Episode 46. Blindsided: Why Your Past May Be Sabotaging Your Marriage, with Jenn Pinkerton
From Reactivity to Connection: A Couple's Guide to Self-Awareness
In this enlightening episode of Marriage iQ, we explore the profound impact of childhood wounds on adult relationships. Joining us is Jen Pinkerton, a renowned psychotherapist, clinical sexologist, and founder of the Redhead Reveal podcast. Jen shares her expertise on uncovering the root causes of limiting beliefs and guiding individuals towards more connected relationships.
Key Insights on Childhood Wounds and Relationships:
Understanding how early experiences shape our attachment styles
Recognizing signs of childhood wounds in adult behavior
Strategies for moving from reactivity to intentional responses
The importance of self-awareness and partner communication
Techniques for healing and fostering emotional safety in relationships
Why This Episode Matters:
Whether you're struggling with recurring patterns in your relationships or seeking to enhance your emotional connection with your partner, this discussion offers valuable insights into the power of understanding your past to improve your present.
Join us as we uncover the hidden influences of childhood experiences on adult relationships and learn practical tools for creating more fulfilling partnerships.
"We all have the ability to change and grow. Everybody does. It just takes an interest and a commitment." - Jen Pinkerton
Discover how to:
Identify and address your own childhood wounds
Communicate effectively with your partner about triggers and needs
Implement the "power of the pause" in challenging situations
Create a safer emotional environment in your relationship
This episode provides invaluable insights for couples at any stage of their relationship, offering a framework for understanding the deeper roots of relationship dynamics and fostering genuine connection.
-
[00:00:00 - 00:00:46]
Exciting episode of Marriage iq. We're so glad that you came today to listen again to some of profound wisdom, not by us, but by our guest today who we're gonna. We're really excited to. To have now for all of you, those who are on YouTube, make sure that you click, like and subscribe. We're just glad to have you. I don't know much about the algorithms, but they tell us that's what we're supposed to say. So, anyway, push that button, and hopefully we can get more people liking us and more people seeing us here. But that's great.[00:00:52 - 00:02:30]
So, Scott, you know, I'm kind of known in this area as being somebody who's a research somebody who's a resource person. And I have had several people approach me just within the last few days who feel like they're being held back a little bit. In some ways in their life, they can. They can tell that something from their past perhaps is impacting their relationships, maybe in their marriage, as parents, with their friends, or even at work. And this is a pattern that has mer emerged. And so it's been on my mind. And there's an expert that really has focused so much of her mission on helping people in this exact experience. And so we're really glad to welcome today Jen Pinkerton. Now, Jen's a psychotherapist, a clinical sexologist, She's a writer, a speaker, and a the founder of the Redhead Reveal podcast show. And she specifically works with individuals and couples to uncover the root causes of some of these limiting beliefs that these people that I've been talking to have described. And she works to be an agent of change to guide them back to who that person is deep inside and to help them understand how to become more connected within their relationships. So, Jen, we're so grateful that you're here today to share some of your wisdom and some of your experience with us, and hopefully some great tips and some stories as well. So thank you so much for being with us.[00:02:30 - 00:03:02]
Well, thank you for that beautiful introduction. I couldn't have said it better myself. I'm really excited to be here. You know, I love talking about this. I love what I do. And I think that there's so many people who, as you exactly succinctly stated, something is missing or something's holding us back, and they just don't know what that is. And when you do some work and you start uncovering that and you start diving into that, it really can be so transformative and it's such a joy and an honor to get to work with people, to get to that place.[00:03:02 - 00:03:16]
That's awesome. So when people first come in to see you as a psychotherapist, they. They realize something's missing. What kind of reasons do they give you that they're coming in?[00:03:16 - 00:04:55]
You know, most often people will come because they realize they're having a problem in their romantic relationships. And the reason it's often romantic is because that's when people get a little nervous about stability. If something's off in the romantic relationship, often people will address that quicker than if they think, you know, at work I'm not thriving or with my friendships because it doesn't seem to throw a huge wrench in the stability of life, per se. So oftentimes it is romantic, but it can present in so many ways because we all experience things in life that create a wound in us. We all have wounds. There's really no one that escapes that. Some people are highly resilient and can maybe work through things and have some tools that others don't. And maybe that's not quite of an issue. Maybe of an issue. But for most people, we experience some sort of wound in our early love lessons in life. This does not mean that we do not have amazing parents. It has nothing to do with blaming how we were raised by any means. It's about our own way and perspective that we see the world. It's about what we experienced growing up, whether we felt as though we belonged, whether we felt we had approval, whether we. We felt it. That we had skills and talents and things that were rewarded. There's so many different things that can occur, and they shape us. And then we show up as an adult and we're carrying that childhood wound. And it affects how we show up romantically. It affects how we relate with our boss at work. It affects how we handle that friendship. And these attachment lessons, these. These foundational love lessons are really a key to kind of uncovering who you are. And this roadmap to maybe why we do the things we do.[00:04:56 - 00:05:08]
That's great. Do you think the experiences are typically always when you're a child, or would there be adult kinds of experiences as well?[00:05:09 - 00:05:09]
Absolutely.[00:05:10 - 00:05:11]
Cause trauma and.[00:05:11 - 00:06:13]
Yeah, for sure. Yeah. It's not limited to childhood. It's just often there's a little blueprint, a little beginning of something that says, you know, maybe I don't feel like I belong. Maybe when I was on the playground, had a great, great life, great family. But maybe when I was on A playground. I wasn't picked for something, or I didn't make friends easy. And then as an adult, maybe that's compounded again. Maybe, you know, you, you don't have the success that you want in that way, and so it can continues to happen. Or you could have had nothing that you can trace back to a childhood wound, but you experience a relationship that defines you in a way. And you have some, some wounds, some trauma from that, but you keep plugging along and don't realize that now this is really holding you back. And so it is a process to uncover what that is. But it's not just going backwards. It's a forward moving concept of, sure, let's understand who we are and let's realize that we have the power to return who we're born to be, to be able to return to this person that can thrive, that can understand themselves, that can be self reflective, self aware and show up in a way that we're really proud of.[00:06:14 - 00:06:39]
So it sounds a lot like, all right, we have four cornerstones that we teach and identity is one of them. And it sounds to me like your approach is we go back in our, our lives, our childhood, and we, we kind of. So we uncover some things. Right. Is there a certain way that, that you do that with your clients?[00:06:39 - 00:07:42]
Well, it depends on the person, of course. But, but, but oftentimes we don't stop and think, you know, who did I go through for comfort? Or what was my identity growing up? What did I think I was? Would I describe myself as an athletic, outgoing child? Would I describe myself as an introvert focused on one thing? You'd be surprised at how much you can learn about what was created in your identity based on your surroundings, your environment, your experience. And again, it's not limited to parenting by any means. And almost every parent does the very best they can with what they have. But yeah, in their own experiences, you know, and, and you can have two children raised in the exact same household which have very different experiences. It's not just about that. It's about our own lens of how we see the world and our own messages that we get and take on independently. And so there is some of that. And I think our identity is created so very early on. It's often said that our personality is nothing short than a collection of all of our trauma responses. You know, we develop our personality per se by everything we've experience.[00:07:42 - 00:09:03]
I'm really glad that you said it's not really just another way, or at least this is how I'm rephrasing what you said, it's not really that our moms just screwed everything up. I. I feel like there are so many ways that that blame can be put on mothers, that that blame can be put on just other people. Instead of taking some of that perspective of looking at is this true or is there a more accurate way to look at it or a more compassionate way to look at it? And it sounds to me like that's what you're proposing, is to be aware. One story that I've heard a lot lately is there was a child with a disability in the family and I felt responsible or I felt fear or whatever. And perhaps there are some things associated with that. So give me some of your thoughts on how to approach looking at these experiences from childhood without feeling like we're a victim or without feeling like we're blaming somebody else.[00:09:04 - 00:10:57]
Sure. You know, the very basic concept is that we're not responsible for what happened to us or what we experienced growing up, but we are responsible for what we do with it. It's that simple. You know, we have to take responsibility for our own lives and we have to recognize that the blame game gets absolutely nowhere. And I think oftentimes, of course not minimizing or invalidating people that have very poor experiences growing up. That's not really what I'm referring to. I'm talking about someone that might have had what they thought is a beautiful childhood and a wonderful relationship with their family. Those people can still say, you know what? I was never achiever. My family was so great and they applauded how great I was at soccer and it was amazing. But now I realize that if I'm not overachieving, I don't feel good about myself. That doesn't mean that parent did anything wrong, but that's something that happened in their perspective. And so this person might be such an overachiever now that they don't know how to not do that. And if they're not doing that, they view themselves as a failure. And maybe the inner voice in their head is. Lacks compassion that the way they speak to themselves is not identity building in a positive way. You know, their self esteem and self worth may be totally surrounded by winning or performing and maybe they don't have a very good grasp on their own authenticity. So that's just one example that has nothing to do with a parent doing something wrong. But yet here you are at a place where it's limiting. You know, it's about saying, I want to be the best version of myself and I might need to uncover a little bit of the why so that I can transform and understand who I am. Not the why, so I can blame someone else and sit back in life and, and, and, and be a victim. Victim mentality gets us nowhere. We have to recognize that, that we have an amazing opportunity to live a beautiful life where we're thriving. And we can either choose to grab onto that and let's work on being the best version of ourselves or not.[00:10:57 - 00:11:48]
I, I love, I love this. When you were mentioning that, I just kept thinking about that movie Inside out too. How it is such a perf. Like that movie is such a good illustration of a lot of what you just saying about these childhood experiences and how they come together and, and reactions and how that's interpreted and just trying to create the best version of, of yourself over time. I, I also really like how matter of factly you approach this whole, the whole victim thing. You know, this, this topic of victim. It, it is very sensitive, right? Like, because there are, there are a lot of victims, a lot. Big trauma.[00:11:49 - 00:11:49]
Yes.[00:11:49 - 00:12:29]
And this is perhaps one of the most difficult things I've found is, is navigating that space between victim and Victor in a way that's, that's really productive and it doesn't go backward and trigger them back, you know, back into their, their, their dark space, you know. And so working with these people, like just how do you, how do you manage that, this very, very sensitive space between victim and Victor?[00:12:30 - 00:14:16]
Well, two things. First, I wanted, before I answer that question, I want to touch on something you just said when you mentioned Inside Out. A lot of people don't realize that the very core, core foundations of the plot and concept of that movie is about a therapeutic approach called internal family systems. Ifs it is about the parts that we have inside. And so it's so interesting you mentioned that because I think so many people after seeing that movie can understand that so much better for that. Exactly. Yes. But to answer your question, I think that we have to recognize that no trauma can be compared or minimized. Anyone's experience, how horrible, how not so horrible, etc. It's impactful, it's painful and it matters, period. And some people have to do very deep work and they experience really horrible things and it might take them a very long time to get to a place, but they also don't have to be a victim. They can also choose what kind of life they want to carve out. There is a help there to be able to get them to that place. There's also people that are kind of what we're talking about that experience things that keep them from thriving in life, but they can't really put their finger on it because they had this great childhood. You know, as you opened, you were talking about people that just feel like something's missing that's more along this part versus I think if you experience something that would we call big T trauma versus little T. Trauma. Yes, trauma. You already know that what's missing. You already know I experienced something horrible. And that obviously is versus maybe someone who can't really put their finger on it. And so that. That's kind of the difference. But at the end of the day, trauma is never to be compared or minimized. Everybody's experiences are valid. All feelings are valid. And, and everybody deserves the. The opportunity to have space held for them to be in a place where they feel safe to talk about their feelings and be able to work through anything or process feelings, things that are limiting to them.[00:14:18 - 00:15:05]
Well, go ahead. I. That's. That's great. I. I just am wondering, like, because for some people it might be years and in a marital relationship, that can be kind of a problematic sometimes. If it's. And. And this is a very, very sensitive issue when we're talking about, especially in the marriage relationship, especially if that trauma is created by the spouse. And so just. Just your. Your thoughts on. On timing is. Is there a. I mean, how long people take to move through that and.[00:15:05 - 00:15:11]
What helps people to move out of that into more of a healing state?[00:15:11 - 00:17:20]
I think that getting help when you're in a situation in your marriage where you recognize there's problems, whether you already know there's a connection to trauma, past or present or not. If you recognize that you're having issues to get some help, go to a licensed therapist, somebody that can help you really dig deep on that trauma part. Because someone you know, such as myself, when we see clients come in the room, it is very easy for us to recognize there's something deeper here. This person might need to do some individual work simultaneously to the couple's work. There might be some individual aspects that have to be addressed that are showing up because they're triggered by things in the relationship, you know. And if you. I'll give you an example that's so simple. You could have a couple that is arguing because the towel is always left on the floor and it becomes this big thing. But to that person, it could mean something as, you know what? I work hard to clean the house. When you lay it on the floor I feel disrespected. And disrespect has a much deeper meaning to me because I never felt respected before growing up. Something just like that, that. That spouse may not know or understand the gravity what that means. But when you do some work to understand where did that disrespect come from? Can we identify it? Can we process it? Can we have a different lens to look through our marriage through so that now we can communicate and articulate? Hey, the secondary emotion is just me being mad that the towel is on the floor. But the primary is I feel disrespected. I don't feel like I matter. And not feeling like I matter goes way back before you. So when you uncover that together, then you give your opportunity for your spouse, your partner to recognize, oh, I didn't know that that was affecting you so deeply. I can be there for you and hold space for you and say, I'm sorry for that and I love you. And the other person can say, I feel actually seen. And now that I feel seen and heard, it's softer now. It feels less impactful now. And so there's so, so many times there's just this little missing part of the knowledge that we need to know where our partner comes from. What are their life experiences that are showing up and affecting in the relationship and getting to those deeper primary emotions.[00:17:21 - 00:17:31]
That's great. Are there other examples that you can share with us? Some very typical ways that you see some of these childhood wounds perhaps showing up in marriage?[00:17:31 - 00:17:43]
Sure. You know, oftentimes there can be defensiveness. Defensiveness is big, you know, and it's one of those power rules, as I call them. If you were referring to Gottman, you would refer to Gottman.[00:17:43 - 00:17:43]
Yep.[00:17:43 - 00:17:44]
Everybody.[00:17:45 - 00:20:14]
Different theorists that have different ideas for them. But at the end of the day, it's just. It's just defensiveness. It's not being able to be accountable. It's not being able to sit still and be able to hear your partner when they're have something they want to discuss. Instead, you immediately go to that place of saying, well, you do the same thing to me, or, no, I don't do that. You're wrong, or whatever the defense answer or posturing is. But what if that defensiveness is deeper? What if that person has never felt validated before? What if. Let's take it away from even childhood. Let's say they had been grinding it out in a job for a very long time, and they always feel as though they're the scapegoat in their job. And they always feel as though they're not seen, they're not recognized, they're not rewarded, they're never given any sort of accolade. They're carrying the weight of the world in their position and their job. Maybe they're the breadwinners for the family. And this runs down deep. And so that defensiveness comes from, you know, I don't feel seen. How dare you accuse me of that when you don't know I'm doing this, this, this, this, and you, it's deeper. And so sometimes it's that really understanding of what they're bringing to the table, how is that showing up? Or you can also say, what if it wasn't safe when they grew up to have a difference opinion? What if they had a parent who had a very firm belief system? And that belief system might have been rooted in really great things, but it was firm and there wasn't a lot of room for a differing opinion. And maybe that was because that parent had ideas of safety, had ideas of this is the way we want to run our family. Okay? It's not that it's necessarily wrong by any means, but that person didn't really feel safe to share what they thought, that if it was different. So a difference opinion does not feel safe to them. So in a relationship, if their partner disagrees with their opinion, that feels like a violation because you're not supposed to disagree. I was learned growing up, I wasn't supposed to disagree. Right? So how can you disagree with me? Do you see what I mean? And when you put that, that, that, that, that armor behind it, we understand the impact of it. Now we're looking at our partner differently now. It's not just, oh, you're so defensive, it's, oh, I understand why you're so defensive. Now let's back work, you know, work this backwards a little bit and we can get to a place where I see you and you see me. And now we have a new tool and a new way to talk. We're going to use different language. We're going to learn a little script of how we're going to present things that, that feel differently, where we talk about our feelings and we're going to the feeling instead of just hearing what's on the surface.[00:20:15 - 00:20:35]
That's great. Do you find that middle child syndrome might play into that? Or caretaking somebody that's been told you're the responsible one, but that. No, I'm going to scratch that part. Not the responsible one, but more the, the middle child syndrome or the first child.[00:20:35 - 00:20:37]
So like the oldest taken.[00:20:37 - 00:20:51]
Yeah. There's so many correcting. I mean, you bring that into your relationship. You know, you bring that in. Whatever that message was that you got, even if that was not your parents intended message, it was the message that you took.[00:20:51 - 00:20:52]
Yeah.[00:20:52 - 00:21:00]
With you. And then that wound is right there present. It's like the third person in the room with you and your spouse, you know, so.[00:21:00 - 00:21:01]
Interesting way to look at that.[00:21:01 - 00:21:33]
I. That's very interesting. I know all about defensiveness being the four horsemen, but I was telling Heidi this the other day. I think out of the four, defensiveness is by far the biggest one that I struggle with. And you brought up things that it's. I thought, wow, okay, there's something to this. I think it goes back to maybe validation.[00:21:33 - 00:21:34]
Yes.[00:21:35 - 00:22:24]
Yeah. So that, that's, that's really interesting to, to go a little bit deeper on that and you know, we can talk about, I feel statements which I think are fantastic and you alluded to them and that they're really based in our, our deep core values that we learned as a child, which I agree with. And now there's something kind of, to attach these reactive responses to. That's. I think knowledge is power, like you're saying and learning a new language. I really like that too, because it is, it's, it's. It's when we learn how to communicate in ways that are new. It. It provides new avenues for us to live better. Right.[00:22:25 - 00:22:36]
And right. And you said something so important, which is that reactiveness because we have to learn how to respond instead of react. That, that is the, the big takeaway.[00:22:36 - 00:22:38]
Tell us more about that.[00:22:38 - 00:24:14]
You know, how do we do that? We slow down. We learn to be connected with our body because our body keeps the score. Our body remembers everything our mind does not in that moment. In the moment, our mind is right there present, but our body stores everything our body remembers. I don't feel safe in this moment. This is reminding me of how I've always been. And I'm going to react this way. The only way to stop that is to slow down. So we have to learn how in order to respond. We need to slow down. We can't be trigger happy with our voice to immediately launch back and fight back. We have to recognize, I don't want to fight with the person that's so important to me. I actually want to slow down and remember that they deserve, and I deserve the respect of slowing down the pace thinking about what I want to say, maybe thinking about the origin point of what that feeling is sometimes recognizing in your body because we all have a tell of when we're really about to lose it. Right. I know that I will clench my fist. I know that my own spouse's face gets a little red. I'll know that. You know, we all know something, right? We figure out what it is about our partner when they are about to be very emotionally dysregulated. And our conversation is not going to go well. When we learn how to recognize that in our, in ourselves. It's so empowering to be able to slow down and say, I need just a second, and maybe get up and walk away and regulate yourself, ground yourself, whether you are going to tap, whether you're going to use some breath work, maybe you're just going to use the temperature of getting a cold glass of water, but you're going to do something to change that feeling so you feel a little more grounded and come back. And then you're able to come back to the table and respond where you.[00:24:14 - 00:24:19]
Well, wait a minute here. So, Jen, you're the expert. You're saying that you, you get triggered sometimes.[00:24:19 - 00:24:24]
Absolutely. I am also human, but I know the tools that I can use, and.[00:24:24 - 00:24:40]
I think that's important. The reason I asked is it's important for people to know that just because we teach this, you teach this. You're an expert at this. I've already learned something from you today that we're all still humans.[00:24:40 - 00:24:40]
Absolutely.[00:24:40 - 00:25:14]
And we're also still going to have these, these reactions. And, and so we all do. And just learning these things to do and try to, to work this program and remember and like you said, slow down. One thing that we have learned with slowing down our, our reactivity is the power of meditation and mindfulness. And we're going to spend an episode just on that in the future. But I don't know what thoughts you have on that or if I love it.[00:25:14 - 00:27:30]
I, I love that. I love anybody that can say, yeah, we found something that works for us to downregulate our nervous system. If you're using meditation to be very connected with your thoughts and feelings, you're slowing your body down. You're able to be mindful and fully present. Because we're not fully present when we're reactive, we are in the upper part of our brain, which is not able to form these logical thoughts. We are in an emotional state, often dysregulated, and we're remembering those stored feelings in that moment. We are not thinking present. We're not thinking intentionally. And so if we can recognize this person is important enough to me that I want to be present and intentional. And how do I do that? I do that by slowing down. I do that by downregulating my nervous system. I do that by using some of these mindfulness techniques. I do that by recognizing that is important enough. And I often tell people who get afraid of that slowing down because some couples get scared, well, if you're going to stop talking to me, then, then I'm not going to be heard. The conversation's over. I tell people, if you're the person that needs to step away to ground yourself, then you're the person that can reinitiate that conversation and your agreed upon time later. Some people say we only take an hour or two or better. Some people say I need a lot longer to get down to a place where I feel good. You determine that and you agree on it. And then the person that needs to step away, that other person doesn't have to feel the triggers of rejection or abandonment, which might be some of their core wounds, because they can trust that their partner is going to reinitiate, come back to the table and initiate that conversation to say, okay, now I'm at a good place to talk. Talk. Let's pick up where we left off. And so that trust is established. And now we're working with each other. We're working with each other's wounds, we're working with what each other is bringing to the table. And you feel connected. And once we feel connected, we are bridging that gap. Whatever the gap is, whatever the conflict gap is, you know, you're here and you're here. The connection part brings you closer already and you feel softer. You feel like you're leaning in because you both know something about the other person. You know what is going on behind the scenes and that knowledge, knowledge feels like, okay, we're still connected. We're disagreeing and I don't like what you're saying, but I'm still connected with you.[00:27:31 - 00:27:53]
That's good. So we had a little experience with this this weekend. So I'm going to throw this out there for you and you can tell me how you would maybe right. Work with a couple on this. So we, we were headed to symphony, really excited to go here. Beethoven's fifth Symphony with the Dallas.[00:27:53 - 00:27:55]
Nine years since they did that.[00:27:55 - 00:28:20]
Yeah. And Scott was a little overwhelmed from his work as a physician that day. Some things going on in the office and I was excited for this romantic date, but he started needing to process some of those things. That he was going through. And I was like, okay, that's great. I'm going to be here. I'm a support. I'm going to change my mind at some point.[00:28:20 - 00:28:22]
I had an irate patient.[00:28:23 - 00:30:14]
At some point. During the whole process, my limbic system, I guess my. My emotions turned from. I just want to be supportive. I want to be there for him and give him just support to. This is getting to be a lot. And I'm starting to feel triggered. I've been working really hard the last few weeks on keeping my nervous system really calm. But anyway, so I could tell that my heart rate started speeding up a little bit. I could tell that I was maybe not as supportive and compassionate with some of my responses. But then we went to the symphony. While we're in the symphony, he was able to, I think, process because he'd been able to talk about it, some of his thoughts, and he was really, really excited. And he came out. We're. We're in the car and he's starting to speak kind of louder, more passionate about some ideas. And. And I'm still a little bit triggered for whatever reason, whether it's that, whether it's from things from my childhood, whether it's from my first marriage, things that were left, definitely some wounds. Whatever it was, I don't know. And so my response then left him feeling shut down. I wasn't supportive and excited with him about this. So it kind of drug out from there. Not a fight. I wouldn't say a fight, but just distance and discomfort with each other that gone for about a day until we talked it through last night. But in a circumstance like that, you're feeling elevated, you're feeling all these things. Give us some tips how to. How to work with that.[00:30:14 - 00:30:15]
Sure.[00:30:16 - 00:30:17]
Right.[00:30:17 - 00:30:20]
Yes. There's so many things going on with what you just said.[00:30:20 - 00:30:20]
Yeah.[00:30:20 - 00:31:35]
Let me touch on a few. First of all, we all have a window of tolerance. We all have a window in which we are able. You know, just imagine we have a space in which we are able to connect, to be some supported, to be there, whether it's for our spouse, for ourselves, for someone else. But if we exceed that window of tolerance, we're at max capacity and now we can no longer do that. And your window of tolerance was exceeded in that moment. Something in that conversation left you feeling triggered. Maybe. Yeah, maybe it was something from your childhood. Maybe it was. It. This was too familiar of a feeling that your body remembered from your prior relationship, as you mentioned, but your body was telling you, I'm done. I'm out. And you didn't have maybe the tools right in that moment to be able to articulate that and to work with your body. So what if you would have been able to say, honey, I need just a minute. Just a minute, babe. And you were able to respect that from her because you knew that meant she was trying to really handle herself, to be able to give you what you needed, to meet you where you were in that moment. And because you had a cue, you said you could feel it. I heard you say, I felt it.[00:31:35 - 00:31:36]
Yeah.[00:31:36 - 00:31:37]
So there was a cue for you.[00:31:38 - 00:31:45]
Yeah. And it was confusing because I'm like, what in the world is going on here? Why am I being triggered? I don't know.[00:31:45 - 00:31:47]
But your body was telling you something.[00:31:47 - 00:31:47]
Yeah.[00:31:47 - 00:32:59]
And so I want to listen. We want to listen to our body. And if you would have said, honey, I need just a second, babe, and you're able to go. Let me do some tapping. Let me do some deep breaths. Let me work on my five senses. These are all things that we can do. Let me ground myself. Let me have a conversation in my head to feel safe, to remember. You know what? I'm with my partner. I feel very safe. This is just a conversation. I don't want to go wherever that's taking me. I want to remember this so later I can maybe drill down deeper to understand why I was feeling that way. But I want to calm down. I want to focus on my breath. And now I'm able to say, okay, honey, for some reason, I'm getting a little dysregulated here. I want to hear you, so let's try again. And then you have a clue. My partner's having a little bit of trouble here, but let me. I still want to be heard, but maybe I might be a little gentler, because I know and I know what they're communicating to me. And then you could continue talking. And then afterwards, you might be able to say, honey, thanks for slowing that down for me. That helped me. You might be able to say, I'm glad you told me. That was a struggle for you. And by that simple recognition of each other's needs, you've established some connection.[00:32:59 - 00:33:00]
Yeah.[00:33:00 - 00:33:28]
And it could have looked very differently, but let's say it didn't. Let's say none of those things happen, and it's what you told me, but you were able to even just say, honey, I'm not feeling too good after that conversation. I'm not feeling that great. I really want to co regulate with you. Can we hold hands for a second. Can I have a hug? I just need to feel more connected with you right now. I can't really understand it yet right this second, but I don't feel like I showed up for you. Great. And I'm not feeling great.[00:33:28 - 00:33:29]
I love that.[00:33:30 - 00:35:22]
And you might have been able to say, yeah, I don't really get it because I was just telling you about my day. It had nothing to do with you. This is in your head, of course. But I want to give her a hug. I want to be connected with her. Because you know what? We're really excited about our night. We're looking forward to. Now, let's say that even didn't happen. Let's say what happened. But you, you said you were disconnected for the whole day. What if later you were able to say, oh, you know what? I want to bring this up. I hated that we didn't get to experience that to the fullest because I was carrying something and maybe you were carrying something, but I really want to sit down and talk about it. But I want to be honest, I was really dysregulated when we were talking, and I really don't know why. So as we try again, if I do that again, I really want a few minutes. If I feel that, can you give me the space to go calm down for a second? And it's that missing communication that could happen in the beginning and fix it all. It could happen in the middle and maybe make things better, but it can even happen after to prevent the day long of silence or the day long of where we walk on eggshells because we know it's not right. You know, the day long of not being authentic with our partner because we just pretending everything's okay. So I. The reason I mention it in that way is I think there's multiple opportunities as we grow as a couple to be able to show up differently. And it all depends on, you know, your comfort, your pace, and the situation. This particular one, you were talking about a patient, so it wasn't directed to her. That's a lot easier if it was something you're directing to her. Sometimes it's a lot harder to get to any of those places. I said, because we become defensive, as we talked about before. But when it's external like that, you're able to recognize, okay, I'm going to stay down in the lower part of my brain. I'm going to stay regulated. He's not angry with me. It's not about me, but something in his voice or. Or the way he was presenting just triggered me. And I want to uncover that and figure that out. But the communication part was really missing for y'all in that moment.[00:35:23 - 00:35:26]
And make sure you use the word babe.[00:35:28 - 00:35:31]
You pick whatever euphemism you might.[00:35:31 - 00:35:32]
I like that word.[00:35:32 - 00:36:10]
Yeah, is your salt. The idea is I like people to be gentle with each other. You need to be gentle, because that gentleness is what provides a feeling of safety. We are all searching for emotional safety. Every human being is searching for that. That's a fundamental need. We don't really recognize that per se, but it is. We want to feel safe with our people. And so if we're all searching for emotional safety, let's give as much safety naturally and easily as we can. And sometimes just a soft word, whatever, even if it's the nickname you call each other or even if you don't use that, but you reach over and you touch a hand, you know, it's that. It's that feeling of gentleness can go a long way.[00:36:11 - 00:37:06]
So we talk a lot about when there are issues within our relationship. If we want to grow a more thriving, scintillating relationship, then it does start with looking at ourselves. And like, you've opened up so many ways that we can do that if we recognize within ourselves. Like some of the people who've reached out to me lately for. For recommendations and suggestions, some have said, what about emdr? What about this? What about that? If you're working with those kind of individuals to help them heal some of those parts of themselves in order to, you know, while maybe concurrently learning language like you just shared with us, what kinds of things do you do with them to help them heal from some of those traumatic experiences?[00:37:07 - 00:38:39]
If I'm working with an individual, I want to understand their attachment. That is a lens in which I work from. So I want to understand what are they bringing to the table? What experiences have they had in their life? What kind of trauma have they had in their life? And then we're going to try to uncover how is that showing up. We're going to do that deep dive in all the facets of their life, all the silos of their life, to say, where is this a problem? And then, what is your goal for therapy? When you tell me your goal, you know, what is that? Where are you wanting to focus? And we try to kind of go backwards from there. I love emdr. It's one of the gold standards for trauma. It would depend on what that client was telling me. Their needs were to say, you need to Go do that. You know, there's. There's so many modalities. I love ifs. As we talked about before, as you mentioned, inside out ifs parts work is wonderful. There's so many different things that's kind of like in our toolbox as a clinician, and it depends on the particular person. I just tell people, seek out a therapist who, when you read maybe their profile, you feel like, wow, that. That speaks to me, and go have a conversation with them. Sometimes you do have to try more than one to feel a rapport and a connection. I think the. The connection is more important than the modality. And in fact, there was a study done recently that even illustrated that the highest level of success in therapy does not come from the modality or the experience or the years or. Or the seasonedness of the therapist. It has to do with the rapport established, the alliance of trust and the relationship between the clinician and the client. And it is that that provides the biggest fundamental area of change and growth.[00:38:39 - 00:38:49]
Because really, each of the therapeutic modalities are just like putting on a different pair of glasses to help you see the issue through a little different lens.[00:38:49 - 00:38:50]
Right?[00:38:50 - 00:39:51]
And they're wonderful. And so many therapists might say, I specialize in cbt. I do only emdr. I do brain spotting, whatever it may be. They're all wonderful. As a therapist, we don't point at one and say, that isn't great. It depends on that person's particular needs, and it depends on what they respond to. You know, some people have recessed memories, and so they might need EMDR to rewrite some of those. Some people just simply have a very mean voice in their head and have no compassion for themselves, and they need to do more CBT or DBT to talk about how they think cognitively about themselves in the world. You know, everybody has a different thing. Just like we mentioned Gottman before, a couple might really work on the way Gottman presents things. I just don't think there's a right or wrong answer. The point is, you just get in to get to see somebody, and you start talking about what works for you. And then that therapist should say, I'm thinking about this. Let's work on this, and you can decide if that works for you. You know, any good therapist is going to uncover your goal for therapy, and they're going to talk to you about how they're going to get there with.[00:39:51 - 00:40:20]
You if somebody wants, before they go searching for a therapist or. And of course, there are always books and podcasts as well. That start learning about some of these things. Are there books or podcasts that you would recommend, some of your favorites that you would recommend to. To learn about childhood wounds before perhaps choosing a therapist?[00:40:21 - 00:41:54]
There are so many good books out there, it would hard for me to even label just one. But I will tell you that on my podcast, I talk about some. I link a lot of books in that on social media, on Instagram especially, I have reading challenges where I pick a different book based on a different presenting concern. So following on socials is an easy way to do that because you could probably scroll through and see, oh, she's talking about self worth. Oh, she's recommending this because I think it's different for each person depending on what resonates with you. But I love anybody doing anything to better themselves, anybody doing anything to grow. Because let's face it, everything, everything that's living either has to grow or die, right? I mean, we have to grow. So if you put yourself in a mindset of I want to learn to be the best version of me, whether it's listening to reels on Instagram from somebody who knows what they're talking about and learning little, little nuggets of information, whether I'm going to dive in and pick a book, whether I'm going to listen to podcasts, or whether I'm going to go to therapy or an intensive even, you know, any of these things are helpful. And I just tell everyone to start someplace, start thinking differently, expand your language, adopt this new language. Because if you start listening to some of these things, you start learning some of these words and concepts. And there's a lot of information that you can do on your own by simply being self aware, you know, by starting to think about it. Listening to this exact podcast with what you're talking about allows people to walk away going, huh, that really, that one thing that was sad made sense to me. So now I want to dive a little bit deeper on that. So. And follow my podcast Redhead Reveal for sure.[00:41:54 - 00:42:01]
Yes, tell us. Tell, tell our listeners the places that they can find you.[00:42:01 - 00:42:32]
Yes, Redhead Reveal. It's on Apple, Spotify and YouTube. My Instagram is Jen B. Pinkerton, and that's where I post almost every day with lots of reels about therapy and concepts. And there's so much free information and resources on there. I have a class, a course that I've created called To Do Before I do, which is a course that takes you through a lot of fundamentals of how to thrive in a relationship. You can purchase that on My website as well. Jen Pinkerton. So there's so many places to get this information and I'm always available for one on one therapy too.[00:42:32 - 00:42:33]
All right.[00:42:33 - 00:42:36]
Do you have. Did you have a question?[00:42:36 - 00:42:37]
Nope.[00:42:37 - 00:42:51]
Oh. Do you have any parting last words that you'd like to share with us? Any thoughts, something that we didn't bring up, maybe that has just been on your mind that you. You feel like would be helpful for our listeners?[00:42:51 - 00:43:45]
Yes, I would say that something I tell most people is we all have the ability to change and grow. Everybody does. Everybody does. It just takes an interest and a commitment and thinking about. The very simple message is that there is so much power in the pause. If we would learn how to slow down and not not only think that we're an instant access society by the fact that we can reach everybody by one second on a phone, but we can slow down. We don't have to say everything that comes to our mind. We don't have to respond dysregulated in the moment. We can pause with everything we do and retain our inherent power by slowing down. So I call it power on the pause. And it's something big I talk about. It's the subject of a book I have coming out. So being able to recognize that and I think that that would allow people so much more, just that little space to think a little bit, to pause a little bit can transform a lot of conversations in your life.[00:43:45 - 00:43:48]
That's great. Power in the pause. We'll have to remember that.[00:43:48 - 00:43:51]
Yeah. Well, thank you so much for joining us today.[00:43:51 - 00:43:52]
Thank you.[00:43:52 - 00:44:14]
Great. We really appreciate the time that you spent with us and to all of our listeners, we hope that you found some things that were helpful. Full. Let's try that again. And for our listeners, hopefully you had some things that you could really sink your teeth into as well that will help you create that scintillating marriage.[00:44:14 - 00:44:19]
And everybody, it was great to be on the show. Thank you so much for having me.[00:44:19 - 00:44:21]
And with that, have a great week, everybody.
