Summary
Joe explains that when you “lose yourself” in a fight, what’s actually happening is a trauma response. Just like a war veteran hearing a car backfire gets transported back to the battlefield, relationship fights transport us back to childhood moments where we couldn’t process certain emotions. The fight is actually an invitation to feel what we couldn’t feel then.
He shares how he and Tara transformed their fights by recognizing when they were in a trauma response, calming the nervous system, and supporting each other in feeling the underlying emotion. He also tells the story of a friend whose breakup grief—sustained over months of crying during long drives—led to profound transformation: weight loss, business success, and sobriety. The key insight is that this healing can happen within a relationship too, and it’s even more powerful because the original trauma often involved being alone.
Key Concepts
- Losing control in a fight is a trauma response, not a personality flaw
- Sustained grief transforms everything it touches
- Fights can become healing opportunities within relationships
Key Quotes
“The way trauma works is it brings you back to a place where you aren’t right now. It brings you back to the place where the trauma happened and asks you to relive that trauma.”
“The whole purpose of the whole thing is so that you can actually process the emotions that you couldn’t process at the time of the trauma.”
“Oh I recognize I’m not here right now. I’m in my trauma. I need to feel my stuff.”
“Part of the trauma that we feel is that we were all alone in it. And if you can use your relationship and each one of those fights to find where your trauma is and then be supported in it—that is when relationships, so much transformation, so quickly.”
“He was crying over what got him there. The upbringing, the parents, the why he was raised, his ideas of love. And he just kept on grieving.”
Transcript
one of the things that people like get caught up in in fights is that they just feel like they’re completely out of control they’re like what the hell I’ve completely lost myself I uh don’t know what I’m doing and we’ve all felt this we’ve all been in a situation where it literally feels like somebody animated us like stuck their hand up us and like made us like a puppet and it wasn’t like it wasn’t who we are it wasn’t who we wanted to be the important thing to know about that is that’s trauma so think about it this way someone’s got PTSD some known known kind of trauma and they were in a war in Iraq and there’s big bombs going off and now they’re in Cleveland Ohio and the car backfires and they think they’re back in fuia the way trauma works is it brings you back to a place where you aren’t right now it brings you back to the place where the trauma happened and asks you to relive that trauma the whole fight the whole purpose of the whole thing is so that you can actually process the emotions that you couldn’t process at the time of the trauma but what occurs instead is we go oh my God we lost we blah blah blah blah we don’t feel anything we have the same reaction we did when we had the trauma the first time and so this is a big capital T trauma PTSD War fujia but there’s other traumas like you know every time I was scared my mom was like be strong so I never actually got nurtured in my fear and so fear became the enemy that’s a different kind of trauma and now when I’m scared fear is the enemy I won’t feel that I won’t feel it in my partner my partner’s scared I’m trying to control them so that they don’t feel fear so I don’t feel it because I don’t want to feel it and that’s a different kind of trauma and I’m back to my mom saying hey you have to be strong you’re not allowed to have fear but what what the trauma is asking me asking of me to heal is to actually feel to feel that fear that I didn’t get to feel when I was a kid and so that’s how the nervous system just gets hotwired right so you’re just like and off you go and now there’s a whole bunch of very cool tricks on keeping your nervous system calm the easiest one is uh just breathe you can do box breath you can look that up it’s really easy you can just do 66 breath is one of my favorite just slow down your breath be conscious and that can like totally calm your nervous system you can put your hands on your body feel your body that can completely calm your nervous system but the idea is when that’s happening that’s your opportunity the opportunity is calm your nervous system so you can be back in yourself and then feel the thing that you didn’t get to feel and hopefully you’ve gone far enough with your partner where you can have that kind of agreement like oh I’m in my trauma I need to feel some stuff oh cool and that’s an amazing amazing thing like where Tara and I got to a point in our fights where it was like oh I recognize I’m not here right now I’m in my trauma I need to feel my stuff amazing thing happened the fight just ended the fight was like oh this is why we’re having the fight the fight is for you to heal this trauma great you’re in it you see it I’m right here for you and she would just come to me and just be with me while I felt it and I would just come to her and I’d just be with her while she felt it and it was just this every one of our fights became a way to relieve the trauma that put us in the place to have the fight for the first time and I remember this story I love this story so my friend was in this relationship it was like he’d never been in a relationship before that was long like he was like one of those like one month sleep with everybody but he had he found this relationship and he was really into her and she broke his heart and crushed him and we were sitting there talking about it and he’s like what do I do and I’m like you cry you grieve you like and it’s going to at the beginning it’s not going to be it’s going to be about the woman but at the end you don’t know what it’s going to be about you’re just going to cry and so he had he was doing this Great River restoration project and he had to drive five hours every week one way and five hours back to get to the river and he would cry the whole way there and we’d cry and we would talk like every other week and he’d be like my God the sounds that are coming out of me what the heck and you know Week 1 and two was he was crying over the loss but then in week three four five he was crying over what got him there like the upbringing the parents the why he was raised his ideas of love and he just like kept on grieving he grieved so much stuff and uh before this happened he was kind of overweight his business wasn’t doing well he was drinking too much at the end of this like four or five months of grieving he was like in shape and he he wasn’t dating but he was in shape his business was thriving and he wasn’t drinking and it was an amazing switch just because he had felt all that trauma all the way through and so you can do that by breaking up but you can also do that in the relationship and it’s really cool in a relationship because part of the trauma that we feel is that we were all alone in it and if you can use your relationship and each one of those fights to find where your trauma is and then be supported in it so that you can actually realize oh I’m not alone I’m allowed to feel this stuff that is when relationships like so much transformation so quickly so just like my friend who went from you know overweight bad business drinking too much like that happens in a relationship that’s what happens in a marriage and it’s amazing