doesn't it? It's like, oh somebody's recognizing, yeah, lots of hearts coming up. Right? Somebody's recognizing and being grateful for whatever it is that somebody else is doing. It really does. It melts resentment away. This is about noticing what your people are doing right and saying it out loud. And you can even be creative with this. Like write a little note and stick it to their rearview mirror in their car, just say, thank you for this. I appreciate you doing that. Thank you for this over here. You know, you can have fun with these types of things that can generate an uphold connection. Be creative. Something that my husband does is, and he does this consistently over all these years. The first thing that he did, and I would find these all the time on my car, he would take some type of piece of paper. Do you guys hear my stomach? Hopefully not. It's getting near lunchtime. He would take some type of piece of paper, whether it was a napkin or a receipt or something in his car, and he would fold it, you know, just a little tiny piece of it, maybe an inch and a half. He would fold it in half and he would tear a heart. You know how you do half of the heart, and then you open it's the whole heart? And he would put it like stuck into the window jam of my car, or he would put it on my dashboard of my car. And I would always find those. He still does that to this day, occasionally. It's not like every day or anything. He also, if he finds, we have a tree that kind of overhangs the driveway and has these beautiful bell, yellow bell flowers, and they fall, and they're really pretty. So he'll pick them up and he'll stick them in my windshield wipers. He'll open my car and stick it inside my car. They're just little, little love notes. You can do this as well with appreciation. Take a Sharpie, not a Sharpie, a dry erase marker, and you know, I remember one time I wrote something on my daughter's mirror. She left that for so long. I have a note on my mirror in my bureau, on top of my bureau in my room, my bedroom, it's written with white or silver dry erase, and it's from my eldest daughter. I've never taken it down. It's been probably since she lived here. She moved out one year into being in this particular house. So she's been out for years and years and years, but she wrote that I've never erased it. It's still on my mirror. So, you know, those things matter. Just think about that. Extending gratitude, reconnecting through appreciation because it softens hearts. It really does. And it reminds you both what you mean to each other. All righty, and the next one is to um grow together intentionally. I won't spend a lot of time there because I did when I talked about couples that grow together, stay together, and finding ways that it's fun for both of you. Because, you know, who knows? Maybe there's certain webinars you want to take, maybe there's courses you want to take, maybe there's a book you read together, maybe it's just through connecting conversations every night. Uh, a man I know, it was a friend of mine's father was a family therapist, and he said, spend 30 minutes a day at least talking to your partner. Because people are ships passing in the night, and there's so much left undone. Spend 30 minutes a day at least, even if it's just a 30-minute check-in after dinner, in whatever regard that looks for you guys, or in the morning it's a walk, whatever it might be. 30 minutes a day to check in. Such a powerful way to keep connection alive. The next one is to practice emotional maturity. I can't say enough about this one. Emotional maturity isn't about never getting triggered. It isn't about truly understanding yourself at all times, but it's about recognizing where you are and choosing to respond in a healthy way. So understanding you might be angry. Gosh, I'm so angry right now. And taking a deep breath and not blowing that anger on somebody. Just an example. Or just recognizing something about you, how you're feeling, or how your person is feeling. And understanding that emotions are just signals, they're not rules, they're not set in stone, they're just feelings that we have based on thoughts. That's really what they are. They're actually chemicals. Isn't that crazy, you guys? An emotion is a chemical that is released in the brain from a thought. Wild. Our human is so amazing. Our human blows us away. It just, my brain, our brains blow me away. It just blows me away. Practicing emotional maturity is a lot about self-regulation. It's about sitting with yourself, regulating your emotions so that you can handle those rough ones that come up in a healthy manner, but also the rough ones that come up from your people as well. The next one, number seven, is to reignite affection and presence. You know, my daughter, my eldest, said to me the other day, she's she's not my physical touch is not her love language, which kind of shocks me because she was my firstborn and I touch that kid all the time. This was before, this is how old, 31 years ago, you could have your baby car seat in the front seat. They didn't, this was before they had everybody go into the back center and all that stuff. And so she, I put her little bucket, that's what I called it, the little bucket that you take out when they're infants, and then you put it on the stroller, it just kind of connects, but it's also a car seat. I had that little bucket in the front seat of my Honda Civic, because that's what I drove at that time before I got my next bigger mom car. And I would hold her hand. I would drive with one hand and hold her little baby infant hand. We would hold hands. A lot of times I would carry my kids into the grocery store or Target and I would hold them and push the cart with one hand. I just love holding my kids. But anyway, long story short, two of mine are that's uh physical affection is our love language. My eldest, it's not, but it is because here's what's interesting. This makes me tear up because it was so freaking sweet. My cards that I get from my kids, I, you know, I've considered reading them aloud to you guys so that you know that I'm not blowing smoke. But one of the things she said to me in one of my greeting cards was, Thank you for all the times that you hug me and kiss me. I noticed, mom. And it blew me away because she's not one that's gonna seek me out and hug me. She's not gonna seek me out and kiss me. It's not like her. But she noticed. She we hug all the time, you guys. Don't get me wrong. It's not like we stand there like two robots. We hug all the time. It's just she's not the one that runs around throwing hugs, it's just not her. When she said that, this is why their cards blow me away all the time, because they they pick up on these things because I was tempted because she's not physically affectionate, trust me. She went through the stage where get off me, you know, don't touch me type things. And I wasn't infringing on their space because I'm too busy. I'm not like a upper nose or anything. But I was very tempted to, I could have fallen into that. She doesn't want to be touched. But as she grew and got older and got more physical and things like that, and I I just kept doing it. She could push me away, but I kept doing it. And what does she say? Thank you. Thank you for doing that. It matters. Physical affection matters. All right. You guys, you might think it doesn't. So it's even in the moments of eye contact, just really listening, looking at someone's eyes, paying attention, getting off your phone, you know, not looking around the room while they're talking to you. I had that conversation with my youngest because she would do that. So, can you look at me when I'm speaking to you? And she goes, Mom, I know it's weird. She goes, but I connect best to what you're saying when I'm not looking at you. I know that feeling. I said, That's interesting that you say that because a lot of times I have that same thing where I'm if I'm listening to someone looking at them in the face, especially if it's someone that I don't know super well, I tend to like, oh, look at their smile, look at their cheeks, look at their eyelashes, look at their eye color. Like, I see too much of their face. I don't know, that might sound weird to me. Any of you relate to this at all? And so kind of zoning out made me a better listener. So that, yeah, okay, you guys relate to that. Thank you. So for me, I understood what she was saying, and that made sense to me. Okay, but for a lot of people, I eye contact, gentle touches, laughter, you know, repair hugs, these type of things, they matter in our relationships. Be present with each other without distraction. Oh, yeah, I'm in the wrong one. No, I'm in the right one. Um, yeah, be present with each other after distractions. Love often rebuilds not through grand gestures, but through simple, consistent ones. And the last one is to forgive and begin again. Another one that I can't stress enough. Every relationship we have, and I can say it with all of mine, they're gonna have chapters of disconnection. It's going to happen. We are ever evolving units. We're always evolving. There's always, especially when it comes to children, right? Our kids, oh my God, how many chapters and seasons did we go through with them? Like my eldest daughter, you know, not wanting hugs. That was a moment. Okay, that was a little chapter. That she went through. But keep in mind that there's going to be things that come up. It's just the way life is. Forgiving. As we grow, as we stumble, as we make mistakes, as we're really trying to do our best and seeing our people as trying to do their best, even if their best is messy, forgiveness doesn't erase the past, but it wipes the slate clean. And I'm all about that because it also handles resentment. When we finally get to those repair conversations, if I'm still holding on to this and like I've stored it somewhere in my body, and then the thing happens again, now I'm just adding to it again, building up and building up and building up. Even if it's a repeated offense by somebody, because I've had repeated offenses, we all have, haven't we? And we've probably also been repeat offenders as we're trying to change. But even it's a repeated offense. I want to keep my energy clean. Resentment is a dense, dark energy. And if you watch that show, Heal, that I told you to watch on Amazon or recommended that you watch on Amazon, it's going to make sense to you why I'm saying that. It is a toxic energy. I don't want that in my body. So I forgive them not only for the relationship, but actually for me. It's for me first. But it also helps to reset the relationship and to begin anew. I know that's a rough one for a lot of people. I know, I mean, I remember when I first started coaching and talking about these things in the world, forgiveness was the hottest button. Oh my God. Forgiveness to begin again. Solid, super solid tips. I want to thank you all for listening today. I appreciate you. Thank you for Lois for coming up. I'm so grateful that you guys choose to spend this time with me, even if it's just for five minutes. I know you're the seekers. I know you're the sacred rebels. I know you're the ones that are craving transformation and change, and you're here. You're doing the work. I'm just letting you know you're doing the work. Listening to this talk is doing the work. And my talk for anybody else's in the world that you listen to. It's taking in new information. So wrap yourself up in a big hug. Put one hand around your waist, the other hand up over your shoulder, and squeeze. Close your eyes and say, I'm doing a great job. I'm so proud of me. I love me. I appreciate me. I'm so grateful for my open heart and my open mind. Today is a good day. I am powerful beyond measure. I can make change happen in my life. Very good. Thanks for listening, everybody. I will be back again tomorrow for another episode of Empower Hour with KB, and I look forward to hearing from you. Much love. Bye.