Stopping the fight with your thoughts, and stopping the fight with your partner.

Welcome to the 1st episode of Couple Counselling, thanks for taking the time to listen.

In this episode we discuss how to stop the fight with your thoughts by noticing them. We also look at how couples can start to address the repeating arguments in their relationship.

Neil recommends a book called ‘Not Just Friends’ by Shirley Glass

Anna recommends a book called 'The Happiness Trap' by Russ Harris.

Thanks for listening! If you'd like to learn more about our counselling practice, you can find us at:

www.forrescounselling.com

If you'd like to contact us with any questions, thoughts or if you are looking for counselling, you can contact us on:

info@forrescounselling.com.

And if you like the podcast, please follow, rate and review. It really helps us reach new people.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:12

Welcome to Couple Counselling. I'm Anna Webster.

SPEAKER_01 0:16

And I'm Neil Webster. We are a couple of MBA CP counsellors, and yes, we are also a couple.

SPEAKER_00 0:23

This is a podcast aimed at anyone who has considered counselling, is considering counselling, or has never considered counselling, but has a passing interest in how a married couple of counsellors speak to each other when they're not at work.

SPEAKER_01 0:37

Each episode we'll be giving you tips on how to use counselling techniques from yourself, how to get on better with your partner, and just generally how to make life a little bit easier. All wrapped up in some light bickering from a couple who've been together for over 30 years.

SPEAKER_00 0:57

Hello and welcome to Couple Counselling.

SPEAKER_01 1:01

Yeah, hello.

SPEAKER_00 1:02

Hello. This is an exciting day.

SPEAKER_01 1:04

This is an exciting day. This is our first uh proper episode.

SPEAKER_00 1:09

It is the first real episode with real stuff.

SPEAKER_01 1:14

As opposed to our fake stuff in our trailer.

SPEAKER_00 1:16

No, that wasn't fake stuff, it was just shorter stuff.

SPEAKER_01 1:20

Yes. So Anna Webster.

SPEAKER_00 1:22

Yes, Neil Webster.

SPEAKER_01 1:24

Uh what are we we what are we going to do today? Should we talk about this is much like a bit like therapy. Let's talk about what we're going to talk about.

SPEAKER_00 1:32

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:32

Then we'll talk about it.

SPEAKER_00 1:34

Then we'll talk about what we've talked about.

SPEAKER_01 1:35

Yeah, that's pretty much the structure of a therapeutic hour, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 1:39

It yeah. Talking about the process of communicating is called metacommunication. So that's the therapeutic tool that we've used right there.

SPEAKER_01 1:48

Yeah, that's good. We'll use lots of therapeutic tools in this. And there's we were discussing this earlier that sometimes you start to especially if you live together and you're two therapists, you start to use therapeutic language.

SPEAKER_00 2:01

You're right. There is certain lingo, therapeutic lingo that it's quite easy to fall into.

SPEAKER_01 2:07

We were saying earlier about lived experience. That's a very therapeutic term.

SPEAKER_00 2:11

Only therapists have lived experience. Everybody else just has experience.

SPEAKER_01 2:15

Yes. But therapists have lived experience.

SPEAKER_00 2:17

Counsellors and psychotherapists have lived experience. Lived experience.

SPEAKER_01 2:20

Yes. So there'll be plenty of that, and we'll be pulling each other up on getting too technical, maybe. Maybe we'll just sink into it. Let's see what happens.

SPEAKER_00 2:28

We don't know. We don't know. That's the magic.

SPEAKER_01 2:30

Right, so first episode, finding our way. First off, like normally on podcasts, you maybe have two podcast hosts who say, So Anna, uh, how's your week been? What have you been up to? We're at a slight disadvantage on that file.

SPEAKER_00 2:45

We already know that, don't we? Do we have to do we pretend that we don't?

SPEAKER_01 2:50

Yeah, we're like, how have you been?

SPEAKER_00 2:52

Well, the fine.

SPEAKER_01 2:54

Good, me too.

SPEAKER_00 2:55

As as I know you have.

SPEAKER_01 2:57

Moving on. Yes. Uh I suppose there could be as this progresses.

SPEAKER_00 3:02

Paint a small picture for us, Neil.

SPEAKER_01 3:04

Uh paint a small picture of what?

SPEAKER_00 3:05

Well, you know, your week or where you're at, or you know, what's that?

SPEAKER_01 3:09

Well, I am in I tell you what, the the truth is, here's almost meta communication. Okay. I have been uh setting up a podcast.

SPEAKER_00 3:17

Yes, you have.

SPEAKER_01 3:18

Uh, and we're getting, you know, now our we're doing forest counselling, our our business that we're kind of leaning into and setting up. So I've been doing lots of business stuff, which I suppose, like lots of certainly kind of mental health work and stuff, there's a kind of business element to it that you don't always think, oh well that's a that's a big part of it as well.

SPEAKER_05 3:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:42

It's sometimes it's like odds with the I like being in the room talking to people, yeah, and then I've got to work out how to do a Facebook ad, and I'm over 50, so it drives me around the bend.

SPEAKER_00 3:52

Exactly. I was gonna say interface with social media.

SPEAKER_01 3:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:56

Luckily, we have grown-up children who can they roll their roll their eyes very proficiently and say, give it ear.

SPEAKER_01 4:04

Yeah, grab it. They just grab it, they just grab it and go, oh so yeah, so I've been that's been that's my small painting of my week. Um, how about you? Have you have you done a painting?

SPEAKER_00 4:15

Uh I haven't done a painting. I have actually been doing not counselling, I've been on holiday. Oh yeah, I knew that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:25

You weren't here.

SPEAKER_00 4:26

I wasn't here.

SPEAKER_01 4:27

Yeah, you're on holiday.

SPEAKER_00 4:28

I was on holiday somewhere sunny and actually doing lots of counselling training because I actually do like doing CPD. There we go. That's not just a counselling thing, other professionals.

SPEAKER_01 4:42

Is it not?

SPEAKER_00 4:43

No.

SPEAKER_01 4:43

Oh, I thought it just was.

SPEAKER_00 4:44

No, no, no.

SPEAKER_01 4:46

CPD, which stands for continuous personal development.

SPEAKER_00 4:49

Correct.

SPEAKER_01 4:50

And we have an ethical responsibility. I always say ethical responsibility. Do we?

SPEAKER_00 4:55

It's a bit more than that. Yeah, to keep your registration going, you have to document the amount of CPD that you've done.

SPEAKER_01 5:02

Which is basically homework. How much homework have you done? How much new learning off your own back have you done? And luckily, we're both nerds.

SPEAKER_00 5:11

Massive nerds, so we like a bit of CPD. Yeah. CPD on a Sun Lounger. That's actually what I was doing.

SPEAKER_01 5:17

That's God, listen to you.

SPEAKER_00 5:18

Yeah, I was.

SPEAKER_01 5:19

You were doing that. I was wrestling with Facebook ads, which I haven't done yet. Like I do, I don't know. Any we're gonna talk about anyone getting in touch with any questions. Also, any advice on how to use the internet? That would be amazing.

SPEAKER_00 5:32

Um any advice on how to use the internet. I think the fact that you've just used that phrase, use the internet, shows how inept we both are.

SPEAKER_01 5:41

How how do I switch the web on?

SPEAKER_00 5:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:44

Someone could tell me how I do that. Yeah. Um, but I've been uh I've been wrestling with that, and also you've been doing CPD on a lounger.

SPEAKER_00 5:52

I have been doing C P D on a Sun Lounger.

SPEAKER_01 5:54

I've been reading a book, an incredibly good book, on infidelity.

SPEAKER_00 5:58

Well, I know you have because you keep leaving it by the front door for everybody who comes into our house to see.

SPEAKER_01 6:05

Yeah, that's a bit weird, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 6:06

People who don't know that we are counsellors just think of having an affair.

SPEAKER_01 6:12

Well, no, it's I don't think I'm having an affair. I don't think people who have affairs get a book on how to have an affair and leave it around the house. Because while it's not how to have an affair, it's how to get past having an affair.

SPEAKER_00 6:25

Uh and maybe you're a responsible affair haver.

SPEAKER_01 6:29

Oh, I see. So I'd I'd like leaving signs.

SPEAKER_00 6:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:33

Yeah, God, that would be bold, wouldn't it?

SPEAKER_00 6:35

Yeah. But anyway, I know you're reading that book because I've spotted it in separate.

SPEAKER_01 6:39

And so have uh our kids' friends.

SPEAKER_00 6:41

And our guests.

SPEAKER_01 6:42

And our guests, yes. But I mean that I I'm sure at some future on some future episode I'll uh delve into that because there's some fascinating stuff and really good advice as well on on how couples can repair after infidelity. And it's a lot of it is quite counterintuitive, which in a in a really brilliant way.

SPEAKER_00 7:04

Oh, I like a counterintuitive. You know that I like that. You know that I like a counterintuitive bit of advice.

SPEAKER_01 7:10

Yes, so my favourite kind. So that's actually what I've been doing, reading that and getting nerdy about that.

SPEAKER_00 7:14

I'm excited, I want to read that.

SPEAKER_01 7:15

Oh, I can't remember. It's it's called Not Just Friends, I think, by Shirley Glass.

SPEAKER_00 7:21

It's definitely called Not Just Friends because I've as I say seen it in many locations. I didn't clock the name of the author, but but I'm excited to read it now.

SPEAKER_01 7:29

Yeah, it's really good.

SPEAKER_00 7:30

This is what happens with us in CPD, isn't it? Yeah. One of us will read a thing or watch a thing or go and listen to a lecture or whatever it is, and the other one will get all fired up about it too.

SPEAKER_01 7:41

Yeah, and then often we do little classes with each other.

SPEAKER_00 7:43

God, we're so we are massive nerds, aren't we?

SPEAKER_01 7:46

I know.

SPEAKER_00 7:47

Anyway, that's dorks, I'm not sure what the correct nerd is.

SPEAKER_01 7:51

Again, get in touch if you can use the web or know you can clarify.

SPEAKER_00 7:55

I'm sure Gen Z have distinct you know, a nerd is not the same as a dork.

SPEAKER_01 8:00

Yes, okay. Anyway, nerd or dork. That's a good game to play. Um, anyway, we digress. So uh should we talk about are we gonna try a format and we'll see how it works. Uh and maybe change it next week. But we thought Well, why don't you explain?

SPEAKER_00 8:17

Well, I w think we could both bring a thing that we want to talk about. It they don't necessarily need to be related things, yeah. Just something that we're feeling, or something that we've been working with a lot, or something that we're noticing that lots of our clients are asking us.

SPEAKER_02 8:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:36

Or just something that we think is super useful and that we'd like more people to know about.

SPEAKER_01 8:41

Yeah, hard agree. So we'll do one, we're gonna do one each. The rough plan that we will institute, the rule we will undoubtedly break at the first opportunity is that we'll bring two things, one each, one of us will bring an an individual or general counselling thought or approach or technique.

SPEAKER_00 9:01

Yeah, and the other person will come in with a with a couple's counselling.

SPEAKER_01 9:06

A bit of couples counselling and a bit of and that maybe with that we can use our lived experience. Our lived or our experience is for those.

SPEAKER_00 9:15

It has to be lived.

SPEAKER_01 9:16

Yeah, it has to be our lived experience.

SPEAKER_00 9:17

Otherwise we immediately get struck off for just having the ordinary kind of experience.

SPEAKER_01 9:21

So that's our lived experience, but if you're not a counselling person, that's our experience. So with the counsel with the couple's counselling, we'll we'll how does it relate to us?

SPEAKER_00 9:30

How does it relate to us? Let's try and bring that in.

SPEAKER_01 9:33

Yeah, good. And you know, you never know, we might end up in a huge row.

SPEAKER_00 9:37

I hope it's we can edit that out, but that's that's the beauty of a podcast.

SPEAKER_01 9:42

We've already edited it out four now, and you might have heard four what episodes? No, four four rows. Yeah. So let's we've already begun, but let's begin.

SPEAKER_00 9:52

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 9:52

Over to you, Anna. I believe you're gonna you're gonna kick us off. What would you like to talk about today?

SPEAKER_00 9:58

Well, I would like to talk about the thing that my clients say to me. I would say the most in terms of when they come to me with a problem, yeah, they're looking to fix something. The thing that I would say I hear the most is either I want to stop thinking this or I want to stop feeling this.

SPEAKER_01 10:21

Right.

SPEAKER_00 10:21

Or both.

SPEAKER_01 10:22

Yes, which is natural because people come to therapy and they are they have some problem or some disconnect. Psychological pain, that's why they've come to therapy. Yeah. There's gonna be a lot of this where I'm gonna flail around looking for a term and then you're gonna go, they're in psychological pain, you're gonna do you're the erudite.

SPEAKER_00 10:40

Starting with a mo juste.

SPEAKER_01 10:43

Is he a runner?

SPEAKER_00 10:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:45

Yeah, okay. Let's let's not have guests yet.

SPEAKER_00 10:48

You can you can read him about it on the online. Okay, great. Okay, so the thing that I hear the most, I want to stop thinking this or I want to stop feeling this. Now, you know that I am a big fan of the counterintuitive.

SPEAKER_01 11:02

Yes, indeed.

SPEAKER_00 11:03

Love the counterintuitive. And so the thing that I say to my clients is that's not possible. Neither of those things are possible.

SPEAKER_01 11:12

Right. And that sounds that can sound quite scary, right? Because you turned up and you go, Well, I've got these horrible thoughts or this horrible feeling, and and then my therapist uh straight off the bat goes, Well Yeah, you can't do that. You can't we can't stop them. No, we're not we're not here to stop them happening.

SPEAKER_00 11:31

No. And we will talk about that, about how scary it is to want to stop something, yeah, uh and not be able to, because in fact what is happening is that the client is engaged, therefore, in a battle that they can never hope to win. So if my goal is to stop feeling anxious, for example, I will be stuck in a continual battle with my anxiety where I vacillate between pushing it away really, really hard, fighting with it, yeah, and then when that becomes too exhausting, I get swamped by it again. So I vacillate between two positions in a kind of fight mode and a swamped mode, and neither of those places feels good.

SPEAKER_01 12:21

So you're either like you say, you're pushing it away, the fight, or you're being overwhelmed and consumed by it.

SPEAKER_05 12:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:29

And those two are a kind of cycle because there's only so long you can push it away. And when so a big thing that comes to mind when clients come to talk to us is I hear a lot, and I'm sure you hear a lot, I'm just exhausted by this. And the exhaustion is the fight, right? It's the pushing it away.

SPEAKER_00 12:48

Yeah, because they're fighting, they're expending huge amounts of energy.

SPEAKER_01 12:52

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 12:52

And we're not talking theoretical energy here.

SPEAKER_04 12:55

No, no, no, right, right, right.

SPEAKER_00 12:56

We are talking actual energy.

SPEAKER_04 12:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:58

Because and we can get into this more in later sessions, but emotions are in fact physical states, they are not sort of theoretical concepts, they are physical physical states. So when somebody is doing battle with a really strong emotion, they are expending lots of energy in that fight. And so the thing I say to my clients, the first thing we're gonna do is we're gonna stop fighting. We're gonna put down our weapons, we are not fighting with the anxiety anymore, but we are gonna let the anxiety be. Which sounds wildly counterintuitive. If I'm so scary. Yeah, and frightening. If I'm struggling with anxiety, the last thing that I want to do is accept that anxiety, and yet that is the first step.

SPEAKER_01 13:44

So the first step is just like you say, I like put your weapons down. Yeah. Um, stop the fighting. Yeah. Just to go back, something that kind of popped up for me when you're saying about actual energy and not theoretical energy. It's a really good point because we when we say stuff like, oh, I'm exhausted, I we've kind of got this notion that it's not it's not like not real exhaustion, not like if you'd been on a treadmill.

SPEAKER_00 14:07

Yeah, running up a hill. Yeah, yeah. No, it is.

SPEAKER_01 14:09

But it is because your body's in a state when it's fighting that it feels like it's under attack, so it's attacking back, so you've got adrenaline, noradrenaline, cortisol, all these things, all the good stuff. We can do an I like so many episodes, we can do an episode on literally our fight and flight and limbic system and all of that stuff, but that essentially is engaged, right? So when you're fighting the anxiety, you are in fight mode.

SPEAKER_00 14:35

Yep, and that's tiring in itself. Yeah, and actually you know, going off on a little bit of a side quest, but emotions are physical as uh physical states, that's what your body uh has emotions for, but that's the point of them, they're illuminatory, so your body will read a myriad of tiny physical adjustments and interpret that as sadness, shame, fear, guilt, whatever.

SPEAKER_02 15:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:07

So so all emotions, whether they're pleasant ones or not, are physical states.

SPEAKER_01 15:12

Right. So that idea that emotion is actually us interpreting Yeah, physical, physical adjustments within your body. Right.

SPEAKER_00 15:22

Lots and lots and lots of tiny physical adjustments, or sometimes quite big ones.

SPEAKER_03 15:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:27

Which will then be read as you know, whatever the emotion is.

SPEAKER_01 15:32

Be rationalized. Yeah. So you have the feeling and then you put the meaning to it.

SPEAKER_00 15:35

Yeah, and then you put them in because we are meaning-making beings.

SPEAKER_01 15:38

Yes, we are. And get us.

SPEAKER_00 15:42

Not just us. Oh, right. Everybody. Oh, I see. Everybody.

SPEAKER_01 15:45

Oh, I thought it was special for a second.

SPEAKER_00 15:46

Okay, so so okay, let's go back then to our our you know, fighting with anxiety analogy. It doesn't have to be anxiety, it could be uh uh anger, it could be shame, it could be guilt. There's all sorts of of emotions that people fight with, but anxiety is a big one because people will come to uh a therapy room to see a counsellor and say, I want to get rid of my anxiety.

SPEAKER_04 16:10

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 16:11

And at base, what you're sharing with that client is that's not possible. We cannot switch off emotions. Our cognitive and emotional fields, i.e., our thoughts and emotions, are to a greater extent just there. They just are.

SPEAKER_01 16:26

We don't have control over them. We can't switch them on and off.

SPEAKER_00 16:29

Let's do a little example, let's talk about thoughts and whether we can switch off thoughts on that.

SPEAKER_01 16:33

Oh, I think I know this game.

SPEAKER_00 16:35

I do brown bear. I just do try not to think of a brown bear. I want you to definitely not think about a brown bear. What are you thinking about?

SPEAKER_01 16:41

Yes, yes. I I I don't use, I tell you why I don't use that, because the very first time when way back when I was started, my placement as a student, yeah, I used brown bear and I said to my client, try not to think of a brown bear. And they went, Okay, done it. And I was lost at that point. I was like, What you're not thinking, no, I'm not thinking of one. And I go, and I feel that's quite hard.

SPEAKER_00 17:07

You phrased it incorrectly.

SPEAKER_01 17:08

Oh, did I?

SPEAKER_00 17:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:10

Or did I okay? Well, this is good. I'm learning. Going, go.

SPEAKER_00 17:14

Well, what you should have said was, I want you to try not to think about a brown bear.

SPEAKER_01 17:22

Oh, I think I no, I think I did say that. Did you? Something.

SPEAKER_00 17:25

I think I well, you had the most atypical clients. In all the brown bears that I've ever presented to clients, nobody has ever said that. Another way of doing it is to think think about something really neutral. Think about the last meal you had.

SPEAKER_04 17:41

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 17:41

Picture it, really get the taste, get the place you were in, who was with you? Were you rushed? Were you kind of taking it in a leisurely way? Were you reading?

SPEAKER_01 17:52

You say leisurely, it's leisurely, surely. We're English.

SPEAKER_00 17:55

Well, I'm a bit American today.

SPEAKER_01 17:58

That went a bit American. Yeah, okay. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 18:00

Yeah. Mostly the clients don't interrupt like that. They do they're not.

SPEAKER_01 18:05

But I do think, where's she from? Anyway, I I'm sorry for interrupting. Think of it in a leisurely way.

SPEAKER_00 18:11

Think of everything you can about that meal.

SPEAKER_01 18:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:14

Really get it in your head. Have you got it?

SPEAKER_01 18:16

I have, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:16

Right, delete that thought.

SPEAKER_01 18:19

Yeah, that's like it is you're right. It's totally impossible.

SPEAKER_00 18:25

Yeah, I've done that. Nobody else I've ever met knows how to delete a thought. So the point being, if you can't delete completely neutral thoughts like that.

SPEAKER_04 18:35

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 18:36

How are you supposed to delete really distressing thoughts?

SPEAKER_04 18:39

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 18:40

It's not a thing.

SPEAKER_01 18:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:42

And yet we spend inordinate amounts of time trying to delete thoughts.

SPEAKER_01 18:46

Trying to push them. And that's what the pushing away is.

SPEAKER_00 18:48

People often use that analogy, don't they? You must hear it all the time. I want to lock it in a box, I want to sweep it under the rug, I want to bury it, I want to, you know, people use that.

SPEAKER_01 18:57

Yeah, I just don't want to think it anymore.

SPEAKER_00 18:58

Yeah. People use those metaphors though, don't they?

SPEAKER_01 19:01

Yeah, they do.

SPEAKER_00 19:02

All the time.

SPEAKER_01 19:02

All the time.

SPEAKER_00 19:03

And furthermore, actually, if, even if, even if you or I, or indeed any counsellor, suddenly developed the ability to eradicate people's thoughts, uh those people would still always be living with the fear that the thoughts were going to come back.

SPEAKER_01 19:22

Ooh. Okay. So that is the that's just another manifestation of the thought. If you're worried about the thought coming back, then you're worried about a thing that you have knowledge of, which means that it hasn't gone anywhere anyway.

SPEAKER_00 19:34

Exactly, that's true. But it even if you could delete thoughts or emotions, you would then be engaged in this never-ending sort of cleaning process. What if it comes back? What if it comes back?

SPEAKER_03 19:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:46

The much greater freedom is in being able to live alongside your most difficult thoughts and feelings and and do what you wanted to do anyway. Yes. So that's where the big power is.

SPEAKER_01 19:58

So we don't fight them, but we we notice them. We notice them.

SPEAKER_00 20:05

Because actually they won't overwhelm us. We are built to withstand all emotions.

SPEAKER_03 20:12

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 20:12

So we are not going to be killed by our emotions. We are built to withstand emotion. It's called emotional tolerance, in fact, and we can improve people's emotional tolerance in counselling.

SPEAKER_04 20:23

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 20:24

So uh we're not going to get overwhelmed. We're gonna help our clients realise that actually they can withstand even very high levels of difficult emotions because that's where the great freedom is.

SPEAKER_01 20:36

Yes. So it's changing your relationship.

SPEAKER_00 20:38

It's changing your relationship. We are not changing the thoughts and feelings, we are changing our relationship to them.

SPEAKER_01 20:43

And we are changing our relationship to them in a way, and this is uh a thing that fascinates me because it kind of comes up uh in all elements of therapy in that we're kind of making friends with them.

SPEAKER_00 20:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:55

Because they mean well. They do. They're just giving us bad advice.

SPEAKER_00 21:00

Yes, so all thoughts, even the most difficult thoughts, even those thoughts that I guess people would describe as their critical voice.

SPEAKER_03 21:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:09

You know? Why don't you do it faster, harder, longer? Why are you so bad at this? Why don't you just get a grip? Why don't you just get over it? Why are you a drama queen? Why are you, you know, going on and on, why don't you just suck it up, grow a pair, blah blah blah blah? We're all really familiar with that voice.

SPEAKER_02 21:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:27

But actually that and again, counterintuitively, I love counterintuitive, it's our brain's way of keeping us safe because what our brain is trying to do is get us to avoid the thing that our brain is perceiving as dangerous.

SPEAKER_04 21:43

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 21:45

Because unfortunately for us, the human brain, in terms of its threat response, hasn't evolved that much. So the amygdala, which can be kind of thought of as the centre of that alarm system, really only perceives. Safe and unsafe. It doesn't know black and white.

SPEAKER_01 22:02

Yeah. Binary.

SPEAKER_00 22:04

Binary finery. Binary finery. Doesn't know what the nature of finery is.

SPEAKER_01 22:08

That'll be our merchandise.

SPEAKER_00 22:11

Find that on the t-shirts. Oh, imagine us trying to do t-shirts. We can't even can't work the internet, can we? That'd be a stretch. So, okay. Are a McDilla perceived safe or unsafe? Now, if the threat is physical, you know, avoiding it is is broadly speaking a good idea.

SPEAKER_01 22:33

You either run away from it or you fight it.

SPEAKER_00 22:35

Yeah, yeah. And and avoidance is is often a good plan. If it burns or bites or stings or cuts, then avoid that thing. However, unfortunately for us, psychological threat, the avoidance of it tends to make it much worse.

SPEAKER_02 22:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:51

But our amygdala doesn't know that. So it's throwing up all those thoughts to try to get you to avoid whatever it is. So it's like a well-intentioned but slightly ill-advised relative.

SPEAKER_01 23:06

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 23:07

I'm sure we've all got one. Can we all think of one of the things?

SPEAKER_01 23:10

Try and unthink that person.

SPEAKER_00 23:11

Yeah, try and unthink.

SPEAKER_01 23:12

Uh yes, I use that. I use that analogy as well. Yeah. The well-meaning friend or relative who we've all got one who offers advice and they mean well. Yeah. But their advice is generally terrible.

SPEAKER_00 23:24

It's just not that great.

SPEAKER_01 23:25

Um so that's what thoughts are. I mean, this is our first episode. We're finding our way. It feels like we're covering quite we're going quite wide here in my opinion.

SPEAKER_00 23:35

Should we go? Should we go smaller?

SPEAKER_01 23:37

I don't know. Let's find out. Okay. Like, let's see. But that's I think that's it's amazing how that is that response of avoidance is keep yourself safe. And keep yourself safe from physical things is kind of tangible, but we're trying to keep ourselves safe from psychological things that aren't tangible. So you can't run away from them and you can't fight them. Because they're not they don't have mass.

SPEAKER_00 24:00

No.

SPEAKER_01 24:01

They're not things. No. And so if we're not, I suppose to kind of put a bow on this is our first thoughts, our first uh foray into therapeutic thinking and how it can help people. We don't fight our thoughts or our feelings, and we um we notice them so we don't get overwhelmed by them. How do how do you do that in practice?

SPEAKER_00 24:24

Well, I'm glad you asked me that, Neil.

SPEAKER_01 24:27

It took me a while to be fair. I could have done it a bit quicker.

SPEAKER_00 24:32

So let's go back to talking about anxiety. It's uh by far not, you know, the only problem, but it's uh by far not the only problem.

SPEAKER_01 24:41

You've just caught my disease.

SPEAKER_00 24:42

Yeah, I have. Some of those words, but not in that order.

SPEAKER_01 24:46

It's by far not the only problem.

SPEAKER_00 24:47

Right, okay. So anxiety is not the only problem. Yes. Um but I'm just using it as an example. Yeah. Um so somebody says, I want to get rid of my anxious thoughts and feelings. Your therapist says to you, that's not a thing. We can't do that.

SPEAKER_02 25:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:04

But what we can do is change our relationship to them. So what is the first step? The first step is noticing.

SPEAKER_04 25:11

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 25:13

The first step is noticing your anxiety. That sounds a bit obvious, but of course I'm gonna notice I'm anxious, it's a horrendous feeling. How would I not notice that?

SPEAKER_02 25:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:24

But there are other types of noticing. So what we're gonna do is a neat little thing called ACE. A C E it's an acronym, but we are going to acknowledge the feeling.

SPEAKER_02 25:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:38

Because there is something about acknowledging how you're feeling that stops you fighting with it.

SPEAKER_02 25:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:44

I am feeling anxious, or um here is anxiety. That's an even better one if you can keep eye out of it. Because anxiety is not who you are, it is an emotion that is passing through you.

SPEAKER_01 25:56

It comes and it goes.

SPEAKER_00 25:58

It comes and it goes. It's like weather.

SPEAKER_01 26:00

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 26:01

So you are not anxiety, you are experiencing anxiety. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 26:04

Sounds like a small difference, but it's it's quite it's a huge fundamental difference, and it goes, you know, uh, I used to do a podcast on investigating Buddhism and all of that. And the you are not your thoughts.

SPEAKER_00 26:18

Yeah, the Buddhists are big into this. The Buddhists try not to use I, don't they? They say here is anxiety.

SPEAKER_01 26:23

Yes, and without my natural detouring into completely different subject, but there is there's certainly a crossover there of going, you are not your thoughts, your thoughts, anything that is temporary cannot be you.

SPEAKER_00 26:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:37

So a thought comes and goes, and you can have that and anxious thought can can return, but it always it's not a permanent state.

SPEAKER_00 26:46

But we are acknowledging it. So we're not minimizing it, we're not saying the anxiety is fun, we're not saying that the anxiety hasn't had a massive impact on your life. It might be that you know you've pretty much stopped doing everything you used to do because of the anxiety. So we're in no way minimising this, but what we are acknowledging, yeah, A for acknowledge, is that anxiety is here, but it is temporary.

SPEAKER_01 27:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:11

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 27:12

That's A.

SPEAKER_00 27:13

C. Check in.

SPEAKER_01 27:15

Check in.

SPEAKER_00 27:16

We're gonna check in with where in our body that anxiety sits. When we are very, very caught up in thoughts and feelings, we tend to get lost in our heads.

SPEAKER_01 27:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:27

And we forget that we've got a body.

SPEAKER_01 27:30

We forget we've got a body.

SPEAKER_00 27:31

We do. We do. Because we forget that anxiety is a whole body experience. So where in your body do you feel any anxiety?

SPEAKER_02 27:41

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 27:42

The more specific you can be about your anxiety, the better.

SPEAKER_02 27:47

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 27:47

If it was a solid object, what would it be? A pyramid, a sphere, a cube. Where does it sit in your body? Does it have a colour? Does it have a shape? Is it moving? Has it got a temperature?

SPEAKER_01 27:59

And that works for some people better than others, right?

SPEAKER_00 28:01

Because some people it don't they don't connect with that No, with the although the more you do it, the more you investigate somatic experiencing.

SPEAKER_01 28:14

Oh yeah, we should have a bell that we ring for a bit. Therapy word. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:19

Yeah. Body. The more you ex investigate how things feel in your body. So not your thoughts about them, but how do you feel? Where does it sit in your body? Yeah. The better you get at it.

SPEAKER_04 28:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:31

It's a skill that you can learn.

SPEAKER_04 28:34

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 28:35

I got so heavily into it at one point that I discovered that being annoyed with other drivers was experienced in my third rib down at the back.

SPEAKER_01 28:44

Are you joking?

SPEAKER_00 28:45

No, on the right.

SPEAKER_01 28:46

You've never told me that.

SPEAKER_00 28:47

No, I know. Because it was so niche. I kept it to myself. That's incredible. I know. Very specifically driver annoyance. See, I'm third rib down at the back on the right.

SPEAKER_01 28:59

I'm much more basic than you.

SPEAKER_00 29:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:01

It all sits in my left shoulder. Yeah. Well, did you go, yeah, we know then? Did you just go, yeah, we know? I did.

SPEAKER_00 29:06

And then I stopped myself because we're also doing couples counselling. I need to be nice to you.

SPEAKER_01 29:11

You don't need to be nice. You don't need to be anything. You be you. Um yeah, my left shoulder seems to anyway. That's it. There we go.

SPEAKER_00 29:18

Okay. So it's quite an interesting thing to do anyway. Look into where do you experience emotion in your body?

SPEAKER_01 29:24

Okay, so we've acknowledged that this thing is happening. This thing is the thing is visiting us. Yeah. Anxiety is has has visited or is visiting, or another one is radio anxieties turned on, that channel. Yep. We're checking in with our body going, where am I feeling this?

SPEAKER_00 29:43

Where am I feeling it?

SPEAKER_01 29:44

So that's the C and then the E.

SPEAKER_00 29:46

Okay, that's for engage, and this is where a little bit of variety can come into play.

SPEAKER_02 29:53

Right.

SPEAKER_00 29:54

We're doing something that allows us to sit with the unpleasant thought or feeling. And what you do is kind of personal to you. So as you were saying, some people do have a very kind of visual experiencing of things. So for example, if you are experiencing your anxiety as a solid cube sitting in your chest, can you imagine instead of constricting around that feeling, can you imagine making more space for it? Can you imagine uh opening up the amount of space that that anxiety can take up?

SPEAKER_02 30:32

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 30:33

It's the again counterintuitive.

SPEAKER_04 30:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:35

Why would I want to make more space for anxiety? But it's surprisingly effective.

SPEAKER_01 30:39

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 30:40

But let the anxiety have as much space as it wants.

SPEAKER_01 30:43

So and and in doing that, you're you're feeling it, you're being with it, you're feeling you're not pushing it away. And that goes to another, this is less of a therapy term and more of a saying, but what we resist persists.

SPEAKER_00 30:56

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 30:57

And what and what we experience changes.

SPEAKER_00 30:59

I thought you were going to come up with something there. Right.

SPEAKER_01 31:02

I know what we experience delirices.

SPEAKER_00 31:06

Very difficult task you set yourself there. But yes, exactly that.

SPEAKER_01 31:09

There's probably a better, there is probably a better version of that.

SPEAKER_00 31:11

Uh probably, but anyway. Uh another engaged technique, the one I personally like the best. Yeah. But this is because I'm more of a wordy person. But um a little mantra. Yeah. So something like Love a mantra. This feeling is horrible, but I felt it before. It didn't kill me last time and it won't this time.

SPEAKER_01 31:30

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 31:30

That's the one I use.

SPEAKER_01 31:32

So the implicit promise slash threat of an uncomfortable feeling or thought is that it's going to hurt you. Yep. And so that's why we're scared of it.

SPEAKER_03 31:44

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 31:44

And so we go, I don't want to feel that feeling it's horrible. And deep down because we think it's going to hurt us, or ultimately it's a threat, it's an existential threat, it's going to kill us. Some aversion of that. And so experiencing that and going through the experiment of that and finding out that it didn't kill you or hurt you is part of that giving it space.

SPEAKER_00 32:07

Yeah. Absolutely that.

SPEAKER_01 32:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:09

So I should maybe by way of an acknowledgement kind of put out there that this well, the ace technique and the idea of the acceptance of difficult thoughts and feelings are part of a kind of particular branch of therapy.

SPEAKER_01 32:25

What you didn't just make all this up right now. No, no. This is the Webster approach. Every week we're going to co-opt a huge every week we're going to co-opt. We're going to co-op.

SPEAKER_00 32:42

What interesting new and previously unannounced stranded things.

SPEAKER_01 32:46

We are sponsored by we're not sponsored by co-op, but obviously. Every week we're going to co-opt some hugely well-known in the therapeutic worldity. Therapy word. Yeah. And claim it as our own. Yeah. This week. The Webster's approach.

SPEAKER_00 33:02

Maybe do a catch-all kind of disclaimer now, but we're talking about our branches of therapy, our therapeutic ideas that you know many very learned people have written countless books and delivered many lectures on. But this for people, because you know, the listeners might want to do a bit more reading around this.

SPEAKER_01 33:24

Or they might, you know, they're wondering what happens to the therapy room, or they can't afford therapy, is another big thing because it's expensive. So anything we can give, which is a tip that might take the edge off a bit. It's kind of the main point.

SPEAKER_00 33:39

But also for our readers who can use the online.

SPEAKER_01 33:42

Yes, indeed. There are some.

SPEAKER_00 33:44

There are some. The younger ones might want to look this up. So this particular uh branch of therapy is called acceptance and commitment therapy. Yeah. Better known as ACT.

SPEAKER_01 33:55

ACT. We've had ACE. We've now got ACT. Yeah, ACE. Love an acronym, don't they?

SPEAKER_00 33:59

They love an acronym. ACE is a ACE is a s is a small technique within ACT. ACT is the ACT is the branch of therapy. It is a third-wave CBT. Another acronym? We're going to get sucked into acronym things. Lots of people have heard of CBT. Yeah, they have. They have. If they've heard of a therapy, it's pro it's probably going to be CBT cognitive behavioral therapy. But ACT is like the kind of evolution.

SPEAKER_01 34:24

It's the cool kid in the CBT world.

SPEAKER_00 34:32

I can't remember which order the film's going.

SPEAKER_01 34:34

Right. Why do you need to know which order the film's go in?

SPEAKER_00 34:37

Well, like never mind.

SPEAKER_01 34:38

No, no, no, I'm sticking with this.

SPEAKER_00 34:41

Go on.

SPEAKER_01 34:42

I don't know. I love that you've just a franchise, you have a very loose connectivity.

SPEAKER_00 34:48

I'm trying to pulled away from it, but I made the mistake of telling you what I was doing.

SPEAKER_01 34:53

So it's after show me struggle. Okay, so as you like to always talk about act, just describe act in kind of Star Wars game for us.

SPEAKER_00 35:09

Come on. Return of the Jedi. I don't but you can't just name a film. You can't invite me to name a film and then laugh at me when I name it. In relation to what? Actually, you can, because I can't control what you do.

SPEAKER_01 35:22

Exactly. That's for another episode. That's for another episode. But before we close this dive.

SPEAKER_00 35:29

Let's really close this dive.

SPEAKER_01 35:31

What I don't understand is you haven't done an analogy, you just named a film. I don't understand either, Neil. Okay. I think we should call this episode Return of the Jedi. That'll that'll alienate everyone.

SPEAKER_00 35:42

Um so anyway, back to where we came off the piece. Act.

SPEAKER_01 35:46

Yeah. What's the takeaway? What's the takeaway? Hey, it's time for the Webster's 10-second takeaway.

SPEAKER_00 35:53

Okay. Um the takeaway is you cannot switch off your thoughts or your feelings. What you can do and where the great freedom is, is in changing your relationship to them. And how you can change your relationship to them is to begin to learn to sit with the stuff that you find really difficult.

SPEAKER_02 36:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:13

And to do what you wanted to do anyway. That's where the freedom is. Because guess what? If you can feel nine out of ten anxiety and still do the thing that you wanted to do, there's no stopping you.

SPEAKER_01 36:25

Yeah, and that nine will over time become an eight.

SPEAKER_00 36:28

It will. That's that's a sort of side effect of it, actually, that when the anxiety doesn't matter anymore, then it starts to go down the way. But that's not what we're setting out to do. We're setting out to do what we want to do, live our lives in the way that we want to live our lives, even while the anxiety's happening. So we're not waiting for our lives to start, you know, pending the the cessation of anxiety because we'll be waiting forever.

SPEAKER_01 36:53

Brilliant. Well, that was our what did we call it? 10 second takeaway.

SPEAKER_00 36:57

No, because it was so long ago.

SPEAKER_01 37:01

10 second takeaway is not sponsored by co-op.

SPEAKER_00 37:04

No. Or or Return of the Gentile.

SPEAKER_01 37:06

Or Return of the Jedi. Let's take a break. This episode is brought to you by forestcounselling.com. Are you struggling with thoughts, emotions, or behaviours that seem out of your control? Maybe you're experiencing anxiety, depression, trauma, low self-esteem or issues with addiction. There could be conflict in your relationship that you feel you can't resolve. We can help. Contact us at forestcounselling.com where we offer face-to-face and online therapy. This is us back.

SPEAKER_00 37:56

It is. I'm back.

SPEAKER_01 37:57

You're back.

SPEAKER_00 37:58

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 37:58

I'm back.

SPEAKER_00 37:59

Spiritually, emotionally, and physically.

SPEAKER_01 38:01

Yes, let's um we haven't been anywhere, have we?

SPEAKER_00 38:03

Let's not no.

SPEAKER_01 38:05

So part two. So thank you. That was really good. I really enjoyed it. I said it was really good. Let's let other people.

SPEAKER_00 38:11

I love a bit of act. Yeah, don't even get me really started.

SPEAKER_01 38:15

You know, that's what we've just done. We've just got you started and you've just talked about it for half an hour.

SPEAKER_00 38:20

It's I could um Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:22

Act is a good way in. It's a good way in for like a lot of that kind of general anxiety.

SPEAKER_00 38:31

I mean, on act.

SPEAKER_01 38:33

You could do what you like.

SPEAKER_00 38:34

Well, just if people do want to know more, um, there is a guy called Russ Harris.

SPEAKER_02 38:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:42

Who uh has written, well, a lot of books, but um a really good book called The Happiness Trap. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 38:49

Which is I think I recommended that to you. I can take credit. Well, don't know if you did.

SPEAKER_00 38:54

All right. He's got together, but anyway. It wasn't again, I didn't come up with Yeah, you're not his PR person, but um yeah, Russ Harris and and the happiness trap. If you want to find out more about ACT, you know, he he's he's very digestible. It's a good good way in. So anyway, Neil, that's enough act. I'm hijacking the second half.

SPEAKER_01 39:15

Well, that's good because I hopefully you'll hijack it more because you're good at this. So now we're gonna talk about some couples counselling. That's the plan. Yes. Um, and I thought a good place to start, we talk about in terms of the negative dance of couples counselling.

SPEAKER_00 39:30

Yeah, uh yeah, the dance analogy is the dance analogy is really good.

SPEAKER_01 39:33

So often when couples come for therapy, something obviously something's not working for them, something's gone a bit wrong in their relationship. And often they will come with lots of examples of where they are kind of butting up against each other, and there'll be things that can be all kinds of things, big life events, there can just be a kind of long-term breakdown in kind of communication. There can be lots of stuff, and when you start that process, often there's a lot of content that comes out, yeah. And what we're in the business of is kind of getting underneath.

SPEAKER_00 40:12

Should we describe maybe that might be a slightly therapy-ish word? I wonder if people know what content means.

SPEAKER_01 40:19

Oh, yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_00 40:20

Should we should we have a row?

SPEAKER_01 40:22

Should we have a row? Okay, so that's hard.

SPEAKER_00 40:27

That's hard, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 40:28

Oh, is it hard? It's not hard sometimes.

SPEAKER_00 40:31

No, I know, but uh a row a row about content.

SPEAKER_01 40:35

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 40:35

So You didn't put the car keys back in the bowl, even though I asked you three times.

SPEAKER_01 40:41

Well, you did why do the car keys need to be back in the bowl? Like you just need to ask me if you want to know where the car keys are.

SPEAKER_00 40:47

No, because we agreed that the car keys were going back in the bowl because when I'm trying to get off for work in the morning and I'm in a rush, I need to know where they are. If they're in your jacket pocket or one of the other million places you put them, it makes me late for work. And you and I agreed that the car keys were going in the bowl.

SPEAKER_01 41:02

Yeah, well, you're always having a go at me about the car keys. I've got a lot on my plate at the moment. The car keys are right.

SPEAKER_00 41:07

So now you're saying that your job's more important than my job.

SPEAKER_01 41:09

I'm not saying that.

SPEAKER_00 41:10

You are saying that. That's exactly what you're saying. I just told you that all I need you to do, it's really simple, is just put the keys back in the bowl.

SPEAKER_01 41:20

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 41:20

Why is that so hard for you? You never listen.

SPEAKER_01 41:23

Right, so we're into all kinds of things there. We're into criticisms over complaints. But anyway, there's a tangent. But what we're doing there, but that was content. The keys to the content. It's the stuff, right? It's the stuff that we're arguing about, but what's actually happening is the process, is the negative dance. That what happens between uh a couple is that when their defenses get up, when they feel under attack, they attack back. And so to go back to our limbic system, spoiler alert, we'll be going back to that limbic system quite a lot. As soon as we feel under attack, we get adrenaline, we go into fight or flight, and we want to attack back. The part of our brain that is rational and reasonable shuts down because it's not important at the moment of attack. What's important in the moment of attack is to defend yourself and to fight or to run away.

SPEAKER_00 42:17

So it literally goes offline. The the part of your brain that that deals with emotional regulation goes offline because in a f an actual fight, if you were running away from a bear, we've got bears in part one and part two. But if you were running away from a bear, yeah, you don't need your emotional regulation systems to be involved. You need your limbic system, which acts, I think, about half a second faster than that. Because it's more important, it's more important to save you than to think about it. However, that is also the part of your brain that's active when you're having a fight with your partner.

SPEAKER_01 42:51

So and so that negative dance, actually, the content of the keys.

SPEAKER_00 42:56

The keys are irrelevant.

SPEAKER_01 42:58

The keys are relevant. I feel under attack, and so I get defensive and I say, Well, I've got work to do, and I'm trying to, and then I am I am attacking back. Yeah. We're getting into an elevated state, which I'll move on to in a bit. That's the second part of this opening salvo on couples counselling and how we can get on with our partners better. But in the first instance, this negative dance is the thing that happens each time. Regardless of the content, when we feel under attack, our heart rate goes up, yeah, our adrenaline is released, our noradrenaline and our cortisol is released, and we're into a state there where we can't have a reasonable conversation, we can't have a rational conversation.

SPEAKER_00 43:41

It's literally impossible because those chemicals are the purpose of them.

SPEAKER_01 43:46

Yes. Yes. And so and that is where almost I say almost, all couples are when they're rational.

SPEAKER_00 43:56

I was gonna say, yeah, all competent.

SPEAKER_01 43:58

I said almost, there's no

SPEAKER_00 44:00

That's where they are. I mean, they are often convinced that that the content is the thing. So it's the keys or the kids' behaviour or the and all those things can be important. I mean, they are important things, but that's not what the row is about. The row is about the communication.

SPEAKER_01 44:18

Yes. That's where that's where it's going wrong. The communication breakdown is where it's going wrong.

SPEAKER_00 44:23

The keys are not the issue, the communication is the issue.

SPEAKER_01 44:25

And so, and that's not to say, again, it's not to diminish that that can be a lot of work to turn that around because what we're all carrying is a series of kind of hard and fast rules, primarily from childhood, of ways of coping with the world.

SPEAKER_06 44:41

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 44:41

And so when we feel under attack, we feel under attack for a very good reason. And everybody's behaviour makes sense to them at that point. So when I feel under attack, when I feel criticised, there can be a deep root to that that you know can be the work of the therapy room, can be the work of self-awareness.

SPEAKER_00 45:02

What you've just said there as well, that element of compassion. Because nobody does what they do for no reason. We are always responding to something.

SPEAKER_04 45:11

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 45:12

It may not be apparent to our partner, and that's often uh what the process of couples counselling is about, is is allowing yourself to be m actually more vulnerable with the with the difficulties that you're having. But but people don't do things for no reason. We are almost always responding to a blueprint from our childhood.

SPEAKER_01 45:30

Yes. It's something that can be, once it's brought into our awareness, and we and we can see, we can notice, back to noticing, notice our responses, they have less of a hold on us.

SPEAKER_00 45:41

Noticing noticing is the key to just about everything.

SPEAKER_01 45:44

Just about everything, yeah. And and so that almost there's a kind of well, there is an overlap there where you're going, noticing your responses in an argument with your partner is the same as noticing anxiety. When you go, ah, that's yeah, that's this, that's this.

SPEAKER_00 45:58

The ability to step back just a little bit and say, I know what's happening here. However, going back to the point that you were making originally, which is that effectively, once you're in that heightened, escalated state, yes, heart rate above 100 beats a minute, yeah, all the good chemicals you were talking about pumping from your body, you are not capable of having uh a reparative broad view conversation with your partner.

SPEAKER_01 46:24

So I'm gonna come on to that.

SPEAKER_00 46:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 46:26

That's the second part.

SPEAKER_00 46:27

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_01 46:28

Okay, so I yeah, no, but you're right. So what you're leading to is the thing of so that escalation, once we're into that state, for that moment, all is lost. All we are in is how do I defend, how do I attack?

SPEAKER_00 46:41

It's kind of like as a therapist, it's a bit like watching a game of tennis, I always think.

SPEAKER_01 46:45

Right, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:46

Yes, I did, no, you didn't, yes you did, no, you didn't, yes, you did, no, you didn't.

SPEAKER_01 46:48

And it's understandable people are in that place because they feel her.

SPEAKER_00 46:52

Yeah, because they're picked and because their attachment actually is being threatened.

SPEAKER_01 46:57

Yes. So that so when we go, so to come back to the dance, couples over time get stuck in this dance.

SPEAKER_00 47:05

They do.

SPEAKER_01 47:06

And so my move precipitates your move. Yep, you precipitates my move. I do this step, then you do that step. And so what we're doing is slowing that down and looking at that process, and that process can be pretty much applied to all of the content. It's the kind of structure on which all of the content sits.

SPEAKER_05 47:27

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 47:28

And so by slowing that down and finding out where those responses are coming from, why those responses are happening, what's happening underneath the anger, underneath the defensiveness, what's the vulnerability? Why do I feel attacked by that comment about the car keys? Why do you feel attacked about my comment about working hard? Because it's because it's pointing at something that we feel there's something lacking, there's something in us that we need to make up for.

SPEAKER_00 47:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 47:56

So that dance is the work of the therapy room. And again, I like it's easy to kind of sum it up in a sentence. It can be a lot of work. People people have got stuck into a kind of way, a pattern of engagement.

SPEAKER_00 48:10

And it's understandable that people like being in a dance almost. Although obviously couples don't like fighting, yeah. But as human beings, we are built to like patterns, we like predictability. You know, we see a man in the moon, we we like patterns. Yeah, we like f familiar patterns. So sometimes the idea of stopping the fighting, of changing the steps of the dance, of slowing the dance down so that we can change the steps. Well, we have to be able to see the steps first and see that it is a dance. Yeah. But that can be quite frightening for people because because destructive as as those uh kind of row patterns are, they are at least familiar. Yeah, familiar, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 48:57

Yeah, yeah, and uh there's comfort in what you know.

SPEAKER_00 49:00

And there's comfort in the familiar. So I guess it's also worth acknowledging that for our couples when they come into the room.

SPEAKER_01 49:06

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 49:06

That actually doing something about this, changing this up. Yes, it is quite a frightening prospect.

SPEAKER_01 49:13

Yes. Yeah, that's right, because there's the thing that you hate is also the thing you know.

SPEAKER_00 49:18

It's the thing you know. If I do this, then you do that, then I do this, then I know you're gonna do that. Even though it's so-if we don't do that. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 49:25

What's left there?

SPEAKER_00 49:26

Or what's underneath there? Yeah. Is the thing that's underneath more frightening?

SPEAKER_01 49:30

Yeah. Yes. And so that's so that's when at the start of that couples counselling process, often, if you've not had therapy before, the process starts in all therapy with contracting, where you're kind of laying the terms of how it works and your ethical responsibility and confidentiality. Um, maybe we'll cover that in a different episode. But within that, with couples counselling, one of the kind of key initial points is that the therapist isn't there to referee, isn't there to judge, to come down on someone's side. It's not who's right, it's not about who's right and wrong, it's actually about the process. In the kind of harshest terms, we're not that interested in the content. The relationship is our client, the relationship is our client, which is a therapy, again, a slightly therapeutic y phrase, but it's true.

SPEAKER_00 50:19

Well, it is, but I think I think couples do often come into the room imagining that what's gonna happen is that they're both gonna have to defend their corner, yes, and that you are going to almost like you're a judge in a court, you're gonna listen to the you know, case for the prosecution, the case for the defence, and then you're going to decide who's right.

SPEAKER_01 50:39

Yes. What should we say? I think probably, and I'm there's a bit of a generalization here, but often when couples go for counselling, there's some discussion over the gender of their counsellor.

SPEAKER_00 50:52

Counsellor. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 50:53

Because there's an assumption that they'll come down on gender lines.

SPEAKER_00 50:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 50:57

And there's a bit of that. So there's a bit of dispelling that myth.

SPEAKER_00 51:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 51:01

That goes with that kind of opening setting out of how it works. Yeah. And so that that process, like I say, is is our work.

SPEAKER_00 51:09

Yeah, it it it it often, well, we kept saying that we like counterintuitive things. I guess this isn't really counterintuitive. It can be quite relieving for couples, I think, when they realise that that actually that's that's not what you're going to do. You're not going to say, right, ten points to you and only eight to you, so you win.

SPEAKER_01 51:27

Because that's more of the same. That's thinking, I'm gonna have to go in and defend my position. And that's what you're doing all the time.

SPEAKER_00 51:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 51:34

Because your behaviour makes sense because you feel like you're hurt, you feel like you're being attacked, and that defend attack is the exhausting thing that's brought you here in the first place. So if we can get, like I say, get underneath that, find out what's driving that, what the vulnerability is, then we can take that attack and defence away because both partners' behavior makes sense when you find out what they're worried about, what their fear is underneath.

SPEAKER_00 52:01

It does, and and I think that's whether it actually whether you're c talking about couples in counselling or whether you're talking about an individual in counselling, it's starting to uh realize that within the context of the things that you've experienced in your life, your reactions make sense.

SPEAKER_01 52:18

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 52:18

Your emotions make sense, your thoughts make sense. They all make sense.

SPEAKER_01 52:23

They're all trying to protect you.

SPEAKER_00 52:24

They're all trying to protect you, and uh that's where the compassion comes in.

SPEAKER_04 52:28

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 52:29

The self-compassion, I mean, it's not some sort of wafty wafty let's just be nice to everybody idea. It's the idea that we do things for a reason. Yeah, and that's where the compassion comes in. I think that's really important. It's really important in both couples counselling and in individual counselling. Yes, transformative, transformative, and so we're transformative.

SPEAKER_01 52:51

So, as a kind of introduction to couples counselling, yeah, that is the work is changing the dance. So if we can change the steps of the dance, if normally I do this step and then you do that step, let's see what it looks like if I don't do that step in response to that step. And actually, rather than attacking, I say, This is how I'm feeling at the moment, yeah, because of this thing, and not because of you, and we can go, I think probably at a later episode, there's a couple of the kind of godparents of couples counseling, the Gottmans who do a lot the godlike Gottmans, the godlike Gotmans who do lots of work on uh what they call the four horsemen, which are the four ways of harsh start-ups, of harsh ways of talking to each other, and we you know we can look at that in a later episode, but for now, if we're changing those reactions, so we're not coming in with the attacks, and we're going, oh actually, this is what's going on underneath for us now.

SPEAKER_00 53:47

Recognising that actually this is about my vulnerabilities interacting with your vulnerabilities. Both trying to protect themselves, we're both trying to protect themselves, so we're doing things for a reason, we've got that element of compassion in there, but we're also recognising that we have got ourselves into a dance, into a pattern.

SPEAKER_03 54:06

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 54:07

And couples will often say, won't they, that that the fighting is habitual, that it follows a sort of you know, oh god, here we are again, fighting about the same thing again. Either fighting about the same content or it feels like it's the same content because the fight so we're looking at that dance. We're recognizing that. Yeah, but people are often exhausted, don't they? They're so tired of it. I'm so we're so bored. People will often say, I'm so bored of this. Yeah. So we're recognising it's a dance.

SPEAKER_03 54:34

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 54:35

We're recognising that it's a dance which allows us to slow that dance down and say, Okay, what are these steps? And then more importantly, why? Why are these steps?

SPEAKER_03 54:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 54:44

And the therapist in that mix is not there to say you're a better dancer than you.

SPEAKER_01 54:50

No. They're basically there to say, let's do a different dance.

SPEAKER_00 54:53

Yeah. Let's do a different dance.

SPEAKER_01 54:54

Well, let's not even do a dance.

SPEAKER_00 54:55

Well, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 54:56

Does the analogy go as far as let's not dance? Well let's do a slow dance. Let's do a slow dance. Everyone loves a slow dance.

SPEAKER_00 55:03

EFT couples counsellors are into EFT, it's more Oh, sorry, yes. Uh yes, emotion focused therapy have a uh a type of couples counselling, which I personally like very much. Um, and they have an analogy which involves changing the music, I think, rather than the dance pattern. I've never quite understood that.

SPEAKER_01 55:24

Change the tune, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 55:26

Every time I've I've watched a speaker kind of give that analogy, I've always thought, hmm, eh?

SPEAKER_03 55:32

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 55:34

Confession. There we go. Um But I think we know what we're saying. We are that the dance is something, whilst we're fighting, we enter into this, you know, these very familiar confrontation patterns. It's almost like we do it with a certain amount of unconsciousness.

SPEAKER_01 55:50

Well, so okay, so let's get on to that because that unconsciousness is actually what's happening because our brain is shutting down our prefrontal cortex is shutting down because it's not important in a fight. It's not important when you have to fight or run away. What's important is the fighting or running away. The fighting or running away. So all of the blood goes to your muscles, uh, your heart rate goes up. Yeah. And that, if you've been ever been in a fight with your partner, obviously we haven't because we had to really struggle to do that khaki thing.

SPEAKER_00 56:16

Oh, I wasn't struggling.

SPEAKER_01 56:19

We found that very easy. Um, but once you get into that, then you are in a state where everyone recognises that thing of when their partner makes them annoyed and their heart goes and you and you just feel physically um yeah, oh, and that's annoying me.

SPEAKER_00 56:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 56:35

So what do we do about it, right? Go to therapy. That's one thing, that's one answer.

SPEAKER_00 56:39

And the long term you would assume that would be our top answer.

SPEAKER_01 56:43

Yeah, that that's our let's check. Number one. So that's an answer, but what can you do now?

SPEAKER_00 56:49

Yeah, at home.

SPEAKER_01 56:50

And so at home now, and so one way of uh describing this process is flooding. We get flooded by our emotions very quickly.

SPEAKER_03 56:59

Description.

SPEAKER_01 57:00

Yes, and so and we have a very small window where this flooding, where we can notice this flooding happening, and then we are consumed by it because our bodies are doing what they're supposed to do and shutting down the parts of our brains.

SPEAKER_00 57:14

A small opportunity to turn off the tap.

SPEAKER_01 57:16

That's good.

SPEAKER_00 57:17

Thanks.

SPEAKER_01 57:17

That's great.

SPEAKER_00 57:18

I think I made that up.

SPEAKER_01 57:19

Did you? Or just then?

SPEAKER_00 57:20

Just just now.

SPEAKER_01 57:21

Well done.

SPEAKER_00 57:22

Yeah. I don't think the Gottman's even said that.

SPEAKER_01 57:24

It's definitely made up for your return of the Jedi stuff from earlier. So, yes, so what can you do at home? I'm not suggesting for a second that this is like the easiest fix. This isn't a lot a life hack. I'm not a big fan of life hacks. Um, this is a thing to work at, right? But when you notice, you and your partner notice that this is starting again, the best thing you can do is walk away. Yeah. But there are rules.

SPEAKER_00 57:52

Tell us the rules, Neil.

SPEAKER_01 57:54

The rules, because they're a very particular way. If you just walk away, deep down there can be feelings of resentment or abandonment if you just storm out.

SPEAKER_00 58:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 58:04

That's that's a very dysfunctional way of.

SPEAKER_00 58:07

Storm with a structure.

SPEAKER_01 58:08

Storm with a structure. I'm not sure that's as good as you're turning the tap off, but good swing.

SPEAKER_00 58:12

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 58:13

Um, so here's the tips, right? This is how how you can stop the flooding. At the moment that it starts, you'll be familiar with the pattern. And after you've heard this, maybe you're like, oh, yeah, we do that. So the next time it happens, try and think of a sign that you can introduce. A word, uh, a sign can be a hand signal which lends itself to jokes. Not that hand signal.

SPEAKER_00 58:35

Not that one.

SPEAKER_01 58:36

Not that one. But just a thing that stops you in your tracks, and you go, okay, we're both getting elevated, we're both getting flooded by this at the moment. We're gonna walk away. Now you need to walk away for at least 20 minutes. Because 20 minutes is how long it takes for your adrenaline to subside. Yeah. Because your body is gonna go, I'm getting ready to fight. I need to, I want to be really sure this predator's left. So my body is built to kind of be in this state until I know the bear has left, is not in the woods anymore.

SPEAKER_00 59:08

And this will take some prior agreement though, because some people for some people it takes much longer than that. So 20 minutes is the minimum.

SPEAKER_01 59:15

So, and you're, you know, we kind of say no less than 20 minutes and no more than 24 hours. 24 hours. Because beyond that, we're into other levels. Everybody feels abandoned after 24 hours. Everybody feels so let's stop this now because we are heading into a place where we're just going to rail because our bodies are going to put us into that state. You go into separate spaces, so you're not with each other, but at the point you leave, you agree a time that you're gonna come back to each other.

SPEAKER_00 59:42

Yeah, that's really important.

SPEAKER_01 59:44

So that negates the sense of abandonment. So you go, let's come back into the room, and you and you know each other. So let's go, let's come back in the room in half an hour or an hour, but we're gonna come back and we'll and we'll resume this calmly in half an hour. So then you go to separate places and crucially, and again, this is a skill that sometimes takes some learning, you don't ruminate on what you've just been arguing about, you don't think about it, you don't prepare your responses for when you go back. No. What you do is find something that you like to do, something that soothes you in a healthy way. Yeah, like soothing, a soothing technique. So it can be listening to music, it can be meditating. You would do crochet, I might play a bit of guitar.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:28

I might, you know, if it's longer than if you say we're gonna come back in an hour, you could do a bit of exercise. But that works in that space.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:37

In fact, physical exercise is because you're actually burning off that adrenaline. Yes, chemicals, so exercise is good.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:46

And so then what you're doing is you're self-soothing, so you're bringing your system back down to the calm place, the rest and digestive emotional regulation centres back online so that they can do the things they need to do. Yes, and so then you come back at the pre-agreed time and you start to discuss then.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:07

And you may go again.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:08

Yeah. I'm just gonna say it's important to say that, isn't it? That that escalation m may happen more than once, and you might need to do your time up all over again.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:18

Yeah, and then beyond that, there are techniques that you can use in that communication when you come back. Cliffhanger.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:27

I was gonna say that's a good cliffhanger for another.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:30

What do I say when I come back? Well, there are some ways of communicating that what we're trying to do is take away the blame, take away the shame, take away the attack, take away the defense, take away the stonewalling, and just communicate the emotion that's come up for you. And so maybe that's something to talk about the next it definitely is next time. So do my 10-second takeaway sponsored by Return of the Jedi. Never thought this is how it's gonna end.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:59

Go on.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:00

What's your 10-second takeaway? So your 10-second takeaway is when the argument starts, stop with your pre-arranged signal, yeah, or even if you haven't got one, just say let's just stop.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:10

And you step away and agree to come back at a predetermined time. You then step away into separate spaces. Yep. You don't ruminate on the argument, you don't prepare your defence for when you get back, you do something self-soothing. No texting, no texting, no show.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:27

No communication.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:28

Yeah, but so that's but that's separating includes.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:31

But couples often I've come across lots of couples who will not speak to each other, but they'll text.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:37

Yes, and text are a whole other world of pain for Yeah, and and that that counts.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:42

No texting.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:43

So you step away, you don't communicate for your twenty minutes, your half hour, your hour, and then you come back. Yeah, and when you come back, you will come back as different people. You will because you won't be elevated.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:56

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:56

And then you try again.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:59

Yeah. Good. Do we have a a special word?

SPEAKER_01 1:03:03

Um, we don't do it. We don't. We don't but I don't know. Yeah, well, we obviously we row, so well, why don't we Yeah, let's find a word.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:13

Let's find a word now. Jedi.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:16

Jedi, right? Let's do Jedi.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:18

Let's have Jedi.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:19

Jedi's good. Okay. Well, okay, this is a good monitoring thing, though, because it obviously between now and the next episode, our homework is to monitor when we when a row starts and we'll report back.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:32

Yeah. Jedi.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:33

And if we don't report back, or that row's gone badly.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:35

Do you think it'll get competitive about who gets to Jedi first?

SPEAKER_01 1:03:39

No.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:39

No. Shut up.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:45

That's good. You Jedi.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:46

This wasn't even you Jedi seven times. That wasn't even five times. That wasn't even.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:54

I already said Jedi. And then our rows become about the use of Jedi. Then we need another word. Now we're going down a rabbit hole. Yeah. The other word is rabbit hole.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:04

No. Let's pull back out. Let's p pull out.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:07

Okay. Um, well, that's us. So thank you for listening. There'll be a little bit on the end that says thank you for listening, but we can thank people more than once.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:17

That's okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:17

So if you'd like to get in touch, we would love to hear from you. Any of these things have brought up any observations, thoughts, questions or you love a q love a QA. Yeah, that'd be great. I imagine if we have people asking us questions. It may not happen. And if it doesn't, acceptance.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:36

Thanks for joining us. We will speak to you next time. Next time. Goodbye. Bye.