Life in Relationship

How do I help my loved one when they are sad?

Differences in sadness and sorrow definition

relationship to distress and emotion regulation

Elevated, heavy feelings – sadness, guilt, remorse/regret, powerlessness

- Time oriented, long suffering, pain taking time

- Death, change, trauma, heartbreak, injustice, loss, disappointment, bad luck, trouble

Consider the moments when someone becomes aware of something challenging

No fixing

acknowledgement goes a long way

let these emotions be a process

let people's emotions, including our own be complicated and layered

let it be seen by God with someone

invite that person into regular life things

2 Corinthians 1:3-4, God of all comforts, God of all, but especially of comfort

Psalm 18:6-8, God's anger at what makes us sad or hurt

Resources:

https://heidigoehmann.com/articles/sorrow-an-acknowledgment

https://heidigoehmann.com/articles/honoring-our-sorrow-sadness-amp-tears-a-scripture-list-for-lent

https://www.kfuo.org/2020/01/20/coffee-hour-012020-no-shame-in-sadness/

Listener question: How do I have a conversation with someone I disagree with when I feel passionately about something?

Annoyed, accosted, attacked, or acknowledgment – honoring people's passions while setting our own boundaries

Tip 1 – root around your belief systems and consider how it impacts people

Tip 2 – use words to state our emotions as well as our thoughts

Define Zeal

- great energy or enthusiasm for a cause of goal (google)

- eagerness and ardent interest in something (webster)

- fervor, determination, combined with kindness equalling great devotion (urban dictionary)

- related to passion that is hard to govern

Tip 3 - What is the love within this? What is the fear within this?

-

Tip 4 – reserve zeal for injustice to give power to the marginalized

Tip 5 – hate doesn't help

- Ted Lasso – Be curious, not judgmental

Tip 6 – You can have boundaries

Opt out of conversations – place for avoidance and distraction, change of focus

Opt of relationships – what relationships in our life hold zeal in health and which are overwhelming

Boundaries with your own emotions

Resources:

Atlas of the Heart - https://amzn.to/46uBrRD

Subsribe to heidigoehmann.com for more.

Listener question: How do I have both empathy and boundaries?

Article on empathy and boundaries at heidigoehmann.com - https://heidigoehmann.com/articles/the-savior-complex-empathy-without-boundaries

The difference between "hey, hold my emotions" and "withness"

Cognitive empathy:

Do they need us to see their perspective? Listen and ask questions about what they are thinking and how they see the world and their current experience.

Emotional empathy:

Do they need us to see their feelings? Listen and ask questions that help them name their emotions and give a space to honor them without judgment.

Boundary #1 – self-differentiation

Boundary #2 – no drama making, honor the degrees of separation

Boundary #3 - know your lens: perspective, bias, and assumptions

Boundary #4 – empathy doesn't fix people

Boundary #5 – know your bandwidth

Boundary #6 – be yourself in your kind and compassionate clothing

Boundary #7 – recognize all of our capacity for suffering

Mental Health Tool - Gut check practice

Series on empathy at heidigoehmann.com -

https://heidigoehmann.com/articles/igniting-empathy-inside-of-me

https://heidigoehmann.com/articles/how-do-we-talk-with-empathy

https://heidigoehmann.com/articles/bringing-empathy-to-social-media

How do I get more pleasure in my life and relationships?

Getting past the word pleasure - Culture and church cringy word, kind of awkward, vaguely sexual

Pleasure definition = enjoyment, satisfaction

1 - Look for pleasure to be relationship focused

2 - ask deeper questions about pleasure

3 - pleasure in balance with other emotions

4 - noticing skills

3 stages of pleasure:

Wanting – expectation/anticipation, pursuit/drive

Liking – sensation experience of pleasure, hedonistic hotspots in the brain

Learning – brain updating information, making future predictions; brain begins linking neurotransmitters that were harder to link before

Resources:

Altogether Beautiful video on expanding our understanding of pleasure

45 sec Preview: https://youtu.be/902FvFLwbA0?si=P8irRsjz0AH2ZQXj

https://vimeo.com/ondemand/altogetherbeautiful/260826340

https://www.apa.org/science/about/psa/2004/11/berridge

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/between-cultures/202107/the-new-neuroscience-pleasure

Welcome back! The Life in Relationship Podcast answers one relationship question in each episode. We are looking forward to sharing Season 6 with you.

This season we are answering relationship questions all about Emotions to celebrate Heidi's book release of Emotions & the Gospel: Created for Connection. Emotions covered include: pleasure, anxiety, happiness, sadness & sorrow, frustration, zeal, and empathy.

Join us for episodes dropping in September. Submit your relationship questions at [email protected]. See you soon!

• The weightiness of breakups
• Reminding us of our need as humans for intimacy
• There are ways to do break ups "better", but no way to do it "easy"

Keep it classy, kind, and clear

• Break ups are in a moment, but the work of a break up is long term
• face to face universally preferred in the research
• What do you need and what needs healing?
• Find your support people
• Consider the impact on relationships beyond yourself

Allow for emotions

• Give opportunity to process for yourself and your break up partner
• let complex emotions be there, just listen and then move forward
• Own what needs to be owned, don't own what isn't yours
• Dave's wisdom = "It's not you, it's us."
• space before friendship
• Happier music video: https://youtu.be/m7Bc3pLyij0

Give yourself time and space for the grief

• Set needed boundaries
• Homeostasis, getting to normalcy and comfort
• Pay attention to your internal dialogue and engage in healthy and aware self-talk
• A good time to engage in your spiritual life for foundation safety/comfort
• Space in communication
• disenfranchised grief and awareness of the stages of grief
• markers for "moving on"

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0338013/

Necessary Endings: https://amzn.to/3PD8Q4Q

Short answer: Keep it classy and give yourself time.

1 – Learn together, about baby and each other

What are your unique challenges?

Gender role complications

Awareness of shifts and changes with each baby

Embrace flexible curiosity

Make space and room for letting the baggage come out

2 – hold the good and bad together for and with another

Acknowledge the impossibility of the unpredictable nature of parenting

Some common anxieties:

• Exhaustion
• Anxiety about infant or just life
• Changes in other relationships (boundaries with others)
• What support is available
• Physical touch and sensory overload
• Uncertainty of needs – other and within self
• Communicating about something so new
• Losing who I am outside of parenting

3 – Notice where your partner needs and respond to each other with grace

• Hormone changes and adjustment for both partners
• sleep deprivation messes with you
• validate and offer small touches to ground partner
• notice mess and mindfully notice joy
• Caring for each other outside of motherhood and fatherhood
• Caring for each other by splitting duties

household chores episode – https://ilovemyshepherd.libsyn.com/household-chores

4– help one another remember yourselves outside of parenting

• remember it's a season
• go out and make nice moments happen when you stay in
• get to know baby and let baby get to know you - acclimate to baby, but also let baby acclimate to you

Resources:

Gottman Bringing Up Baby course - https://www.gottman.com/blog/bringing-baby-home-the-research/

And Baby Makes Three - https://amzn.to/3B79iBj (affiliate link)

Short answer: Plan for the unplannable and watch yourself grow.

Topic: Where do I turn if I'm wrestling with my faith?

Intro: special guest Tanner Olson, Written to Speak, the poetry master

1. Wrestling can be scary, but healthy

• Can feel like a journey, a battle, a dessert, normalcy, mediocrity
• Common Questions: Is God still who He says He is? Is God still close to me?
• Validating your questions and feelings goes a long way in making wrestling feel safer
• Keep talking to God – step toward relationship and revelation, getting to know God rather than always answering the whys

1. Wrestling can bring growth and depth of faith

• Find people you can talk to about the questions and wrestlings
• Making peace with wrestling as part of the faith process

Research studies reveal wrestling as a widely experienced phenomenon:

Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2839364/

Barna - https://www.barna.com/research/two-thirds-christians-face-doubt/

Study of Islam - https://yaqeeninstitute.org/read/paper/what-causes-muslims-to-doubt-islam-a-quantitative-analysis (Yaqeen Instititute for Islamic Research)

• Predominate themes in wrestling:

moral and social concerns, philosophical and scientific concerns, personal trauma

• There is nothing wrong with you and sometimes it's hard to see we are loved, forgiven, free, etc.

1. Everyone's relationship with God looks different

• We can rest in what we do know – "I know how this story ends"
• Faith looks different in different seasons of life
• Value of silence and stillness (Walk a Little Slower: pg. 104)
• Wrestling in the daily walk (Walk a Little Slower: pg. 52)
• Sometimes we think, sometimes we are invited to just be, sometimes we wait
• What to look for in wrestling companions
• Tanner wisdom: "Let the cheesy things still be true."

Resources: writtentospeak.com

Tanner's books -

Walk a Little Slower - https://amzn.to/3IPETu7

As You Go - https://amzn.to/3IMa49A

I'm All Over the Place - https://amzn.to/3KYc0h1

Short Answer: Let yourself be curious and let the cheesy things be true.

Topic: How do I talk to someone I love who is struggling with their mental health?

Intro: Changing stigma towards mental health

Step 1 - changing our beliefs

Step 2 - changing our actions related to beliefs

2019 APA survey:

https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2019/05/mental-health-survey

1. What is my relationship with this person? (4:30)

• Relationship = vulnerability + boundaries
• Where are they at? Consider the person's willingness to have the conversation
• Can they see the concerns or are they mostly unaware?
• Use the phrase – "I've noticed" or "Have you noticed…"
• Start with culturally normative symptoms or what might be easiest from them to hear
• Shift our own understanding about mental health as part of everyone's everyday life

1. Get some info for yourself

• Nami - https://nami.org/Support-Education
• and Mental Health First Aid and Fresh Hope groups
• recognize our own anxieties about mental health
• Mental Health First Aid: https://www.mentalhealthfirstaid.org/take-a-course/find-a-course/
• Determining a crisis v. non-crisis situation

QPR training for suicide prevention:

https://qprinstitute.com/individual-training

• Concerns about suicide: https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/

1. Consider your language and your relationship with your own mental health (18:00)

• Do not make assumptions
• Ask lots of questions
• Use a tone of respect
• People are more responsive when we are willing to deal with our own stuff
• Be authentic in our own struggles
• The struggle isn't usually the same intensity forever

1. Have some resources ready and check back in (23:30)

• Hotline resources - https://www.rainn.org/

https://www.crisistextline.org/text-us/

https://www.thehotline.org/ for family and relationship violence

211 – basic resources local to you

• look up some local therapists

therapist search on Heidi's website: https://heidigoehmann.com/connect

• Combat veteran resources and info around trauma

Normalizing combat trauma - https://www.ptsd.va.gov/understand/common/common_veterans.asp

Find an EMDR therapist - https://www.emdria.org/find-an-emdr-therapist/

Get your own therapy if they are resistant (or if they aren't)

• books –

Maybe You Should Talk to Someone - https://amzn.to/3EXYkhV

Maybe You Should Talk to Someone Workbook - https://amzn.to/3HPMpEL

Soul of Shame - https://amzn.to/3pViWTK

Daring Greatly - https://amzn.to/3zwOpPw

Fresh Hope Workbook - https://amzn.to/3faK0YV

Fresh Hope website - https://freshhope.us/

Loving Someone Series –

PTSD - https://amzn.to/34oRh5s

Bipolar - https://amzn.to/3zsYEnK

ADHD - https://amzn.to/3mYkmuY

1. Don't forget boundaries for yourself with compassion

Mental health page at heidigoehmann.com - https://heidigoehmann.com/mental-health-1

Relationship page at heidigoehmann.com - https://heidigoehmann.com/relationships

Short Answer: There is no perfect way to have the conversation - start somewhere, with a resource and a single awkward conversation.

Topic: How does a family adjust to someone becoming an adult?

Developmental realities, independence and angst

The reality of Young Adulthood – How do I access independence?

A Story: getting your first cold and/or changing your major in college

Tip 1 – Celebrate small things of young adulthood

• baby steps
• reminds us we are capable
• telling each other you are capable = part of family life

Tip 2 – be mindful of the stages of parenting

parenting changes over time and with developmental levels of kids

• article from Berkley calls the last state a "guide" https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/three_ways_to_change_your_parenting_in_the_teenage_years
• making decisions for small children, to making decisions but offering choices, to making decisions with your child, supporting decisions alongside your child

Tip 3 – be interested in one another as people

• find some new rituals and traditions as well as new ways to connect spiritually
• 4 areas to grow as family members grow – emotions, routines, freedom, and conversations (licensed family therapist online)

Article: https://imperfectfamilies.com/grow-up-with-your-kids/

• Gottman "Creating Shared Meaning" and "Rituals of Connection"

https://www.gottman.com/blog/create-shared-meaning-rituals-for-the-family/

Dave's bonus tip for parents of YAs – "take opportunities to be chill"

Heidi's bonus tip – "believing in eternity means I don't have to be worked up about this moment"

Tip 4 – transition takes effort and energy and is worth effort and energy

• relationship is made of vulnerability and boundaries

Family members of YAs –

consider what you want and what's realistic

respect their voice and freedom

check ins with low expectations

YAs seek help, communicate needs

set boundaries, lead the way in defining your boundaries

love your family as people not what they do for you

Short answer: relationships need to transition as life transitions