Many marriages and long-term, committed relationships are under a lot of stress at a time when we need connection more than ever. We all want to feel loved, but our committed relationships don't always provide that. Many are headed for divorce. While that might be the best solution for some people, Beth Rowles wants to help you avoid that path. She has a method to help you do just that.

 

Beth Rowles is a Conscious Marriage Coach who helps self-reliant moms use their relationship as a feedback loop to grow in self-awareness so they can create the marriage they want without waiting for their husband to evolve. In addition to private coaching, she has a book and a podcast, both called “The Authentic Wife.”

 

Connect with Beth:

www.bethrowles.com

www.facebook.com/familybeing

www.instagram.com/familybeing

www.tiktok.com/@familybeing

 

Connect with Karin:

www.drcalde.com

www.instagram.com/theloveandconnectioncoach

www.tiktok.com/@theloveandconnectioncoach

Email: [email protected]

 

Qube money:

https://qubemoney.com/

Podcast Intro:

 

[00:00] Karin: This is Love Is Us, Exploring Relationships and How We Connect. I'm your host, Karin Calde. I'll talk with people about how we can strengthen our relationships, explore who we are in those relationships, and experience a greater sense of love and connection with those around us, including ourselves. I have a PhD in clinical Psychology, practiced as a psychologist resident, and after diving into my own healing work, I went back to school and became a coach, helping individuals and couples with their relationships and personal growth. If you want to experience more love in your life and contribute to healing the disconnect so prevalent in our world today, you're in the right place. Welcome to Love is Us.

 

Episode Intro:

 

Karin: Hey, everybody. If you are struggling in your primary intimate relationship, I think you're going to get a lot out of this episode. And I'm also really curious how your marriage or intimate relationships are going, because we often just don't talk about it for a number of reasons, and that can feel really isolating. So I recently started a free meetup to offer women some relationship support and get a better idea of kind of what the broader public is experiencing nowadays. And the group is growing much quicker than I had expected. And what I'm hearing from them and also from my clients, is that there's a lot of stress, conflict, walking on eggshells around their partner, others who are struggling to speak up for what they want, and still others who keep on asking for what they want but can't seem to get their partner to step up. So, again, I'm curious what you might be experiencing and how you might be struggling.

 

If any of this resonates with you, then stick around for this episode where I'm going to be talking with Beth Rowles, who is a conscious marriage coach. Beth specializes in helping married moms who want to avoid divorce, and her clients are particularly concerned about how a divorce might impact their kids. And I totally get that. That was certainly one of my biggest fears when I was going through a divorce. Now, Beth has written a book called The Authentic Wife, and she has a podcast by the same name. And I was actually on her podcast or just recorded it last week. And we talked about sex, and specifically, we talked about how in heterosexual relationships, so often, the man wants sex a lot more than his partner does.

 

I think Beth's system is really interesting and it seems really powerful. So we talk about how she helps women become more effective leaders in their marriages so that they can turn things around. There's a lot of overlap between the work that we do, which was, I think, why I enjoyed our conversation so much. There was lots that we could talk about, and I loved asking her questions that my clients ask me. We work with somewhat different populations, and how we do the work is different, but ultimately we both help women become the best versions of themselves, which has a really powerful effect on their relationships. And I tend to work more with women in midlife who are in long term relationships and are feeling stuck, and maybe they don't know if they want to leave or stay, and they often feel like they've tried everything, or they don't know if it's worth it to invest their energy in the relationship.

 

I'm also really excited to tell you that I just completed a new mini workbook to help women who are feeling stuck in their intimate relationships, and they're trying to figure out if they should leave or stay. So this is free, and this workbook can give you just some clarity to help you feel good about which direction you want to go in so that you can move forward. Now I'm in just the final stages of making it look pretty, so it's not yet on my website, but if you're interested in it, send me an email or a DM on Instagram, where I'm the love and connection coach. And you can also email me, and my email is in the show notes, so I hope you get a lot out of this episode again, I'd love to hear how things are going for you. All right, here we go. And thanks for being here.

 

Transcript:

 

Karin: Welcome, Beth.

[04:21] Beth: Thank you for having me.

[04:23] Karin: I'm so glad to have you here. Where are you in the world?

[04:28] Beth: I am in northeast Ohio, but I'm from South Carolina.

[04:33] Karin: Okay. You say unfortunately.

[04:38] Beth: Yeah. When my parents divorced in 94, my mom ended up moving us up here to Michigan, and then I went to Indiana, met my husband there, and then we went here because his family was here and he got a job over here.

[04:53] Karin: And is there somewhere else you'd rather be?

[04:56] Beth: I have thought long and hard about this, and, like, maybe I'm just good with a vacation, but I would love to be near the coast, down south, somewhere warm. It's cold, like, nine months out of the year here, so it's a little much for OOH.

[05:09] Karin: Yeah, that would be tough for me, too. Really? It's pretty cold here a lot of the times, too, in Oregon. So it's been a really long winter. It's not been much of a spring. And I keep on talking about this. I'm a little it. I get it. So tell us what you do for.

[05:33] Beth: I'm a I use the word marriage coach, but sometimes I say family alchemist and stuff. And really I started as a parenting coach, but I moved into the relationship because I discovered in my own work that the idea of conscious parenting, which is kind of coach I was becoming, is that you don't use your kids to trigger stuff in you that then you heal from. And my kids were like, perfect angels when I was going through that, but my husband was driving me completely nuts, and I'm like, he's so annoying and so frustrating, and I'm like, I'm going to use him for the work. He's going to be the one to wake me up and help me heal. And so that's what I do now, is help women who may or may not have kids issues with their kids, but their husband is the one who's always like, he's the instant trigger. And then they become somebody that they don't want to be around him, and they don't want to be that kind of mother around their children, and they don't want to have that kind of family for their children either. So they got to make it right.

[06:37] Karin: So you've given us a bit of a hint of how you got into this work. Maybe you can tell us a little bit more.

[06:43] Beth: Yeah. So like I said, I was becoming a parenting coach because when my kids came, my daughter came in 2014, and I knew that the way I'd been raised. While my parents thought they were doing everything right and homeschooled us and gave us all the opportunities and stuff, they just weren't emotionally there in the way I needed. And then eventually when they got divorced, my dad wasn't physically there in the way I needed. And that was a whole trauma in and of itself. And so I knew I'm like, I don't know exactly what it is because my mom would probably say that she followed the parenting books at the time, but there was something preventing her from giving me what I needed, so I don't want to do the same thing to my daughter. And I discovered Dr. Shafali, who was talking about conscious parenting on Oprah, and I was, this is this is the thing. I'm going to use my kids to wake me up. And then, like I said, I got into the coaching certification. I ended up volunteering for a layoff for my job. I was an engineer, a wireless engineer, and to start this business. But as I went through that journey, I'm like, parenting is not really the thing that's not the driver for me. So maybe for other women, it's also their husbands. And maybe there are other women out there who just want their families to be healthy and whole and give their kids something that they didn't get, but they don't know how to do it. So since by that time I'd figured it out, I was like, now I can help other people do this too. And my husband also during the process, because early on, I did go to a therapist, and right away she's like, oh, he has ADHD. I was like, okay, great. Well, now you can just fix that ADHD, and he could be a whole different man. She gave him medicine, and that was a whole thing because he was, like, grieving that he didn't know about this until he was almost 40 something. And then the medicine was terrible because he'd still stay up all night, and so he wasn't sleeping well, and then it suppresses your appetite, so he wasn't eating either. So then the pill would wear off as soon as he got home with me and the baby, and he'd be like this hungry monster. I don't know what to do. But this byvance is not it. I don't know what needs to happen differently, but it's like the medicine is not going to work. It's got to be something else that I can do to help him with this. I just found this plan that I teach people now in several different sources, and I tried to make it easier to learn now, so you don't have to go through what I did.

[09:19] Karin: So that could be a whole separate conversation about being married to someone with ADHD and the challenges that that brings, for sure. So tell us what you mean by being a conscious marriage coach. What does that mean?

[09:34] Beth: Yeah, so really, conscious is just another word for awake and aware, right? Like, we are aware of something. And so a conscious parent knows when they're frustrated, they have these different emotions because of what their kids have done, how to use those emotions to take a different action, how to be aware of when they're projecting something onto their kids. Like, am I wanting them to do this thing and get ready and get out the door because of fear about me being late, how it looks for me to be getting there late, how it feels to be in this rush because of something I was taught. There are so many different things that go on in our head that tell us to be afraid. And then we try to control other people so that then we do the thing where we don't have to feel the fear. I'm talking about how simple I am. But that was a complicated way to say, like, you use conflict in your life to explore those triggers and basically learn more about yourself. So when I talk about conscious marriage, I mean that you use the conflict in it every single time to get closer to the authentic version of you. This person who is aligned to love, it's aligned to who you really are. So if something is happening out there in relationship with other people, there is a message for you. So, for example, I would always use the words like frustrated and annoyed with him. I was so annoyed by you. I'm just so frustrated by you. And those are just words for anger. And then we can use emotional intelligence to know that anger is a way that we protect our boundaries. It's saying that something in your environment or something you're thinking or believing right now is violating your boundaries. And so with him, it was often that I had set up this dynamic where I mothered him and I took care of everything, and I made sure he had what he needed clean clothes, food on the table, whatever he needed. I was, like, there to make him happy because that's how I got my worth, right? And also I got to stay in control. And I like that. I wanted to be in control. And then when my real kids were there, I was like, I can't do this anymore. You need to actually be a parent out to an adult. I can't be your mother anymore. And he didn't like that, and that was creating a lot of conflict. But I had to learn, like, how do I even do that? How do I believe in my mind that I'm still a good woman without doing everything for him? How do I even ask for help? How do I even know that I'm worthy of help? How do I love myself? And it was such an inner journey. Like, so much deep healing happened from that, just from him being what I would call lazy at the time and not taking care of a dish or loading the dishwasher wrong. Everything was like, why does this bother me? Okay, let's figure it out. I'm going to get closer to my authentic self and what I actually need and live in a healthier way.

[12:39] Karin: That's such an important part of the work that we can all do, is noticing when we have these big emotions come up and what is that all about? And getting curious about that, that's a big part of the work that we can do for ourselves and our relationship. So I love all of that. I also love your comment about my real kids.

[13:06] Beth: Yes.

[13:07] Karin: Right.

[13:08] Beth: It turns out, actually, you're older than me and you could actually do this yourself. And I don't have to be afraid that you don't know how to do it yourself and I don't have to take care of everything.

[13:17] Karin: Yeah, absolutely. How did you start doing some of this work for yourself? I mean, how did you start getting healing some of that anger or managing that?

[13:31] Beth: Yeah, well, I would say so. I was in some of Dr. Shafali's classes. She had some year long classes, and those were really helpful for awareness. And, you know, she kind of teaches some of those Buddhist sort of principles. Mindfulness. She started me on the journey of meditating. And that was really helpful because I didn't even know at that time that I was the watcher of my thoughts, that I could control what my brain thought and that all these stories I was telling myself or things I were believing, like I had control over that. And I could totally change those beliefs. And I could totally stop myself when I'm telling myself a story about how awful he is and how everybody else's husband is magical, which I have since learned is so far from the truth. So she got me on the mindful, like the meditation route and mindfulness route and awareness, and that was really helpful. And then she talked about the inner child and how important it is to heal the inner child. But I had to go to so many different sources to figure out how to really do that work and how to really be with my inner child and what it meant to actually heal and how that had to be for me, a full body kind of experience. Like, I couldn't just think about healing. I had to actually dig and dig and dig. And the coaching certification was helpful for that because that's when I started to experience that was you go a little bit deeper and then you find the repressed emotion from the thing. And as soon as it came out, like whether it was crying or anger or whatever as it came out, then I was done talking about whatever it was I could be sopping in that call with our coach, and then as soon as it had passed through, I was like, what are we even talking about? I'm fine. Then it would be gone. So I realize that there's all these repressed emotions that hang out with us and try to lay low, but then when they come out, we'd like, stuff them back down again. And so I actually had to learn how to feel them and release them and also reparent myself in that moment. Whatever memory I was having, I feel like I can remember everything, like, from baby onward. And I know that's not necessarily normal, but I had so many memories of things that I had to heal from.

[15:59] Karin: That. Healing from things that have happened to us as kids is so powerful. It's so powerful. And I know there are lots of different ways to do it. I just read the book Origins of you, who is the author. She talks about the different wounds that we get as kids and how we can tend to those wounds, then we can heal. I can put it in the show notes, but I do ifs and that gets at a lot of those wounds. But I'm really curious what you do. You said it was more of a full body experience. Is that something that you help people with?

[16:40] Beth: Yes. So it depends on how open they are. Some people are not like they've been shut off for so long that it's hard for them to even get to that place where they open their heart. So first we have to work on how do we open our heart, how do we actually feel again. I remember when I had my baby and I wrote my mom an email and I was like, mom, I don't even think I know how to love. And she's like, what are you talking about? Of course you do. You're such a good mom. Blah, blah. I don't mean that. I mean, like the feeling of love. I don't feel that. I feel like I'm surviving or something. And so it was from Dr. Laura Berman that I learned how to ground myself, how to open my heart again, how to let the energy flow and actually be with that and feel in control of the energy in my body and stuff. So that's the first piece. But then, yes, I work with clients, so I have six steps. The first step is exploring triggers. The second step is healing. And in that we talk about how you reparent your inner child and it's just like with any other healing. And that is the process of empathy, where you are retelling the story of what happened to you from your perception and remembering what it felt like in your body. And that brings you back to the repressed emotion. Right. And then you're feeling that. It's like I used to avoid feeling the pain. So when I started coaching, I was terrible because as soon as somebody got close to their pain, I was like, whoop, let's bring it back. No, I'm going to remind you how beautiful and awesome you are and blah, blah, blah. And I could not sit with somebody in their pain because it was triggering to me. And as I realized, I'm like, I got to heal my own stuff before I can sit with other people. So true.

[18:33] Karin: Yes.

[18:33] Beth: Which is a huge piece. You've got to remember that everybody has all this stuff. I'm not some weird. Everybody I talk to has stuff that they have just shoved aside and it's easy to trigger it and you don't realize that you've done it until they're screaming at you or crying and it seems OD and you're like, what's going on? That's their inner child coming out. Which is another thing I learned was that all marriages are really just two inner children in adult bodies, and they're just going back and forth trying to get their needs met from when they were little. So then after you feel the emotion, then you bring in this adult self who's listened to the story, can be kind of reflective of it can help you feel. And then she or he is telling you what you needed to hear when you were little and helping you know that your different needs and I mean, like inner needs, like knowing that you're enough, knowing that you're worthy, knowing that you're safe, knowing that you're important. She can or he can remind you that, hey, I'm going to do all those things for you. I am going to keep you safe. I'm going to always remind you that you're worthy and you're loved and you're enough, and I'm going to do that for you now. And I'm so sorry that your parents couldn't do it for you because nobody did it for them, but you can do it for yourself now. And so through that, then we realize that we can meet all of our own needs, especially those deep inner longing kinds of things, and make that promise to ourselves, which then we, of course, have to put into action. But then they move into something called energetic coherence, which is okay. Now, I've used the wisdom of this emotion because even repressed emotions have wisdom. I can see what was out of alignment with that situation that happened. Maybe I was abused. And I can see how that never should have happened, how somebody should have protected me. And so now that I've used that wisdom, then I can shift back up to a place of love, a place of happiness, a place of joy. And that is what I call emotional regulation, which is where you're getting back into alignment with your authentic self. You feel super good because you're not in this place of dealing with those emotions that you're not actually really dealing with.

[20:55] Karin: Tell us more about self regulation.

[20:58] Beth: Yeah, so that's that ability. So this process, these first three to four steps of my journey, I call that emotional hygiene. And so just like personal hygiene, you do it every day before you go present yourself to the world. Emotional hygiene is the same way. We have to take that time, that space, to be responsible for whatever we're feeling and to sit with that, explore it, heal it, and then shift up so that who we bring to other people is already grounded. Really? In the adult self and has what she or he needs. Feels authentic, knows who you really are, doesn't feel unworthy or insecure or all those things. We're not bringing fear to our relationships or to our conversations. And so self regulation is really that I'd like to say. It's like we've grown ourselves up. We've done the work to heal from the past, and we are in this adult self. We live as the adult self now, which is also a problem that happens with ADHD. I mean, depending on who you read, there are lots of schools of thought that you kind of get frozen in time as a younger child because your parents weren't regulated. And so you're all just like children, and they couldn't be that steady, stable, regulated person for you. So then you kind of get stuck at that place. That's why you have, like, time blindness and don't seem as responsible and don't know how to regulate your emotions. So my husband could I don't know, something wouldn't work in his game, or he'd break something, and then with that anger that he felt, he'd throw a controller or be really upset. And so it was because he had no ability to actually regulate that. Because he never had an adult figure sit with him with empathy to help him process the emotion and to know what it means and to let it flow through and to not necessarily express it, but allow it to flow through the body in a safe kind of way.

[23:18] Karin: So you're also talking about somatic work, too, about do you ever talk about the nervous system and how we regulate that and how that has a powerful effect on us.

[23:32] Beth: Yeah. So energetic coherence is really the practice of getting into the parasympathetic nervous system where when you're in the sympathetic fight or flight, everything's out of whack, like our brain, our respiratory system, our heart rate is all out of whack. And we were to look at it on a graph, like a line graph, it would just be very jagged and erratic and up and down. And so coherence is when we actually come into rest and digest, we activate the parasympathetic nervous system and we get everything into sync in a nice smooth rhythm. So part of that energetic coherence is shifting from fear to a place of I call it love. It's really just being regulated in that way.

[24:19] Karin: Yeah. And feeling a sense of safety. Yeah. That's great. That's one of the things that I think I wish I had during graduate school, was that we learned about the nervous system, but not about so much, about how that helps us connect with people when we are feeling safe and our nervous system is regulated and how.

[24:44] Beth: Powerful that really powerful.

[24:49] Karin: Yeah.

[24:50] Beth: So I've learned a little bit more about coherence from the Heart Math Institute, which maybe you've heard of. Yeah. But Dr. Berman talks about a lot and she put it through the lens of quantum physics and says that whatever our nervous system is doing, the other person we're with, the people we love, who we're close to all the time, will actually match us there. So that really one way to resolve conflict, is to be in that state of love all the time because they will eventually match you there. But for people which it's true, I've seen it work. But for people like me who grew up in, had some sort of trauma, had parents who were a little bit volatile, we become kind of physical empaths where we can sense in our bodies what they're feeling so we know what to do to change ourselves, so that we will get the love or whatever we need from them. So we sense that mom comes in angry and then we immediately go into fear and fawn or whatever we need to do to get her back to happy so she can at the very least, not be scary. Right. So then we grow up and become adults who can feel our husband's fear or anger walk into the room and then it feels like our own in our body. We start to have this and we don't know what to do with it. So then we create a story to match that fear, which usually is, see, he's terrible. I just have to get a divorce. This is awful. I can't stand this man. He just brings me down from this happy place I've been and he's got to go. So then that story turns into what we create because as soon as we're looking through that filter of he's the wrong guy, then everything's going to start matching, that our brain is going to find so much more evidence that, yeah, he's the wrong guy, get out of here. And then it just keeps deteriorating.

[26:39] Karin: I love how you come from. Yeah. You started with the body, and I think that is a missing piece for a lot of people.

[26:47] Beth: Oh, yeah, absolutely. It can be very hard to change too, to feel that safety and to know, this is his energy, this isn't mine. And by the way, I'm also still safe. And even if it were to change and I were to suddenly not be safe, I have the ability to walk myself out of the room or whatever I need to do to protect my boundary from this person. But me joining him there is not going to make me any safer usually, unless it's I do want to say that I don't work with women who are being physically abused, and usually there's some more help that needs to happen first before they're ready for somebody like me. But we do talk about boundaries, like, nonstop.

[27:31] Karin: Yeah. So how do you help people become more aware of what's happening in their bodies?

[27:37] Beth: Well, usually through this process of, I'm going to ask you to shift into happiness. I'm going to ask you to get into coherence they're like, well, but I can't do that. I don't know what you're talking about or I don't feel safe. So then we have to keep challenging. Well, what did come up for you when he came in that way? What did he trigger in you first? For a lot of women, it can be like shame. He will say something that then makes them feel guilty or shameful, even though they shouldn't. So then we begin to question that, okay, is that really yours or were you picking up what he was giving you? Like, what I call it inauthentic shame. And so that kind of healing work that happens there does happen in the body too, so that eventually you get to a place where you're like, this doesn't have anything to do with me. He's talking about himself right now. He's so unconscious and he's going through something and trying to maybe consciously trying to make me feel a certain way. But in any event, he's just in pain and it has nothing to do with me. So I can go back to a place of happiness and I can use that energy that I feel in my body. Because what happens early in the journey when they violate your boundaries is that you tend to go to the guilt and shame that you've angered them or disappointed them or whatever. But as they continue through the work, then it becomes the present moment emotion, which is anger. It's, oh, he's disrespecting me, he's violating my boundaries. I need to protect myself. So then we can use that energy. It's almost like a shield. And when you allow it to flow through your body, you sort of make this wall around you that he can pick up, which is very different from when you are coming at it with, oh, I deserve this, or I'm afraid of him. He can feel that too and will continue to, what's the word? Like, use exploit your vulnerabilities, I guess. But when you feel very strong, he's going to pick up on that energy that you're putting out of you're not going to mess with me. And if you do, then I'm going to leave the room or I'm going to call you out on it or something. The present moment emotion is wonderful guidance of exactly what you should be doing. So then at that point, they're like, oh, I feel anger. Oh, who do I need to protect? Is it me in the past or is it me in the present moment? If it's me in the present moment, then what do I need to do to protect myself? Or maybe I need to protect my children. What do I need to do here? And then it becomes very clear what to do.

[30:13] Karin: So it's really taking that co regulation to another level and it's about awareness and it's really awareness is a big piece of it, it sounds like.

[30:24] Beth: Yeah, you have to get past the stories. We all want to make up these stories. And one of the things I talk about is the drama triangle, which I'm sure you know about, where if you think that he's the villain or you're the victim or you feel like a hero or maybe all of them at once, then you're in a drama in your head. And so how do you step out of that drama and realize how much power you have to create what you're experiencing and to change what's happening right now?

[30:54] Karin: Yeah, maybe you can explain the drama triangle to those who might not be familiar with it.

[31:00] Beth: Yeah, so I don't know a whole lot more than that, but I know Cartman came up with it. I believe he was a psychologist. And it's just the idea that there's three points on the triangle hero, villain, or victim. And so they kind of work with each other where you either think you're the hero, like saving the day and coming in and making somebody feel better, or you think you're the victim. Why does this always happen to me? What's going on? Oh, I'm just meant to suffer, that kind of thing. And you usually think that somebody else is the villain. He's so bad, she's so bad. Look what they did. They're so mean. How could they do this? And sometimes you can play all of them at once, and so usually it means that you're very much still in the immature ego which is there to try to protect you. And it did a good job when you were little, but as you get older, you become more aware and can protect yourself and don't need to constantly judge yourself against other people to stay safe. It's more like, what is the reality? What am I feeling? What are they feeling? What need is driving their behavior? What need is driving my behavior? How do I get off of this triangle and how do I respond to this from a more conscious kind of place.

[32:17] Karin: Yeah. And I like that triangle because it also shows how we play a role in these patterns that keep repeating themselves.

[32:26] Beth: Yes.

[32:27] Karin: Even if we are so sure that it's the other person that's the problem, there's a really good chance that we're actually part of the problem.

[32:37] Beth: Oh, yeah. All the time. Because if you know that the pattern exists, even if you do play a role in it, you can change the role that you play in it, or you can even refuse to play to that pattern. Like you said, awareness. Once you are aware that's happening, then you go, I am not going to do this with you again. Every time you say this, then I say this and I do this and we keep doing that. So let's catch the fear and not keep interacting, keep repeating that pattern that play.

[33:10] Karin: Yeah. So you've talked a little bit about this, especially when it comes to physical abuse, but are there ever times when a woman calls you and says, I am just so done with my husband. Can you help me? And you hear more about her situation and you say, I don't know that I'm going to be the right person for you. Are there times when you encounter that situation?

[33:39] Beth: Yeah, they definitely have to be awake a little bit. So usually the woman that I work with is already bringing conscious parenting into her life and knows that it's really about me and what is in my power to change. And she very much values the idea of her children not having to recover from their childhood, so creating an environment that's really the healthiest it can be for them because she's not putting her own fears and wounds into it. So they have to be awake a little bit. And then what they're realizing is that they're not fully in integrity with this idea of being a conscious parent. Because when it comes to their husband, they go completely to some other place and for some reason they feel that he's not worthy of empathy and he's not worthy of somebody helping him understand what his needs are and helping him meet those. Because he is an adult who can meet his needs. And there's some resistance to that usually for them as, why do I have to be empathetic with him? Why do he's an adult. He can just figure this out. He can go do it on his own like I did. And it's really the idea of these are human skills, these are essential skills for every relationship, no matter who you're talking to, the ability to listen to somebody and to help reflect for them what they're experiencing and help them have the space to solve their own problems, that's just being human. It's no more than that. It's like you don't just do it with your kids because they're kids. You do it with everybody because that's what relationship is.

[35:28] Karin: Yeah. And our relationships are just so fundamental to our health and well being and our happiness and everything.

[35:38] Beth: Yeah. And really the root of that problem is that they're still not fully doing it with themselves usually. So the first person we have to be empathetic with is ourselves. And that's really what I do, is show you how to do it with yourself first, and then you're bringing it out into the relationship and doing it with your kids and doing it with your husband and your clients, whoever you meet. It's like, what's going on with you today? Let me actually be curious. Instead of thinking that I need to take this personally or that I'm being a good person, if I just fix it for you, let me give you back responsibility for your own life, kind of thing.

[36:14] Karin: Yeah. And it seems like almost everyone I talk to, it always comes back to that. I mean, that's the first important piece, is learning to improve our relationship with ourselves.

[36:31] Beth: Absolutely.

[36:33] Karin: Yeah. So we're talking about people who are coming to you saying, I want to improve my relationship, but they're not bringing their partner into the room with them when they're working on the relationship. They're just doing it themselves. And so I'm sure there are a lot of people who are listening saying, but how can you really change the relationship when there's only one person there? So maybe you can tell us just a little bit about that.

[37:03] Beth: Yeah, so something I kind of like to think of is think about any good company or any good team that you've worked on and imagine that has a completely different leader, one who is having troubles at home or one who is really stressed out or something. The way they lead the team and get action from you is going to be very different. But did the whole team have to go in to get help? No. Like, the leader had to evolve or be replaced or whatever it is in that case, because they are so powerful at getting people on board with their vision and wanting to work toward the same goal. So I don't bring the husband in because I really need you to step up as the leader in your home and be the one who understands what you're bringing to the table. You've done that emotional hygiene and, you know, look, I'm not projecting my stuff onto this. I just need to be here to make sure that I get the best out of my team, whether that's my kids, my husband, my wife, whatever. And it's not that I'm telling them what to do, but that I'm inspiring them to do the thing that gets us closer to that shared vision that we have. Of course, you could say that sometimes people don't have a shared vision, but I don't know that that's really true. If you really get down to what do we want for our kids, what do we want for us? What kind of life do we want to live? I think that most of the time, those are pretty aligned, or you can find alignment and then add in your own separate things that you want. Maybe he wants to go be, I don't know, a famous golfer or something, and you want to be a famous singer. You can both do your thing. But there's still some kind of vision for the family that you're trying to get aligned to. And so if I can work with you, then you can get your own life aligned to that. And then you can also learn how to have empathy for your teammates, for your people, for helping them get through the stuff that's getting in their way of doing the work toward that vision. And so that means that you have to be able to listen to your spouse when they're struggling to get through that problem so that they come back on board with that vision. And you have to be able to share what it is that you really want. And you also have to be able to communicate in a non authoritarian way. We were taught that leaders boss you around and tell you exactly what to do. But you've got really smart people on your team, so they're very capable, and you don't need to tell them what to do most of the time, maybe the first time, but after that, honor their capabilities and just tell them what the problem is. Tell them what you're worried about, and then allow them to step up and do the thing that needs to be done. But you also, as a leader, need to inhibit toxic behavior. So that means that if they're violating your boundaries or they come in and really insult your opinion, or they get in your physical space. My husband loves to, like, he's touchy feely, and he would just touch me all the time. And you can't do that. Got to walk away from that, or he'd be spent at the end of the day, and he'd like, yell at the kids. I'm like, It's okay for you to be exhausted. It's not okay for you to yell at the kids. So we have to be able to come in and just stop that behavior in its tracks and be willing to have those boundaries of, no, we're going to protect this. This is all ours. We're sharing this, and we're going to make sure that we protect everybody here. But then I'm also going to inspire you and I'm also going to allow you to do what you need to do to help us reach this goal. Yeah, looks like you have questions.

[40:38] Karin: I do. I'm trying to figure out which way direction I want to go. I mean, I love all this. This is so similar to some of the work that I do as well. But I'm also thinking about the people who are listening saying, yeah, but if you only knew about the challenges that I had, I'm skeptical that this work could help me in my situation. One of the things, and I mentioned this before we hit record that I think might come up for people is issues around finances. When you have different spending habits or perhaps your partner has money secrets or you don't have a personal source of income, you depend on your partner and you don't have visibility to their spending. I don't know what it might be, but I'm curious what you might have to say about that kind of situation.

[41:35] Beth: Yeah, one of the first things I like to tell people when it comes to that is imagine that you are divorced and they no longer exist. What are you going to do with your money? Do you have money to do something with? Are you capable of earning money if you're making much money? What do you need to do to keep it safe? Because people bring their stuff to the relationship and they fill voids that they have with money and stuff and things or they feel like they are safe because they control it or they have other issues. And so your focus needs to be on what can you do to feel safe in there. So maybe you do need separate bank accounts, maybe you need to go back to work and start earning some income so you feel safe that you've got some kind of money. One of the things in our relationship that we've done is different like online budgeting tools just to give us some guardrails of hey look, this is where the money's going so we can talk about it. There's something called cube money which is new to me, I'm just learning about it. But it's a way that you can it's like a digital cash envelope if you've heard of the Ramsey system so that then they have to actually look at the money every time they go spend and see what you've got and is there enough and that kind of thing. So sometimes we need those external controls to work together until we get back to what I call a fair agreement. We're always looking for not necessarily what's equal, but what's fair in the relationship. So whatever you need to do to feel that it's fair and to feel that you are safe in that regard, then look at it like they don't exist and go take care of that now because you don't have to keep your money together and you don't have to depend on them for money. And if they got problems, then you've got to protect your own resources and your own safety until they get go see somebody and work on those problems. I knew somebody who so there is something called financial abuse where they are in control of all of it. And that can be a super scary place. It just comes back to what do I need to do to feel safe in this? How do I make sure that I have the money that I need? And there can be an interim time where that doesn't necessarily feel fair, that doesn't feel like this is what we signed up for or whatever. But you really just have to be firm in this is what I need to do to protect myself. And I'm willing to do this first small step and then see if I need to do more. Like, I consider a divorce a way to protect your boundaries. But I think that for me anyway, it seemed like the only way to protect my boundaries at a time when I didn't know these like 5000 other ways to protect my boundaries. I didn't know that I could just walk away from him. I didn't know that I could go do the thing that I've been dreaming about doing. I didn't know that I could ask for help. Like all these things I just didn't know. But the only thing I did know was divorce. That is more of a time when everything else is not working and you need that total separation in order to protect you or your children.

[44:53] Karin: That's a great perspective. And I want to pick up on something you said I can do that thing I love and that's something that I love to encourage people to do is to find out really who they are, what lights them up and brings them joy.

[45:11] Beth: I was just on that topic. I was just talking to a client this morning and I think her awareness is important because we've come so far since I've worked with her and she's done more and more of what she wants to do. But she realized that there are some more little things coming up and she's like, I don't know why I don't just do them now because I'm not afraid of him or whatever. And she realized that he gave her the ability to say that, oh, I didn't do it because of him. So there's always something deeper, some way that we feel safe and we blame it on them. When really it's like we're not ready to face something in ourselves that's just too scared, too terrified, too unhealed, whatever. There's some way that the thing is serving you, but it seems like they're holding you back from something. She's like, yeah, I'm just hiding behind him. That happens too.

[46:05] Karin: Yeah, I bet. And of course then there are a lot of people who believe that in order to earn love. They have to sacrifice themselves and put others first all the time.

[46:15] Beth: Tons of those. Especially mothers.

[46:18] Karin: Yeah, that's so common. Something I see a lot. I also want to ask the question that I asked you the first time we talked. And it's a question that I've had come up from people who say, why should I be the one to do all this work?

[46:36] Beth: Yeah, well, I think I kind of touched on it before, that this is like a human skill. And if you don't heal, then you're going to continue to live a life that is not your authentic life, whatever that means for you. Not. You stepping into the fullness of who you really are. Not using your gifts, not being happy. Whatever. It know. I think it was Wayne Dyer who said wherever you go, there you are. And even if you leave him right now, you're going to take all the same stuff, all the same fears and everything with you, and either recreate the same relationship hopefully not, or still kind of hold yourself back in those ways, at least for a while. And so why not do that work? Especially if you're a mother. You've always got to remember that your children will become who you are, not what you tell them to be. So what are you modeling? Are you modeling? Healthy conflict resolution. Are you modeling? Empathy. Are you modeling? How to sit with somebody who's in pain without taking it on as your own? Are you modeling? Having a big ego? Or are you modeling being non attached to other people's opinions of you and that kind of thing? So it's like the work needs to be done no matter what. Why not use your husband? Let's actually use him for something and do that work with him. Because there was probably not for all people, but at least for me. There was a point in my journey where I was reminded I was watching A Star Is Born. And in the movie, the guy reaches back and touches the girl's leg behind him. And I had completely forgotten at that point that my husband used to do that with me all the time because we used to ride his motorcycle. And then we stopped when I had kids because I didn't want us both to die, leave them with nobody. But there's probably some part of you that saw something really beautiful in him or her to begin with. And why not do the person you've already been through it with? Use them to grow, to heal. And then if you've got kids, it's so important to show them that each of you are acceptable. There's no reason why I have to leave Daddy because he's lazy. Like I can learn to love myself enough to love him when he's in pain and see what that laziness is really about and how we actually work through this and find a way to make it fair or get whatever support he needs and stuff. But because as my children grew, then I realized that they are very much like him sometimes, and they're very much like me other times. And so if I had not really faced that with him first and healed the stuff that came up around it, then I would have just started attacking my kids and shamed them all the time and said, like, what's wrong with you? And tried to control them. And all the same crap would have just come up again. It would have surfaced again. So I'm glad that I did it with him while they were little. And when it came up with them, it's like, oh, yes, of course you're just like your father. Of course you why wouldn't you be? But I love you because I can see the soul in you and I'm not concerned with anything else that's going on. You have beautiful gifts and I can see that. These are my own insecurities and my own conditioning about what it means to be a good girl or a good child. And I'm not going to dump that on you. That's my problem.

[50:02] Karin: Yeah, that's a really good point, and your response is much more comprehensive than mine is going to be. But one of the things I do like to tell people is it's really not about fixing other people, it's about figuring out how to live your best life. Why not do that so that you can enjoy it? And whether or not you stay in your current relationship, they're going to be skills that you can take beyond, like you said, really important.

[50:30] Beth: I know if you've heard the saying, not necessarily religious, but love other people as you love yourself, the main problem there is that most people don't love themselves. That's what gets in the way of loving him or her. That's the problem. So everything I look at as like, how can I use this to love myself even more? Because obviously there's something I've been rejecting here that this person has brought up for me. So what do I need to own and look at and love?

[50:59] Karin: That is such a core piece of the work that I do. Yeah, when you're emotionally triggered, it's about something that's going on with you. It's about your stuff usually. And so let's work on that.

[51:15] Beth: Yes, absolutely.

[51:19] Karin: So what does love have to do with the work that you do?

[51:27] Beth: Such a good question because I could talk for an hour about love. Hope you got time. Okay, so I think it would be important just to say that we are taught this transactional idea of love, where I think that we have confused care with what love really is like. Because our parents cared for us, we thought that that was love. And so now we feel like we need other people to care for us, and that's love. So you hear things like the five love languages which has been debunked. And we think, oh my God, this person has to take care of me. I have to take care of them. That is love. And I don't believe that at all. I believe care and love are separate. Care can be an act of love if you have abundance and you want to care for somebody, but most people aren't even caring for themselves. And so to put all that dependence on another person to care for you the way that you need to care for yourself is just setting yourself up for misery. And you're going to be so unhappy because you're like, why aren't they delivering? And they don't even love themselves, so they can't do it for you either. So to me, love is just the true energy of who we all are. And it's just a heart, open, expansive, warm, beautiful sort of feeling. And so I can be in a place of love no matter who's around. I don't have any conditions on it. I don't need anybody to do anything special for me to feel love. It's just somewhere I can go on my own. And so most of the time we move down into those depleting emotions when we need some guidance and we get stuck there. So we don't realize that the anger is a message, or the sadness is a message, or even the guilt is a message. And so we stay sort of in this place of fear and then we create from that place. We create fights with our husband or our kids, seeming to not do what we want them to do. We're very disconnected from others because we're disconnected from ourselves. So to me, it's like I have to use those depleting emotions as guidance and I always have to be able to shift back up to a place of love. And that is something that I offer to my husband and offer to my family. It's like you get to share this beautiful place of love with me. And I'm pretty awesome when I'm in that place because I'm not complaining about anything. And we are happy and we have good times and stuff. And if my cup is really full, then I'm going to care for you too. Or if you're my children, then obviously I got to care for you anyway. But I'm going to do it from this loving place and it's going to be so good. So I think it's important to first of all say that, yeah, love is not this transactional, you do this for me, I'll do this for you kind of thing. It's totally just an energy that we align to.

[54:09] Karin: Beautifully said.

[54:10] Beth: Thank you.

[54:11] Karin: So how can people learn more about you and working with you?

[54:16] Beth: Yeah, so if they are tired of mothering their annoying husband and like thinking about divorce, then I'm probably the one for them and they can go to theauthenticwifeandmom.com to find me. They can also read my book, The Authentic Wife. I have a podcast myself. The authentic wife. I'll have to have you on there, but that's where they can find me. And sometimes I'm at my business name at Family, being on TikTok, Instagram and Facebook.

[54:46] Karin: It's been such a joy having you on, talking about these important topics. So thank you for taking the time to join me and talk with me.

[54:55] Beth: Thank you. Pleasure is all mine. I love connecting with you.

 

Outro:

 

Karin: Thanks for joining us today on Love Is Us. If you liked the show, I would so appreciate it if you left me a review. If you have questions and would like to follow me on social media, you can find me on Instagram, where I'm theloveandconnectioncoach. Special thanks to Tim Gorman for my

music, Aly Shaw for my artwork, and Ross Burdick for tech and editing assistance. Again, I'm so glad you joined us today because the best way to bring more love into your life and into the world is to be loved. The best way to be loved is to love yourself and those around you. Let's learn and be inspired together.