Eps 665: Marriage and the teen years with Shilo Minor

“Joyful courage is when you stand in your full power, strong spine, knowing your worth and your value, and you allow your heart to be open at the same time to receive and give love.” – Shilo Minor

Resources mentioned

• Sexy and Regulated Mama Summit — free virtual event, August 1st and 2nd. Register at bit.ly/sexysummit. Casey speaks on parenting; Shilo’s session is on feeling invisible in your own marriage. bit.ly/sexysummit
• The Well Circle — Shilo’s community for women doing this work. Current bonus: 7-day free trial plus 14 days of one-on-one access to Shilo.
• Shilo on Instagram — @shilothelovecoach
• Your Real Life Love Story / The Real Love Method — Shilo’s framework
• Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus by John Gray
• Casey’s recent solo episode on the fawn response (referenced in the conversation)
• Shilo’s website: https://www.shilohminor.com/

Transcription

[00:00:00] Casey O'Roarty: Hey, hi. I'm so glad you're here for this conversation with Shilo Minor. Before we get into it, I wanna make sure you know where else you can find her this summer. Shilo is one of the experts joining me at the Sexy and Regulated Mama Summit, a free virtual event happening next weekend. Next weekend, August 1st and 2nd.
[00:00:20] Her session is called Chosen and Adored, all about what it really means to feel invisible in your own marriage, and how to shift that for good. As you've been hearing, I'll be there too, talking about parenting. It's completely free. You can grab your seat at bit.ly/sexysummit. Two days free. Every mama who shows up walks away with tools and resources to actually feel like herself again.
[00:00:44] Go claim your seat, and then settle in, because this conversation with Shilo is such a great place to start. Let's dive in
[00:00:55] Welcome, welcome. Welcome to the Joyful Courage Podcast. This is a place where parents of tweens and teens come to find inspiration, information, and encouragement in the messy terrain of adolescence. This season of parenting is no joke, and while the details of what we're all moving through might be slightly different, we are indeed having a very collective experience.
[00:01:20] This is a space where we center building relationship, nurturing life skills, and leaning into our own personal growth, and man, the opportunities abound, right? My name is Casey O'Rourde. I am a parent coach, positive discipline lead trainer, and captain of the adolescent ship over at Sproutable. I'm also a speaker and a published author.
[00:01:44] I've been working with parents and families for over 20 years and continue to navigate my own experience of being a mom with my two young adult kids. I'm so honored that you're here and listening. Please give back to the podcast by sharing it with friends or on social media. Rate and review us on Apple or Spotify.
[00:02:03] Word of mouth is how we grow. Thank you so, so much. Enjoy the show.
[00:02:14] Okay, listeners, welcome back to the pod. So this week I am sharing with you a show, yes, about relationship, as is the themes always. This week we're gonna be taking a look at the relationship we have with our partners, the ones that we chose, the ones we are co-parenting with, the ones we continue to wanna be in relationship with even as perhaps things have gotten a little tricky in the messiness of parenting, parenting through adolescence, and being humans in a world that is kinda wild right now.
[00:02:53] My guest today is Shilo Minor. Shilo is the founder of Your Real Life Love Story, and the creator of the Real Love Method, a process that helps women build soul-satisfying marriages without couples therapy. Her heart is in guiding good women to break generational cycles of being emotionally neglected, taken for granted, so they can finally get the love, support, and affection they need from the partner that they already chose.
[00:03:22] When she's not doing this work, you'll find her in the garden, in the sauna, or somewhere in the middle of a good conversation. She lives in rural Nova Scotia with her husband and their two small boys. She takes real pleasure in the simple things of life. Shilo, I am so happy to welcome you to the Joyful Courage Podcast.
[00:03:40] Thanks for being here.
[00:03:41] Shiloh Minor: Thank you so much. I'm excited to be here.
[00:03:44] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah. So let's just start with your story.
[00:03:48] Shiloh Minor: Mm-hmm.
[00:03:48] Casey O'Roarty: And the season that you went through, feeling like things could be better, that things were hard. What did things look like day to day in your relationship that moved you towards the work that you're doing right now?
[00:04:02] Shiloh Minor: Yeah. So before I got married, I had read all the books on relationships. I was one of these people who was kind of obsessed from a young age. So I thought I had it all figured out, right? I thought, "My relationship's gonna go smooth. I'm gonna be this amazing parent." Yeah. God bless us. And then reality hit, right?
[00:04:17] Yeah. Then reality hit, and I was humbled. So had one kid, and that was kinda hard, you know? But then I had two kids. We had two boys, and my oldest boy- Mm ... is, has ADHD and was absolutely pinging off the walls. And then my youngest had dietary sensitivities, and I was completely snowed in, head underwater. And there was my husband, not paying attention to me, you know, roommate status, and I'm going, "We gotta do something about this.
[00:04:47] Like, we can't just have that kinda relationship. That was never gonna be my life." And he's going, "What do you mean? This is just life with kids." I was like, "Uh-oh, that's not what I planned for," right? Mm-hmm. And so I hit that wall of like, we're in different realities. We have different expectations. You're not hearing what I'm saying.
[00:05:10] And I'm a very big, direct communicator. I lo- love to tell you exactly what I think. So I'm thinking, "I'm doing all the right stuff. I'm communicating. I'm asking for what I want. I'm putting it out there, and this is, like, not working. We're just having fights," and emotional hangover, where you're just like, "I'm exhausted and emotionally spent- Mm-hmm
[00:05:29] and how am I gonna get through my day?" And I had no idea what to do, but I woke up one day and I thought, "I think I need help," 'cause I realized that despite all the things I thought I knew, my strategies were not working. Things were getting worse. We were more disconnected than ever, and I was also on the side feeling like a terrible mother because I was so easily angered.
[00:05:52] I was so- Mm-hmm ... tired. I was so annoyed. I wasn't loving it, and I was imagining that I would love it. I'd wanted to be a mom my whole life. I love kids. I still love kids, but that season was not pretty. And so I went on this mission to figure it out, and the first step was actually I hired a parent coach.
[00:06:09] Casey O'Roarty: Mm-hmm.
[00:06:09] Shiloh Minor: I was like, "I thought I was gonna be really good at momming, and right now I don't think I'm doing it the way I wanted to." And that parent coach was the one who taught me that I was not a victim.
[00:06:20] Casey O'Roarty: Mm-hmm.
[00:06:21] Shiloh Minor: I will never forget that moment, 'cause I was doing my complaining, "Well, this kid does this, and that kid does that.
[00:06:26] My husband's doing this, and it's not fair, and it sucks." And she's going, "Shilo, you're not a victim." And I was like, "Well, I know, but you should hear how bad it is."
[00:06:35] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah. Let me
[00:06:36] Shiloh Minor: convince you otherwise. But let me, let me tell you, because it's real bad. And she just kept saying, "You're not a victim." And I was like, "Oh, what do you mean?"
[00:06:42] And she's like- "You don't have to stay there." I was like, "I got little kids, like, I have to stay there." She's like, "Do some moms not stay?" And I was like, "Yeah, I guess some moms freak out and run for Mexico."
[00:06:55] Casey O'Roarty: Mm-hmm.
[00:06:56] Shiloh Minor: And she's like, "But you're not doing that. But you could." And it was such a paradigm shift for me to realize that the only reason that I was not in a different situation was because I was actively choosing this.
[00:07:10] Mm-hmm. And when I go a little deeper, the reason I was actively choosing it was because my high value was showing up for my kids. Mm-hmm. That was my number one value, that I create something better for them, and that I don't flake and that I don't collapse, that I don't, you know, throw in the towel. And so I changed my whole paradigm from, "This is not fair and my life sucks and everything's too hard," to, "I am so proud of myself for heroically doing what I said I would do and sticking with it."
[00:07:37] And so that entry into conscious living then made me go- Mm-hmm ... "Wait a minute, I bet there's something about husbands that also applies here." Mm-hmm. I bet that my- It's all
[00:07:47] Casey O'Roarty: relationship.
[00:07:48] Shiloh Minor: Yes. Yeah. Yes. I bet that my attitude and my beliefs about him are having a really big impact on how he acts and how he feels, and I bet this whole victim narrative is not really serving us.
[00:08:00] Mm-hmm. And so that's when I basically went on a mission to find everything I could, to try everything I could, to shift the dynamic in my relationship without him understanding that it needed to be shifted, 'cause he wasn't understanding it. That was the reality at that moment And so when I started doing that, when I, I started practicing these tools, and he started wanting to talk to me, and he started looking at me, and he started being alive again, I went, "Oh my God, this is something that probably 80% of the women I know have gone through."
[00:08:28] Good women with good husbands, nothing's wrong with either of you, but you're like, "This is not good. This is not what I signed up for." And so that's when I became a coach, and I just started helping people, and convinced me even more and more and more how normative it is, and how it's not weird, and not meaning your relationship is toxic- Yeah
[00:08:45] to have some major ruptures, to have an experience of we're not speaking the same language, we have different standards and expectations- Yeah ... we're talking at past each other, and that there's a whole skill set around creating the lifelong love story that has been lost to us, but also is the avant-garde, because the types of relationships we want to create maybe have never existed before.
[00:09:07] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah. I mean, patriarchy.
[00:09:10] Shiloh Minor: Yeah.
[00:09:10] Casey O'Roarty: Like, there's a reason that it's pretty standard for men to have a certain level of emotional intelligence and for women to have a different level of emotional intelligence, and it's not because of biology. Yeah, I feel you. I feel this story. I think that my listeners probably are relating.
[00:09:28] For us, it wasn't so much early years as much as it became, like, things started to re- revealed during adolescence. And then for me, like I told you before I hit record, like, really empty nest. Because what we could center our conversations on no longer was in the house. Mm-hmm. And really being in that question, and again, I know I said this in the opening of, you know, I've been so elusive about this, but, like, dropping little breadcrumbs for my listeners.
[00:10:04] Sorry, everyone, I'm not gonna share all of it, but like- Kind of in the
[00:10:06] Shiloh Minor: middle of it right now.
[00:10:08] Casey O'Roarty: In the middle of it right now. And I tell you what, Shilo, one thing, and like it's, especially the last year, but really the last couple years, I've been on the edge, like, face-to-face with am I in or am I out, you know?
[00:10:22] Like, we'll always be family, but am I in or am I out? And because of the shit storm and where it's taken me- I am super clear that I'm in. You know, I even said to my husband a couple nights ago, like, the bullshit of right now, like I'm so grateful to hold us kind of in this cosmic soulmate space because it helps me to hold this thread of right now.
[00:10:49] It's just that. It's a thread in the tapestry, the much bigger tapestry of what we're doing here together in this lifetime. And I know that not everybody has that clarity. Like, sometimes I'm like, "Am I just freaking delusional? Like, what is happening right now?" Or am I so hyper evolved like who cares the, what the answer to those things are right now?
[00:11:09] I'm just experiencing my experience. And I know, you know, that the wobble feels really real for a lot of people, people that I work with, as well as friends. And, you know, the parenting layer is so ripe, right? And you talk about how, like, those parenting struggles can reveal the weak spots in relationship.
[00:11:32] Why is it, and I think I know the answer, but I'd love to hear you talk about, like, what is it about that layer of life that can reliably, pretty reliably crack the surface of our relationship with our partners?
[00:11:47] Shiloh Minor: It's so interesting because when we meet someone, fall in love, and get married, we imagine bringing this child into it and that it's all just gonna be this cocoon, right?
[00:11:55] Yeah. Like, it's just gonna be this delicious cocoon.
[00:11:57] Casey O'Roarty: We'll be so good at it. We're gonna love it.
[00:11:59] Shiloh Minor: So that's partly why it wrecks us, 'cause the fantasy is-
[00:12:03] Casey O'Roarty: Yes ...
[00:12:03] Shiloh Minor: ca- is, you know, intergalactic. It's at the maximum- Mm-hmm ... because we didn't get that as kids.
[00:12:09] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah.
[00:12:10] Shiloh Minor: We're gonna make that heaven on Earth for our kids- Mm-hmm
[00:12:12] because of course we are, 'cause we are so brilliant, and we're cycle breakers, and we're on it, and we got a plan. We're intentional. Evolved. This man was like, "Yes, I want kids." Mm-hmm. You're like, "I got a good man who wants to be a dad," like, yay, right? Yeah. And then you encounter the fact that everybody has a different individual reality.
[00:12:28] This has gotta be the biggest slap in the face because you talked about all this stuff- Yeah ... with your husband already, I'm sure. But he literally was not meaning any of the same things, not any of them, but many of the same things that you meant because our paradigms are all different. So when he said, "I wanna raise independent kids," and you said, "Yeah, I wanna raise independent kids," what did that mean?
[00:12:46] He might meant, mean that when they're crying you never give them a hug. Because that would make them dependent.
[00:12:53] Casey O'Roarty: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
[00:12:54] Shiloh Minor: You might mean that you teach them how to do the dishes, and they do chores, right? So you keep running into these ideals and values that each of you hold around, "My kid is gonna be like this."
[00:13:06] And not to mention that each of you individually is having a panic attack about how you can't control your kids. Oh- You don't get to mold them in ...
[00:13:13] Casey O'Roarty: and we're talking about adolescents- Oh ... you know, here on this show too. It's
[00:13:17] Shiloh Minor: over. Yeah, it's over for you now-
[00:13:18] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah ...
[00:13:19] Shiloh Minor: like, in that way. The control animal is, like, dying a thousand deaths.
[00:13:23] The control mama bear that's like, "I'm gonna keep you safe by controlling you," and the dadder bear who's like, "You gotta be this kinda person to survive in the world," or whatever, is, like, having a fit all the time. And when you see your partner not support you in controlling your kid the way you wanna control them, now you're pissed at them.
[00:13:40] Like, "I'm having a hard enough- Mm-hmm ... time trying to control them. You should back me up on controlling them in this particular way." And then, as you know, the kids' temperaments then interact with you differently. They pit you against each other- Yeah ... because that's the wisdom of animals, like- Well,
[00:13:52] Casey O'Roarty: that's what we teach them
[00:13:52] Shiloh Minor: that's what we do.
[00:13:53] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah. I mean, we're like, "You wanna- Yeah ... survive? You wanna get what you want?" Yeah. "Here's the blueprint."
[00:13:57] Shiloh Minor: Right. Right. They pit us against each other. And
[00:13:59] Casey O'Roarty: then we're like, "How dare you manipulate me?"
[00:14:01] Shiloh Minor: I know. I know. They're gonna be like, "I asked Mom, but I'm gonna ask Dad now-
[00:14:04] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah ...
[00:14:04] Shiloh Minor: without telling him that I asked Mom."
[00:14:06] And so- Of course ... they're gonna be trying to survive and work all these things, and so it just reveals to us all our blind spots. It reveals to us all the places where we actually totally don't agree with our partner that we thought we might have. We assumed that that was gonna flow- Mm-hmm ... and then uh-oh, we don't, right?
[00:14:22] And it also reveals all the power imbalances, and that is the most frustrating, I think, for a lot of women. Mm-hmm. Is there's a lot of power dynamics that go on in your love relationship that you can kind of ignore without kids. Like, you can do your own thing, and, you know, you can have your own spheres of influence.
[00:14:37] You get this part of the house; I get that part of the house. Or I make decisions about, I don't know what, the yard. You make decisions about the kitchen. But kids are shared territory. Nobody gets veto. Mm-hmm. I don't think there's anything else like that except for maybe the retirement fund, you know?
[00:14:51] Mm-hmm. Where it's like you fight about money for the same reason, 'cause it's kinda shared territory, that, like, what you decide actually really impacts me.
[00:14:58] Casey O'Roarty: Right.
[00:14:58] Shiloh Minor: And we have different visions about it. That's what happens with kids, and with teens it's like, yeah, you're seeing them come to an age where they're becoming formed.
[00:15:06] You realize- Yeah ... the years to, like, have more control are over.
[00:15:10] Casey O'Roarty: Oh, yeah.
[00:15:11] Shiloh Minor: So the grief there is, like, if you don't know how to grieve, you're just gonna be clawing back control- Mm-hmm ... all the time. I have a good friend. I don't- I'll confess, I don't have teenagers-
[00:15:21] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah, how
[00:15:21] Shiloh Minor: old are your boys? ... so I'm not an expert.
[00:15:22] They are gonna be eight and 10.
[00:15:25] Casey O'Roarty: Oh, sweet spot.
[00:15:26] Shiloh Minor: It's sweet spot, I know. I'm, like, glorying in it. Can't buckle up. I'm glad
[00:15:29] Casey O'Roarty: that we know each other
[00:15:30] Shiloh Minor: now. No, I know, it's a sweet spot. And my 10-year-old
[00:15:32] Casey O'Roarty: is like- Actually, boys-
[00:15:33] Shiloh Minor: They're different too,
[00:15:34] Casey O'Roarty: Ida. Well, I mean, people would argue with me- Yeah ... and people would argue with me about this- Yeah
[00:15:37] but it feels like little boys are a lot, but teenage girls are a lot.
[00:15:45] Shiloh Minor: I've heard this from so many people.
[00:15:47] Casey O'Roarty: Hopefully you've already done your hard and it'll j- I mean, it's all relative, but.
[00:15:51] Shiloh Minor: It's relative. I've heard this from a lot of people. My hard was definitely on hard mode. Like, now I look back at it, and it's like I kept asking myself, like, "Why is this so hard?
[00:15:58] Why is this so hard? Am I just, like, crap at this?" It was on hard mode. Like, I, my particular- Mm-hmm ... neuro-spicy family- Yeah, sure ... it was totally hard mode, and we're just coming out of the trenches, so I'm like, "Ah, thank God." Ah. My oldest one is very verbal, very emotional, very feisty. Mm-hmm. So he's kinda hot and cold.
[00:16:16] He'll be really great, and then, like, really crazy the next moment. But we have good influence. I feel like I've established- Yeah ... my authority with him through, like, relentlessly increasing my capacity to hold boundaries. Like, that was- Mm-hmm ... the big lesson that I've-
[00:16:29] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah ...
[00:16:29] Shiloh Minor: I've learned in all my relationships, frankly, but was challenged and actuated by my eldest.
[00:16:33] Like, he has so much to do with my growth. 'Cause I was like- Oh, absolutely ... "Oh, if I don't learn how to hold boundaries, I'm gonna get absolutely walked on in this family."
[00:16:41] Casey O'Roarty: Mm-hmm.
[00:16:42] Shiloh Minor: So I learned that. But yeah, I don't have teenagers, but a lot of my friends are just pressing into teenagers. They've got the 13, 14, 15-year-olds, right?
[00:16:49] Casey O'Roarty: Mm-hmm.
[00:16:50] Shiloh Minor: So they're giving me a lot of their takes and what they're experiencing, and the biggest thing I see is that the parents who don't understand the transition are in trouble-
[00:16:58] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah ... '
[00:16:59] Shiloh Minor: cause they're like, "Where's my baby? Why are they not like that anymore?" Right. And, "How come they don't listen to me?" Why don't they like me?
[00:17:03] And, "Why don't they like me? And they're so mean."
[00:17:05] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah. Well, and I love that you've used a word that I use a lot, which is influence. And really, that's what we're ultimately fighting for in how we show up for our kids, even I'm imagining I'd love to hear your take on how we've showing up in relationship with our partners.
[00:17:23] Because control's an illusion. If we're thinking about it through the lens of how do I get you to do what I want, right? There's kind of that, like, backdoor to victimhood. Mm-hmm. The other piece, and this is what, you know, so much of my work comes back to, are these two needs, these two human needs, which is a sense of belonging and connection, as well as knowing that we matter.
[00:17:51] Mm-hmm. And when those things get misinterpreted or a little bit faded or fogged in, we do what makes sense to us to fight our way back to that. And it can look like hard stands. It can look like kind of some mischief, right? In the spirit of, "No, I need to show you- Mm-hmm ... that I matter. I need to show you that I matter."
[00:18:22] We can get into a lot of funky thing. And I think that there's this feeling of not feeling seen, and I wonder, like, it's easy to think, and I'm excited to ask you this. I feel like women, and I realize I'm completely falling on gender lines here, I'm totally in the gender stereotypes. But it feels like women spend a lot more time thinking about our relationship and how we're being treated, and what's missing, and men are just, like, mowing the grass and going to work and doing their thing.
[00:18:58] It's just not a part of their bandwidth or capacity, or they haven't been encouraged to spend a lot of time thinking about their primary relationship. Is that true?
[00:19:17] Shiloh Minor: I'm gonna confess to you that I do a lot of work along the gender stereotype lines.
[00:19:21] Casey O'Roarty: Okay.
[00:19:21] Shiloh Minor: And I didn't believe in that my whole life. I was so hardcore against gender stereotyping until I, like, got married and had two boys. I felt I just got, like, beat up with it, and I was like, "Okay, I need to do a deep dive of research on this."
[00:19:34] Yeah. So I was always fighting this. Why do men not wanna work on their relationship?
[00:19:38] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah.
[00:19:39] Shiloh Minor: They have a different standard in general. And this is where I think it's so clear that there's, like, a broad consensus with this, is that 70% of divorces are initiated by women Women are asking for a standard- Mm-hmm
[00:19:51] that men have never previously had to meet.
[00:19:54] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah.
[00:19:54] Shiloh Minor: And so the only reason things are changing is because women are unhappy, not because men are unhappy.
[00:19:59] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah.
[00:19:59] Shiloh Minor: They're like, "Well, you know, it's all right." You know, they kind of- Yeah ... have this stoic attitude to like, "If it's not all right, I tolerate it. Could be better."
[00:20:06] But like you said, they'll mow the grass or they'll focus el- elsewhere.
[00:20:09] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah.
[00:20:09] Shiloh Minor: So yeah, it can be something that is so aggravating to us as a feminine 'cause we're working so hard on our relationships, and with our kids, and with ourselves- Mm. Yeah ... and, and, and. And then we're like, "Why are you in your blinders, like, just not focused on this?"
[00:20:25] And that's an important thing to just acknowledge. Because once you see that the values that your partner is coming from are different than yours, or that he's motivated by different things than you, now you can relate to him as someone who's not just supposed to be like you.
[00:20:39] Casey O'Roarty: Mm-hmm.
[00:20:40] Shiloh Minor: Because it does go the other way sometimes.
[00:20:42] Like, if you look at attachment style, women who are avoidantly attached will get together with men who are anxiously attached, and then the gender stereotypes will somewhat flip- Okay ... where the woman is very focused on the outward world, and on her career, and on her success, and the man is like, "Why don't you wanna cuddle?
[00:20:56] Like, spend time with me?"
[00:20:57] Casey O'Roarty: Right.
[00:20:57] Shiloh Minor: Yeah. So sometimes it flips. So it's not- Sure ... definitely not all the way across the board. But if you just take it down to the individual level, until you look at your husband or your wife and go, "What do they really care about? Like, what motivates them?" Yeah. You're just gonna judge them for not being like you.
[00:21:12] Casey O'Roarty: Well, I mean, fuck, why can't they?
[00:21:14] Shiloh Minor: I know.
[00:21:15] Casey O'Roarty: Why can't they be a little bit more like you? 'Cause I'm the
[00:21:16] Shiloh Minor: best. Right?
[00:21:19] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah.
[00:21:20] Shiloh Minor: But how do you get influence? Like, think about the parenting. Like- Right ... the parenting stuff taught me so much about marriage. 'Cause like- Oh, yeah ... if you don't care about what they care about, and if you're actively dismissing what they care about, how much influence do you have with that person?
[00:21:32] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah.
[00:21:33] Shiloh Minor: Zero. They don't wanna hear from you.
[00:21:34] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I get that in my head. And it's funny 'cause I could talk, like we're moving through stuff, I'm ready to get into it, you know, from a neutral place, but like, let's talk relationship. Any given moment of the day and all the moments of the day.
[00:21:49] Yes. Yeah. And I have to remind myself that that's not what's going to invite him into real vulnerable, useful conversation. I have to- Right ... think about my timing. Which I am someone who's, like, thought out the mouth. Right. Like, it's just real quick. So it's a great lesson for me as well. Yeah. And also, I am paying attention 'cause I'm a fawner.
[00:22:10] I'm noticing... I just did a whole show on this- Mm, mm ... just this week that came out yesterday. I'm noticing that I have a fawning instinct, and I, like, am really kind of taking stock in places where I'm abandoning myself-
[00:22:21] Shiloh Minor: Yes ...
[00:22:22] Casey O'Roarty: for the sake of His ability to have a conversation or his bandwidth for things.
[00:22:28] You know, and I just love talking about all this because it's just comes back to that, I get to be aware. I even said to my therapist, like, "Okay, so what's my homework?" Yeah. And she's like, "Casey, you just get to notice. Notice when that instinct comes up, and decide what you wanna do with it, you know?" And it's so simple, and also like, am I really paying you for this?
[00:22:48] Shiloh Minor: It is tricky.
[00:22:49] Casey O'Roarty: It is. It is.
[00:22:50] Shiloh Minor: This topic of the fawning and the self-abandoning, but also the empathy and the understanding for the other, is what I am actually obsessed with right now.
[00:22:59] Casey O'Roarty: Yes. Because- Awesome ...
[00:23:00] Shiloh Minor: basically what I see, 'cause I work mostly with women whose husbands don't wanna come to therapy, which means they meet all the stereotypes, right?
[00:23:08] Casey O'Roarty: Mm-hmm.
[00:23:08] Shiloh Minor: Occasionally I work with men, and here is the other stereotype. The men will come after their wife has left them. So that's pretty much standard , right? Yeah. But when you're dealing with women whose husbands don't want to engage, or who don't wanna have the conversations, they're, they're backed off in whatever way, the instinct for all of us is to be nicer and to be more accommodating, which is- Yeah
[00:23:30] fawning. Yeah. That is where we will go to immediately. And we are somehow convinced that if we do that, they'll do it back to us. If I be nicer and more accommodating to you, you'll be nicer and more accommodating to me, and that is not the equation that they work with. And this is what I mean about boundaries.
[00:23:46] This is why the, my whole exploration of boundaries and not self-abandoning came about, 'cause I learned that we need to discipline our ability to prioritize ourselves or we won't. Yeah. Like, that has to be such a top of mind activity that we will just prioritize the man in our life, accommodate all his preferences, do the things the way he likes it, and then absolutely loathe him.
[00:24:08] Because how annoying is it to be with someone who everything's their way, the temperature's what they like, the music's what they like, the food's what they like, and you're like, "This sucks. There's nothing here for me." Mm-hmm. But we will, like, engage in creating that subconsciously over and over again. So it is a dance between going, "Okay, he's got different priorities."
[00:24:23] He's also more likely not to self-abandon, which means that he's gonna say what he wants and do what he wants- Which is annoying ... a lot. It's annoying, but also a great model.
[00:24:32] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah. Well, and talking about boundaries too, like, the boundary conversation is so interesting to me in a place where I see others do this and I notice that I will do this where it's like, "Okay, I'm gonna set a boundary," and then I'm pissed- Right
[00:24:48] that it didn't result in you doing what I want you to do.
[00:24:52] Shiloh Minor: Right. Or it's like-
[00:24:53] Casey O'Roarty: Like bedtime, you know, we've been working on syncing our bedtime rhythm. Mm. Right? Isn't it funny, you guys? Like, remember bedtime, like, "Oh, when are we gonna get the kids to bed?" Now we're, I'm like, "
[00:25:02] Shiloh Minor: When are you going to bed?" "When are you going to bed?"
[00:25:03] Yeah. "Come
[00:25:04] Casey O'Roarty: on, let's go to bed together." And so I made this declaration 'cause I cannot stay up as, very late. Yeah. I mean, late and... Anyway, so I'm like, "Okay, you know, I'm gonna just take care of myself and, uh, this is when I'm gonna go downstairs and this is when I'm gonna start my routine and-
[00:25:18] Shiloh Minor: Mm-hmm ...
[00:25:18] Casey O'Roarty: you know, I would love for you to join me."
[00:25:20] And then when he didn't, I was like, "How dare you?" "How fucking dare you?" "Out of bed." I know. You know? And so it's like, wait a second, this can't be what boundaries are meant to... Like, I've bastardized the idea of boundaries. Or is that part of it, where it's like, okay, you get to state your boundary and you also get to be with the result?
[00:25:42] Shiloh Minor: I think being with the result is the hardest part. Yeah. And also that the boundary is what you do- It's not what you say Yeah That takes forever for everybody to get. Like, "Well, I told him" Yeah "I set a boundary." No, you just made some kind of- Right ... request or demand, and once again, he didn't care. And so, like, what are you gonna do now?
[00:25:58] Like, what action are you gonna take? Yeah. So I call it, like, enforcing boundaries, 'cause, like, you need some kind of action where, you know, when the standard is not met or whatever, you take some kind of action for yourself. I think that whole thing feels gross. Nobody even wants to even get to that point, but it's so necessary.
[00:26:13] Casey O'Roarty: Isn't the action just, like, "And I'm gonna f- do what I say I'm gonna do"?
[00:26:17] Shiloh Minor: Yeah.
[00:26:17] Casey O'Roarty: And the big work is just calm down.
[00:26:20] Shiloh Minor: Yeah.
[00:26:20] Casey O'Roarty: I think there's also some honest talk too around, like, "Oh, yeah, I thought this was gonna actually make him do what I..." Like, we get to be honest with ourselves, too, around- And we
[00:26:30] Shiloh Minor: can come back to the drawing board, right?
[00:26:31] Like, if you're like- Yeah ... "Okay, did I set that boundary as, like, a covert attempt to make him come to bed with me?" Yeah. "Okay, yes, that's what I did."
[00:26:38] Casey O'Roarty: Absolutely. "
[00:26:38] Shiloh Minor: And now I'm going to bed on my own, and I'm pissed 'cause it backfired or it didn't work, or he didn't notice." Yeah. How dare he. Like, there's so many ways that we miss each other, I can't even explain it.
[00:26:47] Yeah. So, like, women will say, like, "Well, I asked him, and I already did this, and he didn't do it, so it's not gonna happen." And I'll be like, "There's, like, 10 other strategies available to you."
[00:26:55] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah. Totally.
[00:26:55] Shiloh Minor: And also, your energy needs to shift. So that's the other big thing I teach, is that if you're just using words to communicate, you're not cracking the surface of what gets through to people.
[00:27:05] You're also not aware of, like, I don't know if you work with, like, the concept of one up and one down. Like, if you're one down to your husband, basically you're begging him for stuff. Mm. You're like, "Would you please?" Like, "Oh, I'd really like it if..." Yeah. And you kind of are, like, supplicating. We do that with our teens.
[00:27:21] Yeah, exactly. Yeah. You do it to anybody who you feel like has more power than you, so you could totally do it to teens. And you know what it does? It makes people worse, turns them into bullies. Mm-hmm. Because when you're all simpering and It's kind of gross ... they're like, "Oh, gross. Get away." Yeah. "Ick." Yeah.
[00:27:34] And they learn real quick that what you say doesn't matter because you're just begging.
[00:27:38] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah.
[00:27:38] Shiloh Minor: It's just a turn-off all the way around. So- Yeah ... you might have been doing a bunch of strategies from one down position. That's never gonna land. Or you might be doing them from one up position. The one up position is, "What's wrong with you?"
[00:27:49] Yeah. "Why can't you load the dishwasher right?" Like, "This is obvious. You should've figured it out." Like, if you're in, like, a condescending, even if you use the right words, people will feel that and then also be like, " Ew, don't like it. I'm gonna resist," right? So a lot of the work I do is about getting into your own internal landscape and being like, "Do you feel like you deserve this?"
[00:28:07] Casey O'Roarty: Mm-hmm. "
[00:28:07] Shiloh Minor: Do you feel like it's okay to ask? What is it gonna mean if he says no? What's that gonna mean about who you are?" Yeah. 'Cause if you come with all this scary baggage, then it's really hard to send a clear signal to someone.
[00:28:17] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah. And that makes me think about the dynamic I have said out loud, like, "Goddamn, sometimes I feel like I still have a teenager in the house And when I lift up and out of that, I'm absolutely putting myself in a one-up position.
[00:28:33] Shiloh Minor: Yeah.
[00:28:33] Casey O'Roarty: And so, you know, and one of the things that we did take away from couples therapy, or that I took away, was the idea... Did you see the eye roll that I just did? I saw it,
[00:28:43] Shiloh Minor: yeah. Contempt.
[00:28:44] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah. The idea of equally valid separate realities, right? And the possibility that just because I see things one way doesn't mean that it's the best or the only.
[00:28:56] And, you know, I mean, and I come back to like, "Okay, great. As long as you're, like, moving forward-
[00:29:03] Shiloh Minor: Yeah ...
[00:29:03] Casey O'Roarty: then whatever. It can look however it makes sense. You know, you work with people to help them move from kind of like the opposite side and, you know, we talked before I hit record about that dynamic in parenting of one parent being overly permissive, the other person being overly rigid in response to the partner.
[00:29:27] Shiloh Minor: Mm-hmm.
[00:29:27] Casey O'Roarty: Like, what are some baby steps around... 'Cause what I notice is there's a parenting conversation, but typically when that's the dynamic, there's a lot of longing from each of the parents inside of their relationship with each other.
[00:29:42] Shiloh Minor: Mm-hmm. And
[00:29:43] Casey O'Roarty: I'm finding that with a, I have a couple that I'm working with right now, and it's really sweet to be on the calls with them even though we're talking about their kids.
[00:29:51] We're also talking about, you know, that they miss each other.
[00:29:55] Shiloh Minor: Yeah.
[00:29:55] Casey O'Roarty: You know? What are some, like, baby steps to coming from that opposite space into a shared space?
[00:30:03] Shiloh Minor: So this is a really good point, that sometimes when we're having other problems in the relationship, like we're fighting about the kids or we're fighting about the domestic labor, it's because we long for each other.
[00:30:14] It's because intimacy is lacking. Just like with kids, right? When there hasn't been connection time, when there hasn't been feeling delighted in, feeling desired, you're just irritable. Yeah. You're just annoyed. Like, now you just have this roommate who's a pain in the butt and doesn't, like, bring much to you in the deep level that you wanted.
[00:30:29] So the first step is to notice where you're self-abandoning. Because until you take stock of what do I need and how can I take care of myself, you will blame your partner for not doing it for you, for not paving the way for you to do it, for not making it easier for you to do it, for not noticing it more.
[00:30:47] I call this putting yourself first. That's the first step of my method. It's like you cannot outsource your self-care. Mm-hmm. And I think of it as being your own mom. You know when it's your kid, and you're like, "Okay, mental needs, emotional needs, social needs, you know, psychological needs, adventure." You know, you've got this whole- Yeah
[00:31:01] idea of, like, how to craft their life, and you can never quite get it perfect 'cause it'd be impossible, but you have a vision of, like, providing that context for your child's growth. Mm-hmm. That energy needs to be put into yourself.
[00:31:12] Casey O'Roarty: Mm. Yes.
[00:31:14] Shiloh Minor: To be like, "I am as important, as precious as my children. Also, I am the matriarch of this operation.
[00:31:20] I need to be pouring into myself, nurturing myself, making time for myself ruthlessly." Like, doesn't matter if people don't like it, doesn't matter if people get mad, doesn't matter if there's pushback. Like, just non-negotiable, putting yourself first. Yeah. And this will happen in baby steps.
[00:31:36] Casey O'Roarty: I just wanna pause you for a second.
[00:31:37] That is such an important model for our boys and our girls to witness the female in the relationship taking a stand for herself because it is contrary to what has been, you know, modeled and valued. Even now, it's still like, look at all the things I can do-
[00:31:54] Shiloh Minor: Mm-hmm ...
[00:31:55] Casey O'Roarty: and have a smile on my face and an organic from scratch meal.
[00:32:00] Shiloh Minor: Yeah.
[00:32:00] Casey O'Roarty: I, I mean, it just, there's so much messaging around the opposite of what you just said. So I'm really glad that you are saying this out loud. And to those of you that are listening that are like, "Yeah, it'd be great if I had time," you have time, okay? You have time. You just need to get friendly with your calendar, your schedule.
[00:32:18] Like, you have time.
[00:32:20] Shiloh Minor: Yeah, if you were at the top of your own list, you'd have time, but currently you're at the bottom of your own list- Mm ... which is why you don't have time. And it is baby steps. Like, when I started doing this work and I had babies, I wasn't showering enough. Like, I know so- women have been through this, but it was like, well, the kid needs this, and this kid will cry, and the house is a mess, and I don't want that to happen.
[00:32:38] So I just, like, didn't shower enough. So, like, the smallest baby step was, like, take a shower, and that's, like, the start. And then when my kids were older, it was like, you could go for a walk. Like, no one- Mm ... would die if you went for a five-minute walk right now.
[00:32:50] Casey O'Roarty: Mm-hmm.
[00:32:50] Shiloh Minor: But, like, I realized that my paradigm was take care of the other people, then take care of the environment, and then take care of me, and that's never gonna be done.
[00:32:57] Mm-hmm.
[00:32:57] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah.
[00:32:57] Shiloh Minor: Never. So you do have time. There's no excuse. You can absolutely do it. So that's the first step, and it puts you in the right frame of mind to be relational. Because as long as you're exhausted, depleted, under-resourced, you're aggravated. Like, of course you are. You don't have much to give. You don't have anything to give.
[00:33:14] So what I always teach my clients is, like, I'm not gonna bring you in here and give you a laundry list of more to do from no gas. Like, you need to- Yeah ... fill the tank. Once you're feeling a little better about yourself, then we can go into, like, okay, how can you change some habits, change the way that you're interacting in your relationship?
[00:33:29] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah. I love that.
[00:33:39] And you know, another thing that comes up, it just came up this morning with one of my clients, is different family systems, this will show up differently. You know? So I just want to acknowledge that some people that are listening who are partnered, you know, is the person that they had the children with and have been on the whole ride with, and then other people, maybe it's a second marriage or a third partner or whatever, maybe there's, you know, blended kids in the family.
[00:34:06] I find myself speaking into the idea that our partner's relationship with the kids is theirs to navigate. I find that moms, they think about it a lot, they worry about it a lot, they micromanage it, they wanna fix it, you know, and I encourage them to Allow their partners, and offer, you know, I'm all about like, "Hey, I have some thoughts if you wanna hear it," asking permission.
[00:34:38] "Here's some things that I'm noticing. Here's some things that have been helpful w- for me with this particular kid. Do you wanna hear?" But also, like, making those offers and then letting go of the partner's decision on whether or not to take you up on it. It is okay, like, what we know about adverse childhood experiences and research and relationship is as long as a kiddo has a solid relationship with, a meaningful relationship with one healthy adult in their life who they know cares about them, they're much more likely of going to be okay.
[00:35:11] So if your partner's relationship is fragmented with your kiddo, support both parties in connecting with each other. Don't be the middle person, right? Encourage them, offer tools and support. What do you think about that? How do you work with... 'Cause I'm sure you get clients who are like, "Oh, my God," and they treat this kid this and that and this.
[00:35:32] Shiloh Minor: Yeah, I mean, I say the exactly same thing as you. It's just not something you can control. It's way outside your lane, right? Like, a lot of the relationship work is defining your lane. People don't know where their lane is and where it ends. Mm-hmm, yeah. And then catching yourself when you inevitably are trying to get out of your lane.
[00:35:48] I mean, I still do it. Sure. I think the mama bear instinct is to micromanage your kids' lives and make sure that it's all perfect. And so when your husband does things that you think are not, you're like, "Okay, let me intervene here." I have a kid who complains to me and, like, tries to get me to advocate for him, and that is...
[00:36:06] What do you do then? Tell me about that.
[00:36:08] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah. Well, that is a tricky place, right? Like, oh, and dad, and this and the other. And what I did, you know, and what I encourage people to do is talk, like, this is a great learning opportunity. This is an awesome... You know, yeah, dad's hard or mom's- Mm-hmm ... in a mood, and that is hard.
[00:36:26] Mm-hmm. So the validating piece around relationship is hard- Right ... and, you know, helping them understand, like, what do you want? What are you trying to get at? And do you want some ideas around language that might be more useful to use with Dad? Do you wanna practice? We could practice. I had one kid that was like, "Yeah, let's practice."
[00:36:45] And then another who was like, "Hell no, I'm not gonna practice." He's like, "Get out of
[00:36:47] Shiloh Minor: here,
[00:36:47] Casey O'Roarty: Mom."
[00:36:48] Shiloh Minor: Yeah. "Yeah, I just wanna complain."
[00:36:49] Casey O'Roarty: But I think that's our role. Our role is to support our kids in developing critical thinking and life skills, and the relationships with us, with the siblings- Mm-hmm ... with the friends, like, those are the training grounds.
[00:37:01] Shiloh Minor: Right.
[00:37:02] Casey O'Roarty: So we get to do some, you know, some drills-
[00:37:05] Shiloh Minor: I like
[00:37:05] Casey O'Roarty: that ... so that they can go out to the main event- That's right ... which might be a tough conversation with Dad.
[00:37:10] Shiloh Minor: Mm-hmm.
[00:37:10] Casey O'Roarty: I also think that it's okay to let our partner in on, hey, you know, little Suzy-
[00:37:17] Shiloh Minor: Mm-hmm ...
[00:37:18] Casey O'Roarty: is gonna come to you. Like-
[00:37:20] Shiloh Minor: And
[00:37:20] Casey O'Roarty: it's gonna be hard for her.
[00:37:21] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Can you just really work on being a listener and maybe a little less defensive? I think we can offer that. And then step out.
[00:37:28] Shiloh Minor: And then run away. Yeah. I sometimes tell my clients, like, if there's something that is aggravating you so much, like, leave the room, you know?
[00:37:35] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah.
[00:37:35] Shiloh Minor: Like, if something is just- Yes
[00:37:36] 'cause you just get so irked, whether it's the way they're eating or cleaning or talking to someone, and you're just like, "Ah," you don't like it, just, like, run because your instincts are having you, like, just bark at them or intervene. Yeah. Yes, your nervous system- And you sometimes need to get out of the way.
[00:37:50] Casey O'Roarty: Yes, yes, yes, yes. Your nervous system is always telling you whether or not it's a good time to get involved. Yeah. When it's super activated, not a good time. Logic has left the building- Right ... when the emotional content is so high.
[00:38:03] Shiloh Minor: Or, like, if your husband is annoyed or, like, I always teach women not to, like, be like, "What's wrong?
[00:38:08] What's wrong with you?" Like, just let him be grumpy because usually he's just gonna bark at you. If you ask him a question while he's annoyed, you're gonna get annoyed voice, and then you're gonna feel more, like, upset. So I'm like, "Just let him be upset." Yeah. But being in his presence will cause you this tension.
[00:38:22] Like, you're not- Yeah ... gonna be able to ignore that he is off. Most women- Yeah ... can't ignore that. Like, we just soak it all in. So I say, "Go do something fun. Go read a book. Go listen to podcasts." Yeah. "Get out the house. Go for a walk, and when you come back, he's probably over it, and you've avoided a whole pointless shtick about the mood he's in, you know?"
[00:38:38] Casey O'Roarty: As I'm listening to us talk, I'm also thinking, "I do have a handful of dads that listen to this podcast." Yeah. Shout out. You know who you are. I know who you are. I do, yes. Thank you for listening.
[00:38:48] Shiloh Minor: Yeah.
[00:38:48] Casey O'Roarty: And this isn't the dynamic for every partnership. No. Like, this isn't... Uh, this is one particular dynamic- Mm-hmm
[00:38:54] that seems to crop, crop up in the work that Shiloh and I do, so that's why we're spending time on it. So if there's any dads that are listening right now that are feeling irritated or that we're generalizing, I see you. I'm curious about that. Go do some journaling. Just kidding. I'm not gonna get you cognizant.
[00:39:12] But
[00:39:13] Shiloh Minor: yeah, I will say that- But really- ... anybody who's listening here is doing the work. Like, good for you being here. Or at least open to it. You're paying attention. Yeah. You're gaining awareness. Yeah. You're like- Yes ... "Okay, what's my role? What's going on here?" And I think the main, the main actually flavor of this is fawning.
[00:39:29] Mm. It's, it's trying to fix other people's emotions so you can feel okay. Mm-hmm. That can, men and women can fawn in different ways. It's, it's not... It's struggling to prioritize your own experience and your own needs- Yeah ... because you're sourcing your safety in the approval, affection, and connection with others.
[00:39:45] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah. And so it's- Ooh, say that again. Say that again.
[00:39:48] Shiloh Minor: Oh, can I say it again? You're sourcing your safety from the approval and connection with others.
[00:39:53] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:39:53] Shiloh Minor: And so that- Yeah ... makes it very urgent to fix the situation, to fix their feelings, to make sure it's okay. You're, you're gonna feel anxious to do that.
[00:40:02] Well,
[00:40:02] Casey O'Roarty: and, and actually, as I listen to you say that, like, I'm thinking about there's, like, this perhaps a flip side where the safety radar gets wobbly perhaps for a man because they're not practiced in the emotional, relational conversation. It feels unsafe, and so they're fawning or whatever you wanna call it.
[00:40:27] Their instinct becomes provider, masking- Yeah ... being strong. Yeah. You know? So it actually, there's no fault here. There's no blame here. I read Men Are from Mars and Men Are from Venus, and I'm like... I know some people are, do not love that book. That book was basically written about my husband and I. Like, it was so textbook.
[00:40:48] Well, this is it. A lot of
[00:40:49] Shiloh Minor: people relate.
[00:40:50] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah, it was so textbook. Yeah. So okay. But in that, and this is something that I know I have, like, come in and out of, which is the feeling like... And your work begins mostly with women- Mm-hmm ... you know, doing their work, and it can... It's always kind of enticing me to feel irritated and resentful about that.
[00:41:11] Like, why do I have to do all of this- Yeah ... inner work when I'm really thinking about it? Yeah. I'm like, "Thank God-
[00:41:16] Shiloh Minor: Yes ...
[00:41:17] Casey O'Roarty: I know that this exists- Yeah ... and that it's not just the human carnival ride where we're pinging around like feathers in the wind." Like, there's so much more to our existence than that, so I'm like, "Yay."
[00:41:31] And then there's days where it's like, "You know what, dude? Do some personal growth." Like- Yeah ... come on. Join me here. Yeah. How do we invite them in?
[00:41:40] Shiloh Minor: Mm-hmm ...
[00:41:40] Casey O'Roarty: in a way that doesn't feel like naggy
[00:41:44] Shiloh Minor: or- Mm-hmm. So first of all, I wanna say a husband of one of my clients who listened to a podcast I was on, I said something that clicked for him.
[00:41:51] I said, "The most regulated person in the room is also the most powerful person in the room."
[00:41:56] Casey O'Roarty: Ooh.
[00:41:57] Shiloh Minor: And he went, "Oh, there's power here." Because it's true, and that's why, you know, when I feel tempted towards the irritation of like, "Why do I have to do the work? Blah, blah, blah," it's like actually I'm just increasing my own personal power.
[00:42:10] Yeah. I'm becoming less victimized through this self-work. I am not actually fawning or doing the work for someone else, because they won't. That's just a narrative I can- can come up with to be resentful about my needs not getting met over there, right?
[00:42:23] Casey O'Roarty: Mm-hmm.
[00:42:23] Shiloh Minor: Legitimate needs are not getting met. That's a different conversation.
[00:42:26] Right. But I am doing this internal work because it's so incredibly effective, empowering, useful, like just brilliant, like you said, like makes life way better than this carnival ride. I loved what you said. But when you want your partner, your man, or your resistant-to-self-improvement woman ... to do the work, it's really a slow process.
[00:42:48] Like, you're kind of working with teenagers. It's probably the same. Because they might be at teenager level emotionally around- Mm-hmm ... being controlled
[00:42:58] Casey O'Roarty: Well, thank you again. Thank you, patriarchy. I mean- Yeah ... that is the system we were all raised in. Yep. Those emotional intelligent-
[00:43:06] Shiloh Minor: Yeah ...
[00:43:06] Casey O'Roarty: energy was squeezed out.
[00:43:08] Like nope- It was ... you don't need that. You need to be provider, protector. Yeah.
[00:43:13] Shiloh Minor: And you know, that was really great when we were going to war all the time.
[00:43:16] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah. Oh, my God.
[00:43:16] Shiloh Minor: Like, the things that were beat into men in order to be stoic and violent and deal with horrific life conditions- Right ... are no longer valuable, but they're still coded for that.
[00:43:29] They're still told, "Well, I could beat someone up for my family," when that happens never. And like, you know, I could be stoic in the face of great threat, but I can't be calm when my wife wants to talk about her feelings. Like you said about their safety, emotions are the threat.
[00:43:43] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah.
[00:43:43] Shiloh Minor: And in a large way because it's the realm of incompetence.
[00:43:46] Mm-hmm. So they feel, "Oh, no, I'm incompetent here. This is a bad thing. I need to get out. I'm gonna reveal my incompetence. I feel scared. I feel insecure. I feel nervous." So I think the first thing is to realize if you love this man and you wanna be with him and invite him in, he is very insecure about all this stuff you're talking about.
[00:44:06] Casey O'Roarty: It's so annoying.
[00:44:07] Shiloh Minor: He's terrified- ... frankly.
[00:44:08] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah.
[00:44:09] Shiloh Minor: Ah. Right? So-
[00:44:10] Casey O'Roarty: Well, it's so exposing. Like, it's inviting them to expose an underdeveloped part-
[00:44:17] Shiloh Minor: Yeah ...
[00:44:17] Casey O'Roarty: of themselves,
[00:44:18] Shiloh Minor: just like what you just said. Exactly, and they go, "That's gonna make me unattractive to you. That's gonna make you not want me anymore if you see how underdeveloped I am."
[00:44:25] Little do they know we already know, right? Yeah. 'Cause we see right through them. Yeah. And they're like- Yeah ... "Ooh, I don't want to know you see right through me." But yeah, so inviting them, it's slow, like I said. So the first is you create emotional safety in the relationship before you make ask. You create enough emotional safety with yourself that you can walk into conversations in your adult, wise, calm, curious energy, that you're capable of doing that.
[00:44:46] Casey O'Roarty: Mm-hmm.
[00:44:46] Shiloh Minor: You know, fairly consistently. You're not gonna do it all the time. The next thing is, is that you have stopped taking everything personally, because if you have a partner- Or you're like, "
[00:44:54] Casey O'Roarty: Can we just do a better job at that?" Yeah. Do we need to stop- Good point ... doing all of
[00:44:58] Shiloh Minor: this? You don't stop. You don't stop, but you- I got it
[00:45:00] you catch that it's a trap. To catch that, "Oh, that's that thing where that's because he doesn't love me. That's because I'm not good enough." Yeah. "That's because he doesn't care. If he loved me, he would." All those kind of narratives that we carry. Mm-hmm. You stop doing that, and you start letting his behavior be about him.
[00:45:17] Yeah. This is how he acts 'cause this is his strength and weaknesses. This is the guy he is. When you do that, it takes so much of the charge out of your conflict. Like, so much of the charge drains out. You're still gonna be disappointed. Yeah. You're still gonna grieve some things, but it's not gonna be activating all your shame and all your panic now.
[00:45:33] So now you're in your adult more often.
[00:45:37] Casey O'Roarty: Mm-hmm.
[00:45:37] Shiloh Minor: From there, you can make suggestions, or you can make invitations, right? You can say, "You know, there's this podcast I listen to. I really liked it. Can we listen to it on the next trip?" Mm-hmm. The biggest thing I recommend is you don't make global asks. Work on your stuff.
[00:45:50] Do some trauma healing. First of all, they won't know what you're talking about. Get your shit together. Get your shit together. Face your shit. They're not gonna know what you're talking about- Yeah ... and it's gonna feel like an impossible ask, and they just won't do it. But if you have, like, small invitations, the baby steps- Mm-hmm
[00:46:04] like, "Hey, would you come do this with me? Would you come do this with me?"
[00:46:07] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah.
[00:46:07] Shiloh Minor: And you can say, "Ultimately, you know, I would love it if you found a therapist you really like," but it's like you're planting these seeds- Yeah ... in a way that's not aggressive or controlling.
[00:46:18] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah. "
[00:46:18] Shiloh Minor: I think it'd be a really great idea.
[00:46:19] I think it'd be great for you. I think it'd be great for us."
[00:46:21] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah.
[00:46:22] Shiloh Minor: Right? Now, I know a lot of women are way past that point, where they're like, "I'm gonna die if you don't do your work," right?
[00:46:28] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah.
[00:46:28] Shiloh Minor: And that's where I do believe the boundaries come in because we can ask gently, and we can be kind in all these ways, but most people don't change unless the status quo becomes painful.
[00:46:38] Casey O'Roarty: Yep.
[00:46:39] Shiloh Minor: And so that part is very nuanced, and you should do it with support because it's hard- Yeah ... to healthily put a man's feet to the fire and say, like- Mm-hmm ... "This is actually critical now."
[00:46:49] Casey O'Roarty: Mm-hmm.
[00:46:50] Shiloh Minor: Yeah. "And I'm not going to be able to engage in this relationship the way I have been- Mm-hmm ... unless I see X, Y, and Z from you."
[00:46:57] Casey O'Roarty: Mm-hmm.
[00:46:58] Shiloh Minor: And it doesn't mean he'll do it, but we need to become very explicit and calm- Yeah ... and clear. And, like, again, it doesn't go in if it's too many words and if it's too emotive and if it's too grand. It just kinda becomes, "My wife's really mad at me." Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. "I don't know what she's talking about anymore."
[00:47:13] "She's just mad."
[00:47:13] Casey O'Roarty: Oh, I'm really good at lan- coaching language with my husband. Yes. He's like, "What are you even asking me right now?" I'm like, "What?"
[00:47:21] Shiloh Minor: I know. Because when you're- All right ... activated and you're like me, where we just say what comes to our head- Oh, yeah ... you wanna say all the things that come to your head- I'm like, "Let's
[00:47:28] Casey O'Roarty: process"
[00:47:28] Shiloh Minor: because you're, "This is so true." Yeah. "This is so good. I have to tell you this, this, and this, and I've been thinking about this." Yeah. "And let me tell you what it means." And they're just like... They're flooded. They can't take in- Yeah ... that much content at once.
[00:47:38] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah, yeah. Oh my gosh, Shilo, there's so much more that I want to talk with you about in this relationship piece, 'cause I think it's so juicy and important.
[00:47:51] And one thing... Well, two things. One, I just want to acknowledge as well, like, we've kind of couched relationship as the heterosexual relationship. Mm-hmm. So wondering... And I'm positive that there are very similar kinds of dynamics that can happen in a same-sex partnership for sure. Mm-hmm. So, but I did wanna make- Yeah
[00:48:10] a point of saying that. So we are, this is gonna go out in two weeks, right before the Sexy and Regulated Mama Summit- Woo ... which everyone, Shilo and I are both speakers for a summit that is happening online August 1st and 2nd. You've probably... listeners have already heard my ads for it here on the podcast.
[00:48:32] But can you talk a little bit about what your topic is gonna be at the summit- Mm-hmm ...
[00:48:37] Shiloh Minor: before we
[00:48:37] Casey O'Roarty: close?
[00:48:37] Shiloh Minor: Absolutely. So my topic is called Chosen and Cherished, and it's about why you're feeling alone, what that actually means that you're feeling alone, and how you can shift that. And I'm really calling in all the women who are like, "I actually have a pretty good man."
[00:48:51] Mm-hmm. "He actually has never cheated on me. I don't have any big stories, but I feel so alone and I can't go on like this anymore." So I'm gonna walk you through how that dynamic is created and how you untie it.
[00:49:02] Casey O'Roarty: Awesome. Love it. Love it, love it, love it, love it. Great. Well, tell us about where people can find more about you and follow your work.
[00:49:12] Sure. What do you got going on?
[00:49:12] Shiloh Minor: Awesome. Where are you? So you can find me at Shilo the Love Coach on Instagram. And right now I have a community called The Well of Circle for women who want to engage in this work, understanding that this is like a show, slow shift, baby steps, and you need other people- Mm-hmm
[00:49:28] on the same page, and guidance so you don't get caught in the same loops over and over again. And I've got a great bonus right now. If you join now, you get seven days of free trial, and then you also get 14 days of one-on-one access to me, where I'm gonna be able to figure out right away what is that leverage point that needs to shift for you, where are you abandoning yourself, and set you on the right track so that you can get your upward spiral going in your marriage.
[00:49:54] Casey O'Roarty: Love it. Mm-hmm. And then finally, the question that I ask all of my guests at the end of the interview is what does joyful courage mean to you in the context of the work that you do?
[00:50:05] Shiloh Minor: Joyful courage is when you stand in your full power, strong spine, knowing your worth- Mm-hmm ... and your value, and you allow your heart to be open at the same time to receive and give love.
[00:50:17] Casey O'Roarty: Hmm. Beautiful. Love it. Thank you so much for hanging out with me today. This was awesome.
[00:50:21] Shiloh Minor: I loved it so much. Great to be here.
[00:50:28] Casey O'Roarty: Thank you so much for listening. Thank you to my Sproutable partners, Julietta and Alana. Thank you, Danielle, for supporting with the show notes, as well as Chris Mann and the team at Podshaper for all the support with getting this show out there and making it sound good. As I mentioned, sharing is caring.
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[00:51:06] I see you doing all the things. I believe in you. See you next time.