Eps 224: SOLO – Creating mindfulness in our romantic partnerships

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Casey O'Roarty 0:00
Go, Hello and welcome. Welcome to the joyful courage podcast, a place where we tease apart what it means to be a conscious parent and aren't afraid of getting super messy with it. I'm your host, Casey awardee, positive discipline trainer, parent coach, and in the trenches of the parenting journey with my own two teenagers. Each week, I come at you with a solo show or an interview. You can be sure that the guests on the podcast have something important to say, and I am honored to have you listen in as I pick their brains about what it is that they are passionate about. If you are a parent looking to grow while walking the path of parenting. If you're open to learning new things, if your relationship with yourself and your kids is something you are interested in diving deeper into, then this is the place for you. After you listen, I would love to hear from you. Head over to iTunes and leave a five star review, letting others know what you love about the show, or feel free to shoot me an email at [email protected], I love hearing from listeners, and am always quick to respond if you want to be sure not to miss any of the happenings going on with joyful courage. Join my list. You'll stay updated on the podcast and events that are happening for parents, both online and live. You can join the list at WWW dot joyful courage.com/join Yay. So glad you're here. Enjoy the show. Hey listeners,

welcome back to the joyful courage podcast.

We've been listening or my kids have actually been watching a lot of Phineas and Ferb. Yes, they're teenagers, but with the whole Disney plus thing that they've managed to finagle, somehow, they've been going back to some of the old shows that they love. And anyway, I have the Phineas and Ferb jingle in my head, so that's where that little sing song came from. Anyway. Hi, how are you? I'm so glad to be here with you. Today is a solo show, just you and me this week, and I've got some really exciting things to share with you. I spent all day yesterday, Saturday, at a mindful Couples Retreat with my husband, and I asked his permission, and he said that I could share about it with you. And I'm really excited about that, because I think it's really important, just as I am pretty darn transparent around what is going on in my parenting journey, I think it's also important for us to talk about the work that goes into a strong, healthy relationship partnership, because it is not easy, right? And if you've been with your partner for a long period of time, my husband and I celebrated 20 years last summer, you know that it ebbs and it flows and it's work and yeah, so I'm excited to share about our experience with you and offer up a few nuggets for you to be thinking about. But before I get into that content, I want to share with you. I'm so excited. Enrollment is open for the sex ed for parents of teens, mini Summit. That's right, sex ed for parents of teens. It's a mini Summit. I'm so excited to share it with you. I have five amazing experts that are coming on, and have let me interview them. Some of them, you know, they've been on the podcast. Amy Lang and Joe Langford have both had time on the joyful courage podcast. You might know Melissa Carnegie from sex positive families on Instagram. She has a huge following and puts out really powerful content. Another one of my guests is a local gal that I found here in Bellingham doing the work of sex education in my local community. Super excited to talk to her. And finally, finally, my final guest is Dr Abby Weisman, who was one of the keynote speakers at the diversity and parenting conference that I went to last September, who's going to come on and works with LGBTQ, IQ, AP youth and families, and so each one of these guests is bringing their own expertise, and we're having really exciting conversations around topics that I mind. Straight from the joyful courage community, I went into joyful courage for parents of teens, the Facebook group, and I said, Hey, I'm going to do this thing. What do you want me to talk about? So the topics include naming our values and rule setting at home, consent and contraception, support for creating healthy boundaries. In romantic relationships, porn and sexual development during the digital age, and finally, understanding and supporting our LGBTQ IQ AP youth. So I'm really excited, and the conversations are real and raw and honest and transparent. I know you're going to love it. All of the interviews will be professionally edited and produced so easy to listen to, I've also hired out so that the transcripts of all the conversations are really easy to read and will include all the links that are mentioned and book mentions and all the things that you need and resources that are mentioned during the interviews. I'm super proud. I'm super honored. The summit will go live April 6 through the 10th. We will all go through the summit together. There will be engaging discussions in the joyful courage for parents of teens. Facebook group, community, the cost until April 6 is $29 so this is not a free summit. The value is just too high for me to give it away for free. And $29 is a steal for what you get from this summit. So $29 until April 6, and then the cost will actually go up to $49 after that. So get registered now. Get registered now. So you don't forget, I will be emailing people who are registered throughout between now and April 6, just to keep you engaged. Keep reminding you this is happening. You don't have to be anywhere at any particular time each day. You'll just get an interview through email from me, so it's not something you have to, you know, block out certain times of day to participate in. My whole goal is to make it super easy to consume for you and but also making sure that it's going to make a big impact, and it's super useful. So those are my goals. Get registered now again. Joyful courage.com/s E M S, sex ed mini Summit.

Joyful courage.com/s

E M S, I'm super excited. All right, so what I am coming in to talk about today is about being in a mindful relationship. That's actually the name of the workshop that I went to with my husband this weekend. Was the mindful couples

workshop. And you know, I just like every other relationship in our life and every other couple in the world, you know relationships ebb and they flow, and there's times where everybody's really in the groove together, and it's easy and you feel connected. And then there's times where it doesn't feel like that. And there's a variety of reasons as to why that happens, but I had been finding myself really feeling disconnected to my husband, and really trying to connect and to speak into my experience, and not really having a lot of success, just noticing that there was a lot of resentment alive for us, and just, I mean, it was like we were, it was almost like we were speaking two different languages, right? And anytime one of us came to the other with something to share, the other would get defensive and bring up their own stuff. And, you know, you know how it gets right? So we were just, you know, it just was like time to shit or get off the pot, you know what I mean. And I saw it my at my therapist's office. I saw a flyer for this workshop happening in town, and I came home and I asked my husband if he would go to it with me, because we were in agreement that, you know, things were tense, things were hard. And so I invited him and requested that he would do this workshop with me. And you know, he wasn't, like, super enthusiastic about it, but he did say yes. And so I registered us and and we went yesterday. So today's Sunday. You'll be hearing this podcast goes out on Tuesday. So was just yesterday that we went and it was, it was so powerful and useful. And I'm I'm feeling really hopeful and grateful that we went through it so being in a mindful relationship, and what that means to me really is taking time to tend to the relationship, being an acknowledgement of what I'm bringing to my side of the relationship, being intentional around how I want to show up, knowing my partner's rhythms and routine. Means and being willing to change up the dance steps when they aren't working for us, right? So mindfulness, the way that we talked about mindfulness in the

couple's workshop really was in the context of you know how and when we interact with each other. And being mindful means that we're interacting during a time of calm, right? Our emotional regulation is steady. We are in that prefrontal cortex, right? Our lids aren't flipped, whereas mindlessness really is when we get into it with our partner and our lids are flipped and we're highly emotional and reactive, and we all know how well things go when we're in that place. So I think the overarching concept context of this workshop was remembering and recognizing that no problems can be solved if we're not in a in a mindful state of of being. And you know, we talk about this on the parenting journey too. We talk about when we're heated, when we're feeling triggered, that's not the time to solve problems, right that we can't access our thinking brain. It's often a time where we say things that are hurtful and do things that we got to clean up later. Um, whether it's a cleanup like I was mean to you or clean up like I broke a plate, depending on who you are, but really that work of mindfulness, which is kind of a buzzword right now. I mean, everybody's talking about mindfulness, but to me, it's just really being aware and awake of what's going on, and being aware and awake and willing in the moment to recognize okay, I'm heated and triggered and angry or sad or embarrassed or whatever. Now is not the time for me to have this conversation. I'm going to go take care of myself so that I can come to a more neutral state of mind, so that I can be in connection with this other person and not be defensive, right? It's important on the parenting journey. It's important in our partnerships. It's important in life, right? Because mindfulness at home is great, mindfulness at work, at the grocery store, behind the wheel of a car, it's all important, right? Yeah, yeah. So I went to this workshop with my husband. We talked about mindfulness, but prior to getting there, right prior to getting there. So Saturday morning, well, I should go back Friday night. I said, Okay, we're leaving at 845,

and so that we can get there on time. And do you want me to wake you up? Because my husband likes to sleep in the morning on the weekends, works really hard during the week. Yeah, yeah, okay, I'll

get you up at eight. Morning rolled around and I said, Hey, good morning. It's time to get up. We got to get moving. And my man was not excited about the workshop.

He was not excited. He is currently living with a lot of pain in his body, so the idea of sitting in a chair for that much time was really daunting.

So he did a lot of moaning and groaning, and I could feel him wanting me to say, You know what? Fine, we don't have to go. But I was not willing to say that. I was not willing to say that. What I did say was, this is why it's important to me that we go and, you know, I mean, we could potentially get a refund and not go by saying that you were sick. It's your call, and I handed it to him because I was not going to be the one that gave him the out. Was that mindful.

I don't know. I felt pretty calm the whole time, so I guess on some level, it was mindful, but I was also pretty angry and irritated. And in the end, after much moaning and groaning, he got up and we got to the workshop. And on our way there, I mentioned to him, you know, my intention. We didn't talk a lot because it was kind of tense. And I mentioned on the way there that I was going in open minded and open hearted, and that my hope was at the end of the day, we would both feel grateful that we spent the time.

And he was quiet for a while, and then after a bit, he said, Well, I'm going because I love you. I said, Okay, great. Hmm, okay, great. So we went, and it was hard that morning. I wanted to come unglued. I wanted to tell him to Quit being such a dick. I wanted to say a lot of things. And I didn't. I modeled setting an intention. I spoke my intention. And then once we got there, I could feel there was a little, you know, there was less tension between the two of us. There's a lot of couples there. And what I noticed coming up for me was I really wanted my husband to really like the workshop, right? I wanted him to get a lot out of it. I wanted him to like it. I wanted him to be glad to be there, and I also knew that that was not useful. I couldn't control how he showed up to the workshop or what kind of experience he had. I could only control how I showed up, right? So part of the work of the day was letting go of being attached to the experience that my husband was having and creating for himself, right? Super relevant when we're talking about our teens, our kids and parenting, letting go of their experience and taking responsibility for their experience. So yeah, this podcast is supported by better help. Parenting is hard. Most of us find ourselves in seasons where we experience anger, anxiety, isolation, we feel alone, like we're the only ones that are having a hard time. Better help is the online resource that we all need. It's counseling. Better help matches you with a professional, licensed therapist that is trained in all the things that come to the surface for us, parents, not everybody has the time or resources to seek out a counselor. BetterHelp is affordable and allows you to connect via phone, text or video conference. Guess what? Parenting challenges don't go away. We have to nurture ourselves so that we can show up for the people that we love. And now you can get 10% off your first month of better help. When you use the code joyful courage, go to www.betterhelp.com/joyful courage to get 10% off your first month, you deserve it. You'll be so glad you did it. I promise that's www.betterhelp.com/joyful, courage. So you know, the beginning of the workshop was a lot of lecture, and the gal that ran it, her name's Connie. What is her last name? It's kind of hard, Fitz, I think it's her last name. And she talked about her teachers, her the masters that her work was based on, which is Thich Nhat, hanh, super mindfulness master, John Gottman, Sue Johnson, Harville, Hendricks, Marshall Rosenberg. And then she weaved in how all of their work has come to inform her work, and that was amazing. I really appreciated everything that she shared. And then we moved into doing some activities together with our partner. So again, there was an opportunity for me to set a context within my relationship with my husband, and in the in the space, right, like I'm I'm all in, I'm going to show up, I'm going to follow the directions, and I'm going to, you know, in the process, just because of where we were, where We were, relationship wise, where we were. You know, physically in this workshop, it was important to me to own my contribution to where our relationship is at right, because two people are in a relationship, and we are equally responsible for how the relationship is going. Of course, that does not include, you know, abusive relationships, but in a in a relationship with no abuse, you know, there's stuff for everybody to own, right? And

as the day went on, I made a point of offering lots of loving support, of acknowledging my husband for the ways that he was stepping in and leaning in off. Also giving a lot of options, like knowing that his body was hurting, reminding him, you know what, baby, you can stand up or we can, we can do this activity and walk like really trying to

create comfort in the space for both of us,

while following the directions, leaning in, inviting vulnerability. You know, some of our conversations were about things that we haven't talked about in a long time, but that kind of exist as elephants. In the room, and I kind of took the lead and really just spoke straight into those things from a place of being really neutral and non judgmental and loving, making those things explicit, right? Because there's so much that goes on in relationship, and we don't want to talk about it, or don't know how to talk about it, or it feels awkward or uncomfortable, or we worry about how the other person will feel. And I had this one day, right? I had one day to reconnect and to be with my husband and to create something different in our relationship, and, you know? And I have to acknowledge too stuff like this. This is my jam, right? I love therapy. I

love being coached. I love workshops. This is not my husband's jam. So it's important, it was important for me to just recognize, like, our comfort levels in the process, right? Right, and to acknowledge that, and to take the lead without being the leader, right? Like my husband didn't need to be facilitated by me, but I could show up to the process in a way that was an invitation, right? That it was in an invitation. And we also learned some really powerful processes for deep listening and communication, so much like what we talk about in positive discipline, right, connecting before correcting or redirecting or having hard conversations, right? What's going well? What am I appreciating about you? We talked about love languages and, you know, spoke, we both kind of spoke into how we speak our own love languages to each other, but I am a physical touch and words of affirmation girl, and he is a acts of service guy. And so we aren't, you know, meeting each other where the other person's at, and so that's making a difference. And so there were some commitments yesterday around what we can do to be better at speaking each other's love languages

positive intent, right? We don't talk explicitly about this and positive discipline, but I feel like everybody doing the best they can with the tools they have in the moment is positive intent, right? We want to be in a deeply loving, connected relationship, and Time and events outside of our control have kind of diverted us right from that path, and now we get to be aware of that and be responsible for coming back. We talked a lot around looking for solutions and not blame total PD concept, and I really thought about a lot about the iceberg and how there's so many things you know that couples fight about that get under their skin, that trigger us, that are the tip of the iceberg, and we forget, even in our relationships with our partners, there's things happening under the surface. And if we can

connect under the surface and

uh, the stuff at the at the tip can start to take care of itself. It's really process over product, right? And it was interesting to just witness the other people in the workshop. You know, one of the things that the gal said was, you know, agreeing is overrated. And people were like, Whoa, wait a minute, but we've gotta there's certain things that we have to agree on and we have to come to a conclusion on. And you know what I heard and what I was experiencing was, when we work on relationship, when we work on connection when we're taking time each day to speak each other's love languages, when we are taking time out to be intentional around relationship, those agreements when necessary are so much easier to come to right, because the relationship is there, just like when I say about parenting, the most powerful tool you have to influence behavior is the relationship that you're nurturing with the other person. Right? It's equally as true in our romantic partnerships as it is in our parenting. And I totally had to take the trainer aside to share that with her. She got real excited. One of the processes that she shared at the end reminded me so much of the family meeting. But instead of using the model for the family, you use it as a couple. So basically, it's a weekly safe space for venting about a. So you know, if things came up over the week that rubbed you wrong, you get to clear them.

It's also a useful place for problem solving, right? I would add that at the beginning, to start off this special time couples meeting with a celebration about each other, an appreciation or a compliment to set the tone. One of our issues over here is talking about money.

My husband makes the majority of the money, and I am in charge of budgeting and getting the bills out on time and trying to save right. And it's really hard for us to discuss without having clear goals that are the boss, without having, like, a vision for what we're saving for. And, you know, I want to talk about saving. And Ben feels like, Listen, I've been working really hard. If I want to go, you know, spend money on parts for my truck, I'm going to do that. Like, it just, I don't know, it's really, really a place for us to grow, right? But creating like a couples meeting, a weekly couples meeting, and coming together and looking at the budget together and creating a vision about what do we want most? What do we want to save for? What do we want to create? What do we want our nest egg to look like then, instead of me being a nag about money, we have this vision that becomes the boss, right? And then checking in weekly, we get to see how we're moving towards that goal, right?

So I really, I really appreciate this. And Jane Nelson from positive discipline actually talks about couples meetings as well in her trainings that she does for for couples. I also have to say that lately, well, not lately for a while now, I've been working with a couple that are so sweet every time. At this point, we were working every other week together, and now we're just doing monthly calls. And I love it when they're on my schedule, because they are super intentional with checking in on where their relationships at, anything they need to discuss or process. They're right there, and they are always super articulate and sweet about how they are celebrating each other, and they've been together for, you know, a little, a little while, a couple years, and it's just really dreamy to remember how it feels like in those early years of being in love and and just really appreciating what they're putting into place for their future, right? And now, somebody like me, it's 20 years later. We're coming on, 25 years since we met and fell in love. And it takes work. Man, you know, it takes work. We're not the same people. I was 21 when I met my husband. I'm 46 now, that's a long time ago, but being aware, being mindful and being willing, right to take ownership and take steps to reconnect, I think, is super, super powerful. I was listening to, I think I've mentioned on here that I love armchair expert, right that podcast with Dax Shepard. So they have a little spin off podcast right now called Monica and Jess love boys and

two people, the co host of armchair expert and her really good friend, are looking for love, and they have a podcast all about it, and they had Kristen Bell on. Dax Shepard's wife,

Kristen Bell, the actress, an amazing human

and she was talking to them just and their conversation started to move towards like, infidelity and what would you do? And I really appreciated what Kristen Bell said. She said, you know, Dax and I have already decided, we've decided that we are going to be on the front porch at 80 years old together, and that's we know that that is our truth, that's what's going to happen. And because of that, we can get through anything, and we plan on getting through anything that comes up in our relationship. And it was just listening to that and thinking about my own relationship and really being clear on Yes, right? Yes, the person that I'm married to right now, my husband is who I will be on the front porch with at 80. And if I want that to be a deeply loving, intentional, light, fun relationship, then we get to be doing the work now, right? We get to be doing the work now. So yeah, tend to your relationships, my friend, we talk so much about relationship with our teenagers and our young kids here, but equally, if not more important, is our relationship with our partners. So I just wanted to take a little bit of time this week and bring that. Up. And I know that we all have issues, right, whether it's, you know, issues around parenting style or money or sex or, you know, religion like there's a lot of different things that show up in relationships that are difficult to navigate,

and you can right? It's just a matter of recognizing that there's two people,

two people in the challenge. And we can be intentional, we can be mindful. We can take steps to reconnect and to love each other through whatever the challenge is, even if we don't ever agree on, you know, those, those tough issues, we can connect. We can remember that we love each other, right? We can do that work. I would say, do that work before you decide what's next.

Ah, yeah. So I hope that was useful to you. I hope you feel inspired. If you have any questions or thoughts, I would love to hear them. You can email me at Casey, at joyful courage.com, you can jump into the live and love with joyful courage Facebook group, or the joyful courage of parents of teens Facebook group and ask questions. Or if you're in my Patreon group, $5 a month gets you weekly Facebook Lives and semi weekly, semi weekly, bi weekly podcast interview debriefs. So yeah, you can meet up with me in Patreon, joyful courage. No, that's not what it is. It's joyful courage. No, it's what is it? Patreon.com/joyful, courage, P, A, T, R, E, O n.com/joyful,

courage. Will get you to my Patreon site. You can sign up to be a $5 member and get perks like Facebook Lives, podcast recaps, and later this month, I'm going to start a monthly group coaching call so a mastermind of all the patrons with a Q A and some time for coaching. So check that out, and I will see you again with an interview next week.

Thanks for sticking around. Talk to you soon. Thank you so much for listening. It is my great honor to create this show for all of you. Big thanks to my producer, Chris Mann at pod shaper, for his work in making the podcast sound oh so good. If you're interested in continuing these powerful conversations that start on the podcast, become a patron by heading to www.patreon.com/joyful courage. That's www dot P, A, T, R, E, O n.com/joyful, courage. For $5 a month, you will have access to a private Facebook group where I do weekly Facebook lives on Mondays and interview recaps on Fridays. Plus it's a great way to give back to the show that gives you so much. Be sure to subscribe to the show, head to Apple podcast, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Google Play wherever you are listening to podcasts, and simply search for the joyful courage podcast and hit that subscribe button. Join our communities on Facebook, the live and love with joyful courage group and the joyful courage of parents, of teens groups are both safe, supportive communities of like minded parents walking the path with you. If you're looking for even bigger, deeper support, please consider checking out my coaching offer. Www dot joyful courage.com/coaching. Is where to go to book a free explore. Call with me and we can see if we're a good fit. I'll be back next week. Can't wait until then. Big Love to you. Remember to find your breath, ride it into your body, take the balcony seat and trust that everything is going to be okay. Wow.

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