This Crazy Little Thing Called Life

{FIGHT BETTER} When Conflict Becomes Connection: A Conversation with Lena Morgan

• Season 6 • Episode 25

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Conflict isn’t a failure. It’s an opportunity to use all that inner work you've been cultivating -  in relationship. It's where the rubber meets the road. 

This week, Meg sits down with Lena Morgan, a woman who’s spent decades helping others feel seen—from birth rooms to boardrooms—to talk about what really happens when we stop avoiding the hard stuff.

Inside this episode:

  • Why we were never taught how to fight well (and how to change that).
  • How to identify your Fight Language and stop taking everything so damn personally.
  • What it means to move from peacekeeping to power—without losing connection.
  • How inner work meets outer communication when emotions run high.
  • Why every woman becomes a matriarch the moment she feels understood.

If you’ve ever found yourself spiraling mid-conflict, this conversation will bring you back home to your body, your truth, and your capacity to connect—even in the fire.


It's like I always say "Relationship is the Playground Of Transformation."

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SPEAKER_02:

Might have someone in your life who doesn't have the vocabulary or the skills yet to tell you how they want to connect with you. So what they do is pick a fight. Right? Conflict is connection. It is saying, I want you to see me. I want you to care enough about me to fight with me. I w I want you. I want your engagement. Okay, yeah, I'm going about it in a way that's really not healthy or helpful. But if we dropped it on the floor and told them what we saw there, looks like you're feeling really lonely. Looks like you're feeling ignored. It looks like you think I don't have time for you right now. I mean, we've just diffused the whole thing.

SPEAKER_00:

Welcome to the Crazy Little Thing Called Life Podcast with your host, the lovely Megan Thompson. Megan is a spiritual life and business coach, a cashic record practitioner, an all things crushed velvet lover. If you're keen to create more than just a living, but a life and business you love, you're in the right place. Bursting with practical and spiritual tools, tips and tricks that you can enact today to get out of your own bloody way. So grab a copper and shield you want it. You can count on Megan, her guest, to use cheeky adult language and inappropriate humor on this crazy little thing called life.

SPEAKER_03:

Am I excited to dive into this episode or what? Yes, very excited. So our guest, Lena Morgan, is a friend. She is an amazing expert when it comes to fighting. And, you know, she says that the greatest gift we can give ourselves is to feel understood. She's a retired midwife, communications expert, and author of The Fight Languages, a powerful communication system that helps people translate conflict and spark connection. Driven by a passion for advocacy and empowerment, she created the Overflow Effect, Heal Her and Wolf Mother, all transformative programs designed to help people reclaim their power and voice in every stage of life. Lena partners with families, leaders, and organizations to foster stronger and more connected communities through better communication. You can check her out at LenaMorgan.com. Now I want to share my personal experience with Lena. So I I know Lena, she's a good friend of a good friend of mine. And my husband, my daughter, my son, and I all went in our school bus. We have this big blue schoolie. We got in and we drove to this event that I was teaching yoga at called Van Stock, which is a local van focused, so kind of van life-focused event with live music and vendors and teachers and all these really wonderful opportunities. And Lena happened to be not only a camping buddy, because she was right next to us and I used a lighter and she had one for me, which was great, but she was teaching there as well. And so I was reading in the pamphlet, sitting around our little table in our little tiny schooly living room. And I was like, huh. Fight better. Learning how to navigate conflict. And I looked up and I said, Ryan, we should go to that. And he said, Maybe you should, which is the perfect example of why this entire podcast episode exists and why Lena does what she does. We did go to her speaking event. We did take the quiz that she has on her website, and we did buy her book. And I can say that my husband has utilizes the tech utilized the techniques that he learned from the thing that he didn't want to go to. Um in when we're arguing, and it's been very, very helpful. And so I will say that this particular episode goes very well with the first two matriarch episodes, redefining power and partnership, the episode one and episode two, which you can just find below this. All right. Now, without further ado, I give you my conversation with Lena Morgan. Thank you so much for being here. Well, hello, welcome. So I have the badass, lovely, and amazing Lena here. Lena Morgan, thanks for being here.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, thank you for the invitation. I'm thrilled.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, me too. Me too. I'm so excited to dive in to what we're gonna talk about today. And really, really grateful to have you here, Lena. I feel like you have such a unique way of engaging with life. And I feel like you have such a unique approach to what you're sharing with the world, and I'm excited to share it with my community.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, thank you, man. Thanks for seeing that. Yeah, of course. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

All right. So before we dive into all this brilliance you've created, I'd love for you to begin with just answering this question. Who are you becoming right now in this season of life? And how do you feel like your path has led you here?

SPEAKER_02:

Honestly, I feel like that gets thrown around uh a lot without it being real in a way, you know. Like I was told recently, you know, you're a force of nature, and I loved that. And I thought, okay, that is what I am embodying moving forward in. But there really is, it's a fierceness that says, I am unwilling to compromise, which I think as women, we are often asked to compromise, and a lot of our relationships are dependent on our willingness to compromise. And so that is, I mean, I'm 43 now. I feel like your 40s are just rich with this, like I no longer give a fuck. And so for me, it's really come through in this fierceness that says, No, and I love it.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, I love that too. That's awesome. So, what so you're 43, you said? What do you think 33-year-old Lena would think of that?

SPEAKER_02:

She would be terrified of it. I think I was still so committed to being that, you know, to borrow from the fight languages, that negotiator, that peacemaker. Like I was still, I still found so much pleasure, joy, and identity in the role of being that, you know, the good one that was getting along with everyone and helping everyone connect and solving problems. So I think she would have been really afraid to see kind of the direction we've gone in.

SPEAKER_01:

It wasn't, it wasn't like, oh, I can't wait.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, yeah. What have you done?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, exactly. Why?

SPEAKER_03:

What was wrong with being nice and liked, liked us, yeah, yeah. I mean, that's so huge. Releasing the like shroud of needing to be liked to be who you truly are, which is um terrifying, I think, for most of us.

SPEAKER_02:

Obviously, we are trained our whole lives that the epitome of being a good woman is to be liked and you know, get along with people. And so you I feel like we don't give it enough weight for how difficult that is because you're not only flowing against the relationship you've cultivated that wanted you that way, you showed up in that way. Then there's this counter culture, you know, you're going against this river as well, and it's scary, man. Like that is tough, and yet we still do.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, yeah. Well, it takes a certain level of courageousness to really move through that and have enough roots to not fall back into those well-worn neuropathways that say, like, and nervous system responses that say, I'm safer if everybody, if I can make everybody else happy.

SPEAKER_02:

Dude, yes, right. I mean, I talk to women about that all the time. Like, think about it, you have a 100% success rate of showing up as the people pleaser, as you know, the good person, as the kind, helping, fixing person. That worked. It got you to hear and you're alive. So, like, we have to give it the weight that it deserves and how effective it was in guiding life. And now to go against it, literally every cell of your body says, Oh, what? No, I don't know how this one works out. I don't like it. I don't want it. I know that one. I had relationships, I, you know, looked successful. Okay, yeah, I was unsatisfied and I was resentful, and I had a lot of, you know, difficult emotions to sit with all the time, but I was surviving. It looked the way it was supposed to.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I had, I was listening to a class years ago, and it was like right in this cusp of me being being on the edge of really shh like letting go of that version of self, really releasing that version of self. And she was like, What is keeping the peace costing you? Like, truly ask yourself that question. What is keeping the peace costing me? And I was like, It's fucking costing me everything. Everything.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. Oh, and I mean, we see that physically when we look at 80% of autoimmune disorders are women, and they have an emotional component that we're just now starting to like pull the lid back on, you know. Yeah, that cost is only just starting to be quantified because we've always bypassed our own experience as valuable, right? So there's no cost because my stuff doesn't really matter until you're sick, until your body's screaming, until your spirit says, I cannot. I will I'm done.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, there's no more room for this. Yeah. Okay. Well, so you say conflict, right? It's just information. But many of us take it personally, right? Yeah. What do you think keeps us in that pattern? And how do we begin to shift towards that like intimacy, that connection we crave instead of putting up the walls of defense, which are so knee-jerk. Right.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, absolutely. Um, I mean, at the base of it, we are not taught how to handle conflict ever. Right? We are taught strategies like, you know, fight at all costs, win at all costs, you know, keep keep going, make sure they don't win. Or we're taught, just give in. Why are you making such a big deal out of it? Don't die on every mountain, you know. You you always, you always make a big thing. So both of it's an all-or-nothing paradigm that we're given when it comes to conflict. And what that does is keep us stuck in this. Either they're winning or I'm winning. Either I'm losing or they're losing. You know, when we take that whole thing off and we say, conflict is an exchange of information. This is communication. This is how we tell someone what's important to us. This is how someone tells us what they're feeling in this situation. When we make it information, we make it neutral, and that stops it from meaning something about us. Because all of those knee-jerk reactions, I mean, I'm working with couples every day, individuals every day, on how we can fight better. And the number one thing is a being aware of what your knee-jerk reactions are, right? A lot of us don't have much awareness around it because it's a reaction. We're watching the words fly out of our mouth and like, oh, we're doing this, I guess, you know. Or we're immediately shutting down and you know, stopping it from happening. So when we recognize, uh, they weren't telling me about me, they were telling me about them. Okay, great. Now there's distance, now there's separation, now we can hear it for the information it is. And remember, sometimes they're gonna be doing a really shitty job of telling you about them, right? And it's gonna sound like you always, you never, and da-da-da-da-da. You make me feel like this, you make me feel like that. So this is like my number one trick always when it comes to conflict. Watch the words come out of their mouth, fall to the floor, and tell them what it looks like. Like this alone will change 90% of the conflict that you're dealing with in life because you are literally keeping it in that neutral information space. It's staying outside of you. And then you get to do, even if they're saying you always do this, you never do that, you make me feel like this. It looks like you're feeling this way. It looks like when I said this, you felt that. You heard this, you know, it's wildly effective and really helps keep our conflict we can hear the information rather than reacting to it.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, and I mean the spaciousness alone, creating the spaciousness alone is huge. I always I I had someone say to me, like, conflict breeds intimacy. And I often bring that into situations where I'm like, if some I don't know how to explain this, but I think like when someone wants conflict with me and I don't actually want intimacy with them, I'm like, I'm actually not gonna participate in your conflict that you want with me because I don't actually want to be in an intimate connection with you. It's not worth my time, my effort, none of it. Right?

SPEAKER_02:

Totally, totally, or you might have someone in your life who doesn't have the vocabulary or the skills yet to tell you how they want to connect with you. So what they do is pick a fight, right? Conflict is connection, yeah. It is saying, I want you to see me, I want you to care enough about me to fight with me. I w I want you. I want your engagement. Okay, yeah, I'm going about it in a way that's really not healthy or helpful. But if we dropped it on the floor and told them what we saw there, looks like you're feeling really lonely. Looks like you're feeling ignored. It looks like you think I don't have time for you right now. I mean, we've just diffused the whole thing. And they might, yeah, because you both yeah, yeah. Looks like that was really stressful, you know? So we're we're like bypassing this grenade they're trying to throw to instead go to that intimacy and connection with the people we want to. Otherwise, we're like, no, thanks. Not for me. I'm gonna go this way. Good luck.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, thank you, but no, thank you.

SPEAKER_02:

Right.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, yeah. Okay, so you've you know, you've spent your life helping women feel seen, right? In birthrooms, relationships, boardrooms. What have you noticed about what happens to a woman when she feels truly understood?

SPEAKER_02:

Oh I'm gonna get emotional with that one. I mean, that is to watch a goddess incarnate. That is to watch something bursting into its fullest form when she feels understood. What I know beyond a shadow of a doubt is she has now become an advocate for everyone around her. She feels understood in her experience, she is an immovable force, she is the matriarch, she is the one that is making it safe for everyone around her. That I mean, man, birthrooms were an incredible place to see that and to see the difference, you know, when it wasn't there, and what that feeling looks like when we don't feel understood, you know. But to see a woman who feels understood, feels trusted, feels heard. I mean, that is a woman without any bounds. She can do anything. It's amazing.

SPEAKER_03:

It really is. Yeah. Yeah. So let's talk about the fight language, isn't how how does that help women feel understood? How can it help women feel understood? Like what are these, what do you think are some of the most common misunderstandings people have about how they fight, and then how that that keeps them in like consistently feeling misunderstood? Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02:

Bottom line, we think everybody else fights the way we do, and we think everybody else is having the same experience that we're having. So if you're a negotiator and your core need is to reassure the connection, so you are engaging with this person, thinking they're they want the same thing you do, they want to be reassured that you guys are still connected, but unfortunately, you're talking to an analyzer who has a core need to have their logic be understood, and so you guys are you are literally speaking different languages and missing each other by a mile in the conversation. So, for women in particular, I see a lot of women showing up as a negotiator. Again, core need to be connected. So this is our people pleasers and our fixers, and we just want to help. And I also see women showing a lot up a lot as the amplifier, which has a core need to have their emotions be understood. So these are the people that just keep escalating when someone says that doesn't make sense. I don't why? Why are you like this? Why do you your emotions don't? Oh my gosh, she will just keep going until they are so big that no one can deny them. And then we see men showing up often as that analyzer, core need for the logic. It's black and white, it's facts over feelings. Bring the receipts or don't come at all. Like, why are you like this? You know?

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Or we see them as that extinguisher, just a total withdrawal and shutdown. Oh my gosh, can you imagine if someone wants their emotions to be understood or wants to reassure the connection and this person's running in the other direction? Right. So we tend to show up in this conflict. Come on, I mean, it's that anxious attachment, right? Please let me know I'm worth understanding. Right. So we have that where we are not only chasing, but we're completely denying our own experience as we seek the validation of this person who is probably not even capable of validating our experience for us. And so we're just stuck in this loop where we're like, yeah, no, it goes the same way every time. We just have the same fight, it never ends, it never gets resolved. There's never anything productive about it because we're continuing to speak our own fight language unknowingly. We aren't translating that what that other person's saying, right? So we're just stuck in these same spirals.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

So difficult.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, it is really difficult. And and what do you feel like, you know, I you know the fight languages are so fascinating because it's like parallel to the love languages, right? Understanding how people love, understanding how people need to get their meets, needs met, you know, and I just feel like this is such a unique portal into the other side of being in intimate relationship. Yeah, I know how I need to be loved, but I also, you know, you're gonna fight. You'll say your vows, you're gonna get married, and then he's not gonna do the dishes, and you're gonna be like, bro, pick your dishes up and put them in the sink or the dishwasher's not that hard. Would mommy do that for your whole life? You know, and it's like, okay, how do we engage with the intimacy creator? Which I feel like fight fight can really be that. This this argument, these arguments can really be that. So can you briefly, because you're you're speaking through the languages, and I don't think everybody here has either bought your book or have dove into the different fight, the different people, like the different versions, right? The amplifier and the extinguisher. Can you just briefly tell us or break it down so people can be like, oh, that's me?

SPEAKER_02:

And guaranteed one of these, you know what? I'm not even gonna guarantee that it's gonna resonate with whoever's listening, but they will recognize their spouse, their partner, their parent immediately. We're so much better at identifying someone else's fight language, you know, than our own. I love it. Okay, so first up we have the igniter. This is our anger-based response. This is the person that says, I will be protected at all costs, even if the cost is pulling the pin out of the grenade and exploding and shutting the fight down before it can cause more harm. So, hand in hand with our igniters, man, they are comfortable with anger. They are the people walking this earth that are like, anger, listen, come at me. Like, I burn inside. You can't do anything. But they are also the people that go hand in hand with the guilt and shame of the eruption, right? So they're the ones that are like, you know, going to explode and end the fight, and everyone's walking on eggshells and avoiding them, and now they're like, sorry, it's my fault again. I'm working on it, you know, it's a bummer. Then we have our amplifiers. This is our emotion-based response. This is, I need my emotions to be understood. So amplifiers are people who have usually walked through the world being told their whole lives, you're just so emotional, there's so much. Why do you we are so dramatic, you know, make up such a big deal out of nothing? Like, so they have learned that their emotions aren't acceptable to the world. Igniters learned their anger wasn't acceptable to the world. Amplifiers now clearly understand people don't want my emotions. So we usually have a second fight language that'll show up first. And if someone doesn't meet them in that, now the emotions that have been tightly packed down come erupting out. So these are the people that come to me saying, I just want to stop crying when I get mad. Or, you know, I want to get through a fight and not break down in tears just once, you know. Um, but like igniters have this superpower of being comfortable with anger. Amplifiers have the superpower of emotion. They're like, dude, your emotions, try me. What are you feeling? You couldn't knock me off, kilter, if you tried. Whatever you're feeling. Oh, let's get into it. I love this. Negotiators, connection-based response, and they have a core need to feel connected to their people and to know that we're gonna be okay. Everything's gonna be okay. So, like I said, these are our people pleasers, people who tend towards codependency. There are fixers, they just want to know what's wrong so they can fix it. And so, you know, I've had people say, Well, oh, probably the negotiator's the best to be. Ah, that's hilarious. No, none of these are better or worse than the others, right? They're they're all amazing and they're all terrible. So the negotiators end up feeling like, you know, they're trying to be your parent or your teacher, they're trying to be your therapist, and you didn't ask them to do that. So negotiators end up like, but I'm just trying to fix it. And people are getting mad and more upset, and they don't understand, but but I'm just trying to help. So negotiators have this amazing skill to see life through other people's eyes. They have empathy like oxygen, right? They totally understand, they want deeply to understand where you're coming from and what's happening to you. But what happens in the process is negotiators completely bypass their own experience. Amplifiers couldn't bypass their own experience if they were paid to, right? They're like, what I am feeling is 100% in every cell of my body. I could not feel anything else. Negotiators like, I have no idea what I'm feeling, but I feel really strongly about what you're feeling. And I want to help you with that. Then we have analyzers, logic-based response, core need is to have their logic be understood. They need to know that you understand why what they feel makes sense, what they think makes sense. So they kind of go hand in hand with the amplifier, right? They need desperately to be understood. But where the amplifier needs their emotion to be understood, the analyzer needs their logic. And the amplifiers over here saying, I don't care if it makes sense. This is what I feel. And the analyzers over here saying, it doesn't matter what you feel, it's just the facts of the situation. It's black and white. We don't need to fight about this. That literally doesn't make sense.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

So amazing, right? We want to have an analyzer in the fight because they're the ones that keep us from, oh gosh, I can go on some bunny journal. You feel that, I feel that way, and remember this thing that happened then, and then we felt like that. Analyzers are like, whoa, whoa, whoa, we're not talking about that right now. Let's get back to this. Challenging though, because they they need you to justify how you feel. And here's the real kicker with the analyzers, right? They want to understand, and the way they go about that is to ask questions or to point out flaws in your argument because they want to get it. They want it to make sense, they want your feeling to make sense. But if you're in a fight with an analyzer, it feels like the judge sitting on the bench saying, no, this isn't right. That doesn't make sense, and here you are, you know, on the witness stand just trying to defend how you feel. I mean, what a what a superpower. The way they can logic through things. Difficult for all of the amplifiers in the world. Yes, yes, absolutely. And then we have our extinguishers. Extinguishers are an escape-based response, and they have a core need to feel safe. Different than the igniter that has the core need to feel protected, right? An extinguisher needs to feel safe. So they will escape to safety every time. And the pisser of it is our extinguishers are the canaries in the coal mine. They know when things are going like this is we're not productive anymore. This is gonna go by. It it registers in them as starting to feel overwhelmed, noticing the tension in the room, they're starting to get nervous, but they're they've been told their whole lives that they need to stop escaping. So they push themselves to stay engaged in these conversations that they know are like, this is not good. But everyone gets mad when I bail out or I shut down or I, you know, get busy puttering, avoiding eye contact, trying to not be here, you know. So they push themselves to stay engaged, which just makes them more overwhelmed. And the tensions rising more, and their mind is going blank. They don't even know what to say to this person now who's yelling at them. And maybe if they just don't say anything at all, at least they won't make it worse. And every Everybody that they're fighting with is like, why won't you talk to me? You know? And the extinguishers are there, like, I'm I'm literally just trying to save this relationship right now. We are so off the rails. So the extinguisher has a skill that we all need to cultivate, which is to hit pause. They do a great job at quieting down, taking a minute, stepping away, catching their breath, pondering something. But the skill that they are cultivating is to hit play again, right? To come back to the conversation to pick it up. Because once they've escaped, they're like, listen, I made it out of the war. Couldn't pay me enough to go back into it. It doesn't exist anymore. I don't want to, you know. Yeah.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

So that's where the challenge comes in with the extinguisher, but they have this incredible skill that they've like amplifiers with their emotions, analyzers with their logic. It's something they've been told by other fight languages is problematic when really it's this superpower they have.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

And I love how it is both, right?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. Thank you for breaking that down. They're beautiful. And on your website, you can take a you can take a quiz, right? To see which one's potentially yours or yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Your top three usually, yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. Which is so fascinating. I just love this so much. But I love really how you speak to that there is both like a shadow to it and a gift. And it's it just speaks to the spectrum of life, right? We have both all of us, we always want the gift, we want the joy, we want the happiness, but oftentimes the gift lives in the pain and the shadow that we're unwilling to look at.

SPEAKER_02:

Totally. So I call it protective versus productive. We're either speaking this fight language protectively, where we're showing up to, you know, we're defensive, we're protecting ourselves, we're rejecting the other person, but again, we're doing it for a really smart reason because there's something here that makes us feel unsafe and we don't have skills other than protection. Okay. Of course you should do that then, right? That obviously makes sense. And then we have productive. So when we gain more skills, when we practice this more, when we have conversations, we build trust with someone, we build trust with ourselves. We can have these conversations and not default into the protective mode, but instead stay in the productive where we stay connected to this person and we realize our own defensiveness. And we don't pick their stuff up and meet make it mean something about us. That's amazing. And every fight language, I mean, we are maybe many times a day we're gonna speak our fight language protectively and productively, and it's just having that awareness of, oh yeah, no, man, my kid said that thing, and I just protective reaction immediately, you know. Oh, that's what I'm doing. What if I said that out loud? What if I was like, wow, I just got really protective right now? Why? What's going on? Now we've got curiosity, now empathy's coming. We have empathy for ourselves. We're like, I just snapped at you. I'm so sorry. That wasn't about you at all. That was my reaction, you know. It just gives us a language to start talking about these hidden internal reactions so that they can also be part of the conversation.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, yeah. And it I love how it speaks to the fact that you know, we could we can do this inner work and we can sit alone and and engage with like all of our inner stuff on our own and meditation, but the real rubber meets the road when we're in relationship. And how can we tune into these tools during that process when we're actually, you know, in life, in relationship, doing the things? Which brings me to like a question, because you know, what would you say to the woman who's like she does that? She's doing the inner work, but then she just feels like when she's in her inner work, she's great. And then when conflict arises, she's like, I've lost myself. I am now in in autopilot, especially in those like close, intimate relationships.

SPEAKER_02:

Yep. So the number one thing we're gonna do is we're going to start translating the fight language that you are speaking internally before you've even got words leaving your mouth in that conflict with someone else. There was a whole conversation happening internally. And all of that inner work you've done has really like turned the volume up on your intuition, on your inner voice, on that somatic response that your body's having, where my heart's racing right now. I feel that anxiety sweat coming on. Oh, I'm already protective. I'm already, you know, in that fight or flight. Okay, maybe I need to hit pause right now before I've even spoken to this person because I'm now acknowledging myself in this experience. I'm not gonna wait for them to do it. They're not going to. They're focused on their own experience, you know. I am an amazing advocate for me. I can hit pause and say, hey, there's something I want to talk to you about, but I'm actually gonna head to the bathroom. I'm gonna walk a lap first. I just wanna settle myself a bit and then you know, get into this conversation with you. So for anyone who's doing the inner work, you are building this incredible muscle, and then we forget that we have it when we get in conflict, right?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, totally.

SPEAKER_02:

You know when your body is like, ah, oh shit, not now.

SPEAKER_03:

And I love what you said there about, you know, I no one else is gonna advocate for me, right? Nobody's gonna say, hey, I see that you are internally having a moment here. Would you like to take a minute and go outside? Right. And but we as a as mothers, like I'm sure you've done this with your kids, right? You're like, and my I do this with my, especially my teenager. I'm like, seems like you're having a moment there. I can see. Do you need a hug? Do you want to talk about it, or do you need me to leave you alone? That's usually like, I need you to leave me alone. And I'm like, okay, girl, I got you.

SPEAKER_01:

In my head, I'm always like, but we could hug and it would feel so much better. But no, you're right. You're right. Let's do it your way first. Okay.

SPEAKER_03:

But I mean, so much so many of us did not learn to advocate for ourselves. And that to me, what you said there, like that's that's a key that we have at all times. That that's when we're walking the walk, right? Oh, okay. I'm he's not my husband's not gonna say you need a break. I'm going to say, I need a break.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. Yeah, totally. This is the like the crux of it all. This is what taking your power back actually looks like. When women talk about taking their power back, I'm like, okay, yeah, but tell me about how you validate your own experience. Because that is when you have stopped putting it in hands of people who are unwilling or uncapable, waiting for them, trying to tell them in the most perfect way that they will finally understand or explain your need in such a big way that they can't help but you know, like acknowledge it. Like when you take that back and you say, Oh, this is what I'm feeling, and it's valid because I'm feeling it, and I'm going to acknowledge that I'm feeling it by taking a minute, by just your heart is racing right now. You're worried about this blowing up. I get that, but I've got you in this, and I'm gonna make sure we step away when it gets heated. I'm gonna make sure I don't put you in spaces where you feel unsafe. I've got you. Yeah, that is a woman in her power who is unstoppable now. She isn't reliant on anyone else to validate her experience. Are you kidding me? This is who the world is afraid of.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, she's totally, totally. It and it it makes it makes every relationship that you want to be in that much more juicy because you're like, I'm here because I want to be here. Yeah, because I've built that muscle enough inside me. I have cagled that internal muscle enough to be like straight up. I trust myself to know my no and my yes.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I don't need you to, you know, hold my edges. I need you to walk alongside me. I want to enjoy you, but you don't have to be my safety net for myself.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, totally, totally, which is so healthy and like so sexy in so many ways.

unknown:

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh my god. And I feel like when you've had that experience, you're like, wait, what? I just get to show up and enjoy the shit out of the multi-faceted human you are, and you got you. I don't have to plan my words carefully, watch my step, check your emotions, make sure you're like, you got that. You're gonna tell me before you're erupting. This is stop.

SPEAKER_01:

That's amazing.

SPEAKER_03:

It is, it is, and it gives like quote unquote self-mastery. Like to me, that's what I want. I want oh, if I'm thinking about self-mastery, to me, that's what self-mastery is. It is yeah, building that trust muscle enough to have your own back.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, yeah, yeah, because that is how you are truly resilient, right? That is how you built a life that's sustainable. Is you are not you're not being the one hurting your feelings, your own feelings first by asking other people not to hurt your feelings, you know, totally like totally, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

What a different way of engaging with everything. Okay, so I have one more question for you because I know you're cooking up something new, and so behind closed doors sounds really fascinating and powerful and unique. And I'm curious, what have you learned so far from witnessing people translate their real life fight languages? And what surprised you most?

SPEAKER_02:

I would say what I has been consistent across the board is everybody thinks it's just them, it's just their relationship, that everybody else has something figured out that they don't when it comes to conflict or isn't fighting again because conflict is like the most salacious thing that's happening behind those closed doors. Like sex, get out of here. Come on, we all know we're having sex, but fighting, like actually, you know, getting into it and dealing with conflict. Now that's a daily basis thing, you know. So I think it is it has been so eye-opening with all of the couples that I've worked with just to see that light bulb come on to say, Oh my god, you're not just a dick. You've been trying in your own way to protect our relationship or to connect with me. And here I thought, we just, you know, everyone else is apparently really happy and they never fight and it's all good. And Instagram tells me it's beautiful and perfect all the time, you know. So I think for people listening in, when the series launches on YouTube and you get to watch real couples talk about here's what we fight about, here's how we fight about, here's what's working for us, here's what's really not working for us. It's like this permission to acknowledge the realness of your own relationship and make it so much more human, you know. Hell yeah, we fight. Oh my gosh, you know, or we've gotten to the place where we know what that fight is actually saying, and we have that conversation instead.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, I love that so much. I just love the the iceberg that is this fight languages, or are the fight languages, right? We're just like looking at the top and we think fighting, oh nobody else does this or whatever. And then when you get down to the meat of this, there's so much magic here.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, it's everything, and that's I mean, you know, call back to the love languages. I'm like, the love languages are cool, that resonates with you. I love that. It it is just this tiny piece. Because if you really want to feel loved, feel understood, feel heard, feel seen. And that's where I think the love languages fall short, where we end up in this transactional. I did this thing for you. Now you should feel loved. It's like, man, but if you took the time and effort, if you spoke my fight language, that's really gonna feel like such a more meaningful love.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

We're in the intimate parts of life then.

SPEAKER_03:

Absolutely, and it feels like where the love languages are to use your words transactional. I'm not saying there's anything wrong or bad about it. The fight languages are a portal to not only creating intimacy with another, but creating intimacy with yourself to have your own back.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes, totally, totally, yeah. And that I mean, that changes the world, right? Amen. That's every single relationship you have. If you change the conversation internally, 50% of that relationship is changed, the whole thing's changed. It's all different now.

SPEAKER_03:

It's amazing. Oh, so awesome. Lena, thank you so much for coming today and sharing and being with me. I'm so grateful for it.

SPEAKER_02:

Ah, this was a joy. Just you're a gem. Thank you.

SPEAKER_03:

Thank you. All right, everyone. Well, thank you so much for being here and listening. If you enjoyed this podcast episode, please share it and tag Lena and myself. All the links are below. And it's like I always say, enjoy this crazy.