Relationship Dish

Anger is a very important and informative emotion, yet many of us have troubles allowing ourselves to just be with it.  Listen in as the therapists dish about their own history and relationship with anger. It hasn’t always been a comfortable relationship between themselves and anger. They’ve fought it, felt ashamed by it, given in to it and been controlled by it.

Learn healthy ways of expressing anger, understand the difference between assertiveness and aggressiveness and discover what hidden gems might be under your anger. 

This week the therapists dish about their sex lives- yikes! Join them as they discuss the worst, the best and the in betweens. 

Afterwards, they dive into the research about how sex can get stuck due to power struggling, what  makes for great sex and what women really need in bed.

Grab a pencil and a note pad and get ready to improve your sex life! 

Wowza! Pam popped the question! She’s getting married! It’s been up and down but she finally took the plunge! Iona also had the ups and downs in her relationship with Steve on the road to their marriage.Its taken work for both the therapists on their road to commitment!

The therapists then dive into the literature on the different types of attachment styles and explain how each type can play out when an adult must deal with commitment. They then offer some insights into the popular “anxious” attachment style.

Get thinking about your own attachment style! 

This week, Pam dishes about putting too much on her plate, leaving virtually no room for life or for intimacy with her partner. The consequence is that she isn’t emotionally available for her partner as much as he’s like.   Is Pam avoiding an intensity, connection or intimacy? She finds that too much intimacy is emotionally exhausting for her.  Iona weighs in on her intimacy issues too with her partner. Does she sabotage it too? What’s up this week?   The therapists dish on their family of origin experiences to better understand this phenomena. The therapists then dive into the literature about how and why we may sabotage intimacy leaving the listeners with some important info to ponder about and some great takeaways!

This week the therapists dish about their relationships with their women friends and uncover why they’re so meaningful to them.

As much as we love our men, our women friends offer us different gifts, in part, because of the way our brains and biology are hard wired. But, sometimes these friendships can also be difficult and painful to navigate at times. After all, relationships are relationships!

The therapists dive into the literature to understand the importance of these social connections, the biological components, how to navigate through misunderstandings with our friends and finally expand on our definition of what a valuable friendship can be based on.  

This week, the therapists Dish on another relationship in their lives, the one they have with their kids! They struggle with letting their kids sit in emotional hardship while as therapists, they know that that is exactly what is required for growth.

When their kid’s struggles stir up their own anxiety, as is the case with parenting sometimes, all bets are off! It’s really tough for them as it is for other parents. So how do we let them have and grow from their own pain while keeping our own anxiety in check?

The therapists Dive into literature about enmeshment, look at their own family of origin dynamics and study the literature on feeling feelings to help them muddle through this murky place.

Today Pam and Iona are dishing about being really seen by their men, I mean really seen...and not just the parts of themselves that they’ve vetted as being loveable and worthy!

They’re talking about the parts of themselves that they deem unlovable and ugly. We all have parts of ourselves that make us want to cringe and hide, but as the therapists realize, true intimacy requires sharing it all, good and bad. Where did we learn that parts of ourselves are unlovable and must therefore be hidden?

Is it possible to be loved by our partners unconditionally or is that just a ‘pipe dream’? Learn how to recognize disowned parts of self and make friends with them so you can have the closeness you crave!

This week, Iona dishes on how problematic it can be to try to communicate with her man who is super literal and how it can throw them into their cycle.   Pam chimes in with similar issues about her guy. We just want to be understood, why is that so hard? Is this a gender thing? It seems like mens’ brains are wired like separate little boxes while womens’ brains are wired more like interconnected super highways. Most women can multitask while most men cannot. Men are typically more thoughtful about processing while women are quicker. What gives? The therapists dive into the literature on brain research and learn there are basic physiological differences in the wiring, processing and structures of the brains of men and women.    The key take away is that no one is better or worse, we’re just different from each other and understanding this fact is a key in learning to navigate through with compassion, trust and curiosity.

This week the therapists dish and dive on the theme of support. What is it? What isn’t it? Pam realizes that her definition of support is different from her partner’s and realizes better why he misses the mark sometimes and she doesn’t always get what she expects. Darn those buried unspoken expectations!

Iona and her partner have already talked about exactly what she means when she tells her partner that she needs his support, but that’s been a lot of work to accomplish! Support and other such broad terms in relationships can be very subjective, which means there’s likely to be disappointment in store if your partner can’t read your mind and doesn’t just instinctively give it the way you expect it.

Remember in relationships, nothing is obvious! Define it and it will come! The therapists then dive into the literature on this theme and come up with seven great examples of the type of support that you may be looking for, so you can begin those conversations,  avoid those nasty disappointments and feel closer and more supported by your partner.

Pam dishes on her typical negative pattern of interaction with her guy when they are not getting along. Iona chimes in with own her story about her cycle with her partner.  As it turns out, most couples have a typical negative style of interacting, that regardless of the content, seems to rear its ugly head in the exact same way every time you disagree.

The therapists then dive into the Emotionally Focused literature to better understand this phenomena and to teach their listeners how to identify, name and organize their own cycles.

The ultimate goals are to limit the damage it does to your relationship and to learn how to navigate through it to come out the other end with a closer and deeper understanding of both your own and your partner’s attachment needs and feelings.