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Foreign. Hi, this is the Love youe Life show with Susie Pettit, certified life and wellness coach. Join Susie as she helps you with your wellness and mindset so you can live a life you love. Let's go warriors. Yay. And welcome to another episode of the Love youe Life show with me, Susan Susie Pettit, your certified life and relationship coach. I always say that if you listen to this show you can call me your coach. So welcome in. I love having you here. And hey, you know what? This isn't just another episode. So extra celebrations. This is the second of a two parter full of tips and tactics to make your safe relationships healthier. Like win win. If you didn't listen to part one, no worries. Keep listening to this one now and you can go back and get the goodies in that one after. If you're not in a safe relationship right now, you will want to grab my free PDF with top podcast episodes on relationships with narcissists, energy vampires, you know, emotionally immature people, you know, like the energy soul sucking relationships. I have been in plenty of those and so have the wonderful opportunity that I can make. I can support you in that. And I think a great place to start is with my free PDF that I made up for you. You can get that@silver mbwell.com Narc for Narcissist this episode is for you. If within your relationship there are two people who while not perfect, have the ability to self reflect, self confront and repair if necessary. Hey, one person might do it more skillfully than the other. That's totally common. Like the fact that you're listening to this podcast. That's probably you, like you probably spend a lot more time thinking about this stuff and working on this stuff. Totally fine. And we want two people that are willing to look at their role. Maybe they're not like actively like let me think about this. But when confronted they take responsibility for themselves and repair. These tools today also help us when we're in because what I'm talking about there are side by side relationships with like peers and family members, siblings and parents. This also helps you as a parent, which is an up down relationship if you, meaning that you know you can use these skills with them. I won't get into the whole difference in how our, our relationship with our children is different than any other relationship. I have lots of podcasts on that too. I think you can find those@smbwell.com parent or parenting or just email me. But this, you're gonna, these are gonna help you in, in Your relationships. Let's just dive into it, Susie. Okay, I want to share three very useful tools to practice that will help you get more skilled at relationships. I want you to think of how we relate in our relationships as a skill that we're building. It's not a one and done. All right? These are things that throughout our life, we will continually have growth and ability to learn about this as as we talked about in that first episode. So let's get excited because by the end of this episode, you will have actual things you can do to bring ease connection into the relationships that matter to you. Yay. Yay. So what are these real world tools, Suzy, that you can use to make your relationships more peaceful, connected, and frankly, less exhausting? All right, I've got them. The first up in my bucket of favorite relationship tools is from Charles Duhigg's book Super Communicators that I've shifted a bit and it's so helpful for me as a wife, a parent, a friend. I use it multiple times a day. I am not kidding. I wish I used it in every single time I interact with people, but I use it multiple times a day. So this is how you get to start practicing using it. Picture three circles and then think of how when someone is talking, they are standing in one of these three circles. We get into relationship problems when someone is standing in one of the circles and we're standing in in a different circle. The goal is to stand in the same circle they're standing in. So let me explain what the heck the circles are. The first circle is the functional circle, okay? They're looking to brainstorm solutions or fix something. When they're in that circle, they're coming to you to communicate because they're trying to look, you know, brainstorm solutions, fix something. Sort of like, when will we fit in? Shopping for our weekly groceries on our busy Saturday. If someone comes to you with that, that's a fix it. They're like, let's brainstorm. Let's think together. The second circle that someone might be in when they start talking is the emotional circle. This is when they're expressing feelings and they're seeking empathy. They're not in the functional circle seeking you to, you know, hoping you can help them. They are in the emotional circle helping. You can hear them something. They might say with the same scenario. Instead of the functional circle, they're saying, when will we fit in? Shopping for our weekly groceries aren't busy Saturday. Let's brainstorm the emotional circle. They might say, I feel overwhelmed today. This Saturday is so busy, there's so much to do. The third circle that people might be standing on is when they're focused. It's called the social circle, and it's when they're focused on connection. They're speaking to connect with you, to learn about you. They're not looking for things to be fixed. They're not looking for. For their emotions to be hurt. So they might say something like, you know, same Saturday. They might be like, hey, did you hear about the fun fair at the elementary school? They have the clown parade coming in. Have you ever seen that in action? The relationship skill here is to slow down enough to recognize which circle the other person is speaking from. As I said, we get into trouble when we. Like when someone is standing in one circle and we respond from a different circle circle than the one they're standing in. This often happens when someone is in the emotional circle and the listening person is in the functional circle. This happens to me all the time. Imagine this. Say my husband says, I'm dreading my day today. There's nothing on my calendar that I'm looking forward to. Which circle is he in? Warriors. The emotional one. Right. Okay. And if I don't pause to think, like, why is my husband saying this? Like, which circle is he in? I'm inclined to jump into the functional and fix it mode and either tell him something to do or fix it like it's my problem. Like, I might say, well, you haven't been to the driving range lately. You could see if it's open this morning. Okay, so I'm suggesting something for him. Or I'm saying, like, whoa, why don't we take a walk at lunch? I can reorganize my schedule and jump through hoops so I can take care of your emotions. No. Okay. Circle disconnect. Eh, he wasn't in the functional circle. He didn't say, hey, Susie, can you solve this for me? He was sharing how he felt a bit listless and didn't need to be fixed. He wanted to be connected with. Remember, feelings are meant to be felt, not fixed. When I jump into fox fixing, the other person doesn't feel heard and often learns that it's not safe to express his or her emotions, which then creates distance in the relationship. The very thing we don't want to have happen with this person who we, you know, care about. And I gotta say, that's the best case scenario. Another thing that frequently happens is a sort of over functioning and learned helplessness. Like with that example, say, I say that to my husband. And my husband goes to the driving range and he no longer feels dread about his day. He doesn't have to do emotional processing or thinking of how to solve his emotional issue because he can zing it out there for me to solve. He doesn't need to spend time. Emotions are always here to teach us something. Like what I would want for anyone in my life, including myself. When I'm feeling dread, I want to sit in the dread and think about why I'm feeling dread. What have I done? Where's the responsibility here? Where am I self reflecting? And yet when we rush in like little missed emotional superwoman and fix it, what happens? There's emotional disconnection, okay, that's on the person side. And then on the side of the one that's in the fix it. Trying to bring them over to the functional. They're the over functioner. They often feel resentment, feel like they're responsible for everyone. Feel like you're surrounded by people who lean on you to take care of their emotions and needs. It's like they have an emotion and they're like, I'll just hand it to her. This dynamic shows up all over the place. And I bet you relate. It shows up in parenting. Shows up with our parents like, oh, I'm lonely. We're like, well, why don't you, you know, go visit that, or I'll come over and bring a something or other. Okay? I see it in so many other, so many ways. And I still have two other tools to teach this episode. So I want you with this episode, with this tool. Start by paying attention to which circle the other person is stuck standing in and you stepping into that circle with them rather than trying to drag them into a different circle. The over functioning, learned helplessness pattern is bigger than a podcast episode. This is how I help in the Love youe Life School and one on one coaching, breaking the pattern of us feeling responsible for everyone else's feelings and experiences we're actually working with on specific tools in December on this. It's not too late to get in. But when we're in that place and we're feeling like we're the one that has to do the emotional lifting for everyone else, it feels heavy, like pressure steals our energy. And the point today is our relationships suffer. All right. I love helping women feel less burdened and heavy. So get on my calendar if that's you. And everyone's going to benefit this week by starting to pay attention to which circle the other person is speaking from and let them Be in that circle before you respond. Take one breath in and out. Say, what circle are they in right now? Just watch that awareness can change everything. All right. Tool two is building the skill of listening. Whoa. Is this helpful? And again, something I can give you a small practice to begin getting better at listening yet you're not going to be able to listen to one podcast and be like, yep, got this done. It's like, this is as deep as playing the piano. This is a we want the growth mindset here. Pounding away on the hour piano with a skilled teacher will get you started. But are you ready for concert hall? No. So view active listening with a growth mindset and something that we're constantly learning and growing about ourselves. So when most of us listen, we're actually doing one of three things. Either waiting for our turn to talk, we're thinking about how to fix what they're telling us, or we're judging what the other person is saying. Sound familiar? Yeah, me too. True listening. Active listening is when you listen to understand you aren't listening to defend yourself or from this protective sort of like your. Your activated child, like, oh, when's my turn? When's my way? When do I get to say the way I'm thinking about it? Or how they should fix? It's from a very much more emotionally mature place. You are listening to understand. You stay curious. You put yourself in the other person's world. You don't have to agree. I want to be very clear here. Your goal is to understand. And so the thing to practice this week is when you're listening, actually remind yourself that you are listening with the intent to understand. Not necessarily agree, but to understand how they're thinking and why they may feel the way they do. Do you ever wonder why we have two ears and one mouth? It's for a reason. So practice listening twice as much as we talk this week. As a parent of teens, I always say, say less, do more. This one, we want to practice not interrupting. Some things I say in my head when I'm practicing. This is I'm like, oh, I wonder why they're feeling that way, or I wonder why they're thinking that way. I sort of get curious about it. It's like I'm a detective, not a judge. Like, they're doing it wrong. Okay. And so when I'm thinking like that in my mind, some things that can come out of my mouth. I might say, tell me more about that. Or I might say, that sounds really hard. Or I might say, I've never had an experience like that. Can you tell me a bit more about what's that's like for you? Right. So good. I did a whole episode on active listening and I work on this daily with myself. And I find that when I change the intent of the conversation from me waiting to talk or feeling defensive and like, I need to say this thing in the right way or explain my side of the story and, you know, instead, when I listen with the intent to understand, things feel softer and lighter, things go better. You'll be amazed at what happens. People soften, they feel seen, the temperature in the room drops. This doesn't happen if you're with a narcissist or an emotional, like an energy vampire, an emotionally immature person, which is why I offered that podcast resource to you earlier. And also, like, it's just, it's why we do the work we do. Because anyhow, I don't need to go into it. But when we are with people who we feel safe with this, this is listen with the intent to understand. Right? And yet your tendency, because maybe you were in these other kind of relationships before, your tendency will be to, like, defend and support yourself. I get it. Right. And yet with this. Just watch. Like, an example is coming to my mind with like a teenager. Like, you picture that teenager coming home from school and they're like, they throw their backpack on in the car or on the table and they're like, the math teacher stinks. She's so mean. She hates me. I can't stand it. Alright, first teen is clearly in which circle? Yes, the emotional. And when we say, oh, wow, God, that sounds hard. What is it like being in a class when you think the teacher hates you? Can you see how the teen, like, is going to feel connected and heard versus us being like, well, I don't really think the teacher hates you, you know, or like, whatever we do as a parent when we're in the more functional circle. So practice this. It's a simple shift and it helps so much. It brings us back to these two parts of the relationship that we talked about last episode. Hey, when you listen like this, you're practicing both parts. You're learning to love another person who might be thinking like. You're learning to love another imperfect person who might be thinking in really, like, ways that you're like, oh, my God, they're crazy for thinking like this. Okay, but how can you love them? How can you support them? And you're learning about your own impulses to fix or defend, your own stuff to clean up. All right, super awesome. And now let's move to the final tool. I'm going to keep it quick because it's one that actually is quick. If you use it like in the moment, it shifts things so quickly and I call it clog or clear. Think of a relationship like a drain and a healthy relationship runs clear. Okay. It's a clean running. Like you turn on the sink and the water just runs right down that little thingy that water runs down. In this case, we want to think about. Are the words that are about to come out of my mouth. Going to clog that drain or keep it clear is what I'm going to say. Going to clog or clear. It's an easy way that I practice mindful communication. This is super quick. Does it bring us closer or drive a wedge? Is it helpful or is it harmful? It might be helpful for my ego. That zinger will make me feel like I won. But when I'm being an emotional adult, it's like, does it clog or clear it? Susie Q. Alright, so there you have it. Warriors, your relationship toolkit. They're all sort of related, no? For sure. We have to be in our regulated adult self to use them, which is what we learn in the Love youe Life school. And then we have these three tools. Which circle are they in? We're going to practice listening with the intent to understand. And we're going to try to bring ourselves back to ground zero. And like, is this about to clog or clear? These are simple but not easy. Because if you're like me, you've been practicing more reactive, defensive ways of listening and relating for decades. We have our reasons. Laugh out loud. But the question now is, do we want to continue with these patterns moving forward? I don't. If you're like me and you're like of course not, then I invite you to take the next step and schedule a consult with me. Life does not slow down. Our brain will keep reacting and play, playing the same patterns it has played until we get in and we interrupt it. So since life isn't slowing down and we want to get to that other side of more connected relationships faster, why not get a coach and get out of these patterns quicker? Skilled coaches like me who are skilled in this sort of stuff help you move towards your goal faster than if you were doing it alone? And how nice would it be to feel confident, connected and calm? How nice would it be to not feel on edge, defensive, responsible for others feelings and also resentment towards others because you're over sharing, overdoing stuff. Well, I think so, too. And I'm here for you. So let's go, Warrior. I love you. You matter to me. I'm sending big hugs to you, and I hope I see you on my calendar soon. Let's go.