Summary
Joe, Brett, and Alexa explore what it means to be triggered — living in past trauma rather than the present moment — and why romantic partners are uniquely positioned to activate our deepest wounds. They explain that we’re hardwired to seek connection with caregivers, and whatever those caregivers did becomes wired with love. So we unconsciously seek partners who reproduce familiar emotional patterns, whether that’s shame, rejection, or walking on eggshells.
The episode covers how avoiding triggers in relationships — suppressing parts of yourself to prevent your partner’s reaction — leads to feeling unseen, building resentment, and eventually relationship breakdown. They discuss practical tools: feeling into the trigger and accepting it, asking open-ended non-judgmental questions (which neurologically shifts from fear to wonder), making sure your partner feels heard, and drawing boundaries when needed.
A powerful story illustrates the approach: a Navy SEAL, triggered by being told his hard exterior blocks connection, pauses, feels his body, then asks with genuine wonder, “How can I get deeper connections?” — instantly transforming the dynamic. The episode concludes with discussion of the anxious-avoidant dynamic, the importance of self-love as the foundation for loving others, and why operating from principles rather than compromise creates healthier relationships.
Key Concepts
- Triggers are the past living through the present
- We attract what we learned as love
- Walking on eggshells guarantees resentment
- Wonder eliminates defensiveness
- Owning the trigger as yours dissolves the fight
- Chasing love is also pushing it away
- Self-love is the capacity limit for loving others
- Say the unsaid to find the hidden trigger
- Drawing boundaries dissolves triggers
Key Quotes
“Triggered is when you’re in your trauma rather than in yourself.”
“Whatever they do becomes wired with love. Things that fire together wire together.”
“When you beat yourself up for not keeping to a practice… you’re actually punishing the remembering.”
“I really want to have deeper connections in my life. How do you propose that I can get there?” — The Navy SEAL’s response to being triggered
“Your capacity to love your partner is completely based on your capacity to love yourself.”
“What you’re actually doing is creating a relationship that has more resentment in it… you’re also not teaching them how you need to thrive.”
Transcript
accomplishment where we explore how deepening connection with ourselves and others leads to creating the life we want with enjoyment and ease the wonderful thing about triggers is triggers are wonderful things the tops are made out of anger the bottoms are made out of Shame the Topsy Topsy Topsy Topsy fun fun fun fun fun the most wonderful thing about triggers is you’re the triggered one oh yeah that’s definitely a great start to this podcast I’m just imagining somebody out there right now I’ll like once or triggered by your song that’s not wonderful that I’m triggered what are you talking about okay now that we’ve got you all triggered we have your attention welcome to today’s episode awesome okay so what what questions what are the questions where are we going I mean I guess we could start with just how do how do we talk about what a trigger is what it means to be triggered I’ve I thought we were going to start with like you just trying to trigger each other that would have been just hilarious in my world if you’re like where do we start you never do the dishes you tell me where to start this isn’t my job hey Alexa will you just go ahead and take care of the starting the podcast thing for us it actually does hurt oh wow okay so we didn’t trigger them with the song we’re triggering them with not starting this podcast quick enough this is wonderful uh so so what is a trigger yeah that word is used um pretty uh fluidly these days like and I think it’s even become politicized where people are I don’t like like if someone says I’m triggered you know there’s a a way that some people feel like oh God shut up don’t tell me that you’re triggered and other people feel like that it’s them trying to protect themselves so I want to like let go of all of those definitions of being triggered and just say triggered is when I would say trigger is when you’re in your trauma rather than in yourself and so one of the things about trauma the way that it works whether it’s the kind of trauma that’s like an acute car accident or War episode or if it’s something that’s like long term over time such as always you know being rejected by your parents when you were scared or when you were angry um the thing about trauma is that you’re not in the moment anymore you’re living in the past you’re living in the moment that the trauma happened so with acute PTSD you know somebody’s in Ohio and a car back buyers and they think they’re in Kabul and and in relationships you’re like transported back into you know some of your primary relationships where you weren’t seen or you weren’t connected in the same way you know over and over and over again so that’s one way to define trigger I think the other way to define it that’s really important is that it’s when in your body you have a really big emotional reaction that is not particularly warranted given the situation and and warranted is a I like I very much hesitate to use the word because then people say well you shouldn’t have had that or that doesn’t make sense or that’s not warranted as a way to excuse and dismiss the other person and I really don’t want the word to be used in that way it just means that you know that on some level your mind knows that your reaction doesn’t meet the the experience that you just had that the reaction is being create this big emotional reaction is being created because of the past not because of what’s actually happening in real time so I think those are the two things and the second is so important to Define that way because it’s how we know when it’s happening we have this big physical reaction that on some level some part of us knows it isn’t it isn’t what’s called for in the moment it’s not how we want to be and it’s not and on on some level we know that it’s it’s not about the current situation so I’m curious to get a little bit more into there than what makes that attractive and what makes it better the person who hits our triggers so that we’ve so that our body has a visceral reaction that’s completely unrelated we’re very unrelated to the present moment and very much related to our past and our history what makes that the the recipe for amor yeah it’s because we it’s what we know love to be right like so we’re born and we are like ducklings we you know we’re entrained to follow mama duck like we are born with uh inherent connection to our parents and it doesn’t matter or whoever is taking care of us and it doesn’t matter who they are or what they do we want connection with them we’re gonna think about them on some level for our entire lives we’re going to have that level of connection we want their attention no matter what we want their approval no matter what like we are hardwired to want that connection and so that’s our primary experience of love and so we have this connection and then whatever they do becomes wired with love you know things that fire together wire together and and so if they were ashamed if they shamed us and we’re gonna go find a partner who likely either shames us or you know completely you know reacts the other way or will shame them but somehow that shame is going to be in that relationship and so it’s just what we know love to be it’s what we know connection to be and so it’s it’s our nature to go towards that towards the things that we know well gosh that makes it sound like we’re just doomed to repeat ourselves yeah I think that most people are um most people do repeat patterns for generations and generations and or they you know slowly change those patterns and so I think that is the natural course unless you bring a lot of conscious awareness to it and really think about it and feel through it and deal and do the work I I definitely saw I see like some healing that happens like I saw my grandparents and my parents I saw my wife’s grandparents and parents and you can definitely see it and that cycle happen in fact you see this with alcoholism like probably one of the most clear places is where you’ll see somebody with like kind of have an alcoholic parent and they become very um rigid and controlling and that you know have a very clear Al-Anon thing and then they give rise to the next generation of alcoholic and then they give rise to the next generation of Al-Anon I can look back at Family histories and I see that all the time that kind of repeating pattern and so unless we’re really saying hey we’re going to consciously work on this and try to change it the the healing process can take Generations yeah I mean I know I know people who who were raised by Vietnam vets and like and if the Vietnam Vets didn’t do the work um and and granted there wasn’t a tremendous amount of options for them when they came back when when they if they didn’t weren’t lucky enough to find the work and do it you know their kids still have responses of you know the rage that the Vietnam vet had if that was a particular predilection and they or the um disconnection that they have because the Vietnam vet you know needed to disconnect from themselves to deal with the PTSD yeah and and their grandkids are going to have it that’s how it works unless we do something yeah yeah it strikes me that these These are really good examples but they’re also sort of like capital T trauma examples I wonder if there are a few examples of things that are that are more common they come up in romantic relationships a lot that don’t necessarily they’re not necessarily because of a war experience of the parent yeah not being seen um not getting the attention that we want having love a link to criticism linked to shame uh having to prove our lovability walking on eggshells around certain emotional responses uh you know avoiding anger uh getting angry passive aggression being punished or reinforced for different behaviors that the parents did or didn’t want yeah being valuable because of your productivity because of the amount of money you make the amount of money you can give feeling cared for over by money instead of by affection shame around sex and yeah endless yeah yeah I imagine a lot of a lot of people listening to this might be like well wait I’m I’m in a relationship and we’re never triggered it’s just it’s just great yeah like you and me Brett we’re never triggered never ever um you know it’s funny you know I was sitting at a restaurant um Tara and I just finished a a week long and um we were I was at a restaurant we were recovering and we were at a beach in southern California and there was this couple and they were sitting there and and they had a friend with them so it was two women and this man and the woman was I don’t know how to explain it she was so domineering um and she was domineering her friend and she was dominating her the partner and the partner was like this big like Marine guy like we were in a military town and and she’d be like what do you want to eat and then she’d say I think you should eat this this and this and he’d be like um you know I think I’m gonna have this he’s like no no no you should eat this this and this it was like literally like that and he never had an emotional response so he could easily have said that God is never triggered by this but you could see that he was like I would almost say violently shut down like he hardly spoke he was like the patient expression was repressed rage and he like like literally most of his responses were like the most minute nods like yes it was like a half an inch up like that was like it was like all that contained and repressed and so trigger doesn’t mean that you get angry trigger might be that you’re like oh I’m just repressing that thing or it could be passive aggression or it could be like extreme sadness or a lot of fear or anxiety trigger can be any emotional response it could be a subtle freeze yeah exactly so that was so cool to watch this it was amazing well what was cool about it just what what what fascinated me was there she had been probably acting this way for 35 36 37 years and was just absolutely unaware of it like she was out like not at all aware of what was happening to that she was being that dominant and that the reaction she was getting from the folks both both of these two people she just like were just nope I’m just you know she’s just being me she just had no idea which is to me totally fascinating and awesome that you can exist in that way to me it sounds like she was also in trigger yeah yeah yeah for sure for sure she was everybody was acting out of conditioning and not out of not out of their present where they wanted to be yeah I think it’s really interesting how we can end up in these stable stable Dynamics because we’ve learned to we’ve learned to cover or avoid each other’s triggers in just the right way and we do a lot of dancing around it and something a pattern for me just to speak to bring this back into the into the personal for one of us on this on this episode um a pattern that I’ve had for a lot of relationships in my life is that I would get into a relationship and things would be perfect for like a couple of years and we would just remarket how little we fight this is just amazing and then eventually there’d be there’d be fighting and we’d move through that in whatever way and I looking back into myself part of something for me has always been in this work is to welcome my anger and allow myself to feel it and also the same for my partner and so like Alexa and I have had times where neither of us would be expressing anger and if one of us expressed anger maybe one or the other one would would either go into like a little bit of a shame or some kind of freeze type trigger and we just learned how not to not to bring those triggers up and that was very much to each of our detriment because then each of us might feel a little bit resentful at the other one not being fully in their power or a little bit just kind of like we weren’t getting the most out of life everything was everything was great from a number of objective perspectives but you know just something something wasn’t quite there until the trigger actually was allowed to rise and then brought into awareness and then we’re like oh this is a thing we’ve been we’ve had this all along now let’s let’s go into it I agree with that completely and it has been really amazing to be in this relationship with you where we are so committed to our own Freedom that that we’re really excited to see each other like really delve into the depths and bring things out um but I the thing that I see most often when I’m talking to other people is is people who whose actions kind of stop at the point where they are trying to prevent the other one from getting triggered like that’s the thing I think is most common is people who feel like that it’s important for them to act a certain way or repress a certain thing about themselves because if that were to come out it would totally trigger their partner and that would be unacceptable and so everything just stops there yeah yeah I call that walking on eggshells and the interesting thing about that is that the result of that is that you don’t feel loved in your your relationship because what you’re basically saying is I can’t bring this part this part of myself can’t be accepted here this part of myself has consequences and and so on some level you know that you’re not being seen and you’re not being loved and eventually that builds resentment and that creates tension in the relationship and whether it’s just all of a sudden wait I was in a happy marriage and now it’s just over or whether it devolves into disdain or something like that that’s how I see that end up yeah I see that too the thing that I think is oh sort of tragic is usually people don’t consciously realize that they are feeling unloved and so it just can go on for a really long time often they think that they’re doing something so that they can maintain the loving feelings in the relationship yeah that’s right that’s right yeah I I working with a couple recently where they’ve been married for 16 years have kids and everything and they they thought their job was to make sure the other person wasn’t triggered and now they’re just pissed all the time all the time at each other I don’t even know if they’re aware of it but it’s like that never got the expression in the relationship and you just look at their faces and it’s just like wow you guys are both pissed all the time and then who the hell wants to stay in a relationship with someone who’s pissed at you all the time or that you’re pissed at all the time and so the marriage is having some some issues obviously and both of them it just it took like a couple months for them just to see that the work is say what you want be yourself don’t worry about the consequences don’t get angry at each other and I want to make sure that like people are hearing this know that like I am not ever suggesting to start yelling at your partner as a way to get your anger out but go get your anger out somewhere else and then be kind to each other if you guys want to do an experiment where you’re like hey can I get permission to be mad at you and somebody says yes then that’s fine but unless you have permission from someone to be I don’t I don’t suggest just yelling at each other to get the anger out and you got to get the anger out you got to move the anger and that energy here it just goes to disdain I mean it does bring up the answer is yes the answer is yes if you have permission yeah yes if someone’s willing to receive the anger and be there to love you while you process it and not necessarily buy the story and get into the story with you you’re like yeah like screw him but just letting you move the anger and being there with it that’s actually wonderful yeah if someone’s there for that it’s it’s it’s it’s actually incredibly healing to be loved in that anger because to some degree it was that that part was unaccepted which is why it’s this massive state in our system so to actually have someone love and accept it it’s great and it’s also just fine to get in your car and yell or go to the woods and yell or wait till everybody’s out of the house and get all your anger out or write out your anger or do whatever the hell you have to do to get it to move it and yeah if you’ve got someone who can particularly not buy into the story and feel your anger that’s fantastic yeah so I’m curious to bring up a couple of uh like tools or tricks or you know hints that people could use if someone’s if someone’s in a relationship and they’re like okay where are these triggers there’s there might be some obvious triggers and there might be some less obvious triggers maybe I noticed that I get a little bit annoyed every time my partner makes a certain kind of joke and I wonder what’s underneath it you know like if someone’s trying to like kind of get under the corner of the rug here and really start doing the digging what are what are some ways to do that you know I don’t I don’t think digging is so necessary like if you live there’s the obviable for some people if you have obvious triggers work on those and that will what that does is you’ll work on those triggers and as those start to go away you’ll become more sensitive to the more subtle triggers and then those are the next ones to work on so the the system has this your your system has this really beautiful way of of telling you what’s the most important thing to work on and then the next most important thing and the next most important thing and as you as that creates more peace in your system you become more aware of the the wrinkles in in the system and the triggers where that’s not true is if you’re one of those folks who usually a strong sense of obligation comes with this but if you’re one of those people who are like oh it’s been three years and I’ve never been triggered by my relationship if you’re in that category then you might actually need help finding triggers and the best way to do that is notice any time that you hesitate to say anything because your partner is going to have an emotional reaction or your partner is too weak to handle it or because you’re trying to protect your partner or but any way that you’re not actually that you have a thought to say something and you don’t say it those are great places to to find the triggers and you can do that same mechanism just look for all those places you’re not saying anything and say them and then see if you’re not triggered that’s your advice just start by start by saying yeah yeah say the stuff yeah that’s pretty edgy yeah I mean take it slow and maybe one thing a day or um and also learn how to say the things really kindly but I I think that that I don’t want to say that because then people will hedge what they say and instead of learn how to do it in a kind way so let’s say a husband drops off their wife at the airport and hardly like almost rolling stop you know it doesn’t get out of the car it doesn’t hug her and she’s triggered by that let’s use that an example one way to address that directly is what the fuck you know what are you doing like I’m your wife get out of the car one way to address that is hey sweetheart I would um love you to get out of the car and say goodbye to me like that make me feel great if you could do that leaving or one way is to guilt them into it like if you loved me you would and one way is to do it all defensively like yeah so I yeah I mean if you cared you’d get out of the car like there’s so many ways to ask for it but the most important way is to ask for it and then get good at asking for it then be kind but whatever is required to actually ask for it directly and and cleanly go there I would love to come at this from the other direction as well because the thing that I see most often or at least it just has been coming up recently is people who are for whatever reason having a hard time being with their Partners emotional states yeah um and so I think that that another way you could approach this is to uh in whatever way figure out what is or feel into what is hard for you to be with and just somehow determined that you’re going to try so if it’s really hard for you to be with your partner’s pain just try showing up for it and then from that place it can be a little bit easier to say something that you think might sort of bring up pain for them but then you’re you’re gonna stay and be with that pain yeah I would I would say that that is a beautiful way to work it and the actual thing you’re being with is your own pain absolutely yeah so it’s it’s their pain is evoking something in you so maybe their pain is evoking your helplessness or maybe their pain is evoking your pain um but you’re being in that you’re not being being with them is evoking something in you and if it isn’t then it would be easy to be in there be with them in their pain right so it’s learning to be with yourself in that yeah yeah this brings up a just a common feature of trigger is that we often make the trigger about the other person and part of the path to owning that trigger and to being with it is to own it and to recognize that it’s our own experience that’s uncomfortable for us in that moment that it may be the experience of being afraid to draw a boundary um like with someone else’s actions but ultimately the more we can bring the more that we can have that trigger come up and have it be about us like hey honey I’d love for you to get out of the car and give me a hug as I get out and go to the airport yeah you know it’s not what are you doing yeah I think there’s a that’s that’s part of the path too when when if you’re starting to explore this and more triggers are coming up part of the path out of it is that they’re your triggers they’re your ex it’s your experience and the more you can be with your experience the more you’ll be able to be with your partners yeah owner I statements are really important in in this work I think that the thing that struck me about what Alexa just said is that yeah so we’re talking about two different ways one way is to see it to say the thing that’s important for you to say that you’re not saying and the other thing is to be with the emotion that you’re having a hard time being with instead of avoiding it and I would say the the one of those two things that you’re most likely to do the most productive path is the other one so if it’s a feeling for you to like oh I’m just going to be with their emotional state then probably the better work for you is to do the thing to say the thing and if it and if you’re more likely to be like yeah I’ll just say that thing but to actually be with them emotionally is the hard part then that’s probably being with emotionally is the better work for you and just do both like there’s you don’t have to choose but I’ll just I think that that’s a a good point yeah yeah I love that because I can see an another Pitfall that comes up commonly I think is once people develop a some some sort of internal should of I should be there for my partner’s trigger that it can often mean that they’re just going to accept whatever Behavior and roll over and not not fully show up with their own needs has and have that have that mean that what they’re doing is loving their partner the good news about that is they’ll be triggered all the time in a short period like it will take long for them to be triggered all the time sorry Alexa I would even go so far as to say anytime you’re shooting yourself that’s also trigger yeah and probably you’re avoiding something yes yeah that’s true yeah it’s like saying I’m a bad partner and I would be a better partner if I were different in this way yeah you’re well you’re creating a shame cycle either way like if it’s a it’s a shame cycle there’s I think there’s a healthy way to say oh this isn’t the partner I want to be and I want to do this but if you’re in the shed then you’re in a shame spiral with it yeah yeah so Okay so we’ve we’ve covered a bunch of ground here we’ve talked about we’ve talked about triggers we’ve talked about how they can create you know unseen Dynamics and relationships and how we can bring that into awareness and then once we’ve once these triggers are more in our awareness how we can be with our partners in those triggers without leaving ourselves and how we can own and be with ourselves and our own triggers and our avoided feelings and how to choose the path of most resistance for us and most growth among those options and I’d like to talk a little bit about what are some more what are some examples just from from any of our lives or from client relationships of just really well handled triggers yeah and the the most obvious thing is like though that exercise that we do in the connection course which is you know we have this at one exercise this is where we’re handling triggers where we’re learning to to respond to triggers in a way that is productive and the most the and the first step of that is to feel into your trigger and accept the state accept that state you know get into your body allow yourself to feel that way and not try to tell yourself that you should be in a different way but to be present with what actually is going on in your in your physical body and then the second piece is to ask questions that are open-ended and non-judgmental and we’ve seen people do that in I’ve seen people when I used to do that course live I saw people say oh my gosh like we just resolve without a conversation we just resolved multiple issues just by asking questions just without even the response to the questions so that would be something like uh as an example of that would be something like uh oh I have like I have a great example of this we were I was working in a company and we were doing this exercise and it was a one of the people who worked at the company was xcia ex-navy seal big dude strong powerful willful human being I really really dug this guy and then there was a programmer who was like an AI programmer who was like five foot three and very conflict avoidant and total sweetheart and his job was to try to trigger the Navy SEAL so the Navy SEAL could practice you know the response and and he couldn’t think of anything or he didn’t want to have the conflict or whatever and and so they called me over because I’m as you both know I’m good at triggering people and uh I said to the Navy SEAL I said um your hard exterior makes it so that you’re not going to ever get the love that you want and so he stopped he felt his body which was interesting because I found out later that he had a whole system for being present being your body under stress that they use for like being in combat and so he literally used that with through breath or whatever use that for you know whatever it was a second or two and then he looks over at me and he says I really want to have deeper Connections in my life How can I how do you propose that I can get there it was just like this immediate thing and like I got chills and I looked over the programmer who started weeping and he started weeping and it was like this amazing moment of just that one question immediately changed the trigger made it changed everything because the person who is getting asked the question feels heard they don’t feel like they’re being attacked they feel like oh wait and the person who’s asking the question has moved from a fear response and an anger response into Wonder it’s really neurologically impossible as far as I can find to hold wonder and anger or wonder and fear at the same and so by putting that out there it like totally changed the thing so that’s one technique there are literally dozens but that one’s incredibly useful in the fact that now you can actually immediately start moving into solving the situation as far as finding ways that you want to be together that actually feel better for both of you I think some important signposts for that also are that you know you delivered this trigger this is in the context of an exercise and it wasn’t meant for him to take on that story of oh I’ve got my walls up and I’m never going to get love in him to just believe it even more but for it to bring up the trigger and one thing that we’ve talked about in our in the courses is that when you feel triggered there’s actually a part of you that feels seen there’s a part of you that’s that already believes and buys it hence there being any defense yeah and so in that story I’m just I’m noticing that he he then asked questions from the place of seeing that part of himself and wanting Freedom not buying the story and then spiraling into shame that’s yeah so it’s interesting because there’s a subtle difference right if if we get defensive if if there’s somebody who says something to us and we get defensive you know then we’re telling ourselves the same story so on some level you are buying into but you’re not buying into the shame you’re saying oh yes I also hold that story or it wouldn’t have made me triggered I also hold the story that I’m not doing the dishes enough if it gets triggered that or I also hold the story that I’m supposed to do more around the house or I also hold the story that I’m supposed to do what my wife tells me to do and do dishes is one of those things so if I get defensive in any way then I’m also holding the story which is why dealing with triggers is so productive is because you get to see through your own um ego limiting beliefs identity um through the the thoughts that trigger you that somebody else saying something triggers you and so you get to see through those which is amazing I don’t assume that this will make it into the podcast but I just want to say I was just mapping I was just mapping that explanation to how I was thinking about it internally and it was it was so different but it eventually came back around to the same place which is to say I was thinking about this this guy from the pair activity exercise and how the the response that we would normally think of as the triggered response would be to defend the thing that feels a threat so in his case like the thing that feels a threat is that he is gonna miss out on connection and if he is so constricted around that unwanted outcome that he defends it then it stays in this in this stance that creates often triggering the other person because there’s this feeling of of like now we’re in a fighting stance um and just the somatic thing of just like letting it all the way in just like that could be and then what what could I do to change that is itself so different so unexpected that the other person’s nervous system just opens in response yeah and that’s the crying that you saw it’s just wow we’re both just here and I really love that it’s this this intention to just go there just let it be that seems so powerful and that’s that’s what I love about this work there’s something else I want to say about this which is so in in the Crazy Wisdom um Tibetan Buddhist tradition there’s like three steps to it and um like there’s three steps where the teacher three ways in which the teacher in order helps a student you know and the first one is they become friends like they create a deep sense of connection and then the second one is they trigger the out of the person as much as possible until the person can’t be triggered they literally just say things to like to to needle them that’s their job is to like needle the student until the student isn’t needable needle a bull anymore so it’s literally like the second step is to just oh you’re doing that wrong you’re you’re not setting up right you’re not meditating correctly you cook like an idiot like whatever to try to trigger the ego so that they can see where their ego still exists and then the third one is to turn every idea about spirituality upside down for them um but that but just to say like you could do that or you could just get married that’s really interesting I’m curious what’s the like how listeners might tell the difference between this particular Zen practice of befriending somebody and holding them in love while then needling them until all their triggers are you know surfaced and evaporated the difference between that and somebody just criticizing somebody and saying it’s because I love you because it’s in it’s actually in love I think that’s the difference and I think that’s the reason that some marriages are counterproductive is because it’s a lot easier to learn that lesson one if there’s an agreement like oh this is I’m here to learn this lesson but also which is why I think it’s so important to have that agreement in a marriage but also if it’s done in love right if it’s if in this particular case the teacher isn’t triggered back right but in marriage the teacher your our teacher our husband wife is actually triggered back often right so it’s not like it’s not like oh you’re a horrible meditator it’s you’re a horrible meditator and if you meditate it better then we’d have more friends at the Country Club and if we have more friends at the Country Club then I would be happier and then I could like get a better job and blah blah so why don’t you just meditate better so you know it’s like there’s all that you know craziness we we there’s a kind of also the separation that the teacher the student doesn’t particularly buy into the belief that if the teacher is happier then they could be happier they buy into the belief that the teacher is probably happier than they are so and so you know think yeah have it have a different thing to overcome there but yeah whereas in a marriage you’re like oh my God my wife was just happy then I could be happy is a common common misperception yeah it’s an interesting flip and I can also imagine there’s a lot of relationships where one person takes on the role of the teacher and the other one takes on the role of the student in that way and that’s that’s great for a student-teacher relationship that’s not great for romantic Partners business yeah it’s great if you want to stop having sex and get in a lot of fights I guess it all determines what your goal is yeah yeah I love what you said Alexa about the dropping of Defense I think that’s really the the core of all of this work is like how do I love myself as I am how do I love other people unconditionally right yeah even the thing that you were just saying about loving your partner more like to me I was expecting you to say it’s about loving yourself more because to me that’s that’s where it all comes back to and even that defense of that guy you know he was he was building like Shoring up something defending the part of himself that he felt like was not lovable but if you just let everything be including all of you everything that you’re worried isn’t lovable about yourself then you are making room for all of this to be loved and for you to express love to your partner better and so on it’s like the the directionality I I think people get stuck trying to love their partner better by doing various things that are actually can be really self-denying or in in your language I think like abandoning themselves um yeah and that coming back to yourself with full acceptance is actually a way to love your partner better yeah your Your Capacity to love your partner is completely based on your capacity To Love Yourself the idea of sacrifice compromise but like I don’t find that that actually helps people love better I I think until you see that it’s your capacity to love is is your freedom and that’s what you want you know but if it’s like I’m sacrificing myself for so and so then you’re creating like a victim relationship or a savior relationship and it always gets muddled it always gets really um what’s the word uh it’s really defended and obligated and uh resentful so on triggering people we’ve done one thing where you talked about I statements which I think is really important and I think it can’t just be I statements but it’s where you’re owning your own wants and your own experience instead of telling somebody else what their experience is and then the other one is asking questions or two of the things another really great way to do it is to just make sure the person feels heard so if somebody’s like any trigger you know wait you’re always asking me to fill the car up with gas or um you’re trying you’re treating me like your mom again I’m not your mom then then there’s just oh I I what I’m hearing you say is that you know I’m treating you like my mom again and and I just want you to know I I hear that that’s your experience of the of the situation like just that can be calming for people to just feel heard in their experience and usually when we’re in a fully triggered State people are talking over each other they’re not listening to One Another anymore they assume they know what’s going to be said they assume what’s coming next they’re already thinking about their response nobody’s actually focused on how do I make sure that my partners feel seen because that’s a huge part of of the triggering and the fights that we get into is people not feeling seen in their situation so that’s another I think a really important part is just to allow that and and the other thing that Alexa said which is how can you relax into being with somebody in an uncomfortable emotional state and draw boundaries sometimes emotional states are at you and so maybe there’s no reason to be with that too right I think some one of the ways that Tara and I have dealt with triggers is to draw boundaries with each other which I think is great it’s like oh I’m not gonna I’m not gonna be here with you crying at me or being angry at me yeah I’m happy to come back to the conversation when that’s over yeah I think that points to one of the pitfalls we brought up earlier which is that like people can get into the belief of I should be able to be there for my partner’s trigger and so I’m gonna suppress my own trigger so that their trigger can be held yeah rather than drawing a boundary and taking care of myself yeah right self-care is absolutely the the priority in all of this work to take care of yourself to love yourself to treat yourself with love and respect you can’t you can’t treat others without that yeah which coming back to sort of the premise of the the beginning of this relationship series of that you know to be in a relationship where we both agree that we are in it for our own freedom I think that can come off to a lot of people as very individualistic and not you know not seeing the ecosystem of the of the couple and I think that a lot of what we’ve been talking about now really points to that it creates more space for both Partners to exist in the relationship it creates more space in the ecosystem for more of what each of us each of the each partner brings and is and gifts and triggers and fears yeah I think and probably the same thing can be said when I talked about compromise where I was like Hey like I don’t I don’t believe in compromise in a relationship like this or probably any relationship and that can come off as very hard for people so I just want to explain it the same way that you just explained making more space so if there is something that Tara is really strongly believes in that doesn’t work for me our the way that we work that out is it’s not I’m gonna compromise and and what I mean to say is that I am not going to deny a part of myself to make sure that she’s happy and her happiness is incredibly important to me but it’s not my job what we do instead is we say we’re very clear on our nose right and that we’re very clear like this won’t work for me she’s like this won’t work for me and we assume that we can find a solution that can work for both of us and so some people might call that compromise but I’m not calling it compromise because I don’t feel compromised at the end of it and neither does Tara we both feel like okay we found something that works for both of us and and we have faith that we can do and it’s when people feel compromised over and over again you’re on one level the idea is like oh I’m benefiting them by compromising myself that’s why we do it that’s the thought process but what you’re actually doing is creating a relationship that has more resent resentment in it so that’s not going to benefit them and it’s you’re also not teaching them how you need to thrive so that’s not benefiting them so what you’re going to get is a relationship where one person’s resentful and the other person is married or dating somebody who’s not thriving and that’s not sexy and that’s not hot and that’s not healthy and so it’s far more important to do the work that’s required to figure out how both people can get their needs met in a way that feels great for everybody and everybody can be excited about yeah yeah and a feature a feature of the compromise seems to be that there’s a false end it’s like well we’ve compromised and this is where we’re at and that’s just the decision we’ve made and something that it seemed that I’m picking up from what you’re saying is that if we are if we are both committed to finding a thing that works for both of our needs that’s it is a really tall order because we have infinite needs like they’re just going to continue to grow and they’re going to continue to have some kind of apparent conflict but sitting in the question sitting in the Wonder of yeah how is it if we assume that there’s a way to get both of our needs met and we sit in that question what new Solutions come to the surface none of them Perfect all of them in iteration yeah and not stop the process and say well there’s our compromise and that’s that yeah totally it and it which speaks to something else too which is I don’t really believe in commitments in the relationship outside of the commitment to be committed to the relationship trippy yeah we we we change right like the commitment the way what Tara needed when she was 26 is not what Taran needs now and what I needed when I was 26 is not when we got married is not what I need now and like so I I think that the the agreement we have is like how do we support each other’s growth and be there for each other in that way and and that’s our priority and that’s like that’s the commitment we have to the relationship and so we both get to experience a lot of freedom and we both get to experience you know support and tenderness and care and but we don’t feel like we have to be a certain way for the other person or have to maintain some way of Being for the other person and so this idea of commitment even sexual commitment or commitment to agreements or roles or ways of being or dishes or like all that needs to be renegotiated as our needs change it makes me really wonder what your vows were like yeah me too I have no idea yeah it also strikes me as really funny and great because I get a lot of questions about yeah what kind of commitments or what kind of rules are going to make my relationship work for me especially in sort of like a poly or ethical non-monogamy or just like some little bit of opening up some sort of relationship transition question and that question I’m all I never have any idea how to respond like that’s not how I make my relationships work for me yeah less rules more Attunement yeah exactly exactly the path that we take yeah especially in that field when I’ve worked with clients that are you know have open relationships those agreements always are changing and they have to they like that they might have an agreement but it’s always temporary right you know and and the couples that I know who have been doing that you know having that lifestyle for now 25 years of marriage their agreements have totally changed through that time frame you know from oh completely open to slightly open to only together open only together to like the whole they’ve had like massive Transitions and it depends on like do you have kids do you are you taking somebody taking care of a baby you know you know are you going through menopause are you you know like right and all of those things have an effect and they’re all biological changes that affect the agreement in the relationship if we’re if we’re actually being attuned which is beautifully said well this seems like a pretty good place to stop polyamory and scene I actually did have one more topic though it seems like maybe kind of a left turn but it’s just it’s another thing that I I feel like keeps coming up a lot yeah please people asking how to get out of a dynamic that they’re in that’s more or less something like an anxious avoidant dynamic so for instance somebody like how can I stop uh feeling hurt because I’m sort of like chasing after somebody who’s emotionally unavailable and then they they disconnect I’m I’m always doing that how can I stop yeah yeah I mean we’ve already covered the how but I want to put it into that context so let’s say just just to translate what you asked let’s say that there’s somebody who’s constantly chasing the lovers they’re constantly fighting for their attention or they’re the ones that are rejected or they’re the ones that are abandoned and that their lovers are always the one who are kind of aloof and distant and they’re like how do I get out of that Dynamic and the way through is to fully fall in love with and accept and look forward to the emotional state that happens when you are rejected or when you are chasing and when you are chasing the person it’s it’s it’s falling in love with that part of yourself is the quickest way to do it the other thing that can be helpful in that particular Dynamic is seeing that every one of you like all the ways in which you’re wanting the attention are also ways in which you’re pushing the person away this is like jealousy is like that jealousy is like I really want that person but my jealousy in its in and of itself is pushing them away or my neediness is pushing them away um so to be able to see that every which which means on some level you also don’t want it and you’re not taking responsibility right so there’s and so that’s the kind of the empowering move that that most people are going to reject it first until they see it which is oh I’m actually pushing them away so therefore I am choosing to push them away there’s something in me that doesn’t want that level of intimacy there’s something in me that equates love with chasing not love with receiving and so I’m scared of a love where I receive I’m scared of the other guy across the room who’s like wants to adore me and wants to be media of me I’m like no that I don’t even find you attractive and so I’m making a choice here and and if they can see that their choice and move to the empowered stance of like oh I can I can feel all the stuff I’m scared to feel including the stuff like receiving love or feeling empowered or feeling like I’m hot and they can earn my they can earn me they don’t I’m not going to chase them all those emotional experiences that they aren’t allowing themselves to feel because it’s so scary and it’s either scary because it feels like an abyss that I’m gonna fall into or it feels I’m going to be arrogant if I’m like you know you gotta earn me all of those experiences until they’re until they’re all felt and loved then you’re in the you’re going to be in that also as we talked about you and I and grief it’s like when that relationship ends if you can grieve that thing entirely fully grieve the fact that you have been spending 20 years of your life chasing pretty much your mom or dad’s love through the face of a boyfriend or a girlfriend and that’s how you’ve chosen to spend your life and you thought video games was a waste of time and you can fully grieve that experience you know that can also be a huge part of that healing Journey yeah beautifully said awesome well that does not feel like a great great ending point again I’m hoping Alexa just goes no it’s not God damn it don’t tell me what to do Brad you’re always speaking over me why do you do this to me you just made this podcast go over one hour we’ve never done that before now we have you always do this I still have a story that I always do this thank you for seeing me in my slowness even though we were joking that still made me know this is really fun all right thank you both Total pleasure okay bye thanks for listening to the art of accomplishment if you enjoyed what you heard today please subscribe and rate US on your podcast app we’d love your feedback so feel free to send us questions or comments you can reach out to us join our newsletter or check out our courses at Art of accomplishment.com