Relationship Alive!

They say that love can conquer all - but how do you really tap into “the power of love” to resolve conflicts in your relationship? On top of that, how do you learn what you need to learn so that you don’t keep repeating the same fights over and over again in your relationship? This week, our guest is Guy Finley, author of the new book Relationship Magic: Waking Up Together and the international bestseller The Secret of Letting Go. Along with getting juicy tidbits of Guy’s wisdom in a deep dive, we’re also going to walk through the process of transformation, so you can experience for yourself how to make the shift from conflict to love as you listen.  

As always, I’m looking forward to your thoughts on this episode and what revelations and questions it creates for you. Please join us in the Relationship Alive Community on Facebook to chat about it!

Sponsors:

Along with our amazing listener supporters (you know who you are - thank you!), this week's episode is being sponsored by two amazing companies, with special offers for you.

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Resources:

Visit the website for Guy Finley’s new book Relationship Magic for special bonus content

Visit Guy Finley’s main website

FREE Relationship Communication Secrets Guide - perfect help for handling conflict…

Guide to Understanding Your Needs (and Your Partner's Needs) in Relationship (ALSO FREE)

www.neilsattin.com/magic Visit to download the transcript, or text “PASSION” to 33444 and follow the instructions to download the transcript to this episode with Guy Finley.

Amazing intro/outro music graciously provided courtesy of: The Railsplitters - Check them Out

Transcript:

Neil Sattin: Hello, and welcome to another episode of Relationship Alive. This is your host, Neil Sattin. On this show, we've talked a lot about what happens when you get triggered and what to do and what not to do, and we've talked about it from this perspective of like, a neurobiological perspective, and we've touched a little bit on the perspective of trying to find love in those moments. What would love do when you're in the middle of, let's say, a conflict with your partner? But what if the power of love allowed you to dissolve conflict with your partner? And what if it not only allowed you to dissolve conflict, but it allowed you to truly learn the lessons that are there for you to learn so that you can get past the kind of pattern of arguing, and tension, and resentment that's so easy to foster in a relationship? And that's the strangest thing, right? Because it's love that brings us together and yet somehow we find ourselves there with this person who's the apple of our eye, when they are just annoying us to no end. Sometimes it's the very things that drew us to that person that then drive us crazy.

Neil Sattin: So, there's some purpose behind all of that. And today's guest is going to help not only reveal the purpose behind all of that, but help us work a little magic in order to transform it. His name is Guy Finley, and you may be familiar with him, he's the author of The Secret of Letting Go and his new book, Relationship Magic: Waking Up Together is all about what I've just been talking about, how to wake up and dissolve the conflict, the resentments, the things that seem to keep you connected and yet painfully separate from your partner. The book is new and if you want to find out about Relationship Magic, the book itself, you should visit relationshipmagicbook.com. We're going to dive in and we're going to talk about all of that. And of course, there will always be links available to you in the detailed transcript of today's episode, which you can download if you visit neilsattin.com/magic as in Relationship Magic. Or you can always text the word Passion to the number 33444 and follow the instructions. I think that's enough from me right now. So, Guy Finley, thank you so much for joining us today on Relationship Alive.

Guy Finley: Thanks Neil, I'm glad to be with you.

Neil Sattin: Well, it's such a treat. And one of the funny things that I was thinking as I was reading Relationship Magic was how much I wished that I had had like say two more weeks to just sit there after reading the book, and really let it all digest and percolate. So a lot of the questions that you're probably going to get from me are really raw from my experience of having been in the book and I'm still waiting for some of that magic to occur, but I feel like I'm on the cusp of its potential, and so I'm really excited to have you here to chat about your book and this idea that love and pain are these forces that can't coexist really, and yet so often we find ourselves stuck in pain with our partner. Why do you think that's so?

Guy Finley: First, your reaction to the book is perfect in a way in that if you ever go to a concert or if you are a seeker of some kind and read something about love or principles, and the moment you hear that music or feel that idea you're like, My favorite image. We had a Rottweiler, and every once in a while I would say something to her to try to communicate something and she would start tilting her head left and right, knowing that she was hearing something that she didn't understand, but that she wanted to which indicates that there's a corresponding part, in this instance, in all of us when we read or hear something that resonates in such a way that indicates, "Boy, there's something much deeper here that I'm getting immediately and I want to know what it is." And then that waiting period or the re-reading period, a time of contemplation is the way in which we communicate, actually commune with that higher part of us that already understands what we are now wanting to know.

Guy Finley: And so, I just wanted to corroborate that, Neil, so that everyone can understand those moments, not just in hopefully reading this book with the principles that it presents, so that we have a little way to realize that something in us is listening and if we learn to listen even a little more carefully, we can start to understand what that part of us that's pulled to that moment wants to understand. Now to tie that in with the last part of the question, it isn't that pain and love can't coexist, it's that they have a relationship that we don't understand and until we can begin to realize within ourselves why it is that someone we love can be so incredibly exasperating will blame them for the pain instead of understanding why that moment has appeared the way it has in our relationship. And that's principally what my book is about.

Neil Sattin: Yeah. You're speaking right to me and I'm remembering the part in the book where you talk about how the principle is there, let's call it the love principle, it's already there illuminating your experience, that that points to its existence as if you were... You need the sun in order to see your shadow and it's like, "Well, the sun is shining right there behind you." So you know it's there.

Guy Finley: I love that you have pulled out of the, at least, in part out of the book. One of my favorite sections that I thought might be difficult to grasp, but I had to put it in there. Listen, yes, as hard as it is to understand, and we can continue with a metaphor, we sit here, I'm sitting here in southern Oregon, you're in Portland and it's a beautiful sunny day, it's about 70 degrees outside and we look out and see the trees or the wildlife that I'm looking at and we see the objects, but we don't see the light that actually reveals them. We don't see the light that actually reveals them, we don't actually see light other than those moments where we might look at a sunset but even then, we don't see light, and we don't see the fact that light isn't the static affair, that light is a steady stream of waves and particles from that glorious orb that we are sustained by, and it never stops raining down on us; in one sense, making everything that's visible, visible and at the same time giving life to everything that's revealed by it. See, I think love is like that.

Guy Finley: I think we stand in it, we're related to everything through it, we're connected because of it, and yet we don't know anything about it other than to say, "I love you," when somebody does what we like, or pleases us, or we have that moment of sentimentality, which isn't too different from sometimes saying, "I love milk shakes," or "I love pizza." I know, and it is, it's humorous in a way. Actually, if one has a proper detachment to our present level of consciousness, it's all pretty funny. But it's sad in a way because with the same ease that we can say, "God, I love you. My love, you are my heart, thank you for being you." And then two minutes later because he or she looks at us askew, there's no remembrance at all, that the moment before we were joined by something that now seems to have disappeared, obliterated by a flash of a negative reaction, and we don't understand the negative reaction and because we don't and take the feeling of it as being viable and real, meaning that it confirms that something's wrong with our partner, we lose touch with the fact that love never separates, love never alienates, and certainly love never has an enemy.

Guy Finley: So these are the things that we want to examine but not just intellectually, moment to moment, heartbeat by heartbeat, in the throes of those moments as you said at the start, where the reaction is ruling us and ruining everything and all we can do later is say, "I'm sorry, this book is for people who want to get past saying I'm sorry."

Neil Sattin: Right, right. And I'm thinking of this thing that happened the other night, that was such a clear example of the difference between how love acts, let's say through me and when I'm in a negative place, and when that negative energy comes through me. So my wife Chloe and I, we'd had a great day, a fantastic day, and we were wrapping up and in fact, we had put a little bit of energy into resetting our kitchen which is something we've wanted to do nightly for years now. And finally, we're on it, so every night, even if we're exhausted, we're in there just making sure the dishes are clean, counters clean, like it's all good. So we went through that whole thing this one night, a few nights ago, and then maybe I took the dog out. I'm not sure I'm remembering the exact sequence of events, but it's not important. What is important is that I came in and Chloe picked up this little corner of a wrapper that had been left on the table and she asked me where does this go? And I looked at her and what I could have done is just said, "Oops, I guess I missed something." 'Cause we're on the same team in trying to reset the kitchen, and honestly, just those little corners of wrappers, if they're not thrown in the trash, they do add up, you start finding 'em all over the place, especially when you had a couple kids to the mix. They seemed to have a knack for leaving corners of wrappers everywhere.

Neil Sattin: So anyway, I took it from her and I had to laugh at myself after reading your book because the very next thing I did wasn't just throw that away and give her a big hug and laugh about it. What I do was, I saw that there was a wrapper from a stick of butter that had been left on the counter.

Guy Finley: Oh, god.

Neil Sattin: And that wasn't my doing, of course. That was Chloe's doing and so what did I do but I grabbed the wrapper on my way to the trash and I said, "I guess I'll throw this in the trash too."

Guy Finley: Yeah.

Neil Sattin: And for us, we live this stuff so we're typically very tuned into when we're triggered, and calling a stop to things, and getting back into balance, and at the same time there we were. And it's something that we've actually been talking a lot lately is feeling like there's something new for us to discover here around the ways that those little resentments have found their way into the nooks and crannies of our coexistence to drive us crazy.

Guy Finley: Yeah.

Neil Sattin: And so I read in your book about this tendency of a negative when one of you is in a negative space to meet it with negative energy and just how ridiculous it is to think that that's going to actually lead to anything positive. And I just laughed at myself thinking about that incident and that didn't end up being a big blowup between me and Chloe. I think we're long past the big blowup stage of anything like that, but at the same time I was like, "Oh, yeah, there's something else here for me to learn."

Guy Finley: This is such a perfect story 'cause you'd have to be physically dead not to relate and understand the example, the way in which couples partners or the way in which the standing in line at the supermarket, and somebody makes a comment, or the cashier's going at the speed of molasses. And something slips out of the mouth that seems to be justified because the individual has said or is doing something that has produced pain in us. So let's go through this. I don't know if you got to the section of the book, Neil.

Neil Sattin: Oh, yeah, I read the whole thing.

Guy Finley: There's actually a story in the book that is the long hand explanation of what happened and we'll look at it together. So first, when... And everybody look, everybody, we have to understand, we are in no way or means judging ourselves or others, there's far too much of that. You can't judge and learn, it's impossible. In this life, whether we realize it or not, is a school for our higher education particularly that love provides, if we're willing to take the curriculum, which this book is about and what Neil and I are speaking about. So Neil, if and when out of your mouth comes the, we'll call it the initial contact. Your wife made the first contact that evening bringing up a wrapper that was out of place. Pretty small thing. But if and when we do that, and point something out to our partner about where they miss the mark in some way, is it because we're happy and content in that moment? Or is there some kind of pain in us that prompts us to point a finger so that there's something to blame for our pain?

Neil Sattin: Right. Where we are pointing the finger so that we can blame for the pain.

Guy Finley: That's right because something has suddenly stirred in us a certain kind of resistance or pain that we did not know was in us the moment before. For instance, I'm just going to walk through it when Chloe points out the wrapper, she wasn't initially negative about the wrapper, but when the wrapper appeared, meaning she saw it, something in her in pain wanted to find a way to reconcile itself because in essence, the wrapper became the reason for the pain. Following me?

Neil Sattin: Yeah.

Guy Finley: But the wrapper isn't the reason for the pain in Chloe, the pain is brought in to the present moment in Chloe and in all of us in an unconscious nature, a body of experience whose residue never reconciled or healed sits there like strange objects in a closet until something bumps one of them and then out comes this comment or this action. Now, she didn't know. And then that pain looks at you and finds an object to blame, she points the finger at you and throws the grenade, passive-aggressive comment meant to point to you, look what you've done, you've missed the mark. And then what happens when Chloe's pain pushes on Neil? Was Neil in pain the moment before that? No, I had a good night, we were doing pretty good. But all of a sudden, I'm nuclear, but I don't want to go nuclear. I know that's not right. So, my mind, now in pain, blaming the pain on Chloe looks around and finds the butter and then it throws the bomb back. The point being that the moment of pain is not Chloe's pain and not your pain, it is our pain, it is a pain that goes into the moment before us that we don't know is there and that becomes this continuation of a string of conflict and resentments that feed each other in a pattern that never goes away, because the unseen instigator, the real cause of that conflict lies unseen in our consciousness.

Guy Finley: Now if we can understand that much and let me stop and ask you, are we on the same page? Can we see this together?

Neil Sattin: We're definitely on the same page and where my mind is going with this is to that concept of the debt that we owe each other and how we carry that with us as part of the burden of that pain.

Guy Finley: Yes, yes, it's intimately connected to that without our knowing it, which is the point of our existence in one respect 'cause when we started we said, "Well, how can pain and love be in an actual relationship?" Without our knowing it, living concealed in all of us, not just as a result of growing up with the parents we had, our experiences in high school and college, not the relationships that gave us a broken heart, not those individual instances, but sort of a composite conditioned consciousness. We live, Neil, with a kind of unseen expectation. It's built into our present level where, again, as example, I'll speak about my wife, I know you would say the same of Chloe. I've been with my wife for nearly 40 years. I remember when we first met, it was all roses. We couldn't talk enough about stuff, we had those conversations that go for hours on the phone.

Neil Sattin: Yeah.

Guy Finley: The sex was divine and intimate, the time together was precious, everything that was quirky about her was my greatest delight, everything that I did somehow had no problems in it at all. My idiosyncrasies were fascinating. This is the beginning of love because we're drawn to each other as the result of, she revealing in me things I don't know about myself that are delightful. I love the way I feel when I'm busy loving what my wife reveals to me about myself. She loves what I reveal in her to her about herself and there is a magnetic power. Everybody understands that, but part of that relationship and part of that magnetics includes the fact that gradually, the things that we were so enamored with, for what she could show me about myself starts to change. The thrill is gone, BB King used to say. And now the little things that were never a problem start to have a little edge to them. And here is the point: Why do I love the things my wife shows me about my nature that I feel are positive and good and accept as being a part of myself and on the other hand when she shows me things about myself, I don't see it as being about myself, I see as being about her?

Guy Finley: When we can answer that question with honesty and responsibility, we begin to recognize that, yes, when it comes to love our partner is a mirror that shows us the most positive, empowering, and beautiful things that the human heart can hold. Love makes that possible, but it is also a fact that love makes it possible for that same human being and their same idiosyncrasies to show us what is concealed in us that is limiting our love, so that until we are present to what has been concealed in us by the actions of our partner and accept the revelation of that moment as an invitation to let go of and die to those parts of ourselves we will continue to have the fights, blaming, later resenting without ever realizing we are caught in a loop that is actually a kind of system that this present nature with all of this residue that's been carried over insists on repeating it, literally reincarnates itself at the cost of a new and higher kind of love.

Neil Sattin: Okay, so there's so much there in everything that you just said. What's that?

Guy Finley: I say let's take it apart.

Neil Sattin: Let's do it. And maybe a vehicle for that would be the wrapper.

Guy Finley: Sure.

Neil Sattin: So for one thing, what I'm hearing from you is that the love and the mirror of relationship makes it possible for me to see all these things reflected back at me that I think are glorious.

Guy Finley: Right.

Neil Sattin: And however it also allows me to have reflected back at me the ways that I fall short.

Guy Finley: Not reflected back at me, reflected as being an unknown part of me. I don't know that I have pain when I'm holding my wife's hand and we're having a glass of wine, but if she said, "You've had two glasses, that's enough." What happens?

Neil Sattin: Right. The collapse.

Guy Finley: Boom!

Neil Sattin: Yeah.

Guy Finley: She didn't produce the conflict, she revealed within me is this sensitivity about too many wines. Don't eat that piece of bread. You're really going to have more butter? Why are you driving that way? Do you know where you are. I mean, all of these little questions that you call triggers are actually revelations that we have within us parts of us that we don't know. And to the point here, does love... Let's see, how shall I start this? When I want to lash back and we don't have to Pollyanna it, in fact, she said something that hurt me, I'm throwing the grenade back. Would love throw a grenade?

Neil Sattin: No.

Guy Finley: This is so important, listeners, please. And we're not idealizing love, I'm not making it some religious or iconic image. I'm just saying that you and I, if we're a human being know that there is a love that cannot hurt anything, that would not harm anything, that love is the love that we and each and every one of us live in and through and buy at all times without knowing it. These moments in passing time with our partner allow us to see and then begin to use consciously the very thing that ordinarily we mechanically do I.e. Neil throws back the butter comment. Now, if love would not harm anyone, and I know that love would not do that, is it really I, is it my truest nature that launches the attack back? Or is pain responding to pain? And this is important, is the pain of something in me, maybe when I was a kid I was teased, maybe my parents called me on the rug for things that they were in pain over and didn't know what to do with and abused me psychologically so that the smallest question of my character by anyone else produces instantaneous conflict? You're not going to disrespect me.

Guy Finley: Now, we all know these parts live in us, and if they are there and they are acting in our stead, we have to recognize that something has been stirred and has stepped up and out of our mouth that feels like us because it's part of our past but that cannot be who we are in reality or at least who we know we ought to be, and therefore, we have to do something that this book is all about. We have to recognize that love would not make anyone suffer. Another way of putting it. Why is my suffering in that moment more important than your suffering? Why is what I am suffering over if I love you, why would I want to add 1 ounce of more suffering to your life?

Neil Sattin: Right. Yeah, this is something that I found really profound in, if you can recognize that... And this was what you wrote about, that if you can recognize that the pain in your partner is what probably produced that comment in the first place, like if you saw a defenseless creature in pain you would show up to try and help that defenseless creature, you wouldn't kick it in the head, right?

Guy Finley: And you wouldn't even know if it tries to bite you, that it couldn't do anything else.

Neil Sattin: Right.

Guy Finley: You would know it. And knowing that, which is, see, look, my new book is the culmination of 40 years of writing and speaking. It brings about a very simple point that if we're willing to receive it, it makes change possible in the moment, not as an intellectual exercise by which we hope going into appointed moment we won't punish somebody. And certainly not afterwards as a retrospective event where I blame myself or think I could have done better, what I call a reflective event. I understand that in me is a pain I didn't know was in me. It was concealed until you said what you did. Now I'm going to pick up the tab, I'm going to do the one thing I've never done in my whole life with someone who has said the cruel comment or done something that upsets me, I'm going to live with my own pain. I'm not going to blame you for it, I'm not going to point it out to you, I'm going to in effect go quiet inwardly in that moment so that rather than listening to voices that then become my mouth speaking what causes others to suffer, I'm going to listen to my own voices, how they want to leap out, how they want to have an enemy, someone to make feel bad for the bad way they made me feel. And in that patience, which is a keyword. You know the original, the ancient meaning of the word patience, Neil?

Neil Sattin: No.

Guy Finley: To suffer myself.

Neil Sattin: Yes.

Guy Finley: I think that's the most beautiful thing in the world, because you see, if I can in the moment, my wife throws the... Did that wrapper, did that just manifest itself on the counter? And we can all hear the tone, we know what sarcasm is. Right?

Neil Sattin: Right.

Guy Finley: It's instantaneous and bang! Like that, comes up, this pain I didn't know was there.

Neil Sattin: And to be fair to Chloe, she actually was very light and almost joking about it, like it wasn't even sarcastic, it was light and yet it did hit me that strongly.

Guy Finley: Yeah, but see, if there wasn't pain behind it, would she call it out or just pick it up?

Neil Sattin: Right. She would have just picked it up.

Guy Finley: I mean obviously, and I'm not, again, there's no condemnation in this. All of humanity, all of us live in this level of consciousness that doesn't know what to do with its pain. So to the point, here I am, and in that split second if I can bear myself, meaning bear what has been revealed in me by the comment, the sarcastic, intended or not, comment in that split second something had happened that is the true magic. And here it is, I don't return unkindness for unkindness. And when I don't return unkindness for unkindness, my wife, Chloe, whoever it may be, is left holding the bomb they threw. In fact, they're shocked because the part of them that pronounced that cruel or otherwise sarcastic comment suddenly has nothing to validate its pain because now, Neil, Guy is not returning pain for pain, and the pattern has a chance to collapse on the spot so that the whole thing is revealed in that heartbeat when one of us as a partner agrees to bear the responsibility of the pain that's been driving the pattern.

Guy Finley: Boy, we're talking about hard work and lots of missteps but man, can I tell you after 40 years the beauty of this because now my wife, my husband, my partner has space to see themselves as they are, instead of mechanically blaming me for their pain because of what they say I am. They get to meet their own limitation, which is this unconscious negative reaction instead of it being validated by my unconscious reaction to their commentary. It's a game changer in the truest sense of what love has always intended for us to do and be with each other, which is to work as polishing stones so that what comes out of the moment is shinier, truer, better, a more pure reflection of what love intends for us and by the way why it brought us together to that end.

Neil Sattin: Okay, so there are two things jumping out at me right now.

Guy Finley: Yes.

Neil Sattin: One of them is, I would love to distinguish what we're talking about from maybe the flip side pattern that can happen in a relationship where there's never conflict, and yet it's not a system that's fostering love. In fact, it fosters resentment because things aren't being surfaced. So that's the first part. And then...

Guy Finley: They're being surfaced, Neil.

Neil Sattin: Go ahead.

Neil Sattin: They're just being ignored.

Neil Sattin: Yeah, yeah, great.

Guy Finley: Yeah, that's a very important distinction because what you just said is the slow motion death, not of love, the slow motion death of the possibility of two people awakening through and with each other, to a higher order of their own being that love makes possible. So, example...

Neil Sattin: Now, I wish I had read the book before the wrapper moment happened because I'm hoping that we can also paint a picture and maybe that's what you're about to do with this example of how that unfolding might take place. You used strong language earlier, which was like, we want those parts to die, the parts of us. And I'm curious to know what that actually... What that looks like, what that experience is like, and what that might have been like in the kitchen that night with me and Chloe.

Guy Finley: Alright, so here I am, I'll play Neil, okay.

Neil Sattin: Okay.

Guy Finley: And everybody can play Neil, at least as far as we're able to follow this. My wife drops the bomb. Doesn't look like a bomb, and in fact, she's trying to make it not look like a bomb, but it's a bomb, and suddenly I have a reaction. Now for the longest time I can't begin to encourage the listeners to understand this. We don't know that we're combustible. Were you thinking Neil, prior to that? You're in this contented state, you're working together, getting the kitchen set, having a nice dialogue, working together as men and women should, as partner should. Does Neil know there's something combustible in him?

Neil Sattin: No, and in fact this is why I love the shift that I feel like your book is creating in me. Because not only did I not know it was there but because I combusted and immediately my thought was, I want to blame her. If she knew how to act in a situation like this, then that... Exactly. So that's the pattern that I personally want to see end in myself.

Guy Finley: Yes, exactly. So you said you have children.

Neil Sattin: I do. Yeah.

Guy Finley: How old are they?

Neil Sattin: They are nine and eleven.

Guy Finley: That's perfect. Okay, so let's say just for grins I don't know what it would be, maybe you're out with one of them and maybe it's... You hand them a fishing rod, and say, "This is how you cast the lure, you throw them a football and they can't catch it 'cause their hands aren't big enough. Would you get angry at your child for not being able to catch a football that you throw at them?

Neil Sattin: No, of course not.

Guy Finley: No that would be ludicrous, why? Because the child has limitations. I'm not going to blame my child, for the fact that it can't hold on to a football yet or thumb the reel when it cast the lure.

Neil Sattin: Right.

Guy Finley: It doesn't have the capacity to do it yet. But when we blame our partner for producing this discontentment in us, for being the seed of this conflict, are we not in essence saying, You know what, you have this limitation, Chloe. You could have been like this, and if you've been like that then you would fulfill my expectation, and it would be no more pain. Yes?

Neil Sattin: Right, yeah, exactly.

Guy Finley: So we see the person who is producing in a sense, this moment of disturbance. We see the problem as being their limitation. They're not meeting our expectation, we don't know that we walk around expecting that our husband or wife, or partner be at all times, everything that we have written a list for them to be. What would happen if, this won't happen directly, but one day you'll see it, everyone will who will work with these ideas. My partner says something to me, the little offhanded comment, and then instead of, as I usually do, responding with resistance mechanically, a tit for tat. I was able to, have literally appear in my hand this list that says, "The 444 things that no one is ever supposed to say to me." Well, we laugh at it 'cause it sounds silly, yet with God as my witness, that's what we have living in our nature.

Neil Sattin: Right, right, yeah.

Guy Finley: So then I start to realize, hold on a second, the limitation isn't my wife's it's mine. 'Cause I only know how to respond by letting this list tell me how people are supposed to be and this isn't even my list, it got made over time. It was produced by a host of painful circumstances that I never was able to figure out. So all I could do was think about them, in other words, now formulate them, get them into something I could live with and then I think that gets buried and goes away, but those moments don't go away. They live as objects of thought, literally formations in our psychology that when the proper circumstances appear, much as a seed sprouts when the nourishment it needs happens, up comes this list and the item on it and then by God, I know I'm right and you're wrong.

Guy Finley: We're saying, "Can we understand now that within us lives this lower unconscious unloving nature, and that when stimulated by circumstance, it's going to do the only thing it knows to do 'cause if we can know that this is what Christ called Metanoia, this new knowledge, a new understanding that allows us, literally the translation of the word repent, to turn around in the moment and see what we're actually looking at instead of what something in us wants to point to for our pain. "Cause if we can do that, Neil, then we can begin to understand our tendency, and then we take our awareness of that tendency into that moment with us and then we begin to wake up. We begin to let the moments that beat us up, become the moments that make us better, because we're agreeing to see our own limitations, what Love is showing us is keeping us from being truly loving.

Neil Sattin: So when I notice that I am in a moment and experiencing pain and in fairness to Chloe, it could have just as easily been me saying... Having something to complain about...

Guy Finley: Of course, of course.

Neil Sattin: To start it all off. So when I notice, okay, I'm experiencing pain and I want to fix something right now, what... what do I do... I'm right there in that moment.

Guy Finley: I know, I can hear you, man. Look, you said the... Exactly the... "And I want to fix something." I'm going to fix Chloe. Chloe is going to fix me. And nothing gets fixed other than a growing body of resentment from conditions never resolved consciously through love. So here's how it gets fixed. I stop trying to fix my partner and I stop trying to fix myself. Instead, and this is an exercise 'cause we're getting to that point where we need something where we can get our hands on a practical set of actions. You might want to write it down, listeners. I call it stop, drop and endure. Neil's ahead of me. Stop, drop and endure. All right, I know my proclivity, all my wife has to do is say, "You know that shirt's a little tight on you. Really, you're having another helping? Why don't we drive out to the winery in Jacksonville instead of go to the place locally?

Guy Finley: Any one of a thousand things can be innocent as the day is long and maybe not even intended as you indicated to be a cutting remark because she may be just asleep psychologically, just saying what comes to her mind. But it's already interwoven. So here's the reaction, bang. So what's the first thing, Neil? Bang, come to a stop. What does it mean come to a stop? It means I know because I have been interested enough to think about it, to contemplate it, then my tendency when my wife or partner says whatever they do, is that I have a thousand tender spots. Let's use this another way, I have a dozen places in me that have never healed. They never healed. The way that my former girlfriend, husband, wife let me know that she's leaving me, it never healed. All I could do was hate my partner, regret my situation, despise myself for not being good enough to keep or to hold in place whatever it was.

Guy Finley: These places have never healed. And all of this unhealed, psychologically divided mind and heart goes forward in time with me. Then I have a new partner. She says, whatever it is, and the sore spot is stimulated. Come to a stop. I know it's there, and I'm going to absolutely stop. Now, what does it mean, stop? That's the next word, drop. When I come to a stop, the intention is to see everything in me that wants to keep moving. I want to see and hear these thoughts and feelings without being mechanically identified with them and what they are trying to do as they want to fix the moment. I'm not going to fix the moment. Physician heal thyself. Instead, I'm going to drop every last one of those thoughts that come in and that want to point to my wife, my partner that moment as being the source of my pain. And if I can come to a stop and sit there and drop all of these thoughts and feelings, I'll begin to notice something extraordinary.

Guy Finley: They won't let me drop them. My intention is to be the observer, the conscious witness of what love is inviting me to see, that's been concealed in me. And something doesn't want me to see anything other than who's to blame for the pain. Hold on a moment, what is that about? I say I want to heal. I say I want to be a loving partner, but now I realize there is a flood loosed in me that wants to free itself, by putting someone else into a cage. Stop, drop. Now you tell me what endure means, Neil. It means I'm going to suffer myself.

Neil Sattin: Yeah, yeah. I'm feeling the waiting, basically.

Guy Finley: Yes, yes. For as long... Listen to this, 'cause it answers an earlier question of yours. I'm going to suffer myself, meaning I'm going to sit and observe these thoughts and feelings instead of identify with them. I'm going to suffer myself patiently for as long as it takes for me to finally see what love has brought this moment about for, and what is it brought it about for? For me to see that there's no love in that nature. That is not who I am, and that is not who I am going to manifest. I will not incarnate what has passed and its pain and its false plans to fix things, instead I'm going to incarnate what love is asking me to incarnate in that moment, which is the revelation that the me that came into this moment, that has been revealed by it, is no longer necessary. And that Neil, is what it really means to die to ourselves because love makes it possible.

Neil Sattin: Don't hate me.

Guy Finley: Oh no.

Neil Sattin: What happens next? 'Cause I'm imagining this, and in fact, the sense that I feel is actually a whole lot of grief. That's the first thing that comes up for me, is like seeing all of that, all of that pain and all of the ways that I would want to lash out and recognizing that that's not love, and...

Guy Finley: Yeah, isn't that extraordinary? And by the way, that's... At a certain level of development, which I'm glad to speak with you as you're experiencing this. Isn't it phenomenal that when I hear about what it means to love my neighbor as myself, that no greater love does a husband have than laying down his life for his wife, or vice versa, whoever the partner may be. And that my response to that part of me that can hear that, but doesn't... Is grief. What would grieve for the loss of something that only wants to produce the continuation of pattern? Yeah, isn't that beautiful, Neil? Man, this is what... Whether it not... Anybody here with us listening, it doesn't matter to me. I'm... Obviously, I want everybody to hear this, but what a marvelous point of connection for you and I, to unfold something so that I can actually suspect for the first time, maybe good God, there is something in me that's grieving over not having a good reason to be mad.

Neil Sattin: Yeah, and as I'm really tuning in, I think some of it also is a sense of shame that...

Guy Finley: I get it. Yes.

Neil Sattin: Yeah. Shame that that's what I've done or where I would want to go, or... Yeah.

Guy Finley: Yes, yes. I'm greatly enjoying the conversation. Look, everybody write this down, please. There is no such thing as a bad fact about yourself, there is no such thing as a bad fact about yourself. Facts are friends, but we have a nature conditioned over time, that's more interested in appearance than it is in being. Being is the moment-to-moment expression. Love is the moment-to-moment relationship between facts. So as we grow to understand these things and begin to have some of these wonderful exchanges and experiences, whether it's just first with our minds, and then with our hearts, it doesn't matter 'cause we can start to understand. We are the last section for the book, we are in training. You don't punish someone who's in training unless you don't know you're in training. So when we get this and start realizing, God I can see... You know what, I can feel it in the deepest part of myself.

Guy Finley: Not only have I missed the mark, I didn't even know what it was. Then everything's explained in that moment, because... And now to answer your question again, what happens next? This is my favorite part. Can a pattern go on if any part of the pattern is changed in the truest sense of it?

Neil Sattin: It seems that it would be different from that point forward.

Guy Finley: It cannot go on. It's even... Physics states it this way, "Change the observer and the observed changes." That's some theory or another that the observer changes what is observed by him, or her. So here I am, and let's just say for the sake of argument that I catch what we've been talking about in the middle of that moment. Maybe I'm on the freeway and here comes somebody barreling up behind me or someone cuts me off or someone passes me in the fast lane, and then drives slow to punish me. In that moment, can I see that the condition has not created the pain, but it's revealing a part of me that is sure that it has expectation and a list that this isn't supposed to be this way and therefore wants to respond with unkindness. If I can just see that much and even think... Wait a minute... This is the moment I've been waiting for. In that split second I am no longer the man or the woman I was, leading up to that moment. Because something... A bit of light, bit of love has come in to interrupt the pattern.

Guy Finley: Maybe I go on and lose my temper. Maybe I say the passive aggressive remark. Maybe I stew, but the fact is, now I'm more aware of what has happened after the event than I was before. Because I realize the repercussion is actually the continuation of this unconscious nature that I was unable to not express in that moment. And here is the final word, at least as far as this question. If I change, my partner has to change. If I'm not the same, they have to see where they're being the same and have a chance to step out of that space. As I change, I give my partner the space they need to change. So in those relationships where nothing is said and all is this sort of horrible compromise building into a ball of resentment that ultimately boils over. One little change produces the possibility of a greater change. It's the most wonderful thing in the world that love makes possible. But it always begins with us, not with our partner, not with what we act out toward them, but what we see in ourselves and then accept as our responsibility to be present enough to to witness that a change can take place in us first.

Neil Sattin: Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned that because I think that would probably be the natural question that many of you listening would have, which is like, "Well, something like how much of being treated this way am I supposed to tolerate? How much stopping, dropping, and enduring am I supposed to do in this situation?

Guy Finley: Exactly. And there's, again, there's a whole section in the book about that too. You're not on this planet to let anybody abuse you. In fact, any abusive relationship that we stay in is because we're enabling it, we have a part of ourself that would actually rather live with someone to resent than to be on our own and not know who we are through that resentment. The only thing that troubles us about other people, Neil, in the end is what we want from them. And when we start to understand that most of what we want from others is a way in which we can keep these debts running, then we want to pay the tab. And if someone continues to abuse us, and I mean if anybody abuses you physically and you say, "That's that. Don't do that again or I'm gone," and then you're not gone, it's your fault. "I know, well, I have kids and I've gotta know what'll happen to me." Do not stay with people who abuse you, period. They will never change until you change. It's the only hope that abusive person has 'cause they don't know, good God, do you think a parent would deliberately abuse a child if the parent knew for a split second the child wasn't responsible for the pain they're in, that's producing that horrid outcome?

Guy Finley: We are complicit in relationships where pain keeps itself alive because we use it to prove the other person's responsible. So, no abuse of relationship continually. No. But neither do we sit and live with a mind that says, "You know, she keeps bringing up that I shouldn't have that second glass of wine, she's abusing me." No, she may have a point. Then it's up to you to discover that, use those moments and become a different kind of person, which might include by the way, not wanting the intoxicating cup.

Neil Sattin: Right. While I'm stopping, dropping, and enduring what might I communicate to my partner? Is there anything that you think is helpful?

Guy Finley: I'm glad you asked that. Yes, you do not say, "Listen, I'm enduring you

Guy Finley: This is not meant religiously, but it's all part of this beautiful golden thread that winds through our life and relationships. Christ said, when you go in the closet, when you pray go in the closet, do not let anybody know you're praying. Same thing, Buddha, all the great saints, prophets, all spoke of the same thing. If I'm going to change, I can't announce it because the change hasn't taken place yet, I'm agreeing to go through it and if I point out to my wife or partner, "Look, I'm going through this change because of you," I've just thrown the passive-aggressive comment out, haven't I? So I have to learn what it means to be silent and I might just say, "You know what, let me if you want, if we have to have a way to deal with it, look, I'm just not going to take part in an argument, I'm just not going to do it. And you may not think that what you said was hurtful, but it hurt me but I don't want to hurt you back. So for now, I'm just going to put this down. You do with it what you want to do, but I'm done with the fight." And if you really mean it, not because you have an image of yourself as someone who wants to be like that, but who agrees to put down the fighting nature, you will see in yourself and you'll be shocked at what happens to your partner if you actually say to them, "Do you want to go on with this, that's your business. I'm done with it."

Guy Finley: And listen to this, Neil, 'cause you even said it, when you said suddenly I feel grief while hearing these ideas, your partner when you say to them, "I'm not going to continue this negativity," they're going to say, "What's wrong? You don't love me?" And you're actually doing what you're doing for the sake of love, and you know it, but they can't see it yet. Can you sense some of that, Neil?

Neil Sattin: Yeah. Well, one thing that I think is the gift here is, in some respects it takes that pain and it depersonalizes it so that I could see in a moment like that, and hopefully before those moments happen, being able to talk to your partner and say, "Wow, you know, I just read this book by Guy Finley," or, "I just heard this podcast episode and I'm seeing how like pain exists in me, in us waiting for an opportunity to like spring."

Guy Finley: I love it, Neil. I love it.

Neil Sattin: So in a moment like that, being able to say, "Whoa! The pain in me just reared its head," and almost like, "This isn't about you. I just need to step back from this for a moment." And there's something in me, Guy, that wants more around the enduring like, I'm going to stay here, I'm going to endure, I don't know what happens at that point.

Guy Finley: Yeah. You know what? You can't know. You can only be.

Neil Sattin: Yeah.

Guy Finley: See, I want to know 'cause I want to be safe, I want to feel secure, spiritual, intelligent, loving on top of it. That's where all the pain has come from, that nature that wants to know going in how things should be, or that already knows how things should be going in. That's where the conflict is. See, here this will help maybe, Neil.

Neil Sattin: Great.

Guy Finley: 'Cause this book actually, I swear to God, this book came out of an experience that I had when I first fell in love, which I'm almost 70. So what was that? Fifty-three years ago, I fell in love and I already, I'd been on the path. My spiritual life started around the age of 6, that's another story. But I didn't understand much of it, but I was with my partner and I said to her, "You know what?" I said, "Let's agree, you and I, that love is more important than any of the personal issues that want to pull us apart." I'm not even sure what I'm saying. I said these words, and yet I know that we'll have disagreements. "Let's agree that when we have a disagreement, love is going to be more important than what wants to pull us apart. Can we do that?" And of course she said yes and I said yes, but we weren't mature enough to even understand. I didn't understand what I was talking about, 53 years later I understand.

Guy Finley: That you can say to Chloe, listen, I'm having some revelations, I'm seeing new stuff and I never want to hurt you as long as I live, I never want to hurt you, and I know you love me and I know you never want to hurt me. So let's agree right now that we're never going to hurt each other. And then because I also know, as I'm sure you do, that while our aim is lofty, we live from a nature that isn't going to be able to live up yet to what love is prescribing as our partnership and the way it grows. So instead of them blaming each other when we can't live out our agreement, we will step back both of us and see the parts of ourselves unable to keep the contract we have with love, then we're not going to blame each other and we're not even going to blame ourselves. We're going to be different people because we see on one hand, where we're compromised and because of the revelation of the compromise itself will know what we can and can't do next time. Yes?

Neil Sattin: Yeah, I'm soaking all that in. You can't see my head nodding but I'm just reveling in those words, yeah.

Guy Finley: This is so important, God help us. Look, anything that's right, bright and true in this world, no human being is the sponsor of. We are the instruments of what is right, bright and true including love. When we understand that an instrument can be played by something that serves its own interests and that its interests don't serve love, then we stand in a place where we can start to recognize this is an ill wind that's starting to blow through me and by God, I'm not going to share it with my partner, I'm going to let it buffet me so I can die to it. And then we have something real to work with.

Neil Sattin: Yeah, I think we might have to... So for those of you at home who are listening to this, my wish for you is that you're able to experiment with what we're talking about. And of course, there are more nuances that Guy writes about in the book, Relationship Magic. And please send us your feedback, [email protected]. Or, there's a Relationship Alive community on Facebook, tell us about your experiences. I could envision a follow up at some point, Guy, where we talk about what happened after. What happened after we endured?

Guy Finley: Yeah, you know what, ordinarily I do so many interviews, but I would... If you want to follow up, it's done.

Neil Sattin: Great. Great, well, we will keep in touch about that.

Guy Finley: Alright.

Neil Sattin: In the meantime, it is such a pleasure to have you here and an honor to be able to talk with you about this book that's the hot off the presses, and yet the culmination of 40 years or more, 53 years of experience, Relationship Magic: Waking Up Together. You can visit relationshipmagicbook.com, and if you order the book, you can go there and you can instantly get an audio version of the book. Are you reading that, Guy?

Guy Finley: I'm sorry, say that again.

Neil Sattin: Are you the person who's reading the audio book that people will get?

Guy Finley: Yes, yes. Yes, I've... It is I.

Neil Sattin: Great. So you can get the audio book and I saw that there are a bunch of other bonuses that you can get. So a lot of special gifts for purchasing the Relationship Magic book, and you can also visit guyfinley.org where you can read more about Guy and his work. What's the name of your center again, Guy?

Guy Finley: I live in southern Oregon, and I teach at Life of Learning Foundation three times, four times a week, open to everyone. People come from all around the world, and there's a body of 50 or a hundred students who actually live in the area now, and a $3 donation at the door, no one's turned away, nothing to join. Just a group of men and women just like Neil and myself who want to understand a little bit more about how love works.

Neil Sattin: Well, I appreciate you illuminating a little bit more of the journey for me and for us here on Relationship Alive today, so thank you so much, Guy. And just as a reminder, if you want to download the transcript, you can visit neilsattin.com/magic. We'll also have all the links that I mentioned or you can text the word Passion to the number 33444, and follow the instructions. Such a pleasure to have you with us here today, Guy.

Guy Finley: Thanks, Neil. It was just a really good conversation.

One of the hallmarks of a healthy relationship is the level of generosity that’s taking place in it. Today we’re going to uncover one of the biggest obstacles to fostering generosity in your relationships - and...it’s probably not what you think! After today's episode, you'll have new ways to amplify the love and generosity - not only in your primary relationship, but in ALL your relationships. Are there places where you're holding back? Not after today's episode!

As always, I’m looking forward to your thoughts on this episode and what revelations and questions it creates for you. Please join us in the Relationship Alive Community on Facebook to chat about it!

Sponsors:

Along with our amazing listener supporters (you know who you are - thank you!), this week's episode is being sponsored by Babbel.com.

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Resources 

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Guide to Understanding Your Needs (and Your Partner's Needs) in Relationship (ALSO FREE)

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Would you like to open up your ability to experience pleasure? And to not only increase your capacity for pleasure, but to also ensure that everything you do is consensual? In today’s episode, Betty Martin, the creator of the Wheel of Consent, explains the four different dimensions of touching (and being touched) - and how to expand erotic energy in a consent-based context. You’ll learn how to experience these flavors of touch in new ways, and how to ask for consent in ways that still keep things deeply connected, and passionate. While getting consent is important in all of your relationships - you’ll discover how to foster consent with your partner in ways that help you uncover exactly what each of you wants in any given moment - and unlock the keys to pleasure no matter what kind of touch you’re experiencing.

As always, I’m looking forward to your thoughts on this episode and what revelations and questions it creates for you. Please join us in the Relationship Alive Community on Facebook to chat about it!

Sponsors:

Along with our amazing listener supporters (you know who you are - thank you!), this week's episode is being sponsored by SimpleContacts.com.

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Resources:

Check out Betty Martin's website

FREE Relationship Communication Secrets Guide - perfect help for handling conflict…

Guide to Understanding Your Needs (and Your Partner's Needs) in Relationship (ALSO FREE)

www.neilsattin.com/consent Visit to download the transcript, or text “PASSION” to 33444 and follow the instructions to download the transcript to this episode with Betty Martin. We’ll let you know when her book about the Wheel of Consent is released as well!

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Transcript:

Neil Sattin: Hello, and welcome to another episode of Relationship Alive. This is your host, Neil Sattin. In today's culture, we're talking a lot about how to truly get consent, and it's an interesting conversation because generally, I don't know about you, but I want to ensure that when I'm getting involved with someone and particularly with my partner, that when we are doing anything but particularly when we're intimate with each other, that we're doing things that we both want to be doing, that consent is there, and yet the way that we've learned culturally, how to engage in being intimate with other people, isn't really about consent. It's kind of about trying to go as far as you can and then letting someone's boundary or lack thereof stop you and it doesn't work so well as we've seen, especially recently with all of the "Me Too" revelations about just how many people are abusing their power and discovering that they've abused their powers.

Neil Sattin: Some people know this consciously and other people, it's a revelation. So, I want to create a context for you where you don't have to wonder, where you know that when you're there with someone, they're right there with you. And at the same time, we want to build consent in a way that actually enhances erotic energy and polarity and passion where it's not something that kills the spark in the energy between you and your partner. So, that's what we're going to talk about today and I'm really excited for today's guest. Her name is Betty Martin and I found out about her when a friend of mine sent her videos on "the Wheel of Consent" my way and I watched them and they were a revelation.

Neil Sattin: So, I'm bringing the revelation here to you today with Betty Martin, who's a former chiropractor and now she's a sex and intimacy coach who has worked with clients, and is also primarily training other practitioners, both people who work hands on like chiropractors, massage therapists, and also people who are just therapists and counselors and coaches; how to bring "the Wheel of Consent" into their practice and use it with their clients, and also become more aware of how they are interacting with their clients in ways that are generative and beneficial for everyone. As always, we will have a detailed transcript of today's episode. If you want to get it, all you have to do is visit neilsattin.com/consent or you can text the word "Passion" to the number 33444 and follow the instructions and we'll send you a link where you can download that transcript. I think that's it. Betty Martin, thank you so much for joining us here today on Relationship Alive.

Betty Martin: You are welcome, thanks for inviting me.

Neil Sattin: It's my pleasure to have you here, and I know a lot more about pleasure now that I've...

[chuckle]

Neil Sattin: Ran through your videos, and I do want to say you're in the process of writing a book. Is it still tentatively titled "Learning to Touch?"

Betty Martin: No, that's a great question. Book titles tend to change as they get written.

Neil Sattin: Right.

Betty Martin: But it's tentatively titled "The Direction of the Gift, Understanding the Wheel of Consent."

Neil Sattin: Oh, I like that... Well, I was...

Betty Martin: Or it may be "The Wheel of Consent, Understanding The Direction of the Gift," either way. [chuckle]

Neil Sattin: "The Direction of the Gift"... And you'll know what we're talking about in just a moment. I was hungry, hungry for the book, but at the same time Betty you have so generously put all these videos on your website, that walk people through the process of exploring the Wheel of Consent. It was so helpful for me. So I encourage you listening once you've heard this conversation, you can go back and fill in the gaps somewhat with the videos and then Betty when your book comes out, we will devour it here. I'm sure.

Betty Martin: Thank you.

Neil Sattin: So let's start with maybe a broad question, which is... What is consent and when you look at the Wheel of Consent and of course, we're going to describe the wheel in a moment. What's its contribution to this conversation about what consent even is?

Betty Martin: That's a great question. Consent in the dictionary, is agreeing to something and it implies that it's something that somebody else wants. So, I can consent to you touching me in some way, or I can consent to touching you in some way, or doing something for you. So it implies that there's something that somebody else wants that we are agreeing to and that's why you say, get consent or give consent. When I give consent, it means I'm agreeing to something that you want. However, I would like to expand that definition and the public conversation on consent these days is so rich that I imagine that definition is already expanding, but I would like to expand that definition to be more of an agreement.

Betty Martin: What is it that we are agreeing to? And an agreement isn't something you give someone, it's something that you arrive at together. So will you scratch my back, honey? Sure. Scratch, scratch, scratch. Now, we have an agreement, so that's consent or may I feel up your back? Sure, okay, now we have consent. We have an agreement. So, that's how I'd like to expand the idea of consent. And there's also people talking and particularly around sexual interaction, there's people talking about informed consent, enthusiastic consent, changeable consent. They're talking about the importance of not just having permission but are both people equally delighted and engaged, and I think that's the direction that we want to go.

Betty Martin: It's not... Well, as you were describing, it's not... Well, what can I get away with this. It's, is the other person equally delighted and engaged. So, the Wheel of Consent in particular has a pretty specific contribution and that is that there's a difference between who is doing, who's got their hands on who and who it's for. So, I could be touching you for your benefit the way you want, I could also be touching you for my benefit, the way I want. And the difference between those is significant and the Wheel of Consent recognizes that difference which I'll explain after a while. But it recognizes that difference and says that part of consent is whose hands are going where. But another very important part of consent is, who is it actually for?

Betty Martin: So that's the particular contribution that the Wheel of Consent brings to the conversation about consent. It's not that consent is a good thing, you already know that, and that's very clear and it's not that you ought not to touch people without an agreement, everybody knows that. So, the contribution of the wheel is that, who it's for... Ideally is part of the agreement, because it makes a difference.

Neil Sattin: Right. That was one thing that probably won't surprise you, that really... My eyes were opened to you, just in terms of how you teased apart those two separate dynamics suddenly opened me up. And especially as we get into talking about the difference between the giving-receiving dynamic and the taking-allowing dynamic and where people tend to find themselves. I can't wait to dive into more deeply because there was just so much there.

Betty Martin: That was the ahas... Yeah.

Neil Sattin: Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah, and I appreciate, I think I heard you during the intro, kind of chuckling about that way that it's so bizarre, but it's almost like we're taught, whether it's intentionally or not, that the way to get consent is to basically keep violating people's boundaries and...

[laughter]

Betty Martin: Until they smack you one.

Neil Sattin: Right. Yeah or they freeze up...

Betty Martin: So they give up.

Neil Sattin: And they... Exactly, yeah.

Neil Sattin: I'm curious, just because I mentioned it in the intro, what are your thoughts on people's fears that obtaining that agreement that we're talking about that, that's somehow going to actually kill the erotic energy between two people that if there isn't that kind of edgy risk happening [chuckle] that somehow the passion is going to just vanish. [chuckle]

Betty Martin: Oh yeah, well basically, I'd say grew up because... So, erotic tension and charge can be created by polarity, of course. And, one may get really turned on by the polarity of the idea of... Oh, I'm going to take this thing from this person, whether they want to give it to me or not. And that's understandable, but it doesn't substitute for actually communicating that, that's what you want to do and getting this person's agreement. But I think mostly the reason people think, it kills the mood... Is because they don't know how... And because, yeah, I just say grow up, you're grown up and you don't actually want to do something to someone who doesn't want it done to them, and so you need to learn how to ask.

Neil Sattin: Right.

Betty Martin: And there are a lot of people teaching fun ways to ask, but I think it also can be that you assume that in order to have an agreement, we have to make a detailed plan. Like, Okay, I'm going to put my hand here, and then you're going to put your hand here, and then you're going to put your mouth here, and then we're going to roll over and then we're going to do this. That's not... That is not required, that's not what agreement means although it could, if that's what was helpful for you.

Neil Sattin: Yeah, well, I think we'll be able to even pull that apart more as we go into a conversation about the Wheel of Consent and those moments for... Where and how agreements happen that might become more obvious for us.

Betty Martin: Yeah.

Neil Sattin: Okay. So, Wheel of Consent, Wheel of Consent. We keep mentioning it and as I was thinking about our conversation, I was... Part of me was like, "How are we going to do this without a whiteboard?

[laughter]

Neil Sattin: So people really get it. So I think that if you watch Betty's videos, you'll see it. And I may do a little drawing as we're talking and then kind of post the drawing on, in the show notes of the conversation too, but I'm...

Betty Martin: There's also a... There's a free download on my website that has a diagram of it.

Neil Sattin: Great, great, so we'll have links to all of that.

Betty Martin: Yeah.

Neil Sattin: And in the meantime, let's... Where is a good place to start. You already mentioned this question of, maybe the two axises of...

Betty Martin: Yeah.

Neil Sattin: And, I'm imagining maybe for people at home or in your car, you have a circle and you have one axis that goes up and down and one that goes back and forth across your typical XY axis.

Betty Martin: Yeah.

Neil Sattin: Let's start there and you already named each of those but...

Betty Martin: Yeah. Well, actually, I want to back up and start with where it came from, because I think having some context makes the model, make more sense.

Neil Sattin: Great.

Betty Martin: And that is that years ago, a couple of decades ago, I was at a workshop by The Body Electric School and it was called Power Surrender and Intimacy and it was about using the play tools of power and surrender and exploring that. So, BDSM kinds of things, and just other ways to play with the experience of power in erotic settings. And one of the games that we played there was called the Three-Minute game, and it consisted of two questions. And you take turns, you're playing with another person, you take turns asking each other. These two questions and the two questions were, "What do you want me to do to you for three minutes? And the other question is, what do you want to do to me for three minutes? And it was a lot of fun. I took it home and I put it to work with my clients, but I wasn't teaching power, I was teaching touch. So I narrowed the question somewhat.

Betty Martin: So now the question is, how do you want me to touch you, for three minutes and how do you want to touch me for three minutes? And of course, you can have longer terms in that. So, basically the question is how do you want me to touch you, and how do you want to touch me? And what surprised me was how difficult it was for people because for one thing, you're asking someone what they want, and there are always times we don't know what we want and many of us have never been asked how we want to be touched, so we have no clue where to start and almost no one has been asked, how do you want to touch me? For some people, it just didn't even make sense at all, it was like, "What do you mean how I want to touch you, I want to touch you however you want." But that's nice, but that's not the question, the question is, how do you want to touch me? That's for you, that's for your enjoyment. So those two questions asked by two different people, create four rounds of touching.

Betty Martin: In one round, I'm touching you the way you want, in another round, I'm touching you, the way I want, and so I can get to see what that difference is. And in one round, you're touching me the way I want, and then the final round, you're touching me, the way you want. And, again, I get to feel the difference between those two. So the Wheel of Consent simply draws out on those axes that you're describing, draws out, in two of those examples, I'm doing. And in two of them, I'm being done to. And in two of them, it's for me and in two of them it's for you, and those two cross and so you have four quadrants.

Betty Martin: I'm doing what I want, I'm doing what you want, you're doing what I want, you're doing what you want. So the Wheel of Consent is really simply a diagram of what happens when two people ask each other, those two questions. That's all it is, it's really simple, and it distinguishes who is doing from who it's for. And if you... There's a free download on my website that you can download it and draw it out and all that, and each of those quadrants has a name. But the important thing to know is that, who is doing is not always the same as who it's for.

Neil Sattin: Yeah, and yeah, that's a great distinction and I love how you integrated that into what we know about how we experience pleasure, and you mentioned that like, "Well I just want to do whatever you want and how so many people have this indirect experience of their own pleasure that their only access to their own pleasure is through someone else's pleasure.

Neil Sattin: And... Yeah, so maybe we could just take a moment too and talk about the first lesson that you offer on your site, and why that's so important and I think you even talk about how introducing that transformed people's experience of the three minute game.

Betty Martin: Yeah, yeah, yeah. When I begin doing this with clients and I would ask them, "How do you want to touch me for example?" And it may be, "I want to feel your arm" or something and I would try to coach them in touching for their own pleasure, feel the shape, feel the warmth, feel the texture of the skin, feel the shape of it. Like focus on what you are noticing with your hands, and what you're enjoying directly from the touch itself, not from what effect it has on me, but from how it feels in your own hands. And I found that that was surprisingly difficult for people. And one day I had a client for whom that was extremely difficult, he just could not pull himself away from trying to produce some effect on me and I reached over there was, it happened to be a river stone sitting on the counter and I thought, to myself, "Okay, buddy let's see what happens if there's nobody to give to."

Betty Martin: And I handed him this river stone, I didn't say that out loud but I was thinking that, handed him this stone, and I said, "So see what you can feel this for your own enjoyment." And he couldn't do that either, he just could not connect with his hands, and that was a big aha for me of that, it's not that he was having trouble feeling a person, he was having trouble feeling anything with his hands. And so after that I began to do that experiment with people of... Okay, feel it, this object. And then it'll sort of wake up, the ability of your hands to experience sensation as pleasure. And then you transfer that over into feeling a person, a body. And these sessions were clothed. So we're using only mainly hands and arms, and so, I gradually learned that, "Oh, that just doesn't apply to everybody who has trouble. It applies to everybody." And so I began offering this little exercise to everybody. And like you said, it's on the website, and it still amazes me how transformative it often is for people to... You just lean back in your chair, or your seat, and you take something into your lap, some inanimate object, a pen, or a shell, or a hairbrush and you just feel it.

Betty Martin: What does it feel like? Where are the bumps? Where is it smooth, where is it sharp? And if you feel it slowly enough, and that's the, that's the key right there, is moving your hands really slowly, you'll start to notice that, "oh, oh this is quite interesting. It's bumpy over here, oh, it's smooth over here, and oh, this is kind of pleasant." And then pretty soon you notice that, "oh, it's, it's pleasurable." And then you start to, instead of feeling the object for its characteristics, pretty soon you're using the object as a way to experience pleasure in your hands so it kind of shifts from your focus on the object, shifts so your focus is on your hands, and what feels pleasant to your hands. And then pretty soon you're just using the shell as an object to pleasure yourself, and that is, it takes a little, it takes a few minutes to click for most people, many people it takes 10 or 20 minutes or 30 minutes. For some people it's extremely difficult. And I've had people that I've sent home, and said five minutes a day for six weeks, and then come back because what we're doing is we're getting this brain cell to talk to this other brain cell, and if they haven't talked in quite a while it can be difficult.

Betty Martin: And the surprising thing is that very often there's an emotional response to those brain cells starting to talk to each other because what you're really playing with here is what's your relationship to your skin? It's really, really a fundamental piece. Are you able to notice sensation in your skin and are you able to experience that as pleasure? And when you do very often feelings will come up. Embarrassment, shame, guilt. It's interesting what will come up. Grief is very common, as well as delight, and surprise, and oh my gosh, I didn't know I could feel this much, and this is wonderful. There is quite a range of feelings that come up and they're showing you your relationship to pleasure, and your relationship to your skin because there's no other person involved. You're not giving somebody pleasure, no one's giving you pleasure, no one's doing anything to you. No, there's no one you can blame if it doesn't feel good, like it's just you and your skin. And so that turned out to be a really fundamental piece that I had no idea was there until I stumbled on it.

Neil Sattin: And you mentioned, which is so important just that awareness that your hands have such a high concentration of nerve endings.

Betty Martin: Yes.

Neil Sattin: It's like second only to what your mouth and your genitals basically.

Betty Martin: Yeah. Yeah.

Neil Sattin: So there's a huge capacity for receiving pleasure when you get past what we usually do with our hands, which is more as a way of manipulating things or...

Betty Martin: Yeah. Work. Work. Work.

Neil Sattin: Right. Or you get that the sensation like, oh, that's sharp, that's wet, that's cold, those sorts of things, but you're not actually allowing that sensation to expand into actual pleasure.

Betty Martin: Yeah, yeah, so what this does is, then when your hands are awake, and your hands are able to take in pleasure of sensation, then when you touch a person, then you're able to touch a person for your own pleasure because your hands know how to experience pleasure. So you can run your hand down their back or their leg or something, and you feel the shapes, you feel the textures, you feel the warmth, you feel the contour, and it's very enjoyable just right there in your hands. And then it becomes possible to touch someone for your own enjoyment. Which is one of the quadrants, it's how do you want to touch me? Well, may I feel your legs? Oh yeah, sure. How do you want to touch me? Can I play with your hair? Yeah, sure, but don't pull it. How do you want to touch me? Can I feel up your back? Yeah, but I'm going to keep my shirt on, okay. So it's then you can use your hands to feel a person actually you're feeling somebody up is what you're doing and you're getting consent for it first. So the consent is not just having my hands on your back, it's having your hands on my back for my pleasure, which is very different from having my hands on your back, to give you a back massage.

Neil Sattin: Right.

Betty Martin: So that's where the distinction comes in, and it turns out to be very rich.

Neil Sattin: Yeah, and okay, so first, let's step back for just a minute, 'cause there is one comment that you made very quickly, but when I heard it, originally, it felt so important to me which when you were describing how to use an inanimate object, how to just feel it with your hands and to feel the pleasure in your hands, you mentioned leaning back. And so I'm wondering if you can talk for a moment about the importance of leaning back and not efforting when it comes to experiencing pleasure?

Betty Martin: Yeah, boy, that's a good one. I'm not sure why, but I just noticed it in doing this with hundreds of people that when you lean back and take this object into your lap that it makes available to you an experience of being attentive to the pleasure. That doesn't happen, it just doesn't click if you're leaning forward, or turned to the side or holding the object up in the air, I'm assuming that it's because you have the muscles like your trunk engaged and that wakes up a different part of your brain. I'm not real sure, but I just know that I've seen it with hundreds of people. And if you were an ambulance driver, and you came up on an accident and you had to reach through the twisted up glass in order to take somebody's pulse, you could take in that data with your hands, no problem. But if you are sort of contorting yourself or holding yourself forward or turned around, you're not going to be able to relax into the sensation of it very easily. And what we're looking for is for the sensation to become pleasurable.

Neil Sattin: Right. And as the sensation becomes pleasurable, it can build and build. I think you say it recruits more and more...

Betty Martin: Yup.

Neil Sattin: Brain activity.

Betty Martin: Yes.

Neil Sattin: To support the pleasure.

Betty Martin: Yes, and that does happen. You put your attention on something, you actually recruit more and more brain cells in attending to that thing and we're talking about sensation. So you attend to your sensation more and more brain cells are going to be recruited to attend to it. So it has this feeling... The feeling of it is that it sort of fills up, fills you up, fills up the space, the world drops away is the feeling of it.

Neil Sattin: Yeah.

Betty Martin: And the sensation becomes very large.

Neil Sattin: Yeah, and so that seems so important to me because so many couples who are having issues around their intimacy, they... One or the other of them or maybe both gets trapped in the sense of like, "Oh well, I should... This should feel good to me and so I'm going to somehow make it feel good" or...

Betty Martin: Yeah.

Neil Sattin: "I should want this for my partner" or... And so that level of efforting is so different than relaxing into sensation. And you used the term "Following the pleasure" and trusting where that pleasure is going to take you.

Betty Martin: Yeah, and one thing that happens... So I call what we're describing here the ability to attend to the sensation and experience it as pleasure, I'm calling that the direct root of pleasure. It just comes in, the nerve endings in your hands are stimulated, it goes right up your spine cord into your brain, ping! Lights up your pleasure center, it's a direct route. There's also the indirect route which is, I do something to you, and you smile and then your smile lights me up. So, it's like throwing out a boomerang. I've gotta catch something in order to experience pleasure. And that's what I call the indirect route. So the indirect route depends on you responding in some way that I like or I don't have anything. If the direct route is closed and I have to get you excited in order for me to enjoy it, now, I'm depending on you and I'm depending on you responding in the way that I want you to respond or I have nothing. And this is where... This is a problem because now I'm not really giving to you, I'm using you to get the response that I want to see, so that I can feel good about myself, and so that I can have some pleasure. This is a problem.

Neil Sattin: Yeah.

Betty Martin: Yeah. And we've probably all been there, I've been there, I've been on both ends of it and I don't recommend it. But it's where many people are stuck because they don't really know what else to do.

Neil Sattin: Right. And this is why each of the quadrants in the Wheel of Consent is so important. You talk about how important it is to experience each one on its own. That if you're in the gray zone between like, "Oh, I'm giving to you for my pleasure, but I'm actually waiting for you to receive something in order to actually get pleasure." Well, now you're not really experiencing either of those things.

Betty Martin: Yes, that's right, yeah. Yeah, one thing the quadrants showed me after a while was that in order to experience each of them, you have to take them apart. So when I'm touching you, for me it needs to be 100% for me. I'm still within consent and I'm abiding by whatever limits you've said, and I'm respecting your limits. I'm not just doing any darn thing I want to do. I've asked you, "May I do this?" And you've said, "Yes" and we've negotiated limits. But, it's 100% for me, I'm not trying to get a response out of you. And I'm not trying to please you. So there's that quadrant, and then the other quadrant, I'm doing it and it's 100% for you. Again, I'm abiding by my limits, I'm respecting my limits while I'm available to do this but I'm not available to do that. And you are also respecting my limits, but it's 100% for you.

Betty Martin: It's not about me. It's not about what I want to do, it's about what you want me to do. And so the distinction between those two when you can take them apart and you can be completely in one or completely in the other, that's when they get really, really rich. And that's where you had your big ahas. That's where you had your challenges. That's where you see... Oh, this is what I was doing that I wasn't very clean about, or... Oh my gosh, this is what has been locked away and now it's free, and opened up, or lots of lots of insights come when you can take the quadrants apart and experience them one at a time. And that's what the wheel is. It's really, it's a practice in taking, receiving and giving apart. So you're doing one of them at a time. It's not the way I would want to live my entire love life. Certainly it's a practice in... Can I completely receive? It's all about me. Or can I completely give. And it's all about them. And can I tell the difference? And when I can tell the difference, then they both become very rich. Yeah.

Neil Sattin: Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned that because that was a question for me around like in the end when you tease them apart through the practice, then you're able to dance between them. I imagine.

Betty Martin: Yes, yeah, yeah.

Neil Sattin: So, yeah. One thing that jumped out at me, did you have something to say there?

Betty Martin: Well, I was just going to say, everyone thinks they're jump... They are dancing in between them and doing them all at once, but really they're not doing any of them. Until you can take them apart, you can't do any of them.

Neil Sattin: Yeah, great.

Betty Martin: Yeah.

Neil Sattin: Great. So let's go a little bit deeper, I want to start if it's okay with... So we talked about a moment ago, giving which is... I'm touching you and I'm touching you the way you want to be touched like I'm touching you for you. I'm the giver, and...

Betty Martin: Oh thank you.

Neil Sattin: You're welcome.

[chuckle]

Neil Sattin: And on the opposite quadrant from that is the receiver, the person who's being done to, and they are receiving the pleasure. And I think you do mention too that pleasure is like... It's not the sole province of one or two quadrants. Like no matter where you are here...

Betty Martin: That's right.

Neil Sattin: You can be feeling pleasure, you can be feeling pleasure, as a giver. But the idea is that if you're giving... So, I'm touching you to, the way you want to be touched, and then you are just receiving that touch, receiving touch the ways you want to be touched, and you mentioned that a lot of couples get stuck there in that part of the wheel. It's like their only access point to touching each other is giving and receiving in that way.

Betty Martin: Yeah, well, I think we need to back up and define receive and give.

Neil Sattin: Great.

Betty Martin: Because if you're looking up the diagram, you'll see this, but receive and give have a couple of different meanings. Receive, for example, one meaning is that something comes towards me and arrives at me, so, I can receive a package in the mail, I can receive a pass at the 20 yard line, I can receive a massage, but I can also receive a punch in the jaw, and a branch falling on my head. So that meaning of receive means something is done to me. It doesn't mean that I want it. You can receive unwanted touch, right? So that definition of receive means something's done to me, doesn't mean I want it or not, just is not applicable there.

Neil Sattin: Right.

Betty Martin: The other meaning of receive means it's a gift for me and it's something that I do want. But the trouble now is that... Well, maybe what I want is to be touched, which is what you were describing, touch me the way I want. Or maybe what I want is to be allowed to touch you in the way that I want. So this definition of receive doesn't indicate who is doing, it indicates who it's for. So when you are allowing me to touch you the way I want and feel you up the way I want, now you are giving me the gift. I'm receiving the gift, but I'm the one who's doing. So have I got your brains all tangled up? Yeah. [chuckle]

Neil Sattin: Hopefully not, but you just filled in the fourth quadrant of the diagram for me.

Betty Martin: Yeah, yeah, so receive and give. I'm using in a very particular way here, and I realize it's not the way that everybody uses it, I'm using it, to mean, not who's doing, I'm using it to me who it's for. And this does fill in the other two quadrants, this is the quadrant of I'm doing what I want to do to you, and you're allowing me to do that, so the action's going from me to you. But the gift is going from you to me, you are giving me this gift of access to your body for me to enjoy the way I want to enjoy it.

Neil Sattin: Right.

Betty Martin: That's why the two axes on the diagram, one is who's doing and who's being done to, the other is, who's giving and who's receiving, or who is it for? Yeah.

Neil Sattin: Yeah, yeah, and...

Betty Martin: People just trip over it and that's fine. And I realize it's not the way everybody uses the word and in the workshops that I teach and when I work with clients, people would trip over it for a while, and that's okay. It'll come around.

Neil Sattin: And when you make the distinction and this is great that each of these quadrants also has a shadow side, and so you draw the circle and it's like everything that happens within that circle, those are the things that you're in agreement about that you're consenting to. I want to touch you this way and I'm explicit about that, and you agree, you allow me, and that could be that you want me to, or it could be that you're willing to let me touch you that way. And that outside of the circle, those are the things where these things happen, but where you don't have consent.

Betty Martin: That's right.

Neil Sattin: And that each of these quadrants has sort of a shadow expression. So in, I think, in the taking allowing that we were just describing. So, taking being, I'm touching you the way I want to touch you, and allowing being I'll let you do that. Well, it's the obvious where that leads when you don't have consent.

Betty Martin: Yes, well, it may be obvious and it may not... Because if you expand the view of this dynamic beyond my hands on you, then you realize that... Well, the shadow of, for example, the take allow dynamic, the shadow is groping or using or assault, rape, murder, and war. And the shadow of it also is dropping bombs on civilian populations, well any populations in order to get their oil from the land in there, from under their sand, or to go into a country and prop up a petty dictator so that we can get cheap bananas. That is part of the shadow of the taking quadrant. I'm taking action that I want to take, but I haven't asked you, if it's okay with you. I'm reaching out to get something that I want, but you haven't given me consent.

Neil Sattin: Yeah.

Betty Martin: So the shadow of the taking quadrant in particular is really ugly. And our whole culture's built on it.

Neil Sattin: Right.

Betty Martin: We stole the land. I'm in America, I don't know where you are, but we stole the land and we killed all the people, a bunch of the people. And that's a shadow of the taking quadrant, if ever there was one. So that's where I actually get passion about this stuff is that it will improve your sex life. Great, but I don't actually care. I'm sorry.

[laughter]

Neil Sattin: Betty, this is what we're here to talk about.

Betty Martin: What I'm really interested in is how does it make you more aware of where you are in consent and where you are out of consent? That's what really excites me because that translates into our lives in the world, and as it happens, it seems to happen anyway, that when we experience something somatically in our bodies right here in our homes, with our partners, and we learned that we have a choice about what happens to us, we learned that there are things that we want to do that we need permission for, we learn these things in a very tangible, physical way, and then they become real to us, and then we see where they... How they apply in the rest of our lives.

Neil Sattin: Yeah.

Betty Martin: We start to see, "Oh this is where I've been a doormat. I didn't notice that until now. Now I see it, or this is where I have been taken advantage of people. Oh, I didn't see it before now. Now I see it, this is where I've been giving, giving, giving way more than I really felt good about. Oh, I didn't see it before. Well, now I see it. So these are all... This is what excites me about the wheel actually.

Neil Sattin: Right. So you were just basically naming some of that shadow dysfunction in the other quadrants as well.

Betty Martin: Yeah, yeah. The shadow of the allow quadrant is the doormat, the going along with everything, the putting up with everything, the victim, the actual victim not like victim mentality, but you get held up at gunpoint on the street, that's your victim. You know...

Neil Sattin: Right. And in particular, one of the places where this lit up for me and I'm so curious to hear your thoughts on this, is that on the show we've talked a bunch about overcoming trauma and how many people have experienced the trauma around the sexual circuit. So that's the shadow of this taking allowing is. That's where people experience that trauma. And yet they're there, on the wheel. It's not like, okay, well, taking and allowing are bad, they're just bad when they are happening without consent.

Betty Martin: Right.

Neil Sattin: And so I'm curious from your perspective, what I see, happening, and maybe you see this differently is that when people disown the taking and allowing dynamic then that's one time, one place where they get stuck, in giving and receiving. And I'm wondering particularly with people who have experienced the more distorted parts of taking and allowing, how do you encourage them to experience taking and allowing in a way that's based around consent and that's safe? And I'm speculating here from hearing your work, that it's actually really important for them to re-own that in a healthy functional way. So maybe you could talk about, if you agree like, why that's important to do and then maybe how someone who's stuck in one place could find a comfortable way back to taking and allowing that actually serves them and doesn't retraumatize them.

Betty Martin: Yeah. That's a great question. Yes, I think every person needs access to all four quadrants, because each of them is an inherent part of being a human to take action for our own benefit, that's part of being human, that's the taking quadrant. And to do so within consent, that's integrity and maturity, and we need to be able to do that. A life in which you cannot take action for your own benefit, is going to be pretty problematic. Yeah? Taking action for someone else's benefit, this is the serving quadrant, this is doing what someone else wants you to do. We all need to be able to access that ability to serve others, of course we do, and we need to learn to do it in a way that respects our own limits and boundaries.

Betty Martin: So those are basic human abilities that we all need. We all need to learn how to allow others to do things for themselves, even if they affect us and learn how to set limits that affect us. I'm willing to allow you to do this, but I'm not willing to allow you to do that. That's a basic human skill that we all need. And the fourth quadrant, accepting where you're doing what I want, to receive the benefit of other people's actions, that's something that we all do, and we need to do it in a way that has integrity and clarity and respects other people's boundaries.

Betty Martin: So they're all inherent to being a human being, and we need access to all of them, and when we don't have access to them, we figure out some kind of workaround, but it's often problematic. The trauma piece I think is really important too, because we have all been touched against our will, every one of us, and it happened before we could talk. Even in the very best, if you had perfect parents, you still got your nappy's changed and your teeth brushed, and you got picked up out of oncoming traffic, like you were touched in ways that you did not want. And because it's pre-verbal, we come out of it with this, our body's kind of believing that, well touch is just something that happens that I can't stop, and I just have to make the best of it somehow, that the touch itself is not changeable, I have to change myself to be okay with it somehow.

Betty Martin: And for some of us, this happened in a reasonable way and it was gentle and it's okay. And for some of us, it was horrible and traumatic. And most of us are in between there somewhere, but we've all been touched against our will. And so what I've come to appreciate through playing this game, and working with clients over a dozen years is that, what we need to recover and reclaim is our ability to have a choice about how we are touched. Our ability to have a choice about how we are touched and that is... There's a huge range in that. So there's a huge range in our comfort with being touched, and you... As we're talking about the take-allow dynamic in wanting to recover that, and for someone who's been touched a lot against their will, or traumatically against their will, when you ask them, "Well, how is... May I feel your this or that?" It's terrifying, because they don't quite know that they have a choice about it.

Betty Martin: And I've seen this working with clients a lot where they just like, "Oh I get to have a choice about that. Gosh, that never occurred to me." So what I actually suggest is that you start with, "How do you want me to touch you?" And so you are directing exactly where my hands go, moment by moment by moment, until you learn that you really do, that you really are in charge of how you're touched. So for someone who's had traumatic experiences, this is the place to start, that you get to decide if and when and how I touch you, and you get to decide moment by moment by moment, so that there's no opportunity for you to go into the going along with, putting up with freezing and so forth. And that turns out to be very, very empowering and is life-changing for many people.

Neil Sattin: Right and that could still happen in the context of, if your partner is in the taking role, then they could say, "May I touch your hand?" that's one that we use. So they're expressing that, "I want to touch your hand for my own pleasure." And you could still set the limits...

Betty Martin: You could still choose, yes.

Neil Sattin: And direct exactly how they're able to touch your hand?

Betty Martin: Yeah. Right.

Neil Sattin: Yeah.

Betty Martin: Right, yeah.

Neil Sattin: One little note on that too, you were... You talk about the principles that each quadrant embodies, with the... If I get these wrong, feel free to correct me, but I believe that with the giving quadrant, this is where I'm giving you what you want for you, that that's generosity.

Betty Martin: That's the serving quadrant.

Neil Sattin: The serving quadrant, great.

Betty Martin: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Neil Sattin: And then...

Betty Martin: Yeah, a lot of people call that giving, but allowing is also a form of giving.

Neil Sattin: Great.

Betty Martin: So that's why I call it serving.

Neil Sattin: I like that.

Betty Martin: Yeah.

Neil Sattin: Thank you. The taking quadrant is integrity, you mentioned that it's about knowing what you want and being okay with asking, with acting.

Betty Martin: Yup.

Neil Sattin: In your own interest. The receiving, now there's... What's...

Betty Martin: Accepting.

Neil Sattin: Accepting thank you. So the accepting quadrant, which is... Right, because you're receiving the gift that's being given or served upon you, [chuckle] I guess.

Betty Martin: Yeah. You're being touched the way you want.

Neil Sattin: Yes. [chuckle] So that would be gratitude.

Betty Martin: Yeah.

Neil Sattin: Accepting those gifts. And just a reminder that when we were talking about the taking quadrant, that you are receiving there too, you're receiving...

Betty Martin: That's right.

Neil Sattin: The gift of someone allowing you to touch them.

Betty Martin: Yes.

Neil Sattin: And now when we get into the allowing quadrant, if I'm remembering right, the principle there is surrender?

Betty Martin: Yes.

Neil Sattin: Yeah, what's so important about surrender and learning to access that?

Betty Martin: Well, it's very fun, for one thing. And the other thing is when you... As you learn to take responsibility for your own limits, and this is something that we're all learning, there's no one who's totally got it, like everybody is on a learning journey here, that to the degree that I learn to say, "Yes, you can do this to me, but you cannot do this to me." Then I become trustworthy to myself. Oh, then I can trust myself, and then I can relax and allow you to play with me however you want. But that is based on me gaining the skills to set a limit, or to say no, or to say stop, or to say I've changed my mind, or to say ouch I need to move over here, or I need to turn over, or... To the degree that I am able to speak up for myself, to that degree I can enjoy surrendering to you because that means I'm no longer micromanaging what happens. I can relax into you taking your pleasure with me, but it depends on me being able to speak up for myself.

Betty Martin: The idea, there's this idea that, "Oh well, you should be able to surrender more," and that's a terrible idea, because what that means is, and what that implies is, you should be able to ignore yourself and go along with any old thing that I want to do, and that is not true, that's the opposite. That as I learn to speak up for myself, then I will naturally and easily surrender, and it'll be joy, because I can trust that if I need to I will speak up. And again, that's a lifelong journey that we're all on.

Neil Sattin: Right, and that's about creating a context, in this situation that we're talking about, creating a context with your partner, where you're in your creating agreement, it's where we started. And so part of that agreement is you being able to establish the limits within which you're comfortable...

Betty Martin: Yes.

Neil Sattin: Surrendering.

Betty Martin: Yes. Yeah, the question is not... Well, why can't I surrender to this thing? The question to ask yourself is, within what particular limits would it be fun to surrender? And there are some limits and you wait until you notice what they are. Oh, I'm happy to surrender if I'm assured that I'm going to keep my clothes on, for example, or I'm happy to surrender my hand and my arm, you do whatever you want, or I'm happy to surrender my little finger for three minutes. There is some limit within which surrender is easy, and that's what you want to find, and because then that's where you learn to trust yourself, and then as you trust yourself, your limits will gradually expand naturally, because you trust yourself to speak up as you need to. Yeah.

Neil Sattin: Now we've spent a lot of time on taking and allowing. I think because that's, they both represent distinctions that aren't familiar to a lot of people, myself included. So I'm glad that we spent a lot of time there, and before we go, I'm wondering if we can just turn our attention briefly to the giving, or the serving and accepting dynamic.

Betty Martin: Sure.

Neil Sattin: 'Cause I don't want to neglect their importance.

Betty Martin: They're also really good. [chuckle] Yeah, the accepting, which means I'm being touched the way I want. Because of what I mentioned a few minutes ago that we've all been touched against our will, and our tendency will be to try to go along with whatever is being done to us and think that we should like it better. This is probably the biggest challenge in the accepting quadrant is, "Well they're touching me this way, so therefore I should like it and I should be okay with it, and if I don't like it, there's something wrong with me." That's backwards. Instead of changing ourselves to suit what's happening, you change what's happening to suit ourselves. So part of the... Often times, the hardest part of the accepting quadrant is asking for what you want, asking for how you want to be touched. Because it's vulnerable, of course it is, and we don't always know. So then we have to just wait a while until we do know, and that can be awkward, and I do have compassion for that.

Betty Martin: But there is no substitute to waiting till you notice what you want and then asking for it, because then you have the opportunity to receive it, and then you notice that it actually is for you. And instead of sort of putting up with whatever is going on, or whatever it is that's happening. That's probably the hardest part of the accepting quadrant. And then the enjoyment of it, if you have asked for what you want, the enjoyment of it is pretty automatic. If you're not enjoying it, then don't try to change your enjoyment of it, change what it is that is happening. So the question to ask is not, "Why aren't I enjoying this more?" The question to ask is, "Well, what is it that I actually do want?" So that's the question of the accepting quadrant.

Betty Martin: In the serving quadrant, the hardest part... You might think that the thing to do in serving is to get all sorts of good strokes and techniques down, but what's actually the most important part of the serving quadrant is finding out what the accepting partner actually wants, and that's a whole art form of waiting and being, creating space for them and not pushing them, and not making suggestions, and just asking them what they want and then just shut up and wait until they tell ya. But it's so easy in serving to think, "Well I have this cool thing I know how to do, so I'm going to do it." And they show it on the video, it looked pretty cool, but that's not really it, it's finding out what they actually want. Yeah.

Neil Sattin: Right, yeah. Wow, if only we could just eliminate so many of those videos that seem to suggest what people want. [chuckle] It can be so inaccurate.

Betty Martin: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well they were accurate for some person at some moment, but you're a different person, and it's a different moment.

Neil Sattin: Right.

Betty Martin: Yeah.

Neil Sattin: Yeah. One thing that stood out really big for me was that you mentioned that a lot of... Most people assume that they're on the giving side of the wheel.

Betty Martin: Yeah. Yeah.

Neil Sattin: Which translates into someone either maybe always feeling like they're serving and someone always feeling like they're allowing.

Betty Martin: Yeah. Yeah, when we are on the giving half of the wheel, this is serving and allowing as you said, we are... The nature of giving is that we set aside what we would prefer in order to go with what our partner prefers, at the same time we're responsible for our boundaries and limits. So as soon as you set aside what you prefer, you're going to feel like you're giving. And so if you are constantly setting aside what you want, you're going to think you're giving all the time and you kind of are, except that no one has actually asked for that thing, or you haven't asked them if they wanted it. So what typically happens in a heterosexual couple is that the man feels like he's in the serving quadrant because he's doing all the work and he's doing all the stuff that he saw on the video, and by golly, it's supposed to be for her, and I hope she likes it. Yeah, so he feels like he's serving. And the woman feels like she's allowing because, "Well, he's doing all the stuff, I guess he wants to do it, didn't ask me what I wanted, and I guess he likes doing it so I'm going to let him do it." So he's in serving, she's in allowing. Who's receiving there? Nobody. When I do this in a room full of people, almost everybody nods their heads, they recognize it because...

Neil Sattin: Yeah.

Betty Martin: And I've been there, I've been on both sides of that equation, I think we all have. I think we have to be able to kind of laugh at ourselves of,"How do we get here?" But that's one of the things that happens when you don't get up the courage to talk about what it is that you actually enjoy, and most people recommend that you have this conversation before you get to the bedroom, that you, in the heat of the moment, it's much harder to communicate. Of course it is. It's much more helpful to have these conversations before you ever get to the bedroom.

Neil Sattin: Right. With the caveat that once you're in the bedroom you can still set a limit that you... [chuckle]

Betty Martin: Yes, absolutely, absolutely, yeah.

Neil Sattin: Yeah, yeah, wow.

Betty Martin: Yeah. Then I would just reiterate again that the two questions, the three-minute game, the Wheel of Consent are a practice, it's something that you come back to again and again, and you see how clear can I be about who this is for? It's not necessarily how you want to live your whole life, but it will illuminate other aspects of how you live your life. It's a practice in, "Can I just receive or can I just give, and can I tell the difference, and can I be clear about it, and what happens when I do that?" So it's a practice.

Neil Sattin: And what I love about this as a practice is, I think it creates a really easy-to-follow path to relearning what you do want.

Betty Martin: Yes.

Neil Sattin: And and to relearning your partner and what they want, that's so much of what we're struggling against in relationship, is just like the patterning that...

Betty Martin: Yes.

Neil Sattin: How we've done it time and again with other people, et cetera.

Betty Martin: Right, right.

Neil Sattin: And yeah, so the way that this opens us up to more presence, more of, "What can happen in this moment, what is actually true in this moment?"

Betty Martin: Yeah.

Neil Sattin: And then that's where the art of intimacy happens, is you learn these new structures, these new ways of interacting, and then it becomes how you... It's just part of your language at that point. And you can get creative and write poetry.

Betty Martin: Yeah, exactly.

[chuckle]

Neil Sattin: Well, Betty, one thing...

Betty Martin: Yeah, I think that the great thing too is that when you take turns asking each other those questions, you start to notice that, "Oh, what I want now is different than what I wanted yesterday, what I want now is different than what I wanted five minutes ago." And that's pretty important thing to notice.

Neil Sattin: Yeah.

Betty Martin: Yeah.

Neil Sattin: Yeah, I love that and I'm just... So many people feel pressed for time. I think, obviously, if you could do the true three-minute game, where you got three minutes, then three minutes, then three minutes, and three minutes, so it's actually more like a 12-minute game I guess.

Betty Martin: Yeah.

Neil Sattin: I mean, who doesn't have 15 minutes in their day? Come on.

Betty Martin: Yeah.

Neil Sattin: You could do that...

Betty Martin: Exactly. Yeah.

Neil Sattin: You each have a round and then there's a bonus round.

Betty Martin: Yeah.

Neil Sattin: But even if you only had one minute each and you just sat at the table, that's possible.

Betty Martin: Yeah, exactly, exactly.

Neil Sattin: One thing that I thought as I was going through your work was, "Oh my God, I wish I could do a whole series with you," [chuckle] but the beauty is your series is there on your website, so if this is piqued your interest, I definitely encourage you to check out Betty's website, bettymartin.org. She has everything spelled out, different lessons you can follow right along, there's plenty of material there for you. And Betty, looking forward to your book coming out, when it does, I will make sure to let everyone know, so that they can pick it up.

Betty Martin: Thank you.

Neil Sattin: And I'm just so appreciative of the work that you're doing in the world and how you're helping us have this conversation in a way that that leads us somewhere different, and the impact that that's going to have not only on our relationships, but on those larger world dynamics, feels really powerful to me.

Betty Martin: Thank you. Thanks for having me. It's a pleasure to talk to you.

Neil Sattin: Thank you.

How do you build trust in your relationship? There’s a crucial element to creating trust, and it has nothing to do with your partner. It has everything to do with you! Most importantly, there are some ways that you might actually be undermining the trust in your relationship - without even knowing it. In today’s episode, you’ll learn two important questions to ask yourself that can reveal hidden obstacles to trust, and you’ll have a sense of how to make the shift so that you can get out of your own way when it comes to building the trust in your relationship. This episode is short and sweet - but it will give you a sense of exactly where you might need to do a little growing to uplevel your connection.

As always, I’m looking forward to your thoughts on this episode and what revelations and questions it creates for you. Please join us in the Relationship Alive Community on Facebook to chat about it!

Resources 

Check out Episode 55 - Defeating Emotional Blackmail and Manipulation with Susan Forward

I want to know you better! Take the quick, anonymous, Relationship Alive survey

FREE Guide to Neil's Top 3 Relationship Communication Secrets

Guide to Understanding Your Needs (and Your Partner's Needs) in Relationship (ALSO FREE)

Support the podcast (or text "SUPPORT" to 33444)

Amazing intro and outtro music provided courtesy of The Railsplitters 

How do you apply ancient Buddhist wisdom to your relationship in a way that helps you connect with your partner? How do you build the intimacy even if you're not feeling the love? One day, as Susan Piver was experiencing what felt like an unsolvable problem in her relationship, she heard a voice say “Begin at the beginning - the four noble truths”. And much like the four noble truths of the Buddha, which identify the cause of suffering (and the cure), Susan Piver’s new book The Four Noble Truths of Love: Buddhist Wisdom for Modern Relationships can help you identify not only why relationships can be challenging - but also what to do about it. Along the way, you’ll also learn some powerful strategies for getting centered, finding your own sense of balance, and building the strength and resilience of your relationship - despite all the complexities.

Also, please check out our first episode with Susan Piver: Episode 8 - How to Tackle the Hard Questions

As always, I’m looking forward to your thoughts on this episode and what revelations and questions it creates for you. Please join us in the Relationship Alive Community on Facebook to chat about it!

Sponsors:

Along with our amazing listener supporters (you know who you are - thank you!), this week's episode has a cool new sponsor with a special offer for you - GreenChef.us/alive.

GreenChef.us is a USDA certified organic company, with a wide variety of meal plans to make having healthier food easy and convenient for you. And they’re offering you $50 off your first box to give them a try! Just visit GreenChef.us/alive and use the coupon code “ALIVE” at checkout for $50 off, and enjoy the delicious recipes and fresh ingredients that GreenChef sends your way.

Resources:

Check out Susan Piver’s website

Read Susan Piver’s new book, The Four Noble Truths of Love

(or check out her bestselling book to foster conversation with your partner, The Hard Questions)

FREE Relationship Communication Secrets Guide - perfect help for handling conflict…

Guide to Understanding Your Needs (and Your Partner's Needs) in Relationship (ALSO FREE)

www.neilsattin.com/susan2 Visit to download the transcript, or text “PASSION” to 33444 and follow the instructions to download the transcript to this episode with Susan Piver.

Amazing intro/outro music graciously provided courtesy of: The Railsplitters - Check them Out

Transcript:

Neil Sattin: Hello and welcome to another episode of Relationship Alive. This is your host Neil Sattin. On this show we are focused time and time again about how to have amazing relationships. And this begs the question, "What makes for an amazing relationship?" And of course, part of that, in fact a big part of that, is the intention that you set. I'm not saying that you rigidly hold to an agenda of what you think your relationship should be, but more that you create a vision with your partner for what you want. And at the same time, if that vision doesn't include some flexibility, some resilience, the ability to work with whatever your relationship brings to you, then you might be in for a really hard time.

Neil Sattin: And some aspect of that hard time is probably part of the game. And that is all what we are going to talk about today. We are having a return visit from one of the guests who was here at the very beginning of the Relationship Alive podcast, when it was just a vision more or less that I had. Her name is Susan Piver. And you may recall her from Episode Eight, talking about how to tackle the hard questions. And that's referring to her New York Times bestselling book, "The Hard Questions: 100 Essential Questions to Ask Before You Say I Do". And as you might recall from that, I love questions, they're at the heart of curiosity and which is such an important element in having a successful relationship. But there's more. And thankfully, Susan Piver has been writing about it. In fact, she also is an accomplished and practising Buddhist meditator and mindfulness practitioner and mindfulness teacher and instructor.

Neil Sattin: And her latest book, 'The Four Noble Truths of Love', is all about Buddhist wisdom for your relationship. And it contains some unconventional truths that will actually probably be really enlightening for you and for many of you, perhaps even very reassuring in terms of your own experience of relationship. And once you shine your vision and your light on the truth of what is happening, then it gives you a lot of power to work with it. And that's what Susan Piver's latest book is all about. So if you're interested in hearing the first episode that I mentioned, you can visit neilsattin.com/susan. She was the first Susan that we spoke to, so she got to lay claim to the name "Susan" forever for the Relationship Alive podcast. And if you want to download a transcript of this episode, you can visit neilsattin.com/susan2, the number "2," or you can text the word "passion" to the number 3-3-4-4-4 and follow the instructions. So I think that's it. Without further ado, Susan Piver, thank you so much for being here with us today on Relationship Alive.

Susan Piver: I am so glad to be here, Neil. Thank you so much for asking me.

Neil Sattin: You're most welcome. Yeah, it's great to have you here. And I particularly love your take on relationship, and I have to admit that when I first heard the title of your latest book, 'The Four Noble Truths of Love', I was prepared for something that was a little high-minded or philosophical, and I wasn't prepared for it to be so gritty, the way the book actually is. And so I really appreciate that, your ability to bring some philosophical concepts in a way that's really grounded in what our experience in love can be.

Susan Piver: Yeah, I appreciate that. I'm glad. Thank you.

Neil Sattin: Yeah. I would say what inspired you, but... And maybe you could talk a little bit about that for people who don't know much about Buddhism and why did you write these 'Four Noble Truths of Love'? What led you to distill it that way?

Susan Piver: Yeah, sure, I'm happy to. Well, I was in a place in my marriage... This was, I don't know, some time ago, where I could not get along with my husband. As you know, you're married.

Neil Sattin: Yep.

Susan Piver: The relationships go through these crazy phases where you feel close and you feel passionate and you feel connected and held, and then one day something happens and you feel distant and unhappy. And we were in a particular cycle that was very unpleasant. We weren't screaming at each other, we weren't furious, nobody had done anything "wrong", we just could not get along. Everything one person said or did hurt the other person or made them angry. And it was bizarre. Even the most simplest questions like, "What do you wanna have for dinner?", could make us have an argument. It felt insane and we didn't know why, and it went on for weeks, and months.

Susan Piver: One day I was sitting at my desk, just crying basically, because I did not know how to fix this problem and we had tried talking to each other and not talking to each other, and going to a marriage counselor, and we tried all sorts of things. And I realized as I was sitting at my desk, "I do not know how to fix this, I don't even know where to begin." And a voice said to me or I had a thought, I don't know what it was, but it said, "Begin at the beginning. At the beginning are four noble truths." So this meant something to me as a long time Buddhist practitioner, because the four noble truths, the first teachings that the Buddha gave upon attaining enlightenment, are like the core of the entire Buddhist path to this day. So I'm like, "Oh, four noble truths. Yes, I know what they are, but how would they apply to my relationship?" The four noble truths of Buddhism are the first truth is, life is suffering. And I know that sounds terrible, I don't think the Buddha meant life sucks. It meant something more like life is unsatisfying. Meaning, you think, "Well, if I have this job or this relationship or this amount of money or this accomplishment, I will be safe, I will be free from suffering, I will be happy."

Susan Piver: And yeah, those things are great and they will make you happy for a time, but they will not exempt you from the suffering of being human, that's a bummer. [chuckle] And the second noble truth is called, the cause of suffering. The cause of suffering is called grasping, which basically means pretending like the first noble truth is not true and trying nonetheless to create stable ground for yourself and trying to hold on to the things you think will make you happy, and push away the things that you think will make you unhappy. While that is a very sensible approach to life, it's still not gonna create the kind of stability that we hope for. And the third noble truth is called the cessation of suffering, which means something like, now that you know the cause, you also know the cure. If the cause is grasping, stop grasping, which obviously is not that simple but there's some insight there. You stop grasping.

Susan Piver: And the fourth noble truth is called the eightfold path, Buddhism is full of numbers, as I'm sure you know. And the eightfold path are the eight steps that you could take that would eliminate grasping, and therefore exempt you from suffering. And the eightfold path are things like right view, and so on. So okay, I thought, "Well, that's cool. What does this have to do with my love life though?" And so I just started noodling around with these four truths which basically, as I say, follow a sequence, there's a statement of the truth, the cause of the truth, the cure for the suffering, and then the steps you can take to put that cure into play. So when it came to love, what I came up with is the first noble truth of love is that relationships never stabilize, they are uncomfortable.

Neil Sattin: Dun dun dun.

Susan Piver: [chuckle] Why didn't anyone ever tell us this? Sorry. It never stabilizes. You can be in a period, like we were talking about earlier, where everything's great, and then that disappears and a different phase arises, they're like weather fronts. And the discomfort of relationships is present at every point in the relationship arc. If you are going on a blind date, you don't even know the person. It's already very uncomfortable 'cause you think, " Oh, what if they don't like me?" or, "What if they do like me?" or, "What if I start recreating all my relationship problems before dessert?", and it's just uncomfortable. And then if you fall in love, of course, it's fantastic. But it's also uncomfortable in its own way, because it's so intense, so fraught. And you think, "What did that look mean? And maybe I shouldn't have worn those pants," or every moment is very heightened, which is heavenly, like I say, but it's also uncomfortable. And then in a longterm relationship, the discomfort morphs into something called irritation. There just is this perpetual, maybe not constant, but this relatively constant irritation of living with another person. No matter how much you like each other and love each other, it gives rise to this kind of, you're rubbing against each other in an uncomfortable way, because for various reasons.

Susan Piver: I don't know what the real reason is, but anyone who's been in a relationship for more than a year will say, "Yeah, I don't like the way they do this and they don't like the way I do that," and there's tiny things, but they cause irritation. So that's the first noble truth. The relationships don't stabilize and they are uncomfortable.

Neil Sattin: Yeah, and that was for me, just reading that, I felt this big yes within me. Like of course, and in so much of the grasping on to this idea that a perfect relationship is always smiles, is never suffering, is perfect parenting, is we're always amazing lovers together, that's just a recipe for disappointment over and over again. And also for, I think, a lot of us to feel like, "If that's what you subscribe to, well, wow, I must be doing really horribly."

Susan Piver: [chuckle] Yeah.

Neil Sattin: Or it's what drives people apart, because they think, "Well, we're not having that ideal thing. So there must be some fatal flaw to this particular connection."

Susan Piver: Yep, and to add to that confusion is sometimes there is a fatal flaw. And it's not always easy to tell the difference, but for the lion's share of what we experience in what I would call ordinary relationship problems, which can range from anything from, "You're always late, and that really makes me mad," to, "Oh, you didn't tell me that you were contemplating gender reassignment surgery." That's a big deal, big, big deal. But none of those things are indications of harm, I would say, although they may be painful. Intentional harm. So I just wanna make clear that I exempt from this whole view, relationship problems that are rooted in abuse of any kind or addiction. Those are different kinds of problems, a different arena, and these things don't apply. But otherwise, yeah, we think... When most of us say we're looking for love, we don't really mean that. It's something that I've noticed in myself and others. We're not looking for love, we're looking for safety, we're looking for someone who will help us make a cocoon where we can retreat when it's a little dramatic, or overly traumatized. But we're looking for someone who will help us escape sorrow and make us feel whole, and healed, and hopefully the person you're in love with will do those things for you.

Susan Piver: But it's not that simple. So there's actually nothing less safe than love. And when we try to make it safe, it becomes something else. Not love exactly, but yeah. So I felt relief too when I realized that, by the way, like, "Oh yeah, there are things that are wrong in this relationship, but we're not doing anything wrong in the sense that this is, this was a bad choice.

Neil Sattin: Right right. And I really like that you make that distinction, that in a relationship where you're experiencing abuse or one or both of you is plagued by addiction, that changes the rules a bit, in terms of what one should do, I think to get help and what's acceptable in a relationship.

Susan Piver: I agree.

Neil Sattin: And this question around safety, this was actually... I'm so glad that you brought this up right now, because this was actually one of the things that I felt myself... That was a little edgy for me. And the reason why being, not because I think that relationships are safe, in fact I think that the act of being so vulnerable automatically exposes you to being the potential to be harmed by your partner. And so much of what we have to do is learn how to embrace that vulnerability without succumbing to the fear that your partner is actually out to get you, which is what that kind of vigilance can feel like, right?

Susan Piver: Yeah.

Neil Sattin: But on the flip side, there's so much important material and juice there in relationship for couples who are paying attention to the safety, the safety of their, the container of their relationship, actually helping each other stay out of a primal brain-triggered state as much as possible, not that you'll never get there. This is my own personal view. So, I'm curious for you, how do you reconcile that between... Well, there is some safety to the container that we want to be conscious of and actually contributing to, and then there's this statement of yours that lands right in that, which is that love isn't safe.

Susan Piver: Well that's a great question. It's a really good question. And I would say the answer has something to do with trust. Obviously the opposite of safe is untrustworthy, unsafe. So I'm just gonna share with you a little anecdote from my own life. When my husband, my now husband and I first got involved, he was going through a very difficult divorce, and I didn't know how it was gonna work out for us. It really could just as easily have gone in any direction because it was just a very, very tumultuous time in his life. And friends would say to me, "This is a danger side, or this is a red flag or whatever." Yeah, but at no point to this very day, have I ever doubted how he felt about me, or what his intentions were toward me.

Susan Piver: So even though it could have just as easily have gone completely off the rails, and it was very unsafe, I did not distrust him. And to this day, I can't explain why, but there was just this instinct. This guy is on my side, and neither of us knows how it's gonna play out. But I don't doubt, I don't doubt who he is and what he feels. So that... Without that, almost nothing could have happened. Without that, it's very, very hard to allow for even the slightest vulnerability, and I would say, nor should you allow for it, because that foundational trust, which feels different to different people and is based on different things, it can't be described or there's no... It's not formulaic. But without that, for me, I would have, it would have been a very bad, very bad experience. So does that make sense?

Neil Sattin: Yeah, and I appreciate that you're making the distinction that it had what you needed to feel, at a foundational level, you could trust this person.

Susan Piver: I knew he loved me.

Neil Sattin: Yeah. Yeah. And yet you also go on to describe, in your book, times where you're convinced that you hate him and he hates you and that's part of the cycle, right? That we can experience?

Susan Piver: Yes it is.

Neil Sattin: Yeah. I think that at the beginning of a relationship, part of... Whether it's the divine purpose or the genetic purpose of all those neurochemicals that go through our bodies, is to make us trust the other person before we really should on some level, you know?

Susan Piver: Interesting.

Neil Sattin: That it puts us in a state where we're willing to be a little bit more vulnerable. So it gets us, and I'm just thinking off the top of my head now, but maybe it gets us into proximity in a way that allows for true intimacy. Now we're getting in maybe into the spiritual component of why this all might happen, but it's that proximity that allows the true intimacy to blossom.

Susan Piver: Interesting. That's very interesting.

Neil Sattin: Well, we heard it here first.

[laughter]

Susan Piver: Yes we did.

Neil Sattin: So there's... So if relationships are never stable, then let's go to the second truth that you wrote about in your book.

Susan Piver: Okay. The second truth is the cause of the problem which, oversimplified, is thinking that they should be stable and comfortable actually makes them unstable and uncomfortable. So imagine if you just sort of gave up the idea that it's gonna be comfortable, it's going to be... Someday we're gonna hit the relationship lotto number and we're gonna fix this problem, we're gonna solve this issue, or we're gonna create this thing that we don't have that we need, and once we get all these things in a row, we're gonna go into some relationship evenness that will not change. And aiming toward that, driving toward that vision of what this relationship should be, I, in my own relationship, actually is a cause of a lot of discomfort.

Susan Piver: I'm not saying that we shouldn't try to solve our problems. We have lots of problems and we're trying to solve them all the time and constantly adjusting, and tweaking, and reviewing, and working, and losing the thread and regaining the thread with the issues that are in our relationship. So I'm not saying that you just should stop doing that, but if you think, "Well, we're gonna tweak this thing and then it's gonna be perfect, and I'm gonna get everything I need and so will the other person. And unless that happens, it's not good." A lot of pain between two people. So the second noble truth is, "Thinking it should be stable adds to the instability."

Neil Sattin: Yeah, I've read that and I was like, "Wow, that is so brilliant." That it's that expectation that really adds all this, like an extra layer of anxiety and fuel to the fire of whatever... Whatever is happening in that moment. So if what's... If something comes up that makes you really uncomfortable and rather than being able to be present for it, you have all this, "It shouldn't be this way. Oh no, something is wrong." If those are the kinds of things that are coming up, then it actually removes you, it removes you from being able to respond and then, at the same time, it adds all this intensity to whatever is come up.

Susan Piver: Agreed. Agreed. And the brilliance is in the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism, in this sense, because the first noble truth, as you remember, is, "Life the suffering." Second noble truth is, "The cause of suffering is grasping." So it's very interesting. It doesn't say, "The suffering is the suffering."

[chuckle]

Neil Sattin: Right.

Susan Piver: It says, "Grasping is the suffering." So in other words, suffering is part of the deal. We're all gonna have losses, we're all gonna have problems, we're all gonna gain things, and lose things and that is unavoidable. But in the Buddhist view, that is not considered the real suffering. Although of course it is, but the real suffering is what we add on top of it, which, in this case, is called grasping. So mapped over to relationships, yes, there are going to be problems. You're going to like each other, you're not going to like each other, there's going to be desires, there's gonna be disconnection. That's gonna happen, that's what we saw... That's part of the relationship mandala. But thinking it shouldn't be that way, actually causes more pain than the pain points themselves.

Neil Sattin: I'm just laughing on some level, because while we're having this conversation, I'm noticing that we've had a little bit of Internet difficulty, and I don't think it's bad enough that... I think everyone listening is getting everything you're saying, and I'm glad, because it's really important. And I'm noticing that I think the local airport changed the flight patterns, so there are airplanes flying overhead now. The next door neighbor's dog is barking, and within me is the potential for all this grasping, like, "Oh, it shouldn't, it shouldn't be this way. I should be in a soundproofed hermetic chamber with a big fibre optic tube connecting you and me directly so that there are no hitches."

[chuckle]

Neil Sattin: So while we're talking, I myself am embracing this practice of like, "Okay, this is what is, this is what's happening right now." Here in...

Susan Piver: Wow.

Neil Sattin: In the podcast.

Susan Piver: That's interesting, that's very interesting. That's a perfect illustration. It's a perfect illustration. And sometimes in Buddhism that's called the suffering of suffering, the suffering of succotash.

[laughter]

Susan Piver: There's suffering and then there's the suffering of suffering. So in relationships, there's the discomfort and then, which is natural, and then there's the discomfort of the discomfort, which is optional.

Neil Sattin: Right, right, yeah, and when you're talking about that too, I think you talk a lot in your book about projections and this has come up on the show before, this notion of what's within you that you wish were happening or that you think is happening, versus what actually is happening and how much those projections are getting in the way of the is-ness of what is actually happening right there in front of you.

Susan Piver: Yeah, it's very hard to see. It's very hard to see. We're all looking through a particular lens.

Neil Sattin: So like the Buddhist noble truths lay out this very logical argument about why life is so hard and how to deal with it. I know, I totally oversimplified that.

[chuckle]

Susan Piver: No, that was good, I think that was accurate.

[chuckle]

Neil Sattin: But here we are, we are on this path through the relationship Noble Truths, and we've got, relationships are never gonna be stable. Trying to make them stable is why you're having such a hard time. And then this is where it really gets beautiful is, I think, I mean it's been beautiful all along, Susan, but with the third Truth, which is what we bring... So take it away, Susan.

[chuckle]

Susan Piver: Yeah, and I appreciate that and I agree, this is where... 'Cause I think the first two sound like, "Okay, it's a problem, deal with it." The third one is... Actually can be quite beautiful. So the third noble truth of love is that meeting the instability together is love or loving. So, in other words, rather than trying to get it to stabilize, and this is what you need to do to make it stable, and this is what I need to do to make it stable, and I don't wanna do that and you should do this instead and all of that. Conversations that must be had but, nonetheless, if instead of looking at each other as the source of the problem and the solution, I would say a great partner is one who will instead turn to stand shoulder to shoulder with you, to look out at the arc of the ride that you are on together now.

Susan Piver: Usually, like I say, we look at each other. You did this, I did that. But this... And good, you should do that. But this part says, "Well, you could also notice what's happening right now in your relationship, together, meaning... And open to it." Meaning now, oh, we love each other, this is great. Now, we don't really like each other, I don't know why. Now you really like me and I'm not that interested in you. And now we can get along and now we can't get along. Someone who will be like... I picture it as someone that's on a roller coaster ride with you. And you're not trying to flat straighten out the ride, you're just dipping and diving together and staying seated together. To me, that is a great partner. Just someone who will be on the ride with you. I don't mean that in a cavalier way, I mean literally join you in this incredible ride and be on it together. Whatever's happening, whether you're going uphill or downhill.

Neil Sattin: Right, being willing to say, "Here we are."

Susan Piver: Yeah, exactly.

Neil Sattin: And there's a lot of power in that, in that willingness to just be. And you talk about this too. I'm curious, maybe we can bring that in now, is the power of honesty, being honest about what is. But, and this veers us into the fourth noble truth, which is about the path and how honesty is used. And maybe we could talk about how that's part of the path and how that weaves into where we're going from here.

Susan Piver: Sure, yeah, thank you. So the fourth noble truth says, "Here's how you could possibly do these things, potentially do these things." And I looked at the three basic cycles of teachings within Buddhism and what they suggest, in terms of creating a spiritual path, and mapped them over to what they would mean to me, 'cause all of this is what it means to me and then I'm sharing it so it's useful to others. How would I map those into my relationship? So, they're basically four qualities. The first two belong to the first cycle. Then the third and fourth belong to the second and third cycles, sorry to be confusing. And the first quality that is... These first two qualities create the foundation for a relationship. And just like anything, a house, or spiritual path, or a piece of art, if you don't have a foundation, you're not getting anywhere. You have to have the foundation for your relationship, for your house, for your whatever it is you're doing. And the qualities that create a foundation, meaning if you don't have them, you're not gonna be able to build anything, are first, honesty.

Susan Piver: So that doesn't mean saying what you think the moment you think it. That's silly. It means first knowing the truth yourself about who you are and what you feel. And that doesn't mean you have to know yourself perfectly and always be completely clear about how you feel. But it means knowing when you are clear and knowing when you are not. Knowing when you know the truth and knowing when you don't and then adapting your behavior to that truth. So if you can't be honest, or you're with someone who can't be honest, not because they're a liar necessarily, although some people are, but because they don't know how to tell the truth, it's gonna be very hard to have a relationship. You could have a great time. You could have an awesome love affair, but it would be hard to make a relationship, I think. And the second quality that is foundational, it sounds funny, I think, is called good manners. And I don't mean knowing which fork to use particularly, but...

Neil Sattin: But that is so important.

Susan Piver: Knowing which fork to use?

Neil Sattin: Yes.

[laughter]

Susan Piver: Well, if it's important to you, then it is important, Neil. And in addition, it's important to... Good manners are very profound. They're predicated on awareness that there's actually another person present.

Neil Sattin: Yeah.

Susan Piver: And taking an interest in what they think and what they feel and what they need. Not that you have to supply it, but... Oh, this is what they're experiencing now. How could I help? How could I know when I can't help and back away? How can I notice where they are in their inner life and just recognize it? So, if you're with someone who is not aware that you're there, and therefore cannot have good manners, well then obviously there's very little you can do in terms of a relationship. So honesty and good manners, I would say, are foundational. And then the third quality here is just simply called openness, or openheartedness, and this refers also to the part, the cycle in the Buddhist teachings. First you create your foundation by being disciplined and keeping things simple and so on, and then your heart naturally opens to others.

Susan Piver: And this is the part in the Buddhist cycle where you think, "Oh, I'm not the only person here on earth, there are others. And I could actually begin to look at them as having equal importance to myself, if not greater, from time to time." It's radical, quite radical. And in a relationship, what it means is that you actually look at the other person as having at least equal importance to yourself in the relationship. I have to say, I found that quite shocking. I thought my relationship was about me, and sometimes I was like, "Oh well, now I guess it's about him." Neither of those... Sometimes both of those are true, but really it's about us thinking about us, not to the exclusion of you or me, but can I look at this person as having equal status in this relationship? It sounds like a silly question, but it's surprising how infrequently we act as if that was true.

Susan Piver: And then the fourth step here is called letting go or going beyond, and what it means in this context is looking at everything that happens between the two of you, good, bad, and ugly, not as a way to create more love or an opportunity to create more love, 'cause sometimes there is more love and sometimes there isn't, but as an opportunity to deepen intimacy. And this, when I realized it, was very, very heartening to me, because I knew, even before we got married, I cannot commit to loving this person. Sometimes, I will feel love, and sometimes I won't. But what I can commit to is to deepen intimacy and to look at everything that happens between us. Not, again, as a way to have more love, but to have more intimacy, to know each other better. And I have found that there's nothing that you cannot feed into the intimacy machine, because love, like I say, comes and goes, but intimacy has no end. You never get to a point where you're like, "Oh yeah, we know each other perfectly. There's no... Nothing more to reveal or know." There's always more. And so, that is an honest commitment. "I vow to deepen intimacy" is a more true vow, I think, than, "I vow to love." So I found that really inspiring. [laughter]

Neil Sattin: Yeah. Yeah, it's so, it's so expensive. And I think in terms of, especially if you're feeling like your relationship has gotten stale or boring, a more conventional approach to that might be to try to add some novelty, right? So like make things spicier.

Susan Piver: Right.

Neil Sattin: What I hear you saying is that, that my... Yeah, all the gears are turning right now. That that stagnation could be from not really turning towards your partner and from not actually meeting the person, the full human who is right there in front of you with their own set of needs, desires, etcetera, and that through leaning in with each other and creating more intimacy even in those moments, even in those moments where the love may not fully be there, or you might have the caring, but not the fire, or it could be any number of permutations of how you feel towards the person, but that the willingness to turn in and be present with what is happening creates intimacy that ultimately creates more, creates more. And more vibrancy, maybe is the word that I'm looking for.

Susan Piver: Yeah, I would say the vibrancy is always possible, but it creates problems for me, or I would think, to look at boredom as a problem that needs to be solved. We all prefer a relationship that's exciting and dynamic to one that is dull, obviously. And maybe it is dull for some reason that you should investigate. Absolutely, and do that investigation, but it's also possible to just be bored together. What is it like when we're bored together? Let's, let's... Can we do that? Can we be side by side in this bored, boring place? I know that doesn't sound like fun, but there's something very, at the same time, intimate about being where you are together. In fact, there is no other definition of intimacy, I don't think, than just being where you actually are together. And again, I know that this doesn't sound like fun.

[chuckle]

Susan Piver: And this is not three ways to keep it awesome, this is not that book.

[chuckle]

Susan Piver: If you have ever been on a retreat, for example, where there's silence, you find that at first it's intimidating or, "Oh, it's gonna be lonely or sad or whatever," but after a while you find that it is so intimate to just not talk, but to be with other people. It's bizarre. All of these projections, drop away and you just are together. So, excuse me, the idea that you could be with someone to whom you have nothing to say right now, but just be there, it's very intimate. It's strange. I remember after being on my first silent retreat thinking to myself somewhere in the middle of it, "What were all those words I used to say? [chuckle] Why did I need to say that?" Anything, because just being together without a particular agenda is really, really deep and rich.

Neil Sattin: Yeah, an experience that I've had that's along those lines, I have done a silent retreat, but we also, my wife and I are a part of this practice that we do called Infinity Practice. And every year we have a retreat, and one of the things that we do is we do a form of muscle testing before we speak. So that nothing that you say is something that you haven't tested strong. Like that it's generative to actually say this thing.

Susan Piver: Wow.

Neil Sattin: So that's been another little twist on that is just feeling how much we use words idly versus when are we actually... When are we saying something that actually contributes to the life around us?

Susan Piver: That's so interesting. What is it called? Infinity what?

Neil Sattin: Well, we've been studying with a teacher in actually out in the Northampton area. Infinity Healing Practice. It's something that she created. And I've talked about it a little bit here on the show. I think we're five years into our training with this person.

Susan Piver: That sounds great.

Neil Sattin: It's sort of a blend of Shamanist practices and neural science and acupressure, and it's got a lot of different components to it.

Susan Piver: Cool.

Neil Sattin: Yeah. But we actually use muscle testing all the time in our relationship, when we're trying to make choices about things, or what we're gonna do, or what we're gonna eat, or who's gonna massage the other person, things like that.

[laughter]

Susan Piver: That's an awesome idea. I'm gonna try that. I think that sounds great. My husband will really roll his eyes and laugh at me. I don't care. It will be... I think he would actually end up enjoying it.

Neil Sattin: Yeah, it's handy and fun. It also has a little, not that this is intentional or by design, but it makes it all feel kinda like a game, and you realize also that some of it is kind of arbitrary. Some of the things that we take so seriously, "Well, I massaged you last night, now I'm gonna message you again?" That you can go like, "Well yeah, that's what I'm gonna do. For some reason that's generative. So I guess it's my turn to give again."

Susan Piver: That's awesome.

Neil Sattin: And that reminds me too of one thing that you speak about that's so important. First I'm thinking about overall, how relationship is a practice. And then you also mention the act of loving and giving love, and how that's an element that you find is missing from a lot of the popular culture about how to get love or how to preserve the love in a relationship.

Susan Piver: Yeah, it's interesting. If you look at the self help books about relationships. I've noticed this when I wrote my very first book, "The hard questions", that you mentioned earlier, 'cause I was like looking for books, like, "How do you do this whole being married thing?", and I noticed that all, I'll say 100%, although I'm sure there's some exceptions, but 100% of the books that I found were about how to get love. How to get someone to love you, how to get love to return to you, how to get more love, and none of them were about how to give love, unless it was in the service of getting love. So that always surprised me. Like why, why? Because for a variety of reasons, but one of them is loving as we talked about earlier, it's so vulnerable, and everybody feels powerless because you kind of are. However, there is one way to take the seat of power in relationships. I don't mean of domination, obviously, of just feeling empowered, and that is as a lover. That's a very empowered place. I'm going to love, I'm going to be a lover. I'm going to give love." It doesn't mean to the exclusion of getting love, or I'm putting myself second, it just means my focus is going to be on "What can I give?".

Susan Piver: And then also, "What can I get?", 'cause you don't wanna be stupid. But if you just even bring in the question, "What can I give?", it changes things because the predominant question for most of us, myself included, is "What can I get? What will I get if I do this?" But when you shift it to just at least also ask, "What can I give?", I find I have a rush of confidence and empowerment that I don't feel when I'm asking, "What can I get"?

Neil Sattin: Yeah, yeah, and I think that you refer to this toward the end of the book in a question maybe from someone from your Facebook group. I think you took a bunch of questions and answered them and talked about that, like how one might discern when their giving is a little lopsided, and they're actually in an unhealthy situation, versus learning more about your own power to give, to be loving, to show up that way in life. And this might be a great time to talk about the power of mindfulness and meditation, 'cause there are some great practical things. This is something that, again, I love about your book, it's very readable for one thing, and you lay out the arguments, the relationships never stabilize, expecting them to be stable is the problem, meeting the instability together is what love is, and there's a path through to liberation. So we've covered all those things, but then at the core is a need to, I think, get clear and to be receptive and to be as open to this thing that we've mentioned several times over the course of this conversation, to what actually is, to being present, even if you're being present to the boredom, as you mentioned earlier. That seems like it would be impossible without learning mindfulness.

Susan Piver: It would be for me.

Neil Sattin: Yeah.

Susan Piver: It would, but there are people for whom it's not impossible. But I'd say it's rare. But yeah, if you don't know how to work with your mind, then it's very, very confusing. Of course, I'm not saying you have to know how to do it perfectly, at least I hope not because I certainly don't.

[chuckle]

Neil Sattin: Now we're gonna have to write "The Four Noble Truths of Meditation".

[laughter]

Susan Piver: Right, right, right. Meditation is actually about placement of attention. So if I say to you, I don't know, "Don't look at your foot, left foot, but place your attention on your left foot," something sort of goes to your left foot. And if I say, "Now, place your attention on your right earlobe," which you can't look at, "But just move that attention to your right earlobe and just notice it," that's all mindfulness is. Something moves between those two points between your ear and that something is your awareness, your attention. And all that happens in meditation is you are practicing working with that, placement of attention. In case of what I teach, and the most common object of attention is your breath. You're not practicing placing attention on breath so you can be great at placing attention on breath, because there's not much utility in that skill, but you're practicing with the breath so that when you talk to a human being you can place your attention on them, because you have learned how to place your attention on what is happening. Because the breath is always in the present, you can't breathe in the past or the future. So, if your attention is on the breath, you could make the argument that your attention is in the present.

Susan Piver: And then when someone's talking to you or you're trying to make a decision about what job to take or who you are, you can actually place your attention on the thing that you want to contemplate. It sounds so simple, and it is, but it is not easy, and for most of us, our attention remains on what we hope and what we fear. So we don't actually... It's hard to hear the person who's talking to us outside of that lens of, "Will this be good for me or will this be bad for me?" And those are important questions, and you should not release those questions, but first, can you actually hear what's being said to you? And so as... If you train in mindfulness in some way, whatever way makes sense to you, the likelihood that you will be able to answer "yes" is greatly increased, I would say. Although my husband doesn't practice meditation, and never has, but he's good at paying attention. So he's one of those people.

Neil Sattin: Maybe he is, and maybe he's gotten a little through osmosis.

Susan Piver: No, no, no, no. [laughter] He's much better at this kind of thing than me. He's much better, he is. He's much better, much more relational than I am, and I've learned a lot from him. He's good at relationships. I have to write books about them 'cause I'm not good at them.

[laughter]

Neil Sattin: I'll get him on the show next time, I guess.

Susan Piver: That would be awesome.

[laughter]

Neil Sattin: Well, Susan, again, I so appreciate your visiting us here on the podcast, and I think your book, 'The Four Noble Truths of Love', is a perfect... I don't know why the word antidote comes, I don't want it to be an antidote, but it goes really well, it's a good, it's a good... No, it's not a seasoning 'cause it stands on its own. All these metaphors are failing me right now, but when you hold it next to a book, like let's say, 'Getting the Love You Want', which is like a classic, and it came to mind immediately when you said so many books are about getting love, because this book is actually really helpful, and there's a lot in it about how to give, in particular, how to give your attention in how you communicate with your partner. And so, props to Harville Hendrix and Helen LaKelly Hunt. At the same time on the flip side of it, I think there's so much richness in what you're adding to the conversation about really expanding your view of what this whole relationship thing is all about, and how to find yourself in it so that you don't lose yourself there.

Susan Piver: I really appreciate that, and yeah, learning how to get, receive love, and learning how to give love, seems that one without the other would be not so great. So it's good that there are ways to explore both.

Neil Sattin: Well, I would be remiss if I didn't mention that at the end of your book there are some great... You talk about establishing a meditation practice, and we talked about that a little bit a moment ago with placing attention on the breath. And I like how you talk about just getting in the habit of it is so important. Five minutes a day is better than nothing, and better than 30 minutes once a month, so that you're developing that muscle, that habit. And then you also offer some other things. So when you pick up Susan's book, which I hope you will, there's a great addition to loving kindness meditation, that we've talked about a little bit on the show but you had some extra bonus ways to do that that I really love. And also a way to practice conversation, that's again really helpful and centering, and can bring some of this practice to how you relate with your partner. So, I love those practical additions at the end of your book.

Susan Piver: Thank you.

Neil Sattin: And I would love for you to let our listeners know how they can find out more about you and your work and what you're doing right now. And I know you have a lot of offerings for everyone.

Susan Piver: I appreciate that. Yeah, my website's susanpiver.com, just my name, P-I-V-E-R, is a way to keep track of where I'm teaching, and it's also, if you're interested in learning meditation, a place for you to sign up for the open heart project, which is my online community. It's free and I send out a guided 10-minute meditation instructional video every week on Mondays. And if you wanna learn to meditate or re-establish your practice, I heartily invite you to check it out. But my website susanpiver.com is the best place to find these things.

Neil Sattin: Great, and we will have links to all of that in the transcript for the show. And as a reminder, if you want to download the detailed transcripts just visit neilsattin.com/susan2, that's the number "2". Or you can text the word "passion" to the number 3-3-4-4-4 and follow the instructions. Although I'm tempted to have them text the word "boredom".

[laughter]

Susan Piver: That's what it is. That's so funny.

Neil Sattin: But don't do that, don't text. Well I don't know, maybe I'll see if that word's available, if it is, I'll make something cool, and if it's not I take no responsibility for whatever happens if you text the word "boredom" to that number.

Susan Piver: That is so funny.

Neil Sattin: And in the meantime, Susan, I hope to have you on again. I just so appreciate the depth and richness that you bring to the conversation about relationship, and taking one's seat in the middle of it.

Susan Piver: Well, I appreciate that. It's a pleasure to talk with you, and congratulations on your podcast. It's really bringing great conversations to light, and I'm just happy that you're making these kinds of insights and view points available to others. Thank you for doing this.

Neil Sattin: Yeah, it's my pleasure. I'm glad. I'm glad that I can be on this end, bringing everything to people, so it feels good. Thank you for saying that, I appreciate it.

What’s realistic to expect in terms of things improving between you and your partner? When you're trying to change something in yourself? Or when you're hoping your partner will change? Once you've identified a place where you want things to be different (or see those things all around you), you can sometimes feel an overwhelming sense of urgency. How will all this get done? Can't it all just be fixed - NOW? This week we're going to continue the process we started in Episode 157, where we took stock of our relationship - identifying the things we want to celebrate and also the things that we'd like to improve. Today you'll discover a simple process that will help you relax, prioritize, and know exactly what the next right thing to do is in terms of improving the way things are.

As always, I’m looking forward to your thoughts on this episode and what revelations and questions it creates for you. Please join us in the Relationship Alive Community on Facebook to chat about it!

Resources 

Check out Episode 157 - Celebrating and Taking Stock

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FREE Guide to Neil's Top 3 Relationship Communication Secrets

Guide to Understanding Your Needs (and Your Partner's Needs) in Relationship (ALSO FREE)

Support the podcast (or text "SUPPORT" to 33444)

Amazing intro and outtro music provided courtesy of The Railsplitters 

Do you ever feel like there’s a barrier between what you know about how to have a good relationship, and what you actually do? How do you take what we know about the science of relationships, combine it with the wisdom of our hearts and our quest for deeper meaning, and integrate it into something practical? Today we’re going to get practical, integrated, and Integral with a return visit from Keith Witt, whose new book Loving Completely: A Five Star Practice for Creating Great Relationships was just released. Keith Witt has conducted more than 55,000 (!!) therapy sessions, and is also often featured on Jeff Salzman’s The Daily Evolver podcast. He is truly gifted at taking the “big picture” and making it useful for a daily lives. Loving Completely is a manual for how to not only set a higher standard for what’s possible in your relationship, but you also get simple steps that get you there.

Also, please check out our first two episodes with Keith Witt - Episode 80: Bring Your Shadow into the Light and Episode 13: Resolve Conflict and Create Intimacy through Attunement.

As always, I’m looking forward to your thoughts on this episode and what revelations and questions it creates for you. Please join us in the Relationship Alive Community on Facebook to chat about it!

Sponsors:

Along with our amazing listener supporters (you know who you are - thank you!), this week's episode has two great sponsors, each with a special offer for you.

Casper.com provides ultra-comfy mattresses and other products to help you get a restful night’s sleep. You can try out a Casper mattress for 100 nights - and if you’re not completely satisfied return it for a full refund. As a Relationship Alive listener, they are offering you $50 OFF select mattresses - terms and conditions apply. Just visit Casper.com/alive and use the coupon code “ALIVE” at checkout.

RxBar.com makes a whole food protein bar that’s super-tasty - Chloe and I almost always have these with us to help us stay nourished on the go. They’re healthy, easy to digest, and have simple ingredients with no added sugar - plus they’re gluten/dairy/soy-free. You can get 25% OFF your first order by visiting RxBar.com/alive and using the coupon code “ALIVE” at checkout.

Resources:

Check out Keith Witt’s website

Read Keith Witt’s new book: Loving Completely: A Five Star Practice for Creating Great Relationships

Check out Keith Witt’s other books as well!

FREE Relationship Communication Secrets Guide - perfect help for handling conflict…

Guide to Understanding Your Needs (and Your Partner's Needs) in Relationship (ALSO FREE)

www.neilsattin.com/completely Visit to download the transcript, or text “PASSION” to 33444 and follow the instructions to download the transcript to this episode with Keith Witt.

Amazing intro/outro music graciously provided courtesy of: The Railsplitters - Check them Out

Transcript:

Neil Sattin: Hello and welcome to another episode of Relationship Alive. This is your host, Neil Sattin. We're trying to change culture with this show and I am so appreciative as always of your being here with me to evolve what is actually possible for us in terms of our relationships, and we know more about how to relate with other people than we've ever known before. We know more about the science. We know more about our spirit and how that factors in. We know more about the power of mindfulness. We know more about how our hearts interact with other hearts. It's all taking shape in a way that's very unique, and what we are trying to do here is to not only talk about it, but make it so practical for you so that you can put this stuff into use in your relationship. And so you can talk to other people and say, "Hey, like you're having a hard time, you know, check out this episode on Relationship Alive where you will get your problem solved or see a light at the end of this dark tunnel," that, let's face it, sometimes we're in a dark tunnel in our relationship, it's part of what happens.

Neil Sattin: So, I'm overjoyed today to have a returning guest, someone who has been on the show twice, and he's here today to talk about and celebrate really the release of his latest book called Loving Completely. I'm talking about Dr. Keith Witt, who you may know through his appearances on The Daily Evolver or you may have heard him here on Relationship Alive. He was here in Episode 80 where we were talking about shadow and he was also here way back in Episode 13 talking about Attunement and how important that is. So he is back on the show. And we will have a detailed transcript of this episode. If you want to get that, just visit neilsattin.com/completely as in Loving Completely or you can as always text the word Passion to the number 33444 and follow the instructions and we'll send you a link where you can download this transcript, and all our other transcripts and show guides.

Neil Sattin: So today, we're going to talk about what it means to love completely, and how that's maybe different than your standard kind of relationship and why it actually helps you deepen and deepen what's possible for you in partnership. I think that's all I have to say for the moment. Keith Witt, it is such a treat as always to have you back here on Relationship Alive.

Keith Witt: Great to be with you, Neil.

Neil Sattin: So, let's just start there. Loving completely. Now, I know that some of the book is based on a course that you did in the integral world called Loving Completely. Why loving completely? What was the inspiration for you for that title versus just like, How to Have a Kickass Relationship?

[chuckle]

Keith Witt: That's not a bad title. [chuckle] I've been doing therapy and writing and teaching for 44 years and I have studied dozens of brilliant people. And most people, most researchers, their understanding comes from how they came to establish mastery in their areas of psychotherapy or of understanding. Esther Perel, for instance, worked a lot with couples where people were unfaithful, and so she is oriented according to how sexuality ebbs and flows and manifests and affects relationships in her work. Stan Tatkin came from attachment theory and interpersonal neurobiology and his system is heavily oriented in that direction. John Gottman is a pure social scientist. I mean, the way that he found his wife was he went on 50 dates in 60 days and she was the outlier whom he married. He did it like a science experiment. And so his approach is social science. He uses social science to find what works and doesn't work and so on.

Keith Witt: So, everybody comes from their orientation and they're all right. But in Integral Psychology, we say that everybody gets to be right, but nobody gets to be right all the time. And so, most of us who work with couples and individuals have found that people are wildly unique, and people have different languages and understandings that help them love better. And so I was interested in an orienting system, where you could start with basic principles and practices and they could lead you in the direction that you were most open to in terms of helping you grow and transform in your ability to be intimate with the different parts of yourself and be effectively intimate with other people and especially with your chosen partner in a long-term lover relationship.

Keith Witt: And so that motivated me. That was a challenge. How do you get oriented in that fashion? And so out of that came the Loving Completely Course and then out of that course came, I wanted to expand the ideas and present a deeper dive into a lot of the constructs and so I wrote the Loving Completely book, which is gonna come out soon, and that's what oriented me in terms of and inspired me in terms of writing this book.

Neil Sattin: Yeah, I like that picture of completeness, not only in terms of what it inspires me to think about and how I conduct my relationship, the process of my relationship, but also the willingness to look across the spectrum of what's available to help you that you don't have to be confined just because so and so says that their thing works 85% of the time. If it doesn't work for you, you're not screwed like there are other options for you that might be effective for you. And so there's that completeness of like, "Oh, the whole world is available for me to actually help me get this. Get this right."

Keith Witt: Yes, and we live in an age where there's a cornucopia of great knowledge available to us and especially around intimacy and around relationships. And so let me explain. I'm gonna talk mostly about a committed intimate relationship like a marriage, a long-term love affair, and so on, though these principles apply to lots of relationships, parental relationships, sibling relationship, friend relationships, and so on. But a relationship of marriage is basically a friendship, a love affair, a capacity to notice and repair injuries and ruptures, and a mutual commitment to each other's evolution. If those four components are attended to on a daily basis, couples tend to do well. If one of those lapses in some fashion, suffering occurs and suffering in relationship tends to spiral into separation. And this is one of the reasons why half the marriages end in divorce.

Keith Witt: And so that's a great picture of a good relationship, but how do we do that? How do we establish that? And just like any area of mastery, what you do is you pick a goal, you get ignited. I wanna have great relationships. You find data and information and master coaching in the world, and then you break it up into chunks and you do focus practice on those chunks and with a growth mindset of effort and progress is what matters. We're not trying to get anywhere, we're just trying to have effort and progress. You gradually can establish mastery in this area of loving, loving another person, helping another person love you and... Go on.

Neil Sattin: Yeah. And so a couple of things are coming up for me right now. One is, we're talking here, we're on a show where we are focused about, we're coming from a growth mindset. And I can't tell you how many times I read something or I have this conversation with you or someone like you and I have that light bulb moment of like, "Oh right, this is how I've been seeing it, and I could be open to a different perspective here and that actually might serve me a lot better." So let's just start with maybe the hardest question which a lot of people who listen to the show are gonna be asking which is like, "Alright, you said growth mindset. And now, I just know that this ain't happening because my partner, like that's the problem, they don't have a growth mindset, and they're fixed and they're shut down. And I'm trying, I'm trying, I'm trying." I know, in the 65,000 or more sessions you've done with people, you've come up against this with couples and I'm curious to know how you help inspire both people in a moment like this.

Keith Witt: A human super power is our ability to receive caring influence. That is a super power. And it's more difficult than it sounds. Receiving caring influence means that you allow yourself to change how you think and what you do in response to someone else trying to help. Now, when people get threatened, when people feel insecure, when they feel unsafe, their nervous systems get more rigid. Your slower thinking frontal cortex gets inhibited and your faster thinking brainstem takes charge. And one of the ways to take charge is it resists receiving influence. And so if you have a partner that is resisting receiving influence, it probably means that in a particular level they feel unsafe.

Keith Witt: And so when someone comes in or a couple comes in, part of my job is to help that first person feel safe. And generally the way that I help people feel safe is through compassionate understanding. I know that at the core of everyone, there is a little interface between them and spirit. Patricia Albere in the evolutionary collective calls that the origin point, in the traditions she called that out man's soul, that kind of thing. That's how I identify people. And so, my job is to connect with that spot in them and then help them feel understood by me. And as we go into that understanding, we find a place where they feel threatened, where they resist influence. And the place where you resist influence and you feel threatened is also the place where you're yearning for something, you're yearning for love, you're yearning for security, you're yearning for passion, you're yearning to be known deeply.

Keith Witt: And as I help someone feel safe and as I help them understand their yearning, we can begin to open up a little bit to how those yearnings can be met in their relationship. They can be met by their partner, and I can help their partner help this other person feel safe. By the very act of coming to a therapist, people have gone to an environment where they've acknowledged, "We can't help each other feel safe enough to change, we need somebody else to provide a little bit more safety." And so that's a central part of what therapists do. Now, does that work all the time? Nothing works all the time. Does it work a lot? Yeah, it does. And if your partner seems impenetrable, then what you wanna do is you wanna say, "Well, look, let's get some help. Let's find somebody that you trust and let's get them to help us love each other better. Let's get them to help us be more connected."

Keith Witt: And you take a stand for that. And if your partner can't do it, you go get help and then that person helps you encourage your partner to get help. And so that's how it goes. Usually that ends up with both people getting into therapy, but not always. And frankly, it's just a bad sign. If somebody is having problems and refuses therapy, that predicts marital dissolution pretty reliably in a lot of cases, and that's just the way it works. If you take a rigid position, particularly in the 21st century with your partner, and refuse to work on things that are disturbing to them, that will separate you and those separations get worse, they don't get better. So those are the ruptures and repairs that are so important. They need to be repaired. And they're repaired when we're making that condition better, when we're working at loving each other better.

Neil Sattin: Yeah. And this, I think, is so important because it's tempting, especially as you read a lot of, let's just say, self-help books about relationship which you might be doing if there are some issues going on or you might be doing even if you're like, "I just wanna know how to do this better," and kudos to you if that's what you're doing. Keith's book is great for that. It can be tempting to think like, "Okay, well, I'm gonna go into this with my partner like a therapist would. Like now I'm armed with all this new knowledge and I'm gonna bring it into my relationship."

Neil Sattin: And to some level, I think that is helpful, but what I'm hearing from you that I think is so key for people to get is that the real gem that happens in a good therapy, in a good therapeutic setting, is creating that safety and being seen without judgment, being seen with compassion, and from that everything else can grow. I would think that it's rare that someone comes in, and you're not just instructing them, right? I mean I sure don't. In my coaching practice, we're not saying, "You're doing this wrong, you're doing relationship wrong, so let me just tell you how to do it right, and then you're all set, you're then free to go."

Keith Witt: Yeah. Well, that would be great [chuckle] if it worked. You know, when I wrote a book on Integral Psychotherapy called Waking Up and in that I said what an integral psychotherapist does is relate, teach, inspire, confront, interpret, and direct and relating is first. If someone is open to learning a new perspective, they're open to receiving influence, in other words they get influenced to change what they think and do. A lot of therapy is just getting 80% of therapy is getting to the point where someone feels safe enough to be willing to do that. And, yes, we don't do that with our partners. I have two kids, they're grown 33 and 30, and wife, and I don't give them any input unless they ask specifically for it. And the reason why I've done that is because I realized as our family was developing that I didn't have a contract with them, like I did with my clients, and that actually interfered with our relationship if I offered input that wasn't requested or welcomed.

Keith Witt: And so I'm way more conservative when it comes to my opinions or my observations with my own family. Why? Because I'm not there primarily to enlighten them or to help them, I'm there to support the intersubjectivity of our relationships. I'm there to support our love for each other. And supporting our love for each other means having this relationship on a psychological spiritual level, we're experiencing ourselves as having equal power, equal credibility, equal say in the important aspects of our life around money, sex, parenting, time, that kind of stuff. And then all that stuff needs to be negotiated in a dialectic. And the dialectic is two people looking for deeper truth, respecting each other, open to each other, as influence, and acknowledging their individual rights. And that's called a growth hierarchy.

Keith Witt: It's a power hierarchy but it doesn't look like a power hierarchy because when people are going back and forth in that environment, you're not noticing how one person has a little more credibility, a little more power than the other person does because there's a flow back and forth in the integral cosmology, that's called the second tier. That's a particular kind of relating. Now, when people get threatened, they go into dominator hierarchies. You stop receiving influence and you're trying to bully the other person or convince the other person or submit even to the other person. That dominator hierarchy can get something done, but it contaminates a relationship. And an awful lot of work, whether therapist know it or not, when they're working with couples is noticing that shift in the dominator hierarchies, and then interrupting it and encouraging couples to go back into growth hierarchies where they're looking for deeper truth, more open to influence, being respectful, allowing each other individual rights.

Keith Witt: And just that, just paying attention. And that can transform your whole relational universe. Particularly, you can transform a universe relating to other people because once you start noticing those things you see growth hierarchies and dominator hierarchies everywhere. And if you have a moral sense of standing for growth hierarchies, that means that whenever you're around you wanna generate them. And if there's a dominator hierarchy happening, you wanna start working to shift that into a growth hierarchy. Nowhere is that more important than in your end of the relationship.

Neil Sattin: Yeah, and this is something that comes up a lot actually in our Facebook group and just because we're here. I'm curious of your perspective on this. A lot of my listeners have actually been married and gotten divorced, and now they're working on their next big love, let's say. And so, of course, that introduces all kinds of other dynamics with former partners, their new partners, and that's a situation that's ripe for power struggles and dominator hierarchies to emerge. So, I'm curious like if you're a growth-oriented person and you're just getting hammered by a dominator, what's a good pathway through to navigate through that, that you might offer someone?

Keith Witt: Well, first of all, that is the... Particularly for educated people in this country, generally they go through at least two major intimate relationships, sometimes more. I was a hippie back in the '60s and '70s, so I had a three-year relationship where we didn't get married but essentially it was the first marriage. So that's very common. And when there's children and in-laws, you are bringing other people in and other responsibilities. Stan Tatkin says, calls it The Rule of Thirds. And he makes a point that I agree with. Yes, there's a lot of added complexity that comes when people have a second or third serious relationship, but that is simplified if you recognize the primacy of the intimate bond. The primacy, there's a reason that they call it a primary relationship, and that primary relationship is we wanna maintain this container in integrity, we wanna have this container be as clean and as pure and as beautiful as possible, and that means our friendship, our love affair, our capacity to heal injuries, and our commitment to mutual evolution comes first. And then everything else gets organized around that.

Keith Witt: What that does is it gets you oriented in terms of other demands, say there's an ex-spouse that is aggressive, this happens sometimes. Or punitive, people get angry after a separation, and often separations are expensive, and they're difficult, and people are more egocentric and distressed cells will come out and then they don't have much contact with each other, which makes it easier to objectify each other and see each other in negative black and white terms. Well, that's not good for anybody. It's particularly not good for children. Children of the divorce who have parents who are acrimonious with each other do worse. They have more symptoms and they have more problems. And so you don't wanna encourage that. You wanna discourage that. How do you do that?

Keith Witt: Well, there's two of general ways of dealing with other people. There's what you and I are doing now, which is relating. Relating is we're just telling our truth, we're respecting each other, we got individual rights, and we're both open to caring influence. You tell me something that's a better idea than something I got. I'll change my idea and change how I think in what I do. That's relating and relating is a superior way of being. But say, somebody can't relate. Well, then you handle them. And how do you handle them? You handle them so that they can't successfully dominate in a dominator hierarchy and you make it easier for them to relate. For instance, you set boundaries. So this happens all the time, when one ex-spouse wants special privileges and comes to feel entitled to it because the other person just tries to say yes rather than thinks in a larger sense about what's gonna make this a more coherent relationship.

Keith Witt: So then what you do is you start setting boundaries around whatever the dissolution agreement was. You don't say yes unnecessarily. And if someone is acting in a disrespectful fashion, you disengage. You set a boundary. Okay. So over time, this influences the other person to be more respectful. It's very much like parenting a child. And it's similar because when people are in defensive states, basically they've regressed to child ego states. And so you don't have to be... You can be respectful, but you need to be firm. I'm respectful of my four-year-old who doesn't wanna get in the car and go to the dentist, but I am firm. You're gonna have to get in the car and go to the dentist and that's all there's to it. So, respectfully, get in the car, we're going to the dentist.

[chuckle]

Neil Sattin: You spoke in Loving Completely. And I wanna dive more into the meat of the matter here momentarily. You spoke about your commitment to more and more interacting with the world from a place of loving kindness and compassion.

Keith Witt: Yes.

Neil Sattin: And even then, you mentioned that there are some relationships and connections that you've had to let go of.

Keith Witt: Yes.

Neil Sattin: And I'm curious for you, what does that barometer like in terms of you knowing like, "Okay, I guess I've done all I can do here," versus like, "You know what? I'm gonna keep trying. I have faith in this particular container that it will ultimately yield to the power of a growth mindset and relating.

Keith Witt: Well, first of all, it of course depends on the nature of the relationship. You know, loving-kindness is a practice. And we can all do it now because it's a wonderful practice to get yourself into a place where you are available to engage in a mature and healthy activity, and here's how you do it. You imagine some other person. So I'm imagining you right now and then I am reaching out from my heart, to your heart, and in my mind, I'm saying to myself from my heart to your heart, "May you be safe. May you be happy. May you be healthy. May you have an easeful life." And as I do that, I am changing my state. Now, if I do that with... If you're my lover and I do that when we are in conflict, my defensive state, because I'm in, we are in conflict, all communication is complimentary, we're probably both in defensive states that are self-amplifying which is by defensive states we are so dangerous as couples. What I'm doing is I am now shifting into another state of consciousness where instead of allowing my nervous system to relate to you as an unsafe person, that I am objectifying to a certain extent.

Keith Witt: Now, I'm relating to you as someone I care about and that shifts my state. Now, as I do that, if we're around each other and you can see into my eyes, or hear my voice, your state begins to shift out of defensive state into a state of healthy response to the present moment. And so loving-kindness meditation is a wonderful practice to learn how to do when you're stressed because it shifts your state into an area where you have access to your frontal lobes, you have access to your deep wisdom and you're regulating your defensive states into your more mature and more powerful states of conscious awareness and compassionate understanding.

Keith Witt: And I encourage everybody who's listening to do it at this moment. Imagine somebody, you can imagine me if you want, I'd take all the loving-kindness that the... [chuckle] people could give, your heart to that person's heart. And in your mind, say, "May you be safe. May you be happy. May you be healthy. May you have an easeful life." And see how it feels. Interestingly, when people did this meditation, they had anti-inflammatory genes activated in their bodies and antiviral genes activated in their bodies that this meditation made their immune systems more robust, by shifting the myelinazation patterns of their genetic expression. That's how powerful this is.

Neil Sattin: Well, well, and... Yeah, I'm just struck by that like we talk about our anger being inflamed and how interesting that anti-inflammatory actions take place when we go into a place of loving-kindness like that.

Keith Witt: It's amazing.

Neil Sattin: And I'm thinking too about my own experience with Chloe and we're doing really well together. Not that we haven't had our challenges and despite doing really, really well together when something happens and one of us goes to that defensive state and we both end up there even... I guess what I'm saying is, even in the best of relationships, and you talk about this with Becky as well, it can be such a challenge, such an effort to even utter within, oh, you know, much less saying it out loud to your partner, if you happen to be in their presence. But within like, "May you be safe, may you be loved." I think if you're thinking back to a time when you had an argument with your partner, you'll get what I'm talking about that, it's like the last thing you wanna do.

Keith Witt: That's right.

Neil Sattin: And yet it has so much power if you can somehow do it.

Keith Witt: Yeah. What helps me with this is understanding that those defensive states that you enter when you're mad at each other, those were evolutionary milestones for the human species. And most of our brain is designed to relate with other people and there's a lot of good evidence that one of the reasons that brain size expanded about two million, three million years ago is because the level of complexity in human groups went up, and we needed to have more brain power to be able to relate with each other. And in those primitive tribes, there were social organizations just like there are in primate groups and that meant when there was a problem that couldn't be resolved cooperatively people went into dominance displays because the dominance hierarchies are what maintained the social fabric.

Keith Witt: And what they would do, they were programmed to do genetically is to raise their emotional intensity to intimidate the other person into taking an inferior place or the dominance hierarchy or to have you submit in a way that would happen before physical violence could take place, which would maintain the integrity of the social structure and protect people from hurting each other because evolutionarily speaking, the biggest threat to humans, for the last couple of million years, have been other humans.

Keith Witt: Now, what modern consciousness is brought to bear is way more powerful ways of dealing with conflict, way more sophisticated ways. And so when those defensive states are activated if I know that if I can engage in collaborative, two men in problem solving with this person, what that does is it opens up a possibility for this moment to enhance our personal evolution, this moment to make our love deeper, to support our friendship and our love affair. If I know that, if I can just have the faintest memory of that, then I can start working at soothing myself and soothing you and inviting you into that process to create that container of that dialectic. That container of mutual respect and individual rights and looking for a deeper truth and receiving influence. And when we do that a hundred times or a thousand times and discover how well it works, how it creates these miracles of consciousness, then what we've done is we've taken those primitive impulses and we've included and transcended them in the more sophisticated influences.

Keith Witt: And you know in our last talk, I talked about how what we're actually doing is growing our shadow selves. We're growing our unconscious. Our unconscious becomes more complex and it regulates outside of our awareness so that it gets easier and easier to reach for these better states. Now, every once in a while, we get triggered usually from a trauma memory and bam, here comes the defensive state, it happens in 60 milliseconds. We have amplified our numb emotions, distorted perspective, destructive impulses, and diminish capacities for empathy and self-reflection like that. But if you can learn to self-observe that, what you end up doing is instead of trusting all that stuff, trusting that distorted perspective, trusting those destructive impulses, going along with that lack of self-reflection and empathy and say, "No, no, I'm actually in a disadvantage state now I need to reach for something that is more powerful," like compassionate understanding that provides the impetus interiorly to do that for yourself. And then when you are doing that for yourself, you're non-verbally and verbally encouraging your partner to do the same.

Neil Sattin: Yeah.

Keith Witt: And this...

Neil Sattin: May I offer just a quick example of that?

Keith Witt: Sure.

Neil Sattin: So just the other night, I was with Chloe and we were talking about something, she was going to cover for me for something, and she made a comment like, "This is actually the last thing I wanna do, it sounds horrible to me, but I'm gonna do it but it sounds horrible." And I immediately went into like, she's being negative about this thing and I don't even want you to do it anyway, if it's gonna be horrible for you. So we started spiraling down this place and it was kinda late at night, so we weren't in our... There's not a lot of will power left at the...

Keith Witt: That's right. Oh no.

Neil Sattin: At the end of the day to actually steer yourself back. But fortunately I'd been reading your book and so I turned to her and I said, "Help me, help me help you, what I'm hearing you say that this is horrible. And it sounds like hell and I don't know what you need from me right now, what I can see is that I'm just going into this place where I am polarizing or where I somehow wanna change you or change your experience, but I clearly that's not working 'cause you're just getting more and more angry at me, and I'm getting more angry at you. Like what do you need?" And you know, to prove your point, Keith and this was just so hilarious to me in the moment, she looked at me and her eyes were big and wide, and she just said, "I need your compassion. I need you to understand that, yes, of course, I'm gonna do this for you, I love you, and it's not... It wouldn't be my first choice to do this thing and I just need you to hear me and to acknowledge me and to be compassionate."

Neil Sattin: So that was the first thing that was like, "Oh okay, right." And so, of course, I'm thinking like I know this and of course I know this, like I've... 'cause we've done this a million times, but here we were in this space of conflict. And so then I started thinking, like, "Well, I know that the key right now is to be compassionate and I've even done it before, but right now, I can't for some reason, I really can't." And so I asked myself like, "Why, why can't I be compassionate right now?" And I had this huge realization about my own earlier experiences with being confronted with, I had an idea about something and just to keep it somewhat vague like let's say a family member would have shit on my idea or say like, "No Like that. We're not gonna do that."

Neil Sattin: And so for me, I had to develop a pretty strong defense to that kind of what I perceived as negative energy, or a negative attack, and so my choice was never to meet that with compassion. I didn't... No one instructed me on how to do that as a kid, so I was just like kind of shoring myself up and figuring like, "Okay, how do I turn a negative into a positive, how do I... " It's like I had Martin Seligman in my back pocket like...

Keith Witt: There you go.

Neil Sattin: And which was good for me, in some level, but in this situation with Chloe, there was no like saying, "Hey, let's turn those lemons into lemonade." Like that wasn't what she needed in that moment. And as soon as I realized that and I shared that with her, "Oh wow, I'm realizing that you need compassion, and I can't do it and it's because I just have this defense against being... Like I've never learned how to be compassionate, what I've learned how to do is to try to look on the bright side or try to make things not as bad. And for us, it was this huge moment of understanding that just softened everything and next thing you knew, we were singing to each other and making peace with each other instead of making war.

Keith Witt: Well, I just love that story. You know what? When a couple comes in with the story like that, there's part of me that goes, "Mm-hmm. My work here is done." [laughter] You notice what you did, you went into vulnerability as power which you can do with her because she is a sophisticated enough partner to see that and to be moved by it and then you went into the real issue. The real issue is us, our container. And to go there, I have to go essentially into my trauma history to find out why I had this reaction, that's more rigid than I'm used to. It's more amplified than I'm used to. And yes, that it always comes from previous learning, often it comes from a family of origin. And when you understand that the problem right now was a solution, it's often a brilliant solution 40 years ago, but now it's not adequate because I'm in a relationship where I can actually go into deeper love from this place, which was not available then, I'd rather go into deeper love.

Keith Witt: And that's what you guys did and you were focusing on the real issue, which is we need to... There is a rupture in our container, in our intersubjective container, we need to heal that. And we know that we've healed it when we feel that sense of loving connection. When you're repairing, yes, you wanna validate the other person and, yes, the other person wants to feel understood. And you wanna feel understood. And you wanna take a little bit of action to solve the problem. Those are all important parts of repair. Yeah, you wanna accept that that's not gonna solve the whole problem but it will solve a piece of it but at the very end of it, there needs to be loving connection. If you don't have that loving connection, you haven't repaired it yet. And you only know that when you both feel it at the same time and everybody who has done that, which is almost all of us, knows what that feels like. And that needs to be the standard. That is always the standard to get back to love.

Neil Sattin: Yeah, yeah. There's this little song. I don't know who the source of it is but Chloe learned it recently and it's become our latest practice at the end of conflict. Not that conflict's happening all the time, but just as a reminder and a recognition of having gotten back to love. And can I sing it? Can I share?

Keith Witt: Oh please, I was gonna ask you to sing it. Sing it.

Neil Sattin: So it goes like this. "I behold you beautiful one. I behold you child of the Earth and sun. Let my love wash over you. Let my love watch over you." That's it.

Keith Witt: That's beautiful.

Neil Sattin: Yeah. So for us that... And actually I find myself when I'm still stewing I can sing that to her in my mind. And that also helps like, "Okay, I'm coming back now." I can remember that the whole reason we're here is because we love each other and because our love is ever deepening and we've had that experience. So that also helps me come back to the table and get back to love with her.

Keith Witt: When you sing that song inside you, when you're with her, you're doing loving-kindness meditation.

Neil Sattin: Yes.

Keith Witt: That's another form of loving-kindness meditation.

Neil Sattin: Yes, exactly. So, Keith, let's shift gears just a little bit because I wanna give you a chance to paint the picture. You created a beautiful scaffolding around which Loving Completely is built and you call it The Five Star Practice. And there are these five questions that people can ask themselves about themselves and about their partner to help direct their attention to the elements that create an amazing thriving relationship. And you talk about how it came up in a conversation with your kids around like what to look for in a good partner and how that has become this lens through which you can... These questions have become a lens through which you can look at any relationship and see what's going well, what's not, where you might need to adjust your habits. And so could we go through those five star questions?

Keith Witt: Sure.

Neil Sattin: So people get a sense of what we're talking about.

Keith Witt: Yes. The genesis of this was in a conversation with my two teenage kids in the kitchen, of them asking, How do I choose somebody? And anybody who's done therapy realizes that at certain points in your life you open up and something comes through, you become a channel. And so those five questions came out. And as a scientist, I'm always a little uncomfortable with stuff like that because, yes, we can see it as an unconscious download, but it always feels like you're connected to something larger. And the interesting thing about that is that they really haven't changed that much over the years. It's been 15 years or so. And they've been cross-validated again, and again, and again, and again with neuroscience and social science and so on. And so I'll tell you the five questions but I'll tell you the reason for the questions and I'll tell you the foundation of the questions.

Keith Witt: The foundation is compassionate self and other observation. Loving-kindness meditation does that, attunement, paying attention with acceptance and caring intent to what you're sensing, feeling, thinking, judging, and wanting. Paying attention with acceptance and caring intent, what your partner might be sensing, feeling, thinking, judging, and wanting. That's the foundation, compassionate self and other observation. Now, if you can establish that, and however way you do it, if you ask yourself these questions, you're basically, when you ask yourself a question, you're opening up to your unconscious.

Keith Witt: So the questions are first, is there erotic polarity between me and this other person? Is there a spark between their feminine and my masculine? Because when we are looking for a partner, or when we were maintaining a relationship, part of that is the love affair. That love affair is a big deal, and that love affair is based on a spark between two poles, between the masculine in one person and the feminine in the other. Now we have energetic polarities between ourselves and everything and everybody. You have an energetic polarity when you look at a sunset, or when you're telling your daughter good night, I love you. But you have a certain kind of erotic polarity, has a sexual feel, between you as a masculine or feminine person and another person as a masculine and feminine person, and we're adjusting those all the time.

Keith Witt: And so that's one question, Is there a spark of erotic polarity between me and this other person? The second question is, Does this person maintain their physical and psychological health? Doesn't mean they have to be super healthy, it just means they're responsible for their physical and psychological health, and if there's a problem they'll take care of it. Third question is, If I'm in a relationship with this person or if I am and there's conflict, would they be able and willing to do what it takes to get back to love? We've been talking about repair, you and I, and that's a central skill in intimate relationships. A fourth question is, Would this person show up appropriately for a child or a family member? Appropriately is not co-dependently, appropriately is there's a lot of things that are appropriate, but will they show up in a healthy fashion for a child or a family member? And the fifth one is, Does this person have something larger than themselves, something sacred that they're committed to? And do they feel a sense of respect, even admiration, or would they feel that for what's sacred to me?

Keith Witt: So those are a lot of questions but if you pay attention to those five dimensions about other people, after a while they become like new sense organs and you just notice these things. You'll pull up to somebody... You're sitting down next to somebody in a restaurant, you look over and you go, "I bet that person would be a good parent." Or you see somebody, you go, "Hmm, I feel a spark of erotic polarity with this person." Or you look at that person, you go, "I don't think that person maintains their physical health very well." Or they do. They become things that you notice like people's clothes and eye color. And if you notice them about other people, it makes it easier to notice them about yourself. And these are not absolute questions. In relationships, we go moment to moment to moment to moment. And so they're dimensions that keep shifting. I can be engaged in a healthy behavior in one moment, and then all of a sudden I'm reaching for the doughnut and I'm engaging in an unhealthy behavior. And now what am I gonna do about that?

Keith Witt: Am I gonna adjust towards health or am I going to eat the doughnut then eat another doughnut? If I do that as a habit, then I'm not maintaining my physical health, for instance. And in relationships, we're always kind of adjusting... When I was talking earlier about being in growth power hierarchies, and then adjusting from dominator hierarchies to growth hierarchies, that's attending on a moment to moment, and these five dimensions are ways of adjusting. Am I showing up appropriately for my son? Am I expressing admiration and respect for what my wife finds deeply meaningful? And if I'm evaluating a partner, does this person do these things? And if the answer to even one of these is no, then there's gonna be problems. That doesn't mean you don't get in a relationship, but what it does mean is you have a conversation about it.

Keith Witt: And if you can ask yourself these questions about yourself and other people, what that does is it opens you up to have these be continua that you can discuss, they make them talkaboutable in relationship. And one of the big problems that couples have is they have one set of agreements on top that they usually hear in their marriage vows, and a whole different set of agreements below the surface that never get discussed until a problem comes up. You know, a great one is, I promise to be faithful for you. That's a public agreement. And then, the private one, unless I have an opportunity to have great sex with somebody else and I have this conviction that you'll never find out about it.

Neil Sattin: [chuckle] Right.

Keith Witt: Yeah. Well. If that agreement, if that private agreement is examined by me and discussed with you, I'm less vulnerable to have that happen. Number one predictor of affairs is opportunity and people have an opportunity and they're not prepared because these things have not been talkaboutable with another person. That's one of the reasons I have two or three chapters on affairs and what to do about affairs in Loving Completely. Even if you never had an affair or if your partner has never had an affair, it's useful to understand the dynamics of affairs because those dynamics affect everybody, and if we're aware of those dynamics, awareness regulates. And so being more woken up and more aware helps prepare us. Now, this is my bias, my bias is I like to understand everything, that's why I like Integral Studies. Integral Theory is a meta-theory that has a lot of theories inside it.

Keith Witt: And other people don't particularly like to grow in that fashion. But if there's one approach that speaks to you around any of these, okay, you can just dive into that approach. But you don't dive into the approach unless you realize it's something that needs attention. And asking yourself these questions about yourself and your partner and having them be modes of discourse between you and your partner, if some problem does happen in intersubjectivity, if there is a problem in your friendship, your love affair, your ability to receive influence or support of each other's personal evolution and collective evolution, it's more likely to come out and now you have a language to discuss it and to resolve it, and you have a growth mindset to make it better. And you have an orientation, we wanna turn this into deeper love and compassionate understanding of each other. And that's what creates the great relationships.

Neil Sattin: Right. I love hearing someone saying, "Oh, I just started seeing this person and we decided to start going to therapy together so that we were getting support." Or, "I just got together... " Actually I just had this happen with someone who said, "I just started this relationship... " And they had actually purchased the course that Chloe and I put together called Thriving intimacy.

Keith Witt: Great.

Neil Sattin: For a previous relationship, and they said, "We're starting off doing the course together." And I love hearing that because not only are they skill building, but yeah, they're creating that common dialogue of common vocabulary, a way to talk about things. And I think one of the biggest challenges is especially around those things that are scary like someone for instance saying, "I don't know if I have what it takes to be faithful." Wow, what a scary conversation to have with your partner. So any framework that you have that gives you the ability to talk about that and to keep each other safe in that conversation is so powerful and important for helping you strengthen rather than repeatingly shying away from those kinds of topics.

Keith Witt: Yes. And it's hard to talk about difficult things. You get easily threatened. And those defensive states show up. And if you're not aware, if you can't see those defensive states, then you tend to have those downward spirals that you talked about. But if you're aware of them, and you adjust back into those dialectics, those states of healthy response in the ways we've been discussing, then you can sustain the conversations. People, if they have a bad time, will tend to avoid the conversation. There's one study that showed if a guy initiated sex with his partner and she said no once, there was a certain number of guys that never initiated again. That one negative experience was enough to close down that conversation.

Neil Sattin: Wow.

Keith Witt: That's really a bad thing in intimacy. You want your intimacy to be marked by more and more things being talkaboutable, not less and less, not fewer and fewer things.

Neil Sattin: Yeah, I love that. Talkaboutable. I think I'm gonna start using that. That...

Keith Witt: There you go.

Neil Sattin: Phrase. Yeah, it's a good one.

Keith Witt: My gift to you.

Neil Sattin: Thank you, thank you. One last thing, and we could talk about this forever. Obviously, I think every time you've been on the show we've spoken for quite a while and there's so much to digest here, and I do encourage you to, if you haven't heard the first two episodes that Keith and I did together, definitely go check them out. Episode 13, Episode 80. And there's so much in your book. I'm really excited for it to be out because it encapsulates so much. And as you mentioned, there are a couple of chapters on affairs. As I read through it, I was like holy mackerel. There's a couple of chapters on just about everything. Which isn't to say that it's this long slog of a read, you're actually a very entertaining and engaging writer, which I really appreciate.

Keith Witt: Thank you.

Neil Sattin: But there's a lot here for you to get that different growth oriented integrally informed perspective on all these different facets of relationship. What I'm curious about, from your perspective, Keith, is this is something that we've been touching on. And we touched on it in the dimension of... And I even had my own confession here. Yeah, I know I'm supposed to get compassionate right now, but I can't fucking do it. [chuckle] There's so much that we are learning about how to have better relationships and yet it requires us to change what we habitually do. It requires us to not just hear it and be like, "Yeah, that's awesome." And maybe to not even just tell our partner about it, but it requires us to actually shift the way that we behave and to follow through on that over and over again, especially because sometimes the initial shift doesn't yield the results that we are hoping for.

Neil Sattin: So it's like, you gotta stick with it. You talk in the book about mastery, and that initial like you learn a lot and then you have this plateau and it takes a lot of effort to get through that plateau to the place where you have another growth spike. So I'm curious, if I'm listening to the show and saying, "Alright, this stuff sounds great, it sounds really great. In fact, it's amazing." What do I do to remember it tomorrow so that I actually can put this thing into practice tomorrow?

Keith Witt: First of all, do the loving-kindness meditation a lot. The more irritated I am with somebody, the more of a positive impact on me the loving-kindness meditation has. And so that's kind of the first place I go when I get pissed off at somebody and I gotta tell you, I've been doing it quite a lot the last year and a half in that state. And the other thing is to ask those five questions, ask them all the time, not just with your partner but with everybody. Ask... Notice them in yourself. Am I... How am I doing with these five questions? And just to get information. Just to have... Do it from a perspective of compassionate understanding. I wanna understand, and by asking those questions your unconscious will give you answers. And as that happens, you're strengthening that perception, that perceptual capacity to notice these things and to be interested in these things and to be able to discuss these things.

Keith Witt: Now, why is this super important? None of us exist independent of everybody else. So we have our history and we have all the cultures that we were in, embedded in our personalities and in our relationships. An American culture has, over the last hundred years, has gradually been waking up. Psychotherapy and psychology has influenced it to some extent. And in the 21st century, more and more psychotherapists are recognizing that psychotherapy is not primarily about identifying psychopathology and treating it like an infection. Psychotherapy is about supporting people's development, relationally, individually, it's about supporting people's personal evolution, supporting people being healthy and happy, and having coherent lives and growing.

Keith Witt: And then along the way, there's blocks and problems that are natural functions of being human beings. And that those are difficult. The human nervous system, once it establishes a defensive pattern, doesn't want to give it up. That pattern has to be included and transcended in a more complex pattern and that requires conscious effort on our part. And ideally, these things would be taught from birth onward, but they're not. So what we do is we start whenever we start and learn things and do our best to implement them. And receiving influence from carrying other people is a super power as I said in the beginning. And particularly from our partner. Now hostile influence is not caring influence. If somebody wants to dominate me, and I'm influenced to submit, that doesn't do us any good relationally, okay?

Keith Witt: But someone influencing me when I'm being pissed off, inviting me into a growth hierarchy with them, inviting me into mutual understanding, and if I can receive that influence and do it, then we've taken our relationship at that moment to a greater level of complexity. Like you and Chloe did in the example that you gave. Okay, we wanna do that, we wanna get better at that throughout our lifetime, and we want to teach our children how to do it. And with our partner, we wanna help our partner do it and generally insist on partners who are willing to grow with us. They don't have to be as deep as we are in any developmental line, but if they're willing to grow in any of the significant lines of development, the psychosocial, the sexual, the moral line, and so on, we can continue to get more loving and more complex and human development goes in the direction of more compassion, more deeper understanding, deeper consciousness.

Keith Witt: And with couples, it goes to having a more and more special intersubjectivity. And that intersubjectivity is beautiful and powerful and really the most powerful and delicate relationship that's ever existed is a modern marriage where people can maintain this container, this friendship and love affair and repair of injuries and support each other's evolution. It's the developmental driver. As you begin to do that with someone, you value it, you get a little bit protective of it. It's easier to not let outside influences screw it up and it's easier to adjust when you have primitive incursions from your trauma history or from your early learning.

Neil Sattin: I have a question. How do you... Can you give me an example of this is the moment to exercise my power to receive caring influence? And I know I sort of offered one with Chloe, but I'm curious how would that... When does that typically arise for a couple so that they're like, "Oh this is the perfect time. Caring influence is available for me. Let me receive." How would I identify that.

Keith Witt: Great example. You're having a conversation with your partner. I've had this happen with Becky many times. She'll say something. I don't know. She'll make a comment about taking care of somebody. She errs on the side of co-dependence occasionally. And I'll go, "Cheese." Just like that. Really? You're gonna take care of that person? Now you can hear the contempt in my voice, right? Now at that point, if I'm looking at her, I see a wave of pain go across her face. And she'll... These days, she'll say, "Geez, that was kind of a nasty tone." Now, 40 years ago, I would have said, "Well, yeah, yeah, well, you're thinking of doing a really stupid thing. That's why I used a nasty tone." Okay, well, I learned from bitter experience that that really wasn't a very good response to that. That was a stupid response 'cause it just made things worse.

Keith Witt: So what I'll do is go, "Yeah, she's right." And I'll go, "I'm sorry. I know if I think it's a bad idea I use the dismissive tone, and I apologize. I am worried that you're gonna do something that will hurt you, that might not be appropriate to do, and so I got contemptuous, I apologize." I received influence. I changed what I thought and how I did.

Neil Sattin: Got it.

Keith Witt: Now she, on the other hand, was not caught up in the fact that I used a contemptuous tone 30 seconds earlier. She could have been. She could have said, "Well, you said that. And used that nasty tone. Screw you." "Well, I'm sorry I used a nasty tone." "It's too late." People will say that, it's too late. Well, it needs to not be too late. If your partner is doing their best to shift. And so all Becky will do is go, "Thanks, I appreciate it, and I'll do my best to not be codependent with this person." She'll receive influence from me then. Okay? It's is as simple as that. If you just do it on the level of tones. Is my tone communicating respect and care? If it's not, I'm sorry. By definition, I'm sorry. It's not like, "Oh yeah, I'm sorry, unless you deserve it."

Keith Witt: No, nobody deserves a contemptuous tone. I'm a martial artist. I studied karate and lots of other martial arts for decades. You know, the only time that you do violence to another person is in a street fight, and then you do it respectfully. The other person really could care less whether you're being respectful when you're breaking their arm, but you know that you're doing it respectfully. Every other situation, setting boundaries, we talked about earlier, telling somebody you need to stop doing that 'cause that's hurting. All of that can be done respectfully. That's the standard. And once we embrace that standard, which is basically a nonviolent standard, it's not a passive standard, it's a nonviolent standard. It organizes us whenever we have a little bit of violence of tone or deed or thought or so on, to say, "Yeah, that was violent, I apologize." And that... Noticing that in itself, and then making that adjustment changes everything.

Neil Sattin: Yeah, yeah, and following on the question before I'm listening and I'm saying, "Okay, I want, I need to remember to do that tomorrow, I need to remember to do that tomorrow." Like on this core level of recognizing, okay, I have a habit of not doing that and I realize we probably don't have time right now to go into a whole conversation about how to change habits, but what would be the first step that someone could take to ensure that, okay, I'm not gonna just do tomorrow what I habitually do. I'm gonna maintain my awareness of some other options that exist for me.

Keith Witt: Almost any contemplative practice helps. There's a real interesting study that was done on psychotherapists. Psychotherapists who did contemplative practice, which is any kind of meditation that focused on compassionate inner awareness, they had higher empathy scores. But when they stopped doing their practice, their empathy scores went down.

Neil Sattin: Wow.

Keith Witt: So having some mindful practice, and those five questions if you're asking them about yourself is a mindful practice. Paying attention with acceptance and caring intent, what you're feeling, thinking, judging, wanting, sensing, is a mindfulness practice. Doing that mindfulness practice and being able to recognize when you shift into violence, when you shift into diminishing another person. Or when you're feeling that sense of attunement where the sky is the limit. You and I are going back and forth in that intersubjectivity that we all love so much, that seekers love so much with other seekers, where we're looking for deeper truth together and both of us are kind of alert to what's gonna emerge between us. There's a palpable difference between those two moods of discourse. Once that becomes visible to you, it becomes way easier to regulate it. And what is visible to you as a couple? Now you've changed. That's a developmental milestone when that's visible for a couple.

Keith Witt: And they both feel a sense of responsibility to maintain the positive intersubjectivity, and to make adjustments with the negative intersubjectivity. So there's the answer, attunement, contemplative practice, and noticing the difference between those two states. And recognizing it's my responsibility to adjust from the negative state to the positive state. Just like you did with Chloe. I have a problem. What's my responsibility? My responsibility with her now is to lead with my vulnerability. I really don't know what to do. You're upset. I'm kind of conflicted. I don't know what to do. That vulnerable response was the most powerful response you could give in that moment. It invited her to understand and to offer her own vulnerability and out of that you guys came to a greater level of complexity with each other.

Neil Sattin: Perfect, yeah. Well, Keith, thank you so much as always for being here with us to chat about relationships and your experience combined with all the research you've done. I really enjoy our ability to enter that highly attuned intersubjective space together and hopefully it's enjoyable for you listening as well 'cause you can tell. I think we both get kind of excited about it.

Keith Witt: Yeah. It's really fun. It's really fun talking with you, Neil.

Neil Sattin: Awesome.

Keith Witt: Just gotta say, this is really... This is really a good time.

[chuckle]

Neil Sattin: Good, awesome. Well, then, we know we'll have another opportunity for sure, in the future. In the meantime, if you are interested in finding out more about Keith's work, do check out his new book, Coming Out, Loving Completely. He has many other books that are all great that I recommend for sure. Keith, what's your website? What's the best way for people to find out more about what's happening with you?

Keith Witt: Just go on my website, drkeithwitt.com. There's lots of free lectures and lots of blogs. If you sign up, which is free, you get a free copy of my book, Attuned Family, and I'll send you free content from some of the classes that I teach, or the lectures that I've done. And there's also lectures for sale and classes for sale on my website. So, yeah, go to my website, check it out.

Neil Sattin: Awesome. And...

Keith Witt: Take something for you.

Neil Sattin: And we will have, as I mentioned at the beginning, a detailed transcript available for you if you visit neilsattin.com/completely, as in Loving Completely or text the word PASSION to the number 33444 and follow the instructions. Keith Witt, such a pleasure to have you back here and thanks so much for all of your wisdom and knowledge today.

Keith Witt: Thank you for having me.

Do you ever feel like you'll never quite reach your ideal in your relationship? And does it bring you down? How do you take stock of how things are going in a way that helps you not only improve things, but also identify what your strengths are - what needs celebrating? On today's episode, you'll learn a simple process for assessing things in your relationship - and how to celebrate the things that are celebration-worthy. And you'll uncover a way to hold your ideal vision without it becoming something that teases you by being continually out of reach. How do you hold your ideal, while celebrating along the way? That's what's up in this week's episode of Relationship Alive - which also happens to mark the 3 YEAR ANNIVERSARY of the podcast.

As always, I’m looking forward to your thoughts on this episode and what revelations and questions it creates for you. Please join us in the Relationship Alive Community on Facebook to chat about it!

Resources 

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Do you suspect that you someone you love might be a narcissist? Or have you been told that you might be a narcissist? What can you do to bring a narcissist (or your own narcissistic tendencies) back into balance? What is the difference between healthy self-esteem and narcissism? Today we’re talking to Dr. Craig Malkin, author of Rethinking Narcissism: The Secret to Recognizing and Coping with Narcissists, and one of the world’s leading experts on how to heal when narcissism impacts you. Our conversation will teach you how to recognize true narcissism and what do do about it. You’ll also learn why a certain amount of narcissism is good for you and your relationship. And if you’re on the opposite end of the scale, an “echoist” in relationship with a narcissist, you’ll discover how to safely reclaim your own voice, without necessarily blowing up your connection.

As always, I’m looking forward to your thoughts on this episode and what revelations and questions it creates for you. Please join us in the Relationship Alive Community on Facebook to chat about it!

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First are the folks at TakeCareOf.com. Through a unique online quiz, they help you figure out exactly what vitamins and herbal supplements you need to achieve your optimal health. They use high-quality ingredients, and can save you as much as 20% over comparable store-bought brands. On top of all that, they are offering you 25% OFF your first month if you visit takecareof.com and use the coupon code “ALIVE” at checkout.

Resources:

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FREE Relationship Communication Secrets Guide - perfect help for handling conflict…

Guide to Understanding Your Needs (and Your Partner's Needs) in Relationship (ALSO FREE)

www.neilsattin.com/narcissism Visit to download the transcript, or text “PASSION” to 33444 and follow the instructions to download the transcript to this episode with Craig Malkin.

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Transcript:

Neil Sattin: Hello and welcome to another episode of Relationship Alive. This is your host Neil Sattin. This has come up a lot lately where you hear people talking about one of the most pernicious epidemics to affect society and relationships - it's the epidemic of narcissism and the reason why I call it an epidemic is not because I came up with that, it's because it's been labeled an epidemic with a lot of fear attached to it that perhaps the way that our society is, the way we've been raising children, the way that we are on social media, that that has fostered a whole generation of narcissists and perhaps because we've become more actively seeking help when we're in trouble, then it's easier to see what's going on around us and see perhaps if those people around us are affected by narcissism because it has a profound impact on us.

Neil Sattin: That being said, the way that we've looked at it has been pretty black and white. In that black and white view of what narcissism is, there hasn't been a lot of room to actually know what kind of things you can change, what's actually healthy and what isn't.

Neil Sattin: If narcissism is this inflated sense of self, do you want to not have a sense of self? How does that even work? Are there places where narcissism is actually good for you or for your relationship or for the world? These are the kinds of questions that we are going to be addressing today with our esteemed guest, Dr. Craig Malkin.

Neil Sattin: He's the author of the internationally acclaimed book, Rethinking Narcissism: The Secret to Recognizing and Coping with Narcissists. Dr. Malkin is a clinical psychologist and he's a lecturer at Harvard Medical School. He's been featured on NPR and Fox. He's covering the whole spectrum there.

Neil Sattin: You might also get a sense that this is a particularly relevant conversation for today's world. I'm super excited to have Craig Malkin here with us today. I just want to let you know that as always, we will have a detailed transcript available for today's episode which you can get if you visit neilsattin.com/narcissism and if you don't know how to spell that, feel free to Google it.

Neil Sattin: No one is going to make you feel bad about that. Neilsattin.com/narcissism or you can always text the word passion to the number 33444 and follow the instructions. I think that's all the details, let's get on with the conversation. Craig Malkin, I'm so excited to have you with us here today on Relationship Alive.

Craig Malkin: Oh, thanks so much for having me Neil.

Neil Sattin: I was feeling this hint of irony as I was ... Because every episode I start with, I tell people, "If you want to just text the word passion to the number 33444, you can get a transcript." As I was saying the word passion, I was reminded of how in your book you talk about the link between narcissism and passion and how much perhaps we owe to degrees of narcissism in our world.

Neil Sattin: Obviously, it's expressed really malevolently at times and other times, it's so beneficial to our world. What do you ... This is maybe a really tough place to start, but I'm curious for your take on that. What's required and why is there this link between narcissism and passion?

Neil Sattin: After all, that's often what draws us into relationships with narcissists is that heightened feeling of passion and intensity that we experience with them.

Craig Malkin: It is a tough place to start, but it's an important place to start. Really what you're asking about is what we have come to call a healthy narcissism. We'll get into more detail about this, but briefly, 50 or 60 years of research demonstrates that the average happy, healthy person around the world, this is cross-cultural research mind you including China, the average happy healthy person doesn't view themselves as average. They view themselves as exceptional or unique to some extent.

Neil Sattin: Yeah.

Craig Malkin: Yeah, they see themselves through slightly rose-colored glasses. This is what we think of as healthy narcissism. In the research I did with my colleagues, the research that others have done because at this point there are four measures that tap into healthy narcissism.

Craig Malkin: Also called moderate self-enhancement. I want to make a point here, this is not self-esteem. Narcissism and self-esteem are not the equivalent. Even healthy narcissism and self-esteem are not equivalent because healthy narcissism is tilted slightly towards the positive.

Craig Malkin: What turns out in this research is that people see themselves through these slightly rose-colored glasses, feel happier, they're able to persist in the face of failure, they're able to maintain big dreams. There's that sense of passion where that comes in and they may even live longer because there's some tie in between moderate or healthy self-enhancement and health measures.

Craig Malkin: What we're finding is it's just that ability to maintain a little bit again those slightly rose-colored glasses just enough to be happy, healthy, maintain some intense engagement in your ambitions or your visions for yourself and others that can provide a fuel.

Craig Malkin: If we get too focused on other people to the exclusion of ourselves, then we lose some of that passion. That is to some extent that passion and engagement comes from being able to let other's needs and feelings fade from huge or small enough to keep you going, but not so long that you become deeply self-involved. That's a good way to think about healthy narcissism or moderate self-enhancement.

Neil Sattin: Right. You can be present and you can even be internal, but you don't lose connection.

Craig Malkin: Precisely. Another way to think about this is secure attachment that is our ability to feel like when we're sad, scared, lonely, blue, we can safely turn to others, one special person or even people like a group and depend on them for mutual caring and comfort and support that we're safe to some extent in their hands.

Craig Malkin: Secure attachment in the research is tied very closely to this healthy narcissism. What's fascinating is people who are securely attached don't become so driven by that drive to feel special that they lose sight of other people's needs and feelings or even behave in a hurtful fashion.

Craig Malkin: It's like secure attachment both brings out those rose-colored glasses for ourselves and others. I go into great deal in rethinking narcissism is about this. It both brings out those rose-colored glasses and it also keeps us tethered so that we don't tip into dangerous territory where we are so addicted to that experience of feeling special that we go out of our way to get it including hurting other people.

Neil Sattin: Yeah. I loved how ... It was interesting that you mentioned in your book that there was this study done that one of the most ... One of the strongest indicators for longevity and happiness in a relationship was a couple's ability to see each other as better than they actually are. There's this healthy relational narcissism as well.

Craig Malkin: Right. Those rose-colored glasses that people lined up developing. Again, closely related to our ability to safely depend on others to securely love. They extent to our partners. There is this large scale study of 40,000 people you're referring to what's sometimes called the pickle study I think because of the variables that were identified to be strongly related.

Craig Malkin: One of them was PI, positive illusions, that was the strongest. Way more than self-esteem or what you might think of it was a winning personality. It was one or both partners seeing their partner as better than they were by objective measures. That sounds odd, but there's lots of objective measures like intelligence.

Craig Malkin: There was a recent replication of this study where happy healthy people viewed themselves as ... I think it was a funny number, 80% of people in this large scale study over 2,000 believe themselves to have above average intelligence which of course statistically is impossible.

Craig Malkin: What we're talking about is just again, slightly tilted towards a positive and it turns out that's helpful. It's like the roots, there's a place for it in healthy relationships. I make a distinction between extreme or addictive or pathological narcissism and the playing with positive illusions is that really what we're talking about is being special to a partner as opposed to special for the world or for others which is performative. We feel like the gleam in their eye, they feel like the gleam in ours. That's a very loving, secure relationship.

Neil Sattin:  It reminds me of a time when a friend of mine who had just gotten out of a challenging relationship. It happened upon a book about narcissism and in reading this book, she had this huge revelation that, "Oh my goodness, so many of my problems in this relationship were that I was with a narcissist."

Neil Sattin: While it was great that that gave her some relief to know that, what I noticed was that I started noticing lots of people labeling others as narcissists. For me, that's caused me to wonder, "Are there really that many narcissists out there? Are they all as bad as all that? Or is there this spectrum of what people actually ... What we can expect people to act like and behave like."

Neil Sattin: Some of those things being really problematic and other things being something that you could actually work with. That's why your book on rethinking narcissism was such a relief for me because it really addresses that head on. I'm wondering if you could talk for a moment about what is this spectrum of narcissism and where can people land on it and where is it workable and where is it not?

Craig Malkin: Absolutely. Happy to talk about the spectrum. The first thing I should say though is the way I described the spectrum is not the way it has often been described in the past although a lot of people are adopting my version of it because it's more inclusive, it helps explain all types of narcissism and it explains some other problems that we can get into.

Craig Malkin: The way it's usually viewed as is think of narcissism as this pernicious, obnoxious, arrogant, self-involved personality trait and you start with a little bit of it that's pretty bad and then you go all the way up to the extreme where it's disordered and there's many, many problems.

Craig Malkin: It starts out as bad and there's more bad, but as we already covered, the problem with that view is for a long time really since the inception of the concept of narcissism, we have this idea of healthy narcissism, there's plenty of evidence for it.

Craig Malkin: Again, think of it as having slightly rose-colored glasses for yourself, at least feeling exceptionally unique compared to seven billion people on the planet even if privately. The problem is that there's all ... That's only associated with positive measures of self-esteem, of capacity for relationships and our study for empathy.

Craig Malkin: If you look at people who have zero narcissism and I'll introduce my term for that in a moment, that's a problem as well. It's really where people lack any healthy narcissism or healthy self-enhancement or they self-enhanced too much where it become disordered.

Craig Malkin: We want to think of imagine a spectrum at zero. If there are problems at zero, imagine a spectrum at 10. There are problems at 10, this is where people are so ... If you think of narcissism as this pervasive universal tendency, the drive to feel special, these people at 10 or so addicted to it, they turn away from love, relationships, truth.

Craig Malkin: Again, lie, steal, cheat, do whatever it takes to get their high. They soothe themselves by feeling special. Then in the center is where we find the moderate self enhancement or what I've called healthy narcissism. As soon as you start viewing the spectrum that way, a lot of things become clear including the fact that we also know people can be extremely high in trait narcissism without being disordered.

Craig Malkin: Think of some narcissists as someone who's dependent on her addicted to feeling special if they become so addicted that they have diagnosable problems, that's when they have narcissistic personality disorder, but not all narcissists are diagnosable with a disorder of some kind.

Craig Malkin: I think I want to address your question in pieces, that's really the first piece, helping people understand that there's a spectrum and that we can lie along any point within that spectrum and if people are interested or who are listening in where they fall, actually my colleagues and I developed a measure for the narcissism spectrum scale.

Craig Malkin: I have a brief version of it on my website that you can access just by going to the thenarcissismtest.com or drcraigmalkin.com and click on the test tab. If you have trouble spelling narcissism, in fairness I often did early on, but now I've spelled it so much that it's second nature, but you can also get to it through my website.

Craig Malkin: You can take it and I'll give you feedback and test results. You can see where you fall in the narcissism spectrum as I've described it.

Neil Sattin: I took the test and fortunately, it was such a relief to me to find out that I'm not way up at the top of the spectrum though I had a feeling I probably wouldn't be, but you take those tests and you're like, "I really hope that this doesn't reveal something that everyone else around me has known for quite some time and I'm going to discover right now."

Neil Sattin: I was slightly above the average number though because you have the test in the book so that was the diversion of the test that I took. It was interesting for me to see that and to see fortunately I think, I was pretty good in the healthy narcissism category.

Neil Sattin: It made sense to me of my experience and then even when I thought about, "Okay, I was a little above average in the ... I guess it's the extreme narcissism category, that actually helped me make sense too of some moments especially when you quantify it as this is an addiction to feeling special." When I think about certain times in my life, when let's say that was compromised, my feeling special are important.

Neil Sattin: Now that makes a lot more sense from the perspective of, "Oh, there I am. A couple points above average in the narcissism test that you offered."

Craig Malkin: But not above the cut-offs in the book you're saying or it gives you the cut-offs for a score where this relates to where you want to keep an eye on how to keep yourself in a healthy range? Are you saying that ...

Neil Sattin: No. For example, you said if you scored 27 or below, stay where you are on your spectrum estimate. Then you said if you scored 35 to 41, move yourself up a notch. I actually scored a 29. I was in the gray zone between the 27 or below and then the next one that you described the 35 to 41.

Craig Malkin: I see. Okay. Yeah, that's more or less the same of course because all of those, the ranges I described, this will help anybody who reads my book too, you really want to look at those specific cut-offs because that difference of a couple of points isn't really, it's not statistically significant if I'm understanding what you're saying.

Neil Sattin: Got it. Yeah.

Craig Malkin: I would have to ... It's been a while since I looked at the cut-offs myself, but as long as you are below that next cut-off, you're just in that first range even if it's a couple of points above.

Neil Sattin: Oh phew.

Craig Malkin: Okay.

Neil Sattin: I recommend that you take a test. Do you think someone could actually accurately fill it out for another person if they were trying to figure out what was going on with someone else in their life or is that really not an accurate thing to do?

Craig Malkin: I think you can fill it out. A lot of times, these self-report measures are used that way where a partner fills it out. It changes the nature of the test. I will say that we have not tested the narcissism spectrum scale by asking partners to fill it out, but here's what you should know about the answer to that question is it turns out that we're actually really good at picking up.

Craig Malkin: At least when it comes to a very specific type of narcissism. We haven't talked about the types yet. Along that spectrum, there were going to be lots of different ways to feel special and that's what explains the different types. When it comes to more outgoing, charismatic, manipulative, arrogant, chest-thumping narcissists.

Craig Malkin: As I say, the narcissist ... I often say the narcissists we all know and loathe. Everybody recognizes that type and it turns out in the research that if we see somebody like that on social media or we have interactions with them in person or we just observe in any other context that when we rate them on narcissism, our ratings are pretty accurate compared to when that person fills out self-report or is assessed clinically where it turns out we're pretty good at spotting that more outgoing kind of narcissism.

Craig Malkin: When it comes to filling out the test for somebody, if you're with a partner or a friend and you're wondering about them and the vain preening, primping, loud version of narcissists, you're filling out of that questionnaire is going to bring-

PART 1 OF 3 ENDS [00:25:04]

Craig Malkin: Filling out of that questionnaire is kind of gonna bring you pretty close to an accurate picture.

Neil Sattin: Yeah. Yeah and let's talk a little bit about some of the more subtle versions that someone might kind of experience but not entirely be aware that that's what's going on.

Craig Malkin: So important. Yeah, I often start conversations about narcissism and narcissist just as we did ... this is sort of the opening of Rethinking Narcissism, my book, I explain narcissism's not a diagnosis, we've talked about that. Neither is narcissist, the only diagnosis is Narcissistic Personality Disorder and when most of us think of narcissist or narcissism, we do tend to think of that vain, preening, primping, boastful, bragger. The problem is, it's really a caricature of a stereotype. The reality is that not all narcissists care about looks or fame or money and some can be extremely quiet.

Craig Malkin: So, if you get too focused on those features or those traits, you missed signs of difficulty or trouble that have nothing to do with vanity or greed. So, very simply, if you think of narcissism as a drive to feel special, narcissists as people who are addicted to or dependent on it and the level of disorder they're severely addicted. Many ways to feel exceptionally unique compared to the other seven billion people on the planet. So, we've talked about the obvious, it's often called or overt, I prefer Extroverted Narcissism as the term, I think it's more precise. And they tend to agree with statements like, "I find it easy to manipulate others and I think I'm pretty special." Things along those lines. And they answer them in the extreme.

Craig Malkin: So, these are people who might feel special because they accumulate lots of wealth or they accumulate fame. Again, they're really out there. But there's other kinds of ways of feeling special. Like you can feel like the most misunderstood person in the room. Introverted Narcissists don't particularly care about fame or money most of the time. They agree with statements like, "I feel I'm temperamentally different from most people. I have problems no one else seems to understand." Sometimes they think of themselves as an undiscovered genius. If people only knew me, they would see. And there's yet a third, I'm sure there's gonna be more as we continue to research called, Communal Narcissist. These are people who agree with statements like, "I'm the most helpful person I know and one day the world will know me for the good deeds I've done." So obviously, this is someone that doesn't care about vanity or greed. So, if you just think of it, this is really about becoming too reliant on feeling exceptionally unique compared to other people, you can now start to imagine it doesn't have to be for positive reasons.

Craig Malkin: I mean, you can meet someone who feels like they're the ugliest person in the room and they're deeply invested in that and that's their way of feeling exceptionally unique.

Neil Sattin: Yeah and this might be a good time to talk about something that's so important because lest we focus too much on the label or even why, like this desire to feel special, let's go maybe deeper to why would someone have this desire to feel special? Apart from the fact that we all have it and this is something that I've addressed on the show before but that's, I think, one of our universal needs. To feel loved, to feel special, to feel certainty, to feel ... it's just, it's in there, in the mix and yet, you talk about this and I think it's so important when we start the conversation about how you actually reach someone who might be up somewhere other than healthy on the narcissism spectrum, which is what's underlying that need to feel special and maybe that will help us find some compassion and connection for people who are struggling with this issue.

Craig Malkin: Absolutely, I mean, I work with people in my practice, I have both with couples and individually worked with people who are so extreme in the trait that they do have Narcissistic Personality Disorder and even that, there's sort of a range of where you can feel some hope. We have to enter the conversation, first of all, by recognizing that before we even think about, "Can I reach this person?" You have to think about safety. That is not if it were the case that everybody who was narcissistic was abusive and dangerous to be around, we would have that as part of the diagnosis. It's not part of the diagnosis.

Craig Malkin: The reason is that there are plenty of people who either are narcissistic or even have Narcissistic Personality Disorder who aren't abusive but I always like to refocus people's attention, if you're thinking about, "Can I reach this person?" You want to think about what I talk about is the three stop signs in rethinking narcissism first and that first is, abuse. Emotional and physical abuse. If you have a partner who calls you names, who puts you down, who relentlessly demeaning, dismissive, that's emotional abuse. If they are physically aggressive, it's not really crucial to figure out why they're abusive, people get distracted by that. People can become abusive because they have an addiction that's fueling it, they can be abusive because they have tension over some other problem like gambling and they can become abusive because they're extremely narcissistic. But if you see abuse, you want to address that. It's not on you as a partner to end abuse, it's on somebody who's being abusive. So if you see that, a reason I call it a stop sign is that until the abuse has ended, you can't be safe in the relationship trying to reach your partner in different ways or trying to make changes. This is such a part of my training as a therapist and a couples therapist that if we see, if we hear signs of abuse, I'll typically meet with a couple one on one so I can ask them about their safety in the relationship so, I can get a sense of just how safe they are. If you see signs of abuse, you really can't even work together as a couple until that's ended.

Neil Sattin: Yeah.

Craig Malkin: So you want to get help figuring out next steps. If you see denial, whether the problem is a partner who has a substance abuse problem, or gambling, or extreme narcissism, it can't change. It's not gonna change until that person is willing to at least say, "I think there's something wrong that I need to work on, I need to get some help." And the third stop sign is psychopathy, that's a pattern of remorseless lies and manipulation. Not all people who are extremely narcissistic are psychopathic but people who are psychopathic, actually, their neurology is different. They don't just have empathy blocks as we see, where that drive to feel special gets in the way of thinking about other people's needs and feelings when somebody is narcissistic. People who are psychopathic actually may not be able to experience empathy in the same way. So, if you see those three stop signs, you want to get help thinking about next steps. We were really talking about if you don't see those stop signs, if somebody's in the milder range where they might have Narcissistic Personality Disorder but none of those other signs, this is where you might be able to reach them.

Neil Sattin: Yeah okay, and what are some of those ... what are things that you might notice where you'd think, "Oh okay, this isn't the extremely vain chest thumping narcissist or preening narcissist but this is one of the more subtle kinds." What are some of the warning signs that you might notice where you'd be like, "Oh, this could be what's going on with this person?"

Craig Malkin: It's a great question because one of the reasons I wrote Rethinking Narcissism is to also direct people to more reliable signs of difficulty or even danger and when you think about extreme narcissism, even in the milder range say when it doesn't tip into disorder as an attempt to manage attachment insecurity. Once again, attachment insecurity is when you're feeling sad, scared, lonely, this is a person who for whatever reason has come to mistrust, not feel trust that they can turn to somebody for comfort or care in mutually supportive ways so, they see themselves of feeling special instead. As soon as somebody does that, I think of it as kind of doing an end run around healthy vulnerability.

Craig Malkin: They loathe to be vulnerable in any way because that means you have to be open to being in somebody else's hands. That's part of what attachment security is about. So there are predictable ways of doing that. One of the most common that I see is what I call, playing emotional hot potato. You want to think of this like playing hot potato only with feelings of insecurity. An example I often use is I had a woman I saw whose husband would stand over her shoulder while she was applying for jobs and say, "Are you sure you want to do that one? Maybe that one's out of your reach or they're out of your league." So, he wasn't really sure what he was doing in his life, he felt in a really unsure place himself but rather than turn to her with that and look for some kind of soothing instead, he made himself feel like he was in the know by casting doubt on her certainty about herself and what she was doing.

Craig Malkin: Think of that as I don't want to feel insecure, here you take those feelings so, the person says and does things to stir those up. That's a way of bypassing any of those feelings of vulnerability and doing it in a way that makes that in that case, the husband felt like, again, he was special, he had some special knowledge, he didn't even know about the job market she was looking at, that's how extreme it was. But you can see, that's not overt abuse but it does undermine somebody's confidence. So, that's one example that can come out very early on and it's not so severe that it's obvious like the other things people talk about.

Neil Sattin: Yeah, that reminds me of a couple of the other warning signs that you mention because they surprised me, honestly, I was like, "Oh yeah, I've experienced that and I see how it could be what you're talking about." And those two that I'm thinking about, they seem a little connected. One is placing other people on a pedestal and then there's that like twinning phenomenon like, "We're exactly like each other and isn't that amazing?"

Craig Malkin: Yeah, this is again, it cuts if you have to rely on feeling special, instead of depending on people for sense of feeling good about yourself or soothing, it means always bypassing those vulnerable experiences so, putting people on pedestals, again, I mention this study, it's worth going back to and rethinking narcissism, the study of 40,000 couples, where one or both partners viewed each other as better than they actually were, smarter, warmer, funnier and objective measures. It was just like, "No, you're about average or below." But the partner thought otherwise, that's putting people on a pedestal and it seems to be a part of normal love relationships and it actually keeps people together. But if it becomes so rigid that you feel like you're being cemented to a pedestal, like you can do no wrong, it's not okay for you to make mistakes, now that's a sign that this person is struggling with subtle or maybe even extreme narcissism because what they're doing is they're trying to avoid feeling vulnerable. If they've convinced themselves that you're so special like you're a God or an idol, you're perfect, perfect people don't disappoint.

Craig Malkin: You can never let them down and if somebody is so narcissistically driven that they're afraid to be vulnerable, then if there's no disappointment, then there's no vulnerability and they can feel safe from that experience, they never have to fear feeling that at all. The problem is, of course, that it's not a real relationship, disappointment is part of relationships, working that through is part of a secure, loving relationship and working it through in healthy ways and inevitably, we get knocked off the pedestal, often in anger. Because it's not a sudden realization, "Oh my gosh, not just that you're not perfect," but it's this sense of that the anger is partially, "and I don't want to be around you because I might be vulnerable."

Neil Sattin: Yeah.

Craig Malkin: So, that's the pushing off the pedestal. And then why people engage in the twin fantasy where if somebody's narcissistic that you're close to, they focus on everything that's the same between the two of you, "Oh, we love the same movies, we love the same books," some of that is fun, again, some of it has roots in something normal where it's a special relationship to be a twin, one mind in two bodies. But you can see, if it becomes insistent, then it's about, again, bypassing doing an end run around an experience where, "Oh my gosh, you mean you don't see things the same as me?" Because that can be kind of a letdown, you're not on the same page. And that requires being open to feeling vulnerable about the fact that, "Oh my God, you mean this person isn't always gonna agree with me?" And being able to work that out instead of feeling like you never have to fear that the two of you are ever gonna disagree on anything.

Neil Sattin: Right.

Craig Malkin: So you never have to face it.

Neil Sattin: Yeah what this reminds me of is, well, for one, I think you're right, that some of these things are part of healthy relating, particularly in the beginning stages when we've got that oxytocin and dopamine coursing through our veins with our new beloved and that to me, just suddenly I had this light bulb flash where I was like, "Oh, that's why people who have narcissistic qualities do get into relationships." I mean, it makes sense on the level of that's one great way to feel special but these two in particular, the pedestal and the twinning, that's something that actually does bring you together and being on the receiving end of that like knowing, "Wow, it feels great to be put on a pedestal for a little while," and it feels great to have someone being like, "Oh, we're so much alike," it kind of reinforces your own sense of specialness, right?

Neil Sattin: So to me, that explains why narcissists actually do end up in relationships. But then what we know about relationship development and we actually just had Ellyn Bader and Peter Pearson on the show talking about this is that you have to go through that place where you're no longer in symbiosis with your partner to get to the healthier horizon of having a good mix between being differentiated and being securely attached and so, that's where the problem, it sounds like, of narcissism really emerges because you're trying to do something natural in a relationship, which is to be different from each other and then the system that really needs those things that reinforce specialness can't take it.

Craig Malkin: That's exactly right, that's exactly right. I forget where I read this years ago but this can all be summarized as no conflict, no closeness. Very early on in a relationship, it is normal to idealize each other, that honeymoon stage, yes, when the oxytocin is flowing and that it's fun and it's wonderful. These early warning signs can appear in ... we all engage in them sometimes and again, a certain amount of it is healthy and normal, it's when you see it rigidly and frequently and across the board that you have to start worrying and wondering how much can this person handle the normal experience of, "We are different people." And that means that I might not always see things the same way and can that be anything but catastrophic and dangerous? Can we still remain connected? That differentiation you're talking about. We're two separate people but we are securely attached and if there's this rigid insistence on always feeling special in the relationship or that twin ship effect where we're always the same, then you can never progress beyond that. And you never really learn is this person capable of negotiating needs and seeing me as a separate, complete, whole other person that they can still be close to?

Neil Sattin: Right, right. And that reminds me of the warning sign you mentioned of someone trying to kind of control you. But it's not necessarily overt control, it's this stealthy, behind the scenes, because then you never have to meet each other in vulnerability to actually have a conversation about something as simple as where we're gonna go for dinner or something bigger like are we gonna move to Tanzania together?

Craig Malkin: Exactly.

Neil Sattin: Yeah.

Craig Malkin: Yeah so, stealth control comes about. Again, you can see the common thread throughout these, if somebody's so narcissistic that they can't handle any feelings of vulnerability, sadness, feelings of rejection or disappointed, they're all normal and if they can't handle that, then it's gonna be very hard for them to directly ask for what they want to engage you in a conversation about, "I would like to do this." So the more narcissistic someone is, the more likely they are, sometimes in subtle ways, to go around that all together through what I call, stealth control, by arranging events to get their needs met. And the classic example I provide of this ... I think I even talk about this in Rethinking Narcissism is the ... I was working with somebody whose partner would come in at the last minute, say with concert tickets or something really fun and sweep them off their feet and they didn't really have time to plan and it was fun, of course, and exciting, you can just imagine the thrill of this surprise but anytime she wanted to go somewhere like check out a new restaurant or go to this movie, his answer was, "Well, I'm bored or I'm too tired or I'm bored with Chinese food," or whatever. There was always some reason not to do it.

Craig Malkin: And she slowly realized that she was sort of orbiting his preferences organized around what he liked to do without his even asking. It's like a slow, subtle attrition of your will. It doesn't become a part of the conversation, they're just doing what this other person wants.

Neil Sattin: Right and that, I think, almost brings us to the opposite end of that narcissism spectrum, right? Where the co-partner that's most appropriate for a narcissist is someone who more and more erodes who they are and what they want and that's kind of the only way it can work. And I'm putting work in quotes because it's obviously not really working.

Craig Malkin: Absolutely. So yeah, the nice segue to one of the most important contributions that I worked on in Rethinking Narcissism that people find so helpful, especially people in relationships with somebody who's narcissistic is this idea of echoism. We talked about healthy narcissism. In Rethinking Narcissism, I introduce the term, echoism, you want to think of these as people who lack any self-enhancement, they rarely or never feel special, usually they've had experiences that lead them to fear that they might become a burden. Growing up, say they had a fragile parent who was depressed or rageful so, they worried about having too much of an impact or too much effect on that parent so, people who develop echoism agree with statements like, "I'm afraid of becoming a burden and I'm at a loss when people ask me what I want or what I need." And you can see, the reason I came up with this term is that in the original myth of Narcissus, Narcissus fell in love with his own reflection due to a curse. Echo was a nymph who fell in love with Narcissus and she was cursed to have no voice of her own, she repeated the last few words that she heard, that was all she could do.

Craig Malkin: And people who struggle with echoism, like Echo, tend to fall into relationships with extremely narcissistic friends and partners or at least they have trouble recognizing it and pulling themselves out because they're already afraid of seeming narcissistic in any way so, they become adept at echoing the needs and feelings of others so, it makes for yes, a match, not a happy one for either partner sometimes but people can get very stuck when they struggle with echoism and they wind up finding a partner who's more in the extreme range of narcissism.

Neil Sattin: Right, yeah. I thought that was so beautiful how you brought that in and that is such an important part of the myth as is recognizing that echo just fades away to nothingness where that's all that's left is her voice and repeating and so, I really appreciate the dynamic there that you illustrate and also to me, I was like, "Oh right," and that is probably one reason why just thinking back to my friend, when she got out of that relationship, she felt this huge reclaiming.

Neil Sattin: She felt this huge reclaiming of who she was that had been undermined, and I realize that I'm talking about a friend who's a woman, but there are narcissists who are women, too, and men who find themselves in this role. So it's not a gendered thing, right?

Craig Malkin: No, it's not gender, and what's interesting is I think we might find a slight gender difference, just a note on the research on traits. We tend to think of men when we think of narcissism and extreme narcissism, in particular, and while men outnumber women in extreme range, they only slightly outnumber them. The rates aren't that high to begin with, and men outnumber women 2:1 when it comes narcissistic personality disorder. But when we're just talking about the subtle range, somebody who qualifies as above average in narcissism enough to be called a narcissist, there's only slightly more men than women. I think we'll find the same with echoism. Just because echoism is really about attuned to other's needs and feelings often at the expense of your own, in general, on average, women are more socialized, focused on relationships and caring, and others that what we found, and I think this speaks to your point, is we didn't find a gender difference in echoism, so far.

Neil Sattin: Interesting.

Craig Malkin: So it might be slight and we haven't picked it up yet.

Neil Sattin: There are two important things that I want to make sure that we cover before we end. One of them is … The one that we're going to cover second is talking about what you do, because I think that's a really important part of your book and you go into it in detail. I love how you talk about being in relationship with narcissist, but also like how to do it in your family, how to cope and strategize at the workplace. So there's a huge scope in your book that we're not going to be able to get to here. We're going to focus on the relational component. But before we do that, I want to know, like, if you are listening to this and you're hearing all these words and you're like, "Holy mackerel, like that might be me. I might be kind of veering into the narcissistic end of the spectrum." For one thing, like I don't want you to feel horrible. I want to celebrate that you're hearing this and thinking like, "Oh my God, that could be me." It's probably worth taking that test that Craig was mentioning earlier. But, Craig, what could you offer someone who's sitting here, listening to us and thinking, "Wow, that actually might be me. I might be doing that in my relationships. What do I do?"

Craig Malkin: I can offer hope to people who are listening and identify with the experience of extreme narcissism, because as long as you have that awareness, I mean a big part for me of change and growths and healing is really compassionate self-awareness. I really try to help people get to that pace. If you're, at least, aware, "Okay, this might be me," we already know from the research that what keeps people, as I said earlier, tethered to the center, that is where they might have just moderate self-enhancement is secure attachment. We know from the research that extremely narcissistic people aren't securely attached.

Craig Malkin: So to the extent that you can start to become comfortable with normal vulnerable feelings owning them in yourself when you're sad, scared, lonely, testing out in relationships, sharing those feelings directly and trusting that people actually care even if you don't nail it at work, even if you don't make tons of money, even if you're not an undiscovered genius, that people still care about what you're feeling. So working with therapists who are trained, I think what we're learning is based on … I'm going to throw a fancy phrase out … communal activation. It's an area of research that shows that, especially in this subtle range, or the milder range of narcissism, that people who struggle in that way, they're not missing empathy, it's blocked. It's blocked by this drive to feel special.

Craig Malkin: There are therapies, I practice these forms, that are rooted in attachment research, again, helping people relate in ways when they are feeling vulnerable, that they can trust they can depend on others. Therapies like schema therapy, accelerated experiential dynamic therapy or AEDP, EFT for couples, Dr. Sue Johnson's model. All of these therapies are helping people learn how to relate in securely attached ways. If you can do that, you're not going to rely on feeling special. You're not going to tip into the extreme because to the extent that you can truly depend on people on healthy emotionally mutual ways, you won't be addicted to feeling special.

Neil Sattin: Yeah. This reminds me a lot about Alex Katehakis' work. She was on the show back in Episode 116, and she was talking about how the pathways of addiction get created and she describes how, when you're young and your attachment bonds aren't necessarily being fostered the way they ought to, how it becomes really easy to find shortcuts to feeling better rather than what you learn in a securely attached environment, which is that, "Oh, if I get connected to someone and feel safe and vulnerable and open, that's another way." It's a more sophisticated way of feeling better. It's not quite the easy pathway that then can get hooked into any kind of addictive behavior, where you get quick rushes of dopamine to the system and that helps you deal with your discomfort.

Neil Sattin: So, I'm thinking about that, and, yeah, how powerful it is that while relationships can bring out the dysfunction, there's so much potential in relationship if you have that awareness to lean in and either create or reinforce that other pathway of how you deal with your discomfort and your disregulation by regulating with each other.

Craig Malkin: That's absolutely right, co-regulation, regulating with each other. We heal and experience deep healing in relationships when we experience the person that we're with in a way that we maybe didn't experience growing up as someone that we're safe in their hands and they experience us in the same way. That changes us. This is what we're learning from this research, and yes, when people have had an experience where they don't have that basic sense of trust where they're insecurely attached, they turn to all kinds of substitutes. Drugs are one; gambling, pornography, and an addictive drive to feel special, self-soothing in that way.

Craig Malkin: Again, I want to come back to this, this is a central idea when we're thinking narcissism. Speaking to anybody who's listening who thinks they're struggling with extreme narcissism or somebody who has a partner when they're not seeing those three stop signs, that learning how to relate in a securely attached way is the answer to the extent that you can rely on people, love and depend on them, you will not rely on feeling special. What we're doing is replacing feeling special for the world or for others with feeling special to a partner or even a group of people, if it's a religious group that you're a part of, where you feel special in their eyes.

Neil Sattin: Got it, yeah, because that kind of connection actually reinforces an intimacy, reinforces a specialness that's not quite so fragile.

Craig Malkin: That's exactly right. It's more lasting. Those addictive replacements are addictive because they're controllable. One of the reasons people turn to say alcohol or other drugs or narcissism to soothe themselves if precisely because unlike people, you can buy and sell money. With narcissism, to some extent, you can control your looks by dressing really nicely and making yourself up as best you can. Even the research, it turns out that people who pride themselves on their looks narcissistically, they engage in something called effective adornment; that is, they're really good at putting selves together but it turns out they're no more attractive than the average person when they're not allowed to do that. So these are controllable ways of feeling special.

Neil Sattin: Now, let's just … I love the hope here because that's, I think, one of the unfortunate things about earlier approaches to narcissism is by lumping everyone together. I think it didn't give people a lot of hope that someone could change or that a situation like that where you've involved in with someone who has narcissistic tendencies, that there's any hope for change.

Neil Sattin: So let's assume that we're not seeing those stop signs that you mentioned of abuse, denial, psychopathy, and what might I do if I'm saying, "Okay, this is my partner. I want to know that I have given it my all before I leave because I don't see being with the narcissist forever, like that doesn't sound my idea of happiness, but I'm inspired by Craig Malkin's view that there is hope here and change is possible. So what could I do to help try to bring my narcissist back into the healthy zone?

Craig Malkin: Such an important question. Yeah, I know, there is hope. Anybody who wants to change can change and I firmly believe that if they're willing to do the work. We can invite people to a healthier range where they can meet us in mutually, satisfying, caring ways. I go over all of the research and rethinking narcissism, I mentioned earlier communal activation. I think of this as lighting up areas of the brain devoted to relationships and caring and connection that we're born with this. Human beings are social creatures. It's part of how we survive. This is the attached-

Neil Sattin: Right, I even talked about how, when you're using the pronouns like "we" and "us," that that is activating those parts of the brain.

Craig Malkin: Yeah. There's over a dozen, I mentioned in my book, but there's even more now, just simple things like using communal language: we, our, us; flashing images of a mother holding an infant; of a teacher helping a student; of asking somebody who test as narcissistic, who actually scores on a test as a narcissist or maybe not disorder, maybe they are, but they're in the extreme enough that they test high and you can ask them to put themselves in the shoes of an abuse survivor that they're watching, for example, in a video and it's called empathic induction. They'll actually show a reduction in our narcissistic traits. It is like it's reactivating the attachment system.

Craig Malkin: Again, we are social creatures. We're meant to survive by being with people so we have this … Attachment system is part of our evolutionary survival. It's early experiences that interfere with its full expression. So if somebody is in the subtle range, I wanted to offer very simple ways of tapping into that communal activation, lighting up that area of the brain by inviting secure attachment experience. So I describe what I call empathy prompts. This is what you can try.

Craig Malkin: There are two parts to an empathy prompt. The first part, part one, is to voice the importance of the relationship. This is where you're reminding the person that they're special to you. In some way, shape or form, this is attachment language. Then you voice your vulnerable feelings. We tend, when we're feeling disconnected in relationships, sometimes we go to anger. Sometimes we shut down and move away, instead of saying what we're feeling underneath, which is "I'm sad and I'm lonely. I'm afraid. I'm worried," whatever it is. That's the vulnerable piece. An example would be I would often coach a client to say something like, "You are my husband and my best friend, and you'll always be important to me. That's why I feel so sad when you give me the silent treatment. It's like I am losing the person that I love the most."

Craig Malkin: So that would be an empathy prompt. You're reminding the person of their special relationship with you and the place that you hold in each other's lives, and then you're sharing the impact that they're having on you. Most people, if they're capable of empathy, they'll melt when they hear statements like this. It really is an invitation to hear what you're feeling on the inside. Another example, I'll go back to the husband who's looking over the woman's shoulder, commenting, "Oh, isn't that out of your league?" or when she's applying for jobs, I might help her say something like, "Your opinion means the world to me. You're my husband. I look up to you. When you suggest I only apply to easy jobs, I'm afraid you don't think that much of me, like I'm not that important in your eyes."

Craig Malkin: So these are examples of empathy prompts. If you do not see shifts with these, I even say in the book, like within the three weeks, don't hold out a whole lot of hope because then you might be dealing with a more extreme situation. Certainly, don't hold out hope if you don't seek out a couple's therapy where people would help changing the nature of the relationship between the two of you to a more securely attached one.

Neil Sattin: Yeah, so you're looking for that melting or that person like actually having some understanding and maybe even taking some responsibility for how their actions have affected you.

Craig Malkin: Absolutely. You want to hear things like affirming statements like, "I love you, too, and I don't you to feel sad" or "How long have you felt sad like this?" or "I'm sorry. I never want you to feel like a failure," apologizing even, right? Validating, "I know my sarcasm hurts you," and you want to look for signs that this person is not shifting. You're doing your part. This is as much as anybody. I'm not ever going to ask somebody to be like a therapist to their partner. These are ways that we should talk to our partners anyway, based on the research.

Craig Malkin: So I want to make that point. I often say, if it doesn't work with somebody who's not narcissistic, it's not going to work with someone who's narcissistic. These are things that are just known to help invite a more securely attached way of relating. If you get responses like, "Why are you saying this to me?" defensive, attacking, or "I get busy, that's all. What's the problem?" or "What about what I've been going through?" sort of hijacking the conversation. Or worse, blaming you: "You're just too sensitive." Those are really, really bad signs because if you lead with how important that person is to you and follow-up with, "That's why I feel sad" or "That's why I feel afraid," you should see signs of empathy.

Neil Sattin: Got it, yeah. Is there any way to tell someone, "I think you might be kind of a narcissist," in a way that's ever generative or helpful in a relationship?

Craig Malkin: I don't recommend it because, for the same reason I approached both individual in couple's therapy where the focus should be on what your experience is and sharing that with the person that you're trying to remain close to. If you're describing their behavior, if you're labeling them, again, if it doesn't work with somebody who's not narcissistic, it's not going to work with somebody who is. So as soon as you say here is what's wrong with you, even if you try to do it in the most loving way, it immediately puts people on the defensive. They're far less likely to be open to hearing what you have to say. It's better to simply share that when they criticize you or raise their voice or question your choices, that it leaves you feeling like they don't … leaves me feeling like you don't think much of me. You want to talk about the impact it has on you, the specific behaviors. Let's leave the diagnosis and the labeling to whoever they go to for help.

Neil Sattin: Yeah, yeah, and if you find yourself going to therapy, it sounds like that'd be a great idea to get help and support in a situation like this. If your therapist is open to influence and they haven't already read Craig's book, Rethinking Narcissism, you might want to just kind of surreptitiously pass it off to them so they have a chance to read it.

Craig Malkin: I have clients who have come to me because their partner gave them my book. Over the years, I probably had, in the last couple of years, I've probably had, at least, five, I would say, come to me because their partners said, "I think you should read this book," and then they come see me.

Neil Sattin: Wow. Well, that must be profound to see that your book is having that kind of impact as well where people are willing to come forward like that.

Craig Malkin: Yeah. I feel honored and grateful that it's having that kind of impact and I find it very moving when somebody calls me up on the phone, and that's happened too, and says, "I read your book. I felt like I'm lost through all my life and I've left some wreckage in my relationships, but I really want to change this and your book gave me hope." I get calls like that, too.

Neil Sattin: Yeah, awesome. Well, I do want to mention that you brought up Sue Johnson as someone whose couples work you recommend to help people build attachment in a secure attached relationship. She's been on the show a couple of times, so you can listen to Sue Johnson in Episode 27 and in Episode 82. Actually, she was also on an Episode 100, but those two that I just mentioned are probably the most relevant for this conversation that we've been having today.

Neil Sattin: Meanwhile, Craig, I'm so appreciative of your time and the vast wisdom that you have on this particular topic. I know that I feel hopeful, not only from having read your book, but also being able to hear it from you as well, that this is something that we can shift in our world, that it doesn't have to be an epidemic; that it can be something that ultimately helps us find more pathways to connection and feeling special in sustainable ways, because there's nothing wrong, I think, with feeling special. It's just doing it in a way that actually brings us closer.

Craig Malkin: That's exactly right. No, I'm so glad. I'm glad I can offer some hope, and that is truly the way I see it. Really, the image I want to leave everybody with is think of attachment security as a tether and it keeps us rooted in a healthy place while they were trying to make sure we don't become too tipped into narcissism or too tipped into echoism. So, yeah, no, I don't believe for all kinds of reasons that we're in danger of being taken over by some narcissism epidemic. I am encouraged by the efforts I see to educate people about emotions, about attachment, about managing and recognizing emotions. As soon as you do that, you are already moving into an area where you're not going to tip into either of these extremes.

Neil Sattin: Great. Well, if you are looking to find out more information about Craig Malkin, you can visit DrCraigMalkin.com, it's D-R-CraigMalkin.com. Definitely pick up his book, Rethinking Narcissism, and we will, of course, have links to all those things and to the narcissism test in the transcript, which you can get, again, if you visit NeilSattin.com/narcissism, I think, is what I said. Or, you can just text the word "Passion" to the number 33444 and follow the instructions. Craig Malkin, thank you so much for being here with us today.

Craig Malkin: Thank you so much for having me, Neil. It's been a lot of fun. 

You know those things in your relationship that you don't talk about? Over time, they will drain the energy, passion, and vitality from your connection. In today's episode, I'll walk you through the process of how (and why) to communicate about the things that you avoid - to give you the best chance of finally resolving those things and moving on. You can tackle something big first, or you can start with something smaller and build on your success. Either way, my goal for you is to be able to collaborate with your partner on getting through the challenging conversations - so that you can have more energy for connection and growing your relationship.

As always, I’m looking forward to your thoughts on this episode and what revelations and questions it creates for you. Please join us in the Relationship Alive Community on Facebook to chat about it!

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