How to Break Unproductive Patterns: Issue Resolution Part 1 (Episode 22)

Brent and Janis begin a three-part series dealing with how to resolve issues and find common ground in relationships.  This first session shows how to break an unhealthy pattern that all relationships are susceptible to experiencing and how to set the stage for a productive strategy to resolve conflict. 

The Life & Love Nuggets podcast will help you learn valuable insights into relationships, life, and love. Brent and Janis have been empowering couples through pre-marriage and marriage therapy in their private practice, Life Connection Counseling, since 1982. They recently retired after forty years of pastoral ministry and are continuing to help individuals, marriages and families in their private practice.

This podcast should not be considered or used for counseling but for educational purposes only.

Fear Cycle - Dance Steps

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Transcript:

[Brent]: Welcome back to Life & Love Nuggets. Welcome back, friends. We're glad that you're here with us today. We're going to talk for the next-- Actually, probably few weeks, about one of these things that is most challenging in relationships. I think it's probably the most underdeveloped skill that we have in our culture and we're just not trained to deal with this, which is just dealing with conflict, dealing with issues that we have in relationships of all kinds. You know, certainly we're going to talk uniquely about husbands and wives today, but I see this in parents and their children, roommates. I mean, people at work. I see this dynamic happening in every single relationship.

[Janis]: Adult children and their parents. You know, sometimes I do counseling with daughter in laws and mother in laws. We all have conflict of some kind and it's not a bad thing.

[Brent]: Yes, it's a normal thing and so, yet we're challenged with this and I don't think this is a unique phenomenon. If we look at the life of Jesus towards the end of his life, on the way to the cross in John 17, he talks about-- He's praying. It's one of his final prayers and he says “Lord, I've done everything that you've designed me to do, you've called me to do here on earth and I'm coming to be with you” and he's praying for his disciples, first of all and he says “let them be one as we are one” and then he goes to pray for all of us, all of us that will follow him ultimately and that's the most important thing on his mind at that time, is “let them be one as we are one”. So, this idea of unity seems very, very important, but yet very challenging and so, uniquely so, the really, really important things in life seem to be really hard to do.

[Janis]: That’s right

[Brent]: And so, one of the unique phenomenons is by adult life. We all think that the way we see the world is pretty accurate. I think I've got it pretty well figured out by adulthood and now, if you agree with me, you're just like a really, really bright person and I would love to hang out with you. But the minute another person disagrees with me “well, I'm right”. They are different. “Well, they must be wrong” and “how do I help them see the light?”. I mean, this is just pretty human stuff and so, no wonder we have conflict.

[Janis]: We're not seeing that much now though, on Facebook, Twitter.

[Brent]: Exactly

[Janis]: It's not like people think that they're right and they need to let everybody know.

[Brent]: Absolutely.

[Janis]: Pretty much everybody is moving towards unity.

[Brent]: Oh my gosh, it's tragic.

[Janis]: It is tragic.

[Brent]: Yeah

[Janis]: But the struggle is we're different and we have a hard time with differences and yet, I mean, differences are the beauty of life.

[Brent]: Yeah, for sure.

[Janis]: We all bring different perspectives into our relationships and you have a unique past than I do. We have unique personalities and it's a blending of those that really makes us stronger. I mean, we've said for years if you marry someone exactly like you, then one of you is unnecessary.

[Brent]: Yes, yes.

[Janis]: We don't have to worry about that. We're not exactly alike. Far from it.

[Brent]: That’s right. That’s right.

[Janis]: But any team that you're on, any group that you work with, it's having those differences that are so valuable.

[Brent]: Yeah

[Janis]: It really is. That's where synergy comes, because it's the one plus one plus one equals ten. Because when you get that team together with those differences, you just come up with something so much stronger.

[Brent]: Yeah, potentially the power of the team is greater than the power of the individual parts and so-- But in many relationships, one plus one equals like, one or a half, because they're in conflict and they don't know how to blend.

[Janis]: Right. It's a challenge to learn how to do that. It's a process and it takes some awkwardness. I remember reading in-- What's his name? The book Necessary Endings by Henry Cloud.

[Brent]: Oh yeah. [Unintelligible]

[Janis]: He said if you're not willing to have awkward conversations, you'd still be married to your high school boyfriend or you would be married to your high school boyfriend. You know, we all have to have awkward conversations because we're all different.

[Brent]: Yeah, and so, this idea of difference and therefore conflict, I always tell people if God designed, let's say, marriage to be the blending of difference, well, he knew conflict was going to happen. It's kind of like he set it up this way.

[Janis]: Right

[Brent]: He's not surprised that we have conflict. He just had a whole different way in his mind and heart for us to handle that and so, we have just horrible cultural expressions of this. Everybody kind of gets in camps and we're totally right and the other side, the other camp is totally wrong and we're just going to yell at each other and--

[Janis]: Because that fixes everything.

[Brent]: Absolutely

[Janis]: If we just yell louder and louder, that'll work, that'll do it.

[Brent]: Absolutely. Yeah, I will just bend you to my will. Which-- When's the last time anybody's ever seen that work? So, we keep doing this insane thing of trying to convince people to see it our way, instead of learning how to find common ground, instead of finding a blend and so, because God's not surprised with this, that we have conflict. He kind of set it up this way because I think, again, he designed it so that we would be attracted to and drawn to people that have different qualities, because we see that they have something that I don't have and so, he knew that this was going to be a blessing ultimately for us if we could collaborate and so, he knew it was going to happen, but he just had a different way for us to manage it. So, in the next few weeks, we're going to talk about, what are patterns that don't work? What are patterns that get broken and that keep us in a loop of unresolved issues and cause us to slowly pull back from each other? And how do we stop that?

[Brent]: And we get triggered. We trigger-- People trigger each other in conversations. How do we pull out of that? And then, what actually is a healthy, godly respectful way of bringing differences together and so, ultimately, we're going to lead you to a three-step process that we coach couples in this every day. If you can follow these three steps and we're going to kind of show you where these three steps come from and what the foundation of them is, so that you can certainly have confidence. It's not just Brent and Janis Sharp philosophy and if you can learn how to follow these in key relationships in your life and we'll also even talk about, how do you do it when the other person doesn't know how this works?

[Janis]: Yeah

[Brent]: It's one thing when we coach couples and they're both learning it together, but what do you do with a boss? Or a coworker? Or somebody that you need to deal with an issue? A roommate? But they don't know any of this, they didn't listen to this podcast. They don't know the three steps. But there's still a way to move it towards agreement.

[Janis]: It's really applicable for all kinds of relationships.

[Brent]: For sure.

[Janis]: And we find that it can almost be contagious in a sense, because one of the things that we saw as our children grew up, we didn't sit down and say “here's how you resolve conflict”. But as they lived with us over the years, we found that they had picked up some of those skills in really learning how to solve issues. I remember one of ours in the backseat. I was driving a group of fifth graders to gymnastics, and one of them saying to her friends who were arguing “now, Kate, you say what you want to say and then wait a few minutes, and then--”. I can't remember who the other one is. “She's going to say what she wants to say.” But she was negotiating this conflict resolution between her friends in fifth grade.

[Brent]: Yeah, yeah. So, your kids can pick this up. Again, it can become contagious and so, today we're going to talk about, why do we get caught in these unproductive ways? We're going to talk about a dance step. It's an unproductive way that people attempt to talk about things and we can interview most married couples, whether they've been married five years or 50 years, and they'll pretty much tell you “We’ve had the same argument our entire marriage”. Now different things may trigger it, but the way they argue, the way they try to talk through things, they slip back in the same pattern over and over and over again.

[Brent]: And so, it's a perfect definition of insanity, trying to do the same thing over and over, expecting different results and they find then that because it doesn't work very well, then they have to just start pulling away from each other. Because nobody wants to fuss all the time and so, if we are going to need to talk about something and we know it doesn't go very well, then why am I going to do it? And couples pull back from each other. They tend to end up being kind of roommates. The best they find themselves in is their co parents or their business partners or whatever, which is very dissatisfying and so, we're going to talk about this idea of a dance step and we believe that every single couple on the planet has one of these. Now, we have not interviewed every single couple on the planet, okay? But every couple that I've ever run across, whether it's in counseling or just socially or in our churches, they have this.

[Janis]: And most of them know they have it. They know they have something; they know they get stuck. It's like “we want to talk these things through. Gosh, it just gets out of control and we never can solve anything”.

[Brent]: Yeah, yeah. So, I'm going to kind of show you this. Now, if you are one of those that watches us on YouTube and sees this video, then this is going to be super clear for you. Most of you probably aren't watching it, so you're listening. So, I'm going to try to share this for those of you that can't see this. But if you would envision, I've got a little--

[Janis]: Canvas

[Brent]: Canvas in front of me and I'm going to draw two kinds of squares left and right of each other with some space in between, and I always tell people I'm not an artist, okay? And so, each of your boxes right now and--

[Janis]: The people who are listening won't know that, they'll just assume this is a beautiful sketch. It’s gorgeous, yes.

[Brent]: Oh yeah, if I just drawn out two beautiful little pictures. Yeah, right and then I put little squiggly lines in the midst of those boxes, and these are simply emotional bruises that we have picked up by living life. It could be rejection on the playground at five, that somebody broke our heart in junior high school, to a previous relationship rejection or conflict. Our parents went through some difficulty when we were at a certain age and we felt destabilized from that. This can be all kinds of things and basically, there is a place in every one of our marriages where these bruises perfectly line up with each other in a bad way, okay? This is not a happy dance, okay? This is a crazy dance and so, if you can envision as I draw this any further, if you're just listening to this, like a baseball diamond.

[Brent]: So, I will have-- So, the two little boxes are at third base and first base. I hope you at least can vision that if you can get that in your mind's eye and then I'm going to draw a line out to second base. I'm going to put a little circle there and then I'm going to draw a line from that second base back to first base and what happens is there's simply no way that we can keep something difficult from happening in our relationships. We are going to have-- From time to time, one of us is going to do something or not do something that's going to hit our bruise and so, let's say the person on third base, they just got their bruise hit because of something that their partner did and at that point, they get engulfed with feelings and so, that's what that line is--

[Janis]: [Unintelligible]

[Brent]: Yeah, we'll talk about that and so, they get engulfed with feelings, and that's kind of the line up to second base and then second base is a knee jerk reaction. Again, I'm not an artist, so it's a circle, okay? The doctor hits your knee with that little neat mallet thing, and your knee pops up and so, we have a certain behavioral reflex, and I call it a reflex because we don't sit there and go “wow, my partner just did something that hurt my feelings; therefore, I'm going to criticize them”. We don't think like that. It just happens instantly.

[Janis]: It just happens.

[Brent]: Yeah, and in our dance, this person, when the person's engulfed with feelings and they have this knee jerk reaction, it hits their partner's bruise right between the eyes. They get flooded with feelings, which takes me down to home plate and then home plate is a knee jerk reaction that fires off a behavior to third base. Again, for you that are baseball people, I know I'm going backwards on the baseball diamond here, okay? So, just bear with me.

[Brent]: So, this person's reaction has a certain knee jerk reflex to it that hits the third base person's--

[Janis]: Bruise

[Brent]: Bruise, right, between the eyes. Causes more feelings, causes more of their behavior that hits the other partner's bruise. That causes more feelings, more behavior, more feelings, more behavior, more feelings, more behavior and we're triggering each other and at that point, we're intoxicated and there's probably not any alcohol involved or may not be.

[Janis]: Or any joy.

[Brent]: Or any joy, for sure. These go horribly every time. We have this interaction, it intensifies usually, we say things we wish we hadn't said, it gets-- You know, the next day is like “I can't believe I said that. I'm so sorry”. But everybody has a way to get away from these, at least for the moment, you know? Somebody just gets quiet and stops talking, or somebody cries, it stops the whole conversation or somebody walks out of the room, and then we get away from it, and it's like “oh my gosh, I don't ever want that to happen again” and so, I just stay away from it. I just realized there's just certain things we just should not have that conversation.

[Brent]: We can't ever talk about money. We can't ever talk about disciplining the kids. We can't ever talk about this, that, or the other and so, again, that's where we slowly disconnect from each other. The problem is, we never solved the problem and so, whatever that was that triggered this is going to happen again two weeks from now. You know, a week from Friday night, here we go again, and we're right back into this. Again, that's why we call it a crazy cycle.

[Brent]: Now, every couple I've ever shared this with, and they look at it and they go “oh my gosh, that's us”, okay? We can all relate to this. It happens in every relationship. But there's a way to break this, okay? And so, this is not just every other couple. Many years ago, when we were kind of learning this kind of a thing, we realized “oh, my gosh, we have one of these”.

[Janis]: Yes, we do.

[Brent]: And in our relationship of 45 years, just celebrated a few weeks ago, when things don't go well, this is where we go. Now, we did kind of figure this out many years ago, and we can usually catch it and we're going to tell you about how we catch this, okay? Because we're not doomed, okay? I just want you to know that, okay?

[Janis]: Which is what most couples think.

[Brent]: Yeah

[Janis]: Oftentimes they say “why do we even bother? Why even bring something up? Why talk about it? It just gets ugly and I don't want to ruin the day or I don't want to ruin the weekend”. Because they don't know how to deal with it, and they don't know that this is common.

[Brent]: Yes. So, again, if you relate to this, welcome to the human experience, okay? Because this is what we're all going to deal with. But we're not doomed, there is a way to break out of this and before we kind of share our own story, the key is if we can learn how to identify what the primary feelings are. I may know I'm upset, but I didn't know that I necessarily felt unappreciated or disrespected or critiqued or misportrayed. If we can learn how to identify what those core primary feelings are, then the next time my bruise gets hit, my brain has a chance to catch it and can actually pull us out of the dance.

[Brent]: One of us can pull out here, the other one can pull out here and basically, when my bruise gets hit and I realize “oh my gosh, I'm feeling that same feeling again”, we're going to talk about actually how we break out of this. But before we even understood-- Because we're going to talk about a safe word, we're going to talk about different pieces of this. Before we ever even knew any of that, we realized that we had a unique dance ourselves and so, you want to describe your bruise?

[Janis]: Yes. I realized that my bruise growing up-- Now, I didn't know this until we processed things through. I just blamed Brent for everything.

[Brent]: Everything has always been my fault, just to make that perfectly clear.

[Janis]: No. But I was a fourth child in a family and the way I interpreted it was my parents were tired of having children. They said a lot of things like “well, when Janis is out of the house, we'll do this. Well, we'll stay here for a while, but when Janis is gone, we'll do this” and they also were raised in World War II, where you didn't tell people that you loved them. It's like “you should know I love you. I'm your parent. Why would I say something like that? That sounds a little too mushy”. So, between not being told that I was loved and valued and feeling like they were ready to get rid of me or-- I was in the way, that's the best way to put it. I grew up feeling like I just wasn't a priority. I just wasn't that important. If not, I got in the way.

[Brent]: Yeah, and so, that's how you came into the relationship, right? And there was this vulnerability there, and I've been an idiot enough oftentimes.

[Janis]: Human. Human enough.

[Brent]: In our relationship, where I've done some things or not done some things that hit that bruise and I always say that anytime I hit that bruise, the main feeling that you've kind of ended up feeling was that you felt 7th on my list of priorities. You kind of got the crumbs.

[Janis]: Right

[Brent]: Everybody else got the best of me, and you got kind of the crumbs and when that bruise got hit, your natural knee jerk reaction to that used to be....

[Janis]: To criticize, judge, maybe complain, all in very sweet and healthy ways.

[Brent]: Oh, very kind, very sweet.

[Janis]: May have occasionally thrown in a little emotional blackmail, “if you really loved me--”. Maybe a little bit of spiritual blackmail, “if you really loved God, you would know”. I mean, I've heard this from clients, so I'm just pretending like this is what I did.

[Brent]: Yeah, of course, of course.

[Janis]: But that was my knee jerk response and again, there wasn't a “gosh, I think I'll criticize him because I'm not feeling important to him”. It just came out.

[Brent]: Yeah, yeah. So, her bruise got hit, she felt 7th. She would say something that would criticize me. So, that's kind of her side of the dance. My side of the dance is I was raised in a family where you were taught to do everything with excellence, make sure you're the hardest worker on the team. Mainly work is the most important thing in life. So, always be busy, always be working. Make sure, as a matter of fact, you do things so well that nobody would ever criticize you and so, I always tried to stay ahead of criticism, to just try to do things good enough and talked about that. I recognize that I live in the enneagram one world, okay? Trying to need everything to be perfect and so, I was very sensitive to criticism. So, my bruise, when my bruise got hit, my main feelings were that I had blown it, I'd messed up, I'm never going to make her happy. My natural knee jerk reaction to that is I would justify myself, or I would rationalize my behavior, or I would shut down. So, let's look at what happens when you put these two humans together, Brent and Janis Sharp.

[Janis]: Many of you will relate to this, I'm sure.

[Brent]: Okay. So, my schedule has gotten busy over the years. We've pastored for 40 years, we've always had a counseling practice on the side, we raised four children, just busy, and I'm an enneagram one and so, I have a list of to-dos all the time and so, I've always gotten distracted on those kinds of things and been very busy. Oftentimes that hits your bruise, which causes you to feel 7th, like you get the leftovers. You would say something critical, “You don't love me. You don't care about me”. Well, that hits my bruise, I feel like I've blown it. Then I start justifying myself. “Honey, we had an emergency at the counseling center. We run the place”.

[Janis]: Like I didn't know that.

[Brent]: Trying to explain to you that if you really understood grown-up life, you wouldn't even have this expectation.

[Janis]: And that never goes well either.

[Brent]: Really? That didn't fix it?

[Janis]: Yeah

[Brent]: I kept doing it though.

[Janis]: I'm saying that for the people that are listening.

[Brent]: So, what did I just do? I just told her feelings are stupid. Now, I've never said those words, but basically that's what you felt.

[Janis]: Yeah

[Brent]: And so, I just hit your bruise again, knocked you from 7th position into 8th position, okay? So, you need to criticize some more, I need to defend myself some more and rationalize it and well, we had to-- “We’re pastors of the church, we had a death in the church. We need to handle these kinds of things”. Anyway, round and round and round it go.

[Janis]: Yes

[Brent]: And until eventually I just would get quiet, stop talking, I might walk in the other room. Well, now she feels abandoned.

[Janis]: Yeah. It hit my bruise even more.

[Brent]: Yes. Isn't this a beautiful dance? What a marvelous way of interacting with each other. Now, I have to give Janis’s credit because she was much more self-aware than I was early in our marriage of her feelings and one day I got busy and hit her bruise and I don't know what it was that inspired you. You caught yourself and instead of “you don't love me”, because when you say that, I'm like “I worked till 10:00 last night because I loved you”. I mean, that's where my brain goes. You pulled us out of the dance and you said something like “I just kind of been watching our life and--”

[Janis]: “And I missed my boyfriend”.

[Brent]: Yeah

[Janis]: I think I may have initially said “I want a boyfriend” or “I miss a boyfriend”, but it got you. “I miss my boyfriend”.

[Brent]: Well, “I need a boyfriend”, that got my attention and for some reason, that didn't hit my bruise and you went on and said, you know, “I've just kind of been watching our life, and we just don't ever have a day off”. Everything-- You know, even if we supposedly have a day off, there's some phone call that comes in or this or the other, and it just ruins the day.

[Janis]: And it was “I miss you” instead of “you are bad”. “You're bad for not being here”. It’s “I genuinely miss you”.

[Brent]: Yeah, and so, I was able to hear that and-- I think we had two out of the four kids at the time and said “I'm looking forward, and if this is going to be our life, I'm not sure-- I don't think this is going to go very well”, you know? And I was able to come back with “I'm just trying to keep all the plates spinning. I'm just trying to keep up with everything. I'm probably not even hardly aware of this, paying attention to it. I just feel like I've got to go work”, okay?

[Brent]: And we actually walked away from that conversation, as I remember. Now, this will date us, of course. If I remember, I said “well, let's take next Tuesday off”. I think I had a Franklin Covey daytimer that was this big-- He almost kind of--

[Janis]: Very large.

[Brent]: I had to carry it on a wheeler. It was just big huge [Unintelligible] the whole year in it. So, “let's take next Tuesday off. We'll go away, and we'll start looking at the next 90 days and figure out a day every week that I can-- I'll just take a day off. We'll shut everything down”. Again, this is probably going to date us. I think I said “we'll get emergency pagers at the church and at the counseling center, and somebody else will carry them, and I won't even respond that day. Everybody else will just know we're off the grid”, and we actually worked on changing our life and learning how to balance it and find a way to get the stuff done, but also our relational needs met and found a win/win in the middle that. Instead of spending, oh my gosh, hours and days and weeks and months and in our case, years. Me trying to convince you that you're too sensitive and overreacting and don't understand how grown-up life works or whatever I was trying to convince you of.

[Janis]: Yeah, the fact that I was a therapist too and [Unintelligible]

[Brent]: Okay, okay, okay.

[Janis]: I'm just saying.

[Brent]: And you trying to convince me that I didn't love you.

[Janis]: Right

[Brent]: Which was insanity and so, we learned-- Now, that kind of morphed into a safe word and so, we kind of coach couples in when we feel that feeling, how do we agree on a safe word that we could use? Because this was 30 years ago. I mean, long time ago, and we still bump into this. Now, we've figured out how to pull out of it, usually within one revolution and so, the idea is we got to pull out of the dance. Studies tell us that we need 30 minutes to an hour. Because of the feeling, because we're triggering each other, these feelings have gotten so strong, that we need 30 minutes to an hour to just pull away from each other, calm down, let some of that energy drop off, with the commitment that we're going to come back within 24 hours. We don't ever let this go past 24 hours, but we actually set an appointment; we'll talk about that in a few minutes. Where we come back and we sit down. Now, we don't just jump right back into where we were, you know, “what I was saying was--”

[Janis]: Yeah

[Brent]: We'll be right back into this. So, what we spent almost 40 years now coaching couples in is a three-step process, that if we can learn how to follow these three steps in discussing whatever triggered this in the first place, okay? One of us did something or didn't do something that hit the other person's bruise. If we can learn how to follow that and follow these three steps, we're going to be able to come away with a win/win solution. How do we resolve this in a way that blends our needs? We always say that healthy marriages get a reasonable amount of both of their needs met. It's got to feel fair.

[Brent]: We're not gonna get all of our needs met from this human, okay? That would be idolatry, but it needs to-- It's going to be the most important human relationship we have and how does it feel fair. Now, we always tell couples “You don't have to get into this dance first before you do the three steps”.

[Janis]: Yeah

[Brent]: Ultimately, we want to have an issue and go right to the three steps. But we can tell you out of professional experience and personal experience of 45 years of marriage, sometimes we're going to get into this dance. You know, we've just had a bad day or-- And we're just spent and you just look at me in that tone of voice, and it sends me off. Or somebody else hit your bruise.

[Janis]: Right

[Brent]: You know, one of your kids hit your bruise, or somebody at work at your bruise or whatever, and it'll spin us off into this and so, we have to learn how to, first of all, identify what our dance looks like with each other and then learn how to pull out of it as fast as we can.

[Janis]: And it's very important that we have the time out.

[Brent]: Yes

[Janis]: I think if people get nothing out-- Nothing else out of it [Unintelligible]. It's that idea of we have to pull away. If we continue arguing when we are at that level of intensity, then we're going to be irrational.

[Brent]: Yes. As a matter of fact, we are absolutely irrational.

[Janis]: Yes

[Brent]: It is impossible when you're triggered to be rational. So, let's talk about what's happening physiologically and this is so important. The reason for this 30-minutes to an hour. Now, we've known that for a long time, but now that we can do brain scans, we really know why we need to do this. There's a part of our brain called the amygdala. Now, we're not neuroscientists, we're not experts, but we know enough about this that they can do brain scans now, and they can tell that the amygdala, which is where fight or flight or freeze are housed.

[Brent]: Now, God knew we needed this part of our brain because there are some legitimate threats in the world. I mean, if we're jogging in the neighborhood and some big dog we've never seen before starts chasing us, we need the amygdala to light up to engage, to send adrenaline into our body and get us out of there or pick up a stick or something and defend ourselves. The problem is that part of our brain does not distinguish well between a dog's chasing me and my spouse just did something or didn't do something that triggered me and so, the amygdala engages, and now we can tell that when the amygdala engages, it like, literally takes over the brain and so, the prefrontal cortex, the executive brain, where we can reason and problem solve, it like, goes dormant. I mean, it like, loses internet connection.

[Janis]: It shuts down.

[Brent]: I mean, it just not functioning at its level anymore and the amygdala-- So, we are now animal. I mean, we're animals. That's the base animal part of the brain. Some people call it the lizard brain, which I think is actually helpful because when couples start in these arguments, I envision two lizards’ kind of trying to bite each other's head off, you know? And when we're in that zone, it's not going to go well.

[Janis]: It’s ugly.

[Brent]: Matter of fact, it's impossible. So, we have to cooperate with our physiology and realize that if I'm triggered, I've got to get that break and 30 minutes to an hour is about what we can tell. Brain scans suggest that it takes about that long for the amygdala to calm down and for the prefrontal cortex to take over again and therefore, we can have a reasonable conversation and so--

[Janis]: But it's so important that we schedule a time to get back together or at least commit to each other, that we will get back together again. Because some people whose spouses tend to withdraw in conflict, they're like “great, you just gave them permission to go away and not talk about this. We'll never talk about it again”.

[Brent]: Yeah

[Janis]: So, that's where we commit to a time, so that that other partner who doesn't withdraw can be at peace and go “okay, we are going to work on this”.

[Brent]: Yeah, and there's almost always in every couple, there's almost one of each.

[Janis]: Yeah

[Brent]: You know, one that wants to “no, we're going to talk about this now”.

[Janis]: “I will follow you to every room and we will talk about this”.

[Brent]: Yes, and the other one's like “oh my gosh, just get away from me” and so, what I coach couples in is whoever uses the word, the safe word, then they have to be the one.

[Janis]: Yeah

[Brent]: So that the withdrawer doesn't overuse this, that they have to be the one that suggests that “hey, I'm going to run an errand. I'm going to get away for a little bit, but I can be back at two and let's sit down and try to talk about this again” and so, we make that commitment and if my partner-- You have to prepare yourself for this. If my partner says that word, then even if I don't understand why they're saying it, I got to respect it. So, I'm not going to follow you into the other room, I won't blow your phone up and we're done, okay? As long as if you said it, you're going to commit to me a time within 24 hours that you're willing to come back and talk about it.

[Janis]: Yeah

[Brent]: And that's where we're going to show you the three steps. We're not going to get to that today, but we will soon. That if you can start over-- I always say it's a little bit like the Etch A Sketchs, you know?

[Janis]: Oh yeah.

[Brent]: Where you're drawing this picture and it doesn't go very well, and you shake it. That's what we get to do here. The picture is not going very well, we're going to shake it, and we're going to start over again. I have a lot of couples that use timeout. Now, some people don't like timeout because their parents put them in timeout, and it's got a negative connotation to it, but I have people that say “we need to take a break”. I have one couple that says “Snuffleupagus”, I have another one that says “pineapple”, you know.

[Janis]: Which is interesting, because we've talked about-- We have several couples that say “pineapple” just randomly. I'm like, what is it about a pineapple?

[Brent]: I don’t know.

[Janis]: Whatever works.

[Brent]: Whatever word that you agree on is workable and as you said, if couples can just do this, even if we don't know the three steps yet, you're going to have a much better chance of starting over again and having a reasonable conversation if you can just pull out of it. We all tend to think as humans “if I just need to get the last word in. If I can just say this and really get them, then they're going to be sorry”, you know? And I have never seen anybody in these 40 years get into their dance, and one of them all of a sudden stops and goes “oh my gosh, you're so right and I'm so wrong”. I've never seen that happen. Now, we see that in TV movies, where somebody just comes in and tells somebody off and just goes off on them, and it looks like the person stunned.

[Janis]: Yes

[Brent]: And then the music changes, and it looks like they've had this inner conviction of “oh my gosh, you're so right”. This is Hollywood. I've never seen that happen in [Unintelligible].

[Janis]: I've never seen that happen.

[Brent]: We just keep going after each other. Now, again, a behavior can be-- I have some couples that both withdraw and so, that is still an action. That is still a knee jerk reaction, is withdrawal and so, this still is committing. We have to commit to that even if we both withdraw, one of us has got to say “okay, let's take some time. Let's come back and try to talk about this again” and so--

[Janis]: And one thing that I'm going to emphasize that I do with my couples, is I make them swear to me that they will not ask why the other one used a safe word, because they're going to be so tempted. It's going to be like “what? What I do?”

[Brent]: “Just explaining myself”.

[Janis]: “Yes. How did that hit your bruise?”

[Brent]: “Man, you're sensitive”.

[Janis]: “That doesn’t make any sense”. Yeah, “man, you're sensitive” never goes well. But just-- And I'll just look at them go “please, please, please commit to me. You will not ask them why they said that word”, because it's going to come out clear later on when you discuss it.

[Brent]: Yeah, yeah, and so, we've just got to pull out immediately and it will help us stop harming each other as badly. Now, we're going to have in the show notes, we have a little packet that we do send home with couples and if you're interested, you can print it off, one for each of you. It has a section, the first couple of pages it says “think back on times where you've had conflict as a couple”. Now, you don't have to think back on the exact same argument, but just in general, “when you've had conflict, what do you feel?”. The first two pages. This also is very helpful for us guys if we're trying to get in touch with our feelings. Gives you two pages of feelings, okay? And you read through them, you check all that apply and then you go back through and you start the top five. We're trying to identify the top five feelings and then if you flip over the top of page three in the packet, it'll say “when you feel those feelings, what do you do? What is your reaction?”. You can have two and a half pages of possible reactions. You do the same thing. You check all that apply, go back through, you start the top five.

[Brent]: Then a couple more pages you're going to see a thing that says “what do you want from this relationship?”. Well, you're going to want to check all of these because they're really nice, okay? But we still want you to pick the top five and then for those of you who are watching and saw my little scribbles on the baseball diamond and all that kind of stuff, there's going to be a little chart at the very end of this that's going to look like that, in case you're wondering what I was drawing and you simply-- Each couple, each person simply fills out their half of that chart. It'll have a place for your five wants, your five feelings, your five reactions and then we encourage you to sit down together and blend them and put them all in one chart and just see if you can't see pretty clearly how you trigger each other.

[Janis]: Yeah

[Brent]: The more we can be aware of our own feelings and reactions, and the more I can be aware of their feelings and reactions, we can work on this together, which is the key. I tell every couple “I can pretty much guarantee you; you could tell me what the other person's doing wrong”. Raising four kids, they would get in these little squabbles when they were little kids. We'd [Unintelligible], “what in the world?”.

[Brent]: Like, 100% of the time “she pushed me”; “he said--” it's always their fault, right?

[Janis]: Yes

[Brent]: And so, what this is suggesting is we can't blame the other person. Just because you-- Even if I hit your bruise, if I hit your bruise and you were feeling unimportant, even if you couldn't catch it and you ended up saying something critical, that doesn't give me the right to do my old behavior and to justify it and rational. I can pull us out and say “okay, let's take a break. Let's start over again”. Or if I can't catch it, you can catch it.

[Janis]: Exactly

[Brent]: And so, simply realize every couple has a weak spot. If you can just own this as a couple and say “this is our weak spot”. If we pass a microphone around in all of our social settings and church and groups and whatever, you would see every couple has this and so, the more we can see it, the more we can bring it to the surface and realize “oh, my gosh, this is our weak spot. Let's not let this steal life from us and keep us disconnected” and they'll help you get more awareness. I see a lot of just sadness on couples’ parts when they-- When we sketch this out on a board and they see what their partner is feeling.

[Janis]: Yeah

[Brent]: It's like “oh my gosh, I hate that I'm causing you to feel that way”. But the reality is nobody wants to cause their partner to feel these things, and we're not doing it on purpose.

[Janis]: Right.

[Brent]: I tell couples when we look at it, we kind of unpack it and put it on the chart. I say “all of these positive things, are these not things you would want your partner to have?”, “oh my gosh”. 100% “Oh, my gosh, yes”. “These bad feelings that they're feeling, would you not agree that's the last thing you'd ever want them to feel?”, “Oh, my gosh, yes”. But we're actually doing some things from time to time that's actually causing those feelings. So, we're simply-- I mean, [Unintelligible] eternity, we're going to have these bruises. We're going to bump into each other's because we're human. We're humans, married to humans, and we're going to cause some of these feelings, but we can learn to eliminate the old behavior. That's what we've got to stop and that's what a safe word does, is it pulls us out so that we can stop that old behavior and stop harming each other and so, the idea is the safe word-- Now, I do realize I've had a few couples-- I don't know if you've had couples tell you this, but couples tell me that there's a modern-- Couple of modern TV shows.

[Janis]: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. I’ve heard it a lot. They laugh.

[Brent]: Use this-- I guess-- How I Met Your mother, I guess, that they use “pause”. But the way they use it is not how we're doing this, guys, okay? The way they use it is if they're fighting, one of them says “pause” and they stop fighting, but then a few minutes later, one of them says “unpause” and they just start fighting again. They have the first idea right, but that's not what we're going to do in the second part. We're going to come back, we're going to show you, you know, future sessions here, this three-step process on how you can come back and talk it through and resolve issues. This is the process, this three-step procedure is the process of blending. It's how do you be fully alive as an individual, but you're collaborating with a partner, and you get the best benefit possible.

[Janis]: Yeah

[Brent]: So, that's it for today. We hope that this made sense and encourage you to get the little handout and start working on this. Again, realize you're going to have this, you can have this with a coworker or a child and can help you see those dynamics as well.

[Janis]: And I think as an individual even, it's important to recognize “this is my bruise, and this is my response”. So, when you come home from work and you're like “oh, I'm so unappreciated. Everything's so terrible”, looking back and going “oh, my bruise was hit today, and I need to recognize that's what's going on”. It's not that everybody around me is mean and horrible. I mean, some maybe, but it really is identifying our own bruises and saying “I'm responsible for my behavior after that” and that maybe you have to go home and just journal for a while or something to help you process that.

[Brent]: Yeah, yeah. Some people come home from work already triggered.

[Janis]: Yeah

[Brent]: You know, somebody at work disrespected them or they felt unappreciated and their partner or their child does one little bitty thing that hits that already bleeding bruise and sends us over the edge and so, we're all vulnerable to this, no judgment in this, but there is a way out of it. There's a way through this to where we can begin to bring the world into a greater level of unity.