The Marriage Transformation Podcast
The Marriage Transformation Podcast
Communicating with Emotional Awareness | Saving Your Marraige
Visit https://go.bettermarriage.co/trauma for some free training.
Can the emotions tied to our memories shape the quality of our relationships? Discover how the vivid emotional essence of past experiences influences our communication with loved ones and colleagues. We navigate through the intricacies of memory and emphasize the critical role of emotional recognition in effective interaction. By sharing practical examples, we illustrate how even truthful information, if delivered insensitively, can unintentionally hurt and disconnect. Learn to consider the emotional impact of your words to foster positive, supportive connections.
The journey toward reclaiming a lost relationship doesn't start with your spouse—it starts with you. This episode sheds light on emotional independence and the pursuit of unconditional happiness. We unpack the profound idea that expecting a partner to fulfill our happiness is not only unfair but counterproductive. Instead, achieving a state of contentment independent of external conditions naturally attracts positive outcomes in relationships. Tune in to uncover strategies for becoming a person who needs nothing, thus inviting everything good into your life.
in the past. Almost none of our memories are real, almost entirely made up, right, like we have a. We have loose points that it's like, okay, well, this kind of happened and this kind of happened with what was actually said is lost, you know, the pictures are lost. It's like it's an approximation of what happened. The actual memory is not really there anymore. It's gone. So, but what? But what is there is the emotion, and that's accurate, right.
Speaker 1:So understanding that memory is predominantly emotional, based, right, especially for a woman, she's going to remember the emotion and she's going to remember the feeling. So the thing we want to ask ourselves in every communication is what feeling am I giving my wife with this communication? What feeling am I leaving her with? What emotion am I giving to her? You know, it's the same with employees or anybody. I mean, this is just a higher level skill as a human being, as a communicator. It's like we can talk to an employee, right, and we can impart truthful information, but we can leave them feeling incompetent and not valued, or we can leave them feeling competent and supported. You've probably all heard me say this, but it's always worth repeating because it's set plays that win games, games it's the simple things that win games. The only reason your wife said yes to you in the first place was because she loved the way you made her feel and because she saw that if a future with you, rather, was better than a future without you, and if she's if she's leaning towards the other way now she's leaning towards leaving then it's because the opposite is true. She doesn't like the way you make her feel and she doesn't see a future with you is better than a future without you. So when it comes, it's just pausing, bruce and going. What emotion am I giving my wife versus? Am I? What words am I saying? Am I? Yes, you're probably telling the truth. Yes, you're giving her accurate information, but you can do that in a way that isn't loving and doesn't leave her feeling in a good way. So that that's the key right. With any communication with any human being, just pause and ask yourself the question what emotion am I imparting into this person?
Speaker 1:So for me, like whenever I'm having a one-to-one with somebody, like, my goal is to leave them with clarity and leave them with certainty. These are the emotions that I that, these are the emotions that I want to leave right, and it's like the situation can be bad and we can talk about it in a bad way or whatever. But you know, I can still give certainty and I can still give clarity. I mean, we're all confused to some extent, right, we're all. We're all overwhelmed to some extent. We have to think, for a living, we own businesses and we got employees and we got this, and that it's like we have to do. You know, we've got a lot on our plate. It's like we can be really overwhelmed.
Speaker 1:So for me, my goal is like I want to give clarity, I want to give some clarity in the conversation and reduce the overwhelm. And if every time, if every time I speak to somebody, I'm able to leave them with the feeling of a reduction of overwhelm and some clarity moving forwards, it's going to be a positive relationship. It's going to be positive and relationship it's going to be positive. And it almost doesn't matter what is said in that conversation, as long as I'm approaching it with the intention of I want to leave this person with some clarity, I want to leave this person with some hope and I want to reduce the overwhelm that they're experiencing right now. It's going to be a positive relationship and people are going to keep coming back. If, every time you had a conversation with me, you felt hopeless, overwhelmed and confused, it'd be a very negative relationship. Even though, if what I'm saying is true, even if I'm imparting truth to you, if I leave you everyone you know confused and hopeless, you're not going to want anything to do with me. So that's the short answer. Well, it's not a short answer, it's a fairly long answer. So it's stop for a second and think what emotion am I leaving my wife with? What emotion am I? You know, and it can be as simple as you know, I snapped at my wife this morning.
Speaker 1:She said something I had. I was trying to answer three emails and people were texting me on the phone. It's like I just had so much going on. And she asked something like do you know, do you know where whatever is, and I'm like it's in the drawer over there. I just snapped out I'm like it's in the drawer over there, but just because, which was true and I was conveying the information that she asked for, but it left her with a feeling of not feeling loved, right, of not feeling supported. I could have gone okay. Well, what's going on right now? She's feeling a little bit overwhelmed. She's feeling a little bit confused, instead of like snapping at her and making her feel like she's a burden upon me. What I said was true, how I said it was pretty, you know, pretty, not good.
Speaker 1:What's causing us all of our problems in life? It's frustrations, it's anger, it's grievances, it's unforgivenesses, it's a hundred little things right, and it's like right right now, there's. You know, you might look at yourself and say, well, I don't have a lot of unforgiveness in your life, but it's like it's the death of a thousand cuts. It's like there's a hundred little things or a thousand little things and the same with grievances. It's like, you know, when I wake up in the morning, one of the first things I tell myself is don't create any new grievances today, cody. Don't create any new grievances, because those little grievances will keep you awake. It might be as simple as like. I don't follow my own advice here and you asked me a question and I give you the truth, but it's the truth without love. It's the truth, but it's harsh and not loving, and, you know, maybe we just have a little snap at each other or it doesn't go well, and it's a little tiny thing that, in the grand scheme of things, will get beyond, but just a little tiny thing like that, that's enough to wake up in the night and go. I wish I'd have just done a little bit better with Bruce. I wish I'd just been a little bit nicer. I just wish I'd been you, these little things like that.
Speaker 1:So you know, in the morning I tell myself you know what, what's my goal today? It's to not create any new grievances and to try and resolve some of the existing ones. You know so well, we always want to be, we always want to be be working on that. Like, how can I just resolve some, some of these little tiny grievances? How can I, you know, let some of the little things I'm holding against people slip? Is it really that important? How can I, or can I, uncover some unforgiveness in my life, either towards myself or towards other people, and just maybe just let that go today? And can I be conscious enough to not create, not create, uh, new events that are going to require forgiveness or are going to create grievances, and it's so?
Speaker 1:It's those little tiny things, right? I mean, the simple answer is go get some xanax from the doctor, right, go get a sleeping tablet. That's the, that's the. That's the lazy answer, but that's not a good answer. The right answer is like well, what is it that's keeping you awake? And it's going to be those little tiny things. It's the little thing you know deep down in your heart.
Speaker 1:Maybe you snapped at your wife, maybe you did this, maybe you did that. You know it's. You know it's like why they say you know I sleep like a baby. Well, why? Because the baby has a clear conscience. Right, baby doesn't wake up in the night and go.
Speaker 1:I think I might have cried too much tonight today and it was a bit manipulative. Maybe I was a bit harsh with my dad today, or maybe I was a bit harsh with my mom today. Maybe I was on the boob for a little bit too long and took a little bit more milk than I should. You know it's like babies don't have those challenges. They have clear consciences and you know, ultimately this is just where we're going, like the whole program is designed. You know to clear this stuff out, because once you start to release these grievances and you don't create new grievances and once you start to move in forgiveness, you know forgiving yourself, forgiving others, accepting the forgiveness that other people have given you when you start to release the hurts and you don't create new ones. When you start to, you know you got all these rough edges and once we start to sand them up, sand them out, that that's when the magic starts happening, really, because ultimately, you know we got, you got new guys.
Speaker 1:So I'm going to reiterate this for the, for the new people like my goal is to help you get your wife back, and nothing less than that is considered successful for me. This is not a how do you get on with your life while your wife is leaving you program. It's not. This is about getting your wife back. So anything I say, if it comes across as being something other than this, is this is directly involved in getting your wife back. There's a misunderstanding here. Everything I'm saying is designed to simply help you get your wife back.
Speaker 1:Not be happy with life, but ultimately, like where we, where we need to get to, is that we can be happy without our wife. Because if we can't you know we can't be happy without our wife then we're putting the burden of her happiness upon us, and that's a burden that she can't and shouldn't have to bear. So, ultimately, like, every single one of us is here for the same reason. If we just peel back the layer of the onion and go layers of the onion and go well, why do you want your wife back? Because this? Well, why do you want that? Because that? Well, why do you want that? Well, because that's what I need to be happy. And if we keep going and going and going, ultimately we're looking at our wife as the path to happiness, or we're looking at our wife or, unless I get it back, in a certain condition, in a certain environment, I can't be happy. But when you understand that you're here because you want to be happy, not because you want your wife back, you're seeing that your wife, or you believe right now that your wife, is the path to that happiness, you're placing a burden on her which is heavy. You're basically saying I can't be happy without my wife and that's a burden that's very heavy.
Speaker 1:So what we want to do is get to a place where we talk about unconditional positive regard.
Speaker 1:The ultimate goal of that is to arrive at a place of unconditional happiness, of unconditional peace. Who would like to be unconditionally happy? For all of us? Right now, our happiness is very conditional, right, it's conditional on certain things happening in certain ways and certain people behave in certain ways and certain amounts of money showing up in certain bank accounts, or certain clients doing certain things, or certain people saying certain things, or certain coffees coming out of the restaurant at certain temperatures or certain food you know being served in a certain way. It's like happiness is very, very conditional, you know, and ultimately we want to get to a place, and move towards a place, where we're unconditionally happy. When you're unconditionally happy, you're a man that needs nothing, and the man that needs nothing attracts everything. Happiness is conditional on something or someone else, or multiple things and multiple other people. You have great need from the world around you and, effectively, you're going to go into the world and you're going to take. You're going to take, take, take, take, take because you need certain things to be.