The Bone Zone

Episode 30: Beyond Chemistry: The 4 Areas Of Compatibility

• Sara & Richard

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What do you do if you want to grow but your partner doesn’t?
It can be hard when you feel that your partner isn’t on the same page as you, or worse, they actively try and discourage you from growth and improvement.

The answer isn’t necessarily to seek out a new partner.
You can create an amazing relationship by focusing your attention on the right things and in this episode, we talk about how you do that.
In this episode, we discuss:

  •  The 4 Areas of Relationship Compatibility
  •  Why you don’t need to be compatible in all 4 areas to have an amazing, happy relationship
  •  A process for attuning to your partner and “getting on the same page”
  •  What to do if you’re a match in all 4 areas vs. what to do if you’re a match in only some of the areas.

We want to hear your thoughts and questions, so if there's anything you would like us to cover on the show, please drop us a line on 

info@thebone-zone.com

SPEAKER_01

Welcome to the Bone Zone. I'm Sarah.

SPEAKER_00

And I'm Richard.

SPEAKER_01

And in this podcast, we excavate sex and relationship myths and uncover the truth of how it all really works. We bridge the esoteric and practical worlds to bring you grounded, sage, and tangible advice and tools, whether you're looking to attract a soulmate relationship or grow and expand within an existing one.

SPEAKER_00

Good. Morning, good day, good evening.

SPEAKER_01

Hello.

SPEAKER_00

Welcome to another episode of The Bone Zone. This one will probably be our last in just an audio format.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, also fun story that this is the 80 billionth time we're recording this episode because yeah, it's a it's a whole thing.

SPEAKER_00

It's a look, let's just put this into context. We did a whole bunch of recordings in a new room with both of us and with video and with everything else, and I only switched one of the microphones on so uh we could hear Sarah, but not me, which is probably pretty standard anyway, really.

SPEAKER_01

Exactly. I mean, essentially you just cut out the middleman.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Well, I mean, you're not really the middleman, but yeah, and then um this the second time we retook it, I was so annoyed at having to redo it again that I was snapping for the whole episode, and so that one was kiboshed as well.

SPEAKER_00

So here we are, and here we are, and but you know, also I tend to go off track and start going off on tangents. So I sort of uh let Sarah do a lot of the work because she keeps it on topic mostly, and I don't. Anyway, the topic talking of topics today is compatibility. How compatible are you? We will look into the four areas of compatibility, and just because you feel you might not be compatible in one of the eras on face value, it does not mean that you do not have compatibility in terms of potential. Okay. Sarah, seeing you did a great job of explaining that last time without the microphone.

SPEAKER_01

Well, actually, I just want to add to that. Yes, that may well be the case that it seems like you're not a match, but actually your potentials are a match.

SPEAKER_00

That's just what I said.

SPEAKER_01

I haven't finished. And actually that's what's that's what's important, the potential. But there is this another scenario as well where you're just not a match in one area or one or more areas. Um, the message here is that doesn't mean that you can't have a happy, fulfilling relationship. So I just I just want to impress that on people, but there is a certain way of dealing with that which will bring you towards this outcome of having the kind of amazing relationship that you want.

SPEAKER_00

Yes, absolutely. And um to be honest, I don't know, you've tested a few people intuitively, and a lot of them have been like two out of four, and they seem to be getting on, and they're working on their stuff. You tested their potentials and were quite high. So as long as you're prepared to do the work and to um let each other be yourselves, then you have a good platform to work off, right?

SPEAKER_01

Okay, well, yes and no.

SPEAKER_00

Okay, you always do that, yes and no, okay.

SPEAKER_01

Well, because everything is nuanced, but I just wanna I just wanna broach the question more broadly before I go into the four areas. What do you do when you want to grow in one or more areas and your partner doesn't?

SPEAKER_00

Yes. Now that's a good question.

SPEAKER_01

The probably the main philosophy nowadays would be run out, run out the door as quickly as humanly possible, and all of this, because any opposing view to our own now is like, oh my god, I'm so emotionally triggered, I can't deal with this, so I'm gonna run away. That's not that's not the thing to do here. So let's just deal with that scenario first. If you keep running away from someone because of a particular trait that you don't like, you tend to repeat that pattern. So whether you leave a relationship emotionally triggered or whether you leave a job emotionally triggered, you tend to encounter the same kind of pattern again until you actually deal with the underlying cause of what's going on here. Because if you are in a pattern, the common denominator is you, even if you believe actually you're unlucky or it's external circumstances.

SPEAKER_00

So I'm not to use the analogy, you're packing your bags and taking all your shit with you to unpack them, and uh, you still have the same shit in front of you.

SPEAKER_01

Yes, that's actually that's a very good analogy. Well done.

SPEAKER_00

That sounded really patronizing.

SPEAKER_01

I know, I know. Um, okay, so coming back to the question, there are ways of approaching how you grow and whether your partner will grow with you, which will increase the likelihood of you being able to take them along on the journey. Now, whether you are a match in a particular area or not, so you might not always be on the same page, even if you have the same kind of levels of potentials. But even if you're not a match at all in a particular area and you'll you will most likely never be on the same page. The worst thing that you can do in any of those scenarios is to push or force because that will simply lead to the opposite of what you want to achieve. Yes.

SPEAKER_00

Like a child, you tell it to do something, and it goes and does the complete opposite.

SPEAKER_01

Well, nagging never changed anyone's behavior long term. You may nag someone into doing something once or a couple of times, but there will be no intrinsic motivation for them to do anything.

SPEAKER_00

No.

SPEAKER_01

So I think it's helpful to give a few examples because you can explain things in different ways even if you are not a or if you are not a match or not a match yet in a particular area. So for example, I was talking to someone, I think it was a few months ago, um, and she was saying to me that she had listened to a webinar about sunglasses.

SPEAKER_00

Uh yes, yes.

SPEAKER_01

And sunglasses, um, and and the webinar had kind of focused on sunglasses are actually a dark force creation, no pun intended, actually, because they make everything darker. Um, but anyway, so she had very much uh taken on board the kind of let's call it more esoteric elements around how everyone seems to want to wear sunglasses now. However, if you look at it from a scientific perspective, there are lots of reasons not to wear sunglasses as well. So they interfere with melanin production. Obviously, when you have more melanin, your skin is more protected from the sun. Getting UV rays on your eyeballs is good for your eyes. So doing that early morning, for example. Now, she had two potential ways that she could have explained this to her partner. And bear in mind they are not a match in, let's call it the spiritual area, because it's it's kind of around the idea of growth and how you get someone to grow. So basically, she had these two ways to explain it, and she knew that by explaining it, oh, it's dark forces and it's something it's an agenda, blah, blah, blah. She knew he would immediately shut down and be like, what the hell are you talking about? You're a lunatic. And she knew that, and she was, it was almost like she was deliberately trying to provoke. But had she explained it the other way, she would have undoubtedly got him to at least start to get on board with it. And then she actually had awareness enough to say this herself. She was like, actually, if I had explained it in this way, he definitely would have listened. But I chose not to. And that's the thing, when you're choosing to grow, a not pushing your particular agenda or way of speaking or saying something on someone else is important, but also taking it as an opportunity to explain the same thing in different ways. So you're actually rather than getting frustrated because this person is not a match in a particular area, or they're just they have the potential, but they're not there yet. Rather than you getting frustrated about it, you're like, okay, this is a chance for me to think about how I can communicate in a different way so that the other person is more receptive to what I'm saying. And that doesn't just work in a relationship context, you can see how that works in a career context as well.

SPEAKER_00

If you can adapt your communication, yes, according to Also, you still want to be authentic. And if you do believe in something called dark forces, you have to have the right to be able to talk about it without enforcing it on the other person. For many years, I talked to you about my conspiracy theories. You just rolled your eyes at me until such a time, years later, when you actually got on board with quite a lot of what I was saying at the time.

SPEAKER_01

And here's the here's the distinction, though. You never got frustrated at me for not being on board with it. You never tried to force it on me. So you would just talk, I would roll my eyes, you were always of the conclusion that I would get there eventually. So maybe you underneath it all saw the potential that we had to get on the same page in all areas eventually. Maybe you maybe you intuitively knew that at the time. Um, but the point is that there was no element of force behind it. Whereas in other in other areas you were like super militant. And even though I was interested in what you were saying, actually.

SPEAKER_00

You didn't want to hear it.

SPEAKER_01

No, I didn't want to hear it because you were so militant. Like I would be eating a piece of cheese and you would be like, This is awful. The cheese is gonna kill yours. Like, just fuck off. Fuck her off and let me eat my cheese. Let me eat my fucking cheese.

SPEAKER_00

I never said the cheese would kill you. We had to sound like a sort of sort of militant food psycho.

SPEAKER_01

You were a bit of a militant food psycho.

SPEAKER_00

I was militant. No, okay. All right.

SPEAKER_01

Um, in all fairness, when he stopped doing that, guess what happened? I became far, far more receptive to the message because actually it was something I was really inter or what still am very interested in.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, so much so that you teaching me stuff that I taught you bloody years ago, and going, Oh, did you know that? Yes, darling, I told you that like years ago.

SPEAKER_01

It's so true though, like as as soon as you stop being militant, I just kind of started, and I obviously don't even remember that you taught me all of this stuff, but um anyway, thank you for doing that.

SPEAKER_00

You're welcome.

SPEAKER_01

Um and I do you want to give any other examples before we go into what the four areas are?

SPEAKER_00

I mean, not really. I can't think of any.

SPEAKER_01

Okay.

SPEAKER_00

What concerning us?

SPEAKER_01

Well, either concerning us or anyone else.

SPEAKER_00

Well, yes, look, there is one. When I had this belief system that one needed to be sort of at least vegetarian and whole food and plant-based to be healthy. And you were no, I don't agree with that. I think the human body needs animal protein. And for many, many years you were eating meat and I was not until such a time when I kind of eased off on my sort of core beliefs of it, and I did uh some research and I looked at what people did ancestrally because I kind of look at that aspect of sort of human race, what we used to do back in the day, and try to sort of not replicate it, but sort of draw positive things from it, let's say. So then I started eating meat, and then I realized that yes, a lot of the time meat can cause damage to you, but it's because of the quality of the meat and how you cook it, more than a sort of organic piece of meat which is which is cooked in a different way and not burnt. And I got on board with that after many years. So, yes, that's a that's a classic example of the other way around, if you like.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, and key point here, I never pushed it really. So I was like, you eat what you want, I'll eat what I want, and whatever. And I have the same philosophy with anyone, and you know, what they choose to do with nutrition, unless I think actually, no, I can get a bit triggered if I just see someone doing something completely nuts. But aside from that, I'm I'm just like, okay, you know, you do, you do, you boo.

SPEAKER_00

You do you boo.

SPEAKER_01

So the four areas, spiritual is area number one. These are in no particular order, so they're of relatively equal importance. So um, spiritual can incorporate religious beliefs, um, it can incorporate spiritual beliefs, and it can incorporate intuition and you know, whether someone is believing in that and open to the development of that, it basically encompasses all of that sphere. Now actually, I'm gonna go through all the four areas before I talk about the links between them. Secondly, you've got physical. So physical incorporates that you fit together well, right? So you're not worldly different in age, it's not like someone's 20, someone's 20 and someone's 60. Usually an age gap of around 10 years is what I would say is where you fit together well.

SPEAKER_00

Um, you mean a maximum age gap?

SPEAKER_01

Yes. Okay, that's the general rule in 90, I'd say 99% of cases.

SPEAKER_00

So we're in the 1% because we actually have 13 years of age gap.

SPEAKER_01

Yes, we do, but everyone thinks that you're younger than you are, so I look so splendid, that's why. Obviously, obviously, it also comes down to your lifestyle, so things like nutrition, things like exercise. So, for example, we exercise together, we go to the gym together, we like to walk together, we like to hike together. Neither of us are crazy into exercise, so we're not interested in doing hyroxes or triathlons or anything like that. No, we believe in moderate, consistent exercise. So that comes within the physical as well, and I'm surprised you haven't locked onto the most important thing for you in the physical area, darling.

SPEAKER_00

Because I don't interrupt you when you speak.

SPEAKER_01

I'm inviting you to speak.

SPEAKER_00

I'm talking, of course, about sex. Enormously important.

SPEAKER_01

Which fits within the physical which fits within it can also well, it can also overlap into the emotional and oh yes, you're absolutely emotional and spiritual, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00

But predominantly in we're in the the physical. Do you like to fuck each other?

SPEAKER_01

Yes, and if anyone is saying uh not anymore, well um that doesn't necessarily mean that the potentials are not there, so hold that thought.

SPEAKER_00

Then you've got then you've got we kind of got bored of each other.

SPEAKER_01

Wait, sorry, did you just interrupt me?

SPEAKER_00

Yes, I did, and I shall continue doing it. We kind of listen, just to sort of wrap that one up, we got kind of bored with each other after a number of years, and one day we just sat in bed and we talked about it. Okay, because we know we have both the potential.

SPEAKER_01

Uh yes, but we actively did things other than that. We didn't just have one conversation and that was the end of it.

SPEAKER_00

No, no, we worked on it. Yes, we worked on it.

SPEAKER_01

No, I think that because it made it you made it sound like it was one conversation that fits all that not at all.

SPEAKER_00

We worked on it and we and we solved it.

SPEAKER_01

And to be honest, it's a work in progress, it's not like um we can be like, right, well, we're done here. It's everything is a work in progress, which frankly I think is very exciting.

SPEAKER_00

It is, yes.

SPEAKER_01

Um okay, so physical, mental is area number three. Mental is that you're interested in the same kind of intellectual topics and pursuits, you have a similar level of intelligence, and FYI, I have never bought into this whole thing of oh, if you didn't go to university, you're stupid, like which I didn't, so thank you. For me, the most interesting people I've met actually didn't go to university or college. Um so I mean intelligence overall and kind of an interest in the same sort of topics. So for example, nutrition is a mental area as well because you like to know the background of nutrition. And once once you stop being pushy, I was like, oh, this is interesting. Financial, obviously, Richard has like decades of experience in the area, but it's been something that I've become more and more and more interested in. I will ask questions about trying to grow my knowledge to the point where actually friends do sometimes ask me stuff about finance now just because I've made an effort to learn some stuff about it. So we can have these conversations about things that are of interest to both of us, even if I'm not. Going to now spend decades catching up with Richard on like finance, for example, but still makes for interesting conversations. So that's mental. Then last area is emotional, which is actually the trickiest, I think, if you are not a match. And also it's the trickiest to work out if you are a match in it. And I will go into how you work out whether you're all match or not in an area in a second, but basically, it can cause a lot of issues if you are either not a match or seemingly not a match. It can be hard to tell whether you are a match if you kind of just look at it logically without intuition, because also the way men are programmed around emotions like can't show vulnerability, emotions scare me, I must shut down. And you don't necessarily know whether that's actually programming or whether that's just actually that they can't deal with it.

SPEAKER_00

So the analogy kind of is programming, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01

Not always. Sometimes people just don't have the emotional capacity. And I like to use this analogy: emotional ocean versus emotional puddle, like so two extremes. Let's say you have the emotional capacity of an ocean, and your partner has the emotional capacity of a puddle. No matter what the puddle gives, it can be giving its absolute maximum. It will never be enough for the ocean. And the ocean is always going to over overwhelm the puddle because it's like, I just can't deal with this. I'm a fucking puddle, leave me. If not, it can be very difficult, especially if we're talking about oceans and puddles.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

And you know, if if you are not a match in one or more of those areas, it's not the end of the world at all. Because let's say you're a match with your partner in mental, physical, emotional, you can have a spiritual community that you talk about spiritual stuff with in the kind of language that you like to use, and you can translate that language for your partner so that you're not feeling hot done by or frustrated around that. Um, and again, it could work in any of the other areas like that as well. Like maybe your partner's not active, but you have a group of friends that I don't know, like to go hiking together or something like that.

SPEAKER_00

So the that was another thing about me, wasn't it? I wasn't that active, active when I was uh on my time off. You were always the one going for walks. You kind of had to drag me out to go on hikes.

SPEAKER_01

Which is what which is why we'll get into potentials in a second. But we're talking about now if you're just not a match in an area, that's not a huge deal as long as you get that from some other source. And if you are a potential in that area, I'm gonna go into that in a second, actually. So let's just take a pause. If you're thinking, Sarah, this is great, but how the hell do I know what areas I'm a match with my partner in? I would say to you, either number one, train your intuition so you can understand that. But even when you do, because it is such an emotionally loaded area for a lot of people, it's very difficult to get a really honest answer on that, because emotion and intuition two different things, and it could be your emotion responding, not your intuition. But then you might know intuitives who can give you a let's say a more objective response. But even if you don't have access to that scientifically precise intuition, you can still work it out logically. And by that I mean you can understand over time if you and your partner have similar potentials in a particular area. And I'm just going to caveat that with do not judge on day one or in the first few months, because it may seem to all intents and purposes that you're not a match, but actually the potentials are there. So the idea is if you model certain behaviors without nagging, without forcing, if the partner has the potential, they are likely to get really curious about what you're doing. And then that starts the process of starting to get on the same page. So this is if you're a match in area, but it's not obvious straight away, or even in the first few years in our case, but the potentials are there. So let's say you both have, I don't know, 90% as your physical capacity just to use a number and you both have the potential, but let's say you're at 80 and your partner's at 20 when you meet, which probably was sort of the case when we met, because it certainly wasn't obvious in quite a few of the areas that we were a match. So I think you you said just now, and this is a good example, I was active, you were like, Yeah, I just want to lie on the couch.

SPEAKER_00

I didn't say it in that stupid voice. Um, but yes, I was a weed smoker glued to the couch, which was I don't actually know why the fuck he started going out with me, to be honest. Because looking back, I'm like, well, I'm a weed head, I'm not gonna active much. I live in the middle of nowhere running a yoga retreat.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I don't I don't know. Well, I mean, we do know it was intuition.

SPEAKER_00

We do know now, yes. But I mean, I was like, sometimes I think back and I think, Jesus Christ, we must have really had all the four potentials.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, like it's well we did it's it's crazy, but yeah, so that's an example where it seemed like there wasn't a match, but there was spiritual as well. We were okay, we were both kind of interested in the world, but in that world, but you were kind of uh oh, I'm just gonna sit on a couch.

SPEAKER_00

That voice I have, I do not speak like that.

SPEAKER_01

No, it's um we had let's say differing philosophies at the time on what on what uh spiritual incorporated.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, look, I was a healer, and yes, I'd sit down and just do an affirmation and think that the universe would just simply give me everything I wanted. And soon enough I realized that that was a crock of shit because it just doesn't work that way.

SPEAKER_01

Yes.

SPEAKER_00

So there was that too.

SPEAKER_01

Yes, that that was. I mean, I think that was also related into the physical inactivity in general. It's like I'm creating a belief system a lot that aligns with me not having to move.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I have changed remarkably.

SPEAKER_01

Well, okay, so let's talk about. So we in this case, we're talking about it. Seemed like we weren't a match in all four areas. It turned out we were, once we basically did the work, both of us respectively, to bring out more of our potential so we could get on the same page. So that's kind of where we are at the moment. Now, how that happened, I'm most likely repeating myself here, but modeling behaviors. So just getting interested in learning about doing the thing and just sharing that. Hey, I learned this, it was super interesting, or I'm interested in doing this, like it's been really helpful for me to, I don't know, like spend time in nature. Um and I found all of these benefits from it. Do you want to give it a try? So it's kind of like doing something, modeling the behaviors, sharing some of the outcomes that you've received from it yourself, and evoking that sense of curiosity in the other person. And that's how you tend to bring out potentials. And in the emotional area, though, it's a bit more tricky, I would guess, but not I would guess, it is a bit more tricky. Um, but there again, it just starts with not getting defensive when you're not emotionally on the same page, because it's it can be really, really frustrating when you're like having this outpouring and you're met with this kind of shutdown response. So, for example, and I think actually quite a good example of this in our case. I used to express emotion by getting angry, like almost like a tantrum angry. And Rich's response to that is to shut down Stonewall completely, yeah. And obviously that was frustrating for me and upsetting, etc. etc. And I was like, oh, he just doesn't get it, he isn't comfortable with my emotions, blah blah blah blah. Until one day I was like, why don't I just explain how this makes me feel, right? In in in a way that you would you would be able to get because I'm not attacking, I'm not doing it in an angry way, I'm just saying this is the emotional response that occurs in me when you stonewall. So again, it's kind of important to do this from a non-emotionally triggered place, but it's changing the way you communicate and it's being more vulnerable yourself because it's hard to well, a it's hard to be aware of, and B, it's hard to communicate sometimes exactly why a particular behavior is sort of so traumatizing. Um, but once I was able to do that, actually that's I think was the root of us starting to attune more emotionally.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. That's another fine instance of us meeting in the middle.

SPEAKER_01

Yes. Then there's the scenario that we talked about before around okay, you're not a match in one or more areas, what do you do about that? So first thing, first thing if you want to have a happy relationship is to focus on what is good, not what isn't. Because if you focus all of your attention to we're not a match in the spiritual area, I'm just gonna be super frustrated about that, and I'm gonna communicate as provocatively as I can in this area about this, and like picked up by anger, and then like just the cycle of frustration continues, and obviously, we know that what you focus on you get more of, so you focus on what you're unhappy about, but you'll find plenty of evidence of other things to be unhappy about. So if you are not a match in that one area, for example, what you do is simply focus on the other three areas, and you build up your potential together in those areas. So let's say when you first met, you were really active together, and I don't know, you played tennis or you played golf or whatever it is, fill in the blank, and then after 10, 15 years, you know, jobs, kids, whatever, you just never do that anymore, for example. There's some way where you can focus your attention to start to get fit together or to start to play tennis together, for example. And what I would recommend is just work on one area at a time. So take an area that you are a match in, or you were you were at one point, and pick some specific things that you can do to really get the best out of your time together. So you're starting to focus on and take action steps towards the positive, and guess what? That starts to grow, and then you're more likely to feel that sense of fulfillment from your relationship just from that shift from I don't get this specific thing to actually I get all of these other things, let me look at how I can improve and work on that instead.

SPEAKER_00

Nice, that's a good little tip.

SPEAKER_01

And I think I think you said something before around um like if you come to the conclusion that things need to end, that's fine. But in order to do it from a place of not being emotionally triggered, because let's face it, most people separate when they are super emotionally triggered. When you've really put the effort into working on what's really good, and from that place, you're like, I feel like this there's more, or there's something else, or someone else for me that I want to end this right now. Fine. From that place, by all means, do your thing. But again, if we're talking about patterns, do something in an emotionally triggered way. You tend to get the same or similar sets of problems later down the road. I mean, we all have that friend, right? That's like has terrible taste in men. Like every time they start dating someone new, they're like, oh, um, this one is different, and they aren't, or they aren't until that person breaks the pattern.

SPEAKER_00

Right, there we have it. Um, anything else to add? You've pretty much said it all.

SPEAKER_01

Richard is cutting me off now. He said I'm talking too much.

SPEAKER_00

Well, we like to keep it around half an hour usually, but now it's uh got into 45-minute realm, which is uh a nice sizable chunk.

SPEAKER_01

Actually, the last few episodes we've done has been longer. Anyone that wants to send us an email or message commenting on whether you like this longer form, please do so.

SPEAKER_00

And on that note, we shall love you and leave you. And uh we'll catch you on the next one.

SPEAKER_01

Bye for now.

SPEAKER_00

Bye for now. We'd like to thank you for tuning in and listening to this episode today. If you like what you heard, I invite you to follow our show. And if you really liked our show, head over and leave a review on your podcast app of choice. We also want to hear your thoughts and questions. So if there's anything you would like us to cover on the show, please drop us a line on the email below. Thank you for listening, and until next time.